TEDM – AI, Productivity, and the Next Wave of Entrepreneur Opportunity with Jim Beach (Episode 236)

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Everyday Millionaire and Mindset Matters
Episode: #236 – AI, Productivity, and the Next Wave of Entrepreneur Opportunity with Jim Beach
Release Date: January 6, 2026
Host: Patrick Francey
Guest: Jim Beach (Entrepreneur, Speaker, Radio Host, Author: “The Real Environmentalist”)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Patrick Francey sits down with author, entrepreneur, and radio host Jim Beach for an honest, energizing conversation about the intersection of entrepreneurship, environmental solutions, AI, and the evolving landscape of opportunity. The discussion unpacks Jim’s optimism for both the environment and the future of business, his strong advocacy for for-profit solutions, the myths of entrepreneurship, and practical insights into what makes real change happen. The episode is a must-listen for aspiring entrepreneurs, those interested in environmental impact, and anyone curious about the next wave of opportunities catalyzed by AI and innovation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Jim’s Mission: Celebrating Capitalist Solutions to Climate Challenges

• Book Focus: “The Real Environmentalist,” which highlights entrepreneurs tackling real-world environmental issues profitably and effectively.
• Key Message: Entrepreneurs are at the forefront of genuine environmental progress, often eclipsed by celebrity activism and political posturing.
• Optimism for the Environment: Jim argues there is "an incredibly optimistic view of environmentalism," since for almost any crisis (plastics, water, dying coral) there are entrepreneurs actively solving it.

  “I know the guy who…is solving the problem that’s keeping you up at night.” (Jim Beach, 03:37)

2. Entrepreneurship, Profit, and Environmental Impact

• For-Profit Focus: Jim believes businesses, not governments or NGOs, are the real engines of sustainable environmental solutions.

  “I believe that small business is the ultimate solution to any problem… the environment, it’s true as well.” (Jim Beach, 06:04)

• Real Examples: From ship recycling with Wayne Elliott to advanced battery recycling and coral reef restoration, Jim offers real, actionable case studies.

3. Dispelling “Performative Environmentalism”

• Celebrity Hypocrisy Exposed:
  Jim used AI (ChatGPT) to compile lists of talkers vs. doers in environmentalism and highlights the gap between those who “perform” activism and those taking real action.

  "We call it performative environmentalism...when you’re performing environmentalism, the most important thing is do you tweet about it or post about it first?" (Jim Beach, 12:12)

4. Jim’s Entrepreneurial Journey

• From almost-CEO of Coca-Cola Japan, through starting a hugely successful summer camp business, to teaching entrepreneurship and hosting thousands of entrepreneur interviews on radio.
• Lesson: Success is rarely linear; often it’s a confluence of “necessity, opportunity, and a chip on your shoulder.”

  "I think everyone at core has some sort of entrepreneurial motivation...necessity, opportunity, and prove—chip on the shoulder." (Jim Beach, 24:47)

5. Who Can Be an Entrepreneur?

• Jim’s Take: Entrepreneurship isn’t an innate trait—it’s a choice, buttressed by willingness to act.

  “It’s 100% one of those choice things…these days the only limitation is your decision, the moxie to be the one person that gets off the floor and goes and does it.” (Jim Beach, 20:45)

• Many people fail to act—motivation often requires personal triggers (poverty, opportunity, or the need to prove).

6. Education, Universities, and Why They Fail Entrepreneurs

• Critique of Academia: Universities are out-of-touch, focus on irrelevant research, and are not equipped to foster real-world entrepreneurial skills.
• AI & Homeschooling Opportunities: The future is in individualized education, potentially powered by AI, rather than rigid, outdated institutional systems.

  “Education is just incredibly broken... We should have AI teachers that teach each child in an individualized way.” (Jim Beach, 30:22)

7. Bootstrapping and Building a Business

• Jim’s Business Playbook:
  • Absolute focus on bootstrapping and minimizing early expenses.
  • Test the business with under $5,000 before seeking external funding or government grants.
  • Copy successful models then do it better, adapting to local needs.
• Creativity & Passion: Creativity often emerges from solving practical problems; passion grows with progress.

  “Just get off the sofa, go copy someone else’s idea, and do it better.” (Jim Beach, 33:08)

8. AI as a Productivity and Opportunity Multiplier

• Jim’s Perspective: AI is a tool, not a threat. Like previous technology shifts, it will create new jobs and productivity, despite common fears.
• Advice: Early engagement with AI is crucial—most people aren’t adopting quickly enough. It amplifies efficiency, research, and everyday tasks.

  “AI is not easy to use...most businesses right now will pay a lot to have someone [who] can do AI and make some of the processes easier.” (Jim Beach, 57:21)

• Caveats: AI still makes mistakes; it’s like a “bad intern”—constant oversight and iteration are needed.
• Environmental Impact of AI: Every ChatGPT query uses a surprising amount of water, reminding us of new ecological considerations as technology scales.

  “Every time you hit enter on ChatGPT, you are using 1 liter of water.” (Jim Beach, 64:01)

9. Mindset, Accountability, and The “Corridor Principle”

• Mindset: The main barrier isn’t technical know-how, but the decision to act.
• Accountability: Jim keeps goals visible (on the back of his business card) and has accountability partners.
• Corridor Principle: Success comes from moving forward; new opportunities are only visible as you go.

  “If you don’t go try that first business, the second business is never going to happen. You can’t kill your second person until you’ve killed your first person.” (Jim Beach, 71:43)

10. Leadership, Purpose, and Personal Fulfillment

• Leadership: Consistency and honesty are at the heart of good leadership. Growth of the business is capped by growth of the founder as a leader.
• Purpose: Beyond profit, Jim enjoys “getting important messages out,” helping anyone become an entrepreneur—and is dedicated to both societal impact and personal fulfillment.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On practical optimism:

  “You don’t need to lose sleep…cry and not have children because the environment’s going to end and we’re all going to die tomorrow.” (Jim Beach, 09:53)

• On performative activism:

  "The joke that I ask in the book is, when you’re performing environmentalism, the most important thing is do you tweet about it or do you post about it first?"
  (Jim Beach, 12:12)

• On bootstrapping:

  “I can test any business idea for under $5,000.”
  (Jim Beach, 33:08)

• On AI’s environmental impact:

  “Every time you hit enter on ChatGPT, you are using one liter of water.”
  (Jim Beach, 64:01)

• On leadership:

  “The business will progress as far as your leadership will let it progress.”
  (Jim Beach, 53:52)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–02:30 — Host introduction and Jim Beach’s background
• 03:06–09:53 — Jim’s book, environmental optimism, and why entrepreneurs are the solution
• 12:12 — The phrase “performative environmentalism” and challenge to celebrity activists
• 13:08–18:00 — Jim's entrepreneurial journey from Coca-Cola to summer camps to radio
• 20:45 — Who can be an entrepreneur? (Jim’s inclusive view)
• 24:47 — The three main motivations for entrepreneurship: necessity, opportunity, and “chip on the shoulder”
• 30:22 — Critique of the education system and vision of AI-powered learning
• 33:08 — Jim’s $5,000 business rule, creativity, and environmental examples
• 46:23 — Mindset, limiting beliefs, and the role of accountability
• 53:52 — Leadership—consistency, honesty, and the founder’s role
• 57:21 — AI as a source for new jobs, not just job destruction
• 64:01 — AI’s environmental impact—water and energy usage
• 67:35 — Jim’s closing call: get off the sofa, minimize risk, and go do it!
• 71:43 — The "corridor principle" as a metaphor for entrepreneurial journey

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Episode Takeaways

• Entrepreneurial solutions—not government or NGOs—will drive real environmental progress.
• AI is not to be feared but embraced for its power to multiply productivity and create new industries, despite some teething issues and real-world resource impacts.
• The will to act, not pedigree or innate talent, separates successful entrepreneurs from the rest.
• Everyone can get moving today: Start with what you have, minimize risk, and adapt quickly.
• Honest leadership, visible goals, and learning along the way are more important than perfect planning.
• Jim’s core advice:

  “Get off the sofa and go be an entrepreneur…Spend less than $5,000. If you don’t think you can start your industry for under $5,000, listen to the archives on my show because we’ve had someone in that industry start a business for under $5,000 and they’ll teach you how to do it.” (Jim Beach, 67:35)

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For More on Jim Beach

• Read: “The Real Environmentalist: How Wayne Elliott and Other Capitalists Will Save the World”
• Listen: Jim’s nationally syndicated entrepreneurship radio show (100+ stations)
• Key principle: Take action, minimize risk, copy what works, and lead with consistency and honesty.

