Episode Summary
You shouldn't scale your business unless you plan to walk away from it. >> The grass is always greener on the other side, right, Ryan? But what people don't realize is that underneath that grass is always [ __ ] >> It's almost like there's shame put on those people for choosing that option. >> Trying to make impact before you make income. >> Talk about it. It's almost impossible for you to be happy. My early success was built off of fear. I didn't want to be broke again. It's very important to be truly connected with yourself so that your beliefs are actually yours. My success is not going to be governed by what I say yes to. My next level success is going to be governed by things I say no to. Carter George, dudes, I'm so excited to have you on the show. uh particularly as we were talking about in the green room because the way you guys operate your business and and some of the ways that you you teach particularly building wealth fits so in line with some of the struggles that I know the particular audience my audience here which is a lot of small business owners in the professional services space you know insurance accounting legal etc right you said something uh car I'm going to start with you um in the green room where big part of your work and what the two of you teach is that a the business shouldn't be the only asset that we're growing as we're as we're you know in our ownership of it. Kind of why do you think that is? Because I know a very common practice and there are consultants out there that will that will teach business owners this just dump everything back in your business. Dump everything back in your business. Why could that potentially be a pitfall? >> Yeah. Uh I think it's a great question and I think uh uh the answer is is what a lot of business owners need today and we're going through it actively. Right. So your business is an asset and your business can be your fastest growing asset and me and George can testify to this. Our business is our fastest growing asset. But that doesn't mean it needs to be our only asset. Because if you put everything back into your business and you never exit that business, then how valuable is that business, right? Because if you're not taking profit, high profits every single year and then you don't end up exiting because a lot of these businesses, if you're important to if you're important to your business, if you're valuable to your business, then your business is not valuable, right? And people get to the end of their lives, they get to retirement, they're like, "Yo, I got this thing I built. Nobody wants to sell it. I haven't taken enough profits to build any personal wealth. So now I'm in this place where I still have to work for the rest of my life. And we all can attest that that is not the goal of entrepreneurship. But I think the hard part that all of us deal with is like at what point do you start taking profits to start building personal wealth and not feel like you're robbing the business of its growth? And that is something that we're act that we actively help our clients decide so that they could have assets outside of just their business. That's great. And if and if I can, I'll just add a little more sentiment to that. So, um to to Carter's point, right, if you're valuable to your business, then your business is not valuable. So, I I've kind of broken it down into like, you know, four stages, right? And so, we have the start phase where, you know, you might still even be working a job, right? And you're just your business isn't profitable yet. And so, you're putting money uh personal money into the business to get it off the ground or maybe you're at break even, best case scenario, right? So, everybody has to start there. Then you have this growth phase where it's like, oh man, like I could just stay here, right? It probably it'll probably be your highest percentage profit margin phase of the business on a percentage basis. You might make more later on, but it'll feel like less because of how much you're reinvesting and how heavy the business is at that time, right? So the growth phase is where you have to make a very important decision like do I want to build a lifestyle business meaning a business that can grow in proportion to the lifestyle that I desire and just be okay with that or do I want to scale this thing? you shouldn't scale your business is unless you plan to walk away from it, right? Because your lifestyle business will stop, you know, at some point, right? You're like, "Okay, cool. I've done it. I've built it to be able to maintain my lifestyle. Uh it's so profitable. I probably can put an operator in place to continue to take distributions, but you don't plan to sell it or give it to anybody else." Most likely, the scale phase is when you plan, you're starting the process of planning that. So, we're in the scale phase actively, right? Our business is growing, it's thriving. we have 10x the team that we had, you know, when we were in the growth phase. Um, but we're having to put so much back into the business. Now, what we did, we both did is when we were in the growth phase, as we started to realize we were going to scale, we took we we made sure that all that profit margin that we were getting, we were taking that money off the table, right? So that way we feel more confidence and more liberation when we are in the scale phase, right? because we don't feel as bad like, okay, I'm putting all this money back into the business, but I took home personal profits and started building personal wealth along the way, right? And then the last thing, this something that we learned very new recently is while we're in the scale phase, is there anything that we can do while still being hyperfocused on the business, is there anything that we can do outside of the business that will create more insight and give us feedback loops to grow our business, but also makes us money? Because if we can do that, then that can give us more resources on the personal wealth side that allow us to not have to put pressure on the business while we're in the scale phase. And that's just been our personal journey. I'm not saying that's the best