Tiger Sisters - From No Plumbing to Fortune 500 CEO: The Power of Education & Confidence | Jim Keyes

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

Check out our matcha brand, Sisters Matcha at www.sistersmatcha.com Sign up for our newsletter here: https://cherieluo.substack.com/subscribeHow much of your future is determined by your circumstance, and how much is determined by what you're willing to learn? In this Director's Cut episode, we revisit our conversation with former 7-Eleven and Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes, whose journey from growing up in a three-room house without plumbing to leading two Fortune 500 companies is one of the most remarkable stories we've ever featured.Tune in for lessons on: ✅ How to stop fearing uncertainty ✅ The philosophy behind the phrase "Prepare to win" ✅ How neuroplasticity can help you break old patterns and create new ones✅ Why education is one of the greatest tools for freedom and upward mobility ✅ The surprising truth behind Blockbuster's collapse ✅ The importance of curiosity, creativity, and lifelong learning at any ageWhether you're building a business, navigating a career change, or trying to become more confident, this conversation is full of practical wisdom you can apply right away.Timestamps:03:10: How to watch this episode 05:10: Introducing Jim Keyes (Former CEO of 7-Eleven & Blockbuster)06:24: The 3 C’s of Success: Change, Confidence & Clarity09:53: "Prepare to Win"... the secret to confidence11:52: Neuroplasticity & Rewiring Your Brain15:30: Relentless positivity over toxic positivity 17:07: Why education = freedom19:53: Are Americans becoming dumber?21:24: The real story behind Blockbuster's collapse26:15: Leading 7-Eleven through Japanese ownership34:17: Staying Curious at 70+38:05: Director's Cut Takeaways40:31: Cherie’s reflection on ‘embracing change’41:17: Reflecting on the three C’s45:45: Mythbusting the Blockbuster collapse47:50: Closing thoughts🐯👯‍♀️ We’re the Tiger Sisters — your Wall Street & Silicon Valley big sisters Decoding Money • Power • Love✨ New episodes every Monday | Shorts all week ✨💌 Want to partner with us? Sponsorships: [e-mail] trust us?▫️ Cherie Brooke Luo — 100M+ views demystifying tech, finance & MBAs▫️ Jean Luo — ex-Goldman Sachs, ex-Snapchat exec, 50+ AI patents, startup investor▫️ Together: 4 Ivy League degrees • built billion-dollar products • two startups — decoded for youWhat you’ll get (and keep):▫️ 🚀 Ivy League cheat sheets — no $250K tuition▫️ Personal finance playbooks (salary, investing, negotiation)▫️ Networking scripts behind $100M+ deals & job offers▫️ Real conversations with CEOs, operators & investors▫️ Mindset resets — clarity without the pricey coach▫️ Systems for career, money, and long-term growth💛 LET’S CONNECT~ CHERIE ~Instagram — /cherie.brookeTikTok — /cherie.brookeSubstack — cherieluo.substack.comLinkedIn — /cherie-luo~ JEAN ~Instagram — /jeanluo_LinkedIn — /jeanluo👉 Hit Subscribe & tap the 🔔, then leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review on Spotify & Apple Podcasts. It takes 10 seconds and makes a massive difference in helping new people discover Tiger Sisters.🛍️ Items:🍵 Sisters Matcha — www.sistersmatcha.com🌀 Everything else — https://amzn.to/3z0dx5b

Prepare to win. The more prepared you are, the more confident you can be, and the better chance of winning you'll have. In your honest opinion, do you feel like Americans are becoming dumber? I think we're becoming lazier, but not dumber. Information is power, which is kind of a variant of education is freedom. What we're doing is exercising something called neuroplasticity, because your brain is basically a series of electronic impulses. But you can use that to truly... reprogram your mind.

This episode reminds me of the different ways we can get unstuck. I'm Cherie. I'm Gene. And we're the Tiger Sisters. We are your Wall Street and Silicon Valley Big Sisters. And we're a top 10 business podcast bringing late night sister talk meets boardroom strategy. What up, what up, what up, what up, Tiger fam. Welcome to our director's cut episode with Jim Keys.

So our director's cut is this new format that Jean and I are trying out, where We're going into the archives and getting the best of the best conversations, the people, the guests we've invited onto our podcasts. And we are remixing it now. We're bringing back the episode and with our key takeaways now that it's been a few months since that live conversation. Yeah. And it's actually really surprising how many new thoughts we have when we go back and we rewatch the episode ourselves. There's just so much reflection that comes with time. And looking back on these episodes, I'm like, wow, I'm like learning things.

all over again by listening to the conversation, even just myself. So I first met Jim Keys at a conference of a mutual friend of mine, actually Fernando, who was also a guest on Tiger's Sisters. Also a friend of the pod, a guest of the pod. So that's how I met Jim, and we were both speaking at a conference together, and that's how we got to know each other. And I just remember the first time I met him, I had no idea who he was, but he just is a person that has so much, like, passion and energy even the first time you meet him. He told me all about his book, education is freedom. And I was like, wow, this book sounds amazing. And he actually literally ran to his car. We went to his car, which was parked outside at the valet. He pulled out a book. He autographed it for me right in that second,

and he gave it to me. That's so sweet. And that's kind of how this all came about. But I mean, this episode, looking back on it is so amazing because I realize even just listening to this episode that it is like a business masterclass. We actually very casually talk about so many different concepts. We talk about supply chain. We talk about cold chain management. We talk about cash management. We talk about business across cultures.

