Ep294: Ari Gunzburg – Persistence Cannot Solve All Your Challenges

Andrew Stotz 00:03
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning in our community. We know that to win in investing, you must take risk but to win big, you've got to reduce it. This episode is sponsored by Ace dots Academy, which offers online courses that help investors, aspiring professionals, business leaders and even beginners to improve the finances of their lives and their businesses. Go to my worst investment ever.com right now to claim your discount on the course that excites you the most fellow risk takers This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz, and I'm here with featured guest, Ari Gunzburg. Ari, are you ready to rock? Oh,

00:46
yeah.

Andrew Stotz 00:51
So let me tell the audience a bit about you. Are you Gunzburg is a rising new star in personal growth after experiencing trauma as a child, and then an extreme volatility as a teenager. As an award winning international speaker, Ari motivates people using personal stories filled with triumph, tragedy. And transformation also helps inspire people using one on one coaching. And his books for both children and adults. New in 2020 is his debut nonfiction title, the little book of greatness, RV, take a minute and filling further tidbits about your life.

01:32
Uh,

Ari Gunzburg 01:33
you know, the main focus that I have working with people both in large audiences and one on one is really to help people rekindle the light the magic of life. And I you do that using my my, my framework called the five keys to greatness, which is what that book discusses. You know, people find that it's really easy to remember really easy to use. But there's also this is one of the parts of it that I like the most is that there's a lot of depth to it, as long as you open up your mind to really think about it, to explore it. And to to apply it to your life, you know, you can you can really apply to many, many different ways you can you can integrate other systems into it, if you have a particular Self Help system that you really like now, or if you're worried that you're going to find one in the future, you can fit it in. So it's not like adopting this is going to restrict you to only one type of Self Help system, it really kind of leaves the door open for you no matter what.

Andrew Stotz 02:25
Good. I'm just curious, why is it important for you to tell the audience about trauma and volatility? How did that shape you, you know, in those stories that you tell, and in the books and the services that you do?

Ari Gunzburg 02:42
Well, everybody deals with their own trauma. And so first of all, you know, somebody that I know, for quite some time. You know, he was a principal of a school. And then the next thing he I saw him like a number of years later, and he's, he tells me he's a social worker. And we're having this conversation. He's like, I had this real epiphany. And the Epiphany was that people go through their lives, and they say, Oh, you know, I had this thing happen to me, but they're afraid to call it a traumatic experience, they're afraid to say that it was something that that left a really big impression on them, because they're like, it wasn't such a big deal compared to things that I know have happened other people, it wasn't a big deal. But he said, My epiphany was that it doesn't matter what happened to other people, it matters, what happens to you, and it matters how it affected you. So what's traumatic for you may not be traumatic for somebody else true. But if it was traumatic for you, you still need to deal with it. And so what happened to me was traumatic, I think, you know, even if you wanted to sit there and do it from an objective standpoint, or from a subjective standpoint, it was fairly traumatic. You know, I was 10 years old, I was on a hike with a teacher and the teacher passed away. Yeah, and then, and then, I mean, it didn't get much better there. I mean, there was a number of other problems that started to rise within the schools. And then and then I started hanging out with the, with a group of friends that all wanted to have fun. And, you know, I could say that with like, air quotes, euphemistically, and I ended up having a lot of fun with them, and getting in some trouble and doing some things that were not the healthiest thing to do as a teenager. I mean, others know what I'm talking about. But you know, yeah, you take enough of those things over enough years, and it has an effect, you know, and so, I discuss a lot of these things. And then and then another point of it is that for a long time, I wanted to kind of keep away from it, and not really discuss it, and just, you know, be another member of society. And you know, this way, this way, I could, you know, hold my head height up high or whatever. And then I, as I started taking this journey to helping people into speaking and you know, writing and all these things, I realized, I can really help a lot more people by being honest and by by Well, I mean, it's not about being dishonest, but I'm saying bye. Bye bye. Being willing to share my story with other people, maybe being vulnerable. vulnerable, yes, that's that's a good word. That's a word that I actually use in some places. Also, you know, it's it's it's really, very To sit down and tell your story like that, I mean, like, if I ever have to go get a job, and somebody starts looking me up, and they're like, and then I come in, and they're like, have you ever been to jail? And you're like, Oh, you already know the answer to that. Yeah, um, you know, so

Andrew Stotz 05:16
because I went to jail before I was 18. So it was expunged from my record. So the only way they know is if I tell them on my podcast. Yeah.

