Eric Mulvin: 00:00
Welcome to the Unfinished Business Podcast. I’m your host, Eric Mulvin, and this is a show where we sit down with CEOs, leaders, visionaries, and creatives talking about how they’re out there changing the world through their business, through their leadership, through their creativity, and through their organization. Because it doesn’t matter who you are or what you what you have accomplished. Even someone like Jesse Itzler still has something out there that they would like to see in their lifetime completed. And so we explore those stories here on this very special live in Japan version of Unfinished Business with Eric Mulvin.

Theme Song: 00:33
Now I’m talking with leaders about the unfinished business tonight.

Eric Mulvin: 01:02
This episode is brought to you by Pac Biz Outsourcing. At Pac Biz, we help software, e-comm, taxi, and NEMT companies outsource their customer support and back office work with dedicated teams in the Philippines. These are full-time remote staff who work as part of your team, handling calls, emails, chat support, dispatch, and admin tasks. So you can improve support, scale faster, and keep costs under control. For example, one client cut out over $600,000 a year by switching key support roles like dispatch to Pac Biz team. So if you’re trying to lower costs or scale support, visit pac-biz.com to learn more, or you can give us a call Monday through Friday during business hours at 480-771-3009. You do not want to miss today’s episode. From going broke in India with just a few dollars to his name to building businesses across multiple continents, to launching a sold-out event with over 2,000 people, with the keynote speaker canceling just weeks before showtime. Even receiving a call from the Yakuza to help solve his problems. To building and exiting multiple seven-figure businesses, this is one of the most unbelievable entrepreneurial journeys that I’ve heard on this podcast. And every one of the stories that we talked about comes with a lesson that could change the way that you think about business, marketing, AI, and taking risks. And so my guest today is a coach, a builder, and explorer based in Tokyo, Japan. He coaches high-performing coaches to stop chasing clients and start being chosen through authority-driven content that does the selling for them. He has spoken live on stages around the world, including Tokyo, Sydney, Los Angeles, Bangkok, and Singapore. He’s the founder of GoBox Studio, 20X Agency, and the creator of Video Marketing Machine, a system that teaches coaches how to build a content engine, create high-converting video campaigns, and train their own in-house creative team, and has built and successfully exited three seven-figure businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome Ken Okazaki. Alright. Welcome to the show, Ken. Thank you so much for ha thank you so much for inviting me here. Thanks, Eric. This beautiful place.

Ken Okazaki: 03:20
Yeah, this is the first time I’m recording content here, but I probably will start using this place in the future. It’s just I live in Japan, so people expect something that looks Japanese, I guess.

Eric Mulvin: 03:30
Yeah, I thought, yeah, I was looking for something like that too. So we were talking before, like I’m staying in a hotel in Tokyo, and they all look the same. So I appreciate you uh inviting me out to your neighborhood here.

Ken Okazaki: 03:42
Fantastic.

Eric Mulvin: 03:43
Cool. So I know we’ve been hanging out here for a little bit, and I wanted to ask you a lot of questions, but I was saving them for when we hit the record button so it could ask you uh for the first time on the show here.

Ken Okazaki: 03:53
Okay.

Eric Mulvin: 03:54
But I’ve been following you online, I think, for like three or four years now, and I’ve been seeing a lot of what you’ve been doing already through some of the like GoBox Studio and a lot of the coaching that you’re doing for marketing. So tell everyone on the show here, talk to me about what is it that uh give us a little background on on uh who you are here, besides a little intro I gave.

Ken Okazaki: 04:18
So who am I? Well, I could go the route of talking about the businesses and the history I did there, but you could just Google that and that’ll all be there. But I think at my core, what I found through the various businesses that I’ve started is I love building stuff. Whether it’s going to be a software stack, whether it’s a team, whether it’s a a training module for my course, or whether it’s a physical invention like GoBox Studio, it’s just built it’s in my core. If I’m not building something, then then I don’t feel alive, you know. So and aside from being a builder, I I’m a dad. You know, I’ve got six children. Oh, wow. And my oldest is 28, youngest is 18, and I’ve very recently become an MT Nester. Just two weeks ago, my youngest one moved out and she just entered college in in Paris.

Eric Mulvin: 05:06
My gosh. So congratulations. Maybe, I don’t know, you might have some mixed feelings about the last one leaving home.

Ken Okazaki: 05:13
I’m proud of her. I’m proud of her. Yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 05:15
Congrats. So that’s cool. So, all right, there’s a there’s a lot that we could unpack from that. But being a builder, so how did you get started into building businesses then? Because I don’t think a lot of people that I know in entrepreneurship did not go out intending to start a business. Yeah. It sort of fell into their lap.

Eric Mulvin: 05:36
So here’s the the short version. I’m 17 years old. I’m determined to leave home. I’m one of those type of teenagers that you know parents don’t dream about. And I decided that, you know, by hook or by crook, I was gonna leave home. And uh so I went and got a part-time job as a construction worker, saved up you know, $3,000 to my name, which I thought was very, very rich at the time. And what happened is I I did that thing where you spin the globe and you close your eyes and you point your finger down, and my finger landed right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. So that wasn’t gonna work. So I did it again. And then the second time I landed in India. So I thought, okay, great, sounds like an interesting place. I’d never, you know, left Japan before. I’m you know. So I made my way out there, and I thought that I was rich, but I found that you know just a little bit of partying is gonna deplete all your money real fast. I went broke, and I had two options. Either I could beg my family, my parents to bail me out and get me back to Japan, or I could try to figure this out. So the very first business I started was selling like semi-precious stones, jewelry from India back to Japan. Because I had a friend who would do flea markets to Japan and just sell all kinds of you know curiosities. And I found on the street these vendors selling tiger eye jewelry, and I saw the price and I compared it to what I remember in Japan was, you know, this is in the 90s, right?

Eric Mulvin: 07:06
Yeah.

Ken Okazaki: 07:06
And I think it was like a 20x markup, and I just thought and and then a light bulb went off my brain. I thought I could make money off the margin, right? So it was like a gray market thing. I spent all the rest of the money I had, shipped it to my friend, collect. He went and sold it. We split the difference, and I think in the first shipment I did, I put like a hundred or a hundred and fifty dollars, which was everything I had. So I was like betting everything on it. And about a month later, I made like $8,000 off of that. And yeah, yeah. So I was just like in my mind, I it just everything started opening up. Like, okay, now I understand the concept of if you have a good idea plus execution equals money. And uh since then, you know, like your your brain does not go back to how it was once you’ve you know had that experience.

Eric Mulvin: 07:56
Yeah. And that’s all interesting. You talk about being a builder and you actually started in construction.

