WTF Brian Scudamore: What Happens if You Embrace Failure Instead of Fear?

I've always felt that there is a gift in every failure. I just need to recognize and learn what could be better that will come from that failure as a result of that learning. And so the number one thing I'll do and yes, I'm human. Yes, I get days where I'm depressed and I'm in bed for three days and don't know what to do because of a failure. But when I'm ready, I take out a sheet of paper and I write down, what's the one thing better than where I am now that can come from this seeming failure? And I'll write stuff down and I commit to just writing one thing. Sometimes it's 10 things. But I've never been let down. Every failure has led me to a better place.

Hey, this is Joe Polish and this is going to be an amazing Genius Network interview. I've got my friend. He's a serial entrepreneur and he's an author. His name is Brian Scudamore and he's always taken the road less traveled. At just 19 years old, he pioneered the industry of professional junk removal with 1-800-got-Junk turning a chore people avoid into an exceptional customer service experience. Then he scaled that success into three more home service brands. Wow. One day painting you move me and Shackshine under the O2E Brands banner. Find his book WTF. Willing to how failure can be your key to success. And@mywtfbook.com so here I am. Brian, so great to be with you. Hey, thank you so much for coming to Genius Network. You gave a great talk there and it was awesome. And I've read your book before. We've actually done interviews on one of my previous podcasts and I've always wanted to come here and do a video with you because you got so much wisdom in that brain of yours about building and growing businesses. And you've done it in an industry very similar in ways to where I started out as a Deborah carpet cleaner living off credit cards. And here you are with all kinds of service businesses and stuff. So I did a short intro of who you are. However, how would you describe who you are and what you do?

Who am I? What do I do? So, you know, 18 years old, an ADD young entrepreneur wannabe who dropped out of high school and talked his way into college. I think all my life, the last 30 years of building businesses, for me, it's about changing lives. It's knowing. And I didn't know 30 years ago, but I know now the impact that building a business has on People very similar to what you're building. With genius recovery and all your great work, I've seen that we can change people's lives by giving them a platform to become a franchise owner of 1-800-got-JUNK Y one day painting shack shine. They can grow a brand in a way where they don't have the idea. We give them an idea, we give them the proven recipe, and off they go building their own business.

Yeah. So here we are in your headquarters. How many team members do you have here?

Between our Vancouver and our Toronto office, a little over 500. Probably 350 here.

Yeah. And how long did it take for you to go from your like to 10 employees like you started out, what age you're 18, 19, right?

Yeah, 18 when I started, when I bought my first truck. You know the terms I measure it in. It took us eight years to get to a million in revenue.

Okay.

We do a million on a given day like today.

Right.

So it shows you that that ramp up slow and steady. It takes a long time, but once you figure out the systems and how to find the right people, boom. It's like magic.

Okay, so 10 years before you hit a million in revenue.

Eight years before we hit a million in revenue.

Okay, and how many. When you did hit a million, how many employees did you have?

We had probably 15, 18 employees.

Okay. Okay. And when did you start franchising?

Started franchising in 99. So 10 years into the business. I started in 89. Franchise. 10 years later, what's the difference in.

Your mind of someone just running a operation, a single operation versus multiple ones? I mean, what did you have to learn? Who did you have to become in order for that to happen?

I had to become someone that got out of my own way. Running one operation. I did it very well. I'm detailed, I'm process driven. I put systems in place. But beyond a million, I don't think I could really handle it. I was great at fighting fires, but as things start to scale those problems and those fires, it's like a game of whack a mole. I mean, there's just one thing after another. And you need smarter, more talented people who can deal with that. I couldn't. So I think the difference between something of scale versus a smaller business is you've got to find as an entrepreneur what you're great at, what your gift is. I think my gift is visioning and giving someone a clear picture of what the future looks like and rallying them around energy and excitement towards making it happen. But I'm not the how guy. I need somebody to come in and go, okay, here's your vision, Brian. Now, working backwards, here's how we're gonna make it happen.

Gotcha. Gotcha. So, you know, one of the things. I prepared some questions and I've added to them because I'm hanging out with our buddy Cameron Herold, who used to be your coo. And me and you, we met at Gathering the titans back in 2009, I think it was.

I think we even met sooner than that through Rick Sapio. And we chatted on the phone.

That's right.

Yeah.

Maybe as early as 2004, 2005, I think so. Yeah, you're right. You're right. What am I thinking? But, yeah, so we've kind of had a history. And it's really cool, though, because over the last year, I've really learned a lot more about you, especially because of your book. And so, you know, willing to Fail. How failure can be your key to success. I get sent a bazillion books. I've read over a thousand books. And when I see a little book, I'm like, thinking, oh, you know, maybe someone just threw it together. When someone's running a big giant company, you know, they probably had someone, you know, just kind of assemble it so that, you know, that sort of thing. And I. It's rare that I'm really pleasantly surprised when something's really short, concise and profound and filled with really useful nuggets and wisdom. And this is one of those books. Thank you. Yeah, so. And what's really cool is you. You co authored it with Roy H. Williams from Wizards Academy, who's one of the smartest admin on the planet. Yeah, totally. So when did you write the book and why did you write it? I know it's a recent book on the.

So the book's been out for a year this month, and it was probably a year prior to that that we started putting it together. And Roy kept bugging me every time I went to the Wizard Academy, which is at least once a year, and we talk about our creative for 1-800-got-JUNK's radio ads for the year. He's like, brian, when are you gonna write a book? And he'd ask me every year like clockwork. And I said, roy, I don't wanna write a book. I don't need to write a book. So he started asking more aggressively and saying, brian, you need to write the book. And I said, my ego doesn't need a book. He said, you don't understand, it's not about you. It's about the people who will be inspired, who can see their lives can change as a result of some things you've learned. Why not share that learning? And maybe I didn't think highly enough of my learning, my teachings. And Roy said, no, no, we're gonna make it easy. We're gonna go into the Wizard's Tower, we're gonna hook you up to a mic, and we're gonna start question after question, story after story. We're going to capture it. And that will become the basis for. Let's create a manuscript together.

That's great.

And we did it together and we worked hard together. And while you're right, it's a little book. One of my insecurities when the book was done was I said, roy, it's too small. And he said, no, you know what? He goes, think about your audience. Think who's going to read this. If you make it any bigger, they won't read it. And turns out he was right.

Yeah. And it's a really good book. So I recommend people, if you like this interview, then read the book. And I think you will. So unless I screw something up here. So let me throw like those shows where you just throw things on the ground. I'm going to do that here. So what's the story about how you got into the junk removal business and when 800 got junk? Let's start with that because it's an interesting business and similar to when I was in carpet cleaning, I ended up having to figure out how to successfully sell something nobody wants to buy. And people don't wake up and say, boy, I really hope I can remove some junk from the house. So talk about that.

Yeah, it was serendipity. I was one course short of graduating from high school. I was trying to figure out how I was gonna find a summer job to pay for university, which I talked my way into. And all my friends were going legitimately and I did a sales job and talked my way in. But what was I gonna do to make money? I was in a McDonald's drive through of all places. Beat up old pickup truck in front of me with these plywood sides built up on the box. It was heaped over with junk. And I'm like, I think that's what I'm going to do. Go buy a truck, go start hauling junk. And that was going to be my way just to pay for my college education. But three years in, ironically, I was learning much more about business by running my business. And More than studying at a textbooks or from college professors. And I made the bold decision to drop out, which meant that I sat down with my father, who's a liver transplant surgeon, and said, dad, have a seat. Got some good news. He didn't see it as good news, but I'm a salesman at heart presenting it that way. And he said, you're dropping out of school to do this full time. You've only got a year left of your college degree. Why don't you finish it and get it out of the way? I said, school will always be there. This business opportunity might not. And dropped out, and the rest is history. Wow. Wow.

You know, I often think that if people spent six months either working in an entrepreneurial company or trying to run their own, they will get infinitely more than any sort of, you know, reading textbooks or formal, you know, college, any sort of courses, just literally being in the trenches 100%.

I mean, education, I'm all for learning.

Yeah.

My way of learning is probably similar to you, where it's talking to other entrepreneurs, asking questions. School didn't work for me. Now, if you're a doctor like my dad and a liver transplant surgeon, if you're a patient of that man, you want to know that he's gone to school. But being an entrepreneur, I don't think that school is the right way to learn. You gotta get out in the trenches.

No. Well, you know, it's interesting. So here we are having a discussion, right? And for me, there's. And I've read a lot of books, like I mentioned. I've been to a bazillion seminars. I surround myself with entrepreneurs. I'm curious. I learn most effectively through discussions. I mean, even with Genius Network, it's a discussion group. And if you can bring the right smart people. The way I would think of a Genius Network is people with incredible capabilities and skills brought together to talk about things. And so, I mean, so much of the learning has to do with the discussions and who you have those discussions with. And so even though this is an interview, a video, a podcast, it's still a discussion. And you take two people asking questions, people that are really genuinely wanting to learn, I think will be well served to learn how to ask questions to people that have answers, that have been there, done that. You know, if you. You want to have brain surgery, your father was a surgeon. Do you want someone that's just got out of school and has worked on cadavers, or do you want someone that's done it 10,000 times?

Of course.

And so I'm always seeking who's the person that's done that many that's been there, done that. Yeah.

And you're right. Asking questions is so key. And I think that people, even outside of business, don't realize that you can get out there and call people up and ask questions, call up authors, call up, if you're a liver transplant surgeon, to be go call up other liver transplant surgeons in different countries. My dad did that, and he learned from people in England and in Sweden. And it's powerful. And so I realized at an early age when I was in my business, thinking of franchising. So 10 years into my business, I franchised. But leading up to that, I remember going to franchise experts, VPs from McDonald's, people that were head of franchise associations. And I would go to a bunch of them, almost a dozen of them, and I said, here's what I want to do. 1-800-got-JUNK. Create this franchise opportunity. And every single one of them, without exception, said, brian, it can't be done. They said, you can't franchise this. And my question to them was, why? Why not? What's missing? What don't you like? What would make it franchisable? And I got all the data and all the answers I needed to go back and tweak the model to the point that when I went back to a couple of them and said, how about now? How about the way it looks and feels now? Could it be franchised? And people said, yeah, absolutely.

