046: Generating and Selling Ideas with Afif Ghannoum

Pete Mockaitis
Afif, thanks so much for being here on the, “How To Be Awesome At Your Job Podcast.”

Afif Ghannoum
Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
I’d love to, if you could start off a little bit, if you could tell us just a little bit of the story from how you made the leap from lawyer to uber-product launching guru.

Afif Ghannoum
Yeah, for sure. I was a lawyer at two of the biggest firms in the country. Day in and day out, I was just killing myself and creating companies, and doing deals that were helping others reach their goals and dreams. Everything from major M&A deals to major entrepreneurs who were selling their own companies to major companies. One day it just hit me that … I just thought, “This is stupid, I really want to do this for myself.”

I went home and I told my wife, “Listen, I’m going to quit.” As you’d expect, she was nervous. She is from is from Buffalo, which is sort of dyed in the wool. Get a good job. Do a good job, and it is a secure thing. At the time, I was walking away from a six figure job. We had a nice house, knew that every month I would reliably get paid X amount. It was scary, but I knew that if I didn’t do it, I’d always regret it.

I quit and I founded a company called Oasis Consumer Healthcare, along with a couple of other guys, and started coming up with products. Here we are almost seven years later and about four million products sold, and I have a couple patents. I was literally just at Walgreen’s yesterday pitching another product. It’s worked out.

Pete Mockaitis
Congratulations. It sounds like a thrill ride. I often just get random product ideas. Tell me should I … If that happens to any viewer or listener, what should they do? I have a random product idea. I mean, it is probably a ton of work to really do anything with it, but what should be their next step.

Afif Ghannoum
Here is the thing. Many entrepreneurs that think they come up with an idea, they think in order to be successful when coming up with a product idea, they need to come up with something totally unique. The reality is you really don’t. In fact, it can actually be a really bad idea to come up with something that’s totally unique. Why? It takes a lot of, not only energy, but frankly money to make people aware of you and actually show people why they need your product.

Everybody has heard of that concept of Red Ocean-Blue Ocean. Blue Ocean being the idea of you want to be in a totally unique space, and being the only person doing it. I always make the joke that, “You know who else was in a Blue Ocean; Tom Hanks in, Cast Away. Guess what? He was there for awhile, because nobody knew he was there.” I always look for what I call pink ocean products, which is, I look for an idea that is in a proven category where I am bringing a unique angle to it. Easy example is James Dyson. Everybody knows the famous Dyson vacuum.

Pete Mockaitis
The Dyson vacuum. Yes.

Afif Ghannoum
Everybody knows the story. He came up with hundreds I think, maybe, thousands of prototypes of this cyclone vacuum cleaner. What he didn’t have to do was convince people, “Do you know there is this magical machine that if you mow it over your carpet, will clean it?” No. People knew that vacuums worked. He just brought a really innovative way of doing it, and guess what? The dude became a billionaire. For us that’s what I do now.

We’ve also gone the Blue Ocean way. It’s a tough road to slog. I will give you again, a specific example. Our biggest product’s a product called Halo. Easiest way to think about it is PURELL for your mouth. It kills airborne germs you breathe in. When we launched it, we were the first people to come out with a spray that killed airborne germs you breathe in. We had clinical trials, patents. We won best new product of the year from Top 100 Retailers in the country. Everybody including, again, retailers from Walmart to Walgreen’s instantly put us in. We were in over twenty thousand stores.

They thought, “This is a hundred million dollar brand instantly.” The problem was nobody knew what it was. They hadn’t ever heard of the concept. We spent millions on television ads, print ads explaining, “This is what it is. This is how you use it.” We ended up getting there, but it just took an amazing amount of effort. That’s why after that we said, “Look. Great innovative ideas are awesome. Unless you’re Elon Musk, first time entrepreneurs, solo entrepreneurs, it’s a lot better, and you can make a lot of money by just going into a proven product category and finding a unique spin.”

Another easy example is, look at lip balms. I think we can agree, the world doesn’t need another lip balm, but there are probably ten different phenomenally successful lip balm brands. Burt’s Bees, the Beekeeper, which now ironically is owned by Clorox, too. EOS, it has those very vibrant colored eggs. It’s all the same stuff, but they all bring a unique angle to a type of product that they know will sell which is lip balms. That’s the first thing, the first answer to it. The other is that, once you know you have an idea. It’s really easy. This is the hardest part of this is, it’s easy to fall in love with your own idea. It really doesn’t matter if I love my idea. It matters if the person who’s going to buy it loves it.

