Michael: Hello, and welcome to the HaBO Village Podcast. I'm Michael Redman. And this is the podcast that works with you, leaders, who have small and medium-sized businesses that want to grow a company that is full of profit, full of purpose in your life and fulfillment, and leaves a legacy. And today I've got an interviewee that I think you're really going to like, Rishon Blumberg. And we're going to talk about talent today. Rishon is an expert in top talent recruitment. He's got a great story that we'll get into later, so I won't spoil it here in the intro. And he's the co-author of a book called Game Changer: How to Be 10x in the Talent Economy. Rishon, thanks for joining us. It's good to see you again.
Rishon: Good to see you too. I'm really happy to be here.
Michael: So for the audience as they're listening, let's talk a little bit about how you got into the talent industry because that journey was not a normal one at least from what I've seen. How did that happen? Let's talk about that.
Rishon: Yeah. It definitely was not a straight line, certainly not a straight line to our current company 10x Management and 10x Ascend. But starting from the beginning, I grew up in New York City in the 70s and 80s. And I think what happened specifically to me and my partner, Michael Solomon, who also grew up in the city we've, by the way, known each other since third grade and been business partners essentially since our late teens, we were exposed very early on to people behind talent, right? So where you might have fallen in love with an album or a band or musicians or knew the producer or the members of a band or the rhythm section or the co-writer of a song, we got to know the people who were managing the artists who were the business affairs and lawyers for the artists, the people that worked at Record Label. Those are people whose kids we grew up with in New York City.
Michael: Oh, interesting.
Rishon: We had a viewpoint into the talent side of things from the business side, very, very early on and that was certainly impactful. At the time we didn't know it, but it was definitely impactful to us and set us down a road. And both Michael and I were very entrepreneurial at a young age. And I would say that even though we've settled into this through line of representing talent, the real through line for us has been entrepreneurship and starting different businesses with different ideas and solving for different types of problems. And so when I went off to college, I went to the University of Pennsylvania and studied business there. But I actually was the person starting my freshman year who ran all the concerts for the university.
Rishon: And so I really set myself down this talent path at a very young age. And again, at the time I didn't see this through line of talent, I just saw it as entrepreneurship and the music business was a place you could get into, the barriers to entry were not financial really, they were more about who you knew. And since we grew up knowing a lot of people, it was a fairly natural segue. So I graduated from the Wharton School of Business. I started working as a concert promoter, but knew I always wanted to work directly with the talent. So Michael and I, started our first company Brick Wall Management, first official company, I should say, Brick Wall Management in 1995 to represent music and entertainment talent. And we still run that company today, but that set us down this journey of working with talent and around, I'd say, the mid 90s to early 2000s, we were hiring tech freelancers ourselves.
Rishon: And then around 2010, people started to refer to Tech Talent as Rock Stars. And we had already been working with Rock Stars. And so we thought a lot of the issues that we found in working with freelance Tech Talent, perhaps we could be part of the solution. And so we started this boutique white glove talent agency based on the concepts from entertainment and sports called 10x Management to represent senior level Tech Talent that are freelancers. So not people that are working W2s, but people that are freelancing, we work with them over the long haul. And that really sent us down that road and it's been very interesting. We do maintain these two different businesses as verticals. We've got the Brick Wall Management in entertainment. We've got 10x Management and 10x Ascend in tech.
Michael: Okay. Let's unpack some of that. There's so many things going through my mind as I'm listening to you, I'm making notes over here and I'm like, oh, my goodness, this is so interesting. I see two things that I want to start to unpack. And one is the actual business itself and then the journey you and Michael had because I'm always curious about what that looks like. We'll come back to the journey in a moment, especially the fact that you guys met each other in third grade. My wife and I who are business partners that people know, we met each other in fourth and she was in sixth grade and we've been together... Well, there's another journey, another story, but I'm always interested in the stories that have lasted a long time. When did you guys start the first company? When did you graduate from college or your graduate work?
