Episode 207: Maximizing Your Impact with Nigel Bennett

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Yeah. So we went to Rails a couple weeks ago and this rail taken and there was like fellas sitting next to us and I was, I asked them, I was like, oh, how often do you come here? Do you come here often? And they just stared at me and I was like, I swear I didn't mean that as a pickup line. I wasn't trying to pick you up.

Oh really? So did the conversation then come out or.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because they were both like, oh, I didn't know how to answer that.

Oh, that's fun. Do you come here often? Are you a regular?

Yeah, but I was honestly, it's a cool place, but I always wonder about the type of people that go there and why they go there. Because if you guys haven't watched the Real Housewives of New Jersey, they always go there.

They do. Did I tell you my client, my former client owns that?

Yes, he did.

Jim Stathis was his name. And how Rails looks is actually how his personal house looks like the same heavy woods and stuff. But it is a very gawky place. You get women with awkwardly tight clothing on that shouldn't be wearing it. You have men with awkwardly tanned skin that shouldn't be that tanned. Yeah, it's.

And like really same thing. Really tight shirts that shouldn't be wearing them. I literally couldn't stop staring at a fellow there and I feel awful for saying that.

Did he have moobs?

Man boots? Yeah, it was uncomfortable.

What is up with tight clothing?

I don't know. I mean, it's not my jam.

Yeah, I don't think it's really appropriate. Anyway, now I'm thinking about this shirt. This is like the tights.

You're wearing like a woman's T shirt.

I'm wearing a tight woman's T shirt right Now, But I don't have it. Like, it's not. It's fitted right. But this is just a T shirt I got from nextiva. It's not our sponsor, nextiva, but it's not, like, intentionally, like, super tight. Like, there's some people. They wear it so tight, they're clearly trying to show the curvature bodies. Yeah, no, it's uncomfortable for everybody.

Exactly. Because even if it's attractive, it's still like, do you really want people gawking?

Yeah, you get gawking. I. Yeah. And I don't know. It's attractive, right? Yeah. I don't know.

I don't agree with you.

I don't know. We better kick off the show, Kels.

Yeah. Welcome, everybody, to the Profit first podcast.

Is the big one episode. Oh, it's so loud. I can't tell you the episode number. It's a new thing we're doing. We're not saying the episode number, so I got you. You're like, don't say it. Don't say it. I saw your head shaking.

Old habits die hard.

Yeah.

Well, I'm your co host, Kelsey Ayers.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz, the host guy for the Prop first podcast. A grand welcome to you. We should flip that over because it's kind of an awkward transition. I should go first, I think. Yeah. Great. So let's. Let's do that somewhere. I'm Mike McAlis. I'm the host of the show. I'm the author of Profit First. I hope you have your copy of that book. It's on Amazon waiting for you. Also a brand new book called Clockwork, available also at Amazon for pre order right now. Design your business to run itself. That's what Clockwork is all about. I read other books too, and I'm a little bit of a podcast junkie and, well, there's so much more. There's so much more to tell. I don't want to keep going on and on. Let's talk about why you're here. You're listening to the Private first podcast. This show is dedicated, dedicated to profitability. It's not like, hey, let's just talk all numbers and like, you know, are you up in 1% on gross margin? We talk about all different aspects of profitability from. We're talking about spirituality just before we're getting the show kicked off and the spirituality around profit to wearing awkwardly tight clothes and why that may not bring profit to today taking that leap of faith. I know, I know. Right now, in some aspect of your Life, likely your business. You're facing some opportunity, but you're looking over that cliff saying, I can't do this. I can't do this. What happens if you do take that leap? Do you die or do you fly? And, well, you're gonna find out today that you can often get the outcome you want. If you actually take the leap, you.

Get extra profitability because of it.

That's how. Right. Yeah. You see how I'm leaning here to see you?

I'm like, yeah, because it was awkward, especially the last time.

It's very hard when I'm here. There's two arms between us and it's hard for my eyes to focus. So it kind of gives, like. Yeah, now I can focus on you when you're not there. It almost makes you look like you're deformed.

Yeah. Sorry, do I look undeformed now?

You look undeformed now. Yeah. So you're next on the screen. Oh, I was just buying you time by calling you deformed.

Everybody. You can find us on itunes, radio, stitchertunein radio, or any podcaster anywhere. But especially you can find us on profitfirstpodcast.com.

Yeah, exactly. Help me figure that out. Cause I don't like that part now. I used to love that part. It's too long of a bridge. I've been listening to it.

Yeah.

So the house. Yeah, I know you haven't moved in yet. We're recording back to back episodes today. So this is like, you know, you're already in there for a long time. But last episode, I asked, what's the first thing you're going to do? And you're like, I'm going to get wasted on tequila.

No, that's not. You said, what's this first celebratory.

Oh, that's right.

Okay.

Okay.

Definitely not the first thing I'm going to do.

Okay. So the first celebratory thing do you do on the first day?

I assume I'll do it the first day that my family's around me.

Oh, okay. So you move in Friday. I know you're gonna get right to painting and stuff. And then you're gonna have your family over. I go open house or house warming?

Well, they'll probably be there on Saturday. I'm assuming Saturday night.

And then you crack the tequila. Yes. That's awesome.

Yeah.

What is the feast first?

What is the feed?

