Digital Social Hour - Scaling Beyond $10M: Logic Over Emotion | Austin Zelan DSH #671

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

🎙️ Tune in now to the latest episode of the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly, featuring the insightful Austin Zelan! In "Scaling Beyond $10M: Logic Over Emotion," Austin dives into the transformative journey of scaling businesses past the $10M mark. 💼 Discover how shifting from emotional attachment to logical strategies can unlock exponential growth. 🚀 From mastering AI integration to building a powerhouse team, this episode is packed with valuable insights you won't want to miss. Join the conversation and learn how to turn your passion into a thriving enterprise. Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🚀   CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:57 - What Austin Does 06:19 - AI Technology 07:30 - Investing Insights 10:25 - Passive Income Strategies 11:49 - Gold and Cryptocurrency 15:27 - Profit Importance in Year 1 20:04 - The Power of Mentorship 22:44 - Lessons from Microsoft 24:20 - Importance of Dressing Well 26:00 - Austin's Work Hours 27:46 - Significance of Money 29:10 - Valuable Lessons from Podcasts 30:56 - Future Plans for Austin   APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail]   GUEST: Austin Zelan https://www.instagram.com/austinzelan   SPONSORS: Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly   LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It was difficult for me in my first companies because I'm like, oh, this is the greatest thing ever, you know, as every business owner thinks. And as I became a partner in more companies, I realized that it's not about having the most control. It's about having the right team to make it happen. You can have as many businesses as you want. If you want to own equity in 100 companies, that's possible. I've kind of reached the point where I'd much rather own 10% of 100 companies than 100% of one company. All right, guys, we got Austin Zelen here. I went on your show and now you're on mine.

A little swap. Perfect. I'm excited for it, man. Yeah, I was glad to have you on my show. Definitely. Which side do you like better? You know, I like both because on one side, you get to kind of steer the conversation in whatever way you want it to go.

And then on the other side, you get to share a little bit more about your background and your story and the things that you're working on. I like to highlight the guests as much as possible on my show. Yeah. So I think a little back and forth is cool. And you provide a very unique service. You come into businesses that are doing two to five mil a year, right? And you help them scale. Yeah, exactly.

So my sweet spot is businesses that are stuck between two and five mil a year, right? And you help them scale. Yeah, exactly. So my sweet spot is businesses that are stuck between two and $5 million, um, could be for a variety of different reasons, but really, um, people like entrepreneurs, I find that they're kind of like a hopeless romantic. They have this idea, it's their baby. It's the only thing that they want to focus on and they never want to give out any equity or anything like that. And I experienced that myself as well early on in business. And so these people are so emotional about their business that they sometimes forget the logical side of it. And business is not that difficult. It's pretty simple, actually, but it's hard to implement if you can't get past the emotional side of things. So I come in and I help them establish some of those basic foundations. Like you can

get to 2 million on an emotional business, but then to switch it to logic that helps you scale to 5, 10, 15 million. Yeah. So do you find a lot of people are just kind of comfortable at that range and they're, they're cool with it or do they want to scale? I think most people want to scale. And I've even like, I've heard a lot of horror stories in business where they're just like, yeah, you know, I work 80 hours a week and I'm only making two or $3 million and it's actually business is not that great. It's a lot of hard work. Well, I think that's for businesses below $10 million. After they reach $10 million, you'll see businesses or business owners stop saying that because it's like, oh, all these things that I had to pay for before I was at $10 million, now I finally have the money to pay for it. And now I finally have interest from VCs and people

want to fund me and investors want to invest in my company. It's like, it's kind of like a magic pill. As soon as you get to $10 million, you're a real business. Otherwise it's potentially just a high paying job. And so a lot of these people that are struggling, it's likely that they're just below 10 million. So once you get past that threshold, that's when it gets a little bit easier. So the biggest problems you're seeing when you enter a business in that range is emotional ties to the business. Emotional ties and they lack logical structure. So no systems, no processes in place. They're just kind of like, oh yeah, well, we just, you know, we kind of work with every client, however we feel like in the moment. And they're not necessarily dialed in on this is exactly how we do it every single time.

