Talking Entrepreneurship, Resiliency, Having a Support System, and More with Ken McElroy

Hi, guys.

This is Blair. And first of all, I want to thank you so much for sending in all your requests of some of the topics you wanted to hear about. It went from entrepreneurship to sales, to presenting in front of rooms, to code of honor, all kinds of great things. And I thought one of. We had a great opportunity today, and I wanted to share a little of that with a dear friend of mine, Ken McElroy. Some of you know him as rich dad, advisor to Robert in the area property and real estate. But probably even more important than that, if I were to epitomize the word entrepreneur, I'd make it this guy. This guy, you could give him any business, Any business problem I've ever seen. You got 25 different ways to kill that cat and make money out of it, and it's just amazing. And we had an interesting conversation the other day. He said that the opportunities are everywhere around you. And so I just wanted to say, as all of you guys are, most of you that are entrepreneurs, whether you're in the teaching business, whether you're in any other kind of business, real estate or investing business, it's really important that you are able to see the opportunities around you. And so I just wanted to say thank you for doing this. And so, as an entrepreneur. Okay, I'm just gonna share what we talked about. It's like, I'm just. I get stuck, right?

I'm just going, well, everybody gets stuck.

What do you mean?

Everybody gets stuck at some point and they think, you know, woe is me no matter where they are. Honestly. Honestly.

I know. And I just think, like, I'm blowing this up. This is not working. I've reached this plateau. What am I going to do? You know what, you guys know what I'm talking about. And you think like, well, maybe I'm on the wrong track. And you go, no, no, no, no, wait a minute. So what did you say to me?

Well, I mean, you were stuck, right? You came to my office and I just was pointing out all the things that you had. And I think sometimes, sometimes people don't look at all the resources that are around them.

Right. Yeah. You know, and. And I think that the, the other point that you made is that if you're an entrepreneur, you're gonna screw up. Yeah. And you're gonna screw up all the time. You said. I think you said something to me like, so what makes you think you're so different? Yeah. What do you mean by that?

Well, I think that what happens is a lot of times is resiliency. You know, like sometimes, and we all get beaten down.

That's. Don't.

You know? And I mean, every single day, it just seems like we're all in battle.

Right.

But what. What I. What I was saying was that sometimes you can have a little pity party, you know, on yourself and you know what's happening and. And you get stuck in a rut. And that's what I was talking to you about. I think what happens is you get stuck on these habit ruts, you know? You know, you get up and you do the same thing every day. Then sometimes you very wisely called me up and I just changed your mindset a little bit.

Right.

I said, well, you know, just what have you been doing and how have you been doing it? And have you looked at this? Have you looked at that? And then the light bulbs started going off again, and they were always there.

I think that's the point. The point was you told me, gave me a great assignment. He says, I want you to make a list this weekend of all the assets, maybe not physical assets, but all the attributes, all the good things going on that you've got going on in your business all around it, the relationships, the affiliations. And I have you guys do the same thing and just start and look at it differently.

Yes.

And all of a sudden, all these opportunities start popping out.

They do, yeah. And so. So that's what happens a lot of times, is that people get stuck in the rut and they don't. They're not aware of relationships or, you know, people that they know are mentors or coaches or, you know, business relationships or acquaintances, or maybe they can be even. They can be even people that they're tied to on social media, you know, that they could just reach out and start. There's a lot of things out there, I think, within our grasp. We just don't always know what to look for. Yeah.

You know, there's a lot of times. I know some of you guys are trainers and teachers out there, and by their very nature, they work alone. Right. They operate alone, and they operate off of their laptop or their phones. And so their whole world is like this. But we just did a thing. We just did a Facebook Live for.

More important than money. Right.

About team. What do you want to say to those people out there? About.

About. Well, that's the thing. I think most people work independently or in a vacuum, and I think that's very common. And so therefore, you can get kind of stuck in a rut. And what happened with you is I just plugged into you is all. I just said, hey, what about this? What about that? What about this? And it just gave you new energy. And I think that's an important piece. Whether it's a coach or a mentor or whoever. It doesn't have to. It could be a pastor, it could be whatever. You know, sometimes you just need somebody to, you know, like, say, hey, look at everything that you have and look at all the things you should be grateful for.

