Episode 61: Guy Kawasaki

Intro: I've had the privilege of being in and around banking for more than 50 years. Lots of changes during that time. We've gone from Ledger's to laptops, typewriters to technology. One thing, however, remains the same. Banking is a people business. And I'll be talking with those people that make banking great here on Jack Rants With Modern bankers. 

Welcome to Jack Rants With Modern Bankers brought to you by RelPro, and Vertical IQ. Each week I feature top voices in financial services from bankers and consultants, to best selling authors and many more. The goal of this program is simple, to provide insights, success practices and to bring new ideas to the table that you can use to maximize your results In 2024.

Jack Hubbard: Evangelist. It comes from the Greek word meaning bringing the good news. My guest today has been bringing it for five decades. It's Guy Kawasaki. And today on a very special edition of Jack Rants with Modern Bankers, we'll explore the newest of his 16 books, “Think Remarkable.” Now a little bit about Guy Kawasaki if you didn't know, Guy earned a BA from Stanford and an MBA from UCLA. Now that's where his amazing career began. He had two stops at Apple, the last position as chief evangelist. 

Today, Guy is Chief Evangelist at Canva, where he helps lead the international effort to democratize design, with 3 million followers on LinkedIn and a guest list on his remarkable people podcast ranging from Jane Goodall, Martha Stewart, Steve Wozniak and 247 others. Guy Kawasaki is America's brand evangelist. Oh, one more thing. 130 minutes one on one with Guy Kawasaki. Well, you can, the information is in the middle of this program so check it out. Order Think Remarkable today. In the meantime, let's go to this straightforward no nonsense interview with Guy Kawasaki on Jack rants with modern bankers. Here we go. 

Guy Kawasaki is a wonder. I don't know anyone as relentlessly enthusiastic about helping other people do their best, Think Remarkable and that's what we're going to talk about today is an expression of that ebullience. And I recommend it to anyone who was hoping to make themselves and the world better than they are today. That's a quote from a post from my guest today, Guy Kawasaki, a quote from Angela Duckworth, the mother of grist and the author of the book by the same name, Guy Kawasaki. What a professional privilege it is to be with you today.

Guy Kawasaki: Wow, the privilege is mutual. So here we go.

Jack Hubbard: Well, thank you. 15 books under your belt, the 16th one comes out today, March 6, and I'm really excited to have you on the show today to mark this amazing thing. 16 books. But if you'll allow me, I listened to your podcast on August 30 of last year, your 69th birthday. And it was amazing. Because someone interviewed you. And one of the things that was interesting about that was, “young guy” that she called it “Young guy, born in Hawaii, and moved over to the mainland.” Talk about young guy and what got you from Hawaii to the mainland?

Guy Kawasaki: Well, the answer to that is a 737. That's not what you're asking though... So I was born and raised in Hawaii. And this is actually an example of connecting the dots. So in the sixth grade, an elementary school teacher told my parents to take me out of the public school system in Hawaii and put me in the private school system because I should go to college, I had too much potential. And luckily my parents listened to her and my parents made the sacrifice to do that. So I went to this private school and from there, I applied and I got into Stanford and I went to Stanford and from Stanford, I met somebody who eventually hired me in the Mac division, and the rest is history. So I kind of owe it all to that sixth grade teacher. I mean, if she had not had that conversation. I probably wouldn't be on your podcast.

Jack Hubbard: Well, but let's sandwich something then you talked about Stanford. And if I read right, your father wanted you to be a lawyer, you were in law school for two weeks. You dropped out, you went to UCLA and you got an MBA. But before Apple, there was a company called Nova Stylings, which you say really formed the basis of who you are today. Talk about Nova Stylings.

