Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - YAPClassic: Jason Feifer on Embracing Change

Episode Date: August 24, 2022

Did you know that people were once afraid of things like bicycles, elevators and teddy bears? Humans are naturally resistant to change, even change that helps us. We are scared new technologies, new i...deas, and new ways of living. The people who embrace change are the ones who succeed most in life.  Today we’re talking to Jason Feifer, Editor in chief of Entrepreuer Magazine. Jason is recognized as an authority on change— providing thought leadership on why people resist it, and the importance of embracing it. On this episode of #YAPClassic, learn how Jason rose to the top of his field as a journalist and developed his personal brand. We’ll also dive deep into change and how entrepreneurs can both better embrace change and help their customers more easily accept and adapt to new technologies.  Topics Include: -Jason’s background in media  -Why did Jason quit his job at Gardner News?  -Why does Jason have so many side hustles? -Taking opportunities that aren’t assigned to you  -How to ‘work your next job’ -Skill stacking  -Being aware of what you need to learn  -The importance of challenging yourself  -What makes a thought leader? -The power of embracing change  -How have people historically feared change? -Why do people fear new technology?  -How to showcase new & innovative ideas  -What new technology are people resisting? -Replacement vs. integration of new technology  -How do we falsely romanticize the past to resist change?  Jason Feifer is the Editor in chief of Entrepreneur Magazine who has led an amazing career as a journalist, working at publications such as Fast Company, Men’s Health, and Maxim Magazine. He hosts two podcasts: Build For Tomorrow and Problem Solver.  Earlier this year, he released a book called Build For Tomorrow that outlines how humanity has rejected and embraced change over time. His goal is to help you become more resilient and adaptable in a world of constant change — so you can seize new opportunities before anyone else does! Sponsored By: Shopify - Go to shopify.com/profiting, for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features Sabio - Go to sabio.la/yap and save $125 on your total bootcamp cost!   Resources Mentioned: YAP Episode #70:  Build For Tomorrow podcast: https://www.jasonfeifer.com/build-for-tomorrow/  Jason’s Instagram:  Jason’s website: https://www.jasonfeifer.com  Connect with Young and Profiting: Hala’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/     Hala’s Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/yapwithhala/     Hala’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/yapwithhala  Clubhouse: https://www.clubhouse.com/@halataha   Website: https://www.youngandprofiting.com/  Text Hala: https://youngandprofiting.co/TextHala or text “YAP” to 28046 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode of YAP is sponsored in part by Shopify. Shopify simplifies selling online and in-person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com-profiting. You can crush your fingers and all your toes during a data center migration. You can knock on wood, pluck a dozen four leaf clovers or look to your lucky stars for a successful office expansion.
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Starting point is 00:01:02 interview some of the brightest minds in the world. My goal is to turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your everyday life, no matter your age, profession or industry. There's no fluff on this podcast, and that's on purpose. I'm here to uncover value from my guests by doing the proper research and asking the right questions. If you're new to the show, we've chatted with the likes of XFBI agents, real estate moguls, self-made billionaires, CEOs, and bestselling authors. Our subject matter ranges from enhancing productivity,
Starting point is 00:01:35 had to gain influence, the art of entrepreneurship, and more. If you're smart and like to continually improve yourself, hit the subscribe button because you'll love it here at Young & Profiting Podcast. If there's anything the past two years has taught us, it's that change is inevitable and those of us who resist it will fall behind. But how do we become more comfortable with change? Today on YAP, we're chatting with Jason Feiffer to answer that question. Jason is a renowned journalist, author, and public speaker.
Starting point is 00:02:06 He also is the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur magazine. Jason has led an incredible career as a journalist, holding senior editor positions at outlets like Fast Company, Men's Health, and Maxim magazine. Jason is a host of the popular podcast, Built for Tomorrow, and is recognized as an authority on change, providing thought leadership on why people resist change and the importance of embracing it.
Starting point is 00:02:32 Jason first came onto the show in June of 2020 when there was a lot of change taking place for everyone. Some entrepreneurs were resisting those changes, while others were using them to their advantage. In this conversation, we hear about the silly things people used to be afraid of in the past, like teddy bears, elevators, and bicycles. And we learn why people naturally fear the new. Then we get into how companies and entrepreneurs can overcome our human tendency to fear new things,
Starting point is 00:02:59 and the tactics we can use to get our customers to accept and adapt new innovations. This is a truly fascinating episode. If you want to understand why historically people have been afraid of change and then hear actionable strategies that can help you and others adapt faster and thrive in a constantly changing world, then this is an episode you don't want to skip. Hey everyone, it's Halav from Young and Profiting Podcast. I'm here with the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine, Jason Feiffer. Hello. Welcome to the show.
Starting point is 00:03:31 Oh, hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. So I am very excited for this interview. So Jason, for those who don't know anything about you, you do a lot of cool things. Could you let us know who Jason Fifer is and how do you spend your days? Yeah, so thanks so much for having me. I am the Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine. I also host three podcasts. They're called Pessimists Archive,
Starting point is 00:03:56 Problem Solvers and Hush Money. I do did, I don't know how to say it in a world of, in which we're all still semi-locked down. I did a lot of public speaking and we're all still semi-locked down, there are a lot of public speaking, and we'll hopefully continue to do that. I'm a novelist and working on another book now. And generally, I think of myself as someone who likes to inspire people to feel good about doing hard things.
Starting point is 00:04:20 The entrepreneurs and people who have adopted that mindset of entrepreneurship are setting out on a journey that they know is going to be difficult. And yet, even though they know it's going to be difficult, as you get down the path, you feel lonely and crazy and you look around and you're like, did I do the right thing? And I want to be there to say, yes, like not only did you do the right thing, but the thing that you're feeling is something that everybody else who has taken this journey is feeling to like you may feel alone, but you are not. You are actually having a very shared experience. So I see my role
Starting point is 00:04:55 as being something of a guide for that and helping people through it and also helping people to embrace the change that is necessary to get through it. Cool. And so tell us about your profession. What is your, I know you have a day job and then you have lots of side hustles. Yeah. Well, I mean, my background is in media. So I started as a community newspaper reporter, which means that I was a reporter for a very small paper. It was the Gardner news and Gardner Massachusetts circulation.
Starting point is 00:05:24 The 6,000, like covering nothing, like nothing was happening in this town. And I quit after a year because I had this realization. The realization was that nobody was reading the Gardner news at a place that I wanted to work out. Or like I imagined working at the New York Times with a washing and posts. I wanted to do big things and like reach big audiences and write about important stuff. And I realized not a single person at the New York Times was ever going to read this piece about like local diners that I wrote in the gardener news.
