Entrepreneurship has become a driving force in today's world, empowering individuals to create innovative solutions and shape the future. In a recent episode of the Jeff Fenster Show, Jeff Fenster interviewed Jeff Hoffman, an accomplished entrepreneur and software engineer, shedding light on the significance of entrepreneurship and the mission of the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN).
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00:00 Hey guys, I just wanted to take a second to ask that if you gain any valuable insight
00:04 from this episode that you please share and leave a review.
00:07 We truly appreciate all the support and would love your help to spread the word.
00:11 Enjoy the episode.
00:13 Ideas are welcome here but execution is worshipped.
00:16 Everybody talks and very few people build stuff.
00:20 I was never the smart, not even close to the smartest person.
00:23 I just actually went and got it done.
00:25 It's amazing what you can get done when you just actually get stuff done.
00:28 Just get it done, right.
00:29 You'll adjust along the way and you'll figure it out but.
00:41 Success is not a destination.
00:44 I thought it was the destination.
00:45 Everyone is trying to get rich or famous.
00:47 Success is not a destination.
00:49 It's the platform that finally lets you do the things that actually matter, right.
00:55 So you work hard to get to success.
00:57 The success, it's nice, you celebrate it but the truth is the fulfillment doesn't come
01:02 from your house or your car.
01:03 The fulfillment comes from creating a legacy of doing things for other people that you
01:08 couldn't have done if you weren't successful as business.
01:11 I found I was much more fulfilled running around with these families and helping their
01:16 children have a better life than I ever was buying another car.
01:24 Welcome to the show, Jeff.
01:25 Thank you so much for having me.
01:27 We've been trying to do this for a while.
01:28 I'm glad to be here.
01:29 I am so excited to be here with you.
01:31 It's been almost a year of us, I think, trying to do this.
01:35 Getting to the same city at the same time.
01:38 Easier said than done with your schedule in mind but thank God here we are.
01:41 Well, I mean, you travel to country after country, city after city.
01:44 I mean, do you ever spend time at home?
01:47 Not enough.
01:48 When I do, I'm wiped out by that point.
01:50 But you know, our entrepreneurship nonprofit, I'm proud of our team to say we're now on
01:56 the ground in 200 countries.
01:58 We have a paid staff.
01:59 I'm the chairman of it.
02:01 But for a board chair, I'm super involved.
02:04 And that's GEN, the Global Entrepreneurship Network.
02:05 Yes, Global Entrepreneurship Network.
02:07 And I will tell you that for me, and you've lived the same life, right?
02:11 The key to the life we've been blessed to live was our decision to be entrepreneurs,
02:15 to just build stuff ourselves, right?
02:17 You would have so many similarities in our story.
02:20 And so I wanted to return the favor to entrepreneurship by giving back.
02:25 And what I decided, the one thing I know how to do like you is build stuff.
02:29 And so the commitment was I'll teach as many people as I can how to be entrepreneurs so
02:34 they can build their futures, right?
02:35 And that's what it's about, building the life you want and the future you want to live.
02:39 And so real quickly, the simple mission statement of the Global Entrepreneurship Network, it's
02:44 a nonprofit, is to help anyone anywhere start and scale a business.
02:49 But it's not about business and money.
02:51 It's about freedom and independence.
02:53 Take care of yourself, your family, your people, your city, your country by turning ideas into
02:59 profitable businesses.
03:00 And we now teach that on the ground in 200 countries.
03:04 That's phenomenal.
03:05 How do you, literally, how do you teach that in 200 countries?
03:08 Is it through events?
03:11 So it is.
03:12 The answer to your question is every and any way we can.
03:15 So we do events around the world.
03:17 I was just recently in Australia where we had our annual, we call it the Global Entrepreneurship
03:22 Congress.
03:23 You definitely should be speaking there next year.
03:25 I would love to.
03:26 And at that event, we invite entrepreneurs from all 200 countries.
03:29 We do it once a year in a different country every year.
03:33 And we spend that week having entrepreneurs educate other entrepreneurs and then networking
03:38 because the people from all over the world.
03:40 We do things like we host Global Entrepreneurship Week, which by the way, starts next week.
03:45 Last year, we asked people to hold any entrepreneurship event where you live.
03:48 A pitch competition, a mix or a party, anything that supports entrepreneurs.
03:54 Last year, we had, during this week, 40,000 events held across 175 countries and 10 million
04:01 people attended.
04:02 So we're trying to create awareness for entrepreneurship.
04:06 We have a lot of online content to help entrepreneurs.
04:09 We have a global investor network to help entrepreneurs and startups.
04:13 And then last, maybe you should come judge this with me sometime.
04:17 We hold something called the Entrepreneurship World Cup.
04:20 It's like Shark Tank except across 200 countries.
04:23 At the same time.
04:24 Yeah.
04:25 Yes.
04:26 In fact, last year, we had four, well, this year, sorry, this is the end of this year,
04:30 45,000 startups in all 200 countries apply.
04:33 So we hold Shark Tank pitch competitions in 100 countries simultaneously.
04:38 At the end, we took the 100 best startups out of 45,000 across 200 countries.
04:45 We flew them all to Saudi Arabia and then we judged the finals and we picked the best
04:51 startups in the entire world.
04:52 So it's a super, the coolness of the event is it restores your faith in humanity.
04:58 All over the world, people are innovating and trying to make the world a better place.
05:02 And we're just blessed.
05:04 We started this, it's our fourth year.
05:06 We've now had, it's crazy, but we've had 400,000 startups over four years apply to our pitch
05:13 competition.
05:14 So what we get to see is what is everybody in the world doing?
05:17 These innovators all over the planet.
05:19 And it's exciting to know that with all the bad news in the media, there's a lot of good
05:23 news and a lot of good people out there.
05:25 Well, our audience is filled with entrepreneurs, predominantly in America, but aspiring and
05:30 current entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, people who are trying to get there for them.
05:35 What is the criteria for that pitch and what does the winners get?
05:38 So we actually give out millions of dollars in cash because this is a big event, but we
05:44 give out, I think actually like $200 million in in-kind services.
05:49 So everything from, the biggest thing though, just like if you were on the TV show or whatever,
05:54 is exposure, right?
05:56 The people that make to the final 100, we broadcast that show, the finals, all over
06:02 the world in all 200 countries.
06:04 We bring investors in from all over the world, media in from all over the world.
06:07 So they get exposure, like you would on Shark Tank, except in 199 more countries than Shark
06:14 Tank.
06:16 They get mentoring, they're in our network and we mentor them.
06:21 We provide connectivity and we provide in-kind services like web services, et cetera.
06:26 So the answer to your question is it's a lot.
06:28 Yep.
06:29 I mean, the mentoring alone is the most valuable asset I just heard.
06:33 For me, I think that because of, I think, I guess all the mistakes I made and time I
06:39 wasted early in my career from not having a mentor.
06:41 And then later, all the value I got out of having a mentor, having been there both with
06:49 and without a mentor, it made me realize that when I'm done building companies, I need to
06:54 be the mentor that I wish I had.
06:56 And just the same way you do that and same way this show does that for lots of entrepreneurs.
07:01 I mean, that's amazing.
07:02 The Global Entrepreneur Network, was that an idea you had for many years that you finally
07:07 just started or what was the impetus for creating it?
07:10 That was actually the founder of that, the guy with the idea was, now he's family to
07:16 me, but Jonathan Ortman.
07:17 Jonathan came up with the idea.
07:19 And so most of the time in the world when people come to me, it's because they have
07:25 an idea but they don't.
07:27 So I have this sign on my door, my whole CEO life.
07:30 I've been a CEO since I was 24 like you.
07:33 And the sign on my door said, "Ideas are welcome here, but execution is worshipped."
07:38 Everybody talks and very few people build stuff.
07:40 When people say, "Oh, Jeff, you've been successful.
07:43 You must be smart or something."
