James Lang: From Trapped Operator to AI-Powered Freedom

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Hello, everyone. I love when I get to chat to

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somebody who is in the AI space and doing new

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things. And James Lang is just such a man. I

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warn you already. He might be throwing some humor in

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there. Yeah, we already have, and we will have a

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great chat. James, let's just start off very briefly. How

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do you get to this place? Yeah, I first off,

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want to clarify. I don't tell very good jokes, but

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I tell a lot of them, so I make up

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in quantity. But the way I landed here is really

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two really core principal philosophies that have served me well.

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It's learning and earning and then servant leadership. Because at

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some point, you're going to have to build a system

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around the idea you had. And if you can bring

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in other people who share your values and feel supported,

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their opportunities are just as important as the company's opportunities

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and reinforce that you can build a culture and a

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team around something and go so much further. You can

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go faster alone, but you can go a lot further

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together. So the way I ended up here is just

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literally learning how. In the beginning, it was freelance writing,

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and then figuring out why are they having me write

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with keywords? What are keywords? Why does that matter? And

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so then understanding SEO, which is the why behind the

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what. And so every time you understand the why behind

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the what, you get to go up one level in

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the ladder, so to speak. And so if you can

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do that while delivering incredible value to the people that

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you work with, the people who are ahead of you

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in the journey, you can supercharge your learning. I did

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this stereotypical thing of every founder out there, which is

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I had to drop out of college. And so after

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I did that, I had to figure out how to

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learn outside of the college environment. I actually like learning

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in that environment even better because it turns out that

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you can focus on what really speaks to you and

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clicks for you in a less structured way. It's certainly,

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you spend a lot more time eating ramen with that

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approach, but at the end of the day, you get

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to some places faster. It was very weird in my

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past life sitting in the C suite, interviewing all these

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MBA candidates who were barely qualified to hold them up.

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And it's just, I'm glad I skipped that. I dodged

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that bullet. Even though there is a lot of valuable

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knowledge there and skills and expertise, I don't degrade the

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degree, but some of the people that make it out

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of that system are questionable at best. I think that's

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a very good starting point. We are now in the

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Age of information. Information is free. I love this. The

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concept that AI is actually elevating our brains. It's elevating

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our ability to think in a different way. And there's

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this example I saw somewhere where they took humanity and

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put a magnitude on a chart with all the other

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animals. And the condor was the most efficient animal, something

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like the church mouse was the least efficient animal, something

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like that. And you take the human, okay. And you

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put him on a bicycle and suddenly he way outstrips

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the condor in terms of AI for me. Is the

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bicycle for the mind. Right? Yeah. I love learning like

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you. I dropped out of cost accounting college. Yeah, yeah.

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Halfway through that. It wasn't for me. And I learn

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all the time. I'm learning guitar at the moment. I'm

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learning how to do balance board. I'm doing voice coaching.

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I'm doing all sorts of things. So I love learning

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all the. The AI space has really been somewhere where

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you have to dig in and learn. And taking that

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into your daily life is important. However, I would say

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this. I don't need to think inside my brain anymore.

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I don't need to think inside my brain. I've recently

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just done this. I'm writing a book and my book

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is how do I understand the journey of a business

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owned entrepreneur so that you can shortcut as many things

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as possible. One of the things that I'm not very

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good at, I can't type. I've never been a touch

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typer. I've never really been able to write. I should

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have been a doctor. It's just too messy. I can't

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even read it myself. And. And then my brain thinks

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too fast for to come out of my mechanisms. Right.

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But I realized with ChatGPT, I could talk in the

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voice recognition was okay. But I also realized I'm not

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a writer. I don't have that skill set. So recently

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I did a book writing retreat where I put 30

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odd stories out in half a day. What do I

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need to do with this? It doesn't really. It's okay.

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CHAT can rewrite it. Let's put it in my voice.

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But I need another skill. How do I tell stories?

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So who can do this? And Dennis Ross is somebody

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that I respect. He's a wordsmith of real note. So

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I did his training, I did a couple of different

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things with him. I took that information, I put it

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into Claude. I'm like, okay, here's my voice, here's my

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writing, here's Dennis Ross's skill set. I want you to

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use these and apply it to the story. I may

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have did gooder than you one day, but you've caught

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up to me with AI and the beautiful thing, what

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I try to explain to people, and I think there's

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such a misconception around AI, especially in the business world.