What's the feces situation there? What's the first piece of furniture that you're going to purchase? Not. I know you Know you're gonna get some from friends and stuff. And that's what we're doing too. We actually just borrowed. Not borrowed, but someone donated a piece of furniture that we're gonna use. But what's the first piece you're gonna buy for yourself? Like upgrade to and just get brand spanking new?

I think it's gonna be a recliner. Well, actually, my bed is going to be new and I actually already purchased the mattress and it's being shipped there as we.

So give me the bed details. What size bed?

A king bed.

What? Why King?

Well, because it's going to be like a vacation rental property for periods of time.

You are so smart.

So I just feel like it's a little bit more marketable.

So smart. What kind of bed do you sleep in now?

It's a full.

A full.

Yeah.

Yeah. I've never slept in a king. I mean, I've slept in a king bed. Like at a hotel. Yeah. Never at my house. It seems too voluminous of a bed.

Yeah.

Even for like three people.

Yeah.

It's not that I would know.

I'm actually like, pretty excited because.

What kind of bed is it? I mean, it's king. But what brand?

The mattress. Yeah, it is Linen spa. It's actually a hybrid coil spring and memory foam.

Oh, my God.

So it's gonna come rolled up in a box.

You're going all out on the bed.

Yeah. I mean, it's very inexpensive.

Is it inexpensive?

Very inexpensive, yeah.

What's very inexpensive?

Like $200.

Really? Now, now that sounds like two.

But it got really good reviews, so I figure it's worth it. I'm not an exceptionally picky sleeper either, so.

Yeah. So smart. But it sounds like a good bed. And they say you spend, what, one third of your life in bed. Which, you know, that's their commercials. I know. Like whoever runs commercials, like, hey, one third of your life is sleeping. But it's true.

I know.

I believe in having an excellent bed, but we have a tempur pedic.

Oh, do you like that?

Love it.

Yeah.

But we have an original like this, goes back. We bought the bed 20, 19 years. 19 years ago, and still. Awesome. Yeah. I bought a queen. We bought a queen bed because we couldn't afford the king.

Yeah.

But now I think I like queen. I don't know.

Yeah. Once you're used to it.

Yeah. Yeah. But at hotel sleeping in, King and I actually will try to like, go on an angle. There's no way. Once you're on it, you can't actually get off the bed. It's so big. You know what I'm saying? It's like an island and you lose.

You're functioning as a mobile human. Once you're in there, it's like an abyss that swallows you up. I cannot get out.

I. I go to the bathroom, I think every night, like when I have to, when I'm sleeping every night around between 2 and 4 in the morning, I drink a lot of water. I drink a lot of water and I. And there's times I don't drink water and I have to go to the bathroom. So it's not a health issue yet, but maybe so when I'm at a hotel, first of all, I'm disoriented, and second of all, the freaking king bed. So what I'll do is grog it. I'll put my hand and say, oh, it's not that side, right? I'm reaching out my hand.

So.

So then I start tapping to the right side. Oh, it's not there. And like, oh shit, is it below me? And then, then I'm lost in my bed.

You just keep like rolling from side.

I just roll there?

Yeah.

I just pee myself. It's horrible.

Oh, man.

Who thought I get lost in king beds? It's like Chinese water, you know, if you want to torture me, if someone wants to torture me, buy me a king bed. It's like.

No exaggeration.

No exaggeration.

Clearly. Torturous.

Yeah, torturous. All right. Do we have any listener mail?

Oh yeah. Well, we have a community shout out first.

Oh, what's that? That's what I meant.

So this one comes from Paul.

Hey, Paul.

And he says I didn't end up following profit first. Well, I did believe in this one.

No, it's good.

While I did believe in it, I was too hooked on this Grow my way out of the doldrums mindset turned out to be a major mistake. We are on track to be out of business in 12 months. I'm now doing the hard cutting, letting staff go, trying to get rid of expensive software which under delivered cutting marketing. Fuck, it hurts. I am back on the profit first bandwagon and trying to get myself out of this hole I foolishly put myself into. No sleep, no smiles, stressed.

Paul, nicely done, man. Back on the wagon. You know, sometimes, Paul, you need to have like that heart attack unfortunately to start getting healthy, right? The classic examples of smokers. I said it a million times. Everyone knows you should not be smoking. It's not good for you. But that doesn't fix it. It's when you have that heart attack that you're like, oh, and you get real. And so it took me a financial heart attack to get my financial straight straightened out. I hope most people don't have to go through it, but, Paul, you had to go through it, I think. But now you've done it. Never go back to the old way.

And now you have complete faith in the system.

Exactly. It will serve you, Paul. Go for it. All right, my brothers and my sisters, where's my notes? Here it is. I want to bring on our guest because we're going to be talking about taking that leap of faith. Is it worth it? Is it profitable? Our guest, Nigel Bennett says it is. After almost being shot down by FARC guerrillas on the Venezuela Columbia border and being forced to escape Egypt. I know the story. While working for his father's oil spill contingency planning company, he decided to break away and start Aquaguard Spill response. His new book, entitled take that Leap Risking it all for what really Matters, recounts Nigel's unanticipated adventures as an entrepreneur, emerging philanthropist and authority. Always avid outdoorsmen. And here's the deal. That was his bio that I just read. Obviously, I know Nigel personally. We go back now 14 years. We met in Boston together. The reason we talk about lobster all the time is the first dinner I had was sitting with Nigel and we enjoyed lobster together, and he started to recount his stories of what he's done. Well, over the 14 years, this guy's gone through some of the most amazing things. But what's most significant is the impact on this world he's having. Do you know those oil spills, Kelsey, that you sometimes read about? His company's the one that cleans it up. And there are horrific things that go on that never get put in the news. He's infiltrated it. Hence some of the challenges he faced and some of the dangers he faced. Found where people are really damaging the environment and went in and cleaned that stuff up. It's my pleasure, my honor, to bring on my friend Nigel Bennett. Welcome to our show.