way to do it. But we want to make sure that we're being mindful of the personal wealth part of it because if not, you won't have the clarity and the mental fortitude to keep going because behind the scenes, your personal wealth isn't together. And that's what we see with a lot of entrepreneurs that we work with is like they're making decent money. They're making great money, but their personal wealth house isn't in order, and it's creating a level of hidden stress that only they know about, right? And so, when they work with us, we start to unpack that, start to restructure things, and they actually become more successful in their business because now they have that burden and pressure off of their shoulders. Yeah, dude, there's there's so much in there, guys, to to unpack. I I think one of the things that I a major a a major decision that I'm very interested in how you made it was the decision to go from this is supporting my lifestyle, this business that we're building to let's scale this thing to the next level. Because I think a lot of people get caught in that moment. I think there's a lot of we'll call it entrepreneur porn that exists out there where it's like you got to scale. You have to scale, right? Which which which we feel all this pressure. If I don't scale, I'm not going to be put on podcasts and no one's going to ask me any questions and my business isn't going to grow and people think that I'm a failure. And it's like I know plenty of guys who own a oneperson law firm that take just the cases they want that make more than enough money that have the country club membership. They're at their kids sports game and they're happy as hell, right? And then I know other guys that have been the same quality that have decided, okay, well, because I'm good as a one person shop, now I need to be a hundred lawyer shop and all of a sudden they're miserable and they can't get to their kids sports games and they're making the basically the same amount of money but their business 10 times bigger. Like, how did you make that decision? And how do you guide your clients if they're in this moment of scale versus lifestyle, right? Like is there an equation? Is there a framework that you use or some way to kind of think through this process? Yeah, this is about to be therapy. I was really gonna say the same thing. This is about to be therapy for everybody in the room. So, I'll give you this quote by Alex Herozi and then me and George will do our best to unpack it. And I'm going to try not to butcher this quote, but um Hermosi was basically saying that he used to look at these business owners who were making a million dollars, maybe 1.5 million, and then they they didn't want to scale. He's like, "Dude, there's so much juice left in this business to squeeze. What are you doing?" And after years of coaching people and and doing it himself, Hermoszi realized he said, "Yes, there's so much juice left to be squeezed in this business." But what gets squeezed is you, right? And so when we make this decision to leave being an entrepreneur to becoming a business owner, and that's how me and George delineate like entrepreneur, you're entrepreneur, you have this lifestyle business, you, you know, do whatever you want, no major pressure, but then you switch to business owner, right? And then it's not about you anymore. And I think that that decision is so important and people make the decision for the wrong reasons. They make the decision for things you said, right? Like I want to scale because I want to have this big business. I want people to interview me. But what they don't realize is the cost they the price they have to pay to get the things that they don't even know they wanted. So the way me and George look at it now that we know the the the good and the bad, the ugly on both sides because the grass is always greener on the other side, right, Ryan? But what people don't realize is that underneath that grass is always [ __ ] and it's so much of it you don't know what's under the grass, right? And so when me and George look at it now, right? If you want to have that lifestyle business and you want to be at your kids' games and you want to have a 70% profit margin, especially as a service-based business owner, then do that. Or if you want to say I want to scale because I want to exit and I love what I do and I want to build this team and build this dream then do that. But don't get the two confused. We see so many people who are trying to scale their business not taking any profits not even when not even knowing their business won't be exitable. And that's where I think you have a problem. >> Yeah. 100%. And so to his point, the decision, the only thing that led us to making that decision is realizing the business that we were going to build had to be something that we can exit. But the issue is most people aren't do aren't looking at it that way. They're just they're looking at it from vanity metrics. I want to make I heard somebody make their saying they're making a million a month or two. I want to do that, right? They didn't tell you about the team that they're paying or the multi6figure payroll. They didn't tell you about the ad cost. They didn't tell you about the stress. They just told you about the vanity match. They told you about the the vacation, but they didn't tell you about the travel experience, right? And so for us, like it was a it was it was a calculated decision. Like we are in an industry and are building a business that we can see a path to uh to be able to exit was one. Now the other part of that cuz that's just the money piece when we were already pretty solid financially before we made the decision. The other piece was is this about me or is this or is this about impact, right? Because if it's and I'm not and neither one is wrong, right? Like if it's about you, do not scale, right? If it's about you, build it to the level that you need to build it. So you can be like your your friends who work in corporate America. You can check out at a certain time. You can watch all the sporting events. You can like if it's about you, I don't want anybody to feel wrong. If it is about you, that's called