In this motivational monologue, Jacqueline Elliott shares candid, experience‑based guidance for entrepreneurs who want to build businesses that outlive them. She stresses the urgency of documenting processes and creating SOPs early, so that growth from a solo operation to a 10‑, 20‑, 50‑, or 100‑person company can scale without reliance on a few “golden handcuff” employees. Elliott critiques the control‑freak mindset that blocks delegation, urging leaders to practice grace, truth‑telling, and vulnerability—mirroring the example of Jesus as a leader who corrects while showing compassion. She advocates a culture that welcomes mistakes as learning opportunities, teaches teams to own problems, and empowers them to think like owners rather than perpetual employees. Core values are framed around faith, family, marital and parental responsibility, and a relationship with God; these values shape hiring practices that consider spouses and personal character. Elliott describes an “addiction to progress,” where relentless goal‑setting, hard work, and reliance on divine grace fuel energy, purpose, and a legacy mindset. She concludes with a call to trust God, pray, and take decisive action, positioning faith‑driven initiative as essential for sustained growth and personal fulfillment.
Chapters
and everything's always going to be more money than you thought. Everything is always going to take more time than you thought. Everything is going to be more of a grind than you thought, right? But how do you build something and also plan for tomorrow and after? You know, it's like, it's not just about making money, it's about building something that lives beyond you. If you don't have to be there all the time, if you're creating systems and processes and you know that, hey, you know what, like there's a lot of people like, well, I don't have to think that way, like because I'm here and I only have 1 or 2 employees. So, you know, they just watch me work and then they, they learn. Well, if you don't have a way to document what you're doing as a single person employee with a single owner, when you have employees, whether it's 1 or 5 to 10, I mean, we learned the hard way. You know, we had, you know, we had Andy with me. We were teaching our people and we had our main leaders that we have today learning from us. And then we thought like we had nothing documented. So what happens when you become a 10-person, you know, business, then a 20, then a 50, then 100 or plus? Like, there's no way you can scale and grow that. So if you don't create the processes now, whether you are a solopreneur or whether you're a small business owner with a couple of people that you have, you're not going to do it when you get to 20. You can't put that off. You have to start now. You have to start recording your phone calls. You have to start understanding and working backwards in your processes so that it's just a plug and play. So a lot of business owners, they, they get really stressed out because they have certain people and then they have a golden handcuffs. They have this guy who's a top producer. And then this person, if they say, hey, you know what, if they put up 40% of the revenue, that top producer, and they leave, they're screwed and they freak out. Or they have somebody in the back end, like, you know, you have a COO that's working and she has no documentation and it all lives in their head. When they leave, your company is going to suffer. And the reason why people get so stressed out about people is because they own that in their heads and they have no way to plug somebody in. Imagine how many, how many problems so many business owners would solve just by documenting what they do, by having an SOP. Like if they lose somebody, it's not golden handcuffs anymore. You know, it's an actual true business because somebody else can come in and fill their shoes. Same thing as a business owner. A lot of times, and I had this big problem too, because I was, I was a control freak. I was like, I'm not, I'm not going to delegate this because nobody's going to do it as good as I am. Nobody's going to care as much as I do. You know, they're going to mess up. And honestly, we have a business. And if I look back and I put a mirror in front of my face and I say, hey, when we started, how many times did I screw up? I'm going to say a million, so many more. And we don't have the patience as business owners to bring somebody else and teach them something. And at the first mistake, we take that responsibility ability back. And then all of a sudden you're stuck being a prisoner of your business. It's the stupidest thing. You have to have grace. You know, I teach a lot about, and I think about like the best leader in the world. Who has that been? Jesus. He's a truth teller. He corrects, he tells everybody as it is, right? And he helps people become better, but he also has grace. He shows people what he believes they should become. And as a leader, you really have to carry that. You really have to understand that, hey, you can't take things back at the first mistake. But you do have to tell them the truth and correct them in a way where they don't repeat that mistake. I always talk about, you know, mistakes and problems. We're always searching for problems. We're problem diggers. I mean, as a business owner, you have to find that. You just can't keep making the same mistakes. You look for new mistakes. You're going to run into many walls. And if you're afraid to run into a wall, you're never going to grow. And that's the thing. But we learn how to make those mistakes. But you have to also have to teach your team to be okay with making mistakes as long as they don't repeat them. So you have to lead with love, you have to lead with your heart, you have to be massively direct, and you have to share those eyes to look at those details with everybody on your team. So you almost have to like be very vulnerable and open, apologize and show that it's okay to make a mistake. Nobody likes to follow a perfect person. So if you can show people that you are that person that does make a mistake and learns from it, they will, they will follow you. They will, you become that leader that people love to follow because you're real, you're relatable. And it's so, so amazing that the company that we've built, the culture that we have, has not been on being the perfect leader. It's been on being that leader that is not afraid of making mistakes, that's bold, that can go in and troubleshoot things and not lose their cool when things get difficult. And if you can't do that, you can't show your people that side of you that has been hurt, but can recover, I mean, what kind of parent could you be? You can't really do good because your kids are never going to feel like you're going to— they can actually talk to you or anything either. It's the same thing. I mean, it's all the same principle in leadership. You have to be that person that's relatable, but also that leader that is bold. And if you want to teach your people to care about the business like you, you're going to have to share that side. You're never going to get that loyalty. You're never going to get that, that, that everybody's like, I want my employees to think like business owners. Well, you're never going to get them to think like business owners if you can't show that side of you. Or even trust them enough where they have to, you know, where they can care enough. They don't have your eyes. So you have to basically share your eyes. You have to give them the responsibilities enough to show them that you trust them enough to care. And that's the big difference between owning a business that is a prison, basically, because I call it a prison. You know, if you have to be there all the time, if you have to be the one that comes up with everything, if you're asking for, you know, if they're asking for approvals on every single little detail, then you're not going to empower them to think like business owners ever. They're going to be employees forever and you're going to be in prison forever. Why do great leaders care about their people? Well, in business and in any type of relationship, you know, it's a two-way street. It always is. You know, we have this very special thing within our company that we start like we don't just hire. Like if a guy wants to come work with us, like we don't just hire him. It's like we hire the whole family. It's the craziest thing. We interview the wife and we talk to them about the expectations and we basically tell them, hey, this is what I foresee your husband becoming. I foresee him. Yes, he's going to, you know, obviously you're in the business, you're going to get paid, so you're going to make money. So you're going to provide, you know, financial stability and all of that other stuff, which is important. But even more important than financial security is going to be like, how is he going to be as a husband? To you. Like, that's important because we have core values, like we have core values written and whatever we expect in the business is what we expect their home life to be and everything else and how they're going to be in the community and everything. We expect our people to be good spouses, you know, or if they're in a relationship, we expect them to be good with their partner. We expect them to be great fathers. We expect them to have a good relationship with God. You know, I mean, that's, you know, a lot of people don't talk about that stuff, but we're very open about our faith and it doesn't mean that you have to be a specific specific religion. It just means that you have to believe. Everything in life takes faith, you know. And as a business, when we started it, if you're a business owner, like, you have to have faith to have a business because nobody can see what you're going to be building. You can tell by the conversations that you have with people around or your family, they're never going to understand if you're trying to build something big because they've never done it. They don't know. It takes faith to build a business. It takes faith to do anything else. So like, we believe very strongly in our faith and we're very open about it, but we talk about standards, standards altogether. Like, hey, who we are right now and who we want to become, you know, and it's all about progress, fulfillment. We find fulfillment out of stretching ourselves to see who we can become. God equipped us with a superpower, I believe, to like, hey, you don't feel alive unless you have progress. And the only way you find progress is by actually doing things that are hard in life. You know, you feel like it, and it's like being addicted. Like Andy and I have very addictive personalities. You know, if we do something, we do it all the way. And the thing is that that makes us feel alive. But instead of doing drugs or drinking alcohol or doing something that's bad for you, like, we're addicted to, like, hey, to growth and working hard and setting ourselves to, like, putting these, like, goals, setting goals that, like, we don't even believe that we can hit. Nobody believes us. But you know what? We work really hard, and then all of a sudden, you know, by the grace of God, we hit a goal, and we're like, oh my gosh, I couldn't— I can't believe that we actually did it. And then that's become our new addiction. We're like, man, that's great, we're so powerful, we can do this. And then we said, we raise the bar again and again and again and again. And you feel alive. You think about the times like when, you know, when our countries, you know, in America were founded, and the average lifespan back then was 40 years. You think about our founding fathers of the nation, like they were living into their 80s because they had hope in a future, had something that they felt responsible for. They felt progress, they felt responsibility, they, they had You know, hope. You know, they felt like they're part of something big. So to us, it's like, how can we get— how can we feel more valuable? How can we actually give to more people? How can we increase and get the word out and live our mission and create a legacy? That's what keeps us alive. That's what gives us the energy. People are like, how do you have so much energy? Like, we have— we feel like we have so much work to do. There's so many people out there that need to feel powerful and valuable and know that they can have it all and all of these things. So we're just so loud and we just, we just keep going with that hope in a future. It's so important. There's no amount of exercise or eating right or anything that's going to give you more energy than feeling powerful and useful as a person. And that's what we choose. And sometimes we pray, we pray for a big life and we pray like, man, if I could only get out of this situation, I would do this, I would be happy, you know. And the truth is that God's not going to give you more than you can handle. And the thing is that we complain about the little bit that we have, so how can you trust him to give you more? And that's the thing, like, hey, we're massively grateful for what we have. And I think that because we are, we're able to help more people and do more. And that's just the attitude. So if, you know, like, maybe you're not where you, where you want to be in life, and maybe you're like, man, you're just praying for like some, some more, like a bigger house or like a better opportunity Like, maybe it's time for us to change our lenses and see the opportunity that we have right now and make the best out of it. And you'll see how doors open. It's not about just waiting for things to happen. You know, you have to trust in God, but the truth is that you have to take action and you have to— I mean, he needs to trust you too in order to take action and really have those lenses and really look at life and, you know, for what it is. Life is beautiful. How are you looking at life?
