The Genesis Project – Business Principles for Beginners

Hey there. Hey, what’s

02:23

happening? Hey, Bernard, how are you? Good.

DJ Doran  02:26

Hey, thanks for being so flexible.

02:29

I saw good. I was, uh, I was actually writing up some copy for email.

DJ Doran  02:34

Oh, excellent. So you’re like me if whenever I have some extra time, I just try and get caught up on some things.

02:40

Yeah, pretty much, pretty much.

DJ Doran  02:42

So. Um, so first of all, thanks for being on the show. This is awesome. And I read a little bit about you. And I think we have a lot in common. So I don’t know how much you know about me, but besides my podcast, I’m a publisher. So I own several publications. As a matter of fact, I just acquired a new publication in Phoenix, Arizona, and I’m leaving tomorrow to close on that publication. And, and then I’m the president of the equality this content creators Association, group of content creators, publishers, bloggers, influencers, Video Creators, podcast creators. And, and then, and I have some other I have some other interests. I’m also the executive director of the qualitest advisory board, which are like the top 10 or 12 LGBT media and business leaders in the industry.

03:34

Okay. Okay.

DJ Doran  03:35

So that’s kind of what I do. And I’m a retired Air Force pilot. 23.

03:39

Cool, cool. I always wanted to be a fighter pilot jet but a fighter jet pilot, but I’m too damn tall. And so that they got my dreams for that.

DJ Doran  03:51

Yeah, well, I wanted to be a fighter pilot too. But the wait time was too long. So I ended up flying an airplane called the Lockheed Hercules c 130. Yeah, you’re engines and it was kind of like a fighter plane. You know, we did a lot of crazy shit over the course of my career, so I didn’t have a lot of fun flying it, but now I just fly privately.

04:13

Yeah. My, uh, so I have a identical twin brother. Wow. Yeah, he actually went to the Air Force. So he, he, he his first tour, or rather, his first job in Air Force was was, if you asked me was pretty cool. Mainly because he got to meet a lot of foreign dignitaries. He got to meet a four star Five, Four Star generals, pow, you know, all that type of stuff, you know me, so

DJ Doran  04:46

that’s awesome. See, that’s the thing. You know, the military is not for everyone. But for me, it was a door opener. And you know, I got to travel the world. And so I mean, you know, so many different cultures and so many different areas of the world that it changed my worldview and my world perspective on things. Come back to the United States. I remember the first time I went overseas and and I came back to the United States and I was like, holy crap. We are we have so much.

05:19

Yeah, yeah. You I mean, it does help you to be a tad bit more appreciative and grateful for what we have. You know, me. And then on the flip side of that, you realize, oh, man, we kind of fucked up.

DJ Doran  05:35

Well, we have like, for instance, one thing that I remember that that really spoke to me was I went to a grocery store. And it was in a country that it was just came out from underneath communism, and they had like seven tomatoes. Right, and that so they have two grocery stores. One is for the tourists. And now you have a little bit more of a selection, but the one for the regular population. You stood in line and I wanted to try that one. So I went in there and they had like seven or 10 tomatoes or something. And then I remember coming back here and going to the grocery store and it was it was rows and rows of all these different types of tomatoes and the things overflowing and I thought to myself, I, I just I thought was so gluttonous, you know, like, like, and we get used to it, and then we get to the ending because we don’t have you know, 10 different styles of tomatoes. And, and it’s okay, it gave me a it gave me a broader view over what was important and what is real poverty and what is real need and what is, you know, what we look at it like, even my own my own daughter, you know, she’s like, Oh, I’m gone. I’m deprived because I don’t have a new iPhone. You know, $1,000 phone, you know, she was younger. And, and you know, if you ever have been to the Philippines, you know that $1,000 is what they make. for the whole year of working eight hours a day. Yeah, yeah. You know, and so that kind of perspective anyway, it shaped the way I do business and the way I view business and and so that’s why I was really excited when I saw that you were going to be on the show because, um, because it looks like you had you had sort of an epiphany after your time in the CFL. And that sort of changed the trajectory of your of your life.

07:25

It it did it did, you know, um, I would say mostly before, then again, after my my time there, you know, I’m pretty sure we probably won’t get into this a little later. But yeah, I was working data jobs, you know, for years moved from high school. My intention was to play college football, went to college for I don’t know, stay for like a year, year and a half, financially kind of kicked myself. So okay. Back home, and just working little jobs, you know, pizza delivery, you know, barbecue joint, you know, kinko at the time, it was kinko. You know, just little, little jobs, right you. And, you know, I just felt like there was something that I was supposed to be doing. Like I knew I was meant for something else, I knew that there was something bigger that I was supposed to be going after. I just didn’t know what it was.

DJ Doran  08:27

So let me stop you there. So before we get too into this, I want to I want to introduce you to our audience so that they have a little bit of background on you. So So let’s take a step back and sort of explain to our audience who you are, where you came from, and how you got to be where you are now and then we’ll kick off from there.

08:48

Yeah, for sure. So my name is Bernard graven. I am a ex pro athlete, term tech entrepreneur and podcast host of the Genesis project podcast. Where we we teach the business principles, basic business principles for beginners of business. Right? And, and so that’s pretty much me in a nutshell. And, you know, besides I got, you know, mere got twin brother got our dog

09:20

you know the typical stuff?

DJ Doran  09:23

Um, well here’s the thing I want to say about what I’ve read about you and some of the things I’ve seen on your YouTube channel. And I want you to know this is that here’s a guy who was heading in one direction, and then had an epiphany in his life and then pivoted and changed into a different direction. And, and that direction, then helped him become successful. And, and one of the things that I’ve learned Bernard over the years in business, and I’ve had my share pretty big and public failures, as well and I’ll tell everyone who always thinks that being an entrepreneur is glorious and, and everything, it does have those moments, it does. But there are plenty of other moments that are disastrous. And you don’t know how you’re going to get up and, and one of the things that I find in all the entrepreneurs that I’ve spoken with, and and it sounds like you’re very similar to this and that is failure has has an impact in two ways on people, they can either give up and accept the failure, or they figure out a different way to become successful. And, and, and that’s what I chose to do. And and that’s not always not always the easiest path. So let me ask you, um, so how did you transition? Being a pro athlete? I don’t I don’t know too much about that because I’ve never been a pro athlete but but being a pro athlete, the ones that I’ve seen, you know, they get a lot of attention. They have a lot of expectations and so forth. And when that didn’t That wasn’t something that you wanted to pursue anymore. How did you sort of take the things that you learned in the CFL as a as a professional athlete and transfer it into a successful business strategy? or business idea?

