Need to get fired up about the future or your business? Do you want to help during this difficult time but don't know how? This one is for you. Jeff Hoffman, a wildly successful entrepreneur, author and producer, shares why and how entrepreneurs can and will save the world through giving, creating, and taking care of people.
Jeff is an award-winning global entrepreneur, former CEO of public and private companies, worldwide motivational speaker, bestselling author, Hollywood film producer, producer of a Grammy winning jazz album, and executive producer of an Emmy Award winning television show. And if you weren't familiar with all that work, Jeff Hoffman has been a founder and major part of starting companies you definitely know including Priceline.com/Booking.com, uBid.com and more.
7:15 - What if I don't know how my company can give right now?
15:25 - Why we are even better now than in peacetime.
17:02 - Entrepreneurs will save the world and here's why.
26:23 - What if you feel like you don't have any resources to work with?
32:17 - When you just don't feel optimistic.
36:01 - Jeff's business runs out of money and how they responded
45:40 - Getting to the heart of the matter about Core Values and culture. Why a people centered culture is deceptively hard to create.
GET IN TOUCH:
Mark Leary:
www.linkedin.com/in/markhleary
www.leary.cc
Jeff Hoffman:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffhoff/
www.jeffhoffman.com
Production credit:
Engineering / Post-Production: Jim McCarthy
Art / Design: Immanuel Ahiable
00:00 Mark: So we're rolling, cool.
00:02 Mark: We are live!
00:04 Mark: This is "You're Doing It Wrong" with Mark Henderson Leary and my name is Mark. And I have a passion that you should feel in control of your life and so what I do is help entrepreneurial leaders get a little more control over their business. Part of how I do that is by letting you listen in to conversations between two people who have a passion for excellence in the entrepreneurial world, so you can listen in and pick out some really valuable nuggets that help you break through the ceilings in your world all while being engaged in a fun and deep way.
00:36 Mark: And so today, my guest is just the perfect person for that and I'm so excited about this conversation because Jeff is an award-winning global entrepreneur, CEO of public and private companies throughout his career, a worldwide motivational speaker - I've seen him speak, fantastic presentations - a bestselling author, Hollywood film producer, producer of a Grammy-winning Jazz album, an executive producer of an Emmy award-winning television show, and if you weren't familiar with all of that work, Jeff Hoffman has been a founder and major part of starting companies you definitely know, including Priceline.com, Booking.com, YouBid.com and more.
01:17 Mark: Welcome Jeff Hoffman!
01:20 Jeff: Thank you so much for having me here.
01:22 Mark: How are you my friend?
01:24 Jeff: [laughs] These are crazy times, I don't even know how to answer that anymore. Whatever the new normal is but I will say that I've been blessed that the virus has not really impacted me or anybody close to me, meaning no one's gotten seriously ill or anything. I hope you can say the same.
01:40 Mark: Yep, I know of cases - nothing first degree at this point. Houston is doing pretty well, overall.
01:48 Jeff: Alright. Well, you know what? I've been reading that warmer weather is somewhat a deterrent to the virus. I don't know if that's true or not.
01:58 Mark: Yeah, I keep hearing the same thing. Everything right now is like 80% believable at most. We just don't have enough data so -
02:07 Jeff: Yeah, no doubt.
02:08 Mark: So, I don't want to talk about a million things, but I guess I want to set the groundwork for - because when you and I met, 2-3 months ago, whenever that was, the theme of your presentation as I took it - because you talked about a lot of things - but I took it about - and most people I thought took it - around giving and generosity and the impact and the positive things that come from that. And what I have seen over the last month, is that when business owners and individuals and people in this crisis are at their best, they're giving. And they're being generous and they're sharing, and it's beautiful. What are you seeing?
02:55 Jeff: So, as a matter of fact, I just got off the phone a little while ago with a company - you know how I am - and they have focused on their community and everything from - this is one of my mentees, it's a company advice. But from delivering food to the community, you know there are a lot of schools - you know it's true where you live in Houston too - there's a lot of school kids in lower income schools that the only meal they get all day sometimes is that free school lunch and school's closed.
03:27 Jeff: So some of these people are short of food. So here was a company, a CEO who said, "I wanted to do something for my community" and I said, why don't you go and feed the kids? "What kids?" he said, because he doesn't live in that neighborhood, and I said, they are there. And he called all the school district offices and found out he could help a lot so his employees deliver food, they have obviously no contact setup. They're out there delivering food. Then he discovered that they could pay for additional medical equipment like masks and stuff for the local hospital and all of a sudden, they discovered there was so much they could do and they're totally into it and I'm just so proud to see him giving so...
04:07 Jeff: The example has been amazing of people stepping up and let me tell you one more because it really moved me. I've been doing this thing on TV and stuff lately that I've been - small business owners are saying, "what do we do?", "how do we get through this crisis?". I've been doing this thing that I've been calling my three R's about Repurposing, Retooling, Redeploying. And this company was a company that - a startup, a small business - a distillery, they make vodka. They sell to liquor stores and where they live all the stores are closed and people aren't supposed to go out. So they don't have stores ordering products right now so they kinda shut down and we were having this discussion of repurposing your assets to help Corona.
04:52 Jeff: and so they discovered that their assets were Chemists and alcohol, right? Alcohol processing in big tanks. Then discovered that they could convert their whole distillery from vodka to hand sanitizer. And so they started cranking out hand sanitizer and what I like is the kind of activity here because I was on the phone after they were up and running - with Ghana. And I was talking to people on the ground that I've mentored in Ghana and I said, how's it going? And they said "Jeff we're poor and we have no infrastructure. We can't get hand sanitizers. It's not like we can go on Amazon and have it shipped out here to the village.
05:32 Mark: Right [laughs]. Can't even do that in the Houston city.
05:34 Jeff: Yeah, even if it was available.
05:37 Mark: Yeah!
05:38 Jeff: So, I started thinking, what they do have in their agricultural business is Chemists and they do have some people that have skills that produce alcohol, you know, everywhere in the world. Anyway, the point is, we set up a zoom online video training course where this distillery making hand sanitizer in Reno, Nevada was talking to these Chemists in Ghana in Accra, and now they are producing their own hand sanitizer there in Ghana after a US company trained them. No money changed hands - that wasn't what it was about. But for me, it was just a thing of beauty, that people were paying it forward. You know that's the ripple effect, when people ask me "why do you help these people?" sometimes or they say to me "what can I do for you in return?" that's what you're supposed to do it return - go pass it, you know, pay it forward to someone else.