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It's a fear and anxiety thing. It's. We don't understand

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it, and it's coming from my job. You know, it's

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just a really bad place to be mentally if you're

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looking to learn something. So you have to get control

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of that fear and that anxiety and overcome that to

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be able to start experiencing it, understanding it. And with

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understanding and experience comes confidence and knowledge. I'll go back

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to Jeff woods on this one, who definitely owes me

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a Porsche by now. I keep plugging his book, but

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it's the AI driven thought leader. What he talks about

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in there is AI is a thought partner. And it

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really speaks to what you're talking about, because if you're

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there providing the inspiration, the information, it's really cool. But

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where I like to take it a step further, and

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I think this helps people, especially our clients that we

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work with, understand that they're not going to get wiped

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out by AI and also understand what AI can't do

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and what AI is and isn't is. I like to

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think of AI as a translator. So what it's doing

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is it's taking your knowledge. And without you having to

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go to school for four, eight years, however long it

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takes to learn all these different coding languages that change

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every five minutes without having to do that, you can

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ideate and create digitally in an environment at a very

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rapid pace that's really only limited by your imagination and

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your knowledge of the tool sets. And that's never happened

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before in human history, with the exception of the dawn

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of the Internet, which connected us in different ways. So

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this is an evolution of the Internet, connected us in

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new ways. AI is translating for us in new ways

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and taking thought and putting it into action, especially in

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the digital space. But in other areas too, it's rapidly

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evolving. I like to think of this as the evolution

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of the human mind. Right? It's certainly the copy of

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it, the copy of it. Because think of it this

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way, AI is going to resemble its creator. If you're

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religious, you believe God created us in his image. The

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broad capability, the capacity for us

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to integrate with something, to your point, that understands how

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we think, because it was built by us and it

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was built to think like us, just in a different

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way, instead of having these unreliable meat calculators in our

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head. Now we're using networks of silicon and huge amounts

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of compute resources and huge amounts of data, just the

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hard drives alone to store all the knowledge and everything

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in a generally more reliable way. And I promise I'll

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stop talking and let you back in a second. But

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one more little nugget I wanted to share is somebody

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asked me on another podcast, hey, does AI lie to

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us? And I go back to because when you said

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AI is the extension or the next evolution of our

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brain, what I go back to is AI right now

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in its present form is just an ass kissing employee.

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It's going to tell you what you want to hear.

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It's seeking to please you. No different than a brown

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noser in the office. What people perceive as lies from

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ChatGPT or Gemini where it's hallucinating. It's actually just that

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brown noser in the office who's trying to sound like

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they might know and give themselves space to figure it

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out. But the difference is they don't have the continuity

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because they're so resource limited to get past the let

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me make an excuse phase or let me sidestep and

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it doesn't continue on to the when do I get

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to the right result. So there's some interesting efforts being

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made, especially on the team Anthropic Behind Cloud. They're trying

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to figure out how to help AI complete the cycle.

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Instead of just trying to brown nose and get away.

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They're trying to figure out, okay, let's skip the brown

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nosing and let's go to okay, now here's better data

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and I have a lot of thoughts on that, but

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I don't want to eat up all the conversation space

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here. One of the things that the learning journey has

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taken for me is to your point, yes, AI is

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a yes man for sure, but AI is a yes

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man because we don't know how to communicate properly. We're

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the problem. To your point, I meet a new person,

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I'll try to get the new person to like me.

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I won't share. But if I meet a new person

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and I'm very specific in what I want out of

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the new person, that's one thing. AI takes it one

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level further. You're sitting with a thousand experts in a

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room willing to do every single bidding that you ask

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it to, but you have to say, instead of shouting

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out into the room and saying right here, I need

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this answered and the first person picks it up and

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answers it, you need to say, okay, this is the

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context this is who I want, this is how I

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want. And to Jeff woods point, in the AI driven

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leader, I don't want you to tell me just what

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I want to hear. I want you to be my

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thought partner here and I want you to show me

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anything that I'm missing, any ambiguities I don't have, and

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so on and so forth. So, yeah, I think there

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is really this piece that if we learn how to

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communicate properly with AI, we get so much more out

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of it. I think you hit the nail on the

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head. The challenge with AI is figuring out, just like

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in our human relationships, how to set boundaries and provide

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feedback in a helpful way. Because if you think of

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it the same way that you speak to members of

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your team, as some of us in the startup space

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and we try not to look at subordinates and how

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that all structure works, I hate that. I think the

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AI is helping us flatten leadership structures and bring more

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ideas to the table that are worthy and reduce the

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amount of clutter. But regardless of what structure of humanity

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you look at, you always have people that you're trying

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to get something from. And if those are people on

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your team, you're trying to get them to deliver something

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that helps you deliver something for the client or the

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project or the goal. And if you can figure out

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how to communicate clearly and provide feedback. The two real

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takeaways from partially from Jeff's book is one, it's how

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do we structure prompts? And I loved when you said

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it's like shouting to a room of a thousand people.

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Those thousand people have different areas of expertise. The beauty

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though, to take it a step further, is it's also

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like shouting to a blank canvas. And so what you

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can tell it is like, for example, when I work

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on my dad's legal site, because always got to help

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out dad, do a little tweaking here and there. What

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I'll say to it is if I need a blog

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article, I'll say you're an expert for the last 10

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years you've spent probably practicing law in the state of

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Virginia, Waterfront, riparian rights, all the nerdy stuff that goes

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back to colonial ages. When you tell it what it

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is, you're an expert who's worked on this for 10

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years. And then you tell it, I need you to

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produce a blog post. And then you tell it what

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that blog post needs to look like. It needs to

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be 500 words. It needs to have this many internal

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links, this many external links. Talking to a person on

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your team is that first step you're taking, you're deciding

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which person on your team you're talking to. And then

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from there, you're providing clarity, which helps support the person.