07:45 I was never the smart, not even close to the smartest person.
07:48 I just actually went and got it done.
07:50 I just started and executed.
07:52 So I'm-
07:53 It's amazing what you can get done when you just actually get stuff done.
07:56 Just get it done, right.
07:57 Yes.
07:58 You'll adjust along the way and you'll figure it out.
08:01 So in the same sort of vein, when Jonathan had the idea, not me, I was one of the people
08:07 he called and said, "We want to build this thing.
08:10 Help us build it."
08:11 So most of the time people call me, it's because they don't know the bridge between idea and
08:16 execution and that's the space that I live in.
08:19 Let's build your idea into a business.
08:21 So with the group, this 45,000 apply, obviously it's in tons of different languages.
08:27 So there's got to be interpreters involved.
08:29 All over, yes.
08:30 It's fun.
08:31 Yeah, sure.
08:32 That part's fun because you learn a lot about cultures.
08:33 Yes.
08:34 And what regions are doing what.
08:36 Yeah, exactly.
08:37 You see what the world is worried about by that geography.
08:41 In this region, they're all trying to do blank.
08:43 They're all worried about agriculture.
08:45 We think of entrepreneurship as heavily tech here.
08:48 In some parts of the world, let's go across Africa, they don't have anything to eat.
08:52 So they're entrepreneuring in food production so they can eat.
08:56 So as you're seeing all these businesses, how do you dwindle 45,000, 500?
09:01 What is that criteria that the Global Entrepreneurship Network's really looking for?
09:05 Is it sustainability?
09:06 Is it viability?
09:07 Is it profitability?
09:08 Actually, all of the above.
09:11 And there's another element of it too, which is we're gambling on the jockeys, not just
09:16 the horses.
09:17 We are trying to develop entrepreneurs.
09:20 So you're first, I can tell you, speaking for myself, I've had some really dumb ideas
09:24 that failed.
09:26 And then on the other side, we had Priceline.com, Booking.com, YouBid.com, things that worked.
09:32 So if my failure, which before we ever launched Priceline, I had done something really stupid
09:38 that failed.
09:39 If failure had shut me down as an entrepreneur, I never would have got to those other things.
09:43 So we're developing people as much as we're developing companies.
09:47 So that's part of the criteria.
09:49 All the things you talked about, is it a sustainable solution?
09:52 Is there a real market for it?
09:54 Is there a value equation?
09:55 Is this a business or just a cool idea?
09:58 All those things matter.
09:59 But part of it is, is this an entrepreneur that we want to back and invest in?
10:04 Because you've created a bunch of companies as a serial entrepreneur.
10:08 We want to find people like you that are going to keep creating and innovating, not just
10:12 a one-shot deal.
10:13 I'm so glad you said that, because I find too many people fall in love with the business
10:17 idea and forget to realize it is the jockey.
10:21 A good jockey will take any idea and make the most of it, and a bad jockey can take
10:26 the greatest idea in the world and run it into the ground.
10:28 I had these entrepreneurs came into my office.
10:31 They gave me their whole pitch, and then they handed me a business plan, and I put it in
10:35 the middle of the table.
10:37 And I said, "Let's all watch the business plan for a while."
10:39 And they're like, "What?"
10:40 I said, "Just watch it."
10:41 And it's like game show clock ticking.
10:44 And they're all staring at it.
10:45 And one of them finally goes, "Mr. Hoffman," and I said, "What?"
10:46 And he goes, "The plan's not doing anything."
10:49 I said, "Exactly, because no one in this room told me any way, anything you are going to
10:55 do to execute that."
10:58 You have a bunch of ideas and no actual executable plan.
11:02 And as you know, an average or below average entrepreneur, even with a good idea, they're
11:09 not going to be able to pull it off.
11:11 But a brilliant innovator, even if their idea is not good, you and I, we can help you with
11:16 the idea, what we can't do is rewrite your DNA.
11:19 So completely agree with you.
11:21 We're looking for rock stars because they'll create many times over.
11:25 So speaking of rock stars, what are some of the attributes you look for when you are identifying
11:30 those individuals?
11:31 Because there's no science here.
11:33 It's a mixture of art and science.
11:34 It's an art and science.
11:35 Yep.
11:36 What are those attributes that you kind of look for just with your experience and background?
11:40 So one of the...
11:43 There's a bunch.
11:44 First of all, humility matters a lot to me because people with a big ego that think they
11:49 know everything don't listen and they don't take guidance.
11:53 Some days, and I know you've been there too, somebody is like, "Hey, Jeff, can I get some
11:56 advice?"
11:57 And I give it to them and I look at them like, "Why did you even ask me?
11:59 You have zero intention of doing anything I said.
12:02 You were only hoping I would confirm what you were going to do anyway."
12:05 So humility is important.
12:07 Are they listening?
12:08 Right?
12:09 Coachability is important.
12:11 One of the biggest ones for me is empathy, meaning do they...
12:17 Empathy meaning that when you have employees, how deep are you into those employees?
12:22 How much do...
12:23 If I asked your employees, how much does...
12:25 Are you just here to work for Jeff because he needs you to complete his mission or is
12:28 he equally as concerned with your career, your life, and he wants this to be a great
12:34 experience for you?
12:35 Empathy is what brings the best employees because they want to work with someone who
12:39 cares about them, not just making them feel like I'm an employee who achieves Jeff's dream.
12:45 And the same thing goes with customers, that empathy thing.
12:47 You're actually listening to the market or you think you're smarter than the customer,
12:50 right?
12:51 I see people that are frequently blinded by their own brilliance.
12:54 That doesn't work.
12:55 That's the mistakes I made when I failed.
12:57 It's because I thought I had a great idea.
12:59 The customer didn't and I thought I was smarter than the customer.
13:01 I didn't think that consciously.
13:03 I realized later.
13:04 So empathy is another example of one of those.
13:07 If you really listen to people, when you do, you'll be a way better leader.
13:11 Do you think everybody can be an entrepreneur?
13:13 I do not.
13:15 And I don't think everybody has to be.
13:18 Some people...
13:19 You know that old saying, being an entrepreneur is like jumping off a cliff and trying to
13:22 build an airplane on the way down.
13:24 Some people are terrified by that and in fact, that's the DNA of risk tolerance, the DNA
13:31 of either being scared by the unknown or being excited by it.
13:35 As entrepreneurs, there's no doubt you and I have been frightened at some time.
13:38 Like, "Oh my gosh, I don't know what I'm doing.
13:40 I might have made a mistake.
13:42 I jumped off this cliff.
13:43 I don't have any tools and I'm plummeting to the ground."
13:46 But we're equally as excited about the thrill.
13:49 I spent my whole life like you have, throwing myself off of cliffs and saying, "Whoa, I
13:53 wonder how this one's going to go."
13:54 Not everyone has that DNA.
13:57 Not everyone should be an entrepreneur.
13:59 People always ask, "Are entrepreneurs born or made?"
14:02 The answer is both.
14:03 How do you get made by listening to a show like the Jeff Menster Show?
14:07 If I had had your show, this podcast, I would have been taking notes every episode and I
14:12 would have learned stuff that would have made me a better entrepreneur.
14:15 But if I didn't have that DNA of risk, if I didn't have that DNA of recovery, when you
14:21 fail, shake it off and start another thing, I would have never been an entrepreneur.
14:26 What in your childhood prepared you for entrepreneurship?
14:29 Honestly, mom.
14:32 I grew up in the Arizona desert with a single mom with four kids, three jobs.
14:37 Mom's solution to everything was kind of blood, sweat, and tears.
14:43 Just go figure it out.
14:44 What you have to do, go get it done.
14:47 She didn't want to move us.
14:48 Later, when you're adults, you're like mom.
14:50 If I'd known you were working three jobs because you wanted to keep us in that school district,
14:55 we would have never let you work that hard.
