The Ryan Hanley Show - What Billionaires Don't Want You to Know About Scaling Your Business | Charles Schwartz

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comCan you truly find clarity and urgency in life from working in a hospice? Charles Schwartz, Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestselling author, and host of the Scale it Lab podcast, believes you can. Join 10,000+ Subscribers: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanleyConnect with Charles SchwartzWebsite: https://iamcharlesschwartz.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamcharlesschwartzPodcast: https://scaleitlab.com/Join us in this episode as Charles shares profound life lessons from his hospice experience, stressing the importance of self-awareness, honesty, and leveraging one’s strengths in business. Discover how these transformative insights can lead to extraordinary results and why outsourcing weaknesses is crucial for entrepreneurial success.Ever wondered how to balance the relentless grind of entrepreneurship with the need to avoid burnout? Charles introduces the concept of the "entrepreneurial seasonal grind," emphasizing the significance of knowing when to push hard and when to scale back. Using real-life examples like Aaron Judge's focus on core competencies, Charles illustrates the power of delegation and adaptability. Learn how recognizing the seasons in your business can help you maintain balance and enhance your ability to pivot effectively when necessary.Curious about the secret to building a self-sustaining business? Charles discusses the importance of systematizing every aspect of a business, highlighting practical examples like McDonald's efficient point-of-sale system. Additionally, we explore the critical role of relationships in entrepreneurial success, delving into the benefits of mastermind groups for personal and professional growth. Through personal anecdotes and actionable insights, Charles shows how genuine engagement in these communities fosters deeper connections and greater business success, urging listeners to challenge conventional wisdom for more authentic and effective approaches to life and work.

Outsource all of your weaknesses, other people's time, other people's money. Do you want what you're doing now or do you want cat dildos? 95% of the people want cat dildos. Let's go. Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look easy. The Ryan Hanley Show shares the original ideas, habits, and mindsets of world-class original thinkers you can use to produce extraordinary results in your life and business. This is the way. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. We have a tremendous

episode for you today, a conversation with Charles Schwartz, Wall Street Journal, New York Times bestselling author of Who Changes Everything. He is the host of the Scale It Lab podcast, which is now an Apple Top 100 show. I had the opportunity to be on Charles' show. That's where we initially met, and we hit it off so well that we did a home and home. He came over here, and we talked about a dynamic range of topics from leadership to mindset to the tactical strategies that businesses can use to scale, how to navigate the various leadership obstacles and pitfalls, pit holes, think holes, whatever leaders fall into that exist in our marketplace today. Charles talks at a speed that I think only myself can match.

So we actually make the comment during the episode that this might be one of the first podcast episodes in history where people are actually slowing the podcast down in order to keep up with us. But it is fast-paced, dynamic, full of value. You guys are going to love this one. I certainly did. If it's your first time listening to the show, whether you're listening on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, or you're watching on YouTube, make sure you hit that subscribe button so you do not miss future episodes. We have so many more incredible guests just like Charles coming out on the show, and you don't want to miss those. And as always, I appreciate you for listening to this show, and I love you for listening to this show. Let's get on to Charles Schwartz.

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

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

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

And once you realize that you're going to die, it changes the ballgame very quickly. Finite amount of time changes the ballgame immensely. So that's where it comes from. So for people who may never have that experience, how do they start to cultivate this? Is it looking into your past for places where maybe you were more resilient than you thought you were going to be? Or like, how do we, how do we start to pull these experiences out of our life to create that mentality? It's a math equation. What you have to do is you have to go through and say, okay, how is the, my decisions I'm making now affecting my future payoff? What is the ball game here? How does

it affect it? And whenever I'm doing something like, what is the future cost of this decision? Changes the conversation I have all the time. When I'm dating someone, when I'm eating certain things, as I'm executing on things, I'm like, hey, I want to sit on my couch. I want to eat Ben and Jerry's ice cream. And I'm like, cool, what is the future cost of this? And always having that as a filter changes the game. The other thing that helps out immensely is recognizing and being honest with yourself of who you are, knowing who you are, and understanding that at my core, I'm immensely lazy. I'm very good at shirt bursts. Like when I was a triathlete, I didn't do really well with the Ironman.

But sprint triathlons, I'm great. I can push really hard for a finite amount of time, but I know who I am, and I'm going to have problems later. So let me execute here and do the two things that are going to radically change my life every day before I do anything else. Another thing that I've picked up from you is your willingness to outsource, delegate, bring in team members. I see oftentimes with entrepreneurs that I coach or just the individuals, they're trying to take everything on and to me that is an absolute like number one you will not get to where you want to go where did that come from and and how do you make sure like is there triggers or do you have some sort of process do you journal to say like i've been doing this thing i need to get rid of it so questions there. Where did it come from and how do I deal with it?