Like, do you even remember? It's like so casually mentioned. Also, like, chock full of a lot of great business, advice, anecdotes. And honestly, from like an industry veteran who has seen, he's been at the helm of two Fortune 500 companies and talking very casually and excited about it. So I love this conversation. We have so many good takeaways. So for this director's cut episode, the way that you should watch it is chronologically, if you haven't seen this conversation before. So Gene and I will play the conversation that we had with Jim Keys. And afterwards, we'll go through our main takeaways,

now looking back on it a few months later. If you've already seen this episode with Jim Keys, feel free to take your scrubber and skip to the takeaways at the end. So Jim Keys is the former CEO and business leader of two Fortune 500 companies, both 7-Eleven, which he worked at and led for over 20 years. And also Blockbuster, when Blockbuster was obviously going through a very transformational time in business. I think even more important, though, is how Jim Keys brings, and I don't know why I keep saying his full name like that, but how Jim brings so much humility and context into the conversation where he shares how he grew up. Basically, Jim grew up in a very poor circumstance.

His house didn't have any running water. He talks about his relationship with his father who passed away when he was quite young and how his father was a factory worker tied to their situation and tied to his day job, which really informed how Jim lives his life afterwards. Yeah, he talks about, you'll see in the conversation, he talks, about how his father never had more than a sixth grade education. And yet his father is the one who maybe because of that really pushed Jim to invest in his education and told him, this is the most important thing. It's even more important than money because one of the things you'll

see in the conversation is that Jim said to his dad, like, hey, dad, like, should I go out and work right now? Like, should I try to make as much money as I can so that we can get plumbing in our house? And his dad was like, no, your number one goal is to learn. So it's just, it's just an incredible conversation. I think you guys will love it. We have so much to recap and talk about afterwards. So dive into the conversation and then stick around for our director's cuts thoughts. All right. Let's dive into the conversation. Today, we have a true Americana success story here with us in person, Jim Keys. From a three-room house with no plumbing to running two Fortune 500 companies, 7-11 and Blockbuster, Jim's story is proof that education can truly transform a life.

And Jim isn't just a CEO. He's a lifelong learner and the author of Education is freedom. His journey proves that curiosity and grit aren't just traits. They're superpowers that can be learned and that can rewrite any story. Jim, welcome to Tiger Sisters. Thank you. It's great to be with you. Rar. He was waiting for that. He was ready. He was ready to do that one. Jim, you've developed a life framework philosophy for a thriving and happening. be life. And it's built around what you call the three Cs, which are change, confidence,

and clarity. So can you walk us through all three Cs and then tell us why they're so important? Sure. I call it my gift. Yeah. You know, people say, oh, well, you're just lucky to be able to go from, you know, a house with no running water to running two Fortune 500 companies. I say, no, well, well, no. Well, I mean, not necessarily. I'm okay, but I don't think I'm a rocket scientist or anything. But what I have done is harness the power of learning and these three ways. The first is change. And the first three words that I wrote down in the book were that change equals opportunity. If you think about, and then I stepped back and I looked at it and went, oh, look at that acronym CEO. And it is the role of the CEO to be able to embrace change because

all commerce begins and ends, something changes. So change really is. opportunity. If, if you realize that there's nothing that we can do about what happens in the environment. When I took on the role of CEO of Blockbuster, it was to take it to digital streaming, to be able to embrace technology. I couldn't have predicted one of the largest economic meltdowns in the world with Lehman Brothers collapsing, et cetera. And my role, I had to embrace that change and pivot it from transforming the company and now saving the company, taking it through a restructuring, selling it to DISH Network to give it a chance of success. It's kind of like, you know, it's quite a nuanced message that you're saying is that

there's two parts to it. It's like you have to be able to be almost like evolved enough to recognize that the world is what it is, right? Things will happen in the world all the time that you cannot control. Exactly. Right. So, but you need to be able to be okay with that. Like you cannot be stressed out.

and like freaking out all the time because of things that are happening around you. But then at the same time, you're saying you have this, I don't know, what do you call it? Like self-determination. Yeah. Right? You can determine your agency within what is happening around you. You can control your own reaction to that change. You can't.

You can't. I couldn't change the fact that I was born into kind of a screwed up situation. Yeah. But I could and did have the agency to change the way I responded to that situation. and rather than become the victim of it or let others determine who I would be and what I could do, I said, no, it's up to me. I can control my own destiny.

