ariel, Author at YOUR BRAND AMPLIFIED

Episode Transcript

Anika Jackson 00:01

Welcome to your Brand Amplified, the podcast where we interview marketers, publicists and brands to learn their stories, what makes them tick and tips and tricks that make a difference. This is Anika Jackson, and I am so thrilled to have somebody who may change your life Just by listening to this episode. Asanda Madikane, who is a CEO and founder of Shift Pivot. Asanda, thank you so much for being here today.

Asanda Madikane 00:29

I’m excited to be here, Anika.

Anika Jackson 00:32

I love meeting up with fellow influencers and great minds, and it’s always a pleasure to share my knowledge with everybody else, as well, yes, and you do have some knowledge that you’re going to drop on us today that will create huge shifts and pivots in people’s businesses. We’re going to get into your case study, but before we get into that and what you do now, you have been a creative your entire career. I mean, gosh, I was looking over your credentials and everything creative director, music artist, producer, commercial director. You’ve done so many different things. I’m fangirling over you because I’m so excited by all the things that you do, but I would love to hear more about your journey and how your journey took you to your own shifts and pivots before you realized that, where you are now helping other businesses, particularly women on businesses, the top 1% of business entrepreneurs make changes that will have such a big impact on their lives.

Asanda Madikane 01:32

I think the best basis start would probably be my parents, because they were self-educated individuals. My dad had no education and he kind of worked hard to make enough money to put him through school, so he was very poor. My mom was an intellect, so she went to university and she followed her passion as a nurse and a teacher and a psychologist. I had this influence of people who were hungry for knowledge and wanted to change their lives and they became entrepreneurs by opening their own store. Because of the lack of knowledge and the lack of information, the whole business after five years completely crumbled and shifted our rival world and their world and we were back to not even knowing what you were going to eat in the morning and going to school with one slice of bread and trying to keep up with everybody, while still going to a very privileged school in South Africa so it’s like a private school, because most schools are public and still showing up in a private school in South Africa and knowing very well like you might come home with no electricity or there’s no water and going back to your little prippy school with a uniform and looking these because they said, whatever happens, you will continue to have education, you will continue to go to school. It doesn’t matter if we don’t have anything to eat.

02:53

So seeing them struggle and understanding and the feeling of coming home and having all of your furniture on the streets because the sheriff of town came to take your things away, it stays with you. It really stays with you and you kind of realize that something’s got to give. I mean, these people work extremely hard and they’re just losing everything. When you kind of understand, when you’re older, is because they just didn’t have enough information to become successful entrepreneurs in the long term. And I think the turn for me was when I was deciding what kind of career I wanted to do and I had two choices. I worked really hard, I was really good at school and very diligent at it and I was like I’ve got two choices I either be an orthodontist because I love tea.

Anika Jackson 03:41

God knows why I wanted to do that.

Asanda Madikane 03:44

I wanted to be an orthodontist. That’s what I wanted to do and then. But I also had this passion for storytelling, and theater and film was what was calling me, and I did so many things at school when it came to choir and performing. So I was always doing stuff on stage. You can ask anyone in my years like, yeah, I’ve just been on stage all the time. So I loved performing and I loved creating stories.

04:08

So my most pivotal question I ever asked my life was asking my dad what should I do? Should I do be an orthodontist or should I do film? My dad just looked at me and I think he understood very well why I was asking that question. He’s like, please, the last thing I want you to do is go to university and I pay for it, and then you find that you’re not happy, so that you continue working very hard. And the next thing I see in the news, you’re standing in the building and you want to throw yourself off the building because you’re not happy and that’s not how it’s supposed to work. Don’t choose a job just because you know it’s going to give you money, and don’t choose a job because you think it’s going to be fun, because whatever you choose, you’re going to have to fight for it. You just have to choose what you want to fight for. So I was like, okay, no, that doesn’t clear everything out. That absolutely clears. Like, what am I willing to fight for? Because it’s never going to be easy. Whether I choose being an ardentist or a filmmaker, it’s not going to be easy. But what am I going to fight for? And I chose Ful and he was absolutely right.

05:12

I fought tooth and nail to be a top performer and the film school was extremely competitive, with male and dominance over the way that you tell stories and structure. And that’s what showed me what true grit is. That’s what showed me that it does matter what we spend our time creating and efforts towards it, because we somehow, the universe, conspires to help you to attain it. As long as you want to fight the good fight or overcome those battles, you just go through them knowing that this is what I want. So this is what I want. I’m willing to go there. That’s to answer your question. That really opened up to. I was never afraid of trying something new because I had. I was very sure with myself, or in very strong alignment, that that’s what I wanted to do and I was willing to get the rejections and negativity, the hate, the lack of support. I was willing to go through it because that’s what I wanted and it meant a lot to me.

Anika Jackson 06:13

Yeah, like I can tell how much passion you have for it. Yeah, but I love that you also talk about that you have to fight for it, because I think a lot of times, yes, when we’re in the flow state, when we’re doing what we’re really supposed to be doing and something we’re passionate about, but we also have the skill set for, and that we’re willing to fight for right, I feel like things do flow to us more easily, but there are still going to be hurdles in your road. You’re still going to have to show every day. You’re going to have to show up and show that this is what you really want, and there are so many distractions in life that can take us down different paths.

06:44

And every time I find this with myself. Every time I go down one of these other threads, I keep going back to the center because I’m like oh yeah, this is what I’m really supposed to be doing. That sounded nice, it looked good. Maybe it was more of a steady foundation for right now, but it’s not where I’m supposed to be. So I love that you’re talking about this, that you had a fight for it and that you were willing to step up every day to do something you were very passionate about.

Asanda Madikane 07:11

Absolutely, I think. And every time I did step away and do something what I thought everybody else wanted or I thought what, like I said, expected of me. It just never turned out right and it was really hard and difficult and it even sucks even more when it’s not something you’d want to do. So I was like, okay, let’s do this, I’ll just do what I want to do and then just know that I’m going to go up the mountain and fight the battle for that, and at least every day when I’m, if I’m sad or I’ve had enough, I know it’s still what I want. I did. I said I’m working on something that you don’t even want and you still wondering why, why am I suffering so much for something that I don’t even want? And it’s not even an idea or a gift that I want for myself, like we always want these high expectations, but whose expectation is mine or other people? So I had to be very clear with my own voice, my own inner voice, on making decisions in my life.

Anika Jackson 08:13

Wow, and you moved from South Africa. Now you are in Belgium, correct? How did you transition? Was that part of your job? Was that part of the roles that you were playing? That was me being ambitious.

Asanda Madikane 08:27

I was still young, I was like 21 when I started working in film and commercial working on millions of dollar commercials as very young black, very petite South African, and I had incredible bosses that I was working with who really believed in me and I just got to play. It was just this beautiful playground where I could create and do whatever I want and I just and.

08:53

I’m getting all this money. You’re like, what am I supposed to do with all this money? That’s like so much in my lifetime. I was like, oh my goodness, but I had so much fun doing that. And I think the crisis came around and it would shut down kind of the high paying commercial jobs and my bosses kind of shifted because they were in their 60s already.

09:11

Oh, wow they wanted to go and I don’t know, want to cut it ago and watch the Formula One and the other ones Horse, horse, whatever ranch. I was like you guys, go live your best lives. I’m just starting. So I found myself with my experience of working in corporate television as a creative director Channel three of South Africa at my young age. And you play differently, because the play now it was very restricted. We couldn’t expand on what we wanted to do. It was always stuck in these specific regimen and I had no space to expand my creativity. I got what I wanted. I had a high paying job and doing very little and I was very bored. So I was like I got to do something else.

09:56

And at that same time I met an incredible man that would literally change my life and be my husband, and he was Belgian. And so I was like, well, you’ve been here in South Africa for 10 years, maybe we should go back in Belgium, maybe I’d like to try it out there and see if I can continue my expansion. And we left, obviously, and we came to Belgium, but it was not what I expected. It was not the land of milk and honey and free opportunities. It was almost totally the opposite and he didn’t warn me about that. But I didn’t listen. And he did warn me and I didn’t listen and I just came to another world where I was not part of the cookie cut of anything. I just I was completely the exterior alien on the side. And that’s how even my work and my experience was not recorded, because I got from feedback. It’s like people were intimidated.

10:52

I was so young and they’ve had to work 10, 15 years to get the same position that they have. So there were always in this contradiction way to hire me or not. So I was like, after 301, I’m joking About 56 different interviews, like literally 56 interviews I was like, let me just go and do something else and I really love film, but I can’t grow and expand the way that I want here. So my other passion is to learn how to manage money and how to be an entrepreneur. So I took on the opportunity to go to one of the best universities here in Europe and that’s where I just bloomed as an entrepreneur and launched my first project and he got awards and it just did extremely well. I was just completely in this different way of creating and creating it in a way that could actually also shared with other people, so that’s how I got to.

Anika Jackson 11:48

Belgium, fantastic, yeah. And then you started your independent career. You won awards, and when did you also decide to become a recording artist? Was this something you were doing in South Africa and that was doing? And so, yeah, not a lot of people can say they’re recording artists successfully.

Asanda Madikane 12:08

I love singing. I love singing more than anything else Like. If I could, like, quit my job or my business or whatever it is that I do in my lifetime, I would go and just think I love singing. I was a 100% choir girl. It was my home, it was my family, it was my everything. It was the fullest expression of myself and my joy, and I wanted to be a music artist.

12:33

But this was before the great opportunities of the internet. Right, we just record and make yourself an artist. You had to like, know someone, know someone who can give you a deal and la la. So it was another good old, complicated days. Yet I couldn’t have that as I didn’t have the opportunity to make that in a career.

12:51

So, once I’ve launched my e-commerce, when I was in Belgium my first son and everything but I realized that I was not aligned with my offer and my business I was creating. I was actually creating a business for everybody else to say wow, you made it in Belgium. You accept you. Yes, you’re amazing. Oh my gosh, I was doing it out of frustration that I came here with my gifts. Nobody accepted me and I’m going to prove you guys wrong. I did prove you, everybody wrong. I had the e-commerce, I had the wards, but it just felt so empty. It’s like what the hell am I doing? I’m just building this business because I’m looking for validation for everybody else and I think when you become a mom and you have your first child or whatever you carry a human being, you become a completely different person and you just have a completely different reflection about life, and I took on the responsibility to not continue to create a facade that was making me very unhappy but making my ego great.

Anika Jackson 13:56

So it just didn’t fit me.

Asanda Madikane 13:58

It didn’t fit my personality and I had an amazing person. I was like why are you running around trying to please everybody, trying to do the right thing? I’m just trying to prove, prove I can do it. But when you’re up to you give birth and you feel like a sticky mom, you don’t give a damn. After a while you’re like if you’re not free, you’re like I just want to do my thing. And that’s when the shift really happened.

14:20

And after my second child arrived, that’s when I was like no, this is not my legacy, that I want to leave. Yeah, I have to find out what it is that makes me happy. What do I stand for? What can I create that is selfishly, for the first time in my life, selfishly, just for me. And I was like well, we’re going to close my business, sell my assets and be a recording artist. I was sweating. I’m not going to lie to you. I was like stressed out of my mind. I made a decision it was stress with that to call my husband and tell him what I was about to do. And I had baby calm down, so I wanted to sit down. I wanted to just I don’t even want to talk to you. Basically, I called him and you know what he said to me. He says I have absolute faith in you because every time you do something you give 100% of yourself. So this time it’s for you.

15:10

And I was like I just boiled, I just bore crying and I just launched into creating all the music that was in my heart and performing. And I learned for the first time in my life that when you do something you’re really good at which was I’m really good at singing, I believe and when you’re absolutely passionate about it and you have a little bit of business skills, I’ve never created anything so seamlessly easy in my life. It just it goes flow. But every day was flow. Creating the music was flow, finding gigs and events to perform, it was just. It came to me. It’s like almost I opened the door of opportunity and it just like him swimming in.

15:52

I was like I don’t know what this is. I’ve never seen ease before. What is this easy thing? I always had to work hard and fight for it and climb mountains and for the first time there was like there’s no climbing, there just is. And that’s how I am still am a music artist, because it just gives me absolute joy, and when I’m performing on stage it feels like my heart is exploding. There’s just so much love that I’m giving and I don’t even want anything back. I’m just like I’m happy to be. Yet that’s it. It’s enough.

Anika Jackson 16:26

It was just enough and I love it, but how beautiful that when you finally did something for yourself, the world opened up and it flowed so easily. And also to give that gift to your family, because the same thing I think my daughter is my legacy and my job is to really. She is who she is and she’s always been. I really believe that kids are who they are, but it’s our job to help guide them and to also show them a good example, and by people pleasing, by doing things that were for other people, that was not showing them that they could achieve everything that they have inside themselves. So kudos to you for recognizing that, for having such a supportive partner so that you could give this gift to your family, but also the gift of your voice that you hadn’t been using to the world.

Asanda Madikane 17:16

It’s a game changer and I think that’s how I’ve taken that experience with flow, that I had music and I put it in my business now that I have now and it’s the two work well together. So it’s great to listen to this that, yes, you need hard work and you need to be determined, but it also has to make sense why you have to wake up the real morning. Yeah, it has to be. Yeah, that’s why I can say it.

Anika Jackson 17:41

And it’s a perfect segue into talking about your current business of Shift Pivot. I know you have some great case studies you’re going to share, and so you’re a consulting agency. A lot of people get confused about sales. What do we do for digital advertising? Does digital advertising even work anymore? You know there’s so many complexities and the rules are always changing.

18:01

And then you’re in Europe, so we know that there are certain the GDPR and the privacy restrictions, and then we have different ones in California versus the whole US versus, and China has their own. So it gets very complex and thinking about all these things. But so you’ve created a process in a system that really works to make sure that people are not having to deal with all of these what ifs and shiny bubbles and oh gosh, what do I do now? And the sky is falling and how much money do I have to spend and all those questions. So what was the pivot to your company? Taking your degree, taking the flow that you saw, the ease with your own career Once you moved to something you were really passionate about, how did you have the aha moment to build a system and what is your system?

Asanda Madikane 18:48

I didn’t want to start my business. It was not something I wanted to do. I really was enjoying the music and the creation of music. But then the pandemic era. So yay, pandemic. And the pandemic said now you have to shift. I’m like again. I was like why, having a good time, why was I changing it? Like no, now you’ve been called to do something else you have to call.

19:12

I was like I’m not coaching anybody. I don’t want to do. I’ve got a thousand million coaches out there. I’m not coaching because people are asking me can you help me with my website? Can you help me with this? I have to move my brick and mortar store online digitally and I can’t do. I don’t know what to do it, but you know how to do it.

19:30

So I had all these people asking me during my very quiet and relaxing time with my children and pandemic to like do coaching, and I was like I don’t want to do this. And everywhere I’d walk, I’d be walking and I’d hit my toe. I’d hit my toe like the smoothest surface in mankind. I’d hit my toe and hit my toe, and then to a point where one Sunday I was walking towards a cafe, hit my toe, broke my toe and I just like. I was like I just like, ok, OK, ok, I give up, I’ll do coaching. I had a deal with my guides and my ancestors that if I don’t listen, don’t let me go often, create something for like two years and then quit on it. Just tell me immediately or shout loud or give me a sign like what I need to do next so I don’t waste time.

Anika Jackson 20:19

Well, they were definitely giving you the signs.

Asanda Madikane 20:23

They broke my toe, I’m not going to the hospital, is COVID out there and he just like he just like pulled my toe back and I was like, all right, I’m out. I couldn’t coach and, yes, I resisted, but in that resistance did I understand how I wanted to create the business. I was building the business on how I wanted to work, the people that I wanted to work with and as I was creating this platform to helping other entrepreneurial women to bring their businesses online, create a great offer and send it out into the world. I was very also knowledgeable on the changes that you told about marketing and sales and this new app and that new shiny thing. Yes, they always something. It used to be six months, now it’s like every three months. There’s like something new and something shiny and I was able to adapt those things, but also be very true to what I wanted to do.

21:19

Like this is I don’t want to do everything. I don’t want to be a dancer on TikTok. What, what Right? You know what I mean. Yeah, like I know what works for me and my flow. Can I teach other entrepreneurs to create a business on their flow as well? And that’s how ship pivot really happens. Like, instead of you trying to create with everything what is?

21:42

it that you want to create with first and then build onto it, and that’s how the systemization began.

Anika Jackson 21:49

Wow, so tell us a little bit about that. So you build acquisition systems and teams which are ideal client.

Asanda Madikane 21:57

So I’m working with online service providers so any business that works online and coaches and consultants and we actually give them, we build, we give them a done for you built for you already system to bring in more leads, because that was the biggest pain point that my clients were having they just didn’t know how to convert their viewers, their followers, all their marketing efforts, they couldn’t convert those people into leads. So we actually built a system for them. So it’s a step by step. You just have to plug and play that actually brings in the leads for them and we actually train them as well of what the steps look like when you’re bringing in a new lead, how to nurture them, how to convert them and then, obviously, deliver your offer all in one platform.

