The Brutal Reality of Building an 8-Figure Company

Welcome back to the Wealth Shift by Ben and Bergs. The Go to playbook for busy investors building real wealth in the digital era. I'm Ben Simpson, high school dropout turned eight figure entrepreneur, investor and founder of Collective Shift, a global research platform with clients around the world. And Aaron Berghober, an mba, qualified financially free investor and business leader. The show dives deep into strategy, shaping the next generation of wealth builders. Together we unpack the exact frameworks used by sophisticated investors to grow and protect wealth across crypto, business property and macro markets. With zero fluff, hard hype or jargon. Whether you're managing a hundred thousand dollar portfolio or 5 million plus, the world ship delivers timeless strategies, investor psychology and actual insights for those serious about playing the long game. This is your playbook for building wealth in the digital era. We release episodes new every week, breaking down exactly how sophisticated investors are growing and protecting wealth right now. Make sure you hit subscribe if you are following us on YouTube or follow us on your favorite podcasting app for each and every week. And today we're talking a little bit of the untold story. The seven years of failure before the success. Everyone only sees the the overnight success, but the brutal truth about building Collective Shift, which is our company, Collective Shift. I founded this company nearly, nearly five and a bit years ago. Bergs and I have been building this company. Berg's a co owner who's been through all the freaking highs and lows alongside me. And even prior to this company, the three years in the business beforehand, it was a journey from, you know, going nearly bankrupt personally, me personally and the company cutting people, having to, you know, fire half the staff. Unfortunately from our, from our you know, financial perspective, you know, team going part time, Bergs, you know, quit his very successful career and you know, high paying job to come over crazy. Oh my world just got absolutely, just got rugged. Not right. That's a bad way. Just got 100%.

You rugged the shit out of me. You sold me the dream and I'm.

Like what is this?

We're going to get into it bro, don't worry about that.

All good entrepreneurs do and sold the dream and came across and it was just a absolute swamp fest.

Oh bro. And you are going to hear in this episode like you're going to hear the pain, the difficulties, the reality of what it was actually like because all the bullshit you get sold online. I've only seen one other person do this or company do this really well and that was Y Combinator where I think one of the owners or mentors or whatever he was with another guy. And they tell you how difficult these things actually are. And we talk about all of our success online, but we very rarely talk about the difficult things that actually happened and the actual truth of how difficult it is to have a successful company. And the odds are majorly against you. So the odds of you getting $1 million per annum in revenue are about like less than 10%. And then to get to 10 million it's less than 10% of that 10%. So it's next to zero. I think the stats are like 0.4% of companies make it to a $10 million annual revenue company. So the odds are majorly stacked against you. And we are absolutely not an overnight success. Ben, kick us off with some of the things that have happened. We'll talk through it and we'll talk through our experiences for the listeners.

Yeah. And for those that are new to the podcast, if you're new here, just a quick like, you know, quick you know, TLDR overview. This company's been around for five and a half years. We raised $1.5 million four years ago. We were doing, you know, maximum six figures in revenue per month, you know, up until about two years ago. And now we're doing, you know, close to, you know, we'll be an eight figure, you know, revenue this year which is, you know, quite crazy to think about how fast that's grown. And we've four XED the, the size of the business in the last six months. We got 20 full time staff, global business. It's pretty nuts to think about.

We got an office and then acro in a month.

It was, it was very, very crypto rocket ship.

And by the way, we did not expect this either because in February we planned to, I think it was, increased 30% over three years and we eclipse those goals in a couple of months. So this was not planned at all. It's not like, oh, this is amazing. It's more like we just kept executing and you don't know when it's going to happen but at some point it just happens.

Yeah. And I think that the hardest thing was the way this business, you know, started out was, you know, I found a collective shift. We, we integrated an existing, you know, membership based from the prior business. I was a part of that, you know, unfortunately, you know, with my ex business partner, you know, went to quite frankly you know, at the time and we lost incredible amount of, you know, revenue and members at the time because of, you know, what, and how that all played out. You know, unfortunately, you know we had nothing to do with what went on but you know a lot of people got impacted by the prior business and you know, for those that are listening and remember that period of time, it was a wild time and know we were at the, at the peak, bottom, you know I think we'd lost 80% of our revenue, 80% down was I think at the bottom, the peak, bottom amount of revenue we did in a month was I think $30,000 in a month in revenue and I think that same month we'd spent close to $150,000 in a month. So at the worst period of time we were losing $100,000 a month. And as a, how old was I then? 22 year old, 23 year old, maybe even 21. I can't remember losing a hundred thousand dollars a month of money I didn't have. Was a sickening, sickening feeling and you know, I remember, you know Bergs, I've worked with Bergs for a long time. He was a consultant to the prior business for the whole period of time. And then I brought Bergson. What year was that? That must be maybe just.

