The Visionary Leap: Allison Maslan on Building Founder-Independent Companies

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And I've had to learn to say, shut up, you know, like just knock it off and I'm not gonna listen to you and I'm gonna put those voices over here and I'm gonna focus on what I'm doing. And so because of that, I'm way more focused and I refuse to pay attention to the fear even though I feel it, but I'm able to move through it on the ground.

Step into the world of success with Your Brand Amplified, the ultimate podcast designed to unravel the intricacies of thriving businesses. I'm your host, Anika Jackson, and I'm on a mission to uncover the stories, strategies, and secrets that have propelled entrepreneurs and business leaders to success. What if the very thing that made you a great founder is exactly what's keeping your business from growing? I'm very excited about today's guest, Allison Maslin. You have built and scaled 10 companies across 9 industries. You're a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, a Forbes top 10 women entrepreneurs to watch, and the founder and CEO of Pinnacle Global Network, the largest women-owned mentoring and peer advisory network for 7 to 9 figure CEOs. Congratulations on that.

Thank you.

You also shared stages with Richard Branson, Magic Johnson, uh, your book Scale or Fail is endorsed by Daymond John and Barbara Corcoran. And you also have been a trapeze artist for 25 years. But here's what I love most about Allison's story today. She didn't just build a methodology in a boardroom. She learned about risk, resilience, and letting go at 30 feet in the air, and then brought those lessons back to the ground and built a framework that's helped over 150,000 founders scale without burning out. We're gonna talk about the founder trap, identity shift from operator to visionary CEO, and the moment you have to let go of the bar before you know the other one is there. I'm so excited to dive in. Thank you so much, Allison.

Oh, thank you for having me. It was a great intro. Oh, thanks.

Well, you obviously have such amazing credentials and such an interesting story. So I wanna talk about that, you know, a moment of, uh, running over yourself with a car as a turning point. What was happening at that point in your life and business? Because that's such an intriguing thing to share.

Yeah. Well, I was definitely a mess, that's for sure, or that wouldn't have happened. So that was my first company many years ago. And I started out doing more graphic design and things, and then people just started asking me, do you do brochures? And then it was, do you do radio? Do you do television? Do you, you know, and I had grown up in a very entrepreneurial family and my father used to tell me, if someone asks you to do something, even if you don't know how to do it, but you think it's worthwhile, just say yes and then figure it out. So that's really how I built that agency, which was great. And I had amazing clients like Ben Jerry's and Supercuts and Charlotte Russe, and I was learning all along the way and it was growing really fast, which was great externally. But internally, I had no idea how to scale a business. I didn't know how to delegate. I didn't know how to be a leader. I mean, I had some team members, but I was a total control freak. And my daughter was under 2 years old at the time. And so I just, I didn't know whether I was coming or going. So I'd wake up, you know, and be off to the races and then go to bed at 2 or 3 in the morning working on ad campaigns. And so one particular day where I was so stressed out and completely exhausted, and on top of that, late to pick up my daughter from daycare, I went racing to get her and I jumped outta the car and the car started rolling. I didn't put it all the way into park. And so the door knocked me down and pulled me underneath my car. And it was a 4,000-pound car. I'm not a big lady, so that wouldn't have mattered anyway. But it just, I think the adrenaline really saved my life. And, you know, whoever was watching over me. That was the wake-up call for me because I almost died from that. It was pretty serious. And I really just looked at my life and said, what the heck are you doing? Like, this is never gonna work. And if this is what success is like, then I don't want it. I need to rewrite the rules. And so that was the real turning point for me.

We all have those inflection points. Many are not as dramatic as yours, clearly, but the fact that you then had the presence of mind to say, okay, this is not working. This is not what success is going to look like to me. And now though, you've been able to go on and scale not only your own success in so many different ways, but that of other founders and creators.

