Episode 213: Don't Get Stuck in the Self Employed Phase with Financial Expert Bobby Gocool

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and again, go to Wydell on winning.com webinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind.

I am with Bobby Gokul from Toronto, Canada. He's entrepreneur, he's got offices all over Canada. I want to find out about that. But million dollar earner and you know, just really starting his expansion program now. This year it's really picking up steam. So welcome back, Bobby.

Hey Larry, it's good to be on with you.

And let's talk about expansion. How important and how much fun is it to expand and where all are you now in your offices and your businesses?

Well, we are across Canada. The major part of my operation is in the province of Ontario and in Western Canada, in the province of Alberta. We do have small pockets in different provinces and we have some folks out in New York state. So that's where our business spans right now. But we are like you alluded earlier, we are in a massive expansion because we see this, the timing and the potential in our industry is very huge and we really want to capitalize on it.

And when you're expanding, it's really important for people working in a company to feel like the company's growing because that means not only they have job security, but they have the chance for bigger positions and more opportunities for them. If the company's growing at the top, they don't have to be selfish, they don't have to be shortsighted. They can throw all of their energy in because the rising tide raises all boats type thing. You can have that kind of attitude if the company is on the rise and it really helps you maintain a high level enthusiasm with your people. If you set that, that out there, what do you do to set that vision and that expectation and keep people pushing to keep that in the front of their mind? Because, you know, on a daily basis there's a lot of problems we got to deal with. It's easy to get sidetracked and lose sight why we're doing this. But how do you keep them on track and how do you keep that vision out there?

You know, I think, Larry, the thing is that once you started a business like we have and you go there and you suddenly realize that you know what you obviously you're going into business, you know, people going to business, you want to make money you want to build something, but then suddenly you realize that your service that you provide is providing such an important need for families and people who cross paths with your company or benefit from what you do, they've got a major change in your life. And so you're really impacting lives in a significant way. And so I think I'm very fortunate that I'm in that financial services industry, and we take a very educational approach. And everywhere you look in the North American society, financial literacy is a major issue. So it sort of gives us a drive that the marketplace is huge. And. And then because of the success of our company, and the success of our company really can be measured by the people who have actually entrusted their business with us. And we have seen the significant changes that they have that has happened to their lives because of what we do. So this sort of drives you more because you says, okay, I'm growing my business. We are doing well financially, but we are really changing society. We are really impacting lives. We know that when someone sits with us and they leave, they leave better than before they came.

Yes.

Yeah.

And what would you say? You know, you. You're doing that. You're. You've built the organization, obviously, from scratch, still running it. How many years have you been at this?

I mean, 31. Soon to be 32 years, really.

Congratulations.

And.

People say, you know, they always say, how don't you look forward to retirement? How do you stay fresh and what keeps you fresh and keeps you energized?

You know what, Larry? I've always thought of retirement as leaving something you don't like to go find, to go do the things that you really want to do. And so I have a passion for what I do. I love it. I enjoy it. And because of being an entrepreneur, you know, you're not working nine to five, you have that flexibility where you say you enjoy the journey. So, you know, you're in your business, but you find time for leisure, and you spend a lot of time with a lot of people. And as time goes by, if you get to like people and hang out with people, so you have that social network, you know, you can go out, you can have fun, you build relationships. So at the end of the day, I mean, what is it to retire from, to go to where? Because you have this great life and you can have it all.

