The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 025: Mike Michalowicz – Why You Should Put Profit First…

Episode Date: June 7, 2015

Episode 025: Mike Michalowicz – Why You Should Put Profit First… This was a very interesting conversation with Mike Michalowicz… Mike has had some very great moments and some low moments… Including a heartbreaking story about telling his family he went broke.  The response from his daughter in particular was incredible.  You’ll want to hear Mike tell this story… By his 35th birthday MIKE MICHALOWICZ (pronounced mi-‘kal-o-wits) had founded and sold two multi-million dollar companies. Confident that he had the formula to success, he became an angel investor… and proceeded to lose his entire fortune. Then he started all over again, driven to find better ways to grow healthy, strong companies. Among other innovative strategies, Mike created the “Profit First Formula”, a way for businesses to ensure profitability from their very next deposit forward. Mike is now running his third million dollar venture, is a former small business columnist for The Wall Street Journal; is the former MSNBC business make-over expert; is a popular keynote speaker on innovative entrepreneurial topics; and is the author of Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, which BusinessWeek deemed “the entrepreneur’s cult classic.” Episode 025: Mike Michalowicz – Why You Should Put Profit First… Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher Radio. The Learning Leader Show “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what brings you alive.” Some Questions I Ask: Why do we fail to execute on these great ideas? Why don’t you like the content that Tim Ferriss produces? What is one exercise people can do to get out of their comfort zone? Which three people would you love to be at your dinner table? What books have influenced you most? Which individual leader has had the most influence on you? In This Episode, You Will Learn: The heart breaking story of his daughter offering up her piggy bank when Mike went broke How to use swearing well Tactics to become a better public speaker How Dale Carnegie has influenced him so much How to properly set goals The elements that define a quality life How long it takes to become an overnight success Continue Learning Read:  Profit First Read: The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur Follow Mike on Twitter: @MikeMichalowicz You may also like these episodes: Episode 001: How To Become A Master Connector With Jayson Gaignard From MasterMind Talks Episode 002: How To Take Over And Set Bigger Goals With Chris Brogan Episode 004: How Todd Wagner (and Mark Cuban) Sold Broadcast.com To Yahoo! For $5.7 Billion Episode 010: Shane Snow – How To Accelerate Success Using Smart Cuts Did you enjoy the podcast? I love learning from people who bring a new idea to the table… That is what Mike has done.  Mike is an extremely interesting person. Who do you know that needs to hear this?  Send them to The Learning Leader Show! Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell   Bio From mikemichalowicz.com By his 35th birthday MIKE MICHALOWICZ (pronounced mi-‘kal-o-wits) had founded and sold two multi-million dollar companies. Confident that he had the formula to success, he became an angel investor… and proceeded to lose his entire fortune. Then he started all over again, driven to find better ways to grow healthy, strong companies. Among other innovative strategies, Mike created the “Profit First Formula”, a way for businesses to ensure profitability from their very next deposit forward.   Mike is now running his third million dollar venture, is a former small business columnist for The Wall Street Journal; is the former MSNBC business make-over expert; is a popular keynote speaker on innovative entrepreneurial topics; and is the author of Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, which BusinessWeek deemed “the entrepreneur’s cult classic.”

I think a learning leader realizes they're often wrong. And the second that they become extremely confident, the second I become extremely confident in an opinion that's usually a lead indicator that I'm wrong, that it's tainted. And I need to challenge myself. The second we say we're right, the second I say, yeah, I'm right, I'm right and right. What that also says is I don't need to learn anymore because I'm right. It's stintz learning. It stops learning.

So the ability to say I'm wrong, my paradigm may have shifted, the reality is possibly different, and to constantly challenge myself and look for something new is the definition for me of a learning leader. Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. Hey, and welcome to The Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk.

Tonight's guest, another really energetic and intelligent, really smart guy. It's Mike McCallowitz. Mike, by the time he was 35, had founded and sold two multi-million dollar companies. He then became an angel investor. He proceeded to lose all of his money's entire fortune. He told us a really emotional story about how he had to be. to speak to his kids about that. And his daughter, it's really, really good.

You'll hear it here soon. A couple other things we got into are how studying stand-up comedians will make you a better public speaker. How taking improv classes will improve your life and relationship with your spouse. And then Mike's definition of a learning leader. Obviously, hence the title of the show, I wanted to get his idea on that. Mike's also written three books called The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, the Pumpkin Plan, and and profit first, great, great books.

Highly recommend them. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, it's Mike McCallowitz. What's up, Mike? How are you doing, man? I'm doing well, Ryan. How you doing? Great, man. Again, I really, really appreciate you coming on a learning leader show here with me.

I have listened to a lot of your words on podcast, TV, read your books, obviously, all the things, man. So I'm a big fan, so it's really cool for me to get to talk to you. and I'd like to give you the floor here for a little bit to give your, your intro for the few people out there who don't know you that you can, yeah, exactly. What? That's crazy. Yeah.

So for those few people, how about you give your story as to what you've done, you know, in the past and then what you're doing right now. You got it. And it really is an honor to be here. I love that you're doing this and getting the kind of inside scoop or behind the scene stuff of what's going on with folks. So thank you.