Ken Okazaki: 08:02
Well, yeah, I just took that because that was the the convenience. That’s a a few of my friends had a job, so they just said, hey, you could just hop on with us. But through my childhood, I’ve always just been making stuff, you know, whether it’s it’s Lego, whether it’s gonna be, you know, with cardboard just making, you know, forts and stuff. I’m always building something. And yeah, there’s probably when I went to India was probably the least creative part of my journey, but yeah, that was it. That’s how I started.

Eric Mulvin: 08:27
That is incredible. So I feel like you know, that could take you down a path into like the import-export business, and you go down that path and you don’t look back. But obviously, that’s not the path that you took. That was like, well, so what happened after that?

Ken Okazaki: 08:44
Well, I after about less than a year in India, it was close to a year, I, you know, I I got bored, right? So I I left India, I came back to Japan, and then I had a friend who was recruited as a film, as a member of film crew, going to Uganda to film a documentary. And this was kind of a long-term thing, like a year-long type of project.

Eric Mulvin: 09:06
Yeah.

Ken Okazaki: 09:06
And they’re just like, hey, we need another helper. Do you know how to use a camera? And I’m just like, this is before Google, right? So I’m just like, yeah. And I was just gonna like figure it out.

Eric Mulvin: 09:13
So you didn’t know how to use a camera. Maybe a little bit.

Ken Okazaki: 09:17
Not very like at at the time, I think if you had a a mini DV camera and it had three C C D, then that was considered like professional. Right? So that that’s yeah, three C C D is a Panasonic with you know crazy amount of zoom. So I I learned just enough so that I could be a helper on their film crew. And the rest I I figured I’ll just figure it out on the way.

Eric Mulvin: 09:43
So that’s how you got into video then, huh?

Ken Okazaki: 09:45
That’s how I got into video. Yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 09:46
And I was wondering, how did you get into video? People have their different stories. So now that something you must have fallen in love with video, I’m guessing, right?

Ken Okazaki: 09:55
Yeah, I’ve always loved video. You know, it’s it’s very creative, it’s it’s fun. And also I’m Japanese. It’s kind of genetically, you know, like magnetic attraction to cameras and gear.

Eric Mulvin: 10:05
Yeah, I mean, you guys are the producers of a lot of the equipment that I own and got behind me here. So but all right, so what did you learn being were you there for a full year then?

Ken Okazaki: 10:16
I was there for like three years actually. Because that’s where I met my wife.

Eric Mulvin: 10:19
Okay.

Ken Okazaki: 10:20
Yeah. So she was one of the subjects of the documentary.

Eric Mulvin: 10:22
Uh-huh.

Ken Okazaki: 10:23
And I’m out there filming her, and she she was a teacher, and the documentary was about this education program. They there was an NGO and they were were making infomercials and documentaries to raise funds. Right. So that’s what the project was. And she was one of the subjects, and I got she was going out to these rural schoolyards. And these schools literally were dirt floor, mud walls, and the kids were sitting on rocks. And she was and we’re she was testing the material and the curriculum on these rural kids to see if you know it translates, you know, like culturally. And I was filming those interactions, and so it’s just me and her, and I get we’re way out in the boonies, literally the boonies in Africa. And that’s how I got to know her.

Eric Mulvin: 11:07
Wow.

Ken Okazaki: 11:07
Yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 11:08
I didn’t think I was gonna get your uh or just end up meeting your wife at the same time, too. So Uganda, right? And you were doing video and you ended up staying there for three years. Yeah.

Ken Okazaki: 11:17
And that’s where we also started our first my first ads agency. We started creating TV ads for the local businesses in Uganda. And what was happening was at the time there were some South African businesses and European businesses trying to break into the Ugandan market. But they like there wasn’t any like local agency that was doing things at a professional level. There were some American agencies, like like branches of bigger ones, and they were charging American rates, which was, you know. No one could afford that. Well, they could, but we were doing it at like a quarter of the rate because we actually lived in Uganda. So, you know, we, you know, we could survive off of a lot less. They didn’t have to make profits for the head office. So we got contracts with like tele major telecom businesses, because this is when the mobile wars were happening, trying to penetrate. Uh, we got contracts with airlines, we got contracts with coffee businesses, which was one of the main exports in Uganda, and shoe companies. There’s like a lot of stuff going on. And then the the reason they liked us was because we would hire and scout local actors, Ugandans, that spoke with a Ugandan accent. Whereas the other guys were, you know, sourcing actors from their agency portfolio, which and they sounded British or you know, like Kenyan or something, and the locals understood, you know, they they felt the difference. So that was kind of our unique edge, is we built our our reputation around using local Ugandan actors, producing everything locally, and then it had much better penetration with the you know, with audience.

Eric Mulvin: 12:50
So you learned some big lessons there along the way that hey, this stuff is working, and you were able like, well, connecting with the audience.

Ken Okazaki: 12:59
Yeah. You know, and this was TV at the time, not internet, you know, this is pre, you know, internet stuff.

Eric Mulvin: 13:06
Yeah. So I mean, so productions were much bigger than like what we have now, or you could just shoot up a couple, set up a couple cameras and a small crew. You you probably had a some budgets and some some production going on.

Ken Okazaki: 13:19
Well, it is it it wasn’t that major. That’s why we’re able to steal those contracts. Yeah. We kept the costs pretty low. You know, we’re it was a gorilla type of operation. Yeah, and but I don’t know.

Eric Mulvin: 13:31
I’ve I’m the serial entreprene entrepreneur guy and I’m hearing the same from you. What kept you on the same path without like because I I know a lot of entrepreneurs have the shiny object syndrome, right?

Ken Okazaki: 13:41
Like where you see No, I I’ve got that. I’ve got that problem. Like I think I’d be five times further ahead in my business if I didn’t. So let’s just say that I somehow survived despite despite it. That the I have not found a solution to beat that yet. And yeah. Well, I I did try taking I am diagnosed with ADHD. And I I was medicated for a while and it worked until it didn’t, and then I quit. So that was that was like two years ago. Yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 14:10
Yeah. Well that’s I think I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of entrepreneurs are undiagnosed ADHD. That’s likely. That’s very likely. I should look into that for myself, because yeah, I’m always the shiny object syndrome is for real for me. So are you still doing any agency work today? Yeah.

Ken Okazaki: 14:28
Yeah. So 20X Agency is our content creation agency. And we typically work with, you know, established, you know, established established businesses in the like authority marketing, content creation, coaching, personal development space. And that is that’s been going for about 10 years. And then the newer business is the coaching side, where I get to just help coaches who are, you know, probably at or maybe even less than a million dollars a year, and helping them to get their content creation up to s, up to par, you know, training them. And I like both. I like the agency side because you create a system and you follow a system and everything runs. The coaching side, I get to be way more in the moment and creative, and I’m constantly coming up, you know, helping them, people have breakthroughs, you know, psychologically, mentally, giving them ideas that they can use and things like that. And then, you know, they follow the course, and you know, it even though it’s very likely to happen every time someone has a breakthrough, like they get, you know, their first sale from Instagram or their first, you know, you know, $10,000 contract or $100,000 contract, and they tell me about it, it still feels like magic.