Ari Gunzburg 05:26
I was at a speech one time at a corporation. And I'm like, you know, I sat there and popped out and I was like, Is anybody ever? And I'm like, No, no, don't raise. Because they're sitting there with their colleagues, like, you know, like, I don't need you to pop your hand up. And then all of a sudden college like, wait, what happened?

Andrew Stotz 05:42
I think you should have just like, Wait,

05:44
did you tell me about that?

Andrew Stotz 05:46
I think the way to do that is go. Everybody look at me intensely. Now. I think you blink your eyes if you've been to jail.

Ari Gunzburg 05:56
Yeah, so I mean, I did it kind of as a joke a little bit, but I actually had a pot to handle like, oops. Yeah.

Andrew Stotz 06:04
Well, I'm just curious, because I mean, one of the things about, um, look for those, you know, for the listeners out there, the little book of greatness, a parable about unlocking your destiny, as it's only been up, you know, for a short amount of time, right there on Amazon. And you've got 56 ratings, which is fantastic. for, you know, published, I believe, this year, and, and the ratings are on average 4.6. So, you're doing that, right. So vulnerability, and sharing, and all that, you know, works. And I think that's important, because this shows about vulnerability, the book

Ari Gunzburg 06:39
doesn't have actually that much autobiographical detail in it, the next one, or it might not end up being the next one. But I'm saying the next one that I have currently, that's kind of at the forefront of my mind, that will have a substantial chunk of autobiographical data in it. It's funny, somebody that I know, that was a bit of a mentor to me growing up, and you know, helped me in considerable ways, I gave him a copy of the book. And, you know, I gave him a signed copy of messages me within like, 24 or 48 hours, and he's like, I'm not in the acknowledgments. And I'm like, uh, yeah, you're not. And he's like, but I'm not. And I was kind of like, just like, Listen, you know, the people that I put in the acknowledgments over there were my family, rightfully so. And, you know, God, and you know, the people who were a part of this book, you had nothing to do with this book, it, this is not an autobiographical book, this is not talking about anything, this is not discussing the influence that you had in my life whatsoever. It's out of place over here. And it's just you're not part of that. And I don't know if he's upset about it or not, because it was all done via text message. But you know, you know, what can you do? You know, it didn't, it didn't, it didn't feel like the right venue to sit there and list every single person that's ever helped me in my entire life. I mean, I also plan to publish a lot more books. So there's gonna be plenty of more acknowledgement things that you know, acknowledgement pages probably sit there and be like, I forgot to mention this person 20 times, and they're getting a spot. Now,

Andrew Stotz 08:04
just one of the many little things that you deal with when you write a book. But now, it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one ever goes into their worst investment, thinking it will be. Tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it. And then tell us your story.