Cool. Well, I think instead of the two people that don't know me, it's like two people that do know me, I think the majority of the world hasn't heard of me yet. I'm an author, former entrepreneur. I still do many entrepreneurial things. I built and was very fortunate to sell a couple companies. I used to be in the IT industry, so setting up networks. And then I had a company also in computer crime investigation, which I subsequently sold to Robert Half International.

let's say it's a Fortune 500. Yeah, I've heard of them. Yeah, so they own account temps, office temps. They own a division called Portivity, which is in risk management, and they acquired my forensics firm. That's not the interesting. That's kind of the background stuff. I think the interesting thing is after I sold that company, I was wealthy, and I was in

my mid-30s. And I think the only thing really bigger than my bank account at that point was my ego, because I thought I was God's gift to business. is I just thought I was just a genius and that was better than everybody else. And that became my downfall. I became an angel investor. I love when I call myself the angel of death because I sucked at it, Ryan. And over a short period, about two years of spending money frivolously on cars and big

house and joining the clubs and all, like, BS, I lost all my money making poor investments. They weren't even investments. I was just throwing money out the window thinking I was such a genius. I could fix or make anything successful and lost everything. And really it brought me to this moment where I was on the verge of bankruptcy. I couldn't pay my taxes. Came home to my family sobbing and saying I've lost it all because at the top of that point, I'd been admitting the fact that I was losing everything.

And I told my family, everything's gone. Our house is gone. Our cars are gone. Everything's gone. Wait, do you have kids at the time? Yeah, three children. I like you, you have five daughters? Yeah, man, it's crazy.

I have one daughter, but three, two boys, so three total. Oh, I can't imagine that day. Oh, I'll never forget. It was February 14th, Valentine's Day, 2008. So it wasn't that long ago. And I told this, and my daughter, she was nine years old at the time, runs out of the room. And in that moment, they all went to slow motion. I'm like, that's what I want to do.

I want to run away, run away. But she didn't run away. She came back in with her piggy bank and she slid it over to me and she goes, Daddy, I'm going to help us. And it was humbling, humiliating, empowering. It was like every emotion and packed into that. It was a punch to the face that I needed. It was more than embarrassed. I realized my lack of financial understanding put my family on the brink of feeling they got to save me.

So what happened in that moment was I said, I got to fix this. and I endeavored to find solutions. But what's interesting is it wasn't like the next morning I woke up and said, Yehah, here I go, I'm going to fix this. I went through a bout of depression. I went through for about two years of functional depression, drinking when I shouldn't be drinking, couldn't sleep, constant stress and panic, wish I wouldn't wake up in the morning. But when I did wake up, I would try to slog through the day just to get to sleep again.

And hopefully, it was just disgusting. Yeah, two years. That's a long time, man. Two years, yeah. Watch more infomercials, I think, than anyone on this planet has. Wow. Yeah. And it was not, and my wife called it the dark cloud.

Like, I was a dark cloud to be around. And I, um, but what did come out of it was I started to become an author. I started writing books. And I started to challenge myself to find solutions to my own problems. And when I found them to document them and share them. So I wrote this book called the Toy Paper Entrepreneur. where it was a very edgy kind of reentry to entrepreneurship. Like, how do you start up when you have nothing?

And that was kind of a lesson I was learning. I subsequently wrote a book called The Pumpkin Plan, and then my most recent book, it's called Profit First, which was actually lessons I learned about money management. And so I was kind of a long intro to who I am, but I'm an author, full-time. I just, you know, there's a lot of speaking and stuff, and I now own for profitable businesses

and in different capacities participate as a lot of. a silent partner and one of the businesses I'm a very active full-time participant in. And that's what I do. So you've reached the income levels where you were before, safe to say? No, so this is funny. The income is less. My profitability is the highest I've ever been. So the take home for myself, yes, I'm at a level I've never experienced before.

My businesses as a whole, their income is actually less. So when I sold my business, it was doing $7 million in revenue and I had barely taken home $100,000 in revenue for myself, income to myself. I was struggling to pay bills, and I was panicked because I had to cover $7 million of expenses, payroll stuff. Today, cumulatively, my business is just due over a million, and I'm taken home. I don't even want, I want to be careful about what I share, or I used to share everything. Let me say, I am far more financially, stronger personally than I've ever been,

and on less revenue, which means actually less stress on my business. I don't have to worry about this crazy employee payroll nut I have to cover. Yeah. And more and more is coming through to me to the levels I've never experienced before. Actually, my income, my tax return is sitting here in front of me and I got to pay taxes to a tune of six figures, which I've never had to do before. But that's a blessing because it means my income is representative of that. Yeah. And that's a good thing.

That's awesome. I appreciate you sharing the story, man. I think that's the cool thing that people like to hear about. And I was telling you, you know, before we start recording, is that the transparency, the realness, that stuff is both educational and entertaining to me. And I think it is to the people listening to the show. So I definitely appreciate that because it's not always the easiest thing to do to tell the stories about, especially the one that just pulls out your heartstrings, man, when your daughter with the piggy bank. Like, I think we all could envision that potentially happening and it would just be just crushing, man. Like, it would just kill you, you know?

I was embarrassed to share that story for years, and I didn't. And finally, the first time I shared the story was about two years ago when I started writing about it. And it's become almost like therapeutic for me. Every time I share it, it still hurts, but it feels better. And then I realize that my life, our lives are peaks and valleys. And when I'm in a valley, I realize there's a peak coming. And it's helping with those valleys. But also when there's a peak, I realize valleys come too.

and my lows are a little less low, but my highs are a little less high. And for me, it's a better life. It's less manic. Yeah. So I just thought of this, and I haven't actually asked this before, which is crazy given the title of the show, but this show is all about leaders, specifically leaders who learn, learn from both success and failure, which is evident that you have. And I'm curious, when you hear that phrase, somebody who's a learning,

leader, which you know, you're one of the definitions of that. What does that mean to you? So it's very clear what means to me. It is saying, I don't know, a lot. And I may be wrong a lot. And this has been my assumption, but my assumption could have been wrong all along. You rewind only five, six years of my life. I knew the answers.

I was confident. I was confident. Like, this is the answer, period. Yeah. And I got proof by success. but now I look at things and I'm like, oh, you know, there's so many dynamics changing. Even if something was quote unquote right for a period of time, time has changed. So maybe the answer's changed.

