Speaker 1: So I'm celebrating fifteen years in business, heading into my
Speaker 1: sixteenth year as an entrepreneur, and people have asked me, like,
Speaker 1: you know now that I'm now that I started in
Speaker 1: my in my forties. Now I'm in my mid fifties
Speaker 1: heading towards my late fifties, and this show is comforting.
Speaker 1: Plus so of course people are asking me, like, you know,
Speaker 1: how long do I plan on working? What's going on
Speaker 1: my life? You know, I have kids and grandkids, I have,
Speaker 1: you know, possible relationships and all kind of stuff going on,
Speaker 1: like aging parents, like other means. And it's funny because
Speaker 1: I haven't thought of an end date. When I was
Speaker 1: working for jobs, when I had corporate work, I worked
Speaker 1: at jobs, the end date was always around sixty five.
Speaker 1: That's when I'll retire. I'll collect whatever pensions I get
Speaker 1: or went for one k, I live off that and
Speaker 1: then I don't know why come after that, But that's that. Well,
Speaker 1: now I'm in a job or jobs that I have
Speaker 1: my companies, my two companies super Organized Her Jailja Media.
Speaker 1: They become my passions and they're part of me, and
Speaker 1: that makes any sense. They're kind of intertwined with me.
Speaker 1: So now I kind of get this, and people say
Speaker 1: it also, go to work till I'm dead or I'm
Speaker 1: not I have a reason to quit. I guess for me,
Speaker 1: I can do these jobs as long as I have
Speaker 1: mobility and my brain power. Even if I lost some mobility,
Speaker 1: I could do still do some of this stuff as
Speaker 1: long as I can wheel up to a desk. So
Speaker 1: it changes everything, right, I can tell in some ways
Speaker 1: I am slowing down a little bit. I'm not as
Speaker 1: eager as I used to was. I'm not as quick
Speaker 1: to jump on something. I have turned down things because
Speaker 1: I am tired, and I and my body is I'm
Speaker 1: just older, and I'm just like I don't want you,
Speaker 1: and just like, quite simply, I don't want to work
Speaker 1: twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. So
Speaker 1: there are certain things that sound like, oh yeah, might
Speaker 1: do that, But if I already have a full day,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to add that on. Or I have
Speaker 1: a full week, I'm not gonna add that on. In
Speaker 1: the old days, I've hustled add it on. I have
Speaker 1: three jobs, working all time everything, where now I am
Speaker 1: a little more choosy with what I'm going to do
Speaker 1: with my work life. I'm busy. Don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: I am biz Z, but it's different rent and I
Speaker 1: still have dreams and I still have aspirations. I still
Speaker 1: have things. But I am trying. I can tell I'm
Speaker 1: trying to look at stuff and go, I mean, I
Speaker 1: organize it better now I'm older, so I organized things
Speaker 1: better but better. But it's more of I'll do that.
Speaker 1: I'll do that. I'm not gonna do that. I'll do
Speaker 1: that for four or five days, but I need day off,
Speaker 1: you know. I'll do that for three hard days, but
Speaker 1: I'm that I'm making up that morning, you know, like
Speaker 1: I'm learning how to because I just feel it. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that. Yeah, I'm tired. I
Speaker 1: work a lot anyway as it is. I can work
Speaker 1: and I work almost every day just about, and I
Speaker 1: can work more than if I it's it's but I'm
Speaker 1: learning how it's not everything that I want. But I
Speaker 1: look back at fifteen years and I'm fully amazed. I
Speaker 1: can't believe it's in fifteen years. I looked at like
Speaker 1: fifteen years like it went by in a flash. Yet
Speaker 1: there were times when it felt like it took forever.
Speaker 1: So I'm just like my brain is like trying to
Speaker 1: process like fully, all of it, because there's also coincides
Speaker 1: with my whole change coming back to Los Angeles and
Speaker 1: I came to Los Angeles. It'll be sixteen years in January,
Speaker 1: so it's all coming together for me. Sixteen years in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, fifteen years doing this business which started after
Speaker 1: I came to Los Angeles. I think about all the
Speaker 1: ups and down, you know, everything, you know I've been
Speaker 1: through and survived. Like hi, chuckle a little bit. I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I did that. Only I did that. I give myself
Speaker 1: points for having the faith to do this. Let just
Speaker 1: do it, like Jane, just do it. Just get out
Speaker 1: there and try it. And fields that I had no
Speaker 1: idea about, you know, the media world. I just thought
Speaker 1: for sure that's gonna be the hardest thing on earth.