Ari Gunzburg 08:20
Sure, so in Baltimore, in the Jewish community, there is a book called the advertiser, which is a small book that basically sits there and gets advertisements from all of the community businesses, and publishes them and sends it off to every single home throughout the community. Now, my history with this magazine actually goes back a long, long time back to when I was like 10 or 11 years old. And it was owned by a different person, and it was printed in black and white. And instead of paying the Postal Service, they I, you know, they would offer if they had the people to do it to like 15 or 20 cents or something, to drop them off at people's houses and stuff. And so I had a few routes with them. Anyways, so I knew about this magazine for a long time. And then I go, and I end up in a new community, Cleveland, and I wanted to do something very similar. There was already something that, you know, that was out there. I don't think it was published that often. But it was like, kind of like out there. And I think Originally, I wanted to do it, like years and years beforehand, and I didn't end up going through with it. But now I was actually living there. And I was like, you know, I really should do something. So I reached out to the people who are running it originally. And I made an offer and they accepted. Or maybe they you know, maybe I said that I was interested and they put a number out there and I said fine, etc, whatever. I mean, ultimately, I got my hands on it. And I started working on I started putting everything into it and you know, creating systems, creating processes, and trying to develop it and trying to you know, sell all the business owners on the idea that they should be in there because here's the thing in Baltimore where all the business owners kind of assume that they kind of need to be in there because that's where people look to find out what's going on with sales with businesses with everything else. It's it's like almost like a given for a business owner to be in there because they know that if they want their sale to get out there, if they want people to come into their store, you need to advertise because people will look through these things in another town where things are done in a different way. Or it's a little bit more old school, or where there's far fewer choices, or there's just far fewer people. You know, people may be a little bit resistant to that. And that's kind of what was happening a little bit to the point where I asked somebody, I don't want to too much detail, I asked somebody one time to run a special for Super Bowl. And they're like, why would I do that? I'm like, because it'll bring you an extra business. So like, Who says I want extra business? Bam, hangs up the phone. It's like, I was like I you know, alright, well, I don't really know what to say meaning like, that's just like the type of rebuttal that like, I don't think there is a rebuttal if you don't want to be busier. I don't really know. And that's kind of like the attitude that I continuously was seeing. So I got this thing. And I was trying to like just build it up and make it bigger. And there was there were times when it seemed like it was really working. And there were times when it really seemed like it was about to go somewhere. And really, ultimately, over the course of three years, I just never could get it past a certain point an additional an additional piece of the lay of the land that was detrimental, was that there was also at the same time a website that, you know, a certain percentage of the people in town went to for information and news, etc. And they were charging very, very low advertising prices, I don't know if it was to put me out of business or if it because they because no business sense. Or if it was because the fact that they realized that if they charge really low prices, they'll get a lot more business, I don't know. You know, I'm friendly with the guy, I'm still friendly with him. So I don't really know. But like, the fact is, is that when you say to somebody, a full page ad will be whatever it is $200 $150 $500 whatever the number is, and it'll take, let's say two and a half weeks before it actually gets into people's homes, or you tell somebody look, you can put six different advertisements in my website for 60 bucks, and we'll start tomorrow. You know, there was a lot of, you know, and then and then people were like, Well, why should I spend all that money with you and I can get it from him for $15 or 10, or 20, or whatever the number was, and you're like, because this is a print advertisement that is physically mailed to people's homes that they actually leave through and look at and you get real eyeballs on it. But they didn't care, the only thing they were looking at was money. Anyway, so it was going on like that. And it was kind of just losing money, but it was like trickling money out, you know, like it wasn't, you do something like that. And you're like losing your pants within four months, you're like, that's it, I can't do this anymore. But it was like trickling money, you know, some of the issues would make a little bit of money, some of the issues, they would lose only 400 bucks or 600 bucks or whatever. And it was hard to tell because the, you know, the numbers always kind of looked like they were working. And then they weren't. And, you know, so it kind of just continued to go really, really badly until finally, one day, I was trying to figure out what to do with my time. And this is about the same time that I made the switch into speaking. You know, at the time I was doing, I was running a graphics business and this magazine, and I was speaking with a business coach, the business coach said there and said, Listen, if your magazine business, all of a sudden becomes wildly successful, and every single business in town starts starts using your services for this magazine, right? What's the maximum amount of dollars that can make let's not even talk about net, let's talk about gross. And I sat there and I ran the numbers quickly in my head. And I realized that that number was like may be like wildly wildly well, like in 10 years, maybe could be making a half a million a year. But like at that moment with the amount of population, the amount of people the amount of businesses best was like 200 $250,000 gross minus, then you have to take away printing costs, take away labor costs, take away mailing costs, and all this other stuff. And I was like, you know, and it was within seconds of realizing that number that I was like, Okay, I'm done. You know, because at that point, there's no there's no if I was running a large publishing company, and this was one of the properties in the publishing company, a quarter million dollars a bat. But since this was the end all be all for that particular aspect. I was like That's it, I'm walking away from this and you know, it's it's a it's not like a you know, so fun to sit there and realize that you put three years into something and it didn't work. But um, but one thing one big takeaway. Well, two big takeaways is the first one is, you know, this, if something really truly isn't working, right, if it's really truly not working, the sooner that you realize it, the better off you are. Hmm, you know, it's fairly obvious, but it doesn't always come up. And the other one is, is kind of like know what you're getting into when you get into it. You know, like I probably and this is a big failing of mine is that you know that the previous owners were complaining about the business owners and how they didn't want to advertise, right? me thinking that I knew at all. They just didn't have business. sense to get it all together, meaning being incredibly, incredibly, incredibly arrogant and thinking that, like I knew, and they didn't know, completely and totally dismissed what they said, and then very, very quickly found that they were spot on. And then it just, it just people just weren't interested, you know, coming up on a holiday, they would sit there and fork over the money sometimes. But they weren't interested in anything. And like I did, I like worked out of the box, you know, like, I sat there and, you know, offer people like these contracts where I substantially discounted the per issue price, in order to get more people to sign on. You know, I sat there, and I put events on where i, where i did, like a bizarre type thing where I, you know, gave out booths. And some of those were successful in the sense that I had a lot of vendors and a lot of people come in, but not successful in the sense that I didn't make a lot of money, and it didn't boost up the other part of the business. But I'm saying, you know, like, I it wasn't that I just sat there and like, ran it for like a little bit. And like it didn't work. Like I tried a lot of different things. Could I've tried more sure. But you know, again, right? When you when you're presented with this idea of like, what's the best that it's absolutely ever going to do. And the number is just not that high. And that's, that doesn't mean that it's that it's that that idea is done. And I'll explain what I mean in a second. But if it's not that high, it's time might be time to walk away. Now, when does that not say that it's done? Well, if you're like trying to put together a nonprofit, and you realize that the maximum that salary that you can ever get some of those $150,000 a year, right, which is a nice sum, but it's not like you know what it could be, let's say, that doesn't mean that you have to sit down and say, forget it, it's not worth it, because I'm only going to make 150 or $90,000 a year. First of all, if it's enough money for you, that might be fine. And second of all, if it's something you're incredibly passionate about, right? Money is not everything. And you know, a lot of times we forget that living in the world that we do, and you know, we think that money is everything, like Oh, if I can only be rich. That's not, that's not the end all be all, like the you know, you need to be happy. Also, you need to be fulfilled also. So that's part of the book is about the five keys to greatness, right. But the you know, so don't don't throw in the towel, if it's something that you're really passionate about, you really love. But like, when I combined the fact that I didn't really love the work didn't really love. I mean, I liked it. And I wanted to keep it going as my baby but, but it wasn't, it wasn't that much my baby, you know, like, actual baby much more important to make sure.

