All right, welcome to another exciting episode of the start down podcast. I am super excited to be here today with our guest. And listen, you know, and I've been bad about this, I've talked about this post 200 episodes of just, you know, overly introducing me and this guy. I mean, I for about 1015 minutes before the show, had a great time. I'm super excited for this interview. And James, I can really introduce you overly, but I'm not going to do that, because no one introduce themselves better than you. So James Zang. Introduce yourself to the audience some a little bit about who you are. And I'm excited for today's conversation.
Absolutely. Thanks for the honor. And what's up everybody that's on this podcast, I believe it was anointed that you are here today. And by the end of this, there's going to be a nugget that you're going to receive the transfer and business transfer life. So I'm expecting that you know, so my, I'm a guy that's just like anyone else trying to figure out life, try to do better. I've been in the online business space, specifically with health and wellness, we sell these things we call skinny drops your body balancers help to burn fat and stuff for the last 10 plus years. Never thought I'd be an entrepreneur, I got involved. Because I was looking for mentors. I know we were chatting offline. And I know you've been a coach and a mentor for so many I was looking for that. So I found a mentor within this business, never thought make any money, but was able to go through the loops and hoops and ended up doing this full time for the last decade as well too. I've been married for the last eight years, we just passed our eight year wedding anniversary had an epic trip we're just chatting about. And at the core me I'm a person that loves God and loves other people. And I want to live a way where I'm, I'm living out business and life according to God's ways and also showcase and teach people how to do that as well too. Because I think his ways are better than Norway's, as it says in the Word. But that's a little bit about me about me.
I love that man beautifully put in you know, it's funny you You challenged me today in a way that I thought was interesting being on the show. Because if you listen to my podcast for you know, I used to teach religion and top Bibles and ethics for many years, and you and I talked about that if you don't know, you know, religion is a part of my life. My kids go to Catholic school, my wife and I are very involved in the church. But you can ask me something before we came on the air like, Hey, do you? Do you talk about faith on the podcast? And I'm like, 200 plus episodes, I don't know that I have, and I was really trying to wrack my brain on it. I'm curious to hear your thoughts in entrepreneurship. I don't think there's a lack of faith in entrepreneurship, right? Because I think a lot of entrepreneurs do have faith. But maybe there's a lack of talking about it. Why do you think that is that we're not more front and center with that sometimes.
So key, I mean, entrepreneurship is faith, right? It takes faith to be able to say, I have an idea, and I don't, I'm not gonna I'm gonna forego my, my nine to five of my paycheck to paycheck type of thing, you know, every week is faith, you don't know if that client is going to sign up with you or continue with you. Right? I believe entrepreneurship is the best test of faith in the world, whether that's in the religious sense or not. But I think the reason why I'm here we can go really deep in this. But if you believe there's a good and evil in the world, I believe evil wants to go against the good that's out there, right. And there's little lies and little deceptions that are out there that want to separate the root of everything. Now, I want to let the audience know here today as well to you, I'm not here to preach to you or you know, I respect everyone's faith background as well, too. But we have to talk about what we believe is true, right? I grew up a person by the way, Mike, I was not a person of faith. In fact, I think my life right now is a living contradiction of what I thought I was going to be just like what I'm sure you thought life would do. And I wonder if the listeners you feel that way too. You never thought being business that was super shy, was not a person of faith. But as you go through business, and you start listening to self development, right, I think it's important for any entrepreneur. There's a saying that if you want something you've never had before, then you must be someone you've never been before. Like what Jim Rohn says, right? So you start feeding the mind you start feeding yourself and say I can become more. But what's interesting, have you noticed, Mike, that John Maxwell's the Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar is all these people. They're people have faith as well. Did you make that connection before? Yep. Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. So I started to look into that. And you know, I hit my business goals. And what happened was, I hit my big goal, which was making enough in my business part time to not need a full time job. So I did that. And the weirdest thing was this mike, which was I fell into deep depression. It's kind of like, did you hear the story of Michael Phelps or, you know, the Olympian gold medalist? He won seven Olympics or whatever, and then he retired, and he became suicidal. Yeah, because he's like, what's the purpose of all this? Right? And I think as high performing people that are on this podcast, we wonder these questions, what's the purpose of life and stuff like that? I fell into that. And science couldn't answer that question for me what the purpose was, I couldn't fit Hear it out. So I had to go to faith, I had to go to theology for the first time. And long story short, that landed me to really fall into the Christian faith, really follow Jesus. And just, I've realized this, though, is that when you do business in life, the way that Jesus taught about it in the Bible, if you just look at as a practical book, every single personal development thing, you can route it back to the Bible itself. I've noticed that is the best personal development in business book in the world because it works super well. So practically, yeah, that's why it's important.
