Embracing Uncertainty: A Creative Approach to Business with Roland Frasier

The philosophy is, don't let your genius create someone else's retirement.

Ah, I like that.

Yeah.

At least get a part of the action. Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Because, yeah, it's a hamster wheel or dancing bear, as you said many times. You stop dancing. You stop doing your deals, taking the calls or whatever stops coming.

You stop dancing. You dance and they throw the money. Stop doing that. They're like crickets.

Hey, I'm Joe Fear, and welcome to the Hustle and Flow Chart podcast. This is where we talk all about building businesses so they give you the freedom and fuel for your life. I'm not here to help you build $1 billion business, but I am here to help you create a business with systems that work for you so you can make more money than you need just by working part time. You know, I was a chronic hustle mode kind of guy, and I want to share my experiences and mentors I've met along the way to help you reframe things to be the most effective as an entrepreneur. I wish I had this guidance and insight when I was younger. So that's what I'm doing here for you. Please share and enjoy.

I've been excited for. For this and. And thanks for offering again because it's been, I think, two years since the last time we did this.

Yeah. I would guess because we were remodeling this house and we were just starting, so my guess is it was 2019, so I would guess three years.

It looks much different. It does. Yeah. And, yeah, Covid has passed us. Hopefully. Allegedly.

Yes.

Yeah.

Run.

And I know there's been so many different programs you've launched. You've perfected a lot of the. Just the processes of. And I'm thankful to. I know the epic side of things. My wife, I think I told you, I shout that out.

Yeah.

That's so cool. Yeah. Her business, I mean, she's expanded a lot. I have as well on the things I'm doing. So I want to get into some of these programs you have. I know it's epic Consulting for equity. Some cool AI stuff you're doing. All that stuff is fascinating. Before that, I want to get into. And this is kind of the essence of the show and where I'm taking things is how do we figure out. Because we're all figuring out. Okay. Who we are in business and how we can best apply ourselves and give, but also fulfill ourselves. And the way I look at you is someone who is extremely expansive in the way you think it's scalable. I Mean, there's a reason why it's called Scalable, the company. But when I think of you, and I think a lot of other folks, they look to you for just the unique way that use your brain and how that applies to not only business, but life. So I think it'd be fun to maybe deconstruct some of your story, even though we've talked about it a little bit. But what you think is relevant to what got you to kind of this lateral thinking and how that can apply to folks listening, knowing that everyone has a different way of being, you know, and different aspirations. But I feel like there's like an awareness that you can maybe light some light bulbs here for us and they can kind of apply some of this mental models that you work with.

Sure.

Happy to help anyone, wherever that starts. Yeah.

I mean, as far as talking about lateral thinking, I think that it's a conscious pursuit of thinking laterally that is really at the core of that. And I remember when I was a kid, there was a book that I found. I was a weird kid because my mother was a. She's a psych major, but she was very into Carl Jung and psychology and stuff like that. And my father was very into motivational things like Dennis Waitley and Tony Robbins and things like that. And so I had those influences and was reading all of that kind of stuff. When I was a kid. I remember I did a book report on I'm okay, you're okay, which is transactional analysis psychology. But I thought it was fascinating because I'm a kid and I'm like, I don't understand, you know, why communication goes wonky. And it had these three circles on the. On one side and three circles on the other. And it was parent, adult and child. And it said, when adult is talking to adult, things go well. When adult is talking to child, things don't go as well. When parent talks to child, it doesn't go as well. And that we're all. All of these things all of the time, but we're just playing one of those roles in each relationship that we have. I was. That's kind of, you know, and in each interaction, in each relationships that we have. And so I was like, that was really cool. And all of that stuff fascinated me. And as part of that, I found this lady, and I can't remember her name, but she had written a book called. I think it was called Drawing on the Left side of the Brain. And it was about how I think left brain is creative and right brain is not or Vice versa.

I don't.

I don't remember. But. But one side of the brain is creative and one side is not, and that we tend to lean to one of those sides. And the more that we can draw on both sides of the brain, the better the ult performance in anything will have. Because it's really good to be meticulous and intentional, but it's also good to apply creativity, to be able to expand on what you're doing. And so I actually wanted to pursue that. And so I found this guy, Edward Dabano, who has written like 8 billion books about lateral thinking. I think the seminal one is called Lateral Thinking.

Okay.

So I studied all of that stuff and I was like, how do you bring this together? And at the time, it was kind of interesting because I was very fascinated by the stuff that my dad did, which was business and hacks, and I was very fascinated by creative stuff. You know, there's a bunch of keyboards around here and there's about 5,000 guitars in the closet.

I gotta take a peek before I leave. Yeah.

And that creative side, I played in bands, I wrote music, I wrote, you know, poetry, I wrote stories, I studied English, you know, to almost get a degree in it if I hadn't taken maybe another course or two. And I really like the creative side of things. I like photography, you know, all of that stuff. And so I think that it was a combination of a happy accident of those two influences that I had of kind of business guy, lawyer, accountant, and my dad and, you know, psychologist, piano player, etc. And my mom. And that. That gave me both things that I saw interesting components in each of those. And I have pursued both of those quite a bit. Right. And so there's a guy that, when we went to do my website, Dmitry Kozlov, Dmitri's company is Influex. I told him, I said, you know, that kind of sounds like a disease. Never. He's so awesome. He does great websites. And he had done them for Frank Kern and Joe Polish and a bunch of other people. And I got him to do my site@rolandfraser.com and he said, we gotta get Patrick Combs. Combs, Combs. To do your story, your backstory.

