Blaze Your Own Trail - S2:E28- Equipping Entrepreneurs For Success With Sean Castrina

Episode Date: September 22, 2020

Sean Castrina is a serial entrepreneur, having started more than 20 companies over the last 20 years, and still seeks to launch a new venture annually. He is an investor, teacher and highly-sought-after speaker who communicates with humor and a bluntness that engages and captures his audience. He is the author of 8 Unbreakable Rules for Business Startup Success, The Greatest Entrepreneur in the World, and World’s Greatest Business Plan In this episode we discuss: Sean's upbringing Some adversity he faced What sports he played Where he went to college His first business and the many after that His thoughts on college today How he feels about coaches & mentors Some books he recommends to all entrepreneurs Connect with Sean: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sean.castrina/ Website: https://seancastrina.com/ Connect with Jordan: Follow on Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanjmendoza Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanjmendoza/ Join our Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/blazeyourowntrailmastermind/ Need help with your Sales or Marketing Strategy? Book a call today! https://calendly.com/impulseconsulting/30-minute-discovery-call Installing strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody. I hope you are doing well. This episode with Sean Castrina is really awesome. You'll learn about his journey, some early adversity he faced, and how he got his entrepreneurial spirit. You also learn about the sports that he played. You'll learn a little bit about him and all of the businesses that he is still currently running. So if you're listening to this episode and you are an aspiring to. entrepreneur, you're definitely in the right place. Sean's goal is to really add value to other people out there. You know, 99% of his content is actually free. So sit back, relax. I hope you enjoy the episode and I will chat with you right after. Hello everyone and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. I'm your host, Jordan Mendoza and today I've got a very special guest. His name is Sean Castrina and I'll give him just a second to tell us a little bit about who he is and what he does. Yes, no, it's great to be on the podcast.

I'm a 25-year entrepreneur, lost kind of my dream job and knew I never wanted to be dependent on anybody to control my occupation and end with my finances and written three books. And 25 years later, here we are. Awesome, awesome. And I would really love to dive in on my show and get context into my guests. And we do that by starting at the beginning. So if you can give the audience a sense of, you know, where did you grow up? in where did you live in those formative years, you know, elementary, the high school?

Yeah, no, it's, because it does kind of form my mindset and the type of person I am. I grew up, I have a blind brother, and I was legally blind, some type of food poisoning issue in that. So I was always at like the John Hopkins, Wilmer Eye Institute. I'm one of the first people to get hard contacts. I mean, I was like a test dummy for every eye situation. You can imagine, played sports, though. that I could do when you don't see great soccer is scary soccer and wrestling wrestling it just just literally was like breathing it was so natural so i was a state champion got a division

one scholarship to college and um you know and and so that kind of formed you know kind of my the way i am i'm very competitive and we'll get the ball over the goal line by all means necessary i love that kind of you know makes up my wife Yeah, sure, sure. So sports definitely played a big role for you then as far as, you know, feeling that competition for you. And what would you say are some of the biggest takeaways from wrestling that you think translate well into entrepreneurship? Yeah, well, number one is business is a contact sport, period. So this whole idea I read on Cura and, you know, how can I be, you know, this, you know, this, you know, I don't know how they, this moral entrepreneur, this. you're either morally or not, okay, either a good person or you're not, okay? You'll either be a good, you'll either run a business the way your values are. So that's kind of a moot point. But business is a context for it.

Bill Gates was extraordinarily competitive. Steve Jobs, extraordinary. Jeff Bezos, you can go, Elon Musk. These people are business warriors, okay? And one thing about sports, especially wrestling, there's no timeouts. When the whistle blows, just like UFC, same thing. When the whistle blows, you either win or you'll live. lose. And so in businesses like that, and I, and there's, you know, 50% of all businesses fail. That's

daunting statistics. You know, statistically, you probably have a better odds if you were enrolled in medical school of getting your doctorates, practicing medicine, and you would be in being a startup. And I'm actually going to, I've been doing this for 25 years and I never thought to, to look that up. And I'm actually writing that down because I think I'm correct on that. So it's a tough, it's a tough career, you know, starting a business, taking something from nothing more than an idea, turning it into something that generates income, employs people, meets the needs of customers, and does that for a sustained period of time, you know, that's, it takes a lot to get that done. Yeah. And what a great depiction of how