11:15

Yeah, so, okay, so originally, like I said, four years removed from high school. I knew I was supposed to be doing something. I didn’t know what it was I was supposed to be doing. I seen a football game is maybe around may sing a football game on TV. It was professional was not the NFL. I said, that’s what I want to do. So that’s when I made the decision to go and actually try out for the CFL. So again, four years removed from high school, no college ball experience, and I just said, screw it. I’m just going to go try this, right. So did try out. They like me. I came on board. I was on a practice squad. So it wasn’t like mundane within lights or anything like that. But it was still a great experience. You know? event they released me, came home started doing some Semi Pro Football with my intentions on trying out for arena Lee, which is a different type of game, still football, but just smaller field inside, you know that type of stuff. And that got pretty short because I tore my ACL in a football game in Ohio. So at that point, it was like, well, I need to go do something, right. And at that point, I was looking into other jobs and was actually working at a department store. And the department store is closing down, I had to figure out what’s my next step. I’m tired of doing all these Penny paying jobs. I want to do something where I’m actually useful and actually use my mind not just hard labor and all that type of stuff. It’s a career newspaper, and it talked about it. So I went to it. School vocational school and learn everything I could about it and got me a better job obviously at that job I went in got me a degree and then beyond that, you know and that’s that’s pretty much how I kind of fell into it. You know, when I The reason why I fell in it, I would like to think is because in football my position in football was quarterback and wide receiver. It was a very, very analytical position. I’m talking about I have to break down the defense fan. You know, so many seconds I need to know what I’m going to do I need to know you know, if this doesn’t work out, I need to know what is my backup so you might hear if you watch football, you hear the commentators talk all the time about the check now list word quarterback, right? Well for the receiver is similar as well, right? So for me is always analytical. I have to think I have My, I have my number one guy to go to, but he’s not open, I need to fall back to my number two, or to my number three, or to my number four. And again, this is all in the span of seconds, right? And that was easy for me because again, I play football, I play sports all my life, really. And with it with the IT field, it was very analytical. So it was super easy for me to fall into that. So while I’m working on one problem, I’m thinking about two or three other problems in the back of my mind, so that once I get there, I know exactly what I need to do some things I could try and things that nature, you know, that’s pretty much how it started pivoting, and football is all about pivoting. All About pivot as that goes for sports, in general, is all about pivoting because you may have this game plan where the thing that you’re going to face, but anything could change right in the middle of a game, you know, you might see something different and you might just toss the game plan to the side. You have to adjust on the fly. And that’s what business for me. It was natural and yes, it has its highs and it’s lows and all that type of stuff. But for me, it was just like sports, it was all natural.

DJ Doran  15:12

So, okay, that that’s pretty common in, in entrepreneur ism where, where people take their life experiences and they move on but I want to ask, I want to ask a question that I know a lot of people are going to wonder you went to high school, right? Yeah, yeah. And and then and then you went to college, but it didn’t work out because of your I guess the what you were saying your financial aid ran out there. How do you trance How do you then pick up yourself and say, Okay, well, I’m going to start a business. Like how do you overcome you got to have, you must have had self doubt or people saying, Oh, you need to finish this or finish that in order to become a success in business. And, and I’m telling you that from my own personal experience, I know that’s not the case. That is not says it. And, and I wonder how did you overcome that? Because one of the things that I think is, is I talked to you several people about this, and I’ve given speeches about this, as well as where someone comes up to you as when you’re reaching a certain level of success. And they’ll say something like, Oh, you’re so lucky. Right? As if it just fell into your lap and they don’t realize that you work so hard and you failed, you know, miserably multiple times and all of that to get to even even this point. Did you have a support network around you, that sort of cheered you on or gave you a pool of, of strength to draw from when you had those moments where you’re like, Am I doing the right thing and is this is this gonna work? You know, or how did you how did you get how did you get that motivation to continue on?

16:52

Well, I’m gonna be completely on switch.

16:56

When I decided to go trial for the CFL told my family They all said that was crazy. I should just stick with my, I think I was working at a barbecue joint that time. They say I should just stick to the barbecue joint. It’s a good job, all that type of stuff, right? In the back of my mind, I said, This is stupid. I don’t like this job. It’s not a good job. I’m hot. You know, I’m sweating. And not that I have anything against that. But I can’t see myself doing this for the rest of my life. This is ridiculous, right? The only people that I had as a as a as I guess you could say the cheering section for me was my identical twin brother, my older brother, and to three of my best friends. That was it. I believe that if it wasn’t for them, I’ll probably still be doing it but probably not as confident as I was if I did happen to me. Now you and I will also say that That helped me to create this, this particular type of attitude that I call the idg A f attitude. And for those who don’t know what that stands for, it stands for. I don’t give a fuck, right? You know,

DJ Doran  18:16

hey, you know, I’m gonna use that now use it often.

18:19

I, it’s okay. It’s okay. I’m okay with that. So, one thing that that I realized about sports, one thing I’ve learned through sports is that you know it honestly, I’m a tall slim guy, right? If my playing weight was 215 my heaviest but it took so much for me and maintaining that weight. Now that I’m not playing, but 185 190 on a good day, you know? So my family thought that I shouldn’t be playing football to begin with. I should just be playing basketball, run a track and you know, because I might just get hurt and football, but you won’t get hurt and Either sport, you know, it doesn’t matter what sport you play, you don’t get hurt. But football taught me to stand up. It taught me to square things up in all ponds attended, square that problem and just go for it. You know, there’s no way to go half assed anything. Because if you have as, let’s say, for instance, if I try to run a ball, if I try to have as running the ball, oh, I’m gonna get the shit knocked out of me, right? If I if I put 110% into it, and I still get the shit out of me. Okay, well, at least I try, you know, you know, I’ll still put in my everything.

DJ Doran  19:42

Right? I agree with that. 110% You know, it’s, it’s, it’s when you have one foot in and one forgot that you have, you’re the most vulnerable to failure in my death. You know, I was just telling a friend of mine who’s thinking about taking a risk with a startup company and he He’s a younger, he used to work for me. And I’ve been mentoring, mentoring him for many years. And he was at he said, Well, what do you think and this and that, and I said, Listen, do your homework, do your background, follow your instinct. And but here’s the thing, once you commit, commit, don’t come, don’t have commit, because then you’re you. First of all, you’re you’re setting yourself up for failure. And second of all, it’s not fair to who you’re partnering with, in this business, to only give them 50% of your focus and attention. And, and, and, you know, I wanna, I want to go back to something because something you said that stuck in my mind, you talked about faith, right? No, how did your faith have it play a role in in your decision making?

20:46

So with faith in by no means that my I don’t want to paint this out to be you know, a particular religion or or anything like that, right? Sure. Without me But faith is, you know, there’s a higher being, right? I believe in that higher being, be a God be Allah be it, you know eloheem whoever, whatever, right? Just know that I believe that there is a higher power from my own personal beliefs, I believe that we are all Gods because we was all made in His image, right? We may not be Gods with a capital G, we are Gods with a lowercase G, right? If we supposed to rule this earth, right, in the sense of using my hands to create whatever it to cultivate it things that nature, right? There’s certain principles that I need to follow in order for me to make that happen. You know, first I have to make the decision in my mind, once I make that decision in my mind, then I have to speak it out. Once I speak it out, I have to put forth the action into doing it. And you know, that’s that’s not to say that I’m not gonna have any fear You know, there’s no way in the world I’m not gonna have any fear. It’s just taking that fear. And dealing with that fear is still moving beyond that, and having faith in myself that I could still get this done. Right. It will be amazing things that we’ve seen people do, for instance, LeBron James, some of the things that he does, it’s incredible, right? In his mind, he can do it because he did it plenty of times before he might did a crazy dark, high school that he’s still doing today. Right? And that’s because he believed that he was able to do it, right. Because of the amazing things that I’ve done. I have the belief and faith in myself that I can do it. And of course, as long as I, as long as I put forth the work, and I continue to pray and work, that’s all that matters. That’s how my faith helped me. Right and there’s a hip hop artist by the name of a third he came out with a song call but he He mentioned it lyric, there was a lyric that he said, I cry, and I pray, I pray and I cry. And that’s literally all I do, Brian and pray.