Andrew Stotz 17:30
This is me a little bit of one of my episodes, Episode 92, a woman named inbox song. And she talked about the idea of good companies die slowly. And it was very interesting. She's an investor. And she said, because they have cash and all that you don't really see it happening. And but it happens. And I think, you know, the parallel in this case is that it's easy to quit a business that instantly fails. But it's hard to know when to quit a business that's kind of making it a little bit of failure, a little bit of success. That's a huge challenge to come to, you know, to come to the realization of

Ari Gunzburg 18:14
that. Yeah, and I'll tell you, by the way until meaning we had had many conversations about shut shutting this thing down before that conversation where he put it to me like that with the maximum amount of dollars you're gonna make from it. And in every single conversation, I was incredibly resistant to shutting it down. Because again, like I said, like I felt without necessarily knowing why. But I felt like this was my baby, I don't want to get rid of this. I don't want to shut this down. It's kind of doing okay, and it's gonna do okay in the future. And if I can just convince these business owners bla bla, bla, bla, he sat there and said, well, what's the best it'll do? And I was like, Yeah, all right. All right, we're gonna pull the plug on that. Take it off life support.

Andrew Stotz 18:54
Now, I believe that, you know, we talked a little bit beforehand. I'm just curious. You mentioned another challenge that you're facing, and I thought it would be great for the audience to to understand a little bit about that, what I would call a tough investment. And maybe you could share a little bit about that.