This is our process. This is our method. And then if I have to, like, hire a new person or I have to switch somebody out, I can easily train them on that new process. And I don't have to spend time, like, incorporating all these trainings and teaching them the culture. It's all documented. They know exactly what to say. They know exactly what to do. And it's very easy to hire more, scale, whatever I need to do.

So you bring in the logic, the operations, the systems. Do you separate emotion from your businesses? Yeah. I mean, it was difficult for me in my first companies because I'm like, oh, this is the greatest thing ever, as every business owner thinks. And you have to reach a point where you realize that you're your own bottleneck. You're the bottleneck to the business because you're refusing to let go of control. And so as I started more businesses, as I became partners in more businesses, or as I became a partner in more companies, I realized that it's not about having the most

control. It's about having the right team to make it happen. So now at this point in my business, I'm very happy to give equity to partners that I believe can help drive the project forward. So that like just doing that over and over again, it made me realize that there's abundance in business. It's not limited. There's no scarcity. You can have as many businesses as you want. If you want to own equity in 100 companies, that's possible. But you can't do that if you're so emotional about one company. And I've kind of reached the point where I'd much rather own 10% of 100 companies than 100% of one company. Right. So you're hedging your bet almost. Yes, in a way. And it also helps you bring in the proper talent required to help that scale. Yeah, because the proper talent, if they're

A-tier, they're going to want equity, right? Exactly. Usually they're going to want equity. But also there are things that any business owner is just not that great at. There are things that I'm not great at. There are things that I'm really good at, but some other things I kind of struggle in. And so if I can find... Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two-year contracts,

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how to do. And if I give them equity, that's going to take me so much further in business than me being emotional about it. And I want to keep 100% and I'm not sharing and I'm going to do everything. And I think it's just a smarter way to run a business. Right. Where are you sourcing majority of your A-tier talent? You know, a lot of it has been through networking. So I am a part of several different masterminds and stuff like that. And

I find that these masterminds, if you, um, if you find the one that's like a really great fit culturally, you can a lot of times find valuable people or team members that could potentially join you on a project there or somebody in their network. So the way that I judge masterminds is a lot of times it's like a cultural fit. If I fit in culturally with these people, if our values align, it's likely that I'll find valuable business connections and partnerships there. Yeah, masterminds are great. And I think people go there trying to learn, but the real value is the networking. Yeah, definitely. And that's what I thought at first, too.

I'm like, oh, I'm going to learn so much. And then I realized I found myself like not even sitting in the conference room much, but actually being outside in the lobby or in the lounge and networking with people because there's so much value in that. Absolutely. Are you implementing a lot of AI right now into your businesses? Yeah, wherever I can. So there's kind of a misconception happening in the AI world where people think that they're going to replace things in their business with AI. And granted, there are companies that are fully AI. Like I'm. I've been learning more and more about these businesses that are literally entirely AI. They'll have an AI C-suite. They'll have AI managers. They'll have full teams. And they'll have team meetings and all this stuff. It's fully

run by AI. And there's no human intervention. And that's really cool. But I think that a more feasible approach for most business owners is just to implement AI where it can fill the gaps. So I look in my business, okay, there's a gap here, or I could do this faster, or I could do that better. And I find AI tools that can help fill that gap, or we build custom tools. So we have a whole developer team, and we have some templates that we built out. And then we also build out custom tools for ourselves, for clients. And we help fill those gaps because I think that's a good place to start. And then you start seeing, oh, actually, I could maybe hire a whole C-suite that's AI or create a C-suite. All about saving time, right?

Being efficient. Exactly. It's mostly time compression and being more efficient at these everyday tasks. Yeah. You refuse to invest in stocks. I do. And the reason is, I think it's the most overpriced opportunity to own equity in a business. Now, it's probably potentially the lowest risk. But if you think about it, let's say you have a company that's, you know, a couple million dollars, they're doing a couple million dollars a year, maybe $10 million a year, let's say. And you buy equity in that company. When you're buying it, you're not really overpaying much because you're probably buying directly from the owner, the person that founded this company. Then you have these VC firms or private equity firms who

