Joe Apfelbaum - Pathways to Influence

Embark on a journey through the professional networking wilderness with your trail guide Darren Mass and the LinkedIn sage Joe Apfelbaum, as we traverse the pivotal landscape of digital influence. We unfurl the map to achieving a standout presence on LinkedIn, revealing the artistry behind setting SMART goals, generating captivating content, and fostering robust connections. Joe's mastery sheds light on the nuances of navigating post-Microsoft acquisition LinkedIn, offering you a trove of strategies to elevate your profile and, ultimately, your business.

Let's elevate the discourse beyond the platform, shall we? Our discussion peels back the layers on the role of technology in problem-solving for entrepreneurs, with a mix of philosophical musings on life's love affair with challenges and the pitfalls of excessive positivity. Hear how a hiccup in my own LinkedIn coaching was reimagined into a cutting-edge AI venture, showcasing the transformative potential of where you cast your gaze in both life and business.

Wrapping up our expedition, we share heartfelt anecdotes of personal evolution, the intrinsic value of customer service from a CEO's perspective, and the ongoing battle against societal prejudice. As we navigate through the terrains of goal-setting and relationship building, I invite you to consider the importance of extending your reach to touch lives today, tomorrow, and beyond your lifetime. So, tune in, and let's hit the trail together for an episode that promises to arm you with the insights to forge ahead in your professional pursuits with unwavering confidence and renewed inspiration.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Okay, joe Apfelbaum, are you okay with being recorded on a podcast? I am. There goes that liability. This is, I Took a Hike. I'm your host. Darren Mass, founder of Business Therapy Group and Parktime Wilderness Philosopher, here we step out of the boardrooms and home offices and into the great outdoors, where the hustle of entrepreneurship meets the rustle of nature.

Speaker 2: 0:23

In this episode we talk about passion and purpose and drive Boreditude with the guru of LinkedIn creation himself, joe Apfelbaum. Our topics include 1000 to 1 million supporting your community, reaching for your potential and upping your social game with plenty of tips and tricks. This episode was remarkably inspirational when I took a hike with Joe Apfelbaum. This episode is proudly brought to you by Brand Built, a dynamic social media networking community designed to elevate your success. Feeling stuck in a brand loop, your brand matters more than ever and falling behind is not an option. Join our dynamic community for expert social media guidance, valuable lessons, education, weekly spotlights, monthly speakers and a robust brand building network. For more at wwwschoolcom backslash brand built. That's S-K-O-O-Lcom backslash brand built. Join me in the chat for a thriving journey to success.

Speaker 1: 1:32

Joe, would it be fair to say that you are one of the OG LinkedIn influencers?

Speaker 3: 1:42

When you think of the word influencer, and LinkedIn influencer specifically, people think that an influencer means somebody that likes going viral and that has millions of followers. When it comes to doing real business on LinkedIn, being an influencer is about having a community that you influence. It's not so much about having millions of followers but about having the right strategy, because even if you have very few views, but you have the right views that can translate into business. If your goal is doing business and influencing the right people, then LinkedIn is a great platform. To be an influencer like that it doesn't really take much. One of the things I always tell people is the reason I love LinkedIn so much is because with LinkedIn, you're able to add many followers by just adding connections. You know how easy it is to add a connection. I've been teaching LinkedIn for a decade, but I haven't formally taught it in a course platform until the pandemic started. That's kind of when I got started with that. But yeah, I would say that I've been tinkering with LinkedIn for over 10 years, teaching it, showing people how to use it. It really changed a lot in the past five years because Microsoft paid $26.2 billion for LinkedIn. That's it. That's it.

Speaker 1: 2:59

Small round-the-gear.

Speaker 3: 3:01

Yeah, people are like, oh, should I take LinkedIn seriously? I was like, if Microsoft is taking LinkedIn seriously one of the biggest companies in the world then you might want to consider looking into why they invested so much money into LinkedIn. So that's the thought process. What is your number one tip? So, what's your plan? What do you want to achieve with LinkedIn? You want to get a job? Do you want more clients? Do you want more calls? Do you want more followers? Like, what are you trying to achieve? And then, who is the target market? Who are the people? So there's the plan who are the people? Who are your ideal clients? Who are your centers of influence? Who are the people that need to hire you? And then number three is what's the promise? What's your messaging? So in our course, we teach people how to come up with their plan. We give them a framework for finding the right people and then we teach them how to create the right messaging for those people. And that's the first tip is. Number one is have a strategy. If you don't have a strategy, energy without strategy is a waste of time, and the right strategy will save you a decade.

Speaker 1: 4:00

So do you think it is a good strategy to say I want to make a lot of money on my social media as a strategy, or is that just too broad.

Speaker 3: 4:12

I think success we can define success however we want. If we define success as I want to make a lot of money in a general sense, then it's not a smart goal, it's a very. It's a dream. It's not really a goal, and it's nice to dream. I want to make a lot of money, I want to be rich, I want to do all the good fun things right, yep, yep, but you're not going to be able to get there because you don't know where you're going. If you don't know where you're going, you might get somewhere else.

Speaker 1: 4:40

I love that You're just filled with these great nuggets.

Speaker 3: 4:43

I got the nuggets baby, I used to have the chicken nuggets, now I have the golden nuggets.

Speaker 1: 4:51

Hey listener, thanks for hiking along with us. Discover more episodes at iTokaHikecom, or to recommend an adventurous guest, apply to be a sponsor, discover books along the trail, or to simply drop us a line.

Speaker 3: 5:03

The second thing is and the second tip I give people is have assets. Like, what are your assets? A lot of the times you get on LinkedIn and you're not sure what to message, you're not sure what to post, you're not sure what to do. If you have the right strategy but you don't have assets that align with that strategy, then you're going to end up having something called writer's block. You're going to be lost. You're going to have the paralysis of analysis. Paralysis of analysis. Let's stop analyzing and create some assets. We teach people how to come up with their stories. We teach them how to improve their presence. Then we teach them how to use tools. Like we have an AI tool called EVI. We teach them how to use that tool to create a persona within it and then use that tool to create content that's relevant and, having tons of different types of assets, to create direct messages that are relevant, so that you always have direct messages ready to go To enable you to comment. All those are assets.

Speaker 1: 6:01

What do you think leveraging AI is cheating.

Speaker 3: 6:04

I think that leveraging technology can be seen as cheating, but is using a drone cheating? Let's go get a crane, because a drone is cheating. What Using an airplane is cheating. Let's take a bicycle to California. Think about that for a second. It's cheating. Of course it's cheating. It's cheating, but who makes the rules? Cheating is only if there's a set of rules and you're breaking the rules. Entrepreneurship is cheating. You should be having a job. That's cheating the system. Being able to become financially free and wealthy and successful is the cheat code to getting where you want to go. Some people are going to be like it's not fair. You have an unfair advantage. That's how you win. You want to win, follow the rules, but you get to create the rules yourself. With AI, the rules are train it.

Speaker 1: 7:04

Train the AI.

