Tom Sylvester - Financially Free By The Age of 35

What is the life I want to create? What do I want my day and week to look like and get clarity on that first? Because far too many people attach their purpose or their value to the business and not to the outcome and the result they want to create. So, like, for me, like, I'm not passionate about real estate. I wasn't tied to, like, what color the walls were, right? Like, to me, the businesses were a vehicle to get to the destination. Right? So the way I always look at it, it's kind of like gps. Like, where am I at now? Let my starting point. Then let's look out in the future. And you can use any of the methods you want. Like vivid vision from Cameron Herald. You can do a vision board, but you just want to identify where is it you want to be. And then you build an initial roadmap.

This is an intro. Intro, intro, intro.

Hustle and Float, Shark with your boy, my boy, Matt Wolf and Joe Fear.

Hey. Hello. Hi there.

Welcome back.

Yeah, I'm talking to you. Me?

No, not you.

Oh, who? Mark.

Right here.

Right there. Yeah, your invisible friend Mark.

No, no, we're in Mark's ears right now.

Dude, that's weird. Okay, this is like that movie honey, I shrunk the kids and like, we're just, like, crawling around and we're looking at him like, well, we're in an ear right now. This is crazy.

This intro went off the rails ultra quick.

I'm just rolling with your flow, man.

I know, but we haven't talked directly to people on our intro in a little while, so it's just kind. Okay, shouting out some people. Mark, Steve, John, Tim, Fred, Larry, Joe. Not you, the other Joe.

Every one of those are men.

Christine, Katie, Heather, Alana. Alana doesn't listen.

Alana's his wife.

Heather's his wife.

That's true. She does listen, though, to most episodes.

Carrie, Christine, Charlotte, Wendy.

Just gonna let you keep talking.

Okay, this is good.

This is good.

Phoebe.

Who? Phoebe. Oh. Oh, cool. Yeah. I didn't know you. I was like, what name is that? Phoebe.

All right, let's get on with our intro now.

All righty. What are we doing with this intro? All right. Oh, yeah, well, we were just riffing on this. No, I mean, we had an amazing conversation just now, and we're actually just talking about a lot of our, I guess, triggers, you'll say, like, from what. What we discussed. And so we had a good chat with. With Tom Sylvester, and he basically had a mission to retire by 35, and he did it by 32 by 32. And did we just give away the whole, like.

Yeah, we give away the whole story arc.

Yeah.

Damn. I think he actually makes that clear within the first, like, 10 minutes. He achieved his feat. So it wasn't a spoiler three years earlier.

So. But the big thing is, like, he did it, but now what? Y. Yeah, there's a lot of talk about just what goes on in goal achievement, but also really what happens, what's the purpose, but really what happens after you achieve your goals and how to structure all that stuff.

So I really love this conversation. I would say it's kind of split into two halves.

Right.

The first half is kind of all about systemizing. How to figure out what to systematize, clearing bottlenecks in your business, that sort of stuff. Very systematic. How to basically back yourself out of your business so that it runs without you. The second half of the business is what life is like once your business is systematized and sort of how to deal with the next challenges that pop up once you sort of don't have to focus on your business as much as you used to. And I think that's the part where you and I sort of nerded out a lot and, like, really got lit up. Both parts are amazing. Don't get me wrong. His advice on the systemization is amazing, and we're going to implement a lot of the stuff that he taught. But when we get into the second half and we really start talking about the sort of issues that arise by being so backed out of your own business and what do you do next with your life, that conversation gets real interesting to me.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. Tom has a couple of books, so, yeah, like you said, it's split up in two halves. I guess this is a perfect thing because he has two different books that you can go check out. And so the first one, I guess, would be the scale 2x book. Because if it goes along with your having of this episode.

Yeah, it would be the first half.

Yeah, yeah. So if you go to scale2x.comflow.com flow, scale2x.com flow, that's the number two.

So S, C, A, L, E. The number two X. The letter x.com flow.

Yes. Not the number X. That's right. That mystery number that D. Elusive 10 and Roman neros. All right, touche. And then also on the second half of this podcast, you have more of the lifestyle side of things. So him and his wife. So Tom and his wife is Ariana Sylvester. They both wrote Lifestyle Builders. And you can actually get that book@lifestylebuildersbook.com and go pick that thing up.

Actually, it says weare lifestylebuilders.com oh, well.

That was a redirect, I think.

Okay, so, yeah, go to lifestylebuilders.com lifestylebuildersbook.com.

Hey, do you guys want another URL? You should go get the notes for this episode. You can go to hustleandflowchart.com comp. It's free, but maybe we should make a condensed page just for all these URLs. Oh, yeah, it's called the Show Notes. Forgot.

Good point.

Yes. But no, it's. A lot of this is becoming a joke now with all these URLs. But no, seriously, the books are. Sorry, the notes of this episode, of course, they're yours for free. Within two weeks of this episode going live. Uh, if you're too late, then they be gone. They're in our vault.

They're in the vault.

But I would suggest getting these ones. Hustleandflowchart.com comp. There's a lot of good. I would say there's a lot of good processes that Tom was outlining, and I think that'll make it a lot more concise for you. So get the notes.

Yeah, get the notes.

Oh, or you can use your phone just to complicate it anymore, because it's running.

I don't even give him that one. Come on. It's already too complicated.

Wow. Matt wants to. Yeah, we're all about simplicity now, Matt. Yes.

We've given you three URLs. They're going to be on the show notes page.

Turn this mother down. Let's go. Let's get out of here.

Yeah. Stop listening to us ramble. Let's go talk to Tom.

Let's go. All right, Tom, we're finally live. After us fumbling with tech. I mean, us meaning Matt. Yeah. How you doing, buddy?

I'm doing good. How you guys doing?

Great. We've had a podcast. Days are always our favorite days. We've talked about that. So. And we were, you know, we were talking about the first time we met. I think it was back at Pod 2019, which is crazy. It's been a couple of years now and everything's changed.

Yeah, it really has.

But shout out to Aaron File. She connected us again, so she's awesome and always got to give her that shout out. Yeah, man. And then there's so many mutual friends of ours that we were noticing, like John Barrett. We got to give a shout out to him. Because he listens, I think, too. And Steven Kotler is what, client of yours? So lots of cool overlap. Yeah.

Well, I think that's one of the coolest things in this space, is, like, once you get connected to good people and then they connect you to other good people, you just start seeing how small the world is and how many great and amazing people there are out there.

Absolutely. Well, cool. Let's dive into your backstory. Actually, before we hit record, you were kind of giving us some of the details about your journey so far, but let's dig a little bit deeper. And what were you doing before you became an entrepreneur? I know you were working with your wife for a bit, and now you guys are sort of doing different things. So let's get into the whole evolution of where you are today.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, so I think, like most entrepreneurs, you've always kind of had the pieces in your background, and then in hindsight, you're like, oh, now it makes sense. But at the time, it really didn't. So our story kind of started. I met my wife the first day of college. She was literally the first girl that I met. Kind of a sidebar. My cousin, who was the best man at my wedding, he got up for his speech, and he's like, you know what? I gave Tom one piece of advice when he went to college. Stay single. He goes, that lasted about five minutes.

