Ralph Zuranski: Hi, this is Ralph Zuranski. I’m on the phone with Jason Potash. He’s one of the leading marketers on the Internet, specializing in how to market e-zine articles. He’s created a product called E-Zine Announcer which I own and use.
Ralph Zuranski: This is a phenomenal product, and he just recently came out with a product that teaches people how to use articles as a great way of driving people to their web sites. Jason, how are you doing today?
Jason Potash: I’m doing great, Ralph. Thanks for having me. How are you doing?
Ralph Zuranski: I’m doing good. Perhaps you could just tell me a little about yourself and your new projects that you are working on.
Jason Potash: I’d be happy to. In case folks don’t know me, I got started online about five years ago. I had a background in corporate sales, marketing and business development. I worked in the high-tech sector, mainly in software start up companies, so I was no stranger to the high tech environment.
Jason Potash: Obviously, I have been working online within various companies for many years. When I started to make the transition from working in a more stable corporate environment to getting out on my own, I really had a bit of a head start than perhaps some people listening today.
Jason Potash: I had some of the fundamentals in areas of copywriting and networking, business development and even basic technical skills to help me put some sites together and that kind of thing.
Jason Potash: It took off from there. I launched a product, my first product was E-Zine Announcer that Ralph referred to. I did a ton of research on the product, released it, and low and behold, if you play your cards right and you do the proper research and test market your product, your chances of succeeding are much greater than just guessing and throwing caution to the wind, diving into something and finding out if it might not be a success.
Jason Potash: Since that product launch, I’ve had several other info product launches through my site, PickTheirBrains.com. I’ve done online Webinar and seminars, I’ve networked with literally dozens and dozens of top business leaders and marketers in various sectors, and I’ve had a lot of fun doing it. Recently, I’ve put together a project called Article Announcer which is just another extension of my travels, if you will, of working online.
Jason Potash: Going back to some of the things I’ve done for the past five years, creating articles and quality content, distributing those articles across the Internet to get more people learning about me, more people linking to my sites, hopefully hitting a link to visit my site and hopefully getting a little more credibility in getting my name out there, by using articles to do that.
Jason Potash: It’s worked very well for myself and thousands of others. I just recently packaged all that system up with some software to bring it to the marketplace a few months ago.
Ralph Zuranski: Didn’t you just come out with a recent exposé on the industry on the stuff that doesn’t work? Could you maybe share a little bit about that?
Jason Potash: Definitely. What I did actually, is I released a series of, as I call them, “shocking reports”. What I wanted to do was really give people an unsalted dose of reality without the padding, sugar coating or whatever.
Jason Potash: Really, it boils down to this. There are many ways to make income online. Many people are led to believe that by buying some new whiz-bang piece of software or buying into some new tactic or trick that somebody discovered in the basement, that you can win the search engine war, get some of the traffic, make money in your underwear, all that stuff that we’d love to do. But in many cases it doesn’t happen that easily.
Jason Potash: Many people have been following the golden path to buying the software products and expecting instant traffic by creating a few pages or pressing a few buttons.
Jason Potash: What the report did was basically just put my cards on the table and explain to people what is happening with the search engines, and what is happening with online businesses. How actually sites are getting blacklisted, getting the lights shut out and bad things actually happening to a lot of these businesses by following the latest trends and tricks and not really playing by the rules, if you will.
Jason Potash: Of course, that’s been my whole philosophy from day one, Ralph, is to take the higher road and try to do things ethically and morally, not try to put a bunch of garbage up online, trying to trick people and trick the search engines.
Jason Potash: Ultimately, as you know, anybody who tries to play games or do things deceptively, usually that comes back to haunt you. If not immediately, it might take a little bit of time but as you kind of dodge bullets and work under the radar. Somebody comes knocking at your front door and before you know it, its pay time. That’s been my philosophy from day one.
Jason Potash: The report just puts some facts out there based upon what Google’s telling us on how they weigh the legitimacy and relevancy of your sites, and that sort of thing. Just giving people some real advice on what to look out for and how to structure their business for the long term and not the short term.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s the least I would expect of somebody that looks like Clark Kent!
Jason Potash: I’ve heard that before.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s what impressed me, that clean, shiny look. You reminded me of Superman in disguise. So I would expect nothing less from you in trying to steer people in the right direction. I know your products are just great because I use them myself. That leads us into the first question; what is your definition of heroism?
Jason Potash: That’s a good question. I think you can look at it in two different ways. From a business perspective, or from just a social perspective of someone who is in the community who you idolize as a “Hero”.
Jason Potash: Let’s look at things from a business perspective. Heroes can be many things, but I think in terms of people that I see that in my mind are heroes, are people that are role models. People that you can look at that are really leaders in their field, people who are a prime example of how you should conduct business and how you should behave on an individual basis in terms of how you treat people, the way you look at the world, how you balance personal life, family life, how you are contributing back to society.
Jason Potash: Really, the road they’ve gone through to travel to get to that point, whatever their measure of success is, if it’s financial success, if it’s that they are the Chairman of the Board for a certain charity, whatever that might be.
Jason Potash: Really, I think it’s also important to look at the path it’s taken to get there. That, in my mind, really determines a Hero. A person that’s willing to stick through it, to get back on the saddle and get kicked off again, overcome adversity, challenges and everything else that goes along with it, and to finally rise up and actually experience that wonderful feeling of success.
Jason Potash: Having gone down that bumpy road, in my mind, puts somebody up there as a Hero, having accomplished that and having gone through all those things as well.
Ralph Zuranski: Did you ever create a secret Hero in your mind when you were growing up to deal with life’s difficulties?
Jason Potash: When I was a young boy, not so much. Obviously, we all had Superman and Batman and everything else. Then you get into your teenage years and sort of things change. As I began to get into my mid-teens, one fellow, to tell you the truth, this is before he became famous, before he became Governor, before he had the notoriety he has today.
Jason Potash: A fellow by the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger honestly was an idol and a Hero in my life, primarily because when I was a teenager I was attracted to body building, to be in good shape. I was playing football, being physically active and being strong was something that I aspired to be, especially in light of me playing sports and so forth.
Jason Potash: As I began to learn more about the man, the Austrian Oak, the man from Austria who was infamous for winning body building contests, I really started to do some research on him and his autobiography and learn about his story.
Jason Potash: The more I learned about him, and read about his life, and where he had come from, and what he aspired to, it really made my respect for him grow tremendously.
Jason Potash: He became sort of a Hero in my mind. A fellow that could basically come from poverty, not speak two words of English, fly to the U.S.A. with ten dollars in his pocket, and go through the physical and the mental toughness, if you will, of going through 2½ hour workouts every day which is grueling enough, in the hopes that you can achieve some success through a sport that was not even developed at that time.
Jason Potash: Back in the 1970’s in bodybuilding, you were laughed at and shunned upon. It was nowhere near what it is today. It was an underdog group of folks doing it and that was it. He overcame all that and put himself through university or college, going part-time and going from being a bricklayer to taking all these different jobs.
Jason Potash: We know the end story, now it’s no secret, and what he’s accomplished through his acting career and through real estate investment, and now of course, being the Governor.
Jason Potash: All throughout my teenage years, he really became my Hero. That if I can achieve even 10% of the success he’s achieved in all balances of his life, that would be an amazing thing.
Ralph Zuranski: Yes, Arnold was one of my Heroes too, along with Steven Seagal. I always was impressed with what they did with their lives, and how they stood for what was clear, is good, and what was clear, is evil.
Ralph Zuranski: That brings us to the next question. What is your perspective on goodness, ethics and moral behavior?
Jason Potash: I’m a big believer in karma and what goes around comes around. All throughout my business career and even just my personal life, I’ve been a big believer in laying your cards on the table and being ethical and being honest, not trying to be deceptive or try to do something that can bite you in the butt.
Jason Potash: I’ve worked for individuals and I’ve worked beside individuals who have tried to be deceptive, sneaky and tricky. The kind of people where you shake their hand they will give you a good smile and a wink, and you turn your back and they’ve got a knife raised, ready to jab you right in the spine, so to speak.
