Next Level Pros - #137: Spilling My 9 Figure Secrets - Chris Lee Keynote - Kyle Mallien

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Welcome to a new episode of Next Level Pros! In this episode, we're excited to share a powerful speech delivered by Chris Lee, the founder of SolGen Power, at an event hosted by Kyle Mallien. Chris shares his remarkable entrepreneurial journey, from early failures to building a highly successful solar company that achieved two nine-figure exits. Throughout the speech, he imparts valuable insights on business strategy, company culture, and personal growth. Highlights: "Money will never be the motivating factor you have to find passion in something else." "Value is a derivative of energy, right? Every single thing that you see in this room was naturally created, and because of energy input, value has been created." "He who casts the biggest vision with a clear path of how it is possible always attracts the greatest talent." "Culture is the reason a company thrives over time. Strategy can always change." Timestamps: 0:00:00 - The Importance of Energy and Passion 0:01:02 - Chris Lee's Background and Early Failures 0:06:47 - Investing in Personal Development and Education 0:13:30 - The Power of Mastermind Groups and Networking 0:22:34 - Pioneering Digital Marketing in the Solar Industry 0:31:36 - Core Business Strategies and Theories 0:41:38 - Building a Strong Company Culture 0:51:52 - Organizational Management and Structure 0:59:51 - The Private Equity Deal and Lessons Learned 1:09:14 - The Life-Changing Car Accident and Reflection 1:15:46 - Finding Passion Beyond Money 1:25:06 - Advice for the Audience and Closing Remarks Want me to teach you how to grow your business? Text me! 509-374-7554 Want access to more of my content? Click the link below for all of our latest updates and events! https://linktr.ee/nextlevelpros Want to be a guest on our show? Apply here!https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1YlkVBSluEKMTg4gehyUOHYvBratcxHV5rt3kiWTXNC4/viewform?edit_requested=true Watch my latest PodcastApple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/next-level-pros/id1687030281 Spotify- https://open.spotify.com/show/1e0cL2vI1JAtQrojSOA7D2?si=95980cd4e55a437aYouTube- https://www.youtube.com/@NextLevelPros

Too many of us are in the business of impressing other people. Stop it. Stop it. It's the worst business to be in. Money will never be the motivating factor. You have to find passion in something else. Fruit is money. Fruit is accomplishments. Fruit is anything that you are chasing that you think will give you satisfaction, but it is quick, it is fleeting, and it doesn't always come. I want you to ask yourself, how big is your vision? How many of you guys truly believe you're going to hit a nine-figure valuation in the next three years? How many of you guys have ever been at that point where you've just tried all the ideas

and it's not working? Ladies and gentlemen, founder of SoulChan, Power, Chris Lee! Check, check. Are you guys able? All right, there we go, there we go. Hey, listen, I understand that I am the one thing that stands between you and being out of this room. So what, Kyle, we need to work on placement next time, but I appreciate it.

Super excited to be with you guys here tonight. As Pat shared, I've been in your seat so many times. All right. So many times I've been in your guys' seats, working, investing, doing the things. Working, investing, doing the things. So one thing I do know about value and being able to actually get what I'm gonna talk about tonight is that value is a derivative of energy, right? Every single thing that you see in this room was naturally created and because of energy input,

value has been created, right? The building materials, the carpet on the floor, the businesses that you've created. And so what I need from you guys is to stand up right now and actually get a little energy in this room. Come on, give it a clap, a little round, come on. All right, so this is what we're gonna do. This is what we're gonna do. We're going to stretch stretch up

stretch sideways The other way and then I'll count of three and I'm gonna video this we're gonna yell. All right We are going to scream some energy into this room Oh All right to scream some energy into this room. Oh, all right. And we're going to yell as loud as you can, as bad as you want it. Whatever that next acquisition, that exit that you're going to have, I need you to have it come out in some form of energy for the next 5 to 10 seconds.

So don't be bashful. Bashful never breeds success. Okay? So right now on the count of three. One, two, three. Pause. Woo! So in the cultures that I've created we always do what's called a two clap Ric Flair. How many of you guys know who Ric Flair is? So two clap Ric Flair goes like this. I say can I get a two clap Ric Flair and you clap and then woo! So do it with me. Can I get a two clap Ric Flair? There's some good energy.

There's some good energy. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about my story. So Pat talked about it a little bit. First and foremost, I'm a family man. I love my family. OK? Five beautiful kids. Me and my wife have been married 19 years.

I got married at the age of 21. Love that woman. She was my high school sweetheart. I grew up in a small town 2500 people Eastern Washington Rural I was a newspaper bull and my dad was a school teacher the local football and wrestling coach. I had no idea What it took to make money? Zero idea, right? The only thing that my dad taught me was just work hard.

So I had my first job at the age of nine and I was delivering newspapers every single day at 5.30 a.m., 365 days a year. And that's what I did for a long time. I worked hard. And many of you guys know, Hard work don't pay the bills. That's that's only a small part of the equation But I was I was raised with incredible values The values that my dad and my mom put put into me which

Ultimately led to the success that I've been able to experience So I've been in your shoes. I literally have done everything under the Sun Everything okay, I bought businesses. I've ran businesses into the ground. I have literally tried I was just thinking about it about Bitcoin for the first time in 2014 at $400 Course I sold it at 800 and thought I was a genius. But I started my first business in 2008 at the age of 24 and with it I raised money from my father-in-law who was a dairy farmer and I took half my dad's life savings. dairy farmer and I took half my dad's life savings. And anybody that knows anything about 2008 wasn't a great year to start a business. And I thought I knew

everything. Thought I knew everything. I was awesome at sales for whatever reason God gave me the gift of gab and I knew how to sell ice to an Eskimo. And so I was able to sell my father-in-law and my father on this great dream that I was gonna go and build in a door-to-door sales space of home security. And because up until that point, I had been going to college

and I had been funding college by making $65,000 my first summer, three months. Then my next summer making $105,000. I'm like, man, I'm good at this. And business is just an extension of sales, right? And there's nothing more to it is what I thought. And so I went and I sold my father and my father-in-law putting money in. Two and a half years later, I found myself bankrupt. Found myself burned through having to file bankruptcy

for $2.2 million. And had the car, this was my Mercedes CLS 500 that was repoed out of my driveway. Had less than $1,000 in my bank account. Had my third child on the way who is now 13, and really no direction on where to go. How many of you guys have ever felt lost on where to go? Yeah. And that's where I found myself in the end of 2010, early 2011 when I filed bankruptcy. And I had people in my years like, go back to school, get a real job, become a professional. Like up until that point I had studied to become a doctor.

The only example I had in my life of money was my mom's dad who was a doctor. So she bred into me to be a dreamer. My dad's dad was an alcoholic that made like 20 grand a year. And so I had like these two competing things and this entrepreneur drive to be able to go and invest and build. And so I had a decision to make. Do I keep going down this route or do I go back to safe space? And glory to God, I chose the ladder. I decided that not only was I going to start another business, but I was going to start another business in the same exact industry. Luckily, I had learned a few things,

okay? And I was able to go and grow it and build it. And for years, I suffered in this spot of like micromanagement, small teams, small minded thinking. How many of you guys find yourself sometimes there? That's fine. We are all there, right? Like we're all there at one point or another. And so I literally tried and built everything and I was just that typical

entrepreneur that had idea after idea after idea, and just trying one thing, see if it works, it kind of works. Get distracted, I get a new idea the next day, and I go and I do it. I literally like I started a coupon book, a medical pending company, I had another security business, a search engine optimization business, fixing flip cars and houses and and Invested in different things and literally just like throwing my money and my time and my energy everywhere, right? So I did it for a long time and then I realized This isn't working How many guys have ever been at that point where you just like tried all the ideas and it's not working? Okay?

that's that's fine and I knew that there was something that I needed to be able to take it to the next level and so For as you guys I shared I literally Knocked doors and did door-to-door sales for many, many years. That was part of a lot of these businesses that I built. But I realized that I did not have the skill set to be able to scale teams, to be able to scale organizations, to be able to go and grow profitably.

There was a lot of different mistakes I made in that first business that we're going to talk about here in a second. But what ultimately happened is I went back to what I call my paid education. And for four and a half years I went to work for somebody else. How many of you guys are currently working for somebody else? Handful, okay. And that's fine. Working for somebody else is fine. In fact, I think there's a lot of opportunity in partnering or working your way into an equity position

under somebody else's umbrella, right? Their risk portfolio, their dream, their vision, their direction. There's a ton of opportunity there. In fact, that's what I preach to my team. Like, look, you can go and try to do it on your own or you can just come and do it with me and we can figure out an incredible opportunity and path for you, right?

And so, for four and a half years, that's what I went and did. And, but I did it on purpose. And I did it with the intention that I needed to learn. And so, for four and a half years, I worked for three different businesses, experienced two different IPOs under these three different businesses that I worked with. I worked as an executive. I saw and I studied. I'd be sitting in the executive management meetings.

The CEO would be giving direction. People would be asking, why is he asking me to do this? And I'd be like, why is he asking us to do this? And I would be marking down notes and creating strategy and exactly how I was going to go and grow and build these businesses. I had the pleasure to work under a CEO named Todd Peterson. How many of you guys have ever heard of Todd Peterson? So Todd is out of Utah. He's had two different unicorns that he was the captain of. And then he's had a variety of different unicorns that he was the captain of and then he's had a variety of different unicorns that he's invested in been a leading investor in right and I saw the vision that this man had and it was unfreaking believable and the buy-in and

the culture that this guy created and it just like everything about him, I'm taking notes, like I've got to figure out how to go and do this. And so Todd, I consider the funny thing is, is I didn't have a ton of conversations with Todd, but I was in the room a lot with Todd and I got to see him the way that he functioned as a CEO. And I'm like, I need to be that man. I need to be the guy that goes and builds value, creates culture and buy-in and everything else. So from that point on I decided I was going to invest as many dollars as possible into my own personal non-traditional education. So I paid to be in rooms just like this. And I've spoken in rooms just like this.

From 2015 until today, I've spent a million dollars attending masterminds and workshops and being in the right room. And this was while I was still, I started this while I was still working for Todd because I realized there is something that he has that I don't and I need to be around those people all the freaking time. So first of all give yourselves a round of applause for being in the room. So this this particular picture was two weeks ago. I completed a Harvard program specifically for entrepreneurs and business owners that do extremely well. This is a picture with Will.im.

Him and I are homies. He was a part of the program. It was a three-year program, which we go and we live at Harbor for three weeks straight a year, and we eat together and we sleep in the same living quarters and we do all these different things. In my group of 168, there was about 50 billionaires. And like one of my best, best friends, he nets two billion a year. Like it is the craziest thing. And what I have found is the investment in my personal education and being in the room

has caused me to always level up. The number one thing that will lead you to the success that you want, how many of you guys want a nine or ten figure exit by a raise of hands? Say I do. I do. You got to believe. That's the first step. But second, you've got to invest, right? Kyle's going to be talking about opportunities to invest to be in his community. Some of you guys have already made that investment and some of you haven't, right? That is the best money you freaking can spend, right? Because I have been a part of so many communities like Kyle that have forced me to level up, okay? That literally, and here's the crazy thing. It's not about whether or not

I'm going to get the value from Kyle for the amount of money that I pay him. It's the level of commitment that I make to myself that I will get the value from Kyle by putting the money in his pocket. Right? And that is what I found, right? Before 2015, the most I had ever spent on anything personal education was like 500 bucks to a thousand dollars. And during this time, I started forking out money. I committed to go into an event at least once a quarter. Being in the room, being with the people, right? 2017 comes around and I spend my first money on a course. Okay?

And during this time, once again, I'm chasing dreams, I'm working for people, and I stepped down as the vice president of a company that went public in fall of 2016 to take a year to be able to figure out what the heck I wanted to go and do with my life, right? And I was at the top of my game, right? I was making over a half million dollars a year to be able to figure out what the heck I wanted to go and do with my life. Right? And I was at the top of my game, right? I was making over a half million dollars a year working in a corporate job. I had a credit card that I literally could spend on what the freak I wanted, right?

Like it was literally the best secure job that I could ever have. But I had learned everything that I needed from that position. I had learned everything that I needed from that position. And so I stepped down. That six months later, I'm chasing a few different things. I go and I spend $2,500 on a Facebook marketing course. And it was something like, hey, I made a million dollars drop shipping something. How many of you guys ever saw a course like that?

Like eight years ago, or even today, right? And I'm like, a million dollars drop shipping something. How many of you guys ever saw a course like that, like eight years ago, yeah, or even today, right? And I'm like, a million bucks, that sounds awesome. So, but more importantly, I saw an opportunity to be able to learn Facebook ads. So I go and I start drop shipping teeth whitener and flashlights around the world. Okay. UK for whatever reason teeth whiteners outlawed but they can buy it over line. I sold a lot of teeth whitener to UK. During this time I've been involved in the solar industry.

Okay. I am contracting out, I'm consulting, different things like that. I had gotten involved because I had been in door-to-door sales selling solar in 2014. And I'm selling this teeth whitener for 50 bucks, right? It cost me $4 shipped. And I'm selling it 50 bucks all over the world. And I'm like, what am I doing? Like, I have a way to generate interest online and be able to get somebody interested in buying a product. Why am I wasting this on a $50 product? And I realized, so up until this point, in the solar industry,

the only type of online marketing that existed is what we call inquiry-based. Inquiry-based means someone's out inquiring. It's Google search terms, maybe a little YouTube or whatnot. That was literally the only type of online marketing that existed. And I saw Facebook, and I had knocked doors for 10 years. How many of you guys have ever knocked doors selling a product?

It's hard, OK? And I'm one of the best in the world at it, OK? I worked for a company that had 3,000 reps. I was number three for them. But the frustrating thing that I always had in this door knocking world is I could not self replicate like why can't I get somebody to go and do exactly how I do it and when I started running Facebook ads in 2017 I

Realized one what why does door knocking work? I realized, one, why does door knocking work? Door knocking works because the person you're knocking on their door doesn't realize they want your product. If they did, they would have already inquired about it. They would have shopped for it. And they would have selected the best price for the value. Door knocking works because you help break preoccupation,

identify a need, present a solution, and then you close the deal. That's why door knocking works. With Facebook, I'm like, wait, this is the same freaking thing. I can interrupt, pattern interrupt. I can educate and identify the pain. I can present a solution for a product that they didn't realize they needed. And I can go in the home or close this thing virtually. I'm like, what? This is phenomenal. This is digital door knocking.

And so what happened then was I became the pioneer in the solar space, in really that home service space of doing Facebook marketing. And we started taking risks here, there, and everywhere. And so what happened was initially we started building out of my garage. I don't know if this has it. Yes. Okay. So I built an 1100 person organization out of my garage. This is my garage. It's a little bit bigger than most. It's a 3500 square foot shop. 400 square feet of it was finished when we first started. And this is inside that garage right here in the lower left. And we started generating leads and selling and installing. And we started to scale. And we did this without any money.

Okay. We would spend a little money. If we got a return, then we'd spend a little bit more money. And we did this over and over again. Year one, we did 16 million. Year two, we did 32 million. Year three, we did 34 million. That was COVID. Year four, we did 89 million dollars. And year five, we did 233 million dollars and year five we did two hundred and thirty three million dollars before we sold a private equity. Give it up baby let's go. Meanwhile we built an incredible sales force a 300 person virtual sales floor where we and we had locations 18 locations throughout the United States in which we we owned everything in the

process. We marketed, we sold, we installed, we bought a finance company, we controlled the loan aspect, we originated loans, we did absolutely everything. I'm losing my slides here. So that is the story. Now you're probably asking like, Chris, why does this matter? How does this apply to us? All the different things. And throughout it all, we won a few awards. I think we were the 12th fastest growing company in the nation privately held. Financial Times recognized us as the 6th fastest growing in the industry. I mean, it was a freaking rocket ship. And legit, like we ended up having to buy a jet just to be

able to let go we bought a seven million dollar jet cash during that time like it was it was freaking wild okay so eventually led to two different nine figure exits so what I'm gonna share with you guys right now and listen I know it's late and I have some information. Am I permitted to share this information with you? All right, so can I get a commitment that you will stay engaged until 30 minutes from now? Are we good? All right, can I get a yes or yes? Let's go! Okay, so I am about to share with you, I've actually never shared this from stage, okay? This is actually something I only share with my group. I run a group that we do masterminds and all this different stuff in which

we teach these principles that I'm about to share with you. These are the exact and listen, it's a lot, okay? so what I'm gonna ask you to do is pull out your phones and when I go to a page take a freaking picture I'm not gonna be able to address it all okay yeah but you're going to see how I approach business okay and this theory has led to two different exits my own and then I consulted another business for equity that also exited for nine figures, but did it in a faster time, did it in a three-year period.

That deserves a round of applause, right? So I am going to share that with you. And again, there's not like crazy detail and I'll try to give you as much detail as I possibly can and then I am here through the rest of the night if you want to come up and talk to me and talk strategy and all that other stuff happy to do so and this is this is also something that another company that I didn't have an equity position in just recently exited for nine figures, and I teach my group.

So first of all, before we jump in, I wanna tell you why I selected Solar and why I love home services. I know Kyle has a big focus in the home service space, the home improvement, home service, everything else. It's freaking amazing, right? One downfall, else, it's freaking amazing, right? One downfall, you gotta deal with freaking consumers, right? The Karens of the group.

How many of you guys have ever dealt with a Karen? Oh gosh. Man, you could do everything right and Karen will not be happy. It's the worst. So why I love home services, one, you can market directly. You don't have all your eggs in one basket, right?

B2B tends to be really difficult from the standpoint is like you have all your eggs in one big basket. Maybe you have one client that is 30% of your portfolio or whatever it may be. I love home services because it's B2C homeowners especially in this market but hopefully it's gonna get a little better. I'm a big Trump fan let's give it up for Trump huh? So in this in this market where interest rates are where they're at people are going to invest more in their

homes right. They're choosing rather than to buy a home with the improvements to make the improvements at their current residence. So they're going to keep it a little cleaner. They're going to improve the roof. They're going to make putting better windows. They're going to do it. It's cheaper to do that than to go and trade out for the same cost of the house that's going to cost you twice the monthly payment. And so that is one of the main reasons I love home services. And there's so many different verticals that you can add. You can go in and you can crush it in this one. And then you can add a nice little parallel

that you can utilize the same exact customer base without spending any more money on marketing. I freaking love that. That's one of the reasons why my solar business, we started getting into roofing, right? We were sending out all these roofs, right? And a lot of customers needed re-roofs. And we're like, let's just start doing this in house.

We already have the customer, they want the service, let's go this direction. And there's so many parallels in the home service space. The other thing I love about solar, it's a foundational change to a necessity in our society. Every home needs power, I freaking love it. The last 18 months have obviously been rough from an interest rate standpoint.

But if you are going to enter any market at this time, and I can tell you this because I can't compete in this space unfortunately anymore, Solar would be pretty freaking awesome. You can go and pick up companies for pennies on the dollar right now because there's a lot of companies that have just struggled or you can even just start up in the space. It's gonna have an incredible eight-year run. There's less than 5% market penetration throughout the US. I compare it to the cell phone industry.

Communication is a necessity in society. So is energy. And we are literally still at the bottom of the hockey stick. So that's why I love solar and why I love home services. So here are my core theories that we are going to talk about. And once again, tons of bullet points. I apologize, but we're going to get through it

as fast as we can. Overall strategy. These are some basic theories that I run everything on. One, always put the business first, then the employee, then your customers. Most people flop that. They say customer first, then employees, then your customers. Most people flop that. They say customer first, then employees, then your business.

Bullcrap. I have to run a freaking profit. And you're like, profit's over people. Yeah, because that's the only way I take care of people. That's what I did wrong in my first business. I was like, pay people more, charge customers less. Sorry. Pay people more, charge customers less, sorry pay people more, charge customers less, here's my margin. So my theory that where this is like charge more, pay a little less, and pay in alternative ways outside

of just a pay structure and get as much freaking margin as possible. Okay. The other thing, competition isn't what you think it is. Most of us, we look at a competitive space. We're like, oh, so and so's dominating this or so this is that, whatever. You do not have a competitor. I don't care what industry you are in.

The only competition that you have is the what industry you are in the only competition that you have is the pain that you are solving and what I mean by that is most people price their product thank you most people price their product according to what the competitor is charging like oh if I can be a little bit better priced here I'm gonna win the business. How many of you guys have ever thought about that, thought of that way? If I can just price or maybe just charge a little bit more

and add a little bit more value, then I could bullcrap. Stop thinking about it that way. Forget what they're charging. Run the Louis Vuitton method. Go and charge 20 times what everybody else is and separate yourself by actually doing real sales. Real sales, going back to what I was talking about with Facebook, breaks the preoccupation, educates and identifies the pain. Does it create the pain? Identifies the pain. Prov provides a solution. When you provide a solution, you can charge whatever can be justified to cover that pain. And you are solving a

pain. Maybe some of you, I was just at Harvard as I explained and there's people like, well this industry doesn't have pain. Bullcrap. They're like luxury watches doesn't have pain. Youcha it does that person is in pain because they feel insignificant in the room and so how do you solve the significant issue you charge them 50 grand to be able to put that thing on their wrist right that is the pain that you are solving and so if you can one properly identify the pain that you are solving and so if you can one properly identify the pain that you are solving charge whatever the heck you want to be able to do that and I'll give

you an example in the solar industry we price per watt they my average competition charged two dollars and sixty cents a watt guess what we charged and sixty cents a watt. Guess what we charged? Five dollars and twenty five cents. I was more than 2X in a commodity. Literally there was nothing different about my product that was on the roof, right? But there was a big difference in the way that we treated our customers and the experience that we provided and the service and the level of professionalism and the actual quality of labor and everything else that went into it. But I could justify $5.25 because of the pain that I was solving. I was replacing their electric bill. I wasn't competing against Johnny Solar down the street. And once again, every single industry has this. Man, I'm getting in too deep here.

So again, you can either be the low cost leader. There's only two places that you can be in any industry. And this is it, either low or the highest. Anywhere in between, you are screwing yourself. Because if I'm here, will I be undercut? Have some freaking lootly. You will be undercut in price if you are here. If I am here, will I be undercut? Yes! If I am here, will I be undercut? No, but guess what? Surviving as the low cost leader is Walmart's game. They're selling butt cracks and poor customer service. Seriously, and the only reason they can afford to it is because they have streamlined distribution.

They freaking just string out their vendors for 60 days, right? They have put together just the most dialed in operation. That is the only way you can afford. And I don't know about you, but I make a lot of mistakes. How many of you guys make mistakes in your business? Okay? I make a lot of mistakes. I can't operate like Walmart.

So if I can't operate like Walmart, I'd better be the highest because I encourage Customers to shop us. Hey. Hey, mr. Sales rep. Why are you? $10,000 more for the same size system. Hey listen Here at Solgen, we're gonna provide you an incredible quality product and service. We can drop the cost $10,000, but we're going to have to cut some corners. What corners would you like us to cut?

We, but here's the thing, Mr. Customs, we refuse. In fact, if you want that deal, please go with them. But when they're out of business two years from now and you come calling to us for service, we ain't picking up. Because we are committed. If this is a short-term investment, please go spend the $10,000 less. I assume this is a long-term investment for your home. Is that correct? Yes, that is correct. Now, do you want to go with the cheapest? Do you drive a GeoMetro, Mr. Customer? I mean, I assume if you don't drive a Geo Metro, Mr. Customer? I mean, I assume if you don't drive a Geo Metro, there's a reason.

You appreciate quality, you appreciate service, you appreciate something about that's a step above a Geo Metro, right? And you just position yourself, right? The reason why Louis Vuitton can charge 20 times is because they put two times the value into their product and another time another multiple in the service the personal shopper here's a drink they know your name they sit you down they they offer direct to you this is one solution they don't give you options right like they're like hey this will

look really good on you you should try this versus like coming in and shopping at Walmart, where's the freaking bread? Gosh, where's the bread? What is exactly, right? So another thing that I don't have up here, eliminate the optionality in your business. Make professional recommendations, no matter what product you're in.

So, overall strategy, own your marketing strategy. How many of you guys outsource your marketing? Okay, how many of you guys do digital marketing? Okay, so we got, how many you guys do digital marketing? Okay, so we got how many don't do digital marketing? Okay, how many of you guys are just keeping your hands down? All right, cool. Marketing is the baby maker of your business. And what I mean by that is you never outsource your baby making, would you?

All right. Let that sink in cool Marketing it is up to you as the visionary or the director of strategy to own What it is if you don't know what it is you better have have somebody in house in your team that owns that strategy. They're 96% of marketing agencies out there are freaking joke. They're going to scan the heck out of you. They're not going to give you a good return on investment. They went to some seminar like this, came back and they're like, hey, I now own a marketing agency. And these are my results that they screenshot from somebody else and whatever else.

Don't fall for it, okay? You have to own your strategy even if you outsource some of the labor or outsource to a company. You need to know exactly where the direction is going. There is no such thing as a total marketing budget. There is only such thing as target acquisition costs. This is a huge mistake that a lot of businesses make. They say, okay, we're going to allocate $500,000 to marketing. Why? Like you need to have a

target, a CAC, a cost of acquisition and as long as you stay underneath that target of acquisition, spend baby spend. Every dollar that you can put into marketing is going to yield an incredible return. This is what allowed us to grow at 10 to 20 percent a month. Let me say that, a freaking month. You can always, you can sell yourself, sell your way out almost anything. Invest in sales resources, invest in a sales team, build a sales team. If you suck at sales yourself, go and partner with somebody who's freaking awesome at it. Okay? And nine times out of ten, you can probably do it remotely.

Most people weren't doing remote sales. We got into it in October 2019. Pretty good timing, if I say so myself. Six months later, when the world was shutting down we had a 20 person sales floor selling this thing remotely. A $48,000 ticket over the phone. Now it was over Zoom. People began to like warm up a while Zoom was, but you can usually sell it remotely.

And then last but not least in just overall strategy is set proper expectations upfront as your role of working on the business, not in the business. If you're gonna go and acquire a business, they need to know upfront what exactly you're going to do. Even if it means temporarily you're going to work in this thing, you need to let everybody know, hey eventually I need to be here working

strategy and I need to remove myself out of day-to-day operations. Okay? If you don't set this proper expectation you're going to create a hell of a job and it's going to be absolutely terrible and you're going to hate your life working 80 to 90 hours a week working on the business, okay One of my big theories is he who casts the biggest vision with a clear path of how it is possible always attracts the greatest talent I Want you to ask yourself how big is your vision? How many of you guys truly believe you're going to hit a nine figure

valuation in the next three years? Okay. And how many of you know exactly how you're going to do it? Okay. So it's one thing to dream big and say I'm going to go do it. It's a completely different thing to have a clear path to how it's possible You don't need to know exactly how you're going to do it, but you need to have a freaking clear path You need to know that Three years from now I need a hundred salespeople and I need this many in operations and I miss many of my finance account Accounting department this that and the other so that when I sit down with the best all-star recruit

I can tell him how he fits into my vision or her and when you Cast this vision you can attract anybody you want. I had a guy that sold a business for multi-millions Came and worked for me for $40,000 a year Because my vision was so freaking. Now I'm sitting in this garage and I'm looking guys to the eye and I'm like look you may not realize it but three years from now we are going to be trending to be the

largest solar provider in the nation and this is exactly how we're gonna do it. This is where I need you to come into the organization. And as long as you can progress in your education and your ability to manage people and everything else, you will fit into this strategy. But what we're going to need to do is over the next six months, we've got to build this out and we've got to build this out and we've got to do this. And I create a clear vision and a guy that has literally made millions be like I'll do that for 40 grand a year how many you guys have ever casted a vision where you've been able to convince

somebody of that quality to work for you for that little I love it and that's the reason why she is exited for nine figures You get incredible talent and you got to shoot for the moon If the whoever's in your network go after them literally every single person if I see quality Put my arm around him. I say yo, I Need a great person like you. I Need you in my organization. We're taking over the world. Let me give you a quick vision statement and I at least plant a seed. Two months later I call them, six months later I follow up, six years I follow up. I've been planting these kind of seeds for 15 to 20 years. So

and that this is the reason why I work on my personal brand. This is the reason why. How many of you guys have a personal brand built on Instagram? Shame on you. Shame on you. Because if you believe in where you are going, you understand there has to be somebody that attracts that talent in. And I understood this years ago. I've been working on my

personal brand for 14 years. I've been putting out content in Facebook when I got one and two likes. I've been putting out when I got freaking 10 views on Instagram. And I'm just out there, you know, just confident as a freaking whatever like yeah here I am Like literally the only reason I can speak on stage is because I've stared at my palm so much I'm not joking and This kind of vision is going to be able to attract great talent The only way you build an empire is attracting great talent. It is impossible to build an empire without great talent caveat unless you have AI

Build the team man, I got so much crap and I'm not gonna be able to get through it Okay, so we're gonna build we're gonna rush through this culture These are my key points with culture culture is built by focusing on the whole human development. This is the peace, which is your physical, economic association, your spirituality. If people understand that you care about everything with them, then they will bleed for you. They don't care if they only make 40 grand a year

or $400,000 a year if you focus on this. Literally I'm holding Financial Fridays, I'm teaching my people how to invest no matter what your income is. You can zoom in from anywhere in the company and hey Chris is going to teach you how to invest in the stock market. What? You teach your people? Isn't that like politically incorrect?

I don't care. Like could I potentially get a lawsuit for some of the crap that I've done? Absolutely. Absolutely. But, guess what? When you build incredible culture, people don't sue you. And I'm going to talk about this post-exit. Me being ripped out of the business, the culture driver, guess what happened?

Lawsuits. Right? Like, everything starts popping in the second you remove good culture. Culture, the foundation of culture is great trust, and trust is built by caring for people. Having experiences with them. Culture is the reason a company thrives over time. Strategy can always change. Leadership requires, this is so big, leadership requires a willingness to be wrong. I have tried to partner with different people and do different things, but they're always right.

Get out. That is a terrible person, right? I'm freaking 100% one way so confident, but I tell all my team, listen, combat me. Tell me I'm wrong. And even though I'll seem bullheaded in a minute, if you can show me why I'm right, I will flip on a dime. I am willing to be wrong.

And everybody in your leadership organization has to have that. That is an expectation that you have to set in your culture. Never punish the truth. If you punish the truth, what what happens you ain't ever gonna get it you ain't ever gonna get it people are gonna lie to you everything else make sure you never punish the truth transparency creases increases buy-in I let I let the whole company know hey yeah we have a 24% net margin a

58% gross profit margin. The whole company, I don't care. Like, oh, Chris, well, what are you doing? I'm investing in you. I'm investing in you. I'm providing an incredible opportunity. If I'm not profitable, one, company first. If I don't have a 24% gross or profit margin,

I can't take care of you and you can't take care of my customer so transparency transparency and pay transparent like compensation structures you shouldn't have secret compensation structures have hard conversations as soon as they pop up communication is encouraged across all channels and not limited to only who you're accountable to right this is huge compensation is much more than a paycheck as we already talked about you got to create way more alternative ways people work harder for recognition and something that they believe in than they ever will for money.

If you are not creating incentive packages and swag bags and everything else that gets buy-in, I have fought like hell to get a hat. Like, and everything about it. Back in my door-to-door days, I won a Range Rover in a 256-man bracket. It wasn't even about the Range Rover. It was just like, that's mine and not yours. Right? It didn't even matter about the value.

They could have given me a freaking hat and I would have worn that thing everywhere. Team members will bleed for two things. One is culture and two is a piece of the pie. How many of you guys have compensation structures built out for your people where they can share in the piece of the pie? This is critical, critical. Like you want guys to come and work for 40 grand, you better have a pathway in which they can participate for the upside. Okay? And the further along and

the more profitable, the less percentage that that has to be. The earlier the startup, the more that has to be, right? And I have a whole different structure, 6, 12, 18, that I can't get, or 6, 18, 3 years that I can't get in to. Organizational management, we're going to bust through these, identify the ideal customer experience and then build structure based off of this. I love Airbnb's structure with this. Their ultimate goal is that every customer shows up in a limo, is greeted by Elon Musk to get on a rocket and go to the moon.

They know that that's absolutely impossible and so they build their ideal structure with that end in mind and they build it and they slowly are upping it. But everything within the structure it has to be based off of your experience. So the first thing when you go and acquire a business is what is our ideal customer experience? What do we want that to look like? How would we change it right now? Or what is our goal to get it to? Build an order structure that's five years in advance. When you build it, it's a roadmap. It's a vision map.

You show them this is where we're going. But there's like so much of a process in doing this I can't get into. Have a detailed role goal and responsibility for every hat in the org chart. Always pay 25% of your hourly rate to get the job that you hate doing. So whatever your hourly rate was, if you made a million bucks last year your hourly rate is 500 Therefore anything $125 an hour or less you better get that off your plate If you made five hundred thousand, it's 250 anything 65 or less get it off your plate if you made a hundred grand

Your hourly rate is 50, anything 1250, send it overseas, right? This is exactly how you have to run it. Managers, the law of management, managers always manage three to eight people, never more than eight people. You're going to screw yourself, people are going to get strung out, and the higher you go in the org chart, the fewer people that you manage. Only direct management should give out assignments and projects, but ideas can flow from anywhere. One of my favorite examples of this is Google. The guy from the accounting department actually created the algorithm for what became Google. And what happened was they had something posted in the lunchroom, they had like 25 employees,

and the guy, and they said, hey, this is what we're working on, they're just communicating across the board. And the accountant guy's like, yeah, I think I can give that a shot. Took it back, created an algorithm, came back, an idea, right? So make sure that ideas can flow from anywhere but you have direct projects there should always be the decision-maker over every responsibility and should rarely be done by committee get rid of committees for decision-making process have one freaking person because that is slowing

you down the only way you grow at 10 to 20 percent a month is you make decisions stop dragging your feet I always say if you're struggling making a decision to get into a community like Kyle's guess what's happening in your business your customers are struggling to make decisions you're struggling to make decisions decision-making is a culture you have to be decisive. The best minds, the best billionaires on the planet, they are rapid at making decisions. A decision-maker carries the responsibility to understand the ideas of others, but ultimately the outcome rests on him or her. There is no such thing as a perfect person or leader.

There's only such thing as perfect relationships, teams, and organizations. How many of you guys are using something like the disk analysis? I'm going to change your life. Go and do a disk. How many have done a disk assessment on themselves? Okay. if you're not using this in your organization you're failing. Okay, you need balance across the board. It is impossible again for one person to be perfect. I'm a high

D, high I. I need some freaking S and C baby. How many guys are high D, high I or D or I or something in between, right? That means you need somebody with steadiness and conscientiousness that's gonna clean up your freaking mess. And you need this across the organization. My wife is a high C, low S, low I. Perfect. Perfect.

We can work together, right? This applies to all relationships. Again, no such thing as a perfect individual or leader. Only partnerships, teams, and organizations, and it has to address the whole room. This is something I quickly talked about. Low energy, high energy, anything in the low energy, low value. I can't address this real quick execution process manual breeds automation when automation doesn't exist so many people err on this they're like oh we got to automate this to make sure it works no freaking have a

a solution right now and then automate it take care of the situation create a process that a manual process put it on paper put it on I mean literally deliver me my KPIs on my desk if we can't have a dashboard built for it okay I need manual now automation can work later processes and procedures must exist in a manual format before they ever automate or apply by tools a lot of employees they're gonna start thinking about all the tools they can do to be able to create these SOPs and everything like that. Get that out of the room.

Write this shiz down. Have flows and checklists and everything else manually and then find the best tool that's going to be able to go and automate this, whether it's trainual or whatever it may be. Measure everything. You have to have three to four KPIs Somebody in your organization doesn't have KPIs you failed them as a leader Quarterly retreats for management with quarterly accountability of projects are an absolutely must we started this from a low Very early on like why do we have two people in the room dude? We're gonna do this, right?

Okay, we're gonna do this right so when I started out of garage, I knew exactly the game plan that I had followed from these billionaires. And no matter how big or uncomfortable, how small, I was gonna do it. This is one of them. Always make sure you have quarterly retreats with your people. This is an example of a quarterly retreat for yourself, being in this room. That's freaking awesome. Give yourselves a round of applause one more time. Woo! Woo! Woo! Do I still have you?

All right, let's go! Can I get a, yeah, come on. Can I get a two clap Ric Flair? Woo! Woo! All right, all right, all right. So bonus, build AI into every single automation. This is where your mind has to shift.

And that's why I said caveat, there will be a unicorn built in the next three years that is built by one person. And it's going to be because of AI. It is taking over the world. That thing was drilled into me at Harvard. Holy crap. It was just like AI, AI, AI. Oh my gosh.

So with that, if you don't have somebody on your team that specializes in AI, I know they're only, most of them are only like one to two years old. There are people out there that are five, six, seven years in the industry, believe it or not. AI has actually existed since like 2013, 2014. Make sure you implement something there financial growth is just gonna quick have six months of fixed costs on hand at all times know you're breaking now break even analysis at all times how many guys know your break even how many don't know your break even right now you're lying, freaking liars. Know your break-even analysis. Most small business owners, they run off of bank account, cash accounting, right?

They're like, do I have enough money in the bank? Let's do it. How many of you guys have been there? How many of you guys are there? Liars. been there? How many guys are there? Liars. Know your current support and fulfillment utilization rates at all the time. What can you get from an individual? What kind of production should be required? What KPI do you have for this person? Are they being fully utilized? This also goes for any type of truck or

computer or anything else. Is it full software? Is it being fully utilized? Do you know your utilization rates? Because a lot of times we make gut decisions. Oh yeah, I should invest in the software or this new hire or this new product or whatever else purely based off of gut, not knowing that literally the person that is doing that job is only being 20% utilized.

KPIs are a big helper with this, but we call them KHIs, key hiring indicators that you should have for every single position within your organization. Understand how each fixed cost or capital expenditure increases your capacity to fulfill and what it does to your break even analysis. If I add this to my monthly expenditure, how much more of my product do I need to sell? You obviously need to understand what your average ticket is and all those things, your gross profit that you know we left the boring stuff to earlier. So tie your sales this is this is absolutely key. Tie your sales and marketing to a to your financials as a variable as much as possible. Does everybody understand what I mean by that? Meaning that it's directly that I know if I spend

a hundred dollars on marketing I'm gonna get one client. Okay? Versus a lot of people it's just a straight branding approach. Spend a thousand, what just happened? Spend a thousand and hope and pray that I get a customer or pay a fixed salary to a sales rep with a tiny bonus and hope I get a customer. Right? The more that you can tie it to commission and production, the less risk that you have and the more scalable your business will be.

And you'll be able to just pump dollars in. Don't rob. And finally, don't rob the growth capital from your business to satisfy your ego. I want that one to sink in for a second. Too many of us are in the business of impressing other people. Stop it. Stop it.

It is the worst business to be in. Nobody cares about your watch. Nobody cares about your car. Nobody cares that you're the CEO. They say they do or you think you do it. Most of it exists right here. Quit robbing the growth capital from your business. If you're not worth $100 million,

you should be eating like my buddy Pat. Freaking bread and eggs. Needs and wants are two completely different things. I operated out of my garage. You heard the growth trajectory, 16, 32, 34 million. Guess how long I operated out of my garage, you heard the growth trajectory, 16, 32, 34 million. Guess how long I operated out of my garage for? Two and a half years. Two and a half years I operated.

Because I didn't give a hell what somebody thought. I wasn't there to impress anybody. Every dollar I needed to be thrown into marketing, to be able to maintain 24% bottom line. I was there for the freaking exit. Right? That's something, that's when you can play the ego a little bit, right? You go and you sell this thing for $180 million,

then you can come out and a little bit right you go and you sell this thing for 180 million then you come out and be like yeah can I get an amen because nobody cares again nobody cares in fact they don't care about the 180 million dollar exit they don't when I sold 180 million dollar exit. They don't. When I sold my business, guess what I bought? Not a new house. I bought a pimped out Mercedes van. That was dope. I've been working on my wife for like seven years for that one. And a watch.

And simply the watch was just to indicate, here's a little accomplishment, this one's not it. Here we go. Time to keep going. So don't rob the growth capital from your business to satisfy your ego. Running the process, the groundwork, you guys have already talked a lot about this. Like this is the full process. You got to prep. You got to make sure you have a quality management team in place. You got to make sure that you've built the culture. It's repeatable. It's scaled across different locations. You've proven profitability.

That's all the groundwork. You got to go and you got to create a quality of earnings. How many of you guys have done a quality of earnings? OK. Quality of earnings is essentially you're going to hire a third party accounting firm. They're going to come in and say this is, yes, your books are this. You select a banker. Go and you interview a bunch. You select a law firm. The banker writes the book, 65 pages on why your company is the coolest thing since sliced

bread. Yeah, a lot of you guys know all this. Then you send out teasers and get I.O.I's and you do management reviews or interviews. This is the back end, right? The front end when you guys are acquiring businesses doesn't look like this, right? You guys are trying to find stuff off-market, a little bit whatever, but this is the backside to be able to go and sell this thing for nine figures. Due diligence, paperwork, and payday. I'll tell you real quick how this worked. 21, Q1 2021, we did our quality of earnings

and selected a banker. We selected a law firm. We got the book done in like April, May. We went to market. We got the teas done in like April, May. We went to market. We got the teasers and the ILYs. I think initially we got like 65 ILYs. And then, no, that's wrong. I think we, I think we got 20 ILYs. And then we selected the four or five that we want to do or the six that we want to do management interviews Then we got LOIs

We got an LOI from Morgan Stanley. That was dope That was that was freaking dope. I'm like what? Morgan Stanley and I only see your signs out there. That's dope and That thing that thing was for 240 million dollars and like And then they got cold feet That thing was for $240 million. And they're like, oh. And then they got Colfee. That sucked.

So that was fall. That was fall of 2021. So then we had, and we dismissed everybody else. We had to sign LOI, freaking suck. We're like, wait, we got to do this shiz again? Like, no, shoot me now. And so not everything will run perfect when you go and you do this type of process. But let me tell you a few things.

Selecting a banker matters, okay? We went to an industry expert, someone that had sold all the solar companies in the industry, and guess what he told us we were worth 20 million bucks Got something for you I'm like, what are you talking about? Have you not seen our trajectory? If you've not see what we're growing like he's like Oh, but last year you guys only did X and tra trailing. I'm like, dude, by the time we finish this process, I'm showing you how we're growing at 10 to 20% a month.

We're going to finish this fiscal year at $89 million with 24% profit margins. How in the world would I go and sell for $20 million? You're crazy. I'll make more of that in EBITDA this year. And he's like, oh, yeah, but you know, I'm like, screw you. So I go in and find a banker that bought in, saw the story, saw the trajectory, everything else. But this much I will say, I made the mistake by not shopping him even more. Okay? If I could go and do it all over again, I would have shopped even more bankers. I would have spent even more time on that.

Because at the end of the day, they have to tell your story. They have to make the sale. They have to present it. They have to be very vigilant. And also with the law firm, that when you negotiate, so I'm gonna give you some details on this. We should have sold, we sold for 180 million. We should have sold for 320 million. And the

difference in that 140 million was the way that we pegged the trailing 12. We had a peg which means you set it in a date and you say this is the trailing 12 and the due diligence that was supposed to only take 30 days to close Took a hundred and twenty days to go and close and guess what happened during those hundred and twenty days That was the year we were doing 233 million dollars Okay, so we're freaking just crushing and crushing and crushing and then we're like, oh crap The peg and then we got so far down the process and the due diligence and everything else. We try re-trading and everything else. And they're like, nope, this is it.

And you're just like, oh, shiz, do I take 180 or do I walk away? And ultimately, poor little Chris, I grew up in a town of 2,500, had never had two pennies to squeeze together. We decided to take it. And the other thing I wish we would have done, so we did a minority deal initially, 35 million. Now what we did do, it was not funded through debt, it was all cash on the business, which is actually pretty phenomenal in a private equity deal. There's a lot of details when you're

doing a private equity deal. One of the things you want to avoid is actually having a ton of leverage put on your business. Because guess what? Especially if you're carrying the majority afterwards, you've got to pay that thing. And so we had no debt put on the business. We took 35% cash, no earn outs, take the money,

run to the bank. It was actually wired in, but that was dope. And we do the paperwork, payday. And guess what? Chris wakes up. What's different? Nothing. Nothing.

Before that, I freaking bought a jack of cash. I had everything I wanted. Nothing freaking changed. The only thing that was like running up to that, I pulled an all-nighter for 48 hours to make sure that the people that were on the equity table, the small guys in my management team that had little pieces that they were getting paid out correctly. So I was up for 48 hours because I wanted to deliver the vision that I told them. When I walked away, when we did that deal, I made 11 other people multimillionaires on that day.

Can you give it up for that baby. Come on So nothing changed and What what I would have done differently I just shared with you the good bad and the ugly the reason I wish we would have done a Majority deal is because PE when they have their claws in you. It doesn't matter what percentage they have They could have 10% or they could have 90 percent. It's going to feel a freaking same. These guys are going to tell you what to do, even though they don't have the power to tell you what to do, and they're going to annoy the hell out of you.

They're going to text you and email you, especially the one the guy that we got in bed with, like 6 a.m. phone calls and like, oh, this sucks. This is terrible. Why didn't somebody tell me about this? So going back, would I have still done the deal? Absolutely. I would have absolutely done the deal and I would have still done it at 35%.

But in the inverse, I would have probably done it like 60 to 70% because having their claws in me is terrible. And I'll do that, I don't know if I'll ever sell the PE again. It was a great one-time experience. And sorry, twice. I was just a beneficiary at 9% on the other one. But it is painful, it sucks, you got to know what you're getting into

But it's also pretty freaking cool that somebody will cut a check to you for millions and millions and millions of dollars Forever for your hard-earned money So I stayed on for a year and a half we We did another $120 million acquisition during that time, in which we diluted a lot of the cap table to be able to do that. We put a little bit of debt on the business. March 2023, I'm driving down the road. I've got my son, I've got two of my sons in the car. And it's a two way lane, just semi coming. And all of a sudden from behind him I see another car.

What are you doing in my lane? Crosses over the shoulder on my side, I'm like dude, this guy ain't right I'm in my Tesla which Elon's freaking awesome In the last second I got a decision to make I have two seconds to make a decision two seconds Remember decisiveness is important. I have two seconds to make a decision. I can't go left. I'll go into the semi. Is this guy going to stay in my lane? Or if I go off, is he going to follow me off?

Or if I go off, is he going to follow me off? Talk about rapid decisions you got to make. And I have this whole thing on video, right? It's Tesla. You'll see. I could share with the group somehow, but it's on my social media somewhere. I decide at the last second to bail, and he bails with me. I decide at the last second to bail and he bails with me. But luckily, instead of being a head-on collision, he started right here in my rear view mirror,

this part of my door completely shredded off and right here destroyed, destroyed. I got a kid in the back, not wearing a seatbelt. And it happened so quick. I'm like, what just happened? And I look back, my son's alive. He's staring at me, he's got blood just running down his face. And I go into like panic., like dude, are you okay?

Yeah, I'm like checking him. Everything's good. The seat right behind me is literally gone. Like it's gone. He's bloody. I look over to my son, he's good. Man, Tesla's those freaking things are built incredibly. I was enveloped in these airbags.

As I'm checking my son, my phone starts ringing. What? 911, we just detected a collision. Tesla called us. That's freaking cool. Are you okay? Uh, I think so. I don't know. Yes, send whoever. That moment I get out of my car and look and I'm like, what? Like my car is destroyed. Like this thing and I look over in the field 200 yards away and this car had rolled four times

And it looks like a crumpled up soda can Three guys not wearing seatbelts completely drunk coming at me a hundred and thirty miles an hour Okay They survived It's crazy. It's crazy And while I'm out there literally we had ambulances at the scene within five minutes. It was wild. I get out, I start talking to a police officer, just like all shaken up and I was like, don't even know what's going on. And all of a sudden

I get a phone call and I, and it's my wife. Hello? Were you in a wreck? Yeah, how'd you know? Apple sent me a text with your location that you're here and you're in a wreck. I'm like, yeah, let me call you back. Yeah, I am. But we're okay. We're okay. That day changed my life forever. It freaking threw me off the game. But what I realized, so Naval, how many of you guys have ever followed Naval on Twitter? Okay, Naval, great modern day philosopher, N-A-V-A-L, like Naval, follow him, he's fantastic. One of the things he says is, the best thing that you can ever do is get rich extremely fast because then you will realize that that's not what life's about. We spend our whole lives chasing this thing the almighty dollar. Don't get me wrong, I'm a freaking capitalist. Okay, I love it.

But we chase it and we go for it and we go and we try to do these acquisitions and these roll ups and everything else. As I heard on stage earlier, if you have not defined what you're going to do post, you're screwing yourself. You need to find passion and drive drive motivational factors, not hygiene factors. Money is like oxygen. The second, when you don't have it, when you're drowning below the water, it's the only thing you can think about.

Survive, gotta pay the bills, but the second you have enough, you're no longer thinking about wow this breath is really good right same thing with money okay whether you've arrived there or you're past there money will never be the motivating factor you have to find passion in something else passion in something else. And that day, now I knew this beforehand, I'd always put, I attribute most of my success that I've always put God first and with my family. Thank you. And I chose to build a family, I chose to have a family and build a business around it rather than the alternative, which most people do. And so I knew this, but it became a reality on March 14th or whatever that day was, 2023, that there were some things way more important than running an 1100 person organization. And initially I battled with this, like do I step down, do I keep going, do I want to

spend more time with my family and da da da da. And so after about a 45 day battle, I chose to give the board my notice and to walk away. Now I still had equity in this business and I freaking loved it. This was my baby. I had bored it out of my garage. I had given it every ounce. The people that were a part of that were my family. I made the most difficult decision of my life to step away. Because I wanted to spend more time with the five beautiful children that I have, and what they matter most.

Now there's a post story to that. For the next six weeks, I tried retirement. Freaking sucked. It was the worst. I have never been more depressed in my life. Can you believe that? Never more depressed in my life. And like if I said that in any other room outside of this people like you freaking white supremacist. Like can you believe that? That a guy would be so depressed walking away. Well, poor little rich boy. But it was terrible. And the reason God put us on the earth to create. I believe that I am a son of God and that he wants me to walk in his feet.

He created the earth. He found joy in the creation. And likewise, I realized I have to be creating. I've got to be doing something that gives me value that I am working on. I don't care if it yields money. It doesn't have to yield money, right? You could be an active philanthropist that you are creating. You can go and do whatever you want as long as you are creating. And I quickly realized that I don't need 60 hours with my kids every single week. I need maybe probably another 20, right?

And I can still allocate 40 hours a week to going and building and creating and developing value. And one of my favorite things, so I run a hobby farm. I have 23 acres. My wife, her Instagram handle is farmerandrea. She loves being out in the orchards and everything else. We have nine acres of cherry trees. I love fruit cheese for this one reason. Fruit is money.

Fruit is accomplishments. Fruit is anything that you are chasing that you think will give you satisfaction. But it is quick, it is fleeting, and it doesn't always come. And when we work for the fruit, we can do everything right. I can plant the tree, I can water it, I can give it sun, I can weed it, fertilize it, do everything. And then something outside of my power comes in, frost comes, a late frost kills the blossom. What happens?

Freaking no fruit. No fruit. And most people, when that happens in real life, they're like, screw this thing, chop it down. This thing's non-fruit producing cherry tree. This job sucks. This business sucks. Why am I not getting any cherries? But the second you can shift that life is about becoming becoming the tree that is capable of producing fruit, that has all the attributes of producing fruit and is consistently being worked on. Then in the day when you get a great harvest it's cool, but that ain't the end of it. I

still need to become a bigger and better and better fruit producing tree. I need to create value in which I am going to contribute to society physically, economically with my relationships and my community with my spirituality. And when you make that shift and help your employees make that shift, you will change the world and Guys where I find passion is this anything that I can go and create Create value last question. What would I be doing if I'm in your position? I apologize Kyle. Hopefully this is engaging apologize Kyle hopefully this is engaging so if I'm sitting in your seat if I'm down here listening to Chris rants and preach and whatever else and

I'm thinking to myself okay what do I need to do? One, invest in your relationships. Life isn't fulfilling without those. Like if you've chased the almighty dollar at the expense of a spouse or having a family or having good friends, stop. Stop it. Nobody is counting their freaking bank account when they're lying in bed, on their deathbed.

Invest in the relationships, invest in your physical body. This is the vessel in which you experience the rest of your life. If you are not consistently moving the needle for your and everybody's different. You can be a hundred pounds overweight and you are still your best right you could be suffering from some X, Y, or Z. I don't know. It's you versus you. Be your best. Give more. Take care of it. Invest in something spiritual.

I don't care what you believe in. I don't care if you believe in God or karma or whatever else. Get conscious. Understand what moves you. or whatever else, get conscious. Understand what moves you. We are spiritual beings having a physical experience. Invest there. And from an economic standpoint, get in the right room. Pay to be a part of it, invest in yourself.

It is the tree, it is the absolute tree that you are consistently working on. The ability to continue to produce. If you don't know what you want, go and spend two weeks in the Bahamas on a beach somewhere and ask yourself, who is Chris Lee? I am a producer, I am a billionaire, I am a value creator, I consistently serve, I always put others first above my needs, I look for opportunities to serve, I am a great

father, I am an incredible contributor to society and then I get more detailed. I have 12% body fat. Not yet. Hey. I have all the excuses in the world though. Type 1 diabetic for 30 years and all these other things. But those aside, I have 12% body fat. Those aside, I have 12% body fat. I give away a million dollars a month in something that I am actively involved in, right? Like these are me future casting, who is Chris Lee?

Then create a freaking game plan to go and accomplish it. When you see, when you're in a dark tunnel, how motivated are you to take a step forward? You ain't. But the second there is light, the second it is clear, the second there is a path to what you want, it freaking bleeds inside of you. And you wake up and you get excited and you're ready to go. This morning I woke up at 3 a.m. I spent the night with my wife in Washington State I

woke up at 3 a.m. to catch a plane to be here. After I stepped down we sold our jet. Freaking sucks. I woke up at 3 a.m. the night after the election. I was up late with all y'all watching the results watching cheering for Trump having a at 3 a.m. why why would I be here if I've had all this success and had all these markers because that's freaking fruit who Chris Lee is is the person that wakes up at 3 makes the sacrifices delivers value is pushing his message of developing the whole human, physically, economically, association, spirituality, through entrepreneurs. Because entrepreneurs are the way that we change the world.

Not through some politician. Not through anything else. An elected official, that's bull crap. Entrepreneurs, because initially somebody's going to come because they want the fruit, they want that paycheck. But if you can teach them there is so much more, we will change the world. And with that, I'm done. I appreciate you.