May 24, 2024

Growing from Massive Setbacks with John St. Pierre

Imagine scaling a company to dizzying heights, only to be shown the door - that's the rollercoaster tale of John St. Pierre, my guest this week, whose story of patient ambition serves as a masterclass in entrepreneurial resilience. We explore the pivotal moments of John's $100 million journey, where his ousting from his own company becomes a launching pad for profound insights on failure and rebirth. John's narrative is a testament to the strength found in life's toughest trials, and it's sure to embolden any listener facing their own crucible.

As I peel back the layers of my own tumultuous exit from a dream job, the conversation shifts to the cathartic power of journaling and self-reflection. We discuss how the act of writing can morph from a chaotic release to a structured daily ritual that offers clarity and grounding. As we share stories of personal transformation, the universality of growth from adversity emerges, bridging the gap between entrepreneurship and the broader human experience.

The episode rounds off with a deep dive into fostering entrepreneurial spirit within teams and the importance of embracing failure as a growth catalyst. We share strategies for injecting entrepreneurship into the business culture, from strategic hiring to nurturing potential equity partners among employees. The discussion culminates in my vision for a maximized life across all facets and a heartfelt acknowledgment of the continuous support from friends like Rich Hoffman. Tune in for an enriching dialogue filled with practical wisdom and heartfelt encouragement.

Connect with John:
http://www.100mjourney.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnstpierre/
http://www.entrepreneursunited.us/

Let Primo know youre listening:
https://depthbuilder.bio.link/

Get on the path to Becoming the Promise You are Intended to Be
https://www.depthbuilder.com/books

Chapters

00:00 - Patient Ambition

10:27 - Reflection, Journaling, and Finding Light

19:59 - Finding Success Through Passion and Purpose

32:12 - Building a Culture of Entrepreneurship

42:29 - Embracing Failure in Entrepreneurship

49:34 - Maximizing Life's Offerings

Transcript
WEBVTT

00:00:00.100 --> 00:00:03.105
What is going on L&M family.

00:00:03.105 --> 00:00:09.483
I've got an OG baller that's got some real game, mr John St Pierre.

00:00:09.483 --> 00:00:17.728
I actually got to hang out with him on his podcast, with his co-host, and just some nuggets to kind of get you curious about Mr John.

00:00:17.728 --> 00:00:27.254
He has co-founded and grown two companies to over 50 million with an M $50 million in revenue, which is a lot of that money.

00:00:27.254 --> 00:00:29.705
He's also a fellow author.

00:00:29.705 --> 00:00:38.014
He wrote the $100 million journey which I think Pinky promised that he would at least help us figure out how to make 10 million.

00:00:38.014 --> 00:00:39.539
I don't know, I'm joking a little bit.

00:00:39.539 --> 00:00:51.095
And his mission and this is what is really intriguing is his mission is to help entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs achieve their goals and dreams.

00:00:51.095 --> 00:00:59.134
And of course, I'm going to make you wait just a few more seconds before we get to know Mr John St Pierre a little better to do our shout out.

00:00:59.134 --> 00:01:01.649
So I got an L&M shout out for Mr Darrell.

00:01:01.649 --> 00:01:09.281
Shout out for Mr Daryl.

00:01:09.281 --> 00:01:20.875
Daryl said story number four teared me up because it was all about the conflict between negative self-perspective and embarrassment versus the actual value of being vulnerable and the determination that infused confidence into others.

00:01:20.875 --> 00:01:33.804
So, daryl, thank you very much for taking the time to read the book first of all, and then to leave a review, because it feels really good to know that somebody read it and it impacted them in some kind of way.

00:01:33.804 --> 00:01:39.905
And to the rest of the family members you already know, send me a message, leave a comment on the socials, drop a review.

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I am excited and looking forward to sharing, giving you a shout out on the next interview.

00:01:46.420 --> 00:01:49.850
And now for Mr John St Pierre.

00:01:49.850 --> 00:01:51.424
Mr John, how are you doing today?

00:01:51.424 --> 00:01:53.368
My friend Doing great, excited to be here.

00:01:53.368 --> 00:01:54.471
Man, me too.

00:01:54.471 --> 00:02:05.457
I think we have a little unfair advantage here because we've hung out before, we've had some conversations before, so I want to just dive in with the challenging question.

00:02:05.457 --> 00:02:12.076
Maybe that'll hopefully reveal a nugget for the L&M family to chew on and also get to know.

00:02:12.076 --> 00:02:14.223
What should everybody know about you?

00:02:14.223 --> 00:02:22.752
But the question is this what is one of the life lessons that you share often that seems to help the most people?

00:02:23.294 --> 00:02:29.710
I feel, specifically when we're talking to entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, jesse, this concept of patient ambition.

00:02:29.710 --> 00:02:32.789
I was always very ambitious but I wasn't patient.

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I thought it had to happen now.

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We have to grow 100% next year.

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We got to go, go and then you run yourself off the cliff and you wonder what just happened.

00:02:40.299 --> 00:02:52.122
And this idea of having ambition, but also combining it with patience, combining it with following a life plan, combine it with having a three to five year strategic business plan that you stay on.

00:02:52.122 --> 00:02:55.981
You stay on the plan, you don't deviate, you don't chase the shiny objects all over the place.

00:02:55.981 --> 00:02:58.950
And a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of entrepreneurs, don't have that patience.

00:02:58.950 --> 00:03:00.182
They want instant gratification.

00:03:00.182 --> 00:03:01.086
It's getting worse and worse.

00:03:01.086 --> 00:03:03.951
Today's generation want it now, they want it today.

00:03:03.951 --> 00:03:10.137
But having that patient ambition has been a massive life lesson that I learned through some pretty big failures in my life.

00:03:10.137 --> 00:03:19.485
And once I figured that trick out, that little concept of patient ambition, everything kind of got a lot clearer and easier and all of a sudden things started happening a lot faster.

00:03:19.646 --> 00:03:22.644
My goodness, huge Patient ambition.

00:03:22.644 --> 00:03:23.829
They kind of conflict.

00:03:23.829 --> 00:03:26.241
Just the two concepts conflict with each other.

00:03:26.241 --> 00:03:31.366
Now, you mentioned that it's something you learned through painful lessons in your life.

00:03:31.366 --> 00:03:34.207
The plan and you click some buttons and it happened.

00:03:34.207 --> 00:03:34.367
Sure.

00:03:34.367 --> 00:03:58.432
So, having had the painful experiences that have given you or helped you build the patient ambition, how do you respond to painful experiences as you see them coming now, like in your current mode of operation?

00:03:58.840 --> 00:04:02.750
Yeah, wow, oh, jesse, I don't know if I can even answer that question before.

00:04:02.750 --> 00:04:11.814
I kind of give you a little bit of context, because if I told you how I respond to failure and missteps today, you need to know the context of the past.

00:04:11.814 --> 00:04:16.492
But I'll give you one of them, just one of those failure examples and it was my biggest.

00:04:16.492 --> 00:04:26.882
But one of those companies I grew to north of $50 million around $55 million actually in global revenues was a 15-year-old startup that started with nothing, zero dollars.

00:04:26.882 --> 00:04:36.449
We're going to start this business up, grew it over 15 years with two of my best friends and partners, grew it to north of $55 million and lost it.

00:04:37.011 --> 00:04:58.382
I basically got fired in the boardroom of that company 15 years later by the investors and private equity firms that came in and invested in the business and found myself completely broken, lost identity, lost 15 years of building this business and had to pick myself up off the pavement and figure out what is going on and what just happened to me.

00:04:58.382 --> 00:05:05.004
That was a pretty big failure in my life and from experiences like that you build a little bit of thicker skin, right.

00:05:05.004 --> 00:05:06.750
You kind of that can happen to me.

00:05:06.750 --> 00:05:08.415
I can get through anything.

00:05:08.415 --> 00:05:12.067
Now you walk in and you tell me the house is on fire, I'll start to say, okay, sounds good.

00:05:12.067 --> 00:05:13.009
What do we need to do Like?

00:05:13.009 --> 00:05:25.728
I have a little more like reaction time in my mind, because when you face failure multiple times and get yourself back up, you start realizing that nothing's permanent and you can get through everything with the right mindset.

00:05:25.889 --> 00:05:26.490
Oh my goodness.

00:05:26.490 --> 00:05:39.045
Okay, you said you combined some words and made a very powerful combination of lost identity in the like when that whole situation happened, which I'm sure probably was not fun at all.

00:05:39.045 --> 00:05:46.810
But having that building this thing up 15 years, 55 million global revenue, that's not a weekend hobby.

00:05:46.810 --> 00:05:51.168
That took a lot of your life, sacrifice of multiple things.

00:05:51.168 --> 00:05:53.112
Then it's you're booted out.

00:05:53.112 --> 00:05:55.081
And now what did I do wrong?

00:05:55.081 --> 00:05:56.245
How did I miss this?

00:05:56.245 --> 00:06:02.345
I'm sure all these questions start coming into your head Big time and you said, okay, let's go do it again.

00:06:02.345 --> 00:06:02.906
Is that?

00:06:02.906 --> 00:06:03.908
Am I reading that?

00:06:03.947 --> 00:06:04.168
right.

00:06:04.168 --> 00:06:06.934
Yeah, it wasn't that easy, but you're right.

