Welcome to the Online Success Journey Podcast, your opportunity to discover and learn from entrepreneurs like yourself. This is not your typical podcast, but a place where you can get the real story and find out how real people encounter speed bumps and detours, but journey through to find success. Now here's your host for the Online Success Journey Podcast, Patience. We are back with episode 362 of the Online Success Journey. Our guest today is a successful entrepreneur who is excited to share the various steps they took to build their business. And you would want to subscribe right now and ensure you'll never miss a journey like this one.
Joining us today is Joe Caruso, author, business advisor, speaker, expert on the individual mind, the collective mind of an organization, and how meaning drives our behavior and determines outcomes in all aspects of our lives. Hello, Joe. Hi, patients. Thanks for having me. Thank you for coming. My audience are excited to hear your story. Just start by telling us one thing we are going to learn from you today that will help us on our journey to success.
Well, I would think that we'll stick with the way you introduced me. We're going to think about how the mind determines almost everything in life. I can't wait to hear more about that. Let's start with the basics. Can you tell my audience a little bit about your background, what you did before you started your own business? Sure. It has nothing to do with eggplants. I'll leave that for you. Thank you. Yeah. Basically, at 17 years old, I was diagnosed with a deadly cancer. I was told there was no cure. So I didn't know how long I would live.
We started radical chemotherapy and major surgeries, and I decided I would learn what I was going to miss in life. So I started studying five hours a day, five days a week, committed to learning as much as I could about life. Studied philosophy, psychology, theology, all of that kind of stuff. And I ended up one of the first people ever cured of metastasized testicular cancer. And I kept my stupid promise, and I'm 62 years old.
I had no idea it would become a career because I would know more than most people about subjects. Wow. What about Brown Joe? What keeps you going? Why do you do this? Oh, it's a passion. I mean, somebody just asked me how we had a holiday weekend here in the United States last weekend. And they said, how was your weekend? I said, it was great. I got to read and write. I'm working on releasing three books in the next 10 months. And that doesn't count my bestsellers in six languages. I believe that I am driven.
to find my best self, bring my best self, and help others do the same. Well, that's a darn good question. As a single individual person company outside of my assistant, so I don't have a number of people that go out there and do versions of me. I have done more than a million dollars per year. So financially, that's one way.
Another way is when you get letters from people that said you saved their life or you meet somebody. I was on a Navy base in California and a captain approached me and he said, you saved my life and you don't even know it. Those are the kind of things that really help you feel like you've made some good decisions and that you're doing a good job. Tell us how to refine what success looks like in a post-pandemic world. Oh, OK. I think it's.
Getting what you want and being happy with it. So I don't call success just lackadaisical acceptance of life and reality. I think that success requires focus, capacity, and will, and then being happy while you do it. You know, if you play a game of tennis, tennis players would tell you that the toughest volley of the game or the match was when they were working the hardest. because it felt good. I asked a top psychoanalyst once, how do you know when someone's mentally healthy? And he says, when they're a do or doing with a sense of completion or promise of completion, then they're probably pretty healthy. I believe there also has to be a greater cause involved. If I was just studying for myself, that'd be one thing. But if I'm studying to write a book that I'm hoping will change lives, that's another thing.
As you mentioned, at 17 years old, you started studying five hours a day. Did you ever want to become an author? When I wrote the first chapter of my last book, which is a bestseller in six languages, called The Power of Losing Control, it's available on my website on audio now, www.caruso, that's C-A-R-U-S-O, leadership.com, for your listeners if they're interested in the audio book. I started to write the first sentence, and I thought, gosh, I hope someone besides me reads this someday. I had no idea I'd end up with a bestseller in six languages. But when you come up with the idea for a book and then you practice writing, you have to learn how to write. And you can tie it together and tell stories that the reader can find themselves in. They find themselves in the icons and images of the stories you share. And that makes it a page turner. Tell us where to start, leaders, and how to ensure the employees are finding meaning in the bigger picture of their work.
That's an excellent question. My new book is called Narrative Wins. It's not going to be out until January. And it's basically tell the right story to the right person at the right time for the right reason in the right way. And so you define why it's important to work here. Leadership, effective leadership isn't determined by how smart you are, how much authority you have. Effective leadership is determined by the willingness of others to follow. That's the key. And if they feel like they're doing something worthwhile that elevates them.