Speaker 3: 7:06

You have to be the conductor of the AI. You have to because AI makes things up. Ai doesn't know better, it's just a computer. Computers are not that smart. It's artificial intelligence, not real intelligence, not creative intelligence. We have infinite intelligence inside us, but we could leverage artificial intelligence in order for us to have an unfair advantage, in order for it to seem like we're cheating, but we're not really cheating. What we're doing is we're being smart.

Speaker 1: 7:33

So do you think I'm going to go off the deep end for a second? Do you think we should fear the machines? Do you think there will be a Skynet Terminator type of scenario?

Speaker 3: 7:43

I think we should fear people that use the machines if we don't know how to use it. Meaning yes, fear your competitors if you don't know how to use AI and they know how to use it because they will have an unfair advantage. So you need to learn how to use artificial intelligence. In our new AI course, we essentially walk people through the 20 technologies they need to know in order to have an unfair advantage against their competitors. At the end of the day, there's 10,000 technologies. You don't need to know all of them to have a competitive advantage. You need to master one. Start with mastering one, but then have one for the different things you need to do. For example, you need to write content. Have one that helps you write content. You need to write scripts. Have one that helps you write scripts or edit videos. Have one that will help you clone your voice. Have one that will help you create graphic design or presentations. Have one that will help you transcribe content and summarize meetings and be the best of it. And just learn to use one tool for each problem that you need to solve in your business. That will save you time in making money and then you're much more likely to be successful, because now you have an arsenal of tools, okay.

Speaker 1: 8:55

Do you love your life? I love my life. Would you change?

Speaker 3: 8:58

anything. I'm constantly evolving, I'm constantly improving. I'm constantly looking for ways to transform more than change, because the more things change, the more they stay the same. So I'm always looking to improve. I have very specific goals and I know that wherever I am right now is exactly where I need to be to get to the next level of success. So many people resent where they are, and resentment is the poison that you drink, hoping that other people will die. So you got to let go of that. You got to stop eating somebody else's poison. Let go of it, accept the moment, go on a hike and let the fears take a hike.

Speaker 1: 9:40

So I love that because you and to be fair to all my guests see the opportunity in taking a hike in nature and just seize it.

Speaker 3: 9:49

Seize the opportunity to take a hike in nature, get really, really clear about what you want in life and then go after it. And if you're busy thinking about what would I change? What are my regrets? What are the things that are not working in my life? That's where the focus goes. Where focus goes, energy flows. So if you want to be successful and you have a goal and you want to achieve it, you got to focus on how you want to transform to get to that goal, not what you can change about your life, because if more things change, the more they stay the same.

Speaker 1: 10:20

I think you have probably the same amount of taglines and cliches as I do, so I love it. I teach my kids when they're, or I taught my kids when they were starting out to ride a bike. Where your eyeballs look, you steer.

Speaker 3: 10:35

Yeah, like the racing cars, they train you to look where you want to go.

Speaker 1: 10:39

Right, or if you're not looking at the golf ball when you're down right.

Speaker 3: 10:44

Keep your eye on the ball.

Speaker 1: 10:45

That's right. So the same thing in our mental capacity, same thing in our professional success or whatever success that is, if you're thinking about head trash, trash is going to be your outcome Exactly. If you're thinking positive, then you're going to reap the positive rewards.

Speaker 3: 11:03

But not like at the end of the day. There's a concept called toxic positivity, where you could not look at reality and always just think positive, think positive, think positive. Meanwhile you're in quicksand Rose-colored glasses. So you got to look at reality.

Speaker 1: 11:17

You got to have the balance. You got to have the money after bad and make some mistakes. So there has to be the yin and yang of balance.

Speaker 3: 11:22

You got to have the yin and yang and know where your reality is. At the same time, look at the positive and find the opportunity, and it begins with asking the right questions. A lot of people ask the following question. They say why me? Why does this always have to happen to me? And what I say instead is how great is this? What's great about this? When an opportunity strikes, sometimes it comes as skies, as pain. Sometimes it comes as skies as a problem. But I don't look at problems as problems. I look at problems as opportunities, because every single problem that you have is an opportunity in disguise.

Speaker 1: 12:02

That's what I truly believe Every problem should have a solution and if you're wise enough to find your solution, you can see through it.

Speaker 3: 12:07

Or sometimes you don't even need a solution. You got to just look at the problem from a different angle and realize that, hey, this is not actually a problem, this is the solution. Not that the problem is a solution, but the fact that there's a problem is a solution. I'll give you an example. I had a huge problem in my training business. I trained over a thousand clients to learn how to use LinkedIn over three years. Very successful, helped a lot of people. But there were many people that simply don't have the time to do LinkedIn properly and, as a result of that, maybe they don't want to continue with LinkedIn training, maybe they don't want to keep spending and investing in that. So how am I going to grow the business if I can't build up that reoccurring revenue because people just simply don't have the time? Big problem, right. And I could say, okay, well, I'm not doing LinkedIn training anymore because people don't have the time. But instead I said, oh, people don't have the time, that's a great problem, because now I can build an artificial intelligence tool where people don't need the time and the fact that they have this problem. That was my problem before. Now this problem is my competitive advantage. Now this problem is my next business. Your Clients problems, your biggest problems are your next business, the bigger the problem, the bigger the business.

Speaker 1: 13:24

So I like it. So you find a problem and you find a solution to it, and that's essentially every great invention that has ever existed has been a solution to a problem. Yeah, we had plaque on our teeth and we had what was called the skin on our teeth Right. So somebody said, huh, I'm going to figure out a way to brush that off. At first it was a twig, then it became bore bristles and then eventually Colgate, or Mr Crest or Mr Orbit.

Speaker 3: 13:47

And now it's oil pulling with coconut oil. Whatever, it is Full circle. We can't full circle. Back to the natural habitat.

Speaker 1: 13:53

This is what human beings do. We take it, we feel like we have to fix things that need to be fixed, even though they didn't really need to be fixed in the first place.

Speaker 3: 14:02

That's why I said the problem is the solution yeah, Electric toothbrushes. They don't do anything different Right, but we were marketed to and we buy them.

Speaker 1: 14:10

We buy them because someone saw a problem and they said I'm too lazy to manually brush my teeth, so let me turn on an electric toothbrush with 19,000 pulses. Yeah, not realizing I had one of those for a while not realizing that you are actually brushing your teeth the same way with manual. Only now it's powered.

Speaker 3: 14:30

Using less energy. All right, so step back a little bit.

Speaker 1: 14:33

Did you set out to be this guru of LinkedIn, or it just happened organically?

