OBI 7

OBI 7

• 0:03Speaker 00

  Welcome to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. You asked for it, so we made it happen. Every Friday, we're doing something a little different. Instead of one long conversation, we're packing in four of them, four experts, four big ideas, all in about the same time it takes to drink your morning coffee. We call it One Big Idea Friday, and the format is simple. I ask each guest one question, and they bring their single best idea for business leaders who want to grow without the noise. No fluff, no rambling, just the thing they actually want you to remember. I'm Josh Helig. Let's get into it.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  With our next one big idea, it's Rachel Glass. Well, Rachel, you are the founder of GlossLab, found on the web at glosslab.com, and the founder, your second company, Officinal, which is launching as we speak, literally this summer. So congratulations on that. And that, by the way, goes right into your one big idea that you're going to be sharing with us. So Rachel, thank you for joining us. Please share with us your one big idea.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. So my one big idea in this seat as a second time founder is, and apologies in advance to first time founders, because I've been there too, but as a second time founder and really learning from a lot of mistakes, mistakes and wins that I made the first time, but having sort of this new perspective and a pause on each thing. So something goes wrong. A lot of things go wrong. Our vendor sent, you know, the entire wrong order of something, and that goes wrong. There's a fix for it, and there's always sort of this solution, but it's how I respond to it, which

• 2:01Speaker 01

  I've learned a lot about in this kind of second time around, as far as, you know, having the panic but not panicking, and finding these ways to fix them, and sort of almost anticipating that these things will happen. So having that in your head that these things will happen, and knowing that there's a way around, and there's a way to the other side, and using, you know, my network, my resources, which I'm sure others have too, but relying on that and not moving into this immediate panic, which I would have done the first time, and still sometimes do, but it's now tempered.

• 2:42Speaker 00

  It's interesting, right? Because I think the first time, you know, when these negative things happen, you think, oh, well, this is only happening to me, and this means I'm not a good business person, or whatever, and you start to, you just like to start to find meaning in that. Whereas, I'm with you. I've had a few, I've had several companies not do real great, finally had one do quite well, and then, you know, and now, you know, it's like we're kind of, you know, starting a, you know, another division of our main company right now. And you're right, it's, I think the good news or the silver lining here is, you know, for our first time founders, it generally gets easier. Would you say that?

• 3:26Speaker 00

  Or like, what would be a better way of saying that?

• 3:28Speaker 01

  I would say, in some ways, yes, it gets easier, but I almost think that you're sort of like, I have the scars now, right? So having done it before, it doesn't feel as big, as dramatic, both the good and the bad, but I think it really evens in the middle. So there's sort of that sense of like, you know, things can keep moving, and things will move forward, and things will go wrong, but that's part of it. That's sort of part of the journey, as opposed to, you know, it being a catastrophe, or as you were saying, thinking like, this is me, as opposed to, this is part of the process, and this is part of the messiness which goes into building a business.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. I want to ask you one question here, and that is, if I can squeeze this in, and that is, how do you deal with maybe the anxiety? Like, you have a big launch happening here. Like, do you worry about that? Do you think about that? Are you anxious about all of this happening? And if so, like, how do you now work with yourself? Whereas maybe before, you're like, oh, my gosh, everything's on the line right here. But now, it's like, I don't know, like, how is it different this time around in the anticipation phase?

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I run anxious. So it's not, it's not a fair answer. I think the anxiety and the anticipation is still there, but I think it's, I think, again, it's sort of like tempered in a way that sort of is protective on the bottom. It's like, with my first company, there were very high highs and very low lows. So sort of the second time, it's that living more in the middle of it all. And it feels better. It really does.

• 5:23Speaker 00

  Wow, that's interesting.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Having been there, having, you know, the experience in the scars, which I know is sort of something you can't, you can't learn unless you've been there, but I, but trying to impart kind of those wiser words.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  Your new launch, congratulations, officinal.com. Tell us a little bit about it.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  So, super exciting. I've partnered with a top dermatologist. His name is Dr. Adarsh B.J. Mudgill. He's based in New York City. And both of us have been long-term, sort of, we both love petroleum jelly, myself as a consumer, and Dr. Mudgill as a top dermatologist. And really, it's inclusive in healing powers. We've both felt sort of disenchanted with what's on the market. So Officinal really exists as this clinical apothecary. Our first product is La Balm, which is an amplified petroleum jelly. It's meant for 100 uses

• 6:26Speaker 01

  on your lips, on your cuticles, and then is really your final step at night to lock in and seal in all of your skincare and treat at the same time. So, super exciting, really kind of going back to essentials, but making them better. And excited, excited about this first product.

