Entrepreneurs: Grow or Fold-A Midline Playbook for Reinvention with Matt Ross & Ken Dashow + Others

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following is a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Is the difference between the life you have and the
life you want. Just one decision you've been avoiding.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Ramping up your business. The time is near. You've given
it hard, Now get it in gear. It's Passage to
Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
I'm Richard Gearhart, I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, and we're your house.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Welcome to the Passage to Profit Show, the Road to
Entrepreneurship podcast. We're with Matt Ross, who is the founder
of the One River School and he's also the former
CEO of the School of Rock. He's also an author
and a commentator as well. So welcome to the show,
Mack you. And in addition, we have Ken Dashau from

(00:52):
Q one oh four point three, the Rock of New York.

Speaker 4 (00:56):
Not that guy again.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Ken is just the rock of New York radio. So
he's absolutely amazing. He was the one who introduced us
to Matt and they go way back, and so we
invited him to be on the show to maybe expose
a few of Matt's skeletons during this interview.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
And as if that's not enough, Eleanor Kobaki is the
founder and CEO of EFK Group. All I have to
say is go to her website. You've never seen a
website like this before in your life. Talk about cutting
edge of marketing. Wow. We got to hear from her,
and then Antonia Tameyo, who we dearly love with Antonia's promise,
who has made huge strides in her business in just

(01:33):
the last couple of months. We just really want to
catch up with her.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
So you may know that you can clone yourself with AI,
but can you control it? We'll talk about that later,
but first it's time for your new business journey. We'd
like to ask our panel, when you look back, what
was the one decision or moment that changed the trajectory
of your business and what did it cost you to
make that decision. Welcome to the show, Matt, Good to

(01:57):
have you here. What was the one decision that you
made change the trajectory of your business?

Speaker 5 (02:01):
I love that question. So as we were building one
river school I mentioned earlier, we opened one in Anglewood
September twenty twelve. I'm gonna actually kind of break it
down into three moments, but it's kind of part and
parcel of the same logic. I said, I was going
to prove concept with the first school and not open
anymore if I couldn't do it. Well, we got that

(02:23):
first one done and then we opened. We went from
one to fifteen and three years and then COVID. So
the one decision that I made was when we went
into that COVID window, don't run out of cash, jump
all in with full body, stabilize the business, but to
use this window of time where we theoretically couldn't open

(02:45):
a whole lot more schools to dramatically improve how we
did every aspect of our business. So while that was
a very strange time for everyone, we used that COVID
window and the two years thereafter to refine every operational
component of our business. So now we're prepared to scale,
we're starting to franchise, we've built cash resources and reserves,

(03:08):
and we're in a better place than we've ever been.
So sometimes people get that bug to grow, grow, grow,
Sometimes no, you want to get to a certain trajectory,
pause and refine, refine and learn and learn before you
push play on that hockey stick.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Growth perfect. Thank you, Ellen ar Kabaki, Welcome to the show.
What was the one decision that you made that changed
the trajectory of your business?

Speaker 6 (03:35):
For me, it's a mentality of always looking at things
from a positive perspective and saying yes.

Speaker 7 (03:41):
I got a phone call.

Speaker 6 (03:42):
Was about fifteen years ago, and you guys probably remember
Prince Tennis, and we got a call from them to
do their packaging, and they gave us a really low
ball number to design their packaging and we sat I
remember being in my office and thinking, oh my god, gosh,
it's just so below market value. And I said, but

(04:03):
you know what, my daughter's playing tennis and this is
the premiere tennis brand. I said yes, And for me,
that led us to doing the global rebrand. Within that year,
we got to do a global rebrand for Prints Sports.
And for me, I've always taken those opportunities. And sometimes

(04:25):
you feel a little pressure because you know, during you know,
different times of growth, sometimes it's hard to take those
opportunities where you know for a fact you will lose money.
But I have found that almost always when I'm so
committed and passionate about whether it's a brand, a service,
a person, that if I believe in it. It doesn't
really matter what the dollar amount is. It's really about

(04:47):
what you can build together and taken those shots. I'm
always wanting to take those shots. If someone has an idea,
come bring it to me, because I love ideas and
I love.

Speaker 7 (04:56):
Branding them and bringing them to market.

Speaker 6 (04:58):
So for me, that was a really big time learning
point for me to see your something that you create
as an agency all throughout the world. It was really beautiful.
So that for me was a big one.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, that sounds huge. And sometimes playing the long game
can make a difference, right, you know, especially if they understand, well,
this is like a one time thing, this is a
get to know you kind of project and doing a
little favor for them and sometimes, you know, take you
to bigger and better things. Absolutely, Antonia Tamayo, what's the
one decision that you made that changed the trajectory of

(05:31):
your business?

Speaker 8 (05:32):
Back in January of twenty twenty four, I was invited
to podfast by yourself and your wife, and I was
introduced to the idea of having my own podcast, and
you know, I was like me out of all people,
and you guys would like yeah, And I started my
own podcast and I absolutely love it, and it's opened

(05:55):
so many tremendous stores. For me, I get emotional because
every time I come here it's like the first time
for me, and I never take it for granted. And
a lot of the things that you said today, the
both of you resonate with me, right because it speaks
truth about being a true entrepreneur. But for me having
my own podcast, not only have I met amazing people,

(06:18):
but I love radio and I always have. But it's
changed so much and it's what helped me launch my
jewelry line. That's what did it, and that was a
big turning point for me.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
You're a natural antony. You are so you you belong
on the airwaves for sure.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
Elizabeth, Well, it was actually kind of a combination of
something that you and I did together before COVID. We
talk about this, Yes, we could talk about this, so
I know Matt made me think about this. This isn't
even gonna be my answer today. But before COVID, Richard
and I were coming into the iHeart studios every single
week and recording our show at iHeart every single week,

(06:56):
and then when COVID hit, we're like, well, we don't
want to give that, so we had a conference room
with a couple of mics. It wasn't very good. So
Noah was like, what am I supposed to do with this?
Like this sound is terrible. I don't know why I
want to put this on the radio. But Richard went
out and figured it out and bought well, he didn't
go out, he ordered from Amazon, but like super good,

(07:20):
high quality sound equipment and cameras, and we set up
a studio in one of the many unused proofs in
the law firm during COVID right and started recording the
podcast on Zoom but with super high quality equipment. And
that really was a change because now we do do
some of these we use riverside. Now we do some

(07:42):
episodes on riverside, so we get people from LA who
are really high powered, who don't want to make the
trip into New York right now, and from all over
the country. Yeah, but we switched and COVID forced to
switch from just in person to sometimes in person, sometimes
on zoom, and that really has made a huge difference.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
Thank you for that. For myself, one of the things
that's been lately changing the trajectory of our business. Gearhart
Law specializing in intellectual property, patents, trademarks and copyrights. Was
we hired a new management team. So before I was
managing the law firm, and I'm a lawyer, I'm not
really a manager. So we got some people in who

(08:22):
are fractional CEO in and a fractional CFO and a
fractional COO and Elizabeth has always been the CMO, and
so that's the sort of an interim chief executive officer,
a financial officer operations person. And they've really started to
change things and they're doing stuff that I used to

(08:42):
have to do, and that frees up time for me
to screw around and serve the Internet. No, I go
out and develop business and think strategically and all those kinds.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
And you've been doing it for twenty years almost I have.
In a couple of months, it'll be twenty years.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Twenty years. Yeah, it's time for a break, isn't it.
Time to screw around a little bit anyway, So that's
it for your new business journey. Now it's time for
our featured guests. Matt Ross, who is the founder of
the One River School and he's also the former CEO
of the School of Rock. He's also an author and

(09:17):
a commentator as well, So welcome to the show. Thank you,
very nice to have you here. You were the CEO
of School of Rock. So the most important question we
all want to know is did you ever meet Jack Black?

Speaker 5 (09:30):
No, but I met his alter ego, a guy named
Paul Green, And actually Paul Green was the human that
that character was based on, and he was the founder
of School of Rock.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
No kidding. So how did you get involved with School
of Rock?

Speaker 5 (09:44):
Great questions? So I was in radio at the time,
trying to figure an exit plan out of radio? Why
not because I hate radio because I did it twenty
years and I sort of needed to try something different.
I was managing musicians and an artist that I was
managing texted me one day and said, how'd you like
to be the CEO of School of Rock? And I
thought my career was over because I'm getting job leads

(10:05):
from my struggling musician who I thought was teaching in
someone's living room. As it turned out, they had five schools,
they were out of money, and they needed a leader
to help stabilize the business and scale it. And it
was right for me.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
How many schools do they have now?