14:57 But instead of complaining or settling, mom's answer was, "I'll just start another company,
15:03 do another job because I have a goal and the goal is to have my kids in this school district."
15:08 So watching that, watching someone that says, "Here's a goal and here's the hard work required
15:13 to achieve it and I'm going to grab a shovel and start digging," that was the inspiration.
15:19 When you want something, get it, go work on it.
15:22 Did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?
15:24 Not at all.
15:25 I would never, ever use that word.
15:28 I knew a couple of things.
15:31 So I had one corporate job at a software, I'm a software engineer, at a big engineering
15:36 company and one day my boss went to the board and he laid out the strategic plan and he
15:42 said, "Does anyone have any questions?"
15:44 I was the only one to raise my hand.
15:46 He said, "Hoffman."
15:47 And I said, "I don't even know where to start.
15:49 Nothing in the entire plan makes any sense at all."
15:52 And all my teammates are looking at me and he goes, "I have a question for you."
15:56 I said, "What?"
15:57 He said, "Does getting paid Friday make sense?"
15:59 And all my teammates are elbowing me, "Just say yes."
16:02 I said, "Yes, sir, because I live paycheck to paycheck."
16:04 And he said, "Then maybe you should shut up."
16:07 At that moment I was like, "I cannot do this.
16:09 I just want to live in a rational world where we work on things that make sense and that
16:14 the customer drives the process and not my boss.
16:17 We should be working for them."
16:19 And so that corporate thing didn't work.
16:21 So that's one reason.
16:22 I didn't say I want to be an entrepreneur.
16:24 I said, "I can't live like this anymore."
16:27 The second one, to be honest, is my whole life I've been told, "You're the most impatient
16:32 person I've ever met."
16:33 And I've been hearing that my whole life.
16:35 And in 700 years of living, I will be honest, Jeff, I've made roughly zero progress.
16:40 I am still the most impatient person in any line.
16:43 But it's also the characteristic, inefficiency drives me nuts, right?
16:48 Laziness drives me nuts.
16:50 And so those are the causes frequently of long lines is inefficiency and incompetence.
16:55 So I became an entrepreneur.
16:57 My first startup really experience was standing in an airport waiting.
17:01 Back then you had to check in with a human to get a boarding pass.
17:04 The line was more than an hour long.
17:06 I missed the flight when I was 20-something years old and broke because it's after I quit
17:10 my one good job.
17:11 I had no money, no job.
17:14 Something broke, right?
17:15 I said 20-something years old.
17:16 I stood in line an hour and a half, missed the flight.
17:19 And I was like, I'm yelling at the ticket agent, "This is insane.
17:23 We're standing in a line an hour and a half long so you can print boarding passes.
17:27 It's a printer, right?
17:28 Put the printer over here.
17:29 I'll get my own boarding pass."
17:30 I stood there and I was like, "This is ridiculous.
17:32 I'm never doing this again."
17:34 So I went home that Friday.
17:36 And today the boarding pass, you all, hopefully all of you, have used a check-in kiosk in
17:42 an airport pretty much anywhere in the world.
17:44 That was the first product.
17:45 If I wasn't so unfixably impatient, I never would have done that.
17:50 Which is brilliant because truthfully, problems are the foundation from where innovation comes.
17:58 And when we look in our lives, I speak to a lot of entrepreneurship classes around the
18:01 country, not colleges, and one of the most common questions I hear from them is, "How
18:06 do you find your purpose?
18:07 How do I find what company?"
18:08 Because I want to be an entrepreneur, but I don't know what.
18:10 Yeah.
18:11 Well, I want to hear what you tell them.
18:13 I basically go down the path of, "You've got to figure out what problem is so big or so
18:18 important to you that you want to solve, or some issue that you want to solve, or some
18:23 idea that you want to create."
18:24 Absolutely.
18:25 And when people, to add onto that, so yes, and I totally agree, when people say, "How
18:32 do you find that thing?"
18:33 As an entrepreneur, I know how meaningful it is to invest in the people and causes that
18:37 are close to me.
18:38 And on GoFundMe, it's easy, safe, and powerful to do just that, whether you're supporting
18:44 a family member, friend, local business, or charity.
18:48 And whenever you make a donation, you're protected by the GoFundMe giving guarantee.
18:53 Visit GoFundMe.com today to help make a positive difference in your community.
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19:27 Now let's get after those goals.
19:30 It's the hardest part of being an entrepreneur.
19:32 It's the issue that is created with your closest family members, because what they fail to
19:37 realize is when I'm hanging out with my kids, I don't look at the clock.
19:41 When I'm hanging out with my wife, I don't look at the clock.
19:43 When I'm working on my business, I don't look at the clock.
19:45 So I lose myself in time with what I'm doing because I love it.
19:50 Absolutely.
19:51 And if you don't, do something else.
19:52 Yeah, you're going to lose.
19:53 Right.
19:54 You're going to lose.
19:55 You're going to compete with someone who loves it.
19:56 Who loves it more than you, so they're going to put more into it.
19:58 And I try to teach people that all the day, and when they're hiring people, I always tell
20:02 them that people driven by passion and purpose will far outperform people driven by paycheck.
20:08 So when an entrepreneur says, "I'm launching a business.
20:10 Why?
20:11 Because I want to get rich."
20:12 I'm already way less interested than someone that is completely passionate and totally
20:17 lost.
20:18 Quick story.
20:19 When I started that kiosk company, I look back now and I realize what it should look
20:23 like, exactly what you just said, where you never look at the clock.
20:26 So I'm working on these kiosks for the airport, so you can check yourself in.
20:30 Buddy of mine comes in.
20:31 He goes, "Jeff, I told a friend of mine what you're building, and he wants to give you
20:34 some money to build the first prototypes for manufacturing."
20:38 And I said, "Great.
20:39 Go get the check."
20:40 And he said, "Well, I'd love to, but there's a problem."
20:41 And I said, "What?"
20:42 And he goes, "You don't even have a bank account."
20:44 And I was like, "I don't have time for bank accounts.
20:46 I've got to make these kiosks work."
20:49 And I said, "Go get me a bank account."
20:50 And he said, "Jeff, I'd love to, but there's another problem."
20:53 And I said, "What?"
20:54 And he goes, "You don't even have a company."
20:56 And I said, "Oh my God, I don't have time for companies and bank accounts.
20:59 I want to make the kiosks work."
21:00 If you're not so obsessed, the center of your universe is the problem you're solving.
21:07 A company is this necessary evil that you have to build to deliver a solution, but your
21:13 focus should be on a solution.
21:15 And today, people call me and they, "Good news, I'm an entrepreneur."
21:18 I said, "What does that mean?"
21:19 They say, "I got an office.
21:20 I got a website.
21:21 I got a business, right?
21:22 Card or whatever."
21:23 I was like, "You have everything but a problem to solve.
21:27 You should be lost in the problem, not the business."
21:29 And I'll share a similar story on my own side.
21:32 I started Everbull.
21:33 I had sold a few companies, made plenty of money.
21:35 It was one of the biggest fights I've ever had with my wife.
21:39 About three months in, I'd been working seven days a week in this restaurant, trying to
21:42 hear from my customers, figure this whole business out, do this thing.
21:44 And she yells at me and says, "You're a millionaire working a minimum wage job and not spending
21:50 time with your kids or your wife."
21:52 And that was basically the theme of what she was so upset about.
21:55 And she's right and she's wrong.
21:56 And I tried to explain to her.
21:57 I'm like, "Great."
21:58 I'm like, "I have to admit, this is what I'm doing.
22:00 I have to be all in.
22:01 And in this season, in the moment of my life, my kids are good.
22:05 My wife is good.
22:06 Our relationship is strong.
22:07 Just give me the runway.
22:09 I will work my way out of it.
22:11 But right now, I have to live and breathe this thing."
22:13 And it wasn't the money because I wasn't making any money.
22:16 It was just more of figuring it out and understanding how this whole thing works.
