Entrepreneurs: Secrets of Stage Confidence, Comedy and Public Speaking with Tommy Hilcken + 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):
I'm one of six kids, so I had to entertain
just to be seen.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
How about I help you started to play that role.

Speaker 4 (00:15):
People are just struggling with basic access to how do
you fix that?

Speaker 5 (00:19):
I'm Richard Gearhart and I'm Elizabeth Gearhart. You've just heard
some snippets from our show. It was a great one.
Stay tuned, especially if you want to start a new.

Speaker 6 (00:27):
Business, ramping up your business. The time is near. You've
given it hard, now get it in Gear.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
It's Passage to.

Speaker 6 (00:37):
Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.

Speaker 7 (00:40):
I'm Richard Gearhart, founder of Gearhart Law, a full service
intellectual property law firm specializing in patents, trademarks, and copyrights.

Speaker 5 (00:48):
And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, not an attorney, but I do
marketing for Gearhart Law. And I am the founder of
Gear Media Studios, a content creation studio with the focus
on podcasting.

Speaker 7 (00:58):
Welcome to Passage to Profit to Entrepreneurship, where we talk
with entrepreneurs and celebrities who tell their stories about their
business journey and also share helpful insights about the successes
that they've had. How can humor help your business well.
Today's guest, Timmy Hillken, has spent three decades proving that
laughter is the best business strategy. He's a speaker, trainer, entertainer,

(01:21):
and comedian, So if your presentation is boring, it's not
his fault.

Speaker 5 (01:26):
And then we have Bobby Mashia. So I just have
a question for our listeners. Do you want to turn
your business success into lasting freedom and wealth?

Speaker 7 (01:35):
I don't know, No, that's way off. That's off my
radar screen for sure.

Speaker 5 (01:39):
If so, Bobby has the answer for you. And then
we have Josh Kahn. He is giving you personalized healthcare
to help you meet your wellness goals in a very
different way. So it'd be really interesting to hear what
he's doing.

Speaker 7 (01:54):
I feel better already. But before we get to our
our distinguished guests, it's time for your new business journey.
Two and five Americans are business owners or thinking about
starting a business. So we want to ask our panel
a killer question, and the question is what's the one
bold move you made that felt risky at the time

(02:14):
but turned out to be the turning point for your business. Tommy,
welcome to the show. Well, thanks for having me and
so tell us about the one bold move that you
made that felt risky at the time.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well, it actually has to do with right where we
are right now, New York City. I grew up right
across the river in Guttenburg, New Jersey, and everything over
there was in the embroidery business. So when I had
my children, I went and got into the embroidery business.
And I was actually driving a truck over here in
the gorm And Center in New York City, and I
created my entertainment business in between. And it got to

(02:46):
the point where I had to make a decision, and
I made the decision to go out and do my
own business.

Speaker 8 (02:51):
That was one of the biggest things ever. Did.

Speaker 7 (02:52):
Traffic worse today than it was when you were driving
that truck, seems a little time.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
I always say, you don't drive in New York City,
just move along whenever you can.

Speaker 7 (03:02):
Bobby im Ashi are welcome to the show. Tell us
about the risk that you took, the bold move that
felt risky at the time.

Speaker 9 (03:10):
So I'd actually go to two which fall in the
same story, because I think that they're both really relevant
for most business owners and how they're looking at the
world before they get into the business.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
So after I left Wall Street to.

Speaker 9 (03:21):
Get involved in my family business, I spent about nine
years with my dad and aunts and uncles, and we
grew the business from twenty locations to forty locations. It
was dunkin Donuts, we were franchising, We had Sonic drive ins,
we had redecices, and I got to the point where
I had my second child and I realized, you know,
this is always going to be Dad's business.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
I came in.

Speaker 9 (03:41):
It was the one thing that I promised myself I
would never do. The circumstances in which I came in
under was both of my parents had open heart surgery
within eighteen months of one another. So being a big
family guy, that's almost part obligation. And it was a
really good run. But toward the end I had a
long conversation with my wife and the big bold move
was leaving the family business to go back into finance

(04:03):
and follow my passion. And then when I got back
into finance, I got on in finance on the advisory side.
I started to get my designations and my licenses, cutting
my teeth and I got to the point where I
didn't like the traditional big bank model where it was
all about the volume, it was all about the numbers.
So I said, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna open
up my own shop, and we are going to be

(04:24):
fee only. We're going to be really good advice. There
will be no conflict of interest. So I left and
again started from zero and had to You know, obviously.

Speaker 7 (04:35):
Two bold moves too bold moves the same story. I
mean that's great, though, I mean leaving the predictability and
stability of a family business and going out on your own,
it takes a lot of courage. Josh, welcome to the show.
Tell us about your bold, risky move.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
Yeah, great, great, great to be here first of all.
But yeah, the biggest bold move I'd had to take
was it was like right around the time I had
my third child, at my wife and I said, look,
we have a very comfortable life. I have a great job.
I want something more than this. I'm going to open
my own business. And what ended up happening is I
end up leaving my previous employer. I had three months

(05:12):
of savings with three kids, which some people might say
is insane, but we decided to do it, and that
have since, you know, really scaled this company into probably
one of the most helpful and incredible places that people
can access healthcare in the United States today. So I
would say that, like a bold move is just you know,
you can't be afraid to take that first giant leap
into entrepreneurship because without that first step, you're never going.

Speaker 10 (05:33):
To go anywhere.

Speaker 7 (05:34):
That's great, Yeah, well, and congratulations for taking that move.
It's obviously paid off.

Speaker 5 (05:39):
Elizabeth Well, I do have to say these guys, well, first,
one thing I like is I said they had their kids,
so it's not like my wife had our kids. No,
they're like fifty percent partners. I love that about these guys,
But it's hard to do when you have kids, to
do a bold move like that. But it's also something
you have to do because you're never safe corporate. You know,

(06:01):
you want to control your own destiny. But for me,
I think our bold move was remodeling the podcast studio
and spending a lot of blood, sweat, and tears and
money trying to make it into a really nice, high
end space with good tech equipment and then hope, like
build it and they will come. We hope. So that
was the move, but it is paying off. I am.

(06:22):
I mean, Tommy's recorded in the studio, and I am
I do have other clients recording, so.

Speaker 7 (06:27):
Yeah, I mean the common theme in all of these
is that somebody's leaving a safe spot and venturing out
into some place that's more risky, more difficult, and it
seems like starting the business is the boldest move. I mean,
that was certainly the case for me. I worked as
a corporate intellectual property lawyer for years and I could
have found another job with another corporation, but I was

(06:50):
very unhappy with that life. And Elizabeth was like, oh,
you should start your own practice, and I thought she
was nuts, But in the end it really turned out.
It's been twenty years, right, and I look back at
it and I say, God, did we really do that?

Speaker 5 (07:05):
Twenty twenty six is the twenty year anniversary your heart.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
Lot, Yeah, so six is our ten year anniversary.

Speaker 5 (07:11):
Oh you shouldn't have a party. That's always my answer
to anything like that. Party.

Speaker 7 (07:19):
I'm totally on board. So now get ready for Tommy Hillken.
He's the man who's proven you can mix magic, comedy
and motivation without blowing something up. With over seven thousand
shows under his belt, Tommy has made students laugh, professionals
loosen up, and even corporate teams believe PowerPoint isn't the
only way to present. Whether he's pulling off a trick,

(07:41):
cracking a joke, or coaching public speaking, Tommy's specialty is
turning oh no moments into standing ovations. So welcome to
the show, Tommy. My first question is did you get
paid for all seven hundred shows?

Speaker 5 (07:54):
Seven thousand shows?

Speaker 8 (07:55):
Seven thousand?

Speaker 7 (07:58):
So, Tommy, my first question, did you get paid for
all seven thousand shows?

Speaker 8 (08:03):
Yeah, as they.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Always say, I got paid weekly. You know what, Yeah,
I have, it's well above seven thousand. Now I think
you took that off by a biote. I never changed
until I go back into AI and change it. But yeah,
so it's yeah. I've been doing this since nineteen eighty
nine and it's been fantastic.

Speaker 8 (08:23):
It's been my life. I've been on stage my whole life.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
I tell everybody there's a microphone in the room, I
want to be holding it, and that's my life.

Speaker 7 (08:30):
Did you always want to be an entertainer?

Speaker 2 (08:33):
I don't know if I think it was in my genes.
My mother would always say and talk with my father.
My father would always say, does this kid ever shut up?
And my mother would always say, no, this is who
he is. And once I discovered who I was, and
I got comfortable with it. You know, in school, you know,
I was always distracted, and I was always the kid
making the other kids laugh and getting the other kids
in trouble and sitting there like I didn't do anything.

Speaker 8 (08:53):
Still one of my favorite things in.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
The world, you know what I'm talking about, that kid
who got everybody else in trouble.

Speaker 8 (08:59):
So I realized that it in me, and then I
realized when I.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
Went out that I could make a living doing it
and make a good living.

Speaker 5 (09:04):
So this is Tommy Hilkin with Tommy Hilkin Productions. Tommy,
can you tell us a story of the very first
one that you did, very first presentation.

Speaker 8 (09:15):
Very first presentation?

Speaker 2 (09:16):
I know exactly where it was, I certainly can, and
it was interesting.

Speaker 8 (09:20):
I went.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
I was in Union City, New Jersey, which is right
here in Hudson County. I was on the second floor
Burger King. I was six months into doing magic and
my friend Mando opened up a magic shop and he
taught me a magic trick. It cost me four bucks
to get this magic trick from Mondo's Magic Shop. Taught
me how to do it, and I just started doing
it and doing it and doing it, and everybody got

(09:41):
sick of me doing it and doing it and doing it.

Speaker 8 (09:43):
But I only had.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
One trick, but I did it everywhere I went, and well,
I would stop everybody say watch this. You know, like
if you meet a magician today, you know what they're
going to say, Hey, you want to see a trick
That wasn't me, but I ever showed everybody.

Speaker 8 (09:57):
And now what I did was he said to me.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
After six months of doing that and building and some stuff,
he said, you want to go do a show. Now.
I even remember it paid me ninety five dollars to
do a forty five minute show. And that was in
nineteen ninety somewhere around there. Say, I remember it, and
I loved everything about it. I was thinking about it
driving here. I'll be real quick. I wasn't nervous. I
think I was actually ready to do this, and I

(10:20):
went in it. I'm a people person. I'm one of
six kids, so I had to entertain just to be seen.
And that's how it went. So it was nineteen eighty
nine somewhere in nineteen ninety.

Speaker 5 (10:30):
And then you just went from there and kept giving shows.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Well, the good thing about what I was doing was
it was Saturdays and Sundays. Is the bulk of business
people doing parties, that's when they do it on the
weekends and things. So I kept my job. I worked
seven days a week for six years.

Speaker 8 (10:46):
Six years.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
I had the kids, had the wife, and what are
we going to do? I loved doing the weekend things.

Speaker 8 (10:50):
I loved that.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
I enjoyed it, but you know, a lot of feared,
doubt and uncertainty. So I stuck with doing all and
then that day came when I said, all right, you know,
six years is a long time.

