S9 Episode 6: Jimmy Vee | Author, Founder & CEO | Gravitational Marketing, Belly Laugh Books

(soft music) - What's up everybody? I'm Kelly Johnson, the host of the Daily Grand Podcast, the official podcast of the Kelly Johnson Foundation, and welcome to season nine. Since 2019, we've had the privilege of sitting down with incredible leaders, entrepreneurs, athletes, and change makers who are putting in the work every single day. This podcast is all about growth, leadership, and empowering future leaders to make an impact. If you've been with us, we appreciate you. If you're new, welcome to the family. Be sure to follow the Daily Grand Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcast, links are in the description. Let's get into season nine. This the grind continues. - Hello everyone, welcome to the Daily Grand. My name is Kelly Johnson, your fund and friendly host. We are in episode six of season nine, the very best one yet. Keep the introduction short, 'cause we have a special guest on Taze Podcast. Like to introduce to Jimmy Vee, Jimmy's the best-selling children's author with five books published and five more on the way, blending humor, heart and lessons that help kids laugh, grow, fall in love with reading. But that's just the start. He's also a accomplished business author, serial entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of one of Central Floor's most respective marking agencies, gravitational marking, so welcome to Jimmy. (clapping) - Thank you, and we appreciate it. We have to be here with you guys. - Yeah, I'm excited to have you on our show here, Jimmy. Our listeners are beyond excited to learn more about about what you do in your Daily Grand respectively. So welcome to the show, Daily Grand Podcast. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your Daily Grand. Let's open this book, yeah. - Yeah, that's a great transition. - Yeah, I've been Daily Grand to get for years and years now. So I started my company, my gravitational marking, the marketing company in 2004. And I would say, I was grinding it at a job before that and then I transitioned to grinding it for myself, which I have to say, had I known how hard it was gonna be before I left my job, probably wouldn't have left my job. I might have rethought the endeavor, but you have a lot of confidence in yourself, hopefully, when you decide you're gonna make that kind of a leap and you, you know, up from my, I think a lot of people might go through this part where they see other people doing it and they go, "Well, they can do it, and I can do it." That's kind of part of the motivation, I think, to jump into something on your own. And I surely felt that as a man. These people around me can make easy to successful. Then if I'm even a fraction of that successful, I'd be happy, so I should be able to do it. And, you know, the truth is that is true, but there's always that, what Seth Gordon calls the dip between that mentality and the actual outcome, and you have to go through it, or you're not gonna get there. And so, yeah, there was a big dip at the beginning. And that dip is a grind, or short. That can get you through the dip. - Exactly. - This is a grind. - Exactly, yeah, grind on stop two. We're still grinding on our podcast. Yeah, who's to you? Oh my goodness. So much we can pack today. So we're excited to dive into your background and your story and share that wealth. Now, you're takeaways, your insights on this journey here with our audience. And I love that you mentioned that my quote of, like, if they can do it, anyone can do it. Like, that was the mantra of this pod. I was like, oh, Joe Rogan can host a podcast. You know, anyone can. So. - That's right. That's what kickstarted us. And then thus eventually fast forward today, having the pleasure of interviewing Jimmy on "Tay Show" here. We mentioned the intro. We've been five children's books, five more on the way. What really drew you first to writing for kids? - So, I had been doing talks in the professional environment for my marketing company. And a lot of, we have hold multiple regular seminars for my clients. And I would tell a story in there about me growing up as a short person, like I'm five foot tall. So they call me the five foot high marketing guy. Right? And I would tell people story about how, when I was going after college, I was submitting resumes and I made my resume five pages and everybody five was crazy. One of the reasons I did it was 'cause I was trying to basically set the stage for my success before they were got to meet me. Just in case they would look at me and judge me based on my height, which people do judge people based on certain things, right? So I said, I had to pre-sell, you know, I had to overcompensate the five feet tall in the resume. So I'm not gonna make a one page, we make five pages. And by the five page resume, this whole story went on and it was great. And after I would give this talk as much broader than that, that was one of the points. People would always come up to me after the fact and be like, oh, that was such a great talk. And what really impacted me was, and then they'd go on to tell about the five page resume story and about being five feet tall and how I overcame that and that really impacted them and they would say, because I had this thing about myself, I was not confident in. And I would give it over and over and over again. And I said, man, I wish I could, you know, kind of go back in time and tell the story to them when they were younger and then maybe would have made it impact. And then at some point it just