Well, I think the key is really like, you know, we all go through challenging times and it doesn't, that wasn't like my last challenging time ever, but to be able to just have the awareness to stop and go, okay, What is going wrong here? Why am I in this place? Because we tend to just forge ahead and we're impulsive as business owners and we just are such in a hurry to get to the next thing that we never learn from this amazing lesson that we've been given. And then we just keep recreating it. So luckily it was loud enough for me there to say, all right, how are CEOs really supposed to lead a company? And what does scale really mean? And so I began to study my clients that had thousands of employees to really see how the CEO, how the founder was operating. They were out building strategic partnerships, acquiring other companies, and they were building a team-led company that was really running the day-to-day of the business. And so that's really where my whole method came from.

Yeah, the team-led company, because you did talk about in that first company you were the bottleneck, and I think that is so true of most organizations. When we start, we are the bottlenecks in our own businesses and in our own business growth. So then what did you do that, you know, you had these clients in your graphic company, in your marketing company, you realized that you needed to make a change. You started studying them. And then what was that next point that said, oh, I can not only study this, I can learn from this to build my own businesses in a different way, but I can also teach others to do the same?

Yes. I mean, it was really over years. I mean, I built, after that I've built 9 companies. This is my 10th company that I'm running now, and I've been doing this, running this company for 17 years. So there was just each business. I said, "Okay, from the get-go, how do I replace myself? And how can I multiply my growth without trying to clone me?" Because if you are truly wanting to scale your business, but you're still delivering the product or service, it's just not scalable. You know, you don't see Richard Branson flying the airplane.

Right.

So each business gave me the opportunity to practice that. And each one got better and better and better. And then over time, people just started asking me, Alison, how do you do this? How are you building these companies? And so that was in 2008 and I started mentoring and I loved it. I loved working with entrepreneurs and helping them to get clarity on their dream and build a roadmap, but that wasn't scalable. I could only help so many people. And then I had developed my method at that point, 'cause I realized, wow, they're having the same pain that I experienced those years ago, and I was able to turn it around, so they can too. And so that's when I decided to build a big team of mentors. We have 40 now on the team that work privately with our clients, and they've all built very successful companies of their own.

Oh, that's wonderful. And that is one of the bottlenecks is what I'm hearing you say is that you have to be able to replicate yourself, not necessarily replace yourself, but to get that help, get that assistance, train other people when needed.

Yes. Yes. Your role is to get into a visionary seat of your business so that you're focused on the future and your team is focused on today.

Do you see a specific revenue stage that this usually happens at when people are feeling that pain point?

I'd say at about $500K in revenue, business owners start to feel stretched. When they get to about $750K in revenue, if you haven't hired somebody by then, like, you know, I don't know, it's, it's tough to sustain. We work with business owners at a million and up, 7 and 8 figure founders, and at that point, you know, they have maybe 10 to 30 employees, something like that, and they're still buried in the weeds of the business, and generally it's because of habit. It's what we're used to doing, but we know what got us here is definitely not going to get us there.

Yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned that you have a methodology. Can you talk to us about the SCALE-IT method? But instead of starting with a framework, can you talk to us about a client who shouldn't have been able to scale but was able to by using your methodologies?

Absolutely.

We have lots of fun stories. One of my favorites is a woman named Constance Wanamaker, and she is an attorney, and she came in at about $2.5 million in revenue, about 35 employees, She was working about 15 hours a day and just like not sleeping, her life full of stress, doing good work in her business, but it just wasn't scalable. She had her hands in everything in the business. And so we worked with her. Now she's been working with us for about 4 years, but really she is not in the day-to-day of the business. anymore. She's been able to acquire other firms. She built a marketing company that actually also supports other law firms. She was named the number 1 law firm on the Inc. 5000 and has now crossed $100 million in revenue. And so that was actually in like 3 and a half years. And so not, you know, not every story is like that, but— It really is. We feel like it's so hard to make the change. Like, that's gonna be so hard to build the team and I have to have all this money. And there's all these objections that come up in our head of why it won't work. But the way that, that she was operating before was so much harder. It was costing her life. And now she doesn't have to work in the day-to-day of the business at all. She's got this amazing team. Obviously she's making a lot more money. And she didn't really have access to that, but we helped her to see it's not about the resources. It's about how creative and resourceful that you are. Wow.

