Kim Perell: Hate Your Job But Don’t Know What to Do Next? Ask Yourself THESE 7 Questions and Build a Step-by-Step Plan for the Career You ACTUALLY Want

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That's C-L-A-U-D-E dot A-I forward slash purpose. Fear is paralyzing.
I don't want to fail. I don't want to get rejected.
But I always think back to,

will I regret it more than not doing it? Will I look back one year from now if I'm in the same

dead-end job? I will regret that decision more than I fear making a decision and having it be

the wrong one. How are you going to move forward if you don't put yourself in a position that

actually makes you uncomfortable? The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty.
Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty.
Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. Thank you so much for tuning in to become happier, healthier, and more healed.
I am so excited today because I get to interview not only someone who's a powerhouse entrepreneur, someone who's a dear friend and a co-founder in mine and Radhi's sparkling tea brand, Juni. And I know so many of you are fans.
I hope you're actually drinking it right now while you're watching, but I want to introduce you to one of my dearest friends, someone that I have so much respect for, so much admiration for, someone who truly walks the talk and has built incredible businesses. If you're someone who's stuck in a job that you hate, this episode is for you.
If you're someone out there who has an idea or a passion, but you don't know how to get started, this episode is for you. And if you've already taken that leap, but you're struggling to figure out whether you're in the right business, what it means to be an entrepreneur, what it takes, this episode is for you.
My guest today is Kim Peral, nine-time founder, two-time bestselling author, investor in over a hundred companies, and a proud mom of four. Kim built her first company from her kitchen table at 23, became a multi-millionaire by 30, and sold her last company for $235 million.
Now she's helping the next generation of entrepreneurs, including me and Radhi, turn mistakes into million-dollar lessons with her new book, Mistakes That Made Me A Millionaire, How to Transform Setbacks to Extraordinary Success. If you're listening or watching right now, I want you to go and grab a copy of the book.
The link is in the comments. You won't regret it.
Please welcome to On Purpose, Kim Perel. Kim, it's great to have you here.
Thank you so much, Jay. I'm so happy to be here.
I know. I'm so excited to be back with you because we actually met when I was interviewing you for your first book ever, The Execution Factor, and we instantly connected.
And I love that an entrepreneur was out there talking about execution and actually doing stuff. And now here you are talking about mistakes, which again, I think is such an important thing to talk about.
And where I want to start, and we'll get into Junie and all the amazing stuff that we're excited about, but where I really want to start is so much of my audience right now is probably listening or watching. They're feeling stuck in a job that they don't love.
They might have an idea or maybe they don't even know what they're passionate about and they just don't know where to start. What's the first thing you should do? Oh my gosh.
Yes, I totally relate. And there's so many people that I talk to that are saying how they are stuck.
And I wrote, I mean, in the book, I talk about staying too long, right? Staying too long in a job you hate and the job you wake up and you dread going to. And how do you get out? And I call that my exit ramp strategy.
Like what's the exit ramp? How do I get from where I am today to where I want to be? And the first step starts with thinking, for me, where do I want to be in one year from today? It gets so overwhelming if you try to have it all mapped out. But if you can just think, what's my vision? Where do I want to be in one year? And then work your way backwards to the day and take small, tiny steps in order to achieve it.
It's more manageable. And I think a year is a good enough, you know, a nice enough amount of time to be able to put that first step into action and make that change that you want to make.
But it starts with knowing and making, you know, putting that line in the sand that I'm going to change my life. Yeah.
I remember I'm thinking about when I've been on the verge of wanting to quit or move. And before I started doing all of this, I was in a corporate job.
I was stable. I was safe.
I didn't love it. And I wasn't necessarily that successful.
I was good at what I did, but it was going to be a long time before I had a successful career trajectory. And I remember for me, it was asking that question.
And also, funnily enough, another question, which was kind of at the other extreme, which was, do I want to be where everyone else is, who's 20 years older than me in this company? So I would look at someone who's at the company who's 10, 20 years older, more senior than me. I would think, do I want to be doing that when I'm 20 years older than myself to also get a reality check, right? Does that, isn't it? Yeah, 20 years.
How many times? I mean, you definitely shouldn't stay that long, right? Yeah. When someone actually told me the other day, they were in a job for 20 years.
I thought, oh my gosh, 20 years, right? My rule of thumb, if you're not earning and you're not learning, you got to make a change. And if you're not there, say you've been in a job less than three years, but over three years, you got to really look at what is your career path because you could just get stuck.
Yeah. And you just end up staying.
And honestly, I stayed too long in a job. I mean, I had sold my company.
I ended up staying because it was comfortable, but I wasn't living the highest and best use of my skills and my talents. It was just easy.
And it was scary to make change, right? Well, I think that's what it is. Like, I think a lot of people, before we dive into some of the mistakes that made you a millionaire, I think for a lot of people, we're just scared because we don't see the options.
We don't really know what's available. We maybe even have been in a workplace that's made us doubt our abilities.
Maybe you've not been in an empowering place where you feel good about yourself. Maybe you have a boss that doesn't acknowledge you or your commitments, or maybe you have a team of people that have made you shrink a little bit, or maybe you've just ended up in a job based on something you studied at college.
And now you realize I don't even like this anymore. So when you're scared and you're facing fear, what do you do with that? Because it can keep you so paralyzed and so stuck.

What do you do to break through that fear of saying,

well, let me at least think about the next one year.

Let me at least look at the options around me.

I mean, fear is paralyzing, right?

And I've had that happen for me,

just paralyzing because I am scared.

I don't want to fail.

I don't want to get rejected.