You know, it's so interesting, as you're talking about, I think about an ice the lake for those of you listening a little Lambo in the background, I can't see what the other red car is, but I talked about it in my book. When I bought my dream car, I bought a Cadillac Escalade, it was my dream car. And, you know, it's funny when I was a teacher, and when I taught the ology was like, Oh, you're a teacher, you'll never be able to afford an Escalade, right. That was like the thing you could never do. So when I started to get into business, I'm like, that's gonna be the big goal. When I went, I'm gonna buy the Escalade. But when I got it, I felt so empty. And so like, man, like, because there was nothing to look at online anymore. There was nothing to go over, there was nothing to see there was nothing to do. And it was like the purpose was kind of the car for the longest time was getting the car. And then once I had it, it was like, even when I taught the ology, and I taught religion, it was like, Well, I'm, I'm blessed, and what I do, and I just tell people, I can't believe I get paid to do this. Like, you're gonna be, they're gonna get paid to teach religion. Like, you gotta be kidding me. And I enjoyed it. But then when I went into business, it was like, Okay, I'm working hard. And now that in business, I could get the good things. What's the difference, though, between being mission driven and being materialism driven? And why is it okay to sort of celebrate, I want to kind of ask this in two parts. And I get asked the second part in a second, but because there's the idea of being mission driven, but then there's the also idea of like, it's a blessing to reward. So because I just had to buy a new car, and I got another Escalade, I bought a brand new Escalade, I told my wife, I'm like, Oh, my God, do I get it? Do I really get it? Do I want it? I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, it's tax write offs. Okay. She's like, why don't you just enjoy you work hard, you burned? It's a blessing. Why did we feel guilty as people of faith sometimes like, hey, like, like, where people have faith? We can't have this, like, I'm back in that theology, teacher mode, almost. But I need to reward myself for the hard work. That's a blessing to why is there that disconnect, sometimes for people of faith?
It's because in the world, we don't read the Bible, we are super biblically illiterate. So what happens is we take little verses out of context, and we take it from culture, we take it from just what we know, for example, in First Timothy, it talks about the love of money is the root of all evil, right? So people take that as, oh, I shouldn't want money. And like that's whole bad, right? So we call that poverty is pile of piety is kind of like the same that we have on that. But if you actually read the Scripture says, it's not. Money is the root of all evil. It's the love of money is the root of all evils, right? All sorts of evil. So it's not only that money is a root, it's a money is a root. There's many roots of evil, right? I mean, you live for just a little bit. We're all evil people. The reality is that seven deadly sins. Oh my gosh, it's every day I deal with it. Right? But it's a love. So priority is out of order. I'll just share with you a story like it. It's God never works in coincidence, you know, so literally today. I'm very I'm very content on social media. So like to share messages there. We just came back from Europe, and we had a massive unintentional shopping spree. Yep. So in Paris, they have this one shopping strip. Delos it's amazing. It's got the Louie Vitanza Chanel is everything that you can find, right? And we ended up I was trying to go to the Eiffel Tower, but I put it in on my Google Maps wrong. So it ended me up at the shopping strip. So we ended up walking through it window shopping turns into a shopping spree, and you know, the Lord's blessed us in our business to be able to have some extra so we we went all in, you know, where to buy an extra luggage to like, take everything back. Oh, I was thinking about this because I'm like, man, like, is it okay, as a person of faith to enjoy things? You know, I had to deal with this. I'm like, you know, it's like, we worked hard and we deserve it. Like, you know, is that okay? And there's a verse proverbs 1022. It says that the blessing of the Lord at makes rich and it adds no sorrow to it. There's nothing wrong about being rich. In fact, in the Bible talks a lot about wealth, a lot about blessing a lot about prosperity. Here's the key difference mine. A really comes down to priority, which is this Are we in this is the big lie that happens in the personal development space, especially with New Age philosophy, law of attraction, things like that. Now, I believe there's little hints of truth