22:43

And that made it easier for everybody to not be lost doing a thousand things, because focus was the most highest commodity that they were not using very well. Their focus was doing many things instead of focusing on one thing at a time in their business. That’s what the system, or the built for you system, does. And then what we also knew that was important was also the coaching. We had to coach them on the new skill of how do you bring in more leads? How do you speak to these? How do you do marketing? How do you sales and make it very connected to who they are and how they want to do it? And that’s how the system was created.

23:20

Also, what we best. As we built the system, we understood that businesses grow and they have different challenges, and so the next challenge was obviously hiring and getting good people into their company, and we were able to offer solutions for that as well, as well as having trainings for their teams and keep them motivated, because salespeople have a very specific mindset and you have to keep them motivated. So it was. I wanted to make sure that when you came into our business, you know, into our build and release infrastructure you were fully supported into your business skills to a million dollars and more.

Anika Jackson 23:54

And you have us. You study about a client. You got two million dollars in eight months time, my gosh. Can you hear a little bit about that client and when did they come to you? I don’t know if you can share more about their business, but I’d love to hear a little bit more about that.

Asanda Madikane 24:15

Yes, she’s one of many, and that’s what gives us so much confidence to. I say us, because it’s not me, only me, who works very hard in this company.

24:23

She’s just one of many others, from cyber security to fitness coaches, to life coaches and the reason I used her case study? Because she did spiritual coaching and not just any spiritual coaching. She was doing nine dimensional spiritual coaching. So it was a fantastic case study. To say it doesn’t matter how crazy your niche is or how out there it is. If you have the right system and you have the right focus at the right time in your business, you can also scale your business.

24:57

So she had this very important passion and purpose driven work and she just didn’t know how to convert all her attention meaning people that were following her on Facebook and Instagram and listening to her every day give it, because she was giving out a lot of information with her heart, but it was not really converting back into the full abundance of who she was. Wow, unless we started creating these beautiful containers to help the audience enter into her world and systemize that so that her company can be supported. That’s when the magic happens. So not only do we have a physical structure that helped her audience get to be part of her world, but they were also nurtured and looked after that process and those two aspects were so important in building the infrastructure. So that’s why we added strong team leaders who are in sales, that can actually talk to the clients and bring them into the sales process and nurture them into their chosen programs, and it just felt so holistic and it felt so specific to her and her needs.

26:05

Right, but the structure was there. So it was the same structure we use for everybody’s company, but I just loved how she really made it. Her experience Her clients came to a business so unique and that’s what made her business scale to one million. She was speaking the language to her clients and they heard her clearly and they knew how to get to her. And that’s what systems are there for. They’re just supposed to create a straight line to your goals, yeah.

Anika Jackson 26:32

When you work with clients, do you start with the end in mind. Do you start with I want to make a million dollars in my business, and then you work backwards, yeah.

Asanda Madikane 26:41

I always say I love that, that’s a great question. I always say what do you want? Because if you can’t tell me what you want, we can’t work together. Yeah, I can’t tell you what your goals are, I can’t tell you what you want, I can’t tell you what you have to tell me, and then I can show you how to attain your goal, and then we start the work.

Anika Jackson 27:02

Yeah.

Asanda Madikane 27:02

Because then the clarity of what the client wants becomes so clear for them. Then we can build the map to get there. It’s usually when they’re confused, and confusion leads to distraction and distraction leads to chaos. So once the entrepreneur really gets focused on what they want and how they’re attaining it, everything just magnetizes to that specific offer or that specific activity and things start to go around. I do believe that when the leader shows up in the company, the company works. Ooh, he needs to talk about that. Yeah, because if there’s no leader, if there’s no one leading the vision, there’s no one who has clear guidance of where that all of us are going.

27:47

All decisions are just spontaneous. Let’s just send a post and oh, no, send an email. Oh, today I’m feeling lucky. Let’s do a video. No, like, the universe loves order. It just loves order. It loves geometry, it loves connection, and once you are connected with yourself, you can lead the company and then the company can serve you.

Anika Jackson 28:13

That’s the ship that needs to happen. That is very profound, but you just said because I think that’s a lot of the problem it’s the entrepreneur’s dilemma we start these businesses Usually we’re alone. We don’t have the guidance, we don’t know which of the people out there telling us that they’re the one who can solve our problems is the right person. We might not have the budget, we might not have the funding stream set up yet, but we know we have something. But then we’re working and we’re serving the business. And then, when we start hiring employees, we’re serving the employees, the customers. It’s not that shift you just talked about, where the business is working for us. We’re not working for the business. That’s a huge mindset shift.

Asanda Madikane 28:54

It’s a huge mindset shift. It’s a scary one for some entrepreneurs, because they realize that they are responsible for everything that they create. It’s not the business as well, it’s actually you. You are holding the frequency and the energy of everything that’s going on in your business. And once they make that shift that the business is not there to solve their childhood trauma or make their popular, or make them rich or whatever all these things once they get over them, they realize oh, I’m just going to create the business to give me what I want.

29:31

Create a business that gives you what you want, because the end game is that you’re going to die anyway. So make the life good while you’re here. So get the business, help you Make the business, help you create a life well lived, and that’s what’s the purpose. And then the mindset comes. It’s almost like the stress lifts off your shoulder. Yeah, like you don’t have to prove something, right? Yeah, and I think you can have clarity on what needs to be done in the business instead of what I saw on Instagram yesterday. We need to do the same thing, right?

Anika Jackson 30:04

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, that’s so profound. So you work with people all over the world, all over the world.

Asanda Madikane 30:13

Yeah, anyway, and that’s so fantastic about it and they’re working with different time zones and different dialects and different accents, and incredible people who are really geared to changing their own lives. And that’s the kind of people that I want to work with. Like, what are you again coming to that alignment? Like what is it that you want and can our company help you get there Right? And they just give so much of themselves and help our clients, and it’s always growing and shifting. But, yeah, everyone’s international. I think even my clients, I think most of my clients are from the US, oh nice.

30:53

Most of them are from the US, even though I’m in Europe and I have some Europeans, but most of them are from the US, wow. But my team is from all over the world, yeah.

Anika Jackson 31:02

That’s one of the beauties, I think, that, even though we all came on more digitally faster because of COVID, it’s also one of the beauties of that experience together is that we can have these conversations we never would have met if we weren’t on the same platform, right, and we hadn’t been able to figure out how to make this happen, and now I know that we’re going to stay connected.

Asanda Madikane 35:35

Yeah, definitely.

Anika Jackson 31:22

Love that so much. And when it comes to what part of the business like, can somebody have just started their business or do they need to be a few years in and start having pain points before you work with them? And do you work with the smaller businesses, do they have to have a certain market size before you take them on?

Asanda Madikane 31:40

I think the best way to answer a question is our best clients are the ones that already have a business. So they started three months ago, two months ago, and they have done their best to search for a solution. And then they come to us for simplicity. And why I say that it’s not a beginner’s game? Because when it’s a really startup, they don’t really know yet what they want to create. And it’s very difficult to create a business when you still kind of find out what exactly it is that you want, because your mind is going to change and your mood is going to change and then the decisions change. So that’s what we found out was like super, I just got out of quit my job and I want to do this. It’s very difficult because the offer so important, the clarity of the offer and the value of the offer has to match with the marketplace. So you may come and I want to do crochet, but crochet to whom, how and who wants this thing? And is it some of the people? One? And sometimes you have to tell them no, nobody wants that and there’s not enough people in the market for you to give that.

32:54

So we really help our clients Create a great offer first that is aligned with the market and at a high value, because once you start Lower valuing your, your offer, so does the market. So we’ll have to change their mindset about their offer, restructured so that it’s actually profitable in the long term, so that they can grow a team and they can scale their businesses. So we’re always thinking long term for our clients and not just like I need to sell Something now to make money. No, it’s long-term perspective of how this often needs to Serve the market now and in the future and how you can also adjust that. So we always start with the offer and we help them create. We’ll re look at their offer to make it profitable to the market.

33:39

Especially, the market comes extremely saturated and everyone’s doing the same thing, which is great. I think it’s a great thing that markets are saturated means there’s business. So that just means that you just have to be able to structure your offer that actually solves a Solution for the marketplace and then show up at the right place, right. So that’s how I don’t really think this Competition the competition is very important. This is how you’re going to create your offer to fit the marketplace. That’s one the first thing we do. So we do work with people who already have a business. They’ve tried and they can see there’s something not working. That’s when they come to us because they’re very clear that some things are working and we become the solution to that.

Anika Jackson 34:23

Fantastic. Wow, I’m really excited about this conversation. This is one of those conversations I say probably every maybe ten episodes of interviews.

34:33

This conversation comes at the exact right time for me, where I’m making shifts in my mindset and everything that you’re saying resonates with me so deeply about working and persevering and shifting your mindset and stopping Thinking about what everybody else would be happy with right and trying to people please and really owning your own power and living in your own power and then sharing that with others. So I’m just, you know, so thrilled, Asanda, that you are here today. I’d love to see is there one thing for people who are just starting out their businesses might not be ready to implement your system, because we will have links to your materials in the show notes and I do want you to share your link as well, verbally. But you know, is there one thing that you can say, one or two that you can say to somebody who is just starting their journey? They might know what their offer is, but they might not be ready. They haven’t felt the pain points yet.

Asanda Madikane 35:27

To new entrepreneurs, I first want to say welcome. It is just a game.

35:35

We take it so seriously. It’s just a game and and you need to know what the rules of the game so you can break the rules and do whatever you want. And the fastest way to Break the rules and do whatever you want is just to work with someone who has really played the game failed multiple times and then one, but then you don’t have to do it. Just don’t stop her. Don’t just don’t stop her. So just know how to play the game and just have fun doing it. And if you are creating something, create something that you’re willing to work hard for, have sleepless nights over. This is not a job from the office. You can only rely on yourself, and I want you to go out there and create something and For it to fail, so that you could learn about who you are right, but what kind of person you want to be and where you want to spend your energy Creating.

36:32

I have worked with people who just came out of, who wanted to be entrepreneurs, but their mind was still how do I say this gently? Like in this victim good. Like somebody needs to look after me. I need a raise, I need days off, I need someone to come and rescue you. There’s no one coming to rescue you. When you’re an entrepreneur, you learn how to rescue yourself, and when you come into the game with that mentality that you’re here to learn and implement and do what’s necessary, then you are more than welcome to come and contact me and join any other Coaching programs that you want to join, or consultation things, wherever you may choose, is that you just come ready to play the game and you’ll find your selfic success, whether it’s your own personal growth or the growth of your company, though what happens simultaneously. So all new entrepreneurs, welcome to the game. It’ll just a game, david, easy. It’s not about you. It’s about what you want to give to the world.

Anika Jackson 37:36

And what about for people who happen in the game for a little while and they want to know More about your services, how they can work with you? Do you have mastermind classes that you hold as well, or group sessions, or is it more one-on-one work with clients?

Asanda Madikane 37:50

And my team has kind of grown. So we’ve really focusing on one offer and we’re offering to solve their lead generation Problems in their business. Yeah, so this is building an infrastructure for you to bring in new leads, to convert those leads and nurture those leads and then actually get them on board into your programs and your services. So we we give that all to you so that you don’t have to do that because it’s already done. You know you can focus on high-level activities, which is delivering your offer to your clients and nurturing your team and growing and scaling your business to impact more lives.

38:29

I think it’s very important that if you want to change the world, the only way you can do that is to have a platform or a Support to do that, to hold that space to welcome people into your world. So that’s what the platform does. It’s a but for you you system, so that you don’t have to try to figure out technology. It’s done and all you have to do is learn the skill of speaking to clients, navigating your mindset to being a leader and really building the company that you want to be aligned to. So this is for anybody who already has a business and they’re tired of figuring it out by themselves, and also they’re just tired of joining groups of trainings and then you left your own demises. I’ve seen that you’re like. You’re on your own, like, and there’s nobody to help you.

39:20

This is definitely for you, because we have a team for sales.

39:24

We have a team for building your infrastructure and working on and designing your, your offers so that they become strong in the market, and helping you build your business as you grow, so that you’ll never feel like you need to go buy another course or another program just to solve a problem, or the problems and the solutions of your business growth are within the system. So I’m looking forward to constantly let people know that they’re not alone in the creation of their businesses and that they can play this game in 2024. Yeah, it’s not too late. It’s not too late to change your business. It’s not too late to shift your business. It’s not even late to pivot your business to a different direction, especially with AI and technology and that we’re using in our company. We use AI to really get you started where you need to be, so you don’t have to take six months to get to your goals and missions. Our clients are hitting their goals within four to six weeks, because everything is there for them to be successful. That’s amazing.

Anika Jackson 40:27

Yeah, Ah well. I’m definitely very inspired by this conversation. So, Asanda, I very much appreciate your time. I always end with asking for a favorite quote, mantra, family motto, where it’s a wisdom.

Asanda Madikane 40:43

My current great quote is life is difficult because you try to be normal when you’re an extraordinary human being.

Anika Jackson 40:54

And I forgot to ask, although I will have, obviously, your website in the show notes. The best place to go is shift pivotcom.

Asanda Madikane 41:02

Yes, you can go into wwwshiftshit Pivot one word P-I-V-O-T dot com and you’ll be able to have access to some of that information and our case study on our client who made one million in eight months and the fun that she had, is even a long testimonial video for you to watch of her experience.

41:31

And it was just so much fun because it was just so unexpected and we’re just so happy for her, and so that’s also available for you, and in that specific video that will be on the show notes, I walk you exactly exactly what we do in our company. So please go in there, steal it, use it, copy it. I want you to go in there and steal the formula that they’re not even a formula. I want to build the step by step, exactly how we building our infrastructures for our clients, that you can be also successful. This is my goal. You’ve heard my story. I want everybody to have the knowledge and the support that they need to be successful, since my parents didn’t have it. So this is why I’ve built an infrastructure to make it easy for you to find success and have the support to do so. So that’s my gift for today is that go and steal, take, absorb, implement what you learn in that video, and if you need any help, we’re here to help you to execute it as well.

Anika Jackson 42:30

Awesome, thank you so much, thank you, and thank you to all of our listeners and viewers for coming back to another episode of your brand amplified, and learning some great information and having a lot of inspiration today from Asanda, madhikana and Shiftpivot. I will back again in a few days with another expert to share their best tips, tricks and information and inspiration for you. Want more? Check out amplifywithanika.com or follow me on socials at @amplifywithanika.

Mastering Personal Branding and Social Media: A Roadmap from Influencer to Authority with AJ Kumar

Posted on January 30, 2024February 18, 2026 by ariel

Episode Transcript

Anika Jackson 00:01

Welcome to your Brand Amplified, the podcast where we interview marketers, publicists and brands to learn their stories, what makes them tick and tips and tricks that make a difference. This is Anika Jackson, and I am so thrilled today to have AJ Kumar on the show. The Digital Maestro by the Limitless Company, who has helped transform so many influencers from influencer ambassador to guru. I’m really excited to dive into this conversation and I know you’ve already kind of teased before we jumped on, but there’s a lot. You’re seeing a lot of activity and movement in the world of what does it mean to be an influencer? How do you get to being a guru? What’s going on in the world of digital today? So thank you so much for being here with us.

AJ Kumar 00:46

Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here.

Anika Jackson 00:48

Yeah, well, I know you’ve been in digital for over 15 years. I’d love to hear how you got into that as a career choice, because that was still kind of the earlier days of the internet.

AJ Kumar 01:01

Oh yeah, for sure it was yeah, I grew up a little bit of a nerd or a geek or whatever you want to call it, and I used to build these little computers. My dad kind of got me into computers because he was in it. I used to build little PCs when I was younger and high school and stuff. Then eventually, as the internet came about, I had people that I was working with that were wanting to get on it and then my curiosity led me to learn more about it. Then, in 2009, I met up with a friend, a guy named Neil Patel, and he’s a big guru’s guru in the digital marketing space. He was a mentor to me, taught me some of the, showed me the ropes, introduced me to his cousin, sujan Patel, and then we started a company called Single Grain, which was a digital marketing agency, mostly for corporate brands.

01:45

Really, I did that for a little bit for a couple years and then, almost right after I got into working with personal brands, I gravitated toward personal brands just because maybe it was my background, because I grew up in an environment where we looked up to gurus like spiritual gurus, and I always just worked with people that were they’re speakers on stage, they’re motivating people in the real world and then naturally, I guess that translated into the online world. From there, I just started working with different kinds of personal brands. Then, in 2020, I switched up my business model and turned my company, the Limitless Company, into an agency. Now I get to work with all sorts of people, from doctors, holistic doctors, to commercial real estate experts, and help them grow on social media.

