Joel Benge: [00:00:00] When I was, preparing this morning on your website, you have a KawasakiGPT and so I thought I would do a little practice interview.

I asked it this question, I said, “I’m interviewing Guy Kawasaki this afternoon. If I only had one question to ask, what should I ask?”

And it recommended I ask, ” What’s the single most important lesson you’ve learned about being remarkable in your career and how can others apply it to their lives?” Now, before you answer, do you want to hear what KawasakiGPT said? Or do you want to give your answer?

Guy Kawasaki: I’ll give my answer and you can tell me if, if I agree with myself.

 My name’s Joel and I’m a recovering nerd. I’ve spent the last 25 years bouncing between creative jobs and technical teams. I worked at places like Nickelodeon to NASA and a few others that started with different letters. I was one of the first couple hundred people podcasting back in the early aughts until I accidentally became an IT [00:01:00] analyst.

Joel Benge: Thankfully, somebody in the government said, “Hey, you’re a nerd that talks good,” and that’s spun me off into the world of startups, branding, and marketing for the same sort of researchers and startup founders that I used to hang out with. Today, I help technical people learn how to get noticed, get remembered,and get results.

On Nerds That Talk Good,

I wanna help you do the same. I talk with some of the greatest technical communicators, facilitators, and thinkers that I know who are behind the big brands and the tech talk that just works.

Today’s guest nerd is the original Tech Evangelist before “Thought Leader” was even a LinkedIn title, and before Apple was a lifestyle 

brand, Guy Kawasaki was out there preaching the gospel of the Macintosh, turning early adopters into true believers. Guy is a Silicon Valley legend, a former Apple fellow and Chief Evangelist of Canva. He’s the bestselling author of The Art of the Start, Enchantment, Wise Guy and the host of the Remarkable People podcast and his latest book right up here behind me, Think Remarkable comes outta that podcast. It’s amazing. I’m very [00:02:00] inspired by that, Guy. More than just titles and books, Guy makes people feel the value of a product before they even understand how it works. So if you’re a nerd who’s ever struggled to explain your Big Idea, buckle up Guy is going to show you how to talk so good that people follow, believe, and evangelize with you.

Let’s get into it. Guy. Thank you for joining.

Guy Kawasaki: Yeah. Thank you. So first, a little correction here. I am not the original tech evangelist. Mike Boich, hired me into Apple. So he’s really evangelist number one. Of course it could make the case that even before Mike Boich, there was Jesus.

So it was Jesus, 2000 year gap, Mike Boich, one year gap, Guy Kawasaki. That, that’s the, that’s the history of evangelism.

Joel Benge: Credit where credit’s due. And that’s what I really want to talk about. I, I wanna give a little background about how we almost met. And you don’t even know this. Many, many, many years ago, you were giving your Art of Innovation speech to the International [00:03:00] Association of Business Communicators in Toronto.

I was working for the federal government at the time, and I was so disillusioned with mission, vision, value statements, blahbity blah, corporate bullshit. And I was so inspired by your talk. And then we were on the same flight back to the States. And I was so starstruck. I didn’t, I did not say hello. So it’s been a long time coming. I’ve been following you for, for many, many years.

Guy Kawasaki: So when and when was this?

Joel Benge: I think it was 2011, 2009.

Guy Kawasaki: So this is before Canada became the 51st state.

Joel Benge: That’s right. That’s my, well, well before that happened. But, but something happened on that stage and you seeded an idea in my head that eventually inspired me many, many years later to, to develop my methodology and the way that I help nerds talk good. Through the, the card deck that I do, and it’s right here in the yellow, it’s the, the, the [00:04:00] concept of Mantras, which, I have a book coming out in two weeks that I talk about this and I realized while doing the proofreading and doing some, some email searching that I got the idea from you and I didn’t even acknowledge you in the book, so I have to rectify that. I’ve got a copy coming out to you. And then, and then you were gracious enough to agree to come on. So thank you so much.

Guy Kawasaki: I would not lose any sleep about not having acknowledged me. Because, you know, listen, as a business writer, as a business speaker, we’re all ripping each other off. I mean, there are no new ideas. So, but, but I have a question. I just noticed what you did. How did, you did do that thing where you moved yourself off and you brought your card deck into the frame?

