Tuesday Episode

The transcription discusses the idea of starting a business and emphasizes the importance of knowing the "why" behind it. The speaker highlights the need to have a strong reason for starting a business, as it will be the driving force during difficult times. They also mention that many businesses fail due to a lack of self-awareness and understanding of one's capabilities. The speaker advises taking the time to understand one's motivations and goals before starting a business to increase the chances of success and sustainability. So, you've been thinking about it for a long time. You have seen other people do it. You've thought about it. You have your current situation that you're in. You may love it, you may not. You may love your job, you may not, but it's always been on your mind, owning your own business. You've always imagined, you've always heard, and the freedom, being the boss, doing what you want to do on your time, making the money that you want to make. The control is within your hands. The only thing holding you up is you don't know how. You've never done it before. You think you can do it. You tell yourself you can do it, but can you do it? You haven't done it, so you don't know. This episode, we're going to discuss the key elements, what you need to start your own business in 2024, build a six-figure income, and take your own fate, the control of your life into your own hands so that you can have a life of freedom, fulfillment, enjoyment, and bringing a service, a product to your community, to the world, and making the world a better place. All those things come with owning a business. How do you do it? Sean, you have one minute to tell us. I'm just kidding. No, Sean, you've built multiple businesses from scratch, true entrepreneur, and you've gone through the highs and the lows. You've gone into the nooks and crannies. There's nothing in business that you haven't really crossed, at least within the industries that you've been in. Of course, there's things that you wouldn't know how to do here or there. That's the beautiful thing about you. You'd say, yeah, I don't know how to do that, and I'm completely okay with that. A lot of business people, they want to own a business, and they feel like they've got to know it all. I'm telling you, I've been watching Sean for a long time, and if there's one thing I get from him is that he doesn't even want to know how to do it. He's like, that doesn't interest him. You can see the look on his face. It goes just stone cold dead like, I am not interested in what you're saying right now. You know what he would do? We don't even need you today, Sean. I'm just going to tell him what you've told me. No, I'm just kidding. He would find someone to get it done. But today, though, to get you rolling, to make your dream come true, your reality of owning a business, we're going to discuss that today, and you will get some insights. Here's the interesting thing. It's not going to be what you think it is. You think you're going to get this one, two, three, four steps to do it, and that's not what you need. Honestly, it's really not what you need, and I'm going to let Sean take over and help explain why that is the case. So Sean, someone comes to you, they say, I want to start a bakery. I want to start my own automobile shop. I want to start my own lawn care company, or own an insurance company. What do you tell them? That's the first thing. They have a general idea, but what do you tell them? Yeah, so, and we've talked about this in the previous episodes on the three-step formula, which is the what, which is, I want to open up a bakery. I want to open up an insurance agency. I want to start a podcast. I want to start a lawn care company. That's the what. That's start a business in 2024. And the second one is the why. Getting real honest with yourself is like, okay, well, I want to start a bakery because I'm tired of working and creating somebody else's destiny. Or I'm tired of not having the freedom that I want to have. Flexibility. Whatever your reason is, right? And so this is where a lot of people, I would say 90 plus percent of people, and statistics show this, where they don't get it right. They don't spend enough time on the why. And I know it doesn't sound sexy, and I know you hear it all the time. And I'm saying this because I've said it to myself. Like, the why, why, why. You hear it all the time. But man, creating these multiple businesses, like Ewan has said, and being on this entrepreneur journey in applied suffering, embracing the suck, at 36 years of age, and these businesses that I've created and sold, one of them as well, two years ago, is the why is the most important key ingredient behind it. Because if your why is just not, if it's not powerful, then it just won't be sustainable. And you're going to end up thrown in the towel. Conversely, so what do people do instead, right? To me, if I was thinking about it, they have a good idea. They're like, and they see themselves doing this thing with this good idea, and it makes logical sense that they want to do that thing. And they think, I can make money off of doing that. And if I can make money off of doing that, I'd be my own boss. I'd have the freedom. All the things that kind of randomly just pop in your head if you think business ownership. But there's no thought in there of the why portion. It's so easy to skip over. And I think that's, would you say that's what you've seen? Like, why people, it's the good idea that gets them going, but it doesn't go past that. And there's nothing wrong with that necessarily, but there's just more to it than that, right? Because when the times get difficult, times get hard, well, the good idea, you're going to bail on it real quick because it just got tough. And that's really, when you say why, that's what I'm hearing is it's about all when it gets hard, when it gets difficult. That's what this whole thing is about. Is that what you would say? A hundred percent, yeah. Because when it's early stages and when you have the idea or the thought and you're like, okay, now it's time to