Ah, yes.

And I was like, I don't know. I mean, that sounds stupid. I don't want anything. But I kind of fought it. And then I ended up. I was like, okay, you know what? I'm going to surrender to the process and I'm going to do it your way, because, you know, you obviously know what you're doing. And I was so happy that I did. We went and had a couple of tequilas and talked. And then he said, okay, I think I got your story. And I was like, what is it? And he's like, you'll see, I'm going to send it to you.

Oh, wow, okay, no pressure.

So then he sent it to me and it was basically that I'm 50% creative and 50% business. And so I think that if you're thinking about thinking expansively, you have to. I think there's probably some people, maybe Elon Musk was gifted with expansive thinking, but he talks about first principles, which is a physics thing, you know, about. Let's go back to the beginning and assume we throw everything out and then say, how do we approach this from science scratch? He might have frameworks for doing that. But I think you have to be a bit intentional in saying, I am going to try to think expansively. I am going to take any situation in anything that I get. I'm going to take it and I'm going to, I'm going to look at it this way. I'm going to say, well, what if it was this way and what if it's this way and what if I moved over here and looked at it from that way and how do I turn it around? And then how would so and so look at it and are there frameworks that I could apply from different people to look at it like consulting? You have, Boston Consulting Group has, you know, one framework and McKinsey has seven S' and then there's six Sigma and, you know, and Swot and all of these other ways that you can look at business, right? And so if you start studying all the different frameworks and then say, well, what's the same and what's different about those and how does each one add something to what I'm looking at? Then you'll ultimately come up with all kinds of different things. And the other thing that I thought was fascinating was I was reading about, I think it was Salvador Dali and one other Nikola Tesla, and that both of them realized that their most creative intention, intense world changing thoughts, happened when they were in this kind of state of half conscious, half unconscious, right? And so Dali, I think it was, used to sit in a chair with ball bearings in his hands. Just as he would fall asleep, they would drop so that he could wake himself up again and hold them. But that was how he got into the creative space. And some people just pops up, some people will drop acid. You know, Steve Jobs would only, you know, he's like, when he interviewed a year or something, one of the questions was, you know, have you ever dropped acid? You know, in a positive way. Right. And some people do, you know, ayahuasca and everything else. So I think that like that ability, whether through substances or sleep states or intentional pursuit of that and then creating different ways to look at different things, all of that is really critical to how you think. Multidimensional. Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to ramble.

I love the ramble. Yeah, there's always, there's always interesting veins and this is where, yeah, it's almost getting out of our minds, the thinking minds. Not always there's a time and place for them, but to find that flow between wherever the creative lives. I don't know if it's our heart or wherever, you know, something around us that we allow in that's not so regimented in the thinking side of things.

We so often say, well, I could do that, but then how am I going to do that? And then you instantly rule it out.

Stops.

Right. And so then you cut off the creative thought. Whereas if you can simply suspend your disbelief about needing to know, then you'll probably think of 20 other things. The last thing I wanted to say was I absolutely think significantly more creatively when I am in motion. So like I'm on the treadmill.

I noticed that.

And I swear my best thoughts are then. And then when I'm kind of lying in that half asleep, half awake in bed are probably the most, the, the times that most things pop into my head. And they say that the reason for at least that half conscious thing is, is that you need to take problems and move them into your unconscious to solve them when your conscious can't solve them because your unconscious will keep working on it. And so that if you've ever had those moments where you were like really focusing, trying to solve some challenge and then you're, you know, making a salad, it's like, oh, you know, this is how you do it. Well, that's because your unconscious is working on it the whole time. And I think that's what happens in the sleep state is your conscious mind is taking a back seat when you're working out or doing something that requires some focus or is using other parts of your brain that your subconscious then has a chance to plug in and work on the thing totally and then bring it back to the conscious. And so those, those are all kind of interesting things.

There's a lot. And it's almost like Creating an open space or an open loop in our minds and not trying to close it too quickly. I've had a friend of mine, Nick Peterson, on the podcast and Brilliant Mind, and he. He stresses on. This is like, okay, the open loops are good. And it's not trying to figure out the solution right away or force the how. It's. Let it kind of open up or, you know, maybe it develops even wider. Yeah. Might be scary and uncomfortable. Bring some anxiety because it's uncertain.

But the more you do it, the less you care about that.

Correct.

And it's. It's a habit of uncomfortable uncertainty, you know, that. That then becomes comfortable uncertain. I guess it's like the. You go from unconscious incompetence to, you know, ultimately to conscious competence.

Yeah, uncertain competence. I guess it's.

What is it? To conscious incompetence? You're aware that you're messing up because the first time you didn't even know you were messing up. Now you're aware. Conscious incompetence than conscious competence, where you're basically doing it, but you've got to think about it. To unconscious competence, where you're doing it right all the time and not even thinking right.

It's just second nature.

And I think it's probably that way, you know, with this stuff too.

I think so, yeah. Is there a way or do you have mechanisms to capture these thoughts? I mean, now you're probably in this unconscious competence level about most of the things.