Yeah, that's the thing about an entrepreneur. You can retire from parts of the business, the annoying parts, and hire people to handle that. And really, that's a fastest way to grow. Don't you believe because you're spending your size, you're, you know, you're freeing up. Anytime you can offload some tasks to someone else, that means you should have done that probably a long time ago, you know, that somebody else should be doing that to free you up to do the things only you can do. And sometimes we settle into a pattern and we think we're the only one who could do something until we're forced to do it. And then we find out, wait a minute, what I actually need to do here is very little whatsoever. I could be replaced by a lot of people. I just have to think it down and break it down into bite size chunks. But that frees you up to be the leader and to let your mind go, think about other things and bigger things and actually spending time with, talking with other leaders that are doing those kinds of things to pick up ideas and bring them back to your team. But you'll never have time to do that. You'll never allow yourself the luxury of doing that. And by the way, that's what CEOs and that's why they have these conferences of CEOs at, and you know, at Davos and you know, all of these different places where the ultra successful people get together and just, you know, they have their meetings where they basically hang out and just throw ideas around to keep each other stimulated and fresh. And you know, if you're the head of Apple, you're head of Google, you still got to keep it fresh. You know, they're public companies, you got to have growth or next quarter, you know, the board of directors is going to be throwing you out too, you know, even if you're Tim Cook. So, you know, you got to perform even at the highest level. And after it takes time to think about and evaluate new possibilities. And just like when you're getting started as a rookie, it's great to save a lot of time by finding role models, not necessarily heroes, but role models that can give you the picture and the pattern that you can copy and save a whole lot of time moving up the ladder. It's the same thing at the top. When you're running a multinational corporation, if you can get around and spend time with other leaders of other multinational corporations or similar success and you can kind of find out what they're doing, you can stay stimulated at the top. Otherwise you just talk to the same people all the time, you're going to be doing the same thing. So it allows you to get free and to break your rut, you know, by turning those things over to, you know, thinking about your time, making a system out of it and turning it over someone to get them trained to do it so to free you up. And you've been through that process many times. Hey, listen, there's a lot of information.

Online, but there aren't a lot of people who have actually done something. In my case, I've actually built a successful business, has accrued over $5 billion in assets under management, and has done well even during trying times. Now, if you want to know exactly how I've done this, go to whiteellumwinning.com I've compressed a decade of learning into five short weeks. Just for those of you who want to give yourself an incredible advantage and are tired of waiting and watching others move up.

Yeah, you know, Larry, I think, you know, when you're an entrepreneur and you start out, you know, I think if you're not careful, you can easily get stuck in the self employed phase where you start to figure, you know, well, I'm running a business, I'm doing stuff, but you know, I've got to do everything and I've got to get everything. And I think, and if you, and if, if you don't transform yourself into going from that self employed where you start having a business and start delegating. I know looking back, I wish I did some of that a little bit earlier, but was a learning process. But today what I look at is that, you know, as I run my business, there are things that I can deli delegate and get it done. It's very productive for my business because if I, if I invest my time in those ventures, that is really a waste of my revenues because I could pay a small portion of what my time is worth to someone to get that done and to continuously growing. And like you said, you know, it's at every level there's another level. So you want to get around people who are at the levels that you want to aspire to and learn from them and you know, and experience and like the old saying, you know, one hour with a wise man is worth 20 years of study. So if you get around wise people who are successful and you get to pick their brain, learn ideas from them and come back and take it and see how you can fit it and implement your business, it will be a lot more rewarding and you focus on getting some of the simpler tasks done that you could allocate to other people. So at every level, I think like you said, your role changes in your business as you grow.

Yeah. And you know, Part of that is adding staff and part of that is systematizing what you're doing and offloading it to trainees and compressing time frames like that. But the idea you need to have is don't evaluate yourself on how hard you work. You know, I've. Down through the years, I've just. Anybody gets on stage to talk about how hard they work, I just think they're stupid because everybody works hard. You know, the guy sweeping the streets or the floors works hard. Everybody works hard. The thing is, what are you getting done? And so many leaders have carry insecurities of their youth and their upbringing that maybe they were accused of being lazy or something. And they take, they hang their hat on how hard they work and how many hours and it's got, it's what you get done and is your team winning. And I was at the last thing we had in Aspen. I probably mentioned this before, but the last big dinner we had in Aspen, before they would quarantine last March, we were over at this big steakhouse. It was crowded and noisy and everything. Like just about everybody at the table was a million dollar earner and a lot of different fields. And some of them had read my. And so they were talking over the other side and finally they said, well, Larry, what do you think is the most important thing? You know, if you're a leader? You know what, what's the most important thing? And I looked at him and I said, results, results. And then they laugh real big. Exactly. You know, because the thing is, what results are you getting? And if you're the leader, you get the business of your own and the fact that you work hard, who cares? You know, the thing is, what are you working time on? Where are you spending your time? You know, you don't need to be unboxing the supplies when they come in and sticking them on the shelf in the closet. You know, you don't need to be, you need to do that. You need to be willing to do that on the way up, but you need to be smart enough not to continue doing that over and over again. When you can get someone, you could bring on someone who can do that, you can train them how to do those things and free you up to do more valuable things, which is come up with new ideas and new markets and new approaches and compressed timeframes. And that's for a lot of people that's a hard thing to learn, don't you think, Bobby?