Starting point is 00:05:58 And so I needed to stop sitting around and thinking that they would come to me. And I needed to go to them. And so I quit that job and I sat in my bedroom for nine months. I was living in an apartment next to a graveyard and hold in Massachusetts. I would sit there looking out like a pawn the graveyard feeling like it was my career. And then I would just cold pitch and I just reached out to editors and I just sat and came up with ideas and hustled. That's how I got into the Washington Post and the Boston Globe and Associated Press in New York Times.
Starting point is 00:06:28 And that taught me something as I then eventually kind of went back into the normal workforce, which was I always needed to be going to people. I always needed to be thinking about what I could do to get in front of people to constantly build myself. Because if I just sat around and waited for people to come and like recognize my genius, it was never going to happen. So that's how I have continued to build my career. I mean, that's the reason why I run a national magazine, but I'm doing all these other things on the side.
Starting point is 00:06:56 The entire point of it is to be aware that no matter how good I am at doing the thing I'm already doing, the other stuff, the stuff that I'm just digging up, that I'm exploring, that I'm trying, that I'm expanding, that stuff is ultimately more valuable, and I always wanna be pushing myself. That's very cool. Yeah, I've listened to so many of your interviews, and I know it's really important for you
Starting point is 00:07:19 to be in a learning environment, and I'd like to kind of stick on that point. So, it wasn't your end goal to actually be editor in chief of some national magazine. That wasn't really your goal. Talk to us about how you had the grit and kind of worked your way up to landing that role and the mentality that you had while you were going on your career journey, because everybody always tells us like, you know, have your end goal in mind and then work backwards from that or look at somebody who has that role that you want and see what career they had. What did you do to get to have such a prestigious role? So I think that that's fine advice to a point that you should identify your end goal and then work backwards from that or find people who are doing the kinds of things. That's fine, but I would encourage you to at the same time as you're doing that, be completely okay
Starting point is 00:08:12 abandoning that. Just like straight up abandon it. And the reason for that is because you have no idea what it is that you will learn along the journey and you will I guarantee discover things that are exciting that might fit you better as you get a better understanding of what you love to do and what your real skill set is. And also you may have an idea of where it is that you want to go, but there's a chance. Like I want to prepare you for the real chance that if you got there, it wouldn't be what you thought it was. It would be terrible. I'll give you an example, which is a friend of mine, will not name by name, but a friend of mine, his dream, his entire career was to work at GQ Magazine.
Starting point is 00:09:01 And then he got there. I mean, he got to GQ magazine and he was elated. And then he realized, it is kind of terrible. Like it was terrible working there. The working environment was kind of terrible, working under the editor in chief at the time who was a very smart guy, but was very hard to work with.
Starting point is 00:09:20 And there was no joy in it. And he was stuck there because he had had this one idea of what he was going to be when he achieved. And that was to be an editor at GQ. And then he got there and he was stuck. So here's how I've thought about my path. I always thought, okay, I thought, you know, this is, it kind of builds off of something
Starting point is 00:09:42 that I said a minute ago, but I want to like dive into it because I think it's, it just sort of gives you a picture of it. I have this idea that I call work your next job. And work your next job means this. In front of you, in front of you, in front of me, in front of everybody watching this, everybody listening to this,
Starting point is 00:10:00 they're right now there are two sets of opportunities. Opportunity set A are the opportunities that are the things that are being asked of you by your job, by other people, the way that you're being evaluated, what is your KPI, your key performance indicator? Anything that you're being judged on, that's opportunity set A. Go to work, these are the things that are being asked of you.
Starting point is 00:10:22 That's opportunity set A. Opportunity set B is everything that's available to you that nobody's asking you to do. And that can be stuff at your work, and that can be stuff that is not at your work, that is just, you know, if you freed up some time at home, you could get into it, you could learn how to podcast, you could learn anything. I always think, and I've always felt my entire career, that opportunity set b was more important. That I would go to a job, I would take the job, and the reason I would take it was because I had a sense
Starting point is 00:10:51 of what I would learn from it. I worked at Men's Health, I do not care about fitness tips, I do not care about weight loss tips. What I cared about was learning how to do a specific kind of editing called packaging, that Men's Health does really well, and I wanted to do it at a national level. That was my first national magazine job. I knew I would come in, I would learn that skill.
Starting point is 00:11:11 At the same time as I was doing that, I would find other things that I wasn't hired to do that I could learn and grow and build, and then I would get out of there, and I would do it all over again. And the reason that I have been able to build my career and the way that I have and end up in this really awesome role that I could not have possibly anticipated was because I focused on those skills and just building those skills and I focused on working my next job, constantly developing new things that nobody was asking me to do that would put me in a position to succeed in a way that I couldn't imagine. And that path has ping-ponged me around the world of media and has forced me to redefine myself over and over again,
Starting point is 00:11:50 but has been so much more satisfying than if I tried to follow some straight path. Yeah, I love that. I think you just brought out so many great gems. The thing that resonated with me is that you were more concerned about the skills you were gonna learn rather than like the brand name that you were going to work for. And I think it's really important. Sometimes you take a job to learn new skills and you might not really resonate with the brand's mission,
Starting point is 00:12:12 but you actually gain new skills. And then you can transfer those skills to another job where you might align better with those missions. It's kind of like something we talk about on the show a lot is skill stacking. So, you know, you take one skill from one experience, and then you use it in a different way in another experience and you just keep layering on these skills until you're really desirable in the marketplace in your field. So that's right. You know what? I love the phrase skill stacking. I'm just going to add another one to it. I was talking a while ago to a guy named Greg. He's the C-O-O. I don't know, he's one of the co-founders of a company called Foodsters. They make like baking mixes and stuff. Sarah Michelle Geller, famous as being Buffy, the vampire, she is one of the co-founders.
Starting point is 00:12:55 Anyway, he said this thing to me, which really stuck with me, which is that when he's looking for co-founders, looking for partners, looking for people to work with to build something he's been through this many times, he's always looking for what he calls situational awareness, which is to say he wants people who are aware of what they're good at and aware of what they're not good at and that they are able to focus on their strengths and then partner with people who are really good at the things that they're not. And that's really valuable. It's valuable for you to always have situational awareness to be very, very open about the things that you need to learn.
Starting point is 00:13:27 That's how I carved my path. I went from Boston Magazine to Men's Health to Fast Company to Maxim to Entrepreneur but that doesn't make any sense unless you know that I was constantly aware of what I didn't know. Why did I go from Men's health to fast company? Because I knew that I had no real idea how to write and edit like long, 3000 word stories. And I needed to know how to do that.
