Rolando Rosas 4:45
Have you been down in Texas? Oh,
Jim Keyes 4:48
gosh, I’ve been here long enough just long enough to lose my accent.
Dave Kelly 4:54
Long enough where they’re not teasing you about your accent?
Jim Keyes 4:57
Yeah, exactly. It’s just sound like yeah, Okay.
Rolando Rosas 5:02
Well, you know, we want to thank you for coming in today. But before we dive into your book, and before we do all the questions, there’s some big props I want to give to a guest that came on last week, Amina Moreau, you know, she had a very interesting story to tell up around using your residents for rental for work from home. And it turns out is a growing industry think of Airbnb. But for businesses that want to use places to rent on a temporary basis, it was fascinating to learn what’s going on in an industry and remote work. Go check that out. Let me give a big props to Amina, thank you Amina for coming on the show to now. Let’s get back to Jim, Jim, for those folks that don’t know you, and don’t understand your story, or have never followed you around anything about tell us tell us about your background and what led you to where you are today.
Jim Keyes 5:55
Wow, that’s a tough, tough story to recap in, like 30 seconds. But I
Rolando Rosas 6:00
You want to start wherever you want to go with that?
Jim Keyes 6:03
Well, literally, I grew up probably, what 15 minutes from where Dave grew up in Grafton, Massachusetts, small, small town. Once you get about as David, once you get about 40 miles west of Boston, it gets real rural real fast. And not quite Appalachia, but it’s we you know, it’s it’s different. It’s not as urban as people think when they think of the Northeast. And, you know, I grew up literally without running water. We had a small house that my dad built with my grandfather and they never really got around to or could afford putting plumbing inside so we had an outhouse and you know, wood burning stove and the whole thing which is a kid I thought was really cool because it was it was almost like camping, you know when you growing up, but turns out I was you know, I was pretty fortunate in spite of a pretty disrupted childhood with you know, my mom bailing out of that situation and father dying you know, shortly thereafter, I I ended up I was one of those kids that probably shouldn’t have gone to school. But it turned out that education was the pathway for me, it ended up being the huge opportunity that was a life changer, and gave me give me a chance to literally dialing forward 2030 years later run to Fortune 500 companies
Rolando Rosas 7:32
in and know that that story. I’m familiar with the not having means i In your book, you tell of a passage of having government cheese, I have a scar today to this day on my wrist. I cut myself cutting a big block of government cheese and the knife slipped and gash on my wrist. So big
Jim Keyes 7:55
yellow blocks, yes, big
Rolando Rosas 7:57
blocks. And so I when I when I saw it, I was like, oh my god, he gets it. He understands I relate to you. When I was reading about that, and the government cheese as well as you know, one of the things that really struck me as you were writing this book is the very early part of your life. And and one passage you are talking about at the age of 12 you were coming home from school, and you saw us condemned sign on your home. And I can’t imagine at the age of 12. What what kind of impact that may have had on you.
Jim Keyes 8:33
Yeah, well first of all, I didn’t know the word. I didn’t know what literally what the word condemned meant. I had to look it up. And I was like, Well, what does that mean? I know it couldn’t, didn’t look like it was good. It was a big red sign town of Grafton on it and it turned out that you know, my dad had been sick and the visiting nurse would come down from the town to help take care of him and we didn’t have running water in the house and that house was kind of a I mean literally we had cardboard boxes as sheetrock because of cheaper so they were stapled up against the wall and you know again my my dad I guess at one point was going to paint a wallpaper up but we could literally see the Heinz 57
Rolando Rosas 9:19
on cardboard wall Yeah, so
Jim Keyes 9:21
the Visiting Nurse turned us in basically and said these people are living in an impossible conditions that’s not good for his health. He is my dad was needing extra care. So they they’ve unfortunately condemned the house and I was at that point forced to choose between going to live with my mother and the trailer park before I had a brother who had become a truck driver an over the road driver and he actually let me go and stay with his family for a little while until until my my dad eventually passed and ended up with me Mr.
Rolando Rosas 10:00
Immune to also talk about in your book that when you passed, he was your fishing buddy and your best friend. Yeah. And that you had long talks, some that, you know, you couldn’t fully grasp at the time and you get to appreciate them later. What was what was that, like when you when you’re looking back and writing this book, and you’re, you’re recalling those memories of your early childhood with your father being so impressionable. What? What was that like for you? As you carry those conversations with you forward in your education in your professional career?
Jim Keyes 10:33
You know, it’s it’s really interesting, because I talk about adversity a lot today, especially if I’m talking to young kids who are going through troubles that are even worse than what what I may have faced as a child. But, you know, we face adversity, we think, Oh, this is horrible. What, how could I be? Why me? Why am I going through all this stuff. But later on in life, I was able to look back and realize, you know, that period of time I had with my dad was something that most people don’t have the privilege of doing. Because I had six years from the time I was well, five or six or seven years, my mom left when I was around five, she just basically, I’m out of here, and she was gone. So I had from the time I was five years old until the time I was 12, exclusively with my dad. And that’s a really unusual circumstance. So he would take me fishing, he would take me camping, you know, we got to do guys stuff that, you know, most children living in a normal family don’t get to do. Yeah, and it was awesome. Ne Ne Ne gave me some great lessons. So while he didn’t understand that, um, he understood the challenges of working in a factory and not having enough money. But he didn’t know the path to having more freedom. What he used to tell me is, it’s not about money. He didn’t care about money. But what he cared about was freedom. He wanted the freedom to do the things he wanted to do. He loved to travel. And he wanted to travel the world, but he was tied to his factory and his job to take care of me and to take care of himself, basically. So that was his message to me. The one thing that they can’t take away from is your education. And you take your money, take your stuff. Take your knowledge. Yes, fatalistic as that sounds, but it was great advice. And it made me get very serious about learning.
Dave Kelly 12:36
This isn’t scripted, you know, hearing hearing your answer to that. That’s exactly what my mother would say to me. When I was growing up, I didn’t get great grades. Growing up, I was the youngest. I was the youngest stuff for original before my parents split up. And we have an adopted brother, and we have some other family members through marriage, but my mother would say about college specifically, she’s like, I’m going to help you get there. It’s so important. Because just like you said, No one can take that away from you. And I’ve actually given my son that those exact same words, you know, you can earn that the people can take other things away from you, they can’t take your education away from you. So to hear that we kind of grew up in the same area, my parents kind of had the same advice to give to you and to give to me, I found that interesting.
