Michael Smolens has been a serial entrepreneur all his life. He says he went with his gut at every stage. The motivation was never money, it was to do things that were never done before. Even when he fell down, he just continued. Now, approaching the fourth quarter of life, he has labeled himself Collector of Puzzle Pieces. Give it a listen.
Michael Smolens has been a serial entrepreneur all his life. He says he went with his gut at every stage. The motivation was never money, it was to do things that were never done before. Even when he fell down, he just continued. Now, approaching the fourth quarter of life, he has labeled himself Collector of Puzzle Pieces. Give it a listen.
Where dreams come from, is a podcast featuring successful people from around the world who have pursued their dreams to arrive at a station in life. I'm your host, Sanjeev Chatterjee. I'm a professor of cinema and journalism. And in my creative life, I make documentary films. I started this podcast to explore what it takes for people to follow their dreams, even while being true to who they are, at least, who they believe there. I have known my guest Michael small ns for some time now. We make it a point to have coffee together when he visits Miami to be with his children and grandchildren. We talk about his company dotsub that is dedicated to simplifying the process of subtitling videos and movies. Of late we've been talking a lot about the role of dreams in shaping our lives. However, I had never had the opportunity to learn about Michael's own dreams. That is not until today. You see, Michaels visiting card reads. Michaels molins, Chairman, founder, collector of puzzle pieces. I've taken that as a clue for his dreams. Michael spoke to me from his weekend home in Sag Harbor, outside New York City. Michael smallint Welcome to where dreams come from. Thank you Sanjeev tell me about where you grew up, and what the circumstances were.
Unknown:I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, right in the heart of the Midwest in the United States, and lived in a suburban household, right across the street from my elementary school. And so I went to elementary school across the street and a public high school in a suburb of St. Louis called ladoo, Missouri and I went to ladoo High School. And so my entire life as a youngster was in the Midwest in the United States.
Sanjeev Chatterjee:What were early influences for you, as you remember, in
Unknown:the early influences were I was a tennis player, I really love sports. I was very curious about math, I was very good about math. And I played a lot of chess, I was president of my high school chess club. And I went to a high school that quite a few of the students had gotten into Ivy League schools. It was a very, very well renowned public high school. So we I had a lot of goals to keep up with the real superior performance of other classmates.
Sanjeev Chatterjee:So you're saying that peer pressure is a major influence?
Unknown:I think peer pressure was an influence. Yes.
Sanjeev Chatterjee:What else?
Unknown:The influence, I think I have a twin sister, and we're the only two children. And so there was a lot of competition between my sister and I father was from Philadelphia, my mother was a native of St. Louis. And we were really a middle class family. But most of the people that I surrounded myself had a lot more money than we did. And so there was that sort of that feeling as I was growing up that we didn't, I didn't have the kind of access to things that most of my friends did. What is
Sanjeev Chatterjee:your earliest memory of trying to be something or wanting to be something?
Unknown:I don't really ever have a memory of that thought ever coming into my mind. It never happened. I just sort of was going along with the flow and then what seemed right.
Sanjeev Chatterjee:When did you leave St. Louis, for what reason?
Unknown:Well, I went to college and I went to Carnegie Mellon University at the time, it was CIT Carnegie Institute of Technology. And because I had gotten eight hundreds on my essay T's in math and on my advanced math, I had quite a bit of Advanced Placement credit. So I was lucky. I finished my entire math degree in two years at Carnegie Mellon, at Carnegie Institute two years into the program. Carnegie bought Mellon Institute, so the university became see Carnegie Mellon University and we were the only class because we had two years of CIT and C two years of CMU, we could choose what our diploma said and what our class ring said. So I chose CMU because that was going to be known. And I then chose a degree. And to this day, I don't know why with all of the things that I could have gotten a second degree in. I somehow chose psychology. I took a job I my job was with a market is very small marketing consultant firm in New York, that was owned by a well known renowned professor of Carnegie Mellon, Dr. Al keen, it was called market science associates. And they had a small office with four people in New York, their headquarters was in Pittsburgh, and they had another office in Chicago, and I did very well with them doing market research. And during that time in New York as a 22 year old, complete, newbie, I had always been enamored of New York, you saw New York on TV on The Tonight Show. But I had never met, you know, been involved in New York, I had never traveled so I came to New York with a great amount of curiosity, sure, that I would be hating it, there was something and here I am, you know, 50 some odd years later, living here. But after the first year, I had met someone from Haiti, named Sarah Val Mae who became a very close friend. And when papa doc died in 1970, he wanted to move back to Haiti and start doing business. And he and I were talking, and I said, Hey, and I don't I to this moment, I have no idea how or why all of this happened. So I quit my job. I was doing very well at age 22. And they were very upset my company, so they gave me an ability to be a consultant. And I started a business in Port au Prince, Haiti, I'd never been out of the country. And I found a customer in Italy that was making hand pain, wooden toys for children's nurseries, called nursery originals. And they became a client. And lo and behold, I set up a factory, a woodworking factory, a painting factory. And Serge was still in New York, because he was a vice president at Chemical Bank, which doesn't exist anymore. And we grew the business until we became the largest employer in the country. 20 years later had 4000 employees, I spoke fluent Creole.