and everything right? But here's the big thing that also goes back to what you talked about with buying the first Cadillac. It's okay to have the nice stuff. It's okay to want more for your life. I think it's it's not it's it's counter intuitive to our needs. You're to not want to grow if you plant a seed, what isn't wanting to do once it grows, so it's okay to have ambition, but it has to be put into priority, which is God first other stuff second. So where I was off before is that I wanted to use God to get what I wanted. He was a means to an end. That's basically what New Age philosophy is, you know, it's like, I'll pray to God just give me like a genie like that. And you notice that if you do things that way, you get the thing. Like when you bought the Cadillac, it's empty. Because it's like, what's the purpose? It's just a thing. Yeah. However, on the flip side, Mike, this is so cool. Going back to Proverbs 1022. When you put God first, and then you do things his way, when he blesses you, and he's a God that wants to bless. He's like a great father that wants to have his his children be happy, right, but not spoiled, right? Any any parent would understand that when we went for the shopping spree, and we've now do, we did things God's way. We were so excited. We were so grateful, we were so blessed, I could lose this thing. Like one of the things that if you're watching this little Louis Vuitton, like, you know, card holder thing, you know, I can lose this right now I can be just as happy just as content. But I'm super happy because it feels like Hey, God bless me with this. And he's like, rewarding me. It's like, this is awesome. There's joy now from the material, not because of the material, but because of I know who gave the material and where it came from, if that makes sense.
100% I love that. I love that. And the idea of I think, you know, it's such a good point there putting God first, right? Because a lot of times we want to, we want to use God as the wishing well in saying, hey, like, like, like, if I worked really hard, do you think I could get this? Or do you think I'll do this instead of using it, you know, putting him first and then saying, lay out the path for me. Right? Like, there's a big difference. And I want to sort of swing that parallel to the entrepreneurship side, right? Because I think a lot of times in business and in the entrepreneurial community, and a lot of times we hear like, well, you know, like people that have jobs are not working hard, and they don't understand success, and bla bla bla bla, but like they are working hard, right? But then I see a lot of entrepreneurs as well, that are working hard. But they're almost running in place, right? And once they get success, they're almost scared of it because they don't know how to embrace it. They don't know how to put it. How do you balance that from the business side of hey, I need to be able to go through the changes in those same emotions. As I start to start from Baby entrepreneur, could you've gone through this to really successful entrepreneur? How do you go through each of the phases as those challenges? And in some ways the devil comes in from different angles? Right? How do you deal with that?
Absolutely. I think it comes down to the word stewardship, stewardship. So we all have a lot of different amounts in life, some more, some less, some less, and it doesn't matter, right? Some of us have big business ideas, and you've been blessed with a lot of clients in the you're, you're in a great phase in your life. Some of us, you're literally just starting out on that idea. And you're like, I'm just trying to get my first client, every single level has its own Devil is that saying, right? So, but it's okay. And if you look at business as a personal development plan, if you look at entrepreneurship as a way to shape our character shape ourselves, I love it because it is like you can see direct feedback on like a job, which is you can turn off your brain, do your work get paid. Here, if you get paid your paycheck is a direct correlation to the value that you bring to the marketplace. So whether you like it or not, it is what it is numbers don't lie type of thing. But don't take that as something to beat you or, or lift your ego up. It can be good. It's just there's there's more to steward. It's just what is that showing right now of who I am as a person? What value am I bringing to the table? And how do I move to the next level by being better by delivering better value to my clients by being a better entrepreneurial leader? Because if I steward that, well, then it's principles of life. It's principles God's placing into this world, that if you sow, well, you will reap a harvest, and you keep on doing they keep on doing that. And it's just a never ending game of growth.