06:30 Jeff: So it was emotional to me to see them on this call with Ghana, training these people. and now they're producing their own hand sanitizer in Accra. Some of the best in humanity is popping up right now.
06:41 Mark: I couldn't agree more and I wanna keep on that `- well, there's two things that come to my mind is that I have been fired up and the more I spend time with leadership teams, the more I see them fighting to survive and win and conquer. It's just like this is, we got this. Everybody that I'm working with is serious and smart and ready to win and fight for their team. And the whole team is doing - the entire company is ready to get into the fight even when you make hard decisions and scale back, and lay off and furlough, you still have that fighting spirit.
07:11 Mark: But the challenge with giving that I think puts people off, is I had a friend who was a consulting firm and he was like, "Look, we're a consulting firm. I can't go get plastic and then go make face shields. Like, that's not on the radar for me". And so, the challenge for a lot of companies is like, it's not obvious- their give. They have to do some work and ask some questions to start figuring out, like you said, what are your assets? What do you have in your midst?
07:38 Jeff: Mark, that's exactly why I had three things, you know - repurpose, which I just talked about. Repurposing the skills to make hand sanitizer. Retool, which is just upgrading your skill set while you have time at home to take online courses but redeploy is for companies who can't repurpose. And redeploy means you can't get - like you said, get plastic and make masks, but you know what you can do? You can help the restaurant down the street - these are real examples - deliver food to the first responders in the hospital that are working around the clock, right? You can literally volunteer in your neighborhood or whatever it is, to take care of an elderly, help somebody. You can do these things online too. Help somebody with homeschooling because you know how to do it and they don't.
08:23 Jeff : We had an example where a company, he said, "I don't know what to do. We're a consumer products company". And so I said, tell you what, call the hospital, and he's like, "We're not doctors, we're not nurses". I said, call them and see what their problems are. And they said, "Well, besides obviously, you know, having a lot of patients, they said, there's a lot of misinformation about COVID in our community. And we'd love to mount an information campaign, but we don't know how to do that". And I said, Ask them what they need. And the hospital said, "we don't know how to create websites. We're not graphic designers. We're not online marketers". You know what he did? He redeployed. He loaned his two graphic designers and SEO SEM person and two online marketing people, you loan them to the hospital. So they are working from home, but they're building an information campaign for the hospital in the city they live in. And they're so engaged. They're not just sitting at home, wishing that they can do business and stressing - they're helping. So even if you can't do something yourself, maybe you can loan yourself or if you're a company, loan your employees to somebody else that is doing something because you have skills they can take advantage of.
09:32 Mark: You know, one of the things that I think people stop short on is the scarcity. Like, I've got these people, they're costing me money. I gotta do something that turns them into money right this minute. Or if I'm gonna loan them to somebody, how am I going to turn this into money down the line? And I kind of heard what you said, maybe I inferred it, but or implied it rather - inferred it that that they let go of that and just said, there's abundance. Let's just help, you know, like, here's a resource and a need and I'm not worried about much else.
10:08 Jeff: So Mark, you're right. They started with that abundance and they said just go, but I'm gonna tell you an interesting ending to that story. So in the first story, they stopped selling vodka. However, they were able to make hand sanitizer and they're hiring like crazy and they can't fill all the orders. And they're not price gouging or anything. They're just helping, but they're making a lot of money. And the other case where they loaned the graphic designers, and the online marketing people to the hospital, because the hospital was doing such a good job of distributing information, the hospital got a grant from the government to do it even better. So they hired for an indefinite temporary period. They hired all those people. So he loaned them - the entrepreneur loan his employees to the hospital, they were doing it out of their hearts, and now they weren't getting paid at their company. Now they're all hired, and they're getting paid out of a COVID Grant directly to that hospital. So that happened.
11:07 Jeff: And I think the last piece, the case where one of the restaurant owners that I work with, he's been feeding first responders. You know, let me tell you this, he's not making money from that now. But I'll tell you what happens when this is all over. And you're a nurse that works at that hospital and you're driving past that restaurant, you don't think they're gonna look up and say those are the people that fed us during the pandemic, let's feed them back. I think that everything you do, even if you're doing it for the right reason, you're going to get it back in spades. I also happen to believe in karma. Anyway, get back from the universe the energy you put into it, so put out some good energy, and you'll get it back.
11:48 Mark: I agree. And the way I would describe it is that there's no greater time of need. This is no greater time of being seen. This is when you see people at their best. And people remember this.
12:04 Jeff: I think they absolutely do. You can remember the good behavior and the bad behavior.
12:12 Mark: Yeah, so bad behavior? I, you know, I, I don't - I guess I do. Are you seeing any bad behavior out there?
12:18 Jeff: Yeah, most definitely. It's the people that go to the store and buy all of one product for themselves. They care - worried only about themselves. So, we saw that in a couple of cases where, and a couple of local stores where people - one person was trying to buy all the toilet paper in the whole store. That is not good behavior, right? And then we saw the other cases that you read about where somebody acquired masks for three bucks and is trying to sell them for 40 because they're in short supply, and are needed by hospitals and nurses and doctors. That is not good behavior. Luckily, it's the minority.
12:55 Mark: Yeah
12:55 Jeff: We've seen some bad behavior too.
12:57 Mark: Yeah, ‘cause as you were describing that I've heard the same things too. And where I've kind of seen it is - did the video drop? Are you there?
13:05 Jeff: Ah, I don't know what happened -
13:08 Mark: As long as you hear me we're good. The video kind of went away
13:10 Jeff: Yeah, for some reason, but go on
13:12 Mark: Yeah, I see that in kind of like the news stories where like, you know, there's - it's a clickbait headline, you know that, you know, certain products seized and a price-gouging situation. And I think that's true and needs to be policed socially. But I gotta tell you, I've experientially, talking to people being around people, you know, this is just humanity at its best, at least in my world. I mean, maybe I'm in a bubble. Am I in a bubble?
13:43 Jeff: No, you're not and, you know, the silver lining. And then, you know, we'll obviously have to accept the horror of all the people who lost their lives in this.
13:53 Mark: Yeah -
13:53 Jeff: but I completely agree with you. The silver lining of this is to some degree humanity rediscovering itself. First of all, people are rediscovering the people they live with are getting more quality time at home than they ever bargained for. But I'm hearing a lot of great stories of people, you know, parents that are suddenly forced to homeschool if they have kids. They're spending way more time with their kids. And they're learning so much more about them. In this process, neighbors stepping up to help neighbors. I've heard stories of people delivering supplies to the elderly, I've heard stories, even of people taking care of each other's pets, whatever it is.
