Richard Kaye Interview

Editor: Today I am delighted to be joined by Dr. Richard Kaye, an entrepreneur whose journey brings together technology, business, and personal growth. Globally recognised for his innovative approach to entrepreneurship and for his commitment to empowering others, Richard's work spans continents and industries. So, let's delve into his story of success, innovation, and the power of mentorship. Richard, it is great to have you with us. Richard Kaye: Thanks for the opportunity to show up and serve your audience. Editor: Well, I'd like to start, if I may, by asking what sparked your journey into entrepreneurship and personal development? Richard Kaye: I was a chiropractor, I had a very thriving practise, and we'll talk about that in a little bit, how it got to that, because that's what publicity is all about, and that's what I do is help people grow businesses through publicity. And I was working part-time with a business growth company, at the time, it was the largest one in the world. We launched Chicken Soup, we launched Lisa Nichols, people raised billions of dollars. And I was meditating one day and I heard, shut your practise and work with entrepreneurs. And I kid you not, I looked around, there was nobody there. So, the Reader's Digest, the condensed version of this, is three weeks later, I shut down 30 years of chiropractic, and took a year off, and serving entrepreneurs for about 25 years. Editor: That's amazing. How do you manage to weave your diverse interests though into one career now? Richard Kaye: Well, listen, before that I was an electronics engineer, so there's a lot of things that happened. Using the skills that I learned, I had some wonderful mentors, faculty members that we had at CEO Space included the top of the top. Bob Proctor, Lisa Nichols, who I just had a conversation with the other day, Mark Hanson, Jack Canfield, John Grey... You name them. And I was blessed to be able to study with them, and bring their knowledge, wisdom, information through me, and share it with other people, with other entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs, we're a weird bunch. I said, I'm not employable, no one's going to hire me, which is a good thing. So, as an entrepreneur, people say colour within the box. No, there is no box, that's made up by people who want to control you. So, just, it's an amalgamation of the gifts that I have received over the years, and refining them, and now sharing them again. Editor: Amazing. You mentioned that you are unemployable, to a degree. How do you find employing yourself? How do you discipline yourself when you don't have a boss to tell you what to do? Richard Kaye: What's discipline? Editor: That's a good question. Richard Kaye: Well, as an entrepreneur, I get up when I'm done sleeping. And I structure my day, I'm not a structured person, but I structure it so that I can accomplish the chores that I want. Quite frankly, I use a calendar programme, ladies and gentlemen, it's called Calendly, you can find it. And I have things that have to get done. And if they're not done, I move them to tomorrow. There are a few things that are critical, and ladies and gentlemen... It's like scheduling this call. We agreed to be here at this time, so it's on my calendar, a timer goes off, it gives me a couple of minutes notice, to go do a bio break so I can sit here for as long as we need to. The things that are scheduled show up on my calendar, and the things that are more flexible show up, but in an area that's not assigned a time. So, my wife and I will run out to the post office to drop something off this afternoon, so it's on the calendar. These are reminders. To go back to your question, as an entrepreneur, my experience with successful entrepreneurs, we are self-motivated, we don't need someone to tell us what to do. We are more interested in what has to be done to achieve an outcome. Now, when I was an electronics engineer, yeah, I was just an engineer, a technician then an engineer, and we had, in my case, two production... Well, one production line that had to get done. And I remember the boss coming, well, that production line pretty much runs itself, so I got another one. I said, really? So, someone's always going to tell you what to do, let it be yourself. Editor: That's great advice. In terms of your own career now as it stands, maybe you could tell us a little bit more about what you do these days, and your business, and how it looks. Richard Kaye: When I started my chiropractic practise, there were 300 chiropractors in San Diego, and that's Southern California if you're somewhere else in the world. We all think we're special. At least you better think you're special, particularly as an entrepreneur. How do you start or grow a business in a crowded field like that? I learned about publicity. I got myself invited to be a guest on a morning television talk show in San Diego, turned that into getting invited back every month. Then, I got an article about me, I was featured in the San Diego Tribune, the San Diego newspaper. Then I was featured in the Los Angeles Times. That's pretty cool. Then, and this is the key, I get a phone call from the producer of ABC News. She asked, in essence, who are you? We're seeing your name around town, we're hearing your name. Well, now I got a 6:30 news segment. Then I got a similar phone call from PBS. Who are you? We're seeing, we're hearing... Well, now I got a PBS segment about me. So, that's what publicity does, it gets