Ari Gunzburg 19:12
Yeah. So I mean, so So I mean, I feel like if you know, I'm gonna call something my worst investment ever, it needs to kind of be an abject failure. And what we were talking about before, you know, while we're getting to know each other a little bit was it's not it's not a failure in the sense that first of all, I haven't given up on yet. And second of all, yet, I sorry, I haven't given up on it. No, yet involved, I say yet, but that's a Freudian slip, maybe. But um, you know, so when we're launching something new, we can be hit with incredible, incredible struggle to get it up off the ground. And actually, so, you know, one of the things we were talking about before also was online courses. I didn't get a chance to mention, you know, I recorded an online course that I am currently waiting on the editing the video editing to be done with. You also have this framework the five keys to greatness and so my I want to send this information out into the world through three different methods including I'm going you know, I it's it's something I give away for free the actual concept of the five keys, but the you know, to really interact with it, I have three products that I want to use, and that's the book a video ecourse and a workbook none of which will overlap considerably. They'll overlap a tiny little bit, maybe here and there. But like all with different stories, different exercises, different information. So if you want to buy all three, you won't feel like you're repeating the same information. I've done that before, right bought like the second version of like a series and everything, you know, like Stephen Covey's keeps on, he's gone now, but they keep on coming out with new versions of the seven habits, right, but they're all kind of the same thing. Maybe. So like, I don't want to I didn't want to do that. So but like, you know, so but so the last video is about the last key, which is tenacity or persistence. And I actually get real for a little bit in that video, it hasn't been published yet. And I still am hoping that by the time it gets published, it will be not. Not so accurate. But you know, I'm working on building this public speaking thing. I've never done this before. I've done marketing before. I've done websites before. I've never written a book before. I've never published a book before well, other than kids books, you know, so I'm learning how to do all of this on the fly. And there's certain things that I've done that have been wildly successful. Maybe, you know, and then there's other things that I've done that have not been they've fallen somewhat flat and, and the things that I've done that have been successful are my speeches, you know, I mean, I get out and I connect with the audience, the audience loves it, they enjoy it, the meeting planner, gives me good feedback. My book also, I mean, you mentioned before that on Amazon, as of this recording has 56 reviews, I also have some editorial reviews that have come up since then. And you know, people liked the book, they enjoy it. Now one particular reviewer he wrote, he's like, he's like, I would recommend that you read this book with a pen and paper. So you can write down the exercises within the book that are part of the narrative. He said, I'm even gonna read this book a second time, which I never do. But I'm going to read this book a second time to be able to take notes because it's worth it. You know, and to hear somebody say that they want to read it a second time immediately after they finish. I've only ever had that happen to me with one book. I read more fiction than nonfiction By the way, one book, it was so amazing to me, when I finished reading it. I literally flipped it back to the beginning and started reading it again. Yeah, I didn't finish it. The second time, I got like 80 pages into it or something. But like, I liked the world, I'd like a little bit of sci fi and fantasy. So I liked the world so much. And if everybody's curious what that book is, I'm not gonna I'm kidding. It's the worst thing saga by Orson Scott Card. But um, you know, one thing that he consistently explores is, you know, what happens if somebody skips through a large period of life, or like, that's maybe that's the theme that he's exploring in there, because, you know, in there, there's a, there is something that can make it so you can sit down, basically wake up whenever you want, and then sleep for 1000 years and wake up like nothing ever. Like you didn't miss anything. Anyways, so I digress. But, um, but so that, you know, I've been working on building the speaking business, and I keep on throwing money into it. And some business advisors keep on sitting there and being like, No, no, no, no, no, you know, go get a job, go do this, go do this. And, you know, I got a job over the summer. And it was, it was, it was it was pretty much hell. I mean, there's a number of reasons why I don't necessarily go into it. Partially, from just because it's not what I'm supposed to be doing, you know, and every single second I'm doing something that I'm not supposed to be doing is not it's, it's a moment of torture. And then also partially there was some severe leadership issues there. Let's leave it at that. But I mean, you know, we, and then like, you know, so it's, it's weird also, because, like, I get it and you know, and I talk to people and I'm like I'm trying to explain to them like it, I'm seeing success, you know, and I've booked you know, some some some big ticket speeches and you know, the meeting planners are enjoy it and that, and like I'm talking to you, I'm trying to explain to them like, I don't need a job. He like, I need like one or two people that just need that Ranger, I need to break through, I need a tipping point I need I need a tiny little bit of investment to sit there and like, you know, just just make a couple of plays I need I need a business advisor to sit there and say, yeah, just do this one thing, okay. You're not trying to do this one thing and like, and like, you know, what are you doing?

Andrew Stotz 24:36
I want it. I want to introduce you to a really interesting book that could help you. It's called the little book of greatness and the fifth, the fifth key. It's called tenacity or persistence, it focuses on that point. It does let us let's let's stop it at this point. And let me ask you a few questions about I want to ask you first question one.