I don't want the pain that comes with trying something new. But I always think back to, will I regret it more than not doing it? Like, will I look back one year from now, if I'm in the same dead end job and I hate what I do every day, I will regret that decision more than I fear making a decision and having it be the wrong one.
And so really thinking about is the regret bigger than the fear? Yeah, definitely. And I love that question.
And I've definitely sat with that. And I think that's what made me do what I do now, which was I would have regretted if I never tried my hand at media.
And I look back now and I think, oh my gosh, I would have been the craziest person in the world to not try. And you're so right that regret is probably the only emotion stronger than fear.
And you have to kind of tap into that to unlock and get better. Yeah.
And thinking to your point, in 20 years, I will regret staying here and regret doing that. It's also about just staying in relationships.
You're going to look back and regret being in that too. But it's hard to change.
I get it. Like I've been there.
It's so hard to change. It's hard to make the decision.
But again, making sure that you think about the regret of not making the decision is so much worse. Yeah.
Mistake number one, you say, is waiting to be 100% ready. I think this is, you hit the nail on the head with this one.
I really, truly, truly believe that we're all wrapped up in what you call the four Ps, like the perfectionism, like wanting it to be perfect, brilliant, know everything about everything. You say we want to be, we procrastinate, like we'll just overthink the thing.
How ready do you need to be in order to start? On a scale of one to 10, or actually let's look at percentages, zero to 100%, what percentage ready do you need to be in order to start? I think when I look at being 100% ready, and it is mostly the fear, and I've been there. I I wasn't ready when I started my first company.
I mean, I was too young. I didn't have an experience.
I'd never been a CEO. I didn't have any money.
I definitely, I calculated because I was my type A personality, made a spreadsheet. It's like, not ready.
How come you're not ready? And at that point, you have to decide, are you ready enough? And the way I decided was actually I learned really early on. I had heard this Marine Corps rule of thumb, which is the 70% rule.
And so it said, if you're 70% ready, you should take action. If you're 100% ready, you've already missed the opportunity.
So I started using that rule, the 70% rule, to take action. It helped me balance analysis and action and move forward.
And I still use it all the time. If I'm 70% ready, I take action.
I move. And I assume I'm going to figure it out along the way.
And if you think, so to your point, what's the percentage? 70%. I like that.
I like that. Yeah, that really resonates.
I think that's right. I think one thing I love that you said about there is that I think most successful people, they know that they'll figure it out along the way.
They don't believe that the first thing they make will be the best thing, or they don't believe the first thing they put out will be the final thing. And I think when we're inexperienced, we think, no, the first thing I have to put out has to be my best thing.
And you think about that and you go, how's that even possible? Right? Like the first pair of shoes that Nike made were not their best shoes. The first drink that we made with Juni, like our first flavors were not our best flavors.
Like the first thing you make is never going to be the best. It's not going to be the last and it's not going to be final.
And so you had this vision of, I'll figure it out along the way. How does someone know they're 70% ready? Like if they were, if they had an idea, what is 70% classified? What do you think that's made up of? I think 70% is enough that you're still like perfecting the edges, right? You're still thinking, oh, I could make a tweak to my deck or make a tweak to my business plan or make a, I'll wait a little bit longer.
You know, you make up excuses. So I think as the point where you start making excuses for why you're not ready, that's the 70%.
Right. So, and I think it's not, I have done nothing, obviously.
You have to be 70%. So you have an idea.
You've probably made a prototype. You're ready to go to market.
And then you convince yourself why you can't do it. Yes.
That's the point where you actually need to go and get customer feedback. Me and you both know.
You got to get out there, get the customer feedback, get market feedback, because you're going to likely change. Yeah.
Talk to me about those steps, because those steps that you just laid out, I think are so important. You just said, you got to make a product, you got to make a prototype, you got to get customer feedback.
When you think about building something, whatever it may be, that is actually the fastest way to figure it out. And this idea of having a prototype or a minimum viable product is core.
So if you want to write a book, write a blog post and put the blog post out there and see whether people connect with it, engage with it, what comments they put on it. If you want to start a podcast interview, I mean, when I first met you, I didn't have a podcast.
I was interviewing people on Facebook live and I could see what the comments were saying and I could engage with people. And that gave me confidence to have an interview show and actually build a podcast.
To me, that is the first step for anyone out there. It's like, whatever you want to build, build the smallest, cheapest, easiest version of it and put it out there, right? Talk to me about some of the examples you've had to do that with.
I mean, yeah, I think for me, it's dream big, really, really big, and then start really small, right? Start small. And people ask me all the time, do I need to have money to start a business? The answer is no, you actually don't.
Today, I mean, you need to actually have the grit and the ability to get your product to market. So it could be a farmer's market.
It doesn't matter. It could be going door to door.
You just have to get a minimal, viable product and understand if you actually, someone will pay for it. Because if not going to pay for it, it's a hobby.
You've always come there like, I got a great idea. Will someone pay for your idea if it's not? It's a hobby, which is nice, but a business is here to make money.
Absolutely. Yeah.
I was talking about it with someone earlier today. We had, when we launched our smoothie at Air One, a lot of people come.
And so I did this launch, if you remember, and we did it with the book and our drinks and everything else at Air One. And we loved them over there.
And we had a lot of people wait outside and they came in droves. And I met this one guy who was like really excited to make content for me and like work with me.
And he showed me some of his stuff and it looked cool. And I was like, cool, talk to my team and get connected.
The next thing I know, he was on vacation and shooting Juni just for fun. I love that.
And then he sent me a picture. And now he's editing so many things across different parts of our business.
But it was the same thing. He showed me a minimum viable product.
Right. So he went out and did a photo shoot.
I never asked him to. No one told him to.
He went and did it. He was on vacation.
He shot JuniCans in the ocean, sent me pictures on DMs. I just saw it.
And I was like, guys, this picture is really great. I remember sending it to our chat and the whole team was like, oh, that's awesome.
And I'm like, yeah, we just got it for free. Like this guy just made it and now he's working.
So in any regard, I just feel like when you can build the simplest, easiest, cheapest version of what you believe in, that is the first step. Yes.
And then hear what people have to say. How do we get over that hunch that we're scared of what people are going to think of what we put out there? Because when it's the easiest, cheapest version, we know it's not perfect.
And now we're trying to like over justify and be like, yeah, but this isn't the final one. But how do you allow yourself to put out something that's 70% knowing that people are going to criticize, judge and have an opinion on it? I mean, they're going to judge anyway, right? And so I look at it and the naysayers and the critics and the dream killers, they're going to tell you why it's not going to work no matter what you do.
When I started my first company, they're like, that internet is a fad. That internet's going to be nowhere.
Obviously, the internet became so large. But back at the time, it's crazy to think that people are like, no, the internet company is a terrible idea, Kim, obviously.
But your confidence in your idea has to be greater than anyone else's doubt.

That is the bottom line. So you just have to believe more in what you're building than anyone else's.
That's all noise. You just got to shut out the noise and keep pushing towards your vision.
What have you seen? Because you've also coached so many entrepreneurs. You've invested in so many companies.
You continue to build so many companies yourself. What have you noticed about the difference between delusional confidence and delusional confidence that works? Because it almost feels like everyone who wins at life is delusional to some degree.
They had to over-believe, but then you also see a sub-sector people who do over-believe, but there isn't anything there. Like there isn't value there.
So where does that come in? Ideas are a dime a dozen, executions, everything. So I get pitched all the time.
I got a great idea, great idea. You know what? The next three months from now, they're going to tell me I still have a great idea.
And then I'll see them in a year. Kim, I've got this amazing idea.
Honestly, I want the guy or the woman, the man, whoever it is to come with me, say, I've got a great idea. And I already started, but it started.
I started my bath room. I started my kitchen.
I started my garage. I don't care where you start, but I actually had the courage to take the first step.
It's easy to dream. It's hard to do.
And so I want someone that is doing it. Yes.
That's why when you're watching Shark Tank or Dragon's Den,

the entrepreneurs that are the most impressive are the ones who already have sales data. Even if it's early days, the entrepreneurs are always more impressed by that than they are about someone who's like, well, we haven't put it out of the market yet.
We don't know. And so that idea of learning and iterating, and I think it's like shifting our mindset because I feel like When we were at school, when you handed in a report, that was it.

Right?

So we were trained at school that when you hand in a report or you do an exam, it's final, it's done. Whereas real life and business is you hand in your first version of a prototype and then you iterate and you improve and you change and you evolve.
And so it's a real shift for people's brains because we've all been conditioned to believe that, no, once you hand it in, that's it, that's your grade. Because if you've got a grade A, that's great.
And if you've got a grade C, that's it. You've got a grade C on your scorecard.
You didn't get to go, oh, well, now I'm going to make that report seven times better. And I'm going to change this paragraph and I'm going to do this research.
Whereas that's what real life's like. So how have you trained yourself and trained other people to change that mindset? Because I feel so many of us get lost in thinking, well, no, it's final.
It's done. I don't have that ability to figure it out and make things better.
I think it's interesting to watch because people are trained, to your point, to want to be perfect, right? These picture perfect, I get an A, I move on. But the reality, the most successful people that I know are making mistakes and iterating along the way.
And that's where you get the most growth because you're putting yourself out there. You're actually being okay if you fail.
And if you're okay to fail, you're probably twice

as likely to succeed, right? The entrepreneurs that fail first are going to, you know, statistically

proven to do better the second time. So you actually should be putting yourself in positions

that you might not be successful. Yeah.
I was watching a movie. You just, you just reminded me of something.
I was watching The Founder again recently, which is one of my favorite movies. It's the story of Ray Kroc and how he built McDonald's.
And if you haven't watched it, anyone who's listening or watching, make sure you go watch the movie. It's on Netflix, I think.
But I was watching it again because it's truly one of my favorite movies. And there's this scene in it where Ray Kroc, who never founded McDonald's, but built the business because he took it off the McDonald's brothers.
But there's a scene where he's at like this members club with his wife that his wife wants to go to. And all of his friends have heard about all his bad business ideas and he's executed on them, but they've all failed.
So McDonald's is like his seventh business or something like that. It's not his first.
And so all the people around him are kind of laughing at him going, oh, is this another one of your franchise? Oh, cool. Franchise model.
Like everyone's laughing it off. And in that moment, his wife kind of stands up for him and says, well, no, I think this time it's different.
And they kind of listen to her because she thinks it's different. But it's so interesting that we're all scared of the people closest to us because they've seen us fail.
And so making mistakes and failing is uncomfortable because the people around us kind of remind us of it. Like everyone at that table was like, Ray, is this another one of your crazy ideas? And so what do you do when you feel like the people closest to you are your biggest doubters? Because I think that's, we're not worried about the internet.
We're not worried about a customer because you don't really even know that. You're worried about what your mom's going to say.
Like, I remember when I was quitting my safe job to do what I do today, my whole family was like, you know, you're getting married this year. Like you don't quit your job when you're getting married.
Like that's so unsafe. Or I was hearing things like, well, you were so lucky to get that job after you lived as a monk.
you know you're getting married. That's so unsafe.
Or I was hearing things like, well,