• 6:46Speaker 00

  Your website for that is officinal.com. We have the spelling in the show notes, O-F-I-C-I-N-A-L-E. And that's where you'll see the new flagship product, La Balm. So congratulations on this, Rachel. And thank you so much for sharing a one big idea. It's exciting to be in the phase that you are right now. But, you know, again, based on your background, it certainly gives you, you know, a little bit more hindsight, a little bit more maturity in that. That is really, really valuable to share with all these other business leaders out there, because it's, you know, high highs and low lows kind of come with the territory sometime.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  They sure do. Thank you.

• 7:28Speaker 00

  Rachel, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 7:34Speaker 00

  With our next one big idea, Krishna Kumar Sharma. Krishna, you are the founder and CEO of Omokai. You're found on the web at omokai.com. It's great to have you, Krishna. Please share with us your one big idea.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, thanks a lot, Josh, for the invitation. So today, I would like to speak about the topic of physical AI. Most people know this space by the term robotics. And when people think about robotics, they think about like, robots doing interesting stunts, maybe folding laundry, maybe cooking dinner. Some of the robots actually danced at America's Got Talent as well. And this is how I see most of the people are seeing all this cool stuff. But I believe that some of the strongest use cases for physical AI or robotics are much less glamorous.

• 8:30Speaker 02

  Example, one of the least talked, talked, um, topic is in security and inspection. I believe that today is if you think about normal world, how it operates, like in organizations need to inspect their factories, their warehouses, think, things like power plants, construction sites and other critical infrastructure. And these operations are repetitive, sometimes difficult to scale. And in many cases, they are, uh, dangerous. Imagine a security guard, uh, in a empty, dark warehouse, doing a patrol in the night. You never know what kind of, uh, incident can happen there or what kind of, uh, dangerous object this person can come across.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  These problems are not flashy, but they are real problems. And this is where I feel that physical AI or robotics can create immediate value. So as we all know, right? Like using AI, uh, we can collect lot of data. We can, um, do good analyses on images, on acoustics, et cetera. And the same principles can be used by robots when they are operating in dangerous, uh, places. And other thing which I think is that when people think about the future, they think about like replacing humans with robots. I don't, I don't understand like why we, why we hate humans so much that in every discussion, we want to either replace them using AI or replace them using robotics.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  I believe that we should use this technology to help and enable humans at scale. And hence, instead of like, you know, thinking about a robot becoming your romantic partner, why not like we use an robot to complete a dangerous or repetitive task so that we can actually let a human focus on judgment, investigation, decision-making and let robot to scale operations and protect the human from all the problems we can, um, think about. Um, I would also like to speak that, uh, some of the applications of robotics in actual

• 10:40Speaker 02

  human interaction can also be about helping elderly and I totally stand by this kind of, um, operations. But then if you think working in a physical space where there is lot of, uh, dynamics, example, you have furniture, you have pets, sometimes you have kids. It can be very dangerous for, uh, robots to operate here. I'm pretty sure that in future we will be able to do lot more with robots. But at this time, I would say, let's focus on solving real problems and make world a better and safer place for all of us.

• 11:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Krishna. Yeah, yeah. It, I mean, there are, you know, and I think if we, you know, look in our crystal ball, you know, 10 years down the road, are we going to have more robots or less robots? Um, I think it's going to be, you're right, a lot of the behind the scenes, the, the stuff that, you know, very few consumers might be thinking about the, that is going to, uh, improve efficiencies, reduce costs, uh, you know, uh, just keep bad things from happening, which I know you're kind of on that side quite a bit. Um, really cool stuff. Krishna, um, I, I know you, you speak on this quite a bit, you know, the kind of the, the intersection between AI and robotics. Your website is omokai.com.

• 11:59Speaker 00

  Can you tell me a little bit about who you work with and what you do?