your name out to the world. My business, again, I retired about 25 years ago, and what I've chosen to do is serve entrepreneurs so that you, ladies and gentlemen, can get featured in big city newspapers. Now, what do you do with publicity? As a matter of fact, later, I'm going to give you a gift, it's a free download, 10 Ways to Leverage Your Publicity. I could have written 110, but why 10? Well, David Letterman popularised the top 10 list many, many years ago. So, we've called this the Top 10 Ways to Leverage Publicity. Whether you're speaking at a local rotary, or you're on a podcast, or a webinar, or on a stage. They're all good. They're wonderful. How do you leverage it? So, that's a gift that you're going to get later on. Does that answer your question? Editor: Kind of. Yeah. It does to a degree. I'm fascinated to find out more about Dr. Richard Kaye, the man, and how you almost fell into this, and then have made it into something yourself. There's been no blueprint for you to follow, you've actually created that blueprint yourself. And I'd love to know a little bit about the psychology behind that. Richard Kaye: I'm what's called a creative, I create things out of thin air. And I'm going to give you a reference, in my realm and the world in which I play, there are two kinds of people. One is an external, one is an internal. This is not an extrovert and introvert. An internal looks at the past and says, oh, I did this and I'm going to do something based on that. I get joy, I get fulfilment from things that have been done. I am what's called an external. I go out and see the future. Now, to some of you, that's going to sound just weird, but I'll give you a real example. In my opinion, because I've never met them, Bill Gates is an internal. He started with DOS, disc operating system, then created Windows, then Windows 98, then Windows... We're up to 7,000,432, right? Each one built on the past. Correct? Then you had this guy named Steve Jobs, and he said, oh, we're going to create something that doesn't exist. He was an external. He went out and saw, and he sold it before they had anything built, because that was his marketing. And he hired the engineers to create it. Now, there's nothing wrong, they're both perfect. As an external, I go out and I see. So, for example, if I'm designing a new web page, I see it as finished, and then I do the things that have to be done to get there. That's just the way I'm hardwired. So, does that give you some insight into that? Editor: It does, it does. It gives a bit more into how you operate. And whereabouts are you based these days, and who do you have around you that supports what you do? Richard Kaye: I live in a place called Taos, New Mexico, most people have no idea where Taos is. When I got into the entrepreneurial space, people, they still do this, time zones... Pacific, Central and Eastern. I said, wait a minute, there's a whole quarter of the country you're missing here, it's called Mountain Time. So, some people think they may know where Denver is, I'm five hours south of Denver. And I won't say it's a rural community, but the major airport's two and a half hours south in Albuquerque. Editor: Wow, okay. Richard Kaye: Yeah. We're about a 10, 12 hour drive to San Diego, where I had lived and practised. The people I have around me, for one, my wife, she is also what we call external, very creative. As a matter of fact, we met on a marketing networking event. She was living in the Cotswolds at the time, for people in the US that's part of the UK. And she says, we're going to go back and visit. She heard me say... I was facilitating a breakout. And she heard me say I had a soul to soul conversation with my son, instead of father to son. She said, I got to meet this guy. Reader's Digest version, when she moved back to the States, she's from San Francisco, when she moved back to the States a couple of months later, she moved in and then we got married. And she is also creative, she writes children's books. Here, kids go out and shoot up their friends, and shoot up schools and kill people, if you love yourself, you don't do that shit. So, her books are designed so kids fall in love with themselves. And ladies and gentlemen, if that speaks to you, Angela Legh A-N-G-E-L-A, last name L-E-G-H.com. She's got 12 awards, international awards. So, she's my biggest fan and my biggest supporter, and obviously the obverse is true. Now, to expand that, the president of our company, many of you would've heard of Guerilla Marketing, they sold 26 million books in 62 languages. David used to be CEO of that company, and he's very clear, I didn't sell those books, as a company we did. So, he and I worked together to bring our knowledge, wisdom, and experience to you so you can go out into the world and express your brand and leave your mark. Plus, when I was working with the prior organisation, the name of which used to be Income Builders International, or IBI, and then it morphed into something called CEO Space, the founder of that, who died about four years ago, Berny Dohrmann, we were the closest of friends. We travelled the world together. And he became my most significant mentor at that time. So, I've been blessed to be surrounded with leaders in the field, and the relationships we have are just profound. And in the US there's an expression that if you've got the biggest house on the block, you're in the wrong block. Same thing in business, if you're the smartest one in the room, find a different