Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Take Control of Your Future, Now | Disruptor, Jay Samit
Episode Date: November 17, 2021This week’s conversation is with Jay Samit, a dynamic entrepreneur and intrepreneur who is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on disruption and innovation. The f...ormer Independent Vice Chairman of Deloitte Consulting, Jay helped grow pre-IPO companies such as LinkedIn, been a Nasdaq company CEO, held senior management roles at EMI, Sony and Universal Studios, pioneered breakthrough advancements in mobile, ecommerce, digital distribution, and spatial reality that are used by billions of consumers every day. Jay raises hundreds of millions of dollars for startups, advises Fortune 500 firms, transforms entire industries, revamps government institutions, and for three decades continues to be at the forefront of global trends.His list of partners and associates reads like a who’s who list of innovators, including: Bill Gates, President Bill Clinton, Pope John Paul II, Steven Spielberg, Steve Jobs, Reid Hoffman, David Geffen, Sir Richard Branson, and Paul Allen.And if you’re interested in learning more after listening to this conversation, I definitely recommend checking out Jay’s book - Disrupt You! Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Finding Mastery is brought to you by Remarkable.
In a world that's full of distractions,
focused thinking is becoming a rare skill
and a massive competitive advantage.
That's why I've been using the Remarkable Paper Pro,
a digital notebook designed to help you think clearly
and work deliberately.
It's not another device filled with notifications or apps.
It's intentionally built for deep work.
So there's no social media, no email, no noise.
The writing experience, it feels just like pen on paper.
I love it.
And it has the intelligence of digital tools
like converting your handwriting to text,
organizing your notes, tagging files,
and using productivity templates
to help you be more effective.
It is sleek, minimal.
It's incredibly lightweight.
It feels really good.
I take it with me anywhere from meetings to travel
without missing a beat.
What I love most is that it doesn't try to do everything.
It just helps me do one very important thing really well,
stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing.
If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter,
I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper
pro today. And I tell people, go talk to the grandparents or go to senior center center and
ask people their biggest regret in life. And it's not what they failed at. It's what they failed to
try. So when you have those other fears, let the existential one hang over you and say, you
just gave up one of your 80,000 days.
How many more are you going to give up?
Because every day you waste on whatever it is you're doing, you're not working towards
a future that you can enjoy.
That's how I handle fear.
I'm not fearless. All right, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast.
I'm Michael Gervais. And by trade and training, I'm a sport and performance psychologist.
And I'm fortunate to work with some of the most extraordinary thinkers and doers across the
planet. I just got to say, it's an amazing way to go through life, to learn from the best and
hopefully add to what they're trying to build and explore in their lives.
And so with that blessing, that was the origins of this podcast is to say, okay, let's talk
to some of those extraordinaries, not my clients, but let's talk to some of those extraordinaries, not my clients, but let's talk to some of
those extraordinaries and share best practices to really, you know, get underneath the surface
and to pull back the curtain, to explore how they've committed to mastering both their
craft and their minds.
Now, our minds are our greatest asset.
And if you want to learn more about how you can train your mind, there are many resources
in the world, but this is just a quick little reminder here to check out the online psychological training
course that we built, where we have pulled together the best practices to meet that unique
intersection of the psychology of high performance and the psychology of well-being.
We walk through 16 essential principles and skills for you to train your mind in the same
way that we train world-class athletes. You can find all of this at findingmastery.net forward slash course.
Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment
that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true.
Meaningful relationships are at the center
of sustained success.
And building those relationships, it takes more than effort.
It takes a real caring about your people.
It takes the right tools, the right information
at the right time.
And that's where LinkedIn Sales Navigator can come in.
It's a tool designed specifically
for thoughtful sales professionals, helping you
find the right people that are ready to engage, track key account changes, and connect with key
decision makers more effectively. It surfaces real-time signals, like when someone changes jobs
or when an account becomes high priority, so that you can reach out at exactly the right moment with context and thoroughness that builds trust.
It also helps tap into your own network more strategically,
showing you who you already know
that can help you open doors or make a warm introduction.
In other words, it's not about more outreach,
it's about smarter, more human outreach.
And that's something here at Finding Mastery that our team lives and breathes by.
If you're ready to start building stronger relationships that actually convert,
try LinkedIn Sales Navigator for free for 60 days at linkedin.com slash deal.
That's linkedin.com slash deal.
For two full months for free free terms and conditions apply.
Finding Mastery is brought to you by David Protein.
I'm pretty intentional about what I eat and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods.
And when I'm traveling or in between meals on a demanding day, certainly I need something quick
that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David Protein Bars.
And so has the team here at Finding Mastery.
In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much.
I just want to kind of quickly put him on the spot.
Stuart, I know you're listening.
I think you might be the reason that we're running out of these bars so quickly.
They're incredible, Mike.
I love them.
One a day. One a day,
one a day. What do you mean one a day? There's way more than that happening here. Don't tell.
Okay. All right. Look, they're incredibly simple. They're effective. 28 grams of protein,
just 150 calories and zero grams of sugar. It's rare to find something that fits so conveniently into a performance-based lifestyle and actually
tastes good. Dr. Peter Attia, someone who's been on the show, it's a great episode by the way,
is also their chief science officer. So I know they've done their due diligence in that category.
My favorite flavor right now is the chocolate chip cookie dough. And a few of our teammates
here at Finding Mastery have been loving the fudge brownie and peanut butter. I know
Stuart, you're still listening here. So getting enough protein matters. And that can't be
understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery for longevity. And I love that
David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something
seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off
for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D,
protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Okay. This week's conversation is with Jay Samet. He is flat out a dynamic entrepreneur.
He's an intrapreneur.
He's widely recognized as one of the world-leading experts on disruption and innovation.
So with that kind of quick little hit, you know that we're going to go somewhere because
he has a deep understanding of moving from
creation to innovation, how to create disruption and to capture the opportunity in both an
interpersonal way, as well as from a business standpoint. So here's some of the things that
he's done. And these are no easy lifts here. He's the former independent vice chairman of
Deloitte Consulting. He helped grow pre-IPO
companies like LinkedIn. He's been a NASDAQ company CEO. He's held senior management roles
at EMI, Sony, and Universal Studios. And then he's also pioneered breakthrough advancements
in mobile and e-commerce and digital distribution. And he's also super switched on with spatial reality.
That all of these products and experiences
are used by millions of customers every day.
And so Jay raises hundreds of millions of dollars
for startups.
Like he understands that framework,
which means he understands how to bet on people,
how to sift down right into the truth of something,
to be able to understand if the
business plan makes sense, that's good. But more importantly, if the person and the team makes
sense. He also flies way up to advise Fortune 500 firms. He's responsible for transforming
entire industries and revamping government institutions. I mean, he leaves an impact in the places that he goes.
And waiting to hear how he speaks, so matter of fact, so done or so grounded that, and at the same time, there's a hard-nosed like appreciation on how he approaches key ideas and principles and practices.
I think you're going to pick up on that pretty clearly.
It's fun.
It's really fun. And then his list of partners reads like a who's who, you know,
including like Bill Gates and Bill Clinton and Pope John Paul II, Steven Spielberg, Steve Jobs,
Reid Hoffman, David Geffen, Sir Richard Branson, Paul Allen, like the list goes on.
These are people that move industries,
changing the way that you understand and I understand how the world works.