Jim Keyes 13:23
Yeah, very true. Very true. And that, you know, they really couldn’t, as you know, living up and living in that area, he didn’t have much of a worldview. We were pretty, pretty much surrounded by other people that looked like us sounded like us, and they didn’t know what kind of advice to give, but they didn’t know and give them a lot of credit for understanding. There is a big world out there. And you can go play in that world. But you’re gonna need the work, you’re gonna need to study. And if you do, you don’t, you won’t be tethered to this small town, you know, you will be able to roam the world and do whatever you want to
Rolando Rosas 14:05
You know, there’s a passage from your book, I want to read it, because it’s, it’s, it touches on what you just said, it said, This is a recording from your book. I knew no one was going to take care of me. If I didn’t take care of myself. Despite those many, many challenges, I learned that adversity gave me strength. It made me tougher than my peers. And you kind of use that and that’s woven through a narrative throughout your book about how that adversity where you eat a lot of people that find themselves today as well as in the past, in those dire straits, you know, parents divorced, Dad losing, losing, losing a parent not having means where did you draw the strength at such an early age? You said from the age of five to 12 You’re with the dad but how Did you manage to summon the courage during adversity to, you know, want to keep going? Because a lot of folks, won’t they just throw in the towel.
Jim Keyes 15:09
You know, I wish I had the magic answer. But I, I’ve learned that, and then observing others and how they deal with adversity, that there’s really only two ways to deal with it, you can either be the victim, and allow that adversity to become an excuse, we see it all around us. Oh, what was me, they did this to me, they did that, to me, it’s their fault, you know. And I could either use that as an excuse, as some people do. Or I could say, you know, what, I’m not gonna let that be my identity, I’m going to create my own identity. And I’m going to move beyond this. And it turned out, and I think the one thing that helped me is that every time I would run into it in a situation that was just horrible, I would pick my head up, and I would work harder. And on the other side of it, there was always a sort of silver lining, and I would look back and go, You know what, I learned from that. And now I’m better for having had that experience. That’s a hard thing to do. But it’s, it’s worked for me my entire life. And those things that I struggled with as a child, I swear, helped me. When I got into the business world, things were collapsing, it was like, you know, it’s not as bad as I used to have to deal with and I’ll get through this.
Rolando Rosas 16:41
Talk Talk about that. You know, obviously, you you’ve steered 711 into into greatness. You also, you also tried to take to write the ship at a at a company that was actually facing some adversity with blockbuster. In both cases, you face adversity? Yeah. Can you tell us how, you know you kind of just went over it. But what were some examples like either at 711 or blackbushe that you face? You’re like I am. This is keeping me up at night. I’m losing sleep over it. How are you dealing with some of those citric give some example.
Jim Keyes 17:18
There’s actually a lot of parallels between 711 and blockbuster that people don’t realize, in fact, we’re in one of those periods right now. Or shortly after joining 711 The company did a leveraged buyout, they took it private but we were right smack in the middle of remember Black Monday and you know, the catastrophic collapse of the financial markets in the late 80s. And and I thought oh my gosh, I’m bad career move, my career is over seven elevens gonna go away and helped the company work through those challenges of of a terrible financial situation and restructure yourself and come out the other side a better entity, a better company. So when I got to Blockbuster, I timing could have been better. There are times you go seriously, you know, do I have to deal with all this adversity.
Rolando Rosas 18:17
And for those that are listening on audio, if you have the chance to go on, catch us on the YouTube side, we’ve got a kind of a montage of what was going on at the time with the different video companies Hollywood video, movie gallery blockbuster, some commercials of the day, from back back back in their video stores. And I’m sure that you know, when you when you look back on that you’re just like, looking at this footage here. I had a blockbuster card myself. And Dave and I were going back and forth. Prior to the podcast, talking about something I never heard of before. Managed frustration. I read that somewhere in where you go into the store. There we go. You have the wall of the best movies that were available. There’s a movie gallery. And you know, the idea was that you know, the customer would come in if they don’t see the movie they liked they did get something else while they’re there. You explain that? What does that mean?
Jim Keyes 19:19
Yeah, well, it was. It worked in the day when blockbuster didn’t have a lot of competition but the new release wall was everything you go in on Friday night you wanted to see the latest as you sent Batman movie or whatever it was. But they’ve figured out early on way but way before I got there, they figured out that if they shorted the inventory and had too few copies of the new releases to satisfy everyone that people would be disappointed but they’d still rent something else and then they come back the next night for what they really wanted to see. Well then enter Netflix and red box at the you know whole idea of disappointing the customer on purpose didn’t work so well. but
Rolando Rosas 20:00
once you have competition, right, yeah, it changes the equation. It
Jim Keyes 20:04
does, it changes the equation. And the other thing as I was mentioning, I ran into that crisis. And, you know, at 711, when the financial markets collapsed, we made it through, we made it through a stronger company, in many ways was the best thing that could have happened the company, because it forced us to reinvent ourselves. Well, unfortunately, I got to Blockbuster in 2007. And I’m famous for a quote saying, you know, Netflix, and isn’t really the competition. And everyone truncated the rest of the sentence, because what I finished the sentence with is apple and an Amazon are because clearly, the future of streaming was evident at the time, and it was coming. What no one predicted, though, was the collapse of the financial market in 2008, which was exactly the same thing I went through at 711. So here, we were, poised for success, transform the company, take it to streaming. And the financial markets just collapsed all around us. Right.
Rolando Rosas 21:11
And I think you and I had a little discussion prior and that Lehman went under Washington Mutual went under capital dried up everywhere, overnight. There, the markets weren’t liquid. And there’s, there’s several documentaries on that event happening here. And a bunch of other companies struggled as a result of that, you know, borders went under, they had a lot of debt, and almost a billion in debt as well. You had Chrysler also struggling. And they had a lot of debt, also on the books that made things worse for them. And so companies like blockbusters, and the ones I mentioned, found it very difficult to operate in that environment. And I wanted to ask you about the disperse this specific aspect of when credit dries up, because there’s a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to us. What’s the learning lesson of that moment? Because it seems like from what you’re saying, this happened, this movie happened before. If I were to take that from your blockbuster, we see this movie before. We’re kind of in that movie today. What’s your advice to entrepreneurs when we get into this situation?
Jim Keyes 22:21
cash flow, cash flow, cash flow. I mean, it is your oxygen, it’s what’s needed to live now. Think about 711 They picked up $4 billion of debt at 16%. You can imagine what the interest payments were on that debt, oh, then they were insufficient to be able to handle the cash, the cash needs to pay back the debt. And so by, by 1991 711, had filed for bankruptcy. Now we made it through we were able to, you know, bring in a strategic partner, we were able to reinvent the company. Is
Rolando Rosas 23:05
this the franchisees in Japan that came in and yeah, yeah, and stepped in?