Guy Kawasaki: Yes. So Nova Stylings was a Los Angeles, downtown Los Angeles fine jewelry manufacturer. So we made jewelry there, we sold to Tiffany and Cardi A and in Chicago, we sold to Sydney Garber, I don't know if Sydney Garber is still there. And so I started at that place counting diamonds. And after my MBA, I went to this manufacturing company, when most of my colleagues in school were going to Wells Fargo, and Lehman Brothers and B of A and all that, and I went to a jewelry company that nobody ever heard of, it's such a small business. And the jewelry business we did not sell to the consumer, we sold to the retailer who sold to the consumer. And the jewelry business is a very challenging business. It's based on trust but don't confuse trust with easy negotiation. It's really hand to hand combat. So I learned hand to hand combat selling. And that really helped me the rest of my life because I've come to the conclusion, when all is said and done. You're either making it or you're selling it, everything else is not essential. So that's a piece of advice for you listeners, if you want to be indispensable, be the person making it or be the person selling it.

Jack Hubbard: So there's a couple of people in your life, lots of people, but a couple of people in your life very early that really shaped you. One was Marty Gruber, from those filings, and one was Mike Boyd, who was your roommate at Stanford, and he helped you in 1983, get an interview with Steve Jobs. Now, what's interesting about this, Steve Jobs, went to Mike Boyd and said, Okay, you can hire this guy. But if he fails, you finish the sentence Guy, you lived it.

Guy Kawasaki: I'm gonna fire you too. So this was before HR and recruiting was kinder and gentler. This is Steve Jobs, HR and recruiting. And yeah, I mean, that's a true story. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement, positive psychology, if you know what I mean.

Jack Hubbard: But it does say a lot about relationships, which you've developed significantly over the years. So you go to Apple, and you become a 1983 software evangelist, where you went out evangelizing and used evangelism, as you call it. Talk about what you did there early on in the Apple as an evangelist. 

Guy Kawasaki: Well, evangelist comes from a Greek word meaning bringing the good news. So I brought the good news, I brought the good news of increased creativity and productivity for consumers, the good news of the ability to create software that was innovative and graphics, graphical or graphically oriented. And so that was the good news. And back then, my focus was on hardware and software companies. So we would have to go to them and meet with them and convince them to bet their R&D budget on us. And that was not trivial because you know, there were other platforms to write for including the IBM PC.

Jack Hubbard: So you leave in 87’ go out and do some other things come back in 95. And now you're the chief evangelist. What are some things you remember from there and I'm sure our listeners would love to hear some Steve Job-isms. And we don't have enough time to talk about them all. But what are some things you remember back from being a chief evangelist at Apple?

Guy Kawasaki: Well, when I was Chief Evangelist, Steve was already gone. So when I overlapped with Steve the most was the first tour of duty from 83 to 87. And what I learned from listening, every story you've heard about Steve Jobs is true. He was a very difficult person. He was a tough, tough person, just, you know, 24 karat, you know what, but he really, really understood people in computing, like, lots of people say they're visionaries. But Steve Jobs really was a visionary, as opposed to, you know, some jackass who's creating the 25th, Twitter clone, right? That's not a visionary. 

And so I learned that, you know, user interface counts, maybe not to everybody, but to enough people user interface matters. I learned that if you get people to believe in your dream, it's easy to sell them products after that. I learned that if you have a great product, that people without compensation without any really kind of bottom line for them. They want to help you spread the word, because spreading the word about something good is very uplifting, and it's very rewarding. And it's also cool. So I learned, I would not be where I am without Steve Jobs.

Jack Hubbard: No doubt. But there's a story here. Now, I may not get this right but I'll kind of paraphrase, you telling me if I'm there. So you wanted to leave apple? Somebody said, “Wait a second. If you leave after you're a director, it's better.” Can you talk about that story? And why? 

Guy Kawasaki: Yeah, Okay. So this is after Steve was out of Apple the first time and I was up for a review. And I was going to be a director, if I got the promotion. And back then the hierarchy was director and then Vice President and if you were a director, or a vice president, Apple bought you a car. So I really wanted Apple to buy me a car. And so I go into this review with the Chief Operating Officer and he says, “Guy, the small companies love you. This is all this. This is silicon beats software. These are tiny little innovative software companies, but you know, not Microsoft lotus, or Ashton Tate.” Now, on the other hand, Microsoft lotus and Ashton Tate, they don't like you, Guy, because you basically take no shit from them. 