00:06:06.934 --> 00:06:14.548
15 years of blood, sweat, years of tears like just not paying myself over the years, and then finally getting traction and the business is growing.

00:06:14.548 --> 00:06:20.088
You have hundreds of employees, an amazing culture, amazing people, best friends working in the business.

00:06:20.088 --> 00:06:24.605
It was in the sports industry, an industry I love so much, I had so much passion for.

00:06:24.605 --> 00:06:28.254
My kids were youth athletes and they were wearing the logos of the t-shirts and all over.

00:06:28.581 --> 00:06:34.819
It was like everything, it was my everything, and to lose that was devastating from a financial perspective.

00:06:34.819 --> 00:06:37.709
It was devastating from an embarrassment perspective.

00:06:37.709 --> 00:06:41.750
It was devastating from an identity perspective, because that was my identity.

00:06:41.750 --> 00:06:47.550
That's who people knew me as was the CEO and co-founder of this business and I had a lot of pride in that business.

00:06:47.550 --> 00:06:55.182
And when you lose that, it's kind of like that first, like what just happened, kind of moment and there's a okay, now what am I going to do?

00:06:55.182 --> 00:06:58.942
And you wake up the next morning and you don't have access to your emails anymore.

00:06:58.942 --> 00:07:00.747
Your calendar's empty.

00:07:00.747 --> 00:07:06.586
I was in a litigation type of situation with the company based on the severance agreement or anything, so I can't talk to anybody.

00:07:06.586 --> 00:07:15.072
It's just kind of like this uncomfortable situation you find yourself in, and what I did, jesse, is I basically took some time of self-reflection.

00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:15.961
You know what?

00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:17.365
I'm not going to jump in anything else.

00:07:17.365 --> 00:07:25.019
I'm going to go for long walks with the dog, I'm going to think about where I'm at and what I'm doing, and I can share with you what I discovered in that period.

00:07:25.019 --> 00:07:29.711
But nonetheless, one of the biggest things after that period was really this moment of journaling.

00:07:29.711 --> 00:07:32.209
I had never journaled before, ever I had never journaled before.

00:07:32.209 --> 00:07:34.262
I was too busy to journal, I got to get up and go.

00:07:34.262 --> 00:07:35.983
I don't journal, I don't need to do that.

00:07:35.983 --> 00:07:37.064
That's for weak people.

00:07:37.204 --> 00:07:38.165
Yeah, I don't need to.

00:07:38.725 --> 00:07:44.149
I never journaled, I never took some time to figure out what my true life purpose was.

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My purpose is, I'm going to grow companies and everything's going to fall in place.

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And then I'm going to make some money and I got a family.

00:07:48.072 --> 00:07:48.952
Everything's going to be great.

00:07:48.952 --> 00:07:54.476
Never had a purpose, although mentors had always said John, someday you'll find your purpose, and I'm like what are you talking about?

00:07:54.476 --> 00:07:54.898
I don't know.

00:07:54.898 --> 00:08:03.271
Good, I took some time to really develop a 30-year life plan for myself.

00:08:03.271 --> 00:08:03.913
Where did I want?

00:08:03.932 --> 00:08:05.415
to be 30 years from now.

00:08:05.415 --> 00:08:06.985
Where do I want to be in 10 years?

00:08:06.985 --> 00:08:08.187
I'll be on track for my 30 years.

00:08:08.187 --> 00:08:09.115
Where do I want to be in three years?

00:08:09.115 --> 00:08:09.879
I'll be on track for the three.

00:08:09.879 --> 00:08:12.507
I really designed a truly comprehensive life plan.

00:08:12.507 --> 00:08:13.511
I'd never done that before.

00:08:13.511 --> 00:08:18.922
I had designed company plans, annual plans, three-year plans for my business like clockwork.

00:08:18.922 --> 00:08:19.942
Let's go for an offsite.

00:08:19.942 --> 00:08:21.303
We're going to do our strategic business plan.

00:08:21.303 --> 00:08:28.930
Never did that for myself, never took the time to really build my own plan and align those two, and once I figured that out, it was more of okay.

00:08:28.930 --> 00:08:29.490
What did I learn?

00:08:29.490 --> 00:08:29.930
What?

00:08:29.951 --> 00:08:33.774
were the introspective learnings of this massive failure, like where did I go wrong?

00:08:33.774 --> 00:08:36.316
Get away with the do away with the victim mindset.

00:08:36.316 --> 00:08:37.836
What were my contributions?

00:08:37.836 --> 00:08:39.860
I was a CEO of that business.

00:08:39.860 --> 00:08:46.914
I made some critical errors in the foundational elements of setting that business up to put myself in a vulnerable position for that thing to happen to me.

00:08:46.914 --> 00:08:48.177
What were those?

00:08:48.177 --> 00:08:49.660
And I crystallized those.

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I call them the seven principles of entrepreneurial success that I outlined, but then I had to go test them.

00:08:53.764 --> 00:09:12.323
So on the other side of this whole story, jesse, is I had an equity investment in a project management contracting business and that business, in around 2016, 17, was on a $5 million business and I took those principles with my partner there and said, well, let's apply these principles over here, because I'm not done growing companies.

00:09:12.323 --> 00:09:13.586
I love growing businesses.

00:09:13.586 --> 00:09:23.789
Let's go, let's take this thing to a hundred million and we literally put together a three to five year business plan with that at the center, but applying the principles of success, not doing what I'd done there.

00:09:23.789 --> 00:09:25.352
Let's try this a new way.

00:09:25.352 --> 00:09:29.428
And in 2022, we successfully grew that company to north of $100 million.

00:09:29.428 --> 00:09:30.611
The right way.

00:09:32.884 --> 00:09:33.768
I hear the right way.

00:09:33.768 --> 00:09:36.168
I hear you say growing it the right way.

00:09:36.168 --> 00:09:39.730
The way that translates in my head is in a sustainable way.

00:09:39.730 --> 00:09:43.043
We're not running people ragged, we're not cutting throats.

00:09:43.043 --> 00:09:47.061
You got to be prepared to go there, but that's not the best way to do it.

00:09:47.061 --> 00:09:55.705
I mean, please let me be clear, I've never built a million dollar business, much less a 50 or a hundred million dollar business, but I've.

00:09:55.705 --> 00:10:06.889
A powerful thing is when people build systems, processes, thinking, mental models that are sustainable for the business the $100 Million Journey, the Seven Principles.

00:10:27.501 --> 00:10:30.820
You went in this period of reflection, picked up journaling.

00:10:30.820 --> 00:11:03.285
It was a dark time, and so I'd like it if you could shine a little bit some light on the dark times, because it's my assessment that, at least in Jesse land, the darkest times is where I've had the biggest lessons, and I know that there's L and M family members out there that are in dark times, that have been in dark times and maybe stuck there or there's dark times ahead, and so what I'd like is to maybe steal some of your wisdom to help them through that.

00:11:03.285 --> 00:11:05.351
Yeah, because I don't think you're.

00:11:05.351 --> 00:11:12.245
I think it's a human experience, more than it is an entrepreneur, of building multimillion dollar business experience.

00:11:12.245 --> 00:11:12.746
Am I wrong?

00:11:13.008 --> 00:11:13.909
No, you're not wrong at all.

00:11:13.909 --> 00:11:15.293
No, you're a hundred percent right.

00:11:15.293 --> 00:11:16.811
So, yeah, to share a little bit on that.

00:11:16.811 --> 00:11:21.245
In that moment I'm in the boardroom, I'm getting fired, getting in my car.

00:11:21.245 --> 00:11:34.822
It getting in my car, it was about two hours away, two and a half hours away from my house, and obviously the first call I make is to my wife hey, I'm not sure what just happened, but I just got fired Driving home.

00:11:34.842 --> 00:11:41.361
And this is a wife that I don't know how other spouses are that are listening to this, but my wife's always right, literally always right, and she had warned me John, you're going too fast.

00:11:41.361 --> 00:11:44.004
John, are you sure you want to bring on some additional capital?

00:11:44.004 --> 00:11:45.787
Are you sure you want to bring on some additional capital?

00:11:45.787 --> 00:11:47.849
Are you sure you want to do this Like that kind of oh no, I got this, I got this.

00:11:47.849 --> 00:11:48.990
They would never get rid of me.

00:11:48.990 --> 00:11:52.594
You know, this is so the arrogance and just kind of that.

00:11:52.594 --> 00:11:53.956
No, I'm invincible.

00:11:53.956 --> 00:12:12.464
I got this Right To come back home and I could tell that she had just informed my 10 and 12 year old what had just happened and I had to give her a big hug and said honey, I effed up and that was my sign to her that you know you were right.

00:12:12.484 --> 00:12:14.769
I went way too far over the skis and put myself in this position, and so that was tough.

00:12:14.769 --> 00:12:21.009
That was really really tough, but the one piece that really kept me in the moment, jesse, was.

00:12:21.009 --> 00:12:27.083
Here's a 10 and 12 year old right that no daddy had a bad day at work.

00:12:27.083 --> 00:12:27.746
Here's a wife who loved me.

00:12:27.746 --> 00:12:32.942
Although she told me she had told me and warned me, she's there with me, I have my health, I was healthy.

00:12:32.942 --> 00:12:34.706
So nice family, healthy.

00:12:34.706 --> 00:12:45.229
Perspective starts coming in Perspective, and it was like that helped me a lot, which is there's so many things going on in this world that people are in much worse situations than this currency.