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Summary by The Everyday Millionaire Podcast Summarizer (2026).

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Welcome to the Everyday Millionaire Podcast. My name is Patrick Francie and I am your host and I want to begin by saying thank you for listening. On this show I am having conversations with seemingly ordinary individuals who have achieved some amazing and extraordinary results in both their life and business. My intention is to inspire and help you learn and grow by having my guests share their journey of how they face and overcome their challenges, but also how they celebrate their their many wins. And now let's get on with this show and have a conversation with today's guest. My guest today, Jim beach, is a longtime entrepreneur. He's an award winning speaker, a nationally syndicated radio host and McGraw Hill author. After his freshman year of college, he served as crew on a woods Hole base 125 foot schooner the RV westward where he studied the effect of fjord based hydroelectric plants on whale migration patterns. He graduated with a minor in oceanography. And over the years, Jim has become increasingly frustrated that environmental discussions have lacked focus on solutions. He noticed politics overshadowing progress and scientists debating credit instead of implementing change. Now that frustration shifted when in 2022 he met Wayne Elliott who has actually become the hero of his new book. Now Wayne's tireless hands on commitment to ship recycling stood in stark contrast to the speech and awards approach of celebrity environmentalism. Inspired, Jim wrote the Real Environmentalist How Wayne Elliott and Other Capitalists Will Save the World to spotlight the entrepreneurs working daily to fight climate change. His goal is to ref environmental conversation around real world doers and the solutions. This is an absolutely fascinating conversation. Jim is a wonderful guest with so many insights and a wonderful perspective. Without any further delays, let's get this show started. Listen in. Enjoy. Jim beach, welcome to the Everyday Millionaire podcast. Thanks for joining me.

[A]

Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor.

[B]

Well, you know Jim, I always like to open the shows with a conversation with my guest as to who they are, what they do. You know, your bio is very impressive and I've also found that with entrepreneurs like yourself, bio is kind of they're current and then they're not as current and then there's, you know, certain details that are missing. So how I want to open today is if I'm meeting you for the first time and I've got a few minutes and I say, Jim, what do you do? How do you approach or how do you answer that question?

[A]

These days I probably would answer it with I'm an author and hope to sell them a book. So that's probably how I would answer it today. Most days I Would say, I'm a radio host. And leave it at that.

[B]

And leave it at that. Okay, so that opens up a whole list of possibilities and questions. But. But let's talk about the book. You're an author, so let's talk about that book and then we can maybe go down that path of what is your book about and why did you publish it? And then we'll get into your history in the world of radio host.

[A]

The book is called the Real Environmentalist and it is celebrating the entrepreneurs that are out there today creating for profit businesses that are solving the climate problem crisis that we face. So I'm incredibly upbeat and positive about the climate situation because I know the guy who. Or woman who is solving the problem that's keeping you up at night. You know that big blob of microplastics in the Pacific Ocean? Yes, I know the guy who's solving it. You know the bad water? Yeah, yeah, I know the guy solving it. And so in other words, you know, dying coral. I know the guy solving it. It's an incredibly optimistic view of environmentalism that we're not facing catastrophe or we're solving so many of the problems right now that maybe we could face the one or two big true problems and not get bogged down in all of the little stuff on the sides before we get there.

[B]

And I'm very interested in this topic. But when we talk about environment and climate crisis and that language, you know, it's so controversial, that's, you know, another reason, it seems, for, you know, nations and countries and global divisiveness and polarity. I mean, there's so much, it's seemingly, to me, so much controversy around it. You're in it, so you don't go, what's the controversy? We got issues. So. And on the other side of it, you have somebody else going, why are they calling it a crime? Climate crisis and climate change. And it's all bullshit. And when are we going to, you know, who do we believe? This is really the challenge that I see going on in many topics, environmental being one of them. Your expertise in that area would be really interesting. And by the way, I really like the approach that you're taking in terms of entrepreneurs, businesses for profit, solving whatever climate issues or whatever environmental issues that we have, because that's an approach that not many are taking. It usually ends up in the lap of a politician that is reading from some script, is always choosing politics over policy. So we don't know what we're solving. We don't know what the Truth is. Enlighten us please. Give us some more background about how you see the climate crisis, what you, the language you're using and from an environmental point of view, what's what. Tell me a little more about that, please.

[A]

I was a professor small p, not a PhD professor for about 10 years. And my students could never figure out if I was from the left wing or from the right wing. And I really don't want to go down that path or get eaten. But what I do know is I don't really care who created any of the problems. I'm not going to deny any of the problems. I am a capitalist. I believe in for profit solutions. I don't think the government necessarily a good option at all. The non government organizations, the NGOs are probably worse, you know, the green pieces and stuff like that of the world, the un. I believe that small business is the ultimate solution to any problem. And I just discovered along the way the environment. It's true as well. I did get an oceanography degree in college. That was sort of an accident, but I did get that. And I have sailed the Atlantic Ocean and done oceanographic research and stuff like that. But I am a capitalist who likes to build companies. And I met this guy named Wayne Elliott on my radio show and I was blown away by his environmental chops. He goes out there and buys 900 foot thousand foot aircraft carriers, cuts them up into two foot square pieces and recycles them and has made a living for 60 years doing that and keeping our shores and our oceans clean. And along the way he also figured out how to recycle alkaline batteries. And he got Canada up to 97% alkaline battery recycling. And so I was blown away by this Wayne. I was like, wayne, let me write a book about you. You deserve a book. And as I got into it and started doing the research, I discovered that he's the tip of the arrow, that there's hundreds more like him. And I actually did research and found 216American for profit environmental businesses. I'm not a denier. I don't care who caused it, I care about entrepreneurs solving it.

[B]

Well, it really opens up a door, doesn't it? Because we know that whether we think it's a crisis or whatever language we want to wrap around, the narrative, the stories that we wrap around it, at the end of the day we know there are certainly issues when it comes to environmental that have to be solved. And you know, you talk about batteries, it could be disposal of oil, it could be you know, the challenges that we face and recycling and what, what really happens in behind the scenes with recycling because there's all sorts of stories around that and I'm sure many of them have a degree of truth and reality to them of what municipalities may or may not be doing versus what they say they're doing. I mean, these are all the controversies that cause the challenges for getting any kind of, or I don't want to say getting any momentum around it because there is some, certainly some momentum around it. But I love the concept and for me, like you, I'm an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur at heart. I'm certainly not an environmentalist, although I do have a strong respect for what is happening and seems to be unfolding in front of us sometimes from an environmental point of view. And I, and I love the fact that you and I align really well on one fundamental fact is that is give it to small business SMEs to solve big problems. That's where the innovation comes in. They look at the gap, they get very innovative and thought. I guess they think through these issues and then come up with solutions. I love that kind of concept about it. So let's go back to your book a little bit, Jim. Is that what was the intention of your book? If I'm picking up, and I have not read the book yet, but if I'm picking up the book, what is the message that you're really trying to get out to the readers that are buying the book?

[A]

I have several different messages. One is certainly that you don't need to lose sleep about this at night and cry and not have children because the environment's going to end and we're all going to die tomorrow. That's one message. Second message is there's lots of ways for you to get involved locally in local businesses that are solving cool problems right there around you. And so there's a lot of opportunities. If I found 216 companies and we have still, I think 51 states, was it 54 states that Obama had? I forgot.

[B]

It depends if you're now including Canada in that since Trump came out.

[A]

That's right. The math is so confusing these days. But anyway, I think that that comes out to, you know, two or three per state, you know, something like that. So there are opportunities all over the place for you to get involved. And another key message is I'm really going to try to fight and put a knife in the hypocrites. So one of the cool things that I did was I got chat GPT to make a List of the. All the celebrities that it could think of, the celebrities that talk the most about doing environmental things. These are the big talkers. And then I had another list made by ChatGPT and said, who are the people actually doing things? And I defined doing things not as giving a speech, because they do that anyway, but, you know, getting your hands dirty, cleaning a duck, going and planting a tree, something like that. And I took those two lists and swapped them so that you got the biggest hypocrites, the people who talk the most and do the list. And so one of the things we do in the book is highlight the 10 biggest hypocrites from our celebrities. Politicians, academics, you know, movie stars, that kind of thing, and name them out and put them in order and show you what they're doing. Show you their water bill, that they're getting $100,000 a month fine for their water bill because they're using so much excess water. And so one of the fun things about the book is we get to poke him in the eye a little bit.

[B]

So it really shines a light on some of the truth and some of the perception, if you will. Because I guess in that world, it's kind of like politicians. It's politics over policy. It's, you know, what you see is not necessarily what's really going on.