you were so lucky to get that job after you lived as a monk. It was so hard for you to get that job.
Now you're going to leave that? How are you going to give that up? How are you going to pay your mortgage? How are you going to pay rent? These are the things people are hearing. And so making mistakes and failing is hard because it's almost like everyone reminds you of your past mistakes.
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Thanks for taking a moment for that. Now back to the discussion.
For me, when I was growing up, my dad is a serial entrepreneur and he was always on the brink of bankruptcy and starting some very much like Ray Kroc. Always got some idea, chasing some dream, bedding the farm.
But at dinner, he would ask us, what was the worst thing that happened to you today? And so from a very young age, he normally, I mean, it's very odd to ask, I have four children, right? If I asked him all the time, what's the worst thing that happened? I think it was entrepreneur therapy for my father, to be honest, but side note, it normalized failure for me because it became okay to fail. And so how do we have the same conversation with ourselves? What's the worst thing that to happen to you today i mean like something we know we're in business something goes wrong every single day absolutely it's inevitable but how you respond to it is what makes the difference and so if we can just look at the setbacks and the challenges and the things that go wrong as essential stepping stones to what will go right.
And it's just, it's inevitable, right? Success isn't a straight line. It's a winding, curving road.
And if you can continue to push forward and know that, okay, I'm going to get rejected. This isn't going to go my way.
And start normalizing failure for yourself and making it okay. And with all the family, I mean, obviously my family is embracing failure.
I totally get in other, you know, families, obviously that's not the case. But even when I started my company, they told me this is a terrible idea.
Like you, again, it goes back to, you just have to believe. Like obviously not to delusion, you have to get to market and ensure that it's viable, but don't listen to those naysayers.
Yeah. How did you, how do you then pass that on to your kids? Like you said, you wouldn't sit down with your kids and say, what's the worst thing that happened to you today? Like you wouldn't teach it in the same way.
Right. How are you thinking about teaching your kids about failure and making mistakes and not judging themselves or worrying about judgment? Like, how do you do that? And I know they're young, but like you said, this starts young.
It starts young. So for Will, I changed the dinner table conversation.
I used something called pow, wow, bow, which is pow, the worst thing that happens to you, right? Wow, the best thing that happens to you. And bow, like, what are you grateful for? So it's a different take on the dinner table ritual, but it grounds them in understanding failure and mistakes are normal.
Great things happen. And it's a different way to teach them how to bounce back from the challenges.
Well, you're almost teaching them that it's one third, like it's a part of it. Right.
But then there's something amazing that happened every day. And there's something to be grateful for.
Always. Which is really, which is a much more complete view of life.
Right. Rather than just looking at what went wrong.
Exactly. But it is important.
Yeah. I feel like I'm trying to think about it where it happened in my life.
Like where I just, I feel like at school, it was probably my, I feel like it was my art teacher who just, he wanted things to be imperfect and raw. Oh, that's amazing, actually.
And I was never good at painting or drawing. So I always thought I was bad at art.
And he made me realize how art was expression. And it wasn't how well you could draw a self portrait, which I can't do, or how well you draw a person.
He was like, that's not art, art's expression and story and creativity. And so I think he took away that perfectionist idea.
Because I think when we think of art, we think of the Mona Lisa. And then when you look at something like Jackson Pollock, you're just like, that's just dots on a, you know, what is that? Or like lines and dots and, you know, but it's like, no, there was some expression, there was some theory behind that that worked.
And whether you can appreciate it or not, the idea is that art is imperfect. It's expressive.
It's not always like a picture perfect painting and the colors being amazing. So I look in my childhood and I go, where did I learn to fail and be okay with it? And even now I know that we have to fail every single day to get to where we are in the content we put out, the podcast we choose to do, everything.
Like it is the only way. And I always say to my team, 30% of our content always has to fail because that's a percentage and it's kind of 70% and I'm like, 30% of our content has to be experimental.
30% of our content has to be experimental because we'll never discover the next style, format, genre of content if we just keep doing what we're doing right now.

But I'm always trying to think like, how do I help people really embrace that? Because it's easy to

say and hard to do when you're like, well, Jay, if I fail, I may never get another shot. And I think

that's how people feel that if I get the door shut on my face, where am I going to go? Like,

if I go pitch my idea and it's not good enough, isn't that the end?

No, and I think that's what we have wrong because as an investor and as an entrepreneur, I raise a lot of money and I invest my lot of money. You're going to get rejected a hundred times.
So when people come and they said, oh, someone didn't like my idea, they want to invest five people. Listen, you got 95 more to go, right? This is a numbers game.
So you have to understand that if you want to be successful, you're going to have to get rejected a lot. And that's okay.
It's honestly part of the process. And knowing, I usually say, you know, go for the no.
Yeah. Go for the no.
Just show up and try to get the no because you're putting yourself out there. You're getting better with each pitch.
You're understanding what the investor wants or doesn't want. And by the time you get to 100, you got this nailed.
And you overcome your feel of rejection at the same time, right? Yeah. And you learn so much.
I remember yesterday we were pitching and working with one of our brands and we sat on a meeting. The team had come up with this really amazing comprehensive deck.
But I could see within 10 minutes, the CEO that we were talking to, their head was in a different space. They were present, but I could tell that that wasn't turning their wheels.
And so I was like, let's just put this aside and have a conversation. And we learned so much more through having a conversation rather than just delusionally just talking about what we'd planned.
And I think that's part of it too. It's like actually being present and going, well, I'm just going to listen.
Because actually if I just listen, I'm going to learn so much more about what you actually want, what you need, how your brain works. And now I can be honest with myself and go, I remember actually years ago when I was building my coaching company, I went to pitch at a coaching firm.
This is so beat up before my content. And I was pitching a corporate coaching session on emotional intelligence.
And I was talking to the head buyer at this corporate company in HR, and they told me what they wanted. And I remember leaving the meeting and go, I actually don't have what you want, but thanks so much.
And I felt so proud of myself for being able to admit that I actually didn't have what they were looking for. And that was okay.
But I would be able to find someone who was looking for what I was selling, if that makes sense. Yeah, for sure.
And I think it's that belief of recognizing that there is space in the world for so much more than we think there is. I think we think there's only space for Nike.
And then you think about it and you're like, wait a minute, there's Nike, there's Adidas, there's Reebok, there's New Balance, there's Converse, there's Lacoste. I can go on and on and on, but we kind of in our brain are wired to believe there's only two successful brands.
There's Lululemon, there's Viore, there's Aloe, there's, you know, it's like now it just starts expanding. And you could have said, well, oh, you could have said athleisure was already all done like five years ago it's too saturated but now you've got set up active you've got fabletics like you know it's you start recognizing oh there's a lot of space in the world there's so much space and you don't have to innovate but you could iterate and that's what we have to understand is how do you iterate the next generation of that version of whatever it is you're trying to create? I mean, I've been pitched, people are like, this idea has already been gone, right? Like I was pitching an idea and someone's like, oh, it's never going to work.
The idea is already, the idea is already had. I ended up investing because I bet on the people and it went to like a $30 billion market cap.
So honestly, if someone tells you it's already been done, I don't believe you. Like it could be outdone.
It could be differentiated. There's better marketing.
There's always an opportunity, to your point, to create. Yeah.
Yeah. And that's what you've got to look for.
Yes. We're too worried about being first or being the best instead of being different.
Exactly. And people are buying difference, not first or best.
No, they would just want what makes you unique.

Yes.

Right?

And like, why are you different?

Why is it talking to me?

Exactly.

Exactly. Why is it connecting to me?

There's a reason why a brand speaks to you and connects with you more than another,

no matter how big or small it may be.

Exactly.

There's always opportunity.

That's where we need to put our energy rather than like, oh my God, I'm going to be behind.

