TrueLife - Chad Kaleky - Unearthing the Alchemy of Success from the Forge of Failure

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Chad has focused his career on creating technology solutions through his entrepreneurial ventures over the past decade. His background in mechanical engineering, web development, and finance have led to innovations between the industries through the multiple companies he has founded."Failing to Success" Podcast, the podcast that's all about hearing the true stories of entrepreneurs and C-Suite teams who have encountered obstacles, made mistakes, and came out the other side. Join us as we sit down to hear their real life experiences of triumph over adversity. Our podcast is now ranked in the Top 10% Globally!https://www.ftspod.com/  One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear, through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. I'm just looking at the left side of my screen. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. It's Thursday.

We get one more until that final Friday, which is a holiday for some of us. I hope everybody's having a beautiful day. Hope the sun is shining, the bird is singing. The wind is at your back. I've got an incredible guest for you today. The one and only, Chad Kalecki. He is a, what I like, I believe that my friend Chad here is a visionary entrepreneur and without a doubt, a technology innovator. With a career spanning over a decade, he has seamlessly merged his expertise in mechanical engineering,

web development and finance to create cutting-edge solutions at the intersection of these industries. Chad's entrepreneurial journey has been nothing short of extraordinary, as he's founded multiple companies that have not only broken boundaries, but also contributed to the transformation of various sectors. One of his notable ventures is Renugu, a tech developer, OEM manufacturer, an Omnichannel retailer specializing in an array of smart home gadgets spanning from kitchen and electronics to gaming and relaxation, a testament to his diverse entrepreneurial spirit. However, his impact extends far beyond the world of business. He's the driving force behind the Entrepreneurs Investment Club, a remarkable initiative that has empowered thousands of fellow

entrepreneurs to diversify their investments beyond their core business. Through this club, Chad has facilitated financial education and exposure to external assets, fostering great security and stability for those who have participated. However, Chad is not just a successful entrepreneur, He's also a dedicated host of monthly talks featuring financial experts further enriching the knowledge and prospects of aspiring entrepreneurs. We're truly honored to have him here today to share his experience, insights, an incredible journey that has made him a beacon of inspiration. Join us as we uncover the wisdom and lessons from Chad's remarkable career. Chad, thank you for being here today, host of the failing to success podcast. How's it going, my friend?

Yeah, thanks, George, for having me. And this just goes to show it quickly after shift because pretty much everything you read. I'm either selling one of those businesses where I've created a whole new venture at this point. Like Renugu, I'm selling that company now. You know, I had that for over a decade. It's time to move on. And now, as you said, I'm doing the podcast. And it became a, from all this tech and finance talks, right, it pivoted me into B2B sales and now doing services around podcasting.

Yeah, you and I, you know what? Maybe we can just shift into that for a moment. For those that are listening, I had a recent. conversation with Chad, where we're talking about podcasts and we're talking about shorts and clips and views. And one of the things that really drew me to you, Chad, was your ability to thoroughly understand the language and the algorithm that the big platforms are pushing. I thought maybe we could kind of dive into that a little bit. Like, you know, you are helping people get more views, more likes. But more than that, I think you're helping people to

understand the language around the algorithms. Maybe you could talk a little about what you're doing in that field right now. Yeah, sure. So the algorithms, all they're doing is looking at human behavior. And so it's never trying to beat them. It's purely creating content that people are going to watch all the way through. So if somebody only makes it through the first four seconds of your content, well, the algorithm says this is garbage. So we need to make content that hooks people, engages them, keeps them watching all the way until the end. And so that's kind of been our trick, you could say, is finding a way to hook them, make them watch the whole way through, And then even creating content where the clips don't feel as if they've ended.

So when we spoke about looping, right, where the end loops back to the beginning and rotating through again. You know, and every medium is different. Like, I just made a LinkedIn post that's going up later today. And with LinkedIn, it's all about really diving deep into your stories and not selling or sharing kind of surface stuff. So my post just now, right? I just spoke about how my first business was it hit $2 million by the time I turned 21 and how the stress of that. And people look at it as a success.

I was falling apart. And then over the next couple years, it scaled to $4 million. And then I had 18 employees. And you would think, oh, my God, this guy's on top of the world. No, I was miserable. My health was declining. Like, I hated going to work each day. You have 18 people coming to their problems every second.

And as a young entrepreneur, I didn't know how to. like kind of create layers in between me and everybody. So I was having dealing with people's like family problems where they're coming to me about why they couldn't come to work or, you know, why they're not going to be able to deliver on this project. And I'm a caring person, so I listen. But you can't do that for 18 people every day and still have a sustainable life in a social life and things like that.

Yeah, it's interesting to think about all the things that come with success. that people may not be aware of. And it's not just solving problems in production. It's not just solving problems in the warehouse or wherever your place of business may be. It's solving a lot of social problems, right? Yeah, it's a lot of social problems. And keeping people motivated. It's extremely difficult and keeping everybody on the same track.

So like over the years, I mean, I read every business book you can find to figure out how do I make this work? how do I get everybody going? It honestly took me like six years to where I really kind of understood management and to where I had structured meetings every week. I wrote company core values. I said, okay, these are the personality traits of me that I think are the reason that the business has grown to this point. If I could take that information and communicate it as a value system within the organization,

maybe things would be, they would go a little smoother. And so we started doing meetings around values and how you apply these values to business situations. And then all of a sudden, the leadership team starts to form. And then there's becomes layers of management. And then we have weekly meetings and the systems and structure come into play. And all of a sudden, my leadership team is running the company for me. And it took years for me to get to that point. And by the way, this business ended up pretty much crashing and burning eventually. But the skills and the lessons I took from that are exactly what put me into my next adventure at a much stronger place. Yeah, I love that.

You know, on some level, failure is the wrong word. It's more of like a deep learning. You know, instead of failure, it's like a really deep learning because you're forced to look at yourself. And I guess maybe that's a good question is that when you're trying to translate your vision into reality, especially in business, on some level, that becomes a reflection of who you are as an individual, but it gets tricky when money's involved because the value changes. On some level, you're forced to quantify another person and change them into a number somewhat. That's a very, very difficult thing to do. What do? Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, well, to that point, I also went through a period where you would not want to be my friend.

So the stress of running an organization like that, right? And you also start developing a little bit ego, especially if you're out. Sure. And so my first approach was, I'll be an asshole. And therefore, people won't come to move with their problems. They'll be afraid to come to me. And guess what, that worked for a little bit? But it created a very toxic environment.

And so eventually you say, all right, well, this is not the way. to do it. So then it becomes empowering those around you, right, and finding the right people to fill those seats and do those jobs and curate those layers because really nobody should have more than maybe three or four direct reports. And you have to find a way to do that. So then I became this happy-go-lucky guy because I had the stress was off my shoulders, right? I was the happiest guy to walk into that building because I didn't have it to do any work. I was there to motivate, inspire. I did a little bit of work. But Sure. Overall, it was it was delegating that to the team and then making sure they were on the right track.

