Episode 014 – Richard Jaffe and Charly Jaffe

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Richard Matthews 0:01
Hello, welcome back to the show. I’ve got a special episode for you guys today. I’ve got two people on the line. I’ve got Richard and Charly Jaffe, they are a father and daughter team. You guys here. Can you say hi?
Richard Jaffe 0:14
Hi.
Charly Jaffe 0:15
Hi.
Richard Matthews 0:16
Hello, welcome to the show. Let me do a quick little bio for you guys so everyone knows who you are. First off, we’ll start with you. Richard. Richard was the co-founder of Nutri-Foods International, which was a frozen novelties company and SafeSkin Corp, which is medical devices, both of which you took public on NASDAQ and sold to fortune 100 companies. So both companies develop number one selling products in their categories nationwide. You currently write and speak and mentor young entrepreneurs starting and scaling new ventures, which sounds super cool, I can’t wait to get to talk a little bit about your story. And then Charly, you are a storyteller and a captivating advocate for mental and emotional health with a background spanning industries and continents. You’ve produced stories for BBC, ran an Australian yoga school, which is like that’s a random thing to have done. And award-winning Google strategist and you’re currently a crisis counselor and graduate student in Columbia University Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology.
Charly Jaffe 1:19
Yeah,
Richard Matthews 1:19
Awesome. So what I want to do real quick, is dive into what you guys are known for. Now, I know you guys just launched a book called Turning Crisis Into Success. So tell me a little bit about what your guys’ business looks like today. Well, you guys are known for.
Richard Jaffe 1:35
Go ahead, Charly.
Charly Jaffe 1:37
Great. And so yeah, so we just had the privilege of launching our book, Turning Crisis Into Success, where we really decided to sort of take a step back and look at essentially building a mind for happiness and success. A lot of times people see that as two different paths. And in my dad’s experience of building and selling these companies, he really found “No.” It’s actually building up the inner space that gave him the tools to find external success. And one of the really beautiful things that we found along the way was that the same tools that allowed him to sort of be relentlessly high-flying, were the exact tools that really help me climb out of holes that I was in from personal crisis.
is teaching and speaking and supporting people on their own hero’s journeys.

Richard Matthews 2:32
Absolutely, that’s really cool. So what I want to do then, real quick, is talk about your origin story. I want to do this. This is interesting because I’ve never had two people on the story before–on the show before. So the origin story, I say every hero has an origin story. So we’re like, where have you started to realize that maybe you were different that maybe you had superpowers that maybe you could use those to help other people? Alright, so I’m going to start with Richard. When did you sort of realize that you had maybe a different set of skills than those people around you? And you were going to get into this whole entrepreneurship game? How did that story start for you?

Richard Jaffe 3:05
You know, I’m not sure I ever realized that I have superpowers. I would say that I am very persistent. And I don’t like to lose. So I grew up very competitive. And I just never give up. And you know, you just keep going. So I guess when I came out of a Cornell and started the Italian ices business, we almost failed multiple times. But the real issue was, you know, “How do you keep going?” It was until I really learned how to focus on solutions, and not on problems that I was able to climb out of some very big holes, I have this unwavering capability of creating big holes and climbing out of it, at life. But they’re all lessons, they teach me things. So I think that you know, one of the things that really helped me throughout my career in business, is I’ve always hired very smart people who learn fast. So I never tried to do myself, I always, you know, surrounded myself with some really good smart people, and allowed them the leeway to, to show me what they know and help me get out of things.

Richard Matthews 4:18
Yeah, that’s really cool. I’ve actually just started doing that, in my business, I have my first person in my company and realizing that he’s smarter than I am at all things. So I’m like, I should have done this way sooner.

Richard Jaffe 4:30
Which, the real secret is, I think that I was very blessed. I worked with my father for 25 years. And he was a great mentor, in the sense of, I sat in on phone calls. He truly allowed me to fail and try my own things. And so I learned as I went along, but I think you know, really, even as the companies got bigger, into multi, hundreds of millions of dollars, I hire people who are smarter than me in any one area. But I was able to see the entire picture. So I was able to communicate the vision, you know, where we’re going. And what I learned is when we identify what the goal is, and where we’re going, and how to measure it, then you have to allow people to figure out how to get there on their own. So I can’t have other people do it my way. They have to do it their own way. As long as we have the same goals and measurements, people find better ways to get places sometimes than I do.

Richard Matthews 5:26
Yeah, absolutely. I’m learning that. I’ve been building processes and documentation–everything for our company. I’m trying to leave them as open-ended as possible. And it’s like, “This is the goal, figure out how it gets done.” So it’s been really helpful.

Richard Jaffe 5:43
The key is, you have to hire smart, capable people. If you give in to incapable people, well, you’re going to go in a bad direction. So you gotta be careful with that. You delegate, you don’t abdicate.

Richard Matthews 5:53
Yeah, absolutely. So I want to flip that over to you, Charly. Charly, you have an even interested–more interesting than a lot of people, you were raised by someone who’s running multi-hundred million dollar companies. What has that done for your story of entrepreneurship and your origin story to be brought up sort of in a, you know, in a world that’s full of entrepreneurship? Because that’s not something that many of us had the blessing of having?

Charly Jaffe 6:18
Yeah, absolutely. So I would say, you know, my education with it started around the dinner table. And I think one of the greatest gifts that I got from my dad, was the sense where he was always sort of pushing me and challenging me and trying to get me to make those decisions and have those thoughts. So I was, you know, at a very young age, I was told, “One day, when you’re running your own company.” So it really expanded my horizons of what’s possible. But it also gave me that practice in trying to solve problems. And so I’ve always had a very analytical mind, but I think it really helped push me in that direction. But I think it really instilled a sense of daring, of not needing to fit into boxes, but really seeing the value of thinking differently, of coming up with different ideas and solutions. And I think sometimes that’s led to some adventures that maybe were beyond what my parents expected. They didn’t bank on me getting quite so adventurous with it. But I really see it as something that has bled into not just entrepreneurship, which I’ve gotten to experience, but also within academia, within storytelling, within the world of emotional health. Essentially, everything I do has this thread of, you don’t need to stand on the fact–you don’t need to do things the way everyone has always done it, there’s actually a huge value to questioning.

