From IDF to Restoration: Idan Shpizear

This is the Chris Project, where we discuss mental wellness, self-awareness, and mindset with entrepreneurs and experts. Set your perceived ideas and biases aside and let's go on our journey for yourself, for your family, for the world.

Welcome to another episode of The Chris Project. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today is Idan Speiser with 911 Restoration. Idan, welcome.

Hi. Thank you. Excited to be here with you.

I'm, you know, after our conversation before we started recording, I'm very intrigued with where this conversation will go. When I joined the green room, I could see that you were meditating. So let's start with that. What were you doing and why?

Just sitting in the— so it's really when I'm meditating, I'm just falling into that space. There is a space that is always here for us. It's really more who we are than anything else external. So, I saw that I have a minute or two just waiting, so I'm just sitting in the space. There's some sense of sweetness to it, so it's just sitting there.

Yeah, no, my initial condition now is when I have a couple of minutes, I pick up my phone. Actually, it's interesting that you were doing that because when I'm waiting for podcasts to start, I have this lovely window, not much of a view, but it's outside. And I have taken to being present and looking outside. And I don't know that I'd call it meditation, but it is more mindfulness. Yeah. Which is much better than the distraction of the phone. But yeah, it's interesting that my little monkey brain wants the dopamine, and so it wants me to pick up the phone. Yeah. So tell us about your— how you got into 9/11 restoration.

Yeah, absolutely. So as you hear my accent, I'm originally from Israel. I finished my service in the Israeli Army. I knew I'm not going to go to university or college. Schooling was not really for me. And a good friend of mine said like, "You know what? Let's go to America. I heard money grows on the trees, everything is super easy, every house comes with a pool. Let's just go, we're gonna figure it out." Now we both barely spoke any English. I worked as a bellboy for about a month, saved about $1,000 and came here, not really knowing anybody, not really speaking the language, but with the mindset that we'll figure it out and it's supposed to be very easy here in America. We landed here and we discovered, yes, the opportunity is massive, but we need to put some hard work in. Yes. Somebody was nice enough to give us a job as a carpet cleaner. So we bought a Volvo 1978, 2 doors. Together, $500 each, we were able to buy the Volvo and all that. Then we got to work cleaning carpet. And at that time, we were like 5 guys in a 1-bedroom apartment. The apartment was pretty empty. So every morning, 5 AM, you know, we're uncomfortable. We're just lying on the carpet. It's like, let's get up and go to work. So we just drove to the city. And what happened pretty fast is we were available to take work all the time. So we just clean carpet all day long, just drive from one house to another house. And through the carpet cleaning, probably about 8 months in, we got a call for a flooded house. Now, we didn't know anything about restoration, blowers, none of it. We, we just extract the water, which are $600. We felt like we're— we just made so much money. We celebrated that day by eating Chinese food. It was like a big day for us. But at the same time, as, as we're standing there and we're seeing— as we're extracting the water and we're seeing another company coming in and bringing blowers and humidifiers and creating this big mess in the house, we're seeing that the homeowner is really going through an emotional disaster. He doesn't know right and left how he's going to pay for it, how he's going to go through it. And the company just really cared about creating a mess, getting everything done, sign this big agreement, and we're out of here. I'm like, okay, that's interesting. And then I explore more of what is it that they do. And I realized after that they charge about $15,000 for their project. I was very thankful for my $600, but $15,000 sounds very good because we're already here anyway. So I start seeing the same thing again and again and again. And at one point I said, you know what, I want to go into the restoration business, but I want to approach it from a different perspective. I want to make sure that I'm paying attention to the homeowner. I want to go there and I, I want to be there to really try to help him see the positive in the negative. Yes, that was like the two parts that I tried to connect together. I don't want to be just on the insurance company side or just on the homeowner side. I want to come in and create something that is unique and good. So that's how we got into the restoration space. We learned how to market and local biz development and really build the company pretty fast. So we scaled the company from $250K a year to over $3 million pretty fast. We really owned the idea of lead generation. We kept growing the company.