22:21 And that's where entrepreneurs, in my opinion, struggle because they are chasing the CEO
22:25 job instead of understanding that they need to do every job.
22:28 They need to understand every element of their business and they need to understand that
22:32 that will be the foundation where success happens.
22:35 And you said something else about, "I'm doing it for money."
22:38 And I say this all the time.
22:39 Don't chase money.
22:40 It'll run.
22:41 Don't strive for perfect.
22:42 You'll never be it.
22:43 It's like bowling.
22:44 Strive for remarkable.
22:45 Aim to do the same thing over.
22:47 Sometimes you'll bowl 300.
22:48 Perfect.
22:49 Sometimes you won't.
22:50 But strive for remarkability.
22:52 Embrace what you're doing.
22:53 Have a bigger purpose.
22:54 You can cut your tail off to do it and the money comes.
22:57 I have a saying that I tell people all the time, same saying as yours, but I wrote it
23:03 on the wall one day.
23:04 I wrote, "Don't chase money.
23:05 Chase excellence.
23:06 Money follows excellence."
23:08 People that are chasing money are distracted by the pursuit of money from the only thing
23:13 that's going to make them wealthy, which is excellence.
23:16 You have to focus, just like you did with EverBowl.
23:19 People today, it's a brand new company, right?
23:22 They're at the start and they start telling you about their exit strategy.
23:25 I'm like, "Exit strategy?
23:26 What is your entrance strategy?
23:28 What are you, exiting your PowerPoint?
23:30 You're shopping for cars because you've made a PowerPoint already, right?
23:32 You're going to buy a new car?"
23:34 I never had a "exit strategy."
23:37 What I always had was an excellence strategy.
23:40 Go out and build something amazing in the world, which takes that obsessive type of
23:45 commitment to it and passion and the money will just knock on your door.
23:49 If you're focused on the money, you'll never be creating excellence because you'll be distracted.
23:53 In today's world, social media has glorified certain entrepreneurs and the idea of entrepreneurship.
23:59 It's now sexy.
24:01 When I was coming out, I didn't even know that word.
24:04 It was business owner and employee.
24:06 Agreed.
24:07 Entrepreneur was ... I learned about that like 10 years ago.
24:09 I was like, "Oh, entrepreneurship class.
24:11 That's an interesting ..." I didn't really have that.
24:12 It was negative, Jeff.
24:13 I told somebody once, "I'm an entrepreneur," and they winked like, "Oh, we get it.
24:16 You're a hustler."
24:17 I was like, "I'm not selling drugs," and they're like, "Oh, you lost your job, so you're on
24:21 the streets hustling."
24:22 I said, "This is my job."
24:23 They're like, "Oh, no one will hire you."
24:25 I was like, "I hired myself."
24:26 Yeah, entrepreneur used to be the negative version of hustler, but please, come on.
24:31 No, yeah.
24:32 In that vein, you're seeing so much young youth being attracted to the idea of entrepreneurship,
24:38 of what it can bring from wealth and freedom of time and-
24:42 The stuff that's glorified.
24:43 The stuff that's glorified.
24:45 I've yet to see a group, whether it's an entrepreneurship class or even these masterminds that I have
24:53 the privilege of speaking at, they talk about it.
24:55 A lot of it is on mindset.
24:57 A lot of it is on execution.
24:59 I'll talk about vertical integration or relationship capital, all these concepts.
25:03 But no one is really spending the time to really lay into what are the sacrifices that
25:08 you have to be ready for, because everything has a sacrifice.
25:11 Everything.
25:12 Everything worth having in life comes easy.
25:14 Correct.
25:15 By definition, you're going to sacrifice.
25:16 I say, I don't want my daughters to be entrepreneurs, because I don't think the sacrifice, unless
25:22 they were wired the way I am and I just don't think they are, I don't think the sacrifice
25:26 justifies what they're chasing.
25:28 I 100% agree with you.
25:30 This is not for everybody and everybody shouldn't do it.
25:33 But I'll tell you, I'll add something onto that, right, with many years ago with my daughter.
25:40 The mistake a lot of entrepreneurs make, here's what your family, and by family it might be
25:44 friends, it might be parents, it might be spouse and children, whatever.
25:47 The people that are around you that want your time, that's the use of family I'm doing right
25:51 now, what they see is all Jeff ever does is work.
25:55 So their interpretation is all you care about is money, right, because work equals more
26:01 products, more growth, more sales.
26:03 And so the mistake I made, until I learned it later, is engaging them in the purpose.
26:09 And by the way, just going to be real here, if all you care about is getting rich, probably
26:12 neither of these Jeffs are going to work with you anyway.
26:15 We care about people that actually want to do something with their success.
26:19 So at one point when my daughter made a comment about the work, the amount of hours, the things
26:25 I was working, I took her out on that Saturday to a sports field.
26:32 On that sports field, I asked her to help me pushing kids in wheelchairs around in a
26:37 softball game.
26:39 And a lot of these kids had...
26:42 When you think of wheelchair sports, you actually think of wheelchair basketball, but you know
26:46 what?
26:47 You have to be able to do that.
26:48 You need arms.
26:49 You have to shoot a basketball.
26:50 You can't be blind to play wheelchair basketball.
26:52 You can't be a quadriplegic.
26:54 So at this event, there were kids of every disability.
26:57 The woman who was a blind child, we brought out a beeper ball.
27:00 Other kids, if they couldn't use their arms, we pushed them around.
27:04 So we were out there on this day playing softball with this bunch of disabled kids with my daughter,
27:09 and she was having a blast.
27:11 And she said, "What is this?"
27:12 And I said, "It's a national league of sports for the most disabled kids in the country."
27:18 And she said, "Whose league is it?"
27:20 And I said, "I'm the chairman of it."
27:23 And she said, "All these sports wheelchairs are really cool."
27:27 And she said, "Where'd all these kids get these wheelchairs?"
27:30 I said, "I bought them all."
27:32 And she stopped for a minute.
27:34 And she said, "You created this league?"
27:36 I said, "Yes, because I wanted to give the families whose kids have the worst disabilities
27:40 a game on Saturday, like they're able-bodied children."
27:43 And they needed wheelchairs for a day.
27:45 It literally was called Adapted Sports, but none of these people had money.
27:49 So I bought like 200 of these wheelchairs.
27:51 My daughter just stopped, looked at the kids, looked at the families.
27:54 A lot of families were in tears to see their child on a sports team.
27:57 My daughter said, "Is this why you're working so hard?"
28:00 I said, "Yes."
28:02 I said, "If I don't spend some time at the office, this league doesn't exist and none
28:06 of these families have wheelchairs."
28:08 And she nodded.
28:09 And you know what she said?
28:11 She said, "Next time you need to work the weekend, can I come in and help you?"
28:14 Oh, wow.
28:15 What a cool revelation.
28:16 Seriously.
28:17 How old was she?
28:18 So make sure you share with people, probably 12, share with people why are you doing this,
28:22 right?
28:23 There's probably something you're trying to achieve with your life that is the reason
28:25 you work that hard.
28:26 If you tell people, they're not mad anymore.
28:28 In fact, they want to help you do it.
28:30 That's brilliant.
28:31 Because I think you're right.
28:32 I mean, as someone who has kids and a wife, I don't think I've done a great job doing
28:37 that over the years.
28:41 Mostly because I don't think it was on the forefront of my mind to consider that.
28:44 It wasn't for me at the beginning.
28:46 So I learned that and got there.
28:48 But yeah, just for all entrepreneurs listening, why are you doing this?
28:54 First you need to answer the question yourself.
28:56 And if the only answer is money, that's one of the things that it's okay to do, but it's
29:00 not enough because of what you said, Jeff.
29:03 The sacrifice, if all you're getting for that sacrifice is money, really?
29:07 You traded relationships with your family for money?
29:10 No, but if you're trading something that enriches your family relationships, after that, every
29:16 game she wanted to come help.