[A]

We call it performative environmentalism. They perform so that you see them doing something. And the joke that I ask in the book is, when you're performing environmentalism, the most important thing is do you tweet about it or do you post about it first?

[B]

Right. Well, and I guess at some level there, maybe the politicians are taking acting classes from those same celebrities. I don't know. But let's go back a little bit, Jim, and tell me how you. How did you get on this journey? Because, I mean, you've come a long way, you've accomplished a lot of things. And I'm. I'm assuming that that was maybe your entrepreneurial accident or some form of whatever was next for you as on your entrepreneurial journey. But take me back a little bit and give me some insights into how this evolved to where it is today, where you're supporting entrepreneurs in this way. You're written your book, you've got a lot going on. So just give me a little bit of background of how you ended up here.

[A]

My goal in life was to be the CEO of Coca Cola. And I worked for Coca Cola in Japan in my. And the Japanese government, also in Japan, in my early, early 20s, and got my MBA in Japanese and came back to Coca Cola. And they swiftly escorted me out of the building and said, don't come back. And so at 23, I was devastated. I had no clue what I wanted to do. And so I had a heart to heart with a friend of the family and said, what I really want to be is an architect like George Costanza. And so I applied to architecture school and didn't get in and then badgered my way by pestering the dean every day until he accepted me. And I decided that my parents were pretty much tired of supporting me. And so they said, you need to get a job or start a business. And so I decided to start a summer business so that I could go to school the other nine months of the year. And I made a list of all the summer businesses, pool cleaning and landscaping and stuff like that, and none of those sound very good. And also summer camps. And so I decided to start a summer camp. And in 1994, I started a summer camp at Stanford, at MIT. We had two locations and within nine years we had grown to 89 locations at Stanford, UCLA, SMU, Sorbonne, Cambridge, Oxford, MIT, Georgetown, Emory, a whole bunch of the good school in your town. And that business had an amazing, had some amazing moments. It started off just as a little summer camp that I could do to make money. And it turned into a year round business. And we were getting letters from moms saying stuff like, you know, I haven't seen my child smile in two years. And he came home from camp and now he has a best friend. And I saw him giggling, thank you so much. And we realized that what we were doing, and it's such an example of learning who your target market is. Our target market didn't have best friends. And that was the easiest way to describe them. They were kids that were not on the soccer team, the football team, they weren't in cheerleading, and they were loners perhaps. And we've discovered that very clearly as our target market. And we could get the mom on the phone and say after she talked for two or three minutes, we would say, ma', am, does your child have trouble making friends? She'd start crying and then about two minutes later we would get her credit card number. And it was an amazing business. We grew it to about just under 15 million during that time and then got out of it with the venture crowd route. The venture capitalist came in and siphoned it off into its pieces. And, and you probably see in your neighborhood today, if you drive past the little, the public school, there's a little sign by the front gate that says Lego camp or something like that. That would probably be the residual of that business. And so at that time I was unemployed in 31 and got a call out of the blue and Georgia State University offered me a position teaching entrepreneurship, international entrepreneurship. I accepted that and that was great. And did that for nine years and made a bet early on that I could start a business this semester and make it cash flow positive and repay all the startup capital this semester. And the class got to choose the country and the industry that I would start the business in. And so the first year, it's quite a story. The first year they chose Pakistan and furniture. And so I had three months to build a profitable Pakistani furniture company. I won that bet. And the Atlanta Journal Constitution heard that story and said that should be in a article in the paper. And the guy who wrote the article in the paper said, this should be a full book. And I said, well, if you get me a publishing contract, I will write the book. And a week later we got a publishing deal with McGraw Hill, one of the most prestigious publishing companies out there. You know, you hear the story, sent out 100 letters and got 99 rejections. We sent out one letter and got one acceptance. And it was because our value proposition, and it's all the stuff that you and I teach about entrepreneur entrepreneurship, is because the value proposition was so good and so clear and so appealing that immediately you wanted to hear a defense of it. And so the publisher said, I don't believe that you defend it. And so I said I can. And it went up to number seven in Amazon. Not seven in its category, but number seven on all of Amazon. And so it sold really well and has 155 star reviews. And then I was promoting it and someone said, wow, you do radio? Well, you should have a radio show. And so I ended up getting a live radio show early in the Internet radio era. And now I'm up to 100 US traditional listen in your car, AM, FM stations, drive time radio around the country. This is my fifth book and that's my story and I'll stick to it.

[B]

Wow, that's so intriguing. When you your radio, what is your are. Is your topic around environment, environmental, entrepreneurship or what? What's kind of like what do you talk about on your radio?

[A]

I've been doing it for 13 years now, five days a week, for quite a while, not that entire time. And it's environmental, I'm sorry, it's entrepreneurship. And at this point we will talk about anything Anything, because I've talked about everything at this point. You know, I've had, I think 9,000 guests. And so, wow, at this point, we've talked about entrepreneurial divorce, entrepreneurial lifestyle, entrepreneurial food, you know, fundraising, everything, you know, and then we interview great companies, cool people that are starting companies, and there's always a plethora of those. And so that I'd love to have you on the show, for example. We'll cross pollinate.

[B]

Well, cross pollinate. Love it. You know, it's interesting. When I started the Everyday Millionaire podcast in, I think it was January 2017, was when I first launch, when my. Was my first show. And it was really not because I wanted to do a podcast. It was because I didn't want to write a book. And I'd been approached to write a book, and I got. I don't know if I have a book in me. And. And I had all sorts of stories around why I didn't want to write a book and podcast. Nobody knew what they were really back then. And so I said, well, I don't know, there's this thing called the podcast. So I started my podcast and similar to you, eight years later, you know, on the audio side of things, we're getting like 180,000 downloads a month now, and primarily in the US it just morphed and kind of taken on a real cool life of its own and enjoying that and speaking to many entrepreneurs, business owners, but individuals. But it is so interesting to see what unfolds when you start having that conversation and people listen. And it's kind of rewarding to know that you're having an impact when you get feedback and get comments on the work that you're doing. But for you, when you've interviewed a lot of entrepreneurs, and certainly that's one of my primary focuses, I love entrepreneurship. I think there's nothing better. I'm not here because I believe the government's going to solve our problems. I think that there's a lot of problems that the government have created that entrepreneurs are going to solve. And so when you look at entrepreneurship and if somebody's listening, given all that you've worked with, with kids in school and universities and colleges and all the programs you've run, is there something. You know, first off, are. Is there a point where we can say not everybody's designed to be an entrepreneur? Is. Is that a truth for you? Or do you believe that given the right circumstances and the right guidance, anybody can be an entrepreneur? Where is there a definitive for you.

[A]

In That I believe it's 100% one of those choice things. You can choose to be a great entrepreneur and to work hard enough to do it. And that's all it takes. Other than that. YouTube has so many videos now that are so good on all the aspects of entrepreneurship that I think the only limitation these days is your, your decision, the moxie to be the one person that gets off the floor and goes and does it. And so it's you deciding that you're going to be different. And if you make the decision, okay, here's what that means. It means every morning at 8 o' clock you get up and do this and it's kind of boring and you won't like a lot of it, but that's what it means. And you see a lot of times, you know, my wife started an Amazon business. I kind of, you know, being married to me was an obvious thing to do to make. Yeah. And so she started an Amazon business and made $76,000 her first year. And all of her friends were blown away, amazed. And she's like, I'll tell you how to do it, I'll teach you how to do it. Guess how many of the master, you know to actually do it with her and learn from her?

[B]

None.

[A]

Not a single one. They just wanted to sit on the side and watch, you know. And so yeah, that's why these self help classes do so well. You know, the average self help class gets only about the first seven minutes is ever watched and then they get lost and put on the side and no one ever goes back to them.

[B]

So what do you think Jim? What do you think that is? Why is that? Because you and I, and I'll. But like, I mean to the degree like I do a lot of coaching but I, I've in, in my world of, for many years where I was teaching and coaching a lot of individuals how to invest in real estate and how to invest in real estate the right way. And spoke with literally thousands of real estate investors, small business owners, one on one, one on many, on stages across the country, did it for many, many years. But here's what my observation was and it's why I kind of went on a different path over the years, which is you can teach people how, you show them, you can give them all the things to do and yet, I don't know, 10% actually do something with it. Really do something with it. There's probably another, you know, another percentage that kind of do something with it. I kind of came to the conclusion that as Much as we can teach people how what we can't, we can't, number one, we can't coach somebody. That or we can't want something for somebody more than they wanted for themselves. My observation is people want change, but they don't want to change to achieve whatever result they want. But why do you. What's. What do you think it is in your experience? Why is it that your friend, friends of your wife didn't engage? I mean, that's a normal kind of outcome. What is that? Why is it that people do that, do you think? From your experience, there has to be.

