From Selling Mangoes to Selling a Company for MILLIONS | Max Lewis

This is what I did. I got my wire for— the first wire was for $24 million and change. And I had all of the employees line up. So we got 70 employees lined up outside of my office and I had them come in one by one and I gave everybody a check based on their contribution to what I felt was, you know, our success. So the largest check I gave out that day was $1 million.

Max, welcome to The Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. We're so excited to get to know a little bit about you and your book, Who Is Max Lewis? Before we get into the concepts of your book, let's go back to the year 2000. You're trying to become a chef, but you choose not to pursue it, and you're working in your dad's propane company on the weekends. I'm curious to know what happened in your life that made you pivot from wanting to become a chef and to owning your own company in 2002?

Okay, so at that time, first of all, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be in this podcast with you guys. It wasn't a decision. I actually, I think if you want to get down to the truth of it, I kind of got comfortable and maybe even lazy, you could say. You know, I fell into this, all right, well, you know, I met this girl. Things are good. I got a roof over my head. I'm making a couple bucks. I didn't say I want to start a business. I think first I kind of just fell into this comfortable place, and then the opportunity came just, you know, shortly after that, around, around the same time. But first I was already like, all right, well, I guess I'm cool. Just this is life now, you know, just scary because it's scary because I could have just stayed there.

Yeah, so I'm curious what then drove you to that, that next level if you were just in this place of comfort? Because I think a lot of— I mean, I know I do, I struggle with this complacent, oh, you know, I'm making enough money, I have the house, I have the kids, like everything's good right now. So what pushed you to go to that next level?

I think my age had a big, big, uh, part in that. You know, I was 20 years old roughly, so you know, the future is bright at that age. You don't know what you're gonna do. There's so many possibilities, but you know you want to do something. You want to make something of yourself. And I wasn't exactly sure, you know, when I fell into that comfort zone, so to speak, um, I wasn't exactly sure what I was gonna do. I kind of was like, okay, let's, let's not cook. Let's just kind of hang out. This is fun. And then when I saw there was an opportunity, you know, That's when I think everything changed and the spark, you know, I got, okay, I lit up. All right, here's an opportunity. Let me jump after this and see what happens. And that was exciting. So I think recognizing that there was an opportunity that could get me not to where I ultimately got, 'cause I would've never in a million years imagined that, but just one step higher than I was, you know, instead of just being some employee that was, you know, making a couple bucks, on the weekends or whatever. Now I can actually maybe double my income or make what my parents are making with just a little effort. Hey, why don't I go after that? So that was exciting.

So we'll go a little bit deeper on this because I think one of the problems that I'm trying to solve for people is this feeling of stagnation. Like, they are comfortable. They're not uncomfortable, so they don't really want to change much, but they're not really looking for opportunities. So When you think back to that time, like, was, was comfort uncomfortable? Like, did you feel like you had unfulfilled potential? Did you compare yourself to business celebrities and say, I think I could do that? Was it a lack of excitement? Like, what was it that got you off the couch and said, I'm going to try something?

So I think what you said is a good way to put it. Comfort was uncomfortable. Like, after Like, I'm the type of person that if I can't sit around for too long because I feel like I'm wasting my life, right? And it's not that I needed— at that time I wasn't thinking I need to make money. I just felt like I need to do something. Like, I don't want to just sit around all day long and that sucks, you know? So whether it's something fun or making money, um, I just, I want to do something, you know? Which at my age now I understand a lot more, but at that time it was just like Again, like, okay, well, I'm not doing anything. Something's better than nothing. If I can make a couple bucks— I had already had the experience of selling candy, um, and mangoes, right? So I already knew, like, oh, this could be something, you know. I've sold these, you know, these products before. This is just another version of that, right? There's mangoes, there's candy, okay, now there's propane tanks. Why don't I try to sell this and make some money, right? And I remembered learning those lessons and how and benefiting from, from doing those activities, right? And buying, uh, you know, bikes. I bought go— I bought go-karts for myself. I bought all kinds of stuff, which you don't read that in the book, but I did a lot of, you know, I bought a lot of cool things for myself. So I think it's just recognizing that opportunity and something that's in your wheelhouse. I happen to be a businessman, but I know friends of mine that, for example, are artists. I'm like, dude, if you're an artist, draw a really cool picture and put it on Facebook and see if someone wants to buy it. And guess what? Somebody will likely want to buy it, and that's a way for you to generate income. So pretty much getting your talent, your God-gifted talent, and developing it, I think, is something that we can all do to take that next step in our career, in our future. You have to identify what that is for you, but I think that's extremely important. You know, figure that out and then just water that seed. And in this case, It was just another seed that was planted in front of me, and I said, okay, let me water this and see what happens. And the next thing you know, it turns into, you know, this huge tree, oak tree.

