Jad Mawlawi: Human Interaction in a Digital World

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Hey, it’s Damon Burton with learning from others. And today joining us is Jad Mawlawi. His company is Dooply, and I think this company is pretty interesting. It’s kind of cool. They’re focused on human to human marketing interactions and endorsements. Welcome to the show, John. Thank you, David. So why don’t you tell our listeners a little bit more, um, because your business model is interesting because it’s, um, you know, a lot of your audience or clients are from the digital world, but the way you approach that.

Is more hands on through human to human interaction. So can you explain that to our listeners a little bit more? Yeah. So basically right now, the, uh, the company is focused on humans as the main, like kind of like a vehicle to spread any kind of message. And of course it should be a legitimate message. So, uh, the first thing that we do as a company, if any client.

So is going to come and approach us and ask for our services as the first constructed, very legitimate, legitimate cause and message. And then we can, uh, just, uh, spread this message through people and humans endorsing this message. They can get viral because basically like this model, it basically came out from the idea that right now.

So it’s, there’s a lot of saturation in the market, especially in the marketing Asia, uh, industry. And, uh, it’s, it’s not really a competitive, more to just rely on traditional marketing. What really can, can make a difference and can give you a competitive edge is basically if you can. Make your message it cause, and through this, cause you can make people endorse it and they can spread it all over the world.

So it’s almost like you helped them start a movement. So, so what types of clients do you work with? You know, what type of businesses or what type? Give us an example of the types of messages that maybe somebody might come to you and, and spread. So, for example, like there’s a couple of, like, there’s a lot of, uh, different scenarios here, but in general, um, we cannot take all kinds of, uh, like, uh, clients.

We need some clients with a very legitimate message and very genuine, uh, so that we can build a cause that can be endorsed by, uh, Like get people who are actually like good people. We always like to think of it, like doing something good for the world and influencing the world to the better. So it is very essential for us to, uh, actually choose our clients.

Um, of course the clients they’re going to choose us because we are one of, uh, many like, uh, Marketing company, but where we are very unconventional. Uh, but we choose the clients usually. And when a client comes to you, how do you start? And, and on average, how long do you work with a client? Well, it depends on the, uh, on the campaign that they want to launch.

Uh, uh, uh, like the first thing that we do is that we sit with them and we try to build some kind of a personal relationship and try to see exactly what their intentions are behind this campaign. So if we, uh, figure out like that, there is something, uh, that is not very aligned. Uh, with our vision as a company then, uh, w we, won’t just, uh, we’ll just tell them that we can take this campaign.

However, if the client comes to us with a very genuine and ethical, uh, message, uh, we are very happy to, uh, Take it further and the just spread it all over the world and to make people endorse it. And it’s all about like these days, it’s no longer about marketing a product or a marketing service or something like that these days.

It’s about your message and the more powerful your message is, the more reach you have. So it’s like the message is very important. I really emphasize on this, like creating a cause it movements. Around it because you need to engage people. Right? It’s all about engagement and engaging people. Like when I say people here, you’ve got a lot of kinds of people, so you’ve got the, uh, the, the person who is just like, uh, who’s looking for inspiration and you’ve got the person who has the inspire, uh, himself or herself.

And you also have, uh, journalists who are also like looking for inspiration as well. So you need to engage all of these people and to make them endorse your cause. And you cannot do that if you don’t have a very legitimate cause. Right. And it, and like you said, it seems like authenticity is key, especially in, in the world of, you know, technology nowadays, or everybody is just constantly having sales pitches thrown out.

Um, now it seems like you have a really good balance. Between, um, the business world and having a cause. And so I’m sure that has a lot to do with you as a personal individual as well. And, and I’ll find you had some interesting comments about human to human approach outside of business about trying to rebuild society and interacting kind of the old way.

And, and you had said by not being confined to our screens and to kind of continue on that. What I thought was interesting, you had mentioned in a, in a world where many think. Uh, it has lost its way. You had mentioned that you feel like entrepreneurs and architects and politicians and citizens are going to get more excited about utopian, ideals and new ways of living.

And the examples you gave was local independence movements, um, community gardening, colliding spaces, um, you know, how did you get what brought you to. To be introduced to this world of balancing and, you know, still being an entrepreneur and a businessman, but also, still being in touch with the human side of the world.

All right. So basically a technology and social media in particular created a lot of new ways to connect. Now, these ways are not always healthy. Because, uh, like it’s true that it increased connectivity, but the quality of connectivity has changed a lot. People are very much influenced by what they see on their phones and social media.