Speaker 3: 14:39

I did not set out to be a guru. As a matter of fact, when I started my business, I had this like thought in my head like who am I? Who am I to teach people? I'm just a doer. I'm just like a problem solver, a fixer. I don't teach anybody anything. I was actually afraid of public speaking. Like if you asked me to speak 15 years ago and go on a hike, I would say take a hike, I believe it. I would not do it, absolutely not. And the reason is because I didn't know myself. I didn't know who I was, I didn't know my power, I didn't realize how much of an expert I am, because the more you know, the more you know how much you don't know. Okay, the bigger the expert, the bigger you realize how dumb you are and how you know nothing. The more you know about the world, the more you realize how small you are and how little you know and how much more there is to know. Like if you didn't even know SEO existed, you wouldn't even know it existed. But if you know SEO exists and you start looking into it, you realize, oh my God, there's 500 different parts of the to the Google algorithm. That's crazy. I have so much more to learn, and so I just became like this learner. I just wanted to learn information about everything that I can get my hands of when it relates to business, growth and marketing and entrepreneurship. And then what happened was is I discovered LinkedIn. I discovered that LinkedIn is an extremely powerful platform where people are doing the following On Instagram, people put a handle what's your handle on Instagram, mine's at Joe Applebaum what's yours? I took a hike podcast. I took a hike podcast. It's perfect. I took a hike podcast on Instagram. Guys, by the way, if you're listening to this, follow his Instagram account. They're organic, the way I threw that in there. The thing is about Instagram is I don't know who you are by going to your Instagram page. I don't know your first name. I don't know your last name. What was your handle? Again, I took a hike podcast I don't want to connect with. I took a hike podcast. I don't even know who it is, but I want to connect with Darren. I want to get to know him, I want to build a relationship and on LinkedIn, I can see your first name, your last name, your company name, where you work, what you've done, every single post that you have every comment that you left all our mutual connections where you went to school. Like, I know a lot about somebody when I go on LinkedIn. So I'm able to build a much deeper, more meaningful relationship on LinkedIn, and that's why I'm so gung-ho on LinkedIn and that's what I discovered many, many years ago that LinkedIn gives me information as a marketer, as a networker, as a relationship person that allows me to be able to connect in a deeper way. So, joe, what are you passionate about? I am passionate about helping hungry entrepreneurs go from frustration to motivation. I want to help 1000 hungry entrepreneurs be able to take their life to the next level. Today, I'm doing that through my artificial intelligence tool called EVI AI, where I enable people to have a voice on LinkedIn using artificial intelligence. This tool that we developed actually has 2000 people globally using it right now. My vision is really to help 1000 people use it every single day, but my bigger vision is to enable a million people on LinkedIn to be able to use AI with their voice properly.

Speaker 1: 17:34

I like how you caught me there. I slipped and you caught me. That's what I do?

Speaker 3: 17:37

I got five kids. I got to catch people when they fall, so you have reflexes like a catch. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm like Spider-Man when it comes to that Exactly, we don't look like it but the webs can come out. The webs can definitely come out. So, yeah, so that's my thing is like. My passion is really being able to find solutions to other people's problems, especially when it comes to business. I'm very passionate about entrepreneurship, and the reason I'm passionate about it is because I watched my mother try to build her store in the Lower East Side for literally a decade and eventually she went out of business. What was the store? It was a women's clothing store on the Lower East Side, on Orchard Street and Delancey Street, and Gus Pickles were right there. Right around the corner. It was guys that used to go to Gus's Pickles all the time. I love Gus's Pickles. Shallow and Pito is a kosher pizza shop right around the corner. Yeah, so I grew up there, yeah, watching them Cats and Russ and daughters all that, yeah, exactly. And Gertels Bakery was right around the corner from Gus, and so I grew up watching them struggle, trying to make a living. And when I built my business, ajax Union, when I started 15 years ago, within three years we were number 178 on the Inc 500. Then it was the Inc 500. Now it's the Inc 5000. We were one of the fastest growing companies in America. And if I look back at what I did differently than what my mother did, it was I had a strategy. I had the plan, the people, the promise. I had that laid out for myself. And now I have a strategy for EVAI to be able to impact so many more people. And that's what it's about for me. It's about the impact I can make in someone's life. A woman messaged me on LinkedIn yesterday and she said Joe, my EVAI stopped working, I can't log in. I went to her LinkedIn, got her cell phone number, picked up the phone and called her at eight o'clock at night. She picked up and she's like hello. I'm like this is Joe Appelbaum, founder of EVAI. I was like I heard you have an issue. You messaged me on LinkedIn. She's like no, my issue got resolved, but you called me. It's like the CEO of Google calling me. I'm like or not Google, but you're one of our first hundred customers, one of our first hundred premium members. I want to show you respect. And she's like I'm going to tell the whole world about this tool, because this tool is changing my life. I'm able to post, I'm able to comment, I'm able to direct message all with artificial intelligence and it drafts it all for me, never, automates anything. So I was like you know what? Thank you for saying that. Do you mind leaving us a five star review on the Google Chrome store? And she's like I'm going to do that right now.

Speaker 1: 19:54

I love the ask, so there is an important learning lesson in what you just said and I work with a lot of CEOs that they seem to miss this point where they graduate away from it. The thing that made you so successful as a CEO is your ability to be the one who has the most to gain, most to lose. In it, you accepted risks. That means you had to shake hands, kiss babies and talk to every single customer. You were the top salesperson in your world, 100%. Eventually, when you become very successful as a CEO, you hire people to do that and you step away from that approach. In fact, you begin to push yourself away from wanting to interact with customers, and that's where I will pull you back and say no, you are the person that has the most to gain, most to lose, and you should absolutely be willing to pick up the phone and call a customer to either just randomly check in or to follow up when there's an issue. Because what you did right there you appear like the CEO of the universe to your customer. They were mystified by it, but you created a lasting impression that will transcend just that phone call. What will end up happening is this individual is going to shout it from the rooftops of how great you are. Give you the five-star review that you asked for.

Speaker 3: 21:05

They are your biggest fan and they're paying less than a dollar a day and it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1: 21:10

That's the point because you could only care.

Speaker 3: 21:12

Thank, you Right, but it's all has to do with your passion. If you're not passionate about your company, we're talking about passion. I'm so passionate about helping people. If someone has a problem and they tell me their problem, I am so dedicated to finding a solution to that problem, whether it's building technology, making an introduction, recommending a book it doesn't have to be my book. I published five books. It doesn't have to be one of my books. I recommend hundreds of other people's books and I love doing that because when I I always tell these people, when I teach them about networking, I say, when I solve a problem for you in your life, if I recommend a book for you, you will forever thank me for the lessons that you learned from the book that I didn't even write because I recommended that book. So the value that you get from my recommendations are all attributed to me. There's a book called the Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. Have you heard of it? I have not. A lot of people are night people, night owls, and they want to become a morning person, and in that book I kind of learned that there's no like morning person or night owl. It's all a matter of like routine. When you wake up right. You need a certain amount of hours, a certain amount of sleep cycles.

Speaker 1: 22:19

I'd like to explain that to my wife, by the way, who is from California originally and is convinced that she's always on California time.

Speaker 3: 22:24

If someone's convinced about something, I try not to convince them and try not to change them. I tried that with my ex-wife. It didn't work, hence she's my ex-wife now. But you know only good things to say about everyone in my life. I love all the people in my life, but I believe that if someone has a conviction, which is a strong belief, even if you show them that the world is round and you show them the truth and you show them pictures, they're not going to believe it. Do you know?

Speaker 1: 22:47

there are more flat earthers today than there was in Christopher Columbus's day.

