Success Isn’t What You Think It Is.. (Feat. Jamie True ) | EP 69

0:08Jamie True:First of all, thank you everybody for joining this call. I know it's the first one we've done in a while. We did one with Jamie actually, I think at this point, maybe two years ago. The thing that I get excited about, especially in these conversations is, of course, Jamie's, you know, very successful with his business. But to me, what gets me really excited is one, the sort of path to Kabbalah. And oftentimes that comes before success or after success. And I know Jamie's story pretty well. And so I think one, my takeaway from this call would be to, Jamie, understand how you, you know, sort of applied Kabbalah to business, given that you were already in the business world prior.

0:40Jamie True:And many of us that are in 20s and 30s, you know, I'm going through the wringer now, but it's not easy to be successful. Right. And I think that success means many different things to different people. It's not just financial, although that, you know, is usually most prevalent. So we'd love to discover, you know, what does success look like to you now, maybe in a way that's different than when you were in your 20s and 30s. and, you know, what that means to people that are on this call looking to either build a company or start a career or just find their purpose in life. But we'll start with an introduction on who you are.

1:10Good.

1:10David Berg:Thanks, David. It's always nice to talk to you. I don't often do many webinars or anything like that, so it's actually really fun for me. Hi to everyone on the call. um so um i'm jamie and i actually um got introduced to kabbalah in actually 2016 so it's been quite a while um it was a sheer coincidence if that exists where um i was trying to find a rabbi actually to bless a house that i just bought and find someone who'd put a mezuzah on the door um and somebody gave me a phone number of uh two rabbis and i gave one to my ex-wife at the time and i i called one and the guy was really rude to be honest he's like i don't do that so i was like fine um we're not using this guy i said how do you get on with your your call and she said well he's coming tomorrow i said great and he sounded like you know uh unusual so it's like fine so then um this guy turned up with a baseball cap and put the mezuzah on the door had a zohar i didn't know what that was and then just said to me you know you you look familiar from maybe a um a past life or something um to which i said uh what do you mean what like past life and he said did you go to this school which i went to and he's like we went to the same school so that was an amazing coincidence and he said well look how did you get my number and i said like i was given it by this guy and we compared the number and actually it was she misdialed she was meant to call some rabbi and he was a kabbalah but completely missed out there was a seven and she dialed an eight and he's like look we went to the same school there's a missed dial on the phone number to get me here there's a reason for you to be studying Kabbalah so um the long and short of it it was um from fate but uh you know that that got me into a class and um after my first class actually I was like okay this makes a lot of sense to me and like i got very into studying um in london so that's a little brief introduction to my first uh kind of experience of kabbalah maybe that's that's it's an incredible story uh what

3:20Jamie True:was the impetus from meeting was it was it marcus who is it yes okay yeah what was it about either him or the conversation that led you from saying okay i don't just want somebody that's going to put a mrs on my door but i actually am interested in this entire thing like how did how did that

3:35David Berg:come about yeah no he just said to me look you know um this is something that you you've got to come to one class and you'll see like you know um speak to my PA you've got to do this now this is like really important and I was like well you know he had a lot of conviction and I'm like well let's try something he was like you know he talked to around like the neuroscience side of things which I was excited about and then he was like look trust me and he just seemed like a great guy and it was like okay i'll do it it's like next wednesday 8 p.m i was like okay so you know it was it was just and also um i guess the reason was that i'm jewish um but i didn't feel very jewish to be honest i wasn't like uh connected to anything so actually i thought that if this is a cool guy with a baseball cap and he's talking about some stuff which actually is really connecting me back to something i just never had any kind of resonance with let's try it So I think that was definitely something that when he when he talked to me at the time, I was like, no, I'm quite excited.

4:36Jamie True:Excellent. I'm sure you've experienced this as a high being born into it and seeing it over the last 27 years. But we call it a hot seat, right? Like being in the in the Kabbalah Center. It's not many people come and go revolving door kind of like a New York City Midtown apartment. what would you say what would you say has allowed you to uh to stay and and obviously you've gone through your own trials and tribulations but yeah what do you attest that to i think community is it

5:02David Berg:comes to mind straight away um unprompted like i i guess the the ability to be connected to something where you get like-minded people and you can share and and um be in that community is is i'd say like a second family or even you know in some place an extended family so um so having people who can actually share the truth and that's a really interesting point as well because like you can have friends and you can have family but there's a different kind of truth that comes out of studying or being around people who are seeing the world with a lens that um is a spiritual lens and I would say a lens that will probably prompt you to grow much more than anything else because you've got some you know nice this is nice it's great I'm reading about x or y and it's like nice but I don't think you get that studying Kabbalah sometimes you get more about hey that's not so nice and how do you help me get over that not so nice thing but we presume is not so nice so um i feel like uh over the the many many years having the truth revealed and the growth that comes with that plus the community is is quite a powerful um uh powerful thing but i think that once you're part of that it's going to be hard to not want to be because who wouldn't want to have that you know right and even if it was i was even i read some of your you you posted something about Like your dad said, even if this wasn't even true, like it doesn't matter.

