The Ryan Hanley Show - The "Buyback Time" Formula (How to Work 30 Hours & Double Revenue)

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Spartan philosophy, built in the black-ops lab of business: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanleyYou're making money, but you're missing your life.George Rivera scaled his e-commerce business to $20 m...illion, but he was working 80-hour weeks and missing his son's childhood. He was "cash rich and time poor." Then, he made a radical shift. Two years later, his business hit $50 million, and he never worked more than 30 hours a week.In this episode of Finding Peak, George breaks down his "Buyback Time Formula." We discuss the exact steps to stop being the bottleneck in your business, why "delegating" is actually ruining your company, and the harsh reality of how we train our families to ignore us.If you're tired of the grind and want your life back without sacrificing growth, this is the blueprint.In this episode, we cover:The wake-up call that changed George's life (and Ryan's vulnerable moment)Why you are "cash rich but time poor"The difference between delegating and transferring ownershipHow to audit your calendar and eliminate $50/hr tasksThe "Absence Rehearsal Test" to prep your business for your vacationWhy your kids don't care about your moneyConnect with George Rivera:Website: https://buybacktimeformula.com--Spartan philosophy, built in the black-ops lab of business: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanleyThis show is part of the Unplugged Studios Network — the infrastructure layer for serious creators. 👉 Learn more at https://unpluggedstudios.fm.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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Starting point is 00:00:00 I call it cash rich, time poor, cash rich, because you're doing well on the business side, but time poor because your family gets little to none of it. And if they do get some of it, it's the burned out stress route, frustrated version of dad who's always on edge, always facing the phone. I want to help people walk along through that same transformation. So I have a buddy who is into health optimization. We just go back and forth. Hey, have you ever tried this?
Starting point is 00:00:30 Have you ever done that? You know, we're always exchanging notes. And he's like, you got to try methods. blue because in general, both of us believe, and there's a lot of science behind this, too. I mean, I'm not saying this is like, we believe it like it's a conspiracy theory, but that a large part of why we age and why we show age is because our mitochondria start to die. So as our mitochondria age and, you know, they're the powerhouse of the cell, et cetera. So we stop, they start to age.
Starting point is 00:01:02 They stop consuming as much and producing as much energy, and our skin starts to look a little older. We start, okay. And there's a lot of research around this. Well, one of the supplements that you can take that feeds mitochondria is actually the supplement called Methylene Blue. And it was found as a dye back in the early 1900s. And then they started giving it to people and found two things. One, it produced a massive amount of energy in people.
Starting point is 00:01:28 They found themselves more energetic, et cetera. it also is really good for like in general, like immune support and this kind of stuff. The problem is my buddy didn't tell me that it turns your fucking mouth blue. So my tongue is bright blue. So for like the 10 minutes leading up to the podcast, I'm like in the better, they're like scrubbing my tongue going. I look crazy. And finally I was like, you know what?
Starting point is 00:01:57 It ain't coming off. This ain't going away in the amount of time. that I have here. So we're just going to have to rock it. But I love it. I might have to hit you up on the side of tell me more about that because I'm all about the hacks optimization and I'm not a big fan of Western medicine. Yeah. So dude, I'm with you, man. Like, I really, I think, I think there's a time in a place for Western medicine. Like I had this heart issue about a month ago. I had an A-flutter and they put me on Eloquist and this other, this other, this other, um, Um, met mototropal or something.
Starting point is 00:02:36 I couldn't function before the medicine. After the medicine, I could function until I got to, I had to get surgery on my heart. And, uh, so that medicine, good medicine, but also short time frame, right? It was like, you're going to take this for three weeks between getting out of the hospital and when I get to the actual surgery. So those three weeks, it kept, you know, my heart rhythm and control and everything. That's good. but like about three years ago,
Starting point is 00:03:05 three years ago, I went to see my doctor and I had been diagnosed with ADHD, like, formally. And kind of, anyone that knew me probably, you know, would have guessed. I don't think it would have been hard for them to guess. But whatever, I was like, my doctor was like, you know what? Like, I would like to, whatever, it doesn't matter. So get the formal diagnosis. Okay, you know, I don't know what's supposed to change in my life
Starting point is 00:03:28 now that I know what I probably already knew. My doctor goes, well, you know, your cholesterol's a little high. Let's put you on Adderall and Lipitor. And I was like, what? I was like, I'm 42 years old. I'm going to go on Adderall. Like, I don't understand. And she's like, oh, no, no, it's not a big deal.
Starting point is 00:03:44 Like, just take it. And I was like, well, I'm not going on Lipitor. I tried the Adderall. I did not like it. I mean, it works really well, but I don't like all the side effects. The side effects are wicked. But I was like, man, like, just finger snap. Throw me on the drugs.
Starting point is 00:03:59 Like, just for the rest of the rest of it. of your life, here you go, like, it's like an annuity for them. It's crazy. So I have, I have turned in the last three years to, like, I don't want to go quietly into the night. I want to fight my physicality as much as I possibly can for as long as I possibly can. And I don't want to do it with standard, standard Western just popping pills. Yeah. So, you know, the good news is there's, like, if you open your mind and you obviously have. Like if you, if you're willing to open your mind to non-mainstream solutions, you can really dial yourself in in the second half of your life to where, like, you know, I could run hoops with
Starting point is 00:04:43 20-year-olds right now. You know what I mean? I eventually I would slow down, but like I could play, you know, I could be there. And I just think it's, you have to take this stuff seriously. You know what mean like you have to own your own destiny you have to do your own research like my friends think I'm bananas because I'm always trying this and trying that and I'm like look like I try stuff if I don't feel any improvement if I don't like it I stop taking it you know and over time I found like a nice tight little protocol that I take every day or whatever and I feel great but hey this methylene blue I wanted to try for a while man I'm all the way back and I'll shut the fuck up and we can start talking about the podcast but like oh all good I yeah I want to like
Starting point is 00:05:23 learn more about why you're doing it and all that. And speaking of friends calling you weird, have you ever heard of the Gerson therapy or Max Gerson? I've heard of him, but I'm not familiar. I've heard people talk, but I won't say that I'm super familiar with why. Coffee enemas. Have you heard about those? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Do one of those and tell your buddies about it. Then that'll escalate the weirdness conversation. Did you find, did it work? Did you find it? Yeah, it's great. And first, you know, it cleans out your insights It's pretty good like it's designed to do so, but it helps give you like a clear, like clear-mindedness. Like sometimes I'd find myself foggy-minded and that was a great hack for that.
