The Entrepreneurial Personality with Guest Alex Charfen: MakingBank S1E36

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Summary

Do you ever feel like you just don’t fit it?

Has it been a constant strain on your day-to-day life since you were young?

When you were working with teachers or spending time with your parents, did you constantly feel constrained?

Like you were always being told to “quiet down and behave?”

Do those feelings continue to permeate your professional life? Do you constantly feel the itch to innovate, improve, and change your workplace?

That’s great news—you’re destined to become an entrepreneur.

Your relentless spirit—that undefeatable character—is at the heart of who you are, so why fight it by confining yourself to a cubicle?

Why not break out and embrace your inner entrepreneur.

After all, your brain is already hardwired to make you an incredible entrepreneurial leader.

In this week’s episode of Making Bank, we hear from Alex Charfen, an electrifying personality who’s successfully defined the Entrepreneurial Personality Type.

Alex is journey is an interesting one, littered with the fast-paced, “ups and downs” laden lifestyle that is indicative of the stereotypical entrepreneur. After thriving for years inside the entrepreneurial game, Alex realized he and his peers were different—different in a way that went beyond education, economics, and environment.

And it was that ingrained, innate difference that enabled them to take the business world by storm.

Listen today as we talk about:

·        The natural characteristics of an entrepreneur

·        How Alex Charfen went from bankrupt to millionaire in one year

·        “Unschooling” your children and fostering the cultivation of the entrepreneurial gene

·        The breaking points—feeling like you want to quit and pushing through

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Transcription

I’m Josh Felber, and you’re watching Making Bank, where  we uncover the success strategies, the secrets of the top 1%, so you can  start applying to your life, your business to create your successes today.  Welcome to Making Bank. Are entrepreneurs born or are entrepreneurs made?  I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was 14 years old, owning over 15 different  companies. I think it takes a certain skill set, certain characteristics to  be an entrepreneur. There are so many of us out there that are wannabe  entrepreneurs. We get out, we start a business, and then we’re a slave to  that business all the time. I think it takes a certain personality, a certain  type of person. I think you are born into it, and let me tell you why. What  are the good characteristics of an entrepreneur and skills? What is it that  is that it factor and that makes you a great entrepreneur.

Obviously to be in the NFL as a football player, to NHL  as a hockey or an Olympic athlete. They take certain characteristics that  have to get you to that point. A lot of that is genetics as well, you can  only train so much, but if you don’t have a certain genetic make up, you’re  not going to be able to have that level of breeding. That muscles strength or  that muscle tenacity to be able to push you through different events. There’s  been a lot of people that have gone into different sports and things like  that, that you count them out, but really deep down, is that genetic make up  whether it’s through their mindset, who they are, how they were developed.  That gets into that point. As entrepreneurs, we have to have a certain set of  characteristics that helps us get there. One of the very biggest things that  I’ve come to find out for myself especially is you have to have an  independent spirit. That soul that’s in you is just so independent, that  means you rely on yourself and only yourself, and no one else.

It’s in our [inaudible 00:02:23] too, because I’m able  to see that in my kids as well. They’re cool, and they go hang out in their  groups of friends, and things like that, but they’ll walk off and go do their  own thing in a heartbeat because they know that what that group is right now  doing, they don’t really feel like they need to have any involvement or it  doesn’t actually help benefit them. They’ll walk off, they’ll going to do  their own thing and have fun at it. Done with joy because they know they can  count on themselves when they rely on themselves. At the end of the day, you  have to become 100% comfortable with making the final decision that final say  so in what happens. To be able to trust yourself and your intuition to really  make that happen.