And he's recently written a book and I definitely recommend checking it out. It's called Disrupt You,
Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity and Thrive in an Era of Endless Innovation.
And with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with a legend, Jay Samet.
Jay, how are you?
Fantastic.
Thanks for having me.
Look at that energy coming right out the gate with some good stuff.
Okay, fantastic.
Jay, first, let me just say I've really enjoyed your books.
And Future Proofing You was a book that i felt like i i had
to consume end to end almost start to finish and so i just want to say congratulations on grabbing
attention and sharing some really important information well i saw a hole in in the
motivational self-improvement books there were those with great egos that said, this is how I did it.
And if you got out of World War II when I did and you joined GE, you could be Jack Welch.
Irrelevant. Journalists from the outside or academics that never sat in an empty room and
built a billion-dollar company. But as you know, I've run multinational companies with hundreds
of thousands of employees. I've sat
in an empty room many times and started companies that have gone on to become great things.
And I'm not smarter than the average bear. I am the average bear. So I wrote the first book,
Disrupt You, to show people how to do this. I was teaching it at the largest engineering school in
the US at USC. And I noticed these brilliant students that
had no clue how the world worked. And that book was a huge success. It's in a dozen languages.
And I get what I call love letters. When I was a CEO, your inbox is, I hate you. I hate your
company. You just get the garbage. When you write a book that helps empower people to change their
lives and it happens, I get
what I call love letters.
I've heard from people in 140 countries.
And I don't mean that to brag.
It just motivates me.
But I got this one email that said, this is all great, but I could never do it.
And I have very thin skin.
That aided me.
What was I missing?
It was a millennial.
And I had millennial sons. I
know millennials. I don't stereotype them. And so I said, why not try something that nobody ever did?
I'll put my reputation on the line. I'll take an immigrant who's homeless, grew up on welfare,
mentor him one day a week for a year, give him no cash, not open up the contacts, not tell him what to do.
You have to start a business that took zero capital.
But could I share what I call the 12 truths?
And spoiler, if you're reading Future Proofing You, he becomes a billionaire in 11 months.
And there's nothing you read the book.
There's nothing in here that was rocket science.
There's nothing that was, you know, I hired Tiger Woods and said,
I'm going to teach you to golf.
He was a regular guy and his example should be the inspiration to show anyone wherever
they are in their quest.
And it's not about money.
Money is the dangling carrot.
It's about, I believe in purpose to live a life of purpose.
That's the purpose of life. And if you can take away the wants and needs and satisfy those,
how much richer can your life be? And selfishly, how much richer will our world be? And that's why I wrote it. Now, okay. You say he was a normal guy.
And I don't want to miss the last statement you just made about purpose because that's going to
be a big part of our conversation. But you say he was a normal guy. He seemed to be extraordinary
in at least one way, his work ethic, his passion, his maybe unhealthy need to prove that he could do it.
And I put an asterisk next to that just because in context of most highly successful people,
there sometimes is an unhealthy side to the motivation.
I can understand that part.
He didn't have that work ethic.
So one of the things that he got to
find out when he read the book that I didn't tell him was in our first meeting, I lied to him.
I needed him to have a growth mindset, something I know you talk about all the time.
From day one, I didn't have time for him to organically find himself and build his confidence.
If I was going to put this artificial thing of one year to become a millionaire, I had to trick him into it. So when I
met him, I lied to him. I didn't mean to in the mean way, but I knew there's a psychological
principle called the Pygmalion effect. A professor went to school, quizzed all the kids, told the
teachers these three were super learners, super achievers. What a shock at the end of the year,
those three kids excel, except the professor lied. He just pulled three names out of a hat.
But if you tell people they're special and you treat them special, they become special.
It's as simple as that. So I told Vin Clancy that I had interviewed over a hundred people,
and he was the only one that had all the attributes to be a self-made millionaire.
And no one had ever believed in him.
His parents didn't believe in him.
Society didn't believe in him.
He grew up in a country where there was a class strata
and he wasn't part of it.
So when he saw somebody older,
somebody who was very successful and gray hair,
even if he didn't believe it,
he said, if this old guy believed it,
I'll go along with it.
And he even wrote a letter to himself that I included in the book. He basically said if this old guy believed it, I'll go along with it. And he even wrote a letter to
himself that I included in the book and basically said, this guy's fooled it, but I'll go along with
it. What gave him the work ethic is by the end of the first month, he had made more money than he'd
ever made in a year or his parents had ever made in a year. He could have flown across the ocean
without a plane. I mean, he was on fire. What my big fear was in the selfish part of having a good story to tell is would he burn out?
Can you have somebody work seven days a week, seven nights a week, no dating,
no watching the game, no TV. And yes, there are the obsessive people that have whatever in them
to have that. That wasn't his nature. But what got him going,
and why it's called future-proofing you, is once he started seeing the goal was achievable,
and once he hit it, he stuck with it because he knew it was going to take the next year off.
Something a poor person never even dreams of, right? They live paycheck to paycheck, hand them
out. And not that a million dollars you can live the rest of your life, okay? They live paycheck to paycheck, hand to mouth. And not that a million
dollars you can live the rest of your life, okay? It was that he knew he was future-proof,
that after he traveled and lived life for a little bit, he knew he could sit down anywhere
and do it again. And today he has multinational clients and a real business. And it's stuck with him. And he now has his thirties and forties and
the rest of his life to figure out work-life balance. And I think he has a healthier one
than probably I did at his age. This, and not to be lost, one of the caveats is that you are not
going to seed the business and you are not going to make the introductions to make the business.
So I think that those are important as well. And the other, the thing that I kept
scratching my head at, and one of the main reasons I wanted to talk to you was not,
it's not about him, but the main reason I want to talk to you relative to him is
you set up a paradigm where you found early on that he was highly motivated by external means.
He got paid.
And I'm not going to put a crosshair on that.
I'm not going to demonize that in any way.
But we do know from research that external motivation is harder to sustain.
So your intuition was bang on.
And you probably knew the science of it as well.
That being said, were you externally motivated?
And did you, is that how you recognized it?
Because, you know, throughout the book, I don't see you and understand you as being
externally driven and externally motivated.
So I wanted to understand that part of what you spotted.
If you think it's healthy.
I'm in a different stage of my life.
Yeah.
That's why I want to go back and understand this. I'm much more evolved. And it was funny when I wrote the first book, I had never been
introspective. I didn't have the time. It was not, you know, and my editor had said, you know,
you're really resilient. And I never thought of myself as resilient because I just didn't think of myself. You're too busy. So I grew up, you know, working class.
I had two sons when I was very young.
And quite frankly, I wanted them to have a better life.
That's all the motivation I needed.
I wanted to be a good dad.
I wanted to do with them and give them.
And giving them, in my mindset, wasn't material things is being able to be present,
being able to be there, you know, not working round the clock.
So you miss those most important years.
And so that was my motivation and that carried me through when they got out of
the house and were grown,
they didn't need me the way that they used to. I had to
find a new purpose. And running big companies and making money, you know, after a while,
I've been there, done that. I don't have that burning desire to be a billionaire. I don't have
a burning desire to have the biggest yacht, but none of those things make sense to me.
Did they at one point?
No, it was not. It was never about material things. It was freedom from dealing with assholes.
That's what money gave you, you know, freedom to decide how you want to spend this difficult life.
You know, what do you want to accomplish? What do you want to do?
