Why ADD Might Be Your Greatest Superpower in Business
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You know, let's talk about the ADD side, because, you know, I want to talk about that. We've never done this on an episode. I started the flight school, Rudy, because I was denied that when I was a kid. We're essentially four-year-olds still walking around making decisions. Our emotional intelligence pretty much developed then about what we're going to like, what we're not going to like, how we'll react to things.

And that always stays, it never goes away. You're buying three more airplanes right now, expanding the businesses there. You're a speaker as well. You have all these brands. What advice would you give them? The advice I would give anybody that's out there, that the law of averages works if you work it. You have to make that decision to not give up and keep moving. What's one powerful marketing or business lesson that you wish you knew earlier or that's been a massive part of your success? The power of the...

My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life. Joining me today is Jeannie Satt here in our office. We're here for a private event and we're going to dive into his life,

and his story. He's a speaker, he's an entrepreneur like all of us, has a lot of fun, an author, best-selling author. And we're going to talk about why ADD is actually a superpower and how he broke free from this typical sort of nine to five curse, you know, work hard, get a degree, get a job. And now he's, you know,

Some would say living the dream, lots of businesses, some of which are very fun, flying his airplanes around and all that sort of stuff. So welcome to the show. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here today. So there's a lot to unpack there, but I love the concept of...

which I think most people listening who are entrepreneurs agree is like, you know, you grow up in a normal family. You get told, hey, if I work hard, get a degree and just, you know, I can get a good job with a degree and live a nice life. In reality, you find out that's not the truth. Right. And it's a bad thing that we get trapped in, right? Because it's easy to get caught in. Most people get comfortable. If you grew up like most people like me, I grew up in a middle class family.

So at the end of the day, I had no reason to strive. If I could just model myself after what dad did and just stay comfortable, I didn't really have a reason to strive for anything. And I know part of your story is you have a degree in psychology. Correct. Right. And that's I guess somewhat links to, you know, now you speak and stuff on ADD and why that's so important. You understand the psychology of how that can actually be a superpower and be a great thing for an entrepreneur. Yeah.

Absolutely. But before that, after the psychology degree, you didn't go on and become this like top sports psychologist or psychologist. You went and worked in a donut shop. Correct. After you'd been sold the dream of college. Right. So when was the moment you realized, wait, this isn't quite what I signed up for? I'm very thankful to say it was almost immediately after I got my degree. I was working midnights, like I said, at a donut place and I was making about 16 bucks an hour.

And everyone said, well, you got your degree. Go start applying. And I did. And I wound up with an offer of $10.42 an hour to be a counselor for it was like at a halfway house for kids that had been in trouble with the law that were trying to get integrated back into society. Well, and that's a great like a fulfilling like it's a good job, right? You're doing a good thing. It is. Maybe not for you at $10 an hour. Well, what had happened was when I interviewed the guy was he was ex-military.

And so one of the things that happened was he said, I said, what do you really do? He said, well, we create change here. And I said, well, how do you create change? And he said, we cut their hair and give them a uniform.

And I said, well, that's, you can force change on somebody, but if somebody doesn't want to change, they'll tell you yes for a while to get away from you. And then they'll go back to doing whatever they want to do. And I think that was pretty much the end of the, he didn't agree with me. And that's the prison system. A lot of times. Really? That's what I looked at. I'm like, you're kind of imprisoning these kids for whatever, you know, the two years they got to be here or whatever. And then they're out. And then the next place I went was actually a counseling center for grief and things like that. And they told me I was overqualified. Fast forward to today. Um,

You now have several businesses doing millions of dollars a year, good profit margins, great businesses. One of them is a very unique and innovative flight school. And what I love is you've kind of brought the marketing to the world of flight schools, right? Which are probably more of an old-fashioned, you know, like people are still writing you checks to pay for their aircraft repairs sort of thing. Absolutely, yeah.

And we talked about today at our private event about doing this, you know, learn to fly for a dollar sort of, right? And I love that you're open to that because it's cool to add marketing to these old-fashioned businesses. But can you just talk about the kind of businesses you've grown and what you're up to these days? Sure. So one of the things I started, luckily for me, my mom was really good. She had an eye for detail. Mm-hmm.

And so I went into the auto industry. I'm from Michigan, and almost everything there is linked to automotive. So I went into the auto industry, and I began to figure out pretty quickly that I could catch problems before they became larger problems. I got involved with a few companies, and like I said, I became a yes man for a lot of the engineering staff. I would look out for problems and bring them to their attention when we would find them.

From that, it was whenever a new product came in or there was a new component to be added to a vehicle every year, they add something new. Right. When you think what else can they add, they come out with something else. Well, people would they would go tell the new designers and producers these parts. Go talk to Gene. He's the guy we want in here.