Welcome.

Hey, Mike.

How are you?

Hey, Kelsey. Hey, Mike. How you guys doing?

Good. How are you? I'm great.

I was listening to your banter back and forth there, and I was trying not to laugh out loud because it was pretty good. I was covering my mic. I was covering my mic here.

Yeah. You know, in Egypt, when you almost got thrown in jail there, they should just throw you in a king bed. That would have been better.

Yeah, that Would have been hell.

That would have been pure hell. Nigel, you shared pictures. The last time we got together, you shared pictures of some of the most horrific things. I thought they were rivers going through this countryside and it was oil.

It was oil. Exactly. Yeah, it was oil. Yeah, it was actually oil. I was doing an oil spill contingency plan. I was, I was thrown into business right out of high school. My dad had an oil spill response company and we were working in many, many countries. But I. I was working in Venezuela like when I was 18. I was then. I know I was working for him for 10 years. And that shot that you saw was actually in Egypt. It was in the Sinai Peninsula, was. I was flying. I was doing an overf flight in a helicopter, taking photographs where I actually shouldn't have been and took some photos of some horrific pipelines that had ruptured and the oil was flowing directly into the Red Sea. It was unbelievable. Unbelievable. I just.

No one repairing.

I mean, it's just flowing and flowing, flowing and flowing. Yeah. Creating, you know, just a river. And. Yeah, it was, it was, it really shook my world. And I was a young guy, remember? I mean, I was in my early 20s seeing this. And I grew up in Vancouver on the west coast, here in. In the wilderness. And I'd never seen anything like that in my life.

Yeah, well, seeing a site like that, does that all of a sudden define your life's purpose?

Well, I was always connected to, you know, the outdoors and everything, but I was, I was kind of, you know, I was raised in a business family. I was, you know, I lived overseas for 10 years. I was in China, Venezuela, Brazil, Egypt, photographing environmental disasters. And it only came to a point when I was actually in Egypt, which I mentioned to you the other day. I've been working there for three months and we had an apartment and my father, who I was working for at the time, flew into the country and he went missing. And I couldn't figure out what happened to him and realized I was sitting on the floor in a hotel room and got a call at 3 o' clock in the morning and it was him telling me in code to get out of the country because he had been caught by or captured. Yeah. So I left the country under his direction and tried to get out, out from London. And it took many, many months. And he finally was released. He was in jail. And yeah, it was really, really tough. It was a tough time for myself and my family. But then over, over, you know, the next couple of years, I realized that things weren't you know, there was a bit of business there that, I don't know, it was, it was really difficult. So I, I had to break off, I had to change my way and break off and form my, you know, I was a young guy, took that leap and my sister was working for the company too, and I took her with me and another fellow. And it was the most difficult thing that I'd ever had to do is go against my father's word and start. And start my own business. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, we were all terrified. We had no idea. We're in our early 20s and we just did it. We just jumped and we just blindly did it.

And that's the start of aquaguard.

It was. Yeah, yeah. We called it aquaguard Spill Response and set up a little shingle, you know, in the other side of, the other side of the city. And we, you know, leased a small building and prayed for contracts to come in. So we were, we went from the consulting business to the manufacturing business because we had so many clients overseas that we were doing consulting work for. They needed equipment, so we designed equipment. I went to, I went to tech, I went to British Columbia Institute of Technology, so the MIT kind of on the west coast here and, you know, learned about mechanical bits and pieces. And my partner and I, we started building little oil skimming systems and eventually started selling them all over the world. Yeah.

So, because I want to get into the story of taking a leap. But before that, I want our listeners to know where you stand today. So where's Aquaguard today? Where's your life today?

So aft. Oh, you know, it's been about 30 years. And at the very beginning, you know, just like everybody in a startup, I call it the doorknob effect. You know, you, you go up to your office, every door every day and you touch the doorknob and you have no idea what's going to go on inside. But you know, it's going to be chaos and every day is chaos. So I've gone from that point to being able to set my business up to run without me. And I've got an amazing, I'm so fortunate, got an amazing life now. And I actually took my family and we traveled the world for a year. We went 17 different countries, completely off the grid and from Myanmar to Bhutan to Brazil, Argentina, you name it. And yeah, my dream had, that was my dream and it took a while to get there and I did a lot of learning along the way. But yeah, that's where we are right now.

And the Business continued to grow without you?

The business continues to grow without me, yes. I mean, I'm involved a little bit as an advisor, but yeah, definitely out of the day to day operations.

You're involved in the way that you want to be involved, where it brings you joy, right?

Yeah. I mean, I set my business up basically as a platform. I set it up as a platform to get to do good. I mean, it's profitable and you know, I use my platform and profit and dividends or whatever I get out of the company to, you know, to sort of for my family, but also to do good in the world. And that's kind of the evolution.