And when I looked at what happened this past year in January in our nation's capital,
people storming Congress, and this is in politics, what I saw were thousands of people feeling left out, left behind, fighting over leftovers in our society. The American dream that they bought into doesn't exist. And they were taught
by people that gave up on their dreams. They constantly apply for a job. By the mere definition,
any job that exists means somebody else has had it, which means there's somebody more qualified.
So you end up in the cycle where the bottom half
has a negative net worth. The pandemic then wiped out the middle class globally.
Mom and pop restaurants, all these things don't have the capital. So the only way you're going
to have a stable society is by having a stable middle class. Having 1% own 99%, that is instability.
And that's where we're headed right now. I mean, Silicon Valley has been really great to me,
love what it's done. But their secret sauce is how can they buy into a monopoly? And the way you do
it is somebody comes up with a great idea, you capitalize them so much that nobody else could
raise the capital. So you have one Uber, with a great idea, you capitalize them so much that nobody else could raise the capital.
So you have one Uber, you have one Facebook, you have one Google.
This isn't working for the world.
Yet, we're one click away from 7 billion people.
There's a new self-made billionaire every 32 hours.
What are they doing differently?
And I've worked with,
as you know, all these household names and knew them before they were billionaires.
And I saw a pattern and I saw that it could be taught. And so if you could teach it to Vin,
and Vin had some internal motivations. He had that chip on his shoulders of coming from a place
where there were those that are better than you
your betters and that's got to eat at you right and and that quest for that and a generation that
grew up on social media where you see the the greatest hits reel of everyone's life is this fake life that no one has, has to
be an incredible pressure, especially in those that don't have. So I didn't have the expertise
to go into the mental issues associated with this. I knew that he would grab onto this opportunity. And as long as I didn't work him to death,
he'd be fine. And I really thought when his business, and there's a chapter in it,
when his business got knocked over sideways for nothing that we could have seen, nothing that he
did wrong. And what a great plot twist that I couldn't have come up with. I was worried he was going, hey, I made a few hundred thousand dollars, I'm done. I really thought, and when he didn't give up,
that told me he had the growth mindset, all the tricks, all the motivation.
I could mentor him to be better in business, but the core skills that he needed to succeed were already his.
You said something in the book where you were mentioning that you're going to put your ass
on the line. This is an experiment. And I paused and I was like, is that real? Did you publicly
go forward and tell people about what you're doing? Or was that a dramatic moment to suck
me into the book even further? No. I don't know if you know who Tom Bilyeu is. Motivational guy.
He wrote the forward. I went to Tom with this idea. He's a big fan of the first book, Disrupt
You. And I said, let's videotape these sessions each week. So you have another piece of content
on your show and let's watch it. And so day one, after we'd had the pizza night before, Ben and I went to Tom Bilyeu's house and studio and we taped that session.
And Tom walked away from it going, this guy doesn't have, this guy isn't going to do it.
This guy doesn't believe it.
He's laughing at Jay.
You know, I'm not going to follow through on the show.
But how great that show would have been.
And Tom says it in the foreword like, Dan, I wish I would have followed through.
So you did feel exposed, like you were taking some risk in this venture as well. Even though
there's no capital, it was more reputation.
Well, at a certain stage of the game, capital is irrelevant.
All that I have that I will die with is my reputation.
Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance,
whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be
better today than you were yesterday, What you put in your body matters.
And that's why I trust Momentus.
From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this
was not your average supplement company.
And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life.
And to do that, they developed what they call the Momentus Standard.
Every product is formulated with top experts and every batch is third-party tested. NSF certified
for sport or informed sport. So you know exactly what you're getting. Personally, I'm anchored by
what they call the Momentus 3, protein, creatine, and omega-3. And together, these foundational
nutrients support muscle recovery, brain function, and long-term and together these foundational nutrients support muscle recovery
brain function and long-term energy they're part of my daily routine and if you're ready to fuel
your brain and body with the best momentous has a great new offer just for our community right here
use the code finding mastery for 35 off your first subscription order at livemomentous.com. Again, that's L-I-V-E,
momentous, M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S, livemomentous.com, and use the code Finding Mastery for 35% off
your first subscription order. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Felix Gray. I spend a lot
of time thinking about how we can create the conditions for high performance.
How do we protect our ability to focus, to recover, to be present?
And one of the biggest challenges we face today is our sheer amount of screen time.
It messes with our sleep, our clarity, even our mood.
And that's why I've been using Felix Grey glasses.
What I appreciate most about Felix Grey is that they're just not another
wellness product. They're rooted in real science. Developed alongside leading researchers and
ophthalmologists, they've demonstrated these types of glasses boost melatonin, help you fall asleep
faster, and hit deeper stages of rest. When I'm on the road and bouncing around between time zones,
slipping on my Felix Grays in the evening, it's a simple way to cue my body just to wind down. And when I'm locked into deep work, they also help me stay
focused for longer without digital fatigue creeping in. Plus, they look great. Clean, clear,
no funky color distortion. Just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the
difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off.
Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout.
Again, that's Felix Gray.
You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com
for 20% off.
Take me back to like the dinner table when you're growing up.
What was that like?
Because the way I understand you is purpose driven.
You cracked it at the highest level in business.
You want to make a difference.
You're taking some young kids or one under your tutelage, and then you're sharing best
practices with many to create that
sense of purpose and generativity based on your history, which is, you know, great success. And
what was the dinner table like? And maybe tell me the age that comes to mind as you're
telling the story. I think we stopped having family dinners by about sixth grade.
Dad was a school teacher, would come come home mom was at home and dinner
was on the table and you know you know uh not a whole lot of motivation coming from there my dad
also worked nights and weekends and dad always had more than one job um didn't get to spend much time
with them um but i would work at whatever he was doing.
Later, when they started a mom and pop restaurant, by the time I'm 13, I'm working in the restaurant.
Senior year of high school, I was able to get independent study.
I went one hour a day, and the rest I worked at the restaurant.
School, by then, I figured out how to get the grades, but not learn anything.
I cheated myself out of an education.
But when I was exposed to and finally saw that not everybody was of the same strata,
that there was a different thing out there. Then I became,
by my college years, obsessed with how did successful people become successful?
And so I was editor of my college paper. And so I got to pick the plum assignments when all these
famous celebrities, Bob Hope and everybody would come to school. I knew they all were at the same
point as I was at that stage. And then what
happened? I want to know that secret elevator to the top. And from meeting and talking and asking
over and over again, I realized there wasn't. These were what I call stubborn people. You would
call them determined. They just kept on going because the only person that could stop you is you. And if you think you
can, or you think you can't, you're right. And eventually they got lucky, right? You know,
the harder they work, the luckier they got. And so whether consciously or unconsciously,
I emulated that. My success is because I have failed more than anybody you will ever meet. I just try
more freaking crazy things and keep going. And the genius ideas don't always hit because
you couldn't communicate them. It took me a long time to figure out that the person that was in
the C-suite office, and I'd get that big
meeting. I remember going to meet the CEO of Pepsi. I had a brilliant idea for them. And I was young.
And I left that meeting going, why don't they get it? Why don't they get it? And it took me about
20 years of my career to go, it's not their job to get it. Their way of doing things got them to
the corner office. My job is to convince people living in the past,
the future in a way that they can comprehend. And once I flipped the switch that was my
responsibility, I became Mr. Deal Junkie. There was nobody I couldn't do a deal with. I mean,
did a deal with the Pope. I mean, whatever you want to make happen, there's a way to make it
happen. And it became really fun to do some outlandish crazy things.