That's attractive. Tell my audience about the magical moment. It suddenly all went right for you. The magical moment that everything went right? Yes. I was married in the palace of the former prince of Sicily at 38 years old. We had tried for a week to get married, and we couldn't get the stamps necessary to get the approval to get married. We were told no.
That evening, we were having dinner. Carol is my wife's name. And we were having dinner outside. It was a beautiful evening. The boats were going out to go fishing. And the lady that lived in the casa next door, which is quite, you know, like a block away, I could hear they were having a party. So I went over there, and in my best Sicilian, which was self-taught in four days, so it was terrible, I held up the paperwork that we had brought over. And I said, we're trying to get married, but we just can't seem to make it happen.
And she says, which is ridiculous, just like it sounds. And she grabs the paperwork and disappears. And I'm standing there with all of these guests, and they surround me and start asking me questions. My wife doesn't know where I went, so she's back at our casa that we rented. And the next day she says, tomorrow you're going to be married. And we got in the backseat of the car, and she drove all over to the same place that we went to. And everybody wanted our picture. They put the stamps down. We had a beautiful lunch.
And she looked at, and we bought my wife's ring in Paris. And she says, you know, my husband is a jeweler. And we own two jewelry stores. You need a wedding ring. Because I didn't buy myself one. And so we went, we met a gentleman named Mr. Fiorentino. And he had basically called the mayor and said, get these two married. And that's how that happened. So I would say that's a lot of right after being turned down.
The lady that was driving us around, she kept singing a song called Gran Amore, Big Love. And she just thought it was so romantic. And she probably went to Rosemary and said, hey, Mr. Big Shot, why don't you just get these two people married? You can make a call. And he was a sweetheart of a man. And I think it was just the fact that we were nice people, too. Being nice goes a long way in any country.
Wow, thank you. Wow, thank you for sharing. That was nice. But do you think there is still nice people out there? Yeah, there are a lot of nice people. I think when, I think post-COVID, to go back to your distinction, the masks didn't help anyone because people do odd things when their face is covered or they don't think you can see them. Just like they can drive aggressively, probably more aggressive than they would behave in person. And put that with the overall malaise and fear.
that that covid brought in the break in normalcy uh it was hard it's hard to celebrate to go to a restaurant they were mostly closed here and celebrate and feel good and have a birthday um you couldn't do it and um it made a lot of people feel powerless i think when people feel powerful they can act aggressive but i think most people when they feel like they're in charge they've got some sense of of control or power in their life i think they give their best i think fear is based in hatred and in uh I think the more you love yourself, the more you can love others, the nicer you're going to be. We need to love ourselves more. Thank you. What have you learned from business as a whole? That people can smell sincerity, number one. You know, you talk about mistakes in some of your media stuff. When you try to be somebody you're not, I think people can tell. So to be authentic is critical. Secondly, watch your numbers.
Business is numbers. That's how it's measured. So keep an eye on your numbers. Keep an eye on your clients. Make your clients more important than you are. If I speak to 10,000 people, after the sound check, I'll go out and sit in different chairs in the audience to feel what the audience is going to feel. And I look like a little tiny ant on the stage from the back row. But they're looking at the big screen TVs that are in the room. And so when you sit there from that perspective, you realize I'm one that likes to move around a lot. But I realize if I do that, they're going to get dizzy.
And so I said, plant yourself, kid. Just don't move. And, you know, so to be fully and empathically in the moment with the other is critical. I never check my cell phone when I'm talking with a client. I don't type. I don't keyboard. I don't check my calendar unless they ask me to. I listen to what they're saying. And that's why they're saying it and why they're saying it now.
And I'm writing in my new book, I coined the phrase allegorical listening. So an allegory is the story below the story. That's what I listen for. And when a client feels appreciated, understood, and helped, it goes a long way. And I don't think I mentioned this to you, patients, but all of my work is referral. All of it. If the phone rings here, it's usually somebody trying to sell us something. Tell us how a company collectively believes system creates its driving means.