Speaker 5 (10:20):
Four hundred?

Speaker 2 (10:21):
IU Rocking going on.

Speaker 5 (10:25):
Yeah, we and you know, like most companies growth the
curs and phases, my phase was the stabilized, raise capital,
build credibility, and really begin to scale to prove concept.
So we got it from five to fifty five and
three years we had another fifty under contract, and then
the recession hit in two thousand and nine. You pause,

(10:45):
you push pause, stabilize again, raise new capital, and I
left in twenty ten.

Speaker 4 (10:52):
Wow, So I did.

Speaker 5 (10:53):
I did what I was supposed to do with that brand.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
It's a great business model. First of all, you've got
this killer movie leading the way. And then every kid
wants to be a rock star, right for sure? Ken
Dashau from Q one oh four point three, The Rock
of New York? Ken, did you want to be a
rock star?

Speaker 4 (11:10):
You know it's weird.

Speaker 9 (11:11):
I love musicians and I play, but as a little
kid on the radio hearing that happy voice play the
Beatles for me, for whatever reason, I always thought I
would love to do that. I would love to be
that person in your ear making your day better. It's
made me happy listening to the radio. And that was
the AM days. So I was the guy spitting all

(11:31):
the plates like a played act. I was writing plays.
I was built a high school radio station. I was
doing comedy, I was doing stand up, I was writing plays,
I was acting. I was doing everything and loved it all.
But it's scrambling, and radio just seemed like the door
opened wider. There seventeen years at the station, I grew
up listening to WAWFM, and when that collapsed, this other

(11:55):
station that had been the classical station in New York
Q one oh four point three it was wqa ARE
Classical said maybe rock isn't finished, and they kind of
cherry picked their favorite DJs. And Matt Ross was the
GM at the time, who said to programming, I want
Kenny to do afternoons. I hear what it's supposed to
sound like. True, you always have to have an angel.

(12:17):
You have to have somebody who is your cheerleader, who
takes that chance on you. And like anything, it's especially
true in acting and in the arts, but I think
in any business, when somebody gives you the opportunity, that's
the luck, but you have to have at the skill
set to deliver.

Speaker 5 (12:33):
He paid me ten thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
But that's in ten dollars installments. Well, when we were
talking before the show. You said that you had to
go approach the program director with this suggestion. And back
in those days, program directors were king. They really didn't
take suggestions from the GM.

Speaker 5 (12:52):
Right, if you're the GM of a baseball team, you're
not sending messages to the manager on the field. They
want to manage their players and put them in the
positions that they see fit, and so the program department
they don't want the GM, who's typically the business guy
or gal, telling them who to put on the air
and when. But our guy, Bob Buckman was new to
us from Long Island. He was at BAB. He was

(13:14):
trying to work with me to build the brand. He
was really open and flexible and different, and he saw
the same thing at Kenny.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
So did you guys know each other?

Speaker 5 (13:22):
Kenny Nice?

Speaker 9 (13:23):
Yeah, no, no, no, we met at work, you know,
at work as my boss, and we've been lifelong friends
because we kind of see life the same way as
a series of opportunities and doing your best.

Speaker 4 (13:36):
You know, why have I had this luck?

Speaker 9 (13:38):
April First, it'll be got twenty eight years on the
air here at Q one or four point three, which
in radio years is like a thousand. But I understand
that my job is to be entertaining and be on
the air, but the other part of my job is
to help the salespeople sell what I do. And there
are artists in their DJs who I don't want to

(13:58):
know anything about that don't talk to.

Speaker 4 (14:00):
Me, which I don't know.

Speaker 9 (14:02):
I don't think it works if you're living on an island.
Do I go on sales calls? Do I make videos
every single week? Because if they can't sell it, it
doesn't matter what I do.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
I mean, there's the art side and there's the business side, right,
and they both have to be there for the art
to be hurt. Right.

Speaker 4 (14:18):
One of the things in School of Rock and I
don't know.

Speaker 9 (14:20):
I mean, they're teaching how to play and it's wonderful,
but it's called the music business.

Speaker 4 (14:25):
It's called show business, and.

Speaker 9 (14:27):
As challenged as you want to be, the other part
of the word is very very.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
Important, absolutely, And so that's what you're doing now with
one really school.

Speaker 10 (14:36):
Right.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
It's a school for creative education and it's one of
the only private schools that does that.

Speaker 5 (14:42):
So I left School of Rock. It was twenty ten,
had a lot going on personally, and now I had
this gap professionally. I wrote a book about this recently
and came out called Grow or Fold, And it was
for me a pivot point to make a bet on myself.
And the idea here was how come there were no
cool art schools my neighborhood. I didn't know that I'd
open a lot of them, but I just thought I

(15:03):
would do one in Englewood, New Jersey, one river from
New York, take some of that city culture and bring
it to the burbs and see if I could translate
what we did from school rock into art and design education.
And at work we have fifteen now and we're going
to scale it.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
So what are the age of the people that are
in your school in.

Speaker 5 (15:22):
Terms of students all ages? We started pre K and
we go to senior citizens, sign me up.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
Now what kind of projects do you do?

Speaker 5 (15:31):
So we wrote our own curriculum, and so if you
sign up, you don't take like that semester class and
charcoal drawing. You jump in and you take a class
called art Shuffle, which means it's project based in every month,
new project. We changed the medium, we changed the subject matter,
the reference artists, so it doesn't get dull and stale

(15:52):
and boring, or you could take a focus class focus
on painting. With drawing, we could take you into one medium.
We have digital art classes, animation, all sorts of things,
pre college programs, summer camps. So there really is a
broad menu of class types that we've created with our
own lesson plans that we wrote ourselves. So from an
IP standpoint, we own all of this intellectual property. It's

(16:16):
unique to us and it's so.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
Proud of it, very valuable.

Speaker 9 (16:19):
One of the things I was going to say about
Matt's book that I love about Grower Fold It's not
just a raw, raw book.

Speaker 4 (16:26):
It's not Hey, you can do this.

Speaker 9 (16:27):
If you want to make a change midlife and get
out of the corporate world and start your own business,
you can do it. It's a workbook that goes through
the steps of what you have to think about your
personal Are you risk averse?

Speaker 4 (16:39):
How much risk are you willing to take?

Speaker 9 (16:41):
If you want to start a business and you're passionate,
do you do your research?

Speaker 4 (16:45):
And the thing I love the most.

Speaker 9 (16:47):
Mad about your book is that at the end it
says do this workbook.

Speaker 4 (16:50):
It's an actual work book.

Speaker 9 (16:51):
Answer these questions and in the end you may find
out this is absolutely not right for me. You know,
it's not just telling you you can do it, it's
saying if you want to look this through, And that
is the most helpful thing I can think of. If
somebody wants to try it, not just say go for it, dude.

Speaker 5 (17:07):
You know, when I was young, we didn't put the
twenty five year old entrepreneur, you know, on a pedestal
kind of didn't exist.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Like right now, if you're not wearing a hoody, you
can't be an entrepreneur, right.

Speaker 5 (17:20):
The folks who changed it were really like I.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
Got a new AI.

Speaker 5 (17:27):
If you think about it, Microsoft and Apple had a
lot to do with changing that culture, as did Google
and stuff because there was this premium for coders and
young folks who grew up with that. We didn't grow
up with it, and that whole ecosystem grew up. But
from my perspective, being an entrepreneur at fifty, which was
when I launched One River, I was kind of now

(17:49):
really really well prepared and I could take the risk economically,
and I was betting on myself because I had to,
meaning I wasn't going to work for anyone else at
that point.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
So do you ever run across entrepreneurs who make that
leap and it doesn't go quite as quickly as they
would like, and then they sort of now start drifting
into other things. And do you have advice for them?
I mean, how to because maybe you try something and
it doesn't land right away. What are kind of like

(18:22):
some of the next steps.

Speaker 5 (18:24):
That's a complex question because I think everyone has their
own case study.

Speaker 4 (18:29):
Right.

Speaker 5 (18:29):
Are they drifting because their product fit is not right?
Are they drifting because they are not doing it well?
Are they drifting because they have bills and pressure and
this is not yielding the cash flow that they needed
to make their ends meet?

Speaker 4 (18:44):
You know?