Joel Benge: Well, I’m a, I’m a recovering theater guy, and so I have a an Elgato Stream Deck and a multiple camera set up here, because, when you’re communicating, you gotta get people’s attention. And I got tired of sucky, boring old [00:05:00] Zooms and decided…

Guy Kawasaki: Wait, wait, wait, wait. So back up. So I use SquadCast too. And SquadCast is directly connected to one camera. So are you telling me that you have two cameras connected to an Elgato deck and then you just and you just flip between the two? And so from SquadCast’s point of view, it’s just one feed.

But at the deck level, you control which camera’s used.

Joel Benge: Oh, and I can do, I can do much more than that. I can bring up my, my core. You’re talking about ripping off the masters. Emotion, Logic and Credibility is Aristotle. And Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is, is how we communicate our technology. So.

Guy Kawasaki: Well, I would say it’s it’s time well spent ripping off Aristotle and Maslow, but not Guy Kawasaki.

Joel Benge: No. And so, and so, that’s why I wanted to come on publicly, apologize, give you full credit.

But what I [00:06:00] really wanted to talk about was tech evangelism. So when I left the federal government and joined my first startup, they weren’t paying me very well. So they said, “what title do you want?”

I said, “I want to be the Risk Evangelist”. I said, “I don’t want to be a sales guy. I don’t wanna do marketing. What I really want to do is get people into believing what we’re trying to do.” And, and I patterned it off a lot on you. So I’d love for you to just open with your nerd origin story. How did you get from where you were to where you are and, and getting that that start.

Guy Kawasaki: The one word answer is nepotism.

Mike Boich, the first evangelist for Macintosh, I was his very good friend in college. And so if you looked at my background in terms of education and work experience, that was from the jewelry business. I had a a major in psychology. So I did not have the work experience.

I did not have the educational credentials. I had [00:07:00] nepotism, and nepotism is a powerful force. So the short answer to how I got my job is nepotism.

Joel Benge: But your background in psychology and, and you, you, you walked into and immediately turned, walked back out of law school, and selling the jewelry must have taught you something about the art of persuasion. It must have taught you more about people than the developers at Apple. 

Guy Kawasaki: Well, yeah, I mean, that is true. I wasn’t totally unqualified for the job. So I, I went to law school for about two weeks. I quit and then I went back to Hawaii where I’m from and then I worked there and the following academic year, I went and got an MBA at UCLA. And that was a four day a week program. So, I come from a lower middle income family.

I needed money. So I started working for a jewelry company that manufactured fine jewelry, and that [00:08:00] is truly hand-to-hand combat industry. It’s, you know, I think many people tend to think of sales as “let’s do an A/B test on our home page, and. If we make the link blue or if we make the link red, do we get a 1% upside in number of clicks or something?”

But I hate to burst people’s bubbles. That’s not selling. Okay? Selling is hand to hand analog combat, and that’s what I learned in the jewelry business and that has. That has been the most valuable experience for the rest of my life, even if it’s digital evangelism.

Joel Benge: So do you consider yourself more of a communicator who loves tech or techie who learned to communicate? Where, where, where? Where’s the chicken and egg on that one?

Guy Kawasaki: I would say that. I am a product-driven, product-loving marketer. [00:09:00] That I am not a techie. I am, I’m not a programmer. I, you know, I don’t understand the ones and the zeros and I don’t understand, you know, like large language models, how they work and all that kind of stuff. But I can market that shit.

Joel Benge: Were you always a good speaker? How’d you learn the stagecraft? 

Guy Kawasaki: That, that’s a myth that speakers are born. Speakers are made, and what makes a speaker is repetition. So, I mean, as you can imagine working in the Macintosh division, you had, let’s say someone to look up to called Steve Jobs. And so that, that’s the positive way of saying that you, you know, you had this great role model more accurately that that’s like maybe one of the most intimidating people in the world to work for.