• 12:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, um, basically we are building an operating system for robotics via which you can turn speech into autonomous missions for robots and drones. What this means is that you don't have to be a specialist in robotics. You don't have to be a specialist in anything. Just want to get a complex task done. You give a command to any intelligent machine, let it be robot or drone or any, any machine in general, and then this machine can understand your intent and do the task on your behalf. And some of the, uh, use cases which we have found are in the space of security, inspection, even in defense.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  Example, uh, this week, Aramco refineries, all refineries got attacked by drones. So you can use like this kind of systems to actually defend the refineries or maybe the power plants which is providing energy to all of us.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  Wow. Uh, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's an exciting world. We need good guys on the, uh, you know, on the front to make sure that we're all staying safe. Krishna Kumar Sharma, your website is omokai.com. That's O M O K A I dot com. When somebody goes to your website, what would you recommend they do?

• 13:20Speaker 02

  I would say that they should, um, if they want to connect with me, uh, please go to the, uh, connect section and please feel free to send me a LinkedIn request. And if there is any use case via which I can help your security and inspection operations or maybe protect our democracies, please reach out to me. Happy to support you there.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  Krishna, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your one big idea.

• 13:48Speaker 00

  With our next one big idea, it's Jeff Hasselman. Jeff, you are the founder and global head of blockchain, uh, and was it digital currency for Amazon Web Services? Uh, you're kind of a superstar over there. Uh, you're also the founder and managing partner of nine two six ventures and the founder and CEO of Kingdom Bitcoin. Well, Jeff, it's great to have you. Thank you for joining us and I would absolutely love to hear your one big idea.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  Well, thank you, Josh. Uh, faithful stewardship begins with truthful measurement because we become what we measure. That is one idea I want to leave with you all today. I believe every generation is shaped by what it chooses to measure. Right now, one of the greatest crises facing our world is not inflation, debt, politics, or even AI. Those are all symptoms. The deeper crisis is that we have forgotten how to measure honestly. Proverbs 11 says, "The Lord detests dishonest scales, but accurate weights find favor with him." God does not treat measurement as an accounting issue. He treats it as a moral issue. Why? Because measurement shapes trust and trust shapes civilization. That realization led me to write The Bent Ruler.

• 15:03Speaker 00

  I'm so sorry. This is, I'm sorry to, this, I don't mean to, do you, where's your microphone? I should have caught this earlier. Can you get it as, I don't know if you have the ability to move the microphone.

• 15:14Speaker 03

  I can get a little closer for sure.

• 15:15Speaker 00

  Yes, that'll sound a lot better. Um, it was just kind of sounding like this a little bit, kind of echoey.

• 15:20Speaker 03

  There's a little muffle. Yeah, I got you.

• 15:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, just so, just as close as you can get it to your mouth. Normally like great microphone placement, you know, kind of about this distance or whatever. So.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, actually you can't see it, can you?

• 15:31Speaker 00

  Oh, it's good if I see it. I don't care. It could be on screen. Yeah, whatever.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  It's like literally right in front of me right now. So that's awesome.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  Perfect. That's so much better. I'm so sorry I didn't catch that the first time.

• 15:40Speaker 03

  No, no worries at all.

• 15:41Speaker 00

  Okay. Okay, let me, let me just start over from the top. And it was, uh, I'm, it was, uh, global head blockchain and digital currency?

• 15:49Speaker 03

  Digital assets.

• 15:50Speaker 00

  Digital assets. Okay, thank you. Okay, here we go. Three, two, one. With our next one big idea, it's Jeff Hasselman. Uh, Jeff, you are the founder and global head of blockchain and digital assets at Amazon Web Services, uh, and it's quite a superstar over there, uh, to, uh, to, to create something so big for the big, you're one of the biggest companies on the planet. Uh, you're also the founder and managing partner of nine two six ventures and the founder and CEO of Kingdom Bitcoin. Jeff, it's great to have you. I would absolutely love to hear your one big idea.

• 16:27Speaker 03

  Awesome. Thank you, Josh. So faithful stewardship begins with truthful measurement because we become what we measure. That is one idea I want to leave with all of you today. I believe every generation is shaped by what it chooses to measure. Right now, one of the greatest crises facing our world is not inflation, debt, politics, or even AI. Those are all symptoms. The deeper crisis is that we have forgotten how to measure honestly. Proverbs 11 says, "The Lord detests dishonest scales, but accurate weights find favor with him." God does not treat measurement as an accounting issue. He treats it as a moral issue. Why? Because measurement shapes trust and trust shapes civilization. That realization led me to write The Bent Ruler.