What early on we would do, we would spend hundreds of thousands on very expensive marketing consultants for research. What we found was we were getting to the same conclusions doing some pretty basic and free techniques ourselves. What we do is, and it sounds so schlocky, but we would do, even just a simple Google search to see if anybody else has come up with this idea. If they did, were we too similar to them? Were we presenting a good angle? Was our price competitive to theirs?

There’s a lot of things that even just looking what else is out there in the market can really help. If you have an idea, or a product that’s phenomenal but it’s, fifty bucks and every other similar product’s twenty, most people are going to opt for the twenty dollar option. You got to really take your time and … I actually write a lot about simple techniques on my site napkintoshelf.com about how you can really easily do your own simple market research just to figure out, “Is this an idea that’s probably going to work?”

Pete Mockaitis
It’s funny I was just making small talk about, “Hey, if I have an idea, what should be my first step?” It sounds like you’re just saying, “First put a little bit of … Temper it with some caution and some research, and make sure it’s not so wild, because that could be trickier.” I really want to chat primarily about just how you’re running your brain, and your teams, in order to go through this good creative stuff. In terms of generating great ideas, and evaluating which ideas are likely to be the best, then ultimately being successful in pitching and persuading those.

I think professionals, whether or not they are inventing consumer products day in, day out, most aren’t. Everyone has to think up stuff, and sell others on the stuff they thought of. Let’s just maybe start right there. First things first, what are the conditions or approaches you use to get some good ideas flowing?

Afif Ghannoum
A hundred percent. You make a great point in that not everybody is frankly going to become an entrepreneur, or has that in them, and that may not be for them. One of the things I think though, that, and I call it, even if you are at a big company, you can be an internal entrepreneur. Is that the number one thing, and this is something we foster very strongly at our company is, no one has a monopoly on great ideas. Anybody can come and say, “Why don’t we do this?”

Some of our best ideas have come from … Danielle in our office who runs our investor relations; she came up with an awesome positioning for one of our oral care products. We ran with it, and it really worked. One of the things that you have to do is, one of two things. One, if you’re in a leadership position, you have to be willing to let others share in the innovation and coming up with the ideas. The harder part and I saw this a lot when I was a lawyer was, we would do deals with these giant companies. You could just taste that people on these conference calls or meetings would be afraid to step up and put themselves out there.

In the culture, if you made a mistake, you were penalized, as opposed to looking at it that, “Dave actually put himself out there; came up with an idea. Whether it worked or not, that’s what we need.” I think one of the false things that people … This is a little off of what you’re asking, but I think it’s really related. People are very afraid of, “If I put myself out there. I’m leaving the security blanket. I just have to keep my head down, and I’m secure.” The reality is; I think I’m way more secure even when I was starting off, than someone who’s subject to the whim of some dude three levels above him, looking at a spreadsheet and doing a layoff. Just cross out this section.

The people who survive things like that and thrive in big organizations are the ones who are willing to say, “This is an idea we should run with.” Whether they get friction or not, that’s the only way I think, you’re actually going to make yourself more secure. There is someone who will see the potential, especially at good companies, big companies that you’re putting yourself out there. Otherwise, if you’re just going to go with the flow, and not willing to put yourself out there, you are just waiting and subject to someone else’s whims and your security. Does that make sense?

Pete Mockaitis
I totally hear you. I know we have an internal fear in terms of speaking up, and throwing out an idea in a meeting. I am wondering a little bit about the cost-benefit. What’s your opinion? Do you think that most cultures are so toxic that if you put out a “bad idea” it’s going to hurt you, or this fear is just like a ghost, it’s silly and there’s no real justification for it in most cases?

Afif Ghannoum
Actually, it’s a combination of both. That’s an annoying answer, but I’ve seen where people are very hesitant. They fear that if they put themselves out there, that that’s the result. What I’ve heard, because now, as I’ve continued to have success, I have had the opportunity to interact with people in very senior positions.One of the things that annoys the most is that they ask for help, and they ask for ideas, and it’s an empty echo chamber. People are very afraid.

