Gonzalo Paternoster — Simple Tweaks To Systematize Daily Tasks And Work Less

This is an intro, intro, intro, intro.

Hustle and Flowchart with your boy, my.

Boy, Matt Wolf, Joe Fear.

Hey.

Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. My name is Matt Wolf. I'm here with my business partner and co host, Mr. Joseph A.

Fear. That's correct, yes.

And today we've got an awesome guest. He was actually once on my old podcast, the Authority Insider. And, and it was one of the most powerful podcast episodes I've ever done. Some of the best feedback I've ever received was on that podcast, and it was with Gonzalo Paternoster. I think I messed it up again pretty good.

That's pretty good.

But this. So Gonzalo is the man of systems. His business, his brand is all about systems. He works with some big companies to help them build systems. And he's worked with us, he's given us ideas to build systems in our own business. And we couldn't be more excited to share some of his systems with you today. So thanks so much for joining us, Gonzalo.

I'm glad to be here. I really am.

Awesome. Awesome. So let's go ahead and dive right in. I think the first thing we want to chat about is a little bit about your backstory. I mean, Joe and I know your backstory, but there was, there was some things that you did before you started your own business that, that led you down the path of just creating a ton of systems. So maybe that's a good place to start.

Sure. So I was an employee for a venture capital company, and.

The big issue was I was an employee and I read a book by Carlton, I think John Carlton, or Carlton Sheets, I think his name is, which is about getting to real estate, making a lot of money selling real estate and all that stuff. So I had the bug and I quit my six figure job. I started consulting company with some of my fellow comrades in the investment banking firm. But at the same time, I was starting to start a real estate company specializing for military veterans. Mortgage and real estate. And it took me about nine months to start my get my first loan in that business. And the crazy thing is I went started a business without any debt. And by the time I got my first loan, it was nine months and we, I had $89,000 in credit card debt.

Oh, man.

Yeah, it was, it was so horrible. I mean, and the funny things my wife just had. We had our second child, brand new, a week old, and I went and moved to another place and started the business and you know, a lot of people who have never started a business, you have this, like, starry idea in your eyes. You're all excited, and then you kind of like the reality sets in. Well, equality about me is I'm very persistent, which could be very good, but it also could be very bad financially. Right, Right. So, you know, I got my first loan. I remember how happy I was. I was like, yes. And, you know, I got one loan after another, and I made 10 grand, right. Which in one month back then was like, fantastic. And this is back in the early 2000s. And I remember when that happened, I was. Took my wife out to dinner. We were celebrating. I had a couple other loans coming in, and a veteran called me and said, hey, Gonzalo, like, did you send my pre approval letter, you know, for the. For the house? And it slipped my mind. And that person lost their home. And I remember when that happened, I felt like I was super excited and I felt crappy because I let it fall through the cracks. So, you know, that put me on, you know, to kind of research, like, you know, because when you're a business owner, like, especially when you start off, I had to start like the real estate company, the mortgage company is all on my shoulders, and I hired people to work for me. But I was kind of like that bottleneck, right? And this kind of sent me to at that point, at the local church I went to, I had some. A gentleman who was the local, like, church leader. He used to be the CFO of a company called Triarch, which was the company that owns Dr. Pepper and Arby's and all those type of things. Wow. And he told me, he's like, oh, dude, you know what your problem is? Is that you don't have systems. And I'm like, what's a system? Right. And that's when I started doing research. You know, the bottom line when he told me was it's literally a checklist. So that when you, for example, at Arby's, at the restaurant, when they have supplies, they order their supplies. When they have less than a couple whatever bags of like the roast beef, they have, a checklist says if we have less than five bags, order 20 more bags, right? And a person who makes at that time $5 an hour would manage a multi million dollar restaurant because they had checklists. So once I learned that, that put me in a journey to like, study what systems are. You know, there was a book back in the early days called the E Myth, which is popular, and I kind of learned what that Was Right. And so then I went, I learned how to do that and, and I started implementing a system or checklist within one part of my business. Right. And it was very tedious. I was like writing things like step one, step two, and to create my first system. Because when you are the owner of the business, you're working in the business and then if you have a little bit of spare time, you kind of work on little important things. Kind of like the whole thing of important but not urgent. Right. It will make a big difference. And I created a first system on how to process a loan to make sure they have all the pieces in place to fix the problem for the military veteran that I forgot to send the loan the pre approval letter and lost the house. So I created my first system. It took me a month, right. And it was like, wow, I made a system. But like, I can't make one system take me a month because I have maybe like 40 things that happen in the business. That means it will take me 40 months to actually create process of my whole company.

Yeah, right.

So that's when I, you know, you know, I had experience in outsourcing all those things. And that's where I came up with the concept of like, well, how can I make a system for making systems so that I don't have to do it? Which is what kind of put me on that journey.

Got it. That's, that's impressive. And that's, I mean, that's, that's where Matt and I's focus has been in the last, you know, probably year or two is like, okay, how do we systemize everything bit by bit? And a lot of companies will approach this only when they're maybe ready to sell the company. So it's almost like you gotta have that motivation or maybe there's a pain point in there. Like you said, the loan falling through for that guy, that was a pain point.

And that's like what you said, Joe, there was perfect. A lot of people have the misconception, it's like when I get big, I'll put systems in place. People actually get big because they have systems.

Yes, yes, that makes sense.

And that's the way we've seen that with our business as well. Like, it's definitely, you know, recurring has gone up higher. Our time spent on the business working in it has gone less. So we can think of bigger visions and you know, talking to people like you, creating more systems and it's really cool. Yeah, but it's, but you gotta get that first thing moving, right?

Right. And the important part is, you know, one of the things is, because I was an immigrant from Argentina, my English is not, like, super perfect, and I'm kind of lazy about spelling. So my spelling most of the time is horrible. Because I was horrible about the stalling bees in school. Right. Because the English language, like, when, like, you hear the word no and it's like K, N, o, W. Right. Didn't make sense. Right. And what I realized is, like, you know, which kind of leads me to one of the things I discovered is I need to work on my flow and not do the things that feel like it's hard or horrible. Torture work.