And, uh, this camp. Yeah, it’s really easy to influence people to the bad, you know what I mean, to get them to be very available. And there’s a lot of, like, people are trying to do that because a lot of people have different agendas and I don’t want to get into like details, but this is where we come. We are here to try to use this vehicle of influence, which is social media.

To try to leave a good impact on people. And if, uh, how is this related to my personality? Like on a personal level? I think it’s because I come from a very disciplined backgrounds and, uh, I really believe that, uh, I have a purpose and my purpose is to, uh, try to leave, uh, Like the best impact I can on people try to inspire people to do good.

Like, to be honest though, the whole world is going like into a, into a place where it’s really like a very uncertain and, uh, happiness has been, uh, like a concept that’s really hard to actually experienced these days. A lot of people are very unsatisfied with what they have. And, uh, we are here just to try our best to, uh, to make, uh, to give people, uh, some direction because we believe that we are also responsible.

We’ve got a lot of responsibilities and we are dedicated to that. I think it’s a great idea. Uh, you know, one item that you had also mentioned. It was about, uh, one example was agnostic churches like London, Sunday assembly. And, and I went and looked it up. And I found that really interesting because, um, where I’m based out of is just North of salt Lake city, Utah.

And a lot of, I don’t know how familiar you are with Utah, but a lot of our listeners will be familiar that it has a large religious culture. And, um, it’s Utah’s is very divided because it’s, it’s almost 50 50, where half of it is really predominantly a Mormon based religion. And then the other half, you have the counterculture and not entirely a counterculture culture, but you have the people that don’t associate with any religion.

And I think the concept of this Sunday assembly was interesting where it’s not really religious, a specific religion. Based, but it’s an opportunity for people to get together and celebrate life in general. And I think that’s a great opportunity for a lot of these, um, you know, people in the U S I know a lot of countries outside of the U S are becoming more comfortable with, uh, You know, some people being agnostic, but also, or atheist, but also being just as, you know, you know, co-mingling like, you can like religion and somebody else doesn’t find it to be, um, what they’re interested in, but that they can still get along.

And, and it seems like the U S is a little behind on that. Co-mingling and I think something like that Sunday assembly is something that a lot of our listeners would find, um, really interesting. Cause it was new to me. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Now you had said you come from, um, a strict background. Now I found it interesting how well traveled you are and, you know, you’ve lived in a lot of different places.

And so you had mentioned to me, Cyprus, Lebanon, Canada, and, and UK. So was your traveling, was that something that you just did on your own or was it part of your family relocating? No, actually it was just by myself about like, I have my family in Lebanon. Uh, but I always, I always liked to travel for a purpose, uh, not just tourism.

So I always had the purpose in mind and coming to the UK, of course, like, uh, my purpose here was to establish a. My like presence in the UK. Uh, my mother, she came to the UK in the seventies. She was 18 years old. And, uh, she lived here for like 10 years. Yeah. And, uh, and then she went back to Lebanon and it was like war.

It was really like bad times, et cetera. And, uh, this is why like, uh, I chose the UK because, uh, I think the UK is such a good place and culture to embrace any person regardless of their background or their ideology. And, uh, I kind of like, uh, integrated really easily with the community. So, uh, yeah, this is like one of the reasons why I chose the UK now regarding the, regarding the, uh, The discussion that we were having previously, uh, like how religion is perceived these days, especially like, I have a very like, strong opinion about that.

And I would like to share it with you. Uh, I think religion is really good if it was, uh, with, if it’s giving people purpose, right? Because this is the thing. If people, humans without purpose, Uh, like there is no way that you can find happiness if you don’t have purpose. Because the first question that you ask yourself as a human is why, why am I here?

And, uh, in a lot of scenarios, religions can help you answer this question, you know? Right. Uh, like, and this is why, like, sometimes I’m like, it’s not just about religion. If you see, it can also be about spirituality. Uh, and there’s like this very thin line between religion and spirituality, uh, religion as a movement or as a political movement.

Uh, I think it’s, it can be very destructive. And it can be a very, uh, I think caused a lot of segregation, uh, and not integration. And, uh, however, of course, like, uh, when it comes to giving purpose, it’s really good for your own. You don’t need religion to have purpose because if you believe in, like, let’s say a divine being or something like that, you just need the connection.

And usually a religion is just this, uh, like tool. To connect you with the divine. Yeah, but you don’t need religion because the, uh, the most essential aspect of this connection. As you being to human and knowing that you exist is what differentiates humans from animals. Right? So it sounds like you’re saying that, um, you know, spirituality can exist without, without having to necessarily pick a specific religion, but, you know, come together.

