Ep539: Gisela Hausmann – The Story of How Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Considered My Suggestions

Andrew Stotz 00:02
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 risks but to win big, you've got to reduce it. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. To reduce risk in your life, go to my worst investment ever.com today and take the risk reduction assessment I created from the lessons I've learned from more than 500 guests. Fellow risk takers, this is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz from East Arts Academy and I'm here with featured guests. Giza Houseman gissler Are you ready to join the mission?

Gisela Hausmann 00:44
I'm thrilled to join the mission.

Andrew Stotz 00:46
I am excited to have you on this mission. In fact, I just said a minute ago, we got to turn on the recorder. Let me introduce you to the audience gets the Houseman graduated with a master's degree in film and mass media from the University of Vienna, the oldest university in the German speaking world. She ladies and gentlemen is one of a dying breed of adventures. She digs in and researches topics of interest from the ground up, and then tells things as she sees them. In fact, she has what you could probably call naked determination. Because I want you to tell us a little bit about yourself in the books that you've written and the stories that you've gotten involved in. Tell us about yourself.

Gisela Hausmann 01:39
Oh, like you pointed out, I graduated with a master's degree in film and mass media and was then working in Austria's movie industry was a production manager. And production managers are the kind of people who organize everything, everything is your problem. Let's say you're shooting outdoors in a park. And a woman comes by with a barking dog. It's your problem. So you immediately learn to focus on the essence of the problem. And you also learn to Section problems. This is kind of like the biggest thing. So if I can solve this, but I can solve the other 99 I'm already a step ahead. Because if I solve, let's say 10 small problems, it's not going to do away with the biggest problem. So that's kind of how I started out. And I had a pretty adventurous life working in the movie industry working in aerial photography industry, and then somehow ended up publishing two aerial photography, photo books, a coffee table books, they were so magnificent and ostreatus business people bought him, including the output of piano, and they literally gave it to every celebrity on this planet. My book is in Bill Clinton's library, George woman's library, Luciana, that one and on and on. So it gets kind of hooked on this publishing thing. And then I moved to the United States and published an educational book. And that was actually how I found out about Amazon. Because when I was running the publishing business in Austin, there wasn't that hard. It's a country with 8 million people. Right? And if you have the right context, like we had the context to the business people, that's we did that mela there was like a breeze here with the Big Five Simon and Schuster Random House and what have you. This was like a whole different ballgame. So I wasn't going to publish this book first. Then Jeff Bezos showed up. And then I was here and said to myself, I can work with this guy. He sets up a system. And as a matter of fact, I even went so far. And I still stand by this today. Jeff Bezos is the new curtain back. Because if you really go along and you say, Okay, first of all the monks, they copied the book. Then came Gutenberg invented the printing press. And then the publishing business established. And then everybody was doing all the same things, okay. They have a bigger publishers and better printing, but the system was the same, and then came basis and turned all of this around. So I published my book with him. And there was that, and I was hooked on it. And then my husband died. And suddenly my whole life was upside down. I mean, I was a mother of two young children. I had to do everything and this and that. So I thought I was never going to publish a book again. Because he didn't have the money. Be I couldn't risk it. And it was just difficult. Then Bezos came out with the Kindle. And once again, he was my good because he had changed it again. And this actually opened up a totally new career for me, because one of my Deep, deep wishes is to help people learn the stuff they want to learn. And books are by far is one the cheapest and fastest way to learn something. And one of the things that also motivated me is, I'm a big reader, I must have read 2500 books in my life. But I hate books to that a too long. Books that don't show a system where explain why something is the way how it is. And books that praise themselves in the content. Like very often you'll read a nonfiction book and the guy says, oh, so unsupported and this and that, use my method and made $100,000 Who are million or 100 million? How am I supposed to know that this is true? I mean, so I'm like,

