3062: A Story of AI, Entrepreneurship, and the Future of Business Success

[00:00:04] How can you transform your life through entrepreneurship and technology and leverage things like artificial intelligence without losing your unique, authentic self? The things that make you stand out from the crowd and help you be successful.

[00:00:20] Well, today I'm excited to explore this with Jeff Lerner, the founder of Entree, an education platform that merges entrepreneurship with holistic life transformation. Because back in 2008, Jeff's world was falling apart. He was a professional pianist facing debt, divorce, depression. But fast forward a decade, and he's built not one, but multiple eight figure businesses, reclaimed his health,

[00:00:50] and completely turned his life around. His entrepreneurial journey is rooted in what he calls the Entree Way based on three key pillars, physical, personal and professional growth. So today I want to learn more about his platform and how he's enrolled 250,000 students helping them create more than 20,000 businesses by simply combining the principles of entrepreneurship with personal development. But this is a tech podcast.

[00:01:19] So I also want to discuss how AI is reshaping the world of business while emphasizing the importance of staying authentic in a tech driven landscape. But how did Jeff go from struggling musician to one of the most successful entrepreneurs online today? And how can technology help you achieve your goals without compromising your true self?

[00:01:43] Well, buckle up and hold on tight because I'm going to beam your ears all the way to Utah, where my guest is waiting to share his story. So a massive warm welcome to the show. Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do?

[00:01:58] So my name is Jeff Lerner. I am founder of a platform called Entree, which is certainly what I'm probably best known for in the world. In the last five years, we've had over 250,000 students and we've helped those students actually launch over 20,000 businesses.

[00:02:17] And well, I'll talk more about that. But I think who I am probably goes back to being a child that never really fit in and was drawn from an early age to just the road less traveled.

[00:02:35] I've always had this strong pull. If I'm being honest, when I was young, it was almost a form of judgment. I think I've overcome the judgment piece of it. I'm a lot more empathetic now. But it was like, basically as a kid, it was like all the grownups in the world seem frustrated and unhappy. And school seems like they're training us to grow up and become them.

[00:03:01] I don't want any part of it. It all seems ridiculous. I'm going to find my own way. And I'm sort of willing to suffer whatever comes with that. That was sort of my early worldview. And I got bullied a lot and I got picked on a lot and I struggled a lot socially because I just thought every, just none of it seemed to make sense to me.

[00:03:21] I was like, I was in the matrix and I could just kind of see and just, it didn't add up. And so I ended up dropping out of high school after a pretty turbulent school time career and ended up going hard into becoming a jazz musician because I wanted to create and express.

[00:03:39] And I'm like, man, I know I got to figure out a way to pay the bills and make a living, but I just don't want to do it doing something that doesn't feel true and unique to myself.

[00:03:50] I just had this sense that we're put on this earth to do and be something unique. And jazz music seemed like the perfect embodiment of that because you're learning.

[00:04:01] And I think this is a good metaphor for life. You're learning the same fundamentals as everyone else.

[00:04:06] But if a jazz musician goes out and plays a solo that anybody else has ever played before, they're not a jazz musician.

[00:04:13] They might be a classical musician or they might be a copycat musician, but jazz is about spontaneous improvisation.

[00:04:20] But it has to be grounded in a fairly complex and sophisticated set of fundamentals.

[00:04:26] And that's life to me. And it's certainly entrepreneurship to me.

[00:04:30] And so I was really drawn to that. I had a nice career in my 20s. I say nice. I mean, the life of a working jazz musician is hard financially and otherwise.

[00:04:41] But, you know, I mean, dating as a jazz musician, you know, hey, what do you do?

[00:04:46] Oh, I'm a jazz musician. Okay, next. Moving on, right?

[00:04:52] Right. I'm a musician, like intellectually and by an artistically. I don't know if I'm actually a musician temperamentally.

[00:05:01] Like I never really was that comfortable being poor. Like I thought being poor sucked, to put it bluntly.

[00:05:08] And I didn't want to be like famous and like I didn't want to have groupies.

[00:05:13] I just wanted to meet a nice girl and build a life. Like I'm actually very conservative, I think, by nature.

[00:05:20] And so the trappings of being, you know, a rock star or whatever, that wasn't it for me.

[00:05:26] I really was about the music and building a life where I got to create stuff that had never existed before and that I really, really believed.

[00:05:35] And I still do believe in a lot of ways that music, it matters. It's transcendentally significant in the world.

[00:05:43] And I wanted to be a part of something that the world would really lose something if it disappeared.

[00:05:49] You know, as an improvisational musician, you're part of an ethos and a lore and a history that the world would be less without.

[00:05:59] And I don't know that there's a ton of career categories where you can really say that, that like at a human spiritual and kind of soul level that we're richer because this world exists, this part of the world exists.

[00:06:12] And I think jazz fits into that category, right?

[00:06:14] And it has all this amazing lore of, you know, it grew out of the African-American blues and spiritual tradition in the early 20th century.

[00:06:22] This incredibly sophisticated art music that was genius and that challenged and innovated contemporary arts at the time.

[00:06:32] And anyway, it's just, I love that world, but it's just a hard way to make a living, right?

[00:06:36] So anyway, I did that all through my 20s and eventually got broke enough.

[00:06:41] Well, I'd say what the way it really happened was I started getting some pretty good gigs booked as gigs go, where I was playing a lot of private parties in the homes of in like very wealthy people's homes, hosting these private parties and banquets and galas and charity benefits and stuff like that.

[00:07:01] And I started to connect the dots and I realized most of the people who owned these, you know, mansions with these very, for me, it was about the piano.

[00:07:11] Like I'd walk into a house and, oh, this is a big, nice house, whatever, but let me see the piano.

[00:07:14] And I'd sit down at a, you know, a $150,000 vintage Steinway or a $300,000 Bosendorfer piano.

[00:07:22] And I'm like, man, this is, this is it.