Now, were you— did you have Was your friend your partner in this business?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we, yeah. So we came together, we served together, we just, yeah, partners in everything we did. And yeah, so the end of 2005, this is where Katrina happened. So I went out to Katrina. At this point, we had a lot of vans and equipment and we have a great team in place. When we went out to Katrina, it was a devastation to see what people going through. At the same time, there was so much work and there was many other restoration companies there. And we're not competing because there's so much work for everybody. And everybody came from different parts of the US. So we're not even in the same market. We all know it's temporary. But what I notice is that most of the people averaging about $700,000, $1 million a year, $600,000, and they've been in business for 15, 20 years. And I'm like, what's going on here? I'm brand new in this country. I'm not really speaking the language. I grew my company to that size. Why they are not growing? Right. And then I noticed that most of the guys, great guys, they're just really stuck in the trade part. They will talk to me for hours about blowers and dehumidifiers and how to set up the van and how to charge the insurance company. And I'm about, what about scalability? What about, what's the mission? What are you trying to create here? Like, what's the strategy? And there was almost zero conversation around it. And then I start asking them, what if when you're going to go back home, we're going to work together. We're going to do 1 1 5. I'm going to help you. I'm going to talk to you about it. We're going to work some type of fee between us, and let's see if I can really help you get to where you want to get, right? I did with one guy, work. Second guy, work. At one point, I had 10 people, got 10 people that I work with, with a license agreement. I didn't even think about franchising the company, right? The lawyer that wrote the license agreement for us says like, listen, you guys becoming a franchise. They're using now your— the colors, the name of the company. They're doing— you cannot keep doing it as a license agreement. So I'm like, okay, so what is the franchise? How it works? What we need to do? And that's how we got into the franchise space. And fast forward to today, we have about 120 franchise owners. We're covering 330 territories. We're growing into Canada as well.

And yeah, very nice. I love that story. I really do. And I think that what you noticed with the other tradesmen is ubiquitous across all industries, is that people get into a business because they have a skill and they don't really know the business part of it and don't even think in those terms, right? Whether it be marketing or finances or employees and scalability and like that, just it's not what they think about. Yeah. And I started out as a franchise, strangely enough. There were— when I started back in 1997, there were actually 3 accounting franchises that I could pick from. None of them exist anymore. But, you know, I could— I attribute a lot of my success to the franchise system because, of course, I was 27 at the time, so I didn't know anything about anything. But franchises are very powerful. I had John Hewitt on this show. I don't know if you're familiar with him, but you need to go and listen to his episode on this podcast, because it's fascinating. He started Jackson Hewitt, which was a tax Preparation Service franchise, built it to like $500 million and got out of it. Then he started after his non-compete was over. He did Liberty Tax Service, which was exactly the same thing, built it and sold it. And now he has like 5 different franchise networks that he has, one of which is a tax service. But his fastest growing is the mobile pet grooming. And his whole, you know, this guy's, I don't know, 70, 65, somewhere in there. His whole purpose, you know, he wants to create millionaires. Like, his whole thing is to help the business owner become successful and share that American dream. And someone in his position who's made more money than he could ever spend could stop. But that's, that's not his purpose. His purpose is to help others. And so I would, I would strongly suggest you and the other listeners go listen to that because he really is like— I had never heard of him. And I'm like, how have I— there's nobody that has built two half-a-billion-dollar franchises and sold them in America. Like, this guy should be on the front page of magazines, and I've never heard of him, right? Yeah. Anyway, so this podcast is about some of the darker sides of entrepreneurship that people don't talk about. So what in your journey led you to this exploration of self-awareness? Yeah. What happened?

So a year or two after I moved here, or maybe 3 years after I moved here, I had a point that, you know, I came here, I saw good growth from the carpet cleaning going to the restoration. And I tried to break through a ceiling, right? I wanted to be able to make more money. So in my childhood, I went through a lot of, you know, a little bit of up, my parents doing good and then crushed again, my parents doing good and then crushed again, right? So I went through that a few times and I saw the suffering and the pain and, you know, family fights and all that. And I said—

Were they entrepreneurs?

