Business Innovators Radio - David Mansilla – Chief Business Advisor – On How To Break Out of the Corporate Jail

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

In this episode, Nina Hershberger talks with David Mansilla, founder and CEO of ISU Corporation, about his journey from corporate life to entrepreneurship and the lessons he learned along the way. David shares his expertise on building multiple businesses, the importance of finding balance, and the power of passive income.David Mansilla is a successful entrepreneur with clients ranging from General Electric to small businesses. He is also the host of The Break Free Podcast, where he shares valuable insights and experiences for the new generation of entrepreneurs.During the interview, David discusses his transition from corporate life to entrepreneurship and the realization that he had created a bigger prison for himself in his own business. He shares the struggles he faced, including financial stress and burnout, and how he eventually broke free from his self-imposed limitations.This episode is a must-listen for anyone who wants to learn from David’s experiences and gain insights on building a successful business while maintaining a balanced and fulfilling life. David’s story serves as a reminder that true success is not measured by financial wealth alone, but by finding fulfillment in relationships, personal growth, and making a positive impact.Listeners who are interested in learning more about David Mansilla can visit his website at DavidMansilla.com or reach out to him via email at [e-mail] Radio with Nina Hershbergerhttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/megabucks-radio-with-nina-hershbergerSource: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/david-mansilla-chief-business-advisor-on-how-to-break-out-of-the-corporate-jail

Welcome to Megabox Radio. Conversations with successful entrepreneurs, sharing their tips and strategies for success, real-world ideas that can put Megabox in your bank account. Here's your host, Nina Hirshberger. Well, welcome to the Bay Show. This is your host and Nina Hirschberger. And I've got my guest today is David Mancilla. David is a CEO. He's a founder and CEO.

of ISU Corporation, but he, I think, used to work for a corporate. We're going to get into that kind of thing. But his clients range from General Electric, Heinz, and he's earned many, many awards. But his expertise doesn't stop there. He's also the host of the Break Free Podcast that has thousands of downloads, where he shares valuable insights and experience for the new generation of entrepreneurs. So David, welcome to today's show. Thank you so much, Nina.

It's a pleasure being here. Yeah, so let's go back in time. So did you, I mean, I assume you used to work with a corporation, and you decided to break free. So tell me your, you know, your transition to making that happen. Sure. So for the audience, I thought I was trapped in my corporate job, and I wanted to break free from that.

So I thought that my life path was being an entrepreneur, which was right. But they realized that I made a bigger jail in my own business. So I ended up going from one prison cell to a more tighter, harder to escape prison cell, if you will. That's when I found out that the break free was from myself, not from corporate. at all from my business. So, so you had started your own business. I mean, you have a software business now,

but you have multiple businesses up to this point as well. So what you found is that it was taking all of your time? So what happened? What changed in your life then? Yeah. So when I was in corporate,

so I grew up as a computer scientist. have two computer science degrees. And I really, entrepreneurship runs in my family. All my siblings are entrepreneurs. My dad had many businesses before he passed away. And right after college here in Canada, I decided to start my own business doing software consulting right after my graduation. And little bit I know that people would not trust me with their software because I was

just a junior programmer. So it was very hard. I started to end up, you know, selling computers and building computers for people just to pay the rent. And it was a very hard two years of my life until I finally decided to close the shop down because my expenses were much bigger than my income. So I was running into big debt. I was blessed, though, because I happened to accumulate a lot of clients, even though I wasn't making money. So the company had value on the brand. So I was able to sell the company for the same.

amount of money that I owed the credit card companies and the banks. So I didn't break kidding. I actually just was able to exit. So then I got a corporate job as a software developer, and I fell in love with it. And I started growing in the corporate world. It was a beautiful experience. But I started to notice that after two years in every job, I would jump to another job, especially when I landed at my first leadership position.

So after 10 years of doing that back and forth, I thought, I think I'd be better having my own business. So I don't have to be moving jobs every two years because basically I was getting bored, right? I would get into a large organization leading the software teams. I will organize them, optimize them, make them amazing, and then work myself out of the job. So basically, the last six, most of every job, I will be just punching in, punching out, and supervising people, but I wasn't really adding much value because everything was automated already. So that's what made me decide to start my own business.