Starting point is 00:06:01 And yeah, and it kind of just kind of gets your system running back the way it should. So yeah, it's, yeah, just when you said, you know, your friends might think you're, I don't know, different crazy for being alternative on the, on the, you know, medication or whatever we call this thing, your personal health, that'll kick it up a notch. Yes, that's a good. I agree. I agree. I, um, you know, it is, I think like, for me, I looked around. I've told this story in the show before, but last summer I looked, I went out, my kid's a pitcher, and I coach his team, and he was, I need to go out to talk to him about something. So call time, walk out, whatever, I'm talking to him, and then, I don't know why. I think a couple of the other guys came in and they were talking to each other. And just for a brief second, I kind of popped my head up,
Starting point is 00:06:47 and I just like scanned from the pitcher's mound. the rest of the field, like behind the fence and everything. And like 90% of the dads were fat. You know, like, or they just had like beer bellies, and it just looks unnatural and like you can tell. And I just, like, I just remember saying to myself, like, that will never be me. I'm not saying I'm going to be an Adonis
Starting point is 00:07:12 or I'm going to ever have a six-pack, you know, but I'm never going to be that like slumped over, my back always hurts. I complain every time I stand up. I'm carrying an extra 50 pounds. My knees, my shoulders are barking at me constantly. Because with just a little bit of research and some testing and just kind of an open mind,
Starting point is 00:07:36 you don't have to live that way. Like that is not I'm just getting older inevitability. Like you don't have to live that way. And I think it extends to every other aspect. of your life as well. I've said it a bunch of times in the show, health is a competitive advantage in business. Like, if I see someone that I'm competing against
Starting point is 00:07:59 or negotiating against and they're obese, I know I'm going to win. I just have to wear them down. Maybe they'll win once or twice, but they're going to need to slow down because they're not going to be able to keep up. And I'll just be able to work faster, harder, longer if I need, you know, whatever I need to do I can do
Starting point is 00:08:17 because I have the energy and I'm not, I don't have 15 ailments that have come on from not taking care of myself. And I think a lot of people in business forget or are ignorant to just how important your health is to long-term success in business. Absolutely. And yeah, I was kind of on my way to being one of those chubby dads on the bleachers that you referenced. I don't know, probably could have been accused of being one at one point in my early 40s. I'm now 48, so late 40s, but around 4243, I discovered or was introduced to bioidentical testosterone and hormone therapy, I guess, a layer up to, you know, because women have their own
Starting point is 00:09:01 thing, but bioidentical hormone therapy. And it's been just a game changer. And I wish I would have discovered it seven, eight years prior, like in my mid-30s, because that's when I truly needed it. When I did my blood work, I was told that I had the, at the time, the T levels of an 80-something-year-old man. and my doctor who was, he's an MD, you know, Western trained, but he was also very much on the preventative side. So I kind of like built a good rapport and trust with him, you know, because my dad was Western train MD all, all Western, you know, tactics only or strategies. And so I saw
Starting point is 00:09:34 him take, you know, kind of follow his, what he did in his career with his own life and, you know, had cancer and never like looked for other ways, medical ways to help solve it. So anyway, I don't getting off track here, but game change you're getting on that. And I wish I would have found it seven, seven, eight years prior because it would have accelerated my success. It would have helped prevent any kind of downtime that I, you know, that I might have experienced emotionally. And that should be the number one thing that I've come to learn that doctors, you know, like if a middle-aged man's coming to a doctor because of depression, the number one thing should be, let's get your hormone levels checked. That should be number one,
Starting point is 00:10:09 not, hey, let's pop you some pills and let's just put a band-aid on it. Who knows, it might hurt your liver in a few years, but you'll feel better today. and you'll numb yourself out from life, and then you'll crash once you're off it, but let's just fix it for the moment. Completely agree. Do you know Andy Fricela? Do you know that name?
Starting point is 00:10:24 I'll say it kind of sounds familiar. So he's got a podcast. He kind of hit prominence. His podcast was called the MFCEO podcast, and now it's, I can't remember the official name. I just think of it as Andy's podcast, but this guy,
Starting point is 00:10:36 he's the founder and CEO of First Form, the supplement company. Really outspoken dude, very smart. and his thing that he says on his show all the time is like, if you're depressed, go work out. Like go get a hard workout in. Then if you're still depressed, now maybe you have a problem.
Starting point is 00:10:58 Maybe there's something you need to work out, right? And it's probably, to your point, hormones or supplementation, then it's, you know, maybe some sort of whatever, some sort of pharmaceutical. But like 90 plus percent, and this is true, for me as well, 90% of the time, those moments, if you have a day or two where you're just like, oh, you know, and you're going down that rumination path, if you just go get a hard workout in, you're like, oh, I'm better. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not as upset anymore. I'm good. I'm fine.
Starting point is 00:11:31 Everything's all right. No, it's crazy. Yeah, along those lines, too. I don't know if you've ever heard of and I've only heard about it recently because somebody else was doing it for their own benefit was scream therapy. Have you heard about that? I have seen videos of women in the woods screaming, but beyond the comic relief of that, I have not spent too much time thinking about it. Gotcha. Yeah, it definitely not something you're like, hey, let me lock myself in a car and scream. But yeah, a buddy of mine said that when he gets down, he just goes and he like screams it out.
Starting point is 00:11:59 And it's like you just kind of like getting just rid of this energy and you're kind of like a little bit drained from that. And you're like, okay, you know, I got it out. Whatever. So anyway, I'm curious. I can see it because I do know the act of screysm. screaming can release endorphins. It certainly releases adrenaline because you're basically faking like a, like a flight
Starting point is 00:12:18 or flight moment. Yeah. So that would make sense to me. You know, I had always just thought of the videos of liberal white women in the woods screaming away like, you know, I don't know, whatever they're screaming about. You know, the seven series came in the wrong color or whatever. But it, you know, so I find that interesting. But I can see the tactic making sense if you're using it strategically.
Starting point is 00:12:40 because really, you know, this is like cold plunges is another good example of probably very similar effect. What cold plunges do, you know, beyond the anti-inflammatory properties, which you do need to be in there for a while. Right. So there's two types of cold plunges. There's, and do you cold plunge at all? Do you do you? I have. I haven't done it in about a year. So there's a good reminder to prioritize it again.
Starting point is 00:13:02 So I love cold plunges. I'm actually upset about a month ago. One of my stupid frigging cats, I had an inflatable one. I got to get rid of the inflatable ones because I had an inflatable one and the stupid cat must have punctured it because I came down and there was like water leaking out of it. So I haven't been in in a month, which is, so I've been doing the cold showers, which is worse, in my opinion. So there's two main reasons.
Starting point is 00:13:24 There's three reasons why I do it, but two of them are physiological. First is anti-inflammation, but you really need to be in for three to five minutes at a minimum before your body starts producing the white blood cells, ripples, etc., that are going to attack the inflammation, which is a big part of why people like it. So you need to be in there for a bit. And it needs to be like probably below 50 degrees to really get there. That's not 100% scientific, but that's a decent range. So if you're under 50 degrees, you need to be around three minutes plus to get that benefit.