Were they something? Farmers. Right. So I grew up in a farm in Israel. So entrepreneur. But yeah. Yeah. So, okay. My dad was a much better farmer than entrepreneur. Yeah. Right. Was the type of guy that he put his fingers in the soil and like he knows what's missing and he knows what the plant needs. That's type of the intuition he had. So I had this idea that, you know, I don't want this suffering and I need to make a lot of money and this is how I'm going to make my parents happy. Right, that's how I'm going to do it. So I came here and I was very determined, like, I need to break, I need to be able to make a lot of money because enough with the suffering, right? And I hit a certain ceiling. So let's say the ceiling was $100,000 a year. Now, at one point when I tried to break through with one company, it didn't really work, and I felt great because I figured out a lot of the lead generation and here and there. I started going into other partnerships and I tried this and that in here, and I worked harder and I worked much, much harder. And I had a period of time when I felt like everything is crashing, like nothing is working. It doesn't matter what I'm doing, I keep hitting the same ceiling or even going lower again. So at one point, I remember I was actually in my car driving down and I had another phone call. It was another bad news and I'm like, oh, like what's going on here? How can it be? Like I'm doing everything right. I'm working harder, I have the goals, I have the clarity. I'm going, going, going. I'm reading all the books and I'm trying to do everything right.. And then there's a moment that I was like, you know, there is something else that is operating here and I'm just not aware of it. There's something else going on here, but I'm not seeing, I'm not able to really understand, but I'm aware that there's something else in play. And that got me for a second to let go for a second. And then I remember I heard something on the I think maybe it was on YouTube or the news. Somebody says, before you try to figure out the world outside of you, try to figure out the world inside of you. And I'm like, what do you mean the world inside of me? Now, before that, for me, life black and white. We come here, we go, you make a lot of money, that's what you do, we're done. Black and white, right? But then when I heard that sentence, I'm like, inner world? Yeah, what do you mean inner world? This is the world. But that got me to start exploring. What do you mean by inner world? Right before that, I have no interest in any spirituality, any inner, none of it.

Yes.

And that now I start paying attention. Oh, okay. There is a certain feeling that comes up in a certain situation. Okay. What is this feeling? What triggered these feelings? And then I got into dream analysis. And doing deeper meditation, and I went through Inner Engineering, and I spent some time with psychoanalysis. And one of the things that I start paying attention is I have this certain belief system, certain ideas that I'm holding about life and how things supposed to be, and I'm not even aware of them.

Yes.

So I'm interacting with life and I'm going about life without even— with zero awareness of where did I even get these ideas. And then I start seeing, oh, I have certain capacities, right? So everybody, all of us, we have certain capacities, right? Capacity to think, capacity to understand, capacity to be creative, the capacity to be— to connect with other people, right? So my— through my exploration, as I make more things, more of the unconscious conscious, then I start finding that space between me and my thought, me and my operating system. And that space. So I spent some time in that space and being aware of the thoughts and everything that's going on and emotion sensation and all that. And then I said, what will happen if I just going to keep my focus on what is aware of the space? Just stay there. Just be aware of the space, be aware of the space. And I just practice it all the time. Just be aware of the space. And then at one point—

So let me clarify real quick. What you're talking about there is the space between your subconscious programming, beliefs, feelings, and your conscious thought. Is that what you're calling the space?

So let me clarify with the example that you gave. You said that sometime instead of grabbing your phone, you're just looking through the window and you see how your monkey mind trying to get you to pick up the phone or to do something because he wants to create something, right? Your ego, your monkey mind trying to get attention, right? Who is the one that is aware of the monkey mind?

Me.

Okay, so now if you go a little bit deeper into exploration, is who is really you that is aware of everything that change and happen, right? So there's a part of you that always aware, and there's a part of you that always change. But if there's a part of you that always aware, what would— wouldn't be here, you wouldn't have this constant clear awareness. You wouldn't be aware of the changes. You were just be lost in the changes constantly. Yes, right. So that part of you that is aware, that's if you learn how to sit here. Just stay in that part of awareness and just see. I have a thought that comes, thought just left. And now a new thought came in and I grabbed the thought, now I'm getting lost into the story, right? So we can sit here together and we can be aware that, let's say we worry about paying the bills or payroll or whatever everybody out there is worrying about, right? I can have the thoughts that come up. This thing is coming up and we're worried about it. I can just be stay here. And be aware of it without getting lost in it, or I can now get lost in the thoughts. I'm giving that thoughts a lot of attention, and then I'm getting lost in it. Life are not working for me, and this is hard, and this is because of the government, and this is because of the city, and it's difficult, and my wife and my kids. Now we're getting lost in the story. If you— if we just learn this moment of awareness and we're staying here Now you bring more awareness to it and you recognize now a human being. There's a lot of research out there about it. Think about anywhere between 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts a day. Sounds right. 95%, if not 99% of the thoughts are the thoughts of yesterday.