Yeah. I think, you know, on some level, it takes it back to language. You know, the way in which your inner dialogue speaks with you every day seems to be the glue that brings people to you or the opposite magnetic force that pushes people away from you. Have you found there to be a relationship between the inner dialogue, that you use or you speak to yourself every day and the dialogue you use in your relationships? Yeah. I mean, the old phrase smile at the world and it smiles back at it. So communicating positivity. It's in the law of attraction. People start coming to you. Sharing your story and your learnings with others, right, to help them doing things for other people without asking for anything in return. That's a big part of, I think you, George, I mean, from our few conversations as well as myself, you know, we do that.

We try to offer value. We try to do things out of the goodness of our heart. And because we know that if we do that, it'll just circle back around. We don't ask for it. We don't care when. But one day, right, that favor will be returned. Yeah, it's true. And I think that that same sort of mentality forces you to look at people in situations

in life differently. Because when you start approaching a subject of like, okay, what can I do to help here instead of what can this person, what can I get out of this person? All of a sudden, you see the situation different. You see yourself as part of the situation and someone, instead of something that's extracting from that situation. I think people can feel that. I think if, like, listen, we've all been in a relationship where the other person was an extractor and you're like, Jesus, Christ, this person just takes so much from me.

Like, I can't even be around them. But on the flip side of that, when you, when you are someone who is giving as much as you can to the relationship. People feel that and they want to be around it. They want to work for you. They want to be in relationship to you. They want to be inspired by it or they want to learn. And that type of environment is very conducive to learning, to building, to creating. And I think that we're moving towards that. If you look at the old system, maybe you could back this up. But the majority of the books that were written in business in the 2000s came from this style of management that was like, scare the crap out of your employee, you know, try to force this numbers through them. And it worked. Like you said,

that'll work for a while. And I think it worked for the last business cycle. We had all these CEOs that came up and made tons of money, but they really had this hardcore edge to them. And over the last 10 or 12 years, you saw this thing called lifestyle company, they started to find its way into the lexicon. And the old school guys like,

that's a stupid thing. You don't want to work hard. But a lifestyle company to me seems to be conducive to longevity. What is your take on longevity in the changing of the business cycles? Yeah, let's look at like Amazon versus Google. and their mentalities. And it's top down. So Jeff Bezos is kind of a severe guy.

And if you, you can see that through his entire company. So I had Renugu, right, I had any commerce company for 10 years. And you could see him in the messages that were going to the sellers. It was always a threat. Like nothing was positive. It was always like, we're going to kick you off the platform if you don't meet these new metrics. And it was, it honestly is poison. Right. I hated that I had to rely on Amazon as a business provider.

And then if you talk to the guys who had direct relationships like the Perry Ellis's or like the large manufacturers who had the direct contracts with them, they knew they hated those meetings because they knew they were going to come in and they were going to try and ream them. They were going to try to change the terms, restructure the deal. And, you know, now he's not in the company anymore. Maybe, you know, it'll change. But you still see those threats and the policies. And the business was very successful. Right. On the customer end, great experience. Then you look at somebody like Google, right? The way they treat their employees, the way the whole organization is run.

I mean, we've all seen the movie where, right, they're all, the Google, like, landscape is like, it's free lunch and, like, play in the playground, right? And that fun, it translates through all the staff. People want to work there. They enjoy that. And then the products come out. in a different way. They approach people a different way.

That's why they penetrated the market in such a way. And so I think those are the two mentalities, right? Yeah, it's fascinating to me to think of. And one of the disturbing things I found in my life, and I'm curious to get your opinion is that there's this old quote that says you can't serve two masters. And when I think about that, I think about like the work-life balance.

And whether you're Google or whether you're Bezos, it's really difficult when you're starting something to give more energy to a relationship. And a lot of the times, you'll find people at the highest level of performance that have decided to take business over their family. How do you balance that? Like, I don't, I know people that walk that line

and it's sort of a meandering path, but what about you? Do you have any thoughts on trying to serve two masters or give energy to two different places? Yeah, so I spent a lot of my day figuring out how to have that balance in life. And so, you know, right now I'm growing up, another business and part of it from day one is i still need this to be a bit i mean i don't want

this to be more than maybe 60 hour work weeks right because i mean that's more than the 40 and eventually the goal is 40 but you have to have a social life you have to spend time on if you have a family you spend time with if you don't have a family you need to if that's something you want right you have to pursue going on dates and having relationships. And then eventually, you know, that's turning into something more. So work is important, right? Your business is important, especially if you're an entrepreneur. Right.

But it's always going to be there tomorrow and you can continue to work on it tomorrow. Take that time. Take that time to go have a family dinner. Take that time to go play with your children. Because guess what? In 20 years, 30 years, you're, you're not going to look back and be like, I wish they worked three extra hours on my business. Now you're going to say, I wish I spent more time with my family.

Yeah, it's well said. I've been talking to some death doulas, and I know you as an avid reader have probably read several biographies of people that you admire. And at the end of those biographies, and when you talk to a death dula, and they talk about people who are taking their last breath, in those last breaths, people don't ever say, I wish I would have been at the office more. I wish I would have made more money. they always say, I wish I would have been a better father, wish I'd have been a better lover, a better husband, a better person.

And I think that those of us who will find themselves walking through the fields of entrepreneurship or life in itself can really learn from those lessons. Like, those are some empowering and powerful words. And if we can learn from those that came before us, maybe we could take a step in the right direction. And another, on a little caveat of that is that what you do sometimes, you do all the time. And so if you find yourself, constantly sitting at your computer trying to do a podcast. Like me sometimes.

I just, it's so attractive to me. And I wanted to be so good. Like, I got to stop me. Okay, I am pushing away the people I care about or I'm attracting the negative energy into me by only focusing on this.

And it can kind of become an escape in some way. So yeah, I just wanted to throw that out there for everybody listening. Like take time to do what you love because what you do sometimes, you do all the time. And it shows up in your life. But you have a very incredible background, like a mixture of like engineering and language and starting these companies. And how do you think that all those things come together to provide you an insight of how to move forward?

Yeah. So it moved me into kind of the sales coaching realm. And so I came to realize, they say find your unique ability. And once you find that, that's how you'll make your money. And so through all my ventures, I realized, oh, wait. I'm like, I'm a sales guy. I'm naturally just a salesperson. And I don't do it through being like a car salesman.

I do it like extreme empathy and understanding and adding strategic value. And so for me, my ad back is like, I'll jump on a call and I'll like dig through your entire business very quickly. And so like my background of engineering, well, I think systematically, right? So then I go through and I'm like, okay, very quickly I can see. these are like the 20 steps to make your business kind of operate. And then maybe I'll ask a question on each one of the 20 to see where you're at with that process. And then say, okay, well, we need to fix number six, eight, and 12 because they're just not there or they're just missing completely. And so that's been my approach to this.

