Announcer: 0:00

The following programming is sponsored by Marc J Bernstein. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of this station, its management or Beasley Media Group. Entrepreneur, author and financial consultant, Marc Bernstein helps high-performing entrepreneurial business owners create a vision for the future and follow through on their goals and intentions. Ang Onorato is a business growth strategist who blends psychology and business together to create conscious leaders and business owners who impact the world. Founders Forum is a radio show podcast sharing the real stories behind entrepreneurship as founders discover more about themselves, while providing valuable lessons and some fun and entertainment for you. Now here's Marc and Ang.

Marc Bernstein: 0:42

Good morning America. How are you? Ang is not here with me today. She was not able to make it into the studio, so we have a substitute co-host today, who I'll introduce in a second.

Marc Bernstein: 0:54

First, I want to tell you we're in the dog days of summer now in Philadelphia where we're recording in beautiful Ballackinwood, pennsylvania, at the stations of WWDB. You're probably listening to this as a podcast, but it is hot outside. I will tell you, I played in a charity golf tournament on Monday for a great cause, the Ronald McDonald House, at the Philadelphia Cricket Club a great, great golf course, but it was hot and we walked, there was no carts and they ran out of water. So that was my only criticism of the event. And it was hot and we walked, there was no carts and they ran out of water. That was my only criticism of the event and it was hot. Anyway, it's a beautiful day and I'm very excited about today's guests and also the topic of the show and we're going to be doing two shows. So we're doing one live now on the radio and we'll be recording one and the topic for today and we'll talk about it. And I'm going to tell you that I have Regina and Ed here and we'll have the conversation and then I'll formally introduce both of them.

Marc Bernstein: 1:55

So the topic that I was thinking about is the mind and how you can condition the mind, and it came to mind to me for two reasons One because of Ed Satell, our guest today, and the other is because of a book that I'm reading right now by a fellow named David Nguyen I think it is N-G-Y-U-E-N and it's called Don't Believe Everything you Think, and it occurred to me that I heard a very wise man many years ago say to me in one of my first jobs. A very wise man many years ago said to me in one of my first jobs you are what you think. And he's actually with me in the studio today and I've used that, and there's some books that I read that he inspired me to read, and it's all about that. So one of the things I do in the morning is I do something today, and I think Ang and I discussed it on one of the shows are either thought conditioners or I call them, I am statements and, just to give you an idea, I have it taped and then I'll say it back to myself in the car in another voice.

Marc Bernstein: 2:57

So I am love and I am loved. I am being my most powerful self. I am perfect as I am. I attract only those who are in harmony with my current intent. I'm a magnet attracting whatever level of prosperity, health and relationships I choose. I am a person of my word. I am one with integrity, I am committed and powerful husband, partner, father, son and friend, etc. I have a whole bunch of them, but I'm a big believer in what you put in your mind is what you get out, and the things that come into your mind, which we all have that shouldn't be there. We have to get them out, and that's really what that new book Don't Believe Everything you Think is about. So, regina, let's start with you. What thoughts do you have and how do you apply this in your life? Because I know you do.

Regina Black Lennox: 3:46

I love it, Marc, and I do apply it quite frequently. As you were talking and sharing some of your affirmations, I was thinking back to my kindergarten days. I was in the classroom for 18 years. I always joke that truly everything I learned I learned in kindergarten and I used to say things to the kids like you are amazing, and I always asked them to think positive and people would say your classroom is so well ordered and the students are so well behaved. And they would say do you? I said I never raised my voice. I always just put my hand on my heart, kind of give a little gasp and go. I'm sure I'm not seeing Matthew in the corner doing whatever and it worked really well.

Regina Black Lennox: 4:26

And I thought it was just something that I did, but just recently I was in a restaurant and one of my former students came up to me. Now it's a little frightening when your former student is introducing you to their child who's going to college and the child told me that my former student, kyle, told me that my former student, who is just adorable, still Stephen, still does. I don't see, I don't see you doing something. She said he actually told her one time and I know when you come home I'm not going to smell any alcohol on your breath from a party. She thought he's been doing that my whole life.

Marc Bernstein: 5:00

That's thought conditioning, but for me myself.

Regina Black Lennox: 5:02

I do do it every morning. I center every morning in the Quaker tradition, even though I'm very much a staunch Roman Catholic. And most recently this year, one of the Satell Institute members, steve Cohen, actually gave me some wonderful information on mindful meditation, and I'm finding that very powerful as well, and I know you love meditation as well, so you appreciate the power of that.