14:32 Jeff: And then the other thing I like, and this part really excites me. What's so unique about this moment in history, is that I think it's the first time that the whole human race is fighting a common enemy. Because if you think about, you know, wars are between particular sides, earthquakes, or geographical economic recessions, or even a 911 is limited to certain sets of countries. Right now the whole world is at war against the same thing. So for once we're all on the same side, right? There's not a religious boundary, a geographic or a political boundary. It's all humans against a virus. And so that is, I think, generating some really hopeful behavior. I told you that story of connecting the people in Reno to the people in Ghana, and I was watching new friendships being formed. They reached out to each other, they helped. So I think the best of humanity is, I think some of humanity's greatest moments are gonna shine. I would rise and shine out of this.
15:33 Mark: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I have a belief that human beings are sort of programmed to fight some enemy. And when we get into a peacetime, it's so peaceful people get a little restless and we start to squabble over stupid stuff. And we get really serious about it and politics kind of get, you know, to where they are. And you know, I did like you said, I don't want to minimize the loss of life because it's bad. But when we have -when we get kind of a level set of resetting our priorities and now our conversations are human again
16:13 Jeff: I think that's absolutely true. There's just so many dimensions to what's going on here in so many ways, but it's a fascinating study in human behavior. I was laughing because, you know, I think you're right - humans suck at peace.
16:32 Mark: [laughs]I love the way you said that. That's probably very true. You know that we've got a lot of spiritual leaders who look pretty good at it. The rest of us? Terrible at it. I'm gonna be terrible.
16:44 Jeff: I didn't realize that until you said that. I started thinking: if we go back and look through history, I think we're gonna see that we pretty much suck at peace.
16:54 Mark: That might be the big takeaway, yeah.
16:58 Jeff: It's a sad moment, but people will get better at it.
17:01 Mark: Yeah, for sure. So, one of the things that we talked about is you love the idea of entrepreneurs saving the world. And the world needs saving, I guess. And we certainly feel like it does. What's the role of entrepreneurs right now in saving the world?
17:15 Jeff: So I think it's never been more important for entrepreneurs to rise up. I've been given these online talks, live q&a sessions, and sort of advice and even pep talks to entrepreneurs all over the world. That's what I've been doing. I've been busier now than I was when I was traveling every day. Because every day I'm doing like, four live, you know, webcasts or online sessions -
17:40 Mark: stuff like this?
17:42 Jeff: - But I'm loving doing it because I'm hearing so much from them. And never has it been more important. And you know, it's funny because it's not entrepreneurs because they're entrepreneurs. It's the other way around. It's a personality type, that we need to save the world. And those people just wind up becoming entrepreneurs, because they don't fit well into a lot of other infrastructures and bureaucracies. So I always tell people, entrepreneurship isn't the goal. It isn't even the job. It's just a toolset and the mindset that certain kind of people gravitate towards.
18:17 Jeff: So, that being said, problem solvers, people that can't stand the way things are and just got to fix it. They can't sleep until they fix something. Those people become entrepreneurs, but we need them right now. People that are very agile, that are innovative and a rapid prototypers for other ideas in life that are not afraid to try and not afraid to fail. People that know how to organize teams that are quick and efficient. Those are all the assets that we need to have in a fast-moving totally caught off guard, unprecedented COVID-19 virus.
18:53 Jeff: And so who can jump quickly, react - you know, innovate, experiment, all those things we needed right now are the things that entrepreneurs do anyway for a living. So part of the challenge I've been issuing in all these calls is rise up. This is your moment. The world needs entrepreneurs, because as much as governments are doing everything they can I'm not criticizing them. They don't move at lightning speed because they can't. Big corporations can't move at lightning speed. Entrepreneurs will starve if they don't. So they are the natural people to save the world.
19:26 Mark: Yeah, a couple of things have come up for me and like, I interviewed Cameron Herald a week ago and I was expecting it to be - it was the first podcast interview that I had done in post COVID. And I was expecting to really get into the leadership and struggle of teams that were dealing with it and he was we're basically agreed that there's no difference. Like it's a renewed enthusiasm - urgency. The urgency is way high. But there's nothing different than running a business in crisis than maybe starting a business from nothing. And so it's really, it's like a shock to the system to cause all entrepreneurs to have to sort of go back to that skill set that you just described, which is like what you want is not available. What you have is a bunch of broken pieces parts, go make it work anyway, I and that's what we do.
20:22 Jeff: That is absolutely right. And I agree now that you put it that way, that it is no different. It was different than if your company was humming along, but it's no different than the way entrepreneurs started any other business when you started you had no customers, you had no revenue and you couldn't pay your employees.
20:39 Mark: Yeah, it's scarier because your neighbors now have the same problem. But I guess that's the community but I think that's it. I mean, it's Yeah, it's -
20:47 Jeff: it's a good -
20:49 Mark: no it's my - the first months and years of my various businesses like, it's terrifying. You know, there's bills and no revenue and we gotta go. And so it's like, but at least I think the main difference is that I think we felt some sense of agency going in, when we started the business. So there was a little bit of a disclaimer that we had a warning label we had read. We didn't get to choose the time on this. And so it showed up and we're like, I'm not ready, then the world sort of like, not your decision, man.
21:23 Jeff: Too bad -
21:23 Mark: - You got to deal with this. And then I think a lot of entrepreneurs have gotten a little comfortable, duly so, in the rewards of the business they've created and we're sort of like, you know, I didn't want to do this again. I did it once I was good, and now we're back. And now we're all back to entrepreneurs fighting from wherever we are to wherever we need to get back to again.
21:46 Jeff: That is very true. But you know what? entrepreneurs - you know, chaos. we thrive on chaos. Chaos is a driver. Right? Chaos and disruption are where the, you know, the most nimble, agile and the people that are most - are fastest to synthesize new ideas into new businesses. They live - that is the giant wave that a surfer is waiting for, right? I forgot what they call it. A surfer was telling me there's this once in an every year, once a year wave that they hope to get they have a name for it. That's kind of this moment. Again, I'm not discounting the bad news, but what I'm saying is: this chaos and disruption are going to cause massive change.
22:32 Jeff: So let's, let's take an example earlier today. Yeah, we were launching a Global Youth Movement where we're organizing kids all over the world to really step up and innovate. We're asking kids, what do you think needs to be done? And here's one of the biggest questions. School changed overnight, right? Everybody went home but what kids are discovering are 1. Their parents are learning way more about how their kids are being educated because they're talking to them, and they're trying to do it themselves. And 2, the kids are sharing what works and what doesn't. And it's a lot easier to overhear your kid say this is a complete waste of time to one of his classmates on a zoom call based on the teacher's lesson, which you never would have heard before.
