The Entrepreneurial Personality Type With Alex Charfen

How do you make business problems disappear?

Wrap em in bacon for business owners.

Marketing execs, and anyone trying to grow your business. Pump your profits and make more while doing less.

Welcome to Bacon Wrapped Business with Brad Costanzo.

Sizzling hot business advice guaranteed to make you fat profits.

Every week, our chefs will serve you.

Proven recipes for ramping up your revenue.

Now here's your host, Brad Costanzo.

All right, Alex, welcome to the show. How are you?

I'm good, Brad. Thanks so much for having me.

It's great to have you on the show. As I said, you know, you came, you came highly recommended from Josh Felber, a former guest on the show and some other people I know. And I've seen some of your material out there and I haven't had a chance to dive in as much as I've wanted to. But as I was researching for the show, I stumbled across some of the content on your site. I really want to dive into some of the topics that I find the most interesting and I think my audience will as well. But before we dive into the entrepreneurial personality test and the book marketing strategy that you were alluding to online, and by the way, listeners, you absolutely got to listen to this. This is so cool. I've already heard it, but you got to hear it again. Tell me the kind of the brief backstory on how you got to where you're at right now because I noticed that you've got a really wide background of success and real estate and a bunch of stuff, as a lot of us do. And it's been a long, twisted road. But I definitely want to touch on that before we get into kind of the sizzling hot stuff.

Yeah, so my, my background's about as varied as any 43 year old entrepreneur who's, who's, you know, done a lot of different stuff. So I grew up in Mexico City and then Southern California. I was.

I didn't speak the language very well when I moved to California.

What was that?

You said you didn't speak the language well. Where did you move from?

So I was born in Mexico City. My mom, my dad is Lebanese and Mexican and so I was born in Mexico, moved to the States around five, struggled with the language, struggled really with school. Always knew I was different. And then, you know, over time, I, as a kid, I started working with my dad when I was very young. He had a business that closed and at 8 years old we started working after the business closed. We started working in like flea markets or swap meets. That's what they're called in Southern California. And it was really weird. Brad. I was one of those kids that was awkward everywhere. And, you know, in many ways, I still am. I always tell people, you know, the difference between when I was a kid, between when I was a kid and now is that when I was a kid, I was awkward. Now I'm a multimillionaire, so I'm eccentric.

Exactly.

And so I was the kid who, like, when walking into the room, adults would say, look, it's Susie and Johnny and Mike and Alex. You know what I'm talking about. And so.

I never felt comfortable. I didn't do well in school. I didn't really have a lot of friends, but when I went to work with my dad and I stood behind a table and I sold stuff, I felt comfortable. You know, the limited options in business, the focus of trying to accomplish something, like from when I was a little kid, that transactional, you know, making money, creating value, that was what I was always drawn to.

That's great. And I was very similar when I was growing up. It was always, I think I had such a problem with authority and regular jobs. I was always just like, screw it, I'll go out and figure out a way to do it kind of on my own.

Well, Brad, what I always tell entrepreneurs is, hey, I think it's time that we admit that it's not that you wanted to start a business, you started a business because you had to.

Oh, yeah.

You know, and guys, let's take a deep breath. Anyone who's listening, if you're on this podcast, you are like me.

So let's admit that the systems that are out there in society, that are supposed to help everyone else and seem to help everyone else break, you and I, we have to be protective.

And it's also going back to your point is that we kind of had to. Nobody really in their right mind would become an entrepreneur. I tell people, look, if you really want easy money, get a job. It's the easiest money you'll ever have. You get weekends off, you get benefits.

You get to clock out at 5 o'. Clock. There is nothing easy about being an entrepreneur. So nobody, very few people choose it just because, like, I think this is what I want to do. It is a kind of a calling. And there is a.

It calls you.

It does.

It chooses you.

Yeah. Or you've just burned every bridge and you've got no other choice because you become unemployable.

Well, Brad, you know, if you look at throughout and this is what my book's about, the entrepreneurial personality type. If you look throughout history at every person who has ever created brilliance, who has advanced the world, who has evolved, humanity, they've been just like you and I. They've been confused, challenged, frustrated, anxious. They've had a hard time socially. They've had to create their own path, find their own way. And oftentimes they've been labeled as broken and disordered and disabled. I mean, shit, you know, I carry an add, adhd, Asperger's and autism diagnosis.

Yeah, I am.

You know, I could find the building where I'm just go ahead.

I've not officially been diagnosed, But I am 100% confident that my. I have ADHD. I mean, ADD, ADHD, 100%. Just never been diagnosed by, like a doctor because I don't see them that often. But, yeah, sorry, go ahead.

But, yeah, no, and Brad, I was just, you know, what I was going to say is if you look up the, the symptoms for those diseases, here's, here's what you'll see. Here's. Here's what they say. It's people who are restless and driven and myop. And logical and challenged by the status quo and very driven and somewhat stubborn and will only stick to their guns. And you know what? When I read all of that, here's what I can tell you. I've read the biographies of tens of thousands of successful people. When I was younger, I didn't have friends. I went to the library. I leaned on books, I looked at history. I wanted to figure out how to be successful. I thought I was so broken that I would never be successful. And here's what I can tell you. If you look at the history of every person in history, you remember anyone who matters to be remembered. They were just like us. Yeah, they were different. They were confused. They weren't like everyone else. In fact, when you look at humanity as a total, the vast majority of people strive to be average and cling desperately to the status quo. The goal for most people is to be just like everyone else. And so when you're one of us who wakes up in the morning and questions everything and that's the last thing.

We want to be.

Yeah, we question everything.

Yeah.

And so, you know, I think it's time that entrepreneurs stood up and said, hey, average sucks. That's not who we are. And it's okay to be the one who wakes up every morning and wants to go forward.

I love that. Have you, by the way, this brings back. I just grabbed this book off my shelf. Have you ever read the book by Garrett Loporto called the Da Vinci Method.

I may have. I think so.

Well, so this is it. I read this years ago and it is precisely about this. He says, like on the back of the book, he's like, are you impulsive, risk taking, distractible, sensation seeking, insightful or intuitive? Do you crave risk and excitement? Have an addictive personality, rebel against authority, think differently? He goes, yeah, congratulations. The medical profession has diagnosed you as adhd. What you really are is a da Vinci, which is, and I love, by the way, just from a marketing side, how he reframes ADHD as something positive. And he talks about. I just remember he talks about a gene that they found. I think I just flipped to it. It's the DRD4 gene and it has something to do with this, this trait in people. And it's funny, he goes, there's only about 10% of the population has this gene. And he goes, and it's an interesting coincidence that about only about 10% of the population are entrepreneurs.

Well, and you know what's interesting? You can add on top of that. That's original research. And then Peter Thiel, who wrote Zero to One.