Richard Matthews 7:39
Yeah, so you, you’ve sort of taken that entrepreneur mindset and applied it to places that don’t generally have that entrepreneur mindset, like part of like, academia, particularly is not typically an entrepreneurial field, but you’re bringing that to up to academia, which is cool.
Charly Jaffe 8:00
The interesting thing is that I grew up with parents who were very loving and supportive. So I never worried about failing, I knew if I fail, I just get up and try again. And they were very supportive and things like that. And even in our relationship with Charly and our other children, you know, no matter how much you try, you fall down–failure. You know, defeat is when you get knocked down failure is when you don’t get up. So the ability to keep continue to try something new. And realize that you separate your self-worth from your activities. Okay. And that you’re still a good person, you still love yourself, whether you fail or whether they fall down and not. That ability to be loved. And still, get back up again and try again, is really, really important. The ability to separate who we are from what we do.

Richard Matthews 8:54
So I want to take the question, just a little off topic here. Because we got a unique situation here. Most of our listeners on the show are fellow entrepreneurs, a lot of them, like myself, have children, if you had a single piece of advice you’d give to, to a fellow parent who is trying to raise their children to be entrepreneurs or at least thinks like an entrepreneur, what would what would that advice be?

Richard Jaffe 9:19
Wow, that’s a big question. You know, I think one of the things I always say is that we don’t own our kids, we guide them. So each child is different. And so the idea is, how do we fill them with enough love and enough self-confidence that they can follow whatever passion they find. It’s not easy to find passion. But if you find it, you’ve got to explore it, and you just love them as hard as you can and let them do what they need to do. Knowing there’s a safe place to land. You know, each child is different. They have different aptitudes, different skill sets, but it’s our role is to encourage them to try things. And I always tell our–even our mid-20s, a daughter, that you learn what you don’t like before you learn what you do like. So it’s just a matter of trying. And most of the time you talk to any successful entrepreneur, they got there because of someone they met. Someone inspires you, someone… So you open your door up, you have to be open to the universe to allow it to provide things. I always believe that bad things happen to me because there are lessons to learn. And they keep happening until I learned the lessons and they stop and other bad things happen. So life is just

Richard Matthews 10:30
…until lesson learned.

Richard Jaffe 10:32
Yeah, but then, but then other things happen. So not to get surprised, and have expectations that we just do our best. And then we get the next day and do it again. So with children, you know, sometimes it’s…it really is, they get so focused on success. And the it’s just about giving your best effort and being open to getting help. I think a lot of times, and Charly talks about this, you know, is allowing people to help you.

Charly Jaffe 11:00
Yeah, and I will, I would also say, you know, when we talk about opening the door, I think when Yeah, I’m not a parent yet. But oftentimes, when we’ve found this really incredible path, we want to share it with people, but then we kind of become attached to those people following the same path we’ve been on. And I think with you, as a parent, as an entrepreneur, one thing that my parents did really well, is they opened a lot of doors for me, but they didn’t tell me which one I had to go down. And I think that’s one of the really valuable things. Because some of the lessons that were shared with me when I was you know, in my early teens, I did listen to for years, but they were like planting seeds. When seeds are planted, they can bloom into something great. But if we say I’m going to judge the success of the seed by how it shows up tomorrow, a lot of that would look like a failure. So being able to have the time and the freedom to support that path and realize that a lot of times the big failures, and the setbacks are actually the foundation for the best piece of the story.

Richard Jaffe 12:02
Charly found doors we could never even dream of. So

Richard Matthews 12:07
it’s crazy, because that’s one of the things that I worry about with my kids all the time. It’s not really a worry, but it’s more like, I don’t want to force them into saying like, “You should do what I did because what I did you know what, that’s my story.” I want them to, you know, to write their own story, and just have the skill sets and the advantages that maybe I didn’t have growing up. Because, you know, that’s the kind of stuff that you can teach them and give them.

Charly Jaffe 12:33
Like I…it was interesting…for a while, I didn’t want to go near entrepreneurship, because he had done it. And then eventually I did on my own accord. I didn’t want to go near poetry, because that was his thing. And then when I found it on my own accord, I developed this beautiful relationship with it. So even if you end up choosing that path, when it’s an active choice versus feeling pushed into it, the results can be such different realities.

Richard Matthews 12:58
Yeah, it’s super awesome. So speaking of things that are super, the next part of the hero’s journey is having your superpowers. And that’s what you do or build, or offer this world to help solve problems for other people the things that you guys use specifically to help slay this world’s villains? So I’m going to put this to both of you guys Richard, you first, what do you say your superpower is that really helped you build the businesses that you built?

Richard Jaffe 13:24
You know, as I said, it’s really hiring smart people who learn fast. I think it’s really a passion for satisfying customers. I am, you know, everyone has different skill sets. Mine is sales, and closing, you know, closing big deals. But that’s because I’ve really learned to listen to customers–to love customers, I just love satisfying customers. And so, really understanding I think everything starts in, in the entrepreneurship, it’s always about selling, it’s all about you, I always tell our sales people, find out what the customer wants, give them what they want, and they’ll give you all their money. They’ll give you all that you want. So the real issue is, how do you find out? And the way I had success doing that, especially with some very challenging high-powered executives, is I’d like to ask them a question and say, I say to them, what would you like to do today? That you can’t, that would have the biggest impact on your life in business? And they always say is that personal professional, I say both first, tell me personally. And so I asked them and some people say I’d like this … because my mother has cancer, or I’d like to be a rock star or whatever they have. But once they start opening up, you truly understand what’s important to them. And remember, selling is just connecting heart to heart. People do things for the people that care about. And when you ask somebody about their business, what would they like to do? And they tell you, you might not be able to satisfy that. But you now know what their biggest problem is. Sometimes you can find people can help them, but you understand their perspective. So it really is understanding what people really need. And then understanding what their objections are. And overcoming all their objections. Once you overcome all their objections, they’ll give you anything you want. So for me, I don’t call it a superpower. But one of my strengths is really listening and caring and focusing on customer needs.

Richard Matthews 15:31
And something that we’ve talked about a number of times on this show and a few others is that the superpower, the caring, like actually caring about what the other person thinks, like, it’s not something you can fake, you have to actually care about those people. But then realizing that sales when done right, is one of the, I think, one of the best and highest positions in the world, because what you’re doing at its core, is helping other people solve their biggest problems and lead better lives.

Richard Jaffe 15:59
Correct. Absolutely.