23:17 Jeff: So we're observing the education process. The kids aren't giving us feedback now. And what's going to come out of the other end of this is, school's never going to be the same. If you think about it at a college, especially at the college level. But in all these cases, most schools - and this we're hearing this from a lot of schools that we talked to, most schools were not, they did not already have an online learning platform. They did not have the toolset to teach kids at home. If you're in a nicer neighborhood, and a higher-end school you probably did, but a lot of students all over the world, especially when you go to the developing countries that I've been talking to, their schools are not equipped for virtual learning and online classes.
24:02 Jeff: So the schools had to, for the first time, introduce virtual education and online learning to families and to students. But what's happening is, not only are the schools saying "Do we really need students here all the time every day?" The answer, by the way for young students is, of course. But as they get older - high school, and especially college and university, not only is the university saying that, but students are telling me man, I would have never considered an online degree. But now I'm wondering why I ever spent the money to be on the campus all the time. Some percentage of them will go back to school as normal, but a big part of the population? Well, so if you're an entrepreneur, you know it's a huge opportunity, rewriting the education system. We've been saying that forever, but the schools wouldn't let us. Now they have no choice.
24:49 Mark: Well, I think both education and healthcare are ripe for some form of entrepreneurial revolution or multiple revolutions. And it is interesting to think of this as a catalyst for that on both sides.
25:02 Jeff: It is absolutely, it is. Again, that's the disruptive piece. It's a catalyst. No one had any choice and no one was able. The people that thought they were making the rules before lost control. So, you know, we got shown that we thought we had everything under control, really control very little.
25:26 Mark: Well, you talked about the "thrive on chaos" and I do believe that what makes money is conversion of chaos and disorder into structure. And that is essentially winning wars, winning battles. You know, salespeople, make a lot of money because they can take an uncertain economic future and turn it into predictable dollars and contracts and things like that. So this whole evolution, we've got an awful lot of chaos and an awful lot of disorder now. So to your point, it's a lot of raw material to work with. I'm curious, how would you react? Or how do you respond to people who feel like they don't have the resources? Because from your perspective, I mean, it's easy to look at you and say well, that guy's got money and resources and he can make phone calls. And he can really make big impact in terms of using money and resources to convert large amounts of chaos and disorder into something good. What about people who are feeling kind of resourceless.
26:27 Jeff: So I'll tell you what I've been telling them. This is the first time ever, that you could probably have a phone call, and a meeting with all your competitors. When we were all zipping along we were all competing. And even if they're not your competitors, it's not a business you want to get in, right? But they don't want you to get in. But the thing is now, and I've been telling a lot of people this, to tell me "I have an idea, but I don't have resources". And I'm telling them everybody's at home, and everybody's online. So unlike anytime before, you have the ability to create your own new community. You could be contacting, make a list, who would you need? Well, I need one person with money. I need some person with relationships, I need some person with access to whatever - all the resources, you just said that, you know, that I might be fortunate enough to have, but somebody else doesn't - make a list of those resources. Someone out there has them. They're at home too. They're looking for new ideas, and they're online.
27:30 Jeff: So I've been telling people, why don't you create? Why don't you invite these people that already have a little business and can't save it? I've been telling him, why don't you contact all your competitors? Form an every-Friday, little founders' group and say guys, we're all on the same boat. We can't compete now because there's no money, no business. Is there something we could all do together to get through this and maybe when it's over, we come out as one group in one new company, not for little ones. So you don't - it's true, you may not have the resources but the people that have the resources are saying there must be an opportunity here, I gotta find the right people. And people that would never take your phone call before, they will take your phone call now. And I've been seeing real examples of that - form your own little working group. And you know, in the same way people have a Bible study or a chess club or a tennis club, you should be forming a chaos club and saying, chaos is everywhere. And part of that is a resource club, somebody help us.
28:28 Mark: Yeah, so I kind of hear that is, you know, assess your situation. And if you have enough resources to act, then you should, then that changes your strategy, as opposed to like, I don't have any resource. I have no idea what to do. We should go collect some resources and we should be open to tear down some borders and boundaries and talk to talk to friends and make friends. Well, we know that people are more friendly than not.
28:53 Jeff: Yes, most definitely. And again, that's why it's such a unique moment in history that you can. Then people are more friendly and are more open and engaging. And, you know, part of it is what you and I were talking about before. Because for once we're all fighting this common enemy. And so people feel a bond that they didn't feel with other people before. And again, you know, I'm hearing that out in the field, but I shouldn't say out in the field since people are supposed to be at home but, I'm hearing that from people. And when I'm encouraging them, reach out and talk to people.
29:26 Jeff: I even had a case and it wasn't even a business case. It was some moms that were all struggling. And what they said was, you know, this one single mother. She was telling me, you know, I said, reach out and she said, "no one around here has anything, they're not gonna help me. They're trying to take care of themselves". And I said, do it anyway. So she reached out to other moms in her area, and this is a lower-income area, thinking none of them would respond and they formed a little group. And they found ways. They're online like, once or twice a week, but they're sharing ideas, they're figuring out if someone's closer to someone else, that they could drop something off on their doorstep, they're all helping each other. And she came back and said, none of us really got along before, but now that we're all in the exact same boat, everybody's dropped the pretense and we're just helping. So the same thing is happening in business.
30:17 Mark: That's so beautiful. And I love those stories. And you know, I think it's just habits and routines that we get locked into in a normal peacetime lives that we don't have access to that, which is irony, right? You know, it's peacetime right? And now it's wartime and now so we connect. So I don't know, I guess as I've had more of these conversations, I get to this point like, you know, so where's the downside? But I know there's a downside: I know there are people dying, every restaurant owner is sort of like: don't give me upside right now brother, this sucks. I get that. And there are lots of businesses who went to zero percent revenue, but -
30:54 Jeff: - there's no doubt. You know, there's a lot of people now that you know what they're saying? There's a lot of people that are saying, and I don't mean to offend anybody through this, but they're saying, just give me the damn disease already. My odds are that I will survive it and I have a zero - but here's what they're telling me. My whole life's savings is in that restaurant. That's all I have - the restaurant is my life. It's my life savings. It's my only business. We're destroying my life. Obviously, they're not talking about the much more important thing - their health and their family. But it's pretty darn important if you lose everything you've spent your whole life building, especially for a disease that statistically most everybody survives. So I'm literally having people telling me all the time, I'd rather just get COVID my odds, I'll survive. I'll survive it. And you know, at least I won't lose everything I've spent my whole life building and you can understand. I'm not arguing whether that's logical or not. I'm saying you can understand why people feel that way.