Okay, so that's the first seat. That's the first. There's always change going on around you. You have to be okay with it. And then two, you can always change yourself. Exactly. Okay, got it. But there's a prerequisite to being able to change yourself.

Okay. You have to have confidence. Okay. Right. And so that's where a lot of us fall down. We say, okay, I can do this. I'll embrace that. change? It's not me. It's the, it's the environment. I've got this. No, maybe I don't. Because I'm not

good enough. I'm not smart enough. You know, that natural insecurity that we have too often as humans, or we're listening to other people. We're listening to others tell us that we're not good enough. We're not smart enough. And we believe it. As opposed to recognizing that we can do whatever we wish to, to do because learning is the path to being able to accomplish virtually anything. A friend of my name is Harvey McKay, a very famous author, wrote Swimming with the Sharks without being eaten alive. I said, Harvey, I'm writing this book and I've got a chapter on confidence. I can't just say be confident.

Yeah. Right? I have to say, here's some steps. You can learn to be confident. Yeah. And this is the big thing. People think you're either born confident or, no, I'm just not. It's not true.

And he said, well, okay, I'll give you, I'll give you my gift. He said, three words for being confident. Okay, simple as that. I said, yep, prepare to win. The Hulu original series Furious is coming to Disney Plus, starring Emmy Rossum. Furious follows FBI agent Alice Black on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer. Both walk their own paths toward justice and as their lives start to intertwine, The line between right and wrong begins to blur.

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Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. I was like, okay, I'm ready. I'm prepared. What are you going to tell me? And he said, no, that's it. Those are the three words. Prepare to win. And I said, Harvey, that's kind of simple.

And he said, but that's the point. The more prepared you are, the more confident you can be and the better chance of winning you'll have. You think Tom Brady was born confident? No, he worked his butt off. Mm-hmm. And prepared. And when he walks into that big game, he has reviewed game tapes and studied and prepared until he can walk on that field with absolute confidence, not something he was born with, something he was. He learned how to develop.

Yeah. And then he can win. Being prepared is one way you can take agency in your life, even if you're like, oh, I'm not confident. But if you have the determination to be more prepared than the other person, then you will become more confident. Exactly. Exactly.

You want another analogy? Because it's easy to use a sports hero and say, oh, they're confident. But when you're flying and you have turbulence, you ever wonder why the pilot is not nervous? You probably hope he's not nervous, right? Lots of simulation time. Exactly. I love that example only because it shows that you can train confidence. A pilot isn't naturally born that way.

They learn how to be confident in the cockpit, and we can apply that same skill to virtually any situation we encounter. I love that. Yeah. So the way that you learn to be more confident and less fearful, is that you have to be more prepared and also you have to trick your brain into believing that you've been here before

even if you actually haven't been there before or in that situation. Exactly. Let me change one thing, though. We're not really tricking our brain. What we're doing is exercising something called neuroplasticity because your brain is basically a series of electronic impulses

that are working off a preset of patterns, some that were prepackaged right out of the box. We come with fear built in. But you can use neuroplasticity. It's not like a neuroscientist. I'm learning. But you can use that to truly reprogram your mind, not even just tricking it, but reprogramming it. So it establishes a new set of patterns.

And if you apply this, you think about applying this to relationships. I know you guys spent a lot of time on other stuff. We don't have money, power, and love. Yeah. So let's go to the love thing. Let's hear it. Yeah. No, I mean, how often do you revert to the same patterns, the bad patterns, in relationship?

Yeah. And it causes turmoil and strife and anguish and heartache and fights or whatever, as opposed to learning to not react, but instead respond with your own agency, not be pushed into a response by your partner, perhaps. perhaps. And if you can do that, and hopefully if they can do that too, you know, maybe that's the answer to a happy life, right? Easier said than done. Okay. So then to wrap up confidence, I feel like basically you're delivering us some good news and some bad news. So the bad news is it would take, it does take a lot of work. It takes a lot of reps. It takes a lot of learning and commitment to build

up your confidence. But the good news is that you're saying anyone can build up their confidence by going through the work, by doing the work. Anyone. You don't have to be born confident. Yeah. Prepare to win. Prepare to win. Maybe we'll adopt that too. That's another quote. There's some real bangers here. Prepare to win. I love that. It's also I like it because the way that I interpret it is that in your mind's eye, you are seeing yourself winning and you can feel the confidence. Like, if you can imagine yourself there and imagine yourself succeeding, like, what a powerful image it is to have in your brain. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Okay, so then tell us about the last C. Yeah. The third C. Clarity. Why is that important for a thriving and happy life? Why is that the key?

Yeah, because simplicity is ultimately elegance. Da Vinci used to say there's elegance and simplicity. I think Coco Chanel said it better probably. But it's so true because we complicate and especially in this world of information, we complicate everything. But if you can break things down into simple terms, it's so much easier. And we have the ability to not be overly complicated, but instead break things down into simple terms by listening effectively. So it's inbound, inbound clarity, and then outbound clarity in how we communicate. I've never thought of it that way, of like clarity almost being like a force field for yourself. Yeah.