Yeah, yeah. So I started off as a moderator in the other group and then eventually started helping you out with just business strategy, leadership stuff. Yeah So I joined in March 2022 and I came on as Chief Product officer leaving my 17 plus year career in health as Chief Digital Officer top of the waza. Everyone knew me around, had really good reputation, everything was peachy but of course you know, I wanted a bit more did my mba, liked working with you and wanted to work privately and particularly in crypto. So I come on board, I'm like great, let's build out this product. Got a brilliant team start building it out. It's the first time I was actually had a bonus structure because you don't get this in government.

Right.

And I remember after the first 90 days absolutely smashed my goals because I'm just a sick legend and I'm like cool, where's my pay? And you're like what? We have no cash to pay your bills.

So, so for the entrepreneurs at home I, I got, this was Christmas before I hired Bergs and it was, it was, it was chaos. It was like I need someone that actually knows what the they're doing. I need a cool, calm, collected head and you know Bergs have been amazing to me for the first like three years the pride business and you know I remember, I remember at Christmas time it was going to shit, you know it was so Difficult I was just. Every day I'd wake up in fucking basically sweats scared out of my brains. I was going to lose everything. And caught up Bergs and kind of, you know, very transparently told him where, where, where we're at and the vision I had and you know, the dream I had and you know, it took a little bit to probably convince you Bergs because you had to, you wanted to come across. But I think it was like the state of the business at the time versus what you were going to have to leave. Like essentially Bergs was, you know, the chief was out, the chief of the chief, great, great pay, great everything. And I'm going, hey mate, do you want to come across to the swamp? You know you're gonna have to get rid of all the stuff you've built up for 17 years. Come across and I don't know if this is going to work but like do you want to take half your pay and figure it out with me?

I remember like we actually had a contract like ready to go and everything. And then all that stuff came out publicly. And I'm like what the? And you're like what the. And I'm like well I gotta disengage. Like I don't even know what this is. And then like months later you're like, oh, I'll give you a call, I'll just touch base every now and then. Keep talking, keep talking. And it was interesting where, I mean the finances of the business were okay, they weren't spectacular and you know, it was like an okay position, like, okay, we can kind of do this. But then what happened after that was you had this cohort of loyal members. They ended up leaving and then you had all of this, I think it was 2022, wasn't with FTX, three hours capital, everything there. And that was just the biggest shakeout. A member's like I'm done with this space. I'm going, everything's a scam. I don't want to be here. And it was just the hugest like shake up for our business and crypto basically no one wanted to hear about it. We went From 2021, we're all going to make it. We're all in this together. We're making heaps of money. This is all a scam. I want nothing to do with anything. Crypto.

Yeah, I remember like it that I was. It was during COVID and everything went to shit and I was like literally for, you know, for a couple of months, I didn't want to leave the House. I was probably, probably, you know, I don't know what you call it, but I was crying on the couch. You know, I couldn't, you know, I got really sick. I was overworking. I wasn't going to the gym. It was just horrific. It was the most amount of stress I've ever been under. And I remember still a phone call from my dad to this day, and he was essentially along the lines of, well, you've got two options. One is you quit, you give up, everyone goes down the ship and you get marked as the loser, essentially your whole life. Or you get off the couch and you fucking figure it out and you win. What do you want to do? And I was like, well, when you put it like that, I want to win.

But this is the reality where people are chasing you down for something you had nothing to do with. You have to fix an entire company. You're 23 years old.

No idea what I was doing.

Yeah. To everyone's credit, no one actually left the company. Everyone stayed and agreed with your vision. But waking up every morning, there's more online. People are, like, trying to find you and bash you or get money out of you. You've got. You wake up in anxious sweats, you're having a nervous breakdown for breakfast. Like, it is. It is horrendous. Where the majority of people would be sick, end up in hospital, or just actually be rational and be like, I'm not doing this because it's too crazy.