said, well, maybe I should write a kid's book about it because if it impacts adults, maybe I could write some kind of story that we didn't had children earlier in their development and it might change your mindset. And so I put that on my goalsheet, right? And as I do my goal, I do goal planning every year and it was on there. And then one day during I woke up and I had just some lines in my head and I sit by my pool and I start writing down these lines. And before I know it, I had half a book written and then, you know, I started writing up that it's a week, kids' books are very long, 500 words or so. I started writing it, writing more of it and I had a manuscript. And I was like, what the heck am I gonna do with this manuscript? And so then I started learning a little bit about what it takes to produce a kid's book. And I did, I made my first book and there's, we can talk, as we go on, I'll tell more about that, the journey of writing books. But this was the first book I ever wrote, it's called Same as Lane. Little Jimmy says Same as Lane and it's about what's capitalizing on what's unique about yourself and not being ashamed of it, but actually exploiting it to your advantage. And that's what the book's about. It really is that talk and the distillation of that talking in the form of a kid's book. - Oh, that's incredible, Jimmy. Yeah, that confidence piece, the mindset. And then I love that you mentioned, you have that goal sheet, you know, Trudely Grinder? We are all about goals on our show here, so spot on with your words. And also too, like a little bit backup or you mentioned as well, you know, you were in both children's and business books, like how's that approach changed between like two different audiences? - Yeah, well, I mean, obviously they're vastly different things, but I think they start with the same couple of things, which is a understanding who you're writing to, who you're speaking to, the audience, who's the target audience. And so that's critical. And then when you know the target audience, then you have to understand what they're thinking, what their fears, hopes, dreams and desires are, so you can kind of write to that. And then you have to know your outcome, what you're trying to communicate, what you're trying to, what are you trying to instill or create in them when they're finished reading, right? And whether that's a kid's book or whether that's a business book, those things, all of the things that you're talking to, you have to understand them so you can speak their language. And then ultimately you have to know what you're trying, the outcome you're trying to create in the writing so that you can get there, right? Begin with the end in mind, for that saying. And so really I do that with kids books, I do that with my marketing book, I do that with my copy when I write copy and advertising for my own companies and also for clients companies. You always, those are key fundamentals. If you don't do that work, then you're really kind of rudderless and you're really writing for, you're gonna get mud. I mean, you're surely not gonna get the outcome you hope to get. - Yeah, it's just treading in water, but I love that you mentioned too. Yeah, it became at the end in mind. We wanna know what our goals, our objectives, what we're shooting for. Shoot for the stars land on the moon, but we wanna have that end result. And whether it's a book or what are daily grinders to your day show, those entrepreneurs out there looking to level up their game and their respective feel and you're sharing your story here and inspire us on this show. - I like this book. I'm just gonna give an example of that. - Yeah, let's talk about that. - First book on my goal was to inspire people to accept and embrace what is different about them. That was the goal of this book, right? And the goal of, let's say this book, which was my second book, how to make your soft talk on beginner's guides to ventriloquism. The goal here was to write a book that was engaging and approachable for children to learn the art of ventriloquism, right? And so completely different goal, same audience, but this might be geared toward maybe slightly older child but still same audience, but completely different goal and a completely different outcome. And versus a book like this, which professor didn't compute. The ultimately the goal is, it's just supposed to be funny, right? Now there is actually a little bit of a messaging here. It's don't believe everything you see on the internet and every authority figure in claims, they're an authority figure, but I mean, ultimately the point is, let's make kids laugh. 'Cause if they like reading, then maybe they'll keep reading, right, that's the goal. - Yeah, we really enjoy that your advocate [BLANK_AUDIO] reading and inspiring our youth to do that at a young age and continue to do it like I got inspired at an age and I still read books that yeah so consume them all the time and this is great yeah let's rewind Jimmy to your your little Jimmy says you know same as Lane just one of the many books that you have out here in the world here how did that message like originate for you so like you mentioned like the story behind it but is that like a light bulb moment in your daily grind like how do you come up with yeah it was the combination of the experience I'm telling that story and hearing people's feedback and then wanting you know wishing they had heard it sooner and that kind of evolution maybe put it in my mind to say hey how can I how can I do that how can I impact people in that way and then I think just the