[A]

Some sort of motivating factor, either poverty or a chip on your shoulder or an opportunity, and it kind of just springs upon you and you have no choice but to just get on the bus that just hit you. There has to be some impetus that leads to everyone's entrepreneurship. In my case, it was certainly a. I want to show coke up. You know, if they're not going to hire me, I'll prove them, you know, that I could have been a good hire for them. And I know, you know, some people there, and I enjoy teasing them from time to time about it, especially when their kids ended up at one of my programs or something like that. So, you know, I think everyone at core has some sort of entrepreneurial motivation that drives them forward to, to do it. You know, I know that would always be a great question on a entrepreneurial game show or something. Why did you become an entrepreneur? And I think necessity is in the top three. Opportunity and then prove Chip on the shoulder. I think those are the top three.

[B]

I love that you brought up chip on the shoulder. It's not one that has been brought up, but as soon as you said it, I went, yes. You know, when I think about some of the many guests that I've interviewed, and I'm sure for you as well, is that when you interview certain individuals that's they are uber successful and that was what was the driving factor. They had a chip on their shoulder, something to prove, and then they just kind of ran with it and worked it and worked their asses off and were able to pull it off and create really great things. I was recently, and I don't remember the name of his business, but I interviewed a relatively young man. I'm 67, so to me, everybody's young. I joke about that. You know, if you're, if you're 50, I'm still going to call you a kid. But his name was Tom. Is, is Tommy Mello. Now, I don't know if you've run across Tommy Mello in your day, but he was a garage door installer. He installed garage doors is where he kind of kicked off. And he looked at the garage doors that he was installing and he's going, you know, garage doors are such a, they're front facing. You know, many homes, most homes have a garage door that you're looking at seeing. And he's going, there should be way better doors, it should be a better look, et cetera. Anyway, he launched his business, I think this year. He said he's going to do $325 million. He's got. I've lost track of staff, but I'm several hundred staff, you know, 70 locations, something like that. And I was on his podcast and he was in Cabo. He had booked the whole resort, brought 200 of his key people down like he was hitting it out of the park and had been for many years. And I'm going, but it was about that. It was a chip on his shoulder where he's just going, this is ridiculous. It's does not. We can do way better. Give you way better value for your dollars. And I go, there's a classic example of an entrepreneurial spirit guy with a chip on his shoulder and a drive to go, no, we can do way better. And I go, that's classic entrepreneur in my world. But he just took it to a whole new level.

[A]

Yeah. And you're giving it a different chip than the one I was doing. I was thinking childhood and you put it as previous boss or something like that. And so there's both of those chips, I think.

[B]

Yeah, well, that's the thing because, you know, I work with a, a good friend who's become a good friend of mine and very, very successful. And he ultimately, when he came to Canada, he was, he came to, actually to Canada. First he was in the US Then he came to Canada. But ultimately he was raised in El Salvador. Poor. His mom came. He finally met his mom when he was five years old. Long story around it, but you know, basically they had like 10 bucks and you know, she raised him on that. And by the time he was 17, he was going, no, I gotta cover my mom. I gotta look after my mom. This was not fair. And that's exactly what he did. He went on to build a business. So it is interesting when you think about it, the way you put it. That's why I don't wanna, I don't need to, you know, stay on the topic. But it was just an interesting Insight about that chip on the shoulder, which is what drives it. And I think about my own entrepreneurial journey and there's probably a part of that with me as well is the. Because neither of my parents were entrepreneurial. But it is something that I look at and go, now that there's a little bit of a chip there, it's something to prove to my dad, you know. So anyways, we go on and we go on these entrepreneurial journeys. When you think about the way, you know, schools are you at universities and you think about what you brought to the table, what's the big gap in behind the universities? You know, what is the lesson that schools aren't teaching? Or what are they getting wrong? If, if that's, you know, from your point of view, being in it like you were.

[A]

Well, they just suck. And even the good ones suck. The problem is the professor's capital P. And I remember I differentiated myself as a lowercase P professor. The capital P professors. Let me have a, I'll have a conversation with one of them. Hey, Bijan, how are you doing? Oh, I'm very, very busy. What are you so busy with? Well, I have a paper due next week. It has, it's six pages and I have a five minute presentation that I do make in three months. I'm so busy I can barely function. I'm like, dude, that's a Tuesday for anyone in the entrepreneurial world. That's ridiculous. So their version of busy in my version of Busy are just 180 degrees apart. They couldn't be any longer. And they, you know, just the, the system of tenure where they can't get fired and the whole publisher perish. It's produced a system that, that is just horrible. So I was the most popular professor at Georgia State by far. Every semester. I won by usually a whole point, like 20 percentage points. And it was because I went in and we had fun and we talked and you know, it was a good conversation. And I didn't open the book and quote from the book and go through the slides and stuff. You know, there's ways of talking about every topic that make it entertaining. And if you can't do that, then you shouldn't be teaching. And they just don't have that. They don't sort that way. That's not what they're looking for. You know, they reward on publishing and no one reads that stuff. The guy who replaced me when I left had just spent. You're going to Love this. Spent seven years doing his PhD research and he had proved, proved Are you ready for this? That entrepreneurs, when they're young and early on in their career, they need more connections, but as their career progresses, the connections aren't as important anymore. Seven years.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

You know, and so he doesn't know what to go in there or teach. You know, he doesn't know how to make it interesting and topical. And so anyway, I think education has become entirely broken. We should have AI teachers that teach each child in an individualized way. And then you walk over when you're really confused and ask the one professor who's a human. And education is just incredibly broken. Incredibly broken at every level.

[B]

It's such an interesting time too, isn't it? Because of all the education that's available outside of the school system and given what is seemingly happening in, within the school system, we're seeing more and more homeschooling going on. And I see that as a real opportunity for kids and for parents to kind of expand the horizons. And I know my daughter and my two grandkids are homeschooled. And I'm watching it unfold because I also have nieces and nephews that are not homeschooled. And it is so interesting to note the differences. As much as maybe the homeschooled grandchildren aren't quite reading at the same level, or maybe in some aspects they are. There's certain aspects they don't seem to be progressing scholastically at the same level. But when you look at life skills, interpersonal skills, the ability to be comfortable amongst adults or to hang out with other kids, because there's a very strong community of that and the way they approach it and field trips. So it is an interesting kind of study to watch how these kids are evolving versus those that are kind of going through the day to day school curriculum, you know, through the elementary school process. And, and I, and I'm not being critical of one or the other, I'm really observing it. I'm just in that phase of my life where I'm really observing what's going on. And I got to say that I'm really impressed with many of the kids that I've met over the past couple of years that are being homeschooled. I'm going, wow, these kids seem to be pretty well balanced. They seem to be quite evolved. Their social skills are very strong. Their ability to sit down and articulate and have a conversation with an adult is very strong. So I don't know, I'm just observing it and going, there's a lot to be said that getting kids out of school these days. That's my view of it, anyways. When we talk about your own kind of expertise in supporting entrepreneurs, unpack a little bit about what you talked about as supporting or guiding entrepreneurs to make profit and be profitable, have thriving businesses within a system called let's handle what's going on environmentally and build a business around it. If that's a way for me to articulate it, I don't know if I'm accurate, but hopefully it gives you enough to say, okay, this is what we're doing. This is how we do it.