So, yeah, we met the first day of college, four years later, getting ready to graduate, and I started looking ahead, and I was like, oh, crap. I had a computer science degree. She had a zoology degree. Neither of us had jobs. We had a bunch of debt between credit card debt and student loan debt. And then I started actually applying and looking at what my career was going to look like. And I was like, I do not like the path that I chose. So I started kind of questioning things, and I said, you know what? I'm going to retire by 35. We're going to retire by 35. She's like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, I don't know how we'll make it happen, but it's long enough to figure it out, but short enough that we can truly live life and not be working for the next 45 years.

And. Sorry, I might have missed it. How old were you at that time when you set the goal?

21.

21. Okay, gotcha. Yeah.

So, yeah, left college. Neither said jobs. So I was like, all right, let's figure out how to do this. And what happened right away was every time I would try to start an idea, she would shut it down. And it became very apparent that she was on that traditional path, get a job, that type of thing, where I clearly wasn't. And so that ended up kind of coming to fruition when every idea was shut down. And I was driving home from work, all the press, and I heard one of those ads on the radio, and you guys probably know what I'm talking about. Hey, free weekend seminar. Learn how to. This one was like, invest in real estate. And I'm like, that's it. I just need this weekend seminar. And long story short, the weekend seminar turned into a three day seminar, turned into a huge upsell. So I ended up spending 15 grand on this real estate investment training that ended up becoming a total sham. Big guru, just traveling around town. And so that was like more credit card debt on top of everything else. And I did all of that without telling my wife about nine months before we were getting married.

Holy moly.

Yeah. If you want to start out with things not to do, don't do that.

Okay.

New take for other people. Yeah. Well, and then so, you know, I think like one of my favorite books is, you know, the Obstacle is away. And that was a very big obstacle. But out of that really came clarity that, hey, we're not aligned on where we want to go. So let's sit down before we get married and really figure out what the life is that we want to build. And then we could talk about how to get there. And what we found by doing that was, we're clear on the life we want. We just weren't aligned on the path. And so then from there we ended up, I started a real estate investment business because I had to pay back all the money I spent.

You had to use the real estate somehow?

Yeah, I'm like, I got to use this, right? So we did that. We started that in the last recession. And then a couple years in, I was like, another recession is going to happen again. And I saw a bunch of friends get wiped out with real estate. So I said, how do we diversify? So we started a wine and liquor store. So we had that for a while. I was still working a full time job. We were pregnant with our first kid at that point. And then a couple years later ended up getting to the point where I could actually we could both leave our jobs in our early 30s. And then basically at that point thought we had everything we wanted and then fell into a little bit of depression because it was like, I thought the goal was to retire Young. And that was cool for a little bit of time, but then it was like, all right, well, what's my purpose now? And what was challenging was a lot of people around me just didn't understand. They're like, you guys have it all. You've got multiple businesses. You've got great kids and family. You've got the money you need. Why are you depressed? So it was an interesting journey to go from, like, thinking we had the goal to then, like, oh, my gosh, I feel like I'm starting over.

Was that like a. Yeah. Like, was that probably not an immediate feeling? Was it something that just kind of developed over time? Yeah.

Well, because, you know what I didn't mention was I. So I also had a career while I was doing that. So I did software development, and then I got into, like, business consulting. So I was always, like, busy, always doing stuff, working towards that goal. And so when I hit it, I was like, this is amazing. But then you go from, like, always hustling and always working towards something to suddenly being in state where you're not working towards something. It's a very different feeling than I think most people have. And it was completely unexpected when I was like, why am I not happy? I feel like I should be.

Yeah. So when you say, like, retire by. What was it, 35. Right. Is that what it was?

The goal was 35. I ended up leaving my job at 32.

Dang. So, yeah, because when you say retire, essentially, that's. Would you define that as, like, your income or your passive income is greater than any of your monthly expenses?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, so there's the book. A lot of people know Rich Dad, Poor Dad. So there's a game related to that called Cash Flow 101. And that was kind of how I built everything off of. It was like, hey, if I just get the businesses and the income to exceed the expenses, I can pretty much not have to worry about working and have everything covered. So with every decision I made, it was like, all right, how do I keep building this income coming in? And then specifically, how do I do it in a way so that it doesn't require me to be there?

Yeah.

And so that's. I think the key that a lot of people miss is they keep working on building the income, but they don't build it in a way that it still works without them having to work more.

This reminds me of a. We just recorded an interview with Jay Abraham and Rich Sheffrin. We were talking about this product that we're hoping to release. This passive income product and Jay has this concept, the Tom Sawyer method. So essentially is like recruiting other people to do the work for you, but after you figure out the system and I know for Matt and I and just kind of like a lot of folks listening entrepreneurs, you just think, I'm the fixer, I'm the doer, I can solve this problem. But you quickly find yourself in the middle of everything and you realize you're not the right person to execute all this stuff. You're great at the concept.

I was going to say I'll share with you guys something that I didn't realize how, how powerful this question was at the time. But when we were going to open the wine and liquor store, I still had a full time job and obviously a retail store, you need people to be there all the time. It's open. So I was like, well, I obviously can't be there. So I asked the question. I was like, what needs to be true and right? For me the question was what needs to be true for this to run without me. But I kept coming back to that question time and time again. And what that question allowed me to do is to say, okay, well in order to, let's say have this store run without me, what do the financial numbers need to look like? Then from the financial numbers, what do the KPIs need to look like in terms of how many people are coming in, what their average order is? Then it's like, well, okay, what needs to get done, what execution needs to happen, who is actually going to do that? And then what systems and support do they need to do that without me? So it got me thinking about, here's the end goal, here's the pieces I need to put in place. And then I stepped from, like if you're familiar with E myth, I stepped from being, being the technician of trying to do everything to really thinking about it as an owner and saying, what are the pieces I got to put in place to make this machine work? And coming back like that was one of the biggest epiphanies looking back to say, oh, if you just think about what needs to be true and what the machine needs to look like, then your role is just let's put the right pieces in the machine.

So it starts off with sounds like identifying exactly your targets where you want to get to, but posing with that question, what, what needs to be true if blank, but like you not involved in that thing. And yeah, because I, I feel like natural, at least my natural tendency would be to fight that sometimes. Like not feeling like. Like, ah. But you know, it's just almost like a natural tendency. I know. Like it's a personality.

We all have it. I mean, it's like there's this feeling in us of like once. Once we've sort of mastered a skill on our own, we feel that there nobody else can replace us in that skill. You know, for me, it's. For the longest time it's been writing emails and running Facebook ads. Right. Like, I feel like I've sort of mastered that skill. So in my mind, nobody's gonna be better than me, so I might as well just do it myself.

