The Nightclub Lesson for Business: Yankel Meislin

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Welcome everyone to Doing Business with a Servant's Heart Podcast. I'm your host, Steve Raman. I'm thrilled to have you join us today. This podcast is dedicated to exploring the idea of doing business and living life with a purpose, serving others and yes, achieving success. And it's called doing business with a servant's heart, but we could say doing life with a servant's heart. They go back and forth. And that's what I love about a servant's heart. It fits everywhere. We believe when we approach our work and our lives with a servant's heart, we can truly make a difference. And that does happen, trust me. And you're going to hear about it today with this unbelievable guest. Now, we created the show for you to want everyone to be motivated, inspired, and educated to make an impact in your world, whether you're an entrepreneur, a community leader, or simply someone looking to bring more purpose into your daily life. This podcast is here to support you. And as I said, you're going to hear some great things and a great story from this guest. Take a pad and paper out. Think about how you're going to serve today and what impact will you create today with that service. So and I want to thank today's sponsor, Pantheon Alliance. Picture yourself joining an elite community of high-income, extremely successful business owners, entrepreneurs who are thought leaders and want to share their network with you and grow each other together. It's a cool way of masterminding and building a powerful network of events and workshops and incredible opportunity to expand your network and elevate your business to two to new heights. So you have any questions about uh Pantheon Alliance, please reach out to me and I'll get you more information. With that being said, I want to welcome my incredible guest. It's got to be a movie. It probably is. If it's not, I may I may have to produce it. But Yanko, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

Thank you so much, Steve, for having me.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Ignite is in your name of your business. It really caught my eye because that means so many things. Why did you include that in your business name? And what do you mean by igniting?

SPEAKER_02 2:54

So for me, I I found that once once I incorporated an idea into who I am deciding to show up in the world as, I really took it for and started to really run with that idea. I became that thing. So whether it was, you know, being a drug kingpin, which you know we can talk about later or not, or whether it was because becoming a Hasidic Jew or becoming a coach, that fire that got lit inside me became the guiding light of who I was, who I was gonna be and how I was gonna show up to life.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Flames have a life of their own, you know, fire has a life, and firefighters will tell you it's it's that's how they fight them. So let's get to the story. You mentioned it, and Ignite kind of leads me to it. Uh, I think you're the first Jew that was a drug dealer that I know. Uh not that I know a lot of drug dealers, but I do do know a few that have been there. How'd that start? And you started at a very young age.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Yeah. Um, so for me, it started as uh, I guess, a necessity because the backstory is that I was a a troubled kid who was undersized in a an ill-fit for a machoistic world. And that led me to feeling a certain level of inadequacy, depression, general um unworthiness of you know being a man in the world. And I found that there was a great remedy to all of my problems, which was to get high, and then I would totally forget, you know, I'm supposed to be this, I'm supposed to be that. I was just in a totally different world. Now that started for me at age 14, and I was not working a job. I had my weekly allowance, which was 10 to 15 dollars for taking out the garbage three times a week, and that was not enough to support my habit, and it's particularly the more that I wanted to get high, the more money that it costs. So, you know, I I would consider myself to be a pretty savvy business person, and I decided that one year instead of getting a PlayStation for my birthday, I would take the I asked for cash instead, and that became the seed money for my illicit business that allowed me to serve other people, uh, pun in pun intended, I guess. Um, and also serve myself by you know allowing by having the product to accomplish the goal that I was that I sought out.

unknown 6:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Yeah, and it's interesting you say serve because you were serving. There's servant hearts that are that are not good. And you know, from a faith, our faith, Jewish and you know, Christian, it's there's been told that. I mean, Pontius Pilate is a guy that comes to my name right away. He he served in a negative way, and to recognize that at 14 to 19 is amazing, and it's amazing when we when we need money, what we'll do, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Yep, yeah, 100%. I mean, I I really I took it to a pretty extreme level beyond kind of what I really needed, and I I made it into um an empire.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

And it's amazing because I am a big fan of Pablo Escobar and not what he did, but the smarts that he had. It sounds like you're drug dealers are smart, they're just doing something illegal and very bad. But you know, Pablo Escobar could have probably started a restaurant and probably had a thousand restaurants in Colombia and made a lot of money. He decided to go that route. Kind of reminds me of you. You're the Pablo Escobars of Jews in a sense, because you you say an empire. What kind of money were you making at that young age?