Rishon: I graduated really 93, I think I'm technically in class of 94, I graduated off semester. And to be honest, I had already been doing artist management by that time, but I went to work for a concert promoter, really prominent concert promoter in New York City while still managing bands. And then ultimately, I said to Michael, I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. I want to just have our own company, let's do this. And he was working at a Record Label at the time. He had graduated a little bit before me, we're the same age, but I had taken more of a circuitous route. And so he's like, let me quit my job, you keep your job, the concert promoter and let's start the company. So we formalized Brick Wall Management in 1995, but really we had been doing it at least a year prior to that.
Michael: That means the company is just shy, I mean, you're coming up on 30 years of that.
Rishon: Yeah. We are. Yes. We're old. That is correct.
Michael: That's awesome though.
Rishon: Thank you for pointing that out.
Michael: I think somebody has to celebrate those kind of things because in this world everybody's talking about short term and flip it. And if you're not a millionaire by your 30 or more than a millionaire now because a $1 million doesn't go nearly as far as it used to. What made you guys stick with it for 30 years?
Rishon: We've never been of the mindset, and by the way, I do think this is a little bit generational. The Gen Xers came up in a time when entrepreneurship was not startup, startup and entrepreneurship were not necessarily equivalent. I think the startup has become a euphemism for entrepreneurship, but I think from the get go, the idea for us was to work over the long haul with the talent that we were representing. And that's because the first 10xer and the first artist that we really saw close up was Bruce Springsteen, who has had a relationship with his management team for 50 years, right? So our view of the relationship with talent is one of the long term. So for us there was never any idea of a liquidity event or being acquired or selling, that was never on our radar.
Michael: What do you think the benefits are of having that much water under the bridge, that time in the business, what do you think that's brought? Has it brought you value? Do you think it's enriched the company, enriched you guys staying with one thing so long?
Rishon: Yes. Specifically as it relates to what we do which is essentially protecting talent and helping them to build, develop, and maintain and run their businesses. I think the better that you know somebody, the easier it is for you to be a partner in that regard. The longer you have a relationship with somebody, the better you know what they want, don't want, like and don't like. And that always helps with that relationship. That doesn't mean that you can't have a short term relationship that's very meaningful and effective with a talent. But for us, the longer that we work with somebody, the better that we know what they want and don't want, the more effective we think we can be.
Michael: Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. So then the transition that happened that caused you guys to go to write the book and start moving through the talent, time wise on the track of history, when was that?
Rishon: We really started 10x Management in 2011. We had already been thinking, and again, I mentioned we're really entrepreneurs first. Concurrently with Brick Wall Management, we had attempted many other businesses in a variety of different verticals, all of which failed for one reason or another. And my role in the partnership is really to try and poke holes and ideas. Michael tends to be more of the idea guy like what if we did this? What if we did that? What if we did... So he's got a lot of ideas of things that could potentially really be businesses and I'm the guy that goes, I don't know because of this, that, and the other thing. And so when he mentioned this idea of representing Tech Talent, I couldn't poke many holes into it and so for us, that's a sign that this is something we should explore further.
Rishon: So we had really been talking about it a little bit, maybe starting in 2010. And again, it coincided very closely with this concept of Tech Talent as Rock Stars which I think opened our eyes a little bit. They had already begun to open when we saw celebrity chefs having agents and managers and started to think about the fact that talent is not just siloed into sports talent, musicians, actors. The reason we named our book Game Changer: How to Be 10X and the Talent Economy is because our idea of what talent is now is so much broader. For us, talent encompasses anybody who provides exponential value to an organization that could be LeBron James and the Lakers.
Michael: Yeah.
Rishon: Maybe not the best example this year, or it could be somebody who works in your small organization who just is exponentially better than somebody else. That's what a 10xer is. All of those people should be thought of as talent. And frankly, any employee in our opinion should be thought of mentally from the standpoint of talent because that affects the culture of a company. Maybe I'm going off on a tangent here, but that's something I just wanted to mention.