[00:07:25] Who are these people?

[00:07:26] And by the way, those get, you know, your typical restaurant gig or nightclub gig might pay you a hundred dollars an hour.

[00:07:31] If you're good.

[00:07:32] These gigs would pay more of sometimes like three, three to $500 an hour.

[00:07:36] So I'd pay to get paid $2,000 to go play four hours at a dinner party.

[00:07:41] So everything about it just piqued my interest.

[00:07:43] Like, who are these people?

[00:07:44] What are these?

[00:07:44] I want more of these gigs and I want to know more of these people.

[00:07:47] And they were virtually all entrepreneurs.

[00:07:50] And so I started to realize like, oh, wait, entrepreneurship.

[00:07:54] That's like, kind of like what I do.

[00:07:56] You learn a set of fundamentals, but then you go take it into the world in a collaborative way.

[00:08:02] A lot of jazz is ensemble music.

[00:08:04] Entrepreneurship is a team sport, but, but it's a team sport led by a fierce individualist.

[00:08:10] Who's got a vision and they're willing to bend the universe around the vision that they hold.

[00:08:15] That's, that's like jazz, man.

[00:08:16] You go out, you're like, I want to, I want to try playing a, a flatted ninth on a major seven chord.

[00:08:23] And I want to sell it to the audience.

[00:08:26] And I want to enroll my fellow musicians in the merit of this extremely dissonant interval that I'm going to inject into my solo and freaking pound on because I'm trying to make it mean something.

[00:08:38] And when I resolve it, it's going to create this release and everybody's going to feel it and it's going to be epic.

[00:08:43] Right.

[00:08:43] Right.

[00:08:43] And so it's that level of insistence within collaboration that is so true.

[00:08:48] It's so much what entrepreneurship is.

[00:08:50] And I started going, man, these entrepreneurs, they're kind of like me, only they know, they not only know where their rent's going to come from at the end of the month, they've probably already paid off their house.

[00:09:00] Right.

[00:09:00] Right.

[00:09:01] And so I started to sort of romanticize this entrepreneurial thing and, and iterate into it all through my twenties.

[00:09:08] I tried, uh, I counted it.

[00:09:10] I wrote about it in my book.

[00:09:11] I listed 11 different things that I did that were failures.

[00:09:14] Those were the, honestly, the major ones.

[00:09:15] I mean, there were lots of little here's and there's, uh, inter intermix too, but failed all through my twenties as an entrepreneur.

[00:09:22] I say I failed.

[00:09:24] It's just like music.

[00:09:25] I just hit a bunch of wrong notes, but I got better, kept getting better.

[00:09:29] Um, and then finally in my late twenties, uh, I had started to develop arthritis in my wrist cause I was a late comer to piano.

[00:09:37] I didn't, and I actually found out later, I have a genetic disorder that actually affects your shoulders and your arms.

[00:09:43] And so I had a developmental issue too, that I didn't know about that if that ultimately made it so that I was never going to be able to be a lifelong career professional piano player, uh, because of my wrists and hands.

[00:09:54] Uh, and also the fact that I started late, I didn't start really till seriously till I was 17 years old.

[00:09:58] So I kind of missed the developmental window of puberty to lock technique into your hands.

[00:10:04] And so, uh, being a musician wasn't in the cards for me long term.

[00:10:08] And so I banked hard into entrepreneurship.

[00:10:10] I had also racked up a bunch of debt from all these failed entrepreneurial ventures.

[00:10:14] And so at 29 years old, I discovered my first online business training.

[00:10:21] Uh, it was a training and a modality called affiliate marketing.

[00:10:26] And, you know, that was 15, 16 years ago.

[00:10:29] And basically the last 16 years I've been doing one form of digital entrepreneurship or another.

[00:10:34] I've had an affiliate marketing business.

[00:10:36] I've had, uh, I had a digital marketing agency for small businesses, uh, for about five years.

[00:10:40] I've had a couple of e-commerce stores.

[00:10:43] I've owned an online direct sales company in the personal development space.

[00:10:47] And now I own, uh, one of the, maybe the largest entrepreneurship training platforms.

[00:10:54] It's probably not the largest, but one of the big ones online.

[00:10:57] And I do believe that we're the largest and most distinct in terms of combining entrepreneurship

[00:11:03] and personal development to create a more successful version of both of those things.

[00:11:07] So, uh, I've also, I've also written a book and I host a podcast.

[00:11:12] And you've been on quite a journey there.

[00:11:14] In fact, that's one of the, probably one of the most memorable origin stories I've heard

[00:11:18] in nearly 3000 episodes there from the kid being bullied and the journeys of struggling

[00:11:23] jazz musician to funding multiple eight figure businesses, nothing short of remarkable, including

[00:11:28] that key turning point that set you on that path of entrepreneurship.

[00:11:33] And I love that phrase you used there of when you failed, it was just like playing the piano

[00:11:39] where you hit a few bum notes, but it wasn't failure.

[00:11:41] It was just learning and you got better.

[00:11:43] And from there, I think it was that moment where you develop this unique entrepreneurial

[00:11:48] life operating system, which I believe based on three Ps physical,

[00:11:53] personal and professional.

[00:11:55] So can you just walk me through how that system transformed your life and indeed the business?

[00:12:00] What did you learn here?

[00:12:02] Yeah, I did.

[00:12:03] So I, and a lot, like I said, I'm, I'm intellectually a natural musician, which is to say, I like to

[00:12:11] understand found, you know, foundational elements and fundamentals and assemble them into frameworks.

[00:12:16] And once you really master those frameworks, you can extract from them in infinite variation of,

[00:12:22] of novelty and beauty and purpose and whatever you want to create in this world.

[00:12:27] That's what music is.

[00:12:28] That's what entrepreneurship is.

[00:12:30] That's what life is.