00:12:45.229 --> 00:13:01.904
Although it's devastating, put it in perspective of everything, and I think sometimes people lose that element of perspective where their problem seems bigger than any other problem that's out there, and in this particular situation it hurt a whole bunch of different areas, but I wanted to be strong for them.

00:13:02.379 --> 00:13:08.985
I needed to be strong for myself and look at, okay, what are all the positive things, what am I grateful for, what are all these things that I have?

00:13:08.985 --> 00:13:20.013
And so I think, being grateful for what I had, having perspective of my current situation, and I think the big thing that you hear it's cliche is that every dark room has a light switch.

00:13:20.013 --> 00:13:24.062
It's easier said than done because when you're in that dark room you can't find it.

00:13:24.062 --> 00:13:28.346
You're looking, but every dark room really does, and there's always a light there somewhere.

00:13:28.346 --> 00:13:29.347
You just got to find it.

00:13:29.347 --> 00:13:31.169
And that's kind of the perspective I had in those moments.

00:13:31.549 --> 00:13:33.432
Oh man, okay, so let's.

00:13:33.432 --> 00:13:38.216
I want to hear a little bit about journaling, because I'm a huge advocate for journaling.

00:13:38.216 --> 00:13:40.845
It's not so much the physical act of writing.

00:13:40.845 --> 00:13:51.562
I like you was like journaling, like who's got time to do that garbage?

00:13:51.562 --> 00:13:55.926
Now I've got an hour blocked out every day.

00:13:55.926 --> 00:13:58.442
On my calendar it says thinking time.

00:13:58.442 --> 00:14:00.942
Yeah, but it's me sitting down with my journal.

00:14:00.942 --> 00:14:04.144
I've got a fancy, super expensive Etch-A-Sketch.

00:14:04.144 --> 00:14:05.320
You remember the Etch-A-Sketch?

00:14:05.320 --> 00:14:10.662
Oh yeah, so I got a Remarkable which is a it look like this Exactly, so I got a remarkable, which is exactly like that.

00:14:10.721 --> 00:14:15.730
So I got one of those and there's some days I'll sit and, man, I'm writing, I'm burning it up.

00:14:15.730 --> 00:14:20.014
Other days I might write a few lines, but I'm thinking right.

00:14:20.014 --> 00:14:23.985
I'm clarifying my thinking looking at what I experienced yesterday, or dead end, blah, blah, blah.

00:14:23.985 --> 00:14:26.984
I didn't start journaling an hour a day.

00:14:26.984 --> 00:14:28.056
I started.

00:14:28.056 --> 00:14:38.765
My therapist challenged me to find five minutes in the next month to sit down and think and I'm like who I you create, like, all right, I'll do my best.

00:14:38.765 --> 00:14:40.135
That's where I began.

00:14:40.135 --> 00:14:49.626
Now I have this habit where it's a daily thing, and so what was that progression like for you in terms of picking up the habit of journaling and doing that introspection?

00:14:50.054 --> 00:14:56.528
Yeah, I think initially, jesse, it was me trying to think through all the things that just happened.

00:14:56.528 --> 00:14:58.942
It was just a brain dump, no strategic.

00:14:58.942 --> 00:15:03.802
Anytime I'd want, I'd take a piece of paper out, I'd just start writing Like really not strategic, not really organized.

00:15:03.802 --> 00:15:07.520
And the magic of doing these conversations right.

00:15:07.520 --> 00:15:10.907
Rich Hoffman, my co-host for the Entrepreneurs United podcast, and I started.

00:15:10.907 --> 00:15:13.018
We're in our fifth season now, so we started doing this.

00:15:13.018 --> 00:15:14.061
Pretty shortly.

00:15:14.061 --> 00:15:17.240
After this situation's going on, I'm saying, hey, let's do this podcast again.

00:15:17.240 --> 00:15:24.683
I want to sharpen my saw and work with entrepreneurs and we're doing these conversations, and one of our guests, dr Julie Bell, was her name.

00:15:24.683 --> 00:15:27.298
She said everybody should start every day for 20 minutes with a blank sheet of paper.

00:15:27.298 --> 00:15:35.087
Just every day, for 20 minutes with a blank sheet of paper just a blank sheet of paper just blank and just whatever comes, just let it come and I

00:15:35.128 --> 00:15:36.109
committed in that session.

00:15:36.109 --> 00:15:42.410
To Rich, who you've met, I said, rich, I'm going to try that.

00:15:42.410 --> 00:15:42.601
I'm just going to try.

00:15:42.601 --> 00:15:43.573
I'm going to get a notepad and I'm going to start with a blank sheet of paper.

00:15:43.573 --> 00:15:43.863
I'm going to start.

00:15:43.863 --> 00:15:45.556
And out of that, jesse, came this book.

00:15:46.437 --> 00:15:48.360
Out of that came a process.

00:15:48.360 --> 00:15:55.350
I identified for myself that every morning through talking through other guests and saying we should start off every morning with what you were grateful for yesterday, what you're grateful for today.

00:15:55.350 --> 00:15:56.379
So then I started every day.

00:15:56.379 --> 00:16:00.163
I then changed my sheet of paper to start Okay, what am I grateful for yesterday, what am I grateful for today?

00:16:00.554 --> 00:16:17.921
And then my brain dump and as I kept having more and more conversations, I started seeing more and more of a trend that some of the most successful people in the world journal every single day or night one of the two about what it just took in place, what they captured, what they put together, and I started finding it magical.

00:16:17.921 --> 00:16:30.169
I was like, oh, this is really cool, and the amount of ideas that I came up with just a blank sheet of paper where I just let my mind go wherever it was going to go really sparked my creativity, really helped with my memory because I had stuff written down.

00:16:30.169 --> 00:16:30.750
I can go back.

00:16:30.750 --> 00:16:36.481
It's all here, I know where to find it, as, with you, I got this remarkable pad, so the last few years are right here.

00:16:36.481 --> 00:16:37.427
I can go find anything.

00:16:37.427 --> 00:16:42.245
I can go find our podcast from a month ago that you had with me within seconds and say, oh yeah, jesse, we talked about this, this, this.

00:16:43.075 --> 00:16:45.139
For me, it just kind of brought everything together.

00:16:45.139 --> 00:16:46.941
I'll give you just one last piece.

00:16:46.941 --> 00:16:52.009
Somebody at one point this is a book that I had read in the past and they talked about what's Facebook's business model.

00:16:52.009 --> 00:17:01.783
And Facebook's business model is the elegant organization of information Okay Is what they called it and in our minds we have all these input, millions of inputs.

00:17:01.783 --> 00:17:08.159
They're just kind of coming in and out every single day in our reticular activating system and that filter only takes in a certain amount of information.

00:17:08.159 --> 00:17:09.039
We can't take it all in.

00:17:09.401 --> 00:17:14.490
But there's millions of inputs that are just coming in to us or trying to hit us every single day.

00:17:14.490 --> 00:17:22.648
The ability to elegantly organize some of that that is skating around in our minds on a piece of paper every day just creates magic for me now.

00:17:23.035 --> 00:17:25.474
So two questions, or maybe observation and question.

00:17:25.474 --> 00:17:26.617
So one observation.

00:17:26.617 --> 00:17:30.346
It's funny like getting prepped for our conversation today.

00:17:30.346 --> 00:17:35.346
I'm like, oh man, I got a block out time I got to dig like in my head and then I sit down and outline.

00:17:35.346 --> 00:17:51.422
I'm like, oh, it wasn't as big when I actually sit down and do the thing because I like I got my dry erase pad here and when I have that stuff going on, once I put pen to paper or whatever pad, stylus to pad, whatever the damn thing is.

00:17:51.422 --> 00:18:00.011
Now it seems to settle all the static and all the stuff that it's not as big as I thought it was.

00:18:00.011 --> 00:18:06.560
When I sit down, get it out of my head and look at it, it's like, oh, that's the elegant organization.

00:18:06.815 --> 00:18:07.556
Yeah, exactly.

00:18:07.957 --> 00:18:25.209
Now, as you were journaling and I'm sure I mean you're an entrepreneur, you've built many businesses, you've got I'm sure your network is probably ultra power that network In terms of going from journaling to writing a book was it like, okay, I'm going to write a book, let me journal about it.

00:18:25.209 --> 00:18:35.183
What was that trajectory of getting fired, doing some soul searching, building a habit of journaling, writing a book Was it just that easy?

00:18:35.505 --> 00:18:54.101
No, I mean, I think part of the journaling process for me was trying to crystallize what did I do, where did I mess up, and what do I want in my life, and what's my purpose and what's my passion and what do I want to do next, and all these different thoughts, but an introspective part of what did I learn as an entrepreneur in this experience?

00:18:54.101 --> 00:18:55.098
I started crystallizing.

00:18:55.098 --> 00:18:55.674
You know what it's?

00:18:55.674 --> 00:18:56.718
These five things?

00:18:56.718 --> 00:18:57.400
No, it's not these five things.

00:18:57.400 --> 00:18:57.961
I got two more.

00:18:57.961 --> 00:18:58.503
There it is.

00:18:58.503 --> 00:19:00.500
Oh, I got 10 now and these two are the same.

00:19:00.654 --> 00:19:12.877
So I started like just trying to bring it together, partly because, jesse, that was going to be a lesson.

00:19:12.877 --> 00:19:13.961
Make it a lesson that I could really benefit from.