I think a learning leader realizes they're often wrong. And the second that they become extremely confident, the second I become extremely confident in an opinion that's usually a lead indicator that I'm wrong. That it's tainted and I need to challenge myself. The second we say we're right, the second I say, yeah, I'm right, I'm right and right. What that also says is I don't need to learn anymore because I'm right. It's stints learning. It stops learning. So the ability to say I'm wrong, my paradigm may have shifted, the reality is possibly different.

And to constantly challenge myself and look for something new is the definition for me of a learning leader. Are you in a position right now where you feel pretty good? I mean, you've written three books. People have gone crazy about all of them. You know, I think Business Week called the toilet paper entrepreneur, the entrepreneur's cult classic, right? So you've got like some huge pub, man, and like they're really, really well done. A lot of people who has, who have accomplished those things would say,

this guy's an expert. He knows it all. He's basically just having to kind of tweak things here and there. He probably reads some current events, stuff like that, talks to other thought leaders. But basically he's kind of got this thing figured out. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. And so I do think like, oh, I got it going.

Like, like follow this trend. But when I say that now, I'm like, oh, oh, that's an indicator of stop learning in an area. So I do, it's a weird yin and yang. You have this, I have this balance of, okay, I have confidence because this is working, but also that's an indicator of a potential failure point. So I constantly explore and retest areas. I've become much better at listening. I used to, you know, if someone was a brand new to an industry or brand new, I'd say, well, what the hell do they know?

I know more, and I no longer do that. I listen because even if someone doesn't have experience, they're bringing an opinion or perhaps something that's going to trigger a new vantage point for me. So, yeah, it is a weird balance. I'm not constantly changing and saying, oh, I'm constantly wrong. I have when a confidence appears, I say, okay, that means it's been working and I believe in it, but I need to challenge it. it's just a strange balance. It's a dichotomy almost. Yeah, I see what you're saying.

So, you know, you give a lot of speeches. You obviously have written and had a ton of people read them, read them, they've listened to things you say. And this is one aspect of it that I do ask a lot of people. And this is surrounding execution. So people go to a training session. They listen to you talk. They read your book. They listen to this podcast.

They get great ideas, right? They can grasp the ideas. intellectually. Oh, yeah, that's a great idea. That sounds good. I like that. I might even write it down. However, then the execution portion of actually putting it into work is where a lot of people just kind of, they struggle, they don't do it. It's like New Year's resolutions type thing. What specifically, if there was one or two ideas or a few ideas that people could bullet point to say, not only am I going to grasp this great idea, I'm going to execute on it and not just for a week or a day, but I'm going to really implement this into my life long term.

So this has been the key for me. We are horrible multitaskers. We all say we can do it. We can't. We are horrible at doing multiple goals. So a lot of us say, you know, what's your five goals for this quarter? What's your three goals for the year? And I believed in that too.

But I've recently changed my opinion, too. It's what's the one thing? And that we need to act kind of this serial mindset, serial meaning S-E-R-I-L, where it's accomplish one thing, accomplish one thing. So this is kind of the process I use. Collect all ideas. So that's the thing I do. I collect all ideas. Then prioritize which one will have the biggest impact and then choose the first thing to do and see it through to completion. And so what I do, and I actually have a list in front of me, I was collecting ideas today. I wrote down actually about 15 new ideas. And it's attached

this list of hundreds ideas. Where I noticed, by the way, is there's patterns. Some ideas come up over and over again, maybe different flavors, but the same idea. But then this is my little trick. Next to each idea, I put symbols. I put a smiley face next to an idea of something that will impact an existing client of mine. And why it gets a smiley face is if I'm serving an existing client, I found that is the best way to, A, generate more revenue. It's serving a client, but also it's the best marketing piece because happy clients talk, social media, whatever, But a happy client inevitably is your strongest form of marketing. It's the foundation of word of mouth.

The second symbol I use is a dollar sign. So if I have an idea that I'm convinced and confident will generate money for me within the next 60 days, it gets a dollar sign. And the last thing is an infinity sign, meaning if I do this task and I complete it, it will create a system now that can run on automatic, meaning I got canned email, for example, and the system can automatically respond with a single click. or one of my employees, I have three employees, if one of my employees now can do the work for me and complete it to the level of quality that I need to complete it. So as I write down these ideas, I put these symbols next to it, and I notice sometimes an idea gets no symbol. Well, that's very low priority.

Sometimes ideas get three symbols. For example, it'll serve a client. It will make me money, and it creates a system that will run on automatic. Wow. Well, by doing the simple symbol system, now I figure out the things that really will have the biggest impact of my business, and that's the one thing I do until completion. And I keep working through this list. I notice that some ideas have been sent this list maybe for a year and never got a symbol. Well, those things would have never had an impact, so they're off the list. Other things

jump to the top of the list because they'll have huge impact and we'll do it right away. So that's how I prioritize things. And what I found is the impact of my business has been profound. I can associate direct revenue to it, processes and systems have been developed because of it. And I'm no longer prioritizing on due dates like I used to saying, oh, this should be done by end of the week. This is what I'm going to make the due date. Now it's prioritized on impact. And that's been a prolific change on efficiencies and profitability for myself.

Have you coached others to do that? And you've seen that specific exercise help them? A few people. I'm actually going to write a book about it one day. I wrote an article about it for the Wall Street Journal a few years ago. And I actually even wrote the method in, I think it was in Profit First, my newest book. But what I found is interesting when people come to reading books, articles too, but really when comes to reading books, they get the one core concept.

So people read Profit First. It's a 200-page book, and you read everything, or maybe some of it, or maybe just the beginning. But the end of the day, it's, oh, I'm going to take my profit first. So when I take revenue in my business, I'll extract my profit first and then pay expenses. And then the other concepts like this concept I shared that's in the book, kind of gets forgotten. But what's interesting is that it spawns a whole new book about productivity or prioritization or whatever we're going to call it.

So the answer to your question shortly, no, I haven't coached many people on it. I don't know many people doing it, even though I've talked about it on multiple venues and spaces. Is that something you want to do, though, in the future? Oh, yeah, I'll definitely write a book about it. No, I mean like one-on-one group coaching or anything like that. No, you know, I found that I'm not a good coach. I'm too hyper and ADD. And I've tried coaching, but working with someone for hours on end, trying to drill something home, my energy wanes, and I'm having low impact.

So I actually have a coaching organization I've started. It's called Preventus Group. I have a president, her name's Donna, who runs it, and we have coaches who do this stuff, but that's not my strength. So I don't do that. I gotcha. Okay. Are you big on goal setting? Is it something that you practice that you have a part of your life?

I'm big on goal setting, but as I've kind of saying earlier, I've now shifted to the one. goal. So what's the one goal I have this quarter for my organization, as opposed to three or four? This quarter, it's all about the one company I'm really actively involved in. It's called Profit First professionals. We're certifying accounts and bookkeepers in my book, Profit First. It's a big thing is getting people up to speed, our members, up to speed on Profit First. It's all about the training and ingraining the mentality into their own business. So I've been working on the systems that do that that's my one thing how to get members up to speed on profit first and and integrated into their own business that's my one goal and next quarter will be the

next goal okay so like one of the more kind of like your practice before you focus on the most important task at hand and say I'm gonna I'm gonna absolutely crush it at that one and then before I move on to the next one right right and then you listen other things pop up and there's emergencies and things so I'm not like not only doing one thing but at the end of day I asked myself did I make moment, did I have movement in this category? Did I push it along? And I have measurables associated with statistics and smart goals, all tied to that one goal. At the end of the quarter, I'm going to say, did this get accomplished? But every day, I'm hitting that theme. Like, am I doing this? Am I doing this?

I'm making progress. And sure enough, I've only been doing that for the last three quarters or so of picking one thing. I've achieved more in picking one thing than I have been trying to achieve three or five goals. So I want to transition a little bit to public speaking is something I'm fascinated about. I talked to a lot of people who give speeches, something I'd like to do at some point. I've done it a little bit. Is that something that you've had to really work at and get coaching for yourself, or is it something that's come natural to you? Both. So, you know, I love public speaking.

It's my favorite thing actually to do. I think it ties into ego. It's nice to have 100 or 500 or, you know, My biggest venue is 3,000 people listening just to you. It's definitely an ego trip. But that being said, I've put a lot of time into getting better at it. So I've taken courses. I went through improv training.

Really? Yeah. How was that, man? Awesome. Really? Oh, by the way, and you're married. It is the best thing you'll ever do with your wife. So I signed up for it, and I told my wife, I'm like, hey, hon, do you want to just try this with me?

And she's like, okay, ends up being the best dates. We still, I did it three years ago with her. We went through six months of this training. We still tell stories about it around the dinner table, all these funny moments and stuff. But the power of improv is, it shows you how to capture moments, a comment from an audience, a slip up on stage, whatever happens while you're presenting, and then how that can spin into a very powerful, impactful moment. And improv isn't just comedy. There's a lot of comedy.

but it's just spinning off of moments as they present themselves. And after I took that class or I went through that training, I feel I've become a much more impactful speaker because I can leverage the energy flow and the moments that happen live that you can't really prepare for in a traditional sense. Are there people that you study specifically? Yes. Who's that?

Comedians. Yeah, I was just going to say that. I was getting to, because they seem to have like the quickest wit, so to speak. I love stand-up comedy. Love it. I watch it. Listen to it.

Other podcasts, watch them on TV, whatever YouTube. So, yeah, I'll let you go, but I just, it's funny that we're thinking the exact same thing. It is the exact same thing. So I watch the comedy channel. I watch every stand-up comedian I can see. Now, if you think about it, there's a couple things they do. First of all, they never or extremely rarely have any kind of presentation material besides

themselves. Right. No PowerPoints. Most speakers, by the way, use PowerPoints. And the comedian. is able to engage in audience for a full hour, plus or minus, a full hour without needing to present text or pictures, which means they make their stories and presentations so engaging that the audience paints the picture in their own mind.

Great point. So, yeah, that's the biggest lesson. I don't use any PowerPoints. Really? Never. Oh, never. Not even for like a visual, a picture to help solidify a story, anything like that? Never, never.

And so I, which has forced me to make people draw pictures in their own mind. Yeah. The key is this. you can't kind of say it as much as you got it to figure out common stories that they're already familiar with. So when I'm drawing it, I have to draw an inverted chart in people's mind. I'll say, you know, everyone knows the Olympics, right? Yeah. Well, you know the Olympic symbol, the circles?

Picture just three of them, two up high and one down low. Now push those circles together in your mind so they intersect. And in the middle, you have the intersection of all three circles. Can you see that? And people are like, yeah. Well, that's, I just drew a chart in your own mind by referencing something you're familiar with, the Olympic symbols. That's how you do it. And it becomes much more magnetic because their whole time they're engaged in listening to you and their mind is drawing the

picture. They'll remember that much better than me showing three circles on a screen intersecting. That's how you do it. So lesson one from comedians is pictures, have people paint pictures in their own mind, no PowerPoints. Very powerful. It's engaging. It forces you, forces you to become a much better storyteller. The second thing is, comedians always tell stories, right? Stories are magnetic and memorable. The third thing is humor is the most engaging component. So I tell stories.

Now, they're humorous, and what I do is, you know, I hope I'm funny at times, but I'm not great at making up jokes. I find jokes from those comedians embedded into my own stories. You know, like, I'll say, oh, yeah, who's here married in the audience? Everyone's married. I'm married, too. I found Mrs. Ray. I got married very earlier.

in life. I got married when I was 23. But I ultimately found out what her full name is. Mrs. Always Right. And people, that's not my joke. That came from a comedian. But when embedded into the story, it flows very well. And people are like, oh, my God, I love it. So comedians can deliver jokes to you that you can use in your audience. The other thing I learned from comedians, too, is the importance of gesticulation, body movement. If you watch a comedian, they don't stand there behind a podium. They have a microphone in hand, and they're moving their body in a way that plays out or exemplifies the story. So they make these massive movements on stage, which is called gesticulation, that enhances the storytelling. When they make facial expressions, they're not

small. They're big facial expressions so people throughout the audience can see it. A smile isn't just a little smile. It's a massive smile. A frown isn't a little frown. It's a big frown. Rolled up eyes are the whites of the eyes in a big way. So there's a lot of. Lots to learn from them. And I watch comedians, I would say almost every night I'll spend at least a half hour watching a comedy show. And, yeah, laughing out loud and having fun watching it, but definitely learning from those guys and gals. I love them too, man. Who are your favorites?

I love, oh, my God. Pat and Oswald is probably my favorite. Extremely intelligent, extremely intelligent. He plays off of his body, his physique. He's got a very unique kind of munch. I hope he doesn't listen to this. A munchkin kind of look to him. And the guy is a genius at how he leverages his looks.

Lewis Black. Lots of comedians use swearing to draw attention or not funny. He uses it really to play into his character. So his swearing to me is not offensive. It plays up the character where other comedians it can be offensive. I love trying to think of folks. Dane, Dane Cook, yeah. Yeah, great gesticulator, body motion, just watching him how he walks the stage.

It's been a great learning lesson and how he can play it up. Yeah. Female comedians, Chelsea Handler, I was actually disappointed by, but then I saw her opening act for a show, and she crushed it. She's funny. Chelsea Handler's funny. Yeah. The opening act blew my mind away of how to do facial expressions. Really?

Yeah. there's some other comedians that just play straight up. You know, if you don't watch George Carlin, you're a fool. I mean, you've got to watch some of the classic comedians. Definitely. Robin Williams on just on how to deliver energy. Steve Martin was selling out arenas, right? I mean, just staying in there by himself.

I mean, you know? Steve Martin, his backstory was amazing. You know, how much he hustled. He wasn't getting shows. How much he hustled. And he, I remember reading a story about his breakthrough moment was he was on stage, the lights went out, and people started walking out, and there was no sound of nothing. He said, this was his moment to decide, should he continue the show or not, and he said, I'm going to continue.

But since people were leaving, he walked out with him and followed the crowd, which went to a fraternity party, this college. He said there was an empty pool there, and he said, he's going to do a show. He got into the pool and started doing a show from inside the pool. People were laughing and so into it, they went in the pool. He started swimming, quote, swimming through the audience because they were carrying him, and he knows that's when he, had it. That was his breakthrough moment. That's cool, man. I like that story. Yeah, he was powerful.

That's cool. I didn't mean to get off on that tangent, but I like, I love, uh, the way people learn about things and get better. It comes from usually the great ones I find. It comes from many different places. And maybe places where people wouldn't think, somebody would say, oh, he probably just studies, you know, Dan Pink or somebody who's great. You know, it's public speaking. But the fact of saying, no, you pick up things from other professionals in a completely different line of work and stand-up, which again is something that I love because I also have the fact that they are so honest and transparent. And as you learn and go through, it's so easy over time to see the people who are fake

or phony and then see the people who are real and transparent. That's why I like I love podcasting so much, both doing it and listening to them because it's impossible to fake that over time. just can't do it. It's just too much. You're going to talk for whatever, an hour at a time and do it a couple times a week. That's just too hard to be fake. And that's why I love that medium. And standups are in that exact same boat, I feel. Yeah, I agree 100%. You know what's funny is there's two things that make people attractive. Physical looks is attractive and showing your flaws, which ironically sounds like the opposite is attractive. So Chelsea Handler, we'll talk about her.

She's an interesting. Attractive person. And then, then she's very capable of showing her flaws. In one bit she talked about how she crapped her pants and went on for 10 minutes about how she crapped her pants. And it's magnetic because it's like, wow, even someone attractive can be flawed, which makes them even more attractive. So what I found is when it comes to being a speaker, we all can be attractive. We have to present ourselves professionally, cleanly, dress appropriate, not just,

but probably dress well to really complement our physical presentation. which makes us attractive, but then show our flaws, which makes us even more attractive. It's kind of a bizarre, bizarre balance. Yeah, this is really, really cool. I like the stuff. Who's been your biggest influence on your life, man? A family member or somebody else? Who would you say?

Well, I'm a big book reader, and so one of the biggest impacts was Dale Carnegie's books. So, of course, I've never met him. I have quotes from him around my office. I went through actually a training course called the Dale Carnegie course and read his books. I made this thing called my Heavenly Board, which is kind of weird, but my Board of Advisors, while I have a real human live one, my quote-unquote heavenly board is Dale Carnegie, and I have a quote from him. It's George Washington, Sun Su, Harold Thurman, Whitman, and I have their quotes on, I can't show it to you,

because we're not doing this on video, but I have it on my wall, and I'll look at their quotes, and when I consider a new decision like, hey, what should I do for my website? I'll look at these quotes and try to seek guidance from their wisdom they shared. So one example is Harold Thurman Whitman, his quote that I have in my wall with a painting. It says, don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. Well, that quote has so much impact to me that when I'm designing my website,

I'm saying, is this what the world needs? or this is what's making me come alive because that is what the world needs. And it gives me a different perspective on something as simple as a website design. I like that a lot. That's pretty neat, man. So I'm thinking about this is, because you're in the realm of, I don't know if you view yourself this way, but kind of a positive psychology mindset. Would you say that that's accurate?

Yeah, yeah. So there are people, a subset of people who view that with skepticism out there. when you come across those types of people, what do you say to them? Well, I've been on both sides, right? So I've been through depression, and that's the epitome of negative. And it's interesting is the mind talk or junk that goes on and the slogging of progress I made through my life compared to when I'm when I've been and feel optimistic. What's interesting is that what we speak about in our head ultimately becomes a reality because our actions are dictated by our thoughts. Like if I say I want a cup of coffee, the reason I get a cup of coffee is because I had the thought of I want a cup of coffee.

Then I took an action accordingly to make that happen. Well, my head was like, God, today effing sucks, man. I will then take the action that's consistent with that. Then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I look at the day saying, there's an opportunity in today. I'm going to make something happen. I'm not guaranteed something's going to happen. I'm not stupid like that.

But I realize if I think that way, I'm going to take actions that are more consistent with that and the likelihood of that happening is greater. You see, when I have a negative mindset, like, today's going to suck, sometimes something good will happen just by pure happenstance, but my actions will be consistent with bad things happening and therefore way more bad things will happen.

The question I ask when people say, you know, Mike, just get more real, get grounded, life kind of sucks, you know, it's a bitch and then you die. I'll say, well, how's that been serving you? What's your life been like? Well, it sucks, see? I told you life sucks. And I'm like, well, maybe it's time to consider a different vantage point because maybe the

reason your life sucks is because you think it's going to suck. Yeah. You know, the other thing is certain naysayers, there's no persuading them. I'm not going to waste my time. I'm like, you know what? I get it. Your life sucks and you know what you're proving it to be true. I think it's time for me to move on.

And of course, that's not the words I use. but that's the thoughts that go through my head. I inevitably try to surround myself with people that are pursuing opportunity, are achieving opportunity. And I'll give you just one quick example, not to kill this point. When I first wrote a book, when I first came out, Toy Paper Entrepreneurs, I was writing it, person after person said, dude, being an author sucks, you'll never make money doing it. You've got to make money selling products or doing something, but you know, you'll never make

money selling books. And I said, well, tell me how much money you've made selling books. And they would say, well, I've never done it. So I'm like, okay, so that's useless feedback. Or it's failed for me. Then I was on a TV show called The Big Idea. It's long gone now, but it was a show on CNBC. And I get invited to go out on the show.

And sure enough, the other guest is Tim Ferriss. So I go, Tim, I'm writing a new book called Toy Paper Entrepreneur. Can you make money selling books? He's like, fuck yeah, man. And he goes, this is how you do it. And he's like, I made a million dollars. I'm like, ah. So ask a person that successfully achieves something,

And they'll tell you how to do it. Ask people that haven't even done it, and they'll tell you the other side. So now I seek out people that successfully achieve something, and the story's always different. It's always better. And it's always, for me, been the path to follow. I love Tim's podcast, too, and all his books, man. I read all those things. He's great.

He's mind-blowing. And he's truly authentic to himself. He doesn't pander to someone else. He doesn't try to replicate someone else. He's blazing his own path, his way. And it resonates with some people, some people love them, other people hate him. But he's constantly authentic and true to himself. And I'd argue that's a major component of his success.

Well, most people who are pretty brilliant and what they do, they're polarizing. That's just the nature of being in that position. And wouldn't you rather be that than be somebody that nobody ever talks about? I mean, some people, I guess, would prefer that path. But I think the people who truly strive to get better to do. something great to leave a legacy. They know they're going to be polarizing. That's part of the deal.

That's it. And it's funny. Tim Ferriss is a great example. I actually don't like his content, but I appreciate and admire and respect what he's done. So I'm on the side. This is, eh, it doesn't resonate with me. And there's different reasons why the content doesn't resonate with me. But conversely, I at the same time admire him because he's built this polarization of this group.

and he's true to his authentic self and consistent with it, and it builds this wonderful momentum. So I admire and I aspire to be and achieve what he has done, but I need to do it in my flavor, my version. We don't have to dig into this, but what specifically are there a thing or two that you just say, I'm not into that, that he does? Yeah, so he comes across as an authority figure from an academic standpoint,

and from my perception is, I'm better than thou, and you need to follow my path. And that's what disconnects with me. For me, my authentic reality is I'm not better than anyone. I mean, not even close. My experiences may be different, but I'm definitely not better. And I don't care who you are or what your position is in life. I ain't better.

My approach is, it's my arm of your shoulder, and we're going to march this path together. His percentage, my perception of his presentation is, I know the path and listen to me. I'll teach you. And that's not bad. I mean, it's amazing and wonderful. It just doesn't resonate with me on a values level. And therefore, it pushes me away from that brand, but I respect it. And I would never speak ill of him.

I think it's amazing what he's doing. But what's great also is it empowers me to say, okay, I got to speak my path. Now, the thing is my following, which is one, one millionth the size of his following, his readership. My readership, I get the same polarization at a much smaller level because I'm so much smaller. But the same thing is people like, Mike, you're this kind of like goofy, obnoxious kind of guy. I wish you were more like Tim Ferriss. And I'm like, well, guess what? Tim Ferriss exists. Please follow him because that's your tribe. My tribe responds to that, hey, it's arm of the shoulder, we're going to have some fun. We're going to mess up a little bit.

We're going to be goofballs a little bit because we're just enjoying the journey and we're laughing ourselves throughout. Yeah. I like to get into your books a little bit. And again, I actually have not read toilet paper entrepreneur. I initially was drawn to you from Profit First. So I'm more interested in the ones that I haven't read. And so it gets such great reviews. I'm curious for the people that haven't read it yet, what are those, what's the teaser, so to speak,

that one that kind of gives some of it away or a lot of it away, but also makes us want to go and buy it. Yeah. So toy paper entrepreneur is the ultimate bootstrappers kind of guide. And when I wrote it, I was in a period of reflection back on when I started my first, very first business. And when I started my first company, I was 23. I had just gotten married and my wife and I had our son. and I had three mouths to feed, and now I have this genius, actually is inspired by a drunken night. I went out drinking one night and like, screw working for the man.

I'm going to start my own business. And I started the company, hung over, literally hung over, and no money, no savings, and what I had to do to get there. And what now looks like extremes back then was very appropriate. Like my wife and I, we needed an apartment to live in. We couldn't afford any normal apartment. We actually moved into a retirement building because they allowed us in. And it was so cheap and it was safe.

And that's how we started living. And so what I talked about in toilet paper entrepreneur is when you have the lack of money, it's not, that's not what withholds you. It actually opens you to innovation. It opens you to opportunities and thinking so far outside the box because you can't do what your competition is doing the same way. You don't have the funds. You have to break the rules. The analogy, why I call it the toilet paper entrepreneur, on the cover of the book is the scene we've all been exposed to is the three sheets of toilet paper once you're on the toilet.

You're sitting there's like, oh, my God, there's only three sheets here. But, you know, everyone's been in that situation and no one has died. Everyone has figured out how to navigate it. No one said, I'm going to sit here the rest of my life. We've all figured it out. And, you know, you root through the garbage can. You find out that the toilet paper roll itself can be functional. You do crazy things.

And in entrepreneurship, there's this dirty side of entrepreneurship that people don't talk about. It's when you have nothing left, the ways you find to innovate. And I wish more people talked about it, just like no one talks about the toilet paper moment. No one's talking about that dirty side. So I'm going to write a book about that and all the innovative ways you can navigate it and thrive actually in that environment. So that's what the book's about. Nice. Okay.

How about the pumpkin plan? Pumpkin plant, weird confluence of events. I studied pumpkin farming and found this faction. Yeah, yeah, for a year. I studied there's a faction of pumpkin farmers called colossal farmers. They actually call themselves Lords of the Gords as fear inside are kind of cheesy. And they grow those colossal pumpkins you're familiar with, you know, the one-ton pumpkin. Well, what's fascinating about these guys is they change the growing process of an ordinary pumpkin just by about

5%. There's a different watering technique. There's a different seed selection process they follow. There's a different planting technique. But it's not that much different, but there's a few things that are different. And the pumpkin responds with the explosive organic growth. Well, as I studied this, they're like, holy crap, this applies to business. If entrepreneurs change their business just by 5%, they'll start experiencing this organic explosive growth. So I'm like, huh, before I started writing about this, I'm going to try this in my own company. In that forensics business, I've telling you about. I applied these techniques. And sure enough, the company starts rocketing in growth by doing just a few things differently. And then I sold it, the company, and then I wrote about it.

So it's just my study in pumpkin farming and then translating it into these small changes we need to make in our business. And the business will start experiencing explosive growth without needing to infuse capital, without needing to seek outside funding, without needing to do a roll-up or venture capital raise or angel investing. None of that stuff. Just change a few things. And organically, the business starts kind of becoming a colossal pumpkin. That's really cool. I like that a lot, you know. So how can, um, I'm thinking of comfort zone.

I talk a lot about this. And I'm curious as to your thought process on getting outside of it or, or maybe that's not important to you, but, but I assume most people I talk to who have had success, it is important to them. Is that something that you focus on? Yeah. Yeah.

It's, it's not easy for me. is not easy for anyone. I was just talking with a colleague today and he's like, Mike, what you're asking me is so getting me out of my comfort zone. I hate it and he goes, but I also get it. I respect it. Yeah. I'm the same way. When I try something new, I find all the excuses to push off to the end of the day. And then when the end of the day comes, I say, well, I got to really do it tomorrow. It's, you know, the ultimate mignonia syndrome. Ironically, it's when I get out of that comfort zone where the most growth happens, the most opportunity presents itself. And when I found is a lot of these uncomfortable zones are uncomfortable for my competitors, too.

So, for example, I'm trying to, one of my businesses we're really trying to grow in the accounting community. Well, one of the things that's uncomfortable for me is to get out to the leaders of that industry and get face-to-face time and try to build relationships with them. I know it sounds weird, or maybe it doesn't. I feel inside that I'm an introvert. Maybe that's just a comfortable term I use for myself. I love speaking on stage, but I also love being in the hotel room. just working and not talking to anyone. And maybe I'm using, I actually know I'm using that as an excuse because that means that, well, then I don't have to go out and do the networking component.

But I realize if I push myself beyond that comfort and force myself to be out there and maybe no one is willing to talk to me but still appear and still get out there, that that's where the most growth is going to happen. It's not easy. And it's never been easy for me. But I realize every time I've been able to push myself beyond the easy excuse of not doing something, that that's when the most benefit has come back to me. What are specific tips for people listening that they could do today right now to get

outside of their comfort zone? Well, what's the one thing you've been pushing off, right? That's your uncomfortable zone. What's that one phone call you don't want to make? Whatever is it? Now, flip it and make that the first thing you do and vow not to do anything else until that one thing's accomplished. That's one thing I do for myself.

It's just that becomes the first thing of the day and I will not do anything else until it's The second thing is accountability. So, you know, when we are the only person accountable to ourselves, well, if we decide not to do it, it doesn't matter because we're accountable to ourselves, we can lie to ourselves and say, eh, don't worry about it, no one will find out. Yeah. Getting someone else to hold yourself accountable. So I have accountability partners all the time.