Oh my God, I'm going to be last.

The second mistake you talk about is this idea of trying to do it all alone. Oh, yes.
That's so hard. I know, but I think a lot of people can think like that.
I mean, I grew up as a twin and from an early age, I was always in competition with my twin sister and she was smarter and faster and better than me at basically everything. We took a test.
She ended up being, you know, aced the test genetically with the same. So it didn't make any sense, but she got bussed off to the smart school and I stayed back because I didn't ace the test.
And, you know, my friends called me, you know, said, you're not the smart one, which labels you. But then from an early age, I just became a lone wolf, right? Just like, okay, I'll just do everything on my own.
I'm not going to try to compete with her. I'll play tennis.
I'll swim. Anything that's a lone sport because it just didn't, like, I didn't want to compete.
But that is such a mistake because trying to do everything alone will not get you very far. It's only until later after I was burnt out, exhausted, working 16 hours a day by myself

at my kitchen table that I learned that

there's no way you will be truly successful

until you surround yourself with the right people.

And that was a game changer for me.

And I think for so many people out there,

for whatever reason, ego,

or you just want to do it alone because you want to prove to the world that you can do it. Again, maybe, but statistically, you won't be able to do it alone.
And until, for me, mentorship has been such a key factor in my, I mean, even us, we have a great mentor in our business. So just having a mentor, statistically, 93% of self-made millionaires have mentors.
It's the lowest hanging fruit for any person that wants to be successful, right? And a mentor doesn't have to be someone that's hugely successful. It could be the local business vendor.
It just needs someone that's a little bit ahead of you, right? And that's the key. It's someone that you can learn from, who's been there, who's done that, who can teach you because you will not be successful alone.
No one is. Yeah.
I think that's the, I think that you just nailed it. That's the biggest mistake I think when we make trying to find mentors, because we want to be mentored by the people we see on TV and that person's either not accessible, available, doesn't have time, but also they've found that success in such a different way.
And you're so right that what you really want to do is talk to your local bakery, talk to your local design store, talk to your local, you know, and now everything's local, it's online. And there's so many companies and so many people that would be happy.
Talk to me about how you build an effective relationship with a mentor, because I think people are struggling right now where some people don't have time. Everyone's very busy to give time, mentors.
Then mentors sometimes feel like everyone's just take, take, take, take, take. And then there's people saying, well, let me do some work for you.
But then that comes with like a hidden agenda of like, oh, and you're going to give me free mentorship. So I think it's kind of messy space right now.
Like how do you actually build an effective mentoring relationship? How do you find one and how do you build an effective relationship with one? Okay. So those are good questions.
One, how do you find one? Three words. Let's have coffee.
In our case, tea, but yes. Because you can easily ask someone for 15 minutes of a coffee date or a tea date.
That is like to me, and I've been doing this for 20 years, 15 minutes. Jay, do you want to have 15 minutes? Granted, you cannot email someone on TV and ask if they want to have 15 minutes of your time.
But you could email someone, I guarantee five people in your network that you actually want to learn from and try to find a personal connection point. So if you email me and say, hey, Kim, you're a twin.
I'm building something for twins, women in business, children under the age of 10. I need a personal connection.
And then I have the desire to mentor you. And it becomes, I mean, mentorship is personal.
If there's a price tag, that's not a mentor, that's a consultant, right? So if someone's saying,

I'll mentor you for $10,000, $2,000, $1,000, whatever it is, that's not a mentor. I mean,

I mentor a lot of people. It is truly, I want the person to be successful.
And so I'm going to

dedicate my time to ensuring their success. And you want someone who actually cares about you,

who really cares about you, what you're creating. And that type of mentorship is so priceless.
And so finding that, I mean, if there's only one thing you do ever is finding that mentor, that person, because you're going to hit roadblocks, you call them. It's such a beautiful connection if you can find the right one.
But again, if you call someone and they don't call you back, that's not the mentor. Yeah.
And you get hung up. You want to find the person who has time to give, who cares about you, who wants to do that.
And just because someone doesn't want to do that doesn't mean they're a bad person. They're just not your mentor.
Right. Because they might be doing it for someone else.
Yeah. Yeah.
Their time's not right. That's okay.
And don't take it personally. Go out and find another one, right? Make a list of 10 people that you'd love to mentor and start reaching out.
Yeah. I mean, again, take action because I'm like, oh, Kim, I need a mentor.
It's like, okay, well, show up and ask. I mean, the reason I have some of these amazing people that I mentor is because they just asked.
Yes. Asking for help is so hard and people don't do it because they feel embarrassed.

They don't want to look stupid.

They don't want to show weakness.

But asking for help is the one thing that will help you exponentially increase your success. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And sometimes it's small things where like people don't even ask. Like I had this, so I was on tour recently and I was flying Delta and one of the air

stewards at the end of her service, when we were about to land, she wrote me this really beautiful note and had left it near me because I'd fallen asleep on the flight. And so when I woke up, I read it And they always give you these I think it's these little wings from Delta

Or something like that on top of it

And so I read it

And it was really, really sweet

And I said to her when I was walking out

It was like a full note, like it was a real letter and it was very, very sweet. And I just asked her on the way out, I was like, oh, hey, like, are you guys in here? Are you in town tonight? And she was like, yeah.
And I was like, well, why don't you come to my show? And she ended up coming to the show. She had a great night.
Like it was amazing. It was a town that we had a big Juni presence in.
I'm trying to remember what town it was, but what city it was, but it was just one of those moments where like, it was just a really thoughtful letter that really affected me and made, I didn't mentor her, but made me want to reciprocate. And so I found that sometimes expressing something really beautifully and thoughtfully about what you're doing.

And with a mentor like you, who's giving great advice, follow that up with saying, Kim, you know, you told me to do this.

I did this and this is what happened.

Kim, you know, you told me to do this.

I reached out to this person because the mentor needs to know that you're putting into practice.

I think mentors get exhausted when they feel they're giving you time, they're giving you advice, they're giving you insight, but you're not moving. Oh yeah.
I wouldn't mentor you very long. There you go.
So talk to me about that relationship. No, I think, you know, I'm here to give great advice.
I don't have a lot of time. If you're not going to take it, find a different mentor.
I'm not the mentor for you. But to be honest, that's a you problem, not a me problem.
I'm here to help take you to the next level. And I want to be able to give my experience to someone else that, I mean, people have been so grateful with their time for me.
And I feel so lucky because it's been such a gift that I want to give that and pay that forward. And so, I mean, even with the book, because I don't have enough time to mentor as many people as I would like to, I do have the time to write down what I've learned.
So other people don't have to make the same mistakes. Well, I think books are mentorship for that point.
I think that's a great, great point that I feel in my life, some of my best mentors have been books. Yeah, me too.
I really believe that. Oh my gosh.
And I think this book's going to be a great mentor for people who are making mistakes, who want to be successful and they're like, I want to be coached by, you know, a really successful entrepreneur. The book is that.
It is. And I think we undervalue and underestimate the value you can get from a book.
Oh my gosh. I feel like I've been mentored by some of my favorite entrepreneurs who either died before I had the opportunity to meet them or are people that I haven't connected with