Protecting your goals and protecting your space from all the sort of like negative inputs that you come across in day to day life. Exactly. But it applies in so many elements of our life. I believe that's so deeply down to my core. I've been told I'm a very positive person. And I think like I'm, I do skew that way like very naturally. But I think relentless positivity, like not toxic positivity, but relentless

has positivity is such a good way to live because it helps you focus on what you want to do. Exactly. And also, like, the world is already, like, so negative as it is, is that, like, if you can control your own positivity and how you see situations, it helps you keep on track. Exactly. Well, and the difference, there's an important difference because you're right. There is this thing, toxic positivity. Well, you can fake positivity, but that can be very toxic because it's not genuine.

and it's not coming from within. It's not a result of you just blocking out all the noise and genuinely being happy, being positive. People have a tendency to think no one should be that happy. Right? So, Jim, to wrap us up, can you give us an explanation of how to use all three Cs together? So we got these three Cs, right?

And if you put it in a package, any one of them alone is pretty important, but it's really that combination of being able to embrace change, have the confidence to do something about it, and the clarity to then be able to execute on it. Because if you don't have that clarity, if you're not listening, you won't have the confidence.

You won't be able, you won't see the change coming. So they all work together in this beautiful harmony that eliminates fear and gives you the confidence truly to accomplish anything you want to accomplish with the power of those three things. So, Jim, when you say education, is freedom which is the title of your book yes what do you actually mean and can you give us three

reasons why education actually equals freedom well i can and and i'm going to take you back to my childhood experience growing up um my my dad didn't know what to tell me he he had never made it past the sixth grade uh himself and he knew though it wasn't about money because i used to i remember saying do you want me to go have a job and make money so we can put plumbing in the house? And he said, no, it's really not. It's material things are just things. They can take those things from you, but they can't take your knowledge. And that was his dream to one day be able to experience other cultures around the world

that were so different from his. And he wanted that for me. Now, he obviously never had a chance to do that because he was so tied to his job. and his machine in the factory that he would never have that freedom. But that is the best definition of freedom that I took with me, that this idea that's, yeah, money's a great enabler, but it's really about being able to do whatever you want to do and wherever in the world and experience all that the world has to offer. Freedom of time, freedom of choice, and of exploring opportunity.

Exactly, exactly. And I've been blessed to do that. I've been able to do business all over the world. Yeah. And I am just fascinated by other cultures. I've got a chapter in the book that you may have seen called cultural literacy. And I am very fortunate that even during college I was able to get into another cultural experience in the UK in this case. But it taught me the importance of cultural literacy and the importance of embracing people who are doing.

different because I've learned so much from all of those people that I've been able to interact with over the years. But this ability to go anywhere in the world and to be comfortable with the people of any culture is really a blessing. And that's my definition of freedom. I think the reason why we were so excited to have you here and why your book resonated with us is because we very much ascribe to a lot of what you said. Like it's just we have never expressed it in a book the way you have yet. But like a phrase that we say all the time that has kind of been become a catchphrase on Tiger Sisters is we say information is power, which is kind of a variant of education

is freedom. Absolutely. It's more just like a distilled down into more like discrete packets of information, right? Because like if you don't have education, if you don't have information, you're not able to make decisions, make informed decisions. Exactly. In your honest opinion, do you feel like? like Americans are becoming dumber.

Ouch. Good question. Yeah, I know. It's kind of scary. I'm going to give you a yes and a no. Okay. I think we're becoming lazier, but not dumber. Lazier in the sense that it's so easy to get access to information that perceptions

have taken the place of perspective. Important difference. Perception is when you see something, take it at face value. you don't engage your critical thinking, which is really what separates humans from all other species, and to be able to use that critical thinking to determine truth rather than take at face value something that you read or saw on the news. Okay, you guys have told us that you love our stats, so we have a new one for you. Did you know that over 75% of you guys who are watching are not subscribed to Tiger Sisters?

That's crazy. What's up with that? You're just watching our content and not subscribing. So you love our content, but you don't want to get notified when more. comes. Okay, let's change that stat. We are going to report on that quarterly until we get it down to below 50%. So your job right now, literally this second, is to subscribe and follow Tiger Sisters podcast wherever you're listening to this episode. So that could be on YouTube, Spotify, or and Apple podcasts. It only takes two seconds to do and it helps other people discover us so that we can continue

to produce Tiger Sisters. Thank you guys so much and we'll get back to the show. In this next section, Jim, I want to talk a little bit more about fear. Blockbusters become a case study in many grad school programs of a company that saw change coming but missed the boat. If you could rewrite that story, what would you do differently? There were several things that I could have done if I had a crystal ball. This is the big difference because no one saw the financial crisis of 2008 happening. Blockbuster had a billion dollars of debt going into that crisis and was virtually unable to refinance that debt. Much of it due in 2000. nine when the banks were virtually shut down.