Anika Jackson 02:34

Fantastic. I love your backstory and I love the fact that you’re weaving in the spiritual guru and that part of your background into taking it from in-person into online. What I’m also hearing you say is that anybody can achieve a guru status, potentially because you named a few different industries. I’d love to learn more about that and the transition into personal branding. Now, I am a big proponent of personal and professional branding. I’m in or out of the workplace. I think it’s something that it’s what you own. How did you decide how to work with people and how did you figure out the formula? I know this is something everybody beats their heads against like are the algorithms changing? How do we get recognition via social? What are the right channels to choose? How do we make sure that our voices are being heard amongst everything else that’s going on digitally?

AJ Kumar 03:27

Yeah, I don’t know, that’s a million dollar question, right, but essentially I’ll say it like this First off, there is just a path that people take because anyone could become a guru, right, and essentially what a guru is is they’re a popular thought leader. That’s what this conversation is about how do you become a thought leader? And how do you become a thought leader and build your personal brand? Because when you’re a thought leader and you have a brand and you’re really popular, you have all these different opportunities that come to you and that’s what people want. You grow up and you watch these leaders and these experts. In my case, it was like Oprah Ellen, martha Stewart, dr Oz. They’re controversial figures now, or whatever their reasons are, but just like the concept and the dynamics.

04:10

In 2012, I started working with a woman named Kimberly Snyder, who was a plant-based nutritionist, and that’s originally when this whole concept really came about. Because in my world, I come from this background of being a practitioner of neuro-linguistic programming and one of the philosophies of NLP is modeling, where you’re modeling successful people and, based off of modeling successful people, you reverse, engineer that and then you could essentially create a similar result. And back in that time, this was when I was in my early 20s, just got it. I’ve been doing really well in the online marketing space, working with really cool companies, corporations, and then I was able to apply that with a person. So Kimberly had a blog, she had 30,000 visitors coming to her website. She talked about plant-based nutrition and after I partnered up with her, we joint ventured and we started a company called Beauty Detox and then from there, I started working with her to enhance the way she was presenting and positioning herself online. So it wasn’t just a plant-based nutritionist. We started blending in other areas of interest, like spirituality, like yoga and just speaking, and then creating content really strategically, where I would look to see what’s happening in other parts of the world whether it was India, whether it was Europe then realizing like, oh, a lot of what’s happening in the US is modeling what’s happening in Europe, or whatever. It is right.

05:36

Using those ideas allowed us to create content and we took her blog at that time from 30,000 visitors a month to like 500,000 visitors a month, and that’s when my mind really just started to open up, because, again, I was doing this for companies and then the thought of doing it with people was kind of a new concept. So, as this started to happen and it feels like flying when you have hundreds of thousands of people coming to your website every single day, right, and we would capture these people, we would capture their email addresses, we would market to them through emails, we would send them to an e-commerce store, we would sell her books, we would sell digital products. Her company became a multi-billion dollar company and basically, like, as that was happening, I was looking to model Oprah, ellen, martha Stewart, what is it that they’re doing? Like I didn’t understand it, but there seems to be some kind of hierarchy in the United States.

06:28

I grew up in the United States as well and at the same time, I also have I’m Indian and I have this background of India and like I know of, like the caste system or whatever. Right, and I realized in America they have a corporate caste system or whatever, and essentially I called it something. I called it the five levels of thought leadership and, like I said, there’s five different levels. On the first level is this generalist and the generalist. Let me tell you the levels first and then I’ll explain it. There’s the generalist, there’s the specialist, there’s the authority, there’s the guru and then there’s the guru’s guru. The guru’s guru is the Oprah, the yellow and the marsuit, the Dr Oz, and essentially, the higher up you go, the more successful you are, the more magnetic you are to all these opportunities and all this, all the abundance that’s available to us, right, when you become really really good in your field. The people at the top are also really good at content creation. They’re essentially really good at demonstrating their value through content, right, because that’s how we see Oprah, that’s how we see Ellen, we see them on TV shows, we see them on television, right, whereas, fast forward to today, we have smartphones.

07:37

And one statistic that really blows me away and this is something I’m going to share with the students in the next couple of weeks is that the average person spends 2.5 hours on social media every day 2.5 hours. So think about growing up where you might have heard statistics like people spend four hours watching television, five hours watching television, et cetera, right, and over the past decade or so, I was able to witness that shift where more people were watching and consuming content from mobile devices, where less people were watching and consuming content from television devices, and I noticed that trend was happening. So that’s why, with any client or person I was speaking with. I was like, hey, got to get on mobile and one of the best ways was social media, but it wasn’t really social media until TikTok happened, right. And TikTok happened and basically introduced this new way for us to consume content that people have never really even understood, other than, like you could say, gen Z, who was familiar with platforms like Vine I don’t know if you’re familiar with Vine, right, where these six second videos super fast. People loved it and Vine evolved and all the people that were on Vine eventually moved over to YouTube and eventually moved on to TikTok, right. And that’s where that energy that was on Vine which I found out it’s called the frenetic energy right, as angsty teenagers, there’s all this frenetic energy that they have and traditionally, when social media and smartphones weren’t in so much in everybody’s hands, that frenetic energy would be dispersed through activities that we would do like sports or just going outside and running and biking and blah, blah, blah, right. But now, as a smartphone is there, the energy has to go to something and people have started transmitting that through content. So that’s why, when you looked at some of the Vine videos, it felt very unhinged and it felt really weird for anybody other than like a Gen Z right. Over time that style kind of changed and evolved and got modified to longer form content and it’s a lot of the stuff that we see on TikTok and things like that today. But yeah, so that’s the path essentially that I work with people on is that path to thought leadership.

09:56

You start off as a generalist, where you get to kind of experience and figure out what are the things that you’re interested in. Once you find that, you go deep into that and you become a specialist, you try to master that craft, that area, and then, as you do that, once you’re ready to take that to the next level and you get really good, you become an authority. That’s when you start creating more original content, right, whether it’s podcasts, blogs, videos, books, right. You essentially start to create content in a way that starts to shape or influence your industry a bit. But the problem that most authorities have is that they don’t know or people don’t know about them. So that becomes the next level.

10:37

Is the difference between an authority and a guru is someone that is now more focused on charisma. They’re more focused on their camera presence. They’re more focused on using their interests and their passions, to communicate their expertise more effectively. It could be through signature frameworks, right Like there’s a framework I call ROHOC, which is called Return on Attention Created, which is a framework that I’ve created right as I’m on my journey to doing that, and things like that along the way help you get to that status. And now the beauty of social media is that it allows you to do what historically took 10, 20, 30 years for people to do in a fraction of that time.

Anika Jackson 11:18

Yeah, there’s so many things that you’ve mentioned that I want to flag. One is I think a lot of times when people are trying to pay content, they are looking at peers, maybe people in the United States not looking to your point at other countries that are creating the trends that we then follow. So I’m flagging that. You said look at the trends that are going on around the world.

AJ Kumar 11:39

Don’t just say US centric, look at Europe, look at Asia, Look at Africa right, Look all over and see what people are doing, See what’s trending in your industry, because that’s a way that you can differentiate yourself as well 100%, and it’s especially in things like and the easy way to look at it is like I don’t know if you’re into clean eating, but a lot like clean eating is becoming a much bigger trend now, like people are thinking more about what they’re putting into their bodies and I work with a lot of doctors and functional medicine, so I get to hear this firsthand which is there’s not many rules here when it comes to the food that people consume, like there are some, but then when you go to other countries, they’re like yeah, we wouldn’t touch that with a 10 foot pole, yet alone put that into our kid’s cereal or whatever. It is right To what you’re just saying. Yeah, when you look to other countries, you get a different perspective, and that’s what people want On social media. They want different, unique perspectives.

Anika Jackson 12:36

Yeah, and then you also mentioned that you made the videos better. You fine tuned them. Does that mean, though because I think that’s a barrier for people when it comes to thinking about posting a lot on social media, and that’s where a lot of people get hung up, including myself it’s not about the time, right, we all have to make the time to do it. If we want to set the intentions, you have to make the time, but then people worry like, oh, like I have a cold today. Should I have canceled our interview because my voice is a little froggy? But same thing for social Like. If somebody’s doing a video, they feel like they have to be perfect and portray the certain image. So what do you have to say about that? Is it better just to be authentic and just create the content and just get things out there? Do you have to craft it so that, if you’re a woman, your hair and your makeup is perfect so that people look to you and take you more seriously?

AJ Kumar 13:23

That’s funny. Yeah, that really is the challenge that a lot of people face, especially like you know. You want to get dolled up and look good on camera, and then it’s a lot of work and then something messes up and then technology gets in the way. You’re frustrated and you’re like, ah, and then it just ruins and makes the experience the way it is. However, unfortunately unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it it is that you got to look at brand building like an iterative process.

13:49

So I always compare it to software, just because everyone can relate to you know, whether it’s Apple, whether it’s Windows, you know there’s version 1.00123. And then version 1.00124,. Right, like, they keep iterating their versions over time and over time we stop even noticing like there’s bugs, there’s fixes, etc. That’s kind of how you content creation is. You got to iterate. You got to start with the video, you got to post it and you got to be consistent with it. And I hate that answer because it sounds it’s like, oh gosh, you think you know, but it really is, if you could continue to create it. And it’s not just consistently posting without doing anything about it, it’s posting and learning from it.

14:33

Right, like MrBeast, who’s one of the biggest YouTubers of all of all time that has this thing where he says create 100 videos and then to come to me why you’re not getting views right. Because a lot of what happens in the beginning and this was true for me, this is true for a lot of people like you have these great ideas, you have these great concepts, you want to share them, but you want them to be perfect and you know you create it and then you post it and it’s not getting views right and it’s kind of sad and a little discouraging and that becomes part of the hurdle that, as a content creator, I also like to compare it to like being an athlete. I really think it’s an audience centric sport and you know we may not be in a stadium and you know competing in front of thousands of thousands of people per se, but we’re essentially doing that on this virtual stage. Got it, you got to do it, post it, get over it and it becomes that you got to suck until you become good.

Anika Jackson 15:31

It’s funny because in the world of PR, I tell clients the same thing in a different way a little bit, but we need to do the small interviews right. You have to. As it like if you’re a child, usually you learn how to crawl before you learn how to walk, before you learn how to run. And so if we take that and think about that structure, you’re going to start with baby steps and you’re going to start, you know, maybe on your knees and your hands, and then you’re going to take baby steps and then you’re going to be once you have the experience and you feel comfortable and confident, then you build up.

AJ Kumar 15:57

Yeah, yeah, exactly, it is that.

Anika Jackson 16:00

So would you say that 100 is kind of a sweet spot.

AJ Kumar 16:03

Number of videos I think 100 is a nice round number. To be honest, I think the like, the underlying lesson of that is you want to create anyone a post because the reality is it’s not done after 100. Like this becomes an activity you do for ever, essentially Like there’s not really a stopping to this. Like my buddy, neil Patel, also a client of mine, he’s been creating content since I’ve known him, like 2008, 2009, that you know he’s been blogging and he’s been doing that consistently, nonstop, every week, several times a week, whatever it was. He’s still doing it. Now we help him create video content where we post it daily, nonstop.

16:43

Here’s the guy that’s massively successful, that’s built this ultra successful business called NP Digital. It’s an ad agency, one of the top ones in the world, and it’s like even he’s doing it. So it kind of tells you that we don’t really stop the content creation. The purpose of doing it, even to get to 100, is to get better at it. So that’s all I was saying. Every time you post, you got to try to learn some one thing from it, right, like, oh, I should be more emphatic when I speak, or maybe I shouldn’t wave my hands like that thing in front of a car wash, trying to get your attention or whatever. It is right. So you got to learn something from it and then apply that thing that you’re learning. That’s how you could actually grow and make a difference from that investment in content creation.

Anika Jackson 17:24

Thank you for that. Do you ever have people come to you because obviously Neil Patel already had a brand he knew you know what he wanted to talk about. You’ve worked for the Kee Haskell strong brand. He really sniter, non-toxic dad Like do you ever have people come to you and say I want to do this, but I have like these three or four or five areas that I’m really interested in and can talk about and you have to help them hone in on what their specialty is going to be?

AJ Kumar 17:48

Yeah, I mean I could have cost that a lot more now than before, because we did turn into an agency in the last three years, whereas before I was primarily working with like a very specific type of clientele, and I do come across that and essentially we create a strategy. It’s not like it’s a much longer answer, but what it comes down to is it’s creating a strategy and figuring out the different topics that you like talking about and then looking for what’s referred to in marketing as like the red thread, which is you’re looking for consistencies and all these different topics. You’re looking for how they all connect to one another. So that helps you ground everything into like a central, like niche, but then it allows you to talk about different things that you’re interested in.

18:31

Because one of the mistakes a lot of people do make as they progress up the five levels of thought leadership is that you do need to niche down when you become an authority, you do need to really specialize and hone in on your skills.

18:44

But then the people that become gurus, the people that become famous for their expertise, famous for their thought leadership, tend to have cross disciplines, like they end up taking their authority on one topic like plant-based nutrition, and then now, all of a sudden, they become an authority in yoga or like a fitness topic. So there’s this conversation. I see a lot in social media land right now as well, where it’s like you are the niche, and that’s essentially what we’re talking about is find the things that you’re interested in, figure out what that red thread is like, what the commonalities of all those topics are, and then hit those areas of interest. Because that’s when you’re talking about areas of interest, that’s where you could speak in a way where it’s real and it’s coming from genuine enthusiasm. Now you’re trying to like, fake it to you, make it kind of thing.

Anika Jackson 19:34

Right, right, yeah, and it’s funny because I know you and I have had other conversations, not even just about the podcast, but about brand and branding, and it’s one of the things I’ll have talked to you about. But everything that you’re saying, I’m thinking about my own journey and my brand, how it’s shifted or how what I focused on, and I feel like I’m at that point where I’ve found that thread and this is the time when I’m like ready to take it to the end. But it’s funny because sometimes the thread or the niche that people want you to talk about, or what they’re seeing you as the expert in, isn’t necessarily the thing that you thought it was going to be. And I love that and I think it’s a really you know, it’s really exciting.

Anika Jackson 20:09

And I also would love to hear because we know there’s so much going on with digital and we know for digital advertising, cookies going away, email lists, surability has gone down, algorithms are all changing that short form video content. Now we have YouTube shorts, we have platforms like laps, which I guess could kind of be like Vine, but just for photos instead of videos. We have all these new platforms coming out all the time. So how do you help clients decide what platforms are most important to be on. You know what trends to follow or not follow, and how to continue being consistent, staying in your lane and flourishing.

AJ Kumar 20:47

Yeah, I love that Good question. So the platform I have clients really think about is their brand. The brand is the platform, because the reality is you don’t own any of these social platforms. It’s all rented space. However, the thing that you could own conceptually is mind share in audiences, so that, as you do develop that mind share in the minds of audiences, that becomes what can translate to other platforms, right, you get a guy like Mr Beast, who’s very successful on YouTube. It’s very easy for him to become successful on TikTok because the audience could easily transition over. So, when it comes to that platform, you build the brand. And then you also have things like email lists. You have a website because you own those assets, right.

21:36

And then you take social media for what it is, which is, like you know, I hear people complain about the algorithm or like this or whatever, but the reality is these are free communication tools. That’s what they are. They’re communication tools. A difference is you could communicate, you know, to mass people at one time and there’s a lot of interactivity and back and forth, and you use it for what it is and it’s fairly free.

21:57

And if you could also use their advertising tools but today, now more than ever you could be discovered organically because of the value you could bring right, whatever it is. You know you can get people to learn something, get people to laugh. I always say, like even making people laugh that is a form of value, because you know people are stressed out, they’re mad, they’re sad, they’re depressed, whatever. So when you’re bringing that value or bringing that joy, even if it’s through a phone, it’s kind of nice, it’s kind of what that’s. What I live for is doing it, you know, with the handful of people which allows me to. You know we reach tens of millions of people every month and just getting tens of millions of people every month to like, laugh and learn, and I feel like that’s exciting to me.

Anika Jackson 22:42

Yeah, it’s really exciting. Now, not everybody is going to be able to work with you, obviously, and I’ve even seen videos of like Gary Vee and his team and how many people he has on his team and it’s so big, and I think that also people might stack that up as a barrier to entry. Oh, I don’t have the budget, I don’t have the team to be able to create the content that I need to create. So if you boil it down for somebody who’s just starting out, who doesn’t have the finances to hire your agency or to build out a big team, what are some easy steps that they can do just to get it started?

AJ Kumar 23:16

I mean, the easiest step is using AI, which makes things significantly like it does a lot of the heavy lifting. No, it’s not perfect and you do need human intervention to do AI, but the truth is AI is available and it’s fairly affordable, right Like you’re paying $20 a month for an AI that could do a lot. They could do photos, they could do text Because the people that I work with are people that are experts, they’re busy in their field of expertise, and then content creation just it’s literally a full-time job. And that’s why nowadays you have people that are full-time content creators that are kind of struggling because they’re not necessarily experts in something, and then you have experts that want content creation but they don’t have the time for it. So we fill in the gap for experts that want content creation but they don’t have the time for it, right.

