Transforming Complexity into Clarity: Jalen Gonel on Intuitive AI and Personal Evolution (Part 2)

Join Part 2 of the conversation with Jalen Gonel, the brain behind Breadcrumbs.ai, as we unravel the threads of complexity in learning and entrepreneurship. Imagine a world where the intricate becomes attainable, where AI is your ally on a transformative journey through knowledge—this is the essence of Jalen's vision. In a heartfelt discussion, we trace Jalen's personal evolution from an introverted thinker to a pioneering force in tech, highlighting the pivotal role of self-education and emotional intelligence in crafting solutions that resonate deeply with human needs. As we navigate his narrative, we uncover insights into the art of connecting with others, the power of empathy, and the significance of solving real-world problems through intuitive and innovative thinking.

What if the path to your dreams was not strewn with obstacles but paved with ease? We question the traditional mantra of 'no pain, no gain' and invite you to consider an alternative approach to achieving your aspirations. In this episode, we dissect the creative process, contrasting meticulous planning with the allure of spontaneity, and offer guidance to all visionaries yearning to bring their ideas to life. Delve into a philosophy where meaningful pursuits are guided by your own North Star, and where the genuine effort is not a bid against failure but a peaceful endeavor towards living without regrets. Our dialogue with Jalen promises to not only inspire but also provide you with the mindset to forge your own path, illuminated by purpose and the courage to share your story with the world.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:18

One thing I want to pick up on, which you sort of hinted at, was this notion of circle of influence, a circle of people around you. How important is that in any startup organization, particularly as a relatively young person going out here doing something that everyone else appears to be trying to do, but you're leading in that respect? Tell me about the people that real influence. Who are they? What is it like?

Speaker 2: 0:53

Of course, I've got quite a bit of people there, but I guess I'll give a stack of the people who I feel like I benefit from the most, I think, in the last year of my life. Probably the biggest person is this person, this entrepreneur named Alex Hormozzi Basically what he is. He's someone who I would say has gone through the ringer, because he's made four businesses, all of which hit, I think, eight figures, but they were in very different areas. He was brick and mortar within gyms, then he did a supplement business on the side, then he did a software SaaS learning platform that was called Allen. Then I forget the name of the last thing you made.

Speaker 2: 1:30

Now, currently he has I guess the best way to describe it would be a mixture of private equity, vc, I guess, venture capital. It's basically a family business that he currently has. He invests in companies and startups and so grows them. His incentive structure in terms of putting out really valuable content is hey and like, for example, I don't ever really intend to ever be purchased by him or anything, but I think he's created quite the incentive structure where he said my goal is to take companies that are sort of smaller, growing, bring them up to $1 million or I think now it's $3 million ARR annual recurring revenue. At that point then you apply and so we then invest in your business. We take you to $100 million plus valuation, and then you sell it in an exit. His idea is okay, I'll give you the knowledge to get from $0 to $3 million, but then we'll take you from $3 to $100 million, because the idea of scaling is much different when it's a few people on the ground versus $100 or $500 or $2,000. I think something that he's done that I really seriously respect, and for the same reason, like after him, that I really love to listen to memoirs of people or read their autobiographies. Autobiographies is because they show the vulnerability, they show the flaws, they show the difficulties. The idea of, hey, it is going to suck, not all the time. It is extremely rewarding. It gives you an immense, extreme amount of purpose. But don't get yourself disillusioned to the idea that it's going to be easy. It's not. There's a reason why no one well, why very few people can do it.

Speaker 2: 3:22

And the idea of okay, what does it look like when people who once cheered for you all of a sudden start to become jealous of you? What does it sound like when people try and tear you down in a very sort of backhanded compliment type of way? What does it look like when people cheer for you and you're at the finish line, as opposed to supporting you when they saw you this entire previous time? But then also the idea of just the idea of thinking forward Don't build something to make $100,000. Build something that makes $100 million, or at least in the pursuit of that, because even if you don't get towards that goal, you will sort of get further than you had thought of initially. Then there's a lot of, I guess, deeper like.

Speaker 2: 4:05

I guess the idea of like, I guess, philosophical beliefs, the idea that you don't have to do this. No one's telling you that you have to do this. It's okay if you don't want to right, like you're not proving anything to anyone. That said, if you have anything, I guess, pent up, use it, but understand that there's a cost to that. And I think it's like that area, like I really attribute those mistakes, those flaws, those, hey, I want to give you a lesson without the scar. This is what scarred me. I want to say do this so you don't do that. And there's quite a few decisions I can name off the top of my head that had I not had that experience, I don't think I would have gotten this far.