Jim Keyes 23:09
Yes, that was fabulous. They came in, they brought cash they brought better than cash, they brought an awareness of technology and shared the technology that made 711 Japan so wildly successful. And we were able to borrow that technology and use it use data to make decisions for the first time ever. I love a big deal. So I went into blockbuster armed with that knowledge of how to restructure a company understanding of the needs for cashflow, and prepared to do the same thing to bring technology to Blockbuster. What most people missed is that when blockbuster hit a billion dollars of debt, and the week I arrived literally had already busted a bank covenants, which meant they were already threatened with default, threatening default to make you arrive. When out of the week I arrived literally. Most people don’t know this story, none of that was public information at the time was between the banks and and and the company. And the board, of course. And
Rolando Rosas 24:17
with the banks being under stressed, I’m sure they were very they weren’t they had no appetite for that. Right. They’re being pulled by their investors as well. Right.
Jim Keyes 24:25
Exactly. Now, they weren’t quite under as much stress yet. This is still in 2007. And, you know, if I had a crystal ball, I would have restructured that debt immediately in 2007. We would have sailed through the reef through the financial crisis without a problem because blockbuster was actually a cash flow machine. It it made. We literally doubled our EBIT da more or less a surrogate for cash flow in the year 2008 by doing things like Adding more inventory of new releases, etc, etc. It was relatively low hanging fruit to be able to improve the operations and pull more cash from the company to be able to satisfy our debt. But the one thing we couldn’t control is, it wasn’t just the collapse of the financial markets. That was the that was the rate at which things fell apart. So we had this billion dollars in debt, we had a third of it due in 2009. And because the timing was so aggressive, Lehman’s collapsed in September of 2008, by the time we got to 2009, it was not impossible to refinance the debt, we were able to do it. But you can imagine now going from five or 6%, interest to 12.
Rolando Rosas 25:49
Right on that, right. Yeah,
Jim Keyes 25:51
yeah, exactly. And that then caused fear among the studios. And that fear really, is what caused them to reduce their credit terms, from 90 days to cash payment. So before we could rent a video way to pay for it in cash. Wow.
Rolando Rosas 26:12
That’s It’s interesting when you say that, because a lot of we take that down to the small business level, many small businesses face exactly that situation, where it’s hard to get lending, it’s hard to get credit lines, it’s hard to get better that are favourable. Right? Exactly. The banks love, and I get that from our own experience in our own company, you know, they they want to know, how many assets do you own you own? Do you own real estate holdings? Because if something goes south, they want to go ahead and take that from you. And if there was one thing, you know, if I had a magic wand, especially for the small business sector, that they were the availability of credit, even under good times. It’s it’s definitely hard. They want you to write a, you know, an encyclopedia of your assets and what’s happening in the in the company just to loan you $100,000 $200,000 We don’t even talk about them. The amounts that are loaned over to the big large corporations, but it’s crazy. What Why can’t your business man? Why can’t we fix that system for the small business operator out there?
Jim Keyes 27:20
Well, you can and the small and this is the lesson. It’s such an important lesson for the small business operator, because there are many forms of debt. We forget that I mean, they think, Well, my debt is only that debt that I borrow from the bank or, you know, where somebody loaned me this money, and I have interest payments on it. There are other forms of debt. And that’s why I say cash flow, cash flow cash flow, because our credit terms from our suppliers is also another form of debt. Right. So what happened to Blockbuster? And this is a great lesson. We had a billion dollars of debt. Yes, we had to refinance it, yes, we had increased interest costs, but we were still fine. We had plenty of cash flow, to satisfy the payments, banks wouldn’t have lent us money 12% If we weren’t able to demonstrate the ability to repay that debt and repay those interest loans, right, those interest the interest on that on that cash. What surprised us. And we shouldn’t have been surprised in hindsight, we should have prepared for this. But when the studios, our suppliers, said, we’re going to take you from 90 day credit terms to cash, that single act pulled $300 million of cash flow out of the business. Now, we went from being able to satisfy those interest payments, to now all of a sudden, we can’t. So again, careful, careful management of cash in times like these are critical, because it may surprise you that when you think you have the cash to satisfy that debt obligation, there may be other forms of debt that you’re not counting on like your credit Trumps that will ultimately could force you into a restructure. Right.
Rolando Rosas 29:18
I heard I heard somebody say this is a former Amazon employee we interviewed Nick Gezzar and because our work I think believes in Germany, wherever you are in Germany, big props to you. He said something you have to be prophets obsessed in and we were talking a little bit about this, this conversation. And if you’re not profits obsessed, whether you’re a small business operator all the way up to you know, big companies like like 711 and blockbuster, you can run into some problems, especially when things get tight, and it really reframed. My, my thinking as an entrepreneur is that, above all, you have to have profits, otherwise the whole thing will just like you said it will just collapse. Oh,
Jim Keyes 30:00
yeah, no, exactly. Well, you know, the great lesson here, you look at all the armchair quarterbacks who assess blockbuster hit Oh, what a bunch of idiots. They didn’t keep up with technology. Why didn’t they advertise? And then when they find out that we had blockbuster on demand, which was a superior service, in a sense that
Rolando Rosas 30:20
where’s my blockbuster app? I’ve got a phone and I’m a the world would be if I’m sure in another universe and a different set of events. I’d have a blockbuster app on my phone today. Oh,
Jim Keyes 30:32
yeah, no, exactly, exactly. You wouldn’t. And when we when we bought movie late, renamed at Blockbuster on demand. It was before apps, I mean, literally, Apple introduced apps on the iPhone in 2007. And so that no one was really doing apps yet. So we were really early in our adoption of this technology in our attempt to roll it out. But all of a sudden, then when the financial markets collapse, as I said, got to manage cash. So the banks are saying, hey, we’ll shut you down. If you don’t satisfy this debt, we had to, we had to funnel money from what had been advertising aggressively against Netflix, for subscribers, and spending the money to develop our own apps and spending the money to get into devices like Roku and others, we had to read for a period of time, re direct some of that cash into satisfy our debt obligations. Now, that was to save the company to keep it alive. And ultimately, time just ran out. We weren’t able to do that. But it as I said, it’s easy to second guess and look back. But what we were fighting was a fight for survival, as opposed to Netflix, who had no debt, brand new company, and investors throwing equity money at them. And we had to, unfortunately, to satisfy that legacy debt obligation.