31:56 Mark: Yeah well, on top of that, the uncertainty. And so, you know, like the conversation I had with Cameron Harrell was very much - you know, we're leaders, it's our time to lead. You know, give yourself a minute, like 60 seconds, and now go. And I appreciated that perspective. And I think that probably helps some people. But I felt early on in the first couple of weeks, just the weight of the uncertainty. And I had heard some research about the impact of uncertainty and what it does to human ability to make decisions. And it's a human response that if you don't have information, you as an animal, don't do stuff. Because if you don't know anything, anything you do could kill you. So you just It doesn't make sense to do things when you don't know what to do. So massive amounts of uncertainty creates massive amounts of paralysis, and it's just a psychological weight to get past and so I have a great deal of empathy and I've given a lot of advice and I've done videos to try to get people to get comfortable with the fact that they should have compassion for themselves in the uncertainty, that weight they feel is very normal.
33:08 Mark: And the antidote to it is little bits of certainty and little things that you know to be true, even if it's bad news. Even bad news, when relatively certain, gives you comfort, and it gives you instruction how to act like, are you shutting your business down? Are you laying people off? How much money do you have? Those things suck, but they actually empower you to take action. And so I guess I just wanted to kind of talk about the spectrum of like, if you've lost everything, or if you're still in the cloud of uncertainty, it's really hard to get out of that but normal to do that, or how are you giving people advice on how to deal with that piece of this?
33:47 Jeff: Yes, big time. I've been having a lot of leaders come to me. I've done a few calls with a few CEOs today at all different levels, asking for advice on how to get through this and I will tell you, one of the first things that I've been sharing, because I've been watching the ones who've been doing it well, and, you know, I've been a CEO my whole life and been through a few things and some bad times too. I'm gonna tell you two things that I fundamentally believe: transparency and over communication. Because what's happening is these leaders feel like, I don't know the answer. They're afraid to face people. They don't want to look like a bad leader or a weak leader by saying, I don't know. I don't know, I don't know.
34:26 Jeff: And what we've been learning is the transparency and the over communication, instead of erring on the other side, is much more beneficial to people. And we're getting this from the employees when they sit down and the boss says: look, here's a list of the things I don't know. Here's the things I do know, here's what I'm afraid of, here's what I'm hopeful for. And they're sharing that and when you're transparent. And when you say to people, when people have no idea I mean, let's talk about finance.
34:56 Jeff: When people have no idea, because I went through this as a CEO at a time, especially post 9/11, being in the travel biz. When people don't know how long they're going to get paid, if they're going to get paid, how long they're going to be out of work, and you don't know as the leader either, and you say nothing? Uncertainty - you already said this - uncertainty is the reason that kids think there's a monster under their bed.
35:18 Mark: RIght.
35:19 Jeff: Because there just might be and until you prove to them with lights and everything else, that there isn't one there, as long as it's possible. The human brain works that way, which is a beauty of the human brain, our imagination. So the same thing happens to people without information, their brain, you know, their imagination will create some. So when you sit down, what I finally did is I sat down with employees, and I just told them straight up the truth. I said, this is how much money we have in the bank. These are the ways that we can spend it. Here's a list of the things I'm doing to try to get us more money. And then I said to them, who's got ideas, and I got to share a quick story with you.
35:57 Mark: Yeah, hit it.
36:00 Jeff: This was so meaningful to me. So we were going through these bad times and I was a startup, and we didn't have money to pay people. And so I sat them down and I did just what I told you. First, I was like, the answers are all bad and I only have bad news. And I don't know the answer, that I don't know a lot of stuff. And so I was hesitant to say anything. Don't worry about it. I'm working on it. Well, then I found out that that was causing monsters under the bed. So I sat him down and I said, look, here's a situation. Straight up guys, here's how much money I have, here's how much you guys cost, right? And, therefore you can already see this is bad, and it's going to worse. And I said so, given that situation, here's where we are, here's what we can do or not do. And then I said, here are the things I'm trying to do to make it better. And I said, once you guys think about it, and come back to me with your ideas as well.
36:56 Jeff: And I will tell you what happened. What happened was they were on Fridays. So on Fridays, I was going out on trying to find solutions. Every Friday I was leaving, talking to bankers, talking to investors, trying to find a way to save my company and pay my people. And every Friday, I noticed because when I went to the parking lot Mark, there was a conference room had a glass in the outside. And I was like, do they not realize I can still see them? They were playing poker at lunch every Friday. And I was like, okay, they're adults, they can do what they want, but everybody's broke. No one can pay their bills. They're not getting paychecks, and they're playing poker? So I was a little bit surprised at that.
37:33 Mark: Yeah. So I know a lot of entrepreneurs who'd be all ready to blow a gasket.
37:37 Jeff: Yeah. So one Friday, I was upset, to be honest. But I didn't say anything. One Friday I left my phone in the conference room because I had a meeting there before, then I come back into the conference room and the employees are all there and I come in and they all look busted. And I said, Guys, guys, it's okay. I just came in to get my phone. And they were all looking at me and I said, look I know what you're doing. I see you through the window every day. I know you're playing poker on Fridays, and I look at the table, there's a pot of money in the middle. Everyone has a pile of money in front of them. That's a poker game. And I said, you're adults do what you want. And I said, but to be honest, as I was walking out, I said, I'm not entirely sure why you guys are doing this at a time when no one has any money, I start to walk out of the room, and the employees turn and kind of look at me, but nobody says anything.
38:29 Jeff: And as I'm walking out, something catches my eye. And what I realized is that the employees - there's no cards. How are they playing poker with no playing cards anywhere? So I turned around and I say you're not playing poker, are you? And they said no. I said, What are you doing? and the employees said, every Friday, we come into this room, we wait till you leave, we come in the room and everybody empties their pockets onto the table. Then we go around and everybody pushes into the middle whatever they can afford to put to give to the cause. Then we go around the table again. And the first person says, My car payments paid, but I need some grocery money, can I take 70 bucks? And everybody nods, you take 70 bucks, the next person says, My mom loaned me $1,000, I can put 500 in here, but in two weeks, we got to pay, I got to pay my car payment, whatever it is. They were going around the table, pooling all their money. There was a ground rule: You have to be totally honest. Don't take more than you need. And if you have any extra, put it in here.