the thing of goal planning the action of goal planning you write down I'm then I would like to write a kids book right and so of course I have that experience of the talk and the we've been coming and then I and I wrote down on my my goals sheet why I'm not really sure that I want to write a kids book because I'm I'm a kids entertainer too and I've entertain kids pretty much my my since I was in college I kind of put myself to college do magic and control those in shows and so it just seemed like a natural and I'm a writer so it seemed like a natural extension that I would write kids books I love Dr. Seuss growing up and there's a monster at the end of this book there's books that were really impactful to me as a kid that I still you know that's still sticking my mind is like to do that right and I'm like oh she somewhere along the way my subconscious mind put those two things together like like oh what have you told that story as a kids book that's the connection and woke up with some lines in my head right like that's the power of the subconscious mind that's the power of goal setting that's the you know all of these items coming together to to affect you know maybe like oh lucky you know stroke of genius or something like really is it just a stroke of genius it's the work you put in the input creates the output and yeah I mean I wear that gen we're the light bulb true light bulb moment is I don't know but it was there it's multiple light bulb moments I think that just come together to make you know to make something really bright shine bright and I think in that moment where I had the woke up of those lines it was it was it unignorable that what would be the word for that it would be hard to ignore right impossible to ignore I had to write that down right and and I did and and that really kind of set me on a journey after I wrote the first book one of the one of the things I always say is you have to have a mentor in all areas of your life I didn't have a writing mentor at the time but what I did is I found a mentor book and so I found a kids book that I really liked that my that I had read to my kids and I it was actually a book by weird alley ink and I said this is this is the model for my book I'm just gonna take that because I've never done this before I've no idea what I'm doing so I'm gonna take the sizing the dimensions the the way it's constructed everything that this book is I'm gonna try to make mine as close to that and you know to have a model and a or mentor is makes really helpful makes it's app a lot easier than to try to like fish around without one and then after that after I did it I I really enjoyed that I'd like to do more of it and so I started learning more about writing kids books I joined kids book organizations I went to kids with conferences and I wrote a lot and I grinded a lot in that field and I actually didn't write another publish another book for 10 years that's when I wrote my second book the ventraliq was book and I did that for a specific reason as well I wanted to not only you know promote the art of ventraliq was in the kids but I wanted to create something that could be sold in the in the museum at the ventraliq was kind of museum which is important to contact the only one in the world it's called vent haven ventraliq was museum and they were building a new building and I was part of the fundraising effort for that and I wanted to create something that they could sell in their gift shop and raise money for the nonprofit so that was kind of the idea kind of a double-fold idea one was like what I wanted to do is you know inspire kids to do ventraliq was in but the the impetus to the action like why now was was that and I really think that a lot of things in like are about the intersection between why and why now right and even in advertising when you're writing a piece of copy and you want someone to take action from the copy you need to you need to have a lie and you need to have a lie now if you want them to take action now which most business owners want business today they want people to you want their results from their advertising directly right now so you have to have a reason why and you have to have a reason why now and so those two things come together and create the action and that's what happened with the ventraliq was in book yeah that's that's incredible and then even to or with your experience Jimmy like as an entertainer performer did that influence like how you write for kids as well or you being able to story tell or I guess exposure to those audiences also play into your role as an author absolutely I think that you it's really really difficult to be a children's author if you don't understand children or aren't around children or don't like children um and surely the um the interaction with children and the they're engaging with them all these years has definitely made me uh made the kids book writing that my kids were writing better I think that in general and I always have been very um very creative and I'm very my thinking a very cartoony way like I grew up on cartoons and mulee tunes and I'll kind of eat Saturday morning cartoons so I I always loved billboards and advertising growing up and so all this stuff is in my head and I pull from all of that to create these books but the most I would say direct example of the question you asked was does my kids my kids entertaining effect my writing is my one of my latest books which is this one called look there are no dinos inside of this book is actually directly connected to my magic performance so in children's