This idea of quitting. I think, like, the. The hardest was when you're losing so much money, hundreds of thousands of dollars every month, you have your vision of where. And the problem that I always came back to, like, what. What got through that difficult, difficult time was that I. I always felt and believe so much in bitcoin and crypto, and I believe so much in the fact that there was no one in Australia at that point in time that anyone could trust to get quality information from. And I was like, you know, the guy I used to work for was the most trusted guy. And he just did. Basically, you know, what he did was just in a click of a finger, you know, erode every bit of trust he had. And I was like, well, if. If that's the case, if that was the most trusted guy and he's done that, well, who is there to trust anymore? There's no one that is going to actually genuinely help people and educate people.

So remember when we started, so 2022. That's. That's exactly right where you see this market opportunity you know, in your heart, it's all you can think about. You've seen it can succeed before and you're like, well, I need to build this out. So you hired me March 2022 and I started building out the product, you know, fixing the user experience, talking to users, making some awesome stuff. And then, man, we, we had basically no brand.

So we had no socials.

Yeah, no brand shift wasn't a brand. We didn't have socials. No one was getting on and talking and doing interviews. We didn't have that replacement for the previous person. And, and you had to kind of figure all of this out. So there's a couple of things going on where we're hemorrhaging lots of money every month. We had some not so great hires and you had to find a cash injection. So you started. There are a couple of things you have to do. You have to start socials and build a brand. I had to start building for VCs, not for customers because they were our customers, the VCs. And you had to go around the world and raise capital. 23 year old and you have to go and convince people to put money into this business that's losing so much money.

Yep. So I just broke up with my ex girlfriend and then I was like, okay, well I just took my, I had two suitcases. One was full of clothes, another one was with a camera. And that's all I had sold my car, got rid of everything and I literally got on a plane and spent 18 months living out of Airbnbs, traveling Dubai in the US and Australia trying to, trying to raise money. And yeah, we had to switch the entire company to try and raise for pivot to VCs to try and save.

The business just to frame it up. This was late 2022, when no one cared about crypto. It was down only and people were starting to pivot to other businesses, AI, that kind of thing.

Yep, yep. And I think the other side of it, like, was I wanted, I had the vision of like, you know, the problem I wanted to solve because I had that problem when I got into crypto in 2017. Like, who do you trust? None of this shit makes sense. I'm like, I think I can do it. I think I can help people figure this stuff out. But that was all well and good, you know, until no one gives a flying about crypto. And you've got, you know, 15 full time staff members you gotta pay for and, and no one's paying you money.

And you're literally working 18 hour days. You look like death, mate. So talk me through. So you're not getting paid at this point in time. You're getting zero dollars, right?

Yeah, I did two years nearly, I think, or a year. No salary.

Yeah. And you'll go. So you're not getting paid at all. You're working 18 hour days. You're 23, 24 years old. You fly to America, you land that first day. What are you feeling? What are you thinking? You've got this insurmountable challenge ahead of you you've never done before.

It was actually Dubai. I remember, I remember this day. I landed the morning of grand final day in Dubai. AFL grand final day for those in Australia. Historically, you know, for me, I love grand final day. It's one of my favorite days.

So this would have been September 22nd.

Yep. I landed in Dubai on grand final day alone. And I fucking got to my hotel and I just broke down crying. I just lost it. I was like, what the fuck am I doing? I'm so fucked. I don't know what I'm doing here. I have no money, I'm losing a lot of money. I have no friends here. I, I, no one understands where I'm at and I have no way of trying to figure out how the fuck I'm going to figure this out. And the other bit of context too, which I forgot to mention the start. Not only did you know I had, we needed to fix that problem of crypto, but I had also sold close to all my crypto to start this business to buy some of the assets off my, you know, ex business partner. So I had a huge tax debt and no rollover concessions. I just had equity now. I owned a collective shift outright, which was probably worth negative at that point. So I had a huge tax debt and you know, in Australia then I give you rollover concession. So I had to pay what the company was like, what the profits I took on my crypto. So I had to, had to get a payment plan from the government at like some ungodly interest rate with money I didn't have with a losing business that was losing $100,000 a month while.

You'Re not getting paid. And I remember you woke up one night in Dubai and you're trying to go to the bathroom, you just smash your face into the wall because you didn't even know which hotel you were in.