execute, new year, new you, let's make this happen, right? The exciting phase. The exciting phase. And it's almost like a runner's high. You start doing these things and you don't realize it because you're not detaching the emotions and the feelings and the thoughts behind the reason, the why behind it. So instead you're just going off of the feelings and emotions. I'm tired of, I don't like the loss. I'm tired of the nine to five. I'm tired of not creating my own destiny. Whatever that looks like, right, for you, that is a feeling based decision. And so you have to dissect, for me, you have to dissect and follow these steps because if you don't, it's just a recipe for disaster because in six months, 12 months, when the going gets tough, you're not prepared for it. So guess what happens? You throw in the towel, you go back to your job, right? And so you see this all the time. The statistics don't lie. Go type it into Google. Most businesses fail within that 12 months, 36 months, and even, I think it's 85% of most businesses fail within that eight years, right? What would you think someone would say, like, okay, they failed at their business. What would they think the reason they failed was? I would just say the number one thing is lack of knowing oneself. Meaning, like, because if you truly know yourself and what you're capable of, and a lot of times we don't know what we're capable of until we actually slow down, go slow, go fast, and slow down and really dissect on what it is that makes us come alive. Because think about it, right? So whatever industry that you're in, nine times out of ten, you either are starting something on the side or you're wanting to start your own business because you got terminated or you're wanting to create additional supplemental income. And what society tells you is, hey, you can make $500 extra a month, $1,000 extra a month, $3,000 extra a month. That all sounds good, right? But what really goes on behind the scenes to make that extra $500 a month, $1,000 a month, if that's spelled out, if you're sitting across from me right now and I spell out what it actually takes to make $500 a month in supplemental or passive or active income, nine times out of ten, I will argue that you are not willing to put in the work. And what I mean by that is, it's easier said than done, right? Starting your own business. If you want to start your own business, man, I am going to be your biggest cheerleader, your biggest advocate, but make sure you stay through this episode today because what we are about to share is going to be the key ingredient, it's going to be gold because it's going to really allow you to peel back the layers and dissect your own reasoning for starting that business before setting yourself up for failure. If you have these three steps, if you implement these and take the time to understand your why on why you're doing this and making sure this is, then you become an unstoppable force and so when the time gets tough, when you get sick, right? Or when you, something happens in your life, right? You're just tired. You're just tired. Eight o'clock on a Tuesday night and you know you need to do that thing, but I'll get it tomorrow. Yes. You know what I mean? And then the next Wednesday or the next Tuesday, I'll get that tomorrow. I'll get that and then everything starts slipping. Yes. You can't do that in business. If you're going to have a sustainable, and I think that's the key word, is sustainability. I think a lot of people could make the 500 bucks a month. They figure out a way. They can make the 1,000 bucks a month, maybe the 3,000 a month. They could do it, but they hadn't thought past the sustainability of that because you don't just do it once and it's over. You have to, there's so much more that goes into it to sustain. It's easy to get to the top. It's really hard to stay there. And I'm not saying it's easy even to get to the top. It's actually very hard. It's even harder to stay there and consistent without self-sabotaging yourself or losing the excitement, the steam, which that would all come back to everything you just said at the start, which was the why, the purpose behind it, which we're going to get more practical than a lot of people want to hear. What is the thing, put it in my hand, the physical thing that I can do to go build my business, but it's so important. And you're going to get that today. There's things that you're going to do. And let me tell you, it's not the things you think that you need to do. And it's going to be very exciting when you hear it. And it's, we talked about it before the show and I got excited. I was like, yes, I know this. And that is exactly what I would, if it was me, it's exactly what I would do now. And it's not what I would have done in the past. You know what I would have done? And so many people, and I've tried to tell them, don't work on your business card. Don't work on your business card. Let's say it takes you 10 hours to get your business card just right. When I see that now, it makes me want to throw up because I see people are so excited about the business card going and the future, the excitement. And look, I'm so official. And that's awesome. But that's 10 hours you should have been getting a customer. That's 10 hours you should have been thinking about who do I need to talk to, to bring revenue in. You don't need the business card to have revenue coming in. Once you get the revenue, then you can work on your business card. And you can do both at the same time. I'm not saying don't do that, but the principle is you might feel like you're doing a business. You might think you're doing a business, but are you avoiding the needle movers? And we're going to get into those details. And so, yeah. Sorry. Continue. Yeah. You hit the nail on the head. And so, like what Ewan said, it's like the biggest thing is when you come up with a why, the reason this is so important and this step is so important is because when you face those hard challenges, you're going to have to come back to that purpose, that why. And I preach this to my team all the time and everybody