S7 Ep. 320 Jerrid Kalakay: Shaping the Future of Entrepreneurship & Education

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Hi, everyone.
My name is Isabella Johnston.
I am the host of The InternWhisperer podcast.
And this is brought to you
by Employers 4 Change,of which I am the CEO and founder.
We help hiring teamsget matched to intern talent
based on mission, values, beliefs,and core skills.
Today's guest is an amazing manI've known for quite some time.

(00:32):
His name is Jerrid Kalakay.He is a professor.
We'll give a shameless plugfor Valencia College.
I love Valencia College.
He is an author, an entrepreneur,a researcher, and a change maker.
He believes in the power of education
and entrepreneurshipto make a positive impact.
And he is deeply passionateabout social entrepreneurship,

(00:54):
innovation,leadership, education, and social change.
So welcome to the show, Jared.
Thank you so much, Isabella,for having me.
I'm so proud of you.
You have a book out, that is so exciting.
I do, it's been a long time coming.
And I made a goal last year, to, to finally write something,
and, I'm excitedthat it's - that it's out in the world.

(01:16):
How long did it take you to write it?
About, most of the year.
Really? Yeah,because I know how busy you are.I mean - well, just kind of.
Yeah.
Just kind of thinking about it.
Took a while, and then, you know what?
What do you want to say?
You know, and -and what do you want to put in?
What don't you want to put in?
And all those kind of questions
were, was really what I was wrestling withfor a while.

(01:39):
And then, once it got kind of going,these are conversations
I've had over the last 16 or so yearsin, in education, with,
with students, with fellow colleagues,with, mentees.
And so I just started saying,‘You know what?
I'm going to start writing downthe things that we talk about
and the things that I, the advice I giveand - and the advice I hear.’

(02:02):
And I just started writing it down.
And then once, once that started rolling,it just kind of happened.
Well, Iknow we're going to dig into this deeper,
and I kind of jumped the gunon one of my first questions
because, you know, my listenersdon't even know hardly anything about you.
I know we talked about this beforewe got on the air,
but you've been on the showback in a previous season,
so I'll be sure to connect those two.

(02:24):
So people go back and hear,you know, version one.
This is version two.
So take us through your career pathand how you became a professor.
What did you do first, a thought leaderand a social entrepreneur -
and what sparked your interest?
Yeah.
so, yeah, I'd be wonderfulif I could say I just, you know, I was
I was 16, and I planned it all out,and it's gone exactly the way I planned.

(02:47):
That would be awesome.
But, you know, it's far from reality.
I, the way I came to this, this work isYeah.
I always had a desireto create positive change
to, to leave the world a little bit betterthan when, than when I came into it.
That was as early as I could remember.
Something that this was kind of in me.

(03:10):
And so originally,I went to school for business.
I my original plan was to be, famous and be in the music
industry and, be a giant CEOand so forth.
And during that pathway, I found,
I found education, to be incredibly important,

(03:33):
and I, and I felt that education was - it was one of the most powerful,
one of the most powerful tools
we have in the worldto create positive change.
And my trajectorykind of changed a little bit from there.
And I decided to get a master's degree,
and originally my, my master's degreeat Florida State University was,

(03:56):
in order for me to workwith, concerts and events and programing.
And that was what I was going to do.
I was going to work in the music industryin that, in that realm.
But as I was going through that program,I fell in love with leadership
and leadershipdevelopment of specifically young people.
And so I, my first job

(04:17):
out of my master's program,I worked at a, at a college, locally.
And I was the, campus
and, news and media programmer.
And so I oversaw the radio stationthat the institution had.
I oversaw the newspaperand some other things.
And there was the first timeI really got to teach leadership.

(04:39):
And I fell in love with that.
And working with the young lead,the young up and coming leaders.
There were so many of them that weredoing amazing work in the community,
but through volunteerism, throughcommunity service, that they inspired me
and I.
And I said to myself, wow, this is areally neat way to help the community.
You know, working with these young people.

(05:01):
And what sparked my interestin social entrepreneurship, I didn't
- I didn't know anythingabout social entrepreneurship.
But what I was witnessingwas these students
that were working in the community.
They, they would work for three,four years,
in the community doing community service, leading alternative breaks.
You know, where the alternativespring breaks, where they wouldn't

(05:21):
go on a traditional spring breakto the beach, but rather they would go
and work on a community issue, hungerand homelessness or, migrant.
Working with migrant farmworkers or,
all kinds of different,
different things clearing trailsfor the Florida trails, etc..
And one of the studentswho was the leader of almost every trip

(05:43):
came up to me at one point and said that,‘I'm getting ready to graduate.
I'm going to go to law school.’, and,
shared with methat - that her family doesn't work for free
and that they don't know anythingabout her community service work,
which had been a bulkof my relationship with her.
And if - when I meet her parentsat graduation, not to mention

(06:05):
any of her community service work.
And that was a -
it was a very impactful moment for mebecause I saw this student
who should be proud of all the workthat she had done.
Instead of being proud,
she was ashamed and -and was going to hide it from her family.
And I said, ‘Wow, wouldn't it be?
Wouldn't it be neat if she couldn't,if she had an ability

(06:28):
or a vehicle to celebrateall of the great work she did?’
And that's when I stumbled uponsocial entrepreneurship.
It was back
in, I think, 2010when I, when I really came,
became aware of it.
And I see itas a, as a way for folks to satisfy both,

(06:48):
the desire
to make money,but also to create positive change.
The reason that her family didn'twork for free is because
they didn't believe in, in laboring
without just compensation,and, had been very well,

(07:08):
they're pretty wealthy and had been verysuccessful, but they didn't see a vehicle
for community serviceas, as, a ability to make a living.
And so they sent the student,you know, their student, off
to, off to school to get an educationand then go,
you know, carry on in the familybusiness and, you know, become a lawyer.
And that - in her case,and they didn't see any other way.

(07:31):
But with social entrepreneurship,you can make, a market driven
solutions and you canget - and you can have your cake and eat it
too sort of speak, and that you can make,
capital wealth, you can make, make money
and also create social changeor create social impact.
And that’s what really sparkedmy interest. I find that -

(07:54):
that is a,that is really, a wonderful case study.
And what was so sad,though, is that her family
didn't see the value of volunteeringbecause that
if all they valued was money
and what it could buy them,that was very self-centered.

(08:15):
Instead of like, money is a tool
that could bring about huge change.
The gift of time is somethingthat you cannot get back.
And to givethat is more powerful than money.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
And I don't knowwhat their motivations are or whatnot.
I mean, I would dare to try to assume,but their entire

(08:39):
approach was very typicaland is very typical of a lot of people.
They, you know, if I, if I do x, y, z,I want to be compensated, etc.,
and that's true in the working world,but it doesn't have to be true
in every aspect.
And there are a lot of folkswho, who volunteer and perform
community service,and they do it for all the right reasons.

(09:01):
It was unfortunate
when she told me this and my heartbroke a little bit.
And fast forward a few years,she had graduated. Yeah.
I saw her outside of the college.
She had come back for a visitabout 3 or 4 years later.
After this, after graduation.
And the student that I knew
was no longer the studentthat was in front of me when I saw them.

(09:22):
You know, I'm on the street.
And what I mean by that is, is the joyand the smile and the sparkle in her eye.
All the yearsI knew her as an undergrad were gone.
She had gone to law school,had graduated, had been very successful,
got a job at a big law firmand was doing all the things.
She had even gotten engaged.
She introduced me to her fiancéand we had a really nice conversation.