SPEAKER_02 7:16

Yeah, so by the time that all was said and done, I was making about $200,000 a year cash with um with about uh 10 people under who worked for me, including a full-time bodyguard.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

You started a business at a young age. And what I want to ask you, I'm gonna ask you it anyways, what did you learn from that? Because you really did start a business to now with your coaching, what what brought over to your coaching that you learned from that?

SPEAKER_02 7:50

Oh, there's a lot of lessons. Um maybe the top view that I learned was um if you are if you have a product to sell or a service that you're going to sell, then you want to seek out your clients in the place that they are to be found, right? So once upon a time, right, when I was selling, you know, whatever, I when I was selling drugs, I wouldn't go to a public library to sell my drugs. I would go to a nightclub to sell my drugs, right? That is a very clear uh distinction between where you want, where your clients are and where they're clearly not. So I wouldn't, you know, put any marketing money or whatever, add dollars, if you want to call it that, into the public library or spend any of my time there whatsoever because it was not gonna lead me to finding my clients. So today, for example, as a coach, you know, I I'm not going to be putting all of my uh I'm not gonna be putting any of my energy into um, let's say, uh uh people who are who need therapy as an example, right? Like it's not my field. I know that this is not my field. I don't want to coach people who have mental disabilities because it that's not really what they need, and it wouldn't serve them, and it wouldn't serve me. And so uh I put my my energy into business leaders who are trying to get to the next level of where they want to go, and that's where I'm focusing my service.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Well, you said a beautiful thing that I'm gonna recap is you can't help them, they can't help you. A servant heart doing business with a server's heart says no, and it helps both people. I know people sometimes don't get that. I talk about this a lot, but I love that you said that because you're really helping them too, because they're not fitting with you. You're they're not gonna grow with you, so you're gonna take money, they're not gonna get anything out of it, and what's gonna happen? Oh, Yanko's a terrible coach. Well, it's not you necessarily, it's just especially coaching is very intimate, and I think there has to be that relationship that you do so well. You know, I I I've had a number of people, uh, honesty I can think of on my show that was a a meth head, uh she called her a dope sick from 12 to 20. So similar to your story and a couple others. Um, but rehab was kind of like that pivotal time for them where they learn something in recovered. And of course, you're always in recovery. Did you learn anything in rehab that helps you today?

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Um, for sure. One of the first things that I heard in rehab is the when I say rehab, I mean the final rehab that actually worked for me because there was plenty of attempts made before that. But the final rehab that worked for me, something that I I actually use, and I didn't even really pick up on the similarity. But the first thing that they told us to do is tell me what would happen if you were to use a week from now, two weeks from now, a month, and a year. And what that forced me did to realize was that there is a stark reality, like there's a there is a um a dream in my head of what what using and getting high looks like, and it's so far removed from what the actual reality of the situation is. So for example, my answer was, and I was being very brutally honest, and I said, My if I were to get high today, a week from now, I would I would purchase an AK 47, a week after that, I would rob a drug dealer, and a week after that, I would be back in business, you know, full throttle, even higher than I was before. Um, and and that would be the trajectory. So, how does that now in my business today, in coaching today, a lot of times I will ask people, you know, take me to the very farthest end of your fear, right? So let's say there's a guy who doesn't want to do something that he knows that would be good for him for because he's afraid, right? So if you go all the way to the illogical end of your fear, let's say a guy doesn't want to purchase a present for his wife, okay, good example, because the the budget is super tight and he can't afford it right now, according to him, right? But in his mind, really what he's really saying is actually, if I buy my wife this gift, then I'm gonna be homeless, because that's the very end of his fear, right? The same kind of um framing and context that I was taught when I was in rehab, I I'm using now in coaching and didn't even realize it. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

No, and I appreciate you saying multiple rehabs because that's what I've heard too. It's not like a the addict, and I've never been, and that's why I love learning this stuff, is you're never an addict walk in rehab, and six weeks later you come out and go, Yeah, I'm good. Let's go, world. You know, it's just it's a it's all it's so complicated. You're in coaching, you've been through all this. If you ran into somebody that's an addict, what's one or two things you would tell them to start doing right now?