Right.

And then that's sort of the trap that I get stuck in. I think that's what you're trying to say, right?

Yeah. In our own ways. Yeah. We all have our personality traits that kind of attach to things. So how would you. Because I know you're a big systems guy, of course. Like, how would you make sure you're always going back to the plan that you really set forward and not fall back into your personality traps?

Yeah. Well, to me it comes back to. And this is another thing I think a lot of entrepreneurs miss. They focus so much on building the business. Like early on, when I was trying to get it working, it's like, what's the business? What's the business? And I think far too often they don't take the step back and say, what is the life I want to create? What do I want my day and week to look like and get clarity on that first? Because far too many people attach their purpose or their value to the business and not to the outcome and the result they want to create. So, like, for me, I'm not passionate about real estate. I wasn't tied to what color the walls were. Right. To me, the businesses were a vehicle to get to the destination. So the way I always look at it is kind of like gps. Where am I at now? Let me identify my starting point, then let's look out in the future. And you can use any of the methods you want. Like vivid vision from Cameron Herald. You can do a vision board, but you just want to identify where is it you want to be? And then you build an initial roadmap. And what I always like to have people do is to say, what do you want your life to look like along that roadmap? And then let's ask what needs to be true from the business and the income to support that. So it really then ties everything back to what is it that's really important to you and then you model the business and everything else to make that happen. So instead of being like, all right, well, I'm going to really hustle for the next 10 years and then hopefully enjoy life. It's like, let's build it in a way that I enjoy life while I'm building to the life I want to have.

Yep, Makes perfect sense. Yeah. And that's the whole, like, build the path that you really want to enjoy for the long run. And that probably solves your issue of, yeah, retired by 32 and now what? You know, So I guess let's talk about that, like that progression for you so that when you finally realized, oh, crap, like, I didn't, this isn't what I wanted, what'd you do?

Yeah, well, first off, it was just a lot of conversations and introspection. And the thing that I realized, it was like, well, what am I missing? What did I have joy in before that I'm missing? And I realized it was helping people. And then I looked at, okay, well, what skill sets do I have that I think I could help people with? And so very clearly it was like, well, I've got several businesses, I've worked with several large businesses. I would like to help businesses. So then I look back and I was like, well, do I go back to corporate consulting and helping big companies? And as I started talking to more people and kind of getting insights into where I really thrive, they're like, no, take all the knowledge you have from big and small businesses and work with these small businesses. So I started doing some research, took on my first client. I'm like, well, let me test this out, because I don't want to go and get another job, Right? And so I worked with my first client, did some coaching, and I was like, man, I really enjoy this. And this person went from a lot of debt, very similar to me. He had a wife and kid and working a ton to we put systems in place, we got clear on the numbers and ended up helping him build a million dollar business in the next 18 months. And so that felt really good. They were able to then move to the country they wanted to do and live in their life. So I was like, man, this is it. This is what I want to do. So I started reaching out, getting more clear and coaching more. And then I had that same client reach back out to me one day and he was all frantic and I'm like, dude, whatever the situation is, we'll get through it. We've gotten through it before. And he goes, she left me I'm like, what are you talking about? He goes, my wife, she took the kids and went back to the United States. And I'm just like, I don't know how to help you through that one. And it kind of set me back because I was like, well, do I really want to help, like, build businesses if this is what it's going to lead to? Because in my head, I correlated. Like, I helped this guy build a business, then he got divorced. And so obviously that clearly wasn't the case. But what I found through conversation with my wife and different people was we were successful because we always had that North Star of like, this is the life we want, and we're building the business towards that. And what I was missing when I was coaching him was we were so focused on the business that I didn't do the same thing that we had done. And so what was kind of cool with that is my wife was like, yeah, it would actually be really cool for both of us to be able to bring both perspectives, the perspective of the entrepreneur and the perspective of the non entrepreneur. So my wife and I started coaching people and kind of bringing both those perspectives, which worked out really well. And then kind of fast forwarding, she got to the point where she's like, this was great, but it's not really what I want to be doing. And so she was very nervous about stepping away and pursuing what she really wanted. And I'm like, listen, this is what we preached reach and this is what we should do. So she actually stepped away. I ended up joining one of my friends, Austin Netzle, at 2x and basically said, man, we have a similar vision, we're serving similar people. What if we were to just partner up and really take this to the next level? So it's been really cool because now instead of me just coaching a handful of people individually, now I get to build a team of very good coaches and have a much bigger impact. And I think more than ever, especially with everything that's happened with COVID and everything else, and all the challenges small businesses face, it really drives home for me that, yes, I'm in the right place and people need me.

Yeah, this question, it's sort of a loaded question because I doubt there's not probably an amazing answer for it. But when you're working with a lot of the companies that you work with, are there any sort of common things that you see that most companies don't have that systematized? Right. Most companies aren't doing this thing. Right. Like, are there. Are there A couple things that you kind of see over and over and over again that are some of the first things you get in and fix.

Yeah, definitely. And it's funny how common they are. So. So the first one is, you know, whoever's running the business, they're likely the biggest bottleneck in the business, Right? They're just like we were talking about earlier. They're probably doing more things than they should do. They're probably not building the team and delegating those responsibilities. So one is really just their time. But then beyond that, it's not being clear on what it is they really want. Because I can't tell you how many people have come to us and they're like, I have a $1 million business, but I want to get a $10 million business. It's like, great, let's start talking through that. And more often than not, it's not about the 10 million or whatever insert number is. It's about what it is they really want. So what I always find is, let's get clear on your vision, right? Then let's get clear on what the business needs to look like in order to achieve that. And then let's start breaking it down and building a strong foundation that we can build on top of. Because what was kind of interesting to me when I started coaching and came more into the online world and see what was going on, it seemed like everybody was talking about leads. Just get more leads. And that's how you scale a business. And what I've seen from not only running my own, but also consulting was that it actually starts with just delivering really good customer service and creating raving fans. Because if you just get a lot of leads, but you don't have a great offer and you don't have clients that are staying with you and buying again and telling their friends, all you have is a bunch of leads coming into a leaky bucket. So it always comes back to vision. And what are we trying to do? As a CEO, where is your time most valuable? And then asking that question that I said, like, what needs to be true? And then starting to put the pieces in place. And typically marketing comes last. Where so many people think marketing comes first.

No, it's similar to the podcast space that we have. So many people come to us, like, how do you grow my. I want to grow my podcast to 100,000 downloads a month. And it's like, great, okay, where are you at now? 50. Like, that's fine. But, you know, let's maybe more realistic. It's like 5,000amonth. Okay, cool. You got 5,000, 10,000. But like, it's almost like just squeeze what you can out of the folks you have because typically there's not enough good mechanisms or you know, maybe a funnel or some kind of system there, marketing system to make the most of it. They always want more downloads, just like more leads.

