Resilience and Adaptability: Navigating Challenges as an Entrepreneur Channeling Creativity in Business | Richard Walsh

When I boxed, I fought guys way better than me. I got beat up every day, but I got really good really fast. I don't get off like being above people. I want to go learn from the next. I'm only looking forward, always looking forward.

Hey, creative. Are you ready to discuss profits, the money, the ways to make it happen? The Profitable Creative Podcast is for you, the creative, how you define it. Videographers, photographers, entrepreneurs, marketing agencies, you get it. CEO of Core Group and author Christian Brim interviews industry experts, creative entrepreneurs, and professionals alike who strive to be creative and make money at the same time. Sound like you? Tune in now, it's time for profit.

Welcome to another episode of The Profitable Creative. Christian Brim, your host. I am with Richard Walsh with Sharpen the Spear coaching. Richard, welcome.

Thanks, Christian. Great to be here. Excited.

Well, I'm excited to have you. So I wanted to start with just this story. You, you know, in, in your bio you have a story about— you look experienced like I do, maybe with less hair, but, you know, still, still of a certain age. So let's start with that. Tell me your, tell me your story.

Yeah, so U.S. Marine, okay, so it's in that, got out. So that's kind of where life began after the Marine Corps. Had to get a job. So I got a job swinging a pickaxe, digging trench all day to lay cable. It's very exciting down in Tucson, Arizona, where you have this stuff called caliche, which is like swinging a pick in the concrete. You go about 2 inches at a time. We had to go 18 inches deep. Exhilarating work. Okay. Quite a future I had. Okay. I didn't think it got worse than the Marine Corps, but it did. And that was $5 an hour I got for that, Christian. Okay. So I'm like, okay, well, this is— I mean, I like it. I mean, it's a good workout. I get to do it for 8 hours and I make $85 an hour. But a guy came up and asked me, hey, can you do a side gig? Can you help me out? And down there they do granite instead of grass. So you spread like crushed granite or 3/4-inch granite or whatever. And he said, I've got some on the street that's got to go to my backyard and spread. Okay. And it was only 35 tons worth. I said, well, I can do that. I'm like, I do this every day. I swing a pickaxe. So I did use my last $85 before payday. I bought a wheelbarrow and a shovel, showed up, and it took about 10 hours. I knocked this thing out, right? Going, I can work. I got it all done. And here's the best part, Christian. The guy came out and he put $1,000 in my hand. And I'm looking at this $1,000 and I'm going, well, dang, I did this yesterday for $50. I'm like, I know my future. I'm going to work for myself. Okay. Yes, this could be good. I could do this twice a month and I'm still making more money, you know. So that was my— that was the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey. Okay, so I said, what age were you? I was, uh, at that time about 21, 22.

Yep.

Okay. All right. Young, young and dumb. I got the dumb part really good too. I did that really well. But, uh, so I started going— I got landscape business. I turned it into custom water features. And because I'm like, wow, I really love— I started making artificial stone, then that went into real stone and waterfalls, and they got bigger and bigger and more unique. And I'm an artist. I kind of didn't know I was, but I was. So I'm an artist. So I started creating these water features, started to scale that, move that back to Chicago, really takes off during— I'm winning awards and I'm doing huge shows. Taught myself how to be a steel sculptor. I'm like, "Well, I kind of like that. I'm going to teach myself how to weld." Well, next thing you know, I'm doing world-class exhibits at conservatories and stuff like that. Internationally recognized steel sculptor, got stuff on Michigan Avenue in Chicago in front of the Tribune Building for 6 months. Well, that's pretty neat. So I'm doing all this. I'm an artist, right? I'm an artist and I'm running a business and that's really cool.

Did you wear a beret?

No berets. No beret. I was tempted. No, I wasn't. I was never tempted to wear a beret. So, but I was, I do not look like an artist. No one ever accused me of being an artist. Okay. Even young, they said I had no talent whatsoever. So I had that going for me. And then just a sidebar for all the creatives out there. You know what the great thing is? Like one of these, one commission. I made more on one commission than all those teachers and people told me I had no talent, than they would probably make in 10 years or more. I made it one commission because I'm talentless according to them. So don't listen to the haters. That's all I got to say. Just go with it. So, so I'm building this business, doing great, making great money, charging whatever I want to charge because I'm the only one who can do what I do. You know, I do it a certain way and everything else and I'm building this business and then 08, 09 comes. The big economic collapse, right? Things get restricted. People really didn't need a water feature at that time. So everyone was clutching onto whatever they had because they were terrified, and rightly so. That caused the final demise of my business. Now, it wasn't— I do say this one caveat, it wasn't the collapse that ruined my business. It was me, okay, who didn't do certain things in my business to be able to weather a storm like that. Because otherwise every business would have collapsed, right? If it was that. So I'm like, well, it was me. It was my stuff I pushed to the left of the desk and ignored. Okay, because I'm an artist, I'm all making things.