[00:12:31] And so when I reached this point where I was saying, okay, I want to transition from the

[00:12:35] life of an artist to the life of an entrepreneur, because I've realized that the life of an artist,

[00:12:41] although I'm very fulfilled by the work, it's not fully compatible with all the other things

[00:12:45] I want to be true in my life.

[00:12:46] Things like family and having a little more normalcy and the ability to, you know, like

[00:12:53] just say, I want to go to the gym at five o'clock every morning.

[00:12:56] You can't do that as a musician because sometimes your gig isn't even over until five o'clock

[00:13:00] in the morning.

[00:13:01] And sometimes you're traveling on the road and you got to leave the club and drive straight

[00:13:05] to the next town.

[00:13:06] And there's no time to stop at a gym, right?

[00:13:08] It just, I just wanted a little more structure.

[00:13:11] And so I, and a little, and a lot more money.

[00:13:13] So I identified entrepreneurship and the re I should add, the reason I wanted a lot more

[00:13:17] money is because I didn't think it was, I was married twice while I was a jazz musician.

[00:13:22] And, uh, I never felt that it was really responsible to have kids in that environment or in that,

[00:13:27] in that, within that life choice.

[00:13:30] So that was a big part of it too.

[00:13:31] I just wanted to have the wherewithal to be able to provide for the family that I wanted

[00:13:36] to have someday.

[00:13:37] Um, so anyway, I, as I was constantly, I'm sort of wired to try to build frameworks.

[00:13:44] And so as I was going through my life and once I met my wife in 2011, well, I met her

[00:13:49] in 2010.

[00:13:50] We got really got serious in 2011.

[00:13:53] We just, and she was a single mom with three kids.

[00:13:56] So there was some pressure on me and on her where it was like, okay, I'm going to let

[00:14:00] this guy into my life.

[00:14:02] But for me, I felt like I need to be worthy of a, of a mom and three kids.

[00:14:06] This isn't just me anymore.

[00:14:08] Right.

[00:14:08] Or even just me and a, and a wife that may or may not work out with tended not to up

[00:14:14] to that point.

[00:14:14] Um, you know, there's kids in the deal, right?

[00:14:17] I got to get this one right.

[00:14:18] And then on the flip side, I think for her, she was like, I want, I really want to support

[00:14:21] him.

[00:14:22] I don't want to try to box him in and say, well, if you're going to be with me, you've

[00:14:26] got to get a job.

[00:14:27] But I, but I, but she was looking like any single mom with kids would be looking for some

[00:14:32] predictability and a reason for a grounded reason for optimism, let's say.

[00:14:36] And so I wanted to create, I was just sort of inclined to create a structure as much

[00:14:41] as I could.

[00:14:42] And so I came up, uh, organically over the course of 10 years, she and I together really

[00:14:48] developed this three Ps framework.

[00:14:51] And I'll, uh, you know, it's a, it's a longer story than we have time for, but basically

[00:14:55] over the course of about a decade, we kind of figured out through life experience that

[00:15:01] the physical, personal and professional parts of our lives, which I'll, I'll quickly define

[00:15:07] is basically a map of relationships.

[00:15:09] When I say your physical life, what I really mean is your total relationship with yourself,

[00:15:14] self-care, everything from hygiene to fitness, to the food we put in our body, to the sleep

[00:15:20] we get to the personal, uh, you know, growth and development and self-study and writing and

[00:15:28] meditation and like whatever, all the stuff that's just me with me.

[00:15:31] That's what I mean by my physical life.

[00:15:33] And then the personal life is the skills in communication and relationships to be able

[00:15:38] to directly, uh, have the influence, reciprocal influence, positive influence in the people

[00:15:44] that are close to me.

[00:15:45] And honestly, to have the right people in my circle and move the wrong people out.

[00:15:49] That's a big thing.

[00:15:50] The, the sort of social and environmental engineering component of the personal life.

[00:15:55] So, so personal is the next largest set of relationships in our life.

[00:15:58] And then you have the professional.

[00:16:00] I show them as concentric circles.

[00:16:02] That's why I'm doing this for anybody that's watching me, that the professional ring, that

[00:16:05] third ring, those are all of our indirect relationships.

[00:16:08] Those are all the people in the world that are impacted by the work that we do.

[00:16:11] And what really started to make sense to me wasn't just that relationships could be organized

[00:16:17] that way, physically, personally, and professionally, but that a lot of the world seems to be

[00:16:23] a little bit unrealistic in their expectations of how their relationship sets were going to

[00:16:31] play out in their life.

[00:16:32] And here's what I mean.

[00:16:34] So many people want to make more money.

[00:16:36] And from the second I got into entrepreneurship, my, the first thing I affiliated with was

[00:16:41] a platform that taught digital marketing.

[00:16:43] And so that's, that speaks to a world of people that want to make more money.

[00:16:48] That's why they're very often back then, especially that's why they were learning that

[00:16:51] skill.

[00:16:52] And what I came to realize pretty fast, and I think I had experienced this before too,

[00:16:57] but it really got crystal clear is so many people in the world are wanting to increase

[00:17:03] the value of their professional life.

[00:17:05] In other words, I go to work every day, I do this stuff and I want more for it.

[00:17:10] I feel, I feel undercompensated, undervalued, underappreciated, and so forth.

[00:17:15] But if you understand your professional life is basically the largest and most indirect

[00:17:19] set of relationships in your life, it's all the people that are impacted through your

[00:17:22] work.

[00:17:23] That's essentially an exchange of value on the basis of the world.

[00:17:28] The world is giving you value on, on the basis of its belief in who you are and what

[00:17:34] you're going to do for the world.

[00:17:35] That's what, that's what work is right.

[00:17:38] In compensation for work.

[00:17:40] So how does it make sense to expect to get more from that if I haven't first mastered

[00:17:46] the relationship with one?