The realization that I needed to have more than one job, I needed to have multiple clients in order to keep myself entertained and happy, you know, I needed to add more value. So that's what I did. I started my own company in 2005, ISU Corp. I have been blessed financially because of it, and now I run, seven, you know, I'm a business, other businesses at the same time. I don't say that I own the businesses. Now I consider myself the chief advisor officer.

I'm not even the CEO anymore. All the companies are self-managing with other partners so that I just overview what they're doing. So I have the pleasure of investing my time in podcasts like yours, Nina. But when I say that I actually got into a bigger jail is because I got so afraid of making that leap, leap of faith, you know, leaving the corner office and the six-figure dollar salary and the paid vacations and the bonuses going to something that I didn't even know if I was going to have

clients was very stressful. So fear paralyzes you and also make you do stupid things. At the same time, a little bit of fear is very healthy. What happened with me is that I decided not to spend a penny of the money that I was making my new contracts as a business owner until I built enough cash flow. That was very good. What wasn't good is that I, because of the fear, I felt trapped. So I felt that no matter how much money the company was making, it was never enough. And that became a pattern. So every single waking hour that I had, I was employing in the business.

And then when the money started to grow, I got addicted to making money, you see? And I forgot that I had a wife, that I had kids. I forgot that I had a faith. I stopped going to church. Everything was about the business of the money. So I built this huge jail. And I would get just a little bit of satisfaction once I got into a new status level in my economy and my net worth. So I was measuring my life based on my net worth, not based on the relationships that I had.

And that was horrible. It was a 10 times worse jail that I ever. felt when I was in corporate. I never felt that in corporate, actually. So I kept going. I didn't know. I was blinded. I was working, you know, 15, 16 hours a day, traveling every other week until my

finally my heart gave up. I was driving to see a client one day and I had a heart attack. And that was my wake-up call. I went to the doctor after going to the hospital and the doctor told me, David, you're a young man. I was 39 years old back then, 39-40. And she said, David, change your lifestyle because you're going to die if you keep doing this. So that's when I realized that I was in a big, big jail.

So it took me, it took me three years to break out of that jail. It was a lot harder than the first jail. So how did you do that? What steps did you take? Yeah. So the first thing that I did is I realized that the greed that was in my heart was killing me. So the first thing that I did is I think a huge turn away. I went back to my faith, went back to what I believe, to Jesus, to the Lord and asking for forgiveness.

And then I went back to my wife and asked her for forgiveness and my kids for abandoning them for over three, four years. Then I flew, I took a plane. I went to Atlanta where my business partner was, and I told him, listen, keep the company, just give me the stock that I came with when I entered the relationship. So I kept five people in my business and, you know, two of the, you know, many clients. And that wasn't enough to make payroll, not even enough to make payroll. To give an idea, we had 110 people, and I kept five of the people and one of the contracts. So the person that was helping me run the office told me, David, what we're going to do?

And I said, you know, I almost died from this. things so if we have to close the company we can get jobs well smart people so I left a company that was dying because I made it I killed it and I took my kids out of school and I took my wife and I asked her to find a place where we could go as far away from Canada as possible and the USA and I asked him not to buy a return ticket so she booked a plane to Thailand and with the five of us went to Thailand I had three kids. And I didn't turn on my phone.

I kept my laptop off for all that time. So it was a time of reconnecting with my family. It was the first time that I ever took vacations doing all those entrepreneurial reos. By then I already was seven years into the business. So it was a much needed break. And what I realized is that if you, don't rest, the Lord will make your rest through the trials and tribulations that he

will put in your life. In my case, it was a big heart attack, right? You have to have balanced your life. Otherwise, why are you actually in business? So that was the first step, Nina. So after that, you know, I said, you know, if I don't have a business when I come back, it's fine. I'll go get a job.

But, you know, the last day that I was on that vacation, I decided to turn on my phone just to see what happened and I opened my email and I had thousands of emails but I noticed that I had offered 100 emails from an old friend of mine and he was looking for me. To make the long story shot, he was looking for me because he had a new contract for me and that contract was a million dollars

and I signed that contract right still when I was in Southeast Station. So I came back to Canada with a company revived, you know? So that was a good experience but it didn't help me learn my lesson because you see I thought that everybody was against me.