Interesting.

I tweaked things. I said, you know, they felt, these experts felt like anybody could go out and buy a truck. Just like in the carpet cleaning business. You can go buy the machines, start doing the work. They said, they can go buy a truck, start up Jim's Hauling, and off they go. Why would they pay a royalty and join a brand? So we created a booking and dispatch software system, a sales center where every call comes in to 1-800-got junk, so that they can work on the business, not in it. We created a platform that allowed our franchise owners to have a reason to join us and build something bigger and better together versus going at it alone?

Right, right. You know, let me ask you about. So when you're asking these experts and they're saying, no, you can't do that, Were they even offering, like, unless you did this, or were they just like, no, you can't do it?

They listened to my vision and my story, and they said, yeah, it won't work.

Okay.

So that was my job. And thank goodness I was smart enough in the moment or have the courage to ask the questions and say, well, what's missing? What would make it franchisable? It's the same thing we do with the press. When we call up the press and say, got a great story for you. And they say, eh, I don't think it works. We'll often say what's missing? What would make it a great story? You're not convincing that journalist that it's going to be a story, but they give you the information you need to go to the next journalist on the next call armed with the right answers to make it a story.

That's a great insight. So I mean what you had is this ability to keep looking for a solution, being willing, you know, like your book, willing to fail. You know, looking for the no in order to figure out what's going to make it work. There's this quote, I don't know if I'm going to say it in the exact order, right, but it comes out of the book of survival that was written many years ago by a guy named Anthony Greenback. And it's in order to get through an impossible situation, you don't need the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the muscles of a Hercules or the mind of an Einstein. You simply need to know what to do. And so I've always thought of that as there's always an elegant solution, there is an answer. If it is possible and probable, there is a solution to it and always look for that. So, you know, one elegant idea is worth more than a thousand semi good ideas. So I'm always looking for that thing. And being a detective is what allows someone to become a good marketer, what allows someone to become a good entrepreneur. Because you have to be resourceful and that's what you were. So with that, if there's someone out there that is getting no's, or they on one level they think they have this great idea or they have this drive, but they haven't figured out how to turn it yet into a business. Because what entrepreneurs do is they make it up and make it real, right? And they solve problems for a profit. So if someone's not there yet and they're getting a lot of resistance, all the resistance that you and pretty much most people, unless you're really lucky get when you're starting a company, you don't feel like you have someone that is enrolled in your thinking, but in your mind, you're like, shit. What would you say to them?

I'd say reframe your mind to sit there and say, oh, I got another. No, that's awesome. I think, and I often say this to young entrepreneurs. I'll speak to a group and I'll get them to put up their hands. Someone who's got an idea that has been told over and over and over that it's a crappy idea. And you get most of the people putting up their hands. And I'm like, that's awesome. I think you're on the right track. And why they're on the right track is, as an entrepreneur, we see things that others don't see. I mean, Bezos, when he first launched Amazon, I mean, friends, family, the press, everyone was saying, like what? You can't do this. You look at Airbnb. I mean, not many ideas dumber than Airbnb. I mean, blow up mattresses and apartments, renting them out at the Democratic National Convention. But they listened and they tweaked their model to get it to where it is today, where they're larger than any other hotel chain in the world combined. So I think what entrepreneurs have to do is, yes, be a detective, but also be someone that can bob and weave quickly and be agile and say, okay, this model isn't working. How do I adapt? By asking other people smart questions? Or is it a matter of sticking with it long enough until I know yes or no it will or won't work?

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

Has it ever become so painful, so angst driven? And this is going to sound like a weird question to where you have literally been bawling over a desk, suicidal, numbing yourself through drugs, alcohol, behavior, anything to whatever degree you want to talk about this dealing with psychological pain and despair and hopelessness. I mean, what's the worst that it's ever been for you on this journey?

Yeah, no suicidal thoughts. I mean, I get that that's a real thing to people. You know, I've always believed that my business would one day come around. But there were days where I was sitting down at my desk, I opened up a drawer, I had 11 paychecks written to myself with a rubber band around them. All my staff were getting paid, but I couldn't afford to cash my checks. I didn't own a car, I didn't own a cell phone. Like, these were early days where actually it wasn't that early. I mean, I was still. I'd started to franchise, and I couldn't afford some of those simple, basic things because I didn't have cash. And I remember there were three days before Christmas one year. We had a franchise that we were gonna sell in Denver, and it would have been franchise number three or four. And we were totally stoked. These two women who were awesome, were gonna buy it. And a few days before Christmas, they call and they're like, yeah, I think we're gonna back out right at the 11th hour. And I just felt shattered. Cause you're just like, oh, we need this momentum. We need this deal. But you know what? Again, failure is a gift. You learn from it. We got a way better person who came in afterwards who bought Denver and then many other people surrounding him. It was for the best. But at the time, it was one of those I don't want to get out of bed before Christmas type moments. I'm sure I drank more than I needed to drink. And you're just going, man, this sucks. But the entrepreneurial journey takes time. I mean, I'd learned not so long ago that Walmart 25 years to get to seven stores.

Wow.

You know, I mean, it doesn't. It's not very long before they add seven stores today.

Yeah.

And it's crazy, but, like, you have to figure out the recipe and get the platform right. And businesses don't generally, as we know. I mean, I can only imagine the Genius Network, what it is today is very different than it was in the early days.

Oh, totally.

And we. We tweak and we get better and we fail and we learn. We fail and we learn. And that's how you succeed.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I started my first coaching group in 1998. So, you know, it takes. It takes a while at times, and other times, you know, depending on who you listen to, how you implement, how you execute reading, I mean, just educating yourself. I believe building yourself as a better entrepreneur allows you to do the things that. That you end up doing. So in terms of you. What has been. We did an exercise called the first domino at Genius Network. Who were some of the first dominoes for you? Be it people, books, learnings, things you've done in good ways or bad ways. Because there could be positive dominoes and there could be negative ones.

Yeah, lots of dominoes. So in that exercise at Genius Network, I wrote down my grandmother and grandfather.

Who I.

Dedicated the book to. So Grandpa Kenny, Grandma Florence, they ran an army surplus store in San Francisco where I was born. It's a dodgy neighborhood of town. And why they were my first domino was they lit a spark in me. They lit a fire towards entrepreneurship. I mean, I saw them loving what they did each and every day. And it was about Connection. They connected with customers, they connected with their employees. And being that it was in a dodgy neighborhood, you'd get people coming in asking for money, asking for jobs, asking just for an ear. And my grandparents gave that to them. Never money, but they gave them the love and attention that they might not have asked for, but needed. And I just saw that they were wonderful people and that they loved what they did all day long, every single day. And so to me, that meant, wow, loving what you do, being an entrepreneur, that's exactly what I want to be. So I think that was the first domino that inspired my entrepreneurial journey. And then, of course, there's dominoes along the way where you get people you know. Fred DeLuca was one of mine who ran Subway, the founder of Subway. And sadly, he's passed on. But he was a great mentor and friend. And what I loved about him was building $9 billion business. He somehow made time for Brian Scudamore, the little up and coming five franchise system business. I mean, we were so tiny. And I remember meeting him and introducing myself, and I said I had a question for him, and he said, here's my card and here's my cell phone. Call me between this time and this time. I'll be driving in my car, happy to answer your questions. And then he would say, listen, I got to go for a little bit. I'm going to be in the car again at this time. Call me. And he always made time for me. And I just appreciated how entrepreneurs often do that. We've had help along the way, so we give back to others and help them.

Let me ask you about that, because, I mean, for everything I know about you, you're very generous. And of course you have to make hard business decisions and stuff because you have a, you know, I mean, depending on how detailed you want to get, you have a million things that you could attend to. What was it about how you approached that approached him that you believe caused him to give you that time? Because there's certainly some people that are opportunists, but they approach someone in a way that doesn't engender them wanting to help them. It actually makes them want to run away. Do you know what that means is about you?

Yeah. So I know that both on how I approached him and then how others have approached me, good and bad. And so when I approached Fred, I was just, wow, really impressed with what you've built in a sincere way. And wasn't trying to flatter him or manipulate. I just was really, wow. I couldn't believe I got to meet him. And I said, you know, I've got some questions and I'd really love to run them by you. And I think he could tell that I was sincere and that I had real questions. And he maybe saw a little bit of himself in me or something or a little bit of me in him when he was a kid. And it just, it seemed to work. And so people reach out to me all the time. And I always try and say yes to someone who sends me an email, as long as it feels real and there isn't a hidden agenda. And nothing's more frustrating than when you get on a phone call and you find that right away it was just to pitch you on something.

Yeah.

But if somebody really wants help and needs help, I think entrepreneurs, it's just like an unwritten rule to help those that need help in the same space. Because we all got help.

Yeah. And we know how hard it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And when I say hard, let me reframe that or at least talk about hard, because I said this funny thing. I even mentioned it yesterday when I was doing another interview where I said it at an event once. I said, if I would have known how difficult it would have been to be successful, I would have stuck with being a loser. There's a lot of work involved in it. And, you know, I say in a funny way, and look, I love my business, I love my life. There's definitely difficulties and challenges. Now is a better time than I've ever had. But, man, there are some days, weeks, years that were just hard. I mean, just gut wrenching difficult. And you know, there's. Because your book is called Willing to Fail, you have frame of how you think about this stuff. So do you enjoy hard or how do you think about the term hard? Because we hear a lot of people advising work hard, do a lot of hard work. And you know, and there's this work smart, not work hard. In a lot of ways, it's work hard on smart things. You know, I mean, that's. But not all the time because you can totally burn out too. And you've probably. I'm sure you've hit burnout stages, of course. So I'd love to hear you talk about what hard means to you and how you operate within it.

Yeah, I love what I do. So many times it doesn't feel hard. Even when things go wrong, it's still like, oh, cool, we got a challenge to overcome here. And you want things to go as planned. You want your sales targets to happen. Let me tell you a story about how I think I would define hard. So putting together the book with Roy Williams. We're sitting down and we're trying to. I was trying to come up with the title. I just felt like that's the starting point of a book. What's the title?

