CEO Of ColderICE Media: John Lawson AKA The Ice Boss – S2E66 (#94)

S2E94 John Lawson1.m4a – powered by Happy Scribe

Welcome back to Boss Uncaged podcast on Today’s show. I’ve deemed this man. He’s obviously an industry legend, but I’m going to call him the ice off. Done, man, how are you doing today?

I’m doing super fantastic, man. I think that’s appropriate since we’re on Boss and Cage, right? Yes, definitely.

For people that’s living on the rock, they don’t know who you are. Why don’t you give them a little insight to your legend, man?

Oh, man, there’s no legend here. I mean, I’m a guy that literally started a business out of need from my kitchen table. It ended up going through Ebay to Amazon, and we’ve done over seven figures in Ecommerce now, actually, ten figures. But I don’t talk about that.

I’m just saying, you’re talking about you’re, not legend. Think about how many people have the opportunity to say what you just said. And to the point to where you have that many zeros at the end of your sales. Right. So come on now.

Yeah, it doesn’t even sound right when I say it. So it’s cool. But then at the same time, it feels a little. Yeah. I never thought about it, but yeah, not a lot. But you know what? More and more every day, that’s the answer.

Nice. So if you could define yourself in three to five words, what would you choose?

I define myself in three to five words. Enterprising intuitive and constantly curious. How about that?

I can definitely see that. I can definitely see that.

Yeah.

Let’s dive into your business a little bit, right. Obviously, you’re into the ecommerce space and you’ve been down Ebay. You’ve been Amazon. I would think you’re also a coach. You’re a speaker as well on international level. So let’s just talk about your business a little bit.

Yeah. We started on Ebay, and it was so early in the game that we ended up becoming the power sellers on Ebay platinum level power sellers. And when Amazon started their third party system, they were looking for people to do beta testing, and they literally came and tried to scrape all of the top sellers on Ebay to test their Amazon platform. So actually, I was one of the early beta testers for Amazon as well. And I don’t know, somewhere around 2006 2007, I was in a store looking for sourcing products and stuff and an import store, and I saw Bandana, and I was like, oh, that’s pretty cool. I know a lot of hip hop stars at the time were doing the bandana thing. Tupac had just died a few years before that. No, actually, his posthumous albums were starting to come out, so he was getting popular again. And I was like, you know what? Let’s grab these. And I started selling bandanas, and that literally changed everything and created the video and YouTube on how to fold bandanas. And I don’t know, people started catching on, asking me to teach and train. That’s how I got to do all the training and teaching around the world. And then now today I’m helping coach a lot of others because I’m so old that I can call myself a coach and a mentor. Now.

Hilarious. Just to think about it. Every single day somebody goes into a storefront, they may even go on to Etsy. They go on all these different platforms. How the hell did you have enough foresight and insight to pick a bandana of all the things on the planet that you came across, why was that the product?

You know what? On that day, I picked a whole lot of products, and that’s the one thing that might happen with you with products or just in general, with your hustle. 80% of the stuff you do is going to fail. It’s the 20% that covers a multitude of failures. So bandanas just happened to be one of the things. I’m sure my warehouse is full of a lot of things that never sold that I thought were hit. That was going to be it. There wasn’t anything really special other than the price. I was like, wow, I didn’t know you could get a dozen for, like, half the price of one. So I was like, oh, these are cheap, and they were easy to ship because they were light. You can stuff them in an envelope, and it wouldn’t be a whole lot of drama. And I think one of the things I did learn from that or that became pretty apparent for me was that that was kind of a niche that I wanted to go deeper in was light, easy to package, didn’t take up a whole lot of storage space.

Interesting. So I want a time travel back, right? Obviously, we know who you are right now. We know what you’ve accomplished. We know that what you’re doing right now, but how did your journey start where you into media? Were you into marketing? When did that really start for you? And how did you even bridge and begin jumping into ebay?

Basically, a friend of mine came to me back, and this is like, the early 2000s when everybody was flipping houses, and he was like, oh, we can flip this house. I found it. This is a great price, blah, blah, blah. And it’s an up and coming neighborhood. He’s like, you got the credit because I was working as an it my background, is it? So I was always a computer geek anyway, so I was on my job. He was the hustler, and he’s like, Yo, so all I need you to do is sign the paperwork to get the loan, and we’ll split the difference. Well, guess what. The house never flipped. Right. And I got stuck with a second mortgage. So I was totally asked out and didn’t know what to do. And a friend of mine told me, why don’t you sell some stuff on Ebay? I’m like, really? That’s going to work. He’s like, yeah, they’ll still buy anything on Ebay. And I had a whole lot of used books since I was an it person. I used to buy those big, thick coding books. And once you learn how to code or finish the project, you don’t need the book. So I had a whole lot of those sitting around, and I started selling those on Ebay, and that was the beginning of something big. But it wasn’t that big. It was just enough to get me through. And once I ran out of books, I had to find other things to sell.

That’s definitely interesting, because you’re kind of, like, at the you had enough insight to step into the market at the right time and also have the right state of mind. And you also have the right training as well. So you’re talking about coding. Were you more like, PHP? Like, what flavor of code were you doing?

Yeah. No more HTML than anything. Right. So I knew just enough HTML to be dangerous. They used to give me all these books. I never read them. Don’t tell anybody. I never read them. I always got people in the office, man, go ahead and code that up for me. Fix that. I was really good at that part. I was really good at that part. I would engage Fiverr when there wasn’t a Fiverr.

