Becoming Super Human With Jonathan Levi

Founder at Becoming SuperHuman – Jonathan Levi

Here’s what you’ll learn from Jonathan about Becoming Super Human:

– How to create online courses that people actually consume and learn from. (And how to validate them quickly.)
– Why a subscription model is not always a great idea. (Contrary to popular belief.)
– How to create engagement with your course material.
– You’ve got your idea for a course validated. Now what? Discover how Jonathan turns validations into premium courses quickly.
– How to start automating your business operations. (And why you should do it sooner rather than later.)
– Can you automate customer interactions too? Discover the “sneaky” McDonald’s method Jonathan uses for that.
– The simple “Priority Start” exercise to help you focus on things that really matter.

Tune in and listen: Becoming Super Human With Jonathan Levi

Jonathan’s Website:

JLe.vi

Transcript: Download

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services.

Jaime Masters:	Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I'm Jaime Masters and today on the show we have Jonathan Levi. He has a really cool website. Oh, he's very excited with a crazy, amazing studio in the background. He has a podcast called Becoming Super Human and also website at jle.vi. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Jonathan Levi:	It is my pleasure.

Jaime Masters:	I got shown up by the background of - his podcasting studio is way better than mine. But you're a serial entrepreneur; you've done a ton of different things. Give us your bio in two seconds.

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah. So - whoa, two seconds.

Jaime Masters:	I know, right.

Jonathan Levi:	I never had a real job. That's the two second version. I've never gotten a paycheck I didn't sign myself. But I've been a lifelong entrepreneur. I sold my first successful company at 23, started it at 16, went on, did the soul searching journey is what I'm doing - helping people. Decided that it wasn't and that's I got into online education, more specifically, helping people optimize their learning experience, and just their health, and fitness, and sleep, and that's where I am now. I really like what I do - 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	Helping people become superhuman. I love that. What are some of the courses you've created because we want to go down the path of how the heck you do this, especially in different niches.

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah. So, it all started with this course called Become a Super Learner which, honestly, was a side hustle. We were talking before we hit record about side hustles. This is a side hustle to get me to my next paycheck. I was like, "I don't know what I'm going to do. Maybe I'll do some stuff in Africa. Maybe I'll do something that will be an adventure back. I don't know when my next check's coming." A lot of people had asked me about speed reading and memory which I had done very intensively. And had been trained by private tutors to do. 

I was like, "Well, I could figure out to way. Translate all their materials from the language that I learned it in to English, put it up online, and see what happens." The beauty of having that skillset is I decided one day I was going to do an online course. So, I went online and did all the speed reading I could about online courses, and online marketing, and all this other stuff that I knew nothing about like video production, video editing. I think it took me a week or two, and then I just put up the course. It became one of Udemy's top selling courses of all time. And then I just - 

Jaime Masters:	Why do you think that is, right? Because I have clients that do some amazing things on Udemy, but there's so many courses and so many providers. Why did yours go to the top?

Jonathan Levi:	There are a lot of factors. Number one, I won't deny the element of luck and the element of timing. When I got on there, there were 10,000 courses. Today, I think there's 40,000. So, that helps. I also teach something that pretty much everyone wants to learn. I've very rarely met people, who when they hear what I do, don't say, "Oh, my God. I need that," right? Everyone wants to read faster. Everyone wants to remember things more effortlessly. 

And then I think the third thing is I approached it like I approach everything, I just open up 100 tabs, speed read 100 articles, and beat it. I did the same thing when I did my podcast. I did the same thing when I did my book. And it's like, anything you want - is is my spiel if you will, my tag line - anything you want, the barrier between you and that objective is just learning. So, that's how I do stuff.

Jaime Masters:	I love it. Okay. So, when we're - what's funny is that I think of all the people listening to this probably on two times the speed right now. So, we probably sound like - 

Jonathan Levi:	Right.

Jaime Masters:	Chipmunks because they're not speed reading. It's hard to make people prioritize that though, isn't it? I feel like it's like, "Oh, I really want to do that one day. Oh, it's one of those - yeah." I've said that a thousand times and I still haven't done it. I read pretty quick, but not speed reading. So, how do you get past that objection of like, "I know I want to do it someday, but not right now."

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah, that was a big thing in designing the course. And I think - I didn't invent 95 percent of the techniques that we teach. What I invented and innovated in was how do we teach it. So, bringing it online and breaking it down into 30 a minute a day digestible chunks. So, if you give me 30 minutes a day for four to five days a week for 10 weeks, I'll teach you to do amazing stuff. 

Whereas most of these courses are like - especially at the college level you see these flyers all over college campuses that are like, "Come. 12 hours, two days in a row. We'll teach you." They don't touch the memory stuff, but they claim to double your reading speed. We made it super digestible and I think our marketing is pretty good. One of the selling points is I once calculated from the age of, say about 10 years old when I really started reading proficiently. I got really into the Goosebumps series - 

Jaime Masters:	Oh, yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	To the age of 24 when I learned speed reading. I calculated an average of two hours a day of homework, business reading, emails, whatever. It all amassed - it was nine consecutive months, Jaime, that I wasted of my life. So, what - 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	Exactly. You're like, "Okay, I'll put into perspective. Now I want to teach my 10-year-old to speed read." What the heck? That's a very valid point. It does make it way more important because time is really, really important. Only thing we can't get back.

Jonathan Levi:	Totally.

Jaime Masters:	So, tell me more because now, going forward to the future, right, where we are now from then. You've done a lot of different courses. How do you know what works versus what doesn't? I work with a lot of clients and they're like, "I want to do a course. I don't know what it's going to be." How we validate and know because there are so many courses out there now?

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah. So, I'm one of these entrepreneurs - I've been in entrepreneurship way before the whole lien start up thing. So, I've done it the crappy way and I once spent $40,000 of my own money on a product that nobody used. And then I found out about the lien start up, and getting real, and all these amazing frameworks, and Steve Blank. And I learned it the hard way.

 I wish I could just pick up a book, so I validate my products really, really simply. I talk to customers - even with this first course. I went online to my Facebook friends, I emailed 500 people from my business school class, and I was like, "What would you say if I could," and there's a right and a wrong way to do lien. And I've done it the wrong way.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah, give me more because this is thing. So, people - so, I have a beta process that I work people through also. And there's so many questions that come up as we're going through like, "Well, what do I say in the email?" I'm like, "This isn't rocket science." But everyone wants to know exactly how to - 

Jonathan Levi:	Right.

Jaime Masters:	Get the right thing because it seems like it's grey. And they're like, "I don't know what - 

Jonathan Levi:	Sure.

Jaime Masters:	"To do with this," right? And they freak out. So, walk us through what that process is that you?ve done.

Jonathan Levi:	So, I will, but I also want to disclaimer and say that I had immediately out of business school, the reason that I was wandering around looking for an idea is I had an idea and it failed in a blaze of glory. And it's because I went about this lien customer development process, but I went about it the wrong way. So, the wrong way is to go and say, "Hey, Jaime. I have an idea for a course that does this, this, this, and this. It's this price, will you buy it?" Of course, you're going to say yes because you're going to be nice and you're going to be polite. But you're not actually going to buy it.