Even when you say, “It’s open.” People are hesitant to believe that. I think it’s one of those things where you also have to read the tea leaves. If you’re in a place where truly it’s that toxic, you need to do a gut reaction and say, “Is this ultimately where I need to be?” The other part is I think sometimes people worry about things they can’t control. I look at things I’ve gotten in the last couple years as an entrepreneur, I used to really worry. That was a big problem for me. “What if this doesn’t work out?” or “What if this investor gets annoyed?”

We had to raise money as we got going. I started really getting the stoic philosophy, and really, was a very simple concept that really resonated for me. It’s made a big difference as an entrepreneur. I think it applies to anybody, which is, “There are things I can control, things that I can’t, and things that are a mix of both.” Things, that I can control is, “I’m going to put myself out there, and actually put this proposal together, and work my ass off. Show this team that I can put this out there, or talk to my boss.”

If my boss is politically not playing ball because he doesn’t want me to show him, I’m going to go to my boss’ boss, but I’m going to put myself out there. I can control that. The things I can’t control is ultimately what happens, I don’t even worry about. There’s no point. All it does is, frustrate you, or make yourself doubt yourself. There’s been a number of opportunities where for a quarter thing I was, “Maybe it’s not a good idea.” I said, “I’m going for it,” and it’s worked out.

Sometimes it doesn’t but, if you’re the type of person that’s willing to do that, opportunity will come your way. I’m not saying that in a cheesy success-aries posters type way. I think if you had the perseverance, you have to realize eighty percent of the things you try are just not going to work. Otherwise we would all have six pack abs and be billionaires. It’s just not that easy. You have to be willing to keep going at it.

Pete Mockaitis
I have a keynote I do at college campuses called, “Six Figure Salaries, and Six Pack Abs.” That the message …

Afif Ghannoum
That’s funny.

Pete Mockaitis
“Hey it’s hard.” That’s great. One key then to generating ideas is to have the courage to step up, put it out there, even if it’s a little uncomfortable. We can gauge to see if you’re at the right spot and if it’s a real fear, or an imaginary fear. What are some other pro tips when it comes to doing some good idea generation in the first place?

Afif Ghannoum
In my world of products, the easiest thing that I do is that I literally go into stores. I go aisle by aisle because I know if those products are on shelf, it’s because they’re selling. I just look. I see where is there somewhere that there’s a gap in the market? I’ll give you a simple example. Mouthwash, you’ve probably heard of it.

Pete Mockaitis
I used it this morning.

Afif Ghannoum
Millions of units of mouthwash are sold. It’s a very reliably selling product. Looked at that aisle, and when we were looking we thought, “In many other categories there are products that are age related. Vitamins for fifty plus adults, or cut the grey, but in oral care, except for kids, there was no demarcation of oral care based on your age group. Even though, we had seen that science showed older adults have different oral care needs than younger adults.”

When looked we thought, “Man, there’s a real opportunity here.” We launched a brand called, Age Essential Oral care. We got national distribution based on the fact that it was an easy sell showing nobody’s focused on fifty plus adults, and their oral care needs. LISTERINE or these other brands are for a variety of reasons not great for them. What we’ll do is go into retail and look for positioning. In other realms again, there’s so much literature now, and so much on the internet that in any industry there really isn’t a reason that you can’t benchmark. Then iterate off of that.

Whether it’s process engineering … My brother’s a process engineer at a engineering company here in Cleveland to strategy at a hospital. There is some sort of literature that you can get access to that can act as your retail store. That you can walk into and see … There’s nothing wrong with borrowing and iterating off the shoulders of giants to come up with better ideas.

Pete Mockaitis
That reminds me. We had a previous guest, Kevan Hall. He said, anytime he began a new role, he just read five books about that thing whether it’s manufacturing, or whatever. When he started walking and talking it, and they’re “Wow, this guy is absolutely brilliant,” because that’s all it took.

Afif Ghannoum
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.Chances are whatever you have come up with, eighty five percent of it … With patents there’s no such thing as a virgin patent where you’ve truly come up with something brand new. My favorite example is the Sippy Cup. There’s a guy from the Cleveland area, he licensed to the Sippy Cup patent. He made something four, five hundred million dollars off of licensing and royalties. When you look at his patent, there are references to old patents from the seventeen hundreds for paint they tipped over spilt.