I, I gotta stop you because I've got, I, I've got these questions running through my head and I'm not gonna be able to keep track of them. Back to when you said that you realized you were an artist but you didn't really identify as an artist. I talk about in my book the, uh, first time I was called an artist, and I was at a mastermind group with Perry Marshall who wrote 80/20 Sales and Marketing. He's a, you know, famous marketing guru, and he described entrepreneurs as a continuum between builders and artists. And builders see an opportunity in the marketplace and they figure a way to make money and they just do it. There's not a lot of emotion attached into it. And he said, but the artist is driven, their business is driven by passion. And he looked at me and he said, Christian, you're an artist. And honestly, I took— I was a little taken aback, like, I'm not an artist. But after I sat with it for a minute I realized, yeah, I guess, because I'm not the other, right? I'm not like the opportunist where I see something and I want to do it just because I can make money, right? Talk about your realizing that you're an artist.

Yes, I started— it's like, wow, I'm really creative, right? I'm doing it and people are like, I've never seen anything like this. Like, so water feature, right? So you're talking boulders and waterfalls and fish. And well, when I got done with mine, it looked like it was there before the house. That's how natural it was. It wasn't this cookie cutter bunch of round cobblestone with a box with water falling out of it and all that. I didn't do any of that. It looked like it's, it was been there forever. Right. So I'm like, oh, well, and I knew I had some talent. I was a little bit of a writer, you know, creative writer and stuff like that. But, but this, it just was natural for me. I just got really, and then, but I am an innovator. I'm a builder innovator. Okay. So I can build and scale things, but I also, I love to innovate things. So come up with new ways to do things and bring 'em to the market. And innovation is very similar to being artistic. So you really are, it's a creative, right? You have to come up with this stuff.

Every entrepreneur is, is creative, right? No matter what their business, cuz they're creating something new.

Yes. Or, and, or like you're saying, some are in the opportunist category, which isn't a negative. Some people think that word opportunist is a negative. It's not, but they just see it, they do it like they could already be in an established market. And they grab it, they run with it. Yeah, I know they're going to create things, but pretty much their business, because like real entrepreneurship is buying and selling businesses. You buy it, you grow it, you sell it for profit. You buy another one, you grow it, you sell it. Right. So there's creativity there. But I think, again, if we want to have a division, you know, where's, you know, from artistic to creative. Right. So I was kind of going on the artistic side. Especially when I started my sculpture work. So I started that sculpture work and that is all.

And what would that distinction be for you between an artist and a creative?

I think from an artistic standpoint, you know, when you, how do you know the difference between a Monet and a Van Gogh? Because it's a Monet and it's a Van Gogh. You can tell Monet, right? Because he did this and he had the blurs and Van Gogh did the swirly and all that stuff, right? That's artist. They, they— you, you can see the hand of the artist. You can specifically say who made this. Okay, that's, that's my definition. Okay, creative, you're—

I guess the better question is, is with that awareness, how did you ever become a Marine and you were digging ditches? Like, how did you start there?

Yeah, so I, I grew up in the landscape construction and maintenance business, so I worked at a very young age. I'd love to go out at 4 in the morning, jump on the cushion with the guys and change cups and tees and work with them. And in the summers I'd work because my dad ran the golf course, you know, so I do that. So there's this thing about working. My dad had an incredible work ethic and just, it was like joy in it because it was a sense of accomplishment for me. Every day you just like, I did that. So I really like accomplishing things. I'm a big finisher. I love the finish. And then I got in athletics, you know, and not not the popular ones like cross-country. Okay. I ran. I was with all 6 of us on the team. Right. So what I found, what I found, Christian, was I'm drawn to things that include suffering. Okay. Everything I did was like suffering. I mean, running is just suffering, endless suffering. Okay. There's, you know, they talk about the runners. Yes. So they talk about the runner's high. I'm like, never had that. Okay. Never experienced that. Now I became a boxer, right? So I go, I'm a champion boxer. I did all that. I got parts and wires in my face and 7 breaks in my nose, detached my face, suffering. Okay. Every day I got in the ring and got beat up, suffering. Okay. Got my first degree black belt in taekwondo every day, getting kicked in the face or kicking someone else in the face. So for me it was, that's why. Then went to Marine Corps, like, now this will test me. I said, I need to be tested, so I'm going to go in the Marine Corps. And I did that and went through all that. So suffering. So that's the theme. My theme, I've decided, is suffering. So from there, what I did from an artistic standpoint was not easy either. It was very difficult work. I mean, I'm moving boulders and carrying 200- and 300-pound boulders and rolling them and 1-ton, 2-ton, having to do this amazingly difficult work, you know, which I obviously improved with machinery and everything else. Then the sculpture was all jigs and hand bending, heating metal one inch at a time and creating. I mean, it's like no one would do it with people like you, just out of your mind, you know, thousands of pieces cut and welded side by side. I mean, I did things that were just unusual. So that's, so the art still played into my strengths of suffering, if you will. Right. So I think, does that kind of explain it?

Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now. Yeah, no, no, it does. You mentioned also the financial collapse, but your business failed because of your decisions. Talk a little more about that.

Yeah. So you keep going and you're making, you know, you start a business and now we're already, I'm already in 20 years, almost 20 years at the time of '08, right? So you're in your 40s. Yeah. Oh boy. Why do you got to say that? Okay.

Well, yeah, it was because now where I'm at, just trying to give some context here.

That's good. Yeah. I'm in my 40s. I have 6 small children. Like 4 years and younger, right? Married, everything else. So what happened was I'm making money, I'm building great things, and I think every artist wants to do their art. That's what matters. I didn't care about money. I'd be happy if I could just make my stuff, put it outside, shut the door, go back to work, someone else sell it. Now, the beauty, Christian, is everything I made, I sold. I never experienced the starving artist phase. So I made stuff and people paid lots of money for it and it was great, okay? Because I made them functional and whatever, all this stuff. So, okay, make, make, make, build, build, build, making great money is coming in, but not caring about money, that's a problem, okay? When you don't care about it because you know what they say about when you don't pay attention to something? It goes away. Try it with a wife, try it with a friend, Try with your money. They're all— don't pay attention to them. They're all going to go away. So, and then there's business things. Now I had an accountant, I had an office manager, but you really weren't addressing things. So I had tax debt mounting. I had some other things that were kind of creeping up on me. Vendor payouts. We got ahead of things. You're like, well, I can pay it because I could always make more money. So this was the young and dumb part. You know, you're like, I could. It was like an ATM machine. I mean, it was amazing what I could do, but never— here's a— let me show you a good example. So '05, '04, websites are still kind of new, right? They're the wild west. I want to do an e-commerce website to sell sculptures and stuff. I made these really cool benches and stuff like that. So this guy goes, I can do it. And it cost me $41,000 to have this website made that we can do for free now. Okay, I build better websites now. I know what I'm doing, right? So I pay $41,000 and it comes up, Christian. I look at it and I go, wait a minute, I don't build two of anything. I might want to do this. I don't make another— I only do one of everything. I'm like, shut that thing down. And I did. Like two weeks later, I shut it down. My wife lost her mind because like, I just— $41,000 gone. Then he charged me $8,000 on my water feature website, which is just pictures. Okay, that's the crazy time of websites, right? So I'm like, okay, I did that. So now I'm at $50,000 just on that, right? Hey, oh, there's a cool skid steer. I need that. $50,000, paying cash, right? So I was doing things like, hey, I'm being smart, I have no debt, I'm paying cash. Okay, I paid $50,000 for a skid steer, great track, New Holland. Okay, this is great. I could have rented that for like $800 or $900 a month for the season. Okay. And it would've cost me a few thousand dollars instead of 50. What could I have done with that other $45,000 in the same month? You know what I mean?

So it's, it's safe to say, okay, one of the things that I see with entrepreneurs is that whatever their personal money habits are, their mindset, they bring into the business. They're not separate. It's not like you, become a business owner and all of a sudden you understand money differently, right? What did you learn about money growing up?

Oh, it was not much. I didn't learn much at all. It was not a good situation. We didn't have money. We didn't have money, right? I mean, I had two brothers, my mom, my dad. My dad worked all the time, you know, did okay, but my mother was a spender. Like, and I'm, you know, she passed away 15 years ago or whatever, longer. She would literally be outside my dad's office on payday to get the check. Okay, these are the memories. Okay, like, wow. Like, and then it's gone, right? So yeah, there was not— there's no good exposure to money handling, if you will, right? Money management.

Money wasn't talked about.

At all? No, except the lack of. Yeah, right. Okay. That's all you talk about is the lack of, you know.

So how do you think that what you learned about money affected your business? Like, is, is there a connection there?

I think there is. And it's interesting you say that because I may not have thought about this before, but now I am thinking about this right now. Okay.

That's what I do.

Yeah.

You're welcome.

You're the best. I knew I came on here for a reason. So I thought like, well, I can make a lot, right? We didn't have any. So you make a lot. Watch this. I'm going to go make a lot of money. And I did. But, you know, part 2 or B, that's A, get a lot. I still don't know what to do with it. Right. And, and at that age, that first 20 years, I never accepted help from anybody. I was so prideful. My ego was so big. And I had clients who were multi-billionaires, owned professional sports teams, giving me advice that I did not take because that's how smart I was. Because what do they know? I mean, I built—

right? And you don't, you don't get conversations with those people.