29:18 She's like, "I'm so glad the company's working because we can provide all these families
29:22 with something."
29:23 And she was part of it.
29:24 She saw the connection.
29:25 Money is such... if you don't have money... people have attacked me... attacked me is
29:31 the wrong word... commented negatively when I've made comments.
29:33 Then they say, "Well, if you have money, it's easy to say what you're saying."
29:36 Listen, I understand.
29:37 We live in America.
29:39 Money is the modern day requirement to survive.
29:43 It's the scoreboard for a lot of people.
29:45 And right, you have to have it.
29:46 You have to have it.
29:47 You got to eat.
29:48 You got to eat.
29:49 So if you don't have money, I'm not talking to you.
29:50 You got to eat at Ever Bowl, by the way.
29:51 That's what I meant to say.
29:52 Eat at Ever Bowl.
29:53 Thank you.
29:54 Thank you.
29:55 And I'm not saying that you're just chasing...
29:56 When I say money, I'm saying if you're just chasing money... if you need to feed your
29:59 family, you need to do what you need to do.
30:01 That's a requirement.
30:02 That's the foundation.
30:03 This is for the people who are chasing the idea of becoming a millionaire and are turning
30:06 down or have the opportunity to make a good income, but they just want to be rich.
30:12 And the reason they want to be rich is for fancy cars and fancy houses and the idea that
30:15 they think it's going to give them fulfillment.
30:18 And from experience and having the privilege of getting to speak with extremely successful
30:22 people and be friends with them, 99% of the people I know who are millionaires, the money
30:27 doesn't fill their cup.
30:29 It's the impact like what you just talked about with the wheelchair league and the ability
30:32 to make positive impact on the planet.
30:35 We're in 200 countries now helping people.
30:37 That's why I work this hard.
30:38 I didn't always know it then, but I'll tell you, like you, I was 20-something years old
30:42 when I sold my first company.
30:45 And we sold our company... again, we're not here to talk about it, but we sold our company.
30:50 I was broken unemployed in 20-something, quit my job, and we sold that company for
30:53 over $100 million.
30:55 And everybody's in the rat race every day for that is what I was told.
30:59 That's the social messaging, right?
31:01 And so you're broke.
31:03 I was literally driving a used Hyundai, and the next day you can buy Ferraris, Lamborghinis,
31:08 whatever.
31:09 But what happened to me in a good way was disillusionment.
31:12 So all of a sudden I had money, and I'm being honest, on day one I went out and bought stuff
31:16 because I never had stuff ever.
31:17 I grew up poor.
31:18 But on day two almost, I'm not literal, right, I was, "Wait, that's it?"
31:23 Everybody's in the rat race for this, and I said, "This can't be all it is."
31:27 Because after the newness, the shine literally wears off the fancy car or whatever, after
31:33 the disillusionment hit, I was like, "This can't be all it was for."
31:37 And so I learned a super valuable lesson.
31:39 I learned this, that success is not a destination.
31:44 I thought it was the destination.
31:45 Everyone's trying to get rich or famous.
31:47 Success is not a destination.
31:49 It's the platform that finally lets you do the things that actually matter, right?
31:55 So you work hard to get to success.
31:57 The success, it's nice, you celebrate it, but the truth is the fulfillment doesn't come
32:02 from your house or your car.
32:03 The fulfillment comes from creating a legacy of doing things for other people that you
32:08 couldn't have done if you weren't successful as business.
32:11 I found I was much more fulfilled running around with these families and helping their
32:16 children have a better life than I ever was buying another car.
32:20 I just didn't know that until I got there.
32:23 And the hard truth is the kind of human that can create the companies that creates and
32:29 generates that kind of wealth, they're wired in such a way that they can't sit on a beach
32:34 anyway.
32:35 Well, that's for sure.
32:36 That's the real...
32:37 Like so many people I listen to say, "I just want to make millions of dollars so I can
32:40 retire and sit on the beach."
32:42 If you're not wired to not be able to do that, the chances are you're not going to create
32:47 that company.
32:48 I completely agree.
32:49 Elon Musk, Bezos, Gates.
32:51 You look at all of the glorified entrepreneurs, the biggest ones in the world, they're still
32:55 working their tails off doing different things, having an impact, changing the world, impacting
33:00 the world.
33:01 I agree.
33:02 It's funny you say that.
33:03 I was smiling because somebody once said, "What superpower, what superhero you would
33:07 be?"
33:08 I would be, jokingly said but not jokingly, I would be nap man because I literally have
33:12 no ability.
33:15 I know how important sleep is to my health and I was bad at it for a long time.
33:19 But you know what's crazy about that DNA?
33:22 For a long period of time, if I did go lay on the beach, an hour later I would feel guilty
33:27 like I was committing a crime.
33:28 I was like, "I could be building something.
33:30 I could be helping someone and I'm laying on the beach."
33:32 I got over that.
33:33 I found some balance there because as you especially know and talk about, if you don't
33:39 take care of yourself, you can't help other people.
33:42 If I'm not healthy, I can't do those things.
33:45 But you're right about that DNA.
33:47 I was like, I go to the beach with a bunch of people and an hour later I was like, "Well,
33:51 I see you guys tomorrow.
33:53 I'm going to go find something to do."
33:54 It's just the DNA.
33:55 And like some of our mutual friends and very extremely, celebrities people know at home
33:59 so it's easy to use those names, but you talk about the Drew Breeses, the Shaquille O'Neal,
34:04 the people that have made enough wealth to never have to do anything that they don't
34:07 want to do, but yet they're some of the busiest humans I know.
34:10 They're involved in more charities, more businesses for profit, more businesses for impact, more
34:15 speaking engagements than a lot of people I know who are struggling to make ends meet
34:20 and are hanging out all day Saturday drinking beer at their house.
34:23 Exactly.
34:24 This is Pitbull, the singer is a good friend of mine and I was at his show recently and
34:30 what I love about attitude, people always say that guy never stops, right?
34:33 He never stops moving.
34:35 But what they don't understand is we're backstage, it's time for Pitbull to form, there's 30,000
34:40 screaming fans.
34:41 He doesn't say, "I want to go out and soak up all the adoration of my fans."
34:47 What he says is, "I'll be back in a couple hours because this is how we build and more
34:53 kids get to go to school, the more times I go out on that stage."
34:57 He actually relates his busyness in his performances, he builds schools, right?
35:03 And we've done that together, building schools.
35:06 But I love that he doesn't say, "My fans are waiting."
35:08 What he says is, "There's children that need an education, I need to go out on that stage
35:12 so I can provide it."
35:13 Why is he so busy?
35:14 Because he's driven by purpose.
35:16 Yes.
35:17 And I think it's important and this is just to reiterate that point, but we're filming
35:22 this on a Saturday afternoon at 3.30 after we both spoke at another event.
35:25 I was going to say, after we both took our Saturday to speak at someone's event.
35:28 And both flew in yesterday to do all that.
35:30 And I'm saying that because if you're looking for those attributes, if you're sitting here
35:33 listening to this and you're saying, "I'm not yet where I want to be, what changes do
35:37 I need to make?
35:38 What do I need to tweak?"
35:39 I'm telling you, it's changing from activity to productivity.
35:44 Because you can run in place all day and so many people spend so much time saying, "I'm
35:47 so busy being active."
35:49 But they're not being productive.
35:51 That is the difference.
35:52 I'm even more excited that you said that because I literally posted something on my social
35:57 media recently because there was...
36:00 I'm so glad you brought this up.
36:02 This is going to be my favorite part right here.
36:04 There was all these influencers that were saying, "If you're not up at 4.30 AM every
36:10 single day of your life, you're just not trying hard enough and you don't care about yourself."
36:14 I completely disagree with that.
36:17 That's the difference.
36:18 That's activity.
36:19 Yep.
36:20 Productivity.
36:21 I'm going to give you a badge of honors to say I'm an entrepreneur.