Right?

He said, no, no, no, no. We're going to put together the manuscript, we're going to close the book, the title will pop out. And I said, roy, I'm a branding guy.

Wow.

One day painting Shaq Shine 1-800-got junk. Like I start with brands. He said, it doesn't work like that in books. So he said, we'll close it off and I promise you the title will jump out. So after rereading the book, the title jumped out. Wtf? Willing to fail. Because I realized it was failure, Learn, Succeed, Failure, Learn, succeed, Failure. And so reframing for me, those failures aren't hard. Those failures are gifts. I mean, on Christmas, doesn't everyone love opening presents? I'm like, I got another gift here. And while some people might go, yeah, it's easy to say, you've built a 400 plus million dollar business. No, I've always felt that way. I've always felt that there is a gift in every failure. I just need to recognize and learn what could be better that will come from that failure as a result of that learning. And so the number one thing I'll do, and yes, I'm human, Yes, I get days where I'm depressed and I'm in bed for three days and don't know what to do because of a failure. But when I'm ready, I take out a sheet of paper and I write down, what's the one thing better than where I am now that can come from this seemingly failure? And I'll write stuff down and I commit to just writing one thing. Sometimes it's 10 things. But I've never been let down. Every failure has led me to a better place.

Yeah, yeah. You're either winning or you're learning. And if you know how to learn from the failures, then you still win. Ultimately, if it doesn't.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, have you've met more entrepreneurs I can imagine than anyone on the planet? Have you ever met an entrepreneur that hasn't failed over and over and over?

Yeah, no, it doesn't happen.

I mean, have you ever met an athlete that hasn't failed over like it's life, you know?

You know what's interesting about failure? There's some celebration of Failure that I think gets improperly celebrated, meaning no one likes to fail. No one wants to fail. And I think getting up and saying, hey, you know, we're just going to go at it, and we're going to fail, there's a lot of people that just screw that up. There's other people that just know it's just part of the process. You know, in the same way that if you're going to go through a difficult workout, you're going to exert effort. And failure on the path of success is just part of the path of success. And it's the road. It's part of the road. What's the difference between being willing to fail versus being reckless or unprepared or having just a terrible, undoable business model? And someone's enthusiasm is far, you know, more exhibited than their. Than any form of intelligence. Yeah.

I mean, when I'm saying be willing to fail, it's not being reckless. So let me give an analogy for a second. That's real life. One of my daughters, you know, four years ago, she comes out of ski school. We're all a family of skiers, and she comes out of ski school. She's like, I hate this. It's not for me. This sucks. And I go, why don't you like it? She goes, because I keep falling, and it hurts. And I said, no, no, you don't understand. Falling is how you get better. You fall, you reflect on why you fell and what you'll do differently, and then you get better. No one becomes a great skier by not falling. So the next day, she goes to ski school, she comes back, she goes, guess what? I fell today. And big smile on her face. And I was like, that's awesome. A, because it taught me that, like, my wisdom actually sunk, but, B, that she understood that that's a process.

Yeah.

And so I think people just have to recognize it's as much of a part of success as getting anything right. In fact, it's probably a bigger part.

Yeah.

You know, we in life, we watch sports and we celebrate, you know, the NBA championships. But if you think of this year, our team, the Toronto Raptors, gets there. It was all the mistakes that led up to it that I hope those players remembered and celebrated in their minds. When I look back, when we hit our goals, the stories that stand out that we talk about over and over weren't the, like, wow, this was easy.

Right?

It was the pain, it was the trauma. It was the, oh, my gosh, do you remember when we didn't have this.

Yeah.

And that makes life sweet.

Totally. You know, and when I sit and ask entrepreneurs to think of the greatest breakthroughs they've had, 99% of the time those things came out of pain. It's turning shit into fertilizer. I mean, it really, it's taking something that's adverse and being able to transform it.

Yep. And when you're in that fertilizer, or, sorry, in the shit, you don't understand necessarily that something great is going to come from that. But you have to be open to that possibility and have a little bit of faith. And I don't mean that in a religious type way, but just like, just have some trust that you know what that is going to bring you to a better place. Just allow it and be okay with that. And, you know, I think when you talk to entrepreneurs and, you know, even if I think of my own breakthroughs, I don't think I was aware of the breakthrough the day that that bad thing happened.

Right.

It was time that went by where I started to reflect and think, oh, you know what? It was that moment that taught me this.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. How have you dealt with people that have poor ethics, bad morals, con artists, people that have ripped you off, people that just don't play fair? You know, fair is an interesting word because there's different perspectives that people have of fair. Some people, you know, are win, win. Other people are super competitive. But just dealing with scoundrels, because I'm sure you've encountered quite a few in your career.

Of course. You know, I remember in the early days I had a guy that promised to franchise my business and would give me all the systems and the processes and everything. And I paid a bunch of money and he delivered nothing. But it's still, I don't know right this second what it taught me, but it still taught me tenacity and enduring and how to recover some cash and learn from mistakes. But when I think of scoundrels and people that aren't doing things ethically, I go, you know what? Feel bad for them. I feel bad that they can't find the same sort of thread of passion that I do in doing things the right way, having the integrity, keeping your word, and it'll either catch up with them or hopefully that failure in their personality will cause them to learn to go, why do I do it this way? I think people have defining moments in their life where there's a bit of a character correction and people make mistakes. We all do. I have. And you learn and you go, yeah, why did I do that? I don't want to be that guy. That's not me.

Where have you personally screwed things up in business yourself, something that you have done? Not that others were involved or whatever, but is there anything that you can think of that you personally just screwed up and you had to say. And I'm not saying it in an ethical way, I'm just saying in general, just anything that you would say. Here's a mistake where I kind of mess things up.

Can I give you a personal one first?

Yeah, totally.

Yeah. So instead of the business one, that always reminds me and when I said a minute ago, people screw up and they do things that aren't within their character and they have a realization. So for me, it was. I was with my girlfriend for 19 years. We got married after 10 years and Lisa and I were incredible friends. But I got to the point where I'm like, I don't know, I don't know. And I started to do some bad stuff and I questioned the marriage and we had a baby together and then I end up leaving right at the end of that and I'm like, this is ridiculous. Like, who am I? I started drinking and drowning myself in sorrows and put her through a lot of pain. But six months of just being patient and loving and as kind as I could be to her because I realized what an asshole I was and the things I'd screwed up personally and didn't want to be that guy. I changed my life and changed my integrity and got back to who I wanted to be. And she forgave me so much so that she introduced me to my wife today. And so, you know, my ex wife, who I don't even like calling her an ex wife because she's like family. We co parent a daughter together and we're just really, really tight. And I'm best buds with her husband and it's just turned out in a. In a wonderful, wonderful way. But it's again, taking that failure that straightened me out as a human being that said, you don't want to be that guy.

Yeah.

And you don't want to be drinking like that and not being committed to someone. And I changed. And, you know, she obviously still believed in me enough to set me up on a blind date with someone that she had fun things to say about.

Well, you know, that's great. So that is a personal thing. And I always believe that you build a better entrepreneur, you're going to build a better business. So how did that impact your business then? By taking a look at those personal characteristics and how you were doing life in relationships and stuff. How did that impact your business?

It impacted every part of my life and certainly business, because I decided I was always forever going to be impeccable with my word. I was never going to speak something that wasn't the truth. And I read the book Four Agreements.

I was gonna say four Agreements there with dumb.

But you know what? It hit home. And I was like, you know, I wasn't always honest with others or myself personally. And so I said, okay, impeccable with my word. That's what's gonna happen every single time. So I would catch myself even saying to someone, it was nice to meet you. I won't say that. If it wasn't nice to meet them, I'll say something nice. But it'll be something integral. Hey, have a great day. Like, I wish everybody to have a great day. I won't necessarily say nice to meet you if it wasn't. And so I started paying attention to everything I said, and it changed things in business and in negotiation. I won't be someone to sit there and say, oh, we got a stack of a million resumes and blah, blah, blah, and to try and manipulate things if that's not really what's going on. So I think it had a lasting impact, and I think it's created trust and transparency in our business and our relationship with our franchise partners.

Yeah. What you just said is a great demonstration of little white lies. Little lies that people do all the time. And it's socially acceptable. And just the way you described it, there's so much learning to be had just from the statement that you made there about the stack of resumes and stuff, because so many people bullshit themselves and they bullshit others and they think it's okay.

Yeah. And I just. I think it's manipulative. And I think that. Tell the truth and get people excited around the truth. Tell people you need help. Tell people you don't know what you're doing, whatever. Just be more transparent. And so that's part of our culture at O2E Brands is transparency. And you can't always tell everyone everything, sometimes for legal or privacy reasons. But it's like, be as transparent as you can. And there's no such thing as a white lie. Well, there's such thing as a white lie, but to me, it's still a lie.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like, there's no such thing as a little theft or little dishonesty. Totally. You're kind of. And I'll tell you. I mean, look, no one is perfect. I mean, certainly the biggest liars are the ones we tell to ourselves. You know, I mean, it's the delusion. And if you're deluding yourself all the time and you're not even looking at your own stuff, it's. You're probably not being that way with others.

Yeah, on that. I also, I try hard not to judge others. So if someone is telling a white lie, it's not up to me to go tell them that wasn't okay. But it is powerful when someone can just utter the absolute truth in everything they do. How it does strengthen relationships and strengthen trust.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Awesome. So, well, let's talk. Since you're one of the most successful franchise creators in the world, what are some of the keys to creating a successful franchise?

Finding the right people. I mean, the key to creating any successful business is finding amazing people. And I think what we've done uniquely in the franchise world has been very, very careful and selective who we bring into the organization. So whereas some franchisors will just sell and say, hey, Joe, you got the money, man, you gotta do this, you'll love this. We'll take an approach of we're more of a talent scout working with you to say, are you the right fit with your strengths and your weaknesses? Because everyone's got them. Do you fit with O2E brand's way of doing things? We're not perfect. And here's our weaknesses again. Do they mesh and go together? So I think one of the keys for us has just been really careful who we're picking. 100 people will apply and one person will get a franchise. It's important. And that's worked for us. Now we still get them wrong. And we still have some people fail that choose not to follow the recipe or life gets in the way, but a pretty good track record as a result.