Jaime Masters:	Nope.

Jonathan Levi:	Whereas if I asked you open questions, so this is the right way. Like, "Hey, Jaime. How frustrated are you with your reading speed? Do you ever think about it? Do you forget a lot of stuff? What stuff do you forget? If someone were to teach you memory tricks, what would you pay for that? Would you pay for that? How much time do you have?" These are super open-ended questions where you can formulate enough of a rough answer, so when I come in, I've addressed all your objections in advance. And that's exactly what I did, I wrote - a lot of people ask me about speed reading. This was a big Facebook post. 

A lot of people ask me about speed reading, more than a few of you have tried to buy me lunch to get me to explain to you this whole 10-week program that I did which, by the way, cost a ton of money to have a private tutor sit on your head. I'm thinking about creating a program that'll help you learn this stuff online, what aspect of that would be concerning, interesting, whatever' So, people come out and they're like, "It needs to be around $50." Okay, cool. I didn't know at the time the whole Udemy discount situation, so $50. 

They brought up stuff that I didn't even consider, like it needs to have a mobile app. Well, okay. I'm not going to build a mobile app myself, so that brought me to a marketplace like Udemy, or Thinkific, or whatever. "I need lifetime access; I don't want to pay a monthly membership fee." That's interesting because I would have done a monthly membership. 

Everyone's always talking about subscription businesses and how great they are. I would have done that and my customers made it very clear, "I want to buy it now, but I can't commit to actually taking it right now." By the way, you know this as well as I do, 27 percent of books that people buy, they actually read which is something that you have to work through as entrepreneur. Am I selling stuff people don't need? No, it's just - 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	This is - does that mean you were - yeah. I was like, "I have opinions on courses. I don't sell any of mine because I don't think people use them." So, I have very strong opinions on some of this stuff too because that is also a point. Now again, their fault, technically. You buy a book; you don't read it, your fault. But continue.

Jonathan Levi:	Well, yeah. But also, I think it's interesting because different people need different things from a course. So, I used to beat myself up about this. Obviously, what we're selling isn't that interesting, maybe we're just good marketers, like are we selling snake oil? But here's the thing, number one, do people take the course and do people really benefit from it? 

Yes. We've got thousands of people writing in saying, "You changed my life," and, "I got called in for cheating," and all kinds of really funny stories. But the second thing is some people, what they need is an assurance, right? So, I might Tony Robbins book Money because all I actually need is to know that if the shit hits the fan, I can just open this book and it'll be okay. And that's actually what I need - 

Jaime Masters:	Yep.

Jonathan Levi:	And it's worth the $10 to me. I do think though, and this is a really interesting thing that we've learned, by producing premium level contact at the $300, $400 price point is I can just turn a knob which is price, and I can actually get you to take the course. So, yeah. About 20 to 30 percent of our Udemy people buy the Udemy course, but our master class which is 10 times more content and 10 times more worksheets and premium service and whatever. The vast majority is people open it up immediately. 

Jaime Masters:	Open it, but - 

Jonathan Levi:	And they take the course.

Jaime Masters:	Do it? Okay. Okay.

Jonathan Levi:	I mean I don't track each student, but I know there's a lot more engagement in that premium level course.

Jaime Masters:	Yes.

Jonathan Levi:	For sure.

Jaime Masters:	Because - yes. They've got more skin in the game. They care more.

Jonathan Levi:	There you go.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah, yeah. I totally understand that too. We're not going to go down the crazy path, so - but I will - 

Jonathan Levi:	That's okay.

Jaime Masters:	Debate for a long period of time. But again, my own things. I'll do a Facebook live about this later. But when we're going through the beta, seriously, when we're going through the beta process of really trying to validate, you ask all those questions, you get all that information, right? And you're like, "Okay. I think I have a better idea on what this is." What do you do then?

Jonathan Levi:	So typically, I mean if it were software, I would just build - and I've done this. I've run software businesses and I would just build a minimally viable product with some smoke and mirrors where it's a lot of manual stuff happening in the background. I always try to validate at the simplest possible level. So, my first online course was MacBook webcam, looked like Vaseline, took a lamp - a desk lamp - changed the bulb. 

Actually, I couldn't even change the bulb, so it was a white bulb. I took a yellow plastic bag and put it over, so the lighting would be normal. I put a towel over the keyboard of the Mac, so it the sound would not bounce off the screen. It sounded awful. I ended up having to record the course after another two years, but - oh and by the way, blanket on the wall pinned, but - 

Jaime Masters:	Oh, yeah. Get it - 

[Crosstalk]

Jonathan Levi:	That course has made more money than almost any other course that we've done which is crazy, right? It's timing, timing, timing. So, I validated the idea as cheaply as possible. I said I wasn't going to spend more than $100 on supplies. I wouldn't even buy - I mean today, I have this 1080p webcam that I love, right. And I have this 4k ridiculous setup, but I wouldn't even spend $60 on a Logitech webcam or what is the blue - this microphone that I'm using is another $70. Wouldn't do it because I wanted to validate as cheaply as possible. I used iMovie, wouldn't pay the $10 for Adobe Premier, validate cheaply. I think I spent a total of 40 or 50 hours producing the whole course. 

Jaime Masters:	Okay, so you - 

Jonathan Levi:	Put it up online.

Jaime Masters:	40 or 50 hours even before you go payment from people. So, you decided to go - because - 

Jonathan Levi:	Oh, yeah.

Jaime Masters:	What I usually suggest is to have people buy it first, right? So, we actually get the payments in advance before - 

Jonathan Levi:	I would have done. I absolutely would have done had I had an audience or known anything about cold marketing, I mean cold leads and stuff like that. Today we could do that, but I'm actually - 

Jaime Masters:	Do you do that now - 

Jonathan Levi:	But I'm actually mentoring - 

Jaime Masters:	Yeah. What do you do? Yeah. What do you ?- 

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	Do now?

Jonathan Levi:	So, I think at the core of everything we do is relationship building, right? I just launched - kind of coincided with this interview because I revealed some stuff that I was really going to reveal around about the time of this interview about my own financial situation. But I just launched a course on passive income which is super far outside of my wheel house as the learning and productivity guy. However, thousands of people are buying it because - and it's not because I'm so great at my marketing, so awesome - I write half decent copy, but it's because these people trust me and I give them good reason to trust me. 

And I've put out courses on testosterone. It was basically - my model is I'll learn something that takes year, I'll try to learn it in a few months. I'll create a course about it and I'll share with people the 20 percent that they need to know that gives them 80 percent of the results. So, I've proven time and time again. I've created a course on how do you build a life of meaning and purpose with a mentor of mine. I created a course on how you brand yourself on the internet. 

And consistently, again I'm not THE expert on personal branding, or testosterone, or anything like that. But consistently, I provide people many times the value that they're investing in my courses. And so, it's all about relationship building. I always like to say you can't start a relationship with someone if you don't have their contact info. So, at the ground level of it, it's creating a link to those people. Getting email information, getting a way that you can actually reach out to them. And then, provide value. It's like Gary V's whole thing. The jab, jab -

Jaime Masters:	Jab, jab, jab - 
Jonathan Levi:	Jab, right.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah, exactly. I'm going to hit the camera - 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	Right in the face, yeah. So, what I love about this is that you're proclaiming like, "I know a lot about this, but I'm going to help you MVP the only information you need because we are in a world of way too much information and it's really, really hard for most of us to just get the 80/20 rule because then we have to go through the 100 percent to know what the 20 percent is." And instead, we just have - 

Jonathan Levi:	Nope.