Ari Gunzburg 24:59
I do want to just Bring us go back on what you just said, yeah, that's part of like when people say like, Oh, just go get a job. I'm like, but that's like, kind of sitting there and saying that what I'm doing isn't working when, when I know that it will it's, you know, I'm so close, I can taste it. I mean, like, you know, I get in touch with meeting planners. I mean, I had somebody reach out about something that is a topic I don't even come close to talking about. And I pitched them what I was talking about, you know, it was kind of a long shot. And they're like, no, it really doesn't work for the topic they were looking for, which I knew, you know, but they're also like, but this looks really interesting. And we want to use this for one of our, you know, days that we sit there and do this type of stuff on so we'll be keeping your information on file. You know, I'm making it to the shortlist of speakers for a lot of events. And and you know, some of them, I end up getting the event other ones I don't but but you know, so like, I'm there. It's just Oh, man. But yeah, sorry. Go

Andrew Stotz 25:48
ahead. What so what lessons have you learned from, you know, we've got two stories here. They have some, there's some really, you know, interesting commonalities and differences here. But what just list out what lessons you've learned?

Ari Gunzburg 26:01
Well, so first of all, in the five keys, we're going to jump back to that, again, the fifth key was persistence, and tenacity. You know, being persistent with things that you really don't want to be doing, that you really don't like, or that are not working for you. Or in the case of an investment, that's just losing money. And you don't see a way out of it. And I'm not talking about when somebody is being pessimistic. And I'm not talking about when somebody else is crapping on your dream, talking about what something realistically has nowhere to go. That's not the time to be persistent. Persistence is not all about being persistent at all, you know, for every situation at all costs. I don't think persistence is about recognizing when you should stick it out. And when you should throw in the towel. And then when you should stick it out, actually sticking it out. And making sure that you do everything, that you exhaust every possible option, to go ahead and unlock the greatness that you have within I mean, we all have amazing, amazing things within us. And if everybody is different, but we all have such amazing stuff within us. And you know, we just need to be able to find it and bring it to the forefront. And so then you were saying like, you know, what's what's going on with these two different things that you said, what was something that I learned about them?

Andrew Stotz 27:11
Yep. I mean, what what what are the lessons that you've learned from this, you know, various

Ari Gunzburg 27:20
people, all people, a lot of times when you speak to the counselors, and coaches and Associates and people want to get advice from, they'll give you advice, you have to remember that their advice is, first of all, incredibly biased from their own life viewpoint. And second of all, may not be the right advice for you. Yeah. You know, people just you know, a lot you might be trying to do a business that they've never done before. We're never done successfully, and there'll be like, it's never gonna work. out, you know, it's gonna work. I mean,

Andrew Stotz 28:01
so beware of advice. Yeah, beware of

Ari Gunzburg 28:03
advice. Well, I mean, not be wary of advice, it is good to have sounding boards, and it is good to, but

Andrew Stotz 28:08
maybe we should say, be aware, you know, aware of

Ari Gunzburg 28:12
the advice you're getting it's coming from, and recognize where it's coming from, and if it is in line with where you truly see yourself going. And if it's not, then sometimes you have to sit there and say, I really appreciate that you took the time to talk with me, but I really can't listen to anything you have to say. Because, you know, you're dragging down my dream for no reason. And I know that it's possible, I know that I'm going to be able to do it. And we're gonna make it happen.