Right. So I think you talked about, like, one. I would think that’s probably a pretty bad experience, right? Like, you got into a business with someone, you try to flip a house and you got stuck with the house. Is there any other examples of going into a business that you’ve had something that happened that was worse than that.

I think that was the worst, because that lasted and took money out of my pocket for years, trying to fix what was one signature deal. And it lasted with me for, like, ten years, paying the mortgage, trying to figure out how to flip it the place where we were. I didn’t even tell you it was on the corner of Joseph E. Lowry and Martin Luther King Boulevard here in Atlanta. You see how his eyes got. So if you’re on a corner of two civil rights leaders, you’re probably not necessarily in the up and coming part of the hood. Finally. Now it’s turning around. So just think about that. I held that property for so long, waiting on it to flip. It’s crazy.

I think that was another disguise, right? In the sense that it was something that happened in your favor, because that event in your life didn’t happen. You wouldn’t be where you are right now.

That’s right. If I actually saw that guy again, my old friend, I tell him, thank you. Because if it wasn’t for that that was the foot up my butt that made me get off of the plantation, or I’d have still been there.

Nice. I don’t think you’d ever go back.

No. Somebody asked me that the other day. Like, how much would it take for you to I can’t see ever going back to corporate.

But I think it’s one of those things, like, once you understand marketing, you understand the Internet, and to your point, you’ve been doing it for, like, 20 years at this point. So you understand the ins and out. You can kind of drop you in the middle of nowhere in an island. You can start a brand new business from scratch and be pretty successful within probably twelve to 18 months. Would you concur with that?

Yeah. I would concur with that. One thing that you learn after being out here is I can see money on trees, literally. Money grows on trees. I think most people just miss it because they’re head down and they don’t know what they’re looking for. But opportunity is everywhere. I remember my cousins came in and my brother and we all went to Stone Mountain Park. And every night at Stone Mountain, they do fireworks. So we were going to do the barbecue thing, and I went to the dollar store because they had all the kids and stuff. And I bought all these glow in the dark sticks. Right. We go to the park, do a barbecue. The sun is starting to go down. We’re going to wait for the fireworks, starts up. I pull out all the sticks, give it to all the kids. And I mean, literally, like, kids from all over the park are coming. Can I get one? Can I get one? And I’m like opportunity right here. I could have been selling those to their parents for $5 a pop, and they would have paid because the kid wanted it. But those are the kind of things we don’t see sometimes the opportunity. And then a lot of people are just lazy. It’s very easy to go and work for a check every week. It’s definitely easier because there’s comfort. Right. Your paycheck is your comfort zone. Yes.

I think you brought up a very solid point in all the things that you do. I think that you’re very big on indirectly about mindset, state of mind and understanding that the mindset is, like, the real key to any strategy.

Absolutely. And you got to be prepared. You got to be prepared for anything and you’re taking risk. You are taking risks like they say, man, the more risk you take, the more the reward. So let’s not get it twisted. And I was just talking to a friend of mine today, man, I don’t know, you know, Lamar Taylor with Tsp, and I was talking to him, and we were just kicking it around because he’s very successful. I’m doing my thing and we work hard. I still work hard. I don’t like disappearance that is going around today. It’s so easy. If I can do it, anybody can do it. The people that are telling you that are working hard, telling you that you don’t have to work hard, just pay me. They’re working hard, right? So hard work pays off. But, yeah, mindset, your mind has got to be right. Or you’re not going to make it all the way through. Just not got it.

So starting from like, mindset to a little bit, a lot of times when you create a company, right? Like you kind of think about protections and you kind of have your company structured in a certain way. So is your business structured? Is it an LLC? An S Corp. A. C Corp. How was your set up?

Yeah, mine started off. It’s an LLC still. Okay, but it’s got passed through. But I started it off as a hobby. I think people again get caught up in the minutia. Just start selling something. You can work that part out later. Yes. We got our business license. Yes, we got our Ein and all that up front. But when it came to filing the paperwork, I think I didn’t do the LLC until two years later, right? When it just became like, look, I could save tax money by doing it this way, right? But don’t let that be a hindrance to you just getting out and starting so with that.

Are you a big believer in getting trademarks?

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. But I’m trying to put a caveat out there again. Don’t worry about it. Most people talk about. Well, I got to go get my trademark. Can I curse on this thing?

Go for it.

Okay. So, look, I’ve asked it like that’s funny. So nobody worried about stealing your shit. You ain’t made a dime, you ain’t made a damn dime. And you worried about a damn trademark. Stop it. And the other thing is too realistically. A trademark does not stop people from using your brand. It’s just a piece of paper right now. If you sue them and you go to court, you will easily win with a trademark. However, whatever you win, you still got to collect. So don’t get so caught up. And the other thing is, most people are too lazy to copy your shit anyway, because if they were going to do it, they would have been done did it already. So that’s what we always get afraid of. But don’t even worry about that. When it comes to like you. What you’ve got here, your brand is so strong now that you want to get a trademark. Absolutely. So nobody can come in and say, unbox Uncaged. No, you can’t do that, right? Even though it’s different, you can’t do that. Those are the kind of things. So it does protect you in it’s a bully club. It’s a bully club. But people don’t have to pay you any attention.

Yeah, this is true.

Now, if you can show that you have been using this prior to them using it, then you don’t even need a trademark. You can still say that they have stolen my brand.