Speaker 1: It has. It has been tough in some ways. Trust
Speaker 1: and believe I've worked. I've worked very hard in this
Speaker 1: media field to make a name for myself and I
Speaker 1: feel like I have. It'sl like I do have a name,
Speaker 1: and in the field in organizing world too. I'm very
Speaker 1: proud of myself because I went to a field that
Speaker 1: is not full of men enough full of black people. Listen,
Speaker 1: there's more now. But when I first came in, there
Speaker 1: wasn't that, and I said, okay, just fearless, I guess fearlessly.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm just going to do this. Who cares?
Speaker 1: Just do it? And I just started doing it and
Speaker 1: furiously went forward. Had people tell me I was I
Speaker 1: was doing a hobby, or they didn't take my business seriously.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't make enough money for a long time.
Speaker 1: Like there's a lot of things that go on daily
Speaker 1: and go on around you when you're trying to build
Speaker 1: your business, people not knowing what you do, and I'm
Speaker 1: thinking you seriously, like it's just all kind of stuff
Speaker 1: that happens. Your self esteem was all over the place
Speaker 1: as I had people do me wrong. I've had to
Speaker 1: fire people. I've had extraordinary circumstances that were wonderful. I've
Speaker 1: had things that I would have never guessed a million years.
Speaker 1: And it's with the my timing I think about it.
Speaker 1: You know, I started during the recession and then I
Speaker 1: just I just I don't know what it's something about me.
Speaker 1: James Lodd Jr. That's just like I always just pushed forward.
Speaker 1: I go can I'm gonna do this. And I don't
Speaker 1: know where it comes from. I guess I was like this.
Speaker 1: I was a kid. My mother tells me like this,
Speaker 1: So I was a kid. But I just always feel
Speaker 1: like when I choose something, I go straight ahead. My
Speaker 1: friend and I called my chocolate twin Tony Moore, who
Speaker 1: was at Loungepatonia dot com. He said to me a
Speaker 1: dating in the conversation, he goes, JA, we tell other
Speaker 1: people He's like James, which you did that was so
Speaker 1: brilliant is that you took a template that was out
Speaker 1: there already, so to speak, and built it. I just
Speaker 1: took it on yourself, personalized it and made a big
Speaker 1: business out of it. And I did some of my ideas.
Speaker 1: I kind of grabb on other people how they were
Speaker 1: doing it, took it, modified it for me, and I've
Speaker 1: been going from there. And I give those people props
Speaker 1: all the time. Tony's one of them. I get props
Speaker 1: him all the time for a sort of thing. I
Speaker 1: covered certain things he did and I just went out
Speaker 1: there and did it. So it's so it's very nice here.
Speaker 1: My friend slash colleagues say that, you know, he's like
Speaker 1: you did give me praising you did a great job, James,
Speaker 1: as somebody who and it's not just that I did it.
Speaker 1: Anyone can do it, but you have to choose to
Speaker 1: do it and have the guts to do it and
Speaker 1: just do it. I have the guts obviously, which is
Speaker 1: kind of interesting to me. I just never thought about
Speaker 1: it for him, and it has just been this series
Speaker 1: of trying this, see what happens, trying that, See what happens,
Speaker 1: feast or famine months, nothing's going on. I'm thinking, going,
Speaker 1: what am I doing to get a regular there just
Speaker 1: telling I got a regular job. At one point that
Speaker 1: I was born out, actually born out of an organizing job.
Speaker 1: I put myself in places. I say stuff, I talk,
Speaker 1: you know, on places. I really am proud of myself
Speaker 1: that I went out and got clients and I actually
Speaker 1: now have a reputation and it's all word of mouth.
Speaker 1: And that's something that I'm very proud of. Also being
Speaker 1: in business and the companies I am. There's also I
Speaker 1: have detractors. I have haters that people who do not
Speaker 1: appreciate me, who talk for whatever reason or another. I
Speaker 1: don't do anything to them, but they don't like me.