Yeah. So how many do you have? How many different franchises?

We've got about 250 franchise partners across our brands now. The bulk of them and the bulk of revenue, 370 million of our revenue is 1-800-got junk. And then you've got these emerging opportunities like, wow, one day painting or shack shine. And we have about 50 franchise partners in each of those brands. But they should be and will be one day as big or not, if not bigger than 1, 800, got junk. You know, I look at the junk removal space and I say, wow, everybody's got junk. It's not necessarily true, but everybody has the need to have their house painted. So with wow and day painting, I mean, it's a cycle and everyone needs painting. And most people don't want to do it themselves because they're busy enjoying life or working another job, whatever it is. So we love being in the home service business and we love creating a platform in which others can build businesses with us.

Gotcha. Let's talk about junk. What is junk? How do you define junk?

You know, it's different things to different people. It's not really garbage that you put in your garbage cans behind your house, but it is things that you no longer need that you need hauled away. So it's old furniture, appliances, yard debris, someone remodels and they got junk to get rid of. So it's a whole bunch of stuff. But it's stuff that people just come up with on a regular basis. And they don't own a truck. They don't know how to get it to the dump or to be recycled. No one will buy it off of Craigslist. And so they call us.

Yeah. So. And the reason I ask is I'm curious, I think a lot about digital clutter, mental clutter. You have physical stuff. Right. What has been in the junk removal taught you about owning stuff?

Yeah. Well, so it's funny, we were on one of our sort of can you imagine wall. We've got this big wall with big can you imagine ideas all over it from different people in the company? And years ago, one of them was to have to be on the side of a Starbucks cup. They used to have this campaign called the Way I See it. And there were quotes from authors and actors and actresses and famous people. Well, they put one of our quotes on the side, which was, you are what you can't let go of. Brian Scudamore founder, 1-800-got junk. And so that quote, which in transparency they helped me write, I am a high school dropout. But that quote was one that basically taught me, why do you hold on to all this stuff? Just enjoy life and the moments and the sweetness that life offers without having to just go up and buy all these things and collect things. And, you know, Oprah said it before the Marie Kondo days. Oprah said, you know, keep only what is useful or you truly love.

Right.

And so I've tried to live that philosophy. I try not to have extra stuff.

Yeah.

And so life of a junk removal company owner. Right. I don't need all this stuff.

I'm going through it psychologically. I mean, I own an 11,000 square foot building however, I had a big house that I sold and got rid of. And because I realized that I didn't own that house. That house.

It owned you.

Yeah. And I'm really learning, like being in the field of helping people with addiction recovery. Hoarders. Hoarding is a form of addiction, of course. And for a lot of people it is protection. It's thinking that these physical objects and things will create some level of coping, safety mechanisms. When Marie Kondo's book came out, did that help your business?

It's hard to say. I mean, our business has been growing steadily for years and years, but I think it's drawn more attention to let's liberate ourselves. We need all this stuff. And it's always been a philosophy of mine. I mean, money doesn't buy happiness. And I think the world is starting to get that a little bit more. And I'm happy about that. I mean, yes, if the world had less junk, might affect my business more negatively, but I think the world would be a better place.

Yeah, gotcha. Well, so you made the comment, money doesn't buy happiness. And I want to dig into that a little bit and see because I actually someone made a documentary on my life which at the time that we're doing this, is not yet released. It's called Connected, the Joe Pollard Story.

I've seen the trailer and it's awesome.

Yeah, thank you. And I had a client who anonymously did it. Then I found out who it was. Of course I knew a movie was being made because they were interviewing me for it, but I didn't know who was behind it. And it was a guy named Devain Patel. And it was amazing, wonderful, sweet thing. I'm so appreciative to him. And it's weird watching a movie about your own life. And one of the things they put on the trailer is the statement, money can buy happiness. And I said it's kind of a stupid statement because I buy happiness all the time. What I have to tell people though, because I get into this question a lot because people see that trailer is like, there are many things that money cannot buy. In the same way that Jim Rohn said, you cannot pay someone to do your push ups for you. I mean, there's certain things you just gotta do. A statement that I've said a lot and it didn't originate with me. I just heard it somewhere, I don't know, I can't remember where. If you think money can't buy happiness, you haven't given enough of it away. Meaning you could Be a miserable person. With money, you can facilitate other people's happiness, be it medical care, be it feeding them, things like that. And at the same time, there are many areas where money can't buy happiness. So it's not like it's a definitive statement.

Right.

And a lot of this is context. So I want to. What I think is a big misconception about entrepreneurs is it's all about money. I mean, people look at you, you got a $450 million, currently your approximate company. You have brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in your career. You help other people make money. They're buying a business, many to, you know, build a life, build a business, build a career, make money for themselves. And at the same time, I don't think you're doing all of this because you're trying to just make more money. So I want to dig into what is the drive of the entrepreneur. How can someone that understand this in a way, because a lot of people think it's just about money.

Yeah. For me, I'm a creator. I love, you know, so the things I love to do for fun. As a kid, I used to draw like crazy. I love cooking and creating dishes. I'm not one to follow a recipe book as much as I am just to throw a bunch of ingredients in an experiment, see what happens.

That's funny from a guy who sells recipes to other people.

Right, right. True. But I wouldn't be the franchise partner. I wouldn't follow the recipe. I'd get fired. I mean, I got fired from every single job I ever had, including working for my grandmother, because I couldn't be told exactly what to do. So as an entrepreneur, I think for me, it's a. I like seeing people's lives positively impacted. You get somebody who starts working in the call center and then they grow up into senior management, one of our brands. Or you get someone that was working out in sales who's now running 1-800-GOT junk or people that start franchises from, you know, from nothing. I love watching that growth. If cars and toys and things are important to others, hey, great. Whatever it takes to help you achieve whatever your dreams are. That's what drives me. But it's never been the money. I don't know what I would spend the money on short of philanthropic endeavors. I don't want to sell the company ticket public because I wouldn't know what to do with the money. I don't want more of it. It's a measurement for me of our significance at a $444 million business, which is where we're at now with all brands, getting to a billion means about two and a half times that in terms of significance. We don't need more profits to do things. It's just more opportunity. And that's what makes me tick. I mean, you know, you talked about having a big house and scaled down. I mean, you wouldn't be the first entrepreneur to do that. And I hear that story a lot.

Oh, yeah. And believe me, I make more money today than I did when I first bought that house.

Yeah.

You know, it's not about that either. You know, it's just having money solves a lot of problems that lack of money creates. So what is, in your experience, in your opinion, the best ways to utilize money? What does money facilitate and in what ways can money be a vice? It could be damaging. It could be, you know, something that people with their priorities not in the right place can use it in harmful ways. Because working with a lot of addicts, I've seen some people that you give them access to money, they can buy whatever their crazy brains, devices can come up with. So like to.

Yeah, I think, you know, just finding the most positive way to use your, your money. I think helping others is a wonderful thing. And I don't just mean charity, but, you know, somebody's close to achieving their goals or dreams or someone in the company wants some development, investing in that. I love the engine of learning that our businesses create. And we're always taking people. We've got 101 life goals program, and what that is is someone sits down as a new employee and takes 20 minutes and writes down up to 101 things they want to do in their life. And we try and go through the list with them if they'll share it with us to say, what can the business help you accomplish? Could be a language learning goal, it could be a trip they want to take with their family. It doesn't matter what it is. We will try and tap into using our business, our wealth, our success, our connections to help them achieve their dreams. So I think money towards others is a wonderful thing. I mean, you know, the best trip we've ever taken as a family, my three kids and I, we went to Kenya, we went with the WE organization where we helped to build some schools and went to rural Kenya and then we went to India and did some similar stuff. I mean, they'll tell you that was the best trip ahead of a Paris or an Amsterdam all day long. And it was one. Just because you get to connect with human beings. And so putting money into other communities and helping to be a part of that, that's special. And I think we've all got a responsibility to leave this planet better than we found it. And I think that the world's changing from a bit of selfishness of the 80s to like, I want all these big things to now going, what's my meaning? I believe make meaning not money. You need money to do some of that.

Make meaning not money.

Yeah, but make meaning not money.

You know, it's interesting too, going on the Kenya trip. I think there's something to be said that's counterintuitive. I wrote something years ago. It was called how to have a Great Day according to Joe. And I wrote it in the library when I was. And this is before the Internet. I mean, literally, it was that long ago. And I was having a shitty day. And I was like, okay, what could I do to have a great day? So if I have a great day, what are some of the elements that must exist? And so I went and wrote a bunch of things down, like work out in the morning, get good sleep, write a gratitude letter, journal, call a friend, drink a, you know, a protein shake. I mean, I just listed a bunch of stuff and people can probably find on the Internet if they do a search, because I publish it in newsletters and stuff. And then I wrote up like 20 something things and then signed my name and then I put PS if none of these things work for you, then go volunteer at a homeless shelter, an animal shelter, a burn unit, you know, go to a recovery clinic. Because when you go and help others, it's amazing. If you are in a really shitty state of mind or just having a bad day, if you can go and find other people who are enduring suffering and challenges far greater than you, and you help them, it's amazing how good that makes you feel. I mean, it's a wonderful way to snap yourself out of depressions or out of certain states. And I think it's similar to that which is not earned, is seldom valued. So, like kids that were given big inheritances, you know, born on third base and think he hit a triple, that sort of thing, Right? And so there's something about contribution that I think people that maybe aren't doing it or doing it enough don't realize how damn valuable that is. And I think in your business, you know, especially even the way you describe it in the book, I mean, you're running an educational institution. I mean, you are empowering a lot of people and you have built a business around contribution and teaching people how to contribute and in many cases, doing manual labor and hard physical work, which a lot of people don't consider very glamorous, you know.

Well, it's funny because, you know, I was just sort of reflecting on what you were saying. I mean, for a guy who me, who's gone 14 schools from kindergarten right through to college never fit. The only diploma I have is kindergarten because I never finished high school and I never finished college. I'm not a great person in school yet. We've built an incredibly large business school. I mean, people are learning how to run a business and how to grow their own empires in any one of our brands. And that's unique. And so I think the world is a better place when we learn together and we grow together. And that's one of the things that makes O2E brands so special.