I don't even know what the original question was, George. I feel like I went off on a tangent. Not at all. We were just talking about thinking. And you spoke about the recipe of systematic thinking and empathy. in sales. I think it's a wonderful answer. It does speak volumes of thought process and the way people interact with each other. Maybe we can talk a little bit about I'm fascinated by the language of the algorithms. And I think that you have a unique way to see that. Let me just tell you

how I kind of see it working. And then you can dig in there and tell me what you agree with or what you don't agree with. It seems to me, like, and we'll take, let's just take Instagram, for example, and we can branch out to other ones. But I think this will be helpful for the audience. So if someone wants to create an Instagram reel that is doing really well, and we can say really well as, I don't know, 10,000, 20,000 plus, it seems to me that when we look at Instagram, what's happening is that there's a handful of people with lots of money, like be it Ford or Barbie or these giant multinational corporations, they go to Instagram when they say, hey, we have tons of money.

we would like you to promote influencers and we're going to pay them in likes. So they have a ton of money. They give it to the platform and then the platform finds the people who are making content for those companies. Does that sound like it sound like it could be accurate or how do you see it breaking down from the top to the bottom? Yeah. So let's just pretend you create good content and you're not linked to any of the big brands. Okay. Give me any topic.

Um, psychedelics. Psychedelics. Okay. So first we need to create a one-line hook. Okay. So these are the 10 ways that psychedelics can improve your brain health. We start with that, right? And then we start going through them.

Number one, thinking through different angles. And then we give like a little breakdown of that, right? Number two, stress relief, right? We open up new pathways. And maybe we have some like video animations in at this point in our Instagram real. We're building our real live right now. Yeah. And so number three, whatever it is.

And then we don't have a number four. For number four, watch our next video. I love it. Follow us now. So if we can get people to watch all the way through and then follow and then maybe write a comment, like, oh, I know what number four is. They're engaging with us. And that's how you create content that hits certain levels. So let's say this real hit.

Let's say we got it to 10,000 views again. the first time. And then we revisit it and we look, oh, when did people stop watching? Oh, people stopped watching at 18 seconds, but our reel was 25 seconds. Okay, let's remake this thing at 18 seconds. And so we'll remake it 18 seconds and put it up again. Let's see what the response is now. Oh, now they watch the whole way through.

Oh, but there wasn't enough comments. So how do we make them interact with it more? So we make it again with some sort of engaging question to have people interact. like, hey, would you use psychedelics in your life? Like, what would it do? What part of what we said would apply to you? Something, a you statement, right? And we put it up again.

Now we get more engagement. All right, now we need to come in, like, let's put like some more different animations in, right? Some more sound effects, different things like this. And we put up again. Well, now this thing went from 10,000 views the first time to 20,000 views the second time to 100,000 views the third time. So like, okay, well, this thing has 100,000 views. Let's see what happens over the next time. next six months. Because the way the algorithm works is it hits a certain level, and then it'll stop it.

Hey, what was the traction on the first 100,000 views? And then it might start showing it in small doses to a couple thousand more people and a couple thousand more people. So I just had this happen on one of my reels. I hit 200,000 views. Then it capped. Then all of a sudden, it started growing again two months later. So now it's 220,000, 230,000. Then I took that reel and I started sharing it around other social mediums so that people will click on and look in it as example. So now Instagram sees external traffic coming. Oh, external traffic means maybe we'll give it more visibility. So we will see what happens to this post over the next few months, but it now gets views every day.

And it's slow. So it went from $200,000 to $300,000. Maybe it'll go to $300,000. Maybe it'll go more. So I had this happen also with Renugu, with the e-commerce post. I created a video that was a little toy we were selling. It was a little UFO towing your throat. It spins and come out boom rings back.

And we put it up and it gets like 15,000 views. And we're like, oh, that's great. By six months, it has 550,000 views. And it's because people started searching for that. And they also, for some reason, I guess where I recorded it, I actually made this video myself, where I recorded it, it was down like a hallway in an apartment building. And apparently that hallway looked like a video game,

a very popular video game. And so people start commenting, hey, are you recording this in the level from backrooms? And I'm like, I don't even know what this is. And so, and I don't even think the videos is that great. People are writing. And guess what? All of a sudden, most of my website traffic comes from this video.

Because I put a link that says, if you want to buy the UFO toy, you can buy it here on my website. It becomes my top selling product on my website because of that piece of content. Wow. And so then I remade the content. But now I said it is in back rooms. It is in the video game. And so that's what you do, right? When you sometimes hit something organically,

you kind of just hit that harder. Like, okay, well, I've found something here accidentally. So let's work that. So it's putting a lot of frequent content up too. It reminds me of like a chance encounter in a relationship. You know what I mean by that? Like you go somewhere and you're like, I think this girl likes me.

I can see her blushing a little bit. You start talking to her, you know? It kind of sounds like the same thing in a way, man. What do you think? Yeah, you put up a massive amount of frequent content. So that's why podcasting is great, right? Because we can make from this episode, by the way, George, I'm doing my clip service for this episode. I'm making it.

Yes. And posting it all over your socials and all over mine. I love it, man. And all you need is like, let's say we make 50 posts out of this. Okay. We have an hour footage. This is a good conversation. We probably could get 50 clips out of it.

So what? We have almost two months of content. If we're posting every day, we just need one of them to hit. And then we'll put the time into making that one. better. That's kind of the idea. Or maybe it's 20 clips, maybe it's 30, whatever it is, right? We're recording video content and it's talking head conversation.

Right. A lot of on these social platforms. And yeah, we can make some stuff out of it and see what happens. Yeah. For me, the way I think, I really like to use my content or use my voice and look at it in the form of a relationship because I think that that's what's. happening. I think that when you, if you look at the algorithms, I like to think of them as a language. Like the picture is a noun and the words coming up or a verb and the music is an adjective

and it brings together this harmonious song that reaches through the airwaves to people on some level. You know, I see it in a language aspect like that. What is the psychology behind it for you? Is it something that, is there a certain way that you see it? Yeah, you're forming a relationship with the audience. So anybody who watches a piece of content, your goal is to form a relationship without ever meeting them. That's how you build followings and communities. It's through doing that. And so this is how guys do a really good job of turning the audiences into monetization.

So I have a friend of mine who has a software design company. He puts up all this educational content around software. And all of a sudden, he grows to 250,000 followers because they love watching the different stuff he makes, the different graphic designs. And then he's like, oh, wait, he partners with somebody who says, you know, I can really help you actually like get clients out of this. And they start putting a post that say, book a call, book a call and we can build something for you. And all of a sudden, their calendars are full. So if you build a community, because they already, the three rules of sales, no like trust. Drew posting every day,

he built no like trust without ever meeting these people. And then when they jump on a call and they're ready to actually buy something, he's already like surpassed that entire beginning sales process, which is building no like trust. This is a, it's fascinating for me to see the evolution of commerce and the creator economy. And when I hear you talking about ideas like the no like trust, what an incredible thing to see being born is this new idea of the creator economy, right? Like it's, it's kind of like, hey, this is the first people jumping in the water right here.