Andrew Stotz 28:39
So let me let me summarize some of my takeaways, there's a lot of things I'd take away from this. The first one is being a finance guy. I'm always looking at the numbers of a business and trying to understand, you know, what's the possibilities. And the best way to illustrate this to somebody who's just to think about, you know, somebody comes to you and says, hey, I've got this really great location for a restaurant. And you know, I got a great chef, and it's gonna be amazing. And, you know, there's not that many of them around in this particular, you know, genre or whatever. And then what you find is that, you ask them, okay, how many tables? Well, there's only 10 in this location. Okay, so how much do you think you can get on average per table per, you know, meal? And he says, well, we're going to pay me about 100 bucks per table. All right, so there's 1000 bucks, how many times you think you're going to turn those tables over? Well, you know, think we could be good lunch and dinner, let's say two times. Okay, there's $2,000 and multiply that times how many days you're going to be open? Well, let's you know, say 30 days. Okay. That is the limit. And the object the idea of expanding Oh, yeah, but we're gonna open up another restaurant. Okay, that brings on a whole nother level of complexity. So, restaurants a great way to help people to understand the actual the markets size of the size potential. And once you saw that, clearly, you knew Holy crap, this is not what I want to be doing. And that, you know, I think is valuable in the first story that you told us. The other. The other one is, you know, the question of when do I shut down a business that I'm doing. And I've had a lot of experience with that firsthand. And after the 1997 crisis, with our coffee works, our coffee business here, it just looked like you know, all is lost, all is lost, we don't have that much capital, it's going to be hard to make it, you know, and Thai people aren't drinking as much fresh coffee as we had expected. We knew it was coming, but we could be 10 years early. And so there was all these factors. And in the end, we sat down the whole management team. And we kind of came up with the conclusion that we're passionate about this number one, and we're not reinventing the wheel here, this is coffee. And at that point, we kind of realized, no, we're doubling down, and we're going forward. And it was from that moment that we really started to make the business, you know, successful. But it was very slow. I mean, it wasn't like it just shot up after that. But there's that defining moment where you do have to, and I had a second business, which was a training business in Thailand, many years ago. And there was a moment when I just realized, I've either got to go big with this thing, or get out. And I decided I'm not going to spend the time going big with this thing. So I'm out and I sold my shares to my partner. Now, the other thing is, I have my own experience, you know, I've had some ups and downs in my other business. And I, two years ago, my sister and I were really debating about it. And basically she's like, go get a job, just get a job. And, you know, I

Ari Gunzburg 31:45
was in I can't hear those words, I can't hear them I

Andrew Stotz 31:47
was in I was in the heat of the battle, the heat of the battle. And I don't think I've ever had such a heated argument with my sister. And I, it became not even an argument. It's like, I cannot listen to that. It doesn't help me. And I'm not listening. So you can say it all you want, but in and, you know, someone gave me a piece of advice at a time. And, you know, the point was, how much does your sister know about your business? And the answer was, she didn't really know that much. It's just that I was struggling at the time. And so I decided, you know, that I'm going to show her, and I'm going to show the world. And I knew I was passionate about what I was doing. And it really did. She pushed me in very many ways that really did energize me. But, and, and then I built success out of that, you know, so it's, it's hard, you know, you're getting advice throughout our, throughout our lives, we get advice, we want to listen to advice, it's good to bring all advice on board, but it is your obligation to process that advice to try to identify what part of it is good for you What's not, then that's your, that's your, that's your right. And it's your responsibility. So welcome advice, but just accept that not all of its going to come from a place of true understanding. And then the last thing, and in that case, you know, it definitely came from a place of love. You know, so if you couldn't argue with the genuine pneus, but she was bringing her experience. And her you know, her background, the last thing that I took away from your, your, your stories is the idea of external factors, you know, when we start businesses, and we try to do something, we must consider external factors, whether there's a shift, for instance, for advertising going online. And that's an external factor that's happening in the world. And if we're not aware of that, or whatever, that external factor could either be something we're going to ride or something that's gonna crush us. And the same thing talking about your business right now, is that the corona virus situation across the world, is making an impossibly difficult for even some of the best speakers yet gigs, budgets are cut, you know, people aren't doing you know, zoom, it's nice to think there's these amazing zoom, you know, keynote speeches going on. But you know, the fact is a marketing budget,

Ari Gunzburg 34:23
there are events happening, there are virtual events happening, very few live events happening, but certainly far less certainly the budgets have been cut. And, and then also, like something that I've assumed, but without any data to back it up is that, you know, you've got all these speakers who were booked up that were like the best speakers that are like we're charging 40 grand, and they might have like, lost all their stuff. And now they're like, whatever, I'll speak on zoom for two grand and they're like, I'd much rather get this guy that is world renowned. Yep. You know, and so there's less for that. I mean, I you know, I mean, yeah, you always have to Looking at external factors, just to be fair, nobody, and I mean nobody imagined Coronavirus happening and happening to the extent that it was so. So yes, I agree with the external factors. I, I, I will maintain my plausible, I don't want to say deniability, but my plausible, you know, not not fault this for not being able to anticipate Corona just like the rest of the world. I mean, I was watching it in January, I was abroad in January, I was watching the news about it. And I was like, I don't know where this is going, this might get bad, but I mean, never in a million years that I imagine we'll get to what it became.