And so I'm listening to this. I'm thinking, Boy, this is going really well. I mean, he's got this down. He understands the small, innovative companies love me. And the big assholes don't, Yeah, I'm like, you know, should I get a Mercedes or a Porsche? And then at the end of the interview, because at the end of the interview, he goes, you know, Guys, as the evangelists, it's important that all our developers love you. No question. The small ones do, but the big ones don't. So you're not getting the promotion. Okay? You could have scraped me off the ceiling. 

So I, I'm, like, thoroughly pissed off. And I go to my friend, John Louis Gasset. And John Louis at the time was at the same level as I. And I tell him this story. And I say, generally, I just gotta quit. I'm not gonna put up with this bullshit. And John Louis says, you know, listen, there's going to be a reorg. And I'm going to be your boss. And your next review, which is in six months, I will make you a director. And it's much better for you, Lee, for you to leave Apple as a director than as just a manager, because, you know, it's that much more credibility. And so I stuck around for six more months. And then he made me a director. And a week later, I resigned. But now I could say, Hey, I was the director at Apple.

Jack Hubbard: Well, you and your career have been so marvelous. A stint at Mercedes Benz. And I really want to talk about Canva. This is an unbelievable company started in 2012. Three kids in Australia, a young lady and two gentlemen, started this company. You start with them as Chief Evangelist in 2014. We at The Modern Banker use Canva daily. Talk about Canva and the power of democratization of graphics. 

Guy Kawasaki: Yeah. So the whole thing behind Canva, the good news of Canva and why it's easy to evangelize Canva is because Canva has democratized design. And so this means you don't need to buy something or rent something really expensive from Adobe. You don't have to spend weeks learning Photoshop or Illustrator, I swear in five minutes, you can be productive with Canva and create your first graphics, your first presentation, your first resume, your first infographic, these five minutes in less time than it would take to install Photoshop. And so that's what it took. And you know, back then it was a world of shrink wrap software. And something like Photoshop would be $700. And then, you know, Canva is kind of online and free. I mean, in a sense, it was kind of like Salesforce, but only for design, you know, so it's cloud based. 

And needless to say that lots of people started doing graphics that could not have done it before, either because they didn't have the expertise, or they didn't have the 700 bucks to buy photoshop. And lots of people would want creative work done. And they would just have to stand in line at the graphics department. And you know, the graphics department got to it when they got to it, but now they can roll their own. And so that's, that's the key to Canva that it empowered people to do their own graphics. 

Jack Hubbard: It's unbelievable. Well, I've seen you speak twice, and you have been a major influence in the world of branding for many years. So, you know that my audience is bank marketing and bank sales. So I gotta ask you a question before I talk about the book. If you were going to advise in an area where banking is lacking in some trust these days, you were going to advise, a chief marketing officer in a community bank around branding, what are some pieces of advice you'd give them for 2024?

Guy Kawasaki: Well, I mean, let's not name names, but some banks who created millions of fake accounts, and now they're trying to tell you that, stick with us and we're the frontier bank or whatever. Give me a break. I'd rather put an Elon Musk chip in my head than put money in your bank. And you have no idea how little I want the Elon Musk chip in my head. Okay? I think the financial institution, fundamentally, it's trust and peace of mind. I don't think it's because one CD rate is a 10th of a percent higher than the other. people can't even figure that out, and the difference is not appreciable. And it's all about convenience. And listen, I bank with Silicon Valley bank, and they just got acquired by First Citizens. So I know the transition and I swear that when I deal with banks, it's as if no normal human being went through the process, right? They say, like, okay, so here's your new ATM card. You got to call this 800 number, and then this is your new pin, this is your old pin. And if you want to change your pin, you cannot go to your account online. you have to call us. What? I have to call you? And then literally, you're on the line for 15 minutes because you go through voicemail, right? I mean, the voice tree. And so 15 or 20 minutes later, finally you can change your pin and it's just over and over again. And it's like, today I called another bank and I said, what's your bank routing number? And I swear to God, they gave me the wrong number. And this is after ten minutes. This is not rocket science. I mean, it's not like I'm asking for someone's name and password so I can crack their account, for crying out loud, I want your routing number. 