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Because again, go back to anxiety and fear. For AI,

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it's causing a lot of anxiety and fear in people.

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But when you want something from someone or AI, you

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have to remove anxiety and fear by removing uncertainties, by

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making the path more clear and setting them up for

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success. So it translates perfectly. Just by the way.

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I'm not British. I was born in Zimbabwe. I lived

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in South Africa for many years. Now I've moved to

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the uk. Was that Chachapichi or Claude? Yeah, Grok,

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actually. Yeah. And yeah, this is really. We can talk

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about AI all day. I think we'll have a good

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conversation. Let's segue slightly. Yeah, AI can save you time,

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can save you energy, it can bring you clarity as

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an entrepreneur. The thing that so many people are missing

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is the power and the profit in wellness. If

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you're not well, if you're not well within yourself, you're

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not well within your mental space, you're never going to

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be as efficient and effective as you could be. And

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that's a really big portion of what I teach, is

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that, yeah, I do Wim Hof. I do various things.

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And, you know, these things for me have given me

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a real understanding of what my morning routine needs to

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be. What challenges have you had in terms of your

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own health and your own journey in this. Oh, geez,

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you're. You're hitting a fun one now. So, yeah, I

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have a very unique health issue. Besides all the people

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that think I need a checkup from the neck up.

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The. The challenge I have is I was born in

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a military hospital in Guam, and what the Navy was

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supposed to do for expectant mothers, if there's an expectation

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that there might be some complications. Guam is such a

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remote place. They didn't have the resources for advanced care.

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They're supposed to send the expectant mother to tripler in

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Hawaii before they give birth. Unfortunately, the doctor missed the

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blood work that showed that I was going to be

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more of a pain in the ass than most babies

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that were born there. True to form, I showed up

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early and I made a lot of noise. And the

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challenge was they didn't have the right tools to facilitate,

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you know, oxygen. One of the things you give a

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premature child is surfactant, which is a product from cows

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that basically, in those last moments before birth, your lungs

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are rock hard, so you need surfactant to speed up

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that Process and make them soft and malleable so you

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can breathe better. So all of these things happened, GI

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issues, a whole bunch. And they happened in a place

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where they didn't have the resources to deal with it

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properly. So the end result, long story short, is I

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have a ton of scarring in my lungs. I have

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valve issues in my airway. Like when I exhale, my

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trachea collapses because mom said I was special. And everything's

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a little bit different, Everything's a little bit challenging. And

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so it didn't really catch up to me until about

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a year ago, I started to notice chest pain. It

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was like a volleyball was expanding in my chest. Now,

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to your point, I wasn't taking care of my health

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either. I was doing myself no favors. I was running

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a company. We went from 20,000amonth in revenue to over

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20 million in total revenue, which I'm really glad those

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are the numbers because those are easy to remember. And

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it's. I'm simple. That one's an easy one for me.

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But in doing all of that, I wasn't taking care

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of myself. I was taking care of my team and

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I was taking care of our customers, but I wasn't

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taking care of myself. And so in this period after

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I exited, it's okay, I need to hit pause. I

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need to focus on myself before I do whatever's next,

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whatever my next chapter is. And in the middle of

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that journey where I discovered I had ptsd, add depression,

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anxiety, all these things, I had no idea because I

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thought everybody just deals with these challenges or whatever. And

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so sometimes the things that are challenges that are, that

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add friction to your life also can make you better

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at certain jobs or more attuned to certain things in

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complex, high stress environments. And so there's a weird angle

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of, okay, did me being like a little bit crazy

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help me or did it hinder me? And based on

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the journey, it feels like it helped me, but it

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wasn't sustainable. So it was like, okay, now I need

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to figure out how to reduce friction. So anyways, I'm

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working on this mental health side of things, and all

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of a sudden I have this chest pressure and I'm

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like, okay, I'm having a heart attack. So I go

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get checked out and they're like, yeah, no, your heart's

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not doing great, but it's not because of your heart.

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It's because of these issues with your valves and this

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pressure that's building up in your chest and it's angering

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your heart. Anyways, so I'm a huge fan. National Jewish

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Health in Denver, Colorado is a leading respiratory research hospital.

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So that's one reason I ended up here in Denver

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is being able to access the latest technology, the ability

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to 3D image your chest, all these great things. But

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the amount of effort, time and money that it took

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to find answers and find solutions, it just speaks to

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how very messed up our health care system is in

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the United States. But also the fact that you have

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to choose between, like, building wealth and building health. Sometimes

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there's there, there used to be. I think it's gotten

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a lot better. But there used to be a really

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toxic message in society about, look, go grind 100 hours

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a day and leave it all out on the field.