Yeah, definitely. I wanted to go down that road because obviously, I knew you’d want to deliver the goods. And this is one of the questions that I never really go down that road. But I knew you would fulfill the answer. Well, also, keep digging. Let’s keep building. Let’s keep digging. Right. So on the journey to success, right. Everyone has hurdles. You listed out, maybe a couple of your hurdles. But in the marketing space, what is the biggest hurdle that you had to overcome.

Me personally? Yeah. In the marketing space, asking for the money just to be comfortable enough to ask. That was always a big thing for me. Matter of fact, I hid behind Amazon and Ebay because I didn’t have to sell. It was on display. And it just really wasn’t until I started getting into training and courses and stuff that you got to ask for the money. And that was a big hurdle for me. I don’t know why, but it was. And I know a lot of people like that. They’re just afraid to ask. And a good salesperson, right? A good salesman back in the day would knock on the door and be like, Can I sweep your floor and show you my new sweeper? And they would get doors slammed in their face? Once you get enough doors slammed in your face, you don’t get too concerned about asking anymore.

Very true.

So that’s what I was going to say. The no is one of the best things to get you over the fear of selling another golden nugget.

Everyone, I know that you’re also a big systems guys as well. Right. What systems do you currently have in place to manage all your different tentacles in your business?

Honestly, it’s going to be really simple. I mean, Google has changed everything for me. Google, the tools that come with the Google suite are so shareable that we took all of our processes and made them Google friendly. Right. So all those little pieces that we used to have and we pay for this document management platform and other things for chatting and all of that, it’s like, look, I only have two people on staff here. Everybody else’s merch. Okay. And so in order to do that, I needed something that would be worldwide easily shareable. And when I make a change here, it makes a change throughout the organization. And that’s been probably my biggest tool set right now is Google. And another thing called cartridge. And this thing, Zoom, Zoom. Zoom has been amazing. If you think about all the things that came before Zoom the Skypes and what do we used to have? What other chats that we used to have? There was other ones that tried to beat out Skype.

Yeah, it came at the right time. And I think it was targeted to the right market, and it was targeted. Well, as the new users were coming into that space as well.

Yeah. Another thing is, loom loom is a screen capture free. And that really has been really great, because now I don’t have to even be anywhere near anybody. They can make a video show me what’s going on, and we can troubleshoot that right there.

Yeah. Definitely. I think the turn of technology changed things drastically, and I think it just really happened within the last ten years and everything we’re talking about, like you said, it’s not new, right. Zoom as a platform. The brand isn’t fairly new, but the functionality is not new. No, but it’s repackaged in a particular way to target a particular audience. My next question for you is like, okay, obviously, you’ve been in the game for at least 20 years at this point, right? Probably even more than that. But somebody may be listening to this podcast, and they may be like, okay, John, they look him up. Wow. He has all these different tentacles. He’s highly successful, and you may be deemed as an overnight success to someone, but in reality, how long did that journey take you to get to where you are.

All my life, right. Seriously. Okay. Well, I won’t say that there is a tipping point. There is a tipping point in everything when you move from one stage to the next stage to the next stage, and there’s always another level. Right. But I would say 2005 ish was the tipping point for me. And so if you go from when I actually started the business in 2000, so it took about five years. Five, six years. Okay. So the timeline started the business in the end of 2000. 2004 is when I left my job. So just get that in your head, guys, I didn’t leave my job until four years later. And then when I was leaving my job, I was like, you know what? Now is the time because I realized that if I spent 8 hours a day on my business, I could easily replace my company business, but also at the same time or my corporate salary, but also at the same time, most people and I meet way too many people create a business and leave their job too soon because what ends up happening is that you have this burgeoning company, and it’s really a fledgling organization, and it’s not ready to pay you your salary. And what they end up doing is they start taking that income that they could be putting back into the business and use it for their lifestyle. And that can hamper and slow your business growth. I planted a garden last year. Remember this? We put two plants in. I know this is going to be ridiculous, but it’s true, man. We put two plants and they were the same size. One plant was in a little bit of shade, and the other plant was had full sun, and the deal was by the end of the season, the difference in the size and the amount of fruit be it flowers, pollen that it was able to produce versus the other plant. It taught me a lesson. Those early stages can be some of the most important part of growing a big business. And I made sure I can’t even remember the conversation I had with myself to keep me at that job for two, three more years than I needed to be interesting.

So if time travel was possible and you could teleport back in the last 30 years span and you could pick a day to go back and change one thing, what would that one thing be?

I would have started teaching ten years earlier. I would have started teaching ten years earlier. Once I had, I already had the knowledge, man. People say things. And you think it’s true? There’s an old saying that those who can do and those who can’t teach giving the idea that teaching is somehow less than doing. But now that I’m a 50 plus year old man, I will tell you, you can argue with me all you want. But when you get to 50, you’ll say, Damn, that dude was right. Teaching actually Trump’s doing when you know how to teach, right?

I’m recapping in my head.

It’s crazy. But also at the same time when you do, you become a better teacher, right? So there is another side to that as well. But understand, if you think about most of these, like, really big, big, multi billionaires. After a while, they’re not in the hustle. They’re in to teach, because what ends up happening is when you are. How old are you?

41, 41.

You’re too old. Okay? You’re just passed. All right? I will say in the 20s and 30s, that’s your hustle years. Once you get to your age 40s, you start trying to land the plane, right? You’re going to do the most you can. When you get in your 50s, you’re going to realize I don’t have the strength and the fortitude to deal with what the 20 year old me did or the 30 year old me did. I was a hustler. I can’t do that. I’ve got obligations. I’m old as hell. I mean, what the fuck? I am not a hustler. So now it’s become apparent I’ve landed the plane. Now what’s next? Teaching, mentoring and helping others to get where they need to be. At that age, it’s been an interesting transformation, but I think every decade you go through this, you’ll get to 50 and you’ll be like, shit. I know this shit. Now that’s where you’ll be. It’s a weird feeling. But you get this check Mark next to you. It’s verification, like on Facebook with a blue check.