I'm so incompetent so many times I like for capturing things if I don't write it down. And this is like dreams. If you ever wake up and you remember a dream for about a second and then you don't think about it consciously. Some of you are like, I had this weirdest dream last night there. What was it? And you're like, I don't remember.

Right.

You know, but it's like you lived it in your mind. And so if, if you wake up and write it down, then you'll remember. And so it's the same thing when I'm in that half asleep, half awake state and I think of something that I think is good, then I need to take. So I'll pull out my iPhone and I'll take a note on it. If I'm on the treadmill, I'll either, you know, while I'm walking, try to write it down, or I'll do a little voice memo to myself or something like that.

Yep.

Because if I don't, it will. And I literally won't. Be able to remember it by the time that, you know, you're done walking around?

Yeah, for sure. Do you? Because what. I've been big on journaling, especially lately, and it's interesting, and obviously there's, There's a flow of how we can probably dump whatever's inside our brains out. And maybe it's not a specific loop, but do you do any practice like that? And I'll just say what I kind of. Where I try to get to, when I get to pen to paper journaling, is to drop the thinking almost completely so I can somehow. I don't know where the words are coming from, but they flow out. And then my, my hand goes even faster.

Right.

But there's no resistance. Like, there's no friction. I know that's a big thing of what you talk about, too.

Yeah. I can get myself to journal. I, I, it takes too much time. So what I effectively realized is that doing things like this is my journaling, because I'm, I'm on video and audio quite a bit. And so I'll hear myself say something that I think I want to remember, and I'll ask Ryan. I'll say, hey, can you get the recording of that podcast? Because I, I like that thing where I talked about that, that. And then I'll try to watch that again. I'll also, like, I'd like to repurpose it for content, but it's kind of my way of taking notes is that there's enough of my life that's recorded anyway. But the, like, the act of writing down something physically takes so much time that I just don't have the time for. Sure. Tony Robbins does it. So, I mean, and he's a lot busier than I am, so maybe, I'm sure that's just a mental limitation, but for me, it's just, you know, some things work for some people and some things don't. That, that one doesn't.

Well, you find your flow. I mean, and through music, I'm sure, you know, there's. Well, I guess I'm curious about the music side. Is, do you have, like, is that something that you, that you naturally go to, or is it more like now with everything going on? Is it more of a have to, or do you just know you're.

I want to, I really do. I, I want to have more time to do that. I, and I have actually consciously said I'm going to carve out more time to do that. I have a piano in the other room that's a. This is like so my way of doing that is making things convenient. So music, electronic music, which is, you know, one of my favorite things is not particularly convenient because you have to turn on lots of switches and then you have to power things up and they have to connect and then there's always something that's not working. So convenient thing number one for me was have a grand piano that's in the house that I can literally just walk over and sit down and play acoustic and then clean all the cat boxes and things away from it so that they're not around. I keep fighting with my wife about it's like, no, I don't want anything that I have to walk around to get to this. And then this I got and put speakers on, which I don't know if you can see or not. So I have a keyboard here and it's all self contained. So you hit two buttons and it automatically plays. There's no like amps and, you know, connectors and preamps and mixers and all that to turn on. But a lot of it is convenience. And so I have tried Evernote and Notion and you know, a whole bunch of different things and I just can't, I can't get myself to do it. And then I also don't feel like I would go back. You know, that's my problem too.

Yeah.

So like as I find things because I am a voracious reader and you know, and so my, you know, 4:00am to 6:00am Time is basically spent reading, I guess it's a hundred newsletters that I subscribe to.

Okay.

So email things. And then at night I will watch YouTube videos. And then Twitter has come into my life interestingly as a very, very good succinct source. Those tweet storms do those threads, man, they're some pretty smart people on there. And so I was looking at my open apps, you know, the ones that I use the most the other day and I was thinking, you know, it's really interesting because like I never go on Instagram or LinkedIn or Facebook ever.

Yeah.

And I go on and if I looked at what was open, it was Twitter because there's all these people that have these smart. And it's very, very. Because of the character constraint. It's very specific and read like 10 or 12 twee about this thing. And I've got great information. It gets me thinking. Right. And, and YouTube because the visual and auto audio components of that, you know, and there's a lot of really good stuff on there too. TikTok. I haven't found to be as helpful. Not that the people that are on there aren't as smart, but I haven't made it into a habit yet.

Yeah. And I think the best stuff finds its way to Twitter anyway. That's what I found.

Yeah.

From TikTok.

Yeah. But it was really interesting that I was just thinking the other day, because I don't consume any social. I hear people we meeting. We were just at. People were talking about putting themselves on a diet of social.

That's right.

And Ryan Dice, one of my business partners, was just saying, yeah, I had to put myself on an inputs diet because I had too many input and not enough output. And so I needed to get some things done. And I'm like, I don't consume that at all. I'm looking only for things that either give me pleasure in that, you know, synthesizer music or I like photography and I'll watch videos about that stuff or I'll be looking to learn.

Yeah.

And other than that, I purpose driven. Yeah. And I don't want to live other people's lives for sure. Through them ever.

Has it always been that way, like with the social? Because I know for me, I feel like during the pandemic I completely somehow I took myself off of all these platforms like Instagram, Facebook. I don't want to go there.

Yeah.

It's more like I should show up every now and then to share some stuff because I know my people are there.

Yeah.

But I don't want to be there.

Well, so that's what I do. Like I share quite a bit.

Sure.