39:31 Jeff: And I said that's - I have tears in my eyes - I said that's what you're doing every Friday? They said you challenged us to deal with the situation, you explained to us the reality. And so we all got together and said, what can we do to help ourselves to help Jeff and to save the company. I just stood there with tears in my eyes. I was never prouder. But if I hadn't sat them down and talked to them, they never would have got to that. They never would have had the "Friday everybody help everybody out and move money around the table". It was just incredible. People, when given the choice, it's kind of what you said earlier, people will do the right thing. Most people out there are good, but it's hard to do the right thing if no one has really told them the facts that they're dealing with.
40:12 Mark: That is such a beautiful story. This is the kind of things that just get me emotional and I think many people, many entrepreneurs crave to tell a story like that. What do you do to allow that to blossom and what do you think people do to prevent that from happening?
40:37 Jeff: I think that luckily there's two sides of the same coin, the question you just asked. We have always focused - let me back up even a level bigger, because it's way bigger than business. I was on this TV show and this reporter goes, "Well, Mr. Hoffman" she said "is life about the journey or the destination?" and the moment she said that, I had this epiphany moment. I said, neither. It's just about the people you're traveling with. And she said, "what?" and I was like, oh my God I just came to a huge realization in my life. It doesn't matter where you're going, right? It's not really about the journey, it's not about the destination. The quality of your life is 100% defined by the quality of the people in it. So if you're with the right people and life is going bad, you make the best of it, right? You still wind up laughing about the stories later. If you're with the wrong people in your life, bad moments get really bad because it amplifies all those tensions and negativity.
41:37 Jeff: So I decided from that point on that the biggest decisions you make in your life are not what you're doing, it's not the company you're launching so much as the people you're assembling around you. Your people decisions, the culture you build, will dictate your success way more than you think. So I started focusing as a leader, on creating culture and finding people that are one of us. And I'll just explain that for your listeners pretty quick.
42:09 Jeff: People come in for an interview and they have eighty interviews lined up the whole day and my guys, my team would meet you for coffee in the lobby and 10 minutes later, they're shaking their head. And I was like, what's up, and they say we don't need to interview that guy, he's not one of us. The flip side happened one time where this young woman came in and before the first interview everyone's like, "just hire her". And I say, you haven't even interviewed her yet and they say "Jeff, she's totally one of us".
42:33 Jeff: So my question to everybody is, what does "one of us" mean? What does "one of you" mean? What is the definition of the kind of person you want to be around and spend your life with? So it's an internal assessment of what are my values, what do I care about, what fulfills me, what makes me happy, what turns me off, and using that as a map to create culture for your life and your business. So since we were very values-oriented in our business, the kind of people we were around, I didn't ever start by looking at a resume in fact, rarely ever look at those. I can teach you skills but I can't change your DNA. So because we had a culture of matching values of the kind of people we wanted to be around. For example, the people that always made a human decision before they made a financial decision. It was more natural that our team would come to that conclusion.
43:25 Jeff: What prevents people, the other side of the coin that you asked, I find most of the time is pride, ego. People don't want to admit that they've screwed up their life. They don't want to admit that they're weak, that they're scared, that they don't understand or maybe they didn't manage their savings and they have no savings. It's amazing they carry that around like a monkey on their back and what we discovered is, when you check your pride and your ego and you just say, "look people, I'm hurting", all of a sudden, everybody puts an arm around you and you have an entirely new world to deal with that your pride prevented you from ever being part of.
44:02 Mark: You know, so much of what you just said - two things resonated big time and I do think that the people on the journey statement - it's not about the journey, it is not about the destination, it's about the people with you on that journey, is very powerful. That concept unifies a lot of things for me and especially as we translate this into the entrepreneurial world, I think a lot of entrepreneurs get the message of culture and I think they have - there's a decision to be made. And it is, what culture are we trying to create?
44:36 Mark: And is it, like you said, a human decision first culture? Because if you want the benefits that come with that, you have to invest in that part, where I think a lot of entrepreneurs keep it a little surface and it's like, you know, I want people who are experts, who are efficient and cost-effective and detail-oriented and will sacrifice themselves for someone else doesn't make the list very often. And if you don't make that commitment, and you don't live that, you are not going to get what you said as a result of a human-driven culture, which then blends - well, I guess one of the questions I had wanted to ask is sort of popped up, which is "what is your perspective on blending business and personal life?" And I wouldn't consider myself a spiritual/religious person at all but I love asking about spirituality and religion and how it flows into business because I think there's some really beautiful things that come from it.
45:34 Mark: So, I heard a very transparent story from you, like it's humanity - it's all one thing. How do you think of it?
45:45 Jeff: So, I do think that's the way and you know, having been doing this for a long time, meaning being a CEO and building companies and stuff. I've made all the mistakes enough times that I eventually got it right and so I could see the difference. I'm just gonna tell you, we always run our business like a family. There is a level of professionalism that is absolutely required and so, on the other side of that line, as long as people are always respectful. Like, we have some fundamental rules in our business, here's one of them. I wrote these on the wall, literally. One of them is: Humanity first. We choose humans over profits because we are making a long-term investment in our business, our customers, our relationships, our employees, in our future.
46:30 Jeff: Another one that's written on the wall though, is: Dignity. And what that means is, all human beings deserve to be treated with the same level of dignity and respect regardless of their place in the hierarchy. Regardless of their role or anything. That was a huge rule for me. When you start adding these rules like that, I gotta tell you what, it turned out was we weren't just creating an office, we were creating a family. And we were setting the ground rules for how our family treated each other and like I said, there was a floor and a ceiling of respectability and dignity and all those things that prevented people from the fear. I know when I would tell some people that we run our company like a family, they took that so mean some lack of professionalism, which we never had.
47:14 Jeff: But let me sort of tell you how that did work. Part of what families do - and of course, you're right that in the end, people that can't actually execute and deliver like you said, on the work, you don't have a company. So that's a given, right? That I can spend my time teaching them the business part as long as they passed the family test, the cultural test, the values test first. So, of course, people have to deliver or you gotta tell them. I've had plenty of times where I had tears cried on my shoulder, I was holding somebody and crying because I had to let them go. It's a family member that I love, not a real family member - a company one - but they're not delivering. And that's the professionalism. And that's what I would ask them. Guys, it's a business and if you don't deliver you can't work here. But if you do, we're all gonna take care of each other the best we can. So I think that does get to a little bit of a spiritual level that is them understanding what you stand for.