As well as you also have to understand what people want,  what they’re looking for, what they’re willing to pay for, and what they’re  willing to spend their money on with you. Part of that is knowing how you can  create value, how you can give to others and be able to fulfill them, fulfill  those needs and those why’s that they have. You got to be able to know how to  take your idea and how to weave and transform that into something that your  consumers are going to want. As well as you got to be able to have, you got  to know how to sell, not knowing how to sell is a huge deficit. The ability  to sell yourself, as well as the ability to sell what you’ll have is a  necessity and I think it’s totally necessary to know and understand to run  any type of business. It doesn’t matter what business you’re in, you got to  be able to know how to sell, whether it’s …

When I start out, I don’t know how to sell, I had to  figure out how to sell computers, and throughout my life financial services  or satellite TV systems. Green wireless energy products, or whether it was a  retails product we took into 30,000 retailers across the United States. You  got to be able to know what to sell, how to connect with that other person  and show them how that value there is going to help transform their lives and  their client’s lives. I think that is a major necessity as well. As well as  that tenacity or relentlessness. That’s one of the biggest things that has  gotten me to where I’m at today, and to be able to have that relentless  tenacity to continue to go after things. To know that I’m always working  towards and I’m focused on that and resole. I’m going after, and going after,  I’m not letting anything stop me or get in my way. I think that’s a major  part of that. Then the characteristic of being able to take action.

So many of us, we have the great ideas, we want to get  started with something out there, but we never take the action. We never take  the action. Because the fear slips in, we started listening to the other  people and those naysayers. We don’t take the action, you got to be able to  block that out, focus on it, and continuously to relentlessly go after it.  Then the last thing is patience. To be able to have patience in what you’re  doing. Nothing is an overnight success, it’s not like you think of an idea,  you get out and market it, and then tomorrow, you’re a multi-millionaire.  It’s not, you have to have patience. You have to continuously work at it and  go after it on a day after day, after day basis.

That leads me into our next guest I’m excited to bring  on. He has been able to discover EPT, the Entrepreneurial Personality Type.  We’re going to dive into a little bit what that entrepreneurial personality  type is. How do you know if you have that, is that who you are? As well as  your kids, and raising some awesome kids. I’m excited to welcome up next is  Alex Charfen, from the Charfen Group. We’re going to talk about the  entrepreneurial personality type. Stick around, this is a phenomenal interview,  and you’re not going to want to miss it. I am Josh Felber and you’re watching  Making Bank.

Welcome back, you’re watching Making Bank with Josh  Felber, where we uncover the success strategies of the 1%. Today, I am  ecstatic, so excited, we have Alex Charfen with us. I met Alex few months  ago, we really connected and I really started to [crosstalk 00:07:24] …

Alex: It’s only a few months.

Josh: Yeah, I know.

Alex: In a few months, that’s crazy.

Josh: We dove in and we really connected on a personal level,  business level, and I think he has some awesome insights to share with you.  He’s an expert in business growth with a majority ownership in several  multi-million dollar businesses. Alex has been invited to share his  strategies with business owners all over the country and the world. He’s  regularly called upon by major media outlets including MSNBC, CNBC, Fox News,  The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The Huffington Post to provide his  unique views and insights. Alex, welcome to Making Bank.

Alex: Thanks Josh, it’s great to be here, man.

Josh: Cool, give me a scoop, man. We started talking, and you  guys have this whole concept about entrepreneurial personality types and the  whole deal, and I’ve been watching all your post streaming. It’s like, you  got all these stuff like, “Oh men, I don’t pay attention in school. I  don’t do this, but guess what? That’s means you’re an entrepreneur  probably.” Give us a little background how you came up with it, where  you got to, right now today.

Alex: I’m 42 now, Josh. I was one of those people who was  always different ever since I was really young. I always knew that I was  different from those around me. As a kid, I think a lot of entrepreneurs,  especially those who are getting to business, when they first see business,  they understand that money exist. I don’t want to say you become money hungry  or obsessed with money, but for so many of us, there’s a calling. There’s  like, “Hey, I could do that. I could create value like that. I think I  might be able to do that.” That started for me 6,7,8 years old working  with my dad. I’ve always been that way, and the obsessions continue  throughout my whole career.

Josh: That’s awesome. When did you start your first business?