So what would I have done? Step one, when I approached Blockbuster, it wasn't for a job. I had had quite a successful run at 7-Eleven after literally 20 years there and used technology very successfully to turn around that company. I wanted to accomplish the same thing for Blockbuster, and my intent was to take it private. So really what I was trying to do was partner with private equity, take Blockbuster Private, do the transformation to digital as necessary, and then reemerge as a public company maybe five years later. That was the plan.

Patrick. Yeah, it would have been. It would have been. But the challenge was I was I was out selling that program and one of the investors called up Carl Icon, one of the board. one of the board members for Blockbuster. Carl convinced me to just join the company as CEO, not try to take it private. And his logic was, look, Jim, I'm the financial guy.

You're the operator. Public private, you've run a public company very successfully. You know how this works. We have confidence that you can do this in the public environment. Just join us as CEO, chairman and CEO, which I did. Now, in hindsight, had I refused, and instead pressed on with taking it private, we would have refinanced 100% of that debt.

It would not have come due in 2009. It would have come due in 2012. We would have sailed right through the financial crisis without a disruption. So, again, would I have done something differently? Absolutely. But that I have a crystal ball to know? No, I didn't, unfortunately.

Well, Blockbuster is actually something that Gene is also very close in our heart. Yeah, that's true. Because we had one close to our house, maybe a five-minute walk away. And I remember spending Friday nights going to Blockbuster, walking down those aisles and like looking at all those movie, you know, those movie titles. And also the snacks at Blockbuster, too. I was a candy fiend, a sour candy fiend. And it made me feel like I was at the movie theaters with just being at home.

And just the memory of being like, oh, I hope they have this movie. I hope it's available. I hope it's available. Yeah, the new release wall, remember? Yeah, yeah. No, it was iconic. And, you know, what's really sad about the Blockbuster situation is that, well, there's a lot of sad things.

I wish we could have had a different outcome, but the perception is Blockbuster didn't keep up with technology. So false. Seven years before I arrived in the year 2000, Blockbuster was partnering with Enron. Now, Enron had a whole different set of problems. But one thing they did have was bandwidth. They had acquired Spectrum more than anyone else in the world. This would have been a beautiful partnership that would have dominated streaming had it been successful.

So they were way ahead of their time. And even in 2007, when I arrived, the first thing I did was to buy a streaming video company from the studios. Five of the six major studios created an entity called MovieLink. People forget this. So the case studies, even the Harvard case study, is actually quite, wrong because it attributes blockbuster's challenges to not keeping up with technology

and it completely misses the real learning. The best part of the most important learning from the case study is cash management and managing the balance sheet. It's not keeping up with technology. It really should be in the accounting

course. It should be. Exactly. It's not the change management course. Well, in the general management Because for any entrepreneur, cash flow is basically their oxygen. Let's rewrite the case study. Yeah, we should. Yeah, we actually could.

Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. There you go. Tiger Sisters take on Harvard Business School. I like that. I like it too.

We also have another question about another company where you were at the helm at 7-Eleven. And so you helped steer 7-Eleven through its transition to full Japanese ownership. and you were leading across two cultures, which you talked about earlier. What did that teach you about humility and adaptability? Yeah, I've learned a lot, a lot. And I spoke about it earlier. Cultural literacy was so important. I tried to learn a little Japanese.

I'm not fluent by any means, but I learned enough. I'd characterize it as really good taxicab Japanese. I can get around. Yeah. Ah, but that's an important work. So, so, so, so. That's such an important word because many Americans in doing business with the Japanese come away with a really bad experience because they are looking at a very literal translation. And as you know, Chinese, Japanese, non-Latin-based languages don't have a direct translation.

So in Japanese, the response, hi, means I acknowledge you. It does not mean I agree with you. But in English, of course, yes, implies a much stronger level of agreement. So you can be doing business with someone in Japan and they say, you're sitting in a meeting and you've worked on a contract and they say, hi, and it's interpreted by the interpreter as, yes, they agree. And then you walk in the next day and you're renegotiating the same point. An American often will look at that as an integrity issue.

Not at all. It's a cultural difference in a language. interpretation difference. So once you learn the language, even a little of another country, you can help much, much better understand the uniqueness, those very different cultural elements that allow you to do business in a much more productive fashion. And that was one of my learnings from working with 7-Eleven Japan. I love that. Do you have a Japan 7-Eleven favorite go-to snack from the con the conveni yeah i mean all over the world it's uh they're fascinating the unique thing about seven-11 is unlike starbucks or kFC we don't have one menu instead we were fortunate to partner

many many years ago with local uh licensees who would develop a very local products for their customers so my favorite product in seven eleven japan is a um a product called onigiri. Oh. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, I wanted to bring that to the United States so badly. And I'm shocked that they haven't yet. No.