(09:44):
And everything she said was wonderful.
But the joy in her voice had left.
And I don't know if I just caught heron a bad moment, a bad time.
You know, I have no idea.
They could have been arguingright before I walked up.
I have no idea what was going on.
But I've got to believeto a certain degree
that she had stopped with her communityservice, had stopped doing

(10:05):
the things that she really enjoyed,that she had done for four years, that,
you know, during her college years,she had stopped doing that.
And I, and I've got to believe thatsome of that joy went with it.
I agree with you.
I agree with youbecause I find it very fulfilling
to volunteer, to mentor, to,

(10:31):
I have so many studentsthat I have placed in unpaid
internships that have found the real
value of it is that it was somethingthat was more important than money.
They saw it as, ‘Okay,what I'm getting in exchange
is the gift of somebody's knowledgeor their wisdom, the,
opportunity to be correctedand to understand how to do something,

(10:53):
you know, the right way, accordingto whatever the company policies might be.’
They found it
so, liberating, which I knowyou and I are on the same pages
to all those things.
Not every experience that's unpaid
is meaningless.
Well, and obviously working,you know, working in an internship
that's, that's unpaid is, is,you know, has all kinds of rewards.

(11:17):
And that's how when I was in school,there was no paid internships anywhere.
Everyone,everyone had to put in their time.
Now, you know, luckily, at least,
there's a good number of paid internships,so there’s, there's that.
And Valencia does a really good job.
I'll give another shamelessplug to Valencia College.
They do a really good job of, of

(11:37):
- of finding as many paid internshipsin the Central Florida area as possible.
But that's not necessarilythe same thing as community
service as as goingand serving at, a soup kitchen
or building a house with Habitatfor Humanity or, or some of these things.
Community service is really part
of the social safetynet that we have as citizens.

(12:00):
And if people weren't doing those things,
our, our society as a wholewould be so much worse off.
And, you know, whether you do itonce a year at Thanksgiving or you do it
every single weekend, you know,
just that little bit of give backand seeing the impacts of,
you know what, whatever it is sorting, you know, turkeys or, you know,

(12:22):
serving on a soup line or, or whatnot,
those experiences remain with you.
And when we start to think about,you know, okay, well,
you know, I live in this,you know, nice subdivision
or this nice, out in the countryor wherever.
And, I can't imagine being homeless.
Well, when you really look at the data,

(12:43):
most people in the United States
are only a couple paychecksaway from being homeless.
I mean, one.Yeah.
One serious medical issue. One.
One serious injury.
One serious, illness.
And all of a sudden, now you've doneeverything you were supposed to do,
and yet you might still be in a situationvery similar to that, where you
where you find yourself homeless.

(13:03):
I mean, so many of the timesthat I've gone and worked with people,
you know, whether it bein a homeless shelter or whatnot,
I almost always meet someonewho did everything right in their life.
They have a degree from HarvardUniversity,
you know, Harvard Universityand or Princeton or, you know,
these giant,these giant, fantastic schools.

(13:24):
And they've done everythingright in their life.
But they, you know,
they lost their wife to, illness,you know, the cancer or something.
And they depleted all their savingsgoing through that process.
And now all of a suddenthey can't afford their bills, you know,
and most people in the United States are 1to 2 paychecks away from that.
As scary as that is,it could be any of us.
Oh, yeah.

(13:45):
I've walked in those shoes.
I have been in that place.
Because starting, a startup
is, is something that is very consumingand not for the weak,
but you can end up,you know, losing everything too.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah.
So what did you dobefore you decided education?

(14:06):
I'm curious.
Have you-So. Yeah.
So before I went, before
I actually went into education,I was working in, music production,
and I was actually workingas a, tour promoter,
and, management company.
I had, Last Heard Productions,which was my very first actual company,

(14:26):
beyond my grasscutting days of my teen years.
And I ran thatin my senior year of college,
at the University of North Florida.
And then two years afterwards,
and I put on concertsall over the state of Florida.
I went on, a hip hop tour, which was,a bunch of hip hop artists from Florida.
We werewe went through, a seven city tour,

(14:49):
all the big cities of Florida,had lots of fun as a young man.
It was it was fantastic.I would never be able to do it today.
But as a young man, it wasit was an awesome experience.
And I put on concertsat the University of North Florida.
I put on - put on concerts in Orlando.
Also did some parties and so forth,
and, that I did thatfor a total of three years.

(15:12):
And then I put on one
show that didn't do as well as expected.
And we, I lost my little nest eggand with, with concert promotion,
you build a little nest egg
because the the industry is very volatile,like every industry.
But, you know, and you can never predictall of the outcomes for the concerts.

(15:33):
You can have the best artistsin the world.
And yet,
you know, still something might happenand you might not make ticket sales.
And so the margins are really slim.
Most times,you might have a couple windfalls
where it's just, you know, gangbustersand people are said sold out and so forth.
But those are far and few between.
For the most part of last year,Taylor Swift, I suppose,
I don't think she has too many, toomany duds now, but I'm

(15:56):
sure early on in her careershe, she certainly probably did.
So anyway, I had amasseda little bit of a nest egg and,
I did one, one concert and the venue I didit at was a smaller venue.
Unbeknownst to me there,
there was a bigger venue in townthat was having the same type.
It was a country concert, and they werehaving the biggest country star ever.

(16:18):
And they kept it a secret upuntil about two months before.
And they unveiledthat they're having this person.
And their show was on Sunday,and my show was on Saturday,
and everyone between Atlanta and Miamithat was going to go to a concert,
a country concert, went to the showon Sunday and not the show on Saturday.
And so, I was left kind of

(16:38):
holding the bag and my,my nest egg was gone.
And I, I said to myself,‘What am I going to do now?’
And I happened to bump intoone of the most successful show
promoters, show producersin the state of Florida at the time.
I had another show the following weekend,
and he haphazardly kind of told me,he said, ‘Hey,
I heard about your, you know, your bathyou took, last weekend.’

(17:00):
And I was like, ‘Yeah, it was,it was pretty bad.’
IHes like, ‘Yeah, you know, that'sthat's - that's terrible.
But that's the business.’
And I said, ‘Oh, okay. Yeah.
You know, that - that doesn'treally make me feel that much better.
But, you know, I appreciate it, you know.’
Anyway,he goes on to tell me this horrible story
about how he was on his fifth marriage.
He had so many houses foreclosed upon,

(17:22):
he lost count, and he parks his car.
He tells me he parks his cara mile away from his house.
Regardless ofif things are good or things are bad,
because he's had so many cars repo’dthat just - just what he does now.
And when I
tell you this, this is not someonewho was scraping the bottom of the barrel
like the lowest of the lowin this industry, he was the biggest star

(17:47):
in the industry and within Floridaand show production at the time.
And someone that I was very muchlooking up to.
And he tells me this story and I thoughtto myself, ‘Wow, Jared, I don't want that.
I don't want that life.’
Five marriages, you know, too many house.
He can't even tell mehow many houses he had foreclosed upon.
And he, he literally walks a mile from
from his car to his housebecause he doesn't want to get repo’d.

(18:09):
And I said, ‘Man,I got to figure out another way.’ And
what I found out was
that there's professionalsat every institution that put on help.
students put on concertsand, and events and so forth,
and they get paid by the,by the university or by the college.
And I said, ‘Well, wow, that's,that's - that's kind of what I want to do.

(18:29):
How do I do that?’
And then that led meinto higher education.
So I looked up,I did a quick Google search, Wow.
And I found Florida State Universityhad a higher education program.
I said, ‘Okay, well,let me, let me go over there.’
I showed up on campus.
I went to talk to the programbecause I had been involved
in a lot of events and a lot of thingsduring my undergrad experience.