Where it came from was when I was, again, this is IT, I was managing small companies' IT departments and I would sit there with the bosses and I would watch this guy, his name is Mike, I won't give anything else, and he ran an entertainment company and they did events. And they had all these events going that weekend and I watched him work with it and I ran the numbers

because I knew the numbers because I knew his books. I was like, you're going away on a vacation and you're going to make six figures and you're not doing anything. Your staff is smarter than you. Your staff is more better looking than you. They're more dynamic than you and you're making money. I don't understand because I was raised, we were talking about this before on the show, this idea of get up and grind, really push through it. And then the idea of hustle porn, where you get up at four in the morning and work out 15 times and doing all that. I sat there, I was like, I don't get it. He goes, your mistake is you think they're smarter than me. They are more talented, but they're not smarter. I was like, I don't understand the difference.

He goes, they're going to go to work and they're going to pull 12 hour days. I'm going to go hang out in the moms. And I was like, oh my God. He goes, you're not the most important person in your company. Hire people smarter than you, get out of their way and empower them. So that's how it is. How I figured that out with me is I get into situations where it comes down to effort. If I'm pushing into something and it's taking me effort, I feel resistance. I'm like, this is clearly a weakness. Let me outsource that. And that's where it comes from.

Outsource your weaknesses. Yeah. I, uh, Gary Vaynerchuk actually said something. So I had the opportunity to get to know him a little bit. I will not even pretend like I'm buddies with him. I got to know him a little bit and got asked to speak at his very first conference that he did down in Miami. And which was an incredible experience. And he said something there and like a little small group format.

We were kind of chatting. He said one of the biggest lies that we're told is work on your weaknesses. He said, fuck that. He's like, he's like, you figure out what you are the best at. chat and he said one of the biggest lies that we're told is work on your weaknesses he said fuck that he's like he's like you figure out what you are the best at where you get the most what what activities don't take energy away from you but actually put more energy into you do those as much as you possibly can and figure out people to do all the other stuff. And I find this lesson, this is not taught to anybody. Like, nobody teaches this. And it is, like, entrepreneur, growth, anything you want to achieve.

You want to start a community group. You want to be a good athlete. This is number one. Like, the whole, like, five tool is so my kids are big into baseball, so I'm constantly thinking about baseball. I played baseball in college and after a little bit. And, like, this whole, like, five tool player bullshit. I'm constantly thinking about baseball I played baseball in college and after a little bit and like this whole like five tool player bullshit I'm like that's not even true like none of those people are actual five tool players I'm like they Aaron

Judge hits home runs is he a good outfielder yes does he have a good arm yes doesn't have the best that he's not the best at either one of those things not the best base runner the motherfucker is as powerful as it gets it makes consistent contact. That's the one thing. And if you watch him, you don't see videos on Instagram of him throwing or taking fly balls. It is swing, swing, swing, swing, swing. That's what he works on because that's his strength and what he brings to that particular team. I guess, and this is kind of a, this is a terrible question, but I'm also a terrible podcast host. Like, I guess I just want to, like, how do we start to, what is the, what's the moment where we pick that up or we turn that corner? If someone's listening to this going, geez, I'm just so frigging overwhelmed. Like, what's the first step we can take down this path?

I think it's recognizing that there's two different things. If you're trying, because you and I played sports, you and I both played baseball. And we're taught that you've got, listen, you suck at this, you've got to double down on it. If it's a physical thing, if you're in the gym, you've got to double down on that. You've just got to dig in and really push. And that makes sense to me in a physical environment. At work, absolutely not. Outsource all of your weaknesses instantaneously. It's called OPT and OPM, other people's time, other people's money. Leverage the how and what. We do what we do investing. When I'm purchasing real estate environments, I'm not going to use my own money to go buy the apartment complex. I'm going to go

leverage someone else's and just pay that little bit of interest. So understanding you can go farther with it. If you're going to dry and pivot from it, if you're looking for something tangible that your audience can do now, look down and look at your results. It's okay. I've been killing myself. I've been pulling 80 to 120 hours a week. And as entrepreneurs, that's a light week. That's Christmas for God's sakes. That's a really light week for us. Look at your results and say, I've been pushing this and hard for this long. And I've got this result. If this is the result that I want and it's working for me, awesome. But there's not a, there's about 95% of all the entrepreneurs I know. I say, listen, here's the deal. You're making a million dollars a year, whatever, and you're doing your passion,

and you're doing what you love, and you're pulling 100-plus-hour weeks. And over here, you have the opportunity to sell cat dildos. Who cares? Something irrelevant. It's not relevant to you in any way, shape, or form. Probably not a bad business. It's obviously patented because I say it on stage, and everyone's like, well, it's patented.