And it just became a thing. I couldn't be everywhere. I couldn't be at Warren Truck Assembly. I couldn't be at Sterling. I couldn't be. And I had to start hiring people and training them of what I was doing as I gained trust of these engineers and these people that wanted me in these positions.

To today, we now have people working in Illinois, Indiana, and Kansas, and Tennessee, and Ohio, and Michigan, and California, and Texas. And there's no way I could be at all those places. Sure. Right? So I had no choice but to hire and start training people and get people involved. And from there, you get a network of people. And fortunately, you run into people that are like you, that are like-minded, and they want the best product out there for the customer. Right.

And so in using that, I've been able to hire people and get people out of state that I would never have been able to reach out to or have anything to do with. Well, what's cool too about what you've done is like, not only have you brought the marketing business mind to the flight school for you to grow it, but you're now kind of like,

doing it on a level where you're just adding in all these instructors, filling their calendars, right? And it's kind of like, you know, I came from the personal training world. So it's like, you're the gym owner and the great market to fill in the gym. And you just keep adding personal trainers to date the clients. And they just love training. They have no clue how to get clients.

or whatever. And a lot of them don't want to. Yeah, yeah. You find a lot of them, they don't want the responsibility. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's not that difficult, but it seems like a big thing, right? If you don't know everything. Oh, yeah, it's magic. It's magic, right? How do you get all these, you know, my calendar's full, you know? Like when you brought up the idea about the $1 flight, why didn't I think of that? But you can't see the picture when you're in the frame. And I thought, in fact, I've already talked to Matt, who we talked about a little bit, and I told him, he's like,

Oh my gosh, we'll have this plane making money in no time. This is your kind of right-hand guy. And yeah, Matt's my right-hand guy at the other business that I run there at the airport. Immediately, he got on board. He's like, he goes, yeah, he goes, we'll lose a few bucks up front. He's like, but geez, he goes, the overall outcome of that...

And the fact is, I started the flight school, Rudy, because I was denied that when I was a kid. I thought I wanted to go fly planes. And it's not something they discuss in high school. It's not something a lot of people don't know. You could leave high school and go get a job as an air traffic controller with no degree. They'll train you on the spot. And it's 20 and out. You retire with a full pension, full benefits, full everything.

I could have been retired at 37 years old. Yeah, pilots get paid well, too, from what I hear. Yeah, at 37, I could have been retired. And nobody mentions this. It's go to college, go to college, right? So I wanted to fly planes. I thought, you go to the military. And so I go to the military because I have ADD. They go, get out of here, kid. You're not what we're going to be able to take.

And I didn't take no for an answer. I went to the Navy. I went to the Air Force. I went to everybody that, you know, I thought would teach me how to fly a plane until we were at a relative's function, family reunion from my wife. And her uncle flew private. And I asked, I said, how did you get this job? Like, I was just still intrigued by it. And he goes, go to your local airport. Somebody will take you up. And I'm like, you're kidding. Because he flew like...

He got paid to sit around, and if they needed somebody to go, he would go get the plane out, fly him wherever, and fly him back. But he was on retainer. Let's talk about the ADD side because I want to talk about that. We've never done this on an episode, but I think I have it. My half-sister has it. I'm friends with Richard Branson, and he's a big advocate for,

And I think there's... We're very intelligent human beings. Yeah, there's more and more people that it's like coming out kind of the woodwork, right? To say, you know, actually it's great. And a lot of famous entrepreneurs, you know, are saying how great it is. So let's talk about it. You know, for someone listening that doesn't understand what it is, can you explain what it is in a kind of 30-second summary? And why can it be a superpower? Why should it be seen as not a bad thing? Well, in a 30-second summary, I would tell you it's...

Your mind tends to skip to what's important right now or what it'll do. It's an amazing feat that it'll actually keep things functioning in the background. And you may see something that solves a problem.

of something you thought about two weeks ago because it's skipping around all it, but it's never forgetting what you were thinking about. Right. So in the background, you're running this program essentially that you don't know is there. Yeah. And people think like, well, he can't pay attention. He's skipping to this or skipping to that. And you're really solving problems. Yeah. Yeah. I always explain it. Like when I talk to people, I'm like, I have like two universes happening at once. I'm like, I'm listening to you or whatever. But then like, there's another universe in my brain that's,

off somewhere else doing something else. Right, it's solving some problem somewhere else. Yeah, about business or maybe what I'm having for dinner or whatever that might be. Whatever my next thing I want releases. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So why do you think it's got such a bad taboo or seen as a condition in the normal society?

It got seen that way, I believe, because in the classroom they didn't know what to do with these kids, right? There was a cookie-cutter type mentality that kids learn a certain way. And I agree with that. Like, we all need to know math. We all need to know how to read. There are certain things. And I guess if it's just an average teacher with 30 kids in a classroom. They're looking at this kid. Three of them can't pay attention. Those three have a problem, right? And I was considered special needs. Well, I love the word, actually. It's funny growing up, you know, I remember.