But it's because I'm creating content all the time and I'm trying to automate that as much as possible by having people around me without having like a, you know, Gary Vee team that. A cloud around you.

Yeah.

But. But I do enough things that naturally create content and then I have a content team. So I've got, I think it's like five people that basically then take all that stuff and go do it. So it is posting, but it's not me. Right, right.

You're not the doing.

I will read my DMs because good things come out of that and I can go through them pretty quickly. I never read comments, never read, you know, other people's social that.

Yeah.

And have no desire. Maybe when it first started I did, you know, you know, a million years ago. Same thing with the news. The news is to me, absolutely distraction. I'm going to hear about whatever is important through, you know, from somebody else. When I'm Talking to them, you know, oh, yeah, I know who won the super bowl, but I didn't watch it. You know, I know who was in.

It, but, you know, watch the TLDR version. Yeah.

So I think it's just like, how do you create the filters and you just focus yourself on the things that you want. To me, me, I'm very clear. I have my North Star. My North Star is I want more deals that I have ownership in. And I call those consulting for equity things. And if something doesn't take me towards my own personal entertainment, my desire to give back and support other people or my North Star, it's not in my life. And that is liberating. I mean, it just like, you know, your constraints. Yeah. It takes all the stuff that doesn't matter out of my life.

So do you have any advice for someone who might feel like they're still looking for the constraints? Maybe it's the North Star as well. Any hints that would help them kind of clarify that?

I like filter better than restraints constraint. But do I have a tip for somebody that is looking to put the guardrails on the information that comes in their lives but has not yet found the North Star? Is that the question?

Yeah, that would get us there.

I think it's hard if you don't know where you're going to know what to focus on. But I don't think that it's hard to identify the things that are distractions. And so I would start and say, what are the things? No matter what I'm ultimately going to do, I kind of have an idea that I want this outcome from this year, the next three years, five years from my life. And I know that there are certain things that will absolutely not take me in that direction or that will absolutely take me in the wrong direction. And so if you can identify those things, those would be the first things to filter.

Yeah, it's almost like, start with the things that you don't want. Yeah, yeah. Then that's probably easier to list out or somehow drum out of our minds things that you.

That, you know will not take you towards whatever the ultimate things that you think you may want. Like, I don't know, I might want to be a movie star, and I might want to be a rock star. And I might want to be a professional speaker, and I might want to be a wrestler, and I might want to be a, you know, champion hot dog eater. Okay, great. We got five things. Yeah. Right. Now, what are the things that will not. That will absolutely frustrate your Ability to get there. Well, things that will affect me health wise in a negative way. So maybe I should, you know, take all of the smoking things out of my life.

You know, Hot dogs.

Right. You know. Yeah, that's like that best that I could think of.

Yeah. And that's.

But as you get more focused, as those filters take the distractions away, you will move faster and faster and faster. The momentum will increase and it will build on the past momentum to push you in the direction you want faster, which means more things will identify themselves to fall away, which means that then you'll go, go farther and faster.

I think it's snowball.

Yeah, it's going to snowball up.

Yeah. And I'm a big believer that momentum can go either which way. Yeah. It could take us away from our goals if we're not aware and conscious of these things. Or it can go the other way that we want to. And it takes time. It's a lot of work. And I mean, you've been priming your mind since childhood. Luckily, not all of us are blessed with parents and an upbringing like.

Yes, yes, 100%.

Yeah. So it's, it's. I don't think it's ever too late to start, but it's definitely being patient with ourselves and being conscious of it.

And at the risk of being canceled, I'll say that also, while I am well aware of, you know, the privilege of being white male in the United States, you know, born into a upper middle class family, et cetera, et cetera, it's having the ability to know what you want and not make excuses out of life and blame others or your situation. Because I've watched people from all kinds of the depths of every challenge you can imagine do great things and live great lives. And it's, I think it's about accepting responsibility and saying, I am not a victim of the circumstances that I found myself in. I am the person who is in charge of making things happen. And if I choose to lay the blame and the responsibility for me not getting to where I want to get on the world is against me, I was disadvantaged, et cetera, then that will be a self fulfilling prophecy. And if you choose instead to say, I'm responsible and I can overcome, I'm going to use that as my anthem. That's going to drive me because, you know, screw those, you know, white men that run the world or whatever. I'm going to go and motivate myself to get further ahead. Then those are the people that you see who make change in the world. It's not you are held back. It's that you fail to overcome.

Yeah, I think you're right. You're spot on, man. And, yeah, we all have that fire, or we can search for that fire, but whatever that is, that's what matters the most. To get our voice out there in action saying all that. That was amazing. And I feel like there's so many actionable items in that little. That dissertation or whatever it is there. I want to talk about how you've been applying this in the business realm and some of the these. These programs you have, but also, like, how they apply to this conversation. So Epic has been around for what, a couple years now?

Two or three? Three. Well, not quite three.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's getting there.

Two years and. And I think nine months. Yeah.

So the challenge. I know you've done, I don't know, countless of those things that. Things like an oiled machine.

I think that we're on, like, the 30th or 31st of the epic challenges, but we've done. I think We've done over 100 now across all the different. Different plans.

So it's working. And I know from within my household, I've seen it work, and through my wife, approaching someone who is already out there and essentially following your plan in Epic and then owning that company for no money down, but providing so much value, and now it's just tremendously grown. I mean, there's. I'm sure there's an exit in the future. I don't know when. I know.