Um, as humans, whatever you believe in is just as, yeah. As long as you have that spiritual connection. Yeah. Spirituality is like, it’s basically connecting with yourself. It’s like the power of connecting with yourself. So it can be through religion. It can be through something else. So different ideologies.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, a lot of our guests have talked about that. We’ve had a lot of guests on the show that work with self discovery and self healing and happiness. And that seems to be a common, a common characteristic that they all advise on is, is better understanding yourself. Yeah. Now, um, you know, let’s kind of get back to, uh, the business world, um, as you’ve traveled along, um, to these different countries, you know, ha has.

Has that exposure to, um, different cultures contributed to, uh, you know what you’re doing now with dupli. Yeah, of course, because, uh, all the, uh, the circumstances that you live in, uh, basically the structure, your personality, right? And your experience is basically what makes you. So definitely now did you get into, I want to kind of go back in time in your career a little bit.

Um, so you had told me that you had worked with introducing us technologies into the middle East to, you know, to promote U S technology in the oil and gas industries. So I’ll kind of ask you a two part question. So the first part is, um, you know, maybe tell our guests a little bit more about that industry.

And then the second question is, is how did you. Make the transition from that industry into, you know, how did you get into what you’re doing now? What’s your company? Yes. So, uh, I was working with an American company that had the very exclusive, uh, technology and in the oil and gas industry and I helped them develop their business into the middle East.

Uh, I was like leading the negotiations as was very productive and I see also myself as kind of like a bridge. Because I am like Lebanese and British and I kind of like, uh, integrated in both societies without, uh, like, uh, any obstacles and, and friction. Sure. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Good fit. You know, what type of, um, what type of experience does a job like that require well, quite a lot of, uh, experience, uh, and a lot of knowledge, because you need to understand every person’s motive and, uh, you need to understand their backgrounds, their culture, their ideology, uh, their, how they are raised in the fact like, and their own families.

Like it all goes back to, uh, To like their culture basically. And understanding culture is not easy. Okay. This is why you get a lot of, uh, culture clashes. You know what I mean? So I think this is something that I kind of like I went beyond. So I’m really good at that. Yeah. It seems like your background was, it was a good fit in that industry.

Now, after that industry, what projects did you work on between the oil and gas industry between then and what you’re doing now? How did you get into what you’re doing now? Okay. So basically I got into this industry, they’re influencers and marketing and all digital marketing stuff. And tech, I got into this after I met my business partner, um, Gabe and, uh, That was just, it was all by coincidence.

Uh, I wasn’t really happy in the technicalities of the oil and gas industry. So I had to like shift and by coincidence I met Gates and Gabe, uh, gave me this very cool idea. Uh, of starting something in the digital marketing space. So we just, uh, moved on. I just made the decision in one day I was living in London and, uh, Gabe recommended the, I moved to Brighton.

So I moved the next day. And I started working on the company and then Gabe joined me later on. So as to how to a background with Gabe, then to have that much trust, to make that big of a, a life change, not really. It was all like a coincidence. It’s all meant to be. And trust was just something that’s a, that just happened.

Wow. Very cool. Yeah. Um, you know, you, you had also talked about how you like to spend a lot of time researching and reading about business theories and how that. Provides a valuable opportunity and supports your decision making abilities, you know, is there a specific theory or book that’s really stood out?

That’s had a positive influence on you. Um, when it comes to business, um, like I really love economics. So like the question is like anything that’s, uh, about economics. I think I’ll be interested in, but in general, In general, uh, business theory is really cool. That’s exactly why you’ve taken university, et cetera, et cetera, but it’s not really what will help you make money, you know, and that’s not really something that will help you succeed.

It will teach you a lot of things, but on the practical level, you need to be practical. And theories are not always like applicable. Right? Sometimes, sometimes they can be an obstacle and sometimes they can be like, uh, just like, uh, another, uh, like a problem to deal with because it’s not very, uh, you cannot really like put it into practice, especially right now these days, everything is changing so fast.

So, uh, what used to work yesterday is not working today. So whatever was written yesterday is not really working today. So, uh, like this is the downside of business theories, but they’re cool. I like. As I told you, I liked the all economic theories. I love economics. I love how the economy operates and the incentive mechanism behind it and how people are motivated to work and all this kind of stuff.

How the interest rate system works. Yes. It’s something I’m really interested about. So a lot of the technical details. Um, it’s interesting. Uh, so, so you’ve had a diverse background. Um, and so I had asked you offline, if you could give any advice to your younger self or to our listener, what it would be and your reply, your reply.