Andrew Stotz 05:55
all it's a bit obnoxious to sometimes,

Gisela Hausmann 05:59
well, I can live with that people brag. But I'm like 50, I'm like of the opinion. If you want to say that your thing is so good. And it works, then that's fine. Show me high works. And if you have to explain that somebody else thought that that was great. But I am not the beneficiary, then I don't care. That's how I came up with the idea to publish a series of naked books, men, meaning stripping, everything that doesn't go there. Most of my nonfiction books are about 100 pages, three hours. And even if you just read over them quickly, and mark the passages you want to read again, I have already helped you to save time. So that's kind of like my approach to things. And have you

Andrew Stotz 06:54
written by the way I mean, I'm like on Amazon right now seeing what you've done. 25 First of all, amazing, amazing. I like this one. Are we nuts?

Gisela Hausmann 07:03
Yeah. Well, this is actually one of my, this is actually my only fiction book, right? It's a fable. But it's An Environmental Fable. And I was working in George Orwell's steppes, because if we're trying to explain something, we shouldn't bring in politics or people, but animals. And in any event, so this gave me the opportunity. If there's two things that I'm really good at, than it is explaining things and condensing things. And all of this is, of course, a part of my life. If somebody wastes my time, he's just stolen time from me which I could use a to make money, or to lie in my backyard and let the sun shine on my belly, or meet somebody or spend the time family. So I absolutely detest this. And I think that most other people do too. Maybe they are played when they say oh my god, this 500 page book about whatever method is great. But more likely, they haven't finished it to the end.

Andrew Stotz 08:10
Yep. And let me ask you about the inside Amazon, just maybe you could just briefly tell the audience what you did. And I'll, I'll have the links to all the you know, to your page on Amazon and the books that you've got, but maybe just tell them the story, the background behind this and what you came up with.