Jason Potash: I really do think, and I’ve seen it happen again and again where it does come around to haunt you, if not today, then tomorrow. But if you keep growing your business and conducting business, it being a shady dealer, or being unethical or misleading people, or just scamming people outright, that does come back to haunt you.
Jason Potash: From day one it’s based upon my morals of my family. From day one, I’ve been totally upfront and ethical with people, tried to provide good service to people, good value to people without taking their money and closing down a business and opening up a new business two weeks later, which as you know, happens more often than not.
Jason Potash: I’ve always been solidly grounded, if you will, in terms of being ethical and upfront with people. The bottom line is, Ralph, doing unto others as I’d like to have them to do unto me, treating my customers and associates the way that I would like to be treated as well.
Jason Potash: If you do that, and you have a clean nose, you have nothing to worry about and you don’t have to look over your shoulder wondering who is trying to either issue a lawsuit or who is trying to slander you or is trying to come knock at your door to collect money, or whatever.
Jason Potash: You don’t have those worries. And I think it’s a great feeling when you don’t always have to sit behind your desk and live in fear that somebody or someone is going to come knocking at your door because you did something two weeks ago, two months ago or two years ago that really aggravated people, and now its payback time. It’s coming back to haunt you.
Ralph Zuranski: Boy, isn’t that true. What are the principles that you are willing to sacrifice your life for? I know there’s been a real question of a person that runs into a burning building to save somebody’s life in contrast to people who choose a path like taking care of somebody who is sick in their family. What do you think that is worth sacrificing somebody’s life for?
Jason Potash: That’s a very good question, and I think that obviously it depends on the circumstance. I think many people are willing to help out in a moment of need, especially if the circumstances require it.
Jason Potash: I mean, a perfect example is, I remember reading an article in the paper about somebody who did a test. They are on the street in downtown New York and they were crying for help and saying, “Please help me” and they are limping around or something. They said a ton of people just walked right by them and didn’t even give them the time of day.
Jason Potash: I’m not saying that’s anything against New Yorkers, but I think it’s just a sign of the times in terms of society, and we are so desensitized, and everyone is so busy and has their own agenda. We are all disconnected when we see somebody lying on the street needing help. We automatically assume that the “other guy” is going to step up and make things right or that it’s not your problem to be the Good Samaritan and help out. I think that really depends on the individual.
Jason Potash: Who is to say if there is a burning building and I heard a baby crying and a mother screaming for help that her child was in danger, I think under those circumstances that you really just react upon impulse. I think I would, if that were the situation, do whatever it took to save that life and offer my help in a moment of need.
Jason Potash: In terms of actually it being worth it? I think that all through life you’re thrown challenges and curve balls and you really have to have a balance between business and personal life. I’ve known people as well throughout my professional career that that balance is totally out of whack. When family issues happen, unfortunately there are health issues in the family or you are thrown a sudden blow and everything crumbles and you think, “How are we going to survive this?
Jason Potash: Certain people will roll up their sleeves and do what they have to do to step in and take care of Mom or take off work for the next three weeks and sacrifice pay to take care of their daughter or son.
Jason Potash: I’ve been in that situation as well. I think it depends on the individual. I’m the kind of person where you can’t put a price on family. You can’t put a price on a life. Personally, if I’m given the choice to jump in and to make things right, it would be by the bedside of a needy family member whoever it might be, due to health issues or what have you. I would definitely drop anything, no matter what the cost or the price, because you really cannot put a price on life.
Jason Potash: As I’ve also learned, Ralph, especially with three kids under the age of four, you really cannot roll back the clock. That applies to anybody in your life. You can’t just say, “Well, you know, I’ll get to it, I’ll get to it, I’ll spend more time with Mom next year” or, “I’m busy, I’ll call Dad next week.”
Jason Potash: You really have to make that a touchstone in your life. That as you are going through life you are taking time to enjoy these moments and be in touch with family, because as I said, you can’t roll the clock back. Unfortunately, once that time passes on, it’s too late.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you believe people are more important than material possessions, power and wealth?
Jason Potash: I believe so, yes. I mean, it’s no secret. We’ve heard it again and again where you have rich celebrities, athletes or if it’s actors who all of a sudden go from living in a trailer eating ketchup sandwiches and drinking tap water from month to month and year to year.
Jason Potash: Finally, they strike it and they get the moment in the spotlight and are making millions of dollars. They are buying these huge homes and also they are getting divorced every second year. There is a scandal throughout their entire life.
Jason Potash: Many of them you see on TV are just not happy people. They have everything you can imagine. You think they have all the material possessions in the world and they never have to worry about anything. They have the finest restaurants, the finest clothes, going on trips around the world and you think, “My goodness, wouldn’t you love to be in their shoes?”
Jason Potash: Yet, they are the most lonely, unhappy people, in many cases, that you can see. As opposed to people sometimes you see who are living in some of the slums of the earth. You see kids playing on the street with a stick and a tennis ball, they are laughing, smiling and having a great time and hanging out on porches and just enjoying family.
Jason Potash: I think that yes, you cannot put a price on family. If given the choice, you can take away all my possessions today and take all my material possessions, take away my business and say, “It’s family or everything else”. Without a doubt, I would say that family is more important than anything else in this world. I can’t emphasize that enough.
Ralph Zuranski: Yeah, I believe that, too. When was the lowest point in your life, and how did you change your path to one of victory over obstacles? I know that you had quite a few problems just recently when you went on vacation and put your family ahead of your business, and had some problems with the filming for your new product that you are selling. Was there any lower point in your life than that?
Jason Potash: Yeah, that was definitely a bump on the road, but trivial compared to some the things that I’ve experienced. I always say that the good Lord has always thrown enough curve balls and putting us through the test. If you pass the test, He will raise the bar and give you another test. That’s just part of life.
Jason Potash: Every time you overcome an obstacle, a challenge or a curve ball thrown your way, you are obviously a stronger and better person because of it. You learn things in life and it helps you to grow as a person spiritually and often as well, financially.
Jason Potash: It’s a business, but what sticks out in my mind is one of the most difficult challenges I’ve had. It would be going back just after I got married, about ten years ago now. I was working in a deadbeat job and not making very much money.
Jason Potash: I basically decided to send my wife back to college to fulfill her life long dream of becoming a teacher. She’d held that dream for years and years. When we got married I said, “You know what? We’re young, now is the time. Let’s just sacrifice it and get a line of credit, send you back to school and of course, have a big fat loan, a student loan on our bank record.”
Jason Potash: We had just gotten married and were looking to buy furniture so it was not a good situation. I moved into a small, basically one bedroom apartment. The joke was that you could take a marble and drop it on the floor in the kitchen. It would roll real fast to the other side of the kitchen.
Jason Potash: The floors were slanted, we had raccoons living in the rafters. I’m not making this stuff up, there were raccoons living in our rafters and they were fighting at night. It was just a run down place. You get to that point in your life where you are like, “I just hope to God that it’s only going to go up from here because how much lower can we go here.”
Jason Potash: Driving a beat up car and my wife wasn’t there for support and at that point in my life, my parents had been split up for many years and my mom decided to go back with my brother to live in Germany where her family was.
Jason Potash: My family was gone and my wife was away, I had huge debt piled up, I was barely making ends meet, I had this crappy car that I was driving, and living in this run down apartment. That was basically rock bottom.
Jason Potash: You know, I think that basically through my attitude and perseverance and knowing, believing in myself and just studying like crazy about all the things that would help me to succeed in business, and having a goal and some focus, that really helped me just to never lose sight of my goal, to know that this is a temporary situation.
Jason Potash: If I was 85 years old and this had been my life for the past 85 years, you might want to get depressed and upset because you’ve done nothing. You haven’t changed anything, you’ve lived the same life you had when you were 20, 30 or 40.
Jason Potash: That can be pretty sad. But the fact that I was young, intelligent, had a lot of motivation, able bodied, able minded, what could stand in my way and stop me?