[A]

Well, I've put every business, no matter what it's doing, through the same process because I think that it has to be profitable before you can scale it and make it grow. And so I believe in absolute strict, the strictest bootstrapping, that you can abide by hiring no coaches and consultants, doing nothing and getting no office space, you know, just having absolutely no expense until you're required to do it, even to the extreme, that you don't need to get a bank account until you have a check to put into it. You know, that level of extremity, extremity. And then, you know, so I have a very low risk model, under $5,000. I can test any business, and I can play that game with you. And then also, creativity, this is a little easier because no matter what you are doing, you have to be creative. No, you just have to copy some idea. And so my big push for entrepreneurs is just to get off the sofa, go copy someone else's idea, and just do it better than them. But this, you have a target. You see microplastics, and you're a chemist in junior chemistry in school right now. Well, I would sit down and try to figure out what you've learned in school that could help the environment in terms of chemistry. For example, one of the entrepreneurs that we feature in the book, Steven Mayfield, was a algae biodiversity professor, a different kind of biodiversity, algae biodiversity at UC San Diego. And he's the guy that's tackling the algae and figuring out how algae can be the basics for plastics instead of petroleum. You know, plastics have to have, like, a core that makes them not fall apart and makes it work as a plastic. And right now, that's made out of petroleum. And that's why everything in the world has petroleum in it. And if we could get rid of that and replace it with algae that does biodegrade, then we have a real winner. And so Stephen is doing that, and he's the academic example of a PhD that said, the hell with this, I'm going to go make a lot more money. And he raised $300 million for his last business in algae. So if you were in, you had any knowledge at all in anything related to any part of the environment, then there's your creativity, it's already crossed off. Whatever you're focusing on, there's the creativity that you're going to study. And passion, you probably do have passion for it. You know, if you're an environmentalist and you, you know, are mad at the people who are, you know, destroying the lakes and the rivers, you probably are passionate so that you can easily do these businesses. One of the other entrepreneurs that we focus on in the book is, is named Gator Halpern. And he grows coral faster than God grows coral 50 times faster, as a matter of fact. So all of these reefs that we hear of disappearing, he can replace them or he can go into a resort and give it a whole new reef over the weekend. And so you tell again, this is why I keep saying this. You tell me the problem and I find the entrepreneur who is solving that problem right now. So anyway, those are my three criteria. Be passionate. Well, I say don't passionate, just start. The passion will come later. But you've already got the passion, so you're a step ahead. You've got the creativity, so you're two steps ahead. Now let's just focus on trying to solve that problem for under $5,000. And that's the key. Otherwise you jump into government and non government organizations and appealing to Greenpeace to give you a million dollars and then you're going down the wrong route. You have to figure out how to do it to solve the problem first. So my summer camp example, we figured out what we were doing with one kid, we figured out with one kid. Luckily it was the second week of camp. And so we were able by year two to put that into the literature and to start talking to the parents in that way. But we fixed one kid first and then we did the second kid, you know, and so that's true with every step that I, every business that I want you to do. My cousin by marriage, Joey, started a bar for under $5,000. That was 20 years ago. Three other bars have moved in across the street and put in all that brass stuff and brewed their own beer. How many beers do you have to brew to replace $5 million of startup capital? Joey has 5,000 startup capital. He repaid that in the third week of drinking. So those are my principles and if we say environmental is the target, we're in great shape. Let's go solve that problem. Let's go talk to people who can teach us how to solve that problem. There's my system.

[B]

Don't step over it. Is that what you're. Because when I've seen or what I've heard, I haven't personally had the experience in terms of somebody I know, but my observation is, in reading or whatever comes across my feeds, is that there's a part of it where some of those entrepreneurs are going and jumping through all of the hoops of saying, okay, well, it's environmental. I can get, you know, some kind of federal or state funding or municipal, local, city funding, because I've got this thing and I can go pitch the deal to them and get some kind of a grant. You're suggesting maybe later, right now just get shit done, go and start solving the problem and then deal with that stuff later. Or is that also part of your process? Just out of curiosity, you know, anyone.

[A]

That'S going to give you free money, I, I, I'll take it. You know, as long as it's still kind of free. I don't want to jump through some of the hoops that they put up. But, you know, certainly, you know, Tesla has survived because of billions of dollars of grants. Is it up over a billion yet? Probably, probably. And we have to realize that. But we still all want Tesla to be around and to be successful. So I would take the grants. I hope you're spending more time focusing on solving the problem than raising money to solve the problem. Again, you've got to focus on actually solving that problem. Probably going to have a hard time getting a grant unless you can prove somehow how you solve the problem. So let's still make that step number one, figure out how to solve some problem somehow.

[B]

Yeah. And of course, with government funding, you know, some conditions apply. There's always, there's always, not always, but there's often some kind of a catch to it that we have to pay attention to. When you're going through this, you know, one of the things that I'm listening, Jim, and hearing what you're saying and a little bit of about your story that you've shared now, and you talk about passion, but in behind passion, is that driven by purpose? So it sounds to me, as I'm listening to you, that you've got a pretty strong purpose for why you do it. Some mission. Is it, is it really about the bottom line or, or is there something in it for you that the bottom line's awesome, but I get to do it. Doing what I love to do. What lights me up. What's your kind of. When it comes to purpose or mission, what is it for you?

[A]

It depends on your personal circumstance. Do you need to make money or can you afford to have a hobby that's expensive that you call a business? You know, so you have to be able to.

[B]

But again, money aside, it kind of goes back to what we talked about earlier, which is, you know, why are you doing this? You know, what is really going to get you going and what's going to light you up for the outcome? Because we live into an outcome. Here's my story around. Let's just talk about university. So you go to university or you go to school, you know, then you go to university, college, whatever that might be, and you have this dream of an MBA or you have some dream of some degree, and you come out the other end after many years of working it. And I don't know what the stats are. It's their astronomical stats of the number of students that come out with whatever degree that never, ever use the degree. They never even get into the same industry as their degree, whether they're burnt out or whether it's an illusion or they realize that they weren't doing it for themselves, they're doing it for their parents, all the other stories that go with it. So the reason I get to the question is, is there a bigger purpose for you aside from the dollars and cents of it? Are you driven just because you want to one day have a million entrepreneurs doing their thing? You know, is there a much higher purpose than the dollars and cents of it that gets you out of bed in the morning?

[A]

Yes, I am lucky. I enjoy what I do. You know, I would still rather be at Disney, but I really enjoy this. I do have certain messages that I want to get out that anyone can be an entrepreneur if you follow a different path. You know, the media is wrong. They, you know, they promote everything that's bad. They promote the creativity, the riskiness, and the passion. You hear that all the time in the media. And I want you to focus on entirely different things. So I am concerned about that. And that's the one thing that holds the entire 13 years of the radio show together is every, you know, day or so, I get to throw a little bit of that in as the guests tell their story. And, oh, you're a bootstrapper, too. I love you. And then we talk about the importance of bootstrapping and, you know, the Mosaic gets a little richer, and so I'm very interested in that. And then it also supports a speaking business. You know, there are a billion people in the world that want to be corporate speakers now, and I've had some of the best gigs you can imagine in corporate speaking. And the reason is, is because anyone can be a podcaster. I have 100 stations that have decided to take something off and put me on 100 station managers around the country vetted me and voted for me, and that number keeps going up, one or two a week. And if you're selling or buying speaking services, that's very, very, very compelling, that puts you ahead of all of the podcasters, no matter what they've done. And that model allows me to go to woodworking camp a lot more.

[B]

So how did that unfold a little bit? Did you get out and pitch that deal? Did you have an epiphany around it? Or was it another entrepreneurial accident? How did that show up for you that you actually then built off of the opportunity that maybe wondered one station, and then you said, hey, this is cool. Let's do this more? Or how did that build? Like, how did it unfold?

[A]

When I started my first book and started my radio stuff, the first book came out in 2012, I think, and at that point, there were a lot more radio shows than there are today. And, you know, so when I went and did a PR tour, half the shows were radio and half were podcast, and the radio was dying. And everyone kept telling me that radio was dying. Well, I've done, you know, in this promotional tour for my new book, I've done five podcasts, and I think 26 radio shows. And there's so much need for it. There's still 14,000 radio shows operating every hour, I think is the number, you know, they have to have content somewhere. And so I realized very early on that what do we teach when we teach entrepreneurship? Differentiate yourself and build a fence around it. So when I had summer camp, my summer camp was at Stanford, at mit, sponsored by Microsoft and Intel. How can I help you listen to that barrier. That's quite a barrier. So I'm doing the same thing with the radio show. I'm trying to say, you know, I'm a hundred times better than your podcast. Not yours, but, you know, the. The.

[B]

The.

[A]

And that's what I tell the station, man. I'm not the purchasing managers for the speaking conventions and stuff like that. So then also, if I want to meet new people and have come around people who are interesting to write Books about. All of a sudden, you know, I get to write about, about Wayne Elliott. Wayne Elliott's the star of this book and I met him on the show and sold him on the idea of writing a book and.

[B]

Yeah, that's great. So when you look at, you know, we often talk about it. I'm curious from your, you know, I mean, you're very pragmatic in your approach to starting business and the how tos and getting stuff done where. And it does. Do you consider the mindset of somebody? I don't, I don't like using the term mindset, although I've got a podcast named Mindset Matters. But ultimately mindset keeps coming up because this goes back to what I talked about a little bit earlier, which is we talk about the hows, but what's the difference between somebody who does and who never gets it off the ground? There is a mental component to it, a what we, what we refer to under a big umbrella called mindset. Where does that fold into kind of the coaching or the work that you do?

[A]

I'm still trying to make money. I have no problem just saying I like money and I like to make more money. I like to meet smart people. I don't want to go out of my house for work. I'm still intellectually curious and enjoy hearing and learning new things.