Richard Matthews 16:02
So how about you, Charlie, what would you say your superpower is that you’ve developed over the years that help you do what you do today.

Charly Jaffe 16:08
Well. I actually think it’s going at that same result of solving people’s biggest problems to lead better lives, but just from a little bit of a different approach. And for me, it really comes down to essentially emotional fitness is I guess, how I would call it

that idea of how we work with our own inner worlds, and being able to bring light into dark places to go to those places that we find uncomfortable. Because what we’re looking for is usually hiding beneath the work we don’t want to do and the questions we don’t want to ask. And the places we don’t want to touch.

I don’t know when exactly… And it was funny. As we were writing the book, I realized, like I actually came into the world doing this work. So when my mom was pregnant with me, her dad died, suddenly, that’s I got my name, Charly from my grandfather. It was in the first year of my life–and you hear more about this in the book–but you know, my dad was millions of dollars in debt, another really low place. And, you know, holding me was where he found his light. So I kind of came into the world, doing this work of bringing light into dark spaces. And I kind of have those memories growing up even as young as 12, we’re friends would say, I don’t know. It’s just, I can’t help this person…

…It was a piece of it was always there. But I would say it was really walking through my own journeys, and having my own traumas, and really hard things to move through from physical near-death illness to mental illness. And coming up the other side where I did that work myself. And I was like, “Oh, okay, wait. Now I actually know how to be with people.” Because I know that feeling. And that ability to be with people in hard places, and to turn pain into power is such a gift and joy for me, so I just feel very lucky getting to do that work.

Richard Matthews 18:05
So. Interesting, like, just further question on that. Because you know that we have kind of an interesting story there. When did you sort of realize that you had that power? Like, you know, it’s something that you realize that you were all the way at the beginning bringing light into dark places? And when was it something that like you consciously became aware of?

Charly Jaffe 18:25
So I’d say the first time I remember being consciously aware of it, I was about 12. And I had another friend who was a fellow 12-year-old who said, Hey, I have this friend who’s in this dark place. And I just feel like you’re the person who knows how to have that conversation. So it was the first time that someone said, “I know you know how to do this, can you do this for me?” that was the first time I got, I would say, an inkling of it. But I would say I really recognized it in full. I had been working at Google and left… bought a one-way ticket to Myanmar and was backpacking through Southeast Asia. And I realized that people who looked at my life on social media would see this perfect job in this perfect adventure, and miss the huge crises that really caused it and the fact that it came from a place of desperation. And so what I had done was that it’s not responsible for me to share the good part and not the hard part. And so I wrote this, coming out of sorts about how my mind works, why I left Silicon Valley. And when I shared that with the world’s the… I sort of felt like I had a hangover from it, it was incredibly terrifying. But when I got the responses from co-workers that I thought so had it together, and I said, you know, they said, “This hit me in such a deep way… I do feel this… it’s like you’re in my head…” so many different people. That was the first time where I realized like, “Oh, I’ve hit on something. This is something that’s really needed.” And I’ve been able to apparently reach people that haven’t been able to be reached before. So I would say that was and that was three years ago. So it’s, it’s over time.
Richard Jaffe 20:03
Look. Let me go back for a second and think about the question. I would tell you, the superpower I probably have that has helped propel me is one of attitude. I’m probably the most positive person I know. I really focus on solutions, but I accept things I can’t change. So I’m always so I, I think the issue is really one of attitude. The only thing we control in life is is our mind how we think, our attitude. And so I think, really, if I take a look back at all of my ups and downs and ins and outs, the one thing that has really got me through all of the hard times is my ability to keep a good attitude. You know, Charly says, teach me and my friends, how do you keep your emotional stability through the crisis? I think that’s what the book, Turning Crisis Into Success is. It’s a series of stories of how I kept my emotional stability through the crisis. But that is one of the superpowers so to speak, that has really helped me personally, professionally, athletically. Yeah, it’s just keeping that attitude and focus on the solution staying positive.

Richard Matthews 21:22
That’s awesome. So the other side, the flip side of superpowers, is the fatal flaw, right? Every hero has their fatal flaw, you know, Superman has his kryptonite. And I tell people, at least on the show, I’ve got more than one but I tell people my fatal flaw is that I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist where I’ll spend, like, you know, four hours trying to get one pixel on to the spot that I need it and then realize after I’ve wasted four hours, that has like no impact on like, the direction we’re going or, you know, the bottom line. And so I’ll get myself into places where I’m really trying to get something to be perfect. And then I have to, you know, come up after I have to change what I’m doing there. So the question is, basically, what do you think your fatal flaw is? And more importantly, what have you done or set up in your life to help overcome that flaw? So people who might suffer from something similar can improve that in their life.

Charly Jaffe 22:18
I can go first… I really resonate with perfection, I definitely have more than one.

And the perfectionism piece, when I mentioned that big sort of like “coming out”, I called it The Gifts of Devastation. So sort of that flip side of like, there were these devastating things that actually brought me incredible gifts. But in that, I really talked about how we like to look at the upside of our strengths, who most of our strengths are double-edged swords, and we don’t like to look at the cost. And so for me, unrelenting high standards, and perfectionism had allowed me to achieve a lot early on. And the downside of that was that the way I treated myself when I didn’t live up to my expectations, or when life didn’t live up to my expectations, and that happens to all of us at a certain point, no matter how successful we are, whether it’s in our personal or professional lives. For me, it was, you know, when after experiencing a near-death illness when I really struggled mentally after
I didn’t allow myself to ask for help, initially. We talked about the importance of asking for help and how strong that is. And I think that idea that I had to be perfect, it allowed me to excel.
Charly Jaffe 23:39
Yes. So that in a way, it worked as fuel, but it also kind of haunted my mind behind closed doors. And so the way that I’ve really worked with that is to really start with a sense of self-awareness. So things like meditation, and journaling helped me be aware of how my mind works. But I really, conscientiously, I reached out for help. And I look at my feelings very differently. And rather than seeing challenging feelings, as a sign of weakness, I see them as these really great tools. And it’s almost like they’re signposts showing me where the work needs to be done. So that if I haven’t experienced with anxiety, or depression, or strong reaction to something, rather than beating myself up, I’m like, “Ooh, there’s something here to learn.” And when it becomes about growth, rather than how I measure myself, it changes it, there’s this idea of a fixed mindset versus growth mindset that you may or may not be familiar with. But it’s really about changing that fixed mindset of perfectionism, into a growth mindset where our challenges can then be our springboard forward.