DJ Doran  23:10

Well, listen, I’m gonna tell you something, too, that that I’ve learned over the years. And that is and I have faith, I believe. And, and, and I’ve had I, to me, my faith is not so much a guiding tool in decision making for business. It’s a guiding tool in me as a human being so that I make good decisions. And it’s also a comfort to know that okay, I can put this in some in a higher power his hands and have faith that that I am not alone, right? Because when you have failures, and I’m sure you’ve been down this road as well, because any entrepreneur goes down these roads, it’s part of the process is when you have failures. It’s very lonely, very crowded, going up to the success. It’s very lonely and downs. to the bottom, right, yeah. And, and I think that I’ve learned to develop successes from my failures. And that I’ve learned that, that discouragement sometimes, and failure are like stepping stones to greater success that you can’t see at the moment that you’re going through a failure. But when you look back with clearer eyes, you you say, you can see, like, for me, I can see the greater picture of, of things working in my life to prepare me for the success that I have currently. And so I’m thinking specifically of an event where I had a catastrophic failure. And I was like, I don’t know, I lost everything, every effing thing, you know, everything and, and I thought, how am I going to recover from this? I’m not a kid, you know, how am I going to recover from this? And then I look at where I am today. And I look back at that time when I thought it was the most hopeless and I realized That that was a time to clear out, clear out the things that were preventing me from being ready for what I am doing today.

25:07

Yeah, yeah.

DJ Doran  25:09

You know, and so that’s kind of how I look at things. And it’s an ongoing thing to have faith to trust, you know, because trust is not very easy for people. Anyway. But, but that has been, that is been my, my personal experience. Now, I want to, I want to talk something, there’s so many different things I want to talk to you about. So I apologize. So my brains like working in overdrive and looking at my notes. I’m like, Oh, I want to talk about that. Oh, no, I want to talk about this. Yeah, but, but one of the things that I really am fascinated by, and I’ve always been fascinated by this by a lot of different a lot of different entrepreneurs over the years is their absolute ability to be resilient and, and to take an ID un something crushes them in the dirt They somehow find the wherewithal to dust themselves off and say, Okay, I’m gonna try again. What is it about you, that that you think helps you have? Because not everybody has that? Bernard, you know? Right. And so, so you have that and from what I’ve read, I can see you have that. Where do you think you got that from?

26:22

So, a little bit from my upbringing, a little bit from sports, and a little bit just from everyday life. You know, I’ll, I’ll give you an example. I’ve never learned how to dunk right, about six by never learned how to dunk, right. I didn’t learn how to duck till I got into college. And first year in college, you know, got the job by myself, grabbed a basketball, threw the ball halfway down court, Brandon quit grabbed it and went up and don’t do Turn back around and just continue to do that. Right? So make a note of that is hard work. When I actually played a pickup game, there was this guy. We I used to call him shet because he was just as big a shed just as ugly as shit. His game was just like shit, right? Obviously, he was on the basketball team. So my my teammate, I grabbed the ball, I grabbed the rebound, threw it to my teammate, and he’s, he’s running down court, and he pulls up for the for the jumper, right? I’m kind of just taking my time back down court. And I timed it perfectly was when he shot the ball. I’m kind of close to the rim now. Right? He missed the shot ball hit off the rim. And I was in the air before everybody and I was able to grab the ball, and I was able to dock it. But I don’t do on check. Right. So you know being a golf Detroit, you know, talked a little trash to, you know, whatnot. So went back down court on defense shot got the ball at the free throw line underneath the basket with two other guys. He turns around with the basketball, and you can see exactly what he wants to do. You can see what he’s thinking, right? In my mind thinking like, Okay, well, I got two other guys here who can help me out. Okay, let’s go for it. He took one step two guys bailed on. So it was just me and him. Right. So it was like, Well, I know used to chicken it out. I screw it. Let’s do this. Right. He went up, I went up. He came down. I came down. I’m not afraid to admit that he dunked on me as well as he should, right? This guy is about six, eight, the my six. Right? every big. He’s a big guy, right? And he you know, he talked a little trash so we were talking back and forth hauling good, clean, fun and all that type of stuff, right? It wasn’t till after the game he pulled me to the I said, Hey, you know, I gotta respect you, I respect you a whole lot for what you did, you know, a lot of people would have just moved to the side, just let me have my way. And I told him, you know, I’m from Detroit, this is how we do this. This is, if we don’t have anything, we have heart, you know. So I’m saying that to say this, that is hard work. And just pure heart. You know, it doesn’t matter. You know, who’s on the court, it doesn’t matter who’s on the field doesn’t matter what I put what obstacle I face, in my mind, I’m either going to achieve it, I’m going to overcome it, or I’m going to find a way to overcome it. And that’s just how I’m built. That’s how I work you know, and again, that deals well a lot with sports, you know, so, yeah.

DJ Doran  29:46

So that’s awesome. And, and I love that. I love that story. And you know, so many so often people forget that, who you are as a human being permeates everything that you do and and I’ve met I’ve met people that are great business people or, or great pilots for that matter, and horrible human beings. And I think to myself, what what could they have achieved? If they were a good human being and a good businessman or a good pilot? You know, what can you achieve? I think there’s a place for that you can be competitive. And I like the part where you said you were competitive, but you were respectful. And he noticed that and that breeds respect. Right? And God knows we could use that. In this time anyway. But um, so let me ask you, how did you you start out with after the the CFL and you went into the tech field? That seems like a big it seems like a big jump like that seems like such a pivot. So how did that happen? How did you just decide or discover that, hey, I want to I want to go into the into a tech field and really just pivot where what direction I’m heading

31:01

Well, like I said, you know, the game was so analytical. My position was so analytical in the game and practicing things that nature, I wanted something that was going to force me to be analytical of it just seemed like it was it. So when I when I went to the it vocational school, I really went just to see how it’s going to be, is it something I could really do? And after the first day, I will really

DJ Doran  31:33

share this with you. When I was in the Air Force. I joined when I was 18. And I was an officer, but I wanted to be a pilot, you have to be an officer to be a pilot. And so I wanted to get a degree. So this was back in 1981 or 82, or somewhere around there. And so at that time, the big thing was programming, you know, computer programmer and all that. So I said, I’m going to get a degree in computer science, right. I hated every moment of it. And the only thing that kept me going was the fact that once I got my degree, I knew I could become an officer which would allow me to become a pilot. So, producer Nick and even some of my friends make fun of me because I’m very technology. I don’t wanna say challenge, but we don’t get along very well. Okay. And, and, and, and I thought to myself, and as you’re explaining your story, I’m thinking to myself, so how do you go from football, which is yes, it’s analytical, but it’s also very physical and very aggressive and what have you. Because when I went to computer science, I was bored out of my mind, most of the time excite me, but it sounds like it excited you and that’s that was a key difference is it excited you and now you found something where you can use the analytical side but do you miss the the other side, you know, the physical side, the aggressive side that you know the teams Because all of the computer and it people that I know, drink lots of coffee, and they sit at their desk and they look at computer screens for hours.

33:09

I honestly thought the whole curiosity was that’s pretty much what got me curiosity. And my imagination is what kept me very, very intrigued with, with technology, and computers and things of that nature. Right? So you mean to tell me if I put in a couple of strokes on his keyboard? I could make this imaginary figure dance or do this and do that, man, how do I do that? So that that’s kind of what what kept me motivated when it came to it. Now, do I miss the competitive stuff? Yes, hell yes. Hell yes, I do. And that’s why on the weekends, I do everything I can do to be a weekend warrior in things that nature, you know, so, you know, I still play basketball I still go running I still go. If I can find me a bunch of people to go play, you know, football with I go do that, you know, I got a bunch of crazy stories about when I first attempted to play flag football and China break out of the, the tackle mentality. Try to carry that over to flag football. That was really tough. That was really tough. You can

DJ Doran  34:27

take the flag.

