Entrepreneurs: Inside Surveillance Capitalism-What Big Tech Knows About You with Mark Weinstein + 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):
This is a massive incursion on humanity.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
I really started it as a joke.

Speaker 4 (00:15):
You know, it's really easy when you know not.

Speaker 5 (00:17):
I'm Richard Garhart and I'm Elizabeth Gearhart. You've just heard
some snippets from our show. Do you want to know
more about starting your business?

Speaker 6 (00:24):
Stay tuned, ramping.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Up your business? The time is near. You've given it hard,
Now get it in gear.

Speaker 7 (00:33):
It's Passage to.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.

Speaker 8 (00:37):
I'm Richard Gearhart, founder of Gearhart Law, a full service
intellectual property law firm specializing in patents, trademarks, and copyrights.

Speaker 5 (00:45):
And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart. Not an attorney, but I do
marketing for Gearhart Law, and I have my own startups
and podcasts.

Speaker 8 (00:51):
Welcome to Passage to Profit, the Road to Entrepreneurship, where
we talk with celebrities and entrepreneurs about their stories and
their business ventures. Has big data collection gone too far?
Our future guest today is Mark Weinstein, a tech entrepreneur,
social networking pioneer, and privacy expert.

Speaker 7 (01:09):
And if you think.

Speaker 8 (01:10):
Social media has gone too far, listen up, because he's
got a plan to fix it and it might just
blow your mind.

Speaker 5 (01:16):
And then we have two really great speakers as well,
Gary Cohen, Oh my gosh, and I got it. I
really wonder how he did this. He went from a
startup making four thousand a year to being listed on Nasdaq.
I mean, come on, who does that?

Speaker 7 (01:29):
Is impressive?

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Right?

Speaker 5 (01:31):
And then okay, this is one of my favorite things.
Tim Neelan has ghost city tours. He has a few
cities and they take people on ghost tours. That is
so much fun. We used that every time we went
on vacation with the little kids. We went and saw
Robert and Florida. He stole Richard tat the Robert Doll. Yeah,
I've heard of it.

Speaker 7 (01:49):
Uh So we are big ghost tour fans.

Speaker 5 (01:51):
And later on we'll hear from our friend Alicia Morrissey,
a great jazz singer, and we've got Secrets of the
entrepreneurial mind.

Speaker 8 (02:00):
About today's show, and speaking of ghosts and haunted things,
I guess we wanted to tell a story today about
black cats. It's getting close to Halloween and this ties
into the whole concept of up selling.

Speaker 7 (02:14):
So this is a business related topic.

Speaker 5 (02:16):
It's story time now. So we had three cats and
one of them died unexpectedly and I was just crushed.
And they're mostly my cats. So Memorial Day week and
I said to Richard, let's go to the shelter.

Speaker 8 (02:30):
Innocently, she said, let's just go to the shelter and
see what we see and just look.

Speaker 5 (02:35):
They won't let us leave with cats today, but just look. Yeah, wow,
what happened When we got there.

Speaker 7 (02:41):
We saw a bunch of cats.

Speaker 5 (02:42):
Well there was a little We weren't even looking for
a kit and we're looking for something little and he
stuck his hand out through the bars of the cage
and grabbed Richard right.

Speaker 8 (02:51):
So started usually it's the lawyers with the handout, right,
But we're.

Speaker 5 (02:57):
Like, well maybe one an older cat. They're like, well,
maybe you want kittens, Well one kitten. So they put
us in a room with two little kittens, two differently.

Speaker 8 (03:05):
And they were both black, and the way they played together,
we thought they knew each other. They were just like
taking off all over the room, full of energy, bouncing
up and down, and we were like, oh, we can't
really separate these two little young ends from each other, like.

Speaker 5 (03:19):
Well, the second one is half price, so instead of
coming up with one cat, we came home with two, and.

Speaker 8 (03:24):
Now we have a lot of So it was the
first up cell was Elizabeth getting us to the cat
shelter in the first place. The second upsell was getting
us to take two cats instead of one. So if
you can weave those ideas into your business, you'll be
an amazing success.

Speaker 5 (03:40):
It also had really good product if you want to
call an animal product, which isn't exactly the right thing
to say, but they had something we really wanted.

Speaker 8 (03:48):
And we went for it. So now it's time for
your new business journey. Two and five Americans are starting
their own business, or at least thinking about starting their
own business, And we have a question for our panel,
what's the one mistake every new entrepreneur should avoid? But
you had to learn the hard way, so let's start
off with Mark.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
The first mistake that I really want to flag for
everybody is don't be utterly unflexible when it's time to
move the business into something else.

Speaker 7 (04:21):
Let it morph.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Make sure you let it morph if that's where the
market is telling you it needs to go. Don't be
stuck with your righteousness.

Speaker 7 (04:28):
Gary.

Speaker 8 (04:29):
The one mistake that every entrepreneur should avoid, but you
had to learn it the hard way.

Speaker 4 (04:34):
I think i'd augment Marx, which is it's going from
telling to asking, not just to be informed, but to
move people forward. So stop telling, start asking.

Speaker 8 (04:43):
Tim, What is the mistake that every entrepreneur should avoid,
but you had to learn the hard way.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
You don't have to do it all yourself. There's always
this hesitation to involve others and this need to do
it yourself. And I have fallen for that mistake. If
you're in this for a long haul, more likely not
going to be able to do it by yourself. So
you might as well become comfortable bringing people into your
company early on and help learning how to rely on
them to help you achieve what you're trying to achieve.

Speaker 7 (05:09):
Absolutely, My advice is is if you're hiring, make sure
that you check references, you do background screenings, because hiring
is hard enough.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
It's amazing things will turn up in a Google search
that don't turn up on a background check.

Speaker 7 (05:21):
That's right. Check their Facebook page.

Speaker 8 (05:25):
And speaking of social media, it's making us distracted, manipulated
and divided, and the people who built it know exactly
what they're doing today. Tech entrepreneurs and privacy pioneer Mark Weinstein,
one of the original inventors of social networking, pulls back
the curtain on big tech, surveillance capitalism, and why your

(05:46):
online life is being sold to the highest bidder. So
he's here to reveal how we can finally take back
control and restore sanity to the web.

Speaker 7 (05:55):
So welcome again, Mark.

Speaker 8 (05:57):
He's the author of the book Restoring Sanity Online, which
I did have a chance to check out before the program.
I think it's definitely worth a read if you're concerned
about privacy.

Speaker 7 (06:09):
So tell us a little bit.

Speaker 8 (06:10):
About surveillance capitalism and what it's doing to us, what.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Are the reasons why? And this is the Web two
world that we still live in. It's surveillance capitalism works
in other words, on your phone, on your laptop, wherever
you are. The data ecosystem, they the proverbial day. They
know everything you're doing, who you're talking to, where you are,
what you're saying, what your topics are, what your emotions are,
what you're thinking. And this is now supercharged by AI.

(06:37):
So you know when you look me at a news feed,
whether it's on TikTok or x or install or Facebook
or wherever you are. That news feed is also designed
purposefully to addict you, to keep you there as long
as possible. And the data is stunning. Right, kids are
spending five to seven hours a day on social media.

(07:00):
And we all see this either we know a young
person or we know an older person. Well, a year ago,
maybe wasn't so hucked, but now with the advent of
AI supercharged algorithms, we're stuck. And what are these algorithms doing.
They're manipulating our thoughts, our opinions, our purchase decisions, our votes,

(07:21):
and so this is a massive incursion on humanity. And
I'm one of the guys who love social media. I'm
one of the guys who invented social media, one of
there's about one hundred of us, and the inventor of
the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners Lee, has endorsed
my book, as has was you know, the great wa
was co founder of Apple. Both of these guys say

(07:42):
it's a vital read, it's a must read. And in
the book we talk about Okay, well we've got this
giant mess, but can we fix it? Or are we
doing because remember now social media is causing democracy to falter.
So we've got a lot of issues here, Richard, and
there's a lot going on. And then the aspect of

(08:03):
bots and trolls, because right now, you know, even in
the wake of all of the political things that are
going on right now, no one's talking about the huge
perpetration by bots and trolls, paid for by nefarious entities,
by nefarious countries, and they're millions up. It's well documented
and by the way, my book has over four hundred

(08:26):
you know, footnotes, because it's important to find credible sources
for anything that you're saying today. This is also really important,
and we've got to get to a much better world
around fact checking and questioning the facts. You know, was
well documented a few years ago that half of Thelon's
followers were bots and trolls, half of Biden's followers or

(08:46):
bots and trolls, because you know, we're talking about tens
of millions of followers, half of them bots and trolls,
and what they're doing also to us in our regular
news feeds for us the rest of us is the perpetration.
Remember the Russians and the Chinese would like nothing better
to disrupt this democracy. Now, they've had plenty of time,
They've had a good decade of fomenting disagreement. And remember

(09:12):
the backbone of democracy is disagreement, always has been, not hatred.
We don't really hate each other. But this perpetration where
we you know, most of these people aren't even real
who we think we're having an argument with online. So
there's a lot to fix now. There's a lot of
things that are coming up to fix this stuff. There's
a lot we can do.