in my community and around me is when the going gets tough, right, that's when you have to pull from that. And that's when you become an unstoppable force. And so, it's like if you listen to our last episode, Ewan was sick as a doll. Dude had flu. He had a flu down for like 10 days, but he still showed up on the podcast. I mean, he showed up. Why? Because his purpose was bigger than how he felt, how he was feeling that day. Ninety percent of people, the reason businesses sell is because, oh, I don't feel like doing this today, so they don't show up for the leader, for their employees, or their business, or their customers, or their emails. Or maybe they don't respond as quickly as they did 12 months ago, so that customer realizes that and now is creating a bad experience. Why is McDonald's and Amazon, all these huge, mega, giant businesses so successful? It's because they provide the same experience over and over and over again. Chick-fil-A, big advocate. Every time I go in there, they know my name, they smile at me, and it's the same service over and over again. How is that possible? It's because they have their why, right? The founder, the leader, you listening to this, right, wanting to start the business. You are the leader. Your customers, your official, if you've got employees or don't have employees, your community, everybody around you is looking, now all eyes on you. And if you don't have your why, if you don't have the unstoppable force when you don't feel like it, you will not last. Then all you have is just a job, right? You just are going to be working in your business for the next 6, 12, 18, 24 months. As you grow, as you replace yourself with employees, because you have your why, then that is how you, from what I have learned, that is how you monetize, scale, grow to what you want your business to become, right, to ultimately allow you to live the life that you want to live in design. Man, I just made me think. We discussed this episode being something that helped new business owners. It just made me realize, someone that's in their 24-month period or 18-month or 36-month, they might be in a mess right now because they hadn't done this work first. Think about that for a second. I hadn't thought about that. This is probably super beneficial because it's never too late, but that might be why you're in a mess right now. It might be why your business is not going the direction you want it to be. Never mind those of you who haven't started yet that are about to. Think about yourself in 36 months, the version of you that hasn't done this groundwork first, and then having to fix that problem down the road when it's already a headache and a mess as opposed to getting there all engines full steam. You know what I mean? If you're in your business right now, maybe it's five years and it's not going the way you want it to. What you just heard right here, this is very useful. This is practical advice to sit down and still do that because the beginning of the rest of your life is today. Yeah. When I first started my first business in 2015, what's interesting is my purpose was to educate. We had our purpose, right? We had it all lined out. I knew I needed to do these different things, core values, purpose. I did all these things that I'm preaching, and I never really understood the ingredients behind it. I just did it because that's what people were telling me on audio or video or whatever it may be, so I just went along with it. What's interesting is you fast forward when you have this business and you work on these different things, and you become an unstoppable force. For me, I always wanted a business to have the financial freedom, to have the freedom to do the things that I wanted to do to live life on my own terms, right? And you may have your own reason, right, when you find out why. That's the place where I'm like, okay, cool. I have employees. I have a team. We're making money. We're retaining customers. I'm going to go start. And as an entrepreneur, you may resonate with this. I was like, what's the next idea? What's the next time? I'm going to go start another business. The problem with that is the business was not running itself at the time. Right. I was still working in the business, but I was trying to start something else. Where focus goes, energy flows. So I was spreading myself too thin. What was the thought? This is interesting. I didn't know where I was going to go here. So your business was succeeding. You were getting there, but what you said, it wasn't self-sustaining just yet, and you jumped to another idea, another business, because that's entrepreneurial, and that's what you should do, but maybe not in the order that you did it. Was there something in the business that you were doing that had made you lose your interest to go start something else, or what was that for you? Yeah, for me. So it was a – and we talked about this in our – actually, this will be on the Thursday episode. So because of all the systems and everything that I was putting in place and replacing myself, I was getting bored. I felt mundane doing the same thing over and over again. Repeat for repeat's sake. I had to do something different. I had to do something else. And so I've learned so much. One of the things that I learned is you get that business to a place where it is a well-oiled machine. You have the right people in place. You have the right systems in place. You have the right process in place. Then you can go start up another business. I don't need to be this $100 million business. I was honest and real with myself. You just want to be free. I just want to be free. See, what happens when you start a business, the reason why it's so important is you may be thinking, oh, I want to be this multi-million dollar business, but let's be honest. Are you going to be really honest with yourself? Are you going to put in the action? Go look at the action on what it actually takes to be a million dollar business. For me, it was about freedom, financial freedom. For me, it was about if I'm a million dollar business and I'm clearing $50,000 a year, the