room. Find people who are smarter, wiser, more experienced than you. Editor: You mentioned David T. Fagan, who we spoke on a previous episode of this podcast, which was an amazing interview. You also touched a couple of times, Richard, about mentors, at how important they are. Maybe you could share perhaps a couple of the key lessons that you've learned from mentors on your journey. Richard Kaye: I love that question, shut up and listen. Shut up and listen. I didn't even know you interviewed David, that's very cool. Be the sponge, absorb things. Do not give your power away. Don't take... And ladies and gentlemen, I'm sharing some things that I've learned, don't believe a thing I say when it comes to growing business is one of the things I teach when I'm on a stage. Don't believe a thing I say. Because then whose truth is it? That's my truth. Until you take it in, massage it through your experience, and live it, then it can be your truth. Then you can own it. So, be the sponge, filter it, have no judgement on it, because you don't know their experience. You don't know what they've been through to develop that experience. And then try it on. If it works for you, it's freaking brilliant, and if it doesn't, so what? We've all got different gifts. And for God's sake, don't try and be like any of them. You're put on this planet to be you, and if you become just like somebody else, one of you is not necessary. And don't put them on pedestals. I have hung out, again, with Bob Proctor and this fellow Berny Dohrmann, who was the founder of CEO Space, I have two pictures with celebrities. One was Bob Proctor, because we were hanging out for a while, another is a guy who's dead now, Frank Shankwitz, who created Make-A-Wish Foundation, because again we were hanging out. Don't treat them any differently, treat them as a human being. They'll have much more respect for you, and share much more knowledge, wisdom, and information. Everyone's a human being. Editor: I love that. I think one of the key lessons here is that you do need to surround yourself with people who you can learn from, and once you've learned from them, you can then implement that in your own unique way, instead of just trying to replicate what's gone before. So, amazing. I think obviously we've talked about success that you've achieved, I'm sure there's been challenges along the way as well. Maybe, if you don't mind, we could perhaps just touch on something where it's been a lesson for you. Richard Kaye: The first thing that popped into my mind is funny. I was married to an attorney, don't ever marry an attorney. Editor: That's good advice. Richard Kaye: Yeah, the challenges. I was vice president of this organisation, CEO Space, and the founder died. He was in essence the organisation. With his brilliance, his connections, his knowledge, and all of a sudden my main focus, my main channel for serving entrepreneurs no longer exists. Is it unique? No, it happens to a lot of people. Whether you're laid off, you're fired, the company goes out of business, what do you do? After you get through the oh shoot moment, you regroup... And I feel blessed now that I know that you know David, because a year or so later he called me up. He said, what are you doing with the rest of your life? I said, what? So, he flew my wife... He and I had known one another for over a decade. And we used to teach on, we still do now, again, teach on stages together. And he flew my wife and me out to Phoenix, and he said, let's work together. So, I was able not to reinvent myself, channel my gifts through different vehicles. So, ladies and gentlemen, for me... Or when I was meditating and heard shut your chiropractic practise, I was Dr. Richard Kaye for 30 years. And all of a sudden I didn't have a practise. Now, by choice, I literally three weeks shut the door, and I moved from San Diego to where I am now, Taos. Different culture, different lifestyle. We're at 7,200 feet, not sea level. It's an artist community, it's a Native American community. I already owned 80 acres out here, so it was a nice place to come. When you're faced with a challenge, recognise there's a gift on the other side of it. You may have heard the expression, one door closes, another one opens. Take that larger. When one door opens, another 100 closes, another 100 open up. And get out of judgement about what's right and wrong. You have no clue. The Talmud tells us we don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are. Everything we see is through our lens. What do you want to focus on? Where do you want to put your attention? Again, you can look at the past, if that serves you, if it brings you joy, or you can look at the future, and recognise there's something bigger. Now, you can get philosophical, it's another whole conversation. We haven't a clue what this life holds. So, after being divorced from the attorney, I said, well, that sucks. Yeah, she served me. And now, the relationship I have is so absolutely remarkable. At the time I was pissed, now I'm in gratitude that I had the opportunity to meet Angel. So, yeah, we could talk the next 12 hours about challenges. Editor: [inaudible 00:19:12]. Yeah. Richard Kaye: We all have this stuff in our life, it's what do you choose to do with it? You can choose to be victim. I was, and I'm not negating this, I was abused, I was raped, I was abandoned, I was divorced, I was in a car accident. Does that fuel you? Does it enliven and enlighten you? We can use the drama and the trauma in our