Speaker 8 (09:33):
Mark Weinstein, a tech entrepreneur, social networking pioneer, and privacy expert,
author of Restoring Our Sanity Online. I'm just kind of wondering, like, well, okay,
so all of the sounds really crazy and it doesn't
sound good, but what does it really harm. I talk
with my kids about these topics, and they're like, oh,

(09:55):
loosen up, Dad, it's not a big deal. So what
if somebody knows what my favorite potato chip is, They're
just gonna send me ass and maybe a coupon, and
so it'll work out for me.

Speaker 7 (10:05):
So why get so worked up about this?

Speaker 2 (10:08):
Such a good question? And remember this is the same
thing as you know, surveillance capitalism is now about fifteen
or seventeen years old. So back in twenty ten, twenty eleven,
people thought it was cool, right, just like kids today,
it's no different. It's like, oh wow, they know what
I want. They know you know, the kind of potentip

(10:28):
to kind of shoes, they know what I like. That's great,
but it doesn't stop them. So we know all the
body shaming, We know all the issues that young women have,
young girls have suicidal thoughts there. You know, all this
stuff going on because they're made to feel as though
there's something inappropriate or inferior about them, so they have

(10:48):
to buy this product or that product. You know, we
have a breakdown in how democracy functions and in our
ability to critically think. We've got to be able to
ascertain who is pushing this information into my news feed? Why,
what's the purpose? Wouldn't it be nice? They said, well,
here's something being put in your news feet because it's
trying to affect your vote or your health care decisions

(11:11):
or you know, your financial decisions, and it's coming from
this or that. So, Richard, there's a lot at stake here,
and unfortunately a lot of our kids don't realize it.
Also remember kids up to the age and through the
age of thirteen, and this goes back thirty years ago
to the present. Whatever they see advertisements they think are

(11:33):
telling the truth. That's just how it is. And now
we have to really fast forward our critical thinking teaching
so the kids can now because in the old days
it was just a potato chip ad but now they're
being fed so much information, more than ever in the
history of humankind.

Speaker 5 (11:50):
I agree one hundred percent with you. The algorithms show
us what we want to see, reinforce our beliefs. The
other side is evil, and then you go meet somebody
who doesn't believe the same.

Speaker 3 (11:59):
Way you do.

Speaker 5 (11:59):
In that not evil, They don't look what the devil,
but the algorithms or whomever is controlling that. So that's
the other thing is we blame it on the algorithms.
It's not the algorithms, it's the people that are controlling it.
There's people behind this. But my question is how do
you stop it? And then I'm just wondering, if some
kid is getting bullied online, could you like program your

(12:20):
own bot to go back after the bully year so
they beave your kid alone.

Speaker 7 (12:25):
There you go fight fire with fire.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
Right, Look, this is a great question. I talk a
lot about good AI and this is an AI you know,
centric conversation today also, and I have a chapter on AI,
you know, because AI is really creepy with these relationships
that we're developing personal relationships with our AI friends, and
the AI friend is just slurping data and pushing that

(12:50):
up into the data ecosystem. So we can't yet, you
can't yet program a personal AI to then sort of
filter everything. But here's what we can do. We talked
about because the book is very much a recipe for
the future, not a you know, regurgitation of the past.
There's enough of books talking about the past. We've got
to move into the future to what I call Web

(13:12):
four because Web three doesn't work, and most people don't
even know what Web three is and don't worry about
that right now. And part of that is for our
kids is user ide verification. Now, this is a very
I'm one of the world's leading privacy guys. I've been
against this for years. But for our children on social media,
not for marginalized people, not for whistleblowers. We protect the

(13:33):
anonymity of those people, but for our kids and social
media sites. And that includes YouTube, and that includes you know, TikTok,
and that includes you know insta, and that includes even x.
Where our kids are, we've got to make sure that
anybody who's connecting to them is a verified minor. And
if there's no grown up or bot who is fraudulently

(13:57):
perpetrating and manipulating them, we've got to We've got to
start with a good verification system. There some countries, look
at this bay in Australia. We've got to protect our
kids first. That's the first place we go.

Speaker 8 (14:11):
We're with Mark Weinstein and market's been great talking with you.
Quick question, what are some of the biggest privacy threats
that people aren't even aware of?

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Well, first of all, and this goes back to the
advid of surveillance capitalism, when companies like Facebook and Google
realize that the way to make a boatload of money
is to look peak over your shoulder at everything you're
doing and then to target you with you know, ads
and all this stuff.

Speaker 8 (14:37):
For example, if we have like a Fire TV or
Google TV, is that collecting data from us and then
sending it back to Amazon or Google The programs we
watch and.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
All the time. Look, if your phone is on and
you're logged into Instagram or any metaproduct, or you're logged
into Google, whatever it is, your phone is constantly listen.
Anybody can try this at home. Talk about somebody you
haven't seen in a long time. Just have a conversation
not on your phone, just like with some friends around
the phone, and then wait a day or two or

(15:12):
thirty minutes or ten minutes, and see how long it
takes for you to get some kind of suggestion about
that friend or about that product, whatever it is you
want to talk about. Just check it out, everybody, This
is real. You're being monitored all the time. It goes
into the data. It's called the data ecosystem, and that
data is shared across platforms. And yeah, this is a

(15:33):
massive problem. So you know what's going to happen soon
is data portability. The Adventure of the Web is working
on this data interoperability so soon and this is all coming.
You'll have a pod, You'll you will actually control your data.
This is really what the future is. And this is
likely to be part of the FTC Federal Trade Commission

(15:54):
settlement with Meta. We're going to start to see some
kind of data interoperability, where you'll be able to pull
your data off a platform, you'll be able to control it,
et cetera.

Speaker 4 (16:04):
Gary Cohen Mark, I'm wondering about compulsion. So this idea
of how AI has led us to addictive behaviors.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
With our phone and other media.

Speaker 4 (16:15):
I know my dog recognizes it because when I'm on
my phone, my dog walks to the other room.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
It's amazing.

Speaker 4 (16:22):
But I also feel a compulsion, you know, as a
sixty three year old, and I have a compulsion to
look at my phone. Right, So we know other addictive
forces in our lives are you know, numerous, How we
medicate ourselves, what's happening on that front to help people

(16:42):
with it as an addiction versus just ah, it's clever.
I'm kind of hooked in because there's a big distinction
between those.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Gary, It's such an important question and it's not just had.
First of all, we know that the screen is addictive,
and it's addictive to a toddler. So if you have kids,
you know right now, first two years, don't let them
see the phone, don't let them see a TV. This
is and there's certain countries now that are actually mandating
that but Gary, even as a sixty three year old guy,
you're addicted more than ever. And here's why this is

(17:12):
the AI conversation. Previously, it was the algorithms that were
manipulating your newsfeed because they could plug into the data
ecosystem and adjust and adapt. But AI is adjusting and
adapting to what you're doing in nanoseconds, anticipating your next thought.
Anticipate you know, whatever is being paid for to be
pushed into your news feed. That's gonna keep you hooked

(17:34):
and also serve who's ever paid for that? This is
why you're hooked more than ever before. What can we do.
We've got to find a way to flag when AI
is operating and also what you can do. I'm sorry, man,
but you've got to be proactive. You actually have to
start to put your windows of time in. You've gotta
lock it down. You gotta put the phone away at meals,

(17:55):
you've got to put the phone away at night. You're
gonna have to lock down the phone and create your
own sort of channels for when it's permissible for you
to be on the phone as for an hour and
just be there, and then you've got to put it
down you're gonna have to this one.

Speaker 7 (18:11):
Yeah, it's possible that we could go too far with
all of this data surveillance.

Speaker 8 (18:16):
For example, I think you mentioned during your Ted Talk Mark,
which is great Ted Talk by the way, you should
look up Mark on YouTube, which admittedly is a social
media channel.

Speaker 7 (18:25):
But you talk about China, for example.