Eric Mulvin: 15:45
Yeah. I’m sure, yeah, for everyone involved, like, oh my gosh, because it it it seems like it’s you hear about everyone else doing it, and you’re like, I’ve tried all this stuff, and you’re able to come in and and it’s not, I’m I’m guessing it’s not like everything you’re doing is wrong. It’s probably like just shift you over here a little bit, what’s tweaking?

Ken Okazaki: 16:05
Sometimes, to tell you the truth, they’re doing everything right, they just need to do more of it. You know, they’re like creating a beautiful, you know, content and they’re doing it once a week. And I’m just like, okay, what’s stopping you from doing 10 a week? I’m just like, I don’t know. I’m just like, okay, so let’s see how that looks, you know. And we also support them with, you know, in in the coaching program, people can come for just the course and my coaching, or they can optionally just opt in and there’s a limited agency package where we’ll just edit all the short form content for them. That way, even if they’re a one-man show, everything’s taken care of. They just show up, they shoot stuff on their phone, upload it to the portal, and then you know, everything else just gets taken care of. So there’s something for everybody, you know?

Eric Mulvin: 16:47
Yeah. And I’ve been living those nightmares of like content for years. So yeah, we’ll have to talk offline after the show. Some of this. So uh what are some success stories you’ve had? Uh if you have like one or two that you can think of where you’ve been able to do that.

Ken Okazaki: 17:03
Before we get to the success stories, I’ll talk about some really harrowing moments I had. So that the success stories feel bigger in comparison to the. Okay, okay. So I think it was 2015, I started my first seminar business where we, you know, I was doing personal development. And I was not the main speaker. What I would do is I would hire a a famous person from abroad and get them on contract and then sell out conferences in Japan saying, hey, this same famous person is coming over. And for the sake of, I’m not going to mention their name because you’ll see why. So I hired this person, really famous, and I sold about 2,000 tickets to a seminar. They’re the key speaker, their face was on every piece of advertising, and that’s when I, you know, I guess I was content marketing, then I was I was creating a lot of ads, running them on Facebook and YouTube, selling tickets, and this sold really well. Front row seats were about $7,000, back row was $700, packed the place out, really high expectations. And two weeks before the event, the main speaker tells me he can’t make it to Japan. He’s he couldn’t get a visa.

Eric Mulvin: 18:16
That’s impossible to overcome almost.

Ken Okazaki: 18:19
I went through a lot of trouble to try to figure out how I could get him in. And I went as far as talking to he legally couldn’t enter for legal reasons because of some stuff he had done in the past. And I remember, you know, for one week straight I was going absolutely crazy, you know, like calling everybody I know, like pulling favors. Like, for example, I found that so there’s a law in Japan that if you have ever served one consecutive year in prison any time in your life, you are permanently barred from entering Japan. Permanently. However, I heard that Snoop Dogg had done a concert in Japan, and I know he’s been in prison for over a year. So I was just like, how did he get in Japan? I did my research and I found out, okay, so what happened was he got onto a US military base with a military aircraft, and then he got a day pass to go out and do his concert, but he had to come in by curfew at 9 p.m. I’m just like, okay, great. So this guy I’m bringing is also kind of famous. Let’s see if we could get that to work. And they actually agreed. I was just like, yay, this is amazing. But then the next day he called back and said, you know what, we have we can’t do it. I’m just like, why? He says, well, sounds like you know, the the serviceman, the guys who would actually be sitting in there, he was gonna do some pro bono stuff for them. They didn’t like him. So nobody’s gonna show up for his his motivational talk. So that had to get canceled. Uh I was researching how to assemble a barge two miles off the coast, which is international water, so he doesn’t technically enter Japan. And you know, the Coast Guard was definitely not gonna allow that. I was researching everything. I talked to them, I had a a phone call, not a face-to-face meeting, I couldn’t quite get that, but a phone call with the Minister of Justice for Japan. And to see if he can make an exception. He didn’t. So after all that, I had to pull the plug. And that’s that’s how I started my seminar business with that as the big splash. And what happened was I had 2,000 people. I didn’t have the money to refund them because every time you know pe I’d sell more tickets, I’d put that back into advertising, pay for the venue, da-da-da-da-da.

Eric Mulvin: 20:29
Yeah.

Ken Okazaki: 20:30
And so I didn’t have the money to refund these guys. And at the time, the only thing I could think of was to quickly book another speaker for another event a month later, see how many people I could transfer over. And for everybody else, I would have to, you know, give them a lot of IOUs and slowly pay them off. So I was so every month I was printing on events in Japan, a couple thousand people every month, uh sometimes up to like 8,000. And it took me two years to actually refund every person from that first event. Oh my gosh. So I’d I’d take a bit of profit and uh and then pay off as much as I could after every single event. And then again and again. So that’s how I started the events business.

Eric Mulvin: 21:11
But you what made you decide to go so big for the first one?

Ken Okazaki: 21:15
Because I mean there’s because the the time was right where this person I knew would draw a large crowd. And he did. He did. Yeah, yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 21:29
So that’s how I started. So that’s how you started. And for some people, they would come across well, they probably wouldn’t have kept pushing all the way to get to like the Minister of Defense. But I mean, you never took no for an answer.

Ken Okazaki: 21:43
Well, I eventually didn’t know. I’ll tell you what was a tipping point for me. I got contacted by the Yakuza in Japan. Because, you know, I was talking to so many people and someone calls me up and says, Hey, I heard you have a visa problem. I’m just like, Who’s this? And it’s like, well, you know. And I can kind of tell by, you know, the nuance like who it was. And they’re just like, look, here’s the thing. If you pay us five million yen, which is about fifty thousand dollars at a time, and you tell him to come to this immigration booth at this time, then he’s gonna go through with no problem. And it was very tempting. It was very tempting. But then I knew I knew that this could backfire very badly. Number one, if that didn’t work out, I could go to jail. And he could go to jail. Right? Then that would be another set of problems. Number two, even if it did work out, now like if you ever do any transaction with Yakuza, it’s probably the same as a mafia in any country. They’ve got you by the balls for the rest of your life. And they could keep like, you know, trying to milk more from you to say, hey, we’re gonna talk about this thing, you know, like they’ve got you. So that’s and the fact that I almost considered doing the deal with them is when I realized, okay, I’ve gone to this has gone too far. I need to I need to cut my losses and find a different route. So that’s what convinced me because my mind went to a place where I was willing to consider working with the Yakuza. Hey.