Mm-hmm.

Just keep repeating the same way that our heart is working. Everything is working. Our mind is going. Thoughts keep going again and again and again, and it's the same thoughts of yesterday and before and before. So what we do, we live in a cloud of thoughts that is the same thoughts as the past. So we're not even seeing what is happening right now. We're not even seeing what is in front of us. We only see the meaning of what we give to what is in front of us. Yes, I would agree with that. We are constantly lost in the stream of thoughts. Mm-hmm. And the ability to sit in that awareness. Now you're stepping out of the thought.

Yeah. So when I became a Certified Master Coach, my instructor, our instructor, talked about this process, which he called releasing. And it was essentially when you had you had a thought or a feeling that was negative, that you would imagine it as a balloon in front of you and that you would release it and let it go. And then when that thought or feeling came up again, you just repeat the exercise. But the point of that was that because you could release it, it wasn't part of who you were, right? And I think that's very similar to what you're saying, is that who you are is separate from those thoughts or feelings. And being aware of yourself and separate from those things is very empowering. It's a hard skill to master. I mean, I still I struggle with it. I think I'm better at it, but it speaks to this identity. Now, you used the word spiritual, so I'm going to go down that road and ask you, do you attribute anything divine to that? Is that— Would you call that your soul? Would you call that your consciousness? How do you intertwine your spiritual belief with that understanding?

Yeah, so my— there's absolutely— so from my experience, it's all divine. And you are an awareness, a point of awareness within this divinity. Mm-hmm. Right. So when you're a point of awareness within the whole, you are part of the whole, you're extension of the whole, right? But there is a point of view, point of awareness in it. And within that awareness, everything else plays. Right. So Most people live in a world that from their perspective, there is you, there is me, there is maybe God for some people, maybe not. And then there is Earth, right? Nature. That's kind of how we are brought as kids. That's what societies keep telling us. The material world is the center of everything. So we live in a, in a constant sense of separation. There is you, there is me, there's maybe God, there is nature, there is lack, there isn't enough. We are not connected. We are separate, separated, right? So we need to learn how to be kind. We need to learn how to be all that to each other. From my experience, there's only one thing, and this one thing shows up as different things. Okay, there is no separation.

So you sound— I'm going to throw this out here. You sound, if you might be almost a Kabbalist. Are you a study of Kabbal?

Yeah.

Okay.

Kabbalah. I study many different, but really the biggest thing for me that makes the biggest change is things that I experienced on my own. I guess there is amazing teaching out there that talk about it. And also science today, at the point, science today saying we cannot really explain how we see the material world because when we go in, we see that most of it is actually empty space.

Yeah. Which is crazy.

Yeah.

So, so I'm curious, do you consider yourself a a practicing Jew or no?

I could. So I love tradition.

Yes.

Right. So I look at it as a tradition part. But for me, religion is to some degree is a limitation. There's some level of dogma in it. So I'm not necessarily that, you know, I don't experience it that way. I see, yes, there is religions. Yes, that thing exists. I love tradition because I love on Friday dinner sitting with my families and the holidays and the and the food and the smells and everything that comes with it is amazing. And I think bringing tradition to your home also creates some good sense of family and security and sense of you are part of something bigger that we celebrate together, right? So I love tradition, but I not necessarily see myself as this religion or that religion. I think there's first the deep knowing and understanding of what actually happening here. And then at that point, if you want to play as part of religion, but at that point, religion become more of a dogma, more of a limitation than anything else. Yeah.

And I think that you can take this idea of, of self strictly, you know, what, what we've been discussing in that separation of who you are from your thoughts and feelings and even your actions. I think you can take that from a strictly secular or scientific standpoint. I don't think you have to have spirituality as part of it. For me, the reason why I asked about Kabbalah is my business coach of 3 years is an Orthodox Jew. He was a rabbi before he started coaching. And but he's also a Kabbalist. And I really didn't know anything about it until he and I started discussing it. But, you know, he and I have had lots of conversations about the spiritual elements of, of work. So, like, for me, you know, I struggled for a long time trying to keep those two separate.

Right?