Yeah, I don't think enough people focus on the end goal of the result that they're looking for. Right. Like we know somebody just speaking on the podcast analogy a minute, like we know somebody who has a podcast that gets like 5,000 downloads a month. That's not horrible, but it's not, you know, the biggest podcast in the world either. And this specific person has an amazing lifestyle business off the back of a podcast that gets 4,000 downloads a month. So when somebody comes to us and says, hey, I want to get a podcast to 100,000 downloads, well, why? I mean, it's ego. That's the only reason you want to get to a hundred thousand downloads. Because if the end result was money, you don't need 100,000 downloads to make the money you want to make.

Well, I was going to say. And that goes to a great point. One of the things that we always come back to, one of the sayings we have is like, what's the simplest and most direct path? Because what we naturally do, as I think just people, but especially as entrepreneurs, is we create complexity. We launch a new product, or if we're talking about marketing, we try to market on every channel and then we try to. So complexity creeps in it. And by the time we get done, we have a lot of products, a handful of which don't sell, but then they require maintenance and upkeep, they require team members to support it. So one of the first things with most businesses, beyond just getting clear on the vision is like, what can we simplify? Because if people want to drive their six figure business to seven or their seven to eight, depending on the industry and the model, you might be able to do that with a couple of products. So whereas most people think I just need more and more, one of the best things we can do is simplify and say, how do we do it with less? Because if we think about the simplest and most direct path, it may not be getting 100,000 downloads, which is a hard thing to do. It's about, well, okay, how many, If I've got product market fit and I've got the right product, how many customers do I need? And then the best way to keep those customers is to give them really good service and then give them the next thing. Easier to sell your existing customers than the new ones. Then you look back and say, well, if I've got those customers and they're solid, now let's look at sales, right? Because if I've already got leads coming in but I'm not converting at the right close rate, now, I'm leaving money on the table. So whereas most people go right to marketing, there's a handful of levers that we can usually pull first that actually then make marketing more effective when you focus on it.

Yeah, no, definitely. Entrepreneurs and us included, and very much so, likes to just complicate. I just feel like it's the creative muscle as well. It's like, ooh, what if we tried this? I bet we could do this thing. But yeah, more than likely it snowballs into this, like, behemoth of something that's now crap. Now it's sucking all my energy and focus.

I'll tell you our biggest problem in our business right now. It's the blessing and the curse of having a podcast. When you have a podcast, you get people feeding you new ideas and tactics every day, and inevitably we're like, oh, that's really smart. We should go try that. And that leads us down rabbit holes of, you know, spreading ourselves too thin, trying being on platforms we shouldn't have any, you know, business being on. And yeah, that's.

Anyway, well, I was going to say, and I think it's something we all fall into. And like, what I often tell people is when you're earlier on in your journey, go wide and see what's available out there, right? Because you could make it work with real estate, you could make it work with various different business models. It's gonna be what works for you. But once you hone in on what you want to do, then you wanna really get narrow, like, get off of everybody's email list, follow like one or two key people and just focus in on that. And this isn't the sexy stuff, but it's ultimately what the most successful companies do, right? Like, you know, if we go back to bigger companies like Apple, Apple doesn't have a ton of products to get to the point where they've been at, right? And that's one of the beauties of a company like Apple. But we always think that we've got to do more or there's a new tactic that we can implement. Whereas more often than not, the best thing we can do is just create our environment for success, shut everything else out. That isn't driving you intentionally towards your goal and just focus in and optimize what you already have.

So how would you, like, take someone who likes to overcomplicate things or like an entrepreneur who just, like, it's, it's maybe the, it's the environment. Like, what are some strategies that people can do to simplify? Maybe something that exists already and also maybe this is the same answer. I don't know. But like, if you're building something new, making sure you're not going to fall into this complexity trap. Yeah.

I think there's a couple of things one is really coming back to and you'll see there's like common principles. Right. Like at the end of the day, simple.

Right.

Same basic principles. Yeah. It's, you know, getting clear on what it is you really want. And then it's usually doing an audit. Right. Let's do an audit on your time. And like most people, when you ask them, like, how much they work or where they spend their time, they're so far off.

Sure.

And then when you actually have them do like a time audit where they track it for a week, they come back and they're like, oh, my gosh, I didn't realize I was spending this much time doing X, which is an admin activity that they could delegate or they shouldn't be doing at all. Then you do the same thing just on the business. So let's gather whatever metrics or key numbers we can so that we can identify the bottleneck. Let's take a look at your product suite and say, all right, where is revenue coming from? Because more often than not, there's like pareto principle. Right? 80, 20. There's a couple of things that are driving the biggest results, and there's a bunch of stuff that isn't. So simply by identifying where the biggest opportunity is and cutting the rest out, we instantly simplify the business. And then every week it's like, reminder, here's the goal we're going after. Reverse engineer that back. Here's then what the numbers need to look like. And then based on that, we say, what's the best opportunity given everything that we have available to achieve those numbers? And then we just continuously execute and optimize, execute and optimize.

So it's like a weekly check in. It sounds like you do with what your team or yourself. And it's like that audit phase and then questioning of like, okay, cool. Based off of these results, this is what I'm going to do for this week or this time period. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, I go a little nuts with it. I've got it pretty dialed in now. But to me it goes from big vision to then a yearly plan, to then a 90 day plan, to then a monthly, to then a weekly, then even to a daily. And you know, for a lot of people, like when you ask, how do we get them started, sometimes it's as simple as like, let's have you own your day.

Right.

Because when most people, like we have a system, we call done by 10:30. And essentially the whole concept is most people wake up and start their day by grabbing their phone, checking notifications, and instantly they're letting the rest of the world dictate what it is that they do. Right. So what we recommend is like you get up and don't check your phone.

Right.

You do your morning routine. And by the way, the night before, you already figured out what you're going to do in the morning. And then you have a couple dedicated pomodoro sessions and whatever your morning routine is to just say you're going to own your day because you're going to take care of the most important thing first. And if you did nothing else but did that every single day, you're going to start freeing up your time. You're going to start doing the most impactful things rather than the urgent things. Because what so many people fall into is they're always reacting to urgent, always reacting. And they get to the end of the day and they're like, I feel like I did a lot, but I got nothing done. Whereas if you flip it and just say, what's the most important thing that I can do today? And you get that done one day, it may not feel like a lot, but when you do that day over day and then you do a weekly review and then you're like, what did I learn? What went well? What can I apply next week? The momentum and the stacking of that over time, it's crazy. It's like an exponential growth curve.

Yeah.

And just to clarify, so the pomodoro, that's basically like timed sprints and then you move away for a little bit.

In 20 minutes and five minutes off.