That was, it was horrible. It was, it was, it was horrible. It was, it was a, it was the most testing time I've ever had. And you know it was. It was when I got to Milwaukee or maybe six to nine months in after just getting laughed out of every room by every investor and we'd started to get some wins on the board nine months in. And I remember being in Milwaukee, of all places, doing a public speaking course because I had to go back to Australia, present the biggest talk I've ever done in my life, which was a TEDx talk. And I've basically never spoken on front of stage before. I actually, yeah, I'd been on stage once at that point and I. That was at the Australian Crypto convention. And I went up there and froze and forgot what the hell I was talking about on stage. And nearly, you know, got laughed off the stage as well at that point. That was four years. So at this point I had no social media. I never really spoke publicly before. And I was trying to do.

You're afraid to do it.

I was so scared. It's my. It was my biggest, biggest fear. And then did a public speaking course. I remember I was in the hotel there and we got the first check at $250,000. It landed in the bank account. It was the most elated feeling I'd felt like in probably close to a year. You know, it was like running off three to four weeks, like bankroll for, sorry, payroll in the bank for so long. And, you know, we were really on the, on the, on the, on the edge of fucking losing it all.

So we literally had a plan where we're like, we've got this amount of weeks payroll. This is what we're going to have to do. This is when we will close the business if we don't succeed, or we'll at least cut down to skeleton stuff and none of us are getting paid, but we'll still try and grow it. It was really, really difficult. And I remember one moment when you were in Dubai and it came time to action, our cuts plan.

Oh, so I remember calling you that.

Was, oh, so I think you were sitting in a Starbucks or something like that. And I could see the palm trees out the back. And I remember saying, hey, look, it's time. We have to do this. So we had to let go of a few stuff. One in particular is very, very difficult to do. A young person who just joined us was amazing. We got him from another company. Probably the best. I won't say his role or his name. They're probably the best at what he did. Had a young family as well. And I remember you and I, we were just like sleepless Zombies. We're working 16 plus hours per day, you don't really sleep at night. Your eyes are burning and you're just so broken down and your resilience is so low. We were just literally crying. Like, we both had tears streaming down our faces. Talking about us having to tell these other humans that I'm sorry, this hasn't worked out, we're not going to be able to pay you. You know, your employment with us is going to end. And feeling that responsibility of we have failed, we couldn't provide this environment. And having to tell those people was just the most horrendous thing. Like, it still pains me today to like, think about those people in that conversation.

I remember in Dubai woke up that one day and we had eight or 12 people on a list and it was back to back letting all those people know that they're done. It was, you know, and again, like, yeah, we, I mean, we were on the outside of the call. Like, I don't want to, you know, under underplay the fact that like, you know, we had the, we had the easy job. Compared to like, someone will be on the receiving end of like losing their job. Like, it's horrible. But I remember after that, after that it was like, I think I went to bed at 2pm I was the most exhausted I've ever been. And it was just like. But still, it was like, it wasn't like for those of you at home that run businesses that had to lay people off, it's not like you feel better afterwards. It's not like it solves the problem. It's just like you just you, you. We stem the bleeding. Instead of like, you know, having, you know, overflowing with water in our boat, we had like half of it filled. We were just sinking slower.

This is the thing. It's like you execute that plan great. Now you've got two months to figure this out, otherwise the business closes. And those people, you got to remember a lot of those were the ones that went through all that stuff with the previous owner. They all stayed incredibly loyal, incredibly hardworking. Some of them were your personal friends as well as you tend to hire when you have your own business. So these things are just incredibly difficult and complicated. It is not an easy path. It is so, so hard just to.

Believe in something so much and for something to just literally not work for so long. Like, I felt it probably didn't work, this business for like two or three years. We just couldn't figure it out. It was like, what is going on? We had this great product. We Felt we had a great product, but we just couldn't sell it. We didn't know how to sell it. You know, we didn't know.

None of us had done sales before.

None of us downstairs before. Like, but also then, and, but then also just like, trying to build a startup is hard enough. And then in crypto as well as FTX was imploding as Lunar imploded out, just like no one. Not only did no one know about our business, no one gave a. About crypto either. So I was just like, this is, this is just like ridiculous.

Bitcoin crash as well.

Bitcoin, yeah, it was all just. I remember Travis, you know, there was. It was a final straw. It was kind of like the, you know, when Travis, like, you know, he was my performance coach at the Times, you know, said this to me, I'm like, okay, this must be like, we're kind of close to the, the point now. I need to either figure this out or quit. And it was like, like, Ben, you're like, you need to start thinking about opportunity costs now because you put four years in this business essentially, and, you know, your, the time that you could be spending elsewhere is now probably eating into, you know, your, your ability to. To grow as an individual in, you know, any other career. You need to potentially reconsider. And when he said that to me, I was like, fuck, okay, we're kind of at that point now because he's.