through. by some of my favorite entrepreneurs who either died before I had the opportunity to meet them or are people that I haven't connected with through books.
Well, and especially if you're young, when I started, I had no idea what I was doing. So I would just read books of old, great operators and actually execute what they said.
Like Jack Welch, I mean, he was GE. This is 30 years ago.
You're just looking, reading books and be like, okay, I'll just do what this guy says. He must know, right? Yeah.
And so my hope is that to be able to share those experiences so you could say, okay, I know what to do when I'm in a toxic relationship, when I don't have the right partner. I'm going to give you tips to get out of situations that I was in that I wish someone would have told me, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Oh my gosh, please help me, Kim. I'm like, okay, here's the playbook.
I'm giving you the playbook. Read these 10 and then come back and tell me if you need more.
Yeah, when you say don't try to do everything alone, finding a mentor is important, but then also finding a business partner is important sometimes, or like co-founders and connecting. What would you say you look for in a business partner or a co-founder? I've learned there are four pillars that you need.
Just as a house has four walls to stand, I think there's four great pillars that every successful person that I know needs. And one is a mentor.
Two is family and friends, supportive family and friends, right? Three is the team. It doesn't matter if you're a solo entrepreneur.
It could be a consultant, it could be someone in your network. And number four is peers, people that are actually in the day-to-day and can relate because my family can't relate to the trials that I go through every day, but a peer in the same category, in the same business, even in the same office, they can relate to what you're going through.
So if you can find these core tenants, game changer. And so once I started putting these people pillars into place for me, my business took off, but it's making space, right? It's saying, I'm too busy.
I don't have time. I've heard it.
I don't have time to do this, Kim. I'm too busy.
I'm too busy. Well, I'm busy too, but how do we prioritize people? Because that is how we will be able to grow exponentially.
Yeah. Yeah.
I was actually saying to someone yesterday that one of the mistakes I've seen successful people make is the only friends they have are people they pay or people that have been there from day one. And those are both important parts.
One's your team and one's your old school friends. But the peers part is so important because that's the only person that understands your current pain.
So your person that you were friends with back in the day, they understand your journey. And my best friends are still my best friends from people I was friends with 20 years ago.
That will always be there. I have a team that I love.
I have great relationships with very, very important to me. I really value and invest in, but the only person who can truly understand where I'm at in life is my peer who's doing the same thing at the same level.
And what's really interesting is those are the people you end up competing with rather than actually collaborating with. And I was reading Bob Iger's book and he was talking about how at one point in time, and I may get a couple of the names wrong, but the principal was there.
Bob Iger was saying that at one point, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and a couple of other famous directors of their time used to preview their movies to each other. So they would actually get into a little room, a theater room, watch the movie and ask for feedback.
Yeah, it's the best advice ever. Ever.
But that's because they were so confident that their style was so different that they didn't feel like they were competing. Does that make sense? Like the reason why we're scared to do that today is you feel like someone will steal your idea.
They trusted that these people were so creative and no one would need to steal the idea because everyone was a genius in that room. And so they actually trusted and respected each other's ideas.
I love that. I love that.
And I think if you can find those peers, that makes such a difference because no one can relate to what you're going through except for the people already going through and they can give you great advice. Before we dive into the next moment, let's hear from our sponsors and back to our episode.
to collaborate on the highs and lows and kind of behind the scenes, right? Because your team, you can't, if things go wrong, you can't tell your team some of the things you would tell a peer. You need to, you're going to tell them one thing as a leader.
Then you can tell your peers like, oh my gosh, it's crazy out there. Yeah, yeah.
One of the mistakes you talk about is this idea of like having a toxic inner circle. Like you got to get rid of that.
And so you say that one of the mistakes is keeping toxic relationships in your inner circle. I wanted to ask you, what's your take on starting a business with a family member? It's hard, but I think anything could work as long as you have very clear roles and responsibilities, right? You know what you do.
I know what I do. I mean, think about you and Roddy, obviously husband, wife.
I actually seen it work really well if everyone knows their strength. The problem it doesn't work well is if you want to do what I want to do and you think you can do it better.
And you're like, okay, this is never going to work out, right? You need to trust that you will be in charge of this. I will be in charge of this and division division of responsibilities.
That's number one. So actually, I love family businesses because I like legacy and I like, I mean, in the best case scenario, my children will work with me.
So I hope, right? That would be like the joy. That would be so cute.
Yes, it would be so cute, right? They're five, so I don't know. We got some time.
I figured it out. But yes, but that would be the ultimate gift for me is to have something that I could leave to my children.
However, it's really important to, you know, not impose what you think should be done. You really have to have trust.
Yeah. And how it, partnerships hard, right? So hard.
So I think partnerships are really hard, but trusting that the other person will always act in your best interest, that they always will do what, you know, you're, you have the same values. I think values are really important because you know, where you're coming from all the time and whether you have a partnership or not, but I do believe it's so much more fun to do it together.
Yeah. Yeah.
Right. Absolutely.
Like having started by my kitchen table alone, it's so lonely. Like entrepreneurship is so lonely.
I'm now at the other side where I never want to do it alone. I want to do it with a team where you can share the joy and the fun and the challenges and the disappointments.
Like you're just not alone, right? Yeah. I've had a lot of friends who've like built a business with a friend or a family member, and then it's gone toxic or difficult.
Have you found any great mentorship or insight on how to disconnect from that relationship once it's gone bad? That's in the healthiest way possible. Yes.
I mean, I've had a lot of toxic relationships over time. And sometimes you don't even know because they don't start toxic, right? They start as friends and then over time they go really badly.
And then you're in this relationship and you don't know how to get out. But what I look to do is really annually, I audit my inner circle religiously.
Tell us about that. Right? So every year I look at all the people in my business, all the people in my personal life that I'm spending time with.
And if they energize and inspire me and encourage me to achieve my dreams, like I put a plus. Very simple.
This is a very simple exercise. If they are negative, critical, tell me why it's not going to work.
I put a minus and then I actively audit them out. No, it seems mean.
You know, people are like, what about my family? I know. I get it.
But if you want to achieve great things, you will not be able to do it with toxic people around you. They will drag you down.
Yeah, it's so true. And it's hard because people go, how do I call out my family? How do I leave the people that I live with in one sense? Yeah, it's hard.
But it's also about balance, right? So I understand that. I mean, that's an internal struggle that I can't help with.
But how do you, you know, my advice is about balance. So if you are in a situation where you can't leave your parents, obviously, but you can minimize the time that you're spending with them, right? Because those thoughts that they're putting in your head, you know, once you leave, and this would happen to me when I was in a very toxic relationship, you think about it over.
It consumes you, right? And then it seeps into every part of your life, your business part, your personal life. And you have to eventually audit it out in order to be able to move forward, in order to grow.
And it seems very harsh, but honestly, game changer. Talk to me about the connection between toxic relationships in your life and money.
How did the two connect? If you have toxic relationships, likely you're not going to have a lot of money. Yeah, why? Talk to me about that connection and how you've seen it transpire.
I think that having been in some toxic relationships, they're not looking out for your best interest. And if you want to live to your highest and best use and your greatest potential, you can't afford to have people that are draining your energy because you need that in order to create and ideate and innovate and build.
So the more you have pressures that are dragging you down, the less likely you will be to be successful, unfortunately. I mean, It's just truth, right? And so I really look hard at who I spend time with and surrounding myself with people that love me, want to see the best for me, believe in me.
It doesn't mean they can't challenge me, which is great. But I don't want to be with someone that's going to tell me why my dreams aren't going to work.

Yeah. Like that's not going to work because likelihood, I mean, you have to be so confident in your dreams that having other people talk in your ear all the time, terrible, right? Yeah.
Yeah. Unless they have constructive, thoughtful insight.
Yeah. With love, it doesn't work.
And I think that's spot on. I think, I love what you said.
There's two sides to it. The one side is you've got to limit your time with them as well.
It's agency because we can't blame our lack of success on the people around us because then we're not taking responsibility and agency for the change we can make. And I always say to people, for every one negative person in your life, find three positive people because you have the percentage.
Now 25% of your life is spent with negative people, but 75% of your life is surrounded by positive energy. And you can do that.
Today, there's so many clubs and events and communities all around, just dotted everywhere, like entrepreneurial societies just popping up everywhere because all entrepreneurs are looking for community because 99% of them didn't have family support because they had a crazy idea or they took a risk or whatever it may have been. So you're not alone.
There's going to be other people like you in the community who are looking for that as well. Right.
And reaching out and being proactive, right? And it goes back to asking for help and being vulnerable and saying, you don't know everything. Like who wants to be with someone that knows everything, right? And usually the toxic people are self-imposing their limiting beliefs on you.
They're telling you it's not going to work. You can't do it because that's what they think, not what you think.
Yeah. And so it's trying to make sure that is this what they think or is what I think.
And it's hard if they keep telling you what they think. So it becomes noisy in your head, right? Yeah.
And it's what they think because someone told them that. Right.
So you got to stop the pattern. Exactly.
You got to stop the pattern for your family, for your community. Yes.
For your children. Yeah.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Yeah. And people forget too.
They try and, you know, I remember having this conversation with my mom because she left, she had to leave her country when she was 16 years old and moved to England. And when I was moving to America

at 28, she was like, oh my God, I can't believe like you're moving like full on, like to another country and you know, all the rest of it. I was like, mom, you did it when you were 16.
Go mom. You did it when you were 16.
And she did the same when I was becoming a monk at 22. She was like, you're going to India and you're going to be away.
And like, you know, and I was like, mom, you moved when you were 16. Right.
Like to a country with no education, no money, and you figured it out.