24:06

When it comes to content creators, one thing is you got to be really good at something, and that’s what social media is. It’s you’re demonstrating your value and get really good at being able to demonstrate that value and then use tools like chat, gpt or Claude or Bard. Chat GPT just launched their GPT store. That basically just means that it’s easier for you to get AI to give you the kind of output that you need. So, for example, a lot of people were having issues with AI giving content that sounds like a human versus sounds a little robotic or whatever, right. Well, now there’s ways to create prompts that help you get better responses, but now there’s also apps that are in their GPT store that help you do those kinds of things. So these kinds of tools are available to anyone you know. Then you have your phone Virtually everybody has a phone, everybody on the camera, and they could start doing it.

25:00

They could start filming themselves using the tools to help with that workflow, and then they could create content by doing it in batches, which is what we do with clients. Right, we work with clients and we film like 10, 15 videos within a two, three hour window. So then just put that in your schedule Nice, prepare for it and then you do it. Then the trick is to continue to do it, even when you flop and don’t have a phone. Don’t get views, but that’s the game.

Anika Jackson 25:26

Right, right, and I will give a quick plug here as well for Simplifiedcom, who also happens to be the show sponsor, but is a great platform for content creation AI. I’ve been tested it out. I love the company. I’ve used them before they became my sponsor. I’ll just throw that out there, but I’m able to upload a video episode of my podcast and their AI tool will create 10 short snippets for social media and include a virality score, add in the text boxes and all of that stuff.

25:56

So you’re right, there are a lot of tools we can use, and I was going to ask you the best use cases for AI, but I think you shared that. It’s really. It’s not writing your whole script out. You might have ideas and concepts, so you need to put them into AI just to refine them. I mean, that’s the way we use it for PR and marketing is we’ll do a band sentiment analysis and then we’ll say, okay, we need to come up with taglines for this campaign for a client. Here’s one that we’re thinking of, come up with 10 others that have to do with XYZ, and it’s been a game changer to just streamline the process, make it more quick and also come up with really nice language that we would not necessarily thought of off the top of our heads.

AJ Kumar 26:35

Yeah, I’ve noted, I saw, all of a sudden, everybody has a really high vocabulary. That’s kind of funny to see that. And then just one thing to add to that right, it’s true, it does make it easy, which you got to also think about, in the sense that that makes it easy for everybody. So now you have to start thinking more so about that differentiating factor, right? So this kind of to what I was saying about being an expert or being really good at something, what’s going to make you stay and out and make your expertise, your value, different is actual experience. Right, it’s experience and doing it. That’s the difference. I see a lot of people talking about marketing and they’re just really regurgitating everything else Everybody else is saying, but it’s the people that do it that actually apply it, learn from it and teach from that. Those are the people that become guru status, that are in integrity with what they’re saying and doing and thinking.

Anika Jackson 27:35

Yeah, and I do want to talk about measuring ROI, because we know it’s not all for the likes and the clicks. There has to be a bigger purpose. And that reminded me of what you’re talking about NLP and just thinking with the end in mind. So thinking what your end goal is and then mapping back to where you are now. But when you’re working with clients, what do you usually talk about for ROI? Because I know this is something that in the world of marketing organic marketing and PR sometimes clients don’t. They have certain expectations of. It’s going to lead to this many direct sales and you have to level set. Sometimes it’s not about that. It’s about the awareness building.

AJ Kumar 28:14

Yeah, exactly, that’s really the biggest challenge in social media right now. That was that ebook I was talking about. I basically created the ebook called the Thought Leadership Guide to Social Media ROI in 2024. So I’m specifically trying to nail this problem that a lot of people have so essentially from this. Over the years, as I’ve worked with a lot of different clients, they had different kinds of results. Sometimes the results were easy to say that there’s a direct ROI where you made $100,000 in a day from all these efforts. But the thing that’s common when it comes to organic brand building is that it’s a delayed response. It doesn’t happen like direct response advertising where it’s right away. It happens over time.

28:59

Now, another thing to add to that I just saw Mr Wonderful from Shark Tank talk about this recently, where he was talking about why he loves social media. He talks about how social media helps improve his ROAS, his return on ad spend and his CAC customer acquisition cost. So those are some ways you could easily tie your social media efforts to is that if you are spending money on advertising as you build your brand organically, it’s going to improve your ROAS, your return on ad spend. So that way, your ad spend is a lot more effective, especially as we enter into this cookie-less world where everyone’s ad spend is probably not going to be as great as it used to be. So the only way to really counteract that is by having an organic presence, because the reality is, people aren’t a different mindset when they’re watching an ad versus when they’re watching something organically. When they’re watching an ad, they tend to be more guarded, more skeptic, and they’re more evaluative of what they’re looking at, because they know that the person they’re looking at wants their money, whereas organically they’re more open, they’re more receptive, and that’s where the whole concept of planting seeds comes into play, and that’s why you need to allow the seeds to grow and you need time to build that relationship. So, when it comes to that conversation, these people need to look at it from a different lens, where they’re not just looking at it the way they look at advertising on social media, where you spend this, you get that, but they got to look at it from a longer time frame. That’s why we call it return on attention created, because it gives meaning to something that seems arbitrary. Social media metric, a share, a like, a save what are these?

30:48

Well, in today’s world, this is part of attention economics, the study of how attention has become a commodity and how, just like oil, just like gold I use oil as an example you could use oil to put it into a lawnmower or machine and cut grass. Or you could refine oil to become to fuel the rocket ship to go into outer space right. Same thing with attention. Attention could be refined differently and that’s why it’s a much bigger conversation. It’s a lot more sophisticated conversation. And hey, are you looking to become a bestselling author two years from now? I work with sometimes that are New York Times bestselling authors and they already get big, brand big. What is it called when they get upfront fees?

31:30

right, when they’re to write a book right If they’re getting $100,000 or $500,000,. Well, it’s like if you continue doing social media and you build up an audience, one year from now to years from now, your book advance could be $1 million, $2 million. That stuff happens all the time is you got to look at it from that longer perspective. So that’s why, as you create content, you’re looking at the return on attention created, which is going to be both quantitative, where you’re seeing these metrics, and it’s going to be qualitative, where you’ll literally experience your people and your reality changed the way they look at you. They changed the way they perceive you. And you come from the PR world. So you get this first tan, because that’s what traditionally publicists do they change the way people perceive their clients on a mass level, and that’s kind of like how digital marketing is, like a mix of all of these things and content creation allows you to do that.

32:25

And I see this first tan with a lot of the clients because they’re part of like influential circles, right, like Nikki Haskell, for example.

32:32

She’s part of some really elite circles and for the longest time she kind of faded away because she used to be popular in the 70s but then she kind of faded away into just how it is for most people, but by making her more popular on social and I’m talking. She gets 10 million views a month and it usually ranges from like seven to 10 million views on average. That’s how it’s been like for the last six or seven months and this was resulted in TV deals and it’s also resulted in people influential people around her looking at her differently and people that didn’t care for her before are now all of a sudden interested in talking with her and taking her out to dinner and wanting her to be in this and wanting her to do that, and that’s how this comes about. So it’s not an easy one word answer Like oh, yeah, it’s like a you know a 2x ROAS, or you know a one to one.

33:20

Whatever it’s about creating value what kind of value is important to the person? And then, by knowing that, reverse engineering, how you could get to that value.

Anika Jackson 33:30

Nice, and, to that point, a couple of small examples, because last night was our first night of teaching for the semester for the digital media management program at USC. We’ll shout out to the Trojans, but one of my students is a sneaker head and he sells sneakers online and asks his business, and now he only uses video and reels. He doesn’t do any static posts because that has kept the algorithms moving for him and helped him get more sales. Another student works at TikTok, and we were talking last night about how the organic, influencer based recommendations go a lot further than when people see ads on that platform, and so everything that you’re saying is you know, obviously you’re the experts, but I love that these students also have these little mini examples that they can share that are talking to exactly to your point. And I did want to ask, though you know algorithms what’s going on with algorithms right now? How are they changing, how do they work and what are some of the trends that you’re seeing for 2024 and beyond?

AJ Kumar 34:32

Okay, cool.

Anika Jackson 34:33

How do I answer that question? What are algorithms? Five questions, yeah.

AJ Kumar 34:38

In its most simplest sense, algorithms are designed to spy the user, and they also have. They have mechanisms in place that allow users to experience serendipitous moments. So if you could help to create these serendipitous moments, it helps the algorithms like win in the sense, because that’s their purpose. Their purpose is to make sure the user is satisfied. That’s what we want to accomplish. That’s why, like when you hear about this concept of watch time, because they want you to be on their platform the longest and if you could deliver on that.

35:10

Then they’ll show your content to more people because they know the content works and algorithms have gotten so sophisticated. One thing I love, and I love talking about this concept, which was before. It was very much about a social graph. It was very much about that six degrees from Kevin Bacon and we had this novelty of oh, you’re connected to this person, you’re connected to this person, but we typically didn’t see content from all these other various people because people weren’t creating content at the scale that people are creating it today, whereas today, short form vertical video and algorithms are interest based, and that’s beautiful because it allows anyone to discover anyone based off of their interests, and the more people who use social media, the more the algorithm understands what the person’s interests and preferences are.

35:56

So, as a content creator, your goal is to create content that satisfies the user in its most simplest sense. Contents like food. You want people to feel nourished when they consume your food. People could also create toxic content, just like how there’s toxic food, junk food, junk content, right, and misinformation. All that kind of stuff is out there, but anybody that’s listening to this is probably not thinking of using social media maliciously. You want to use social media in a way where you want to create content, food, people that consume, that make some learn something, laugh, feel better, get excited, things of that nature and then, as that content creator, it’s not just about creating things off the whim or based off of what you feel that contributes to it, but you’re also analyzing the content that you’re creating to see are there drop offs that are occurring? Why they’re occurring?

36:49

For example, a lot of the work that we do with non-toxic dad, like he’s another guy that we get a lot like three, four, five million views a month. I’ve noticed something in his content before where we were creating his videos and then we would show like an article and then it would go back to him and then I would notice oh wait, like why do I see this light drop off? That’s occurring as soon as we show an article. So then, in order to resolve that, instead of cutting away from non-toxic dad when we show the article now, we just keep him at front and center and then we have like snippets or like some highlighted piece that shows up, so that a person doesn’t have an excuse to click away right, cause there’s too much text on the screen. You click away from it.

37:30

So this is the kind of learnings that you get from creating the content. Looking at the metrics and a lot of the social media platforms are showing you this information they have retention graphs that you could look at to see where the drop offs are happening you have an idea for what the average time is that people stay on the site. So for people in 2024, if you’re someone that wants to create content, you got to be really data driven. Like content creation is an art and a science and it’s easy to do the art stuff, because I know math is hard and sometimes the brain sometimes I’m with you, but at the same time, once you do get a hang of it, it becomes a beautiful marriage art and science because then you know why something isn’t working or you get an understanding, and that gives you the motivation to make it better.

Anika Jackson 38:18

Yeah, Nice. So what are some of the other trends that you see coming up for? Is there anything new that we should be on lookout for in 2024?

AJ Kumar 38:27

A lot of people are talking about long form content. They’re talking about short form content, fatigue and things of that nature, which may or may not be a possibility. However, I think a lot of the people that are talking about that are going to the next trend and a lot of marketers are just talking about oh, now do long form. Do long form, because that’s what people want Long form. Tiktok wants long form. I don’t personally see that as the case. I think short form is here to stay for a long period of time.

38:56

I think platforms like TikTok are trying to do long form because all these platforms are competing with one another in one sense or another. It’s not to say don’t do long form or short form. It’s to do both, but short form is the best way to get discovered and to maximize the amount of people that you reach. Long form is the best way to develop and build a community and really build strong relationships with people that will become customers for your brand and advocates for your brand. So I think, keep doing short form and if you hear long form, yeah, that’s good and you could do it, but I would say, get a foundation growing with short form as well.

Anika Jackson 39:33

Nice, yeah, thank you for that. You talked a little bit about your e-book and I know you have a bigger book coming out this year. Thank you. When is the ebook coming out? How will people be able to access it and then tell us a little bit more about, let’s tease out to the audience. Do you have a wait list they can get on to get more information about Guru Inc when that comes out as well?

AJ Kumar 39:53

Yeah, well, obviously, thank you. I have a book coming out called Guru Inc. It’s about how to become the thought leader that everybody follows and that’s expected to be out later this year. In the interim, I had created an ebook because I want to get this stuff out there. That’s why I’m being on your podcast. It’s a way for me to share these ideas of what’s happening in our lab. So best way is to follow me on Instagram, ajthedigital Maestro. I’ll start sharing a lot of this really soon. Well, there’ll be landing pages where you can opt in and you can get access to these ebooks. The ebook I have coming out is called the Thought Leadership Guide to Social Media RY in 2024. I’m expecting in the next two weeks it should be out. So by I don’t know when this is going to become out, but let’s just say by February 1st the ebook will be ready to grab.

40:41

Then Guru Inc is a bigger book that will be published and it’ll be a lot more of the dynamics of becoming a Guru, beyond just the path of becoming a Guru. But there’s a bigger journey that kind of comes to play. There’s an emotional journey that comes to play. There’s frameworks that I’ll share. One is called the 3 C’s Content and Commerce, and Concert which is like the art inside. It’s a blending content and commerce in a way where people are still having good experiences.

41:09

Because another thing I guess this could also be a trend, since I’m going to be writing in my book too which is it’s about the audience’s experience and on all these different social media platforms, there’s all these different features that allow audiences to have different experiences. I don’t think most people think about it that way, but when you think about being a content creator and what I shared earlier, it’s an audience-centric sport If you could create content in a way that is like you’re thinking about the viewer’s experience, you’re going to have much more effective content right Tying it back to what we talked about modeling and reverse engineering.

41:47

So model in your mind what you want success to look like for your viewers and then reverse engineer to that.

Anika Jackson 41:54

Nice. Yeah, that’s so important and it’s something that a lot of times people forget in any part of marketing your business. Right, we’re all here to solve an issue that maybe we experienced, that we realized was a pain point for somebody else. So think about how you’re solving that, how you’re making somebody’s life better with your content, and so do this pouring stuff out that could be garbage or toxic.

AJ Kumar 42:17

Yeah, we have enough junk food out there.

Anika Jackson 42:21

Yes.

AJ Kumar 42:21

And more junk content.

Anika Jackson 42:23

Well, in this episode we’ll be dropping in February, so we’ll be able to put the link to your staff in the show notes, as well as on my website, yourbrandamplified.com. We’ll have the full blog and transcript for this episode. Anything else that you want to share? Any other facts that people should be aware of or think about as they’re thinking about building their brands in today’s age?

AJ Kumar 42:47

I guess it’s kind of fun. So I like playing with a Rubik’s Cube. I got it in the last few years.

Anika Jackson 42:52

And.

AJ Kumar 42:52

I realized that the Rubik’s Cube is a great representation of social media, where you think of it like when a Rubik’s Cube is not solved. You could see it and you know it Right. Social media is similar in the sense that you got to twist and turn, you got to solve the different ways, you got to create content for different platforms. So as you think about your social media compared to a Rubik’s Cube, it might help you with how to make a much more cohesive brand experience for your viewers.

Anika Jackson 43:21

Zen philosophy, everything rolled in. I love that. And, aj, do you also have a favorite quote, mantra, verse, words that you live by?

AJ Kumar 43:33

I’m going to just say, in the words of Shilabluff do it, take action, and people around me are laughing, as opposed to that game to mine, but just do it because that’s really the challenge that everybody faces is everyone’s in faking mode and whatever, but do it Take?

Anika Jackson 43:50

action Awesome, and with that I mean, that is, if you don’t take that first step, you’re never going to know what can happen, and you could, by listening to this show and following AJ, be the next guru or even get to guru’s guru status. So this has been such a delightful conversation. I’m really excited to be having you come on to the USC media scape speaker series and podcast as well, which I haven’t really talked about on this show, but which will be launching soon. And, aj, thank you again for giving your expertise to us today and being the digital maestro that you are.

AJ Kumar 44:26

Thank you so much for having me. I hope everybody enjoyed.

Anika Jackson 44:28

Oh yeah, this step, I have no doubt, and thank you to the audience for watching or listening this episode, whether it’s on your favorite podcast platform, YouTube, Traverse TV or 360 Talk Radio for Women. I’ll be back again in a few days with another amazing expert to help share their knowledge that will propel your business in 2024 and beyond. Want more? Check out amplifywithanika.com or follow me on socials at @amplifywithanika.