Well, and also it's. That is the first deal that she did.

Right.

And that will lead. That is lighting her and you up saying, this is kind of cool.

Yeah.

And the more you do, the more you will do, and the better you will get and, you know, and the more efficient you will get, and that will just be a flywheel to new things.

We were listening to Business Lunch shout out to you and Ryan. Thanks for that. I like that you have a co host now, too. I love the back and forth.

That's fun.

Yeah, it's so much. Yeah, yeah. It's a little different for me now.

You know, in the other direction, but, you know, they're both good because also, it's hard because I can't. You know, it's like we have to coordinate our schedules, of course, and that's. That's not as easy as you would like for it to be.

I love how you manage your. Your calendar in time. That was an episode I listened to for selfish reasons. I love how you always take like, oh, let's, let's do put some on the calendar. How about a text or you know, it's almost like one step back always. Yeah.

Meeting. I'm anti meeting for sure.

That's why when I got on your.

Account I was like, we are meeting synchronously now. And to me, the more asynchronous my life can be, the happier I'm going to be because I can get stuff done faster.

That's right. And that's, I mean it's, it's so true. And I've applied that for a long time because of your thinking and that was a good reminder. But yeah, we were working out yesterday morning, Heather and I, my wife, and we're listening to you guys. I think it was elements to create a seven figure per month business. I think it was from late last year. So 2parter. Definitely recommend everyone check it out.

Thank you.

Yeah. And yeah, it was just lighting us up with other ways and how we can always package up what we're doing to serve others in a more scalable manner. And I don't remember all the specific details, but that's where I feel like every one of your programs. The challenge is a great way to start with epic. I want to get into consulting for equity as well.

Sure.

And what that looks like is selfishly I'm doing a lot more consulting. So I'm curious and I have a lot of folks listening that are in that realm. All these things, just one little tidbit will get that momentum and going. And I like a couple of things.

One is, so the challenge that we're, as soon as we get done here in a few minutes, we will do the second day of which is called the paid for life challenge. And it's paid for life because that's what consulting for equity is. It's, it's. You will get paid at least for the life of the business and possibly for the life of yourself when you do whatever you do that one time because you can do it and get paid for it.

Yeah.

And you might get paid a lot. Maybe you get paid. You know, somebody I was talking to yesterday and she said, Yeah, I charge 250, $50,000 and upfront and then 50% of the first three events that people do and I help them with their challenge. With challenges, not their difficulties to be overcome, but they're the method of having this multi day event.

Yes. Yeah.

And then after that, you know, it's going to be license fee. And I said that's really cool. But ultimately that's a cash grab because that's what you're going to do is you're going to get paid $250,000. And she thinks about a million and a half over the three events. It's okay. So you're going to get paid a million 7 50, which is a lot of money to add value you to those people, which is going to create their brand and an ongoing thing that they're going to do. And I promise you from my experience, I can tell you that you'll never get that 10% from 99% of the people because they'll find reasons to decide that. Well, I was doing this and it's not that hard. She didn't really show me that much stuff. And you know, and she's like, well actually the first deal I did like that's already kind of. And I said, so what you're doing is you're getting good income but you are not getting paid for for life. And if instead you were to go in and say, I will do these things, but I'm either going to acquire the company and do it myself, that's straight out acquisition or I am going to come in and I'm going to do the things I do and I'm going to charge you that 250 grand because you need to have skin in the game and I'm going to charge you the 50% of those things. But I'm also going to own X percent of the company. I'm going to get a license, not I'm going to get a royalty. I'm going to ownership that part of the company. Company. Well now you're building wealth in addition to the income and it's that combination of the two that to me makes all the difference.

Yeah. And that's the reframe I think we can all have. And I guess let's get into that. I am very curious about how you approach, I guess consulting a consultant like that. It's that reframe. It sounds like right off the bat.

The philosophy is don't let your genius create someone else's retirement.

Ah, ah, I like that.

Yeah.

At least get a part thanks to the action. Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Because yeah, it's, it's a hamster wheel or dancing bear. As you've said many times, when you stop dancing, you stop doing your deals, taking the calls or whatever stops coming.

You stop dancing, you dance and they throw the money doing that. They're like crickets. Yeah, yeah.

So that's it's. So what do you do in the consulting equity? You have a whole, I guess, walk us through. Is there a challenge that we can get through?

There is paid for life challenge.

Yeah.

Which is, which is the one. And we're at consulting for equ. I owe. Because you're in and out of the business, right. You know, you come in and you do your thing and you get out, but you continue to get paid. That's the idea. And yeah, so that's a, that's a challenge which is free. And I just kind of walk through all of the steps of, you know, what is the concept and the opportunity? What is the mindset that you need to have? And why does it make a difference to do things this way? What is the impact on your wealth? What is the consulting for equity? You know, business model model. And then we talk about the different frameworks for how you can consult for equity. Because there's lots of different ways to do it.

Like 197, I believe.

Yeah.

Maybe more now.

And then how do you get, how do you go about getting your clients from all the people that are already. The easiest place to get clients is all the people that are already saying, you know, hey, can I pick your brain? Can I take you for lunch? Can I buy a coffee? Can we hop on a call? You know, all those things that will drain your schedule.

What's your answer to that, by the way?