No. And they, they love me because what I built for them. Like they loved what I did. Like it was just awesome. Right. And they just, and, and I can be a little intimidating. Okay. Even to billionaires. So they just offer the stuff. They're not going to push it. They're not going to demand. And I say no and I keep going and I go make more money. But you know, you know the saying, Christian, if I just had what I lost.

Well, so, so let me ask you a question. It sounded, it sounded like maybe from your comment that your wife had a different mindset.

Yes.

About money.

Yes. Yeah, she should have been in charge.

Today's episode of The Profitable Creative is brought to you by Core Group. Are you tired of doing it all yourself? Do you feel like you have no plan? Let Core Group guide you to build the business of your dreams. Core Group, your go-to accountant for creatives.

One of the things I've experienced, my wife and I have very different I would say value systems. You know, it's like what you believe at your core, not, not that it's right or wrong, but just like what your life experiences has been. And, you know, my comment I'm known for is that money is just dirty paper, you know, and my attitude is very similar to yours for a long time because it's interesting because it was a completely different situation growing up. We had a lot of money. But we still didn't talk about it. And I had the very same mindset you did, which is I can always make more, right? So I didn't really think about the other side of it because, you know, and I think entrepreneurs being people that can see what's possible, that kind of goes along with them, right? Like, you know, it's like, well, you know, making money, that's, that's easy. We— I can do that. But it caused a lot of marital strife that, that we had to work through to the point where we like, okay, kind of meeting towards more in the middle, but, you know, making concessions around that. Not, not giving up our belief system, but like understanding that my wife's idea of financial security is very different than mine, and At the end of the day, as her husband, I wanted to give her that financial security, what, what, what she wanted. And that's what motivated me to reevaluate my behavior to, to really give her what she needed, not what I needed.

Yeah, that's so true because security is the number one human core need, right? And women 10x us on that.

Yes, especially if they have kids.

Exactly. It's all about that. And that is security. And money is security. Whether you think it's good, bad, indifferent, it's security. It gives you security. It gives you the ability to do things, be safe, all that stuff, right? So she was very, very much in tune to that. As an entrepreneur, as a male entrepreneur especially, it's make more. I'll do more. I'll come up with the next thing. I'll do stuff. Don't worry about it. How much you need? I'll go out and make it. And I get the thing, money's replenishable. That's the thing like, well, look, you can always get more, so it's not what are we worried about? So again, that's great when things are good, that works really well, but when things get bad, those are the giant gaping holes in the bucket.

Fast forward, this happens, you lose your business?

My business, lose my home.

Everything.

Okay.

What was the second chapter?

So relocate. So now I had to figure out what to do. Now I decided, so I had a little epiphany in early '09. I wake up and I have 6 little kids and my wife, we're losing the house. The business is not going to make it. I mean, November 5th, 2008, I lost $500,000 in one day. They have like, and it just, it just kept going off the cliff from there. So I'm like, yeah, this isn't going to work. But I'm like, but maybe Maybe I can limp through this. Maybe we can do something, right? But it wasn't going to happen. So I woke up one morning, I was thinking, Christian, I'm like, think about my kids. I'm like, you know, I come home at night and they run and attack me or crawl at that time, whatever. They just love to be with me. One day I'm leaving in my truck and one of my boys is chasing me, crying down the driveway, and I keep going. Okay, look in the rearview mirror like, well, you know, he's got to learn. You know, he's got to learn. And, and they go and I'm laying there in bed thinking, you know what? My kids do not care what I drive. They don't care what kind of house you live in. They don't care what I do. They don't care how many trucks I have. All this stuff. I said, all they want is me to be around and I can't do that. And if I continue on this path of business first, win the awards, be on the committee, do all this stuff that I was doing, I said, I'm going to destroy their futures. They're going to have broken marriages. Fail relationships, they might do well in business, every other aspect of their life will be trash. And that'll be my fault because they're watching me. It doesn't matter what I tell them, they're only going to do what I do. More is caught than taught, right? So I went in the office, which was 40 feet behind my house. I went into my office there, my office manager, and I said, "We're done. We're closing down today." I said, "We're just going to put an end to this right now." Went to the yard, told my guys. These guys have worked for me for over 10 years, same guys, best crew ever. We were family. I said, guys, we got to wrap this up, man. I can't do this anymore. So I'm leaving everything. I go, I'm not going to ever build another water feature. I'm not going to— I sold my welding equipment. I sold everything for, you know, 15 cents on the dollar. My $50,000 skid steer.

Did that feel like defeat in that moment?