Because you could Americanize it. Americans, if you think about pizza, that's not Italian, what we have here. Yeah. It's very different. We recognized it. Nor is the taco, Taco Bell, right? That's not really like a Mexican taco. We Americanized it.

I believe the opportunity is to Americanize Onegiri and put inside. you could put barbecue beef. Right? Why not? Toasted on a gigi with barbecue beef on the inside, it'd be delicious. Both sacrilegious and delicious. Well, that's what they is kind of comical, because I presented this to my board,

and I had a lot of Japanese members on the board, and I presented two product opportunities. I said, look, I'm going to have an American onigiri, and then I'm going to have an American bento. And the bento was, you know, barbecue, you, Coleslaw, you know, some sausage. And they looked at me like, you idiot, don't you understand? A bento is fish and rice.

And I was like, no, no, no, Americanize it. Anyway, I'm actually surprised that 7-Eleven hasn't yet done that in the U.S. because every country, in Taiwan, they have tea eggs, very popular in 7-Eleven. In Korea, they have kimpop. which is a Korean version of Onigiri there. They'll have kimchi inside of a rice ball. So Thailand has their own unique products and everywhere in the world,

when you go into 7-Eleven. In Sweden, they have some amazing breads that they bake right in the store. Yeah. But very localized, things that you probably wouldn't find here in the United States. In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this.

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Find out more at catallack canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. It's a cultural experience in it of itself to visit the 7-Elevens of the world. It is. is. In fact, one of the things that you guys should come with me. We could do a... I would love to.

Wait. I want to go shoot a video in every 7-Eleven. We haven't mentioned that like when we go to Japan, like 60% of our meals are 7-Eleven. Oh yeah. Oh, they're the onigiri, the tuna mayo onagiri. Yeah. That's my lunch. Maybe my breakfast. Yeah. And the egg sandwich. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. It's so good. The bread there is just, but they have a different, I tried to copy their bread in the United States. We have a whole different set of laws here in the U.S. for food safety that won't allow the same richness of butter content in the bread that makes it so soft in Japan. Yeah. And the refrigeration requirements here in the United States are much more strict. So you can carry refrigerated products in Japan at, you know, let's say 55 degrees. And I can't

remember the actual numbers, but at a lot higher temperature. They're still chilled, but they're not. The United States, we have to keep them at like between 35 and 40 degrees and so that dries out the bread. Cold chain management. Cold chain is what it is. Man. Exactly. It is.

It will catch you every time. It is. But it's also being able to work with local authorities to relax the standards. If you can, for example, the reason that our standards is so strict is refrigeration wasn't over the years. managed electronically. So you had to have some buffer there to protect the consumer. But when you can electronically measure it and have someone dispatched immediately to correct it if the temperature falls below a certain threshold, then you could basically petition to allow a little higher refrigeration rate or level, which would end up producing much higher quality product

for the consumer. So all of these things are fixable. It's why we can't have nice things. That's why we can't have Onigiri at 7-Eleven in America. And the egg sandwiches. One day you will. Yeah. They'll come. Okay, so we're going to Japan. We have a lot of... We're going to Japan with you, Jim. Going to Japan with you. I helped bring, I help to bring 7-Eleven to Beijing before the Olympics, the first Olympics. Wow. They actually, the Beijing government actually came to Dallas, Texas to ask us. Now, most, at the time, most companies were begging for the privilege of going to China. And we had already had stores in Hong Kong. And then, of course, across the border in Guangdong province and Shenzhen, but none in, you know, the bulk of China. And so the Beijing government

came to Dallas. We were shocked and said, we'd like 500 stores in time for the Olympics. This is like a year and a half before. And we said, and it's probably, impossible. And they were like, hold my beer. And they made it happen. It was pretty incredible. Yeah, it was fascinating experience doing business. This is early in China's new approach. True. You know. In fact, I remember doing business the first time in driving through Beijing and seeing more bicycles than cars than I'd go back five years later and cars are all Mercedes. Yeah. bikes are gone, you know, pretty amazing. That's like an iconic time in history, in like business history.

It is, it is. It's been fascinating to watch. So, Jim, you are 70 years young. Oh, gee. Is this correct? Yeah, let's reward that. All right, let's just say. No, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. Yeah, yeah, going on 12. There you go.

So you now invest in frontier sectors, like, space. advanced energy, AI, AR. How can older leaders today stay ahead of that curve? I think that we have to all engage our inner child. In all seriousness, I've never grown up. And that can be a bad thing or a good thing. I'm probably very immature at times. Yeah.

It can be a little embarrassing. What do you mean, joyful? Joyful, yeah. It's what it is. I have fun. But in all seriousness, I never lost that wide-eyed curiosity of a child. I never lost it. And I don't know why.