Yeah, great book.

He's quoted, and I'm paraphrasing, but he recently said something to the effect of. It's more of a statement on society that the majority of people who have the vulnerability to step out and start a business and face society's criticisms are also rumored to have a disorder that makes it so that they don't care.

Yeah. Yeah, that's fascinating. And Thiel's on the spectrum, isn't he?

Oh, admittedly on the spectrum. And you know what?

I'll share some more of my background. When I was younger, I started a couple businesses and was able to sell them.

I started as a consultant in the Fortune 500 Global 100 World at 21 years old. My first client was Fuji. My second one, Fuji Media. My second client was SanDisk and my third client was Fuji Digital.

This wasn't your own consulting business, Right. Were you working for somebody else or were you?

I was. I was. So I, at 21 years old, I opened an office for a company called Follow Organization and became a consultant. And those were my first three clients. It was. But Brad, it was deep end of the pool, day one.

Oh, yeah, dude.

You know, and I don't want to sound like the whiz kid that, like, knew everything. I got lucky. I was in the right meeting, I had the right background. Once I had the opportunity, I took advantage of it and you know, when you start working at that level, everything in the world shifts. Like I didn't understand how to, to be around normal people because I was spending 99% of my time in C suites on the phone with people making million dollar decisions every day. My accounts were places like Home Shopping Network, Office Depot, Office Max, Walmart, Radio Shack in Latin America, Fala Bella and seven and Sanborns. And when you look at my life was made up of sitting next to someone who was going through the most important meeting of their lives almost every day. That was my normal day. Millions of dollars at stake and sometimes hundreds of millions. And Brad, what you start seeing is this consistency with successful people. We have this double edged sword, this personality type that what makes us so brilliant is also what challenges us. And when I look at the entrepreneurial personality type, I see what I see in all of my friends that are billionaires. I had this crazy opportunity. I've had a unique life where not only do I know people who have achieved that level of wealth, I've had several of my friends achieve that level of wealth in this lifetime.

That's amazing.

And here's what you see, Brad, here's what's wild, is that when you watch people move into that world, when you're up close and personal, here's what I can tell you. Every single one of them is brilliant. They rely on people, they have a absolute dedication to those around them. They look for momentum, they think about contribution, they want to change the world. And they are driven in a way that would that you feel you don't just understand. I can flip the coin and tell you that they're impulsive.

They have huge tempers, they're anxious, they sometimes get aggressive, they can get hyper, they can talk in tone that makes it so the people around them are uncomfortable. And almost every one of them is dyslexic. And almost everyone has trouble reading to the point where they don't.

Wait. They have trouble reading to the point so that they don't read.

They don't read.

So they're not avid readers.

And some of them listen, some of them have learned how to read. But a lot of my friends who achieve that level of wealth do not read anymore because it's so hard for them. And Brad, when we look at this, here's what they do, here's what I can tell you. They read the same book over and over again.

Yeah, that's, that's something that I started to do and somebody else, a mentor of mine, recommended it because I'M a voracious reader. Probably the reason I'm not quite a billionaire yet, right? Because I just read too much. But he's like, no, go back to some of those books and reread them again. Some of the books you loved, he goes, you'll be amazed that it'll be a completely new book the second time, the third time you've read it. And I've started to do that, and it's absolutely true.

It changes things. You know, what I can tell you about being around those people is that their lives are simple and that their lives are. They're comfortable and they've put up guardrails that the rest of us aren't willing to put up in our lives. And you know Anthony Robbins, who I think is just approaching billion dollars in wealth. When I was with him earlier this year, he said, you know, life isn't about what you go out and look for. Life is, in life, you get what you tolerate.

You know, and for so many of us that are driven the way you and I are, you know, I know. And you know that we, like I said, a lot of the world's systems don't work for the two of us. You know, we've created all of our content, all of our systems, all our frameworks are about teaching guys like you and I to build businesses. But in order to teach better than anyone else, in order to make sure that we ensured success, we had to understand our personality type better than anyone ever has. And when I, when I talk about the ept, the entrepreneurial personality type, to us, we are a subpopulation. You and I are different from the rest of the world. When we look at society, there's some clear groupings. There's a big group of people in society who take care of other people. Brad, you know those people, right? They do things that drive you and I crazy. Like they, they like doing things on a daily basis and they want to do things on a daily basis that you and I simply wouldn't do.

Give some examples for the, for the audience.

Well, like, I mean, a nurse or, you know, a maintenance person or gardener or. I mean, they actually, you know, I've had a gardeners that love gardening. Yeah, I like to do that once or twice a year when I, like, want to get some it out of my system and then I'm done, you know. And so then there's another grouping in society. It's the people who want to keep everything in order. And they like laws and rules and committees and associations. Right. How many committees have you volunteered to be on None? Zero. Right. And so that's a clear differentiation of another set of people. And then there's another grouping in society, in the human race that wants to communicate and talk about things and talk about the present, talk about other people will tell you about whatever everything is going on. They like things like small talk. Right. How often are you really running towards small talk?

The most small talk I do is my podcast.

Right.

The rest of the time, and I make a business out of it.

I was just going to say. So the only small talk you do, you insist on getting paid for. Right. So you've got your people who take care of your people who organize the people who do the oral communication. And then now let's. Let's just think of us as a tribe. What's missing? The tribe gets taken care of. The tribe gets organized. Information gets passed around the tribe. The tribe needs to survive. So you need the people who kill shit. And when you look at entrepreneurs, you separate us out from everyone else. We are different. We're not governed by the same rules and the same goals and the same desires as the rest of the world. When the rest of the world says things like, I want to be happy, Brad, I'll be honest. I don't think you and I really comprehend what that means. I don't think we're wired for happy. I don't think we're wired for sad.

I totally agree with that.

And, Brad, don't you tell me, how many times has your frustration been mistaken for anger?

Oh, yeah, quite a bit.

How many times have you communicated trying to get help in frustration and people have treated you as though you just offended them?

Mm.

And you tell me, how many times in your life have you been told you don't feel right? And Brad, it sounds something like this. Brad, tell me how you're feeling. Brad, why are you being so intense? Brad, don't be so intense. Brad, can you slow down a little bit? Brad, can you speed up a little bit? Brad, why are you happy yesterday like you were today? Why aren't you upset yesterday like you were today? Do you remember these?

Yeah, absolutely.

So here's my theory. Guys like you don't understand. Guys like you and I, entrepreneurial personality types, the people in the world that get up every morning looking to move the world forward, change the status quo, improve the status for the tribe. We are hardwired, not for happy or sad, because maybe you understand the difference between those two. It's like an on off switch. But what's the difference? Between happy, sad, frustrated, pissed off, ticked off, confused, upset and just plain not going to talk to you, there's nothing. The fact is that for guys like you and I, it is all about one thing. We are physiologically sensitive momentum based beings. That's it. You tell me, Brad, does the word momentum trigger you?