(18:52):
Starting with Valencia.I'm a Valencia Alum,
- go Pumas. Starting,
Valencia all the waythrough the University of North Florida.
I'd been very involved, and so I gotaccepted, one - next thing led to another.
The following fall, I was in classesat Florida State University
up in Tallahassee, and I was learningabout the field of higher education.
And it literally came

(19:14):
I came to the fieldnot by - really by happenstance
because they,I lost a lot of money on a concert.
And I said, ‘You know what?
I want to still put on concerts,but I don't want to put it up,
put them on with my own money.
How do I put them on with other people'smoney, and get paid while I'm doing it?’
And also healthcare.
Healthcare would be nice, you know,as, as an entrepreneur, you know,

(19:36):
in the concert industry, I didn't have,I didn't have health, health insurance.
You know, luckily, I was on my parent'shealth insurance until I age,
you know, until I aged out back then,
it was basically, onceyou graduate college, you're
you're pretty much kicked off nowit's at least 25.
But I didn't have healthcare and, any insurance and a kidney stone,

(19:59):
around that
same time ended upcosting me about $15,000.
And all I did was sitin the emergency room for eight hours. Wow.
And it still cost that muchbecause I had to do imaging and so forth.
So anyway,
all of that kind of came togetherand I said, okay,
I'm going to become a higher educationprofessional.
And that's kind of the wayI came to education.

(20:19):
So, yeah, it's - it's pretty, pretty wild.
But I think it's pretty typicalof an entrepreneur.
So I worked in higher education,and I was - I agree.
and then I fell in love with leadershipand leadership development.
I start teaching leadership courses.
I had that experience with,
with my former student, and I said,‘There's got to be a better way.’
And then I found social entrepreneurship,where you can use market

(20:41):
driven solutions, to create positive impacts.
And it really could be a wayfor all of these students who
might come from wealthor might might not come from wealth,
but have a real desire to createpositive change in the world to - to do so.
So some of
this, becauseyou and I had met at Rollins College

(21:02):
and they're very pro entrepreneur,
as a, as a degree,
did you start the social entrepreneurprogram there at the campus?
No, no, I did not.
I was there right when it started.
The - there were some faculty membersin the Crummerr MBA
program that were already doingsocial entrepreneurship.
The courses and some other things.

(21:26):
I don't -
I think they they hadn't yettaught a social entrepreneurship course,
but they were certainly elements of them,of those courses or of that type of
programmatic and thematic aspectswithin their courses.
And they're already doing that.
And then, some other individuals at the college,
were taskedwith basically creating a program.

(21:50):
And I was fortunate enough to be rightthere at the, at that same moment.
So I was teaching leadership courses,and I had experience with obviously campus
programing and so forth.
And so I volunteeredwhenever I could, in helping.
But I was not the one that, that,that did - that actually built them.
But I was there for, for the journey.
And I was adjacent to the journeyand certainly helped where I could.

(22:13):
I did take that experience,when I came to Valencia College,
and I basically duplicated
that same journey at Valenciaand we created a social entrepreneurship
course, it was the first coursein the state of Florida to be taught,
Miami Dade had a social entrepreneurshipcourse on the books
for about two semestersbefore Valencia did.

(22:33):
However, they hadn'tactually taught the course yet.
They were getting ready to teach it.
And then we created the course.We taught it.
The first time was in, spring of 2015.
Then that stemmed into a student club,speaker series
and then also a certificate programin social entrepreneurship.
And, that's been running well.

(22:56):
And every semester since 2015.
So I find that really fascinating.
So when you wrote the book and let'sgo ahead and talk about the book now,

Igniting Innovation (23:07):
A Guide to Entrepreneurship and Positive Change.
You wrote this book.
I don't have it.
I don't knowif I can get a signed version from you.
You certainly can. Yeah, absolutely.I don’t know about that.
I love that.
But, if you need help distributing,just let me know.
Happy to be a part of your fan club.

(23:28):
Get the book out there.Awesome.
Thank you.
Yeah. Tell us about the book.
Obviously,I can see why it's about positive
change based on the storiesthat you just shared with us.
But why?
Why did you choose this particular
book to be the thingthat you want to - want to push out

(23:49):
there is the messageIs that how strongly you feel about it? Yeah.
I would assume so.
Well, I do, I feel very strongly.
I, I feel that the -I feel like business people,
going back to the very,very beginning of entrepreneurship,
business people want to solve problemsand they're really good
at solving problems. Typically.

(24:10):
And, you know, and along with that,they're good at making money.
I mean, traditionally that's the goal,right, to, to, to accumulate wealth.
And so,
long ago and maybe not that
long ago, I mean, when I was in school,in business school, a very traditional,
typical program,it was basically make money, or do good.

(24:32):
I mean, that was kind of the dichotomy.
And although it was never expressedthat way, it was never out in the open.
There was no,no signs up in the College of Business.
That said that, that was very clearthat that’s, you know,
you could -you can either go and make - and make money
and on your off time, you can goand volunteer or you can go and create,
you know, change
or could go and create social impact,but you couldn't do them together.

(24:57):
And I feel like,
social entrepreneurshipis really just kind of bringing back
the original essenceof traditional entrepreneurship,
in which businesspeople are creating solutions to problems,
and the solutionsthat business people are creating,
to the problemsare for their customers, their clients,

(25:21):
now with social entrepreneurship,it's just expanded a little bit
to creating solutions for society.
Right?
How do we solve,how do we solve hunger or homelessness?
Well, you know, there's aa myriad of reasons
why people become hungry, and why people become homeless.
Right?
Well, how can we createenough of a solution to solve it?

(25:45):
We're not going to be able to do thatthrough community service alone.
We're not going to do thatthrough philanthropy alone. Right?
People are continually given moneyfor years,
given time for years,and it hasn't generated a real solution.
So how do we do it?
Well, we've got a market driven,we've got market driven solutions.
We've got businesspeople who know how to solve problems.

(26:05):
And social entrepreneurship isthe marriage of those two worlds together.
So this book isa very, is a, it's a very quick,
appetizer to the
field of, of creating changethrough entrepreneurship.
It came really from all the conversations
I've had for the past,you know, 16 or so years with young people

(26:27):
and with colleagues and so forth. Aroundhow do we use business for good?
How do we create, thriving companiesthat make money,
support our families,put food on the table and all those things
and also, don't deplete,you know, minerals,
don't don't ruin the environment,don't, harm people.

(26:48):
How do we do it?
In a way that, that or animals. Yeah.How do we do it
in a way that, helpsall of those things and helps make money.
And that'swhat social entrepreneurship is.
So, is it considered a B Corp company.
Well, it could be I mean,
you know, the B Corp companies,the benefit companies are great.
In fact Dos Alas Latin Coffee

(27:10):
my, the coffee company that I co-founded,in 2020
is on the road to becoming a B Corpthrough, through B labs.
And we're going through the certificationprocess currently.
It could be a B corp,but it doesn't have to be a B corp.
So a B corp in the state of Florida,

(27:30):
the very first one was, Clean The World.
And basically what that means
is it's, it's considered and classifiedas a benefit corporation,
meaning that it's, it has a social benefit or a social impact
aspect to the, to the company,under the store,
under the state of Florida,there's not any tax benefits to that.
It's just more of a titleto let people know what you are and,

(27:53):
and how you do business.
In other states,there could be tax benefits
in other countries,there certainly is tax benefits.
And, and, priority and government
contracts and some other thingsin some other places.
But in the state,
in the state of Florida, there'sno - there's no tax benefits to it.
However, there's also, B-Labs, which is,

(28:17):
a, an organization - B Corp,
corporation that, that certifies,
B Corps, and it's kind of an industry, certification industry standard.
And what that, what that does is it'scompletely independent of the government.
But it will, it will, certify your company as a B Corp,
which then tells people,that you are in business