48:12 Jeff: So I'll give you a quick example. A CEO that I'm thinking of doing a joint venture with, millions of dollars on the table, everybody's very excited, but we have this dignity clause that's part of our family - the way everybody will be treated. So he comes to our office, visits me, then I'm going to his office and he doesn't want his employees to know about the merger, so he tells me to come after 5. So I get there after working hours and the office is closed. I'm in the lobby and the cleaning lady is there. And so he sends me a text, "I'm running behind,I'll be out to get you in a few minutes". Cleaning lady is there. So by the time he comes out, I've established that Maria has two kids, one healthy, one's a special needs child. She's immigrated from Guatemala legally, she has no family here. She sends money back to her family. She is not taking good care and her opinion of her special needs child because she doesn't know how to educate him and she's not really getting any help with that.
49:12 Jeff: So, I take out a sheet of paper, get her contact info and I happen to be the Chairman at that time of an association for disabled children, so I have contacts and there is state paid for help for disabled children that she never knew about. She doesn't have to come up with money for it - she never knew about this. And so, I'm gonna connect her to people that are gonna help her take care of her child and actually help her with medical bills. So as we were leaving, I turn and I say, Hey Maria, and she said "what?" and I give her a hug and say, I'll talk to you next week. And he looks at me like I just threw up on his carpet or something. This look of disgust. And I said, what? And he said, "you know the cleaning lady?" and I said, woah time out. I said, turns out her name isn't "Cleaning Lady", her birth certificate says "Maria", and he said "whatever". And I said, "What do you mean, whatever? Did you know that she's a single mother?" and he rolled his eyes. "Did you know that she has a special needs kid that she can't take care of that needs medical attention?" and he just shook his head and walked away.
50:19 Jeff: And he said "can we please start the meeting?" I said, "the meeting's done". And he said, "what do you mean, meeting's done?" and I said, "not interested". He said, "you're gonna walk away from millions of dollars on the table." I said, "no, I'm gonna find those millions somewhere else with somebody that matches our values". And I walked away. When I got back, my employees said "how did it go? how did it go?" I said, "we're not doing that deal" and they're like "dude, that was a big money deal". And they said, "why did you cancel?" and I only had to say one sentence. They said, "what?" and I said, "I got in trouble for making friends with the cleaning lady" and they just smiled, nodded and went back to work.
50:55 Jeff: So a couple things happened there. They understand that our values matter. We'll find the money some other way - we're not stupid, but this is how we run our family. These are the rules and I have to follow them too. And it made a change. I watched the way sorta people looked at me and it just reinforced again that our values come first and we'll figure everything else after that, and turned out, guess what? We wound up being successful even without that guy.
51:28 Mark: You know, I love that story and it gives me a crystal clear point that I want to really punctuate. Because when somebody hears that story and I had been in many inspirational conversations where there's something that is on that caliber of like, wow, I wish I could do that. The takeaway is this: that if you want, and this is my opinion, if you as a listener want a culture like Jeff's culture like you just heard, you have to live and walk the walk that Jeff walks. And if you don't know how to do that, you have to learn and be your true self. And it is about raising the game as a leader - it starts and ends with you. If you're not getting the results you want from your team, you're not giving them what you think you are. You need to raise your game as a leader and you really have to assess, can you do that and are you up to the challenge? Because what you just described is not easy. It is not just a beautiful fairy tale and story. You paid a price to get there, you had to be authentic to get there, you had to make a decision and walk away from some of the few people to do... how easy for you was that? How do you get to be able to make those decisions?
52:44 Jeff: So, you are absolutely right - it was painful. And it hurt. And I sat my employees down. They said, "wow you know, we hit that revenue in the pipeline" and I said "so, you guys call". I said, "you want to violate everything we believe in? And you want to do business with a sign at our office that literally said "No Assholes" over the entrance". Do you want me to do that? Do you want to do business with assholes just because they have money? They said, "it's still gonna hurt financially". I said "it's your call. If you guys want me to go back there and accept that". They said "you know what? we'd rather work twice as hard and find another deal". And here's where it came back to us. So I said, then you're gonna have to help me out here because we're missing some revenue from the forecast now. And they said, "man we'll figure it out. We'll just work hard."
53:29 Jeff: So I'm not pretending that that didn't hurt and that it didn't have a cost and that it wasn't painful, but when I asked the team, this is a decision moment in life; which way do you wanna go? They said "we wanna go with the way you chose" and here's an amazing thing that happened because of that culture. We made an error with our single largest customer the very next year by shipping their sensitive data to a competitor. Horrible violation, horrible mistake and their CFO called and said, "we're probably one of your top ten customers" and I'm like, "no, you're our biggest customer" but I didn't tell him that. And he said, "you're in total violation of the contract which is immediately terminated and you just lost one of your biggest clients" and I said, "Yes sir, I understand" and of course, my heart's thumping loudly. How am I gonna recover from this? He said, "except for one thing". I said, "what?", he said "we had a meeting with our executive team and our legal staff to review what happened. We know it was an honest mistake, but it was still a horrible mistake". And he said, "according to the terms of the contract, we all agreed legally that your contract's terminated with prejudice" and I said, I understand". And he said, "but after the meeting, nobody got up" and I said, "why?" and he said, "somebody in our company said, do we really have to terminate them? and somebody else said, why wouldn't we? And they started telling stories that I didn't know.
54:47 Jeff: One of my employees, who was an account manager, who was talking to one of the directors of their company who was [inaudible] relationship with the account. The director - I'm just telling you this coz it's real - the director got promoted to vice-president. She came home from work in the middle of the day so excited to tell her husband she got a big promotion, which would have been great except she caught him in bed with her best friend. So the same day she got promoted, her world fell apart. So he left with the best friend and left her with two kids at home and the promotion, they said to start your promotion you need to hit the road and visit all our branch offices. She said, "I have no daycare, my kids have never been home alone, my husband - I was the breadwinner, he was at home". She was fell apart. And so, what I discovered was through sort of the humanity first thing, my account manager had managed to find all these out - I don't know how, not my business - but on weekends and certain days, certain nights, she was house sitting and babysitting for the client. So this woman can get her life back together and she can travel when she needed.
55:57 Jeff: And when the company told me that, I ran down the hall to my employee, her name was Natalie, and I said, "Natalie", she said, "Am I fired?". I said, "Why do you think you're fired?" and she said, "Coz I didn't tell you". And she said, "You found out that I've been helping out the client by house sitting and babysitting". I said, "You think I came down here to fire you? What does it say on the wall? It says 'Humanity First' and so you just saved our biggest contract. Because the customer said, "Jeff, the way you run the business, the way you guys treat people is exactly why, not only are we gonna keep you but we'd like to re-up the contract. We'd like to have more services". So the flip side, the payback, the karma of the deal I walked away from in the janitor situation came back to me because our employee said "no, let's leave the money on the table, we'll take the hit, we'll do things the way we do things here and we'll hope for the best. We'll just work harder". I 100% think that was the energy that the universe gave us back because that's the energy we put into it.