Oh, absolutely, big time. It's funny, years ago, back in 2010, because I remember when it happened and I was on the beach in Costa Rica. I was down there for an event.

And I remember just kind of walking on the beach. I think it was like sunset or whatever and I was just decompressing from the day and you know, also kind of just trying to figure it out. I'd been just a little frustrated with what was going on my business and everything else. And like, I don't know, you know, just the same frustration and self talk we all do. And I kind of had this little epiphany and the two words came to my brain, which was uncomfortable happiness. And then what that meant to me was this. Most of my life, because I had not been. I didn't grow up around entrepreneurs. But you know, I was different, right? And most people in most of my life, I was defining success as comfort. As comfort. Like, hey, I got a nice place I'm comfortable in. Most importantly, and I think most of the population defines success as comfort. Like this way, it's like you're comfortable because you're free from worrying about the bills, worrying about where's the money going to come from, worrying about, you know, do I live in a comfortable place, but just free from stress, right? And I had gotten to a point where I was comfortable. I was making good money, I had nice things, I had a beautiful girlfriend, everything was comfortable. And I was unhappy as hell because I was stagnant and I wasn't taking big, I wasn't taking bigger risks, I wasn't pushing myself out of my comfort zone because I'd been trying to get into that comfort zone. I got into it and I was really uncomfortable. And I realized that the things that make me the most happy are when I'm out of my comfort zone and when I'm throwing caution to the wind and saying, okay, we're just going to get in here and try it. Hair on fire. Momentum and push forward. And I kind of kept that in. I wrote a blog post years ago about it, but just that uncomfortable happiness. And I think the other thing that I said about that was I'd rather be.

Successfully significant than significantly successfully. Right.

I love that.

Thanks. Yeah. I liked it when I said it too. That's how I still remember it. But like success, significance is success. Like, how significant of an impact are you having on your life, on the, on those around you, on society as a whole? And those are the things that drive me. And if, if this was called Bacon wrapped Corporate America, Cubicle dwellers podcast, they probably not relate to that at all. Like, screw that. I just want to. I want to have my big screen TV in my little house and be good.

Well, you know, most people are looking for consistency and comfort.

Yeah.

You know, and by. And those are kind of one in the same. You know, one fifth of the population watches a show like Wheel of Fortune every night and when they don't play it, the TV networks get phone calls. I want my show.

Right.

You know, and so most people aren't looking to change things. In fact, what you just described I describe as this transitionary period in an entrepreneur's life where they realize they just have to keep pushing forward. And what we realize is that where the rest of the world looks for comfort, here's what is ideal for the entrepreneurial personality type. When we can start creating an infrastructure around ourselves so that tactically each day becomes easier, which relieves the pressure on us so that we can become more vulnerable. And that's that, that uncomfortable happiness I think you were talking about. Because here's how entrepreneurs feel most comfortable. We feel best when we are in momentum going forward and breaking new ground.

Right.

That is, that is with the infrastructure to move forward, becoming more vulnerable. And what happens often with entrepreneurs is that we confuse tactically busy for forward progress.

Happens to me all the time. Busy versus productive. I remember reading about that in Tim Ferriss book Four Hour Workweek years ago. And he's like, set an alarm on your. I think he said, set an alarm on your iPhone that just goes off once every like four or five hours and just says, are you being busy or productive? Huge difference.

No question. No question. And I think that.

For us we need bigger, bigger questions in our lives. Like are you busy or productive? Is one thing.

But I want to know from entrepreneurs, is this. Are you.

Building the infrastructure around yourself for the contribution you plan on making?

That's a good one.

Are you really creating the structure, the systems around you for the outcome that you talk about in your head when no one else is listening? Do you really understand your destination? Or is it just one of those dreams that continuously shifts and changes in your head because it's not committed to writing or to paper, to anything else anywhere Else. Because until it does get in that situation where you've written it down, it's going to continue to be a dream.

And the vast majority of entrepreneurs today are not approaching what their full potential could be because we have this massive gap. See, 100% of the entrepreneurs I've ever sat down with, if I ask them one simple question, do you feel like you're achieving the results you're capable of achieving? They will tell me, no. Oh, yeah, 100%. And then I always ask, okay, what type of an infrastructure are you building around yourself to get there? And they always look at me funny. But, see, I call it the entrepreneurial dichotomy. We have this challenge where in order to reach our full potential, we require more help than most. However, any request for help makes us feel vulnerable and exposed. And so in the same place where we want to make these massive contributions in the world, we convince ourselves we can do it all alone.

Yeah, and you're absolutely right, because especially if you've grown up different and you've had to kind of do it your own way, you were doing it your own way anyway, and you. There was nobody to help you, and you didn't know, you know, you were just making it up as you went. So you didn't have.

Did you feel different?

Yeah, absolutely.

Do you remember feeling isolated to a point?

I wouldn't say. I would. I wouldn't call it isolated. I just remember it. And then as I grew and then I looked at what my friends were doing and the stuff I was just like, well, that's just not my reality. But I didn't feel like an isolated. Like, I still had a very active social life, and I felt like I could blend in with them. But there was always that thing that just said, okay, that's just not for you. And it was funny when I get around, especially now that I've been an entrepreneur for over 10 years, and I get around my. My friends who have never done that, and they're just still stuck in corporate world. It's. It's really weird how.

Little there is to actually talk about. Sometimes it feels like.

But you don't feel isolated.

I guess that's isolated.

It is, isn't it? Isn't it weird how as entrepreneurs were so constantly optimistic that we don't even admit that we have real feelings like isolation?

Yeah.

So I want to talk to everyone who's listening who has feelings similar to what you and I have, Brad, because here's what we do, and I want everyone listening. If you're Listening to this podcast, you're one of us. You're an ept.

If you're listening. If you take time out of your day to go out and search down something called the Baker Bacon Wrapped Business Podcast with Brad, you know, you're already on a different path. And for anyone who's listening, who's ever felt isolated or different or like a party of one, one, I want you to get in touch with those feelings, because that is confirmation that you are not average and you are meant for greatness. Because people like us have felt isolated and different and confused throughout history. Because here's the fact. Soc doesn't want the people who are resolute, driven to move forward, ready to ask questions, and wanting to make things better. They don't want us to hang out together because we scare the shit out of them.

That's true.

And the fact is this. If you have felt isolated and different, if you felt like a party of one, I've been there. And I want you to remember back into history, in the timeline of the past that you carry around with you, the people who I know are important to you because we all have them. Who were they for you? For me, it was Einstein and Pythagoras and Socrates and Plato. And they called to me, they said, you're okay. When I found out that Einstein couldn't tie his shoes, that made me feel better.

Exactly.