[00:17:49] And then from there, if I haven't mastered the relationship with a few, why am I leaping

[00:17:55] right to the third ring and expecting my relationship with the many to pay me more when I'm not yet

[00:18:00] a master of relationships?

[00:18:02] And, and, and what, you know, what we get paid is just who we are times what we do.

[00:18:08] And so I either have to do something that's more valuable or become someone that's more

[00:18:12] valuable or ideally both before the world's ever going to pay me more.

[00:18:16] But if I'm trying to skip the physical and the personal to get to that, I'm actually showing

[00:18:21] myself that I don't even value myself as highly as I'm trying to get the world to.

[00:18:25] So it makes no sense.

[00:18:27] And so that's essentially the concept of the three Ps.

[00:18:29] And then what emerged for Jacqueline and I, my wife, after more direct application and

[00:18:34] actually building this out into a complete operating system that literally the goal was,

[00:18:39] how do we install this framework into our life to create the most predictable results

[00:18:43] possible?

[00:18:44] Just like you install an operating system in a computer.

[00:18:46] And therefore, you know that if I hit this button and this button and this button, it's

[00:18:49] going to do this function, right?

[00:18:50] I want my life to be as close to that as it can be.

[00:18:53] And what emerged in that pursuit was this concept of the fourth P that all the way to

[00:18:59] ultimately as human beings, we have what I call the three selves, the survival self, the

[00:19:05] social self, and the spiritual self.

[00:19:06] And those three selves, the survival self wants to stay alive.

[00:19:10] The social self wants to be accepted and safe by integration with others.

[00:19:15] And the spiritual self wants to manifest and express our uniqueness is essentially how I would

[00:19:20] phrase it.

[00:19:21] Those three selves are constantly at war with each other.

[00:19:23] We're constantly having to deny one to feed another of those three.

[00:19:29] And they map pretty closely to the three Ps.

[00:19:32] And what we figured out is the only way to get our three selves and our three Ps to all

[00:19:37] line up is to essentially find the reason why we should overcome our own innate human

[00:19:44] flaws.

[00:19:46] And it doesn't mean we ever perfect ourselves, but it means, and I think most people can relate

[00:19:49] to this, we will generally sabotage ourselves until we find a good enough reason not to.

[00:19:55] And that good enough reason is never going to be just sort of self-gratification.

[00:19:58] I don't think we're wired to improve ourselves solely for the purpose of self-gratification.

[00:20:05] I think we're wired to improve ourselves in the pursuit of something higher.

[00:20:10] And so what emerged was what we call the fourth P, which is purpose.

[00:20:13] Yes, that the physical, the personal, and the professional will come into alignment the

[00:20:18] more we orient them towards something greater than ourselves.

[00:20:20] That's why we believe we're here.

[00:20:22] And so, you know, I think that's important because without the fourth P, the third P,

[00:20:26] the three Ps can be very me, me, me.

[00:20:29] Like, oh, I just want to look better, feel better, have more friends, you have more sex,

[00:20:34] have more money, like whatever.

[00:20:36] But the fourth P says, no, this is all to a purpose, right?

[00:20:40] This is discipline equals freedom, so to speak.

[00:20:44] And I'm glad you said that because it's not just about yourself and your wife there.

[00:20:48] It was also this need to help others.

[00:20:51] And you said that everybody else is wired the same way.

[00:20:54] And Entree Institute, I was reading before you came on the podcast today, has grown rapidly.

[00:21:00] I think you had something over 250,000 students, which again is incredible.

[00:21:04] But what is it you think that sets it apart as a platform for a whole life transformation

[00:21:09] from others out there?

[00:21:10] And why do you think it resonates so deeply with people out there?

[00:21:13] Well, I'm just going to be blunt.

[00:21:16] We're the only one that I've seen who is so vociferously committed to telling the truth

[00:21:27] about entrepreneurship and personal development.

[00:21:31] And here's what I mean by that.

[00:21:32] When I say entrepreneurship, that's a wide gamut of categories out there.

[00:21:38] That's everything from the Silicon Valley Y Combinator venture-backed startup scene to

[00:21:45] digital marketing and freelance marketing services, like the whole ClickFunnels crowd to affiliate

[00:21:55] marketing, e-commerce, all the online business modalities.

[00:21:58] Even franchising gets sucked up under the entrepreneurship umbrella.

[00:22:02] There's a lot of different flavors of entrepreneurship.

[00:22:04] But here's what I can tell you they all have in common is they're all at a completely different

[00:22:11] ballgame than having a job.

[00:22:13] And most of the world is wired into this transactional paradigm where I show up, I give my time and

[00:22:20] some value.

[00:22:20] And in exchange, I have some certainty around a financial outcome.

[00:22:24] And maybe there's more to it than that.

[00:22:26] Maybe I don't just have a job.

[00:22:27] Maybe I have a career or maybe I just have a job.

[00:22:29] But either way, there's a time for money implicit promise, right?

[00:22:33] When all that goes out the window, as it does in entrepreneurship, everything changes.

[00:22:39] Emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, energetically.

[00:22:42] It's a completely different version of each of us that we have to become to even have a chance at

[00:22:47] success in entrepreneurship.

[00:22:50] At a job, all you have to do to not fail is not get fired.

[00:22:54] In entrepreneurship, unless you're great, you basically fail and move on to the next thing.

[00:23:00] And so, you know, most of us just aren't, we don't grow up.

[00:23:03] Like we grow up getting participation trophies.

[00:23:05] There is no participation trophy.

[00:23:07] You know, your paycheck is a participation trophy.

[00:23:09] You showed up at work.

[00:23:10] Even on a bad day, you still got paid.

[00:23:12] You just don't get that with entrepreneurship.

[00:23:14] And so what we have found is, and I'll give you a data to support this.

[00:23:18] We basically combine personal development with entrepreneurship because we realize without

[00:23:23] personal development, most people trying to get into any form of entrepreneurship are toast,

[00:23:28] especially the people that need it the most.