Starting point is 00:13:52 And so I didn't care what magazine would let me do it. I wanted that. Well, why did I go to Maxim? Maxim's a disgusting magazine. I have no interest in working at Maxim. But the reason I did it was because there was an opening for a deputy editor job, which would have put me into a management role. And I knew that I really didn't know how to manage people. And I needed an opportunity to do that. So I would walk into this disgusting
Starting point is 00:14:12 magazine and I would learn how to manage. And then I would get out of there. And that's fine. That's great. Because what matters most is skills because those are transferable. The rest of your career far more than like whatever random thing you happen to be doing at the job that day. Yeah. Totally. I totally agree. And I can definitely thing you happen to be doing at the job that day. Yeah, totally. I totally agree. And I can definitely really, I used to work at Hewlett Packard and I was in marketing. And I kept getting promoted.
Starting point is 00:14:32 I got promoted five times and I was really rising up the ranks. But Hewlett Packard is kind of an old-fashioned company and I knew that if I stayed there, I wouldn't have advanced my skills. Now I work at Disney Streaming and I'm at like the cutting edge of marketing and technology where previously it was kind of old school. And it turns out when I started at Disney, I was so overwhelmed because I was like, oh my God, I was the most technical person at HP. And now I'm just like everyone else, if not a little bit behind the curve.
Starting point is 00:15:00 And I've got to learn all these things. But now I've learned so much and it's been totally worth it. And pain is growth. So it was challenging and was hard, but it worked out. So that's awesome. And I love, so it's so interesting that you said, you know, you were, you were the most technical person in your department at HP because had you stayed there, you would have never been challenged to be more tech, to be smarter, to be better, right? And the, the people who I've worked with throughout my career, who I would say were the worst, or like when I think back to a previous magazine I worked at, and what are the very senior people
Starting point is 00:15:33 who I worked with, I consider to be the single worst person I ever worked with, just unbelievably rude, no opening in this guy's head for how to think differently or how you could reimagine what you do in this. He was so stuck in his ways and he was so mean about it. And it should not surprise you at all that that guy had spent his entire career at that magazine. He started as an intern and he worked his way up and he'd been there for like 15 years. Nobody ever challenged him.
Starting point is 00:16:03 He never had to go into new environments and learn new things and discover that, oh, maybe I was pretty good at that over there, but I actually suck at it over here and I need to rethink what I do. Right? Like, he never had to do that. And that's why he was so terrible. Yeah, and definitely could stunt your growth if you don't go out there and get more opportunities. And you can be like a big fish in a small pond very easily
Starting point is 00:16:26 and not be able to expand your skills. So totally agree there. So Jason, I wanted to understand if your personal brand happened first, or if your job at Entrepreneur Magazine actually happened first, because I have a full time job, like I just mentioned, and I have this podcast on the side. And sometimes it's difficult to navigate having a personal brand while representing a corporation. I want to understand
Starting point is 00:16:50 your perspective on that, how you balance that, and what came first, did being the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur magazine kind of push you to the limelight, or were you doing that already? I think a lot about my relationship as a personal brand with my relationship with my employer. So this is a great subject. I mean, the very quick answer, and then I'll give you the long answer. The very quick answer is that
Starting point is 00:17:15 for this version of my personal brand, entrepreneur came, the job came first. So here's what happened. I had, throughout my career, been very interested in stepping out and being more forward-facing as a person and speaking in my own voice. But I have to be honest, for most of my career, I had no idea what my voice was. I was developing a writer's voice, but I didn't know what like I meant to people.
Starting point is 00:17:43 I hadn't thought through that. And I had really been given no opportunity to do it. I mean, you know, occasionally I'd be on TV for this or that interview or whatever, but I just, you know, and I'd created a couple like random viral things that got me some attention, but I didn't know what it was. And then I got this job as Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur magazine. I was originally executive editor, which is the number two at a magazine. And then the editor in chief left and I made a play for the top spot. And I got it. And at first, honestly, I thought of it as a magazine job. I thought of it as a media job, the way that every other job of mine was. I was like, I'm going to scrap this magazine. White sheet, the whole thing. We're going to rethink what this is. We're going to rethink
Starting point is 00:18:24 how we communicate as a brand. The editor in chief of the magazine is basically the face of a brand and also the person who is in control of all the editorial, everything that we put out. So I wanted to think about what entrepreneur could be now in this new world in which the word entrepreneur is not like obscure. It's now a mindset and identity. And it's so I spent about a year doing that. And then after I felt like I got it into a good place, I started accepting interview requests. And I would go on these shows or in these podcasts and people would introduce me as a thought leader
Starting point is 00:19:03 in entrepreneurship. Jason Fiverr, we got Jason Fiverr here as a thought leader in entrepreneurship. Jason Fiverr, we got Jason Fiverr here, he's a thought leader in entrepreneurship. My instinct was to say, no, so I'm not a thought leader. I'm actually a journalist because if you're a journalist, you're trained, you're not the story, you're just supporting the trend. And so I was like, what I do, and I'm not even, I don't even have a business background. I really, I'm like a generalist and I tell me, it was like falling supporting the trick. And so I was like, I, you know, I, what I do, and I'm not even, I don't even have a business background. I really, I'm like a generalist,
Starting point is 00:19:27 and I tell me, it was like falling down the stairs. Tum, tum, tum, tum, right? Like it was terrible. And you could hear the hosts would then try to, like, reel it back in because I was ruining the reason that I was on their show. Or they were like, well, we think of you as a thought leader. And so I was telling my wife about this.
Starting point is 00:19:41 And she said, she gave me the greatest advice that I've gotten for this faith, this phase of my career. And that was, if they want about this. And she said, she gave me the greatest advice that I've gotten for this phase of my career. And that was, if they want you to be a thought leader, then be a thought leader. And I realized that the only difference between someone who's a thought leader and someone who's not a thought leader is that the thought leader is willing to say they're a thought leader.
Starting point is 00:19:57 Like, that's literally it. It's the only difference. And so I spent a long time thinking about what I am, how can I be relevant to this audience And so I spent a long time thinking about what I am, how can I be relevant to this audience that I'm, like what overlap is there between my passions and my personal experiences and the things that people are looking for. And I came up with this philosophy for personal brands,
Starting point is 00:20:19 in case anyone's interested in sort of personal branding, which is that you are not, you know, I think people think, well personal brand is like, oh, you just put yourself out there and people, no, be a character. You are a character. You are a very simple version of yourself, a version of yourself that is constantly delivering at the same time, predictability and surprise, because that's what people want from a brand that's what they want from media right. I mean if you turn on a TV show there's a predictability to it the predictability is you know what the show is you know you like the show you like
Starting point is 00:20:55 the characters you like where it's going the surprises that you don't know what's happening next right but you but it's all in part of the same thing so you know but if you if you picked up entrepreneur magazine and it was 17 magazine bad surprise rather you need the predictability a personal brand is the same thing. People have to know why they're tuning into you. What do you offer to them? What kind of what is what is the way that you fit into their lives and the way that you do that is that you simplify yourself down into this predictable surprise package that people know what they're getting. And so I started to realize that the thing that I, you know, I said it in the very beginning, when you asked me to define myself, I realized that the thing that I, that I was doing, the thing that I was able to offer was this kind of combination of like motivation and perspective all around change, all around how you have to change in your journey, you have to change the
Starting point is 00:21:43 things that you work on, you have to change inside of yourself. I had gone through that personally and so I could speak to it even though, let's be honest, and I'll be totally transparent, I haven't built a company. I'm running Entrepreneur Magazine. The only company that I've built is like my own personal brand and my podcasts. This is not the same, but the journey, the emotional experience of it is very similar. And so I've been able to speak to that. I flattened myself out.