Well, I think the life skill really begins after you get out of the. What they call the regular school.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

So what is the mission and purpose behind O2E brands? And how do you grow these companies?

Yeah, so O2E brand stands for ordinary to exceptional. So we started by taking the ordinary business of junk removal and making it exceptional through customer experience. And then we realized, wow. I mean, what we had learned over 22 years with 1-800-got junk. Imagine if we took that process and said, how do we do that to any home service brand? And so our real vision is to be the most trusted brands in home services, one exceptional experience at a time. And it's creating a recipe that we learned from 1-800-GET Junk and its journey into Shack Shine and wow, one day painting, and so on. So it's trying to pick industries when you say, how do we grow them? Picking something like, wow, One day painting. We are not looking for people that like painting, that want to paint, that want to build a painting business. We want people that see an opportunity to build an empire in a fragmented space. And so, wow, one day painting is one where we go in. A typical painting company would take two weeks to paint the whole interior of your house. We do it in a day.

Wow.

One day painting. It's just a numbers game. You put two people in this room, one person in that room, and you just get it done in a day with a same quality but less disruption. And so we're trying to take spaces that are ordinary and saying, how do we make them exceptional?

Yeah, that's great. That's great. So obviously you need to do all this through people and teams and it was interesting. You talk about your first eight years until you hit a million. So what are the most important lessons that you've learned about finding, hiring, and nurturing the right people?

So 1994, five years into the business, I fired 11 people, which was my entire company. One bad apple spoils a whole bunch. I had nine bad apples. And I just said, you know what, guys? This isn't working. And it's not working because of me making the wrong choices. And I started by saying, I'm sorry, as your leader, I've let you down. I didn't give you the love and support you needed. I might not have found the right people. And I started again. And so the most valuable people lesson I learned was it's all about people finding the right people and then keeping them by treating them right. And so the way we look for people is the same way I think people look for friends. Is there a connection? You know, we didn't sit down and become friends by going, so, Joe, what do you like to do for fun? You know, and tell me about the last time you. Blah, blah, blah, whatever. It's like you just hit it off. You trust someone, you build a relationship, and you become friends. And I think the same thing should happen with employees. Don't rush through an hour and interview someone and expect that you've made the right decision. You just. So finding the right people, part of it is taking the time. I mean, you'll get people here. I interviewed someone last week, two weeks ago, and I said, how many interviews are you on? And she said, 12. This is my 12th. And I'm like, wow, okay, you're halfway. And I was kidding because this was the last interview. But, like, 12 interviews is a long time. Yeah, but we're pretty darn sure after 12, and we'd rather do the work up front.

Is that normal?

It was a very senior position, and so maybe a little less normal, but for senior positions, yeah, maybe 10 to 13 interviews. And for someone working in the sales center, it might be two or three.

How many people directly report to you or, you know, I mean, that's. That's always a tough question because you interact with so many. I'm sure.

Yeah.

What is the. Do you look at it as a hierarchy? How do you look at your structure here? From you starting with you as the leader.

Yeah. So as the leader, I have two direct reports. I guess it is. So, Eric, who's our president and coo, while it's a direct report, it's also us, really, what we call Two in the box. I'm the visionary, he's the implementer and together two heads are better than one. And then my assistant Jen, who you've met, right. So I mean those are my reports, so anytime. And I interface with everybody. I mean there's all sorts of stuff going on. I'm open door, there's no door on my office because I don't have an office. But it's really connecting with people. But the flow, the hierarchy, if you will, of decision making seems to have a flow. So Eric makes decisions and if he's got concerns or needs some feedback, he'll come to me and we'll talk about it. But if I start interfacing and making decisions as the CEO, with everyone in the business, all hell breaks loose.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Before you schedule a meeting or a meeting as scheduled as you, what are the standards, the criteria? Are you a guy that does a lot of meetings? Are you sort of meeting avoidant? And I've heard everything under the sun. You know, our friend Cameron Herold wrote meetings suck, but the purpose of that is to. Most meetings suck because people do meetings in a crappy way. So I wanted to. And then there's Peter Drucker who would say you're either working or you're in meetings. And so there's different ways to think about it. So I wanted to get your perspective on.

I do think, you know, I believe in what Cameron says, that meetings suck, but they don't have to if you have the right meeting set up and structure and really ensure. Do we need a meeting? So my criteria for meetings, and it's an O2E Brands thing, but purpose, outcome, agenda doesn't matter. If it's a 10 minute meeting, a three hour meeting, why are we meeting? What's the purpose? What do we want to get out of this? And then what's the agenda? How are we going to talk about things? And so if somebody sets up a meeting with me and doesn't have purpose, outcome, agenda, Jen says, what is it? Otherwise we're not meeting. And she'll push back and say, do we really need this meeting? Does it really need to be half an hour? Could it be 10 minutes? Could it be combined with another meeting? So I try to be very back to back and efficient. And then I practice Dan Sullivan's stuff, even though I haven't sat through Dan Sullivan's work, even though I know him where Monday is my day out of the office, my buffer day to really kind of go through and catch up on things and focus on things outside of the office. Then I've got three focus days at work where I'm back to back in meetings. And then Friday is my free day where I try not to think business on most Fridays and try and focus on family or fitness or friends.

Well, let me ask you about that. So how long have you been doing that with Fridays and how consistent are you with it?

I've been doing it for probably 15 plus years. I'm consistent maybe 80% of the time. So I'd say I go through periods where it just gets really busy or something's kind of hit the fan and it's like I feel like I'm needed and it's more out of guilt than being really needed. And so I'll step in and I'll try and help or I'll make myself available. But I really work hard to keep those Fridays free so that I can keep myself healthy and keep myself mentally. I think as entrepreneurs, we often go home and continue to think and work on things and sort of have some time to recharge the batteries. I think is incredibly important, at least for me.

Let me ask you something. And I think it is increasingly more difficult from all the people I've interviewed, all the entrepreneurs I'm constantly working with over the years, and especially we are more connected electronically than ever before in human history and more disconnected in terms of relationships and constant screen time and so many ways that people can reach you now. So you say. I try to not think about work, and obviously try is because I can completely resonate with that. I'm a guy that meditates, I do yoga, I work out, I do a lot of stuff. And the rumination about business and open loops for entrepreneurs is a very difficult, challenging things. So what are some of the ways that you have learned to disconnect and rejuvenate that you could describe that would be helpful for people watching?

It's easy, actually. When people hear this, they're like, wow, that is easy. When I go on vacation and I probably take eight weeks per year, sometimes in a month, chunk. And what I do is I get my assistant Jen to change my passcode on my email and all my social media so I can't access anything. So on my cell phone, I can't sit there and check email, I can't check Instagram, I can't do anything, what I call going dark and so dark from technology, and it works for me. So I will literally go away to Italy like I did this summer with the family, and I won't hear from anybody. And the only person that has sort of permission, if you will, to call me for an emergency would be Jen. And I don't get called. I remember when this first happened. It's like, well, what if the office burns down? Call the fire department. What am I going to do from wherever I am? Right. And I get that people might not have been comfortable with it in the beginning, but what I love about it is it's a tool that we've spread into the organization. When people take vacation, we expect them to go dark. We expect them to get someone else to change their passcode so that they can't check in now. So let's say on weekends. So last Thursday, I sent an email to Jen and I said, I'm going dark. See you next weekend. Next week. I mean, so I just shut off my own email and have the discipline to do it just for a weekend, but I didn't check in.

That's great.

And so I think that people have to give themselves permission to do that. And people might think, oh, it's nice to be king. You're the CEO. Great that you can do that. No, we want everyone in our company to do that. We give five weeks to paid vacation to all our employees, and we have for years. I mean, decades. We want people to use that time and be free from work and not feel like they've got to check in.

Yeah, yeah, well. And they're more productive that way, too.

100%.

See, people think if you keep them working, sleeping at the office, staying up late at night, all this sort of stuff that you're going to squeeze more work out of does not work. Yeah. My friend Kathy Colby has this great line where she says that time to quit working is when working is no longer working. And if you're working nonstop, you get to a point where you just can't. It's like reading a book, and you read a page and you're at the end of the page and you're like, I didn't comprehend any of it. So you start reading it again as if that's gonna. It's like you just gotta give your brain.

And Cameron and I used to say years ago, in the early days, like, work is our hobby. We love it so much, we don't have to stop. Well, you know what? I love skiing, but I can't ski all day every day or I'd blow my legs and knees out. I mean, you need to take a break no matter what your hobby is and recharge. And your family needs you and your friends need you. And you. It's important.

Yeah, that's great. That's great. So speaking of Cameron. So Cameron is a good friend. We're actually having dinner at his house tonight. And he's been a genius network member for many years. I've seen him write a lot of books through the time I've had the relationship. So he did a lot of stuff in this company. And you also ended up, I believe, firing him. Right?

Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

So let's talk about Cameron. I mean, what could you say about that, dude?

Yeah. So love him. I was his best man in his wedding. So hard to take someone when you were the best man in his wedding and then going, hey, buddy, this isn't working out so well, and having to fire one of your best buds. So, you know, and Cameron would tell you, I'm sure he has, and he would say it if he was here with us.

Oh, he publicly says that when he gives speeches.

So. Yeah. But I mean, he would even say this. He would say it was the right thing for both of us.

Yeah.

Tough decision. Right call. And so what was happening is Cameron and I are both a little add, fire, ready, aim types. And as the company got beyond 75 million, close to 100 million, we started to make decisions just too quickly, without thinking. And the company wasn't a little speedboat that could turn on a dime. It was becoming a little ship. And he helped us go from 2 million to 106 million. And we were making some decisions that needed more rigor. And having two leaders who are two add, fire ready, AIM types at the top doesn't. Isn't sustainable. And so had to make the change. It was super tough. Failed with the next coo, and then third time around, found Eric Church, who actually, ironically, were the three people on the planet that told me about Eric. One of them was Cameron. Yeah.

Yeah. Which is great.

It's great. And so, you know, I mean, kudos to Cameron for having peace with it in the end. Like, it was hard at the time and it was a strain on her friendship, but, you know, we're tight now. We'd do anything for each other. And it was one of those. We're so grateful to have had those seven years together to get through the pain and then come back to, you know, hanging out at the Genius network. You know, he was the one that.

Said, you got to do this.

You gotta go.

Yeah. No, he's great. He's great. And yeah. And there's so much, you know, one question you Know, Cameron wrote a book on it called Fruity Free pr, and you guys did a lot to leverage PR in your growth. So how did you do that?

How did we get free press? Yeah, it was picking up the phone and telling stories. So earlier, you and I talked how I would call up the press and I'd say, I've got a great story idea for you, and sell on enthusiasm and try and give them a clear pitch because they're busy. They didn't have time to listen to pitches, and you'd lose them in 20 seconds if they didn't like the pitch. I'd say, what's missing? Why isn't it a great story? What would make it a great story? And I'd always get the answers that would help me on the second call, third call, fourth call. And it was amazing because journalists all seem to think the same. I mean, stories. You look at anything that's in the press right now, you can say it fits a formula of rags to riches, hero's journey, someone crashing and burning. Whatever the story arc is, there's simple formulas there. And when you understand them and you realize you've got a compelling story and you frame it in the right way. Bingo. Free press. And so too many companies, I think, get out there and put their stuff out to the world, but it's not a story or it's not framed in the right way.

Yeah, it's great. I mean, just asking those questions to find that out. I mean, that would work with almost anyone where you're not landing. You know, I mean, you could even ask the client, why didn't you buy what was missing? What would you need to have heard?

100%.

Yeah.

And people don't. I think people. I don't know why they do this, but maybe it's ego where you get caught up and you go, oh, the person said, no, they didn't like my story. Well, it might not fit with them, but use it as an opportunity. Don't hang up. Find out what's missing. They'll tell you.

Yeah, that's awesome. What are the struggles of starting three new brands?

Yeah, you know, I think, like, kids, you know, I've got three young kids and, you know, they're always competing for time and everyone needs mom and dad and all that sort of stuff. And I think it's a similar thing with brands. You know, people will say, what's your favorite brand? I can only tie to the analogy for those that have kids, that it's like kids. You don't have favorites. I mean, there's certain days, certain times where you're like, you are not my favorite. But, you know, it's one of those things where trying to bob and weave between them can be a challenge, because depending on the stage of growth they're at, they need different things. So I think that's the hardest part is just figuring out, how do you give enough time to the brands when they need you and so on.

Well, you know, because there's different types of entrepreneurs that kind of have their way of doing things. Like, for instance, I've interviewed Richard Branson. God, probably more than anyone. I mean, I've spent, you know, six weeks of my life on Necker island and, you know, got hours and hours of video, and we've only put out a couple of, you know, produced things, you know, and it's been a while. But I've got, you know, he's a guy that's tried to start a bazillion things and license a virgin brand. A lot of them don't work, you know, and he has his core ones that do. And then there's other people that will say, stick to this thing and don't spread yourself too thin. And some people may look at what you're doing and argue and say, well, you know, you can't ultimately decide, so you're trying to do, you know, four different brands at the same time or whatever. So what is it inside you? What are you. What are you hoping to achieve and wanting to achieve? I mean, and not hoping, because you are doing it. I mean, it's not like something you're not doing. You're. You're doing it. Why three different brands versus five versus one.

I mean, it partially started by accident where I was getting my house painted. And the first two or three people that come in, they reeked of cigarette smoke. They were late. They just. No level of professionalism. And they're coming in, giving me a quote on my paint job. And it was sort of what I expected. But the third guy came in, uniformed, shiny van, clean cut. He said, you know, our prices are the same, the quality is the same. I've done this for 22 years. But what's different is, I'll get your house done in a day. I didn't even think he could do that. I didn't think it was possible. And I come home at the end of the day, 6:30pm Floor, ceilings, molding, trim, everything was immaculate. Wow. I was like, wow, this is cool. Wow. Wow. One day painting, right? That's how I felt. Same comment you just made and the company's wow one day painting. And so it was partially out of the right place at the right time.

It was being wow.

Another opportunity. But why I think it's progressed onto other brands is just. It fits for us because it's home services. And as long as it's a home service that we can make exceptional on a similar platform. I've gotten pitched on things like snow removal. Well, snow. You don't have snow in every single market we're in. And it's seasonal and it, you know, yes, it's a home service, but it doesn't really fit in the same way. So we're cautious on starting new brands. We're focused on the brands we've got. But really what motivates us to keep doing it is more franchise owners living the dream.

When you said wow, you know, when I said wow, that totally disgusted. Got my brain thinking of going, yeah. So you're like a guy that's just looking for the wow. And if you can package your formula and your process around wow and scale that, then that's what lights you up.

That's it.

Yeah. Which is pretty awesome. Why not sell equity or raise money? Because you talked about staying private versus going public. Why?

I think it's a couple reasons. It's forced me to. Slower and steady wins the race kind of deal. I mean, zero to a million, eight years, that's slow. If I gave away equity, I might have had others tell me where they thought the business should go and what the direction was. So I like owning the vision. I don't need to own anything else. But that vision, that North Star of where we're going has been important to me. And I just. I've heard too many stories of people that have sold their business or pieces of. And they thought that. That taking chips off the table would. Would bring some happiness. They thought that having some equity to help them grow to that next level, it often doesn't pan out. And I think, you know, I like the fact that it forces us to grow at a steadier pace and to do things the way we want to do it.

I mean, I can't. I imagine you've had, like, people come here and dangle large sums of money in front of you to. By the company and stuff. At times or no.

Yeah. I mean, I talk about it one chapter in the book where I'm on Sonora Lodge, a big fishing resort up in British Columbia, and it's one of the most beautiful places on the planet. It feels like lifestyles of the rich and famous and waste management. Two of their execs got me out on a boat.

Oh, that's right.

Wined and dined me and brought me up there, and we had a great time. But then I'm out in the middle way from shore. Can't see shore in a fishing boat catching salmon with two garbage execs. Think maybe Sopranos, right? And they're like, yeah, we want to buy your company. And I'm like, do I have a choice in this is kind of what's going in my mind. And they said, you know, we're talking 75 to 100 million bucks at a time when my company was so tiny. But I said to them, I go, honestly, guys, like, thank you, but I'm not done building this. I'm just getting started, and I don't know what I'd do with the money. And I said, if you guys gave me a billion dollars, something just ridiculous, I still wouldn't sell because I really love what I'm doing and the cause I'm after of growing entrepreneurs and building brands, and I don't want someone else to take my happiness away that I get from growing this. So never sold. Never sold a chunk of it. And just believe that it's too much fun and too big of an opportunity to not see through.

That's great. You know, it's funny, too. See, I have to put this on video now, so I'll make sure one of our video cameras gets it. This is my version. I brought it from Arizona. I read this, see the highlights.

That's awesome.

And there's. It's all, you know, handwritten on and some of the pages. So, yeah, I have to go back just so a lot of times I will interview people, and I have not read their book. And I will say that because, you know, in this world, in my world, where you get sent 20 books a week, literally.

Sure.

I mean, when you're getting so bombarded with information, you try to consume what you can and what's important, how do you decide what to learn and what to, you know, what to spend your time and attention on? Because certainly you probably get sent, you know, a lot of stuff to read, articles and massive communications, and you can't go through even, you know, a fraction of it. So what gets your time and attention? How do you.

Good question. I think trying to reflect on that. It's just making choices. So I'm very organized in terms of when information comes to me because I'm so add. I have to put things in Buckets. And so here's my personal stuff, here's stuff on vision, here's stuff on, you know, things I want to learn, whatever it might be. But what I try and do in everything in my life, business and personal, is top three. I say, what are the top three things I want to do this month for business and why? What's the number one of those top three? Because I want to make sure that the most important thing I'm getting done right? So when people give me things to read or I find things that I want to read, I put them in a sort of folder in my email. I got a follow up folder that I can get to someday. And when I'm ready to look at that, I can look through it and see if there's anything that stands out or if there's something really important that ends up on my top three. So it's choice. I think it's easy for people to let their email dictate their day and go, oh, this is an important article, I have to read it. But what if you really don't have time because there's other more important things? So I try and make strategic choices in everything I do.

Are you pretty organized you personally?

Yeah, I'm very organized. I mean, I have an assistant who makes things way easier for me. But I've always been detailed and organized. Like I just, it's, you know, I'm probably a little OCD in my organizational life, right. But because I'm add, I mean, it's, you know, so when I read emails, if there's a really long email, I'll often cut and paste the email into Google Doc and I'll delete parts that don't seem to be important so that I can kind of condense and just look and absorb what's going on there. So I need less, not more and hence the having to be organized.

Awesome.

It's part of the reason I don't have a desk. It's part of the reason why I don't have an office or don't have any files. Everything's on my phone, everything's in the cloud and I just, I don't have a place to put stuff.

Do you work on a computer much?

I do, I do. I gotta say, as my eyesight gets a little, you know, as I start to age and having to use reading glasses puts me on a computer a little more. But it used to be that everything was on my phone. If I'm doing work on a plane because just the room I'll do Everything on my phone. So my phone is my preferred device again, because there's even less to look at and less distraction.

Right. You've talked about your leadership as the two in a box model. So what is that?

Well, so Eric Church, who's our president and coo, he's the implementer, I'm the visionary. And so it's this belief that you draw an org chart, one box at the top, that holds both of us. That isn't two people, that's just us. So we make decisions where we'll talk back and forth. And the way it works is Ty goes to the implementer because he's the guy that's got to get stuff done. But what it does is it just allows us to work in areas of unique ability. I love vision, I love culture. He loves numbers, he loves driving sales, building revenue, building teams. And so the two of us, it creates magic. And it's rare, I think, that you have a company where you have the CEO or the top box, be good at everything. And so we divide and conquer, yet work together. And it's amazing. It's been eight years of awesomeness and hopefully forevermore.

Right. You know, because I know you probably can't say exactly what you're paying your top people and stuff. I'd like to get some parameters of when someone is looking to find someone to literally run their company, take over things and, you know, the whole rugged, individualist thing where you've been the person in charge and you're running it and you've gotten to the realization that I cannot do this and either grow or stay sane at this sort of level, and I need to bring somebody in. How do you pay them? How do you compensate them? How do you find them? I mean, any suggestions or advice in that realm? Because there's a lot of decisions that go into this.

Yeah, I think when I was looking, I was offering market salaries with great bonus, great upside. And I think it was less about the money and the structure, and it was more about finding someone who saw my vision, my painted picture, and said, yeah, I see what you see and I want to be a part. So little story on how I found Eric. I flew all over the place, 75 COOs I was interviewing, and I had created this painted picture of exactly describing the person I was looking for for me. Because the time prior I failed, I had the wrong coo. And it was. I just didn't find the right person for me. So when I took a sheet of paper and one side wrote all the things that I Love to do, and I'm good at that. The company needs the other side. All the things I'm bad at that the company needs and I don't want to do. And I needed to find someone that was really good at all those things. So I created this vision, sent it out to my LinkedIn and all my networks. Three people unrelated in different parts of the country said, wow, you've described Eric Church. They didn't say, you've described several people I know. They said, you described Eric. So when I was so clear on what I was looking for and put it out to the universe, I found it. So I think Eric's attraction to this was he'd always worked with entrepreneurs, and so coming in and working with an entrepreneur, he understood the quirky ADD nature that we often have and wanted to be a part of building something bigger and better together. So it was less about the compensation conversation. We knew we'd figure that out.

Yeah.

It was more about the chemistry and the belief that we could build something amazing together.

Yeah. That's awesome. So let's talk about mentors and people that you admire and that sort of thing. I mean, what role have mentors played in your life? Because you certainly have mentored a lot of people. And you were talking about this, you know, the founder of Subway and stuff. How does that. How does that work in your life today?

Yeah, I mean, mentors. To me, it's like I created. Because I didn't get a real mba, I created what I call my own mba, a mentor Board of Advisors. And they're people that I can turn to with a question. I mean, you would be one of them. Right. Dan Sullivan says, you know, if the question is how, figure out first two and then call Joe. Right. He calls you up and goes, how can you introduce me? I mean, there are people that are so gifted at certain things. I've got a database of people that are gifted at things that I know when to reach out to and say, hey, I could use some help here. What do you think of this? I mean, it's less about one mentor or even five mentors to me. It's an author that I met once that I know one day I will call upon.

Yeah, yeah. And when you reach out to someone to connect with them, what is your approach?

I just introduce myself quickly and say, here's why I'm calling you. Could I please ask you a question? Can I ask you a favor? Can I ask for some help? And if I'm ever emailing someone, that's generally the Subject line is, I could use a little help or I've got a question for you. It's amazing. I think people often don't realize that most CEOs and most people in the world, authors and so on, check their own email. And it's mind boggling. And so if you ask the question in a sincere, polite way that connects people, get back to you. Yeah.

See, here's key, and this is the thing that I really want the listeners and viewers to get is if you genuinely and sincerely say it now, you use those words. Now, a lot of people even that aren't that way probably think they're sincere and genuine when they're doing it. What surprises me is how many people ask for things that have done zero research on the person that they're asking for. Absolutely. Like, they'll reach out to me, but they've never read any of my stuff. They don't. They know of me. And they're like, they may see that I run this group with a lot of successful people or whatever they perceive of my success or whatever. And they will have not referenced a podcast or referenced anything that I've put out or let alone been a client or bought anything. Right. But the ones that have, and the ones that are sincere and genuine, there are many of those. Those are the ones that will get my attention. Those are the ones that I will respond back to, but the ones where you just know that it's all about taking, not about giving it, just totally. So what that tells me about how you say it is that you actually get it. And I have a friend named J.R. who says for those that get it, no explanation is needed. For those that don't know, explanation will do. And some of these things, I don't know if you can kind of like teach that to someone without them having enough pain to realize, man, I need to take a look at how I come off on how I'm approaching people. So do you prepare before you reach out to someone? I mean, at what point do you read? Do you read an author's book? Do you see them? Because I'd love to kind of get into what is it that. Cause you are genuinely showing up because you're being that way. And a lot of people, if they became more of that, they would get more of what they want in life.

Yeah. So I say it is finding a real connection. And just as long as it's real, that is going to show. So Robert Herjavec, who was on Dragon's Den, Shark Tank, that whole thing I sent him a note one day saying what I loved about sharing, him being my favorite dragon. And what would it take to get him out to come speak at our conference? I heard back from him minutes later, which blew my mind. And he goes, funny that you reached out. He goes, we just had a speaker cancel for our conference. He said, I'll make you a deal. If you speak at mine, I'll speak at yours.

Oh, that's great.

And so it was relevant, it was timely. We had a connection. And it turned out to be incredibly fun. I'd never been in a Learjet before. And so after speaking at his conference, he goes, oh, where are you going now? And I said, oh, just off to the airport to catch my flight. He goes, why don't you come with me? So we drive to the airport, and I'm like, this isn't the same airport I was going to. And he goes, oh, no, no. I meant come with me, as in my plane, and we'll fly back to Vancouver. And so moments that you never know what you'll get unless you just reach out and ask. We had a connection in person. And speaking at his conference, that. That led to the rest of the connection. And he's, you know, put a nice note in my book and the whole bit. So I think you can reach out to anyone, anytime, but there's got to be something that's real. You can't just say you're my favorite dragon if you're not really. And there's nothing behind it. So even research, you know, I reached out to a CNN reporter in New York. I had read an article that I really enjoyed and connected with and decided to reach out to her. And I cited part of the article and said, here's what I really loved about this piece and why.

Yeah.

And she got in touch with me right away, and she's a busy CNN reporter.

Yeah.

And then it led to, a year later, an article that she did about us and put us on the homepage of cnn, which was strange.

That is. That's cool, though.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I think people are too scared to reach out and understand that all these people. I mean, Richard Branson you talked about, he's a human being. Yes. He lives on Necker island, and, you know, it's got to be a pretty nice place, but he still has things that he's deeply connected to find a connection that's shared.

Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny because I get that one all the time. People always want me to send emails and messages To Richard, that have it's all about them. It's like, why on earth do you think he's going to care about this thing if you've not even thought this through? And so one of my most popular episodes on my I Love Marketing podcast is episode number 29, which I did early on, which is the Magic Rapport formula. And it's my whole methodology of how I actually connect with people and the things that I do in order to meet people that, you know. There's a lot of people that think just because someone's rich or famous or whatever, that they're going to somehow hold the magic key to their success. And they put way more emphasis on that than just simply doing the work and reading and learning. There's so many brilliant people in the world that are entrepreneurs that aren't the famous ones, as a matter of fact, the ones that aren't always on the speaking circuit and stuff. You'd be surprised in many cases how much more valuable than they are than the ones that are out there chasing the status and stuff.

Yeah, of course. Yeah.

But I did a whole episode on it. So if someone just types in my name in Magic Rapport formula, you can at least hear my version of how. And it's. And it works. So I want to ask you, who is someone that you would love to connect with and meet that you haven't.

That's a good question. I mean, I find that the big name people that you think you'd want to connect with. I find every time I meet with someone like that, there's not a real. There's not the same level of connection. You know, someone that's a big famous business person, entrepreneur, they might not be as open. I find it's the magical moments, like being in Kenya and walking down a street and some kid loses one of his shoes in the mud and he and I just start connecting and chatting. Those are the people I want, those moments. Someone who, you know, you don't know the guy's name, the kid's name, you don't know anything about each other. And then you start talking and getting a conversation going. I'd rather learn from someone who I don't have a picture of in my brain already going, hey, you know, meeting that president, meeting that prime minister, like, I don't know. So it's a good question. Who would I want to meet? I just want to meet the people that come into my life for different reasons, randomly that I can communicate with. Yeah, that's cool.

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. And I'll tell you, I mean, I think I've probably learned more from sitting in recovery meetings and stuff with someone that's overcome some horrible addiction. And, you know, most, most famous people that I've met.

Yeah.

So the value of like, masterminds, I mean, you, you came to Genius Network, you certainly are a student. I met you at an event. I mean, you, you go to things. So, like, what is the value of like, masterminds or groups? Because you're a person that participates in it, which I admire because a lot of people that aren't even anywhere near your level of business success, they think they've, they got it and they quit going and they think they're too cool for school. And you've never been too cool for school.

Yeah. So I'm 49 years old. I have a 400 plus million dollar business. I have way more to learn than anyone could ever imagine. And so I will never stop learning. And so since I don't do well in school, and since I don't do well reading books very well, it's going out and talking to people. And so these masterminds, I mean, you sit next to someone and then you realize that they've answered your problem and that the timeliness of sitting with someone and you share openly with what's going on in your world and they're like, oh, I know someone I can connect you with, or I face that same issue. It's, you know, it's a shortcut. Why not take a shortcut, go to a mastermind and meet people and talk. Now these things take work. You know, I think you can't just show up and, you know, the biggest value for me, for example, from Genius Network wasn't sitting there and hearing the keynote speakers.

Right.

It was getting off and sitting at different tables and going to talk with people and then, you know, again, working it. So Suzy Poo Pourri.

Poo Pourri. Yep.

Suzy Batiste.

How do you say that?

Batiste. Batiste. Okay. Suzy Batiste. So I really enjoyed what she had to say and her energy in the world. And so right away, when she was done, I went and walked over to the AV area because I wanted to say hello and give her a hug and chat. So, you know, again, these things take work, but if there's a connection, reach out and connect with people. Yeah.

And, you know, you show up and that's one of the biggest things too. A lot of people don't show up and then they wonder why, you know, the things is people, unless you're lucky you're not going to be discovered. You make yourself discovered. You go out and do things that get you discovered.

For sure.

Yeah.

So you make your own luck.

Totally. So what are you most excited about now? And when you look ahead, what most excites you about? Your future?