Richard Matthews 24:48
Yeah, I have a close friend of mine, who tells me that perfectionism is the lowest standard you can hold yourself to because it’s an impossible standard.

Which is really cool. So I love that–I love the flip that you have there is like, instead of trying to hold yourself to an impossible standard, which is a low standard for you to hold, you know, turn it into a growth thing, how can you look at this as an area for growth, that’s really, that’s a really cool way to look at it.

Charly Jaffe 25:12
Thanks. And the other thing about that is, I think, at least in my experience, oftentimes, those of us who experienced perfectionism have this desire for power. That like somehow being perfect gives us a sense of power, which will never be completely perfect. But what I really loved is that when we change it into something that’s growth-oriented, it actually gives us power in a more productive way. Because no matter how bad something is, if we can find a way to learn from it, and to grow from it, we get to take some of that power back. And we get to decide how that energy–how that situation that we can’t control that affects our lives. So it’s like a sneaky trick.

Richard Matthews 25:50
Yeah. So it’s like, you’re looking at the root cause? Why do I have this desire to be perfect? And then like, actually satisfying that desire?

Charly Jaffe 25:58
Yeah.

Richard Matthews 26:00
So how about you, Richard? What would you say your fatal flaw is? And how have you helped deal with it in your business?

Richard Jaffe 26:05
You know, I guess one area would be that I am so positive, optimistic, I often don’t see the potential downside of things. So earlier in my career, I’d be so focused on the solution and things–I wouldn’t prepare for what if things went wrong. And I think as I got more experience, I’ve learned how to see more choices. And a CEO’s responsibility is to see around curves, you’ve got to be able to see what’s happening in the future and prepare for it before it happens. And early on, I just had one bad thing after another and me I just was not prepared. And they always found the way to get out of it. You know, my father was a great mentor. But I always figured out how to get out of it. And I think as I developed as an executive as a person,

I actually was able to see a little more and prepare for it. It didn’t stop me from being optimistic. It didn’t keep me focused. But I think I took the blinders off, and I was able to see more of what’s possible and prepare for the things that might happen, even though I didn’t think they were going to happen. And therefore when they did happen, I was ready to jump to do things. I had people prepared, I have–had stories ready to go. So it was, you know, I developed a lot more and even today, in my mentoring role. My role now is to ask questions. I had a great mentor, when I was at SafeSkin, my second company, the latex glove company, and he never gives me an answer. But he always asked me really good questions. And I found out as a mentor, when people said, “Now that’s a good question”. That means I’ve asked them something they haven’t thought about. And that’s really an issue of how do you see more? How do you think about things, whether they happen or not? And that’s my role as a mentor now is how can you ask the right questions for people to think about things?

Richard Matthews 28:04
Yeah, so if I’m understanding it correctly, then the flaw essentially was having sort of like tunnel vision on the good that you wanted to have happened, and not necessarily looking at all the things that could happen. And a good experience, it was the experience that helped open that up.

Richard Jaffe 28:21
Right. But it’s both. I mean it’s a good thing to be tunnel vision on a solution. Okay. However, when you are the leader, okay. And you’re responsible for a lot of different areas, sometimes something comes out and bites you that you haven’t thought about. So that’s correct. Experience teaches that, and also willingness to open up and look at “What if.” You know, I read somewhere, I think Charly sent me something to read where it says, “Why do we always think just because we think something is right. Okay. It’s not. Okay.”

Richard Matthews 28:52
Yes.

Richard Jaffe 28:53
Sometimes our thoughts are not correct. The more open we are, to see things, the more prepared we are.

Charly Jaffe 29:02
Yeah, and I think the common theme in both of our responses, and I think a lot of times where people identify the kryptonite is sometimes people were like, “Well, where am I not doing? Well, where’s my weakness?” Whereas

kryptonite is the flip side of our strength.

And so it’s like if we’re trying to figure out “Well, I don’t know what my fatal flaw is.” Sometimes a really good place to start looking is “What’s my strength?” And what are the ways that it might have a dark side, or it might have a side that’s not as helpful.

Richard Jaffe 29:33
And as entrepreneurs, really fun looking thing for entrepreneurs, when they identify that one of the solutions is to find people with strengths and surround yourself with people, not just like yourself, but surround yourself with others who have the strength that we don’t have. And that takes a lot of strength from a leader to realize that there are people who were better, smarter, then ourselves.

Richard Matthews 30:04
Yeah, like I have that going on where I was, like, I knew I needed to, like my perfectionism, being able to hand things off to someone else who doesn’t have the same perfection level, but has the same end goal in mind has helped me like… it’s like, okay, I can just take it off my plate and I don’t have to worry about that, because I know it’ll get done, it’ll get done to a standard, a good enough standard. And anyway, that’s been really helpful as hiring people to get things accomplished, and just take off your plate entirely.

Richard Jaffe 30:32
And also willing to allow them to do it their way, as long as they get to the same end-to-end result, with the same measurement. It doesn’t matter to you if we try and control how people do things. Might as well do it ourselves.

Richard Matthews 30:47
And then they surprise you too with coming up with things you never would have thought of and doing things better than where you would have done it. So super cool. So next question on the hero’s journey, here is your common enemy, right? And you guys both at this point, do a little bit of mentoring in your business. So if you could go into a new clients life and just immediately, like, wave your magic wand and remove something from their lives that would help them the slay the common enemy that you just wanted to, you know, go ahead and take out the villain, what would that be?

Richard Jaffe 31:21
So I’ll start with that, Charly, how’s that? So I would tell you, I tell the young entrepreneurs, the most important thing for them is what they learn after they know it all. Okay, so the issue is that you know, so many times people come back after the fact and say, “Here’s what went wrong. Okay, how do we fix it?” And I try and encourage them. Let’s talk about it ahead of time. Okay, let’s talk about possibilities, solutions. You know, a lot of strong, young entrepreneurs want to do it on their own.

And think they know a lot. Just because they take advice doesn’t mean they don’t know it. But to allow others to help.

To listen and to plan a little bit. That’s what I see a common theme. The successful ones, the ones are really good. are the ones that utilize me and ask the questions up front, then they go do and come back. And we talked about it. The ones that are more challenging, are the ones that go do it and come back after the fact is that “Oh, this is what went wrong. How do we fix it?”