Speaker 8 (18:28):
And how they have these surveillance capabilities and they actually
create rewards and punishments based on people's online behavior and
if you say the wrong thing about the government, you
could be put in jail, or your kid could be
denied access to a top school. And they're actually being

(18:50):
much more direct about manipulating the population.

Speaker 7 (18:54):
And you'd like to think that we would never get
to that point. But this is a boiling frog situation.

Speaker 5 (18:59):
People are getting fired for speaking their minds on social
media right now today.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
It is ironic because we're the country of free speech.

Speaker 5 (19:08):
We were the country of Yeah, we were. But one
thing I'd like to do, and I know this doesn't
really work for everybody, I like to try to confuse them.
So I put my wrong birthday into Facebook, so you.

Speaker 7 (19:19):
Get birthday cards on the wrong day. I mean, oh
my god, that's fooling them.

Speaker 5 (19:24):
Yeah, and I try to confuse my Kindle by ordering
books all over the spectrum.

Speaker 7 (19:28):
I thought that was just because you had a lot
of different interests.

Speaker 5 (19:31):
I don't know. I think that you're right there. Just
we have to take more downtime, Mark, right, I mean,
I don't know what the other solution is.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Well, well, you know you know that about six hours
this and it's amazing you can tolerate that much time
before there's a significant increase in the number of people
who are depressed. But that six hour marker is when
we see it with kids and grown ups. If you're
spending six hours a day on media, and that could
be your phone, your computer, TV, you've got six hours

(20:00):
a day, you're much more likely to be headed straight
into some kind of depression, a longer term depression.

Speaker 8 (20:07):
On fascinating discussion, we have to take a commercial break
where with Mark Weinstein, author of Restoring Our Sanity Online,
we'll have.

Speaker 7 (20:16):
More passage to profit right after this.

Speaker 8 (20:18):
Ip in the news coming up as well as the
AI round Table and also Secrets of the Entrepreneurial Mind.
You don't want to miss that and don't forget to
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(20:39):
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No back to passage to profit once again.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Richard and Elizabeth Gerhardt.

Speaker 5 (22:45):
And our special guest Mark Weinstein, and he has written
a book called restoring our sanity online. He's talking about
social media. He was a social media pioneer. He was
one of the first inventors of a social media.

Speaker 7 (22:57):
Platform at fourteen patents.

Speaker 5 (23:00):
He has fourteen patents and very smart guy, obviously, And
what we wanted to shift the conversation to. We talked
up a little bit about the evils of how we're
being manipulated and data mined by our social media use.
But we use it for work and we get business
from it. So we don't personally post I post on
my own LinkedIn, but otherwise we have assistants who post

(23:20):
for us on social media every day. So how do
you reconcile that with the data mining manipulation.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
You know, listen, that's a great question. I mean collectively,
if you are running a business, you need to reach
out and find your customers. This is different than the
you know, the ethical breakdowns of social media you know
around you know, manipulating people's votes and things like that,
you know, body shaming, all these things that go on.

(23:48):
If you're a business, then you ought to be very
savvy about how you spend your marketing dollars. And today
you've got to spend it digitally.

Speaker 10 (23:55):
You can't, you know, nobody runs the newspaper add anymore
really or something like that. You've got to be there
and so you you've just got to be savvy about that.
That's that's I think a very appropriate use as a
business person.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
You know, you want to you want to find your customers. Now,
the way best way to use social media, in my
opinion for business is grassroots though where you're actually not
paying but you have some social media expert who can
find the people that are likely to want your product
or service and can find them in a grassroots way. Uh.

(24:32):
And that's by themselves being engaged in social media in groups,
you know, in thought with thought leadership and finding like
minded people. And that's really because you know, you want
to create a little movement, right, you want to you
want to create this sort of niche of what I
call ambassadors, because really you're looking for the ambassadors, the

(24:54):
people that are gonna love your product, and you're broadcast
going to where it can show it, you know, going
to use it, talk about it. That's where the rubber
meets the road.

Speaker 5 (25:02):
And I hate to say this, mark, but I'm going
to say it. Anyway, you could use chat jeept to
do that because I ran a meetup group and we
had somebody who had to attend a funeral and could
make it. So I did ask it to check LinkedIn,
and it brought up somebody who I knew who had
spoken at my group before, and he came and spoke
at the group last night. And I wouldn't have really

(25:24):
thought that way unless i'd use chatjept to scour LinkedIn
for me.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
But see AI. Remember AI isn't inherently good or bad.
It's the application of AI that that makes it either
nefarious or a good guy and helpful, So that that's
a very good use. We all use AI, you know,
I prefer to use it, you know, in searches, right
because if you're using an unbiased AI and you want

(25:50):
to search on a product like what's really the best
mattress for this application or whatever it is, you know,
AI is really helpful right now a nano seconds. So
I think that's a very good application. And we've got
here's the challenge in modern society. In the history of humankind,
technology runs ahead of anybody's ability to regulate or understand
its impact on the human condition, and that's always going

(26:13):
to be the case. So now we're always playing ketchup.
So here we are playing ketchup around AI. Now we've learned,
you know, how nefarious it can be and also how
awkward it is. There's there's AI stuffed animals for our
kids and then they make the kids feel good. But
you know what they're doing. They're just collecting data because
they're connected to the web, and they're reporting back and

(26:33):
they figure out what to say next. This is this
is you know, we're in the middle of quite a conundrum.
But AI can be AI can also root out the
bad AI. AI can find a bot control. You know,
it's interesting. We're now going to be cat and mouse
AI versus AI.

Speaker 5 (26:51):
We are.

Speaker 8 (26:52):
Yeah, so we're with Mark Weinstein, author of Restoring Our
Sanity Online. Mark, you were one of the early your
creators of social networking, starting back in the nineties.

Speaker 7 (27:05):
Maybe you could tell us a little.

Speaker 8 (27:07):
Bit about what motivated you to get into this business
and how you got started.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
You know, first of all, anybody who remembers in the nineties,
it was like it was incredible. This was called the
new economy and the idea, and we had email back then.
Don't kid yourself, we had email in the nineties, especially
in the mid to late nineties, and it was just
as ghastly as is now. In other words, it's one dimensional.
We misunderstand, we misinterpret, we're stuck on it, We're waiting

(27:35):
for the next you know. All that. So the idea
of you know, getting new technology, and at the time
it had a ten year old nephew, because you want
to listen to a kids who want to listen to
your kids and other kids. And my nephew and I
took a hike around a lake on a family vacation
and we started to id eight you know, uncle Markey,
wouldn't it be great if we could? And we had this
conversation ten minutes into what. I looked at my nephew

(27:57):
who said, you know, I'm going to start a company
and give you ten percent of it. I went back
home at this point to Albuquerque. I started a company.
And back then you put nam the newspaper interview people
at your dining room table. I hired engineers and graphic
designers who couldn't design pages that would load because no
one had done it before. Now, at the same time,

(28:18):
there were several companies when we were in data, they
were in data Superfamily dot com and Superfriends dot com
were mine. They became PC magazine top one hundred sites
three years in a row worldwide. But it was an exciting,
amazing time. And this is again you know, so my
tip here is like, always pay attention to what your
kids are doing. I mean, the idea that we're all
wearing ripped jeans day or our kids are come on, Nick,

(28:41):
came from you know, our generations, the guys that are
older on this broadcast, like me and Gary and Tim
and you know Elsabon and Richard him. You know, it
was just cool when then jeans finally got worn out
that they ripped, you would wear them now you buy
them ripped.

Speaker 7 (28:56):
I was just too cheap to buy new pants.

Speaker 8 (28:58):
Mark has just been an amazing Can you tell us
where people can find you?

Speaker 2 (29:02):
Thg you The book Restoring Our Sanity Online is audio,
it's Kindle, It's on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, any bookstore
that you like. It's been in the airport stores for months.
The book, by the way, is highly entertaining because I
have hilarious stories. So you can find me Mark Weinstein
Inventor dot com. You can write to me market Restore
theweb dot com and you can find the books everywhere.

(29:25):
So and thank you everybody. It's a great conversation and
the book has a lot of what you can do
right now for yourself, for your kids, what we can
do right now, and what's coming right.

Speaker 7 (29:37):
Well, the pleasure has been all ours.

Speaker 5 (29:39):
Yeah, I'm going to get that for us and the kids.

Speaker 7 (29:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (29:41):
Now, we have been talking about social media and the
goods and the evils, and we're going to now segue
into a round table on AI. So this is our
AI roundtable. So I'm going to ask everybody how they're
using AI. And I'm I'm pretty sure nobody here is
using it nefariously.