Speaker 5 (18:45):
So I think it's you know, generally speaking, it's about
cash first, first and foremost. You need three and four
times what you think you need if you're going to
be successful in entrepreneurship. Because nobody's a straight line to success.
It always takes double or triple longer and double a
triple the dough. So the only way you can fight

(19:06):
through that is have to have some sponsorship, maybe have
some other side money coming in. When I launched One River,
I actually had two consulting projects and I did that
to keep cash coming in the door, take a little
pressure off me, extend the time it took to be successful,
because we also have these artificial goals like it's too

(19:28):
it's never as fast as you think it's going to
be familiar, saying.

Speaker 9 (19:33):
Yeah, you know, in trying to get plays and things done,
I'm helping a friend now trying to bring a successful
winning play in England bringing it to America when the
bath is there and I said, you think it'll be
up next fall? He said, no, maybe by twenty nine.
And I realized that the timeline of building a show

(19:54):
to get to Broadway, we're even off Broadway, have to
put putting a down payment on this theater. If and
when it comes up rehearsals casting, you have the lead,
but you didn't get the theater. Well, the lead fell
through because he got a movie. That the timeline that
you think that you want to have happened in your head,
like building a house from scratch. And when those people

(20:14):
say we'll be in by Christmas, not this Christmas.

Speaker 4 (20:19):
But it's you know, to me.

Speaker 9 (20:22):
The thing I take away from Matt's book, and I
think for any business, for any of us, is that
if it's assume it's not going to happen on the
timeline that you would like, And again, how are you
going to keep it going in the interim.

Speaker 4 (20:36):
If it's a good idea, it'll catch on.

Speaker 5 (20:38):
I'm want to add one more point to that, also,
what's happening in your personal life. So if you've got
a really good, stable personal life, and if you've got
good support from a spouse or partner, it makes it
infinitely easier if you don't have critical challenges outside of
you know, your household, like parents and kids with struggles.
And I had all of that, you know, but at

(20:59):
fifty had pretty solid skill set. So for me, I
didn't worry about being successful. I just knew I had
to do it and I would learn the space, the
art education space over time, hire experts in that space,
and facilitate. And I look at like people who run businesses,
the probably facilitation is the thing you do the most,

(21:22):
because you need to do what you do best and
get a whole bunch of other people who do all
these other things better than you if you're going to
be successful.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
I'm just sitting here running lists of things.

Speaker 3 (21:34):
I want to make a comment about Ken because it's
really interesting. You don't just sit back and play records
all day on your slot on Q one oh four
point three, the Rock of New York. You have the
three at three. I love the three at three.

Speaker 4 (21:47):
Oh thank you.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
I didn't get to catch it yesterday. If nobody's heard it.
At three o'clock, he plays three songs that have to
do with something going on in the news, and it
might just be like one word from each song or something.
And then you have people and try to guess right.

Speaker 9 (22:01):
And the reason I built that, and again, it's fun
to do, but I built it with a purpose of
what can we do for a workday that can orient people.
We call that sort of appointment listening is the phrase
we use in radio, and my favorite is, hey, Ken,
you know that's our coffee break. We all stop in
the office at three o'clock and we all try to guess.
There's a plumber who says I always say, oh, I

(22:23):
left a tool I need. I go out to my
truck at three to do it because that's their break
in the day. I do a live song at five o'clock.
We call it live at five. It's not that complicated,
but people use it as a tool.

Speaker 4 (22:37):
Ken.

Speaker 9 (22:37):
If I'm not on the George Washington Bridge. By the
time you do live at five, I'm screwed. I'm not
going to get home in time for dinner. And that's
what radio can do. It it's best and you keep
it fun. But you take the concept of what will
be of great value to the audience. We'll be entertaining,
but also will help us with listenership. That then sales
can go out and have it sponsored.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
So you took a medium where people thought they knew
everything and had done and everything already, and you created
something brand new in it. And I think you created
community around that because people are calling you all the time.

Speaker 4 (23:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (23:09):
Look, we started this thing called Breakfast with the Beatles,
and you know this goes back twenty four or five years.
And I had said to our program director, it's the
anniversary of them coming to America. What if I this
Sunday morning is I did a Sunday morning show too?
I said, what if I played some Beatles? And Bob said,
play all Beatles, like like two hours a beatle, Like, yeah,

(23:30):
play beat old Beatles. So I did it, and I
came in Monday and he said, did you play all Beatles?
And I thought you told me too. He said, we
have never gotten so many emails, so many quests. They said,
when are you going to do it again? I said,
I'll do it next year. And here's here's brilliance. When
he said how about next week? And I said really,
he said why not? And I did it next week

(23:52):
And it's been twenty five years now. And the thing is,
if you take a chance and it works, you know,
don't look past that.

Speaker 5 (24:00):
I thought there because nowadays everything, so much of your
success is all also tied to how well you manage
your website and the user experience online. And we've all
heard maybe we haven't about ab testing, you know, so
in effect, that was just a test. It was they
tested something, and it was an a we're going to

(24:21):
try this or we're going to be we're going to
continue to do it the old way that we were
doing it, and now it worked, so they jumped into
that pathway. And I think entrepreneurship requires that all the time.
If you're not testing, measuring, resetting, iterating, testing again, you
can't get to a different place.

Speaker 4 (24:43):
Is that how you did it with School of Rock?

Speaker 10 (24:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (24:45):
I think almost every business that I've run over my career,
there's always been test. But nowadays. What's different, Kenny, is
all of the data sets that you get through online traffic,
through people responding, through you getting emails, through you getting inquiries.
So it requires the analytics because we would do so

(25:08):
much by gut. Yeah, you know, we didn't have the analytics. Right,
Bob's gut was hey, and it wasn't gut. There was
a data point. The phones rang off the hook, right,
that's a data point. Nowadays it would be how long
a duration with the calls, how many which hours did
they come in, how many you know, how many went
to the website.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
And the other thing too is there's not the stigma
associated with failure. Now you're supposed to fail. Right when
I was a kid growing up, if you failed, that
was a black mark against you. But now the culture
has changed, so it's okay to make a mistake and
correct course.

Speaker 5 (25:40):
And it's testing trials. There is another term we use.
And you know, like when Nike comes out with new
sneaker style, you know, they may not produce seven million
copies of that one. They may test it in a
market in a few stores, get a little feedback, change
the design. Again, people don't know that, but it's kind

(26:02):
of how products evolve over time.

Speaker 3 (26:04):
Well, Richard's been doing a deep dive into our YouTube videos.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
And oh my god, talk about analytical data. You can
watch the places where they drop off, for.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
Sure, Elizabeth, you start talking, they all laugh.

Speaker 5 (26:18):
I've been that paralyzed information.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
You can sometimes much.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
So you talk a little bit about in your book
about dysfunctional safety zone. What does that? And since we're
sort of on this topic of trial and error.

Speaker 5 (26:33):
Okay, we're going to do a fun experiment right now.
I want all of you to tell me the five
or six things that frustrate you the most about your
life that you're just stuck on right now.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
Go, I'm kidding, it's only an hour long show.

Speaker 5 (26:50):
How often do you sit with people and they go
from A to B, two C to D and all
these things, and then you sit with them.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Isn't that what your spouse is for?

Speaker 10 (26:58):
Though?

Speaker 5 (26:58):
I mean, and you sit and you go through all
these ideas that you because you want to help them.
You're the empathy in you. They're a friend, they're you know,
a soulmate, and then they tell you every reason why
they can't do any of them. So, in some way,
this dysfunctional safe zone is we stay where we are

(27:20):
in life because making change seems scarier, even though what
you just told me is a pathway to probably more
decline over time. If you don't make it, people have
to completely, like fall hard sometimes to make change happen,
because then it's like they've got nothing to lose. My
premise is very simply that this dysfunctional safe zone is

(27:44):
a moment for us to reflect our own self awareness.
I have been where I am now for the last
two years complaining about the same things. Why haven't I
changed any of them? Why haven't I improved any of them?
Is it because I don't know what it is? How
to do? Need the help, need the impetus, I'm scared,
so we wind up staying where we are, and you

(28:07):
have one life to live.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
I think it's about the illusion of safety.

Speaker 4 (28:12):
There is the illusion of safety.