magic performance there's a device we use to engage the kids called look no see and it's basically where you have something let's say prop or something and let's say that in the prop is a tree I have a prop that's a tree stump and I say this is a tree stump and inside this tree stump lives used to live a monkey but he no longer lives in the tree stump he's left the tree stump and he's nowhere to be found no one can find him and so as I'm telling the kids the story that there's these no longer in the tree stump and he's known to find him and no one knows where he is there's a tail a monkey tells sticks out the side of the tree stump and of course the kids just start to freak out and they're like something's recent to jump right there freaking out like and then the tail goes away and I look and I go no no there's no tail in here and the monkey left I told you he's no longer in there and yeah and then as I'm you know schooling them on you know the tail comes out again and they go freak out again and they're yelling and he's like you're all these tail is just there and then I'm looking at God I don't see it and it escalates then the monkey's face peeks out and then it goes crazier and then the body of them the whole monkey's peeking out and they're freaking out and I'm still like nope I can't I don't see it right and so this escalation occurs and it's just it's hilarious for them it's hilarious for anyone who's watching it's fun for me and it's just it's part of it's a device that we use and when we perform for kids and so I said to myself how do I take that idea and put it into a kids book because it works so well in person so much fun for kids in person if I can duplicate that effect in a book this will be a really great book and so that's what this book is it's it's my attempt to duplicate that idea in a in a natural book for right which is dramatically a different medium right but I tried to attempt to do that and so that of course the narrator in the book is saying he got rid of all the dinos and then as you turn the page there are all these little indications that there are dinos and certain and large indications and it scales up and he is resistance scales up and until they come face to face and there's the big you know the big the big conflict resolution at the end and so I mean it's exactly the same of course not because the mediums are different but that's why I was trying to create directly in that book and that's how connected those two two things that I do work work and art that's the direct manifestation of it that's that's great like it works seamlessly again with your experience your background but then also the story telling it then the day and then you just do it you you crush it you know and now you put it in the world and now you're inspiring all those youth that pick up that book or you haven't supposed to write any of your books, on the shelf here, which is incredible. Jimmy, with that spark or moment of the idea that you had with your latest book here, can you walk us through anything behind the scenes on our show here? After you come up with the idea, do you have to do a lot of research or set aside time to get into your book grind in a sense, writing the manuscripts? Anything you like to share in today's show? Sure. When I come up with-- I am always writing down ideas for kids books. I have a whole notebook of-- and I just actually did you know? Note like you never know. Like with all these ideas that I just come up with, or just popping them right out, I'm just writing them down. You know, different people create and write different ways. You know, like my first book did you idea in this-- you know, the words just came to me. That doesn't happen often, honestly, for me. Like when it comes to kids books, I don't just happen to get ideas. And honestly, if you want to be successful in kids publishing or any publishing, you have to be very deliberate about what you publish, because it's a very difficult business to make money in. Not a ton of people buy books. Books are really expensive to produce. So there's a lot of middleman in the middle in between. So it's really hard to profit. So if you're not writing to the market, you're not going to really make any money. So you can be inspiring to have stuff and then just write down and be like, I'm going to publish that because I wrote it because it came to my head. And that's great. If you're OK with it being an expensive hobby, but if you actually want to sell books, you've got to write to the market. So when there are trends-- and there are categories that are more popular than others. Dinosaur is a popular category for kids books. So if you write a dinosaur book, you're going to general-- market it properly-- you're going to sell more dinosaur books than you are going to sell books about Eskimo's or something. Right? Like just sell it? Yeah. And so when I sit down to write a book, I'm going, OK, how does this book-- how does this story idea and book would fit into my publishing catalog? How is it going to be marketed? Does it fill a demand? So I have a lot of books here. Many of my books are boy-focused books because I'm a dude. And that's just my perspective on things. So I write very boy-friendly concepts. Well, when you're selling, you need to fulfill the other side of the market. So I made another one of these books, and it's going to come out in the fall. It's called Look There Are No Unicorns Inside of This Book. Well, that is the girl. Not the blue girl market. Now, of course, there are girls that look dinosaur, and there are guys that love