That's amazing.

The ones in California. What are the ones in California? Those redwoods?

Like redwood trees. Yes.

Yeah.

Do you have any, uh, for people that are listening that are trying to figure out what their talent is or what their ability is, do you have any tips for how to cultivate that or how to find that? Because it seems like you found it maybe at an early age, but did you know, like when you were selling mangoes, did you know that was your gift?

Um, I wasn't aware of it to the degree that I am now, but I, I think it's generally 2 things. Something that you're really good at that may be difficult for others, right, but you find very easy. So let's use artists, right? If I could draw like you know, a badass and I'm like drawing way better than anyone in my class, it's like, well, that is a gift. That's a clear gift that I have. And then something also that, you know, it's an overused phrase, but passionate about. You know, if you can— and let's say, let's throw out passionate out the window, but something you could do for hours on end and you don't get tired of, you know. So for me, it's business. I could do business all day long. It doesn't matter. I could read contracts. I could have meetings. It's no sweat off my back. I could do it for 12, 15 hours and it goes by in the blink of an eye. And the funny thing is that it's not just business. So like now I just started playing tennis. I could play tennis for 5 hours. I love it. It's a blast. So you just got to find what that is for you and then just explore it a little bit more. I'll tell you what, if I wasn't a businessman, I'd probably want to be either a tennis player or a tennis coach because I'm having so much fun with it. I'm like, dude, I could do this all day long, right? So in your own life, just, you know, okay, what is it for me? Is it gardening? Is it tennis? Is it fishing? Is it accounting, writing? Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure you know. And if you don't know, ask the people that are close to you, hey, what do you think my talent is? Well, what would you say is my gift? And see what people tell you. I guarantee if you ask a couple people close to you you're gonna start hearing similar answers, familiar answers. And okay, I guess, you know, that is my thing. And then ask yourself, what do I love doing? What's my favorite thing to do? What could I do for 5 hours, 10 hours and not get tired of? You start learning about yourself.

Reading books.

I, uh, there you go.

I saw somebody post. Yeah, I saw somebody post the other day. It was like a viral piece of content and they were saying, oh, you know, if, if If you could do anything, what would it be? And they were like, somebody please pay me to read books. And I'm like, do you know that's actually a career path that you can choose? Because I made it happen.

That's awesome.

I know that, I know that you, uh, do a little bit of business consulting now, so we're kind of jumping forward. Luke will probably bring us back, but I'm curious, do you ever meet business owners and within the first couple of meetings you're like, oh, you're not doing something that you're passionate about and that's why it's not working for you?

First meeting. I meet business owners, I would venture to say, almost every single day at this point. There's always somebody calling me, a referral from a friend of a friend or a family member, or people who find me online. And, um, I pick up on these things very quickly. You know, I've done it a lot, obviously, and I've also been in business for a long time. So if I'm spending some time with you, maybe within an hour or two, I already have most of it So in the consulting that I do, I just kind of give— analyze what's going on. I'll ask a bunch of questions and then I'll kind of give them my thoughts and usually give them a game plan. But yeah, it's pretty obvious. You'll know right off the bat. And when I start giving you tasks, like for example, I did one actually the day before yesterday. It blew my mind. So there's someone that I know that they're losing their business. They're losing it to a partner that's kind of screwing them over, and getting the business back would require that person to leave the country and go to where the business is established, which is in another country. And I said, question: if I said you could get the business back right now, I'm going to give you the keys, this whole problem is over, lawyers, everything's done, but you have to move back to that country right now. Would you go? And the person went like this. And I said, dude, you don't want to do this business. What are you talking about? Hmm. If you would have asked me when I was losing my business, do you want to? Let's go. I'll sleep in the closet in someone's house. Get me on a plane right now. Right now. Like that's passion. That's going to work out. I don't even like, you can tell when someone really is hungry. And when someone's like, oh, I don't know, dude, you don't know. Forget it. This is a waste of your time. I said, well, you know, what am I doing here? You don't want this business. I said what I literally— what I said, the next thing out of my mouth was, you need to negotiate a buyout. You need to have your partner buy you out because you don't care enough. If you won't get on a plane and fly over there right now to get everything back for free, you don't care. So during that process, you know, I ask little questions here and there, and those things, you know, You know, for me at this stage, I'm like, bam, okay, flag, flag, flag. And I'll assess it and then later on, you know, give them my opinion.