00:19:13.961 --> 00:19:14.782
I really didn't want to lose anything.

00:19:14.782 --> 00:19:20.237
The idea of writing a book the book would have been half-baked, the book would have been here's what happened to me and here's what I learned.

00:19:20.237 --> 00:19:21.461
But there's no proof of concept.

00:19:21.461 --> 00:19:23.369
That really wasn't quite there.

00:19:23.873 --> 00:19:33.701
But when I talked to my business partner about taking this other business and say, hey, let's really grow this thing, let's go, but I'm only going to do it if we don't violate these learnings that I have right, let's go, apply them.

00:19:33.701 --> 00:19:38.083
And as I started to see the company grow and I started seeing we're going to do it.

00:19:38.083 --> 00:19:45.477
We're going to bring this company from 5 million to 100 million, applying these principles and full control of our business and doing it the right way.

00:19:45.477 --> 00:19:47.259
In my mind, I got to tell the story.

00:19:47.259 --> 00:19:48.961
I got to go help entrepreneurs.

00:19:48.961 --> 00:19:53.849
I got to tell the story of the whole process, which in the book I talk a lot about the story.

00:19:53.849 --> 00:20:00.079
So it's a third about a story, a third about the learnings and a third really the case study that goes along with it.

00:20:00.681 --> 00:20:03.821
Nice, nice, okay, so you had an idea.

00:20:03.821 --> 00:20:09.768
Let me practice these things, these truths that you discover through a painful experience.

00:20:09.768 --> 00:20:13.759
Now let me go test them and then capture that story.

00:20:13.759 --> 00:20:23.185
So I know that's ultra, ultra basic, simplified, but I really want to pull it out that way because we can all do that.

00:20:23.185 --> 00:20:27.476
It doesn't have to be a billion dollar business plan.

00:20:27.476 --> 00:20:28.739
It's the lessons.

00:20:29.039 --> 00:20:37.213
I really honestly I don't know how to tease it out but I get to coach and interact with a bunch of folks that want to do something different.

00:20:37.213 --> 00:21:08.236
Right, they're in that transition phase of life, introspective, I really I got a great job, I like it, my situation's good, but there's something missing and I feel like, because I did this, there were a ton of really valuable lessons and transferable skills that I built as a result of doing life, but I didn't understand how universally applicable they were to different venues, different situations, and so that's why I'm trying to be ultra basic.

00:21:08.236 --> 00:21:20.884
But where are you on that thought, in that the lessons that we learn are universal and maybe not don't have to be the $1 million journey they'd be like that's not exciting enough $10 million journey.

00:21:21.224 --> 00:21:21.644
That's not exciting.

00:21:21.644 --> 00:21:34.278
$100 million, yeah, that sounds good.

00:21:34.278 --> 00:21:35.222
That's going to sell, right?

00:21:35.222 --> 00:21:41.324
So the principles in this book apply to growing a half a million dollar company to a $500 million company.

00:21:41.324 --> 00:21:42.515
They don't really change, right?

00:21:42.515 --> 00:21:43.536
So that's very important.

00:21:43.916 --> 00:21:47.040
But I want to address the point you talked about in terms of the transition, right?

00:21:47.040 --> 00:21:48.603
So put things in this perspective.

00:21:48.603 --> 00:21:53.608
When I got fired from that company, jesse, that was my dream company, that was my dream role.

00:21:53.608 --> 00:21:58.541
If you asked me today, I could be the CEO of any company in the world.

00:21:58.541 --> 00:22:00.165
What company would you want to be the CEO?

00:22:00.165 --> 00:22:01.477
I'd be like that company I lost.

00:22:01.477 --> 00:22:02.378
That would be my answer.

00:22:02.378 --> 00:22:02.840
Right?

00:22:02.840 --> 00:22:04.384
So it was everything for me.

00:22:04.384 --> 00:22:06.036
So then you can't do that anymore.

00:22:06.036 --> 00:22:08.479
You got these non-competes, you got these different whatever.

00:22:08.479 --> 00:22:10.361
So, okay, now what am I going to do?

00:22:10.361 --> 00:22:13.765
Do I go on LinkedIn and look for another job?

00:22:13.765 --> 00:22:14.885
And what industry?

00:22:14.885 --> 00:22:16.188
What do I want to do?

00:22:16.188 --> 00:22:17.890
Like, you started going through all these different thoughts.

00:22:17.890 --> 00:22:19.351
You're in this transitionary phase.

00:22:19.351 --> 00:22:27.259
The one thing hopefully your listeners could take from this that I executed upon and it worked wonders for me is in Jim Collins' book Good to Great.

00:22:27.259 --> 00:22:29.122
He talks about the hedgehog concept.

00:22:29.122 --> 00:22:30.002
Are you familiar?

00:22:30.022 --> 00:22:30.723
with that concept.

00:22:30.804 --> 00:22:41.878
Oh yeah, it's these three circles right, the Venn diagram, where these three circles intersect, and I had once heard that's where success lives.

00:22:41.878 --> 00:22:53.799
If you can find the sweet spot in that Venn diagram, in the middle of those three circles, that's success for you, and I've since been using that same Venn diagram with all the entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs that I coach, which is what are you most passionate about?

00:22:53.799 --> 00:22:54.281
Let's do a brainstorm.

00:22:54.281 --> 00:22:55.448
What are all the things you're most passionate about?

00:22:55.448 --> 00:22:56.311
What can you be the best in the world at?

00:22:56.311 --> 00:22:56.854
Let's brainstorm that.

00:22:56.854 --> 00:23:02.162
Maybe you're not the best in the world at it today, but you have enough passion in it and you're pretty good at it that you could be the best in the world at it.

00:23:02.162 --> 00:23:03.506
Let's brainstorm those things.

00:23:03.835 --> 00:23:05.416
And what can drive your economic engine?

00:23:05.416 --> 00:23:09.082
What can really make the finances work for you that you have?

00:23:09.082 --> 00:23:10.503
What you're looking to get in your life?

00:23:10.503 --> 00:23:12.165
Right, and let's brainstorm those ideas.

00:23:12.165 --> 00:23:15.711
And where those all come to the center is what you should be doing.

00:23:15.711 --> 00:23:22.942
That's where success lives, and I think way too many people live in one or two of those circles and haven't found a way to live in all three.

00:23:22.942 --> 00:23:31.025
And once you live in all three, you're basically retired because you're doing life the way you want to do life and you waking up every morning excited, energized.

00:23:31.025 --> 00:23:33.488
You have the passion, you know you can be the best at it.

00:23:33.488 --> 00:23:35.317
You make it work for you economically.

00:23:35.317 --> 00:23:38.866
That is how you transition to something new is really find that sweet spot.

00:23:39.255 --> 00:23:41.480
Yeah, thank you for saying that so clearly.

00:23:41.480 --> 00:23:46.478
So dumb question Sitting down and getting that list and find that sweet spot.

00:23:46.478 --> 00:23:55.123
Should somebody carve out like 15 to 30 minutes to make that happen, or should they be ready for a little, to invest a little more time?

00:23:55.503 --> 00:23:56.606
Yeah, I think it's more time.

00:23:56.606 --> 00:23:58.318
I mean, let's go back to journaling, right?

00:23:58.318 --> 00:23:59.362
You could spend.

00:23:59.362 --> 00:24:02.018
You could spend an hour right now, if you're listening to this.

00:24:02.018 --> 00:24:06.936
Get a blank sheet of paper and fill that paper with the things you're the most passionate about.

00:24:06.936 --> 00:24:09.323
It doesn't matter, you write for your family.

00:24:09.323 --> 00:24:14.663
If it's this, if it's basketball, if it's carpentry, if it's ballet, it doesn't matter.

00:24:14.663 --> 00:24:14.883
Right?

00:24:14.883 --> 00:24:17.759
Write all the things you're most passionate about today, Tomorrow.

00:24:17.759 --> 00:24:20.685
Grab your paper and go what can I be the best at, Right?

00:24:20.685 --> 00:24:22.121
And write all those things down.

00:24:22.121 --> 00:24:22.603
And then what?

00:24:22.603 --> 00:24:23.990
What can I make money doing?

00:24:23.990 --> 00:24:26.657
Write all those things down and then combine that list.

00:24:26.678 --> 00:24:29.362
I think it's a little bit more of a soul searching piece, right?

00:24:29.362 --> 00:24:34.809
Because sometimes it's also good to do it with somebody, like a coach, who could brainstorm with you.

00:24:34.809 --> 00:24:38.230
Wait a minute, Jesse, I thought you were good at the guitar, Like why isn't that?

00:24:38.230 --> 00:24:38.954
Or do you like the guitar?

00:24:38.954 --> 00:24:40.406
Oh, yeah, I'm passionate, but I can't make money doing it.

00:24:40.406 --> 00:24:44.479
It doesn't matter, we're still writing it down Like the brainstorm these ideas out of your mind.

00:24:44.479 --> 00:24:51.769
But yeah, it takes a little bit longer than 20, 30 minutes, but it also is not that complex of a thing to do and everybody can do it.

00:24:51.934 --> 00:24:53.117
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:24:53.117 --> 00:24:57.188
Good, and I'm glad you said that, because I back to patient ambition.

00:24:57.188 --> 00:25:02.346
Right, if I'm patient with this process, I'm going to list 10 things.