wrestling translates to business, right? Those are some very, very great points. So, so you finish up school, you get a D1 scholarship. I'm sure that was pretty exciting. So where did you end up Before it is, if I wouldn't have gotten that, that would have dictated a lot because I definitely grew up, you know, with less than ideal situation. Okay. So you end up going to college. So where did you go to school? And what was that experience like during college? You know, what are some lessons that you learn during your time in school that that you think, you know, maybe helped, you know, your direction after school? Yeah, I got some offers to different places. I ended up going to Liberty University. there may be some little, you know, opinions on that. But at the time, it worked out really well for me. Obviously, it's a Christian school.

And I could have went to a lot of different schools. But their brochure was unbelievable. I grew up, like, in an urban city area. And they sent me this beautiful brochure of Liberty Mountain and jogging. And, you know, it was like, I didn't even go visit it. I just signed on the dotted line. And they had a really good coach at the time. But what I got out of college for me, and college is not for everybody.

and I have a really 50-50 opinion. I have a daughter who's a school teacher who went to college. I have a son who's an entrepreneur who didn't go to college. Both doing great. So there's definitely two roads. But my five friends from college, all of which I knew within, you know, three months of my first day of college are still my friends 32 years later. We still talk on the phone every week.

We don't social media. I always told my friends, if you're too broke to actually call me, I'll buy you a cell phone. You know, so we don't, you know, we just talk, we do vacations together. So the one thing I got out of college and is, is that I learned the difference between real, a real friend loves you no matter how screwed up you are. They don't, you know, they try to encourage you to be better, but they're not always changing you. They kind of accept you lock, stock, and barrel.

You know, this is kind of baked into the cake. And I always say, a real friend is somebody who loves you, you know, kind of the way you are and they wish you were maybe a little bit better, but they, but they still love you. So I think, you know, one thing I got out of college is loyalty and the value of friendship. You know, my age, you know, I've been through the ups, the downs, and you definitely know who's going to stick with you, you know. And now when things are really good, it's easy. But when things were difficult and I was betting all in on some things and didn't have the resources I had, there was no difference. Very, very cool.

Very cool. Thank you for sharing that. And so what was the next step after school? Did you have a dream job? Okay, let's hear. Let's hear about this dream job and then, you know, the trajectory that it took you in after that. Yeah, so this is how you get your dream job. If you wanted how to get a job at a college when you're, this is how you do it.

I called where I wanted to work, which was a top 20 place, nonprofit at the time, very, very, very well known. Not going to drop any names, but well outside of my resume and well outside of a job you would get right out of college. Let me just put it there. I called their CEO and agreed to work for three months for free. Okay. So if you really, and that's where you get out of sport, I'll bet on me every day all day. So I knew I'd get a little bit of graduation money. And so I figured I could figure it out for three months.

And they said, yeah, sure. You know, if you're willing to work for free, we'll take it. You know, I stayed there for five years until there was a leadership change. And I, you know, and I was no longer had a position there. But I bet all in on me, agreed to work for three months. And it's funny, the person that I work for my direct supervisor, his wife is like 30 feet away from me right now swimming with her grandchildren in our swimming pool. So I'm still friends with the people that hired me.

I'm still friends. So I'm big on loyalty and sticking, you know, but the point is, is that I coming out of college, I knew I couldn't work for a small organization. I knew it just wasn't my temperament, my patience. I have one of them personalities who either really like me or you probably won't like me and I'm good with that. So I knew I needed to be with a bigger organization where I would be one of many, you know, go getters. And so it's important. I think when you come out of college, you got to know the ecosystem where you're going to thrive. Yeah, that makes a thousand percent

sense. Self-awareness is, it's everything, right? Like I was self-aware and knew that I didn't want to go to school even before I finished high school. I knew I wanted to work and I knew I wanted to do sales. So I was very aware of that. I knew if I would have went to college, I probably wouldn't finish, and I would have waked money. And, you know, it's, I think it's a, no, my son's the same way. My son is a really good student and a good athlete, but he knew going into his senior year that he had no desire to go to college, no desire.