No, it felt like liberation. I have a video of me burning my uniforms like never again. I'm never going to have my identity in my business because I realized my business was who I am. Totally wrong. I'm like, I'll never do this again. So I had to leave it.

I have another podcast that I'm launching that is, is discussing mental health, self-awareness, mindset around entrepreneurs. And there's a study that was done of male entrepreneurs where they put them in an MRI machine and they showed them pictures of their kids, uh, they showed them lots of different pictures, but they showed them pictures of their kids, and then they showed them pictures of their business. And the same part of the brain that lit up when they saw their kids was the same, was the same one when they saw their business. And so when you hear entrepreneurs talk about their business as their baby, they're, they literally mean it, right? But I think what you said, that the business is their identity, right? And in some ways that happens with kids, right? Like, so if your kids misbehave or succeed or don't succeed the way you, to your expectations, that it feels like a reflection on you, right? So I think those feelings are, you know, hardwired into our brain and being able to see yourself apart from your business is huge.

It is a gift. But you can also do it consciously, right? You have to understand, like, and again, as entrepreneurs, we're in what we do, right? We're in it. That's why as a coach, I'm very helpful because I have outside eyes. I see your business in a completely different view than you can. You are unable to see certain things. Like I was for 20 years and didn't take any help because I thought I saw everything when these guys are just going, "Are you out of your mind?" I remember when my one friend's like, "Maybe you should consider getting a bean counter." That's exactly what he said. He's like, "Someone to tell you what to do with this money. You ain't doing so well, buddy." And I'm like, "No, I'm good, man. I'm good. I got this." I mean, they just see subtle little things that they could see clear as day, but you think you got it all mastered. Because again, it's who you are.

That's an excellent point because whether it's your business or your personal life or whatever, my experience is that when something is not the way you want it, we almost immediately look outside ourselves. We don't default to looking at ourselves and saying, what am I doing to contribute to this situation? I think having the awareness that you have that blind spot, right? And the need for coaches, professionals, even male— I mean, not male— entrepreneurial colleagues. Like, I, I'm in Entrepreneurs Organization, which is a global organization of entrepreneurs, and I meet with a small group, uh, we call it a forum the same people every month and having a place to kind of unpack your stuff and say, you know, I'm dealing with this problem or this problem, or even I had this success and I don't really want to brag about it, but it felt really good. You know, just people that are your tribe that can understand and support and give you feedback that you can't see yourself.

It's kind of a critical element because entrepreneurship, obviously, if you always hear it, can be lonely, right? Because no one— because we're a small— we're a minority. People are willing to take this risk. We, you know, we're just— we get it, right? We're in it. We're going to do things other people are not going to do so we can have things they don't have, right? And all that good stuff. But if you can, you got to be able to get around people who you can commiserate with. Who you can get the feedback from, right? Who can give you— that's why masterminds are so important. When you go to— guys will go for a 2-day or 3-day mastermind, and they may drop 10 grand for it, right? But you'll be implementing things at the mastermind. You'll be being told things from others, and it's that rising tide lifts all boats. And you can't, you can't negate that. You have to search that out. That has become an anchor activity, if you will, on your schedule. Like, you've got to do these things, whether it's once a quarter, twice a year. You've got to get around the right people.

So do you personally have a coach?

I do.

And I would say that I would never hire you as a coach if you didn't.

Right, right.

So there's your— there's your audience, there's your tidbit: never hire a coach that doesn't have a coach.

You know, it's the old saying, if you're the smartest guy in the room, you got to go another room. Okay, because I don't want to be the smartest guy in the room, you know. I mean, there's a place I have an expertise. I'm really good at what I do. Glad to add, but I'm always— I want to be by the other guy. When I box, I fought guys way better than me. I got beat up every day, but I got really good really fast, right? Because I'm around other people. I don't want to be around— I don't get off, like, being above people. I want to go learn from the next. I'm only looking forward, always looking forward.

That's very interesting. So Is that an attitude? So I'm kind of pulling a couple of things together here where you said that you were around these billionaires and you didn't listen to their counsel. Was there a point where that switched where you started seeking out?

Well, yeah, after I lost everything, you know, when I had to look back and go, okay, I had to connect the dots, right? Okay, you went from doing all this Everything from world-class stuff, this, this, this, to having nothing. Like, maybe you would take a few minutes and take a look at what happened. Like, I got to figure this out because, like, first of all, I had that epiphany about my kids now. And, you know, if you've been in business 20 years, you are unemployable. You aren't going to work for anybody, right? So I only had one option was to do the next thing, you know. So what am I going to do next? Maybe I can work temporarily for someone or whatever, which I did. So I go and I became a I started training people at Anytime Fitness. So I got into being a fitness trainer. I said, I'll do that. Well, you know what happens, right? A year later, I'm trainer of the year. Okay. I went trainer of the year and stuff. So you know what that means? Well, I guess I got to open a gym. So I went to open a gym, you know, so because I'm an entrepreneur. So I went and opened a gym and boot camp style training. It was a blast. Scaled that. It was good. But the key to that though, Christian, was how do I do this and have it not become who I am? Or own me. How can it serve me? How can my wife call, says, I need you at home because we homeschool all our kids all the way through, right? If she needs me, I can just leave. So I'm going to hire trainers. I'm not going to be the trainer. I'm a great trainer, but I'm going to get other trainers and I'm going to build— I'm going to build the systems and we'll put all this stuff in place so that this thing runs itself. I'm just the owner.