Michael: Okay. Well, wait a minute. Since you went there, let's go there a little bit farther. What do you mean by that and elaborate on that.
Rishon: So you probably know the movie Office Space. Maybe you remember that movie, right? The TPS reports.
Michael: Absolutely.
Rishon: That is the old way of work. You're a cog in the machine. Your manager maybe knows you a little bit. They don't really care about you. They just needed what they need, what the company wants, whatever the mandate is, they want you to come in on the weekends. There's no thought about who you are. Right now we live in an on-demand society. We can dictate what it is we want. We want to listen to this music, we have it at our fingertips. We want to watch that show, we have it at our fingertips. Everything is customized towards the individual except for employment, right? So from our standpoint, when companies have to do more with less which virtually every company has to do now, you can't just throw numbers of people at a problem.
Rishon: First of all, it's very hard to find those numbers of people. So everybody that works for you has to be better, they have to be able to do more. They have to have more flexibility and a broader capability of skill sets. And in order for you to retain those people and attract those people, you have to think of them differently. You can't just think of them as like some random employee. Nothing is less human than the concept of human resources. So for us, this concept of talent, it reframes what this employee is to you. They're not just this cog in a machine, they're a vital piece of the organization without which you can't succeed, you can't innovate, you can't maintain the business that you have. You can't be competitive. So that's really, for us, a seismic viewpoint shift in how you build a culture with the company. Think of your employees as talent, they're vital to you. They're vital to your organization, treat them as such.
Michael: Okay. Let's talk about the 10x talent for a moment. I think in some people's minds, that makes sense, hey, they're superstars, there's LeBron, I watch the Food Network so I see the chefs and all this. And you get small and medium sized companies that have been around a while. Their culture's important. Some of them are thinking, okay, if I connect dot A, those folks, those that are famous to dot B, my company and I need somebody who's really a rockstar superstar in that. But sometimes the association I know when I talk to leaders, they're thinking, okay, that's great, but as soon as I get somebody like that, they become demanding. They're a primadonna, they act like a concert or a rockstar who wants only green M&Ms in their green room or no green M&Ms in their green. Is that what we're talking about or are we talking about having to put up with that attitude or can we have somebody who fits our culture well, and look for this 10x and treat them not as a cog in a wheel, but respect them for what they bring.
Rishon: Yes. The short answer is yes, we can. The longer answer is that 10x is really a spectrum, it's continuum. And we all fall somewhere on that 10x continuum. We all want to strive to be further and further towards 10x. There are real 10xers who provide exponential value, [inaudible 00:12:44] LeBron James, those are few and far between. So that's a goal to reach towards and to achieve. To me, a 10xer is not a diva, right? That is the antithesis of what we find to be a 10xer. So let me just dive into that concept in general. So for us, what a 10xer is, it's really two different things, high IQ and high EQ. Now there may be some people who would say AQ which is this adjustability quotient, the ability to transition between types of things, which I would throw in there a little bit, but if you don't have the EQ, it doesn't matter how high your IQ is. You're never going to be a 10xer, right?
Rishon: So we don't want to work with people who think the sun revolves around them. That they're the best. That shows very low levels of empathy and EQ and understanding of other people's position. What we talk about in the book is really this idea that the manager is also the talent and in order to be able to truly be a 10xer, you have to understand the perspective of management and the talent because they too are talent. And what that means is you have to understand the plight that they're going through. It's very easy for an employee to say blame everything on their manager, but they don't often think about what is the manager having to deal with? What are their issues that they're dealing with? So we're constantly asking our 10xers for feedback for ourselves that they should get feedback from people above them, adjacent to them, below them. I'm throwing a lot of stuff at you here.