Alex: As a young kid, I had a paper with my mom, she works  with the newspaper. My parents had some hard time, my mom worked for a  newspaper company, and I was a newspaper route carrier, like you had to be  16, I think I was 8 or 9. Then I was selling stuff in our neighborhood, and I  sold stuff at school, and I got in trouble for that a bunch of times. When I  was in my teens, I owned a company called Clear Outlook Window Washing. I’m  actually grew that for a while, I had originally worked with some friends and  did it on my own, grew it to like three cruise, but I was 17, and I had to  sell it. Because all the insurance paperwork I had signed, everything was  invalid. That was the first time the man got me.

Then in college, I started another business with a  friend of mine, Price Givens, who’s still my closest friend in the world. I  sold that to him, then I moved out to Florida, worked with a guy who bought  some software from us. I went 8 months, I was 21 years old, 21 we sold the  company, 21 when I moved to Florida. I went 8 months on a one year contract.  It did not go well, and I became a consultant. At 21 years old I was working  with the Csuite of really intense companies, like you don’t get that  opportunity.

Josh: That’s awesome.

Alex: It was crazy, so it was one of those really weird situation.  Here’s what happened. I left this company in [inaudible 00:10:37], and I had  grown up in consumer and computer electronics with my dad. I worked with them  summers, he owns this company called Alex Stereo, in Calexico, California.  His name is Alex as well. I remember, there was this New York friend that  wanted to open an office in Florida, but they didn’t want to take any risk. I  had nothing to do, so I could take risk, and so I started working with this  guy named Richard [Thaw 00:11:05]. My first account was Fuji Media. That’s  like a Global 20 Company.

Josh: It is.

Alex: Talk about the deep end to the pool. I remember the  first meeting I ever had was with this guy Lou Magarelli, whose now an  Executive Vice President of American Express. I’m 21 years old consulting  with Fuji. It just seen world from there, because I had worked in business  for so long that there was a lot of obvious things to help people with, and  there was also a context we built. We didn’t tell people how to do things, we  help their organizations do them better. I spent about 15 years doing that,  and when I met my wife, I didn’t want to do it anymore. I walked away, I had  a 100 million dollar consultancy, sold it. It’s total life change. You know  what, it’s funny. I met Katie in December, I think. She knows the days better  than I do, but we talked on the phone for about six weeks. We met while we  were both traveling. We talked on the phone for about six weeks. She came to  visit me for like four days, and then she moved to Florida like a week and a  half later, and we’ve been together ever since.

Josh: That’s awesome.

Alex: We’ve been married ten years, and together twelve. She  and I, when we got together, we started working together almost right away.  We started a real estate business, took some of the money from the  consultancy. We grew it like crazy, so we don’t do anything halfway.

Josh: Full gas, all the way down, man.

Alex: Well, you know how some people are like, “Oh, we  did some real estates.” I’m like, a few year period Katie and I did  about 1,800 transactions. We bought and sold about 400 properties ourselves.  Gosh man, we owned, when the real estate market collapsed, we owned about 50  properties in South Florida. Tens of millions, and it just took us apart. We were  living beyond where we needed to, and we ended up going bankrupt. Here’s how  crazy it was, Josh. We owned all of our property, was in six of the top ten  fastest depreciating of [inaudible 00:13:13] in the US. 50% in 9 months, 50%  and 9 months. We went from multi-millionaires half way to retirement to  losing everything. What was going on during that time was I was looking at  all the foreclosure paperwork. We had already worked with people in  foreclosure, we had done short sales, because 40 gets [inaudible 00:13:31]  all the time, you get a lot of them.

What would I was seeing was that the system the country  was going to use, that every lender was using, every investor was using, was  fundamentally broken. You had first mortgages, second mortgages, you had all  these different scenarios. People had gotten into properties way too many  different ways. They wanted to undo them all in custom ways as well. Katie  and I, in 2007, we spend some time talking to other people we knew in the  industry, as we were going bankrupt. We created this system where we thought  you could process any short sale, any foreclosure with one set of rules. Not  the 25 different sets of rules for all the different mortgages. In 2008, I  went out and toured the country and talk to about 20,000 people that we  advertised to, and pulled into room. I told them like the problems there, the  lenders aren’t telling you what really is going on. We are headed for a  catastrophic collapse. Freddie, Fanny, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase  and Citi all told me I was wrong.