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And I think there's value in that. But I think

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you have to balance it all things in moderation, including

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moderation. I think you have to balance that with the

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ability to focus on your health and make sure that

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you're doing things not just in a sustainable financial way,

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but in a sustainable health way as well. Because you

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can unlock a lot more opportunities if you're at your

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best. And for me and the whole health journey, I've

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come to the realization that I'm not going to live

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forever. Nobody does. Anybody could get hit by a bus

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tomorrow. But the challenge is how do you build something

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around what could be perceived as limitations, but might also

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be superpowers in their own way? How do you flip

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the script? For me, this chapter of life or this

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season of life has been so focusing on, okay, what

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do I actually want to do, what outcome do I

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want that's both legacy focused, but also true purpose

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focused. And that totally changed my mindset. And it took

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me from a C level mindset where you're an operator,

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you're making sure the trains run on time, you're growing

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a system that's already established. I've built companies before, but

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let's start something from the ground up the right way

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:: 18:14

and build it around these things and set ourselves up

357

:: 18:17

for success far beyond. Just work hard and go for

358

:: 18:21

a target kind of thing. I think there's so many

359

:: 18:24

things I can jump in here with. The first thing

360

:: 18:27

is my methodology says wellness equals

361

:: 18:32

profit. Because that's what's the missing link for me. For

362

:: 18:37

entrepreneurs, they don't understand that wellness equals profit. If you

363

:: 18:42

are well, you are able to do so much more

364

:: 18:44

every day. The second thing is self care for yourself

365

:: 18:50

will really save your life. Because if you're not well,

366

:: 18:55

if you don't look after yourself first, you don't value

367

:: 18:59

that without you, the company can't run, can't grow, can't

368

:: 19:03

scale, can't do anything. With those two pieces in place,

369

:: 19:06

you have to have a different outlook. You have to

370

:: 19:10

find ways to set healthy boundaries. And that affects every

371

:: 19:14

part of life, not just your health boundaries. And you're

372

:: 19:17

taking care of your self care, but when you're working

373

:: 19:20

with teams, when you're in transactional relationships, more meaningful relationships,

374

:: 19:25

or you're dealing with how do we grow an organization

375

:: 19:29

without losing sight of who we are and how we

376

:: 19:31

got here? All of those things require not just setting

377

:: 19:35

those healthy boundaries, but communicating them in a productive but

378

:: 19:38

firm way. And that's, I think that takes a lifetime

379

:: 19:41

to learn. I'm still not very good at it. I'm

380

:: 19:43

still trying. If you can adopt that mindset of humbleness

381

:: 19:46

towards it, you're never going to be a master at

382

:: 19:47

these things, but you can always work for it. And

383

:: 19:49

that's why I like the word strive. I like to

384

:: 19:51

think of, are you striving towards something? And if you

385

:: 19:54

are, you're already successful, you already won. Now I want

386

:: 19:58

to come back to getting run over by a bus.

387

:: 20:02

I was 19 years old on a motorway in South

388

:: 20:05

Africa and I was hitchhiking and I turned around and

389

:: 20:10

a drunken driver hit me. My leg went through his

390

:: 20:13

bumper, my head was wrapped around his side mirror and

391

:: 20:18

I was flipped into the road. And I call it

392

:: 20:21

my white line moment. There I was laying on the

393

:: 20:23

white line and I just had all these realizations.

394

:: 20:29

I realized that every single thing in my life that

395

:: 20:33

I regretted laying there was was things that I hadn't

396

:: 20:36

done. I hadn't told my mom I loved her. I

397

:: 20:40

hadn't gone skydiving, I hadn't done. Just a whole list

398

:: 20:43

was there. And I was laying there, the cars zipping

399

:: 20:47

past me, and that was it. I was done. Time

400

:: 20:49

was over. And fundamentally that changed how I approach

401

:: 20:54

every day and really brought me that moment of such

402

:: 20:59

pain and such kind of turmoil, brought me clarity. And

403

:: 21:04

I think we miss our white line moments in life

404

:: 21:06

and anyone's waiting for a signal, this is it. And

405

:: 21:09

to that point, the journey of entrepreneurship can take you

406

:: 21:14

from this point of I really want freedom. I want

407

:: 21:18

freedom to live my own life. I want freedom to

408

:: 21:20

understand that what I'm doing in my day is that

409

:: 21:24

what I want to do. And it can so quickly

410

:: 21:27

that freedom can become a prison, right? Because Instead of

411

:: 21:31

doing nine hours a day or eight hours a day,

412

:: 21:33

suddenly you're doing 14 hours a day and you never

413

:: 21:35

turn off. Yeah. Even when you wake up at three

414

:: 21:38

in the morning, you're thinking about the business, you're thinking

415

:: 21:41

about what to do. You just don't have that turn

416

:: 21:42

off. So having these healthy boundaries like you've just said,

417

:: 21:45

having the understanding of your superpowers, ADHD, superpower, 100% understanding

418

:: 21:53

that your company is a baby that you've just birthed,

419

:: 21:56

and the first year or two is like two years

420

:: 21:59

of a baby. Right. And you need to grow up

421

:: 22:01

and you need to understand more about it and you

422

:: 22:03

need to bring it to the world. Because your company

423

:: 22:05

is there to serve a purpose and it needs to

424

:: 22:08

be able to stand by itself to serve this purpose.