self-awareness, right? If you like, you know what, I don't have that itch. I don't have this. This is this is big enough for me. Please stay there. Cuz all you're going to do is it's going to because it's going to be hard either way. It's going to be harder if you don't want to be there or if you don't have a path, right? To be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel because it's going to be even we want to do it, right? Arguably, you know, I may have dragged harder a little bit. He's like, "Are you sure you want to?" Uh, but we want we want to do it, right? But even in wanting to do it, it doesn't change the weight, right? So, imagine having to carry the weight that you didn't even know that that it was going to be that heavy and you don't even want to carry it. And so just really being able to sit with yourself and ask yourself, is this impact that I want to have, this legacy that I want to lead, this mission that I'm trying to create through this scale, is is it worth it to me? Right? Cuz if it's not, you're not it's not going to be good for you. I promise you. And we try to be as transparent as pos. We literally have a new client right now who's crushing it. And we are talking her off a ledge every other I want to do this. I want to do that. I was like, I know you do, but you don't know what's on the other side of it, right? Everybody wants to do it until they know what's on the other side of it. And we just try to be honest with people to let them know what's inside of. And it's like cool. If you know that you still want to do it, then you must really want to do it, right? But we just want to make sure that we're using our platform and our voice to say, "Hey, look, we are happy with the decision we made. But we wish we also had more context so that we knew how to steward it even better than we're doing it now, but we feel great about where we are and we just want to spread the good news to anybody who's thinking about going down that path." Yeah, there there's two things you said in there that I think are are really well there's a bunch, but there's two things that stand out. One, and I know this wasn't the point of your conversation, but I think it's very important to bring up. We all need coaches. We all need people that we talk to about this stuff. Like you said, you're talking to this client and you're walking her off the edge, right? I can tell you I have a coach that helps me build my it's helping me build out my coaching business, right? Like I'm a coach, you know, who helps entrepreneurs get through, you know, whatever the thing that I do. But um but like there were parts of it where I I just didn't have my mind right. Right. I needed someone to bounce stuff off. And I think a lot of these decisions get made in a vacuum, right? We're like uncomfortable or insecure. So we kind of turtle up and don't talk to anybody. We don't want someone to think that we don't know what we're doing. And it's like the most successful people I know have either business partners that they trust kind of like the two of you or they have coaches that they hire themselves or they have, you know, a financial adviser or they have an attorney or someone who they can go to and say, "This is what I'm thinking like poke holes in this thing." And I think too often we make these decisions in a vacuum. And that kind of leads me into my question here, which is you said it's either it's either about me or my family or my lifestyle or or impact. And I would love for you to unpack like there is so much pressure on impact today. Like everybody you hear, I was literally just listening to a podcast with um uh Cody Sanchez was interviewing uh Eric Jorgensson who just wrote that book about Elon Musk. And and even in that conversation, right, like it's, oh, if you're not doing this for impact and impact, they must have used the word like a dozen times, which I understand why, right? Like the work Elon's doing is sending rockets and solar cars. And I I get that, but like >> I feel like there's so much pressure on impact that when people say, "Hey, what I really want is to take care of my spouse, take care of my kids, I want to be able to hang out with my friends, want to do good work." But like that stuff after the bell goes off is just as important to me. It's almost like it's almost like there's shame put on those people for choosing that option. And like maybe break down like how you guys dealt with maybe some of even your own thoughts and emotions around choosing impact which is what you're doing by scaling versus maybe the extra hours you may have to put in at least at the beginning to to get yourselves there and and making that decision. I'll start by saying this, George, I'll pass it to you. Trying to make impact before you make >> Talk about it. >> It's almost impossible for you to be happy because as the airlines say, put on your mask first before putting on the mask of your neighbor. So, I believe it is so much easier to focus and put your attention on making impact once you've solved the income problem for yourself. Which is why me and George say if you're having this lifestyle business, have it for as long as you need to take as many chips off the table for you to feel secure. Because I think the thing that most business owners are missing is having your personal wealth secure allows you to become a better business owner because you're able to take bigger risk in your business because it won't kill >> George, before you jump in, I I I I wish I had like a confetti button or like an applause button because income before impact like I I want to like that's going to be like the title of this episode. I I I couldn't agree with you more. No one says that. I I love that you are pushing that message because you know even from my own career I wasn't able to take certain leaps until I knew like I'm not this like burn the bridg burn the boats burn the bridges like have no options guy like to me that is the worst way to go about something because now you're making decisions from a place of like if I mess this up I'm at zero versus hey I can go all in on this and if for some reason it doesn't work like my kids still have food on the