I have a business partner who's in my office. He left for the day, but he sits one one office over for me. I tell him, hey, Ron, you know, today I'm getting this done. He's like, all right. I'm like, if I don't get done, literally, you know, yell at me, man, shout at me. We, I mean, cheesy stuff. We have a push-up thing. You got to do push-ups if you ask us, if you don't accomplish one of the tasks you committed.

And so it's 100 push-ups. Well, here's what's funny. It's become such a mentality here. Like, everyone's doing push-ups to the office. Now the tradition is you've got to do 100 push-ups a day no matter what. So now it's something we enjoy doing because it's just a good. goofy way to get some exercise in. It's crazy.

We have dark guns, and we call it the death shot. If I don't finish my task, he gets to stand wherever he wants, and he can shoot me out wherever it wants, which, of course, is always the genitals or the forehead. And you got to take the shot. And it sucks. You get hit in the nuts by a dark gun, so you get your stuff done. And so we had these goofy accountability rules, but it works. It works.

Yeah, I like it. Okay, I got to wrap up with you, man. I want to be respectful of your time. I got a couple quick questions, though. I want you to answer and just, you know, first thing that pops in your mind. Is that cool? Yeah, yeah. All right, you could have dinner with three people that are not family members.

Any three people, who do you choose? I would choose, oh, God, they got to be living. So I was first going to say, you know, George Washington's. I would choose my, hmm, I would choose my, they can't be family members. God, I'm already messing this up. So let me just go through authors. I would choose Seth Godin. Love his stuff.

I'd choose Malcolm Gladwell, love his stuff, and I would choose Robert Sildini. He wrote the book, Influenza. Love his stuff. Really, so three authors, you would stay all in that realm. I'm so addicted to books. I just, I got a million questions for those guys. I wish I could just get the time to ask. Have you met any of them or talk to him?

Yeah, oh yeah. I've met Seth Godin. I've never met Malcolm Gladwell. I've never met Robert Sildini. Actually, I did a TV show. He was a remote. was Robert Sildini, but I haven't met him face-to-face. Malcolm Gladwell has never met.

Seth, I've met face-to-face, but I just want that one-on-one time. Just ask questions and listen. What about non-living people? George Washington, holy crap. Here's a guy who's granted the keys to a country and says, no, no, no, that's the worst thing we can do. Like, holy cow. Dale Carnegie, just admire him.

Mother Teresa, how do you get billions of dollars coming to you? and you give it to the children of India and help turn around countries and build orphanages. Like, that's so amazing the impact you had. That's cool. I like that. Other than your own,

what's your favorite book or book that you might want to give to others? Yeah, other than my own, that's funny. I wouldn't say my own is my favorite book. So every day, it's something new because I read so many books. Brain Fluence.

I just met with Roger Dooley. He wrote this book Brain Fluence. I love Persuasion books. It's just really cool on the mindset. that so maybe that's the book of the day. Robert Dooley, D-O-O-O-L-U-Y. I'm sorry, not Robert. Roger Dooley, Roger Dooley.

I'm reading Morning Miracle right now. I just talked to him yesterday. How? Oh, yeah, yeah. So I'm reading it now. It's funny. I don't like the book. I don't think it's written in a way that's connecting with me.

Uh-oh. Yeah, so I feel like it's the biggest jerk, right? Tim Ferriss. I don't like, no, I don't like the book, but here's the deal. It's working. It's got me in the gym and five in the morning. Yeah. Damn it. It's a great book because it's changed my life.

So shame on me for not liking the style. Congratulations to him. He got a stubborn jackass like me in the gym at 5 in the morning. The book's awesome. That's cool. I actually think he would like that compliment maybe more than the user one. How it gets, though. What an energetic, awesome guy that we literally just talked yesterday.

So very, very cool that you happen to be reading that. We didn't plan that at all. No, this is, but I seriously, Mike, I really, really appreciate the fact that you've invested your time here. with me and for the listeners, I know there's so much good stuff here that just jam packed into this, hey, you're less than an hour. So I really, really appreciate it, Mike. And I'd love to continue our dialogue and hopefully record another one, maybe when your next book comes out. Oh, man, you got a deal. It's okay. I'll stalk you about that. Please, do, man. This is awesome. Yeah, I love your stuff. Love your work. Huge fan. That's why

this podcast is so cool. I feel almost selfish because I get to, you know, part of the, part of the reason I'm doing this, man. I get to talk to really, really neat people who are always striving to get better, super inspirational types who are also really, really smart and entertaining for people to listen to. It's the coolest thing ever, man. It really, really is. I really appreciate the fact that you're adding to it. Oh, it's, well, thank you.

No, it's been a joy. I got two books in the works, so I'll pitch out to you then. And you know what? I love an introduction to Hal, too. Yeah, for sure. I love just to talk with him and share the impact he's had on me. how I just trashed his book and fell in love on them at the same time. I'll make that intro tonight, tomorrow morning.

We'll definitely get that. Actually, he wakes up so early, I could probably do it early in the morning. Five and a lot. I'll be up too. Perfect. Where can everyone go to find you? You want to learn more, Mike McAllowicz.com. It's a killer to spell.

But I'm literally the only Mike McAllot. It's, I think, ever in existence. So if you give your best stab at spelling it on Google, you'll find me pretty quickly, and there's tons of stuff on my site. Perfect, Mike. Again, appreciate it. I look forward to to continue talking with you, man,

and it's been great. Thanks, Ryan. All right. Thanks, Mike. Bye. This episode of the Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to Learningleadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO,

world-class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again, and we'll see you. you next time on The Learning Leader Show.