Yeah. So basically, yeah, it's very simple. So you set either a 25 minute or a 50 minute timer and you say, here's the one thing I'm going to focus on. And I'll tell you, when you start doing this, it's very difficult because what we naturally do is we get distracted. We're so used to notifications from email or Social media or whatever else. So to stay dedicated for 25 minutes is very tough.

And for me, a couple things I found that really helped was one, meditating. Because when I started meditating, two minutes was the longest time period ever because my brain just wanted to bounce all over. But once I kind of got used to, like, all right, things are coming in, but I'm going to let them go. Then when I sat down to work, it was like, all right, here's the one thing I want to accomplish in the next 25 minutes. And then I just kind of built that habit of focusing there, and then from there, everything else became easier.

That's funny, because I just thought I came across this meditation, this guy named Mooji something or other. But if you check him out, he's really cool. But he has this analogy, which is exactly what you're saying with meditation. Before he starts a meditation, he's like, okay, you're gonna walk into this room and this door, but you're gonna leave all your storage and leave your baggage, all that stuff that you're just like. He makes some comedy out of it. Drop your bags at the door. Just leave all that stuff there. When you're ready, walk in. So it's kind of like with the pomodoro, or if you want to knock out a task for this time period, it's like, cool. Drop your shit at the door. Lock that. Like, lock it and let's jump into it. That's all you're going to think about, is that thing?

Yeah, well, you know, that's the interesting thing, like, just visualizing or thinking about dropping your bags at the door, especially with so many people working at home. Now. This has been the environment I've worked in for years, and a lot of people don't realize how difficult it can be to work at home. So the thing I always go back to is let's create the environment for success, and that's a physical environment. So I literally restructured my office so that I could walk in and literally leave stuff at the door. And that was transitioning from life to work. So, like, when I get up in the morning, I got a morning routine for my personal life, and then I transitioned to the morning routine for my business.

Can we go through that? Yeah. Keep going, though.

This is gonna say. And then what I do at the end of the day is when I transition out, I literally walk out of the created, and then I transition from business back to life. And then at the end of my personal day, I have a routine to then get ready for bed and focus on sleep. So it sounds really corny, and for anyone that hasn't done it, but when you're really intentional about those things and you're setting up your physical environment as well as then just your mind and not letting it get distracted by all the notifications and everything else, everything just becomes easier rather than constantly bouncing around.

Yeah.

What are some things, I guess, in your environment? I guess both environments. But really, like you said, you organized your office. What are some key ways that you've organized it for this success and the business side of things?

Yeah. One, I literally took everything out of the office and started with my laptop, and when I found I needed something, that was when I brought it back in. So my space is, like, not cluttered at all, and it only has what I need.

Second thing is, I don't have notifications on anything. So even the tools that I use with my team and with clients, like, I don't have notifications on those because I plan my day and I go and check things when I want to. So just, like, eliminating distractions. So when I sit down, there's nothing around me to distract me. There's nothing on my computer or my phone distracting me. And then, like, because we're working at home, like, our kids are home for the summer or now partially homeschooling, it's, hey, let's have a nanny for part of the day so that they can watch the kids, the kids can play and learn. And then when I'm not working, then I've got focused, dedicated time for them. So a lot of people try to, like, multitask and do everything at once, which is just impossible and draining. So what I found is being able to block out time for a specific thing and then saying, like, what do I need to make sure that this is productive time? And then just putting that in place.

Yeah.

So I have a question. It's going back to something you said a few minutes ago, but you said, basically, take care of your most important task first. Like, before 10:30, what's some ways people might be able to identify what the most important task is? Because I think that could be a roadblock for some people is just figuring out, okay, what is the most important thing I can be doing today?

Yep. What I'll usually go back to is a couple things, and then we usually find it. So one is if you're off track with, like, if you feel like you're behind your goals or some of your numbers are off track, just identify where the bottleneck is. And it's usually that, like, if you think about it, and sometimes people don't understand what mean by bottleneck. Take a simple garden hose, right? If everything is flowing well, you know, what you put in, you get out. But if I suddenly, like, pinch part of the garden hose, anything I try to fix or do to get more water in before the hose isn't going to have an impact on the end result. So what most people don't do is identify where the bottleneck is and focus on removing that, because that's going to be the biggest impact we can make. So for most people, if they don't know where to start, the biggest bottleneck is likely them, and the biggest bottleneck is likely where they're spending their time. So that's why starting with that time audit makes such a big difference. And then just a quick tip I like to do every week that sometimes helps with this, is have a weekly review, and you reflect on wins. Because I find that we don't acknowledge wins enough because small wins go to big wins. We often just focus on the negatives. But then the second thing is, all right, what was the biggest challenge I faced this week? What was the biggest headache, and what can I do in the next week to improve that? Because think about it. If every single week the biggest challenge you are then focusing on and either eliminating it or minimizing the impact over time, that creates less headaches for you, it creates less stress for you, and it's likely going to create more time, because you're gonna solve that by putting a system in place or fixing a broken system by realizing that something's on your plate that you need to delegate to a member or that you need to hire. So usually by looking at that, it'll help identify what the biggest thing is that you can do.

I like that a lot. Because even something that's not repetitive a lot, you know, you probably can systemize that and, you know, make that bottleneck, which is probably your time, which makes perfect sense. It's like you do the audit. Systemize anything, really, it seems like, because even a variation of that in the future, you'll have that system in place and you'll know how to kind of approach. Approach that thing.

Absolutely. Well, I always tell people, I'm like, listen, when, like, how most people solve a problem is the problem comes up, they solve it, and then they forget about it. And then what happens was they never went back and said, well, why did that problem happen in the first place? And what system or what fix can I put in place so that the underlying problem doesn't happen.

Right.

So I always tell people we want to fix problems twice, once when they first come up to take care of the immediate issue, but then go back and fix the underlying system. And what that does over time is it creates problems. Right. But most people are just like, I'm so busy, I don't have time for that. Let me just fix what I have now. And that's going back to the urgent, but never going back to the really important stuff, which is fixing the underlying reason the system happened or the underlying system for why that problem happened so that it doesn't happen again.

Yeah. Because urgent stuff's going to keep coming. And I feel like it's more and more all the time with more apps and things like that. And it's up to us to control our time and our attention and kind of like you said, the morning routines and all these stuff, environment to control that, because no one else is going to do it for us or nothing.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So this is sort of going back to something you touched on in the very, very, very beginning when we first started talking. You know, at some point. Right. Every morning you're waking up, you're thinking, what's the biggest bottleneck? And you're trying to fix these bottlenecks. At some point, there's probably not many bottlenecks left and everything's just kind of flowing smoothly. What happens after that? Right. And that. And that's where you were saying you kind of. You didn't have the fulfillment at that place that you thought you would have. So let's kind of dive into that because I think Joe and I both have experienced that, and probably both of us to a certain degree experience that right now.

Right.

Like, we've gotten our business to a fairly good point where we're happy with the results, but a lot of times we're, we're looking for stuff to do during the day, you know. So.

Let'S dive into this topic a little bit because I think this is a big one and I think it's something that's been sort of a theme on our podcast quite a bit. It's come up with really high level entrepreneurs. Quite often you get to a point of success and you realize that that thing that you were striving for, once you've reached it, it wasn't what you thought it was going to be.

Yeah. So it's not an easy place. And I think I mentioned it earlier, one of the most difficult parts of it is that if you're not surrounded by entrepreneurs or people that understand you, you're going to feel even worse because everyone around you is going to tell you that you should be thankful for what you have and that people would kill to be in your position, which a lot of times is true, but it doesn't help the situation.

So the biggest thing once again, coming back to simplifying things down, what I found is most people, when you ask, what do you want to have in the future? What do you want your life to look like? They immediately go to two things. One is the things they want to have. You know, I want to have this house or this car, whatever that is. And it's not a bad thing. It's just where most people go, you know. And I grew up with, you know, lower middle class, ended up being on my own when I was younger, a lot of challenges. So that was naturally where I went too. And then it's usually about experiences. You know, I want to be able to travel more, I want to be able to pay off debt. And when you talk to most people earlier on in their journey that haven't hit that point, they're usually talking about those two things. Then what you find is people that have kind of gotten past that and you ask them that question. You don't really hear those two things come up very much, but you hear a couple other things. One of the biggest things is relationships because I think oftentimes we forget about the important people in our life or the important people we want to have in our life. And then the final thing is impact. Now that you're taken care of and you're at a good spot. Usually we all have this innate ability that we want to help other people and that might be on a small scale. It might be just helping your community or helping your family or helping your friends. We have a client that just has some really big success and more than he ever thought would be possible. And he wrote an email the other day and said, you know what? A couple years ago I didn't think this business would even bring me enough money to take care of myself. Now not only am I doing that, but I have a brother in law or a brother who has really had always messed up teeth and not really good dental. And so he was able to give his brother $5,000 to go and get his teeth fixed. And so I think it's that that people really come back to is like, what is that impact you want to have? And if you start thinking about the legacy, not that you want to leave, but the legacy that you want to build right now, that's what really then helps people to get through that and to kind of find their true calling.

Yeah, that's really cool, man. That's. Yeah.

I mean, I feel like with, you know, with. I'll speak for myself, I won't speak for Joe, because we're two different people. But I feel like, you know, early on, when we first started our careers, I know my initial goals when I first started a business back in 2007, ish. When we first started, like, my goal was financial, right? Like, I want to get to a point where I'm making $100,000 a year, right? I wanted my big number was I want to be making $10,000 a month. If I can make $10,000 a month, I'll be happy. I'll. Bills will be covered. I, I know, you know, I'll be in a good place, right? And then eventually you hit a point where you're making that kind of money, and then that goalpost just moves. Right now, now it's 20,000amonth. I, I, I bought a house that's got a big mortgage. I got car payments. Now, not 20,000amonth feels comfortable, right? And then eventually you hit that goal, and then, like, it feels like you just continually move the goal post and you move the goal post, and at some point, you realize, okay, if the goalpost keeps on moving, and.

I'm sort of struggling to find my words, but I think, you know where I'm going. But the goalpost keeps on moving. And then you get to this point where you're like, okay, I'm financially set. The money is good. I'm still sitting down at my computer every day. I'm still kind of doing stuff, but I don't really know where I'm going at this point. And that's something that I know I've struggled with. I know Joe and I have had conversations with it, but it's like, there does come this point where you're like, okay, I think I made a mistake by always setting my goals as this, like, number that I'm trying to reach, you know?

Well, then there's other things. Like, I know for, like, you know, I'll volunteer. We used to do a lot of fostering and all that stuff, so we would volunteer a lot of our time and all these to, obviously, the kids, but also other events and things that are associated with it. And then it got me thinking about, oh, man, what if, like, there's a nonprofit that I can create and help some of these kids in the system that want to become entrepreneurs, for instance. So that, that like, triggered this impact side of my motivation, which, you know, like, that was. That's a different layer. But obviously to get to that point, I'm like, I can't do that if I'm still figuring out how to optimize the financial side of things and, you know, and having a kid of ourselves of our own. So like, then that's another layer in there, I guess, in the impact, I guess a little bit. But it's also relationships, I guess. So, yeah, there's all these goal posts, but there's categories to the goal posts. And then, yeah, they're phase.

And I think what sort of we ultimately realized was that like, when we were shooting for money as the goal, at some point you realize, like, money is just like, it literally is just a tool. It's a tool to get this thing. I want to help this person over here to, you know, to fix my health, to like, it's a tool that can be very, very helpful. But setting money as the goal, sort of, you never really hit that point of fulfillment. It seems like that point where you gonna be fulfilled by money. It just always seems like it's a never ending moving goalpost.

Yeah, like so much gold and what you guys just said. So that's why, like, I always come back to like, what is the vision and what is it that I want my life to look like? And when my wife and I started doing this and we refined the system over years, we literally had. We went out and got painter's tape on the wall and we put the vision and then we put the timeframes, so 10 years, 5, 3, 2, 1. And at each time we said, how old are we going to be? And what do we want our life to look like? So we mapped things out. And what was super cool was it was like, oh, we want to buy a new house. Well, I want to buy it in five years, she wants to buy it in two. So it helped us get aligned. But we didn't bring money into any of that until we were super clear on what we wanted things to look like. Then we said, all right, let's then look at this point in time and see how much money we're going to need to support that lifestyle. And so that's been super valuable because it always starts with what I want to achieve. And then the money or the financial number is just a scoreboard to say, how am I doing? And getting there. But the other thing I found with this Too. There's a concept in corporate companies called the golden handcuffs. And it basically is like, you make more money, you spend more money, and then you get to a point where from the outside, everything looks good, but you can't leave because your expenses are so high. And so when my wife and I wrote our book, we ended it with a chapter called the False Golden Handcuffs. Because in more situations than not, if you actually sit down and think about what makes you happy on a daily basis, and this is a really cool activity to do, and just start writing that down or have conversations with the people that are important to you, more often than not, you're going to be defining things that don't require a lot of money. And so when I do this with a lot of people, what we end up finding is that. Great example had a coaching client who came in and said, well, I need to be bringing home 50k a month in order to support myself. I said, all right, sweet. So let's map out how to get there. But before we do that, tell me why you need to bring that 50k home. And so we started diving in, diving into it. And as we dove a little bit deeper, what came out was that this person had a son who had lived in another state, and he basically missed out on his childhood because he was building his business. And so when we got down deeper, I said, okay, so it sounds like when you get the 50k, what you really want to be able to do is to be able to spend time with your son that's not in the same state. Is that right? And he's like, yeah. And I said, well, what could we do to get you there faster? Like, let's really dive into the 50k. And we found out that this guy needed 15k, not 50k in order to be able to do that. So more often than not, we end up thinking we need all these things to really be happy. And ironically, when I left my job, I spent less money and I valued the things less. My wardrobe every day is a black T shirt. It's been a black T shirt for the last couple of years because when I was in corporate, I had to look a certain way and buy expensive clothing for the CEOs I was working with. Once I left, I was like, I don't care what other people think about me. So a lot of what I spend money on now is the very important things, which are family and impact. And so much of what I thought I valued before, I actually don't care about at all.