Speaker 8 (10:59):
What are we going to do? We made the decision.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
We moved into the entertainment and it was the best
thing we ever did.

Speaker 7 (11:05):
That's great. So talk about humor and business. What can
business people learn about humor that will help them?

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Well, it's communication, right, What's the best way through to
someone is to make them laugh, make them smile. Right,
we always think about it. We'll human beings, We're not
human doings. So for me, you know, I have to
always be careful. You know, you learn in sales to
you know what, does it mimic someone across from you.
I have to be careful, like if someone's like a
d in there an authoritative spot. I'm the kind of

(11:32):
guy that would drive you crazy, you know, So I
have to be careful. But humor breaks the ice everywhere
you go.

Speaker 8 (11:37):
What do they say?

Speaker 2 (11:38):
The first thing you can do is when you meet somebody.

Speaker 8 (11:40):
Break the ice.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
You're at a networking event, right, you want people to
like you, trust you, all that good stuff that goes on.
So being kind and gentle and having fun with people
is all I want to do. I talk to everyone,
you know. I really did a hot Dol guy. We
had a few laughs when I was down there. It's
just it's what I do. Why not brighten someone's day
a little bit? But in business, but there's no reason
to be uptight. Like I said, this is what we do.

(12:04):
It's not who we are. You know some people, I'll
tell the story real quick. Both my brothers are cops.
My dad always said, here's my boys, two cops and
a clown. That's how That's how he introduced us, right.
But you know, I always used to think about my brothers,
the difference between my brothers and I was great guys.
That the best guys in the world. But you know,
once you become a cop, you think you are a cop.

(12:27):
And I used to say, no, you're my brother, Keith.
What you do is you're a cop for a living,
you know, and that kind of a thing. So that's
why I think you could always use you and break
the ice, even a police officer. Right, smile on your
face instead of making somebody feel up tight and tense,
crack a joke, say what's going on? You know why
I pulled you over? Maybe right, I write some jokes,
but you know why I pulled you over?

Speaker 8 (12:47):
Only kidding.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
I think more importantly, you know, treat people like you
want to be treated. I want to have a good time.
If I walk into a room and there's not a party,
I'm going to bring one, you know. That's that's what
I do.

Speaker 7 (13:00):
So maybe you can give our audience some tips about
how to kind of break the ice at a networking event, right,
because they're not professionals.

Speaker 5 (13:09):
Not everybody's funny, Like, do these just flow out of
you or do you actually write some down? Do you
ever have to write down a joke to present or
does it just come natural.

Speaker 8 (13:18):
I'm very creative in what's going on around me.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Like if I'm doing a gig and somebody's moving, That's
where I find my humor. Save somebody they walk in
front of me. Is what's this the stage you're going through?

Speaker 5 (13:29):
How does another person do that?

Speaker 8 (13:31):
Like?

Speaker 5 (13:31):
Can you teach that? Like Richard's saying, if you're at
a networking event and somebody, if somebody walked in front
of me, I probably wouldn't know what to say.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
Best phrase ever heard to explain that. Somebody said to me,
if nobody's ever told you you're funny, chances are you're not.

Speaker 8 (13:45):
So can you learn funny? You know?

Speaker 2 (13:47):
What best thing you can do is be you, Just
be you. If it's not in your blood to actually
go out and be funny. But if you're going to
write a presentation, you're going to do a speech, you
can put humor in it. I always have a tip
that when you're writing your speech out, you can look
down every four or five lines, you could put some
little quip there's something funny in there. See, I find

(14:07):
humor in everything, no matter what's going on. I grew
up in that generation where no matter what, so your
best friend fell, What was the best thing you could do?

Speaker 8 (14:15):
Laughing at first, you check au see if he's okay.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
Then you laugh the rest of the time, and you
tell the story about how we fell in the school yard,
and you just kept going on and you loved everything
about it. You fall down the stairs, it's funny as
long as you're okay, right, it's funny. So I grew
up in that type of thing where I find humor
in almost everything, you know, and a little shaky in
today's world, I got to be a little careful of
more now than I ever was.

Speaker 8 (14:38):
You know, it's always funny.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
I find people that come to a comedy show and
then you look and they don't want to laugh.

Speaker 8 (14:42):
I'm like, what are you doing? They get your money back?

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Go get it, you know, you want the people surrounding
you were gonna have. You came to have a good time.
And I learned from the best in the business, you know,
like Rodney and guys like that, and you know, Sam
Kinnison and Andrew Dice Clay, all the people that were irreverent,
and I loved everything about it. So in today's thing,
people doing business telling comedy. I don't think you want
to be a comedian. You want to be you, Maybe

(15:04):
unbutton his shirt, loosen up a little bit and just
be you. I think the biggest challenge everybody has is
trying to be somebody else.

Speaker 8 (15:11):
But if it's not in you, it's okay.

Speaker 5 (15:13):
So this is Tommy Hilton with Tommy Hilkin Productions. You
give presentations, you do comedy shows, you do game shows,
which you and I were going to do a game
show together, right, I hope? So yes with Marcella, let's
do it. Let's do it. I want it. That sounds
like so much fun. But you also teach people how
to present, right, Yeah? So what is one of the
things you tell people if they're going to have to

(15:34):
get on a stage, especially if they've never done it before.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yeah, so I learned from the best. Zig Ziggler was
my idol, and I met him in nineteen ninety six.
I was doing a comedy and then I went to
a thing called Success ninety six. It was in the
Metal Lands Arena back when it was the Metal Lands Arena,
and I heard him speak and I said, Wow, this
is amazing. I'm already speaking. I know how to hold
a microphone. So how do I put this into a
living So I learned from Zig and then I just

(15:57):
pretty much teach.

Speaker 8 (15:58):
Everything Zig t it me.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
So when it comes down to presenting, people always say,
what's the number one fear in the world public speaking?

Speaker 9 (16:05):
Right?

Speaker 2 (16:05):
They always say, you'd rather be in You'd rather be
in the coffin than given the eulogies, the all.

Speaker 8 (16:11):
So it's so true they say it.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
But one thing I discovered is that there really is
no fear of public speaking. And this is what I
want to get across today. It's a fear of being judged.
Because right now we're all doing public speaking, right, we're
thinking about it, we're talking to each other right now,
you're sitting at a networking event, you're talking across the table,
you're doing public speaking.

Speaker 8 (16:31):
But everybody thinks once you get up in front.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Of room, everything locks up because you're afraid of what
people are going to think about you.

Speaker 8 (16:36):
Oh my, how am I doing? Right?

Speaker 2 (16:37):
You stink and think and creeps into your head and
that all goes away when you're recognized there's nothing to
be afraid of, and you prepare and you practice, prepare
and practice, and that's that's.

Speaker 8 (16:47):
All public speaking is. We do it every day.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
You know, maybe you were that kid who didn't raise
your hand, you know when the teacher asked you for
a question, or it locked you up. That's your personality.
You have to break through that and go out and
do it. Because presentations, we all know it's a big
part of our lives, no matter who you are.

Speaker 5 (17:02):
So what do you think to yourself when you're standing
on that stage with the mic in your hand and
there's like maybe one hundred people out there all looking
at you. What do you tell yourself, Well, it's a
great question.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
They've all been great questions up to that point. Not
that this one's any better.

Speaker 8 (17:16):
I'm just throwing it out.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
I always remind people when I'm doing public speaking training,
don't respond by saying great question, because there'll be that
one guy who asked the question.

Speaker 8 (17:24):
You forget to say, great question. Yeah, So what do
I think? Here's what happens to me.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
The transformation, the guy in my car going to the gig,
the day, sitting in my house.

Speaker 8 (17:39):
All this is going on fire. What's good?

Speaker 5 (17:41):
You know?

Speaker 8 (17:41):
I'm feeling it all that right, bump bum bumh.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
And the blessing is once I get to the event,
once I step on the stage, I become this other guy.
Not really, but yes, you know, I step up and
I own it. This is what I do. I better
be good, you know. I don't want to just show
up and not be good. So I leave the child
in the car, is what they say. The child wants
me to be afraid and scared. So I remind myself, no, no, no,

(18:07):
I leave the child in the car and I go
into the event. And what I have to do is
one of the best things I do. Is you have
to open up strong and get everybody on your side.
That's the most important thing you can do is open
up strong, talk to people. Everybody thinks they have to
go out and doing a presentation. You see somebody with
a nice jacket on or something, or a woman say
it's great outfit, thanks for wearing in the front row.

Speaker 8 (18:27):
It brightens up my day.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
You have to get people on your side when you're
doing public speaking, and the best way to do it
is remember it's me, a human being talking to fellow
human beings, nothing more, nothing less. Nobody's better at anything.
I might have become better at public speaking. That that
doesn't mean you can't.

Speaker 7 (18:44):
Is it always been easy or has it gotten easier
with more experience.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
Well, the phrase I use is I still get butterflies.
I just learned how to make them fly information.

Speaker 5 (18:55):
So Tommy, I did want to ask you this. You
get presentations and they get ravey they're great. Do you
just do Jersey? New York? Do you how far do
you go?

Speaker 2 (19:04):
I try to stay local now. When I was younger,
I would travel, you know, I used to perform in Japan.
They'd send me to Japan for three weeks. And then
one time I'm away from my wife and kids for
three weeks and I'm halfway through, and I'm like, I'm
halfway around the world. I can't get home if I
have to, and it started to bug me. So I
do I want to do everything right. There's a ton

(19:25):
of business in New York and New Jersey for speakers,
and at the day you don't have to leave, especially
right where we are Morris County. I mean there's every
corporation that you can think of, every business. So I
network right locally and meet the people who give me
the business here. Yeah, not really give me the business like.

Speaker 5 (19:40):
You know now I'm going to give you the business.

Speaker 7 (19:43):
Come on, So what event do you remember the most
what was the impactful event? I guess the one that
stands out all seven thousand.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
Well, usually the ones that clicked you ahead of negative.
So I'll give you one that was a very there's two.

Speaker 8 (19:57):
That were very impactful.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
Early in my career, I was brought in to do
a comedy roast and the only information they gave me
was that the man was a professor and he liked
to read. So I'm like, that's a lot to go on.

Speaker 8 (20:09):
Huh. So I go in. I'm gonna do this. Guy
said you can do a roast, Come on. I saw.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
I take the gig and I go and the first
thing I look in is a woman sitting there with
a boufont, you know, with the big hair. If anybody
remembers what a boufont was. And I look at it,
I go, wow, that's some great hey. You ever find
any spiders in there?

Speaker 5 (20:26):
Right?

Speaker 2 (20:29):
No true story because and I got there from the
longest shot that was Burt Reynolds talking to Bernard dead
Peters in the longest shot. And the woman waited forty
five minutes till I was done and met me at
the elevator.

Speaker 8 (20:40):
She didn't come back in. She stayed out there and.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Literally attacked me about her hair how long it takes
her to get ready so that sticks out, you know,
again learning one of the things that I used to
do when I was early on in my career. If
I got a little nervous and I felt like it
wasn't going well, I would start throwing jabs out, you know,
because that's a way to find humor and whatever it was.