Speaker 2: 4:53

In that same way, richard Branson his autobiography Losing my Virginity. I think that one of the great things about it is this idea of connection, of connectivity. He starts the book by talking about what he was doing in grade school right Like arguing with his teachers and then you flash forward, has somewhere halfway in the book and he's talking about how he needs to expunge $300 million worth of debt from Virgin Airlines, from a buyout or from his multi-conglomerate of Virgin companies and from that entire period. It's like, oh my God, like he took me from here to here and like it's crazy. It's like this is possible. This is a thing I mean.

Speaker 2: 5:34

On top of that, when I was working at Boston Beer Company Dave Burwick, ceo of Boston Beer Company, currently, it was during quarantine, I guess I was the only co-op at the office I remember like within the first week I was there, right, I was making my coffee and I was using like the creamer that was just around there and he had said, oh, don't use that. Like he just sort of walked by me. He was like, oh, like we got real creamer because people are coming to the office, you know. And then he took it out of the fridge. He's like do you mind? I'm like, yeah, okay, sure. Next thing I know the CEO of this multibillion dollar company is making me coffee, me the intern coffee, and I'm like, wow, and I had a few run-ins with him at some point.

Speaker 2: 6:14

I asked him hey, can I like sit down with you for like a coffee chat? And for like 40 minutes he like talked to me and I guess was in that way I've been very lucky to have people like that within books and within real life sort of bring down to earth the idea that, oh my God, this is possible, like these are not like these like demigods who just exist in stories, who I see on TV, like these are real, legitimate people. And I cannot tell you how much that does towards your internal belief, the idea that I can, right. And I think that, no matter what way you get that, from your family, from your friends, from, like you know, I guess, the right people, especially in those impressionable times, to have, that is like really really really deeply important, because otherwise it feels impossible to succeed. I mean it still does now, but at least, oh, at least there's a chance.

Speaker 1: 7:12

Tell us a little bit about your childhood, growing up. I'm really interested because I'm trying to see if there's a nexus between things you learned as a child and your very pronounced conviction on doing anything, particularly breadcrumbs. I'm just kind of curious. Just a brief sort of synopsis of where you grew up, what that was like, et cetera.

Speaker 2: 7:45

Yeah, well, I guess what I'll start is that I think the idea of like multiple cultures is something that's been very much part of me, like I'm like, for example, I'm part Haitian, I'm part Filipino. Right, I grew up in a town called Tinnock, new Jersey, which is one of the most Orthodox Jewish, or Orthodox Jewish towns in the entire country, and you know, on like, on like Saturdays, right, they like walk to the synagogue and I also done like rubric soccer for the town league and you know that exposed me to, you know them. And I also remember, in my public school I was I mean it was it was extremely diverse. I mean to the point that I mean it was a mostly minority school, like maybe maybe a few kids who were white in a was it a grade of like 150. And I remember like, for example, like they really spent a lot of time teaching us about the different types of religions and cultures, like Black History Month was an entire month. We learned about all of the Egyptians and the different religions of Buddhism and Islam, and all this very young age.

Speaker 2: 8:57

And then I applied and got into a magnet school and things actually shifted very dramatically, or at least it felt like a culture shock all of a sudden. I was the only black kid in class in most of my classes and there's, you know, lots of you know Asian people, indians and white people and I realized I know it's just, it's just a lot of forced exposure. It's the point that I realized, oh, and you know, like I, just the idea of like meeting groups of people that I didn't know, it wasn't familiar with, it was just like, I guess, inherently baked in and it was just, oh, a thing that just, especially when I got into college, I realized there was a lot more willing to go to groups of people that my other friends would be like. I'm good, they couldn't say why, but I started to see a sort of homogeneity in the types of people that hang out with other people.

Speaker 2: 9:47

I didn't really have that which is exactly what breadcrumbs does, but moving right along, yeah don't need to bring it back to breadcrumbs again, but of course there's there, there's the, there's the logic interesting yeah, I want to say also, just to just add to that I think I've always been obsessed with making it's like just big projects. I think like, for example, the third grade it was, you know, like like if you Google what the Lego Taj Mahal was, it was a 6,000 piece set of like Legos. That's that was normally for, I think, what like 16 or 18 plus, and third grade I like saved up all my money for like months and months to then buy it like for Christmas and then like built the entire thing all by myself in the span of a few weeks. I think that's actually, looking back, a pretty core memory.