Michael: No, this is good because part of what I'm hearing and just sorting down to is we really have a holistic ecosystem that you guys are thinking about and we're coming against right now that diva idea, that's not what you have to deal with. Matter of fact, you shouldn't put up with that.
Rishon: Correct. Well, we talk in the book about the sabotage instinct which is on this continuum, this 10x continuum. We actually refer to it as the manageability continuum in the book. You've got on one extreme, the sabotage impulse and you've got the success impulse.
Michael: Oh, interesting.
Rishon: People who have the sabotage impulse, you've seen this before I know I've seen it many times, they just make the wrong decision at the wrong time, right? You think that they should say... Maybe own a mistake and they double down and they blame somebody else or they create a problem and they sweep it under the rug. Or they continually make the same bad decision over and over again. When you come across people like that, our opinion is you make some attempt to try and write the ship with them, but you very quickly move on if you can't because they tend to poison the well more than people who are on the success continuum. So you want people on the team who are creating a positive impact, not just in the work that they do, but in the environment that they create around you. This is part of that culture.
Michael: I was just thinking about that because as you were talking, I'm like, okay, this person really is not just valuable to the bottom line. Where in growing up in Northern California and especially pre-tech boom and watching all that stuff happen, when Kathryn and I got married, we were living and working in Silicon Valley. There was a lot of attitude about, you put up with somebody just because they make you a lot of money, take programmers in that arena. There was like, well, we'll put up with these guys and women who don't have any EQ at all. And they may even be jerks, but because they're so "brilliant" and that left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths, but this 10xer you're talking about what I think I'm hearing is this person doesn't only bring value financially, but they're a team player that's going to elevate the entire team.
Rishon: That is exactly right. That is the goal that we should be striving for when we're hiring any type of talent, whether it's a true 10xer or somebody who just wants to be a 10xer. The superpower, I think, for small organizations and entrepreneurs in general is their ability to have a direct impact on the culture of their company. That culture is what is going to bring somebody in, but it's the people adhering to that culture and living that culture day in and day out that is going to help you retain those people.
Rishon: So when you get this bad seed, when you get a diva coder or you get somebody who has the sabotage impulse, you've got to get them out of the organization quickly because they're going to bring that culture vibe down significantly. And that's the real differentiator. And that's the thing that will allow you to hire in a tougher market than perhaps somebody who has a bad culture. Uber, for example, had a really bad rap for a while. And I guarantee it was harder for Uber to hire the best and brightest than it was for, I'm not sure which tech company has a great environment, but whatever company has a better environment would have an easier time hiring those people.
Michael: Yes. No. That's fair. Let's talk some practicals here. I want to talk about for people who might be thinking, how do I become a 10xer and find a company where I can prosper or I can flourish. And then I want to talk about the company side, leadership side of finding those, how do you identify somebody that's got a high IQ, high EQ, and the AQ, which I hadn't heard about yet, but thinking about that. So let's start with the employee first. What's their mindset going to be and how are they going to go about finding a company like that?
Rishon: So for starters, what we talk about in the book, there are a couple things that we believe everybody should do in order to push themselves down the 10x spectrum. First of all, try and find somebody in your life who can play some sort of a mentorship role. This is a lost art a little bit in our society. You used to have an internship. You used to pay your dues and learn from people who were more seasoned and wiser. It doesn't really happen as much because people aren't staying in jobs as long, people are shifting around quickly. People are coming in at very high salaries because the market is so competitive. But I think you're never too young to try and find a mentor in your life.
Rishon: The other thing is to seek feedback from people. And in the book we talk about seeking feed feedback below, adjacent, and above and be prepared to give feedback. Feedback is one of the best ways to find out things about yourself that perhaps you don't know, we mentioned Johari window in the book which is this matrix of various things that pertain to your personality, some of which you know and others don't. But the thing that you really want find out and get feedback on are those things that others know that you don't about yourself. Be a continual learner, constantly try and learn new things. Nobody can tell you with any certainty whatsoever, what skill sets are going to be most important in the future other than the fact that change and the ability to change will be vital because change is happening faster and faster due to technology.
