Justin Michael Lewis (DJ JayLew)
Appearances
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
The main thing that I would suggest for anybody who is trying to set goals that align with where they're trying to go, first and foremost, there has to be a purpose behind why you're doing it. And I think a lot of times when we set goals, we don't think about purpose.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Oh, man. When I started boxing a few years ago, when I got invited to go on celebrity boxing, a lot of people don't realize, but... That was probably the best thing that I could have ever done for myself. The reason why I did it was because I was told that I couldn't do it from a former friend who I ended up realizing wasn't a true friend, was very negative. So you have to get away from that too.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
You have to eliminate all negative influences in your life. But when I started boxing, I realized that it was something that I wasn't good at. And the type of person that I am, I like to be good at things. And I was relentless. It taught me a lot about how much I really had inside of me, which translated into how I do business now. Like a lot of people don't realize boxing is like chess.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
It's a strategy. You have to monitor your opponent's weaknesses. You have to monitor your opponent's fatigue levels, their footwork, their hand movements. You have to memorize which punches they threw three or four times. Then again, a lot of boxers don't do that. I'm just being honest because I was the type of person that I wasn't a great boxer when I started.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
But I became a professional boxer when I ended with three title belts and one world championship belt. So the way that I did that was by putting myself in an uncomfortable situation, which scared me, having to face my fears head on in an environment that I wasn't comfortable with. I was raised in a family that... told us not to fight. My mom always said, it's better to walk away.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
If someone puts their hands on you, defend yourself, but by all means, walk away if you have to. So now I'm putting myself in a position that I've never been in before where I have to now be around people that like to fight. Some people don't have anything to lose, don't have degrees, don't have... anything close to what I've built.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
No social media, just people that are coming out of jail, people that like to fight. So now I'm in this type of environment. I'm in a very aggressive, hardcore environment, and I had to rise to the occasion. And I will say that during my amateur career, I put myself, I sparred every, the biggest guys in the gym. I didn't, I didn't go for anyone that I could beat. Like you have that too.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
I noticed, you know, it's funny. I noticed a lot of things in the boxing gym. I noticed that people do in business and in the real world. So in a boxing gym, you have guys in there that are in incredible shape, but they never, they never spar people that are better than them. They always spar people that are a little bit less. They don't have the greatest.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
I always sparred people that were better than me. And I got beat, I would say, never actually. Because I never got knocked out in sparring. But I would say that there were a few times that I felt like I didn't win the sparring match. But when it was time for me to actually fight on my record, I would always rise to the occasion that I would win. But that was because I put myself against the best.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
And on top of traveling and fighting other people that were the best. So I would say that. From my personal experience, what got me to that point was having to start from ground, from zero again. Having to listen to a coach. I'm used to being in charge of everything as a DJ. My money, my travel arrangements, even my management. I'm used to telling my manager what they need to do.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
So being in an environment now where the coach is like, you need to run on a treadmill and not having any back talk. you have to go over here. It taught me how to be a great listener. It taught me more discipline about myself, even my posture.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
You know, when you learn self-defense training, you can walk and stand tall and have confidence and people feel that confidence and it's not fake confidence, it's real confidence. They feel it on you. You know, whether you're with a female or just in a group where you're just in presenting like a business meeting or like with your team. So, I would say that was probably the greatest blessing.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
And one thing I will say is that out of that experience, because of the business person and the business mind that I am, I started 8th Season. 8th Season came out of me boxing. So all of that turned into me creating a brand that was for combat sports originally. Now it's turned into a lifestyle, luxury, urban luxury lifestyle brand, streetwear and high fashion brands.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
So it's funny how things in life can take you one place and then they turn into something, you know, on the other end of it, you know?