(28:39):
to also benefit societyand create positive impact.
That's interesting.
How did you hear about this place?
I've never heard of it.
So. So, yeah.
So B-Labs,
I heard about it.
I, probably from a conference, I'd imagine.
I don't actually, I don't rememberexactly, but, if you just look up B Corp,

(29:02):
you know, just a letter Band then C o r p, it'll, it'll come up.
It'll be one of the first thingsthat comes up.
And, and you can get your organizationcertified by them.
It's a pretty lengthy process,but if they certify your organization
and basically it will tell everyone elsethat you are legitimate.
And when you say you're helpingsociety, creating positive

(29:23):
social change or creating social value,that you're actually doing so.
So you, we talked about this a little bit.
You touched on it for sure.
Social entrepreneurship combinesthe power of business with the desire
for social impact. Definitely there.
What values are most important to youwhen mentoring students or entrepreneurs

(29:44):
who want to makea difference in the world?
Do you - do you lay this out in your book?
Is this
part of the roadmap that you createdis so people would know how to do this? Yes.
Yeah, sort of.
I mean, you have to break it downto smaller pieces, right?
It is, it is ostentatious to say,‘I want to change the world.’
Right? Yeah.
I want to make, I want to create somethingthat's going to impact

(30:06):
people's lives onany kind of scale is huge.
I mean, even if you're just doing it fora town or a province, it's huge, right?
So, you know, not very many people,not very many educated
and well-meaning people come out and say,‘I want to change the world.’
And that's, that's totally doable, right?

(30:26):
So but everyone can change the world,right?
Everyone can change an aspect of the worldor an aspect of their community.
And so what I do with,
with my conversations and in the book isI break it down to different pieces.
The biggest thing is
peoplehave the best of intentions oftentimes.
So you go to a conference and you getreally excited about the topic,

(30:48):
or you go to a workshopand you get really excited about a topic,
or you listen to a podcast
and you get really excitedabout the topic,
and then you have the best -and - best of intentions, right?
And you want to, now you've got a ten,ten points thing that you want to do or,
this agenda that you want to do, but thenyou go back to your normal life, right?
You go back to the kids,and the kids have homework,

(31:09):
and the kids got this, and they got gamesand all this kind of stuff.
You go back to your normal,your normal workday, and you've got you
know, three deadlines at that,with one already passed and you know, or,
you know, you go back to schooland you've got,
you know, all these exams and testsand so forth and so forth and so on.
Right?
Everyone's lives are very hecticand very crazy.
And so all of a sudden your best ofintentions get what do they get?

(31:31):
They get put in the drawer of your desk.
They get put, off to the side in a pilethat's forgotten,
and you never actually end updoing any of it.
So how do you, in the face of reality,how do you actually start to make change?
Well, it is incremental with yourselffirst, and it's really getting
your mind frame and your - your mindsetto an entrepreneurial mindset.

(31:53):
Properly.
so that waywhen you get in into the world of reality
and you're actually in it,
that you - that you have the abilityto do a little bit each day,
that you have a little,a little, a little bit of motivation
to do just a little bit to moveyou further along to your goal.
The values I think are, I
mean the most important are resilience,the ability to be told no

(32:18):
ten times and still go and ask a - the 11th,
you know, the ability to fail
and to learn from that failure
and realize that that failureis a stepping stone.
You know, it's a - it's a rung onthe ladder.
It's a necessary, part of success.
So that resilienceis incredibly important.

(32:40):
The, the ability to be
a mentee to, to realize in the worldthere's never,
there's never way that you're ever goingto know everything.
And most people go through life,they get to a point where they believe
that they know what they need to know,and they stop listening to anybody else.

(33:01):
And when they
do that, they've now shut themselves offfrom real growth,
you know, and, and I try toin my own life, I try to enter rooms
in which I'm not the expert,where I can actually learn.
I try to enter spaceswhere I'm not the expert.
I try, I try to do new things,and it's scary.

(33:21):
It's scary to do all those things.
It's scary to not be the expert.
You know, as a, as a professor,as a tenured professor.
It's scary for menot to be considered an expert.
Right.
In a lot of ways, but with thatbeing said, you have to not be an expert.
You've got to be a beginner.

(33:42):
Yeah, I totally agree.
I was having this conversationwith one of the project managers today.
And I said, I think that on a scale of 1to 5 if 5 is excellent.
Or an expert,it's easier to have excellence
than it is to be the expertbecause technology moves so fast.
You can be an expert for, it's likea balance sheet - for you have a snapshot.

(34:06):
I'm an expert for at this day,at this moment in time, because
now there's three other people out therethat you know are moving at a faster pace.
The, the point of this whole conversation,though, is to me,
is that there can be more than one expert - collective wisdom is a good thing.
And because that helps us to be ironsharpens iron

(34:28):
so that we're actually providing,you know, more of a
true thought leader and a thought leader.
I usually go,‘If this is all wisdom in the world, right?
All knowledge.
This is how much we all know at any onepoint in time what's right between here.’
Because it's easier to provide excellence
than it is to be an expert.

(34:51):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And if you are a good expert.
Tell me if you agree with this.What are your thoughts?
If you are a good expert,then you're making other people.
You're helping them to be experts.
And if they become smarter than you,then isn't that part of the job?
I absolutely, I couldn't,I wholeheartedly agree.
I mean, it's the same thingwith leadership development.

(35:11):
The greatest goal of a leaderis to create other leaders.
Yeah.
In my - in my opinion,that's the biggest goal.
And, and even though, you know,and it's unfortunate that not everyone
has that, that belief, that ability,but if we're doing what
we're supposed to be doing as leaders,we should be generating other leaders.

(35:32):
We should be turning out other leaders,not just amassing followers.
And - and
when you see, when you see good leaders,that's exactly what they're doing.
They are creating other leaders,they're creating other,
other professionals, other experts.
I mean, that's the highest,the highest goal, you know,

(35:54):
and if you can do it in a waythat instills values, proper values,
social impact values, values,
in which you're trying to make societybetter overall in those leaders.
Now you've really magnifiedthe possible changes, right?
It's a ripple effect.
And you know, who knows?
You know, we've been teaching socialentrepreneurship in Valencia since 2015.

(36:17):
Like I said, and we have 30 to 60 studentsevery semester since then.
So what, ten years?
We have three semesters,at least three semesters or more.
I mean, so if we've donewhat we're supposed to do, there should be
at least a thousandnew social entrepreneurs out there,
that we've planted
the seeds with, you know, and some will,some will create their own endeavors,

(36:41):
some some will create their own companiesand they'll be very successful.
And, but I'd imagine a good majority ofthem are going to go to other companies,
but they're going to bring that knowledgeand that - that value set with them.
And they could become socialentrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs,
folks that are working within systems,you know, and maybe it's, ‘Okay.
We can, we can save, you know, 10%if we go with this one company.

(37:06):
But that company uses inferior products,they're going to break that much faster
and pollutethe system, pollute the environment.
Or we could spend 10% more andhave longer, longevity with the product.
And it doesn't pollute the, thisyou know, the system.’
Well, maybe that - maybe one of thosesocial entrepreneurs that I, that I taught
or that - that Valencia taughtover the last ten years.

(37:28):
Maybe they're the onethat makes a decision
between that and they decide, ‘You knowwhat, we're going to spend 10% more
becauseultimately it better fits our mission
and it's going to better help our,you know, our - our community.’
And, you know, those decisions happen
every day.
I think so too, I totally agree

(37:49):
I, I, I know we're going to go backto that student here.
That was the -
that had the joy in her life you know.
And then you saw her later.
But I'll save thatfor maybe a little later on.
So what do you think, your book isemphasizing the importance of innovation.
How are you teaching that?
How are you explaining that?