• 17:11Speaker 03

  If a carpenter builds with a bent ruler, the problem is not his effort. He may be gifted, disciplined and sincere. But if the ruler is bent, the house eventually leans. We understand that instinctively. Now consider something far more consequential. Money. Money is one of the most important measuring devices in society. It measures the value of our labor, our savings, what we hope to pass to our children. Now imagine discovering what that, that measuring device, uh, ooh, my bad. Sorry.

• 17:44Speaker 00

  You can, um, if you want to just back the train up a little bit and then.

• 17:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. Can I go back, just let me go back one line as far as that's okay? Uh, so I'll say, okay.

• 17:54Speaker 00

  But, but give, make sure you pause.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:00Speaker 03

  Why? Because measurement shapes trust and trust shapes civilization. That realization led me to write The Bent Ruler. If a carpenter builds with a bent ruler, the problem is not his effort. He may be gifted, disciplined, and sincere, but if the ruler is bent, the house eventually leans. We understand that instinctively. Now consider something far more consequential: money. Money is one of the most important measuring devices in society. It measures the value of our labor, our savings, and what we hope to pass to our children. Now imagine discovering that the measuring device itself has been quietly changing, not overnight, but year after year, decade after decade. Families do what they were taught.

• 18:44Speaker 03

  They work hard, they save, they sacrifice, they plan. Yet somehow they feel like they are running faster while falling further behind. Not because they became lazy, not because they stopped working, but because the ruler itself stopped telling the truth. And once you see the problem clearly, the next question becomes unavoidable. Is there a form of money that cannot be quietly bent by human hands? Well, I think there is: Bitcoin. Not because it's trendy or the price moves, but because it reintroduces the world to truthful measurement. Principles God established long before Bitcoin ever existed. People often ask me if Bitcoin is a rebellion against the financial system. I don't think it is.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  I think Bitcoin is a repentance, a return to timeless principles: truth, integrity, responsibility, constraint, stewardship. That is the heart of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the entry point, stewardship is the destination, transformation is the goal. Because stewardship always asks a bigger question. Not, "What am I accumulating?", but, "What am I multiplying?". In the second declaration, I challenged people to think differently about inheritance. Most people think inheritance is what we leave to our children. I believe inheritance is who we leave in our children. Will we raise consumers or stewards? Will they simply inherit what we built, or will they multiply what God entrusted to them?

• 20:12Speaker 03

  Because wealth without wisdom rarely lasts. Faithful stewardship creates flourishing that blesses generations. So here's my challenge to you. Ask yourself these three questions. One, what measuring stick am I using to build my life? Two, how am I stewarding what God has placed in my hands? And finally, the question I pray stays with you long after today: What is going to live on because I lived? Remember, legacy is not merely what you leave behind. Legacy is what lives on because you lived.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  Jeff Hasselman, thank you so much for this. Tell us a little bit more about, so your active venture, you're going through some growth right now. It's called Kingdom Bitcoin. And it's an interesting, boy, I like your take on it much more than the take I commonly hear associated with Bitcoin. Yeah, and I think you know what I'm talking about. So it's almost like you're kind of cleaning up, you know, or it's like Bitcoin for adults. You know, the non-bro-y adults, I think. And especially with the, kind of the more, you know, the faith component of it as well. You're causing me to take a double take here. Tell us just a little bit about what Kingdom Bitcoin is.

• 21:28Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, you nailed it on the head. I mean, when Bitcoin started, we were all children. And you know what it was like when we were kids? We were curious, we were learning, we were doing things. And then we became adolescents. And when we were adolescents, we get into a little bit of trouble. And I will say, there's been a lot of people who have done some bad things when it comes to the crypto world. But it's not about the technology. The technologies work. It's the human nature of what's happened. And now, today, we actually have adults coming in the room. The largest banks in the world, the largest media and entertainment companies. The real adults are there. And now it's just getting around regulation here in the U.S. But globally, Bitcoin is actually functioning very well. So what I'm trying to do is dispel those myths and those rumors and what's out there. And also say that Bitcoin isn't about getting rich quick.

• 22:13Speaker 03

  It's about the long term. And how do you look at it from a generational standpoint through the lens of God?