425

:: 22:11

It needs to be able to go out in the

426

:: 22:12

world. You need to be able to let it go

427

:: 22:14

and do its work. Because if you're like me, like

428

:: 22:17

most entrepreneurs, you've got 10 other ideas that are waiting

429

:: 22:20

to come out of that. And go on there. What

430

:: 22:24

are your thoughts on that? A really interesting conversation I

431

:: 22:29

had recently, as much as I can share from the

432

:: 22:31

conversation is the takeaway was this person who's highly successful,

433

:: 22:36

has led multiple major IPOs, helped families who inherited a

434

:: 22:40

bunch of money figure out how to deploy that in

435

:: 22:43

a way that provides legacy, both internally in the family,

436

:: 22:46

but also around the world. Something he said to me,

437

:: 22:49

out of all these amazing stories he's sharing in this

438

:: 22:51

conversation, he says one thing and it hit me right

439

:: 22:54

between the eyes. He said, I definitely have add. And

440

:: 22:58

I'm like, okay, cool. He goes, I'm most happy when

441

:: 23:00

I'm working on two or three things at a time.

442

:: 23:02

If I don't have two or three balls in the

443

:: 23:04

air and you force me to focus on one, or

444

:: 23:07

you tell me to focus on four or five, I'm

445

:: 23:09

unhappy. So I figured out what my amount was. And

446

:: 23:13

so that became part of my algorithm of my daily

447

:: 23:15

life. And so I built my days around that, I

448

:: 23:18

built my weeks and months around that, my objectives. And

449

:: 23:20

I accomplished so much more. And I don't think there's

450

:: 23:23

any reason that health and wellness can't be one of

451

:: 23:26

the balls in the air. You're thinking about those things,

452

:: 23:29

and what's changing so dramatically in the health space is

453

:: 23:33

the way AI is helping people access knowledge and plans

454

:: 23:37

and solutions. So I love this conversation. But there's one

455

:: 23:41

other thing you really hit on that I can't help

456

:: 23:43

but bring up is the conversation around how

457

:: 23:48

do we build the lives that we want? How do

458

:: 23:52

we use the different solutions that are available to us.

459

:: 23:55

We have to avoid getting siloed into one thing. If

460

:: 23:58

we know anything from the last 10 years, the pace

461

:: 24:01

of technology and the change, it's not something you're going

462

:: 24:04

to keep up with. So don't even set that as

463

:: 24:06

your goal. And if you get stuck in your ways,

464

:: 24:08

you're screwed. You're going to get. That bus isn't just

465

:: 24:10

going to run over you, it's going to back up.

466

:: 24:12

If you can just try one new thing every day,

467

:: 24:15

try to integrate AI in one more way. And yeah,

468

:: 24:18

maybe AI will be our robot overlords one day. I

469

:: 24:21

always say please and thank you just in case. Maybe

470

:: 24:23

that's where we're headed. But I'll tell you that the

471

:: 24:26

clarity moment for me. So yours was ironically, I was

472

:: 24:29

in a horrible car crash three days ago, but that's

473

:: 24:31

a whole other story. So funny you brought that up

474

:: 24:34

and I'm very sorry to hear that you had yours.

475

:: 24:35

That sounds horrible. The moment of clarity for me is

476

:: 24:39

you had that moment at 19 where you're looking at

477

:: 24:41

all these things in life that you want to do.

478

:: 24:43

I had that moment at 35. And so I think

479

:: 24:48

for me at least, the difference is that at 35

480

:: 24:53

I was thinking more about how do I take all

481

:: 24:56

of the tools, resources, relationships forward into

482

:: 25:02

the next thing and how do I also create

483

:: 25:07

a legacy, create value on my end? The screen appears

484

:: 25:11

frozen. Did we lose connection? I'm still here, but yes.