Interesting. I love that. So let me ask you this question then. Right? Because this is something probably a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with, well, I want to be an entrepreneur. Yeah. I and maybe I feel that's what I'm called to. But maybe God gives you this calling to go get a job. Maybe there's more blessings there and the job, then there is in the entrepreneurship. How do you balance that? I mean, and let me ask you this question, then more generally, is entrepreneurship for everyone. Is it something that everybody should be doing? Are there you know, is there some people just aren't fit for it, and they really should go take the job. And that's really where the true blessings are for them.
Good question. I don't believe I believe everyone can be an entrepreneur, and everyone has an entrepreneurial spirit in them. Let's just define entrepreneurship, not even as owning a business. Let's define entrepreneurship. As someone that wants to design your life. You want to solve problems, you want to lead things. You can do that within your own business. You can do that within someone else's businesses will to Patrick bet David, the founder of Valley team, and he calls it an intra printer. Yes, which is you're working within that company as an employee, but you have a business minded state, you're solving problems, you're bringing things to the table, you know, so I don't believe everyone's called, you don't have to be an entrepreneur, because, hey, there's great companies out there that need great, great workers as well too. But they need empowered entrepreneurial workers as well to to solve big problems. So it really depends on what someone's looking for, I believe a good question to ask is, before you think about the vehicle, the financial vehicle, ask yourself the question of what do I want? Like, just what do I want? When I asked that question, I wanted freedom. I wanted flexibility. I wanted a life of impact. I wanted exponential growth, and I didn't want to be tied down somewhere. So I realized that a job for me for what I wanted didn't make sense. But if someone else has other values, and that is what a job fits more, maybe that's a place they're called to school to but have an entrepreneurial mind, even if your employees will too.
Interesting, interesting. And you know, James, you mentioned kind of happiness. And one of the things that says happiness always makes you look younger than you really are. So you look great. But there's also this thing in entrepreneurship that we're like, hey, because you mentioned your vacation you just took and you just mentioned kind of lifestyle by design and balance and all this other stuff. But like there's also that hustle and grind culture. Well, if you're an entrepreneur, you gotta be working, you know, 24/7 like I have people all the time ask me, Hey, can we talk on Saturday? I'm like, listen, five o'clock Friday, to 8am on Monday is family time. That's family stuff. I try not to do business stuff. I try not to attend convention events on the weekends, because for me, that's sacred time. But the idea is, there's some entrepreneurs who say, well, well, I'm gonna pass you up, then I'm gonna go pass your I'm going to do this, or you got to be hustling 24/7? How do you balance the drive in you though, to be a successful entrepreneur and the drive to turn it off and go enjoy the fruits of your labor?
So huge? Well, it comes down to the definition of what success is, I think in life, right? We're gonna respond by what our definitions and philosophies are. So if success is I want to build the biggest business in the world make the most money in the world, and they be number one in the world. If that's primary number one, then it makes sense that the actions that follow is, you know, burned through the weekend, which I've done, you know, like, it's hard, it's hard, because you do want to grow as well, too. But yeah, now my definition of success is very different in the Christian lens. Success is very simply obedience to obedience. Because even if you take a look, and whether you believe or don't believe it's an interesting story, the Garden of Eden, if you take a look at that story, right, God creates Adam and Eve the first people. It's interesting, because work, we might view work almost as like a punishment, like after toil, you don't want to retire something at work. But did you know that before Adam and Eve did their sin, that God created them in gave Adam work to do he was like naming the animals and stuff? Yeah, work is an essential part of our life. It brings purpose, because when you work, you're adding value, right? We're placing this world to contribute. But not only just the work, right, it's evident in the garden that the garden had beautiful things to just enjoy, and to be in the presence and in community, right. So you need all of these things. Dr. Myron golden, is a very big business guru. And he speaks from a biblical standpoint says that we were created to contribute, were created to connect. And we're also created to create these three things are in all of us, whether you believe or don't believe you know, that you're fired up. When you're doing something you're passionate about, you're doing something that helps other people, you're connecting with other people and you're enjoying the fruits of those labors will too. So if you keep the whole site in mind, that's how then things like taking a day off a Sabbath is what we're calling them religious turns right is not only just healthy, but it actually works super well to actually make you better if I can add just one more thing is we'll do is I challenge entrepreneur that thinks that I'm going to work extra overtime, and I'm going to hustle harder. And I think there's a right way to hustle. I think we need to work hard. But if you want to think about longevity, if you want to think about how to actually create the biggest impact, I challenge you to actually look at the practicality of it. That for the people that actually choose to take time off. And they enjoy that they're not guilty with their time off. They're like I'm with my family, right? I'm enjoying having fun in life. That person will actually end up being way more productive, way more creative, way more happy while they're working. And while they're not working, and actually last the Marathon of life and actually succeed more as an entrepreneur than the entrepreneur that burned the midnight oil ATL faint 24/7 Because that person typically hits a wall, and they're going to break down.