It's done in different ways. It's quite interesting. Sometimes it's because they want to beat a particular competitor, you know, thick in the old days between Apple and Microsoft, you know, until Apple figured out that it was a disruptor. They just want to beat Microsoft as a platform and with computers. And that all changed with the music, the way that they used music with the white headphones that went worldwide fast. So they changed an entire industry.
And then they realized they could do that with a number of industries. Look at Amazon. Amazon started out selling books and making no money, none, losing money. And now you have Amazon Web Services, which makes more money than all Amazon sales. And they sell to the military. They sell cloud services to the world. They reinvented themselves. So I think what has to happen is you have to have your collective mind of your employees.
They have to believe that what you're trying to achieve is possible. You have to have faith or they feel hopeless. They have to feel that they have some control, something that is theirs, that they're exclusively contributing to. They have to feel good to be a part of a team and really believe that they are surrounded by smart people, not just the owner's cousins. And they they have to have one collective idea about who we are. You know, if you work for Google, Google people say, well, you work for Google. You must be creative.
It has to be a singular notion that unites the collective mind. Everyone gets to keep their personality. Everyone gets to keep their opinion. Hopefully, you know, you don't want a room full of people that are going to just agree with each other all the time because resistance helps create creativity. We need new ideas. And if somebody says, well, we can't do that. We don't have the money. The question the CEO should say is, if we could do it, how would we do it?
and create that possibility thinking. Thank you. If you could rerun the first year of your business, what would you definitely not do? Definitely not do? Yes. Oh, man, that's a good question. I think what I would definitely not do is work so hard to get hired. I would act like I've been there before. You know, in American football, we have the end zone, and there are some football players who like to dance in the end zone after a touchdown.
There's a saying that says, act like you've been there before. Not be so hungry. What is one thing that has contributed to your success? I think it's authenticity. I do know what I'm talking about. There's a word called purview. So if your listeners think about a circle, a circle within that circle is all you know. Don't get outside the circle. Stay within your purview. Learn to say I don't know. I think it's a critical aspect. Don't guess. People call me to help them with negotiations.
Don't guess. Don't say, well, I think this is going to... No, you've got to know the characters that are in the negotiation and what motivates them. You've got to learn about their minds, how they think, and when they're faking it, and when they're serious. And be fully empathically in the moment all the time with people. I think it's critical. What grounds you? My puppy, my wife. You said I talked about your grandmother as a Christian. My faith, my meditation.
my study, I think all of the above. And I have friends that are quite funny and we use the word jocular, which means they can take a punch and they can give a punch. Nobody's feeling gets hurt. That's good. Wow. In your business, do you have a mentor or a coach yourself?
I've had three or four mentors in my life. One was very high up in the United States Navy. He's my cousin and my godfather. And he traveled the world and worked for a consulting firm called Booz Allen. It used to be called Booz Allen Hawkins, a big D.C. firm. So he's lived, like I said, all over the world, Saudi Arabia, Italy, different places. And he's one of the smartest guys I know. So he is a mentor.
Another one just passed away. His name was Joe Lichtenberg. He's 95 years old, world-famous psychoanalyst. He's written 35 books. I'm on the cover of his last book as a co-author, which is a real honor. And Joe came to see me in Italy, and we would talk all the time about his new ideas he's working on. And I would share my thoughts about those ideas freely with him. And he loved to talk about idea. The third would be a gentleman I just saw two weeks ago, Dr. Curtis Bristol. He's out of Washington, D.C.
And he's a famous psychoanalyst as well. And we've traveled the world together, me and his wife Marie and Carol and me. And we talk every Sunday about what we're making for dinner. I love to cook. He loves to cook. And just what's happening in the world. It could be, how is the new prime minister in England going to fare?
Being that, you know, the EU is the being that the economy is in trouble over there. And what do you think about putting price caps on the energy, which you just announced? We can have a conversation about that for an hour. It's just it's just fun. We just visited him for three hours. I mean, for three days. And we just talked about idea for 15 hours a day while we had a blast. And it's fun to be able to talk about idea, not to one ups the other person with how smart you are or how much you know.
But to actually contribute an intellectual sense of understanding or curiosity into the discussion is, to me, a blast. So I'm lucky enough that I have attracted some brilliant minds in my life. And if they said, you might want to read this book, I buy it. And I read it. I'm at my desk right now, Aristotle's Politics. Now, I know I read that when I was a younger man.