Speaker 5 (28:14):
It's the illusion of safety. But like if you have
something like we'll call it a bubbling up a medical issue,
and you don't go do the testing, that bubbling up
medical issue gets worse. There's no safety because your blood
pressures off the chart and you haven't gone for the
proper tests. And that's just one example. It could be
personal health professional. You name it. So I just think

(28:38):
there's something about human nature where I didn't. I don't
have this. I've always been attacking myself to a fault,
and it's part of the resilience entrepreneurship. But I came
live my whole life in a dysfunctional world that I
had to self navigate. So it built some muscles to
quickly diagnose broken stuff and push through it. Sometimes push

(29:01):
too fast, too hard. So I had the opposite piece.

Speaker 3 (29:04):
So does your book help people do it?

Speaker 5 (29:06):
Does? It does?

Speaker 10 (29:07):
So?

Speaker 5 (29:07):
I've worked through a program where you can actually diagnose first,
you know, self awareness, Where are you at, what's the
current state? It's strategy like we do in business. The
concept is to treat yourself like a business.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
So what is the name of your book?

Speaker 5 (29:23):
Grow or Fold, Transform Yourself in Midlife and Beyond?

Speaker 3 (29:27):
Can? Is it on Amazon?

Speaker 5 (29:28):
It's on Amazon, It's on every bookstore.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
We're here with Matt Ross, who's the founder of the
One River School and former CEO of School of Rock,
along with Ken Dashau from Q one oh four point
three The Rock of New York. I mean, it's been
absolutely amazing. A couple more questions for you. Talk about
rediscovering creativity and passion. That's something both of you I
think can speak to Ken.

Speaker 9 (29:50):
The one question people you say, you're playing the same
songs all these years, how do you still stay so
passionate about it? Because as an actor is a performer.
I still remember the excitement of hearing it for the
first time. I remember hearing buying this album. I remember this,
I remember that that passion for it. And how do
you do eight shows a week on Broadway? That matinee

(30:12):
on Wednesday? That is just a killer for every performer
in the crew, but the people in the audience that's
the first time they're seeing it. You know, a ballplayer,
how do you get out on that field when it's
the last thing you feel like doing today.

Speaker 4 (30:25):
Your wife's going through a thing, And we.

Speaker 9 (30:28):
All have that, whether you're a star or just you know,
driving a bus, whatever, But if you can get up
and do it and do your best, And that's what
I try to bring whatever's going on in my head.
I've always known since as a kid. You leave that
outside the studio door when I walk in. When I
walk in, it's not about sharing my problems. The only
time I would talk about something in my personal life

(30:50):
is this. If it's a funny story and some crazy
thing happened to me, that's a shared experience with the audience.
But otherwise I'm there to make your day a little
bit better. And that's always always looked at it is
that if this music and I can say something and
say something interesting or fun I did my two bits.

Speaker 4 (31:08):
For the day.

Speaker 3 (31:09):
You are pretty funny sometimes.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
But if you're working with your passion. I know this
is overstated, but if you're working with your passion, it's
an easier place to go back to because you're passionate
about what you're doing. You're passionate about your audience, and
you're passionate about your music, and so that gives you
the fuel to get to the next phase where you

(31:32):
can put all the other stuff because it's a lower
priority at.

Speaker 4 (31:34):
Least Richard, it's right now.

Speaker 9 (31:37):
I'm in my sixties and get together every year with
some old friends and the discussions always when are you
going to retire? And friends are like two years, three months.
I got seven weeks and they say to me, you
ever think about retiring? Like yeah, it's why I wake
up in a cold sweat in the middle of the
night and That's what I say to all the young
people here at iHeart in New York. That thing that's
your passion, that that video you want to work on.

(31:58):
You don't care if you sleep till four in the morning.

Speaker 4 (32:01):
Do that.

Speaker 9 (32:02):
Yes, And that's and when you're twenty or twenty one,
it's easier to do. When you're fifty five, it's harder.
But that was my takeaway from Matt's book, Roll or Fold.
If you have this passion and you see it could work,
you just visualize how it could work, but you don't
know how to get there.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
I mean, you have to get money to pay your bills.
I understand that, But would you do it anyway or
at least a little bit anyway because you like what
you're doing one hundred percent?

Speaker 5 (32:29):
Well, at this stage of my life, obvious.

Speaker 4 (32:31):
On hundred percent. There's a joy to it every day,
speak of which I have to go do that.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Ken has a show, Ken has a real show.

Speaker 4 (32:41):
I put yourself down a real show.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
So that was Ken Dasho of Q one oh four
point three, The Rock of New York. So I was
talking to somebody who's at loose ends. She left her job.
She's in her early sixties, and she's casting about and
I said to her, what is the one thing? Look,
what is your day? Like, what's the one thing you
really want to do when you get up in the morning.
She couldn't think of anything. I'm hoping that she can't

(33:04):
because I tell her I'm doing research, like as soon
as I get up my first cup of tea, Like,
I'm doing research because and I have to exercise. But
I just I'm really driven. What are you driven to do?
And is that something you cover in your book.

Speaker 5 (33:17):
It's kind of a challenge because everyone has their own
sort of personality traits and makeup. Like you, I'm quite driven.
I probably have a to do list that's way too long,
and so for me it's about prioritizing and spending my
time in the right way, doing the right things for
the right amount of time. Are there folks man? You
know they hit different stages of life where they get discouraged.

(33:40):
They may need a consultant or a coach, somebody to
get them over the hump to crystallize the strategy. So
I've used this tool, the Gallop sort of Clifton strainths
finder for years. I recommend everyone look into it. There's
four boxes relationship, strategy, execution, and influence. I'm very high

(34:01):
on strategy and people relationship. But if you're really high
on execution, but you need help on strategy the plan,
then get somebody to help you. The problem is people
don't ask for help. We all have this sort of thing.
I don't want to present that vulnerability. I don't want
to tell people that I'm lost, so I go down

(34:25):
undercover and fake it, you know, And I think that's
the problem. You got to raise your hand. If you
need a plan and you need to help, my book
gives you tools to do it, you still may need
somebody to help you.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
I think everybody needs a coach.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yep, I have completely Yeah, we're with Matt Ross, who
is the founder of the One River School and he's
also the former CEO of the School of Rock. Hey,
if this conversation is firing you up, imagine getting this
kind of insight every single day. Subscribe to our podcast
and leave us a quick review. Follow Passage to Profit

(34:58):
on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok x, and subscribe to our YouTube
channel for bonus content. This is how more entrepreneurs find us.
So share it, post it, and tag it. Let's build
this community together. Passage Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gerhart
will be back after this commercial break.

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Speaker 4 (37:15):
Now back to passage to profit once again.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
Now it is time for live AI use cases business
owners round tables. Everybody gets a chance to say one
way they're using AI and then we all get to
have a discussion about it because it's so important in
changing our society so much right now. So I am
going to start with Matt Ross of One River School

(37:40):
dot com. Matt, what is one way you're using AI?

Speaker 5 (37:43):
So right now we're building a whole new technology suite
to support our business, and we're building an AI service
tool that helps improve the member experience. What it does
is that when people need a quick question answered, as
oppos to them calling our school, going to voicemail, et cetera,
it will activate a sort of service tab that will

(38:09):
answer most of the readily accessible questions. So the customer
experience gets better because they don't have to wait for
email to come back to them or a phone call
to get returned, and so it just simplifies the member
experience on basic customer service questions.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
That is a great way. So Eleanor Kubaki with e
Fkgroup dot com, what is one way you're using AI?

Speaker 7 (38:36):
For us? It is less about one way and every
which way.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
But okay, what's your favorite way? To pick one? We'll
talk about the rest of them after.

Speaker 6 (38:45):
Okay, So my favorite one for me is now right
now is we are adapting to AI agents for all
of our staff. And for me, that's really exciting the possibilities.
And you know, depending upon what some and does that
the agency how and when.

Speaker 7 (39:02):
To use AI agents. So for me, that's very much fun.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
That's the next phase. That's a big one.

Speaker 7 (39:08):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
So Antonia Tamayo with Antonia's promise dot com, what is
one way? Is he laughing over that? It is one way?
You're using AI right.

Speaker 8 (39:16):
Now, honestly to learn. I mean I ask it so
many questions. I learn from it so much. I'm using
it to market, I'm using it to brand myself. I'm
using it to learn. I just had to fill out
this tax certification. I'm like, I don't need an accountant.

Speaker 7 (39:32):
I'll do it myself. Renewed my real estate license on it, like.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
I that was about twenty There's nothing you can't do.
We'll come back to you. So Richard Gearheart with Yourheartlaw
dot com, what's like your favorite way right now or
what did you do this morning with it?