profit margins do not make sense. That does not make sense. That's a horrible profit margin. Why not create a half a million dollar business and be a 25%, 30% net profit margin? That made sense to me. Shout out to Mike, Profit First, great audio. Me and Kel were talking about that. Profit First, such a great audio. It really changed the game for me. You still live by that? Yes. Kel just did. My wife started a business. She's having tons of success. She's an educational diagnostician. She's got the money coming in now and she's like, we need to read Profit First again. It's like, amen. The fact that you just mentioned it, when you hear something twice, that's a sign. This is all in line with your why. What it is that you want your business to allow for you and work for you. I look at it as an asset. It should be paying for your liabilities and the things that you enjoy, the finer things in life. Once I made the transition to this other business, after reflecting back, it's like, why did I make this decision? This was a landscape company. To make the long story short, the reason I started it was out of fear. Out of fear. Which is interesting because why do most people start businesses? Because of a handful of reasons. Maybe of termination or like I was. Maybe I don't like my boss or whatever it may be. But the problem with the fear is that's an emotion. See, I didn't detach my emotion. I didn't do the work behind the scenes on why am I starting this other business? See, if I would have stopped then and realized, why am I starting this business? If I would have asked that question, because I think of what, I want to start some other business. But if I would have slowed down and asked myself, why am I starting this landscape company? Right? And not like surface level why, but actual the why. It was because of the fear of losing my sole primary income. You wanted multiple sources. I wanted multiple sources of income because that's what happened to me when I got terminated. I lost my income. My cash flow stopped. But the problem with making decisions on fear, you know this, Ewan. We make bad decisions. That's right. When we make real estate, businesses, whatever it may be. So what is your emotion? So make sure you detach your emotion if your why allows you to do that. What would you, talking to three-year Sean into the insurance business, right about to start his landscaping company, a lung care business, what would you have told him? Would you have told him, don't do that, know what you know now? Or would you have said, no, go ahead and do it, but do it like this? Or would you have said, no, don't do that at all, and stick with the insurance and do this first? Was it a mistake to do what you did? Or was it, it ended up working out? Of course it did. But what would you tell someone that is in the same boat today that's not you, but doing exactly the same things? Yeah, great question. So, and I see this all the time. People reach out. All my coaches, people I talk to. The fear. Yeah. What's the fear? Yeah. The fear is the, it's the, because they're bored. Mundane. Yeah. Repeat on repeat. I'm tired of doing the same thing over and over and over again, right? And so, which is super fascinating. It's plugging my mind. Exactly, right? And so, and just to give full context, when I started the landscape company, it was super successful. We sold it. Six-digit company. Built it really quick. We're in a community. Sold it and moved on. Yeah. And so, what I would tell that person today is, get your business that you're building right now, that you've decided on, the what, the why, and you're building it, systematized, and the processes, and the right people in place. Let it, allow it to be running itself where you're just working on it and not in it. Then, go start up another business. Do you think you would have started that loan care company if you had, okay, so you just, it was three years ago, time traveled. You said, don't do that. Trust me. Yep. Do it later. But then you end up doing the things you need to do in the insurance business that perhaps probably would have removed the fear that started the loan care company. Do you think you still would have started the loan care company? No. You wouldn't have. No. If I listen to an audio like this, right? Yeah. This is great. Yeah. I hope everyone listens. I also want to note this. Yeah. Right? I mean, this was, this was a, this was what, 18, 24 months ago? Mm-hmm. And this is January 2nd, 2024. And so, before starting the landscape company, if I would have heard, because I remember listening to a podcast. I think it was Ed Mullins. And this was like just here recently. And he would say, he said the same thing. He's like, entrepreneurs out there, business owners out there, here's what's going to happen. You're going to get bored, mundane. Oh, he said this. There's a reason why. Think about it. There's a reason why you're starting a business in the first place. And typically, it's because you're bored, you're mundane, or whatever. Yeah. You want to start. You don't like what you're doing. You don't like what you're doing. Something is not feeling right. Yeah. And you're jumping. Exactly. To get the feeling that you want. And you don't have a clue if it's the right thing to do or not. You're just jumping ship because it's not good over here. It's grass to greener, right? Yeah. Not a great why. But they're going off of their emotions. That's the problem. That's right. It's all emotional. You're just jumping it. And then, okay, cool. Now, you work for the first six to 12 months. But when you get to that 18 months, 36 months, the 48 months, that's when you got to have the, that's when you got to have. That's when it gets real. That's when it gets real. Yeah. The why and all that becomes important. And so, when I heard that, I was like, oh my gosh, if I would have heard this when my life says like, focus on the system, process, and people, have your business where you're not working in it at all. You're just working on it. Yeah. And so, like, with the insurance company now, it's like I spend 30 minutes a