But we read a book review recently on it. And Curtis, Dr. Bristol, said, hey, let's study that. So I didn't see it in my library. So I asked my assistant to get me another copy. And here it is. Now, is he starting to read it already? I bet he is. I'm very lucky. You are blessed. I hope so. And continue to be blessed. Yes, you will. What is the most valuable thing your mentors has told you?
Well, Joe Lichtenberg said be fully and empathically in the moment, and that has stuck with me. What is one thing no one knows about you? Well, your listeners have no idea how tall, dark, and handsome I am with flowing locks of hair. Of course, people that know me don't know that either. All right, I'll see you. I checked your picture, you are not.
Yeah, yeah. Probably not anywhere near that. I'm a very private man. I'm quite open, but I'm also quite private. I can be quite gregarious. But if I walk into a house and there's a library, a personal library to the left, and I can hear the party down the hall to the right, I'm torn. I wouldn't have to go to the library or go to the party. And the reason people wouldn't know that is because when I show up at the party, I'm a lot of fun. Or at least I think I am. Let's talk about your business and tell us more about it.
I'm an advisor to top leaders. And so the contract is an annual contract. They call me for one hour a week. They always call on time. And we have a meaningful 60 minute discussion about whatever they'd like to talk about. And I've had some clients for 14 years because the more they grow, the more they want to learn. And we never have had a bad conversation. Also, if they ever decide to stop using me as an advisor, it would only take one bad phone call and they could say, you know what, this isn't working.
It's never happened. So that's how I make money. I speak. I'm going to Quantico Base. That's where our CIA and FBI, Marines and Navy are in Washington, D.C. headquarters. And I'll be working with the leadership there for two days in the end of October. So there's live appearances. The books don't really make you a lot of money. They're just ways. They're a medium to help people think and learn.
And then they passed the books on. Like the captain, they came up to me. He's only one guy, but I could name another one who said my book saved his life. He was in the hospital and someone had left my book on his bedside table and it saved his life. Now, I didn't know any of this. I was speaking to his leaders at his Navy base, which was in Washington, the state of Washington. And when he introduced me to his leaders, he told that story. I said, so here's Joe Caruso. And I'm like flabbergasted. And now I got to talk. I was like weird, you know.
I'm working on a new book that's called, as I said, Narrative Wins. And I have two co-authors. One is Dr. Mahoney, who's in charge of learning for Amazon Web Services. And Dr. Bristol is also contributing. I'm doing the bulk of the writing. And so every time a draft bounces to the other person, you're waiting. You know, you're not continuing to write because you don't know what they're going to do. So I decided last week, I'm going to write my next book while I'm waiting to get my draft back.
and do my part on that. And so I'm working on two books at the same time right now. My goal is to have three within 10 months, which I don't think, I don't know anybody that does that. You don't make a lot of money with books, but they do establish a credibility with people of why should they listen to you? You know, you introduced me as author, speaker. Well, your audience need to hear like, well, what does he do? I'm more of an advisor than anything. People call me to help them with problems or goals.
I also coach people. I particularly pick which ones I believe I want to work with. But they pick me first. And I decide whether or not I would like to work with them. And we go from there. Thank you. And your business, if somebody wants to join your company or hire you? If they want to find me or hire me, they can go to the website, www.carusoleadership.com, that's C-A-R-U-S-O. Or they can go to...
My email is joe at carusoleadership.com. That's the fast way to get me. My assistant reads all my emails and she'll probably reply first. Thank you. There will be more from Joe in a moment. If you're listening to this on a podcasting platform and you're encouraged by Joe's journey, please go to our website at onlinesuccessjourney.com. In addition to the amazing free content, you can work direct with me. Check out my course, Success, How to Set Goals and Double Your Productivity. A course for achieving success in work and life. When you visit onlinesuccessjourney.com. The site has a ton of audio clips from hundreds of successful entrepreneur guests' journeys all there to help you find the path to your own online success journey. Check it out. That's...
online-success.com. Do you watch movies or read books? I really enjoy movies. They're very important to me. I've actually attended the Academy Awards, so movies are important to me, but I love books. Tell us what is your favorite book that has some relevance to being an entrepreneur? I believe that we can't undervalue the humanities or history, and so I decided when I wanted to start studying that I would read a historian named Will Durant.