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Well, I didn't really do too much with it this morning,
but I did a lot with it over the week.
We're in the process of trying to acquire another in
a actual property practice, and it's a very complicated process
because they're using different systems, working out the commission structures
for the attorneys, trying to figure out how it's all
going to work. And AI has just been amazing and

(40:13):
it's come up with a lot of ideas and solutions
to problems that I couldn't really think through myself. And
so far the responses have made sense. Right, So you
always worry, well, am I getting bad advice here? But
the fact is is that it's been pretty good on
this topic. I think it does well when you have
a very limited scope of information.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
So for me, Elizabeth Karheart with your media studios, I
put together a website for this particular podcast, and I
had Google Gemini lead me through every step of the way.
But there were things wrong with it. So then I
let it sit and vegetate, you know, because all the
changes have to go through. And then I went to
chat GPT and I said, what's wrong with this website? Well,

(40:56):
there's a whole bit of stuff wrong with it. So
now I'm using chat GPT to fix all the stuff
on the website so that it'll come up higher in
the results for Google. So you know, we've said this
so many times. You can't just use one of these things.
You got to use a bunch of them. But I
would like to open this up, like who thinks that
they love using it or has a really cretic way. Okay, Antonia,
I see you back there.

Speaker 8 (41:17):
I love AIA. I love it so much. And you
had mentioned working on your website, so someone did help
me create my new website, which I love. But I
also taught myself with chat GBT how to now put
an SEO so that people can find me on Google.
And I spent like forty eight to seventy two hours

(41:39):
going through each product that I have and just learning.
And I love that piece of it where it can
teach me how to do it and I don't have
to wait to hire someone to do it and I
could do it myself. And my husband says, it's, you know,
the true mark of an entrepreneur. But whatever it is,
I love it because I feel like I'm a superhero

(41:59):
with it. I can do anything. It really can teach
me just about anything, and I learned very well.

Speaker 3 (42:06):
Yeah you're smart girl. And Eleanor I told you I
would give you a chance to go through the next
million things you're doing. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (42:13):
For us in marketing, AI is a very scary proposition
that has to be taken very seriously.

Speaker 7 (42:21):
I too love.

Speaker 6 (42:22):
AI, absolutely love it, and about a year and a
half ago we made a huge investment and build out
our own software so that we could be ahead of this. However,
you know, there's still a lot of limitations. I sort
of call it the wild wild West, and to just
to be part of that and be you know, present

(42:43):
during this and being able to take it to the
next level with really strong partners has been very life
affirming for me.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
Real AI use cases, business Owners, round Table, Passage to
Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart. We have two more
our entrepreneur interviews. You're going to want to hear these ladies.
It's amazing. We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1 (45:03):
Passage to Profit continues with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
Quick shout out to our friends at KPSEE fourteen fifty
AM and one oh seven point one FM in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Thanks for listening and if you're new here. Passage to
Profit is a top ranked entrepreneurial podcast and radio show
heard in thirty eight markets. It's a place where founders
share what really works now. This is the Intellectual Property

(45:29):
News podcast with Richard Gerhart.

Speaker 3 (45:31):
Who owns your clone?

Speaker 2 (45:33):
Well, the answer may surprise you, and we're not just
talking about biological clones like Dolly the sheep. You remember
she was cloned a long time ago. We're talking about
AI clones, and AI clones are becoming a thing. With
an AI clone, you can appear in videos without being
on camera. You can host live streams, you can set

(45:54):
up customer interactions, they can create content, They can do
all sorts of things.

Speaker 3 (45:59):
Do you own your clone or does the program that
you did it with own it?

Speaker 2 (46:03):
Well, that's a great question, and it's an emerging legal question.
Nobody really knows all the answers yet. But one thing
for sure is you do own your likeness. You own
your face, the way you look, you own your mannerisms,
you own what you say. You know, you own your persona.
But when it comes to creating a clone, it gets

(46:25):
a little bit more difficult. So most of the platforms
that create human clones from AI have models that they
use and they claim ownership of the model, and they
usually want to own the content too, So they own
what you say and what you look like. And you
pay for the privilege of having your clone. And then
if it turns out that they don't like you or

(46:48):
you want to move on to a different company, usually
they want to keep the clone and they can use
that for training, they can use that for creating other clones,
and if you're not careful, they can even use your
personality and likeness as a clone for their own purposes.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
So what did they go bankrupt?

Speaker 2 (47:06):
Well, then you know that's probably most of the AI
clone companies at this point. There's nothing really there that
addresses that issue. You'd have to try to get the
assets somehow, I guess.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
So if I use a company to make my clone,
what are the most harmful and unauthorized uses they can
do with it?

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Well, I mean the big issue right now with clones
is deep fakes, right, and everybody's concerned about somebody getting
access to their AI clone and using it improperly. I mean,
even now, AI is just all over the place. AI
generated videos are all over the place. You can't even
tell what's real and what's not.

Speaker 3 (47:43):
So if someone has your clone, can they use it
for identity theft?

Speaker 2 (47:47):
They could? Absolutely. It's a real issue, and I think
there's a lot of issues that need to be worked
out on the legal side. Society also has to make
some decisions about how all of this is going to work.
It's still the wild West out there, So proceed with
cloning yourself at your own risk.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
So if you purchase software or license software to make
a clone of yourself, is there any way to protect yourself?
Can you get them to change their terms or anything.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
Well maybe if you're like Brad Pitt, you can do it,
but if you're just an ordinary person, it may be
an uphill battle. They have those terms and conditions because
they want to have ownership and they want to protect
their business models. They want to be able to use
that information for training other things. So if you have
an idea or invention, you want to protect the teammate.

(48:37):
Your Heart law helps entrepreneurs turn ideas into protected assets.
You can visit us at learn more about patents dot
com or learn more about trademarks dot com for a
free consultation and practical guides to get you started. Now
it's time for our entrepreneur interviews Elizabeth take it Away.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
Okay, So first onboard is Eleanor Kobaki. She is a
marketing genius. Her website blew me Away. It's efkgroup dot com. Eleanor,
tell us what you're doing in this brand new AI
world that is above and beyond anything I've seen before.

Speaker 6 (49:12):
Yeah, for us, it is an absolute culture and strategy change.
I've had my agency for twenty eight years and there's
been many different iterations of that agency and that's why
we've made it all these years and grown.

Speaker 7 (49:27):
But this time is very, very, very different.

Speaker 6 (49:29):
This is really stripping it all down forgetting everything we
have known and building it back up, which is a
really amazing opportunity to live through.

Speaker 7 (49:39):
And I, like you, was talking.

Speaker 6 (49:42):
About believing and betting on yourself, and I said to myself,
I'm going to change everything I've ever done, and I'm
going to do everything I've ever done very differently.

Speaker 7 (49:51):
And that was really hard to give up that level
of security.

Speaker 6 (49:55):
And you know, I've had success and I've followed a
strategy that has worked consistently through the years, and to
allow that to go to the wayside and then to
bring a whole company with you on what your ideas are,
that has truly been a very different game for me.
And it started about a year and a half ago
when I decided I wasn't going to fight it and

(50:17):
decided that I was going to get on top of it,
get ahead of it, and that started with releasing an
RFP to work with companies to help build a software.

Speaker 3 (50:28):
What's an RFP.

Speaker 6 (50:29):
That's a request for proposal, And in my world everything
you do is done through an RFP. And this is
an opportunity for companies to show you how they can
help you build software, help you launch a product, to
build marketing campaign, so on and so forth. So that's
a mechanism that allows companies to work together. Released an

(50:51):
RFP and came up with what I think is the
next iteration of how AI should work with brands and
marketing agencies to facilitate better results ROI return on investment
for our clients that is based in using AI more
in the sense of media, spend more in the sense

(51:13):
of strategy versus creative or copy, which it isn't there yet.
And so we launched that software about two months ago.
We're right now working with the State of New Jersey
and you know we're in market. We work with universities
and just getting them in that headspace. So for us,
it has been a complete game changer. And I really

(51:34):
believe at the end of the day is that if
you're not willing to commit, then I think there's going
to be a lot of people who aren't here anywhere
from now and that's the hard part.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
Speaking a little bit more generally, you know, there's a
lot going on in the digital revolution, There's a lot
going on in the AI space. Do you have any
thoughts about how people can maintain a healthy balance when
it comes to these topics. You know, you can get
so saturated. We're talking earlier in the program about just
going down the AI rabbit hole, for example, and you wonder, Okay,

(52:05):
how healthy is that for us if we become so
obsessed with technology or so obsessed with social media. Do
you have any thoughts about how to maintain a balance
between being engaged in that and also, you know, living
in a good, healthy life.