One last thing about your business, tell us some of the cleanups that you've, you've participated in that you've serve with your equipment.

Pretty much every major oil spill that's happened in the past 25, 30 years. The Exxon Valdez in 1989, although, you know, I wasn't supplying equipment. We, I was as a consultant. I was still working for my dad then on that project. And then. So the BP Horizon oil spilled down in the Gulf of Mexico? Pretty much, yeah, almost all of them. It's. Our equipment is used in pretty much every major oil spill. Yeah.

Well, thank you for your service. I mean, you're saving our environment. Thank you.

Yeah. But there's one thing. In 2009 when the stock market crashed and 2008, 2009, we were shaken. Everything shriveled up. Oil industry, nobody was spending anything on capital goods, so we almost went bankrupt. And we were very, very, very, very close. We had a fraud, a fraud case inside our business where a CFO was taking money and our financials were all correct. They were all wrong. Everything was wrong. We were a million dollars in the hole that we didn't know about and the bank was about to shut us down. And so we, we restructured the whole business. And what we did is we restructured it to focus on niche markets that we could access that no space that nobody else was in, but very high margin. So what we saw was that the oil industry was going further and further offshore, getting into areas which were much more difficult to access. And therefore the chances of a spill was much greater. It was like trying to drill oil on the moon. Nobody knows anything about it. Exactly. So the potential of the spill. So we focused on offshore. Big equipment niche, very high margin, high profitability. And from that day forward, we were able to turn the business around. And we've been extremely profitable since then. So we found a niche and yeah, yeah, I know. I mean, we were, we were playing to everybody for years. We were, we were trying to get any contract to survive, which most companies do when you're in that headspace. And we were low margin, high volume, you know, crank out as much stuff as we can to anybody. Just please everybody. We went on for years like that until we got smacked. We almost went bankrupt. And we had to, we either would go bankrupt or try something different. And it paid off.

You know, Kelsey, in the States here we were saying the niches bring the riches. In Canada, the niches bring the riches.

I actually think in the States it's niche as well.

Oh, is it really?

Okay, yeah, we just say a, A lot up here.

So. Hey, there's, there's, there's been a lot of leaps of faith for you. And I know, Nigel, now you're a major proponent for this. You've even wrote a book.

Yes.

Entitled Take that Leap.

Right.

How do you successfully take that leap? There's so many talking points from mentorship to the management of money. Where do we get started here with taking a leap?

Yeah. So, you know, my wife and I, Reiko, we talk about this all the time. And I honestly believe that the start of the whole thing was joining a group called the Entrepreneurs Organization, which you've been a member for years and years and years as well, and getting into a group and some mentorships and learning and realizing that you're not a freak. You're not the only one out there trying to run a business because. And it's the same formula for almost every business. But when you're sold, you're an entrepreneur, you just think, it's me. Nobody understands my problems. Well, that's a load of bullshit. Once I took that step, it wasn't the lead. It was a pretty big step because I got dragged into EO by a 300 pound lineman from the Canadian Football League. He was a member. And he literally dragged my ass in there and said, you have to part of this, this will change your life. And it did. It totally changed my life. And from there I went, I got accepted like yourself, to mit, to a thing called the Gathering of Titans, which is now called the Entrepreneurs Master's Program at MIT in Boston. And I'll never forget the first speaker that stood up in front of us. And a lot of your speaker or a lot of your listeners probably know who he is, it's Vern Harnish. And he stood up in front of us and he asked how many of us had a coach. Yeah, And I had actually hired a coach. My life was a disaster at the time, and I was ready to throw everything away, and somebody recommended a coach. So I had a coach only for about a month. And Vern asked the class, how many of you 75 entrepreneurs in this room have a coach? Three of us put up our hands.

Wow.

And he was shocked. He was absolutely shocked. And he said to us, he said, do you guys realize that all the successful entrepreneurs, like from Bill Gates to Steve Jobs to Michael Dell, they all have one or multiple coaches? They're only where they are today because they have coaches. Being an entrepreneur, we're at the top of the food chain. We have a difficulty bouncing ideas off people because we feel isolated. Coaches hold us responsible. So I worked with my coach. I've had a coach, his name is Kevin Lawrence, and I've had him for almost 15 years. And the only reason, you know, I am able to do what I'm. And I was able to set my business up to run without me is because of. I had this coach, and he held me accountable. So it's a progression. It's a progression along the way. Yeah.

Does the coach need to be better than you? Like, does the coach need to. When I say better, have that business success?

You know, I. I used to think so. I really used to think so. But now I believe that as long as you have somebody that's holding you accountable and firm on what all a coach does is he drags. He or she drags out of you what your desires are, what your true desires are. You know, how do you want your running business? Do you want to be profitable? Do you want to have a great family life or whatever. You write a list down and basically you bang through everything to make that work, and he or she holds you responsible for it. So, you know, it. It's a lot of tough love. A lot of the time. I mean, there's certain. Certain times where you, you know, you'll give up your car keys and go, hey, you know, if I don't hit this next goal, you take my car, and it happens. It happens.

And does the coach. Is this something that you got to pay big money to? I mean, a lot of our listeners are early stages that maybe they can't afford them. Maybe you couldn't even at that time.