Speaker 3: 22:54

Because there are more people today than there was then.

Speaker 1: 22:56

The economies of scale.

Speaker 3: 22:58

Think about how many billions of idiots there are now. Compared to then, there were only a few idiots.

Speaker 1: 23:03

That is the sad reality that sometimes the idiot has the loudest megaphone.

Speaker 3: 23:07

Especially on Tiktok. That's why I love LinkedIn, because on LinkedIn, people are afraid to start spewing stupidity, because it represents them and their career. When it comes to business, people are much more conservative and that's why it's also harder to get engagement on LinkedIn. But if you use the strategies that are popular, there are ways to do it. There are ways to get dozens of likes and comments and build a real community, and it has to do with your strategy Because, like I said earlier, the right strategy will save you a decade, and that's what I'm passionate about is helping people come up with a solid strategy.

Speaker 1: 23:37

I think when it comes to LinkedIn, you have to be willing to put yourself out there. You have to be willing to be vulnerable. Absolutely, be honest. Do not come across salesy. Be willing to help others and inspire and just by nature of that, people will align with you. It is not about the amount of followers or connections. It is about the quality of your message and you will eventually get rewarded. But you have to be willing to share on others' posts so you find yourself a community, not a pod Pods. To me, it's a big thing now.

Speaker 3: 24:12

If they're there just to game the system, it's not going to work long term.

Speaker 1: 24:15

Yeah, if you're there with a bunch of people that you're in a networking group so they say, yeah, we'll all comment and like your stuff up, that's not authentic, that's not genuine and people will see through that. But if you find five to ten people that post regularly and you align with their message and you further their message in the comments share, reshare what have you it will pay you back in the long run because you'll also have a deeper sense of purpose. Yeah, sure, I found that with my own posting. Community creates purpose. There is a community. So I think that's a very well rounded message there.

Speaker 3: 24:48

There's a question I asked my clients do you know your connections? A lot of people are hoarding connections. If you're hoarding connections, the likelihood of you being successful on LinkedIn is low, because you can hoard 30,000 connections. It's useless. What you want to do instead of hoarding connections is build relationships. That means read someone's profile. Rai will take someone's profile and create a bullet point summary for you in about ten seconds so that you have bullet points of who the person is, because it does take a few minutes to read a profile, but it takes a few seconds to read a summary. That is right, and so that's kind of like one of the features that we have over there to make just again, just to solve problems, for people, to make life easier. And, by the way, this stuff is available for free for people to try out, so I encourage people to kind of check that out for free. I love adding free value. Like you said earlier, free value, add value to other people's lives. I'm always teaching. I've posted on LinkedIn over 5,000 times and this is what I want to tell people If you don't have exposure, it's because you're not exposing yourself. Now, in the woods, nobody's going to know. If we expose ourselves because there are no followers, there's no one behind us. So you need to add connections. You need to add the right connections. It's easy to get followers on LinkedIn because every connection becomes a follower. But you need to expose yourself, which means start posting, start engaging, start messaging. Do it strategically and if you do it consistently and strategically, you're going to get results. You're going to get conversations and some people say, oh Joe, does LinkedIn work? I say does networking work? Does relationship building work? If you don't believe that networking works, a lot of people don't. A lot of people think networking is a waste of time and it's because they have a fear. 90% of people are afraid of public speaking and networking is a form of public speaking. So if you can overcome that fear of yourself, of presenting yourself to the world, then you're able to build those relationships, then you're able to grow your business and then you'll want to make those authentic connections. A lot of people don't want to connect authentically because they don't love themselves Well, so you struck many great points there.

Speaker 1: 26:45

One overcoming fears is the marker of very successful people. Every successful person has had a fear, whether it was public speaking, networking or just putting themselves out there and networking. Every successful salesperson has mastered networking. You cannot be great at sales if you cannot communicate and network with a potential audience. We're accustomed, so they've had fear right. Like you, I don't like public speaking, but I forced myself to do it. I was the CEO of a company. It was a requirement for the job, and after you do that you practice enough you then get great at something.

Speaker 3: 27:23

Tony Robbins. I watched Tony Robbins. Are you familiar with Tony Robbins? Of course.

Speaker 1: 27:28

I watched him speak and he said Every once in a while I'll play the humble. No, please tell me.

Speaker 3: 27:32

But of course I know Tony.

Speaker 1: 27:34

Robbins. Wasn't he the awesome character in Shallow Hell?

Speaker 3: 27:38

Well, if he was. But yes, tony Robbins is one of the world's greatest professional speakers Very, very successful. Some people say he's the most successful professional speaker in the world. And one of the things that really struck me that he said is like when he started early on, he was basically homeless. He was living out of his car, blah, blah, blah that whole sob story that people give when they're trying to sell motivational stuff. And he met this guy named Jim Rohn that was doing personal development seminars. And Jim said hey, why don't you fill my seminars and I'll give you a commission on everyone that you fill. And he started listening to Jim Rohn's seminars and eventually filling his seminars. And he said you know what? I want to start doing speaking engagements myself. He said the average speaker maybe does one engagement a week if they hustle. He said I'm going to do three engagements a day. Practice, even if it's at a Denny's restaurant, even if it's at a Denny's restaurant, even if, nowadays, even if it's on Facebook Live or whatever, or on LinkedIn Live. He became a subway musician. If you are not putting in the work, you're not going to get good. The better. The more work you put into it, the better you get at it. You still need the right strategy, because energy without strategy is a waste of time. So have a coach, have someone to guide you to make sure you're taking the right actions. But let me tell you something there's no way to learn faster than by doing that's. That's exactly right.

Speaker 1: 29:00

And Tony is a classic example of someone who had fears, uncertainties and doubts and pushed past it. If you look at him as a physical human, he has gigantism.

Speaker 3: 29:09

Yeah, he keeps growing, even till today in the sixties, he's growing.

Speaker 1: 29:13

Lots of insecurity, loads of insecurities, but he had to push past that and it was that, those insecurities, that created fear. But it was that desire to push past it which created the larger than life character he is.

Speaker 3: 29:26

He calls it hunger. Yes, he has this like hunger. Not everybody has hunger. If you're not hungry, then you are dying. I went to Alaska, talking about doing a hike. I went to Alaska and I watched the salmon come back to the place where they were spawned. Initially Talking about beers. There's beers out over here, where we are Actually. There's here, yes, and so the fish. When do the fish die? When do the salmon die? The salmon don't just die. The salmon die when they stop eating. They literally become zombie fish. I don't know if you know this. Did you know that salmon stop eating? They become zombie fish and they allow themselves to die. And then the beers come and they eat all the dead salmon. That basically just decided that their life is over and they stopped eating. Well, their purpose was to lay the eggs upstream and then come back to where they were born and then boom and then just stop eating.

Speaker 1: 30:15

So if you lose your hunger if you lose your hunger, you're dead.

