--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. We have a tremendous conversation for you today with Mark J. Kohler. He is the founder of Main Street Tax Pro, where he has trained tens of thousands of tax professionals as well as Main Street business owners to become certified in understanding how to maximize their activity around their taxes, how they pay the least and get the most back, right? How you do it right, how you build a business properly set up for taxes.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): And Mark's expertise goes so far beyond that. While he's kind of come out of the tax and legal environment, his expertise has expanded well beyond just tax and legal into Main Street business operations. In so far as this year, he was invited to Davos for the World Economic Forum to speak to the international community about small business in the United States.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): We dig into the Trump tax cuts or the proposed tax cuts and how they can impact us as Main Street business owners and everyday operators here in the U.S., as well as so many other topics. You're going to love this one. High energy, lots of enthusiasm, tons of impact. Get ready. Buckle up. Here comes Mark J. Kohler.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): Mark, dude, appreciate your time. Appreciate you coming on the show. I'm excited to have this conversation today.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): No, it's my honor. Seriously, I really appreciate opportunities like this so we can both impact more people. It's wonderful.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): Yeah, so I want to get right into the meat and potatoes of something that just came out. Trump just released his proposed tax cuts. There's a ton of stuff in there, right? And then there's all this information coming from, we'll call them, people who don't agree with Trump or tend to not agree with him. And there's a lot of information that I think, and I'm getting people reaching out to me, and I don't know anything about taxes. But buddies are like, "Hey, how does this impact us? Is this what he promised?" Et cetera.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): So, I guess maybe let's start with the extension of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in terms of what he had in place before, he's kind of bringing back. And maybe just in general breakdown for us. Is this really tax cuts for the labor class, for the middle class, for Main Street, as he promised and as it seems? Or is this, as we're being told from the other side, a backdoor into tax cuts for billionaires and all his oligarchical friends?
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): Yeah, it's a wonderful question. And I don't want any of the listeners here to think I'm just out on the Trump campaign trail. I am not. I am all for Main Street America. And whether it's Democrat or Republican, let's pass good tax legislation to help small business owners and real estate investors. Because that's the backbone of this country. It's not the big corporations. It's 90% of our economy are small business owners with less than 100 employees.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): So I'm with you. We are going to hope that this new legislation this year will have the best and the most impact on that segment of our country and that economy. So, what's kind of fun here is we've got Terminator 1. Now we get Terminator 2. So what did we see in the first movie? In the first movie, that's exactly what we got. We got bonus depreciation for equipment and real estate investors, the opportunity zone provisions, better deductions for autos and mileage, better tax rates. We simplified the tax rates and lowered the tax rates across the board for the wealthy and the middle class and the low. Everybody got a tax cut.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): And so that Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was about 500 pages, I used to carry it around with me for a year or two as I was on the road explaining it, wrote a second edition of my book to explain it. It was packed with a lot of stuff. But here's the interesting point. The guts of it was, we're going to offer all these tax incentives for the middle class, lower tax rates, and these tax strategies. How in the hell are we going to pay for it? He brought foreign corporations, U.S. corporations doing business abroad. They had to bring their revenue back to the U.S. He slammed all the foreign bank account issues going on in Switzerland and multiple countries. He was tough on the corporations. He said, "Bring your money back to the U.S. And in turn, I'll give you a 21% corporate tax rate. But I want all this money brought on shore." So that's what a budget has to do.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): So when he passes this bill, everybody, last point, when you pass a budget like this or bill, it's got to balance in 10 years. It's a legislative requirement, so it's got to balance the tenure. So where the government giveth all these great cool tax strategies, he's got to show how we're going to pay for it. And I'll tell you how we're going to pay for this round. But your first question was, did the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act really do that? It did. And we saw it, and we saw the economy flourish. Will he do it again? We're all crossing our fingers, and the promises he made this week say he is. So we can get into how he's going to pay for it.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): Yeah, and hopefully it's going to work. Before we get to how he's going to pay for it, one of the things I'd really like to with each topic that we address today, I would love to get into the almost like how people who are fighting this. Because I follow along with what's going on. You hear Elizabeth Warren, you hear Chuck Schumer, you hear Bernie Sanders and everything they say, you know, AOC. These guys stand up or they go on social media and it's just this drumbeat of "This doesn't help anybody but the elite. This is just him glad-handing his friends."