The, he's the all right, let's go, let's attack it kind of guy gives you a lot of reality. And if he's saying that, it's like, oh, I better consider this.

Yeah. And. And Stuart, my other advisor, he was like, you know, if you're gonna go down, go down swinging. I remember every time I catch up with him, I'm like, there was nothing good to report. It was just like, nothing's working. We're running out of money. You know, you've kind of got like, you're down to your final chips and you've got like, you know, you've got one hand to play. You just hope you get aces, you know, and we, we had 47 off suit.

And then along the way, like, you know, we didn't understand sales, so we hired like, you know, agencies and people, and they burnt through so much money and delivered hardly any results. And probably months later, we're like, we're close to being back in the same position we were before. We raised capital. Like, it didn't take that long to burn through that money.

That was the thing we're good at, crypto, we knew we knew the product, but I was like, wait a minute, we've got a good product. Why don't they come? Like, build it and they will come is absolutely fucking horseshit. Like, we had a great product, but no one knew about it. So I was like, okay, fuck. We need to figure out like, you know, couple of crypto bros trying to figure out how to market your product. Like, you know, it's. Can't just go on Twitter and post a few tweets and people come in like it's not a. It's a completely, you know, foreign thing. And I remember just sitting there trying to like, do it, you know, doing sales calls. I did hundreds of sales because I never sold a thing because I was just solving people's problems and not knowing how the pro. And then we go, I remember I was cryptocon1 one year. We went there and then people asking us about our product and we didn't even know how to explain it.

We're so February, February 23rd was when you started doing sales calls. I remember we started getting our first pro members in. And even towards the end of 23, we're like, we had like a little bit of money, like a small amount of money, like a couple of months Runway. And we're like, hey, we've spent heaps on OZ Crypto con. Like, if this doesn't bring us, you know, a decent amount of business or the approach we're taking, we're gonna have to change the approach. And we've got a few months to figure it out. And then like, it's kind of like each month you get more money in that extends it to three months, four months, five months. Because you think in Runway when you're a startup and man was brutal. I remember you doing those calls and us trying to figure out what the market actually wants. Because now we're not building for VCs, we're building for members, like customers. And what do they actually want? How do they want it? We tried to do our platinum offering where it was 5k per month and you get a one on one call with Ben and then every single additional person, it's another hour of Ben's time. Another hour, another hour. And it was just crazy. And then people didn't need that much attention or the ones that did weren't good customers and we weren't charging them enough. It was pretty much a consulting model which just doesn't scale and doesn't work. That was so crazy.

And then we, we, we tried to pivot and do more B2B stuff. We remember we did that, the big six figure deal and then goal celebrated and then we didn't get paid.

Oh my God. So we had this big sports company that we did this deal with. Six figure deal. And it was so crazy because we did all the work and there was a particular agency we were working with and then they had other agencies. They were all working, right? Even all their staff were all working. It was all great. And they're like, yeah, yeah, we'll get you the money. We're like, look, we need this for marketing. We're just going to do it anyway. Did it and like, cool, pay your bill, no money. And then over the coming months and years, that person was insolvent, that agency and all the other people were working for them. Knowing that no one told us none of the staff got paid, none of the other agencies got paid. I'm like, mate, what is going on here? It's the weirdest thing. So. Oh, it was so crazy. But it was, but they were working with such a big brand. We ended up doing it because the marketing for us was going to be worth it alone. But you're expecting this six figure deal to come in. This is how you're going to pay your staff. It doesn't come in. You're like, well, I've spent all this money, now I've got a six figure shortfall. How do I fix this?

It was just something that, the takeaway, like for those you at home building a business or have your own business or wanting to or just, I don't know, just, I don't know. In life, I guess the point we're trying to make here is like, it just felt like we could never win. Even when we got a win, we got fucked. And then when we got, we got double. It was just like, it just, it was, it was brutal. Absolutely brutal. And then, you know, I don't know. I think the only thing that got me through really, at the end of the day, well, there's a couple things. One is my belief that again, I felt we could figure out this problem. If we could solve the problem of this business, then we would be a leader in this space. All right. The other one was, well, if I, if I gave up, I would have been bankrupt at 22 or 23 because I know like I was in debt. And you know, number three was just that commitment and consistency and I'd say obsession to want to win, you know, to the, to the point of, you Know, probably naively thinking that I could have done it or we could have done it because at any point we started to second guess ourselves more than we did. You know, logically, you'd probably look at this business and go on, boys, it's not going to work.

Yeah, that's the important point about having conviction, but also having a grasp of reality. And if you're in it and the things you're doing, you're going to be far removed from reality. So you either need those other people in your business or good advisors or friends, and you can explain to them what you're actually doing and them keeping you in line and making sure you're not too crazy because at some point you'll do whatever it takes to succeed, right? And then that can lead to potentially bad consequences for you, which may be you going into hundreds of thousands or million dollars of debt because you want this to win. But the reality is you've got a low chance of that winning. Like the opportunity cost you talked about. And then there's other things on the line as well with like, you know, other employees, their lives. And you just need those advisors to help you out. And finding them can be quite challenging. You can be misled because you want to succeed and people tell you the things that you want to hear and you think they're the right people, but they're not. And they cost you lots of money. But even looking back, like, I sometimes wonder, it's like, would you go through that again? Because the cost is very, very high. It takes a piece of you. It ruins your mental and physical health. It's a very, very difficult path. It damages your relationships, hurts you financially. It's very difficult when you look back and it's all nice to sit here and be successful, but when you really think about all those interactions and everything else and you're like, would you go through that again? You're like, mate, that's, that's a big lift. I have to think about this.

Yeah, I think it's, I think it's the reward you've got to look at. Well, that's how I think about it. Like, is the reward payoff equivalent to the risk you have to take? And, you know, I think, you know, that's a difficult. That's a difficult question. Like, if we. It's kind of hard because we kind of know the outcome now or where we are at least now, like, the life I live and, you know, I'm very grateful for, you know, the, the, you know, the wealth and all that sort of stuff that I'm able to, to utilize now, if I was to do it again, like, yeah, I don't know, like in a way I would because I feel as I now what I've been able to achieve, I wouldn't be able to have done that without going through that. And I feel as though as a person and a human, I've, you know, been through, you know, three MBAs in what we had to deal with. But the reward would have to be there. And like that's, that's the, that's like capitalism, right? That's like risk or that's anything, whether it be you guys at home, an investment, a business, a career, whatever it might be. If you can take the risk and get the payoff, well, that's, that's, that's.

How and when, when you're doing it, the payoff's not there, it's not guaranteed. It's very, very difficult. Right? Yeah. But any successful person you talk to across any field doesn't have to be business. It can be, you know, sports or even if they're just successful in their family and they have a great, you know, cohesive, loving family, it's because they've sacrificed, they've put the time in and it's a very rocky and treacherous journey, but they've stayed the course and they've reaped the benefits of that. No one that is successful will not have a story like ours. Some of them might be slightly more crazy than others, but they all go through the same hard work, pain and uncertainty.

Yep, yep, Totally agree. And I think that's just like something that I always, even with my investing now in crypto and things like that, that's an experience I always give is like you need to be able have a understanding of the reward you can receive for the risk you take. If you don't want to take risk, that's fine. But your reward payoff is not going to be there. Right? That can be your career, that can be your job, that can be your business, whatever it is. Risk equals reward. You are paid based on the risk you take for certain things. If you can pull it off. And that's the whole idea of, you know, the downside.

And even now like the business is successful, but we haven't taken our foot off the gas. I'm always doing some form of work or thinking about the business. You work minimum 12 hour days. It has to be your obsession and you have to keep going. Like it doesn't just stop and you're on a magical Island. So these people you hear on YouTube, these entrepreneurs or traders, whatever they are, they'll be like, you can work four minutes a day from this weird location. It doesn't work that way. Like as soon as you're successful, you've got more customers, you need to service, you need to hire more people, you have to train up those people. The market will change, conditions will change, things will cost more, more inputs will change. You constantly have to evolve your business to stay relevant and keep those customers.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. And I think that that point around obsession, I do, I like I would say that obsession on the problem you're trying to solve or the thing you're doing, you know, is what creates world class results. You know that quote that I read is 177 stories of like the, the world class. One of them is what separates the world class from the middle class. It's your ability to stay consistent and obsess over the thing you're doing. No matter what headwinds you you come across, you always find a way.

Yeah. What sticks in my mind is it was a Steve Jobs documentary. I think Ashton Kutcher played him someone like that and he just made like this Mac and it was wildly successful and everyone's celebrating in the office and he's just pulling it apart going, oh, we should have made this better. Maybe we can iterate on here, maybe we can do that. And that's the kind of mindset you need to succeed in business. Like how can I always improve and make this better? Because he's so obsessed he can't even celebrate with his staff, which is an unhealthy behavior. And like don't go to those extreme levels. But you need that curiosity. You need to always want to do better. But also if you're in that position, do celebrate with your team members.

I try. I really do. It's something you've taught me a lot Berg so I need to step back but I still the biggest, the biggest, like the biggest example. I remember the platinum day we had the best platinum day we've ever had. We had all of our clients come in and in person day. The day was phenomenal. But we had no coffee cart and the coffee was late and all I could think about why we didn't have coffee.

Okay, okay, let me tell the story. There's a story. So we've got this beautiful venue and we've got 50, 60, 100, whatever Platinum members in there. 30, I don't know a lot of people. It would have been over 60 for sure. And we. The one thing is, we're okay. Coffees. All right. The coffee order hasn't arrived. The coffee shop's just over the road. Hasn't arrived. Alice is looking after a. Ben's executive assistant, and we need to start the talk. So they're all sitting down and Ben just sitting in the back, like, just tapping away, just going, oh, I might be, bro, what's wrong? Look at this. This is so sick. Travis has everyone enthralled. He's talking about investor psychology, and he asked them to kind of talk to each other. Talk to your neighbor. It just erupts with all these, you know, common problems everyone has. He's like, but we don't have the coffee. We need to get the coffee. We don't have the coffee. Everything's going to fall down. And, like, we eventually get the coffees. Do have a coffee cart. And Ben's like, handing it out. And I'm like, dude, don't do that. No one cares about the coffee. They're entertained. But that is the kind of founder mindset where you want things to go to a particular plan that you have in your mind, and you want things to be perfect. And for people listening to this, and if you have a business or if you're leading a team and you're a manager or you're an executive, one thing I've learned is that the journey is all there is. When you get to that end point and you make your money or your position or you retire, whatever the thing is for you, or you get to part time, you celebrate, and you're like, oh, that's great. But really, the celebration is along that journey. And while Ben was freaking out about those coffee carts, I was standing next to him and I was leaning on the bench. I just had the biggest smile on my face because I was like, you know what? We've made it. We've got a guy up there, Trav, he's giving a talk on investor psychology. And all of our members are absolutely enthralled. No one's on their phone. They're asking questions. And I was like, wow, we have absolutely made it. And the journey is all there is, so do enjoy it along the way.

Yeah, totally agree. I think we'll leave it there. That's a great little piece to end on it. Enjoy the journey and know that there's going to be pain to get the gain. That's kind of the biggest. The biggest lesson, if we can. If we can share. So hopefully you enjoyed that, folks, as always, we. We like to share from experience and you know, stories on this podcast. So, you know, it's not just like coming out of, out of nowhere. Like yeah, everything we try and speak on here is just life lessons, business lessons, you know, wealth lessons. And you know, it's, it's, it's funny when you, you go back and remember some of those points, man, that's, oh.

Yeah, it's exhausting just talking about it because you think about all the things your body remembers how it fe. And like you said, man, we're not just watching the movie or just talking about the movie. We have starred in this movie. Definitely talking from experience, bro.

So yeah, you, if you're, if you're interested now in like what we're doing, if you, if you're not a member yet, you know, our mission right now is trying to build the, the one of the world's leading crypto research companies. But really what we're focusing on is building, you know, a wealth driven community. That's the big one. We want to, you know, in really entice, you know, amazing community of sophisticated investors that you know, are looking to grow their crypto portfolios and want to meet other people, have in person events, go away on retreats, learn about crypto, learn about wealth. And that's exactly what we're doing and that's where we're, we're winning with so many, so many members and clients across the world. So if you're interested, we've got a little training video. I'll put in the description below. It's our seven step system trusted by all of our high performing, you know, executives, business owners and investors that clients of ours worldwide that grow their wealth through crypto. You can check it out. It's a bit of a detailed video on how it all works and how our membership offering works. But check that out. Otherwise we'll see you on the next episode.

Awesome. Thank you champions.