Rishon: So people who are constantly curious and interested in learning, they're going to have a natural ability to adjust to the various changes that come into play, so that's the AQ part of it. So it's finding a mentor, it's remaining curious, it's feedback, trying to put yourself in other shoes which is a little bit of that feedback component, understanding. And then, we all are very familiar with the golden rule, do unto others as you'd have others do unto you, but then the platinum rule which I think is a more modern concept which is, do unto others the way they want to be done onto themselves, right? Meet people where they are which is part of what we're talking about when we talk about bespoke management and managers really getting to know the people that work for their team and the talent concept.
Rishon: You can't treat every person just the way you want to be treated. You have to treat them the way they want to be treated, right? You can't treat a 25 year old who's single the same way you treat a 38 year old who has two kids. You have to meet them on their own terms. So for a company to know that, the individual has to express that to them, they have to express them what's important. Again, we don't want divas. There's always going to be bad behavior and some standard deviation of any curve is going to have bad players and amazing players. But most of us fall somewhere in the middle there. And as long as we're striving for those things that sets us down the road towards 10x.
Michael: Okay. So let's talk about from the company side, leadership trying to find these folks because you were saying something earlier about this isn't just about the talent itself or we have to realize management is talent also.
Rishon: Right. So the concept there is that in the world that we live in now, especially if we use tech as a backdrop, we're all doing so much more with less. So somebody who maybe is the CTO of a company and has 25 engineers underneath them, maybe managing those 25 engineers in one moment and may also be creating and innovating within the code another minute, meaning that they are a manager part of the day and they're the talent part of the day. And in order for a company to really thrive and to be able to treat their talent in the way that they want to be treated, they have to be able to put themselves in those shoes. So they have to then think of themselves as the talent as well and advocate for themselves in the same way as talent.
Rishon: So for companies, to me, the number one most important thing now is about culture and purpose. If you can express what the purpose is of what your business does, the why of what you're doing. People want to connect with the why. That's part of this great realignment and great resignation is that people are finding that they don't really want to go back to the work they were doing before. It didn't resonate with who they were and what they want out of life. So when you factor in work life balance and the importance of that in Gen Zs, millennials, and frankly, it should be important in boomers and Gen Xers as well, you have to understand and come to people where they are and your culture is that first step. If you can advertise and live the culture that your company has, it'll be easier for you to connect with somebody who adheres to that belief as well.
Rishon: So when you're looking for people, first of all, you have to be bespoke in your hiring practices. And by that I mean you really need to get to know who these hirees are. I think, especially for your listeners because they're smaller size companies, they can really get to know every single employee fairly well. This doesn't work as well for enterprise level companies that are hiring thousands and thousands of people, but even there the best and brightest still need to be treated in a very bespoke way so that a job compensation package can be tailored to what their specific needs are and they can be managed in a certain way. The more you can find out during the interview process about a person, the better you're going to be able to onboard that person and manage that person in an ongoing way.
Rishon: And if you lead with culture and purpose and you truly live that from a top down mentality, for example, in our organization, we have, I think six values, 10x values, that's in a poster hanging on the wall in our office. Not that anybody's in the office right now, but when we are in the office all the time, it's there in front of us every single day and we're living those value use every single day. We're trying to live those values every single day. That is a huge difference than an organization that maybe has values in some doc somewhere or maybe in an onboarding pamphlet, but then they shove it in the drawer and they don't live it and it just becomes irrelevant.
Rishon: A great example of this is in a negotiation for a compensation package you may ask, what does your paid time off look like. And they may say, oh, we're really generous, you could take as much time off as you want. We don't track that information, but if you find out from people that are working there that actually no one takes time off because the pressure in the office is too great, that's not the culture we're talking about. If you really have a flexible paid time off policy, you have to live that paid time off policy for that to be something that resonates and is important to somebody. So live those beliefs is I think the most important thing that a company can do to try and attract top talent or any talent for that matter and retain them.