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): How are they? Is that argument just completely based in false narrative? If you're sitting here and you're not educated, you don't follow along with what these things are going on, and you just pop your head in and you hear these two sides, how is someone supposed to start to really make up their own mind? How do we sort through all this conversation that to me feels so often like a very intellectually dishonest take on what's happening?
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): Ryan, your skepticism is completely valid. And millions of Americans are frustrated, frustrated by this. They turn on mainstream media or listen to a C-SPAN cut hearing, throw it out on social media, and they're like, "What the hell? Trump just said he's not going to tax tips. He's not going to tax Social Security. He's not going to tax overtime. We're going to keep our tax rates off. That's what he campaigned on. That's what he followed through before, and he says, 'I'm going to do it again.' Then how in the hell can I turn on my social media feed and Bernie Sanders or some other congressional senator or congressman says, 'Trump's evil. He's really going to get breaks to billionaires.'" You're like, "How do I reconcile this?"
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): It frustrates the hell out of me, someone that's read tax legislation my whole career from the left and the right side. Here's the only way I can make sense of it, Ryan. And two years ago, I'd sound like a conspiracy theorist. Now you're like, "Holy crap, maybe this is true." And that is, look at the USAID issue right now. And when we see the USAID budget funding mainstream media, not only in the US, but all over the world, sending out disinformation, wanting to censor so that they can control their narrative, so they can keep spending this money however the hell they want, and we're just getting the tip of the iceberg.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): Maybe the left and some of these folks running all of these NGOs do have an agenda to villainize Trump and make him look stupid. Maybe they are so brainwashed as well. And these NGOs and others have lobbied these political representatives on the left to just say, "Trump is crazy. Trump is bad." The syndrome of this focus that everything he says is evil. Maybe they are doing it unconsciously, unknowingly, but there's some evil stuff going out there. And maybe that's the message we have to go. Let's just see what Trump does. And when he pulls this off and we see tax savings, maybe for once some of these folks will wake up and go, "All right, I was fed a bunch of bullshit."
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): So I've been in sales marketing my whole life, leadership negotiation positions. So I'm always kind of analyzing the argument that people make. And I'm very intrigued by how the left makes arguments because I often disagree with their core of the argument or most of the time. However, they still make these arguments and they're politicians or they're talking heads. So this is what they do for a living. They're intelligent. And they're not dummies, right?
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): So I was listening to Elizabeth Warren as she was grandstanding about the Treasury or the federal court, a circuit court judge blocking Doge's access to the Treasury information or limiting their access, right? And she's standing up there and claiming this as a win for the American people. Yet this organization in a very short period of time, in this case, Doge, has found all this incredible waste. And I'm like, OK, if I'm trying to make this argument and I'm just interested in your take as someone who's also in the business space and have done all the deals that you've done. If I'm going to make this argument that Trump is evil, the proper way to argue this would be to concede the small points in which he is making wins. There is obviously fraud happening in the system that cannot be denied at this point.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): They will stand up there, completely ignore that and make this argument that it's all about the oligarchs. So is it truly that they're just so captured? And I'm trying to get to how we work these things out in our head if we're not as involved as maybe you and I are. Is it just that they're so captured? Could it be that the corruption is so deep they don't want to lose their money train? Or is it honestly that they just lost the narrative because they live in this tiny little bubble and they just simply don't see that these things that the American people, the boots on the ground American people, are looking at eight million dollars for DEI studies in some other country that's not here, and they just can relate to that?