How hard could that be, right? you're going to get me started. But I think that the concept here is that these executives have to go and be the customer. I would like to see CFOs banks open up an ATM account or debit card account. I would like to see them change their PIN. I would like to see them report the card stolen and then you're told, oh, we'll rush that card, a new card out to you. It'll be five working days. Like, five working days. I don't understand this. Why does it take five working days? And that's if you're platinum level, right? I don't understand that. 

Now, listen, I only know my side of the story. For all I know, you need five days to prove your identity. I don't know. Whatever. There might be some good reason. I guess I'm saying, go and be the customer, and let's use an automotive example. So, an automotive example is, let's say you're an executive at some Detroit company, and what happens is, every year, you get a new car, right? And even when you have the new car, you drive into work, you park it, a valet jumps in, takes it, hasn't washed it, changes the oil, and brings it back for you. Okay? And then you wonder why your customers are complaining that they cannot get to the oil filter or that, all the cookie crumbs fall behind this certain place that's impossible to get, and the gas tank is in the wrong place, or electric charger is in the wrong place, and it's because the executive of the car company came into work, handed the keys to a valet, got the keys at the end of the day, doesn't know anything about what it took to make that car run, and then 364 days later, they get a new car. They don't see the depreciation. They don't see the rattles. They don't see all that. They think, oh, my God, we have a great car. Why won't people buy our car? It's so great. try using it.

Jack Hubbard: Okay, so you said don't get you started, but you're on a roll. Let me ask you about a question that banks are really struggling with, and that's AI and ChatGPT. I heard on your podcast that you just love to evangelize for ChatGPT, and all of the other AI things. Talk about AI a little bit and where it is in our life today.

Guy Kawasaki: Well, listen, banks are a heavily regulated organization. A regulated thing, right? Of course, if you're so heavily regulated, how did someone make 3 million fake accounts? But I digress. and so I cannot honestly say that I understand the nuances of the impact of AI on banking. But I'll tell you, as a general productivity tool, whether it's the marketing department creating marketing materials for the bank, or social media materials, and I have come to believe that AI is being used for pattern recognition where it's strange. Guy is in Nigeria buying Cartier watches. He was just in Santa Cruz, and 2 hours later he's in Lagos buying Cartier watches. Maybe that's not. Yeah, I'm sure you're doing all that kind of stuff, right? And that I got to believe that AI is going to take it to a whole nother level for that. 

Now, everybody talks about the great dangers of AI, and yeah, don't get me wrong, but you know what? There's great dangers in human fraud, too. You may find this over the top, but I think AI may be mankind's last hope to save itself, because I think mankind is headed for a cliff, and it's not because of AI. At an extreme, I'm going to lose all the potential buyers on your podcast right now, but at an extreme, this is a facetious question, but it should make people think, let's say that nuclear weapons are a reality in the world. So some countries are going to have nuclear weapons, and those nuclear weapons, the launch code is controlled by the president of the country. Well, let me ask you something. Who would you rather have the ability to launch a nuclear weapon? ChatGPT, Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, or Donald Trump? You think about that for now. It sounds facetious, but that's going to be a more serious question than you think pretty soon.

Jack Hubbard: Yeah, no doubt. Well, onto a different subject. So, Art of The Start, great book, Enchantment. I was talking to a banker today who has gone back and bought the book enchantment for all of his people to go back. That's really something that you should feel very good about. Yeah, there are 15 other books. So now you write this book called Think Remarkable. It's the page turner of the year. It's my book of the year already. I got to.

Guy Kawasaki: Really? Seriously?

Jack Hubbard:  Absolutely, guy.

Guy Kawasaki:  You know this is only February, right?

