Start With A Win - How To Grow a Business with Leadership

Starting point is 00:00:00 You ever wonder what I would have to say about leadership and growing a business? Well, you're in luck. I got interviewed on an amazing podcast, Destination Business Freedom by Pat Mancuso. Let's take a look. Welcome to Start With A Win, where we unpack leadership, personal growth and development, and how to build a better business. Let's go. Coming to you from Start With A Win headquarters at Area 15 Ventures, it's Adam Contos with Start With A Win. Like I said, I'm on a really cool podcast today, Destination Business Freedom. Let's take a look. Adam, welcome to the show.

Starting point is 00:00:32 Pat, it's great to see you, my friend. Thanks for having me on. My gosh, it is such a pleasure. And I know after the end of our session today and when folks listen to it, they're going to be grateful that you took the time to join us. So, you know, Adam, I've watched you for a number of years. Obviously, you were very involved at a super high level with Dave Linegar and Remax. And so I want you to share just your journey. I mean, we go from cop to leading, you know, a venture capital firm. So give us kind of

Starting point is 00:01:06 an overview of how that happened. Wow. It was, it was a fun journey. And I started out like a lot of entrepreneurs do. I'm a two-time college dropout. I got into law enforcement after I got out of the Marine Corps, very young and just started working my way up. I was in love with leadership and the way that leadership has an impact on people within an organization and the people that the organization serves. So when you take a look at that, I rose in the ranks in the sheriff's department. It was my second agency. I started a police department, went to a sheriff's department, worked my way up, worked undercover narcotics for a couple of years, which that's where I learned sales. For those of you in sales, I called it narc marketing. And ultimately, I ended up becoming

Starting point is 00:01:55 the SWAT team commander. While I was doing that, I was bit by the entrepreneurial bug. I started a online business in the late 90s selling police and government supplies. This is before the internet was a thing. I was running an internet company. I kind of wish I'd kept that because it probably would be something big by now. And I also started a security consulting firm doing counterterrorism training. I taught some SWAT schools and sniper schools, but did a lot of threat assessments and helped employees stay safe on the job. For instance, how to deal with active shooter situations is what we would know it as today. And that got me into real estate. I built a real estate agent safety program and got noticed in the industry.

Starting point is 00:02:42 The founder of Remax, Dave Linegar, I had met before in my law enforcement ventures. On a good note, he's a big supporter of law enforcement. He would come out and ride around with us and watch our SWAT team perform and things of that nature. And he asked me if I wanted to work in franchising and real estate. I thought, well, this looks like fun. I said, well, what do I do? He goes, well, you've got to start at the bottom and see where you can get. I said, okay. So hung up the, um, the police job. I'm still a volunteer. I still teach law enforcement and, uh, started at Remax and over a period of

Starting point is 00:03:17 a couple of decades, worked my way from the very bottom all the way to the very top. Wow. Wow. So, so first of all, thank you for not only your service in the law enforcement, but your service in the military and, you know, in full transparency, obviously we have a relationship through a franchise that my business has purchased. And the thing that I love about Dave and the really the mindset is how important our veterans are. So thank you so much for your service there. So I want to kind of talk to you about this entrepreneurial bug. So you've gone through that journey and now you talk with people about that journey. And what do you see are the biggest challenges or the biggest ceilings, hurdles, roadblocks,

Starting point is 00:04:05 whatever you want to call them, for people who want to own their own business but never really make it happen? I think, first of all, Pat, we all end up overthinking things to the extent that we are overwhelmed. So once we start overthinking things, we run into this fear factor. And what happens with a fear response, it's fight, flight, or freeze. And a lot of times, people just freeze. This feared out and overwhelmed overcomes us. And this is the number one reason why business deals don't get done also, by the way, folks, is overwhelm comes into the story here. When we

Starting point is 00:04:42 overwhelm ourselves or others, we stop functioning and we don't take action. Action is the antithesis of overwhelm. It gets you past that. That's the key factor that starts a business is you have to take action in order to make things happen. So whatever that service or product is that you offer, you know, you and I are both in the franchising space in sub sandwiches. We've also been in the franchising space in real estate.

Starting point is 00:05:10 Right. Ultimately, it's business is business. It's a system and a strategy integrating people and processes. But without action, nothing happens. And ultimately, that's where entrepreneurs or people who want to be entrepreneurs fail is they stop taking action. Maybe it's because that first action didn't work. I got news for you.

Starting point is 00:05:32 The first one's not going to work. The 10th one might not work. But you got to keep going. I mean, would it take like 1,000 or 10,000 tries to invent the light bulb or something like that? Right. like a thousand or 10,000 tries to invent the light bulb or something like that. But Thomas Edison kept going with it and eventually figured out how to light the light bulb. Well, that light bulb is our business. And if we stop without finding success, if you have a tested product

Starting point is 00:05:59 or service and somebody else is doing it, you can find success also. You just have to take enough action enough times in order to find that point. And once I figured that out, I was like, wait a second. I'm not one to give up. So why would I give up now? It's okay to fail over and over again. And sure, you can pivot, you can adjust. But if you're committed to be an entrepreneur and making things happen, keep taking action. So with that, let me ask you a question. If there were, if somebody is listening and they're in that state of, of fear of taking action or they haven't taken action, like what would be one or two things you would point them to? I mean, just do it obviously is one of those, but I think you can contribute more to that. So what would be one or two things if somebody came up to you and was hitting that ceiling that you would coach them

Starting point is 00:06:50 or lead them to do? Well, Pat, you said a very important word there, coach. And I know you've spent tens of thousands of hours coaching people. And really what you implement in coaching is you figure out what are they capable of? What do they need to learn? And what can they commit to do by a certain date or time? And you hold them accountable to getting those things done. So ultimately, it comes down to how can you be accountable to taking that action? If there's no accountability, there's no action.

Starting point is 00:07:20 Very few people, less than 1% of people on this planet are able to hold themselves accountable on a regular basis to entrepreneurial endeavors. That's why the majority of small businesses fail because people can't be held accountable by themselves very well. That's why people pay a coach. The better the coach, the more they pay and the bigger the outcomes that coach coaches them through in order, you know, via action, if you will.

Starting point is 00:07:46 So, Pat, I mean, first of all, folks, I would say, look up Pat and find yourself a good coach. He might be the right coach for you. He might not be the right coach for you, but I know he's been the right coach for a lot of people. And he will help you drive towards that action with accountability, kind accountability, but accountability, which is us knowing we are committed to somebody else to getting this done.

Starting point is 00:08:10 Yeah. Well, you either pay the price now or you pay the price later. And typically the price you pay later costs you way more, you know, that, that action that we avoid now, typically that is not going to go away and we're going to have to pay more down the road for that. So, and I appreciate that. Thank you so much for the kind words. We've been blessed in our journey of having an opportunity to impact lives and in people's families. And as you have done and there's just nothing more rewarding than than doing that.

Starting point is 00:08:39 And so I appreciate that. So I want to ask you, because, you know, we both kind of live in this space a little bit in our sub franchise, Port of Subs. I'm a franchisee. I'm also a regional developer. And you are leading us through that process. And the team, you know, the entire Port of Subs team has been amazing. And I know that comes from, you know, there's some, there's, there's a lot more than some touch from Dave and the success that he's had, you know, with Remax and the franchise side of it. And yet you're, you're really leading that team on a daily basis. And so leadership is you're like super passionate about this leadership. I know you are, and I love it. So talk about that a little bit.

Starting point is 00:09:25 Well, it's interesting because when you look at what is a leader and what do they do? Well, they influence and guide somebody in order to accomplish a task or change a vision or establish values within an organization. So ultimately what you're doing is you're molding that organization from the top. Now, what does that look like? It looks like, how do you act as a leader? How do you talk to people? How do you build the relationships? How do you show up as a leader, that leadership presence? Any great leader knows that people are watching what you do all the time and how you do it and how you treat others and what you say, you know, versus your execution.

Starting point is 00:10:05 So ultimately, it comes down to you got to have a good leadership system. You got to walk the walk and talk the talk as a leader. You have got to be what you expect from others. Otherwise, they're just going to look at you and go, you're just managing me through this process. Because managers manage processes. Leaders influence people in order to accomplish. Say that again. Say that again. We got to make sure that, I mean, I know it's

Starting point is 00:10:28 on recording, but, but that's, say it again. Managers manage processes. Yeah. Leaders lead people to that, those processes to get them done. So ultimately you can force somebody to do it, but they're living at the bottom of the psychology scale then. They're doing it out of safety because somebody's forcing them to do that in order to achieve a paycheck or some other outcome like that. If people are doing nothing but doing things out of safety, they're not going to put very much in. They'll give you minimum necessary. We don't want minimum necessary in leadership. We want maximum possible. Why? Because most people show up with 40% of their effort. They just show up at work with 40% effort. But with the right values, the right organization culturally, people will give way more than that 40%. Imagine just, I mean, we're just talking a B grade here.

Starting point is 00:11:22 Imagine getting 80%. That's a B in school, a B minus no less. But what if we can get 100? Or maybe we can push them beyond what they thought they could do and get 110 or 130% because they are so engaged and so inspired by the leadership in that organization that they are willing to stretch it out a little bit, feel a little pain, get out of their comfort zone, as you would say. that they are willing to stretch it out a little bit, feel a little pain, get out of their comfort zone, as you would say, that's where the magic happens of great leadership is that inspirational part. And it translates to the customer. Customer experience goes through the roof. Employee

Starting point is 00:11:55 experience goes through the roof. Employees grow in an organization. They don't leave. They don't leave. They stay because they're continuing to find more of themselves and they grow in that process. Right. Makes perfect, perfect sense. So let me ask you this question. So you obviously had the relationship with Dave through Remax and then Dave goes out and he decides he's going to get into the QSR space, right? Yes. And, you know, my son, I think, you know, this is a, is a sous chef went to culinary school and, you know, I hear the battle scars and, and, you know, so when I decided we were going to do the port of subs, he's like, dad, you do understand the restaurant space through living through me for nine years. And I go, yes. And yet what drew me to the opportunity was Dave's a pretty smart guy. Like, you know,

Starting point is 00:12:54 Remax is a really successful company. And of course, you know, I came from, you know, Keller Williams, which is obviously also a very successful company and a great leader and Gary. And, and yet I I'm curious from your perspective, I've never asked Dave this and I probably should, but like from your perspective, other than the brand, which I, you know, obviously there's a story behind the brand. What was the big deciding factor to go into the QSR space? Well, there were, there were three reasons. Um, first of all, we were looking at not just in QSR space? Well, there were three reasons. First of all, we were looking not just in QSR, but in franchising in general. So QSR is quick service restaurant for any of the listeners who aren't used to our jargon. You've got fast food, which is McDonald's, it's pre-made. QSR is one step above. It'd be like, it's sub sandwiches, it's like Chipotle,

Starting point is 00:13:44 things like that, where things are made as you request them the way that you want them. So that's QSR. And then you have casual dining and then fine dining, um, above that. So QSR is an interesting space. When you look at what causes success and what the fun part is in this whole thing. It's a fact that you have great people with a great system and a great product. If you have those three things, the people, the system, and the product, you can scale this. And what we did was we were looking at different franchise models. It doesn't matter what it was. QSR, it could have been home services. We were looking at some of those. We were looking at everything from junk hauling to painting to

Starting point is 00:14:32 hair care, restaurants, you name it, tax services, all these different things. It's a system that has a business in it. What is your product or service you offer with the system? Do the people enjoy what they're doing? And is there a passion behind that, a culture behind that that is amazing? And so we've got the system and we've got the people. Is that product really good? And once we tested that we ate the product, Port-A-Subs was not in Colorado. Neither Dave nor I had ever eaten at a Port-A-Subs. So we went out and we visited the founder. We visited some of the stores. We had the food.

Starting point is 00:15:16 We met the people in the stores. We saw how they interacted and how they treated the customers. What were the customers like? There's a cult movement behind this. I mean, you ask people, have you, have you ever been a port of subs? Yeah. What's your number? Their number is their menu number that their sub sandwiches on the, on the menu board. It's kind of a cult following. And, um, and then they had market density and a lot of areas that they wanted to grow in. And we're like, wait a sec, you're only in seven States. They go, yeah, we were comfortable where we're at. And Dave and I like to create discomfort in order to create growth. So yeah, a little bit. So, um, you know, we're used to running 9,000 locations around the

Starting point is 00:15:55 world. We're like, this is 135. Oh yeah, we can do this. Let's scale this bad boy. And let's really help our franchisees create, you know, future family wealth. Let's help our franchisees create future family wealth. Let's help our customers be able to have this amazing product no matter where they go. And let's see what we can do with this. And also, Dave has a belief, as do I, that everybody wins. So how do we go find some amazing people like yourself, Pat, to get in on this and say, let's build this thing together and we'll share in the profits and the growth of this. So that's what it came down to. So we looked for people, system,

Starting point is 00:16:32 and product, and we found it at Port of Subs. It was rock solid. We loved it. And we just grabbed onto it and ran from there. And we're excited about, I mean, the growth that we're seeing, as well as the great product and the people whose lives were changing. Yeah. You know, and I would be remiss if I didn't give, you know, some shout outs here. So what attracted me initially was obviously the opportunity. And yet I knew from owning existing franchises in the real estate space previously, how important the system was. And yet I knew from owning existing franchises in the real estate space previously, how important the system was. And yet, what really struck me and the reason there's a reason I'm sharing this is that, you know, obviously, people are going to listen to the

Starting point is 00:17:15 podcast. And you know, we talked about destination business freedom. And yet, this is part of my destination business freedom. And from the standpoint of we saw an opportunity in the regional developer space. And I had a point in time in the past, and you know this, where I didn't take action on that. There goes to that fear thing. And that's what it was at that time. But what I love about what I've experienced at Port of Subs is the people. And, you know, a shout out to Danny Johnson and her team down in Vegas, my daughter, Ashley, who's a part of our business as our director of operations. We went down there for two weeks of training and Adam, I was just shocked by the relationships inside of that operation. You know, Danny and Jody and all the people, I mean, the people were amazing to work

Starting point is 00:18:06 with, but was really amazing to me. And it validates what you're saying is people walked into that store and they knew their names. They knew what sandwiches and that stuff you can teach, but it actually comes from inside here. It comes from that belief. And then the second thing I looked at was when I visited the corporate offices back in September of last year, it seems only like yesterday. But like how many people, even though there was a transition from the prior ownership to this ownership, had been there and stayed. And that says a lot to how they perceived you and Healy and Dave and, and everybody coming in. So it's that, that validation piece is, is you said cult and that word has been used in my world for like 20 years as part of my prior, you know, real estate experience, but it really is a group of people that, um, are on the

Starting point is 00:18:57 same page and, and, and, uh, working towards the same goal. So I love that. That's a, that's a great point, Pat. And, um, I'm sure you noticed this because you pick up on these, these different business moments quite regularly, but it was interesting for us because when we went into a port of subs, there was somebody who'd been in there like 20, 25 years making sandwiches, right? It's amazing. And there are people in port of subs headquarters. It's a small staff. You know, we're talking just a few dozen people. But ultimately, we have people who have spent their entire adult career working for this company and decades. It blew me away. And now that's always one of the tests for me is what is the longevity of the talent in the organization? Are they showing up and then leaving or are they staying for an extended period of time? Not necessarily, you know, nobody's really getting rich making a sandwich, but ultimately what, what they're there for is because they love what they're doing. And that says something about a company. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, so I want to

Starting point is 00:20:02 transition and, um, uh, I want to talk to you about the impact you're having in leadership roles today. So even though you're not, you know, you're no longer involved in REMAX at the level that you were, I still know that you you have impact there. But you're still involved in real estate and real estate is going through this massive, in my opinion, and maybe I'm overemphasizing it, but it's going to continue to go through massive transition. And there's going to be, you know, winners. There's going to be people that don't win as much. And then there's going to be people who may not be in that industry years from now, but you're still active in that industry in different ways. And so I want to talk to you about the impact you're having, maybe not just in real estate, but overall, I mean, you're, you're like today, what's the thing that's driving you on a daily basis to do what you do? I guess that's a better

Starting point is 00:20:57 way to ask the question. Well, I, I love forward movement. I love getting better. And I love the risk and the pressure that you face in order to get better. So if we're not trying to do something better for ourselves, be it our health, our family, our finances. And by the way, I love what you're doing with closing the gap between finance and freedom. I mean, that is such a cool concept. And I know you're making a huge impact on a lot of people, a lot of businesses. By the way, folks, if you haven't taken Pat's quiz on that, the survey, go do it. But ultimately, it comes down to how do we find those gaps in our life in order to grow ourselves and help others grow? We have this missing component in society now because we've had some generational interruptions go on in business and in life development, if you will. A great

Starting point is 00:21:54 example of one is COVID. Before COVID, we had the great financial issues that we all experienced. If you were in real estate, 2007 to 2010, God love you. It was a rough time. Pat and I can both tell you stories of pulling our hair out over this, you know, the financial downturns. But ultimately we went through that. Things started coming back around. We hit COVID. Things started coming back around again. There's always these interruptions, these pattern interruptions in growth in business and in leadership. And I love to help people close those gaps. The biggest gap we see is these people hanging on in different business concepts and staying with something and resisting change for

Starting point is 00:22:37 good. Change happens for good in so many different ways. Change also happens for experimentation. Sometimes change happens for bad, but I consider that bad component as trial and error. We're going to fail sometimes in our change in order to find success in our change. So ultimately it comes down to how do we become better leaders in order to better affect this change and this transformation that happens in our industries? You mentioned real estate space, Pat. Between NAR, the state boards of realtors, the local boards of realtors, and the MLSs, there's a lot of interesting change going on after these class action lawsuits that have happened in the space that are still going on, by the way. There's still settlements occurring and such. But ultimately, we haven't seen this other component, which is the Department of Justice

Starting point is 00:23:22 coming in and making any changes based upon how they want to see the regulatory environment shake out with this. It's going to take some leadership fortitude in order to accept and move forward with a transformation. This is not just an enhancement to the space. This is a transformation in the space. And the only way we're going to do that is because we have good leadership in the space. And the only way we're going to do that is because we have good leadership in the space. And good leadership is accepting of trial and error. It's accepting of new ideas. It's accepting of breaking down those old concepts, like protecting the data so fiercely as a lever against people with the MLSs. And yes, I'm a little bit,

Starting point is 00:24:07 you know, passionate. I'm passionate. Yeah. I'm passionate about this, Pat, because I think that the industry can serve the consumer so much better if we have freedom of data use and we have less control by 525 fiefdoms, these invisible little things that people don't see if you're a consumer, but ultimately brokers, agents, and the consumer and the businesses that are evolving in the industry need to have the freedom to do so and help this business grow. I think the DOJ would be like, wow, this is great. So ultimately, I mean, that's just one concept that you look at here, but it comes down to us So ultimately, that's just one concept that you look at. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:24:45 But it comes down to us as leaders accepting that change is going to happen and leading that change in a positive way. You know, I know you remember this. I'm pretty sure you'll remember this. But when I started in real estate, we still had the MLS books. And it was right at the beginning of computers. And, you know, the company that I started with was a very large independent. And we were one of the first companies in the country to build out our own software to take the MLS and put it on computer.

Starting point is 00:25:13 And I'll still never forget, Adam, one of the very highly experienced real estate agency was a sweet lady. She fought that getting rid of that MLS book. I think she was the last one that the board allowed to have the book because she just fought it. And she was so sweet. She was just so sweet. But I see a lot of that in the industry and a lot of fear. And obviously, I'm not actively selling real estate, but I have a lot of clients in the

Starting point is 00:25:39 real estate industry. And you're right. I mean, there's got to be change. And at the end of the day, it's about the consumer, right? At the end of the day, it's about the consumer. And it's about meeting their objectives, their goals, no matter what side of the table they're on. So yeah, I do agree. I think there's a lot to come in that whole conversation. And would you say it's fair that the longer that it gets, the longer people fight it, the longer it's going to take to kind of get to the point where we need to get to? Is

Starting point is 00:26:11 that a fair statement? Oh, 100%. But you're always going to get people that resist change. I mean, that's just, that's human nature. You know, remember the overwhelm thing? Well, so many people were overwhelmed by so much of what's going on. And I mean, I didn't even mention the two letters AI in any of this. I mean, it's, you know, when you look at all the change going on and how fast things are evolving, I mean, come on, let's hop on the train because this is no longer just a steam locomotive that we have going down the tracks. This is a high speed train that we all need to hop on and learn about this change and accept it. And there are things that you might go, um, you know, that's not for me, but at least you learned about it and

Starting point is 00:26:49 you can speak intelligently to it and you can lead people, you know, either over, around or through it. So why not embrace the opportunity to get better yourself, gain some knowledge and help people make some decisions because you'll see it from a different perspective than they do. And we can all work together in order to achieve it. Well, I gained some knowledge the other day that Microsoft is pretty smart. They're buying up closed nuclear power plants because they're going to need the power for AI. I mean, think about that. Oh my gosh, that's a whole different level of thinking on AI. But I guess we've got to start investing in nuclear power plants. So so let's let's go to people you're working with today. And I know you may not be directly working or you may.

Starting point is 00:27:39 I don't know that. But you're doing a podcast. You're super involved in impacting people's lives. So I want to ask you a couple of questions. Sure. One, what's a great book you're reading right now that you'd share with everybody or one that you've read recently? Well, I always go back and reread The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. Darren Hardy, yeah.

Starting point is 00:27:58 It's not a brand new book, but it's one of the best books as far as business books go. I also love, again, not a brand new book, Atomic Habits. And really what we all need to do, in my opinion, is realign ourselves with how we stay within the framework and systems that give us achievement. And that's ultimately what those two books are about. How do we psychologically and physically continue to do that, as well as what are the outcomes that are created? And I think the compound effect is a great place to start. I would continuously point people back to that. It is always, you know, one of the best business

Starting point is 00:28:35 books recommended and Darren did a heck of a job writing it. It is timeless in its concepts. Yeah, absolutely. Two or three of your mentors. Well, of course, I mean, Darren is one of my mentors, Darren Hardy, the part of the guy who wrote it. I'm part of a mastermind group with Darren and Dave Linegar, who is another one of my mentors. And I look at all of those guys, there's 11 of us in that group. I look at all those guys as key mentors to me. We'll text or email or pick up the phone on a daily basis and bounce different personal ideas, everything from longevity and how to get in better shape to I have this business concept. What do you think? Or I'm seeking funding on something. Do you have anybody to connect me with? Or just, you know, how's your wife doing?

Starting point is 00:29:25 How's the family? You've been on a fun vacation. So I have a very small circle of people, but I rely on them for a lot of things like that. I love it. What's one thing that people don't know about you that you've never shared before? Wow. I try to be pretty transparent in my world. But at the same time, you know, I talk a lot of leadership. I talk a lot about personal growth and things like that. I've burned out. I've reached burnout a couple of times in my careers, but ultimately I look back at those and I think those were blessings where I was able to learn about myself. I was learned. I learned how not to be self abusive because, you know, a lot of people do get so down in the moment that they just can't find an out and, you know, whether or not it's drinking

Starting point is 00:30:16 or another bad habit or something like that. You know, I, I've learned a lot during my burnout periods that, you know, they stop happening very much because you learn how to cope and how to function. Stress happens. You know, you get into an argument with your loved one or maybe you get injured and you can't exercise. Or maybe you just fall off the bus and start eating like, you know, all sorts of garbage and horrible things to your body. But ultimately, if you figure out what doesn't work, you can focus on understanding why it doesn't work and then go after what does work because you've figured out those levers in your life also. And, um, you know, I, I I'll be the first

Starting point is 00:31:00 one to say I've hit burnout a few times. I've hit rock bottom. I've been broke. I've been sick. I've been hurt. I've been depressed. But ultimately, I look at it and I go, I learned how not to be those in your life where either it's going to be self-inflicted, which happens sometimes because you don't have the awareness, or life is just going to happen, or it's going to be a combination of both. And, you know, we're really excited that we just recently signed a book deal with Jack Canfield, and we're co-authoring a book titled Unlocking Success. And the part in the book that I tell my story is to the, you know, the combining, if you may, the collision,

Starting point is 00:31:54 it would be a better word of, you know, business was going amazing, personal life was going amazing. And then those two things collided. And it really does force you to have an awareness of I can't let myself get there. I can't I have to make sure that I don't repeat those things. And, you know, we're excited about that opportunity. And books should be out probably first quarter of next year. And so it just ties into, I'm glad that you brought that up because that transparency is really important. People look at successful people and they see all the success, but they don't understand. There's a lot of things that happen in that journey and, and, you know, and you learn from it. That's the whole reason why it's called a journey, right? Totally. Well, congratulations on that book deal. I didn't mention it in my book list, but it is one of my favorite books. Jack Canfield's The Success Principles. Yes.