Marc Bernstein: 5:26

Twice a day, whenever I can my life, since I was 19 years old, the same age that I met our other guest today, Ed Satell. That's amazing.

Regina Black Lennox: 5:35

And I'm going to say you are listeners. You are very lucky this morning because someone who lives affirmations and who has I have literally a file of mantras for Ed, but you're going to get to hear them from his own voice a very exciting entrepreneur, founder, lifelong CEO. We honored him recently for more than 60 years as the CEO. So, Marc, you're going to have a great conversation.

Marc Bernstein: 5:59

He's had an amazing career and he continues to do amazing things. So, ed, before I formally introduce you, what are your thoughts on how you use the mind? Because I know you have thoughts on that.

Ed Satell: 6:10

Well, first of all, Marc, it's a pleasure to be here with you, pleasure to have you. It's very simple for me you become what you think about, right. If you think about negative things, you'll be negative. If you think about positive things, you'll be positive. And a young woman told me recently that her father taught her when you wake up in the morning, you have two choices to be negative or to be positive. It's your choice, she says. I chose the positive route and it really helped.

Marc Bernstein: 6:39

And I think you said something like it's easier to be successful if you're positive than if you're not, or something like that.

Ed Satell: 6:49

How did you put that?

Marc Bernstein: 6:49

You said something like that earlier today. You become what you think about. You become what you think about. It comes down to that Yep, amazing. So let me introduce both of them.

Marc Bernstein: 6:56

So Regina, as I said, is co-host for the two shows today and she is the executive vice president of the Satell Institute, and the second show will be about the Satell Institute. The first one is about Ed Satell himself, who is a founder of several businesses, and I first knew him. He taught me how to sell cookware when I was 19 years old at a company called American Future Systems, and I can tell you that my life has been greatly impacted by that. A lot of the things I talk about on the show came through my learning during those years. I can tell you there are lots of other people, there are lots of successful people in the world around and I know you guys know some of them who have come through American Future Systems. So it wasn't just learning how to sell, which was amazing, but in my three years there I went from a salesperson to a manager, to a third level, as Ed calls them, running an office. And we did that in Columbus Ohio, which we were talking about because the Satell Institute's opening a branch there and you go out there. I was going to go to law school there, so I chose to work in that office. So I went out there. You have going to go to law school there, so I chose to work in that office, so I went out there. You have to rent an office, you had to hire a secretary, you had to start recruiting all your salespeople. You had like two weeks to do all this. Set up a business, get them out there, get them trained, take them out there, teach them how to sell.

Marc Bernstein: 8:25

And I do want to tell you one story that I was thinking about this morning. I had a manager that worked with me named Jimmy Carlson. Jimmy Carlson from Winston Mass, and that's how he spoke. And Jimmy came to me and he said we have this one woman. You're not going to want to hire her, but you need to. And I said I can't believe that we hire everybody. You know, we kind of just let's see how that, see how it works. So I meet her and he was right, I didn't want to hire her because she, like, looked at the ground. She could barely look at me. She could. She was talking, she mumbled, couldn't really understand anything. I was like how in the world is she going to be successful? He says I see something in her. She went.

Marc Bernstein: 8:58

You probably don't remember this, ed, but she broke all the company records that that summer. She, all the company records that summer. She, you know we would sit down and we'd give a presentation. She stood up. She wouldn't sit down. She would, like you know, point at the people and you know everything you're not supposed to do in sales. She did wrong, but there was something so authentic about her that everybody loved her.

Marc Bernstein: 9:17

She broke all the records and she went from being, when we trained her, somebody who wouldn't talk to anybody in the office to like the bell of the ball in Bermuda. When we went at the end of the summer she was toasted by every. You just saw her blossom into. I wish I knew what she was doing today, but she was amazing. It was an amazing transformation and you saw that with a lot of people. So I know, you know, but I don't think you really know how many lives were impacted by everything you taught.

Marc Bernstein: 9:44

So Ed did that and now he's chairman and founder of Progressive Business Publications great, big company. And over the years, I remember many years ago, him saying I'm going to make a million dollars a year. I remember him saying that. And then I remember him I don't know if he said it or someone around him told me he's going to give away a million dollars. Then it was a million dollars a year, then it was. He's just done so much philanthropically and as a result, he started the Satell Institute, which is a partnership organization between corporations and nonprofits, as to how to better work together and to be able to give back to the world, and hence Ed's other famous expression it's not me.

Regina Black Lennox: 10:30

Think we, not just me.