Speaker 2: 10:35

In high school I had like built my to learn programming. It was learning a game, a video game engine called Unity 3D, and I made like mobile games such that I could play with people. I think it was actually quite a at least in that computer science sort of like mini major within my high school, little like camaraderie in terms of competition. I programmed a bunch with the you know was it with the VR headsets and made experiences about trying to visualize information. And yeah, I guess it. I mean, quite honestly, it's really funny. You say that because I think about how everything in the past is like sort of led towards this, and I and I I tend to notice this trend also. Entrepreneurs like those are really dedicated. If you, if you trace back their life, their their experiences, their life tends to manifest into what they ultimately create and I think that's really fascinating.

Speaker 1: 11:28

Yeah, because I mean, I'm a firm believer that our experiences are connected. As we near the end of the podcast, I typically will ask the question what would you tell seven or eight year old out there today about what's ahead? But I'm going to turn it up a little bit and twist it for you, and that's going to be it's the year 2050. What do you think you would tell the seven year old in 2050?

Speaker 2: 12:01

Yeah, it's such a good question. I have no clue what's going to be happening. I mean, you mentioned Sora, which is the like, like text to video feature that's coming out now and I think that that's for quite a lot of people, because it's very visual, started to give an idea of, oh, ai can really, oh, this is what it can do. It can do anything, anything like take my job, like you know, like, and I think that to well, there's the advancement of the technology, which I think is going to happen very quick, relatively quickly. Then there's the adoption of it and there's the societal change that will manifest because of it, or manifests to stop it, and I honestly do not know, honestly, where it will go. It could be very 5050. My guess is that for people in 2050, I have created, and it's been about a year's worth trying to really contradict this idea, but my belief is that the future of business, if there is a future of business, it will be what I call, within the ham sandwich, that which encapsulates the human experience, the age, authenticity, the authentic A and the material. So, as an example of the human experience would be, I mean when Muse, when the cost of a CD or a record went down to nothing. It was, you know, through streaming festivals and concerts, where things are. That's why Taylor Swift made $1.4 billion off a tour, because you can't get that anywhere else.

Speaker 2: 13:26

In terms of the authenticity, it also will be in that same way. You could think of the art market, right, the like high art market. I think that concept will come down towards common people. Yeah, I could have anything anywhere. I think software will be incredibly commoditized, and so it is about the oh, but like. It's because it's this person or the or has this story behind it that I want. There's no other reason other than it is, and you could also think of that in terms of deeds to a house and ownership. And the material is well, the raw materials, right, the silicon, the, you know, the iron, right, the titanium that will, you know, be in the robots, or the silicon that is used to create these AI, and so I think then the economy will shift towards a much more humanist sort of economy of well, because, because you are, you are, because you are who you are, I'd like to, you know, do business, I'd like to hang out with you, I'd like to, whatever. And so I would say to those people right, in the same way that, like you know, attractor is like much stronger, can do much more than the strongest person, right, ai in many ways, be you know, thought wise, cognitively much greater than you.

Speaker 2: 14:39

But it's not about that. It's about what makes you you in a really cliche way, like like, find your individuality right. What is it that makes people resonate with you? That, or what is it that you can do that makes people go, wow, I really want to be around this person. Or they really have something to say, or the way that they do this is what have you, or they create this experience that makes me feel whatever. You know, I think the biggest example of that is musicians now, but probably being ways that we can't even imagine in the future. And I mean AI. At the end of the day, it's just a reflection of who we are. People say, oh, ai is not creative. Ai is not creative. It's like no, it is, but you have to place in your own ideas, your stories.

Speaker 1: 15:23

It still has to have the human element side as well. Yes, well, that's wonderful. Well, I look forward to checking back with you in 2050 to see how far you went and did you accomplish all of those things that you set out to do? And if anyone's interested in breadcrumbs, can you tell us how do we go about getting to breadcrumbs?

Speaker 2: 15:49

Of course. So it is breadcrumbs. It is actually shortened in the same way that breadcrumbs gives you all the information. You need Nothing you don't, such that you can get to where you want to go. Bredcrumbsai, that's fantastic.

Speaker 1: 16:04

Well, I encourage all of our listeners to go to breadcrumbs and see what you're doing with it and imagine all the possibilities. So thank you once again for joining us and take care. I look forward to catching up with even more students in our future episodes. Take care.