485

:: 25:15

Oh perfect. Funny look on my face. So no problem,

486

:: 25:20

people can just laugh on YouTube. Hey, I just look

487

:: 25:23

better by comparison. So I'll take it any help I

488

:: 25:25

can get in that department. But I think you get

489

:: 25:27

my point is I wonder if you had that moment

490

:: 25:30

later in life if those thoughts would have been different

491

:: 25:33

because you had more context to work off of versus

492

:: 25:36

simply the focus of things you think about at 19

493

:: 25:41

versus later in life. I'm really curious about the parallels

494

:: 25:44

there. Just an initial hot take. I think the reality

495

:: 25:49

has dawned on me over years. Yeah, I've now done

496

:: 25:53

two and a half thousand skydives. I've pre dived between

497

:: 25:58

the continental plates in Iceland and under the ice in

498

:: 26:02

Finland. I've dived in the. So I've done things that

499

:: 26:05

I wouldn't have done. And if I walk out this

500

:: 26:07

door now and that bus hits me and backs over

501

:: 26:10

me, I will be laying on that road with no

502

:: 26:14

regret that I haven't lived my best life. Gary Vee

503

:: 26:17

talks so much about this. I so badly want to

504

:: 26:20

curse, but I'll be Respectful, you don't need to ask

505

:: 26:24

for permission. And that's what so many people forget. And

506

:: 26:27

so they get stuck in this paradigm of fake it

507

:: 26:29

till you make it, which is the wrong way to

508

:: 26:31

go. And it turns out the thing we've learned over

509

:: 26:35

and over again as digital marketers is if you can

510

:: 26:37

be authentic, if you can create a connection that's human,

511

:: 26:40

you're going to go so much further. And so share

512

:: 26:43

the journey, bring people along for the journey. And the

513

:: 26:47

end result is you're going to save a ton on

514

:: 26:49

marketing, which is always nice. But more importantly, you're going

515

:: 26:52

to get connected to your tribe, and that tribe will

516

:: 26:55

be a great feedback loop to give you the insights

517

:: 26:59

and the direction you need to serve more people. So

518

:: 27:02

there's a really healthy way to do entrepreneurship, no pun

519

:: 27:05

intended. But. But, you know, I think too many people,

520

:: 27:09

again, they're stuck between this polarized society we live in,

521

:: 27:12

where they think you have to be all in on

522

:: 27:14

one thing or all in on the other. And there's

523

:: 27:16

no such thing as black and white. It's all gray

524

:: 27:18

and it's all spectrums. And so if you can figure

525

:: 27:22

that out, you're going to go so much further and

526

:: 27:25

be so much happier as a result, because you're not

527

:: 27:27

going to tie yourself to these unrealistic expectations. I'm going

528

:: 27:31

to marginally disagree, but only on the fake it till

529

:: 27:35

you make it. Sure. I arrived in the UK in

530

:: 27:38

1997. Didn't know what I was doing, didn't know what

531

:: 27:41

a PC was. My partner took me to the office

532

:: 27:43

and showed me the PC and the mouse and I

533

:: 27:46

was like, that's not a mouse. And, yeah, I got

534

:: 27:49

through a couple of jobs, which was quite interesting. And

535

:: 27:52

then my brother called me up. My brother's a member

536

:: 27:53

of Mensa, he's a smart guy. And he said to

537

:: 27:56

me this computer stuff, I said to him, why don't

538

:: 27:58

you fax me your cv? So he faxes me his

539

:: 28:01

cv and yeah, remember White out to picks. So I

540

:: 28:05

look at the side, I said, what the hell, let's

541

:: 28:07

go for it. So I took Extart, his name, I'm,

542

:: 28:09

yeah, Roy and he's Yen. So it was easy because

543

:: 28:11

it was the three. Three letters. So I took this

544

:: 28:13

out, his name, I photocopied it 20 times because to

545

:: 28:17

make it look good, I sent it to 10 agents

546

:: 28:20

and I got an interview. So I went into this

547

:: 28:23

interview, first interview, chap called Peter McHugh. Company was computers

548

:: 28:26

in the city. And he said to Me, I chatted

549

:: 28:29

the chat, I totally faked it. And he said to

550

:: 28:31

me, if you go to these three jobs, okay, and

551

:: 28:34

you can do them, then you're going to have the

552

:: 28:35

job. So here I am in interview and I've got

553

:: 28:38

to go and fix these three computer problems. So off

554

:: 28:40

I go, I meet George from Merlin Biosciences. I'm like

555

:: 28:44

okay George, what's your problem? And he shows me this

556

:: 28:46

PC Adele 3. Sorry, Adele with a 3.11 operating system

557

:: 28:51

on it. And so I'm like okay George, do you

558

:: 28:54

have a restroom I could use? And walk to the

559

:: 28:56

restaurant restroom. And I've got one of those Nokia phone

560

:: 28:59

that's pulled out. Yeah, what the hell do I do

561

:: 29:02

now? And I spent two and a half months in

562

:: 29:05

the toilet. In 2017 I acquired computers in the city.

563

:: 29:10

Yeah. So there's such a journey. What a full circle.

564

:: 29:14

Yeah. Such a journey with all of that providing your

565

:: 29:17

prepared to learn. Yeah. I think that's the point is

566

:: 29:20

when I say fake it to make it. The people

567

:: 29:22

who, in my industry, what we have to deal with

568

:: 29:25

is you know what I like to call these butthole

569

:: 29:26

LinkedIn consultants who they were experts in Bitcoin, then they

570

:: 29:30

were experts in real estate and now they're experts in

571

:: 29:32

AI. They're just following the hypes. They're great at sales,

572

:: 29:36

but they're not actual experts. And the difference between those

573

:: 29:40

types who are making a lot of noise and a

574

:: 29:43

lot of promises but failing to deliver, you found a

575

:: 29:46

way to deliver. You had the potential to be faking

576

:: 29:48

it till you make it, but you made it work.