And I think that that's, that's key. And I want to come back to ask you this question. So how did you get from like, I'm the artist, I make all original, to I need the business to be sufficient without me? What was that bridge?

I think what it was is I had to go, I had to say business. I had to leave the word art out of it. So I had to do something that didn't require me to be an artist. It wasn't dependent. I go, I don't want it to be dependent on me. Okay, so like sculpture work, no one can help me. I don't even know what I'm doing. I don't even know what it's going to be till it's finished. So you're not getting help in that. So this was like, okay, let's, let's look at a system. Let's look more, let's think more business this time because that's what I failed at. Right. So I can be an artist. I'm good at that. So what's the challenge in that? Now the new challenge is let's be a businessman. Let's run something that can scale.

The core message of my book is that you don't have to give up your creativity for profitability, that they are in fact complementary, right? It's a matter of redirecting your creativity, not eliminating it. So how does creativity show up for you now?

So this is how it started. So in— so I have my bootcamp-style training. I— so I'm going to be creative. I developed a program that had Base Test House, like a belt system in martial arts. It's all bodyweight training and stuff like that. So I created this whole thing and I make workouts. I have multiple— I have 2, 2+ years of weekly workouts, right? You could do every day. And so I started doing that. I'm a writer, I always like to write, so I'd write things about that. I'd get coaching in this stuff as well and then scale the business. So I'm like, well, this is kind of cool and I'm making it. So from a creative standpoint is how we do the exercise, how we create squads and do this. So I put my effort into really being a unique experience. So I could charge top dollar. This isn't Planet Fitness, you're paying $10 a month, okay? You're going to pay $200 a month for this, okay? And you're going to have 35-minute workouts. You're going to come and go and 5 days a week and we're closed on weekends. And this is beautiful. Have 7 things a day. So I had to create all that completely new. Like, so that was my creative outlet, building all that, get it going. I mean, we were blouse, boots, man, and black. And it was— you came in and there wasn't any equipment. But you were terrified, okay? Because we are, you know, like, I got other Marines as instructors too.

So did you wear a DI hat or no?

No, I did. Well, we had black, we had black, it was called Anvil Works, and AW had our names on the back of it and stuff, you know. We were dialed in with the shirts and the cargo pants that are bloused with the black boots. I mean, that's what we trained in. I mean, it's hardcore. It was, it was a lot of fun. And we built 4-man squads, so you'd have your own team and you're competing against each other and other squads. It was really cool. So we built this thing out and a lot of fun. So that was my creative first. And then, okay, that's really good. Now I started another contracting business doing roofing, siding, windows, same, same principle. How am I going to do that? I want to do that differently because I saw these other guys how they're doing it. I'm like, you guys don't do this. I mean, this is a hated, this is a hated industry. It's the, it's the fourth dangerous 4th most dangerous in the world, in the country, but everyone hates you. So I'm going to do it differently. I'll make people love me. I'm going to sell. I'm going to do what you guys can't do. I'm going to sell retail. They're going to pay me the full boat out of their checking account. You need insurance to get yours done. You need— you can't get them to give you $500 in the deductible. You got to waive that. Let me show you how it's done. I was killing it. I'm like, I'll do it this way. So I create value. I did all that. I built all this stuff. That was a lot of fun. Now I'm helping businesses at the same time. Now they're coming to ask me how I did this because I went from zero and now I'm building this. So that became a mentor that then turned into coaching because I'm an entrepreneur. Mentoring is free. Coaching is paid, right? So I created that and I said, oh, you know what? I need to write a book. So I'm going to write a book. I called it Escape the Owner Prison: The Contractor's New Way to Scale, Regain Control, and Fast Track Growth While Loving Life. Boom, became bestseller. So I read my first book, okay, becomes a bestseller.

How long ago was that?

Uh, 2019. Okay, so I did that. So poof, got best— oh, that's cool. Oh, I'm going to create an academy around that, a coaching academy, the ETOP Academy. I made a podcast called the ETOP Podcast. I, I just started building all that. So now I'm being creative, right? So I'm building academies, I'm shooting videos, and that's where I channeled everything— was into writing, making videos, doing that kind of stuff, and growing this coaching business.