6:36David Berg:This every day of my life is so much better because of it. I would say that anyone who has been touched by it doesn't matter if you've had trials, tribulations, you know, you're better for it. So like, why wouldn't you do it?

6:47Jamie True:I think that's an amazing point. I'll go on the side story on that for a second, just for the context. I asked my dad once about his path and why he stayed consistent with the work. And his response to me was, to Jamie's point, if God didn't exist, if Kabbalah wasn't real, if none of these teachings were actually real and it was all made up, I would still apply it and practice it daily and still do the same work that I'm doing because my life would be a lot happier doing it than not. So I just think that's amazing to hear that perspective for those of us that have gone through a process and maybe even questioning the existence of Kabbalah and if it's real or not.

7:16Jamie True:On a slightly different note, I'm sure I follow to this as well and probably you too, but social media, today you can go on Instagram within seconds. There's 150 ideations on how to be successful. Many of them maybe have merit, others don't. I think less interesting for this call is talking about the road to success, although we'll touch on that. But what does success look like for you that's different than when you were 21 years old, you know, looking to make a quick buck? How has that evolved as you build companies and sold them over the years?

7:46David Berg:I'm still trying to figure that one out. So I was having a shower before thinking about the same question. And so, OK, 20 years past, I'll tell you the same problem I'm having right now, which will come back to the beginning. um you know what is success in a business

8:12David Berg:so what i was thinking before was um you start a business and like what's the point like so there's different types of businesses so like i want to make it clear before like i'm into some type of business which is growth and to raise money and to have an exit right but not everybody needs to have a business like that so some people will have a business which creates an income and it's very steady and it can't be sold but it's a great business for those that type of business someone would like so there's no right or wrong in the type of business so i think that overall changes everything so like where you're coming into it and what you're trying to do so like you're you're starting a commander ai it's an ai business that the the end goal probably building an ai business in a short time is to build an empire which has huge growth that someone would want to purchase the business right because then it's an exit and that and people pin pin any kind of success to an exit which i've done pretty much uh every time i started something um but then when it doesn't go so well it's like well hold on profitable's good just get profitable just get to break even or just get to here and and i think that the reality is you just want to have a good business which is growing obviously um all of those things profitability sustainability growth exit are important but i think now what i'm thinking is build something that someone would want to purchase because you've done something so good that someone would want to buy it and not have to worry or concern to the pinning points because you you have an idea you want to get an exit but that might not be what it's going to grow into it might grow into something else and you've got to get comfortable with that um with what it actually is at some point because then you can then adapt with that so i think the key thing here is that flow and pivot of i'm starting with this it isn't going that way we get into that pivot motion but i think the key thing is build something that someone would really find attractive to want to buy so that's what i've got go down to now because then it doesn't takes away the kind of uh expectation on certain

10:13Jamie True:basis right it's funny i can i can absolutely relate to that because you know we're three years and now, but the first 12 months I was solely focused on getting to that exit point. But then I realized that my mind was not on driving value to customers, building a good product. It was on an outcome for self, which as we know in Kabbalah never worked. And so after like 12 months of being completely focused on my goal and in not working, I'm like, okay, I actually have to build a good company. I have to have at least one happy customer. And then from there you realize like that's the whole point of the business, right?

10:39Jamie True:Because if you do all those things right, then somebody will buy it versus trying to get somebody to buy something that you don't even believe in yourself is probably a little bit more challenging to do.