Speaker 3: 30:19

That's my point. My point is if you lose your hunger, you've got to have the hunger. And what creates the hunger? Excitement and passion. If you can find your passion, if you can create that excitement, you're going to love what you do. And if you love what you do, they say, you never live the day and never worked a day in your life if you love what you do. But for me it's a level deeper. It's not just loving what you do, it's loving how you do it as well. Like I'm here doing a hike. I'm not just loving this hike, I'm not just loving this podcast, I'm loving how I'm doing it as well. Isn't that interesting?

Speaker 1: 30:48

So you were on this hike because I stopped being hungry. I lost my way. After I saw my business, I checked off a whole bunch of boxes that anyone would want to check off, and that was it. I thought I did it.

Speaker 3: 31:01

You made it, I made it. You got to the top of the summit. You're like I got enough money to feed my kids for the rest of my life. What am I going to do now?

Speaker 1: 31:07

Check off a whole bunch of don'ts. But then I realized, when the hunger was gone, so was my relevancy, passion and purpose. And then I went on a hike. Someone took me on a hike it's my brother and I realized, oh, I got to be hiking. And then I had a conversation with someone like you, inspirational, motivational, and that is what sparked that fire in my belly again to realize the goal that you set needs to be reset constantly. Because, when you finish that race. Usain Bolt needed another race, yeah, otherwise you start dying quicker. Yeah, you die on the inside. So, joe, what is your definition?

Speaker 3: 31:43

of success. I believe that success has to do with setting a goal and then achieving it. I think that money is a metric. Money is definitely a metric that can tell you if you're getting closer to your goal or not getting closer to your goal. The goal can't be the metric. It's like if you're looking at the gas tank and it says the gas tank is, like you know, half full, half empty. Is that the metric? Is your speedometer the metric? The speedometer tells you if you're within the limit or not. Within the limit Is how many miles you went. Is that the metric or is the metric the journey? Is the metric the point or is the journey the point? The metric can't be the journey. The metric can't be the thing that you're doing for the metric. If you're just doing it for the numbers, if you're just doing it for success, just to make a couple dollars, you're ultimately not going to be happy. But setting a goal and setting the right goal is really, really key. So for me, making sure that I set goals in the different areas of my life, I always say set goals to your roles. What are the different roles you have in your life? Father, right, you said father, husband, father's number one, father's number one, husband Some people say husband's number one Okay, father, husband, community leader, a podcast host, business owner, whatever you're, a coach, whatever you do there are different roles that you have in your life. But there's a role that a lot of people miss out, that they don't set goals aligned with the role of self. They say, oh, father's the most important thing, or they say husband's the most important thing, or CEO's the most important thing, but they forget that self is a role too. Self is, I believe, the most important role that we need to set goals to, and sometimes we kind of overlook that and we don't set goals. And those goals need to not just be aligned with metrics Metrics are a key performance indicator but also about feeling, thinking, about the ontology of life, of like you're thinking about, like, how do you experience life? Like, if you look around right now, with this beautiful, beautiful view that we're watching here, we're experiencing, if we're trying to accomplish something by what we're experiencing, we're no longer experiencing. You are in my office. This is our work day, right now. Success here is being present and being now. Success ultimately, for different roles are related to ego, are related to roles. For that there are metrics that you can measure, but there's different ways to measure success. I think the balance of understanding, experience versus action, versus doing and just experiencing and being able to kind of have the experience while you're climbing and getting closer to your money goal or to your health goal or to your relationship goals, I think that that's where it's at. I think there's a book I called High Energy Purpose and I talk about there's an internal purpose and there's an external purpose. The internal purpose is about being present. The external purpose is about understanding what your goals are and going to achieve them. Money's not a bad thing. Money's just a tool.

Speaker 1: 34:33

It is not evil.

Speaker 3: 34:34

If you just focus on the tool, it's not evil. If you believe it's evil, it becomes evil. What you believe about something, that's what it becomes. For me, I'm very into being in the journey and looking at the metrics and knowing where we're at. Looking at the indicators, looking at life surrounding yourself. I have so many things that I need to be doing right now, but I'm right here in the moment.

Speaker 1: 34:56

Well, that's why we hike, because you're not in a studio wondering where the next call's going to be or what time you have to be here or there. You are on a mountain with me, you are present and we're getting a more authentic version of you, a more open and honest version of you. I want to touch on the point that you basically said love for oneself, care for oneself. That's the reason why self is at the top of my star. It's not selfish.

Speaker 3: 35:18

Self is at the top of the shelf we're coming up with cheesy taglines everywhere Because it's Christmas guys. It's like the shelf and the elf and the shelf.

Speaker 1: 35:27

We're the bench on the bench, the bench on the bench. There you go.

Speaker 3: 35:30

Let me pivot this. Do you believe that you are successful? I believe that I've had a lot of success in my life because I've achieved a lot of goals that I've set. I believe that I have many more goals that I'd like to achieve. I believe that I have been successful and I continue to be successful because I'm not willing to give up. Failure is not the ultimate failure. Failure is the path to success. You have to fail. You have to fall before you walk. You have to fall before you run. That's just what it is. If I quit, then I failed, then I have not been successful.

Speaker 1: 36:02

Well, quitting is misunderstood too. It is okay to quit. I quit a job to start a company.

Speaker 3: 36:06

But you didn't quit a job, I didn't quit a life. You quit your misery.

Speaker 1: 36:09

Well, I wasn't miserable, but I still have an opportunity.

Speaker 3: 36:12

If your goal was to have a job and you quit your job, then you quit your ability to have success. Because you quit and you gave up on it and now you're just doing what you're doing in California and Venice Beach living in a tent You're like, ah, quit, you could be successful for somebody Exactly, I could be their successful KPI Most of the people that are there are having mental health issues. This is true in Venice Beach.

Speaker 1: 36:31

I like how you phrased that Quitting is okay, but if you quit your goals, that's the failure. That's the failure.

Speaker 3: 36:38

But failure is good.

Speaker 1: 36:39

I love. I embrace failure. Every time I failed, I've learned Every time you failed, if you chose to turn it into a lesson you learned you avoided falling on the bike or making a left turn down a dead end.

Speaker 3: 36:49

There's always going to be somebody else that's more successful than you. So the concept of are you successful? Are you not successful? If you look back five years ago and you look back and you progressed from where you were five years ago to where you are today and you are satisfied with that progression, and then you look forward another five years and then you see where you want to go very clearly and you have a clear vision and you will have a plan for progressing towards that, then I believe that you are a successful person. Love that Because you set your goals, you achieve them and you're looking forward to new, bigger goals. I have a big, herioticious goal I want to help a million people on LinkedIn. It is a big goal. That's a big, big goal. That's a huge, huge goal. Is it attainable? I believe that there's no goal that is too big, only a timeline that is too small. I heard Jim Rohn said that and I really, really believe that. The reason I believe that is because my goal doesn't need to be fulfilled in my lifetime. My kids can take it over, but I believe that it will be fulfilled in my lifetime. I believe that I'll be able to impact a million people very deeply, because there's right now a billion people on LinkedIn. That's one tenth of one percent of people and there's 60 million people logging in every day for more than 17 minutes a day. Amazing, if I can impact a million people somehow, and the way that I'm going to do it is very clear I'm going to help a thousand people. Help a thousand people A thousand times a thousand is how much. Let's do the math.