able my, you know, my wife can still put gas in the car. Like, like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not losing my house because that's that's pressure that nobody talks about in this entrepreneur porn burn the boats method. I I absolutely love that point. >> No, that's he he hit the nail on the head. I don't I don't have much to add besides the fact I know I'm a father. Um, he's not. So, um, when I think about it, it's not an eitheror. It's just the order of operations. And he said it perfectly, right? So, I'm in a position now, right? because I I made the income first. We made the strategic decision to have the additional impact. Let's not let's not get it twisted. Like being present for your child is impact. Being present for your spouse if you're married is is impact, right? Being present for the members of your community or your family is impact as well. It's just about the decision on do I want to outside of the impact internally in my internal world, do I want to have impact externally, right? In a in a bigger way because you still can have impact. And I think that just making that distinction to your point, not shaming people for their choice. Cuz at the end of the day, here's the truth. Anybody that's forcing you or pressuring you into these decisions are not going to send you money on the first of the month to pay your bills. They're not going to show up and watch your kids when you are burnt out at both ends and you need support. So when you understand that, it's like I'm if I'm truly making this decision for like for me and for the desires that God has placed on my heart to have an impact and a legacy beyond what's happening internally, then do it. But if it's for any external reason, if it's because of validation or some childhood wound or I'm I'm not good enough and I'm chasing this external feeling to feel something that can only be filled by me healing the parts of myself that, you know, that have nothing to do with entrepreneurship and business. If it's for any other reason, then that's going to be the issue. But assuming all things remaining constant, it's like God has placed his vision on my heart and I'm doing this for the right reasons, right? And I believe that I can transform other people's lives. So for example, our mission is to decrease the wealth gap by $100 billion, right? Every year our clients improve their collective net worth by hundreds of millions of dollars. Right? We get we went had a client event last night and there's some of our clients are young, some of our clients are older. We have older clients who like I just my portfolio is just up 20 20%. I'm getting so much so closer to financial like that that's worth more to me than any amount of money that my business can pay at this point cuz I already got the income first. And so but if you don't have that and you're not you're dealing with external factors, you will chase and move the target forever. It'll always be something different because you need something to keep replenishing that cup that has a bottomless hole. And think about the imposttor syndrome that comes with coaching people who are doing so much better than you and you are not financially secure. Like think about the imposttor syndrome that comes with that, right? And so um yeah, for all those reasons, I just personally think it's is it's powerful to to choose income first and then and the impact then your impact is so much bigger, right? Because you can impact if you if you want to give 10% of a you know $1,000, it's $100. If you get 10% of a million now, you can have a bigger impact, you know, and so Yeah. >> Yeah. I I'll tell you, I saw that my So, I started as a boots on the ground producer hawking home and auto policies and selling small business insurance back in like 2005. And you know, it's funny to to your point like when I first started and I wasn't financially secure. I'm in my you know, early to mid20s and you know, I figured out corporate America wasn't for me and was trying a sales job for the first time. It was like I saw everyone not as how do I help this person get the best insurance which which which was my job but like mentally it was what can I sell this person? How much money can I make from this person? You know what I mean? So it's like my even though I was I would love to believe I was always doing a good job for them. I was never trying to like do anything nefarious. But like everybody was like a dollar sign. And then as I started to get more secure in my career, I started to be able to look and go, okay, like it's more about how do I craft the right collection of policies? How do I make sure what my purposes in this transaction, riskrevention, etc. like how you mean it's like my I was able to be better at my work when I wasn't looking at everybody as a dollar sign because I had the money in the bank and if they said no or it didn't work out it wasn't like my entire month was ruined you know because of that and that that is something that I feel like so there's so few conversations around that point and and I love it I love this idea or not I don't love the idea of chasing but I love that you guys are bringing up this idea George you said it like we're constantly chasing and I think every entrepreneur or someone who has tried to be an entrepreneur who who maybe didn't necessarily have this decision made it does feel like chasing. Even in my own life, I know the moments where I wasn't as sure about scale versus lifestyle. I did feel this sense of like I'm saying yes to things I shouldn't say yes to. I'm constantly got like searching for new ideas, you know? Hey, what if I start a faceless YouTube? I mean, I mean, you start chasing this stupid stuff. >> Like, >> how do you So, let's say someone finds themselves and they feel that chase, right? They feel like they're saying yes to too many things. >> How do you coach them or or or or guide them to kind of reigning back in and figuring out what really is more important to them? How do we how do we correct ourselves? >> Yeah, that's a great question. Um, the first conference I ever went to, I actually started out in the insurance on the insurance side, too. I work