You know, I thought I couldn't afford it either. And I. And I, you know, I had a. I worked with another coach, but it was. It was more like a financial planning coach. And it got to a point where he said, I Can't help you anymore. You need to talk to somebody that does this for a living. And so I never forget the day my coach said, okay, this is the deal. It's $1,000 for the day. We're gonna go for a walk and talk for the whole day. I don't sit in boardrooms very well. I'm add. So I said, we're walking and talking. So we did a hike. And he said, if you're not happy with what I'm gonna say, at the end of the day, you can tear the check up. I'm like, thousand. That's a lot of money. That's ridiculous. I can't afford that. At the end of the day, I handed him a check. And from that day forward, I worked with him for 15 years.

So my business coach said, I'm going to put you in a king bed, and if you can escape, you don't have to pay me.

I knew it.

Kelsey is so disappointed. All right, so there's business coaches. Let's talk about sacrifice. In your book, I dare say on page 76, you talk about how we get. There's constant business crisis, and you say, don't compromise your family. No, you sounds like Nigel the antithesis. What they say today, it's like, it's grind. It's hustle, screw everybody.

No, I think that's a lot. Well, I really. I really believe, you know, and I've seen it. I've seen it so many times, and so have you. You know, entrepreneurs, you know, we focus so hard, and the years go by so fast. They go so by fast, and our kids grow up so quickly. And at the end of the day, a lot of these people I know. I know them personally. I mean, I'm 56 years old now, and I would say that, you know, 70% of the entrepreneurs I know have all been, you know, divorced. They have no relationships with their kids, and it's really, really sad. And I really believe back in the day, I worked with my sister, and we were into mountaineering and all this stuff, and we would always go on these mountaineering trips or rock climbing trips or whatever, and we would leave the business. We would actually leave and feel as guilty as hell about it. My biggest thing was the guilt, like, leaving it. It was really, really tough. But then I would come back and the business was okay because whoever. And we were small. We had, like five people at the beginning, and it was like people would just step in and get the stuff done, and then they would feel good about themselves and they go hey, while you were away, I did this, I accomplished this and, and I realized, wow. So I got into a rhythm over my life of actually taking, taking big chunks of time away. And when the entrepreneur, when we're away, the amazing things that we can solve or come up with or new technology or whatever we're doing and we come back, it's absolutely mind boggling. When we're stuck in the day to day crisis mode, we are strangled and we really can't think, we can't get, we can't get, we can get the, you know, kind of day to day stuff done, but we can't get the big thinking done. So I got it. I got into this routine of always taking time, but always traveling and taking the family on adventures and learning and you know, not staying at five star hotels in or wherever we'd go on adventures and where my kids would be learning. We'd go to a village in Africa. We'd go to and go and help. And it just evolved. And now my kids are in their 20s and we're the tightest that we've ever been. My wife, my kids and I, there's five of us and it's, we're just like buddies. Like, we just hang out, we surf all, we surf together all the time. We ski, we, you know, we go build homes for the homeless in Mexico once a year with, you know, groups of people that we lead. It's just been amazing. But the thing that I found is that it's so easy for us entrepreneurs to get caught up in the daily crisis and say, I'm not going to go to Billy's hockey game. Maybe just once I'm not going to go. And then it's twice and then it's a week and then it's a road trip where all the parents are going, but you can't go. And then it's a vacation. Oh, I can't go. I used to go on vacation with my kids and my wife and when BlackBerry was the big thing, everybody had a BlackBerry and I'd be on the BlackBerry for two weeks straight. And I didn't even realize I was doing it until I allowed my coach to have a meeting with my wife. And I thought I was perfect. And then everything came out.

Wow.

And then we sat down and reorganized. Yes, exactly. And my coach actually said, you really want me to talk to your wife? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it'd be great. He goes, I've never had one of my clients ever agree to that. I'm like, really? Yeah. He said, because everybody's terrified of what they're gonna. What they're gonna say. And that's what happened to me. I got smacked.

If you're terrified, you know that something's not right.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

I want to talk about the guilt real quick. Kelsey, with you, you're a solopreneur. Do you feel guilt if you take a day off? Because, I mean, if you know what I'm saying, from your jewelry business.

That's what hard about it, because I try to kind of balance it and make space to not do anything. But then when I'm not doing it, I feel guilty. So it's almost like counterproductive. I should just do it. Right. But then I resent doing it because I just want some time. I just want some space and time that I'm not doing something. I'm not having to be productive in some way, shape, or form.

Yeah. So that is the dilemma. Nigel and I understand we need to get past that. But how, Nigel, how?

You just got to start doing it. And really, the guilt is brutal. The guilt is brutal. And you just got to. Again, it's another leap. But you're taking a leap in the other direction. You're taking a leap to preserve your family. You're taking a leap. And what you're doing is you're risking. What you think you're risking is your business, but you're risking it for what really matters in your life. And what really matters in our lives. And in. And I want to believe in everybody's life is your family. And if you've got kids, your kids and the relationship, there's nothing else more important than that a bag of cash cannot solve those type of problems that you're going to have. So. And you get into a rhythm, things just start happening. And then. And then, as your speaker the other day, I was listening to her talk, Edwina, she was really, really good. She said, you know, money. Money flows out, and it flows in, flows out, and it flows in. And it's so true. Once you start setting yourself up in the right positive mindset, spending more time with your, you know, your family and your bit, your business will take care of itself and it will actually grow. And things get drawn to you, and people that you really want to work with get drawn. It's like this big ball of ridiculous energy. And really, really cool stuff starts to happen if you stay in the mind. I found that if you stay in the mindset of that survivalist attitude. I've got to do this every day. You never grow. You never evolve. You never evolve. Yeah.

