Joe & Ivan Discuss Business Growth

This is Joe Apfelbaum, CEO of Ajax Union, and I'm really excited about the presentation that we're going to be doing today with me and Ivan Pollock. My name is Joe Apfelbaum, CEO of Ajax Union, founder of Evy AI, and we're going to be sharing some really exciting insights on how to be able to grow your business. Ivan is an expert that grew his business and sold his business, and I want him to come and speak to you guys about some of those insights and how he was able to grow his business and then sell his business. So if you have any questions, pop them in the chat. Let me know that you're watching this. We are now officially live and we're just going to wait for a couple more people to join, but I'd love to hear from you. Where in the world are you? Are you currently dialing in from? Let me know in the comments below. Also, give this post a little light bulb if you're watching this live now. Curious to know where you're dialing in from. I'm gonna write in the chat, where are you dialing in from? Go ahead in the chat, let me know where you're dialing in from. And also put a light bulb on if you know how to put the light bulb— a lot of people don't know how to put the light bulb on, but go ahead. Put on the light bulb. I want to see a little, a little yellow light bulb going on on LinkedIn. I'm also going to be sharing my screen and we're going to be sharing some insights on exactly what you need to know when it comes to growing your business. Looks like Ivan's coming in. We also have another thought leader here as well. Dr. Rao will be joining us shortly. I see that he's logging in on the backend over here. Dr. Rao, welcome. So good to see you here.

Hi, Joe.

Good to see you. Thank you for joining us today. Really excited to be here.

It's always good to see you.

And we also have Ivan over here. Ivan, welcome. So glad that you made it here.

Hello, Ivan.

Hello. So thanks for having me, Ivan. Why don't you just take a moment and just briefly introduce yourself to the audience? Let the world know who you are.

Well, my name is Ivan Pawlik. I'm with the Jumpstart Your Exit and Systemic Approach Institute, and we help business owners grow, scale, and exit their businesses. We went through a major journey in the aerospace industry, going from a very overworked and burnt-out state all the way to building a business that was running independently of us. At about— at the end, I was working 2 hours a week.

Wow.

And we eventually exited for 8 figures and enjoying our time now helping other people make that same journey.

Wow, that's really fantastic. That's really great. Now you're coaching other people and helping them out, helping them grow their business. What do you think was the key for when you grew your business and then sold it? What do you think was the key to being able to actually grow it and sell it and have an 8-figure exit?

Thinking it was possible. That was the, that was the biggest key because I felt it was so impossible. I, I was so burnt out and I, I had way overwhelmed and, uh, very buried in, uh, too many things. And if when I was picturing it, could I bring in somebody, can somebody else do this, I was thinking no way, no way. I'm doing so many variety of things, I don't think it's possible. I just don't think this is possible. I I think that's the biggest hurdle, and getting over that hurdle wasn't by inspiration; it was by really having a kind of wake-up moment in time where I drove up to the building and I was holding on to the wheel, and I couldn't let go. I couldn't walk in one more time in there. It was it was I was so spent. I was so done. I felt like if I keep pushing through this zone, I'm gonna have a heart attack or a stroke. And I said no more. I have to change. Change the approach here. And that was the difference for me. And from that point on, once I decided to, uh, to go in this direction, it wasn't easy, let me tell you, but it was possible. And that's why I'm sitting here as a, as a, as a possible case study. And also, we're helping other people now do it. So it's possible. If, if you're out there and you're thinking, man, you know, maybe this is going to work for other people but not for me, trust me, I was there. in the trench, completely wasted. And it was possible for me, so it's definitely possible to you, for you, wherever you find yourself.

What do you see as the biggest challenge that business owners face right now when it comes to their business? I know that you're helping companies in the aerospace industry. I know you're helping companies in construction. Can you tell us the biggest challenges that people face in general? If you guys have questions for Ivan, put them in the chat. And also, for those of you that are watching now, Feel free to repost this post. So this way your audience can see this as well. And we're going to ask Dr. Rao some questions as well. So hit the repost button, put the little light bulb, and leave your questions in the comments. What are the biggest hurdles that people have when it comes to growing their business? What are you seeing right now, Ivan?

The biggest hurdle is, you know, 2 things. Uh, there are, there are a couple key lies that, that prevent people, uh, prevent people from moving forward and growing their business. One is that no one is gonna ever care as much as I do about my business. That is the first lie that people tell themselves, and it's a big hurdle. It's a, it's a kind of a constraint, a ceiling, because there's only so much you can do by yourself to grow your business. At a certain point, you become the bottleneck and the constraint. To further growth, and if you have that mentality, you're probably going to limit your growth. And the second lie that people tell themselves is that no one can do it as good as me, man. I'm I'm the Michael Jordan of this operation, man. I you know I'm I'm crush things and I dominate and I'm I'm the best. And so no one ever can come and tell me give me advice or anything. I know best. And so those are the two biggest hurdles that I see. Uh, that prevent— it's a kind of a self-limiting, self-limiting view and, and a bunch of lies that end up imprisoning business owners as opposed to providing the freedom that they set out on. They, they've started their business to make themselves free, and then they end up in the, in the golden handcuffs of their own business. And that's a sad affair of, uh, state of affairs because only 20% of business owners ever end up exiting. 80% either, uh, pass on and, and lose their business, or they have to shut it down, or the business doesn't make it, goes bankrupt, or whatever it is. So, you know, you want to be in the 20%, and you want to start preparing for that now. And there are ways to do it, and it is possible.

Wow, wow. It sounds like there are mindset issues. I know Dr. Rao is an expert at mindset and wellness and things like that. Dr. Rao, you want to weigh in on those 2 Mindset issues, hurdle number one. Which is—

can you hear me okay?

Yeah, we can hear you.

Okay. Yeah, Ivan was bringing out how he almost was burnt out, you know. And I wish I had met him at the time. I would have really turned him around on the resources that he had inside himself, that inner resilience. My point is, we can do business, but we don't have to be spent out for that. Enjoy the business, make contribution you want to make to society, make money, whatever you want to make, but then spare yourself, protect yourself. That's what I do. I help people not to burn themselves out because it's not the mindset, it's more like where you are stationed yourself in your own awareness, then use the mind as a tool. That means every day you work and you rest your mind. That people don't do. They go from top gear to top gear. No, you get to calm down and get yourself together. And these are the skills we can learn. It's not like written somewhere else, but then they are there for us to use. So, I myself, I spend in the present all the time, Joe. I don't let my past come and dictate me or future dictate me. I do take the lessons from the past, but when I am executing something, I am completely with it. That saves a lot of energy for me with unnecessary thoughts. And really, I come out of the job completely fulfilled because I am paying complete attention. So, being in the present, present moment awareness, Is very important. You can use the technical skills, all the knowledge for outward stuff. But when it comes to inward, people don't have to use their thought, but be aware what's going on and then change that.

I love that. I love that you shared that around the awareness. And one of the things that I was researching online when I was preparing for this was, you know, lack of clear vision and strategy. You know, like there's insufficient capital, insufficient marketing, talent acquisitions. But if you don't have the right mindset, if you're all in your head and you're all worried and you're never resting, or you have self-limiting beliefs around, you know, I'm— no one could do this better than me, or I'm never going to be able to delegate anything, you're going to end up having operational inefficiencies because you're not relying on other people and because you yourself are going to get burnt out.

Can I say something about that, Joe?

Of course.

Because we need the team. we need to lead the team with vision. But why we don't go for the team is that ego factor. We don't have to be egotistical in this. You know, everything is by the team.

Even in that, you're saying there's a big ego that comes into it and doesn't allow us to be able to achieve true delegation based on ego.

Really use the team because everybody has their own talents. If you are a leader of those talents and then bring them together, then you will have double production instead of you spending yourself. I am a— I'm like, I clone and delegate. I teach my staff, these are the principles, these are the things that we want to protect the quality of the patient. But then once they start to do it or monitor, once they learn it, I delegate completely and I go enjoy myself.

Yeah. And that's why you're a great doctor and a great leader because you're able to do that. Can I ask a question to Ivan about the fear of change? Resistance to change or innovation can prevent businesses from adapting to market trends and opportunities, especially now with the world of AI. How do business owners that you coach, how do you get them to embrace change and to not have that fear of change and resistance to innovation?

Change is the only constant. We live in an impermanent world. Uh, somehow this has been wired this way. We don't have a choice. It's not that we cannot say, oh, well, I want to keep this thing the same. And as much as we may want to keep it the same, it's an impossibility. It just isn't, isn't, isn't how the universe is created. It isn't how things function. Uh, we age, we die, we have to deal with things we cannot control. And all those things are kind of suffering that's wired into how life is organized. whatever you believe in and how and, and all of those things. So we have to accept certain truths, uh, and, and facts of life, and that is that business is a constantly changing game. And the people that don't, don't get on that train usually have really bad outcomes. And, uh, you know, we talk a lot, we, we discuss that, and, uh, sometimes that takes, takes a little bit of, uh, uh, resting into and breathing into and, uh, Accepting that and acknowledging that fact, that's where, that's where everything starts, uh, with the acknowledgment of the truth and the reality. We have to deal with the reality. The reality is that the world is changing at a much faster rate today than ever, and the, the rate of change is actually increasing. So, um, if your comfort level was, uh, this much change in the past, you need to rework your own perspective and your own inner world and, and position that you're taking, uh, with, with the increase of change. And so it's not going to get any better, or it's not going to slow down, it's just going to increase in the speed. And that's a big part of how to create sustainable businesses— a certain adaptability, resilience, a certain innovativeness. One of our approaches is something we call the shift intelligence. So we work consciously with, uh, business— our business owners on how to increase their shift intelligence so that they're, they're more moldable and they're more present in the moment. In the moment is the only place where you have a choice. In the now is where you have a choice. In the past, no choice. In the future, you don't have a choice. But now is it when you have a choice. And making the correct choices depends on your point of view, and your point of view must be Align with reality, which is change is only increasing. What am I going to do about it?

Wow. Joe, I have to say something about the change. Change is the only certain thing in life, and this is connected with our wellness, our mental acumen, and also physical health too. If you are stagnant, body also goes down. 70% of it is water, and you don't want stagnant water, you get dirty. Like that, metabolically, you want to change all the time, right? That's called diurnal change. Every 12 hours, we change our metabolism a little bit. But if you don't have adoption to the change and go for the new things, mind also doesn't form the new cells. That's called neuroplasticity that we are studying now. You can change your cortex by adopting new things, especially something that you are not familiar with. I'm learning something like coding, for example. My brain lights up and creates a new brain. So change is life, actually change is life. Adopt it and go with it.

Very powerful. Change is life. Change is life. I love that. Change is so important. And if you're not changing, you're dying. If you're not growing, you're dying. So understanding how change works, not being afraid of change, really important. What do you think about competition? A lot of people are afraid of competition. They don't know how to work with competition. Me and you had a conversation about competition and how to leverage competition, and you told me you had a little bit of a breakthrough after our conversation. Do you want to share that conversation with the world and, and how you view competition and maybe how you view competition now after our conversation?

Yeah, we talked about it yesterday about competition. And, uh, you know, since your, uh, LinkedIn is your, um, is your zone of genius, um, you know, we spoke about, you know, how do we, how do we align with competition and how do we work with our competition and how do we leverage opportunities with our competitors. And I was, I was saying that You know, I don't know that— what's the, what's the utility? What's the value of connecting and building relationships with the competitors? Because the likelihood of they— of them referring us clients is very low. To which you proceeded to really educate me on the power of aligning with competitors in the LinkedIn space and all the opportunities that, that are, that are possible, uh, whether you know, certain, certain alignments that we can have and support things that unlock possibilities that previously were not available separately. Also, um, in their network, they may have people who are uniquely suited for what, what exactly we do. Uh, so they may, may have narrow areas of focus where they can actually be helpful to our clients, and that we have, uh, some certain niche Qualities and capacities that they don't have, and we can partner on that, and we can support each other. And so we're living in abundant universe and an abundant world, and we can notice the abundance and collaborate in a lot in a much bigger fashion. Collaboration is always gonna outpace competition. And so thank you, Joe, for. for providing that perspective yesterday.

It's a very powerful perspective to have. A lot of people, they're afraid of competition. They're really not sure how to deal with competition. And I always say, if you are afraid, if you're afraid of competition, you're not gonna be able to leverage the competition.

Yeah.

One of the key things that I always say is learn from your competitors, learn what they're up to, learn what they're doing, see how you can R&D, right? Remember what R&D stands for?

Research and development. I'm going to play along.

Yeah, research and development. Most people think it's research and development. I say it's rip off and duplicate.

I heard yesterday that.

It's great. It's great to connect with people, to learn from them, and to copy. Success leaves clues. You don't need to make sure that you do everything and know everything. Don't have such a great ego. If you find something that works, leverage it, copy it. Don't try to come up with all the original ideas yourself. I think it was Warren Buffett that said, it's not the great ideas that make you successful, it's the ideas that are mediocre but are great, have great execution, that will make you successful. Uber wasn't the first car-sharing app.

Yeah.

Facebook wasn't the first social media app. YouTube wasn't the first website that had videos on it. And Google was not the first search engine. So if you think about it from that perspective, you're like, oh, I need to be the first to the market. No, your ego needs to be the first to the market.

Yeah.

You don't need to be the first. You need to have great execution. Evvy AI, our Google Chrome, our Chrome extension that we have that works on LinkedIn, is not the only AI for LinkedIn that exists. There are competitors out there, but our competitors suck. They don't have personas. They don't have the ability to command LinkedIn to do something specifically. They don't have templates like we do. They don't have all the features that we have. And we keep adding new features every single week and making it better and better and better. So the key is don't worry so much about your competitors. Instead, learn from them, innovate, use them as allies, and eventually buy them out. That's the key. Eventually buy them out if you want their customers.

