 Yes, we are back. It's the 10 o'clock rock. I'm Jay Fiedel. This is Think Tech if you hadn't noticed. And this is Seymour's world and I'm acting as host because Seymour is my guest. I am your guest. I'm used to sitting in that chair, Jay, so it's really pretty cool. And we started this, what, three years ago? And my God, thousands and thousands of viewers later, it's really been a, it's an amazing run and I thank you for allowing me to be one of your hosts. Seymour has been great to have you on the show. You're a mainstay and anchor, an anchor tenant so to speak. It's been, it's been a lot of fun. I like what I do because I find that it helps people and that's, as you know, that's part of what my, my, my message is, is to wherever I can help people live a better life or find a better way, that's what I do. And we want this, we want this on Think Tech. It's an important mainstay of our entire mission. So thank you for doing it. Pleasure. So today I want to talk about you and I call this, here's looking at you Seymour. Thank you. I like that world. Thank you. And I want to, I want to ask you a few questions. Certainly. First question is, you're a businessman. That defines you, at least in earning a living anyway. And I would like you to tell us, you know, I don't know if you've discussed this in so many words before. I'd like you to tell us how you see doing business, where it fits in your life, what's your philosophy, your credo about doing business? It has changed dramatically, Jay. When I was young, it was all about making enough money to make a living, to feed my family, to do whatever I have to do. And in the last 10, 15 years, it's changed to mentoring companies to help them grow. And I've pretty well focused on companies that are socially active. So for instance, right now I'm leaving for Australia on Sunday. And we're going to talk to a company that wants to do cannabis for veterinary medicine. They feel that they can do something very, very special for dogs, cats, large animals, horses, etc., by using cannabis for the for the affliction. They don't have the idea, really. It is. And it started in Israel when I was working for one of the Hawaii licensees, trying to figure out what is the best way to get a license here in Hawaii. So these things come around. And I like the idea that we can help either animals, people in all different areas. So for me, my business credo today is focus on companies that are doing socially active issues. Do you know that Donald Trump is the first president in 200 years who doesn't have a dog? No, I did not know that. But maybe he will get a dog now that he's got a big, big house and a huge lawn that a dog can poop on. There you go. Being an optimist again. Yes, I am. I can't help it. That's me all the way. So imagine yourself now in Australia, talking to the people with the dog cannabis company. What advice would you give them about doing business in a proper way? Obviously, we have to look at the financial side. So we have to look at their business plan and we have to look at their marketing plan. We have to look at all of their financial statements to make sure they're right. My job as a consultant has always been to bring it together. I'll take each individual piece of their business plan, critique it, but never critique it without suggestion. So if I say there's something wrong here, I will always give them a suggestion as to how to fix it. And I find in my consulting career over the last 30 years that I've been doing this, most of the companies stay with me much longer than they need me. Well, the moral support kind of thing. Correct. Because you know, they may be doing well today, but maybe they'll have a problem tomorrow and they'll need to talk to you. So they got to maintain the connection. We do that. And I'm always, I'm not just flattered that they do it, but I'm also amazed that they continue to keep me on the payroll, so to speak, or on a retainer, because they feel that I can help them when they need help. So they might as well keep me there. And I think that's that lends credence to the idea that we have to do things that are not just for ourselves, but to make sure that the message we're giving out to these companies as consultants, that message has to be that they need to do something not for today, not for tomorrow, but for the future, have a five year plan, a 10 year plan, which as you know, in today's internet world, in today's app world, it's so difficult. We're working with two app companies right now that actually have a life of less than 24 months. Oh, wow, we anticipate their life will not be more than 24 months. So what is the strategy and exit strategy today is 90% acquisition, which means let's sell it to Google, let's sell it to Microsoft, let's sell it to all those guys. And you tailor the business to that to to that fashion. I personally don't feel that I want to be that involved with those type of businesses anymore. Because at my age, and because I've been successful in my career, I want to do things that are going to help people. For instance, there's a company in Vancouver, that is working in the food business, but they want it to be all organic, all healthy foods. They want to feed the homeless. I want to work with that company. Yeah, right. So in fact, you're doing a process of selection, correct on who you who you mentor. And I was going to get to that. I mean, sounds to me like an impact investment kind of thing. It is it is. And for people in the business world, who who are out there fighting for the next dollar and and trying to keep their business alive, obviously, they're listening to this and say, Yeah, that's great for somebody else, but not for me. But if you truly