What does a Sippy Cup, and paint can have in common? I would never have gone in that direction. Perhaps he saw it has, “These are related.” In the patent world you look at it as standing on the shoulder of giants. There’s no genuinely brand new idea, but there are iterations that are innovations off of ideas. You can apply that …

Pete Mockaitis
I’m sorry, if I could …

Afif Ghannoum
Go ahead.

Pete Mockaitis
Do a little bit of a timeout. I loved your Sippy Cup story, but it got a little bit of digital-audio garble-age going on there. Could we maybe rewind to … I said, read five or six books, and benchmark that wisdom. Then you went into the Sippy Cup story. I want to make sure we get that audio clear.

Afif Ghannoum
For sure.

Pete Mockaitis
Do that again.

Afif Ghannoum
No problem. One of my favorite examples is, in patents, there’s no idea that’s really genuinely a virgin invention. There’s this notion of building off the shoulders of giants.One of my favorite examples is a Sippy Cup. There’s a guy from the Cleveland area. He sold the royalty rights to the Sippy Cup patents. When you look at the … He was the first guy to come up with it, but when you look at his patent the UST or US Patent Office made a reference to patents older than seventeen hundred  that were referencing paint cans that if they’ve spilled over would not spill the paint out.

They’re saying, “It was related to this idea of a Sippy Cup,” which the idea was a kid could drink and say it spilled over, it wouldn’t actually spill liquid. I would never think that those two things are related but, they are. It’s this idea of a container that if drops over liquid won’t come out. It’s the same idea with any area that … In patents it’s very common, but I learned to apply that into other areas. When we’re trying to come up with a new innovation for how we’re going to do our … A digital marketing campaign, I don’t reinvent the wheel. I go and find everything I can read, or every blog I can find on the latest digital marketing techniques.

Guess what, two of those are strategies I pitched yesterday at Walgreen’s, they loved it. They hadn’t seen anything like it. To them it was totally innovative. We’re the only people who presented to them but they’re fifty other guys giving the same idea. I was just the first guy to bring it to them. I have a very strong feeling that we’ll open a [blog 00:19:49] implementing a couple of different strategies that frankly should only cost us a couple of thousand dollars. In relative comparison, would have cost us millions to get similar promotional value a couple of years ago.

Pete Mockaitis
Those are a couple of tips then for generating the ideas. One’s finding the courage the second is to get some benchmarking and other info. Now can you tell us a little bit about how you go about doing some of that refining, testing, evaluating to determine which of these ideas are winners versus losers, and how do I tweak them to make them better?

Afif Ghannoum
Nowadays it is so much easier than it used to be to do that. What we do is we will do everything through today and be able to use Facebook. Even our packaging, but no we do some routine things. We’ll go out to family and friends. We really do keep it that informal. When we picked our flavor for our Halo which we sold millions of units of, to get the taste right, we had maybe ten versions of the flavor in a party. We said, “Family and friends come,” and we ultimately got two flavors for one that’s been shockingly successful for us.

Sometimes I think people want to overcomplicate things. You really can do things pretty informally. Nowadays, we’ll do things like that, but also what we’ll do is, we refine the messaging, the packaging, everything through simple Facebook ads. I’m talking about hundred dollar campaigns where let’s see which one … We’ll run five or six campaigns. We’ll test the messaging, the packaging, how we’re presenting to the customers. We’ll send informal service.

The product I launch typically doesn’t look like the product a year later. I’m a big believer in that the enemy of good is perfect. People really get is actually that your first time out you really think, “Oh-my-god, that nothing can be wrong with this.” They will hesitate thinking everything must be perfect. Everything has to be good enough. You can get to perfect, but you’re never going to get it right. You get feedback from consumers. You get feedback from retailers. You’re going to have to adjust anyway. You just have to get something out there and go from there.

Pete Mockaitis
Anything else? Just quick feedback however you can get it, with the Facebook ad, a simple survey. I really enjoyed using voicepolls.com and Google Consumer Insights, and Survey Monkey Audience when I was seeing, “Hey, does anyone care about a podcast to be awesome at your job?” It looks like somewhere between four and eighteen percent of people are extremely interested in such a podcast. That’s great news. That’s, game on.