Yes, yes.

Let's. Let's actually dive into that a little bit deeper. That's, you know, that's. Last time we chatted, that was one of the topics that we really enjoyed talking about and got a lot of aha moments out of. So I want to. I want to dissect that a little bit and talk about, you know, how does somebody figure out what it is that they should be focused on in their business versus what are the things they should outsource or delegate or automate in their business?

Well, I think one of the first things that you have to do, no matter who you are, you have to, because, you know, there's things that people are good at, and then there's things, because you're a business owner, that you're the owner. Right. You can't delegate. So I'm going to cover first the part of what you're good at. So, for example, what I do with people is. One of the newest acquisitions I acquired is a company. I'm a partner of a company called the Internet Marketing Party and the David Gonzalez Agency. He's a big, big guy in the Internet space, has parties in Austin and traffic and conversion. And that guy, David, his natural flow is networking. There's no one ever met that's better at networking, connecting with people than him. He's probably the most connected person I know in digital marketing. Right, Agreed. Yep. And the funny thing about him is in the past, where he had partners or partnerships that he did other deals with, people wanted to change him, who he was. Right. They wanted to make him more organized, more systematic, and people are just who they are. And some things is like pulling teeth. So when I worked with him, when I started working with him, I'm like, david, all I want you to do is connect with people all day long. And he's like, really? He's like, you don't want me to like, Be super organized and all this other stuff. He's like, no, I want you to work in your flow because there's other people that can do that. So a common way to evaluate what your flow is is what, what's the thing that you would almost do free in your business even if no one paid you.

Yeah.

So so basically the thing that you just love doing, that you enjoy doing the most in your business, focus on that first.

Yeah. Because you know, for example, with me, I'm great identifying like for like the my. And I always call like superpowers. Right. Most people have one or two superpowers. Like I know you, Joe and Matt that you guys are great at content creation, identifying. What's the like the 80, 20 of things, right. Amazing at that, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

So for me is I. And it's kind of a funny little thing is most of the things that we're great at, we take it for granted because it comes to us. So naturally we assume it's not a superpower. Right. So for me, one of my superpowers is I'm extremely clear. I'm able to go when I see, when I see an objective, I'm able to see step A to step Z and how to get there in a straight path. Now I thought this is something everyone in the world can do, right. So I walked around giving people advice on like for their business or whatever they want to accomplish and they wouldn't follow it or they wouldn't see it. And I just thought they were stupid or lazy. But I just realized they just didn't have that capability to actually be a long term vision visionary. Right, Right. And specifically a visionary that gets the job done. Right. And the other power I had is I'm able to, when someone says something cannot be done, I have this ability to reverse engineer something and create a process out of anything. Right. And that's just my superpower. I mean I love to do that. Right. And so for the listeners here, right. If you look at yourself and you know, what's the advice you always give people? What's the thing that people can count on you for? Right. That is your natural skillset. So for example, I've recently I partnered with a guy, his name is Leon. We own a company called funnelsnow.com.

It'S a business that designs. We're not strategists on the funnel, but we actually design the look, the layout. Right. It's like you want something that looks like this, we'll put all the components in.

Got it.

The guy's an amazing designer, but he hated hiring designers who work underneath them. So I took what he did as an amazing designer, and we now have designers in Latin America design funnels for us, for his, for that business. Right. But I create a process for that. And all day long he has. You know, the thing is, he had an eye for design. He just hated designing, right? Because he's like, you know, he's like, I'm a perfectionist. He's like, I can tell people what they need to do and make it look beautiful. But. Because when he was a graphic artist, he was always doing the grunt work, which is what he resisted. He actually has a better eye to be a creative director than he is actually a designer. Right. Well, recently this week, he got picked as one of the 30, you know, the company, the business. Him, himself one of the top 30 designers for ClickFunnels out of 45,000 users. So he's gonna be flying out in the middle of August to the Click Funnels headquarters. And Russell Brunson, he picked 30 people to design templates for the marketplace. Right. Because he realized he wants to expand that area. So he was recently picked for that, like, I think last week.

Because. And he's enjoying the work again. When he was a graphic designer, right. And doing, like, you know, like, the client work, he resisted it, right. So he avoided it. But he's like, why? If I had to direct people and tell them what to do, I love doing that. So you have to see the part of you that, what's your natural flow in the business that you love to do and do more of that and have everyone else do the rest. Now, one of the things that's very crucial in a business is one of the responsibilities you cannot walk away from is you actually being the general or director of your business. Right now. A lot of people do, like, their tasks. Like, you know, let's say, Matt, if you're a content writer for your time for your company all day long. But let's say you got sucked into doing that all the time and you didn't have time to direct the high level of your business, then you fall into the trap of being your most important employee.

So how would you go about taking someone who has a really good skill set? Let's talk about content writing and say they're like, Matt, they also have to lead the vision. They have to work with, you know, slums like me to drag me around. No, but what would, like, the first step or the first few steps look like for someone who needs to kind of get out of that rabbit, you know, or that little hamster wheel almost.

So what I do is there's a common, well, not common, but a little bit of thing that people do, and it's very common in the Y incubator, the big incubation companies for, like the high tech companies, they have a thing called maker manager time, which is you batch your time one time, you act as a manager, like match your employees, your accountability for people. And the maker time, when you act as a content writer, that's the first level. But one thing I recently discovered that has worked amazingly is I added a third component to that, which is the maker manager and the leader time.

And what's the difference there?

Yeah, yeah. So. So, for example, the way I see this, okay, so the. The maker time is when you set up a time in the company, say, let's say your time is between 10 o' clock to 2 o', clock, right. Four hours. Everyone in the company would act as a maker. They're doing their thing without being bothered. Right. So if you're a content writer, like, hey, Gonzalo, don't bother me. I'm just doing the content, doing my thing. Right. So you're acting as a maker. Right. The manager time is like, hey, I'm open from, let's say from 9 to 10 and from 2 to 5. As an example, as my manager time, you're the business owner, you still have to act like a manager. I break up my manager time in two parts of the day, earlier and then later, so that I'm accessible to my team for accountability for them to ask me questions. Right. So that. Because when you interrupt someone in the middle of the workflow, it just totally throws them off.