for Mass Mutual um early in 2011. >> Um I went to this conference and the lady said in 2011 a billion drill bits were sold. She said, "But nobody that buys drill bits cares about the drill bits." She said, "Let's just assume they were used to hang up artwork in offices, homes all across the country." And she said, "Well, what would you say if I told you nobody cared about the artwork?" And she said, "What they cared about is the feeling that they got when they walked in the room where the artwork was hung." And her point was this, right? Like most things are just a means to an end, right? we the money you have in your bank account or the money you have in general is the hammer and the nails in this example, right? If it's a Roth IRA, a solo 401k, private equity, right? Whatever, right? That's that's the painting, right? But the real thing that we're after is deep down inside there's a desired lifestyle, right? There's things you want to do for your family, for your spouse, for your community, for your loved ones, for yourself. And you and if you sit with yourself for a few minutes, you can probably define what that is, right? And then that creates kind of a container around what you're really marching towards because but if you don't have that target, right, you will continue to chase because you don't have a target. You don't have a measuring stick on when enough is enough, right? You don't you won't have a measuring stick. But if you define that, hey, if I could just have my primary residence in my my home city, I would love there's this travel destination that I absolutely love. And if if I could have a nice little place there, if I could help my mom out financially cuz she didn't understand about retirement, I could as long as I could do that. When you add it up, that will create a target for you, right? Most people haven't sat down to define it and add it up. And it will also let you know what's not inside that container. So when you start thinking about all these other things like, oh wait, that doesn't fit inside of this. So you have to at least question why. Not to say that things can't evolve or things can't change and your worldview expands. I'm not saying that. But you at least will cause you to question cuz you have a recipe and it's like, "Oh, well, this ingredient wasn't there before or I didn't need it before. Why why do I think I need it now?" But most people don't have that benchmark or measuring stick to be able to to figure that out. So, everybody has to define what their target is. Like, and then that way you know when is enough enough. you know, if something does align or doesn't align or you at least have the framework to be able to challenge it when it when it comes up cuz we're human. We're humans. Entrepreneurs historically have shiny ball syndrome. It is what it is, right? How do we curb that appetite? By reminding oursel and having an actual benchmark on what we said uh is what we wanted to do, if that makes sense. >> It makes complete sense. Um I don't know. Do you guys know uh um Mick Hunt? He's he's um got a he's got a very big podcast right now. He's blowing up. Mick Unplugged. He's a very good buddy of mine and met him through the insurance industry and he's, you know, owned and sold a couple agencies and consulting businesses and now he's running essentially a media company and he's doing very well. And I asked him one time, you know, we were just having a conversation and he likes bourbon, I like bourbon. We're just we're just chilling and talking and um I said, "Man, you you've you've been like so many different things, right? like you've been, you know, insurance salesman, you've been, you know, agency owner, you've owned a consulting firm, you've started technology companies, you've done all these things like like how did you make the decision to move through these various businesses and he had one goal? He was raised by a single mom and he's like, "My mother will never have to worry about money or lifestyle again, right? She did her job getting me into the world and be making me who I am." And he's got this idea of that's his because like your why is important, but his because is making sure his mom's taken care of. And like the hard days, the next decision it was does this next thing allow me to obviously live my life, but also take care of these people in my lives who got me here. And like he's like that's what drove me. He's like if I knew to say no to something because it was easy. My filter was does this thing, you know, service this goal? And if it didn't pass through the filter, it was a no. And I I to your point like he's so clear and and and I envy him because I know in my own life sometimes I've lost my filter, right? I think I think it's natural that we do, but you know, I've lost my own filter sometimes. Various things happen and then you find yourself too scattered. And I think this is like one of the most important exercises an entrepreneur can do. And I and I'm this is why I'm interested in you guys and how you operate. Like I think it's okay to reset that filter sometimes, right? Like like now his mom is set up. He's got his his his family and the people he want to take care of and his kids and stuff. So now his his filter is he's moved it to impact in terms of his message and what he's trying to do with the communities that he serves, right? So he's he was able to change it in time. And I think some people think that you pick one and like that's it for the rest of your life. How have your filters moved and changed and how do you know when to create a new filter for the decisions you make? >> Yeah, that's that's that's phenomenal insight. Um, and so I'm I'm always a firm believer that what gets you here won't take you there, right? And so at the beginning I was say my personal journey, right? You know, just coming from not having money, losing my parents early, having my back against the wall my whole life. My first uh why was to survive, right? I never want to be in a lack of control of my life and my circumstances ever again. Right? That's the filter. Anything that gets me close to that filter, I'm not paying attention to it. Then once that's done, it's