Starting point is 00:13:56 But that benefit is very real if you're going to do that. The second is when you get into the cold at that initial adrenaline rush that you get that just bombards your body when you first step in, what that does is it flushes a lot of the stress chemicals, the cortisol, et cetera, flushes those out of your system because your body thinks you're dying. So when you hit, there's no rational reason
Starting point is 00:14:23 why you should be stepping into water that cold, right? So when you do, your body's like, oh shit, like we're in trouble, we're dying, like get rid of all the negative shit, bring in the adrenaline and the endorphins because we got to save ourselves. Like we got to survive. And that flushes those negative stress chemicals out.
Starting point is 00:14:42 So even if you just get in for 30 seconds and get out, you're going to get that benefit, which is probably what you're getting from screaming. And I think the third one and the reason that I probably do it the most is it sucks. And I like the fact that when you do something that sucks early in the day in particular, the rest of the day feels easier. Yeah, yeah. It's all like, it can only improve from here.
Starting point is 00:15:08 Like, whatever I'm doing next is not as bad as what I just did. So, day's just going to get better. That's right. That's right. Well, dude, let's get into the show. We did enough bullshit in here. But let's let, I want to start. I don't normally start with origin stories, but I really like yours.
Starting point is 00:15:23 And I think it's a good place to start to help us understand where you are today, which is where I want to spend most of our time. So if you could, let's let the audience, just give them a quick kind of tour of your origin story and get us to what you're working on today because that's where I want to spend our time together. Awesome. Yeah. So just to, yeah, be brief on that. This going back to the late 80s, early 90s, middle school, high school days for me, played in about 40 basketball games and my dad only went to one of those games. And I remember wondering, you know, as a young teenager, like, does my dad not care? You know, like, I just didn't know how to process that. And, you know, I'd score a basket and I'd look to the
Starting point is 00:16:02 stands, empty stands and no dad there. And, um, but my teammates would score and their dads were there on the benches, just cheering them on like crazy. And I was like, man, that was like, kind of very hurtful for me because like, I don't have a dad cheering me on. And I remember looking at another dad and just loving on his kid. And I was like, man, I wish that was my dad. And, and I would have crushed my dad here and that because, you know, he wasn't a bad man. He was, he was a good man. He's a great provider for the family. He was a medical doctor, very successful in his career. And, um, but he just gave his whole life to his career. And when that happens, and I learned at a young age, that, you know, the family's the one that pays the price for that. And so fast forward about 20 years.
Starting point is 00:16:42 This is now 2015. And, you know, my dad, at this time, he's 67 years old, looks healthy. And his parents, my grandparents had just passed away a couple years prior in their mid-90s. Like, in good health, just, you know, just kind of died in your sleep. Sign me up to go like that. Nice and peaceful. And so my dad's thinking, hey, we got a long run ahead of, ahead of of him. So gearing up for his 40th year and there's this phrase, you know, God laughs at man's plans. So at the beginning of the year, he was diagnosed with a terminal form of cancer, only given a few months to live. Yeah, he ended up making it to 10 months, but one of the words that he told me before he passed away, and I use this as the foundation is my reason why, essentially, is he told me
Starting point is 00:17:24 don't miss Leo's games. I miss too many of yours. And Leo is my son. He's 11 today, but at the time he was barely about to be a year old. And I was already missing the moments of him starting to walk and talk and become a little boy toddler from that infancy stage. And, you know, depending on my wife to get videos and send me pictures and stuff. And so when my dad told me that statement, it hit me in two ways. First, it was nice closure for those early days. I didn't really know where to parked at. I hadn't even thought of that, you know, until that moment my dad said, and it just bubbled up as if it was like now. It's crazy how we hold on. of these memories and stuff. And then that parked over there beautifully. But then the other side was like,
Starting point is 00:18:05 oh my gosh, I'm repeating my dad all over again. I'm him. You know, my dad always gave us nice homes, cars, and trips to Europe to kind of replace his absence. And I'm doing the same thing. Nice homes, cars, trips to Europe to my family. And so that was the first time that was like instilled in me that, hey, I was the boy didn't like it. Now you're doing it to your son. This has to stop. And I'm like, okay, it's going to start tomorrow though, because today I got a 16 hour work day ahead of me. And it's like, okay, tomorrow comes and I just keep pushing it off. Many tomorrow's turns into three years. And so this is now 2018. My dad's long gone. And this was a great year for business. I'm scaling my company to $20 million that year. It's a company I founded a few years prior.
Starting point is 00:18:43 And, you know, from a financial perspective, life is great. I'm making more money than I know what to do with as long as I'm not buying helicopters like I should be set for life. Didn't buy any helicopters. So that's good. And I got this money printer, push a button. It just spits out money. But the, the interesting observation and all that was like I was hating life like I just hated it everything dependent on me and I had the world's worst org chart it's like me here 40 people beneath me I'm delegating down or so I think and then it boomerangs back up to me and I rob from the future by just having the attitude of oh it's just quicker if I do it myself and yeah for the moment it's quicker but you're training your team that george is the firefighter for every situation every decision
Starting point is 00:19:22 if we run into any issues these are people that have had on my team for years and I'm years. And we all know the common definition of insanity, but I sort of have a new addition to it is that when you hire people, you pay them to do a certain job, and then you end up doing it for them and you do that for years. That's kind of insane too. And I was living insane for many years, according to that definition. So the pinnacle of my burnout reached this moment, summer of 2018. I call my mentor. He was traveling, but I'm like, this is an emergency. We need to talk now, SOS. And I just told him, man, I just, I hate my business. And I don't use hate often. I don't people throw it around, but when I say it, this is visceral meaning to the word hate.
Starting point is 00:20:00 I just disgust. I want out of it. I want to burn it down. I want to sell it like I'm done. And it's like, you can't snap your fingers and sell a business tomorrow. You know, there's getting your financials ready, you know, getting the market, evaluation, LOIs. They fall apart all the time.
Starting point is 00:20:13 Like, that's not a solution for tomorrow. You can burn your business down overnight. That's a solution. But not a smart one. There's a lot of ramifications there. So my mentor lovingly walked me back off the ledge, off the cliff and said, why don't you just stop doing what you don't like doing and keep doing what you're good at? And at this point, I'm like 23 years in business.
Starting point is 00:20:32 I'm just like, oh my gosh. Yeah, sounds so simple. Duh. Okay, let's do that. And so that's when what I do now was born. You know, what I do now is the buyback time formula. But at the time, that name didn't exist. I didn't know what a bottleneck was.
Starting point is 00:20:47 I didn't know what a framework was. I was just doing the work to essentially document things and come up with a plan to get everything off my plate that I shouldn't be doing. so that I stay focused doing on the things that I'm good at my zone of genius. And I'm, you know, my thing is marketing, the fun money-making side of online marketing, copy, angles, going into new markets, not merchant accounts and invoicing, payroll and all and I have people supposed to do that, but it would all just like roll up to me, tech stuff at the middle of the night. And so, so yeah, it took about two and a half years to really reach the peak of the transformation
Starting point is 00:21:20 that I set in place in 2018. And it took longer because as entrepreneurs, there's a bit of a self-identity like, Like, I'm the best one to do this. Nobody can do it better. This is my baby. I founded this company. And sometimes you just have to let it go and see what happens. And there's a lot of PTSD associated with letting go of those decisions because we can all point to examples on the past.