Dave Kelly 32:03
And I had heard somewhere that in the early days of Netflix, their strategy was it wasn’t about making money, their strategy was going low. I think it was $1 $2 a month, get the videos via mail. And they were taking a loss year after year, my my stepfather had purchased bad timing, probably about oh, 70607 he had purchased a small mom and pop video store slash ice cream store. And he would you know, in Netflix was a new thing. And he was telling me about, he’s like, they’re not making money right now their goal is to put us out of business. Their goal is to make it so convenient, where you don’t have to go to the video store. Friday, five o’clock to go get movies for your family to watch. And he’s like they’re losing money. And like, I just that doesn’t really make sense to me. He’s like, it’ll make sense to you in 20 years. And we’re in 20. Year enough. 20 years later, he Yeah, he was right. They they’re making plenty of money. Now shoot. Now Netflix wants to charge me more money for no commercials. That’s that’s like right on the horizon. I mentioned that to someone the other day, and they said, Is that a true thing? I’m like, do you have Hulu? And they said, Yeah, like, do you have commercials on Hulu? No, because I pay for the extra premium offering from Hulu. So I don’t have commercials. And Netflix is trying to trying to do that right now.
Jim Keyes 33:32
You know what the example is? If you compare Walmart or if you really want to drastic comparison, Sears Right? to Amazon, you know, the the, again, that armchair quarterback sitting around, you know, and he’s, you know, typing in responses to somebody on Tik Tok. And he’s saying, yeah, those idiots, they should be different way. Right. But Amazon for years, were able to build their full infrastructure and do home delivery without having to make money. They didn’t. It took many years before they posted profit number $1. Number one, right? Walmart, in contrast, public company, and if they miss their earnings by a penny, their stock will get slammed. And Jim
Rolando Rosas 34:24
talked to we talked to James Orsini, he’s the president of the Sasha Group over at VaynerMedia for Gary Vaynerchuk. And we touched on this topic, and you’re also in a public company. He also ran a public company. What’s What’s that mentality where you miss by a penny in you’re being truthful to your investors and stakeholders and everybody else and you get slammed? And you’re kind of fudge it a little bit and you you beat by a penny like every quarter what what’s, what’s that all about? That happens today?
Jim Keyes 34:59
Yeah, It’s called capitalism. I mean hurray for capitalism. Great for capitalism. No, it’s how the system works. When you’re a public company, I mean, you go, you have to think about the other end, okay? I’m an investor, I’m going to put my money instead of over here, I’m gonna put it here, and I’m gonna trust you to have improved results and earn me, you know, and an appreciation on my equity or a big dividend or something like that. No, and, and so my timeframe is different. It’s a different investment from if I say, you know, what, instead of putting that $1,000, into this public company in the stock market, I’m gonna go invest it in this startup over there. But when I do that, I can’t take it back out, right. So if Netflix was a startup, and I put $1,000, in Netflix, and money’s gone, I mean, I may never see that because they may not make it their startup. And I says, 100% risk on that money. Now, it may pay great dividends, if they are companies like Amazon, or Netflix, and they are wildly successful, but it may take five years, 10 years, 20 years, I put the money in the stock market, I expect that if I don’t like what they’re doing, I’m gonna take it back out, there is no timeframe on that investment. So public companies are then held to a much higher standard in their ability to generate returns quickly. Because they’re not thought of as that risky investment that may take years to generate a return. That’s it’s so it’s it’s fundamental way the capitalist system works and the way our financial system works, and it actually makes sense. So ironically, you take that same model, when I approached blockbuster, I didn’t anticipate going in, as a public company CEO, I knew they had a big transformation, I knew that that transformation would be easier to accomplish as a private company. So my plan was to get private equity, to support the takeover of blockbuster, rebuild it, create that digital entity, and then several years later, relaunch it as a public company once the heavy lifting was done, that
Rolando Rosas 37:29
wouldn’t have the pressures of the of the stock market and investors you know, wanting their their cash back, essentially, you know, a couple exams later
Jim Keyes 37:36
exam. And so that was the original plan. And I was tucked into it. Carl Icahn convinced me he was one of the directors, he’s like, please, you’re an operator, I’m a financial guy, you listen to me to shut up. And
Rolando Rosas 37:51
I’m sure it was a lot more colorful than you’re explaining it, right? Because he doesn’t seem like a guy that worries clean and without holding the F bombs and whatnot, learn
Jim Keyes 38:02
to learn some new vocabulary. I learned actually, he’s a great guy. Yeah,
Rolando Rosas 38:10
you know, he’s, he’s, he’s, you know, done a lot of amazing investments in Division, you know, put money where he thought he saw it fit, you touched on something that, to me is near and dear to my heart, as well as Dave, which was the education side of things in the in the role it plays, I 100% agree with you that in order for us to achieve greatness, we have to have a society that is not just educated, but I think well educated. And as I was thinking about something that you wrote in your book, on why you you stress education, I was reading a passage where you went back to your alma mater, Columbia University, and you had a chance encounter with a student wearing a t shirt that you say change your life? Yeah. Why did that T shirt and what was on it,
Jim Keyes 39:06
change your life. You know, like everyone I thought, you know, it’s I’m done with school, I’m done. I’ve finished learning. I’ve got the diploma hanging on the wall, and I don’t have to learn anything. You know, now I just go do I don’t learn and why was I wrong? The kid walked across campus and his T shirt said education is freedom, those three words. And that’s what stopped me in my tracks. And it was like, wait a minute, now. You know, it. It’s not about money. No, it’s not about I got my diploma and I don’t need to learn anymore. Now. The more I learned, the more free I’ll be. So I could go learn to fly airplanes. And then I’ll have that freedom or I could go learn to be an artist and have the freedom to create and I mean, I keep on learning. And yeah, that that was The epiphany that I had was like, Wait a minute. That’s how I got here. Because the more I learned, I figured out, the more I could do, and why stop here, you know, I’m a CEO, now, my learning is just beginning, I’ve got a license to learn as a newly minted CEO, I better use that learning and keep learning in order to continue to succeed. And that’s really the essence, that was the message that I took away from that T shirt. And that’s the message that I put in my book that, you know, learning is one of those things, and people think they equate it to money. Oh, yeah, I gotta go to school and I make X number of dollars. It’s got nothing to do with that. Is everything about to do with being as free as you want to be throughout the rest of your life? Because the more you learn, the more free you’ll ultimately be.
Dave Kelly 40:58
Yeah. You know, with your book, Education is Freedom. You mentioned that the American dream, you know, this passage in there about the American dream? And, you know, do you think that the American Dream has slipped out of the hands of, you know, the younger generation that are coming up? Is it Is it attainable? And what is your opinion? What do you think the American dream is? To the next generation? That’s coming up right now?