Andrew Stotz 35:42
All right. So based on what you learn from these stories, and what you continue to learn what one action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate.

Ari Gunzburg 35:54
So I mean, so we Another thing we talked about beforehand was that, you know, a lot of times people are, you know, it's Corona, people are trying to start something new people are trying to start, turn over a new leaf, do something new, do something else, you know, start a business so that they're not no longer reliant on somebody else for their salary, which is, you know, where a lot of us have ended up good at getting into trouble. You know, if you have a business that creates income, then you know, you're able to do that. And so it's not going to be a piece of advice necessarily, for my two failures that we brought up. They're not failures, my two, my worst investment in my challenging investment that we brought up. But what I would like to bring up is the idea that, you know, there's many, many, many different businesses that you can go into. And, you know, we did talk about clarity a little bit. So you know, having clarity on what you want to do and how it will help people. And whether or not you can actually make money with it is important. But, you know, don't think not, don't think that online courses that are selling you to make online courses or similar things very carefully. Yeah, because there's a million people out there, they're all going to tell you that my system works really, really well. All you have to do is pay me $1,000 to get it. I was recently in a training, it was a little bit important to me, what I was hearing from these people, most recently in a training where they said, okay, you know, so So the goal is that, you know, you put these people into a funnel, you know, when you get these people first to pay, let's say 25, or $50, for this, they come in, they're part of that course. And then you get them to pay, let's say, you know, $1,000, for this, they're part of that, then you get them to pay 5000, then you're gonna pay 25 grand, and I'm like, if you ever sold me on something, and then tried to upsell me, and then so it's one thing, like, I'll explain where I felt like, it would have been reasonable and Okay, and another way, but like, if I feel like every other minute that I get into one of your courses, you're all you're doing is trying to upsell me, you know, I mean, so you don't have like Investment Trust is broken. Exactly. But they're saying like, this is gonna work, this is gonna work. So you have investment courses, I imagine, and I haven't looked at them, but I imagine that one is about this type of investing, one's about this type of investing. And if you want product A you buy product A if you want product B by proxy, it's not by product A because I want to get you to buy product B. You know, when I I have a book that I a short book that I wrote that I never published it, I'm planning on publishing soon. And I will tell you, I'm going to publish it at a low price. And at the end of the book, I will mention the other book that I have out and you know, try and sell it, but it's not gonna be like a hard sell. And all the information that I promise you is going to be in that book is going to be in that book. It's just gonna be like, you know, other books by and it'll be like, hopefully, people will get in touch, get a hold of this book, and then learn about my other stuff through it. But like, oh, man, can worms open? Yeah, exactly.

Andrew Stotz 38:46
Last question. What's your number one goal for the next 12 months.

Ari Gunzburg 38:53
So I have a program that is that I'm working on the a framework. Maybe a program is a better way to program to help the world and to help people reconnect with themselves rekindle the lies magic. And the five keys to greatness does that but this one does it in a different way. And it integrates the five keys and I really want to get that launched. You know, get it get it working, get it, get it going on zoom, get it going in person, if we ever get to that point. Get the book that's supposed to accompany it and explain the idea out, get the programs out and just you know, it's something that I think that can really help people and really help the world. And you know what, I want to see that change be made.

Andrew Stotz 39:30
Got it. All right, listeners. There you have it another story of laws to keep you winning. Remember to go to my worst investment ever.com to claim your discount on the course that excites you the most. As we conclude, I want to thank you again for coming on the show. And on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Ari Gunzburg 39:57
Just want to say thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. And you know, the book is available on Amazon or you can go to the website Little Book of greatness calm. And I just I really appreciate you having me on the show. Thank you.

Andrew Stotz 40:11
Great to have you on and for the audience out there. I'll also have it in the show notes. But you can go right now to Amazon and type that in. All right, that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow, and most importantly, protect our wealth. Fellow risk takers, this is your worst podcast host, Andrew Stotz saying I'll see you on the upside.