Like, you know, and it's, and it was so amazing to see that like mom's protective love. Like,

I know it came from a place of love, but it was like, but mom, you did something way harder than

I'm doing. Yeah.
She's trying to protect you. So she's trying to protect me.
It's a mom's love,

but it's really interesting because it's counterintuitive to the fact that she had to do

Right. She had to leave her parents to build a

I think that's a mom's love, but it's really interesting because it's counterintuitive to the fact that she had to do it.

She had to leave her parents to build a life for them and all the rest of it and be able to provide for her family.

But we forget that.

And so sometimes we pass down, even though we lived a really difficult, challenging life, we pass down insecurity to our kids.

Right.

Oh, yeah, for sure. Not passing down freedom, which is a really fascinating thing.
It's interesting, right? You know what I mean? Yeah. And you're, it's- Because you want to pass down security because you didn't have it.
Right. Not realizing that it was the same thing that gave you the capacity and the intensity to become a resilient.
Like when you said people got to have resilience and grit, you don't get resilience and grit by everything going your way. You get resilience and grit by being knocked down, things being hard and difficult.
Like, you know, that's what it takes to build muscle. So it's funny how we try and make everything easy for everyone else.
Even with my own children, making sure that, I mean, their life, obviously, it's not the same life I grew up in. We're like trying to pay the bills and go have heat.
You know, they obviously don't have the same challenges, but how do we instill the same work ethic in them? That's what I'm thinking all the time. I mean, it's just like a struggle in my own mind.
Like, what do I need to do? How did, like, chores, like everything in our family is just looking at how do we instill and passion, right? Like, we want them to have passion about what they do and what they want to create. So we have to be very thoughtful and mindful about not self-projecting how we grew up onto them.
Definitely. Kim, how many people have you hired in your lifetime? Oh, thousands.
Yeah. Thousands.
Thousands. Thousands.
Yes. The last company I ran had over a thousand employees.
I mean, thousands. And how many of them did you personally interview, look at resumes and actually get that deeply with? I mean, over 20 years, probably at least over 500, maybe more.
When you manage people, how did you set up your teams? How many people maximum do you personally lead and manage? Did you find a sweet spot? Yeah, usually anything over eight was, I mean, if you have a thousand people globally, anything over eight starts to get very difficult. Why did you find eight manageable? I don't know, just because I could at least have one-on-ones with them.
I could spend time with them. I could still have the personal connection to make sure that they knew the vision, they knew I cared.
And usually it was because we had offices all around the world. So usually those eight were actually distributed.
So I had a country manager in Tel Aviv, one in Australia. So it depended on what the function was.
But eight was the sweet spot for me. I think some people can manage a lot more.
But in order to really scale like a billion dollars on an annual basis, that was where I found I was like perfect. Wow.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think that's fair.
And when you think about you only have seven days a week and you only have five work days. Right.
If you're managing more than one person a day. It's very hard.
It gets hard. Yeah.
And so eight is, you know, at that like what? Probably the max, right? Some people would say like six is probably the best. The challenge is when you build from the ground up, everyone wants to report to you.
So it becomes emotional too. And there's other factors that aren't just black and white that aren't as easy as, okay, it's six and we're just going to do that.
It's like, well, you just have to, you have to be agile with the circumstance, right? And it makes a difference and you want to keep people motivated. And, and especially, I mean, acquired a lot of companies.
And when you acquire companies, they don't want to be put under layers of people. There's different challenges with every phase of a business.
So the reason I asked you that is because I actually have four resumes here for you. Are we going to hire someone? And I want you to tell me who we should be hiring.
Okay. Okay.
I love it. Love it.
So I'm going to hand you these. You can take a second to look through them.
What's the position? These are all for different roles. Okay.
And one's for a creative director, one's a product manager, one's a marketing specialist, one's an operations manager. So they're not competing.
Okay. But I want you to be able to look through them and tell me what you think is good and bad because a lot of what we heard from our audience was that, gee, I'm applying to 400 companies and I feel like I'm ending up on a stack that never gets looked at.
I don't know how to stand out. I'm going to tell you how.
Tell us what's standing out and what's not standing out. Say I post a job on LinkedIn.
I get 3,000 resumes. No way our hiring manager, anyone can go through them.
If you want to stand out and you want that job, you better find the hiring manager, DM them, send them a letter. I don't care how you get a hold of them and tell them how bad you want that job.
Because most people just send to the resume and hope someone's going to call in. Nobody's calling you.
If you really want that job, you will find the hiring person and get in there. So dare to be different.
I think that goes with the guy that you said earlier that just started making content. You have to be proactive.
So forget just the resumes. No one's going to look through three.
I literally will not look through 3,000 resumes. I mean, maybe the hire manager will somewhere, but- No, it's the truth.
Or find a contact of someone that you know that's in the company. You know, I think statistically, so many more hires are done by referrals, right? So who can refer you in? But I'm going to look at the resumes just so I can see.
Yeah, yeah. Take a look at what you like and what you don't like.
Okay, they all look very good. But the one I'm going to hire is the product manager for growth.
Why? I'll tell you why. Because they tell me in the resume that they did 120% year over year user growth.
They increased adoption by 35. They gave me data that supported the job that I want to hire them for.
I mean, honestly, they launched analytics feature resulting in 2.3 million in the first year. Everything is data driven.
And I like that. I mean, they are product manager of growth.
They're going to track the growth. Amazing.
Six years, 12 years, none of it actually matters to me. I mean, honestly, like great, you have experience, but I want to know what you are doing right now.
So I like that. Yeah, you want to back the claim up.
You can't just be like, I'm a marketing specialist with six years experience. Tell me the KPIs that you actually, tell me what you did differently and how you grew up with the company.
But the biggest thing I would also do, and this is what I regret and a huge mistake, is, you know, you overlook it. I call it the POP.
She looks perfect on paper, right? Amazing. You know how many people I've hired that look perfect on paper and then are a disaster once they get in? Oh my gosh, so many.
So the one thing that, I mean, I talk about in the book.

First, I have specific interview questions that I ask.

Tell us some of your favorite ones.

Okay. So one would be in three months, what would I learn now that I will not learn during this

interview process about you?

Because I don't know.

I mean, you don't have so much time.

Yeah.