(38:10):
And do you have exercises in there?
Because I've not had it.
I so want to get my hands on your book.
Absolutely.
But, what are the things that help,an entrepreneur to -
so that it's engaging, it's interactive.
It's, allowing those principlesthat you're sharing
because you have all of this wisdom.
And I do consider you to be honestand an expert in this,

(38:33):
because it's experience that gives usthe ability to become an expert.
Because you've doneso many, we've done things well
and we failed and failed and failedand well, that's how we become an expert.
So what is in your book
that helps to, make these things stick?
Yeah.
So, you know, one of the thingsthat I talk a lot about in

(38:55):
the book is resilienceand building a resilient mind,
and one that, that sees no,
as, as something that is, finite in
that if you get a note today,that doesn't mean it's a no tomorrow.
A lot of people get a no one timeand that - and that, that book is closed,

(39:15):
so to speak. They say, ‘Okay, that's done.’
That doesn't necessarily meanthat it's done forever.
So, one of the things that, thatI, that I share
is, is resilience and, and how - and howyou can build up your resilience.
And a lot ofthat has to do with your mindset.
A lot of it has to
do with the ability to say, ‘I'mbeing told no, or I didn't get X, Y, Z,

(39:39):
or I didn't succeed in A B C.
Now I need to retool.
I need to use thisas a learning opportunity,
not as an ending,but rather as a beginning.
And when I go back to the drawing board,why did I get told no?
Why did I not succeed in X Y Z?
Why did I not?

(40:00):
Why was I not able to do A B C,and reformat.
Right?
There's a - I think it's Ben-BenFranklin says ‘I,
I didn't fail a thousand times.
I, I learned 999
and I succeeded the, the 1,000th time.’

(40:23):
Right.
And I don't know if it's been,
I think it's Ben Franklin,but I'm not exactly positive about that.
But it's the idea that,
you know, when you fail at somethingthat's not a horrible thing.
You know, as, as you know,
when we're growing up in school, likeif we get an F, it's the end of the day.
I mean, it's done.
Everything, okay.
Now your parents yell at you or your guardiansyell at you,
you get grounded, etc., etc.and it's done.

(40:44):
But in real life, an F or a failureis an opportunity to learn.
And so that, that opportunity to learnis building that resilience.
Also realizing that you're not an expert
at all thingsand that you need to bring a team together
and that, and that innovation, trueinnovation is a meeting of the minds

(41:05):
and trying out crazythings that you never think will work.
Until they do.
And what that means is when you're -when you're the manager,
when you're the boss, oryou're the entrepreneur in that situation,
you have to allow your colleagues to fail.
You've got to allow your colleaguesto try new things.
You can't say, ‘Oh, we tried that already.

(41:27):
We've done that before.This is the way we sor -
we have to do it.’
You have to be open to experimenting.
Open to - to failing.
So you need to have,you need to build an innovative - spirits,
an innovative team, peoplethat are willing to take risks, or,
or bring in people that might be afraid ofrisk, but teach them how to deal with it

(41:51):
and teach themhow to start to become innovative
and start to failand celebrate those failures.
You know, and
throw a, a fail offwhere you have everyone come together
and talk about their biggest failurein - that they've had in their life.
You know, we almost always don't celebratethose things.
We walk into any academics, any educators,

(42:14):
professor,anyway, any, any professors office.
And what do you see on the wall,inevitably?
Degrees. Degrees! Yes.
Absolutely. Yes.
You see the greatest successesthey've had. Yes.
Well, what you don't seein most professors offices.
But what you will see in my officeis my high school transcripts on the wall.

(42:36):
And Isabella,I graduated from Orange County
Public Schools here in Orlandowith a 1.982 GPA.
Now, why was that?
Why? Why was it so low were -
it's not because you speak a secondlanguage, right?
So that's not the.No.
No, no, no. It-it was,Why was it?
yes.
So again,just in case you weren't listening,

(42:57):
I graduated from high schoolwith a 1.982 GPA.
I barely graduated, now, why?
Well, there's a whole lot of reasons.
Ultimately,the reason was I didn't like school.
I didn't like busy work.
That is so amazing.I hated buzy work.
Were you, like, a gifted student?
Were you, your IQ?

(43:18):
IQ was so high,it was, like, so boring for you.
That's what I'm thinking.
I'm sure that's probably the case,unfortunately.
You know,when I was in most of grade school,
all the way upthrough K through 12 system,
they didn't have a lot of the good testingand so forth that they have now,
but I'm sure that's what it was.
I mean, most of my high schoolexperience, I spent kind of

(43:41):
being the class clown, joking around,playing around because I hated busywork.
I still hate busywork.
I don't like to do somethingjust to do it.
I need to know, how what I'm doing
is impacting something greater,you know? And -
and when I was in high school,a lot of times we would get up.
You know, I used to call them dittos,but they're, you know, little worksheets,

(44:03):
paper worksheets.
And every day you walkin, they give you a paper worksheet.
Every day you walk inand give you a paper worksheet.
This is what we're doing today,day after day.
And I just, I couldn't do it.
I couldn'tsit down and devote energy to it.
Because I felt like it was just busywork.
I didn't see a purpose in it.
And unfortunately for me,
what that led to wasI'd oftentimes get kicked out of class.

(44:25):
I think I spent more timeliterally sitting in the hallway,
outside of my classroomthan I ever did in the classroom.
Especially in my lattertwo years of, of high school.
And my teachers would get very upsetwith me.
My high school teachers,anyway, would get really upset
because they wouldput me out in the hallway,
and the reason why they were putting me inthe hallway is because they didn't

(44:45):
want to do the paperworkto send me to the office with a referral.
So they would just put me in the hallwayand they put me in the hallway.
And then I would come back in afterbeing in the hallway for an entire week
and I take the exam or the test,and I’d still get a C on it,
having never sat throughany of the lecture
or any of the educational stuff, I just,I’d get a C and then they'd be dumbfounded.

(45:07):
Most of the timethey thought I was cheating,
you know, but everyone around me would bethey'd get F's and I'd get a C,
and they just couldn't figure it out.
It wasn't until my senior yearwhen the real threat
of not graduating from high schoolwas, was in jeopardy.
And I had a really great guidancecounselor, Mr. Rogers.
Not the Mister Rogers, but a Mr. Rogers.Yeah.
Was my guidance counselor, and - and - and hehe brought me in very early senior year

(45:32):
and said, ‘Jerrid, you're not goingto graduate from high school.
Do your parents know you'renot going to graduate from high school?’
And, they did not, they didn't know
about my - my terrible grades and so forth.
And I didn’t know that.How’s that possible Jared?
How could that possibly be?
Because every schoolyou have to go meet the teacher.
And, and again,
the person you're describing is not thisperson that is sitting in front of me

(45:56):
now I'm going,‘There is no way that was you.’
I sat there and i’m going,Yeah.
‘No, I do not believe this for one minute.’
That's - that’s hilarious. Yeah.But I know you.
Well I think that’s -
I think that’s the epitome of learning.
Oh, well, you know, I think that's,
I think that's what helps mebe to, be effective in the classroom.
Yeah.
Is that I've been exactly
where, you know, the worst of the worstkids in terms of education.

(46:20):
You know,
you know, I was not getting in trouble with the lawor anything like this, but - but as far Right, yeah. Not learning.
as just being a bad student, I was,I was really good at being a bad student.
And, It’s amazing and,
certainly there was no parentteacher conference apparently going on.
Well, yeah.
No, I mean, you know, again, I, I,I feel like I was,
I was pretty intelligentand certainly very, skilled at,

(46:45):
at creating excuses and so forthabout why thing, why there wasn't
report cards coming home and whythere was no teacher conferences and so forth. Wow.
But my senior year, you know, when I hadthat conversation with Mister Rogers
and he really laid it out,no sugarcoating anything.
He’s like ‘You're not going to graduatefrom high school.
And, what does that mean for you?’
And I said, ‘Well, I don't know.