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): I think it's a little of both. You're smart enough to get that. I love the way you're analyzing this. But I think it's a combination of both of those. And then you blend in their lobbyist money, the cyclical rotation of the unelected officials that are in Washington on the left as well. And that's a big money train for them. And they're going to feed Elizabeth Warren and others the narrative that benefits them. And I have to believe some of those political representatives have been bamboozled, tricked, fed so much information. They are literally in that little bubble of a different reality. And then I have to believe some know exactly what they're doing.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): They're scared to death that when USAID comes out with the real story of who's got paychecks under the table, it's going to be ugly. It is going to be crazy. And I think there's going to be Republicans as well on that list for sure. So why was Elizabeth Warren able to get up and say, "We don't want Doge to forgive us"? Why? He doesn't have check writing ability. Holy crap. He just wants to go in there and go, "Let's see where all the money went." I'd love that. James Stewart was doing an interview the other day. And even the Democrat talking heads are like, "Let's get to the bottom of this. Holy crap. What's there to fear?" And I just think it's unauthentic. Or just they're brainwashed.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): Continuing down the USAID path and Doge, how does the work that Doge is doing, finding these things, how will that trickle back down for someone who is Main Street? They own a coffee shop, they own some rental properties in town. How does that work in all these stories? How does that trickle down and actually impact us on Main Street?
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): Okay. This is probably my biggest message. And I held a live on this last week and it blew up. This is so super important. So let's just for a minute, if you can folks, let's assume whether you love Trump style or not. We can go there and all that crap. But with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, we all kind of felt some cool stuff. If you're a business owner or a real estate investor, man, that tax bill has some sweet provisions in it. Let's say he's going to propose this again, which he is up at the hill right now. His team is talking with GOP leaders. They're crafting a bill. It's going to be a monster. I'll be breaking it down back here with you, Ryan, when it comes out, man. But it's going to be sweet.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): How in the hell this gets to the payment? How is he going to pay for it? He's already cut. He's already got so much of the corporate revenue back on shore. How is he going to pay for it? Well, he said, this is super cool, we're going to use tariffs and we're going to use Doge. It's kind of like we all have a house. We all have a household. And what are we spending our money on? I spend way too much money on DoorDash. I mean, I should not spend as much as I do on DoorDash. I think it's the coolest app ever. In two or three minutes, I can get whatever the hell I want. I'm like, "I'll pay the 10 bucks. That saves me an hour. I don't want to drive over there." I love it, but it is way too bad on my budget. It is not good. It is inefficient. Now, I'm not ripping off anybody, but there's some inefficiency there.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): So if we can create some efficiency in the government, that's how these USAID issues really play out. Because if we can find billions of dollars over here that's being wasted or spent in areas we don't want it, and we can turn around and pay for a tax cut for not taxing Social Security because it's going to cost us. There's a couple billion dollars a year that comes in on tax revenue by taxing Social Security. So if we say we're not going to tax it, we got to make up for that 200 billion. So how do we do it? Well, we're going to tariff a country that has an unequal trade balance with us. And also, and I love this was in his proposal, I'm going to give a tax cut to U.S. made product.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): So yeah, you might go to Walmart and your favorite razor just doubled in price because it was made in China. But then the shave club, theirs just went down 20%. Well, maybe we start buying U.S. made, benefit those companies. And if the country out there wants to push their crap in our country and they won't take our goods, then we're going to tax it and we're going to take that revenue and give it back to Main Street America. That's the plan.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): Now, whether you like Trump or not, and there's a lot of disinformation out there that our tariffs are bad. And by the way, I was just in Davos at the World Economic Forum three weeks ago. We can talk about that. But the countries that are worried about this are the ones that are upside down with us. Germany, they don't take our cars, but they're going to push their Mercedes and BMWs on us. And so we're like, "What? Okay, let's make this a little fair here." The countries that have an equal trade balance with us, they're not worried. They're like, "That's cool, we're not on Trump's radar." And so we're going to use that revenue to help our economy anyway.