[00:23:30] And the people that need it the most are the people that are the least benefiting from the

[00:23:36] conventional employment economy.

[00:23:39] And that's the vast majority of people are never going to be, right now in today's world,

[00:23:43] they're never going to be able to retire.

[00:23:44] Their wages are not nearly keeping up with inflation.

[00:23:47] Just groceries and energy costs and rent are basically draining most people's total income

[00:23:54] now.

[00:23:55] And some of them are backsliding.

[00:23:57] I mean, in the town we live in, you can't even get a decent one bedroom apartment for

[00:24:01] less than two grand a month.

[00:24:02] And I live in a small, like 200,000 person town.

[00:24:06] I mean, it's insane.

[00:24:08] And so the people, those are the people like the entrepreneurship doesn't discriminate.

[00:24:12] Doesn't care what college you went to.

[00:24:14] Doesn't care what fraternity you were a part of.

[00:24:16] Doesn't care what your last name is.

[00:24:17] Doesn't care what color your skin is.

[00:24:19] Doesn't care who you choose to love.

[00:24:21] It's the world of opportunity for all the people that are falling short in the mainstream

[00:24:27] employment world.

[00:24:28] But nobody's being honest about what it takes at a personal transformation level to become

[00:24:34] that person.

[00:24:35] It'd be like going out.

[00:24:37] It's kind of like what's happening in the Ukraine right now.

[00:24:40] Ukraine has run out of trained soldiers.

[00:24:42] And so now they're conscripting civilians to come fight.

[00:24:47] These are not trained soldiers.

[00:24:49] And they're having to move from civilian life to military life without proper training.

[00:24:54] That's what it is for most people to go, you know, I'm really tired of my job.

[00:24:57] I want to start a business.

[00:24:58] Let me go learn to start this.

[00:24:59] It's like getting conscripted into a completely different life with completely different stakes

[00:25:04] and completely different skill sets and completely different expectations.

[00:25:07] And nobody actually telling you that this is as different as going from civilian life to

[00:25:13] military life.

[00:25:14] Employment to entrepreneurship is just as big a leap.

[00:25:16] And nobody's out there saying that.

[00:25:18] And we're saying it and we're actually teaching people and equipping them before we, you know,

[00:25:23] because people are in like a catch 22.

[00:25:25] They're like, well, I'm never going to get there with my job, but entrepreneurship is the

[00:25:30] way.

[00:25:31] But I'm getting, but there's all this, the internet is full of all these opportunities

[00:25:35] that are promoting entrepreneurship, but they're not actually being honest about what

[00:25:39] it's going to take because they're just trying to make it sound easy.

[00:25:42] And so we have a, a, a battlefield of millions of dead bodies, metaphorically of, of entrepreneurial

[00:25:49] casualties.

[00:25:50] And then on the flip side, you have personal development, you know, that we all know who

[00:25:54] these guys are.

[00:25:55] I'm not going to name the names, but personal development without teaching entrepreneurship

[00:25:59] and business skills is basically just teaching people how to find a higher deck and get a

[00:26:06] better view on the Titanic that is their life.

[00:26:09] Unless you're creating new options for people and new ways to actually get ahead of the financial

[00:26:15] equation in the modern world, you're, you're just like doping people on the way to slaughter

[00:26:20] so they can feel a little better before it's over.

[00:26:23] And it's like, no, unless you're doing both, you're not doing either responsibly.

[00:26:27] And that I think is why Entre resonates because it's just true.

[00:26:31] And as you mentioned a few moments ago about raising the stakes, another raising of the

[00:26:35] stakes is the AI and its encroachment on almost every aspect of our life.

[00:26:41] This week alone, we've had Apple intelligence.

[00:26:43] It's got to be bringing AI to the mainstream, really guys like me, you might talk about it

[00:26:48] all the time.

[00:26:48] It's now going to be coming to every iPhone.

[00:26:50] We've had Oprah on the TV saying nobody can afford to sit this one out.

[00:26:54] And it is becoming a significant game changer for businesses and entrepreneurs alike.

[00:26:59] So how do you see AI helping entrepreneurs grow their business more efficiently?

[00:27:04] And are there any mistakes that they should be avoiding when integrating AI into their

[00:27:08] businesses?

[00:27:09] Yeah.

[00:27:10] I mean, AI is incredible.

[00:27:11] I was, you know, I'll give you a quick example.

[00:27:14] This morning, I wanted to create some content that sort of challenges the conventional narrative

[00:27:18] around like racism in this country.

[00:27:21] And I haven't published it, but what I basically want to show is because there's data out there

[00:27:26] that's like the difference between first and second generation immigrants versus of like

[00:27:34] Asians and Africans versus those same ethnicities after they've been in America for three or

[00:27:40] more generations.

[00:27:42] And how the more Americanized an immigrant group gets, the more their economic success

[00:27:47] deteriorates.

[00:27:48] Wow.

[00:27:49] And by the way, the economic success of whites is deteriorating too.

[00:27:53] And it's essentially, it's just because the contagion of laziness and entitlement is essentially

[00:27:58] what Americanization is.

[00:27:59] And I was like, but like, that's a lot of research.

[00:28:02] And that's not, that's even trying to do that through a Google search is going to take

[00:28:06] quite a bit.

[00:28:06] I just went into chat GPT and I basically said, write me, you know, a post that compares

[00:28:13] this data with this data and defends it with statistics and kind of makes this point took

[00:28:19] me 10 seconds or maybe 30 seconds.

[00:28:22] Right?

[00:28:22] Like that's a really sophisticated and that's a conversation starter, that piece, that piece

[00:28:26] of content.

[00:28:27] Right.

[00:28:28] It just makes, it's all about, in fact, there's a great quote, Alfred North Whitehead said something,

[00:28:36] and I'm going to butcher it, but he said something like civilization, the progress is the level,

[00:28:43] he said, the progress of civilization is the complexity of what we can do without having

[00:28:50] to think about it.