And that is a mindset shift.

It is. Yeah. It's, you know, 99% mindset, 1% strategy. You actually have to implement the strategy and you have to be willing to step out into the unknown.

So let's talk about that framework that you realized was a, the driver for change in not only your businesses, but in these businesses that you assist.

Yeah. So first of all, there are 5 phases of scaling a business, and most business owners have no idea where they're at in the scaling process. And that's part of the issue because there's no awareness, so they stay stuck. At a certain phase and the business ends up dying there. So first we wanna diagnose, okay, what phase are they in? And the goal is to get them to phase 5. And phase 5 is the visionary role. Now you have a total founder-independent company and you have, you can make choices. You can move to the chairman of the board and, and bring on a CEO. You can stay on, scale it further, or you can sell it or pass it on to your kids. But the big deal is that now the company is worth a lot more. Because people don't wanna buy a company if they know that the minute that the founder leaves it, the business is going to tank. So what we wanna do is diagnose, are they in 1, 2, 3, 4, what phase they're in? And a lot of them that come to us are in phase 3, we call the ringleader. And that's where it's a bit of a circus. That's why we call it the ringleader, where the team is growing and they're— kind of where I was in the middle of everything in their business. And even though they have a team, they're like the Google of their company. Everybody still comes to them for answers. And so it's really about them learning to stop giving the answer and empowering the team to figure it out, to say things like, well, what would you do in this situation? How would you handle it? Or why don't you put a plan together and present it to the team? And so you start to empower this team where they are owning their role. And that's where things begin to shift and you start moving into phase 4 as a co-creator. It's much more collaborative.

I know that part of the leader's journey typically is you might want to give people autonomy, right? You want— might want them to be— to feel like they have ownership. But then it, that hard part is still, oh, but they're doing it a different way than I would do it, right? And we talked a lot about, you said mindset was a big part of this and mindfulness and this shift. So how do you help hard-nosed leaders transform from thinking, no, it has to be this way, or my way or the highway, or this way, and these are the steps that we take, to doing that inner work that can really shift their whole perception?

It's the hardest thing. You know, letting go, it can feel really scary. And that's why having someone that you're working closely with can be that mirror to go, you're doing it again. You're doing it again. You know, because we don't always see it in ourselves until afterwards. But the thing is, is if you have a real clear vision for your company, where you're headed, and it's really dialed in, and your team gets it, they can feel it, they feel that they're part of it, then now you have a team that is emotionally invested in making that vision a reality. And especially your leadership team, as you start to become a more mature company, you wanna have a leadership team that can also make decisions, major decisions, but they have to be so committed. It's like a non-negotiable that this vision is happening. Then they start to think, your team, even the leaders are thinking about, gosh, I wonder how we can drive more profits. I wonder how we can run leaner. I wonder how we can create a better customer experience. And so that really is the shift. They have to be bought into the vision. They want to see it happen. They feel personal satisfaction from that. And that's really your role as the leader of your company is to get everybody bought in on your vision. That is your number one role.

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I'd love to hear a little bit about some of the companies that you had in between the first company and what you're doing now. And scaling them, what industries they were in? Because I, I think one important thing for people to, who are listening to think about is it doesn't have to be specific types of industries that can use this methodology and that can find more success.