Richard Matthews 32:28
So it sounds like pride, almost like if you could go in and remove that pride to say that I’m going to do it all myself or whatever, and just realize it right at the beginning. And if we ask and we rely a little bit on other people that we can use, they can accomplish more and do more.

Richard Jaffe 32:40
Yeah, but it’s a double-edged sword. It’s that pride, that ego that drives them to success. So the real question is, when we’re younger, we think we need to do it by ourselves. As we learn, we allow other people to help us. And those are the ones that grow fastest.

Richard Matthews 33:01
How about you, Charly?

Charly Jaffe 33:02
Yeah, not too different of a theme. But I think for a lot of the work that I do, if I could wave that magic wand, it would be the beliefs that people are not willing to question. So there are certain times where like, one of my dad’s favorite sayings comes to mind? “Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be successful?” And oftentimes, we might choose this belief that’s really close to the identity that we can’t touch. It’s like a sacred cow. And like, that’s what we’re prioritizing over our own growth or the growth of our company or our family or our relationships. But we don’t realize it oftentimes, because it’s like, well, no, that’s just taken as written in stone. So if I could wave a magic wand, it would really be the ability to have a tenacious curiosity about what we believe in ourselves, and the world. And I think that allows us to build a much more firm foundation. But it also allows us to find those places where, like I had mentioned before, where that most potent work can be done, it allows us to find the uncomfortable spots. And whether it’s our business or our personal lives, that’s where we can get the greatest outcome.

Richard Matthews 34:14
Yeah, it’s on those places that we never think to question, like, Is it like, let’s start there and actually question those places. So just dive into that a little bit more. How do you help clients do that? Right? How do you actually help someone? Get around and question the things that they never either thought to question or are afraid to question?

Charly Jaffe 34:32
Absolutely. So I think first, it starts with similar to sales and connecting heart to heart, seeing the world through their eyes, not pushing, not anything, just really taking that in, and starting to bring in those questions where it’s not me saying you have to choose this or that. But a well like, have you thought about it this way? Or what does this mean in that way? And then, I’m trying to think of a specific example, maybe to another person, you know, so let’s take the example of perfectionism. A lot of times, those of us who are perfectionist, we’re not actually willing to really look at it deeply. We might say like, “Oh, yeah, but I see it as this really good thing.” And we’re not willing to see that it’s a weakness. And we’re not really willing to see the costs. So it’s having the conversation where it’s almost taking off those blinders. And figuring out where those costs are setting the scene so that the person that I’m working with can really see a fuller picture. So a lot of times, it’s just the questions that aim at the areas that we experienced those blinders. But before we can move to that change into that, I mean, that’s very uncomfortable work. It’s not easy for a reason. So I think step one really has to be that sense of empathy. And that sense of like, I see a lot of times for me, as I see you, and I love you. That’s not normally how we talk in, in business coaching. But it’s that sense of unconditional acceptance and safety, which, you know, when Google had done studies, they found on the most successful teams, the number one, they identified five different factors, the number one factor of a successful team was not the background of the people on it, it wasn’t the technical skill, it was psychological safety. And so that ability to show up, make someone feel safe, allows those walls to come down, rather than trying to bring them through. And I got to experience that in my own life. And so seeing how powerful that was, then really gave me the commitment and the skills to do that with others.

Richard Jaffe 36:33
There’s a great line that says, “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care”.

Richard Matthews 36:40
Yeah. And it’s interesting, I find that in my own I do a lot of strategies and coaching with my clients and find that the biggest breakthroughs we have with their business is getting over first them understanding how much I care about their outcomes, right how much I care about them as their person and they start, then they’ll start sharing, you know, their stats, and the things that they’re doing and the things that they’re struggling with. But that doesn’t happen until after they’re like, “Oh, you actually care about me”. Right? So anyways, that’s an interesting way to discuss that. So the other–the next thing here is your driving force, right? So if the common enemy is something that you want to get rid of… the driving force is something that you wish you could add. Something you could save, right? So you know, Spider-Man fights to save New York. Batman fights to save Gotham. Google, for instance, Charly, fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. Right? So if you had a mission, something you’d say, “If I could go out and just make this happen all the time?” What would that be?

Richard Jaffe 37:41
Well, I think for me, I mean, I think the real secret in life is learning how to love ourselves. And it’s the inner peace and happiness, I write a lot of poetry about that stuff. So I mean, for me, it would really be being able to share for people to understand that success does not create happiness. Happiness creates success. It starts from the inside out. And once we find it, we can’t depend upon anybody else, we have to find it on our own, and then we can share it. If we look for it in somebody else, and they leave, we lose it, we find it ourselves, we have it forever. So that’s really, for me a passion is to kind of share what I’ve learned about my own inner peace and happiness. And, you know, as people discover that all the edges become softer in life. Okay, there’s more performance. And you know, when we hold a small baby, I can tell you this, right? There’s just such an emotional feeling it’s just the place is such a soft place. And sometimes we get to business such a hard place. It doesn’t have to be, there are challenges, but it’s the way we look at things. So how do we keep that mindset? How do we keep that heart set? Open the heart, okay, an open mind. I love to be able to share.

Richard Matthews 39:06
But what I find interesting too, is like, I know, I’ve talked to a number of people about this, especially, like, you’ve built, you know, multi-hundred million dollar companies and a lot of people, they look at the business that they’re building, and think “I don’t like the person I have to become in order to build that type of a business”. And what you’re saying is you don’t have to become that person, you’ll have to give up your humanity to build a big successful company. So I really like the way that you’re thinking through that.

Richard Jaffe 39:36
In fact, when the book started, I used to give talks to business school students about 10 ingredients to happiness and success in business and life. And even in the book, Turning Crisis Into Success, we talked about seven really key ingredients or traits that are common in both. And it is common in both. You don’t have to be a hard ass or nasty to get ahead. Okay.

Charly Jaffe 40:02
More than that. What we found in my dad’s story is that those moments where, you know, should have failed and found this miraculous exit out. They were actually the result of not being a hard ass, and they were results of that softness. And so that’s one other thing I love about his story is how it’s just so different than how we see what you need to be and that it’s not only compatible, but it can be your superpower.

Richard Matthews 40:30
Absolutely. So how about you, Charly? Same question, do you have a driving force at this point in your, in your business?