Speaker 1: 38:05

That's a million. That's a million.

Speaker 3: 38:08

Right. Ten times a thousand is ten thousand. A hundred times a thousand is a hundred thousand. A thousand times a thousand is ten times that which is a million.

Speaker 1: 38:15

So you've got to get to a hundred thousand. I learned that from Tora.

Speaker 3: 38:18

I learned that from Tora. Tora never talks about a million. When it talks about a million, it says a thousand thousand. If you go to the Tora and you look up the word a million that doesn't exist it says a thousand thousand. So I was like you know what that's a million? How do you really impact people? It's a thousand people. You impact a thousand people.

Speaker 1: 38:34

There's a guiding I want you to impact a hundred thousand, because a hundred thousand, a hundred, well, I don't think that's possible, right, but that's a billion, that's a billion.

Speaker 3: 38:42

But I don't need to go to the billion, because that's how many people are on LinkedIn period and only 60 million are active anyway, that are logging in every day for 17 minutes a day. So if I can make a difference for a million people, I think that that's fine by me. That's my goal. Now some other people want to make an impact for a billion. That's okay. Soon there's going to be 10 billion people in the world, mcdonald's aren't that goal and I'm okay with that, and they did what they needed to do. But for me it's about knowing what I want to do and so I know that I can hit it. There's the rule of a thousand fans. Have you heard of that rule? I have not. Kevin Kelly in Wired Magazine wrote an article called the Thousand Fans Rule. If you can get a thousand people to become your loyal fans, you have a business. So he's like a thousand, a thousand is not a big deal. How many connections do you have? 12,000 connections. Do you know a thousand of them? Did you go through all 12,000? I actually do. Right, because the original half.

Speaker 1: 39:27

The base half was in my industry and these are people. Well, back in the early LinkedIn days, you had to know someone to really connect with them, do you? Really know this person? Yeah, but the human brain caps off right around there with the amount of connections you've got.

Speaker 3: 39:40

Well there's something called the Dunbar Law. I don't know if you ever heard of Robin Dunbar. The Dunbar Law states that the average person can only have 150 relationships at any one given time in their life, but that doesn't mean that you can't have more. You can have many more than 150 relationships Just at any given one time. Your brain can't really hold more than 150 people in as inputs in close contact.

Speaker 1: 40:00

You can't remember their names, their kids' names. There are companies that have actually really worked with Dunbar's thinking. Robin Dunbar Amazing, they have opened up offices that have capped out at 150 employees.

Speaker 3: 40:14

Think about how the Army works yes. Think about how the police departments work yes. Think about how B&I works. Have you ever studied B&I? I haven't studied it, but I am very familiar with B&I. So B&I stands for Business Network International, the world's largest professional networking organization. They have over 300,000 members globally of people that want to network with each other and build relationships, and I actually got access to take a look at their membership. You know I have some really good connections networking-wise and I took a look at their membership and I realized that they break up chapters and regions in small little chunks.

Speaker 1: 40:50

Yes, Because you become a family in a way and you really get engaged, and then they also make sure that there's no competition in those groups. So there's one accountant, not two, not three, not ten, that's in those groups.

Speaker 3: 41:03

But even in like regions they break their regions down in manageable numbers. Have you heard of the Entrepreneurs' Organization? I have EOS. I was a member of EOS for many, many years. I was on their board and one of the things that I noticed is that chapters really cap out around 200 to 250. It's very hard to get a chapter past 200 sustainably. Some of them do it, but most of the time it's like 150 that range, because that's when things start breaking down. But you lose people. You lose people, you lose the social connection. If you want to build a community, I would say, go for a max of 250 people in your community. But if you really want to build something robust, you know, build four groups of 250. Build five or six groups of 150. Think about it like that, like segments, like that, and you're going to be much more likely to be successful with what you're doing.

Speaker 1: 41:54

It's a quality thing.

Speaker 3: 41:55

Keep your community small, embrace each other and you can build upon that, as you said, you still need to have a certain level of quantity. You can't just focus on quality. So many people are focused on quality that they forget about quantity, and they don't. You know. You need to have a combination and a balance, a yin and a yang of quality and quantity, but quality cannot be overstated. Like you need to have quality, otherwise it's not going to work.

Speaker 1: 42:19

But your example of a thousand, a thousand, a million yeah, a thousand is a large quantity, depending on how you're looking at it. In the case of networking, a thousand is not a lot.

Speaker 3: 42:31

It depends on what you consider networking, online networking, yeah, digital networking. Online followers and fans. A thousand is not a lot of people, but a thousand relationships online is a lot of people. Like if I, if I most people that I start coaching, I say, okay, let's look through your connections, I teach them how to download their connections and I say, how many of these people do you recognize, how many of them are strategic for your business? So I do recognize, strategize and prioritize. And how many of them would you prioritize to have a conversation with in the next year? So I've been preaching this concept of a thousand Guess for how long, I'm going to say for at least a few years, 15 years. My goal with AJAX union was to service a thousand clients. What does AJAX stand for? Ajax stands for asynchronous JavaScript and XML, the technology, but it also stands for Alan, joe and X. X is the customer, it's a union and, by the way, I live in Union County now.

Speaker 1: 43:21

Did you do that on purpose?

Speaker 3: 43:23

No, no, no, I didn't even know Union County was a thing. I had no idea you lived in Jersey. Yeah, I recently moved here. I'm eventually going to move to Florida. Like I'm looking into things in Florida, so I'm going to be living in.

Speaker 1: 43:35

Florida very soon.

Speaker 3: 43:37

My parents are retiring. They're a little bit elderly. They live in Florida. I'm divorced now so I can move to Florida, there's no problem. So I'm definitely going to move to Florida. But in order to move to Florida I first have to move out of New York and then get closer to the airport. Then I'm going to start traveling a lot to Florida. Then I'm going to make my Florida my main residence. My kids are still young, so I want to still be around them, but I'm no longer living in New York. My youngest is seven, my oldest is 17, so they're still young. But as they get emancipated and as they get older, my goal is really living in Florida and making that my place. Let's talk personal.

Speaker 1: 44:08

So you grew up in Manhattan. I grew up in Barrow Park, in Barrow Park, brooklyn, and your mom had a store on the Lower East Side. Yeah, did you grow up in Manhattan? I did not. My father did. My father grew up in.

Speaker 3: 44:20

That's how you knew about Gus's pickles.

Speaker 1: 44:22

Oh yeah, my father grew up in the 40s, that's the 1940s. It's so easy to fall here, it's so easy to fall.

Speaker 3: 44:28

So your father grew up in the 40s in the Lower East Side. He grew up in Stigh Town, which was the absolute ghetto back then, War vets were given housing, basically. Oh really, I didn't know that, yeah.

Speaker 1: 44:38

That was, oh, like Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. No, well, that's a different type, but no, this was Stigh Town, peter Cooper Village in Stuyvesant Town, on the East Side of Manhattan, between what is that? 14th Street and 23rd Street.

Speaker 3: 44:52

Yeah, oh, that's where they have a lot of clubs now.