Speaker 6 (52:22):
Yeah, it's actually a great question. When I brought a
EE to the company, to the leadership team a year ago.

Speaker 7 (52:29):
I had a lot of resistance.

Speaker 6 (52:30):
Now what I have seen in the last year is
the total opposite, where people not only have embraced it,
but are really relying on it. And so honestly, there
needs to be a balance for businesses to figure out
what it does well and what it does not do well,
and how to harness the things that it does well.

(52:51):
And for me, that's all about software integration. Partnerships are
the name of the game. I think in order for businesses,
marketing agency brands to do really well, it's about rethinking
how we do business. And I think it's built from
the ground up and honestly getting great partners. I work
with Salesforce, believe it or not, they are one of

(53:12):
our partners. And what's interesting is that nobody has a
choke hold on it yet when I tell you every
week we have informational sessions with these partners to figure
out what's next or how the software is going to
work in market, everybody is just figuring it out. So
there's a lot of opportunities for businesses here.

Speaker 3 (53:30):
It's so funny because you said it was hard to
get the heads of the businesses. So Richard and I do.
I do the marketing, but we do it together. So
we were the first ones to introduce AI to gr
heart law through the marketing. So the head of the
company was the first one of the first ones. Yeah,
and bringing everybody else on board has been really tough
for us. And now Richard is really pushing making the

(53:51):
law firm an AI augmented firm.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
You see little converts along the way, people who are
initially resistant it sounds scarier than it really is, and
if you try it and you work with it, you
do appreciate that there is still a fair amount of
thinking that has to go into using this tool. It's
not going to replace humans yet, who knows what the
future holds. And I'll see people kind of light up
a little bit and say, oh, I used AI for this,

(54:16):
whereas before they were like, huh, I'm not touching the stuff.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
But we will not use the marketing agency that's not
up to date on AI, and so I don't expect
it to replace them. We still need the people like
we have questions and AI gets it wrong, it lies
is all this other stuff? Yeah, right, So we do
need people at the marketing agency that we can interact with,
but they better be using cutting edge techniques, right, because

(54:40):
we want to stay above the fold it used to
say in the old days of the newspaper, right, you
might be al.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
So, Matt, what do you think about all of this?
Do you have any comments or questions for eleanor Well?

Speaker 5 (54:50):
First of all, if you had to frame out what
the key strategic challenges of your business are, you probably
don't go. You know, I need the right AR solution,
Ui is a tool to help you advance your strategic
challenges and goals. It's part of the toolkit. Where it
fits within your toolkit, I think is dependent upon the

(55:12):
resources of your company, the space that you're in, and
the time that you're willing to put in, and who
you could allocate to it. I think you need subject
matter experts who do this on behalf of the company,
who take the lead in this, because we're not all
blessed with the same skill and natural comfort level. You
said it before, people had this obvious discomfort in your

(55:34):
firm and then they tested it and they're like, Okay,
I see it. But not everybody is going to adapt
really quickly to this, and they need other folks to
evangelize on behalf of the company and then share it
and spread the use cases.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Yeah. I mean in the legal business, drafting documents is
what attorney you spend most of their time doing. And
if you look at AI, it drafts all sorts of
stuff for you, and it may not always be right
for the legal stuff, but it's doing it. And people
are saying, well, well, you're going to need me if
you've got a computer that does all of this, and
it's a legitimate question you do.

Speaker 3 (56:05):
So, eleanor because I mean, we're doing copy for this,
Like AI gave us questions and I'm like, I can
do better questions than this myself. Right, So what parts
are you using it for? I know you and I
were talking before the show about all the back end
stuff you do with AI that people don't even know about, Right,
Is that where you're implementing first?

Speaker 7 (56:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (56:24):
So for us, one thing that we have found is
that for us, it's our first past. I think that's
the best way to sort of put this in terms
that'll make sense for us. How can we increase our
productivity by thirty percent? That was our goal this year?

Speaker 3 (56:39):
Right?

Speaker 7 (56:39):
And so that meant sitting down with.

Speaker 6 (56:41):
Creatives, a creative director, a brilliant creative director, and saying, listen,
first pass on creative is now via you and AI,
your AI tool of choice. Right, And that was a
very scary proposition. People are very very nervous. I said
at that point is that AI can not get you there.

(57:02):
But what it can do is reduce the minutia. It
can reduce the meaningless work. It can make you more productive,
and that is the truth. It doesn't take away it
adds to your productivity. So for us, it was a
numbers game and we just got there because you have
to build confidence in how you are driving your business

(57:23):
with AI and not leaving staff behind. So there's a
fine balance there.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
So eleanor, do you think that you would eventually reduce
your team the size of your team if AI tools
take over? I mean having a responsibility to your company
or are you just going to kind of hopefully you
grow fast enough that you won't have to face that decision.

Speaker 6 (57:47):
Right, So that's exactly right. So that's why we have
completely done a retool. I grew up in a union family,
Like I was just thinking today. You know, kids like
don't understand you never cross a picket line. That's how
I grew up, right. I have a social responsible company
that's in our DNA, So no, my whole goal.

Speaker 7 (58:04):
It's funny.

Speaker 6 (58:05):
I just sat down with one of our creative directors
and I said, no one's going to get left behind.

Speaker 7 (58:10):
That's my number one goal. That's my job is that
no one gets left behind.

Speaker 6 (58:15):
So what I have to do is figure out how
I will increase our revenue. And for me, it's all
media driven, it's behavioral driven. Online, we can make our
clients much more successful. And if I can get ahead
of it and be that agency that does it, I
look that at continued growth.

Speaker 7 (58:34):
So that's my strategy working.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
In this day and age right now. The way you
do that is with the human touch, like right, yes,
be trusted, authentic.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
I mean, do you ever worry that because of AI,
that people aren't going to learn the skills that they
need in order to make good judgments about AI output.
So one of the things that we you know, we
have interns, we ask them for or to do help
on projects, They go right to AI, they get the answer,
and then I say, well, did you learn anything when

(59:08):
you did that? Right? So are you accumulating the skills
and the real world knowledge to be able to evaluate
these things? Right?

Speaker 6 (59:16):
I mean that's a really There's going to be so
many challenges that we are faced with, and I think
that's a huge one. But I think to your point
earlier is that you adapting multiple tools AI tools will
keep us at our best because they say, and I
do believe this, is that the people that are going
to succeed during this new revolution are people who can

(59:39):
operate AI to the best of their ability. So they're
sort of on the right track.

Speaker 5 (59:43):
So I heard and I had said goals and strategy.
I heard, grow revenue, improve our productivity by thirty percent,
and create clients services that enhance their outcomes, right, And
then the questions in what ways can we utilize AI
to advance these strategies to accomplish those goals? Right? So

(01:00:06):
I think where you started. That's the thing. Like, it's
not just like, hey, I'm just going to get in
there and scratch around an AI. What are the core
challenges of your business? Where do you want to get to,
what's the plan to get there? And in what way
can you utilize AI as a tool in the overall toolkit.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
So somebody has to set the goals and have the vision.

Speaker 5 (01:00:30):
It comes from typically the leadership. Sometimes it's a strategist.
Sometimes the CEO or the person who runs the company
is a chief strategists. But I think if it's not
woven in specificity around what do you want it to
ultimately do for your business, you can sort of go
so deep into it and not have clarity around what

(01:00:52):
you're trying to get out of it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:54):
When I'm going to do a new podcast, I do
chat GPT you do a business plan, but everything like
that that you do has to have an outcome, desired
outcome at the end, right, and for you, you can
use AI, but you know that one of your outcomes
is this authenticity and trust. So you have to weave
those two together. And how do you weave what you
get from AI in with having people look human enough

(01:01:16):
that because AI doesn't like you if you don't look human, right.

Speaker 5 (01:01:19):
Yeah, well that should be part of the fabric of
your service based business. If I'm hiring your firm and
I feel like all it is I'm getting bought related stuff,
I'm not going to use that firm. I want that
human experience to be front and center, and then I
don't care if there was some utilization of it. But

(01:01:39):
if you step back for a second, and I wrote
about this in the book Vision, what's the vision for
your business? Where do you see it in five years
or ten years? What are the goals, how do you
benchmarket in specificity, what's the strategy and plan to get there?
What tactics do you use, and how do you iterate
on those tactics. That's basic one on one business building.