Jack Hubbard: It's an amazing book. and, hey, I got to tell you, last year about this time, I read a book called the Unsold Mindset from two guys out in California, Colin Coggins and Garrett Brown. Amazing book. And I said to them when they were on my podcast, this is the book of the year. Guy, yours is the book of the year. But what I want to know is, what was your inspiration? What got you started to say, I need to write another book, and I need it to be Think Remarkable?

Guy Kawasaki:   Well, I have two tuitions to pay. Bankers should understand that.

Jack Hubbard: Well, you're being honest. I appreciate that.

Guy Kawasaki: I tell you a funny story. So once Tom Clancy, the thriller writer was in a press conference, and some reporter asked him, so, Tom, what's this book about? And Tom Clancy's answer was, it's about $25. That's when authors are honest. so I have this podcast called remarkable people, and I interview. Like, the name sounds remarkable to people. Now, not rich people, not famous people, necessarily, but remarkable people. And this would be for some name recognition. Steve Wozniak, Stephen Wolfram from Illinois. Jane Goodall, Stacey Abrams. Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general. let's see. Angela Duckworth. Carol Dweck, the mother of the growth mindset. Margaret Atwood, a, dystopian author. And after a while, ah, that is after five years, we had 250 episodes, which is 250 hours. 

And when we also transcribe every episode, because I'm deaf, and because I'm deaf, I want transcriptions, because I can empathize with people who cannot hear a podcast. And so we do that and I look at that. My co author and producer is Madison Nysemar. I say, madison, there's no freaking way that people are going to listen to 250 hours, and there's no way they're going to read 5000 pages. So we got to take this down. And GenZ won't read a ten page article. So we took it down from 5000 pages to 170 pages. 

Now, you ask, how did you do that? Well, it's because I have 40 years of practical and tactical experience, right? So I've been on the front line. I've had to hire, fire. I've had to launch, I'd have to pull back. I've had to do all this kind of stuff. So I'm coming at it from a very practical and tactical direction, as opposed to, say, I was a, consultant at McKinsey, and I told Fortune 500 presidents what to do. That's not the approach of this book. This book is on the ground, hand to hand combat, knife in your teeth. And so what I figured out is, basically, remarkable people. They are on the ground, and they go through three stages. Growth, grit, and grace. And so that's how I organize the book. And if you were to look, a lot of nonfiction books, the author takes 250 pages to explain one idea. Like, literally. Right? One idea. Well, I'll tell you something. I have 170 pages. And we counted. There are 88 tools and strategies in this book. So one every two pages, because that's what we think the GenZ attention span is. So two pages.

Jack Hubbard: All right? So you interview all these people. Daniel Pink is an author that I know you've interviewed and you interviewed Jane Goodall. Now, Jane Goodall, everybody knows Jane Goodall, and she wrote the forward of your book. That had to be unbelievable for you. Remarkable if it was.

Guy Kawasaki: Listen, I lead a charmed life. I mean, there is no other explanation for it. I don't feel entitled to this. This is just dog s***. I just. I hit the lottery and. Well, let me tell you the Jane Goodall story to show you that, you just never know, okay? So I already told you the story of the 6th grade teacher who convinced my parents to put me in a school. So I got into Stanford. So I met Mike Boyd. So I work at Apple. So now I work at Apple, and I do well there, and I'm visible. A decade goes by, and the woman who runs TeDx Palo Alto, she sends me an email and she, you know, we don't know each other personally, but I'm a Mac user, so I know of you, as opposed to I know you. I know of you, which. That's an important lesson right there. It's not who you know, it's who knows of you. So she says, jane Goodall is coming to TEDx Palo Alto, and I need someone to be a moderator for her. Would you like to be the moderator? Like, pinch me, right? Pinch me. I get to moderate Jane Goodall. 