It went into the media and we said, “Hey look,  here’s what they’re saying. Here’s the facts, and by 2009, they were all my  clients. We were working. If there was a recorded history, you could go to  YouTube in CNBNC. I’ve gotten into fights with Clinton’s economic advisers,  we went to battle for people and in 2013, Lori [inaudible 00:14:51], the  Director from the Treasury came into our office, and throughout the entire  collapse, we were like ground zero from our office. We started sharing  content, we were doing 10,000, 20,000 person live broadcast online. We had  the US Treasury come to our office, and in 2013 she said, “Our  organization and our members, which we sold 45,000 real estate agents, about  46. We pulled forward the recovery at least five years.

Josh: That’s phenomenal.

Alex: Is that crazy?

Josh: Yeah.

Alex: It was crazy. It was really crazy, we have that on  video. What happened was, right around 2011, so many of our clients that we  were working with were growing these businesses that we’re just like getting  away from them. We had to start offering coaching and informational products.  Josh, I just kept going back to the drawing board, because coaching wasn’t  working, the context wasn’t working. What people would doing was like  glorified therapy. It wasn’t really functioning for people who think like you  and I. What I did was, Katie and I, we’re frustrated with it, we were keeping  some clients, we weren’t keeping the other. This is just recent. A few years  ago. What I started doing was really looking at like the personality type,  and I went back to what we used to do for the broken divisions within Fuji  and TDK and Logitech, and howdo we expand targets in the Latin American. In a  two year period, would it take in ten years, like what would the things we  did to go fast? I found two things, one is …

Josh: Hey Alex?

Alex: Yeah? Do you want to take …

Josh: Can you stick out for a minute, yeah, we got to take a  quick break.

Alex: Yeah, take a break.

Josh: I want to come back and hear these one and two things  definitely, man. We’ve been rocking it out so far. You’ve been watching  Making Bank. We’ll be right back.

Josh: Welcome back, I am Josh Felber, you’re watching the  Making Bank. We’ve been speaking with Alex Charfen, who’s been diving in  where he positioned himself from the economic housing collapse, how he was  definitely integrated with it, and helped with the recovery. Alex, you just  started to share a couple points with us, and I’d love to hear where you’re  going with that.

Alex: What it happened for us Josh is that we realized in  coaching, and working with entrepreneurs that … I had a lot the same  problem I had when I was a consultant. In my early 20s I answered one  question, how do you make business grow? That was a question I’ve been asking  since I was 8 years old, then I know people say like, “Come on Alex,  that’s crazy.” Let me tell you why, so when I was a kid, my dad owned  this company called the American Concrete Roof and Tile. That place was the safest  place in the world. Because when you go to a business, there’s rules, and  people aren’t mean, and you don’t get called names. There was no bullying.  All the stuff that I faced outside world, when I went int he American  Concrete Roof and Tile, I was safe, right?

Josh: Right.

Alex: When I was about my daughter’s age, Jimmy Cardo was in  the office, it was a business, so it involves the construction of my dad,  lost it. There’s deformity of time, but when you’re a kid and there’s things  that stick in your head forever and ever. I remember being there, the day  that they auctioned off all the equipment. There was a water fountain, and  drill press left. My dad flipped the coin and we got the drill press, and we  took the drill press home, and he put it in the corner of our garage. It was  there for like ten years. I remember as a kid, going out and staring at the  drill press because I love that place. I didn’t want his business to fail.

When I became a consultant, I had this obsession of  growing business. People will start working with us and we would exploded a  business. You’ve got to start asking the second question. Like how do you  stop businesses from failing. Because when you ask that question long enough,  I can grow any business. I’ve proved it so many types. K and I were bankrupt  in 2007, and we became multi-millionaires, we were liquid millionaires within  12 months. Multimillionaires within 14.

Josh: Wow, that’s phenomenal.