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
The first thing that sparked my passion in the DJing had to be when I was growing up. My mom, she threw this incredible party for me for my graduation. And it was my opportunity to actually touch the turntables for the first time. And that was my first time actually being exposed to the art of DJing.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Yeah, you know what? Well, we just did a milestone yesterday. So Data Global Hub, a company that I co-founded with Moji, we actually received 1,500 data tech and AI scholarships from DataTamp yesterday. We were approved for the scholarships to be able to give out to students the community. We're also partnering with Forbes Black on Juneteenth in LA. We're doing a huge event.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
We'd actually love to have you at the panel speaker if you're available. We're doing an event with Forbes Black on June 19th and we're giving out scholarships for data tech and AI. And to go back and answer your question, as far as my mentors growing up, DJ Kool was very influential for me. DJ Kool, he did Let Me Clear My Throat back in the 80s. Let Me Clear My Throat.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Very influential figure for me. He bought me on tour for a CIAA tour in 2010. And it was the greatest experience I ever had being on tour with a DJ. I have met Jazzy Jeff, Kid Capri, Fuck Matha Flex, all the people. He had no envious energy in his body at all. Anyone I wanted to meet, he would say, go get him, champ. Go meet him, champ.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
He wasn't introducing me, but he gave me the opportunity to be in a room. And I think that that's the main thing that we have to realize as business people and as professionals. If you see someone who's talented and invite them into the room, you don't have to pounce for them. You don't have to say, oh, this is my man. This is my guy. But do the right thing.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
If the guy has talent or the girl has or the woman has talent, Allow them to be in a place where they can actually grow. Because by default, they have to say, oh, I'm with J. Luke. Or, oh, I'm with, you know, at that time, I was with DJ Kool. They say, oh, who are you with? I'm with DJ Kool. Oh, okay, cool, cool, cool. Okay, okay, how you doing? So that's okay.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
I mean, I think that that's what we're missing right now. I think a lot of people, man, mentorship is out the window because I brought this up recently on a group team call, and I told them, I said, look, your mentor is not your competition. We have too many mentors trying to be in competition with their mentees.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Then I actually ended up going over to a friend's house who owned a set of 1200s and just kind of played around with those. And then I just fell in love with DJing instantly.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
you know, trying to overly power the mentee instead of giving the mentee the opportunity to learn from the mentor, right? As a mentor, I think, because I feel like I'm in a position now to be a mentor, and I am a mentor, actually, to a lot of people, even though I'm female. I would say, Minyan, like, I'll give you an example. I have
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
I'm getting so many people in Las Vegas that are asking me to privately teach them how to DJ. And I could be a guy that says, oh, no, I'm good. I don't have time for that. But you know what? I said, you know what? Okay. I'll start trainings of people on the side for free, you know, because I DJ. I still have a studio. I still DJ. Okay.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
But what I'm going to end up doing probably is opening up a DJ school like I used to teach at in LA, here in Vegas, where just monetize it so that, okay, since this is a demand, people want to DJ, why don't we open up an environment where people can actually come and DJ from other DJs? I'm only one person, but I've realized that...
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Being here in Las Vegas, there's not anyone that's actually trying to help other people accomplish their dream of being a DJ. So that's one way that I think we can solve that problem. Another way is giving out opportunities, right? Like I mentioned, there's nothing for any of us... It's nothing for any of us to be able to give someone the opportunity to showcase their talent. Right?
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Like, that's right. A lot of people don't realize, like I made all of my money from being a servant by, by people coming up to me, asking me for help or me going up to them and saying, Hey, this could make this, I could help you do this. Everything I've done has translated from that, just that alone.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
And I think that that's what's missing in a lot of people and why they're not happy with where they are. It's because there's too many selfish people. And the selfish people that I've seen don't even have anything to be selfish about, which is the sad part. I'm the type of person that when you have an exotic car, I don't care if someone takes a picture in front of my exotic car.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
I don't care if somebody wants to sit inside of the car. We have too many people now that are so stuck up. Like, oh, no, you can't take a picture in front of my car. I used to do that. Like, who cares? Like, you should be happy. You should be able to say, oh, wow, someone actually appreciates the hard work I put in to earn this car. Have fun. Take as many pictures as you want.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Columbia, Maryland, but I lived in California for almost a decade, currently based in Las Vegas.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Like, for somebody to be out there and, like, to bash somebody to say, oh, you're a poser. You're not doing this. We should be congratulating people. Who cares? If you're really successful, it doesn't matter. It's the picture. It doesn't matter.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
And I started to realize that because I've had to harness a lot of people that called me so many different names over my career to where now it's like, okay, the tide has shifted. There's a power shift happening. And I'm humble.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
I'm humble because I understand there's a power shift happening and I still want to transact with people that didn't want to transact with me when I was in my development stages.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
But these are going to be the same people, you know, you included Mike, who we'll see, you know, when we're on New York Stock Exchange, when we're, you know, doing the CNBC Squat Box interviews and, you know, all the other stuff. You know, I still have love for that. And I want people to understand I'm coming from hip hop, like rap music.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
When I listen to that music now, I completely understand Jay-Z and why he doesn't want to be affiliated with certain things. Because now, even with my business partnerships and my affiliations, you can't go into certain settings. I'm doing a huge launch party on Saturday for 8th season with my creative director, Amy Kirsten. That party is at an art gallery.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
There's no way you can go into an art gallery and start playing a bunch of derogatory music in that type of environment. So we have to also realize what we're doing too. Are we pouring poison into the community? Or are we adding life and value to the community?