And my wife and I were like, you know, okay, this, you know, we can't put a square peg in around a round hole. We need to see how, you know, how best can we get him to be skilled and educated. And you notice I'm using different words. There's college education. There's skill. There's, you know, you want to have, you know, what is it the skill? You know, you want to have specialty skills today.

So we did the same thing. We got him an internship as senior year, you know, and got him mentored by some of the sharpest people within the area that he was passionate about. So we just took resources that we had for one thing. We just steered it over, you know, to the next. I love that. And, you know, it's the same way. I've got a, my oldest son is 15.

He's, you know, going to be a sophomore in high school. And he told me this year earlier, he said, listen, I don't think I want to go to college. I want to be an entrepreneur. I said, I said, great. So that's where we're going to put our focus and our energy. You know, if you tell me that, why would I say, no, you've got to go to college. Like, that would actually be a detriment because then he would end up resenting me and his mom because we forced to do something. Yeah.

I think the key to this is because I'm actually working on a talk on this because I speak at a lot of colleges. but I'm really, really, I really have strong opinions that I don't think college is for everybody. I actually think it's probably for one third of all the people that go. I think if you're going to be an engineer, school teacher, medical profession, lawyer, you know, where you have to have that qualification. And that's fine. But 65% of you are just using it as a placemat. It's a very expensive summer camp for your 18 to 22 year old.

That's what I think. But if you're going to be an entrepreneur and you're not going to go to college, That is not an excuse to not be productive. Like in my son's situation, I've raised the bar. I mean, I put him in an internship. You know, I told him you're going to go out and learn how to sell. First thing I did is teach him how to take rejection like a son of a gun. No, you're going to go do this.

So you're going to pitch this 40 times per week for one of the companies I own. Because I want you to hear the word no and then go back and hear the word no and then go back and hear the word no until you eventually know what yes sounds like. And so, you know, if you're going to do that route, it's not the easier route. It's just a different route because I like what you're saying, man, if you're going to be an entrepreneur, go figure out how to sell. You want to have a skill, learn how to pitch and sell something because there is no greater skill than you can have as an entrepreneur than the ability to communicate. And you're always selling. You're hiring people. You're introducing your product to maybe a vendor who you want to bring on, a manufacturer who you want to bring on.

you're introducing it to a client. I sell every day as an entrepreneur. Absolutely. It's foundation. No, no sales, no revenue. Right. Exactly. There is no greater skill you can have. There's no greater skill you can have. Completely agree with that. So, so let's share with the audience. When did the entrepreneurial journey start? And I know it wasn't long after that first role that you had. So would you share some details on how that happened? Yeah. So, you know, I kind of lose my dream job. because there's a change in leadership. And then I start selling insurance because I have that personality.

Anybody knows, like, Sean could easily sell insurance. And I did extremely well, but I remember I don't see super great. You know, I'm right at that 2040. Like every time I go to get my eye exam, it's always, I can never do it in the DMV. I have to do it in my doctor's office. And he's very kind. Let's just leave it at that. So my point is at the time, you know, 25 years ago, you had to drive at night and see people.

And I didn't like it. I had a car accident. So I got out of insurance. But while I was doing insurance, I started an auto detailing business. And I've never cleaned a car in my life. I still haven't cleaned a car in my life. But we always had a parking lot of really nice cars when we'd have our meetings every week. So I'm like, wow, you know, you got to have a clean looking car if you're in sales.

So like, what if you had somebody who would come to the park on, again, this is 25 years ago, and clean the car while we were in our meetings? You know, bring the water, do everything right there. You know, this is 25 years ago. again, that was not novel at the time. So I started a company called Waxmaster Mobile Detailing. Even then, I knew how to brand. I knew the value of a name. Waxmaster Mobile Detailing. Phone number 188-9333824, which is 188 We Detail. Still remember the phone number. Set it up. I made $30,000 passive income. Never cleaned a car. Just set up the system.

