You Winning Life Podcast Ep. 99-Level Up with Billy Anderson

Hey everybody, welcome back. So one of my most favorite things that you've been hearing me talk about is Clubhouse, which I devoured at the end of December. My entire winter break that I took off from seeing clients was pretty much spent living on that platform. And one of the people that I met probably within my first week or two on on that platform is today's guest. He is an entrepreneur. He is heavily in the marketing and food service industry. Also has a podcast. He's the co-founder of GoFresh. He's the partner of Crisp Agency and the founder also of the Level Up Society. He also has a podcast, Level Up Your Life, correct?

Yep.

And today's guest is Billy Anderson. Billy, thanks so much.

Thanks so much, Jason, for having me, man. I appreciate it. I think just like you, I dove like straight into Clubhouse those last couple weeks of December, and I don't really remember anything else other than Clubhouse.

It's been so insane because I'm usually not the early, early adopter. And I know that Clubhouse has been around for a while, but I got a random invite from one of my old associates who used to work in my office to join the app. And I'm like, all right, whatever, fine. And I just like consumed myself with it and got in front of as many people. And the greatest insane thing was 2 or 3 weeks ago, um, I finished up my sessions and I know I had a— I gave a Zoom class, let's say like 7 o'clock. So I finished at 6:15. I had a 45-minute window. I'm going to jump on. So let me jump on Clubhouse, see what's going on. And I'm walking through the hallway, right, where you see like who, right, which open options you have to choose. And it said Matthew Hussey, social media marketing, blah, blah, blah with Matthew. And Matthew Hussey was the person, there was like 15 other people in the room. And I don't know if you know, he's like one of the most followed YouTubers when it comes to relationships and dating, and usually hits the female population. But he's just like awesome. And he's been, you know, news, top 10 bestseller. I joke that like, you know, he's like the Australian good-looking version of what I'm doing as a therapist, he's doing as a dating coach. And it was like 15 other people in the room and he's got millions and millions and millions of people following him. So I jump in and no one's asking him questions. And I raised a virtual hand, he pulls me on stage. And for the next 15 minutes or so, him and I are just having a dialogue about how to leverage social media at the level that he is to find my own voice. Again, my fear was I don't want to wash and repeat what they're doing because they're so big, even though I'm doing it from a clinical level. He's like, but that's the whole point. You have your verification, you have your validation, you have your stance. Just take what I'm doing and just put your own voice to it. Oh, okay. So like, and again, now it's right. It's getting in front of the people that you would not get in front of unless you're at a conference, unless you're paying for a program. So, and that's where you and I met when I, you were talking in one of the rooms and, uh, and that's when we connected. So I'm so excited for this. So I know that GoFresh, right? The food delivery service. I mean, this has been Everybody has their own niche on it. Everybody's doing all these different things. You're in California. You started it because you're passionate about fitness and health.

Yeah, absolutely. I, you know, at the time I was in kind of backwards a little bit. I was in the solar industry and I was traveling. We had an office in Southern California, but then I was running the Northern California branch. But I live about an hour away from that office. So I was just, you know, hour with no traffic, Bay Area traffic, about 3 hours depending on what day.

California traffic.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I started getting like a belly, like skinny fat, I like to say. And I was like 25. Before, and I felt like crap. That was the number one thing. The weight didn't— it didn't affect me. It was how I felt. I was like, this is not right. Like, I was like buying 4 packs of Red Bulls and smashing them down just to like get the juices going. I was like, something's not right here. I grew up eating very healthy, and I was an athlete, and then kind of fell off. And so, you know, driving up and down into the freeways around here, I was like, man, there is nothing convenient, nothing healthy. How am I supposed to get healthy? I'm, you know, I'm researching how to be healthy This is impossible if there's not something on the road. And so that's what kind of got me on that path of like trying to become healthier, searching for just that recipe to feel better. And that's so people always go, what are you drinking? What are you taking? How do you get this high energy? I consume good food. You know what I mean? You put good things in you, you perform well. And so that's really where it all started. We just kind of went on a search for our own need. Couldn't find anything. My wife, well, my girlfriend at the time, started cooking for me. One of my buddies came over one day and was like, hey man, I'm hungry. Do you have any food? Opened up my fridge. I had like 30 of these meals in there. He's like, bro, let me buy some of these from you. And that's where it was like, you know, maybe we're on to something. And a few months later, we were working with UFC fighters, pro bodybuilders, all these types of high-caliber people. I was also a competitive bodybuilder or getting into that in that phase at that point. And it just exploded. And it just has been such an adventure for us. We were actually the 5th most unhealthy city in the country when we started our business. So you could tell me I was crazy. Or you could say I was, I had the greatest opportunity ahead of me because our area was in massive need. So that was in 2014. And, you know, 7 years later, the business has grown significantly. And, you know, we employ 40-something employees now. And it's just, it's just been such a journey. We're able to, especially during this COVID time, we've been able to work a lot with the community. We have a great partnership with a local food bank where we've been able to provide meals. And like, we even ended up somehow or another with 30 extra cases of gloves that we couldn't use, but they didn't have PPE early in pandemic. And so we were able to funnel those to them. And it's just been so amazing. It's amazing to be able to, like, you know, one of our core commitments was not being a business in the community, but being a business, a part of the community. So it's always been the forefront of everything that we do is being a part and being like part of the heartbeat of our city. And so that's what we do at GoFresh. And I just, I absolutely love it.

So I love it. Some of the entrepreneurs that I've met on this journey, especially in the food space, Howard Behar, who is one of the, the former international president of Starbucks, It's Not About the Coffee, right? That book that he wrote, he's huge in the conscious capitalism, servant leadership world of entrepreneurship. And that whole thing about Starbucks, that they say, I don't know if you've ever heard this, that they're not a coffee, they're not a people company serving coffee. Sorry, they're not a coffee company serving people, they're a people company serving coffee, right? And that mentality I think makes those companies such as yours stand out where it is part of that servant leadership model. We want to make profit, we want to make a lot of profit, and the more profit we make, the more we can help out, the more we can invest, the more we can help our company do that. There's another guest I had, Sean Walchow, he's down in San Diego, Cali BBQ, and he's doing crazy, crazy, crazy stuff in the community. And just like the passion and the personality and that we are part of this community. And the better we do, the better the community is going to do, the better the community is going to do, the better we're going to do. So as this— like, your focus on nutrition, on health, on wellness is very much in alignment with me as a therapist doing integrative, this mind-body, not just, but also functional medicine, functional nutrition is incredibly important as a resource. What did you see that people were most stuck in? When it came to their habits? Like, you are a Red Bull person, and, um, I have a joke: I won't even date someone who drinks a soda, right? Or I won't hire an associate in my practice who walks in for an interview with a soda. There's no interview, right? So that's how crystal clear my vision is of what I'm doing in my life. Bulletproof Coffee, yeah, right? So, but, but, but again, it's a vision. So where were you seeing some of the people that you were working with, that you were trying to help, that you were trying to get to be customers— where were they stuck? What was the pain point? And, and what was that problem that you specifically solved and did solve for them?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. This is a great question because I'm gonna take it back a step to where you were talking about, um, you know, where the people business selling coffee, right? It's the same thing with us is we don't sell like fitness. We're in the people game. We need to help you break the mental barriers that dieting has like gotten you stuck in. Um, there is a lot of that societal dieting that you need to eat low carb, rice is bad for you, bread is bad. Yes, bread is bad for you if you eat a whole loaf. If you— and that's the problem is so many people are over-consuming and then we victimize these things that our bodies actually need to perform. Sure. You know, we had a customer and this guy was like, he was a customer and then unfortunately left us and he ended up coming back to us because he had fallen off of a roof. He was a contractor and he left us because he said too many of our meals have carbs in them, which we have plenty of meals that don't have carbs. But he ended up— his trainer was like, you need it. Your carbs are bad for your carbs are bad for your carbs. So this was during the summer. We're in an area that it's 100, 110 degrees. He actually passed out while on a roof, fell off, broke his leg. So he came back to us because of the convenience of our food. And he's like, I learned, man. My doctor told me You need to eat carbohydrates because that's what fuels your body. And so often we get these like starvation diets. And that's what I really learned was starvation does not lead to sustainability. Health is about sustainability, not about the starvation. And so we shouldn't be focused on short-term actions. We need to focus on long-term lifestyle changes. And so for us, you know, like I said, I was a bodybuilder. So when we started, we worked with Nick and Nate Diaz, UFC fighters. We worked with Jay Cutler, one of the best bodybuilders ever. We worked with those types of athletes. If you didn't compete at a CrossFit game, you You didn't buy our food. But my goal was not to sell to those types of people because most of those people are self-sufficient enough to be able to cook their own food. They're disciplined enough. What I realized was it was those people that are going from A to B. I didn't need you to be at Z. I didn't need it. I didn't need you to have a six-pack. I needed to figure out how you would go to A to B, how to stop going through McDonald's and how to go through GoFresh. And so that's where we really learned how to work with the customer at where they're at and then try to get them where we need them to be. So we really focused on providing healthy food that was portion controlled. So it's not Panda Express, it's the healthier version of Panda. So we make our own chow mein noodles. We, you know, we portion control how much noodle they're getting. We're making it with coconut aminos. We're making it with better ingredients. But most importantly, portion control, which is the biggest issue because so many people lack the discipline that they're just going to buy, you know, In-N-Out's local, right? So I always reference In-N-Out. You know, they're going to buy their Double Double, a shake, 2 fries. But GoFresh, you just buy a meal and, you know, I just eat this meal. And so it keeps you on track. Track a little bit more. And so we've really focused on working with the customer and not, not depleting them of the things that they enjoy, but giving them a little bit of what they love so they stay on board and they can see long-term change. We have one customer at one of our stores that she's been with us since that store opened 3 years ago. She was our first customer that walked in the door. She's lost over 130 pounds. She's gotten off almost all of her medications. Diabetes is in control. Her blood pressure is lower. Like, and this, like, she, when she, she came in, she, she was very heavyset. And like, to see her now walk in Just even her mobility is different and she has life. And it's so amazing to see how food can really change you if you stick to the long-term game. But we used to see so many customers coming in going, I've got a vacation, I need to lose 30 pounds in 30 days. Like, how do you think that's going to happen? Took you 30 years to gain this weight, can't get rid of in 30 days. So we really had to understand who our customer is and how to help them achieve the goal that they really wanted, not the goal that they were telling us or the goal that their trainers were telling us.

The psychology behind that is so important because, right, people see it as a diet, like you said, versus a lifestyle. And one of the challenging things that I'm experiencing, especially seeing this over the years in my practice, is that people go on these fad diets, right? Every couple years, right? We start from the Atkins and then the South Beach. You know, the one thing that I loved for years was the McDougall diet, which was high— it was a vegetarian, vegan diet, low oils, lots of starches, whatever it is. But again, it depends on what's going on, um, for the person's blood type, for what any other issues that are going on, stuff like that. But if you do, right, simplify everything, you take out all the processed food, you take out all the high fructose corn syrup, the sugars, the— right, all that other stuff, the mented soy and all those other things. I didn't even realize someone posted, a friend of mine posted about the Impossible Burger and I didn't know it was all Monsanto stuff. Right. And I'm like, I don't really eat that stuff. Cause it's non-GMO. I mean, it is non-GMO, but it's not organic, whatever, but it's still Monsanto. What's like, oh, okay. So there's still other stuff going on. There's still pesticides. There's still this, there's still that. And everybody's billing it as the meat replacement, but it's still not healthy for you. You're better off getting grass-fed beef, not being a vegetarian. And eating that than you are getting all the pesticides and the preservatives and all those other things. So I love the fact that it's, it's the simple, eat this, not that. If you can replace these 5 things this month, what are we going to do next month? Right. It's, it's the slow, steady, long-term paradigm. And that makes me so happy to hear, because these extreme things like, I'm going to go keto today, or I'm going to do intermittent fasting, which is great. And intermittent fasting, the research is there, but it doesn't fix the problem unless you matched up with changing your diet as well.

Absolutely. And listen to your body, right? Like you said, everybody's different. And too often it's like, listen to your trainer or you're wrong. And it's like, but your body is depleted. You feel weak, you feel this, you feel that. If you don't, if you don't tell them, then we can't adjust and find what works for you. There's, there, there's a perfect system that works for you and your body's screaming at you and telling you, you're just not listening.

Right. And that's the trick, right? And I find that as a therapist with coaches, especially this health coach industry now that's popping up, that they're selling a product and I'm like, you know, an Octavia health coach. And I, I have a client of mine. I'm not— you know, the products could be great, but I have a client of mine that has major thyroid issues, and majority of this company is based on soy products and it's not organic. Right. And if you have a thyroid issue and you're taking a load of soy products, you're killing yourself, but yet you might lose weight. So the outside is going to look good, but the inside is going to look like crap and your labs are going to be awful and you're contributing to your thyroid issues, which are going to cause emotion and mood and stuff. So I had to take this client off of it, even though they intentionally went on for their weight and for their energy. But it was a catch-22. And now for another person, that Optavia might be an amazing product for them if they're— but that's the problem where it's like a trainer saying you should eat this, not that, but are they— they're not looking at labs. They're kind of doing a universal, right, standard American diet nutrition meal plan and why these things need to be— do you need to be gluten-free? Do you need to be paleo? Do you need to be this? Do you need to be— that's based on a person's personal functionality.

I couldn't agree more. That's, that is so well said.

So that's something that I always, always love talking about. And so, so the process that you're at now with GoFresh, I know that there's some stuff that you're navigating through right now. So let's walk through that for a few minutes.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, we've been, we've been running the business for 7 years now and it's been amazing to watch the business grow. And, you know, for me it was like, so my wife was my business partner when we started. Like I said, my girlfriend, 3 months into dating, we decided to launch a business. That is—

I love it.

That is a hurdle amongst itself.

I love it.

Yeah, this is difficult, but doing that. And so, you know, she stepped away from the company a few years ago to go chase her passion. She's like, hey, I helped you get this thing going. Time I'm off. So she does, um, she actually just launched her makeup product line, but she's in the makeup industry, does film, does like— she loves the horror stuff, so she's into all types of fun stuff there. Um, and, you know, so for me, you know, I, I've been in this like— GoFresh is growing, growing, growing, but I, I, I like to do different things. And so I've, I've chased my other passions too, and I've launched other projects and become partners in other businesses and invest in other businesses. And, you know, it was so crazy, a few weeks ago I was at a conference called the Driven Boot Camp in Southern California, and there was something that hit me that just said You're the bottleneck. And it was so powerful. I don't know what it was, just listening. Like, it just like hit me out of nowhere. And I'm listening to a speaker who makes way more money than me, but I wasn't listening because something he said just planted a seed and I just started going and I started writing down all these things that I realized that I was actually causing our business to not grow. I mean, we're growing, don't get me wrong, but like, but not growing the way we could.

Exponential growth. Yeah.

Yeah. And the speed of growth was being held back because of me. And it was just like, just this mind-blowing, like, oh my God. And where this event was, was like way up in the Malibu Hills. So just getting back to our hotel, which was also in Malibu, was like an hour drive because it was like 95-mile-an-hour hill. And I told my wife because she was with me, I was like, I need to step down. And she goes, what? Like, Billy, you don't step down from anything. You know, you're the man in everything you do. It's like, I'm slowing the business down. Like, I'm hindering it, you know? And I realized that so much of my organization, they'd be like, hey, Billy, I know you're busy. They would always say that before. Anytime they'd ask, I know you're busy. But I'm, I'm your boss. If I'm the CEO of the company, I should always be available for my leadership. I should, you know, I mean, obviously there's certain circumstances, but I should 99% of the time be available for them to be able to get that question answered so we can make the decision and move forward. But I realized that they were hesitant to talk to me cuz they were afraid that I was on a podcast like this, or I was working with my, my agency, or I was dealing with a coaching client, whatever it was, they would be fearful that they would be bothering me. And how can an organization scale and grow to new levels when they're afraid to go to the, the head honcho? And I realized that I was the bottleneck within our whole organization. Breaking through to new levels. And it was a very humbling moment for me. We then went to Cabo immediately after with a very good friend of ours, a couple. So my wife was with his wife and he and I were bouncing ideas back and forth. I'm like, you know, couple rum and Cokes in and I was like, I'm stepping down from GoFresh. And he was like, what the— like, literally, like, he was at the bar. He's like, what the— and I was like, I know I'm holding the business back. And we sat there for about 4 hours and I just told him everything. And he was like, Billy, I'm the bottleneck in my business too. And like, it was this eye-opening experience for both of us that we both were like, oh my God, like, we're actually holding our businesses back. And it just gave— I mean, he's not stepping down, but it gave them clarity where he can be better for his organization. But for me, I was like, I need to step down. And it's so crazy how the universe provides that when I came back, we actually had a very bad situation happen where an employee was just— he had been given too much leash. He was a manager of one of our retail locations and the whole store became not good. And we actually had a clean house at that location. There was bad behavior going on and it was a reflection of me not being there and being present and for him thinking Billy's too busy. I can't call him. And it was just like this moment where I was like, all right, like, it's clear. Like, I have to do this. And, you know, it's just so— it's so wild what happens. And so we had to sit down with our management this week. We transitioned me out of the company. It's a 90-day process. I'm grooming with my CEO, working with him actively. But it's just so amazing when you can have that self-awareness and the realization and like take a step back and realize how you impact positively or negatively your organization. I think it's an activity I'm going to continue to do. Of just that getting in and going, how's the team look at me? How, how do they interact with me? How do they communicate to me? I love communication. I'm a big communicator. Hey, life happens, just talk to me. Like, let's, let's at least work through it. But if they don't even feel comfortable talking to me because they think I'm too busy, how can they have that type of communication that I'm looking for? And so it's like, I have this goal of communication, but yeah, I'm not even giving them the space or creating the environment for them to be able to do it. So it's funny how we have these goals, but then yet our actions are causing our team to respond appropriately for those goals. And I'm like, why the hell is our team not doing this? But yeah, it's like, you're the reason that they're not, you know. And it was such an epiphany for me. And so, so yeah, so I'm actually stepping down. And, you know, I'm still working with the team on big picture stuff. We, we're building a system around how we're going to do this now. We have a weekly team meeting where everybody's going to be together. And then I have, you know, one-on-ones every other day with our, with our new CEO as we transition him in. Um, and recently we actually just gave him equity in the company, actually about 12 months ago. He's been with us for 5 years and has just been amazing partner in the company, and he deserved, you know, every bit of the company that we gave him. And, um, now he's, you know, stepping into a CEO role, and he was just like— blew up when I told him. He started crying and was just like, oh my gosh, like, you want me to do this? Like, he said, this is what I've wanted to do. And so it was so awesome to see how the leaders that I talked to below me are now rising up. And in the Law of the Lid from John C. Maxwell, never has been more clear than right now, right? Because no, in— I mean, it's been one week, 7 days since I, I stepped— I made the announcement, and we had the best week we've ever had as a company. I, I don't, you know, I don't know if there's always greatness. I like— yeah, I'm like, huh, maybe I needed to step out sooner. But just the way they have reacted, they are acting in a more powerful state. The way they move, the decisions, the clarity that they have, the confidence they have— unbelievable. And so it's just, it's so amazing what you can do when you get out of your own way, you know what I It's crazy.

I just had this conversation with one of my buddies who's in the real estate space, and I said, how many of you do you need to have working under you at X amount of sales per year at the profit margins, right? With whatever the split is. And if there's the associate split, whatever, for you to replace the salary you're making today that you're just paying yourself as the main person in your business. And I'm not going to talk to you again until you come back to me with these numbers, because unless you even think about that, unless you know these things about what your productivity is, where, how many people, because I really do believe this, right? That every business that is a service-based industry, especially in that type of space, whether it's wellness care or the real— you can have 4, 5, 6 versions of you doing the exact same thing. You're taking a piece of that pie and it replaces your salary. And now that frees you up to do a whole bunch of other things, but you have to create a system. Like you said, you have to make it washable, repeatable, crystal clear. Here's the checklists. This is how we do it. Here's when you should come to me. Here's when you know you don't need to come to me. Here's where you go to that person, right? It is that scalable system. And the self-awareness component of this is massive.

Yeah, it is the biggest— is the biggest key to an entrepreneur. I think we have these like dreams and goals, but like the disconnect between where we, where we want to be and where we are is self-awareness.

And I always start off with that. Yeah, right. You can't be the product at the end of the day because that's what makes— right at the beginning when I'm trying— when I was doing what I'm doing, it's Jason's the therapist, Jason's the coach. So I'm only— it's the 1-to-1 or 1-to-4 or 1-to-groups, whatever it is, but I'm still only making that business run when I'm doing it, and therefore what's happening when I'm not doing it, right? Then there's no income coming in versus creating courses and creating trainings and having people under me and stuff like that. And I know that our ego, even in a healthy way, is that we want to be so committed to whatever that project is that we don't want it to look bad. We don't want it to fail. So therefore we overinvest and it becomes a boundary issue. And I lost a potential client today because they emailed me over the weekend. I wrote them back saying, I'm sorry, I don't, you know, I'll call you on Monday. Here's some information for you to think about, but I will call you on Monday in between my first break of sessions. And I called them, they're like, oh well, this such-and-such therapist already called me back. And I said, oh, who did you end up going with? What was their— is their degree in this? Because I know they were calling for couples counseling. Do they have this specific licensure and training? And they said, well, it doesn't matter, we already scheduled an appointment with them this afternoon. I'm like, okay, here's some questions that I'm going to ask you if you came to me for a first session. Curious if the person's going to ask you these questions. Now, I might have lost that client right off the initial because I didn't call back on the weekend where I have a clean boundary not to. Because if much of a crisis, I don't want them in the first place. Number 2, I already set into mind, the person doesn't have the training I do. Do they see 50% of their day doing this type of work? And, and if they don't ask you these questions that I just planted in your ear, what does that say? So my guess is, is I'm already kind of seeding them to see, is this going to be the right therapist that they already picked to work with? Well, this guy just asked me these questions on an intake call. How come this guy's not asking in our first session?

Yeah, I love it.

Right. So I think that there's a deep deep, you know, to be that self-aware that I am okay losing that because I'm not going to give up my boundary. But who knows? They're probably going to come back. If this person in 10, 15 sessions never asked those 3 questions I asked them in an intake call, they're going to probably be wondering and like, why didn't this person ask me that yet? Like your guy who left you and came back.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's crazy too, the boundary aspect and the self-respect that you have to have. You know, for me it was like I just for so long hustled, hustled, hustled, you know what I mean? And you just work, work, work, work, work. You're like, I'm going to get there someday. Day, but you're like neglecting your own boundaries. And because you have no boundaries, you have like no structure to get to where you want to go. And you're like, well, if I work 7 days a week all day, eventually I'll make the money I need to, or I'll have the life that I want. And it's so funny how until you start to respect those boundaries, even if it causes you to lose a client potentially, that you will create more success for yourself. It's so crazy how it is when you respect yourself.

Well, your emotional wellbeing has to be part of this. And I do truly believe, because I ran away from this entrepreneur mindset for years. I was like, my family has a third-generation furniture business and, and I never saw myself as being part of it. And I also grew up in South Florida where I saw very few people leveraging money to really do good. I was a scholarship kid, so I know where there was some, uh, but it was typically coming from a nonprofit or a more spiritually based or religious base in the Jewish community that it was funneling through there. But I never saw people really leveraging money unless their name is on a wall somewhere, the big donations. So my mindset around money for many years was, "Well, I'm doing good. The money will eventually come, or I'll do well enough to be okay, as long as I know I'm doing good." And it wasn't until I realized how much on the side of complexity, on the far side of simplicity, I was working, where I was washing my own floors. I was literally like Lysoling my hand, taking out the garbage, Lysoling my waiting room at the end of the day, I'm like, I'm like, this is not what I signed up for to be a private practice. That's so sexy to be a 6-figure private practice person. And this was the other crazy thing. When people talk about a million-dollar business, they talk about a 6— let's start off with a 6-figure business to get that $100,000. There's a big difference between your business being 6-figure business and you being a 6-figure earner.

Big, huge, huge night and day.

Night and day. And people don't get that. And when I brought that to a therapist on a panel that I was on, a business panel, I'm like, you aren't aiming for a 6-figure business. You're working— you need to have a $200,000, $300,000 business if you want to make after your overhead and your marketing, your light, all that stuff. And there was never— there's no training of that in the business world. They think I'm going to make a 6-figure business and therefore I'm going to be a 6-figure earner.

Yeah. And that's such a misconception. And that's the one thing, you know, not to bash Clubhouse, but everybody's a 7, 8-figure, 9-figure entrepreneur. And it's like, really? Like, right.

Maybe collectively.

Yeah, right.

If I put my Mint account from when I started my Mint account 8 years ago to now, Yeah, I've made over $1 million, you know, but it's not— that's not— I haven't taken home $1 million. Right.

And that's the big disconnect is there's a lot of this like top line revenue versus bottom line. And there's a big disconnect between like, are you running the business profitably? And this was going back to the switch that I'm doing at GoFresh. I sat down with a gentleman that was at the event. He's a tax attorney, soon to be my new tax attorney. And, you know, he said, Billy, I would challenge you to take your salary away. And he goes, because what you've done is I think you become complacent because you to make the money you need to. And he's like, do you really need that money? I was like, what, you know, between coaching, between this other stuff? Like, nah, like, I, I don't. He's like, then push yourself to be a commissioned owner. Like, now if the business doesn't create results, you don't get paid. You didn't deserve it in the first place.

It's an incentivization.

Yeah. He says you become complacent with the salaries. Like, you need to get back to the grind of like, if I don't create results, I don't. And so I became very complacent. Like, well, I make the money, it's good, right? Right.

But you haven't been hungry in a type of way.

Exactly. Exactly. And then on top of it, you know, taking my salary, that puts a little extra stress on the business. Now the business gets a little bit more freedom. We get a little— I don't want to say play around money, but we get a little bit more capital to be able to invest. Or if we need to buy a piece of equipment or whatever, we don't feel like, where is that coming from? Now there's a little bit more money on the balance sheet which allows us to be able to operate better, which then should ultimately, well, hopefully create more success. You know, if I'm really in that, like, if I don't create results, you're truly investing in the business.

Right. Well, have you seen The Profit First, Mark? Uh, that whole thing, right? So that's right. So that's what you're talking about.

I got like 10 copies right here next to me. I give them out all the time because it's such a powerful book.

And I started adding just some things at the beginning. I'm like, why am I keeping so much in my business account, right? So I have to have the operating expenses, but I'm like literally pulling out at the beginning of like— and it's just going. I'm like, I want to see the bare minimum in my personal account, where it should be in a savings, it should be in a brokerage, it should be in this, it should be in that. Where I'm like, oh, no wonder I haven't been saving as much as I want. I've been saving especially during the pandemic it's been very easy to save for me. But now, like, I'm like, why did I pick this number for this account of only pulling out $500? Let me see if I can do it to double it. Let me take out $1,000 in the next couple of months and see if I even notice it. And I haven't.

Right. It's so funny how we just like, we learn to adapt and we have such a scarcity mindset around money from the business owners. I mean, I remember in the beginning I was so scared to pay myself more and I was like, I can't take it. Ah, what if? And then, you know, then now at this point we become the opposite way and it's like, You know, now I'm cutting my salary because I'm like, you know what, actually, I think it's better that I don't take a salary. And it's just so crazy how we just have these philosophies around money. And it's not— once you start to learn the pattern recognition of that, like, life ebbs and flows, and you will figure out how to adapt to whatever dollar amount it is. And like, if you're really focused on growth, it doesn't matter what you take because you'll figure out how to make more and keep it flowing.

And you'll figure out how to live successfully too, because do you really need that? I'm thinking about it, like, what would be better? Is it better for me to buy a fourplex? Or is it better for me to know, like, I'm in a great renting situation, it's cheaper for me, there's no overhead, the marketing, I mean, as far as the mortgage versus what I'm paying, it's just, you know, especially where I'm living, I'm winning in that scenario. So there's no point right now for me to buy a place, but I can put that money and buy it into a leveraged property, right? There's still— it's like, why this American dream of homeownership? I mean, right now it's fine. It's a good time to buy, the rates are whatever, people are moving, especially out of California, whatever it is, right? But you come to Florida, right?

Come, come south, baby.

So, um, right, as a South Florida person, but the market is also, you know, very high here for what you're getting. It's not LA, it's not, you know, Chicago, it's not New York, but it's still overpriced. But it's thinking like, what's my long-term game plan that I don't need to have the ego of being a homeowner? And it doesn't make— if you're like, oh, I'm going to make money off that, well, yeah, you might make 50% in 10 years, which is great if you buy a $500,000 house and it becomes a million-dollar house. That's a good investment, but you don't have that money until 10 years from now either.

Yeah, we have— we— there's so much ego around. I love when you talk about the ego because their ego is all the short-term philosophies, you know. Like, I'm speaking at this event this weekend and almost every speaker there drives an exotic car. Like, no joke. I drive, uh, like a Chevy SUV that I've had fully paid off for 7 years and I love it. Yep. It's the least sexy car. Like, I'm— it might be the most bucket car that's gonna be at this event. Yeah, I'm speaking at the event, you know. And, and it's allowed by not going and buying a luxury car, which I might actually buy this week because the car is having some issues, so I need to buy a new car. But I'm not buying no exotic, let me be clear about that one. Not that I couldn't potentially buy one, it's just what does that do for me, you know what I mean? And I think you need to understand, are we doing this for somebody else? Are we doing this for the ego? Are we doing this because this fits into my long-term game and this was a goal on my, on my agenda and I put the work in, I built my credit up, saved the money, all right, I deserve this? Versus like, I need to do this because because this gives me validation and makes other people think I'm successful. I don't give two shits if anybody thinks I'm successful.

Well, they deserve this. The I deserve this part is part of the dangerous part of why people spend so much. It's also the same thing when you talk about going back to the whole food conversation. Well, I worked out really hard today. I've been eating clean for the last 3 weeks. It's just one pizza. I deserve this.

What's one pizza lead to? Cookies the next day, soda the next day. It leads to the whole pie. It doesn't lead to Pizza, right?

Right. They got them gluten-free, so that makes it a lot more— I mean, it's sad because I love pizza. There is some good, good—

I'm gluten-free as well.

But it's that I deserve this mentality that does treat us to this whole letting go of like what our goals are in the short-term thing. And I see this here, especially right here in California. I'm in South Florida, and like it was a year and change ago— well, it was before the pandemic, so it was like a year before the pandemic, um, my car got recalled. I had like a 2011 Hyundai Sonata. I'm I was driving 0.6 of a mile to my office at that time, 0.6 of a mile. So I would come home for lunch, whatever. So I'm driving, what, 2 miles a day? And the car was paid off, had 60,000 miles on it. And only because the engine had a major, major issue that they recalled it, they gave me more money to buy it out. Then I'm like, I had no desire. Like, I didn't care. Like, my siblings would make fun of me. I'm like, I'm not going anywhere. People are coming to my office, they're not seeing the car parked in front. Like, yeah, but you're seeing high-level clients. I'm like, yeah, I get that, I get that, I get that. But no one cares. So yes, so I leased a Lexus, but then what happened? The pandemic kicked in. So now I have a $425 lease and I'm going 6 miles a week right now. So it's the catch-22. Do I feel better in that car? Yes, I feel better in that car than I do in the Hyundai. But would I go back to a Hyundai SUV? Because I love going to the outdoors. And if I move to Georgia and I want to go camping, that's going to be a better car for me anyway. So people have to think about what's the lifestyle that you truly want to be living that's also in accordance with your values and truly what you can afford, especially if you're a business owner, having that high-end car is not going to do it for you. It's not going to bring in more clients.

No. And I think the challenge is, is that we want to jump to proving our success instead of actually building success. And by buying— the car is the one that I just see so many people just, they go buy a, you know, a luxury car, like buying BMW, Mercedes because of the name. And it's like, dude, you know, when that thing hits 100,000 miles, let me tell you, I've had a couple of them. They break down immediately and it costs a lot lot of money, you know, but because they bought that car, they held them back from getting their maybe stock portfolio or, you know, hiring that next employee that would have taken them to the next financial level and given them the freedom, right?

And that car would have been a no-brainer and it would have been a zero-sum game at that point. But I think, right, they jumped the gun when it comes to— and I see this in Miami left and right. Oh, and it's like, and it drove me nuts. Like, I remember going to, um, it was the second 10X Growth Conference that I went to, right? And you have all the rising grinders and like, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a CEO. Like, what do you have? They're like, oh, I help people with their social media. You're not a CEO. You're— that's not a CEO. You don't have a company. You don't have workers in front of you. If you're the only person working there, I'm not a CEO. Yeah, I'm the founder of my business, but I'm not a CEO because I don't have 10, 5 people working under me. I help CEOs do that. But that whole mindset of like using these titles to prop somebody up and then verify that I can do this, I can deserve this, is really backwards when it comes to the long term. Long-term success.

Yeah. Too many people are trying to check a box that they think determines a CEO instead of just doing the work. Right. And it's, I, you know, I'm around a lot of people in, in real estate and things like that. And that industry is heavy in the, I gotta show off. And I was talking to one of my buddies who's, who's just killing it in the commercial or in the real residential game right now. And I was talking to him, he drives a Honda Civic. We were just talking about the car game. And he's like, bro, it cracks me up how many new agents, like fresh in the door and they're driving a super nice BMW brand new. And they're like, I had to show show some success, but you haven't sold a house yet. Right. I want them to think I'm successful so they buy from me. And he's like, bro, he's like, I drive the same Honda Civic that I've sold, you know, tons of car, tons of homes with. And nobody has ever mentioned, is that your Honda Civic out there? Oh, you're not having success. I'm out. Right. You know? And he's like, it's mind-blowing how we attach the look as the levels of how people think instead of allowing the results or who we are, or the, you know, our morals and values to be, you know, to be the resume for us. We try to have the car. Or the Gucci belt or what, you know, fill in the blank, man, like cracks me up. You know, people love having like a Louis Vuitton wallet, but they got like $20 in their bank account, you know, right?

Right. So my brother got me a few years ago, he got me one, like a— he was in there in Italy. My family was there for the— for, I think, for the furniture market. And then my brother, I think, stayed on with his, with his then new wife as part of their honeymoon-ish thing. And he like, whatever, went to the Prada outlet, whatever, not the Prada outlet, but like the original Prada store. So he got like, you know, whatever, I don't know how much this wallet was. I'm like, I would never buy this for myself. I mean, it was a beautiful gift. It makes me feel like, you know, it's very thoughtful. But it's funny, like, it's like, okay, yes, like, it feels weird when I'm at my— let's say I was at my chiropractor the other day, and I pull it out and it's sitting on the thing next to my— like, I'm like, what are they thinking? What are they judging me as? Why does this guy need to have that type of wallet, right? It's such a mind game that I'm like, I don't really care if I got my thing from Marshalls or Nordstrom Rack, or—

right?

So it's just a funny thing how these, these, these branding— but how important branding is at the other side, because you change the name of your brand. And did that catapult a shift in the business?

Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, we've done— I mean, so GoFresh was originally PFS Meals, and that was like, what is— first of all, employees didn't even know what PFS stood for. Like, they'd be like, PQS. Like, I can't tell you how many times I'd call and they'd be like, PQS Meals. I'm like, dude, you've worked there for 2 years. How can you not pronounce our initials? And it stood for Prep for Success. And people are like, well, what am I prepping for? What is success? And GoFresh made more sense. It was on the go, it was fresh. And it really worked well. And I think we do associate ourselves too much with a name and we're like, ah, you know, the name. But like, you know, like I can't change it. And it's like, it's okay. If you've evolved, if you become something different, then you should be something different, you know? And then even, oops, sorry, my, I got a weird light here that goes off. My sensor is—

That's when you know you're in California.

Well, there's a box blocking it now. I have, we were reorganizing everything. So there's boxes blocking the sensor. So I got to swing back there. Anyways, so then we just actually rebranded, you know, you mentioned Level Up Society earlier. We rebranded that in that moment at that conference when I'm like, you know, jotting everything down. I'm like, you know, I do business coaching and it's been something that took a lot of my time and I love doing it, but I've kind of shut it down and not shut it down, just not accepting any clients right now. I had, you know, the consult or I mean, I was doing the marketing. We lost Launch Chris and, you know, I just didn't know how it all came together. I had Level Up Society. And in that same moment of realizing any of the stuff step down from GoFresh, just writing it down like, all right, how does all this fit? Like, I just felt like I need to cleanse my life. Like, I needed to like either just bring something together or just cut it out, right? And I, I was like, you know what, we need to bring everything together. Like, so Level Up Society is a networking and event series. We do, um, well, we were doing conferences pre-corona, um, uh, we, we literally had an event on February 28th last year. Everybody's high-fiving and hugging and everything else, and then 7 days later And so we hold conferences. Now we've moved to more masterminds. We've got a mastermind in 2 weekends, actually. And so we had that, then we had my coaching, and then we had the marketing. I was like, you know what, these are all like— I have a lot of the clients that go through all of them. I was like, you know what, we need to bring it all together. And so we actually are launching the Level Up Group, which has Level Up Agency, Level Up Coaching, and Level Up Society, and bringing them all together and actually now building a team under them. And so we have— we're obviously developing a team on the agency side as well. But now I'm starting to work on bringing in some friends of mine that wanted to be coaches but didn't want to develop the system. Well, hey, I already have a system. We've got, you know, the whole onboarding program. Well, I can help you out. So now we're developing a team, and it's so crazy. Like I said, the universe provides when you just like— when you gain that clarity of where you need to be. I, I'm huge on your why. It's like, you know, like if you had been like, hey, join my podcast, I'm like, but you didn't give me a Zoom link, right? I usually use an address as an example, like, hey, come to my house. Well, how? I don't know how to get there. You live in South Beach? Okay, that's a pretty big area, you know. Like, we got to be clear on like Well, what street address is it? Like, what, you know, like, you know, is it an apartment unit? Is it like, you know, what is it? And if you're not clear on where you're going, you're never going to get there. And I think once you really create that clarity, like confidence happens and everything just kind of comes together. And so, you know, I'm totally okay with changing names. Clearly I just did it again, you know, and I think it's about finding a brand that embodies who you are and where you're going. And, you know, when I was like, I had all these other things, I didn't know how they fit into my life. And once I understood how they fit in my life, it's now it's accelerated and we're bringing on clients left and right. You know, we've got this new event that's happening and it's like everything is happening the way it's supposed to happen because I invested the time into planning that out, mapping that out, walking it through, going through those awareness, you know, type homework sessions and writing everything down. It's— I put the work in and now it happens. Too often we're like, where am I supposed to be in life? And we're just like, you know, like, oh, I don't know, you know, like drinking a cup of coffee for 15 minutes thinking about life. But it's like I actually had to sit down and really dive into it. And I spent a whole day in Cabo. Like, I should be out by the pool relaxing, and I was in my hotel room, like, just going right, right, right, right, right. And my wife wasn't too happy about that. But, you know, just we went into it and I told her, I was like, I'm just— I got this. I got this in me. I need to get it out, get it down on paper.

But that's where it usually comes up, right? When you're— when you're putting yourself— it's like trying to find your key when you're running around the house, right? And it's, but it's right in front of you because you didn't calm down. You didn't give yourself that environment and that place to do that. And that's why, like, you know, the retreat to attack mindset in my mind is so powerful where especially right now it's been so difficult with all the stuff going on and safety and all those things. And I'm taking the, like you were saying about the last retreat that you held or the conference you held in person. I did something with a buddy of mine in Asheville, North Carolina at his family's mountain house. And we had a bunch of other young entrepreneurs who are hungry. Some of them have already done TED Talks. Some of them are, they're already, you know, creating in businesses. That are at least doing, you know, $100,000 a year. And that was like the bare income, right? You had to be doing so, or you were on the cusp of whatever. And that weekend, right, was the weekend I decided to shut down my, my office. But it was all about clarity of how are you— the whole theme was called, um, How I Show Up, which was one of my, one of my workshops that I cheat— I run through with people. And was like, who are you? Are you in alignment with your own values? Is your brand and your business in alignment with those values? And how are you showing up in the world that's consistent or not consistent? That's not— that is allowing you or not allowing you to get the success factor, relationships, health, spirituality, business, whatever it is, incongruency with all of that. And I love what that— what you're saying is because I find that so many times it is a binary decision. And I'm arguing with— arguing with this with one of my clients and about relationships being binary. Either it's healthy for you to be in it or it's not. Either it's healthy for you to learn what you need to learn, and you're open to learning, and that other person's reciprocally open to learning what they need to do to grow with you and for yourself, or it's not. And, and this one's like, relationships aren't binary. And I'm like, but the decision to be in one has to be. But what are you basing that decision on? The decision to be in a business is binary. Am I better off working for someone else, being an entrepreneur and helping that business grow, like your person that you promoted to the CEO who is so ecstatic? And they've been right, that's part of their mission has been to eventually do this, and he, he or she had that opportunity to now do that in your company, right? Versus now having to go find it somewhere else. Finding that for yourself. Of so many times I hear people like, I want to start a company. Why? Well, I want the freedom. You're not going to have the freedom. Yeah. Until X, Y, and Z. And unless you put these things in place, you're probably, based on what you're uniquely skilled at, what your, what your, your life stance, the fact that you might need to go back to school or not go back to school, you might need to get certifications or trainings, you're better off working in a company at a higher level, making X, but going home at 5 PM, 6 PM, and not having to worry about paying the taxes and the payroll.

100%. And that, I think that's the— it's like that short— we're just annoyed, so we're like, ah, you I hate my job, I'm gonna go be an entrepreneur.

Like, all right, that's not what entrepreneurship is, people. That's not what it is. But my coach Rick Sappio, who's a capital venturist and the person who I did my training and business coaching through, he believes that an entrepreneur is someone who defines their core values and then lives every aspect of their life through those core values—personal, professional, relationships, spiritual. And that's why I say when it's binary, does this align with my values or does this not? And then there's the list of anti-values. They may have these. But if they have any one of these on my anti-value list, it's a no.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, I think it needs to be clear about what your values are. I think, I think that's something that a lot of people are not willing to do. These simple investments, I, I, I tell people too, like with like planning, we expect to get 375 days of like success out of our lives, but yet we're not willing to invest one day of planning the year out. It's the same thing with like, you know, figure out who you are. If you're not willing to sit down and put the time in and do that self-discovery, do that homework, I'm sorry, you're just going to let life— life is going to let you just be who you are and you're going to, you know, you're going to unfortunately be told by life who you are. But it's so amazing when you put that time in to figure out what matters to you, what makes you click. Going back to the dieting, listen to your body. Well, like, are you doing self-discovery? Are you really even— are you trying to listen to your body like this? Like you can't hear anything. You know, you've got to be open and being willing to do the homework to learn about yourself and figure out what motivates you, what pushes you. I think it was Elon Musk just put a quote out It was like, if you're looking for inspiration, you shouldn't be an entrepreneur or something like that. You know what I mean? That's, that's reality is like, we've got to figure out what makes us click. And if it's starting a business because you think it's going to give you freedom, like do some homework because you're gonna realize real quick that no entrepreneur is going to tell you that it gives you freedom. No, no, it might give you—

it gives you purpose, it gives you some level of privilege, it gives you a way to live your passion. And yes, at some level, if you do it the right way, which is right, the whole E-Myth and the whole thing of like, right, entrepreneur, manager, technician. But, and like you're doing, you're stepping out of that role because that is giving you more freedom, but you still had to go through the crucible to get there. And also, like you said, that's like we talked about before, that psychological aha moment of vulnerability, of realization of I could be more useful here than here, and I need to bring someone in to do that for me. And then watch the exponential success. And, and I think that like ties me into the last part that I know we wanted to talk about, which is, you know, a big valuable part of the growth has then your now life partner, your girlfriend at the time, now wife. Yes. So as I said, I'm third generation family furniture business, and they're, you know, the joke is always like, you know, close your business, come work for us full-time as VP and development and blah, blah, blah. And I love them, but I don't want to work there. I don't want my whole entire day wrapped up around that when, um, especially knowing we all have family conflict, and the worst thing to do is to be in a family business. So walk us through a little bit of what has been some most positive experiences? Because like you said, you started this a few months into dating. What have been some of the brief challenges? And yeah, I don't know, I'll just leave it at there. Like what has been some of the positive? What have been some of the challenges? What have been the biggest takeaway learning ahas that you think other people who are thinking about doing family businesses or in a family business should think about?

Yeah. So I, like you, was raised around a family business. My parents ran a construction business together and then ultimately my dad got into home home inspections, and it wasn't the healthiest environment that I saw, you know. And but for some reason, I decided to jump right into starting a business with my girlfriend, um, you know. And so for me, a lot was— my dad was very volatile. I love my dad, unfortunately he passed away a few years ago, but, uh, he was very, um, like, this is my way. And I was like, I'm not going to be that. Well, what did I become? When, you know, what you persist for, what you resist persists. Yeah. And I became very much like, it's my way. And I, because I have a college degree in business, I had previously been in some businesses. The solar company that I was in when I started all this, I actually exited and had a very successful 7-figure exit and was like, I'm a boss, like, you listen to me. And, and it was like I talked down to her so much, but I didn't know I was talking down to her. So when looking at like what I learned the most was communication and how you— like you talked about how you show up to other people, how I show up to me was, this is who I need to be. But how I showed up to other people was like, yo, Billy is like a ticking time bomb, stay away from him. And, you know, I would come in like, and I was focused into me. Once again, I— this is who I needed to be. But how you show up to other people, especially your wife, 24/7 a day, coming home and in that intense mode of, ah, this employee did this, this. And I had little to no idea that I thought I I was just describing my day, but I was bringing her down. And so there was a lot through communication that I learned how I was being a bully, not necessarily verbally attacking her, but just dominating everyone. It was an overpowering conversation. Yeah. Yes. Limiting her thought, limiting her opinions. And I didn't even— it wasn't even like I was willing to hear them out. I was already listening for what was wrong with them. And so communication is, is what you say, but also also how you listen. And that's what I think I learned the most of was, was how to listen, because the listening part was what I was not willing to do. And because I had grown up around, you know, I could— I'm now— I'm using this excuse, but growing up around my dad, you know, he was very much like, no, this is the way we're gonna do it. My dad, you know, being a contractor, I remember they were remodeling their house, uh, prior to my dad passing, and, uh, his buddy was there and they were framing up a roof. My dad is the biggest pain in the ass when it comes to framing roofs. I— there— I don't know much about construction because I chose not to go into that business. But his friend was like, damn it, Bill, this is why we never worked together years ago. You're such a pain in the ass to deal with because you don't listen to anybody. Like, we're gonna do it this way because this way doesn't work because X, Y, and Z, but you can't hear that. And it was like, boom. And this was like maybe 3 and a half years ago, and it was like, oh my God, like, this is me. This is, this is me right now. But it wasn't like— this was a learning lesson for me. It's just so powerful how you show up to other people and how you listen to other people. Because there's so many moments that we just think as the CEO that I, or as the guy that started it, or I would use the excuse, I'm the one that invested in it. But she invested time, energy, she invested money because we didn't get to go on vacations. We didn't get to do a lot of things because the money went to the business. And so it was that lack of consideration of what other people felt, thought, and had opinions on. And so the communication aspect was the number one thing. The second thing I think I learned was, um, the goals. Like, look, like, I, I promise I worked so hard. I'm— I— the one thing I don't do is quit, um, even when I should probably quit certain things. Uh, smoking cigarettes was, was a bad habit of mine for, for many years. Took me like 6 years to finally quit. So, I mean, that's why my wife always jokes. She's like, look at— even back when you smoke cigarettes, you couldn't even quit, right?

You can't quit quitting. Yeah, right.

So, um, so, you know, it was, it was amazing learning, like, that just saying that there's a light at the tunnel. I'm gonna work, work. Okay. Like I was mentioning with you clear, like there's a dollar amount or there's a certain level of success that I'll be able to create. But like truly knowing what it means to like have a light at the end of the tunnel and like, are you working towards really creating that freedom? Like, what is the light at the end of the tunnel? I think it's important that especially in a relationship, a lot of times when I'm around people and they're like, my wife doesn't get it, or my husband doesn't get it, or my boyfriend, girlfriend, my mom, my dad, whoever doesn't get it. But like, do you get where they're at? We ask them to make so many sacrifices. And for years my wife sacrificed time, emotion, connection, just everything. The relationship side of our, of our relationship, she sacrificed. And like, but I kept asking her to sacrifice. But one, was I building towards really creating the freedom to be able to ask her not to sacrifice, or for her to not have to sacrifice? If I'm asking you to sacrifice, is it permanent sacrifice? Shouldn't be a relation. Like, if we're in a relationship, our relationship shouldn't be sacrificed for our business forever. Otherwise, why are we in a relationship. But then two, are you willing— this is the biggest thing— are you also sacrificing your own life to give them back something for them? We ask them to sacrifice, and I see people that have children sacrifice. Well, my kids, they just got to know that I'm just not going to be at every baseball game. But are you at any baseball game?

Did they ask for that, right? Did they sign up for that? Which one would they prefer? Would they prefer you have the baseball game or that extra trip once a year? Yeah.

Or is it like, are like, okay, yes, you can't be at the baseball game, but are you willing to put your phone down down to be present at dinner. And those little moments of like, okay, so I'm gonna ask them to sacrifice here, but I gotta sacrifice over here. You know, I can't keep watching sport if I'm asking my wife to, to not go on date night, you know what I mean? And those became really pivotal parts of our relationship that had to become non-negotiable. And so date night, every Friday, you cannot get a hold of me after 4 o'clock. Just my phone's off. Now I'll post like one Instagram story of us at dinner just because I like to promote that part of our life because I think it's important for my other friends that are entrepreneurs to understand the importance of prioritizing your relationship. That's my wife. That is my rock. She keeps me on point 99.9% of the time. So I don't have her in my corner, I'm screwed. And I love her and I care for her and she's willing to sacrifice all week long for that night. We also have grocery night every Thursday night. We go shopping, have to be home by 6. If I'm home after 6, that's— I fucked up, you know, like I need to be on point with that. And so there are these certain non-negotiables. My mom, same thing. Like, I got to spend time with my mom. My mom. Like, my mom's getting up there in age. I can't expect, like, like, me to be, you know, sad when she passes. Like, I didn't spend time with her. Well, like, did you do anything? You know? And unfortunately, I lost many, many great opportunities to spend time with my dad. And when my dad passed away, it was like this huge learning lesson. Like, I've got to be more present to the things that matter. Because while I'm asking them to sacrifice, life goes on. And at what point am I not going to say, man, I sacrificed all this for business when I, I wish I could have one more day with my mom, you know what I mean? There's no family, there's no person that says, man, uh, I, I'm so glad I got every moment from my family member. No, everybody said, man, if I could have one more conversation, one more hour, one more day. And so then if you know that, then you have to make those non-negotiables. I don't care if it's once a month, maybe it's a once a week phone call, maybe once a day. Like, find that non-negotiable in your life and make it a part of it, because otherwise, if you're not non-negotiable with these relationships, they're gonna be gone, right? And you will be bummed that you lost that moment or that time. And it's on you, not on them. But you can't abandon them. If you ask them to make all these sacrifices, you got to sacrifice for them too. There has to be a give and take.

So that's one of the things I love it because it's so— one of the next workshops that I'm pushing out over the next couple of months is teaching people how to create that specific system, specifically entrepreneurs, where they look at everything that they do in a day, week, in a month, and they put it down. And I have a whole system for this and they map it out and then they time block how long that takes. And then I'm like, okay, but tell me where you want— what the goals that you want to add to your— what are the new hobbies you want to add? What's the people you want to spend time with? And I'm like, and now look at your calendar. Where are you going to do that? And they don't have the time because they are— they show me literally every single thing that they do. And I'm not joking, I'm talking about from like taking a poop to cutting your nails to shaving. Like, I'm talking about all those self-care things. How long every day is that taking, right? And I'm being as, as specific as possible, as detailed as possible, because if people want to change their life, they have to be willing to put it down on paper, detail by detail by detail, and tell me where is your time being spent. If you're telling me your family is a priority and you're literally spending 8 minutes a day with them— and I'm not talking about like coming in and how are you, what's going on, we're having dinner together— I think the research— I can't remember where the actual research shows, but the average parent, face-to-face communication, not about directives— go wash your— go, go to the shower, go brush your teeth, go to do your homework— Not that face-to-face interaction between a parent and child, loving, playful communication is 4.5 minutes a day. Wow. So now what is the average couple actually doing where it's not just about debriefing their day, but actual meaningful con— you know, interaction where it's based on their love language or based on, right, quality time or acts of service or physical touch, all those things where it's interactive, engaged, not just sharing space, but you're creating space together. Maybe it's 8 minutes a day. Maybe it's 10 minutes a day if you're lucky. That's not good enough. Right? So when people are telling me like, I really want this, but yet their life is living by a default, then there's no room for that growth. There's no room for that success, because there's all these things in their life that shouldn't have been there in the first place. And one of my next programs that I'm working on, I'm doing this already with clients. And that's why it's becoming a program. And to take this to workshops and conferences is to do this nitty-gritty with entrepreneurs and say, aha, so you're telling me this, but there's no evidence of that. Hmm, yes. So we got to get what's here that's not allowing you to do any of this. And you you do have to make some binary yes and no cuts from your life. And how did that get into your life in the first place? Right, right. So I think that's all part of that process of figuring it out. And it's the lifestyle by design. It's, it's being in present time consciousness that you're saying you want these priorities, but you're full of crap unless there's no evidence of.

Yes, I love how you talked about mapping it out. Because I think that's where, where it all starts. Too many people are like, how do I get more done? Well, it's like, what are you doing? Like the same thing we do with people with diet. Okay, so you want to lose weight? Where where you at? Like, if you don't understand where you're at, we— maybe you don't need to go to 1,200 calories because if you're eating 4,000 calories, cutting you down to 3,500, you're gonna start to be huge, right?

That's a huge— right. And I think that's why, like, when people don't write down their— right, that's the whole thing with Grant Cardone. The person between someone who writes down their goals on New Year's and the person who writes it down every single day is gonna be 365% more successful, right? That's a good philosophy. And it's— and it is different because, yes, you also find if you don't do it every month or every, you know, day— do it on a Sunday and map out your week, right? It is the— it is that, uh, Coach Michael Burt talks about, right? It's the retreat to attack, What is it? Where are you taking your mental retreat space? Even if it's an hour a week to map out what that's going to be like. And the more consistent we are with that, the better we're going to be. So I want to kind of wrap it all together and tie it all together because we talked about vulnerability, about realizing where we might be getting ourselves stuck in our own personal life, in our own professional life. We talked about shifting the mindset of sometimes our priorities do need to be, whether it's family life, relationship life, business life. And in fact, even how we define it, changing the name of what we do, also is part of the problem. I love— as a therapist, 99% of the time, people tell me what their problem is by how they describe the problem. I don't give a crap what the issue is. There's only so many variables of X and Y axis, right? X is who is involved, and Y, what, what happened, right? And there's some— and the apex is always the issue, right? But how they describe it, 99% of the time, tells me already how I can solve it for them in a very quick manner, whether it's business or family or relationships or whatever it may be, or money beliefs or whatever dynamics they may be. So I like how, like, even talking about changing your business name or your branding or your marketing will get you a very different outcome that will push you further down the field to that success. And then we talked about partnering with the people you love and being clear with communication. And one of the things that I was thinking of when you said that was sometimes we become the judge during an execution. Producer versus the investigative reporter. And we need to ask more, "Why? Tell me more. Where did that come from? What's your thoughts about that?" than, "Here's what I think, here's what you're—" but, you know, "Help me understand," especially in the political climate, right? For all that chaos. But like, right, they may not be wrong. Their starting point, their vantage point, where they're at with the end results may not look good, and it may not be good for our community and for the people around us. But if you get to the underpinning, where is that starting? Show me in me in data. Show me in— where, where, what do you think will happen if we did that, right? Go to the outcome, because everybody's looking for a healthier outcome. We just might have different starting points, right? So I think that, especially with relationships, working with your partner, being in a relationship-based business, or one person being the entrepreneur, another person not being, is incredibly important. What's the lifestyle? What's the sacrifices we're both willing to give? Are you seeing— I love that question. And I would challenge people who are listening to ask this too. If you're an entrepreneur or you're, or you're in a relationship with someone who's in a— ask that question. What sacrifices do you feel that you've given up for our relationship? And what sacrifices do you think I've— you've seen me give up? And then flip the question. Here's what I think, and here's about what I've given up, and here's what I think you've given up. That's a cool, deep, powerful conversation that relationships should have. And then the last thing is really knowing why you're doing this in the first place, right? The Simon Sinek start with why, which is, which is at some level very powerful. But are you, you know, who are you trying to prove and what are you trying to prove? I love that Gary Vee thing. If you're trying to do it to prove anybody else wrong, it could be fuel, but you might not be doing it for the right outcome either.

I think understanding like those little things that make you click, like I love recognition, love it. Yeah. But I know it, like I embrace it. Like it is what it is. Like, but it's like when we, when we ignore who we really are and we're like, oh, that's bad. Recognition's, you shouldn't be like that. Like, but I do like recognition. Give me a trophy and I'm way happier than a million dollar check. Let me tell you. I hear it.

I hear it. But it goes good, really good if it goes hand in hand together. So, right, that'll be even better. So let's, let's, let's give some people some, some contact information. I know Instagram is basically the most consistent place because we have you at Billy_Gofresh is your main, and then you have @gofresh and @the_levelupsociety. And then you have the podcast as well.

Yep, the Level Up Your Life podcast. You find that on Spotify and on iTunes. Pretty much all the platforms. You can find it there, or you can find it in the link in my bio on my Instagram. But Instagram is definitely where I live most days, and pretty much you can get a hold of me on there. And yeah, I love this. This was an amazing podcast. I always find more out about myself when I, when I'm being interviewed. I'm like, damn, like, who is this guy that was just on here? I like this guest. So I appreciate you, Jason, for having me and just diving into all these great questions. Awesome.

I'm so excited. I was so looking forward to this happening, and I know it's been a few weeks coming. Coming. So I'm glad that it was incredibly valuable for both of us and hopefully as well for the listeners. And for anybody out there who did get value or they think they know someone who will get value, please, please, please, please share this episode out. Give it a— and then also give us— go on iTunes. Even if you don't have iTunes, create an account, give us a review, starred and written. That makes us be found by other people. Again, share it out. You can follow us on You Winning Life on the Instagram. Billy, I don't know if you know this, but December, I had my main account, Jason Wasser LMFT 🎗️, which just shut down overnight. Nope, I wasn't covering any— I wasn't posting politics stuff, I wasn't posting COVID stuff. It just got shut down. And right, so I had to start over. And thank God for Clubhouse, where I started getting those— it was like 100 people on that other account. And, you know, so it's funny that like this whole branding marketing thing of like having to start over in social media and all these other things that sometimes you're going to connect with people, especially out there. Don't, don't worry about the numbers. No different than not worrying about the car, right? Because some people are like, oh, he only has 350 followers presently on Instagram. Doesn't mean anything, right? And it's, and it's, and it's the same thing of like, it's the connection, it's what's the value you can bring to each other, how are you solving a problem? And I know today people are going to walk away from this episode with a lot of cool insights. So I really want to thank you.

Well, thank you so much, Jason, for allowing, uh, that you're creating this environment, allowing me to be on here. So thank you. Thanks, my man.