Eric Mulvin: 23:03
So good lesson there for the people listening. You know, I f I feel like, you know, in business, sometimes you don’t know when to stop. You you see people, they’ll push themselves into bankruptcy, they’ll push themselves like into horrible places. What other moments in your businesses have you come across points like that where you’re like, hmm, I need to pivot, I need to adjust trajectory, or stop going down this path.

Ken Okazaki: 23:27
So I, you know, in early, I think it was 2022 or 23, I invented the GoBox Studio, which was something that came out of necessity because I I used to fly film crews out to my clients around the world. And when COVID happened, that that shut down. And then I had a certain client who said, Hey, could you just, you know, design something so I could just pop open the box and everything strapped in and I just need to, you know, just hit record. So I got as close as I could with something called the Go Box. He it wasn’t GoBox at the time, I didn’t have a name. He loved it. He took a picture, stuck it on Instagram, and he got thousands and thousands of comments and likes, most of people saying, Where can I buy one of these? So he gets on the phone with me. He says, You know, Ken, I think that you make a lot more money with this product than with your little agency. And the word little is what kind of stung. I’m just like, oh, you know, little agency. And I was just like, you know what? So my mind started getting to work, like, how can I turn this into a manufacturable product? And so I worked for a few months, you know, and I have zero background in industrial design or engineering. Just I just have a you know belief that everything is figure-outable. So I figured out how to get this thing to work, and I had 100 units made. And I thought to myself, okay, I have to know if this is a hobby or if it’s a real business. And I so I went out to San Diego. I think I spent about altogether like $50,000 to $60,000 on a booth plus flights, and I went to a conference called Traffic and Conversions. Oh, yeah. And I went there and not like a videography thing, because I thought, okay, this, you know, to a discerning videographer, they’re already gonna have their favorite lens, and like everything is already gonna be decided in their mind what they want and don’t want. But if I go to where marketers are, they just know they need good video. And they’re gonna accept, you know, the kit that I prepared for them. So that went really well. We did close to a quarter million dollars in a day.

Eric Mulvin: 25:23
And uh this is before were you manufacturing anything?

Ken Okazaki: 25:26
No, no, no. These are just hand assembled. So I was just like, okay, I think it’s a business. And so I I went home to Japan, I hired a friend to hand assemble these and ship them off. And over the course of you know about a year and a half, you know, we sold a hundred units. That’s you know, hit the million-dollar mark, and then I thought, okay, we barely made money on that because of the fact that everything’s being hand assembled. It’s being sh-I I was sourcing 14 factories in China to make custom parts, to ship them to Japan, assemble them, and then ship them out to the like it was the most inefficient thing. But all I wanted was a proof of concept.

Eric Mulvin: 26:03
Yeah.

Ken Okazaki: 26:03
So I I thought that I had already passed the hurdle of the difficult part, getting version one. But version two, creating something that could be mass manufactured in a factory just pumped out like 100 a day, that was way harder. Way, way, way harder. And so I worked with a, I hired a design agency to help me, you know, turn it into something that can be mass manufactured. So around the end of last year, I got to the point where I had the mass manufacturing model. I figured out the costs, you know, the and we’re gonna make pretty good profits. We brought the the cost down to like one-fourth the previous size. Wow. So that we could sell it for about a quarter of the previous size and still make healthy profits. It’s just a much wider appeal. And then I realized, you know what? If in order to place my first order with a minimum order quality of a thousand units, and then go into I just looked at the roadmap and I thought, this is gonna completely consume me. So if I go this route of all these unknowns, I could probably make it work, but everything else is gonna suffer. So I had to make a decision. And that’s when I realized, okay, I’ve got my coaching business, I’ve got my agency, and I got GoBox. One of these three precious babies have got to die. And it was tough. So then I I started I think I paid $2,000 to a consultant. And that’s somebody recommended, just to talk me through this. And he suggested that I sell GoBox, because that’s the physical one that doesn’t require my presence. So I and then he just he just gave me a few like profiles of the kind of person I should target to sell it to. And that took me all of two weeks to find a buyer for the business. Wow. And then after I found a buyer, uh a week later, I flew out between this is just in December 27, last year, I flew out to the UK, went over there, signed the contract, walked away with a multi-million dollar exit, and now I’m back to coaching and and the agency. With your little agency. Yes. So that’s I’d say that’s a win, you know? But that’s I I realized I was overextending myself, trying to do all this stuff. It wasn’t bringing me joy. Inventing it brought me joy. The the challenges brought me joy, but trying to do three unique businesses was not bringing me joy. Yeah. And the same for everybody around me, constantly stressed about okay, where are you gonna get the money for this? Like I’m I’m stealing from one business to try to feed another. It was it was messy.

Eric Mulvin: 28:43
Yeah, I’m sure you’re I don’t know how the tax stuff works in Japan, but I’m sure whoever’s running that’s like talking to you about like this is a mess.

Ken Okazaki: 28:51
Yeah, it was a mess.

Eric Mulvin: 28:52
Well, but that’s interesting. You know, I’ve I’ve talked to I so the the last person I had on the show, Derek Maines, he has a company, the Process Fixer, and we had this whole discussion on the show that people shouldn’t exit their business. They should just keep it. Or like the people.

Ken Okazaki: 29:07
When you got three, then maybe that’s too much.

Eric Mulvin: 29:10
Okay, that’s a little different. But there are like I I know businesses that are going through the process of exit, and people who have agencies that are going through the process of exiting out, and their process is so complicated. I mean, was this easier because it was a product and it’s pretty cut and dry?

Ken Okazaki: 29:27
Or like well, what I had, the most valuable thing was actually the customer list. And so the the the buyer actually had their own media production business and and they own a football club and everything. And they thought, okay, this is a great way. Oh, and they also own a software business, a video editing software, specifically for podcasts. So what he wanted was a shiny object that’s gonna bring people in the door. They’re gonna say, what the hell is that? That’s really cool. And it comes bundled with all this other stuff. Their media production services, their software bundles, and you know, and they’re going for corporate. So uh it was just a good fit, and it was it just fit their like constellation of businesses. And this one they needed almost what I would call a loss leader, you know, to get out there and to get their brand more noticed.

Eric Mulvin: 30:16
Okay.

Ken Okazaki: 30:17
Yeah, that’s just so fascinating. Because the business was not profiting at the time that I sold it. We we were like negative. But then I had brought everything up just to the brink of doing proper Kickstarter launch. And they’re just like, okay, great. You know, like the these are all the parts, and they’ve got more team and more money. And I had I did all the hard work of bringing it there, but I didn’t I didn’t have, or at least didn’t want to, you know, risk the rest of my money to take this to the next stage.