will roll up several of these companies and then sell them at a premium. So let's say they roll up five companies, they'll sell them, they bought them for 50 million, they'll sell it for 60, 70. So now you're paying a premium. Then there are larger PE firms who will buy these roll ups and roll them up again and sell it to a larger company. And that continues going on stock, it's like the most overpriced time to buy into that company. So it is higher risk to invest into something so early on, but the potential payoffs are exponential. So currently in my portfolio, that's what I'm focused on. I maybe one day I'll change my mind, you know, when I want to go more conservative. But right now I'm seeing a much higher return investing into companies that are earlier on in that stage. Yeah, because S&P will get you 7% on average, but you're probably looking for more like 10, 20%, right? I mean, even more, you know, like,

let's say a lot of what I'm doing with the consulting firm is helping companies grow. So let's say a company's at, you know, $5 million a year, we're going to help them grow to $10 million a year by, you know, processes, systems, AI, all that stuff. So we help them implement those things. But let's say I want to invest into 10% of the company. So now I own 10% of that business. So a $5 million company, $500,000, if I get them to 10 million, now I've just doubled my money. So instead of getting a 7% return, I'm going to consult them anyways. They're already hiring us as consultants, but I want a piece of the action. And to help them grow, I'm also helping myself grow.

And I'm getting potentially 100% return right there. So you're very confident in your abilities to increase revenues. Yeah. I mean, we typically don't guarantee anything. But I know that if you just systemize some things and become more efficient as a business, as long as you have a proven business model, if you make it more efficient, it's just going to make you more money. Like, it's just math.

I mean, business at the end of the day is very simple. If you increase your revenue and you decrease your expenses, you're naturally going to make more money. So the way we do that is with technology and with systems and automations and all that stuff. So we really come in to make these businesses somebody's passion, somebody's dream into something that's a lot more efficient and a lot more profitable. Yeah, it's all a numbers game at the end of the day. Exactly.

Yeah. Do you believe in passive income? Yeah, I think that it's difficult to say something is truly passive unless you design it like that. And some people will argue that there something is truly passive unless you design it like that. And some people will argue that there's nothing truly passive. But I think that if you have the right management teams in place, you can make it passive. Even a business, there are businesses that I own that I have zero involvement in. I just get a payout every quarter. And it's fully passive for me because I specifically made it that way.

I hired the right people. I'm overpaying these people to run the business for me. But specifically made it that way. I hired the right people. I'm overpaying these people to run the business for me, but it is passive. So I think passive income does exist. Outside the business sense, it does exist as well. But like a very common example that people give is real estate. They're like, oh yeah, just buy real estate and rent it out and it's passive income. Well, no, there's a few more steps because if that's all you do, you're probably going to be managing tenants. Let's say, you know, the sink overflows or the dishwasher breaks or something happens. Guess what? Most people are out there trying to fix it or finding a repair person. And so if you don't add an additional layer to make it passive for yourself, then no, it's not

going to be passive. It could be 99% passive. But what I prefer to do is bring in a team that's going to make this fully passive for me. So anything that I potentially would have to do falls on them. And then they're handling those responsibilities. And so yes, it is possible to create passive income. Love it. Are you investing in gold and crypto right now? i do hold some crypto um i do physical gold so i used to trade gold actually on the exchanges um like spot gold x yeah forex and spot gold and it's okay you know it's a very volatile market for sure but i currently just invest in like physical gold so gold bars and stuff like that yeah costco sells them now oh i

didn't know that yeah they're selling uh i think 80 million dollars a month of wild one ounce bars but interesting i like the big ones dude i don't want that a whole kilo little key chain yeah yeah no that's cool yeah i didn't know costco sells it but um there's definitely value in gold i mean it's been such a stable investment for so many years and we're at such high highs right now. Nobody really knows what's going to happen. But over the track record that we've seen for gold, it has been a great investment. Yeah. There's a lot of different things to invest in.

I kind of just, it's easy to just invest in so many different things, right? You probably get that temptation. But it sounds like you stay mainly in business. Yeah. You know, I kind of got over that early on in my career. I started investing into anything I could possibly find and it was fun and it was interesting and it was very stimulating because like, oh, today I'm investing in oil wells and tomorrow I'm investing in, you know, jets or whatever it is. And that was interesting and fun. But over time I learned how to hone in my portfolio into the things that I know are consistently producing for me and just double down on those things.