Speaker 7 (30:00):
I guess we have to ask and find out.

Speaker 5 (30:02):
Mark, Why don't we start with you? What is one
way you're using AI in your business?

Speaker 4 (30:05):
You know?

Speaker 2 (30:06):
And for everybody. I've written about AI a lot, how
to regulate it. On Fox in particular, they carried a
couple of my pieces and did some interviews. But I
think AI for search and unbiased you know, AI is
a really great way to use it. I still like
to be creative, so I'm not using it for writing
or you know, but when we're researching, you know, also

(30:28):
people that I want to connect with. I think it's
a great but also just researching a product. You know,
we're always buying things. We're buying things on Amazon. It's
one thing to look at their reviews, but it's another
thing just to have an unbiased AI so to give
you some input on you know, what's up or you know,
or what's going wrong with the transmission in your car
or things like that. In the old days, we'd have

(30:49):
to like get get you know, get the search results
and then sort of thumb through them. We'll you know,
scroll and figure out which one it works. But the
AI search is much more effective on you right now,
what mattress to buy, what's wrong your transmission, whatever it is.
So I enjoy it that way.

Speaker 5 (31:05):
That's a great way to use it. So Gary, how
are you using it?

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yeah? I think.

Speaker 4 (31:09):
And listen to this conversation over the last half hour,
it brought me back to a memory when I was
at the Espen Institute and we were talking about right
when AI was being rolled out publicly on the large
Language model, and it struck me that as a kid
growing up with severe learning differences, that there was always

(31:33):
a connection between what I wanted the output to be
from me and what it actually was. And it almost
puts tears in my eyes to.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
Talk about this.

Speaker 4 (31:43):
That now, the ability to express yourself by thinking about
what the bullets are that you want to express and
then asking AI to write it and you actually see
the words and you're like, but that's what I was thinking, right,
And I think for so many and you know, so

(32:04):
many bients have ADHD, which often has other disabilities or
challenges for them and their learning that helping them see
how using AI to help express themselves more fully and
completely is such a huge, huge win. The way I

(32:27):
do it in my business is all my calls have
a transcript. Those transcripts are run through cat GPT and
with a prompt it says this is what we covered.
It goes back, it looks at all my past conversations
with that person and says, this is where we're on track,
this is where we're off track. These were the people

(32:48):
we talked about. These are the things we're going to
talk about in the next call based upon that, And
what are the psychological underpinnings or coaching underpinnings that came
out in the call?

Speaker 11 (32:58):
Right?

Speaker 5 (32:59):
That is really art. That's a great way. You thank
you him. How are you using it?

Speaker 3 (33:04):
I'm actually using AI in a way that probably not
a lot of people are. We're in a phase right
now where we're building AI into everything that we're building,
So whether we're talking about ghost city tours, and I
know that's kind of what I'm known for, but where
it's really helping me in a sort of business sense
is the reptile conservation center that I own, and what
we do is we breed some of the world's most

(33:26):
endangered critically endangered reptiles, and by building AI into the
software that runs that facility, because if you can imagine,
every animal has thousands of data points over the course
of its life, and they're not all easy to breed,
and because there's not many of them left, it's important
that we figure that out. So by building our software,
or more appropriately, building you know, open AI into our

(33:47):
software where it's able to go into the database and
analyze thousands of data points on these animals, it's valuable
insight into not only keeping these fragile animals alive, but
what is working to make sure that we're able to
produce the next generation's animals. Now I know that's not
what you brought me on to talk about. But on
Goo City, we're doing something very similar where we're able

(34:08):
to bring in you know, AI to analyze all the
data points, whether it's the data points from Google Analytics
or you know, search console or a booking software, I mean,
you name it. We have all that data running through
open AI right now and it's making connections that there
is no way we have been able to make on
our own. I mean even I like to think I
have a pretty good brain, but there's no way I'm
connecting all these data points. So, you know, we're not

(34:30):
really using it from a perspective of you know, hey,
chatch ebt write me this or you know, go research
this or whatever, even though there's a ton of value
in that. What we've been doing is using it to
analyze data to help us make better business decisions.

Speaker 5 (34:44):
I wonder if, folks, if we're able to talk to ghosts.

Speaker 8 (34:48):
Well, they're supposed to be software out there that lets
you communicate with your pets, right and then maybe so
maybe maybe ghosts are the next step.

Speaker 3 (34:56):
I don't know, I might be a surprising them on
the too. There is something interesting that we've been working on.
You know, running actually electromagnetic energy readout readouts through AI
and helping it make sense of it. It's actually really
interesting stuff.

Speaker 8 (35:10):
Oh wow, our daughter would be fascinated. She loves the
ghost stuff.

Speaker 5 (35:15):
I love all these different uses. This is just I
feel like I'm doing a social experiment every week on
the show. Everybody's using it for different things. It's really awesome.

Speaker 8 (35:25):
Well, I had an interesting conversation this morning with somebody
in Europe and they were talking about how their company
used AI. She was asking me about how AI is
working in the States, and so of course I followed
up with the question. They seem to be taking a
slightly different tax, so they're implementing AI into their operations,

(35:46):
but they're not firing people. They're saying, look at if
we can be more productive with you know, the more
routine tasks, and that frees our team up to go
out and spend more time interacting with customers and more
time getting business. And it was really interesting to hear
this because in the US, it seems like a lot
of the dialogue is around cutting jobs.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
You know.

Speaker 8 (36:09):
Recently, I guess sales Force laid off about two hundred
and fifty engineers and they were very open about the reason.
They just said, you know, AI can do your job now,
so don't let the door hit you on the way out.
This company was taking a different approach and saying we
can use it to recapture other resources that can be
redirected in positive ways for the company. So I thought

(36:32):
that was really an interesting take, and you know, you
would think, well, of course, right, But I think our
mindsets here, you know, perhaps groomed to buy social media,
have kind of put this into our heads that AI
is going to be a job destroyer, and you don't
have to think that way.

Speaker 4 (36:51):
I was just wondering if, as the market shows up
against that company, whether that will hold through. In other words,
if they can need more value that way, yes, but
oftentimes the market has something to say about it. In
other words, once their competitors catch up with what they're
doing on AI, then all of a sudden, margins get destroyed.

Speaker 7 (37:13):
And now, yeah, that's.

Speaker 8 (37:14):
A valid point, and it could be that it works
out that way, but you know, at least instead of
reflexively going to the cost cutting, they're going to look
for ways to redeploy their team. And I also think
that if a company can provide incentives for people to

(37:35):
adopt AI. It'll get adopted faster because people can be
resistant to adopting it, and if they see that their
future is still somewhat secure, then they're more likely to
implement it quicker compared to a company that says, well,
your job's going to be gone after you do this
implementation right, and so you may actually make more progress,

(37:57):
at least in the short term, more quickly.

Speaker 7 (37:59):
But good point.

Speaker 5 (38:01):
I just used it this morning, so I'm going to
give my most recent use. I had my meetup group
last night and we talked about chat GPT five, what
else an AI versus human and copyrights in AI. And
our next meetup is going to be October twenty first.
We do it hybrid in the studio here and also online,
and it is going to be from Mike to market

(38:21):
building a podcast that lasts. That's October twenty first, in
the evening here on the East Coast. But the way
I used it this morning, I took the we record
everything on Zoom. I took the Zoom recording, I opened
up the script editing software, edited some stuff out. I
don't know if I should say it. We got hacked
in the meeting and somebody put a porn video in

(38:42):
the middle of it. Oh my god, it's so we
were able to stop it. So I had to go
edit that out before I gave the video on anybody else.
So I did that in descript got the trams.

Speaker 7 (38:51):
Were they wearing fitbits?

Speaker 5 (38:54):
I've tried not to look so. But then I can
take the train from the script and I can throw
it into chat gpt, which I've kind of trained to
talk like me. Some people have really trained their chat
gpt to speak in their voice. And I could say,
do a summary email of this meetup that I can
send out to everybody that came, including all the links
that people's podcasts that they mentioned, all the software sites

(39:16):
they mentioned that would have taken me hours. This takes
me an hour meeting. Only the hardest part is that
it's a long meeting, and the slowest part is downloading
the data and then getting the brected transcript and video back.
So I love all these uses. I love all these
creative uses, and I really feel like the people that
are going to come out on top of this are

(39:37):
going to be the people that use it in super
creative ways and in their everyday life too. To just
speed things up. So I don't think we're all going away.

Speaker 7 (39:46):
Not yet, hopefully not yet.

Speaker 8 (39:48):
We need to take a commercial break, but we'll be
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Passage to Profit continues with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.