[B]

But you're pretty unique. I mean, that's why you've achieved what you've achieved. So I'm kind of unique, how? Well, unique in that you're very driven, you're very clear on what you want to do. That's not common. I've talked to many wannabe entrepreneurs who aren't clear. They're not sure what they want to do, they're not sure why they want to do it. And then they get in their own way, they're different. Various fears. They've got hidden beliefs that they operate on top of. They got stories that they tell themselves. You know, that is, you know, we, we will often refer to hidden limit, hidden, limiting beliefs and that they're not.

[A]

I have those.

[B]

Yeah, but we all do. But. So, but in your coaching and in the work that you do, are you also supporting, you know, wannabe entrepreneurs getting out of their own way, busting through the mental challenges that they have that they're not smart enough or they're not good looking enough or not rich enough or whatever the not enough scenarios are, or they're not worthy and all the other things. There's not enough money. I mean, there's so many hidden beliefs. That people operate on top of. Do you see that within your students? Is that something that you approach or that's not really your kind of game that you play?

[A]

No, you have to talk about that. It's all part of the mindset, you know, and getting off the sofa, as I call it, you know, you just have to have some drive that makes that happen. And whether it be showing up the rest of your schoolmates or showing up that old boss or just making enough money to live on any of those motivations, you know, something has to be there or it's just fun, you know, you just enjoy that job. I enjoy a lot of the things that I do. You know, I, I don't want to do them every day and I'd probably rather be at Disney, but I still enjoy a lot of the things that I do.

[B]

So now, do you have a vision as we sit here today? When you think about what you're working on and you've written a number of books, you're an author, you're a coach, you're a business owner, operator, you do it all. Is when you, when you look at five years down the road, do you have a particular vision that says, okay, five years down the road I want to accomplish XYZ in my business. Is it the top line, bottom line, is it number of students? Do you have that vision for what's next for you or you just going with the flow and kind of, I don't want to say reacting, but you know, being opportunistic in terms of what.

[A]

Shows up front of card, back of card. My goals for the year.

[B]

Oh, goals for the year. Okay, so for those of you who are listening on audio, Jim just held up his business card and on the back of his card is goals for the year. So you have the vision for the.

[A]

How long did it take me to produce that?

[B]

Yeah, that's the question of the day.

[A]

No, no, no. When you started talking about it, how long did it take me to produce my car?

[B]

Well, you pulled it out of your pocket.

[A]

Yeah, well, it's on the shelf next to me though. It's within hands reach is my point. I see it every day and I give a copy to my accountability people.

[B]

Okay, so you've got accountability people. That's one of the things. And I don't know what it is for you, Jim, but I, I'm often finding myself, you know, over the past five years. So I used to travel back and forth across the country and do many, many events, probably 50, 60, 70 events a year. And Doing all the things. So I was very engaged, had a great team. When we got shut down, that all changed and which was fine. We went virtual and that's cool. But I find that working from home, I don't have a strong team around me. Although I have a team around me. It's not the same. So for you, when you look at the creativity and accountability that you just shared, are you getting it in house or are you actually being very strategic in having accountability partners, Setting yourself up so that you're having conversation with others. How do you kind of accommodate that so that you don't become the. The lonely entrepreneur, if you will?

[A]

That's the hardest part I think of being an entrepreneur is lunch. You've got to get out and go meet people. And you know, I don't want to work in one of the co working spaces, you know, for me that doesn't work. I like to work at home so I can see the kids. And right there is the swimming pool right there, you know, I can see it, you know, and so I like that. But I also have to schedule in time, weeks in advance or otherwise my lunch will fill up too and I'll have eight things in eight hours. And so I have a big problem keeping up with my relationships and my friends. I have, I have to plan it months in advance.

[B]

So do you find, you know, it's interesting conversation. My wife and I are both entrepreneurial, have been. I've been a business owner for over 40 years and Stephanie not quite as long, but similar. And so we find ourselves and we sometimes have these conversations. She's very introverted and although she loves being in crowds when, like if she's in the crowd for a couple of days, which she often is because she's traveling the world and doing her stuff. But when she wants to be alone, that introvert part of her really kind of shuts her down. She goes, you know, like she's too weak. She doesn't care if she sees somebody. I'm a little bit more much as like I have an introvert tendency. I still like being with people. Do you see yourself in terms of how you operate, where you might be a little more introverted than you thought originally or how's that unfolded for you?

[A]

No, I have always known that I'm a 100% introvert and have had many problems with that early in life and have had to work to make that not be a problem and have to work to get to the point where I enjoy people in a party or out event. Now you Know, for years one of the things I did was whenever I'd go to dinner, I would sit at the bar to force myself to interact during dinner. You know, because at the bar you're allowed to talk to people. So someone's going to say, hey, what are you doing here tonight?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

And so if you're an introvert, go to the, sit at the bar, at the restaurant, don't go to your table, sit at the bar and learn to talk to people that you don't know.

[B]

So funny because often when I go to a restaurant, if I not often, but when I do go to a restaurant by myself, I will often sit at a table rather than the bar because I don't want to talk to anybody. So there's the shift right there.

[A]

Well, it depends on if you just need rest. Sometimes us introverts just need rest from other people. Then you have a nice lunch by yourself, but then dinner on the, you know, you're at a convention dinner that night, you should, you know, try to.

[B]

Join the group and oh, 100, 100. So in your development of entrepreneurs, where does, you know, we often hear, you know, you've heard comments, I'm sure over the time, natural born leaders. I don't know that that's the case. There are certainly those individuals that seem to be very good at leadership kind of right out of the chute. But are you looking at, do you support entrepreneurs in developing their leadership skills? What's your kind of view of how do we become great leaders given that we're entrepreneurs? It's not an automatic, we don't necessarily know how to lead teams or be great leaders. Are you recommending books? What's your kind of thought process around leadership? Is it something we should be studying? What's your view?

[A]

Yeah, definitely. It's the, you know, the role of the founder of the CEO at some point to take it upon him or herself to develop their leadership skills. That's as far as the business will progress. The business will progress as far as your leadership will let it progress. And so you have to either make it a personal focus or make it a company wide focus. Do something to increase your leadership skills. The main thing, I think it's very similar to parenting. If you're a horrible parent and don't pay any attention to the kid, but do that consistently, the kid's going to turn out pretty good. And if you're over attached and you're a helicopter parent, consistently that kid will probably turn out okay. The problem is when you do one, one day and then the other the next day, you know. And so consistency, I think, is a huge part of it. And if you go into your leadership just trying to be consistent and honest with people and don't have a problem saying, I've never done this before, let's talk about it as a team, that's great leadership right there and true honesty and would open you up to having a very good relationship with the people, with your employees.

[B]

Jim, you know, given the work that you do and you know what your view of the world, when we talk about what seems like a, you know, a school system that is imploding, it doesn't seem to matter where you are, you know, school is questionable. We start to see over the past five years, you know, I think 2020 was definitely another line of demarcation of what was happening in the world. And you start to understand that things are changing. And to your point earlier, and, you know, we touched on, you know, the impact of NGOs and what we're being driven by and where politicians are seeming to come from or not the divisiveness, the polarity, it seems to be at a very global kind of level. I for one, am saying, I think more and more people have got to step up and look at how they can be entrepreneurs, how they can fill a gap. You know, being self sustaining is not just about, you know, what you might have in your home or growing a garden. You know, self sustaining is about your ability to solve problems, fill those gaps. Are you seeing it similar to me or. Because I'm looking at it now and I'm going, in this world today, I think given AI, given technology, what seems to be coming down the pipes, it's all brand new. We don't know the impact of AI, what it will be. We have some ideas of it, and certainly we probably are pretty close on some subjects. But ultimately, where AI is going, many you're saying, well, it's going to replace jobs and da, da, da. And I go, yes, it probably will do that. But what we don't know is what's it going to create, what industry is it's going to. Is it going to create? You know, I think about myself as a young man and my first job, I think real job, full time was, I was young, 1977. Computers were a thing. You know, one gig was, holy cow, you're being blown away with a hard drive with a full gig on. It was going to solve all the world's problems, but it created a whole industry. As much as the narrative back Then was it's going to eliminate jobs. How do you see it? Like when you look into the future, given what you're doing, you've got a different perspective than many. How do you see the world unfolding and the need to be entrepreneurial, solve problems, be self sustaining in terms of income?