You become an influencer.

You do really do. If you’re ready to step into those shoes because I know other people that just aren’t ready. And to me, some of them, I’m like, bro, you like Uncle Charlie at the bar, trying to hang with the kids. I’m like, what are you doing, man? Here you are, 55 years old. You still hustle. Come on. I’m not talking about just boss hustling. Maybe that’s a good title. I like that Boss hustling. I’m just teasing because I’m seeing boss all over it. But you know what I’m saying? There’s a difference, a level of being just a hustler to being like, you are a boss hustler. Got it.

All right. I think that leads me into just thinking about the history behind you, right? It’s kind of like just talk about your family a little bit. So obviously you have a hustle mentality, or you had one that’s growing into more of a boss hustle mentality now. But did you get that entrepreneurial spirit from any one generations before? I think your dad was like a trainer or.

Yeah, but he wasn’t an entrepreneur. I got to watch him just over broke. He was job just over broke, right. And he would supplement with other odd jobs. He had the skills to paint cars. So I remember he was always working, but also at night, he would come home and do other people’s cars. So that was adding to his income. But it wasn’t getting him anywhere to where he was. This level so I can’t in my own circle, give you that. I don’t know where it came from, but I definitely had it. I was definitely born with it in terms of there was these little things that I go back and look at and be like, you always wanted to do something. You weren’t going to ever be satisfied in your job lifestyle. That structure never worked for me. So I can’t really pinpoint that. But I can tell you where it crystallized and became real. And that was from Reading Message to The Black Man, the Malcolm X autobiography and movie. And then I ended up joining the Nation of Islam, which you all can take that and leave it alone. I don’t give a shit. It’s my story. So inside of the nation of Islam, however, there was the teaching of knowledge of self to do for self and understanding for me that if I wanted it to be, it has to start with me. I’ll tell you what my dad did teach me. My dad taught me there was no such thing as Santa Claus. That was probably the best thing he ever taught all of his children because he let us know that at first he wasn’t going to lie to us. But second, ain’t no white man coming down the chimney giving you no gifts. And it was like an epiphany. But it also gave me the fortitude to stand in my own truth, like they say today, right. So I was very aware that if it’s going to be something. Then you got to do it. And so the deal was going back to the nation was that they had built the newspaper. They had, like, the fish store. They had trucking companies. So I was really looking at what Elijah Muhammad had built in his day back in the early 60s, 70s. That really got me pumped. I was like, dude, I know I can do something. And so I did a whole different shift mentally. And so the first business I ever did was doing other people’s taxes, because, like I said, I was in the computers and stuff. The first year that I had my computer, I went and got turbo tax. Yeah, I think it was turbo tax, one of those tax programs, and I learned how to use it. So when tax season came around, told the company, hey, I’ll do your taxes, give me $50. I’ll do your tax. And I used to make a lot of money doing taxes, but it was only for three months. But I think that was a big mind shift for me.

Definitely.

Yeah. And here’s the deal, man. I think it’s really great that a lot of young people today are coming up with entrepreneurial influences. Like, you can watch Shark Tank on TV when I was coming up, that just wasn’t there. People thought you were crazy. If you were like, I’m going to be an entrepreneur and start my own business. Like, what? Come on. You didn’t even graduate from high school. That’s another secret. I didn’t graduate from high school. I didn’t like high school.

That’s an interesting fork in the road right there. Right. So how did that pan out? Did you go back and get, like, your GED or it kind of leads me to the real question. Do you see any principles and prosperousness in going to College?

I mean, if you’re going to be a lawyer, a doctor? Sure, there’s value in education. Don’t get that twisted for me. I lost a value in education because if you go back to your high school days, the 11th and 12th grade were worthless. Hardly anything you learned during there do you use today? And it just was so disinteresting to me. I left high school and I was passing. I was getting ready to graduate. I got kicked out because I wouldn’t go. Not because I have bad day grades. So I was always pretty well self taught. So back after they kicked me out, I went to take the GED and got it. I didn’t study for it or nothing. I just went through and did it. Okay, fine. Because I wanted to go to technology school, which was where my interest was. So I ended up going to devray for the technology stuff and the it stuff. But high school wasn’t teaching me none of that or giving me no opportunity. So I was out playing music and DJing.

Definitely. Interesting. So that kind of leads me into your family life a little bit in today’s world, right? How do you currently juggle your family life with your work life balance?

Okay. I’m so contrarian. I hate it, but I don’t believe in work life balance. There’s no such thing, right? Because if work or at least for us. Okay, you’re going to be an entrepreneur. Do you love doing what you do?

Oh, yeah.