57:00 Mark: Those stories, after the fact sounds so... amazing. And they sound - they dont' tell the story of the paying it forward. You pay that forward in silence but you have to do great things when nobody's watching and nobody thanks you. You have to do that over and over and over again for years before the stories - Oh yeah, and we saved our largest client because we had a track record for saving humanity. That's not small.
57:37 Jeff: You are correct. But you are correct, by the way, that what we didn't cover - we did a little bit - was all the hard times getting there. There's a price to pay to do things your way and we paid it. I was just telling about a time where we had no money, and the employees had to help each other pay their phone bills. There was an easier out - not in that particular situation, but there were lot of times where we could have taken the easy path and taken the money. But we, you know... I didn't want to live that way and because I hire those kind of people, they said, "you know what Jeff? We don't want that either. Let's just tough it out". So you are correct. There is a price to pay. Those are the stories - the good stories that came at the end, but there were a lot of rough moments along the way and if you're not tough enough to take it, or you're not willing to actually stick to your values, then you never get to that story I just told you at the end. You'd never survive long enough to get there. We earned that story by stumbling through a lot of tough times along the way.
58:42 Mark: So, when was the last time, or what comes to mind when you think of the last time you were really scared?
58:54 Jeff: Wow, I don't - for me, I don't get that very much and I don't know why. You talked about the spiritual side of things. You know, all of us were endowed with a certain set of skills and a certain set of flaws. And we're all different, thank God we're all snowflakes. Everybody's different. I absolutely am painfully aware of my long list of flaws, but for some reason, a few of the good things that I was given, that's one of them. I don't panic, even in bad situations, I tend to keep my calm and I don't really get scared. You know, one time I wrote on the wall. My employees were all upset about something and I walked in the conference room where everyone in was all astir and I wrote on the wall "there's no such thing as a business emergency" and they all started laughing. I said, "emergency is you just gotta call that your significant other was in a car accident - that's an emergency". We lost a client is not an emergency, it's just a problem to solve.
59:55 Mark: So you can compartmentalize well and your priorities and your core values. Your culture is not accidental, right? So I get the sense - and this is what I teach in culture and the core values - you can't manufacture your core values. You can't manufacture artificially your culture. You must get in touch with who you are and turn your best parts up to max and turn down your worst parts, or make your worst parts into strength and just be aware of that. But it's about authenticity - and I hear this from you - all these stories are great, but you kinda didn't have a choice about how this is gonna manifest. You definitely had a choice about how you reacted to the obstacles, but your unique character and DNA is clearly evident and you just did a masterful job of making it visible and channeling it into just the best of what business people should be doing.
1:00:53 Jeff: I really appreciate you saying that but all that's learned, right? I pay attention. One thing I did learn along the way was that listening was so much more of a valuable tool than talking was. And the reason I say that is because a lot of time, leaders think they have to talk a lot more than they actually do. Because everybody's staring at you. Truth is, when you're a leader, everyone is staring at you "hey boss, make a decision". They're waiting for guidance. But when I little by little started discovering, when I started saying to people "Alright, before I make a decision, what do you guys think?" and they're like, "we don't know" and I say, "well, take a minute. Take a minute and think this through and tell me what you guys think". And when I started listening, I was like " wow, that was 6 perspectives I didn't even have, thank God I didn't make a decision because I didn't come from their perspective". And so instead of assuming that leadership is about always knowing what to do and telling people what to do, leadership is about listening so well that you get a much more holistic and comprehensive decision because you brought in all these other perspectives.
1:02:05 Jeff: So by the time I made a decision, not only was it a more sound decision, but it was a decision that my employees were much more - even if I didn't pick their choice, they were much more likely to rally behind me because they were heard. Human beings fundamentally want to be heard. Even if you say, "thank you Mark, I appreciate your input. I'll still have to make a decision and I appreciate if you still are a team player". But the difference between saying to myself "I already know what Mark's gonna say, I'm not gonna do that so I'm not even gonna ask". That is completely different than allowing you to feel heard in the world. That's what people want.
1:02:43 Mark: To add to - emphasize, rather - that that is not an activity, it is a dimension of a behavior over time. Like, you cannot just occasionally remember to ask peoples opinion. It has to be a habit that people begin to trust to get that effect. It can't be surface. If you're doing what you're saying, you're doing it all the time and building the habit. When you say, "what is your opinion?" people know that you're listening because you've asked before and they gave you some really seriously well thought out things as opposed to "sounds fine to me".
1:03:17 Jeff: You're right. And especially if they think that you asked, but you're not really listening anyway, then they don't waste their time. When they discover you actually are listening, they put a lot more thought into their answer and everybody wins.
1:03:29 Mark: Absolutely. So, I know you gotta get going and we've been going a while. To wrap this up - not to put too much pressure on you - what is your most passionate plea to entrepreneurs at this time?
1:03:45 Jeff: I think it's to band together and re-prioritize. So I'm focusing on at this time. So at this time, you need to band together. You need to drop competitive walls, you need to drop egos. You need to say, "for this moment, we're not competitors, we're human beings, we're all in this together". And by the way, if you do all band together, you probably will come up with a business idea that's more powerful 1+1=5 and you will wind up making money out of it anyway. People gotta drop their egos, they gotta gather together and they've got to re-prioritize. Some of the things that we know you're really excited about before Coronavirus and is something you really wanted to do, you need to get over it. You need set it down, maybe even come back to it later - maybe you won't - but it's time to re-prioritize, refocus, and do so as a community, an army of entrepreneurs. That's one of the things that is written on my vision board thing. It's not a vision board, it's just my sayings that I believe in, and one of them I wrote was "If you want to make the world a better place, unleash an army of entrepreneurs". It's time for that army to get together and fight together.
1:04:57 Mark: God, so awesome. I love that - so, so perfect. This has been a tremendous conversation. I am so excited, so pumped up. I'm so excited to go back and listen to this and pull even more nuggets out of this. You've been just wonderful and I'm so excited about being able to share this and get this out there. Jeff, how do people find you if they want to know more about what you're up to?
1:05:19 Jeff: Linkedin is the best for me, that's where I am the most. But i have a website Jeffhoffman.com or they could just email me jeff@jeffhoffman.com.
1:05:29 Mark: Thanks for listening and we will talk to you next time. That's it for today, thanks so much.