week. In that 30 minutes, I make sure my team, I make sure I have a Zoom call with my team. And it's crazy because it's excellent. Your insurance, I just bought a new car, and I needed to find out whether I should get the gap or from the insurance agency or get it through the dealership. And I called, phone answered right away. Great experience. And it was just great experience. I got my answer really quick. And that's like the 10th time that I've called. Like, my car, my old car, broken down a few years ago on the highway. Just luxury service. And so, I know the insurance. Like, it's not just me telling my best friend he's got a great, like, he would know if it wasn't great. I'd tell him. And it was a great experience. So, your 30 minutes a week is, you clearly got it going well, right? Like, it's a beautiful system. Yeah. Yeah, and it's because of the systems process. Employees super happy. And it's been, I mean, we're eight years later, right? Yeah. And so, the first five years were spent on the systems process of people. Yeah. And the only reason I got to that is because of the why, the unstoppable, like, the passion of what I wanted this business to create for my own life. But that took, see, most people don't realize that I was working 16, 17-hour days. Yeah. Right? And so, if you're starting a business, you typically know that. But try doing that for three years later. Yeah. Would you, going back to tell yourself again, if you travel back, would you say do the 16 hours still? Was that required? Or you said eight years to build it to where it is now. And it's been that way for quite a while. So, it didn't take eight years to get to here today. It's probably, it's been that good for years, in my opinion. In fact, honestly, you could have sped that up. If you had spoken to yourself then, you could have sped that up. Like, let's say five years, it was just the way you wanted it. Obviously, if you'd gone back and spoke to him or spoke to somebody new, you could probably get them there in three years, you think? Or, and would they have to spend the 16 hours a day? Yeah. Great question. So, man, and that leads me to what one of my, what I call the three-step formula. The third one is after you have your why and you go through that 12 months, 24 months, 36 months, absolutely, you can see there's a learning curve. And it's the who. And so, the who. Real quick, this is the part that you didn't plan on hearing. You came for the one, two, three, let me get my notebook out and write down the steps. I'm going to go do those steps and have my own business. That's not, no business owner has probably ever, any successful business owner or very few have probably ever done the one, two, three step thing. What Sean was about to say is business ownership 101, I would say, if you want to be successful. Yeah, you can go listen to professors and teachers out there. But what I have found as an entrepreneur is you want to be very, not only cautious of who you listen to, right? But you want to listen to somebody who's actually doing and going through what you're going through or what you're going to go through. And I can't stress that enough because there's a lot of, we call them fake teachers out there, right? And so because they're not actually, and not knocking anybody, but you can preach all day long, but if you haven't actually done, then you haven't felt what I felt. You haven't got the emotions and the thoughts. And that's what you're needing to study. That's who, listen to my word, it's who you're needing. Don't watch, don't listen to what I say, but watch what I do, right? That's the truth. That's how I live my life. And so when I started the insurance company, I learned really quickly, I was like, dude, mundane, existing, doing the same thing over and over, I'm getting results. But if I want to speed up the process, I don't know if this was like the Lord working in mysterious ways at that time in my life, but I was like, I need to, and I think I probably listened to a podcast, something like this. And it was like, if you want to be the best, then you go study the best. And so I was like, all right. So in the insurance company, I knew how to sell, but I didn't know how to grow an insurance company. I never had employees. So I reached out to 10 top insurance agents that were in my group, and eight of them declined. Like seven or eight of them declined, but two of them, shout out, Brandon Ritchie, Carlton Collins, were like, dude, we got you. If you got any questions, concerns, let me know. We'll answer. Well, if you're Brandon or Carlton, man, I am super grateful for your mentorship over those years, because you cut my learning curve in half. I know I could have probably, who knows? I may have thrown in the towel, man, to be honest with you. I may have thrown in the towel. I may have, because you get to a point where you're like, your back's up against the wall, and it's almost like that glass ceiling. You don't know. I've never had a business before. That's why entrepreneurship and business ownership is so scary, because there's no safety net. There's no W-2. There's no boss to go to. There's no supervisor to go, hey, what do I do here? So the answer would be what you just said. I mean, there's only one other option, or two options, throw in the towel or go ask someone. So it's not the one, two, three steps. So if that's a practical, this is a practical step. Like if you're picking up a hammer to put a nail into the wood, this is the step, right? So what did Sean just say? He talked to 10. I was going to say, like, go speak to three business owners in the realm, but 10 is what Sean did. And think about what that takes. And if that's too much for you, that's probably a good indication that maybe business ownership is not your forte for now. Maybe at some point you get your mind to where you could go ask that many people, or even just three. Three might be enough, but 10. And if you were to say, no, I'm going to do that today, then you're in the right mind space to go do that. And I can't stress that. Man, you hit the nail right on the head. I can't stress