Jason Potash: My driving persistence and desire to want to succeed was what really kept me going. It’s hard to give yourself a kick in the butt to keep going and to constantly tell yourself that things will get better. I’m going to succeed some day and this is just a test, it’s just temporary and I can change these circumstances with the power of will that I have.
Jason Potash: That really kept me going. It didn’t take me a year to get me out of that situation, it took me several years, probably at least three years. As I slowly built things up, each new month became a little bit better, and I knew I was just stoking my mental fire with information and knowledge to help me break the shackles of poverty and succeed.
Jason Potash: I did, I faced the brink of bankruptcy. At one point I was willing to throw in the towel. A lot of my friends did who were in similar situations and I said, “No, I’m not going to give in.” I know I can just hang on to this bowl, and even though it’s throwing me around and I’m getting kicked back and forth, I know I can ride this thing out. I’m going to be a better person having gone through this again, “test” that I’m being put through here.
Jason Potash: Obviously, there is a happy ending to this story and my wife is still with me and she has been a driving force in my life and has really been one of my coaches to get me back on the saddle and give me a kick in the butt and say, “Keep going. You can do this, keep plugging away.”
Jason Potash: It’s easy to give up, to crash and burn and throw my hands in the air and say, “This is not worth it, I can’t take it any more.” There have been a lot of life lessons learned in that process as well.
Jason Potash: I guess you’ve heard this before, but anybody listening today who is in that situation today, I’m here to tell you that it’s all up to you. It all depends on how badly you want to get out of that situation.
Jason Potash: I remember even having jobs where I just hated, hated the environment I was in. My boss was a jerk, I hated the way I was treated, and the money was just garbage. I was being taken advantage of and it wasn’t a good feeling.
Jason Potash: Many people go through that in life and they are not willing to make the change. They just go through that for 30 or 40 years and it’s sad. As opposed to people who say, “You know what? I hate this job so bad, I’m going to do whatever it takes to get myself the heck out of here. I don’t care what it takes. If it means I have to stay up five hours a night studying marketing or studying real estate or studying investment planning, I don’t care. I’m going to do whatever it takes to get myself out of this hellhole.
Jason Potash: That’s exactly what I did. You have to reach that point in life, I think, Ralph, where you say to yourself, “Am I willing to do whatever it takes to get myself out of this situation?” Whatever that situation might be.
Jason Potash: When you come to that point, and you’ve really just entirely had it, I think that’s when amazing things happen and breakthroughs happen. It happened for me because at that point I just said, “That’s it. There is no turning back. I’m just going to rock and roll, buckle down, do what I have to do. Keep my nose to the grindstone, not complain, not whine and not moan but just do this and make it happen and not finish until I’m done and I’m satisfied and I’m living the life that I want to live.”
Jason Potash: That’s what happened to me, as I said, when I sort of was in financial ruins and so forth. It became the driving force to achieving the success that I have today.
Ralph Zuranski: How important is it to have a dream or a vision that sets a course of your life?
Jason Potash: It’s very important. I think, as I mentioned before, just me having a goal and just something that I could strive towards and knowing that I was moving towards something bigger and greater.
Jason Potash: I think it’s so important, because if you just say to yourself, “I want to make a million dollars,” well, don’t we all?
Jason Potash: I mean, you can make a million dollars by spending a hundred dollars on lottery tickets every week. The chances are slim to none that you actually make a million dollars, or you just dream and say, “I want the lifestyle that a millionaire could have. I want to have fancy cars and all kinds of parties and a big house and travel to Mexico every second month on vacation.”
Jason Potash: I think without that goal, without having something to reach towards, you are sort of like a ship at sea without having a direct clear direction of what the end result will be, and that kind of guides you and steers you. I think it’s important to have large goals that might even be unattainable right now.
Jason Potash: And also to have mini-goals along the way, and a mini goal might be that I’m going to get my first product together, I’m going to buy my first house, I’m going to flip it in two months and I’m going to make some money so I can go and buy myself another house.
Jason Potash: It might be I’m going to open up a restaurant. Whatever your goals might be in business, I think you have to have a big picture goal and also several milestones along the way. Obviously, like myself, it might take you five or six years to reach those big goals but along the way, if you are setting small goals to achieve, it gives you a great feeling of accomplishment when you say, “You know what? I told myself that within three months, I’m going to, whatever it might be, I’m going to get my real estate license, or I’m going to study everything I can about franchising, so I’m fully prepared when I jump into this game about franchises.”
Jason Potash: Just put those goals up there as well, and as you do that, you cross them off your list. At least you can see that you are moving forward.
Jason Potash: The car is not in neutral, you are not stagnant, the engine is running and you are plowing ahead and moving faster and quicker every day. I think it’s very important to have both those goals, and they become the blueprint, if you will, and the roadmap to your ultimate success.
Ralph Zuranski: How important is it to take a positive view of setbacks, misfortunes and mistakes?
Jason Potash: Well I say that every misfortune is a lesson learned. Not too many entrepreneurs I know that have achieved great success who haven’t had failures, who haven’t had bumps in the road, who haven’t been to the point where they are throwing their hands in the air and thinking,” Is this all worth it?”
Jason Potash: I’ve been there too, I can give you a ton of stories about projects that were just total disasters, where I lost money or I lost hundreds of hours of time. It’s very emotionally draining and I think those lessons, they are lessons in business, lessons in life that lead to bigger and better things.
Jason Potash: Many people say, you talk to the wise man on the mountain. He said if I only knew today, if I had the same knowledge today that I did when I was 30, I could be a 30 year old with the mind of a 70 year old. It would just be unbelievable.
Jason Potash: I think that can’t happen unfortunately, but as you learn more lessons and you have more failures, you overcome challenges and adversity in business and life, I think it really helps you to become stronger, tougher and to have the knowledge you need to eventually put the pieces together to make things work and understand what it takes. To understand the mechanics and ingredients of what it takes to be successful, having gone through and learned those life lessons along the way.
Ralph Zuranski: Does it take courage to pursue new ideas and make changes in your life that affects everybody else around you?
Jason Potash: It definitely takes courage. As we know as human beings, we are complacent, even often lazy. We do not like change. We like staying in the same house, eating at the same restaurants, ordering the same food, eating the same brand, doing the same things, watching the same TV shows.
Jason Potash: We like that constant comfy feeling of knowing what’s going to happen next, and just surrounding ourselves with things that we know, like and so forth. Any time you take yourself out of that element and put change into the mix and that kind of stuff, it makes people feel uncomfortable and uneasy.
Jason Potash: Even starting a business, the big thing is that people are often more afraid of success than they are of failure. I felt the same way with my first product launch. I was so on the edge, I was like, “Should I release this thing? But what happens if all of a sudden I have 100 orders and I can’t handle it, or all of a sudden I’ve got too much business?”
Jason Potash: All these problems you are making that magnify these small little molehills and make them into mountains. The same with failure, you are afraid of failure, you are afraid of diving in and putting yourself out there. “What if people don’t like this, if they don’t buy into this, what if I just totally have wasted the past year of my life investing in this product and putting it together and then I sell one copy?”
Jason Potash: What happens then? But of course the process you took to get there, the road you took to get there, is equally as important, if not more important, than any financial gain you can get by actually getting a product or getting a service to market it.
Jason Potash: It’s just the learning process you have gone through to get to that point and going to the next level. Change is inevitable. You need to put yourself out there. You need to get out of your comfort zone, do something where you totally feel like you are standing naked in the cold wind, shivering, you don’t feel comfortable and you want to go home by the fire.
Jason Potash: I think if you do that on a monthly basis as much as possible, it’s going to help you to develop those street skills you need to be successful in business and also in life.
Ralph Zuranski: So when you are going through all that discomfort of doing things and stretching yourself beyond what you are at this time when you are doing it, do you think that it’s important to have a rock solid belief that your dreams will actually become reality?
Jason Potash: I think that you do, definitely. Because if you are going through all this hardship, if you are putting yourself out there, if you’ve got scars, bruises and broken legs because you’ve tried things, been beaten up and you’ve gotten back on the horse.