You know? And for you, who is it? Because here's what I want you to know.

Anyone in history that you remember, anyone in history who matters to be remembered, was just like us. They were different and challenged and frustrated and wanted more and pushed themselves and drove themselves. And they were myopic and focused and called obsessive and told to stop and told to sit down. But here is the fact. Throughout history, the people that were most broken, most challenged, most visibly and invisibly broken and could not move forward are exactly those who have always changed the world.

Yeah, it's never been changed by somebody who's just status quo.

It can't be.

Now.

And like you said, you know, you're crazy until you're successful, then you're eccentric.

Well, for anyone out there who feels like you've never had a club to belong to, I want you to know you're part of the most important club in history. Because it doesn't matter what written history of the world you accept. The only positive source of human evolution throughout history has been the entrepreneurial personality type. The human being who gets up in the morning and says, how do we go over There, across that bridge. Go over the mountain, do something new. Change the status quo and make things better for all of us. That's your club.

It's a damn good club. I love it. I love it. So.

Is this part of the kind of the heart and soul of what the book Entrepreneurial Personality Types is about?

It is, Brad. You know, I think when you look at the EPT book.

It just takes a different view at humanity because for anybody who's listening, we have. The book that I bring is called the Entrepreneurial Personality Type. We did an experiment with it. We did not release it. Traditionally, we only printed 500 copies.

I've designated myself the least selling author of all time. We've already gotten on TV a few times. Success magazine, Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur magazine. A lot of people have picked up on it because.

What did you call it? The least selling author or the least selling bestseller?

Least selling author of all time.

Well, see, that can't be true because, you know, there's people who put a book out there and the only person who bought it is their mother.

Yeah, no kidding.

I would call yourself the least selling bestseller.

Bestseller. So, you know, the reason that we did it this way is that. But I wanted to start conversations because I think the dialogue about people like us today is incredibly damaging because society has a deficit based evaluation structure for human beings where all we ask anymore is what is wrong with you? And what I wanted to present was a counter argument that throughout history, the people who had the biggest challenges, who appeared the most challenged, are exactly who changed the world. So why don't we start asking what is right with humans beings? And if you read the book the Entrepreneurial Personality Type, it'll help you understand yourself better, your kids better, your relationship with your parents better. Because we have the same attributes that make us successful, are the same attributes that can make us symptomatic of any type of mental disorder, up to and including, let's be honest, our personality type. If we feel constrained, if we feel held in place, if we can't see the way out, we'll be symptomatic of all kinds of crap up to including suicidal ideation. Brad. And thought and action. Because when we can't move, when we feel like we can't get out of the cubicle, when we can't move forward, when society, when, you know, the situation around us, the people around us, sometimes even we put ourselves in a place where we can't see a way out, we fall apart. Like you tell me, Brad, have you been there? Yeah. Did you fall Apart physically. Like, how fast did it take for you to get sick?

I was. I can't say that I got sick off it or fell apart too physically, but I felt it. Like, I felt the internal stresses and whatnot, but then I shook it off pretty quickly and got back into it. So.

Where do you feel like you were constrained? When was it?

Oh, back when I had a job as a financial. I was a consultant. It was after I was a financial advisor.

It was very entrepreneurial. Right. I ate what I killed, and then the bear market roared a little too loud, and I kind of migrated within the company over to more of an analyst, I guess, an analyst role. And I was constrained, but I was in a very lucky place because I had a very cheery job. I had some restrictions, but I had no supervision. My supervision was in New York, and it allowed me to branch out. And the first thing I did, like within maybe the first six months of having this new job with no supervision, was reach out and start another business on the side like I had to. I actually started two or three because some of them failed and whatnot. But that was my outlet, and I was lucky. Now, had I had the inability to do that, I would have gone crazy.

Well, let's talk to the people who didn't have that easy out. Because most entrepreneurs I know have been through long periods of constraint.

Oh, yeah.

You know, yeah. Typically they're provided by school or they find them in other places in relationships. And for most of us, we've gone through the periods where there's this three processes of breakdown, like when you're constrained as an entrepreneur. You know, we're driven by momentum. When we're in momentum, when things are going forward, that's when entrepreneurs feel alive. When we are in momentum, when we are moving things in the direction we want, when everything's going our way physically, we have more stamina. Cognitively, we make decisions better. Chemically, we actually are chemically enhanced. Brad, do you feel those things when things are going your way?

Oh, 100%.

Okay. You flip the coin and we go into constraint. Here's what I can tell you about entrepreneurs. Our bodies break down, we get sick. I mean, I talk to entrepreneurs that are worth 100 million, 200 million, 300 million, and I say, hey, so do you remember being in constraint? And they will immediately tell you, oh, absolutely. Did you get sick? They'll say within hours.

Wow.

Because we all know now, that's why we're so vigilant against constraint. Because the second thing it does, first, your body Starts breaking down. Then when you feel held in place, when you can't move forward cognitively, you start getting confused. Brain fog. Can't make decisions, Your mind starts spinning. You can't link up the thoughts. You don't know really where you're going. Have you been there, Brad?

Yeah. Absolutely. Sucks. Yeah, it does.

Because what comes next is the chemical shit. Because it makes you feel depressed and slow and confused and agitated. And people ask you a question, you respond in a way where later you think, why did I even do that? And all of that is caused by constraint. And so our mission in life as entrepreneurial personality types is to stay in momentum, to admit to ourselves that moving forward is what really matters, and to follow the momentum in our lives. What feels best? Where is it? Do we feel the most progress? Where do we know we can make our greatest contribution? Because if anyone listening to this is still in the same cubicle, Brad, is. Or you're thinking, should I or can I? My message to you is that the question is pregnant with the answer. If you are asking, should I? If you had the thought, can I? My message to you is, absolutely, yeah.

Because that's the call.

That's the call. You know, there's three awakenings of the entrepreneurial personality type. The first one is, you know, you're different. We usually have this realization at some point in time in our lives. Brad, you've already confirmed that one. The second one is when you click into or turn on innate motivation. It's this period in your life where, like, the switch goes on and you can no longer turn it off. Like, Brad, can you turn it off?

So, and like you said, in that motivation, I don't need a boss to motivate me with a paycheck or to say, oh, come on, you've got to do this. Like, no.

Amen, brother. That's innate. It's just there. And you know, psychology says external motivation, internal, extrinsic, intrinsic. Brad, does there need to be anything there? You're just going, right?

Right, yeah.

Okay, now here's the big one. First awakening is, you know, you're different. The second one is innate motivation. The third one is the call of contribution. And it's really weird for most of us because it starts somewhere in the back of your mind. It might have been started when you were younger. It's this whisper that says, hey, Brad, I think you can do more. Do you remember that, Brad? And it started like, hey, Brad, I think you can help some people. Hey, Brad, maybe there's something more important. Maybe you're meant for more. Maybe you should do more. Maybe you should have, like, your name on stuff. Maybe you should be causing an impact, making a contribution, doing things to make things better. Like, where can you change? Where is your mission? Do you remember these?