Oh, yeah.

So you're acting as a manager. Right. Accountability is like, hey, Joe, you told me you're gonna get this new content piece up with the podcast. What's going on? We're behind schedule. All that kind of like management stuff, right?

Yeah.

And that's what most people consider putting out the fires, right?

That's what managers do.

Yeah, exactly. Well, I have two time frames, which is two hours a day, early in the morning and then late, like in the. In, like the late afternoon, early evening. I call that my leader time. And the leader time is I have a little thing that I put. What's the one thing I'm working on for the business? What's the most important thing? Right. And I add that to what my one goal is, my current target. Right. And during my leader time, I'm actually I don't have the computer on. I have a notepad and paper. And I sit down and I ponder about that main goal, right? What is it that I have to do with it? What's something that being sucked in that it shouldn't be being sucked into, right?

You're looking into all aspects. You're just like, okay, so I'm feeling some maybe, roadblocks approaching it with this way, maybe this person isn't the best person to help me on this project or whatever it might be, right?

And that's the time I use for, you know, the purpose of that time is for me to review and plan for that, my one main goal. Or Gary Keller in his book calls it the one thing, Right? Right. It's that focus, right? So I have sentence there. And then I'm like, oh, I. Now I'm reviewing my goal. What's going. What's. What's the roadblock? Whatever. But really what I'm doing is I'm taking myself away from like. Like the trees and then looking at the whole forest, right? And no one bothers me. And I sit down with pen and paper because, you know, you can't open up Facebook. You can't, you know, have your phone on and look at what's going on on Instagram, whatever the thing is, right? You're just sitting there. In the beginning, it might feel like you're not being productive, but there's times you have to slow down so that you can actually speed up.

Yes. Yeah. That's huge. And you say you do this twice a day? Or is it.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I do it twice a day. But the morning part is I review my goal and then I plan out, right? And I write down things, right? Like, oh, this thing and this thing. Right? Whatever pops up, like, oh, wow, I'm being sucked into this thing. Or, well, this is really taken away. Like, you know, let's say, for example, you and Matt were. Joe. Let's say you and Matt were working on a specific goal. But then I have you guys do a different project, right? That's totally different. Right? And then you're sitting down and say, well, you know what? We mentioned that our goal is to get our newsletter to more hands. That's our number one goal. Well, if Gonzalez is talking us to get into the supplement business, that's really destruction to what our one thing actually is.

Absolutely. You have no idea how close to home this is hitting, because we've literally had discussions about this as recently as 2 hours ago.

Less. Yeah.

So that's I mean, this is super, super relevant and timely for us. That, you know, over time, one of sort of Joe and my downfall. Well, not really downfall, but one of our sort of weaknesses is the shiny object syndrome. The, ooh, that looks like a good business model. Let's go test it for a little while. And then getting off the path that we've been on and so that's something that we've had to become super, super focused, super clear on, is staying on that path and not letting ourselves divert. So it's just, it's very timely, relevant information to us.

Well, and that's why the one thing. I have a Slack channel for all the businesses I own that says the one thing.

Yeah.

So that everyone on the team knows what the target is.

Oh, that's a great idea. How do you do that in Slack? Because we use Slack for all of our internal communication. Where do you put this one thing?

I make a channel called the One Thing.

Oh.

So that's actually the channel.

And then every day that one thing is, is it ever evolving or is it. Is there just one message in there all the time? This is it.

Don't change that is literally like later on we'll do maybe a supplement screen capture. And underneath this video or podcast, I'll show you guys. But it's literally that one thing. So for example, the Internet marketing party has one go.

Funnels now has one goal. Man of systems has one goal. Right. So it's, it's that you can't hide from it right now. That's why pondering about what that one goal is is so crucial. Because when you look at opportunities, you have to. I only go after opportunities that are gonna be there for a long time. Right. You know, I'm not interested in the opportunity seeking. Right. Or the shiny object. I'm thinking I'm looking at the thing that's going to be there for 10 years. Right.

Makes sense.

You know, the Internet marketing party this September is going to hit nine years in business.

Damn.

Wow. I didn't know that. I think Joe and I went to the very first one. So that's kind of crazy.

That's right.

That is right. I'm like, wow, nine years. I mean, it's crazy, right? So that's why it's important. So the other time, which is my leader time from 6 to 7, I review the same thing. One thing, but one thing that I look there is the same. I evaluate my day based on how I did the one thing right for the goal. Did I actually move forward today is My team moving forward.

And I actually plan out for my next day. It's like, okay, well, today was a crappy day or a good day. What can I do tomorrow to move my one thing ahead?

Got it. So that's. Yeah, you got that recap of the day. You can observe what happened throughout that day and what led up to it, and like, okay, let's make tomorrow a bit better. You know, and then you just kind of build upon that.

Right, because, you know, it's the whole thing of, like, you know, if a. You know, like the whole. I don't know if it's true or not, but you know how airplanes or ships don't fly in a. Especially ships don't. Don't sail in a straight line. They kind of zigzag. Well, it's a lot easier zigzagging every day to get back on course instead of like, two months pass and like, what the hell did I actually get done in this two months?

Yeah, yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. No, I actually have a question. I want to jump back a little bit about systematizing. And we discussed for a moment, you know, picking the one thing that you're sort of world class at. That you would do even if you didn't get paid, and focus on that and systematize or outsource the rest. Now, what would you say to someone who's fairly new in business? They might be a solopreneur. They're just getting started. They've got maybe. Let's just use the example of like an information business. They're selling something on, you know, health. Now, somebody that's just starting out, do you recommend, you know, from day one, they're figuring out how to systematize, or do you. Do you prescribe to the philosophy of you should really be doing everything in your business yourself? And then once you're sort of rolling and making some money, then you start to systematize and then you start to outsource. You know, what are your thoughts on that for somebody just getting started that may not have capital to, you know, outsource things?