You know, my beliefs about God, and how I pursued that, I kept separate from the business. And the funny thing about that was, I always felt like the highest and best thing that I could be was a person of integrity. And to me, integrity means that you're the same person, whether you show up at church or synagogue, or at a social event or a business, like you're the same person, right? And so, I struggled with integrating those two. But an interesting thing happened about 6 months ago when I removed that barrier. It was a barrier I had put up. I never hid my faith, I never— but I never integrated it either. But once I did that, once I said, you know, I'm not going to worry about talking about spiritual matters in the workplace or in business conversations. Once I removed that barrier, I felt like God just opened the doors. And all of these people came into my life completely. Like I had nothing to do with it. I had no— I didn't go looking for these people. I didn't put myself in different situations. But all of a sudden, all of these people that were, um, similarly minded showed up. And, and I'm like, huh, okay, I, I, I get it now.

Yeah, yeah, it's such a— because I had a lot of struggle myself in the beginning is how do I integrate both. But at one point it was very clear to me that everything is an expression of what I'm holding. Yes. And when we bring all of us, right, when we take something and we say, no, this part of me I'm not going to bring into here, and this part of me is separate, what we do is we're basically lowering our own frequency. So we are operating from a place of that doesn't belong here. We let our mind create that separation again. Yes. When in reality, we cannot really separate who you are, what you're holding, your point of awareness is whole. The only thing that's trying to break it down or separate it or put it down is the logic mind that tries to reason through everything, right? So the moment that we bring all of us into it, now we operate in a higher frequency, and now the reflection that we get back from reality is different. That's why now, oh, new things are starting to show up, right? That was a part of my, uh, my process as I as I shared, when I tried to break that ceiling and I couldn't, the moment that I was able to see some of my limitations or some areas that I'm putting part of myself aside and not really showing up fully and having the courage to go in and let go of some of the anchors that hold me down, things shifted in my life. Not because I worked any harder or I tried harder. I just showed up different. I held higher frequency.

Yes, I, I— there's— this is— may seem unrelated, but stick with me. Uh, there, there's a book called Alchemy by Rory Sutherland, um, and it's, it's ostensibly a book about, uh, marketing, um, but really what it is, it is a treatise on, uh, how the Age of Reason has failed us. Because in the marketing space, it's very clear that people don't act rationally, right? They don't act logically. And so he was talking about all the ways, you know, since the Renaissance, we've kind of been skewed to this thought that if we just have more understanding, if we have more rational understanding of things, then we'll at some point get it. But he goes through in the book, both in marketing examples and non-marketing examples, about how that approach is inherently limited. He's not saying that we shouldn't be rational and that we shouldn't use logic, but there are some things that logic can't comprehend that are illogical by nature. And you have to get beyond the rational to really understand humans. Like, you know, because again, we don't act rationally. So I think that's a good book for everybody to read just because it's very insightful.

Yeah, I will read it. And I think it's absolutely— it's so important to be aware of the limitation of our rational mind. Right, because also it's— if we don't bring enough awareness, the rational mind, the reasoning that you are using, it's really based on some so much unconscious ideas that we're not aware of, and we're just recycling the same thought, the same patterns again and again and again.

—yes—

and what I found in my experience, the rational mind, it's even pushing me further away from what is it that I really need to experience and process. The rational mind always going to come up with stories of why it's their fault that I'm feeling this way, and the rational mind will do everything to protect me Yes, we experience the same trauma. Yes, right. So it's constantly moving me further away from who I really am and the fullness of who I am, right? It's like seeing kids today. And, you know, I have twin girls, 16 years old, and my boy's 14. God, and I'm seeing what I said.

God bless you. I know, I know.

Crazy. But you start seeing how they're, they're building this ideas of who they are and who they're not based on interact— interaction with the world and with the kids and the reflection that they see. And they, and they're coming up with these ideas. And if you don't create a good space for them to process these ideas and play with them and, and explore them a little bit, at one point, that's it. Now the rest of their life Basically, they're going to keep reason through everything because of certain ideas that they took in unconsciously.