I think it is. You know, Larry, I can, you know, I, you know, as I look Back on my life when I started, you know, I picked that up, you know, and I look at it, I didn't think I picked it up right away. Like every, every person, you go through that learning curve. But you know, like you said, it's so important is not. It's. I mean, if you're successful, you know that there is success, there is work being done. But the point is that is who doing which work at what phase. Yeah. And so you as the leader, you got it. For you to drive productivity, you have to utilize. Everybody's got a limited amount of time. You have to utilize your time and spend your effort in the areas that is going to be the most productive, that's going to drive you, give you the biggest movement in your company. So maybe doing something that somebody could do for like a little job, like moving stuff, like you said, answering phones, emails and things like that, that's not really going to grow your business. That's probably going to maintain what you have. Yeah, but you spending time looking at ways to innovate and grow and coming up with ideas and see how you can move your entire operation, I think that is so crucial. And I think if the moment I start to realize that I started to dedicate more time to it and it did, and it has resulted in the growth of our business.

Yeah. You know, I remember when I first moved up to North Carolina, I, you know, it's the first time we really had a yard. You know, I had a little yard down in Atlanta. Was not. The kids pretty much played out there and it kept the grass beat. Beat down. But I noticed these guys, you know, he was in a house for a year and then went over. We got a bigger house and bigger yard. And I had one thought one time about, you know, I need to go get a lawnmower. You know, it's like, then I talk to myself, it's like, why do I want to get a lawnmower? Why would I have a lawnmower in my garage? Now I'm going to fill. I got to have a gas can. I got to go get gas.

It stinks.

And then I've obligated myself to cut the grass because the kids were too young to do it. And so I developed the attitude that, you know, I started looking at my friends and challenged like, what is that lawnmower doing in your garage? Get that thing out of there. Get a lawn service. You know, pay somebody. I used to tell them, I said, you know, they compliment me on my lawn and what I do, you know, to you know, I have such a great lawn. I said, I said, I don't know. I said, I see the lawn, but we've never been personally introduced. You know, I walk by it, I see it on the sidewalk, and I appreciate, you know, looks good. But I said, how it gets that way is just a mystery to me. You know, a guy comes and they walk around with tools and then it looks, you know, it looks nice. But, you know, I've never been educated on the, on the lawn, you know, but it's so easy to grow up and you feel like you're supposed to be doing that stuff.

It is so true. Larry, I share what you were saying. For 20 some odd years, I've never mowed my lawn, shoveled my snow. As a matter of fact, even in our property. I have a guy who helps with us around the property, and he will tell Ken, Bobby don't know nothing. He can't even operate a screwdriver. It's not that I can't. Why should I spend my time doing that? Then I could utilize my time more productively.

See what they don't see. The trick is for entrepreneur, when you start, there's nobody else around, so you take out the trash, you fix this, you fix that, you return the phone calls, you order the supplies, you stack the supplies, you do everything, you clean the toilets. But the deal is you want to transition to the point where you got people who do all these things and the people that are there don't know, you know, how to do those things, you know what I'm saying? When I went up there, I was the only one trained in the business, you know, I knew everything about everything. But within a couple of years, it was to the point where everybody who worked for me thought I was the dumbest guy about the business there, because they were saying like, well, don't ask him. He doesn't know, you know. And I knew, but I didn't want to let them know I knew, you know what I'm saying? Because I didn't want to be doing it. And so that's an important thing. You know, you kind of look at where you're getting hung up in your daily schedule of things that have to get done, but somehow they're not getting done and you're the only one to do it. Well, maybe you need to bring in the Calvary, you know, to help you with that, reorganize that and get it off your mind. Because the thing is, it's just, not only does it take time to do it, it's something on your mind and you need to get somebody else who it's on their mind and they're spending their time doing it so they can free you up to do something great and if you're out of ideas, free you up to go spend some time or to meet some people or to read some things or listen to some new input to get some fresh input so you can come up with some of those ideas. So anyway, Bobby, thanks so much. That's great insight, and I can't wait to have you back again.

Okay, Larry, it was always fun. It's always fun hanging out with you and learning from you and having, you know, get a chance to chat with you.

Yeah. And I feel the same way about you.

If you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works in the real world, I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years and put them into something for you to watch. Go to Whiteellumwinning.com webinar now in order to move up as fast as possible. I'm Larry Wydell, and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, go, go.