Okay. So why do I want to balance that? I love what I’m doing, right? And as long as I’m loving it, then I’m happy doing it. And my family is not suffering because I’m here. I didn’t miss a thing that my daughter was a party to when she was in school. We were there for everything because we created our own business. And what you have to do or think about is how you want your life to be. Because I think there are people that get lost in the hustle, where they just constantly. They can’t stop the hustle, and they end up passing through all the roses. For me, my business is part of the lifestyle that I want to live. It puts me in the position so that I can travel when I want to travel so that I can do the things that I want to do. And we created a lifestyle company. Right. So, yes, I’ve done millions and millions, but I probably could have did hundreds of millions. But do I need hundreds of millions? What am I going to do? Hundreds of millions of dollars. I’ll take it, but I can’t take it with me. So I was just thinking about this today, man. It’s like people will drive their wealth, right? I’d rather create memories. Right? So I’ve flown around the world having amazing memories and drive a piece of shit car. Okay? It ain’t piece of shit, but it ain’t brand new and sparkling like diamonds because I don’t need the car. The car gets me to the plane. That’s it. So you got to have your priorities in order to know what you want.

I definitely appreciate that. It’s always one of the statements I talk about. Once you understand wealth and understand revenue versus wealth versus the paycheck, you’ll get to the point to where you’re not going to be looking at my home or my car. To your point, it’s all about the memories. Like, what legacy can you leave behind? What have you done in this life? And you kind of look back on and smile at it’s. Not about the car that’s as will sit in the garage. I commend you for saying that. I definitely appreciate that statement.

There’s too many people that are millionaires that kill themselves. Why, right? Be happy, man. Be happy. I mean, if you’re happy on your job, hey, go for it. Don’t let nobody else shame you into being something that you don’t want to be. But that comes with growth. That comes with wisdom, because it’s hard. It’s hard out here for Pimp.

Digital pimp. Digital pimp?

Yes. Exactly. Let’s be clear, folks.

Funny. So let’s talk about, like, your morning habits, your morning routines. What are those? Look.

Oh, Lord, I don’t have a morning routine. Oh, yes, I do. Okay. Because after I get done with the breakfast and all that, literally, every morning I get breakfast, I sit down, I watch the news, I go through my phone, see what’s interesting topics that’s first, right. Or that’s the regular stuff. But when I come in, I write a blog post. Lately I’ve been creating a video and editing the one we talked. Right. And then I make sure I post it all around. Then I check in with my VAS because usually they’re leaving or that’s the end of their day. So I check in with them and make sure everything’s handled there. And I don’t check email until noon. Nice. Because I start today eating the frog. What’s the big thing? I have to get done today, and I won’t check email until after that’s. Done because email has a tendency of rejuggling all your priorities and the real thing you want to get done doesn’t get done.

Very true. Yeah, very true. So this is the part where I started a book club because of Boston Cage. Just realizing that everyone that I speak to that’s like you books that helps you on your journey. And there’s still probably books that you’re reading or audio books that you’re listening to. So it’s a three part question. What books do you recall that helped you get to where you are currently? What books are you reading currently right now. And as an author, what books have you written?

Okay, cool. The big books for me were Think and Grow Rich. What’s the Babylon book? Richest Man and Babylon Riches Man and Babylon and Rich. Okay, so those are like, dude, get those books. What did you say? What’s the other thing? What am I currently?

Yeah. What are you currently reading?

Okay. Currently it’s sitting here. I’m reading Digital Millionaire Dan Henry. Good book. I like that. I’m impressed with Dan. I would just talk shit about him because he was just young guys, like what he really has. He really has asked that’s Ryan Levesque, right. Going back to the Oldschool dot com secrets. Right. And this one is interesting, man, that I’m keeping around how business works. And it’s like a hard back, but it’s done with images that really resonates with me. So I’m keeping that around. So that’s what I’m reading currently. And here’s what I’ve written. Kick associate commerce for E Panurs. That is the Bible. It is the best book ever written, possibly second only to the Bible. According to my mother, these are all things my mom and I’m really thinking about writing another book. I wasn’t thinking about that, but I think I’m getting ready to start this year, writing a new book. Don’t know exactly what it’s going to be or entail. Well, I kind of do, but it’s going to be part of the journey in the story. But also, I want to make it interesting. So maybe it’ll have a bill in and there’ll be a murder somewhere. You know what I’m saying? Wouldn’t that be different?

Well, it’ll be extremely different to have, like, a murder mystery selfhelp book.

Yeah, because you know who you’re going to kill. I even know I’m going to kill my imposter syndrome.

Yeah, I can see that.

Nice twist. That’s a good twisting. This is on recording, too. So I’ll remember.

Yes, you will. Hilarious, man. So what do you see yourself? 20 years from now, man?

20 years from now?

20 years? Yeah.

Here’s what I mean. I want to be next to water. I want to be out of the country at least four times. Maybe I’ll come back. Guess what? I have grandkids at that point. And who knows, man, I haven’t thought that far ahead. And I never thought that far ahead. When I was 30, thought about being 50. I never did. I think I lived the Tupac syndrome forever. Like, I’m going to die young. I’m going to die young. And here I am, kind of middle age, and I’m still here. But legacy wise. I’m already seeing that coming to pass. And like this on Friday, I have a lunch meeting with, let’s say, my kids, it’s my niece and my nephew for you, and they’re starting their own business, and we’re talking about it. So it’s like it’s finally coming to pass. And I feel really good about that. Really good about that. So 20 years from now, I get to watch them do what I did nice on their own, because they ain’t getting shit from me. It’s like I’m teasing.

Yeah, but I think you’re leaving my legacy of content. I mean, to the point to where just recently, like you said, you kind of started this whole new campaign, these little tidbit videos of, like, selfhelp here’s things that I’ve done, things that I’ve used. And I just think that once that’s on the Internet, it’s going to be there forever. So you’re kind of building a legacy of digital content in your videos, though, just talking about your videos and just come into mind what tools would you recommend that you use on a daily basis outside of Google, that you would not be able to do what you do without what tools that I use on a daily basis?