Yeah.

And then what happens is that call goes from a whisper to a constant drone, to a conversation in your head that won't stop, to a screaming, get the hell out of bed and go make a difference.

Right?

Yeah.

And so if you have recognized those three awakenings, I want you to understand something. It doesn't matter what diagnosis disability disorder you have. It doesn't matter what anyone's told you about you. It doesn't matter what. What anyone said. There is nothing wrong with you. And you are not alone. Because throughout history, anyone who's had the diagnosis, the disorder, or whatever it is you're going through, there has been someone who has overcome it.

And if someone who can't speak, can't hear, can't see, can change the world for handicapped people.

You can change the world for your people. They're waiting for you to go out and make your greatest contribution right now.

I love that. That's such a powerful message. So how are you with your business? How are you helping people do that? What resources are you giving them so they can read the book? You probably do. I imagine you do a decent amount of public speaking times, do you? Do you coach? Tell me a little bit more about your overall business model and the resources like. So if this is really resonating with people, how else can they go down this rabbit hole with you?

Yeah, I appreciate that, Brad. So you can go to charfen.com my last name C-H-A-R-F- as in franken.com growyourbusiness we do a webinar every week where I share kind of our strategies and that's a great way to get introduced to us. You can also go to the book L. My team provided you with a book link, right? Is it charfen.com bacon?

I think it's bacon wrapped, but I'll put that in the. Yeah, I think I'll put that in the show notes. That's the best. That's the best link you have on there, by the way. I guarantee you.

Charfen.com Baconrapped and you can download the entrepreneurial personality type book. And so what we do is we help entrepreneurs build foundational businesses by knowing how entrepreneurs think. Because, Brad, here's the fact is that entrepreneurs are my people. And I often say helping another Entrepreneur is like helping a member of your own family. I feel very connected to this greater tribe. I'm emotional about this greater tribe because today there's people out there who are selling such a bill of goods to people who I care about. I care about business owners who get up every day and say, I'm going to do things different. I'm emotional about people who get up every day and say, I'm going to put my family, myself, my future at risk so that I can, can make a bigger contribution. And when people get up on stage and they say things like, hey, you can run a boutique business and keep it small, you can be independent, outsource everything. I want to run up on stage and knock them off because I've been doing this for a long time and I've made billions of dollars in value for my clients and tens of millions for myself. And you can't do it alone. And the only way any entrepreneur in history has become remembered is by surrounding themselves with a team that help them achieve their greatest contribution. And we've for far too long told people, go do it on your own, that, you know, be independent, stay in the boutique business, all of those things. Yet we don't tell people to make their dreams any smaller. So we create this massive gap between what someone really wants and what they're building around themselves on a day to day basis. And so what we do is we help entrepreneurs close that gap. We have a proprietary process through which we help any entrepreneur create the infrastructure so that they can close the gap between what they know they're capable of and what they're actually doing.

That's great.

That's so critical to the success. Like you said, think of any entrepreneur that you really admire, that you even know or can name of, who is just a solo entrepreneur who, you know, there's not many of them out there.

They don't exist. No. I've challenged people like bring me one. They don't exist. No. And I often share. Entrepreneurs learn nothing standing still and very little alone.

Yeah.

Build a team and go forward.

Yeah, I love that. So I want to digress or diverge over here to. You started to talk about it and it was something we talked about before, is the kind of a really innovative method to get your book out. And I love it because it wasn't just like a little marketing gimmick. It was something you really did care about it. But it ends up working out real well. And this is something I think that people will absolutely love. As I did when you just told Me the basics of it. Tell me a little bit more about how you marketed when you released just 500 copies of the EPT book.

You got it, Brad. But first, I want to ask you a question.

Yeah, please do.

I think I've got a suspicion like. Like books are pretty important to you, aren't they?

Yeah, I like them.

Do you have books around you most of the time? Like, you have books in your house?

Nah, they're in my Kindle.

Okay, so. But you, you carry books around? You have books?

Oh, yeah.

Okay. So I like. If somebody comes to my office or my house, I have books everywhere. And I've read thousands of books, and I look at each one of them, especially the good ones, like an entrepreneur writing down all the shortcuts they possibly could in this lifetime to help me go forward.

Yeah.

So I respect books, but I think that these days there's a travesty happening because so many books are business cards with too many words.

Oh, yeah, right.

Like, if the guy just wanted to hand shit out, he should have made a business card bigger or something, because so, like, you know, the, the, the. The whole just formulaic, here's my seven reasons why I was successful that nobody really ever follows and doesn't really understand anyway.

Yeah.

And so when it came time to write a book, I wanted to do something that mattered, and I just didn't want to chase like everybody else does the same stuff. So we did 500 copies, first and final edition. I hand signed every one of them. And we asked 500 people to act as guardians and take the book, read it, and we wrote it. So you can read in about an hour and a half or two hours, as long as somebody's told us is three hours, you can take the book, read it, sign it, and pass it along. And so we put 500 books out there, and we've asked that they get passed 100 times. Now, I did it because I wanted to start conversations. We wanted people to hand the book off to each other. I really wanted a conversation about who we are. There are so many entrepreneurs that have been labeled, told they're broken. Their kids are getting told that they're add, adhd, bipolar, they need medication. They're being told that their babies are broken. They're being told. Told that, you know, they need to go do, to change themselves and fix themselves. And I wanted to start a conversation about everything that is right with us, because here's the fact, with 100% of entrepreneurs, you can't find me one where this isn't true. If you ignore what's wrong with any entrepreneur and pay attention exclusively to their strengths, they can do anything.

Any entrepreneur, even the ones that are blind, deaf and can't talk.

And so the book is all about that. And so by putting out 500 copies, asking it be passed around, here's where the math works for us, Brad and I know you like this from earlier, is that, you know, you talk to any book publisher and they'll tell you that on a best selling book, about 2% of them ever get read. If 100 books are bought, 98 of them go on a shelf without ever being opened and two of them get ready. So if you sell 10,000 books in a bestseller campaign, 200 people read them.

So here's what we've done. We've put out 500 so far, 469 or 471, something like that have been shipped out. And already just in the momentum we've had in the past year, we've had over 4,000 people read the book. So we're at the readership.

How do you track that?

Just from watching online and counting. And then we have a site, 500Evolution.com.

Okay.

And so, and we're we eventually every one of these people who we hope everyone who's ever read the book will be listed on that site. So. And we don't think we'll get 50,000, Brad, because some of them will get lost. We've already had some get lost in transit. But you know what the total potential is 50,000 where we think we're right now we know we're above three. We don't know if we've crossed 4,000 reads yet. But here's what we do know if. Let's just say that it only gets to 10,000 reads. We took 500 books and we had the same readership as if we went out and sold a half million books. That is leverage. That's how I like to do stuff. And that really changes things.

I love it. I love what you're doing. That's a really, really unique and innovative strategy to this. And it's not about, like you said, it's not just a business card and it's not even just about, hey, how many people can I get this in the hands of as far as like buying it, doing a bestseller campaign, which dude, I've published. I published eight best selling books for clients. So I've been through that like I was the, you know, the person who.

You know, punched a bunch of these things out. Several of them were actually really, really Good. But several of them were just, yeah, business cards or they turned into free plus shipping offers. And that's great as far as a general marketing funnel, but I get it, like, and it's really funny when you know that you're just pumping out, in essence a business card because you know that people aren't going to read it. But it's different when you do have a real message that you are emotional about that you know is going to impact people and to sacrifice the potential sales of the book because you wanted to put it in the hands of more people and give them a challenge to do that. And I'm on the 500 Evolution Calm site. Really cool. I mean, I like the, I like the effort that you put into that.

As opposed to just Brad, you know, it's. Now here's what's really cool is what people who have like, we've designated anyone who receives the book as a guardian. Will you be a guardian of this book and get it through 100 people?

Yeah. That's so cool.

And by the way, I've got like 30 left. I'd love to add you to list.

Yeah, that'd be great.

So. And maybe we can do a podcast on it after you read it.

That'd be awesome.

So if you go to Facebook and you look up entrepreneurial personality type book number 302, Jodi Ardito got one of these books and she's writing a first person account of it flying around the the world on a Facebook page. We've had. Oh, we actually Anna Selby, incredible speaker who got a copy of the book, took it to her event Meltdown in the Desert and spent the last five minutes of her keynote awarding it to a person who was in the audience. The guy cried on stage like, you don't get that by running a bestseller campaign. You know? You ran them.

Yeah.

You know, we have a woman in Kenya who, Paula Inka in Kenya, who watched our stuff, somehow found us from Kenya, ordered the book, we sent it to her. She's one of our guardians. She's passing around her area in Canada, the city that she lives in in Kenya. She's now taking her kid out of school and homeschooling him because she realized he's an entrepreneurial personality type and the system wasn't working. Dude, that doesn't happen from a bestseller campaign.

No, it doesn't. I dig it. I really, really dig it. So what.

What, what else are you, are you working on anything else next right now? Is there another big move for Alex Charfen? Anything that you're really excited about that is in progress that you haven't.

Absolutely, yeah. There always is. We have a new. There's a class that we're just starting in August and September. It's Business Momentum. We're teaching the tactics of growth and scale. One of the things that we put out recently, Brad, is an article called the 10 Principles of Self Made Billionaires. People have tried to write about billionaires before, but it's always like they're writing about them through a telescope. It's like, let's observe billionaires and see how they are. Well, I wrote 10 principles of self Made Billionaires after having interviewed billionaires and spent time around them and it has struck a chord in the market. We put it out in Success magazine. 50,000 shares in two weeks.

That's fantastic.

It's one of the most viral things that they've had on their site. And it's literally an article. No pictures or anything. Like nothing that would have made it go viral other than content. Those same principles are what we teach people to achieve in our two day classes. So Alan Belcher, a former UFC fighter, he runs a couple of million dollar MMA gyms. He came and this is in our words, in his testimonial he said, I'm a millionaire already. This is where you come to learn how to be a billionaire. That's so cool. And I want this to be relatable to everybody because what we're doing is we're taking, you know, the whole saying success leaves clues.

Yeah.

They're clearest at the top.

And if you take the clues from the top and you create frameworks around them, you can show anyone how to accelerate success.

I love that. And so people can find that article on which site was it?

So if they go to Success magazine and search my name or Self made billionaire, they'll find it. Also, if you want to keep up with me and hear more of the entrepreneurial personality type information, we have an incredible Facebook group, wearept.com so w e a R-E-E-P dash.com and there's a lot, there's a community there. A lot of people exchange information. And I'll throw this out there. Anybody who's on Snapchat, I'm Alex Charfen on Snapchat. So A L E X C H A R F E N. And although I'm new on that platform, holy cow, is it effective? And I do a lot of stuff on there. In fact, there's a lot of interaction there. I try to share kind of My daily routine, what we do to be successful, whatever tips we can. And then I know a lot of really interesting people. I end up in some interesting situations, and they're always on Snapchat.

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I've started to use it a little bit more and more and just trying to figure it out. It's always one more toy, one more fun tactic.

I love it. Because.

You know what? I can't put it into words. I can tell you a story or I can tell you a couple. So I got on Snapchat about a month and a half ago at the encouragement of one of my friends, and he said, hey, man, you go there, you can talk, you get instant feedback. It's just you'll connect with people in a way you haven't connected. So I was like, okay, I'll give it 30 days. One of the first things that I did was I started talking about each day like, hey, are you doing what you want to do? Do you feel like you're in momentum? Download my book. And I started just coaching the unseen person on Snapchat. On day 18, I got a snap from Benjamin Tyler, and he was saying, hey, I want you to see this. This is my res letter. I've been listening to you. I'm turning this in. Wanted you to see. And I'm like, man, I love this platform. And just a couple of days ago, I had somebody send me a video in the morning. It was like 5:30 in the morning. I get up really early. I start, you know, on Snapchat around 4:30. And I had somebody send me a video at 5:30 in the morning and say, hey, man, I'm up at 5:30. I haven't been up this early in forever. I've been watching you on Snapchat. It's an inspiration. So here's what's cool about it, is like, if you do it right, your everyday life can help people. And so.

I'm really into the platform. The engagement level there is just awesome. And people are really into it.

That's so cool. So you do get a lot of people responding to your snaps individually?

Constantly. Yeah. Yeah, I just got one as we're talking.

That's so cool.

Are there any other trends that you kind of see in the marketplace that.

You think that you're excited about? Just so not necessarily the things that you're doing, but just other things going on that you think.

The next year or two will be big?

You know, I think that I like to put you on the spot here. Yeah, no, I think I've got a crazy history in business. I think we're going through a very tumultuous time in business. I think it's much easier to predict where the challenges and where the fissures and issues are and what we're going to face next. I think.

I look for disparity and for where are people going to be scared in the market because that's where you can make up ground. So I think when I look at the major trends first, this political election and the rest of the world is causing the United States to appear so unstable that we're going to be challenged by this for a while. I think when you look at the U.S. economy, we have this, a 10 ton elephant in the room that no one's talking about called retail. Where if you look at the retail first, just the entire, all of the stores in the United States, all the retail footprint, you look at how many shopping centers, how many malls, how many thousands and millions of square foot feet there are and the infrastructure around all of that. And then I challenge you to walk into like a Sears or a Dillard's or a, even a Nordstrom's and find a store that doesn't look like absolute crap that you don't want to go back to. So I think we've got this rolling catastrophe of retail that's coming at us that it's going to start really having an effect I think in the next 10 to 15 years. And then the other one is the real estate market. We've been propping it up and subsidizing it for so long. I'm watching it closely because when there's major movements in the real estate market, millions are made.

Yeah. And you've got a, I mean we didn't even talk about that, but you've got a lot of background in there. You came up with the distressed property.

Specialist or something designation certified distressed property expert. Yeah, Katie and I, Katie and I wrote that in 2007 we trained about 50,000 real estate agents how to help people who were in foreclosure. And the U.S. treasury gave us credit for pulling the foreclosure crisis forward five years.

That's amazing.

And it's true.

I mean, especially because real estate agents are not. Those are the ones who got the designation primarily right. I imagine some investors too. But that's really important because agents notoriously are not, that's not their specialty. Their specialty is making a house look pretty and finding it and just doing the normal stuff. So when we had a major crisis like that I'm sure it sent a lot of people into a tailspin. I come from an investing background. I flipped my first houses from a guy who's in foreclosure back in, I think it was 2002. I just recently, for the past couple years was directing the marketing for. I don't know if you know Kent Clothier, who he is, but he's got, you know, he's one of the top real estate investor educators. He's got a big software as a service that helps people find, you know, distress motivated sellers, cash buyers, etc. And I was helping to direct his marketing and you know, teaching everything from wholesaling to you to flipping and you name it. But so I've got a lot of experience in that area and I see how, how crazy it is. I think that's awesome. When you created the certification for especially the real estate agents to go in there and really understand the nuances of the market and how to deal with that. Because I know my experience with a lot of agents, average agents, has been hair pulling because they just don't get it.

Yeah, what happened? So you know what, I actually got out of being a consultant a few years before that in the early 2000s after I met my wife Katie and I had like, I thought I was going to retire. I sold my consultancy when I was in my 20s and I thought I was going to retire. And so Katie and I were going to kind of like just do nothing. And what happened was I accidentally started like a real estate company, a property management company, an acquisition company. Then Katie was a realtor. I was doing mortgages overnight. We had like four different teams. Not overnight, but over the course of like a year. I had four teams. We were doing a ton of properties. We ended up doing 2004, 5, 6, like yeah, heat of it. Yeah, just in the middle.

Easy money.

South Florida.

Yeah, easy money.

And so in 2007, we got caught with a ton of property. We lost it all. We went bankrupt. And I started getting foreclosure notices on all of the properties we had. I had a huge portfolio with. It was about 60% loan to value, but my portfolio, the entire thing lost 75% loan to value. I actually had properties that lost 90% of their value. We had a property called in Stonebridge Gardens, Florida where we owned condos, 160 to $180,000 in value. And the lowest price one sold for was 15,250.

Ouch.

Yeah. So like we lost everything. And when the foreclosure notices started Showing up. And when the negotiations started and I started talking to mortgage companies, I realized they weren't doing it right. There wasn't much, much I could do, but there was stuff that other people could do and just the challenge of being foreclosed on and being sued and it was so emotional. Like I wanted to help people. So Katie and I wrote a process and I took it to bank of America, I took it to Chase, to Citi, to Wells Fargo, to the US treasury, to Fannie Mae, to Freddie Mac, to the national association of Realtors, and here. This is crazy. Chris, you know a little about real estate. In 2008, they told me I was wrong because I was saying, hey, this is a 10 year problem. I was saying there are more defaults than we understand. This is going to be a massive crisis. This is going to take out every state in the country. And they were calling me like Chicken Little. And I, you know, right before the bottom fell out totally, and I was called uncredible. I was, I was like criticized because it was, it was localized to Florida at that point. But I had actually gone and looked at all of the mortgages that had been written and I realized Florida was the first place. We had written a lot of adjustable rate and a lot of arms. And then the entire country went like dominoes. So in 2008, everybody said we were wrong and I was criticized and made fun of. In 2009, Citi, bank of America, Wells Fargo, Fannie and the US treasury were our consulting clients.

And they all used our system. We wrote a system, a single package short sale processing system that was taught in the CDPE but then also taught in the loss mitigation departments. And our system was used in the vast majority of short sale negotiations from 2008 until today.

Oh, wow, that's really cool. I love that. So, yeah, back to the current trends. You're seeing real estate starting to face more of a. Not. It's not the exact same problem. Not the exact same.

It's not even close. It's not even close. It is something that we've never dealt with before. So here's what you have in real estate today. We've taken the average monthly value of a house and cut it in half as we've taken the average value of a house and grown it. So we have an entire generation who has bought properties cheaper than the generation.

Before them because of how cheap the interest rates are.

Exactly. And so we've totally reset expectations around home purchasing.

That's true.

And so today, like the equivalent is you can go buy a nice BMW for 199 bucks all day long. In two or three years, that might be $600. Are we still going to sell as many BMWs? I don't think so. So I think we've created this massive false economy in what happens to be the largest asset class in the United States.

Right. So would it be safe then kind of extrapolating on that if, you know, when interest rates rise? Because they absolutely have to at some point. Nobody knows when it'll be. But when they start to rise and just kind of normalize, revert to the mean.

You know. Yeah.

This same $200,000 house, $250,000 house is going to cost.

Twice as much monthly.

Well, I mean, when I was a mortgage broker in 2006, $250,000 house, if I got you a $2,000 payment, that was a really good payment.

Yeah.

Somebody today can get you 1,100.

Right. So now. Yeah. When they go to re. Yeah. People are so used to saying, no, this is. Houses are supposed to be this cheap per month. I never even thought about that. That's a cool insight. Thanks for.

Well, and think about it this way. So, Brad, you know, say the interest rate, and this is just because I watch macro numbers. I'm one of those, you know, I'm.

A macro geek, too.

I'm a macro geek. Right. So let's look at the macro numbers. So we've been fortifying and putting money into interest rates for years now. And so we've driven this purchase value down of a $200,000 asset. The purchase value has been driven down to $1,100 a month if we take. And so we've created a buying class of someone who can afford $1,100 a month, but can step up to a $200,000 property. So in the future, we're going to need somebody who will be satisfied with a $200,000 property with a $2,000 payment in order for you to sell your house.

Yeah. And that's going to be harder and harder.

That's going to be a train wreck. Because what we will have done is so when the payment value doubles, income levels won't double and we won't sell anything. So it'll be interesting to see how many administrations, how many different Treasuries, how many different economies are try and do something goofy to prop this up. But, you know, we'll see. I mean, it's usually it all comes back to the Fed and how much money they want to throw at It. And.