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): No, I think it's supposed to happen. We'll see how it goes. And I think you just made a wonderful point, and I think a lot of people are unaware of is taking Germany as a use case, taking China as a use case. There are a lot of countries that we import a tremendous amount of their goods, and it's not that they just don't buy our stuff. They don't allow our stuff in or they're tariffing us to sell our materials, whatever those be, in their country. So it's this idea and the pushback around the tariff. And I get that it scares people, right? It's different. It's not what generations of Americans today are used to, et cetera. However, it is a tool that is actively used against us around the world.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): Yes. They're all completely used to it. It's how they make revenue is tariffing goods that would come in from the United States. We just haven't done it in return. So it's not like we're this bully who just decided to all of a sudden start pushing tariffs on everyone. This is what's been happening to our manufacturers in our country, which is why so many of our manufacturing plants moved. I mean, it's not the only reason, but it is part of the reason. If they then move their manufacturing operations into foreign entities, now they can actually sell at a reduced rate in those countries. And then we wonder where the jobs go, right? But there's so many layers to this that I think it becomes very confusing for people.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): And I want to get to the World Economic Forum in a minute because I did not know you went there, and I'm incredibly interested. But I guess my last question on this topic before we move is if you're a Main Street business owner or you're just interested and you're trying to become more informed, besides coming and following your content, which guys, I would highly, highly recommend. I am not just stroking Mark's ego. It is incredible tax, general business, business formation, all this kind of stuff. Wonderful, wonderful content. So we're going to direct everyone to you. Where else, how else do people start to set up information filters in their life so that they can get information that isn't necessarily biased one way or the other, or maybe has the least amount of bias that they can start to download and understand these issues on their own?
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): Well, here's what I'd offer to your listeners. And please hear me out here. Let's take the NFL for a moment. Let's say Jalen Hurts. You're like, "I really don't like him as a quarterback." Now I took you to the Super Bowl, cool. But early in the season he was getting a lot of heat. He was getting a lot of heat for the way he'd run the ball or not, or pass the ball or not. I mean, Stephen A. Smith beat the crap out of him. I love that guy. Okay, so but you're an Eagles fan and you're like, "You know what, I'm gonna get behind Jalen because holy crap, he's all we got. He is our quarterback." So I mean, I love the guy, but he might pull it off for us. And he did.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): All right, so here's my offer to all of you out there. Trump style can be a little abrasive. He may not have the personal lifestyle choices that you would like or whatever the case. And there's a lot of accurate information and misinformation out there. You go find a politician that's lived a squeaky clean life, but besides J.D. Vance, good luck. So go out there and find that perfect politician. You know what? Why don't we find a politician that's going to go kick ass for us? May not like him. And you may have not voted for him, but guess what? He's your quarterback now.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): So here's what I'd offer to those listening. There is a lot of rhetoric out there. There's a lot of people afraid of what he's uncovering. He's going in there kicking ass, and it was like too big to rig. He's like, "Hey, the majority of the country said, 'All right, Trump, go for it.'" Many people voted for him. They're like, "I don't really like the guy, but I love his message. He didn't blow up the country before, so let's get behind him." And I think we just all need to take a chill pill. Let's just give him the shot. And he's not doing anything now that he didn't campaign on. There's been no big surprise, except he's just doing what he said. So if Elizabeth Warren is freaking out, maybe because she's worried about something or someone's telling her to be worried about something.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): So I would just offer people, worry about your own economy. Worry about your own entity, your own bookkeeping. What's your market mix? What's your sales mix? What are you doing this year to expand and grow? The economy is looking so good. Real estate markets are starting to climb again. I just bought two parcels of real estate in the last three months. I'm in crypto. I'm doing small business. I'm hiring employees. I'm like, "Game on." Let's get behind our quarterback. And so I just think that's what I'd offer people. Getting caught up in all the rhetoric isn't healthy. It's not worth it. I want to watch the news. I want to see this train crash. USAID train wrecks coming. But watch it for fun and just be patient. I really, really believe it's going to be a hell of a ride, and we're all going to come out on the back end of this blown away of how stronger our country is going to be. Whether you're a Democrat or not, it's okay. Let's just win the Super Bowl. How about we do that? Let's get behind your quarterback.