SPEAKER_02 13:34

That's a that's that's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

I know it's a tough one.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

It's a tough one because well the the the difficult part is is that it's absolutely impossible, and people think that they can force this on people, but it's absolutely impossible to force someone, especially in that type of situation. I mean, even a regular person, it's you cannot force your will on anyone else in any way, shape, or form, and how much more so, somebody who is super addicted to a particular way of doing things, right? So if they have a desire, express a desire to stop, at that point, then I would have something to say. If they're still in the middle of it and they are totally happy with where they are, unfortunately, you can you can only pray that they will hit rock bottom without taking their own life, and then they'll be able to to to bounce back if they so choose.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Yeah, Yonko, that's the best answer I've heard in a long time. It's the honesty, not that other people weren't honest, but you're right. You run into that. Your best thing is just step away when you're ready on here. Sometimes that's the best advice in the world. Man, I love what you're saying. So let's turn this thing around a little bit. There's people out there addicted to their business 80 hour weeks. Have you uh one? Have you worked with clients like that? And if you haven't, how would you coach them? You know, I'm working eight hours a week, I don't see my family, but I'm making a crap load of money.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Right. Yeah, so I I have worked with people like that, okay, and I think I think the biggest thing is for people to see the the full picture of what they're creating, right? So there's a very famous story that I've heard about um a simple fisherman and a businessman, and they meet up. The fisherman is fishing, and the the businessman meets up with him and he says, Well, hey, you know, what are you doing? He says, I'm fishing because I'm gonna feed my family and sit by the fire and enjoy each other's company. And the businessman says, Well, look, you're so good at fishing, we should make this into a business. And the fisherman says, Why do I why should I do that? And the businessman says, Because then you'd be able to make a lot of money and hire your friends, and then you could feed your family plus your friends and sit around the fire and and enjoy life. And the business the fisherman saying to himself, like, I'm already doing this. Why I I don't need I don't need to do that. So if you're really looking at the big picture of what you're creating, people have in their minds that, okay, I'm gonna work super hard for the next 20 to 30 years, and then then I'll be able to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Now, according to the natural biology of things, right, the the sooner that you have kids, the better it's gonna be for you in in terms of your ability to have children. So let's say you have children, you know, uh, I don't know, five years in on average, let's say, right? To your marriage. So you're 25 years now, uh, still working 80 hours a week, you don't see your family, and by the time that you are able to retire and see your family, they've already grown up and left the house. So, what did you accomplish?

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Nothing, nothing. That's a great that's I'm gonna use that. That's a great story because you know, you could be saying, I man, I love you, I love your attitude, it's so awesome. Because you could work 20 hours a week and be working hard, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Absolutely, okay. Absolutely. I mean, for me, that as a religious Jew, okay, this is really one of the great benefits of Sabbath. There is a full day, 26 hours, in which we are totally detached from from our phones, from business, from from the world, essentially, just to spend with our families. And for me, honestly, it is the most treasured time of my week. Absolutely 100%. I get I am fully present with my children. There is no distractions because I can't have any distractions. And I I just get to be there with them and and ask them questions about their week. And I I have I have nowhere to go to, I have no desire to be anywhere else.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

And you don't worry about it either. No, you're not like, oh, I need to get my phone, I need to, you know, oh my god, that's gonna miss out. My client needs I that's really checking out. That's the the best way to check out, and it's great that checking checking in to my checking in, that's better. Thank you. See, I always learn on my podcast, so thank you. I'm gonna start using it, checking in. And and here's the power of a diverse world. You're Jewish and I'm Christian, and we can have this these conversations. I get excited about this because we can learn from anybody, no matter what their background is. And I appreciate you saying that. I'm gonna ask you a very personal question. What do you think your superpower is? What's your superpower?

SPEAKER_02 18:53

My superpower is the ability to be present in a conversation and really see through the lines of what it is that you would like to be saying, but are not.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

And how do you accomplish that?