I was very excited about because you know, when we ask our other guests, um, they’re, they’re usually brief kind of replies and you provided. 10 bullet points. So I don’t know, expect you to remember all 10 off the top of your head. So I’m going to, I’m going to read off, I’m going to read some of them off real quick, and then, um, uh, you don’t have to, after I’m done reading them, why don’t you kind of elaborate on whichever one you choose?

You don’t have to touch on all of them, but so Jad said that if he could give advice to our listeners, your younger self here’s, some of the things he said. Uh, at first he would surround himself with the right team driven by a collective vision, uh, to, as if you were to recruit someone focused on the personality rather than their skills, because yeah, it’s harder to find somebody with the right personality.

Um, cause you can’t really teach personality, but you can teach skills. Three was don’t micromanage four was don’t get stuck in administrative tasks. Five was be agile. Six was don’t be stubborn. Seven was doing business has changed a lot in recent decades. So you have to be adaptive, kind of like you’re just saying a number eight was invest in yourself as a person rather than investing in your business.

So invest in yourself. First nine was focused on quality clients. And make sure you retain them and don’t focus on quantity. And then last was have a higher purpose that is beyond just money. Um, so a lot of great points. Um, I’ll have a few comments on, on some of those, but you know, what brought you to have such a great list?

I mean, have you gone through some ups and downs that made you really kind of recognize where to focus on or have you always kind of had an entrepreneurial background and just kind of been in touch with how you want to. Um, operators, you know, balance work and personal life. Yeah. I was involved in a lot of things.

Venture is like, my personality is basically a, like, it drives me to take risks all the time. And I really like to always like create something and then create something else, et cetera, et cetera. So this is why I like, uh, I have a lot of extensive experience. And, uh, in business and in dealing with people and dealing with clients with employees and, uh, like these 10, 10 bullet points that I wrote down are basically like the butter before I’ve learnt.

And, uh, what I would like to suggest, recommend other entrepreneurs to do. And if I want to choose one point, I’ll probably choose . Never be stubborn about business ideas, because this is the, uh, this is one of the reasons why most businesses fail. It’s because of being stubborn and being traditional and being stuck in one business model and having this tunnel view.

And I’ve seen this a lot. And to be honest, to some extent I used to have. This problem. But, uh, this changed after I met my business partner, uh, he kind of like, uh, showed me other ways of looking at stuff. Uh, when I, when I want to like open, like when I want to like start my own company and how I can, uh, how I should, uh, put my markets first and then focus on development.

Uh, not, not out of like a, it was really clear, like when I got into this industry that you should always look at what the market needs and then construct something accordingly rather than coming up with a brilliant idea and making something that you think is brilliant and then putting it out there, because even if something is really cool and something is really.

Like beneficial does not mean that it’s needed. Right. Or even if it’s needed, does not mean that people are aware that they need it. So, uh, even timing is very important here, like timing. Yeah. Or even if enough people want it. Is there a big enough market? Yeah, exactly. You know, and what I also thought was cool about, um, this advice is a lot of them overlap and support each other.

So, you know, for example, if you hire the right people based on personality, then that supports the other objective of surrounding yourself with the right team. Um, you know, if you have, if you invest in yourself first and that supports the objective of having a higher purpose. So a lot of those blend well together, Yeah.

So we talked a lot about business, um, you know, outside of business, what do you do it when you got some downtime or free time? What do you like doing in your hobbies outside of business? Oh, my hobbies. I have a lot of hobbies to be honest. Like a business is one of my hobbies too, like researching and doing something like that.

But like mainly I like playing music. And uh, like, uh, writing poetry, like I do, I do these kind of things where it’s just something that’s like very private. I don’t want to do it in front of like, uh, an audience or something and just do it like. For my girlfriend and my friends and stuff like that. Yeah.

You know, as you were talking about playing music, the guy behind you is playing.

Okay. Yeah. Um, so you had also talked about that you enjoy, you know, like in business you said the business is a hobby, um, and, and then offline, you had said you like to brainstorm ideas. So what kind of ideas do you like to brainstorm? Is that still business ideas or more personal interests? Business. Like, I always like to think of it this way.

I’ll tell you because business and creativity are very much related. And, uh, I think, I believe that this is regulated by the sun. Alright. So when the sun is out, I, I like go to, to be productive right now. When the sun goes down, I like to be creative. Because night opens doors to creativity. This is how it is.