Yeah. What I'm most excited about is my top one right now that we're working on is how to find more franchise owners. And so someone comes to any one of our brands. It's always been someone that didn't consider franchising, didn't understand franchising, but they just liked our brand and saw an opportunity. And so for me, it's finding more of those great people because I look at our past 30 years and I go, the next 30 are even bigger and brighter. And so I think of all those franchise partners we haven't met yet. That's what jazzes me. I mean, again, we talked about the money. It's not about the money. It never has been. If others are making money and having a great life, awesome for them. And if I can feel a little tiny part of that, that's pretty cool. Yeah.

You know, and I'll tell you, like having sold trainings and courses and methodologies and processes and strategies to tens of thousands of service business owners and stuff, and just seeing how a success recipe or something that I figured out is put into place and changes someone's life and helps them start, you know, building a business having pride in what it is they do. Because I can't tell you how many carpet cleaners until I showed them how to reframe. You're not a carpet cleaner. You're a service provider. And you can do things that will change someone's day, week life totally and just elevating them. The psychological upgrades that you can provide people with, if you've figured out some recipes and you're willing to share those recipes with others is quite magical. I mean, there's nothing better than seeing an idea in your own brain when you're able to transfer it to someone else. Because a lot of people have ideas. I have a real issue with the concept of thought leaders. This whole buzzword, thought leaders, just like any asshole can come up with a thought, but result leaders that can teach something to someone and transfer it in a way to where they can replicate it. That is awesome. And that's what you are doing successfully. So since you mentioned that. So let me ask you this. Where should people go to work with your companies if you're looking for a certain type of individual and Anyone that happens to watch this that would maybe fit becoming a potential franchise. I mean, that's not the reason I was doing this, but I want to actually hear how you would say that. And if there are people out there that would know someone, what is it you're looking for? What would be a criteria to join?

Yeah. So we call it the four H's. Happy, hungry, hard working and hands on now. Hands on. We're not looking again for someone to paint. We want them for the first few months to understand the painting side of the business. But we want them to be building and leading an empire of happy people that are building this amazing business. You know, our Toronto franchise is coming up on $6 million in revenue in painting and they none of them could paint before they started. And the guy, Darrell, who's the, who's the franchise owner, wanted to be a doctor, dropped out of medical school, saw this opportunity and thought he could do better with this and loves his life. So it's people who have a happy attitude, who want to learn, want to grow and are willing to learn the business and then just deliver exceptional experiences. Find nothing but great people that deliver exceptional experiences. So someone you know, I said I wouldn't be a good franchise owner because I wouldn't follow the recipe. I'm always trying to create an event and invent. It's somebody who goes, hey, I've always wanted to start my own business, but never really had the right idea. Right, here's the idea, here's the recipe. Go run your own business and grow and build a great life.

Yeah.

So it's for a certain type of people. I think when people think franchising, they think McDonald's and Subway. So very different than this. I mean, you walk through our office, it feels more like a tech startup than it does. Oh yeah, totally a franchisor. And it's just fun building these. You know, we get people that come in probably late 20s to early 40s, they've always dreamed of running their own business but didn't know where to start. They find their start here.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. So, you know, I wrote the Average Joe's marketing book. This is not out yet and it's pissing a lot of people off because I've not released it yet, because I.

Is this the take six years to get it out?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is it. But I've had a lot of people read it, Genius Network members and stuff. So I've got amazing feedback and stuff. And it's funny because it almost goes against my advice of, you know, just put something out there. It's better to be prolific than perfect. Right. But I'm really, you know, working on this one. But the way I think it used to be called Joe's Marketing Book. And then I started thinking, you know, who's the target market here? Who would this most help and who do I really want to help? And you know, because I Even registered Joe's marketingbook.com, i thought it would be kind of a fun. It goes against like titling advice, but I'd be like, if someone reads it and really likes it, saying, hey, have you read Joe's Marketing Book? Yeah. What's it called? It's Joe's Marketing Book. Right.

And that's way better. The Average Joe. Because everybody can relate to being an average Joe.

Yeah. And that's kind of where I started. And the thing is, there's in America, we're in Canada right now. In America, there's 28 million businesses. Approximately 21 million of them are one person operations. So there's a boatload of people that are one person operations. And I think with your book, like, Willing to Fail, I think it's like just a great book for these individuals to read. And I think one of the things that we both have in common is we get a real, a real joy out of helping entrepreneurs because we just know the difficulty and the challenges. It's almost what you said earlier. There's a certain camaraderie in knowing you've been in the trenches because you kind.

Of get it and you want to make it easier for others. Right. You know, a franchise partner will come to us with questions. We're like, just to be clear, not to sound arrogant, but we've answered all those questions because someone in the system has faced that same challenge. Take a shortcut. Don't reinvent here. We want people to innovate and find better ways. But first, try the system.

So if you were forced to give up all of this empire that you've built here and start something new, you woke up in this weird universe and you have your Stillbrian Scudamore and you have your 49 years of life on the planet and what you've learned, what the hell would you do? Where would you start again?

Yeah, I mean, it's easy. So hopefully that would never happen, knock on wood. But I would find a home service in a fragmented space, mom and pop type industry, and I'd take everything I knew that I'd learned over 30 years of business and go do it again. And I think what's cool and exciting is there's so much AI and robotics and things that are coming our way so fast. But people will always need home services because robots, we're so far away from figuring out what robots are going to come into the home and discern what's junk, what's not. I think that home services are something people are going to crave more and more. Find the areas that are very fragmented and franchise it. And so it's easy. You know, people call me all the time, how do I franchise my business? And I say to them, unless you've been in business for at least five years, hopefully 10, I wouldn't even consider it, because you have to perfect the recipe that you're then giving to others and selling to others. So if you haven't taken the time to perfect it, no one's going to want to buy it and you shouldn't sell it. But that's what I'd do. I'd start all over again and I'd have that franchise, know how to be able to take a step, a big step forward.

Yeah. Awesome. So that actually proves that you truly do love what it is that you do.

I love it, man.

Seriously, how does one love something if they're in a place where they don't love it? How do you connect with that? Because I had someone who actually, I heard him give a talk and I ended up chatting with him a little after this. It was in a recovery center in Los Angeles, and this was an individual talking to addicts. And he said that love is not a feeling, it's actually a thought. Like, you don't, you know, a feeling is like anger. You don't fall in anger with someone, you get angry, you feel anger. He goes, love is a thought. And, you know, I've pondered that a lot after having heard that and thinking about that. And so when you say you love what you do, there's a lot of people that just don't love what they do. They don't know how to love it. They don't know how to connect with it. They hear that it sounds aspirational, but they don't know what the hell that means because they don't experience. Like, man, I just, like, I'm frustrated. A lot of people will watch this or read your book, read my book, listen to stuff because they're seeking to find something that they actually love because they don't love where they're at.

So what would you, I wonder if they've Got it wrong. Sometimes in how we think about it, people say, find something you love and then go do it. I think it's actually the opposite way around. I talk about this in the book, if you remember a section where I say, passion follows commitment, not the other way around. So people say, find something you love and commit to it. No, commit to something and the passion will follow. The more you connect with it and spend time learning, the more you fall in love with it. And I think junk removal was never something that got me excited. It was a way to pay for college. I stuck with it. I saw opportunity. Every city I went to, I'm like, nobody's ever grown a brand here. What if I could do that? And the love came year after year in bigger ways till I discovered the franchise model and helping others succeed, I mean, that made it even more sweet. So I think it's, don't worry so much about the idea. Commit to something. People go to the gym and once they're truly committed and they see results, that's what they fall in love with. I love learning languages, and I found that I use this app, Duolingo, day in, day out, every morning, I'll do 15 minutes of it. I was finding a bit of a grind. And then once it started to click and I was using my Italian in Italy or my French in France, it's like, man, I love languages and I don't miss a day.

So commit first and start getting the results. Yeah, that feedback is great. So last thing I'll ask you is, what did I not ask you that I should have asked you? Could have asked you anything, that there would have been something that you'd love to share that I just did not evoke.

The only thing I think I could share is actually something personal about you. So I met you years and years ago, and I thought you were all about sales and just sales, sales, sales, sales, sales. And that gave me, wrongly, the impression that you must be all about money. And because I'm a guy that's not all about money, I thought, is there an alignment there? And then as I've gotten to know you over the years, and someone mentioned this at Genius Network, that if you squint a little bit, genius looks like generous. The generous network. And I have honestly met few people in my life that are as generous as you are. And so I was completely wrong. And we judge a book by its cover sometimes. I was completely wrong. You're not about sales to make money. You're about sales to build things to help people. And you know, I mean, even as we were sitting here on a break or earlier today, you asked me if I knew someone. And the reason why you wanted to know was, as I found out later, you were trying to help someone else. And everything I've seen when I saw you in action at Genius Network, I'm like, this guy is doing non stop intros, helping, and nothing is about you. And it's pretty powerful. So anyways, that's the only thing you didn't ask me about, but you wouldn't have known because I had to share that story.

That is an incredibly kind thing for you to say and I really appreciate that and I really do my best to come from that place because I get a real joy out of helping other people and at the end of the day, it's what's in it for them. And I really like helping others and I also think it's just the right way to operate. I do believe in karma. I think the more that you give, the more life gives to the giver and takes from the taker. So.

Yeah, well, you know, as we talked about earlier, money doesn't buy happiness, but man, happiness is a currency to share. I mean, it just spreads, right? And so it's cool, your attitude and what you do and it's real, which is so. Thank you.

Thank you so much. And so if people want to follow you, connect with your brands, where's the best places for them to find you?

You know, I think if they Google Brian Scudamore, you know, you'll find Amazon for the book O2E brands, letter O, number two letter E ordinary to exceptional. So O2E brands. You can see our brands. I'm all over LinkedIn and all the social media, right. I mean it's easy to find anyone these days. Put my name in Google and boom, totally awesome.

And what I'm going to do, for those of you that are watching or listening, I'm going to put all of the links to everything. Wherever you're watching this video, it'll be in the show notes there below. And we're going to take a tour of the office right now. And I will say that knowing that some of you may have seen some of the footage while we were doing the interview because of this clever thing called editing and whatnot. And we're going to do that now. So always a pleasure, Brian. You, you've done great work. Thank you so much.

Thank you. It's amazing, a lot of fun. Yeah, Sam, It.