I love that. I love that. You know, and I think that's such a great answer. And I think it's a great pivot into your story a little bit, because there's a great video on your on your YouTube page, it kind of summarizes, you know, coming over here as an immigrant and what you thought you're going to do and your parents direction, talk a little bit about that early journey of you, you know, as a young man, because like you said, you know, you weren't always in this face, state, you know, alignment, everything it was that you were pulled in a lot of different directions. Do you mind sharing that story with the audience?
For sure, I would say that it's a tale of two cities and to, to an answer to a question, which is, where do you get your values from? If I'm to be real honest, for the first portion of my life going to as a young person going into college, I went to UC Berkeley of studying biology, I was trying to be a medical doctor because I'm Asian. That's what Asian stereotypes I got it. They're kind of true. But yeah. And I, I wanted to, I knew my I knew I was gonna be a medical doctor, I had the grades for it. I can study, I can regurgitate something on the piece of paper. I knew that was my like destiny. At least I thought I did. But what happened was this and I got exposed to entrepreneurship. I found mentors. And I started to learn to think for myself, I think one of the biggest issues in this world right now is we don't do our own thinking. We are sold all the time by media, by marketing, you turn on your phone, and you're instantly marketed to you all the time. And many times it's kind of like that, that that movie Inception with me, right? Oh, yeah. We don't even know why we think the way that we think many times because we're so distracted. We're so busy. We never think about the most important questions, but I got exposed to other ideas. I got to expose it, you could design your life, I got exposed to the content, you could run your own business, I got exposed to these philosophy like, wow, this is interesting, right? And what happened one day, is at a pivotal moment, when I was deciding should I go continue being a medical doctor, being an entrepreneur, at my little side hustle going on, I was finishing up my studies at school, we did this little course, it was a medical school admissions interview prep course. And I was like, proctoring it, you know, in my fraternity, I was helping my people like be smarter, basically. So we brought in someone to do this, I was not expecting to learn anything. I was just hosting it. The proctor that they asked an interesting question. They said that when you're applying for medical school, or fill in the blank for anything, right, is they're going to ask you a question. They're going to say, Why do you want to be a doctor? So I want to, I want to encourage all of our listeners right now, from what your dream is, I want you to ask yourself, why do you want XYZ to actually ask yourself that? And the proctor said something so simple, but it was so profound. I don't think he knew is this profound, but it affected me a lot. He said, When you answer this question, you shouldn't answer what I want to be XYZ. In my case, it was Why do you want to be a doctor? It's why do I have to be? I don't have to be. And Mike, I was just floored. I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I never thought about that question. And I'm like, and it sent me down this, this, this this like rabbit hole. And I'm just like, I don't know why I have to be besides culture. And besides expectation, and, you know, when I really looked at it, and really why I wanted to be a doctor I thought I wanted to be was prestige, respect, financial security, accomplishment, making my parents happy, right, those are the values. So I asked myself, and I dare test myself are there are better ways to achieve that. And then I realized through entrepreneurship, I could fulfill that so much more. And that's that day, I decided I'm going to be an entrepreneur, and I haven't looked back since.