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): Yeah, I think that's a really good point. It is okay to not like him, not have voted for him, but still engage in his economy in a way that's productive for everybody. It's the way that it is. And I agree with you. I mean, I just look at the Super Bowl advertisements, the way that it was displayed. I mean, you have Kendrick Lamar out there with red, white, and blue everywhere. It was a very different Super Bowl than we've seen. They were playing YMCA in the crowd and chanting USA. I'm like, "Yes! Where are we?" This is freaking awesome.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): Yeah, it really was fun. I mean, I just remember I'm sitting there with my kids and some friends, and I just kept whacking everybody like, "Are we back? Are we back?" I just, it was like, "Is it okay to like be pro-America again?" I mean, I always have. Isn't that weird that we have that? But it's true.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's funny. I want to get to the WEF, but I'll give you this anecdote. So I live in New York state, very blue. My area, I live in upstate, so it tends to be more red, but it's blue in general, right? During the first Trump presidency, if you had a Trump sign out in 2016, there were people driving around ripping them out, et cetera. So in August of this year, I put out two signs. I put out a Trump sign, and then I put out "Presidents are temporary, but Wu-Tang is forever." And I spaced them about 10 feet apart. And the best part was even my Democrat friends that were walking by my house when they're walking their dog or whatever, like, "Oh, I like your signs." They're like, "I wish I could put them out." But no one ripped them down. No one stole them. And that was like a sign for me very early that I was like something is changing. Because there was so much energy.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): I think people are starting to realize that being America first, focusing on Main Street, coming back to our communities, really dialing into our day to day lives and getting out of all this focusing on these exceptions instead of what really the core of growing our country is. It's an exciting time. And I'm with you. I think it's time to, if you've got capital on the side, now's the time to have your antennas up, be looking to deploy, be looking to see what's going on, because I think opportunity is going to be everywhere over the next four years.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): So coming off of that, let's talk about the World Economic Forum. One, very cool you're there. What is it like? For someone who's obviously never been, I'm very interested. What's it like? And then maybe why you went and what you took away.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): Oh, you bet. Thanks for asking. And it was kind of unexpected. About four or five months ago, one of the houses that sponsors some of the presentations and panels and events asked me to come speak and represent small business. But can you do that, Mark, and come on your own dime? See, so many people there are sponsored by governments or big corporations and big NGOs. Like we're trying to deal with climate control and AI. I mean, if I hear the words "sustainability" and "AI" in the same sentence again, I'm going to punch someone in the face. But anyway, it was a really unique opportunity because I got to speak on behalf of America's small business and really world small business.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): So many other countries, you walk into a little pizza shop in Italy and it's a mom and dad trying to pass on a legacy to their kids. And it's everywhere. Every country is built on that small business mindset and they get forgotten. So that was my opportunity. So I talked about having a family office, having your own family business, having your own board meeting with your little family office, three doors down the hallway on the left with a couch in it. You don't need to be a billionaire. And something I speak about all the time and love.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): And so I go over there and I expected to be invited to crazy parties where they were planning black swan events or, you know, sort of like what's going on. Am I going to get on a jet and head to some island in the Caribbean? What's going to happen here? You get your bunker assigned to you at that time. It's like, "Here's your card. If you ever call a jet, we'll call and pick you up." So anyway, you have all these conspiracy theories. And the biggest shocker was, of course, I knew we were going to go to Switzerland in this beautiful little town with snow and all these little Swiss villages. It was just gorgeous. But I got there and, oh my gosh, everybody I met was just another business owner. Yeah, there was some corporate representatives and some diplomats and this and that, but everybody was like, "Hey, you got a card? What's going on?"