Starting point is 00:22:08 I came up with the voice that I speak in. I came up with the attitude. I came up with some ethos, right? So like I thought, okay, one of the things that I always am is accessible. That's a word in my personal brand, accessible. What does that mean? It means that I will respond to everybody.
Starting point is 00:22:24 If you DM me, you will get a response. It means that I do things in a kind of raw way so that it feels a little imperfect and it feels like more real. You're just there with me, right? I mean, I don't have a background here. I'm just like in a living room. So that's all intentional.
Starting point is 00:22:40 That's all thinking about the personal brand. And now I'm always constantly evolving it. I'm putting things out. I'm experimenting. And now I'm always constantly evolving it. I'm putting things out. I'm experimenting. I'm seeing how people respond to it. But I'm always thinking of myself as a character. You right now are not talking to Jason Fyfer. You're not.
Starting point is 00:22:55 You're because if you were talking to Jason Fyfer, I got all other things. I got bored with talks about my kids and boring things. You're talking to me because of a very small slice of my experience, which is the slice that's relevant to your audience. I'm aware of that, and I'm constantly, constantly drilling into it. That's what I mean. You are a character. You're a personal brand. So they're related. I think that my personal brand helps entrepreneur, and I think that hot entrepreneur helps my personal brand, but I do see them as as distinct entities. Because of course, you have to remember,
Starting point is 00:23:25 unless you work at a company that you own, that relationship is not forever. That relationship is also uncontrollable. I don't own entrepreneur. I do own my personal brand. And so I want to be building both, but aware of how they're distinct. Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. Young and profitors, do you have a brilliant business idea but you don't know how to move forward with it?
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Starting point is 00:27:05 about something called a story journal, and he inspired me to create a story journal. And basically what I did is that there's like basically chapters of your story journal. So for me, like overcoming rejection is a big topic that I like to talk about. Skills backing is another big topic that I like to talk about. And just like so on, different categories. And then you start to like fill in like what are the different stories that I have in these categories? And you start to have like a journal of all your stories. So before you go on to a podcast,
Starting point is 00:27:30 you can think about what is relevant to this audience. And you can basically like pick the stories that you're gonna keep in mind for that episode. And then you end up being a lot more, it's like a lot easier. It's not reading the story word for word. It's just like trying to remember your experiences and memories.
Starting point is 00:27:44 So I think it's great advice. I have the same thing I had just used a story word for word. It's just like trying to remember your experiences and memories. So I think it's great advice. I have the same thing I had just used a different term for it. I call it interlocking parts. There are, there's a menu of interlocking parts that I have in my head that I'm, every time, some new thing happens. So I talked to somebody interesting. I'll test it out on a podcast.
Starting point is 00:28:01 I'll test it out on stage. I'll test it out in conversation. If people like it, it feels like it works. I can add some value, then I'll test it out on stage. I'll test it out in conversation. If people like it, it feels like it works. I can add some value, then I'll refine it. I have it in my head. You're like you said, it's not a scripted thing. It's never been written down, but there are little bitty interlocking parts, things that I can just, as you're asking me a question right now, I'm rifling, at any time you're doing that, I'm rifling through my head to the interlocking part that I know is going to fit, because I know
Starting point is 00:28:26 it works, and I've done it a bunch of times, and I know how to say it, and I know what the point is, and I know what the beats are, and I think that you nailed it. I mean, like anybody who wants to do this, you need to be constantly every second of your day alert to what can be your interlocking part or part of your story journal or whatever you want to call it. Yeah. So we do a lot of research here on Young and Profiting Podcast, as I mentioned to you. And so I was looking through all your YouTube videos
Starting point is 00:28:52 and doing my typical research and I saw your speaking reel and it turns out you call yourself and you mentioned it before, a champion of change. So tell us why you feel that you are a champion of change and what credibility do you have behind that? So funny, you know, speaking of personal branding, I've been experimenting with language to describe myself and champion of change is something I honestly, I mean,
Starting point is 00:29:16 you know, like I said, a totally open book on these things. I came up with that two, three months ago and just kind of started throwing it out there to see what would happen. You're the second person to have asked me about it. So it's like, not, I don't know. I don't know how well it's working. You tell me if you think it's any good. Here's the reason that I put that out there. So I came to this realization, which is that, well, okay, a couple of things.
Starting point is 00:29:39 Number one, I was trying to understand at the very beginning of my personal brand journey, I was trying to understand at the very beginning of my personal brand journey how I am most useful to people and I realized something and that was that if you listen to the questions that people ask you, that you will get a sense of what they think that your value is because right? They're coming with some assumption about how you can be useful. So the question that I got a lot was what are the qualities that I am seeing in successful entrepreneurs? Because I am constantly talking to entrepreneurs. Like the greatest thing that I have, the greatest asset that I have right now at my job
Starting point is 00:30:24 is that I have access. I have access the greatest asset that I have right now at my job is that I have access. I have access to everybody, right? Big and small entrepreneurs you've never heard of. And like just before lockdown, I was sitting down and talking to Dwayne the Rock Johnson and his business partner, Danny Garcia, like I get the full range. And so I'm able to see these patterns of how people are succeeding and the things that they're doing that are allowing them to thrive. And so I started looking for the patterns because that's what people were asking me for.
Starting point is 00:30:56 And the thing that I realized was that the people who succeed are the ones that embrace change that are able to not just understand that they themselves need to change, that their businesses need to change, that their industries are going to change, and that they have to be proactive about it. They can't be reactive to it. They can't be changing when they're forced to, when it's too late. They have to do it first. They have to do it sometimes when it's very painful.