like, all right, Carter's good. Now, I want to make sure my sister is good. Right? And then I think and and so when you come up with these filters, I believe once you achieve them, you need to change the filter. Cuz here's the problem if you don't change the filter. My early success was built off of fear. I didn't want to be broke again. And fear drove me for a very long time. But at a certain point, it the thing same thing that keeps the house warm. Well, as George says, it will burn it down, right? And so now like at that I can't operate out of fear anymore because it won't help me get to the next level. So, I need to then change my why to, oh, I want to help this person or I want to have this amount of impact. And I think if you don't change your why after you accomplish it, it can be an unhealthy motivation, right? And so, I just believe like that's why I think doing that yearly check-in, it's like reviewing. I review the year at the end of every year. What did I do? What did I say I was going to do? Did I like it? Did I not like it? And now I'm in a stage where like my success is not going to be governed by what I say yes to. my s my next level success is going to be governed by the things I say no to because my number one goal is just to not get distracted. Period. >> I love that. I love that. George, what about you, man? >> Yeah. Um I have a simple quote. I know Carter heard me say it often is, uh when the facts change, uh so do I. Right. So I think we're operating from our worldview with the information, the context, the resources that we have at that time. At any given time, right? that could be disrupted, that could be changed, we could learn something new and as a result of that new information and new insight, right, in this context, it might require us to change our filter, right? Um, and so that's that's kind of me. So I think I think that the issue is people hold so closely to their own beliefs that being a truth seeker, you have to live on the edge of contradiction, right? It's like, okay, well, I said this, I believed this last year. Well, I'm not the same person I was last year. It's okay for me to say that, oh, I did believe that with the context, information, resources, worldview that I had at that time, but people hold so closely to those beliefs that they're they're unwilling to make that shift because they feel like it was a bad reflection on them. You know what I mean? Even in business, right? Like we just get to give a completely separate example like we were using this one CRM system, but then at that stage in business, just be honest with it, it was too expensive. I was like, I'm not like list is getting bigger, they're charging us more. I I don't we got to find a better way, right? And so then we went through the iteration of trying to use two or three other CRM systems only to come back to the to the original one. But the facts were still true at that time. The facts were that was too expensive for where I was in business and I couldn't justify the cost. Not that it wasn't the right CRM system. It wasn't right. It wasn't right at that time. Right? And so being willing to like, you know what, let's try this. Oh, that doesn't work. That doesn't work. But now we circle back because this works in this season with this information, this context, this reality. But you got to think from a leadership standpoint that could make me look like I'm done what I'm doing. Like, hey, like I have ops team that has to unravel and stand this up and set up this automation again. It's like we were just we were just using this 6 months ago. But I don't care about holding on to my beliefs because I know that my beliefs can evolve, right? And I'm okay with that is the first thing. And the other thing is just and this is more about self-awareness, but the true root of all disease, if you break down the word disease, is being disconnected from oneself. I think so I think people don't get enough solitude. They get so much outside noise from social media, from peers, from everything else that's going on. They have a hard time making a decision that's their own decision because they're getting so many outside influences and they're not even hearing their own thoughts. And so I think it's very important to be truly connected with yourself so that your beliefs are actually yours. Like why do you want this? Like if you can't answer that right then you got to challenge like where is it coming from? Why do you want this? And if you can't and if you're not clear on that, it's probably time to challenge that belief. >> This is like a therapy entrepreneur master class that you guys are laying down right here. This is >> we told you once you ask those questions, we said, "Bro, we are right together right now." >> Yeah, we're extracting that the best out of us. So, kudos to you as a as a podcast. This is um you know man I I I have this I have this philosophy and um you know it's exactly what you guys are saying like I'm just I line up so so closely with the way you guys are talking about this and teaching it because like my one of my core principles is operate in reality right what you said exactly what you said like I I can want to believe anything is true right I can want to believe that if I go outside my house and shake the tree money's going to fall out of it but that's not reality leaves are going to hit me in the head, right? Like like that could that's a nice belief. So many people that particularly that that I'll work with that they have these like they it's almost like they're wishing something was true. They're operating based on a wish, right? I wish that things would, you know, that this CRM worked perfectly for me and we could afford it and it was the right, you know what I mean? Like I wish that this type of customer would do business with me. I wish that I would get more attention in this for for this. And it's like, well, you don't have a bold claim, so no one cares. uh the fact that is that CRM is fancy and people talk about it but it's not right for your business you know what I mean like like how how do you ground someone like when if you someone comes to you and maybe they just have delusional