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): And the biggest takeaway, you'll love this. Americans don't think big enough. I would be talking to a young couple that just invented a new gin, or another couple that was selling some caviar or another food product of some sort, another couple that was doing some automotive parts or this or that, doing some music, doing any business I would bump into. They're like, "Yeah, I'm trying to scale this globally. I'm in five countries already." I'm like, "What?" And I'm like, we as America, we just get in our bubble and don't realize there is a whole economy out there worldwide for us. And I was like, "Wow." And that was very empowering for me because I think there's so many people in the U.S. that do have products and services. They could sell worldwide or expand a little bit for some of that. And there may not be a tariff where you want to sell it.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really interesting. This idea that you, that's contrary to I think what most people are listening to. I think most people listening were probably like, "Oh, we're Americans. We're Wild West gunslingers, the frontier. We think big. Everything is bigger here." And I can see that. So I come out of the insurance industry. My home industry is the insurance industry, property casualty. And the regulation, the way people think, it actually has compartmentalized it down to where most people can't think outside their state because the states are individually regulated for insurance, et cetera. And it's a big deal for someone to go from one state to two states to multi-state, et cetera. And the idea of thinking that you can take an American insurance product or insurance company and expand it internationally is also very foreign. So in my own industry, I can kind of see that. But I would expect like tech or B2C products, brand products, that that would almost be a natural fit. How, from your conversations, would you recommend someone who's listening start to think a little bigger about what's out there and how would you actually do that?
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): I love it. And I want to circle back. I just had a thought, too, on AI you're going to love because it was a big theme. AI is a big issue or opportunity. So we'll cut. But here's the thing. I tell businesses to first start with how can you sell your product or services scale? I love to talk about scaling. And there's going to be breakpoints, how many employees you need, how much infrastructure, software. There's going to be breakpoints to get you to different levels. But the first thing is looking at your product and mix and saying, "How can I duplicate myself if it's service driven? If it's product driven, what are the ancillary ways that I could make money doing this?"
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): Quick example. I have clients that are, let's go with music. So I had a kid that was very talented and he was a drummer in a band. And he was in this little town doing drum lessons for kids for 25 bucks an hour. But he'd go on tour here and there, and they were trying to make their break. But being in a band and a drummer was his passion. All right, cool. So I'd be like, "Well, how are you making money?" "Well, the band makes a little bit of money. I'm working down at a restaurant serving, and I give some lessons." I go, "That's it?" He's like, "Well, yeah, what else can I do?"
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): I'm like, sit down, bud. Number one, we're going to start doing drumming lessons online. You can do lessons online with live YouTube or live links and start selling. Do some riffs on the YouTube, start building a channel and offer drum lessons for $50 an hour live around the world. People can book a lesson with you on how to do the riff you just did. Number two, we're going to start making videos of you teaching kids how to drum, 10 lessons, 199 bucks. And then we're going to create an ongoing membership to be a part of your drumming community where they can get together and practice and do online, like Hall and Oates would hold their little drum sessions in the basement. And you're going to do that. Number four, you're going to get an Amazon link and start selling drum kits to your students worldwide and make three to five percent on every drum package sold. You don't have to have a storefront. Next, you're going to start teaching classes on this online to groups. So not only are you going to have individual lessons, you're going to have group lessons. I don't want to just go on and on. And you can do that from your basement in Duluth, Minnesota. And he was like, "Yeah, you can make millions, become an online marketer for your passion." So we just, I just think now sometimes our business model doesn't allow for that. I get it. But sometimes we can think about what are we passionate about? What do we love? What are some options to sell my product or service that are outside of the box? The world is our oyster now.