Starting point is 00:31:23 And so that was a really useful piece of information. They said, okay, people think that my value to them is that I'm seeing the patterns. So let me identify the patterns and the big pattern is change. At the same time, I was also working on an ongoing, I think of it as a research project, which is this podcast that I do, which is called pessimists archive. So pessimists archive is a show about why people resist new things and then how they come to embrace them. Because the crazy thing is that everything
Starting point is 00:31:54 in your life right now, everything in our world, things that you do not even think about that you totally take for granted, those things were once scary and new. And what does that mean? I'm talking literally everything. I'm talking teddy bears, I'm talking novels, I'm talking chess, I'm talking bicycles,
Starting point is 00:32:12 and it's really fascinating when you look back and you see how people were afraid of these things. We know one of my favorite ones, the bicycle, when the bicycle came out, late 1800s, the bicycles is a brand new thing. And merchants were totally freaked out about it because it was changing people's behaviors. So bar owners were very upset about the bicycle because people weren't coming in and drinking in the middle of the day anymore, drinking beer because they were now drinking water,
Starting point is 00:32:38 they were riding the bicycle. Cobblers were very upset. There was a, there was a great 1898 newspaper article that I found in which a guy who sells fancy felt hats said that he wanted Congress to pass a law mandating that every cyclist by two fancy felt hats a year to compensate him for the loss of sales. Because cyclists weren't buying these hats anymore. They were buying cycling caps. And as I look back on this, I realized that I am able to see the patterns. And the same way that I was able to see the patterns in how entrepreneurs are embracing change,
Starting point is 00:33:09 I was able to see the patterns historically in why people are afraid of change, and then how great were change makers, people who invented the elevator, people who invented the car, how they're able to get people to come along for the ride, so to speak. And so I put those two things together. And I realized that what I have is actually a really fantastic window into the history of and the embracing of change. I have come to understand change in a way that I don't know that anybody else is doing. And so that's why I came up with that phrase, champion of change, because I feel like that's where my role can be.
Starting point is 00:33:49 I'm just gonna tell you a quick story, a wanted story that I love of an entrepreneur who really embraced change and embodies not just that you need to change, but that you need to be ahead of it, that you need to proactively change. And here's what it is. Okay, so maybe some of you are familiar with beer called dogfish.
Starting point is 00:34:10 Dogfish head is a brewery in Delaware, a very popular, and many years ago, this is a guy named Sam. Sam is the founder of dogfish. Many years ago, Sam had created this beer called 90-minute IPA. It's a 9% alcohol by volume beer, which is very strong. I'm not going to the floor. And so he was being told by people who liked the beer. You know, listen, this is great, but can you create a version of this
Starting point is 00:34:35 that I can drink standing up? So he created a 60-minute IPA, 6% alcohol by volume, easier beer to drink. You can have a few of them. You won't go on the floor. And this thing takes off just absolutely crazy. call it by volume. Easier beer to drink, you can have a few of them, you won't go on the floor. And this thing takes off just absolutely crazy takes off. And it takes off so much. People love this beer.
Starting point is 00:34:55 They want this beer. They need this beer, restaurants, bars, Amtrak is calling. Everybody wants this beer. And this beer very quickly starts rising in sales. Such that it could become. It was on track to becoming 80% of all sales of dogfish, which is to say that this company, which makes a lot of beers, 80% of what they were selling was going to be this one beer, it was one beer, 60 minute IPA. Now, you might think amazing. Love this. Such a great like, wow, I'm an entrepreneur. I got a hip product. I'm going to sell this beer. I got to sell
Starting point is 00:35:31 this beer and I'm going to make as much money as I can on this moment. This is my moment. But that is not what Sam thought. Sam thought something else. Sam thought change is coming. He realized that he was right now going to be selling one style of beer, which meant that everybody was going to know him for one style of beer. Every time you went into a bar, 60-minute IPA, every time you went into a restaurant, 60-minute IPA. Every time that you went into a, you know, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,'s experience is dogfish, through this one beer, if everybody just knows me as the IPA brand, well, one day,
Starting point is 00:36:08 people are not gonna like IPAs the way that they do now. One day, the market is gonna change. And when that happens, when people are no longer interested in IPAs the way they are now, then I am not a hit brand anymore. I'm an old brand. And so Sam decided to do something that sounds crazy. Now remember, I said, this beer was on track to become 80% of everything that he sold.
Starting point is 00:36:32 He decided to cap sales of his best selling product at 50%. Which meant that a lot of restaurants were calling him and saying they won 60 minute IPA and he had to say no. And bars were calling him and he said no. People were furious. They were screaming at him on the street. I have walked around Delaware with Sam. He is like a celebrity there. They were screaming at him. And yet, Sam understood that this short term pain was necessary for long term stability. He understood that when people called and
Starting point is 00:37:02 yelled at him that he had an opportunity, not to cower, not to apologize, but to say, I understand, I'm really sorry we make this beer very fresh, and that's the reason why I can't give it to you. In the meantime, we would love you to try one of our other beers. And eventually, the anger disappeared. Eventually, people discovered that they liked
Starting point is 00:37:24 the other beers that he made. And eventually, Sam became known, not as a brand that made one kind of beer, but as an innovative brand. And last year, Sam sold that company for $300 million. And that would not have happened. If he had been afraid to say, you know what, this needs to change. If he had just seen this hit product and decided to run with it and just become the moment, just just sink in to the thing that was presented to him instead of taking action and saying, change is going to come. So I have to change first. If he hadn't done that, he would not have a longstanding business. But he did, and he sold it for $300 million.
Starting point is 00:38:06 And that's why I believe that change is important. I think that's a great point. It's so important. You say that entrepreneurs play the long game even when it hurts. That's right. I love that phrase. I do. So you already gave a real life example. So I don't need to ask you that question anymore. Let's talk about your podcast, the pessimist archive. Yeah, sure. Such a cool concept for a show, honestly. Like it's something that I would definitely listen to. It reminds me of Freakonomics a little bit. Yeah. Which was like one of my favorite podcasts before I even started one. So tell us about that show, how you got the idea for it, and maybe give us a few examples of how historically people have been resistant to new technology. Yeah, sure. So thanks. So pessimists archive is it's a show, like I said, it's about why
Starting point is 00:38:51 people resist new things. The reason that I started it honestly goes right back to what I said earlier about work your next job. I had a fascination with this with the history of people saying that things that today we know of as commonplace and not scary were scary, right? You go back in time and you find that teddy bears were accused of harming young girls. The argument was that girls will stop playing with dolls and start playing with bears, and therefore they will not learn how to be mothers. That was the argument. Novels, people worried that novels were going to become too engrossing, too distracting.
Starting point is 00:39:31 Basically, everything that people say about screens right now, about, you know, like, get that kid off a TikTok or whatever, right? And I always tell him like, an old person. But, you know, like, everything that people say, they were saying about the novel. Coffee, throughout history, throughout hundreds of years, governments have banned coffee, the governor of Mecca banned coffee in the 1600s, the king of England banned coffee,
Starting point is 00:39:54 because they thought the coffee made people revolutionary. And, you know, I could go on for kind of ever, but the point of it is that it was so interesting to see how when things are new, we treat them as if they are scary and Damaging we identify the loss without being able to see the game We we see oh this thing is coming in. It's going to replace Something that I already know and therefore I'm going to lose something and they never think through what the possible And therefore, I'm going to lose something. And they never think through what the possible game could be.