If you ever wanted to make a tech presentation because he was the greatest tech presenter [00:10:00] in the history of man. And, and you know, when he did his demos, they worked, I mean, if he had a Tesla and he said, “the glass is bulletproof,” and he threw something at the glass. The glass would not break. Okay.

He would know how to do that. So the, the fact is that he was very intimidating to work for, very inspiring at the same time. So, it was, it was kind of spooky to start speaking, knowing that, you know, Steve Jobs is hovering around someplace. And I started speaking in 1987 or so, and I have probably given.

Well, let’s see, 87 to today. Let, let’s call that, you know, 40 years. 40 years. 50 speeches a year. That’s 2000 speeches. So yeah, let, let’s say I gave a 2000 speeches. And [00:11:00] now I got good before I reached the 1,999. But I would say it took hundreds of speeches to get where I am.

Joel Benge: Yeah. I find with a lot of, especially technical communicators, technical creators today, they’re chasing a message. They put something out there, try it once. It doesn’t work, and they pivot and they shift and, and you know, that consistency I think is, is so important. How did you develop that consistency? Or were you throwin’

Guy Kawasaki: Trial and error.

Joel Benge: spaghetti every time?

Guy Kawasaki: I mean, well, I, I, I, for a while I was throwing spaghetti, but you know, there’s two things that you can control. It’s the kind of spaghetti you’re throwing and the wall you’re throwing it against. And I tried to control both. So as a tip to nerds who wanna demonstrate and speak, I will tell you this, that I think [00:12:00] many people, when they’re demonstrating technology.

They want to demonstrate the what, in other words, the final result. And so let’s use a situation where you’re demonstrating Canva. You know, the temptation will be, “let me show you this great sixteen by nine presentation. Let me show you this great Instagram background. Let me show you this great Etsy store, you know, photo album” and all that.

And I think the problem with that is that, with enough time and training and expertise. Almost any product can create a great graphic output. It, it could be Photoshop, it could be Illustrator, it could be Canva, it could be 25 other things. So if you focus on the, what you’re gonna be in a 25 way tie that, you know, 25 other things can create a beautiful picture. So what you should do as a nerd is not focus [00:13:00] on the what, not the final result. You focus on the how. So I can take Canva and I can show you in 30 seconds how I can make a great graphic. You cannot do that in Photoshop. So what’s crucial for nerds when you wanna show a product is you show how your product gets to the what not the what, the end itself, because everybody can produce a great what.

Joel Benge: You often open with a a bold claim and then back it up. This is part of your “tell then show” approach. Right. So someone trying to pitch or demo their product where did that come from? Because quite often going all the way back to, you know, our, our, our friend throwing bricks against car glass he didn’t have, he doesn’t always have the, the backup.

So is that, is that a function of just the, the, the storytelling and praying? Or do you really have to know your [00:14:00] shit? Technically as well? You can’t, you can’t, you can’t.

Guy Kawasaki: Listen. You, you have to ask that question? I mean,

Joel Benge: Well, I work with a lot of startups who have great ideas and great visions, like how do you temper those expectations, but still get people excited?

Guy Kawasaki: well, I mean, if you have good shit, you don’t wanna temper those expectations. You want expectations to be high. Now, in this case, we’re, we’re. You know, referring to, it is inconceivable to me that you would have a demo where you have your VP of technology or whatever say, yeah, “we got bulletproof glass,” and he throws this thing and the glass cracks.

I mean, I just like, what alternate planet are you living on that says you’re gonna do a demo in front of millions of people, and the glass might crack? I mean, did you not rehearse that about 15 times to [00:15:00] know the glass would not crack? And so that’s not the, that’s not the company that I would depend on, you know,

fully automated driving. If you can’t figure out, you can throw something against the glass and it won’t crack, but yeah. You want me to take my hands off the wheel and let the car drive? I don’t think so. And I sure as hell, I’m not going to Mars with you or let you put a chip in my head.

But anyway, so, so getting back to these nerds, can I give you more tips for nerds to talk about products? 

Joel Benge: Absolutely. That’s why, that’s why we’re here. 