I thought that I was the victim. And having that million-dollar contract landed on my lap just like that, instead of acknowledging that it was God-given, I got full of pride, and that actually rectified my beliefs that everybody was against me. You know, my business partner was against me. My employees didn't love me.

My clients hated me. So it took another two years of soul searching to realize when that million people, dollar contract ended and I couldn't I had more contracts but I not not in that size so I was struggling financially again I gained 40 pounds in two years

and now I had nobody to blame I didn't have a business partner I rehire everybody so I remember it was 27th of December when I realized that I was 40 pounds overweight most of my hair was gone because of the stress that I had again

it was just for God's grade I didn't have another heart attack So I said, okay, wait a second. I know how to do patterns because I'm a computer scientist. What's the common denominator? The only thing that was in common, Nina, was myself. That was the waking moment where I said, Mike, I need to change myself. So what I did in the 6th of January, 2013, I joined a membership, a gym.

I joined a gym. I found this trainer online. His name is Chris Gettting, very, very good training if you want to lose weight fast and get back in shape. I did that because I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where to run. I didn't have any mentors back then

because I had lost every relationship that I had. So I said, the only thing that I know what to do is how to train my body because I'm a very disciplined person. So I started to, the program was a three-month program where you needed to work out every single day of the week. I started like that, but by this fourth day, I was doing three hours a day. And so one hour a day, I ended up doing four hours a day for those three months.

I went from 200 pounds to 159 for 30% body fat all the way down to 10% body fat in three months. But most importantly, when I was at the gym, most of the time I was on the treadmill, I was running or walking or, you know, I was on the elliptical machine with my hoodie on, listening to podcasts. That's why I love having podcasts now because they, you know, the Lord really used me to change my life back then. So I started listening to, you know, spiritual leaders. I started listening to pastors, preachers. I started listening also to business leaders to try to figure out what happened to me.

And then it really clicked. I had the victim mentality. victimization is a form of pride. And so pride is demonstrated by thinking that you are better than everyone else or by thinking that you are the victim and the world is against you. They are both the same pride. And when you are proud, you die. So forget about the body transformation.

The mind and soul transformation was really changed. And also I learned a ton about business. I realized that I wasn't a leader. I was mostly a military, generally, generally, if you will, that was giving orders without having a culture. I had a horrible culture. So I went back to school. I took a leadership course for one year, specifically for technical people that want to become top leaders in an organization.

That helped me tremendously. And again, I went back to my faith and I grabbed myself to the Lord and I was walking his path. And that year, we lost money. but we didn't go out of business because I was learning, I was working out, I was changing myself. And then the first miracle happened in December 2013, Nina.

That was the first month in my history of my business that I didn't have enough money to do payroll. And usually we do payroll 15 days before during Christmas so people can get their money before so we can go shopping and have a nice Christmas. So it was December 10th,

and my business manager told me, David, we don't have any money in the bank to do payroll, what are we going to do? But my faith was so big. I was so certain that the Lord was going to provide that, you know, I said, a miracle will happen. And I didn't know where the money was going to come from, but I was certain that somehow we were going to make payroll. One day before we needed to run payroll, my office manager was at the gym, and she called me and she says, David, a miracle just happened.

I'm like, what happened? We got a check from, we got two checks from the government. with enough money to cover payroll for this month and next month. So it was thousands and thousands of dollars. And I said, what? So I can't surprise. I run to the office. And then I realized that, you know, we had applied from some tax credits back in 2010 and 2011

for some software that we did that revolutionized the software industry in this country. And we never heard back from them. And then right there in December 15, 2013, the government decides to send us all that money at once because they had finally approved our grant. And that's how we save the business. January 2014 comes around. An old old boss of mine from 20 years ago was looking for me on LinkedIn. I went and saw and see him and he became a senior vice president for a large laboratory.

And he said, we need to create a new software for this laboratory. And I know you can do it because you're expert on that. So to make the industry short, that was the contract that got me going. So the government got me going December and January, and then that contract gave me enough financial abundance to start getting more clients. But you see how I changed near? I wasn't really looking for the money anymore. I was looking to have a beautiful company with the right people and the right culture.