10:46David Berg:yeah and and there's an interesting buffet expression it's like they always ask him like when's the best time to sell a company like how do you know when to sell and i loved his answer to that it's like when everyone tells you'd be mad to sell is the time to sell right so you'd by building something which you know you'd be mad to sell is really where you want to get to because that's when it kind of you're more likely to have someone knock on your door for that you

11:08Jamie True:know right and then let's zoom out let's say let's talk to because on this call there's some people that are actively in a business pursuing a business or working at a company for any of those paths what will be your recommendation when they leave this call tomorrow the following day to let's say you always tell me right like what's next right what's what's the next thing that you're going to do to level up what would be your pointed advice uh if they're just either ideating struggling to go to the next level like how do you actually do it in real time okay so i would

11:37David Berg:say mentality is really important because um you've got to be productive and i would say the world's changed in such a point where if you're not a heavy user of ai yourself you're probably not going to build a successful business right now in tech or in anything in growth i would say so like i feel like anyone right now who doesn't sit and spend a lot of time in building ai systems or know how it's done for themselves to make the business run lean i think we're moving into a stage where like okay if you're in agriculture or something completely different right so um but if you're building something in in which touches anything to do with technology which is a big part of the world we live in um that's something that you have to know and be really good at it and ask a load of questions because i feel that um like everyone tells me is ai taking everyone's job right and it's not that ai will take everyone's job it's like ai someone who's good with ai will take your job because they're productive all right uh or take your business right so like anyone will just so that's something you just have to have full certainty on that you're good with that i think that's a different skill set now and everyone was talking about you know that and then and then i think the key thing going back to everything is that rechecking on what is your plan what is your business plan how are you going to do this what are the key points and just have two or three things that you have to prove and do that really well and then if that's not the things that are working keep moving on keep moving what's the next thing you have to work on because you know you you've got to keep pushing on to the next thing which is going to drive success and it may not be the three three things that you think are the right things you just got to keep moving until you find them and then you'll feel it and then you'll go then you get the momentum but you have to keep moving until you actually feel hold on i'm onto something here and you and there's a moment and you're like okay i've got it so in my last business life works we were peddling like employee recognition and this and that and all these different things and then we went into wellness and then at the tip of the spear so it was like it's more of like when you go and if it's b2b you've got to sell something but there'll be something that people will find confusing and not buy and then some someone will sell something which is not confusing you'll think well hold on and they got to sell much quicker you know how did that happen and it really is the tip of the spear it needs to be really on point so a lot of people waste a ton of time in selling things and complicating but they just don't spend enough time finding out what is the easiest thing to sell what someone will understand and that's got to be something that they have a problem with and it's like a lot of people don't really realize that and it's it's waste a lot of time i think so right that makes sense there's quite a few things there you know yeah no it makes sense i

14:18Jamie True:want to dive into that because it leads me to my next thought you've had outcomes of you know 100 million plus but then you've also had failures right and so i always think the failures are more informative of the successes to that exact point if somebody's in a business now and they're struggling three four five six seven years it's still not working when when do you decide okay this isn't the right business let me do something else versus you know just let's push let's push let's push eventually you'll be successful which might never happen right so how do you how do you

14:42David Berg:decide what to do in that moment i'll make this about kabbalah okay so when when i know somebody and i was in the same situation where i asked my kabbalah teacher when i was in a relationship should i exit this relationship give me a blessing to exit i think it's time to leave i'm not quite sure but will you just give me a blessing to exit what would that teacher say to you if you were the teacher dave david and they said i'm in a relationship i'm not quite sure but give me a blessing and tell me i should leave what would you say to them i'd probably say what my dad always

15:11Jamie True:tells me which is invest like crazy for that duration of time and if it doesn't work uh then you then you have your confirmation but don't give up before you try would be the right advice yeah

15:19David Berg:well he gave me similar advice and the advice really which i i heard um well someone we know he gave advice to which was um no you're not ready to give up no and then and then eventually like when the whole thing ended and i went up and you know that person went up to him and said you know what it's over he's like what took you so long so so the key thing here is no one should tell you it's time to give up on anything you need to tell you it's time to give up so like the same thing about everything right so if someone's giving up um it may be correct but if you've really told yourself i have to give up i've reached the end there's nothing more i've done it and you're confident but that's true but if you're having doubts on that it means you haven't seen it through so the truth i would say to everyone on the call right get really clear on you know what is it that you need to prove you either prove it or you don't and if you're i'm not quite sure then keep proving it until you're sure because like a lot of these businesses like linkedin were like a week away from being kind of insolvent and couldn't raise money i And then suddenly they changed something and it worked and it became a great big business, right?

16:37David Berg:So there is a line, but you can't ask a third party. I think that's the truth.

16:44Jamie True:To feel it on your own, you'll get to clarity if you just, if you listen to yourself, right? And you continue to push essentially.