But one other thing that I learned is to scale up my investments. And so it doesn't necessarily mean buy more of something. So, for example, if I was investing in Bitcoin miners, it did work for me. And I could buy thousands of miners now if I wanted to. But what if instead I just bought a business and the return was maybe a little bit lower, but probably safer, right? Because somebody's entire livelihood is this business

and they're running it and it's been successful for years and years and years. So the track record says that it's going to be successful. And I'd rather bet on that person succeeding than investing into a lot of small things. Yeah. And there's a lot of unpredictable things that can happen. Like Biden just announced he wants to ban Bitcoin mining yesterday. Oh, wow. I didn't hear about that yet. Yeah. But I like being more in control. And I think with businesses, you have more control.

The market can't, well, it can influence it, but to a certain degree, you have more control. Exactly. And a lot of businesses, they will have safeguards in place. It's not like Bitcoin mining, like you said, it could just get banned one day and that's it. It's just banned. Whereas a business is like, okay, well, we have a certain margin that we're making. If for some reason we're not profitable, we have so much runway to fix it before you go bankrupt as a business. There's so many options. You could get a loan. You could bring in partners. You could sell equity. You could change your marketing strategy. There's so many mitigation strategies when it comes to a business that the likelihood of it failing, sure, it's

possible. But the likelihood is not that high. And I prefer that as an investment at this point. And I don't necessarily need controlling. I don't want to be controlling the business, right? I want another operator, somebody who's way more skilled at it than I am. For example, if I was investing into an ice cream shop, I don't know how to run an ice cream shop, but I could probably find somebody who does and invest into their company. Or I could start my own and give it to them. You know, it's a great opportunity for them to get equity in a business and run it based on their expertise. But me as an owner, I have no interest in running it.

I just want to maybe lead it a little bit strategically and invest. But that's kind of the point where I'm at with my career. Makes sense. How much importance do you place on profit the first year or two of business? I think the first year or two, it doesn't matter that much. And you'll see a lot of the big companies, like they won't even make money for the first year or two, it doesn't matter that much. And you'll see a lot of the big companies, like they won't even make money for the first few years, you know, and they will kind of, they'll lose money, but you know, because they raised capital, they can afford to

do that. And in the future, they're kind of betting on the long runs or the long-term success of that company. So for me personally, I do try to make it as profitable as possible. But sometimes the first year you do lose money. The second year, maybe you're just breaking even. But as long as within five years or so, you're making a profit, I think that's a pretty reasonable expectation. Now, if you're trying to grow something massive and you have massive build outs and you're developing stuff and researching, that could be a huge loss on the front end. But of course, that usually comes with a big payoff on the back end. Yeah, I'm glad you're saying that because for podcasting, I mean, it's a tough business to

make money in. And I think people give up too early. Yeah, definitely. And so it's a lot of that reinvestment on the front end and putting in the work and being consistent that can actually make you successful on the back end. I mean, I lost money the first six months and I feel like that's faster than most people to be profitable. But I'd say for podcasts, probably not for years, most of them make money. I just saw Rogan tell Tucker that the first five years he didn't make money on his podcast. I believe it. Which is crazy. Most people wouldn't be able to stomach that. Yeah, exactly. Because they just give up too early. But if you have a long-term vision for

your business and you understand why you're spending the money, I think it starts to make a lot more sense. Like I usually try not to discuss business investments and reinvesting into my business with people who don't understand that business because then they're like, Oh, why are you spending a million dollars a year on this company? Shouldn't you be making money? Like when in reality, they don't understand that my exit plan is, you know, 50 million or a hundred million or whatever it might be. So in that like context, it does make sense. It does make sense to invest on the front end. And we make those bets as entrepreneurs, you know, that's kind of the game we're betting on ourselves to succeed or to make something successful. And I think that there aren't really any losses in life.