So I moderate Jane Goodall, and we become friends. I did another thing with her, and then I came to the conclusion that I want to try podcasting. And I'm a guest on podcasts all the time, like, I am here now. And when you're a guest, the first question you want to ask is, who else have you had? And, let me just say that when I ask people to be on my podcast and they ask, who else have you had? I always lead with Jane Goodall. I've had Jane Goodall twice, actually. Because when you say Jane Goodall, it's game over. I mean, nobody's going to say, who's Jane Goodall? Why should I be impressed? Arguably, if the podcaster says that you don't want to be on that person's. 

So then it becomes just this upward spiral. You get Jane, so now you have Jane. So then you can get Margaret Atwood. So now you have Margaret Atwood and Jane. Then you get Martha Stewart. Then you get Martha Stewart, Jane and Margaret Atwood. Then you get Steve Wozniak. And then you get Steve Wolfram, who's a m. MacArthur fellow. Then you get Angela Duckworth, who's a m. And, you know, on and on, you get Barack Obama's speechwriter, you get Barack Obama's social media person, and it just gets better and better. And I'm telling you, it's luck. It's luck. I trace it back to that 6th grade teacher, 6th grade. 

So, okay. So one thing I want to make clear for you. If you are a 6th grade teacher, although you probably aren't if you're a banker, but for all the 6th grade teachers out there, for all the coaches and the volunteers and the mentors, you may not be Jane Goodall, you may not be Elon Musk. You may not be Steve jobs. That doesn't mean you're not remarkable, because, remarkable doesn't mean you have to have this major impact. You could change just one life. That 6th grade teacher changed my life. She probably changed other lives, too, but I only know about mine.

And so the important thing is that I think that one of the things that I just cannot understand for the life of me about America is that our young people are our biggest asset by far. Right? I mean, it's not the lithium in death Valley. It's not the forest in the Pacific Northwest. It's our young people. And who is shaping and educating our young people? Teachers. And how are we rewarding teachers? We're paying them 50 grand a year, and they're using their own money to buy school supplies. Well, how about we buy one less aircraft carrier? Why don't we pay teachers? Well, I don't understand that. Amazing.

Jack Hubbard: Remarkable. And by the way, a couple of Sundays ago, I'm able to follow you on LinkedIn because I rang your bell. and so I got a lot of your content. So, on one Sunday, you posed a question, and you said, hey, I got an idea. Let me let you think about this. If somebody buys 25 books, I'm going to give my half hour of coaching. What do you think? Everybody just go, hey, yeah, that's a good idea. Talk about that. That sounds like a cool thing. So, in other words, I buy 25 of Think Remarkable, and I get a Guy Kawasaki. How can this be bad? Tell me more about this.

Guy Kawasaki: Well, I mean, listen, as an author, there's a lot of noise, and I'm just a speck of dust, just like any other author. So you gotta do what you got to do. 25 books, let's say, that cost $750. $750 for a half hour of my time. All modesty aside, is a good deal.

Jack Hubbard:  Great deal.

Guy Kawasaki: And you know what? On those 25 books, literally. Literally, I probably make $75, right? Because that's my royalty. But for me, the 25 books, because nobody's going to get 25 books and keep them. They're going to give them away, right? So now there's 24 more people who've read my book who might buy books for more people. So I'm trying to start a movement, and at the start of a movement, you gotta do what you got to do, and I'm doing what I got to do. And one of the lessons that I tell tech entrepreneurs is that when you start, you have to do things that cannot scale, right? 

So if you're introducing a new computer, you may have to put ten into a company, and you may have to assign an engineer to help them every day for six months to put that computer in. And if you do the math, you say, well, if I have to put an engineer into a company with ten computers, how am I going to sell 6 million computers, right? I don't have that many engineers. I would be employing all the engineers in California to do that. And, so a lot of companies say, no, we cannot do that. But you know what? You put that one engineer in for ten computers, he or she learns a lot about what to do for the next installation. 

And those ten people are going to tell another ten people, and then pretty soon, you can just ship millions of computers, and they'll come to your genius bar. But you had to start doing something that cannot scale. And I'm telling you that having a business or product or service is hard to scale because the demand exceeds your ability to serve the demand in terms of either the product or the service of the product, that's a high quality problem, and that's a good problem to have. There's too many people who want to buy my stuff. There's too many people that we have to take care of, that's a whole lot better than, oh, my God, nobody's eating the dog food.