And with first mover, it becomes a lot. lot of opportunities. What do you think about the creator economy in the future of what we're doing today? If you create, actually create good content, right? And you get a good following like that. You become the brand ambassadors, right? The big guys need to contact you if they want to sell their products. And so, I mean, it's competitive, right? Because now people realize this is what you can make a lot of money with this. And so it's the big, like, I don't know if you saw that, a new podcast, the Feel Good podcast,

something with Bobby Adoff. I think it's heard of it. Yeah, so she just came out of nowhere and blew up. And so, oh, it's called the really good podcast. It's not just not even time

to really make a name that needed anything. But the guests were great because she got big superstars on really quick. And it was through incentivizing people on Instagram to actually ask a guest

to come on her show. So she said, hey, all get hard to anybody who messages Drake or messages this person. And then all of a sudden, these big celebrities start getting all these messages from their followers. They're like, hey, you need to go on this podcast. And so they start going on.

So she quickly blew up and then quickly started monetizing. So you'll see she makes clips. And she's like a very strong personality or character is really a character. Yeah, sure. And she's like, oh, look, I got these new yoga pants from Lulu Lemon. And I'm going to like, they're okay. Like she doesn't even like sell them. It's just like, they're okay.

But, you know, I think I'm aware of them on my next show. And you should come and watch me do this. So that's a massive paid spot. Yeah. And it seems organic. A lot of her post seem organic. And that's the power of a creator economy. Yeah, I think it speaks to the idea of influence.

And when I think about influence, you know, I'll throw out some names, but there's probably old school. There's probably a whole new generation of them. But when I think of influence, I think of Robert Caldini, who ran like the Hillary campaign, a couple other presidential. campaigns. I think of there's a book called Nudge by Kass Sunstein who used to be

someone who advised Obama. But when you start looking behind campaigns, of which social media is, it's a giant campaign. And when I think of influence, I think of saturation. But saturation isn't best done through a fire hose.

Saturation is best done through a light rain that lands on the ground over a month. Like you just wanted to kind of flow down and saturation. the ground until it gets to the point of saturation. And I think that that is what she speaks of when she says, like, oh, yeah, I got these Lulu Lemon. These are all right.

Like, it's just this little quick drop that's like, was that a spot? What is the saying? Because people get offended a little bit when you're like, look at my new shirt. This is a George Moni, original. Like I try to sound like a cool guy or something. We're like, I'm way too cool. That kind of pushes people away.

But if you can just lightly put it out there, I think it has a magnetic effect to it. What do you think about influence and the way it's going? And how do you use it? Yeah, so as you said, kind of doing it in a very calculated way. So where it doesn't feel like you're selling anything. And you've got to think about that because you can't really be, and that comes with practice also. It's pitching without pitching.

And so, right, it could be like, we spoke about this last time, like putting something in your background. Like, let's say, George, you launched a new book, so you just have it on the wall back. Yeah. You don't say anything about it. It's just there in the background. And then people start searching your book on Amazon. like, oh, maybe I shouldn't buy this book. This is interesting. And it's these really subtle type ways of influencing. What do you think about questions? You know, there's

something to be said about the Socratic method where you always answer a question with a question. Is that used an influence or do you use that when you host stuff? Because you have a lot of people on your podcast, a lot of fascinating people that you talk to that have accomplished quite a bit. What is your technique in order to extract information and make it engaging? You know, answering questions with questions is definitely a technique. That's, I don't know. There's times. There's times for that, right?

You know, if you need to dig deeper and divulge more information. So my podcasts, right, it's, I don't really ever answer anything. It's questions only. And that's, I feel my job as a host is to do that. And I love it when it's more engaging because I think the content comes out better. like me and you right now, we're both actually speaking and bouncing off each other. And so, so yeah, so when it's,

how do I divulge the information? So it's a series of, let's say it's not a podcast. Let's say it's a sales call, right? So how am I getting all the intel? So it's asking a series of questions directed at a goal. And so the person you're speaking with doesn't realize that you're aiming towards something.

And you can jump the questions around. So let's say, all right, I'll tell you this is basically how I do. Okay. Okay. So question one. George, tell me about your business. Tell me about your podcast. Tell me about what inspires you.

And you answer that. And you say, oh, I have the true life podcast. You know, this is what does? I said, oh, like, what are your goals? Are you trying to grow your audience right now? You're like, yeah, I am. Like, I'm trying to find a way to actually monetize this and grow my audience a little bit. they say, okay, what are your current ways or thoughts on monetizing it?

And then you'll give me that information on that. Oh, well, I'm posting like I'm making clips now and like I'm doing this, but I'm not really getting traction. So now all of a certain, this is what I hear. I heard a pain point. So either I'm going to ask you to dig deeper into that pain point, why do you think you're not getting traction? Or I'm going straight up say, what's your pain? What are your biggest pain points right now? So in sales, the way to sell is to find the pain and fix it.

So I will dig deeper into that pain in every way possible to learn everything about that problem. And then I will start trying to solve it in front of you. I will start giving you potential strategies of ways that I've done it for others or ways that I think could work and help. And then you will eventually say, you know, something I think that could work or, you know, that's an angle I didn't think of. And if I'm really good, I'll make it your idea. Yes. Yeah. And so if it's your idea and I'm just here to help you. you with your idea like oh i'm in that's it it's too late for you george you're not getting out now

and so now i book another meeting with you now we continue to build a relationship let's say you're you're on the fence about you know going forward with the service i'm probably calling you every day i'm probably sending you an email i'm probably sending you a lincoln message i'm being relentless at this point but in a in a nice way sure and if you tell me to like chad you need to leave me alone, I'm going to leave you alone. But it's not going to happen. It never happens. Because I'm so, so nice in my approach that it doesn't really, you can say, listen, you know, I've really thought about it. It's just, I don't have a budget for this or, you know, I can't do it now. And I said, that's okay. You know, let's talk in three months.

Yeah. And then we, we talk again. So that's my approach to the questions game. I love it. It's on some level, it has a deep psychological foundation. because it's almost therapeutic in a way when you go to a therapist. And like I talk, I come from a long family of mental illness. And so I've definitely spent my time in a chair and talking to people and different kinds of people. And it seems that when you go to talk therapy, the job of the therapist is to find pain points and then help you come up with the solutions to them. And in some ways, I think that you go beyond sales, especially if you care enough about a person's problems

and you can see that they want their channel to be this. It's more of, instead of selling something, I look at it as participating in the dream with them, right? Because look, I'm going to walk with you. I do this. I make these things. Here's how I do it. And I think that if people can shift their idea,

because sometimes people look at sales like a dirty word, you know, like it's tainted with the car salesman. It's tainted with like a, you know, insurance agencies and stuff like this. But it doesn't need be. It could be more like a strategic partner. That has such a better ring to it, you know? And it's the truth. When we're working together to solve problems, everybody's winning.

When the money's coming in, everybody's happy. And so I really like that idea. And I love the way you threw it out there. Like, look, I'm looking for these pain points because it helps me. First off, it helps you learn all kinds of stuff. You get to work with all kinds of different people from different fields and different dreams and different languages and different cultures, man. That's an incredible way to thoroughly understand the human condition.

And I can see how you get good at it. And you are good at it. One of the things that I really liked when we sat down and you and I talked, like I really admired the way in which you were able to describe all the different meanings. Like, these are the words coming up. This is the background. This is why it works. And for me, I'm a why person.

Like, okay, I get it, but why? What do you, what are, what do you think are good lessons that come from asking why questions? Yeah, well, well, first of all, to jump back, the way we met was through one of my sales funnels. Yeah. You know, doing outbound lead generation. And apparently whatever I wrote to you was enough for you to take the time to jump on a call.

Yeah. And then going back to the why, what are these questions help help me figure out, right? And so by figuring out all these whys and figuring out all these pain points, I can actually help somebody because I don't sell things that I can't service. So if you have a problem and I actually have the unique capability. to help you solve and fix this problem? Well, that's the only reason you're going to buy something for me. And so going into the wise of, all right, what is this pain point?

What's causing this pain point? Can I make your life a little easier? Can I make your life a little better? And if I can, is it worth you paying me some money to do so? And normally it is. And I'm also not looking for short-term clients. Like, when I bring on a client, they better be staying with me for a year, if not two, if not five.

because I'm not looking to waste your time. You're not looking to waste mine because I'm really going to get to know you. I'm going to know everything about you because that's how I form relationships. That's who I am. That's why I have a podcast. And if I know everything about you and who you are, I can build programs accustomed to you that are going to take your abilities and display them out for other people to buy your services. Yeah, it's, I really like the idea of building long-term relationships.

And I really am excited about the future for the creator economy. And I like the way in which the landscape is changing. And there is change coming from the ground up. And we've talked a little bit about the positive parts of the creator economy. Do you see there being any ethical dilemmas or any big problems on the forefront for the creator economy? Well, there's a lot of influence to the big creators. But then again, they don't get that influence without. doing things right and like providing good free value and positive pretty much it's it's

mainly positive influence yeah so if they shift all of a sudden they're probably just going to get canceled as we've seen happen to people and like lose their followings anyways so the biggest thing around right ethical dilemmas things like that is the power and control they have but people will leave them if they start abusing that power and control so that that concern is not as much. I think it's better that now the power is going back into the hands of the people who create content and not the big corporations. And the big corporations have to pay the creators to actually continue to be big corporations. I think that's a better way to kind of circulate value and content and products. So I'm glad it's happening. If you want to get into it, you got to put a lot

of energy into it now. It doesn't just like happen. Either you're going to put in a lot of money into getting your following or you're going to put a lot of time and thought into getting your following and me and you are in the realm of time and thought yeah yeah yeah it's interesting you know when i first started my channel i started back in 2020 and i started off as like a comedy channel and i found this little hack and you know people could probably do this today and if you're listening and you want to get to thousands of followers here's how i did it and it's i i would take clips from dead comedians specifically like the old Dean Martin Rose because I grew up on like these old one-liner comedy guys

and for some reason I thought it was more ethical to use dead comedians than like a live comedians. Not that it matters, still not my content. But I would go and I would clip like a minute or 30 seconds and then I would put them up on YouTube. Maybe you just put like some flashes in or just a little bit of CGI or whatever. And then I started posting like three, between three and six a day.

And within a matter of like a year, so of them started hitting pretty big. I had some that would get like a million views. And then I just saw my, my follower account just boom explode and so I like it was really really intoxicating like I'm like holy cow look at this look at this and I was so stoked and all these comments and I'm like and that's when it kind of hit me like this can really happen this is a thing like you can create content and you can get to a point where it could be monetized and I started going like holy macro and it changed

the way that I saw myself it changed the way that I saw the creator economy but then I got to a point where, you know, I went to monetize on YouTube and there was some problems with, you know, using other people's content. But there was a bigger problem inside of me. I was like, none of this is really mine. And it's really cool and intoxicating. And I have all these potential, you know, places where I could, where I could use affiliate marketing now. These people are reaching out to me. And I got to this place where like, okay, I'm going to make some affiliate market.

I spent tons of time making affiliate marketing products and it took away from what I wanted to do. So I just came to this point where like, okay, first off, it's not my comedy. And I don't want my channel to be someone else's stuff. So I went through and I just cut like all these million dollar things. And it fundamentally changed the profile of my channel. You know, it was primarily like this giant older boomer group because they were, they like those comedians I was with. And so the algorithm changed. I stopped getting all, instead of getting, you know, seven or eight or nine thousand views, I'd get like a hundred.

However, for me, it was an incredible change because now. Now I knew my audience was coming directly for my content. But it's a big shift that happens there. And I'm wondering, have you felt like a similar shift? Because you've started multiple companies before. And you've had people's attitudes shift towards you. What do you think we can learn from these big shifts, whether it's in the creator economy, whether it's growing a business and having that business crash or growing a business,

getting to a point where you're super successful? What can we learn from these moments, Chad, when we create something and then it shifts? Yeah, I think what we can learn is sharing. those experiences and in speaking to creating content that actually relates to you it makes sense right if you're going to put the time you're taking the time to go through these comedy skits and clip stuff out and post them why don't we share your life and yeah maybe you'll have less followers in the beginning but they're going to be loyal like they're coming to actually talk like see you understand you yeah and that was my big shift with my podcast right a

a feeling to success. Yeah. I mean to speak sharing experiences. So all the content was generated by us, either me interviewing people or me sharing something about my life and putting that type of content up. And it's stories and it's real stories from real people, not movie stars or anything,

just entrepreneurs who have struggled to build something from nothing, which is extremely difficult. And those stories should be. be shared. And it gives people inspiration that, hey, listen, you can do it too. You just got to put the time and the effort in it. And also, it's going to suck, by the way. So we'll share that suckiness with you through our experience. I mean, I've had guys come on the show who said, listen, I was struggling to buy a cup of coffee and now my business is valued $200 million. And I'm like, holy shit. Yeah. Like, we've all been there with building businesses. And to see that,

that can happen, right? And that was like a 10 year span. Within 10 years, he's kept at it. And he ended up building this massive renewable energy, real estate type empire from like, I couldn't afford a sandwich at a coffee shop. And those are the stories I like sharing. I love it. I think it speaks volumes of this trilogy of self-awareness, self-respect, and self-love. You know, when I look at my journey and I see that shift, like not only was it a shift in what I was building, but it was a shift in awareness. Like something happened to me like, that's awesome. Wait a minute.

This is not even about me. And you know what? I kind of created it. Like it was my idea to do it. Why don't I make it about myself? And that shift, Chad, like it fundamentally changed the way I saw myself. I was like, damn it, my story is pretty fucking interesting, you know? And maybe people won't like it, but they might later.

But I realized this awareness in myself when I started doing it. And I started realizing what I became aware of what I loved. I became aware of what I wanted to do. And I think that that's where the. real growth takes places when you start realizing and becoming aware of what it is you want. For so long in life, so many of us go through school where we sit in front of an educator or an authority figure and they have these bells and whistles and you're conditioned to see things a certain way.

But every one of us is so much more than this linear path from the hospital to the graveyard. If you have the courage, the strength and the belief in yourself to go out and start doing the things you love, I think the world will unfold in front of you. in ways you can't even imagine. You've seen that path before, right? What is your take on self-awareness and building it up inside of you? Yeah, it's really important

in sharing that vision with people. It's extremely important. So just creating something at a nothing and then seeing people follow you, that shows what that type of. Well, also there's a lot of false confidence. So I'm a big pusher of false confidence because that's how I built my first couple of companies.

Like, why is anybody to believe about 18 year old kid who has employees who were like in their 30s 40s and 50s right why do they even listen to me or believe in me or anything and so it's it's because i just had this vision i said no we're going to conquer the it was returns uh management so we were buying trucks of returns from like amazon walmart and target and i built a factory of people who would be fixing repairing these products electronics kitchen appliances and we'd resell them online And the first couple people, right, are kind of like, okay, well, he's paying me. So I'll come in and it's fine.

And so, but then all of a sudden, you start seeing trucks of products arrive and you start seeing order shipping out. And then people see it. Oh, the belief. Like, oh, wait, this guy might actually have something. And so then the business starts to scale. And then they see that. And so like now, let's say the podcast, right?

So that business really kind of fell apart. And that was fine. It was time. it lasted for support of my life for many years. It was nice. It's fine. So then the podcast came around, right? So how do you get people to believe in the podcast?

I'm like, I don't have no experience in podcast. I've done public speaking, right? But I don't have any episodes up of the podcast. So I'm like, all, first of all, I need a theme that people are going to be able to get behind. And then once again, I need to display false confidence and that my podcast is massive, even though it is not. And so I set an ambitious. goal. So when people came on, first of all, it's called failing to success. People can relate to

that type of concept that they have stories they want to share and people like talking about themselves. So that was that was a good way to get. I wanted to speak with business owners, guys who had multi-million dollar companies because nobody was reaching out to me when I was running mine and I had a lot of information to share and it would be nice. And I know I would have said yes. And so I said these guys will respond. These men and women entrepreneurs will respond. So they did. And I, they came in and they, they would ask like, oh, how many episodes do you have? Like, I said, listen, we're going to produce a thousand episodes this year. They're like, a thousand episodes. I'm like, yeah, AI is out. We can do this. And all of a sudden, people are

like, well, that's like, that's like an ambitious goal. That's like a big vision. I'm like, yeah, but we're going to do it because my background's in tech and we're going to get this going going to go. And I will this podcast will rank up. Yeah. So didn't get to a thousand because basically that was too much. I just, I was going to burn out. But got to 300. episodes within six months, right? Got the podcast to rank up to the top 10%. Congratulations. Got big names on.

Yeah. Right. I got the VP of Energy at General Electric. I got the CEO of a subgroup IBM on the show also. Got guys who are being sponsored by Nvidia, guys who got acquired or sponsored by IBM. Like a lot of big names started to show up. And then when you get that, those wins, you leverage those.

wins. And so then the new reach out became, hey, I have a podcast called Fans Success. IBM and GE came on. Would you come on next? And you just keep leveling it up and elevate it. And then when you have those ones, top 10% up, now we're in the top 10%. Do you want to come on the show and they just keep doing this? And that's how you grow the audiences and get people to believe in it. I love it. It speaks to the idea of contagion and momentum. You know, when you have something that success, isn't it strange that like people catch a cold? If I get sick, you don't want to be around me because you might get sick. But the flip is true.

If I'm successful, you want to be around me because it can be contagious as well. What say you about the ideas of contagion and momentum? Yeah, you got it. When you have the momentum, ride that, right? Ride the wave. When you have a business that's in the right place and like, let's say you had an AI business, you know, five years ago. And then this massive whole thing just happened with Nvidia going skyrocketing and all their chips being sold and AI booming, ride that wave.

Like, if you were thinking about raising money during that time period, you should have been, you should have raised that money because you could have. If you miss that wave and then the money runs out or that opportunity runs out, well, you've just lost your momentum. And so it's really identifying it and being aware of it and knowing to put everything in when that momentum comes. Yeah, I agree. It's, you know, as a as an MTV generation, you know, you would always see these people come out and like they would make their albums or whatever.

And when you're hot, you're hot, man. You got to strike while the iron is hot. You can put out five albums. And then you're way up here. And you become the greatest, you know. But then in some weird way, you must be mindful of burnout. You must be mindful of the relationships you're destroying along the way. And maybe that's why you should have an idea of where you want to be at to be comfortable.

Like, I'm okay being here. Like, this is enough for me because I can have this and my family. You know, there's a famous saying that says the middle road is the best way, even though the highs are beautiful and the lows are treacherous. If you could find that middle road where you're good, man, like, that's such a beautiful spot to be. Where's the middle road for you, man? I know you're an ambitious guy and you have tons of great ideas and you see the world

in which other people, which is contagious for other people. What's the middle road for you? Oh, I have numbers set. Okay. Can you want to share them? Yeah, of course. So I think it's always important to set certain number levels. When you get to them, you need to adjust it. You need to do it. All right, I hit it. I need to adjust my lifestyle. Right. So my first one was a million bucks, right? And I hit that when I was 23. And then I had like, I had to think about, all right, I need to adjust. I need to delegate. I need to find a way. And then of course, I lost all that money because that's how it goes. Sure. And so now my number is five million. Because if I can.

bank five million i i as you said earlier i ran a finance group right i learned everything about money i spent two years studying money and i was like i need to be so savvy at it that people want to hire me to teach them about money right that's how good i need to be well said so i know if i make five million i can live off the what that investing that properly i can live off the interest right i can make that five million generate 500 000 a year that's more than enough for me to live comfortable. So if I hit the five, well, then I need to reevaluate. Okay, how many hours a week am I working right now? Okay. Am I spending enough time with my girlfriend, my family, with, you know, with these things? Okay, if not, I need to make an adjustment. Okay, do I need to hire CEO to run my

company because I need to be pulled out? Maybe I'll go on the board of directors. Okay, maybe that's the case. Right. And then so five million, I reevaluate, right? And then I reevaluate again at 10 million. and maybe I reevaluate again at 50 million. And these are ambitious goals, hoping that I hit each time, right? Yeah. But I know if I get to the $5 million number, I'm comfortable. And now it's a choice, working as a choice, how I spend my time as a choice. I am not in the rat race anymore.

I'm out. Freedom. Yeah. It's an interesting, it's an interesting relationship, money and freedom, right? It seems like we try to make money to be free in so many times. I can speak to my life where, and your ideas about money, at least my ideas about money, were actually sort of a prison for me

because I felt like I had to create this amount and no matter how hard I worked, I was only creating enough to maybe cling on to things. And I think a lot of people are in that boat where their relationship with their idea of money is holding them back. What do you have any words of wisdom on people's relationship to the idea of money? Yeah, I definitely do. So to go back to my $5 million goal,

You can't let that run your life. So if you're not enjoying what you're doing firstly, you need to stop right now. You're going to find something else. So, yeah, I want to get to that number. But I'm okay now, right? I like what I mean, I'm financially. I could always, you could always do a little better, at least that's how I feel. But like, I live in a way that I am comfortable with.

I am working hard, but I enjoy what I'm working on, right? I enjoy the relationships I'm building through my business, through my personal life. And I'm not letting the thought of the money stress me out because I know if I continue to do things right, it'll come eventually. And I just try to do something every day towards Michael. So there's an old, like an old story of like Charles Swab and a consultant comes in and he says, hey, I'm going to change your entire life through some techniques. You don't have to pay me anything. I'm just going to give it to you for free. And then if it works, you can call me back and you can pay me something.

So he says, this is what I want you to do. I want you to write down your three most important things you need to do each day. It could be the night before, it could be the morning of. Just write down number one through three and prioritize them. One, two, three. If I do nothing else today, I do these three things. He said, okay, I'll take your advice. So Charles Schwab goes in and he starts this process of it.

He's running his company and he's writing one, two, three. And a month later, he calls back, or maybe, a couple months later he calls back to consultant and he said he there's a check on the table for ten thousand dollars and the consultant's like what is this for he's like well not only if i've been doing my task of writing my three most important things each day i took my entire staff and i have them doing it too and we've grown our revenue by 50 you know since since this technique is put in because we're focused on the most important things every day and so this is what i do i write down my three most important items for the day every day and i but i'm a little crazy

Like, I use software for this. So, like, I'm using like Trello and Slack, all these different technologies. Right. These massive lists. But the most important thing is that I do my three most important things every day. If I do that every day, three things a day for, let's just say it's five days a week. And I do that every day within the year. So 52 weeks, right?

And we're doing 15 things a week. And then what are we at? 15 times 52, how many things are we doing in a year's time? I'm bringing... 620. 620? So we're doing 620 things every year towards our goals. I mean, you're moving towards them at that point.

Without a doubt, without a doubt. I use one where I tell myself, if I can make my podcast and my life 1% better every day, 100 days I'm 100% better. You know, and it's a good umbrella to be under. And it protects you from those negative thoughts that tend to rain down on you. And that rain can be paralyzing. When you start thinking about, you know, when doubt creeps in or, you know, unreasonable expectations creep in.

Those have a way of separating you from making positive change in your life. Have you found that writing down those three things are focusing not only changes your business, but changes your relationships? Oh, yeah. You can do it with your personal life too, right? And it could be like, make sure my wife feels love this week. And I need to do, you know, I need to take her out on a fancy date. I need to get her a gift.

I need whatever it is, right, that appeals to that person. Well, do that every week. Imagine what your relationship's going to look like. And so it applies across the board, right? And it could be, let's say it's for yourself. I need to work out every day. Or not every day. I need to work out three days a week.

So, like, I'm terrible at this, but yet I make the effort. And so my technique is, I 10 minute spurts. I can mentally handle 10 minutes spurts. And so between meetings, right, my rule is I need at least do one 10 minutes per it every day. And then if I make it to 20 and 30 minutes, I'm just, right, superseding expectations. And so having these little things, right, it could be nutrition. Well, I need to have, one of my priorities is I want to eat a salad. You know, I need to make salads three times this week or something, right?

It's simple stuff. It can be applied to anything in your life. It's fascinating to me. I'll give you, I got a hypothetical for it. I know you're kind of coming up on time, but I got a really cool hypothetical for you. And I'd love to get your answer. Like, let's say that you meet this person and like you see what they're doing and they're totally crushing. And but they tell you, you know what?

I'm not actually doing what I want to do, but I have to make money right now. What would you tell that person? like what would you tell that person between doing what they really want to do versus just making money? Is there something that advice you would give them? Yeah, I would. So first of all, don't stop doing what you're doing because you need money to live.

Unless you can afford not to. Right. Keep that job. Right. But you need to use your spare time to figure out what it is you actually want to do and what you're actually good at. And so, you know, maybe that's spending one hour every evening, you know, researching or figuring out what's next.

Right. And then maybe finding a way to do that work, do that work while you're still keeping your job. So whether that's maybe doing that work for free for people to see how they respond to it, right? You know, it could be, it's essentially as volunteering in a way, right? Yeah, absolutely. Service for free. But guess what you're going to do through doing that? You're going to build a relationship. You're going to open up doors. And you'll probably have some case studies so that when you want to go do this, whether it's another job or your. your own business, you already have proof that you're able to do it. And guess what you might find out? It's not what you want to do and you're glad you didn't leave your job. Yeah. And that means go try something different now.

Yeah, I think the things that happen to you when you're investigating what you want to do can end up being the things that you actually do. You really start building these relationships. Like for me, when I started the podcast, you know, I started talking to so many cool people and it opened up all these doors. Just the relationships that you have with people. All of a sudden there's a book deal. All of a sudden there's a speaking gig. You know, and like things that you never thought of before start to emerge on the pathway once you start walking down it.

Like, what? Have you seen that happen and things that you investigate the new doors that open up for you through relationships? Oh, definitely. So, oh, I had a story. Yeah, it's here, man. All right. So through that, that entrepreneur's investment club.

Here's the story of how this came to be. I have some extra time, so we can go a little longer. Cool. So I was always a stock trader and my buddies who owned businesses knew that like I did that in my spare time. And so all of a sudden this is when crypto is blowing up, right? This is during that whole phase. So I'm in like a chat group with a group of entrepreneurs and somebody's like, hey, what crypto should I buy right now? And my buddy Brett writes, oh, Chad's a crypto expert.

He can help. I'm like, no, not. But this is the fake-it-till-you-make-it-it process. And I said, you know what? I know how to read stocks. I could read crypto. It's probably just the fast and furious version of the same thing. So I said, yeah, I'll help you.

What's your question? All of a sudden, to fast-forward, I end up building a group. So I have a telegram group. It ends up having within three months, a thousand entrepreneurs. Everybody has a lot of money to throw around. And I'm bringing in speakers on crypto. And I'm like, okay, well, this is my life now. From there, right, I end up getting flown around the world to talk to entrepreneurs about cryptocurrency.

Of course, at this point, I did become an expert. You can't fake it that long. Right. Or using the stuff and understanding the stuff and running through that whole round of doors opening to where I was flown to Egypt. I was flown to Netherlands. I was flown all over the U.S. And it's all from that simple thing. Yeah, I can help.

Yeah. You know, I can help. And then look at all these doors opening. Of course, when that bubble burst, I just was like, all right, well, next thing. So, and we'll do something else now. But, you know, being open to that. And once again, like saying, yeah, I'm willing to help. Yeah, I'm willing to take that conversation.

Yeah, I'm willing to offer my time without any ask in return. And then eventually finding a way that maybe there is, this does need to be monetized because I need to sustain myself. Yeah. And that eventually becomes the goal. But first, get yourself in those doors. Yeah, that's really well said it. I think the best way to say it is that life will conspire to help you in ways you can't imagine,

but you have to have the courage to take those steps. You know, it's hard. Like, you know, we've spoken a lot about success and setting goals in a positive level, but maybe one thing we should cover is what happens when the world crashes down around you? What happens when your relationship starts breaking? What happens when you got 11 grand flying out of your bank account a month? and you don't have any income coming in, or you have, you know, all those things happening at once.