From Ashes to Industry Influence: Matt Brown’s Journey of Entrepreneurial Resilience and Success

Posted on January 26, 2024July 3, 2024 by ariel

Episode Transcript

Anika Jackson 00:01

Welcome to your Brand Amplified, the podcast where we interview marketers, publicists and brands to learn their stories, what makes them tick and tips and tricks that make a difference. Today, I have the honor of having Matthew Brown on the show of the Matthew Brown show. Also multiple-time Amazon bestselling author, but even bigger than that, matt you are a veteran founder of 14 companies across 25 years with multiple successful exits. So I’m Anika Jackson, the host of your Brand Amplified, and, Matthew, it’s such a pleasure to have you on today.

Matthew Brown 00:37

Thank you. Thank you, Anika, for having me on and just to clarify, I also had a lot of businesses die on me.

Anika Jackson 00:44

Well, yeah, I mean, one of your books to that point is Secrets of Hashtag Fail, and I think that’s the dirty secret that we don’t talk about. People see, like any industry, right, whether you’re an athlete, an actor, a singer or a successful entrepreneur, people look to the successes, but they don’t realize all the lessons that you learned on the way. So before we get into that, I’d love for you to talk about your journey. We’re talking a little bit about your origins in South Africa before you came to the States. But what propelled you into the world of business? And I know you do a lot of other things now that we’re going to get into in this interview but I took you from Africa, and South Africa specifically, into the United States.

Matthew Brown 01:23

Yeah, thank you. I lost the ground to Kavaral trying to be concise. So my father was an entrepreneur and I watched him be successful, but I also watched him fail. And during apartheid was like 1994, there was a political activist called Chris Honey and he was really the voice of the resistance and anti-apartheid the system and the government and that stuff. And my father at the time he owned a firearms shop. He was selling guns and one day Chris Honey got assassinated at the front of his home in Johannesburg and basically the country just went into like this meltdown and a lot of the sort of the affluent people they went and they bought guns because South Africa was literally on the brink of civil war. Nelson Mandela was still in prison at the time and so he was incarcerated and so basically the country just freaked out and they all went and bought guns.

02:14

And my dad’s business at the time just made a lot of money. I mean, he was taking like six figures a day over the counter. You know it was crazy. There were riots in the streets and I was 14 years old I didn’t really understand what was going on, but I saw what was happening and so my dad was successful pretty quickly through this gun shop of his and anyway, thankfully South Africa didn’t go into civil war at the time. But what I did see was how my dad wasn’t able to scale that business and also, by the way, that business eventually died. It failed Well. And so I was watching this and you’re like, how can you be so successful? I mean, I mean, if you think about the market timings, having the right business just at the right time, okay, there’s obviously a very South African context, but how do you make so much money? And then how can that business die on? You Like I don’t understand that.

02:59

And then, for me personally, I had two passions in my life. You know, as I grew a little bit older, like 18, 19, I had two passions. One was music, the other one was business. And I moved to London and I founded a record label, and so at the time the whole industry was changing, it was moving from vinyl to digital downloads, and so I founded a record label called Voodoo Vinyl and I created something called the Voodoo Vinyl Remix Network. And so basically, what I was doing was I was preying on an old paradigm and old idea that if you were a creative artist, that you needed to have a record label to release your music for you, and so Napster was happening at the time. Now I’m showing my age, but Napster was like you know people were downloading piracy music and Metallica. It was freaking out and it was just like a really disruptive time. Social media was just starting and Facebook had maybe been founded and anyway, long story short, I was able to buy the master recording rights of original music for nothing.

03:55

So, my cost of acquisition was really low, and I was able to do that on the promise that you give me your master recording rights for free and I’ll release your music around the world through digital downloads. We had an online store, and so anyone around the world could come and buy our music, but what we would give you access to is a whole bunch of remix artists and Frankie Knuckles at the time had just won the World Space Remixer Awards on the MTV Music Awards Like it was now a thing remixing, what was that? And you had all these major artists that would pay these creative people to remix. They would create like Kylie Minogue would pay an artist to create a Ha song, as an example, and so this is the whole context at the time, and so we were releasing like 120 digital albums a year globally and my artists would remix these original songs, right, and we would just create this network. So you would basically have the opportunity to have other people make new music from your original, and so that was basically the business, and that started to scale and eventually I sold that.

04:56

And then I was 26 suddenly and I was in London and I thought I could walk in water. You know, your first, your first business, and you know you started so lucky the universe was going to fix all that for me because the next one failed, and so that’s pretty much been my journey. You know, like founding companies, you know selling companies I build and sell if I can scale them, but it’s hard. You know 99% of startups fail in the first four years, so to get through that period is a real achievement. And you know I started the map round show 10 years ago and what I’ve been looking to do is make a difference to entrepreneurs. You know, having very important conversations that I feel are relevant, like failure as an example and influence as another example, but just using my platform to make a difference, you know and so that’s what’s brought me to the US.

Anika Jackson 05:41

Fantastic. Well, first of all, I don’t think we talked about the music connection previously and I used to be a club promoter and launched a magazine called Revolution in the year 2000, which was a dance music magazine that came with a CD every month back when we had moved to CDs and I used to get digital music all the time when I moved from like people sending CDs in the mail to promote stuff to then the record label sending like a digital playlist. So my iTunes is still full of music that I don’t even know if I’ve ever listened to, because I just immediately downloaded it back because that’s what you did back then. You didn’t have the streaming capabilities of now. So I definitely remember the days of MySpace and Napster and then Friendster, before we all jumped to Facebook and all on and on and on.

Matthew Brown 06:24

So you know, that’s awesome, that’s cool. It would have been awesome if we had met back then.

Anika Jackson 06:29

I know right.

Matthew Brown 06:30

Yeah, I know.

Anika Jackson 06:32

Yeah, I was hanging out with like masters at work and winter music connoisseurs. We had parties with them at a winter music conference and doing all that kind of stuff.

Matthew Brown 06:39

No, I think you were probably more successful in the music industry than I was. Oh, no, no, no, no, I was more of the DJ producer, dj yeah.

Anika Jackson 06:49

Yeah, that’s amazing, and I think that when you start I find this often when people start from the music business particularly there’s a just organic skill set that you learn that you then can apply to so many other industries, and so I’m interested in you know if that was true for you as the label maker.

Matthew Brown 07:08

Yeah for sure, man. I mean, if you find any company and you’re creating, I mean it’s weird, right. But I look back at all my successful businesses, it was always the same formula that executed in a different context, you know. So there was obviously Boudou Vinyl, which was music, then digital kung fu was lead generation or pipeline generation for technology companies like Microsoft and stuff, but it was basically the same three things. It was like strategy, content and systems. You know, that’s it and you’re solving different problems, of course, and position differently. But it’s funny how that skill set of yours I mean even my current business show works media. It’s almost the same formula but executed differently.

07:48

And I think to your point, if you can figure out, if you listen, no one’s starting a new business. That’s completely novel. Do you know what I mean? Like no one’s doing that, like it’s basically an improbability and it’s like 99.9% of businesses are not novel. What they are doing is they are taking existing things and making them better. Right, they’re making them more efficient Artificial Genitive Intelligence, in our case, for self-publishing books, for CEOs of tech companies, you know. But it’s all about doing things in a more efficient manner and that’s what creates value, because everybody wants value faster, right.

08:22

And so if you can figure out your own formula for success and then you just map it to something that you’re passionate about, and that’s very important, because if you wind up building a business like my Li-Jian business that you don’t love, it’s a horrible thing to be successful and not for false. I think that’s the ultimate failure. And so when you figure out your own success formula, just do it again. You know, sell your next company for more money.

08:47

You know what I mean, and I’ve spoken to CEOs, entrepreneurs, that are like you have these multiple time exits, you know, like they’re just seeming me always successful, and the reason for that, I believe, is because they have this formula, like they’ve done it before, and all they then do is the same thing, maybe in a different industry, but they do it bigger and they do it better Because they’ve now learned okay, well, that works. I’ve got a $10 million exit. How do I get to $100? And even then they do it faster, right? So when it took five years or 10 years to do a $10 million exit, they’ll do a $100 million exit in five. And it’s because of this idea of mapping your own success formula to something that you know works, that maps to your skill sets and that you just rinse repeat.

Anika Jackson 09:30

You make it sound so easy. It’s not.

Matthew Brown 09:32

It’s so, not, you know, it’s not, and I don’t mean to create that perspective at all. It’s very rare to find entrepreneurs that do this, like one of my clients, shannon Scott. He runs an HR technology group and what he does is he buys companies with EBITDA profits, right, and he just adds more companies to his portfolio. Because if you have 10 companies doing you know $10 million a year in EBITDA, what does the collective value of that portfolio look like to a PE firm? Well, they’re going to pay you a 20 times multiple on that. So if he’s buying 10 companies and he spends you know a million dollars or $10 million, or, let us say, $100 million on each, he’s going to make a billion dollars off a PE firm who wants 10 years of future cash flow for their limited partners, you see? So then he does that. Now what? Well, he buys more companies, and you know what I mean. And the thing for him, and like many of us, is that if you work within a particular industry like HR tech, right, you suddenly know everybody, you know who’s building what and you know who would buy HR tech, in terms of which PE firms, or maybe you know IPO, the whole group, I don’t know.

10:42

But if you niche into a specific thing, you start to see everything starts to become clearer. You know, and niching to your point like what makes it successful, like you, make it sound so easy. What’s? Because, again, if you, the one of the formula that will the steps in the formula, is choose a niche like choose a niche like choose to be for someone, because when you do that, doesn’t matter who it is, you know. Everything becomes clear. Your competitors become clear, your pricing becomes clear, your product solution becomes clear, your go to market becomes clear and suddenly you no longer invisible because you were for everyone. You see what I’m saying. Yeah, so now you for this thing only, and so you have to choose. But when you choose, all those things become clear and then your success formula becomes clear, you see, but it’s definitely fraught with with uncertainty and a whole lot of failure.

Anika Jackson 11:31

Well, and I think also you’re touching on so many things that people need to understand when they’re going into business for themselves. A lot of times people want to be all things to all people and they don’t think about those specific customer personas and avatars. To your point, they don’t niche down enough. And then the shiny object syndrome. So somebody comes along and says, well, you’re having a lot of success with this, can you also do this? And we’ll pay you X amount of money. And so then you go oh, maybe I should add that service, even though it’s not necessarily in your skill set or in your perfect avatar range. And so I think those are two things that I see a lot when I’m working with businesses on their communications and strategy and branding is they want to be all things to all people. Or they they’re like oh, but they’ll offer us funding if we do XYZ. And I’m like but that’s not what you’re good at. How do you combat that?

Matthew Brown 12:19

Well, this is the problem with visionaries. You know they all want to chase the new and they’re romanced by the shiny new staff, when all they should be focused on is two things the more and the better you know. And so here’s what happens when you choose the new all the time, like to your point, like you work with these clients or have you and they want to add to their services. You know, because if you add another service, then you can effectively unlock another revenue streams. Let’s just say you’re a digital advertising agency and typically what you would do is you would create content. The social do. Social ads and that’s always been your bread and butter, you know will help you to reach a million people a year, whatever. And you know we’ll put 10,000 people on your website, generate your needs. Ok, and then to your point what about PR? Well, let’s add PR into that. We’ll also do a digital PR for you. That’s a fundamentally different discipline. But then what if we added a technology product that could track, like an online reputation management tool? Let’s, let’s add that in as well. So now you’ve added in these two additional services, but your whole ambition is to scale your company. So this is what happens Now you’ve added these two extra services, who’s going to deliver that?

13:23

And it was like, oh, I didn’t thought about that. Well, we’ll hire someone. Ok, cool, so you’re going to hire someone. What’s that going to do to your profit and loss statements every month? That’s going to add an expense, yes, but then we’ll also we’ll add margin and we’ll charge a price that allows us to absorb that cost. Ok, who’s going to sell it? Now I need a salesperson also. Ok, so now you need a salesperson also. So now you’ve added two new people, but then you need a manager to manage those two people. Then you’ve got to have an ops person. That then is going to create the systems and processes and standard operating procedures to deliver on that. And so now, what have you actually done? Well, you’ve added maybe some margin, but really you’ve added a whole bunch of complexity to your whole business, right, and so your opportunity to scale right, to become successful, is actually reduced.

14:13

So the trick I’ve learned is to say no more often. There’s a book that I’m writing and now it was coming out in February called Million Dollar Principles or Secrets of Million Dollar Success, where I talk about the power of saying no because you know. Going back to the romance of new. It is not always better, it really isn’t, and so you define yourself not by what you say yes to, but by saying no Like. What can you say no to?

14:39

And I think that I think the best businesses are the simple ones, and the more simple you can keep your business like from a proposition to who delivers it and whatever the more it’s going to be successful. I mean car washes, the most simple business in the world. I mean I think it was like Andrew Tate or something like that. He has probably not him, but there was a media guy I saw on the news the other day, and so his car wash business makes two billion dollars a year in the US. There’s another billionaire that I know, my network, and when I met with him, Jordan Zimmerman he’s got loads of cash, and so I said, you know, we’ve got chatting, and he’s like. I said, like, so what do you do with your money? He’s like well, you know, I buy caravan parking spots all around the US. In fact, I own 60,000 of them and it’s the most profitable, simple, cash flow, positive business like ever. Like he doesn’t have to think about. It’s literally concrete, some means with, like, you know, a charging station for your RV or whatever. You know what I mean, and you have 60,000 of these things all over the US, make some shit, tons of money, but it’s the most simple business in the world, you see? Yeah, and so I mean.

15:52

The challenge, though, is to choose. You know, you have to actually choose to do this. For us, last year, we were doing all these like influence, so much stuff around, influence in this net and then we’re like well, what’s the one thing that actually drives influence the most? Well, it’s becoming a bestselling author. Ok, cool. Well, let’s do that. Ok, so now we’ve got a system right, because it’s simple, but we have a system not like all these things that require all these people to deliver. We have a very simple system, so we can deliver a bestselling book 300% faster and a 50% less cost than anyone in North America.

16:25

My gosh, no-transcript. Everyone else is taking six months. So that’s what I mean is a competitive advantage, but it’s literally the simplest thing. Dude, you want to become a best-selling author? Yes, okay, why aren’t you one? I don’t have the time? Great, well, we can do it all for you. Do you know what I mean? And so we can solve all those problems, but it’s a simple thing. It’s a simple thing and that you know. So I hope that all helps, but just keep some.

Anika Jackson 16:51

No, that helps so much. And I will say I’ve been guilty of this as well. When I moved back to Los Angeles in 2019, I was just going to focus on PR. Now, when I lived in Houston, I had other businesses. I had a retail store, I had a social club. I did other things, you know, and I was like I’m just going to do PR. In fact, I need my agency, anika PR.

17:09

But then I found that people needed other services and I know marketing because I started in marketing. I know some digital, I know a little bit of this and that, and I started adding team members and I definitely fell prey to that scope creep and made those decisions and started bringing more people on and all of that stuff. And so I love that you’re talking about the power of saying no, because it’s something that so many of us are bad at, especially, I think, women in business. Often we want to be their nurturers, we want to take care of everybody, we want to say yes to everybody, and it’s something that I have to combat every day and learn to say no. And this is kind of my year of saying no, stepping back and stepping into my power and saying this is what I’m really good at and what I love doing, and that’s all I’m going to focus on. So I think this is a really important message for the audience to hear right now, because this is one of those things.

17:59

You know, as we’re teeing up, I feel like I’m doing a slow roll into 2024. And this is the month of really everybody needs to level set and figure out what they want to do and who they want to be and what that’s going to look like. So your advice is very actionable and appropriate, and your expertise of not only your own businesses but talking to so many super successful business owners Now, when you started your podcast, there weren’t really a lot of podcasts at that point. I mean, podcasting is 20 years old. At this point, I think really during the pandemic is when people started getting on the platform a little more. So what was it like being one of the first people out there? I don’t even know if you consider yourself in that vein.

Matthew Brown 18:40

I certainly would say I was probably like one of the early adopters of the medium. I think I was certainly first in like literally as in like the one or two you know number one and number two in Africa, because people didn’t even know what podcasts were right back then. And obviously it’s happened. And then I was like I think all the podcasts are the US is where it all started and I was at the time I was head of strategy for TV WA and Africa and so I was just looking for trains, like digital trains. I was like what’s this thing’s called a podcast? I was like, well, cool, let me start one, and what I’ll do is I’ll do three episodes only. I just want to have some content for a product launch. But I had no intention of, like you know, doing it for as long as I have and not having done so many episodes like it’s an 850 thing. But it was lonely. That’s what it was like. As you know, when I published my first episode, like I went to bed and super pumped to see how many like thousands of downloads I got. You know, when I woke up the next day and when I logged on, I was fascinated to see the fact that I had failed massively where there was only one download and it was me from the day before. So so you know that it was lonely. But I do believe sometimes, like the medium chooses you versus you choosing the medium. And even at the time it wasn’t even called the map round show, it was called the digital kung fu show.