Guy Kawasaki: Okay, so tip number one is focus on the how, not the what . Focus number two is never use acronyms in your industry. Never. I mean, you, you always think that, “wow, everybody in this audience is totally sophisticated. So I can say, yeah, you know, we support IEE standards,” or, “you know, we have [00:16:00] SQL calls that we have Python or you know, whatever, and and SNA and you know, USBC3” and all that.

And you should never use those kind of terms. You should never assume people understands all the terms in your business. So tip number two. Tip number three is to apply what I call the Opposite Test. So there’s a temptation when you introduce your product. That you think you’re doing it isolated and uniquely.

And so what you say, you stand up, let’s say you have enterprise software and you stand up and you say, “I have patent-pending, curve-jumping, paradigm-shifting, easy-to-use, bug-free software,” and you think, “oh my God, I just blew everybody out of the water because nobody else is gonna say that.”

Well, I hate to tell you, but the person before you and the person after you is also going to say [00:17:00] “I have patent-pending curve-jumping, paradigm-shifting, innovative, bug-free, industry-standard-supporting, easy-to-use, well-documented software.”

Everybody says the same thing. So the test for you is the Opposite Test, which is, look at the adjectives that you’re using, look at the statements that you’re using and ask yourself.

“Is our competition saying the opposite of what I’m saying?”

So to be facetious, if you’re demonstrating enterprise software and you’re saying it’s patent-pending, curve-jumping, paradigm-shifting, innovative bug-free, easy-to-use, well-documented software, are you telling me that your competition is standing up and saying, “well, we have a piece of shit that’s slow buggy, not well-documented.

It doesn’t scale. It is copycat, it’s trailing edge. It’s, you know, it’s premature.”

Because if your competition is saying [00:18:00] that, then okay, God bless you. Say it’s patent-pending, curve-jumping, paradigm-shifting, innovative, revolutionary software, but odds are they’re saying the same thing as you. So apply the Opposite Test to everything you’re saying.

So that you are different. And if you can’t do that, maybe what you have sucks. Another tip for you. I want, whenever you say something to the audience, I want you to pretend there’s a little person sitting on your shoulder, okay? And whenever you make a statement like, “we support IEEE standards for compression.”

Let’s just say you say that right about your software and then this little person on your shoulder says, “so what?”

And you’ve gotta answer that question because you think, wow, I just made this really dynamic, powerful statement. We support [00:19:00] IEE compression standard. So freaking what? You gotta answer that question.

Joel Benge: I love it. Yeah. And I have a card, I have cards in my, in my deck called the focus cards. These are kind of my UNO reverses, which are like, if you’re talking about a Big Idea and I see any acronyms, I’m gonna tell you to, to “Strip It.” You know, so here’s your “So What?” card you know, is. Can, can you Own This?

Can anybody else say this? And, and I have found that these have been the best things because they’re non-confrontational. And if I’m doing a workshop and somebody’s writing down these, I just kind of slip that over to ’em. You don’t have to call ’em out. call em out.

Guy Kawasaki: I’ll give you another card to make then.

Joel Benge: I will. And I I’ll put your name on it.

Guy Kawasaki: Just like you attributed me before,

Your track record is somewhat suspect here. 

Joel Benge: I, know.

Guy Kawasaki: Okay? So you know mean people call this the Magic Quadrant, but it is a two by two matrix, right? And it’s two by two [00:20:00] matrix on vertical axis. You measure how valuable it is. That what you’re doing, how, how useful is your product or service?

On the other axis, it’s how unique is your service? Is it a lot of people do this or only you do that? So, in this two by two world, the only quadrant that matters is you do something valuable and unique. So if you are a nerd and you’re writing a product, or you’re making a product and you’re introducing this product, ask yourself, how do I get into that corner where my product is unique and valuable? Because that’s where history is made. So I’ll give you a very good example. When the iPod first came out, that was truly unique and valuable because there was no other device that had a user interface that a mere mortal could operate. That had a wide selection of music, that the [00:21:00] music was inexpensive at 99 cents a song, it could hold 10,000 of these things, and the music was legal.