What would your last hiring manager tell me that they would want to change about you? And then what would your peers want to change? I want to know things that are challenging so I know if I'm going to be able to live with them. And what you need to change about people, what they need to change, and are they self-aware? Yeah.
And then living or dead, who do you most admire? Because usually it's a reflection of who they want to become. And so I want to know who they admire because is that the type of person that I want to have in the company or not? Great questions.
Right? And so all of these little specific things that I've learned along the way, because so many people look great on paper, just like online dating, they look so good. And then you get in, you're like, oh my gosh, you're terrible.
You know, just because you have 20 years doesn't make a difference. What did you do in the last year? Right? Well, I haven't been working for two years.
That's, I mean, that's okay too, but I want to know that. And then referrals.
If you're hiring someone, we always skip and I, oh, the resume looks great. I don't need to do, oh, so not referrals, references.
We look at hiring someone. We think, oh, they look amazing on paper.
I don't need to do the references. Oh my gosh, huge mistake.
Please call the references. Usually they can't say anything anyway, but if it's a really good and they really like the person, they'll tell you.
Yeah. Right.
They're just not gonna tell you if they don't like the person. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
You'll get a sign. Yeah, you'll get a sign.
You get a gut feeling of, I can't tell you, talk to you about Kim. That's the thing.
You want to get a 360 degree view, the person in person, the person on paper, the person through another person's lens. Right.
It's not good enough to just look at one thing. And I loved your advice.
By the way, I fully agree with you. I don't think I've ever got a job or a partnership or invested in a company or had a company invest in me in any way when it wasn't personal, right? And that's one of your biggest mistakes that you talk about, which is believing that business isn't personal.
You say business is always personal. And that comes down to this point because it's so easy to think, oh no, but there's a system and there's rules to apply.
And no, it's personal. It's always personal.
If you call me and say, Kim, I have a great candidate. The probability that I take the interview is so high.
And if you say, Kim, I've got a great investment. I will also take that.
Everything is personal. If you're vouching for them, if I'm vouching for them, that means a lot, right? And that's a really important one.
Anything you want to add to this? I mean, no, I like who, I mean, it'd be interesting to see who you hire here. But I will get, it's not on these resumes.
If I have to bet, it's someone else. Somehow they get through the system.
Somehow they go around, they go up, they go down. I don't know, but it's not someone that's coming in through 3000 people that you can't find.
Yeah, it's a great point. It's a truly great point.
I love it. And I hope it encourages anyone who's feeling stuck and lost right now and feeling like your resume is not being looked at.
It's not because you're not good enough. No.
It's actually not a reflection of your resume or your skills. It's a reflection of the fact that people hire people they know or people that know people they know and in some way differentiating yourself that makes you stand out right yes and finding a connection point i love a personal connection point i'm much more likely to to talk to you if you went to my it's like there's a there's a bias that you just have you're from my hometown you went to my school you like my favorite sports team start going through your birthdays in March like mine.
Yay, me too. Or Pisces.
Whatever that connection point that you can find to make it personal, ground it in personal connection, the likelihood you will be successful is far greater. Yeah.
I would always reach out to, when I was applying for jobs initially, I would always reach out to alumnus of my university who are at the company that I'd like to be at because they're just three years ahead of me or five years ahead of me. And I'm like, hey, you went to the same school as me.
I'd love to follow in your footsteps, 15 minutes of coffee, like tea, right? Can I hang with you for 15 minutes? If you can't, I'd love an intro at the company. And all of a sudden you've just skipped those 3000 resumes that are sitting there and you're right at the top of the pile.

The biggest mistake people make is not asking.

I did that.

When I wanted to go to college, I wanted to go to Duke

and I had a family friend that had gone there.

He was alumni.

I didn't ask him to write me a recommendation

because I just felt I was wasting his time.

What a mistake.

I didn't leverage the assets I had. Obviously, I didn't get in, and I went to Pepperdine.
But regardless, if I would have asked for help, if I would have asked someone for the job referral, for the contact, people want to help. I think it's our own internal voices telling ourselves that people don't want to help.
So this might be uncomfortable, but I think it's important to say. So someone will sometimes present me an opportunity, but they'll present it in a way that's trying to make it out like it's mutually beneficial, but really it's just beneficial to them.
And now it's not an ask, it's a presentation. Whereas if that person would have just asked and said, hey, Jay, it would mean the world to me if you did this, it's going to be really easy for me to say yes.
Because I want to help. But I don't want to be made to feel like this is some mutually beneficial thing when it isn't.
And I just want to be clear on that. And that happened to me yesterday with someone and I don't have the relationship with them to tell them that.
But I was just thinking about that and I was like, no, be humble enough to ask. And it's something I've loved watching you do, you know, building a beverage company with us and everything.
Like I see you in every room. You're always happy to be the person who asks the most ridiculous question or the hardest question, despite being such a successful entrepreneur.
And it's what makes you so successful because you're humble enough to ask the question and people are willing to help you. I've seen it.
We've had buyers, we've had investors, we've had friends, we've had board members who are willing to help you and me because we both are okay being like, we don't know. Like I don't walk into beverage as an industry and go, oh, because I am really good at doing podcasting, that means I really know what beverages are all about.
It's like, I don't have a clue. And I'm okay with that.
Like, that's not a weakness. That's my strength because now I'm willing to ask questions that I don't want.
And so I think sometimes having humility in the ask is actually more endearing and attractive than trying to make it look like a proposition that feels like it's, does that make sense? Yes, for sure.'s landing. It goes to mentorship too, right? Because...
But first, here's a quick word from the brands that support the show. All right.
Thank you to our sponsors. Now let's dive back in.
We ask people all the time because we have no idea, right? We're asking our way to success over and over again. We're asking for the intro.
And people could say no. People can say yes.
But at least we asked. And just if you only take one thing away, just start asking.
Again, what's the downside? I don't want to get rejected. Again, it doesn't matter.
How are you going to move forward if you don't put yourself in a position that actually makes you uncomfortable? Yeah, it's something you really live by and I watch you do it all the time. And it's always so impressive to see someone so successful do that because, and I think it's actually a trait of very successful people.
They're very happy to know what they know and not know what they don't know. Right.
And they're not trying to, and I think sometimes when we're on the come up, we feel we have to pretend like we know stuff in order to make sure that we don't look stupid. And then you end up looking stupid in the process.
Right. You don't want to show weakness, but the reality is I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm learning along the way and I'm smart and I can pick it up very quickly, but I actually have to tell you that I have no idea what I'm doing.
Yeah, yeah. And that's the important part.
You're smart and you pick things up quickly. That's really important.
You know, one of the biggest mistakes, and this is the last one I want to talk about. There's 10 in the book that Kim tells personal stories, shares insights.
Like she said, the interview questions you should ask. Like the book is packed with so much great advice.
And I want you to really think about the mistakes that she's sharing, but we all feel like we're not qualified. And I think women statistically feel more unqualified than men.
And you'd write about this and talk about this. Talk to us about that, because I think that's sometimes what trips us up so much.
I spent a long time believing I was underqualified. And honestly, it stemmed back to my childhood because I was told I wasn't the smart one.
And I was told that I was a dummy of the family. And I mean, those words haunt you, right? And so you create these labels that you take with you, which are not true.
And it makes you second guess yourself all the time. Am I supposed to be in this room? Am I able to be a CEO of a tech company, even though I don't know how to code? Am I able to be a CEO of a beverage brand, even though I have no idea what I'm doing? But I feel that in my own career, believing I was underqualified limited my ability to grow.
So I was asked to be on a board seat. I said no.
Why? Because I believed I was underqualified. What a mistake I made because that was an amazing opportunity for growth, for intellectual understanding of how corporate boards work.
And later I met the person that asked me and said, why didn't you take this board seat? And I made up some excuse why I'm't. I'm too busy.
You know, some excuse that normally I shouldn't have done. I said, listen, I didn't think I had the experience.
It's a lot of MBAs and people that have been VCs. And they said, your experience as a CEO is exactly why we wanted you to be on the board.
But I made up these excuses in my head why I was not qualified enough. And after that happened, I said, I would never do that again.
I would just say yes and figure it out. So the next time someone asked me on a board, obviously I said yes, but you have to overcome those limiting beliefs that you are not qualified enough.
And yeah, women especially, right? We just don't think we, we think we need more experience. We think we need another degree.
We think we need a better pitch. I mean, I love to invest in women startups.
I don't even see a lot of them because the guys will come pitch with their deck at 70%. The women that I see, they've perfected that deck.
It looks amazing. And I, unfortunately, I don't want it to look amazing.
I want, I know your business is going to change. So come come, like just put yourself out there, right? Like you got to just put yourself out there, be okay getting rejected.
Even if you think you're underqualified, doesn't matter, do it anyway. You'll figure it out along the way.
And so learning that for me, it was a huge learning lesson. And I talk about how do I overcome that? How do I start believing and gain the confidence that I am not underqualified? I'm just learning along the way.
Yeah, absolutely. It's such an empowering message to hear.
Kim, is there anything I haven't asked you today that you wish I did or any story that you wanted to share that I haven't brought out of you? I think the only one that maybe is just how important pivoting is to a business or relationship or anything you're doing. And how, listen, 90% of businesses pivot.
I've invested in over 100 companies. Probably one hasn't pivoted the business model.
One. Okay.
So if you're out there with an idea or a business or a plan and you're stuck in the plan and you put your head in the sand, you say, market's changing and I'm just going to keep doing

the same thing.

That's a mistake.