Sure, sure. So. So one of the greatest things that I believe about being successful and doing things is, number one, being smart is the biggest handicap someone could have.

That's true.

Well, and the reason I say that is when you're good at something, you end up doing everything right. Because when you have that competence, right, it's like, then you're like, well, you know what? I could pay someone, but you know what? I'm gonna Go ahead and learn how to do it. If you really break down digital marketing and I had this epiphany, like, you know, like right now there's a big launch for Expert Secrets, right? So they have a click. Funnels, it's great product. I use it, love it. But you know, if you look at it, you're like, okay, someone needs to, you know, they made a tool to make it easy for someone to build a funnel. There's a difference between being able to drag and drop a tool to build a funnel compared to actually having an eye to design. Right? Right. So, for example, we might have the ingredients to make a cake.

Have an oven, microwave this stuff. But it doesn't mean we can actually make a cake. But it takes a special talent. So for example, the real world class designers, like you can actually buy the same furniture and have me decorate and the home will look like crap. You have someone who has the eye for that. They just know how to do that. Right. So this tool that people makes the job easier for someone like, hey, I'm giving you the tool to change your own oil to do this. Now you're actually changing your own oil. Right. And it takes you five hours or three hours where you could have gone to Jiffy Lube and it would cost 20 bucks. Right, right. So the problem is you can build your own funnel, but then the whole thing is like, oh, I have to build, I have to write copy for it. Well, I need to learn copy. Oh, I need to become a product expert. Oh, I now have to run traffic. So the typical Internet marketer, before they start making significant money, it'll take them three, the average person, three to five years of making all mistakes to finally fail their way to success. Right.

That makes perfect sense. And that pretty much aligns with Matt and I would say too, Right.

Like for example, when I get in the mortgage business, right. The real estate business I started. Real estate business. I started in a mortgage business. What I did is when I opened the real estate company, I did not become a realtor. What I did is I placed an ad for a person who was a broker and I said, I will pay you 5% of all the commission that comes in for you to hang your license for at my office so we can become a legal real estate company. So you, they will be a partner. But it was, I could fire them at any time. Right. So for, you know, I said 5% or $500, whichever is less. I posted that ad. I had 100 people reply to me, wow, right. Because I could have gone, you know, 40 hours ago, real estate school, had to have two years experience to become experience in real estate, to then become a broker, which was in our state. Right. And pay like all these fees so that I can open a real estate company or I can get someone to do that for me. So I did that and then I opened a mortgage company. And the mortgage company, it was a lot of paperwork. And then I decided to partner with someone that will take 30% of the. Of the profits, but they had the process or the underwriter the money. So instead of imagine in that business, if I were going to try to become the title company, the insurance company, all those type of things, it would take me 20 years before I did my first transaction.

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. In fact, just thinking about it, some of the most successful people I can think of don't actually know the skill sets that are involved in their business, even on a very, very grand scale. Think of someone like Richard Branson. He does not know how to fly a plane. I'm pretty sure of that. You know what I mean? So when you.

Well, think about Russell Brunson even said in one of his videos, once I heard him say it, he's never run his own traffic.

There you go. I mean, you don't have to be an expert at everything. Like you said, just stick with your skill sets and go from there.

Yeah, right. You know, he's not a programmer, Right. And then he has someone built, you know, clickfunnels, right? Now he has people do that. So one of the things is you have to look at what people do compared to what they say to do. Right. And for me, that's where, you know, for my customers, for my outsourcing course assistants, I give them advice or I help them or guide them based on what I would want people to tell me or what I went through instead of like, oh, how can I sell more products to the person? Right. So my belief is most people that are actually, you know, that are my cousin I always see is like, wow, how can I help them get ahead without making all the mistakes that everyone else makes? Right. Even though that might hurt my revenue, it's actually a better experience for the customer. Right, right. If that makes sense.

Yeah, that definitely makes sense. Now I want to shift gears just slightly for a little bit. Unless. Joe, do you have anything else there? Okay. Yeah. So what I want to talk about for a second, and last time we chatted, we actually didn't get a chance to touch on this. So I want to make sure we touch on it this time. I want to talk about actually finding the best team members and finding the best sort of outsourced employees to plug into these. Right. Positions that you're not world class at. So can you speak into that a little bit? And what sort of advice would you offer for somebody that's looking to go down that outsourcing path?

Sure. So one thing I'm personally doing myself taking action on this is I used to outsource a lot to the Philippines. I don't anymore. I'm actually coming out with a marketplace in Venezuela and in Latin America, because the reason I did that is the Philippines became the buzzword for the last 10 years about outsourcing. And it's become one of those places that the cost goes up and the good people get pulled out. Right? Right. So remember like the Mark Twain says, or a lot of famous people say, when you see the majority of people do something, do the complete opposite. Right. When everyone's buying real estate, sell the damn real estate. Remember bitcoin recently was going crazy. Everyone's buying and then crashed. Right. Because a lot of smart people sold it. Right, Right. So. So when I saw everyone going to the Philippines, you know, I travel a lot to Latin America. I'm from Argentina, and. And I noticed that in. In certain countries, that's why I open up a marketplace. I'm getting PhD level lawyers doing work for me at three bucks an hour.

Well, that's insane.

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, like. Cause, you know, versa, if you notice, it has an economic collapse right now, but they still need work. Sure, Right. Panama is going through the same thing, and there's a lot of countries. The great thing about Latin America is, number one, it's in the same time zone as most of the US which is great. Which. Most of the people are from the U.S. right. Or most of the customers are. And number two, there's something about the Latin American culture that's very westernized. Right. If you look at India or China, the culture is totally different. Right. In the Philippines, if you hire the Filipinos, they're like, oh, God bless you and your family. They're very nice people, whatever.