Jaime Masters:	Somebody like you do it for us. 

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah. Close to the truth of it is though; every single course that I've built has come out of one issue of mind. I'm solving my own problem in a sense which is I get really tired of people asking me the same questions. So, the speed reading was I'm really tired of people taking me to lunch and asking me like, "How do you read so fast?" The productivity course came out of - I was sitting next to a friend of mine and everything that I would do on my computer - all these shortcuts and apps that I have that automatically file things - he's like, "What was that?" He wouldn't let me work for two hours. 

I was like, "You know what? I'm just going to record 50 screenshot videos of every app that I use that automates everything." And it became many, many thousands of dollars a month in revenue. And the same goes for the testosterone course. People in my life would be like, "Hey, you kind of bulked up. What's the deal'" So, when I got really tired of explaining something, I'm like, "Alright. I can help 100 people by explaining it one by one or I can help 100,000 people by recording videos." And that's part of the whole automation thing.

Jaime Masters:	One too many. Thank goodness we live in a world of technology right now because my gosh, imagine we didn't have that. So, let's talk about automation because I know that's sort of a sweet spot of yours also. And I think everybody knows they need this and putting he priority on it makes it - is a little hard because there's a thousand things we, "Could do." So, where do you start on automation in general? How do you ? when you get in somebody's like and go, "We're going to help you automate." Where do we even start?

Jonathan Levi:	Right. On an individual level as opposed to a business level - 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	Well, I personally think the business and personal intertwine a little bit. Let's start with business and then maybe we'll go - 

Jonathan Levi:	Sure.

Jaime Masters:	To the personal side.

Jonathan Levi:	Sure. So, I think we have to split out automation between human level automation which is something that I've really prioritized over the last year. Meaning, creating manuals so that - this is going to sound awful - but creating manuals so that people function as well as machines. It's like every episode - 

Jaime Masters:	Isn't that sad?

Jonathan Levi:	Of our podcast - 

Jaime Masters:	Yeah, exactly.

Jonathan Levi:	It's not though, it's not though because we all say like, "I'm only human," or, "Human error." Humans are really bad at doing consistent work. It's really sad actually. We suck at it. We're amazing at creative work. We're amazing at analytical thinking. We really suck at repute work.

Jaime Masters:	That's why we need robots to hurry up with all this. Just so we know, that's where I'm coming from.

Jonathan Levi:	Totally.

Jaime Masters:	Keep going.

Jonathan Levi:	Totally. So, I think we need to split that out. We can talk about process design and stuff like that after. But when it comes to business automation, I'm looking at anything that has patterns. So, for example, an email comes in with a certain heading or a certain tag that's automatically fired off to a different system. We live on Zapier. I don't know if your audience would know the reference, but we live on Zapier. We've had entire product lines that are managed by Zapier.

Jaime Masters:	Really? Okay.

Jonathan Levi:	Entire interactions - 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	It's crazy how much it looks like it can do because we use it. But, oh my gosh, it's so - there's so much and it makes it hard to do the 80/20 side of it. Okay. Tell me more about what you guys did there.

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	So, okay. We don't offer any product that's not automatically delivered. In fact, the only exception to that is now we accept bitcoin. And that requires someone to actually go in and check our wallet before we send the product. But everything else, we literally will not offer a product that requires any human labor to deliver for two reasons. One, there's nothing more annoying than when you order something and you wait for it to be delivered. So, we don't offer t-shirts. We don't offer stickers. We don't offer any of that stuff. And number two is human labor is not super scalable, so all of our products are automatically machine delivered. 

Even our books printed on demand within minutes of the order coming. So, that's one thing. We also, I think do a pretty good job of automating interactions. So, I learned very, very early on in a marketing class, before even my business degree, that there's an element of training your customers that I think many people overlook. So, when you go to McDonald's and you instinctively know what a number three super-size is and you say it in their language, and you expect that they're going to say, "Do you want fries with that?" 

You just know, you're speaking their language which is essentially training the customer. So, we train our customers really, really well. They know where to ask the questions. They know what kind of response to expect. They're pretty clear about how to do things and anytime a question comes up more than a few times, we revise the product. So, we had this worksheet that people were like, "I'm not getting it. 

I'm not getting any better at it." I'm like, "Okay. People don't understand this is a diagnostic, not a training worksheet." The whole point is to figure out what your natural capabilities is, and then move on. So, we just revised the whole worksheet. We pushed it out to 90,000 people with an email saying like, "Hey guys, this wasn't clear. Download the new version." No more questions about that, right? And we do that at every level in our business.

Jaime Masters:	Okay, so I have questions on this because that's - 

Jonathan Levi:	Sorry, go ahead.

Jaime Masters:	No, no. I love this. I just want to go deeper into it because that's the thing. When you're a busy business owner and you have a thousand things, right? That worksheet seems very small, so you sort of push it low on the priority list. Even though if you solve it once, it won't happen again, and again, and again. But we prioritize to maybe the bane of our existence. So, we have all these little things that never really get scooped up. So, how do you even put the focus on doing that?

Jonathan Levi:	I was afraid you were going to ask me the prioritization question. It's so hard because I'm spoiled like absolute rotten in the sense that I don't have to do most of the stuff that I'm doing every day, and I have an amazing team, and they do it a lot of it. So, I ended up just working on whatever tickles my fancy.

Jaime Masters:	Everyone's like - 

Jonathan Levi:	Which is not a good way - 

Jaime Masters:	"I hate you right now." No.

Jonathan Levi:	Not a good way to prioritize, but fires come up. We have fires where we're like, "Oh, my God. Our tracking software just stopped working." Like, "Where's our pixel?"

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	"Who deleted the pixel?" So, we do have fires and obviously, those take priority. I try to focus on the things that are going to move the needle for the business. I have this exercise that I often do called the priority star. It's basically mapping out priorities in a visual five pointed star, and then which one is going to drive which one? You spend five minutes on it and it tells you where you'e going.

Jaime Masters:	Do you have a worksheet or something like that on that? Because that sounds awesome.

Jonathan Levi:	I do have a worksheet on that. I can send something like that.

Jaime Masters:	Well, I - 

Jonathan Levi:	I even have a lecture on it.

Jaime Masters:	Well - and this is the thing - 

Jonathan Levi:	See, now I don't have to - 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	I know, exactly. I want all of the things. Like even talking about Zapier, Zapier or whatever we call it. I want the list of what the people are already doing because I know what we've got in ours and I know what my clients have in theirs. But I really wish we could take all of the information from everyone on what's working, systems wise, because it's a pain in the butt to create it all yourself.