I mean, there’s a lot of marketing tools that we use for ad load balance, but that’s inside of Amazon, right or not. But everything I do is in cartridge. I mean, I used to have the email programs, and that’s all I use, bro. That’s all I use. I don’t have any other tools. You know what? Let me pull this up because I’m just thinking I’ve got this tool list that I put together and let me go and just tell you some of the things I actually recommend, because that’s what you’re really looking for.

Yeah, definitely. I’ve been thinking for the longest time, like, I’ve been asking this question. It’ll be cool to kind of create, like, an online directory on these different disciplines and have all these online resources to say, okay, you know what? This is what John uses. This is what John uses it for.

Yeah, that’d be cool. That’d be cool. So like I said, Cartra loom screen flow. Yeah. I’m in screen flow all the time. What’s this one? Snagit is probably the best tool. I don’t think there’s any tool I use more than Snag screen capture.

Okay.

Screen Capture Keynote, one of my big favorites. And let’s see anything else that I actually use. Webinar jam, of course. Yeah. I use Twilio for messaging, stream Yard for streaming, sometimes in Zoom. I’ve got my own little tool suite. Nice, but I gave you the back how I’m making the sauce. It is literally keynote for pretty much all graphics and snag.

It got you screenshots. Nice.

Yeah. Because I used that to. One day I got to do a teaching on how I use the tools. They’re totally weird. But you take all that together, and I can create all kinds of graphics and documents. And the whole nine.

It goes back to the proofs. And to put it, not only are you a good teacher, but you enjoy teaching, and I can see that in your videos. I mean, every time you produce a video, I see that passion coming through. It’s like he’s giving you diamonds. He’s giving you diamonds in a rough. But if you’re not listening to them, you’re missing out on them. And that’s just the way you come across. So I definitely appreciate your videos. I watch them on a regular basis as well.

Awesome. Somebody’s watching that makes me happy. But I will tell you this the teaching part. Remember, I was very dogmat about teaching teachers. I’ve always been a good teacher. I mean, from day one. And that was part of even when I got into religion and did the nation thing and did the Christian thing. Both of those. I was teaching and preaching. So that’s one thing I’ve always been able to do. And that’s something that comes now that I definitely got from my dad. Nice, that I definitely got from him. I used to watch him do that.

So spitting off on that. Right. So just talk about, like, words of wisdom, words of insight. Like you just brought up your dad. You’re talking about being a teacher. So let’s say I’m 41 years old and I’m coming to you, John. I’m like John. I’m obviously on my journey. I’m branding. I’m doing all these different things, but I want to scale. I want to burst my bubble and expand more. What words of insight would you give to someone like me?

Okay. What do you want to spend, too?

What do you want to do as far as what? One more time.

What do you like doing? What do you like doing?

I love podcasting. I love podcasting.

You love podcasting. One of the things is, do you have a course?

Academy is in development right now.

That’s going to be huge for you. That’s going to be huge for you, because everybody wants to know how to do a podcast, but not only how to do a podcast, but to do one successfully. And you’re doing one successfully. So if I had one thing to tell people, stick in your Lane and become an expert at what it is that you like doing, right? Because there’s so many shiny objects out here. But if you become the expert in the one thing, then everything else. Let everybody else be a generalist. You go to the doctor when you got a pain and you pay that doctor fee to the general list. And what do they do? They recommend you to the specialist. And when you go to the specialist, he’s going to charge you ten times more.

Right about that.

Right. So it’s your specialty. Go deep into the specialty for whatever it is that you guys are out there wanting to do. If you go deep into your specialty, there’s money to be made in there.

Nice. So even with that, obviously, you’re an online coach. You have courses. You have all these stuff on your profiles online. How can people find you and get in contact with you?

My name Johnlawson. Com. All right. Johnlawson. Com. And then you can just look up like, ColderICE one word. C-O-L-D-E-R-I-C-E on Google. You’ll find me. I’m on colder ice on all the channels. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram. What’s that stupid phone one that I don’t like. Yeah, I had to take it just because somebody else might. But, yeah, I’m a Droid user. I’m not going to sit there with my phone all day listening to Clubhouse because it’s not on Droid.

Not yet.

Not yet. Do you like it?

Well, in the beginning, I was all about it, and I started maybe like October last year, and it was like, it was cool. But for me, it was like the conversion point. Those things off. It’s like there’s no real conversion point. I have to take you from one system to another system or kind of have to follow back up. But there’s no built in conversion, like on Facebook. I can convert Instagram. I can convert. I can convert LinkedIn. I can convert Clubhouse.

Yeah, exactly. One of the things is, too. People were talking about clubhouse is the new podcast. See, I’d rather listen to a podcast. I’d rather listen to somebody go deep into their understanding. Like you’ve done with me today, right? Versus all this 15 minutes of surface level understanding and then dumb questions from the audience, which drops me crazy. You know what I’m saying? So everybody has their mode, and I really like the long format of a podcast.

Oh, yeah. I think people don’t realize the power of a pocket at the end of this pocket. There’s so much content that we’ve developed in this communication between us that we can reuse and repurpose and do cross marketing, cross promotions, day in and day out for years to come.

It’s amazing. And it’s like one of the first ones out. Podcasting has been out since the freaking 90s. People don’t get it, but podcasting has lasted almost as long as email. The two things they want to claim are dead.

Well, yeah, the email is definitely not dead, right? Obviously, I deemed you the ice boss. So let’s talk about the company name. What’s the meaning behind the company name? How did you come up with that colder ice? Yeah.