577

:: 29:50

So you didn't. So you're taking that gamble. And I

578

:: 29:53

think a lot of people in this day and age,

579

:: 29:55

they're not even worried about taking that gamble. They're just

580

:: 29:57

like, I'll fake it, I'll cash the check and then

581

:: 29:59

I'll be gone. And so there's definitely a difference. There's

582

:: 30:02

an integrity you have to bring to it if you're

583

:: 30:04

going to go. You have to give your all, you

584

:: 30:07

have to be all in. And that's. I'm all in

585

:: 30:09

on everything I do and yeah sometimes drives my partner

586

:: 30:13

nuts because I'll dive right in and I can talk

587

:: 30:15

to you about Peptides and wellness and meditation until the

588

:: 30:19

cars come home. But being all in and believing what

589

:: 30:22

you're doing is the superpower. I just want to segue

590

:: 30:25

quickly onto. Yeah, I don't know if you have you

591

:: 30:27

come across EOs or business operating systems. Vaguely. I'm not

592

:: 30:32

sure this kind of concept as you, especially at the

593

:: 30:36

stage you are, you're seven months in, you're doing very

594

:: 30:38

well, things are going well. For me, the business operating

595

:: 30:42

systems really came into their own at that 2017 point

596

:: 30:46

where I had two IT companies I was running and

597

:: 30:48

I acquired this third one and I was working the

598

:: 30:50

14 hour days I couldn't do anymore. And I brought

599

:: 30:53

in a coach that I paid 100 grand to help

600

:: 30:55

me learn this. And as entrepreneurs, I think we are

601

:: 30:59

too proud sometimes to accept help. And it took me

602

:: 31:03

15 years to realize actually this is a shortcut and

603

:: 31:06

I can use the shortcut and this idea of systems

604

:: 31:09

and idea of putting together structures. The business operating system

605

:: 31:13

that I teach is called 90. Part of the 90

606

:: 31:16

crew. And I work with boss up and you know,

607

:: 31:19

taking this concept of nine core concept and disciplines and

608

:: 31:23

how, what do you need to know as a, as

609

:: 31:25

an entrepreneur that you don't know? Because we do the

610

:: 31:28

things we like to do and then we don't do

611

:: 31:30

the things we don't like to do. So you're in

612

:: 31:31

the marketing space. I guarantee your marketing is looking super

613

:: 31:35

awesome. But one of the things that you're not that

614

:: 31:37

strong on, on you've got the 70% was the 30%.

615

:: 31:40

How are you approaching this in your growth period now

616

:: 31:44

where you're trying to go through and you're trying to

617

:: 31:46

understand where the world goes? So there's a lot to

618

:: 31:49

unpack there. I want to make sure I got it

619

:: 31:51

right in my head. When you were talking about EOs,

620

:: 31:53

you're talking about the entrepreneur operating system, is that what

621

:: 31:55

you're referring to? Yeah, got it. Yeah. No, there's a

622

:: 31:58

lot more that I need to learn on that because

623

:: 32:00

I could definitely benefit from it. What I'll tell you

624

:: 32:02

I have mastered is being the dumbest person in the

625

:: 32:05

room, asking the dumb questions, connecting smart people and getting

626

:: 32:08

out of the way. And so what you're describing in

627

:: 32:11

that moment where you're like, okay, I have to embrace

628

:: 32:14

humility and bring in someone else, bring in something else

629

:: 32:18

to fill in the gaps. How that translated in my

630

:: 32:21

previous life was building systems and bringing experts together and

631

:: 32:26

not being afraid to ask. Because in a meeting, when

632

:: 32:29

you bring smart people together, the most important person in

633

:: 32:32

the room isn't the person with the most expertise. It's

634

:: 32:35

the person in the room who knows how to ask

635

:: 32:38

the best questions in the right way. And of course

636

:: 32:40

I think that's me, but that's, but that's a learned

637

:: 32:44

skill. So imagine you have a family member who they're

638

:: 32:47

considering going on to hospice, which is that final time

639

:: 32:50

of life. And so basically what they're being asked by

640

:: 32:53

a social worker or a nurse is, do you want

641

:: 32:56

us to try to keep you alive or, or do

642

:: 32:58

you want us just to keep you comfortable? And I

643

:: 33:01

remember when our family gathered around my great aunt, who's

644

:: 33:04

very close to me, we were having this conversation with

645

:: 33:07

her and everyone's struggling. The conversation went on forever. It

646

:: 33:09

was painful and everyone's, oh, well, we love you. And

647

:: 33:12

that's not what this is about. This is about making

648

:: 33:14

a decision. So I was quiet, let everyone else do

649

:: 33:17

things. And then I figured out the question to ask.

650

:: 33:18

And I said, aunt Sharon, if you have another medical

651

:: 33:24

episode like you had last week, do you want them

652

:: 33:27

to take you to the hospital and go through that?