look at your business and decide that you have a sustainable method of giving back to the community in some way, shape or form, that'll come back to you. Sure, it will. And, you know, you only live once, you only go around once. Correct. So you might as well leave a good impression on the planet rather than a bad one. And that's been that's been part of our motto, obviously, is to try to do good for other people. You know, I'm very involved in for a perfect segue. That's my second question, Seymour. Go for it. So you have a credo about philanthropy. You've been involved in philanthropy. Well, I know for three years, but longer than that. And you have a number of charities that you've created and support. You're a founder of charities. So can you talk about why and what you do? And by the way, we have a lot of photographs to show. Yes, let's show them. Well, we could show the photographs. And at the same time, we can talk about it. One of my one of my favorites has been make him smile. And that's where we bring musicians into the hospitals. You can see this musician is Gary Suffrin. And he's playing at Schreiner's Hospital right now. And you see all the kids with their they've got casts on their leg, they've got all sorts of things. And it's just it's a way where everybody wins. If you could ever find a business where everybody wins, it's the it's the people in the hospitals, the musicians. This this slide is I am in charge. This is a program we have here in Hawaii, where we take foster children from 18 to 24 years old. And I put them into a program called you are in charge. You'll notice they're wearing t shirts. This is a shirt because they have graduated. They have an eight week program every Wednesday at four o'clock. They come to see me. And we talk very, very honestly and very openly. But my secret for you are in charge is we never talk about the past. We talk about their future. We talk about how to work that light at the end of the tunnel. Now this is one of the sayings that I always use. Your life is now sees it and make it amazing. Discover your passion and pursue it. Be honest, generous and kind. Surround yourself with love, laughter and truth. Let your heart be your guide. And above all, make every moment count. Today is the day. Lovely. And I believe that. And that's how I know you do. After three years I've been seeing you flower out on all of that. And some of the other stuff that we do, I do holocaust speaking as you know. I know that. Just last week I spoke for the Japan Travel Bureau. We had 700 people one day and 450 people the next day. And these people all came to hear about how a very righteous consul general for Japan, Mr. Sugihara, wrote 6,000 visas to liberate Jewish people out of Lithuania. And those 6,000 people today, there's 132,000 people alive because of it. Sure. So doing right for others is really the message that you want to give. Yeah, great. And if you're in a position of power, such as a Japan Council would be, Council would be, then you can do enormous things. Well, his risk was, he lost his job. Yeah. But he did it because he knew he was doing the right thing. And if anybody wants to see a movie, there's a movie out there called Persona Nongrata. It's not easy to find, but you can find it on Netflix. Persona Nongrata is about Sugihara. And the turmoil that he had to go through to decide, I'm going to do something that my government's going to fire me for. And he doesn't even know the people that he's doing it for. Why did he do this? He did it because he felt that when he saw these women with their children begging to try to get out of the country, knowing that the Nazis and the Germans were descending on Lithuania from both the Russian side and the European side, he decided that he had to do what's right. And there are many like him. And in my speech that I gave, I honored all of the righteous people who have done so much to help other people, not just in the Nazi era, but in other areas where if you do something right for somebody else, you get that back in spades. So I think I know the answer to my next question. But the question is, why do you do this? You put a lot of time in, you put money in, you generally embrace so many philanthropic cause and so many people in need. Why do you spend your time and money doing that? Because I'm the luckiest man in the world. I am truly the luckiest man in the world. I have been blessed with a wife who loves me, two beautiful children, a business career that has flourished and done very well. And I realized from what my mother did in her past, where she gave back, I realize how much that'll mean to me in the years to come. By giving back and helping others. I mean, we had your event, Jay, where you honored me at Think Tech, Hawaii. Oh yeah, last December, not three months ago. It was incredible. And then a month before that, I was honored by the governor and the mayor. And there were 6, 700 people there and they honored me. And I stood there and I had tears in my eyes because I couldn't believe that so many people would pay a lot of money to come just to honor me. Well, your reputation is complete. If people know who you are, they know what you do. I think the community fully recognizes and should recognize you, Seymour. Thank you. And on that note, we're going to take a short break. We're going to come back and talk about your situation. Okay. We'll be right back. Hi, I'm Cheryl Crozier Garcia, the host of Working Together on Think Tech, Hawaii. Join us every other Tuesday from 4 p.m. to 4 30, when we discuss the impact of change on employees, employers, and the economy. Aloha. My name is Richard Emory, and I host Kondo Insider. We talk about issues facing the Kondo