Afif Ghannoum
A 100%. I’ll give you another quick example even with my blog, Napkin To Shelf. At first I really thought people would be interested in the idea of, how do I get a product on the shelves at Walgreen’s or Walmart? It turned out people were way more interested on how to sell online through Amazon and Instagram. I would not have known that if I had not done the research. I could have just walked in saying, “Everybody who watches Shark Tank and they love the idea of being on the shelves at Walmart,” and it turns out, no, that’s not actually the case. Yeah you’re totally right. These are not complicated tools. Frankly most of them are free.

Pete Mockaitis
Now talk to us a little bit about the sales cycle. You got an idea, and you want to persuade someone to get on board and say, “This is great.” Maybe invest some corporate budget into it, or to offer their own sponsorship, or champion that thing. What are some best practices in really making that pitch come to life?

Afif Ghannoum
Just to clarify, when you’re saying a pitch, do you mean to a retailer, or do you mean to an investor, because it’s two different dynamics.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you. I am thinking about universal practices in terms of persuasive communications. It may even be internally to your boss or your boss’s boss.

Afif Ghannoum
The universal thing and even I’ll illustrate it in, yesterday when I went to Walgreen’s, I was supposed to have twenty minutes; I had ten. Why? They got backed up. I knew I had ten minutes to get my Mavis Beacon Typing skills to work and just verbalize it very succinctly the plan. Universally, whether I’m pitching an investor, to whether I’m pitching a retailer, it comes down to one thing. That’s creating a compelling story around not just my product or idea but, around me.

Whether people are investing money, and we’ve raised almost ten million dollars as a company, to whether we’re selling a product to retail. The product is important, but that’s probably twenty five percent of it. They’re investing in you. I always spend literally maybe fifteen percent of the time talking about the product, and then it’s about … I’m talking about myself, I’m talking about our partners, I’m talking about our employees; why I’ve got the best people helping me bring this to life.

No pun intended, or a halo of the investor. They want to know one thing. Are you going to be able to make this successful? It’s the same thing, and that applies internally if you are at a corporate position. Your idea may be great, but if you are not able to show that you are the one to do it, you are going to have that idea that may be great, taken and someone else will implement it.

The sale job and the pitch job is 80% about you. That’s always how I approach these things. I call it in the context of investors, creating a compelling fundraising story. It’s very much a holistic approach. If you are too much just talking about the idea, you are not doing your job.

You have to sell yourself and your capabilities. At the end of the day, people don’t care about your idea, and they don’t care about you. They care about whether what you are talking about is going to be successful, and it’s a combination of your idea and you.

Pete Mockaitis
I completely agree. I think it’s so interesting when I am evaluating anything. I was just checking out this book about a diet. It’s called, Always Hungry? I was, “”Yes, I am always hungry. Tell me more.” I am checking it out. I was, “Is your science good, are your results good, are your credentials good?”

It’s what I want to know the most is. Is this thing going to work, in the sense that it will make me more energized and less hungry, everyday? To the extent they have really cool endorsements from folks. That’s a little bit of a proof point in the direction, but what I want the most is, “Hey, in the study of this stature. These are the results. It was fantastically smashing successful.”

Afif Ghannoum
A 100%.

Pete Mockaitis
Tell me, what are the components that make for a compelling story?

Afif Ghannoum
I would say a few things. One, yourself. What are your actual credentials? Do you have experience doing what you are doing? Again, in my context at this point. I’ve done this a number of times. This is not my first rodeo, and that applies to raising money, running a company, to launching a product. I’ve done this.

In the context of a corporate job, it may be … I’m trying to think of an example. If you came up with some way to cut company overhead by 15%, well why should they take your credibility? That’s the first thing. It’s your personal credibility.

The other is the credibility in thoughtfulness of the idea. That goes back to what we were talking about. Why would this idea make sense? Do I get to lip balms? I don’t have to prove that lip balm sale are, retailer buys into that. I have a lot of credibility going into it that lip bums … I just have proof that my approach is good.

Now you have credibility about yourself, and you have credibility about your idea. The next is your infrastructure. Infrastructure for me is literally how do you get this stuff made, what factories are you working with? Are they FDA audited? Who is actually going to supply this to us when we order it?