There was nothing that could say that. So that made iPod unique and valuable. So you have to ask yourself what makes my gizmo unique and valuable? And if you cannot come up with an answer to that, you are in trouble. And you should realize that right away.

Joel Benge: But at the same time, it wasn’t a brand new category. I see way too many people saying, “we’ve got no competition at all.” And I’m like, “well, that’s great. That means there’s no market and nobody’s trying to going after.”

Guy Kawasaki: Exactly. When I hear people say there’s no competition at all, there’s only two logical conclusions. One is what you mentioned, which is that’s because there’s no market and nobody wants to do this dumbass thing. That’s express explanation number one. Explanation number two is you are so freaking clueless,

you [00:22:00] don’t know how to use Google or ChatGPT. You are so fricking stupid. You don’t know there’s 10 other companies doing that. And that also makes you not a good investment because you don’t do good competitive analysis. And those are the only two choices.

Joel Benge: I tell a lot of my clients. I’m like, if there’s, if you think there’s no competition, doing nothing is competition. like just living with it. and if that’s got, then maybe you have to punch that up and make that the villain. Right? You, you have to really own this. I call it the “Stinky Sock Problem.”

Like, if you’re, if I’m selling soap, I might, I might say,

“Well, you know, I got a teenage son and we have a Stinky Sock Problem at home. And nine outta 10 families have a Stinky Sock Problem.”

And pretty soon the person you’re talking to goes, ” I I think I might…” I, They didn’t know they had that problem beforehand. So how do you, how do you invent problems? Or there are problems that are there, but how do you identify, put a name around [00:23:00] them and, and get people leaning in and realizing, “yes, that’s what I’ve been feeling this whole time.” Is that logical, emotional? 

Guy Kawasaki: Yeah. Well, I mean, in a sense it’s, you’re asking how do you develop empathy, right? Because, so I think the key concept here is you should work backwards from what the customer wants, as opposed to forward from what you want or what you like to do. Because if you work backwards from the customer, you’re pretty sure there’s a need.

Whereas if you work forward from what you wanna do, it’s not clear there is a need. Now, I’m gonna completely contradict myself, but there is also a case to be made that, if you are the customer, you truly know what the customer wants. So I would make the case that Apple started this way, that Steve Wozniak was not building an Apple I for a theoretical multi-billion dollar market of people who wanted a personal computer, [00:24:00] because quite frankly, nobody knew what a personal computer was, because there was nothing personal about computers back then.

So he was building the computer he wanted to use. And luckily he was not the only nutcase that wanted to use that. So I’m, I’m telling you, either work backwards from the customer or be the customer, and I think that is the surest path to making a product that will be successful.

Joel Benge: Yeah, absolutely. Then also recognizing if you’re coming at it from the customer’s perspective, that you’re not the only customer. And sometimes that might be a market of one, it might be a market of five or 10, or there might be adjacent paths, and this is where pivots come in and realizing, “well, I can al it can also do this. It can also do that,” without chasing. And I see a lot of companies chasing.

Guy Kawasaki: Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Joel Benge: What, what’s a communication hill that you’ll die on?

Something that sounds minor, but [00:25:00] makes a huge difference in persuasion.

Guy Kawasaki: Oh, well, there’s the Guy Kawasaki Theory of Presentations, which is you should have about 10 slides. You should be able to give those 10 slides in 20 minutes, and the smallest font should be 30 points. And I think that if everybody just believed that the world would have much better presentations.

Joel Benge: I agree. I’m, I’m not a fan as much of the of the PowerPoints and the slides, which is why I default to physical. Physicality. Putting something in somebody’s hands is, is, is huge. So I, I would like to do with your permission, a little bit of MessageTherapy with Guy Kawasaki. 

I’ve, I’ve selected six cards. I’m gonna prompt you one of the, one of the want you to just answer the first thing that comes to your mind 

Guy Kawasaki: Okay.

Joel Benge: This is exercise that I, I take a lot of my, my clients through. This is a Big Idea. What’s an injustice in the world that you would like to correct? [00:26:00] briefly in brief?

Guy Kawasaki: I would like to correct the fact that teachers in America are underappreciated.