Gisela Hausmann 08:31
This is actually a really interesting story, because it's a 23 year story. So like I said, it started out with that I self distributed the book that I printed in the United States via Amazon. And thereby could bypass the whole thing with the bookstores and the distributors and all this and then that and I was happy. Then my husband died. And I thought I was never going to publish a book again. And, of course, I was depressed, tremendously depressed. And so when I came out of this depression, it was because I realized, then you already did all these great things. You traveled the Himalayas, your hitch, your height, your hike to Kashmir, you traveled to transip twice, you can do this. And this is actually the essence of what I wanted to say in contrast to other people who think that anybody can do anything if they just focus enough on they just focus too hard on it and believe it or what have you. I don't believe that. I believe we can do the things where we have the backup stories. So let's say I'm an 17 year old and I'm going to London. This is not a big trip from Vienna, right? At the time, it was still a 24 hour trip. Now I've done come to London so if I can go to London, I can also go to Spain. Next thing I know I can travel to the Himalayas. Every time I make one of those steps, I'm building on the pig. And the first step that I did before the one that came after them, and so on. So that's basically what I'm wanting to do is write a book about all these stories. And I published it on Kindle, and I was happy. Then at the time I was working in transportation. The one thing that I hated the most is when I had to work with somebody who wrote a nasty email or an impolite email, whatever email because I felt that this person was damaging the business. Because I worked a lot with the Middle East. They are people are incredibly vitual and friendly, and hey, how are you? And I have parents and what have you. And here comes this person says, The freights. $2,560 Can you write hello, since you know this, so I started an email writing actually in analyzed 100,000 emails, so I decided I was going to write naked works, the effective 157 word email, and I wrote this book, and to test my skills, I send it to the Success Magazine. And I said, Hey, you want to feature that? Now, I don't know how many people come to the Success Magazine, but maybe 300 a day or 100 a day, I don't know. But in any event, they pick my book. So I'm like, Yeah, girl you're on. Your email skills are good enough that you could sell this, right. And publish. This was featured in the Success Magazine, and I was even more hooked. Next thing that I was I was still very much involved with all this Amazon thing. And I wrote the book about the negatives about getting book reviews. He won the Kindle book, it was a finalist of the Kindle book review Awards, which is a really, very classy award. They have only seven winners, they, they copied themselves from the Pulitzer. So it's not like 100 categories is that and then I came out with Nikka tools about getting product reviews on amazon.com, seven tips to boost sales. And I contacted Bloomberg, and Bloomberg podcast. And so all of this is going very, very smoothly, right. And I was very thrilled to do all of this. Unfortunately, then, a lot of the cheetahs came in and made my life miserable on Amazon. So I was just taking the time to take a downtime phase. And I said, Well, why not go back to transportation, see if something's happening at Amazon, because they opened the warehouse at my area. And I knew they weren't going to have me as a manager, even though I had the skills, because I'm too old by that category. They hire mostly people between 24 and 27. So I said to myself, why not sneaky with naked determination, and they'll promote you. Now you have to picture I'm coming in, with almost 20 years of being a fan of Amazon. Everything that I did with Amazon worked out. So I'm like, Yeah, this is gonna be great. And unfortunately, I have to find out that all these many principles that Amazon preaches all day, did not happen there. There was no think big, there was no this there was no that I could have wheeled them off. And I didn't see. So then at some point, I even wanted to quit because of course, they also didn't advance people kept the same people that made everybody's lives miserable there. And then came COVID. And now I was stuck at a place where I didn't want to be. So I hung around. And then I came up with a great idea to write a book about but this time, and this is actually the biggest mistake of my life. It's only not a mistake. It might be that many people might think this time it really ended up being a horrible mistake. Because you don't just read a book about Amazon. I of course had to design had to sign a nondisclosure agreement. So every word that I wrote was examined for does it violate the nondisclosure agreement? Can I say this? Has this been hinted on somewhere else? What will Amazon do if I say that? How can I prove and this book was different than other books about Amazon? There are two other books that have been written by people who worked at Amazon. But they are journalists who snuck in there and just simply looked around, work there for a few weeks and then got out and said, some work is terrible don't work as hard. Amazon is evil. There was no What I wanted to do, I wanted to go here and say, they are saying this, this is what I'm seeing. I'm trying to tell them, Hey, how about we do this? They didn't want to do this, how can they not see that this needs to be done. And this is how it should be done. Effectively offering the solution, the book, which put me in a position that I had to prove that I didn't cheat, but that I had the experience and could tell him where it came from. So hang around at Amazon till December, and then I wrote the book. And then came the big mistake, and did exactly the same thing that I had always done my entire life. I looked for the biggest problem. And I thought that the biggest problem was Amazon and Jeff Bezos. Now this was right around the time when Donald Trump was still president. And you may remember that he tried to sue everybody who wrote the biography. And he even sued people just for fun. So in my life, there was this world building up with my cell phone. What about if he just Sue's me for fun? I know that everything's okay, but who wants to be sued by Amazon, then there will also these articles that say constantly, Amazon is evil, because they even have their small little people sign nondisclosure agreement. And this is just mind control and image control and what have you, and something needs to change about that. And the government should pass a law against this and all this. And as I said to myself, once again, I can be a pioneer, because I can be the little guy who read this book. And I wrote it. And I invested about more than two weeks into researching non disclosure agreements, which was really painful, because reading legal briefs is no fun at all. And then you have to look and interpret Is this what it means or maybe be something else, and we'll have you. And in the end, I published the book, or may 1 day of work in the most of the world, I came out with it. And the exact opposite of what I thought had happened, because I thought that the journalists who constantly investigated everything, but Amazon will be thrilled to finally hear from a logistics professional, what needed to be done. But they didn't want to hear it. Because all they wanted to speak about drivers and toilet breaks, please give me a break. This is just ridiculous. That was the least of all province that I saw. And since I had published 130 books, of course, I know how long Amazon looks at books. And usually they say, they need maybe 74 hours to put the book online. But in my experience, it takes more like between 30 and 40. And I have published 20 books. So it always took no longer than 40 hours. My book took 104 hours. And I could see how Amazon's legal department forked over this book in every little detail. Right? And checked what I thought they were going to check. And what happened was that they literally went ahead and took many of the changes and implicated them. I hear from people now they're doing what I wrote, versus the journalists who were supposed to follow with my book. And I don't know what didn't do anything. And so my worst failure was, and this is like, what I would like readers to take away with is we very often try to avoid problems. And that's, of course, the right way to do. But what we really need to do is look very closely is, quote, the enemy, who are the greatest danger with the biggest obstacle is the one that we think it is. Because from everything that I saw, like, if you open any kind of business publication that has an Amazon reporter, at the bottom of every article, it always said, Do you or did you work at Amazon? We're gonna hear from you. Well, I can tell you they didn't want to hear from me. Which is like ridiculous. And even in the book market, you have an industry that publishes that that produces a million products every year. That's like crazy. Yeah, my book is one out of three. Still, they didn't even want to come ahead and say I don't know. Brave little work God. Challenges Jeff evil Jeff Bezos or something like that. Nothing interesting. Just wanted to write their story. is. And Amazon in that case was if you want the bigger man, and implicated the changes, which actually convinced me the end, Jeff Bezos is still a genius.