16:51David Berg:Yeah. I mean, everyone's wanting like, oh, I wish, but okay, I'm in a business. It's going pretty tough. I wish a fairy godmother would come down and tell me I should stop and put me out of my misery. Right. That's not going to happen. and what is more likely to happen is all you're doing is wasting time like moaning complaining about the situation you're in i think the key thing is what you should be really asking what's up is if i'm in the right thing let's do the right things let's push it to the end when i know i'm not i'm not and it doesn't become this emotional um spinning am i right am i wrong it just needs to am i is this going to be working or is this not these are the things i'm going to try so i think a lot of people bring a lot of other garbage and baggage into a decision where i think it should be um not a third party and i think it should be like create metrics and don't feel like uh a lot of people like pin but not working out means our failure and it isn't actually because especially if you start a business i mean you you're destined to you're an outlier to win you know just because you started just merely starting yeah just by starting you're not a favorite you know you're not taking a strong you're not a favorite to start a business it's going to be a huge success with an exit that's not on the card so a lot of people i get a lot of inspiration from people who have had um lots of chances have wins a few fails and then they have another win but they're not taken back and they don't push back and say well you know i don't want to feel that pain again so i won't start right right you touch on this

18:24Jamie True:briefly with relationships i think especially in this demographic knowing some of the people on this call it's either one of two things right it's wanting to be very successful or it's wanting to find a relationship that's gonna you know be a soulmate relationship and last as somebody who's who's been in a marriage not and now not another how would you prioritize or recommend that i'm sure it's a learning process forever but building your career path and then in tandem uh being able to support a family and doing that like is there a right or wrong way to do it is there a way to think about it where you're not neglecting either one how have you gone about that i'm not not quite

18:57David Berg:figured that one out perfectly yet yeah i i i would say though um a lot of my stress which is probably made up anyway of just like work you can easily take home to um without realizing it like I even found I get AI stress. And the thing is, you can be trying to build something that's not going your way, and you can be on it for hours and hours and hours, and that can just get you moody, right? Because things aren't going your way. And very hard to then step into being super happy and kind at home when you're feeling that annoyance. So I think being masters of being able to try to have everything.

19:40David Berg:I don't think there's one or the other. they're not mutually you know linked so i feel like if you can accept things um then you can you can accept things in different areas so i think it must be down to some kind of level of acceptance of things aren't going your way and you can still be okay and kind and happy and and good but i think the more you desire the more difficult the situation becomes and the more harder it does uh for on both sides so so that's the key thing right so i'm working through that myself all the time um still and um you know it's it's an interesting thing um so i'd say like the keeping them keeping that up and i guess the key thing here in in a relationship as well like um the more you keep that acceptance and happiness going even when you're up against it i think other it attracts a bigger relationship as well so i think that people you know when you see someone up against it and they're cool calm through it you know they make themselves more attractive by default anyway right so i think that work and and um and home life like intermingle overlap

20:46Jamie True:yeah yeah yeah makes a ton of sense i think another big thing and i i've seen this a lot the epidemic of this generation is not believing in self if we were to look at you from the outside looking in we don't know what the thoughts are anything else but i would say you know jamie's confident he believes in himself because he's built companies to do that you have to believe in yourself have you always believed in yourself do you still struggle with that at times and then if so what how do you mitigate that how do you overcome that

21:12David Berg:so yes you have to believe in yourself um but i think the key thing here is um lack of belief comes from i would say in this instance especially in a business perspective the lack of belief will come from things not going your way on a consistent basis and that just knocks you off the path and that's that's what knocks you down i think the keeping is a total reframe in i'm going into something there's a lot of uncertainties and i expect a load of no's or a load of didn't quite work and the goal here is coming out the other side with the way so i think the key thing here is like getting into something with okay um the nose are coming bring it on let's go will enable you to get through it rather than hey i just have so much belief in myself i can just do it because one of them isn't really real um i think you do have to fake fake it till you make it um but i do think that that mentality and kabbalah really teaches that which is you know everything's from the light so everything's from the creator so the fact that you get 20 no's before you have one great yes is from the light it wants to go that way but the problem is especially in work-wise you're under limited time limited resources cash burn all of these things they they create a pressure point where um you're wanting it to happen in the short you you're dictating but the time has to be in that short space of time and if it doesn't go your way in that time it can be very painful so um it's a balance there and so that means you just have to move quicker right you know right go far go faster go faster you haven't got a choice because you know you've taken on terms and so now you have to just accept that there's going to be more nose under a quicker environment rather and just be happy with that you know i think that's

22:59Jamie True:a powerful thing because before i started the business i could fail or not and it was only me to suffer there was no other stakeholders involved then you raise a little bit of money and then you have seven people that are calling you once a week asking you how the business is going yes that's a layer of stress then you onboard customers then they're calling you and now you're like wait a second and i think that's what you're saying you no longer have the luxury of deciding to not show up because you have 200 500 000 other people that are beholden to you being there each and every day So the lack of belief in self, I'm sure you probably can, like, you don't even have time to think about that.