unicorns. And that's fine. Now, they'll cross out beautifully. But when you're in an event, let's say, and you're sitting there at a table, and you've got your books laid out, you get kids that walk up, there's going to be kids, certain kids will gravitate to this, and other kids will gravitate to that. You need to fill all of the markets. And there's age categories like Ventred Lipism Book as older, and I really don't have right now where I have another book coming out in the fall that fills the younger pen market. And it's like for-- it's a bedtime book. And it's going to fulfill the baby and the early toddler and free school. It'll be perfect fit in there, which I don't have anything for that. So I sit down and I go, I'm looking at this strategically from a business perspective, as well as a creative perspective. Because I can create randomly, or I could create strategically. Either way, I get to create. But when it's going to actually have more usefulness and outcome in the shelf life, then the other one. When is going to cost me money? When might make me money, right? And the same-- I get to do the same thing. But if I make certain choices in the beginning, I'm more likely to have a positive outcome at the end. Now, if I'm writing something like the control of this book, I didn't care about that. I was doing that to put a control of this book in the museum. So that was the goal. And so you have to understand what your goals are. But yeah, again, if you get in at the end of mine, so that you can-- the creative process can be fruitful for the end. And so yeah, I keep this list. And then I'll go back and say, oh, what in here? We'll fit this. I'm trying to accomplish today with my marketing, or my organization, where it is, and what I'm missing, and what's trending, and then I work from there essentially. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, again, thanks for pulling me behind the curtain of what goes on. We're the unconsumer. We just see the books. We don't see the hard work, the grind, the grit that goes in-- In making-- I'm sure they grind. Yeah, I'm just watching what's the thing. That's just the beginning. So I'll write the manuscript. It's 500 words or so. I'll write it 20 times. I'll write it. I'll write it again. I'll edit it. Change direction. Change the point of view of who's speaking. I'll create it in different ways until I find the way that I really like. And I will find those 500 words to what I think that they ought to be. And then I go send it to an editor. And the editor will go through it. And the editor will-- there's usually two to three asses with an editor. And then you have an edited manuscript. And now once you have an edited manuscript, now you can go and find-- I'm not an illustrator. I wish I was, but I don't have that skill. So I have to find an illustrator. I'm typically what I'm looking for as an illustrator's style that matches my vision and tone of the book. And every one of my books has different illustrators. It's unless it's a series. Then the series will have an illustrator. And so you have to find those people. And you start working through the illustration process, which is a back and forth kind of scenario. I generally have-- I use a book designer because I just-- I can do some design work. It's not my core strength. And I don't want to take my time to do that. So a lot of work and tedious work to do it. And my book designer is amazing. And she brings her own vision and skills to the table. And makes the project so much better. And so I'm working with a book designer. So now you've got the layers. I'm writing. You've got layers of editing. You've got layers of back and forth with the illustrations. The book designer, once the illustrations are done, then you have to finalize all the layout. And then once you finalize the layout, you have a printable thought. Well, then there's proof reading. And then you have a printable thought. It takes me about a year to create a printable file and about $7,000 is what might-- between $5,000 and $7,000 to create a printable file. And then you have to go to find a book printer, do printing process. And then you have books. Now you can actually begin to sell. Which is really worth-- I mean, all of that's a grind. But then you've got to grind to sell it, because they don't sell themselves. So now you've got to grind to sell. And some people might say that's a lot of work for you to get a book and to profit on a book. And yeah, the answer is absolutely. And I don't recommend anyone getting to the book business who isn't passionate about books. Because there's a lot of other businesses you can get into where you can do the same grind and get more out of it much faster and much more lucrative. That's what my main business isn't book publishing. But-- Yeah. Yeah, the grind-- Yeah, the grind don't stop. Like we were saying off here too. I don't stop. Yeah, grind don't stop. Yeah, perfect transition too. So yes, you grind one of central Florida's largest marketing agencies have co-authored business books as well. How does that creativity, that business strategy, intersect for you? Yeah, I was critical. Obviously, I'm a creative-- I am a creative fly trade. Like, I've always been a creative person. I got into advertising, which is a creative field. I copy right, which is writing. And that's a creative field. And I definitely view my company as one of our strengths as creativity, as one of our core strengths. But starting a business and growing a business to have employees-- and at our peak, we had about 50 in-house employees. And that's a whole