36:23 I get up at 4.30 AM every day and I work till midnight.
36:27 That is not a badge of productivity.
36:30 That is a badge of inefficiency.
36:32 I used to tell my team, not, "We should be up at 4.30 every day."
36:36 What I wrote on my social media was, "Grind when you have to, but don't grind for no reason.
36:41 Don't grind so you can tell people I'm grinding every day.
36:44 Grind for productivity."
36:45 So what I used to tell my people when these influencers are saying, "Get up at 4.30 every
36:50 day and do something," I would say, "Let's figure out how to do in two days what it takes
36:56 everyone else the whole week to do.
36:58 We'll probably still work a regular week, but we will crush you in productivity because
37:03 we figured out how to do what you were doing all day."
37:06 The flip side is when it's your kid's birthday and you want to take them on a trip or you
37:10 want to go out and push kids around in wheelchairs for a couple days, I focus so much on productivity
37:16 that I can take three days off and I can go do the things that I want to do.
37:20 So grinding when you have to is fine, but your point about activity doesn't count, only
37:28 productivity does.
37:29 And if you can improve the efficiency of your productivity and get it done in two days,
37:33 you should go spend Friday with your family.
37:35 You don't need to be in the office because you were so productive in the four days before.
37:39 I love that.
37:40 Grind when you have to, because if you are just grinding all the time, you are just being
37:44 active and you tend to do the things that don't move the needle and you feel better
37:50 because you're doing something.
37:52 And that's a dangerous place to be.
37:54 It's treading water and that's not going to get you to the shore.
37:58 It is not.
37:59 You dropped in the water, you've got to pick a path and you've got to swim hard.
38:02 It is so glad you brought that up.
38:04 When somebody said to me one day, "People that work for you, how much vacation do they
38:08 get?"
38:09 Somebody has asked me, "How many vacation days?"
38:10 I said, "Infinity."
38:12 And they said, "How do you give your people infinity vacation days?"
38:15 I said, "Because I don't ever count any of those things."
38:18 And they said, "How does that work?"
38:19 I said, "I only measure productivity and results."
38:23 So if Jeff, you're working for my company and you are crushing it and you say, "I'm
38:27 taking the family to the beach for four days."
38:30 I was like, "Have a nice time.
38:32 Call me if you need anything."
38:33 I never question because I'm only measuring results and productivity.
38:37 If you're crushing it, do what you want to do.
38:40 If you're not, you're fired anyway, so you're never going to use infinite vacation days.
38:44 I'm not judging the activity, I'm judging the results.
38:48 What did you produce with your time?
38:50 That's what you should measure as an entrepreneur, people's actual contribution, not the activities
38:55 they were doing.
38:56 What did they actually get done?
38:57 And even if you're not an entrepreneur and you're an employee, it's the same thing.
39:00 It's in anything in life.
39:02 No one except children get the benefit of, "I worked all day trying and I had no productivity
39:09 and results."
39:10 Because we're teaching children to be adults.
39:12 But once you're a grown-up and you enter the real world, it's all based on productivity.
39:16 And the people, the companies, the organizations that are the most productive win every time.
39:21 Efficiencies.
39:22 Yep, completely agree.
39:24 Probably why Priceline was so successful.
39:26 It was we were focused on finding rock star producers.
39:30 Hey, everybody.
39:31 Looking for great insights?
39:33 Entrepreneur.com's podcast network is the place for you.
39:36 Check out podcasts like Problem Solvers and Smart Passive Income for smart advice.
39:41 Hear true stories on how success happens, financial updates on dirty money, deep dives
39:46 with behind the review, and food trends on restaurant influencers.
39:50 And don't miss my new show.
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39:56 Let's start our success journey today.
39:58 Hey there.
40:00 It's your host, Jeff Fenster.
40:02 And I have something very exciting to share with you today.
40:05 You know, here on the Jeff Fenster Show, we're all about growth, both personally and professionally.
40:10 Speaking of growth, have you ever heard of Everbill?
40:13 As the proud founder of Everbill, I can tell you firsthand that we're on a mission to help
40:17 everyone un-evolve, to live actively and eat stuff that's been around forever.
40:22 Imagine stepping back into a world where everything you eat is fresh, nourishing, and packed with
40:27 nutrients.
40:28 At Everbill, we've got you covered with our wide range of superfood bowls.
40:32 But it's not just about the food.
40:34 It's about a community of like-minded individuals who are determined to embrace a vibrant, fulfilling
40:39 lifestyle.
40:40 Join us on this journey as we redefine what it means to be healthy and active.
40:44 So if you're ready to un-evolve and be the best version of yourself, head over to everbill.com
40:49 and check out our menu.
40:53 By the way, you know I always tell people this, I tell people that you can't build greatness
40:57 on the backs of average people, right?
41:00 And so here's the conventional wisdom.
41:02 I'm going to use dumb numbers.
41:04 You have a hundred bucks.
41:05 An average employee costs 20 people.
41:08 So you're like, "With this hundred dollars, I could hire five people because an average
41:11 cost..."
41:12 And then I introduce you to my friend Jeff Fenster, who's a freaking rock star, and you're
41:16 like, "Yeah, but Jeff costs $50.
41:18 I can't afford rock stars."
41:20 So what they do conventionally is they say, "For this same money, I could hire five people."
41:26 And that's where it goes wrong.
41:27 If you took your hundred dollars and hired two $50 rock stars, they will far outperform
41:33 the five average people.
41:35 And the reason people tell me they don't hire rock stars is they can't afford them.
41:39 So what I'm telling you is hire way less people, spend your money on rock stars, because those
41:43 people will deliver the results that you need to win.
41:47 To piggyback, you can't afford not to hire rock stars if you want to be successful.
41:52 And success is a derivative of the specific things you do, right?
41:59 You show me what someone does and that's the outcome.
42:01 I know no matter what you do, you will find success because you have this formula, innate,
42:07 subconscious or conscious.
42:09 Do you have a set of core values or, I say core values as another way of saying it, but
42:14 a success formula that you're very clear on, like this is what Jeff Hoffman does?
42:18 Absolutely.
42:19 And I love that at the conference you and I were speaking at earlier today on stage,
42:23 you said success is formulaic.
42:26 And I would have run up on stage and give you a high five right then because it is.
42:29 But it's the reason that I was able to leave tech, go into entertainment, a music company,
42:35 a film company, and people were like, "What are you doing?
42:37 You're a tech guy.
42:38 You can't be in the music biz."
42:40 And what I said that you and I agree on is I'm not a tech guy or a music guy.
42:44 I'm an entrepreneur.
42:45 I know the formula of business success and I'm going to apply it to different industries,
42:50 right?
42:51 Because there is a formula.
42:53 It's the same thing that in sports, it's the fundamental blocking and tackling.
42:58 I remember one day, an athlete, but I was on the phone with Derek Jeter, the baseball
43:04 player, and he said, "I got to go.
43:05 I got to go to practice."
43:06 I said, "Dude, practice?
43:08 Aren't you the best baseball player in the world?"
43:11 And so the thought would be, why would the best baseball player in the world practice?
43:15 And Derek's like, "I'm one of the best baseball players because I practice every single day,"
43:20 right?
43:21 He said, "That's how you get here.
43:22 It's not the other way around."
43:23 He said, "Because I've never stopped practicing any day of my life, no matter how many games
43:27 I win."
43:28 That's what makes you good, that commitment to that work ethic that other people just
43:34 don't do.
43:35 Yeah.
43:36 And Kobe Bryant, one of my favorite athletes of all time, but not because of the product
43:42 on the court, but actually the Mamba mentality that he spoke about and what made him him,
43:46 he used to always say, "I committed everything to this craft because I never wanted to look
43:50 back and say, 'I wish I would have given more.'"
43:53 That's pretty profound.
43:55 It's profound.