Love that. And you know, it's funny, as you're saying that you gave five really good reasons, right? If I'm really good reasons on why you should be a doctor, and it makes sense in the logical form. And then when you choose the entrepreneurial path, there's a lot of people are gonna say, but you're disappointing your parents, you're taking the unsafe financial direction, you're going you're going in the wrong way. And then obviously, when they reached you reached a point where you're at everyone's on board now, right? How would the downswing they were it was like, huh
I'm gonna share with you my dad, who I love to death. My dad is the one and I think as entrepreneurs, we all have that person. There are like, the naysayer that negatory Mike, did you have that? Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure. Five years, my dad. So my dad is a he's a self made. Like he literally grew up on a farm. He literally had no paved streets. He worked himself through school, and then he was able to get to America because of his school. So he has a PhD as a scientist. He was very smart, but he's the type that thinks he knows it all. You know, and he loves to argue that's just who he is, you know? So when I first got started in business and my first network marketing venture, my dad just purposely every single conversation over the dinner table, try to like, say something negative towards my business. Why in that thing, it's a pyramid, like, you know why you're wasting time go get a real job. And this happened, Mike, for eight years. Like, it was to the point that I would avoid my dad, because I just every time he'd find a way, and now it's out of love, but doesn't feel loving, right. But most of the time, by the way listener, like, if you have loved ones that are trying to say something negative towards you, it's usually out of a place of love. But it's, they might not know how to communicate, they don't understand. Right? So how do you work against that? I think first it's coming. It's understanding their intent. And I know, and I knew my dad had a loving intent, but I need you need to be wise on how you deal with this. I don't want to win the argument. Because there's no winning sometimes, you know, so find ways to go out of that. But even more important is on the flip side, hey, if they're being that negative, use that as fuel as well, too, because sometimes your best feedback will come from your harshest critics, because they have no filter, right? So it's to be honest, I'm like, Well, it kind of makes sense that he's being negative towards me, because my business actually wasn't producing enough to actually give him security that not being a doctor would be worth it. Right. It took me by the way, getting married, it took me buying a Bentley having that in front of the wedding ceremony, it took me having at the wedding, half of the wedding was my business team and colleagues publicly saying that, you know, you know, you guys did pretty well, that my dad, eight years later, by the way, actually publicly gave a toast. And he said, I approve of you. So I broke down in tears. And I had so much it was it was not running everywhere it was. But use those hurtful comments, you have to take yourself, your emotions out of it, use it as constructive feedback when you can. And then be sure to surround yourself around good people that are instilling faith in you, right, your mentors, your colleagues, your partners, personal development, your faith, whatever that it is, ultimately, no one can make you feel anything. It's up to us to decide what we let through the conscious mind into the subconscious into our emotions into our heart. That is all in our control, no matter how negative someone can be. We have autonomy in that.
I love that. I love that it's so true. It's we're in control of the emotions. And like you said, a lot of people are coming from their place. I love that you kind of pointed that out. And if you keep moving, they're rooting for you. It's just in a unique way sometimes. And I think it's hard for people to see that. I do want to it's kind of once again, a good segue to kind of another topic you did one of the last interviews with Jesse Lee ward. And people who don't know her, I mean very big in the MLM space. Just an amazing woman. I very casually knew her followed her online for many, many years. She liked a lot of my stuff. I like a lot of her stuff. I saw her at a convention caches had to be probably seven, seven years ago, she was speaking at an event maybe six, seven years ago. And you know, she went there and said, Hey, I follow you online. And we started talking. And she's like, Yeah, no, I know, I know you. And that was a great. And then she got on stage and gave her talk. And she was like, she was talking about social media and how to create a personal brand you like yeah, like me and Mike. Right, Mike? Mike? Well, yeah, Mike. And she's like, we, you know, pick on each other. And we'd like each other's posts, and we comment that blah, blah. So we stayed in touch. And then about probably in July, when it was in July, I was in the Admirals Club at Charlotte airport. And who walks in and Jesse Lee and of course, she's on the phone, you know, doing her thing, and kind of make eye contact and see each other. And then I was doing some and she was on the phone, I went to the bathroom, I came back and I said, Oh Say hi. When I come out of the bathroom, she probably got the phone and she was gone. And then who knew a few months later, you know, obviously she was going through this cancer battle, having that, and then she passed away. So like never the opportunity to say hi again, right? Never have the opportunity to say something. Share with me that you know I share that story because to me what I learned from that was like, take the moment to say hi, it's okay to interrupt. It's okay to kind of get in there right and maybe be a little aggressive because like you never know when you're gonna get to thank someone or, or or tell them the words you may not be able to say and she lived the life that I think impacted so many people that I have that story. There's probably 1000 10,000 other people that have a very similar story, because that's the type of person she was. And I wondered a little bit about life and legacy because that's what it is. So I mean, you did that interview. Tell me what you you kind of got from that because there had to be something you learned from that. And the events that happened afterwards. You talked about a little bit in the video that you posted online, but I'd love to hear the story behind that.