34:30

You know, I’ve gotten so many flags by as the daily tackling somebody or people in general, you know, they apologize afterwards. I’ll strongly apologize to the player to the referees and everybody else who was there, you know, but you know, flashbacks, man, this is hard. No, it’s hard. Yeah.

DJ Doran  34:50

Try being a military officer for 23 years and then dealing with civilians. And you know, and they’re like, I’m you can’t order me around. Yeah, yours. To overcome that, but I finally did, mostly mostly. So I want to go on to this because I really want to I want to get in the second half of the show, I want to get to the point of what led you to podcasting because that’s like the big common denominator, I think that we share. But so, in one of the things I saw you start this company called net net where technical solutions, right? Yeah, and the thing that caught my eye when I was reading about it, it says that you can help businesses leverage technology to get an ROI within five years, right? Yes. Tell me what that is. And how does that work?

35:37

Okay, so here’s the thing.

35:41

I’ve been at it for over 10 years now. I started NetWare technical solutions. When I was about five years into the field. I said, you know, what, I’m seeing a lot of things that other businesses are not using, particularly the smaller businesses, right. So my thing was these big businesses are using all of this technology. The smaller businesses believe that they don’t have enough money to go after some of this technology that the bigger businesses are actually using. Right? Hey, that’s completely false. That’s a complete lie. This is the thing. Everybody has the same opportunities. Everybody had the same reach when it comes to the same technologies that the bigger businesses are using. One of the things that that I get a lot of pushback on is cost. Yeah, okay. They may pay, you know, 10s of thousands of dollars for this one particular program. But he got another program that’s similar to this program. That’s a lot cheaper. And we can use that to leverage your technology to leverage the technology for your business. So when I come into when I go talk to other businesses and things that nature I try to help them understand that you have Just as much access to the technology that the bigger businesses are using for the smaller businesses,

DJ Doran  37:06

so let’s, let’s talk about that. Okay. Give me an example. Like give me a model of a fictitious business, let’s say and how you would walk in to small to medium business, let’s say, and that the small to medium businesses, I would love to use this technology, but I don’t think I can afford it. I can’t afford it in our budget or whatever right. Now, bird, you come in, and you’re like, Okay, this is what you do. And what I want to know is how do you how do you identify those needs? And then how do you convince them? Because it, there’s got to be some investment in order to get a return, right? You can’t get an intern without an investment. So how do you convince them, hey, you have to make this investment to get a return and then how do you manage that? return and how do you measure what that return is?

37:56

Okay. So, no, that’s a great question. No, no, it’s a Question. So this is what it is. Network technical solutions is what’s called a managed services provider. Right? So what we do is, in the old days, you call it partnering with something Burke’s, right? With this business model. What I am, is, I’m a pro after see before it was reactive. Now, my business model was proactive. So the only time you the only time you get a call from me is when something is broken, and I fixed it, right? Or, Hey, where’s my check going? Where’s your check? So I can get my payment, I could pay my people. And that’s, that’s the thing. So what we focus on is infrastructure. There’s a foundation, and it doesn’t matter what kind of business you start, what kind of business you are. It’s a technology business. Let’s just face it. If you become a toilet paper sales, it’s a technique, right, which means email phone website is All technology, right? So with that, putting out there, but as a as a starting as a starting point, what I do is I focus on three things, those three, those three things is about focus on your time, if I can save you time, it will make you more productive, right? The second thing is productivity. If I put in the right software, the right tools, I can make you productive, which obviously makes you more money. Right? In three, I save you a lot of stress. And as Bruce the three keys that I use, you know, so let’s say for example, you have a brick and mortar, let’s say a coffee shop, right? First thing I do is obviously I come in and I do a assessment. Okay, after I do my assessment, I need to know what are your business goals, because there’s no way I could, I don’t want to fake the font and you this is great picture You have all the rainbows and unicorns and all that type of stuff when I probably can’t deliver on it. Right? So once I identify what I am able to do, then I could put together systems in and help you with that. So let’s start with the, with the coffee shop. All right.

DJ Doran  40:21

You know why that’s a good one. I used to own a coffee shop. I can relate to that.

40:27

Okay, okay, great. So let’s say you have a coffee shop. You you. One of the things that I would do is, like I said, Come in, take a do an assessment, try to figure out what your goals are. See how I can help. First thing I would say is, oh, well, you a coffee shop. You need to have Wi Fi. You don’t have people coming in here you don’t have they don’t have their laptops, they don’t have their tablets and things of that nature. You obviously have to have Wi Fi. So with Wi Fi comes Internet with internet comes a big operation. Warning for hackers and things of that nature. Right? If I was a hacker I could come into your into your coffee shop and just sit down, turn on my computer and capture anybody who’s on this network. It just do whatever, I could steal their information, I could get their password to the ATM. And I can figure out their password Facebook, social media and things like that I would need. Yeah, yeah. So what I would need to do is put in some type of security for your Wi Fi right. With that, we also need to separate your dough network as far as your cash registers. So more than likely nowadays, everybody’s using tablets to you know, bring in the cash in that niche right there we go people so we obviously need to separate that is still making protected, right. So overall, I would help protect your your home. network, and then I will segment your network so that only you and your business products will be able to use this part of the network. And everybody else would be able to use this Partner Network.

DJ Doran  42:12

Does that make sense to you? It does. So basically, you would create sort of like a password, you know, like, here’s a password for the business side. And here’s password for the general public if they want to have if they want to have Wi Fi. Yeah, one thing that I I want to understand here, and when you say an ROI, so in my mind as a business person, I think of that that’s a service that we provide, like at the coffee shop, that was a service that we provide, and then it was a secure service. So I want to protect our ability to do business, but I but the way I look at things was more of a practical say, perspective. So how do you when you say you deliver ROI do you help small businesses with inventory control, let’s say using let’s use the coffee shop model Okay, inventory control food waste ordering vendors, of course, we talked about Wi Fi security. Do you? Do you focus on marketing? Do you focus on design? Do you talk about, you know, geek, like, they like having a coffee shop, there’s all sorts of technique as a barista I went to school to become a barista, which was, which is very interesting. It’s much more complicated than I thought it was, you know, and then you learn about the roasting of the beans and the different coffees and all that different things. And I’m wondering if you take that approach, do you just focus on the technical side of the business? Or do you deliver help them to, to, to, to develop their business as a whole, including the technical side,

43:47

right. I’m mostly focused on the technical side. Now, there is a stat out there that I came across. This is a managed service providers. It must be are able to give people are able to give businesses 25% on their return of investment in five years, right? Now, that’s the difference, or that’s the ROI down speaking of when.

DJ Doran  44:16

So your ROI is specific to, I just wanna make sure that, that that I understand so that when we talk about things that are outside the scope of where the topic is, your ROI is, is based on on the technical investment that you would make so that whatever technology you use in the, in the course of doing your business is the most efficient, right? That’d be a good way to describe it. Yep. Okay, now, I understand, um, you know, could use you about 10 years ago, but you know,

44:51

I’m sorry, that’s my fault.