Jason Potash: I keep using the horse analogy but it’s a good one. You get kicked off and you get back on again. I think you basically still have to maintain that positive attitude and know there is a reason that you are doing this. You want to accomplish those goals so badly that these are all worthwhile sacrifices.
Jason Potash: I used this analogy in an article I wrote a couple of years ago and people really resonated with it. I spoke before about actors, you see these actors and actresses, and you think “It must be nice making millions of dollars a year and what an easy job. They date tons of girls, date tons of guys, they are living the life and they’ve got the fancy cars.”
Jason Potash: You hear stories about people who get discovered. For some reason they’re eating in a restaurant and somebody eyes them and says,
“Hey, you have a unique look, you want to be a supermodel or you want to be an actor?” That very rarely happens.
Jason Potash: For the most part, there are years and years of sacrifice you don’t hear about. For example, you hear them eating ketchup soup and going to auditions and dealing with rejection and taking acting classes and not being able to afford classes and working as a waiter.
Jason Potash: All these things happen, and a very small 10% of those people that go through that and follow that dream, actually succeed. If you have ever been to any major centers, especially L.A., you know exactly what I’m talking about, because you have a ton of good looking waiters and waitresses serving you meals who all have aspirations of becoming an actor, actress or a model of some sort.
Jason Potash: A lot of them do not make it. I think you have to have a clear goal that drives you on a daily basis to know that you want something so bad that you can taste it. You can shake off rejection, you can shake off fear, shake off disappointment and failure and just keep moving forward and it doesn’t affect you. If you don’t do that, then really, the gas will run out of the car very quickly after you deal with two or three points of rejection or failure.
Jason Potash: At that point, you may just give up. Where if you are firmly grounded and have that belief system and have that goal, I think you will persevere to the end, having those foundations in place ahead of time.
Ralph Zuranski: In business and in life, there are a lot of people that upset, offend and oppose you. How important is forgiveness in those situations?
Jason Potash: I’m sorry, repeat that again Ralph?
Ralph Zuranski: In life, there are a lot of people that oppose, offend and upset you. How important is forgiveness?
Jason Potash: It’s very important, and I know that it’s often difficult in business, even in life when people do offend you, maybe insult you, attack you, do something to damage your credibility or what have you. I’m a big believer that you have to forgive people.
Jason Potash: My wife actually has commented to me many times and says, “I’m amazed at how calm you are and you how don’t let things get to you.” Inside, you may be frustrated, you may feel disappointed, and you may feel anger, you may feel resentment.
Jason Potash: But I think you really have to hold those feelings back and not lash out at people based upon human impulse or instincts to pick up a phone or send an e-mail to somebody and just immediately react based upon emotion alone, because that can come back to haunt you.
Jason Potash: An example I had was, a few months ago a fellow ordered one of my products. He had problems getting the product, then he got the product and it was the wrong version.
Jason Potash: Anyway, long story short, it was going a downward spiral for whatever reason and it’s one of these things that happen once in awhile. It’s always this one customer that has all these things happen to them. I guess it’s called Murphy’s Law, whatever you want to call it. It happens once in awhile.
Jason Potash: And this fellow, I mean aside from me getting on a plane and visiting him personally, nothing would keep him happy. He kept on coming back to me and coming back to me. Of course, I was getting frustrated along the way.
Jason Potash: I’m trying to appease him as best I can and I’m trying to get him everything he needs and to keep him happy, and not just send him to my support staff and have them deal with him. I wanted to personally resolve this and let him know that I do care about my customers and am not hiding behind my staff.
Jason Potash: Anyway, a long story short, I found out that he was a well respected interviewer. He does tons of interviews. Interviews business leaders and experts and so forth. He was actually looking at my product to do a review on the product and wanted to include it on his site and have a review about the product.
Jason Potash: Had I jumped the gun and as he was attacking me and questioning my business because he didn’t get the right product, all these things, I could have easily just either issued him a refund, told him to take a hike, and say stop bothering me.
Jason Potash: I didn’t do that luckily, and as a result we did an interview, he reviewed the product, it got a very favorable review and obviously got a ton of exposure and traffic as a result of that. By not lashing out and using my emotions to guide my responses in business, that very negative situation turned out to be something very positive.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you experience service to others as a source of joy?
Jason Potash: I do. I think that in business, obviously we are all in business for the most part to derive financial gain and to make money. But I think if you focus your business on fooling people, on tricking people, on just being a snake oil salesman, pulling the wool over someone’s eyes, to trick them, take their money and run away, that doesn’t become very fulfilling in the long run.
Jason Potash: Or if you are dealing with complaints from customers who are complaining about your product, complaining about you, complaining about whatever it is that you do, and clearly you are not doing the best you can to service them, again, I don’t think that is going to be a great source of accomplishment or satisfaction in your life moving forward.
Jason Potash: I believe that in providing good customer service, doing the best you can do, providing the best products and services, whatever it is you offer and truly stand behind that and to know inside that you’ve done the best you can do, and have produced the best product possible, I find a great deal of satisfaction getting feedback from people who appreciate the time and effort I put into my business and my products, can appreciate that and realize that.
Jason Potash: Then they send me back comments that say, “Wow, I am totally impressed, this has been a great experience or your product has gone well above and beyond the call of duty” or, “I’ve bought other products before and your stuff is just incredible Thanks for going the extra mile.” Stuff like that gets me pumped and motivated.
Jason Potash: The problem, too, is that as an entrepreneur, I don’t have a staff of 100 people. I don’t have a board of directors, I don’t have superiors working over me to say, “Hey, Jason, great job.” Or give me a pat on the back, or give me a raise, or sending me on a trip to Hawaii with my wife because I happen to win Employee of the Month or perhaps I won a contest of some sort.
Jason Potash: We don’t have those little elements in our life in the business world to give us a pat in the back, especially when you are self employed. So I find my customers provide that sense of satisfaction, give me a pat on the back and you know, giving me a “pay raise” through their comments. Otherwise, you are not getting that feedback; you are not getting that gratification from your co-workers because they don’t exist. I find it’s a tremendous source of satisfaction in business.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you maintain a sense of humor in the face of serious problems?
Jason Potash: You know, I think you have to laugh at some of the issues that come your way. You mentioned some challenges I had recently with going on a family vacation and coming back and having a bomb dropped in my lap after having three or two great days with my family in the sun.
Jason Potash: At first, you panic, your heart races and you get frustrated. You can feel it, your breathing starting to get really shallow and you are panicking. I think that you have to take it with a grain of salt and you have to laugh at it.
Jason Potash: If you look at things, and I truly believe that the Lord just throws you curve balls just to test you as an individual in every element of life. To see if you can pass the test, or if you are just going to lie down and cry, or roll over and play dead, or just throw your hands in the air and give up.
Jason Potash: Every challenge becomes a little bit greater. You grow as an individual, you grow spiritually, and you grow financially. You grow in any degree of success you have in your business and in life. I think that you have to sometimes laugh it off and say, “Can anything worse happen?”
Jason Potash: Or let’s put it in perspective, this may have happened, but at least this didn’t happen. Or, this happened to a friend of mine two years ago imagine if that happened to me as opposed to this small little problem that I’m dealing with today.
Jason Potash: I’ve got a little coffee mug on my desk that I don’t use to drink coffee, but it’s holding a bunch of pens and markers and it’s by an author, I forget his name now, but it just says “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” and you turn it around the mug as I am now and the other side says, “Will this matter a year from now?”
Jason Potash: My wife gave that to me a couple of years ago and it’s so true. Because some of the things I’ve been through that seemed like these huge catastrophes in my life, I look back now and I’m like, “Heck, that was nothing. That was like getting a mosquito bite and complaining that your arm is going to fall off.” It was just a small little bump in the road, compared with some of the stuff that I’ve dealt with recently.
A year down the road I’ll look back and say “You know what? Those issues were nothing because I’m down to bigger and more pressing challenges now.” That basically describes sort of my outlook on the situation in general.
Ralph Zuranski:What place does the power of prayer in your life?
Jason Potash:It’s a very important part of my life, in family life and also in business and I’m a big believer that you have to give thanks that every day is a blessing, and every success in business is a blessing. I think often in life we get so caught up in trying to chase the almighty dollar and succeed in business and trying to develop a master plan that basically, you forget about faith and prayer.