I wasn't special needs, but, you know, there would be a kid or two in your classroom that was and they needed extra help or whatever. And sadly, they were kind of seeing us weird almost. Well, I mean, at a lack of offending anybody, I was called retarded as a kid. Yeah. And they called it learning disabled. But it's sad because, like, to me, special is such a great word. Like, I want to be. I am special. I don't want to be like everybody. I want to be different. Special is a great word. So it's a shame that it was, you know, as kids, because you're such a...

As an adult, when you become a millionaire and an entrepreneur, you can be very confident and stuff. It's a different kind of special, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you want to be special and you want to be different. But sadly, as a kid, you're kind of ingrained to not want to be. It's used as a negative. Yeah, you want to be like everyone else. And if you're called special...

If you pulled out like how I was, it was, you know, go to the resource room because of this or that. And that's the sort of stuff Richard Branson is trying to change the narrative. Because, yeah, I mean, as a kid, you're so impressionable, right? And then obviously kids bully and say, you know. You know, when you look at from neuroscience, so I got involved with the Neuroencoding Institute. I'm a dual-lead neuroencoder now.

And from there, what you find out is we're essentially four year olds still walking around making decisions. Our emotional intelligence pretty much developed then about what we're going to like, what we're not going to like, how we'll react to things. And that always stays. It never goes away. Well, I actually say in my documentary, I'm just a big kid at heart, likes to have fun and, you know.

It's made my businesses around fun, and you fly planes. Right. It was funny. I was talking to one of your people, and they asked me, and I said, no, my father always said, great, at least I'll never grow up. And he said, when you get older, your toys just get bigger. I said, I don't think he knew that I was going to have four airplanes and have this. But it's true. They're just bigger toys. I just never stopped chasing those fun-type things. And talking of four-airplanes...

Leaving this event, you're actually buying three more. Right. We've talked about it. Yeah. And we're looking at it. I've already kind of put the word out to my right hand man. Hey, don't stop looking for airplanes. Yeah. We're going to keep expanding. So how does it feel to go, you know, you're buying three more airplanes right now, expanding the businesses there. You're a speaker as well. You have all these brands. How does it feel going from...

serving donuts post degree for $15 an hour. You know what's funny is there's still a sense of pride about that for me, right? As bad as it may be, people relied on me for their breakfast some. Okay. Right? So if I didn't go to work and make the donuts per se, but I also had that. I don't even know where I got it. I think I got it from my dad. As a kid, when I lived in Hawaii for a while, I used to build stairs for apartment complexes. And I've actually talked to my wife. I said, you know, it's weird to think that all these years later, now you can look at Google Earth.

These buildings that I worked in are still standing and somebody relies on those stairs to go up and go to bed at night or to go tuck their kid in or to do. And it's like, and I was part of that. Now I'm not looking for like, no one's going to throw a banquet in my behalf. Right. But it's neat to know that I played some role in making somebody's life easier. But it's cool. You have that mindset, like even these somewhat mundane tasks or jobs. Right. I mean, yeah. They'll see them as for good. There's value in it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. There's value in it. And it's just how you look at it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So so if someone's listening right now, say they have kids that, you know, maybe are going through the school system. Right. And maybe, you know, I'll get in labeled. What advice would you give them? I would give them the ideas that they need to let those kids be kids, let them be kids and nurture whatever ideas they're after.

Right. My father used to let me nurture anything that I wanted to go try his his mantra with me. And I think it's what served me well all these years was you can do it even if it's never been done. You can do it. And it's true. And you look at like today stuff we never would have imagined. I mean, just from when I grew up through the 70s and the 80s and stuff I look at today and I think, wow, this is some of the stuff we have.

Who would have ever thought we had these things? And it'll be the same in another 30 years. And in 30 more years, right. Like we've talked about a little bit about how AI will be taking over, you know, doing CNC work and flying planes and doing all these different things. Yeah, yeah. You know, so what will humans be doing? What will we be doing? Well, I think the...

The entrepreneurial humans will be doing... Like, I see AI as... The entrepreneurial humans will be doing even greater things. Right. Because it's just like... To me, AI is just like building employees below you that allows you to do your greater purpose, right? Or your greater superpower. And I really see AI as...

the same for a small percent of the population. I think it's more concerning for the rest of the population that don't function that way that we'll be losing some jobs. But I agree with you, and I think that the neat thing about AI used properly is the fact that it'll allow us to start using our imaginations again, right? There's a large scale of our society out there that stopped using it.

And they kind of think like, well, everything already exists. Everything doesn't exist already. There are things that we don't know that we need yet. Most inventions, as you know, are just improvements on something that existed already. Yeah, yeah.