You can either learn or you can succeed. So, um So whenever I've had a failure, I used it as a learning opportunity to take things to the next level and continue being more and more successful out of that loss. I love that. Any exits yet? Not yet. No, I'm just stacking up right now. Okay. All you need is a couple. And I mean, there are eight or nine figures. That is a lot of money. Yeah, exactly. I have some potentially on the horizon that I can't really talk about yet. But yeah, we have some companies

that we're growing right now and hoping to get to that nine figure range. But for now, I'd say my biggest goal is just acquiring equity in as many businesses as I can, especially when I can find some sort of benefit to the other companies in my portfolio. So for example, like let's say I'm invested into several health companies. They could all help each other in some way and it gets more efficient when you own multiple and you can facilitate those partnerships. Like let's say you have a, I don't know, maybe like an IV drip company and then you have a company that does like wellness and skincare and stuff like that. You could potentially combine them in some way and have

a bit of a crossing of services and you can facilitate that partnership. And both companies will grow in value because of that. And because they're both in your portfolio, you can help facilitate that whole process and that benefits you in the long run. Right. So you like the health industry, any other industries you got an eye on? You know, I'm invested into a bunch of random industries right now. Um, it's like literally like real estate development, health and wellness. Um, I have like physical minds, like, uh, not Bitcoin, but we're mining like granite and marble and stuff like that. Yeah. Totally random, um Aviation. So really all across the board. And I don't really focus on any specific industries. It's just opportunity based.

So whenever I'm speaking at an event or something like that, I can connect with people and see what businesses I want to invest in. And the only ones I stay away from are restaurants for now. Maybe I will eventually in the future. But for now, it just seems like a lot of work. I got a red tape. Yeah. It doesn't seem like they're thin yeah exactly yeah and it's very competitive and i don't know it's just not my cup of tea right now um and then i also stay away from like alcohol and tobacco and stuff like that it's just i've seen it hurt too many people yeah and i just want to stay away from those industries i'm'm the same way. I don't do any pharmaceuticals or alcohol just for that health reason.

Exactly. I know the margins are great. Yeah. Just, I don't know. It doesn't resonate with me, you know? Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't fit your values.

Yeah. Did you have a mentor guiding you through all this that has built sizable companies? You know, I've worked with many different mentors. I wouldn't say it was any one specific mentor. And that actually kind of shocked me when I first went into like the whole mentorship space and I started hiring people to mentor me. I thought that I was like, oh yeah, I'm going to become just like this guy. I'm going to learn everything from this guy because I love how he does business. But what I

found is that the closer you get to that person, you realize that first of all, you have like a very inflated view of them usually. So you think that they're like all these amazing things, but in reality, they're a real person. They're just really good at a few things. And so you learn to pick out those two or three things that they're super good at and you learn those things. So, you know, I've had probably five to 10 people that have like really influenced my investment strategy, the way I consult companies and stuff like that, where they taught me certain things that they were just amazing at. And, you know, if I can be half as good as them in that specific thing, it's a valuable skill

that's going to grow my portfolio. So you are a proponent, you recommend people seek mentorship. Oh yeah. Huge proponent. They, I mean, that's the only way I've achieved what I've achieved at this age. Like I would not have been able to do that on my own for sure, but I was able to do those things because I like studied these people. And what I found is that the more money that you invest into that mentorship, the more you pay attention. It's like a weird psychological thing. And I remember the first time I paid somebody like 30 or 40 grand, I think it was the first mentorship I ever did. I was like, I was like driving home. I was like, what did I just do? It's like, am I going to be in debt all my life? Well, not really. But, um, I learned a lot from that person because it took so much of my attention. That was the biggest investment I had

made up until that point. And I'm like, wow, like I better really learn from this guy. Um, and so you start to pay attention a lot in environments like that. And I'm a huge proponent of it. It's a really a way to compress time. I would say I probably compressed 20 or 30 years in business just because of the mentorships that I've taken so far. That's a long time. Yeah.