[00:28:52] You know, you think about what it used to take to like preserve food.

[00:28:56] There were a lot of steps and you had to think about them.

[00:28:58] You had to, you had to cure it and you had to salt it.

[00:29:01] You had to build a dehumidified room to house it.

[00:29:05] And you had like, now you just put it in the fridge.

[00:29:08] It's a more sophisticated, more complex action that can, that we can do without having to think

[00:29:12] about it.

[00:29:12] And that's progress.

[00:29:13] That's what AI is.

[00:29:14] AI is the biggest sea change we'll ever see in our lifetime in up-leveling the sophistication

[00:29:21] and complexity of things that we can now do without really having to think about it.

[00:29:25] And, you know, if you're not doing it, I would argue entrepreneur or employee doesn't really

[00:29:30] matter.

[00:29:31] If you're not embracing it, you're going to get left behind.

[00:29:33] But the danger, the pitfall is that the one thing that can never be automated, it can never

[00:29:40] be diminished is uniqueness and authenticity.

[00:29:45] And to the extent that your AI starts to make your, your use of AI starts to make you any

[00:29:51] more like everyone else and any less like yourself.

[00:29:56] Now it's paying a negative dividend.

[00:29:58] That's not worth it.

[00:29:59] That's my caution.

[00:30:00] That is such a powerful point.

[00:30:03] And you mentioned the phrase there, getting left behind.

[00:30:06] I think there'd be so many people listening that have got that fear right now.

[00:30:09] And you did write a bestselling book, Unlock Your Potential, which you mentioned at the

[00:30:13] very beginning of our conversation today.

[00:30:15] What would you say the key lessons are from that book that would help any aspiring entrepreneur

[00:30:20] take control of their future in this tech-driven world where AI seems to dominate everything?

[00:30:26] And anything that you would share on that as a bit of reassurance for people that feel a

[00:30:32] bit overwhelmed from the AI at the moment?

[00:30:35] Well, here's what I'll say.

[00:30:38] Being overwhelmed is not a meaningful data point.

[00:30:42] It might be a very real sensation that a person's experiencing, but that's, that's no different

[00:30:47] than going to the person who's been eating chocolate and, you know, donuts for the last

[00:30:53] 30 years and saying, dude, you got to change your diet, bro.

[00:30:56] You got to, you got to learn about some basic nutrition.

[00:30:59] You got to learn to have a sense of, of your macro nutrient ratios.

[00:31:03] You got to learn a little bit about the endocrine system and the metabolic system.

[00:31:06] And they're like, I'm overwhelmed.

[00:31:07] I'm too busy.

[00:31:08] I just want my donuts.

[00:31:10] Okay.

[00:31:10] Your overwhelm is not going to save you from dying if you don't learn this stuff.

[00:31:15] So people have to get a lot more comfortable being overwhelmed and stop using that as a

[00:31:19] reason to avoid something, first of all.

[00:31:21] So that's the first thing I'd say.

[00:31:23] And that's true of all of it.

[00:31:24] That's, that's true simply of not just of AI, but just the basic skills of entrepreneurship

[00:31:29] and, and learning to think in a more sophisticated way about money and finances and learning how

[00:31:35] the, to emotionally regulate.

[00:31:37] So you can tolerate a little higher level of perceived risk.

[00:31:40] The problem, the biggest problem in the world today is that the way our brains are wired to

[00:31:44] measure risk is no longer aligned with what is logically out there and most risky.

[00:31:52] We perceive going out on our own or doing something unique or taking a chance on something as this

[00:31:59] great risk.

[00:31:59] And so instead we cling to safety.

[00:32:02] Again, the Titanic is like hanging onto the Titanic while it's still afloat is not a survival

[00:32:08] strategy.

[00:32:09] It's a far greater risk now to, to just bet on your job and the government and institutions to

[00:32:14] save us and make us okay.

[00:32:15] The math doesn't pencil out just to say, it's just a basic math problem.

[00:32:19] Just take the rate of inflation times, however many years you have till you want to retire,

[00:32:23] take your, your current income and the average rate of wage growth times the amount of time

[00:32:28] you have to retire and see where you're going to be when it's time to retire.

[00:32:30] You're going to be poorer, not richer.

[00:32:32] Like, and so we're clinging to something thinking if, because it feels secure, even though logically

[00:32:37] it's so isn't so that, and what, what is secure ultimately, although nothing is ever going

[00:32:44] to be as secure as maybe getting a job at IBM was 40 years ago.

[00:32:48] And just, so let go, let go.

[00:32:50] First of all, just let go, let go of this insistence that something ever again, be that secure.

[00:32:54] It's not the world we live in anymore and getting emotionally comfortable living in that,

[00:32:59] in that, the, the jelly that we're all floating in right now, where it's hard to find solid

[00:33:04] ground.

[00:33:05] Like if you can't tolerate that, you're just going to be, you're just chattel for the wolves

[00:33:11] to devour.

[00:33:12] And that's what the government is doing now is it's just devouring the hopes and dreams

[00:33:16] of people that are too scared to bet on themselves.

[00:33:19] And, and so if I was going to say, what's the takeaway from my book, it's that the best bet

[00:33:23] you can place is on yourself.

[00:33:26] 100%.

[00:33:26] I was, we've had Gary Vaynerchuk on here a couple of times and he's shared his frustration

[00:33:34] going out for the weekend, playing sports, they're playing Xbox and watching Netflix,

[00:33:40] et cetera.

[00:33:41] And yourself, I mean, you're someone that balances a successful career, family life, fitness,

[00:33:46] and so many other different pursuits.

[00:33:48] You're incredibly busy guy.

[00:33:49] But everyone listening that thinks they don't have the time, how do you maintain that balance?

[00:33:54] And what advice would you give to entrepreneurs trying to get that balance right?