So, hold on. Let's start there. The deal with the Pope. I get the chutzpah
that you're talking about, which is like a light bulb goes off and you say-
Not the word the Pope would use.
Yeah. Good string. That's good. So, I get the light bulb that went off for you and you say,
okay, my job is to help convey and to enroll or to enlist somebody in this idea that I have,
but that's not their job. And how old were you when you did this deal with the Pope?
And maybe you just walk through the narrative around approaching the conversation.
30, early 30s.
So way back in time, at one point I had half a dozen of the top 10 bestselling video games.
And back then, big problem was people understanding how to use their computers.
This was real simple games, early days, not the stuff of today. And so one of my tenants
at my company was I required everybody to man some hours of tech support, the receptionist,
the graphic artist, anybody. So we'd get a sense of who the customer was and what they understood. And back then you just have to shut off the computer and wait for it to reboot.
And so you have to chat with these people. One day I'm doing, if I make people do it,
I have to do it too. I'm doing tech support calls and I'm killing time with the guy who
has computers and what's his name's father, Timothy. And I go, Oh, I'm a father too.
I have two sons. He goes, no, I'm a Jesuit. And I go, what's that? Okay.
No catechism in my background.
And he explains that he's an it at the Vatican.
And I'm like, the church has an it department. I don't sit there and think an organization of a billion members probably has,
you know, some infrastructure. I'm like, that's kind of cool.
And I pitch him an idea that I've always had that, that, that the Vatican's collection is really
putting religion aside for a second is the history of Western art, the history of Western music,
you know, Western culture. Can we do, you know, the history of this institution is a CD-ROM or
whatever. And at that time, the church felt that they were losing kids to video games and computers.
And to make a long story short, you know, if you ask, it can happen.
I mean, I learned early on.
I learned, and it's probably not the best example, but I'm transparent in my thinking.
I went to UCLA, a college of 40,000 students. I went there
because it was a college of 20,000 women. Okay. I'm like, there are all these beautiful women on
this campus. I don't want to go to a small school where it's going to be three people.
And I learned early on that some of the most beautiful, we had Miss California, Future Miss Americas, and Heather Locklear was my dorm.
And no one was asking these women out because they were on a whole different league.
So why not ask?
If they say no, I'm back where I started.
If they say yes, I've had the greatest weekend of my life. And once you realize that
there is no such thing as rejection, that there's no such thing as failing, because in business,
when you fail, you don't end up where you started. You either earn or you learn.
So I've taken this approach to life. My little startup company, I had an idea that would change
video games. Video games back then were beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And now sound
cards were going to be in computers so they could have real sound. Why not have rock and roll
soundtracks to video games? It's an obvious idea. By that time, I knew no one in the music industry.
I knew nobody in any industry, but I knew it would sell more PC games because
the game systems could only do beep, beep, beep, but a PC game could have music. So I reached out
to Bill Gates, the richest man in the world. I didn't know him, but I knew it was a good idea
for Microsoft. And I got lucky. And I didn't ask him to do something for me. I asked him to write an introduction letter
for me to David Geffen, the most powerful man in the music industry, the first billionaire in the
music industry. And when David got something from Bill Gates, he took the meeting with little old
me. And that became my biggest game of all time with Aerosmith, Guns N' Roses, Peter Gabriel.
And fast forward, Aerosmith made more money from video games than they have from music
publishing.
It's hard to believe that, but I understand.
I understand the math.
So let's go right underneath the surface.
Fear of rejection seems like it is nascent for you, but that's buffered by your framing and your definition
of fear, which is no, no, no. Fear is like, you know, it doesn't exist, which I have a hard time
with. Let me challenge that. Okay. Cause I was going to have a hard time with that too.
Fear is real. I hate every charlatan out there that says you can overcome fear. You can get past fear.
I have a whole chapter on it in future proof. Your oldest part of the brain, the lizard brain,
is the fight or flight. You are hardwired for fear. If we were in a room meeting for the first
time, your first thing before I say anything is you're sizing up. Am I a threat to you?
Can't get past it. But as I tell people, if you're thinking about you're afraid to start a business because you'll be embarrassed if it fails, you'll lose your money, you'll lose your self-esteem, you'll lose other people's money, you know, all those fears.
If you're dwelling on that, walking down the street, and a semi loaded with dynamite and sharks has no brakes, it is coming at you. You're not thinking about those
fears. You're thinking about the existential one of dying and you jump out of the way or die,
which means you can prioritize fear. So if you focus on that you're trading a day of your life
at a job that gives you nothing to pay you, enough to show up and not enough to care,
and then it turns into a week, a year, you're going to wake up one day and have given up the most precious thing in the universe.
For what?
For nothing.
And I tell people, go talk to their grandparents or go to a senior center and ask people their biggest regret in life.
And it's not what they failed at.
It's what they failed to try.
So when you have those other fears, let the existential one hang over you and say, you just gave up one
of your 80,000 days. How many more are you going to give up? Because every day you waste on whatever
it is you're doing, you're not working towards a future that you can enjoy. And so that's how I
handle fear. I'm not fearless. So you use it cognitively. So you think about the existential fear of it not being a meaningful life to deal with
the more immediate fears of looking bad.
Yeah.
And I also have to say I'm lucky because I don't know why I really don't care what other
people think.
Where did you learn that?
Like, how did that come?
Because I don't find you to be a narcissist, which is, you know, that is one of the components,
maybe sometimes a positive one of the components,
maybe sometimes a positive glow of narcissism, especially in our modern society. But I don't find you to have narcissism as it doesn't leap in the way that we're speaking
or even leap out in any of the writings that you've done.
So like, how have you come to not care?
I guess because I've been this way since I was a little kid,
like,
like go out of the house without looking in the mirror,
go to the meeting with David Geffen,
which I talked about the thing,
biggest meeting in my life.
And I have two different shoes on and one's a lace up.
I mean,
I,
you know,
I just,
I don't,
I want to know why other people are so consumed with this.
My wife and I have this conversation all the time.
She doesn't want to go somewhere because pandemic, I gained weight.
I don't want people to see me.
I don't want this.
No one's spending their time thinking about us.
No one's thinking about...
Everybody's so self-involved that it seems narcissistic to believe that others are judging
and thinking.
And it's very freeing.
Oh, it's incredibly freeing.
People learn about the critic of others from their parents.
And so when their parents are critics to them,
and it can be very subtle because some parents are really smart
and they say, you know, do you think that looks good on you?
Or, you know, hey, honey, I really appreciate the, or maybe try the red shirt instead of the green
shirt.
Or it's even more cunning, which is like, oh my goodness, you look so good in red.
And then you start to-
I don't think I got any attention from my parents one way or the other.
Yeah, which is interesting.
So you didn't-
And I spent most of elementary school sick, so I was home more than I was in school. That's right. So I had my own world.
Did you, did you use extreme performance to get attention from yourself or from your parents?
Define extreme performance. Um, I mean, you've kicked ass in life, dude. Like you've made a lot
of money. You ran, you ran things at the highest level. like you've made a lot of money you ran you ran things
at the highest level and oftentimes there's a bit of neuroticism or some sort of anxiety that sits
underneath of it so so that people will look at you be like oh you do matter while you are special
when you know there's yeah i decided not to go to law school. My parents wanted a doctor. I fainted at the sight of blood.
Yeah, this is a good story. I know.