43:56 And when you look at your life, when you look at what you're trying to work on, whether
43:59 it's being the best parent you can be, being the best husband or wife, being the best entrepreneur,
44:04 being the best friend, brother, sister, it doesn't matter what initiative you're after.
44:08 If you ever look back and say, "I wish I would have done more," it means you didn't leave
44:13 it all on the field.
44:14 And Derek Jeter left it all out on the field.
44:16 I 100% agree.
44:17 So when you were asking me about that formula, what's the formula for success, it starts
44:22 with habits, right?
44:24 And that's why I said that in sports, what Derek told me was every morning I hit like
44:29 200 grounders that I field for a shortstop side and then I do batting practice, take
44:34 100 swings.
44:37 He works on the fundamentals of the game that make him a better player.
44:40 Business has fundamentals.
44:42 So I'll just cover a couple of them since you asked that formulaic.
44:46 One of the ones I learned the hard way is surround yourself, because we've been talking
44:50 about rock stars, surround yourself with people smarter than you and then serve them.
44:56 Fundamentally, if you were to ask your child, right, if your kid came up to you and said,
45:00 "Are you the boss?"
45:01 And you'd say, "Yes."
45:02 If you were then to say, "What do you think I do?"
45:05 The child would say, "Your boss is the one that tells everyone else what to do."
45:09 That is the mistake, right?
45:11 Real leaders don't create followers.
45:14 They create more leaders.
45:16 I got that wrong.
45:17 I'm the CEO.
45:18 I'm the founder.
45:19 I'm the company.
45:20 I'll tell people what to do.
45:21 I didn't grow or succeed when I did that.
45:24 I started to grow and achieve something significant when I realized that my real job is to find
45:32 higher people smarter than me and then just take care of them.
45:35 You want to create the company where the best people in your industry all want to work for
45:39 you and never want to leave.
45:41 So your real job isn't being the boss.
45:43 It's an inverted pyramid.
45:44 Your real job is finding rock stars and then taking such good care of them that they never
45:49 want to work for anybody but you.
45:52 I learned that one day when I sold a company and I was on TV and they were saying, "Mr.
45:58 Hoffman," they were reading our margins, profits, sales, all these numbers.
46:03 Amazing results.
46:04 What accomplishment are you most proud of?
46:06 On the way to the TV studio, Jeff, the woman that ran HR for me called me and she goes,
46:10 "This is so cool.
46:11 I just finished verifying it."
46:13 She said, "Jeff, from the day you started the company through all these years to the
46:17 day you sold it," she said, "no one that worked for you has ever quit."
46:21 I was like, "That's the coolest thing I've ever done and I don't know how."
46:24 So I started calling the employees from the TV studio, "Why don't you guys quit?"
46:27 They're like, "Dude, is this a problem?
46:28 Do you want us to quit?"
46:29 I said, "No, but I must have done something somehow that no one ever leaves this place."
46:35 I said, "Let me grab a pen and tell me why you don't quit."
46:39 I said, "I'm going to listen to every single answer and then next time I'll do it on purpose."
46:43 What I discovered was my job wasn't as a leader to run the company.
46:48 My job was to find people smarter than me in every area and then take really good care
46:52 of them.
46:53 That's when I achieved growth.
46:54 That's brilliant.
46:55 That's so profound.
46:57 I agree.
46:58 I think I shared on stage my moment of having that same epiphany when I was younger, realizing
47:03 that my ego was actually making people leave.
47:06 Today, I hire people smarter than me.
47:08 I'm the dumbest guy on my team and I try to bring in thought leaders.
47:12 That's why some of the companies that we have have turned out so incredible because of the
47:15 people, the team that is on all of them.
47:19 100%.
47:20 That's the formulaic part.
47:21 When I said I'm going to start a music company and everyone's like, "You're a tech guy.
47:24 That's not going to work."
47:25 I'm like, "I'm not going to sing.
47:27 I'm not going to play an instrument.
47:28 I'm not going to write the music."
47:30 The same way that when I was doing travel, a company like Priceline, I am hiring systems
47:35 engineers and developers because we're building algorithms.
47:38 This time, instead of systems engineers, I'm hiring guitar players, drummers.
47:43 Instead of a guy that writes code, I'm doing a guy that writes song.
47:47 How is that different?
47:48 It's not.
47:49 I'm hiring the best people at every position on the team.
47:53 My job is to go out and find rock stars, in that case, literally, and then take really,
47:59 really good care of them.
48:00 That's one of the formulas that I was like, "Why would that not work in any industry?"
48:05 We kind of had the chance to prove our thesis.
48:07 I heard you say something, actually, today, earlier, that when you were at Priceline,
48:13 someone once gave you what should have been a great compliment, but you internalized it
48:18 very differently.
48:19 That was that you were the world's leading expert on travel.
48:22 I was sitting there listening to you have this conversation, and I absolutely fell in
48:26 love with your response.
48:27 I'm sure our audience would love to hear that story.
48:31 It was kind of funny because the story is that I was backstage getting ready to give
48:36 a speech and getting mic'd up, and the host of it was introducing the world's leading
48:42 expert in online travel.
48:43 I was like, "I'm in online travel.
48:45 This is the one speech I need to hear.
48:47 I need to meet this person."
48:49 I was a little upset.
48:50 I don't want to be trapped backstage.
48:51 I want to go meet the world's leading expert in online travel.
48:55 While I was trying to look out and see who it was, the curtain opened.
48:59 I had this realization.
49:01 I said, "Oh, no.
49:03 It's me.
49:04 They're calling me the world's leading expert in online travel."
49:07 It's funny because my first response was disillusionment.
49:10 I was like, "Wait.
49:12 If I'm the definition of a world's leading expert, then everything I've ever believed
49:16 about experts is questionable now, right?
49:19 Because if I can get that title, clearly anybody can."
49:23 But it led me to a thought process.
49:25 I started thinking, "Why did anybody ever call me that?"
49:30 The answer is thought leadership.
49:32 I started backing up.
49:34 For everybody, thought leadership is about no one's going to invite you or ask you to
49:41 do this, right?
49:43 I just wrote an article one day.
49:45 I wrote an article called "The Future of Travel," how you were all going to travel one day.
49:49 Then I called every media publication.
49:53 One hundred percent of them said, "Do not send it to us.
49:56 We do not accept unsolicited submissions.
49:58 Send us nothing."
49:59 So I sent it to every one of them.
50:03 One day my phone rang.
50:05 This woman said, "Are you Jeff Hoffman?"
50:07 I said, "Yeah.
50:08 Why?"
50:09 She said, "Do you write this article?"
50:10 I said, "Yeah."
50:11 She said, "And you sent it even though we explicitly told you do not send us any articles?"
50:15 I said, "Yes, ma'am.
50:16 I did."
50:17 I said, "Why are you calling?"
50:18 She said, "Well, it's actually brilliant."
50:20 She said, "You've written an article on the future of travel and I want to run it."
50:25 I said, "Who do you work for?"
50:26 "Well, this is the cool part."
50:28 She said, "I'm the travel editor of USA Today," which at the time was a huge national newspaper.
50:34 So on the front page of USA Today they published an article called The Future of Travel.
50:40 So the irony is or the funny part is I was called the leading expert on travel because
50:46 I'm on the front page.
50:47 I'm only on the front page because out of the blue I wrote an article and just planted
50:51 a flag.
50:52 I said, "Here's how it's going to be."
50:54 And so thought leadership is so important because you know what happens next?
50:58 You get a chance to walk the walk because it was on the front of USA Today.
51:02 Everybody in the travel business called me.
51:03 "I'd love to chat with you about the future of travel."
51:06 You know what I'm really doing?
51:07 I'm learning what it actually is even though I wrote the article saying, "What do you do?
51:11 I'm a CEO of an airline.
51:12 Tell me your plans for the future."
51:14 Pretty soon it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
51:17 Because I planted that flag, everybody came to the flag of world's leading expert and
51:21 I actually became it because that caused all these people to reach out to me.