Starting point is 00:21:39 Well, I depended on them to do this and it all fell apart. And but you got to blame yourself or in my case, I had to blame myself for not properly training them. So that was the big lightbowl for me to be able to let go with confidence. So about two years later, more than doubled the business from 20. million that year to just shy of $50 million that year. You know, life is great. I'm living semi-retired, never working more than 30 hours a week, buying tension because I'm protecting my calendar. I'm setting a framework in place where emergencies still happen. They just don't go to me. They go to somebody else. And the most impressive part of all that is you remember my dad said don't miss Leo's
Starting point is 00:22:16 games. Never missed any of his games. In fact, at eight years old, I taught him how to negotiate real estate. We also do Airbnb's and we buy land and all kinds of other side things that this, my main business allows me to do. And the old me would have told my son, hey son, go in the room over there. Here's an iPad. We'll let you know when the big people are done talking. But the current me, the new transformed me, I'm like, pageable moment, son, you are going to deliver this offer to the realtor. You're going to tell them, close in 30 days, here's the price, leave the furniture, leave the dock. Because this is going to be an Airbnb. It's going to save us 100 grand. Now go tell him. And he looks at me like,
Starting point is 00:22:51 why and I'm like we'll debrief later just go time is of the essence and then he he tells the realtor the realtor the realtor's kind of looking at him uh kind of impressed like the little boy's talking big people stuff and then he looks at me didn't have to say anything but with his eyes he's asking is this the offer and i'm like the young whippersnapper spoke for us that is the offer and we got the house and i know the terms have to make sense but he delivered the offer and i know now that when he has kids he's going to be like my dad used to take me to do this so kids we're going to do the same thing and and other things like that fast forward a current day He's 11. He's got a podcast, a number of guests that have been on there.
Starting point is 00:23:24 I totaled their public gross revenues, several billion dollars in sales. And so anyway, I'm derailing on my kid, but that's just the evidence of a present dad in the home. Once you get the work stuff figured out, you can do really cool things like that. And so, yeah, I'd say that's probably the best example of the transformation, just being able to be present with your family while you're still making money, still doing other things involving the family and those kind of decisions. And so came up with the buyback time formula, the official name of it about seven, eight months ago, around mid-20205. And I came to a point where I was like, what do I want to do with the rest of my life?
Starting point is 00:24:02 You know, and I'm like, I can do more e-com, more online stuff. But I've never had anybody tell me because my primary success has been selling supplements online. And nobody's ever come up to me and said, oh, my gosh, your bottle of pills completely changed my life. I mean, they're good products. I can sleep well at night and how I marketed them. Or maybe you'll get less joint pain, maybe clear memory. And that's what it's designed to do. It's not a miracle and a bottle.
Starting point is 00:24:23 But ever since I've come out with the bimac time formula, I've had a number of just men texting me or messaging me saying, I didn't realize how my kids line up like a Christmas tree because I'm present at their games or not missing these moments anymore. And I don't know, maybe it's a selfish thing, but that satisfies my soul. That gives me purpose. I'm like, I could do this.
Starting point is 00:24:44 So now I help other people. My story resonates more with men, but could be anybody. Essentially, the me of 10 years ago, I call it cash rich, time poor, cash rich, because you're doing well on the business side, but time poor because your family gets little to none of it. And if they do get some of it, it's the burned out, stressed route, frustrated version of dad who's always on edge, always facing the phone. And I want to help people walk along through that same transformation. So I know I threw out a lot at you. I think I got to current day from the beginnings. So wherever you want to go from here.
Starting point is 00:25:17 No, I think that you really articulated the kind of maturation of your thought process in this topic really well. And I love that you, you know, you apologized for going deep on your kid. You don't need to do that. I think it's really important. If we're not happy at home, we can't be great at business, right? And, you know, it's why with this show, while I think we rank under the business category and entrepreneurship and stuff, but so much of what we talk about here extends beyond that because like we talked about earlier before we started talking about business, right, your health is a competitive advantage.
Starting point is 00:25:52 Your relationship with your spouse is a competitive advantage, right? If you're going up against a competitor and you have a really solid working, trusting, supportive relationship with your spouse and, you know, he or she is dealing with constant nonsense and disagreements and frustrations and, you know, all this kind of stuff, they're not going to be as sharp when they show up in the morning. Same thing with your kids. If you're going to bed every night thinking, well, geez, do my kids even like me? Do they even know me?
Starting point is 00:26:20 What it's going on? I'm not present. I'm not there. That's all just stress and brain cycles taking you away from being the best version of yourself at work. So like I think about it like this because I try to, I don't have a great way. I don't have like a name for it or whatever, but I try as often I can to live in reality for better or worse.
Starting point is 00:26:38 And that tends to push me on the more. conservative side of life, but really I don't necessarily view myself that way. I just live in reality. And reality is if you're a, if you are a pure capitalist, greedy, I want to be the biggest baddest, make the most money I possibly can, the truth is, you know, how much further could you have gone with your business at 50 million if your health was falling apart, right? As you mentioned, if your relationship with your kids was distant and not there and falling apart, which eventually would have led probably to your relationship with your spouse or partner falling apart. And now all of a sudden you're like, yeah, I got to 50, but no chance of getting to 100 because
Starting point is 00:27:21 everything else in your life is in shambles, right? So, but if you hit that 50 and your, you know, your relationship with your kid is great and your spouse is great and your health is there and you got a good set of friends, well, now you have all the energy to take you to the next level. So I think that while there's this like grinder, I'm just going to push. And like you even said, like you were paying the bill today to buy time in the future or however you phrased it. I like the way that you phrased it. I probably just butcher it.
Starting point is 00:27:53 But it's this idea of I'm going to waste my time now to have some magical time, perceived time in the future. Like that's just not the way reality works. And also, and I'll be quiet after this, but there's. There's a book that I think it's overstated, but the broad idea I think is very good, which is die was zero. I think sometimes get a little, like, annoyed when these, you know, people who are worth, you know,
Starting point is 00:28:22 $100 million are like, oh, die was zero. It's not about the money. Well, yeah, yeah, I get that, but, like, that's annoying. But I think in real life, what the real key from that book is, because I've read it, is that you're 48, you're never going to be 48 again you know realistically you're never going to be this healthy again like for guys like you and me
Starting point is 00:28:44 like I'm 45 you're 40 like for us every day or you know even though we can kind of maintain by doing the right things right we're never going to be 30 again we're never going to be 20 20 again like you know why not run with your kid and play soccer or baseball or basketball and spend that time and you know sit down on the floor and play board games with them and do that shit now because when you're 60, one, they're not going to be around and two, you're going to be tired and you're going to be less healthy and you're not going to be able to enjoy it as much. I guess my question for you is, as you buy back your time using, and I want to get into the formula a little bit, although I don't
Starting point is 00:29:30 want to, you know, we want people to get into your work and stuff. How do you find the harmony between, like, you know, you personally and then how do you work with your clients on finding the harmony between enjoying what you have today while still being that ambitious version of you that likes to grow and build? Yeah, that's a good question and very deep. Yeah, I believe, I mean, my response will be more on the simplistic side, but it's like, have a calendar and we'll have calendars, but like with boundaries so that you could essentially, you know, like, for example, when I work with a client, I'm like, all right, we're going to not work more than 30 hours a week. So we're going to structure the calendar so that, you know, we're going to get your family time in,
Starting point is 00:30:17 your personal time in, and then we're going to put work around that. And yeah, it's going to be an adjustment period. But I think when when you respect the boundaries of this is my time allocated for work and this is my time allocated to, you know, to be a dad, to reconnect with the family or even my alone time, then I think that gives you permission to sort of just be in the present and give yourself permission. Like, you don't have to do this often, you know, when I'm like, okay, I got these numbers of hours to work. And I feel like I didn't finish what I needed to. So instead of robbing, you know, from the family, I'm just going to like pick it up right here, you know, the next day that I get to
Starting point is 00:30:53 work. Maybe it's tomorrow. If it's a weekend, you know, pick it up on Monday and just try to be fully present. And it's not like a snap your fingers and you're into it. It's a habit you have to develop. But I think if you can just realize, and I hope I could convey this properly, but like you alluded to, like once we're older, we're not going to have the energy and the drive or anything. One of the things that I visualize is that, you know, one day I'm going to be 70, 80 and my son, he's already going to be 30, 40, 50, and I'm going to be like, I wish I would have spent more time with him when he was looking for me to spend time with him. You know, like, he wanted to like wrestle in the bed. And I said, no, I got to send another email or something. Like, I guarantee you when you're 70 or 80 and you think about that moment that you blew off for the other thing that was work related that you won't even remember what that was. But you always remember these moments with your kids.
Starting point is 00:31:42 But you don't remember what little task you had to do that you blew off a special moment with your kid. You would give up your entire fortune that you'd built up to that moment to just go back to that moment and be like, son, I'm here for you. Let's do this. Let's wrestle or let's go out and throw the ball. And so I don't even know if I conveyed that properly, but it's, It's minimizing the regrets that we're going to have when we're older. We're all going to be older and we're going to be like, I could have done this and that better.
Starting point is 00:32:06 We're all going to say that. But I think that the goal is when we get to that age, we can say, hey, yeah, I regret some stuff. But when I realized that I would eventually regret it, I made a change and I made an effort to be there. And I can live with that. Like, I'm okay with that. And so that's my goal.
Starting point is 00:32:22 And that's what I want to help like others. And again, I referenced the me of 10 years ago because I was missing and blowing a lot of these moments. And even now, I'm like, I regret my son was two and three and he was coming to my office. He had something awesome to show me that, that he thought was awesome, that was worthy of interrupting dad while he obviously looks busy. And I'd be like, hey, two more minutes. And as I'm saying that, I'm not trying to lie or be deceitful, but I know it's not two minutes. I'm just trying to convey, give me time. And then, you know, once I'm off my call in 30 minutes, assuming I'm not hopping on another call, I go back to try to relive the moment. And it's gone. He's like, he's looking at me,
Starting point is 00:32:56 I don't know. Something cool, but I don't, I'm not to something else. And eventually you train, like me, I train my son to ignore me. And it took a restoring of that bond process once I started getting the frameworks in place. So it doesn't happen overnight. It's like, yeah, I'm coming to your family after working so hard. Yeah, I'm here for you. Let's do this. And they're like, yeah, all right, we'll see. Time will tell.
Starting point is 00:33:20 Wait till that first fire comes up and you're gone just like you've always been. And then hopefully the response is, no, no, I'm working. the buyback time formula. This time it's for real. But it's going to take time to prove that you are becoming the man that you say you are and that your family can trust you and that bond is restored. So yeah, went long there, but hopefully there was something in there. No, no, it's great. And I think, you know, man, I had almost a physical reaction when you said I'm training my son to ignore me. I think that's a really deep and scary thought is that we are training the people in our lives to interact with us in the way that we train them, right?
Starting point is 00:34:01 So, like, if every time your spouse comes to you and wants to know how your day was and you're like, hey, no, just one more email, you're training her to not ask you, right? And then all a sudden you're sitting in a therapist's office and you're like, you know, man, I'd really, you know, what, you know, so many guys, their beef is like, geez, I just wish she'd say hi to me when I walked in the door, right? It's like, well, you freaking trained her. to not ask you because when you came in the door, you had 10,000 things on your brain and you were grumpy or you had your AirPods in
Starting point is 00:34:31 and you were on a call. And then when she did actually get around to it, you were too busy with your face and your phone. Just like you said, and it's like you train them. Man, that is a powerful thought, dude. That's a very powerful. I mean, for those watching on YouTube, I literally had a physical reaction when you said that
Starting point is 00:34:45 because, you know, I've never shared this story on the show before, but about two years ago, I was in like a not awesome spot. I think we talked a little bit about this when we talked offline, but I sold my company, and I shouldn't have sold it to I sold it to. It was a bad decision. They were not the right partner,
Starting point is 00:35:04 and I just watched them slowly murder my baby over time, and it was very tough. And we finally hit a point where it wasn't even what I had built. It wasn't, you know, I was, and I hit my first exit trigger, and I could have, you know, there may have been chances to stay or whatever, but I was like,
Starting point is 00:35:25 I got to get out of here. And essentially, that's what happened. And when that happened, I completely lost my identity. Because for the previous four years, my identity was rogue risk, was this insurance agency that I built, growing it. Everything was about, this is what I do. I am the founder and CEO of this company. I blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know,
Starting point is 00:35:44 all the things that it takes, as you know. And I, and then when that happened, you know, it's why did I sell, you know, just doubt and shame and regret. and like, you know, I had this rocket ship and these people came in and, you know, I let them, you know, knife it to death and how did I not see that they were going to do this? And, you know, and I, it was really dark. And, you know, I did as some people do. You know, you just, I turn to drinking, you know what I mean? Not in like a all day, everyday kind of thing, but like to land the ship at night, this is what I convinced myself of, to land the ship, I would have one, two,
Starting point is 00:36:24 and on bad nights I might have three or four cocktails, right? Which for the middle of the week is not good. There's no excuse for that at all. And I'm not excusing this, but my wake-up call was. So I'm divorced. I have my kids two days during the week and then every other weekend. We've 50-50. And I had had too much a drink the night before,
Starting point is 00:36:47 and it's like a Wednesday, and I'm hung over. And my kids come home from school, and they come over to my house, and they want to play, right? They want to throw the ball or my older son, I could tell, was just looking to, like, wrestle and wanted to just, like, get in,
Starting point is 00:37:02 he was just looking for action, you know what I mean? And I'm like, oh, I'm tired, I'm tired. And, like, you know, and I got two boys, and they ended up playing with each other and whatever. Dude, I cried myself to sleep that night.
Starting point is 00:37:18 Like, I sat in bed and cried. I was like, what kind of, Losecan loser are you that your 11-year-old son wants to like wrestle and play and you're on a Wednesday. You're too tired because you're in self-pity mode fucking, you know, hung over on a Wednesday for no reason at all just because what? Like a business deal didn't go the way you wanted? Like get your freaking shit together.
Starting point is 00:37:47 And, you know, I've made sure that that never happened again. But dude, that's like a really... Like, if you self-reflect, and I'm sure there's guys listening to this, and ladies, maybe you too, but obviously George and I are dudes, so we just know dudes better. That's like a really hard one to swallow, you know? And I'm glad, look, it was one day, one night, kids are fine, course corrected, right? It was a big wake-up call. But you think about it and you're like, okay, that was a really bad moment, big kind of bad
Starting point is 00:38:18 moment that I can look at and put my hands around. but as you discussed like what about all the little micro moments what all just give me five minutes or hey in an hour or tomorrow we'll do that bud or whatever right i have never framed it as in my head as you're teaching them how to interact with you and man that's really powerful yeah no i only know that because uh that i lived it i was the master teacher of that and um yeah i you know i started learning about more how like young kids need their dad is kind of like common sense thing but it is huge you know like you live with this stuff for the rest of your life you know like we're you know we get things good or bad or indifferent you know from our parents and and so how they interact and
Starting point is 00:39:07 influence us we're going to take that in one way shape or form and um yeah and i've heard and i i can't take credit for this and i can't recall who said this but it's like with our sons or in my case my one son. It's like I'm training my replacement in this world also. And so kind of looking at it through that lens gives me, I don't know, it's an exciting thing. It makes me want to include him on things now, whereas before it was just like, yeah, I'm doing it for the family, but you know, I'm not really there. I'm just, you know, but they have a nice, nice home and we go on nice trips, like as if that's going to be okay. And the crazy thing is we've been on some amazing trips where you get the world's fluffiest pillows in the most expensive hotels with six and seven figure cars,
Starting point is 00:39:49 valet parked out front and and you know I'm thinking wow we've made it you know the family must love this and yeah they like it it's better than being like a you know motel six or something but then um you know during covid we bought a travel trailer and we were kind of like it's a nice travel trailer but you know we're roughing it out a little bit the pipe burst and I had to go find you know to replace it and stuff and I'm exactly nobody's ever accused me of being a handyman I mean I can fix things but that's not my thing and it was like a family adventure to try to fix it and and to this day we talk about you know the moments where we kind of had to rough it out a little bit. Nobody mentions these fluffy pillows that I remember it being a big fat bill,
Starting point is 00:40:27 but I guess the ROI or return on that trip didn't really last long, but those moments where we're kind of like, it's unpredictable. It's a little off the grade, I guess you could say. Those are the moments that bring us together and that we talk about. So, yeah, I don't know where I're going with that, but it's just to. No, you're right, dude. Kids don't care about money. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:40:47 Kids don't care about money. And, you know, they just, you have to hit a certain threshold, right? They don't want to be hungry. They need to have the basics, right? People that are at that level, I get it. Like, you got to, I get the struggle at a certain level. Like, you, there is a certain level of income that if you are not there, you are grinding every day to kind of maintain.
Starting point is 00:41:06 And there are sacrifices that have to be made. These are your working moms that are doing two jobs to keep the bills on, to keep the lights on and should I get that. Like, this is not judging them in any regard. but when you do hit a certain threshold of income in which, you know, you're not, you know, you're not struggling for every meal, you're not struggling to put food on the table, keep the lights on, etc. You're past that point, the sustainability point.
Starting point is 00:41:31 Honestly, I don't think kids give two shits about money beyond that point. Now, when they get older, they're going to have their own taste, they're going to want to do different things, that's different, but like, they just want your time, your attention, they want adventures, they want to explore, they want to laugh. You know, if you got boys, they want fart jokes. If you got girls, they want to do fun stuff, like get their nails done and shit. And all, it's amazing. And that's exactly the way it should be.
Starting point is 00:41:55 But it doesn't have to be, I think, especially if you're an ambitious dude. Again, ladies, I'm sure some of you are the same way. But I think I've seen this manifest the most in men. It's like, if you have that ambitious gene, in your brain you're saying, I need to make more than my dad. I need to provide them with a better life than I had. I need to get them the big house and the nice car because maybe I didn't have that exactly the same or whatever.
Starting point is 00:42:25 And the truth is they just don't care. They just, I mean, they're so frigging oblivious to everything except for their small worlds that they're living in. It's not even like they notice. I mean, like they literally don't even notice the nice stuff. They just want to experience shit and be around you. And it's so easy to forget about that.
Starting point is 00:42:48 It's incredibly easy. Yeah, absolutely. And if you don't notice them, they're going to go where they will get noticed. And a lot of them will get raised by iPads and iPhones. And then you leave them alone to the World Wide Web. Who knows where they're going to go? They're going to see things that you could argue no human should ever see at any age.
Starting point is 00:43:05 But certainly at a young age, they'll discover some things that can negatively impact them for years, if not for the rest of their lives, that they might need therapy for someday. So, yeah, the absence of dad at home can have ramifications for generations. And I'm also, like, sympathetic to that dad, you know, say me, for example, because I have my own story where I can, like, I'm passing down something or I was passing down something that was passed down to me. And I can't blame my dad too much because there's a story there somewhere where his, him and his dad. So I think, you know, the man has to realize it ends here.
Starting point is 00:43:39 Like, we're stopping it here. And then you teach your son. It could be daughter two, but we're men just talking guys to carry a level of importance to want to pass that down for generations. I mean, I think that's the only way that we sort of slow this whole thing down of, you know, missing, missing dad in the house kind of thing. Yeah, I'm going to forget the name of the research study, but there's a really famous study on how we passed down three generations of trauma. So your job, so like the output of the study is essentially you have two choices. you can start to solve the traumas that have been passed down. Like you can't help the fact that you're experiencing not only your own trauma,
Starting point is 00:44:21 but the three generations prior to you're experiencing varying degrees of the trauma that they experienced as well. And you can curb that, right? So like if you have alcoholism in your family, you can start to curb that. It doesn't mean you have to be sober, but it means, hey, you can teach your kids what a healthy relationship with alcohol is, right? If that's what you want to do, right? You can have a healthy relationship with money if your family has always been terrible with money, right?