Jack Hubbard: Yeah, for sure. So at the end, we're going to talk about how to make this happen, how to do this, buy 25 things and make it happen but I want to go back to banking, if I can. Just a couple more questions. I'm a banker. I'm a commercial banker today. Talk to me about step one. How do I become remarkable?

Guy Kawasaki: Well, the first step is not that you want to become remarkable. And this is a very important but subtle concept. Okay, so this is not a self help book. I'm not a visionary. I'm not a guru. There will never be a guy Kawasaki weekend retreat at the Ritz Carlton in Atlanta, Georgia. And for 48 hours and five grand, you can hang out with guy. And at the end of 48 hours, you're going to be remarkable. So, hallelujah. And if you sign up now, you'll get free access to the online course. Okay, that ain't going to happen. I'm not interested in being this visionary guru, whatever. So what I want to tell people is, the goal is not to be remarkable. The goal is to make a difference. So if you figure out how chimpanzees live, if you figure out how to make a computer, if you make the most consumer friendly bank system, the best banking app, I'll give you another example. So a former bank of mine had deposit checks by taking the picture of the front and the back, right? That's a h*** of a lot going in. Better than going to the bank or mailing it, especially during the pandemic when there's no bank to go to. 

But anyway, so you take a picture of the front and the back, and then, I don't know, they work their magic, they see the routing number and account number, and magically, the money appears. Right? Now, six months later, you're filing income tax, and your accountant, or quickbooks, is saying, what was this $5,000 for? And you cannot remember. But you know you took a picture, right? Because you had to take a picture to deposit it. Now, the bank has that picture, so you can send an email and pray that, okay, six months ago, I sent a check for a deposit for five grand. Can you send me a picture of the check? Which has got to be a major pain in the a** for the bank, right? But in the back of my mind, I said, you know what? I know I deposited that by taking a picture. So that picture exists. Why didn't the banking app take the picture and put it with my other pictures in my photo album?  Because then I could just go to my photo album and, okay, so there's me surfing, there's me eating apple pie. There's me at the Super bowl. There's me. Oh, there's my deposit from six months ago. Oh, yeah, it was a check from Wiley, my publisher. 

So this is an example of, if you're a banker, ask yourself, why is it that the picture of the front and the back of the check comes to us, but does not go into the consumer's photo album, where he can look at it without having to send you an email saying, please go send me a picture of the front of that check, I can't remember if that's a personal or business income. Now, your bankers are probably listening to this and say, guy, you just don't understand. According to the glass seagull act, I cannot store a picture. I don't know. I'm sure there's a reason. But can you see from my side? I took a picture, crying out loud. Put that picture in my album so I can review it later. Right? Anyway, how did we get started on this?

So the first step in being remarkable. So the first step in being remarkable is to make a difference. It's to have the best banking app. It's to have the best website. I don't know banking enough, commercial banking enough, but to make a difference, to do better for your customers, to do better for your investors. And if you do that, then people will have no choice but to consider that you are remarkable. No choice. And so that's how you get remarkable. It's by making a difference. 

It's not because one day you woke up and you got a red guy's book or you hired a pr person or a personal coach to make you remarkable. I tell people, if you want to be remarkable, step one is do good s***. That's all you need to remember. Do good s***. Do good s***. Do good s***. Like, put that on your forehead, do good s***. I guarantee you Steve Jobs never woke up and said, how can I position myself to be remarkable and a visionary today? What should I do, man? What kind of speech can I make? What should I do? 

Steve Jobs went out and created Apple one, Apple two, Macintosh, iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple Store, genius App Store. And he did all that. And guess what? Everybody thinks he's remarkable. It's not because he decided to reposition himself as remarkable. So I think my advice for you bankers is do something great. Make banking better for people. And they'll say, my God, this is the best banker in the history of man. That's the goal.