Speaker 1: That's also weird. Too. Right. It's like there are people
Speaker 1: who don't like me for my views or who I
Speaker 1: am or just how I look, who are just like
Speaker 1: or they think I did them wrong somehow. They have
Speaker 1: their own people, have their own agendas, and if I
Speaker 1: don't fall into it, they don't like me. That's weird. Also,
Speaker 1: they're people with their own illnesses and things. They go
Speaker 1: on their brains and and to try to lay it
Speaker 1: on me, and I'm like, Nope, that was not me.
Speaker 1: I know clearly what I've done and haven't done. I
Speaker 1: look at some of the quote unquote fans and followers
Speaker 1: that I had who now don't support me anymore, and
Speaker 1: are the ones that kind of support me or they
Speaker 1: hate support me. There's that too, the other ones who
Speaker 1: overly love me and overly I mean, I have those also,
Speaker 1: And so it's like this, it's like this, It's all
Speaker 1: over the place, and I never imagine that in my life.
Speaker 1: The last fifteen years. It's all just it's it's a
Speaker 1: it's just all swirling right now for me because I'm
Speaker 1: busy working right now. That's the testament of the fifteen years.
Speaker 1: I actually have current clients, I'm busy working. I have
Speaker 1: so much work that I have a waiting list. That's good.
Speaker 1: And I have stuff and that i'm working on that
Speaker 1: I'm waiting on. That's good. So that's the testament of
Speaker 1: happy fifteen years because I come from like always good
Speaker 1: as your last job. You only eat because your last job, right,
Speaker 1: the next job is always that's what you're looking for.
Speaker 1: I work at gig to gig, so I'm actually busy.
Speaker 1: This is good. Money is coming in. I'm good. I've
Speaker 1: had one of the best years of my life. Financially.
Speaker 1: It's good. But it's the it's so, it's that. So
Speaker 1: that's so that's the testament of the fifth But I'm
Speaker 1: getting little times to look back because I'm being asked like, look,
Speaker 1: I tell you, what do you think about? How you know?
Speaker 1: You know what's going on. I'm now a mentor to
Speaker 1: many people, so now I'm I'm starting to reminisce and
Speaker 1: look back at my life and in these careers. That's
Speaker 1: why I'm like, Wow, I did it. I done did it,
Speaker 1: and I'm still doing it and I'm still here and
Speaker 1: it's still hard. And my heart goes out to all
Speaker 1: my colleagues who are having a hard time right now.
Speaker 1: As entrepreneurs, and I just I want for them to
Speaker 1: have the wonderful stuff that I have. I just want
Speaker 1: that for them. And it's tough. I know it's out there,
Speaker 1: and I just wish them the best. And whenever I
Speaker 1: could do the support, I'm here to do that. I
Speaker 1: try to. But that's my age. So being in my
Speaker 1: fifties heading towards sixty, which is only like four years away,
Speaker 1: I think I'm looking at I'm looking at working smarter,
Speaker 1: not harder. Of course, I have a big dream that
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that will come true, and now looking for
Speaker 1: good assistance and good collaborators and so they do most
Speaker 1: of the work eyes oversea. So I'm kind of going
Speaker 1: I'm trying to go into more of a managerial role,
Speaker 1: producer role, more and more, even more than ever. So
Speaker 1: I think that's where I'm leaning towards. But I am
Speaker 1: I'm still active. I'm not dead yet. I'm still active,
Speaker 1: so that will happen for a while to sob O. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't if you shot on means, but having fifteen to me,
Speaker 1: its just I'm very proud of myself and anybody who
Speaker 1: does this knows how hard it is. But how funny
Speaker 1: can be how we what can be. It's a life
Speaker 1: I do not set out to do or BN and
Speaker 1: it's my life now and I and I I have
Speaker 1: learned so much and I will continue to share with
Speaker 1: you guys. And I'm you know a lot of help
Speaker 1: dot com to an organizer. I have books out. Will
Speaker 1: continue to share with you my experience with what I'm learning,
Speaker 1: so you get an idea of your saying and maybe
Speaker 1: you'll relate to summit. That's what shows about. Also for
Speaker 1: D plus is everywhere. I'll talk to you next time.
Speaker 1: I'm James lot Junior