Internally if you have some phenomenal idea at a company, that may be great. You have to come and show, “Here is my infrastructure to get this done. I know Don over at accounting can help, and is interested in helping. We have someone over in the finance, or treasury department that can also assist, and they are interested in getting the job done.”

Again, it’s building this holistic picture that walks the person through the mind map of how does this get done? Forget ideas and needs. How do you get, show me the process for whatever that may be. We are taking a drug through FDA approval, and we are in phase two and phase three. We will be if approved one of the first drugs approved to actually prevent influenza.

We’ve been through millions of dollars in research, partnered with NIH. Now, while I have done a lot of the FDA work. At this stage I have started to bring in guys, former J&J guys, former McKinsey guys to add to my credibility halo. I am trying to partner, and I have licensed a drug to one of the biggest pharma players in the world. Partly because when they looked at us they saw the science was done by first rate scientists, it had been published in first rate journals.

The regulatory was done by first rate people. Even though I was one of the inventors of the technology. Does that make sense? That’s what you have to do. You have to lay out this process, and really this holistic approach to, this is how you are going to get it done.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s lovely. You tell me anything else you want to share there in terms of generating ideas, evaluating ideas, selling ideas before we shift gears into the first phase component?

Afif Ghannoum
No, I think the critical piece is just having the confidence to do it, and then trust, but verify. Which I mean trust your gut, and you probably may have a good idea, but then go out and verify, and then build your story around how you are going to actually present that idea, to actually get it to fruition. Again, unless you are Elon Musk and you just say, “Forget everybody else. I can finance this myself.” Most people need help getting their idea to come to life.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. That’s good. Now, let’s shift gears a bit. Could you start us off by sharing what’s a favorite quote? Something that inspires you.

Afif Ghannoum
One of my favorites is by Marcus Aurelius, one of my favorite stoic philosophers. He said, “You have the power of your mind, not outside events.” Again, it relates to what I was talking about before, that I always remind myself that as long as I kick ass at the things I can control, it’s a waste of energy worrying about the things I can’t. That’s really helped me on an entrepreneurial side, as well as frankly in life. I’d say that’s my favorite quote.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. How about a favorite study, or a piece of research you find yourself thinking about, or citing it often?

Afif Ghannoum
I don’t have any one piece of research, but what I am constantly researching is what consumers are doing. I’ll give you a very simple example. When we launched, zero percent of our sales were online. Now it’s over a third, and it’s growing every month.

Again, I was actually at Walgreens yesterday, and I saw a quote by one of their founders, Charles Walgreen. Walgreens I should say. He said, “Our aim is to simply give customers what they want. When they change, we change.” That’s what I always. I’m seeing where people are looking at? “Oh, they are looking at Pinterest, or into Instagram.” We iterate towards those things. I am always looking at what consumers are doing.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. How about a favorite book?

Afif Ghannoum
You are probably going to pick up on a common theme here, but a favorite book of mine is called, A Guide to the Good Life, by William Irvine. Again, I am really into the idea of stoicism. I credit it with helping me grow as an entrepreneur. Irvine does an incredible job of making stoic philosophy really accessible and relatable to modern life. It’s a great book,

A guy named Derek Sivers. I think he site is dereksivers, S-I-V-E-R-S.org. He is an awesome outline of just some of the concepts of the book. Definitely worth checking out.

Pete Mockaitis
Have you read,The Obstacle is the Way?

Afif Ghannoum
I’ve heard of it. I have not read it.

Pete Mockaitis
I think it’s also right up your alley.

Afif Ghannoum
I’ll definitely check that out.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s a freebie.

Afif Ghannoum
Thanks.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite tool? Whether that’s a gadget, or hardware or software, something that you find handy?

Afif Ghannoum
I’m an enormous fan of Boomerang for Gmail. What that does is I can keep track of people who haven’t gotten back to me, or if I need to follow up. As an entrepreneur, and certainly in any business just a lot it comes down to perseverance, and keeping up.

It’s a really helpful tool. I use ClickFunnels a lot for the type of digital marketing we do in WordPress. I also love those too. Really, I’d be lost without my MacBook Air. I just think it’s a phenomenal computer.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s so good. You emailed me twice about this podcast.