00:25:02.346 --> 00:25:03.548
Okay, there's the answer.

00:25:03.548 --> 00:25:08.742
Let me go do that and then spend a whole bunch of energy and maybe I didn't.

00:25:08.742 --> 00:25:25.827
I didn't invest the appropriate amount of time to get ultra, ultra clear on what that sweet spot is, and I love your recommendation to do it with a coach or somebody you trust so that they can challenge you and call you on it and really, really dig in deep on the thing.

00:25:26.256 --> 00:25:37.644
I was having a conversation with a really good friend of mine, colleague in the industry, and we were having this conversation about goals and I have an issue, so maybe you could straighten my brain out a little bit.

00:25:37.644 --> 00:25:45.429
The way I view life or manage my ambition is I have a direction right.

00:25:45.429 --> 00:25:58.388
I am on a path to share my gifts and talents to introduce people to the promise they are intended to be, and, provided that I am sharing my gifts and talents in service to others, I'm winning.

00:25:58.388 --> 00:26:00.578
I'm on the path right, like that's.

00:26:00.578 --> 00:26:06.699
That's my method of thinking through selection, saying yes, saying no, all of that.

00:26:07.260 --> 00:26:09.547
And my friend was like yeah, but what's your goal?

00:26:09.547 --> 00:26:11.339
And I'm like I think I just said it.

00:26:11.339 --> 00:26:15.836
So we got a little deeper into it and then it became like, yeah, but how do you measure that?

00:26:15.836 --> 00:26:22.596
And so I was like, oh, okay, in my head, measurement is not as important as the direction and the path.

00:26:22.596 --> 00:26:28.724
But I think for a lot of, I think, maybe, conventional thinking and where I'm struggling to understand, is no, no, no, no.

00:26:28.724 --> 00:26:38.480
You got to have these hard measurable goals before you start moving, which, again, I'm like no, I just need to make the next rightest decision and get moving.

00:26:38.480 --> 00:26:42.685
Well, what are your thoughts on all of that gibberish I just spouted?

00:26:42.875 --> 00:26:50.200
Yeah, you're talking to a numbers person and I do have a core philosophy that you can't manage what you don't measure.

00:26:50.200 --> 00:26:52.963
So if you don't measure something, you don't know how well you're doing.

00:26:52.963 --> 00:26:56.250
That being said, that's more of my core philosophy.

00:26:56.250 --> 00:27:06.737
When you start talking about KPIs of a business and what the gross margin is and different things like that, in the grand scheme of everything right, one of the things I mentioned earlier is I have a 30-year life plan.

00:27:06.737 --> 00:27:10.281
I'd never had a 30-year, I'd a one year life plan, let alone a 30 year.

00:27:10.281 --> 00:27:14.426
I have a 30 year life plan and that whole idea.

00:27:14.826 --> 00:27:27.865
One of the other contributing elements to that was the book by Gary Keller, the One Thing, and the concept there is what is the one thing you're trying to achieve in life Not in business, in life Like, what are you trying to achieve?

00:27:27.865 --> 00:27:29.028
What is that?

00:27:29.028 --> 00:27:36.482
So a lot of my self-reflection period that we talked about in that year I took some tons of time was what is that one thing?

00:27:36.482 --> 00:27:40.305
Then, once you have that one thing, 30 years from now, what does that look like?

00:27:40.305 --> 00:27:48.365
If you're achieving your one thing in 30 years, where are you from a health perspective, a financial perspective, a relationship perspective, a spirituality perspective.

00:27:48.365 --> 00:27:50.921
I don't know all the other perspectives you'd like to put in.

00:27:50.921 --> 00:27:53.047
Where do you want to be in all these areas 30 years from now?

00:27:53.047 --> 00:27:55.380
And then, okay, now you have your 30 years.

00:27:55.380 --> 00:27:56.702
Where do you want to be in 10 years?

00:27:56.702 --> 00:28:01.542
That, if you hit this level in 10 years, you'll be on track to your 30-year plan?

00:28:01.542 --> 00:28:02.665
Okay, got that.

00:28:03.126 --> 00:28:06.500
Okay now, where do you need to be in three years to be on track for your 10-year, to be on track for your 30?

00:28:06.500 --> 00:28:07.261
Okay, got that.

00:28:07.261 --> 00:28:11.048
We need to be in the next year to be on track for your three year, for your 10 year theory?

00:28:11.048 --> 00:28:11.730
Okay, got that.

00:28:11.730 --> 00:28:12.771
We need to be each quarter.

00:28:12.771 --> 00:28:13.874
So now I have a quarterly plan?

00:28:13.874 --> 00:28:14.635
Okay, got that.

00:28:14.635 --> 00:28:16.039
Where do I got to be each month?

00:28:16.039 --> 00:28:16.682
Okay, got that.

00:28:16.682 --> 00:28:17.684
Where do you be each week?

00:28:17.684 --> 00:28:18.125
Okay, got that.

00:28:18.125 --> 00:28:27.486
Today, this hour, right now, you and I are doing exactly what we should be doing, that step we should be taking towards our 30 year life plan.

00:28:27.486 --> 00:28:29.087
I don't know how to measure it exactly either.

00:28:29.087 --> 00:28:47.457
All I know is, after this I'm doing another thing that plays into my 30-year life plan, and that's how my days are constructed is you've got to build those blocking elements to keep marching towards your total life plan in general, and as long as you keep taking those steps, have patient ambition, you start making those steps, they'll all accumulate.

00:28:47.457 --> 00:28:47.656
I love it.

00:28:47.656 --> 00:28:47.876
I love it.

00:28:47.896 --> 00:28:48.438
So I'm not totally crazy.

00:28:48.438 --> 00:28:49.038
Steps they'll all accumulate.

00:28:49.038 --> 00:28:49.318
I love it.

00:28:49.318 --> 00:28:49.519
I love it.

00:28:49.519 --> 00:28:50.921
So I'm not totally crazy.

00:28:50.921 --> 00:29:06.038
And, truth be told, I do have some very hard, some very specific, clear things that I'm measuring daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually.

00:29:06.038 --> 00:29:07.103
Those don't feel like those in my head.

00:29:07.103 --> 00:29:07.364
They're done.

00:29:07.364 --> 00:29:11.618
I just need to do the right things, learn the right lessons and keep doing them and they're going to be accomplished Like it's not hard.

00:29:12.019 --> 00:29:16.028
Other thing the introducing people to the promise they're intended to be.

00:29:16.028 --> 00:29:23.327
That's a little harder and keeps me on a better path, not just for me but for people.

00:29:23.327 --> 00:29:27.845
I'm sorry I should say that the other way, because some people I had one person asked me.

00:29:27.845 --> 00:29:31.000
She was like Jess, you know, you're just so giving, you're so available.

00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:33.688
And I'm like, yeah, it's like, how, like, why do you do that?

00:29:33.688 --> 00:29:43.414
And I'm like it's not because I'm this super sweet guy, like for real, but because it keeps me sober, it keeps me healthy to serve others.

00:29:43.414 --> 00:29:47.720
So it's not like I'm serving just for the plain sake of serving.

00:29:47.720 --> 00:29:52.226
It's because it's the only way I know how to get fulfillment and stay sober.

00:29:52.226 --> 00:29:55.790
So there's some selfish stuff going on there, twisted stuff.

00:29:55.790 --> 00:29:57.979
I love it, but it's necessary to keep me going Now.

00:29:58.942 --> 00:30:08.855
You've mentioned two words and I threw them out at the beginning intrapreneur and entrepreneur and at first I thought it was like a misspelling typo.

00:30:08.855 --> 00:30:10.122
I'm like no, I think there's something there, so what's the rule?

00:30:10.122 --> 00:30:11.106
I mean, I thought it was like a misspelling typo.

00:30:11.106 --> 00:30:12.615
I'm like no, I think there's something there, so what's the rule?

00:30:12.615 --> 00:30:16.384
I mean, I think people generally understand entrepreneur, what that means.

00:30:16.685 --> 00:30:16.826
Yeah.

00:30:17.035 --> 00:30:21.654
Especially now with all the damn content on social medias about entrepreneurship.

00:30:21.654 --> 00:30:29.589
But what's the relationship between entrepreneur and your book and entrepreneur and entrepreneur?

00:30:29.589 --> 00:30:31.182
Can you like clarify that?

00:30:32.295 --> 00:30:32.394
Sure.

00:30:32.394 --> 00:30:33.557
So let me start with the second part.

00:30:33.557 --> 00:30:35.442
What's the difference between an entrepreneur and an intrapreneur?

00:30:35.442 --> 00:30:44.217
There's a lot of individuals with entrepreneurial spirit that work within companies that aren't necessarily the owner of the company.

00:30:44.217 --> 00:30:48.445
They may, they may be a small equity owner, but they may not be.

00:30:48.445 --> 00:30:56.006
They may be, I mean, there are CEOs of companies that don't own the company, are paid very well to run the company, but they're an entrepreneur.

00:30:56.154 --> 00:30:59.003
So I look at the entrepreneur as high risk, high reward.

00:30:59.003 --> 00:31:05.502
Right, you're putting all your capital at play, you're maybe getting you know, working for years without getting paid, and maybe someday you're going to create something great.

00:31:05.502 --> 00:31:09.763
Then you look at the employee who's exchanging time for money or results for money.

00:31:09.763 --> 00:31:17.698
Right on the employee side, yes, well, right in that middle is an entrepreneur.