Jim Keyes 40:58
Yeah, well, the subtitle of the book, in fact, I’m reaching over and show you because it’s so important. It’s so relative relevant to what you just said, The future is in your hands. Right? The American dream is not about somebody giving you any, the American dream started with the idea that as Americans, we control our own destiny, therefore, our future is in our hands. Right? And yeah, there’s a lot of excuses schools expensive. Go back, and the dollars that I spent $7,500 in today’s money is $50,000 a year. It’s, it’s, it’s, it was expensive, then it’s expensive. Now, there’s a million excuses. The school system is broken. Well, I don’t like what teachers are teaching. You know, there is absolutely zero excuse for anyone failing to take advantage of all the resources that are at our fingertips in this country, especially, and using them to do whatever we want to do whatever we want to accomplish. So know, very simply, I don’t think the American Dream is under pressure, even I think the American Dream is more vibrant than it ever has been. But my message in the book, up to the individual to take advantage of it.
Rolando Rosas 42:58
You know, Jim, I’m gonna play a little bit of devil’s advocate on that for you, right, I’m just gonna take the other side for a moment, Randy, because there’s millions of people that, like in your early days, as well, your early childhood deer, they’re in dire straits. They may not have cardboard walls, but their family can afford even to pay for food. And so they don’t know that this this this possible road and path exists. Given that you touched on something and I looked up a few numbers in terms of costs, so according to the Social Security Administration, that the average or the median income is only gone from 20 41,186. All the way up to I’m sorry, I read it backwards. So from 28,000, in 2001, to 41,000, almost 42,000 in 2021. That’s, that’s a small increase when you compare the increase of four year tuition, which on average has gone up for public school 167%, the four year rise in home arms, and you see the rise in home prices has also gone up 184%. You know, so the math is against a lot of folks like it was for you in those early days as well.
Jim Keyes 44:22
What do you say to those people? I say, I said, Don’t let people fool you into believing that the math is impossible. And, you know, again, if I was making a buck 75 An hour and McDonald’s and the idea of having to spend $7,500 A year seemed an impossible, impossible task. But
Rolando Rosas 44:52
you’d never be able to work that that payment out at that, that that wage. Yeah,
Jim Keyes 44:56
exactly. And so what everybody forgets is, here’s the way I look Adding your investment in education is like any other investment. If I was to say, I’m going to go buy this business over here, and I’m going to spend a million dollars to buy that business, well, it may take 10 years for that million dollars to generate a return. But I do it knowing that even though there was a trajectory to get that return, that million dollars that I spend today, is going to make me a million dollars a year, in 10 years. But I make that investment. For some reason, we don’t look at education, that way, we look at education as well, if I make this, if I spend this money, now I expect, I’m going to pay that student loan off in two years, three years, five years, we’re forgetting that our salary in five years, 10 years, 20 years, is not going to be that 20,000 or that 40,000 is likely to be 100,000 200,000 down the road. If we are able to have that education and earn those jobs down the road. It’s an investment. It’s like any other investment is good old capitalism. Yes, college is expensive. So you make the investment today, and you reap the benefits and a return on investment over time. Do you think?
Rolando Rosas 46:25
Do you think that in today’s age, you know, and I’m years removed from college myself, as well as you are in an environment today is so different? In terms of options, there’s so many more options for learning, which is what you advocate in your book? Yeah. What’s your take on college today? Is that a still a viable option, given the myriad of options available to folks getting ready to get ready for college and have their kids go to school? Or those contemplating whether they should go to college at all?
Jim Keyes 46:59
Yeah, Rolando, I’m gonna love that question. I’m gonna give you two answers. And I apologize for the length but I want to take it from I want to take it from a micro perspective, the individual, and then a macro perspective, where are we in America? And in the world, right? Where do you want to start micro macro? Wherever you feel like doing? Let’s start macro? My book is a call to action for corporations because it’s 711. For blockbuster, I had a hard time hiring people into jobs. Why do you think you see so many first generation Americans at 711 stores? Because immigrants are able to come here, be an employee be a licensee and take jobs sometimes that our people won’t take, but then they work their way into a store manager or franchisee role and progress through
Rolando Rosas 47:52
the system. And then you work your way up from 711 as well. I
Jim Keyes 47:56
did and not not from store level at 711. My education brought me in a completely different level. It’s within seven levels. But But corporations, my point is corporations have this huge need. Now, we’re thinking of that as demand. Okay, I’m gonna bring this back to classic business terms, right? The demand for employees with corporations, we’re not now satisfying the demand. We don’t have enough employees, especially educated and employed employees to fill the pipeline of all the fortune 500 companies that are out there or even small businesses.
Rolando Rosas 48:33
And that’s a fact that we’re a tight labor market across the board. massive
Jim Keyes 48:37
demand. Now, where’s the supply coming from? Schools? Right. public schools, private schools, colleges, our college enrollments have fallen, we were up in the high or 50% plus range, and they’ve fallen down now down into the low 40s percentage of people attending college. Meanwhile, China went from 2012 to 2022. From the low 40s up to close to 60%. Wow. All right. So other countries are investing in highly educated and secondary post secondary education. America sitting around don’t just go be a tick tock, you know, Guy
Rolando Rosas 49:35
YouTuber,
Jim Keyes 49:36
I love it. I’m a tick tock guy. Now I’m I’m doing it too.
Rolando Rosas 49:40
Let me throw some before you before you go. Further. I just want to point something out that I saw Shark Tank, Kevin O’Leary and I saw another investor type point out that the high the individuals at the top of their game that are just creating thumbnails are commanding as As much as 300k a year, so again, really good at that skill. Yeah, we could have would have thought that, you know, five or 10 years, this is the kind of income you could generate by being at the top of your game in one of those arenas in the in the greater economy. And
Jim Keyes 50:16
that’s the answer. That’s the key. Michael Jordan didn’t need to go to college, because he’s at the top of his game, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing. If you’re a plumber, and you’re at the top of your game, you’re going to be doing fine. And if you’re a developer, and creator, and you’re at the top of your game, you’re going to make more money than you would if you but but those are the outliers, what I worry that is the average person that’s relying on, I’m going to be a professional basketball player, I’m going to happen star, it could happen, it could happen, but bring it back to your probabilities of success. So Macron and stay macro for a minute, where’s America in 20 3040 years, and our ability to maintain global competitiveness, if so many young people for go formal education and they’re out, you know, being entrepreneurs, and, and, and pursuing vocations and stuff like that, we’re going to end up sourcing our talent from other countries, we’re already doing it look
Rolando Rosas 51:23
behind by the way on that, you know, the pandemic shut the borders all over the air, and UFC and everywhere else where we brought in immigrants, and basically, Steve Cadigan, told this a former LinkedIn, HR executive, he said, basically, we’re behind a quarter million to 300,000 skilled workers, we probably will never catch up now at this rate, with what we need to supply companies and the rest. That
Jim Keyes 51:51
is creating a false sense of opportunity. Because we’re in a bubble right now where I can I don’t even go to college, I can go out and make 20 3040 bucks an hour, you know, without any degree. And then I look at the return on that I got this doesn’t make any sense. But this is the this number take macro micro, or take it back to the individual. Right, gotcha. When I was I grew up in one of those bubbles, and McDonald’s was having a hard time hiring. And they tried to talk me into going to McDonald’s University.