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
And where I'm at right now, because going back to my point about DJing, the reason why I haven't DJed is because the music has gotten so bad to the point to where me being a hip-hop or rap DJ actually holds negative connotation to every part of my businesses that I'm going into at this point. Anyone that's in data tech and AI doesn't want to hear anything about hip-hop or rap.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
They don't want to hear about people getting drunk. They don't want to hear about people smoking illegal drugs. And also, my lifestyle doesn't align with that. It never did, to be honest. And I think a lot of people in hip-hop need to be upfront about it. A lot of people in hip-hop need to be transparent and say, you know what? I never do drugs like that. I just stay for...
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
entertainment purposes. Instead of them having the rated R or explicit content on CE labels, maybe they should put it for entertainment purposes only. Maybe they should change that. Because a lot of times when we look at this stuff, I remember it was cool. When you used to buy CEs at the store, it was cool to buy the explicit content version. Because we were kids. We were children.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
We wanted to say curse words. You wanted to do what the older guys were doing. But you weren't really doing what the older guys were doing. You just liked the beats and stuff. But as a grown man, especially if it's successful, living in a nice neighborhood or accomplishing miles over in business, There's really no place for you to be listening to that type of music, to be honest.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
There's really no value. Yeah.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Hmm. Well, it's changed over the years because my why initially when I started DJing,
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Yeah, definitely. Across all platforms, DJ J. Lou, D-J-A-Y-L-E-W. And our mission right now is, across all of my companies, is to help out the community, especially the minority community. Our goal is to give back as much as we can to the minority community and help those that are in need.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
We're also using our resources to partner with bigger organizations that don't have the access to the minority community. And we're using that as a platform, as pretty much a bridge, so that these corporations that want to get involved, they can work with a company that's trustworthy. that they can trust to do that with.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
So for instance, like I mentioned, one way we're doing that is through scholarships. We're giving away free scholarships. We're starting with $1,500, but Every year, we plan on giving away 1,000 more scholarships. Even next year, we talked about it on the call on a business meeting earlier today. We might even just give away 10,000 scholarships next year. You know, we just might do that.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
ultimately was to be famous that was the original why full transparency as i've continued to grow as a man and in my career my goal with djing has been to educate people to inspire other djs to do more than just music and to get out there and you know like you said be a trailblazer start a business provide impact over over over notoriety really i mean the notoriety is the bonus i think after you provide the impact
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
You know, a part of me and my business partner's goal, me and Moji's goal, is to open up schools All around the country. Our goal is to open up schools in Africa as well for people to learn data, tech and AI. So we have a lot of different things that we're doing on. I would say on a global scale that that we haven't that we that we haven't. I would say.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
given all of the details too for people to support. But these are things in the pipeline that have already been created that we already have the resources to do. Well, it is what it is. So right now we're working with Shaka Zulu. He's a partner in our next event. He's based in Congo. And we probably will start there. We also have partnered with Pan African Lifestyle.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
which is a massive, massive community, over 25 million members. We've also partnered with Uncover AI, which is a leader in data tech and AI community. We also partnered with AI Technologies, Black Wealth Committee, Blacks in Tech. It's a lot to name, you know, but all of our partners, like some of the people that we're working with right now are Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, SpaceX.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
You know, we're dealing with some of the most brilliant minds in every industry. So we want more people like that to join the team. We see this as being the, I would say the black Google, you know, is what we're building here. You know, my co-founder is a data UX designer, so he's a coder. And that's one thing, too. I'll leave you with this, Mike.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
I know we're wrapping up here, but in our community, we don't understand power dynamics. My skill set is not...
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
I'm not a highly technical person but I'm technical enough to be able to work with someone who is highly technical so highly technical people they need people who are hunters out there on the ground meeting people they need more extrovert energy right so what we have to do is instead of us looking at the people who in the community we quote unquote call nerds
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
We actually need to start partnering with those people. We need to start asking them, how can we help you? If you're a promoter, How can you partner with someone who's highly technical, who can't get their product out there, who is having trouble getting out that app that is extraordinary? How can you work within using your skill set of getting things out there?