And I finally balanced my life back then. Is that the advice you would give to young entrepreneurs these days? Yeah. Start out with a balanced life. I mean, I know you like mentoring young entrepreneurs. Yeah, just, I know it depends on your situation, right? At the beginning, every entrepreneur needs to make an effort. So you have to have a conscious decision.

So it depends where you're in life. In my case, I had young kids. So it was not fair for them because I didn't do a plant, right? I just started working and became a workaholic. So instead of seeing them grow vertically, I saw them grow horizontally because I only saw them when they were sleeping. If that makes sense. So for the young entrepreneurs, if you guys are single, especially and you want to build your business, go ahead and give it your best. But I still try to find a balance because you're going to burn out.

If you do it too long, you end up like me. You end up burning out. So for me, it's better to put in eight to ten hours a day, very well done. focus on what you really need out of the business and you want out of the business than spending 12, 13, 14, 16 hours a day, just spinning your wheels and, you know, burning the midnight handle in both ends without any success, which is what happened for me too. You know, I quickly realized in 2013, one of the books that I read was the four-hour work with by Tim Ferriss, and I learned about the 80-20 rule and the paletto law.

Basically, that rule says that 20% of your efforts are responsible for 80% of your results. And since I learned that law, it's like the law of gravity. We don't know what it comes from, that's how nature behaves. If you look at the highways, 20% of the highways carry 80% of

the traffic in the city. It's incredible, and it happens with Medicare, for example. In medicine, 20% of the patients spend 80% of the budget of the health care system. It's everywhere. And we don't So my advice, when I tell young entrepreneurs,

yeah, you have to your effort, especially at the beginning until your break-even, but always remember the 80-20 rule. What's the 20% of your effort that is going to give you 80% of what you want? But you see if to find out what that 20% you need to make a big effort at the beginning to realize what's the 20% that is working, what's not working. Because you don't know what works and what doesn't work until you try it out. That's number one. But most important than that is find mentors, like you.

mentors like, you know, people like in your podcast. Because when you find mentors that have done what you want to do, you're going to do it much faster because you most likely are not going to repeat the mistakes they have done. Like me. If I would have known about this work when I started the business, I most likely I wouldn't have had my heart attack and I wouldn't have wrecked my family. Right. And I will have grown my business ten times faster. You see? So David, in your book, you talk about hacking.

life 101. Tell me what that means. What that means, it comes around about the same thing what we're talking about, Nina. When you're hacking your life, what you're saying is you're putting what's most important first.

You're opening up your eyes and you have to realize what fulfills you. That's life, isn't it? We get into emotion. Human beings, we're experts on making routines. We're experts at doing something.

And that's our, brains actually our brains automate everything our brains are so the organ the brain is the most energy consuming organ in your whole body and it knows that so what the brain does is it creates repeated patterns it creates a shortcut in your brain to create the same pattern so you don't have to think about what you're doing you just do it i'll give you an example if you drive from home to your through your office every single day, eventually in about four to five months, you won't even think about your drive. You're just driving.

You're stopping in the right light and you're stopping for the traffic, but you're not even thinking about it. Your brain is occupied doing something else and your subconscious mind is driving that car. And sometimes it's scary. Has it happened to you that you get home or you go to your office and you're in your office and you don't even remember how you got there? Yeah, of course. It happens to all of us, yeah.

Right? That's your brain automation. The problem with that is that if you put on your subconscious mind, a routine that is not good for you, that is against you, you're going to keep doing it over and over again, and you're going to keep getting the same horrible result and the pain, and you're getting me know what you're doing it. That's how you create addictions.

The addiction is not just the substance. It's also the brain patterns that are created that automate that habit. So hacking Life 101 is sitting down and realizing that you are here just for a set period of time. You don't even know how long you're going to be on this earth. And that everything that you do in your day matters. And you need to understand how your computer works. Your brain is your machine. You know, when you realize who you really are and you know that you're in control of your brain,

just the fact that we know that we have a brain makes us realize that we're more than our bodies. and we have control over our bodies. And that's what faith comes in too, right? But if you think about it, your life is not your job, your life is not how you make money, right? You are not your business. Well, we have it's a problem of identity.