So crazy how that ended up happening. And well first is legacy can never be measured until you're gone from this side of eternity. It's very evident with the response to happen with Jesse Lee's passing. She definitely left a legacy to this day. Right? We're still talking about it like that's such a and that's first for any entrepreneur for any ambitious individual for anybody that wants to help people and maximize your position. In short, it's a good question. It's like when I leave this side of eternity, what will my impact be? Will it be so groundbreaking that it will far Outlast my, my living life here? Or will it not? Because why not just ask that question, why not make that a goal of when I leave, my legacy will expand. That's truly legacy, right? The greatest legacies of the ones were after they passed away, and you don't know until you pass away until you're gone, what that actual impact is going to be like, so for me, it checked me. Because I'm like, to be honest, if I died right now, I don't know how I don't think I don't think my loss would be earth shattering. Compared to what I know is possible. It's not a comparison thing, right. But to make sure you live a life where you're fully exercising your gifts and fully leaving it all out. So that was the first thing. Second thing was this is that if you follow Jesse Lee, like it was such a sad time, because when I did that interview, she was going through cancer treatments, and she chose a holistic route. She was very vocal about it and looked good literally that day before my interview. So September 6, is when interviewed her September 5, she got a positive PET scan back saying, hey, cancer is basically gone.
And I watched that live, she did it live, I remember why. Yeah.
Crazy. So you know, when I was doing that podcast, it was like, A, this is a great ending. This is awesome. And 10 days later, she passed away. And it was like, Oh, my gosh. And it just so made me realize like, so following that I ended up so in Europe, we were at a convention, and I was delivering a speech and one of the speeches was talking about your story, how to develop your next breakthrough story. You have to reconcile with your past you have to draw from your future. But really what Jesse's passing, what made me so fully understand was to how to experience joy, and live full out in the present moment. Because it's cliche, right, tomorrow's not promised, but it's not. It's literally not just the word was like she looked like she was untouchable. But the reality is, no one is. And while we might think that we have another week or month or years, what if tomorrow, were our last day? What how would we live today? How would we love today? How would we work today? How would we be in every single conversation with their clients or colleagues or partners or friends or family? You would say that Hello, at the airport, right? You would say that I love you to your kids, you would you would be passionate with transforming the life of your client, you'd be delivering it all in all out. But I'm trying to do as much as possible. Mike, I check myself every single day, I asked myself that question. Am I living life like, today is the last because that really does put everything into priority. And it makes it more effective entrepreneurs will to
love that. I'm going to ask you a deep question that because talking about legacy, and that and they say that that legacy is when the last person on Earth says your name for the last time. And something that impact it could be long after you pass, right? We have people like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, they're still saying their names. What do you want that statement to be that someone says about you? That James, the last time your name said on this earth by somebody that you impacted? What do you want that statement to be?
My answer is changed from before. In before it was you know, amazing entrepreneur, some of that changed the world something that impacted lives. Honestly, now, the only thing that drives me as a person of faith is James is a person that loves the Lord with all his heart, mind and soul, and loved others as well, too. And hopefully, he showed people how to live a life like that as well. That's all I want.