Interesting. So last couple of questions for you. I always like to ask this. If you could go, talking about technology, if you could go in a time machine and go back to your younger self, right? Starting out as an entrepreneur, what tips would you give yourself? That's a great question. So I was asked this question, what would I go back and change or what would I tell my younger self?

The hard answer is I wouldn't change a thing. I wouldn't tell my younger self anything because it would change everything that I've become. Okay. Well, let's ask tips to an entrepreneur, a young entrepreneur. And so the tip to the young entrepreneur is chase every and anything you can and chase it to the full extent. Throw your heart over the fence and your body will follow.

Go after it with everything. For crying out loud, I mean, I probably am not going to be able to name the company, but when I was a kid, there was a certain automotive company I wanted to work for. They went defunct in 1983. Guess what I do today? I build parts for that company. They do still exist on some level, and they've actually got me building components for their vehicles. So I just kept chasing whatever it was I wanted until I had it. And a lot of people get to a point where they stop, and they think maybe this is just not going to happen or something.

But there's so people talk about Murphy's Law. One of the things I give in some of my speeches is Murphy's Law is what it's anything bad can happen will in the most inopportune time. But there's the law of averages, too. And the law of averages is if I keep going and I keep doing the right things and I change approaches that don't and I keep going, I succeed. I have to. There's no other way around it.

The law of averages works both ways. It's not a one-way street, right? And that's the advice I would give anybody that's out there, that the law of averages works if you work it. You have to make that decision to not give up and keep moving.

Love that. Okay, next question I always like to ask. So we talked about all the different businesses, right? What's one powerful marketing or business lesson that you wish you knew earlier or that's been a massive part of your success? The power of the internet. Like I just, I often feared away from it. I shied away because I didn't understand it. It was something that I didn't

I don't know that I couldn't learn it. I don't know that I wanted to take the time to try to learn it. I always kind of felt like I could probably hire somebody else to do this, right?

But the fact is you can reach so many people so much faster, especially social media. I admit I have never I was asked today in your course today, you know, how often are you posting? And I just had to chuckle. And I said, when necessary, you know, it's one. And I do. When you're paying your taxes. Right. When necessary. You know, like when we moved, I did a bunch of posts about us moving. I did.

When we have offered some stuff at the flight school, I'll post about that. But I don't do it regularly. And now with algorithms and all these things, if you don't do that, you're not being engaged for anything. Yeah, good. And I think that's so important, obviously, to a lot of listeners that have online businesses. The Internet's obvious, but you're coming from a flight school, right? More of a local business.

Maybe sort of old fashioned sort of business where they're still writing checks, you know. So I think it's so good for a lot of local businesses. They've got where they've got to from 10, 20 years of community grind, like being known in the community, building relationships, activations.

But really, they could grow 10 times faster if they learned the Internet. It's hands down because we discussed a little bit earlier. You know, I have obviously Matt that works for me, and he is by himself, never really posted online, barely has a Facebook page. And he's a bit of a celebrity if you go out there looking for him. And we have guys that will come to us from Mississippi and Tennessee and India.

We don't know how these guys even found out. Well, they heard about Matt on the internet. They saw some post somebody else said about him to go talk to this guy. And so if you harness that power, it would be, I can't even imagine where that business would be now. I mean, I've had the company for seven years, but had I started harnessing that sooner,

That is one probably regret I have. Okay, good. And last question then. So if someone wants to, you're an author with Les Brown and you have these amazing speeches you give, right? And people can book you to speak to. And then these businesses, if someone wants to go learn about all those things, where do they find you? You can find me at therealgene.com. My email address is therealgene01 at gmail.com.

But if you Google my name in Amazon and you'll find my books there, you'll find my Les Brown book that, you know, him and I co-authored that book. You'll find a lot if you just Google my name. I think you made the challenge one day about have you ever Googled yourself? And I did one day and I'm like, oh, my gosh. And like, it's nice because I think and it's me.

There's all this stuff out there about who would have ever thought there was all this stuff. You know, the kid that allegedly, you know, my junior high school counselor told my parents, don't expect much out of this kid, you know. And I mean, I hope that he's I hope he's listening out there. Like he's thinking like, what were we thinking when we said this, you know?

But yeah, that would be the thing I would probably go to. Good. All right, guys. Well, that's a wrap. Hopefully that was helpful, especially if, you know, you're either have a child or yourself have ADD and maybe not seen it as a superpower, which, you know, we both think it is and many successful entrepreneurs do. And if you're, you know,

have a local business that's maybe a bit more old school. Like go check out what he's doing with the flight stuff because it's really, you know, it's great to bring this cool, sexy marketing stuff we do into an old school business. And he's getting the results. He's literally buying three more airplanes now because he's so full from all the marketing he's doing. So that's a wrap. Check him out and I'll see you guys soon. As always, keep living the red life. Take care.