Speaker 1: 44:54

Yes, well, now it's cool. Now it's the largest privately owned property in Manhattan, but back then it was rough. You were very poor, wow. So I have a lot of history that ties back to that, including when I moved into the city. I moved to Peter Cooper Village in Stigh Town. So let's talk life. You grew up not wealthy.

Speaker 3: 45:15

No, my parents didn't really have any money. Their parents didn't really have any money, but they worked hard. They were hard workers. You know, that's the thing, the thing is, that's their legacy when you're a hard worker, eventually it's going to work out.

Speaker 1: 45:29

So I have this conversation quite often with close friends that you can work very hard, you can amass enough wealth, hand it down to your children, but have spent no time with them. Yeah Right, and we see this with very wealthy people.

Speaker 3: 45:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 45:49

And we see that they leave a lot of money.

Speaker 3: 45:51

I actually saw a video recently about that, where a kid is seeing giving their parents like $5, and the father's like what do you want?

Speaker 1: 45:58

He's like can I just have one minute of your time? Oh, that's sad, it's very sad, but it's like you know it strikes a chord. But that's where it came to me and I realized that you can hand your kids a lot of money for when you die and have taught them no real valuable lessons and now they become very wealthy upon your exit, or you can hand them with no monetary wealth but the wealth of knowledge, inspiration, guidance, the wealth that you can teach them to make their own wealth and pass it forward.

Speaker 3: 46:29

And to me that is a much better legacy. I think that's important. And you know, for everybody it's something else. You know it's like what was it? The father drove the bicycle, the son drove the Honda Accord, the his son drove the Lamborghini, and then whatever, and then eventually they drove the bicycle. Yes, that's right. Oh, by the way, shoes untied.

Speaker 1: 46:47

I want to get that, so you don't trip. All right, so let's go into a sensitive topic these days. Yeah, you are clearly Jewish. I am Jewish, yeah Right, and we are living in a very tough world right now. We are, and I would say it's a frustrating existence. It is, you know, the lessons of my grandparents and I'm sure the lessons of your grandparents 100% have struck a nerve these days.

Speaker 3: 47:14

It's not just the lessons, it's the DNA. It's the DNA. My great grandparents were in the Holocaust, or their whole family was killed, and my grandparents actually not my great grandparents, but, like you know, their whole family was killed and they moved to Brazil and they started a new family. So that's my father.

Speaker 1: 47:32

That, obviously, you moved to Brazil, you moved to America, you moved to Israel. Right, you got out of Dodge, so to speak. And you know. And now, with the turbulent times of today, we are seeing how real it is that people can just hate for no reason based on stereotyping Exactly.

Speaker 3: 47:51

So they have a reason, but their reasons are not valid. They're not true, they're lies, and that's why that creates intolerance. Ignorance creates intolerance. So they believe that Jews own the media, that Jews own the world or whatever it is, and they have reasons for hating Jews. You could find reasons for anything for hating anybody, that's right. For hating any creature in this world, and if somebody's full of hate, they're always looking for the scapegoat they're always looking for that goat.

Speaker 1: 48:14

So I find it interesting that if the stereotype is that the Jews own the media, then why does the media continue to portray the hatred that is being spread?

Speaker 3: 48:22

across the board. It doesn't have to make sense. Blood libals don't make sense. Jews are not gonna eat blood, but they still say that they eat blood of kids or whatever it is. You know like they make up lies that don't make any sense. They're not rational, but that's you know. That's what some people do and they feel justified for doing it, they feel good about it, they are on a mission and then eventually they forget about it.

Speaker 1: 48:45

Yeah, well, it's like everything else in this very short-minded, short-term world we live in. The next story comes out Michael Jackson will come back to life and die again will pay attention to that for a little while. Have you experienced any prejudice or anti-Semitism in your life? All the time?

Speaker 3: 49:01

all the time. What does that look like? So when I was younger, there were teenagers that chased me and pulled my amic off my head.

Speaker 1: 49:08

But you grew up in Borough Park.

Speaker 3: 49:09

I grew up in Borough Park and still even in Borough Park, there was a lot of anti-Semitism. Really, yeah, people cursing at me for being Jewish, you know, just yelling at me on the street.

Speaker 1: 49:19

What do you do with that?

Speaker 3: 49:21

I, you know I'm not gonna fight. I'm not gonna sit there and fight with them and like yell back or whatever. But you know, I'll engage with it a little bit and see if there's a reasonable conversation that we can have about what they're talking about, because I wanna show them that I'm a regular human. But if once I realize that it's just spewing anger and hate and they're like riled up and angry, I'll just keep myself safe. You know you wanna keep yourself safe. As a human being. Your first priority is make sure that you don't get killed Yep, by a snake on a hike yeah, or by an anti-Semite a. Manhattan or somewhere. So I'm always vigilant, I'm always on the lookout because I need to be. You know I've gotten hate on LinkedIn where people commenting on my posts you know saying saying negative Jewish comments, and then they get blocked by LinkedIn. You know like I delete the comments, I report them, I block them and then they end up getting off the platform. Because people do create accounts and they talk. You know hate because I'm clearly Jewish.

Speaker 1: 50:21

Why, especially on a professional platform like LinkedIn, would you ever spew a negative comment on a real profile?

Speaker 3: 50:29

Because hurt people hurt other people. Yes, they're deeply, deeply hurt and they're not intelligent.

Speaker 1: 50:34

But some of these hurt people that are hurting people are real people and they're putting their professionalism or profession on the line. So do you ever let the hate get to you? No, I don't let it get to me, and that's the lesson of your grandparents and great-grandparents, I exercise, I work out.

Speaker 3: 50:50

You know, if something's getting to you, it's not because something else happened on the outside, it's what's going on on the inside. So you can actually work on creating the right emotions, the right energy, the right hormones. You know there's dopamine, there's serotonin, there's oxytocin. Like you have to think about, like, how can I create the right environment for myself to experience joy? Every day, you have the ability to experience joy. You can't be angry and grateful at the same time. So, focusing on gratitude, focusing on blessings, taking care of your body getting hydrated you saw, I drank an entire bottle of water throughout this journey. I want to drink more water, but I don't want to have to. You know, let the universe have the rest of it.

Speaker 1: 51:26

Well, on the last week's episode, Daisy Joplin did drink from a moving stream.

Speaker 3: 51:32

She's still alive. I have a question, ok. Ok, well, there is something called Life Straw, now that you can drink from any stream.

Speaker 1: 51:37

I made the recommendation. I think I have one on me. There's bacteria over here, so you've got to be careful. Yeah, you don't want Giardia. That's a nasty little bugger.

Speaker 3: 51:47

Well, I did drink from a glacier, though. There, I felt comfortable.

Speaker 1: 51:49

That is amazing, though, but that is as pure as pure can be. So what's next for Joe Appelbaum?