Jason Potash: Obviously, if things go bad in your life, if it’s a tragedy with family or a financial situation you’re dealing with, that’s really just like a bomb going off in your lap, we often turn to prayer. At those points in our life, because we are looking for guidance, we are looking for answers, we are looking for the Lord to come around to help us get through this situation, whatever it might be, we turn to prayer.
Jason Potash: I find in many cases, even many of my friends, the same doesn’t happen when you achieve success. Any amount of success that you achieve in life, do give thanks for what you have, what you’ve accomplished, for the blessings you have been given and the fact that you are able enough to achieve the success in your life.
Jason Potash: The fact that you live in a country, thank God, where you can achieve the success, unlike some things you’ve seen on TV recently with people in Africa and things of that nature, where there is no way they can achieve the same things we can achieve in all levels living here in North America and the U.S.A.
Jason Potash: I think that prayer has definitely been with me, it’s something that I was brought up with. I’ve always had faith. My family and my children, we are introducing them to all the same morals and principles, and the religious beliefs that we do.
Jason Potash: It’s a point of particular importance, especially when you are dealing with all the challenges and adversity. I’ve found I’ve had a tremendous source of inspiration and strength just relying on prayer and knowing that, “Yes, things will get better.” I have faith in myself and faith in God that He will pull me through this.
Jason Potash: As they say, my wife used to say all the time and I will probably get this wrong, but if, oh gosh, what is this thing? “If He brings you to it, He will get you through it.” Something like that. If the Lord brings you to it and puts the situation in your hands, He’s going to bring you through it if you have faith and are willing to get through it.
Jason Potash: That gives you an idea of my belief in terms of prayer and how it fits into my business life and personal life as well.
Ralph Zuranski: Who are the Heroes in your life?
Jason Potash: That’s a very good question. I mean, again, depending on people you look up to who are leaders in the community, obviously, even people in the church who you look at, they are Heroes for different reasons. They are not the most successful people in a business sense.
Jason Potash: Obviously, they are balanced people and want to give back to society. They want to do good to others. They believe in a spirit of sharing, giving, openness, trying to do good, and contribute to society. Those are Heroes that I think a lot of us have.
Jason Potash: In the business world, a lot of those things can blend. People like Dave Thomas, may he rest in peace, the founder of Wendy’s. I read his autobiography several years ago when I was in the restaurant business. He was a Hero of mine earlier in life, especially when I was involved in the restaurant business because obviously, he’d been down the same road I’d been down and I could relate to him.
Jason Potash: There is a man, again extremely driven, persistent, had basically been selling Colonel Sander’s chicken recipe off the back of a pick up truck to restaurants, and he had been rock bottom and obviously bounced his way back in the restaurant business.
Jason Potash: But here is a man who is always grounded spiritually, always kept his faith, always gave thanks and then moving forwards obviously, achieved great success in business. In the community he was a respected leader. He always was giving back to charities. He was an orphan as well and developed a Dave Thomas foundation and was always generously giving back to charities. And on the speaking circuit, delivering free speeches to other organizations or other social groups.
Jason Potash: Just really a Hero, a role model that we can all follow, a person who had achieved all the elements of success. Take a scorecard in life and what defines a Hero, what defines success? I think Dave Thomas has come pretty darn close to checking off all these elements.
Jason Potash: You look at the matrix of areas, from business and financial success, giving back to society, donating to charities, having faith, a leader in the community, being a good father as well as a husband, all of those elements, the man has accomplished it. And I think that is something I look for in terms of any Hero that I see, is somebody that I want to aspire to be like. I think he’s a great role model in that respect.
Ralph Zuranski: Who are the Heroes in our society today that aren’t getting the recognition that they deserve?
Jason Potash: I think the Heroes that aren’t being recognized are people that don’t do the work because they want to be recognized as a Hero. They are the people, even nurses, even people who are working overseas with the situation, helping in Africa and the relief efforts happening after the tsunami tragedy happened.
Jason Potash: People of that nature you don’t see or hear about a lot of them. They are kind of unrecognized Heroes that are Heroes every day of the week. How many people do you know that would do what they do and often for the pay that they get or the pay that they don’t get? Even risk your own life, put their life on the line every day of the week to help others.
Jason Potash: Even people back at home here who are working with children, working with children with disabilities in rehab centers and things of that nature. They are extremely gratifying roles, positions and occupations.
Jason Potash: The gratification is not financial, obviously. Financial reward is the last thing on their mind. I mean, those are really the unrecognized Heroes. People that are doing that sort of work, like the Mother Theresa’s of the world. Obviously, she was very well recognized and was recognized. There are many others in that same role that are doing so many good things for so many people, sort of our guardian angels.
Jason Potash: I think they don’t get the recognition that they deserve for doing that work. Actually, this was brought in perspective with me. My daughter, a few months ago, was in the hospital. It really opened my eyes in terms of seeing what these nurses actually do. You go in for blood work or you have a broken leg, no big deal. But when you are dealing with nurses, especially in the infant care unit who are dealing with all kinds of issues and infants who have all kinds of challenges and health problems, it breaks your heart and they deal with this day in and day out. Knowing that some of them will never get better, and some of them will unfortunately pass away before they even reach their second birthday.
Jason Potash: Knowing that, dealing with it and connecting with children and with parents and then six months later, hopefully the child can move on to something else, you have to separate yourself emotionally. They are the Heroes in my eyes, doing the Lord’s work and doing things that most people would not want to do under those circumstances, and they deserve huge credit for doing so.
Ralph Zuranski: Why are Heroes so important in the lives of young people?
Jason Potash: I think that young people are so impressionable. My wife is a teacher. She has explained to me better than anybody how their minds are like sponges and everything you do, everything you say, they observe it all. You think they are not paying attention, and they have no interest in what you are doing.
Jason Potash: They are observing everything, and all the influences around them, good or bad. If it’s TV, or if it’s things they do, the fun they’ve had, the games they play, the lessons they learn, and the people that interact around them and the role models they have, primarily the parents, that becomes the fabric of who they are and who they aspire to be to move forward.
Jason Potash: It really changes you, you become a father and I’ve been a father now for four years. With my children, it just opens my eyes in terms of the way they learn and the way they view the world and just little things that I do that may seem insignificant to me just to see how it impacts them.
Jason Potash: Little things that I’ve said in the past, where all of a sudden my son will say to me, he’ll make a comment and I’ll be like “Wow, I said that two months ago.” Sort of like a little comment I made to him on the side.
Jason Potash: It’s almost like the hard disk on the computer. You throw that text file on the hard drive and it stays there. You may forget about it, or you may not even realize it’s still there.
Jason Potash: One day you are searching your hard drive and go, “Wow, there’s that file. I forgot it was even there. I could probably use that or something.” It’s just amazing how children have this photographic memory, little things you do and say just stick in their minds.
Jason Potash: Yes, they are totally impressionable and I think that it’s so important to be surrounded by Heroes and good people that keep instilling in them the right morals, ethics, beliefs, values and behaviors, so hopefully they can follow your footsteps and be better people because of it.
Ralph Zuranski: How does it feel to be recognized as an Internet Hero?
Jason Potash: It feels great, obviously. When you get in the business as I said before, the primary goal is really financial gain. Most of us who have thrown our hat in the ring, if you will, you do it not because you like playing with computers all day long, it’s because you want to achieve some degree of success.
Jason Potash: Usually, financial success is the ultimate measure of you, “making it.” It’s a good feeling to know that I can help others and there are things I’ve learned in business and in life, things I should have done differently, and mistakes that I have made and also to know that I weathered the storm.
Jason Potash: I like to think I’m the list of “good guys” as opposed to some people. Even people today may have come across some who are deceptive, or just don’t run a business that is 100% above board, so to speak.
Jason Potash: That’s totally fine, that’s totally their call and all power to them. Obviously, you’ve heard countless stories about people online who have gotten burned; ordered product and never received it, or went to the site and it got shut down forever and no one knows where it even went. That happens unfortunately, every day.