I think it was just never beaten out of me. As in many cases, people will. They'll stifle that curiosity of children. And then creativity is another thing that I think allows me to engage that curiosity. It lets me get out and explore. So I paint and I sculpt and I write music and I do this other stuff. I'm never going to be any good at it. But again, it's intelligence having fun.

And I think those things help me defy the normal conservatism that creeps in with age over time. Maybe the point isn't to be good at it. Maybe the point is just in the process of doing. I think you're exactly right because it's it's in those things. that are outside of your comfort zone, that's when learning really happens. And that's when the fun happens, as long as you can overcome that fear. There's no such thing as failure. And there's no such thing as bad when it comes to trying, you know, something new.

And so for our viewers today, where can they find you online or social media and education is freedom. So James W.kees.com. Yes. They can also follow me on Instagram at J. Keys, J-K-E-Y-E-S author. And I've got some fun clips out there, as you know, on Instagram and TikTok. And I'm also out there, of course, LinkedIn and other places. So I look forward to having your audience check it out. Perfect. Thank you so much for chatting with us today. Thank you. Fun. Yeah. This is really fun.

It's been a party. So am I an official Tiger brother yet? Yes, you are. And then as a thank you for being on our podcast, we have a little gift for you. Oh, wow. This is our matcha brand. Oh, awesome. And actually, I mean, since you've been to Japan so many times, I think you'll appreciate this.

This is our brand. It's called Sisters Macha. I love it. It's from a small family farm outside of Kyoto in the town of Wazuka, next to Uji. and this is a farm that I've lived on for over a month, and Gene has worked and lived there as well. And it's from, I mean, family owned. It's my boss, the farmer, his wife,

and they're like four full-time employees. And this batch specifically, we actually went back at the end of May for harvest season, and we manually participated in harvesting this macha, these leaves. So I have a gift coming for you. Oh. And I didn't think about it, but this triggered this thought.

Yay. Amazing. I've got one for you. Yay. That'll be fun. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. And we're back. Oh my God. What a great conversation with Jim. So many good learnings and takeaways. I'm so ready to dive in. Yeah. Okay.

I think the first thing that I wanted to talk about is that watching this episode back, one of the things that I realized is how important the, like, concept and goal of education is to me. Yeah. And it's something that I think I always knew my entire life, but like hearing Jim talk about it and how passionate he is about it. I'm like, I feel all those same things and I feel just as passionately about it. I just didn't have the words and like the vocabulary and the turn of phrase to say it exactly the way that he says it. Yeah. Do you mean like education in terms of just like focusing on school or pursuing higher education?

Like what part of it do you think really resonated with you? I mean, I think all of the above. like you hear Jim talk about how education is what changed his life. Yeah. And even how when he was in school, like him getting to study abroad, that changed his worldview, right? There's just so many things you can get in education that I don't really have, I don't know exactly what to like do about it aside from what we're doing today,

where we feel like we're trying to, you know, disseminate education and all this wisdom from all these amazing people we speak to like Jim. But I just am like, oh, I really feel like it is part of my, my life's work in a way. I love, I mean, his, the title of his book and also his catchphrase is education is freedom. And we believe that's so deeply to our core where I think for us, education is a tool for socioeconomic mobility in America and talk about the American dream. Like I think Jim epitomizes the American dream from like started from the bottom, literally.

Yeah. And really being the CEO of two Fortune 500 companies, which is absolutely an insane story. And he's still paving his way now using his own voice to talk about how important education is. Yeah. The other thing that I loved about this episode, like watching it back, is like you said, all of his catchphrases. Right. So how he says the three Cs and how he talks about the first one is change. Change equals opportunity.

Opportunity. CEO and it's like is kind of a cheesy phrase yeah but I freaking love it yeah I mean on that point like I wrote down one of my big takeaways is that I mean when he talks about change he makes me feel less scared you know like change is always scary I think humans are averse to change but he says that a lot of amazing things come from change he says that everything begins and ends with change embrace it um he even said commerce begins and ends with change i was like whoa he brought in commerce into the conversation like that was really interesting um and so i think coming out of that i was just like okay don't be afraid of change embrace it and figure out how you can best go towards it yeah yeah and i love

how um he talked about the three Cs so what is it change confidence and clarity and he's able to sort of like distill his most important takeaways into this just three C's the phrase, right? Like I actually think watching this episode back, I'm like, this is in some ways, it's a masterclass in communication. Like without us making an episode about communication, just speaking with Jim and like hearing how he describes his ideas. And like when he speaks his ideas, they have so much clarity. Like he just makes these concepts seem so simple and easily understandable without it feeling like he's lecturing us or like talking down at us. We're just like it feels like a conversation, but I'm learning so much. So I feel like,

I don't know, that's why I love having these conversations or these interviews with these really incredible leaders because even just in speaking with them, you learn so much about communication without learning explicitly about communication. No, it's like learning through osmosis. Like just being around them and hearing how they communicate, hearing how their brain works, you're like, wait, I'm absorbing everything that's happening right now. Yeah. And he is such a good communicator. Like watching it back, I'm like, oh, wow. Like, he's just so clear. Hey, guys. So it's come to my attention that many of you don't know, Gene and I have a match brand called Sisters Macha that we created and founded ourselves. What? No way. A Macha brand? Yeah. We started it in October 24.