Speaker 3: 51:56

So for me, I'm really focused on giving people a voice with artificial intelligence. We do a lot of AI training. We have an AI business development circle that we're running where we're training people three hours a month on how to use artificial intelligence for business development, marketing and sales. I'm very focused on AI right now. Artificial intelligence is very hot. It's here to stay. Yep, if people learn how to leverage it, they can really make a big impact and achieve their goals. It's definitely not a bubble. It's been around for many decades, but right now it's where it's having its moment, and so, learning to leverage it, learning to use it in your marketing, learning to leverage it to be able to save time, make money that's really the key. My AI tool, evai EVY it's spelled EVYAI is great LinkedIn AI Assistant. We're going to keep building it. We're going to keep adding new users and make a difference for people. We're already in like 13 different countries and 24 different states and I plan on keeping to grow and making a difference for people. Get to your million. Yeah, that's how we're going to impact. Linkedin is in 200 different countries around the world, so I didn't even know that. Finland it was a little island in Finland. Somebody bought my program from Finland, from a little island in Finland, and I had a conversation with them and did they finish your program?

Speaker 1: 53:11

Oh dad jokes.

Speaker 3: 53:12

Dad jokes come out all the time.

Speaker 1: 53:14

How old are your kids. I have three daughters. Oh, I have three daughters too. I've been blessed with. We'll just leave it at that. What are their ages? Twins that are nine, that are completely opposite children they just happen to be born on the same day Wow and a five-year-old daughter.

Speaker 3: 53:31

They were from two separate eggs.

Speaker 1: 53:32

They were from two completely separate. In fact, without getting into too much detail, they were from two separate fallopian tubes.

Speaker 3: 53:39

Oh wow, that's amazing. That was a miracle. I thought you were saying they were from two separate fathers.

Speaker 1: 53:43

Well, that is a joke that I have off air.

Speaker 3: 53:47

No, because you have two personalities. That's a twist for that one.

Speaker 1: 53:51

I usually tell people that they came from two separate mothers.

Speaker 2: 53:54

They wash their face, go huh.

Speaker 1: 53:57

Do you trust anyone that says that the kids are everything to them, their entire life, and they love the heck out of their kids? Because?

Speaker 2: 54:04

I don't.

Speaker 1: 54:05

I find that to be delusional, because there are moments where I question why I had children.

Speaker 3: 54:10

It's at least once a day. Some people become blind to that and they need to become blind to that because of the way that they were treated, and so they put up with a lot of stuff. There are lots of different parenting methods. I trust that people are doing the best that they can with the information and the tools that they have. There's a book called One, two, three Magic. Highly recommend that book for you, for your five-year-old and even for your older kids. It's a great book that teaches you discipline through words instead of through physical aggression towards your kids, because kids can get frustrating because they challenge you. Kids have six different ways that they try to manipulate you, and that book basically breaks down all the different ways they try to manipulate you. And it can be really frustrating when you're trying to enforce some normalcy in your house, and especially if they're smarter than you. Sometimes your kids have your DNA and they're smarter than you. They know how to get under your skin and they know what to say and they know how to do all the work arounds, because they are you. Yes.

Speaker 1: 55:02

What are my children? And I won't say which one. But one of them every once in a while I turn to her and say you're good. But, I'm better until you get to my age.

Speaker 3: 55:13

Well, age is not always something that creates wisdom. No, but, Sometimes it creates routine in blind spots, but it can create intuition and recognition. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 55:20

Recognization, I agree. Recognition I can't speak in the cold. That's what I'm learning you can, you can stumble a little and then learn from your stumbles.

Speaker 3: 55:28

You're the worst podcast guest you've had on a hike the worst that's a good one, to be honest, don't mention their name.

Speaker 1: 55:35

Stop it. No, no, we never mention the name. I have not produced a single episode that has had the worst. Every episode has been great, and it's because when people come out on trails, they become open, they become human, they become vulnerable. You're worried about tripping and falling. You're worried about this. You're taking in the scenery, right, yeah, you've already been qualified as a business achiever or a success minded individual. You have a story to share, 100%, right. So I?

Speaker 3: 56:02

don't have the worst. You're the facilitator. Yes, what's the most challenging one? Do you ever get someone who's quiet the whole time and he's like a monk and you're asking questions and he's not responding?

Speaker 1: 56:10

No, but I will say I did have a worst guest who also fit the. I had to really get them to open up and we will not be producing that episode.

Speaker 3: 56:24

So it happened. So yes, how would you rate this episode on a scale of 1 to 10? So far.

Speaker 1: 56:29

You have.

Speaker 3: 56:31

Because it can go down the rabbit hole now. Yeah, you can, and I like that.

Speaker 1: 56:34

You have extreme knowledge to share and a talent to tell a story. I would say this will be up there with one of the more engaging and more exciting episodes Aw.

Speaker 3: 56:45

Thank you for saying that, but I won't give you a rating, because that would be disingenuous, because I haven't heard the episode Exactly, we got to go back and listen to what we said because we don't know what we said because we're so present in the moment. That's right.

Speaker 1: 56:54

I will say, though, that I've enjoyed hiking next to you alongside you and with you because I personally have learned. What's interesting is I've been engaged with you for quite a few years. You are a face and with Zoom you're more of a face than I've seen. I've been in networking meetings with. You've taught and done your routine, but the magic of today got us to meet. And now we are connected Right and now there's a circumstance in the situation. This is a memorable moment 100%.

Speaker 3: 57:29

So that's why it's so important for you to be able to do what you love doing and the way that you're doing it. How many guests do you think you've had on this podcast and how many more do you want? So I've had 38 recorded, wow.

Speaker 1: 57:38

We have crushed the milestone of the first 20 in podcasting. Wow, usually the podcasting drops after 20. My goal is to get to 100 guests.

Speaker 3: 57:50

Wow, and who's your ideal guest? An achiever that lives in Jersey. No, no.

Speaker 1: 57:56

I have car, will travel. In fact, we have a few scheduled in May in North Carolina. Oh wow, I've been invited to come out to Silicon Valley. Wow, good, hiking out in the San Francisco area.

Speaker 3: 58:08

I know someone who just became an EOS coach. He sold his business. He had a very nice exit. He was on the Inc 500 five years in a row. He's a client, very nice guy, and he lives in Wayne. Oh, perfect, so I'll introduce you to him. We love introductions.

Speaker 1: 58:21

I'm Andrew, because I do have a goal to write a book and the book will be something along the lines of I Hiked with 100 of the world's best business achievers Amazing, and this is what. I've learned. So, Joe Applebaum, we have completed our hike Pyramid Mountain, Taylor Town, Sparta, New Jersey. So I thank you very much.

Speaker 3: 58:39

This is my first hike in New Jersey. Thank you so much. This is great.

Speaker 1: 58:41

Thank you, this is the first hug.

Speaker 3: 58:43

The first hug, the first hug. I love it. The first hug would have been a hug.

Speaker 1: 58:47

This was an awesome episode.

Speaker 2: 58:49

I appreciate it.

Speaker 3: 58:49

I had a really good time.

Speaker 1: 58:51

That is great Well thank you guys. It was great and that will be a wrap Next time on. I Took a Hike. We take in the sounds of a brisk morning trek with a trailblazing entrepreneur and the owner of a precious metals recycling company Jeremy Royzen.