(01:02:04):
And where does AI fit in that? It's in the
tactics to accomplish those goals.

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
So what is your vision, Eleanor exactly right.

Speaker 6 (01:02:12):
Yeah, for us, it is understanding and being on the
forefront of how AI will help businesses succeed in this
new environment and I mean new environment and in marketing
in every which way but loose. And so for us,
if I think one of the reasons that EFK and

(01:02:36):
myself have been successful is because my client success is
the most important thing to me besides my employees. So
if I balance out those things and go with good
intent and give it everything I have, I believe at
the end of the day that we're going to end
up on top with the AI revolution, honestly, and I
just keep on every day.

Speaker 7 (01:02:55):
Like you said, I wake up and I'm all in.

Speaker 6 (01:02:58):
And for me, it's a little exciting, to be honest
with you, because it's new. I've been doing the same
thing for thirty years. So let's shake it up and
let's figure out how to stay on top of it
and grow.

Speaker 7 (01:03:08):
And that's exciting.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
Eleanor Kobaki Efkgroup dot com. And then you also have
good behavior brand. Yeah, oh yes, I think it to
that this time maybe next time, all right, that would
be amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Passage to profit with Richard Analysabeth your heart now she has.

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
Been waiting patiently. Antonia to Mayo with Antonia's promise a
story of love and hope and healing. I love Antonia's
story and I love that she is spreading the word
through this amazing products she invented. Antonia go, I.

Speaker 7 (01:03:38):
Love you guys.

Speaker 8 (01:03:39):
So Antonia's promise is a true story of healing and miracles.
Through the intercession of the Virgin Mary of her son
Jesus Christ made a promise to God on two ten
that if he had helped me with something that I
was struggling with, that I would spread love and light
as a vessel for him. On two eleven, I received
my miracle, which was the day of Lady a Lord's
Day of the Sick. So I keep my promise as

(01:04:01):
God has always kept his, and I created merch candles
and diaries and things of that nature. From there sneakers
that I'm wearing today, and then from there I just
launched my jewelry line with Antonia's promise of the broken
praying Cross as a reminder that you are never alone

(01:04:22):
and that God is always with you. And my slogan
is we are all broken. And Richard is my attorney.
He has all my patents and trademarks.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
So go into a little bit more detail about this
license deal that you got right, because we started talking
about this a while.

Speaker 8 (01:04:38):
So this has been such a journey, and I want
to go back eight years ago when I'm you know,
when this all happened in twenty eighteen. I think I
was one of your first guests when you guys first started, right,
and all I had was a story. That's all I
had was a story. And then from there I created
this design. And now it's become bigger than me because

(01:05:01):
I just kept going and going and going, and it
was bigger than me, right, this was inside of me.
It was bigger than me. It wouldn't let up. It
was twenty four hours a day. I just couldn't stop
doing it, thinking of it revolving. But thankfully God had
opened so many doors, right, because it takes a village,
it just it just does. It takes a village of people.
And I was very grateful to have met the gear Hearts.

(01:05:24):
And from there I had hired a consultant right that
had helped me and guided me, and from there I
had other people to help me along. When you had
introduced me to podcasting, I was like, oh my god,
me right, And then I said, Okay, maybe this is
something that will work because I do love radio and
I love coming back to Passenger.

Speaker 7 (01:05:42):
Profit and I like to talk.

Speaker 5 (01:05:45):
That right.

Speaker 8 (01:05:46):
Yeah, So I'm like this, this is gonna work. So
I when that happened, someone had said when are you
coming out? Well, I was always asked when am I
going to come out with a new jewelry line. And
I had been working with this jeweler to make certain
designs for me for gifts and so on and so forth.
And I had left the show and I had taped

(01:06:06):
here and we had put it together. Me and Elizabeth
Wright had worked on it and it looked so beautiful.

Speaker 7 (01:06:13):
And I went back to.

Speaker 8 (01:06:14):
The jeweler and I said, hey, people want this stuff,
they want my cross. We gotta make this and he
goes okay, and I go okay and he goes yeah, okay.
And I think it took us about two years from
start to finish, but I just landed my agreement with him,
and you guys have it, And that's how it happened.

Speaker 7 (01:06:32):
I mean, that's it. In a nutshell.

Speaker 3 (01:06:34):
Well wait a minute, Antoni, you left out something super important.
Do you have any patents? Yes?

Speaker 4 (01:06:40):
I do.

Speaker 3 (01:06:42):
Do you have a patent in Italy?

Speaker 7 (01:06:43):
I do.

Speaker 8 (01:06:44):
So the broken praying cross is patented in the USA
and in Italy.

Speaker 7 (01:06:51):
And there is a bead that I put.

Speaker 8 (01:06:54):
On, a pink bead on everything that I make as
a symbol of the rosary that was given to me
when I was once broken in church.

Speaker 7 (01:07:00):
And that pink bead is patented in Italy as well.

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):
And so are the patents part of your license agreement?

Speaker 7 (01:07:06):
Yes, actually they are. They're all in there.

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
So the thing is is that if you want to
do a deal, if you have a consumer product or
really any technology, you need some asset to convey, and
so sometimes it's manufacturing, sometimes it's a transfer of rights,
but in any case, intellectual property plays a role in
the commercial process. And so we definitely are happy that

(01:07:31):
things are working out so well. From you, you know,
you've been through a lot of challenges, a lot of
medical challenges in your life, and you know, without getting
into too much detail, can you talk to us about healing?
What is the process of healing like for you? Do
you feel like you've sort of emotionally recovered from some

(01:07:52):
of these physical challenges that you faced earlier on.

Speaker 8 (01:07:56):
I recovered from everything, and the only reason why is
because I have my faith that has healed me. Without
my faith, I have nothing. And that's the truth. It
strengthens me, it heals me, It gives me purpose. I
am in love with Antonia's promise and I love that
I get to share this message and help others through

(01:08:17):
my story and that heals me.

Speaker 3 (01:08:19):
Yeah, Antonia, I remember a few years ago though, there
was a time when you wanted to stop.

Speaker 8 (01:08:26):
Yes, because it was overwhelmingly exhausting and finances, like Matt said, right,
yesh is king right, and that was a big issue.

Speaker 7 (01:08:34):
And I felt very stale.

Speaker 8 (01:08:36):
And tired and I didn't know where to turn. And
then ideas just kept coming and coming and coming, and
I'm like, okay, but how am I going to do that?
And I met the right people again, and God had
opened more doors and I always say, if God opens
the door, I'm going to walk through them. And I
do you know how did I get here today? Only
God knows how. But I have the grit like Matt

(01:08:56):
does and Eleanor does, to keep going and fighting and
doing and not give up.

Speaker 7 (01:09:02):
And I think that's how we all get here.

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
Matt, do you have a comment or question?

Speaker 5 (01:09:07):
Yeah, you know, I think this spirituality guides you. And
it's so profound because when you sort of have that
and not everyone has that at your level, such a blessing, right,
because everything that you do in business when you're an
entrepreneur ultimately comes back on you and you that resilience. Man.

(01:09:29):
So if you feel that you have that resilience and
then you have that sense of purpose for what you're
doing and you feel like there's a higher power.

Speaker 4 (01:09:36):
My gosh.

Speaker 5 (01:09:37):
Yeah, that's a wonderful blend.

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
Yeah, and I'm glad she didn't give up.

Speaker 5 (01:09:42):
No, I agree, and I would say that it is
also a curse having this sort of what we have,
you know. Kenny Kenny asked a question when we were
doing a talk at the ninety second Street, Why all
these people want to start something? What do you tell them?
I said, to tell almost ninety five percent not to
do it, because if you can't just lay there in

(01:10:06):
the middle of the night and go no, matter what
I'm doing this, then you shouldn't do it. It's there's
almost an a rationality to entrepreneurship.

Speaker 2 (01:10:16):
Part of it is staying in the game.

Speaker 3 (01:10:18):
You know, I'm not allowed.

Speaker 7 (01:10:20):
To give up. I'm not allowed. It just doesn't exist.
It's bigger than me.