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Instead of you promoting all these nightclubs, why don't you go and promote something that can actually give you some value and give you some money, make you some serious money, right? That's just one thing. But in our community, we're taught the complete opposite. We're taught from a young age, you're the star. You're going places. You're going to the NBA or you're going doing this.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
No one talks about you should be a mechanical engineer. You should be something off the grid. If we want to make progress, we have to build things. And in our community, we're used to servicing a lot of things, but we're not building things. And that's what we're doing at David Grover Hub. And what I'm doing right now is we're actually building things.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Thank you, Mike. And one thing that I'm going to make sure to do, because I think more billionaires should do this, a big shout out to Robert Smith. But when I become a billionaire... I want people to understand and know that there's no malice intentions for me. I really do want our people to succeed.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
But I think a lot of people get into DJing as well as a lot of other things because they're trying to get the notoriety before they make the impact. So I think that initially when I, so it's a great question. When I was 12 years old, I made my goals list. And those goals list to me at 12 years old was, you know, unimaginable.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
And when I say our people, I mean anyone, no matter their background, race, color, ethnicity, whatever. I want everyone to have an equal or fair shot to succeed. And I truly mean that from the bottom of my heart. And we want people that want to help people get better on our team. And that has no race attached to it.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
And that's one thing that I would say that I will make sure of as I continue to grow in my businesses is to make sure that every single person that I interact with, I'm adding value to them and they're going to be able to get benefit out of me.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
So the goals that I set when I was 12, I had accomplished those goals by before I was 20. And things like going on tour, things like performing at a festival, things like meeting some of the famous people that I wanted to meet at that time, hosting certain events with live entertainment and artists, you know, being on the radio.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
All these goals that I set for myself, I had pretty much achieved those before I was 20. And because when you're still a young man or a young person growing up in this world, you're not very familiar with how your life is going to kind of transition and go in different areas and which way you're going to kind of go.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
After I graduated from college from music business, I ended up finding myself working in business and corporate. And then I found myself working as an educator at Scratch DJ Academy, teaching other DJs how to DJ for Scratch 101. Then I found myself working back at ground level again as a PA for a film director. And then I ended up becoming a music director.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
So, you know, life is interesting in that way. But to make a long story short, I redid my goals. I would say in my late 20s, probably around 27, 28 ish. I redid my goals and I realized that the goals that I set for myself when I was 12 years old didn't match the goals that I wanted to see for myself long term.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
So one thing I will say to anyone that's watching this podcast is sometimes we have to take inventory. and see if our goals that we set for ourselves still align with where we're trying for our next version of who we want to be.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Because what I see a lot of times, even in business and also in, I would say, when people are looking to go into different fields, their goals sometimes don't match with where they're trying to go. So I think that's very important.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
The main thing that I would suggest for anybody who is trying to to set goals that align with where they're trying to go. First and foremost, there has to be a purpose behind why you're doing it. And I think a lot of times when we set goals, we don't think about purpose. We think about a goal to achieve something, which is another point.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
A lot of times when we set our goals, we're doing it by ourselves, which is why teamwork, partnerships, collaboration is so important. Why your circle defines how successful you'll be. because I've realized as I become more successful in my career that the goals that I set now, they come from a collaborative space.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
So I'm not the only one behind a lot of the goals that I'm trying to achieve as a team. And I think that's the most important aspect when goal setting is to not only have your personal goals, but also have your team goals, whether you're a part of a team or you're ahead of a team.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
But having those different milestones that you can actually see and then also not just depend on yourself, but have other people depending on you.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Well, I think that a lot of people who meet me, full transparency, they're not used to meeting people who are just completely genuine and honest and authentic because it's really hard to find in the world. I was raised very naive. My mom, she raised me to pretty much look at the world through a singular lens.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
So I've been burned a lot because my mom always said, treat everyone how you want to be treated, which I still believe that to this day. But I've also realized as I've gotten older that not everyone deserves their time to begin with.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
So I think what happens a lot of times, especially in how I've become, you know, the person that I am now, the man I am now, has been for me, honestly, trial and error in meeting people and offering value and seeing some people that didn't want it. And then other people who have, you know, the people I'm still working with today who have looked at an opportunity for them to grow.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Like I give you a great example. My business partner, Moji. We're the co-founder of the Data Global Hub, and we're putting on four different events currently. We have a billion-dollar company. I know it's going to be a billion-dollar company. We've been doing very, very well. Me and Moji, we connected at Forrest last year at 30 Under 30.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