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): Yeah, I love that. And I work in AI and insurance now. I had my own commercial insurance agency that I grew and sold. And when I exited that, I became the board member of an AI company that eventually sucked me in because I was so interested in the tool and what we were doing that now I'm the chief growth officer. But I look at it and there's a lot of hand-wringing around AI and what it's going to do. Particularly, our product is focused on the insurance industry. So there's a lot of insurance professionals that are now thinking to themselves, "Well, I used to have to stamp 10 TPS reports and slide them across my desk, and then I'd file them over here. And now all of that can be done digitally without me having to input it. So what the hell do I do?" And what I find, what I've been advocating and where I see us going is we start to, all tasks, all non-expertise-driven tasks are going to be, we'll call them AI-itized out of the system. It's just coming. However, what that does allow us to do is move into fields that are more human to human oriented, like what you just described. That could be a sales position. It could be a phone position, because while I do know AI can do voice, I still believe that most consumers with problems beyond just maybe simple credit card changes or whatever, they're going to want to talk to a human. They're going to want to connect.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): I actually had a woman on the show recently, and she's talking about how most brands are going to move from their "why" to their "who." It's starting to become, "I want to do business with Mark because I like his style. I like the way he dresses. I like the energy that he brings. I like his take on things." Now I'm not necessarily interested in why you're here, but I really like you, the person. I like the way you deliver it. I like how you talk to me. I believe you care, et cetera. And the beauty of that move, and this is where I'm interested in your take if you agree or not, is it gives every single human the ability to offer their max value. Because no longer is it my value as I show up, I punch in at 8, I slide TPS reports across my desk for 8 hours, and then I punch out and I go home. It's, "What is the unique thing that I can bring to this company, to this set of customers?" I can deliver that in a way that is unique to me that cannot be replaced. I think it's going to be difficult. It's a culture change for a lot of people, particularly those that have been in big organizations, but the amount of opportunity that it creates is so immense and so exciting that, regardless of what the conversation is around AI, I can't be more optimistic about where we're headed with it included in our marketplace. So that's kind of my take. I'm super interested in yours.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): No, I love it. I want to answer it this way, because it was a unique situation where it kind of went full circle. So we get to Davos and of course there's AI everywhere, robots walking on the streets. I mean, it was pretty trippy. And my wife, Patty, she's amazing. We are a freaking power couple together. She makes me such a better man. She was asked to speak on a panel with the ambassador to Switzerland and a real estate developer in Dubai about relationships and about emotion and connection. And this was refreshing: even the people that were promoting AI said it can't replace the human spirit. So when she was able to talk about emotion and relationships, people were like, "Bam, we needed that on the stage," because everybody was getting so down that rabbit hole, going so far down the rabbit hole of AI, they forgot, "Oh, we're humans."
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): So what happened through those conversations that started to occur wherever we were going was: if you don't want to innovate, if you don't want to be creative, if you don't want to show emotion, if you don't want to build relationships and you're kind of a task-oriented person, you should be nervous. A robot can freaking do your job. If you can envision a robot doing your job, you got something to worry about. But if you want to leverage your energy, these ideas, this power, and you want to build relationships and communicate and build something, AI is like your superpower. Because now all of these other tasks that take away our resources and take away our energy can now be automated and taken care of so we can take our internal spirit to the next freaking level. And that's where AI can be so powerful. It was just a revelation. I love your optimism that you're not afraid of it. You're seeing it as a way to blow up your life and make it better. Some people are going to have to make some changes if they want to stay relevant.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): Yeah, I follow Naval Ravikant on Twitter, and he's an amazing follow wherever you can get his content. He posts these one-sentence things that just grab you. He's got this way of being very succinct but also very powerful. This wasn't revolutionary, but he's huge into the AI space and technology. He's been an investor in all these things. He had this simple tweet that was, I'm paraphrasing a little bit, basically like, "If you think like an entrepreneur, AI will never be a problem." You just highlighted the one place where I see the most pain as AI becomes a deeper part of our culture: the individuals who are willing to or have succumbed to just showing up, transacting, whatever widget or TPS report is part of their job or the company they're with, and then they go home. I think if they're doing that in an effort to support a side hustle or a passion, well, then there's still opportunity there because now AI brings the potential to bring that passion and make it a full-time career.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): However, if you're the wake up 30 minutes before the alarm, go to work, take your lunch break, your two 15 minutes, come home, order DoorDash, throw on Netflix, go to sleep, do it again the next day person, it's going to be a very painful transition. My recommendation for anyone listening is if you are that person, although if you're listening to the show, I'd be surprised if you are. But if you know someone like that, there's someone in your company like that, and you feel that sense of wanting to help in some way, start having these conversations with your friends that you care about to wake them up. Because it's coming. And it's coming faster than anybody who's not involved could have ever imagined. It's scary.