Eric Mulvin: 30:43
Aaron Powell, yeah. There’s still risk involved. It’s not guaranteed like it’s gonna blow up.

Ken Okazaki: 30:47
Well, even if it did, there’s still risk beyond that, you know? Like, that’s a that’s its own set of problems of scheme. Manufacturing a complex electronic, you know, product is is tricky.

Eric Mulvin: 30:58
Yeah. You know, it reminds me, I don’t know if you ever like what kind of risks were involved with that, because I mean you’re dealing with electronics and batteries and all kinds of stuff.

Ken Okazaki: 31:07
Like my first supply chain was really tough with the the chips being really restricted, you know, because the the high-end chips need to come from Taiwan. And there was a there was a lot of disruption in the in the supply chains globally.

Eric Mulvin: 31:21
Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, in Phoenix, they’re about sixty billion dollars in building a big semiconductor plant out there with Taiwan. So but I mean, we’re were you aware, or like for me, my first business was the first real business was a taxi company. And the thing that kept me up at night was the risk. You know, we had drivers that would they’d be getting into accidents, the total vehicle, they’d be getting robbed at gunpoint, taking people home at three in the morning. You know, were there any risks that were keeping you up at night with that business, like with manufacturing and you see, we never got to the stage where I completely went mass manufacturing.

Ken Okazaki: 32:00
I got to the stage where we’re hand assembling them, and I was close enough to the situation where I could manage that.

Eric Mulvin: 32:06
Yeah.

Ken Okazaki: 32:06
But the next stage was to produce thousands and thousands. So now here’s the thing. When it comes to manufacturing, there is like understandably, like the market, the industry at like standard is gonna be like if you can get 90% of the product, you know, like up to par, then you’re good. So I’m just thinking, wait, if I produce 10,000, then I gotta deal with a thousand complaints and you know, like possible, you know, lawsuits and stuff. So like even companies like Apple, the stuff gets manufactured in China and then it gets brought to the US and unpacked and individually inspected, then repacked, then shipped to Americans. Oh wow. And like I was just and I was doing all this research, and that’s when I realized I don’t know if I want to do this, because this is a complex product, you know. So I was happy that somebody else, you know, who was better backed and had more of a runway than me was gonna take over the business.

Eric Mulvin: 33:04
Yeah, that’s that’s uh I just find it so crazy we’re able to do it so quickly.

Ken Okazaki: 33:09
It was it was quite fortunate how quickly the deal went through. Yeah. It was a good time. And uh he was person, and this is a testament to like content creation. He was somebody who’s been following me on social media for a long time, maybe like you, and he just loved the way I trained and the material I did and the trainings I did, and I think he even went through my course potentially. But because of that, it was like because it’s you can I want to do it. Not like I wasn’t a stranger who knocks on his door. It’s somebody who’d been following me on social media for some time.

Eric Mulvin: 33:37
Aaron Ross Powell So that whole phrase that you hear all the time, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

Ken Okazaki: 33:42
Yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 33:42
You know, I I’m sure that’s something you’ve seen time and time again through your business career. Or just because of that, your volume of of content, your volume of work you’ve been able to create, you have a big following out there that you don’t really think it’s not that big. It’s not you have a following out there that uh but I mean it can translate into it could.

Ken Okazaki: 34:03
It’s translated to business over and over and over again. So that’s that’s for and one of the things that people do say is I’ve been at it, like content creation, for longer than most people. And I’m not I haven’t blown up to get, you know, like the, you know, these viral sensations. And recently there’s a lot of people who are really blowing up with content creation, and they’ve been at it shorter than me. But then there’s been a lot of people who have spiked and then done something else or quit for whatever reason. And I’ve just been doing it very consistently for about 10 years. So that’s one people, one thing people say is that like, hey, you’ve been around for this long, and it just shows that you seem more trustworthy. Whatever, you know, they they mean by that, I’m not exactly sure. It’s just a dog on a bone. I felt figured out something I’m pretty good at, I just kept going at it.

Eric Mulvin: 34:52
Yeah. Well, I think there’s definitely something to be said for like, you know, being consistent for that long of time is pretty incredible. Content creation, you you’ve been able to coach a lot of people over the years. And you you talked about this, you know, up and down spike, you know, and people burn themselves out trying to do, maybe trying to be something, they’re not who they really are, or whatever the reason is. What’s the biggest reason why people don’t stick with it? They they burn out, they they spike and then they disappear off the map. Yeah.

Ken Okazaki: 35:26
I think they’re not they don’t see results fast enough, and their expectations are not well, their expectations and the amount of effort they make, they don’t match. Like I think people can pop off really quickly if they go really hard at it and they actually do, you know, at least five unique videos per week and they keep going with that. If they do ten, that’s even better. But some people are expecting to put one or two pieces of content out a week and within a month, they’re gonna start seeing results and you know, clients are gonna come knocking on their door. It’s possible, but not likely. Like if we look at averages. So I think managing their expectations is probably the biggest reason I see people give up. Like a lot of people just say, oh, it’s too hard, it’s too stressful. And then I ask them, well, if you were getting $1,000 an hour from social media, would it still feel too hard? It’s like, no. I was like, yeah, exactly. It’s like it’s not too hard. It’s just that your expectations are not meeting the amount of effort that you’re putting in. So that’s probably the biggest one. The second one is people get stuck with the editing part. You know, they do all this work, they get in front of the camera, they set up the gear, just like we have right here, and then afterward, they feel like they’re done, right? And then afterwards they’re just like, oh shoot, we gotta edit. And then after editing, there’s now we gotta make a thumbnail. Now we gotta do the timestamps, now we gotta figure out which platform it goes on and use a scheduling app, and then write a caption. And then after it’s up, then you gotta promote it. Like there’s just a a checklist of a hundred things to do, and people don’t realize how much work that is. And then they try to find an agency. And then a lot of times the agency, they don’t really communicate the vision so well. And then the agency does what they think is right. These guys, you know, look at it and they say, that’s not what I was expecting. The agency’s like, you didn’t tell us that it and then like and then they’re just like, it doesn’t work, I give up, right? So those are some of the typical things I see.

Eric Mulvin: 37:26
That’s interesting. And with switch gears a little bit, you know. You talked a lot of these talked a lot about these different businesses you had. You had kids. How were you able to raise six kids? Was it? Right? Did you say you have six kids? How did you do that?

Ken Okazaki: 37:44
While all credit goes to my wife. All credit goes to my wife. So my job, like, you know, we had to actually have this conversation, which is like, we how are we gonna survive, right? Like, how are we gonna support these guys? And basically, you know, the agreement we had was I just need to worry about making enough money to support us. And she’s going to run the household and you know, do the school visitations and you know, all that other stuff. Of course, I’m involved, but she took the lead on the home front. I took the lead on the money-making front. So we’re a single income family this whole time. So I just had to, you know, make it work financially and and took take the lead there, and she took the lead at home.