Yes, yes. And, and I, I think the way, the way I discovered this was it was essentially after, uh, a lot of trial and mostly error. I, I came to the point where it was like, okay, I had to ask the question, why, why am I acting this way? Why am I feeling this way? Why, you know, like, because like you said, like, you, you feel like you're doing everything right, right? Your rational brain says, well, this is what you need to do. And so you do those things and you don't get the results. So you're like, I don't know. And what that led to is exactly what you're, you're, you're talking about, is, is taking this, this feeling, uh, this belief, um, out of this, out from underneath the subconscious, and, and sit with it. Like, okay, why am I feeling this way? I don't like feeling like this. Um, you know, and it's an uncomfortable position to be in, and that's, that's why most people avoid it. And the default to what you said is, well, it's something outside of me. It's someone else. It's some circumstances. It's X, Y, and Z. It's not me. But that's your brain protecting you because it can't be you because then if it were you, then you would cease to exist. Like, you're right. And that That process is hard, but it is absolutely necessary. Again, if you want to throw everything that Idan and I have said out the window, if you don't want to hear about energy or God or any of those things, do it because you don't like where you are and what your efforts have produced. Like if you've tried everything else, just try this exercise of asking yourself, why, why do I feel this way? Why am I acting this way? Why am I saying what I'm saying?

And do the work. Yeah. Yeah. So the way— absolutely. I'm 1,000%. So when I get to work with, you know, franchisees, other entrepreneurs, just, just people, And I— the way we play with it, and I'm saying, let's, let's assume that everything is happening for you and not to you. Everything is happening for you. So whatever you're feeling, whatever happens to you in everyday life that you don't like, that trigger a certain feeling in you, it's really what it does is the universe showing you, hey, You're still holding to something. And the something that you're holding, we're trying to help you so you can release it so more of you can come to life. Right. So seeing everyday life is a reflection of things that I'm holding that I don't like. So let's say, you know, every time that I go to a meeting, when somebody is saying a few things, it gets me super triggered and I cannot stand it. Every time that somebody talks about his mom or his dad or anything else, I'm getting so triggered and it's pissing me off. Okay, say thank you first of all, because this is an opportunity for you to release something that is holding you back. So now we're changing the attitude toward it. Yes. Oh, it's happening for me, it's not happening to me. Okay, first of all, I need to say thank you. So when somebody say thank you when something happening for him, it goes away from the victim, from trying to fight it, into more openness. Yes. And now the process starts, right? And this is how, when we work with a group sometimes, is I'm describing it to them in this way. Let's imagine there's a river, and in the river there is rocks that kind of stop the flow of the river. And every time that the water hit the rock, there is a splash of water that comes up. The splash of water is you being triggered, is the key, is the constant thoughts that keep coming up. And if you don't like the thoughts, what we need to do is we need to remove the rock from the river. Yes. And the way we remove it, first of all, we just need to see that there is a rock in the river. And that's the reason you keep getting the same splashes again and again. The moment that you recognize there is a rock underneath the splash, that's 90% of the work. Yes. Just by bringing light to darkness, the dark gets released. And when the river now is flowing, there's more life energy go through you. Now you're going to operate from a different perspective. You're going to be more open because you don't need to keep holding all these rocks and not even ignoring the rocks even.

Right. So, yeah, a lot of what you're describing reminds me of the drama triangle versus the empowerment triangle. Are you familiar with the drama triangle? No. So I guess it was created back in like the '60s, uh, actually on Broadway in, in the theater, uh, but it was, it was a, a paradigm to describe this, uh, victim mentality. So you, you have a persecutor, someone that is telling you that you're not doing something right, or you need to be doing something different. And so, you know, they're oppressing you. And then you go to somebody else, and they basically commiserate with you and tell you, oh, yeah, that's awful that's happening to you. You shouldn't have to be going through this. And so that's the drama triangle. The Reverse of that is the empowerment, which is rather than seeing yourself as a victim, seeing yourself as an empowered person with agency to control what goes on. And now that persecutor becomes a challenger. So it's not that they're telling you what you're doing is wrong. They're calling you to some accountability to be better, to improve yourself, right? And that person that was telling you, yeah, you're, you're the victim, is now more of a coach where they're saying, okay, what, what is, you know, to your, to your example, what is this rock? How do you remove it? How do you know? It's, it's a, it's an interesting way to describe what you essentially have already described. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's powerful. I really think that this is the work. This is the work.

Yes. And I think that entrepreneurs go through those challenges. You know, when it's like when things are going well, you don't— you're not pushed to change anything. Right. Right. It's only when you reach some obstacle that you're forced to go through this work. And it's, I think we as the entrepreneur, as the owner, are the limiting factor. You know, we have to do the work for ourselves so that our business can go further. If we're not willing to do the work, it's not the businesses. Problem. It's, it's, it's my problem. And that's what my experience has been.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I had a group of 10 of our franchisees that I worked with for a day and a half. And, you know, everybody in different place in their business, you know, $300,000, half a million and more and on and on. And everybody go through their own thing. And it took about 2 hours to get to the point that everybody have the insight that they are responsible for everything. Yeah, it took about 2 hours of back and forth, right? Because we need to break through this victim. They need to get more insight themselves. They need to see other people responding the way they're responding so they get their reflection. But there was a special moment that everybody like, holy shit, This is really me, is the way I'm seeing the business, is the way that I'm interacting, is the way the thing that I'm putting. And for people, when people getting it, you see, for 10 minutes everybody's like sitting there holding their heads like, oh wow, it's a complete paradigm shift.

Yeah, yeah. It's like the way you saw the world, it's, it's like everything comes into focus or out of focus. I mean, it's just, it's like that. It's like, oh Yeah.

Oh, I have so many stories of entrepreneurs getting to the point that they made a decision in their mind, I cannot build a business. It's in my town, I cannot find good people, everything is hard here, I need to close. They kind of getting to this point and having half an hour conversation to a point of let me help them see What is it that they don't see? Yes. It's not so much me preaching them how to build a business. It's more of, can you walk me through your thought? Can you walk me through what you actually do when you walk into your office and you see how they're— and exactly the same thing with me. You see how we're going through and we're just getting lost with our own stream of thought. So we don't even see our own behavior. We thought that this is how you do things.

Yes. And I think that the real coach is not someone that comes in with a formula to say, this is what you need to do to be successful. The real coach is one that helps you see what was already inside of you. And you realize that the answer was there all along. Yeah. And you're like, oh, you're brilliant. Like, no, I just, I just helped you see what was there. Exactly. Exactly.

That's, that's what I'm hoping, right, is the shift that— right. So what I'm trying to bring in is exactly the same thing with my experience. And that's why I have this freedom behind me is the— because we are so conditioned to live life from the outside in. Right, so society told us this is what we need to reach a success. Okay, so I want to be successful, so what is it that I need to do to be successful? What's going to make me the most amount of money? Okay, that— okay, that's what, what I'm going to do, right? So I'm always going to pay attention to the outside world, I'm always going to chase the next shiny objects, I'm always going to try, and hopefully one day when I'm going to be able to reach that mountain, that level of success I'm going to feel fulfilled and I'm going to feel great and it's going to be happiness and everybody's going to love me and everything. And we know more than often that you reach the top of the mountain and you're saying, why did I— why it still feel empty here? Yes. I have good friend that reach beautiful level of financial success and we're sitting at dinner is like, why it's still very It's empty here. Why I still cannot see? Why I cannot find my peacefulness? Because I thought I reached everything. Why it's not there? And then it takes some time and you get him to the point that your peacefulness and joy and sense of being who you are was already there. You didn't need to go and reach that to have that feeling. That's why I'm talking about the space right now. It's great that we do have external and things are moving us, right? So we are getting out there because that is a great way for us to see what we're really holding within ourselves, right? If you are on, on by yourself on an island, you can think whatever you want to think and everything goes, right? Because there's nobody there to tell you, no, I don't think so, right? Or reflecting something back to you. Because everything goes. I'm on my island. I can live in my own thoughts. I can live in my own ideas. And I don't know if they're right or wrong or what's going on with them because I have zero reflection. Right. But when we are with people and we try to build something, now it's an opportunity for us to start seeing, oh, wait a second, I want to create A, but I keep creating C and F. What's going on here? That's giving us the opportunity to go out there and use the reflection so we can see more of who we are. Right. So I think there's a beautiful gift in it. But as long as we start from the inside first.

Idan, I feel like we could go on for hours, but unfortunately our time is up. I appreciate very much your experience share and your, and your insights. How can people find you if they want to learn more?

Yeah. So if you want to learn more about the franchise, then it's 911restorationfranchise.com. Overall, I'm more active on LinkedIn and my name, Idan Speiser. It's unique enough, so everything—

not a lot of them out there.

And yeah, and thank you very, very much. This is a great way to open this morning. This is a great conversation. I really enjoy the time with you.

It was my pleasure. Listeners, if you like what you heard, please rate the podcast, subscribe to the podcast, share the podcast. If there's something else you'd like to hear on the show, please shoot us a message and we would love to help bring it to you. Until then, remember, you are not alone.