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): Dude, I've got one for you and you're going to love this. We're running out of time here, but I'll say it quickly. I came back with a lot of action and some opportunities, but the one I'm really jazzed about. So I went in, I got with several AI houses that were focused on AI innovation with different sectors and different industries. I was networking with a bunch of them. Here's what I'm doing, my next little project that I'm so stoked about. You know how you go on your Instagram, whatever, and you're verified. Blue check mark. I know that's right. I can trust in that. It's been verified. It's not some other Yahoo trying to be your voice. Well, the technology is close. It's really close where I'm going to create Mark Kohler number two. So I'm going to have Mark Kohler number two verified by me. I have written thousands of words. I've got five books. I've got over 200 blog articles, 400 podcasts. I've got so much content that I can drive into an AI platform and say, "How would Mark Kohler say this?" I can go to several ChatGPT and say, "How would Mark Kohler explain the home office?" And I am blown away how close it is to even the fluctuation of my voice.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): So I can create this virtual robot that's verified by me to be Mark Kohler number two, and I can put them on my website. "Ask Mark Kohler a question." I could even charge for this. So you can pay X and you're going to get Mark Kohler's answer right here. This is the Mark Kohler number two. Mark's busy out there building relationships, innovating, leading teams, out there talking, shaking hands, kissing babies. But you just need his brain to answer this question. And you want to hear it the way Mark Kohler would say it and have it verified by him that it wouldn't be bullshit. Go here and ask it a question. So Mark Kohler number two, dude, that's the one. He's going to look kind of like Brad Pitt. I mean, I'm going to go for that. Now, I've grown on my hair from Matthew McConaughey because I love him, but I'm not sure what my AI is going to look like. But he's out there and he's going to be my partner. I'm so stoked.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): Yeah, like, you got the, to bring back the Eagles theme that we got the Bradley Cooper look going there. No, the reason I love that idea and I've been looking at some of those tools and just researching them a little bit as well, is that what it frees you up to do is go have more experiences, more conversations, think deeper about topics. You can spend more time digging in and getting your hands around your understanding of topics like what we started the conversation about, the Trump tax cut proposals. Really dig in, give that information to the AI, and then go back and spend more time out in the world interacting with people, learning. So it's like if you also had to deliver all that information, it takes away from your time learning, experiencing, growing, gathering more. So it creates this repository that will not go away. That is the accumulation of what you know, and it frees you up to go expand and become even deeper in your understanding so that you can feed the thing more and deeper and richer information. I mean, to me, it's the future of how content is delivered. I think it's fantastic.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): Mark, I can't wait to have you back on the show, man. You have an open invitation anytime you want. I could talk to you for another hour and it would be easy. Obviously, the YouTube channel I want to drive people to. But where else, if they want to get deeper into your world, should they go?
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): Oh, thank you so much. This has been just delightful. Time flew by, dude. You're so, I get interviewed, and for those that do follow podcasts, you just kind of know when you're listening to someone that really is thoughtful and insightful and knows their stuff. And that's you, Ryan. I really appreciate you having me. My website is a great jumping off point to have a consult with one of my lawyers, get over your IRA or 401k over to my trust company and buy crypto. And if you're a tax advisor or a certified financial planner, I'm certifying people as tax advisors so they can level up in any industry. It's a great community. It's just been blowing up. So markjkohler.com, check it out. I've got all this at markjkohler.com. I've also got all the social media platforms and YouTube and go live there once a week, helping answer questions.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): But I just want to say the American dream is still alive and real. Let's be patient. Let's not just jump on every rhetoric statement that's out there. We've got a quarterback on the field. Let's let him move the ball a little bit. He's going to make some mistakes, but holy crap, the ball's moving. It's crazy that we actually have a press corps and a press secretary and there's a president out there communicating and doesn't need a teleprompter. Let's have some fun. Let's build this incredible place we call America and think bigger and be a better neighbor to these countries around us and ask for fair play. I think it's okay. I think it's going to turn out. I'm optimistic. America's back, baby.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): Thank you, Mark.
--:-- Host (Ryan Hanley): Thanks, man.
--:-- Guest (Mark J. Kohler): Awesome, dude. That was great.