It's not what you think. You can Google it. Leave messages. You'll find out what it is. It's wild. Anyway, so you're selling this thing that's not related to think. You can Google it. Leave messages. You'll find out what it is. It's wild. Anyway, so you're selling this thing that's not related to you in any way, shape, or form. You're only going to make a half a million dollars. You're not going to make a million, but you're only going to answer the phone four hours a month.

Which one do you want? Do you want what you're doing now, or do you want cat dildos? 95% of the people want cat dildos because what we really want as entrepreneurs is to never be told to do anything by anyone ever. We hate that. We want to be left alone we want to do what we want when we want and live a certain lifestyle so if you're grinding and you're pushing it out and i hate grinding i don't i disagree with it completely if you're grinding and you're pushing so hard and you're getting a result that you don't like well we gotta change something there and that's what it came down to me when i was doing what I was doing. Are you tired of endless follow-ups and missed opportunities in your sales process?

Chasing leads is a losing game. That's why I created the one call close system, a battle tested sales system that uses behavioral psychology to close deals in just one call. No more. Let me think about it. No more. I'll get back to you using the one call close system. We took new reps from 25% close ratio to over 80% in just three months to To grow fast, you must close deals faster at zero extra marketing cost. The one-call close system allows you and your reps to build trust, address pain points, all while watching your revenue skyrocket. Ready to stop chasing leads and start closing?

Visit masteroftheclose.com today. Close twice as many deals this time next week. Visit masteroftheclose.com today. Close twice as many deals this time next week. Visit masteroftheclothes.com to learn how. And even when I was coaching, it's like, I can't do this anymore. This is burning me out. I got to find something else to do because it's exhausting. That's what I pivoted. And it's about, you know, automating residual income. Yeah. tell me what you think about this because I have a slightly different take on grinding. To me, there are, so a concept that I can't believe

it took me 40-ish years to figure out is this idea of seasons of your life, seasons of a business. Everything has a season, right? And one of the things that I will coach and talk about and I talk about on the show is that there is a season where you have to put in 16-hour days. But that season could be a week.

That season could be a month. The issue is when it becomes a lifestyle. That's the problem. And knowing when – and you may be in that season for the first three months of your business, and then you hire a couple employees and you downshift. And then there may come another time where you've got to get a big deal across the board or an investment or a new product out. And you've got to upshift again. And, like, it's almost if we learn this lesson, we grind, we grind, we grind, we learn.

We get into that phase where, okay, I'm back to work in hours that I can breathe and I feel good. And then it feels like, there's like this sense to me that we never are going to need to upshift again. And it's like, no, like I, I like told a guy the other day, I'm like, look, bro, you need to get back to work. Like, I'm not trying to be an asshole here, but like right now for what you told me you want to achieve, tell your wife, you're not going to see her for a couple of days because you got to get back to work and get a few things done. And like this, it's, I guess, why do we find ourselves or how do we break ourselves? Better question.

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

they're good. Yeah. So it first starts with something called FU money, which I'm trying to clean up the best I can, but you've been cursing the whole time. So fuck it. It's called fuck you money, which is based on your wealth ratio. So, and it's different for everybody. If you've got $10 in the bank and your monthly expenses are $5, you've got two months wealth ratio. So for me, it was when I had six months in the bank, I was like, I'm good. And then when I was, I was like, it's not good. I need a year. And I was like, I have a year.

I need seven years. And once I got around seven years of wealth ratio in the bank, I was like, okay, that's step one. And then I turned off the gas and that wasn't really happening. And I was like, all right, well, the step two for this is how do I automate residual income? Which means buying assets, which is a completely different conversation. So because most people don't build their businesses as assets because they're going at it completely incorrectly. So once that started happening and started pivoting around, the grind that I had, I finally got to pull off the gas in one area of my life, which was so much work and hustling and trying to launch these businesses and trying to scale these businesses. All of a sudden I was like, I need to grind and hustle in my personal life.

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

Okay, I got to jump in there and deal with that. Or hey, there's a, there's a market change. All of a sudden we're walking into a recession. Those are important times. I think it's knowing when to push and go is important. And understanding you can grind outside of your professional life is sudden we're walking into a recession. Those are important times. I think it's knowing when to push and go is important. And understanding you can grind outside of your professional life is so vitally important. Yeah. I'm working on this essay called the entrepreneur's playbook. And then the, the, the, the subtitle is living in the gray zone. And the way that I like to think about it and talk to people about it is that we, we, we, life is much easier when we compartmentalize into everything into black or white or yes or no. Right. But literally no part of my life in which

I've achieved actual results that I am proud of was I ever in any one of those binary States, it's this gray. So you can't really see it's a little foggy. You're making decisions. This, this technique worked, you know, the first six months, but now it doesn't work anymore. And we're adjusting and we're playing and like being comfortable in that space. Just that seems paramount to me. Um, you said something that I have to follow up on. People do not build their business as assets. One, what does that mean? And two, how do we start to do that? So it's probably my favorite thing to do in the world outside of mindset is this, um, uh, what is the difference between a business that's an asset or not? So

really simple. If you right now are a business owner, go take a trip for six months. If your business isn't doing light years better, not just the same, but light years better, then you don't own a business. You own a job. And if you can't test it that way and you can't walk away for six months, get a whiteboard, I do with all my clients, and get a black marker. And write your whole fulfillment process out. Everything from the internal, the external, your front end and back end.