Speaker 8 (41:57):
Passage Profit is the nationally syndicated I show heard in
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(42:21):
Podcasters database as a top ten entrepreneur interview podcast. So
subscribe to the Passage to Profit show on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube,
and on the iart app. Excellent time for IP in
the news. Neil Young speaking of older people. I think
Neil Young's seventy nine. I don't think it looks that great.
I'm looking at a picture of him here. But anyway,

(42:43):
he started a band, a new band called Chrome Hearts.
They've been playing for about a year, and it turns
out a company, a clothing company called Chrome Hearts, is
now suing him for trademark infringement, alleging that customers are
going to be confused if they see Neil's band and

(43:03):
their clothing.

Speaker 5 (43:04):
I'm going to confuse a swater for an old guy
playing guitars. There's different categories of trademarks right right.

Speaker 8 (43:12):
The clothing company says that because they've worked with celebrities
in the past, that's enough of a bridge between what
they're doing and what Neil is doing personally. I kind
of wonder if they're not just doing this for the
publicity associated with filing a lawsuit. Evan knows that would
never happen.

Speaker 5 (43:29):
Isn't there some sort of thing with trademarks too, Like
if somebody like Coca Cola, you couldn't do a close
trademark to Coca Cola because they're so well known.

Speaker 7 (43:38):
They're famous. Right.

Speaker 8 (43:39):
Once you've become famous, you get a broader set of rights.
But companies can use the same trademark as long as
they're in different industries. So one of my favorite examples
is Delta Faucets and Delta Airlines.

Speaker 7 (43:51):
You wouldn't confuse.

Speaker 8 (43:53):
Delta Faucetts is a place where you could build an
airline ticket, and you wouldn't think that Delta Airline sells fawcets,
So the likelihood of confusion is pretty low. But I
guess the moral of the story is that we want
to pay attention to the goods and services associated with
the trademark, and we'll be keeping track of this Neil
Young lawsuit and advise accordingly. But just because you have

(44:15):
the same name doesn't mean you necessarily have a good,
strong case for infringement, and so if you have an
idea or invention that you want to protect, contact us
at Gearhart Law. We work with entrepreneurs worldwide to help
them through the entire process of obtaining patents, trademarks, and copyrights.
And if you want even more information, you go to

(44:36):
learn more about patents dot com or learn more about
trademarks dot com. You can book a free consultation with
a gear Heart Law attorney, or you can download your
free Entrepreneurs Quick Guide to Patents or Trademarks.

Speaker 5 (44:49):
And now it is time to find out. I have
been waiting patiently to find this out how Gary Cohen
took a four thousand dollars a year startup into to
a Nasdaq listed company. Welcome Gary, Please spill the beans.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
Spill the beans. Well, you know, it's really easy when
you know nothing.

Speaker 4 (45:08):
My business partner, Rick Diamond, and I started with each
of us put in two thousand dollars.

Speaker 3 (45:14):
And the idea.

Speaker 4 (45:15):
Came to me when my roommate asked me to spy
on his competitors at a trade show in New York
because I was vacation there. I'm like, okay, you know
I wasn't doing anything. I was out of school. So
I spent a day walking around this trade show and
he was selling the first computer systems. They were called
predictive dialers, which predicts when a person's going to be
free on the line, so that the productivity of that

(45:39):
caller who's placing the call is double, right, So huge
innovation in the call center industry. And so by the
end of the day I had made up this story about, Yeah,
I'm going to the call center business, and I'm like,
I sold myself. And I called a childhood friend. He
and I had been talking about going into real estate
or something, and I said I think I have a

(46:01):
better idea for us, and he goes, well, okay, we
don't know anything about real estate. We don't know anything
about call centers. So that was the launch, literally just
made up in the air one day, and then we
started using my roommate's technology telephony. We knew nothing about
the industry, and there were competitors out there, but they
knew nothing about the technology. So that gave us such

(46:24):
leverage on them that places like Done in Bradstreet and
IBM signed up with us just because they didn't understand
how we could be so productive and so not knowing
about what we were doing. And eventually United Healthcare hired
us because we didn't know what we were doing, because
they had a hiring freezon and they said, you know,

(46:46):
we're going to use you, and we're going to use
you because you have no bad habits in this call
center business. And at the time was telemarketing, right, and
we're going, yep, that's true. We have no you know,
bad habits because nobody trained us. We're going to train
you to do it well. And we were insourced and
we brought hired people, brought them over to their offices
and they taught us how to do it. And it

(47:08):
was one step after another. And as we grew, we
needed money and we didn't have any, so we went
to the government for money. How do you do that?
We had jobs, lots of jobs, and so the first
town offered us two hundred and fifty thousand, and we
did the deal. And then the next town we got
a little smarter, and then it was a million dollars

(47:29):
to open up a call center. But this was the trick.
I just thought it was funny. We started getting frustrated
that we get this money from the government through economic development,
and we'd have to pay taxes on it, which seems
so insane. The government's given you money, and then they well.

Speaker 8 (47:44):
It's like that's says then social security payments makes no sense.

Speaker 4 (47:48):
So we started getting clever, which was we had them
leased back everything we needed. So we'd have them buy
the computers and we'd release it for a pretty much
a dollar a year until five years goes up, and
then we'd buy for a back from them, so the
community would actually hold the assets while we were using

(48:09):
them and depreciating them, and then we didn't need to
collect that money. And so that's how we built our
call centers. Canada gave us fifteen million dollars to open
three of them, because by that time we were hiring
thousands of weeks in a year, about twenty two hundred people.
Of that, there's like a segment of the population that
rotates really quickly. You know about high turnover of employees,

(48:33):
but that's like twenty five percent of your people are
turning over at like five hundred percent, eight hundred percent. Well,
the rest are solid in there there for years.

Speaker 8 (48:43):
So I want to ask you, how do you react
now when you get a call from a telemarketer.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
When I left the business, and I was one of
the lead lobbyists in the industry against anti telemarketing legislation,
I put myself on the do not call list, that
do not mail list, I mark spam and all the
calls I don't take them. And I also know that
when you get a pause and somebody's not there is
the predictive dilating system not working. The last thing you

(49:10):
want to do is hang up because it triggers the
next call. It'll call you back in about twenty minutes
because you'll hung it up, so it's better to wait
and then say take me off your list.

Speaker 8 (49:19):
So did telemarketers always have scripts or did that evolve
over time?

Speaker 4 (49:25):
When we entered Bayhead scripts and then they had the
flip books and stuff.

Speaker 7 (49:29):
That was all manual.

Speaker 4 (49:31):
We were automated, so our scripts were as they went
through the script, yes, no, maybe, and then it would
change the dialogue. Nowadays, I understand it's been twenty years
since I've been in the business, but they're using AI.
It's prompting based upon the algorithm of how the customer
or prospect is speaking, and it's giving a really custom

(49:53):
response for the agent, And I'm hearing that even the
agent could BAI as well. I just was at a
meeting in which this group was showing me large group facilitation,
but before the team came into the meeting, they had
an AI call each of the people, do an hour

(50:14):
interview with each of them, and take those transcripts, compress them,
find the intelligence that they were looking for, and feed
it back to that group. And so they're basically doing
the same thing in the call center world.

Speaker 8 (50:26):
Wow, So is it unrealistic to think that companies calling
on prospective clients would use AI then as a way
to target the right clients. And then I guess, in
line with what you're saying, also developed maybe a custom
script for certain classes of perspective clients.

Speaker 4 (50:45):
Yes, And going to what Mark was talking about, I
was hearing Sam Altman talk about how the ways to
secure your bank accounts and all of that information is
really not secure if you think void is the way,
because now with the deep fake, people can clone your voice.

(51:05):
So if you could do that to break security, you
could certainly do that to place a phone call with
an AI, that caller sounds just like anybody you want
them to sound like.

Speaker 5 (51:16):
Yeah, there's software programs that are pretty easy to use.
So right now you're doing co two coaching, and here
it says that you're helping executives clear their minds, break
your obstacles, and achieve extraordinary success. That's really cool. Can
you tell us a success story of someone you worked
with without saying their name?

Speaker 7 (51:34):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (51:34):
So many one comes to mind.

Speaker 4 (51:37):
This person was burned out. They were building an incredible
software company, facing all the challenges, you know, hiring the
wrong people, all of that, And first it was how
do I help that person find their time? How do
I get them to get their time back? Because when
people are burned out, it's usually because they don't have

(51:58):
time and they haven't figured out how to move the
work away from them. Moved to a leadership position versus
a doer position, and often this is a transition. Entrepreneurs
have a hard time making. They're so good at doing
they have a hard time giving it up. And so
we moved him into that leader role, hired talented people

(52:20):
around him, and talked about all the things he needed
to know about developing that. He started doing strategic planning
with our firm, and we built a plan. He said
in one day he made forty five million dollars more
from that work that we did, which clearly didn't cost
him forty five million dollars to set there.