Jason Potash: To be recognized as a Hero, it’s great to sort of know that again that’s another little notch on my success belt that keeps getting better and better as I move forward here and expand my business and aspire to bigger and better things and just to branch out and take my business to the next level.
Ralph Zuranski: How are you making the world a better place?
Jason Potash: That’s a very deep question. I could talk about this for an hour, but I’m trying to make the world a better place in several different areas. Obviously, if I talk about my family, we’ve already been through a lot of my beliefs, morals and faiths and so forth in trying to be a strong role model to my children.
Jason Potash: One of my main reasons, quite honestly, for wanting to work for myself and to create a business full time was, after the birth of my first child I realized that you can’t roll back the clock. Time is so precious. They are growing so quickly and I was putting in twelve hours a day working downtown and hardly getting to see my newborn son.
Jason Potash: That became such a motivator for me to want to get out of the rat race and want to give back to him. In terms of giving back to my family, I want to be there for him. I want to give back to my child and let them know Daddy growing up, as opposed to being me this ghost that rolls in at 7:30 every night and leaves at 6:00 in the morning before he gets up.
Jason Potash: To me, giving back to my family is really one of the most important things that I want to do and give back to out of anything I accomplish in this world because I think it’s so important. I’ve talked about family and the importance of family, and so forth.
Jason Potash: Overall, I’m not a millionaire. I’d love to be able to write checks for $50,000 and give back to charities. It’s hugely important. I do that now on a smaller level but I think it would be really exciting and fulfilling for me to be able to raise the bar and give back to people with my time as well as with the success that I’ve achieved in business, and to spread that wealth.
Jason Potash: I really do feel that when you do that, it does come back as well to you. Not that that is the primary reason, but if you have a benevolent attitude and a very giving attitude, which I have in the past as well, I find it always has a way of making itself come back to you in some way, shape or form.
Jason Potash: Not necessarily from a financial perspective. It could be other ways that you are blessed and surprises happen in your life and you say, “Wow, that’s pretty amazing this happened at this point in time.” I think there is no coincidence that that happened, that you are rewarded for what you do and what you don’t do in many cases.
Jason Potash: From a business standpoint in terms of giving back, I am always trying to enhance those that cross my path. If I can enhance them through education, if I can enhance them through using my product, if I can enhance them through any way making their life easier, through saving them time and somehow enriching their life as a result of doing business with me, that’s primarily my goal.
Jason Potash: Many people in business look at it as a transaction. You go into a grocery store, buy a quart of milk and leave, end of story. If you never come back, nobody cares. If you buy your milk from somebody else, the owner of the grocery store doesn’t really care.
Jason Potash: It’s a transaction by transaction sort of deal. I’m looking at creating more of a relationship with my customers where there is one on one communication, they believe in me. Hopefully I enriched their life, hopefully I add value to their life, hopefully it’s a relationship that they derive pleasure from and they feel there is definite benefit there by being a member of my “community”.
Jason Potash: I do my best to provide value and to give back to them as well. If they believe in me and they trust me, I feel it’s my job and my duty to do what I can to give back to them and to help enrich their lives, because they’ve invested in me. I know they are spending a dollar or spending a hundred dollars and it is often difficult for people who are on fixed incomes.
Jason Potash: By them raising their wallets and saying, “Hey I’m investing in you.” And believing in me, I do what I can to give back to them any way that I can to hopefully enrich their lives and help them to achieve their goals even more. We talked about goal setting throughout this call. That’s really important.
Ralph Zuranski: Do you have any good solutions to the problems facing society, especially racism, child and spousal abuse and violence among young people?
Jason Potash: Again, very deep questions. I think that education and awareness can only break down the walls over time. We can talk about it in closed rooms, we can talk about it during fireside chats, in the schools. We talked about how impressionable young children are. I really think a lot of those problems stem from adolescence.
It depends on who your peers are, who is influencing you in your life and if mommy and daddy have certain beliefs. If daddy is abusing mommy or if daddy is a racist and a bigot, whether you like it or not, those children are seeing that day in and day out. They become exposed to it, and it becomes a part of them whether they like it or not.
Jason Potash: They may resist it, they may fight it, but it’s ingrained in the subconscious mind because they’ve seen it happen over a series of years and years and years.
Jason Potash: I think that is where education and awareness, it all comes down to stamping out the problem at the roots, not when somebody is 30 years old but when they are actually three years old and how can we spread awareness and education to get those problems resolved.
Jason Potash: In many cases, it’s also in the school system because, let’s be honest, many children spend more time in school than they do at home with mommy and daddy. Especially as I mentioned, most people are working eight, nine, ten hours a day. And they get home, are exhausted and they don’t even want to play with the kids because they want to just relax and have some dinner or something.
Jason Potash: It’s even more important to make sure the teachers are influencing, especially the youth of today. I think that really, it’s not something that’s going to go away overnight. It’s been a problem that we’ve had for several years.
Jason Potash: I think as we keep increasing the intensity, and keep again, getting to the children and finding the source of the problem before it becomes this massive issue, the schools and the churches and counselors and those who influence children are the best ones to spread that message and correct the problem over time.
Ralph Zuranski: If you had three wishes for your life, the world, that would easily come true, what would they be?
Jason Potash: I would say, we can go in left field here and have these high high in the sky dreams which will never come true, like we are all going to love each other and be friendly to one another and stamp out anger and violence and everything else.
Jason Potash: We all know that unfortunately, that day will never come. I just think that basically, if everybody had a positive attitude, if everybody was connected and had faith and really believed in, and just being happy with what they’ve been given in life.
Jason Potash: So many people that I deal with as well are just so angry and felt they have they have been given a raw deal, and “woe is me, and my life sucks, and this is terrible what I’m dealing with, and nobody deals with my problems. I’m making bad money and my kids are totally out of control.”
Jason Potash: You just really have to give thanks, and I think so many people do not really count their blessings. I’m not just talking from a spiritual/religious standpoint. I’m talking about looking around saying, “You know what, I’ve got a roof over my head and food on the table. I’m making money. I may not have a car but I have enough to take the bus to work. I’m not walking five miles to get to work every day in snow and so forth.”
Jason Potash: We all heard the stories about our parents who say they walked to school back and forth in five feet of snow. My dad had these stories and my grandfather had these stories as well. There is probably one point in my life where I walked to school up the hill both ways, as they say, when I was a young lad.
Jason Potash: But other than that, I’ve been blessed with so many things. And I think so many people let that negativity just totally, it’s like a cancer that eats you from the inside out. Obviously, as we know, being positive, being motivated and having goals and always trying to lift up above your current situation and circumstances, that’s going to help you to rise up and conquer your goals.
Jason Potash: I think if everybody had that attitude of wanting to work together, an attitude of cooperation, an attitude of giving before receiving, an attitude of being positive, an attitude of thankfulness and forgiveness and not just letting it fester inside that you have it so bad and things are terrible.
Jason Potash: I know it’s hard to do that when you are dealing with $10,000 in credit card charges and everything else because I’ve been there, and it’s hard to believe that gospel when you are dealing with all the crap that is happening in your life.
Jason Potash: But I think if people had that attitude, it would definitely change things. I think what is also missing with many people is just having that rock solid foundation. If it’s being grounded with faith, a higher power, or just being grounded with morals and values, having a purpose in life.
Jason Potash: Again, just having an attitude of giving and being thankful, I think that can become something that can have a huge impact on an individual’s life. If everybody in society would follow those same principles in life, I think you would have a huge impact in society as we know it.
Ralph Zuranski: I really agree that people seem to have forgotten the value of gratefulness and being grateful for what they have, and being optimistic and looking at the future in a way that is positive. It seems that negativism and fear seem to rule people’s lives and destroy their future.
Jason Potash: It’s also this me, me, me, me attitude. You see it most, I think Ralph, when you hop behind the wheel if you live in any major city. You hop behind the wheel of a car, you go for a drive during rush hour and you are like, “Oh my gosh, it’s like a war out here.” You can see the look on their faces. Their face is all tensed up, they are squinting their eyes and sipping their coffee and it’s just, “Me, out of my way, I’m going to work. Let me cut in front of you, let me get ahead of you.”