So hacking life 101 versus defining who you really are. Who are you? Because if you don't know who you are, you will never be fulfilling life. For me, for example, I thought money, was going to fulfill me. And so fulfilling, it almost killed me. It wasn't that, right?

Because I am not my money either. I am not my business. I am much more than that. So let's talk about identity. Who are we? You know, we come to this world and we don't know who we are, but what we can observe is that we're the most advanced species on earth. We know that we're made on God's image

and that he has given us dominion, over the whole earth. There is no other species on earth that are more intelligent than us. And also, we have one of the weakest biological bodies in the animal kingdom.

And yet, we have dominion over disease, over plants, over animals. We control everything in this world. Why? Because we are creators as our God is a creator. You see? So that's who we are. We have children.

of the most high God. Therefore, money will not fulfill you. You know, going from a relationship to relationship will not fulfill you. The only thing that will fulfill you is realizing that you are a spirit that has a soul that lives in a body and that you can control your soul

and you can control your body. If you control your soul, your body gets controlled automatically. And the only way to actually be fulfilled is to enjoy your life with your creator, with God, and with the family that is around you. And if you don't have a family, you can go and find a family, people that love you for who you are and for what you have or what you do. And yes, money is important, right? Sometimes people tell me, how can you talk about money is not important or money is not the first thing in your life if you have so much of it? Well, I almost die trying to get it.

And I tell you the truth, it's not fulfilling. I think Jen Karo said that, right? He said, I wish you had my success, my fame and the money in the bank to realize that that's not it. It's funny, Nina. I was just in Guatemala. That's where my home country is. I was there for six months. I was there for a month, but we realized that my wife had cancer in her throat.

Throat cancer. So we ended up staying six months because we decided to have. to get her healed there because the Canadian system is not so good for appointments. So I went back to my roots and I realized, you know, we were in a very small apartment, a thousand square feet in a very modest part of town and we were very happy even with this horrible illness that we were going through. Why? Because we were focused on what matters and our heart is fulfilled. And so that's hacking life. We go from job to job trying to get from get you know kind of trying to get from this car to a better car or whatever it is right people or

let's talk about sports people they fall in love with their sports that they they are good at and then what happens their body gets older and they have to retire and what's left you know a hold in their heart right you also in the book talk about passive income that must help to be able to live the life like you're talking about tell me when you what you're talking about with passive income. Yes, super important. So I told you, I just told you that money is not everything, right? However, you know what the Bible says? The person that doesn't provide for their family is cursed. So it's not important, but it's, but it is not important on the highest level, but you have to be able to provide. Right. So for me, my home was after I had the heart attack and after I realized after

two years that, you know, I was my own, my worst enemy. For me, my world was, how can I make enough passive income to cover my basic expenses? Why? Not to retire, but to have enough time to do the things that I love to do that I'm called to do, have more time with my kids with my wife. And in my case, now that I have even grandkids, have time to give back to society in terms of podcasts like this or writing books. So passive income for me has to be the most important financial goal for everybody that is listening to this podcast. So tell me how do people find passive income? I mean, it sounds good.

People would love to have it, but how do you find it? There's many ways. There's many ways. That by itself, you can spend years studying that. But again, the 80-20 rule. The way that I accomplished was with real estate, Nina. So I started to buy property and I started to rent those properties. So I just make sure that my debt was more than 50% of what the property value was.

Because this was not, again, remember, this was not to get rich. This was to create enough passive income. So I was very conservative on the real estate market. And I did that. I also invested a little bit in the stock market. The stock market wasn't that pretty, although that's a long, long, long, long term thing. But for me, reality, it worked great. I started with one apartment.

Then I got another unit. By 2014, I was financially independent. My passive income matched my basic expenses. That's another thing that people have to get the misconception. Passive income is not about maintaining your standard of living when you have a full-time job. Or you have a business that is thriving. No, passive income is how do I actually be able to provide a roof above my head for me and my family and food and transportation and health care? The basic necessities.