Speaker 8 (21:01):
So she taught me a valuable lesson.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
And when I was doing this earlier on, I met
another woman and I was ten minutes into my show
and she said she comes up to me during the things,
She whispered to me, can you do anything else?

Speaker 8 (21:15):
I go no, and I literally said it's all I know.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
And what I did was instead of having that woman
be the woman who ruined my career, she actually turned
everything around because the answer was no, I couldn't do
anything else. This is all I knew, this is all
I learned. And then I realized, if I want to
do this, the next person asked me that I could
always say yes.

Speaker 8 (21:35):
So I learned juggling and things.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
I started putting new things into my act that I
could do whatever I needed to do. So those two
things were the negatives that stuck out, and as far
as doing, you know, going to Japan was great. I'm
a big baseball fan. They hired me to perform in Japan,
and in my contract they took me to a baseball
game and made sure if I'm coming to Japan. So
I went to a baseball game in Japan. But so
those are great memories of what I do.

Speaker 7 (21:57):
What about your life now would surprise as your younger self.
I mean, when you were like six years old or seven,
did you ever expect that you were going to be
a comedian and entertainer.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
Six years old? Well, I have a long story. I
have two lives. I'm actually thirty eight years sober. From
sixteen to twenty seven, I was a walking, talking disaster
and I didn't find this. And I know everything I
do today is God given because at twenty nine I
was sober. At twenty seven, two years later, this came
into my world as a replacement for the bad behaviors

(22:32):
and all the things I was doing. All these good
behaviors took up that void, you know, that I had
of not going out and party and seeing my friends,
and so really what it was, it was just a
blessing that came into my life that you know, I
could expand and it's been with me ever since thirty
eight years sober in business thirty six years. So God
had a plan for me and I just went along.

Speaker 8 (22:50):
With the plan.

Speaker 7 (22:51):
Yeah, congratulations, thank you. Yeah, Well, we have to take
a break right now, but stay tuned everybody. You're listening
to Tommy Hilken on Passage to Profit and we'll be
back shortly. Stay tuned for intellectual property news, and don't
forget to experience more of Passage to Profit by subscribing
to us on Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube, or subscribing

(23:11):
to our podcast anywhere you get your podcasts. Just look
for the Passage to Profit show on any of these platforms.

Speaker 5 (23:17):
And coming up later on it's Noah's retrospective along with
Secrets of the Entrepreneurial Mind.

Speaker 7 (23:24):
We'll be back right after this.

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Speaker 6 (25:25):
Now back to Passage to profit once again. Richard and
Elizabeth Gearhart and.

Speaker 5 (25:30):
Our special guest, Tommy Hilkin with Tommy Hilkin Productions. Tommy
is a comedian, a speaker. He's amazing. He does game shows.
He's promised we'll do a game show together because I
love I was just saying.

Speaker 7 (25:42):
Before this shows them all the time.

Speaker 5 (25:44):
I love watching stupid game shows. Anyway, let's get back
into the discussion. So we've been picking Tommy's brain about
how can you get up on a stage and persent
to a bunch of people. We've got some really good feedback.

Speaker 7 (25:55):
You've spoken at student assemblies, right, what do you tell
those kids?

Speaker 8 (26:00):
You know what it is? With kids.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
You ask the teachers, you ask the PTA to PTO
what's going on in the school. So it's a great
way of delivering a message that they don't know really
where it's coming from. If they hear it from their parents,
if they hear it from the school, the PTO right,
they get defensive date. But if you go in and
you start doing it with humor and delivering it and
pay the message is going out that I'm subliminally right.
You're planting seeds to the kids because they close up

(26:23):
to their parents and things like that when they want to.
So I take it all around whatever the topic might be.
So I ask the teachers what do they need help with?
And you mix the magic and you mix the comedy,
and you're gonna learn. So you're gonna have a good time,
but you just if you're not careful, you're gonna learn something,
you know, And that's the way I look at it.
We're gonna have a good time, but if you're not careful,
you just might learn something.

Speaker 7 (26:41):
So what are they asking you to talk about? Though?
I mean, what are the what are the issues today?

Speaker 8 (26:46):
One of the keys that I always had an issue with, It's.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
Always been bullying, and then it turned to cyber bullying,
which if you don't know about it, you know bullying
was easy enough. He's usually the one kid challenges to
a fight. You're not a fighter. You get punched in it,
and you know it was done there at the school.
You oughd have done at the school. But this cyber
bullying thing now was twenty four to seven. Now you
could just open up your phone and somebody's saying something
about you, and these kids are taking a beaten with that.

Speaker 8 (27:11):
You know.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
I hate everything about it because, as Mike Tyson would say,
everybody has a plan right up.

Speaker 8 (27:16):
Until you get punched in a face, you know, And so.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Everybody's fighting online but not really backing themselves up that
Yet it was me I did this, So I like
to go in and I don't like focusing on bullying.
I think what you focus on, you get more of.
So I go in and I talk about focusing on
being a good person, surrounding yourself with good people. As
my mentor used to say, o QP only quality people, right,

(27:40):
the secret to life. Surround yourself with quality people. So
instead of going in and focusing on the bully and
making the bully get all the attention, I talk about
how great it is to be a nice person to
help someone. I take that approach because I really believe
what you focus on. So if you say the word bully, bully, bully, bully, everybody,
all I'm thinking of is bully, bully, bully, bully. So
I think about being nice and kind, being gentle, being respectful,

(28:02):
all those things that really really work.

Speaker 8 (28:04):
So that's the way I take the approach.

Speaker 5 (28:06):
I have been sitting here waiting to ask you this
question since we started the show, and you've talked to
the very beginning. What was the magic trick? Oh, the
first thing you did, the first one you learn? What
was it? What did you do?

Speaker 8 (28:22):
Come on doing? Six months from now you've been taking
my business.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
I make a little handkerchief disappear.

Speaker 8 (28:31):
It's all as well. It was four bucks. If you want,
I'll send you a link. You could all do it
at home.

Speaker 5 (28:35):
And that led to this career making a handkerchief disappear.

Speaker 8 (28:38):
Some people call it a career. I don't know. That's
one of my jokes I always use.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
I say, look at me, I'm working monfil My career
is booming, right, you know, It's like and.

Speaker 8 (28:47):
Then the people laugh and I go, no, it's a career,
It really is.

Speaker 9 (28:51):
You know.

Speaker 5 (28:51):
My parents are proud, but people come from a ways
a way to come and see you.

Speaker 8 (28:56):
Right.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah, you know what. I used to do clubs once
I had the family.

Speaker 8 (29:02):
I don't want to do clubs. It's not my lifestyle.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
I do a lot of private events, corporate events and communions.

Speaker 8 (29:07):
By Mitzvis all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
Where I'm so family oriented in my entertainment because i
love family, you know, Like I said, I'm one of
six kids. I get all my nephews, nieces, my kids.
It's the best in the world to me. Yeah, I
am crazy Uncle Tommy, I get it, you know what
I mean. I'm the guy that they're never going to
forget we have fun. I give him all the off
college jokes that they could take home to their mothers.

Speaker 8 (29:29):
It's the best. I like family events. I like being
with people.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
I like families being together, families laughing together. If we
could strengthen the family, the world will come together. You know,
I really believe that. You know, it all started with family.
No matter what, we used to have to get through
things as a family. And that's what I try to
get back.

Speaker 7 (29:47):
Out there, Tommy Hill can Tommy Hilkin Productions. Tommy, it's
been amazing. Where can people find you here? If they
want to contact you in the future, how do they
find here?

Speaker 8 (30:01):
Tommy Hilkin dot com.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
You'll find everything I do there, And like I said, speaker, trainer, entertainer.
If there's a microphone, I want to be holding it
and we just want to have some fun, maybe deliver
a lesson or too.

Speaker 7 (30:11):
It's Tommy Hilkin dot Com. It's been great, Thanks so
much for having me. So now it's time for.

Speaker 5 (30:17):
AI AI in Business.

Speaker 7 (30:19):
Yeah, we changed the name it it was AI Roundtable before.

Speaker 5 (30:23):
But now we're going to talk about AI in business.
We're going to ask each of our guests here just
for one example, because I talked to them before the show.
They're all just like going to town with AI because
they're smart and they see the future. But for one
way that you're using AI and your business that's really
helping you. So we'll start with you. Tommy Hilkin.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
I jokingly told you earlier. I'm a one man show.
I've always been a one man show. I do everything
in my company. It's the way I want it. I
don't even think about it. It's exhausting. So I have
a marketing company and it's called Audi Inga, which is AI.
I learned how to use AI for my marketing and
I help people. I do have a marketing guy, Audi Inga,
and so his initials are Ais perfectly. It makes me

(31:02):
sound like a big shot. Hang on, let me check
with Aunie. And so what I've been doing for me?
You know, me writing I wasn't much. I'm a talker,
so when you ask do I write things down? I'm
a talker really, So yeah, I'm a talk but I
if someone sends me an email looking for something specific,
I cut it out and I put it into AI

(31:24):
and asked him to respond to this email in a professional,
humorous way, much better than I could ever write it
even think about it. You can even put pricing in
and if I get enough information, I'll say, would you
do me a favorite AI?

Speaker 8 (31:35):
And please?

Speaker 2 (31:35):
I always say please, because, like we mentioned earlier, I
got a feel and they'll be coming after me if
I don't someday.

Speaker 8 (31:41):
Please mister A.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
If you say good Saturday, you remember that time you
forgot to say please Dom?

Speaker 8 (31:54):
That's right?

Speaker 2 (31:56):
So I take the email or say could you please
me a proposal? And it comes back better than I
could ever write, not even close. I know nothing about that.
You know, even if with most business decisions, if they
want something like a proposal, I'd rather talk to them
than send the proposal. Some people are a stickler for it,
so prints out everything, bullet points and everything on what
I'm going to do. It's absolutely amazing. That's what I

(32:18):
use it for responding to clients.

Speaker 5 (32:21):
Excellent. Now we're going to give these other guys a
chance to talk. Bobby Mashia with green Ridge Wealth Planning, Bobby,
what is one way you're using AI?

Speaker 9 (32:30):
So what's interesting about AI and the conversations that we're
having with clients today is that twenty thirty is really
going to be an interesting point in time for our
generation in the workplace, and it's when baby boomers turn
sixty five and older. They're all segmented for that retirement
phase out age. And you also have AI set to

(32:50):
reach singularity.

Speaker 5 (32:51):
What does that mean? Reach singularity?

Speaker 9 (32:53):
It basically becomes self thinking to some degree, right, so sentient.
I don't want to make it scarier than it really
needs to be because we know there's a lot behind
the energy that it takes to get to that place,
and we don't even produce a fraction of that energy yet.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
But the reality of it is.