Jonathan Levi:	Totally, totally. I think Zapier does a good job of giving recommended recipes based on the apps that you select. But that's on the of the big differentiators between our premium level courses and our not premium level courses is - we've got a lot of apps. I've got all kinds of crazy stuff on this computer that reacts to different finger motions and all kinds of touch bar stuff. You said you just got the new Mac - 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	I hate - you use the touch bar? Oh, man. Alright, I'm going to have to buy your course.

Jonathan Levi:	I customized it.

Jaime Masters:	Where do I buy?

Jonathan Levi:	Here's an example - 

Jaime Masters:	Okay.

Jonathan Levi:	Right now, on your touch bar, you have nothing because we're in Skype. I have Share Screen, Call Recorder, Sound Preferences, Hang Up, Mute. So, I can just - 

Jaime Masters:	Hang up on me right now.

Jonathan Levi:	I've customized the hell out of it.

Jaime Masters:	Wow. 

Jonathan Levi:	So, I'm a big proponent of - I'll spend a lot of time upfront, even it maybe takes two years to get that 30 seconds back. I could go to Window, Call Recorder, but it's this thinking. It's like if I'm in this moment right now and - or it's just in certain situations, so my neighbor's dog starts barking and it somehow makes it through my sound proof walls. I can just hit Mute and it's saving me hassle, saving me thinking. Or another example. I recently interviewed Noah Kagan.

[Crosstalk]

Jonathan Levi:	I asked him for his top productivity - 

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	Tip. And he's like, "Download Hazel." It's just this app that automatically - you set it up, it takes a lot of time to setup. But it automatically files stuff for you. So, any invoice that I have needs to go to my bookkeeper, right?

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	Well I've set this thing up that any file that I download that comes from one of 10 different invoicing platforms, green invoice, all these other popular ones. It just fires it off, automatically, and shares it on Google Drive. It's like how much times does that save me? I mean it's taken me 20, 30 minutes to setup and tweak, fine. And then, it probably saves me 15 seconds every day. But it's how much less hassle is that? And there's just a million little examples like that to where everything in my system, in my company, in my email is all as automated as possible.
[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	Well, because you're refining 15 seconds worth. Whereas, most of the entrepreneurs are like, "I have chunks of this much," that they could probably - 

Jonathan Levi:	Okay, let's talk about that. 

Jaime Masters:	Do way, way better, right? Yes, let's talk about that.

Jonathan Levi:	Let's talk about that. So, here's the big thing that people don't like to hear because we all think we're super important, but email is the worst waste of time. It's just awful. I hear Tim Farris say and I really like this, "Email is someone else's priorities for your time," and it's so true. If you can minimize - I mean this sounds so awful to say, but the biggest places where you can save time is in optimizing communication. 

So, you and I can interact for two years by email and I won't know you as well as a one hour phone conversation. So, I optimize and I have special short links which of course, are linked up to keyboard shortcuts that say, "Hey, I know this is really impersonal, but why don't we just hop on a 15 minute call? Can you just book it right here because time zones are super confusing blah, blah, blah, blah?" And I just punch a three character code on my keyboard, and it shoots it out, and we save 15 emails. 

Jaime Masters:	But you do a 15 minutes - okay. Let's talk about this for a second because I have a bunch of - 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	Yeah. I have a bunch of clients that do this. So, they have courses and they have people that are emailing them within their course. So, then they have moderators which is great and I have the same setup. And I was chatting with Pat Flynn about this the other day because I was like, "How do you manage everything'" And I don't know if I'm allowed to share this, but I'm going to do it anyway. He's like, "Oh, I just hop on the phone with my assistant and she writes everything in my voice because I'm just telling her to write while I'm driving."

Jonathan Levi:	He's on the record about that.

Jaime Masters:	Okay, good. It's always on a - 
[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	I never know if I'm allowed to stay stuff. Anyway, so to me I was like, "That's genius, why have I not done that before." I don't listen to his podcast tips, but being able to do something like that and have that system, so I have clients that are setting specific things up. But I want your tweaks and hacks because we have canned responses from the regular ones - 

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah - 

Jaime Masters:	Which is great.

[Crosstalk]

Jonathan Levi:	Are great.

Jaime Masters:	Yep. We have somebody else doing the main email box, right? Or my assistant - 

Jonathan Levi:	Right.

Jaime Masters:	Does mine, right? Give me more than just that. I want all of the - 

Jonathan Levi:	Okay.

Jaime Masters:	Secret sauce because we don't even want to - 

[Crosstalk]

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	The biggest one - my dad worked at Intel in the early days and Scott McNeely is one of the founders on Intel. Always told him, "For a company to function efficiently, decisions need to be made at the lowest possible level." So not to shit on janitors or anything, but if the janitor doesn't need to ask to order more supplies when he runs out, how much time does that save in billing, and whatever, and whatever? So, everyone on my team is empowered to fix any problem, customer service or otherwise as long as it costs under $100. 

They don't even ask me and I think that's a really great rule. You can adjust the number, but I try to push things down and it's not like pushing off decisions, it's empowering people. So, there's some areas of my business that I don't want to empower people, but I mean I don't even pay myself. I don't pay my staff, they pay themselves. One person on the staff pays everyone else which might sound weird because she's in the Philippines. But it's that trust, that empowerment to say - 

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	"Hey, I totally trust you. If you need a new computer, go out and buy it, and I know you're going to account for it, and take it off the business billing, and whatever needs to happen." So, that's one really, really big thing. I would say having rules of engagement with customers - 

Jaime Masters:	Okay.

Jonathan Levi:	Because form emails sometimes there's gaps. And I will say I do believe that you - if anything falls in between processes that means you're missing processes. Any exception that comes up once, will come up more than once. However, I do think there needs to be rules of engagement with customers. So, for example, how do we treat a customer if they're very angry? Are we the kind of company that says, "Listen sir, you need to calm down." 

Are we the kind of company that just listens? Because those are two different kinds of ways to deal with customers. Are we the kind of company - what's our top objective? Things like that. So, we have these rules of engagement that I don't want to go into too much detail because some of them are private and proprietary - 

Jaime Masters:	Well, let me ask - 

Jonathan Levi:	And - but - 

Jaime Masters:	Yeah. Let me ask you this about that because how do we do that? So, do we just look at a blank Google doc and go, "These are our rules of engagement for email," or as things come in and people don't know what to do, we create the document? What's the best - 

Jonathan Levi:	Exactly.

Jaime Masters:	Way to do that?
Jonathan Levi:	Sure. So, I think one of the best, best, best business books I've read and it's interesting because I read it so late in my career after having sold a company and after having failed it, managing people, was The E-Myth Revisited. 


Jaime Masters:	I knew you were - 

Jonathan Levi:	Have you read that?

Jaime Masters:	Going to say that. I knew it. I just interview Michael Gerber. So, this, I feel like, is the only book that people bring up about systems. Literally, there's no other books about systems. And E-Myth was such a long - 

Jonathan Levi:	So good.

Jaime Masters:	Time ago. It's so good. One of my main books my mentor told me way back when, 10 years ago. But I feel like it's not updated for tech, so I wish we could blend - 

Jonathan Levi:	Have you - 

Jaime Masters:	Blend the two.

Jonathan Levi:	Seen Revisited?

Jaime Masters:	Yeah, but that's still five years ago, isn't it?