44:54

I

DJ Doran  44:56

the, you know, now, I mean, I keep it Imagine how busy you must be because now everybody’s businesses is reliant on that. And that was even worse, you know, I’d become a new lover of zoom. I never even used it, you know, technology that has been great. And I never even knew it existed. I’ve heard about it in big companies, right? Mm hmm. You know, but I never thought that, Oh, my, I can use it for my podcast, or I could use it for, you know, the little things that I’m doing.

45:24

And that’s, that’s a good example of what I mean by technology that you’ve seen big businesses using before anything is available, because you’re a smaller business, right? That’s a great example of it.

DJ Doran  45:35

That is a great example. And you know, and and the necessity became the necessity iE COVID is what propelled that forward. And, and I think that what you do is really fascinating in the fact that you take, you bring that to the table for some, let’s say a small to medium business that may not even know what’s available. You can say you can do this and this can save you time because you know how long It takes to, to handwrite things or write emails or whatever and you can have a meeting and I can have, according to the zoom thing that I have, I can have like 100 people at once. I can do a whole effing seminar. Yeah. You know, from all over the world, by the way.

46:17

Yep. Yep.

DJ Doran  46:18

No. So that’s the cool part technology. Um, now what I want to kind of segue into something that, uh, that I thought, this is one of the paragraphs that I really enjoyed reading, and it says that you have a new venture in addition to what you’re doing, and that is podcasting. Yep. First of all, how did you come to know about podcasting? And why do you think it’s a natural fit for what you’re already doing?

46:44

Okay, so, I, let me let me just say this. So typically, when you when you come across the IT person from the past or whatever else like that, you have this idea that this tech guy is just somebody who’s gonna be in the corner. on a computer, nobody talks to them until something breaks down or something.

DJ Doran  47:04

You know, the guy from Jurassic Park. What’s his name? Newman.

47:09

Yes, yes. Right. So, you know, nobody really, with this whole new age of tech people, right, we have a lot more personable. Right. And as you can tell, I’m super personable, you know, so when I first got in feel it was kind of like,

DJ Doran  47:27

I thought you were kind of shy.

47:29

Just Just

47:32

but you know, but when I came into the field, people look at me like, Man, you you kind of bright and cheery for you to be in this field. You know, it best is best. That’s amazing. Right? So, how I came into podcasting, podcasting is something that I used to listen to, while I still do, I’ve listened to for years, right? I used to have

DJ Doran  47:56

you one of my subscribers. Don’t even answer that. I just, I’m just, I’m just teasing with you. But I’m gonna listen to yours.

48:10

Yeah, I guess I’m gonna have to listen to you. I have no problem with that. I return a favor. Well, I’ve been listening to podcasts for years, you know, honestly, there was times where I had like an hour drive to work and, you know, music is cool, but I hate commercial. You know, those people that hate commercial? Yeah, so, when I when I came across podcasts, I learned so much from podcasts where there’s no self help or you don’t some some things I could I could split a do when it comes to technology and things of that nature, right? Or just something, you know, spiritual or, or, you know, meditation, things of that nature. Right. Sure. And, you know, that really became my I was in car University, right which is is listening to podcast freedom for have audiobooks rare to be on a way to work on the way home from work, right? So how I actually jumped into it was one day I was I was leaving the office. And I just kept thinking, Man, how can I get more leads into my technical? Right? And I was listening to this one particular podcast, it was a technical podcast, but there was talking about how you could mark it as a technical podcast. And the guy that was on there, the guy who was the guest, he said, you could start a podcast, but that’s not what clicked for him. Right? And this is what I like to call my Genesis moment. And a Genesis moment is when you come to a fork in your road, and you can go right or you can go left and you can see what your life could be beyond those steps. Right? So example that would be me trying out the CFL. That’s the Genesis won’t be starting this Genesis prize podcast. That’s another Genesis moment. me getting married. That’s the Genesis moment. Right? So this is one of my bigger Genesis moments that I’ve had that, you know, once I heard that it didn’t really click with me. What clicked for me was this this whispered or more so like a Yale that said, Hey, we should start a podcast, right? And I got the bacon like, well, we’ll bring onto this pockets. Right. So, you know, the voices I, you have a lot of friends. You can bring them on to the pocket. And I said, Yeah, okay, whatever. Right? Like who? And so I have a couple of friends who, who do different things and things of that nature. Right. And so with it, I said, All right, great. Let me go ahead and get them on here. But what am I going to call this pot? Right?

50:56

I’m sorry. That’s my Ruby.

DJ Doran  51:00

Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry, producer, a producer Nick is awesome at editing that stuff.

51:06

Oh, great. I hope you won’t pay him a lot of money for that.

DJ Doran  51:09

Don’t listen to him, Nick. Don’t listen to.

51:13

So what happened was, I was wondering like, Okay, well, what am I going name? Right? So, the name Genesis project podcast came to mind. And that’s when it really solidified would be, this is what I’m going to do. Okay, now I got me a name, I have some idea of, you know how I’m gonna go about it. Imagine, I don’t know what I’m doing. I was just throwing stuff at the wall. And, you know, all it is blown from it. You know, I’m saying. So that’s pretty much how I got into it.

DJ Doran  51:43

Well, I’ll tell you. And that’s pretty much how I got into podcasting as well and a couple of things. One is I have a busy life, and I need to do a podcast because to me, it’s, it’s a way for me to directly speak to an audience instead of speaking through Written editorial or an article or so forth, I can have somebody on the show like you can have a conversation and I, and I’m infinitely curious. I’m very curious about everything. You know, whether it’s UFOs Bigfoot entrepreneurs, it doesn’t matter, politics, current events, I’m curious. And it’s a pursuit of personal personal growth, if you will, through education and enlightenment. And it’s the same thing is to share my own experience as, as someone that’s been in business for 35 years, I can experience and maybe maybe plant a seed that somebody will will grow into an oak tree in their own in their own career. And then I found that I enjoyed doing it and I enjoyed meeting new people I’ve met so many this a fun thing you’ll find, Bernard when you do podcasts, as you have more guests on your show, you get to meet these people and then you begin these relationships and they and they, some of them continue on and on. Yeah, and and I really enjoyed that because Like you, I’m not exactly a shy person, you know, I’m very outgoing. So I like to talk to people and I like to learn about people and I like to hear different perspectives on things. And, and I think that podcasting is a way for you to share. It’s sort of like having a conversation in your living room, or in the kitchen with friends. Without the maverick. Being here, you know, so, so to me, when I do a podcast, it’s not like, like a, like a news interview show. It’s, oh, I’m gonna meet a new friend, and we’re gonna just talk about what they’re doing in their life and share and that is what I enjoyed the most most about it, quite frankly. Now, of course, you know, you get listeners and you get excited when you get to certain numbers and all of that, but I don’t do it for any of that. I do it specifically for what I just what I just explained. Now, at some point, you know, it’s like acting you know, you have 10 actors that get to be mega stars and they make $10 million a picture But 90% of actors make scale, you know, and they just trudge along. So you have to love doing it first, and you do it for money, I think that’s the wrong way. But if you do it for, hey, I like doing it. And it’s, it’s a natural progression of or an extension of my business, then it’s just another thing that you can do that gives you access to people that can help further along, what you’re doing in your life, business and personal for that matter.