Starting point is 00:44:47 They just can't figure it out. You can solve that. You can say, hey, I kid, you know, I can be better. Instead of being worse than my dad or carrying on with my dad, I can be a little better. And I can teach my kids to be a little better than me. We'll teach their kids to be a little better than them. And now my great grandchildren could be great with money and it could change the whole course of our lineage. And what I like about it, whether it's true or not, right?
Starting point is 00:45:11 I, again, there are studies that have shown this. They are fairly prominent. I don't know what they are at the top of my head. If someone's listening and knows, love for you to pop it in the comments on YouTube, do that. But what I like about it is even if it's not true, like, even if we're not actually carrying trauma, let's say that's not the case. The mental exercise, the thought experiment is nothing but healthy for you and your family and the people that matter to you, right? if you believe it and you take on the responsibility of, I'm going to start to change some of these generational traumas or mindsets that have held my family back,
Starting point is 00:45:52 I'm going to be a positive stepping stone instead of a net. That's only a net positive to you, to your kids, to your spouse, etc., down the line. And I also think it gives you something bigger to work for because I could be okay not being great with money or drinking too much or whatever my vice. right, gambling too much, or whatever the things are that I do that don't produce positive results. But man, am I okay with my kids having to deal with that? Yeah. I don't know. Am I okay with my kids' kids having to deal with the fact that I had a gambling problem?
Starting point is 00:46:27 Yeah. Now I'm fighting for something bigger than myself, which I think is a key to making major change in our lives. I think it's very difficult to make major changes in our lives if we're only operating. for ourselves. But the minute we find God, we, you know, prioritize our family above ourselves. We prioritize our community or some larger thing. It makes those changes much easier. Yeah. No, I agree 100%. And yeah, I also agree. Yeah, it starts with God and having, you know, purpose. And yeah, it's, but it's beyond me. And now I've got a reason to change,
Starting point is 00:47:05 the change the way that I work, the way that I think, the way that I talk. And yeah, we could be okay. yeah, I've got this drinking issue or insert the issue name. But if you're thinking like, okay, but it doesn't stop here, it's going to impact generations. And I have a chance to at least curb it, at least minimize what I'm passing down. I think that's compelling enough reason why. So let's assume I'm struggling with this.
Starting point is 00:47:29 And I come to you, like, what's the first step of shaking me out of my current state and starting to buy back this time? Like, like, what, how do you? you, like what's the, I don't want to get into your full program. I want people to dive into your work and spend time with you and if that's what they're interested? But like, what's that first step? How do you rattle my cage? How do you get me going on the right path if I'm, if I've come to you because I have a problem? Yeah, usually, just say, for example, say this is a client onboarding call. The first thing I do is say, hey, look, you know, five, six months down on the calendar and
Starting point is 00:48:02 give me two weeks where you can be off the grid completely because we're going to take a vacation there. Like, they're going to take it. They're going to go with their family. And they're going to start buying the plane tickets, book the hotel, invest in it. Because when we just talk about it, it's like, it's give or take or leave it, I guess, if it's going to happen. When you invest in it, you're like, okay, money's out. We're going to make that happen. And so I tell them, we work on that.
Starting point is 00:48:25 And then a lot of times they freak out and they gasp. Like, oh my gosh, how am I going to take two weeks off? I can't even take an afternoon off for an hour. And I'm like, I love that response because you need this more than you know. So like, we're on track as far as helping them with. what they need. Transformations coming. And then once we have that to look forward to, and they're like, how am I going to do this? I'm like, well, the clock starts now. Okay, so this is what we do now. We take a look at their last two weeks. And if you're like the me of 10 years ago,
Starting point is 00:48:52 I'd say, I don't really have a calendar. I can guess what I did. Okay, well, you don't have a great history there that you've recorded. So start now. So for the next two weeks from here to two weeks from now, pretend like you have a camera on you and write down everything that you do, journal everything that you do. I mean everything. I woke up at this time, took a shower, brushed my teeth, prepared food, did some work, what I did, because if you prejudge, should I write this down, should I not, you're going to miss out stuff that you probably should have written. So don't prejudge. First couple of days, you're going to start to recognize some things like, oh my gosh, some low-hanging fruit stuff. And we all know, like, there's a number of things we
Starting point is 00:49:27 shouldn't be doing. So that's like the first place to attack. But two-a-sle sort of give you, like, a great, like, sample size of things. And when I did this for myself, I was working as high as 80, hours and I realized that 40 of those 80 hours were on tasks or things that were $50 an hour or less. Now, I'm a $1,000, a $10,000 an hour guy when I'm working in my zone of genius. And I'm doing work for most of my work week was $50 an hour task or less. And so remember, at this time I had a money printer, push a button, spits out money. So for a small investment of, not a mathematician, but $50 an hour times 40 hours is $2,000 a
Starting point is 00:50:04 week, a couple hours worth of business revenue would have a bobbed. me half of my time, but I didn't realize that because I was such in the fog. So we need to bring clarity to their current situation. Like what are all those things you're doing that you shouldn't be doing? Let's get that off your plate. And then we have to implement what I call the time liberation trifecta, which is the only three things you can do with any tasks that you shouldn't be doing. I mean, one of them, you do it and we'll determine what that is, your zone of genius needle moving stuff. But the other stuff important, but it shouldn't be you doing it. And so you can either eliminate things that don't move the needle. You can automate anything that repeats or you can
Starting point is 00:50:40 delegate but with ownership. Remember 10 years ago, I was delegating. I would have told you I'm the king of delegating. But yeah, boomerang back up to me, I wasn't transferring the proper ownership and showing them what the definition of done looks like. So there's a big key difference to making it work. Because I can already hear people saying, well, delegate, there's a big difference delegating with ownership. And so once we do those things, that's the beginning of identifying the things they should get off of their plate. And the goal is in the first 90 days to experience like version one of this whole thing. It's not going to be perfect. They'll patch up some things. That's why I'm there to help them walk alongside them, accountability, make sure they're sticking to it. We've also designed the
Starting point is 00:51:20 calendar to not work more than 30 hours. We're putting in personal time and family time in there as well. And we're going to respect those boundaries. And so we get them out from being the bottleneck in their business to being present at home. So it's not like, all right, we got you out of your business. all right, let me know if anything breaks. It's like, no, you're here because you also want to restore the bond with your family. So there's frameworks for that too. And one of the simpler ones that I can explain is essentially like when you say that you're going to attend a game or a incident at date night or whatever, you put that in your calendar and you don't miss that unless you get hit by a bus.
Starting point is 00:51:53 So don't walk across a street where buses are going, okay? Just like, you know, a Zoom call or Zoom meeting, like most of us will not miss that for anything. And so we need to treat our personal calendar or personal commitments the same way. And that's more of a mental thing. But if you're investing in me to walk alongside of you, yeah, you're going to want to do it because that's why we're doing this whole thing. And so, yeah, that would kind of be the first step is identifying what it is we can get off your plate and then we can see how to reconnect you with your family.