You know, you called in. You spoke with an automatic, you know, a secret, you know, we had a virtual back then. you had an answering service who booked the appointments, priced it over the phone. It was completely automated, made 30 grand effortless for like two years. And that kind of gave me, okay, I can make money without actually doing anything. And it gave me the taste of how you systematize things. Well, you know, after that, I started a direct mail magazine, had that in 23 cities, started a home service company. Again, I couldn't put together a three piece birdhouse, started a home service company that's grown into eight different companies, makes millions and millions and millions of dollars. I still own it. So my first three companies still exist,

20 years later. And I sold the detailing company when I started the magazine to a client of mine who had like a car wash auto shop. So I sold them. And it's funny, my wife actually sent me a photo of one of their vans like six months ago. So I have it in my phone. So it still exists. So, you know that that kind of started everything you know my entrepreneurial journey of that I knew that I didn't have to physically do anything per se to run the business I just needed to know how to get it off the ground systematize it staff it correctly and then kind of put it on autopilot I love that yeah so you had to create a system make sure you had good branding and marketing right and then it would essentially run itself like you said which is which is phenomenal

And to hear the fact that all three ventures are still running. Yeah. To this day, I mean, that says a lot. That paints a very good picture. And, you know, if you're not creating content and, you know, telling people that, I mean, that's, that's, that's, longevity is heated. You got to have value. That's right. You bring value to your customers.

If you continue to do that, you're in business. If you continue to no longer bring value, then you're no longer Sears, J.C. Penny. They no longer brought value in a way that they could compete with like an ammableness. Amazon can bring the same value and get it there 20 and 24 hours at a better price. You cease to become valuable. Exactly it. So I'd love to find out a little bit about your books. Yeah.

If you could share the titles and then, you know, what are some of the nuances from book to book? And how can these help people that are listening that, you know, maybe they're like you and they say, you know what? After college, I don't know if I want to work for someone. I might want to work for myself. I might want to start a venture. So can you give some context? Yeah, yeah, I will. And so my first book was called The Eight Unbreakable Rules for Business Startup Success. I was on a beach vacation with my buddies from college. We do a big family vacation. I run a beach house and about 25 of us and all our kids. It's just by the biggest house I can possibly rent. And while I was there, I started just writing one sentences on why, you know, 15 years later at the time, because it was 10 years ago, why my businesses did well and where they failed. What did I do? wrong. So I came up with about 100 sentences, just real quick rules. Like, you know, be a minimalist.

When you start a business, don't put a dime in anything that doesn't just get it to breathe. That would be like one paragraph I'd write. And then I'd go find another paragraph. Like, you know, if you pay pen, if you pay, what was it? If you pay, what is my thing is, if you pay with peanuts, you get monkeys, you know, to the point is you had to pay, you pay real money, you get good staff. I just went through all these little axioms on why things failed, why things succeeded. And then when I started looking at that, they crystallize in about eight different rules. So I wrote the eight unbreakable rules. And that was my first book.

And it was just trying to tell people that were starting a business. You know, there are certain things you need to do. And when I followed these rules, they worked really good. And when I didn't, a business failed and it cost me money. And knowing what I now know here, you might want to, you know, you might want to follow. of these and so that was book number one it was like a essentially like a playbook right like yeah yeah do these things and in and repeat them and your business will grow right yeah and i still believe i still believe those to be absolutely critical and fundamental and then my second book because

you know a lot of people like fables you know lancione writes a lot of fables and a lot of people do that and it's a very effective way to communicate you know um so i took my eight unbreakable rules and turned it into a fictional tale of a fictional startup business and a founder who followed the eight rules. And that ended up being called the greatest entrepreneur in the world. And it's just a 110 page fictional tale. I wrote that like four years later and that's done well. And then recently, only because I've started so many businesses and I hear so many things about a business plan, you know, does it need to be this? Does it need to be this? So one day I just bought the entire first page of Amazon. I bought every single book on how to start a business. And you look on my bookshelf

right behind me, that entire stack there is all those books. And so I started looking at them because my son was starting a business. So I was going to, okay, you need to do a business plan. And they could be simple. It could be as simple as writing something on a napkin. It could be as elaborate as you want. The point is, one book was worse than the next. Because they make business plan books make two fundamental mistakes that are that are huge and why they fail so miserable. The first thing is they reverse engineer the book from your idea succeeding. So in chapter one, your business works. I am John So-and-So. I'm going to start ABC Tools and we're going to do ABC and you know, your mission statement, your value statement. Oh, it's great. We're going to have this culture.