20:00

And as I started to get you know, 50 episodes in, and then suddenly I was like damn, like I’ve stopped scripting everything and I’m actually not leading conversations with all the sharks from the shark tank, the TV series, you know, and, by the way, like they’re all just like me, you know what I mean. Like you have this imposter syndrome, like oh, he’s on TV, so he’s obviously better than me, you know. And then when you meet them you’re like yeah, actually they’re pretty much the same. You know there’s no real difference. They’ve just, you know, built something successfully, right, right. And then one day, a friend of mine, rich Mulholland. He’s a professional speaker. I was now like episode 100 and I’ve got partnerships with entrepreneur magazine and my profile starting to grow, and so now I’m like Dan, there’s actually a lot of ROI and podcasting. And Rich was at an entrepreneur’s organization meeting and the question was asked in the chapter like what are your favorite podcasts? And he said, well, it’s the digital kung fu show. And he was like why is it called the digital?

20:54

So you phoned me and he said, dude, like I don’t understand why you don’t call it the Matt Brown show, like why is it called the digital kung fu show? And I was like, no, I can’t have my name in it. You know, you’re a judgment, this kind of thing. And eventually I was like, yeah, fuck it, I’m going to rebrand it. And I did. And it was the best thing ever, because then that’s when things really kind of took off, because people were like, oh, actually I listened to his show because I want to hear what Matt has to say, you know, and so that’s kind of where it. And then we got into live podcasts, so you know, doing shows in front of live audiences and things like that.

21:28

And I covered the crypto space in 2019, sold out dozens of live shows. I had media partnerships with CNBC. They were broadcasting my events to like 50, 60 countries around the world, and so then I was like, damn, there’s a lot of ROI and podcasting, you know. But it was lonely in the beginning. But you know, like anything, if you just persevere, like success can happen at any moment. Like I’ve had so many moments where I phoned my producer, maverick he’s been with me since the beginning and I say, dude, I don’t want to do this anymore. And he’s like why? And I’m like well, because I’m bored, I’m tired of talking to people, you know like how many?

22:01

business conversations can you have in your life? Then he’s like no, just keep going, like, do another one, like a final, do another one. You know what I mean. And then it’s like, oh, I really enjoyed that conversation. And so you know it’s very up and down being a platformer and it takes a lot of time, like you know, and most people quit. You know there’s a little graveyard of could have been podcasts. The one thing for me is just like I don’t quit. You know I’m a sucker for punishments.

Anika Jackson 22:27

You can, I can tell. But what took you from those initial three podcast interviews to decide to continue with this platform?

Matthew Brown 22:35

I was just starting to enjoy the process. You know like that, the process of being a host you know, and the reason for that really was because I’m an introverse.

22:45

I don’t actually like people. I like people I know and trust, right, but if you send me off to dinner party with a bunch of strangers, it’s like my idea of hell. And so when I was meeting all these CEOs, I was like really uncomfortable with the process, like I should talk to a stranger for all our, especially a CEO of this listed company and I’m going to hold my own and this and that. But every time I had another conversation I learned something, you know, when I was like, damn that’s, that’s changed my own life or the way that I think about a certain thing. And, by the way, that certain thing was usually about how I was thinking about myself, because once I’d interviewed all the sharks from the shark tank and I was like, yeah, there’s no difference between name and me, suddenly I was like, well, I’m thinking more confidently, you know. And so the show was really a transformational tool that you know I used to transform my own inner game, like the way that I thought about myself first and foremost, and then also the way that I felt about the world, and so that whole piece externally was really about perspective. So cool. If you’re rich in perspective, you can always generate wealth, but if you’re poor in perspective, you will always be poor. And so I believe that I have a very, very wealthy perspective on the world of business and leadership, because less than 0.2 percent of podcasts actually get past 700 episodes. That’s a stat that was shared by me, like last year. So, if you like, in the top 0.1 percent are people who have had more conversations with more business leaders than anybody else.

24:19

Where does that put your perspective? And so that’s what I mean. That that’s why you keep doing it right Is because you might learn something or you might unlearn something, and then you’re able to make a more informed decision about your business. So should you keep it simple? Maybe you should make it complex, you know.

24:34

So I don’t really do the show or the world. I really do it first and foremost for me, because I enjoy it, and my superpower is unlocking secrets from these super successful people. And then, as a consequence, you know, if one person anywhere in the world you know benefits from that conversation or that story or that lesson or that insight or that tip, then I’m winning. You know I’m saying so. That’s what I mean by influence. It’s. It’s about elevating others, you know, and so it makes me feel good. You know, I think people get into whatever they do podcasting because they want to generate a need or make money, and I’m like that’s why you, you’re not going to be doing it in six months time. You’re trying to be. You’re looking at self enrichment rather than contribution.

Anika Jackson 25:17

Yes, this has been a big topic of conversation lately and a lot of groups I’m in is making sure that you’re pouring more into people than you’re taking away, because then it does come back to you and obviously, with over eight hundred and fifty episodes, you’ve done a lot of that and a lot of adding value for other people and be amenable to pick up and listen to episodes and learn from the best of the best.

Matthew Brown 25:39

Yes, yes, exactly, but you know people have to be careful, because people will want everything for free if you give it. So you just have to be careful about how you approach spending your time on something like this.

Anika Jackson 25:54

Well, I’d love to talk now about your current company, showworks Media. We touched on it a little bit earlier, but you know I’ve talked to a few people before on the podcast about the world of publishing books and how it’s changed so much and when you see a book that’s a New York Times or Wall Street Journal best seller, it means something, but it doesn’t always mean what we, as a consumer, would think it would mean.

26:16

And so let’s talk about the world of self publishing. So you’re saying that this is a trend that’s continuing and that is a great way for people to show that they are a thought leader, they have influence and that they’re the one that you want to work with.

Matthew Brown 26:31

Yeah, exactly so if I write about this in my book Secrets of Influence, I call it the ultimate business card that you can ever have as a best selling book. If you have three or four, you know then that’s even better. And so people want to do business with people they trust. Okay, so what drives trust? Credibility, what drives credibility more than any other thing? A podcast, maybe. Podcast worth 850 episodes, better. A podcast owner worth three best selling books? Yeah, okay, I’d like to see the. What drives credibility. So you know like I can get into any boardroom or network in the world or the story around and the reputation and the credibility around the show. And oftentimes, going back to the Jordan Zimmerman one, he said when you arrived on the show, he said to me dude, I don’t do interviews, but when I saw that you had done 850 episodes and you were a three time best selling author, I knew I wanted to spend this time with you and that’s a billion.

27:31

So the thing for me is like it’s all about what will people do people find when they search your name. So if they Google your brand Amplified or Anika Jackson, what are they going to find? Right, and, by the way, people are doing this for your competitors too? Yeah, so if you are, as an example, in a, you know, complicated markets or competitive markets where you’re selling something complex like a software of self, software as a service backup solution, whatever, you’re in a competitive market and so these buyers of your products and services, they also have a lot of choice, and so money is not necessary. Like, the commercial offer is important, of course, but it’s not the only reason. They want to know that you have solved this problem better than everybody else, like you genuinely built something novel and unique, and so what they will do is they will search for your competitors’ names and they will search for yours, and whatever they find there on the social web, the digital blueprints or whatever you want to call it, you know, is going to be influencing their decision on whether to take a meeting with you, whether to pay a higher premium, because they believe you’re the one with the best solution.

28:36

You see what I’m saying. Oh, yeah, and we did this with one of our clients, haiku, and met Simon Taylor through my show. They literally are the software as a service data backup business fastest growing in the world, actually, and when I met Simon he said dude, what do you do? And I said no, I just know influence, blah, blah, blah, blah, et cetera. And he said should I actually need this? And when I asked him why, he said well, we have to do a massive amount of education globally to chief information security office CIOs, ceos, et cetera, because they don’t actually know they have the problem that we solve. So if we can’t tell them that or explain to them or get them to grasp the fact that most ransomware attacks come through vendor software as a service applications, and they don’t have their data backed up, they will never buy the solution that we sell. So now it comes into what show works does.

29:24

So basically, here’s the problem with self publishing If you write 500 words a day, seven days a week, it’ll take you six months to write a book. What CEO of a firm scaling up has the time to do that? And I wrote my first book. I saw it never do it again and I haven’t. So what I’ve had to do is then look at well, what are some of the other issues here? So, because you don’t have the time to write the book, what do you look for? Ghost writers, right, okay, cool. So what’s a ghost writer going to cost you Minimum $50,000, sometimes upwards of quarter of a million dollars, depending on the seniority and stuff. Guess how much time they’re going to need? Six months, okay, that’s fine. And then you still don’t even have a launch campaign for your book. That’s a problem If you have to invest in that too. And then most self-published books are something like 90% of them don’t actually create any form of commercial value. Yeah, that’s a major problem.

30:13

So we looked at all of this as a team and we’re like no, in fact, we need to change all of this. So what we actually now do and there’s three things that drive a book now where we can deliver it 300% faster. So the first thing is strategy. You need to know what your influence strategy is Like. What is the story we’re going to tell? Why are we doing it now? Who are we trying to influence? Why are we trying to influence them? You know blah, blah, blah. So we have a process that we use, but from that influence strategy we create a video production plan, not a book production plan. We’re just saying and the reason for that is because you need content to launch your book, so we will shoot videos based on the storyline that we want to tell, and there’s a framework that we use, especially in B2P, that works like as bullet proof, but basically it’s called the P3 framework.

30:56

I write about this in my book, but it’s basically the problem, the product and the proof, and you shoot videos based on that narrative or that structure of story. So you land the problem and you really get into it. Like why is 52% of ransomware all coming through SAS? Why don’t you know about this problem? Though, like issues and here’s what happens with a ransomware attack actually comes to reality, like hospitals get shut down, kids on life support, don’t get those machines working, blah, blah, blah, great. So what’s the solution or the product that you’ve built? Ok, well, here’s what we’ve done in SAS Solves, prom.

31:27

And then you get into the proof Well, where have you solved this before? Well, iq solved it for the Boston Red Sox. We interviewed the Boston Red Sox film, that whole thing. So now you’ve got an amazing proof. So then we take that body of work and then we repurpose it into like a year’s worth of content. So now you’ve got a whole year’s worth of content to market the shit out of your book. And then what you do is you take the transcripts from those videos and you run that through artificial genitive intelligence. There’s prompts that we’ve designed for this Nice. They were able to produce a manuscript in eight hours. So six months was the old way, eight hours is the new way. If you’re a business CEO of a tech company, as an example and you’re evaluating other competitors ghost writing agencies or whatever who are you going to shoot?

Anika Jackson 32:09

Yeah, there’s no comparison.

Matthew Brown 32:11

There’s not even a comparison. So then you launch all that stuff and we guarantee, like number one Amazon, best selling positions. We do that by giving away your Kindle version for free for the first 48 hours. We have partners that we work with to just massively hack the algorithms, but now you’re in a number one status. We put you on a podcast tour and the whole thing takes 30 days. Yeah.

Anika Jackson 32:32

I’m floored. I’m floored right now.

Matthew Brown 32:35

That’s what I mean by keeping things simple, because none of that would be possible if we were trying to add other things. Or we’ll also manage your LinkedIn page and we’ll also do this and this and next. Well, that’s about the formula. You figure it out and then you just hammer that formula until you reach a number that you’re happy with.

Anika Jackson 32:54

So you’ve talked about a few things strategy and content. Best selling book as content to position you appropriately as the thought leader and the expert in your field, but also video, and so I think that’s something we’re also seeing. Everybody wants video, even YouTube. Now you can do YouTube shorts, you can put podcasts on YouTube, you can have long form videos still, and every social media platform is trying to figure out how to utilize this, and it sounds like you’ve really created an infrastructure to get people there so much more quickly. And it reminds me of speaking to AJ Kumar of the Limitless Company, and he worked with Neil Patel on his social and he’s worked with a lot of other people, and his entire strategy is strategy content shoot a lot of video and have a lot of content. How long does it take you to get that year’s worth of content?

Matthew Brown 33:43

You can do it in like a day. Again, I think people misunderstand just how much things have changed now with the AGI. Like artificial intelligence intelligence Like people are going to GPT and going writing me a thought leadership article. People seem to think that’s thought leadership, by the way, which it isn’t. If you’re using GPT to create articles and stuff like that, it’s not thought leadership. The reason for that is because it’s trained on all thinking that already exists. If you want to be a thought leader, you cannot be saying the same things that everybody else is saying. So, again, I write about this in my book. But if you’re going to be seen as a thought leader, you have to do original, non-obvious, evidence-based thinking. That’s what it’s about. So it’s not an opinion. It’s not like.

34:30

I spent 10 years as a CMO for a fortune 500 company, and here’s five things that I learned. You know what I mean. Click Betty stuff no one gives a shit about that. Now, bullshit radars are so fine, you’re tuned. Now Like if you’re doing that, you’re just wasting your time. You really are, and so the opportunity, though, is to think differently about well, how could we change or significantly improve the gain for a prospect or a particular niche by using artificial genesis of intelligence.

34:57

The applications are huge and everyone is just thinking about create a social media post. It’s rubbish. It’s rubbish, I mean. Another example of this. Right, this one’s very cool, I’m super pompous. So, people on LinkedIn they’re always marketing the problem or the solution, but they forget to actually market their value. So, as an example, let’s take the map round show. Let’s say that the problem is this, the year of CEO, and you need to get your story out to 100 countries around the world. Great problem solution I’ll interview you for 60 minutes and you can promote the shit out of your business and products and services solution. But is that really my value? No, it’s not. What’s my value? Well, my value is actually in the 850 interviews. You know, the four books, the whole. Like all the content, all the audience that you built up. Yeah, 100% man, 100% like that’s the value. Because none of those like the content from the interviews don’t exist in GPT. Right, they don’t, because they sit on my podcast again.

35:55

So then here’s what we built. This is true we built. It’s basically map brown AI. So you can get access to it now on my website, mattbrownshow.com. You sign up for the community. You get access to this AI web app. So basically, what it’s been trained on is literally all the transcripts from all the interviews from the super successful dudes and women, all the books like you just a whole massive body of work.

36:18

And now what I’m able to do and, by the way, it’s pretty cool Imagine you could access the minds and the stories and insights, the data points and all these and the lessons from the super successful people, but do it at a fraction of a second, because who has got time to listen to 850 interviews? Nobody. But you want access in the knowledge, right. So you build a custom AI app, right, gpt app.

36:42

And now I can do language translations. I’m able to now like into whole new countries. It’s China, right, you know Chinese business entrepreneur guy was Spanish and he’s sitting in Latin America, but you don’t speak English, it’s not your first language, so you would never listen to my message, you would never care about all that content. And so now I’m able to do all of that. Like, my team was weird. They sent me an artificially generated map brown, like an avatar, like I was speaking on camera, but it wasn’t me. It was very weird. So now imagine you have Mac Brown, the avatar speaking Spanish. Yeah, you see.

37:19

So now I’m able to massively amplify my influence to millions of entrepreneurs all around the world. So it’s no longer just a podcast. But none of that was possible 18 months ago, these feet, and everyone’s still like oh well, I must find a AGI platform to repurpose my concept for the podcast. It’s like yeah, that’s one use case, fine, you need it. That’s more like a vitamin than a headache pull, you know. And so that’s what I mean. Like just really fundamentally thinking differently about like, well, what is now the value? Not like the problem I can solve and the solution, but like what is the real value that I cannot go to market with right, so that I can take to the world, because that’s what true Influence is by innovating others, right?

Anika Jackson 38:02

Yeah, absolutely. And If to your point earlier, if you influence one person around the world because they listen to an episode To do something differently in their business, that equal success for them, then you’ve changed a life, or multiple lives. So cool.

Matthew Brown 38:17

So yeah yeah, and also it’s weird, right, I’ve had this. People, people listen to your staff and you don’t know about it.

38:24

Yeah like it’s really weird and people underestimate it. There’s a random story. So our, when I was to try left for the state, so I phoned a CEO so wanted to obviously make it with clients. But I went, hey, my name’s Matt, I’m the you know RNC of digital community, saying I said, are you Matt Brown? I’m like yeah, you the guy that’s always going live on LinkedIn. Oh, just like yeah. And the podcast? Like yeah, I recognize your voice. Just like I don’t know who this guy is. Like was he download 967? Or like Like you don’t know.

Anika Jackson 38:59

And it’s awesome, you know, to think that when you reach 10,000 people, organically like someone’s actually Listening to what you’re saying, you know well, yeah, okay, so you have the Matt Brown show, you have show works media and I believe we have an offer for our listeners that they can get 20% off their first best-selling book with show works media.

Matthew Brown 39:19

Yeah, do they?

Anika Jackson 39:19

need to have a special Code, or just we jumped you and said they listen to say, hey, just How’d you have an offer?

Matthew Brown 39:27

It’s fine. I mean, could Jackson?

Anika Jackson 39:30

super easy. You’re making it very easy for people. And then you also have your new book coming out in February. And tell us more about that book.