And.

But they still have an Asian type of feel. Right?

Right.

Family comes before everything else. Latin America, if you notice the reason why Latins are about to be 50% of the population, like the heritage in the US is they're able to integrate into society a lot better than any other culture. Right. Because they're very much like us. We have Mexican food everywhere. Right?

Sure.

They get it, they speak. They become the phone people. And the other thing, too. There's a lot of deported Americans. People who came to America, were deported back to their country, and they're perfect English.

And you got to think they have a lot of family here, so they're probably going to want to work with American companies. They know. They know English, for the most part, I would imagine. Yeah.

I'm actually curious. In Venezuela, what is like a working wage that somebody can live off of in Venezuela?

So my main project manager, I pay him three bucks an hour, and he makes more than his mom and dad combined.

Oh, my God.

Wow.

Okay.

Yeah, so, yeah, so I had that guy. I mean, I mean, like, it's. It's sickening. I mean, it's just the quality. So, like, one of the things I did. So what I did is that when I saw that, I'm like, well, my goal is to be the number one marketplace in the world for outsourcers in Latin America. So that's what we're working toward. Right. Because, you know, I understand the coach, but one of the things I saw is there's a certain level of, you know, when someone can cross the border or come in here illegally, even though it's not, you know, I'm not condoning or whatever, but. So when someone's very quick and sharp. Right. They just, you know. And the great thing is a lot of Latin America, and this might sound bad, but there's a lot of corruption and willing dealing with government. Sure, right.

That's true. Yeah.

So they have a lot of, like, we know what it's called, like, thinking on your feet type of mentality, which as a worker, you want people who can actually think for themselves. Yeah, Right.

They just gotta figure the shit out. And it's like they can just hop into action, not have to think too hard about it.

Yeah. I mean, they know to go out and say, oh, I need to have legal papers on this. I'm not saying you're gonna hire all people that were deported back, but I'm saying, like, they just have that ability of getting by. So they know, like, in Latin America, you have to pay a cop 10 bucks so that, you know, really, when they stop you, they're ask. You know, they'll say something like, hey, I'm really hungry today. That's their code word. They're saying, hey, pay out.

Yeah, Right.

Because that's how the culture is. I mean, that's how the government operates there. So it's nothing bad or good. It's Just what it is. Right, right. So the. So, so when I hired those people, you know, when I. When I saw the difference between that and the Philippines, I was like, I was getting like, you know, when you. When you find that sharp, like, Spanish girl receptionist who works the office and can handle everything and she's just quick. Those type of people. And I was. I was blown away. I mean, I had one lady, a couple work for me. They have a top Instagram channel in venezuela with like 20, 30,000 people. And they created an Instagram course for me because I wanted to see if they could do it.

Wow.

Right. And they wrote it perfectly. They. I mean, they're very elegant. They just know. And the great thing about it is, for some reason, the Philippines, it's very common for people. For them, if they can't do a job, it sprays such a shame upon them that sometimes they'll disappear because they can't do the job. Right. Yeah. And they won't tell you, I don't get this, or whatever. And it's a weird thing. It's almost like in their country, if you're not smart enough, you can't figure it out. It's shameful.

Yeah. No, that's interesting. I mean, I definitely noticed that before when hiring in the Philippines. Before is they're so eager to please that they tend to say, yes, I can do that to everything, and then think they're going to go figure it out later. That's just my procession from working in the past. And then if they can't figure it out, you're right. They might just disappear. I don't. I don't know if there's truth to it or not, but a lot of times, you know, they'll come back two months later and be like, oh, we had a major power outage in my village, or something like that. So they'll lie.

They'll lie. They actually, it's common, their culture to want to lie rather than disappoint. So they'll say like, hey, you know, they'll say stuff like, you know, like they have power outages or weird things, but they'll say like, you know, they couldn't figure out. They're like, oh, my son's sick. This person is going on. And it seems like it's in their culture. It's weird. I found that recently that saying no or being straight is seen as something very shameful. So it's better to say, hey, Matt, my grandmother died for the third time.

Because I'm taught not to say no to People of authority.

Interesting, interesting. So how would we actually, I know you're building this marketplace, I don't think it's live yet. But for Venezuelan outsourced workers, how would someone go about looking for them? Would they go to like an upwork and.

Well, yeah, that doesn't work because here's the benefit about that. That's why I'm you know, moving. You know, we're going to have it in up within the next 30 days. At least a partial working one.

Yeah.

But this is what I had to go do to understand. So I went to upwork all these typical things. I would never hire from freelancer websites because the moment that someone's a freelancer, they know they're the hot girl in the bar. Right. So when someone's great, you're one project away from being discarded. So when I hire people, I hire them to be my employees.

You want them solely dedicated on your business.

Yeah. So what we did is we actually placed ad in all the national newspapers and all the Spanish countries. We, I would pay the top Instagram or YouTube people in those countries and I would pay for ads on their websites. So that's how we generated a pool of about 20,000 interested people.

Because we spent money. Because in those countries, you know, it's not that expensive because a YouTube ad, like, not YouTube, but like, like let's say here in the US might cost like a person has 100,000 views. It might cost you like $10,000 to place an ad. Right. Like a direct promo. Well, there's not that expensive because the exchange rate. Right. So we were able to do this with you know, graphic designers, like funnel builders, like all this other stuff and because it's their job. Right. So a lot of them, you know, 90% of the people that work for me are work on a part time as needed basis. I do not hire them full time. A lot of people in the, and even the past I would tell people, I hire someone full time because you're, you know, if you hire someone from the Philippines, you pay 400 bucks or $250 and you get them at a discounted rate. Right. Because you're hiring them full time. Well, I now only hire people on a part time as needed basis. And the reason I do that is because the average person only has two to three hours of productive work in them.

God, that's so true. And so you're basically just paying for their most productive hours.

Yeah. And then the other time they can work for someone else or their regular job in their Country. Right. But with me, I want them to be at their freshest. Have you noticed when you work really hard, you doing, like, intellectual work, you go out and work in the yard or make beer or whatever people do. Right?

Yeah.

Because they're changing the routine or the part of the brain that they're using.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

So, like, for me, if I work hard, I'll go for a walk, I'll go out and I'll pull weeds for my patio. What is called those rocks, like the pavers.

Yeah. Yeah.

Even though I had a weed killer, I have fun just going down, bending over and pulling the weed.

I do the same thing. It's weird. I'll just, like, wander in my yard and it's literally meditative. And I think I use some of that unconsciously to think about, like, the leadership part of my. My day. Like how you're saying maker, manager, leader. Yeah. It's kind of that mindless. It's a different activity. It's using your hands.

Yeah.

You know, so that's. That's why when you hire people for the two, three hours a day, you're only using them for that time. So on your stuff, they're sharp.

Yeah. Now, I think that's actually a pretty good transition right there because the sort of. The last topic I want to dive into is sort of routines and habits. You know, I know, I know Joe has a practice that he does where he'll. He'll sort of write down what he's accomplished throughout the day, so he could kind of review how productive or unproductive his day was. And I know last time we talked with you, you sort of discussed some of those types of things, and you went as far as actually having various, like, worksheets and things, Notepad. Notepads and things like that printed up for you so that you can stay on task with these daily habits and these daily practices. So I think it'd be kind of cool to go down the route of talking about some of those things that you do on a daily basis.

Sure. So the first thing that I do is when I have discussions with people, I always batch my discussions, single topic, especially with me, because I own a lot of different companies and partnerships and companies.

At the end of the day, the most important thing that you can do is direct your attention. Your attention is like the sun. Right. If the sun's on the plant long enough, the plant grows. If the plant gets, like a minute of sun, it's not going to grow. Right. So the most precious commodity in the world is Being able to direct your attention the moment that you know. Because if you think about life, we have be. Do, have manager time and make your time is the doing. The leader time is the being time. Have you noticed that people, when they go on vacation, they get re. You know, reinspired. They have clarity because they're walking away from the doing.

Right?

Right. So I, you know, my thing is I give myself an hour to two hours a day just to be right. And in our society, especially entrepreneurship, we're like, grind, work faster, get more done, spend more hours. And I realize when I go into that doing mode, there's no one in my company actually being. So if you notice that I heard a great poem once or a saying that says, when an entrepreneur started his business, he was the only believer. Then he got employees, and then he believed until they started believing, and then the customer started believing. It just grew. Right? But it all started from one person's belief, which is really holding the attention or his focus on what he wants to accomplish. And it's so easy because.

We'Re taught in a society just to think, think, think. Like, I'm starting to think, but do, do, do. Eat. Entertained. Distracted. Social media. You know, we go to Facebook and we, you know, we. It brings up those insecurities of like, oh, this guy has a Ferrari and he's 21. And I'm like, shit.

Now it's like, yeah, you're comparing your.

Whole life to somebody's highlights.

Yeah, exactly. So one of the things I do is, like, saying the. And if you notice the most successful people in the world have kept journals. You know, Benjamin Franklin, like, all these amazing guys who lived 10 lifetimes combined with what any one of us could do, had the same amount of time. Right. They didn't have technology, but one of the things that they do, they spend a lot of time pondering about things, right?

Yes.

So one of the important habits is, you know. You know, instead of. You know, I tell people instead of ask me for book recommendation. My only book recommendation is get yourself a damn piece of notepad and paper.

So maybe we'll skip that question.

Well, because if you think about it, we spend our life consuming someone else's opinions, thoughts, and beliefs. And I believe.

If you're able to be quiet long enough in your head, that the truth that you have within you will speak to you. But the damn problem is your fucking mind is so loud.

Jesus. Yeah, so it's like step one, quiet your damn mind because it's a monkey brain, and it's gonna go Crazy. But the way to do that is separate yourself from any inputs you might have, like a computer, your phone, your. Even people around you. Just go to a park or your backyard and seclude yourself and let that mind start to quiet down. Maybe bring that notebook like said, and take the shit out of your mind. Because if it's in your mind, it's got to get out, you know, and.

That'S the crucial thing. And one thing, and I think it took me 40 years, I'm now 42. It took me not 40 years, but it took me 30 something years to learn that. That. And really, if you are present every moment right now, right, you really focus that we're having conversation or the listeners listening. The only moment that you're alive is this very moment, right? Because that's where we are, you know, And I have to, I remind myself every moment of this moment is that the only control you have is of this very one moment you have right now. It's always the now, now, now, now, right? And what I get is when I finally learned that that.

Monkey in your brain, the sabotage, whatever you want to call it, right? This is obsessive disease, freaking psycho friend of yours that sits in your shoulder.

Ego.

Yeah, yeah. Is when you realize he says this kind of like, you know, if you're an athlete, it's like kind of jerk fan, that's for the opposing team that's yelling crap at you all the time. Faster.

You're not good enough.

Yeah, yeah, you're not good enough. Like, like, geez, Gonzalo, you have a little bit of waist around your belly, a little fat. Hey, you might get cancer, you might have a heart attack, you might die, right? All the bull crap. Once I learned that I didn't have to get rid of him, that I just had to direct my attention away from because usually that guy will direct your attention.

So what I do is I say, thank you, motherfucker, for sharing.

Love it.

And what's my vision? So, for example, my vision for men of systems, and I shared this with you guys in the past, is we help business owners around the world create outrageous success and freedom. How do we do this? Our systems help them bridge the gap of where they are to where they want to be, right? And when I look at this every morning during my leadership time, right, it's, you know, my tension is like the sun. It crosses your girl. So, for example, five years ago, when I heard a video by David Gonzalez for the Internet marketing parties interviewing like top marketers in the world, I said, to myself, I would like to one day, you know, speak at that event. Right. Five years later, I now own the business.

You own the damn thing. I can speak whenever I want now.

That's the power of intention right there.

That's right.