[00:33:58] So I said earlier, I compared life to an operating system and that what we want, I mean, a computer

[00:34:04] is a great model because computers, they essentially, they optimize machine and mechanistic functions

[00:34:12] to create an infinite variety of creative outcomes through predictable processes.

[00:34:18] So just because you're using a machine doesn't mean your output is going to be mechanistic.

[00:34:24] I mean, I could write a symphony on a machine now.

[00:34:27] I could generate a 90 minute feature film using AI now.

[00:34:33] I mean, and that we're not quite there, but I mean, like you can create incredibly

[00:34:36] beautiful and creative things with machines.

[00:34:38] You know, people are like, I don't want to, I don't want to use, you know, machine or computer

[00:34:42] science logic in my life because that's going to make things boring.

[00:34:45] No, no, no.

[00:34:46] The discipline of predictable outcomes, because you have repeatable processes in your life.

[00:34:51] That's the, that's how discipline leads to freedom.

[00:34:53] Yeah.

[00:34:54] Yeah.

[00:34:54] You've got to say, like, if I was trying to create a machine that would optimize itself

[00:34:59] for physical, personal and professional outcomes, all in alignment with a discovered or revealed

[00:35:04] purpose, how would I program that machine?

[00:35:07] And just essentially try to program yourself.

[00:35:09] And one of the things you would do is you would, you would, you would keep dust out of

[00:35:13] the machine.

[00:35:14] You wouldn't allow a lot of impurities into the hardware of the machine.

[00:35:17] Take care of yourself physically, right?

[00:35:20] You wouldn't allow a lot of other random programmers to come insert lines of code that

[00:35:26] could actually even be viruses into your code.

[00:35:29] So be very careful whose influence and whose thoughts you allow to take root inside your

[00:35:34] operating system.

[00:35:35] Be extremely disciplined about environmental engineering and filtering in your life.

[00:35:40] It's like you just apply that metaphor.

[00:35:42] And the other thing is you get really pretty ruthless about saying no to things that are

[00:35:48] only good, but not supportive of great.

[00:35:52] There's a, there's a quote that's actually kind of horrible in the context it was used,

[00:35:58] but it's pretty brilliant.

[00:36:00] Kate Moss, if anybody remembers Kate Moss, she was the fashion model that was, you know,

[00:36:05] pretty much vilified for being too thin.

[00:36:07] And what she said was no food tastes better than being skinny.

[00:36:15] Now she might've taken that to an extreme, but let's, let's apply the wisdom of what she

[00:36:20] said.

[00:36:21] There is no distraction.

[00:36:23] There is no escape.

[00:36:24] There is no indulgence that tastes better than achieving your goals in alignment with your

[00:36:31] purpose over time.

[00:36:33] So just walk it all out.

[00:36:34] I don't, you know, and, and, and, and it doesn't by the time it's time to, this is where

[00:36:38] I think people falter by the time it's time to block those things out.

[00:36:42] It's already too late.

[00:36:43] If you're at the club and the guy next to you is offering you a bump of Coke, it's not about

[00:36:50] having the discipline to say no to the Coke.

[00:36:52] It's about saying, how the hell did I get in this club?

[00:36:54] Yeah.

[00:36:56] You needed to put the guard up way sooner.

[00:36:58] Most of us are just way too permissive in our life.

[00:37:01] And then we find ourselves struggling to say no to things that we could have excluded with

[00:37:05] previous decisions if we'd just been a little more proactive.

[00:37:08] And so that would be my key is keep the impurities out of the hardware, keep other people's code

[00:37:13] out of the operating system and be ruthless about saying no early enough that it's not as

[00:37:18] hard as it will be later.

[00:37:21] Fantastic advice.

[00:37:22] And we started the podcast today talking about your origin story, dealing with bullies, your

[00:37:27] journey from a struggling jazz musician to founding multiple eight figure businesses, a

[00:37:31] remarkable story.

[00:37:33] But now we've come full circle.

[00:37:35] I'm going to ask you to, to look back on your career now, because none of us are able to

[00:37:38] achieve any degree of success without a little help along the way.

[00:37:42] So is there a particular person that you're grateful towards?

[00:37:46] Maybe someone that saw something in you, invested a little time in you and helped you on your

[00:37:50] way in entrepreneurship.

[00:37:51] Who would that person be?

[00:37:53] It'd be great to give him a shout out.

[00:37:54] I'm going to say two people, actually.

[00:37:57] One is my dad.

[00:37:58] And that's the, that's the cliche answer.

[00:38:00] But I'm going to, I'm going to explain it's because my dad was a, he was a money manager

[00:38:04] and he, he was a value investor.

[00:38:06] So he managed money for large, uh, you know, high net worth individuals, trust, family trusts,

[00:38:14] uh, institutions.

[00:38:16] So he had this mandate that was like, first of all, don't lose money.

[00:38:21] That's the number one rule of, I mean, wealthy people, their first rule is just don't lose

[00:38:24] my money.

[00:38:25] And then on top of that, try to outperform inflation is basically the, you know, the average

[00:38:30] family office returns 7% a year.

[00:38:32] Yeah.

[00:38:32] But if you've already got a billion dollars, that's you're fine doing 7% a year.

[00:38:36] Right.

[00:38:36] And so I learned a lot about him, about value, thinking long-term thinking in decades, uh,

[00:38:43] the value of compounding.

[00:38:44] He had a couple investments over the course of my life growing up that took eight to 10

[00:38:48] years to pan out where he was just hold, he, you know, he was from the Peter Lynch, uh,

[00:38:54] Magellan fund school of investing that you just find, Ward Buffett does this too.

[00:38:57] You find value before other people have sniffed it out and you buy it and you hold on and you

[00:39:03] just hang on for the ride.

[00:39:04] However long it takes, because eventually the world wakes up to value.