It has always been like that. Most inspirations, they come at night. So, uh, if you utilize both the, uh, the day and the night, uh, for your vision, okay, this is very important. If you really want us to succeed and even music. And business and mathematics and science and creativity, they’re all related. Okay. Uh, the way I see music is not, uh, cause I don’t know, theory and music.

Right. I learned music by just like the sound. Okay. So, uh, the patterns that you take when you make, when you compose music, when you arrange a mixed set arrangement of a certain song, uh, it’s very similar to the patterns of thought that you go through when you make decisions. It’s a, it’s very interesting.

It’s something I’m really fascinated by. And I used to, like when I was in university, I used to use my guitar to remember, uh, uh, stuff like before I go to the test, you know what I mean? Yeah, we used to go through the patterns. It’s something that I don’t know if people can easily understand that, but I can explain it, uh, like, uh, more details like you see the thing is that I don’t know, like notes or anything like that, but I know like every sound that you make, uh, can go in harmony with another sound.

And then you just jumped from one sound to another. It’s exactly like you’re jumping from one idea to another, but ideas should all be in certain order. Exactly. Like how notes should be in an order, because if the notes are not put in a, in a, in an order and they don’t have a, they cannot do like a piece of music.

Right. So, same thing. Like I connect all of these things together. So at night creativity. It’s my thing. And when I say creativity, I think any, uh, I’m saying anything that’s related to, uh, business ideas, um, even criticizing ideas, uh, coming up with new ideas and, uh, criticizing my actions with my, uh, employees, uh, with people, with my clients.

Uh, seeing how I can, uh, improve everything like this all happens at night. Yeah. You know, it’s, um, an interesting topic where, uh, it’s been, other people have said before, but it’s important to manage your energy instead of your time. And that sounds like, you know, how you approach it too, as you manage your energy, where you’re most effective at one task during this time of day and a different task, this, this time of day.

And I think that’s really important for entrepreneurs is to find their rhythm and their group as to, you know, what time of day. Type time of day, they perform best with different types of tasks and there’ll be more effective that way by managing energy instead of time. Yeah. And there’s also this balance that you need to maintain between productivity and creativity because they feed off each other.

The more productive you are, the less creative you can get. Sure. And vice versa. So you need to keep this balance. Okay. Such an important thing. If you really want to become a successful entrepreneur, because like being an entrepreneur is just, it’s not just like working from like the morning until like five o’clock.

No, it’s, it’s like the business is you, you are it’s your life. You cannot really detach your personal life from your business. If you’re starting something from scratch as something that needs all your energy. And all your passion and perseverance. And this is something that we can learn from, uh, previous founders, like even Steve jobs and the bill Gates.

Right. Yes. You know, Steve jobs is a great example about being very purpose driven. Um, well, you know, as we kinda wrap up, I I’ve found this conversation to be interesting. And one of the last things that we had talked about for the show is I asked if there was anything that you’d want to humble brag about.

And, and I like to reply here to where you said, uh, you know, you don’t like to brag about anything and you like to leave your actions, um, have your actions do the talking. And I found that to be very true throughout. Our conversation. You seem like a very humble person. Um, you sound very well balanced with your work life and your personal life.

And, um, just want to say thanks for your time today, Jack. Thanks a lot, Damien. It was a pleasure. All right. So one last thing before you go, we don’t tell our guests ahead of time, but we do a random question generator. So, so your question is yours just pretty easy. We’ve got, we’ve had some wild questions, but yours is what is the first thing you do in the morning?

All right. So honestly like the first, uh, two hours every morning are very similar. The routine that I do and it starts with, uh, making my drinks. I ha I have a certain kind of like drinks that I drink every morning. It’s like some herbs, like curves and the spices that are very like, uh, healthy. And that helps detox my body.

And after the drinks, I will do my, uh, ritual, which is basically just a five minutes meditation style, uh, thinking and concentrating on the positives in my life and being grateful for everything like being grateful for the fact that I just woke up. And I’m speaking and I’m walking and I’m still here.

And I have another day to fight. Like this is such a big thing. And I think this, this will be the reason why I will succeed in the future. It’s gratitudes. Right. Very cool. Um, do you, do you drink these throughout the day or is it, is it not just start from the morning? It’s just my morning drinks. It’s something that I’ve been doing for like the past, uh, five years.

Yeah. I need to get into a routine, you know, all our guests talk about routines and I understand the value of the routines as well, but I just can’t find my group yet. No, maybe I’ll tell you off a flight. Yeah, no, that’d be great. Alright. Um, everybody Jad Mawlawi, uh, dooply.com, D O O P L y.com. Thank you very much, sir.

Been a pleasure. Thanks a lot. Alright, bye.