that enough because if you're like, ah, that sounds exhausting, then, yeah, you need to. If anything we've said up until the last 28 minutes has been exhausting or that you're not willing to do, then you're not ready to start a business. It's just a feeling that felt good right up until now. It just got real that it's going to take serious effort and drive to have your own business. And here's the thing. Here's the thing. It is worth it. It's worth it. So when I was sick and doing the podcast, there wasn't even a thought in my mind. I was like, no, I want to do it. And, P.S., I don't do anything when I'm sick. But I wanted to do the podcast episodes, even if it was virtual. And it didn't feel difficult to me because it's something I love. I enjoy this. I enjoy asking questions. I'm very curious. I want to hear what Sean has to say. I want to hear what everybody has to say about a thing that they're very good at. And so it just drove me through. I mean, there's many things. There might be a pile of laundry I need to fold, but I'm not doing that when I'm sick. But when it comes to business ownership, it has to be that thing that you would be willing to do something that's hard. But it's so worth it, man. It's worth it. And so it's not like this is going to be hard. It's going to suck for no reason at all. Why would you do that? That's torture, right? I mean, that's punishment for yourself. I recently got back from Jamaica and there was this gentleman, actually I was going to tell you about him. Yeah, I haven't heard this. Oh, really? He's an entrepreneur in Jamaica. Oh, dude, cool. He goes by Bones. He's a contortionist. Wow. He's all over like Instagram and YouTube. Oh, we need to have them on. That'd be cool. And 25 years old, like blew my mind. Anyway, talking to him and he was sharing, I was like, what's your number one struggle? And his number one, he said, you know, he was trying to save up enough money to get his visa to come to the States. Really? To have more opportunities to do like America's Got Talent, stuff like that. Oh, cool. I said, well, what's your biggest struggle? He's like collecting the revenue, the money. And so I said, well, what are some of the things that you're working on? And he was working at the resort that we were at. And then he was doing things on the side. And I was like, well, what are you doing on the side? He's like, well, I'm doing vending machines. And he's like, I want to get it. He's like, I'm doing vending machines. I was like, oh, how many do you have? He's like, well, no, I want to get into vending machines. Oh, he's not doing it yet. And so I was like, was there a high demand here in Jamaica? He's like, no, I'm trying to do that in the States. So that's why my biggest struggle is the income. So I said, well, why do you want to get into vending machines? Or what's going to create that revenue? The revenue, see, people get into things for the wrong reasons. This comes back to why. And I'm listening to this young man. He's saying, the why is the money. Just like me when I wanted the landscape company. Multiple streams of income. Revenue. It was a failure. It was going to create three years of misery. It was going to create misery, right? The money, it's just not sustainable. And so I'm sitting here thinking, this guy's telling me the money, right? And so it's the wrong reasons. Because when the going gets tough. What'd you tell him? And I'm sitting here listening to this guy. And I said, dude, is your actions. He said, I need to create money. And active income. I said, okay. I said, well, is your actions aligning with the vending machines and collecting that money? And he said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, the time, energy, and effort. If you break down your day. The time that you get up. The time that you go to bed. Are you putting in the work behind the scenes. When nobody's looking. For the last six months, 12 months, right? Because you've been on this journey for a while. Is it aligning with what you're wanting to do? Yeah. And you had that aha moment. No, it's not. He was out of integrity with what he wanted. Because the why was not important. He just. It feels good to dream about that. It feels good to think about it. And a lot of people, myself included, in the past. The feeling would feel great to think about it. And to start. To go into. You know it's going to be hard. You don't know what to do next, right? So it's comfortable to sit. But someday, that would be awesome. I'm going to do it. And it feels like you are. But you're not. But you're not. You're not doing it. You're never going to do it. If you're not doing something actively today. Not tomorrow. Today. If you say, well, tomorrow I will get to it. No, that's not going to cut it. Not in business ownership. It's just not going to cut it. Your actions. I think John T. Maxwell said this. That was on a short. And he was like, if I spent a day watching you. I could see your calendar. I could see your bank account. I could see your absolute. Every single action. By the end of that day, I could tell you where you're going to be. Pretty much for the rest of your life. Unless you change what it is that you're doing to get to where you want to go. And you might watch someone all through the day. And be like, nope, that guy's got it. He's going to make it. Because he's doing the actions. But if you saw someone and they're not doing it. And then let's say you did it for a week. And consistently they're not doing it. It's just a dream that's making you feel good. And it's just enough feel good to numb the pain of whatever it is that you don't currently like. That's why you're dreaming. Because you don't like the feeling you've got right now. So, to make it a reality. To have the reality of business ownership. You'd have to take that action. That's a beautiful example of you talking to everybody. Everyone's got a good idea. Okay, what are you doing about it? And I'm talking about myself included too. Okay, what are you doing about it? And that's true if you're an entrepreneur, high level sales. Or in a C-suite arena in a