Feels good too, huh? To Just release. Great. Yeah. Because I've been freeing.

It's very freeing.

And it's more of a mental free. Yeah. It's like this for me. I know. It's like we're selling off one of our cars and it's like, I don't drive a lot. I never haven't have for a long time. And it happens to be a Tesla that I actually got because we were renting it out all the time. Now rentals are slow because people aren't traveling. But I'm like, I'm looking at this car, I'm like, eh. Like, it's not really giving me any joy. It's the whole Marie Kondo thing. It's like, cool. It's done its thing. I'll bid it farewell. Bid it farewell. If I ever want another Tesla, great. I'll go snag one or rent one. Even better, you know? But I'm like, seeing kind of the layers of like. Like, yeah, yeah, that's cool. Let it go.

It's one of those conversations that I always feel a little hesitant to talk about because, like, you get people that listen to a podcast like this that maybe aren't at a point where they're, you know, the money's flowing like they want it to, and they're sitting there going, okay, it's a bunch of people with money. Talk about how money is not that important. But it's like. It's like this weird realization that I feel like I wish I believed it back then because I'm so much happier now realizing that, like, the possessions and the money aren't what makes you happy.

You know, What's a microcosm of this for, like, I guess everyone to relate. I'm sure there's gotta be some shared thing that, like, from childhood or something, you know, it's like, well, I mean.

People hear their whole life. Money doesn't buy happiness right here.

But I'm saying experience, like, living it, you know?

Yeah, well, you know, like, what always came back for me and it was the big fear that I didn't realize early on that drove me, like, even before we had kids. We've all seen that scene in the movie where, like, for me, it was like, the dad's working late at the office and, like, the son is at the baseball game or, you know, whatever, and they look over and the dad's not there. And then the dad shows up and the game's over. That stuck with me even before we had kids. I was like, I don't want to be that dad. Right. So then everything I did was looking at, like, how do I not be that dad? And, like, looking at that, like, from a negative perspective initially fueled me, but then I really shifted to say, well, what kind of dad do I want to be and what do I got to be doing now in order to be able to be that father when we have kids?

So.

And so I think you guys bring up a really good point, too.

You have to be at certain points to understand some of this stuff. And when my wife and I wrote our book, what was super cool was we didn't just tell people kind of the steps to get clear on your vision, get your finances in order. Here's how you start a business. Here's how you systematize and scale it. What we did was we interlaced our stories throughout it, and I first wrote a key part of our journey from my perspective, and then she went back and wrote the same part of the journey from her perspective. So what we wanted to show people was our mindsets and the challenges we faced along the way. Because, unfortunately, a lot of people look at us now and they're like, yeah, like, oh, it's so easy for you guys now. Or like, oh, of course you could say that. But what we really wanted to show was, like, you don't realize all the stuff that the successful people that you look at all the stuff that they did to get there. Right. And so we really wanted to make sure that people saw that journey, to realize that, like, we all go through it. And to be honest, you have to go through some of those things to grow and overcome those challenges, to then be able to have what you want now. And it's not an easy thing, but when, like, there's a couple quotes talking about daily routine, couple quotes from key parts of my life that I have on a monitor that I look at every day.

Oh, yeah.

The first one is embrace the suck. And I think this comes from the Navy or the Marines, where it's basically like, this sucks, but embrace it, because what's on the other side is good.

Yeah.

The second one is keep moving forward. It doesn't matter what happens. You got to get up and just keep moving forward. And the third one, which really kind of goes back to the impact, and I always come back to when I'm just feeling down or insecure or whatever it is, is, people need you. We have just a list of testimonials or emails or things of people's lives that we've changed. Literally, people that were like, I was just Thinking of suicide before this. And when you read things like that, I mean, that gets me going, right? So, like, having those things in the environment to look at every day, to be like, whatever problem I'm going through is very small compared to, like, what is going on in the world. And if I can impact just one person and make one person's life better, that's worth it.

That's cool, man. Yeah. I love the concept of rotating. Like, a constant reminder in your office or wherever is relevant. Actually, I was trying to look for a note because I just wrote this down yesterday. Can't find it because I have an extra monitor in my office, too, and I don't really have a good use for it. I'm looking at your monitor behind you. I'm like, I'm sure you use yours, but.

I want to rotate because we're fans of Casey Neistat, and he'll rotate what, the Godfather. All the time. And I forget his meaning, but I'm like, I want to rotate. You know, I don't know if it's like, I'm trying to figure it out, like, a timer. Like, maybe it's a pomodoro, like, you know, when. When I'm in the zone. But there's a. There's this video Shia LaBeouf did that's basically like, him on a green screen going.

I just want to have that on repeat whenever I gotta get shit done. Like, yeah, maybe not the audio, but just like, okay, gotcha.

Well, I was gonna say, like, that's great, and that, you know, I think everyone needs to figure out, like. Like, what is it that gets you in the zone and helps you? And then just. That's, like, when I say the environments for success, like, when things are going well, look around and be like, why is it going well? What motivated. What got me inspired? And let's just set it up so that you have that every day.

Yeah.

I mean, both Joe and I are big, big journalers. And I think that is what is so powerful about journaling, is, like, it gives you that ability to sort of check in and go, all right, you know, because a lot of times I'll sit down at my journal, and I'll be like, you know, not in, like, a happy place. And I'll sit down and start journaling, and I'll start thinking about all the good things that happened over the week, and I'll think about gratitud. Nothing about all that kind of stuff. And that's what shifts my state is. Is a lot of people I just don't think. Take the time to sort of evaluate how they did this week or today or the last hour. Like, people don't stop to evaluate. They just move forward, move forward, move forward. And I do think, you know, through things like meditation and journaling, you get that ability to sort of stop and go, you know what? I don't need to work so hard today. I kicked ass this week. You know, and through. Through practices like journaling and meditation, I think you can sort of step back and take that look at that broader picture. Look where when you're just so focused in the moment, day to day, do the next thing, you never give yourself that space to evaluate it.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and, you know, like gratitude, you mentioned, that was something I struggled with for a long time because the first couple days I did it, it was pretty easy. And then after that, it was a challenge. And so what I always tell people is, if something isn't working for you, don't force it, but look for some, like, come back to the principle. So the principle is still a gratitude and appreciation, but see if there's a different way to do it. So, like in our household, on our bathroom mirror, the main one that our family uses, we have a prompt, and it says, our life is amazing because. And when we first started doing this, it was me basically doing daily gratitude. And then my wife would see it, and then she would start adding to it. And then what was super cool is then our kids would see it and they would add to it. So it takes some of the pressure off me of like, hey, having to come up with gratitude every day. But it's super cool because sometimes the gratitude they say I wouldn't even think about. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, yes, it is.

Yeah.

Yeah. One of the exercises, I learned this from James Altucher. I think he wrote it in one of his books or on a podcast or something. But anyway, he has this practice of thinking of all the things that most people dislike, the things that other people suck, and then he'll try to figure out why he's grateful for it. So some of the examples that he gave was like, he lives in New York, or he, at the time, he lived in New York with an apartment. There was construction going, going on all day outside, right? And he was like. He'd write down like, this construction noise is annoying. But I'm grateful for it because I get to live in this amazing city. I have a roof over my head. They're constantly improving where I live. And he would think of all the reasons to be grateful for the thing that most people didn't like.

Yeah, I love that. And, you know, like, I think what's super cool with all this is that it doesn't matter which way you do it. It find what works for you and then you can incorporate it in, you know, because, like, at the end of the day, this journey is a challenge. Like, it doesn't matter what people say. You're going to face challenges, and the only way you get through it is by overcoming those. And so it's funny, like being on a lot of podcasts, people will often ask, like, hey, if you could go back and tell your earlier self something, like, what would you do? And I'm like, or what would you change? And I'm like, I wouldn't change anything because it's that journey and every challenge you face that has made me become a little bit better. And I mean, I've made so many mistakes and lost so much money, and I still wouldn't change any of that because it was going through all those things that forced me to grow and become better. So I love that exercise around just like really appreciating the things that you see as bad. And when you do that, to me, you have total control because it doesn't matter what happens. You know that there's a silver lining and appreciation coming out of there. And then you can take the best of that and go forward.

Absolutely.

I love that, man. Yeah, go ahead. I think we're going to wrap it up. Right.

This is sort of my precursor to our wrap up questions.

Right.

So I was going to ask, what is the 2x formula? I know you're a big part of 2x. I could see the 2x behind you on your video there. What is the 2x formula?

Yeah, basically keeping things simple. Three main phases. Foundation, operational machine growth engines. So foundation of any business is what's the vision for what you're doing and what's the strategy that will take you the simplest, most direct path to get there. Then we get to building your business into an operational machine, which is what are the numbers, what's the execution to get those numbers, what is the team that's going to implement, and what do the systems look like to make that happen? And once you build your business into a machine, then your growth levers become sales and marketing. And at the end of the day, what goes all around that is mindset. And this is what people often like. And there's a specific order. Most people start at the top and they're like, oh, I just need more leads. I just need more marketing. Where at the end of the day, it comes down to do you have the right vision? Do you have the right strategy to achieve that vision? Have you built a machine where it can keep running so that when you get more sales, you're not suddenly sucked back in? And then at the end of the day, every level you get to as an entrepreneur, you're going to run into mindset issues. And so that's where we always have to grow, and that's why we're always the bottleneck in our business business. So it's those elements, but very specifically in that order.

I like that. So it's like phases of all the evolutions of you as a business owner, but also a business in itself. So how can. How do people learn more about what you guys have? I think you have books, you have a training course, all coaching, all that stuff.

Yeah, absolutely. So if you guys are interested in the book, my wife and I wrote Lifestyle Builders, you guys can go to lifestylebuildersbook.com but if you're interested in 2x, which is where we really help entrepreneurs, Scale, actually give you guys a free book if anyone wants it, you guys can go to scale 2x com flow.

Ooh, very cool. Thank you, man. Appreciate that. Scale 2x flow. Sorry.com flow and lifestyle builders. Is the book awesome?

Yep.

Cool, man. I haven't asked this question in a while, but what's a book that you find yourself going back to pretty often or referring to other stuff?

Yeah, I'll throw out two. There's a ton that I've read, but a couple that I keep going back to. One is the Obstacle is the Way. Kind of talking back about that, just coming back to this is what I need to do to get to the next level. And then another one is Principles by Ray Dalio. I read that later on in my journey, but I looked back and I was like, man, it really comes down to these principles in life and business. And every time I read it, I just pick up new things.

That's a good. Those are both great RE readers. Yeah, that's a good.

I mean, I've read the Osprey of the Way at least twice now, and I have Principles by Ray Dalio. It's over there somewhere, one of the thicker ones. But I think I've, like, I've kind of used it more of like an encyclopedia. Like, I'll open it and I'll, like, kind of flip to one thing, read some of it, and then Close it and kind of revisit it. So I've never actually read it through. Maybe I should do that sometime.

It's a dense book, but. Yeah, I mean, I guess you can use it as an encyclopedia, too. If you kind of know the flow, then there's just, like, little nuggets. Yeah, I think those are good books, man. So thank you very much, Tom, for sharing all this and all of your strategies, too, because I know I'm going to need to review these myself and implement a lot of them. They're good. Thanks for your time, man.

Absolutely, My pleasure. Thank you, guys.

Thanks so much for tuning into that episode. I hope you dug it. I know Joe and I dug it. I actually kicked Joe out of the room. He's not here right now. Because I wanted to tell you about a tool that I really, really dig. We use it in our business. We recommend it all the time. It's called Easy Webinar. And it's a tool that lets you do live webinars, automated webinars, hybrid webinars, and, you know, pretty much any other kind of webinar, if there are other kinds of webinars. But anyway, this tool is kind of like your all in one, do it all tool for anything webinar related. It's easy Webinar. It's put out by a dude named Casey Zieman. He's been on the podcast. If you haven't listened to that episode, it's a killer episode. He's a really smart dude, but his software is amazing. It does everything. It's, you know, the title tells you exactly what it does. It's an easy webinar platform. And we use this in our business to run automated webinars all the time. We don't do a lot of live webinars these days. We like to do the kind of automated webinars where somebody can register and then it, you know, they can either watch it like 15 minutes later or they can watch it the next day, but it's just kind of always running. And it's a system that helps us make autopilot sales off of our webinars. Super cool tool. If you haven't tried it yet, you know, it's, it's, it's an amazing tool. And Casey is actually hooking you up. He said for listeners of Hustle and Flowchart, I can't believe he's doing this, but he said for listeners of the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, he's giving 25% off of the membership to use Easy Webinar. It's already super, super inexpensive for what it does and all the cool features it has has. But he's hooking you up with 25% off because you're a listener of Hustle and flowchart. Go to easywebinar.com hustle that's where you can get that 25% off discount. That's easywebinar.com hustole. It's a awesome tool. You're gonna dig it, so just go grab it. Check it out. Easywebinar.com hustle See ya. No, not see ya. You'll hear me in the next show. I don't know. I don't know how to close these things. Go get Easy Webinar. Talk to you later.

Later.

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