Speaker 9 (33:09):
If you're not embracing AI right now, especially if you're
older in business, your ability to transact later in the
future and really retain value in your business going to
be dramatically decreased. So we have a lot of different
things that we've been implementing into the firm, and I
think the one singular thing if you just kind of
think of thematically, what are you doing that's maybe super complicated,

(33:31):
but doesn't require anything more than your idea as opposed
to your execution. So, for example, we have to go
through some data some sophisticated ideas when we're putting together
summaries of meetings for clients, and we're using AI to
capture a lot of the conversation obviously approved by clients,
and we are using a private AI bot to then

(33:56):
disseminate what's the important information, create actionable timeline to your
point before Tommy bullet points. People really like to know
what's going on from a succinct standpoint. They don't want
to read a whole summary, and you know, a lot
of times, when you're dealing with complicated concepts and you're
in the day to day life of speaking your own jargon,

(34:17):
you don't want to pass that along to the clients
because clients don't speak your jargon. So being able to
kind of take those complex ideas and simplify them and
really given actuable timelines has been super.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
Helpful for us.

Speaker 5 (34:27):
Yeah, that's really great. I do want to just say
one thing here. I find chat typt as much more
chatty than perplexity. I prefer perplexity because it'll just give
you a table for stuff like that. But yeah, that's
so important.

Speaker 9 (34:38):
So one of the interesting things about AI is a
lot of people they go in and they just say, hey, AI, please,
can you do.

Speaker 3 (34:45):
This for me?

Speaker 9 (34:46):
And they're not really setting up the prompts or setting
up the AI to be thinking. I would say that
down the same street that you are, they're using the
entire map. Yes, So if you can start to actually
engage it to maybe do some research to uh, you
know www. Dot gr wealthplan dot com and become familiarized
with this company right now, understanding that the team structure

(35:10):
I want you to you know, take on your next
task and then take on your next task and then
ask the question and then ask for the counter argument. Yeah,
and then go deeper into the question because it's not
going to be a one prompt thing, otherwise you're going
to deal with a lot of that hallucination issues as well.

Speaker 5 (35:27):
Yeah, I know people sometimes ask, Well, one person I've
talked to anyway who's up and stuff says, he asks
what the prompt should be and goes through the iterations
to finally get the prompt that he's actually going to use. Anyway,
that was great. Now, let's go on. Let's go to
Josh con with Eden and his website is try Eden
dot com. What is the way and what do you

(35:48):
want to say about AI for my business?

Speaker 4 (35:50):
You know, we're well over one hundred and fifty employees
at this point, you know, scaled like crazy, and one
of the reasons why we were able to get there
is solely because we were such early adopters with AIS.
So a lot of the things that we've done to
augment our workforce have just you know ten next every
single element of like our workforce we have today. So
I'll give you like one fantastic use case that I

(36:12):
might get in trouble for saying because it's been such
a lucrative and incredible game changer for us. But really
it's we came up with this idea where hey, you know,
I'm in an executive position. Everyone's coming to me twenty
four to seven. Hey Josh, Hey Josh, Hey Josh, I
need this. I need that, I need the other, I
need this approval, I need that, And I'm looking at
half of these things. I'm like, this, this is silly.

(36:33):
Why am I having to respond? You know how I'm
going to respond Instead? What we did is I took
over six hundred meetings that I had attended and took
all the transcripts from our AI note taker, uploaded that
into a bot that's essentially called mocking Jay, And essentially
we've had every single one of our employees before they
come to me, they actually run all the inquiries and

(36:54):
things through mocking Jay, and then they'll actually come to
me with a plan pre vetted by me to be
approved by this is one and we use.

Speaker 7 (37:03):
These things everything creative.

Speaker 5 (37:05):
Yeah that is yeah, I'm hearing like people have their
own chat GPT kind of thing just for their company,
and they put all their data in there and it's searchable,
but you're like, even one step further, you put yourself
in there, right, So.

Speaker 7 (37:17):
Exactly, I want to replicate anticipate a lot of the
decisions you would make.

Speaker 4 (37:21):
It knows me almost better than I know myself sometimes,
which just a little scary, but you know. And then
the other side is that you know, as you as
you start seeing more and more of this piece of
alve and as you said, as the energy standard's going
to come up and we can use more and more
and more of these pieces of AI, what we're seeing
is all these like Sam Altman, you know, open ai features,
all of the anthropic features. They can start working together,

(37:42):
like I coach my chat GPT, instance, how to make
my cloud code better. And at the same time, I
also now I'm really using Pulse from chat GPT where
it knows everything about my p and L and knows
everything about the issues I have and as my people
challenges and those org structure issues, and it's thinking about
all the stuff while I sleep, so I wake up
to a curated list of things I should be thinking

(38:04):
about that debt.

Speaker 7 (38:05):
Wow, yeah, that's amazing. Well, when your wife starts talking
to your chatbot instead of you, then you know you're
going to have an issue, right Yeah.

Speaker 4 (38:13):
Yeah, she's actually embraced it too. She was so anti
AI at the beginning, and she actually started using it
just for simple things around the house, like, Hey, how
am I going to schedule time for the kids and
this and the other?

Speaker 2 (38:25):
How do I get Josh to spend more time at home?

Speaker 5 (38:28):
I use it for everything. I haven't used it for
the dinners for the week list yet, but I think
that's the next step.

Speaker 7 (38:34):
It's good to me. Yeah, you know, it was like
AI food.

Speaker 5 (38:39):
So Richard, your heart with your heart law, what are
you doing with AI?

Speaker 7 (38:42):
So kind of similar to what Bobby said. I think
our plan is to have everybody in the firm take
a class on drafting prompts so that they understand how
to use AI and use it effectively. Because everybody says, oh, yeah,
I use AI mostly for personal stuff, or they'll use
the AI from companies like Lexus that have AI research tools,

(39:05):
but they're not actually using it to improve how they
work on a daily basis, and so part of that
is that they're just not familiar with it. So I'm
planning to ask our team members to take at least
an hour class, maybe like a YouTube video or something
so that they can understand how to draft prompts and
hopefully that will encourage them to use AI in different ways.

Speaker 5 (39:28):
That's excellent. So for me, you were talking about using
Claude versus Esa, So I like to use a bunch
of different ones. I like Claude. My son says that's
the best one for programming chat Gipt's okay, it's not
my favorite, but it is good for emails, and I
like Perplexity the best because it has a bunch of
different ones and you can check which one you want to.
But I also use Google Gemini, and I'm not a
huge fan of Google Gemini, but I use it because

(39:48):
it's Google. Right. So the last time I used it,
I think I asked, well, not the last time, but
one of the times I used it recently is I
asked it to go through my website that I'm doing
for the studio and ask how could I improve it?
And I found there were some serious problems with the
website that somebody had done for me, so I have
to start over. But you know, it'll go through and
do all the background stuff, like I don't want to

(40:09):
get too deep into how you do a website, but
it really gave me a lot of useful information on
what I needed to do to have a decent website
that would work. So there are so many different use cases.
And what I love about the show we ask us
every week, and every week we get a different answer
from every person.

Speaker 4 (40:23):
I think you'll continue to get new and innovative answers
all the time because this thing is just evolving. It's
such an incredible ring. I mean, look at Moore's law.
It's just going to continue to double and double and
double and double on.

Speaker 5 (40:33):
It shows you too that it's the human curiosity and
the differences in all of us that make us think
of different things to ask it to do.

Speaker 7 (40:40):
Until singularity right, Well, one of the things even for
the podcast, right, you can upload your podcast and have
it research your podcasts and the types of conversations that
you've had with other people, and then you could say, well, I've.

Speaker 9 (40:52):
Got these three guys coming on, research him, research him,
research him. Now, what are the best questions that you
can come up with that would really engage the audience
being the typical listener for Passage to Profit show.

Speaker 5 (41:06):
Yeah, Richard actually did.

Speaker 9 (41:07):
That a lot of people don't even think about how
it could be just for something really, something as easy
as like reducing your time for research.

Speaker 5 (41:16):
Okay, this is how I compare AI to normal life.
AI is like driving a car instead of walking to
get to where you want to go. Right, It cuts
the time down ten times, but it also comes up
with like did you might not think of too So yeah,
I think that I agree with whomever said I think
we're all agreed that you better learn it now. You
better get on board now, you better learn how to

(41:38):
do these queries now, because it's not going away and
it's just going to get more complex as time goes on.

Speaker 14 (41:44):
Tommy Hilken, I love the fact that you're saying, the
better the query, Like we really get into what you're asking,
you'll get better answers, just like a human being, right,
you want better answers, ask better questions.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
I love what you had to say. Man, it was amazing.
I can't wait to say, you know, go through my
way website and tell me what's good, bad, and different
about my website.

Speaker 9 (42:02):
So they've also done medical research just to study the
effects of the brain on people who use chat GPT
versus people who are doing the research Obviously, when you
start to become more lethargic in how you're using it,
tell me this answer, give me this rest, and then
you take it and you don't even process it yourself.
Your ability to learn and retain that is going to

(42:23):
be nothing wow. Right, So the more you can engage
with it for the better answer.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
It's almost like having a conversation with the two of us.

Speaker 9 (42:31):
Right, You're also your memory of what the output's going
to look like is going to be better.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
Because we as humans like to engage.

Speaker 9 (42:37):
We like to work in teams, we like to work,
you know, outside of just with ourselves, with other people.
And if we can look at that as a way
to engage with something else instead of someone else, it
also will enhance how we retain the knowledge.

Speaker 4 (42:50):
I agree more with you and like the people that
are going to wander, the people that embrace being a polymath. Right,
if you're able to just be able to learn really
well over the future, guess what you have any animation
engine to do all the actual hard work for you.
And so like when you're talking about prompt engineering, like, hey,
don't go ask it about Hey, what can I do
to improve my website?

Speaker 10 (43:07):
Tell it?

Speaker 4 (43:08):
Who it is say, hey, I want you to be
thinking like the world's best developer with a marketing hat,
and you're also a CMO. And as you're doing this,
you're you're starting to say, hey, I want you to
look at ways to make this website convert better. I
want you to make this website have a better click
through rate to this specific outcome.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
Here are my competitors.

Speaker 9 (43:25):
This is the competitor that I think leads the industry.
How can I be ahead of them in my messaging
versus their messaging to capture their audience?

Speaker 3 (43:34):
You got to answer.

Speaker 7 (43:36):
You have to put a certain level of thinking into
it to get the quality output that you want because
you you have to think through that query like you
just did, right, and and that's super important to get
the best answer.

Speaker 9 (43:49):
If you have it played Devil's Advocate and then ask
it again, given the fact that you just played Devil's
Advocate and you have identified some issues that maybe weren't
something that you considered in your first answer, how would
you then answer the question again given this new information,
And they'll go, thanks for asking. That's a great response,
and it'll go into you know, an even better response

(44:10):
than the one priority you know.

Speaker 4 (44:11):
One of my favorite ones from that is actually it's
been proven over time and time again. Back in the day,
the Roman armies would tell other generals, hey, before you
give this advice, would you give this to your worst enemy?
And then they provide back exactly what the flaws are,
because if you remove yourself, you even are doing that
to the AI. And it's actually seeing halls that didn't
see before.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
I just love what you guys are doing it because
it's making me think. I always say, his people, you know,
does anybody else besides me have a voice in their head?

Speaker 8 (44:37):
Right?

Speaker 2 (44:37):
And everybody's like, God, I don't want to raise the
ham and I come on, everybody asked that voy I said.
I got so familiar with them, I named them Norm.
So when I communicate, I talk to Norm and tell
Norm to settle down so Tommy could.