Jonathan Levi:	Still a little old, yeah. Well, I mean - yeah.

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	I'm just saying Facebook, ta-da. No, but you know what I mean. So, I'm trying - that's why I'm asking you these questions because I feel like the way we can actually interact with systems has been changing which is awesome.

Jonathan Levi:	Alright. I'm going to drop a bombshell on you, are you ready for this?

Jaime Masters:	Yes.

Jonathan Levi:	My biggest business epiphany of the last two years and in my opinion one of the greatest things I've ever done in my business - you ready for this? One morning I'm having my shower, doing my best thinking of the day. And I realize this Michael Gerber thing is spot on. I need to train my people, but people don't read all the manuals that we create. We've got hundreds of PDF manuals on how to do everything and I was like, "Oh, my God. We are in the online course creation business" 

Jaime Masters:	Yep.

Jonathan Levi:	"Let's create online courses." So, we have a course called Super Human Enterprises 101, it has over 100 lectures. Now here's where it gets good, anyone who joins the team is expected to create lectures because - 

Jaime Masters:	Good.

Jonathan Levi:	They need to know not only what it's like to participate on online courses to see what our students experience, they need to know what it's like for us in the company. So, our marketing manager, our Facebook ads manager, my personal assistant, our video editor, everybody has contributed to this course. And some of its super mundane, like, "Here's how we create subtitles for out lectures. I go in and I use this software, but just so you know, sometimes it gets Jonathan's name wrong and spells it with an O instead of an A, so I do a find all," it's a 15 minute lecture on how to create subtitles for our courses.

Jaime Masters:	I love this.

Jonathan Levi:	Everything is in there.

Jaime Masters:	Okay.

Jonathan Levi:	Like everything.

Jaime Masters:	What - 

Jonathan Levi:	Everything - 

Jaime Masters:	Platform do you use for that specifically?

Jonathan Levi:	I'm going to regret saying this, but it's on the same server and same everything as our premium courses.

Jaime Masters:	Okay.
Jonathan Levi:	We just hide the - 

Jaime Masters:	So, you have - 

Jonathan Levi:	But it runs on Thinkific.

Jaime Masters:	Oh, nice. Okay. So, that's the other piece that a lot of ' so, I love this. This is what I'm talking about and this is where I feel like we haven't updated from the E'Myth from before. It's like, "Create SOP's." And you're like, "That's great, nobody reads them," right? Or it's harder to - anyway, yes. So, what I'm asking - 

Jonathan Levi:	I'll give you another book though really -

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	Quick.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	Read Virtual Freedom by Chris Ducker. It's also outdated - 

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	"Because he's like use Jing for screenshots."

Jaime Masters:	Yep.

Jonathan Levi:	I'm like, "Nobody uses Jing anymore, dude." But that's where I got the idea, just don't write text manuals anymore.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah, so - 

Jonathan Levi:	We just don't do it. We do screenshots, screencasts for everything.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah which makes perfect sense too and that's the biggest - so, Chris is a good friend. I was just in the Philippines speaking at his event and - 

Jonathan Levi:	Oh, cool.

Jaime Masters:	I want other - I want everybody else's things because I feel like we're reinventing the wheel each time because most people -

Jonathan Levi:	Totally.
Jaime Masters:	The way that they're working on it right now, it's Google Docs. It's links to random videos that are five minutes long. It's a playbook that has weird updates, right? I just don't feel like everybody - 

Jonathan Levi:	Online course.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah, it - 

Jonathan Levi:	Online course.

Jaime Masters:	Make so much more sense. I can't buy that from you - 

Jonathan Levi:	Right.

Jaime Masters:	Can I? Come on.

Jonathan Levi:	So, we're in the process of building this premium, everything, whatever. Of course, myself and a friend of mine who also has a pretty large online business, and this is the kind of stuff we're going into like corporate structure. What's the best corporate structure? Turns out Barbados, just saying. But going into all this stuff of how do you actually hire and train employees? How do you actually brand and market stuff? How do you write copy in your business? So, we want it to be - it's 21 courses and that's going to be one of them. How do you hire and train employees - 

Jaime Masters:	Yep.

Jonathan Levi:	Automatically - 

Jaime Masters:	Yep.

Jonathan Levi:	Because I've never explained or - that's an exaggeration. If I've explained something to someone, I've recorded it, and then put it up on the platform.

Jaime Masters:	Oh, I love this. Alright, so that's what we're trying to do too is curate all the pieces so that way - 

Jonathan Levi:	Sure.

Jaime Masters:	People don't have to reinvent the wheel. We live in a wonderful world right now - 

Jonathan Levi:	Sure.

Jaime Masters:	And we shouldn't have to reset the wheel a thousand times and yet we listen to podcasts over and over again. We're like, "That's a great idea. Oh, that's a great idea." Anyway - 

Jonathan Levi:	Right.

Jaime Masters:	So, let's keep going down the automation path because - 

Jonathan Levi:	Sure.

Jaime Masters:	We are in information overload. We know that we need to create, and record, and do all that. But we don't do it, or we don't prioritize it, or whatever it is. So, how can we do what you have? Which is massive on an incremental scale. Give us one of those 30-day things, so that way we don't feel like it's overwhelming and crazy.

Jonathan Levi:	Okay. Clarify a little bit in what I do, like which aspect of what I do?

Jaime Masters:	The creating - 

Jonathan Levi:	I do a lot of macro yoga.

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	I want to see that. No, you're really good - at least is what I've heard so far - really, really good at being able to record, systemize, do something once and not have to think about it over, over, and over again. The automation side - 

Jonathan Levi:	Okay.

Jaime Masters:	In business specifically, and I'm sure in your personal life too. So, how do we jump on that bandwagon without feeling overwhelmed by all of these things, and videos, etc. that we could be doing?

Jonathan Levi:	I think what you have to do is look at things in quantity and also in annoyance. But I sometimes just go on quantity, it really annoys me - so, here's one thing everyone can do right now. Go into Google Drive ? as business owners, I don't know about you, we have 54 subscription services every month.

Jaime Masters:	Yep.

Jonathan Levi:	It's super annoying, okay? And that means 54 times that I'm hitting archive every single month, it's just annoying. And each one takes a second, but that's 54 seconds a month. That's a minute a month, just kidding, it's much more than that because actually research shows that if you lose your focus for a second, you're gone for five minutes.

Jaime Masters:	Seriously.

Jonathan Levi:	So first off, hopefully everyone in your audience already has email notifications and that little red bubble turned off. I'm going to take that for granted, knowing mail notifications. But the next thing you can do is go into Google, hit the search button, search for your receipt, and then modify with the search filter your receipt, or your invoice, or whatever. And then hit filter messages like these and put them all into archive. Mark them as red and move them into all messages or whatever automatically. 

So, that's one thing that's probably - the 50-instance annoyance. Now we go to the thing that's 40-instance annoyance. So, that email that you get from your customers that says, "Hey, what's the difference between this product and this?" And you setup an, "Again message," auto reply. You can even setup Zapier to automatically reply to any message that has this phrase.

Jaime Masters:	Really? How accurate is that? Because I feel like that's a little - 

Jonathan Levi:	I don't know. That's where we have humans do it.