[A]

You know, when the first computers came out, they were basically just glorified word processors. And people said, oh, this is so awesome, we don't have to print the contract every time we make a change. And what did we do? We went out and added printers to our computer so that every time we make a change we can print a new version. Right. And when the Internet came out, we were, oh, everyone's going to lose job. The exact same sort of talk. I think this creates jobs. AI is not easy to use to get it to do stuff. And most businesses right now will pay a lot to have someone can do AI and make some of the processes easier. And so I think it's just another great opportunity for the damn 18 year olds, you know, and those who choose to move forward with it. You know, one of the great things about being an entrepreneur is that it can hide your things you don't want people to know, like your age or your color or your shyness level or the way you dress or whether you're a geek or not, or whether you showered this month or any of those things. It's an equalizer. You know, the Internet is and I buy who has a great product at a great price. That's who I'm going to buy from. And I don't really care about anything else. And I think that AI is just going to take that a step further. Knowledge is going to be more and more important and we become more productive. I think this should be unless something's really messed up. Productivity is one of the key components of gdp, which is your country growing in a positive way. Especially if your population stays at the same size. That means each person is producing instead of $51,000 of goods, they're producing $54,000 of goods and services. And that's good. That's the best thing you could hope for as an economist is productivity going up. And I think that's the key thing that's going to happen. All of our productivity should go up. Mine has doubled. I've had some amazing productivity gaps. But I'll also say this 1 out of every 3 things that I do with 5 chat GPT 5 on 5 now is wrong or broken or you have to remind them. You know, for like little stuff. Like I've told it, I always use Times New Roman 12, always don't produce something for me that's not Times New Roman 12. They always forget that little, you know, I have like 20 examples like that. So it's still not perfect yet. It's still making substantial errors. Like I asked it to produce a five minute thing, it produced a one minute thing. You know, it's still not, it's just like the bad intern that you have.

[B]

I, you know, I've been so engaged with ChatGPT and a couple of other AIs, you know, for the past couple of years. I use it daily and it's become a real part of, just to your point, certainly efficiency and, and, and even in the writing world, you know, getting that first lift, I'm, I'm not, certainly not that individual that, you know, turns something over to AI and then copies and paste it. I, I, you know, I, I'm not that person in any way, shape or form. It's got to be me that does it. But those first lifts are very helpful. But just in research and a lot of the work that I'm doing, I love Chat GPT. What I'm surprised and I love AI. I like, I'm really engaging in it and learning and, and learning prompts and learning how to use it. And like you, I'm on chat GPT5, paid version, all the rest of it. And it is so effective in terms of efficiencies and productivity of what I can get, the output that I can produce. The question that I get is so interesting is that as I do speaking, and I don't know if you've had the same experience, but if I'm on stage in front of an audience of 100 or 200 or whatever the number is, and I ask the question, who's using AI today? I'm surprised how few are. It's, I'm guessing, guesstimating. It's all anecdotal, but probably 20% of the audience and the rest are still kind of half putting up their hand. You know, they're still trying to figure out how to spell AI. It's really surprising how few people are engaging in it. Is that your experience as well, or are you seeing it differently?

[A]

I think that's about right. You know, there's nothing scarier than a blank stare or a prompt that's just waiting for you. You know, when, when you sign on the first time, you don't know what to do, you type in hello. It says hello back you know, what do you do? What do you do the first time? And so you have to get over that initial bump. I've heard people say the first thing you should do is introduce it to your resume and introduce yourself. And then, you know, it's the W questions. What did you see interesting about my resume? Or, you know, started asking things like that. The more you let it know about yourself, the better it is.

[B]

I learned from. I don't know if you've had him as a guest or if you've come across Mike Koenig. Outstanding guest. Like really, really great guest. And really got into the AI and he actually prompted me right on the show. He goes, go into AI, go to ChatGPT, go into the advanced settings, tell it all about yourself, tell it what you want, what your expectations are. It was like I didn't even know you could do that. And like I went in and it changes the game. Like it's another kind of thing in behind the Scenes that we didn't know about. But anyways, Mike was really great in terms of learning how to use AI and I think if people just took the time, they would just realize what they're missing in terms of again, to your point about productivity and efficiencies and, and really just ease of being able to work and flow, I've really embraced it and I'm certainly, I don't consider myself an expert by any stretch, but really enjoying having fun on the learning curve of it. So I encourage listeners to do it.

[A]

A first question is, how can you help me? You know, just ask it that. How can you help me? And it will, 99% of the time it does what you ask it to do and then follows up with this is the logical next step. Would you like me to do head, you know, do that as well? And you can say no, do this, or you say yes. And a lot of times it can go a long, long time with all you typing in is yes. But I want to point out one thing. Every time you hit enter on chat GPT, you are using 1 liter of water.

[B]

Oh yes, of course. We can't step over that. It's sucks a ton of energy, right?

[A]

It is amazing. Did you see the article about Texas and the water supply in Texas because of the new open AI facility that opened?

[B]

Oh no, I have not heard of. I've heard other stories about it, but it's like. And that's part of what everybody's talking about right now, which is we don't even have the energy to accommodate what AI is going to need. So. But yeah, I hadn't heard about Texas. Give me a little insight into that.

[A]

The plant that they want to build would double the usage in the state. One plant, double the usage. Wow. And so how. You can't. It's Texas. I thought Texas was kind of dry. You know, where does the water come from? It ain't coming from Oklahoma.

[B]

No.

[A]

Arkansas. You know, so anyway, the environment there are still supply issue problems and energy problems. And you know, the Trump deal with the UK that he signed when he was over there with King Charles, I don't know if that got enough attention, but he is selling them 12 nuclear power plants. And these are significant because for the first time ever, instead of getting a power plant certified in this valley next to this river and then you build another plant and they have to get it recertified. From now on, they're selling a certified power plant that comes. That's, you know, a bulk item instead of having one. There are 12 built all at the same time that are the exact same. And so you don't have to get them recertified. And it saves over $2 billion per installation. And just signed a big deal with the UK about this and, you know, it's a big step toward us saying we need to start rebuilding nuclear power plants in America. There's really just not another solution.

[B]

I mean that, I mean, it's shocking. Number one, Canada needs to do the same thing. It's shocking to, you know, when you heard, I'm sure you heard about Germany shutting down their nuclear plants, which, I mean, it's just like, it's unbelievable the politics that get involved in the stupid mistakes that politicians make. I don't live in Germany, but, you know, when you hear these stories and what they're now going through. But you know, it's interesting what you just brought up too, Jim, that we, you know, can shine a light on, which is, you know, as many people are talking about what the jobs are that AI will take away, what you just described is creating jobs. It's actually driving GDP and productivity all from. AI had nothing to do with AI taking jobs. There's so much in behind the scenes that we are not opening our minds to or many people are not opening their minds to. And they're just making it wrong without carrying on and thinking it through. Critical thinking, first principles, like getting through, like, think about it. There's a lot of opportunity that I think will get created from this. Yeah.

[A]

That just gave me an idea for a great test question to have a chat GPT conversation. And their job is to find all of the mistakes that ChatGPT made during.

[B]

That conversation would be interesting. So when you think about the, you know, kind of as we start to wind down a little bit, I want to make sure that, you know, we've had. I've enjoyed this conversation. I hope you have as well, Jim. But are we missing anything? What is, what is a message that you would want to get out to listeners that maybe we haven't touched on that you would like to share with somebody?

[A]

I want everyone to get off the sofa and go be an entrepreneur. It's a better lifestyle, you're happier and better prepared. And it utilizes all of the skills that God, Yahweh, Buddha, Muhammad gave you at the beginning better than anything else you can do. And so it's a great way to honor everybody, your family, the powers that be, such like that you don't want to take on risk. Risk is bad and you don't. We glorify it too much, but it's really just bad. And we need to do everything you can to reduce risk. Spend less than $5,000. If you don't think you can start your industry for under 5,000, listen to the archives on my show because we've had someone in that industry start a business for under $5,000 and they'll teach you how to do it. The model is there and after that, be better to the environment. Let's all clean up after ourselves more and take nothing but pictures and memories.

[B]

When you think about. And I want to go back to AI for just a second. Given what you do and the ideas and filling the gaps and solving the problem problems, how much are you using Chat gp? I know myself on a couple projects that I've got on that I'm pretty passionate about. I've done a lot of research to verify using that research and by the way, I use a couple of different platforms. So I'll say this is what Chat GPT gave me. What's your view? Can you back test this? And by the way, that's kind of some of the little tricks that I've learned that are really interesting and the outcomes that that can produce. But how much of the. How much AI do you use in terms of, oh, here's an idea, let's run this through AI to see its viability, what I'm stepping over and then learning to ask the right questions. Are you using it in that. In that context?