Speaker 8 (44:48):
So I'm thinking the same thing you might be laughing at.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
I call them ARTI inga, but in fact I could
be having a conversation with ARTI instead of just like
you said, not retaining, not learning, just letting it do
all the work. It's that's brilliant, man. So Autie's gonna
take over.

Speaker 5 (45:05):
Yeah, I mean and Honestly, I feel like you guys
gave us some real meat today, like how to really
use this thing? Right? And I heard like once, but
I want to reiterate that it's really brilliant and it's
really going down deep to say, Okay, pretend like you're
a developer, Pretend like your Google Analytics or Google Spiders
or whatever looking at the back end of my website

(45:26):
and tell me what's wrong, because it does put it
into that mode. And then in the different ais there
are different ones that you can use and you can
do deep research or you can do this. So I
use a lot of different ones and I use them
for different things. So that's another thing that you can
do to really well if you're a geek.

Speaker 4 (45:43):
Okay, so if you also, I also berate it a
little bit, you have to do better.

Speaker 10 (45:48):
You have to do that.

Speaker 9 (45:53):
And it's actually it's actually been proven that if you
if you put steaks into your query, like my job
depends on it, or you know that this needs to
be perfect or else we're not going to land the
next client or be able to get this past our budget.
Once you put like a stakes to it, AI will

(46:14):
actually work harder.

Speaker 7 (46:15):
It's more human than I thought, Wow, you know compassion.

Speaker 5 (46:18):
So I think we're all agreed. The upshot is master it,
don't let it master you. So you have to master
it right now, in twenty twenty five, because even three
months from now, it's going to be more advanced and different.
It changes every day.

Speaker 9 (46:32):
I would say, not just start, well, yeah, just right,
just start, because once you get a taste for what
it can do for you, then you're just naturally going
to want to be inquisitive and grow more with it
and use it. But the more fearful you are, and
the more time goes by, the mountain just seems a
lot bigger and a lot bigger and a lot bigger,

(46:52):
and you're less gonna be You're gonna be more hesitant
to take that first step.

Speaker 3 (46:55):
So just take that first step and start.

Speaker 5 (46:57):
Okay, Well, thank you everybody. That was amazing. You're listening
to the Passage to Profit Show with Richard Elizabeth Karhart,
our special guest Tommy Hilken, and we will be right back.

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Speaker 1 (49:05):
Passage to Profit continues with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.

Speaker 7 (49:10):
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(49:31):
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show on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and on the iHeart app.
And now it is time for intellectual property news.

Speaker 5 (49:48):
Yes, so we're revisiting something that we spoke about a
couple of months ago or so. Somebody pirated a whole
bunch of books, didn't pay anything for them. In Anthropic
went through and uploaded them all to its database and
then used it to give answers to AI queries and
got sued by the book authors. There was a class
action lawsuit, so it said they took pirated copies of

(50:09):
their works to train his chatbot.

Speaker 7 (50:10):
Yeah, they took over five hundred thousand books and they
just uploaded them to their database and there were all
pirated books, and the company knew that they were pirated books.
And the first part of the case was, well, is
using this copyrighted content transformative in the sense that they've
taken the material and turned it into something new when

(50:33):
they use it to respond to queries. The court said, yes,
that's allowed under copyright law. But the court came back
and also said that using pirated copyrighted material is a
no no. So they were going to have a hearing
on this. It turns out that they've reached the settlement,
which means that it's about one point five billion dollars

(50:54):
in settlement, which sounds like a lot, but it really
means that each author gets about three thousand dollars, which
is probably more than they would have gotten if they
had actually sold the book. But it still kind of
seems a little bit on the light side considering all
the money that Anthropic is going to be making using
this content.

Speaker 5 (51:14):
Right, But if they had had to buy all those books,
then people still would have gotten compensated somewhat. So it
feels like this is a little bit of a win
because Anthropic did have to pay something. It couldn't just
take people's information and use it. And that's the big
fight right now.

Speaker 7 (51:32):
We were talking about this in the cab on the
way over to the studio, and you were like, oh,
this is a precedent, right, this is a precedent for
future disputes, and it is. I mean, hopefully the AI
companies will compensate authors and creators for their graphics and
their written content, and their movies and their films, But
what about all the other stuff, like the blog posts

(51:52):
and all the other content that's out there that is
maybe not so quantifiable. I mean, you can look at
a book book and you can say, oh, okay, well
this has an author. It's very easy to you know,
kind of connect the AI.

Speaker 8 (52:06):
To the book.

Speaker 7 (52:07):
But what about all the other stuff, like all the
Facebook data for example that they mind and all the
Instagram data. There's no compensation for that.

Speaker 5 (52:15):
I don't know. It's going to be a tough one.

Speaker 8 (52:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (52:17):
Well, one of the Anthropic executives said, if if the
court had awarded full damages for this, they'd be out
of business. So their business model is built on using
stolen content and it's the only way that they can
stay in business, at least at this point.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
I wonder if you took a page from a book
and you put it into AI and said, could you
rearrange this to make it sound like mine?

Speaker 8 (52:37):
Would it happen?

Speaker 5 (52:38):
And could you use that it's a good copyright?

Speaker 7 (52:41):
Well that's the question of is it transformed? So if
it takes it and rewrites it and says it differently, that,
according to the court, is a legitimate transformation and it's okay.
But if you use the underlying book or page and
that's copyrighted, you have to first compensate the author for that.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
I think it's going to be easy enough to get
it too similar and use it.

Speaker 8 (53:05):
Oh yeah, yeah, interesting.

Speaker 4 (53:07):
And that's the reason why they're all focused right on
using Reddit and Wikipedia and why Elon came out and
said we're going to make our own Rockipedia like last yek,
right is because who owns creative comments? Like that's what
they're essentially looking for, right, right? How do you monetize that?

Speaker 7 (53:22):
Yeah, well, I'm not sure that adds a lot of
credibility to the AI business. You're relying on Reddit, right,
I mean it is.

Speaker 5 (53:29):
Creating jobs though.

Speaker 7 (53:30):
For the lawyers, Yeah, we're very happy that there's so much,
so much disputed and all this.

Speaker 5 (53:38):
Anyway, it's time to move on. So just a little
update on that. But I'm so excited because we have two,
as you have heard from the previous conversations, two really intelligent,
really successful, great guys here today to talk about their businesses.
So we're going to start with Bobby Maushia and he
has green Ridge Wealth Planning. He's on a mission to

(53:58):
help entrepreneurs turn the success into lasting freedom and wealth.
Who doesn't want that?

Speaker 7 (54:03):
Sign me up?

Speaker 5 (54:05):
Okay, So Bobby, welcome, tell us, tell us about what
you're doing.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
I'm going to take a couple of steps back.

Speaker 9 (54:10):
I told you a little bit about my story, and
in that story of being with the family business, having
to get in with when my father was and my
mother both went in for open heart surgery, and then
leaving the business, and my dad not talking to me
for a year. After a while of building my new business,
he started to see how successful I was and one

(54:31):
of the things that he said to me was, hey, listen,
I see you're doing really well with this. Do you
want to help me with my stuff? And I said,
you know, Dad, I love you. We have the best
relationship we've ever had, and I'm not working for you again.
And he goes, no, no, I don't want you to come
back and work for me. I want you to help
me as an advisor. And I said, yeah, that's exactly

(54:53):
what the dynamic of that relationship looks like.

Speaker 3 (54:55):
You're the client, I'm the advisor. I work for you.

Speaker 9 (54:58):
How about this, how about I help you. I'll sit
on the sidelines. I don't want to get paid nothing.
I'm just gonna look over and help you with filling
up some of your gaps that you might have or
helping you just provide some value in different places. So
what happened was I started to play that role, giving
him the things that he needed to go back to
his team on and there were amazing and substantial gaps

(55:20):
things that were done and then undone.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
It really didn't seem to jar him.

Speaker 9 (55:25):
It's one of those things I think, you know, when
you're making money, money can hide the mistakes, in the errors,
and if you're not thinking forward, you start to say,
I'm okay, now, I'll deal with it when it happens,
when it becomes a problem, I'll deal with it. Well,
he ended up getting cancer and he ended up becoming terminal,
and we had to jump in and make a substantial

(55:45):
change to a lot of things that he.

Speaker 8 (55:46):
Had going on.

Speaker 7 (55:47):
What was his business again.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
He was franchising Duncan Donuts.

Speaker 7 (55:50):
Those are money makers, aren't they.

Speaker 9 (55:52):
Yeah, Well, like I said, you have when you're making money,
and it's easy to hide problems, hide issues.

Speaker 3 (55:56):
When he passed.

Speaker 9 (55:57):
And I had was the executive of the state, I
had taken over his business as well, which was another conversation.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
He says, how are you going to take over my business?

Speaker 9 (56:06):
I said, well, I created the business so that this
way I can step away in eighty percent of my
time can go toward this. We're set up, so let
me help you over here. But with the understanding and
the caveat that, it becomes now my way. That was
a softer conversation than that, but it was you know, Dad,
I'm going to commem and we're gonna I'll talk to
you every day. I'll let you know what I'm doing.
But if anybody says, did you know that this was happening,

(56:27):
you have to say, yes, this is the way, this
is the way I wanted.

Speaker 3 (56:30):
This is the way Robert's taken over.

Speaker 9 (56:31):
And there was a substantial amount of things that his
advisors had told him to do, accountants, attorneys, investment advisors,
insurance advisors that just did not get done correctly. And
if I wasn't in the business that I'm in, and
I was just a regular, you know, worked in corporate America,
had a job, there would be no way that I

(56:53):
could have taken this and made something of it.

Speaker 5 (56:57):
So your business now is green Ridge Wealth Planning. How
did that fit in? I mean to me, that sounds
like something where you would sit down with people and
plan where to put their money so that they have
enough for retirement, but it sounds like it's more than that.

Speaker 9 (57:09):
So we work with entrepreneurs and our goal is by
twenty thirty six, we want to have a thousand entrepreneurs
exit ready because we believe that being exit ready is.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
Actually your best growth strategy.

Speaker 9 (57:20):
So whether or not that's exiting in the next three
to five years or it's I have no idea because
I haven't even thought of it because.

Speaker 3 (57:27):
I'm growing my business.

Speaker 9 (57:29):
Making sure that you're setting your business up correctly will
give you the type of freedom that you want that
you want it out of your business, the type of
income that you want, and it also give you the
valuation and the framework to work from that will be
able to scale at ways that you would not have
been able to do if you weren't set up correctly.

Speaker 7 (57:47):
So what are the elements of a business that is
exit ready?

Speaker 9 (57:51):
I would say the elements of a business that is
exit ready is they understand exactly how their business is
being valued. They understand exactly what are the things that
they need to do to get it to the value
that they're going to require in the future to live
the life that they've established themselves to have. So it's
almost like when you're going to go into retirement, Well,
how much do I have to save to be in retirement?

Speaker 5 (58:10):
He asked that question every day, right.