Charly Jaffe 40:41
So I’d say it’s almost taking that same basis of using that deep sense of love, and my dad looks at it applying to entrepreneurship. And for me, I really love that personal inner worlds. And so for me, it’s taking that sense of love and purpose into the uncomfortable places, to those places that we don’t want to look at. And my purpose for that is I had some ruthless teachers that I’ve referred friends to before a little bit when I was fairly young, late teens, the early 20s have from physical trauma, emotional trauma, near death, almost, you know, the chance of a degenerative diagnosis where I had to face my own mortality. And I experienced what it was like to lose my dignity to lose my mind, even, you know, my will to live. And so those can be seen as just dark, nasty places. And what I found over time is we can actually approach those with a sense of love and find the beauty inside them. And that is going to those places that we find uncomfortable, we actually can lead more full lives and our

this, of our willingness to go to those spots. So for me, I would say it’s those bringing light to dark spaces and adventuring in those places that are uncomfortable because those to me are just the most potent drivers of growth. And I definitely inherited a love for growth from my dad. And so to me, the inner world is fascinating because it’s messy, and we can’t measure it. And it doesn’t line up to the analytical side of me that likes to sort of measure and output and that messiness, but the way it can really affect us so deeply. To me, I find just really special and magical. So it’s about bringing that love and

Richard Matthews 42:31
I love the way you love the way you say, “Adventuring in the dark places.”

Richard Jaffe 42:36
And those dark places, Those dark places are teachers. So though it’s challenging, because we’re out of control, we don’t know what’s going to happen. But that’s really where teachers show up. And it’s there for reasons because they’re things we need to learn.

Richard Matthews 42:53
Yeah, and I just I like I just like that mentality of like, learn to adventure in the dark places, because adventuring is such a positive, optimistic thing to do. And dark places are not positive and optimistic. So you’re sort of like bringing those together? And like how do we, how do we adventure through these dark places and really learn from them and grow from them. So it’s, it’s fascinating?

Richard Jaffe 43:12
Well, the idea is too is to try and get out of them as soon as you can. So it’s not something you wallow in. But it’s something that kind of explore, you get out of a dark place by going forward not going backward, and the ideas of how to push ourselves forward into the darkness, to find the light at the end of the tunnel, and hope it’s not a freight train coming up your ass.

Charly Jaffe 43:34
Yeah. And it’s, for me been really beautiful to see how…

…different points. And even with the same experience. On paper, the way I experienced it internally was really different. So you know, for example, something like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Like that’s a very brutal experience. When you talk about controlling your thoughts, it’s a nice thing to say, but experiencing that it, it’s much easier said than done. But when I had that shift in my mindset, I was able to carry so much more into sitting with so much more. And when I came out of it, I was like, wow, I would not actually give that experience back. Because who I am today and how I get to experience the world today is so much richer for it.

Richard Matthews 44:18
Absolutely. So what I’m gonna do is transition to a little bit of some practical things. And I call this the heroes tool belt, right? So maybe you have a big magical hammer like Thor or a bulletproof vest, like your neighborhood police officer. Or maybe you just really love how Evernote helps you organize your thoughts? Do you guys have any practical tools that you use on a regular basis in your business to help you do what you do? What are they? And how have they helped you accomplish your goals?

Richard Jaffe 44:49
I think I’ll try this one first Charly. For me, the real fundamental thing I go back to is starting at the outcome and working our way backward. So many people look where they are, and they take a step forward. But the reality for me, the real secret is really clearly defining the outcome and how I measure it. Because once you understand the outcome, the path becomes self-evident. But the question is if we don’t define that, how do we know if we’re getting closer or further away? So it really is a discipline of continually focusing on the outcome, and working our way back to that. And that’s something that is not easy. It’s easy to lose sight of. It’s also measuring, so when you have other people around us, it’s not just good enough to have an outcome, because we all might measure them differently. to be really clear, we need to say, Okay, how are we going to measure that? And just stay focused and continue to come back? Because it changes, it doesn’t stay in the same place.

Richard Matthews 45:50
So how about you, Charly? Do you have any practical tools, your dad’s using outcomes as a tool, how about you?

Charly Jaffe 45:58
Yeah, and these are also, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about some of these different things. But another one that came up really strongly in our conversations was the importance of asking for help. And a lot of times decisions come down to intuition, we gather all the information. But you know, there is–his name is

… you know, a decent plan executed quickly at the right time is far better than the perfect plan too late. So we’re never going to have the full information. And intuition is something that we can’t fake. But what we can do is reach out to people who’ve had experience in the areas we’re looking at who’ve had to walk our own path before and be able to get their insight and ideally not just one person. Yeah, I think it’s really ideal when we get conflicting opinions, and when we can kind of see where the overlaps are, and sort of piggyback on the intuition of others almost. But that idea of swallowing your pride really asking for that help taking it in taking the initiative to find it. But then at the end of the day doing that work, to make our own decisions, and to be able to own those decisions, I think is really huge. And the other big one, that we keep coming back to our practices that support our ability to control our thoughts, or more specifically control our reactions to our thoughts. Because we can’t control the stuff that pops in our head, we do have a say about what we do with it. And so for my dad and I, we’ve both meditated. Him since long before I was born. But that idea of that self awareness practice to develop a space and not just react to things, but to choose how we’re going to respond to things, whether it’s a business decision, or attention or an argument with someone on our team or a relationship or our family, or when a crisis comes in being able to have that pause to know Okay, who do I need to reach got to what are the questions I need to ask let me not just spiral downward.

Richard Matthews 48:05
I tell my kids that between stimulus and response, there is a choice.

And that’s, I think, that’s what you’re talking about. It’s like, you have some sort of a stimulus coming into your life. And most people are…they just respond to stimulus. And when you can separate that a little bit and say I want to have the space to make a choice instead of just react is a really powerful tool.

Charly Jaffe 48:30
Yeah, not a comfortable one, but a powerful one.

Richard Matthews 48:34
Absolutely. And it gives you a lot of power right to the people who are, who are masters at whatever it is they do? The reality is the way that you become a master is by learning how to separate a stimulus from the response, and then train the response. Right, so you can train yourself to have the response that has the best outcome. Right now, that’s how you become a master at something is, the correct response.

Richard Jaffe 49:05
And also

Let me say experience is having more choices. So when we’re younger and experience, we only see two or three choices. As we get older, we see much larger choices.