Speaker 5 (01:10:24):
But to that point, we also do have to show
some grace. I'm going to be sixty five in May,
and I mentioned I mentioned earlier. Yeah, because so this
book has taken me that I wrote, took me through
mid age, midlife, and I shared my journey and the
goal was to l to me live a long, healthy life,

(01:10:44):
as I mentioned earlier, and I share everything I overcame,
but I also wanted to be very clear about what
is the process of aging going to open up for
me in terms of new ways and how do I
embrace it because we look at our aging lives as
a declining thing. And so, you know what, I had
to step away, hire a CEO, spend more time doing

(01:11:07):
other things like traveling to the Amalfi Coast and you know,
and doing things that you don't get to do when
you're twenty five, thirty, forty five fifty killing it every
day with more demands than you have time. So the
one thing I would say inevitably is, you know, we
also all need that end game too, like as we
go further down the road in our personal life planning

(01:11:31):
and how does your work change as you get older
and how do you continue to transcend a happy and
healthy life. It's something I'm very mindful of.

Speaker 3 (01:11:40):
Yeah, well, I think for Richard and me, we love
what we're doing. I don't think we'll ever retire. I
don't think of any here.

Speaker 5 (01:11:48):
Well, no, no, So I have now made sure though
that I'm traveling overseas twice a year. I was a
definitive goal because I raised a boy with severe autism.
We could not ever let up. He's cared for, he's
in a group home, he's solid. So if I don't
do it now in fifteen years, I'm going to have

(01:12:10):
those regrets. So there's certain things that were highly prioritized
for me that only bubbled up when I had my
financial house in order, my son's sort of care. And
I stared at myself in the mirror and said, do
I want to work eighty hours a week? I don't.

(01:12:30):
I want to work twenty five to thirty really solid.
But again I've earned that, I've earned the right to
make that decision. May not be right for everyone, you
all may want to work eighty. I love that about you.
I in fact, I'm great. I'm sort of like, I
don't know how people do it, like at a certain
level the way I did it and keep going. I

(01:12:52):
fear burnout inevitably, and I don't want to be that guy.

Speaker 2 (01:12:55):
Yeah, So, Antonio, what do you see for your future?

Speaker 7 (01:13:00):
Ready to go? I'm so ready to go.

Speaker 3 (01:13:02):
You have productice.

Speaker 8 (01:13:03):
I'm on the opposite of Matt, like, I'm going to
be fifty next month and.

Speaker 7 (01:13:06):
I'm like it starts now Springtike. I can't wait.

Speaker 8 (01:13:11):
And I have the next fifteen years, and I think
I'll die down when I'm sixty five.

Speaker 7 (01:13:16):
But I've built this. I'm ready.

Speaker 3 (01:13:18):
I have the.

Speaker 8 (01:13:19):
Podcast, I have the jewelry of the clothing, I have
this sneak like I'm excited.

Speaker 7 (01:13:23):
You know, I want to go. I don't want to
be held back anymore.

Speaker 5 (01:13:26):
I had a thought. You know, one hundred and fifty
years ago, the average life span was thirty eight. It's
not that long ago. It's three and a half generations ago.
Today we'll live in eighty. If you don't get cancer
or heart disease, you could easily live to ninety. So
we really didn't have a midlife up until maybe a
generation ago, so I kind of looked at the stages

(01:13:47):
of my life now like I've been through this. I
could live a long, joyful life with meaningful projects, but
work not be the only thing I do, which I've
been doing for forty years. Since I'm twenty two twenty.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Three, Antonia, I feel the same way. I mean, I
feel like I get excited about what I'm doing.

Speaker 7 (01:14:06):
It's fun. I have fun. I like to have fun,
and Antonio's promise is fun.

Speaker 3 (01:14:13):
I do I enjoy it, Antonia to Mayo, I just
I do have to ask it. So you have struggled
to get your product produced and ready to sell and
ship out to people. Do you have product now? Do
you have the crosses to?

Speaker 7 (01:14:24):
Absolutely?

Speaker 13 (01:14:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:14:25):
Absolutely?

Speaker 4 (01:14:26):
Where do people?

Speaker 7 (01:14:27):
Where are one today?

Speaker 8 (01:14:28):
Where do they go to Antonia's promise dot com for
the broken Praying cross I have them in large gold
and silver and rose gold and in smaller sizes, and
there's some really great stuff coming out, but they are
custom made, one of a kind. You'll never see them
on anyone else because they're my patent designs. And there'll

(01:14:49):
be more really good stuff coming out.

Speaker 7 (01:14:51):
So I'm excited, and.

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
Where can they find it that you have a website.

Speaker 8 (01:14:53):
Or I do Antonia's promise dot com, yep or follow
me on Antonia's promise LinkedIn and to his promise Instagram
and Tony's promise Facebook, all under Antoni's promise.

Speaker 3 (01:15:05):
Don't go away because Secrets of the entrepreneurial mind is coming.
Return Elizabeth, get hurt with passes to profit. We'll be
right back.

Speaker 11 (01:15:12):
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Speaker 4 (01:16:11):
It's Passage to Profit.

Speaker 2 (01:16:13):
Alicia Morrissey is our programming director at Passage to Profit,
and she's also a fantastic jazz vocalist. You can scroll
to the bottom of the passageprofitshow dot com website and
check out her album.

Speaker 3 (01:16:27):
Now it is time for Secrets of the entrepreneurial Mind.
I'm going to start with Matt Ross. Matt, what is
a secret you can share with our listeners?

Speaker 5 (01:16:35):
I wrote in my book this theme called What's Your Magic?
And it's a chapter. What's your Magic was really defined
in two ways. What are you best at what you
love to do the most? And if you could spend
the bulk of your time in those boxes and delegate
everything else. I'm really good at building team and finding

(01:16:58):
talent and cultivating them because I need them. There's a
lot of things I really stink at and I'm uber
self aware and cool with it. I'm really cool with
saying I'm not good. So I think the key is
understanding what's you're best at, what you love to do,
find that lane, build a team to complement your skills,

(01:17:19):
and give them the room and let them go and
guide them and coach them.

Speaker 3 (01:17:22):
Excellent Eleanor Kubaki. What's the secret you can share?

Speaker 7 (01:17:26):
For us?

Speaker 6 (01:17:26):
Our company Mantra lately is get comfortable being uncomfortable right,
And for us, at the end of the day, it's
something that I lead with on a weekly basis, and
that comes from my heart because I've had to be
very uncomfortable a lot. I've had to make decisions that
really scare me and really looking fear and understanding that

(01:17:50):
that too shall pass, and that usually takes you to
exactly where you.

Speaker 7 (01:17:53):
Need to be.

Speaker 3 (01:17:54):
Excellent. Thank you, Antonia Tamayo. What's the secret you can share?

Speaker 8 (01:17:58):
I love to create, create, create, create, whether it's designing
clothing or jewelry or making a bracelet, inspiring people. That's
my goal and that's what I truly truly love to do.

Speaker 3 (01:18:11):
Thank you. Richard Yourhart. What's the secret you can share?

Speaker 2 (01:18:14):
Don't flip out. We've been going through these negotiations for
acquiring this firm, and I sent the guy what I
thought was a very reasonable offer. He came back with
something that was just totally unreasonable. And MY first reaction
was to go tell him suck a rock. But and

(01:18:35):
I was like, I had my hands on the keyboard,
and I was like, you got to be crazy, man,
And I took a step back and I just said, well,
I'm going to answer him tomorrow. If I want to
tell him to suck a rock, I can tell him tomorrow.
I slept on it for a while, and then I
started thinking strategically about it. I started thinking, well, you know,
maybe there's a way that we can pick this apart,
and maybe I can find a response in a way

(01:18:57):
to respond so that we can kind of keep the
deal going, and maybe there are some possibilities here. And
so I did that, and I took a few steps back.
I looked at it and said, well, what can I
give on where do I need to stand firm? And
I came up with a response and I gave him
reasons for why I you know, this is happening, and

(01:19:19):
he backed off most of his stuff and we're still
talking about it. So if I had flipped out, it
would have been done and gone, well.

Speaker 3 (01:19:27):
My secret is going to be don't forget to look
at your data or have someone look at it. So
we were in our marketing meeting and our marketing assistant
was like, this data just doesn't add up. You're getting
all these leads, but the clients aren't coming through. And
so I was like, what the heck, let's look at this.
And we have somebody implementing AI in different parts of
our company in the law firm, and I think he

(01:19:49):
did something that screwed up one of our automations. So
but now we've got to fix in place. So you
have to look at your data or have somebody look
at you your data like all the time to find
these kind of things.

Speaker 2 (01:20:03):
That's it for today's Passage to Profit show. If you
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Tune in next week for another episode of Passage to Profit.

Speaker 1 (01:20:21):
The proceeding was a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed.