Finding Peak w/ Ryan Hanley - What Billionaires Don't Want You to Know About Scaling Your Business | Charles Schwartz

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Spartan philosophy, built in the black-ops lab of business: https://www.findingpeak.comFinding Peak podcast: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanleyCan you truly find clarity and urgency in life from working in a hospice? Charles Schwartz, Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestselling author, and host of the Scale it Lab podcast, believes you can.Join 10,000+ Subscribers: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanleyConnect with Charles SchwartzWebsite: https://iamcharlesschwartz.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamcharlesschwartzPodcast: https://scaleitlab.com/Join us in this episode as Charles shares profound life lessons from his hospice experience, stressing the importance of self-awareness, honesty, and leveraging one’s strengths in business. Discover how these transformative insights can lead to extraordinary results and why outsourcing weaknesses is crucial for entrepreneurial success.Ever wondered how to balance the relentless grind of entrepreneurship with the need to avoid burnout? Charles introduces the concept of the "entrepreneurial seasonal grind," emphasizing the significance of knowing when to push hard and when to scale back. Using real-life examples like Aaron Judge's focus on core competencies, Charles illustrates the power of delegation and adaptability. Learn how recognizing the seasons in your business can help you maintain balance and enhance your ability to pivot effectively when necessary.Curious about the secret to building a self-sustaining business? Charles discusses the importance of systematizing every aspect of a business, highlighting practical examples like McDonald's efficient point-of-sale system. Additionally, we explore the critical role of relationships in entrepreneurial success, delving into the benefits of mastermind groups for personal and professional growth. Through personal anecdotes and actionable insights, Charles shows how genuine engagement in these communities fosters deeper connections and greater business success, urging listeners to challenge conventional wisdom for more authentic and effective approaches to life and work.--Recommended Tools for GrowthOpusClip: #1 AI video clipping and editing tool: https://link.ryanhanley.com/opusRiverside: HD Podcast & Video Software | Free Recording & Editing: https://link.ryanhanley.com/riversideWhisperFlow: Never waste time typing on your keyboard again: https://link.ryanhanley.com/whisperflowCaptionsApp: One app for all your social media video creation: https://link.ryanhanley.com/captionsappGoHighLevel: It's time to take your business workflow to the Next Level: https://link.ryanhanley.com/gohighlevelPerspective.co: The #1 funnel builder for lead generation: https://link.ryanhanley.com/perspective--Episodes You Might Enjoy:From $2 Million Loss to World-Class Entrepreneur: https://lnk.to/delkFrom One Man Shop to $200M in Revenue: https://lnk.to/tommymelloIs Psilocybin the Gateway to Self-Mastery? https://lnk.to/80upZ9This show is part of the Unplugged Studios Network — the infrastructure layer for serious creators. 👉 Learn more at https://unpluggedstudios.fm.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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the original ideas, habits, and mindsets of world-class original thinkers you can use to produce extraordinary results in your life and business. This is the way. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. We have a tremendous episode for you today, a conversation with Charles Schwartz, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, bestselling author of Who Changes Everything. He is the host of the Scale It Lab podcast, which is now an Apple Top 100 I had the opportunity to be on Charles' show. That's where we initially met and we hit it off so well that we did a home and home. He came over here and we talked about an dynamic range of topics from leadership to mindset

to the tactical strategies that businesses can use to scale, how to navigate the various leadership obstacles and pitfalls, pit holes, think holes, whatever leaders fall into. that exists in our marketplace today. Charles talks at a speed that I think only myself can match. So we actually make the comment during the episode that this might be one of the first podcast episodes in history where people are actually slowing the podcast down in order to keep up with us. But it is fast-paced, dynamic, full of value.

You guys are going to love this one. I certainly did. If it's your first time listening to the show, whether you're listening on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, or you're watching on, on YouTube, make sure you hit that subscribe button so you do not miss future episodes. We have so many more incredible guests just like Charles coming out on the show and you don't want to miss those. And as always, I appreciate you for listening to this show and I love you for listening to this show. Let's get on to Charles Schwartz.

Dude, so one of the best parts about this conversation is that I was on your show, so I am very familiar with your energy, which has got me all kinds of jacked up. That being said, something that pulled from our conversation, a word that you used a couple times that I want to start this conversation with is unstoppable. To me, the way you talk, what you preach, how you work, the way you do business, it has this unstoppable feel. Like when you say you're going to do something and we don't even know each other that well, but when you say shit, I'm like, fuck, I believe he's going to do it. So like, how do you cultivate that? Because that is such an admirable quality of a human being. Not, I'm not talking about arrogant or cocky.

I don't get any of that from you. I get just, I 100% believe that when this dude tells me he's going to do something, he's going to do it. How do you build that? I wish I could tell you it came from a place of just peace and quiet. It wasn't. I spent eight years in a hospice watching people die. And if you don't know what a hospice is at home, there's a difference between a hospital

and a hospice. A hospice is a place you go to get better. I mean, a hospital is a place you go to get better. A hospice is a place you go to die. And I ran the IT division for that. I read, I was rolling out and I'm going to make myself old here, but we were running out Windows 95 and Windows 2000. And we were doing the updates in the rooms with something called an EMR. And we were sitting there and I was sitting in the rooms with the people who were dying.

And they're having honest conversations with you. And once you realize that you're going to die, it changes the ballgame very quickly. Finite amount of time changes the ballgame immensely. So that's where it comes from. So for people who may never have that experience, how do they start? start to cultivate this? Is it looking into your past for places where maybe you were more resilient than you thought you were going to be? Or like how do we how do we start to pull these experiences out of our life to create that mentality? It's a math equation. What you have to do is you have to go

through and say, okay, how is the decisions I'm making now affecting my future payoff? What is the ballgame here? How does it affect it? And whenever I'm doing something like, what is the future cost of this decision? Changes the conversation I have all the time. When I'm dating someone, when I'm eating certain things, as I'm executing on things. I'm like, hey, I want to sit on my couch. I want to eat Ben and Jerry's ice cream. And I'm like, cool, what is the future cost of this? And always having that as a filter changes the game.

The other thing that helps out immensely is recognizing and being honest with yourself of who you are, knowing who you are and understanding that at my core, I'm immensely lazy. I'm very good at shirt bursts. Like when I was a triathlete. I didn't do really well with the Iron Man. But sprint triathleth, I'm great. I can push really hard for a finite amount of time, but I know who I am and I'm going to have problems later. So let me execute here and do the two things that are going to radically change my life every day before I do anything else.

Another thing that I've picked up from you is your willingness to outsource, delegate, bring in team members. I see oftentimes with entrepreneurs that I coach or just the individuals, they're trying to take everything on. And to me, that is an absolute, like, number one, you will not get to where you want to go. 100%. Where did that come from and how do you make sure, like, is there triggers or do you have some sort of process, do you journal to say, like, I've been doing this thing, I need to get rid of it? So two questions there. Where did it come from and how do I deal with it? Where it came from was when I was, again, this is IT, I was managing small companies, IT departments and I would sit there with the bosses and I would watch this guy, his name is Mike, I won't give anything else, and he ran an entertainment company and they did events. they had all these events going that weekend and I watched him work with it and I ran the numbers because I knew the numbers because I knew his books. I was like, you're going away on a vacation and you're going to make six figures and you're not doing anything. Your staff is smarter than you.

Your staff is more better looking than you. They're more dynamic than you and you're making money. I don't understand because I was raised, you were talking about this before on the show, this idea of get up and grind, really push through it and the idea of hustle porn where you get up at 4 in the morning and work out 15 times and doing all that. I sat there and I was like, I don't get it. He goes, your mistake is you think they're smarter than me. They are more talented, but they're not smarter. I was like, I don't understand the difference. He goes, they're going to go to work and they're going to pull 12-hour days.

I'm going to go hang out in the moms. And I was like, oh, my God. He goes, you're not the most important person in your company. Higher people smarter than you. Get out of their way and empower them. So that's how it is. How I figure that out with me is I get into situations where it comes down to effort. If I'm pushing into something and it's taking me effort, I feel resistance.

I'm like, uh-uh, this is clearly a weakness. Let me outsource that. And that's where it comes from. outsource your weaknesses yeah i uh gary vainer chuck actually said something so i i had the opportunity to get to know him a little bit i will not even pretend like i'm buddies with him i got to know him a little bit and i got asked to speak at his very first conference that he did down in miami and which was a incredible experience and he said something there in like a little small group format we were kind of chat and he said one of the biggest lies that we're told is work on your weaknesses he said

fuck that. He's like, he's like, you figure out what you are the best at, where you get the most, what, what activities don't take energy away from you, but actually put more energy into you. Do those as much as you possibly can and figure out people to do all the other stuff. And I find this lesson, this is not taught to anybody. Like nobody teaches this. And it is like entrepreneur, growth, anything you want to achieve. You want to start a community group. You want to be a good athlete. This is number one. Like the whole like five tool is so my kids are big into baseball, so I'm constantly thinking about baseball. I played baseball in college and after a little bit. And like this whole like five tool player bullshit. I'm like that's not even true.

Like none of those people are actual five tool players. I'm like they, Aaron Judge hits home runs. Is he a good outfielder? Yes. Does he have a good arm? Yes. Doesn't have the best. He's not the best at either one of those things.

Not the best base runner. The motherfucker is as powerful as it gets. It makes consistent conduct. That's the one thing. And if you watch him, you don't see videos on Instagram of him throwing or taking fly balls. It is swing, swing, swing, swing. That's what he works on because that's his strength and what he brings to that particular team. I guess, and this is kind of a, this is a terrible question, but I'm also a terrible podcast host.

Like, I guess I just want to, like, how do we start to, what is the, what's the moment where we pick that up or we turn that corner? If someone's listening to this going, geez, I'm just so friggin. overwhelmed, like what's the first step we can take down this path? I think it's recognizing that there's two different things. If you're trying, because you and I played sports. You know I both played baseball. And we're taught that you've got, listen, you suck it that you got to double down on it. And if it's a physical thing, if you're in the gym, you got to double down on it. You just got to dig it and really push. And that makes sense to me in a physical environment. At work, absolutely not. Outsource all of your weaknesses, instantaneously. It's called OPM and OPM,

other people's time, other people's money. Leverage the how it. We do what we do investing. When I'm purchasing real estate environments, I'm not going to use my own money to go buy the apartment complex. I'm going to leverage someone else's and just pay that little bit of interest. So understanding you can go farther with it, if you're going to dry and pivot from it, if you're looking for something tangible that your audience can do now, look down and look at your results. It's okay, I've been killing myself. I've been pulling 80 to 120 hours a week.

And as entrepreneurs, that's a light week. That's Christmas for God's sakes. That's a really light week for us. Look at your results and say, I've been pushing this and hard for this long. And I've got this result. If this is the result that I want and it's working for me, awesome. But there's about 95% of all the entrepreneurs I know. I say, listen, here's the deal.

You're making a million dollars a year, whatever. And you're doing your passion, and you're doing what you're love, and you're pulling 100 plus hour weeks. And over here, you have the opportunity to sell cat dildos. Who cares? Something irrelevant. It's not relative to you in any way or shape or form. Probably not a bad business.

It's patented because I stayed on stage and everyone's like, well, it's patented. It's not what you think. leave messages, you'll find out what it is. It's wild. Anyway, so you're selling this thing that's not related to you in any way, shape, or form. We only are going to make a half a million dollars. You're not going to make a million, but you're only going to answer the phone four hours a month. Which one do you want?

Do you want what you're doing now, or do you want cat dildos? 95% of the people want cat dildos. Because what we really want as entrepreneurs is to never be told to do anything by anyone ever. We hate that. We want to be left alone. We want to do what we want, when we want, and live a certain lifestyle. So if you're grinding and you're pushing it out and I hate grinding it. I disagree with it completely.

If you're grinding and you're pushing so hard and you're getting a result that you don't like, I'm only got to change something there. And that's what it came down to me when I was doing. Are you tired of endless follow-ups and missed opportunities in your sales process? Chasing leads is a losing game. That's why I created the one call closed system, a battle-tested sales system that uses behavioral psychology to close deals in just one call.

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automating residual income. Yeah. Tell me what you think about this because I have a slightly different take on grinding. To me, there are going. So a concept that I can't believe it took me 40-ish years to figure out is this idea of seasons of your life, seasons of a business. Everything has a season, right? And one of the things that I will coach and talk about and I talk about on the show is that there is a season where you have to put in 16 hour days. But that season could be a week. That season could be a month. The issue is when it becomes a lifestyle. Yes. That's the problem. and knowing when, because you may, you may be in that season for the first three months of your business, and then you hire a couple employees and you downshift.

And then there may come another time where you got to get a big deal across the board or an investment or a new product out, and you got to upshift again. And like, it's almost, it's almost if we learn this lesson, we grind, we grind, we grind, we learn, we get into that, we get into that phase where, okay, I'm back to work in hours that I can breathe and I feel good. And then it feels like there's like this sense to me that we never are going to need to upshift again. And it's like, no. Like I like told a guy the other day.

I'm like, look, bro, you need to get back to work. Like I'm not trying to be an asshole here. But like right now for what you told me you want to achieve. Yes. Tell your wife you're not going to see her for a couple days because you got to get back to work and get a few things done. And like this, it's I guess why do we find ourselves or how do we break ourselves? Better question. How do we break ourselves from this?

like all or nothing or I hit it, I'm good now, I can coast. Like to me, the people that I admire the most are these people that just continue to adapt and adjust and change where they almost feel like they're like what's the lizard that changes colors all the time. Yeah, chameleon, right? Like they constantly are adjusting to the situation. It's like those are the people that seem to get there, not those that like, do some playbook and just assume when they get to a certain point that they're good.

Yeah. So it first starts with something called FU money, which I'm trying to clean it up the best I can, but you've been cursing the whole time. So it's called fuck you money, which is based on your wealth ratio. So, and it's different for everybody. If you've got $10 in the bank and your monthly expenses are $5, you've got two months wealth ratio. So for me it was when I had six months in the bank, I was like, I'm good.

And then when I was like, it's not good. I need a year. And I have a year. I need seven years. And once I got around seven years of wealth ratio in the bank, I was like, okay, that's step one. And then I turned off the gas and that wasn't really happened. Then I was, all right, well, the step two for this is how do I automate residual income,

which means buying assets, which is a completely different conversation. So, because most people don't build their businesses as assets because they're going at it completely incorrectly. So once that started happening and started pivoting around, the grind that I had, I finally got to pull off the gas in one area in my life, which was so much work and hustling and trying to launch these businesses and trying to scale these businesses, where all of a sudden I was like, I need to grind and hustle on my personal life. This idea of balance. is bullshit. It doesn't exist. There's times where I'm going to the gym where I've had a really

productive month in the gym, I can back off a little bit. Or again, as you said, we're in our 40s now. If my wrist is acting up, I'm like, all right, I'm going to back off a little. There's a time and a place knowing when to push the gas pedal is important. The problem is we think as a society that it's binary. It's either one or the other. It's not. There's a time and a place where you've got to hunt in and you've got to grind. Like you were saying, you know, maybe your company's going really, really well, but three of your employees quit. Oh, shit, you got to jump in there. Or something blows up at one of your properties. Okay, I got to jump in there and deal with that.

Or hey, there's a market change. All of a sudden, walking into a recession. Those are important times. I think it's knowing when to push and go is important. And understanding you can grind outside of your professional life is so vitally important. Yeah. I'm working on this essay called The Entrepreneur's Playbook. And then the subtitle is Living in the Gray Zone.

And the way that I like to think about it and talk to people about it is that we, life is much easier when we compartmentalize into everything into black or white or yes or no right but literally no part of my life in which i've achieved actual results that i am proud of was i ever in any one of those binary states it's this gray so you can't really see it's a little foggy you're making decisions this this technique worked you know the first six months but now it doesn't work anymore and we're adjusting and we're playing and like being comfortable in that space just that seems paramount to me um you said something that i have to follow up on people do not build their business as assets one what does that mean and two how do we start to do that so it's

probably my favorite thing to do in the world outside of mindset is this um what is the difference between a business that's an asset or not so really simple if you're right now a business owner, go take a trip for six months. If your business isn't doing light years better, not just the same, but light years better, then you don't own a business. You own a job. And if you can't test it that way and you can't walk away for six months, get a black, get a black, get a black marker and write your whole fulfillment process out, everything, from the internal, the external, the external, front end and back end, write it all out. And once you have it, you give yourself about 10, 15 minutes, don't do the whole thing, you'll be there for hours,

because it is what it is. Take a red marker. And I do this my client's, I go, here's a red marker. I go circle where you're involved. The minute that pen touches that, I used to be a pitcher, I'm really good at hitting people with things. I will throw the other markers or head, hit him back in the head. I'm like, you fail. You now own a business. It's a job because most people are hunting after strategies instead of systems.

And for me, I couldn't find that gray. I couldn't find that, hey, how do I, it's black or it's white, when am I grind, what do I not grind? I was getting in the way. And this is where we talked about my weakness, right? I was like, how do I get me and my ego as an entrepreneur out of the, the way. And the only way I could do that was implementing systems because systems are the only thing that will ever set you free. And we can go into that if you want, but that's the only way to

automate this stuff. You've got to fire yourself and then you got to systematize. Guys, this is the first moment in this podcast where I want you to hit pause if you're not taking notes, pull the little thing back, whether you're watching on YouTube or iTunes or wherever, and listen to the last three minutes of what Charles just explained. Most people are searching for strategies instead of systems. This is the core piece. It's where I turn the corner on my business. This is the idea. And it's not, it's not intuitive. So if you're not there yet, don't kick yourself. Don't feel bad. If you have been chasing strategies or buying e-books and trying to figure out what the next trend is, don't feel bad. This is not intuitive. You need to listen to people like Charles

and be in his world and his ecosystem to understand these ideas because of the battle scars. that you have. That is so foundational and so important. I absolutely love it. And I want to talk, like maybe just define if people don't necessarily understand the difference between what a strategy might look like and chasing that because they might say in their head, I am, Charles, I am chasing systems. I am searching for systems. What is the difference between a strategy and a system? And I think it's so important that you mark on that because I didn't understand that. I grew up, I couldn't afford the last few letters of port. And then at 36 I retired and 37 I became a millionaire.

There's a reason it's opposite. Once I mastered systems, it gave me freedom and then finances. You have to pivot around. So for systems, it's really simple. A strategy is a concept. Like, hey, here's our in-email campaign. That's how you do it. Systems are automated.

They're done without your involvement in any way, shape, or form. Anything that you have involved that relies on a person or a vendor or anything like that, that is a strategy or a process that will never get you to what you want. That will not get you what I want, which is for. Because if you walk in, you said, hey, Charles, here's $10 million, but you're going to have to work 120 hours a week for the rest of your life. No, I'd rather go pour parts of my body into meat grinder. It's not going to happen. I want freedom.

I want to get free from that. And it started ironically with McDonald's. Now, I haven't been into McDonald's in 20-something years. They had an individual, and they were working on redesigning their POS, which is a point-of-sales system. In other words, you walk in and you press little buttons, and that's how your stuff comes out. And one of the guys that they were working on it, they're going back and forth, they had their franchisees on it. They were trying to figure this out. And one of the guys that was doing it had an individual who was mentally challenged.

And he sat down and he was, hey, let me ask him. And he comes over and he goes, what are you doing? And he goes, he goes, I'm building the POS. And he's like, cool. He goes, well, what is this? He goes, what is this? He goes, how do you order a Coke? And he goes, what does that say?

He goes, I don't know what that says. And the guy couldn't read cola. And the guy went, what do you mean? You can't read cola. And he goes, how do you know what you're going to drink? And the gentleman who was challenged walked over and he pointed to the pictures of the brands. Because he knew the brands. You're like, that's Sprite, that's Sunkist, that's Coke, that, he knew what it was.

So he said, all right, so then he took pictures of it and he put it on the entire map, all the POS. He's like, cool, how do you do number three? Now, when I used to go to McDonald's, number three was a double quarter of peter with cheese and fries. And there was points all over the place that people would choose at. And the guy who was challenged, he goes, where's the number three? He's like, excuse me? He goes, where can I press the button for number three? And they were like, oh, my God.

If you can make whatever you're doing, your process so that the lowest common denominator, can do it. So you can hire someone in a week and they can operate everything. Without you, that's a system. And system sets you free. If you can't make it where you're, if you have Susie's in charge of accounting and she, without her, you can't do fulfillment. You can't do payroll. You have you're screwed up. And you have to go through this. But step one is understanding, I have to fire you as a business owner. My clients hired me to fire them to build automated residual income. That's how this works because you'll reach a point as an entrepreneur where you will burn out. You will just like, I don't have anymore.

I've been doing 20 plus years of 120 plus hours a day. I just can't do this anymore no matter what it is. And you'll find out that what you really wanted in life wasn't to make $100 million, it was to do something else. And once you do that and you have access to your truth, things change like that. Oh, that's phenomenal. That's that. I completely, I'll tell you, I actually started buying technology, not based on its functionality, but on how easy it was to train my team on it. 100%.

I hire people when I bring in consultants and they come in. I'm like, they'll explain this whole thing. I'm like, no, no, no, no, make it so that my dead one-on-grandmother can implement it now. And they're like, okay, I'm like, don't teach me. I don't want to be taught. Make it so my dead one-in-grandma can do it. And they're like, okay. So when people come in in my own organizations and we talk about these things,

you know, one of the properties I own, the people who run in, they say, hey, we've got a problem with toilets and they talk. I'm like, don't tell me the whole thing. Let's walk through a process on what it would take to make it as easy as possible for you to do this. They're like, we need a credit card that has a 10. thousand dollar limit so we can just fix it without talking to you i'm like perfect those are the rules if there's a problem in my organization i have no problem with you bringing me in the problem if you don't bring me two solutions with that problem i'm going to fire you immediately and they're like it changes

the ball game things get done i will also pay more for results that don't involve me so in other words if if i'm going to make i don't know 30 cents on a deal that i'm involved with i would much rather make 30 cents or 20 cents and pay the other person more but I have to be involved in any way shape or form oh I'll do that all day long the biggest problem with entrepreneurs is they think they matter they don't you need to fire yourself and systems are the only way to do that so you've mentioned a mastermind that you have and we talked a little bit about that before we went live as well I want another topic I just don't I want to put a pin in that other one I think that was phenomenal guys that was just a fucking master class um um

This also might be. I know most people listen to podcasts on like 1-25 or 1-5 or 2. This might be the first podcast where they actually have to slow it down because the two of us talk so fast. So I want to get into, I want to talk about masterminds first at a high level because I have, what I've found as I've grown in my career and you meet more successful and more successful people, they're all part of a coaching program, a mastermind program. They have a mentor in this skill or a mentor on mindset or they find these places to help themselves improve. And then when I look back and I see either colleagues or friends who are still struggling, who've been grinding and just haven't been able to break free, they often have this mentality where they fight groups like mindset. So like I don't need to be, or they fight groups like masterminds.

They, you know, I don't need that or that's a waste of money or you never get anything from that or blah. So maybe first, just pitch me on the high level idea of what a mastermind is and can bring to somebody and why. And you are nodding, so I'm going to assume you agree. So many of the most successful people. And I'm talking tippy, tippy top of the people that I've met. And you've met people that just as big are most likely bigger. They're all part of some group that could be classified as a mastermind. So maybe just break that down for us.

So there's a couple things. It starts with if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. In the beginning, if you're just going to push, there's times we don't need that. So there is that idea. I remember I was on stage once, and we were arguing about this specific thing. And one of the guys says, you never have to do it. Never be part of a mastermind.

Actually, you know what? Never do anything that anyone else has ever done. Get rid of your car, go make one on your own. Don't go and try and get food to your own house. Grow, grow it on your own. Everything we do in our lives is part of a mastermind. We just don't want to admit it. I didn't sit there and grow the food that I eat.

I didn't make my car. So you have to understand you're already part of masterminds. So that's it all in its own. The next thing you have to talk about is the bravest word I ever said in my life, personally, emotionally, spiritually, everything was help. So if you're going through something, be able to sit down and say, help. I'm in trouble, I need help. If it's in your personal relationship, recently I had to sit down and say, I need help.

I'm in a situation, go talk to a therapist. If you're in a situation where your business is collapsing, I don't go try and figure out the law on my own. Screw that. I call it my lawyer. I'm like, I got a problem. need some help. Entrepreneurship is one of the rare fields. I think we're number two or number three as far as people who are killing themselves. It's just, it is what it is, because it's so lonely and it's so isolationism, and it doesn't work. When you get into with other entrepreneurs, I was part

of one, God, 20-something years ago, and it was kind of like, and I don't drink and I've never drank, but it kind of felt like it was like AA for entrepreneurs. People would stand up and it's like, hi, I'm Charles. I don't know the difference between my personal life and my business life. I'm like, oh, yes, hello, welcome, welcome. Yes, yes, welcome to the club. I was like, oh, my people. Because being an entrepreneur wasn't sexier or cool 20 years ago. It was very isolationist.

You're like, hey, why would you do it? And now you have people who have entrepreneurial tastes or traits, but are entrepreneurs. Being able to sit down and say, hey, I'm struggling with this. You know, we talked about it before we went on the call. I'm struggling with my camera right now. People are watching the video. Sorry, I'm working on it. I was like, hey, how do I do this?

What do I do? Oh, dude, I know exactly what did it, do this, this and this. You probably saved me, what, five days of watching videos on YouTube trying to this out or me outsourcing it? You're like, oh yeah, just do this and this. I was like, oh, awesome. And I brought it up already and it's sitting behind ready to order it to order the next part to fix this. That time is the ballgame. And I think that goes back to the hospice conversation we have. I will always make more money. I'm not worried about that. That's easy. I'll never make more time. If I want to save time, if I want to reach my goal, whatever it is, quicker, faster,

and more efficiently, it all comes down to surrounding yourself who are smarter than you, just like you do in your business. You have to surround yourself with people that you can connect with where you feel safe. And that's a huge ballgame. A lot of these masterminds where you are constantly being upsold, that's not where you want to be. You want to be around other people that are like-minded who aren't on the top of the mountain,

which this is why I don't agree with people going to these super huge, going to masterminds. If you're a millionaire, don't go into masterminds with billionaires. It doesn't work. Go with someone who's a couple steps up the ladder. Not on the top of Everest, just a couple steps ahead of you. Be together with them,

and then you guys start growing together because it'll save you time, which is the only thing that we'll never make more of. Yeah. The other thing I found, especially with entrepreneurial-related masterminds, man, do people really want to help, like, help you? Like, they really do. Like, there is this intrinsic need. And I think it's part of what drives us to entrepreneurialism in the first place is, like, I do the work that I do because I want to help people, right? I want, I want people to grow. Like, I get so excited when someone like you comes on and shares just some of the nuggets that you have because I'm like, someone is going to hear this in a Tumblr. is going to be tipped and they're going to go down this slightly different path that's going to help them be more successful or find more time or more joy, more meaning, and like you want to help. And I think there's this other side too where people are like, I don't want to bother people. Like I don't want to be that guy who's, you know, constantly asking for help.

And it's like, no, these people join these groups because they want to, as much as they want help themselves, they want to give help too. They want to share the shit that they know. Yeah, I think in society as a whole, there's. such a huge value, huge level of unworthiness. We just don't think we're worthy in any way, shape, or form, especially on the female side, because society tells them, you're not tall enough, you're not thin enough, you're not pretty enough, wear this makeup, you got this. And on the guy's side now, it's like, hey, you're not driving this, this, and this. We're constantly bombarded with

you're not worthy. To have someone walk up and say, hey, I need help, can you help me? It just fills up that worthiness cup that we're so thirsty for it and people will do it all the time. Now, it doesn't always happen. You know, it's one of the best networking things I ever talk about is go to a colo. go to a co-location working place so you can go in the environment, sit there for a while and say, hey, you know, I just saw you did this, this and this. Can you help out? Like, for example, I just got a Mac. I don't speak Mac.

They're very confusing to me. I speak PC. So being able to reach out to a buddy of mine who he's never been able to help me with anything in his mind, but he's been my friend so I don't need him to help me. But I was like, hey, I got this problem with this Mac. Can you help me out? He's like, oh, dude, this, this and this. He was on Cloud 9 because he taught me how to do these things.

There's such a deficit in our lives of worthiness for most people. They've never done the work, that this is kind of this quick dopamine hit. And it just, people want to help. And there's other people want to take advantage of you. So there is that balance. You got to figure it out. You got a trust your gut. Yeah.

The best piece of advice that I ever got was from a mentor about maybe six years ago, seven years ago. I was talking to him about different stuff. Some of it was with my marriage and now divorce and just different stuff that was going on in my life. And he goes, here, I'm going to give you. He goes, I'm going to give you this. Use it.

Don't use it. He said, go find a counselor. Set an appointment with that person. every two weeks for the rest of your life and just considered it a life expense. And he said, here's the key. What's going to happen is on the days where you feel bad,

you will absolutely be at that appointment. On the days where you feel like everything is going good, in your head, your mind is going to tell you, oh, I can skip this week because everything's good. And he's like, go on those days. Because the point is not just go to fix your problems. The point is to keep going to work.

through all the stuff and to continue. He's like a lot of times in the days where you feel the best when you walk into that appointment are going to be some of the days where you learn the most about yourself because you're going to start to talk about the shit that's actually meaningful to you and that's what makes you happy. Because so few of us even understand what are the things that bring us joy. We know what brings us momentary happiness. You mentioned it. Ice cream with Netflix and and your partner next to you. You know what I mean with a night of crazy sex coming? Like that's happiness in a moment. But like is that long term joy? Are you guys? getting, is that what's going to keep you coming back? And it's the consistency to these masterminds that I find also, the dedication to them and the, you just keep showing up. That's where the rubber really starts to meet the road. Because if the group feels like you are a tourist, then you're never going to get out of it. They're never going to be completely open to you. Yeah.

I mean, I agree. You know, when you go to these things, masterminds, therapy, as you were talking about, you go on your good days to get your baseline. So you know what there it is. Hey, I'm here, I'm normally here, we got to figure out. So finding your baseline is important. It's also hard to do that because we have egos. And you don't understand that whatever traumas you have, this was a big lesson for me this year.

It's inheritable. So if you've got past traumas, you're going to inherit to your kids. You're going to inherit to everyone you touch. You're going to put it into their family. You're going to blow it all out. So if you think you're getting away with it, you're not. But as you go into these things and you go into these masterminds, there's multiple businesses that I have scaled and exited, not as clients.

As I was in a mastermind, I was like, oh my God, I can go do this. That is a brilliant. I'm going to go do this. And you get these business ideas and you find business partners. I've had people that I've done businesses with because we grow and scale very quickly. That's what we do. Where I'm like, hey, I got an idea. I already know before I start my business as a rule.

Whenever I start a business, I know what the exit is. I know exactly what it looks like. And I'm building towards that. I'm not building this for the next 30 years. I'm building on a six month, a three year plan. That's it. And I'm going to get in. I wouldn't have able to do that because, A, I didn't have the idea.

The mastermind I taught it. but also I found out, hey, I'm really good at being on stage and talking. I'm a horrible coder. I'm one of the worst coders in the world. One of the things I built was a program and we sold it and was an app and it was a great exit. We were in and out in six months. I wouldn't have had that if I didn't surround myself with people in that mastermind environment who were just better than I want. So if you're not part of one of these, and again, we're not pushing one right now.

If you're not part of one of these, go getting one. Yeah. If you're not in therapy, even if you think everything's amazing, go now. If you're with your spouse, you talk about getting a divorce. If things are good, okay, great. We're not designed to be in monogamous relationship. It's goose against nature. If you want to succeed, go do the work.

Go to the therapy because I can tell you from personal experience, when you don't, it destroys friendships. It'll send shivers down who you are as a being. It'll ruin the people that you love you. It'll push them. And they desperately love you. And if you don't do the work, it'll lose them. Do it. Do this stuff.

It's important. Yeah. You wrote book Who Changes Everything. We'll have links in the show notes, YouTube, wherever you're listening guys, as well as everything else that Charles does in his podcast and stuff. But in there, you talk about three lies that we tell ourselves. What are those lies and maybe break them down? Boy, are we going to piss off your audience. Okay.

So first off, for you guys, yeah, I'll give it away at yours guys. You can have for free. Enjoy. There's three lies. The lies of what, the lie of how. And the last one is the lie of why. That one pisses everyone off the most. We'll start with the lie of what.

That is do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. complete garbage. You and I as entrepreneurs have run into that. I love ice cream and sushi on levels I can't possibly tell you. If you may need ice cream and sushi every single day for the rest of my life, I'm going to stab you in the hip face with some chopsticks and drown you on asabi. And ain't going to work. There's reasons why people take vacation. There's a reason why Sir Richard Branson bought an island to get away from his businesses. And he loves what he does. So that's a lie. The second one is the lie of how. I don't know how to do it. To put this nicely, shut up. Do you have access to Google?

Yes. Then shut up. You know how to do everything. So that's not it. And the final one is the one that pisses me off more than anything else. And it's the lie of why. And this happened again because of hospice. We're in an environment where someone died.

They were waiting for, oh, this sucks. I hate this story. She was dying of cancer. And she had a lung cancer. And her daughter was trying to get to her. And we called her up. She'd already spoken to her, but like, hey, this is it. You got to get in here.

She's at her moment. And the mom was trying her best to hold her. on. And there's just traffic on 995. It just is what it is. The main threat. And she didn't get there. It is what it is. And her mom died before she said goodbye. And as we were leaving, one of the family members said, wow, you know what? If her why was stronger, she would have survived. She would live. She would have held on. And I remember thinking that is either the most vile or the most ignorant thing I've ever heard in my life. And there's so many events where people are like, oh, find your why. Find your why. And I remember is on stage with someone who talks about

their wife. I'm not going to say the person's name. Talks about the why all the time. And I was still hotmite. When he's like, the why is the why is the why. the most important thing. And I was hock and I went, oh, fuck, fuck. So immediately I'm back on stage because I was talking about. I forgot to kill them right. It happened. So I walk out and I was like, time out. I go like, it's your thing. I don't mean to poop on it. It's all you. And then like, no, no, come on. Tell me why. I said, cool. Does anybody in this room not know why they don't want to make a million dollars? And they call, everyone knows it. Everyone knows why they want to be in better shape. Cool. Everyone know why they don't want to do something.