Alex: Josh, I had done it before. I build billion dollar  businesses for people. It was hard, it was overwhelming being bankrupt was  the worst thing I ever went through financially by far, but it was also the  best thing because my wife’s amazing. We did it, we’ve done it before. Now,  the challenge is so much greater. Because I started really studying our  personality type, and what I’m always known intuitively is that whether I was  at the top of a C Level Executive meeting. I was in an event where I got to  sit down with Slyvester Stalone for example. Or I was at home shopping and I  sat down and talk physiology with Jack Lalaine, which is like, “Holy  crap, right?”

Just having these experiences, they were like, like this  week. I’m going to take this camera and point it over here on the corner. You  guys certainly see, over there there’s a Shaquille O’Neal basketball. When I  was a consultant, Canon Software publishing gave me that basketball, it’s an  MVP basketball because I was the top consultant. I’ve had that in my office  since I was in my 20s. This week I hung out with Shaquille.

Josh: Nice, that’s awesome.

Alex: It’s just that it’s that weird thing. The more I started  paying attention to our personality type, I realized like Shaquille O’Neal  and you and i are really alike. Don’t even mistake it for as second. Because  the people who are willing to not just play basketball, but play basketball  and say, “I am a basketball.” Right?

Josh: Right.

Alex: The people who are not just wiling to write the script,  right this script, like this will change things. Then the business owners who  say, I can’t follow anyone else’s rule. I need to make my own. We’re all the  same, and where the world conspires to convince us, we’re totally different.  Where everyone else would like us to think that we are a party of one, and  independent. Society systems today, push as hard as they can to keep us  apart. Once we realized we’re all the same, and we all go forward faster  together. Life changes.

Josh: Actually one of the key points of what you just said was  I am, and I think that’s so powerful. That’s one of the things we’ve been  teaching my kids is every, multiple times throughout the day everyday, I ask  them and say, like my daughter Mia, “Who are you?” She like,  “I am.” They have different things they say after that to anchor  that into them. That’s to perform at that level of wherever they are. I think  we lose part of that or a lot of people in society don’t utilize.

Alex: No, I like what you said.

Josh: Basic things.

Alex: You know what, Josh? I think you’re really paying  attention to your intuition and your awareness when you say we lose some of  that. Because when we’re around children and we say, “Hey, say, I  am.” They will insert anything, as long as they believe it. You will  watch their faces because they’ll say it with a level of enthusiasm where you  know it’s true. The fact is that over time, especially as children in the  world we grew up in, we were told, sit, stop, shut up, don’t talk, sit still,  quit in this behavioral disorder, don’t be smart, don’t talk so much, over  and over again. We literally lose the part of our personality that finds  wonder in the world. It’s crazy, I listened to Shaq this week, and I tell  you, he did a 30 minute keynote which was not good. It’s not. It really did.  I hope he sees this video because he should stop doing it, it’s totally  terrible.

Some speech writer wrote it, and it’s like the acronym  for Shaquille O’Neal or some crap. I didn’t even … it was so [inaudible  00:22:43] … it was still like, I didn’t feel like I was hearing him. You  know, Josh? I don’t like basketball, I don’t like sports. I like F1 and UFC,  but I don’t like watching basketball. There’s too much on it, I don’t  understand the rules, and I didn’t play it when I was a kid. I went to a game  once when he was on Miami Heat. I watched that game, when he was on the court  like you couldn’t not watch the game. That was not in his keynote, that was  not in his keynote. That sucks, because it should be in his keynote. Because  any sat down and he talked to Robin, and dude, there was some wisdom in what  he shared. This was the best part of what he said. Like for everybody whose  listening who has a personality type, it goes right back to what you just  said about we lose it.