54:27

Yeah. And that, you know, that was one of the things that, you know, as, as a technical guy, I probably could have started this podcast, it made it a technical podcast, right. But in my mind, I wanted to go after the people who are want to ask potential clients, right, which is businesses. So that’s, that’s pretty much why my podcast is centered around entrepreneurship and business and things of that nature, everybody. Here’s wondering, Things that a football coach told me years and years and years ago, success leaves clues. Our job is funny, I was just gonna, that was one of the quotes I had circled. And I was gonna ask you as soon as you were done is you believe that success leaves clues.

DJ Doran  55:15

Talk about that. What does that mean? So

55:21

okay, so the way success leaves clues if you study somebody, you see the things that worked for them. It’s our job to take those things and put all those spin on it and still move forward and become successful. Right? One of my favorite football players is Michael Irvin, right. He loved Mike early because he was he wasn’t the fastest guy. He wasn’t the biggest guy. He was pretty big, but he wasn’t the biggest guy. But you knew when he went up in the air, he was coming down with that football, right? So that tenacity that that dogma that he had, you know, was one of the things that obviously, I gravitated toward, right. And the fact that he was a fast was still able to catch the ball still able to, to create that separation to catch the ball. That was amazing to me. So what I used to do was, I studied him, I study him, I study Jerry Rice, and I study other grades that are things that nature, right. And each one of them does something great does something unique. So what I did was I took all of those things, I combined it together, and I put my own spin on it my own little flavor on it. And it may be a better football player. Right? So when it comes to success leaving clues is studying people watching what works for them. Taking what what works for them and putting your own spin on it. Put your own little flavor on it and make it yours. Right. Everybody has their favorite flavor kool aid for example. All right. But everybody makes cool a different sound like it looks sweeter. Some like it a lot sweeter. Some like it not so sweet, right? It’s the same flavor, but just with a different taste Sure, and that’s why I call it that’s why I like that’s one of my favorite quotes.

DJ Doran  57:16

I love that and I love the fact that you use the Kool Aid reference because you know I don’t even know if the younger generation knows what kool aid is but we grew up on Kool Aid know that Nick? No kool aid is do you do?

57:32

Not the commercial right? Not Not with Kool Aid man like actually tasting the Kool Aid right? Yeah. Okay.

DJ Doran  57:39

Yeah, cuz we grew up with a guy who looked like a pitcher and he would he would run through the thing and break through the house or whatever. Yeah, um, but see in our house. I am one of those. I like a very weak Kool Aid. I like to taste the taste but I don’t want overpowering but my husband is like, let’s put in three packets when it only calls for one kind of thing. He wants the full power of it. So. So that’s kind of ancient, but that is so true that you have the same thing but you know, different, different variations of it. Right? Yeah. So I had you, you talk about pushing entrepreneurs agenda, like an agenda for not purchase entrepreneur, you push it forward by promoting entrepreneurs, but partnerships, right. So what does that mean? Talk to me about that.

58:28

So, what are the things that and again, you’ve heard me mentioned earlier, that have an identical twin brother, right. My my twin brother, he, like I said, he had the opportunity to talk to, you know, generals for dignitaries, he you know, talk to special ops teams and things of that nature. One of the many one of the Beatty topics the subject that we talk about often is fear, right? How is it that you know, You know, being a former being a veteran should understand this. How can these people in a special forces deal with fear, right? If somebody shoot at me, I’m letting you know now, I’m getting out of there, right? But these guys, they push a fort, even with the fear. And what they do is they deal with it in order for them to move forward. And my brother, I remember my brother asking this pow, who just got rescued four years, I’m talking about that. You know, he was held over there since Vietnam, and he came back over. Yeah. And he asked him, you know, news going through him, what did you do to get through him? And he said, Well, I play golf, in my mind, never played golf before about play golf. In my mind, I can tell you the specifics, I can tell you, you know, what course are more. You know, how far away is the is this a part three was this a par four Hole, I can tell you the distance of the hole, I can tell you when the wind is calm and how strong the wind is and things of that nature, right. So all that to say this, that it was nothing but training, train and train and train that helped them to get over fear, and not necessarily get over fear, but just deal with fear, in a sense, where they can still push forward and achieve their main objective. Right. So my thing with with pushing the entrepreneurship envelope for is that everybody I talked to a lot of people that I’ve talked to have this fear, right, and we spoke on this a few times earlier, is here. My thing is doing everything I can to help take that fear away, or at least push it to the side for you, for you to move forward. And to start this entrepreneurship venture. This business idea, this great business idea as you may have. All I’m trying to do is try to take some of that fear away. From a give me some confidence to help you go after

DJ Doran  1:01:04

a great point. And, and I think that a lot of people can learn from that. But I will add to that about fear. And, you know, people think because I’m, I’m in the position that I’m in that I am confident, and I always walk around ready and you know, and I don’t have any fear, they don’t know is that even as I acquire this publication in Phoenix, that I am filled with self doubt, I am filled with trepidation that what if I’m, I’m buying a publication in the middle of a COVID crisis that, you know that financially, not the, you know, the best and all of that. And I remember, the other day, I called a friend of mine and said, Listen, I want to talk to you because I have super high anxiety. And what if I’m not doing the right thing? What if I’m doing the wrong thing? And you know, and you start second guessing yourself, and you start wondering, and then it becomes paralyzing. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And what I’ve learned over the years is fear is a good motivator. Right? Yeah, it’s a good motivator, but you cannot let it control you. You cannot let it continue when I was in the first Gulf War in 1991 No, we were flying out of Turkey and then later out of Kuwait City, and I don’t know if you remember back then but when Saddam Hussein lit all the oil fields on fire, and there were these collar, sooty smoke coming from everywhere, and we’re flying, and we’re dodging these things, and and, you know, we’re flying at a reasonably low altitude and being shot at and, you know, there are lots of other airplanes and very confusing and, and it doesn’t affect you while you’re doing that, but you’re petrified, but you do it. And then it wasn’t until I landed, that my legs got really weak and I was like, that’s too close to death that’s too close to the to, to cheating death and, and I’ve seen and spoken to many, many military people that are on the ground as they’re much closer to death. And I you know, we talked about, you know, how did they overcome that and the one thing like learn is that they don’t overcome it. They, they, they manage it, right? They, they just manage it. And, and, and it’s normally after the fact that you’re like, Oh, you know, I’m exhausted or I’m weak need because you went through that but at the time when you before you’re going through adrenaline helps you. And then while you’re going through it, training and focus helps you and afterwards you sort of get to get to relax a bit, but same thing in entrepreneurship. Is, is entrepreneurs in my experience, are always second guessing themselves, and they’re always fearful and they’re fearful of what they’re fearful of failure, financial failure, mostly they put all their heart and soul and blood and sweat into this business and they make the wrong decision. You know, it can go down, go down the tubes, and, and I think that, uh, I think that the thing I like about the one thing that I really love about Everything I read about you is that quote that you believe that success leaves clues and I strongly and firmly agree with that, is that if you’re open minded to look for them, you’ll see them everywhere. Mm hmm. Yeah. You’re and so it’s, you’ll see them everywhere. that’ll lead you in the in the next direction. So I, you know, I think that uh, that was a, that was a point that I really want people to to hear stand is, is fear is good fear is normal. How you manage it is is what makes it makes a difference. Some people are so paralyzed. I got to tell you, a friend of mine said to me, never was an entrepreneur. He worked it up in a factory and he said, I love getting my paycheck every week. And he has a good life. Right? Yeah, don’t get me wrong. It’s a good life. He got it. He has a retirement whatever. I haven’t had a paycheck since I retired from the Air Force, like none and he says I don’t know how Do it and I and truthfully, like sometimes you don’t. And maybe you find it this way. Do you ever think, Oh my god, I’m creating my own job every day or my own paycheck every week? And what if I can’t do it one week, then I don’t have a paycheck. That’s fear.