Jaime Masters:	That makes sense.

Jonathan Levi:	We have a human hit a button that sends it.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	But I'm thinking of new ideas as I'm going along.

Jaime Masters:	I so appreciate it, yeah. No and this is the thing because we're so overwhelmed. I love you going, "Oh, this is one issues. This is," because we can check off issues. I feel like we can go, "Oh, I can do that today. That's only - 

[Crosstalk]
Jaime Masters:	But we don't even have the - 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	The scope, the scope seems so huge. Okay. Well - 

Jonathan Levi:	So, we've talked about email. Email is the biggest time suck. I don't know if - I don't think you've got an auto-response because you and I coordinated like a year ago. But in the last year I've implemented - everybody gets auto response and it's a very polite response that says I do email every week once or twice and I'll get back to you within two weeks. So, it's managing people's expectations. 

And if it's super important, then talk to Nina and Nina will call me and tell me which isn't a way to say I'm too important for you, it's a way to say I can't be at everyone's beck and call all the time. I do the same thing with messages. I haven't gone as far as Noah Kagan to turn off all message notifications. I still get the notifications, but I'll check WhatsApp or Messenger. I message a few times a day sporadically and everyone in my life just understands that's how I roll. And I get so much more done.

Jaime Masters:	Setting expectations is huge which -

Jonathan Levi:	Right.

Jaime Masters:	Makes perfect sense. Okay, I love that.

Jonathan Levi:	And then I would say just tackle it piece by piece. Go through your day and as you find things that are annoying, like everyone - one of the biggest things that I hate with new business owners is like, "Well, I just don't have time to train people. By the time I train someone, I'll have done it myself." This is so egotistical thinking.

Jaime Masters:	"We're entrepreneurs, we're the best everything. You didn't know that?"

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	"Oh, what?"

Jonathan Levi:	Is what Chris calls super hero syndrome. And I used to be like, "I've evolved. I'm more efficient than - I don't need an assistant who would just slow me down." That used to be my thing. Total bullshit. Just do it, and record it, and narrow it once. I decided I really hate doing all the aphonic, all the editing of the podcast - I've actually never edited an episode of our podcast, I just record a video that's like, "I don't like the word um, like, you know, uh, any of that stuff. Just cut it out." 

I sent it over to this guy in Bosnia, he does it. He's awesome. But beyond that, all the stuff that I was doing - uploading to Libsyn, ID3 tagging it, making sure there's the thumbnail for YouTube. We have a 21 step process, each one I just recorded a video. "Hey, I'm clicking upload file. I'm making sure that it has the ID3 tag." So fast, there's no excuse not to do it.

Jaime Masters:	That's perfect. Yes, that's why everyone's like, "I just want that from you. That would be easier." No, when we're looking at other pieces that you're doing which I love going, "Okay, I spend this much time on this," just record it. I need to do that a lot more. 

Jonathan Levi:	Totally.

Jaime Masters:	What software are you using? I usually use ScreenFlow because it will go for a while, but it's a pain in the butt to export and stuff. So, what do you actually use?

Jonathan Levi:	I use QuickTime most of the time - 

Jaime Masters:	Really?

Jonathan Levi:	If I want to have a video - 

Jaime Masters:	Okay.

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah. I found another one. I mean it's just basic. If you need to have a camera on it - 

Jaime Masters:	Yep.

Jonathan Levi:	There's something called ScreenFlick is the one.

Jaime Masters:	Okay.

Jonathan Levi:	There's also this one called Flow which is a Chrome extension, but if you need to record things outside of Chrome that doesn't helps you - or sorry it's not Flow, it's Loom. But I mean, for your basic usage, QuickTime is amazing.
Jaime Masters:	Really? Okay. I'll take a look.

Jonathan Levi:	And if you don't need - it's nice to have a little icon of the camera - of your face in the corner. But sometimes it's also not nice - 

Jaime Masters:	No.

Jonathan Levi:	Sometimes I record - 

Jaime Masters:	No, I know.

Jonathan Levi:	In my underwear.

Jaime Masters:	Yes. No, I don't want - 

[Crosstalk]

Jonathan Levi:	I had to go back for this email and specifically it was like, "Jimmy will record audio and video." I was like, "Aw, man. I have to put on pants."

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	"Man, it's video. What?" No, I totally get it. I don't want to have people seeing me when I don't want them to. That being said, QuickTime or ScreenFlow, then you have the system already setup. So, do you just upload it to your Thinkific course thing even if it's sort of - not half ass - but - 

Jonathan Levi:	Janky?

Jaime Masters:	You know what I mean. Yeah, exactly. Like, "Oh, I forgot how to this and then we move it here." Right? Like - 

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah. So, I actually - a lot of our team is in the Philippines and sometimes internet is an issue - 

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	Once a week there'll be some kind of issue and they'll write to me, "Hey, I'm on 3G right now." So, I actually compress most of our videos. I use an amazing tool called Handbrake. And I have a preset in there that says, "Strictly for internal use only," meaning it looks pretty crappy, you can kind of make out the text. But I would never publish content like that and I can tell you when we publish content, it's 5500kbps and this is like 3500kbps. A framerate of 26 instead of 30. You get the idea.

Jaime Masters:	Yep. Oh, I do. And it's funny because that's actually something that we need to do because I sometimes record videos for my team and sometimes they'll be like, "Oh, this is exactly what one of the clients need, so we'll send that." And I'm like - 

Jonathan Levi:	Oh, no.

Jaime Masters:	"That was just internal." So, sometimes I share internal SOP stuff, very - because I'm open. And sometimes I'm like, "That should have been an internal video." I'm swearing.

Jonathan Levi:	Right.

Jaime Masters:	Not that I'm not a - 

Jonathan Levi:	So, that's an SOP.

[Crosstalk]

Jonathan Levi:	By the way, that's an SOP.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah, I know.

[Crosstalk]

Jonathan Levi:	In your Thinkific thing.

Jaime Masters:	Okay.

Jonathan Levi:	Which says like, "Public or private?" And you can just - or privacy codes. 

Jaime Masters:	Right.

Jonathan Levi:	So, just design a system that says - 

Jaime Masters:	Yep.

Jonathan Levi:	LVL1, LVL2, LVL3. LVL3 being like, "This is our bank account. Only my personal assistant knows this." Level one being like, "Alright, if a customer asks - 

Jaime Masters:	Yep.

Jonathan Levi:	"We let them know."

Jaime Masters:	Yep. That's very, very smart. I'm writing that down. That's definitely one that I need to enact also.

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	"Awesome, great idea. Yay, good for you."

Jonathan Levi:	I want to share one thing which is I think a lot of people come at this and they're like, "You're taking the human element out of customer service or the human aspect, emotion," I heard a lecture from the founder of Wix here in Israel. And he was talking about Uber, and autonomous cars, and stuff like that. And think about this, I'll never forget what he said. He's like, "When I get into a cab," in Israel is taxis. The government hasn't opened it up to private drivers. He's like, "When I get into a cab, anything that cab drivers does, that is human is a downside." 