He said, “You know, Robin, so what’s the one thing  you would tell people to be successful? Jack said, whenever somebody’s  telling me, “Hey we should do this thing and make money. We should go  into this business partnership. He said, my friend will come up to me and  say, “Hey look at this jeans, we can buy them for $2 and sell them for  $8. Shaq says, “Well, I look at Carlos and the jeans and his athletes  looks good in the gym. Let’s do thing and sell jeans.” That never works,  he said, every time that I’ve had like a dream, it works. I was watching MTV  one day I was playing basketball, there was a friend of mine who is wrapping  us and I want to do that. I made a lot of money being a rapper. Then I was a  t the movies and saying, and I say the movie and I say, hey, maybe I can be  in a movie. I made a lot of money in the movies. It’s like then I had dreams  like, “Hey, can I start this type of business.” Can I do this, can  I do that? They all worked.

If you want of move forward, make sure that’s your dream  because you’re going to do it anyway. Dude, here’s a guy who had everything  handed to him. The wisdom he shares with the world is do it because you want  to. That’s awesome.

Josh: Yeah, no that’s awesome. It’s so important because a lot  of times in today’s society, we become so reactive to everything. Instead of  being proactive, “Hey, this is what I want to do. I’m going to go do it.  And I’m now paralyzed by fear and put myself right there to move myself  forward.

Alex: You know what I heard in at two Josh is this, how many  entrepreneurs because of who we are had our career driven in some part by  what we’re running away from. Right?

Josh: Right.

Alex: It’s like I started the business because I wanted to be  independent. That’s also same because I didn’t want to be in control. I  started the business because I want to do my own thing. That’s also saying,  “I didn’t want to do somebody elses things.” We’re running away  from something. There’s this point in our careers where we can stability or  the wisdom, or the knowledge, or maybe just the awareness level. I don’t need  to run from anymore, what do I actually want to go. [inaudible 00:25:29] but  it’s the most peculiar, and scary and over leveraged and vulnerable feeling  you can have. It’s also, that is self actualization for an entrepreneur is  when you start designing where to go. Our lives aren’t about any destination,  it’s about making the vision so great, you chase it forever.

Josh: I totally agree, and it’s not like, “Hey, let’s set  that five year plan, and then we’re done. It’s, “Hey, here’s what I  want. From a live standpoint.

Alex: Much of the change you want to make and then you do a 90  days at a time.

Josh: Yup, I totally agree with you on that. Real quick, just  to shift gears we’re half a second. We’re talking about kids briefly, and I  love to hear how so [inaudible 00:26:19] sit down and not talk and do this.  You got to quiet down right now, how do you guys handle  that with your kids, because they’re kids.  At some point how do you guys handle that? I love to hear in, and have you  shared that.

Alex: Sure, first my kids are not traditionally schooled,  they’re home schooled. I realized early, we send them in school for a couple  years and [inaudible 00:26:48] barely went. I realized that once your kids go  to school, their teacher has more influence over them than you do. I don’t  know that any teacher meets the qualification that that’s okay with me. We  decided to unschool our kids. They don’t have a lot of judgment in their  lives. They’re not as restless as some kids, they’re not, but they’re  incredibly energetic. Katie and I decided a long time ago that we had to have  the minimum list of what we’re going to tell them about. Then everything  else, because if you really think for most kids, like from the time they get  up. Here’s what they’re hearing, no, stop, sit, don’t, stop, no, quiet. We  finally decided like, hey what do we really care about?

Are they kind to each other? That’s a big one, we have  to be, they can’t be like attacking each other. Are they like a respectful of  the stuff, that doesn’t mean like obsessively cleaning up or anything, but  like not breaking things, that’s pretty important. Are they eating, are they  [inaudible 00:27:48] really healthy way. The rest, we don’t have rules. I  know that that sounds so insane for some people. If you really think about  how many rules a kid needs. Most kids are pretty smart. The more you let them  make a decision from themselves, the more they create rules on their own.  They know what they want to and what not to do. If they’re getting guidance,  they will create boundaries for themselves. We’re huge proponents of home  school and unschooling, and we’ve actually helped about 90 [inaudible  00:28:21] transition, and then just help a couple this weekend with our 13  year old son. It’s going to be a life changer for him, and I think that  children should be raised in an atmosphere of acceptance. Absolutely no  judgment, and understanding the contribution as to where to move forward.  They will self educate.