Write it all out. And once you have it, you give yourself about 10, 15 minutes. Don't do the whole thing. You'll be there for hours because it is what it is. Take a red marker. And I do this with my clients. I go, here's a red marker. I go circle where you're involved. The minute that pen touches that, I used to be a pitcher. I'm really good at hitting people with things. I will throw the other marker at their head, hit them back of the head. I'm like, you failed. You now own a, you don't own a business. It's a job because most people are hunting after

strategies instead of systems. And for me, I couldn't find that gray. I couldn't find that, hey, how do I, it's black or it's white. When am I grind? What do I not grind? I was getting in the way. And this is where we talked about my weakness, right? I was like, how do I get me and my ego as an entrepreneur out of the way? And the only way I could do that was implementing systems

because systems are the only thing that will ever set you free. And, you know, we can go into that if you want, but that's the only way to automate this stuff. You've got to fire yourself, and then you've got to systematize. Guys, this is the first moment in this podcast where I want you to hit pause if you're not taking notes, pull the little thing back, whether you're watching on YouTube or iTunes or wherever, and listen to the last three minutes of what Charles just explained. Most people are searching for strategies instead of systems. This is the core piece. It's where I turn the corner on my business. This is the idea. And it's not intuitive. So if you're not there yet,

don't kick yourself. Don't feel bad if you have been chasing strategies or buying eBooks and trying to figure out what the next trend is. Don't feel bad. This is not intuitive. You need to listen to people like Charles and be in his world and his ecosystem to understand these ideas because of the battle scars that you have. That is so foundational and so important. I absolutely love it. And I want to talk, like maybe just define if people don't necessarily understand the difference between what a strategy might look like and chasing that. Because they might say in their head, I am Josh Charles. I am chasing systems. I am searching for systems. What is the difference between a strategy and a system?

And I think it's so important that you mark on that because I didn't understand that. I grew up, I couldn't afford the last few letters of port. And then at 36, I retired. And 37, I became a millionaire. There's a reason it's opposite. Once I mastered systems, it gave me freedom and then finances. You have to pivot around. So for systems, it's really simple.

A strategy is a concept like, hey, here's our email campaign. That's how you do it. Systems are automated. They're done without your involvement in any way, shape, or form. Anything that you have involved that relies on a person or a vendor or anything like that, that is a strategy or a process that will never get you what you want. That will not get you what I want, which is freedom. Because if you walk in and you say, hey, Charles, here's $10 million, but you're going to have to work 120 hours a week for the rest of your life. No, I'd rather go pour parts of my body in a meat

grinder it's not going to happen i want freedom i want to get free from that and it started ironically with mcdonald's now i haven't been into mcdonald's in 20 something years they had an individual and they were working on redesigning their pos which is a point of sales system the in other words you walk in and you press little buttons and that's how your stuff comes out and one of the guys they were working on it they're going back and forth they had their franchisees in on it they were trying to figure this out and one of the guys they were working on it they're going back and forth they had their franchisees in on it they were trying to figure this out and one of the guys that was doing it had an individual who was mentally challenged and he sat down and he goes hey let me ask him and he comes over he goes what are you doing and he

goes he goes i'm building the pos and he's like cool he goes well what is this he goes what do you mean he goes that what is this he goes how how do you order a coke and he goes what does that say he goes i don't know what that says and the guy couldn't read cola and the guy went what do you what do you mean you can't read cola and he goes how do you know what you're going to drink and the gentleman who was challenged walked over and he pointed to the pictures of the brands because he knew the brands he like that's sprite that's sun kiss that's coke that he knew what it was so he's like all right so then he caught he took pictures of it and he put it on the entire map all the pos he's like cool how do you do number three now when i used to go to mcdonald's the number three was a double quarter pounder pictures of it and he put it on the entire map all the pos he's like cool how do you do number

three now when i used to go to mcdonald's the number three was a double quarter pounder with cheese and fries and there was points all over the place that people could choose that and the guy who was challenged goes where's the number three he's excuse me he goes where can i press the button for number three and they're like oh my god if you can make whatever you're doing your process so that the lowest common denominator can do it. So you can hire someone in a week and they can operate everything. Without you, that's a system. And systems set you free. If you can't make it where you're, if you have Susie's in charge of accounting and she, without her, you can't do fulfillment, you can't do payroll, you're screwed up. And you

have to go through this. But step one is understanding I have to fire you as a business owner. My clients hired me to fire them to build automated residual income. That's how this works because you'll reach a point as an entrepreneur where you will burn out. You will just like, I don't have any more. I've been doing 20 plus years of 120 plus hours a day. I just can't do this anymore.