00:31:17.698 --> 00:31:23.336
And an entrepreneur, if done right, is not only exchanging their time for money or results for money, but they also act like owners of the business.

00:31:23.336 --> 00:31:27.185
They're treated like owners of the business and I call them intrapreneurs.

00:31:27.185 --> 00:31:31.664
And in the seven principles, jesse principle four of the book.

00:31:31.664 --> 00:31:34.079
I'll give you principle four and I'll give you principle seven.

00:31:34.721 --> 00:31:36.736
Big guess what all the other ones are based on that.

00:31:36.736 --> 00:31:42.087
Principle four is you need to build a culture of entrepreneurship in your company.

00:31:42.087 --> 00:31:44.440
I see on the dry race board behind you.

00:31:44.440 --> 00:31:46.666
Others listening who are not watching will not see it.

00:31:46.666 --> 00:31:48.321
It says invest in who you got.

00:31:48.321 --> 00:31:58.578
Are you investing in your team and helping them become more entrepreneurial within your company so they start treating your company like it's their own on every single element of it?

00:31:58.799 --> 00:32:06.084
And principle seven, if I fast forward, principle seven is how do you move from CEO to chairperson of your business?

00:32:06.084 --> 00:32:09.057
Because you may not be the best person to run your business.

00:32:09.057 --> 00:32:15.939
You need to elevate yourself from being the operator to being the owner and being more strategic.

00:32:15.939 --> 00:32:22.021
Right, the only way to do that is by doing principle four building a culture of entrepreneurship where people can run your business.

00:32:22.021 --> 00:32:27.742
That $100 million company that I'm telling you about, that we grew in the contracting space, is run today.

00:32:27.742 --> 00:32:34.279
The CEO of that business was somebody I hired years ago as a sales rep who now is the CEO of that business.

00:32:34.279 --> 00:32:36.125
He's now an equity partner as well.

00:32:36.125 --> 00:32:40.071
So he's not just an entrepreneur, he's now an entrepreneur as well and my partner in that business.

00:32:40.071 --> 00:32:41.376
But he didn't start off that way.

00:32:41.376 --> 00:32:44.615
He started off as an employee, who became an entrepreneur, who became an entrepreneur.

00:32:44.957 --> 00:32:48.905
Oh man, yeah, so I'm assuming you've read Dream Maker.

00:32:48.905 --> 00:32:49.788
I have not.

00:32:49.788 --> 00:32:54.142
I might be seeing the title of the book wrong because I'm not good with that.

00:32:54.142 --> 00:33:14.288
Anyways, when you talked about developing entrepreneurship within your organization because that's going to you didn't say these words, but in my head is what I heard right Develop the capabilities within your people so that they operate as entrepreneurs, because that's going to enable scaling of the business.

00:33:14.288 --> 00:33:28.624
And that book I think it's called Dream Maker very similar the super summation of that book this family, husband and wife had a business I think it was like a cleaning business and they were struggling with retention and you know all the things.

00:33:28.663 --> 00:33:32.365
They started getting business and they couldn't get the people to do it and it was very transient.

00:33:32.365 --> 00:33:53.440
People would leave for a dollar more and what they started doing was really getting connected with their staff, like their cleaning crews, to understand what they wanted to learn and what they like, what their greater ambitions were outside of the job, and then they contributed to that, whatever that was learn another language, learn about business, learn about finance or leaders.

00:33:53.440 --> 00:34:01.153
They started making deposits towards the dreams of their people and guess what happened?

00:34:01.153 --> 00:34:10.327
They got tons of people that they had their head, hands and heart access to that and that business exploded.

00:34:10.327 --> 00:34:15.630
And then some of those their staff started their own little businesses and left.

00:34:15.630 --> 00:34:18.346
But when they left they said, hold on, we got.

00:34:18.346 --> 00:34:20.416
We know some people go work for these people.

00:34:20.416 --> 00:34:25.590
Yes, you're going to be cleaning commercial space, but they will make the dreams come true.

00:34:25.590 --> 00:34:27.373
Does that sound wacky?

00:34:27.373 --> 00:34:29.407
I mean, it doesn't sound wacky at all.

00:34:29.641 --> 00:34:40.503
I think we have a massive problem in small business across America where the most common thing you hear from an entrepreneur is oh, I can't find good people, I just can't find.

00:34:40.503 --> 00:34:42.965
I can't keep good people, I can't find good people.

00:34:42.965 --> 00:34:45.106
There's an economic problem here.

00:34:45.106 --> 00:34:46.445
I can't find any good people.

00:34:46.445 --> 00:34:48.326
Hold on a second right.

00:34:48.326 --> 00:34:51.128
Let's take that mirror up and ask these questions.

00:34:51.128 --> 00:34:51.389
Right?

00:34:51.389 --> 00:34:54.690
Is the entrepreneur really a leader that people want to work for?

00:34:54.690 --> 00:35:01.246
Do they display those leadership traits and skills that inspire people that want to go work for a cleaning company?

00:35:01.246 --> 00:35:01.487
Right?

00:35:01.487 --> 00:35:03.005
Do they have those skills?

00:35:03.005 --> 00:35:08.373
Number two do they create the right environment for entrepreneurs to grow within?

00:35:08.373 --> 00:35:13.010
Because a lot of environments aren't built for proper entrepreneurship development.

00:35:13.010 --> 00:35:13.753
Let's call it right.

00:35:13.753 --> 00:35:17.289
People are stuck in a desk over there and they clock in and clock out.

00:35:17.289 --> 00:35:18.032
They're micromanaged.

00:35:18.032 --> 00:35:20.969
It's not set up for the right environment, right?

00:35:20.969 --> 00:35:28.512
Do they have the right situational leadership ability to train their team, depending on where they are, and keep developing them along the pathway?

00:35:28.512 --> 00:35:29.494
That's important.

00:35:29.494 --> 00:35:30.965
Can they identify the right talent?

00:35:31.119 --> 00:35:33.108
Being an entrepreneur right now is like being a pro scout.

00:35:33.108 --> 00:35:35.003
You got to be walking around going.

00:35:35.003 --> 00:35:36.047
You know I'm looking for talent.

00:35:36.047 --> 00:35:37.030
Like, where's the talent?

00:35:37.030 --> 00:35:43.626
You got to be able to identify in your business the people that can do more and need to be elevated and given the opportunities to prove themselves.

00:35:43.626 --> 00:35:46.648
And you need to be able to identify talent in prospecting and interviewing.

00:35:46.648 --> 00:35:51.143
You need to be able to identify talent when you're at the restaurant and you see somebody doing something special.

00:35:51.143 --> 00:35:52.994
That's the type of person I want working in my business.

00:35:52.994 --> 00:35:55.222
Right, you got to be able to identify talent.

00:35:55.222 --> 00:35:58.913
So I think a lot of entrepreneurs are so busy running their businesses.

00:35:58.913 --> 00:36:09.351
They're in the trenches, they're shoveling the dirt, they're doing everything, they're rolling up their sleeves, and then the idea is well, I can't find good people, I can't keep good people, but they're not really developing that skillset within their organization.

00:36:09.693 --> 00:36:09.952
Yeah.

00:36:09.952 --> 00:36:13.282
So you just mentioned a whole list of really powerful skills.

00:36:13.282 --> 00:36:20.045
I'm just going to be a thick headed goofball and say, well, yeah, but there's just not that many people with those skills.

00:36:20.045 --> 00:36:21.849
Like, where do I go to find them?

00:36:22.150 --> 00:36:22.891
What skills though?

00:36:24.300 --> 00:36:25.222
What skills are you talking about?

00:36:25.222 --> 00:36:26.385
That's okay.

00:36:26.385 --> 00:36:27.286
I don't.

00:36:27.286 --> 00:36:31.894
The people that I keep getting are people that don't take ownership for anything.

00:36:32.219 --> 00:36:34.447
The people you keep getting or the people you keep hiring?

00:36:34.447 --> 00:36:38.583
Yes, the people I keep hiring, okay, and part of the question.

00:36:38.583 --> 00:36:42.547
Obviously this is very industry specific, right, but how are you prospecting?

00:36:42.547 --> 00:36:54.884
Going back to this path of least resistance I put an ad in the newspaper and these people showed up and I hired the best person of them, but they're not willing to take ownership is a lot different than are you prospecting people?

00:36:55.326 --> 00:36:57.413
Do you have the right interviewing process?

00:36:57.413 --> 00:37:06.364
Are you running a caliper style, like predictive index tests on people as they're coming through, to see what their attributes are before going through the interview process?

00:37:06.364 --> 00:37:10.574
Right, like, how are you training them when they first come on and how do you motivate them and how are you paying them?

00:37:10.574 --> 00:37:11.161
Are you motivated, like?

00:37:11.161 --> 00:37:21.393
There's so many different elements of it, but the netting result ultimately and this is why I agree with you I hear it over and over again is why I just can't.

00:37:21.393 --> 00:37:24.702
They are all the good people, they just don't come work here, they work over there.

00:37:24.702 --> 00:37:27.346
You know there's a lot of symptoms as to why that may be happening.

00:37:28.206 --> 00:37:32.010
Yeah, that's a very polite way to say that there's a lot of symptoms.

00:37:32.010 --> 00:37:38.836
I would say this is a you thing Instead of saying there's a lot of symptoms.