I’m glad you asked. So when I was getting started and like I said, this was around 2007 eight, when I started teaching, I didn’t think people would pay any attention because I was a black guy. I was a black guy. I would sit in rooms on ecommerce events, and I’d be the only black guy. There’d be two or three others. I’d make sure I got to meet that one because there’s only a few of us here. So I really didn’t think that anybody would pay me a lot of attention just because I was a black guy. So I kind of went out to the Google and tried to get my name. I got my name. Now it cost me money because somebody was sitting on it for years. But I couldn’t get the johnlawson. Com because it’s a very common name anyway. And just my study. I remembered back in the day there was this saying that the white man’s ice is colder. And what did that come from was that black businesses. And this is one thing a lot of people don’t recognize. Entrepreneurial ship for black people was a necessity 50 years ago. It wasn’t an option. If you wanted to go and get your stuff from the Department store, you had to go to the black Department store because white people wouldn’t let you put nothing on. You know what I’m saying? If you wanted to ride in the cab, you had a black cab. You weren’t getting into white people’s cabs. Everything that there was for the whites was for the Blacks, and they were run by black people. Right. The deal was as soon as integration came, the black store owners would watch their consumers walk right past their storefront to go shop downtown. And they said, oh, I guess the white man’s ice is colder. And I had the realization like, my ice is just as cold as the white man. And that’s where I came up with Ko DEIS did a search. It’s like, oh, Koda rice. Com and it was available and that became the whole thing.

I’m happy I asked that question too. Damn.

That’s where it came from.

Yes, sir. That just adds to the whole nostalgia of calling you the ice boss like that’s official that’s on a T shirt, and I’m going to have to have to do it.

That’s awesome. I love it. I’m totally in. But you know what? This is off topic. Well, not off topic, but I want to make something really clear for me and my life where that fell off for me. Nobody would listen to me because I was black. Happened two years later, when Barack Obama was sworn in, he gave me validity to others. I don’t care what you have to say about the man or his politics or anything, but the way people perceived me the day before and the day after was a whole nother level. And so I’ve used that to expand my brand worldwide. It was the affinity of everybody. Oh, they got the black President. And all of a sudden, they were looking for some sort of representation, and if they were, I would be that guy for you. I’ll fly over and we’ll do a thing and we’ll talk and be that difference that they were looking for from America.

That’s awesome. Definitely awesome. Trailblazing it man. Trailblazer.

Trailblaze, trailblazing.

It’s crazy. So let’s go into the bonus round really quick before we close out.

Shotgun question.

So if you could spend 24 hours with anyone dead or alive uninterrupted for those 24 hours, who would it be? And why you mean other than.

Like my dad or my grandparent? Like that? Yeah. Outside of family business.

Or motivational or inspirational or someone that you deem that. Hey, I would like to spend 24 hours with this person uninterrupted again.

I’m a contrarian. So I’ve learned that the closer you get to somebody, the more the fantasy gets dissolved. Right? Okay. I do have somebody that would be kind of cool to sit and ask them a lot of questions. Right. So I really would dig talking to Steve Jobs the way he thought. I know he was half damn crazy half the times the way people talk, you know what I mean? But I think I could get through to finding the core of whatever it was he was saying, because when I listened to him or I read the book. So Steve Jobs, that’s my answer.

Nice. So what is your most significant achievement to date outside of your family and your kids? Yeah.

I don’t know, man. It’s probably doing the American Express commercial. I just thought that was really cool. I did this years ago, but the experience of being treated like a Hollywood star was absolutely amazing, right? Because they picked me up with the sign and the black cars waiting, and that changed my entire life. I was like, oh, I need this every day. You know what I’m saying? And it really elevated what I thought I could do and be. And I think that set the stage for me teaching and speaking and being a world traveler.

So I was saying earlier, you’ve been really modest, man. And we’re just kind of like, I didn’t know you was in a damn American Express commercial. Let me tell you guys a little story real quick. The first time I met this guy was at a marketing meeting, and I’m walking in a meeting, and I’m sitting in a room full of damn Sharks and Titans, and I’m sitting in the corner like, I’m going to keep my mouth shut. I’m not going to say anything crazy today. I’m just going to listen and take notes. And he’s just sitting there nationally talking about, yeah, I just came back from I think it was Belize or where were you were? And he was like, I just did a workshop in Belize with a mastermind group of, like, ten to 50 people. And I’m just sitting there like, did he just say he was in Belize with a mastermind group of ten people? It’s just say what it is. So he’s being modest. Don’t let his modesty fool you by any means. Okay?

No. But again, there’s trade offs, man. That’s what I wanted to do. There used to be this game, like a board game called Passport. The job was to go around the board and get your passport stamped. And if you land on enough of those places, you’d win. And that set the tone. I always wanted my passport stamped. And I do somewhat up until last year, I did take it for granted. And having the world shut down all of a sudden, I’m like, wow, I got to do that. Hopefully this will come back. But I don’t think it’ll ever be the way it was. I mean, it was open border season back in the day. Yeah, it was, unfortunately.

Okay going to close it, man. I mean, obviously, I think this was a great episode, and you dropped Nuggets, jewels, diamonds. You made it rain gold from the sky.

Right. Well, stop.

But in this conversation, we went through a lot of different topics. So in any part of this conversation, if you had any questions that may have arrived that you want to ask me. So the microphone is yours. The floor is yours. What questions do you have for myself?