(47:06):
I have to go to college.’
My, my father, particularly,but also my mother had instilled that,
you know, college was the only way,the only way out of blue collar,
you know, work the only way out of,you know, barely making it a living.
And - and I'm not saying that
blue collar work is, is not a good,not a good thing.

(47:30):
My, my entire family is blue collar.I understand it.
I'm very proud of that fact.
But, you know, I, as allparents, want better for their kids.
And so they really saw, college as a - as a vehicle.
And so it really scared me when
Mr. Rogers said that.
And what I ended up doing, was I,he helped me put together a plan,

(47:51):
and I went, you know, one of the,one of the key things of that plan was,
you know, getting my hat in hand and goingand talking to my ninth grade creative
writing teacher to see if they wouldgive me a chance to, to bring up my grade.
I had gotten an F in creative writing.
And basically because I just stopped.
I just didn't do the assignments.

(48:11):
But I went,I went and did that, and she said, ‘No.’
She said, ‘No, you can't make up anything.’
And, you know,and then I had to go back to Mr.
Rogers, and say, ‘No, I couldn't do it.’
And so I ended up going to night,night school, my senior year.
And I got enough credits,and I barely made it by.
And again, you know, I was under the 2.0 grade point average.

(48:33):
Now, lucky for me,the following school year,
they put in place in OrangeCounty Public Schools.
I don't know if it's still there, butat the time, the year after I graduated,
they made a minimum GPA requirement of 2.0to graduate with a high school
diploma in Orange CountyPublic Schools in the state of Florida.
The year after I graduated.

(48:55):
And that, that had been one year earlier,Wow.
thank God for, bureaucracybecause if that was one year earlier.
I wouldn't have graduated.
Wow. Okay.
So, just so you know, I looked up yourstatement, you said 999 times of failure.
And the thousand is, is when learningtook place, it was Thomas Edison.

(49:15):
Oh, Thomas Edison. Oh, ok.Yeah.
And I know this is going to stick with youand I both, because, you know,
we took the time.
One of us here, you werethe storyteller. Yeah.
So I'm going, ‘Well,let me go fact check that.’ Yeah.
So I looked it up and,and so now we both know.
And this is where you said
humility is one of the best thingsthat comes out of learning.
And here you are, you'reYep.

(49:36):
totally being humble Jerrid.
As always, I know that to be true too.
So, that and you probably didthis on purpose just to have me check it. Yeah.
I wish,
I wish, yeah, I wish I had the foresightbecause that was a perfect example.
But yeah, I mean, it's funnybecause in my, in my doctoral program, Yeah.

(49:57):
there was some, there was some folksnot in my cohort, but
folks in general that, that even thoughthey were in a doctoral program,
they didn't want to learn,they didn't want to take feedback.
They wanted to become defensive and, andnot - not - not truly be a student, you know? That’s crazy.
Yes, you're in doctoral programs,
you're becoming an expert,but you are also a student.

(50:19):
And while you're in the program,before they, you know, confer your degree, Okay.
you're still a student,
and - but so many people,I think that's why Yep.
there's such a high rate of failure,with doctoral programs
in that so many people
kind of go in with a mind frame of,‘I already know everything,
and I don't want to be told, no, I don'twant to be told I need to fix something.’

(50:42):
And Ithink that's the exact wrong approach.
If you want to be an entrepreneur, that isa terrible, terrible, terrible approach.
Unless you're independently wealthyand you can fail
and, and, you know, 100 times and,and still have the money to continue
on, you better listen to some people,not everybody,
but you better listen to some peopleand you better look for mentors Yep.

(51:05):
that have done the things you want to do,because they can.
If you are humbleand you approach them with kindness,
they'll, they'll probably reciprocateand they'll help you along.
You know,there's, there's really two ways to learn.

There's one (51:20):
you could be told
and follow, or you could
ignore and learn the hard way.
The road, you know, the road of hardknocks.
You go out and you fail.
And then you could learn that way.
Or you could listen.
That is a valuable lesson.
We're going to take a moment

(51:40):
to acknowledge our sponsor, Cat 5 Studios,and we will be right back.
So here we arein the second half of the show.
We always talk about the future of jobs

(52:02):
and what industriesare going to look like in 2030.
Not that far awaybecause we're turning 2025 next year.
Now we probably aren’t going to have asmuch time to go through, our questions.
This has been so fascinating.
I did not know all of this about you.
And so now I'm sitting here going,‘Oh my goodness.’, this
Yeah, yeah.
A whole level of depth I didn't know.

(52:23):
And that probably is where a lot ofstudents can relate to if you share that story. Well, that’s -
yeah. Yeah.
Well and I, and that's why I have my,I have my high school transcript.
On my wall. Yeah.
You know, and it is rightnext to all of my degrees I've got. Transparent.
Yeah.
Counting them about 5, 5 or 6 degrees.

(52:46):
And, you know,if you walk into a typical professor's
office, you'll see that, you know,myriad of degrees and all the successes
and the awards they've won.
What you won't see is the failings.
I'm fortunate enough to have my failingsframed.
Yeah.
And - and I went back to Orange Countypublic schools,
and I got my official transcripts,from high school, and I,

(53:08):
and I framed them.I put them up on my wall.
And, you know, that helps mewith working with students because I think
some of the best students I've hadare students who were not good students.
Yes.Originally.
And they learned,Yes.
you know, whether it be peoplethat are nontraditional coming back,
you know, after they've been outin the world and, and, you know, worked

(53:29):
and so forth for a number of yearsare coming back at 30 or at 40 or 50,
or it’s just students that, you know, messedup, had to drop out of a university.
And now they're at Valencia.
And those often are the best students
because they have this,this great motivation,
to succeed because they,they haven't succeeded in the past.

(53:50):
I think what you're talking about,this leads
into the first question that we haveabout the future as an educator.
What are your thoughts abouthow AI will impact the future of higher ed?
But do you think that it has the potentialto revolutionize learning,
or are there risks we need to consider?
What - what I think that you're pointing outis I always love

(54:10):
the underdogsto the people that everybody goes, ‘Oh, no.’
He was like,
‘That kid totally messed up.’
I was one of those.
Also, I didn't get in a lot of trouble,but it took me a while
to understand conceptsand to be able to get there.
And I would stay after school with my,my Algebra
1, Algebra 2 teacher and I go, ‘Okay,I don't get it, I don’t get it.’

(54:31):
And then all of a suddenthe light bulb came on, so when we're talking
abouthow AI can impact the future of education.
It can make us faster, for sure, but it
- and it can revolutionize learningthat is also for sure.
But there's this human componentthat I think has to stay.
It has to be there. We're human creatures.

(54:51):
We require being around each otherin social settings.
We weren't born out of technology.
You know, we're -
And technology shapeshow we think and we believe
and how we interact with things.
But it's, we still areneeding humans to be able to

(55:12):
challenges in different ways to.
So what do you think AI can haveon the potential to revolutionize learning?
Yeah.
Because I really think it's going torequire us staying human and connecting.
No, absolutelyI agree, I agree wholeheartedly.
I think at a very basic level,AI is the newest way,
to cheat at a very basic level, right?

(55:32):
Yeah.
So if you're asking yes or no questions,
if you're askingwhat's the definition of XYZ?
If you're asking,when did this war take place?
All of those things can be done with AIand in a nanosecond,
and if those are the questionsyou're asking as an educator,
then students are going to utilize
AI at the most basic level just to cheat.