So then the only other choice is to be a lawyer. I looked at it, and I have a lot of friends that
are lawyers. It really looked like you're doing homework for other people for the rest of your
life. I mean, I just didn't see it. And I got a full scholarship to go to law school, a great law school.
And that summer I said, I'm not, I have no desire. My parents didn't talk to me
for quite some time. They were so disappointed. So yeah, part of me wanted to prove,
you know, that I could make it. And, you know, a mentor of mine, Richard Branson's original partner, Ken Berry, he had a sibling who was a doctor and one was an engineer.
He dropped out of school with Richard and started Virgin.
I think we know who ended up, you know, the most successful.
So I always went to the beat of a different drummer.
I was on every report card when I look back to first grade. The motivation was me, but at some point, yeah, I wanted to say I'm successful. And I think
psychologically, when you achieve more than the generation before you, you feel a sense of
accomplishment because you're comparing yourself to the environment from which you came
um but i i judge success by how how do my children turn out did i do right by them i mean that my
motivation in life wasn't to be an entrepreneur right i got out of school and there were no jobs
like nobody prepared me for this like hey i hey, I got the good grades. Hello.
No one cares.
And once you figure it out on your own
and figure out that you can set your own course,
make your own money, answer,
you're not your own boss,
you answer to everybody at that point.
It's very, you answer to everybody at that point. It's very addicting because it becomes
an easy game to play. And I always liked games. And so I always looked at these challenges as just
puzzles to solve. How do you go from surveying, and this is your core tenet about wanting to help
entrepreneurs or wanting to help people become entrepreneurs more precisely.
How did you go from surveying the landscape and saying, I don't see a job, I don't see a future where I'm working for other people, let me go start on my own.
And there's a gap in there.
And some of the gaps that you might close is that i didn't have
debt i didn't have a car note i didn't have i had debt you did have that okay so then how do you
take that how do you say the repo man come over to i was i was in my house ran my company out of
my house and i was hosting a cub scout little meeting where you make these little cars the
i don't know what they call these little wooden racer cars that all the kids make.
And like, you know, if you do a movie of my life, they're coming to take my real car where the kids are making little wooden ones, kind of like just stands in your head.
And the guy came to the door and I'm like, dude, you can see I'm not running away.
I mean, I need my car.
I live in LA.
You know, I'll figure it out a way to make the payment.
And the guy cut me some slack. Wait, hold on. You put together the repo man?
No. Okay. So that, no, you did not? It sounds like you did.
I got him to give me some time. Okay. So you, okay. So you put it together with the repo, man. I mean,
these are, okay. So let's, let's drill into that. How do you, Jay, like, how do you do that? A guy's
coming to take your car and you're like, did you give him the puppy dog eyes? You know, I doubt it,
but like, how does that work? Because you didn't get pissed. You didn't be like, get out of here.
That's the whole thing. I work all over the globe. I spent 20 years literally at an airport.
Okay.
It's just a blur.
Name the country.
I've been there.
Name the thing.
And your flights get canceled.
And I've seen a thousand people go up to this poor young man or woman that's working for
just above minimum wage and rail into them with their self-importance of you better.
I've seen this endlessly.
And I wait for those people to finish.
And I go, I see you're having a bad day too.
Okay.
This isn't your fault.
It's not my fault.
I know you don't have a magic wand.
But is there any idea or tip you can tell me or something so that, you know, here's what I'm trying to do.
And, you know, and, and, you know, treat people that way. I've yet to find somebody I can't help.
And I can't, and I've yet to find somebody who can't help me. I have yet to find somebody I can't learn from. So when you treat people that way, they're
so shocked. I mean, I had a problem with the, here's a rich guy problem, a tax situation with
property or whatever. And the guy in front of me in the case in court was cursing at the judge.
He could tell you how that went over. By the time it got done, getting the guy all riled up, I just go, hey, I want to be here as much as you do.
I don't think this makes sense. Okay. Just look at it and, you know, let's go home early. You
just tell me what you decide. And he just, in my favor, didn't even look at anything.
I mean, just treat people the way you want to be treated. How complicated is that?
Well, when people are fatigued and they're highly anxious and they're highly irritable because
their world feels very hostile, it is hard to live in alignment with the first principles,
which what you just described is the first principle.
Not if it's your core being.
Well, that's what I want to understand about you.
Because I'm feeling you in this conversation
that you are fully aligned with your first principles.
And you're saying, listen, this is what matters to me.
I do want to double click and say, what are those first principles?
So I have a stereotype,
and you've worked with some of the top athletes in the world that athletes are testosterone, you know, go, go, fight, conquer, win. And when my book editor said, you know, you're very competitive. I'm like, I never played a single sport. I'm not competitive. Like I had a very narrow definition of competitive, but I don't, I knew that anybody could, could beat me up, beat me
anything physical on the planet. Okay. I still hold the California state record when the eighth
grade, when they explained wrestling in school, state sanctioned beating up of Jay, I still have
the record. I can get both of my shoulders on the mat before the other kid touched me. Okay. Like I have,
because I came from that background,
you know, of being, you know,
you know, the, you know,
I grew up in a tough neighborhood
where you could either fight, run faster,
better be funny.
So you develop how to get along.
It's the only tool I have left in the quiver.
Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't
just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've
built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new
part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised
me the most is how much it actually helps regulate temperature. I tend to run warm at night and these
sheets have helped me sleep cooler and more consistently, which has made a meaningful
difference in how I show up the next day for myself, my family, and our team here at Finding
Mastery. It's become part of my nightly routine. Throw on their lounge pants or
pajamas, crawl into bed under their sheets, and my nervous system starts to settle. They also offer
a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty on all of their bedding, which tells me, tells you,
that they believe in the long-term value of what they're creating. If you're ready to upgrade your rest and turn your bed into a better recovery zone,
use the code FINDINGMASTERY for 40% off at CozyEarth.com.
That's a great discount for our community.
Again, the code is FINDINGMASTERY for 40% off at CozyEarth.com.
Finding Mastery is brought to you by Caldera Lab.
I believe that the way we do small things in life
is how we do all things.
And for me, that includes how I take care of my body.
I've been using Caldera Lab for years now.
And what keeps me coming back, it's really simple.
Their products are simple
and they reflect the kind of intentional living
that I want to build into every part of my day.
And they make my morning
routine really easy. They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo,
conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing
better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it
matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care
products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check
them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at
checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery.
That's cool.
Okay.
First principles.
Like let's double click under there because I think the special sauce for you is that
you know your first principles and then you, they're portable.
You take them everywhere you go as opposed to, you know, there are these fancy words
that you put on the walls or the hallways in your businesses, or you write them down the journal, you know, once a year
and look back and be like, oh yeah.
But I think like company mission statements, what a waste of time.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah.
Okay, good.
Because like, if you're not breathing it every day, it is just an academic exercise.
So I guess, you know, you're, you're trying to get into the psyche of me.
So I'll give you the few clues that I picked up about myself.
It's okay, Jay.
It's you and me.
We can go there.
Because I was, I had, and still have, an authoritarian father who, you know, his explanation for anything was because I say so.
So that you should respect authority because you're told to.
I flipped that script at, you know, four years old, okay?
I have zero respect for authority, teacher, principal, boss, anything, unless you earn it, okay?
No one is on, is better, right?
And no one's beneath. Right. So, you know, battered by.