SPEAKER_02 19:15

Um, I I try I try to quiet my mind so that I'm not concerned with what I'm gonna say next, and I'm just listening to the words you're saying, how you're saying them, and being as present as I possibly can to what it is that you're saying.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Audience, listen to that over and over again because that is the million-dollar tip. Seriously, and I I I talk about you're gonna love this now that we're friends, we're gonna I'm not gonna call us that. Is I tell people shut up and listen. Because we shut up, but are they really listening on that Zoom call or you know, at a conference, you know, the guy's falling asleep during his not listening? And that's okay, I know things happen, but I love that you said that because listening is one of the components of leadership, business ownership, entrepreneur. I mean, across the board, if that one skill that you teach and help people with the listening, you're a rock star, my friend.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Thank you. I think that's the the foundation of service. Yeah, how can you possibly be serving if you're if you if you're here? I need to be there by you in order to serve.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

I love it because I heard a story. This lady's a coach, and talking to somebody and they weren't listening, go, Well, I've got a great plumber introduction for you. I didn't need help with my pipes. What do you mean, a plumber? Oh, I thought you said you need help with your, you know, it and we've heard many, many stories like that. Uh, we're coming to the end here. How could people reach out to you?

SPEAKER_02 20:50

I'm on LinkedIn, Instagram. Uh my LinkedIn and my website are the best the best ways to to get in touch with me. So on LinkedIn, it's Yanko Meislin, and my website is igniteyourflame coaching.com. And if it would serve anybody out there to have a conversation, please feel welcome to reach out.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

That's a true servant's heart there. I know you're probably sick of me saying that, but we talked about before in the green room how service is not just there. You're talking to people all the time, like, I didn't know, I don't have time or fear. Thank you. This has been a great message. Your story is unbelievable. Um I think we're gonna talk later, make that into a movie, but we'll we'll talk about that later. I I want to leave with this last question. This is kind of a personal, deep get to know you question. So you're in a restaurant, there's a table of four, you're sitting at one table, who would sit in the other three seats, dead or alive, and why would they be there? And I think the most important question is what food would you order? Um I love that laugh.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Okay, here we go. So my my spiritual mentor would be uh sitting to my right. He he's he is very much alive, thank god, and he should continue to to do well. My my coach would be across from me, and my father would be next to him. I would be so I would be so surrounded by absolute love and wisdom and um just having just people who who have served me um uh throughout my entire life, or a good majority portion of it. And what would and we would be eating? I would probably steak.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Oh, I didn't expect that. Now you caught me off guard there. I love it. What kind of steak? Can we get a little deeper?

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Um we I'm not so what what I would say um like a sirloin or tomahawk or filet mignon or no, it would be a tomahawk steak, probably, because there's some kosher ones that some of them that are not kosher, some cut soap.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

And I I have had filet mignon in my life, but I don't I don't think that that's so easy to come by in a kosher version. So it would be it would be the the you know the T-bone rib cut, really nice, thick, juicy, medium rare. I I want to go in that way with some mashed potatoes on the side.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

I'm gonna go on that list. If you get me one more chair, I would be oh my god, getting hungry right now, thinking about it. I love it. Um, and what I love what you did, and you're a great coach, I can see what because you actually put them in each right, center, and left. That's deep thinking. If you're looking for a coach, these are one of the guys, he's this one guy you want to talk to because a coach needs to be specific, listen and be specific, not like hey, I need to make a lot of money. Okay, let's find a way. No, let's get granular. So I love that you did that. The specificity was uh right on. Okay. Well, thank you again, Yankel. This has been an incredible show. I appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Thank you so much, Steve, for having me.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Oh, you're very welcome. Don't forget my TV show, Together We Serve, every Friday, 2 p.m. Pacific, 5 p.m. Eastern. You'll see the link in the chat. It's on uh uh Apple TV, Roku, and all those C this big old head in your 70 inch screen TV. Trust me, you'll look at the guest more than me. So that is good. Um, and as always, me and Yanko, thank you so much for watching or listening to this podcast. And we look forward to seeing you in the next episode of Doing Business with a Service Art.

unknown 24:47

All right.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Have a great day. Bye bye.