Meaning he slams on the brakes, that's human error. He takes me on another route other than Google Maps, or Ways, or Apple Map says based on the traffic - he's cheating me. He smokes in the car. Almost anything that he can do is human. Here in Israel, he'll also offer if you want to marry his daughter. So, all these embarrassing things or uncomfortable things, he's like, "I literally want a machine to just deliver the service." And I think the same is true of a lot of customer service. People want to call in - they have a problem with their credit card. You billed them twice. 

What would your rather - a human apologize to you or hit a button and it'll go, "Hey, we just scanned our records, you paid twice, I'm refunding it." There's nothing more human than making a customer wait hours to get an email response. And I'm trying to setup new bank accounts, we just changed our corporate structure, and I don't want to talk to a human. I just want them to run my credit - 

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	And either open the account or don't open the account - 

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	I don't want to wait on hold. I don't want it to go up to your underwriter who's going to review my blood type - 

Jonathan Levi:	Oh, yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	I think we overestimate the amount of human interaction that modern people want. In my first business, the reason I succeeded and beat out my competitors is everyone else was banking on this human element. You're buying a set of $4,000 wheels. Call me, we have a 1800 number, I'll process your order over the phone, I'll make sure everything is exactly the spec you need. 

And I came in, I was like, "Dude, that sucks. I don't want to do that. I'm at school all day. I'm in college. I don't have time to call you during business hours. Online ordering, put all the pictures online, put all the specs online." If we have to, we call a customer after and say, "Dude, you ordered the wrong pattern." And we just dominated because people don't actually want the human interaction for many, many transactions. So, I would just say if it feels robotic, that's not always a bad thing.

Jaime Masters:	Is there a line on that, then too? Because you're right. 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	Sometimes I just want it done, please don't let me talk to anybody. A lot of the people on the phone aren't this smart, right? And so, that causes issues. But where is that line? Especially if it's something that you've paid for.

Jonathan Levi:	I think when emotion enters in - 

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	Is the line. So, here's an example, I don't get a lot of email. But the emails that I do get forwarded, are the ones like, "Hey, my son has a really severe learning disability. I need help. He's going into 11th grade next year, here's what's going on." That's emotional stuff that immediately gets forwarded to me. That's an SOP, by the way, or an angry gets really, really angry and is like, "I can't believe this. I found this course da, da, da. And I'm so pissed." And that also comes directly to me. I think when emotion enters in because a machine is not going to be emotional back. 

But other times, I haven't flushed out that rule. I'm constantly - I think the trajectory of our business is mapping out - my thing for the year is how I do I - in my personal and professional life - how do I automate and create efficiency while maintaining intimacy? So, for example, if I have - here's a personal one for you. If I have a standing dinner every Tuesday at my house, that's automation. 

I know every Tuesday I'm going to have eight people that I'm going to interact with. Over the course of a month, I'll interact with 30 of my best friends, great. So, I'm pushing that boundary. So, step number one can I have - all the way, we go level three - can I have Nina just call each one of these people and say, "Hey, Jonathan's cooking dinner. Do you want to come?" Turns out, not cool, don't do that.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah, I've tried that too. Oh, no probably not. Yep.

Jonathan Levi:	Keep it real like that.

Jaime Masters:	Yep.

Jonathan Levi:	Ethically, I don't really want Nina to forward them a message from them. But what I can do is have a keyboard shortcut that says, "Hey, I'm having eight people over for dinner. Can I count you in?" And it's like having eight people over for dinner, by the way, I'm really big on this not having open loops things. The whole getting things done - 

Jaime Masters:	Yes.

Jonathan Levi:	I'm sure you've interviewed David Allen.

Jaime Masters:	I have, I have.

Jonathan Levi:	Well - 

Jaime Masters:	Yeah, he?s amazing. 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	Yep.

Jonathan Levi:	The open loops thing is really smart. So, "Hey, Jaime. I'm having dinner Tuesday at King George - not going to say the exact address, almost did - you don't need to bring anything. It starts at 8 p.m. sharp. Are you in or out?" You write one character, Y or N. No more open loop and it's very simple. And then, I have a spreadsheet that tracks who have I invited, not within - 

Jaime Masters:	Of course, you have a spreadsheet - 

Jonathan Levi:	The last two months.

Jaime Masters:	I love this. I want you - 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	To work with my personal assistant with all of that. I'm like, "Please, organize all of these pieces." Because I feel like, especially on the personal side, it's way easier to put the time and effort into the business side. Whereas the personal side, I'm like, "I want to have another game night. Oh, shoot. Who did I invite last - I can't remember who I invited. We have a Facebook thing." And then we go back through and setting the time aside to be able to do something like that so you don't have to do it again and again. See, that's why I said you're really good at that - 

Jonathan Levi:	I have a spreadsheet.

Jaime Masters:	Exactly. You already - 

Jonathan Levi:	Spreadsheet. I have a spreadsheet and I'll tell you one more. I have a Zapier recipe where say I meet someone super cool at a networking event. I just fire an email to whatever the address is in my address book like Zapier Dinner, and I just put their name, and the subject, and it fires it off, and it adds them to the dinner party guest list.

Jaime Masters:	Can you just clone everything that you do and just put it on my laptop that way I don't have to install anything?

Jonathan Levi:	You know what, again not to like plug the products, but all I do is just - I speed read. So, I have this little problem - here's another example. I'm investing in Bitcoin right now, super into it. There's a lot of friction, and issues, and - so, now I just did some speed reading. It turns out you can configurated your Macs to just tell you the pricing. So, I know right now that Bitcoin's at $1,863, 6,708 sheckles. In case I'm away from my computer, I'll get a text message if it goes above 2,000 or under 1,500. It's like 10 minutes of reading - 

Jaime Masters:	I can't -

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	My people, right? I'll just have my whole team do the speed reading course and then deliver me the only information that I need to know.

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	Can I do that?

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah. Well, I mean it's also - I think you've probably - 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	No.

Jonathan Levi:	For me, it's a passion. I love problem solving, I really do. So, I enjoy it. But that would be a killer business, like going in and just automating stuff for people. 

Jaime Masters:	Oh, my gosh. If anybody's listening right now that will do that for me - actually, you know what' I'm going to have my assistant - I'm going to buy your course. Just so you know, I don't say that ever.

Jonathan Levi:	Thank you.

Jaime Masters:	And I'm going to have my assistant go through it. And then she can do it all on my laptop when I'm not using it. Okay, good. I just - the small detailed stuff, I'm not a fan of. I would much rather be spending time with my kiddos or something like that. The speed reading is definitely something that I need to get up to speed with, just on the email side of things too because I have clients and they email - 

Jonathan Levi:	Right.

Jaime Masters:	Me long emails sometimes. And - 

Jonathan Levi:	Right.

Jaime Masters:	Voice C's, and Boxer, and stuff like that too. But there's a balance between those things also, so I love it.
Jonathan Levi:	I do want to say that - 

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	The reason that we - a year after we launched the speed reading course, our biggest reason for refunds is, "I didn't have the time." So, we now bundle it was a productivity course that is like, "Watch this three or four hours course. If it doesn't save you an hour a day," you gain the time that you need, so we don't get that excuse as much anymore. People are like, "Oh, my God. I saved an hour a day. This is brilliant."