Sanjeev Chatterjee:Are you saying that that was a decision that was just on the spur of the moment to just leave everything and establish a business in Haiti?
Unknown:Absolutely. There was no forethought, no long range plans, nothing. And I've done a huge amount of thinking. When you see the end here, the rest of my story, I never really had a plan. I just was going for what seemed right at the moment. Why did it seem right? I don't know. It just it's something I didn't. I didn't consult anybody. I didn't analyze it. I, you know, I just seemed to that seemed to be right. But it took a big change in 1991. When the President, Mr. Bush, declared a trade embargo on Haiti. And that day, I lost $7 million. All of my customers who had maybe $15 million of inventory lost everything, and no planes or boats could go into Haiti. So all of our employees were out of work, and I was completely lost. I lost everything I had. It was not a very good day, I just it just boom, I read the headline of the newspaper there it was. And I just thought about what I wanted to do. And at that time, I sort of had great relationships with large companies who were my clients. So I picked Mexico and set up a factory in Mexico in northern Mexico, and did a joint venture with Sara Lee, the brand Hanes and we started making 100,000 shirts a week in Mexico. This was two and a half years before NAFTA. And at the same time, I was very intellectually curious about Eastern Europe, because their Berlin Wall had fallen in August of 89. This was about a year later. And I had always wanted to do business in Central Europe. So I did some research and then took a trip for the first time and visited every major country, in Central Europe, Poland, Hungary, at that time, it was Czechoslovakia, Romania, etc. and did a sort of an analysis of trade agreements, and labor rates and duty and everything else. And I knew that I had to get cotton. So finally, I became the first I selected Hungary. And I became the first American to privatized a company in Hungary. And in 2004, sort of the aha moment, you know, or the lightning bolt, I got hit with, when I saw the movie Fahrenheit 911. done by Michael Moore. When I left that movie, it was in the middle of the presidential election, it was in August, it was the election was 5050, Michael Moore made the movie to try to get people to vote Democrat, to have the outcome of the election in the way he thought it should be. And when I left that movie, I said, Wow, here is one documentary film in English, that potentially could change a US presidential election. What if I could create a browser based tool that would enable any film or any video in any language to be easily quickly and inexpensively made available in any other language, that would really have an impact on the world if one film could change a presidential election. And I have that thought, once again, I had never had a business and technology, I have never been a filmmaker, I'd never been in the translation business. I didn't know you know where it was going. But somehow intuitively, I sensed that there would be smartphones, this is before YouTube before smartphone. So I came up with this thing, we have a patent portfolio. And I came out with a company and I haven't taken any outside investment, because it's something that I thought it was going to be very powerful. And now, the evolution of technology in the world is making the you know, video communication is the way that stories are told. And as more and more technology gets cheaper and quicker, people are able to spend less money making films. And I knew that as we do this, and as dotsub was enabling video to be available in other languages using either machine translation, Ai, translation, community or crowd and dotsub actually, was the technology that Ted used 12 years ago to launch their open translation program. And we have a network of 1000s of freelance professional translators. So I've been involved with doing translation of stories or video now for over 10 years.
Sanjeev Chatterjee:So all of this also just on what people would call a whim,
Unknown:on a whim. As a matter of fact, right in front of me and I can well, in front of me is a T shirt, where the President of Hungary attended the grand opening of the factory in March 5 1984 called Danube knitwear. And at the same time, because Hungary was very expensive relative in labor, its neighbor Romania was 80% less. So I did the first joint venture between Hungary and Romania, and set up a plant in a place called Lugo's Romania. So that company which was called Danube knitwear, based on the Danube River, ended up after four years producing 25 million t shirts with yarn coming from India, Pakistan and Turkey. For European distribution of large American manufacturers, Nike Levi's gap, Russell, athletic Asprey. So, and then in Mexico, I sold the plant in Mexico about three years earlier, and I sold those factories in Eastern Europe in 96. And once again, I had no long range vision, I was just sort of, I would say winging it, I guess just, you know, doing very well having a great amount of fun making money and doing exactly what I wanted to do.
Sanjeev Chatterjee:was the motivation to make money? No, never. What do you mean? Well,
Unknown:the motivation was, I don't know, I, I think the motivation was to do things that had never been done before. And, you know, just learn and grow. I you know what, you know, I never really sat down and once again, I didn't have an advisor or mentor, and I owned, you know, the company, I had an investor. I didn't have an investor in Mexico, but I had an investor in Hungary and and in Romania, but they were totally supportive of everything that I was doing.
Sanjeev Chatterjee:So at this point, in retrospect, what do you think you were following? Or chasing? Perhaps?