Starting point is 00:40:26 How we could build a new culture, a new society. The elevator is a fascinating one. So let me give you a walk through a good example with the elevator. So the elevator is a long and fascinating history of it. Basically, if you live in a city, you can thank the elevator for that. Because prior to the elevator,
Starting point is 00:40:44 they didn't build buildings more than like six, eight stories tall because it was just too much of a schlep. And also the way that people thought about height was totally different. So before the elevator, poor people lived at the top of buildings and rich people lived at the bottom. Because of course, it was easier to get into your home
Starting point is 00:40:59 if you were in the bottom. And then when the elevator came along, people were able to build tall buildings that totally shifted. Now the rich people wanted to be on top and they shoved all the poor people down to the bottom. And then, of course, when the elevator came along, people were able to build tall buildings that totally shifted. Now, the rich people wanted to be on top and they shoved all the poor people down to the bottom. But the thing, the moment that I find most fascinating about the elevator was the moment that the elevator became automatic. Just think about it. Before that, we all just walk into an elevator right now. It just takes us where we want to go. Maybe we press a button. Maybe we don't even because they just knows.
Starting point is 00:41:25 Before that, there was a human being in there. Not the very beginning, that human being literally physically moved the elevator up and down. Like by a rope, they would rather pull a rope and it would move it up and down. And then eventually that wasn't necessary anymore. And then the elevator operator was in there to press the button and make sure nothing went wrong. And then technology improved enough. And now we're talking about like the 1950s, technology improved enough that the elevator could go up and down by itself.
Starting point is 00:41:51 And people were terrified by this, absolutely terrified by this. They were terrified for a lot of reasons. They were thinking about how the elevator must have a mind of its own now. There are newspaper stories about how, what does the elevator think? There are also concerns about how, you know, if there's an automatic elevator, well then there's nobody in the elevator, which means that the elevator could be very dangerous, rather dangerous people
Starting point is 00:42:14 could come onto the elevator. And the elevator industry had a problem, which is that nobody was getting into this elevator, even though the automatic elevator could be very good, could in fact be considerably better, because here's another fun thing about elevators when they had operators, operators don't work 24 hours a day, which means much like the train,
Starting point is 00:42:31 you had to catch the last elevator. So if you were on the high part of the building and you didn't catch the last elevator, you had to take the stairs. It was crazy, right? It was a different world. And so here's what they did. They realized, and this is so important for anybody
Starting point is 00:42:44 who wants to create change, anybody this is so important for anybody who wants to create change, anybody who's inventing, anybody who's innovating, they realized that just creating something and just knowing that it's good is not enough. People don't know the thing the way that you know it. People don't see the value the way that you see it. You have to build a bridge of familiarity. You have to bring them along with you. And that often means giving them something that is already familiar so that this new thing doesn't feel like a radical new thing.
Starting point is 00:43:16 It just feels like a new version of the old thing. And this is why when you walk into elevators, I mean, they don't do really that much anymore because we don't need it so much anymore. But decades ago, you can still see it. If you walked into elevators, I mean, they don't really that much anymore because we don't need it so much anymore. But decades ago, you can still see it. If you walked into an elevator, you would hear a soothing female voice that would say, going up, going down, floor one, floor two, that's the reason for that. Because that was what gave people the comfort that when they walked into this thing,
Starting point is 00:43:42 there was a human presence. They were used to a human presence. And we need those things. If you're an innovator, if you are going to go out there and create change, you have to remember that you have to bring people along with you. It is your job not just to create something great, but to also show people the way, show people how it fits into their lives, show people that this is something that is additive to the world and not scary and subtractive or replacing something in their world. And if you do that, then you can bring people.
Starting point is 00:44:13 So that's why I do the show because I'm totally fascinated by that and the world is full of it. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors. Hear that sound, young and profitors? You should know that sound by now, but in case you don't, that's the sound of another sale on Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform that's revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. Whether you sell edgy t-shirts or offer an educational course like me, Shopify simplifies selling
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Starting point is 00:45:11 If you're a regular listener, you probably know that I use Shopify to sell my LinkedIn secrets masterclass. Setting up my Shopify store just took me a few days. I didn't have to worry about my website and how I was going to collect payments and how I was going to trigger abandoned cart emails and all these things that Shopify does for me was just a click of a button, even setting up my chat bot was just a click of a button.
Starting point is 00:45:34 It was so easy to do. Like I said, I just took a couple of days and so it just allowed me to focus on my actual product and making sure my LinkedIn masterclass was the best it could be and I was able to focus on my marketing. So Shopify really, really helped me make sure that my masterclass was going to be a success right off the bat and enabled focus and focus is everything when it comes to entrepreneurship. With Shopify single dashboard, I can manage my orders and my payments from anywhere in
Starting point is 00:46:01 the world. And like I said, it's one of my favorite things to do every day is check my Shopify dashboard. It is a rush of dopamine to see all those blinking lights around the world showing me where everybody is logging on on the site. I love it. I highly recommend it. Shopify is a platform that I use every single day
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Starting point is 00:46:58 She's the owner of not one but six thriving companies and now she's ready to share her knowledge and experience with you on the Kelly Roach show. Kelly is an inspirational entrepreneur and I highly respect her. She's been a guest on YAPP. She was a former social client. She's a podcast client. And I remember when she came on Young and Profiting and she talked about her conviction marketing framework.
Starting point is 00:47:20 It was like mind blowing to me. I remember immediately implementing what she taught me in the interview in my company and the marketing efforts that we were doing. And as a marketer, I really, really respect all Kelly has done, all Kelly has built. In the corporate world, Kelly secured seven promotions
Starting point is 00:47:37 in just eight years, but she didn't just stop there. She was working in nine to five. And at the same time, she built her eight figure company as a side hustle and eventually took it and made her full-time hustle and her strategic business goals led her to win the prestigious Inc. 500 award for the fastest growing business in the United States. She's built an empire, she's earned a life-changing wealth and on top of all that she maintains a happy marriage and a healthy home life. On the Kelly Road show, you'll learn that it's possible to have it all. Tune into the Kelly Road show as she unveils her secrets for growing your business.
Starting point is 00:48:10 It doesn't matter if you're just starting out in your career or if you're already seasoned entrepreneur. In each episode, Kelly shares the truth about what it takes to create rapid, exponential growth. Unlock your potential, unleash your success, and start living your dream life today. Tune into the Kelly Road show available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. So is there a modern example of people resisting technology and maybe how an entrepreneur bridged that gap in terms of the old and the new so people weren't so scared about it anymore? Oh, yeah, it's a great question.