All right, so let's talk about another thing. Personal why? You said you got to know your business and your personal why? Purpose. My question, my first question is, are they one of the same or those two different things?

They can be. Well, I think for me, I mean, they can be total. Two totally different things. I mean, we had a speaker again at our class in Boston, Simon Sinek, who does a talk on why. Why do you. Any. Why you do anything is why you do everything. And I didn't really understand what he was talking about until I was on the plane flying home, and I was like, the name of my company is Aquaguard, Okay? Aquaguard. We clean up oil spills, you know, whatever. I got back to my office, and I had all the guys in the boardroom, and they. They usually roll their eyes every time I come back from one of these sessions because I have all these new ideas. And I asked one of them. I said, hey, you know, Lee, why do we. Why does Aquaguard do what it does? He says, well, you know, we build equipment to clean up oil spills around the world. I'm like, yes, we do. We do, and we do a really good job at it. But why do we do it? He goes, I don't know. I said, the name of our company is Aquaguard. Aquaguard's why is to protect the world's most precious resource, which is water. But it just blew the doors off everything. It just expanded our whole, you know, our whole universe of what our company could be. And a personal why, for me, I mean, my personal why is it's basically to help protect what they call Pachamama. So in Quechua, in the Amazon, the indigenous people call. And most indigenous cultures they call Mother Earth, they call it Pachamama. So I found that, you know, I think because I'm in the environmental space also, that my. My life's purpose really is just to help protect our planet. And it's. You know, that's. That's what I've been. That's what I've been doing. That's what I've been leveraging my company to do.

It's so funny. Like, so your company's name, Aquaguard Spill Response. So Aquaguard says, guard water, but until you said, this is our why. Yeah, I can see how no one saw that. And then we see nobody water. Doesn't it become.

That's.

Was there a sense of urgency? Like, holy crap, we got a big mission here. We got a whole. Some butt.

I mean, yeah, Yeah, I mean, as Vern. As Vern Harness said, you have a bhag, big, hairy, audacious goal, I think it was. And it's something so big and so massive that. And that's what ours is. I mean, it suddenly became, you know, water is life. It's.

It's.

It's life on this planet, and we have to protect water. So, yeah, so, yeah, we started, you know, developing other technology, not just royal spill response, but for, you know, wastewater treatment and treatment of water and all, you know, all sorts of things like that.

Yeah.

Just opened everything right up.

So I have a little insight. I used to use bhag. I think it's actually originated from Jim Collins in a book called.

Oh, it's a Jim Collins thing.

Yeah, yeah. Stands for big hair, audacious goal, that big vision. And I like it. But I've changed it to suit me better because about purpose, I call it the big Bang. What's the big beautiful, audacious, noble goal? Beautiful is defined by the beholder, Right. Beauty from the beholder. So what do I see as beautiful and noble is seen from the other side. And so me, to me, that brings balance. What is serving the world nobility. What's serving me Beautiful.

So, yeah, I just.

Bang.

Yeah.

I love it.

I love that. I really like that. That's fantastic. I. I'll just share one other quick little thing. So back in 2011, I was approached by a large British company to sell the business.

Yeah.

And. And we had the deal all done. And I'd flown back and forth to London quite a few times and met in New York with them.

And this was big money, right?

Yeah, well, there were two. It was.

It was. It was.

It was. It was decent money, for sure. And it was like every entrepreneur's dream was to get the bag of cash and then go, I gotta go sit on the beach and, you know, sell T shirts or whatever. It's gonna be, right?

It was.

My dream had come true. I'd set the business up, and now it's like everything that the E. Myth taught us in the Michael Gerber book. The E. Myth. Right. You know, what you do is you start a business, you build it, you set up systems, and then you want to load it for a big bag of cash. That's everybody's dream, right? Well, I was set. And then I had a speaker come in. Her name was Lynn Twist, who wrote a book called the Soul of Money. Very interesting book. Very, very amazing book and an amazing woman. And she invited myself and my family to go to the Amazon with her. So we went to the Amazon. We agreed. We went to the Amazon and we were with indigenous tribe called the ashwara tribe, and we're hundreds of miles from anywhere, and we did a ayahuasca ceremony, which is. Ceremony. It's a bit of a hallucinogenic ceremony. Yeah, I know, I know.

Yeah.