Speaker 9 (58:13):
But instead it's how do I how much does my
business have to be worth in order for me to
get there? Now, there are also different elements in there
that help you to be You know, obviously, you have
your other items within your business, like your tax, your legal,
your HR, the organizational chart, how you have it set up.
But it's also the excess capital that you are creating

(58:33):
in that successful business and how do you have it
working for you? And a lot of times when you
start to think about business owners and how do they
leverage themselves, how do they create these coffers to pull
from when they have these opportunities I mentioned before twenty
thirty being a huge opportunity because that's when every baby
boomer will be over the age of sixty five and
we will have officially launched into the heart of the

(58:57):
largest wealth transfer in history. You're gonna have business is
for sale. They are going to be winners and losers.
We'd love to be in a win win situation, but
the reality of it is most business owners that go
to sale, twenty percent of them actually reach the closing table.
And if I think about my dad and what I
went through with my dad, and I think about the
life style that he gave up and created, right, he

(59:18):
gave up a lot to do what he did professionally,
and you always hope, like the American dream is, there's
a pot of gold at the other end of that rainbow.
So helping older people who are running their own business
really set themselves up so they can take advantage of
that has.

Speaker 3 (59:32):
Become a huge passion of mine.

Speaker 9 (59:33):
And what's going to end up happening is if they're
not setting it up correctly, the younger generation is going
to have the opportunity to eat their lunch, take their clients,
take their business out of a fraction of what it should
be worth. And I don't like that. That doesn't sit
well with me, especially if you can do some pre planning.

Speaker 10 (59:47):
To get there.

Speaker 5 (59:48):
I agree, Tommy.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
I just like the way you just said that the
younger generation is going to come out and see this,
take advantage of it, and eat their lunch.

Speaker 8 (59:55):
Yeah, I get it. It makes sense.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
Really, what you're setting for these people is protection when
and raising their awareness of what could possibly happen, and
I like that You're passionate about helping people.

Speaker 8 (01:00:05):
That's what we're all here for.

Speaker 7 (01:00:06):
So are you still running the Dunkin Donut franchises?

Speaker 9 (01:00:09):
When I came in and basically reorganize and restructure it,
I put a team in place, so now it only
maybe takes up about five to ten.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
Percent of my time.

Speaker 9 (01:00:17):
And I've created a family office, so we have somebody,
I have a team who's running the family office. They're
the ones who are basically pushing the mandates that we
have down for the manufacturing company that I have as
well as the Duncan franchises. I get all of the
relevant information that I need to help with the big
picture strategy, and they, for the most part, take all
of the elements and.

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
Just run with it.

Speaker 9 (01:00:39):
So the beauty of it is also that we have
a franchise, so the franchise or does a lot of
the heavier lifts for us. But now ninety percent of
my time goes back into my wealth management firm and
working with my clients and trying to create strategies for
them to almost replicate some of the successes that I've
created in my family business. I've created in my own businusiness,

(01:01:01):
and I think I give an interesting dynamic being both
a founder and starting something from scratch, going.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
Into six figure debt sleepless nights.

Speaker 9 (01:01:08):
But I also was on the other side of that
as acquiring and working when a fit with a family
business to re establish the strength that it had in
the market at one point, to reinvigorate that was big
for me.

Speaker 7 (01:01:19):
So what lessons can you share with our audience about
working in a family business?

Speaker 9 (01:01:25):
Family business are they're very powerful and they could be
powerful in both the positive and powerful in the negative.
One of the overarching conversations that we have with the
matriarch and the patriarch is do you want your kids
to come into the business because they want to come
into the business or because they feel like they've been
obligated to then take that next step to be in

(01:01:47):
the business, Because if it's not their passion and they're
carrying the torch well, from first generation to second generation,
the success rate is about thirty three percent. From second
generation to third generation goes to about thirteen percent. Why
because probably some of work ethic commitment passion that tends

(01:02:07):
to wean when it's not your own and you don't
really have the drive.

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
To make it happen.

Speaker 9 (01:02:13):
So can the family business then go into the similar
situation that I said, be exit ready, so that this way,
instead of passing it along to children who may not
want it, but they want the lifestyle, they want the money,
they see all that, how do you then say, hey, listen,
I'm going to take this windfall and we're going to
now translate that to your passion. I'm going to be

(01:02:33):
the consultant to help you work and navigate through some
of the hard things that I had to endure. That
you will now have a shortcut because I've done that,
I've been there.

Speaker 5 (01:02:44):
That's great.

Speaker 7 (01:02:44):
So what are some of the things that you had
to work out with your dad when you were working
with him?

Speaker 9 (01:02:50):
And I would say that is the failed succession That
we do a lot of our work off of the
reality of the relationships of people in the family business.
So I always say that communication and transparency are like
the two pillars of any successful relationship. We say it
at Greenriich to our clients, but that holds true to
basically any relationship that you want to have success in,

(01:03:12):
and that goes true to the family business and for
the matriarch and the patriarch. They may not want to
be so transparent, but they've got to be communicative to
give some sort of a guidelines on what does your
job career trajectory look like of you coming in here,
because it can't be at some point I have this
carrot and the stick and it's going to be yours.

(01:03:34):
There should be some formal component around how do I
get from where I am now to where I need
to be for both myself and for the business.

Speaker 7 (01:03:44):
I would think part of it is that somebody a
family member coming into the business would want to do
some things to make it their own. They would want
to put their own stamp on the business, try some
new products, or organize things a little bit differently. But
I think in order they motivated, they're going to have
to put something of their self in.

Speaker 9 (01:04:03):
And I think that that becomes the creative relationship that
matriarch and patriarch have to have with their children and
how they design their career path and how they actually
create that transition plan, because a lot of times you
go in and for myself, right, I'm the son, I'm
the partner, I'm the general manager, right, So I've got

(01:04:25):
my role in the business. I have my role as
a partner with equity, and then I also have my
role as where I sit in the family. Yeah, and
a lot of times those conversations, those kitchen table conversations
or boardroom conversations, everyone has all those hats on and
they're not distinguishing what hat they have to be wearing.

(01:04:46):
So if I'm coming to a boardroom table and Dad
is coming to the boardroom table with me, he's not
wearing his father hat as the CEO. If he's coming
to talk as the CEO, he's got to wear a
CEO hat, and I have to wear my general manager hat.

Speaker 7 (01:05:00):
So is this part of the advice that you give entrepreneurs,
because I think that would be very difficult for somebody
to separate their parental role from their professional one.

Speaker 9 (01:05:10):
And I think that determines whether or not and how
successful you're going to be in your transition, because you're right,
the kids are going to want to have to put
something of their mark in it, especially if they've been
in it for a significant period of time, and if
they're constantly waiting for that baton to get passed without
any sort of communication on how that baton gets passed.

(01:05:31):
You're going to lose their passion, their interest, their drive,
and that ultimately can blow up a business. It could
blow up a succession plan, it could blow up a family.
And I think, out of all three of them, the
most important. I'm going to go back to, Tommy, before
you're going to ruin your family over bad business decisions.

Speaker 5 (01:05:49):
Tommy Hilken, I watched this in my life.

Speaker 8 (01:05:51):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
You got to remember generations change, right, and kids change
generations generation. I had two friends their father's own bakeries
in North Bergen, I mean killer bakeries, right, the best
of the best, and as the fathers got old, they
handed them off to the kids. The only difference was
Dad was getting up at two thirty in the morning
and making sure that all everything was done and being served.

(01:06:12):
And when the kids stick it over, they're like, do
I really want to be up at three o'clock in
the morning every day in my life doing this? That
big difference. You know, Dad came over here, you know,
like this the land of opportunity. I'm going to work
my ass off and then the next thing, you know,
the kids like, I don't.

Speaker 8 (01:06:27):
Want to do this.

Speaker 9 (01:06:27):
So Tommy, I'm glad you brought that up because the
other dynamic is which roles in the business do your
kids actually have the superpowers to play? Because when you're
in a job, right everything everybody knows the most effective
player is the one who's doing what the things that
they're really good at, and they're delegating off the things

(01:06:48):
that maybe don't fall in their line of passion or
maybe our lower level jobs. Well, if you're expecting your
son or daughter to come in and take the CEO
role and they're more of a creative hat and thinking
more from a marketing standpoint, well, who's watching the numbers
and who's making sure that all of the investment decisions
that are happening within the business are being done correctly.

(01:07:09):
So a lot of times we're talking about if that
is the case, well, do those children actually have a
role in the business or are they just an equity role?
And if they're not, who's in the business running the
show or helping to run the show because that person
may be the next success or the next person and say, yeah,
you know what, this is natural fit for them to

(01:07:30):
be CEO, But they also need some sort of an advisory
board to help them because they're just not at that
level yet and they still need the trading and the guidance.

Speaker 5 (01:07:41):
So this is why you need to set it up
to be able to make an exit, to sell it
to anybody. You cannot, we found you cannot depend on
your kids to do it. But Bobby, how do people
get a hold of you?

Speaker 9 (01:07:52):
You know, I'm all over the internet. You just google
my name and you'll find it. But we have Bobbymasha
dot com. Can you spell that Bobby mas Cia dot
com or g as in girl are as Enridged wealthplan
dot com and you'll find lots of white papers, lots
of videos. We're constantly up to date with things that

(01:08:14):
are happening in the market. Because second to strategy is
also strategy of your money and what it's doing for
you and how it's working for you. So customized investment
management is a huge part of the value add that
we bring to our clients, as well as bringing the
right advisory team or adding their advisors into the team
to set new expectations on how we work collectively as

(01:08:34):
a group to help business owners attain the goals that
they're trying to attain.

Speaker 5 (01:08:38):
And finally, the name of your podcast business unchained.

Speaker 9 (01:08:42):
Okay, new episode every two days. Thank you chain yourself
from your business.

Speaker 7 (01:08:46):
Yes, Passage to Profit with Richard Analyst pre Heart.

Speaker 5 (01:08:50):
And now we're all going to get healthy just like that. Right,
So we're moving on to Josh con with the company
Eden and his website is Tryeden dot com, and Josh
tell us what you're doing, why you're doing it, how
you got here.

Speaker 4 (01:09:07):
You know, it feels like we're just living in a
moment where healthcare just feels broken, right. You know, you
look around, it's expensive, it's fragmented, it's inaccessible. People have
challenges just getting basic care across all facets of the
healthcare system. And so what we're trying to do is
we're actually not trying to fix healthcare. We're trying to

(01:09:27):
basically remake it. We're trying to re envision what healthcare
really means. And so what we're doing at Eton is
really building out the infrastructure and the core concepts of
what healthcare three point zero looks like, it's a really
big term. I'll get into it a little bit, but
really what we've done is we've identified a number of
issues that impact the US and Americans today. Like just one,

(01:09:50):
one big, big thing that we noticed when we first
started the company. You know, seventy percent of the US
is overweight, and I think fifty percent of the US
is suffering from metabox and of some kind. And so
what that meant is, hey, people are just struggling with
basic access to how do you fix that? And truthfully,
for me, I was the guy. I was three hundred
pounds myself, Like I was a big guy before. It

(01:10:11):
might not look like it now, but you know, I've
been up and down and you know, yo.