Speaker 3 (52:40):
Sold the company.

Speaker 4 (52:42):
I can't say for the numbers, but it's hundreds of
hundreds of millions of dollars, and all within five years
of that meeting saying I'm done. I'm burned out, because
at that point he just like, tell me how I
can get this thing sold. So it was helping him
find his own strength that he had, and then using

(53:02):
that strength to help him find the time, organizes business
in a way that makes sense to him and all
the other employees and the great team that he surrounded
himself with, and then created a way to position the
company for somebody else to want it.

Speaker 8 (53:19):
We're with Gary Cohen, co founder and managing partner of
CEO two coaching. Sounds like he's getting pretty good results
so far, so Kudo's there. One of the things that
we talked about on our pre call was that the
concept of how do I keep people on the hook
versus putting me on the hook. I think this dovetails
nicely with your story about moving from an entrepreneur role

(53:42):
to a leader role. But where are some of the
techniques that an entrepreneur can practice to implement that.

Speaker 4 (53:49):
I'm working on a book called On the Hook and
the Idea. It's an allegory and it talks about how
somebody walks into your office right and says, this is
what I'm going to do, and they're very excited, and
they tell you you ask all the questions you have
to assure yourself that they actually know what they have
in mind and that it's clear. But it's not to

(54:10):
convince you. It's just to make sure they're clear headed
about what they want to do. Most management learning is
you give them affirmation. Yeah, that sounds great, Oh that's
a great idea. However, it takes away the hook. It
puts you on the hook and takes them off the hook.
Why does that happen Because as soon as you start

(54:32):
giving him affirmation on something that hasn't actually accomplished anything yet,
you're basically saying, I agree with you. And once you
agree with them, you've become on the hook because if
it doesn't work out, they're coming back to you and
they say it didn't work, but you agreed that this
was the right way to do it.

Speaker 8 (54:49):
So let me ask you, what's the difference between that
and giving authorization to move forward?

Speaker 7 (54:56):
How do you untangle those two ideas?

Speaker 4 (54:59):
Yeah, thanks for the It's true, and this is a
place that leaders have a hard time, particularly at the
beginning stages of entrepreneurship. What you find though, is most
companies have role and job descriptions for people. Those are
the things that have already given that authority to that employee,
and somehow it's overlooked by both parties, the boss and

(55:21):
the employee. And so you don't need to give them permission.

Speaker 3 (55:24):
They have it.

Speaker 4 (55:25):
You granted it when you hired them, when you gave
them the job description, when you gave them the roles
of authority that they have in their role. So when
they come in, they're actually looking for your permission. And
what you don't want to do is give them that permission.
You want to say, wow, you sound like you've thought
this all through, you're really excited about it, and I'm

(55:47):
looking forward to seeing how it all turns out, and
they go ah ah, But they don't want to accept
it because they know they feel the tension that now
is on them. But I thought, what would you do
if you were in my place might be the comment, well,
it is not my place. I hired you to do

(56:08):
this job. You're really talented and really smart, and I
believe in you and I trust you. So I'm looking
forward to seeing the results that you accomplished by executing
on this. When they come back and it's done really well,
you go, Wow, that's fabulous, and think about it. In
their heads. They're not thinking you gave them permission anymore.

(56:29):
Now they can actually take in the appreciation of what.

Speaker 3 (56:32):
You gave them.

Speaker 4 (56:33):
And I'm telling you, almost every it's very hard for
me to think of a company I've coached over within
three hundred companies over the last twenty years, it's very
hard to find one that didn't have this issue. It's
amazing how it's just insidious. Nobody's really labeled it in
the management world. It just sits there because and then

(56:55):
they come up with all these fancy ways to trap
people as opposed to having them feel that sense of
ownership and burden of what it means to feel like
an owner of a business, which everybody on this call
knows that feeling.

Speaker 7 (57:10):
It's an interesting technique, and so you've tried this.

Speaker 4 (57:13):
It's really fun. Well at First, what I'll say is
I'm writing the book because it takes so long to
convince a client how to do it, meaning like it's simple.
All of you probably get what I'm saying. Right now,
everybody on the show is listening. They go, oh, I
get it, I get it good. It's so quick falls
out of your head because it's so instinctual.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
I want to be positive.

Speaker 4 (57:36):
I get the kind of visceral high from giving advice.
I'm a coach. I love advice giving. Please write. However,
I know I'm a coach and I'm not leading the person.
I'm in an instructive teaching coaching role, and that's very
different than a leadership role. Okay, And so what I

(57:57):
found was, over a course of a year, people will
make this adjustment, and before long they have so much
time on their hands because what happens is people no
longer come in for permission because they clearly know they're
not going to get it. And so all those people
who are lining it at your door aren't it your
door anymore. They're just doing the work and they're owning it.
And you're starting to see the results. And we see

(58:20):
that in most all of our clients and they eventually
get it. The trick is, how do you get it quicker?
How do you really realize that when you're pointing the
finger about why are they always coming to me? It's
because you keep giving the advice. You keep wanting to
answer the question. This simple, silly one is somebody comes

(58:40):
into your office and says, hey, I can't figure out
how to use this printer, and you're like, really, that's
why you're coming to see the CEO of the business.
You can't and you do know how to fix it,
by the way, as the CEO, because you had to
do it at some point, especially if you're starting small.
But instead you say where else might you find that?
They go, well, I could ask chet GPT good next time.

(59:04):
You don't have to bring that to me, right. It's
it's just a silly example, but it's like, there are
so many places where people can find the answer other
than you, and they're responsible for it. So make them responsible,
have them feel the hook. Attention the ownership.

Speaker 7 (59:20):
Gary Cohen, co founder and managing partner of CEO two Coaching.

Speaker 5 (59:24):
Thank you Gary, great advice, Gary, How do people find you?

Speaker 4 (59:27):
CEO two Coaching, dot com Typing?

Speaker 3 (59:29):
Gary B. Cohen that'll get them to me.

Speaker 4 (59:32):
Okay, great, thanks Passage to Profit with Richard An Elizabeth
your heart.

Speaker 5 (59:36):
Now it is time for ghost stories.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
Yay.

Speaker 5 (59:40):
I told Tim Meelan he has to tell a ghost
story of the show. Welcome Tim. Tell us about your
ghost tours business, Gus.

Speaker 3 (59:47):
To be Toys. It's the world's largest walking tour company.

Speaker 11 (59:50):
You know.

Speaker 3 (59:50):
Every year we do about a million people on our
tours and the twenty eight markets in the United States.
I think we're in right now, just a lot of
fun and it's really evolved as a com over the
last couple of years into something that I once again enjoy.
You know, when I first started Ghost City Tours, I
really started it as a joke. I mean, come on,
ghost tours like that can't really be a real business, right,

(01:00:11):
But what happened. You know, I met two guys. I
moved to Savanta, Georgia, and I met two guys who
were really great tour guides, but they were horrible business people.
And up until that point in my life, I had
spent the last ten years running a marketing and web
design company. So I had this idea, like, hey, I'll
start a company. I'll build this thing up you guys
can work for me, and you're going to make more
money working for me than you do on your own,

(01:00:33):
and they did for some reason. They don't really totally
understand why. It was just something I was doing in
my spare time and in the second month in business
where I think, you know, maybe I was running a
couple of Google ads at the time, or you know,
maybe some Facebook ads. Maybe, Yeah, we did you almost
two hundred thousand dollars in that second month without even trying.
And you know, at the time, our profit margins were
like eighty seven percent, So I thought, maybe there's something

(01:00:55):
to this. Yeah, you know, it just took.

Speaker 7 (01:00:58):
Off from there.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
And you know, at first, what GHO City Tours was
it was a way for me to help some friends
and you know, occupy my time. But it was also
out of necessity. You know, at that point in my life,
I was almost homeless. You know, I was living in
a hotel room that the manager of the hotel knew
me and let me stay in that hotel room for
about two months. So for me, it was really just
I don't want to live this way anymore. You know,
I grew up without a lot, you know, I appreciate

(01:01:21):
everything my parents did, but it was my time to
get rid of that bad hand. Did finally turn my
life around and get something going, and that's where Ghost
City Tours came from. So, you know, it's morphed over
the years quite a bit, the point where I think
we've been in business fourteen years. You know, at the
beginning off, I'm being completely honest, I just needed to
make money, you know, I needed to feed myself. You know,

(01:01:43):
I had to take care of my family. But now
I'm to a point where the money. Don't get me wrong,
I love money, or we all do, but that's not
so important to me anymore. What I came to realize
about gh City Tours is that, you know, this is
a company where we can help people get in touch
with what I consider like what people should actually be.
And how we do that is by sparking their curiosity.