Charly Jaffe 49:24
And one of the really beautiful parts about the sort of crafting the stories of our books together was seeing how my dad’s ability to create that space developed. Because a lot of the sweet–frameworks are great, we use it at the beginning of our book. But what we’ve also found is, life is much messier than simple frameworks and steps. And so, a lot of what we do in the book is get into that messiness. And so what I love was seeing the way my dad developed in being able to face increasingly large crises, and hone that skill of creating that space. Because when I was younger, when things were going poorly, and things went very poorly throughout my childhood, the greatest gift he gave us was, we didn’t know. And I’ve met so many children of entrepreneurs who are sort of scarred from the ups and downs of their parent’s career. And I didn’t appreciate it until I was a little bit older. That not having that and having that relative stability, even when his world was so unstable, and you know, the roof over our heads was not secured, and his ability to be present. And to have that stability. If you’re a parent and an entrepreneur, I think that’s the best gift you can give your children. Love, obviously love and all the other stuff, but that ability to separate the ups and downs of work from how you show up to your family. I’d like more and more grateful for it every day and every year.

Richard Matthews 50:46
Yeah, I know that’s a that’s certainly a struggle for someone who’s got young kids at home. And entrepreneurship is not a just a straight trajectory up, right. So I’ve seen people you know, it’s like you’re all over the place and eventually, you sort of, get on a stable path, but it takes a while and being able to have your kids have a stable life is an important, important thought.

Richard Jaffe 51:08
I compare it to a glider up in the sky that looks so smooth and glide your plane with you actually been up to when he goes up and down thousands of times, just to stay in the air. But it looks smooth. but really isn’t.

Richard Matthews 51:22
Yeah, absolutely. So next question here is your own personal heroes, right? So Frodo had Gandalf. Luke had Obi-Wan. Robert Kiyosaki, his rich dad, who were your heroes? Were they real-life mentors? Were they speakers or authors? Were they peers who were just a few years ahead of you, and how important were they to what you’ve accomplished so far in your life?

Richard Jaffe 51:43
Charly?

Charly Jaffe 51:44
Oh, yeah, Handy that I go first on this one. And there’s, there’s a number of different people that come to my mind. But I would say as a more general, rather than specific. People who spoke about their pain, or their stigma, whether that was, you know, people who were coming out as LGBT before it was really accepted. People who came out about sexual violence before that was a really common thing. People who were willing to step into those fires, I think made it so much easier for the rest of us behind them. But what I really think that gets down to is isolation is such a dangerous thing. Like, it is worse for you than smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. It’s like it for our physical health, as well as our quality of life. And so the people that are willing to risk feeling isolated, in order to support others that they know need that. To me, that type of bravery made such a difference in my life. And that’s what I really drew on when I started to be more open about some experiences that were hard for me to share. Like their strength, it was a sense of crowdsourced strength, even from these people I didn’t meet. And then the more that I opened up about my own story, the more I could tell my father’s because it gave me a bigger depth of perspective and insight. So I would say it’s not necessarily one specific person, but those groups of people to me, are very inspiring.

Richard Matthews 53:16
Yeah, so the ones who forged the path, so to speak.

Charly Jaffe 53:21
Exactly, especially the unpopular paths.

Richard Matthews 53:25
Yeah. How about you Richard? Who were some of your heroes?

Richard Jaffe 53:30
I really haven’t got to… I haven’t really gotten through life with heroes. I say, as a young boy, I grew up in New York, Mickey Mantle was always an idol of mine in baseball. But I didn’t idolize him as a person. You know, my father’s always been a hero, because I learned so much from him. But if I had to think of an icon, who really became a hero, for me, it would have been the chairman of Coca Cola, I name a Roberto Goizueta, and when we sold our first company to Coca Cola, I had a chance to sit next to him at a lunch and hear his stories as a Cuban immigrant, working his way up to the top of one of the greatest companies in the world. Just his story, his humbleness, his connection to people, the way they view things, the way communicated. He was always just known as such a gentleman and held in such high regard that I always admired him. So I don’t think I idolized him as much as I admired him as a person and an executive, and looked at his accomplishments, you know. I’m just glad to be part of an organization for a short time that he has helped build.

Charly Jaffe 54:42
And to piggyback off that, if I can include admire, like the deep admiration, and not to get too cheesy, but my parents, the way that they show up to each other, and how passionately in love they are, in the way that they really like they’re better versions of each other together, and they grow and expand together. And especially in a time where so many of my friends, so many of the people I know didn’t grow up with parents, whose marriages stay together, let alone really flourish, to have an example of what really passionate supportive long term loves looks like, was just a gift beyond measure. And there are different pieces of them. Like I love seeing how much of my parents I’ve become, I’ve gotten to the age where I can appreciate that and it’s not like a Oh,

Richard Matthews 55:44
Yeah, I’ve started to realize the same thing. I actually call my parents on a regular basis nowadays. I’m like, you know, thank you guys for being awesome. Because I know it was hard to do. Yeah, I’ve apologized for a number of times now for being a child. Except we do have you’re like, like, I can’t believe I did all the things I did to you. And you guys still like you didn’t strangle me. So thank you for that.

Charly Jaffe 56:06
My parents also were very close with my friends growing up. And that was really special to see my parents have their own relationships with my friends separate from me as I would walk in and they’d be having dinner with the friends. I didn’t know what’s going to be there. Like that type of just unlimited love, unconditionality of love. And the real village mentality of like, our home is open to everyone. That sense of community really comes with me. So they’ve just shaped my life in such beautiful ways that I’m very, very lucky for.

Richard Matthews 56:35
Absolutely. So let’s go ahead and bring it home for our listeners. What are the top one or two like principled actions that you use, like every day, that helped contribute to your success and the influence you sort of enjoy in your business? And if more specifically, something you wish you had known when you started your career?

Richard Jaffe 56:56
I think for me, there are three key things I did. Every day one is meditating. I’ve been doing for 45 years, but it’s it gives me my own space in a very hectic life. Second is gratitude. Okay, I’m very grateful for things around me. I know how lucky I am. The third thing is forgiveness practice. So I think meditation, gratitude and forgiveness are three keys to a happy and peaceful life. And it’s not easy. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that we don’t want to forgive. We don’t you know, we’re not grateful. But it’s coming back to those and creating a practice every day where I share those and I understand those and I realize how lucky I am. That really propels me to who I am today.