Speaker 7 (01:10:14):
Yellin, this is a radio broadcast. Josh has swelt, so
you don't that he's s felt. So you're not three
hundred pounds now?

Speaker 8 (01:10:25):
Correct?

Speaker 10 (01:10:25):
Correct?

Speaker 4 (01:10:26):
And so so from there we've actually been able to
bring on well over you know, one hundred thousand patients
to the platform. You know, we're not nationwide. We've also
really begun to vertically integrate on the supply chain side,
so really just helping people that are in remote areas
as well as big cities just access you know, these
life changing therapies that should be available and more readily

(01:10:47):
available for people.

Speaker 7 (01:10:48):
It's just to be clear, these are GLP ones, right,
So we.

Speaker 4 (01:10:51):
Do offer access to GLP ones the medical doctors do
all those big pieces, but we also have a number
of other programs just really focused on you know, all
sorts of other angles for your health, and everything gets
delivered to your door, right, Like that's the other thing,
Like you don't have to wait in a doctor's office.
You don't have to you know, call in and fax
in a prescription somewhere. Like you know, we're changing, like

(01:11:12):
I said, the paradigm of what healthcare looks like in
the United States.

Speaker 5 (01:11:16):
So do you get results from a blood test? Like
would I go to my doctor and get a blood
test and then have the results sent to you and
you analyze them.

Speaker 4 (01:11:23):
Yeah, So there's a lot of different Like so since COVID,
Actually it's really interesting, So since COVID happened, there's a
lot of opportunity with asynchronous and synchronous doctor visits. So
essentially you can go in some states allow you to
fill out a form and it's the same thing as
you're meeting with a doctor. The doctor reviews the form
and reviews all the information that you provide, which may
have indicators like blood markers and those other pieces to

(01:11:45):
make an inform medical decision on whether or not.

Speaker 10 (01:11:47):
A treatment is right for you.

Speaker 4 (01:11:49):
And so what that does, though, is it unlocks it.
It unlocks you and it allows you to actually access
these medications that are incredibly in vogue right now. You know,
you mean you look at everyone on the planet and
you talk. I think earlier we've really identified that there's
a number of people and we've That's the thing I
think I'm the most proud of is that how many
people we've actually helped.

Speaker 7 (01:12:07):
It's just that's a lot of people.

Speaker 10 (01:12:10):
We're really up there, and we're growing.

Speaker 4 (01:12:13):
Every month seems to be our best month ever, which
is not a bad problem to have.

Speaker 5 (01:12:17):
So how did you get into this business? Because this
is not your background? Right?

Speaker 4 (01:12:22):
No, No, I'm I'm the dumb business guy, right. But no,
the background I have is I'm not a medical provider.
I'm not a doctor. I'm just like really interested in
this stuff, right, So it's actually really interesting. I came
from manufacturing, believe it or not, from the Detroit metro area.
So you know, we have like automotive is like in

(01:12:42):
our blood. Like we're saying iron runs through our veins.
It's not exactly blood all the time. And when I
was working through there, I was actually going through COVID
and COVID hits and I'm looking around and I have kids,
and I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't want my
kids to know that I was, you know, selling car parts.
Nothing wrong with selling car parts, but I don't want
them to I think that, you know, dad just is
worried about selling car parts when there's a global pandemic.

(01:13:05):
And so I said, hey, I'm going to leave this
job and I'm going to go join a startup.

Speaker 10 (01:13:11):
And the startup was the first of its kind.

Speaker 5 (01:13:14):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:13:14):
I don't't really want to name drop too many names,
but it's like probably the largest longevity telehealth company in
the space, and they needed someone to come in. I
was like the first tire to come into the company.
So I had to learn all of this stuff because
the stuff we're doing has never really been done, like
it's all brand new.

Speaker 7 (01:13:31):
So how do you create trust with somebody on a
telehealth visit? It's different when you're in a doctor's office,
at least it is for me. You see the person,
the communication is different. If you're talking with a physician
over zoom or something like that. It's a different experience.
So how do you build trust with your patients.

Speaker 4 (01:13:51):
It's a really interesting phenomenon, right, there's a since we're
in the twenty first century today, it's a big thing
called social proof. You know, people once they understand other
people people have done it, they feel much more confident
in your ability to do things. And so when you
have the amount of patients that we've seen, you have
the results that were able to publish for people on
our programs, it really moves the needle because you start

(01:14:13):
to identify like, hey, you know, maybe I don't trust
this thing yet, But then you start seeing commercials on
the Super Bowl with very similar concepts. It starts to
open people's eyes to say, hey, maybe there's a different
way to do things. Maybe it's like our AI conversation earlier.
Maybe I need to get on board with this earlier
rather than later.

Speaker 5 (01:14:28):
Tell me, what do you think?

Speaker 2 (01:14:29):
Being at a little seasoned, you know, I would have
to I'm a human to human kind of thing. So
for me, it would be a challenge to not be
in the same room as you was saying with the
doctor eye to eye, talking to building my confidence that
I'm going to be okay.

Speaker 8 (01:14:46):
You see that that was what I needed.

Speaker 2 (01:14:47):
You know, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and my
urologist was lifesaver, you know, just the way he made
me feel and my wife feeling, calmed my wife down
and calmed me down.

Speaker 8 (01:14:58):
So there's a lot that goes to it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:59):
To my mind, them saying, how do you get that
to the person where you make them feel comfortable that
everything's going to be okay?

Speaker 4 (01:15:05):
Yeah, no, it's not. It's it's it's a real thing.
And what I can tell you is that one of
the biggest things we've been able to do is since
we do have such great doctor networks that we're a
part of, people actually have twenty four to seven access
to the doctor. They can talk to a doctor at
any time of day, and the doctors are responsive.

Speaker 8 (01:15:21):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:15:21):
It's not like they're like I'm off of this week,
I'm going to Breckenridge, you know, they're they're not skipping
down on em.

Speaker 7 (01:15:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:15:29):
So they do be able a report and they do
have very personal conversations and it is the very similar
conversation that you would have in the doctors.

Speaker 8 (01:15:37):
I goes, that's great.

Speaker 7 (01:15:38):
I think there's a trade off between convenience and quality communication.
So if I had something serious, I'm the type of
person who would want to be in the office with
the doctor. But if I'm just doing something that is,
like I have a cold, I'm happy to do a
televisit with my doctor because and I don't have have

(01:16:00):
to schedule an appointment and drive there and park and
do all of those, you know, it's a bigger hassle,
And so I can get my medication quicker if I
just do a telehealth visit, right, So depends on why
I'm visiting.

Speaker 5 (01:16:15):
Yeah, But Josh, I had a question. So with these,
I guess you would call them health enhancements. I'm not
exactly sure how to classify everything you're doing. Like you said,
it's new, so it's not just weight loss. You're doing
a lot of other things with health too. Do you
have to take these shots or whatever you're doing that
you're putting into your body for the rest of your life,
like to keep your health up to the level you

(01:16:37):
get it too after being on this for a while, Like,
are you still doing what you started out doing to
lose it the ex weight?

Speaker 10 (01:16:43):
Yes, So it's like anything.

Speaker 4 (01:16:44):
You know, you got through seasons in life and there's
different things that are going to help you at different times.
In life, right, And like a lot of folks specifically
that we've seen on GPS, it's really about helping someone
on the lifestyle. Like there's other products and services that
are also available to patients, like things like car bus.
Like we see a lot of diabetic medications that have
been repurposed for weight loss, not just jailps today, right,

(01:17:06):
And what they're starting to identify is that a lot
of this has to do with behavioral modification at the
same time. Yeah, I mean, there's the jailps are a
life changing in revolutionary medicine in today's day and age,
but there are times and places for the use's case
of them. A lot of times you tell someone not
to take it. There's a lot of uses where someone
should not be taking this, you know, if you have
family history of certain types of cancers, et cetera, et cetera. Like,

(01:17:28):
there's a lot of things you shouldn't do. But for
me personally, I've been I'm more of like a tweaker
on my own, Like I've been kind of taking a
lot of these things and doing like the biohocking community
on my own for so long that what I found
is actually really like doing working with my doctor to
give me a micro dose. So like there's not even
a dose profile that I can get from like a
commercial medication that actually works for.

Speaker 10 (01:17:51):
Me, because it's too much.

Speaker 4 (01:17:52):
And so what the doctors are able to do is say, actually,
you know, maybe you should be on way fewer units
and you need to be thinking about what the personalization
looks like. So what you can do is you kind
of start dialing these things in and then over time
you start finding the right protocol for you. And that's
really how you create personalized medicine.

Speaker 5 (01:18:09):
So you stay on a maintenance dost maybe after Oh
that's interesting.

Speaker 7 (01:18:13):
I mean I've heard GLP onees though, are not only
great for managing blood sugar diabetes, but also cancer, Alzheimer's.
They have it's almost like a wonder drug, right, And
I saw an article not too long ago, shouldn't everyone
be on GLP ones right because it has so many
health benefits and so far nobody's been able to show

(01:18:37):
any really negative health benefits. There's some discomfort sometimes, but
overall they're supposed to be you know, the new wonder drug,
well had a really.

Speaker 5 (01:18:46):
Bad effect on me. The GLP one had a very
bad effect. Yeah, And there are a few people that
are with very sensitive systems that can't do it right.

Speaker 7 (01:18:55):
And we've heard of stories like that too.

Speaker 4 (01:18:58):
Yeah, yeah, and I mean that's to be I mean,
these jops have been around for twenty plus years, been studied,
and a lot of folks and yeah, and GI you
discomfort in listening. So God, I'm not the doctor. I'm
the guy that kind of like kind of understands. How
do I start putting a team around helping people access
this and how.

Speaker 5 (01:19:13):
Do Yeah, That's what I was going to say. So
what you really came here to talk about was not
necessarily these specific drugs, the specific compounds, but more your
distribution system, right, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:19:25):
And really what this vision behind? Why has healthcare been
so broken for so many people for so long? And
then what does that future state look like? I mean,
that's that's what we're building. We're not really just building
like a Hey, you want a drug, come get a drug.
I think, first of all, that's a moral and second
of all, I don't think that's probably legal. I think
that the right thing to do is to establish these

(01:19:45):
relationships or patients with doctors and be able to make
things proactive and personalized and ultimately, like, that's the problem
we have today, right, And if you look across everything
in the United States, we talked about even in family offices, right,
like maybe the kids are easy, maybe this maybe that,
like everyone has their own story, is what I'm driving.
Everyone has their own unique way that they have to

(01:20:06):
approach life, and medicine shouldn't be any different. Medicine should
be the exact same approach. And until we start flipping
the script and we start actually internalizing that and understanding
that we're going to continue to get more and more
of the same. We have a sick care system, we
don't have a healthcare system. It's a huge difference. And
once we start embodying those changes with the things like

(01:20:27):
we're trying to do, which is hey, the same place
that you talk to the doctors, the same place. You
should be able to access the medicine the same time.
It should show up to your house, and then you
should be able to monitor all that off of your phone.

Speaker 8 (01:20:37):
The better.