Right.

And these are all the assets that you have now. How do you monetize those, or how do you capitalize on those, or how do you build those relationships? You know? And they're all there. You know, I think they're all there.

Yeah, well, they were there. I just didn't see them. Cause you keep going down this rabbit hole. I. I gotta solve this problem. I got this problem. I need cash flow right here, right now. I gotta do this. And what happens is you get narrow focus and you forget everything else that's out there. And sometimes that can be detrimental not only to your business, but to your health and your family and everything else.

Well, it happens a lot.

Cause you've been with YPO for a long time.

I have, yeah.

Which is Young Presidents Organization, where you guys get together every month in groups. And what do you guys do?

Well, so what we do is. Well, what's really cool about YPO is In the first five minutes, everyone does an update. So 10 people takes about an hour. So you basically list your highs and your lows in your personal life and your business. And you have only five minutes and there's no talking. So basically everybody goes around and then there's a moderator, which in this case happens to be me. I take notes and I say, okay, Larry's got an issue here with his business. You know, some of them might just be communicating and some of them might be an issue, but you don't deal with it then. And then at the end, you do what's called a parking lot. You draw a line, you say urgent, important, you know, non urgent, important, you know, unimportant, not urgent.

You know what I mean?

You've seen the quadrants. You basically put them in the right spots. So you get all the 10 people and you put them in the parking lot. So. And you can kind of see which ones are the most important. And the other thing that's interesting about these five minute updates, that a lot of them are similar. So for example, one of them might be, I don't have enough time. Well, that might apply to three or Four or five people. Right. And so that's an issue, you know, or another one might be I have a partner stealing from me or I'm going through a divorce or I have a sick kid or whatever. I mean, it could be everything because it's both. It's personal and business. Then what you do is you decide which ones you go deeper on. You explore more. So you go deeper on that issue as a group, and then it gets really super fun because at that point, they're all really surface, you know. But the cool part is, is Everybody usually has one or two. So you'll roll out of there with 15 or 20 issues, and then what you do is those are the issues. Those are the issues everybody's carrying today. And they're not going to go away in a month or two months, you know, so. So then you put a program around those things and you try to handle those as a group.

So that's how.

That's how the group works together, you know. And we've had big issues. We've had companies go public. We've had companies go from public to private. We've had spouses pass away. We've had inheritance issues. We've had kid issues. You know, we have mergers and acquisition issues. We have bankruptcy issues. You know, all kinds of stuff come up. And so. So you're always connected, but you're dealing with them together as a group.

Yeah. And I think that the point. First of all, thank you. So you guys got just. We're given a magical process right now.

That you can replicate at some level.

But you can only replicate it if you're willing to reach outside of your own domain. You can't do this in isolation. You can't do it at home. So what I'm asking many of you to do is to take a look at your natural inclination to try of having to solve your own problems. Because if you haven't solved the problem yet, chances are you're not going to solve it unless you get some outside influence and some outside support. So get used to working with other people. Get used to finding other people to be your advisors, your teammates. Fight off the natural inclination to say, well, when I'm good enough on my own, then I can go talk to somebody else. But I don't want to look stupid. That's stupid. Okay, so I'm a big proponent. As you know, I wrote the book Team Code of Honor. Be around people that you trust. You have a dream, you have an idea. You have a goal. You deserve to have it. And the Only reason you won't have it is because you get in your own way, which is my case. And so great friends like this, you have the ability to set the paddles in and kickstart it again, say, look at this, this and this. And that's a gift. And the question is, do you surround yourself with people that are willing to tell you the truth and are willing to support you at that level? I don't ask him for answers, although it would be nice if he gave me one. But usually it's a question and usually it's an opportunity, and I'm left to go figure it out on my own. And then if I need resources, I have other people to go to, too. So ask yourself, how big is your circle and how tight is your circle? How much are they concerned about themselves as opposed to working with you or getting better themselves? And I think that you're going to find. I think somebody once said, if you want a good indication of how you're doing, take a look at the five people you spend most time with. And they're mostly a reflection of you.

Jim Rohn.

That's right. That's right. Jim Rohn. So I'm fortunate to have him here, fortunate to share this information with you. Like I said, I'm a big believer. Anything good that I have ever really accomplished in my life was because I had a team around me. As a matter of fact, the times when I screwed up the biggest was in my trucking business and my coaching business, my training business, computer business. When I screwed up, the biggest is a team bailed me out. It was not me that got myself out of that mess. It was. It was a team of people that picked my ass up and got me back on track.

If there's trust and a relationship. That's right. If that's the key. It's the same with family.

Right.

If, you know, you. You know, one of the interesting things that I always ask people is, you know, how often do you talk to your dad or your mom or your brother or sister? And the people that don't are, oddly enough, are people I want to. Really want to do business with. Because if they can't, and I'm not saying there aren't reasons why you might do that, but the point is, is that, you know, even I have dysfunction in my own family. And, you know, anybody, it might even be me.

But the point.

The point is. The point is it. I still am building bridges.

Yeah.

And so, you know, those are relationships and trust. And if you have that back to Your point? You'll have a safety net because you will fall, you will stumble flat on your face, guaranteed in business personally and all that kind of. But if you have. If you don't have a foundation of trust with employees or peers or family or business people or whatever, then you'll be very alone and isolated. And that's actually where depression sets in.

That's right.

They say the cure for depression is community.

That's right.

Oddly enough, I mean, I'm not saying some of it isn't clinical, but community is a big piece. If you plug yourself into community, then you're magically. It's, you know, people support people.

That's right. That's right. We're both just studying a book called Big Potential by Shawn Achor, and he wrote a book called the Happiness Advantage. It says exactly that same thing, that happiness is based on your connections with other people. And that happiness creates success, not success creates happiness. And if you want to be better yourself, help somebody else get better. And so that's the relationship that we have. That's a relationship with. Want you guys to have. Keep sending in requests.

Just think about that. What I just want. I don't want to skip over that point. What? Well, because not very many people approach individuals with trying to make them better. For sure. Almost nobody.

For sure.

And so that's a very important piece. If you are always trying to give, give, give, give, give, it'll come back. But if you're always taking, it won't. That's right.

So if you want to get better today, help somebody else get better. That's the message. That is the message. That's the message. And by the way, it's not the way we're brought up. We're brought up to be the fastest, to be the smartest, to be the quickest and all that stuff.

Very individual.

And that's how school is. That's how business is. But the evidence, the Harvard research says that's exactly 180° opposite psychological safety. That's right.

That's our new. We've been talking a lot about this. That's right. Are you providing an environment or creating an environment of psychological safety? And that's pretty simple. Do you beat somebody on the head when they say something? Obviously you're not going to have psychological safety.

That's right.

Right.

Do you let people speak up and make sure that everybody has a turn in saying something or you or somebody else is hogging the conversation?

And are you being fully transparent? Yeah, that's a biggie. Because most People aren't. And I understand that in the beginning, especially in a new relationship, you're going to keep kind of guarded, but after a while, everything gets exposed. And at that point, are you willing to come to terms with it, you know, and be exposed and work on it? That's right.

Are you learning something? I hope you guys are learning something, because I'm learning something just in the conversation. The truth of it is, like I said, as an entrepreneur, you got dreams and you deserve to get them. And so what we're doing here is just sharing what's worked for us through disasters and through successes. And hopefully you're gonna learn something from that as well. So if you have other questions, other things you want to hear about, other pieces of advice, let us know. Comment on this, and let me know what you want to talk to. But again, thank you for doing this.

Yeah, of course.

It's awesome.

Always great.

We're gonna be spending. We're gonna be spending the next three days with Kiyosaki, with Robert Kiyosaki immersed in this stuff. So wish us well, please. Okay.

We'll beat it.

Till then, be awesome. Thank you.