Michael: Do you have any tools that you guys use or recommend to actually assess both IQ and EQ when you're doing interviews and stuff?
Rishon: Well, I can tell you what we do internally. I do think each organization is going to have their own methodology. Most of what we do surrounds personality based interviews and less about technical capability interviews. Although there is an element of that as well. So we have at least one interview where it's just a conversation, it's not necessarily even about the work that we do or that we might do together, but more about who this person is, what types of work is motivational to them, how they deal with certain situations, problem solving. Very often the hiring process is rapid and full of pressure. Often pressure that's put on an employee or perspective employee from a company that has to hire and fill seat quickly. I would say slow that down a little bit and try to get to know the person a little bit better and have them do multiple interviews, not just with you and other members of your team, but people who would be their coworkers where they can ask some real pointed questions about the culture and about the way the world works there.
Rishon: And then we do your typical reference checking and we do our one-on-one technical vetting as well. So we try to have three to four different touch points in order to bring somebody on board. And then we try to apply that concept of releasing people quickly if we find out they have the sabotage instinct. I think that's part of it too. Because of what we do at 10x where we basically rent out senior level Tech Talent, we have a concept called Rent Fast, Hire Slow. And the idea there is the freelance economy is so massive now. You can find short term solutions to talent shortages through the freelance economy.
Rishon: So again, using tech as a background, if you need a Python Developer for a specific project and you want to bring somebody on as a W2, but you haven't found the right person, you can rent that person to get your project going which buys you longer runway to find right person. So anything that allows you to take a little bit more time to find the talent and get to know that talent better, I think is going to help you both to onboard them and manage them more effectively and ultimately to retain them better.
Michael: Do you see that Rent First model being in some cases, somewhat like the old temp to perm model we used to talk about in the old days?
Rishon: Yes.
Michael: Is there a difference?
Rishon: My experience is more of the permalance concept that we used to have where... Viacom used to do this a lot especially with MTV and VH1, instead of hiring people as W2 employees, they had long term permalance contracts. So they were essentially a full-time employee, but working through a temp solution, a temp entity.
Michael: I did that in the 80s and 90s at HP. That's how I was working in their process.
Rishon: Yeah. This is a little bit different because the thing that attracts certainly senior level talent to the gig economy or I call it more the knowledge economy, is the idea that they can flexibly choose the work that they want and move from project to project. That's something that actually excites them because it gives them a different problem to solve, not on a daily basis, but regularly. I think that really the concept we're talking about is much more tactical where the old freelancer part-timer to full-time employment was more of an employment track. This is much more tactical for companies where we want to hire a W2, but we also want to get rolling on what we need to do now so let's put this specific expertise in here. And back in the day, you really couldn't fill temp positions for a lot of these types of roles. You couldn't get a temp chief marketing officer or a temp CFO or a temp CTO, those were not the kind of things.
Michael: Nobody wanted to work at that high level at a temp level. They just didn't.
Rishon: Right.
Michael: Yeah.
Rishon: And companies didn't want that either because they didn't see the benefit of it. And they didn't really have the resources or capability internally to manage that kind of structure. The pandemic has hastened it, but we were already building up the tools to be able to manage people remotely. Slack is a great example of that. Zoom is a great example of that. These technologies 10 years ago didn't exist. So it made it much harder for people to be out of office or a freelancer.
Michael: We're coming to the end of our time now. It's going so fast. What about institutional knowledge? What's your take in the midst of all of this because all of a sudden now we're talking about this gig economy. Who holds onto the knowledge of the company? Who translates it from generation to generation even if a generation is five years? What do you think about that?