No matter what it is. And you'll find out that what you really wanted in life wasn't to make $100 million. It was to do something else. And once you do that and you have access to your truth, things change like that. Oh, that's phenomenal. That's I completely, I'll tell you, I actually started buying technology, not based on its functionality, but on how easy it was to train my team on it. A hundred percent. I hire people when I bring in consultants and they come in, I'm like, they'll explain this whole thing.

I'm like, no, no, no, no. Make it so that my dead one-eyed grandmother can implement it now. And they're like, okay. I'm like, don't teach me. I don't want to be taught. Make it so my dead one-eyed grandma can do it. And they're like, okay. So when people come into my own organizations and we talk about these things, you know,

one of the properties I own, the people who run in, they say, hey, we've got a problem with toilets. And they talk, I'm like, don't tell me the whole thing. Let's walk through a process on what it would take to make it as easy as possible for you to do this. They're like, we need a credit card that has a $10,000 limit so we can just fix it without talking to you. I'm like, perfect. Those are the rules. If there's a problem in my organization, I have no problem with you bringing me in the problem. If you don't bring me two solutions with that problem, I'm going to fire you immediately.

And they're like, it changes the ballgame. Things get done. I will also pay more for results that don't involve me. So in other words, if I'm going to make, I don't know, 50 cents on a deal that I'm involved with, I would much rather make 30 cents or 20 cents and pay the other person more, but I don't have to be involved in any way, shape or form. Oh, I'll do that all day long. The biggest problem with entrepreneurs is they think they matter. They don't. You need to fire yourself and systems are the only way to do that. So you've mentioned a mastermind that you have, and we talked a little bit about that before

we went live as well. I want another topic that I just don't, I want to put a pin in that other one. I think that was phenomenal guys. That was just a fucking masterclass. Um, this also might be, I know most people listen to podcasts on like one, two, five or one, five or two. This might be the first podcast where they actually have to slow it down because the two of us talk so fast. Um, so I want to get into, I want to talk about masterminds first at a high level because I have what I found as I've grown in my career and you meet more successful and more successful people. They're all part of a coaching program, a mastermind program.

They have a mentor in this, in this, in this skill or a mentor on, on mindset, or they find these places to help themselves improve. And then when I look back and I see either colleagues or friends who are still struggling, who've been grinding and just haven't been able to break free, they often have this mentality where they fight groups like mindset. So like, I don't need to be, or they fight groups like masterminds. They, you know, I don't need that, or that's a waste of money, or you never get anything from that or blah, blah. So maybe first just pitch me on the high level idea of what a mastermind is

and can bring to somebody and why, and you were nodding. So I'm assuming you agree. So many of the most successful people, and I'm talking tippy-tippy top of the people that I've met, and you've met people that are just as big or most likely bigger. They're all part of some group that could be classified as a mastermind. So maybe just break that down for us. So there's a couple things. It starts with if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

In the beginning, if you're just going to push, there's times where you don't need that. So there is that idea. I remember I was on stage once, once we were arguing about this specific thing and one of the guys says you never have to do it never be part of a mastermind actually you know what never do anything that anyone else has ever done get rid of your car go make one on your own don't go and try and get food to your own house grow grow it on your own everything we do in our lives is part of a mastermind we just don't want to admit it i didn't sit there and grow the food that I eat. I didn't make my car. So you have to understand you're already part of masterminds. So that's it all in its own. The next thing you have to

talk about is the bravest word I ever said in my life, personally, emotionally, spiritually, everything was help. So if you're going through something, be able to sit down and say, help. I'm in trouble. I need help. If it's in your personal relationship, recently I did sit down and say, I need help. I'm in a situation. Go talk to a therapist. If you're in a situation where your business is collapsing, I don't go try and figure out the law on my own. Screw that.

I call up my lawyer. I'm like, I got a problem. I need some help. Entrepreneurship is one of the rare fields. I think we're number two or number three as far as people who are having, that are killing themselves. It just, it is what it is because it's so lonely and it's so isolationism and it doesn't work. When you get into with other entrepreneurs, I was part of one, God, 20 something years ago.

And it was kind of like, and I don't drink and I've never drank, but it kind of like felt like it was like AA for entrepreneurs. People would stand up and it's like, hi, I'm Charles. I don't know the difference between my personal life and my business life. I'm like, oh yes, hello, welcome, welcome. Yes, yes, welcome, welcome to the club. I was like, oh, my people. Because being an entrepreneur wasn't sexy or cool 20 years ago. It was very isolationist. You're like, hey, why would you do it? And now you have people who have entrepreneurial tastes or traits, but are entrepreneurs. Being able to sit down and say, hey, I'm struggling with this. We talked about it before we went on the call. I'm struggling with my camera right now. People are watching the video. Sorry, I'm struggling with this. We talked about it before we went on the call. I'm struggling with my camera right now.

People are watching the video. Sorry, I'm working on it. I was like, hey, how do I do this? What do I do? And you're like, oh, dude, I know exactly what to do this, this, and this. You probably saved me, what, five days of watching videos on YouTube

trying to figure this out? Or me outsourcing it? You're like, oh yeah, just do this and this. I was like, oh, awesome. And I brought it up already and it's sitting behind readying me to order it, to order the next part, to fix this. That time is the ballgame.

And I think that goes back to the hospice conversation fix this. That time is the ballgame. And I think that goes back to the hospice conversation we have. I will always make more money. I'm not worried about that. That's easy. I'll never make more time. If I want to save time, if I want to reach my goal, whatever it is, quicker, faster, more efficiently, it all comes down to surrounding yourself who are smarter than you. Just like you do in your business, you have to surround yourself with people that you can connect with where you feel safe and that's a huge ball game a lot of these masterminds where you're constantly being upsold that's not where you want to be you want to be around other people that are like-minded who aren't on the top of the mountain which this is why i don't agree with

people going to these super huge going to masterminds if you're a millionaire don't go and mastermind with billionaires it doesn't work go with someone who's a couple steps up the ladder not on the top of everest just a couple steps ahead of you. Be together with them, and then you guys start growing together because it will save you time, which is the only thing that we'll never make more of. Yeah. The other thing I found, especially with entrepreneurial-related masterminds, man, do people really want to help you? They really do. There is this intrinsic need,

and I think it's part of what drives us to entrepreneurialism in the first place, is I do the work that I do because I want to help people. I want people to grow. I get so excited when someone like you comes on and shares just some of the nuggets that you have because I'm like, someone is going to hear this, and a Tumblr is going to be tipped, and they're going to hear this and a Tumblr is going to be tipped and they're

going to go down this slightly different path that's going to help them be more successful or find more time or more joy, more meaning. And like, you want to help. And I think there's this other side too, where people are like, I don't want to bother people. Like, I don't want to be that guy who's, you know, constantly asking for help. And it's like, no, these people join these groups because they want to, as much as they want help themselves, they want to give help too. They want to share the shit that they know. Yeah. I think in society as a whole, there's such a huge value, a huge level of unworthiness. We just don't think we're worthy in any way, shape or form, especially on the female side, because society tells them you're not tall enough. You're not thin enough. You're not pretty enough. Wear this makeup. You

got this. And on the guy's side now, it's like, hey, you're not driving this car. You don't have this, this, and this. We're constantly bombarded with you're not worthy. To have someone walk up and say, hey, I need help. Can you help me? It just fills up that worthiness cup that we're so thirsty for. And people will do it all the time. Now, it doesn't always happen.

You know, it's one of the best networking things I ever talked about is go to a colo. Go to a colocation working place where you can go in the environment. Sit there for a while and say, hey, you know, I just saw you did this, this, and this. Can you help out? Like, for example, I just got a Mac. I don't speak Mac. They're very confusing to me. I speak PC. So being able to reach out to a buddy of mine who he's never been able to help me with anything in his mind, but he's been my friend. So I don't need him to help me, but I was like, Hey, I got this problem with this Mac. Can you help me out? He's like, Oh dude, this, this, and this. he was on cloud nine. Cause he taught me how to do these things. There's such a deficit in our

lives of worthiness for, for most people. They've never done the work that this is kind of this quick dopamine hit. And it just, people want to help and there's other people want to take advantage of you. So there is that balance. You got to figure it out. You got to trust your gut. Yeah. I, uh, the best piece of advice that I ever got was from a mentor about maybe six years ago, seven years ago, I was talking to him about different stuff. Some of it was with my, my, my marriage and now divorce and just different stuff that was going on in my life. And he goes, here, I'm going to give you, he goes, I'm going to give you this, use it. Don't use it. He said, go find a counselor, set an appointment with that person every two weeks for the rest of your life

and just consider it a life expense. And he said, here's the key there. What's going to happen is on the days where you feel bad, you will absolutely be at that appointment on the days where you feel like everything is going good. You in your head, your mind is going to tell you, Oh, I can skip this week because I'm everything's good. And he's like, go on those days. Cause the point is not just go to fix your problems. The point is to keep going, to work through all this stuff and to continue. He's like, a lot of times in the days where you feel the best, when you walk into that appointment are going to be some of the days where you learn the most about yourself, because you're going to start

to talk about the shit that's actually meaningful to you. And that's what makes you happy. Cause so few of us even understand what, what are the things that bring us joy we know what brings us momentary happiness you mentioned it ice cream with netflix and and your your partner next to you you know what i mean with a night of crazy sex coming like that's happiness in a moment but like is that long-term joy are you getting is that what's going to keep you coming back? And, and it's the consistency to these masterminds that I find also the dedication to them in the, you just keep showing up. That's where you, the rubber really starts to meet the road because if the group feels like you are a tourist, then you, you're never going to get out of it. They're never going to be completely open to you. Yeah. I mean, I agree. You know, when you go to, when you go to these

things, masterminds therapy, as you were talking about, you go on your good days to get your baseline. You, you, so you know what, there it is. Hey, I'm here. I'm normally here. We got to figure out. So finding your baseline is important. It's also hard to do that because you know, we have egos and you don't understand that whatever traumas you have, this was a big lesson for me this year. It's inheritable. So if you've got past traumas, you're going to inherit to your kids. You're going to inherit to everyone you touch. You're going to put into their family. You're going to blow it all out. So if you think you're getting away with it, you're not. But as you go into these things and you go into these masterminds, there's multiple businesses that I have scaled

and exited, not as clients. As I was in a mastermind, I was like, oh my God, I can go do this. That is a brilliant, I'm going to go do that. And you get these business ideas and you find business partners. I've had people that I've done businesses with because we grow and scale very quickly. That's what we do. Where I'm like, hey, I got an idea. I already know before I start my business as a rule,

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

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

with your spouse, you're talking about getting a divorce. If things are good, okay, great. We're not designed to be in monogamous relationships. It's against nature. If you want it to succeed, go do the work, go to the therapy. Because I can tell you from personal experience, when you don't, it destroys friendships. It will send shivers down who you are as a being. It will ruin the people that love you. It will push them away, and they desperately love you. And if you don't do the work, you'll lose them. Do it.

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

for you guys, I'll give it away to you guys. You can have it for free. Enjoy. There's three lies. The lies of what? The lie of how? and the last one is the lie of why. That one pisses everyone off the most. We'll start with the lie of what. That is do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. Complete garbage. You and I as entrepreneurs have run into that. I love ice cream and sushi on levels I can't possibly tell you.

If you make me eat ice cream and sushi every single day for the rest of my life, I'm going to stab you in the hip face with some chopsticks and drown you in wasabi and anger to work There's reasons why people take vacation There's a reason why Sir Richard Branson bought an island to get away from his businesses and he loves what he does So that's a lie. The second one is the lie of how I don't know how to do it to put this nicely Shut up. Do you have access to Google? Yes, then shut up You have you know how to do everything to put this nicely shut up do you have access to google yes then shut up you have you know how to do everything so that's not it and the final one is the one that pisses me off more than anything else and it's the lie of why and this happened again because of hospice we're

in an environment where someone died the they were waiting for oh this sucks i hate this story she was dying of cancer and she had lung cancer and her daughter was trying to get to her and we you know called her up she'd already spoken to her but like hey this is it you got to get in here this is she's at her moment and the mom was trying her best to hold on and there's just traffic on I-95 just is what it is the main thing and she didn't get there it is what it is and her mom died before she said goodbye and as we were leaving one of the family members said wow you know what if her why was stronger she would have survived she would live she would have held on and i remember thinking that is either the most vile or the most ignorant thing i've ever heard in my life and there's so many events where people are

like oh find your why find your why and i i remember on stage with someone who talks about their wife i'm not gonna say the person's name talks about the why all the time and i was still hot mic'd when he's like the why is the most important thing and i was hot mic'd i went oh fuck like that so immediately i'm back on stage because i forgot to kill the mic it happened so And I was still hot mic'd when he's like, why is the most important thing? And I was hot mic'd and I went, oh, fuck. Like that. So immediately I'm back on stage because I was hot mic'd. I forgot to kill the mic. It happened.

So I walk out and I was like, time out. I go, it's your thing. I don't mean to poop on it. It's all you. And they're like, no, no, come on. Tell me why. I said, cool. Does anybody in this room not know why they don't want to make a million dollars?

And they're like, well, everyone knows it. Everyone know why they want to be in better shape. Cool. Everyone know why they don't want to do certain things. Yeah. I said, cool. Has anybody accomplished it? No. I said, you sure? shape cool everyone know why they don't want to do certain things yeah i said cool has anybody accomplished it no i said you sure let's go so everybody knows their why and no one's accomplished so it's complete and utter bs

but we beat ourselves up saying my why isn't strong enough if i was if my why was strong enough i would execute and i would do it so it comes down to the idea of if it's not the what if it's not the how and it's not the why the only thing that's left is the who. And that is, I can definitely describe it if you want, but it's a little bit more intense. Let's go. Let's hear it. We're this far down a rabbit hole. Might as well go down a rabbit hole.