And his book was called The Story of Philosophy. He took the greatest philosophers in order and talked about their life, their time, how they thought and what they thought. And it helped me to learn how to think. Now, what does that have to do with being an entrepreneur? Entrepreneurs have to know how to think, not just be passionate about something, but how to think about something. Business was down to its last $100. How do you invest it? Oh, boy. Business was down to its last $100. I get out of business. It's that simple. What is your next chapter?
My next chapter? Hell, I'm just hoping to make it to dinner tonight. You'll be fine. My next chapter will be to release this new book. I'm excited about it. It's been years in the making. And keep doing what I'm doing. I like the story of my life. I can't wait for the next chapter, but I kind of like not knowing what it's going to be. Do you feel like you succeeded or like you're only on the way? I wake up every day and I thank God for the abundance that I have. I think waking up is succeeding because remember, I was dying for two and a half years.
I feel like a success. I feel humbled by my success. But at the same time, I'm proud of it. It's not a false humility. It's a true humility. Like, how in the hell did this happen? But I know that it happened one decision at a time, one action at a time, one behavior at a time, none of which counts for everything, but they all add up. And how I got lucky enough not to screw that up, I have no idea. Wow.
Will you ever stop? I don't see a reason to. Perhaps health, if health gets in the way, if my mind goes, that would be very difficult for me. But will I stop studying, learning, teaching? I just can't foresee why I would. I love what I do. And to your leaders, I'm going to say something, qualify it. I would do this for free, but I don't. I'm expensive on purpose. Now, this might help your entrepreneurial readers, I mean listeners, is that.
I learned a long time ago, free is rarely appreciated. If I'm going to speak and I'm doing it for favor for our cancer organization, I'll guarantee you the mic won't work. The room won't be organized. There's no stage. They'll eat in my, let's say I'm going to speak for 50 minutes. Somebody, some muckety muck from the hospital is going to talk for 20 of my 50 minutes. So I have to edit my speech while I'm sitting there. It's just not a pleasant job. The more you charge, the more people respect that you must know what you're doing, especially if you guarantee it.
I was working for the largest stamping plant in the world at the time. I was talking to the plant manager. I had already interviewed all of the leaders of the plant, so there's 53 people, and I'm giving my report. His assistant plant manager is sitting to my left. And my manager said, can you make things better here? I said, absolutely, no doubt in my mind. It will require a few things and a little time, but I absolutely know I can do it. The guys, you know, your guys told me what they want. This is not hard.
And he says, how much are you going to charge me? And so I gave him my fee. And Frank, who's the assistant plan manager, the plan manager turns to the assistant plan manager and says, what do you think? And the assistant plan manager said, if it doesn't work, don't pay him. I said, okay, we have an understanding, gentlemen. Remind us how we can connect with you. www.carusoleadership.com or joe at carusoleadership.com. Joe, it's been great to have you here to share your online success journey with us.
Well, I got to tell you, I've done quite a few podcasts in my day and some video, some audio. These are some of the best questions consistently that I've ever had in such a short time. So thanks for the work you're doing and the thoughtfulness you put into it. And thanks for being a nurse. Thank you for appreciating everything. Thank you. And thank you for also coming here to share your wisdom and continuing to help people out there. Continue the good job. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. You are welcome. Remember, success is a journey. Don't wait. Let's start the journey. Patience and joy.
This is not the end of the journey. We hope you've enjoyed listening to Patience and her guest and want you to know that there are hundreds of episodes available at OnlineSuccessJourney.com. Patience would like to thank you for listening to the podcast and she has a free gift for you on her website, including an audio compilation of her guest's best tips, uplifting stories, and even a bit of fun. Additionally, there are special clips of over 250 episodes that have never aired on the podcast and are only available to members of the Online Success Journey. Check the website and click on Join Now to get free and instant access.
One last thing, if you're feeling a bit lost or overwhelmed on your own journey, patience can help. Check out our coaching sessions on how to set goals and double your productivity while you're at the website. Working with patients is a great way to get back on the right path. On behalf of patients and until next time, thanks once more for listening. It is our hope that this podcast will guide you on your own online success journey.