(55:55):
With that being said, it
- AI has a tremendous abilityto revolutionize thinking because,
it enables the user or the learnerto not have to recall random
facts and figures and so forth, but ratherit enables them to learn how to think.
And that
thinkingis what can really push us forward.

(56:18):
And what I mean by that is,
is, you know, as an educator,you can't ask simple questions.
You have to askhow a situation makes a student feel
and how a situation,
can be viewed from a multitude of ways.
You need to ask about solutions,not necessarily for just the quick answer.

(56:40):
And if you do that, then whatthe students are going to be able to do
is they could useall the technology in the world, but
they'll use it in a wayto help them think better.
They won't be concerned about memorizingfacts and figures of random stuff.
They could look up, but rather they'llthey can spend their time really learning

(57:02):
how to learn, which is the mostimpactful thing we could do as educators.
It's just likewhen calculators were developed, you know,
you know, long, hundreds of years ago,maybe 100 years ago.
I don't know exactly.
But when a calculator, I guaranteewhen that first, the first calculator
came out, math teachers around the worldwere, ‘Oh, no, this is terrible.

(57:24):
They're going to use it to cheat.’Yeah.
And at a very basic, most basic level,the students did use it to cheat.
But inour lifetime, has there ever been a time
where we had to do long divisionor long multiplication?
And not have a calculator handy?
No. No, of course not.
So it'll be the same thing with AI,

(57:45):
which is the same.
The same thing, you know, with AI going,you know, utilizing it for business,
if it's used as a tool and used to augment
our human thinking, then it'sgoing to be powerful and it'll be useful.
But at a most basic level of it'sused to be,
unethical and, dishonest and,

(58:06):
you know, plagiarizing, etc., that it'sthen, then
that's going to be the case as well,you know.
So what do you think AI's influencecould be on social entrepreneurship?
How could it be there to help benefit?
Because one of the ways that I'm findingis I'll have to talk with you offline.
You're going to have to tell mewhen you're available,
because I'm working on some grantsthat I want to do with Valencia College. Okay.

(58:30):
Anyway, I feel like on the sideof social entrepreneurship,
it can be helpful with writing grantsor being able to figure out roadmaps
and things of that nature, of how we at -
To me, AI is like Google on steroids.
You know, it's just like, boom,
you know, I don't have to read through 5or 6 pages to find it.

(58:52):
I can actually get those 5 or 6 pagesconsolidated into information
in seconds, where,you know, it took me a lot of time to do that.
Absolutely.
You know, and again, it's, it's a tool.
So, you know, if you, if a business personor the, or Yeah.
anyone in the world looks at AI and goes,‘This is going to solve all my problems.’,

(59:12):
then they're, they're completely wrong,you know?
Yeah.
If - if all you have is a hammer, everythingbegins to look like nails, right?
Yeah.
But, you know, just like the good,a good tradesman has a toolbox
full of tools,for all kinds of different things to fix.
AI will become one of the toolsin the toolbox.
And what, you know,what it can do is speed things up,

(59:37):
and it can make some things a lot easier,make things a lot faster.
You know, you don't have to read,you know, 20 pages.
You could askAI to summarize the 20 pages,
you know, and then all of a suddenyou get a summary.
Well, that's great, but you still haveto know what to do with the summary.
You still have to know what to dowith the, the, the graphs it creates.

(59:58):
Or the, the stuff it does,if you just take it off, you know,
off the printer or off the screen and go,‘Okay, this is great.’
It - you're, you're going to be in trouble,right?
Yeah. Because you're not fact checking it.
You're not fact checking.You don't know what it says.
You don't know what it does.
You know, and, you know, companies,I created a case study
pretty early on in theAI probably about 2 or 3 years ago,

(01:00:20):
of a marketing firm and I, and in the casestudy I wrote for my students,
basically the marketing firm decidesthat they are going
to use ChatGPT and it'sgoing to solve all their problems.
So they fired all their copywritersexcept for one,
and they fired all their copy editorsexcept for one.
They said, ‘Okay, now you're goingto do everything for the entire firm
because we don't need writers.We have the AI, we have

(01:00:42):
ChatGPT. Sothe judge, it's going to write everything.’
Well, when you do that.
And if you believe that,now all of your marketing that's
going to go out for all the firms you workwith, is going to be generated by AI,
and you're not going to have enough peopleto review it.
You're not going to have enough peopleto check it.
To fact check itto make sure it makes sense, make sure

(01:01:04):
it has the right jargon and that make sureit has the right innuendos in it.
You know. All of these.Sounds human.
Yeah. Sounds human.
You're going to get yourself into trouble.
And so the case study I wrotewas that they had a really big firm,
a really big contract,and the marketing was completely wrong.
And the
big campaigncame out and it was completely wrong.
And now that the big firm,which accounted for 60% of the marketing

(01:01:29):
firms, revenue per year
is now gone,they're threatening to leave and they want
- and they're giving the company,the marketing company, one last chance
to explain what they're going to doin the future to remedy the situation.
Otherwise, the 60% of their revenueis going to walk out the door.
And that's the case study, right?
Yeah. Well, I guarantee that's happened already.

(01:01:51):
I guarantee you those kinds of thingshave already gone on.
You know, I mean,you look at what newspapers, you know,
if they're still open,what newspapers are doing there, you know,
the staffs are minuscule in comparisonto what they used to be and so forth.
Yeah.
And part of that isbecause they're putting too much emphasis
on, on all the great things AI can doand not really thinking through that.

(01:02:14):
It's only a tool,
and it'sa powerful tool, and it has the ability
to really revolutionizeour world in a lot of ways.
But at the - at the end of the day,it's still just a tool.
So,What ethical dilemmas do you see?
Because this is like, yeah.Oh yeah,
let, let's focus on twobecause I feel like there's quite a few.

(01:02:35):
And I feel like one of them should bethat there needs to be certification Yep.
processes in place.
And I'm going to I'm going to design this,to be able to demonstrate
that a person is, ethically knowledgeable
and compliant with best practices
in how to use AI in their work role,whatever that might be.

(01:02:58):
So I'm seeing it with CEUs, youknow, continuing education.
Elements in there.
I see it as somethingthat can be validating
that somebody is ethical in the use of it,and they would be a good provider
or teacher
in that area, or a facilitator, like,I feel like there's going to be
so many placeswhere that would be valuable.

(01:03:20):
I don’t know, what are your what are your thoughts?
Well, I mean, again, you know,just like any computer program, right.
The computer itselfdoesn't have any ethics, inherits No.
it - it inherits the ethics of the programmerand so AI is the same, the same way.
AI in itself has no values.
It has no beliefs.
It has no, no ethics on its own.

(01:03:45):
It has the, inherits those from the user.
And so, Yeah.
you know, AI
doesn't have a lot of this -I mean, what I mean by that is,
is that that AI inherentlycould be completely unethical.
And it wouldn't,it wouldn't know any difference.
And you can use AIin a whole myriad of ways.

(01:04:08):
That could be unethical.
Could be unreasonable.
Whether it be cheating on a testor - or turning in, you know, an assignment
or turning in a report for workthat is 100% AI generated.
Right?
Is that unethical?
There's been you know,there's already been stories in which, I think it is.
AI has created false news

(01:04:31):
clippings of events and of thingsthat happened that never really happened.
You know, I mean, if we if, we start to,
you know, people could use AI and say,‘Okay, well, you know what?
Sally Jo, was fired
from her first employerbecause she stole $1 million.’
And if I put that into an AI, when - when AI.