different ballgame than being a bootstrapping entrepreneur, which I consider myself. I am a bootstrapping entrepreneur. I bootstrapped my business when we started it. A business partner I work with college roommates. We started-- we worked together after college at a place at an agency. And then eventually decided that we were going to do our own thing and start our own agency together. And we started the business with 100 bucks. For my bank account, 100 bucks from his bank account. We open the bag account with $200. We, they charged us, you know, to have the open-e account for checks. We bought a speaker phone and we were like almost broke on week one. But we never put another dollar into that business that we didn't earn. And, you know, and now it's, you know, of significant size. And I say, that's the, that's bootstrap. I mean, it has bootstrap from the ground up. And every project I go into, I do go into it with the bootstrap mentality, which is not always smart. If you have more resources, sometimes there are better ways. But it's just my mindset. I've always been scrappy and resourceful and creative. And I did that with the business. And I try to, even with 50 employees, try to still in them. And in my, in the culture of our business, the culture of a grinding bootstrapping entrepreneurial, entrepreneur who is creative minded and resourceful. Because that's how you avoid waste. That's how you avoid, you know, endless projects that go nowhere and produce nothing. Another one of our core values, all of our core values in our company come from our original and early journey and entrepreneurship. You know, the one, another one is creativity. Another one is results. We, we're a huge focus on results. Like if it doesn't drive results for our clients and for ourselves. And we're not, we're not going to put an emphasis on it. We're not that interested because I know when I was bootstrapping, I needed the stuff I was doing to produce results. Like, I needed those results to eat, right? And so I always keep that focus and that's part of our company culture. So, you know, we have clients, you know, employees that come in. And maybe they haven't had that experience of the grind. Maybe they haven't had that experience of creating something from scratch. And understand the need for those results and being resourceful and whatnot. Maybe they're not necessarily creative. But all of those things that we then through our culture and through our work that we do with our employees try to instill those ideas into them. So that they aren't that for us, but I think that then when they leave, our organization and continue on in their business journey, that they take away these things that make them a better employee, a better entrepreneur, a better leader. And that's really kind of our focus. So we want to basically leave everything that we touch better than when we found it. And if we can do that, we're making an impact in the world. And, you know, that's, I think, ultimately why we're here. Exactly. And that's, like, grateful to have you, your presence on our show today. Jimmy, you know, talk about building that foundation, setting those values, but then honing in on the strengths that you mentioned yourself and your team. And the incredible work that you all have done, impacting, you know, individuals, leaders, teams, corporations, much, much more, just like your scope is amazing here. And we're proud to be a utilizing our platform to expand that voice as well. As a, as a busy entrepreneur, Jimmy and author, again, you were in a lot of hats here. How do you maintain that, like, that focus that discipline across, like, so many projects, or do you have advice for, like, aspiring entrepreneurs out there that are juggling a couple different things? How do I can really hone in on being more focused in the respective industry? Well, the piece of advice I say I would give would be to get focused. That's the first piece of it. I would say, yeah, I have a lot of things going on right now in my diverse businesses. I have my kids' book publishing business, and I have my marketing company, and I have some other social media thing, and I have this, and I have different things. And all of them are grinded. All of them have to go out work. But I have the opportunity, I have the ability, the opportunity at this point in my career and in my life, to A, have help, being to have financial resources, seeing to have the need for, not have the need for any of these things to work. Right? So I can do these things, and make my focus more diffused, because I can't, I have the luxury of that. I would not recommend that to an entrepreneur in the early stages of their journey. The thing that we, you know, when I started with the $200, and we started, we, much like a lot of entrepreneurs, had a lot of eyes in the fire. And effect, I would, I'd call it, we were walking around in the dark with our hands out, just looking for opportunity, right? Try to bump into opportunity, and whatever opportunity we bumped in, we, you know, evaluated it and then chased it, right? And that's natural. I think everybody does that, because they're not unsure of a single direction. They're not really sure what their skillsets, where their skillsets are going to fall. They're afraid to narrow their opportunity. But I think that that's a mistake. And even in our journey, we recognized that as a mistake. We had, you know, we were doing a newsletter, and we were doing marketing, and we had a, you know, a thing for this niche, and we were doing events in that niche, and we just were doing