For the foreseeable, for the recent past, they haven't said uncle.

Well, and they don't have a whole lot of ammunition left.

But it's really, Brad, you know, this market, what do you do next?

I don't know, but people ask me why, like, why do you rent a house in like, oh, I rent an apartment in San Diego. Well, number one, it's expensive as heck to buy a house out in California. I mean, you know what I'm talking about, right? Especially I came from Dallas.

No, I own in California. That's ridiculous.

Right. And I own two properties back in Texas that we rent out. And I would much rather rent my primary place and then just buy rental property with, you know, if I've got cash to put on a down payment here, I'd rather, you know, I could buy three houses probably for cash back in Dallas or Memphis or different places that I invest. And it's for that exact same reason, though, is I don't really trust.

What'S going to go on. It's a little too precarious. Everything from the market to the general economy. I like to keep my powder keg a little bit more dry. Right now, you shared with me, I had not thought about that angle to the potential housing market right now. It definitely presents an issue, especially if rates start to rise.

Well, you lose buyers. I watch real estate numbers really closely. Katie and I have rebuilt. We have a substantial portfolio here in Austin, only we don't have mortgages anymore. We just write checks for properties now. But.

I watch.

How many months do we have on the market? What's the availability of properties? How many properties are being built? I've been buying properties since I was 21 years old. And the real estate market, people can get overwhelmed by numbers, but I look at very few and it's very clear. So when there's more property than we're selling, when the sales rates start to slow down and when you start seeing inventory back up, there's going to be an issue. And so we watch those numbers and here's what's interesting right now. Each time there's a little hiccup in inventory, the rates come down and it's not right away. It's not a quick adjustment, but it's within 30 to 60 days, you see a little blip in the rates go down and then purchases go back up. And so I think right now we're in this place where, I don't know, Brad. I don't know how they're going to move off of this Free money period or reduce price money, period.

I don't either. It could cause havoc. It's going to be an interesting next couple of years. Tell you that.

Yeah, I mean I think anybody who follows us or who downloads my book or if you do any of those things, keep an eye out on our stuff. Just because we have such a high level of research expertise and contacts in real estate, we're probably going to start putting out a once a month real estate update through our website. And if that's something that's interested, interests you, look it up. We have a huge membership in real estate that we're going to just support that way and I think a lot of business people and investors will want to see the same.

Yeah, I think that's great. Cool. Well, are there any nuts you're trying to crack right now? Anything you're either trying to, you know, whether it's a skill you're trying to learn, a person you're trying to hire, somebody trying to meet, just this is kind of where we get to turn the table and help you out. Any ideas you're trying to get off the ground. You just don't have any. The right people or resources.

You know Brad, here's what's critical for us.

Entrepreneurs are we isolate. Naturally part of what we do is we kind of pull back and we don't share. And what I'm working on and what I would love help with is getting our book out there. Because if you're willing to read it, you know, I know you're willing to read it Brad, but if anyone listening is willing to read it and then, then share it, like even if you just download the electronic version. We had an elect. I'm very sensitive to visuals so we had an electronic version that's made to look like a Kindle version. It's incredibly easy to read. You can Download it@charfen.com Bacon wrapped, which I'm going to make sure.

I'm going to make sure that's correct.

Well, I'm gonna go make sure afterwards.

But if you go to sharpen.com baconwrapped and read the book, you know, here's what. Yeah, that works by the way. Perfect. So my request is share it with someone, talk about it. Start like understanding who we are. Because the reason I say there's nothing wrong with you is that the most vulnerable person in the world is always the one one trying to move the ball forward and the one who's carrying the flag out front is always the one with his back exposed. And so for those of us who choose to live life that way, we have to stop looking at what's wrong with us. And when you read the entrepreneurial personality type book, it's not fluffy stuff that tells you, hey, you should feel good about your weaknesses. It's real. It shows our attributes, and it clarifies exactly who we are. And it'll show you how to create. Create momentum in your life. And if you're willing to download that and share that with someone, that's the conversation we're trying to start. Because, Brad, here's my belief. There's far more entrepreneurial personality types who are in rehab, who are struggling, who are not doing well, or who are even in an early grave than are running successful businesses. Because the people in the world who ask the questions, pushed forward, are really stubborn, are wanting to make. Move things around, want to change the status quo, are not the ones that get the support. Far too many of us are being told that there's something wrong with us. If you'll share my book and show people that there is nothing wrong with you, that would be the best thing that could happen.

Absolutely. So, ladies and gentlemen, you heard it. That's how you can help. Alex. Alex, this has been an awesome, awesome podcast. I really like it. We talked about some tactical stuff. We talked about some of the most important, foundational, fundamental mental shifts that people really need to understand and make. And you've given us a lot of resources to.

Look at. I know I'll be taking an even closer look at all the stuff that you've got now that we've officially made this connection. I just really want to thank you for taking the time to be on the show today and sharing all this with us.

Brad, I appreciate it, man, and I appreciate you being a guardian. We'll get your book out in the next day so you can read this thing.

That'd be fantastic for all of my listeners.

There's show notes in the. In the links. I mean, there's. I'm sorry, there's links in the show notes, and you can go check out all the things that Alex and I both talked about today. One of the best things you can do is get the book, pass it on, and if you do feel as though you've got the entrepreneurial personality type and that there's other people who could benefit from this, share not only the book with them, share the show, let people be introduced to Alex by this. Tag me in it. If you share it on social media and if there's any hurdles that you're trying to leap over. If there's anything that you're kind of stuck with, reach out to me personally. Send an email to ask bradakenwrappedbusiness.com if you are a business owner and your profits have plateaued and you're looking for a second opinion on how to kind of get those unstuck, this is what I do. Podcasting is not what I do for a living. What I do for a living is helping help business owners get unstuck, grow their business using very unique, out of the box, but completely proven strategies to help you grow your business. And there's nothing that I like more than working with the same people that we've been talking about today on the show. And if there's any way that I can be of service to you, the best way to reach me is Once more ask bradakenratbusiness.com and if you just love what we do and want to share that, you can always leave a review on itunes because that's like, you know, that's just like candy for me. I love that. I read every single one of them. And I appreciate everybody for listening, for sharing the show. And Alex, I appreciate your time on the show today and I look forward to getting a physical copy of that book and reading it and passing it on.

Yeah, you're going to need somebody to pass it to. So maybe if any of the listeners want to read the physical copy, they can email you.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Email me. First one to email me. First one to email me that they want the book. Ask Brad at Baconright Business. You got it.

Nice.

We'll see the action takers out there.

Yeah, I love that you can create a little list and pass it around. Brad, I really appreciate the podcast. I love your style, man, and I appreciate you having me on.

Thanks a lot, Alex. See you guys next week.