Starting point is 00:48:43 I mean, we are going through quite a lot of it right now and the pandemic, I think, has shifted quite a lot of our pre-pandemic technofear thinking. So for example, remember how everybody was scared about screen time? Kids are getting too much screen time, so much screen time. Nobody's worried about that anymore, right? Nobody's worried about that.
Starting point is 00:49:04 Also, social media, there used to be so much screen time. Nobody's worried about that anymore, right? Nobody's worried about that. Also, social media, there used to be so much talk about how social media is making kids depressed, and social media makes us anti-social. That was all based on completely faulty research. It's really interesting. So, you know, like, let's just take you. You may have seen it. There's tons of headlines. Go to Google and type in like Facebook, Depression, and you'll find. So, There's tons of headlines, go to Google and type in Facebook, depression, and you'll find. So the thinking was, when they did surveys, they would find that there was a high percentage of teenagers with depression who used Facebook. And so the original research hypothesized that Facebook was creating the depression.
Starting point is 00:49:43 But that's not true. As it turns out now that we have a few more years of research to look at, and some of those old studies have been reviewed, what we're seeing now is that it's actually, it wasn't a causation. It wasn't that Facebook was causing the depression. It was a correlation. It was that there was a higher likelihood that if somebody was suffering from depression, that they would use Facebook.
Starting point is 00:50:07 Now that's a different thing, and it's really important to know that because the solution then is different. Because if it was true that Facebook causes depression, well then one of the things that you might want to do to help people is get them off of Facebook. But if it turns out that in fact, they have the depression and that's why they're using Facebook because they're finding a community and it's some kind of help for them. Well, then if you took them off of Facebook,
Starting point is 00:50:32 you're making the problem worse. And this is what we do when we jump to conclusions, when we see something that's changing and we say, oh, that's scary, we have to stop it. You create the wrong solutions. And that is so dangerous. So yeah, there are really interesting shifts happening right now in which things that people were afraid of, things that people resisted, they were forced into using.
Starting point is 00:50:54 And they're discovering that the sky didn't fall. Another is remote work right now, right? Of course, we all, there were studies. Before the pandemic, there were plenty of studies showing that remote work actually improved employee happiness, improved employee retention, and also improved productivity. Great things. Why didn't companies do it? Because they were so stuck in their old ways and the managers, managers only understood
Starting point is 00:51:20 how to manage people who were in an office and the managers didn't want to feel outmoded. So we kept everybody in the office, even though it was totally against the purpose of the company, which is to create great things and to do it efficiently and to make people happy. And now here we are, we're all distributed. It turns out it's fine and that's going to change the way that we now think. So those were exceptional examples. One thing that I want you to drive home is that you say that technologies don't replace everything all the time. They integrate. Could you explain that point a little bit? Yeah, yeah. No, thanks. Thanks for picking up on that. I love the research that you've done
Starting point is 00:51:53 for this episode. So, right, this is a really key thing to remember, which is that we often fear new technologies and new things because we think that they are total replacements to old things. And so I mean, I think that drives a lot of the concerns that you may have seen about social media because people saw the way that young people were interacting on social media and they said,
Starting point is 00:52:19 oh no, this is going to replace every other way that young people used to communicate. Right? If young people only communicate online, well, then they'll never have any idea how to talk to each other in person. There's a woman named Sherry Terkel who writes books about this, whole books about this, about how we've lost the art of conversation and nobody knows how to talk to each other. This is all based on this faulty understanding of how new things enter into our worlds.
Starting point is 00:52:47 New things do not wholesale replace old things. They integrate. So here's another great example. Both of us are wearing headphones of some sort or another, your earbuds right now. Right, so if you go back to the 1980s, what you'll see is you'll see all of these fascinating and really funny news stories about how awful the Walkman was because the Walkman was the
Starting point is 00:53:12 first real portable music device. It was the first time in which you could create your own environment. And so people were saying this thing is anti-social. This is the digital snubbery was a line that was used on CBS news. And the fear was that people are going to be always walking around constantly without any desire or need to interact with other people. Now, what has actually happened? Now that we've had a couple decades on it, well, what actually happened is that people interact with each other just fine, but they also take time for themselves.
Starting point is 00:53:50 What the Walkman did is it gave us another option. It gave us a way to give ourselves some privacy when we wanted it, and then take it off when we didn't, and we can share things. I've seen people on the subway sharing headphones. It's an opportunity. Everything that we're given is just an opportunity. And you know what?
Starting point is 00:54:11 We also, this is an important thing to remember when we're talking about replacing, is that we often will romanticize, falsely romanticize the past. So when people were talking about, oh, well, people are walking around with their headphones, and that means that they're not talking. That imagines a world that didn't exist in which everybody was having deep, meaningful conversations with everybody that they came across. Could you imagine that world, that world sounds tedious and it also sounds imaginary. I mean, I ride, when I, during normal times, I'm on the subway multiple times a day in New
Starting point is 00:54:44 York City. And people are largely quiet, although some people are talking. And if you rewound 50 years and you walk onto that same subway, you didn't see a bunch of philosophers like having pow-wow, what you saw was people quietly reading the newspaper, reading magazines. So it's not like we were exiting some world in which we were all communicating and we were entering some world in which we're all isolated forever. No, all we were doing was giving ourselves one more option. And if you believe, if you believe that people are fundamentally
Starting point is 00:55:18 to their core social creatures who are also interested in learning and growing, which we are. Well, then, you know, some piece of technology that we created is not going to alter the fundamentals of who we are. It's absolutely nuts to think that we are so fragile that somebody could invent the walkman, and it would literally destroy the entire way that we evolve to be social people. It's not how it works. So I get worked up, as you you can see about this whole thing. But the point is, and I'm glad that you asked it,
Starting point is 00:55:48 the point is that when you see something new, you shouldn't say, oh no, this is going to completely replace everything that I love and know and I'm comfortable with. And instead you should say, this is a great new or possible great, not everything is great, but this is a possible great new addition to my world.
Starting point is 00:56:06 And let's see if it fits in. I love that. You have so much energy. You're so wonderful. I think you brought up some great points both about how we can kind of bridge the gap in terms of if we're an entrepreneur, we're coming out with a new product,
Starting point is 00:56:19 what's the best way to put it in the market? And then you also gave us some great advice in terms of how we can accept change by knowing that it's just getting integrated into our lives and it's not gonna necessarily replace anything. So that's amazing. So today is June 19th.
Starting point is 00:56:33 It's a holiday called Juneteenth. It's over 150 years old. It marks the day when slaves were truly released in Texas. The last slaves were freed two years after the emancipation proclamation. So I thought a great way to end the show would be to ask you if
Starting point is 00:56:50 you have any inspiring stories from black entrepreneurs that you've interviewed in the past. Yeah, thank you so much. I love that question, a great way to end on this important day. So, you know, I've talked to
Starting point is 00:57:01 so many people, I'll tell you one who I just very recently talked to. His people, I'll tell you one, who I just very recently talked to. His name is Mustafa Nur. He's actually a Somali refugee who came over here after his father was killed by terrorists in Somalia. He started a company called Bridge in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The idea of it is to create cross-cultural events.