Andrew Stotz 20:14
So you mean, they identified the things that you highlighted as the issues? And then they started ticking them off and saying, how do we address these?

Gisela Hausmann 20:23
No actually address them? Precisely. I said, like, like, for instance, there's the way how I saw it. And I've worked as a teacher and a trainer and what have you. The training was horrible. I mean, he was like, literally horrible. And this is an essential factor of the whole thing, like you will hear over and over again, Amazon's rates are too bad. Nobody can hear them. People suffer. Okay. And I'm asking you, can you separate an egg? Can you make fried egg in the morning? Of course you do. Everybody can. And the shells will not be in the pan because you know how to do it. Now picture yourself being a line cook, and raffle hauls, and three waitresses scream 10 orders at you. And they expect to find this food 10 minutes later. And yeah, you will drop an egg, maybe slip on the drop there, you will throw shells into the pan and what have you because you will work? Of course, if they would train you how to do it right, then maybe you could do it too. And that's exactly the thing that applies at Amazon. Yeah, everybody can carry a package. But if you don't know how to learn it right, then maybe you make the wrong move. And three months later, you have carpal tunnel syndrome or something else. And of course, your bigger accidents happened to so this was actually one of my approaches where I want to make the world a better place and say, hey, you know, it's not about the raids, it's about the training. But there were other things too, like Amazon reign competitions, because they wanted to increase the volume. And they said until competitions wrong. And so there's like 12 items, I believe in the book where I say, Okay, this is what I saw. This is what should be done. And this will be the results or these problems will be avoided. And whoever made the book at amazon, apparently took notes and said, Okay, let's do it. And that's like, in a way, a good thing. Like one of the things that I really, one of the things that I constantly criticized in the book is, Amazon had these plastic mailers, I'm sure you're familiar with that. And they are, of course, in environmental danger, because they fly around 26 million tonnes ended up in the oceans in 2020. By accident, of course, they also don't recycle well, and so on and so on. Beyond that they're slippery. And the people who handle them have accidents, because this lipid app, well, there isn't a single white blue envelope around anymore. He switched to the recyclables, which was exactly what I said in

Andrew Stotz 23:11
the book. Fantastic. So how would you? How would you summarize the lessons that you learned from this experience?