Yeah, I said, cool. Has anybody accomplished it? No, I said, you sure? So everybody knows their why and no one's accomplished. So it's complete and utter BS. But we beat ourselves up. So my why isn't strong enough. If my why was strong enough, I would execute and I would do it. So it comes down to the idea of if it's not the what, if it's not the how and it's not the why, the only thing that's left is the who. And that is, I can definitely describe it if you want, but it's a little bit more intense. Let's go. Let's let's hear it. We're this far down a rabbit hole. Might as well go down the rabbit hole. All right. So when it comes into scaling your businesses, when it comes to everything, you have to pivot things around. You mentioned that you've got

little ones, right? If I walk up to your little one when it was three years old and I handle and I hand it cereal, what is that three year old going to do? Tear the box open and eat it. It's going to make a fucking mess and eat it. Yeah, throw it all over the place. Absolutely. If I go to that same three year old and say, here's a broom and a mop, clean up the mess you just made. What's that three year old going to do? Probably use it as like a toy of some sort. It's not going to get clean. Yeah. It's happening in our lives. We have a version of us that's not enough. Not tall enough. not short enough, not blonde enough, not bright enough, not curvy enough, not good enough to keep a marriage together, all of that. And that version is here. And then you have another version of you that's an unstoppable fucking force.

That you're like, I got on stage, I can start the podcast, I can do all these things. I got it. I can do this effectively. If I give all of my strategies to the first person, what type of success are they going to have? If I give 5% of my strategies to this person who's an unstoppable force, what type of success am I going to have? What does the next five years look like for these two people? And for those of you who are watching this on YouTube, you literally can see him go through it as I'm talking about it. You'll see his body language. You dropped into your lowest.

Yeah. You 100% did. And then when I talked about you're unstoppable, you pulled yourself back out. Being able to tap into that version of you on command is vitally important. And people never do it. We have four basically that we do. We have our lowest,

which you went in and out of. You've got your default, the one you kind of show up with every day. You've got the warrior, which is if I went over to punch one of your kids in the face with a baseball bat, obviously you know what you're going to do you can tell already your body's moved around a little bit you're like yeah yeah your whole family and then the last one is the one that's called the ideal these three are built based off of fear the lowest your default and your warrior based off of fear

your ideal is based off of fulfillment or love it's a totally different ballgame but we never do that because our mind only cares about three things can I eat it is it going to kill me can I fuck it that's it it all cares about all the time and it's constantly doing that And we're trying to steal attention away from that. Resetting it so you can tap into it because we go and get all these strategies. We go and we go to the events. We go to the masterminds. We go to the read the books and nothing ever happens because you're giving that bowl of cereal to a three-year-old.

The version of you that broke it can't fix it. If you can design a version of you that you can call on command to implement at times, but you're not going to use it all time. Just understand you're born out if you do. If you can do that, that who will help you in the beginning of changing everything. And that's not the one who changes everything. give you guys away the book so you can figure out the one that actually does. Dude, I completely and utterly agree.

And again, I come back to the fact that this is why conversations like these are so important. It's why I love that you do the podcast that you do. And these are not intuitive, intrinsic things. Like, we have to go through things. We have to hear them. I got to see Eric Thomas one time. Phenomenal. And he went through this thing that he said he does for himself.

right and he just says I am I am you know disciplined I am strong enough to get through this conversation I am you know whatever and he's like and I just tell myself he's like before I came out here right now he's like I was in the back saying all the things to myself that I am so I could be the person I needed to be in this moment right and if I'm if I'm sitting down and having a conversation with a family member about something I may need to be a different person and what I start telling is I I am compassionate. I am, you know, whatever, willing to listen. I am these things.

And it's like we don't, Alex Ramosey says this. He says 15 minutes of preparation can change your life. And I firmly believe that what you just said is before you go into a situation, prepare yourself, become the person, go through some sort of, whether it's a mantra you have or whatever your process is, to make you into that person, because you are that person. You are that person, and I freaking love that. Dude, this conversation has been absolutely phenomenal. I think it's the perfect point to transition into our closing question,

which is I believe, and I think you do too, that everyone has extraordinary inside them, and you are certainly an extraordinary person. How is it that you defy ordinary in your life? A lot of it's based on the fact of, again, going back to hospice and having that fear idea, I was like, listen, I've been given a gift. There's so many people beyond who I am. that got me here. My forefathers or people who died in combat, you know, both of my grandfathers fought in combat in World War II, I always defied and saying, going up and looking

in the mirror going, have I made them proud? Have I gone through? Have I made myself proud of who I am? And I don't always do that. You talked about earlier this I am. Sometimes I'm an unstoppable force. Sometimes I'm just a waste of human flesh on a couch with ice cream just falling apart. And I need to be that. And you know, you prime it. But being able to go in and fit there and say, hey, you know what, this is who I am. Have I made myself proud? Have I let down the people who have sacrificed so much for me to get here? Have I made them proud?

And I don't always do that. And that's okay. Now I get to step forward. So it always comes down to that. Charles, I appreciate you. I appreciate your story. And I appreciate your time. Thank you so much, my friend.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Let's go. Yeah. Make a look. Make a look. Make a look. wherever you listen to podcasts.

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