Matthew Brown 39:38

Yes, it’s called our secrets of million-dollar success. So, basically, these are like principles. I’m a great believer in like principles. Principles are they truly do stand the test of time. So, like, if you think about perseverance or saying, no, we’re having a lion mentality, or whatever you know, these are principles that you can really easily understand, and they kind of been, you know, battle-hardened Improvement. And so the insight, though, for why a million dollars? Right, because I had a small business loans marketplace Platform and I was doing research during COVID on the impact of COVID on small business loans. I found this SBA reports, where they literally showed a pyramid and they showed the distribution of Businesses by revenue sites. I was like I was shocked to see it, but this is true if you build a business that’s generating a million dollars in revenue, okay, yeah, you’re in the top 10 percent of all businesses that exist.

Anika Jackson 40:32

Wow.

Matthew Brown 40:33

I was like shit, and if you think about it it’s like cool. Well, that’s actually an achievable goal for a lot of people like you know. If you like 100 billions, like no, you just need a million dollars. Because if you you know again have a business that’s doing a million dollars in revenue, you could pretty much live whatever last, all you want. Well, it’s true, right, it’s true. And yes, you like, have ambitions to be connor McGregor, but for everybody else, a Million dollars is a very cool business.

41:00

To say you have a business generates a million and you don’t need a. You know, scale it and had go through this whole ambition thing. You can be successful, good and great, you know. And so what I wanted to do, having bought and sold multiple million dollar businesses, I wanted to just give these principles, you know, stuff that’s like here’s what I know to be true, you know. So how do you get there? Well, you need these, whatever, these 25 principles. And then each principles is shared with the story, right, that I’ve personally had to go through to reach that million dollar levels. That’s the whole context for the book.

Anika Jackson 41:36

Yeah, and this makes me go back to the beginning of our conversation, where you’re saying you’ve had successful companies, but you’ve also had companies that were not as successful. Really and where there are things that you did differently in those companies that do not follow your blueprint. That made that. You know that got you to the million plus for the successful exits.

Matthew Brown 41:55

Yeah, I think ambitions are double-edged sword. You have to be very careful with your own ambition. And I remember, you know this, digital confidia just doubled revenues every year for three years and then had this opportunity to move to the States. And I was like, well, you know, I’m gonna go scale it. And I went to my mentor and I said, listen, you know what do you think you know? He’s like, well, you said to me, you said to me, I know guys to bigger businesses than you, I have more money than you that went to the US and failed. Why do you think you’re gonna be successful? And I was like that’s a very good question, let me think about that. Because it’s like, oh shit, yeah, you know what if it doesn’t work? And so then he said to me we’ll sell it. And I was like, no, why would I sell it? I just, you know, super successful. Like no reason to sell it, you know. And I was like, damn. But the story was really amazing. We’d won Africa’s best tech startup. We were just hammering everybody, I was cleaning up the markets and I was just like, nah, I’m gonna sell it.

43:00

18 months later, covid happened, all will changed. And then I was like, snap. So what if I did sell it? What then would I have been able to do? You know, I would have had massive runway for the US. You know, I could bought to, bought a business with customers, you know, with proven product services, and then go and scale that, take all the risk out of Starting a company again. You know, and that’s what I mean by ambition, you see. So what I should have done was listen and sold the company, because I would have made a shit ton of money and I would have been able to start again.

43:33

You know, however and I’m, by the way, like this whole story around market timing has come up so many times in my podcast companies that have been around for two decades, you know, multiple businesses, loads of EBITDA, and then something changes, yeah, and then they missed that opportunity for an IPO, like we’re talking to an acquirer and the choir had got cold feet because something changed.

43:56

They had one bad quarter, and so one bad quarters all an acquirer will need to justify not paying you what you think you were, and so you know again, these are all the stories and, by the way, this is a principle actually in the book around market timing. You know, know when to sell and know what kind of you know found entrepreneur? Yeah, because I don’t believe. Especially today, especially now at AI like most businesses are not gonna survive. You know they’re just not. And so if you’re going to think about being financially free, right, and you build something where there is EBITDA there and you have a good story, seriously consider what would your life look like if you sold, rather than you know you’re gonna hold this thing for 50 years, because that’s not gonna happen.

Anika Jackson 44:40

Interesting. I’m definitely interested in hearing more about this because I know a lot of people said AI might take away some jobs, but it’s going to create other jobs. So, I’d love to hear a little bit. I’d love to unpack that a little bit more. Why do you think AI is going to make such a big difference to the world of business and companies being able to continue or fade away?

Matthew Brown 45:01

Yeah, the reason for that is because AI is evolving. So we’re thinking about it’s just chat GPT today, but you know, in three years time, even in the self-publishing space, you’re gonna have like true AGI is gonna come along and it’s gonna be able to write, you know, the next Harry Potter? Yeah, without any human. Yeah, you know what I’m saying, right? What does that then mean? So, self-publishers what happens to that whole thing? Wow, they’re publishers, traditional ones, you know. Or what about AGI that can truly create, like the next Drake album, without any Drake, but it sounds like Drake, mm-hmm.

Anika Jackson 45:40

We saw that with the.

Matthew Brown 45:41

Beatles recently yeah man, yeah man, exactly, we always underestimate what’s going to happen. Yeah, and that’s why you have to Truly be quit like only the paranoid will survive, truly that, as you said, there are opportunities, that if you’re thinking differently about problems with AGI and AI and stuff, then you will be able to create commercial value and you actually can create a business at scale much, much faster than before, because that’s how big opportunities will present themselves. And the ones that see them and then they commercialize them and they find the right business model for that and they just go full in on that like fully aggressive, like how hard can I hit this thing? Those are the guys that are gonna win, yeah.

Anika Jackson 46:25

Well, we’ll definitely have to thank you back on in another. You know, six months to a year, yeah, man, yeah, the world’s changed and how your new books doing. But I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you, matt, for offering your wisdom and your expertise to my listeners. It’s meant a lot to me and, I know, to them as well because, like you said, I love interviewing people because I’m meeting people I wouldn’t have met and I also am learning things along the way, so along right along with my audience.

46:51

So thank you for being here and thank you to the audience for coming to another episode of your band, amplified. Whether you’re listening to us or watching us on Tremors TV or YouTube, I’m so excited to be here with Matt Brown. Matt Brown show will have information in the show notes with how you can reach his offer and join his community, listen to his podcast, all of the great things he’s putting out there, and I’ll be back again in a few days with another amazing expert to share their best practices and wisdom with you. Want more? Check out amplifywithanika.com or follow me on socials at @amplifywithanika.

Exploring the Transformative Power of Scalar Energy with Tom Paladino

Posted on November 22, 2023February 18, 2026 by ariel

Episode Transcript

Anika Jackson 00:01

Welcome to your Brand Amplified, the podcast where we interview marketers, publicists and brands to learn their stories, what makes them tick and tips and tricks that make a difference. This is your Brand Amplified, and we’re doing something a little different. I love to have episodes where we’re talking about things that entrepreneurs themselves come up with but also need to think about when it comes to our health and well-being. Tom Paladino is going to treat us to something really special today on the podcast. So, Tom of Scale Our Light, thank you for being here.

Tom Paladino 00:39

And I thank you for the invitation, Anika.

Anika Jackson 00:42

Of course. So I’ve looked at your website a little bit. I’ve obviously looked at your profile, your LinkedIn, but I’d love for you to tell us a little bit about what is Scale, Our Light, and how did you become interested in this topic.

Tom Paladino 00:58

Scale Our Light. I work with Scale Our Light instruments. What is Scale Our Light? It’s the energy of the universe, the light of the universe. This is the energy that gives power to the sun and the stars. It’s not electricity. So we’re working with the primal cause, the initial energy of the universe. It’s so important to realize that, because energy is fundamental and when you can work with this fundamental energy, you can control nature, you have a command over nature.

Anika Jackson 01:28

Interesting. I am a big believer in that there is a finite amount of energy in the universe right, and so we’re all connected in different ways, and I love reading things about how nature is connected. You can actually see that trees and plants are speaking to each other through root systems and all of the beauty that’s entailed in energy. But let’s take a step back. How did you get interested in this topic? What did you study in school? Did you know that you’re going to go into this field, or did you have something else in mind?

Tom Paladino 02:01

That’s a great question. I always loved science. I was always very curious and, frankly, I did not know what I wanted to do in high school or college. But I read as a youngster. I read about the work of Nikla Tesla and I said to myself, okay, this is wonderful, this is fascinating. However, this is a new science. How is it possible that I’m supposed to gear project myself to a new science that has no academic standing? Well, you do it alone, and that’s what I’ve done. It’s groundbreaking research. So after my university career, I decided to study independently Groundbreaking research, and I’ve taken the years to get this far, but that’s what it takes. I’m at the vanguard of this movement right now.

Anika Jackson 02:46

Yes, and this has been your life’s work essentially that’s correct. Yeah, so tell us what you discovered in that process of your studying it. What compelled you to realize this is something that everybody needs to know about. This is something that somebody needs to spend their life investigating and figuring out how we, as humans, can utilize this for our own health.

Tom Paladino

03:07

Yeah, you’re absolutely right. So what’s the point here? Technology should help people. That’s the bottom line. Why did I spend a lifetime at this? Because this is free energy. It’s clean, renewable, cannot cause any harm, it’s non-physical, its benefits are immeasurable as compared to electricity or coal or gasoline engines, et cetera. Wow, so let me demonstrate. Behind me is Scholar Energy Instrument. This is a miniature star. Remember, scholar Energy is from the Sun and the Stars, so I have a miniature star behind me. The energy is so strong. If I hold a light bulb in my hand, the instrument can illuminate the light bulb. Wow, now what’s the point? There’s energy in my laboratory pulsing. With this free energy, scholar Energy, and the key is now presently, I’m able to use that energy to improve what I call quantum health, not biological health, human health on the quantum level, meaning on the level of information or the level of intelligence. We’ll get into that Awesome.

Anika Jackson 04:15

Anybody who is listening to this episode instead of watching needs to stop what you’re doing right now and go to Traverse TV or to YouTube and watch this episode so that you can see everything that Tom is sharing and demonstrating, because that was remarkable the fact that you can harness this energy. So how do you harness the stars and the Sun energy?

Tom Paladino 04:34

That’s the key. I’ll show the instrument really quickly. If you look at this instrument, there’s no moving parts, right? So we actually capture the energy from the Sun and the stars. It’s all around us, but I’ve learned how to channel it, how to focus it with this instrument. Now, what do I mean by that?

04:52

I work with people, but not in a biological sense. I work with people energetically by way of their photograph. I’m holding up my photograph, which has Scholar Energy attached to it. My photograph, anybody’s photograph, has energy attached to it, specifically a scalar signal, and if I place my photograph inside that instrument, then I’m enjoying a chakra balancing. There’s so much white light going into my photograph, it will balance my chakras. So the amount of white light that’s illuminating now is the identical white light entering into my chakra field or into my quantum field. This is all non-physical light, corrective light, it’s divine light. So scan energy’s chi, prana, consciousness. The instrument’s so strong it will broadcast that consciousness of that chi or prana to the point it can illuminate a light bulb. This is what I’ve discovered. It’s quite fascinating and it has broad applications to quantum health. Energetic meaning our body’s intellectual composition, our force field or the aura, not flesh and bones, our aura.

Anika Jackson 06:06

Yeah, so what are some of the ways that you use it with people right now?

Tom Paladino 06:11

Okay, as I demonstrated, we have three main protocols. For one hour a day, I’ll take a person’s photograph and I will practice a chakra balancing. If I keep your photograph close to this instrument for one hour a day, you’re receiving that amount of light in your chakras, in your brainwaves. So what does that mean? You’re happier. Many people say they have a sensation of euphoria, or you can sleep better. Some people say they have a surge of energy. I would just say that they no longer have a desire for excessive alcohol or cigarettes. So the chakra balancing by this white corrective light seems to balance. The chakra seems to curb, or, if you will overcome addictions or phobias. Now how the light is corrective, it’s divine light. There’s no human reasoning to this process. The protocol that I exercise is a light protocol, no human input. There’s no human reasoning. Hence there’s no room for human error.

Anika Jackson 07:16

So it reminds me a little bit of when you hear like reiki or laying on of hands and like helping people heal through giving them different energy, and I know it’s something you know. I’m sure some people listening are like, yes, this sounds really interesting and innovative. Other people are like this is so out of left field. I don’t really understand it unless you’ve experienced it or studied right. So when you started this journey, what did people think? Did you get a lot of pushback and like what? How are you going to make a career out of that? What is this?

Tom Paladino 07:48

Yeah, you know, most people are very gracious because they want to see progress, and only those who really who are stiff neck will not listen. You know, if I’m following the laws of science, there’s no deception. You cannot fool the laws of science. So this is a scientific process. So, furthermore, I really stand on the shoulders of two men that I know Tesla, nikola Tesla, and another scientist by name of Gail and Hieronymus. Both of them had skater energy instruments and I’ve learned from them and in many ways, I’ve copied them. So what’s taken place for the past 100 years is not my exclusive endeavor. I am working. This is the next generation of skater energy development. Now, put all of that into context. What can we do with this instrument? Well, when people come to our website, we give them a 15-day free session because we want people to experience this new technology. It’s never been done before again. My instrument is unique. So one hour a day, we’ll balance the chakras. The second hour a day follow me.

08:49

I take photographs of microbes and I match them up with photographs of people. Now, remember, this is all information. Intelligence, it’s not a biological process. The energy of, let’s say, the herpes virus will look for the signal. The herpes virus inside my quantum field. This instrument can find the herpes virus inside of me and bring it to a state of chaos or disassemble it Through intelligence. It’s not a chemical process. So all I have to do is take a photograph of a microbe and the instrument will find that microbe and eradicate it.

09:26

Whether it’s the herpes virus or the epstein bar virus, or, say, a bacterium, enterococcus, the instrument finds the signal for the pathogen. Now again, why do I use photographs? My photograph is a source of light. It’s perfect. Enterococcus as a bacterium, it has a source of light. That is perfect. If you communicate with these two fields, with those two communication systems, it’s perfect communication. So you cannot make a mistake. So if I communicate enterococcus with my force field, that’s what’s going to happen, and I can find a enterococcus and destroy it, remove it, bring it to a state of chaos.

Anika Jackson 10:12

I’d love to hear some case studies, because when people come to the website, they have to send you a photo, right? They have to input information about their health or do a quick review.

Tom Paladino 10:21

Actually, I treat everybody identically, so there’s no one-on-one session Today. I work with thousands of photographs. To your previous question, here’s a PCR test result a polymerase chain reaction test result for somebody who had herpes and, according to this person, they no longer have a viral load for herpes after the scalar energy session. Wow, here’s a PCR test for Epstein bar and herpes. This individual says they no longer have a viral load for Epstein bar or herpes. Here’s a PCR test a before and after PCR test for somebody who had HIV. Four months after we worked with this person by way of their photograph, they no longer have any viral load for HIV. There’s another person who submitted a test result undetectable no viral load for HIV.

11:15

We have 4,000 testimonies on the website. So you get my point. This is not hyperbole. This is not my imagination. People from around the world tell me that they no longer have disease conditions. They feel better. They have a surge of energy. Many of their disease symptoms have left To be very clear. You cannot explain what I’m doing by way of Newtonian physics or by way of medical science. I don’t work with Newtonian principles. This is not a medical device. I work with the aura, the energy field of a person. Now we know in Western medicine they’re working with flesh and bones. I never work in person. I don’t work with people. I work with the aura on a photograph.

Anika Jackson 11:57

Interesting, and do people usually come to you for one issue, for instance for one of those diseases, and then continue working with you on other things after that, or do they usually like one thing and then they’re like I’m healed?

Tom Paladino 12:12

All of the above. People are so different. So I work with thousands of people every day. So some people simply say well, I’ll try this 15-day session and I’ll see what it’s all about. And after 15 days, most of them are believers, because they feel better. Now, why do they feel better? Well, there’s thousands of conditions and there’s thousands of reasons why they feel better. As a new science, we’re gaining data. As a new science. Nobody to match my work with, so I’m alone at this, so I have to rely upon the testimonies of people, because that’s all I have. Nobody else has duplicated my results, but I will say, most people, after we give them the 15-day free session, feel better. So there’s something there or something’s happening.

Anika Jackson 12:56

And then, after the 15 days, what does it look like? Because I know this is a large investment, obviously, of your time, your money, your intellect and your spiritual ability. So is it cost prohibitive after 15?

Tom Paladino 13:09

days. No, it’s $89 a month. I’m trying to heal the road. I don’t want to break the bank here and I realize times are tough today. So my goal as a researcher is to help people. I’m not in this for money, Suffice to say. You have nothing to lose except your germs.