Jason Potash: Not even putting a turn signal on to show you they are going to cut lanes and if you don’t hit your brakes, you’d ram their car right in the rear tail light. I think that’s just a real physical proof of just some of the attitudes that people have out there and not to say it’s necessarily their fault. It’s just a series of events, a series of environments, it’s the world we live in, it’s the fact that we are working harder and longer hours perhaps making even less pay, and we’ve got more bills because often you want to buy more things. Everything kind of comes to a snowball.
Jason Potash: I agree with what you are saying, it’s just sad that a lot of those important elements have fallen off the map, if you will, especially over the past few years.
Ralph Zuranski: What do you think about the In Search Of Heroes program and its impact on youth, parents and business people?
Jason Potash: I think it’s a great idea and I commend you for putting together the program, because no one has tried to make that blend between business, youth and also family and tying it all together, and having role models that children can follow.
Jason Potash: I was fortunate enough early in life that my father was an entrepreneur. He had his own company for many many years and I was exposed to that environment. Strangely enough, I still decided to become an entrepreneur.
Jason Potash: I’m just joking! Because my dad was never home, he worked weekends, he worked during the summer. When all the kids were out playing basketball, he was at the office.
Jason Potash: Obviously, he had to sacrifice. I learned that you have to sacrifice to come ahead. He did very well and was very successful and got to a point in his life, I remember one point where my dad was on the couch in the afternoon for most of the summer.
Jason Potash: I was like, “Dad aren’t you working?” He was like, “I’m just going to watch a ball game on T.V. and take it easy.” He didn’t do much at all but he put in the effort to make it happen. Again, I was fortunate I had a role model and a Hero in my life who was an entrepreneur.
Jason Potash: I think that in the school system, they don’t teach entrepreneurialism, they don’t teach people to have the desire to want to be a creator, be a visionary, to want to go out on their own.
Jason Potash: You usually just learn the 1-2-3s of being involved in a business or accounting, history or geography, whatever it might be. Even in high school and grade school, I know that no one really struck me as a Hero. Even in the academic system that inspired me to want to become self employed or an entrepreneur, or to let me know there were options out there.
Jason Potash: I don’t have to work for the man, punch a time clock and like everybody, go to grade school, graduate high school, go and get a job. You work for that job about 10 years, get another job and that’s it. You are there for 20 or 30 years and you retire and whatever. Then it’s moving down to Florida to enjoy your retirement.
Jason Potash: That does happen. But as you know Ralph, small business fuels the economy. Most of the jobs created right now are created through small businesses. Entrepreneurs, they fuel and drive the economy as well because they are the visionaries, creating the ideas. They are creating companies today with one employee that become the companies that have 5,000 people tomorrow.
Jason Potash: Without those entrepreneurs and those visionaries and those people that are willing to take the chance and risk it all to make it happen, no matter what negative circumstances and consequences may lie ahead of them, those are the ones that are making a difference.
Jason Potash: I think it’s great you are getting to the source, as we talked about changing society as a whole, it all begins with the children, it all begins with those that are impressionable, those that are young, those that are going through the school system.
Jason Potash: I think it’s great you are trying to appeal to them, to get them to share some of the views and the beliefs that you have as it applies to being an entrepreneur. I think that a lot of good will come of it, by giving people those Heroes they can latch onto to hopefully aspire to bigger and better things in business and their careers.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s funny that you say that, because most of the other Heroes that I have interviewed, they all considered that it was the entrepreneurs, the people that made a choice to follow a different path, to strive to be the best they could be, to provide services that would be so valuable that people would actually pay them money for that, they are the real people that would transform the world basically in a good way.
Ralph Zuranski: Most of the school systems are geared just to turn people into employees. It suppresses their creativity, their ability to think. All they come out are people that are dependent upon the system. Do you think that’s true?
Jason Potash: I think it’s very true. Again, my wife is a teacher so I have to watch what I say.
Jason Potash: She agrees too. The school system, academia, is not geared toward grooming and molding entrepreneurs. It’s grooming you to hopefully find a skill, an area that you would think you would enjoy working within and basically take you down the path so you can become a good and effective employee.
Jason Potash: I’ve been through university, dropped out of university, been to college, luckily made it through college. In terms of what I learned in college and university, I think one of my bosses early in life said it best. He said, “You go through grade school and then once you go through college/university, all it really becomes is an exercise in stress management.”
Jason Potash: You look at business. There are constantly curve balls thrown at you. I don’t care if you are self employed or work for somebody else. You’ve got projects, deadlines, you’ve got things to do in an amounts of time you think that can’t be done. You are juggling multiple projects. Companies are downsizing, they are outsourcing. You’ve got more stuff on your plate than ever before, and in many cases, you are making the same money, if not less than you were several years ago.
Jason Potash: It too, is an exercise in stress management. I really think that getting essays in on time, your thesis, working on projects, presentations and studying every night that just really develops the foundation for you having the skills and the stress management skills to survive in the business world. But it is not teaching you how to survive as an entrepreneur.
Jason Potash: In many cases, it’s totally doing the opposite. It’s grooming you to become a cog, a wheel in the machine, a spoke in the hub of an organization to do your role and that’s about it. It’s a totally different world when you basically cut the apron strings.
Jason Potash: You cut the parachute off and you survive without a net as an entrepreneur, knowing that there is no paycheck, no benefits, there’s nothing. And obviously you have a gun to your head every day of the week because if you don’t produce, you don’t eat, you don’t pay the mortgage, you don’t pay the car payments and everything falls down like a house of cards.
Jason Potash: I totally agree that the school systems have really not done anything to address this, to encourage it. It’s kind of a shame, because as I said, we all know that small business is really what fuels the economy. It fuels job growth, and that starts with entrepreneurs.
Jason Potash: It’s developing that fertile soil in the school system and planting those seeds at such a young age. People who do venture off into entrepreneurialism are doing that by accident or stumbling on it by mistake, or they happen to aspire towards or have an influence in their life.
Jason Potash: But there are probably so many other people, if exposed to even Heroes early in their high school years, would maybe take a shining to some of the things you and I talked about and hopefully looking at being an entrepreneur as a “career choice,” just like being a doctor, nurse, fireman or firewoman, whatever it might be. It’s very important.
Ralph Zuranski: What do you think are the things parents can do that will help their children realize that they too can be Heroes and make a positive impact on the lives of others, and potentially maybe even be entrepreneurs and change their world?
Jason Potash: I think that it’s just open communication with our children, and being open with them and constantly instilling in them the same values and morals that you have and how you’d like them to shape, mold and become.
Jason Potash: I think it helps, obviously if you have a household where one of the parent figures or even a grandparent, uncle or aunt who are already in that environment of being an entrepreneur, and they can reflect that back to the family.
Jason Potash: An uncle of mine was very successful in real estate. He used to come over some times and I used to be enamored with his stories. He bought these buildings for $1.2 million and he flipped them and made himself $40,000 in a week.
Jason Potash: All these stories, I just became so gaga over him just getting in there, rolling up his sleeves, hammering out some deals and buying these massive commercial properties and flipping them around. It’s just amazing. You could see his passion and feed off his energy.
Jason Potash: That became very impressionable to me, because he was exciting. He didn’t come home and say, “My boss is such a loser. I can’t believe they are going to be closing down the Mississippi operation. What is he doing? I’ve got to get out of this job.”
Jason Potash: Once again, that negativity is directly being absorbed by your kids whether you like it or not, and programming them in a negative way. It’s hugely important to have a spirit of entrepreneurialism within the household, even if you work for the government or if you have a 9-5 job working in the private sector, public sector, whatever it may be.
Jason Potash: Just to let your children know there is nothing stopping them from opening a lemonade stand, opening a lawn care business and having a paper route, maybe washing windows. They can basically set their own game plan to make money and to be entrepreneurial and it really just depends on their willingness to do it or not, and their creativity.