[A]

Yes, I am. I had. Yes. I'm using it for more and more things. The More things I ask of it. It does. And now it even does pictures as well. So it is truly how far you push it and keep going with that next prompt. I've been surprised how much I've done. I've even. I had a text exchange with somebody and I wrote. I copied the whole thing into Chat GPT and said, what do you think is happening here in this text exchange? What's really going on here? And then I had a friend who told me that their brother died of suicide or something. Not suicide, but something close to it. And so I went on Chat GPT and we talked about what is close to suicide but not suicide, you know, because I didn't really want to have that conversation with a person.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But we ended up deciding that it was a drug overdose, that that's what they meant.

[B]

Yeah. There was a. Mike had given me a prompt which was, you know, because I use AI and. And it might be fun for you just out of curiosity, but it was like, given all that you've learned about me over the time that we've been working together, give me one word that describes me.

[A]

And yes, I have done that. Or write a paragraph about me or a lot of those things. Yes.

[B]

Yeah. It's amazing. Well, it gets to know you.

[A]

Scary as hell.

[B]

It is frightening, isn't it?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So, Jim, as we start to wind down, you've been very generous with your time. Appreciate it. And such an interesting topic as well. A couple things I want to. I'm curious about from your perspective, given what you do. I often use the phrase, it's never about the goal, it's about who you have to become to achieve the goal. And I believe that intensely. I've learned that myself. I believe it. And I realize that that's often what gets in the way of individuals. So that quote, you know, is a very common quote. And I think if you really stop and think about it, it's applicable. And. But what is your view of that particular quote? When we talk about. And yes, it's about the journey and enjoying the journey and all the rest of it, but the quote of. Is who you have to become to achieve the goal. When you hear that, how does that land? Or what's your view of that?

[A]

The first thing that jumps to mind, and maybe I thought about mentioning this earlier, was the corridor principle, this idea that life is a long, long hallway. And we're standing at the entrance to the hallway and there's rooms to the right and left down the hallway, but we can't see into Those rooms. And we have to start actually walking down the hallway and then you can see into the room on the right and you don't want that. You walk a little bit more and then you can see into the room on the left. That's the way life is. If you don't go try that first business, the second business is never going to happen. You can't kill your second person. Remember in the last, in the James Bond movie, like he pointed out, you can't kill your second person until you've already killed your first person. You know, it's all true. You've got to get off the sofa and go try something. And so the corridor principle really jumped to mind with your question in that quote.

[B]

That's a great metaphor. I like, I can actually picture that and I really relate to it. That's kind of a great way to position it.

[A]

And what's even cooler is some rooms have really bright lights coming out of those rooms.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, you really want to get there because there's something. It's a big bright light.

[B]

Yeah, the shiny thing.

[A]

Exactly. Yeah.

[B]

So there's, there's a, there's another aspect of that as well, is that as we, you know, build out businesses, you know, I've made this, to me, it's been a mistake, you know, where I've kind of built this perfect product, if you will, service, whatever it might be, you know, models perfect. You know, he spent time, money, energy, and it just went, you know, like, it just fell flat. And what I've learned along the way is that quit trying to build what I. The analogy I use is don't build a, don't, don't build a baby grand piano when all you need is a player piano to get things going and that. You don't know what. You don't know. Get something moving and then make decisions as you need to make decisions. A little bit of read and react. It's not about all being reactive. But just get moving. Don't worry about making it perfect. Just get moving. What's your kind of philosophy around that, Jim?

[A]

Oh, I raised money for a company and the, the CEO is a female and she insisted they have all 12 pieces before they did anything. We've got to have all 12. And she went bankrupt with one and two halfway done. And you know, she could have launched with 1 and 2 halfway done. Instead she went bankrupt because she couldn't get to three. And we all know that now. So be honest about it. Say, you know what? I'm honest. This is my first sale. If I don't get you to go out there and brag about how good I am, I go out of business. So how do I get you to brag about me?

[B]

Well, you know, I, I did a, I, I got this tip from somebody else a long time ago, but I'm about to launch a new service, a program that I'm launching, and it's kind of out there a little bit in the professional personal development space. But I'm doing a beta test, and I'm literally in my beta test, I'm pushing out to a small database. I'm going, here's what I'm doing. This is a beta, if you're interested, yes, it's going to cost you, but it's there to be part of the development of what I'm developing. And so it's a, it's literally a beta test. And so. But I was very honest about it. I go, I don't know, like, I think it's a really cool program. This is what it's all about. If you want to be part of the evolution of that, let me know. And so we're about to beta test it. I'm kind of nervous about it because I have no idea how it's going to land, but I'm going, I'm not going any deeper than that until I get this beta test and then learn along the way. So I don't know what you think of that strategy, but I'm going, that's a great strategy.

[A]

Great strategy.

[B]

Yeah. 100. Yeah. Okay, so I want to talk touch base before I let you go. I got to know a little bit about your background.

[A]

Did you?

[B]

You're so entrepreneurial. Although you went through scholastically, you did all the things that you've done. Were your parents entrepreneurial? Give me a little bit about, you know, your, your background, because I love to investigate and, you know, share with listeners because let's get rid of excuses. You know, did you, was it nature or nurture? Did you come out of the shoot an entrepreneur or. And were raised in that environment or, you know, were your parents teachers, and you just went on an entrepreneurial journey? Like, what was it for you?

[A]

Mom was a nurse and dad was a doctor. So you know how they met. And dad was a better businessman and had built a fairly large medical practice that operated at multiple hospitals. And he was the guy who held it all together and was the boss of all the other doctors. And so we went on vacation one time and I had two or three stitches up here, and he Said, I'll just take them out on vacation. We had to go to the emergency hospital because he tore a hole in my face.

[B]

Okay, so definitely entrepreneurial. You come by what you do?

[A]

Yeah, we talked about business at dinner. Business was always talked about at dinner. And important adult things were talked about at dinner. But I remember the first time I heard someone call me an entrepreneur was maybe year three of my business or something. You know, my parents were never like, oh, you're a business owner. You know, it was. I didn't consider myself an entrepreneur for a long time.

[B]

Yeah, interesting. Hey, so, okay, so we're going to wind down a little bit, but I got a couple rapid fire questions just for fun that I always end the show with. And you know, they kind of warm up to them. So Android or iPhone?

[A]

IPhone.

[B]

Have you always been an iPhone guy by just in that ecosystem?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I switched over, but it doesn't matter. Do you have a favorite band, favorite music that you like to listen to?

[A]

There's only one music. They stopped making music when Jerry Garcia died in the Grateful Dead. It's sad, the end of music. I don't know what the rest of you all are doing, but music stopped that day.

[B]

Understood. Favorite swear word.

[A]

Oh, you gotta go for the gold, man. You gotta go for the F word.

[B]

Yeah. F bomb all over the place. Yeah, me too.

[A]

If you're gonna use it, use the good one.

[B]

Are you a movie guy? Sure.

[A]

Love movies.

[B]

What's your favorite?

[A]

Oh, gosh, there's so many. Shawshank.

[B]

Yeah, I knew it's coming. I knew it was coming. That's probably the number one answer I get. Shawshank. It's a big one. Or Matrix. The Matrix.

[A]

No, I didn't like Matrix. That was too real, maybe for me.

[B]

Sometimes I'll ask that question of a guest and you know, he'll go, you know, I'm a father of a five year old, so whatever is their favorite movie is now my favorite movie. So that's how that rolls. And it's no surprise there. Book that was impactful for you. Was there a. A book that was a tipping point, fork in the road moment for you? Because you read it.

[A]

The whole Atlas Shrug, Fountainhead and Rand genre, you know that because I did end up going to architecture school and so anything about architecture really connects with me. But also that book is the first one that's ballsy enough to say, money is good, competence is good, greed is good, you know, so very controversial stance, I think.

[B]

I think that Atlas Shrug has probably picked up more readers over the past five years than it ever did prior. But, you know, given what's going on, it's an interesting read, for sure. Recommended book, for sure. If God exists, what do you want God to say when you get to the gates?

[A]

Well, God does exist, and he's probably going to say, you barely made it.

[B]

You got in under the skin.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

No.

[A]

Not one inch further. Could you have gone?

[B]

I love it. And Jim, final question. What are you grateful for?

[A]

My mama and my dad and my kids. Simple stuff.

[B]

Yeah, me too. I'm grateful for all of that. I'm always, always so grateful to have had the opportunity to meet somebody new on my show like yourself, and for you to share the insights you shared today and very grateful for that. I appreciate your time, your energy, your insights. Very powerful. Thanks very much.

[A]

Thank you for having me.

[B]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening. If you found value in the podcast, please take the time to rate and review and share with others. Share with your friends as it is my goal to always improve and to provide the highest value for you, the listener. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions you'd like answered, please email [e-mail] that's CEORA. I look forward to hearing from you. And until next time, Patrick.

[A]

Oh.