Mine is always, well, well, it's twofold. Right. So my first thing is can we hop on a call Call, let's say then it's not to the point where I can pitch them that they should do a consult. It's. Well, I'll tell you what, why don't we talk here because that's coming through social or email or something like that. And if it looks like it merits a call, then I'll happily hop on a call.

Okay.

And then if it looks like it's just straight out asking for advice or something like that, then I have a text replacement in my phone and I'll just do HDC for half day consult and it auto populates the response across whatever app I'm in to send. Say the way I do that is with a half day consult of up to four hours, we'll basically take a look at where you are right now and where you want to be and then we'll work on closing the gap between those two. The investment to do that's $25,000. If that sounds like a fit, let me know and I'll send you my One page consulting agreement and wiring instructions. That's it. Right.

Sounds like you've done this before. Yeah, yeah.

And I, I remember that less and less because I, it's all auto text now of course, but that's basically that. And I have a few, like I have HTC Exit, HDC Growth, you know, for, for the different things on the path that they might want. But that's all auto texted then. And I don't spend any time with them. You know, that's it to me. It's like I'll listen to one, I'll, I'll go back and forth maybe one or two times on a text. I won't give advice, I'll only clarify the ask.

Ah, right, okay.

And that's actually important.

So the situation there.

Yeah, so, so, because it would be hard to say, you know, they might say I get this shockingly a lot. I found this company rolling and it's this, this and this. And I just needed know how you would structure that. Yeah, well that's a. That the way I do that is with half day consult spot. Right. Like I had a, a guy that we both know who reached out yesterday and he said, you know, hey, I've got a deal on my company with somebody who wants to come in and buy it and I'm afraid I'm going to make the biggest mistake of my life if I do it wrong. And I want to talk, I'll talk to him a. Because I know him, but, and, and I also know he's a real guy. And also I, I will, will get on the phone and say, tell me what's going on. And he's like, you know, this, this and this. I said, well, here's some things to think about and if you would like for me to help with that, then it's something we can talk about. And then he's like, I absolutely want to do that. And so we're talking to Dave. Right. So that's kind of the two distinctions. I won't give advice, I will get clarity so that I can then say, okay, well I know I can help you. And the way I do that is. And then with all the things.

So would you say for any consulting in general, it's always clarifying first. It's almost like, I know Frank Hearn used to always talk about it. It's almost like approach it like a doctor, ask a bunch of questions.

Yes.

And so it sounds like, and I'm sure you have this just in your mind, but are there any frameworks or ways you would approach how to clarify someone's situation.

Yeah, there's a few. So there is Brene Brown's, which is Paint me a picture. So she's. She basically says, okay, so. So we're going to work together and we're done. Paint me a picture of what it looks like when we are done and you've got what you want.

The end result, though.

The end result. Right. Dan Sullivan has one called the Dan Sullivan question, which is, if you and I were to sit here having a conversation a year from today, what would have had to have happened, both professionally and personally, for you to be happy with your progress?

Right.

And that's again, that. And then mine that I use most often is, hey, if you could wave a magic wand and everything was done, done, what would that look like? That is to figure out what is the end result. Because I need to know what their desired end result is. Is it reasonable? Because I've had people like, before I started doing that, I would have people that we do a deal and then they'd be like, hey, man, we've been working together for a couple weeks now and we haven't hit $100 million in sales. You were at 3 million. It's been two weeks. Yeah, well, I was looking for explosive growth. I'm like, okay, But I mean, you know that, like. And that I ended up giving that back.

Yeah.

The expectation was not aligned. And so you have to get aligned on your. To be sure that you're also aligned on what you feel the path to get there is. As soon as I know that, that the thing they want is reasonable or I can help them see that perhaps it's not going to be quite what they think in the time that they think. And I do think fast. Right.

Oh, yeah.

Then I can say, you know, hey, it's probably. It's probably just not a fit. Yeah, right. Because I'm only going to disappoint them and they're going to be mad and then they're going to tell people that, you know, well, I worked with Roland and he didn't do anything. All that matters is perception, right?

That's right. And expectations come with those. And. Yeah, yeah.

So I think that's important. And I think the thing too is to avoid giving a consult. And that's something that some of my business partners, both present and former, would do when they were talking to people, is that they would get very consultative way too early when they're having somebody. And the only thing you can do there is a waste your time, b Give them a bunch of great advice that they have no investment in and therefore there is no value to it and they won't follow it. They won't have any urgency to following it and they'll come back probably and ask you the same things a year later. And I get tired of that. And so to me, the solution was this paid consult to filter all the people that aren't willing to invest in themselves. And I get people all the time that are like, well, I just want to, you know, do something first and then, then if that works, then I'll, you know, happily pay you. And I'm like, man, I'll tell you what, I totally understand that. And it's, it's, it's never an arrogant, you know, you need to pay me. It's always a look. What I've found time and time again is that if somebody invests in themselves, if they're ready to make that they believe enough in my ability to get them to where they want to go and they believe enough in their, their themselves and what they've got that it can get to where they want, then that's the person that I will work with the best and the person who is not willing to do that. It's just not yet right for me to work with that person. So I totally respect and understand that you want to, you know, have the ability to get some advice and do stuff first. It's just that it has never worked out for me. Yeah. So, you know, that's.

And you're saving them a lot of time and resources as well.

And so that's also, you know, in sales it is a non manipulative, unintentional takeaway. You know, I am sales saying no, you know, and that makes them want it more. But I'm not saying no to make them want it more. I'm saying no because I have literally found that every time that I've done it the other way, it's, it's just doesn't turn into anything.

You're filtering on their behalf for you.

Yeah. And I'm protecting my time, of course.

Yeah, yeah. You know, where you're going, this is going to save a bunch of people time. Because I know with more, I feel like the more and I know the more my podcast gets out there, the more people we chat with, I chat with each, all of us, the more we're aware and on top of mind of others. The influx of hey, can. To pick your brain. Yeah. I had just yesterday.

Yeah.

I'm like, okay, this is the Exact approach. And it's.

Yeah, it's fine. Like, there's nothing wrong with that. They are seeking help.

Yeah.

Knowledge, clarity, understanding, assistance, whatever. And. And they're. And that's good because they're telling you when they say, can I pick your brain? That is honoring you and saying that you're somebody who has something that I believe can help me out.

Yeah.

And you're a generous person and you want to help those people out. And I am also and want to. It's just. Just that having a framework again. Right. All comes back to frameworks. Having a framework where you can say, I absolutely would love for you to pick my brain. Even though that sounds really disgusting.

Very painful.

I'm happy. I'm happy to do that. This is. And that's. That's why I think that, like, those words are magic. The way I do that is. It's like this is. This is how I do that. I actually have a process for you to be able to get what you want. Here's what it looks like it does require. And I don't have any problem telling people this because I just know it's true. It is. You will not get from me nearly as much if we were just to sit here and have a conversation right now as you will if I a, can clear my calendar to have the time to have the headspace, to focus 100% on your problem, your challenge, your issue, and a block of time that's long enough to not have the whirlwind of everything else I'm already doing come in and blow me out of the thought. Right. The second thing is, is that I also know that you will have no urgency or need to get an ROI on your investment in listening to me if you don't also have a monetary investment.

That's right.

If you have a monetary investment, there will be urgency and commitment on your part. And honestly, if I was just going to talk with you and you were going to go out and take everything that I can share you, which will absolutely change your business. I do know how to solve your problem. I mean, I'll tell people that, too, because I'm very confident at that. Right. If I do that, you're going to go off, and you're either going to do it not at all or you're going to do it kind of halfway. And you also won't have the clarity of me being able to get you back on course when you're off. Off. Because I can't possibly communicate to you in one sitting what you need to do. So the way that I do it now is I do two hours as an initial meeting, and then I'll do two hours of follow up for my 25k.

Okay.

I used to do four hours. And after two to two and a half hours, people were like, hey, man, can we just, you know, I had too much swelling and yet I did it with Kent Clothier. So we did a co consult with one of his people down at his office on Monday, which is what, day before yesterday. And it was a six hour thing that he said. And I was like, man, that's a, that's a long time. And he said, that's how I do it. I'm like, okay. So I went down there and. And I saw right away they had some accounts receivable aging, and they had some other things. I was like, right away, this is what you need. This is what you need. This is what you need. And what they thought they needed was capital. But what they really needed was some changes in the way that they process their accounting.

Right. Internal.

Which sounds boring, but it, but for them, it was something that could forex their business just by. Without having to get. Get capital.

So.

Which means now their business goes four times as fast. That's a pretty good outcome. Yeah, I got there in about 20 minutes and then we said that back to them about three or five times.

Yeah.

And you know, clarifying. And then it was two hours done. And so about four more hours. Like, you know, hey, you know, we go to lunch, I'm gonna run to the restroom. And I was. And when he went away, I was like, you guys get what you need to do? Oh, yeah, we got. I said, is there anything else that you need right. Right now to do? And they were like, no, I don't think so. I said, because I'm happy to stay here. And I know Kent, you know, has allocated the time and everything. I think you know what you need to do and now you just need to go do that. Why don't we stop here if you want and you go do those things and then you can do. Do follow up.

Yeah, exactly.

And they're, oh, that'd be great. And then came back and he's like, you know, they're like, yeah, I think we got all we need.

And he's like, okay, fine, you know, clear my calendar. But that's it.

You know, like, if you can see the problem and you have the knowledge to satisfy what the. What the customer needs, then you can solve any problem relatively quickly. It's longer than two Hours. I mean, it really is. If they know, if they know their stuff and they come prepared, you ask them the questions that you need to ask, you can get done in two hours, and then give them more than enough for them to be full of stuff to do until you come back. The other thing I'll say about that, and that to me is a great example is so I have lots of skills that Kent doesn't have, and Kent has lots of skills. Skills that I don't have.

Sure.

And so co consulting is a great way to be able to handle any client that you want. So let's say that you're interested in. In fitness equipment. So you have a fitness equipment company that is having some challenges with manufacturing and lines of credit and supply chain. And you don't know anything about any of those things, but you do like to work out and you find, you know that stuff interesting. Well, then you can still serve that client. Client. That can still be a consulting for equity client. Yeah, all you have to do is go out and find one of the many, many, many people out there who are super smart and experienced, but charge pennies on the dollars for what they know. Yeah, you co consult with that person, you hire that person. Let's say you do a 25k consult, then you go find that person. That person's like, yeah, man, it's 500 an hour. And you're like, it's a lot. Okay, we're gonna for four hours. Hours though, but it's probably only two, so. Okay, a thousand dollars I'm gonna give you. You just got paid a 25 grand and brought the best expert on the planet to the table. Yeah, they can come by Zoom. They don't have to be there in person, and you don't either. But I'd say it's probably best to do it. Yeah, I'd say, you know, 60% of my things are on Zoom. And you've now got team one, the best team ever. But you pocketed 24k and this other person got their full $500 an hour rate.