I mean, it's a way to accelerate that time because it took them decades to get that information. Right. So what if I was starting out with that information? That puts me so much further ahead. So I know a lot of things I didn't have to figure out because I just had somebody like, hey, Austin, don't do it like this. Do it like this. I'm like, wow, that makes a lot of sense. That's true. And you can apply that mindset in other areas like health too. Absolutely. Yeah. Any area. It doesn't have to be business. It could

be a mentor in health and wellness, or let's say you're a musician. You can learn a lot about music. And of course, you still have to put in the work and the reps and stuff like that, but you can learn a lot just by hiring the right mentors. 100%. And you also worked at Microsoft. What were through a consulting firm, but I was physically at Microsoft. And what we learned, or I guess what I learned, is that they have a very high standard of the products that they release. And that was a huge learning lesson for me. Probably the biggest takeaway is the standard of the corporate world. Because I had tried some businesses on my own. I had worked at a startup before then. So I kind of learned the wild, wild west of doing things. It's doing things it's like oh yeah well we'll just do our best and see what

happens but then i went to microsoft and they were totally kicking my butt for like six months because they're like oh you're like in this slide in this presentation uh on the slide this thing is like three pixels off can you fix it yeah, they're literally like to the pixel exact. Crazy. Yeah. And they'll like do multiple reviews and you have to like make sure everything's perfectly aligned. All the fonts are like perfect. Like there's no mistakes allowed and there's multiple layers to make sure that that doesn't happen. And so, yeah, it's a very interesting world because of that. And I learned why companies like that are so successful because they're so precise. And so I learned precision, professionalism, and how to execute things at a high standard like Microsoft would expect. So huge learning opportunity for me. I'm very thankful for that.

And I think it carried into a lot of the things that I do now is like, I know if I want to compete with those guys, or if I want to even appeal to somebody who works at Microsoft, this is how it has to look. Otherwise, they see much better content every day, and they're going to be like, oh, this guy doesn't know what he's doing. That makes sense. Do you dress really nice when you go to events? I try to. Yeah, I think it's kind of a personal preference. Honestly, I don't think that you have to. But as a personal culture, I've tried to develop like dressing up a little bit or not always like a suit and tie. But as much as I can, I try to dress up.

I just enjoy it. Respect, man. I'm the total opposite. But I see why it can help because people's perspective of you is different based off what you wear. Yeah, exactly. And sometimes it just opens the door for a conversation like, oh, you know, I like your jacket or I like your outfit, whatever it might be. And for me, sometimes that's enough. That's all I need to have a conversation with somebody.

You know, and I think that the right people appreciate it. Yeah, we do align on the watch. I do like wearing watches. Thank you. Which watch is up? It's AP. Oh, yeah. That's dope.

Thank you. Those are hard to get, man. Yeah, it's I'd say AP is probably one of my favorite brands. I want to get a Patek right now. There's dope. Thank you. Those are hard to get, man. Yeah, I'd say AP is probably one of my favorite brands. I want to get a Patek right now. Those are nice. There's one. I forgot what the exact model is, but it's the rose gold one with the dial. 8511?

It might. No, I think it's like 83 something. But it's the rose gold. It has the additional dial at the bottom of the face. Yeah. Yeah, I love that one. Pateks are nice. That's on my list too.

Watches are good. I wouldn't say investments, but they store their value pretty well if you buy the right ones yeah and i mean you can make money on watches that's the thing um it does take some strategic um like planning and pricing and stuff like that sourcing yeah but i don't really buy it for that not that necessarily i'm buying it to hold value in an additional asset um and if it appreciates great but i just enjoy watches absolutely are you working seven days a week or no no i take sundays off okay yeah so i don't work sundays but every other day i'm working heavy hours what was that heavy hours like 10 plus hours a day yeah i would say it's kind of on and off though because i don't just sit at my desk for 10 hours a day? Yeah, I would say it's kind of on and off though, because I don't

just sit at my desk for 10 hours a day. Um, but I'd say definitely 10 to 12 hours a day, but it's like sometimes on my phone, sometimes I'm at a networking event or something like that. So yeah, definitely 10 to 12 hours a day, but, um, I'm not physically sitting on my computer that whole time, probably physically on my computer five, six hours a day. Okay. So still 70 hours a week, any burnout or mental struggles from that volume for a year straight? No, actually, surprisingly not. I know I'm a little tired most of the time, but for the most part, I would say I enjoy doing what I do more than it burns me out. So, like, I enjoy doing these things so much that i'm excited to get up and do them i