Joel Benge: That’s awesome. I love that. Story. What do you hope people are saying about you when you’re not around and are you delivering on that?

Guy Kawasaki: I hope that people are saying that, “he is really a down to earth guy and he doesn’t take himself too seriously.” 

Joel Benge: Oh, I love that. A Value. So a value proposition. This is a superpower. How do you empower your customers or the people that you work with and give it a name?

Guy Kawasaki: Say this again.

Joel Benge: The Guy Kawasaki superpower. How do you empower the people that you work with, that you evangelize [00:27:00] for?

Guy Kawasaki: Oh, how do I empower? 

Joel Benge: What’s the value exchange from a superpower perspective?

Guy Kawasaki: What, what Guy Kawasaki can do is he can cut through the bullshit and get you the information short, sweet, and direct. I have very low toleration for bullshit and I have very low toleration for bullshit coming from me too.

Joel Benge: Ah, that’s good. Keep holding yourself accountable. That is, that is so, so important.

A Mantra.

Talking about our mantras. What phrase do you find yourself repeating often?

Guy Kawasaki: Okay, so first of all, I love that you have a Mantra card as opposed to a mission card, because I hate missions. Missions are bullshit. Missions are too long. A Mantra is one word, two words, three words. So, [00:28:00] I have a Mantra for my entire existence. And Guy’s Mantra for his existence is “Empower People.“

That’s what I do.

I empower people with my podcast appearances. I empower people with my podcast. I empower people with my writing, my speaking, my investing, my advising. I wanna go down as someone who empowered people.

Joel Benge: That’s amazing. On that, what wins? This is Proof Points. What wins have you had and how do you celebrate them? You’ve had a, you have quite a career. Where are those wins that, you, that really make you go, “Yes!”

Guy Kawasaki: Well, um, I mean, you could make the case that I helped Macintosh succeed. You could make the case that I helped Apple survive. You could make the case that I helped. Canva become a success. You could also make the case that at the start of the [00:29:00] career there was Macintosh. At the end of your career Guy, there was Canva.

And the 30 years between those two things, you screwed up a lot. But, you know, listen, if you did Macintosh. That’s good enough for a lifetime. If you did Canva, that’s good enough for a lifetime. If you did both, you really got lucky.

Joel Benge: Yeah. Yeah. And, and celebrate your failures as well. I mean, because teach you something. Last one, and the, the card deck’s generally for technical companies, but this one is logic and credibility building. How does your solution or your process of evangelism simplify complex processes? What do, what do you take people through?

What’s your process?

Not to give, not to give away the secret sauce?

Guy Kawasaki: Well, I mean, in a sense we’ve been discussing this whole thing, right? I mean, you know, I, I told you [00:30:00] that, I told you that. First of all, you gotta make good shit. Secondly, you gotta show people how your product works, not what it produces. And third, I’m telling you, you know, mentally you need to be in that corner where you’re unique and valuable.

So, I’m. I’ve, I’ve given you everything you need to know to make a successful product. I mean, at, at least at the high level now, I mean, what else can I do in 30 minutes? I mean,

Joel Benge: Yeah.

 I wanna peel back to, to your bookends, to, to Apple and Canva, which are two very successful, but simple to a, to an extent products. Right? And what they really do, talking about empowering is empower non-technical people. it, is it accidental that, that that is the, the focus of those companies because they’re much more complex computer programs, they’re much more complex design programs, as you [00:31:00] said. But Apple and Canva both targeting the non-technical and making their lives easier.

Is that just is that just part who Guy is and you’re attracted to that ?

Guy Kawasaki: Yeah, but I mean, I would push back on that, that, you know, the technology behind Canva and Macintosh are very significant. So, you know. But I would say that anything great can be reduced to very simple value proposition. I mean, you know, I could, let’s say if I said, well, I became an evangelist for mRNA.

And mRNA is this process of, you know, developing vaccines very quickly. It’s highly technical, blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, mRNA makes the world a healthier place. You know, you don’t need a PhD in biochemistry to understand that mRNA and vaccination makes the world a better place, a safer place, a [00:32:00] healthier place.