Marc Bernstein: 10:32

There you go, and so he's just a great model for philanthropy. In fact, we all ran into each other again being involved with the American Technique on Society, which is a charity we all support and which brought me to the Satell Institute, which I'm a very proud member of the board of that organization today. So, ed, that was a lot, but great to see you here today.

Ed Satell: 10:55

Pleasure to be here.

Marc Bernstein: 10:56

Really an honor for me to have you here today, today Pleasure to be here. Really an honor for me to have you here today. And you are as much as when I first met you a guy who loves to discover new things, learn and promote new ideas. Is that an accurate reflection of who you are today?

Ed Satell: 11:10

I think it's helpful to be curious.

Marc Bernstein: 11:12

Yeah, that's great. Tell me a little bit about your upbringing that brought you to where brought you, and you grew up in Connecticut, I know right.

Ed Satell: 11:19

No, springfield Massachusetts.

Marc Bernstein: 11:20

Springfield, Massachusetts. Where did you go to school?

Ed Satell: 11:24

In Springfield.

Marc Bernstein: 11:25

In Springfield, I mean college.

Ed Satell: 11:27

I went to the University of Connecticut. That's what I was thinking, and I was not on the basketball team Right.

Marc Bernstein: 11:33

Right, you were not. And is that where you started to learn to sell while you were in college?

Ed Satell: 11:39

Yes, I attended an interview and they said you could make $75 a week and that sounded like an awful lot of money to me. But you needed a car. I didn't have a car, so I went up in the summer I worked in the Catskill Mountains at a resort to earn the money I was a bellhop and a busboy and what have you and came home with $400 to buy a used car. I called the guy and said I've got a car, now can we talk about me working with you? And he said sure.

Marc Bernstein: 12:15

And what happened then? What did you sell and how'd it go?

Ed Satell: 12:18

Well, it was a different era. In those days Everything was different, but at that time young women the average girl got married at 18. Right and half the class graduating class was married within a year, and so at that time they thought it was a good idea, while they were working, to save some money. Every young girl lived at home until she was married, and so they paid their mother $10 a week board or something like that, and the rest was theirs to spend. And we always had the mothers there to wither the young woman and to encourage her that saving is a good idea and that putting things away for your future is a good idea.

Ed Satell: 13:08

And most young women thought in terms of the trousseau, the cookware, the china, the crystal, the tableware, and we supplied that on an installment plan that allowed them to do it over time and be able to have the things they wanted and also get the discipline of buying something, getting a credit rating and having something that they cherished and enjoyed. And one customer would send us to another, to their friends, and it was a fun time. We ended up having over 1,000 people working for us at that, and it was all built on the positive mental attitude and doing things well for people. Quality meant a lot to us.

Ed Satell: 13:57

Ethics meant a lot to us because it's tough to be successful if you're not involved with quality and you don't relish quality, and it's tough to be successful if you're not ethical.

Marc Bernstein: 14:09

So that was. You worked for somebody selling cookware and educating young women and their families After the break. I have a couple quick stories about that as well, my experiences with that. How did you go from there to being in Philadelphia and suburban Philadelphia and building a business?

Ed Satell: 14:29

Well, interestingly enough, the fellow who trained me. Within a month or two I became his boss and I did not plan on staying in that activity, but I knew I was making more than my college professors on a part-time basis, and so I started selling on my own in Philadelphia. Chez Chez La Femme. The femme doesn't exist anymore. That's what brought me to Philadelphia.

Marc Bernstein: 15:01

Interesting, interesting, very good. Hey, that's a very good time for us to take a real quick break. You're going to hear something about the Satell Institute and we'll be right back on Founders Forum.

Announcer: 15:12

The Satell Institute is the leading CEO member organization dedicated to corporate social responsibility. Under the vision and leadership of its founder, entrepreneur and philanthropist, ed Satell, the Institute brings together CEOs in Philadelphia and other cities to support the nonprofit organizations that do heroic work in our communities. The Satell Institute believes that community is every leader's business. Si's members-only meetings and private CEO conferences give members the opportunity to hear from world-class thought leaders on crucial topics like AI, education, corporate philanthropy and more. In addition, ceo members get the opportunity to share ideas and experience with their peers like-minded CEOs who believe in the importance of giving back to the community and who understand the benefits companies get from embracing corporate social responsibility. The Satell Institute charges no dues or fees In order to join. Member companies simply make a long-term commitment to the nonprofit of their choice. To find out more about membership and why so many leading companies are now part of the Satell Institute, visit the organization's website at satellinstituteorg. Satell S-A-T-E-L-L instituteorg. As Ed Satell says, think we, not just me.