don't feel like it's work necessarily so even if i think about like okay let's say i have 10 billion dollars which is overnight like would i still do these things well probably most of them i would sure there's some like busy work like admin and stuff that nobody likes i mean i personally hate it but um most of the things that I do, I would still do them. I'd still go to networking events. I still like it. I still meeting, I still like meeting people. I still like identifying new investment opportunities for myself. I still like learning about new things. And a lot of the work that I do on a daily basis is just that, and maybe some coaching and advising and stuff like that. So again, even if I became

multi-billionaire overnight, I would still coach and consult because I stuff like that. So again, even if I became multi-billionaire overnight, I would still coach and consult because I enjoy doing that. Maybe I would be a lot more selective with who I do it with. But, you know, I've over the years, I've gotten pretty selective with that as well. That makes sense. Where do you rank money in business in terms of importance in your life? You know, I think that money is very, very important, but it's not everything. So I would say it's probably one of the most important things in life because it allows you to do more of what you love. So let's say, you know, just about any scenario, if you love spending time with your family, if that's important to you, if that's your why, then having more money is just going to allow

you to do more of that. I'll say 10 times more of that, 10 times more time with your mom or your family or your children, whatever it is. Let's say what I love doing is racing cars. Well, if I have a little bit of money, sure, I can spend all my time racing cars, but I could probably do 10 times more of that if I had a lot of money. So I think that money really answers a lot of questions that we have, and it can solve a lot of issues and create opportunities. And it's a great tool, but it shouldn't be the goal. So the goal is to have money to do these things, but not just have the money. Yeah. I agree with that partially. I think some people

make a lot, but they don't spend time with their family. Exactly. Yeah. So you got to be kind of aware where you're at on that spectrum. Yeah. You have to understand that the ultimate goal is not as much money as possible, but it is helpful if you can manage that balance where you're making a lot of money, but then you try to remove yourself from the business, make it passive so that you can use that money to do the things that you love to do. Absolutely. Any people you've interviewed on your show that you took away a lot of value from that come to mind? Um, yeah, I actually, you know, as I'm getting into the health space, um, I interviewed Dr. Pompa. I don't know if you know, Dr. Pompa. Yeah, he's come on. Awesome. Yeah. So he, uh, shared some super interesting things, um, especially about like fasting and changing

your diets. And I learned a lot from that one because I thought that, okay, if I want to, let's say lose weight, I should follow a specific diet all the time, be super strict on it. Well, it turns out that your body gets used to it. And so what I learned from him is that during your fast, let's say you're doing intermittent fasting or you're doing low carb, low sugar, whatever, one day a week, you should just have a feast day. And so you should eat everything you want to eat or eat a lot more than you normally do so that your body goes out of like starvation mode and it kind of resets and then it actually boosts your metabolism right back up. So it knows that, okay, I'm not actually starving. I'm just, you know, I have a specific diet that I'm following. So like a pattern interrupt almost. Yeah. That was really interesting for me. And I think that it's helped me in my health journey.

Yeah, Dr. Pompa, man. I've learned a lot from him. I went home that day and I told my girl, like we got some changes to make. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I love that guy. He's awesome. The health stuff is good to be aware of,

especially at a younger age, people just neglect it. I think it's important to start early though. I know I neglected it personally. I didn't really know what I was doing. I was like, yeah, whatever, you know, I can do anything. You always feel like Superman when you're young, you know, and then you realize that, Hey, maybe I should be paying attention to these things. And, um, you know, luckily I'm figuring it out at this age. I know some people neglected it until their thirties or forties or fifties, and then they try to recover out of some of these things. But setting yourself up for success early is definitely super important. Absolutely. What do you have going on next, man? And where can people

find you? Well, next, I'm just focusing on consulting businesses. So any company that wants to grow to $10 million plus, we have a lot of things that we've built in our companies that can really easily just be transferred over to their businesses to help them grow. But the easiest way to find me is going to be Instagram at Austin Zelen. And I've got a lot of information there about the businesses that I do and stuff like that. Perfect. We'll link it below. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. Yep. Thanks for watching, guys. See you tomorrow.