ideas of money right of or delusional ideas that they can spend as much as they are and say like how do you get someone how do you coach someone back to reality back to operating the way that you just described where we're actually taking real inputs and not just working off of beliefs or you know things we see as we're scrolling through reels on Instagram or whatever. >> What what I can say is I can tell you about how we deal with it internally because internally um and then how that translates to the people that we serve. So internally I'm pretty sure you read the book what is it traction or one of those books but they talk about like the integrator and the what is what is it the integrator what's visionary right so in our early ages of our partnership even though we're both co-founders of the business >> you know I the visionary um is the integrator right so it's like hey look this is what I can see 10 years in the future this is what we got to do and then I and then he runs the play so to speak just to oversimplify it right >> y >> and in that context right we create this this very healthy balance of like that is that is great and I'm glad that's 10 years in the future but what about the next 10 days right and then and it pulls us back right to like oh okay great like we have there's certain things we have to do today and so there's we're always balancing like let's look at it from a business standpoint what will be our retirement plan and what pays our bills today our retirement plan meaning we exit a business for you a substantial amount of money right but there's so much that you have to do leading up to that for that to be a possibility while keeping the lights on right in real time. So for us, it's just knowing that we can play in that space and have that balance of like, yeah, I'm going to let you have that autonomy to to see as far as you can, and I'm going to play the role of making sure that we take step 1 2 3 4 5, right? That's how that's how it's worked out for us. Now, for a client who may not have the luxury of having a built-in business partner, brother who, you know, who can have that balance, we're we're always acting as the the the integrator for them, right? because most of them are they what for whatever their vision is they see it more clearly than we will ever see is their vision and so we're able to say since we're not emotionally attached to it and because we've experienced the highs the lows the es flows of you know all all iterations of business we're acting as that ground I think Gary Vee puts it as clouds and dirt so if they're in the clouds we're helping them stay rooted in the dirt like hey that's great I'm not mad at you for this vision you have but here's what we here's what needs to be true today and making sure that they're calibrating on is if that's something that they really want. Cuz often times it's almost like on my social media I have like an interest folder. I'll see something like I want to buy that. I don't buy it anymore. I used to, you know, I used to hit a what they call impulse purchase. Now I add it to my interest folder and I almost never go back to it. So how much money have I saved by just like adding it there and saying, "Oh, well, you know, if I if I still want it, I'll go back to it. I have the link handy. I've I've got I think I've gone back and bought one of those things, right?" And so it's the same thing like we just help them understand like, "Hey, we're going to park this for now. We're going to focus on what matters most. And if you really really want to do this and you're really convicted by it, we can we can revisit it. And just reminding them of their their north star, which for a lot of times you have a a lot of clients that are women, it's like they want to be able to take care of their their family and have and you know, show up for their daughters and like like we remind them like, hey, the the more you do more of that, like it may not allow you to do as much of this as you think it is. And just reminding them of their true why. >> Yeah, I love that. I I want to pivot now. Um I'm not sure Carter, whether you or George said this early. It may have been you, Carter, but there was uh one of you mentioned like you're you're always looking for potential um activities, businesses, etc. that not only can help support your main interest, but also potentially generate revenue. And I think content and how you guys are doing your content game is a big part of that. And I'd love for you to talk through how you thought about how you frame building the content side of your lives and of your work with how it then supports the the business itself, right? The advisory and and tax firm etc. Like so so I think a lot of people get confused in that one they have to be directly related all the time or that they have to be two cons completely separate things or that you can't actually support the content business on its own that all of the support has to come out of that business is which where a lot of people get caught. So, how did you think through this and how did you start to build it so that your your content side of what you guys do wasn't just a burden to the business, but was actually thriving alongside of it and supporting it. >> Yeah. So, I'm a firm believer that it is not the best who makes the most money. It is the most well-known, right? We all can make better burgers than McDonald's. Yet, they're they, you know, make a billion they've made a billion burgers, right? So for me um I think that it's a few things. Number one, when it comes to content, people will buy from you because they believe because of what you know. Other people buy from you because of who you are. And when you have content, um you are able to we have when you have content, you are able to show both. Right? So through our content, we've been able to show our expertise, but we've also been been able to show who we are as humans. And some clients hire us because they love they love our expertise. Some clients hire us because George is a good father, right? And so you are able to leverage this and uh be able to get more clientele. So for me, content has always been uh a very very