Anika Jackson 13:28

I’m just floored that this isn’t being used by more people. Well, I’m floored, but I’m not, at the same time, right, because we know that we live in a capitalist society. That’s all about how much money you make from pharma and from doctors and from all these other things. So I want to know a little bit more about, like you said, people are very welcoming and most people are very accepting and they engage, especially once they start seeing results. Have you had pushback from the medical establishment or are people starting to go? No, we want to work with you.

Tom Paladino 14:00

That’s a good point. I have not had any pushback from the medical establishment because I’m not practicing medicine. Yeah, okay, Okay now I don’t mean to be coy with you. I would say that to anybody. This is not medicine, this is a new science when we realize that a photograph carries a signal. Right now we’re having a conversation through our computers. It’s a computer interview. Well, your image is my computer, my image, I’m sure the audience sees in the laboratory. Well, what’s the point? If you can share an image, you can share a photograph, Great, Okay. So a photograph has a source of light energy, intelligence. This is the new science. First, we have to define what we’re doing. So, to answer your question, nobody in the medical field has this instrument. Nobody has.

Anika Jackson 14:47

My experience, yeah, and you mentioned that you work with thousands of people a day. What does that look like? Because imagine that you can hold up photos to do you have a large machine. That oh okay.

Tom Paladino 15:01

The photographs are miniaturized. Amazing, Placing that collage inside the instrument. I can easily fit two, three million photographs in the instrument at a time. So my goal is to heal the world by way of photographs, and we’re in the process of doing so. Today, in my lab, I treated half a million photographs. So all science, people, scientifically engineered instruments, no human input. I don’t put my two cents into this. The energy does all the work. And the test results? Well, yeah, they speak for themselves. They speak. You know I’ve got 4,000 testimonies on the website. You know you can ask yourself well, why is it that this person tells us that they no longer have a viral load for herpes? Right, you investigate, you tell me what you think. People sign up for the 15-day free session. That’s why it’s there.

Anika Jackson 15:56

Are you ready to take your brand’s new heights? Join the Brand Amplifier for Entrepreneurs program. Learn how to build, elevate and amplify your brand with a comprehensive 10-model course. Learn more about it and other ways to implement our strategies at fullcapacitymarketingcom. Click on EFCM Learning Hub for more information. Can’t wait to help you amplify your brand. Does this also have implications? I think about everything going on in the world right now, and you hear about people coming together with. You know the power of positive thinking or the power of prayer, just like trying to heal the world through putting that collective energy out. When you think about the wars and the conflicts and all of the things that happen, is this another modality that could perhaps be used to help guide people to make the right decisions to come together to yes?

Tom Paladino 16:53

Yes, it actually helps people with our conscious to decide what’s right and what’s wrong, to give them a greater sense of clarity. There’s so many benefits here and I hope this science takes off and I hope people really embrace this technology. This will change the world in time.

Anika Jackson 17:12

Yeah, the better Now on this journey, do you have people who are helping you? Now? Are you training other people how to do this?

Tom Paladino 17:21

Nobody’s interested. You see, there’s no money in it. You cannot make a career out of this. Who wants to spend their life studying a science which there’s no money, there’s no immigration. No, nobody’s interested.

Anika Jackson 17:34

No, so what’s going to happen once?

Tom Paladino 17:38

Once I die? That’s a good question. You know that’s a good point. There have been, say, 10 skater energy experts that I admire, and then all of them none of their family members have continued on with it. Very few people really want to get into this science. None of them know why. It’s baffling to me, but for whatever reason. No, it’s just not happened.

Anika Jackson 18:00

Then I think about on the flip side. You have an entrepreneur who’s not getting enough sleep, who’s like working grinding all the time, has no balance, not eating well. Their health is going downhill, so I see also a place where this can help them heal. But then how do we solve the human aspect of like, also making them realize they need to perhaps have a better quality of life and put a little balance, take care of themselves on the physical plane as well?

Tom Paladino 18:29

Yeah, that’s a good point. Maybe the chakra balancing will give them that insight. We’ll correct their conscience. You’re right, correct. But life is more than just working, yeah.

Anika Jackson 18:38

Yeah, although I feel like you probably spend a lot of your time working, but I also see joy in that.

Tom Paladino 18:45

That’s right, you’re right.

Anika Jackson 18:46

This really is your life’s purpose.

Tom Paladino 18:48

It is, and it’s easy when you enjoy what you’re doing. It’s easy, really not work.

Anika Jackson 18:53

Yeah, Wow. So obviously, if somebody wants to dip their toe into learning more, we know they can go to your website. We know that they can do the 15-day retrial. What other advice would you have for somebody who’s looking to go a little bit further on their journey of figuring out? You know how to improve things beyond the physicality of the.

Tom Paladino 19:11

Yeah Well, we all have that gift. It’s called prayer, meditation, positive thinking. I firmly believe a thought, positive thought or prayer is a scalar wave and I can theorize. It can prove that, because a thought, a prayer does not observe time or space. You can pray at a distance. Well, scalar energy works at a distance. It transcends time and space and it’s non-physical. Prayer is non-physical. So we are scalar beings. Every time we think or pray, that’s a scalar wave that we’re creating.

Anika Jackson 19:44

That’s such a great connection. Thank you, I think that’s going to be very clear. It’s very clear for me to visualize. I think it’s going to be very clear for our audience to understand the connection between those. So thank you for that. I really appreciate it.

19:56

I was also thinking this morning about how, when you put more energy into something where your energy flows, attention goes or is it yes, all right when it goes, energy flows, I guess yeah, I said it backwards the first time, but I’ve seen that in my life with, like, if I put more energy and thought into certain things that I’m working on, more positive things are happening in those areas, whether it’s more opportunities for work or whether it’s more amazing people that I’m meeting, or whatever the case may be, and so I feel like that’s another way to frame what you’re doing.

Tom Paladino 20:32

Yes, you’re obviously right, and that’s going back to my notion of thought, meditation, prayer. It’s a scan wave. What you think and what you pray for is what you get. It’s real. It’s very real, yeah, because if you set that intention out, that’s what comes back to your eventually in some form or another.

Anika Jackson 20:51

So, besides spending a lot of time healing people so you said you don’t work one-on-one with folks have you written a book, or are you thinking about writing, putting this into a book or a manual or a workshop for that to leave a legacy beyond, obviously, the millions of people that you’re helping heal?

Tom Paladino 21:07

Yeah, thank you. I’m writing articles just about one article every two weeks. That’s on the website. Well, I write a book, maybe in the future, but I’m just too busy.

Anika Jackson 21:16

Yeah, and then I saw the article up into a book.

Tom Paladino 21:20

I’m thinking about that. That’s a couple of years off still, but that’s a good point, thank you.

Anika Jackson 21:25

No, I think that would be another way to help continue to introduce the work that you’re doing and get out to more people, which is obviously also why you are doing podcasting right and doing it so that you can reach more people.

Tom Paladino 21:38

Yeah, and I thank you for that. That’s the only way. Again, with the control, let’s say the media is not fair.

Anika Jackson 21:44

Thank you for this opportunity to speak to your audience Of course, and yeah, as I mentioned at the top, I love having a variety of speakers, so I have people on to really talk about business and entrepreneurship, and budgets, or SEO or marketing tactics or PR tactics, but I also love having the Feng Shui expert or the EFT expert or the human design expert or the scalar energy expert, and I think there are really great things, because they’re things that we need to be in tune with not just entrepreneurs, right, but every living being Again, thank you for this platform.

Tom Paladino 22:20

This is a grassroots movement, and what you’re allowing me is to extend, to grow this grassroots movement. Now, why do I make that such a poignant statement? That’s all I can rely upon. I’m not going to get help from big business. Free energy is not going to be welcomed by big business.

Anika Jackson 22:38

Well, and I wanted to ask about that next, because you talked about how this is free energy, but you can harness it in different ways. So, beyond helping humans, is there an implication not necessarily that you’re going to work on, but that somebody else could work on or might be working on to harness this for the energy we need for our homes, for?

Tom Paladino 22:55

our vehicles. Yes, that’s one of the avenues we need to take and hopefully, as God gives me the knowledge, I’ll be able to light up the building. In the future, with scalar energy, I’ll be able to provide illumination without wires, free energy from the sun and the stars without pollution. I’d love to do that.

Anika Jackson 23:14

Yeah, I mean, and that’s essentially we all have heard of solar energy, we see the solar panels, so I love this application to humans, but also how we can take it even further than just having the solar panels everywhere. So how long into your journey with this process did it take you to fine tune and finesse the first?

Tom Paladino 23:34

20 years was theory. I had to learn and study physics. I had to learn Tessa’s work, and the last 20, 25 years I’ve been working with instruments has been a full entire 25 plus 20, 20 years, it’s been close to 50 years. So what’s the point here? It’s going to be much easier for the next generation because you don’t have to start from scratch from the ground floor. I’ve laid the way and I’ve paved the way, and so have other researchers, but in total, the answer question’s been 15 years of work. Oh my gosh.

Anika Jackson 24:06

I mean that’s true dedication. I don’t think most entrepreneurs, whether they’re Spain or in a different vein, have given that much time to especially to think that you worked on theory for the first half of that. That’s such an investment, so it’s obviously something that you knew could have the opportunity to change the world.

Tom Paladino 24:28

Yeah, you’re right, god led me and I would not have done then success or more when I have undertaken this, unless God’s hand was upon me. Because this is esoteric, let’s face it, it’s non-physical, it’s the spirit of God, that’s what I’m working with consciousness. I firmly believe this is a divine energy.

Anika Jackson 24:48

Absolutely. So what do you think is next for you in this journey? I mean, at this site, you’re getting the word out more healing, more people.

Tom Paladino 24:57

In the next two years I have to start working with hundreds of thousands of people, and once that the ball gets rolling and people speak to one another, the grassroots movement goes accordingly. Then, five years down the road, I’ll have time to work on free energy, and if I can eliminate at a distance, if I can provide energy at a distance to eliminate, then that will be the beginning of the end of the energy crisis.

Anika Jackson 25:28

That’s a very big statement. I’m definitely going to want to check back in with you to see how that’s going down the road.

Tom Paladino 25:35

Yeah, thank you, that’s my goal. Amazing, it’s my goal.

Anika Jackson 25:39

Can you talk about some of the pain points that you’ve had in bringing this to the world, and did you ever get frustrated when you were spending all the time studying in the theory side and you hadn’t actually moved to the creation side?

Tom Paladino 25:53

There have been hurdles, but thank God for God and thank God for people who are willing to listen. And every year that goes by, a greater number of people are embracing non-physical science or consciousness. They realize that there’s more than rocks and cars in the physical world. They see beyond that now. So we have a real awakening. We call it prayer, consciousness, the ability to appreciate God, believe in God, the divine Things have changed significantly, so it’s a lot easier today than it was 13 years ago. And what do I see? It’s just a matter of time now because people believe. Once people believe, you can’t stop and live, but you cannot stop this. Intellectual progress cannot be stopped.

Anika Jackson 26:41

Yeah, so what does a typical day look like for you?

Tom Paladino 26:45

Up early research in the lab for two hours, maybe write an article, look into other types of energy production. That’s really what I’m working on now energy production. It’s always a nine 10-hour day, so this is all I do. There’s no side jobs, there’s no hobby for Tom. This is it.

Anika Jackson 27:05

My gosh. Well, that was going to be my next question is you’re bringing balance to people, but what balance do you have for your own life?

Tom Paladino 27:11

I have my wife. That’s my balance. Without my wife, I’d be lost. That’s my balance.

Anika Jackson 27:18

Amazing. And does she work with you? Does she do something?

Tom Paladino 27:22

else she has another occupation, but she’s a big support.

Anika Jackson 27:26

Yeah, fantastic. Well, if there is one thing that you want to leave everybody with, what would that be?

Tom Paladino 27:34

We have incredible potential people the mind and the heart. The human mind, the human heart are scalar energy vessels. Every time we think or feel, that’s a scalar way. So what you put out there is what you’re going to inherit. A good thought will inherit a good response. A kind deed or mercy or love will respond in kind. So use your mind and your heart appropriately. So they are scalar waves that you’re sending out there, boom.

Anika Jackson 28:02

And everybody can go to scalarlightcom and follow over the website and I have seen it’s very easy to find how you can get 15 days of free scalar light sessions. So what does that look like? When somebody I’m looking at your website, they click on the free trial upload your photograph.

Tom Paladino 28:18

the age of the photograph doesn’t matter. At the end of the day I print out the photographs, the Mushi, on a couple sheets of paper, on a collage, and then the following morning I treat you for one hour for chakras, one hour for pathogens. The remaining 22 hours I download nutrients. Oh, I’m able to take photographs of nutrients and download nutrients into people. This is how I get my nutrition. I don’t take a protein shake.

Anika Jackson 28:47

Oh my gosh.

Tom Paladino 28:48

So this is the nutrient program for the remaining 22 hours a day I take photographs of vitamins and minerals and I download the energy into a quantum field, into a person.

Anika Jackson 28:59

I was also noticing that we can submit our own photos, but you can also submit photos of children, loved ones, friends, pets, even.

Tom Paladino 29:08

Please just get the permission of your family. I have two dogs and I treat my dogs. My pets are fine, they’re healthy.

Anika Jackson 29:16

I’m very intrigued by that, because I have two dogs and they’re 10 and a half, and one of them has degenerative arthritis in five places, pancreatitis, kidney disease, high blood pressure, problems with her hips, with her CCLs, and it’s just more medications, more medications, special food, all these other things, and I’ve been sitting here going. There has to be a better way. There has to be something else I can do.

Tom Paladino 29:44

Send your pet, send them in?

Anika Jackson 29:46

I absolutely will. So, besides healing disease, people you said also can come and look into this, for if they have addictions, if they just need to have a more positive mindset, can somebody say, oh, I just want to lose weight? Or how granular, what level can people get to if they’re like I think I’m in good health, but I just wanted to try this out?

Tom Paladino 30:10

You know. That’s why we always offer the 15 day free session. Why do we do that? We want people to be relaxed. We want people to experience it on their terms. For instance, to answer your question, we have a program. It’s called natural foods. There’s a photograph of tomato. If I wanted to download that information from tomato into me, I would hold up these two photographs together inside the instrument. So I received the phytochemicals, the antioxidants, from a tomato, but it’s downloaded into me energetically. This is how I receive my nutrition from energy, from sunlight, or if I wanted to receive the energy of spinach. Now, why am I saying this? When people go on this program, natural foods, they don’t eat so much because they’re receiving their nutrition through energy, through light. Wow. So it diminishes their appetite, so they eat less and they lose weight.

Anika Jackson 31:10

This is just remarkable. I know that I’m signing up and I’m also thinking about not just my listeners, but other friends and people that I want to share this with as well.

Tom Paladino 31:20

Please, please. That’s the way we get the word out. It works. And while you’re at it, you might want to consider this we have an endorphin and neurotransmitter program. People love this. When we match up photographs with endorphins and neurotransmitters, people are happy. We’re downloading. They’re called happy chemicals. We’re not downloading the chemical, we’re downloading the energy of the endorphin and the person, and the energy is even more pure than the chemical and people produce this feeling of elation. They’re happy.

Anika Jackson 31:53

Fantastic. Thank you, yeah Well, I don’t know what else to ask you. I feel like this is just something that everybody has to investigate.

Tom Paladino 32:03

Yes, that’s the best thing. I’ll tell you what sign up people 15 days of free sessions, scandorlightcom, and then, if your audience likes it and there’s a good feedback, bring me back next year and then you can report your testimony to me. Again, I don’t expect people to understand this right off the bat. It’s brand new, it’s a groundbreaking technology. So experience it. Try the 15-day free session and likewise, and if you like it, well, sometime next year you might want to invite me back and we’ll speak about your experience, definitely.

Anika Jackson 32:36

I always have one last question that I like to ask Do you have a favorite quote, mantra, verse, words of wisdom that help you get through every day?

Tom Paladino 32:45

Yeah, it’s real simple Love God, love your neighbor, love yourself. If the real practice that this would be so easy, this would be paradise. Love God, love your neighbor, love yourself, that’s it.

Anika Jackson 33:00

Those are great words and they’re really important words to pull out right now. We’re having a crazy time in the world with that, but it’s always a crazy time right. There’s always so much conflict and so many events natural disasters but if we put more love into everything we do and how we treat people, we’ll see the fruit of that. So, tom, thank you for this demonstration, for sharing your passion and your purpose with us. We’ll obviously have the website and the show notes, and this episode will also be on all of my channels Traverse TV, 360, talk Radio for Women, as well as all the regular podcast channels and in my blog. So I’m looking forward to experiencing this and reporting back to everybody, and I invite my listeners and watchers to join in with me and let me know let Tom know what you think.

Tom Paladino 33:57

Yeah, please, thank you so much. Let’s heal the world people. Thank you, you’re it Fantastic.

Anika Jackson 34:04

Thank you, everybody for listening to another episode of your brand Amplified, or watching it, and I’ll be back again in a few days with another amazing expert. Want more? Check out amplifywithanika.com or follow me on socials at @amplifywithanika.

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