Yes. And mine were like whatever I was passionate about at the time. So for me, like I have to absolutely love it or I can't get behind it. I can't just manufacture this energy around something. So as I share it with you, you'll see all the different kind of pathways that I went. So when I kind of combusted in my life back then, I actually discovered homeopathic medicine to, for my own healing. And I was so fascinated by it. I went back to school. I ended up becoming a homeopathic physician and I actually ran that practice for 20 years from '96 to 2016. to 2016 while I was building other companies. I had the Homeopathic Academy. I built the Homeopathic Academy of Southern California. It was the first homeopathic college in Southern California that was a 3-year certification. So I built that in '99. I sold that in 2005. It's still running today. And then the other, other businesses, I did a scuba diving certification company. Mm-hmm. I sold that. I, um, a real estate investment company, software company, jewelry and accessory, uh, manufacturing company. So yeah, like all over the place.

But there's a lot of beauty in that because you are able to chase your passions, but also find ways to make things better, not for your, just for yourself and your own health, which of course is so important, but for other people or make people's days a little brighter with jewelry or whatever the case may be.

I, I loved it. I loved it. And I'll just say this. What I realized is even though they were completely different industries and some of them were products and some of them were services, is that they all had a lot of the same challenges and the same needs. They all needed a vision. They all needed cash flow. They all needed, you know, marketing, sales, team, leadership, systems. Execution, all those things in common. So, all the wisdom that I learned in building those companies, I'm able now to really pay that forward to all of the CEOs that we serve.

Going back to your idea of mentors, do you have 40 CEO mentors at Pinnacle?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

What is the difference that you've seen between a founder who can make the visionary CEO transition and one who can't? Because I think we often hear this term visionary CEO, but it often is probably misnomered.

Yeah, so the mentors on our team are, have come from all different backgrounds, and the requirement is that they have built a very successful company, you know, multimillion-dollar company. Most of 'em have had exits, acquisitions. We have, you know, one that's taken 10 companies over $100 million and had 3 IPOs. So, like really so much experience, but what they have all in common is that they really wanna give back. As one of our mentors, Tammy Moore, said, it's going from successful to significant. So really wanting to make an impact, which is a beautiful thing. But they, and some of them are still running companies, but they're totally founder-independent companies. Like they're in the visionary role. I would say that it's It's just really hard to do this on your own. And for myself, I'm in a mastermind. I still have a mentor myself, and I've been in business over 40 years, but you're just so close to it that you don't see that you're in the way. You don't see that you're in the way from your team really stepping up, or that when you jump in every time, you're telling your team unconsciously that you don't trust them. And so you need somebody that's kind of on your case, you know, in a loving way, but hey, you're the problem. And so it really is super helpful to do that because, you know, when you move into that visionary role, you still need to have the right structure in place. You need to have those right metrics so that you know, even though you're not on that meeting, or you're not really a part of that department anymore, you, you know at all times where they're at.

And I think this is, again, the control issue of having to transition from being the operator and being involved in all pieces and running all the meetings into being the visionary leader. I'm sure there's some grieving that happens in that process. Would you say there's one or two things that you see people have to grieve the most when they're making that transition?

Yeah, it is a strange position to be in for some people. We often hear, "I don't know what to do with myself," because they're so used to being so busy and putting out fires. But we help them to see that, well, you can actually scale the company further now because you can really have the space to get creative. Let's look at an acquisition. Let's look at other revenue streams. You just don't have to actually implement them. You know, my husband and I live in Mexico 5 months of the year. And so that has given me the opportunity to fully step away. And I just wrote my next book, and I would not have been able to do that if I was in the weeds of the day-to-day. I get more ideas to bring back to our team and our community. And so it really just will help you actually grow faster because you, you have the headspace to take you there.

Hmm.

Well, you just mentioned new book, so let's talk about Scale or Fail, what it was like to that process of writing a book and having it become a bestseller. And then what is the next book that we can look forward to?

Yeah, I know. I'm excited. So Scale or Fail is, um, I'm really proud of that book. That came out in the beginning of 2019, and really it encapsulates the SCALEit Method and everything that I've learned along the way. So that was definitely like birthing a baby that I was carrying for a long time. Mm-hmm. And so, so many entrepreneurs have been able to use that book as a guide to help them see that they are in the way and it helps them to build the scalable model and the steps they need to do to replace themself in the business. So I'm still really proud of that book. I think that, you know, as far as writing a book is one of the best things that a founder can do if you can sit your butt down and actually get it out, it's probably one of the most valuable things. things that you can do for your business.

And what do we have to look forward to with the next book?

Yeah. So the next book is coming out in '27. So stay tuned for that. And it's called Infinite Scale: The CEO's Guide for Fusing Strategy and Energy for Exponential Growth. So it's like Harvard Review meets Joe Dispenza, basically.

So yeah, it's what the business world needs now. I mean, I think it's particularly your background in holistic health and as an entrepreneur and multiple-time successful business founder and exitor, you have that expertise that is that, that sweet spot because especially as the world, we have so much technology and there's always been technology and there's always been technological revolutions. Now we have the AI revolution and I've— see so many people wanting to get back to humanity. And I think we have to have that spirituality. It's not woo-woo because it is also scientifically backed, but with that business acumen to have successful businesses, not just now, but in the future.

Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. We are made of energy and we're just surrounded with energy. So why don't we mobilize it to help us get where— to where we wanna go faster and easier? And so this is really based on the work that I've been doing over the years. And it's a practice that I have, that I do every single day. And it is amazing what has transpired. It's like my home in Mexico. It's how I attracted my husband. And we're celebrating 20 years of marriage this year.

Congratulations.

This summer. So many incredible things. And it's something that I haven't, I've been teaching to our community and they love it, but I haven't really put it out into the world. So I'm excited to do that. I think it's much needed for sure.

Yeah. Wow. It sounds amazing. And I, I'll have to have you back on when it releases so that we can talk about—

Yes.

—the book specifically. I would love to. Yeah. Amazing. I wanna talk a little bit about the trapeze artist in the boardroom. You've been a trapeze artist, which is Amazing for 25 years. That takes it beyond hobby into a practice. What has that practice taught you about leading a business that you don't think you would've learned from being in the boardroom?

Oh my gosh. So much. For sure, it is the persistence, even when you don't feel like it. And, you know, climbing that ladder, that 40-foot ladder, you're making a decision every time you climb. And it's the same thing in business, right? Every day you're making that decision towards your vision and you can't be up there wishy-washy. You can't be, well, let's give it a try. No, you need to be all in. And it's like when you're skiing down the mountain, you got to have your body forward because otherwise if you're wonky, you're going to fall. Yeah. And so I have learned resilience. I have learned to just hold the vision while I'm up there before I take the leap and expect that the catcher is going to catch me. Just the same way I do in business, I've got to hold that vision and I've got to expect that it's going to happen. But I'd say the biggest thing for me, and I still practice this, is because sometimes I get up there and my brain will be running amok. And it might be saying things like, what do you think you're doing? Are you sure today's the right day? I mean, what if something breaks? What if you fall on your head? I mean, just, it's just how the brain works. And I've had to learn to say, shut up. You know, like just knock it off and I'm not going to listen to you and I'm going to put those voices over here and I'm going to focus on what I'm doing. And so because of that, I'm way more focused and I refuse to pay attention to the fear even though I feel it, but I'm able to move through it on the ground.

There are a lot of lessons for all of us in that, even if we don't aspire to or are afraid of becoming a trapeze artist.

Yeah. I mean, the thing is, whatever you're afraid of, just do something more scary and then that thing won't feel like a big deal. That's what I learned.

Oh, that's truly amazing. You talked about team-managed companies. What are 2 or 3 things that founders need to do specifically, moves they need to make that will help them get to this new structure and find that freedom and capability to actually have growth?