Do you have coaches in your employ or do you do all the coaching yourself?

Yep. Yeah, we're— my goal is to help 10,000 business owners create freedom, profit, and impact in their business. I don't do small things, Christian.

That's impressive. Yes. One of the questions I was going to ask you, but you may have already answered it, is, is, is where are you 5 years from now?

Well, I have all that written out actually. So where I'm in 5 years, by now, by 5 years, we're going to be close to probably 6,000 clients we've helped. In a 5-year period. I'm trying to get the $10,000 before the 10-year period. That's my goal, you know, be doing 9 figures, 9— around 9 figures in annual revenue. So we're looking at that, growing the coaching staff, probably do 100 coaches at that point, you know, nationally, and see where we take it from there.

So if people want to learn more about Sharpen the Spear, how do they do that?

Sharpenthespearcoaching.com. And your book, Escape the Owner Prison, you can find it on Amazon. And I'll tell you what, you know what I'll do for you, Christian, since this has been awesome and you taught me something, which I always like to learn something. If the people listening to your show, okay, and they go to sharpnessforcoaching.com, scroll down to the contact page and send me a one-sentence email to say, Richard, I heard you on Christian's show. I'd love to get your free audio Escape the Owner Prison, and I'll send it to them.

Well, thank you very much. That is very— that's very kind of you.

But you have to listen to me speak for 2 and a half hours though. Well, yeah, which is— which is a joy. Which is—

we just finalized our audiobook and I narrated it, and I'm like, I— you know, no one likes listening to their own voice.

I do. I don't know. I think I saw them. You do? Yes.

Well, I— I do, except when I hear it on recording, then— then I'm like, I love it.

You know what I do? And here's— I Every podcast— I've been on a lot of podcasts, right? Well over 100. And I do listen to every episode because that's how I learn. I actually, like, you'll send me this recording, I'll listen to it, the whole thing, and I'll go, okay, well, next time I'm not going to say that or whatever, or I can tweak it or whatever. They're not— every episode is different. We don't— I don't do the same thing. This isn't by rote. So this is very different. This is awesome. So I will listen to this again.

I would like to leave the listeners with a question that you answer for them. What was the best business advice that you ever received?

Wow. Get help. It really was.

Who told you that?

After everything collapsed, the same guy who was telling me stuff before. When I went to him and, you know, I said, well, listen, like, I know I'm out of business doing all this stuff. He's one of my biggest clients. And he says, well, you really need to seek out help, like have people help you. There's so many people like— he goes, like me, like, I'm not saying I want to be your mentor, you know. He ended up dying a couple years after that. No, well, he— but he would if I let him. But he was— I mean, he's a big hitter. You're talking big hitter. And which was awesome. And he just— he loved me. He just loved the stuff I did, my art and my work. I mean, he was one of my favorite guys. But he said, "You got to get someone to help you. You got to be open to it.

You got to listen to others." Talking about boxing and martial arts, the Chinese proverb of the teacher will appear when the student is ready. And it's so much, I think back about so many things that I heard but I didn't really hear. Like, and, and I guess the simple answer is I wasn't in a place to hear it. You know, I think you have to, like you said, be open to it. You have to admit that there's something missing. I love about coaching in general is that I think so many coaches now are technical coaches. So like, you know, I'm going to teach you how to swing the golf club right, or I'm going to teach you how to do SEO marketing or whatever. But real coaching to me is when they reveal to you something that's already inside you. Like they pull it out and that self-realization that it's there is so much more impactful than any knowledge someone could pass on to you.

Yeah, there's the SMEs, right? Subject matter experts. They're good, there's a place for them. But like what I do, it's not— it is my clients. I mean, they stay with me for years. We go to next progression, we do more, and we do— but, but their families thank me. We become friends, right? Friends don't become clients, clients become friends. That's the nature of the thing, right? So, but, but because you're doing so much more, it's just not business. Like I said, like you want to balance your life, you got to fix your business first. Once that's running properly, you can balance your life. Don't think you're going to get work-life balance with a hot mess of a business. You're kidding yourself. But people tell you, you need work-life balance and they walk away. Like, no, I need to fix my business because I can't have balance with a broken business. Like, so, so we start there. Let me fix this, then I'll show you the 5 Fs and we'll do all that cool stuff and you'll get balanced. But right now, trust me, your family wants to fix— wants you to fix your business.

I think talking about coaches, mentors, colleagues, the one of the, the biggest thing it's done for me is that it's shown me what's possible, right? Because you get trapped in your own mind about the way things are, right? And, and that, that's just the way it is. And then you see somebody else and like, they're not struggling, or, you know, and it's like, huh, how, how is that possible? How are you doing that?