Gisela Hausmann 23:18
What the lesson is, really think through in a creative way, who is your friend, who may be the smartest dog in the room and not hurt you? Because they're not stupid to hurt you? Because they want to work with you, and who is not going to help you? And I mean, we see this very often. I mean, in other situations, too, like when my husband died, oh my god, there were all these people that did all these freaking things and called me and wanted to cry on the phone and what have you. And then I was one friend, who called me up and said, Hey, I'm on the way to you bringing hotdogs and have all the stuff and all I want to know is do you have gas in your grill? I never thought she was that practical, awesome person. But this is the kind of thing that we need to look at, if we want to get ahead. And of course, especially in business, because we may link ourselves up to somebody of whom we think, hey, this person has all the interest to work with me. And my god, I better stay away from that person. Because who knows what he's gonna do to me. I mean, if we put Jeff Bezos and me in one room, I'm not even a little mouse right next to the room, right? And that's why I was so afraid. And, in a way, this also goes back to my book, naked determination. 41 stories about overcoming fear. I don't even want to say that I was so afraid of Jeff Bezos. Because I knew that I had written the book, right. I knew that in my heart. I mean, I went over this with the bank 30 times but I knew that he could make my life unpleasant. And that I don't want to say it was a fear. But it was an it was always a worry is more like a one I want to say. And if we want to get in life's really somewhere, we cannot take the risk. But we've really got a close look at the factors, who is our friend, who may appear friend, but maybe working with us? Or is the bigger man so to speak? And who is not worth anything?

Andrew Stotz 25:30
Right? So things. So actually, what it sounds like, it's kind of tough times put people to the test, and you find out who really, really has substance to them and who's on your side. But this

Gisela Hausmann 25:41
is beyond that, because tough, tough situations put people on the spot. But in this case, it was me who chose that. I was the one who chose to read this book. I mean, as a matter of fact, I talk to a few friends and they say you insane. And, and so it's more like this investment. Well, let's say I want to go to Bali and buy I don't know a property on the beach, or I want to go into business adventure in the business venture with somebody. So that's my choice, right? And that point will say, Is this my friend? Where's the danger? Maybe the iris is going to be after me? Is this going to be the biggest problem or whatever? And usually I was right. But in the case of this one, I was wrong.

Andrew Stotz 26:38
And one question on that is, would you write the book again? And would you do it? You did? Or would you do it different? Absolutely.

Gisela Hausmann 26:43
Okay, absolutely. And as a matter of fact, I would love to write similar books about other companies. The only thing is, when I read the book, I read it, I do my research, like nobody else does. And in the case of Amazon, I literally had 22 years of experience, I was pretty sure that most of the reporters who read about Amazon today, were maybe in high school when I already looked at everything Amazon did, even before they sold anything else, but the web programming platform. So I really could come in and contribute something that nobody else could contribute, or very few people. Yeah, with other businesses don't don't do that. So that's why I stay away from that is same with the my email book, Nick, it works. I analyzed 100,000 emails, and I could prove it. So that's then when I get in, otherwise I don't get in.

Andrew Stotz 27:43
There's one of the things that I take away too is, you know, is when you have a critic see it as an opportunity.

Gisela Hausmann 27:53
Exactly, exactly. And that's very true. Because,

Andrew Stotz 27:59
well, many people aren't going to bring anything up. They may mother and complain and to their friends and stuff. But when the big boss is there, or when someone's there, they're just not going to say much for whatever reasons. Or they may say something that you know, positive, whereas you really if you want to improve, you need to hear the critical.

Gisela Hausmann 28:17
Well, yeah, but not only death, when you in a chain, and there is like your use commonly us sympathizers or your friends or your followers. So whoever is on your side, they do the same. So while you are counting on them, they may be playing in the morning card and say this is too risky. I'm not gonna get in there. Yeah. So that's why you can never, so to speak, exclude the biggest dog in the room of whom you think he's the biggest worry? Because he may actually want to hear the advice. Verse. Your friends, think it's too risky to side with you.

Andrew Stotz 28:58
Yeah. And to wrap up, I want to ask you a question, which is, out of all the different books that you've written. I mean, the first one that I came across was the one on email. And that one kind of was where I first saw, you know what you were talking about, and it kind of caught my eye 157 words. And then, you know, the first thing you do is that you highlight a group of words on a Word document and then you count the number of words you think my god 157 words is a very short email when you think about it, right? And I'm just curious maybe, whether it's that book, The Amazon book, negative termination, out of all the different things that you've written for the for the people out there that never have read anything that you've written, what would be the starting point that you would like them to go what one book what one thing that you've done?