Association throughout Hawaii and talk about solutions. When you think about it, about one third of our population lives in some form of common interest real estate. We broadcast every Thursday at 3 p.m. Please tune in and thank you. Aloha. Aloha, Kako. I'm Marcia Joyner, and I'm inviting you to navigate the journey. We are discussing the end of life options, and we would really love to have you every Wednesday morning at 11 a.m. Right here. Bingo. I told you we'd come back and we came back. See? Okay, we came back with Seymour. Wow. It's amazing. We did it on time. Yeah, we have technology here. Seymour's world and here's looking at you, Seymour. Thank you. I really appreciate that, Jay. Well, it's special in a sense because I actually feel closer to you than I have in the past. I've watched your star. I've watched your trajectory. I know a lot about you. It's easy for me to talk to you. It always was. Right now you're in a situation, and I'm going to leave my question there and leave you to answer it in any way you want. Well, my situation is personal. I was diagnosed with cancer. This was on November the 6th. The background is quite simple. I go for my health checkup every year on November the 2nd on my birthday and for the last many, many, many years I've never had a thing wrong with me. And all of a sudden I was diagnosed and I had to see an oncologist. And it was a very, very traumatic experience because for somebody who never takes a pill for anything except for a baby aspirin, all of a sudden I have to face chemotherapy. I have to face, do I go to alternative medicine? Do I decide to try to do this on my own via a good, strong diet and all this kind of stuff? And the research that goes into that is totally contradictory. One contradicts the other and you just, you really don't know which way to go. So I decided to go to Sloan Kettering in New York. And Sloan Kettering is a famous cancer center. Oh yeah. And luckily I got in by the grace of God and maybe from what we were talking about before, you know, the luckest rubbing off for the things that I do. And I was able to get on a trial drug, a drug that there's only 640 people in the world on. And I was one of them. And there were lots of complications for me to get on the drug because I have what's called CLL, which is chronic lymphatic leukemia. When they when they did the first CT scan, I had a huge lump on my neck. All of my lymph nodes inside my body had grown to such an extent that all of my organs were encased by the lymph nodes. So my stomach, my pancreas, liver, everything that's got to be painful. I couldn't eat. I lost 30 pounds. I was basically if that had continued. The doctor told me that I would have maybe a few months to live. And that was it. So I started the drug two weeks later, Sue looks at me and she says your thing is gone. This lump on your neck is gone. And I started feeling a little bit better in my stomach. But still the thought goes with you and it stays with you the whole time. Sure. So how did I cope with it? I worked harder. I didn't tell anybody about what was really going on inside me. All of my friends, all of my family just knew that I am a survivor and I am a coper of things. And I'll work very hard. And I didn't admit that I saw my life ending very, very soon. And I didn't want to even you, who's a good friend and Zuri, who everybody saw, wow, you know, you look terrific, you're working hard, you're traveling your business, you were up, up, up. Always, always. And I still am to this day. But I needed to, to get some validation that I was getting a little bit better. March six rolls around. That's three months after. And the drug company in Sloan Kettering want another CT scan to see where I am. Obviously, this had gone. I went to the CT scan. Results came back. And all of my lymph nodes had shrunk back to normal. So my insides entirely now are back to where they should be. I can eat again. I can, I can feel good about it again. The problem is my leukemia. You have a white blood cell count of 10,000. That's an average white blood cell count. Mine is at 145,000. Oh, wow, multiples. 14 times the normal. And it's a, it's a critical issue. But it's, it's acute. It's chronic, not acute. Meaning I can possibly live with it. I can possibly bring it down. So we've decided, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to do this, Jay. I'm going to continue on this drug for another two to three months and see if my white blood cell count goes down. In between all this, I was traveling. I did my business all over. I was in Thailand. I spent a day and a half at a clinic that specializes in alternative medicine in Thailand, in Thailand, which absolutely opened my mind to different forms of, of positive mind training. And they had me believe after two or three hours that I could create positive energy. Now you look at me and you say, yeah, sure, Seymour, that's a voodoo. How can you create positive energy? You're, you're a visible proof of that, Seymour. Well, they, they taught me that I could do it. They taught me that you can actually create positive energy and get the negative energy out of your body. So by creating positive energy in bringing it into your body and pushing the negative energy out of your body, what happens? That attacks the cancer cells, the cancer cells diminish and get smaller. And all of a sudden you're, you're, you're back to normal. And of course I needed to hear from other people and I've had many friends who have done it. I'm going to do a show with one of them. I'm waiting for her. She's a, she's a Chinese lady who went to Thailand, but she had stage for bladder cancer with two months to live and now it's five years and she has no signs