Unknown:It's funny to have this dialogue and that question. I really didn't ever know what I was chasing. Until, I think, and I've done a lot of thinking about this before you've asked me to have this conversation is in this process. Four years ago, in July of 2017, karmically I was asked by someone named Ed Gregory, who founded a very large teacher organization called I earn with 150,000 teachers in 140 countries to give the opening keynote speech, at their once a year annual conference in Marrakech, Morocco. And there was 800 teachers from 70 countries. And the subject of the conference was the role of digital technology in education. And there were 40 speakers who submitted their, you know, their summary of their talk. And I was honored and very humbled to be chosen as the keynote speaker. So I gave this talk. And after these talks in front of 800, teachers, people come up and ask you a question. There was a young man named Geoffrey Harlan, who came up to me after that talk in Marrakech, Morocco, and asked me if dot sub could help him translate his dream flags. And I of course, had no idea what dream flags were. So he went into his backpack, and held a banner up of a bunch of piece of fabric that were painted by people with their dreams. And he told me that he has some ideas about dream lines and dream banners. And he's had over 140,000 students from 32 countries make flags, but much of what they're writing is in other languages, and he did not know what they were dreaming about. He wanted to use dotsub. To help him understand this, that particular moment in Marrakech Morocco, is a moment that I think, when the light went off in my head, I was 70 years old the month before. And I asked him if I could carry two of those dreamline banners with me. And I carried them in my backpack for about six months, and showed them to people who I thought were really bright, who would understand it, and came up with some concepts that we needed to have the students record their dreams make mp3 files of their dream, we needed to have RFID and NFC chips on them. So you could point your phone at them and put them on a website. So you could share them with the world. And so that began a process that really got me very involved in dreaming. And then I decided, I tried to understand what my dream was by figuring out how I can help them because I've always felt it. Very important to understand what other people need and give it to them.
Sanjeev Chatterjee:Can you tell us what it involves being being the collector of puzzle pieces,
Unknown:I tried to think of what it was that I do every day that's most beneficial to the company. And I realize it's putting together other people who were doing really powerful, important things that can help me. And the reason that I'm able to do that is that I have total clarity of what my puzzle for my life looks like. And I also know what pieces to my puzzle are missing. And so when I meet new people, it's very easy for me to understand very quickly, what is very important in their life, and to see if I can help them achieve their life dreams. The first and most important thing is to have total clarity about what you want to do with your life. And most people don't. So they spend their whole life bitching and moaning about how miserable it is, and whatever. And they can't wait to retire. So they can do what they want to do. Well, as you said, I'm 74, as sort of the traditional retirement age is 65, which is nine years ago. So many friends started asking me when I turned 65. Michael, all you seem to do his work, when are you going to retire? And I had never thought about that subject before. And so my immediate response with no thought was, I've been retired for 40 years. And they said, What do you mean, all you're doing is working? I said, No, I think retiring, is having the luxury to know, and being able to do exactly what you want to do when you get up every morning. And if you do that you're fully retired. So I've been retired since I was in my middle 20s. I've done exactly what I want to be doing. So and I'm continuing to do so I am fully retired. And the whole collector of puzzle pieces is seeing that vision and that dream to a reality. And I guess another thing that I probably should mention in here as part of this journey. And the journey is all very, I think spiritual and karmic. Maybe about 10 years ago, I got a cold call from someone named Klaus Stieg, who was one of the three managing directors of the Osho foundation in India. And Osho, who is known as Bhagwan Rajneesh is one of the major controversial spiritual leaders in the world has about 100 million followers. And he over 29 years, created 10,000 hours of video every night after meditation. He had a professional camera crew film what he was saying, and they have the largest meditation resort and resort in Puna, India, three to 5000 people a day from 120 countries. And he asked me if they could use dotsub to help them translate his teaching into many languages. And I had known of Osho, but I got to be very friendly with Klaus. And so and I spent 10 days in the resort, maybe seven, eight years ago, I'd read a lot of his work. So I think my personal journey in terms of meditation and spirituality has moved along. So that I am very lucky to be aware that what I'm doing is something that most people don't have the the luxury of doing because they've never come to the awareness of what's possible in their life because they're all pursuing money or power or all kinds of other things. And I A long time ago, haven't really been in that way. So my journey is something that as I let go, and as things happen the journey is getting fast. faster and better and more powerful. And I am being more relaxed.
Sanjeev Chatterjee:Mike this morning. Thank you very much for taking the time but as a young boy, I remember being impressed by the line ascribe to the great Bruce Lee be like water. Now I think I understand what it really means a little better. When I think about it, Michaels molins has navigated his way almost to the fourth quarter of his life successfully. Most of it instinctively, having been numerically gifted. It's not as if he was scared of calculation. It seemed he never saw the point of applying it to life. He did what seemed right and stuck with it, even on occasions when he fell down. His dynamic puzzle always changed.