It's a fantasy world. And then you reverse engineer everything from that. So it starts. in chapter one with business succeeding. So then you do this financial projection. Oh, it's great. We made money in month one. It's a freaking fantasy. My book beats the hell out of you in chapter and write from question two to number seven. Because if I talk you out of a business by chapter seven, I feel like I've accomplished every bit as much as if you made it to question 25 and you launched it. So instead of you wasting all that money, my business plan starts with the idea that, hey, we're not assuming anything right now. Let's vet this idea.

And let's see if it's legitimately, you know, the right idea. So that was the one thing that I found a lot of books failed to mention the business plan. And they made this just this general. The second rule is they, this financial sheet in it. It's a fantasy. They work with nothing but funny numbers. I mean, I can show you these books for it like 11 page spreadsheet. Okay, your rent is 2,000 a month.

So they just naturally assume you made 9,000 your first month. Like you just just, I'm like, well, where did this money come from? Because I've never had a startup ever that did as much as I thought it would do. I could never pick the number. Sometimes it did better than I ever imagined. Sometimes it was just crickets for three months. And I had it didn't work. So the only dollar figure you can count on in a startup is zero.

And or whatever money you have saved. Everything past that is a fantasy. So this forces you to think like that. Like, okay, wait, I've got no money. This thing has got to succeed fast. I don't have a two-year runway. I got a two-month runway. See, when you start looking at a business plan in reality, like it's different if you drop a fantasy strategy or if somebody said, do you listen to me? In 30 days, you're going to war. Well, you're going to take boot camp a lot different. Okay, if you know you're going into a wartime situation, I guarantee your trip to Paris Island is going to be a lot different than if you thought,

hey, I don't know where they're going to send me. I don't know really what I'm going to do. No, you're going to war business. You're going to launch a business in 60 days. And you have limited resources and you have competition and you've got to survive. And that's the business plan. That's how you've got to look at your business plan. And when people say, well, I don't need a business plan, well, good. If I gave you a million dollars and told you to go, you can go build a house and I gave you a lot. Would you run out to Lowe's or Home Depot and start buying wood? No, you'd drop a blueprint.

You'd see what you wanted to look like in the end. Of course you would. If you were going to get a vacation, if I gave you $10,000 and said, you can go take a vacation, you wouldn't just jump in your car and start driving. You said, well, what do we want to do? We want to do it? A winter vacation, a summer vacation. Why wouldn't you spend at least that much time in a business plan?

Makes a whole lot of sense, yeah. Yeah, that's why I wrote the world's greatest business plan. That's the name. I love world's greatest. It sets the standard high. So it's called the world's greatest business plan. And it's simple. And I'm giving it away today because I was with this virus, you know, we just think that's the right way to go about. Go about it. So if you go to my personal site, Sean Castorina.com, it's free. It's right at the top. You can't get it any freer. You'll have it in like five seconds. You don't have to go through a 30 piece click funnel and be sold something. You send it the email. You'll get it. I think you get Mike at one offer to

me teach it to you. That's what you get the book for free with no strings attached. It's at shon castrina.com. So we've been giving it away and our goal is to give away a million copies and we actually wrote it. I wrote it in Spanish too. So it's funny. My PR person who's Spanish, he goes, Sean, the Latin community is the most entrepreneurial community. Gini me statistics. I started looking up. I was blown away. So I brought in a Spanish team and they wrote it in Spanish for me. And so we have an English version and a Spanish version. So that's really cool. That's awesome. Yeah. And it sounds like that will definitely add value because it seems like a no fluff approach, right? I don't want to blow

any smoke up your tail. Like if you don't get past this page, your business probably shouldn't even exist. Exactly. Exactly. You're giving two people up front versus on the back end, you know? Yeah. We make it really, it's simple. I give you like a game plan over 30 days. Like you can do like this much of the business plan each day, so I broke it out over 30. I made it literally, if you can't go through this business plan, you don't have the determination to start a business anyway. That's what I would tell. If you don't have the self-discipline to go through 25 questions, because if you don't do it now, you're going to be doing it over the first year. Trust me, you're going to answer every one of these questions at some point. And so you might as well answer it on the front end,