Starting point is 00:32:52 I mean, literally, I mean, get that book, put on your nightstand. There's 52 chapters, one chapter for every week. Spend a week reading the chapter and putting that chapter into place. And they're not, they don't go out of style. It's, you know, that's what's funny about personal success. And you, you know, may agree or disagree, but, you know, when you go back to the, you know, the Earl Nightingales and the, you know, Napoleon Hill and all those folks, all those concepts that they talked about that are still valid today.

Starting point is 00:33:23 And people put their little twists on them, but foundationally, they're still valid today. Yeah. You want, you want to hear one of the greatest speaking, this is for all your listeners. One of the greatest speaking voices ever is Earl Nightingale. Go look him up on YouTube or something like that and listen to that man. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. He was, he was one of my favorites.

Starting point is 00:33:42 And then Ziegler was one of my favorites just because I loved his accent. I love how he talked about his wife and, and yeah. Yeah. He was, he was one of my favorites. And then Ziegler was one of my favorites just because I loved his accent. I love how he talked about his wife and, and yeah. Yeah. Now I'm dating myself because I found out I'm young, I'm older than you. And like, okay, I got that. But like, okay, these, these timeless mentors and, and success scientists, I guess, if you will, you know, their concepts, they didn't come up with them. These, these concepts, they're just finding ways to refine them and help re deliver them to us. They come back from Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates. And it's fascinating to take a look at the history of how success is creative. And mankind has not changed that much. Success is created in a relatively similar way. It's just redefined as the generations change. And these key people have delivered it in a timeless manner. And it's so exciting to hear you say those voices because those are the things that I go back and listen to in the evenings and read on weekends. So thank you for bringing that up.

Starting point is 00:34:49 Yeah. No, I appreciate it. Okay. I'm going to give you the last word. Give us one thought that you would share as we end our conversation. Wow. Well, I would say it's right over my shoulder here. If anybody is watching the video here, it's stay hungry and stay humble. I mean, the reality is I was, I was in a very small mastermind and one of the key leaders in the tech space, one of the top tech companies in the world, the CEO was standing there. And I asked him, I said, I'm a young CEO. I'm trying to figure out how do I not screw up this CEO thing? What advice do you have for me? And he said, Adam, I will tell you two things. One, stay hungry. You have to learn something

Starting point is 00:35:31 every single day and you have to return that favor to everybody that you lead and that your organization serves and stay humble. There is no job that is too small for a key leader to go and do. And nobody that is outside of your realm of help where you can step in and make a difference for those people. So stay hungry and stay humble. I love it. I love it. I love it.

Starting point is 00:35:57 If someone wants to reach out to you, get in touch with you, follow you, what would be the best way for them to do that? I simply put my name, adamcontos.com. You can find me at Adam Contos, CEO, all over the different social media platforms. I have a YouTube channel, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. But if you want to go to my website, adamcontos.com slash leadership, you can put your name and your email in there, and I'll keep you up to date on everything I've got going on. I love it. I love it. And of course, we have to share, if you have interest in building generational wealth, www.portasubs.com because we have amazing opportunities in so many markets across the country, very like prime markets,

Starting point is 00:36:44 right? I mean, this is like, you know, I'm thinking maybe I need to go outside of Minnesota, maybe go south so I can do both times of the year. But Porta Subs, you go there and click on for franchising because the opportunities are amazing. The team is amazing. And we're just truly blessed to be in business with y'all. So thank you so much for that. Adam, thank you so much for your time today. Absolutely amazing. I appreciate it. And all the contributions that you give back to the team

Starting point is 00:37:12 and to the world through what you do as well. Thanks, my friend. And thanks for all you do, Pat. you

Start With A Win - How To Grow a Business with Leadership

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.