Because if you look at the most successful companies, YouTube started as a dating site,

Twitter podcast platform, Shopify started selling snowboards.

I mean, every single company has pivoted. So you just have to have the courage to start.
I mean, look at Judy, right? We've pivoted. So many times.
So many times. And we'll keep pivoting because that's what successful people do.
So give yourself permission to pivot. I think I talk about this a lot.
Failing to pivot is such a huge mistake and recognizing when to pivot and when to not. I mean, that's a whole, I talk about that as well.
And it's important to know that, but just knowing that it's okay to make change, right? Just not stay in the course. We've learned this so many times and we'll continue to make mistakes.
We'll continue to pivot, we'll continue to change course. And that is what will make us successful.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
I mean, we've done it with Juni. You do it in every business.
I mean, when I started, I used to make Facebook videos. Right.
And no one today would ever say, Jay, you make Facebook videos. Like, you know, we just don't do that.
You look at companies like Netflix and we both know Mark Randolph and he talks about how they were a DVD company. Right.
Like they used to mail DVDs. I know.
Mark wrote the foreword to my book because he can relate so much to how many mistakes they made, right, on the rise of Netflix. And look, yeah, they started mail-order DVDs.
Now they're a streaming company. Yeah.
That's an insane pivot. Totally.
It's so different. They're producing films now.
They have their own original slate. It's unbelievable.
And that is the biggest thing everyone out there who's worrying about having the perfect business plan is that actually you just got to believe in something that you want to commit your life to or commit the next couple of decades to in the area of what you're trying to do. They were trying to entertain and provide home entertainment and Netflix sending DVDs and being the platform it is today is still home entertainment.
And so if you have a goal and a vision of how you're trying to help and change the world, like ours with Juniors, we want people to have healthy habits. We want people to have healthy options.
We want people to have happiness in their life. We want them to have a happy mind.
And so if we want them to have that, that could mean so many different things. It's bad when you just go, well, no, my only purpose is to build this one thing.
It's like, well, no, I'm standing for more. Talk to us about that of when you need to pivot and when you know you need to pivot and when you shouldn't.
How do you get that balance right? I think you need to know if you have product market fit. So if people are willing to buy the product, you're in a great place.
The way you know if you need to pivot is, are your sales declining or no sales at all? I mean, it's a revenue sign, right? Or are your sales dropping? Okay, well, that's not a good sign. You have to look outside and think, okay, the market's changing, the customers are changing, something's changing, and I have to find an area that I think I can win in and be bold enough to be able to try it, right? Like I'm not saying overnight pivot your entire business, but you have to be able to start and try and test and learn

and adapt. And I think today in the age of AI, so many things, I mean, this isn't just pivoting

businesses. This is pivoting how you think in your mind, right? Because AI is coming.
So you

need to develop an agile mind, flexible mind that when something happens, which is going to do,

I don't know what's going to happen, but your mentality is that to adapt with it. And that will be the game changer for so many people.
But if you're just trying to put your head in the sand, like, I'm just going to do this, you will, this will not end well. Yeah.
Yeah. Right.
Exactly. Yeah.
No. And again, it comes back to that data point of what you're measuring.
Because if you're not looking at what customers are saying, it's not, if it's always about how you feel after you do it or after you built it, it doesn't really make a difference.

So it has to go back down to that.

No, I love that.

Kim, we end every episode of On Purpose with a final five.

These questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum.

So Kim Barel, these are your final five.

The first question is, what is the best business or entrepreneurship advice you've ever heard or received? No one is successful alone. That's a great, great answer.
Question number two, what is the worst entrepreneurship advice you've ever heard or received? The worst advice that I've received is that you need a lot of capital to start a business. And you don't? No.
I started at my kitchen table. No.
Yeah. How much did you start with? My grandma gave me a $10,000 loan.
And that's what it took? That's what it took to build a $100 dollar company. That's incredible.
That's truly incredible. If I can do it, so can anyone else listening out there.
You just have to have the courage to do it regardless of circumstance, regardless of everyone telling you, you can't. I was blessed to have my nanny who bet on me and that's why I pay it forward.
And that's why I invest in others. And I acknowledge that it was amazing gift, but you do not need a lot of capital to start, especially today.
I think a lot of people feel like it's hard because they're like, well, I don't know how to code. Code has cost a lot of money, or I want to build an app, or I want to build something with AI.
And I don't, you know, obviously to be able to do that. So how do you get your head around that? Like, what does that take? This is where you need, you're not gonna be able to do it alone.
Yeah, you're gonna have to find someone. You're gonna have to find someone to partner with.
For me, once I got out of the mindset of, I'm a lone wolf, I'm gonna build this. And I hired and partnered with the CTO and I had a sales.
You have to find people that compliment your weaknesses and your strengths, right? And that's where the game changes. You're not gonna be able to build.
If you're not a coder, you have to find someone, a partner that can, right? I can't start a tech company and not be a CTO. Yeah, that makes sense.
Question number three, what's something you used to believe to be true about entrepreneurship, but it's not true anymore? I used to believe that skills beat passion. And now as an entrepreneur, passion beats skill.
You can learn skills. You cannot, that passion.
That's so good. You are the most passionate person I know for sure.
And that will drive you to success regardless of circumstance. Do you know what? I couldn't agree more.
That's such a great, I'm so glad you sat and thought about that one. That's a great one because I used to also hire people based on skills.
And now I hire people who are passionate and coachable more than skills. You can learn the skills, right? Skills are always changing too.
Like AI is changing what skills are needed. Like half the skills would just get AI to do.
So what I need is a passionate person who's coachable, who wants to learn and be adaptable. You're so right.
Great answer. Really, really great answer.
I love that question. When you get the answer fit, it's like you find something.
Yeah, no, it's such a good one because I feel like, yeah, for years I used to just hire people based on skills and then you either find out they're lying about the skills or they don't really have the skills or they have the skills, but then they're not passionate to learn other skills, which you always need. You can't train passion.
You can't train passion. Yeah, you can't.
Okay. So So that's question.
Question number four, why can't we train passion? Where does passion come from? What is that? That's a great point. Even if there's not a question in it, it's a great point.
I think everyone has different passions. So it's just making sure that when you're hiring someone, they're passionate about your vision because that passion will push you through.
And I think that's most important as an entrepreneur. That is what's going to keep you going after everyone else is going to give up.
And so that passion is that red thread, regardless of circumstance, that's going to put you and keep you going. Yeah.
I love that. Fifth and final question we asked is that every guest who's ever been on the show, if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? I would say to be generous on every occasion.
It's a nice one to let settle. It almost feels like we're at the opposite where we're always so scarce with our energy, our time, because everyone's struggling.
It's hard. Everyone, the book is called Mistakes That Made Me a Millionaire, How to Transform Setbacks into Extraordinary Success.
Kim Perel, go and grab your copy right now. Like I said, the book is in the comment section.
You can go and order it right now. It's available.
I am such a fan of Kim as a human, such a fan of Kim as a business person. And I truly believe that this is the mentor that you've been looking for that's gonna help you get over those mistakes and those hurdles in your mind that keep coming up, whether it's the noise in your head, the noise from outside, the noise from family and friends.
This book's gonna help you overcome that. Go and grab your copy right now.
You won't regret it. Kim, thank you so much for tuning in and being here and just opening your heart and sharing your mind and insights.
It's always such a joy to be with you. And I'm always, you are the person that I think of as having the most and the best energy all the time.
And so I'm so glad that the world's going to get to experience it through this beautiful book. So thank you for writing it.
Thank you for dedicating two years of your life of putting in all two decades worth of insight into it. So thank you so much.
Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for listening to this conversation.
If you enjoyed it, you'll love my chat with Adam Grant on why discomfort is the key to growth

and the strategies for unlocking

your hidden potential.

If you know you want to be more

and achieve more this year,

go check it out right now.

You set a goal today,

you achieve it in six months,

and then by the time it happens,

it's almost a relief.

There's no sense of meaning and purpose.

You sort of expected it and you would have been disappointed if it didn't happen. This is an iHeart Podcast.
And then by the time it happens, it's almost a relief. There's no sense of meaning and purpose.

You sort of expected it and you would have been disappointed if it didn't happen.