And that's what I realized. I remember years ago, I saw a little interview by a guy named Lewis Howe at CreativeLive.

He's not a little guy.

Yeah. And it was like four or five years ago, and they were talking about this thing called the webinar and you can make a lot of money. And I said to myself, wow. And I remember the lady I follow, her name is Allison something and she wrote like bestseller on the weekend and she was going to do a whole webinar. They walked her through it, whatever, and she made $20,000 on the webinar. I'm like, that's like magic. I would love to do that someday. That's all I said. Yeah. And six months later, I met this guy, Ben Atkins, Brad Spencer Ryan and Robert Stooks, and I shared about a software I made. And you know, especially Robert and Ryan said, hey, you know, do you have it for sale? We want to buy it. I'm like, well, you know, it's my outsourcing monitoring software. Right. And like, no, I just, I built it for myself. He's like, gonzale, people would love to buy it. You know, we could sell it in something called a webinar.

You're like, haha.

Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, I remember doing my first webinar. Did like 20 something thousand dollars and it was like that. Right. Now my problem is it takes a very long time for me to get my first hit. Right, sure. But once I get my first hit, it's like a tsunami. Right?

That's true, that's true. Yeah.

So one of the biggest things regarding what you're saying about like.

How do you manage yourself, I realized it's not about the doing, it's more about the being and directing your attention. That's really the biggest life hack ever had. And, and I see that the more because everyone's doing so now I own parts of a lot of companies because most even business owners do not have the capacity to be.

Yes, that's interesting because you're almost, you're, you're approaching it with this different mindset, with different eyes at the same like, scenario, but you're coming from it from this whole different direction that they're not even, you know, they can't even see. And I could see how that gives You a lot more opportunity to become a partner in a business that might be able to be systemized. And, you know, you can double the business, like, immediately just by you implementing these, you know, simple systems. That's a. That's a hell of a skill set, and it's a great way to take a step back in your own business for you guys listening and start being. And start. Start taking that. That step back, that outside perspective.

Kind of like, have you noticed that, you know, and this is one of the things of actionable that's really helpful is have you noticed we're all amazing at giving amazing advice to our friends and family?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then the moment that we're stuck, we're like, I'm an idiot. What do I do? Right.

Yep.

Start seeing yourself as your friend that you're giving advice to.

Sure. That's good. That's great. Yeah, yeah.

And that's definitely something we've noticed in our own business. When you're really close to the business, you often find it that it's very, very hard to figure out what the next steps are where we can go and talk to someone like a Gonzalo, and he'll say, dude, it's obvious you need to do this.

Right.

But for some reason, we have blinders on and we can't see it ourselves. And so I think that's. That's really smart to try to shift yourself in the mindset of, like, this is a friend's business. This isn't my business. So what would I. What advice would I offer to them and do that.

Exactly. And realistically, and a lot of people. And I realize the reason why the greatest athletes on the world have mentors and coaches is because.

Everyone needs that outside perspective. Right. A lot of people have, like, this idea, and I had it, too, when I was younger, which was suffering through it, I had my own mentor in business that taught me one of the greatest principles I learned, which is pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. He's the one that taught me to. When I make deals with people, to actually make them as wealthy as I can make myself.

Yes.

Right. So I don't know if you guys know this whole concept of beliefs create reality. Right. You may not believe it. I mean, like, I'm talking to the audience, you may believe it. But the reality is, have you noticed that your pet peeve will show up more often around you than other people? Right. So, for example, like my wife, I have no problems with slow drivers because I drive slow.

Yeah.

My wife hates slow drivers. And for some reason they always get in front of her. Right. Because she has a charge against it. So whatever the things that you resist, persist, right?

Yep.

Well.

On the empowerment side, your beliefs either limiting empowerment, create a reality. So for example, one of the beliefs I created about, I don't know, eight years ago, I remember I was in a very tough part of my life and I would say something when I wake up and I put my attention on it, I would say to myself, I'm the world's greatest deal maker. Everything I touch turns into gold. Now, there was a time that I said that, that it wasn't so.

And I stuck with it, kept saying it.

Yeah.

Well, in that like feeling like I would imagine like, you know, people shaking my hand, doing deals with me, whatever, because I'm more, I'm somewhat kind of amazing, but 80% of me is an introvert. And then when I'm in my flow, I'm an, I'm an extrovert, right? Yeah. And, but otherwise I like to be in my house and don't be bothered. Right.

The funny thing is, is like I didn't want to be an extrovert, but I wanted to be a great deal maker. I wanted to be in front of a lot of people. And that's where I met this guy named Brad Spencer. Right. A great connector, chatters all the time, Right. Connects people. And then about six months ago, I said I wanted to up my game again. I want to increase my network. And that's where David Gonzales comes in by accident. Right. My last move is I want to actually be able to play in the, in the realm of like people like Elon Musk and those type of people.

I was gonna ask you, what's next?

Yeah, it's. Well, because here's the thing is, you know, once you make enough money, you pay your bills and all that kind of crap, we're all gonna drop dead anyway, right? We're all gonna die. Yep. But you know, you know, the crappy thing is there's so many. You know, one of the beliefs I have is because we all have different beliefs, right? And it's funny, like my mother in law has the belief that she's lucky, right. Every time she calls the radio show, she wins the prize. But the funny thing is my mother in law is Mormon, right. And she won't play the lottery. And I'm like, are you stupid? Right? If you haven't played Humber, always win, right? Yeah, but, but the funny thing is, is we, everyone who has this beliefs, it should proof Always shows up to them. Right. Like, have you noticed in life for the most part you're never wrong? Right?

Oh yeah.

Because our beliefs are always proven right. Right. So my belief, one of the beliefs I have is I, I find the Michael Jordan during high school.

So explain that really quick.

So Michael Jordan is the person who's so talented, who's being used.