(01:02:06):
You know. One of the biggest compliments I can get,
which is also our number one complaint about our company,
is there was too much history on this tour. There
weren't enough ghosts, you know, there was two. They talk
too much about the city's culture and all this stuff.
We really wanted to hear Ghost stories.

Speaker 7 (01:02:19):
And they do.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
But to me, it's more important that we get people
out in the world and we open their eyes to
something that maybe they weren't thinking about before. You know,
maybe we made them come to well, we didn't make them
come to New Orleans, but they came to New Orleans.
We made them see the city through a new light,
truly appreciating the culture and the people and all those
things that made a city like New Orleans where it is.
And then they go buy a book, which to me

(01:02:41):
is the biggest compliment. If I can get somebody to
go buy a book about anything once they're done with
a ghost tour and want to learn more about the
world around them. You know, earlier we were talking about
social media. One of the best ways to avoid all
that is to get off of it, you know, go
out explore the world, you know, take your family for
a walk. And that is what you know, Ghostity Towards
has really become over the years. It's been our vehicle

(01:03:04):
to help pull people away from those screens, get them
out into the real world and find that curiosity that
human beings innately have, you know, and if it takes
ghosts as the catalysts to help them get out of
that zone. That's that's what we did. It's been very
enlightening to see the impact that just ghost wars can
have on people.

Speaker 7 (01:03:23):
So Tim, I have to ask, do you believe in ghosts?
I do.

Speaker 3 (01:03:27):
Uh, There's there's no way that I can't. Part of
what ghost City does is we haven't done them for
a few years, but we hold national nationwide ghost hunt
where we'd find famous Lahunta locations across the country and
we would rent them for a few nights. You know,
think you know Mansfield Reformatory in Ohio or the Saint
Augustine Lighthouse. People would come from across the country and
you know, ghost hunt for us for two nights. So

(01:03:48):
I have seen some stuff that would blow your mind.
I have heard stuff, you know, everything from shadow figures,
you know those figures that look like people, you know,
shadowy people walking across hallways, to full body apparitions where
you know, we're walking in an abandoned hospital with a
group of people and some semi transparent lady walks out
in front of us with the hospital gown on and
walks into a wall. Now, those things don't happen very often.

(01:04:09):
Don't let the TV shows fool you if you see
a full body apparition, that's pretty damn rare. But you
know that the idea of being able to go into
these haunted places and actually talk and I know it
sounds crazy, especially if you don't believe in these things,
but to be able to talk to them and have
them answer questions for you, there's no way I can't
believe in ghosts after all that.

Speaker 8 (01:04:26):
Did you start out not believing in ghosts and just
really thought of it as more entertainment and then became
convinced or did you always have this spirituy side?

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
I thought it was stupid, like seriously, like you, I
grew up not far from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. I've always been
a huge history buff, you know, especially when it comes
to the Civil War, and I would go to the
Gettysburg Battlefield very often to you know, hey, I want
to see where this guy was and you know where
this happened. And one night I was hanging out a
place that a lot of people are familiar with in Gettysburg.
It's called Devil's Done, and I was hanging out with

(01:04:56):
a park ranger buddy of mine. Off to our right
there's a field called the triangle and at night that
night there were people walking through the field of flashlights.
So I got excited because I thought people I was
gonna see people get busted for relic cutting, That's what
I thought. And he's like, no, they're looking for ghost
and I remember in my head that's just stupid. But
once again, curiosity, I think it is so important to people.
And so a couple of times later, I was like,

(01:05:17):
you know what, I'm going to go to Walmart. You know,
I'd seen those goofy ghost hunting TV shows. So I
went out, bought a voice recorder, went to the middle
of the field called the wheat field, and I just
stood there at night. And when you do this for
the first time, you feel like a total buffoon. I'm
literally standing in the field in the middle of the
night holding a voice recorder saying can you please tell
me your name? But I got a name and it

(01:05:38):
was as clear as day. It was a guy.

Speaker 7 (01:05:39):
It said George.

Speaker 3 (01:05:40):
And I know, you know, it wasn't an artist wary
paradoay kind of thing, like, it really was a man
saying George. And at that moment, I'm like, holy crap,
like there is something to this, Like what it like,
and to this day, I still can't explain it, but
there was something to it. Weird stuff happens. We're able
to document it, and I wouldn't call it an addiction,
but I would say that if you're somebody who is

(01:06:01):
really driven by trying to understand the world around you,
and you grab onto mysteries you want to understand it,
this whole ghost thing is a really great topic to
dive into because the reality is, I don't think we're
ever going to figure out what is going on or
what they truly are.

Speaker 5 (01:06:16):
It's pretty cool. And I got to tell you I
do have a ghost story. Oh yeah, so our house. Well,
first of all, our house when we first moved in,
the guy had died there before us, and we would
always hear footsteps in the attic. We called him when
I Roger remember that. But then this one day, I'm
wondering if ghosts come and go because we had this
cat she's gone now, and she was in the foyer

(01:06:38):
and she was talking to somebody. She really was, she
was going there, I'm ready, I mean, And this went
on for like five minutes and like checkers, who are
you talking to? And I swear she was talking.

Speaker 3 (01:06:51):
To a ghost she might have been.

Speaker 5 (01:06:52):
So have you changed your marketing a little bit? Because
I see you start a podcast a little bit ago
and you're doing a lot of YouTube shorts. And what's
really cool, it's like you're asking other people, like, tell
me about your haunting, tell me about your ghosts or
the ones I've been seeing our bigfoot. Yeah, we love Bigfoot.
Richard has big foot pajamas.

Speaker 7 (01:07:09):
I'm bigfoot slippers too.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:07:11):
This podcast it's really about just, you know, wanting to
get people to be interested in this stuff again. And
it doesn't mean that you have to believe in ghosts
or Bigfoot or anything like that. But there's so much
mystery in the world around us. And because so everybody,
you know, like we talked about are you guys talked
about earlier, everybody's so focused on that screen or you know,
trying to keep up with the Joneses on TikTok or whatever,
that they're forgetting that there's a whole world out there

(01:07:32):
that's worth exploring. And by the way, that world is
so much more exciting than anything you're going to see
on the screen. And you know, we hope that by
putting these podcasts out we can. You encourage people to
put the screen down, go outside, go for a walk,
go for a hike through the woods. You never know
what you're going to see. I mean, hundreds of years
ago people got on wooden ships and sailed across the world.
Like how insane is that? And now we can't even

(01:07:53):
kids that get off the damn couch half the time.
It's a crazy world we're living in. So with us
it just happens to be ghosts and and Bigfoot and
these crazy you know, cryptozoology things. Those are the catalysts
that we use to hopefully get people engaged and get
them to find that curiosity, you know, that childlike curiosity
that's still in all of us, I think, just begging
to come out.

Speaker 8 (01:08:12):
Ghost City Tours, as I understand it, places a premium
on telling historically accurate stories, right, so maybe there's a
little bit of embellishment there, but you're not just making
stuff up. I mean, these are accurate representations of what
happened in the past, right.

Speaker 7 (01:08:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:30):
I think that that's one of the biggest reasons Goose
City Tours has been so successful. I mean when we
started this company, I mean, the average ghost tour company
in America. It was like a fifty seventy five thousand
dollars ear company, you know, single market. You know, they
weren't really run by business people. They were run by,
you know, somebody who enjoyed giving tours of the city.
But when we came on the scene, you know, because

(01:08:50):
I was a history buff, it was very important to
me to make sure that we did the research. So
we spent a lot of times in you know, historical societies.
We knocked on doors and talked to the people who
lived in these homes that were rooms or to be haunted,
and we got the real story. And you know, the
first couple of years, we took an incredible amount of
hate from other companies because we're essentially crapping on all
over their stories. You know, for years they've been telling

(01:09:11):
people that zombies reading babies and graveyards like it's a
stupid nonsense, And we came on to the scene and said, no,
that is not what happened. But by the way, this happened,
and it's actually more interesting. We essentially ruined their tours
for them. But I feel that, you know, for somebody,
anybody that is telling other people's stories, you know, especially
people who are no longer with us. You know, these

(01:09:33):
quote unquote ghosts, we owe it to them to tell
the truth. It's not fair to somebody that is no
longer with us to be able to make lies about
them or spread misinformation about them in an effort just
to make your tour spook. Here it there's nobody any
good and in my opinion, it's very disrespectful to the
city and then the culture as well. You have to
put that effort, extra effort in to find out the

(01:09:54):
truth and make sure that you're telling the truth. You know,
we are no fans of revisionist history here at all.