all kinds of stuff. And, you know, all of it was okay, but none of it was really gaining traction, and none of it was really enormously successful or profitable. And it wasn't until we got a mentor, and that mentor said, "You guys are all over the place, and you need to focus." Did I have the confidence, essentially, to focus? And, you know, we're looking at all of our varied business interests and opportunities, and profit centers, looking and saying, "Where is the most of the money coming from? Where is the biggest opportunity?" And kind of looking for the cross-section of that, and then saying, "Okay, this is the cross-section of that. Let's go 100 percent focused on that." That was scary, because I had a lot of business over here. It was making some money. I had to shut it down. I had, you know, I put all this time into this thing over here, and, you know, felt like there could be something there, but it wasn't producing, so I had to cut that off, and all of those things, those are sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes costly, but to be successful as an entrepreneur in the early stages, the thing that makes it work is focused. Focus in grind. You have to grind, but you have to grind in a very focused way. And if you don't, you're just going to be all over the place, and you're just going to, you don't have enough resources, time, and energy to do a broadly successful work. You have to be narrowly successful, and then broaden as it, as the path expands, and your resources expand. And you just have to, and how do you know what it is that you should focus on? The answer is, you don't really know. You have to make good educated guess, based on the information you have at the time, and go for it. I think you should be strategic about looking at the marketing, market opportunities, look for mentor businesses, like, okay, this is the kind of business, this is the industry I'm in, this is the type of business I am. These are who my competitors would be. What do their businesses look like? Who are they going after? How are they positioning themselves in the market? What's your differentiation position? So using intelligent means, choose the focus, and then grind the shit at it. And you say, well, how do I know? Like I said, how do you know if you're making the right decision? And, gentlemen, I met early on in my career was a gentleman who had a big insurance company, and he was an author as well, and a motivational speaker's name is Charlie Tremendous Jones. He was really a tall guy, and he had an eye issue, and he had like an eye patch, and he was always well, and apparently dressed, and super well spoken, and he had a quote, and it was, I thought it's one of my favorite quotes. There are no right decisions. There are only decisions you make, and then you make them right. And so, as an early stage entrepreneur, you have to make a decision to focus, as I kind of laid out, the parameters were making that choice. But then once you make the choice, you've made the decision, now you just have to make it right. So, it's not a right decision, because there are none. You just have to make the decision you made. And sometimes, that means, at some point along the way, you realize there's an off ramp, and you have to lower a detour, and you have to take it. But when you do take it, you take it completely. You can't be half in the on-ramp ramp. You're either on the ramp or you're off the ramp. Right? And so, that's the way it is. You have to make concrete decisions of focus in the Army Park, of the business journey. Yeah, this is great, Jimmy. Yeah, talk about Call of Action here for our Daily Grand We could talk on risk in barriers and hurdles and challenges that we've we've faced in our daily grinds but we have limited time with you on on-tay show but yeah continue to persevere but continue to have that focus so we can come successful in the best versions of ourselves here. I have one last question before we hit closing Jimmy. What's one thing you want like every child and adult to walk away with like after reading your books? Love reading. Love reading and you know I told you I had some early books that really stuck with me but I was not a reader as a student so once I became a student you know sure I read when I was little kid we had Dr. Sue's and my parents would read to me this and that and but once I became a student like you know in high school middle school high school college I did not read books in fact I did I have some eye issues and the anatomy that's an excuse but I just didn't like reading I didn't read books I in fact I always use to say I've read two books my entire high school and college career was to cricket and time swear and the novel did to Dick Tracy and which was a bad book and and I was it like I kind of cried in myself I'm like I don't read you know I don't have to read I'm smart and that was stupid so at some point my college roommate who was a reader we were going on a trip and he encouraged me say go I don't like to fly either and so he's like you should just read a book one the playing because it 'll make the time go by fast and I'm like I don't read he's like wow we should try it I'm like all right well I'm gonna be starting to play anyway like you should recommend a book it was like it was called Code Dezero by Nelson DeMille so great I know Ken fall it was the author of that Ken fall it and I read the book on the play and I got I got a look and I started reading I had fiction at that point then when we started the business I had all these questions that were unanswered and I had