[00:39:07] And he made a couple of those plays that took a decade to pay off.

[00:39:11] And I learned so much about delayed gratification from my dad.

[00:39:15] The other person that I would say, um, there was a gentleman in my twenties, pretty, pretty

[00:39:20] interesting story that I don't have time for, but through, through a set of circumstances

[00:39:24] and coincidences and a little bit of audacity on my part, I ended up starring in my own musical

[00:39:30] that I wrote in college.

[00:39:32] And we performed it, uh, at a theater festival in Minneapolis called the Minneapolis or the

[00:39:37] Minnesota fringe festival in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

[00:39:40] And there was a gentleman there in the audience who was the inventor of the breathe right strip.

[00:39:46] I don't want to, I don't want to say his name, but I mean, you could probably find out who

[00:39:49] he is if anybody cared to, but he was just really sick.

[00:39:52] You know, I mean, he invented the breathe right strip, which that, that, that product line

[00:39:55] ended up selling for $2 billion or something to Glaxo.

[00:39:59] And he was a big patron of the arts.

[00:40:01] And he kind of took me under his wing for several years.

[00:40:03] He saw the, the hustle and the, the spark in me.

[00:40:08] And I think he was the first person outside of my own family that I felt like really, really

[00:40:15] believed in me when he had no reason to, other than because he just genuinely saw something.

[00:40:20] And that did a lot for me in a lot of ways.

[00:40:22] I don't have time to explain, but if you're hearing this, you know who you are.

[00:40:25] And I'm always grateful.

[00:40:26] Wow.

[00:40:27] I think sharing that is so important because we all meet people and we try to do our best

[00:40:32] by them and, and look out for them and try and invest a little time in it, but you don't

[00:40:36] really realize the impact that spending those few moments with that person could have on their

[00:40:41] life.

[00:40:41] So hearing you share that right now, and he probably isn't aware of the degree of help that he will,

[00:40:48] the role of that help played in your success.

[00:40:51] And of course, for everyone listening, you've got your own podcast.

[00:40:54] You've got a book, a website, so much going on.

[00:40:56] For anyone listening wanting to find out more about you, checking everything out, is there

[00:41:01] one place you'd like to point everyone?

[00:41:03] Yeah.

[00:41:04] If you just go to designyourlife.com.

[00:41:06] Yeah.

[00:41:07] We've put together a completely free masterclass that essentially takes a lot of the stuff that

[00:41:15] we've talked about here and distills it into the framework that a person can start actually

[00:41:20] integrating into their life and seeing results from without having to buy anything, without

[00:41:24] having to spend any money.

[00:41:25] You just go to designyourlife.com, click on, you know, watch the free masterclass, or it

[00:41:30] might say, create my free account.

[00:41:31] It creates a free account.

[00:41:32] You go into our platform, there's a one-hour masterclass that's completely free.

[00:41:35] And, you know, if you like what you see, you might want to go further and come into

[00:41:39] our world.

[00:41:40] But my biggest mission right now is if I could just get every human on earth to watch that

[00:41:45] masterclass, I think we'd have a completely different world.

[00:41:47] I think that's a powerful moment to end on.

[00:41:50] I'll add links to everything to make sure everyone can find you nice and easy.

[00:41:54] And as I said at the very beginning of this podcast, 3,000 interviews.

[00:41:58] And one of the things that I will always remember is a tech podcast, but it's your very human

[00:42:02] origin story that broke jazz musician to building multiple eight and nine figure online businesses.

[00:42:09] And also for just sharing quite humbly your insights and inspiration for entrepreneurs to

[00:42:15] help them harness AI to level up their businesses without losing their authentic self and that

[00:42:20] real value that they bring to the world.

[00:42:22] Powerful stuff.

[00:42:23] But just thanks for sitting down and sharing that with me today.

[00:42:26] Thank you so much, Neil.

[00:42:27] This has been a blast.

[00:42:28] And I can't wait to get the episode and we'll share it with our world too.

[00:42:31] So what's the key to balancing success in every aspect of life?

[00:42:36] For me, Jeff's story offers a powerful lesson in resilience and intentional growth, showing

[00:42:43] us all that success doesn't have to come at the expense of personal wellbeing.

[00:42:48] And through his philosophy, we learned today how physical, personal and professional pillars

[00:42:53] can all align to create a fulfilling and successful life.

[00:42:59] But yes, this is a tech podcast.

[00:43:01] So Jeff's insights on AI's role in businesses also, I think, highlighted the value of embracing

[00:43:07] new technology.

[00:43:08] But being very mindful of not losing your critical thinking skills and don't lose that authenticity.

[00:43:18] The unique aspects that make up you.

[00:43:20] That's what makes you stand out from the crowd.

[00:43:22] Use the technology.

[00:43:23] But don't sacrifice yourself in doing that.

[00:43:27] But as we wrap up today's conversation, what are you going to take away from Jeff's journey

[00:43:31] to apply in your life?

[00:43:33] Whether you're just starting out or you're a seasoned entrepreneur and you think we've

[00:43:36] missed anything today.

[00:43:38] How will you think differently?

[00:43:40] How do you encourage others to think differently?

[00:43:43] How will you align your goals, make better decisions and leverage AI while remaining true

[00:43:49] to your unique identity?

[00:43:51] There are many questions worth reflecting on there.

[00:43:54] And I want you to just let them marinate, have a think about them and let me know your

[00:43:59] thoughts.

[00:44:00] You can do that by emailing me, techblogwriteroutlook.com, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, just at Neil

[00:44:07] C. Hughes.

[00:44:09] But that's it for today.

[00:44:10] So thank you so much for joining me as always.

[00:44:13] Hopefully you feel a little inspired and inspired enough to join me again tomorrow where we've got

[00:44:18] another guest lined up for you.

[00:44:19] So keep those messages and questions coming in and I will speak with you all again tomorrow.

[00:44:25] Bye for now.