Or he's not up in the pedestal yet. So I find him in those moments. So for example, I came across a guy named David Sloth, right. When he was working with other people where he didn't make it huge in Facebook. Right. And I became friends with him and we network, we connected, became really good friends and he then blew up. Right. I met Brad when him and Ben were parting ways. Right. So I always find people who are like Michael Jordan who just didn't make the pros yet. Right.

Catching people like, yeah, they're an amateur or, or not, but they're, they're at least in a space where they're almost like, you know, their untapped potential is still.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. They're literally, you know, like, like, oh my gosh, I wish I would have recruited Michael Jordan during high school. Right. So, so what I do is I, for some reason with that belief, I always find those people. There's this guy's name is Robbie. I came across him when I met David. And the guy's. And he's in the fitness place and he's blowing up. You know, he's a business partner of mine on a couple of ventures and he was a copywriter doing multimillion dollars. But he was the copywriter for six pack shortcuts at one point, right? Yeah, but he was kind of like getting by. He was a new guy and all those type of things. But he needed someone to believe in him enough at that critical moment.

So how would you go about. Yeah. Without going too long on this because I know we're getting a little long already. How would you actually go about? Like a fast way to actually know that guy's a star or that guy's doing pretty good, but I don't think he's going to actually have the chops to make it big term, big league.

There's two types. There's two types of people. There's the sharks, right. Who prey on those people. Yeah, they're kind of like my GPS for who the talent is.

So.

Okay, so, so for example, when I see someone who's preying on someone, they might have like, let's say you don't have the skill, like I do, to identify those people. Right. If you notice, people are like, you know, here's the top guy, like, let's say, you know, Matt's famous content writer. And then this. This poor guy Joe, working away, not getting credit, getting five bucks an hour. He's the guy, right?

Yeah.

And then when I take the principle of pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered, how do I help Joe reach the goal that he wants? Believe in him? Because everything in life is about belief, right. People who don't accomplish something if they have a talent and thing is because they just had self doubt. So as a business owner, you know the job and you know, people are looking for leaders that believe in them.

That makes sense.

Steve Jobs went and sent the letter to the guy from Pepsi saying, aren't you tired of making sugar water? You know, why don't you come join me and change the world? Right? People. People will follow the person who has the biggest belief, the most confident. And that fake confidence is true confidence. That's why Hitler did what he did. Yeah, that's true on the limiting side. Right. But he saw was a crazy, psycho person that believed in what he was doing. It wasn't meant. That was right. It was his belief. Look at Conor McGregor with his fighting. He's doing UFC.

Yeah.

They might say he's crazy, but he was calling out his things. Because people in this, it's a weird thing. People are like, oh, I'll believe myself when I do it. It's actually the believing and the consistent believing. Right. That actually makes that actually happen. Mm. Because for some reason, the universe has a way to reward when someone's a persistent son of a bitch.

Yeah, man.

So are you putting your Money on. On McGregor against Floyd Mayweather?

Here's the thing. If anybody can beat him in shock, it would be him. Yeah, right. Like, like so. But I'm gonna watch an amazing be entertained because regardless, they both won like crazy. Oh, yeah. If I were to put my money something.

I probably go with the guy with the biggest odds. But it will be just for fun money. I like to kind of bet in my own business instead of trying to become rich from gambling.

Oh, no, for sure. That was more of a joke than anything.

I want to see Conor actually just do something amazing.

I do too.

Yeah. Well, I mean, the thing about that fight, without going on too much of a tangent, is they both have that belief. They both have that belief that they are 100% going to win.

Yeah, that's powerful, man. That's. That could change the world.

So, yeah, we got to, we got to go ahead and wrap up. We covered so much ground and so much good stuff and we already know for a fact we're going to have you on for another round at some point because we could probably talk with you for hours. So we know we're going to be doing another round with you at some point and we'll save some more good stuff for that one. One thing I want to tell our listeners to go check out is if you go to Gonzalez website at, @manassystems.com, he's got a really killer blog post that Joe and I actually watched. It's a video that talks about how to systematize the process of consuming books. And it's just really cool. And I think everybody should check it out. I don't want to give more details than that because I want you to go to his website and he's got.

A spreadsheet he gives you. So it's like a quick way to just digest this stuff in 20 minutes rather than spending hours.

Yeah, it's a great way to consume books and Joe and I have actually adopted it ourselves, even for books we've already read. So go check that out. Now, having said that, are there any other websites or links or places you want people to go to learn more about with you, learn more about you, connect with you, that sort of thing?

Absolutely. So if you go to manofsistance.com test, I have a test that you can figure out if you're ready to systemize route source in your business. You take that test, it gives you a result. Of course, you give me your email address and you'll get some emails from me. But if you're listening to this and it says something that really touches home, I would love to help you achieve through my products or consulting on how to systemize crossource more your business.

Perfect.

Perfect. And if somebody feels like they fit that criteria just going to that website and doing that little test, that'll get them on your radar.

Right. And also if you're really motivated and you're gung ho, get the job done. I have a contact form, you know, message me and say, hey, I want to get the job done. How can I work with you instead of waiting for a couple of emails, then you can do that.

Perfect.

You are the man of systems. So thanks for being on with us. And we're going to have probably like two, three or four more calls after this.

Yeah, it's going to be good. Yeah.

Thank you guys.

Awesome. Yeah. Thanks again, and killer stuff today. We really appreciate it.

All righty.

Hey.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening to this podcast. Now, if you want to learn more and hear from us every single month, which a lot of people do, it's pretty fun. We actually write this thing called the Evergreen Profits Letter, and that is a printed newsletter that we actually send to hundreds of people every single month to your doorstep. So you actually get it in the mail. You can read this sucker. You can highlight it, you can dog ear. You can scratch some stuff out. If you don't like that one, you say, no. Joe and Matt, that's not cool for. For me. But you can take a lot of different strategies, about 15 or so from every single, single issue, and it's really cool. So basically, these are actionable strategies that you can use in your business right away to test out and pretty much build on what you already have going on. So check it out. It's at www.egpletter.com. it's pretty amazing, and you should go check it out, see what it's all about.

Boom.