I'm not talking about luxuries. So I achieved that in 2014. And when you do that, what happens is that your risk level goes through the roof. You can risk a lot more as long as you don't touch your necktakes because now you're set. that means I could actually watch Netflix for the rest of my life. Does that make sense? That's how much freedom you get by creating a passive income that matches your basic expenses. So number one, you have to reduce your basic expenses and, you know, and smell the flowers

and see that you don't need that much money to live. Then you have to try to invest in the right places for the recurrent revenue so that you can match that. Once you have that and you maintain it, because there is, by the way, there is no such thing. as passive income. You always have to manage. Otherwise, it's just slowly deteriorates. You have to manage and grow it, always. But it's not a full-time job, right? So in my case, my wife takes care of our real estate portfolio now, and yeah, it is time-consuming, but I'm telling you what, one day a week maybe, right? Sometimes we have to work a lot harder because something happens, but in average, you know, it's very minimal. It's the 80-20 room with one day, you know,

with 20% of her month, she feels everything, 80% of our needs and months, right? Fascinating. Yeah. So, David, I am looking at the clock, and that clock is never my, you know, it always is going too fast. If one last thing, if you were a young person starting out again, what one piece of advice, and maybe you've already covered it, but what one piece of advice? But one piece of advice sounds like not only would you, if you didn't have kids, you'd work really hard, but at the same time be thinking of that passive income because at some point, that's the ultimate goal, is to be able to do that.

Do you have a crystal ball? Is there certain kinds of industries, certain kinds of companies that are good these days? Yeah. So I'm going to get, for the audience, if you want to. to get into business for me based on my experience is a lot easier to thrive on a service-based business having a service business has been the key for me the other companies that I have are also software companies that provide services one way or another the only company that has inventory if you will is my real estate business because I have physical property but running inventory

in a brand new business is very very complicated I tell you because my My brother owns a big business with inventory and took him 20 years to become very successful. It's a lot faster. It's a lot faster to become successful in a service business. So whatever it is, think about opening up a service business and you'll find success. That's easier. The early 20 role in business, number one. Number two, my advice to everybody that is listening is live below your means and the rest invested for passive income.

income. Don't look for the get rich scheme. I have lost a lot of money trying to invest in something that is going to 10x in one year. You know, that doesn't happen. Persistency is what's required to create a passive income that matches your expenses. So leave your law your means, your company. Don't leave all the profits. Don't reinvest the profits back into the company. Take at least 25% of the profits and put them in the separate bank account or do it on a very safe investment until you're ready to buy your first property. Don't reinvest your entire net profits back into the business. That's what I did for the first seven years,

Nina. And you know what I did? I lost millions of dollars. I could have been ready to retire because when you passive income matches your expenses, you are actually retired. So I would have been ready to retire five years earlier if I really have that greed of making more and making more. And a lot of the that I know, even today, they're still living based on the millions of dollars that they make a year in net profits in their companies, and they still don't have passive income. And that's not a way to live because nobody knows how the economy changes. Most businesses could go bankrupt in a couple of months. One government law that changes, and your business will be rendered illegal, and that happened to a friend of mine.

You know, he had a multi-million dollar business based on real estate. He was saving taxes for people that have real estate. The government changed the rules, and that wasn't allowed anymore, so he had to close down within a month. And he had no passive income, and he had spent all the money that he had made. And now he learned his lesson. You see? Yeah, one of the favorite games of our family is cash flow 101.

I'm sure you're familiar with that, Robert Kiyosaki's game, and teaching about that cash flow. and that passive income. So it's very wise. Well, David, thank you so much for being on today's show. If there's somebody that would like to reach out to you, what's the best way to get all of you?

For sure. You can go to my website, David Mancilla.com, or you can send me an email, David M at isuCorp.ca. Very good. So that will be all in the show notes below. But, David, thank you so much for your wisdom and for your willingness to share that wisdom with everybody that's listening to the show.

Thank you so much, I'm for having me. And have a wonderful rest of the week. Yeah. So until next time, this is Naina Hirshberger saying go out and make it an amazing day. Thank you for listening to Megabucks Radio with Naina Hirshberger. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show, or to listen to past episodes. Visit megabucksradio.com.