of cancer whatsoever. She have experimental drugs or was it all mental? Strictly mental. And that brought us to a topic we discussed prior to the show. What, how much this attitude have to do with it? What, what is this positiveness that people have, you know, that keep them going? I'm a firm believer after being at this clinic in Thailand that definitely a positive attitude is a very, very strong motivator for you to kill those cancer cells or for you to get better. Yeah, yeah. Hey, everybody, that's Ian, social media manager here at ThinkTek Hawaii. Thanks for tuning in. I'm sorry to break into your show. If you're listening on the podcast, thanks for listening, watching on YouTube. We appreciate the subscription, etc. If you are a longtime listener, viewer of ThinkTek Hawaii, you would know that we are on every day, five to six hours a day, basically streaming stuff that's happening here in Hawaii that matters to everybody worldwide, basically. There's a lot of stuff that we got going on and we're excited about many of them. 2017 is going to be really cool. But right now I can tell you that we are on iTunes where you can listen to all of this stuff now. We're really excited about how that's going. And we have just started a on the street feature where we take a camera out to the street and stream live to you guys out there and getting what people in the local community out what they want or are thinking about and sharing that with you. We're really excited about all that stuff. We're really excited about you guys watching and following us on all the social media sort of things, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, all that good stuff. Look for us. ThinkTek H.I. Watch us on O'Lello. Thank you so much. Everybody here appreciates it. Hello. That's Seymour Kazomerski and we're here on Seymour's world. We're talking about here's looking at you, Seymour, your experience and the way you're dealing with cancer. And I would like to ask my last of four questions. If you're cautious, you don't have a question. Yes. So where are we now? You have to look forward down the road. You're a business person. You always have to do that. Where do we go from here? Will we go from here in business? Where do we go from here in philanthropic activities? Where do we go from here in dealing with the cancer? Where do you go from here spiritually? From from the first point, business, I will continue to do business for the clients that I have and only take on businesses that I feel will benefit our world. That's that's my goal now. At the at my age, I think I can give I can give more to companies that I can feel are beneficial than just to make money. So that's number one. From my side, my cancer, I I don't know how long it's going to take Jay, but I'm here for a long time and I don't intend to let this beat me. I intend to keep working at it. The immediate is the next two to three months. We have to see if my leukemia, if the white blood cells count drop, if not, we'll have to think about doing something else. But as you can see, I'm as vibrant as I've ever been. And I really have that attitude for it. The rest is very important to me. And that's my philanthropic work. I want to take our make them smile, bring it to all the islands, to Maui, to Kauai, etc. I want to take it to the mainland. You want to build it? Oh, yes. Good for you, Seymour. Absolutely. And the reason I want to do it, Jay, is because I find that the the gift of music that we give to the patients, to the doctors, to the musicians themselves, to me, it is such a 100 percent win. There's absolutely no loss. I supported all financially myself. And I don't mind doing that. Garth Brooks in Texas has asked if he could do. Yeah. If he could do it down in Texas would make him smile. A group in Toronto wants to do it. A group in Vancouver wants to do it. Words getting around. It is because the program is so good. My foster kids program is a very difficult program because these kids are very troubled and you have to help them through a long period of time. And after eight weeks, they drop off and who knows what happens to them. So I'm still working on that. But I think one of the things that I want to expand on is what you have given me, Jay, and that is the the opportunity to send a message out. Seymour's world and the commentaries that we do are getting rave reviews from people. I have a pastor in Maui and a father who was a guest on our show when we did the Hanukkah Christmas show who asked permission if he could use some of my positive energy commentaries to as sermons to his to his vlog. So that in itself is such a win-win. So the commentaries to me and they're coming to me quite naturally and they're very easy to write at four o'clock in the morning by the way. It's the best time. Yeah. And as they as I put them out, the reactions from the people that send me emails and texts and all that stuff, some of them wonder if they don't see one every two weeks. They wonder, am I OK? You know, is something wrong because they need to hear positive comments back. And I think thanks to you, Seymour's world and the commentaries. I want that to be one of the messages that come up. Wonderful, Seymour. So nice to have you in our lineup. You're a mainstay for Think Tech. You're a mainstay for our world here together. Thank you. And I think it's wonderful to have you. I don't know if the video camera picks it up, but you are glowing. You're glowing in, you know, in the kind of attitude that keeps people going, keeps people expanding their horizons for their whole lives. Gives them a quality of life that you could not otherwise achieve. Thank you. Good for you. It's it's instructive for all of us. My pleasure.