1:05:16

Yeah, in.

1:05:19

For me personally, it goes back to sports, right? Um, you know,

1:05:26

let me let me let me paint you this picture.

1:05:30

In my mind, I see it as if I’m on the field. If my team needs these yards, or this touchdown, right to move forward. So let’s just say my team needs this first now. It’s third down, first down, second down, whatever, right? When I get the ball, I have a choice. You could run to the sideline, and hope that we could do it the next play, and what if there is no next, right or I can see this hole Run sudo. Now, earlier you heard me mentioned about half assed, right? Half acid through this hole, I could get my helmet knocked off, right? Here’s the thing. I don’t know what’s on the other side of that hole. It can be a linebacker, it may not be a linebacker, right. But all I know is I need to get this first down. My team is dependent on me to get this first day. So what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna stick my foot in the ground, I’m gonna go as hard as I can to try to go through that hole and try to get that first now. Now, again, earlier I mentioned to you that if I go 110% and somebody meet me, and you know, I get nothing there. Okay, that’s fine. At least I’ll put in the effort. However, I don’t know if that linebacker has been blocked. You know, if I run through that hole and that linebacker has been blocked, they are still got, you know, the secondary or the defensive. But I have to worry about, that’s somebody that I could deal with. Right? If you only so I’m saying all that to say this that, you know, yes, this is scary. And again, and you can probably attest to this. We don’t know what the hell we do. All we know, is this, this this this us in for lack of better words, it’s us grabbing our bootstraps. Right? And just getting the things done. Is it scary? Yes. Do we deal with it? Yes. But the main thing is, we got to move forward. I got to move work.

DJ Doran  1:07:36

That’s right. And I’m going to tell you something to you. You made a point that, you know, they’re oftentimes you don’t know what the end result is going to be. So you’re like I have to take a step of faith. And I have to believe in what I’m capable of. And I have to believe in other people that are around me that are working with me what they’re capable of. And, and you take a step of faith because if not fear will keep you on the sidelines and you’ll never know You’ll never know because that’s the safest thing. So. So staying on the sidelines is, is you know what the end result is going to be you get in the game, you don’t always know what the end result is going to be. And that’s a you know, and that’s tough. I want to wait, I can’t even believe we we’ve been talking for over an hour, it’s gone by so quick and probably could talk to you for another hour and not even think about it. But I want to cover a couple of things. One is, how has how has COVID? How has this this whole thing affected your business? And what advice would you give to to other small business owners that and I know here in Chicago, a lot of them are suffering and are, you know, closing for good and going out of business? How do you what would you say and what advice would you give to small business owners to help them survive through this?

1:08:46

Well, you know, this, this COVID thing has been a blessing in disguise. I was saying that in a sense that if I didn’t have the systems If I didn’t create the systems that I created in place, I’ll be a tad bit more fearful. Right? He is, but this has opened up plenty opportunities for, you know, now, as far as the tech business have sort of moved into the role of being a virtual CIO, a virtual Chief Information Officer, right? In the sense that now, I’m basically consulting people in businesses on how they could run the business, how they could make this pivot and use technology more than ever to leverage for their business. Right? Sure. So the main thing that I was the main piece of advice that I would give to other small businesses and things of that nature. remain open. Remain, just just remain open, you know, being open to the possibilities. of pivoting, not necessarily throwing away your original game plan, but maybe just taking a step to the side there do something that may possibly get you back on that main track again, right? It’s always how I’m trying not to get super technical here. So when I say open, I mean, being open to the possibility, right, being open and to the universe, because the universe may deliver to you a opportunity that you may not have thought of, you know,

DJ Doran  1:10:33

I agree with that. I think entrepreneurship is being able to pivot and, and be open to things that, you know, that weren’t planned for, like, for instance, the acquisition of this publication in Phoenix. I wasn’t planning for that. But because they were mismanaged, the opportunity presented itself and I took advantage of it. But, you know, this is part of being in business. You know, and I want to I want to segue that in To this last point, and this is something that I think is so important, and I was listening to, to your podcast or on your YouTube channel talking about dressing for success, right? And so oftentimes, I’ll start with this and then let you close out here. And that is, so oftentimes, people judge you by how you look. Right? And as you can see, I’m pretty casual right now. You know, we’re casual, because we’re just you’re at the kitchen table, and we’re just be asking, and we’re sharing our experiences. Yeah. But when you go to a meeting, it is important for you to make that first impression. It sets a tone of what that conversation is going to be about. And people look at you and say, Oh, he means business because of the way you dress. Now it sounds superficial, but it is it is. It is true. It is absolutely true. And I’m going to tell you a story. And then it’s up. I’ll let you finish off. I went to a hotel We owned years ago, right in San Antonio, Texas. And I walked in, I was reading my baseball hat and a shirt and some jeans and I brought my coffee and I just sat in the lobby. And I just wanted to see how the front desk people were greeting people and what have you. They didn’t acknowledge me. They didn’t do anything. I was completely invisible. Mm hmm. The next day, I went into the hotel in the suit and tie and everyone’s snap to call me Mr. Doron. And also all that sort of thing. And I learned again re evaluated then that that people will see right through you. If you’re if you dress a certain way, if you dress another way, they will, they will connect with you. And the same happened at the bank. I’m gonna forget this one time pissed me off too. I went into the bank and I’m trying to get a cashier’s check for $5,000 right. And I look like a bum. No, you know, no disrespect to bums but I look like you know, I was working in the ARD and I went in there and I looked at walked in, I tried to get the, the, the thing. First of all, they look like I was robbing the bank. And that pissed me off. And then, and then they were gonna charge me $25 for the cashier’s check, right? I was like business accounts there at the time. And a good amount of money. You know, I had a banker that I worked with all the time. It wasn’t until he came up and told them who I was that they even noticed too. I realized I had been to that bank all the time. Right and always in a suit and tie. And it taught me a lesson again, that that people judge you on how you look. So when I was listening to that, YouTube when I was watching that YouTube thing, you’re talking about dressing for success, and, and and how that impacts your business. It it touched on something that I had personally experienced. So talk about that. Tell me a little bit why that’s important.