Joel Benge: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s, it’s telling the story simply not dumbing down, but not overwhelming is the, is the balance that, that you need for tech evangelism. 

Guy Kawasaki: Well, I mean you, you know, people don’t wake up in the morning saying, “if only I had an IEE standards compression algorithm built into a Python with using a stack that has been built with SQL on top of,” you know, I don’t know, whatever. Right? User definable, nano code. They wanna be safer, they wanna be smarter, they wanna be sexier.

They wanna, you know, they wanna make graphics fast, they wanna be more productive. They wanna be more creative. These are not exactly, you know, you don’t need a PhD to understand those things.

Joel Benge: All right, so I’m, I’m gonna challenge you from all the buzzwords that you’ve heard. What [00:33:00] is one word, your favorite word to cut from a sentence? To recommend somebody cut from their sentence,

Guy Kawasaki: Strategic.

Joel Benge: Ooh, yeah, we see that a a heck of a lot. It means nothing!

Guy Kawasaki: Yeah, It means absolutely it. I, I tell you what it means. In most cases when somebody says, “we’re working on a strategic,” and the second worst word is “partnership.” Whenever you see the word strategic and partnership in your mind, what you should parse that to is our sales suck. Because if you had great sales, you would not be talking about anything strategic, nor partnerships. So my recommendation for you is remember three very important words,

“Sales [00:34:00] Fixes Everything.”

All you need to know. 

Joel Benge: Okay, I, I, I put this off as long as I can. Thank you so much for sticking with this. This is one of the most fascinating, uh, interviews I’ve ever done. Um, but this is not just a special episode because I have Guy Kawasaki. It’s also the first video podcast, and it’s also release week of my upcoming book.

No, no. My, my new book. My book is here.

It’s called Be a Nerd That Talks Good.

It is gonna help you turn those Blank Stares into Blank Checks.

There’s there are, uh, color examples in here. Look at this. Look at this. Look at this. Look at this. Look at this book. You can grab it right now. Amazon’s got it. Uh, ebook is only a dollar 99 until the end of the month. Um, and you can pick it up in paperback as well. If you wanna signed copy, get in touch with me.

Again, Be a Nerd. That talks Good.

You can get it at

NerdThatTalksGood.com/book.

Let’s get back to this conversation with Guy.

Do you think there’s a, a gadget or an app today that deserves that attention, that full-blown [00:35:00] evangelist, but doesn’t quite have one yet? Like what are you seeing that you’re like, maybe that you almost are like, man, if I, if I had a second Guy, I would send him over there because that’s the technology, that’s the stuff that needs the voice?

Guy Kawasaki: Well, I mean, this is a big answer, but I think that AI is the hugest deal I have ever seen, and I think it’s bigger than the fricking industrial revolution, and I use AI every day. And you know, I hear all these people doubting it and worried about hallucinations and all that. But as a real tool for a writer and a speaker like me, AI has absolutely changed the game for me and it has made me a much better writer.

Joel Benge: I’m glad you said that because now, now I’m gonna, now I’m gonna play another game. I had this in my pocket. I listened to your episode with Deepak Chopra on,

Guy Kawasaki: Yeah.

Joel Benge: Remarkable People, which was phenomenal. And the way that you two were talking about your, your custom [00:36:00] GPTs and putting all of all of yourselves out there, 

Guy Kawasaki: Yeah.

Joel Benge: When I was, preparing this morning on your website you have a KawasakiGPT and so I thought I would do a little practice interview.

I asked it this question, I said I. “I’m interviewing Guy Kawasaki this afternoon. If I only had one question to ask, what should I ask?”

And it recommended I ask, ” what’s the single most important lesson you’ve learned about being remarkable in your career and how can others apply it to their lives?” Now, before you answer, do you want to hear what KawasakiGPT said, Or do you want to give your answer?

Guy Kawasaki: I’ll give my answer and you can tell me if, if I agree with myself.

Joel Benge: And if it’s I’ll completely cut this segment out.

Guy Kawasaki: No, no, I don’t, no, absolutely. Do not cut this sentence off because there’s a 50% probability that KawasakiGPT’s answer will be better than the answer I’m about to give you.