A question for you? For me, man. That’s good. That’s fantastic. All right. How did you come up with Boss Uncaged? Oh, yeah.

So what part of it? Because it’s multifaceted, right? The name or the iconography of it.

So, I mean, the boss Uncaged the name first. Okay.

So the name, essentially one was my other company is Cerebral 360. And I’ve dealt with the misspelling of that shit every day. Right. So I was like, how do I find out a brand that symbolizes everything within just two words, two parts, and make sure that these words are very short boss, a five year old spelled boss. And on cage, a six year old could pretty much sounded out. So I kind of opened up my audience a little bit wider. Then the boss part was essentially entrepreneurs, small business owners and people that are like you said before, nine to fiverrs that are looking to become bosses, or they’re tired of their boss and they want to become their own boss. And then the Uncaged part is that journey. It’s like you’re a damn lion in a cage working the nine to five dying to break out where you’re an entrepreneur on the treadmill, spinning your wheels, trying to figure things out. But you’re a hamster in a cage, and you want to break out of that cage. So the combination between the two become boss and cage. So it doesn’t really matter. My target niche is small business owners and entrepreneurs, but it’s helping those people find their destinies through people like yourself. And my goal is to continue to record episodes like this because everything that you said today, there’s somebody that’s going to hear this podcast, and the light bulb is going to go off. And they’re going to be like, that Boston Cage brand. And what John said, they’re going to merge the two together. And you and I may get a letter or get an email from somebody 2030 years down the road that says, Dude, that one episode that you guys did 20 years ago that should change my life. And that’s the goal of Boston Cage.

Very good. That was a good question. You know what I mean? You’re really good at what you’re doing, because I do a lot of interviews. I’ve done hundreds over the years, probably. But the fact is, you actually interview where most people, not most. But most unprofessional people don’t interview. They just ask questions so they can answer it themselves. And have you done that? Have you seen that?

I do more listening. I like to listen.

Yeah. And what happens is that is great for the audience, because you’re asking the questions that they have. And that’s brilliant. That’s brilliant. So I mean, more power to you. I love the logo. Tell me how the logo came about, too.

So the logo was weird. Man, I was sitting down. You’re from Atlanta. So Rome, Rome, I think at the time was in Alfaretto at Dunwoodie, and I’m sitting there working in my Cowork space, and I look up to the right. And this is this huge whiteboard and sure as hell, there was like, four red arrows. And I’m looking sideways. And then off to the right, there was like a magnet dot. And I’m like, what the hell do I get up, stop what I do and walk in there, move the magnets, put the hours together. And I was like, Holy hell, that’s everything that symbolizes in kind of like the singular wireless logo. It’s all about you. But it’s also about breaking out. It’s all about the multiple directions, all becoming focused, like you said, coming into a core niche. And it was like, so many different variables and symbolism and stories that can be told just by using five simple damn shapes. And so I put them together. And then I just replaced the o and the boss with that symbol to make the boss in Cage’s brand.

And why purple?

Well, purple for multiple different things. Right. So you want to go, this is America red and blue makes purple. Purple has always been symbolic to royalty playing off, like the whole lion. And so pulling into the purple. And it’s also a universal color. It doesn’t necessarily mean male or female. And again, I want this brand to be universal. I don’t want to 100% talk to just male. I want that other audience as well. So in being in that purple spectrum, it’s just a more softer color, but it also has some masculinity to it as well.

Okay. See, that’s a master class right there, because you talked about the brand, how you came up with it, the logo, the meanings. And that’s what a lot of people really just don’t do. So both of us, we have meaning behind our names. Colder ice as a company. Boston Cage. I think that passion moves businesses forward when you have a purpose and good on you. Thank you so much.

Well, I appreciate you, Johnny. It’s funny because I had a list, right? A list of people I want interview. I was like, okay, I’m going to get Tycoon. I’m going to get John, and I’m just thinking of all the different people I want to get. So it’s like, I’m going through a list, and I’m like, okay, I got Tycoon on the show. I got Greg Caesar on the show. Earlier this week, I had Justin. I was like, Dude, I’m going to get every last one of you bastards before it’s said and done.

But it was easy. It was easy, right? Yeah. That crew of people have, you know what I mean? Just so welcoming open. They’ve helped me out in so many ways, just knowing these people. It was the antithesis of what you think would happen with a bunch of brothers.

You’re 100%, right? Because after I left that room, I was just sitting there. I literally sat in my car that day, and I was just like, Where the have these people been? Where have they been? Like, they’re in Atlanta on top of it, too. And the way I came to find you guys was kind of like, Do Ty Cohen introduced me to Greg, and Greg was like, I live in Atlanta. Come to my marketing meeting, I was like, okay, and that showed up, and then the rest was history. It’s a night and day difference just when you’re guided in the right direction and you see those opportunities, man.

Awesome. It’s so good to reconnect after Kova times definitely.

John Man, I’m not going to suck any more of your time. I definitely appreciate you and commend you, and I love everything you do and you have done and you continue to do. Man, it was a pleasure.

Hey, I got something for your audience, if I may. All right. Ecom from scratch. If you want to build an ecommerce store, go to Ecom from scratch. It’s completely free, and it’s a video of me walking you through how to build your own ecommerce store. I think everybody should at least consider ecommerce. It’s just so amazing. It’s growing. And if you go to ecommerce, there’s a free trading there.

I would definitely say if you don’t take advantage of that coming from someone that has mastered both Ebay and Amazon at the same damn time, I will strangle you myself by having to in person a cigarette over and out.