• 22:19Speaker 00

  Well, your website is kingdom-bitcoin.com. You do a lot of writing there. Jeff Hasselman, again, long storied career, notably with Amazon, as being the founder and global head of blockchain and digital assets, which is, that's quite a legacy that you've created there. And I'm sure influenced you quite a bit based upon your work today. And again, website, kingdom-bitcoin.com. Jeff Hasselman, you're the founder and CEO. Thank you so much for sharing your one big idea.

• 22:54Speaker 03

  Thank you so much, Josh. Appreciate being here.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  With our next one big idea, it is Boris Zhukov. Boris, you are the co-founder and CEO of Let You Know, Inc. You're found on the web at letyouknow.com. You're also a TEDx speaker, inventor, and entrepreneur. Boris, it's great to have you. Please share with us your one big idea.

• 23:20Speaker 04

  Josh, thank you. Thank you for your invite. That's great to be here. So let me dive in. Imagine a world where you're in control of your own transactions. So think about this. Imagine being able to buy almost anything on your own terms. And that's the key, I want to stress this part, on your own terms, without negotiating, without haggling, without wondering whether you paid too much. And you do so whenever you conduct those transactions on your own terms instantly. That's the key, instantly. And that's the idea behind Let You Know. So we created a marketplace that gives power to both consumers and businesses by allowing them to complete instant transactions on their own terms.

• 24:05Speaker 04

  And that's the key. For this model to be sustainable in the long run, you have to make both sides of the equation work, not just focus on one side versus the other. And well, let me, I guess, mention a few words on the consumer perspective. So here's how it works from their side. Let's say you're looking to buy a new car, right? So instead of walking into a dealership, how we've discussed earlier, hoping you are getting a good deal, well, you can first use AI to research pricing, incentives, market conditions, right? So once you've decided that you believe you have a fair price on hands, or let's put it this way, you have your best offer.

• 24:46Speaker 04

  Well, you visit letyouknow.com and bid less with an instant result. So if your bid is accepted, your price is locked in, and we reveal your dealership or business that accepted the offer, saving you time and money as if you negotiated hard for weeks, except you didn't, right? That's pretty powerful if you think about this. Now let's shift gears and let's look at the business side of the equation, right? So businesses don't have to change anything how they operate. So they join Let You Know, configure their matrix, so their hidden pricing thresholds, through our autopilot system, and they are done for life. From there, they simply continue running their business as is.

• 25:31Speaker 04

  Nothing changes. So whenever a customer submits a bid on Let You Know, that means a business hidden threshold that nobody can see, including me. I would have no clue what they actually said. That dealership or business receives a buyer, not just a lead. And so what about those cases, the more interesting cases? What if it's a misbid? So I bid something unrealistic. Well, think about this, for any business, that's valuable data. So the business may not get the buyer, but now it knows that there is someone, let's say 50 miles away, who is $200 away from making that purchase, right? That's pretty powerful. And businesses receive all of that valuable real-time demand data while doing nothing, paying nothing.

• 26:15Speaker 04

  They can download that data, plug it into their favorite AI, such as OpenAI or whatever they use, and the AI will tell them, hey, based on this real data, this is what you should actually set publicly on your website as your display prices, right? And this is what you should have hidden on Let You Know to maximize your profits. Think about this, if you want to, like, let's say, pitch any business, you want to grow any business, the first question we see is going to ask you, hey, where are you going to get customers? That's one. How are you going to generate revenue? And second, what kind of price are you going to charge? Let You Know solves both of those cases for you without you doing a thing. So that's pretty, pretty cool, I would say. So think about this, consumers, they save money, right? While businesses gain customers and valuable market data. Both sides benefit.

• 27:00Speaker 04

  That's pretty powerful. And soon, we're going to go far beyond vehicles. Customers will soon be able to bid on oil changes, restaurant gift cards, store gift cards, haircuts, paintball sessions, and much more.

• 27:16Speaker 00

  Thank you, Boris. I mean, and this makes sense, right? So as a consumer expert and advocate, you know, for the past 20 years, it does seem silly that nearly all transactions are led by the retailer. Whereas I think a lot of retailers might be in a situation where it would be fun for them to shop around customers, right? You know, here's, here's what I have ready to go, because that's the kind of shopper I am. I know exactly what my numbers are. I know exactly what I want. I don't want to be, you know, jerked around. I don't want this to be, most importantly, I don't want to have to spend days upon days upon days and then go in through all of the nonsense. It's just so inefficient.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  This is, I get it, it makes a lot more sense. Let's just come together on the numbers, then we'll spend our time together.