Eric Mulvin: 38:26
Now it’s easy to say now looking back, but I mean were there some moments where we’re like, I don’t know about this, this the money thing isn’t working the way I thought it would.

Ken Okazaki: 38:36
Yeah, it’s there’s been some very Yeah, there are low points for sure. I I can’t think of a particular one. We never went hungry, never, you know, like had to, you know, we never kicked out of our house or anything because we couldn’t pay rent. But I had to get very, very creative about where to find money a few times. Yeah, yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 38:59
So how have the your kids inspired you at all for your business?

Ken Okazaki: 39:04
Or have they been any inspiration for any of the many ideas that you’ve You know, when I started the seminar business, I had to sometimes bring on like 40 crew members, you know, volunteer crew. And my kids really wanted to be involved, so they’re there, you know, like really tiny, helping, you know, hand out the worksheets and you know, collect the headsets, you know, for live translation and stuff. That was inspiring to see how enthusiastic they were about getting involved. Um, right now, my my very eldest son, he he works in corporate, but when he was just getting started, like when they finished high school, uh they had a choice. Either they could go on to college or they could find a job, but they can’t sit at home and do nothing. So basically, when they’re in that in-between stage, I’m just like, so if you’re not gonna do what those two things you’re gonna work for me in my business until you figure out what you want to do. And so the first three did that. Now the th my third son, he’s actually still working for me. He’s in charge of the creative side of and he manages my editing team. The other two, they’re they’re they’ve gone off to do other things, but they worked with me for a period of time. They got some training until they figured out what they wanted to do next. So yeah, that’s that’s been inspiring to for them to work with me in the business and and you know, have that experience of having like a family-run business.

Eric Mulvin: 40:27
Yeah. Do you get to work with a lot of family businesses?

Ken Okazaki: 40:31
You mean as clients? Yeah. There’s a couple, not too many. Yeah. Most of my clients are gonna be in the like consulting coaching space. So it’s mostly just like one key person, and they need help with their content and their brand. And usually they’re gonna have a couple assistants or something like that. So but there’s a couple. There’s a couple clients who are like family business run. Yeah. Not the majority.

Eric Mulvin: 41:01
Yeah. We’ve come across that. Like for some whatever reason, me and my wife both have a lot of family-run businesses, and it’s really fascinating. And you got the like the parents and the kids working in the business, and it creates all these interesting dynamics where it’s like the pressure on the kid to like have to perform. So I’m sure you get to see some of that. I don’t know if their like coworkers treat your son differently, or they that they I don’t know, they might ever tell you this stuff, but I hear it sometimes from some of the younger generation. It’s possible.

Ken Okazaki: 41:34
I we all work remotely. So I work from home. My son lives, you know, a couple hours away. He works from home. I’ve got I’ve got somebody else who Yeah, so if there’s drama that happens, I I think that the drama is really reduced when everybody’s you know working remotely. Because there’s no there’s literally no, you know, what do you call it, cooler? What the water cooler tools? Water cooler top, yeah. Like there’s no water cooler. So now it’s like what Skype or Slack. Slack too. Yeah, but then people don’t people are more careful what they say because everything’s on record.

Eric Mulvin: 42:08
Yeah, it seems like in my call center, they they put too much sometimes. I always joke around that uh we could we could start a like TV drama, like the office. The office drama that happens in a workplace. But yeah, that’s I think when you have people in person. So yeah. With all the businesses that you have started, I’m curious. Now I know you didn’t run a business necessarily in the US, but what’s it like running a business in Japan versus you know other countries? I don’t know. I mean you actually did one some in Uganda, so you got to experience operating a business in a whole other country. Yeah.

Ken Okazaki: 42:43
Well, I’ll tell you what. When I started my the current business, the the video production and the agency. Well, it started as a video production business, then we switched to like a remote agency when COVID hit. But I used to serve mostly Japanese clients. And there’s a certain you know how Japanese service is legendary, right? But if you’re the service provider, then that’s a lot of work. Yeah. It’s a lot of work. And there’s there’s so much hand holding, and there’s like they want in-person meetings, they want the a sign-off meeting, and and I thought that was normal, it was to be expected, until I scored a US client. And, you know, we hadn’t done that kind of stuff before, but when we finished the project, they paid the invoice and they’re just like, thanks. And I was just like, that’s it. Like that’s all I have to do. And I thought, okay, this guy is really low maintenance, that’s amazing. But then I got another US client and you know, still doing it remotely. And it was the same experience. And then I started running the numbers in my head and realized, wow, if I don’t have to have Japanese speaking staff, and if I could switch all to English speaking staff and people work remotely, and I work with US or non Japanese clients, like my profits go up, my clock, my cost goes down, and my headaches go down. So this was a you know quite a while ago that I decided on my Japanese client contracts I wasn’t going to renew them. them to somebody else, but I just wanted to work with non-Japanese clients. So that it’s been that way for you know the last eight years probably. And not looking back. So that that’s a little bit of my personal experience working in Japan with a you know but serving you know only foreign clients. Because I don’t have any Japanese speaking staff anymore. I don’t so I I can’t serve Japanese clients anyway unless I’m going to be doing all the support calls which I don’t want to be doing so we’re getting pulled in.

Eric Mulvin: 44:29
So that’s that’s really fascinating. Did do you have any crazy challenges?

Ken Okazaki: 44:38
There were other challenges like you know literally like safety issues. Like we we had to have you know armed guards at our you know at our door to protect us. We I’ve been in situations where there you know we’re in a war zone and uh you know we were getting shot at and stuff. So that that’s the main reason why it wasn’t you know we couldn’t stay there.

Eric Mulvin: 44:59
Wow yeah yeah so that’s okay.

Ken Okazaki: 45:02
Different reasons Uganda it was it was beautiful. The people are really really beautiful really friendly easy to work there easy to do business there.

Eric Mulvin: 45:13
Cool. Is there any particular business or any anything that you’ve ever started that’s like been your favorite favorite one that you’ve done out of everything? Is that like asking what’s your favorite who’s your favorite kid?