Richard Matthews 57:50
Absolutely. How about you, Charly?

Charly Jaffe 57:52
Yeah, let’s go on here that he gets to go first because we’ve worked talked about these things together.

So meditation is a big one for me. Gratitude, it was actually, you know, for me, it was great to see, here’s this practice I have. And then when I looked at the research, realizing that like, hey, science actually supports this, that if we record three, good things

every day, they actually found that…just two weeks of doing it daily, decreased burnout by 15%. So it’s really fun. The science is like, “Oh, wait, no, like we really see this working.” Yeah, and the same for the forgiveness of its impact on long term well-being and happiness. And I’ve had, you know, things that people would say you never need to forgive it. But I really see forgiveness is not being about the other person. Forgiveness is about bestowing freedom upon ourselves. holding a grudge is sort of like they say, like drinking poison and hoping that the other person feels the pain. And so those three are definitely really big for me and the other. The fourth one that we’ve also talked about in that space is, accept the things we can’t change that sense of surrender. And by looking at what I can’t change, but saying I do have control over how do I learn from this? How do I grow from this? And how do I use this as a tool in whatever way I can, has allowed those challenges to bring so much more benefit into my life and eventually has led to those challenges actually disappearing in a way where if I was resisting them, it would have strengthened them. So I think oftentimes when we want to push against something, the most effective thing that we can do is rather than pushing against a freight train saying, How can we just like maybe direction slightly and use that energy? And I think you’ll be seeing examples of my dad doing that. Yeah, throughout the book, there are aspects of that and his story is

professional that is embrace the freight train just shift it.

Richard Matthews 59:57
Yeah, embrace the freight train like that. So the just summarize that the meditation, gratitude, forgiveness and accepting the things you can’t change are some of the things you guys use regularly. I really like the forgiveness as a freedom thing not to get terribly religious on the show. But one of

the things that I’ve always thought was really important was for at least in my life, is that people have asked me before, it’s like, how can you forgive someone who’s done something to you before they ask you for forgiveness. And I was like because it’s not about them. It’s about me. And in my own life, I realized like, I’m a Christian, and, you know, Christ, the story of Christ died on the cross 2000 years before I even had the thought to, you know, commit some sort of sin right in the first place. And it’s like, he didn’t ask me, you know, I didn’t ask for forgiveness. First, he did sacrifice first. Right? So it’s that same kind of thing. And it’s like, it’s that, that’s the model we should follow for ourselves is like, I don’t have to wait for the person who slighted me to come back and realize they slighted me, for me to forgive them for that, and move on, and have that freedom. So anyway, I think that’s an important, important tidbit.

Richard Jaffe 1:01:05
Quite right. Charly’s point was it’s not about them, it’s about us.
Charly Jaffe 1:01:12
If they slighted me if I have a cut on my arm, okay, I can’t change the fact that there’s a cut there. Do I want to keep throwing salt on the wound? Or do I want to allow it to heal and move on from it? That’s the

Richard Matthews 1:01:23
…sport a bandaid on there.
Charly Jaffe 1:01:25
Exactly. Yeah.
Richard Matthews 1:01:27
So last question. And this is I call this the hero challenge. I do this on every show. And basically, it is do you have someone in your life or your network that you think they have a fascinating story we should tell on this show? Who are they? And why do you think they should come to the show and tell their story?

Richard Jaffe 1:01:53
You know, I don’t really have anybody in particular. There are so many people with so many great stories. So I can’t pick out any one person you’ll find to pick out one person I pick up my wife, Ann. Okay, if you want to interview an angel on earth. Okay, so if you want to know what an angel on earth looks like, I would talk to her.

Richard Matthews 1:02:20
Absolutely. How about you, Charly? Do you have anyone that you think we should we should bring on to the show and tell their story?

Charly Jaffe 1:02:26
Are you specifically focusing on entrepreneurs?

Richard Matthews 1:02:29
Doesn’t have to be specifically entrepreneurs, most of our guests have been entrepreneurs. But if we’re looking for people who we can actually sort of pullback that mask and look at you know, look at these kinds of questions that are really helping them, you know, build a life that has influence.

Charly Jaffe 1:02:45
Yeah, so one person that comes to mind for me is a dear friend named Kristina. And she started…she’s this one of the co-founders and the CEO of a nonprofit called Project HEAL. And she actually started at 15, and Project Heal focuses on eating disorders, but specifically on providing access and changing the way that our entire health system approaches it. So it’s not light, but what I really love is that she took this really challenging experience she had in her early teens, even earlier than that, and said, You know, I want to support other people. And that, that small seed of I want to support other people turned into this massive nonprofit that is actually at the absolute forefront of changing how and you know, bringing new initiatives changing how insurance is approaching things. And so to me to see someone who’s so young and ambitious, I know funny for me to say so young, but to see someone who’s making such incredible change in that way, and has such a lightness to her in a space that can be seen as dark and is so brilliant. She’s definitely one of the people that comes to mind.

Richard Matthews 1:03:54
That’s really cool. Okay, so thank you guys so much for coming on the show. Last thing here, where can people find you? Where can they pick up the book Turning Crisis Into Success? And if they wanted to reach out and you know, either get your mentorship or anything, where would they go? What should they do?

Charly Jaffe 1:04:11
Absolutely. So they can go…so we have a book website, which is simply www.crisisintosuccess.com keep it nice and simple. And so we also have a past interview there. And a little bit more information about the book. And in terms of my work. My website is www.charlyjaffe.com. And so Charly is just L Y spelled and Jaffe is one E. And then my dad here. I don’t know if he’s frozen, but his website is www.richardjaffe.net and so that’s where you can access all of that.

Richard Matthews 1:05:11
Yeah, okay. www.richardjaffe.net for you guys. So thank you guys very much for coming on the show. We appreciate it. And we will come back and let you know when the show goes live. But if you guys want to check out the book Turning Crisis Into Success I’ve read…I haven’t finished reading it. It’s on the things I’m currently reading. It’s fantastic. really look forward to finishing that. definitely get a chance to pick it up. Not a lot of times you get to pick the brain of someone who has built you know, several hundred million dollar plus companies. So very, very cool. And again, thank you guys for showing up on the show today.
Richard Jaffe 1:05:50
Great. Alright, guys thanks very much. Have a great day.