00:37:43.179 --> 00:37:44.324
It definitely is them as the owner of the business.

00:37:44.324 --> 00:37:45.246
They got to set up the right environment.

00:37:45.246 --> 00:37:46.913
They got to set up, but I guess I bring back the problem in their defense.

00:37:46.913 --> 00:37:47.996
Cash is tight.

00:37:47.996 --> 00:37:49.983
I got to make sure our production's on schedule.

00:37:49.983 --> 00:37:50.625
I got to do this.

00:37:50.625 --> 00:37:51.246
I got to do that.

00:37:51.246 --> 00:37:52.371
Now we got a problem over here.

00:37:52.371 --> 00:37:56.048
Now this like the entrepreneurs run themselves crazy.

00:37:56.048 --> 00:38:01.402
Right, they're working 80 hours a week, fully stressed out, trying to figure out how to do this whole thing and you're telling them you got to hire better people.

00:38:01.402 --> 00:38:03.208
Yeah, easier said than done, jesse.

00:38:03.208 --> 00:38:04.251
What am I supposed to do now?

00:38:04.251 --> 00:38:04.351
Like?

00:38:04.351 --> 00:38:05.231
What am I supposed to do now?

00:38:05.231 --> 00:38:05.452
Like?

00:38:05.452 --> 00:38:06.092
It's not easy?

00:38:06.092 --> 00:38:07.012
It absolutely is not easy.

00:38:07.012 --> 00:38:14.918
But until you figure it out, until you create that culture of entrepreneurship in your business, you're never going to be able to grow the business of your dreams.

00:38:14.918 --> 00:38:16.706
You're going to be stuck in your business.

00:38:16.706 --> 00:38:19.327
You'll never get to principle five, six and seven in the book.

00:38:19.327 --> 00:38:20.391
You're going to stop at principle four.

00:38:20.480 --> 00:38:34.193
As a matter of fact, it may go backwards the other way and you end up really in the depths of the messy middle trying to grow your business, where it's two steps forward, three steps back, one step forward, two steps back, and you can't ever get through.

00:38:34.193 --> 00:38:35.940
So a couple of things I'm hearing is one you got to kind of be prepared not kind of.

00:38:35.940 --> 00:38:57.393
You got to be prepared to develop the appropriate skills for entrepreneurship within your organization and there's value in understanding how to scout, recruit and hire folks with that skillset, or at least some indicators or attributes that can be built upon once they walk through the door.

00:38:57.393 --> 00:38:58.764
How'd I do on that?

00:38:59.005 --> 00:38:59.708
Yeah, pretty good.

00:38:59.708 --> 00:39:05.748
I mean, I hosted a session this week with one of the largest franchising companies in the US and we had their franchising.

00:39:05.748 --> 00:39:20.193
We're talking about how do you create an environment that fosters this, because that cleaning company example you gave me they fostered this culture of entrepreneurship that once you foster it and the snowball just keeps going and going.

00:39:20.193 --> 00:39:27.385
That sports company I mentioned to you before that we lost, right, we had never run an ad to hire somebody ever.

00:39:27.385 --> 00:39:35.184
We were getting people coming to want to work for our business because of the word of mouth of people already in the business going this is the best company ever we got to work here, right.

00:39:35.184 --> 00:39:38.730
And once you get that, it starts going and starts rolling.

00:39:38.730 --> 00:39:41.268
And it takes hard work to do that.

00:39:41.340 --> 00:39:47.505
But think about the whole environment, how your incentive programs are built, how you're patting people on the back and thanking them for what you do.

00:39:47.505 --> 00:39:48.668
Do you have a company picnic?

00:39:48.668 --> 00:39:53.280
Just think about the whole environment where people want to be.

00:39:53.280 --> 00:39:55.327
But then are you providing proper rewards?

00:39:55.327 --> 00:39:58.065
Are you giving people an opportunity to run a P&L of your divisions?

00:39:58.065 --> 00:39:59.530
Hey, I trust you Go see how you do it.

00:39:59.530 --> 00:40:06.269
Are you training them on the financials of the business and showing them hey, transparency, here's how we make our gross margin, here's how this works.

00:40:06.269 --> 00:40:08.072
Now go take this job and show me what you can do.

00:40:08.072 --> 00:40:12.556
Are you allowing people to fail and say that's okay, no problem that you learn, okay, let's take the next one.

00:40:12.556 --> 00:40:20.472
Are you getting, are you creating that environment where you're training entrepreneurs within your business, or are you trying to train your employees to generate more for you?

00:40:20.472 --> 00:40:22.780
It's an environment question.

00:40:23.461 --> 00:40:24.983
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a.

00:40:24.983 --> 00:40:26.943
It can be the system.

00:40:26.943 --> 00:40:30.146
It's a system that can be designed right.

00:40:30.146 --> 00:40:56.539
My I kind of default to the thinking of whatever I'm experiencing right now and then, especially when I don't like the results or the outcomes that I'm experiencing, I need to evaluate my system, because I can tweak the system much faster, or rather in a more sustainable way.

00:40:56.539 --> 00:41:00.951
Then I can go and change the world and make everybody a better employee.

00:41:01.440 --> 00:41:02.626
I couldn't agree with you more on that.

00:41:02.626 --> 00:41:03.201
Now.

00:41:03.201 --> 00:41:06.451
You said something that I 100% agree with.

00:41:06.451 --> 00:41:12.407
I have a way of going about it, but I'd like to get some insight on your thoughts, because you're coaching people.

00:41:12.407 --> 00:41:28.411
You've been in helping companies entrepreneurs grow their businesses in terms of celebrating problems and making it okay to experiment and I'm using experiment instead of fail, because that's how it works in my brain.

00:41:28.411 --> 00:41:39.344
What do you suggest, people, or what are some of the most common roadblocks that you see that are easy if people just shifted their thinking a little bit.

00:41:39.485 --> 00:41:44.463
I love the word fail now and I wish I could give her appropriate credit.

00:41:44.463 --> 00:41:47.012
But we had a guest on our podcast.

00:41:47.012 --> 00:41:47.976
Her name was Erin.

00:41:47.976 --> 00:41:50.987
I'm trying to remember the last name now, but I'll have to look it up and get it to you.

00:41:50.987 --> 00:41:52.530
She has a company called Fail.

00:41:52.530 --> 00:41:53.802
Yeah, Fail.

00:41:53.822 --> 00:41:54.023
Yeah.

00:41:54.985 --> 00:42:01.065
And here's the problem we have, and she articulated this to me I'm like, oh my gosh, you're so right, you're so right.

00:42:01.065 --> 00:42:12.409
What happens is when somebody fails within the business, something doesn't go right, they take it and they try and shove it under the rug because they don't want to be exposed, they don't want anybody to find out.

00:42:12.409 --> 00:42:16.228
They're embarrassed, they don't want to get fired, whatever the situation may be.

00:42:16.228 --> 00:42:17.771
We live in that culture.

00:42:17.771 --> 00:42:22.969
Think about a CEO reporting their finances, even a public company.

00:42:22.969 --> 00:42:26.804
When they report their finances, they're not like yeah, here's where we really screwed up this month.

00:42:26.804 --> 00:42:31.153
They're actually shoving that under the rug and they're showing you all the beautiful graphs that actually go the right direction.

00:42:31.153 --> 00:42:43.086
They don't go with the ones that don't, and so we have this culture in small business, where it's not okay to fail, and the businesses that create a culture and what she was talking about in this fail.

00:42:43.086 --> 00:42:49.201
Yeah, culture, she goes into companies and every month you got to bring in a storyboard of something you failed at.

00:42:49.501 --> 00:42:52.829
Ooh like that's a requirement, it's a requirement.

00:42:52.949 --> 00:42:58.730
And the largest failures get the most rewarded from the perspective of we tried to do this, and massively.

00:42:58.730 --> 00:43:00.844
And they make fun of each other or themselves.

00:43:00.844 --> 00:43:01.865
I should say we did this.

00:43:01.865 --> 00:43:04.211
And look, oh my gosh, like here's what happened.

00:43:04.211 --> 00:43:05.021
It didn't work.

00:43:05.021 --> 00:43:13.775
And they actually recognize within the organization the vulnerability and the power of being open and transparent, because they can articulate how this didn't work.

00:43:13.775 --> 00:43:14.695
Somebody else learns from it.

00:43:14.695 --> 00:43:15.737
They make sure they don't repeat it.

00:43:16.079 --> 00:43:19.570
All these other things start happening and there's less of a culture of hiding things.

00:43:19.570 --> 00:43:28.545
It's more of a culture of transparency and being okay and accepting the fact that no one's perfect and no one's ever going to do it all the time, and recognizing that.

00:43:28.545 --> 00:43:42.561
So I think it's a big thing in small business is to allow people to fail and, especially if you're trying to build a culture of entrepreneurship, give someone a responsibility to go, do something and let them know hey, I want you to succeed doing this, but this is a learning opportunity for you.

00:43:42.561 --> 00:43:49.474
And when they come back, yeah, it didn't really work and we lost a little bit of money on this job or whatever happened, go through it with them, train them, teach them, pat them on the back.

00:43:49.474 --> 00:43:50.744
So, okay, you ready to take one again?

00:43:50.744 --> 00:43:51.246
Let's go.

00:43:51.246 --> 00:43:53.085
You could do it this time and walk them through it again.