So at least you have a strategy and or a cost equivalent to solve the problem. Absolutely. Well, I'd love to find out. So I know that you're on a lot of places as far as social media is concerned. And you're putting out a lot of really good content. So kudos there for educating people for free. And I would love to find out, you know, what has social media done for your business, right? Because thinking about when you started, you know, 25 years ago,

when social media didn't exist, you think about how expensive it was to advertise through mass media and billboards and things like that. So now the fact that you can reach hundreds of thousands or millions of people with the single post, has that been pretty amazing for you to see and be a part of? It's two different kind of thing. It's funny because I own very traditional companies and I do like a Super Bowl ad regionally. So I do a ton of TV advertising and traditional. We just did a commercial the other day for my home building and home improvement companies that do incredible. Then I also own a digital marketing company that helps small businesses do digital marketing, which is everything you're saying.

And then in my personal space, social media is a big thing. I'm not a super social media guy. I have to really, my team has to really like teach me like I'm a toddler. I'm a content guy. I wake up every day and I think three things in my personal space. I want to equip, encourage, and educate entrepreneurs. And I'm already really, really rich, to be frank with you. So I don't need to nickel and dime anybody.

I don't need you to go through a 35 click funnel for me to pay a bill. I don't need to mentor you. I turn down 99 out of 100 requests for mentoring because I can only mentor 40 people in a course of a year. And 10 of those are companies. 10 of those are nonprofits I do for free. So I basically work with 20 people per year. So with that, I have to give away content for free.

And I love that. So every day, you know, it's like, okay, equip, encourage, educate. And that's how my podcast is laid out. Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I teach a lesson just like you were sitting in an MBA class. And I do guest lecturing at colleges. But it's, it is a MBA level class. I teach on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays on my podcast. On Thursdays, I answer questions that any of my people to send in.

I get tons of questions. And then on Tuesdays, I interview founders of companies from five employees to people that have sold half billion dollar companies. You know? So, and then on Saturdays, I do a 10-minute mentoring because I can't mentor people. So I just go over qualities I think entrepreneurs should have and what I do when I bring on business partners. So 99.999% of everything I offer is for it. I love it. Yeah.

And that's the best way to go in my opinion. because it's you're adding value right you're literally showing somebody because when they get to that crossroad where they think about working with somebody down the road if you have a spot available then they're going to reach out and they're going to say wow you've added so much value to me for nothing and I'm so inspired that now I want to see if I can be one of these 20 people that I have that can work with you during the year yeah well the biggest problem I had is is in this space and this whole expert space my biggest problem is it's amazing how people are great business people, and then they write a book and then they don't have a business

anymore and their business is their book. See, I don't buy that. If you're an entrepreneur, you don't just give it up. Okay, it's in your DNA. I still, I still start a business every year or expand something. So, and if you, if you're really a successful business owner, why would I give up doing what has paid my bills for 20 years and done them well? So I have a hard time I think if you're in my space, if I'm supposed to be a business expert, well, I should be able to be able to live pretty comfortably on the businesses I've started if in fact I'm everything I said I am. So that's why I kind of stuck with. Let's give 99.9% away. That's awesome. Yeah. And like you said, you're you're educating people right there. They're literally take, they can take the info. They can apply it and they can get results. Right. And that's that's what it's all about. So I would love to find out, your thoughts on having coaches and mentors.

Because on your journey, I'm going to assume in the 25 years, there's had to be people in your corner maybe that saw something in you that you might have not seen in yourself. So I would love to hear your thoughts on coaches and mentors. I think coaches and mentors are great based on certain qualifiers. I think that you don't need to pay people. I think that we're caught up. I mean, if you can afford to, that's great. But there are a way, I'm going to tell you ways that I got mentors.

And like I just mentioned the wife who's outside. Her husband was a mentor of mine for three years when I first started in that business. Once a week, we would take a walk around our parking lot, which was massive at the time. And he would literally say, Sean, you need to do this better. I heard you did this. I needed to do it. It was really 20 minutes of him kicking me in my ASS and telling me how to be better. But he did it for three years.