Speaker 4 (01:20:38):
And I'm writing about a lot of this in my
book that's coming up all about healthcare three point zero.
But really, to me, that's what has to happen. You know,
we really have to start embracing this because really you
start thinking about metabolic health, right, think about metabolic health.
If you just address that, I personally believe you address
eighty percent of all of the other underlying issues that
people have, Like you'll start reducing the number of can,

(01:21:00):
they'll reduce the heart attack risk. You see, you know
your diabetes three point or diabetes three which is just
you know, dementia and Alzheimer's. All these risks go down
as long as you're having a better metabolic health.

Speaker 7 (01:21:12):
Tell us a little bit more about metabolic health when
you say that, is that that has to do with
your metabolism? So do glps impact that or is that
also nads? On your website I saw maybe talk a
little bit about those and how they affect metabolism.

Speaker 4 (01:21:28):
People in the US, Like I said, about fifty forty
to fifty percent of people in the US suffer from
metabolic syndrome, which means that they struggle with three of
these five things that happen. Either have high TREGLYSSRI rides
high LDL lowe HDL.

Speaker 10 (01:21:44):
You have a trunkl OBC or your stomach is big.

Speaker 4 (01:21:47):
And if you hit over three of those, you actually
see an eighty percent rise in your heart attack rate.
You see in ninety percent rise in stroke Like these
are just data points that we have today, and so
what we've actually been able to do is help people
understand this at like a basic level, right, like I'm
talking to you guys about it, like you should be
able to talk about this stuff, like it's a dinner conversation,

(01:22:09):
Like it shouldn't be a taboo subject to talk about.
And so we've we're really and that's where the successibility
piece comes in. It's like, hey, you should hear about
this stuff on a podcast. You should be interested enough
to be like, wow, maybe I can look into this,
maybe I can actually take control of it myself. And
then we start layering those types of things on because
we also see this in the data that once someone

(01:22:29):
loses weight, that's the first thing that they see, right,
Like you know, you're like if you're big, and you know,
like you're large, and like you're maybe a little like
not happy with the way you lift certain shirt fits,
but then you see it it fits better. Then you
start thinking like, wow, I need to start doing more
blood work, I need to start getting more energy. I
want to have more time for the grandkids. I want
to feel great when I wake up in the morning,

(01:22:51):
and you start going down this rabbit hole of wow,
health is actually wealth. Health is something that I should
really deeply value because you'll be a better CEO, you
be a better founder, you'll be a better leader the better.

Speaker 8 (01:23:02):
Health that you have.

Speaker 4 (01:23:03):
And so what we see is we see an incredible
number of people actually starting to like gravitate towards these
alternative therapies like NAD. Like you had mentioned NAD, you know,
NAD is like, you know, there's a really cool quote
that I like from doctor David Sinclair. He's like the
longevity guy. He says, you know, without NAD, life itself
would cease to exist in thirty seconds. Because you remember

(01:23:25):
back in sixth grade science when they're talking to you
and they're like, oh, you know, the mitochondria is the
power hustle that.

Speaker 7 (01:23:30):
That's like the crub cycle or something I do remember
that everyone has.

Speaker 4 (01:23:34):
That's it's like them a memory that's like I don't know,
everyone has that. It's really weird. But I don't remember
much else about elementary school.

Speaker 10 (01:23:41):
But that's yeah, and so so yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:23:45):
And so NAD is the thing that actually provides the
energy for that, and so like as you actually age,
those levels decrease. And so what we see is like
by augmenting these things and by the doctors making the
determination with a patient, you see energy levels go back
and then you can go hang out with your kids
and you can do the things that you want.

Speaker 5 (01:24:02):
I think you're convincing me. So anyway, how do people
find you for me?

Speaker 4 (01:24:09):
I have a website like everyone else does, like you know,
josh con dot com, but I'm really more available on
LinkedIn as josh Con. And really I tell people to
just explore the website that we have. It's called try
Eden dot com and yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:24:24):
We're happy to help them.

Speaker 5 (01:24:25):
Can you spell your last name?

Speaker 8 (01:24:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:24:27):
I put the two tall letters next to each other.
It's kha n okay and that's Josh Con.

Speaker 5 (01:24:32):
Okay. Excellent. Thank you listeners who are listening to the
Passage to Profit Show with Richard, Elizabeth Gearhart, our special
guest Tommy Helkin, and we have had the most amazing
show today. But it's not over yet. We're going to
do Secrets of the Entrepreneurial Mind when we get back.
We'll be right back.

Speaker 15 (01:24:47):
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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(01:25:10):
the best personal injury lawyers you can find, tough lawyers
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find out today for free what kind of compensation you.

Speaker 8 (01:25:29):
May be entitled to.

Speaker 7 (01:25:30):
Call the legal helpline right now.

Speaker 12 (01:25:33):
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 6 (01:25:47):
It's Passage to Profit.

Speaker 7 (01:25:49):
Now it's time for Noah's retrospective.

Speaker 5 (01:25:52):
Noah Fleischman is our producer here at Passage to Profit,
and he just has a way of putting his best
memories in perspective.

Speaker 16 (01:26:00):
I got so scared when I was watching this great
movie on the Internet last night. Wasn't the movie that
was scary. It was what happened during the movie. While
I was watching it. My Internet started to act up,
so the picture started buffering a little bit. The computer
screen began to freeze up. I couldn't believe how scared
I got. What if my computer dies? What if I
never have Internet again? Turns out everything was fine, but
it really bothered me how upset I suddenly got. You know,

(01:26:21):
when I was a kid, the TV was pretty important
in our home too, but my folks knew how to
take it and stride. I'll never forget the night I
was four years old. We were seated around the television
watching McLoud with Dennis Weaver one night, and suddenly the
picture when completely black Tube trouble. We had sound, but
no picture. My aunt, my mother, my uncle, these were
not quiet people by nature, but there they were, seated

(01:26:41):
silently around this television with no picture. I was just
sitting there waiting for someone to say something. It was fascinating. Finally,
my aunt reluctantly muttered, shouldn't there be a picture? Well,
we got the TV fixed and the computer came back
and everything was fine. As a friend of mine reminds me,
worry never changed the outcome. He just deal with it.

Speaker 3 (01:27:00):
You move on.

Speaker 16 (01:27:01):
Now I can get back to watching that great movie
on the Internet about these people during the depression Who's
radio broke. I'll never know how they survived.

Speaker 1 (01:27:08):
Now more with Richard and Elizabeth Passage to Profit.

Speaker 5 (01:27:12):
Now it is time for Secrets of the entrepreneurial mind
Tommy Hilken with Tommy Hilton Production.

Speaker 8 (01:27:19):
There we go. That works.

Speaker 5 (01:27:20):
A secret you could share with our audience.

Speaker 2 (01:27:22):
Desire, I think, as Napoleon Hill would always say, everything
starts with desire.

Speaker 8 (01:27:28):
If you desire it and it.

Speaker 2 (01:27:30):
Really becomes all encompassing, becomes every celler in your body,
you will achieve it. But you have to have a
strong desire to be self employed.

Speaker 8 (01:27:38):
I know.

Speaker 2 (01:27:39):
I always joke that people say entrepreneur, this solopreneur, that
when I did this, I made a decision to be
self employed.

Speaker 8 (01:27:45):
But it's not for the feint of heart.

Speaker 2 (01:27:47):
You really have to be focused and you have to
have have a tremendous desire to do it. So I
would say, without the desire, you'll go nowhere.

Speaker 5 (01:27:55):
Okay. Bobby Maashia with green Ridge Wealth Planning, What is
this secret you can share with our audience?

Speaker 9 (01:28:02):
I would say most people understand that they're really good
at something right, they have this unique ability that if
they multiplied that their business will be that much more successful.
And what they do is they then delegate everything else out.
But I think one of the things that you also
have to build your team with is understanding what their
superpowers are and where the unique abilities lie. So this

(01:28:23):
way you could fit them all together like a puzzle.
Because once you've got people sitting in their most powerful
seat all day long doing what they need to do
that they love to do to move your business forward,
you've got something that's scalable and almost indestructible, and a
lot of people stop at Okay, I'm doing what I
want to do, and now I got everybody else doing

(01:28:44):
what they need to do. Taking that team and going
through that same process is powerful.

Speaker 5 (01:28:49):
That's great. Okay. Josh con with Tryeden dot Com. What
is a secret you can share with our audience?

Speaker 4 (01:28:56):
So A great one for me, it's worked incredibly well,
is being principled. You know, if you establish a series
of in a set of principles that you live by
day to day. You also incorporate into your corporation or company.
You have something to always fall back on when things
aren't looking great and when things are looking good and
you start to be able to identify those things. The

(01:29:17):
best part about it to me is that that then
actually trickles down into your staff. So like for us
at Eden, we have a list of principles. It's part
of the onboarding guide that we expect people to operate
with them. And so like number one is trustworthy. Right,
if you're not trustworthy, you're not going to work out here.
And so, like I would really suggest a secret is
find the set of principles that works for you and

(01:29:37):
that actually helps you be the best superpower like superhuman
that you can be, and then just use those every
day relentlessly, relentlessly.

Speaker 5 (01:29:45):
Like that, Richard your heart your heart law.

Speaker 7 (01:29:48):
Well, my secret is pretty simple. It's just sometimes good
things happen when you least expect it. Sometimes the crappy
stuff happens too. But now this month we had a
lot of people out of some people out of medical leave,
people out on vacations and going into the last three
days of the month, we were going to be lighter

(01:30:09):
cash wise than we normally were, and then just out
of nowhere, all of these clients came through and paid
their bills and it turned out to be the best
month we ever had. I have to admit sometimes my
ego rises and falls, you know, with the profit and
loss statement, right, so I was kind of feeling bad
about it. But all of a sudden, just out of nowhere,

(01:30:30):
you know, a lot of great things happen. So even
when things are looking not so good, sometimes it turns around.

Speaker 5 (01:30:37):
Well, my secret is going to be, you know, those
people that just won't take no for an answer, make them.
This kind of goes with what Josh is saying. If
it's like, no, this isn't right for me, and they
just keep coming. Because I just recently had this happen
with somebody. You just keep saying, now and stick to
your own guns and what you feel is right for you.

Speaker 7 (01:31:00):
Well that's it for us. Passage to Profit is a
nationally syndicated radio show appearing in thirty eight markets across
the United States. In addition, Passage to Profit has also
been recently selected by feed Spot Podcasters database as a
top ten entrepreneur interview podcast. Thank you to the P
two P team, our producer Noah Fleischman and our program

(01:31:22):
coordinator Alisha Morrissey, our studio assistant risicat Busari, and our
social media powerhouse Carolina Tabares. Look for our podcast tomorrow
anywhere you get your podcasts. Our podcast is ranked in
the top three percent globally. You can also find us
on Facebook, Instagram, x and on our YouTube channel. And remember,
while the information on this program is believed to be correct,

(01:31:45):
never take a legal step without checking with your legal
professional first. Gearheart Law is here for your patent, trademark
and copyright needs. You can find us at gearheartlaw dot
com and contact us for free consultation. Take care everybody,
Thanks for listening, and we'll be back next week.

Speaker 1 (01:32:02):
The proceeding was a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed.