Ep. 50- Matt Manero: You Need More Money

This is the You Winning Life Podcast, your number one source for mastering a positive existence. Each episode, we'll be interviewing exceptional people, giving you empowering insights and guiding you to extraordinary outcomes. Learn from specialists in the worlds of integrative and natural wellness, spirituality, psychology, and entrepreneurship so you too can be winning life. Now here's your host, licensed marriage and family therapist, certified neuro-emotional technique practitioner, owner and certified entrepreneur coach, Jason Wasser.

So I'm sitting today in Dallas, Texas, inside the production studio of my friend, mentor, and past accountability partner, Matt Manera. In 1995, he launched commercial fleet financing from his apartment with a folding table and a phone and has now funded over $1 billion in transportation equipment. Because of this, he and his company has been recognized by Inc. 5000 as one of America's fastest growing private companies. As a sought-after speaker, Matt has collaborated with business development programs such as Business Finishing School, where we first met, Coach Bert's Munster Producer Program, where he co-leads the Founders Intensive, and most recently created the Attack and Conquer Bootcamp with Judge Graham. He is the author of the books The Grit and You Need More Money, and has influenced thousands through his Facebook Lives, podcast, YouTube channel, where he brings raw and practical knowledge to the table from the expertise of his and his guests' experiences. Matt's other major proud accomplishment is being the husband to Rocky and their 3 boys, John, Jack, and Julian, the Juice. The Juice. Who I've had the pleasure to meet over the past few years. And Matt, it's an honor to be able to share this time with you today. Dude, so great to have you.

Thanks for putting it together. It's just a pleasure to have you. Awesome.

So outside of everything that you've shared on your podcasts and your Facebook Lives, which I'm gonna make a strong referral for everybody out there, to make sure they download before we even get started. Um, going from working, you know, for yourself has a backstory— high school, college. What was that like? How did you know— hey, where did you want to go to for school? What did you want to do at that point? And then the transition from college, working, and then coming here.

Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I guess everybody has their own interpretation of what was good or what was bad. There were a lot of things that were wonderful about my upbringing. There were a lot of things that were terrible about it. But, you know, I was a very good high school football player, was going to go on and play college football for sure. Got hurt my senior year with a pretty bad neck injury, and that was the end of it.. And so I literally applied to one college. I was working in a restaurant as in through high school, and I applied to a cooking school, and that was the only school I got into. So that's where I went. My mother drove me up to the school and dropped me off, and, um, you know, I met some truly incredible friends, lifelong friends there. But my mother used to say— the place called Johnson Wales— and my mother used to say, Johnson Wales was the perfect place for you. And I would agree with her until you know, really the last 3 or 4 or 5 years where now I actually fight back and say, "You're wrong, Mom. It was actually the wrong place for me. It didn't push me, didn't challenge me. It was just a place where, you know, I could be average and be better than most of the other people there." And, you know, that's really not the place you want. And if you look at what's going on with my oldest, you can see the exact opposite stance that we're taking, right? Which is, you know, and I just had a guy from the Air Force Academy— my son's going to West Point— but I had a guy from, from the Air Force Academy, uh, talking the other day, and he told me it's amazing. He said, he said, you know what happens at the academies? He says, "You have a choice, and the choice is to be elite or the elite of the elite." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Everybody who goes to the academies is elite. Every kid, whether it's Air Force or Navy or Army, they're all captains of their football teams and on the student council president and honor society and all district. Every one of them is." He says, "The difference is, "Will you be elite of the elite?" And he said, "There's one way that we define it." I said, "What is it? I gotta tell Johnny Boy." And he said, "It's when you finish the obstacle course, the elite will rest and look at their times and go quiet." And he says, "The elite of the elite go back into the obstacle course." and help the other kids. He says, that's the difference between elite and the elite of the elite. And so maybe it's a long way of answering the question, but, you know, I always knew I had potential, man, but for most of my life I just didn't even touch it.

Yeah, and this is, I think, the main theme of what I'm trying to accomplish with the podcast, which is this idea of winning life, of reaching potential, finding purpose, and how I as a therapist can help people do that when my own background, my own backstory a little bit of what you know is like that 1.8 GPA high school student, right? Which is crazy. And I was watching a Jesse Itzler and Ed Mylett interview the other day. I don't know if you saw this one. And they were talking about their SATs.

1.8 GPA.

1.8 GPA. That's pretty bad, right? So I put a lot of work into that one. But there was a lot of chaos in my life. My parents were going through a divorce. I was a scholarship kid at this really awesome private school. But there was no internal belief in me, even though teachers would say, you have this capability.

Sure.

You're smart. You haven't— just apply yourself. I didn't know.

I didn't care.

I wasn't a bad kid.

I did. Did the other kids like you too?

Yeah, I was friends— like, I was like social. Yeah, very involved socially in school and this awesome youth.

So on the outside, yeah, you know, everything was going good, but on the inside you were, you were just, you were just falling apart in a mess, wondering, who am I and where am I going, right?

And then all the family stuff and the family trauma. Um, and thank God everything has worked out years later, but not knowing what the heck I was gonna do. And even though I had some really good influential people in my life, it wasn't like where are you going? It's like, here's what you could do next, but it wasn't this big long thing. And the people I was around were, they were about giving back. They're about like knowing what they wanted to do and giving back, but no one really had that roadmap the way that—

Who was one of those influentials that you spoke with?

So one of the people who I actually mentioned on my first podcast was one of my youth directors from my synagogue, Joel. And we're still very close today. And when things were really tough with my family, both emotionally and financially, he just created space for me to show up every day after school. Here, we need this to be done. Hey, we need this to be done, and we're going to give you credit towards events and conferences and retreats where everything that we went to, from a local thing in South Florida to a conference in Jacksonville— we're going to an international conference in Toronto my senior year of high school— was all covered. And No one really was looking out for me in that way except for the people in my spiritual community, which had such a profound impact. And one of the youth directors from another synagogue, David Lindenbaum, one weekend we were sitting, it was the end of my senior year, he's like, "All right, so what's the deal?" Where you going? Where you going? And at that point, I think I was rejected from my first choice school, which was University of Central Florida. And at that time it wasn't UCF that it is today with the sports and everything. It was like, if you don't get into UCF, you're doing something wrong.

With my 1.8 GPA.

And he's like, why don't you go to Israel and study in a yeshiva, like a pre-rabbinical type program? I didn't even think about it. Like, it was not even anywhere on my radar. And like, yeah, I'm into Judaism, I'm into my community, but I never thought about like actually going and going abroad and going spending a year in Israel. And then I'm like, how am I going to pay for it? How am I going to do all these things? And then all of a sudden, this whole other round of like people helping, helping out. To help give a little bit here, a little bit there, and all of a sudden things were showing up for me.

So off you went.

So off I went, and I spent 2 years there.

Oh, killer.

And it was incredible with like the $3,000 I had in the bank, maybe bar mitzvah money, right? And, um, started learning, experiencing like values. Not that I didn't have them in my family, my community, but just on a different level of people living a lifestyle that they were committed to based on values. And even though it wasn't always everything that I wanted to buy into, but I saw a lot from that point. And I started seeing, okay, wow, I can, I can do stuff. I can, I started connecting, I started teaching, I started sharing ideas and thoughts, um, came back to America, um, and then started working at different synagogues and, um, youth group stuff. And then seeing that it's now slowly plugging into place. And then I started talking to my students and these youth group kids and like, I'm kind of doing therapy. And then that was the next step after working at Princeton University, where I went to graduate school for all of that. So it was like, I'm doing therapy, might as well get paid like a therapist instead of like a nonprofit person.

Well, I mean, can we all agree that the, that what we learned in school has really very little bearing on what we're going to end up really doing in real life?

Right.

It's so irrelevant.

Yeah. And that's a lot of what I'm bringing to the table today with my clients of whatever that purpose is, you may not get it in school.

At least high school.

At least in high school. College, depending on what program you're going to. My cousin is going through some stuff like this now, and he has his bachelor's and he was thinking about He was doing a master's in CPA and he dropped out. And because he wasn't finding that purpose in what he can do. And now he's trying to create a program with a buddy of his to do leadership and to do self-esteem stuff. And he's loving it. And I'm like, but you know, you can do that as an accountant and help people do that in their businesses and build self-esteem and market. So, but they don't teach that in school.

So I think that idea of like needing to have people like these things in our life support Well, there's a lot to unpack there too, because kind of what you're saying too is, which great advice and everybody wants to do this, is it has to be something completely different. That, that, and you know, I mean, we're, we're a perfect example here at Commercial Fleet where there's not a customer that comes into this office to sign contracts on a new piece of equipment that hasn't watched some of our videos, which are motivational hopefully, and mindset-based and business strategy and stuff like that. So it doesn't have to be this right-hand turn. It actually should just always fall under the core umbrella. And then your example, the accountant, I mean, somebody's gotta pay the bills. So being a great accountant who helps customers build better businesses by fixing self-esteem and that sort of stuff makes you a better accountant. Right, right.

But they're not teaching that out there. And I think that's what our community of entrepreneurs are doing is seeing the other side of the coin and how you can actually do your core business but also bring extra value.

Yeah, but there's a lot of misinformation in that too, dude. Entrepreneurship is a very hard road, as you know, It's an extremely difficult road that most people should not go down. That accountant should stay an accountant and try to do some of this other stuff on the side. I know a guy, in fact, he's an accountant who stopped being an accountant altogether to go, you know, build out these coaching seminars and all this sort of stuff. I'm like, I don't get it. Well, why couldn't it be both? Why do you have to stop the revgen over here and put the pressure on the new business, right?

So how do people know if they should be that entrepreneur working in the business? And I know you're big on this idea, right? Being the entrepreneur versus knowing if you're an entrepreneur. So how would you define that? And how would you help people to really check themselves to know which one?

Well, how good are you as an entrepreneur? I mean, if you're, you know, in the bottom 20% of the sales force, and now you're gonna go into business for yourself in which you're gonna be the director of sales, probably not a good idea. But if you're the number one salesperson in that organization, and you have mastery over the content, and it just comes down to trading dollars, Maybe you should. The downside is what most people don't realize is that, you know, like in our office, our top guys are highly compensated. And let's just— I'll just take one guy as an example. He makes 50% commission. It's a massive commission in our industry. Well, that's a 50% profit margin for him. If he goes into business for himself, he'll be lucky to have a 20% profit margin. So most people never think about that. In fact, what they think about is not the 50% going to them, but the 50% that's going to the boss. But wait a minute, the boss is paying for the office and he's paying for marketing and accounting and human resources and IT and health insurance and taxes and franchise tax and litigation and reserve accounts. And when, you know, the AC breaks, all that sort of stuff, but you're still getting your 50% margin, right? It's, it's just entrepreneurship is just not what it's cracked up to be on social media, dude. And I cannot preach that enough. This hashtag grind and hashtag hustle, it's bullshit.

Well, that ties back into your most recent process, right? So when we met a few years ago through Business Finishing School, you were going through this whole torch process, which people can find that whole video on how you torched your business. And I really, um, and they can go check that out, the psychological side, the behind-the-scenes side that not everybody sees. Yeah, what was going on in your life before that to What's going on into your life now?

Yeah.

And that transition and what's that done for you? What's that done for your family? What's that done for your health? What's that done for your soul?

It's hard to believe what it did. I mean, what we're talking about here is Business Finishing School, something that you and I went to. How did you get to Business Finishing School?

I had a buddy of mine who's a chiropractor through my NeuroEmotional Technique community who for about a year and a half, 2 years, said, Jason, you gotta go to this thing. What is it? Business. Like, okay, but I'm a therapist. I'm not in business, right? And which is such a crazy— they don't teach us to do business, they taught us to do therapy, going back to our original points. For about a year and a half, every time I would see him, Jason, you got this thing in Dallas, this business finishing school thing. And I had such anxiety. I'm a therapist, I'm a healer, I'm a connector. I'm not an entrepreneur. That's for the rest of my family, who we have this, as you know, third-generation family furniture business. And I chose not to go down that path. And so if I do that, then am I like that? Am I also like them? Why am I doing that?

Am I a seller?

Right, am I a salesman? Because growing up in South Florida, it's kind of like being the scholarship kid, being the kid who grew up with my friends who were getting the Range Rovers at 16 years old, and I was the kid who wanted, not the kid who had. I saw that world as a very psychologically challenging world for me, of you're not going to be a nice guy, you're not going to be a good person. The more— and that's what I grew up in, in South Florida. Even though there are people out there that are good people and are charitable and live with core values, but there was something unconsciously that held me. So finally he's like, I'm giving him— I guess he had the discount ticket. And, um, like, wow, this is $1,000 for the weekend. That's a lot of money for me. As a small business owner making whatever I was making at the time and threw it down on the credit card. Wow, that's awesome. It was scary as hell. Sure, sure. And I sit down next to you and we start talking and I'm still overwhelmed, freaking out. I'm like, right, taking notes on everything. My heart's pounding, loving all of this.

I know, it was awesome.

What I've been holding out on. 2 years this guy's been, right?

Where is this? Where does this content come from? It was mind-blowing for me. For me too. I just never experienced anything like it. And I raised my hand too. I said, I'll take it, I'm in, right? And we both signed up. He put us in the accountability group.

And you knew Rick longer at that point.

Rick, similar to your friend, had been after me for years to come, just begging me, come to my Business Finisher School, come to my Business Finisher School. Nah, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. He would say, dude, you're not good. I'd say, nah man, I'm fine. I love this, man. I love it. He's like, dude, you're a mess. You're sweating through your shirt. Look at yourself. You're like, you're, you're insane. And I was, but that was normal. I didn't know there was something on the other side. It's a huge takeaway for somebody today that, you know, don't, don't look at where you are as, um as normal or appropriate or acceptable. Just be open to thinking that there could be another way to live. And, uh, then go model a few people and try to go get and taste that. Because if somebody told me that in just a couple years we could be on this side of a business experience versus what I was for 18 years on the other side, I would not have believed that.

Them.

I didn't know this world in business existed.

So for people who don't know you, haven't heard some of your stories, what was that life like pre- and what's it like now specifically, right? I know health has changed for you, family time has changed for you.

Yeah, and the environment here has changed too. I mean, I started a company from nothing in 1995. I was 25, started equipment finance company financing, uh, trucks, trailers, equipment. Very blue-collar customers, trucking, towing, construction, moving, those are our primary industries that we work in. Started from nothing, and the first 10 years were terrible. Like, I mean, as bad as you could imagine.

Look, I'll tell you, I was just saying this the other day to somebody.

We had a company picnic, and they were asking me, you know, "Tell us a story of the early days." I said, "All right, I'll tell you a story about the early days," because my COO recently said, "Stop telling stories about the early days." It doesn't impress anybody anymore. She says, you're better than that, it dates you. She's like, what I think you should do is talk about the present and the future only, stop talking about the past. So I, you know, by the way, you want people to hold you accountable like that, right? Anyway, so I'll tell you a story. So one day I came into the office and we had an office in the hood and I thought it was the Taj Mahal. I remember buying a house and walking through— not buying that, we ended up buying the house, but we were walking through with the realtor and she said, you know, you guys could really fix up this kitchen, you could put granite countertops here. And I remember saying, what are granite countertops? I don't even know, you know, I didn't even know, man.

I mean, who was teaching, who was showing you this other side?

I didn't even know what she was talking about. Anyway, I told a story that I came into the office in the hood one day and someone had literally driven a car through the front of the office. It was glass, like a picture, like a retail strip mall. And literally papers were blowing in the wind and they stole all the computers and everything. And I remember calling the landlord and saying, hey buddy, you gotta come out and fix this glass. And he said, hey buddy, you better read your lease. We covered to the glass. You cover from the glass to the inside. So I had to come up with the money to fix the glass. And then I came up with this amazing idea. I said, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go to the hardware store and I'm gonna buy black electrical tape and I'm gonna run electrical tape down the glass and make it look like there's bars on the windows. So if a guy tries to ram his car through this office, he'll say, I better not do it 'cause the window's got bars on it. It never even dawned on me that the new hire that might be interviewing would be like, "Wait a minute, this office got bars on it?" Or that the employees would say, "I work for a lunatic that just put tape on the window to make it look like bars." If that gives you any insight onto how desperate I was in trying to survive, I don't know another story that could tell it. I mean, Nobody showing me, not one person came in and said, "What the hell are you doing?" Not even an enemy came in.

And you were married for how long at that point?

Well, Rocky and I got married in '99, so that was like '97, '98-ish. I don't even think Rocky and I were together in that office. It was pre that. Yeah, I started the company before. I even knew Rocky. Um, so I was 2 years into the business before Rocky and I even met, 4 years into the business when we got married. But she dealt with— I mean, believe me, there was still plenty of tough times. But, uh, um, you know, interestingly enough, I think a lot of those insane stories and mindset stuff, um, make for really good content and relatability now, um, in, in building a personal brand and now moving also into the Attack and Conquer boot camp series. So I mean, uh, I think there's a lot of people that have never seen that level of darkness.

And to get out of that, to be where you're at now, what's, what's it feel like?

Yeah, I mean, it feels like I should have done it sooner. No, seriously. It's not like I go back to, oh, those were the good old days and relish it.

I don't wanna go back there either.

No, I mean, I'm pissed. I'm pissed that I didn't do it sooner. I'm also pissed that nobody jumped in to help me. And that's unfair too, 'cause there may have been some people, but you know, when you're that desperate, buddy, you're not even seeing the teacher, right? What's that old saying? The teacher's always there, but is the student?

Has to show up.

Yeah. Yeah, you just, you're not even, dude, when you're so consumed with survival, You, you don't even— you just start shutting down, and you don't even realize it, that you're shutting down. You're shutting down emotionally, you're shutting down with courage, you're shutting down with, with, with ambition. And you just begin to get— you just begin to get satisfied with this crappy existence that you have. And then you actually begin to justify that it's not so crappy. I used to bring banks to that office and like put breakfast out for them and show the office off. I mean, it was outrageous, it was so twisted. I look back and only say, you know, I promise that no matter who I come in contact with, if I see that happening in their existence, I will be the person that challenges them to do more and to not be acceptance with that crap.

What are some of the rebuttals that you're getting. So, because I know there's been people in my life who I've been— I'm not at the level where I would have that much of a massive influence, um, when it comes to the business side, but the mindset side is what I'm perfecting. And I've invited people to come to programs like this, and one of my buddies who started his own private practice in a specific field said, I'm gonna tough through my first year. And I wanted to reach through the phone and slap him. He's now out of business and working for someone else within 6 months. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, well, can you do this? Can you do this? Can you do this? He's like, I don't know, $1,000 or $800 bucks a weekend is too much. Yeah. How do you get people to learn how to invest in themselves? Because I find it even in therapy, at a certain price point per hour, people are still afraid to do that.

People haven't morphed into the new economy, buddy. I mean, listen, you can't start a landscaping business anymore. You're not gonna go ahead and make hamburgers, and you're not gonna make coffee for $3 and compete with Starbucks.

It's over.

Most platforms that 20 years ago had a chance through grit and toughness and just stick-to-itiveness, they don't create the same opportunity. And what we like to say at Attack and Conquer Bootcamps is, you know, you gotta learn how to play chess, 'cause checkers ain't gonna make you any money anymore. Checkers in most industries has expired. People think that all these, listen, they look at Slack, They look at Instagram. They look at all these amazing valuations that are being created on these relatively young companies. And they say, oh, that's like a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates. That's an Apple or Microsoft story. No, it's not. That story started in Silicon Valley, funded from day one from venture capital funds, with the smartest people in the room beta testing everything, testing the marketplace for how much can we charge, what does the product offering have to be and then it launched. It wasn't these guys in the garage. You don't hear those stories anymore, buddy, of this guy was a rags to riches, started from the garage. The big hits are ones that started in incubators. And so people need to understand that the platforms that we are in matter. The platform is the business that you're choosing to go into is vital. 'Cause the minute you stop being a solopreneur, and begin to hire that first person, your margins and the complexity of everything changes.

So taking it back from that, and I'm sure we'll jump back into that topic, but I know one of the things of massive importance to you while you were building this business was being able to be with your family. Yeah. And being a husband, being a dad. And I know, you know, one of the times you— in our conversations, you talked about this chip on your shoulder, right? And using that as motivation. So what are some of those challenges? What are some of those changes that you've seen in yourself, starting off as this guy before you met your wife, becoming a dad, creating another baby, this business, that has helped you overcome those things? What's helped you overcome? What's helped you achieve? What are the resources? What's the work that you've done? Yeah, to become the guy you've become today that we're getting to now.

I had a friend of mine ask me a similar question not too long ago over dinner. I've watched him grow and succeed, and he's— he was saying the same thing. He's like, I just don't have that same chip on my shoulder. I'm like, well, because you're doing good now, you know? I mean, that's, that's why. And I think a lot of that does go away when you start to hit a certain level of achievement. That hate— for me, it was hate, absolute just hate towards a lot of things and a lot of people. I think age has something to do with it. And then I also think there is a, um, there is a validation, and that validation isn't just necessarily from money. It's also just from, you know, your inside, which you were— you and I were talking about earlier about, you know, how do you, how do you connect to the soul? You know, your potential starts to feel good. It goes from the uphill climb to the to the top of the mountain to the next mountain. It just— you just want more. And so it, you know, you sort of starve out the doubt and you replace it with confidence again. Um, at least I hope that's how it works for most people, and I think that's how it worked for me. I'm just— I just don't have those self-esteem issues that I used to have. I just— I sort of figured out— but by the way, I'm 50, and, and I think this year is when it fired on all cylinders. So, you know, that's 50 years of a lot of head cheese.

So what are some of the things you're actually doing differently?

For sure, it's physical fitness. You know, I had a trainer who talked about what he called integrity weight. It's until your body connects to the strength in your mind, you will be out of integrity and you'll be fighting against it the entire time. And isn't it true, you see someone who's grossly overweight and you just know that they can't feel good about themselves. And no matter how the brain wants to cloud it, the body doesn't do what the brain wants it to do. So fitness is one for sure. Um, the ability to feed into other people, right? The ability to give the same opportunity that I created for myself to other people— incredibly powerful. To give management, uh, like our management team runs this place now, right? And to watch them begin to thrive and challenge themselves and even watch them break under pressure at times and be able to remind them it's gonna be okay without being the jerk like I used to be, which is, "What are you complaining about? Did I not tell you that story?" Right? "Da da da da da." They don't wanna hear that sort of stuff. They just want, they want somebody to say it's gonna be okay. They want somebody to say that the breaking point is just short-term. And those are powerful moments, man. I like to refer to that as the magic of entrepreneurship, because entrepreneurship is incredibly powerful when it's done properly. It's, it's unbelievably powerful when it's done right. And, uh, it's just— it's one of the greatest things of being an entrepreneur, which is the ability to help other people do things they never thought they could do. It's awesome.

So is that the difference or the shift between owning a company and leading a company?

Well, look, you know, that's— owning a company never is the same as leading a company. You always have the, the ultimate threat goes to the owner. What's the threat? Regulation changes, two planes hit skyscrapers, the economy stalls. Fraud, harassment, right? I mean, the leader of the company might be to blame for the IT guy flirting inappropriately with the receptionist, but the owner pays for it, right? So that's a big problem in ownership. It's just the cross that we bear as the owner, and some people can't deal with that. I happen to love it. It doesn't trouble me at all. It's the risk-return for me. I dig it.

So people who are risk-averse shouldn't be going into that stance. They're better off working for someone else. They're better being that entrepreneur. They're better being a 9-to-5er.

I think that's fair. I do. I think, I think if, if, if, if you don't like being in the deep end and kicking hard and relishing that, not being paralyzed by the fear to get to the side of the pool, but you actually can calm yourself down, and that the greatest The greatest get calm in the, in the, in the darkest moments. Despair of, of the abyss is, you know, um, comfortable for the greats.

So I want to shift a little bit to investing in yourself, right? You talked about working out, you've talked about spending more time with family, your role changing here in this company. I remember one of the stories that you you told us, I think when you first started out, you would go to this used bookstore and you would pick up the audio cassettes, right? So—

I did, I mean, I would go to Half Price Books here in Dallas and then I would go to the clearance rack at Half Price Books and I would buy, you know, Brian Tracy's "How to Sell Like a Master" for 99 cents. Dude, for me, that was college courses, dude. That was like, That was all I wanted to learn. And to get it for 99 cents was incredible. And then what I learned is if the program was multiple cassettes, nobody ever— and I bought hundreds of them— no one ever went past the first cassette. Most of them were halfway done. And those were just incredibly— for a competitive person, you know what I'm talking about— those were I would just like, there was like, oh man, I'm gonna beat the guy who owned this one just by listening to the second one. And then I would get consumed by, dude, there were multiple times where I was saying this to somebody not too long ago where like I would be in a frenzy to find my tape for the day. What am I gonna listen to this morning on the way in and the way out? I would sit in the car, dude, I would listen to them over and over and over and over. Like freakish.

Is it crazy to now realize you're the guy that people are now freakishly listening to? And I know you— I've told you a few stories about some of my clients that I've turned on to your stuff. And one of them, you gave a really awesome shout out for their wedding 6 months ago. And one of my other clients has really just been like obsessed with, with doing this because he works in a really awesome company. He's been trying to take leadership roles, everything that you talk about in your book. Um, and then creating value and then asking for more. What's it like to go from that point to now being the person who's leading workshops, who's leading seminars, who has this really incredible book and this really incredible platform? Has that ever kicked— like, the realization of that, that you were the guy in the car going to buy the 99-cent books and now you're the guy creating all this?

No, it doesn't. I don't, I don't even look at it that way. I mean, uh, yeah. But, you know, we have a mutual friend in Hank Norman, and, you know, Hank Norman says the hardest part for the expert is to realize that you can unpack your expertise, right? And, and he actually goes a step further now, pushes people out of purpose that you have to. It's not good to just be the expert. You got to tell me how. You got to share it. Um, so it's pretty cool in that regard, but it's always bizarre when you see somebody and, you know, you think they're being weird and standoffish and you can't quite figure— you're like, what, is this kind of like me or something like that? And the only reason is you realize they're huge fans of your book and your podcast and they don't know how to approach you. I mean, it's just a bizarre thing, and that certainly doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's, it's, it's bizarre, but, um, but it's cool at the same time. But, uh, my life was never meant for that. My life was was to provide for my family and to reach a version of my potential, which I still think I haven't even come close to.

So that takes us to this lifestyle by design, which, which both— I know you're, you're a big proponent of that, and I share that a lot with my, my clients. Um, so what does it specifically mean to you, and how can everybody who's listening out there apply that to their life?

Yeah, I mean, people should start with the end in mind. What is it?

How does it—

how do you want it to finish? What's it supposed to look like? Where does it— does it finish on the beach or does it finish in the mountains, right?

Does it—

where does it finish on Friday and Saturday nights, and with who does it finish with, and how do you get there? And when you get there, is it steak? Is it lobster? Is it salad? Is it— is it a $9 buffet? I mean, what is it? Because the one thing that happens, my friend, is it finishes. And why can't you reverse engineer that? Why can't you live backwards to figure out how to get how it finishes? The one variable we don't know is whether we have time to get there, right? But to me, the way you build out your lifestyle design is by designing it from the end backwards. If you remember, Business Finishing School was that video we did. What if you could relive— what if you could see your life the way it ends, right? Um, And that helps me, and I think it helps a lot of other people. It's a huge component of the boot camp where we build out a person's end game. Literally, how much money do you want to make? And then we go and we put them through the exercise of— and we just did this in our September event— guy says, I want to make a million bucks a year. Awesome. What's your profit margin? 20%. Super. Let me go and do it. It was $6.3 million. We're gonna take 37% of taxes out. You're gonna be left with That leaves you with a million bucks. Now let's go further. To get to the million, what's your average sale? $3,000.

Great.

Now we're going to figure out how many of those sales we have to make. Then we're going to go a step further. We're going to figure out how— which close rate. Well, and we came out in that situation that his sales team needs to be making 50 calls a day, quoting 20 transactions to sell enough to get to the revenue of $6.3 million to pay the tax bill at 20% margin to get him a million bucks. And I said to the group, these are pretty sharp guys. I said, how many people in this room have done this? And one guy raises his hand, he says, I do it at every stoplight. I said, well, what about the other 19 of you? No, I'd never done that. I'm like, but then how did you ever think you were gonna get to a million?

It's amazing because I do this with my clients, right? Relationships or goal planning, whatever it may be. And that, right, we're always trying to solve it from where we are now looking forward, as opposed to, well, let's do that reverse engineer. And that phrase, reverse engineer, kind of has been like watered down over these years and been made cliché. But I really do believe, like you do, that this is the only way to get somewhere. And I know that you have this very controversial viewpoint of the dollar amounts, right? Happily controversial. Yeah, it's life-saving controversial because people aren't talking about this and I know when we were last together at Evan Stewart's Obsessed Conference, like you put it up there, right? And this is something that you stand by. So what is that?

Well, the publisher of You Need More Money took it out. I think this is what you're referencing. They took it out. They said it will alienate the American public if I put that in there. I said, all right, you guys paid me the advance. Well, okay, so be it. But every time I speak, it actually was beautiful. 'Cause I say, you guys get a piece of information that the publisher said the American economy wasn't ready Right for. in, right. Life begins at $150 grand a year. Life gets better at $250, and life gets good at $500. And you can test those numbers with anybody you want, and the only person that tells you those numbers are not accurate are someone who's not making those numbers. Every single person knows at $150, maybe the spouse doesn't have to work anymore. At $250, the trips can start and maybe some niceties. And at $500, you begin to say, I'm cooking with gas. The thing that happens at $500 is you begin to say, I can see $1 million. And the thing that happens at $1 million is you begin to say, I can see $3 million. And when you get to $3 million, you start to say, I'm good, or I'm going to turn into a psychopath, and I'm going to go get really rich. That's the way it plays out for the winners. And you only get to those numbers if you're a winner.

But people also have to start off at making $50,000, $70,000, $100,000 a year to get there, right?

In 1996, the revenue of this company was $46,000. $46,000. So everybody starts from someplace. But why wouldn't you? I mean, that's never to be afraid of. Everybody's got to start broke, man. Starting broke is awesome. There's no challenges with it. It's just staying there that sucks, right? And for me, we were broke for a decade. And that's just the price we had to pay. And I regret that. We should have done it faster. It was a huge mistake.

So with the mindset of the economy can go either direction in 2019, 2020.

No, it won't.

It won't?

'Cause you're looking at the national economy. You just need to look at your economy. Your economy will not be affected by anything. It's a massive marketplace out there. There's 3.5 million truckers in the United States. If half of them went away, there's 1,750,000 truckers. I need 3,000. That's it. The only economy I need is 3,000 truckers to finance a truck with us. So if it's harder, so be it. If it's easier, so be it.

But you know your numbers.

I gotta have 3,000 truckers buy a truck, but there's 1.75 million chances. In trucking. Well, what about in towing? And what about in moving? And what about in construction? Oh, forget those four, they all went out of— okay, we'll go after landscaping companies, or we'll go after plumbers, or we'll go after electricians. You've got to find a way to win, man.

So where does the accumulation mode idea come in with all this?

Well, then what do you do? I mean, you got to stack and rack the cash, because without, without accumulating cash most entrepreneurs finish broke. Most small businesses, my friend, finish the way they were started. That's what we were talking about earlier, that no man's land. And, um, very difficult to get through no man's land. It's, it's, you know, when you go from, um, let's just say $5 million in revenue to try to get to $50 million in revenue, that, that, that range is no man's land.. And if you're doing it at 10% growth rates, it's going to take you way too long and you won't survive it. You need to start cranking again and get from $5 million to $10, from $10 to $20, from $20 to $50. And then, you know, it— you can feel reasonably okay that it's going to last forever. I mean, would you say that your family feels as though the furniture business still has a chance to go out of business or not?

I think they're seeing with what they're putting into play, exponential exponential growth.

Yeah.

And the reputation that they have is really, really sound and really high quality. So it's funny that there's other companies out there that are trying to sabotage them. Sure. Locally.

Market leader.

Market, right? As the market leader, as people who, as, because they're not being able to get the relationship that they're going to get with my family that they're going to get in some regular, uh, company. And they know that there's exponential growth in that because everybody always needs furniture. There's really two segments. There's the people that are going to go to Rooms To Go or IKEA, and then there's people who are going to want handcrafted American and Italian higher quality because they feel the value in that. So I guess I wonder if it is a value versus a money thing, which I know we—

well, what I'm trying to get to is when do you get to have confidence in your business? Because, and the only way you get confidence in your business is not through the grind and the hustle and through motivation. It's through the structure and the roadmap. You have faith that if we do this, if we block and tackle, if we chop wood, we will eat. And that, that, that applies in any type of economic situation. Most people get caught up in the excuses of it's, you know, this could happen or that could happen. Listen, we're, we're going from 5,000 square feet to 13,000 square feet in what we know will be a slowing economy. There's no question. And we're in it right now. Um, so what? It's a huge world out there. Let's go get it. Let's go, let's go play our game. Let's go fight our fight, you know.

So what about the other companies out there? Someone who's starting their business, they're— they got to a certain level, they're putting things into place, and it's just not growing. Yeah. At what point do you know, or how would they know, what would they need to do to double down versus saying, I got to take my losses and try different vertical?

Yeah, it's the ultimate question, right? I mean, it goes back to this platform piece. How do I know that it's worth my time and my effort to double down? Because sooner or later you get massive pressure at home where he or she starts telling you, listen, you know, I had the pain, where's the gain you promised me, baby? You told me it was going to be worth it, right? Well, I ain't seeing it, and I'm not seeing it year after year after year. It's terribly, terribly debilitating. But you have to know that someone in the, in the platform that you're in is killing it, and you must model that person. So if you can't pick someone in the therapy business who's just kicking butt and taking names, and you can get to them to figure out what their process is, that's a big problem. If you're in a business that's a dying business— I always use the printing business. I mean, really, when was the last time you print? Who prints anything anymore? Right? I mean, we printed this paper, but like, I'm talking custom stuff. I mean, and they're only going to one or two places. Why, why, why would I go to the guy on the corner if the guy on the corner wasn't as good as Instaprints? So what's the challenge for that guy on the corner? It's terribly challenging for him. He has to reinvent. He's got to figure it out. He's got to model Instaprints. But wait a minute, I don't have the money. I can't reinvest, I can't be an Instaprints, then you have to figure out what is Instaprints not doing great that you could start to do great. But if you can't figure that formula out, dude, you gotta close up shop. 'Cause otherwise you're breathing in fumes for another 20 years, if you're lucky.

So before we were talking about that same process when it comes to relationships, right? How does someone know that they're in an abusive relationship? How do they know that if this is what they're used to, this is what they're trained to be, how do they get out of that?

You go, I wanna be married forever. Great, then we should be talking to people who've been married 70 and a half years. By the way, we actually, Rocky and I have that in our world. Her grandparents were married 70 and a half years. Unbelievable marriage. Not a lot of money, very simple lifestyle, tickled pink, died 3 months within each other. Still, by the way, knocking boots in the nursing home. I mean, model the great ones. But what do we do, dude? We model someone slightly better than us, or worse, we model someone slightly below us because it makes us feel better. We don't model the, the badasses.

So with technology, especially today, there's no more excuses to not find—

nothing can ever replace the face-to-face, dude. We can all listen to that person on social, but you just don't really know what's going on, dude. You need to have somebody tangible in your life. You need to have an Uncle Bob that you can go out to lunch with and sit down and talk about truthfully. What do we do as entrepreneurs? We're terrified to tell the guy the truth. We have to tell him, no, it's going great. Really? I thought last week you told me it sucked. Yeah, it was shitty last week, but it's amazing this week. No, it doesn't work like that, right? So gotta go find people to model. Gotta make sure the platform is a real platform that has longevity, has need, has uniqueness, has sustainability, has growth. Um, and there's plenty of them out there, but there's plenty of them that aren't. And people are doing— people are going into business thinking that just because we hang the shingle, we're gonna get rich. And it doesn't work like that, dude. It's chess, not checkers.

So how do you apply this as a dad? Because since I met you, kids have come to BFS. I know that there's a ton of things that you're doing at a deep level to show up and be there for them. What is your philosophy as a father?

Look, I think a lot of the success we're having with our children is connected to my wife, um, which some of that is connected to me because she doesn't have to work, so she can pour into the children. Um, she has a lot to do with the success of the kids, but The one thing Rocky and I both agree on is we have high expectations for our children. I think when a lot of people hear that, they think like, oh, you're putting tremendous pressure on your kids. Listen, we're not— I'm not putting pressure on my kids to have great grades or great SAT scores or even get into great colleges. I'm just having pressure of expectations that they can achieve great things through the belief system we have in our children. We tell them constantly, you can do anything. I tell my boys particularly my middle son Jack, because I think he has a natural ability. I say, I want you to go find that kid who's on the outside of the circle today, and I want you to bring him in. That is your power, Jack. Go find that kid. And every day he comes home and says, man, Dad, there was this kid and he was kind of at the end of the table. I told him, you're with me. Come on over here with me, man. What, what, you think that skill set doesn't play out? That doesn't produce a winner? Who gives a shit about your SAT score? When you can do that to that kid, dude, that's, I think, some of the stuff that we're producing within our children is the ability to be that confident to help the other person, you know? And I think that matters so much to me 'cause I have so many memories of somebody not doing that for me when I was a kid, you know? Wasn't my old man, wasn't the coach. Hell, I remember, Wanted to go to this football game, this high school football game in the playoffs. And I remember asking my old man, he said no. I didn't have a friend whose dad was going. I called my uncle and I asked my uncle, "Hey man, would you take me to that game?" My uncle said, "Yeah, I'll take you to that game." And I sat on that porch. He never showed up. Never came again. The last person on the planet I could think about, maybe you take me to the thing, and he still let me down. So the thing that the Rocker and I do with our children is we force them to see that and to have the power to bring that kid into the fold. So you ask, you know, where is our strength in parents and why are we raising good kids? I think it's expectations, and it's not expectations for what most people— I expect you to be superhuman as a person. That's what I expect of my boys.

So this whole idea of core values, not just on the business level, right? You brought that into your company through the Torch process, through Business Finishing School, but in your life as a, as a man, as a dad, as a husband. I'm so over and over repetitive of core values with my clients. Yeah, that I had a couple that came in recently, young couple, and there's some major issues. And I said, I can't help you until I know your core values. And I sent them home with a worksheet, right? And, and because it was a core value problem wasn't— and why they weren't connecting, why the things happened in their relationship that happened is because they probably were just— they're so young. No one sat down with them and did this stuff with them. They're 25, 26 years old. And I didn't even get into the issues of why they came. I saw them for 3 sessions. Session 1— between session 1, session 2, I said, I want you guys to each write your core values, come back with that personal Between session 2 and session 3, I said, I want you guys to write your relationship core values and come back with that.

Yeah.

And that was it. It's deep work.

It's simplistic, but it's deep work. You remember going through it. I do too. I mean, that was one of the first questions Sapio asked me over lunch that first time when I first met him all those years ago. What's your core values? I didn't even know what I was talking about. You know, it's deep work to get those core values right, man. It's deep work. I mean, my, you know, we have, we have our 4 core values at the office. I have 3, my 3 core values in my life and at home. The 3 core values at home are good friend, great husband, hero dad. I chose hero as an important word, um, knowing I also chose good friend because I know I really can't be a great friend. I just don't really have it in me to be a great friend. Um, the best you're going to get out of me as your friend is a good friend. I won't screw you, I won't steal from you, I won't cheat, I won't do any of that sort of stuff. I just know that I'm never going to be the guy that remembers your birthday. It's just— I just don't have a system in place for that, you know. I'll show up for your funeral with respect, but I just— I just don't know how to be a great friend. But I do know how to learn to be a great husband, and I damn sure know how to be my version of a hero dad, right?

So picking those 3 things, like, everybody out there is trying to juggle everything, right? That work-life balance, all these topics, all these categories of life. You're saying, this is what I got, these are my 3 primary focuses.

Well, the kids, you know, Juicy says, hey, Dad, you want to jump in the pool? No, I don't want to. Wait a minute, hero dad coming in. Yeah. Oh, they change, they instantaneously put you back on the path, you know. And, um, They're vital, but I recognize the difficulty in asking the question to your clients and them saying, well, that seems a little bit watered down. But it's so not watered down. It's the ultimate—

it's the ultimate foundation of everything that we want to get. I did a retreat for, uh, young professionals about 3 weeks ago, and my afternoon class was, what's your dating brand? And it was all core values, right?

What's your—

what's your dating brand? How are you marketing?

Okay, got it.

Yeah, right. If you're out there dating and you're coming back to these retreats, which is like a single retreat for young Jewish professionals, you're not maybe doing something right if you're coming back to these things year after year. So I was there, I finally transitioned from being a participant to the staff. That was my excuse, right? Since I was leading all the workshops.

Why aren't I there?

Why am I still coming? And I gave this, and it was all around core values.

Dude, I love that class.

So, and I snuck it in, but it was all about the core values. Core values. I gave them the worksheet and I had them put stickers on what are your 4 or 5 personal core values. And then I said, okay, so now let's go into dating. While you're on a date— I know Rick did this with when he was dating his now wife— when you're on a date, what are the top 3 values that you want to see? So, you know, no matter how good-looking the person is across from you, yeah, that if it doesn't show up, you're gonna swipe left in real life. Yeah. Right. And they did it. And then after we went through this process, I said, okay, so you're all in your 20s and 30s. I want you to go back to any significant dating process or even someone you went out with longer than you know you should have.

Yeah.

And I want to know if you were to go back to these core values through that lens, how many of those people would you date again?

Sure.

One girl raised her hand. And she, of all the 35, 40 people that were in the workshop, and one girl said, I would only go out and date one person again. No one else raised their hand about going back and dating the people that they spent that time with. So can you imagine like the days, weeks, months, and probably years that they've wasted? Yeah.

And then you're talking personal. What if you went, you know, we just look at, we're talking entrepreneurship. What, just, just think about that. Core values fixes 90% of the problems in an entrepreneur's business. The hiring problems go away, the firing problems go away, the management goes away, the expectations, the goal setting, the missing of goals, the conversation connected to the missing of the goals. All of it goes away when the core values are in place, because then you just take the person over and you just say, hey, you know, we missed core value number 2 here. What, you know, what are we going to do about it? Hey, we missed it again. What should we do about it? There's no question of whether or not you're the good boss or the bad boss. You're just managing to the core values. There's no, there's no variable. It's just, this is who we are. So it's okay if it's not you, but this is us. It's so transformational.

So do you think it allows people to step out of their own self-limitation, self-beliefs. And then, because the core values— one of the ways I kind of describe it is that if you were reaching your ultimate potential, that version on your tombstone, that what do you want people showing up and consistently saying about you?

Yeah.

And they're like, well, but what if I'm not there yet? What if I'm not living those core values now? Should I put it on what my core values are now? And, and I throw back at them, no. What is it that you know that you're going to be living your purpose, your potential, the things that you want to show up in in your life that haven't shown up in your life will.

Yeah, I mean, I think you're looking at it at a deep level like I am. I mean, something happened at that Business Finishing School where, you know, we took it to a deep level. By the way, what's amazing about Business Finishing School, there's 100-something people twice a year who felt the same way about it, right? The challenge is how does it grow, which is a business model problem. But, but the principles have changed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people's lives and went in one ear and out the other of thousands of people's lives.

You just—

not everybody's going to get this core value thing, but the ones that get it get relentless about it.

Would you say that that's the most fundamental piece? I do.

I, I think, I think the entrepreneurial journey starts with what you'll tolerate and what you will not tolerate written down and put on the wall. Because, you know, what we end up doing in business is we tolerate for rev, right? I know the guy's wearing shorts and I told him that, you know, the dress for success today, right? And but, you know, I need his revenue, so I better not say anything. God forbid he quits, right? You know, core values fixes that.

You know, um, so if people created a core values-driven life versus a— we're in their career, right— versus a dollar amount-driven life, what do you think would change first?

Everybody be happier. Everybody be happier. I mean, just know, just know what you'll tolerate and what you won't tolerate, and trust the universe that it will reward you for that discipline and that courage, right? I mean, it's just, you know, that's just the way it is. I mean, and by the way, there's variables of that, right? Like, I'm listening to a lot of Jordan Belfort lately after the Belfort-Cardone thing. It sort of put him on my radar screen. And the one thing I know about Jordan Belfort is he's brilliant. And he would've been ridiculously successful if he had gone the straight and narrow, just like he was ridiculously successful being a crook. So there's variables to all these things, right? I mean, the universe will take care of those who have clarity.

And is that really the essential theme of your book? Because, right, it's "You Need More Money: Wake Up and Solve Your Financial Problems Once and for All." But the story behind your book is not about the success and the money that you've made for the sake of having success and money. It was really for a greater purpose, which—

yeah, I mean, listen, everybody needs more money. And, you know, you need more money because 'Cause when the paycheck on Friday doesn't matter anymore, that's when life really starts to get interesting, right? But once that's all taken care of, then you wanna be in a position where you can help the people you love the most because those are incredible checks. And Rocky and I have been able to do that. The story is about her brother-in-law who died at 46, got sick. At 46 and then died a year later with a wife, 4 kids, no health insurance, no life insurance, and $100 in the bank, right? Um, yeah, those are great checks, dude. Those aren't just checks for him and his wife and his children, but those are great checks to write for the Rocker too, and for the Rocker's mom Gigi, to know that, you know, all of them no longer have to worry about one element of this attempted recovery to get better, you know what I mean? It's Powerful. It's just money solves problems, period, end of story. Anyone who doesn't have money as a major factor of happiness doesn't get it. It is part of the game of life. Life punishes you without money, you know, it does.

So how does people fine-tune it from going to the entrepreneur mindset that's out there in that social media world to where you had that opportunity to do— and I don't know if that's a place where— with that, what's that line, that success or money will just amplify the organic version of who you are? How can— because I know the focus of the community I'm trying to create is that emerging adult, right? That high school, young adult into their 30s. And with social media, with everything, it's been this glitz and glamour. You're gonna make a million bucks or get ClickFunnels, all of a sudden everything's gonna be okay for you, affiliate marketing. But the difference of doing it to build a community, to build a family, to build a— to support the things that you believe in, I think there needs to be more fine-tuning out there.

I think a vision of yourself is important before you're that person, right? I mean, the fat person's got to see themselves skinnier. The crappy dressed person has to see them in nicer clothes, right? You do have to visualize what you are capable of being. And that's very hard for a lot of people. It's very hard. And so I think the beautiful part is to surround yourself with somebody who can actually feed you like that. On my weight loss thing, I had a trainer. This guy fed into me who I what I could look like every morning at 6 o'clock in the morning. Every morning he told me, man, this is what you should— he'd bring me pictures of The Rock. He would bring me pictures of, what's that guy? He was in the movie The Hangover, Bradley— Bradley Cooper. Bradley Cooper. He'd say, this is the outfit you should wear. And I'd go out and buy the outfit and I'd look better in the outfit, right? We need someone like that in our lives that can have a vision for us that we may not see for ourselves. And the sad part is, for a lot of us, we never get that person, so we never become that person, right? Haven't you ever looked at somebody and said, "Man, she's beautiful if she lost 80 pounds. You can see her eyes are beautiful and some of her features, but she feels so crappy about herself that she stays fat." 'Cause it's, and he or she. Imagine what somebody could— what could happen if that person— but that process of transformation is not a, not a, you know, one and done.

It takes a lot of commitment. So how does— how did you know it was the right person, right? Because one of the things in this world, and as we're working, we're coaching and doing whatever we need to do, is the idea that we're going to bring people into our lives to help us get there.

Yeah.

And I know you have a philosophy of, um, higher— I was at higher, higher fast fire stuff. The other way around, fire, fire.

Well, in this situation, it all comes back to the network too. I mean, eventually you have to have a network of winners that you can rely on. I wanted to lose weight. I went to the best shape guy I know and I said, I'm gonna lose weight, who do you suggest I go to? And he said, you wanna lose weight or you wanna transform? And I said, I wanna transform. He said, there's one guy, Justin Blevins. He said, that's the guy. That was it. I didn't care what Blevins charged, that was my guy. That was my recommendation. That was a guy I trusted who told me it. Boom, I'm going to Blevins. And it worked out for that period of time. Blevins and I no longer work out. He moved to Colorado Springs to start a church. But cool. Yeah, he lives up in the mountains and he's doing this thing. He's awesome. But my new guy is totally different, right? Totally different. My new guy's a bodybuilder, hardcore workouts. And he tells me, I said, you know, we're coming up on a year, man, of, you know, losing weight on He's like, "Dude, you're just getting started." I'm like, "No, no, dude, it's been a year." He's like, "Dude, you need to give it 3 years before you see anything." Right? Dude, those bodybuilder guys are hardcore. Like, he calls it being flawless. Were you flawless yesterday? How much water you take? I took in, you know, 120 ounces. He's like, "Dude, flawless is 2 gallons of water a day." Right? How was the eating? And you know, I got it a little, it was like, We're gonna get flawless. We're not— see, I like people like that in my world too.

What's the rhythms and rituals?

But I want toughness. I respond to toughness, which is an appreciation of what a dick my old man was. I actually can now look upon his methods with grace because I've turned them into a positive, not a negative. I want to be around difficulty. It helps me. But you can't expect that. Like, you know, I say to the Rocker, you tell me if I look fat going out of the office. She's like, never tell me I look fat, right? So it's your own thing, you know.

So to wrap it all up, this is my On One Foot question: if you only had 2 minutes to share your life's wisdom with someone you met on the street, hmm, what you knew you would never speak to them again. Mm-hmm. What would you share?

You know, I would tell them that I used to have it wrong. I used to say zebras can't change their stripes, but they can. I am truly living proof that you can become someone different than who you thought was good. So you can change, man. You can freaking transform. You can go from being broke to not broke. You can go from being fat to not being fat. You can go from being an asshole to not being an asshole. You can go from being a drunk to not being a drunk. Go from being a drug addict to not being a drug addict, dude. You can go from shit to great.

You can.

And I would just remind everybody that that should be a primary focus, man. Be the best freaking version of yourself. Version of yourself. Don't go easy on yourself, man. There's too much at stake, dude. It's not the same world, buddy. It's just not. Everything is more complicated now. Parenting— listen, 20 years ago we were told to eat low fat. Now we're being told to eat bacon. What's right? I don't know what's right. How do we know, right? I, I don't know. Are we supposed to buy certain real estate, or is that changing? Is Bitcoin legit, or is Bitcoin a joke?

I don't know.

Everything is more complicated. So how do you weather the complexity? By figuring out who the freak you are. What the hell do you stand for? What will you tolerate? What will you not tolerate? That's the ultimate question everybody should be asking. I refuse to be around that type of person with that type of conversation. Or that type of facility or that type of environment or that type of neighborhood. All of those things matter, man.

I never had to do that with somebody. I was good friends with them and their reputation kept popping up. And I always had this idea of if they're saying this about him and Jason's good friends with him, what are they saying about me? Even though they knew kind of where I stood, but it's guilt by association. And I grew up never, and I still am working on this, of never wanting to hurt someone else's feelings on my behalf. And throughout the years, looking back at people I've worked with, people I've had to hire, whether I was working for a youth group and a nonprofit, that I, I would always take the brunt of them messing up, doing something wrong, not being a good example, um, versus wanting to hurt them. And I think once I started learning that toleration tendency, yeah, around how am I hurting myself about the fear of not being liked because of saying no, yeah, this doesn't work, this is not the values that I think— that was the biggest shift for me about, about that.

But there's a lot of power in believing in somebody when they're down too, man, you know. And that's the magic of trying to figure out the game of should I be pouring into this person, do they really have an upside, do they have potential. And might I be the person that could pull it out of them? There's real power in that, you know. But, you know, as a therapist and as people who are, you know, counselors and things like that, I mean, it's a low percentage, you know. The key is to not get hardened. I know a guy who, who, um, mentors college athletes, D1 college athletes who fall into drugs and all that sort of stuff. He's freaking hard as nails, man. I mean, he doesn't— he expects you to fail. And I, I don't know that that's the right way to go either, you know.

Yeah.

So, so what projects are next for you? How can our listeners get involved and how can they find you?

I mean, get the book You Need More Money on Amazon. I am writing a new book called The Torch: How to Torch What You Like to Get What You Love, which, um, I hope Penguin will pick that up like they did You Need More Money. The big focus is continuing to keep the machine at Commercial Fleet spitting out tokens. Um, but you know, I pretty much delegated a lot of almost all of it to the executive management team, who I trust completely. And then it's now ramping up this burntheships.com, which will be a course which feeds to boot camps. And then we'll be launching that Tribal Rocket software company in probably another 6 months. But that, that Tribal Rocket is going to fix a big problem, which is how do you, how do you insert and execute on real company culture within an organization for change. And the way we will build that software is only based on revenue enhancement, profit enhancement, or expense reduction. That's the only way. By the way, culture for the sake of culture to play ping pong and all this stuff, that doesn't work in real businesses. They have to drive rev. Culture is based on winning, and winning in business is revenue growth, profit growth, or expense reduction. That's it. It's not about, yeah, Bob's not a bad person. That's not winning in business, right? It's losing in business.

So bringing in the Nespresso machines and the ping pong table, that's not it. That's not the endgame.

We will have that in our new office. We will have ping pong table and all that sort of stuff. We actually bought half of a big rig and we'll be inserting it in the wall. It will be coming out of the wall when you walk into the new office. It'll be sick. But all those things matter. But all of it is the enhancement to drive revenue, drive profit, or reduce expenses. Any business venture for anything other than that is not business.

And is that the goal for the Attack and Conquer?

Mm-hmm. You know, if you come to the Attack and Conquer, we lay out all of our core values and our mission statement and all of our objectives and our KPIs. You know, we expect to grow at 100% a year in Attack and Conquer boot camps and operate at a 70% profit margin. We tell the attendees there, right? Our company will operate at a 70% profit margin And in order for us to get that, we will reduce expenses or we will increase the cost to attend the boot camp to obtain a 70% margin. I'm not interested in having another business that operates at a 20% margin.

So what can people expect, right, if they did want to go to that?

Well, you need to have a million in sales. That's the first criteria, right?

That's filter.

We want to make sure we're surrounding ourselves with #LikeMinded because a lot of the concepts we teach, you don't experience if you're not producing producing multi-millions in revenue. Um, but we will, we will literally build out your 12-month roadmap. We will remove the noise and the chaos, and we will get you and your team totally aligned on the 5 things that you need to do in the next 12 months to grow revenue based on the endgame that we create. So it's about 15 pillar concepts that are taught over a day and a half, and it's, it's drinking from the fire hose every minute of every day with Thursday night's a blast. Bring in cigars, open bar, Texas barbecue. It's always done in Dallas, Texas. BurnTheShips.com is where people can go learn about it. It's, it's an incredible event. Sick, sick, sick event. Unbelievable event. I don't think there's anything that exists anywhere like the Attack and Conquer Boot Camp. And by the way, 100% money-back guarantee. That's how confident we are. If for any reason you didn't think the value was greater than the cost to attend, we will write you a check on the second day. You leave with your money back.

And that money-back guarantee is also backed up by someone else.

Yeah, yeah, Cardone endorsed it. You can see it on burntheships.com. It's pretty cool. We won't, we won't take Uncle G up on that, but, um, but we'll certainly stroke your check. We've never had anybody ask for their money back, and nobody ever will. You'd be the wrong— we made the wrong choice if you ask for your money back.

So thank you. Thank you for this time. Thank you for being an example to me, to my community, to people that know you through me. For, you know, one of my, my sister and I were talking and she's like, are you gonna get him to say burn it, burn it? And so congratulations on, as As you said, getting your piece of the American.

Everybody should get their piece. There's a lot of pieces available, dude.

Yeah. Thanks, man. So thank you so much.

Cool. Thank you. I look forward to seeing you on Saturday too.

Looking forward.

Cool.

Great.

Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Jason Wasser LMFT 🎗️.