When I met him, he already had a business and I had my own business, but we instantly clicked because we saw that we could add value to each other's businesses. So it wasn't any ego. It was just, how can I help you? How can you help me? And then ultimately we came together and said, you know what, instead of us partnering, we need to just come together and co-found this company.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
So now I'm in the data tech and AI space. And who would have thought that a guy coming from entertainment media would be in the data tech and AI space, which is the future? Because now it's funny how roles change and switch. Now the people in entertainment media who don't have any connection to data tech and AI, now all of a sudden everyone wants to be a part of data tech and AI now.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
So now I'm a cool guy again. Because now I'm somebody who has access to something that most people now won't have access to. Now, I don't consider that inauthentic. I just consider it being in the right place at the right time. And that's one thing that I'm very, very good at. And a lot of people told me a long time ago, oh, you just take pictures with people. You don't really know these people.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
And to a certain extent, that's true. But the other part that they didn't realize was that I knew I was going to see those people again. And every time I saw those people again, I would reference the time that I met them, and I would let them know, like, hey, this isn't the first time I met you, but I met you before here. This is us together. So it wasn't a flex.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
It was a strategic strategy for me being able to remind people where they met me at. And the same goes with all of us. You don't have to be a big shot to do this. If someone meets you casually and they say, hey, I'm really a big fan of your work. You might want to take a picture. You may not remember them.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
But if you meet them again and they show you a picture and say, hey, I met you here, here, here. This is us. We talked about this, this, and this briefly. You're going to now listen very attentively. And to my point, I built a very successful social media marketing company doing that.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
And a lot of the people that matched that strategy and were saying a lot of negative things, now they regret it because a lot of them want to work with me now. And it's hard for me to work with people that had a mindset like that. But just like in 48 Law of the Power, they say your enemies become your greatest allies.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
And I do believe that because I've hired some former people who didn't believe in the company and the vision and they've been doing extraordinary for the organization. But there is a cap, I think, when you do that because anyone who is a great CEO knows that they can't necessarily promote you past their comparability level.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
So there still is a ceiling for how far you can go if you do decide to double back and be friends with someone who you necessarily weren't fond of before. Yeah.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Well, that's the greatest superpower of mine. The greatest superpower of mine is being seen as someone who's oblivious. For a long time, I've been underestimated because people will see me out doing certain things and then they underestimate my intelligence.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
So it's actually, now that I'm getting older, because as you continue to get older, what I'm starting to realize, I'm in my early 30s, but as I'm starting to get older, I'm starting to realize how I'm pulling away from certain people in my age group.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Thank you, Mike. I appreciate that. What an incredible introduction. I'm just glad to be here with you on your podcast. And yeah, man, it was actually great to see all the incredible interviews you've been doing so far.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
And then I'm also communicating with people who are wanting to transact with me who are older, who haven't even reached the level that I'm at, and I'm 20 years junior. So I've realized that The greatest advantage I've had is, what do they say? Play a fool to catch a fool or something or play dumb. Something to that extent. And I've never done it, to be honest.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
I've never tried to go out of my way to be less intelligent. I never have. It's just something that God has blessed me with to be able to carry out a certain lifestyle and a certain way of doing things in a way to where it seems almost effortless. But it also, I'm doing a lot. It's almost like I'm not, I guess I'm just really good at organization. I'm a really good strategic player.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
I also am really good at cultivating relationships. I enjoy working on things from the ground up. I'm a fielder. So that's another thing too. I actually like coming in when things are bare bones. And I think that's kind of scary for people because most people, I've realized that own businesses, especially owning a marketing company.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
A lot of marketing companies, some of the clients that I had that used to be local clients, they used to say, why do you want to work with me? I'm just a small business. And I would tell them, the reason why I want to work with you is so that maybe we can go out of business together eventually.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
Not just for right now, you may not have a huge budget right now, but I'm confident in my services to where you will have enough money to start investing in other things and also expand on your business. But then again, you know, it goes back to business 101 again. You know, if that's not in your brain, if you're thinking that you're a small business, you'll stay a small business.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
And that's something I'm learning too as I'm getting older because my time is getting more and more scarce is that if people don't see themselves as being high level entrepreneurs, Sometimes the money is not good enough to even work with them.
Mick Unplugged
DJ JayLew: From Beats to Business, A Journey of Innovation and Impact
If they don't see a bigger vision for themselves, then if you have a bigger vision for your client than they have for themselves, it's probably better to walk away from that client unless you want to stay at that level with your client.