That's such great insight. People, you know, it's really hard from your own perspective to see those things. So it's always nice to get that outside, that outside perspective, that third-party perspective. And a lot of times, like somebody like you especially who's got all this business knowledge can look at something like, okay dude, you got to do this, this, and this. Don't do that. Get rid of that. Like Easy peasy. So I love that. Now I want to go back a little bit. You became a millionaire at 23, which just blew my mind when I read that. Why didn't you, why didn't you stop there or give up or just go out and party? Like, what, what kept you going after more once you reached that millionaire status?

It wasn't about the money. It was, it's money is great because it tells you how you're doing. Right? Like, if you're effective at turning something into a profit, and money is a tool which we're using, right, in our lives for rent and cars and fun stuff that we want. But I was having a lot of fun, lots of fun, same as what we're talking about. I was having tons of fun. I just wanted people to be happy. I was making people happy. I was watching that, you know, plant or tree slowly grow, and it was like, wow, I'm doing this, I'm creating this. This is so much fun, and I just wanted to have more fun and keep growing and growing. It was not about money. I had— early on, I had, man, stacks of money and big bank account, and I didn't even spend it. I had a spare 2 hours, I'm like, let me go to the office, let me call some more people and see if they want to buy more propane tanks from me, right? It was just fun. It was a blast. And if you put me in another setting, I'd be thinking about going over there and doing, you know. So it was just like, oh my God, let you know, what am I doing at this baseball game? I could be out getting more business. Like, okay, forget it, I'm out of here, right? So that's a really good indicator of passion, right? And, um, I just kept going, man. Just kept buying, investing in the business, growing the business, buying more properties, and just having fun. It was fun. You know, fun. And I'll tell you something, shooting forward, when I sold the business, uh, you know, people would always ask me, like, your company's huge, it's getting bigger and bigger, why are you selling it? You know what my answer would be? I'm not having fun anymore. I'm not having fun anymore. And people would be like, really? And I'm like, yeah, you know what it's like to own a company this size? So pardon my French, but I would say Every morning I feel like someone's gonna just kick me in the balls, like because there's so many employees, there are so many customers, and there was always problems. I just heard of problems, you know. This guy crashed a truck. We found that person stealing. That customer is leaving. You know, I lost the control of it. You know, in the early stages, I had my hands in everything, and I had a lot of fun. But the bigger and bigger and bigger it got, when it got you know super large. It just, I wasn't having that much fun anymore. So that was the main reason. It wasn't money. It wasn't any other real reason. So.

I wanted to add a quick piece of perspective for the audience because I've been thinking about this same subject recently. I was often criticized when I first started reading and implementing books and starting my business by friends and family members who were like, hey man, you shouldn't work so much. You shouldn't work so much. You shouldn't give up your Friday nights or work on the weekends. Like, There's other things to do. And I'm like, but this is what I enjoy doing. Like, I would rather be doing this. I would rather be behind the computer working on this vision, building this business. And I still feel like that today. I still work on weekends, but it's a very sustainable workload for me and I genuinely enjoy doing it. I enjoy being interviewed. I enjoy interviewing. I enjoy reading and implementing books, building this business, selling our services, trying to provide more value. And it isn't work in the traditional sense of a 9 to 5 that you hate doing, but you only tolerate to make a little bit of money so that you can pay your rent. Like, I like what I'm doing a lot, and that's why I would prefer spending my time doing it. So yeah, if I have a spare couple of hours on a weekend between plans and stuff, I'm like up here working.

Yeah.

And I just, I get a lot of fulfillment out of it. So just to relate to your story, I just wanted to add a little bit of You know, background info on me for people.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's awesome.

And you know what the thing is, you know, I've heard that same thing a million times from people. Why are you working on the weekend? Why are you working on Christmas or whatever? And it's like 2 things. Number one, those people are not getting the results that you're getting typically, right? You don't— you never hear of an extremely highly successful person who's like, dude, it's Friday, don't do anything, let's just go relax. Doesn't— I, I don't know any. I know a lot of very successful people. I don't have hours, dude. There is no hours. It's like, does it need to get done? Let's get it done. Doesn't matter the day or the time. Let's get it done. If it needs to get done, let's get it done. I don't care about weekends. I don't care about holidays, nothing. Not even my birthday. If I'm going after something, there's a goal and something needs to happen, I'm going to get it done. And then when it's done, let's go enjoy my birthday. Let's go celebrate the fact that we got this thing done that was looming over me. Because I know, you know, as an entrepreneur, when you have something and it's like, okay, it's not going to go away, so let's just tackle it and then go have a party. Take Monday, Tuesday off, whatever. If you have to get to work on Saturday, Sunday, do it. Just do it. Because you're going to get so much further down the road. And that's a trait that I see in almost all very successful people, all the ones that I know anyway. They don't care about day. They don't care about time. It's like, does it need to get done? Let's get it done. End of story. And guess what happens when you have that kind of work ethic? Maybe it's extreme for some people, but guess what I'll accomplish in maybe, let's say, a year will take a person who's just going to work 9 to 5, it's going to take them 2 or 3 years. So I'm really saving time if you think about it.