Marc Bernstein: 16:31

There we are. We're back with Ed Satell, and there was his famous quote at the end of that commercial. And so, ed, it's interesting to me because I don't know the whole story. So you came to Philadelphia, but you started a company that was a little different than, I think, the one you worked for, because you did a lot more than just educate young women. You educated, in my mind, college students to go out there and to have these jobs and help develop them as people and leaders. So let's talk about that. How did your company come about? American Future Systems.

Ed Satell: 17:04

Well, I started selling and then I started hiring others to do the same kind of work, and it was built on the same principles positive, being ethical, being good to your customers, giving good service. Our quality was at the top and college students wanted jobs and we gave them to them and gave them a chance to prove themselves. And they got to like each other, they got to like their customers, and they got to like what other? They got to like their customers.

Marc Bernstein: 17:44

And they got to like what they were doing Interesting. So one of the things I wanted to share with you when I entered the financial services industry, I went to law school at Ohio State. That's how I ended up working out there, became a lawyer for a few years. Didn't love what I did and this new field of financial planning came out and that's what I wanted to do and so I entered on the life insurance side of that and you had to find a market. That's the hardest part of that business. So all I did was get referrals and so I was there like six months. I thought I was there to learn.

Marc Bernstein: 18:13

They had me teaching how to get referrals. They said how did you know how to do that? I said because I sold quality cookware in college and you would go into a neighborhood and I would meet somebody and have them pull out their yearbook. We'd make a happy customer and then they would refer us to more, just like Ed said, and never looked back. And it's the same way I started in business and very simple.

Marc Bernstein: 18:37

But yet most people don't know how to do it. And but if you do a good job for people and you and you're honest and you work with integrity and you, in fact some of my former cookware coat cohorts, people that were in the business, referred me to people. Some of my legal clients referred me to people and I've never had to look back. I've always had people to see in business and, and. If more salespeople knew that early on, they'd be way better off. And it's and and then also to have it's one of the companies our principals today deliver great service, be honest, do the right things and business will just come in and that's the way it works. So that was a great thing to teach people. So you did that, I know, for a number of years. I know it was a very successful company. And then you started Progressive Business Publications. How did that start? How did that come about?

Ed Satell: 19:27

Well, the marketplace had changed. Women were going to college and I did a survey what were we good at? And I learned about the publishing business and saw that they did mass sales and they did mass service and in many ways it was to live.

Marc Bernstein: 19:46

You were good at that. You already knew how to do that right.

Ed Satell: 19:49

Yeah, it was to the business market, not to the consumer market, right? So we got involved in that and we grew very quickly because of our experience with Cookware. We understood about curiosity. We understood about curiosity, we understood about quality, we understood about training, we understood about thinking you become what you think about and we sold to. At one time we had virtually all the Fortune 500 became customers and it was a business that was a great one for many, many years.

Marc Bernstein: 20:28

Yeah, and that business. I have to add Sure.

Ed Satell: 20:30

That business is problems. If you don't like problems, you can't be a business, right.

Marc Bernstein: 20:37

That's great.

Ed Satell: 20:37

Along the way. You have to be a problem solver.

Marc Bernstein: 20:40

Right.

Ed Satell: 20:41

It doesn't all fit in automatically have to be a problem solver. It doesn't all fit in automatically. As you get bigger, as you get bigger, you'll end up with more challenges, and so the challenges you always have to respond to. It's like everything else. It's not set for life. Life keeps changing and you need to go ahead and have a curiosity. You need to go ahead and have a curiosity. You need to go ahead and have a high sense of civics or what have you, and you need to care about people and your customers. People could always buy from someone else, and I'd rather have them buy from us, but in order for them to buy from us, we had to have a more favorable situation, so we always worked hard at doing that.

Marc Bernstein: 21:29

You know you said a lot of things to me that I learned from.

Regina Black Lennox: 21:32

I wish you would have told me about the problems, part of it, because I had to figure that one out on myself Actually recently, ed spoke to a group of incredible students, incredible master's candidates, that were doing a shark tank and he shook them for a moment because he said I wish you problems because you're going to learn more from your mistakes and your problems than you ever do from your successes. Well, after their program, they wrote him notes and almost every one of them said thank you for saying that, because it really made me think in a different way, and I've heard Ed say that probably a hundred times and it is really a powerful thing to say.

Marc Bernstein: 22:08

Well, that I mean we talk about that on the show a lot because every there's no entrepreneur that hasn't made mistakes and that hasn't had failures. But they're not really failures, they're lessons. And we talk about that and you can't. You can't progress unless you learn. So it makes sense, but I still would have liked to have heard expect problems.