Starting point is 00:57:26 So for example, a local Syrian refugee family will host locals, right? Just, you know, locals from Pennsylvania in their home for dinner. And they'll also, they do lots of other events. And the idea is to get immigrants, refugees, locals, together talking because once you see how similar somebody is to you, it's a lot harder to be afraid of them.
Starting point is 00:57:49 It's really valuable work. And the reason I was talking to him was because I wondered what had happened to his business once you weren't allowed to have people in your homes anymore. I mean, his whole idea was get people together and suddenly you couldn't get people together anymore. And he at first when lockdowns began, he was really scared because he wasn't sure how to continue his work. And then he realized that he actually had an opportunity here which is that young, healthy immigrants and refugees could become lifelines for local elderly people or people with compromised immune systems who weren't able to go out.
Starting point is 00:58:30 And so now you've got in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, you've got Syrian refugees who are delivering groceries to an elderly woman who just before the lockdown was having dinner in their home. And I should just note, like an elderly white woman, right, who has very little otherwise experience with Syrian refugees. And they're calling these people. So the Syrian refugees are calling this woman every day at 6 p.m. just to check in because she lives alone.
Starting point is 00:58:56 And you need somebody who's got to make sure that she's okay every day. And they've built these new ways in which these different groups of people can interact and can be valuable to each other. And I asked him what this has made him think about as he's looked at how the connections that he's built and the way that he originally thought he was going to build connections has evolved. And he said, and I really loved the way that he put it, he said, he said, he looks at it and he says, this is how life should always be.
Starting point is 00:59:25 Like what he's built is something that should just always be there. That that community is no matter how different they are from each other, should be connecting. Should not just be connecting, but should be useful to each other. Should be understanding how they are additive to each other. And so the thing that he, I think, is going to do,
Starting point is 00:59:42 which so many other entrepreneurs are gonna do in their own lines of business, which is that they're going to take this thing, this new way that they found to be valuable to people and to interact in this time in which the way that they could do something before is just not available to them anymore. And they're going to continue to do it. All right, they're going to use it. It's going to become a new way that they can connect. There will be a time in the future where Mustafa Nour's bridge will go back to hosting dinners
Starting point is 01:00:10 and people's homes, but maybe also will go, will continue to deliver groceries and do errand runs and do check-in calls. These are all new things that we can do. And I think that just the power of him being very conscious about bringing people together is something that we should all be thinking about today. Yeah, what an inspiring story. Thanks for sharing. And where can our listeners go to learn more about you and everything that you do? Yeah, thanks. So a couple of ways you can check me out.
Starting point is 01:00:36 One, we talked about pessimists archive as a podcast. I'd love for you to check that out. If you want to reach out to me on Instagram, I'm very active on at hayfifirh.eu.i.fei.f.e.R. and like I said earlier in the episode, I'm super accessible. I respond to every DM, test me, I will respond. So you can check that out. And then also if you want to go to jsonfifirh.com,
Starting point is 01:00:58 you'll get prompted to sign up for my newsletter. It's once a month and it's five inspirational insights that I had in entrepreneurship that month that, you know, I hope will help push people forward. Thank you so much for coming on the show Jason. You were so energetic, you provided so much value around how you developed your personal brand and how we can all better embrace change. It was such a pleasure to have you on. Bye.
Starting point is 01:01:20 Thank you so much. Well, young and profitors, I truly enjoy having Jason on the show. He's a great friend of mine. And he's just super entertaining, very smart guy. He's actually coming back on the show to talk about his new book, Built for Tomorrow soon. So very excited about that. And happy we were able to replay this original conversation. And Jason is a true authority on change.
Starting point is 01:01:44 I remember Jason was telling me how he ended up becoming an authority on change. And he told me that people would constantly be asking him what quality all successful entrepreneurs shared. And he's interviewed hundreds of entrepreneurs because he's the editor in chief of entrepreneur magazine. And he realized, after all these talks, that incredible entrepreneurs have the ability to adapt to change. And so once he realized that he started to steady successful entrepreneurs through that lens,
Starting point is 01:02:15 trying to understand how they were able to adapt to change and what their behaviors and habits were like. And at the same time, Jason was doing a lot of research and learning from his podcast, Build for Tomorrow, where he looks into the history of innovation, and he started to see patterns in why people resisted and ultimately embraced innovation. So he put his unique experiences together, and it gave him this deep insight into how change happens and how to find the opportunity in it. And now Jason shares these insights with the world on stages in front of thousands of people and his magazine and even here on Young and Profiting Podcasts, he shared some great
Starting point is 01:02:54 actionable advice on how we can embrace change and how we can get others to embrace change. And a big takeaway from this conversation is that the greatest entrepreneurs understand that change is inevitable. It's coming whether they like it or not, it's coming whether they're customers like it or not. And that means that you should be proactive in responding to change, rather than wait for change to come to you, you should take action first and change on your own terms. The world does not remain static. Today's successful ideas are tomorrow's old ideas. And if you try to resist change, all you'll do is stay in place while everyone passes you by. So don't forget that, young and profitors. Make sure you embrace change. Make sure you change on
Starting point is 01:03:34 your own terms before it's too late. Don't let the world pass you by. Don't be those people out are scared of teddy bears and elevators. Be innovative. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to drop us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform. And with that, another episode of Young and Profiting Podcasts in the books. Thank you for tuning into this YAP Classic. Shout out to my incredible YAP team. And without further ado, this is your host, Halle Taha, signing off. Are you looking for ways to be happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative? I'm Gretchen Rubin, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project.
Starting point is 01:04:14 And every week, we share ideas and practical solutions on the happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast. My co-host and happiness guinea pig is my sister Elizabeth Kraft. That's me, Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood. Join us as we explore fresh insights from cutting edge science, ancient wisdom, pop culture, and our own experiences about cultivating happiness and good habits. Every week we offer a try this at home tip you can use to boost your happiness without spending a lot of time energy or money. Suggestions such as follow the one-minute. Choose a one word theme for the year or
Starting point is 01:04:48 design your summer. We also feature segments like Know Yourself Better where we discuss questions like are you an over buyer or an under buyer? Morning person or night person, abundance lover or simplicity lover? And every episode includes a happiness hack, a quick, easy shortcut to more happy. Listen and follow the podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin. Smoothie King asks, what's that sound? That's the refreshing sound of our extreme watermelon smoothie, made with a watermelon juice blend, coconut water, and sweetened strawberries, back for a limited time.
Starting point is 01:05:22 Only at Smoothie King. limited time.

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