51:25 Well, that's an incredible story.
51:28 And like I said, I love the fact that you actually tried to see who the world's leading
51:32 expert was when it was you.
51:33 I was like stunned.
51:34 That just goes to show you the character that you have.
51:37 So I have two final questions.
51:39 One is going to be a little harder for you.
51:42 I'm assuming just based on your track record.
51:44 Pretty sure we agreed on no hard questions.
51:45 Yeah, this one's going to be hard though.
51:47 I might have to bring in a consultant or something.
51:49 You might.
51:50 So the totality of your rich background and successes from being a tech entrepreneur to
51:56 the music industry with Elton John and NSYNC to global entrepreneurship network in 200
52:02 countries, impacting people all over the world and all the philanthropic awards you've received
52:07 from Disney and your entrepreneurship background.
52:09 What is your single greatest accomplishment to you?
52:13 For me, okay, outside of personal, right?
52:15 Yes.
52:16 That'll always be family.
52:17 Professional, yes.
52:18 Professionally- Which is why it's a hard question because
52:20 you've done so many great things.
52:22 Professionally, my single greatest accomplishment, and I didn't realize this till a little later
52:26 in life.
52:27 My single greatest compliment, wait, wait, single greatest accomplishment.
52:31 Yes.
52:32 I don't know why you guys put vodka in these things for your guests, but it makes the end
52:37 of the talk a lot funnier 40 minutes later.
52:41 The single greatest accomplishment I realized later was watching the people that I raised,
52:47 that I brought in, hired, trained, mentored, educated and supported every way I can, is
52:54 watching them succeed.
52:57 I didn't think about that because I've been very blessed that a couple of weeks ago I
53:03 got this Global Disruptor Award for disrupting philanthropy on a global basis.
53:09 In theory, not disrespecting it, it was a really cool award.
53:12 People flew in from all over the world to give it to me.
53:15 That's all great, but I remembered a feeling that that just, even though I respect and
53:20 appreciate that, I would never be disrespectful, when I see one of the people that I brought
53:24 in and shaped and grew and educated get an award like that, I'm way happier.
53:31 Seeing the people that I've helped raise go out there in the world doing amazing things,
53:37 that's my biggest accomplishment.
53:39 Somebody said to me, "You don't have that many social media followers."
53:42 I said, "Because that's not my goal."
53:44 I said, "If you want to see my followers, I'll give you a list of people that I've mentored
53:50 and tried to bring up all these years.
53:52 Go look at their followers."
53:53 They said, "You and I have a mutual friend in Southern Cal, Austin Eckler, the running
53:58 back."
53:59 Great guy, grateful for her.
54:00 Like you, I talk to Austin all the time, but because of the person he is and the person
54:07 he's becoming and the person you and I both know that he wants to be, when he accomplishes
54:13 a next level reserve, I feel like I just did that.
54:18 He made some history recently being only the third player to hit 30 touchdowns in the history
54:24 of the NFL and 30 receiving TDs and 30 rushing with the same team.
54:28 I actually felt like that was my accomplishment.
54:30 The people you love, the people that you help, when they soar to levels above you, that's
54:36 actually the stuff that just lights me up way more than, again, not being disrespectful,
54:41 way more than the stuff that I've done.
54:43 Well, I love that answer.
54:45 And again, that just goes to your character.
54:47 So my last question is going to be on this pivotal moment in human history, entrepreneurship
54:53 today versus where it may be going with the growth and everything around AI.
55:00 Do you think AI is going to shape the workforce and what we can do as entrepreneurs in a positive
55:07 way or in a negative way based on your understanding as a successful tech entrepreneur?
55:13 Sure.
55:14 And so this is going to be a funny thing to say, but I've been in AI for like 30 years.
55:18 I went to the college I went to specifically to study AI.
55:21 So I've been in and around this forever.
55:24 So now I have to put a disclaimer.
55:27 The disclaimer is you and I as entrepreneurs are the eternal optimists.
55:32 You and I always think we're going to win.
55:34 I don't go out on the field one day and was telling this people talking about attitude.
55:39 And I said, did y'all ever hear the story of the world cup?
55:42 Brazil was in the world cup final and in the locker room, the Brazilian captain called
55:47 the team together.
55:48 And he said, guys, let me tell you something.
55:50 He said, I actually hope we lose the world cup final because it'll make us better people.
55:56 And everyone said that really happened.
55:57 And I said, never.
55:59 And hell no.
56:00 Nobody ever went out on the field and said, I hope we lose because it'll make us better
56:03 people.
56:05 You and I pretty much always think we're going to lose sometimes, but we always set foot
56:09 on the field thinking we're going to win.
56:10 So I have to say that because I am the eternal optimist.
56:15 But my answer to your question is in the end, the good guys will win.
56:19 AI will have bad results just like the internet has bad results, just like a ring doorbell
56:25 has bad results.
56:27 But in the end, I fundamentally believe that the power of the tool and the technology will
56:33 be harnessed by the right people to do more good for humanity than it does bad.
56:38 There's always a bad element because that has nothing to do with AI or ring doorbells
56:41 of the internet.
56:42 That has to do with bad people.
56:44 And unfortunately, it turns out they're not going away.
56:46 So we're always going to have to fight off the bad actors.
56:50 But I believe that AI is going to wind up being a hugely positive force that helps a
56:55 lot of people in a lot of places.
56:57 Well, Jeff, I could honestly spend another three hours having this conversation with
57:01 you because I love the way your mind thinks.
57:04 I love what you do.
57:05 I love what you stand for.
57:06 I see so many incredible attributes that you bring to the world through your entrepreneurship
57:11 endeavors, your philanthropic endeavors, how you truly are the same person on air that
57:16 you are off air, which for everyone watching, if you haven't, you obviously know the body
57:21 of work from Jeff Hoffman.
57:22 You may not follow him.
57:23 You may not follow him on social media yet because as you said, that's not been your
57:27 purpose.
57:28 Not my goal.
57:29 But from the incredible humans that we both know, your reputation is remarkable in this
57:36 society.
57:37 And everybody who knows you loves you, adores you, and speaks the highest level about you.
57:42 So I think that that's a testament to the fact that you are the same person on air as
57:45 off air.
57:46 Thank you.
57:48 And I want to A, commend you for that because there's not enough of yous in the world.
57:53 But number two, I'm so excited to have our friendship be stronger and deeper and be more
57:59 involved with all of your endeavors.
58:00 And I want to put it on air that if I can ever be of service to help and take part,
58:05 you heard it here, I'm in.
58:07 And I will go all over the world to help and share in that mission because we need to make
58:10 more entrepreneurs.
58:11 We need to make more people achieve success.
58:13 We need to teach everyone that formula.
58:15 And so if you're struggling to find that formula, you've really got to follow Jeff Hoffman.
58:18 You've really got to get into his mind because he is creating millions and millions of successful
58:23 people around the world through everything he's doing.
58:26 And it's a testament to who you are.
58:27 So man, I want to thank you so much for coming.
58:29 I really appreciate that.
58:31 And listening to you speak at that event today, we are the same person in so many ways.
58:37 So I want to tell you, we need to find more things to do together.
58:40 And in the end, one of the questions I get asked a lot is how do you pick the people
58:44 you mentor or coach or just partner with and work with?
58:47 And the answer is this.
58:49 If I believe that you would use your success to reach back, take the hand of people behind
58:55 you and bring up more people, I want to work with you.
58:57 And you've never not done that.
58:59 So I hope we find more places to partner and work together.
59:02 And thank you for having me today.
59:04 Thank you all for tuning in.
59:05 I want to give a huge shout out to our amazing sponsor, Entrepreneur, for partnering with
59:10 us to help get this show to as many people as possible.
59:14 Go check out our article on the episode at entrepreneur.com or by clicking the link in
59:19 the show notes below.
59:20 See you on the next one.
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