653

:: 33:31

Because you know what? That's. You just went through it,

654

:: 33:33

or do you want to stay at home and be

655

:: 33:35

treated at home to the best of their ability to

656

:: 33:38

keep you comfortable? What do you prefer? That completely changed

657

:: 33:42

the dynamic of the conversation. All these really smart people

658

:: 33:45

in the room who had good intentions, everyone was talking

659

:: 33:48

around the issue, valid statements, but nobody was actually moving

660

:: 33:52

the conversation forward with the right question. And that clarifying

661

:: 33:55

question, if you can nail it, will completely change the

662

:: 33:59

outcome that an organization experiences. We went from a really

663

:: 34:03

tough, it felt like a minute was an hour type

664

:: 34:06

conversation to a five minute, maybe even 30 seconds, to

665

:: 34:09

be honest. Of, oh, yeah, how do we get clarity

666

:: 34:12

by asking the right questions in a group setting? I

667

:: 34:15

think in the corporate world that makes a big difference.

668

:: 34:17

Now, the parallel to that in my current life is

669

:: 34:20

in a growth oriented startup, you have to have that

670

:: 34:25

same humility of being, okay, I'm okay being the dumbest

671

:: 34:29

person in the room, but you have to then look

672

:: 34:31

at yourself really harshly and say, what am I good

673

:: 34:33

at? And then figure out what you're not good at.

674

:: 34:36

And then you need to find partners that are. And

675

:: 34:39

so if you haven't found partners that fill in those

676

:: 34:41

gaps either, you haven't identified those gaps, which is a

677

:: 34:45

huge problem. And you should ask others around you because

678

:: 34:48

trust me, everybody else sees your faults so they'll help

679

:: 34:50

you. Once you have that formula now you need to

680

:: 34:53

go figure out the solution and find people and bring

681

:: 34:55

people in that solve that for you so you can

682

:: 34:58

just get back to doing what you're great at and

683

:: 35:00

drive the organization forward. Thank you for sharing that story.

684

:: 35:04

Really touching. And yeah, you're right, it did resonate. I

685

:: 35:09

want you to ask you one final question, right? You're

686

:: 35:12

on this journey, you've done many things. What one piece

687

:: 35:16

of advice would you give people about understanding themselves perhaps

688

:: 35:20

or understanding the journey that would resonate? I

689

:: 35:25

think that if you look at the things we see

690

:: 35:28

on screens like movies, TV episodes, the way the world

691

:: 35:32

is portrayed to us, it's mostly it's

692

:: 35:39

somebody's washed, rewashed, rewritten version I'm currently

693

:: 35:44

involved in. There's a movie being done about some stuff

694

:: 35:47

that I worked on in the past I was involved

695

:: 35:49

in and seeing that process, that creative process of how

696

:: 35:53

the truth gets completely twisted into what can we tell

697

:: 35:58

in 90 minutes and make it entertaining and make it

698

:: 36:01

connecting. That's too crazy to believe or that's not spicy

699

:: 36:04

enough. Let's spice that up. So I just. My encouragement

700

:: 36:08

is run your own race. Don't look at what others

701

:: 36:12

are doing, don't compare yourself because most of it's bullshit,

702

:: 36:16

especially if you're looking at social media. A lot of

703

:: 36:18

this is obvious, right? But I think it's just more

704

:: 36:20

overarching than most people give it credit, which is if

705

:: 36:24

you can just figure out what your life needs to

706

:: 36:27

look like and not be afraid to ask for that

707

:: 36:30

and bring other people in. Look at the Gary Vee's

708

:: 36:33

of the world, absolute geniuses. Look at the Chris Voss's

709

:: 36:37

of the world, excellent communicators at bringing people into being

710

:: 36:41

part of the solution rather than being in an adversarial

711

:: 36:44

situation. There's so many great people and if you're in

712

:: 36:46

the United States and you're dealing with the political turmoil

713

:: 36:49

and the anxiety of all of that, you know, look

714

:: 36:51

at people like Bill Maher and Michael Smarconis. Those are

715

:: 36:55

voices that are more moderate even maybe if they haven't

716

:: 36:57

been moderate in the past, the current version of themselves

717

:: 37:00

and be forgiving enough to say what is the current

718

:: 37:03

version of the person that I'm getting information from because

719

:: 37:06

they might have done things poorly in the past and

720

:: 37:08

I bet you have too. Why would you limit your

721

:: 37:11

access to good information based on a past judgment of

722

:: 37:14

that person? So just be more present, less focused on

723

:: 37:18

comparison. Get away from the screens for a little bit,

724

:: 37:21

go for a walk, interact with people, mingle, get off

725

:: 37:25

the cycle of social media doom scrolling and you'll be

726

:: 37:27

a much happier person and you'll also make a lot

727

:: 37:30

more money. Amazing. James, thank you very much for joining

728

:: 37:33

us. It's been a great chat and yeah, maybe we'll

729

:: 37:36

come back together in a few months time and see

730

:: 37:38

how that company is doing. My pleasure. Thanks again for

731

:: 37:41

having me.