It's cool. So that's freedom for you is to be able to, to be able to choose with whom
and to be able to choose what? I mean, people that look down on people that are in,
you know, abusive spouse relationships or battered family or whatever, and realize that
these people truly believe that they have no other choice, that there is no way out.
You know, if you can help people take the blinders off, whatever their goal is.
And again, I kind of trick people in both of my books.
You think it's about self-help, self-improvement, and how to make a bunch of money.
But they both end on social capitalism, right?
What can you do to make the world better while you're here?
You don't get to live forever, but your ideas and your impact can.
And so we're using a planet and a half's worth of stuff.
Now, yes, there's guys that I know that think it would be fun to just leave this planet and start over somewhere.
And I'm not going to knock them because they sure think differently.
But there's so much that we can do here. It's like little kids, pet peeve.
Any adult that asks a little kid, what do you want to be when you grow up? That instantly assumes a
world where you get to be one thing and you're that one narrow sliver in that life. When I always
ask kids, what problem do you want to solve when you grow up? Because at every stage of life,
you'll have injustice in your life. You'll see
things that need fixing. I tell the story of one of my closest friends was lucky enough to have
her teeth knocked out by a swing when she was 10. And I say lucky enough, because when the dentist
gave her a smile back, she knew at 10 years old, she wanted to be a dental surgeon and do that for
people. And she's a dental surgeon and she's thrilled with life
and she got to be her dream. I don't have any epiphany.
So are you trying to solve the expansion of the middle class or is that too simplistic?
Solve is too egotistical of a statement. I am trying to chip away.
There's never been a war between two countries that have a McDonald's.
Let that sink in for a second.
There's a whole lot to unpack in that.
But basically, a middle class is stability.
A middle class is what made the city-state and the nation-state.
And we're not focused on it. We're not teaching it. We're, you know, I don't understand. Most of what we've taught was to give you enough knowledge to work
in somebody's factory and people don't work in factories. Half of all jobs will be automated
over the next five years. There's going to be massive climate migration of people because their nation states
can't feed their people. So you think we have immigration issues in our country or Europe or
anywhere. What do you have when you have a billion people that if they stay where they are, they will
start? So unless we start getting more people solving things from a selfish standpoint, the quality of my life goes down. I mean,
I'd love that we live in a time where people spend $200 million to make a movie and entertain
my ass for two hours. That's amazing to me. Okay. So what other things, you know, can we do that
just make it better, easier? I mean, you just have to fill a void,
just have to solve a problem. Solve for five people you have friends, solve for a million
you make money, solve for a billion, you change history. I've watched these, some are really
bright, but these people with fairly obvious ideas that didn't give up that have changed
this world during my lifetime in ways that were science
fiction. So what do you say to the person who says, I hear you, Jay. I'm stuck in this extraction
model at work where I'm not really seen. I'm not really valued. I've got so much more potential that lies dormant and I'm making money for them,
you know, the bosses and wall street. And I'm tired of it. What do you say to those folks that
say, but I don't have clarity of an idea. And I don't think I have the tolerance to go out on my
own. And I'm not even sure that I know what makes a great entrepreneur. I just gave you three ways
that you can play. And so where would you take that person?
So the first thing that's a big,
that's a,
that's a big number now of folks that are saying that right now.
We have more people that quit their jobs last month than any time in
history.
And we have a gazillion companies that can't get workers.
Okay.
Because they're not appreciated.
They're not valued. They don't see a future in
it, okay? They don't share the values. I mean, I've learned so much by mentoring to understand
what a millennial wants out of a job because they're not money, you know, Wolf of Wall Street
motivated, okay? So what I would say to that person is this. So what are you doing to change the situation?
Okay. You say, you don't know that you have the skills. What are you doing to get those skills?
You don't have an idea. I have three problems a day for 30 day technique that I write about
in my books that by the end of a month, you will have a billion dollar
idea. Okay. Probably have several of them pick the ones. Um, and you don't have to know every step
on the road. If you know where your destination is. Okay. The idea that everybody that made it had it all figured out and it was just like this straight course and dah, dah, dah. I can tell you endless stories. And Bill Gates and Paul Allen's first company went belly up and Henry Ford's and Walt Disney. And they learned from that. As an investor, I would rather invest in a CEO whose startup had already failed and be in his next one.
Because there's lessons that they learn.
Somebody that just hit money, and I have one friend that just seems to just step in it with no brains.
I don't think he's learned anything in his life.
And maybe that's fate's way of just keeping them from interfering with everybody else.
He truly accidentally bought the wrong company once, and it turned out that what he bought ended up being worth something.
I mean, just dumb stuff like that.
So I try to tell that person that they can do it. I teach people the biggest mistake between my two big books was in future-proofing you, I acknowledge you cannot do it alone. You have to have mentors,
a series of mentors. I teach people how to use LinkedIn to find those mentors. It's not emailing some billionaire cold and say, will you be my mentor? Their knowledge is useless for you
with your stage of life. Yeah. You know what? I really appreciated those. I love the problems.
I think it's worth mentioning the problem exercise. And I really appreciated the way
that you thought about LinkedIn because like you, I get plenty of messages from LinkedIn.
I don't message many of them back when they feel like it's a,
I don't know, it's almost, it's flattering, but it's almost disrespectful to-
It's forced. It's like walking into a bar and going, hey, will you have my baby? That doesn't
work. Okay. It doesn't include my mission in life. It is just about their mission in life.
But let me put the question a different way to you.
How many people have you met through your career where you posted something or they
wrote something about an episode or you started a dialogue and over the course of time, a
friendship fell?
Yeah, it's so eloquent.
It's natural.
Go back to the bar analogies you're
striking a conversation up about maybe what's on tv or something something something and before you
know it like you're talking business it's so easy to connect yeah you are a connector it's one i
think it's one of your superpowers right to be able to see people and oh you're causing i have
friends that are really good connectors it is a gift that if I could have that, that gift
of charisma, like if you spent any time with Bill, you're saying you don't have charisma.
No, I've, I've met the people that are charismatic. Yeah. I'm a nerd.
Okay. You're you're what?
A nerd.
All right. So then what, what, I don't like this question so much, but I don't know how
to frame it otherwise, like superpowers or like, what is the thing that is really special about
you? Cause I would say you've got great personality charisma. Like I, I definitely
am seeing it here. If I, if I said it, you know, what I think I am uniquely best at in the world,
I connect dots like nobody else. I can't teach people how to
do that. I think it's because I'm dyslexic. I just see connections between almost anything.
I mean, I tell the story in Disrupt You that I had to launch the competitor to iTunes. They
were spending $100 million on advertising. I have none. My way of tackling it
was to look in the news, what companies are in trouble? Because anybody in trouble is open to
a new idea. And McDonald's had their worst year ever after Super Size Me came out. Sales were
down 9%, which means you're not making any profits. So I go, okay, now all that I have to do, what's an idea that I can have that
helps my digital music store and helps McDonald's? And so I pitched the CEO, buy a Big Mac, get a
track. I'll make you hip and cool. They shot the best commercial in the world. I can't take credit for any of it. It was totally cool. Pulled some favors to get Justin Timberlake to do
a cameo in the commercial. They put up signs at every McDonald's. They put every tray layer,
every bag. They spent $20 million or $60 million advertising the launch of my store and drove me 20 million paying customers the
first week.
My cost, $0.00.
And because of another thing, which is too long of a story, actually made profit from
McDonald's on the deal on top of it.