Gene and I have worked and lived on this matcha farm in Japan. It's sourced from Wazuka, Japan, which is an hour and a half outside of Kyoto, and the brand means the world to us. It is a small family-owned farm, and we actually travel back to the farm and handpick the matcha ourselves. So you can find out more about SistersMacha to try it, check it out, buy it. Buy it, definitely buy it. At sistersmacha.com. That's sistersMach.com. And already, back to the show.

What I loved about this conversation with Jim is how he is such a person of full agency. And I think hearing him talk about getting himself out of the situation he grew up in and how you are the captain of your own ship. It is so inspiring because I think a lot of times we can get so caught up in analysis paralysis or figuring out like what do I do or very overwhelmed in a situation. And I think that's all valid as like the first response. But Jim, what he really hammered home was that, like, you have the power to, and determination put together to really change your situation if you stick at it. And so I think that was sometimes when I feel like, oh my God, I'm stuck. This episode reminds me of the different ways we can get unstuck. Yeah.

And I think that what is really cool is that you can tell that he very much lives all these principles that he speaks about. Yeah. Right. And we did have a question in the episode where we were like, oh, you're 70 years young, L.O.L. But like the reason we brought that up is because I did want people to know that he's over 70 years old. He doesn't seem like it on camera. No. And also he's so vibrant and he's like day to day he's doing these new things even in his 70s that he's never done before in his life. And he tells us about it. And it just goes to show it's very aspirational. I'm like, oh, I could be like that when I'm 72. I could be trying new things. doing new things for the first time. Flying planes. Yeah, like taking pilot lessons. Yeah. You're learning and your life education just it never has to end. It's forever. Yeah, it's forever. It's forever. It's really inspiring. Yeah, I think something that he said that was interesting that

like struck a nerve with me. He's like, you don't have to let the old age conservatism creep in. And I was like, wait. I was like, yeah, you can actually decide not to let that happen. Yeah. And, and And the way that he does that is by remaining curious about everything around him, about the people, the culture. And he has like the maturity. He jokes of like a 12 year old. Yeah. Which I totally see. He has like golden retriever energy where he's like trying to learn new things all the time.

Yeah. It's like how I'm like so gentsy. My name is Peter Parker. But I'm also Spider-Man. This July, we're faced with a threat. That can be anyone. The world may have forgotten. Peter Parker.

I'm just a neighbor. Friendly neighbor. But he hasn't forgotten them. Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. That's my responsibility. Talk to Banner? I didn't know you could get that big. Spider-Man, brand-new day.

In theaters, July 31st. I don't know about that. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe similar. Okay, so the last thing I wanted to point out in this episode is that it actually was very revolutionary in a way because it was a myth-busting episode about blockbuster. Like hidden in all of the conversation that we had, he actually said the HBS case got it wrong. And like the common understanding about blockbusters, everyone's like, oh, Netflix came around, they ate their lunch, that's why they died. And Jim Keys comes in, Jim Keys, Jim Keys comes and tells us,

he's like, actually, that's not the case at all. I was the CEO. I was there when it happened. and it was a cash management issue. Yeah. It was because all of their cash or their loans came up in 2008 or 2009, and basically right when the financial crisis happened, and they couldn't bridge the gap there. They hadn't refinanced the way that he had originally intended. Exactly.

But he, like, came and set the truth straight. Yeah. Which I'm just like, wait a second. Does anyone have this on record? Like, we need to send this out to Harvard Business School and Harvard Business Review and all those companies and people who talk about Blockbuster, but not in the way that's history. Yeah.

Well, so he was saying that he originally intended to refinance them, and those loans would have come due in 2012 instead of like 2008 or 2009. And he was like, we would have been totally fine. And like we would have survived. And so it kind of goes to show, I don't know, just the nerd in me, the business school nerd in me is just like, this is so funny how everyone thinks it's this huge case study about technology and how blockbuster was left behind because they didn't have the new technology. Digital transformation.

Digital transformation when in fact it is a very cut and dry boring story about cash management, which is like the most boring lesson that you could have in business school. But it like toppled this behemoth of a company, this like cultural like touchstone of a company. Yeah. Jim came to set the record straight. You heard it here, guys, on Tiger Sisters, Breaking News. Breaking news 20 years later. Yes, exactly.

Well, thank you guys so much for tuning in to this episode of Tiger Sisters. We hope you are enjoying our director's cut episodes where we give you an inside look on our key takeaways and the biggest things that we find most important in the conversation, especially after we're revisiting it a few months later. Okay, comment what you think was most interesting about this episode and definitely subscribe. and rate us five stars. Thanks guys. We'll see you next time. Bye.