Speaker 5 (01:09:59):
Tim, Ghost City Tours. You ever want to swap ghost stories,
let me know where do people find you if they
want to reach out?

Speaker 3 (01:10:07):
Yeah, I mean, if you want to learn more about
Ghosty Tours, it is just goocitytours dot com. You know,
same for all the social platforms as well. If you
go to any of them, you'll find ghost City Tours.
If you just looked at my name, Timniellan, you're probably
gonna find the Reptile Conservation Center stuff first, especially on Instagram.
But that's me great.

Speaker 5 (01:10:22):
Thank you.

Speaker 8 (01:10:23):
Stay tuned for more Passage to profit with Secrets of
the Entrepreneurial Mind coming up next.

Speaker 11 (01:10:28):
I am a non attorney spokesperson representing a team of
lawyers who help people that have been injured or wronged.
If you've been involved in a serious car, truck, or
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(01:10:51):
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find out today for free what kind of compensation you
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Speaker 9 (01:11:14):
Eight hundred four nine two seven oh one four eight
hundred four nine two seven oh one four eight hundred
four nine two seven oh one four. That's eight hundred
four nine two seventy fourteen.

Speaker 7 (01:11:28):
It's Passage to Profit.

Speaker 8 (01:11:30):
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 passage profitshow dot com website
and check out her album and.

Speaker 5 (01:11:45):
All This Time for Secrets of the entrepreneurial mind. So
Mark Weinstein, author of Restoring Our Sanity Online, do you
have a secret you can share?

Speaker 2 (01:11:57):
The secret is really, first of all, everybody has a
good idea. So if you have a good idea, you're
not unique, okay, because almost everybody I've ever met in
my life has a good idea. You know it just
this is what happens, and we think of, oh wow,
wouldn't it be great after a while, here's a good idea.
Turning that idea into reality is magic. Is where the

(01:12:18):
rubber meets the road. It's the hardest thing you'll ever
do in your life. But here's the key. If you
decide to take your good idea or somebody else's a
good idea, whatever, wherever you get it and turn it
into reality and you believe that you're right, then it
really is a good idea, and it really is a
marketplace for it. And also that it has some sort
of ethical groundings, so you can really feel good about it.

(01:12:41):
I always like that piece. Just make sure you feel
good about it. Doesn't have to be ethical, I mean, look,
you know, I mean ethical, like you don't have to
be a do gooder, but make sure you know you're
actually providing value a service or a product. Don't stop.
Here's the thing. So many people are gonna tell you
you can't do it. Here's why, here's why you don't
know why to do it. You know, whatever it is,

(01:13:01):
it's wrong, it's about it, whatever it is, as long
as you believe, go for it and keep believing and
stay positive. And if it was your best friend or
your mother or whoever it is, or your partner, even
if they're naysayers, if you believe, stay the course and
do your best to surround yourself with people who also

(01:13:22):
believe or nurture and support give you positive reinforcement. Now,
when you stop believing and stop doing it, so that's
also important, don't be so invested in your ego that
only can't stop because people or the world, everyody's gonna
look at me like no, no, no no. The smartest
thing you can do when you stop believing, if you
stop believing, is to stop, because that clears the space

(01:13:46):
for something else. To come in and everything you've learned
will be of value.

Speaker 5 (01:13:51):
Thank you. That was great, A great secret. So Gary
Cohen with co two coaching dot com, what's seek What
would you like to share?

Speaker 4 (01:13:59):
I don't know that it is secret, but it's something
that I've learned along the way that I share with
all my clients, which is leaders need to walk the
ridge line. And on one side of that ridge line
is humility, and too much humility doesn't work if you're leading.
But the opposite side is ego, and too much ego
nobody wants to follow you. And so the trick, and

(01:14:21):
it is a trick, is to stay the ridge line.

Speaker 3 (01:14:24):
Because when things.

Speaker 4 (01:14:25):
Are really not going well, you want to stay in
that humble place, You're never going to get the teams
to come along with you and be engaged.

Speaker 3 (01:14:36):
And when things are really.

Speaker 4 (01:14:38):
Working well, and I've seen it in way too many people,
including myself, when it's just like you're just kicking it,
your ego takes over. I can do no wrong, and
that's usually when all the wrong begins. So for me
as a coach, I am constantly working with my clients
to stay on the ridge line. And this is how

(01:14:58):
it shows up when the ego show up, I become
stupid as the coach. And what I have to say,
I am a lifelong learner, so I know more today
than I did yesterday, Okay, because I just keep devouring
more information. So how is it that I became stupid
overnight with this client?

Speaker 7 (01:15:15):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:15:15):
It's because their ego took over.

Speaker 4 (01:15:17):
And I have to tell them this before it happens
because otherwise they don't listen. So early on in the coaching,
I say this is going to happen eventually, and I
want you to know what's happening to you because you
will not want to hear anybody when the ego takes over.

Speaker 3 (01:15:35):
So it's it's.

Speaker 4 (01:15:36):
Kind of staying in that balanced place of just knowing
you're enough, not too much, not too little enough.

Speaker 5 (01:15:44):
That is great advice. Again, I get so much out
of this showman that I love doing it.

Speaker 7 (01:15:49):
Okay, I'm feeling inspired.

Speaker 5 (01:15:51):
Okay, Tim Neelan those citytours dot com. What is a
piece of advice a secret you can share?

Speaker 3 (01:15:57):
It's developing a bright mindset, you know. I see a
lot of these younger kids coming into the entrepreneurial business
space and they have this idea that you know it's
going to be easy, and people will give them things
and everybody will tell you how great you are, and
when that doesn't happen, they feel beaten. And that's really
sad because the reality is any of them could do it.
I mean, if I could do this, you guys could
do it.

Speaker 7 (01:16:17):
Come on.

Speaker 3 (01:16:18):
But you know, I think the secret is developing the
proper mindset where you know you can be a proper
business owner and handle the challenges that are going to
come your way, because you are going to have days
where you want to quit. You are going to have
days where you feel like a failure, and you're also
going to have days where you feel on top of
the world. And if you live in either one of
those zones, you know it's not good for you. So

(01:16:40):
if there was a secret, I think it would just
be developing that proper mindset that sets you up for success,
you know, long term success, not necessarily success today and
not necessarily failure today. But work on who you are
as a person and be comfortable being uncomfortable.

Speaker 5 (01:16:55):
That's created Vince Richard, your heart, your heart, law patters
trade my copyrights. What is your secret?

Speaker 8 (01:17:02):
Well, I'm just going to kind of tap into what
everybody else has said here. I think you want to
cultivate a mindset of decisiveness and continuous action, right, you
need to keep the energy level high. And I find
lots of times when I'm down in the dumps, I'm
not feeling my best. Lots of times it's because I've

(01:17:22):
been putting off decisions that i need to make. So
it's not always the best time to make decisions when
you're down in the dumps. But if you can make
a few small ones, I feel like sometimes that helps
me get my momentum back, and then gradually I can
climb out of those dull drums and get back to
an efficient level of operating. And I think, no matter what,

(01:17:44):
staying busy and keeping yourself in it also has benefits
because it's hard to have negative feelings if you're focusing
on getting the next task done. So I find those
kinds of things to be the best for self regulation.

Speaker 5 (01:18:01):
Excellent and my secret, Elizabeth garherk your media studios. I
feel like if I've been successful in anything in some
ways I have, I constantly want to learn more and
I'll never feel like I know it all. I understand now,
like these vampire movies. Why these vampires when they live centuries,
they get so rich because you get to learn so much.
It's tough with it, and I just feel like there's

(01:18:22):
so much more I want to learn.

Speaker 3 (01:18:24):
I don't I don't know.

Speaker 8 (01:18:25):
There are a lot of rich vampires out there, and
how that you mention it.

Speaker 5 (01:18:28):
For me, it's just been this thirst for learning new
things and knowledge, and it really this AI stuff. It's
really helped me a lot because I've been able to
do things so much faster.

Speaker 7 (01:18:37):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Well that's it for us.

Speaker 8 (01:18:40):
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(01:19:04):
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(01:19:26):
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Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
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