Rolando Rosas 52:23
Caught up flip burgers at Wendy’s. So I did that.
Jim Keyes 52:28
And it was tempting, I was making a buck 75 an hour, and they offered me like five bucks an hour if I went to McDonald’s, you and became a store manager and stuff. Um, you know, and we were in one of those bubbles, like we’re in now that it was very tempting to take the short term, easy path, you know, and make more money now. And, again, back to my point, from an individual’s perspective, they have to look at it as the investment because that bubble of near term opportunity where I can make so much money being a tick tock creator, or, you know, or just going to work and being a plumber or something, I can make a lot of money right now. But where will you be and how much freedom will you have. And
Rolando Rosas 53:13
you want to own the plumbing company, you want to set yourself as the entrepreneur that maybe has, you know, four or five guys with trucks working for you, in setting yourself up in that way so that you don’t have to do all the, you know, you use your wrench and get underneath the dirty sinks and cleaning sewer lines and that kind of stuff.
Jim Keyes 53:32
Exactly, exactly. Right. And then one last piece, because this is such an important thing. We forget that our education ends up being part of our brand. Okay, so I go to a bank, and I try to borrow money for a new startup. And I’ve got an undergraduate degree, I’ve got a master’s degree in business, it’s going to be easier for me to run to raise money from either an outside investors or from a bank, versus somebody who doesn’t have those undergraduate credentials.
Rolando Rosas 54:11
Because a lot of people face a hard time when they you know, what you just saying, you know, you hear the Silicon Valley stories that, you know, people are throwing money and swimming and startup cash and, and part of that is because places like Silicon Valley, places like New York, Austin, here in the DC area, there are highly educated people. They’re able to, you know, walk into a bank or Intuit room and talk in the investor language, like you’re saying, you know, there is a language that investors speak and angel funding folks speak that when you’re around. And I recall my days in liberal arts, I was around people that had means and their language is different. That’s just a fact. You know, and what the expectations are. They’re different. That’s just a fact. And as much progress as we’ve made on that front, as a culture as a society, there’s still some entrenched things that we still have to deal with. And investors want certain things served to them when it comes to a story about a startup.
Jim Keyes 55:12
Sure, sure. And you know, again, it’s it what it represents when you when you take cans of soda off the wall? Um, is it a coke? Is it a Pepsi? Or is it our C? Or is it Poland, right. And if I don’t know, polar Cola, set it right to combine. I don’t know what’s in that camp. Because I’m not familiar with that brand. I may grab the Coke, because I know what’s in that, or the Pepsi. Now, you’re an employee, or you’re an entrepreneur, and you’re in front of an investor, or you’re in front of an employer, and they’re looking at your resume, your brand, you know, and to the extent you invest today, in getting that credential, whatever it is, undergraduate degree graduate degree, that brand is going to be part of what you carry forward in the future. And it just makes it easier for the employer to evaluate you versus somebody else. Or for the banker to lend you money versus somebody else. It’s all part of your brand. And that’s, that’s, that’s the core message. That, look, I’m a proponent of education, you can learn anything now from the internet. But in today’s world and tomorrow’s world, there’s still going to be a need somehow for us to measure how much you know, for the foreseeable future. That degree is going to be the most tangible measurement of your ability to have gone through a standardized formalized education process.
Rolando Rosas 57:01
And, you know, I think about my four years in college, I had a lot of fun. I can’t complain. I didn’t have a lot of money. As I told you, I flipped burgers at Wendy’s and I did. Student I was a student working and on campus and getting paid doing work study. So you know, I lived the poor student life for for several years. But I had fun. And I remember right before going to college, I went to school in Florida High School. And it wasn’t a great school was a horrible, so one of the worst schools in Florida actually led the dropout rates almost every single year, while I was there, and people were very down on education. They were like, What do you want to go to school for? Let’s have fun. In Florida, you know, you’re gonna have fun, you can ice you said that you can work at the UPS distribution center and make way more money than you want, while Disney World was down the street, why you want to go to college, and it would have been a huge mistake, because you learn so much, even outside the classroom, interacting with people from around the world. I know I had the opportunity to go to the Ukraine when they’d had collapsed, which was the story onto itself. But you meet so many things in your mind changes. And when you get into that corporate world, and you meet somebody from the Ukraine, oh, I remember stories about the early days what and now you build a bond, you build a connection, you understand what it was like, in the Crimea before, what what happened with with Russia going in, you understand, you know, where some estoppel is, you know, what the history is behind the Crimean wars, and you’re able to make those connections that otherwise other people would have missed in your professional career, because they don’t know Ukraine, it’s over there. Right. I don’t even know where it is on a map. I know I heard of it. But I don’t even know where it is. But you can relate to people in a way. When you have all these collective experiences. Through the years, I had the opportunity to play football while I was in college, too. So that changed also my mindset, as well. So I’m, I love the idea of going to college. The only thing I knew kind of challenging my thinking right now, which is, you know, it’s still has value and based on what you told me is that it’s still like a stamp of approval in a lot of circles. And without that stamp of approval, you’re going to face some real tough challenges.