nowhere to go to get answers so we went to the bookstore and we would have money to buy books because we had two hundred dollars and we had spent that and so we were standing in the bookstore half for half a day you know multiple times a week and we would just read books and standing there we would read we would look for books that saw answered questions that we had solve problems we were facing and we read the books and then we would go and do stuff and that changed my entire life like the reading from the fiction brought joy and the business I you can get someone's entire experience from a book in the bookstore their entire entrepreneurial journey all of their secrets all of their outcomes their entire story all in a book for 20 bucks or less and it's I just I just was amazing it transformed me as a human being I cannot I cannot express the impact it has had and so when I had the opportunity to write books I came to it with that mindset and I continued to approach it with that same mindset that books are transformational so when I write a book my outcome is to transform the person into a reader because I believe that reading the books that you read are one of the most important things that you can experience in life another Charlie tremendous Jones quote he said the three most important things in your entire life are the people you meet the places you go and the books that you read and I 100% agree with that statement wholeheartedly those are the three things that will create success in your life if you pursue them intelligently and completely meeting people going to new places and reading books those three things have the power and the capacity to change everything yeah I was gonna say Jimmy respond with that quote but like books are so powerful again another call call action for folks to today show to pick up a book if you haven't already let's get on that book grind but yes Jimmy in closing here we talked about your daily schedule you have quite the grind going on what's on your daily grind this year what's on the radar so I am working right now I just and beginning the plan I guess you would say for building I have a nonprofit organization called Read Laugh Learn it is inspires kids to in literacy and leadership through creativity reading performance art and music and I am launching a plan to grow that nonprofit into a large organization that impacts millions of kids we have a million-hit movement that we're going to start that we'll try to we're gonna basically encourage a million kids and literacy and leadership through books and it's gonna be a big deal and I'm really it's gonna take a grind and so we're gonna map it out and then we're gonna start grind it on it starting in the second half of this year exciting times ahead I read Laugh Learn but yes he played to his seed you guys on our show we're gonna have to get Jimmy back on the pod to talk about the journey to talk about the journey obviously so I love to hear it but yes as you say on our show we wish you all the best things you can choose success and keep up the grind Jimmy story very inspiring on our show here today do you have you give us a ton of gems do you have a word of the day to motivate our listeners out there or even a quote to saying a mantra oh man I've had so many quotes and things in here but I guess it would be this be unreasonable and there's a quote end a book and the book is called be unreasonable the quote is the reasonable man adapts himself to the world the unreasonable man adapts the world to himself therefore all progress relies on the un the the the the unreasonable man so the unreasonable man so be unreasonable and make the world bend to your desire that's wonderful another words wisdom by Gen. E and throughout this episode but I think it fits perfectly with your story when compasses what you're doing here out the world inspire a Sunday show but really helping us encourage us to read more to become successful in our respective industries and have fun on the day and laugh too so so much last night least Jimmy if someone wants to follow your story want to learn more about your business brand your books you know tell us where can we find you I'm pretty old school so Facebook Jimmy V on Facebook is a great place to follow me and obviously a pages for all of my endeavors belly laugh books if you want to see my kids book stuff check out belly laugh books dot com that's where I'll be we'll find all of my kids book work and if you're interested in advertising you can find a said gravitational marketing dot com so I didn't say those are that's we can buy mom on all the social media too but a Facebook is probably where I'm most active wonderful yes we'll put word to find Jimmy we're to find his adventures and where you can consume the books to at the day in our show notes thanks again for two days episode a big thank you Jimmy for being on the podcast hey thank you Kelly crack per having me wonderful yes until next time my name is Kelly Johnson keep growing in that's a wrap on today's episode of the daily grand podcast if you got belly from this conversation make sure you're following us on Instagram X and Facebook at daily grind pod and subscribe on Spotify and Apple so never miss what's coming next check out our YouTube channel for full video interviews behind the scenes content and highlights from our nonprofit events just search daily grind podcast you can also support the mission by grabbing some merch at kjfw i dot org we appreciate every listen and every share new season same grind we'll catch you next time and as always keep grinding