Afif Ghannoum
I Boomeranged to follow up with you.

Pete Mockaitis
I thought you were awesome the first time around, for the record. It was just that my spam filter sometimes trips with people they’ve never heard from. I was like, “Oh.” That was the story there.

Afif Ghannoum
Literally, I Boomeranged. You showed back up, and I said, “Hey, I just want to follow up to the below.” Guess what? You did.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite habit, a personal practice of yours that’s boosted your effectiveness?

Afif Ghannoum
One of the things I do, like I told you before. I used to really be a worrywart. What I do is every morning … My wife ribs me every day when I do this. I take a steam bath, and I do two things. One, first I take a couple of minutes, and I’d really … It sounds so Successories, but it really is true. I just take a minute to try and just be grateful.

We are so lucky with everything we have. As a society we’ve just turned ambition into a little bit of more greed and envy. It’s really hard to step back and realize just how lucky we are. Even just for a couple of minutes I take time to think about a person I am grateful for who is in my life, or things that have been going great, or my children.

Then I do breathing exercises, and I do a couple of yoga poses that would frankly make most people pass out if they ever saw me doing them. For me it really gets me ready for the day, invigorated, and just frankly relaxed. I do that day in, and day out. Tim Ferriss always says, “Put your health first, because otherwise …” I really do that. I take a minute, and put that before I do anything else in the day.

Pete Mockaitis
How about a favorite nugget, in terms of the content you put out there? Is there something that really tends to get shared a lot in social media, or distributed far and wide, or people taking notes vigorously when you start saying it?

Afif Ghannoum
Yes, so the most helpful nugget really is I get emails constantly from people that have all these ideas, and they are just really they don’t know how not to get overwhelmed. What people have to realize is this is not easy, whether you are an entrepreneur, or trying to make it in the business world.

I think the media. Things from Shark Tank, the big magazines make it seem really easy to be an entrepreneur, or business success. The reality is, it’s a giant pain in the ass. Now, I think it’s worth it, and to me the only way I think you can become incredibly wealthy, unless you are an oil sheik, or something.

It’s not easy. I just tell people, “You can’t get discouraged, and you just have to persevere.” There were days when I started when we had to borrow money from my parents to pay their mortgage, and that’s not a great feeling. I knew I was onto to something, and I just won’t give up, and I never got overwhelmed, and I just kept persevering.

I get a lot of feedback, and really people take it away. Listen, I can give you all the marketing tips in the world, but sometimes there is information overload, or in the type of people that want to do this, or type A people that they want to do everything right. I always say, take a deep breath. This is not rocket science. You just have to be willing to do this day in, and day out, and just take it one step at a time.

Pete Mockaitis
Fantastic. What’s the best way to find you, if people want to learn more, or get in touch?

Afif Ghannoum
Check out napkintoshelf.com. That’s my site. On Twitter it’s @NapkinToShelf, or you can always email me at Afif, A-F-I-F@napkintoshelf.com. I am always happy to answer any questions, and shoot me an email, and it may take me a second to get to it, but will reply. I always reply to everybody. Those are probably the easiest ways.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. A favorite perhaps challenge, or call to action that you’d leave folks with who are seeking to become more awesome at their jobs?

Afif Ghannoum
I alluded this earlier. Really, someone maybe sitting at their joblessness and thinking, “Sounds great, but I really feel secure in my job, and it’s tough to give that security up, and whether that’s to become an entrepreneur, to put yourself out there.” The dirty secret is, you are really not secure, you are more vulnerable that I ever will be, because your career rests in someone else’s hands.

That doesn’t mean you should go out, and just be an entrepreneur. Like I said, you can be an internal entrepreneur, and you just have to put yourself out there, because trust me I spent years at big law firms dealing with these guys like I was telling you about.

It was palpable that people were afraid to actually stand up and be a person to say, “Yep, we should do this.” You literally have nothing to lose and everything to gain, by just believing in yourself and just doing it.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. Afif, this has been a real treat. I wish you tons of luck and success with the products that you are launching, and I am going to pick up some halo and maybe some other stuff that you are associated with. This has been a real treat.

Afif Ghannoum
Awesome. Thank you so much for having me on and I am sure we’ll talk again soon.