Ken Okazaki: 45:27
I don’t know. You know I I think that ever like for example the events business there was there’s a proportion of how much effort and how much reward there is so I’m usually pushing marketing a certain live event for about two months maybe two and a half months and spending a whole bunch of money to get there. And then on the day of the event everybody shows up everybody’s applauding they’re they’re on their you know they’re out they’re standing up on their feet they’re clapping they’re smiling they’re having breakthroughs and I also sell the next program or some back end programs and I make a profit there. So we’re talking about like you know two and a half months of of just slogging it through for one or two days of reward. So that was tough. I didn’t enjoy that very much you know that that it was disproportionate you know the amount of reward for effort right with the coaching business I spend about two hours a week live with my clients in a group setting and they follow the course and I just check in on them and they have their breakthroughs live. That’s a much better you know reward plus reward versus effort. And my marketing is literally just creating organic content and pushing that out through email and social media. So if I look at it that way then I think the coaching business is probably the most rewarding it’s I don’t think that is going to be it’s hard to scale a coaching business past let’s say like $10 million a year. I’m okay with that. You know I’m okay with that. And I’m not, you know, it’s it’s still just growing because you know as the agency is I’m trying to scale back that so I could put more effort into the coaching business. So I’m kind of in a transition right now. Agency business for me it’s uh I with the advent of AI I I pretty much have two options. I could go all in and double down and you know with AI content creation you know like systematize automate everything. But I didn’t really feel it. Like for me content creation was about the human interaction somebody getting better at presenting on camera, at articulating at gesturing at performing and when you take that all away it just kind of takes away the joy or the of the art and just turns it into a digital process. It might grow me but I’ve created some stuff that looked very realistic. I put it on social media nobody to this day has ever commented on one of my posts saying that’s AI isn’t it? Like they can’t tell it’s that good. The voice is good, the the rendering is perfect but I’m not feeling it. Yeah. So I didn’t want to go that route. But uh I am working with uh a few people another business consulting them on launching their own AI twin agency service and we we have a profit share type of arrangement where I just consult because I didn’t want to do it for my agency so I find somebody else and I’ll just consult them and I we share the profits.

Eric Mulvin: 48:24
Well and you get to learn throughout the way like okay hey this is working or exactly maybe not and so yeah. So great. I’m glad you mentioned AI because I wanted to talk to you about that. Because I’ve been doing video since what nonlinear tape deck editing I used to do beta tapes and put them in there and like old schools which you probably got to do some of that too. Yep. And it’s changed so much and so do you feel like this whole thing with AI is this just another iteration like another like okay we’ve got we went from tapes to digital to you know like every time it opens up new doors it brings new people in or do you feel like this is really going to change everything in V It’s already changed everything.

Ken Okazaki: 49:08
It’s it’s never going to go back. The the difference is that the people who embrace the whole you know the digital twin thing and like having a fake version of themselves online it it’s kind of like these you know and TikToks have these these you know weight loss filters and makeup filters forever, right? And then you know a little glitch happens and then this influencer loses you know half a million followers because they realize oh they’re actually fat and ugly. Yeah. Right? So I think it’s a crutch. And what it does is it prevents you from developing the skills or becoming the the person who’s transparent and actually shows up as themselves. So for the people who actually want to get good at presenting and at leading they’re going to actually make the effort to get good on camera. The people who want the shortcut, you know, maybe they don’t actually they don’t they’re not really interested in developing themselves. They just want to make the money. Yeah. Yeah they they could go the AI route but I don’t think that anybody who’s really serious about developing themselves as a leader and as a you know a business person is going to hide behind you know some AI fake version of themselves. I just don’t that’s my opinion. They could still make money it could go viral. I think I think Instagram and YouTube both they recently purged many thousands of channels that were just doing automated AI content. And they’re pretty smart they they can spot it even if the human eye can’t yeah yeah how long ago did you start getting into AI? You know what I was in a conference in November 2022 when ChatGPT was announced. Like I was one of the very I think when I got in then you know it was still by invitation only. I was hooked from day one like just like what’s possible. But I’ve used it as a tool not as a crutch in in the sense that some people are you just read their posts and you could see okay this is like obviously AI generated and I just didn’t want my post to look like that. I didn’t want my scripts to sound like that. I had to hold on to like what is uniquely me and then dig deeper instead of how do I sound better right? So that that those questions have to be separated.

Eric Mulvin: 51:29
Yeah that’s interesting you got into it so early on and I feel like we did too I had a client of ours that was like when it started being released to the public after the people got the early invites like you. So I think we’re 2024 like early 2024 when we got in. So that’s interesting you got in so early when it was really based like the the earliest versions of that and it’s changed so much. You’ve been able to do a lot more like back then it was like just pretty text based and stuff. Were you able to do a lot of transcript and I mean like so I use it most so here’s here’s the way I look at it.

Ken Okazaki: 52:05
It’s like it’s gonna help me do a lot of research and firm up some ideas that I have and then actually help me pinpoint okay out of all like I usually will transcribe or just talk for like 30 minutes to explain the concept or the idea that I have. Then it’ll help me critique it and index it and then give me like some feedback on what’s going to work. So I use it more like a consultant. Yeah. And then I look at it and I say great I’m gonna grab this this and this and then I will script it out myself and then actually shoot the content. Sometimes for short forms like for my clients I have created a lot of AI agents where they just have a conversation and it’ll spit out a script for them. And I always encourage them say this is the starting point you go through and edit and make it sound like you make it yours. Yeah. And then I watch their videos and sometimes they obviously don’t I’m just like come on guys come on. So you know but that’s up to them you know like maybe they don’t have time they just or or they just don’t have the ideas for how to turn that into something a bit more you know unique to them. But the the one phrase that keeps coming back to me is say only what only you can say. And as when it comes to content creation, I just what I shared earlier, like on our conversation about having gone to India, you know, met my wife in Uganda started the business, you know, the gray market jewelry business that’s stuff that AI can’t generate because that’s my lived experience. And I think that as content creators the more you focus on the experiences you had, the unique perspectives you have, this the even the micro experiences like for example, we could just talk about you know something as as minor as you know I hesitated from buying this thing even though I knew I could afford it, but I remembered this thing my dad said when I was a kid, you know, like that’s a micro experience but that feels real.

Eric Mulvin: 53:54
Yeah.

Ken Okazaki: 53:55
And that’s the kind of stuff that your content needs to get wrapped in. Otherwise you’re gonna sound like everybody else just trying to sound clever you know like Gandhi or Mother Teresa or Steve Jobs or Alex Hormozy. Like it’s so generic. And you you can’t give generic advice if you’re not famous yet. It’s true.

Eric Mulvin: 54:13
Yeah.

Ken Okazaki: 54:13
If if you’re not famous yet you have to rely on your lived experience as the anchor point to get people interested to listen to what you actually have to say. Once you have you know a million 10 million followers you could say anything, oh wow, that’s so clever. And probably a hundred other people already said that before but you’re already famous so you get credit.