Jason Potash: If you can foster that environment, encourage them and give them a bit of a push on the bum to hopefully get them off their training wheels to make it happen. Some may just totally have no interest, but at least if you could try as a parent to do that, and to give them some options.
Jason Potash: Just like you send them to hockey practice, basketball practice, soccer practice, they may hit everything but baseball, but at least you’ve given them the option and say, “You know what? We’ve tried everything. We’ve given them the options, and encouraged them to try different things.”
Jason Potash: If they don’t like it and they fail, ultimately they are going to be on the wrong course, but at least you’ve done everything you can as a parent to put the options out there in front of them and hopefully, encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit within the household around the dinner table is something that people can get more involved in to help foster that environment.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s so true. There is a real controversy nowadays about parents being their kids’ best friend rather than being the parent and setting up the parameters of discipline to help that child become the best that they an be. What do you think about that?
Jason Potash: That’s a good point, and it’s true. I’ve seen even many people that I’ve come across in my life, not to say that I’m the best parent or I’m Dr. Phil or anything because I’m not. But I do always try to keep my nose in what is happening in some of the discipline books that are out there. Even Dr. Phil, I admit once in awhile, has a good point.
Jason Potash: I think a lot of parents try to be their kids’ buddies, their friends and so forth. I want my kids to think of me as a friend but not in the true sense of the word where you are friends and you can go and steal liquor from Dad’s cabinet and he won’t tell anybody.
Jason Potash: Or you can go behind the house and light firecrackers off and nobody’s going to know about it. Those friends are obviously different and not the friend I want to be. I want to be a friend to my kids where we can have fun, they know I respect them, love them and we can do all kinds of things.
Jason Potash: They can talk to me openly, they can share things with me openly, I’ll give them my advice and try to be as honest and open as I can. However, I’m not the kind of friend where they can walk all over me, they can beg and plead and whine at me and I’m going to cave in and give in because I’m their friend.
Jason Potash: I think you are right, Ralph. There is a very fine line between a friend who has the backbone of a wet noodle, versus the friend and parent who is also an authority figure who knows when to put their foot down, and knows when to reprimand their children if need be.
Jason Potash: That doesn’t mean spanking, it means setting down the law and letting them know they’ve done wrong, sent to their room, grounded or punished as a result of that.
Jason Potash: I really think you have to have that solid, authoritarian figure in their life as well, so they know that somebody is there to guide them and to basically set them on the right path.
Jason Potash: Studies have been done again and again that children like discipline, they like order and they like somebody to have control, and to show them right from wrong. To know that even though you love them, you are still willing to go and possibly upset them, because you tell them, “This is wrong, this is bad. Why don’t you go and sit in the corner for two minutes?”
Jason Potash: A lot of parents are not willing to do that, because this whole attitude, like you said, being your child’s best friend, being there for them, and being their buddy, “We can’t reprimand our children because they are going to be upset, we don’t want to upset them.”
Jason Potash: It may have gone from extreme in terms of actually pulling out the belt, like often our parents did (not my parents, luckily), but, you know, I had friends where the belt came out every second week if you misbehaved. I think that’s one extreme.
Jason Potash: The other extreme is being the, “Betty Crocker can do no wrong, my children are wonderful and I can’t smack them, I can only hug them and love them” and your children just walk all over you because they know there is no repercussion for their action. They know there is no end result of them aggravating you or not behaving.
Jason Potash: I think if you can find a happy balance of somewhere without whipping the belt out, and without being again, like a wet noodle with your children. In my mind anyway, that’s probably being the best of both worlds and the best for your kids, in terms of helping them growing up and being the best people they can be.
Ralph Zuranski: Boy Jason, that’s great advice. I really appreciate your time. I know how busy you are just having all those problems with your big product launch and selling a ton more than you ever imagined you would, just to try and fulfill those orders.
Is there a parting piece of advice for those young people that you’d like to leave the listeners with?
Jason Potash: I’d just reiterate some of the points I’ve brought up before, Ralph. And yes, I’ve had challenges recently, but obviously as I call them, they are “good problems.” Bad problems would be if I was making $1,000 a month and my car just blew up and I needed $1,000 worth of repairs. That would be a bad problem to have.
Jason Potash: The problems I’m dealing with now, yes they are big problems and they are problems a lot of my friends would want to have but it comes with the territory. Obviously, they are good problems when you are succeeding, you are doing well and you have too much business on your plate that you can’t handle it often.
Jason Potash: I welcome those kinds of problems any day of the week and obviously, as I said, I’ve been through enough of a roller coaster ride over the past ten years or so where those problems now actually are welcomed more so than the other problems I had when I was trying to rub two pennies together to make a dollar.
Jason Potash: In terms of parting advice. To tell people again that kids and children who may be listening to this is to maintain your positive attitude, keep focus with your dreams and I know when I first got started studying marketing material, I knew that I would be involved in marketing. I had a passion for it.
Jason Potash: I would leave some of my books and newsletters on the coffee table and my brother and my friends would come over and go, “What’s this? What are you trying to be a professor something? Why are you reading this crap for?”
Jason Potash: Now, they make smart remarks at me. You know, it kind of takes a shock to your ego, gives you a little bit of a punch in the stomach because they don’t believe in you and they are laughing at you. We deal with this all through life as well. If it’s in the playground, somebody is teasing you because you have curly hair or you have freckles, or you are too fat or too thin, whatever it might be.
Jason Potash: Well ,l the same happens down the road when you are trying to start your own business. Your parents think you are crazy, your friends laugh at you and Aunt Becky tells you that this doesn’t make sense, you are really making a mistake.
Jason Potash: But you need to believe in your goals, be intelligent about it. Don’t just foolishly throw money at something or throw time at something, try to evaluate it and make sure it will be a success as much as possible.
Jason Potash: As we said throughout the call, Ralph, have those dreams. Have those goals. Have those mini-goals as well and have so much belief in yourself that nothing can set you off your course. Not your parents, not your friends or peers because you are driven from the inside. You are totally immune to the negativity on the outside.
Jason Potash: Just you believing in yourself sets the course for your life. If you believe in something, never give up until you make it happen. Until you feel fulfilled inside just say, “Hey, I’ve succeeded or I can succeed. Or make the decision that says, I’ve tried this for x amount of time, maybe it’s time to back up a step and move in a different direction.”
Jason Potash: If you have that attitude, then nothing can set you off your course. You will achieve your goals if you spend the time and have the tenacity. Eventually you will see success happen.
Jason Potash: But as we know Ralph, probably 95% of people don’t have those skills and don’t have the tenacity and persistence and end up failing and giving up. Your goal and your challenge should be among the 5% who really sees things through to the end, and as a result there is nothing stopping you from becoming successful, much like many of the Heroes you’ve had involved in this program over the past few months.
Jason Potash: That’s about it.
Ralph Zuranski: That’s great! That is just super advice. Again, I just really appreciate your time. Thanks again.
Jason Potash: You are very welcome Ralph, my pleasure.
Ralph Zuranski: Bye.
Jason Potash has successfully pulled off some of the most difficult joint venture deals and has rightfully claimed the reputation of “Internet JV (joint venture) King”. His latest Internet marketing methods have helped many entrepreneurs in their start up venture.
His consultation services have proved fruitful for different new companies during their early stages. He simultaneously applied the principals of advertising and marketing for promoting the business of software companies and soon found its positive effect.
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Jason conducts online seminars and lends training to affiliate marketers. He has also created a unique message program, “Seminar Announcer” that synthesizes different telecasts and seminars into a single message.
Carrying a joint venture has always been a tough task with over 90% people failing to put it into profitable business collaboration. Jason Potash through his program The 7 Keys to Creating Wildly Successful Joint Ventures discusses various case studies and examples to show you how to get more traffic, good number of subscribers, considerable profit and many other benefits.
Recently Jason Potash organized 90-minute teleconference live show bringing together nine out of ten top Internet marketers, to discuss many aspects of joint venture. The show also took up discussion on the features needed to become a successful ezine publisher. Internet marketing experts focus on two aspects – how to build opt-in list and learning the intricacies of joint venture with reputed marketers.
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