Marc Bernstein: 22:28

It just would have greased the skins a little bit more to hear that, but anyway, it's great advice and I can appreciate why they like that so much. What challenges did you face in terms of building the business? What kind of challenges did you come?

Ed Satell: 22:41

across All kinds of problems In hiring the people, keeping them training them making them effective. When you go through difficult times, you need to learn to have a positive attitude. You need to learn about what you can do to help yourself, and often the people that I thought would do worst did best, and sometimes those who I thought did best did worse.

Announcer: 23:12

Right, but I learned something very interesting.

Ed Satell: 23:14

In college, there were people when we took tests. I noticed that the people who did worst thought they aced the test, and many times the people who did best said, oh, I functioned, I did so bad. And the reason that there's a deeper reasoning to all that the top students expected perfection and they wanted to be right all the time. Well, you lose a life lesson on that. Nobody succeeds all the time, nobody's right all the time, and you need to learn to recover from risk. You need to be able to handle risk, you need to be able to bounce back, you need to get up and try again, because nobody succeeds all the time. But what we want to do is get our fair share and constantly work on training, doing things better for your customers, giving better services, and there will always be new challenges as times change. I think just today that we had no such thing as email Right sure.

Ed Satell: 24:27

And we had no such thing as learning from a computer and getting all the information Right.

Announcer: 24:33

So it was a different era.

Ed Satell: 24:35

And we all have to adjust with time, but there are certain things that are time-valued and that is think positively, not negatively. You become what you think about, understand that problems can go ahead and help you build on your strengths as you solve problems to go ahead and make things better. And you have to also outwork the other people.

Ed Satell: 25:02

You have to succeed, you have to dowork the other people. You have to succeed. You have to do, I think, two things. You have to go ahead and be prepared to work hard If you were a business person, would you want a hard worker or a lazy worker, of course. And the second thing is that you have to study Right. You have to learn things and continual learning. Learning doesn't stop when you graduate from college. When you're in college and you have a question, you can ask your friendly professor and they'll give you the answer. But when you get out of college, who do you ask? He's not around. Often he's not relevant to your situation.

Ed Satell: 25:41

So you have to go ahead and constantly be looking for mentors, looking for successful people and imitating them and working hard and reap the rewards of that.

Marc Bernstein: 25:55

So I was going to ask your strengths in dealing with the challenges, but you just described yourself.

Marc Bernstein: 25:59

You just described positive attitude, continual learning and, by the way, you're a great example and I and I'm going to I think I'm an example and I continue this. Learning doesn't stop when you're 65 and you retire either. You know. That's one of the reasons I think you're still active. I'm still active, regina, we're all still active is because you got to keep going. You got to keep moving forward and I think some of the things that's what I love about the Satell Institute, that's what I love about working with the American Technion Society. It's forward, looking into the future. We were talking about Babcock Ranch, where we're moving for the winters, which is the hometown of tomorrow. It's advanced thinking so, and you're, you've been one of my mentors with that Ed for many years, whether you knew it or not, and all the years we didn't talk, but we've been running each other for a number of years now since then. So great pleasure to have you here today and, believe it or not, we're eight seconds away from being out of time. So one last thought.

Ed Satell: 26:56

Think we, not just me.

Marc Bernstein: 26:59

That's great, and I know you've had a great team around you, which is one of the reasons why you are where you are today. It that's great, and I know you've had a great team around you, which is one of the reasons why you are where you are today. It's been an amazing run.

Ed Satell: 27:07

Attracting a top team. Try to be a great person for the team, and the better you are, the better you'll make the team, and that helps everybody.

Marc Bernstein: 27:18

Yeah, you know, we actually I was wrong. We actually have about another 40 seconds Quickly, your three-year vision. What do you see for the future for yourself and your company and your institute?

Ed Satell: 27:27

Well, I'm in the age of giving back, yeah, and I love the age of giving back. We have a lot of turmoil in the society, but we have many advantages, one of the things that I grew up with I did not come from a wealthy family. I did not inherit money, but I did inherit something very important I inherited being a citizen of the United States of America. That gave me opportunity here. I was a poor kid and trying to do things against the and compete with people who are well-trained. So give it your best, give it your all, and you can't ask for more than that.

Marc Bernstein: 28:11

Wise words from Ed Satell. Thank you all for being here today on Founders Forum and we're going to have more of Ed on part two and you'll hear that next week or you'll see it on your podcast very soon. Have a great day.