• 28:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, precisely, precisely. And it's actually more interesting because the way market operates is think about this. It's as follows. So what happens is, okay, I'm talking about in a traditional sense. So it seems like supply side dictates all the numbers because here is a price taken or leave it. Right. But then it's a reactive approach because then you look at your inventory and let's say you cannot sell. What happens is there is a buildup, right? Of all the inventory you cannot move. Then you start like, let's say, given like major price breaks. Other people who paid sticker prices are probably not that happy that they could have waited and got a better deal. And that creates a bad consumer sentiment in a way that some people are getting frustrated with that approach. Right.

• 28:50Speaker 04

  And second, you're actually cutting on your own profit margins because you did not anticipate proper demand side. Right. And so would let you know, you actually conduct your businesses as, and we clear the rest of it automatically. So like literally, nothing changes, like focus on all the sales that you are doing today. And we clear the rest, which is pretty powerful. In fact, I can tell you this, we reserved, and that's an interesting point. We reserved this domain, let you know, dot com back in 2003. It's because I've collected a lot of data, real data. And I saw that, look, if you look at businesses and you look at consumers, okay, this is how they would operate. If things were flying as efficiently as possible, no legs, right? No reaction, but the market just working its magic instantaneously, you know?

• 29:35Speaker 04

  And finally, there was a time when everything came to fruition, where I was able to pull all the right technology in place. And unified behind our marketplace, you know? But that's a, that's a, that's a really cool insight that you met.

• 29:52Speaker 00

  Boris Zhukov, you are the CEO and co-founder of Let You Know. You were found on the web at letyouknow.com, also a TEDx speaker, inventor and entrepreneur. Boris, thank you for sharing your one big idea.

• 30:05Speaker 04

  Thank you so much. I appreciate you. That was awesome. Thank you, Josh, so much.

• 30:14Speaker 00

  With our next one big idea, it is Louis Swart. Louis, you are based in Australia. You are the author of the book, The Bee Myth. How Successful People Accidentally Build Businesses That Steal Their Lives. Your website is LouisSwart.com, which we have all linked up. Louis, thank you so much for joining us. Please share with us your one big idea.

• 30:42Speaker 05

  Thank you, Josh. Really, really appreciate you and appreciate being here. So, you know, I've got an alarming statistic for you. Eight out of 10 small businesses will fail in the first five years. Eight out of 10. Now that's a dramatic number, but think about all those people, you know, they're told their boss, I'm gonna, I'm leaving. I'm gonna go start my own business. And now they've got to go back and say, look, can I have my job back because my business didn't work? You know, they look bad in front of their family. They look bad in front of everybody. But what do the two do differently? So eight of them fail, but those two, what have they done differently to everybody else?

• 31:21Speaker 05

  Well, today I'm going to talk to you about, about delegation and about how important it is for us to be able to learn how to delegate. Now, one of the biggest problems that we have delegation is we don't actually understand the value of our time. And I've got a simple formula to show you how to actually value your time. So the formula is called the 2000 hour rule. It's quite simple. If you went and worked for a boss tomorrow, you would probably work 40 hours a week. That's about what you'd be expected to work, 40 hours a week. And you'd probably 50 weeks a year is about the maximum that you could work. So you'd probably be looking at 40 hours a week times 50 weeks a year, 2000 hours.

• 32:02Speaker 05

  So let's look at that and say, okay, 2000 hours is about how many hours we could be working as, as a business owner. Now, what we want to do is we want to take, how much do you want to earn next year? So let's say you want to earn $200,000 next year. So you want to earn $200,000. We're divided by the 2000 hours. That gives us $100 an hour. Now that's a very simple figure. And you've, you've now got a set figure of, of $100 an hour. Now this is how it works. This is the importance of it. We now have got a figure that I should be earning $100 every hour.

• 32:40Speaker 05

  So now I see this book and this book is slightly off on my, on my background. And so I go on Canva and I spend an hour on Canva just adjusting the book. Now that's a $10 an hour task. So I'm doing this $10 an hour task and I'm going, you know what? I've actually saved money because I didn't have to spend $10 on somebody else. I just did it myself.