All right. So when it comes to scaling your businesses, when it comes to everything, you have to pivot things around. You mentioned that you've got little ones, right? If I walk up to your little one when he was three years old and I hand it cereal, what is that three-year-old going to do? Tear the box open and eat it. It's going to make a fucking mess and eat it. Yeah. Throw it all over the place. Absolutely. If I go to that same three-year-old and say, here's a broom and a mop, clean up the mess you just made. What's that three-year-old going to do? Probably use it as like a toy of some sort. It's not going to get cleaned. Yeah.

It's happening in our lives. We have a version of us. That's not enough, not tall enough, not short enough, not blonde enough, not pretty enough, not curvy enough, not good enough to keep a marriage together, all of that. And that version is here. And then you have another version of you. That's an unstoppable fucking force that you're like, I got on stage. I can start the podcast. I can do all these things. I got it. I can do this effectively. If I give all of my strategies to the first person, what type of success are they going to have? If I give 5% of my strategies to this person who's an unstoppable force, what type of success am I going to have? What does the next five years look like for these two people? And for those of you who are watching

this on YouTube, you literally can see him go through it. As I'm talking about, you'll see his body language. You dropped into your lowest. Yeah. You a hundred percent did. And then when I talked about your unstoppable, you pulled yourself back out. Being able to tap into that version of you on command is vitally important and people never do it. We're we're, we have four, basically that we do. We have our lowest, which you went in and out of, you've got your default, the one you kind of show up with every day. You've got the warrior, which is if I went over to punch one of your kids in the face with a baseball bat, obviously you know what you're going to do. You can tell already your body's moved around a little bit. You're like, yeah, you're hopefully. And then the last one

is the one that's called the ideal. These three are built based off of fear, the lowest, your default and your warrior based off of fear. Your ideal is based off of fulfillment or lowest your default and your warrior based off of fear your ideal is based off of fulfillment or love it's a totally different ball game but we never do that because our mind only cares about three things can i eat it is it gonna kill me can i fuck it that's it it's all cares about all the time and it's constantly doing that and we're trying to steal attention away from that resetting it so you can tap into it because we go and get all these strategies we go and we go to the events we go to the masterminds we go to the read the books and nothing ever happens because you're giving that bowl of cereal to a three-year-old the version of you that broke it can't

fix it if you can design a version of you that you can call on command to implement at times but you're not going to use it all the time just understand you're born out if you do if you can do that that who will help you in the beginning of changing everything. And that's not the one who changes everything. I'll give you guys away the book so you can figure out the one that actually does. Dude, I, I, I completely and utterly agree. And again, I come back to the fact that this is why conversations like these are so important. It's why I love that you do the podcast that you do. And these are not intuitive, intrinsic things. Like we have to go through things. We have to hear them. I, um, uh, I got to see, uh, Eric Thomas one time phenomenal.

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

I am these things. And it's like we don't – Alex Ramosi says this. He says 15 minutes of preparation can change your life. And I firmly believe that what you just said is before you go into a situation, prepare yourself, become the person to go through some sort of, whether it's a mantra you have or whatever your process is to make you into that person. Cause you are that person, right? You are that person. And I, and I freaking love that dude. This conversation has been absolutely phenomenal. I think it's the perfect point to transition into our closing question, which is I believe, and I think you do too, that everyone has extraordinary inside them, and you are certainly an extraordinary person. How is it that you defy ordinary in your life?

A lot of it is based on the fact of, again, going back to hospice and having that fear idea that I was like, listen, I've been given a gift. There's so many people beyond who I am that got me here. My forefathers or people who've died in combat, you know, both of my grandfathers fought in combat in World War II. I always defied and said, going up and looking in the mirror going, have I made them proud? Have I gone through, have I made myself proud of who I am? And I don't always do that. You talked about earlier this I am. Sometimes I'm an unstoppable force. Sometimes I'm just a waste of human flesh on a couch with ice cream just falling apart. And I need to be that. And you prime it. But being able to go in and sit there and say, hey, you know what? This is who I am. Have I made myself proud? Have I let down the people who have sacrificed so much for me to get here? Have I made them proud? And I don't always

do that. And that's okay. Now I get to step forward so it always comes after down to that Charles I appreciate you I appreciate your story and I appreciate your time thank you so much my friend thank you so much I appreciate it let's go yeah make it look make it look make it look easy thank you for listening to the Ryan Hanley show be sure to subscribe and leave us a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts. Close twice as many deals by this time next week. Sound impossible? It's not. With the One Call Close system, you'll stop chasing leads and start closing deals in one call. This is the exact method we use to close 1,200 clients in under three years during the pandemic. No fluff, no endless follow-ups, just results fast. Thank you.