23:28Jamie True:Like, I don't wake up thinking, oh, well, today I don't believe in myself and my insecurities are high. Like, if you wake up, you have 80 things you have to do the second you get out of bed, right? So when you say that staying busy is probably the key to not letting the thoughts override you and tell you that you're not worthy, you're not successful or whatever those silly games are. Coco. Coco. Coco.

23:51David Berg:That as well. that's that's who maybe that's the answer so um yeah it's an interesting one i love the belief question it's um it's it's not for the faint-hearted starting a business and i think that you know um if if people want to do it and they want to take that mentality you need kabbalah i think you need that uh that strength in accepting that this is how it's meant it's going to be um and don't put unrealistic i think a lot of people put a lot of unrealistic terms on themselves in in in starting businesses which you don't need it just adds to more unrealistic things you know totally this

24:29Jamie True:might we didn't talk about this before but i'm you know you can share what you feel comfortable with but what was your lowest point if you and i'm sure that you can probably choose which one you want to share but uh and how did you how did you get yourself out of it in life um to be you know

24:44David Berg:yeah yeah yeah no i i think there's been quite a few um and what's been we talked about it when we last spoke before but i think every time there's been something where i'm severely under pressure and it feels like you're coming to a dead end it's been when i've like it's been just before i've had something really good happen every single time it's uncanny um i talked to you last time about this business which was like on insolvent and then literally you know six months later we sold it i mean same thing happened with lifeworks a company i was in before you know we were raising money um we had a term sheet with someone um someone called me up to say hey you know i thought i i did the deal with a private equity i had a guy in the market who was in the debt market call me up and say hey i had a term sheet come through with this same investor but with your competitor did you know about that i'm like no and they they went and put the money directly in our competitor while we're doing due diligence and left us right at the last minute.

25:43David Berg:And I was like, wow. Wow, this is quite a severe situation. And I called the guy and I was like, that's like, you're going to regret that. That's like a really, like, not a kind thing to do. And it's like, you never even told me, you know, I don't mind you buying any other business, but like you were DDing us and then you bought our competitor and you had terms agreed. Interestingly, it was the best thing that ever happened it was a terrible low um i was seeing that exit i mean

26:11Jamie True:suddenly it's gone we're running out we're running out of money um in a day so um that was incredible

26:19David Berg:but what what what happened from that was a competitor came up and and bought the business on better terms maybe three months later which worked out to be the best thing that ever happened and um you know i don't i would say that that was a low point but it was just before something really great happened and that that's the way so i'd say anyone with a business here who suddenly gets a low point or a personal low point i would just start smiling and say this is the best thing ever because it means something unbelievable is going to happen not to kid yourself with some kind of hey this is what it is it's all good right it's all good it's not good right yeah it's not good neuroscience hey everything's cool hippie it's good because it means everything's getting flushed out and you get to you get to being calm with dealing with the fear of what that just just happened to you so i think what happens is these these bad things that we talk about like invoke a lot of fear in us and i think once we let go and think okay i can deal with that i can take that challenge on the fear's gone and then something really great can happen i think that's um the kind of spiritual thing that i've learned from studying Kabbalah but it's very real in business life because you know anything can happen and it's not like you're on this predictable route to raise money this time it's not really like that it happens and it's all quite unpredictable at some point so you know you can't you can't decide so I hope that makes sense and it's happened on regular times you know for me

27:53Jamie True:right I love that and my question for you is and your answer is probably yes that that deal that came through from the competitor probably was not even in your in your rear view mirror or front mirror right like it was probably completely out of left field did you even have any idea it was

28:06David Berg:out of left field but the funny story about that and make it personal was when when they were a competitor and they called and the 50 shareholder in my business knew that company okay because i knew he sold them a business long ago so i i wrote to the guy who was the chairman of our business who's a billionaire and i said i'm on a call to our competitor they're interested in the process he wrote me back on my message in the second hang up they're time wasting they're kicking the time hang up immediately and i'm like this is terrible i've just started a call with someone who's interested and he's told me hang up and he's the type of guy you just listen to so literally five or six minutes in the course i'm really sorry you guys seem really nice but i i i have to go because my my i'll be honest with you my chairman thinks you're time wasters