big and very important pillar of our business because with our cell phones, we can get millions of views and not have to worry about marketing for our business. Then after we had the content piece figured out, we was like, okay, how can we now that our content is bringing us in customers, how can we also make money from this content, right? So we have a podcast, we get sponsorships, we have uh you know a podcast where we get brand deals, all those things like that. And what we noticed is the more money we make outside of our advisory firm, the easier it is to reinvest money back into our advisory firm, right? And we and Alexozi has this concept called sawdust where it's like, okay, look at areas of your business where you can turn it on and make money, but it costs you no extra time, investment in, you know, XYZ. So, uh, for us, this has really been around how can we figure out ways to make money outside of our business that takes the stress off of reinvesting in our business. I'm a firm believer and I'm curious to hear your sentiment on this. I believe that we all be everybody can become a millionaire by doing the big three. Number one, you get experience in whatever you're doing. So, if you say you want to be the best podcaster, get podcasting experience. Number two, through that experience will make you a expert, right? Because with enough practice, anybody can become expert at whatever they do. And then once you become an expert, you then can educate people on how you did how you became an expert. So people will pay you for what you know, people will also pay you for who you are. So once you we become these, you know, we are now very very um known in the financial space. Some advisors will literally pay us thousands of dollars to spend one day with us to so that they can get the lesson without having to get the scar, right? And so now we can be that coach for that person. We can be that adviser for that adviser. Um, and that money is all profit cuz it cost us nothing. And the more we make doing that, we can we don't we don't even need to take distributions from our business if we don't if we don't need to. And that again because we're in the scale phase and we knew this already. So we're like, okay, how can we still make sure our personal wealth is secure, but make sure our business can still scale and stay profitable. >> Yeah. And so Carter, I got a E to add to add to that for you. So you said you said expertise, experience, education or educate, that you said. >> Yeah. Yep. Yep. And you can also add equity to that, right? So many people aren't familiar with like consulting for equity. So on one hand, we could educate, right? And people pay us 25,000 or whatever it is for for a day. or it's like, hey, if I could help your business grow by X percentage, could would you be willing to give me a percentage of the business? Right? Like in in many instances, people are willing to do that. So, um I agree wholeheartedly with what he's saying because we're both doing the same thing. Now, the other piece, going back to your question on looking at the media aspect of the business and the content and how does that serve? Well, to be honest with you, we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on paid advertising, right? So for us it's like you only build an audience in a few ways. You can you can buy it which is we do a lot of fortunately unfortunately you could borrow it right like going on platforms like this and you build an established audience that people will hear and like oh I like these guys I'm going to go see what they have going on. You can you can build it and that's what we're doing with the content right because then it becomes owned media. So it's like okay well if we have uh hundreds or thousands of videos though on YouTube well across all platforms I don't even I can't even fathom how many pieces of content it is but if we have five years five to six years of content archives some of which is long form right we are building our audience through that content and we're able to nurture our potential clients at scale um there's a gentleman who actually set up our podcast studios and he helps people do this um but he I can't remember exactly what he said Carter will remember remember probably more eloquently than me, but actually I'll let you interject real quick to what he said about. >> Yeah. So, basically um we always talk about the power of compound interest when it comes to investing. Or you put a dollar in today, it could become tens of hundreds of thousands tomorrow. He looks at every piece of content as a dollar in the content market and that that will compound that same compound interest that happens with investing can come from an audience that will help you build your business. Yeah. >> Yeah. And so from that vantage point when you but you have to again it's about about the frame. If you don't have that frame, content is going to feel like a drag. Oh my gosh. Like, because we record I record a video that goes live every Monday. Carter records one that goes live every Friday on YouTube. We have a podcast that goes live every Wednesday. We've been doing that since 2021, every week. Have not missed a day, right? And sometimes it's like, did that hit? That one got a,000 views. This one did got 80,000. That did really well. I don't know if anybody saw that. I did this on a Saturday when I could have been re relaxing. But you never know when someone's going to see that piece of content that's going to be the reason that they make a decision. And more importantly, imagine your favorite show, right? You don't you don't some episodes you love more than the others, but if it comes on every Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. and then one Wednesday they don't make an announcement, it just doesn't come on, you've lost all trust and credibility with your audience, right? And so at some point once you make the decision to become an authority, to become a leader, to become someone who says they do, who does what they say they're going to do, that's what brand is. Brand isn't your colors. Brand isn't how you make people feel. brand is I know them for this and I can trust them for