Yeah, it's really how you architect your team. So there are 3 types of employees. There are, and this is what's gonna be in my, in my new book. This is in, it's in my new book coming out next year. There are 3 types of employees. There's task takers, there's problem solvers, and there's scale multipliers. So the task takers are the people that you tell what to do. They do the task, they get it done, but they're not driving the growth of the company. And they're often actually a negative ROI. Now, a problem solver is someone where you will say, hey, we're having this issue where the leads that are coming in don't seem to be qualified, or they're getting stuck in this part of the funnel. And they'll go, okay, let me figure this out. I'm gonna come up with a solution and I'm gonna fix it. Or they may even see a problem and they come to you or somebody on the team and say, This is happening. I'm gonna come up with a solution and fix it. We like these people. They're about a 3-time ROI on what you pay them. Okay? Now, a scale multiplier, this is somebody that says, wow, I see that we've got a pretty decent system here, but I feel that I can build something that is gonna totally upgrade the pipeline and the level of leads and lead flow that's coming in, and it's gonna save us a bunch of time, and that, which is gonna save us X amount of dollars. And so they're looking at your organization or your department to say, how can I elevate the whole experience for everybody? Now that person is going to be like an 8 or 9 or 10, or even in some cases 20-time ROI, we call ROE, return on employee. And so when you can shift from having task takers to having problem solvers and scale multipliers on the team, they move from being like your most ex— your biggest expense, your payroll, to now drivers of growth of the company. So they're paying for themselves. Yeah. Plus, plus, plus, plus.

Yeah. That's really fascinating. I haven't thought about employees in that fashion, but that really makes a lot of sense when somebody is trying to make change in their organization.

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Is there a specific role or a type of person that they need to look at, whether they have them inside the organization already or they need to make a new hire to be kind of that first person, that linchpin to help them be able to grow effectively.

Yeah, I think it goes back to what I said earlier in that you want to empower the people to start thinking for themselves. And if you're always just giving them tasks, that part of their brain shuts off. You want them to approach your business as if they're a customer and say, what's that experience like? And are there any glitches and how can I make it better? So it's really empowering them to use their own creativity. And most of them, a lot of them do have that within themselves, but they've never really given themselves the opportunity to think that way. And you want them to treat it like it's their own. And it's, obviously it's not, but we have some amazing people on our team, and I truly feel that I'm building the business with them. And that's just, it's just so much more fun and so much more satisfying.

Yeah. And I imagine part of that is also the values that you bring to your organization and that the organization espouses. You have to make sure people are truly mission-aligned and value-aligned. So that you can trust them with this growth?

It's everything. I mean, trust is everything. And it's also not just for me, but for the team. People wanna know that you've got their back. And if you're keeping someone on the team that is not trustworthy or that doesn't pull their weight or that brings a lot of drama inside of the company, the message that you're giving the rest of the team is it doesn't matter. And you kind of lose your reputation and respect from the rest of the team. So as hard as that is, that rule of hire slowly, fire fast is super important.

Let's talk about building a Pinnacle Global Network. Did you know that it would become what it is today when you started, when you had your first vision of what this could be?

Not really. I mean, I would like to say that I did, But I just, I knew that I really enjoyed helping these entrepreneurs. I knew that I was given a gift growing up in a very entrepreneurial family. Like this is how my father and I communicated together. That was his love language. And so I felt that to be able to help these people, that there was such a ripple effect and that really was my focus. What I didn't know that it was gonna have such a profound effect and there was gonna be so many other people out there, out in the world that would want this kind of support. And so, you know, obviously now we, we do know that after 17 years in, and we just keep attracting these incredible CEOs and the mentor community as well. And so the vision— Just keeps expanding. We just opened our French division and we have mentors in France now and I'm going to be flying there in the fall and we'll be launching that. So it's really exciting. But I think that one of the most rewarding things is when we get these business owners together and they feel like, "Oh my gosh, these people get me. I'm not alone." And that my dreams are valuable because most of them have been told by the people around them that they're crazy and why are they doing this and why are they working so hard? But we're like, yeah, we get it. We speak that language too.

Yeah. I'd love to hear a little bit about some of the ways that you shaped the organization being a women-led organization as opposed to a lot of the ones that we hear about for entrepreneurs and business leaders that are out there. What can somebody expect and how did you try to make sure that you were offering something that was a little different?

Yeah, I, I think for me it was more about what did I feel an entrepreneur needed truly to create success? You know, after I had that implosion in my business all those years ago, I got a mentor. I invested in a mentor even though like at that point I had walked away from the business. I didn't have any money. But I knew that I wanted to take the toll road. I knew that I didn't want to repeat what had happened to me. And so that really was the impetus in building this mentor team. Most of the communities that are in our space, and I'm friends, I know a lot of these people and we support one another, and they have incredible communities out there. really wonderful, but they don't have the type of mentor team that we have or the type of, you know, method, having a methodology. And I felt like those two things were really critical if we were truly wanting to help them scale their business. And that's really what people come to us for.

And as a CEO, what can somebody expect when they're accepted in a membership in your organization?

Yeah, well, they can expect that they can just be themselves. They don't have to put on airs. This is not a cliquey environment. It's not, we're not looking for people to try to impress themselves or others. It's really, they can let their shoulders down. They've been carrying a lot and they can lean on us. And we're gonna put our brain trust on their business. And we're gonna open up the hood, we're gonna see all the stuff, you know, maybe some stuff you might feel embarrassed about or whatever. It doesn't matter. We've all been there before. And we're gonna just, we're gonna get to the core of the issue and then we're gonna help you get super clear on your vision and we're gonna expand what that vision is. Like when Constance came to us, she thought, well, okay, $5 million, that would be my vision. And first we, well, we said, that's not really, you know, the money is, you know, you wanna have a metric, but that's not the vision. What is that real reason that you're doing this and what does it look like? And so helping her to expand to $100 million, you know, so we help people really think much, much bigger. And then through our methodology and our platform and all of our tools and everything, we help them reverse engineer that to make that vision a reality. And, and we walk them through the whole process and the ups and downs and things that happen along the way.

I know that you have a variety of businesses and owners that you work with. Do you, is there any sweet spot that you find that you love to work with or that your mentors love to work with?

Yeah, you know, that's such a great question, but honestly, what I love is that it's such an eclectic mix. And, you know, Harvard did a study that showed when business owners come together from different industries and different business models, they actually, by brainstorming together, they move forward faster. Because let's say someone in the beauty industry learns from the import company how to develop their own products and, you know, hair dryer or whatever. And maybe the import company learns from the beauty company how to have best, better customer service. They all can learn from one another. But we have people with like the unique widget that makes the conveyor belt go, to health industry, to bridal brick and mortar chains, just totally across the gamut. In fact, one of our business owners, he has a company that developed this parachute that hooks onto Cessna, you know, private planes. Mm-hmm. And so if the plane is about to crash, the parachute goes up and brings the airplane down safely and saves lives. In fact, they just saved a plane that was crashing in Northern California with their parachute. So like, I just, to me, that's what I love is just the ingenuity and the creativity of these people. They, they blow me away.

Yeah. I got chills when you were sharing that. And I love the variety of studies and different clients that you've shared with us so far. Is there another favorite story that you have that you'd love to share with us?