So it's just the dots seem, you know, some people look at a Rorschach and see an ink
plot and I'll tell you the whole story of how that came to that moment. seen, you know, you know, some people look at a Rorschach and see an inkblot and, you know,
I'll tell you the whole story of, you know, how, how that came to that moment. I just,
you know, that's my, that's my only gift. And thank God, because I've worked with people that
have tremendous skills in one thing. I mean, Wozniak knew more about computers than anybody
on the planet. And had he not met Steve Jobs, would have basically been poor.
No disrespect.
Guy's still a genius.
Okay?
And the other thing that I got to see, which maybe I'd write a book about sometime, is seeing so many people before fame and money, whether it was running movie studios or music companies or
in the tech thing and after. I've yet to see money change anyone. Never does. Just amplifies that.
Preston Pyshko It's an accelerator. I was going to say,
it accelerates some core characteristics. It accelerates-
David Sherman Wesley X now shared this, so I'm not outing
him on this, but when he made his millions and millions of
dollars and he left and didn't want to do that, he donated a bunch of money to a school district,
got his teaching credential, and his life's goal was to teach the fifth grade.
And none of those students or parents or anybody knew that a billionaire founder of Apple
was their teacher. That's what he wanted to do.
That's what gave him satisfaction.
Okay. With great clarity, what are some key characteristics that you think are important
for entrepreneurship? And then I still want to go back to first principles. I don't think I've
got my arms around first principles for you. But what are some of the key characteristics? Because I'm
hoping you can speak to folks that are thinking about or are like, listen, I'm going the entrepreneur
route. And if I can learn from Jay about some of those key characteristics, I'm going to write
them down right now and I'm going to start practicing them. So when you do the three ideas
a day for 30 days and you have it, you'll come out with what are known as big ideas, audacious ideas,
that idea that is so obvious and so good that it attracts like moths to a light.
Because the key characteristic of an entrepreneur is you're a Pied Piper.
You have to get investors to follow your dream and believe you to give you capital. You have to have
people that'll give up on their career to come and join your company and do the same. You have
to have customers willing to try. They're not doing it for anything other than they believe
in the dream too. It doesn't take ego. I've yet to have an idea in my life.
I have a half an idea.
And I try to then surround myself with people that can make it better.
And then when it becomes this great thing, then I get to take complete credit for it. No, but it's really, you have to be able to be flexible.
An entrepreneur is going to find real early on that you're going to have to do a
little bit of everything and you're going to suck at most of these things. So it's good to figure
out how to hire people that are different, but you're also going to have to give up the things
that you enjoy doing because those are, will be the easiest for you to manage because you
understand them. Um, and what else does an entrepreneur need? You need to know how to live sparsely
because you don't know how long it's going to take. Elon Musk famously,
an immigrant, wanted to see if he could live on a dollar a day.
And his first company, he and his brother slept in the office. The website was down at night.
They coded. They only had one computer. They showered at the Y down the hall, but he lived
30 days on top ramen and oranges in bulk. And that gave him the confidence. He says,
no matter what I do in life, I know I can make $30 in a month. I won't be homeless. And when he sold PayPal and became fabulously wealthy when
mortal men would then build a castle or do whatever, he started three companies with
every penny that he made. And when I say every penny, he had to borrow money from a friend to pay rent in an apartment. Now he's got $200 billion in a number
that is incomprehensible and spends most nights sleeping in the parking lot in a little trailer.
He's motivated by something far greater. You are talking about great purpose in life.
And there's a lot of science around purpose.
It sounds like you intuitively understand it.
You've lived by it.
Are you able to get, with great clarity, your purpose, like in a sentence or two?
Well, for the first 40 years, it was just about being
a dad. Everything was an instrument along that. And when my kids went to college, I felt lost.
I really did. Because as cliche as it sounds, heading another company, been there, done that.
If you're not money motivated, the aggravation, CEOs deserve every penny they get.
Okay.
It is, especially I've been a public CEO.
It is a miserable existence.
And since I'll never be it again, I'll tell you that every one of them says, I'm thinking
about the shareholders, the employees, God, country, family, all BS.
You're on a 16 week hamster wheel because your compensation is tied to move the stock to this number.
And the Brinks truck gets backed up to your house so that your great-grandchildren don't have to work for a living.
And that's an incredible amount of pressure because it's an artificial game that the only way to win is at someone else's expense.
All right. 16 weeks, you cannot do things in a whole cloth. Um, so I didn't have it. And
through the process of teaching, through the process of writing and seeing that I could add value, I got my purpose from people's emails. I got my
purpose from seeing, I mean, on my lowest day, an email comes in and I go, I'll read to my wife,
a dentist in Pakistan is thanking me. What do I know about either of those two things?
And the countries that I've heard from in their lives,
that these are universal principles. My book comes out this week in French. It came out last
week in Poland. It comes out in Italy in two weeks. And I get to meet these people and see,
you know, it sounds cliche, but there's more that unites us than divides us. I, you know, too many people have made too much money dividing people.
But there's nothing that a few stubborn people can't accomplish.
I mean, that's the definition of history.
So how do I get people to accomplish things that are solving problems instead of creating them?
If we fast forward. Sure. Let's do like a, let's go 10 years, let's go a decade.
I know it's a big leap right now.
If people knew what you knew and were able to exercise their mind
and their hearts in the way that you are,
how would our leaders be leading differently to get to a more compatible, a more loving, a more productive world?
Oh, so you want to get into politics because it comes down to politics because it's the
politics, any country anywhere is. And by way of background, I paid my way through college my whole life.
My passion's been magic.
I'm a performing member of the Magic Castle.
Politics is about misdirection.
Get people to vote against our own self-interest by giving them something to focus on.
So the poorest among us are against having free health care.
Okay?
It's astounding.
I won't get into getting people against self-interest by religion because then I'll get nothing but hate mail.
But we argue over and fill our headlines around the world with, you know, should we fund this little itty bitty thing when 60 cents of every dollar goes towards weapons of destruction.
Our country has been a war for most of our 200 plus years of existence. You know,
I think our priorities are out of alignment. And if we're spending all that, it makes the
other guy spend that. And, you know, there's a lot of money in war.
So that'd be the biggest thing.
You know, what we dumped in these two wars in the Mideast, we could have paved every road, free college, free health care, and had a great educational system. And you go, yeah, well, why don't we?
Well, it's, you know, when it costs you $2 billion to get elected into a $300,000 a year job, that kind of tells you who's making the rules.
So I was a poli-sci major.
I once had political aspirations when I was young.
I once had a short story.
I was supposed to have a meeting at the White House,
and they pushed later in the day.
So I went over to the Washington Post,
pitched them a story for my company and whatever.
And I'm going later, and the vice president asked me,
you know, sorry about, you know, pushing your meeting back.
And I'm like, you're like running the world.
No biggie. He goes, how'd you fill the time?'m like, you're like running the world. No, no biggie.
It was what, what had you filled the time is said, I went over to the Washington post and I got him
to write something. And here are the second most powerful person on the planet goes,
you can do that. And that's when you realize that there is no power in politics,
uh, powers in the 6,000 people that own everything that, you know, if they continue to think that
owning more of it will make their lives better, it doesn't end well. It ends with, you know,
pitchforks. So I've got two questions that you're, you're teeing up. One is
what makes a great, like, what is a modern leader? What is a modern leader right now?
Because you're describing low potency. You're describing, yeah.