Josh: That’s awesome. We homeschooled them when they were  really young,and now they’re in Kindergarten and 1st grade. So we were doing  the pre and all that. Now, we have more than [inaudible 00:28:46] right now,  just because …

Alex: Yeah, which is self directed as well.

Josh: Yeah, definitely. I totally believed in the home school  process, and if [inaudible 00:28:54] at some point low key to go, teach her  for it. Will definitely probably bring him back as [inaudible 00:29:00] so  far around here. Great levelizing.

Alex: Yeah, if you ever want to talk about it, Josh, let’s get  on for one.

Josh: Yeah, no, definitely. It’s really cool that that’s where  you are with within and do it, how you do with that. Really cool, did you  every have a moment, because it sounds like you had a lot of great successes,  things are really rocking. Then obviously you guys you were bankrupt and you  had to rebuild everything, did you have a moment where you feel like, I just  really feel like I just want to quit, I want to give up.

Alex: You know what Josh, I think we all have those moments  everyday. I think it’s interesting because when entrepreneurs are asked about  like in this momentum even in your life, momentus did you every have this  moment? Then they’ll go, yeah, there was this moment where I felt this  certain way. Let’s be real man, for entrepreneurs, if you’re doing what you  should be doing, which is growing an organization, growing yourself, helping  people, making a greater contribution, building a team whether it’s virtual  or as people around you you were recruiting them through just what you do.  That’s who we are, and when you do that on a daily basis, that mean that you  are finding fresh ground everyday. You’re going to new behaviors everyday.  You’re finding a new comfort zone everyday. The way I explain that feeling is  I used to have it, like half the day. Like, I don’t know if I should be doing  this, hey, when I was younger, I was scared all the time.

My early career, it revolved around my donkey in  trouble. I think as I’ve gotten older and my career as I’ve had more experiences,  like I just get out of that feeling quicker. When we were bankrupt, I think I  lived there almost half the time, no matter what but here’s this thing that  Katie did, and I think she did it intuitively. There’s non neuro science  behind it. She established every night, say three things we were grateful  for.

Josh: That’s awesome.

Alex: Yeah, and she made it a requirement. There was some days  I didn’t want to hear the word grateful, much less time making shit out that  feel good about.

Josh: It’s hard sometimes if you’re in the spot.

Alex: No, and especially like when you’re going to buy grocery  like that’s a weird feeling.

Josh: No, I know.

Alex: [inaudible 00:31:15] million dollar house. Doing that,  that simple act, even though sometimes it was so annoying, made it thought  that. I think I had those feelings of like, can I do this? Should I do this?  All the time. I think that as entrepreneurs, the faster and the sooner that  we acknowledge with transparency how terrified we really are, and that it’s  not all roses. They really sweet hero story because jeez man, there’s some  days coming in the office today, or I feel that way.

Josh: Yeah.

Alex: There’s just a lot more infrequent. It only last a  couple of seconds, but I get criticize on Facebook, or somebody said  something mean on Twitter or … like you know, that that gets you just  [inaudible 00:31:57] I go back into being to second grade and wet my pants  one day. That’s the totally where it takes me. I think that it happens to all  of us, and I want anyone listening that if that’s happening to you, good. Go  harder. Be uncomfortable. If it feels like it’s uncomfortable and you’re  [inaudible 00:32:13], then you’re kicking ass.

Josh: Yeah, for sure. I think the important thing you said is  you’re only in that space for a few seconds though.

Alex: Second though, but you know what Josh, I got to feel it  everyday. I think people from that. They’re like, I don’t want to feel that  uncomfortable feeling. I got to feel it everyday. I think people like us, you  know you need that feeling. That’s why we do things like race cars and jump  out of planes and bungee jumping. Run in marathons, and do things like we  have to overload our senses. You know what else you can do that? You can go  in your office everyday, and do something that feels uncomfortable. You can  be vulnerable, you can be transparent, you can tell people what’s really  going on for you, it gives you that same rush and it moves your whole life  forward.

Josh: For sure, awesome man. We’re almost out of time here.  Couple last quick question. What the one technological device you can’t live  without that makes you happen for you there man. Awesome.