life in one of two ways. One is an anchor that holds us down, or ladies and gentlemen, you can use it as fuel to move forward. Lisa Nichols... Which is proximate, because again, I just spoke with her. Most of you know who she is. I knew her before The Secret, before she was famous, before she was doing her stuff. Her history is horrible. Same thing with Oprah Winfrey, abused, violently beat up, and look what she's done. She's turned that into gifts to help change millions upon millions of lives. So, ladies and gentlemen, if you're hanging onto the past... Okay, I remember a cartoon that you may have seen, because I saw it where? On the ubiquitous Facebook. It's a reporter interviewing a guy who's a bum, sitting down in the street, and he says, how'd you get here? He says, oh, my father was a bum, he was an alcoholic, so I followed in his footsteps. Next panel, he's interviewing... What is it? The picture representations of a very wealthy guy, in his big office overlooking the world. He says, how'd you get like this? I said, oh, my father was a bum and an alcoholic, and I decided I wasn't going to be like him. Ladies and gentlemen, you've got choices. What do you want to choose? It's an invitation. Step out of victim mode, it doesn't serve you, and it bores the hell out of everyone you tell about it, by the way. Editor: When I was reading about you, Richard, ahead of this interview, I think the word that leapt out at me was impact. You've made an impact yourself, you empower people to also make an impact. Was that by design that you came across this, or was it a lucky accident perhaps? Richard Kaye: I don't believe in accidents, I believe in on purposes. When I was practising chiropractic, I stepped into it. I was an electronics engineer, and again, then I went to chiropractic college, graduated, and I realised the impact I was having on people's lives. It's not why I did it. And the chiropractic that I practised was not about headache and back pain and hangnails and haemorrhoids, and I've been saying that for 30 years, it was about helping people improve the quality of their lives. When you do that, you will never know the impact you have just by saying hello to someone. Heck, I was at a conference many, many years ago, with questions of old memories, and I was walking up the hall on a break, and there's this bedraggled little old lady with a carpet sweeper, and I just looked at her and I said, thank you for keeping this place looking so nice. You'd think she just won the lottery. People like that are invisible to most people. She lit up, I was like, thank you... In whatever language it was. But no, thank you. Then I hear footprints hustling up behind me, and the guy says, who are you? I said, Richard. I saw and I heard what you just said to that lady. That led to him wanting to do business with me. Editor: Wow, wow. Richard Kaye: What that's about, ladies and gentlemen, show up and serve people. God knows what the story of that woman... You see them all the time, the housekeepers in the hotels you stay at, security guys... They're invisible. People just acknowledge them, and compliment them. And we all know people who will only talk to people who can help them. Don't be user/taker, go out and serve. So, to answer your question, it began organically, and I've brought those gifts through me into serving other entrepreneurs. Does that answer that question? Editor: It does. It does. And it's such a great story as well, such a lovely illustration of how just a few words can mean the world to someone. I think there's something very special about that,.and again, it's something that people tend to overlook, and if their own lives are busy, it's easy to get caught up in yourself and not look outwards and acknowledge those people who, as you say, to many are invisible. So, I think there's something very, very special about that. Richard Kaye: There's a classic story about a young boy, after a storm, he is walking along the seashore, and it's covered with starfish, and he picks it up and tosses one into the water, and he picks up another one and tosses it into the water. And some guy comes over and says, what are you doing? He says, I'm saving starfish. He says, you can't make a difference, there's thousands of them here. And he picks up another one, tosses it in the water, and said, made a difference to that one. All it takes is one person, and you ladies and gentlemen, you're that one person. Make a change in someone's life. You never know how far-reaching something you say or do, how it'll affect someone's life. Editor: Absolutely. I've loved this conversation. If there's that one thing you can take away from this conversation, for me, I think that would be one of the key things. I'm wondering what else I can ask you, because obviously you've got such a huge amount of experience in so many different things, and you've worked with so many people. I guess my question is, what does the future look like for you right now, Richard? Richard Kaye: I haven't a freaking clue. I'm not audacious enough. I will say it looks bright. My wife and I are embarking on some new adventures, we have some things coming up. As a matter of fact, ladies and gentlemen, write this down and mark your calendars, June 18th through 20, trailblazerevent, it's all one word, trailblazerevent.com. We have got an amazing collection of people coming to you. I mentioned Lisa Nichols because I called her to invite her. I've got Mark Victor Hansen, I've got John Grey, I've got