Jaime Masters:	See - 

Jonathan Levi:	We have this whole bundle.

Jaime Masters:	Good. Alright, I'll get that one. Well, and that's the funny thing. I'm batching the interviews today. I have 22 interviews in three days. 

Jonathan Levi:	That's smart.

Jaime Masters:	So, this summer I can hang out with the kiddos more and not have to worry about having specific recording days. And so, it's funny. So, we do some of the pieces, but not to the extent that you do. So, I'm willing to learn. I'm totally willing to learn now that I have - 

[Crosstalk]

Jonathan Levi:	So, can I share one more with you?

Jaime Masters:	Oh, please do.

Jonathan Levi:	As soon as I hit - so, we're both recording this call, right?

Jaime Masters:	Yep.

Jonathan Levi:	As soon as I hit the stop button, it's going to automatically split sides of the conversation, convert to MP3, and upload to Google Drive.

Jaime Masters:	Okay, so my guy usually does that. But I still upload it to Google Drive myself. So, how do I do that? Tell me right now, I'm going to do it for all of these interviews.

Jonathan Levi:	It's a series of Hazel - 

Jaime Masters:	Hazel.

Jonathan Levi:	Hazel's this Mac app.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	It's a series of things that sniffs and it'll say, okay, if there's a file created by Call Recorder, split, and then if there's a split side that has a side, you know how Call Recorder does it.

Jaime Masters:	Yep.

Jonathan Levi:	Then convert that instantly to MP3. And if there's an MP3 that's inside, then shoot it up to inbox on Google Drive, and that folder's automatically shared with everyone who gets - 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	Yeah. I love this. Okay.

Jonathan Levi:	See, that'll take you two minutes to setup.

Jaime Masters:	Yep. Well right now we have - but this is why I care so much about tech because my system right now is - I go at the end of the day, I upload them to Dropbox for my editor, and if I forget - which I do - my team knows to check the next day, and then sit in the sauna tab to go and see. And I'm like, "Well, that's silly. There should be automation for this." But I haven't had this three seconds - 

Jonathan Levi:	This a perfect - 

Jaime Masters:	To do it.

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	Thank you.

Jonathan Levi:	This is a perfect example is - I interviewed this guy who has RFID tags in his hands which is a little extreme on automation. He's left handed all payments and health information. His right hand is all security, so - 

Jaime Masters:	Wow.

Jonathan Levi:	Door, car door, office door, whatever it is. And I asked him, I was honestly like, "Does it save you that much weight in your pocket?" And he goes, "It's not that. It's when you go out of the house, you have to check."

Jaime Masters:	Yeah.

Jonathan Levi:	"Do I have my phone? Do I have my wallet? Every time you get up from the restaurant you're like did I leave my credit card? It's this open loop - 

Jaime Masters:	Yep.

Jonathan Levi:	"That runs in your mind at all times." He's like, "I don't think about that and I don't worry about it." And it's the same thing. I used to worry - sometimes it catches you. You're like, "Oh, my God. Did I remember to back up that interview with freaking John Lee Dumas?" Because if my Mac which was on its death bed goes, he's not going to give me the interview again.

Jaime Masters:	I love that you said freaking John Lee Dumas.

[Crosstalk]

Jonathan Levi:	It's that little stuff.

Jaime Masters:	Totally.

Jonathan Levi:	The hard to book stuff.

Jaime Masters:	Yes, I have my credit card numbers memorized because I'm so - I don't want to forget. I just got new credit card numbers, so now I have to memorize those. I have to you take your course for the memory thing too.

Jonathan Levi:	Oh, I can teach you how to do that. That's super-fast and easy.

Jaime Masters:	Good, yay. I'm pretty - 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	Good at it, but I bet you can help.

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah, I can memorize a credit card number mostly permanently in under a minute.

Jaime Masters:	Okay, alright. Alright - 

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah.

Jaime Masters:	We'll talk about this afterwards. I'll go grab my credit cards, no. This is awesome. I told you to give me half an hour, it's way more. But I really appreciate that. I have a big old list of things to do. Awesome, thanks Jonathan. 

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah, yeah. I like to be helpful. 

Jaime Masters:	I have one last question for you because we went - 

Jonathan Levi:	Sure.

Jaime Masters:	Over a lot of different things and I want to eventually chat more about the selling of the course because we didn't talk too much about that, so eventually. But with one action, just one, listeners can take this week to help move them forward towards their goal of a million.

Jonathan Levi:	Alright, so this is the part where I'm really glad that I'm the memory guy because I totally though - conversation went in an amazing direction than I thought it was going to go because of the title of the show, and millionaire, thought it was going to go in a different direction. So, here's a nice summary of everything and what I had hoped we were going to touch on which is try to take all the value that you have. 

So, knowledge, wisdom, humor - you have a lot of value. I mean that's why you're being paid to do what you do. People pay for your amazing personality, and ability to ask questions, and so on. Take that value and try to put it into systems, assets, processes, products, services that are automated in their delivery. Not degraded by repetitive usage. And in fact, maybe enhance, the more people read your book, the better it becomes. There's more people to discuss at the water cooler. 

And above all, add valuable or more valuable to the end user then just getting the service from you. So, it's arguably more valuable to learn speed reading on your iPhone in your underwear, then to have me give you private coaching one on one. And I think if you do that, you're well on your way to doing really, really good things. Not only for yourself financially, but also for other people. I always like to say I make way more money and way more impact not working, then I ever did working. So, that would be the one thing.

Jaime Masters:	One thing, so that's your one to many.

Jonathan Levi:	Very short.

Jaime Masters:	So, everything is the one to many with you, right? One thing that I can do now that will save many instances of time later. One thing now that we can sell to other people on a large scale later. I love it. And I think a lot of people need to take action on that instead of just - 

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	Saying it. So, everybody tha'?s listening, make sure we really pay attention and just take some of those pieces off of your plate. Thank you so much for coming - 

Jonathan Levi:	Okay.

Jaime Masters:	On this show today, Jonathan.

[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	Where can we find your courses, and more about you, and all that?

Jonathan Levi:	Yeah. So, everything I do is at that URL jle.vi. It's a nifty little short one. But if people want to check out free trials of the productivity course or the speed reading course, they can just go to becomeasuperlearner.com. Sign up for a free trial of either. Sign up for a free trial of both. If they want to see automation at its finest, they will be entered into a marketing funnel with everything that I've written, but it will be automatically sent out to them. And they'll get engagement, and they'll get on webinars, and all kinds of cool stuff. And then the podcast is becomingasuperhuman.com. But everything's linked on that one website, so - 

Jaime Masters:	I love it. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really - 

Jonathan Levi:	Thank you.
Jaime Masters:	Really appreciate it.

Jonathan Levi:	I'm honored.

Tags: Automation, business goals, Business operations, business processes, Effective coaching, entrepreneur podcast, Executive Coach, how to be a leader, jaime masters, Jonathan Levi, millionaire entrepreneurs, Online courses, operations management, productivity tools, starting a business, Systems, top entrepreneurs

Categories: All, Business, Featured Millionaire Interview, Millionaire Interviews

Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

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