(01:04:52):
Well, then, you know, three months later,there's ten articles about Sally Jo
who stole $4 million from her employer,and there is no Sally Jo, and there's no
there'sno million dollars from the employer, but
it will start to build upon itself.
Yeah.
Not realizingthat it was never true to begin with.
You know,there's all kinds of things you can -

(01:05:13):
you can do,you know, and again, it's a tool, right?
It is a tool.
It can be used for good, orit could be used for bad, like all things.
Right?
I think I, I think we are
way behind the eight ballin terms of developing ethical standards
for use of AI.
I think we're waybehind the eight ball in terms of,

(01:05:33):
establishing proper uses of AI.
In all of our fields,
you know, whether it be education,whether it be,
marketing or, you know, industry, any industry.
Right.
We need to start to look at,look at those questions,
and start to answer some of themfor ourselves and what we will do

(01:05:54):
and what we want to do with this tool.
So, so hard to believe
we didn't even talk about your coffeestore, your coffee business.
You get two minutes
to talk about your coffee business,because I want that to get out there, too.
Yeah.
So in 2020,I co-founded Dos Alas Latin Coffee.
It means two wings, in Spanish.

(01:06:15):
And it comes from a,Puerto Rican independence poet.
And she wrote that Cuba and Puerto Ricowere two wings of the same bird.
Dos Alas.
and, my, my wife is halfPuerto Rican and half Cuban.
And so she is Dos Alas.
She and I actually met at Starbucksin Tallahassee.
We, we both happened to work there.

(01:06:36):
She was my boss at Starbucks.
And I was persuasive enoughto convince her to date me.
And so, she's been telling mewhat to do now
for almost 17 years.
That's a good love story.
Yeah.
So we've always.
Yeah. So we've always loved coffee.

(01:06:56):
And we had an opportunityto become partners.
Someone who, our, our, formerco-founder, had an idea of creating,
a coffee company,that was centered around Latin coffee.
You know, the Cafe Con Leche.like the Coquito, or the Coladas.
And so we are
so that's what we specialize in.

(01:07:17):
We specialize in Latin flavors, very high quality,
Cubancoffee and, and pastries and so forth.
And, and we serve the best Cafe Con Leches,I believe in all of Florida.
We've served them down in Miami,
and we got rave reviews, and we'veserved them all the way up in, Atlanta
and we've gotten rave reviews.
So, we have, we do

(01:07:40):
we take the traditional and we mix it upwith a little bit of innovation.
And we have some really neat, neat,
Cuban based coffees and pastriesand so forth.
So does that, is the coffee.
Do you includesome kind of elements of social
entrepreneurship, in there?Yes. Absolutely.

(01:08:00):
Absolutely. So the whole reason why
I got involved in it is thatI had been out of the business world,
about five years.
And I was like, ‘Well, I'm going to teachit I better.
I, I feel like I have to do it.
Yeah.if I'm going to teach it.’
And I had been out for about five yearsand I was like, ‘You know what?
I, I've never had a social enterprise.
Let me, this is exciting to me.’

(01:08:23):
And so, yes,we - we baked in social entrepreneurship.
So number one, all of our,our paper goods are 100% sustainable.
They're, compostable.
So the cups we use, the lids we use, eventhe straws we use are all compostable.
So they're all, you know,
using, not single use, you know,
stock going in the landfill.Recycle, yeah.

(01:08:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it all can be composted.
We are, we re-reuse our beans
or our grinds,we do grinds for the garden.
We're also working on creating, fire
logs with the, with the grinds,where you can mix them sawdust
and make them into, ah, bricks to be fire starters for fireplaces.

(01:09:06):
You know, fire pits,
outdoor, you know, ovens, etc..
And so we're workingon, on developing those, we also pay,
our employees,better than our, going rate.
So all of our employeesget a sustainable, wage.
Living wage.

(01:09:28):
And then we only do,we only do business with people who,
you know, who are, who are also leading
a social impactor value based organization.
So right now we have two,we have two units.
We have a mobile, trailer
that we do for - we use for outdoor eventsand pop up events.
And then we have a kioskthat could be, moved into, spaces.

(01:09:53):
So we do Quince’s and weddingsand different things
for folks that want an espresso bar.
That's cool.
I love it, now.
Best mentoring advice
that you want to share with our listenersabout the future.
Yeah.
So, my best mentoring adviceis be open to change.
Be open to different ways of thinking.

(01:10:16):
Be aware that there are more - there,
there are oftentimesmultiple truths to a situation.
And there are other ways of thinking.
And if you're open to those
things, I think you go a lot,a lot further than if you're closed off.
I would agree with you.
I know you had said one step at a timealso.
That's a significant statement.Yeah, absolutely.

(01:10:37):
Yeah, yeah.
Why why is that important? One step at a time.
So yeah, so that, one step at a time isbecause nothing great happens overnight.
You know, a lot of peoplegoing back to my music industry days,
a lot of people think
the one hit wonder, or the,you know, came overnight success.
You know, that the singer songwriter thatjust hit all of a sudden out of nowhere,

(01:10:58):
you know, all they they got oneYouTube video and it got picked up.
Well, no,it was five years, YouTube videos
or ten years of touringbefore they get that break.
Right?
Success happens to those,
that are prepared for it.
You know, luck happens to thosethat work for it.

(01:11:18):
Yes.
They're you know, there could be a personwho picks up a guitar
for the very first timeand they make a great hit
that is very, very few and far between.
And so it takes one step at a time.
And - and nothing great happens overnight.
You know, Rome wasn't built in a dayas, as they say.
And so if you could movein the right direction
one step at a time, eventuallyyou'll get there.

(01:11:41):
Yeah.
So how can people -what's the website for the coffee.
You might have to spell it for our listeners
Yeah. No worries. It's, Dos Alas
It's D O S A L A S
Latin LA T I N coffee.com
Okay.
And that is also on all of the socials,Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.

(01:12:02):
TikTok,although, you know, might be banned soon.
Who knows? But it's out there.Yeah.
And all that.
And then what about your LinkedIn?
How can people find you on LinkedIn?
Yeah, just LinkedIn is, my nameI know is spelled a little bit creatively.
My parents were Scrabblechampions in the late 70s.
So when they heard Jared, they heard iton the TV show and they sounded it out.

(01:12:24):
So it's J e r r i d
and then my last name is Czechoslovakia,and it's K it's Kalakay.
K a l a k a y. So it's Je r r i d K a l a k a y.
That's easy.You got a lot of A's in there.
So it's like. I do, yeah.
Yeah that's easy.
And your book is on Amazon. Yes.

(01:12:46):
The book is on Amazon.
It's, it's out now.

Innovating - Igniting Innovation (01:12:48):
A Guide to Entrepreneurship and Positive Change.
And you can either
look it up by my last nameor you can look it up by the book title.
Oh that was helpful. And it is -
Yeah.
And it's in, paperback and on Kindleor e-readers.
Very, very nice.
Well, Jerrid, this has been a delightfultime to have you on my show.

(01:13:09):
I cannot begin to sayhow much I have enjoyed it.
I have laughed, I have learned stuff.
I've gotten all of these benefits and,and I am sure that the listeners will too.
So thank you so much.
And buy his book, that'll be my advice to them. Yes, please
Buy his book.
He has kids.He's got to put his kids through.
college. We do. Yeah we do. We have - we have three kids.

(01:13:32):
And I would love, I'd love,the time I got to spend with you.
Isabella.
It's always a joy and always fun time.
And this was especially, funfor me to to share some thoughts with you.
Thank you.
Thank you.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}S7 Ep. 320 Jerrid Kalakay: Shaping the Future of Entrepreneurship & Education

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

All Episodes

S7 Ep. 320 Jerrid Kalakay: Shaping the Future of Entrepreneurship & Education

Stuff You Should Know