Alex: I use a series of different paper. Here’s why. If you  guys, like I want you to see that I’m not kidding around. Here’s just some of  the different paper sizes that I have around me. I use a really simple  technology, it’s paper. I try and grab a sheet of paper, like as big as the  idea is, so that I have some constraint. I work freehand on paper, I draw  diagrams and stuff for my team, and then I think that makes it so that I can  go obscenely fast. Because the second you turn on a computer, everything  stops. You got to deal with technology, and I work on really big concepts.  Like how do we make this company a hundred million dollars from where we are  today. You can do that on a sheet of paper with a picture, so much easier  than you can in any application anywhere. Paper for me with a pen, that’s how  I’ve ran every company I’ve ever had.

Josh: Dude, that’s awesome. That’s really cool. You guys have  heard it, man. You don’t have to have computers, phones, to create a 100  million dollar company.

Alex: Josh, you know, John Paul Dejoia, doesn’t have email,  there’s a reason.

Josh: I know, it was crazy when I heard that.

Alex: Now, you know. These days, it’s not just not crazy. My  team, already has a written plan to get me out of email by December. It will  be done, my email is down from. [inaudible 00:34:33], I’m terrible with  dates.

Josh: End of October 2015 or something?

Alex: End of October? From then til now, I’m down 85% on  email.

Josh: Wow.

Alex: 85%.

Josh: That’s awesome, man. For sure.

Alex: We’ll get the last 15 in the next 12 months. Because  it’s always the last 15.

Josh: The last little bit.

Alex: 85% in the first 60 days.

Josh: Definitely. Well, awesome. Alex, I really appreciate you  coming on the show. It’s such an honor to connect with you today, and I look  forward to more in the future. Thanks again.

Alex: Josh, thanks for the face wash stuff for Katie, and for  the brain booze supplements. Absolutely amazing both products are fantastic,  we love them, man.

Josh: Oh, cool. I’ll let you know in for sure. Hey guys, check  out Alex Cherfin. Alex, where they can find you at?

Alex: On Facebook, we have a Facebook group, it’s free, you  can participate. Go to entreprenurialpersonalitytype.com, or sorry,  Entrepreneurial Personality Live on Facebook, and ask Join, and then just go  to my last name. Charfen.com online, we’re also on YouTube and Twitter.

Josh: Awesome, oh, hey, one more thing, really fast.

Alex: Uh-oh.

Josh: Pow!

Alex: Oh nice, you got your book. Fantastic. [crosstalk  00:35:49].

Josh: I was going to do it, and then I’m like, you know. We’re  going to be online here recording. Let me bust this out right now for  everybody.

Alex: I can’t wait Josh, that is so cool, I’m so glad that you  got it, man. [crosstalk 00:36:02], that list continues to get more and more  interesting of who’s gotten this book. Josh is opening the book. It is a …

Josh: Let’s see, number 56, 500.

Alex: Nice, and that’s why I ask my team to imagine what would  Apple have done a hundred years ago for packaging. They did that, that cloth  wrapper with this interior sleeve with a wax seal. Then there’s a hand  written letter on a nice, or not handwritten, hand signed. Then each book on  the third page is numbered and signed.

Josh: Hey guys, you guys got out. Check out Alex’s book and I  think, do they email you?

Alex: If they got a 500 evolution.com, they can see the whole  project.

Josh: Awesome, check out 500evolution.com. Alex’s book on the  Entrepreneurial Personality Type. I’m looking forward to dive in into this.  We are going on a cruise in a few weeks, so I’m going to take it with me, and  that’ll be my evening reading after everybody goes to bed and relax. I’m  excited to jump into it, and really read the book.

Alex: Sounds awesome man, I can’t wait.

Josh: Cool, well hey, again thanks. It was such an honor, and  hope sometime you’ll come back again.

Alex: Absolutely, Josh. Anytime.

Josh: Cool. Hey, you’ve been watching Making Bank. I am Josh  Felber, get out and be extra ordinary.