Like, where do you turn to then, Chad? What are some things that you hold on to there? Yeah, I have a process for that. So when that's happened in my life, I go to a whiteboard and I write the simplest version of my current life. So if I had to cut, this is what happened when my first business was really failing. So when Renugu, the e-commerce business is falling apart, All right, 18 staff. I had a 15,000 square foot warehouse with rent on that was 10,000, right? The payroll was ridiculous as well. I was like, oh my God, what am I doing here? And I was like, it was losing money. Like, I wasn't happy. I said, I wish I could go back to when I was running my e-commerce company out of my garage. And I said, wait a second, let's map that out. So I go to the board and I say, what would it look like if I started?

Again, with all the knowledge I know now, and I am not going to think about it's very mechanically done. I'm not thinking about all my employees. I'm not thinking about all these relationships and the infrastructure. Just rewrite the business plan. I said, well, I would keep these two people of my 18. I would probably drop all these products. And, you know, I would rebuild my relationships in this way. And I wrote this on the board.

And I sat there for like a month with, I put it on a piece of paper. I sat there for a month. And I'm like, I should do this. I should do this. And then guess what I walked in and I laid off the entire staff and I did it? And it changed everything. So that's my advice. Sit down, whiteboard your life.

Figure out what's actually going to make you happy. And simplification a lot of time helps since you can build a new base and then build from there. And think about it. Don't just do it right away. because, oh, man, I blew everything up. But it needed to be done. And I'm glad I didn't put it off and spend years just being miserable. That's beautiful advice.

Sometimes I think people see starting over as failure. But do you think you can make the case for starting over as being one of the most successful moves you could make? Yeah, we'll see in a few years. Well, I think you already have a pattern of it. You know, that story alone speaks volumes of having the courage to start over. A lot of the people, let's take relationships, for example. You know, I have lots of friends and my parents got divorced. And, you know, a lot of the times people try to string things as long as possible

because they don't want to admit to themselves that it's not working. But the real power is in realizing this is not working. Am I going to change it? Am I going to make it better or am I going to walk away from it? Those are real powerful decisions that take a lot of courage to do. You often hear the term the first million is the hardest to make. Because once you figure out what you're doing, you can go back and do it. If I'm stringing together a necklace with a certain color pattern of beads and I realize at the end that I put the wrong color beads in,

look, I can strip it all out and do it again. It might be time consuming, but I know what I'm doing and I know how to get it right this time. So it's not going to take as long. I think there's real power and having the ability to know if it's worth it and then having the courage to go back and do it if it is worth it. What do you think? Yeah, I do think the first million is the hardest because you're making so many mistakes and gaining, but you're gaining the experience

and knowledge you're gaining through that process. And if you were good about keeping good relationships through that, that means a lot. And so it can be done faster the next time around. It goes, yeah, you don't have to spend all that time figuring things out. And hopefully now at this point in your career, you've also built mentorships. And, you know, you can pull on those mentorships and relationships and kind of accelerate yourself.

My biggest concern when I ended at that whole process was, oh, God, I don't have the energy to do this again. Like, I am burned out. And it is easier the second time. It is still difficult, right? You're still going through struggles, but it's different struggles. Like, I don't have to figure out how to hire staff. And I don't have to figure out how to do accounting. and I don't have to figure out how to hire the right attorneys.

And I don't have to figure out how to implement systems and core values and all these different things. I also learned I'm not building a bunch of custom software for my companies ever again. That was a mistake that I won't repeat because the world evolves too quickly for my software to evolve with my business. So there's all these little things that I can now apply. in my new ventures to kind of speed it up. And also another big lesson is don't take on bad clients. Don't take on problem clients. Don't take on problem employees.

Don't take on problem relationships. Don't take on problem clients. And when you see the signs, fire your clients, fire those employees. Get that toxicity out of your life. That's a great advice. And the red flags are normally there. If you get that gut feeling, there's probably something being communicated to you. Maybe not in words, but clearly something you can feel.

You know, another aspect that I ran into, and I know other people have, is asking for help. Sometimes you get to a point where you're like, oh, it's working. And then you could even have people that are giant and say, hey, how can I help? Sometimes I don't have an answer for that. Like, what do you do to ask for help? Like, maybe you get stuck. Maybe you just want to advise somebody or maybe somebody you really admire is like, how can I help you? Like, what is the answer to that?

Yeah, I'm always asking for help. So if somebody has unique expertise in something, that I'm not savvy and I'm first of all I'm going to become friends with that person because I think we can compliment each other well yeah and I will call upon them when I need those insights and I hope they call upon me when they need my insights I'm always seeking mentors right I'm always seeking new friends you know I have those guys who have been there done that and I like calling upon them to see all right if you were in the situation how would you have dealt with it or can you share a story of how you did deal with something because I could pull

lot from that story. It's not necessarily asking a person to tell me what to do. It's asking them to share what they did in a similar situation and then using that to kind of synthesize my version of it. And I found that really useful. And I'm always, as I said, I'm always seeking mentors along the way. You know, the podcast is a great way, actually. It's to meet potential mentors. Yeah. You touched upon this idea of storytelling. It is, Isn't it odd and beautiful and wonderful that here we are, you know, in 2023, and we're getting to learn so much from each other's story. And like you said, when you speak to a mentor, you speak to a friend,

or when you speak to someone who's telling you a story, sometimes you can envision yourself where you are in their story or their character art. And we can go all the way back to the Iliad and the Odyssey and see how powerful storytelling is, whether you're Odysseus being called to the rocks by the sirens. You know, the power of storytelling, I think, is something that is part of the human condition. And I got to say, I'm truly grateful with the stories that you shared here with us today,

man. I really enjoy what you're doing. I think that the podcast, that if people aren't familiar with, the Failing to Success podcast is a great way for people to become familiar with success in failures and stories and learning. And it's a beautiful thing. Congratulations on being on the top 10%. Congratulations on having the courage to talk about your wins and your losses.

I wish more people would do that, and I think it's a powerful thing. However, before I let you go, where can people find you? What do you have coming up and what are you excited about? Yeah, you can go to my website, which is FTSPOD.com. FTSPOD.com. You can follow me on LinkedIn. You can follow me on Instagram.

On LinkedIn, it's just Chad Kalecki. Instagram, it's either at Chad Kulikki or at Failing to Success Podcast. Just look up the podcast. I'm all over the place. It's pretty easy. Just Google me and you'll find me. It's true. He's everywhere.

And I would tell everybody to listen to this. If you have a podcast or if you have a social media presence and you want to figure out where you could be stuck at, I think Chad has some incredible insights. It's definitely worth investigating. And so check them out. The links will be in the show notes. Hang on briefly, Chad. I know you're short on time, but I want to talk to you briefly afterwards. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for hanging out with us today.

That's all we got. Aloha.