Yeah, there was a gentleman named Marshall who came to us who was in a similar situation that Constance was in. In fact, a lot of people come to us in that, you know, their hair's on fire, they haven't taken a vacation in years, and that really was where Marshall he had his hands in every area of the business. And he kind of took pride in that when he told me, and I was like, well, Marshall, we're going to extricate you from the day-to-day. And he, I'll never forget, because he just kind of laughed at me like, ahaha, that's never going to happen. And so what proceeded to happen in the next few years is that he went from, you know, 60, 80-hour weeks to attending one meeting a week, to attending one meeting every two weeks. To giving away his office. And his scale strategy was acquisition. So he was able to acquire over 35 companies that didn't depend on him. And he actually, uh, recently sold his, his company, sold for over 9 figures. And he's actually one of the mentors on our team. And he is amazing. Like he gets to spend time with his wife and his grandkids now. They have an RV, they travel all over. And— So, just lots of incredible stories like that. And I think another thing that separates us is that we're not the kind of organization where we're like just hustle, hustle, hustle. Like, I just feel like that's the old guard and it's not sustainable. And that's where people get sick. It's where they get, you know, relationship issues and divorce. It really is having a team-managed company is also smart for the CEO because if you don't fill your cup, you know, you're just, you won't have your health. And so what I love, we always say scaling businesses and transforming lives. And so it's about the being the whole leader. So we have a workshop going on right now in Sedona and it's a whole personal growth thing. For the leaders too, and just really going deep and letting go of the things that are not serving them anymore. And I think doing that kind of deep work and just resting and having fun and, you know, taking the summer in Italy or whatever it is that you've always wanted to do, let's set your company up so that you can have the time with the people that you love.

What does freedom look like for you today? You're writing your next book, you have this beautiful home that you spend part of your time in, in Mexico. You're opening offices in France, which that sounds like a lovely excuse to go to France.

Oh yeah. I'm excited about that.

So, Jo, what does freedom look like and what do you see next for yourself?

Yeah, gosh, it's such a good question. Well, I continue to fly on the trapeze. I was just out there yesterday. And so that's always, feels like freedom to me when I'm up there flying. But I think for me in this, this business is really legacy for me. And it's just gives me such a sense of meaning and purpose. And, you know, I really, I'm in this one for the long haul and where the others where I was building it up to sell, I really am in this one, you know, for some good amount of time. But, you know, my husband and I have a great life. Like I said, we live in Mexico half the year, we travel. And to me, it's like every day is a decision to make it the absolute best day that you have ever experienced. That's how I wake up in the morning and that's what I write. You know, like what miracles are going to happen today? And so I think instead of building to get somewhere, How can you bring that in— experience into your life every single day? Even if it's in small little pieces of going outside and, and hanging out with your dogs for a little bit between your meetings, like bring that joy into your life right now.

And that's such a great mantra or great thing for us all to envision. What can we bring into our lives right now? Those little steps. That can make things incrementally better until we can get the freedom of having a team-led organization, getting ourself out of the way. So Allison, I'd love to know if you have a favorite quote, mantra, verse, poem, family motto, some other words that can continue to inspire us as much as they inspire you.

Yes, there's one of my favorite quotes is by Henry David Thoreau, and it says, "All good things are wild and free." And I've always resonated with that. And to me, what freedom means is utilizing the gifts that you were born with and putting them out into the world. And I feel that being an entrepreneur is one of the best ways to do that.

Oh, that was really beautiful. I think this conversation is exactly what a lot of founders need to hear, that our business success is important, but it can become our ceiling. We can't just think about strategy to break through. It has to be really like in our identity. We have to do the work, we have to do the mindset. So of course we're going to have pinnacleglobalnetwork.com in the show notes and the book. I really appreciate your generosity and wisdom, Allison. I am feeling really inspired from our conversation, and I know that— I know what my next steps need to be to do the work. So thank you for bringing that to the show today.

Thank you, Anika. This was great. You're an incredible host. Such great questions. Thank you.

Thank you so much. And everybody who's listening, do the work, get the book, think about what your next steps are in your business to make sure that you're not just living to work, but you're really working the little bit you need to, and that you're getting that team-led organization. Put all these things in your mind so they're front of mind, they're foremost in how you're going to continue designing your businesses moving forward. I'll be back again with another amazing guest to share their story, their journey, and some things for you to think about in the next few days. Thanks for listening or watching to this episode of Your Brand Amplified. Don't forget to leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast listening platform. And if you want to learn more, check us out at yourbrandamplified.com.

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