Gisela Hausmann 29:49
Well, I read very specific nonfiction books. So if somebody is an author, and he wants to contact reviewers, do whatever it is best read one of my audiobooks. If somebody runs a business and they're also selling on Amazon, they better read my book Naked Truth about getting product reviews on Amazon. And the seven tips to boosting seller sales are actually in there. And I still miss that a lot of people aren't doing that. But the one book that is so unique that nobody else could have written it is my book, naked determination. 41 stories about overcoming fear. And it has a lot of reviews. And most everybody said, I read that book and I found my story. I may not have traveled to debate, but I understood what she meant because I traveled I don't know, to Chicago or wherever. And this book is very unique. And funnily enough, it is also a book that, in a way, connects with Amazon and Bezos because I traveled a lot when I was young. And the whole thing started because I really wanted to be an explorer. And when I was a teenager, I found out that Henry Howard had already been intubated, Tutankhamun's mummy had already been dug up and Kentucky had already sailed through the Pacific. And I was like, nothing left for me. So I decided, well, if that so I'm just going to travel and look at everything because at least then I saw it. And one of the highlights of my life was going to debate where I was before everybody else was there, I was there before we trickier was there. If he ever went, I meditated alone by myself in the Dalai Lama's bedroom, because there was nobody. There were like 12 tourists in town. So in the meantime, T bet has changed a lot. Not only have to build two railroads up there, I hear that a block from the paavola. They run now a red light establishment, and there is actually 12 180 of them intubate which I find horrifying. But the interesting thing is, I decided this when I was 13. And I live bait, I never bought a new car. I'm not a dresser, I invested into my travels. And today, if Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos threw their money together, they might get to the Mars maybe. But they will never see the things that I saw because they're gone. Hmm. And today, as a matter of fact, they don't even let foreigners into debate anymore. Only if they have a guide, I moved the way however did. So if you just get going and you really tried to do your thing, you're probably gonna get it. Because when I was 13, I never thought that I was gonna get the things that I wanted. And today, I'm one of the rare breeds that actually did it. And people who surpass me in financial volume can buy it anymore, which is even more crazy. So if you do whatever you do, and this may be something else, maybe you want to be a racecar driver, or eat the most hamburgers or whatever, if you actually do it, you're always ahead because the other stone, and by the time they figure out they can't buy it anymore.

Andrew Stotz 33:24
So last question, what is your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Gisela Hausmann 33:30
Well, I'm still working on a few of the books in my line. But I want to refocus and do more for the environment. Because that's the thing that really, really worries me, especially since I've traveled so far. I mean, there are destinations where I traveled, and that's actually killed by a natural disaster, right? So it's gone that way. So I want to write a series, I'm gonna write a serial fable, in the style of Animal Farm, and I already published the first one I will not, and to really write a standard book that can be read by everybody. Great. And of course short.

Andrew Stotz 34:13
Yep. Love it. Love it. I think your readers love it, too. So I'll have links to all of your different books that we talked about, and all that in the show notes for the listeners out there that want to get on the bandwagon and start understanding what the things what are the things that you've seen, well, listeners, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. If you haven't yet taken the risk reduction assessment, I challenge you to go to my worst investment ever.com right now and start building wealth the easy way by reducing risk. As we conclude this law, I want to thank you again for joining our mission. And on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status, returning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Gisela Hausmann 35:02
Yeah. First of all, thank you for inviting me and to the audience. Do it. It's never been more pressing. You don't know if it's gonna be there. You don't know if the business is going to be there the opportunities gonna be there and focus into it, it can be done.

Andrew Stotz 35:21
Great advice. And that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our well fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying thank you for joining the mission. And I'll see you on the upside.