Jim Keyes 59:26
Exactly, you know, and look down the road, we will have a way to measure how much you can learn through technology on a on a device and they right now, you can learn more math from Khan Academy than you can, you know, in your class, but we don’t yet have the tools to measure how successful you were in learning on Khan Academy. So you could be an absolute wizard of math. But does anybody want to hire you based on you know, your kind of Academy knowledge versus somebody He who’s got a degree a master’s degree in, in, in math, you know. So for that will change, but it probably won’t change for another 10, maybe 20 years. And if you’re in that No Man’s Land of while we’re still looking for those credentials, you know, you’re gonna be in trouble down the road, and then forget all the credentialing, your point of you get experiences still in the university environment, you won’t get on your own. We are a shrinking world because of technology. And I mean, I interact now with people all over the world on a regular basis, I’m doing business with people in China and in London and, and in South America. I could not do that without having had the, the cultural literacy really, that I gain in a, in a university environment, being forced to interact with other people and other cultures. It’s
Rolando Rosas 1:01:05
sometimes for the good sometimes for the bad. You know, I had a lot of debates with people in school, and I’m sure this happens, probably, across all colleges campuses happens today. You know, it’s gonna, you know, like, I see this this way, you see it that way, and you’re wrong. And I’m right. And, you know, and eventually you kind of, you know, figure some things out, you’re like, Maybe I was wrong the whole time. Kind of matures, we get us a transformative times of your of your formal years, right. 18 to 20 something. Well, yeah, school,
Jim Keyes 1:01:37
you know, people are freaking out right now. They’re looking at what’s going on at Harvard. And you know, it’s funny. I, I’m just old enough so that I remember walking out of school on this thing called Memorial Memorial. What was it? moratorium day? Right? during the, during the Vietnam War? Everybody walked out of school, people were horrified. You know, there were all these protests, and, you know, people tearing up buildings, doing all the stuff that, you know, when it happens today, everybody freaks out and says, Oh, my gosh, what’s wrong with kids today? So I remember that. And I remember distinctly having no earthly idea what was going on, but I walked out of school with everybody else, because they did it.
Rolando Rosas 1:02:24
The right thing to do, yeah, I
Jim Keyes 1:02:25
mean, you’re a kid, and you have no idea. And so today, we see kids protesting on campus and Harvard or something like that. Everybody’s freaking out and going, Oh, my God, what’s wrong with the kids today? They’re just a mess. And the irony is the people that are the biggest critics of all that protesting and Kid behavior, they were the hippies in the 1970s, who protested the Vietnam War center on getting stoned. And their parents thought they were like, you know, a lost generation. Now they’re conservatives.
Rolando Rosas 1:03:00
Everything old is new. Yeah. Patterns. It’s like, again, we’ve seen this movie before. You know, I want to I wanted to share with you speaking about every, you know, movies and things and kids, you remind me of a story. You know, especially the, you know, you’re you’re at the top of 711 I think you might you may get a kick out of it, and maybe not. There. I had a friend in high school. And like I said, you know, we didn’t have much means. So he, one day we stopped at 711 to get stuff that’s on the way to school. And, and he’s like, What do you want, and I’m like, I don’t have any money. I’ll have his gas money. That’s all I had, like, three, four bucks. So I’m when pump the gas. And I’ll have this guy’s mind. So pumped the gas, he went in the store. And in comes back out with the I think it was a big goal. Whatever the biggest container that was at the store, it was opaque. So you couldn’t see what was inside. And one of the things that he would he was an offensive lineman, you know, he was six for 300 plus pounds. And he comes back full. And I’m like, what took you so long? He’s like, I had to get a few things. I’m like, what if you only have a big I think it was a big goal, right? This is that the largest thing that you can have wasn’t a Slurpee. So he filled it up. And then he takes out a Snickers bar. He takes out the Twinkies. And I’m like, you put that all in there. Like, yeah, that’s just like, that’s how that’s how I get my treats when I go back to school and up because he also had no means. He was he was actually sleeping on the couch of our football coach head coach at that time. So that’s how bad things were for us at that time. Yeah. And I thought, That’s not so bad. Give me one of those and, but that’s at one point I said to him, you know, I want to say this name. I don’t want to say his name. We can’t do this anymore. Somebody’s gonna catch it. He’s like, they’re just teenagers behind the counter. They don’t even care. And
Dave Kelly 1:04:57
I’m six foot four 300 Plus
Rolando Rosas 1:05:01
He doesn’t attract attention. He’s a little guy like me.
Jim Keyes 1:05:07
So I actually, I’ve, I’ve heard that story. And yeah, I certainly used to get from time to time. Somebody would send me a note. And they’d put a little check in for like $2.75. And they’d say, Dear Mr. Keyes, I’m so sorry. It’s been bothering me for years, but I stole a candy bar on your store. years ago. It’s been weighing on me ever since. Here’s the money with interest. So you can redeem yourself, you can sync it,
Rolando Rosas 1:05:45
I will tell him I was telling him to send you that because it probably be a lot and he could afford it. Now. He’s, he’s doing better he went to NC State played football there. He eventually got he worked his way up at one of the NFL teams. And so he’s either on the back office side so he’s done well, but I just thought I’d you know, so you’ve heard that story before. Oh, yeah, I mean, I want and I wanted to end it on a little bit of a light note. So I know that your time is precious. So I want to do or are you ready for rapid fire? So we could wrap it up with James with Jim on rapid fire hit me up with the rapid fire segment.
Jim Keyes 1:06:24
Let’s go
Rolando Rosas 1:06:31
all right. So whatever hits your brain when I say this phrase or or these words is us all we want to hear. And Dave and I will take turns here on this rapid fire segment. The first one you started touching on a little bit, but I want you to tell me what do you think about Walmart versus Amazon?
Jim Keyes 1:06:53
Amazon Amazon love Walmart. But I think Amazon advantage Amazon right now. But don’t don’t don’t count out Walmart.
Dave Kelly 1:07:04
Okay. No, you certainly won’t. Now you mentioned tick tock that you’ve you’ve started participating on tick tock but what is your favorite social media platform?
Jim Keyes 1:07:17
Ah probably at the moment Instagram, but it changes. Instagram, I’m getting more a little more traction than Tik Tok.
Rolando Rosas 1:07:28
Interesting, interesting. And if you’re listening Gary Vee or team Gary Vee, you’ve got a guy right here who could use your services. He knows a thing or two about all that all that stuff.
Jim Keyes 1:07:41
Favorite piece of paper a piece of tech changes all the time. I’m favorite piece of tech. At the moment it’s kind of boring, but it is my iPad because I’m using it now for virtually everything. I’ve thrown away the PC and I’m using a Mac only because of the for podcast. Quality is better, but I use that the iPad Pro for about everything. Okay, and
Dave Kelly 1:08:16
it travels easy. That’s for sure. Up All right. First thing you do in the morning after you turn your alarm off. What’s the first thing you reach for in the morning after you turn your alarm off? Excuse me?
Jim Keyes 1:08:33
Ah vitamins out of bed go straight to the vitamin bang pop a couple of vitamin DS.
Rolando Rosas 1:08:45
Okay, interesting vitamins. Not.