Denis Waitley, John Demartini, Michael Gerber from E-Myth, all showing up. It's a virtual event. It's free. And just go on a register. If you want to come and grow yourself, hang out, we talked about mentors earlier on. These are some of the top mentors on the planet. And now we've got people coming to us, how do I get in on this? Well, trailblazerevent.com. If you'd like to have a conversation about you... One of the things we didn't even talk about is, one of the things we focus on now, we get people guaranteed bestselling books, we get you on stages, we get you in magazines. We have a programme called Feature Me, where we guarantee to get you featured in big city newspapers. Guaranteed. It's another story how we do that. And you can't buy your way into the USA Today, or the Washington DC Chronicle, or the New York... You can't buy your way in. We guarantee to get you featured. And if you'd like to reach out to me, talkaboutpublicity.com, one word, no punctuation, talkaboutpublicity.com. Takes you right to my calendar link, where you can just set up a call. And if you want to see about the newspapers, richardkaye.com, R-I-C-H-A-R-D-K-A-Y-E.com/featureme F-E-A-T-U-R-E-M-E. Lots of ways to get in touch when you reach out. After being retired for years, and I can't do this, I'll be glad to serve you. Just let me know how. So, lots of ways to get out there. Editor: It really is, and I think that, just from our conversation, there's so much more that we could explore, and sadly we don't have the time for that. So, I think anybody who is listening or reading this, and you want to find out more about Dr. Richard Kaye, and also the various ways that you serve people as well, I think that's a great resource to look at. Just tell us again a little bit about the event that you have coming up, the Trailblazer Event. Richard Kaye: We've got myriad high profile mentors. And they're not getting paid to speak. Editor: Wow. Richard Kaye: And they're not... Yeah, yeah, they're not getting paid to speak. Now, when you've got Denis Waitley, and Demartini... I knew John Demartini, I interviewed him for another conference we had. And I said, John, I don't know if you remember when you used to come down to San Diego, there were eight people in a room with John. Long before The Secret, long before he went to live on the World Cruise Yacht, or whatever it is. When you've reached, I guess what some people can call a pinnacle, the only thing left to do is serve, is to give back. There's a lot of controversy, how many billion... And I'm not saying there are billionaires, but how much money do you need? There's a point where it gets to be ridiculous. So, we've attracted people who live in collaboration and cooperation, it's an invitation to show up in that place. I think I mentioned before, don't be use a user/taker show up to serve. And again, my walking up the hall, and acknowledge that lady, and the guy wanted to do business with me, put me on a stage, that's how you can show up in the world. So, these people play at that level, they come to serve... And by the way, this is not a sales event. There'll be no one saying buy this before the end of the show, and you get four Ginsu knives, whatever a Ginsu knife is. They're just there to serve, so that you can up level what it is that you do, so you can give more and more of your gifts to the world. To my knowledge, it's the only thing of its kind. I go back long enough ago that I knew Zig Ziglar. And Zig said, ladies and gentlemen, most of you know this, you can have anything you want if you just help enough other people get what they want. And I remember sitting down and talking with him, and he had just spoken about that. Show up and give, and that's what these people are doing. June 18 to 20, and it's virtual. Trailblazerevent.com. Editor: Sounds great. And once again, Richard, if anybody wants to reach out to you to find out more about the services that you offer, where should we go to do that? And you mentioned a free gift a little earlier too. Richard Kaye: Yeah, the free gift, and thank you for reminding me, anytime you have publicity, you want to leverage it. And we talked about this a little bit. You want to anchor it. One show up on a radio television is great, you want to turn it into something that people can get. And I said, I'm going to give you 10 ways to leverage. It's very simple. Richardkaye.com, R-I-C-H-A-R-D-K-A-Y-E.com/leverage. It'll ask for your name and email address. And you're going to get, I think it's about an eight or nine minute video, with 10 ways to leverage your publicity. So people know about it. I'll give you an example. My email signature says, Recipient of The White House... Geez, I forget what it says. Of The White House... I've got to look this up because it's automatic and I forget. And this is one thing you do with these high level things. My email signature includes Recipient of The White House Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award. Now, I was blown away when I got that. That's just one of the ways to leverage your publicity. So, yeah, go sign up, download it, it's a fun video. Editor: And once again, where do we need to go to get that video? Richard Kaye: Richardkaye.com. R-I-C-H-A-R-D-K-A-Y-E.com/leverage L-E-V-E-R-A-G-E. Because you're going to leverage your publicity. Editor: Fantastic. Richard, thank you so much for your time today, it's been absolutely fascinating. Really appreciate it. Richard Kaye: Thank you for the opportunity to serve.