Jack Hubbard: Sell your dream. Chapter six, lead by example. Chapter seven, that's just the beginning. This is a truly remarkable book. And, as Guy says, it's not a motivational book, it's a truth book. And I want you to tell the truth, as you always do. What do you want to be remembered for? Here you are, you're 69, you're prime of your life. Still, you've got a lot of good stuff to happen, but what do you want to remember? All the things you've done. What do you want to be remembered?

Guy Kawasaki: I don't know. If I'm at the prime of my life, honestly. But okay.

Jack Hubbard: Well, you started surfing in your 60s. My God.

Guy Kawasaki: Well, that was a little late. I'm glad we started this interview late, because that's where I was. I was surfing. That's why my face is all red. So, listen, as I look back, I think the first third of your life, you're underpaid. The second third of your life, you're overpaid. And the third third of your life, you should pay back. So I'm in the payback stage. So when I die, I want people to say that I help them make a difference. And this could be with this book. It could be my podcast. It could be writing, speaking, investing, advising. But I want people to say I help them make a difference. And the secondary benefit of that is if I help them make a difference, I probably also help them be remarkable. But making the difference comes first. Yeah.

Jack Hubbard: That's great. Guy Kawasaki. There's no way to thank you. other than how can I thank you?

Guy Kawasaki:  Well, you can help me sell this book to people because I want them to be making a difference. I want them to make a difference. I think I'll be cremated, and they'll just throw the Ashes in the ocean so I can surf for eternity. But if I have a headstone, I want to say, empowered people, that's how I want to be remembered. I empowered people. So to the extent that you can help people get my power, my empowerment, that's what I would like you to do.

Jack Hubbard: It's done. How can people get a hold of your podcast, your blog, your newsletter, your book. Just how can people reach you?

Guy Kawasaki:  Well, I'm no dummy. I have guykawasaki.com. I should have had kawasaki.com, and then I could fight it out with the motorcycle company because that's not my relatives. so it's guykawasaki.com. And, yeah, listen, if you just put think remarkable in any search engine, it's going to find about 25 stores. It won't be hard to find at, and it'll be in all the major airports. I've spent my life making it easy to find me.

Jack Hubbard: And you are Guy Kawasaki. Thank you so much for your time. I really value and all the best with your book.

Guy Kawasaki: Oh, thank you very much. I really appreciate this opportunity to reach your listeners. And I have to say, I've been staring at that painting, and that's a really great background. So I'm not like an art connoisseur. Is that like some famous painting?

Jack Hubbard: We bought it at an antique store. My wife loves paintings. We bought it at an antique store. I'll let her know you like it.

Guy Kawasaki: Yeah. But someday, okay, this would be a great story, right? So someday, somebody's watching your podcast, and they look behind you and they say, that's the missing Rembrandt. Holy cow. He bought that at Goodwill for $6. Should we tell him or not?

Jack Hubbard: Thank you, guy. I really appreciate your time.

Guy Kawasaki:  All right, all the best to you. Thank you. Good night.

Outro: Thanks for listening to this very special episode of Jack Rants with Modern Bankers with the amazing Guy Kawasaki. My guest next week is equally amazing and a very good friend. He's also the author of the best selling book Selling from The Heart. It's Larry Levine. And we'll be talking about selling from the heart and how to avoid the empty suit syndrome. Jack Rants with Modern Bankers is brought to you always by our friends at Vertical IQ and Rel Pro. Join us every week at noon eastern time for special guests, bringing you marketing, sales and leadership insights, as well as ideas that provide your bank or credit union that competitive edge you need to succeed. This LinkedIn live show is also a podcast. Subscribe to get the latest editions of Jack Rants with Modern Bankers and leave us a review, if you would. We're on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, iHeartRadio and others. Visit our website, too. It's themodernbanker.com for more information. And don't forget to sign up for our free public library at https://www.themodernbanker.com/publiclibrary and also, don't forget, make today and every day a great client day.