And I [00:37:00] freely admit that because in my mind, artificial intelligence is already sentient and it is much smarter than any given human.

So anyway, so to answer that question, I would say that what I think is probably the most I. Well, I actually have two. I would say that the two most important qualities to be remarkable is to have a growth mindset, which means that you believe you can learn new things and do new things and try new things.

And the second thing is you also need a grit mindset. Because if you have a growth mindset and you’re gonna try new things and you’re gonna risk failure, you need to have a grit mindset to keep at it when you encounter failure. So my answer from Guy Kawasaki the human being is growth and [00:38:00] grit. Now, what did my Chat GPT say? 

Joel Benge: Both themes from the book, which I, I thoroughly enjoyed. The, the GPT said, “being remarkable boils down to one thing, making meaning. It’s not about chasing money, fame, or success for its own sake. It’s about creating something that makes the world a better place, whether that’s a product or service or just how you treat people.”

Guy Kawasaki: Well, see. I told you that KawasakiGPT is better than me. That is a better answer.

Joel Benge: You get credit either way, which is a win.

Guy Kawasaki: Well, I could make the case that, you know, it’s the specificity of the prompt, right? So like your prompt, I answered a slightly different question ’cause I think I answered the question. What’s it take to be remarkable? Whereas you asked, wait, what did you ask? What did you ask the GPT?

Joel Benge: The single most important lesson you’ve learned about being…

Guy Kawasaki: okay. So single most important.

But I honestly would tell you that the [00:39:00] single most important lesson that I learned about being remarkable is growth and grit. So I differ from my own GPT.

Joel Benge: And that’s, that’s why they make phenomenal companions. So I, I wanna, want close, I want to thank you again for being so gracious with your time. A little bit of peeling the curtain back; what are you doing today, sort of maybe personal projects or things in a different sphere that you’re excited about.

Guy Kawasaki: You mean today? Like right now, today?

Joel Benge: Well, not what is, what are your lunch plans. But, what, where do you, where do you find that renewed juice and that energy?

Guy Kawasaki: So, I don’t know where you stand politically, but I am very concerned about the survival of democracy in our country and the project. You know, I figured I can go on social media and, you know, I can do all that kind of stuff. I don’t think social media changes the needle or moves the needle [00:40:00] anymore.

So the project that I have identified for myself is I am writing a book about how to use Signal. Because Signal as the most encrypted, most secure communication method, I think is absolutely essential to the preservation of democracy. So I’m trying to help people embrace Signal so that they can help democracy survive. 

Joel Benge: As long as you make sure you know who you’re adding to the group chat, that’s the important part. I, I, I love it, Guy. Obviously the podcast, the, the Remarkable People podcast, your many books. How else can people follow you?

Guy Kawasaki: Well, my best work is The Remarkable People Podcast. I also have a Substack newsletter also called Remarkable People. So between the Substack newsletter and the the podcast, you’re gonna get more Guy than you want. 

Joel Benge: I [00:41:00] don’t think that’s possible.

Guy Kawasaki: Huh.

Joel Benge: This has been phenomenal. I want to thank you. I’ve got a, I’ve got a book coming your way, and so…

Guy Kawasaki: Oh, thank you.

Joel Benge: …you’ll get the version that you’re not in, but I’ll pencil you in in the acknowledgements and then when I do the second, second edition, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll get that in there. I, I, I, again, I am fangirling. This has been amazing. A friend of mine who was a security guy at Apple, Dave Doyle says “Mahalo.”

It has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining.

Guy Kawasaki: Alright, the pleasure has been all mine. Thank you very much. Have a great weekend.

Joel Benge: I will. And thank you.

Guy Kawasaki: Bye-bye.

Joel Benge: If you want links to the resources mentioned on the show, head on over to the episode page. And for information on booking a Message Therapy workshop, getting your hands on the MessageDeck, to check out my upcoming book, or just buy me a coffee, go to nerdthattalksgood.com/podcast. 

 Until next time, happy messaging.

 Remember, you don’t have to speak well, you only gotta learn how to talk good.