Everybody's happy.

And then you pitch the consulting deal and now you've got equity in that company and you coordinate whoever else you need to come and solve those challenges.

You can always go back to that person for any.

I say maybe you need to retain that guy. Now for a ten thousand dollar contract, well, you're still fifteen thousand dollars ahead.

Just on the initial deal.

On the initial.

Yeah.

But you've also got equity and now you've got distributions and you only do this with profitable companies. So, I mean, that, to me is magic. You are the. What is it? The ring master. You know, the.

It's who you know.

Right. You're bringing all the crazy craziness of everybody in. Yeah. I don't like puppet master because it sounds so manipulative, you know, but as I see, puppet master is like little evil. But, you know, you're. You're the. Like the host of the show.

Yeah.

And you're bringing all the experts in to share with the audience who's going to consume that and then go do whatever they need to do with it. But you can also bring in operational people and do that.

Right.

You can bring in financial people. You can bring in whatever they need. And because you are the answer person and the coordinator of the solution solutions, you are the choke point that will stop them from being able to get what they want. If they don't bring you in, they.

Always go to you for. For them to distill their information. Yeah. Figure out, okay, what do I need or who do I need?

Yeah.

And then you coordinate that.

Yeah.

And yeah. It's not about what we necessarily need to know or do. It's how we can discover. Yeah. What can solve this person's issue right now.

Exactly.

And get them to the result. And we can bring other people in to help. I love that. That's. That's probably one of my biggest takeaways right there. It's huge. Huge.

Yeah.

And it's not all about just us.

It's not.

You want to be the expert, really. Right. Let's just be that guy.

I just want to be rich.

Yeah. People do it.

If I do those two things, I.

You know, it's a reflection of how resourceful you are and how. How much value you're given anyway.

So it is.

Let's wrap up rolling with where should people go? And because I know you have the epic challenge. You have the one for consulting with equity. For equity. You have AI stuff as well. That's very interesting. Yeah. I guess rattle stuff out super fast.

Yeah. So for the. For the things we were talking about with consulting for equity, we call it the Paid for life challenge. It's at Consulting for equity. IO for acquiring businesses with little or no money out of pocket. We have a thing we call the epic challenge. Epic because it's ethical profits in crisis. And it's in crisis, not because you're dealing with turnaround companies that are losing money or you're trying to prey on people in a predatory way to take advantage of Them it's that there are business owners who are most motivated by different crises that are going on in their lives. And maybe crisis is strong, but to them it's a real crisis. Right. So if they're getting divorced, if they have in health problems, if it's heirs that inherited a business from somebody else because of death, if you're absolutely bored with what you're doing, and burnout, if you're, you know, those are all life crises for entrepreneurs that they go through when they have successful businesses and when they don't. And so when we find somebody that's got a successful business that's also going through one of those crises that makes them a motivated seller. We have the ability to serve them by meeting them where they are, giving them a fair price. But it's not market. It's not the same as if they had unlimited time and could market and sell it and everything because they're motivated, they want to move on. Right. So we give them a fair price for the business and then we basically acquire, optimize and sell. So I call that aos. Right. It's like the acquisition operating system. Acquire, optimize, sell, sell. And that's@epicchallenge.com is, is the challenge that we do on. That's a five day free challenge. And epicnetwork. Com is where the, everything kind of sits. And then the AI thing is really just how do we use chat, GPT and all of the other instances of AI that are coming out. And that's a rapidly evolving program obviously to be able to make our lives and particularly our businesses. And that's AI powered expert. And then the last one is. And these are all related as you can see. The last one is. Okay, well how do I, I've got my business now or I like the idea of helping other people be able to sell their businesses. And so we have a brokerage that we own called hello Exit that helps people sell the businesses. And so we have a course that's called exitready@exitready.com that basically you can either become certified in. How do I help people go through the exit process? Process and then become a broker with us at hello Exit, or if you've got a company that you want to sell, then we'll help you get that company to its maximum value and then help you sell it.

Help you with the sell. Wow. See of everything there, it's pretty fun. Yeah, I mean I could see it's like a big playground for your mind.

And the next place we're going is we've got capital class that's coming out, which is acquiring with money and other people's money. Not no money out of pocket, but you know, how to raise money, basically.

Yeah.

And then we've got. And doing fund. And then we've also got entrepreneurial investing, which is basically, how do I invest in companies like this? Because the returns are so much safer and so much higher than you can ever get in the stock.

Yeah, for sure. Well, Roland, appreciate you. Thanks again for having me. Yeah, let's do it again. All right. All right. That's what I got for you today. And remember, it's not all about living to work. It's all about working to live if you need to do the work. But, you know, work can be fun and it should be fueling for your life. So if you enjoyed what you just heard, if you got some nuggets of wisdom that you want to share or you're just noodling on right now, please go tell others. The way that people find this show and how you can help others get their aha moments is through word of mouth. So if it is telling your friend, telling your family, send an email to your list, writing a review or whatever it might be, everything helps. So thank you so much for listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, and I will see you next time.