And he was in my wedding. His wife was in my wedding. So I was mentored. I think anytime you take a job, find somebody who's significantly better than you and offer to take them the coffee, you know, and just ask questions. You can get mentoring is just, and coaching is just getting advice and training from somebody who's where you want to be. If you can pay someone to do that, hey, there's people I do pay advice for. I'm a writer. I have a New York Times bestselling author that I pay a premium dollar to do a Zoom call with once a month.

and that person saves me way more money than I ever pay them. Like when I wanted to do the book in Spanish, my book would have been a disaster because he's like, well, Sean, is it going to be a direct translation or is it going to be literal? Like in Spanish, they don't say something in three words. It's like for every three words, they do it in 10. Well, I would have done a literal translation and that's not how it would have translated well. That's just one example. I wanted to learn how to play golf. I paid a pro.

Okay. So I'm big on mentoring and coaches. And I think that my rule of thumb is, can they get you somewhere faster or can they take you further than where you are? And are they truly an expert, a proven professional achieved in the area that you want? That's my big thing. And then one other business, how I got another business mentor, I knew a gentleman who owned a successful company in our area, just a local business. And he had been in my magazine. I had known about him.

But he was, oh, he's probably 30 years older than I am, even to this day. I went in there one day, you know, I said, Ben, I love your business. You do such a great job. Can I take you to lunch every couple months right across the street from where your office is? Because I'd love to just pick your brain and run ideas by you. He was so flattered by that. Because most people that are successful, they want to share it. They don't want to bottle it up.

They know that doesn't have any value. They know somebody helped them. So he used to look forward to those lunches. We did these lunches for about seven years pre-COVID. Where I would just say, listen, I'm thinking about doing this. And even if it wasn't something in strikes and he's, you know, it doesn't hit me right. Have you thought about this? Or have you, you know, and he would just give me things that I hadn't maybe thought about.

Or we'd play a war game scenario at lunch. Well, you might want to think about this. You might want to think about that. I never paid him. Anything we'd have never taken a dime. I'm telling you, you go to start a business, you go into a local business that you have frequented. You know, they've seen you. You say the owner, I'm starting a business.

I'd love to go to take you to coffee just once a month and bounce two or three business questions off you. It'll never take more than 30 minutes. Could you help me out for a year while I started? You ask three people, I guarantee you to say yes. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's all about the ask, right? Because you're never going to get any advice if you don't ask for it.

you know, if you don't put yourself out there and, you know, be just up front with people. Hey, listen, I'm trying to learn. You know what, you know things that I don't know. And is there any way I can treat you? Treat you to like. I love. Like, I love that. The best lesson I learned on that. It probably saved me about $200,000 is I was in our gym. And it's an incredible gym owned by a very wealthy person in our area. I mean, the rock goes to our, went to our gym until he probably built one in his house here. But he was, I used to see the rock every day working out. Massive notebook. And he looked. even as good in person. Okay, so, but I remember I was going through a legal, I had terminated an employee and was going through a legal nightmare. And I was getting ready to get on a weight machine and the

owner was getting ready to get on the machine. We just kind of made eye contact and he had known me from commercials and some of my businesses. And I remember saying, I'm, hey, can I ask you a question? He goes, yeah, sure. And I went through the legal situation I was in and like within two minutes. He says me, he goes, yeah, the problem is he goes, the attorney, you have now. He goes, he asked who my attorney was. He goes, yeah, that's kind of like a general practitioner. That's like your family doctor. He goes, you need to get a specialist for cancer. Because if you had cancer or something of that nature, you wouldn't be using your family doctor. He goes, this is who you need to call. You need to call, you need to have an attorney that is so

much gravitas when they get their letterhead. They fear. And I'll never forget the attorney I hired, sent a letter, the opening paragraph was something like, you have a better chance to of the Exxon Valdez settlement happening before my client gives you a blankety blank dollar. Needless say, it was over in 30 days, and I paid him for one hour of his time. And I had been stressing out for months. I took advice from somebody, he gave it to me in two minutes. And that's a big fan of mentoring in any way you can get it. Love that.

I love that. And so outside of, you know, the books that you've written, What are some books that you have come across that have actually added value to your life that you'd recommend, you know, to the audience? So some that maybe you read and you're like, wow, this sounds like me. Like these are principles I can live by. Yeah, well, if you look behind me, you can see a massive bookcase and I just added three more shelves going up. So I love reading. Not that you have to read a ton of books.