Eric Mulvin: 54:34
Yeah. That’s funny. One thing I talk a lot about and especially in a call like I’m in the call center space AI is severely disrupting you know stuff like that. We talk about this concept AI plus HI where you can’t just use AI. You have to bring in the human intelligence part and when you do both you can go so much further. Talk to me a little bit about that. I’m sure that’s something I mean I’m hearing the same concept as you’re explaining everything here about um because I I have a phrase I always tell my staff like if you you if you use chat GPT for everything you give you write your emails you do that and you don’t put any like you said you got to go in there and make it sound like you if you just do that then I could replace you with chat GPT. Yeah and I I don’t need you anymore. So talk to me about how important it is for that HI component especially with video marketing with with something that’s so that personal when you’re out there sharing stories about yourself.

Ken Okazaki: 55:31
Yeah so AI artificial intelligence right we’ve already gotten to the point you know what do they call it the the Kapersky moment where you know deep blue beat the best human chess right and people thought that wouldn’t be possible and that was you know what 30 years ago or something right? Yeah now the moment has come where every form of measurable intelligence has been surpassed by AI over humans. But just not like but the reason why it’s still considered inferior is because the component that’s missing, you call it HI, I call it wisdom. You’ve got intelligence and wisdom they’re not the same thing. How to apply the intelligence is what humans can do. They can make an actual judgment call. Humans have a gut feeling is this the right thing or the wrong thing to do? Does it feel right? Does it feel wrong? Does it feel fake? Does it feel real? AI does not have feelings. So like wisdom is where you want to focus your energy because intelligence has already been you know like general intelligence AI is faster it does it forgets a lot less but as you know it will lie to you every chance it gets to try to get away from it if they could get away with it because they don’t have wisdom. So I think that if you’re leading a team or clients and you’re gonna talk about this, you have to really double down on something called wisdom. And if you can get people to focus on using the intelligence wisely then that’s that’s the the winning combination right there.

Eric Mulvin: 57:10
Yeah that’s that’s great advice so for people listening bring in that wisdom you sold the other business you’re still running businesses. What’s what keeps pushing you forward right now?

Ken Okazaki: 57:24
That’s a good question. I think my priorities are really shifting number one because my kid, my youngest has just moved out right we’ve got a big house feeling very empty especially empty because my wife actually flew with my youngest one to France so she’s been gone for the last couple weeks. Oh I’m experiencing like okay this is what it feels like to be a real empty nest. She’ll be back soon. But the other thing is my oldest son just got married about three weeks ago. Oh congratulations. So that means I’ll probably be a grandfather sometime soon. And and I also sold my first business. So I think that right now I’m you know my priority is the coaching business because that’s something that I can see myself doing. It’s it’s one of those kind of sp like golf. It’s a sport that doesn’t necessarily decline with age. Not too much at least right and I feel like the the longer I do it the more I coach people the better I’ll get at it. And I can and I still really enjoy doing that. And that also gives me the freedom to travel anywhere. Like with GoBox there was you know f a lot of physical limitations. I didn’t necessarily have to be there but there was you know like warehousing and like a lot of logistics. Coaching is is lightweight. So what’s my priority? What keeps me going I think it used when I started it was all about surviving like making sure that all my kids and everybody was provided for right and then putting you know money into investments whenever possible now I think I have to it’s about proving to myself that I actually really I’m not sure actually. I think I think I’m at an inflection point. I’m trying to figure that out. Yeah yeah I think I I think I’ll land on it. What I do know is I’ll I’ll keep the coaching business going. I’ll keep the agency going for as long as you know my current clients need me. But I do think that simplifying my life is what’s already happening naturally and I think it’s gonna keep happening to where there’s going to be a lot less hooks in me, you know, like obligations to different parties and you know locations and times. And maybe gaining back that freedom I had of just a lot less commitments and just fewer things that I could focus more of my energy into. Now that sounds simple but with ADHD sometimes I end up overcommitting to to stuff. So we’ll see how this journey goes.

Eric Mulvin: 01:00:09
Yeah that’s the thing about being an entrepreneur you never know I mean I have this belief that like I mean you don’t know who’s gonna call you tomorrow and you’re everything can change. It’s possible. Yeah and that’s the fun and exciting part and a scary part too can go both ways but usually you know if you keep pushing forward it’s usually in the positive trajectory. Yeah yeah then I think it it’s time for my last question here then to ask you about and I think it’s a good interesting spot here where you’re talking thinking about the future and the businesses that you do have is there any what’s what’s your unfinished business? What’s something out there that you’re you’re you want to get accomplished still in your career I think that something I’ve never done yet is get a business to run completely without me.

Ken Okazaki: 01:01:07
I mean I did sell Go Box but while I was in it I was still the center of everything. And to fully own a business but to not be in the operations at all that’s something I haven’t done. And I’d really like to do that with the agency completely. And that’s something I’d like to I’d like to get to and that would be amazing because then I wouldn’t need to I wouldn’t feel like I need to scale down the agency. I want to get out of the agency because it’s it’s just another commitment. But if I own it but don’t need to run it that would be a dream. Yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 01:01:59
Yeah you go then you can spend time with the grandkids the future grandkids out in Paris so cool. Well thank you so much for inviting me out to this beautiful place and for letting me get to talk to you about your your journey and and I’m excited to see since you’re at this inflection point maybe we’ll get a chance to talk again in a couple years and see where you’re at and how you were able to navigate this the the journey ahead. So all right well for people who would like to learn more about your coaching like to learn more about your agency where can they follow you? What’s the best way to get in touch?

Ken Okazaki: 01:02:37
You know probably the best way is just find me on Instagram or Facebook at Ken Okazaki there’s no spaces K-E-N-O-K-A-Z-A-K-I. My agency is 20x agency so 20xa.co and those are probably the best places to find out about what I’m doing.

Eric Mulvin: 01:02:53
Okay awesome well thank you guys all for watching and if you like to hear more stories like Ken here today then please make sure that you follow and subscribe at BizWithEric on social media or look for the Unfinished Business podcast with Eric Mulvin on Spotify, iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to podcasts and until next time we’ll catch you on the next episode of Unfinished Business.

Eric Mulvin: 01:03:15
See you later the world’s changing fast we’re talking to business leaders who adapt, innovate and keep moving forward because nobody’s business is ever finished this is unfinished business with Eric Mulvin took my last check from Yelp turned it into a taxi ride earned my street NBA lessons you can’t buy six LSPs laid a back bids at new heights now I’m talking with leaders about the unfinished business tonight with people attack connected moving intelligence for AI the launch too high close to learn why studios and visionaries shaping what’s to come building more than profit lifting everyone every path unique but it takes a choice to grow set your goals and shape the way your future goes for the tech connect to amplify intelligence with AI ghost that launch you high foot learn why with the tech connect to amplify moving intelligence with AIDS ghost that launch you high ghost and you’ll learn why subscribe look for subscribe look subscribe look for this with this with Derek online and follow unfinished business on Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube wherever you listen