Joe, I have to say something about the competition. There's a Buddhist saying, very famous saying, collaboration, not competition, leads to cooperation. 3 C's: collaboration, competition, and cooperation. The collaboration happens when you are psychologically secure within yourself, and you don't have a problem learning from anybody. And to improve the overall team performance or whatever institution you have, you take it from everybody. And actually, you will be able to spot talent very early and then leverage it for your success.

100%. 100%. If you're able to leverage for your success, that's going to be really, really key. And the question is, do you— is your ego allowing you to be able to leverage that? Or is your ego stopping you from allowing to leverage it? Ivan, how do you see ego playing a role in a business owner's life?

Well, usually, usually there's an inflection point, you know, a certain, certain amount of— we all have egos, so we cannot exclude them. They're a part of the journey. And one metaphor that I find useful in the, in the car, in the car of your life, you don't want the ego driving the car. Uh, you want something more, uh, something more, uh, deeper, something more important, something— a mission or a core value that is very important to you. What's— asking yourself, what's most important for me in my life? It's different for other people, you know. It's— for some people it's family, for some people it's contribution. What, what would be worth dedicating your yourself too, uh, and have that drive the car of your life. And then have ego be there in support in terms of navigation and planning and execution and all these things, uh, really smart things. Uh, egos are built to protect us. Egos are built to stabilize us. Egos are built to control the uncontrollable world we live in. Uh, so it's a quite useful capacity. But it cannot be the main driving focus, and it cannot be an end to itself. So it needs to be in a kind of supporting role. That's my view on it.

I look at ego more like a— make it a slave, not a master of yours. The other thing is you can transcend ego if you really identify who you are. And once you are in that Being, ego is transcended. That's the goal of many religions and philosophies and all that. There is a valuable thing about that though. Once the ego is transcended, because you identify every human being is a part of the same energy, which physics is also saying now. Now, in that energy, you don't have any operation of ego. You are going more for your altruistic things or noble things or whatever you want to achieve, then you work more for the entire company. The company people will take to you because they see you as a leader, because you don't have any psychological ego that you want to dominate them, rather be service of them. That is what I call service leadership, servant leadership. Once you have servant leadership, then you get the affection and all the love from the employees, and they work better for you because you are caring for them, for their needs first. So you can transcend ego, not just eliminate it, but understand and go beyond it and stay in that beautiful energy that you have that will drive you to achieve what you want to achieve.

So I have a question for you, Dr. Rao. What questions do you have, Ivan, now that you know what Ivan's about and what he does? What are you curious to know from Ivan?

Yeah, Ivan, um, what is that you are trying to do with your institution? Is that to make some profit, or is that providing some societal need, or, you know, something like a bigger cause, like a, you know, how to protect the planet, how to prevent the wars? I worry about all those bigger things. What do you do with those things? You're a successful leader, so—

Yeah, so our mission is to free, free as many people as possible from the, from the limitation and constraints that they put themselves under. Our goal is to have everyone overflow with their natural goodness, what they have inside. We are all meant to make some kind of a contribution, and we get stuck in life during our development developmental stages, we get stuck in systems, points of view, uh, we get stuck in, in different institutions and careers, and, uh, we, we get stuck a lot in different structures that are man-made. And my, my goal and my mission and our mission with our work is to free people up to do what they're meant to do and to enjoy life the way they made— the way they want to enjoy it, and, and to make that unique contribution that they're meant to make here. So it's overflowing with goodness, uh, and overflowing with aliveness. That's the end result that we're looking for when we work with, uh, business leaders and business organizations, so that not only, uh, the limited overflow can happen, but actually that we can overflow together as an organization and continue to overflow in the future in an ever more expanding way So organizing things in a way that have lasting contribution beyond the founder's lifetime, that's, that's what we focus on.

Awesome. That really, really is exciting. I really appreciate both of you sharing today and coming on here. Ivan, this is really exciting that I interviewed you here on LinkedIn Live, and I'm looking forward to seeing the replay of this. Make sure to repost this with your network so more people learn about you. Ivan, if people want to get in touch with you and they want to hire you, what's the best way for them to find you?

LinkedIn is a, is a good way. You can reach out on LinkedIn. Another way is you can go to our website, jumpstartyouexit.com, and you can fill out a form there. Either way, you know, you can You can learn more about us in both those locations.

Awesome. jumpstartyourexit.com. If you want to grow your business, if you're doing a few million dollars a year in revenue, you want to take your business to a whole new level, you want to do what Ivan did and grow your business to 8 figures and then sell it, definitely check out Ivan. Thank you very much. And Dr. Rao, thank you for joining us. Thank you for your insights around wellness, around mindset, around peace, around ego. Thank you for sharing all that, and we'll see you guys on the next episode.