Jim Keyes 1:08:48
You don’t want to know what to do after that. But
Rolando Rosas 1:08:51
it’s not in my script. So I won’t ask
Jim Keyes 1:08:55
for all right after I get out of
Rolando Rosas 1:08:59
something to do with that. You mentioned an iPad. Is there a podcast that’s your favorite thing right now or you’re nerding out on right now?
Jim Keyes 1:09:15
Yes I have a group called the school of hard knocks. And those guys got me I think I’m Cushing 15 16 million views. Wow. Yeah, I’m a little interview that we did together. That was pretty, pretty amazing that we they were able to accomplish that. Nice.
Dave Kelly 1:09:47
I saw that interview Hard Knocks saw the crew. Very impressed with the whole the whole interview was great. Their layout their platform Yeah, like that school of hard knocks, give them a thumbs up. And here’s the last question we have, other than Education is Freedom, what’s a game changing book that you would recommend?
Jim Keyes 1:10:14
So many other than Education is Freedom. One that was given to me that’s pretty, pretty powerful from a business perspective is something called The Daily Drucker and I had an opportunity to visit with Peter Drucker just before he passed. And he put in, described his book gave it to me, it was basically a compilation of everything that he had taught over his entire career. And it’s like, one a day, little gems of business knowledge one a day. So that’s just one that pops into my head, I could give you 100 others.
Rolando Rosas 1:10:55
If you have others, that’s your favorite one. But if there’s other ones you think are equally worthy. There we go. I’m always highlighting this, if you’re watching this on on video or listening to audio, you want to see it. It’s on Amazon. It’s called The Daily Drucker: 366 days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done.
Jim Keyes 1:11:15
Yeah, it’s pretty, pretty powerful business learning. So I mean, one of the things that Drucker said that I you know, I love is difference between leader between management and leadership. And a manager does. Does things right. Right. Work on trying to do right things. A leader does the right thing. Interesting, big difference between doing things right. And doing the right thing. Very, that’s classic, classic Drucker.
Rolando Rosas 1:11:51
Oh, the juxtaposition juxtaposition? Yeah. Wow, I love it. That’s a great book. Did you have another one?
Jim Keyes 1:12:00
Another one that just popped in my head, Simon Sinek. And why? You know, talk about why. And it came to mind because as I was writing, education is freedom. I was focused on the what and the how, of education and learning, you know, we talked about some of those. Yeah, there we go. And, in us halfway through the book, and, and focused on what to learn, which was things like, you know, embracing change, having confidence, having clarity, those were the what to learn things, and then the how to learn what, you know, things like, you know, critical thinking, which is often missing from our discourse today, and collapse, critical thinking, curiosity, and the ability to just walk around, I’m curious about everything that’s drives my learning, and creativity. I’m a part time artist, I write music, I paint pictures, but I do it on purpose, because it makes me learn, and it carries over into the learning process, that creative process, Einstein called that intelligence having fun, it’s creativity. So here, I’m wrapped around the axle, I’m working on all those things, and building them all and into the book, I have chapter on age. And then I somebody brought cynics book to the, to my attention and said, But why? You know, I was like, Well, of course, because what because, of course, and and I realized I hadn’t answered why, why when I go to school, why are these, you hit you, you hit it, Rolando and you said, my experience in college, I had to interact with all these other people. And I mean, you hit on the why. And so I baked into my book, addressing the why of education and learning and I characterize it as three things. One is collaboration, because we’re not in this world alone. If it and the power of many coming together. Works, you learned that and in a business environment, you just can’t do it. Most entrepreneurs fail, because they’re afraid to let go. All right, no, effectively collaborate. The second C is the C to the key to count collaboration is cultural literacy. And it’s, you know, we get all wound around the axle with diversity and Vi and all that stuff today, right? Nobody’s fighting about it. Cut through all that stuff. What’s really important about diversity is learning from other people who aren’t like you. Indeed, they have different experiences, different cultures, different, you know, so cultural literacy is critical part of why to learn why to go to school, eat as you get exposure. And then And then finally, the last the most important piece of the bill, why is character because, you know, it’s no class on character. on things like integrity, humility, gratitude, compassion, there’s no class on any of that stuff. But it’s a critical element that you learn through the experience of being with other people. And going through an education process, you build your brand, your character, and other people see you in that fashion. And so that’s all of that’s part of the why of education that I talked about in the book. And, and I think Simon Sinek in his book, for reminding me that, you know, that why is an important missing piece of virtually everything we do. Will said, awesome.
Rolando Rosas 1:15:44
Just just terrific. Just amazing thing. Jim, I’ve had an awesome time talking to you, both today and are on our during our pre chat. I’ve learned already a lot. I’m continuously learning a guest that we had from BlackBerry almost said the same thing about curiosity. And it seems like great minds, think alike. It’s I know, sounds cliche, but he really hit that on the porosity, opening up a whole world of things. You’ve said almost the exact same thing. So I hope that people today that have been listening, or watching us today have gotten something out of this. And if you want to support Jim and his book, go ahead and check it out. It’s available on Amazon, it is called Education is Freedom. Is that right? Jim? There it is. Education is creationism. And so you’ll get a you’ll get a lot out of it. There’s a lot of knowledge and, and a lot of experiences that you know, condensed into this book. And I’m sure that there may be version number two coming out after this because it sounds like you’ve got a lot more on your, in your mind in your heart that you want to share at some point as well.
Jim Keyes 1:17:00
Oh, yeah, I do. I do. I’ve got the book blog now. I want to go do this again. So
Rolando Rosas 1:17:12
yeah, no, no. And I want to thank you for for sharing your life experiences with us today. I’m very appreciative. And I really was looking forward to our conversation today. And I’m sure our audience has gotten a lot out of that. And again, go ahead and support. Jim in his book, we’ll put links to it as well in the description below. And if you want to support the channel, as well, we’ll have some links to other things that you can support if you want to support this channel. And if you want to learn more about business, how to avoid big time mistakes, check out the interview I did with James Orsini from the Vayner Media Group. You’ve got something there that he’s got a lot to share. He’s also a wealth of knowledge. Works with Gary Vaynerchuk. And he just started I want to say he’s now president of startup operations over there. Dave was not right. Then he said. I think that was officially announced. Yes, it’s been official so we can say that. So James, congratulation to you, James Orsini I got to James James Orsini. Congratulations to you on that new I guess I would imagine it’s a promotion of sorts, being head of startup operations over at VaynerMedia. So congratulations. So, Jim, thank you again for coming on today. It’s been a pleasure. And, and we’ll see you the next time
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