We've all got the limiting beliefs, right? We all have these ceilings that coaches take you past. I mean, you know, whether you're the top best NFL player or soccer player or baseball player, They all have coaches, multiple coaches. They have mindset, they have trainers, they have defensive off, they have all this stuff. Why? They're great. I could never equal what they do, yet they're still being trained, right? Because you got to have those outside eyes, you know, and you have to be open to the suggestions. Because what I love the most, Christian, is I love others' success way more than mine. To see them succeed, to fix that thing, and their family's like, oh, I never thought this was going to be possible. I never thought we'd be at the beach for a week, like on vacation. And he's not calling anybody. Like, I never— I just— this is unbelievable. And we're making 3 times the money and we're doing this. And I'm like, that's, that's, that's what I want to hear. That's my reward. You know, like hearing that is like that, that there's nothing better than that for me. You know, because you changed, you changed their, not just that guy's lives, the family's life, just like mine. My children are not going to be messed up. I mean, they may be a little bit, but I could be totally messed up. You know, this—

I made the joke, I didn't save for my college, my kids' college. I saved for their therapy.

So, you know, that's right. That's good. It's probably better directed these days. But yeah, I just, I just love people to succeed, man. I like them to create that freedom in their life because we went in the business to get margin in our life. So we're not told what— we're not owned by something. But they end up being owned by their business. That business needs to serve you.

I think if our listeners come away with anything from this episode is that it is 100% possible to create the business that you want that serves you, not the other way around. It absolutely is possible. Well, Richard, I really appreciated this interview. I enjoyed talking to you. Thank you very much. For being on our show.

I love being here. This was awesome. And I learned something. I'm excited.

Tell me what you learned. Now I'm curious.

And I have to go back. Well, when you said that part about learning where— part on the creative part, on the creative and the artist, the creative, when we went through that, we kind of broke that down because I never really broke that down before, you know? And I think it's really good to understand the difference. And I think your audience too, if they're in these positions. That's a really good distinction. You really understand kind of what lane you're operating in. So that was a good takeaway for me too.

One of my daughters is, is a professional artist and she graduated university and didn't study art and she graduated and said, I think I'm going to go do art full time. And of course my brain goes into entrepreneurial mode and like asking her questions about like, Well, who's going to buy it? And what are you going to paint? And how are you going to market it? Blah, blah, blah. And she just threw up her hands and she said, "I don't know, Dad. I just want to paint whatever I want to paint." And that's the artist mentality, right? I'm going to create something and I don't really care if there's any outcome. It's just I'm creating something.

That's how I started.. But then people wanted it. I put it in a show and people wanted it and they bought this and make me this. I mean, it's just, it's a great way to go, but you need that freedom as an artist. You can't, like, I, and real quick, I know we're getting done here, but I had a woman commission me for this big sign for her boutique on Armitage Avenue in Chicago. It's going to be this tree and hung over the sidewalk and they had an oval with their, you know, Studio 910 on it. So, okay, I can do that. So then she calls me, she goes, well, I want to come out and see it when you're halfway done. I said, well, I'm not really into that. I'm not really into you doing this. She said, no, I really need to come out. Okay. So she came out to my big construction. I built everything else because it's big. And I had like a 14-inch steel pipe about 4 feet long. And I welded like a 20-foot, 1-inch solid round bar to it that was bent. I left it laying on the ground. You can come out and see it now. And she came out and I got this voicemail, Chris. She said, I am so disappointed. What this blah, blah, blah. She's just railing on me, right? I'm like, yeah, whatever. So I get it done like a week later.. And we install it on the sun. We gotta crane this thing in and do all this stuff. You know what the next voicemail said? It went like this. You're the master. This is unbelievable. I've never seen anything so big. I'm like, okay, can I play back the other message about the disappointing? You know what I mean? So there's times when you're like, you don't peek under the canvas, right? You wait till it's finished. Well, let me just do my work because I don't know what the outcome's truly gonna be. And I think any piece of art you look at and go, they didn't know, just like your daughter. She didn't know. She just wants to do it. And it ends up amazing because of that, because it's constant exploration. You're creating as you go. One thing leads to the next and business is similar. But this, the idea of being an artist or being creative, that's what it is. Understand there's a process that can't really be interrupted. You know, you're not taking direction. You got to just do it.

You don't always know what the outcome is going to be, right?

I never did.

Yeah, I like that word. That word you said, explore. It's—

yeah. So it's just take heart in that.

Yeah. This is awesome. Thank you very much for being on the show.

Love it. Thanks. Thanks to you, Christian. Appreciate having me on.

That's a wrap for today's episode of The Profitable Creative. And that's a wrap for today's episode of The Profitable Creative. Until next time, you money lovers. And don't forget, Profit First for Creatives is live via Amazon. Link below.