It was okay. You have. You have not. So anyway. But I. I had this. I had this epiphany. I had this epiphany. I saw this face come at me, and it gave me this look of extreme responsibility. And I. Like, what? Like, responsible for what? But I realized that the responsibility that what this. This vision was saying to me was that Nigel, as an entrepreneur and a successful entrepreneur that's going to sell your business for a big bag of cash, you have a lot more responsibility than that. You have a responsibility. And I'm like, wow, what that. So I actually came back to Vancouver. I flew to London. I yanked the deal off the table. I said, my business isn't for sale. I came back, and I ended up buying out my. My partner, like, 30 years. And I have another younger guy that's now running. Running our business. He's 38. And I. I kept the business and the business platform and everything that I've learned and all the people that I've connected with over the past three years to do good in the world. And that's what I. You know, I really think that it's so. It's. I'm just not easy. But when somebody comes to you say, hey, I don't want to buy your company for a big bag of cash, you know, that's. That's your choice. But I think as entrepreneurs, we have a bigger responsibility than that. I think we have a big responsibility. We big. We've been blessed and be given a gift of success or whatever we want to call it. And I think that we have a responsibility to do good, whatever it is. I mean, it may be, you know, volunteering at the soup kitchen. It may be, you know, like Bill Gates does. I mean, he's, you know, you know, alleviating disease in Africa, things like that. But we all. We all can do our little part. And, you know, some. Some of us think that, well, what am I doing is really making a difference? And I. And I tell another story called the cutter ant. Let's cut her ants that I saw also in the. In Guatemala. And each ant carries their own little piece to the nest. And I think all of us as entrepreneurs, no matter our big, like, a Bill Gates or small like the printer down the street that's printing photocopies or whatever it is as a collective, we can all make massive change and I think change in the world, there's going to be more change in the world done quicker by entrepreneurs and business owners than any government could ever do.

Anyway.

That's my spiel on that.

Yeah, I love that. Stay on that soapbox man. Hey, one more question before we start wrapping things up is first of all, it sounds like a leap of faith or taking that leap happens again and again. It's not a one time event. My question is when you face it, how do you convince yourself to do it? You've, you've repeated hundreds of times. How do our listeners take a leap of faith?

Yeah, well our, believe it or not, our brains actually rewire themselves. The more chances we take. Our brains and our every, we learn from it. Like I'm a big rock climber. I used to rock climb a lot at Mountaineer. A lot. And there were lots of crazy situations where I didn't think I was going to make it and we'd make it. I mean this is an extreme case but the same thing goes for business. You take a chance and you, and you succeed and you're like, oh, you did a little. And then the next time you risk something little bit bigger and you succeed, your brain actually rewires and it gets a lot easier to do those difficult things the more that you've done. And it, yeah. So it's, you just have to do it. I, you know, I have, I have buddies and friends of mine that, you know, there's, they've been stuck in the same thing for, you know, 30 years and they're just a little bit scared to take that step or take that leap. And we just have, it's just, it's just do it. I mean Richard Branson has a book called Screw it, Just do it says it. All right, screw it, just do it.

No, I love it. What I'm hearing is the muscle you build. All right, Nigel, before we let you go, where can people learn more about you and where can they buy take that leap?

You can get it off my website, which is connected to Amazon. So it's www nigeljbennett.com so it's n I G E L J Bennett B E N n e t t.com and there's a link directly to Amazon or you can go directly to Amazon and buy it off Amazon for Kindle or in paperback. And I would really appreciate it. That's Just fantastic.

Thanks for having me. It's a must read. I love the storytelling in there. There's some powerful stories of your experience in there. Very inspiring. So everyone get the book. We'll have it in the show links. And I don't know if we can put in his other books he mentioned too E Myth and what else, Nigel?

There's the email.

Soul of Money.

Soul of Money by Lynn Twist.

Soul of Money. Amazing book.

Change my book. Actually make it four books. Nigel's book, Lynn's book, Michael Gerber's book, and then Clockwork, available now at Amazon by Mike McAllen.

It is kind of aligned.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, Nigel, thanks for joining us today.

Thank you, Nigel.

Okay, thanks, Mike. Thanks, Kelsey. I appreciate it.

No problem.

Said Daddy Fatback.

That's right. Ruby Tan. So good interview, right?

Yes.

He is such a good human being. It's amazing that I meet people like Nigel with some regularity, these very successful people. And it's funny, I wanted him to say his number and I won't in respect to him, but when he says a bag of cash, it was a big fucking bag of cash. You know what I'm saying? It was a big. And he turned it down. And I meet people like him over and over. It seems that the most successful people I know are very humble and really out to do good things. I'm inspired by Bill Gates, for example. He's on a mission to really save our planet. Right. Nigel is on a mission to save our planet. It just really fuels me and I think everyone listening to the show. You gotta have a successful business, but when your business is profitable and sustainable, you can use that to do such good through your business or through other vocations, however you determine.

Yeah, it's amazing.

It's amazing. All right, so you know the routine. I don't know if our listeners do. Kelsey, you know it. So we're going to review what we learned. You were going to share our best of. We got some listener mail. We're going to do. And first we're going to thank our corporate partners. There you go. So do you want to talk about them today?

Oh, sure. So first up is nextiva. We love nextiva. They're a voiceover IP phone system and super wonderful customer support.

Yes. And one thing I like about the phone system specifically is I think with the mobility. But we have a physical office here in Boonton, New Jersey. Your new house is in PA. My home is about 15. The new house is going to be about 15, 10, 15 minutes from here. There's Certain days you do work from home. There's other times I work from home. Your phone can ring simultaneously. That's what I love. It rings here or my house. So for the customer, it makes no difference. And they have an app for your cell phone. So if you're mobile and you're working at Starbucks, it rings on your cell phone. And the customer can't tell when you call back. It has your 800 number. Whatever number you choose, it's very seamless and integrated.

Exactly.

And inexpensive.

Exactly.

And Receipt Back. Receipt Bank's the other one. Do you know what they do?

Yeah, I know what Receipt bank does.

Okay.

Receipt bank automatically integrates with whatever your accounting Software is, like QuickBooks Online. So you just snap a picture of the receipt and it'll automatically sync and code it and everything. So super easy.