There's a whole lot of people that get into politics to right one wrong, to fix one problem,
right? And they're mission-oriented. And then they're mission oriented.
And then when they get in there, you know, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts.
Absolutely. The system is stronger than the individual.
I've worked on four presidential campaigns of both parties have been clients. And so I don't believe the cynicism that they went into it for
the way that you come out of it. You just have to trade a piece of you every single time you
want to get something done and the likelihood that there's a piece of you left. I mean,
look at the values that Jimmy Carter ascribed
to, ineffectual as a president, but what a great human being. And look at the legacy of him staying
true to his belief system of an icon for us to live up to., there is no simple solution.
I've come up with some ways to solve various things and tried to get them through, you know, around the world.
And some countries it's worked.
Mexico now has Entrepreneur Week.
It's the coolest thing.
It's like Shark Week on Discovery.
The president of Mexico and I did a streaming thing.
It was the most streamed thing in the country.
They give awards to kids.
There is no legacy of a Silicon Valley, of an investor class, whatever.
The richest people made their money from taking oil out of the ground or assembling things that are now done by robots in Southeast Asia, or expats repatriating capital.
Well, oil's going away.
Expats going away.
And manufacturing.
So unless they figure out how to create entrepreneurs, we will have a destabilized nation state on our southern border.
Why is this not a priority? Why is
fixing things never priority until it's past the point of no return?
Well, we got our hands full with a destabilized United States, it seems in many ways.
Well, but the whole world's facing these same issues.
That's why you're saying authoritarian types, you know, when people feel the world moving under
them, when they don't feel stability, the natural instinct is to find that macho leader that, that,
you know, makes you feel secure. Um, you and I probably have a similar intellect that don't
understand that, but it's true. And vilifying the masses that are in a terrible situation
isn't helping things either. So nobody seems to be focused on coming together and solving things because power comes from division.
When you put your lenses for business, for business leader, what makes a great business leader in the modern world?
A great business leader today has to understand that what got them to where they are
will not keep them there or move them forward. When you're a CEO, you're like a piece of French
cheese. There's an expiration date stamped on you and you've got a limited window before you start
stinking up the joint. And the seeds to your salvation are somewhere in your company, most likely levels and levels
below the politics and the managers and people that aren't being listened to.
So how do you start internal hackathons?
How do you encourage disruptive thinking and new ideas and all that?
I was brought in at the very top of the music industry when Napster came along.
They went from a $40 billion industry to $20 billion.
It's over.
Nobody's buying stuff.
That's the only reason.
Nobody in my entire career has called Jay, hired Jay for any consulting because they're
having their best year and they want to do better.
I'm like, we've tried everything else.
Let's call the weirdo.
And one of the things that I did the second I got there,
and this is a large public corporation, is I went to the CFO and I said, I need to set up
a phantom set of books, a creative set of accounting that will work like this.
I need to be able to trade favors from my division that has no revenue.
So that if I'm taking time or assets from another division, they still get their bonus, their kid still gets his braces.
I'm not a threat to the status quo.
So if you think of the old Kodak example,
Kodak invented the digital camera,
but it would never have the profit margin of film.
So they squashed it thinking if we don't make it,
no one will.
Where's Kodak?
So the second I had this game going, I knew which divisions were
hurting. I said, listen, let me work with these artists. Let me take this. Let me do this thing.
You don't have to understand it. Just know that you're going to hit your number.
And we made $200 million the first year out of things that had nothing to do with music.
Okay.
It wasn't selling a record.
It wasn't doing anything.
And so I've done this again and again, and I failed at it at companies that just couldn't
get out of their, this is how we've always done it.
This is the annual plan.
Those people are our competition, right? They
don't see the new entrant, you know, the other buggy whip manufacturers of the competition,
not Henry Ford. Do you compare yourself to others in a competitive landscape or are you comparing
yourself to yourself, like your own business growth or what they're doing?
So I really hate competition because I know there's always somebody better,
better looking, smarter, better connected, better anything, which is why I advise people to try to
do something new, something different. There's tons of voids to fill. And if you're the only
one doing it, by definition, you're the best in the world. So yeah, I compete against myself. I'm going for what can I pull off that I have. Now,
there's a couple of times where you store something in the back of your mind that somebody
tried to do something and they couldn't pull it off. And you go, that'd be cool if I could.
Richard Branson had this brilliant idea to combining his two passions of doing the first concert in the sky on a Virgin flight from Europe to the US. And FAA turns out has rules
against playing instruments on a plane. Long story. But later I pulled that one off and had Charles Crowe do a concert from Chicago to LA to announce
my digital music store.
And that concert played videos of it on every United flight for a month.
It was great PR and everything.
But there was some satisfaction that I figured out how to thread the needle in a way that
nobody else could.
Good, man.
Okay.
Jay, I've loved this conversation.
And I was about to say thank you in advance, but there's one more question I want to ask
you.
Okay.
If you could sit with any master, dead or alive, who would it be?
Where would it be?
And if you only had one question as a reductionist format here, what would that question be?
Wow.
That's like you're going to have five minutes with God.
You want to take more than 30 seconds to come up with an answer.
Because of my personal passion or whatever, I would love to have had the opportunity to sit down with Harry Houdini, who invented modern media, modern celebrity, international fame, all the things that we associate with entertainment today.
And I'm curious, was this a plan or did it just happen?
You know, the Beatles didn't just miraculously become a global phenomenon.
You know, it was done.
You know, Brian knew what he was doing.
But if you go, you know, 100 years ago, how did this all start?
And it all started with magic because because you know singers only speak certain
languages and you know that's up but the horse is here the horse is not there that kind of plays
everywhere um but that that would be the person i'm most curious about because i've spent so much
time studying in afar probably irrelevant to anybody but other magic nerds um but that's the honest answer i love it jay thank you and uh what
a gift what a pleasure to feel your passion your clarity and um to get a sense of your purpose
and then you know um i hope that our audience is listening going yeah so to anybody that's made it
this far into it and is really thinking about it on my my website, jsamet.com, I have free workbooks for each of these books.
So you're reading stuff, you get an idea, you get to the next chapter, that idea is gone.
You can write down, you can start working on your plan for life today.
There's no catch, no upsell.
I don't sell anything. And all that I ask is, you know, send me an email and share me, you know, your story,
how your journey went, because that's the motivation that keeps me going.
Jay, again, you're a legend.
Thank you for sharing.
Thank you so much for the time.
All right.
Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us.
Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you.
We really appreciate you being part of this community.
And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe
or follow button wherever you're listening.
Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify.
We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback.
If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday.
Punch over to findingmastery.com slash newsletter to sign up.
The show wouldn't be possible without our sponsors and we take our recommendations seriously.
And the team is very thoughtful
about making sure we love and endorse
every product you hear on the show.
If you want to check out any of our sponsor offers
you heard about in this episode,
you can find those deals at findingmastery.com
slash sponsors.
And remember, no one does it alone.
The door here at Finding Mastery is always open
to those looking to explore the edges and the reaches of their potential so that they can help
others do the same. So join our community, share your favorite episode with a friend,
and let us know how we can continue to show up for you. Lastly, as a quick reminder,
information in this podcast and from any material on the finding mastery website
and social channels is for information purposes only if you're looking for meaningful support
which we all need one of the best things you can do is to talk to a licensed professional
so seek assistance from your health care providers again a sincere thank you for listening
until next episode be be well, think well, keep exploring.