corporation or something. What is your daily actions? Is it going to get you to your quota or to the next promotion? Whatever it is, it's the same principle. So, yeah, he was talking vending machines. So, how did it go? You got that aha moment. What happened? There was definitely some one-on-one coaching going. Pre-coaching. Oh, dude. So cool. But it was funny because over our period of stay there, he kept coming back. He kept grabbing things back to me. He wanted to pick my brain and stuff like that. And you could tell he was catching on. Listening to the advice. I can't stress that enough, right? Because a lot of times I'm very cautious on who I solicit advice to. And the people that do, that lean in and start applying and filtering in their own lives, I'm like, dude, I'll pour my heart and soul. Nato said that in the episode, remember? That's right. And you learned it simultaneously. He learned it. And I think that's true with myself included. Yeah, you've got to be cautious because you can't. It's free advice. If it's free, it's not got much value, right, if it's free. That guy was willing to lean in, though, and it's not free at that point. It's like there's an exchange of something going on. And back to your point, I was his who, right, in that instance. And so we exchanged all social media accounts. You had answers. Yes, I had answers. And so he had listened to the first episode on the podcast. Oh, cool. And I did tell him a short period of time that because he was listening, leaning in, and then filtering it in his own life, that there was a wake-up call, right? It's like, okay, what he had been doing for the last 6, 12 months had gotten him to where he was, right? Which he had a strong why. Yeah. He wanted to get out of state. He wanted exposure. He loved being a contortionist. Yeah. And that was his why, right? Because he wanted to—he had his reasons. And so he was sending out. And the cool thing about it is, what I love about the show, man, is when you have your why, when he was—I could feel it. I could feel the energy within my soul. He had a drive. He had a drive. He was sending out hundreds of emails. He was making phone calls. He had been on all the, like, Jamaica television. Wow. But he had done all that. Good for him. He had made all that happen. Brilliant. Because of his why. But his biggest struggle was with collecting the income, which was the sponsorship. So he was spreading himself thin versus going 20 inches. He should have gone to a 10-year contortionist. Yes. We're talking about who's? Well, that's what I'm getting to. Oh, dude. And so that's when we finally came to the realization. I said, dude, who am I to you? And he goes, well, what do you mean? I said, everything that you've been doing is to have on the what. You have been in emails and phone calls. But what am I to you? I actually just made—and that's where I made a plug. I was like, I actually got a podcast on this. He's like, you got a podcast? I showed him the podcast. Oh, that's so cool. I'd like you to do this. Me and my business partner. This is who in the house. I showed that episode with him. Awesome. And I'm like, who? And I'm like, I'm who for you? That's cool. Right? And so now you need to be searching for who's. Right? And so we got off into that. As far as sponsorships, I said—and so when's the last time you reached out to another highly level successful contortionist that's bringing in the income on these social media platforms? He goes, oh, I actually have two of them. I have two of them. I was like, okay. And so tell me more. And apparently he did Zoom calls with them and all this stuff. I was like, well, what are they telling you? And he says, well, you need to do videos. I said, okay, when was the last time you did a video? Two weeks ago. Yep. There's this problem right there. Yeah. But that's exactly what we're saying. Right? If you're wanting to start a business, if you're in business ownership, are you willing to do things that are outside of your comfort zone, outside of your element? Right? Are you willing to talk to the who's on who you need to talk to? And then when the who's tell you what you need to do, right, then are you actually going to do it? You've got to do it. If you're not willing to do it, then the first thing that pops in my mind is like, well, why? Right? And so you need to reflect on that and dissect that. Well, there's a great question right there. Because that is the crux to me. You've got the who. They tell you what to do. It's gold. And they don't do it. Why not? I mean, it's got to be fear-based. I know that. Or an identity, a misplaced identity in themselves. They don't believe in themselves. They're afraid of failure. They don't know what to do next. Well, let's take that one out. Because they do know what to do next, and they're not doing it. So what has been your experience with that? Like, was there a consistent, like, and how do you get someone past, because there's people listening right now that are, they're getting all this, not going to do anything. They still want to, though. What do they need to hear about themselves or about their fear or whatever that is? What would you tell them? What would you say? Yeah. So I think the biggest thing is, is what it comes back to is, like, well, why is, why and so on. No, it comes down to the why, doesn't it? It really does. Why, like, why, and that's why I always love asking people is, like, why, why, why, why, why, why, right? So, like, for him, I'm not posting the videos on a daily basis, right? Why aren't you posting the videos on a daily basis? And I can tell he didn't have an answer to that. Because he's sending out hundreds of emails, making the phone calls, but he's not doing the videos. He has a powerful purpose. He has a powerful why, but it's like he's not doing the videos. Well, why? Right? And so, nine times out of ten, what it comes down to is maybe he's not getting enough likes or views or whatever that means. He doesn't know how much, what all the content's going to be. How do I come up with another idea? Sure. Another thing that's entertaining. You're