You know when you go to your accountant or bookkeeper and you bring that box to them, you're like, okay, here's all my receipts. Would you please start entering this? And they say this.

Oh, hell no.

No longer will that happen. Not with receipts back.

I'm glad you brought it back.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you very much. I also have Nigel at a cleanup site. We recorded it. Oh, yeah. We'll play this toward the end. But he was at a cleanup site and getting a little frustrated. The cleanup wasn't going as quickly as he wanted. So we got a recording of that. But before we do that, let's share. What was your big takeaway? Oh, let me hit the note the button.

So what you learn today, what you learned? I think my overall takeaway is be aligned in all aspects of your life. So make sure you know what your priorities are for the overall of your life. So is that family? And what is your mission? What are you here to serve or do on this planet? And then make sure what you do as your job is aligned with that. And then I think that that ultimately leads to much more fulfilling and productive. I feel like the reason he's so successful is because he's super passionate about it. The reason he didn't sell is because he knows he can have a greater impact than whoever that other buyer would have been. And because he can give so much more to the actual company.

Yeah, yeah. Good one. Good one. Mine was the guilty feeling. I thought that was just really honest. But also I thought it was the only one type thing. You know, he says, when I leave the business to be with family, I feel guilty. And I feel that too. And he said, but the more you do it, you start to realize that that's where the greatest learning and insights come from. You come back with this great knowledge.

And that is so true.

It's so true, right?

So true.

You leaving the business makes the business find a way to support itself. The people that are there. Or even if you're just a solopreneur when you come back, you see the systems that couldn't sustain without you. But also you have these great insights when you're away because you're not doing.

Yeah. And I think you like your business more, you're in it for longer because you have that space away, you have that fulfillment. Otherwise.

I totally agree. Okay, so tell me, do we have a little listener mail?

Oh yeah, we do.

Let me hit the button, bruh. Ah, I fooled you. I fooled you.

Good one.

Yeah.

Thank you, thank you. Okay, so this one comes from Jennifer Schneider. She says, we're self employed, we are a corporation, we're on salary through the business. If I am implementing profit first, do I keep our salary or do I go with a percentage like in your book and just cut ourselves a check every two weeks?

So the answer is kind of like a blend. Yes, you continue on a salary. So if you've a number that you've dictated, but your business needs to take a percentage of its income to support that salary. So here's an example. Say you take $1,000 a week from your business. That's you know, a $50,000 a year salary, not bad. Your business say it does a hundred thousand, that means you have to allocate 50% of that money to continue that salary. Now look at your metrics, the taps, the target allocation percentages that I specify in the book. And you may realize, oh my gosh, a hundred thousand dollar company is not big enough to support that. I need to increase my revenue. So it'll dictate you, it's reverse engineering from your income. And actually I argue for many small businesses, the best way to determine what size business you need is look at the income you want to take home your salary and then reverse engineer the numbers to determine the revenue the business needs to generate. One last other tip, Jennifer, is put a little slightly larger percentage than your salary. So if you take home a thousand a week, put in the percentage that equals maybe 1200 every week so that you have a cushion starts building up and ultimately you can give yourself a raise. That's how you do it.

Beautiful.

Okay, so before we start wrapping things up here. So Nigel, such a kind, gentle voice. A lot of people don't know him. You know, if A cleanup's not going right. He gets a little confrontational. Well, this was the Exxon Valdez cleanup, and these guys were sitting there, said, we don't have the equipment to do this. Like, what do we do, Nigel? What do we do? And this is what he said.

Do it. Just do it.

Yesterday you said, tomorrow he was angry.

So just do it.

Make your dreams come true. Now, the funny thing was, I don't know why he said make your dreams come true, because it wasn't like this.

Was her dream, because their dream is to clean up that way.

Oh, that's it. So, yeah, Interesting. Interesting insight.

It's interesting how his voice changed so much.

Yeah, I know, I know. He takes on this American angry accent. It's kind of. It's. It's kind of crazy.

It's incredible. Well, everybody, leave us a comment on profitfairspodcast.com or any podcaster anywhere.

And give us a rating too, right?

Yeah.

So if you think we're. Why don't we do. Why don't we have a fun game? Whatever you think we are, give us five stars. No, I'm kidding. Give us an honest rating. An honest rating. And share comments. We look at those occasionally and we go through it, and we like to shout you out on the air. So if you leave a comment, we'll shout you out. Isn't that fun? And then make sure you also subscribe. These podcatchers nowadays, if you don't subscribe, you don't get the updates. So make sure you click on the old subscribe button and you listen to every episode. Why not binge us a little bit, right? At least in the north. Here in the U.S. summer's upon us. You know what that means? Time to get outside and do live activities while you binge. Listen to this program.

Yeah, it's perfect. Symbiotic.

Or the next time you're stuck in.

A king bed and you just cannot.

Get out, just give up and just listen to this show. Oh, yeah, and one more thing. Check out profitfirstprofessionals.com that's our website. We have experts who are ready to drive properly in your business, to help you to go the distance, all you have to do is go to profitfirstprofessionals.com, click on Find One, and then we'll take it the distance for you. All right, that's all I got here. Kelsey and I are dancing a little bit. I like the basis of the song.

Been playing any guitar lately?

No, no guitar.

Really?

I gotta back out there with the guitar. All right, here we were painting now.