Rishon: Well, obviously institutional knowledge and technical debt and things like that are significantly important. And that is an adjustment in this new world that companies have to think about and plan for. One of my buzz words for the pandemic is intentionality where things could happen casually, meeting at the water cooler and sharing information, now you don't have a water cooler, you have to be much more intentional. That carries through to institutional knowledge as well, but again, there are really sophisticated tools now that companies can employ almost like a Wiki style database where you can enter all of that institutional knowledge and create a history of information that is searchable so that anybody who needs information about something historical even if the person who handled that part of a project is not there anymore, as long as you're intentional about documentation and keeping that information and making it accessible, you can still keep the institutional knowledge using more sophisticated tools today.
Michael: All right, that's good. I'll tell you what? If you wouldn't mind, I think this is going to be a great place for us to stop and potentially pick up an interview later on down the road, if it works, because I think there's lots of stuff to continue to talk about, but obviously we're running out of time. Let me do a couple of quick things here. One, tell our listeners who's the best potential person to read your book and why should they read the book?
Rishon: The book is intentionally broad in audience. The book is split up into two halves. The first half, actually now I can't remember which is first or second, but one half is geared towards companies and what they can do to 10x themselves to attract more talent. And that applies to companies of all shapes and sizes. And again, we're using technology as a backdrop here, but you don't have to be a technology company, hint, hint, every company as a technology company, but you don't have to be a technology company to benefit for from it. And then the other half of the book is really geared towards the individual and what they need to do to be more 10x like and push themselves down the 10x spectrum.
Rishon: So I do think that this is something that would be an interesting read for somebody who wants to be a higher performer as an individual as well as people that want to improve their company culture, their management skills, the way they manage people, the way they contemplate hiring and the talent that works for them. So it's a fairly broad read. And also the nice thing about it is there are a lot of interviews with people in different verticals from the entertainment world to business. So you have this tactical and prescriptive work that you can do mixed with stories of how people in the business world have interacted with this concept of 10x.
Michael: No, I like that. I like that a lot. I think it'd be really valuable. Folks, this is not the first time I've had a conversation with Rishon and I've looked at his stuff and gone through it. This is valuable, really useful information. I think you're going to gain a lot out of it. Even the conversation as you were listening today, when we talk about the Johari window and stuff like that, I know from experience, this stuff is really great tools and insights into who you are and how you can improve your organization or your own performance. So I just want to encourage you to do that. Okay. One last question for you that is a little different. We'll come at it a little bit of different angle, think about yourself 10 years ago. What would you say if you could meet yourself 10 years ago, what would you tell yourself?
Rishon: I'd like to go back further than that because I think what you're trying to say is, what would your more wisened self tell your younger self?
Michael: Absolutely.
Rishon: And I think for me, the two most important things that young entrepreneurs can benefit from, and this goes for myself, this is what I would say to myself as well is grit and fortitude. You're never going to succeed if you can't follow through fully on the ideas that you have. It's funny like we sign NDAs constantly at our company because we're talking to all of these different types of entities about sensitive information, but it's always amazing to me when somebody who has no product and has no company wants me to sign an NDA, they don't want me to steal the idea. The idea is not the secret sauce. It's the execution, that's the secret sauce. And you can't have real execution if you don't have grit and fortitude. And I think that's the most important thing that a young entrepreneur can have. And that's what I would tell my younger self which we did. We've stayed with our businesses very long term.
Michael: Absolutely.
Rishon: But don't be deterred by the roadblocks, the roadblocks are beneficial and necessary. Stay the course.
Michael: Perfect. I love it. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Rishon Blumberg. This has been a really interesting conversation. Thank you, Rishon. I appreciate the time and the conversation today.
Rishon: Likewise. Thanks for having me.
Michael: Ladies and gentlemen, this is the HaBO Village Podcast. Go ahead and get that book, take or read, I think you'll really enjoy it and visit us next time as we talk more and more about how to become successful in your company and build companies that are full of profit, purpose, and legacy. Have a great day. Thank you.