going to get stuck with that, but what do you do in that situation? When you find another, who could answer that for me? That's right. What it comes down to is maybe the two who's that he thought were who's were his who's, but they're not. Because they had done things their way that worked for them, but he wasn't applying their blueprint. And so, I just think that you spend time on that, and maybe you have the wrong who, or maybe the who that you have, you need another who. He needs a mastermind group. Collaboration. Being around people that are doing things on the regular. Is that not one of the things that we have just learned? When you're around other people making things happen, just think about our running. We were all becoming legit runners at this point. The times we're talking about are 1% of people can run these times. We're not pros, but we're getting to be good runners. You know what I mean? And we're early in the journey there. And then thinking about other things, relationships with our family and friends, and our businesses, and jobs, and the connections. We're hanging on, guys. We're all doing things in those areas because we're all hanging around each other specifically to help each other in all those areas. We have all these minds on it. We've all leveled up. We've all raised the bar for each other, and it's normal. Man, there's a number of things I'm doing now that I would look, if I could go back and the younger version of myself see me doing them now, I'd be like, he would be asking you, you're doing those things, no problem. Now, what happened? I'd say, well, nothing magical other than the magic of hanging around other people that were doing things. Because now I'm doing these things that were once hard for me, and now they're kind of the norm. Now I'm looking for the next harder thing, and it's going to be so much easier with a group of guys I'm around because that is the norm, which is to do difficult things. And I would say difficult. They're not difficult anymore. They're necessarily difficult when you understand the why, and then you're taking action more often. If you take action more often, the identity of yourself is I'm an action taker, and you take more action. That's a consequence. And so I say all that to say, if he was around other action takers making videos on the regular, he'd be making more videos. Fact. Pure gold, right? We need to call Bones up. Hey, man, go get you a mastermind. It doesn't even necessarily need to be contortionist video guys, right? Exactly. Maybe it's an editor of a video, and he's just editing every day. And there's another guy in the group, and he is doing videos every day or maybe three times a week. And when they're talking about that on their Friday early morning meeting, he's like, man, I posted four or five videos this week. And he's like, well, how'd you do the, what'd you do in one? Well, I did this, this, and this. And he's like, oh, that's a good idea. Well, I could do another video on that. Boom. Now he's doing two a week. Then they keep hanging around each other, and you bring other people into your life that are doing more things, more action taking. Now he's doing five, six, seven videos a week, and that's the new norm. Yeah. Right? Excellent rhythm. Yeah, and that's slow to go fast. Yeah. Because people sign up, they hear the, you click on the podcast, I'm going to start my business. One, two, three. What is it? Man, this is way deeper than one, two, three. Right? This is super deep. But this is sustainability almost guaranteed. Yeah. That you succeed in your six figure business, or more. Well, because you see it all the time. I mean, I see it all the time. I see, I talk to, I deal with business owners all the time, and I see they're either miserable, you're going to be miserable, misery, or you're going to quit and go back and work at the job. Yeah. Right? Because you just signed up for another job. Yeah. If you're doing vending machines, if you're doing whatever it is. This time you have all the weight on your shoulders, and the fear of nothing to support you if it goes south. That's it. Yeah. You're just trading time for money. And that's what you're doing. And so if you don't have that, what it is that you want this business to create, and you're not willing to go through the mud, if you're not willing to go through the trenches, if you're not, then you have to be completely brutally honest with yourself. And that's why I love talking to people that will shoot me straight. Yeah. Guys like me, right? I remember talking to my mentor when I was building an interest in somebody, and one of my guys reached out to me late at night. I was sleeping. I was super frustrated. And I was like, I probably didn't handle that right. Normally, I would have just, what do we do as human beings? Well, I didn't handle that right. I'm not going to do anything about it. I'm not going to say sorry. I'm not going to address it. I'm not going to do anything. I'm just going to keep moving on. Right? Yeah. That causes a huge gap in things. Right? So I called my mentor up the next day. This is the power of the who. Right? I called him up. I said, hey man, this is what happened. And you know what he said to me? He said, bro, you completely handled this the wrong way. You started straight? I was straight. It was like a knife to my heart. I was like, what do you mean I handled this the wrong way? He's like, okay, let me share something with you. And so he spelled it all out for me. I was like, oh my gosh, I did handle it the wrong way. Wow. But that was the power of the who, the mentor. You learned so fast there, because if you hadn't have called him, it could have been another two years before you figured that out, going through multiple people. But that guy could have left. Yes. That's right. Right? And you called him, and it changed right away. Right away. So we just speeded up, cut that learning curve in half. Yeah. And so, you know, you had mentioned this to me. earlier about when you were working and putting in the work early stages. 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