1:13:55

Okay, so I’m not sure well, you guys can See, but, um, first of all, I’m a black man. Right? You are. Yeah, you know, last I checked. You know, I’m six, five, right? So it’s not to make this about race or color or anything like that. But this is just the reality, right? I’m black. I’m a man. And I’m six foot five. Right? I already have two strikes against me, again, because I’m black. And I’m big. So a lot of people will find me intimidating. It doesn’t matter. If I’m always smiling, like, like, I have been this whole show, right? There’s going to be people who are going to find me intimidate. I would be more intimidating to people if I was to, you know, show up to a board meeting, and you know, jeans and gym shoes, you know, some Nikes on and a T shirt, right? So, my father always taught me to have two things in my closet. And that’s all suit and a tuxedo, right? Yep. Ever since then, always, I’ve never heard of tux I need to go give me a tux. But I have a closet full of suits. Right? Then I literally have made like two pairs of jeans. A lot of T shirts. I have I just bought my second pair of Jordans ever in my life. Literally while I was on vacation, right? I’m saying that to say this that if I was to play to be if I was to play to the idea of how the media paint me as a black man, to be fair, I’m supposed to be a rapper and I’m supposed to be an athlete or or drug dealer or whatever, right? Then they will win. Nobody will ever take me seriously. If I’m still dressed sharp if I was to have a, you know, a, you know, a sports coat in a tea in a button down shirt. The insert don’t need to be you know, tucked in but At least outlook to position I looked up here. Right. Then I will be taking a tad bit more seriously. Right. And I had a somebody experiences similar to yours. There was a there’s a more affluent area and around Detroit, right, just outside of Detroit, it was actually a suburb. And there’s a mall there. So I went to the mall I had on gym shoes, jeans, you know, a T shirt, when they saw this, Tiffany store, Tiffany and company store, because my intentions was to get my grandmother, this this pin. Did you know for Christmas or whatever? nobody paid me no mind. Nobody. No, I’m actually stopping people asked him hey, I need some help. Hey, can I get some help? Hey, I would like some help over Hey, I would like to buy something. Right? It wasn’t until I said hey, I want to buy something. Somebody came over to me and started talking about And even being the attitude towards me was alright, well, what can I get you? You don’t look like you could, you know, afford these prices? So let me just push you over here was more affordable to right then, of course no, I was upset, you know, the first and this happened when I was I don’t know maybe 20 to 23 years old. So the first thing on my mind was oh, this is this is kind of racist, right? But because I was open minded, I went back, but this time I dressed differently. I had on a suit, no tie, your my shoes was shot. You know, my hair was nice, you know, went there. Immediately somebody Hey, can I help you, sir? Hey, what can I show you? Hey, no less than 30 whatever, right? It was I Oh, okay. Okay. So everything that my father said to me, is completely true. completely true.

DJ Doran  1:17:56

It is. And and I don’t know I don’t face Things that you face like that. Yeah. But I do face it sometimes in in that one experience or those two experiences one at the bank and on a smaller scale, but I sent her I sent her a file, in click, I sent you a picture. And that’s me dressed up in a tuxedo. And so you’re clean up I can I can clean up when I want to. And, but I’d never want I mean, I rarely want to, you know, but I’m just saying is that when you want to have an end result, especially in business or in something else, you haven’t been dressed for the part because they’re gonna judge you on on what you bring to the table. They don’t they can’t see your mind. Right? They can’t see. Like, I remember telling the bankers like, you know, I’m, I’m a smart guy and they’re treating me like I’m an ignoramus at the bank, you know, right into your mind, the only thing that they see and that’s something that I learned is the outside of you. Yeah. Now, so So I look at it like that. So I want to dress so that the outside of me commands the, the, the attention and hopefully the respect of my audience. Know your audience, you know doesn’t mean anything you’re not you’re not being fake because you’re wearing a tuxedo like I don’t wear a tuxedo all the time. So it’s like, I’m not a fraud because I’m wearing a tuxedo at this event. This event dictates a certain presence in order to get the result that I wanted. You know, you wear it. And I think that’s the thing I’ve learned is dressing for success. It’s a it’s a tool in your arsenal to help you achieve your objectives. It’s not a reflection of who you are or your station in life. It’s just a tool. Right? And, and that is a, that’s something that I talk about, often myself is, is those things are your tool, to me the most, the most how they say it this way? I have met the smartest people that have great minds and look like they were it, you know, lived under a bridge. Right? And, and I’ve met people that are, you know, look like George Clooney, but are as dumb as a box of rocks.

1:20:19

Yeah, you

DJ Doran  1:20:20

know what I mean? So your mind is, is the first thing but but you got to get people to want to. You want to get people to, to want to know your mind, you know, they can’t know that. So if you’re if you dress a certain way you won’t get anybody’s attention. They’re never going to know what you have to offer. Yeah, if you’re gonna be in business, if you’re in business, just like, you know, some people say that your body is a temple. Your appearance is is your first impression. Right. Right. And I thought that was I think that’s important. And I think that’s a great thing to focus on. Bernard in in what you’re talking about, because I don’t think it’s focused on near enough. Yeah. Many people I’ve had come into my office, not the studio, but my actual office applying for a job and looking like they just came from the beach. You know? Yeah, my first impression is what you couldn’t comb your hair or wear shoes, no,

1:21:17

your shirt or anything,

DJ Doran  1:21:18

or anything like that, right, you know, shake anything. Because to me, that is the, that’s my first impression. So no matter how brilliant they are, ID, their first impression to me is a wall. And I put up a wall and now they have to, they have to somehow get me to to penetrate that wall to get to their intellect. So anyway, yeah, I think that that is a great point. And I and I applaud you for for doing that. Before we go, I want you to sort of tell everyone where they can find you how they can learn about you. And, and, and, you know, how they follow you on social media and all of that and and, and then we can have some fun In comments.

1:22:01

Great. Yeah, um, again, my name is dark leeton people call me Chancellor Bernard cleeton. From the school of hard knocks. You could check out my I like to do that

DJ Doran  1:22:15

funniest shit.

1:22:17

You can find my podcast anywhere just about anywhere on Apple, iTunes, you can find me on Spotify. You can find me on Google podcasts. You can find me on tune in radio, air. You can find me at my website at Genesis Project podcast.com on social media, I am on Instagram and Facebook. I am on Twitter. I don’t really deal with Twitter a lot. But you can follow me on there as well. You can follow me on Facebook and Instagram at Genesis project podcast. And you can find me on Twitter at podcast Genesis.

DJ Doran  1:22:55

Got it? Hey everyone, I just want to tell you that I’ve had the Best time talking to Bernard and talking about entrepreneurship. I mean, his energy is infectious. And, and he smiled through the whole thing. He wasn’t lying when he said that. And he’s a great guy. And I hope that you’ll you’ll check him out and talk to him. Maybe he can save you from some of the things that I went through regarding technology and give you some ideas on how you can streamline your business from an IT standpoint, to to give you more time to focus on your business rather than on figuring out the the it section or the it problems that we all have. Absolutely. Bernard, it was such a pleasure. I hope you’ll come back. I would love to have a continuing conversation about entrepreneurship. I am going to listen and subscribe to your to your podcasts and I hope you’ll do the same for mine and and I will follow your progress. Also, I want to put this out there is anything I can do to help you as a mentor as someone in business if I can. If I can be of any service to you reach out to me and I’m gonna message you here before I disconnect my, my direct email.

1:24:04

Okay, that’ll be awesome man, just for your guests or rather for your audience here. I just started a online course. So earlier guys heard me speak on how to start a business and things of that nature. I created a course on how you can actually start a business. So for those who are scared to jump out here to try this entrepreneurship thing, you’re gonna want to check out this course this online course. And it will take

DJ Doran  1:24:33

it on your

1:24:34

website, shake your hand. I do. I do. I am put it up. Right. Well, it’s been up now for a few days. But yeah, go check it out.

DJ Doran  1:24:43

And also Bernard send it to send it to me. I just sent you my email, send it to me, and we’ll put it on our social media and on our website as well. Gotcha. All right. Listen, you have a wonderful day. It was a great conversation and thank you for being so flexible and giving me a 15 extra minutes to get ready.

1:25:00

Um It’s all good. I appreciate you for you for having me on here.

DJ Doran  1:25:03

Absolutely take care of you are absolute pleasure I mean it with with everything. Take care now.

1:25:09

All right Take care. All right bye