• 33:05Speaker 05

  The reality is that you've actually in that hour, you've done a $10 per hour task, but you should have done $100. So you've actually lost $90 for that hour. So that means that the next hour, you don't have to make $100. You have to make $190 just to keep on track.

• 33:28Speaker 05

  So it's super, super important that we actually work out what that figure is. Because it's common maths. If we're doing, our figure is $100 an hour and we're doing $10 an hour work down here, we just can't reach that target. If we're doing work that's more than $100 an hour, we're definitely going to be able to reach the target. Now here's where the, here's where the visual Q comes in. I actually recommend you get a post-it note and you write that figure on a post-it note. So you write that figure on a post-it note and now you stick that figure on your computer. You stick that figure on the wall. You stick that figure somewhere that you can see it all the time.

• 34:08Speaker 05

  And the next time you are looking at a Canva file and you're working on it, I want you to just glance up at the post-it note and say, would I pay somebody $100 an hour to do this? And you'll see most times you'll say, definitely not. And if you've got that definitely not, you should not be doing it. You should delegate it either to a virtual assistant or to AI. So get yourself a post-it note, write that figure on it. And you'll see your business will grow.

• 34:41Speaker 00

  My suspicion, Louis, is that this is what you cover in your book, The Bee Myth, which is on Amazon. It's actually, as of when we're recording this, it may not be, you could go check. We've got a direct link to it, but you, you may also, if you have Kindle Unlimited, which I do too, which is a great way to consume a lot of content. It, it may be there, but again, my, my question is, I assume you get into this in the B-math.

• 35:05Speaker 05

  We do, we do, yes. So the B-math is written as a parable and it takes you, it takes you along a business owner's journey from being overworked and literally, you know, going to get, going to collapse. So people, people get burnout. They burn out their health, they burn out their relationships, they burn out, you know, other parts of their lives. And how do we go from that to actually having our business work for us where we own a business? We don't just own a glorified job.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  But life will get better, Louis, once things slow down, right?

• 35:41Speaker 00

  And they never slow down.

• 35:43Speaker 05

  It never slows down because all the way along, we're going to have different levels, different devils. And how that works is as we go through another level, there's going to be a whole lot of new devils. And you're going to go, when I get a couple more staff, this is going to be easier. And then you get a couple more staff and then you realize that you go into a whole different realm. Now you're looking after staff, you know? And so initially you're just working, you're just working and you're actually doing all the work. And you go, as soon as I get somebody to help me, it's going to be easier. You get somebody to help you, your business grows to another level. And then eventually you get to a point where you're just fighting fires all day. You're just putting out problems all day. Okay. You know, but you're putting out bigger problems than when you were doing it just on your own.

• 36:26Speaker 00

  Well, let's fix that, Louis. I think a great place to start would be to go to your website, LouisSwart.com, which we have all linked up. Do you want to tell me or share maybe a little bit about what else you do with folks? And certainly I know you've got some great resources at your website. Again, that's LouisSwart.com, which we have all linked up.

• 36:47Speaker 05

  Absolutely. So the thing that I do is I'm trying to help people to learn to delegate. I think that it's super important we learn to delegate. And at the moment, we're all going, AI is here, AI is here, it's going to save the world and AI is amazing. But the same problems that you have when you delegate to a human, trust, control, those same problems come when you delegate to AI. You have exactly the same problems. So if you learn how to delegate to a human, you're going to find it easier to be able to delegate to an AI. If you work out how you can get a human to do something properly for you, the same applies when you get AI to do it for you.

• 37:25Speaker 05

  So it's, it's more important than ever to learn how to delegate because all your competitors are trying to use AI as much as they can. They're learning every day, they're sitting and saying, what more can I delegate to AI? What else can I delegate to AI? And so you, that is what you're competing with. So learn how to delegate either to people or to AI, or even better, people that are actually AI trained.

• 37:52Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. Yeah, as they, as they continually say, you're not competing against AI, you're competing against people who are using AI. So well, Louis Swart, your book is The Bee Myth. How Successful People Accidentally Build Businesses That Steal Their Lives. I think that there's a lot of us that can identify with that from time to time. Great concept for a book, your website, LouisSwart.com. Louis, thank you so much for sharing your one big idea.

• 38:21Speaker 05

  No problem. Thank you so much, Josh. This has been such a, such a privilege to be on your show.

• 38:29Speaker 00

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