I'd rather you read a book three times than read a lot of books. I think a book needs to go through you. You don't need to go through the book. We need to really take notes, pull something out of it. I mean, go through it like an archaeologist goes through a dig site. That's how you need to read. You need to think differently and how you read. I mean, think and grow rich is still paramount.

If you haven't read it, read that one book four times through in the next 12 months. Seriously, there's, you know, short of holy doctrine, there's no book that comes close to being valuable as think and grow rich. and I absolutely believe that. I think if you're wondering if you're an entrepreneur, rich dad, poor dad, I think does the best layout of how an entrepreneur is different than an employee. It's a real, the best, just choose A or B.

You know, so I think rich dad, poor dad, I think developing great habits as successful people just become successful. They may start a business, it may fail, but the second one will succeed or the third one. successful people just eventually figure it out. I think seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey, they would be my A, B, and C. I think if you could go through those, those three, I think, again, because I'd read each of them once, you know, not just once,

two or three times. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, think and grow rich. And then I would absolutely finish that off with seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey. Awesome, awesome. Well, hey, I really appreciate that. you sharing your insight with us, your story. It's definitely a testament to you being a real entrepreneur, right? You've not only done it once, you've done it multiple times and you continuously are striving to help other people make their businesses better. So it kind of parting words here, what are the best places outside of your website? Your website might be the place. The best, I think, you know, listen, I'm verified on Instagram and I, you know, so I'm

supposed to be big on Instagram, so you can obviously send me a question, DM me on Instagram. But I think I still, I'm an old-fashioned guy. Easiest way to reach me is send me an email to ask shan at shancastrina.com. I don't let my team vet those. I actually look at those. I get tons of questions. That's the easiest way, but don't write me anything more than a paragraph. And your subject line needs to grab my attention.

But I will answer it. And then get the free book because if you're not even looking to start a company, I do a couple bonus chapters in it. One is, you know, the qualities of great entrepreneurs. And I go through 10 qualities. And I think these are 10 qualities anybody wants to be successful needs to have. And so there's one bonus chapter I put in there. Like, I'm like, if my life dependent on it, I need to help you start a business. I'm like, okay, this is the business plan. But oh, by the way, it'd be really helpful. You know, if you're like, if you're going to be a wide receiver, if you had four three speed and you a wingspan like this. This is kind of my parting words where if you're going to start it,

I would bet more on your startup if you started putting these qualities into your personal life. So, you know, again, you get that at shoncastrina.com. It's free. And that's it. Ask me, send me an email or in fact, follow me on Instagram and get the free book at shoncastrana.com. It's $18 on Amazon. So it's worth it. You get the digital copy. The digital copy is best because you can actually type out your business plan. And it's really a cool version. I love that. I love that.

Well, hey, I'm going to make sure that all that info is down in the show notes. I know people are going to get value out of the conversation. Hopefully they'll be reaching out, asking you questions. And definitely, folks, make sure you go download the book. Free is the best price out there. You know, and especially for the value that it sounds like is in there. Free is definitely worth it. So, hey, I appreciate you coming on the show, my friend.

And I'm sure we will stay in touch. and I hope you have a great rest of your day. Great. Thank you so much. Hey, everyone. I hope you enjoyed that episode with Sean. Man, he's got a lot of energy. He definitely has a lot of knowledge about being a successful entrepreneur.

Make sure you give him a follow. I'll make sure his info is down in the show notes. And also, if you want a free copy of his book, make sure to click on the link in the show notes so you can download a free copy. Like you said, it is available on Amazon, but there is a fee associated with it. So you might as well just grab a free copy. Thanks again for listening to the show. I appreciate your support.

If you have not subscribed yet, make sure you go ahead and subscribe to the show. If you have enjoyed it, if it's added value to your life, give us a five-star written review that would help so much for us to move up in the ranking so that we can reach an impact as many people as possible. I'm so excited that just about a week ago, the show is actually ranked number 25 for business and entrepreneurship in Ireland. So shout out to all of our listeners. In Ireland, we really, really appreciate the support. And I can't wait to share the next episode with you all soon.