Starting point is 00:52:22 And we're doing it all at the same time, but that's how it would be. And the last thing I'll say is as we approach the six-month vacation, because remember the gasp like, oh my gosh, how is this thing going to work? We do absence rehearsal tests. So first we'll take an afternoon off and then we'll take a couple days off. And then we might take a long weekend, attach one of the weekdays to it on the other end. And then we take our two-week vacation because what's going to happen in our rehearsals, maybe invoicing or accounting doesn't get an invoice or maybe fulfillment doesn't get a notice to ship a thing.
Starting point is 00:52:55 I mean, these things are not catastrophic to a business if they're a few hours, late or a day late. So in your little rehearsal, you're going to sort of button up little things that maybe we didn't catch in our big picture stuff to get off your plate. And then once that's all buttoned up, you've already had a little bit of practice being away from your business and it didn't fall apart. So that's going to help you feel better during your two-week trip. And then you also realize that, okay, we've found anything that could go wrong. And then the last thing is that I didn't really talk much about, but we'll install a number two person, like an operations person or just call them a number two and whatever in company title they have, but where everything
Starting point is 00:53:32 stops at. So nothing penetrates that number two person because you're going to give them the decision rights. And there would be only a number of things that escalate. And I've done this a number of times personally where nothing has escalated. But I always have people say, well, give me an example of something that could. Something where there's like imminent financial disaster. Maybe, you know, there's, you need to like sign into your bank account because you as the founder the signer, nobody else can, and you got to like approve something, you know, like a big one. Like, for example, the other day, but I was actually in work, but, you know, there's this big, massive wire transfer that my number two, he initiated it, but the bank's like, oh, we need to talk to
Starting point is 00:54:07 the signer because this is too big. And in that point, I had to. So maybe if that's a critical payment, maybe you have to be interrupted in your two-week trip, but it's never happened during one of my trips. So, yeah, that's how we get going. Yeah, I love that. I think it's Hermosie. says it all the time. I don't think it's, I don't think this is his original thought, but he says it all the time. It's like, show me your calendar and I'll show you who you are. It's wild, man. You know, I'm blocking. It's like the ultimate life hack, you know, like, I know there's much more to what you're doing than just time blocking, but just lays a broad stroke, just like, I never go to the gym. Is it on your calendar? Like, you schedule all your meetings. Why not put an
Starting point is 00:54:51 hour and 15 minutes on your calendar somewhere that that's like your gym time and now you don't have meeting scheduled over the top of it everyone knows you're not going to be there but like you said people get so nervous like well what if what if my team sees that I'm working out at two o'clock in the afternoon it's like you're the boss you can do whatever you want like you're and I don't mean that in like a jerky way I just mean like you know all your I think a lot of it too is a a misunderstanding of what your team really needs to be successful, and I hear you explaining that and what you're saying is like, your team just needs to know what are they responsible for,
Starting point is 00:55:28 what do they need to come to you for, and what decisions can they make on their own, and like where are you going? Like just some simple, I mean, you can make it more complex, but like even some basic expectation setting and system builds, and they don't care what you do after that.
Starting point is 00:55:43 You know, they only care when they're like unsure of what to do. They feel like they can't do anything. anything unless they come, you know, unless they get your approval and now you're at the gym. And now they're like, oh, this son of a gun, like, I need his freaking, you know, I can't put this marketing message out until he approves it, but he's not going to be back for 45 minutes because he's at the gym, you know, now you get like that where if you were just like, hey, um, you know, I don't care. You know, you know the guidelines for a LinkedIn post. Like,
Starting point is 00:56:11 once it's ready, just publish it. Like, you know what I mean? Like if that's it, you know, how much damage could you actually do? Yeah, yeah. And then there's a, like a, I call it weekly operating cadence, but it could be, you know, every other week. It could be once a quarter. Every business is going to be different. But that's where you bring up issues. If there's concerns, hey, let's discuss it in our little short brief. I like to call them little 15 minute meetings. It's not a place to talk about how are the kids or how's the weather? This is like we're getting down a business. What's working well? What's not working well? How can I help you? We'll see at the next scheduled meeting. And that helps avoid all these random pings, all these random things. approvals and just constant daily interruptions that I used to find myself in all the time. George, I could talk to you for another couple hours, man. I love what you're doing. I love that you lived it. Like, to me, the work you're doing today with the buyback of time formula, it works and it makes
Starting point is 00:57:08 sense and it's validated because you lived the other side of it. You live the 80 hours. You live the pain of coming home and having to say no and, you know, and all this stuff. And so like when someone sits across from you and like, so the audience is like George and I talk for like an hour or so a couple days ago before we scheduled the podcast. But I could hear it in your voice. Like it was like you felt this pain. Like you know what the other side of this looks like. And you know, just some degree or a theory is not going to help people solve these problems.
Starting point is 00:57:40 And I love, I love, you know, the part where you force them to book the vacation because that puts the, the urgency. see time pressure on them to like, you need to make these changes, but it's possible. Like in six months, I'll get you there. But you don't, you're not going to make the changes if there's no urgency in a two-week vacation, booked, signed, paid for, you know, that's going to put some pressure on you to make sure that you're ready. So I love it, man. So for all the people who are listening to this that want to get deeper into your world,
Starting point is 00:58:09 that want to learn more about what you're up to, what you're doing, and potentially work with you. What's the best way to do that? Awesome. Yeah. Thank you, Ryan. buyback time formula.com. That's my website.
Starting point is 00:58:19 There's going to be a link to my book from there. It's free. Just cover shipping. It's 128 pages. It has everything I know about buying back time. All the frameworks and principles are there. People could literally read it and do it. But if you're like the me of 10 years ago,
Starting point is 00:58:33 I would have paid a mini fortune to collapsed time from bottleneck to freedom so I can walk alongside you and do that. That option's available there. All my socials are there. I have a couple of other programs coming out too. It's called like 18 Summers Roundtable.com. com more probably more than we can discuss now but that'll be there as well as founder dad dinners dot com that if you're in the austin area i'm hosting dinners at my house for uh founder dads to
Starting point is 00:58:56 uh to just come together and talk about what founder dads do so yeah but buyback time formula dot com is where it all starts i love it guys uh whether you're watching on youtube or listening wherever you listen to podcast just scroll down in the show notes and we'll have a link there as well appreciate the hell out of you man um you're doing so much stuff we'll definitely have you back on the show but this is phenomenal and this is such an important topic and I'm so glad that you're out here preaching the good word
Starting point is 00:59:21 because a lot of people need this. The world is very hectic and having someone in their corner like you who can help them get their time back and get their life back, it's worth, you know, a thousand X, you know, whatever it costs to work with you. So I appreciate you, bud.
Starting point is 00:59:37 How's that, dude? Man, if you love it, I love it. Yeah, yeah.

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