That's beautiful, man. I love that. I love that. Well, James, this has been fun. And that was deep. But I want to end on not as deep of a little questionnaire that I do with all my guests. And I really got to thank you, I gotta tell you this, like you said, this is I think divine intervention that you were on the podcast and and we had to reschedule for those of you that don't we got to reschedule and honestly, 90% of times when I reschedule, I lose the guest. So I'm so excited that I didn't lose you and that you were able to commit. And that's how you know this was meant to be there was something powerful to come out of it. And I did her husband I mean tons of nuggets here. I hope every I can't wait to read listen to this. I mean, this is this. I don't know what we said, I don't I don't either. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like oh man, like like I don't I don't do it on the podcast, but I'm like, I should notes on this. So I'm definitely gonna go back and jot some stuff down because it's been so impactful and always has been for the audience as well. But like I said, we like to have a little fun here at the end. Just a few questions. I asked everybody, no wrong answers. Just you know, kind of speak from the heart. So we'll start with the first question iPhone or Android. iPhone. There we go. mascarene bubble,
man. Yeah, exactly. Yes,
the green the green. Get out of my group chat. Mac or PC?
Mac, I grew up with Mac. So I will I was a gamer. I love mac, I thought it'd be gaming in college and I had no time. So Mac though, is just so much easier. Yeah.
All right Google Drive or Dropbox, Google Drive. And a book recommendation for the audience.
Besides the Bible, oh, my gosh, a book, what would be a good book now can be your own. I mean, I suppose it's if if someone is looking for a breakthrough, and someone's open towards how faith can be in their lives, practically, I did write a book called The miraculous breakthrough for months about Bible study of fasting and prayer. But I've read a lot of books. I'm constantly binging on podcasts and all that. But to this day, the most dramatic breakthrough I've had in my business in my life, my finances, my personal self, is when I follow this principle of fasting prayer and study. In seven days of following this, I felt like Neo from the Matrix, and it changed my life for forever, man, and it will change anyone else's. I've seen people born million dollar ideas. I've seen people break addictions in a day. I've seen like, the most amazing things happen. So if you want to check that out, you can go to the website, of course, but yeah, and you got to check out Mike's book, Mike, what is your book but like socks
on a rooster? Yeah, I mean, you know? Not not as I mean, that sounds amazing. Dude, I'm like, Man, I gotta be on the whole podcast episode just to talk about that. But yeah, my book as well. And then a podcast recommendation for the audience.
Podcast. I mean, you can't go wrong with either anything from Patrick but David. Value tainment. And my let can't go wrong with Ed. There's just some. We live in such a fun time right now. Because before to get access. Remember back then you have to buy tapes and CD. Yeah, yeah. It's all free. Yeah. Oh, oh my gosh. But sometimes the free things. Free education is not not not valued a lot, you know, but if we just think about how powerful it is, be mindful of who you listen to be treated like you invested a million dollars to get coaching. I think you can gain so much from all these. So don't be a podcast binder. Be someone that learns and then applies to us use it wisely. But yeah, those couple people I definitely love.
Awesome. Awesome. Well, James, I know connecting with you has been big for me having you on the podcast. Like I said, I really appreciate you taking the time but if anyone in the audience wants to connect with you as well, what's the best way for them to that follow you and just continue on this journey with you?
Absolutely. Follow me on all my socials. It's the same. It's the same WhatsApp tag, whatever. It's at James C. The letter C Zheng, z H E, N G and follow me on Facebook, Instagram, tik, Tok, YouTube, all that type of stuff and reach out. I'd love to say hello, and I'd love to connect.
Awesome and if you're driving, don't worry about it. I'm gonna put the links in the bottom as I always do, so they will be there. So don't pull over to the side of the road or try to write it down. Or try to type it into your phone while you're driving. It will be there. James once again, thank you so much. It's been a blessing. I appreciate you tuning in. I appreciate all of you out there listening for more great episodes like this the start down.com For more v microcare.com. And I will see you on the next episode. Goodbye