00:43:53.085 --> 00:43:54.048
A hundred percent.

00:43:54.519 --> 00:44:04.567
I think the way I look at those failure points like my own personal failures I'm having fun and I can learn, and I got a great network of my advisory council.

00:44:04.567 --> 00:44:24.646
They really helped me polish up and tune up on the regular and, like when I'm supporting teams and helping people, the way I look at failure is the failure point is the venue for growth and coaching, and so hiding it or polishing that turd and sprinkling glitter on it doesn't help anybody.

00:44:24.646 --> 00:44:28.364
It doesn't help you because I think things are fine.

00:44:28.364 --> 00:44:33.407
It doesn't help me because I'm going to go tell my boss and I'm going to do my polishing right.

00:44:33.407 --> 00:44:44.342
Things are fine and by the time you can't hide it, when we run out of runway to polish and glitter up turds, it's too late to do anything about it.

00:44:44.342 --> 00:44:53.465
And so surfacing problems early is a good thing because, one, we can accelerate the learning, we can close that feedback loop.

00:44:53.465 --> 00:45:04.704
Two, you signal and get the resources you need to be successful so that it doesn't have a dramatic impact on the business and the health and wellness of the individual.

00:45:04.744 --> 00:45:10.588
Because I know every time I polished something up I was not feeling good about it, but I didn't want to get yelled at.

00:45:10.588 --> 00:45:13.829
I didn't want to have that negative consequence, if you will.

00:45:13.829 --> 00:45:21.740
And so I've heard two sayings that I repeat often around this failure idea and it's bad news.

00:45:21.740 --> 00:45:26.862
Early is good news, and the other one I heard is bad news does not get better with eight.

00:45:26.862 --> 00:45:27.061
True that.

00:45:27.061 --> 00:45:28.483
And the other one I heard is bad news does not get better with eight.

00:45:28.483 --> 00:45:28.684
True that.

00:45:28.684 --> 00:45:44.775
And so if we, as leaders building a business or help raising kids, the way we respond and react to bad news is going to condition people to behave in an entrepreneurial way or not.

00:45:44.775 --> 00:45:46.096
What do you think about that?

00:45:46.275 --> 00:45:49.038
No, I talk about kids, or even your team.

00:45:49.038 --> 00:45:58.278
Right, your team does something wrong or it doesn't work, or we lose a client and the entrepreneur comes storming out of their office and berates the person in front of everybody else.

00:45:58.278 --> 00:46:00.085
What kind of culture are you creating, right, with your kids?

00:46:00.085 --> 00:46:01.068
That was a perfect example.

00:46:01.068 --> 00:46:02.661
I love the way you bring that to kids.

00:46:02.661 --> 00:46:06.867
Your kid gets in an accident with your car or does something and they bring it to you.

00:46:06.867 --> 00:46:07.768
They come to you.

00:46:07.768 --> 00:46:09.532
Hey, they're probably crying.

00:46:09.532 --> 00:46:12.315
The last thing you should be doing is beating them up over it.

00:46:12.315 --> 00:46:15.206
They came to you, they had the courage to bring.

00:46:15.246 --> 00:46:16.389
Now, certainly you're going to be upset.

00:46:16.389 --> 00:46:27.905
There's going to be different things, but how you react to things that go on in your business or in your life is 50% of the battle in my mind.

00:46:27.905 --> 00:46:33.094
Right, and it's all mindset regulation, it's all like mindset's a big thing.

00:46:33.094 --> 00:46:42.074
It's a big thing in athletes, it's a big thing in entrepreneurs, it's a big thing in business leaders and in parents, like the ability to regulate your mood and understand when and how.

00:46:42.074 --> 00:46:55.713
Having that emotional intelligence to know when and how to best use your emotions and your energy to develop future long-term benefit, not just the instant situation is a very hard skill to attain.

00:46:56.400 --> 00:47:00.528
Oh, I know I've ordered it on Amazon and it seems to be on back order.

00:47:00.528 --> 00:47:02.112
It hasn't arrived yet.

00:47:02.112 --> 00:47:03.201
I'm still waiting for it.

00:47:03.201 --> 00:47:05.182
So who's I?

00:47:05.182 --> 00:47:11.369
You know I have a bad habit of being ultra selfish with awesome people's time, so I'm trying to be more responsible.

00:47:11.369 --> 00:47:17.637
But who is the ideal candidate to read the $100 Million Journey?

00:47:28.840 --> 00:47:35.047
in the book that, specifically, if you're north of $5 million in revenues, have been in business more than 10 years and you're on this entrepreneurial journey, trying to grow your business to the next level, you must read the book.

00:47:35.047 --> 00:47:38.342
If you're an entrepreneur in business, you should read the book.

00:47:38.704 --> 00:47:52.606
If you're an entrepreneur who's saying I want to start a business someday, the roadmap is here, right, you may not connect with everything right off the bat because there's some sophisticated financial elements to the book and as you're growing your company that are important to understand and master.

00:47:52.606 --> 00:47:55.657
But the book, I'd say, is for all entrepreneurs.

00:47:55.657 --> 00:48:01.081
But it depends as you grow and have been an entrepreneur longer, you start resonating with more of the core concepts.

00:48:01.481 --> 00:48:01.702
Okay.

00:48:01.702 --> 00:48:02.523
So here's what I heard.

00:48:02.523 --> 00:48:03.987
I need the damn book.

00:48:03.987 --> 00:48:17.867
Right now I'm nowhere near a million, but it's going to help me and when I get there cause I'm going to get there to the what, all that other stuff because it provides me the resources and venues to serve more people.

00:48:17.867 --> 00:48:19.331
So that's the whole point.

00:48:19.331 --> 00:48:24.688
So I need the book and if you have an entrepreneurial spirit, get the book.

00:48:24.688 --> 00:48:28.206
I'm assuming it's on Amazon and you got a website for people to find it at.

00:48:28.480 --> 00:48:29.782
Yeah, exactly, you can find it on Amazon.

00:48:29.782 --> 00:48:34.762
It's also at 100mjourneycom, so 100m as in millionjourneycom.

00:48:34.762 --> 00:48:38.445
All the information's on there as well, as well as a free workbook that people can go download.

00:48:38.445 --> 00:48:43.864
It kind of has a questionnaire in there and some financial instruments to help you with your business Beautiful beautiful, all right.

00:48:43.983 --> 00:48:46.246
So get the book, guys, because I'm going to get it.

00:48:46.246 --> 00:48:49.451
I should have gotten it before we had this call, but I'm a slacker.

00:48:49.451 --> 00:48:56.873
So here's the fun question, and I'm excited because you mentioned you have a 30 year plan and it's probably extended.

00:48:56.873 --> 00:49:07.150
Since then, you've accumulated a wealth of knowledge and experience, not just in business, but in life as a human being, and so what is the promise you are intended to be?

00:49:07.559 --> 00:49:10.869
The promise that I'm intended to be to others or to me.

00:49:10.869 --> 00:49:12.485
Let's start with others.

00:49:12.485 --> 00:49:17.509
Okay, so not dissimilar to yours, but very closely.

00:49:17.509 --> 00:49:29.731
I want to be the guide to help people achieve their dreams without falling off the cliff like I did, and it's more geared towards entrepreneurs in that vein, but I do a lot of work with athletes, do a lot of work with parents and other areas that aren't entrepreneurs.

00:49:29.731 --> 00:49:35.969
But, yeah, helping people achieve their dreams the right way, with patient ambition, is really my life's purpose.

00:49:36.391 --> 00:49:37.612
Nice, I love it.

00:49:37.612 --> 00:49:38.514
And how about?

00:49:38.514 --> 00:49:38.914
To you?

00:49:39.400 --> 00:49:43.070
Yeah, my life plan is to maximize all of life's offerings.

00:49:43.070 --> 00:49:46.625
And then in all these different categories, right, how am I going to do that?

00:49:46.625 --> 00:49:57.286
Whether it be in my career, as I just mentioned that's kind of one big thing for me with my health, with my wealth, with my relationships, my spirituality, with my family and all these different areas, how am I going to maximize life's offerings?

00:49:57.286 --> 00:50:00.409
Because we're here for a short time, although it's being elongated a little bit.

00:50:00.409 --> 00:50:06.668
Right, there's going to be some, maybe some additional life and health span with all these technologies coming out, but we got to maximize it.

00:50:06.668 --> 00:50:11.195
We got to maximize every day, every week, every month and get the most of this thing called life.

00:50:11.195 --> 00:50:11.740
Oh man.

00:50:11.940 --> 00:50:12.443
Amazing.

00:50:12.443 --> 00:50:15.130
I knew it was going to be deep, so I appreciate you for that.

00:50:15.599 --> 00:50:16.806
Anybody- want to shout out.

00:50:16.806 --> 00:50:28.563
If I have to shout anybody out, jesse, I'm going to shout out Rich Hoffman right, my co-host with Entrepreneurs United Podcast, because you had a chance to meet with him and he's just been a 25 year long business relationship friendship.

00:50:28.563 --> 00:50:34.784
That's been there along my entire journey and I'm so grateful to host the Entrepreneurs United podcast with him every single week.

00:50:34.784 --> 00:50:37.465
I'd encourage people to check that out as well for entrepreneurs.

00:50:37.465 --> 00:50:38.865
They want to take a look at that.

00:50:38.865 --> 00:50:39.826
Definitely give him a shout out.