Do you— so do you think for business owners right there that, that don't want to work like this, or for people who are listening and they're like, that's baloney, like, I don't buy into this, not, you know, this hustle culture or whatever. It's just because they're not aligned with what they're doing. They're not, excuse the word, but passionate about it or they don't have purpose.

Well, of course. Look, that same guy, like let's say it's a guy who loves video games, right? He'll sit in his room and play video games hours on end, hours on end, hours on end. But then if it's like something that's work that's boring to you that you're not excited about, you're not gonna wanna do that for hours on end in a room, right? So it's just, the word, the, the word that we don't want to use, the passionate word. If you're really into it, you'll do it. And if you're not, you won't. And it's just, that's what it boils down to, man. If you're having fun, you'll do more of it. If you're not having fun, you don't want to do it. Simple as that.

You're making me think, because of that video game analogy, you're making me think that, you know, those companies are engineered to steal your attention. I unfortunately, I know a lot of people with a lot of potential that just waste all of it playing video games every single night. And I'm wondering if there's a way that people could start thinking about video game mechanics and implementing them into their own business to feel more dopamine hits more often and get more excited about the work they're doing. That'd be an interesting concept, like revive stagnant businesses by gamifying them or something.

You know, it's funny because I am coaching someone right now that has a business related to that. So he's dealing with people who are addicts of video games. And his business is getting people off of the addiction. And he— the last— we— I've had 2 sessions with him. The last time we spoke, he's like, you know, when I'm doing this business, there's no like, uh, coin, you know, uh, audio or something that says like, you crushed it, you know. And he was— it's so hilarious because I'm like, damn, it's really that serious? He's like, yeah, when you're in the zone, like when you're in that world, you do something, you find a treasure, you get a reward. goes, but in real life you don't get that. Like, not every win gets celebrated. Not everyone's like behind you clapping and cheering every time you do something that you should have done. So he's trying to put that together like in real life, and I'm gonna help him. Um, so I just thought— I never thought about that, right? Because I'm not addicted to video games. I don't even play video games. So I just thought that was very interesting. I was like, man, that's true. You got this crazy reward system when you're in this world, this VR or whatever. But then you, you know, you, uh, you go out and you get a customer, there's no one clapping or cheering, and there's no, you know, there's no points going up on the screen. So he's like, it's just, it's not fun for me. I was like, okay, well, we need to figure this out and make it fun. So maybe I'll connect you 2 guys, maybe you could help them.

Yeah, please do. Luke, I'm sorry for hogging this, this, uh, right now, but I— well, you know what, I'll shut up. Uh, Luke, we can transfer over to your question, but yes, introduce us. I, you know, I'm sitting here thinking, okay, every time an invoice closes within the Book Thinkers business, I'm excited. I get that rush of finding the treasure. But how can I help non-commission people within my organization also feel that same level of like, yeah, we just got it, like, let's go? Um, you know, in a, in a different role— editing podcasts, account management, uh, editing videos, whatever it is, you know. So I'm fascinated by what you're talking about and we should definitely connect offline about it. But Luke, I'll kick it back over to you.

Real quick before we switch over. So the way that you would do that, which is how I did it in my business, is you have to give the right leverage to your staff. So you can do that several different ways, but generally I would say there's pretty much 2 ways. You're incentivizing them and you're using, you know, let's say changing the world as leverage. And that's something that means a lot to your staff if it does mean something to them. them, um, or some type of ultimate goal where they're going to benefit from, whether it be financial or otherwise. I'm not sure what, what you guys' goals and outcomes are, but for me, in my company, there was a lot of people incentivized with, with, uh, commissions and things like that. But then there was also ultimate goals, you know, which, you know, as a company, we're trying to achieve X, and if we get there, it's going to mean What for you guys? Maybe everyone's going on a cruise. I don't know. Like, you have to figure out what that important piece is to your staff. And, you know, the way to do that is not to just come up with something.

It's really to ask.

It's really to ask, hey guys, what would be cool if we got 150,000 new subscribers at the end of the year, which is our company goal, right? And we crush that. What are we— how are we celebrating this at the end of the year? What are we doing? And get feedback from you guys, come up with something, pick it, and, you know, tomorrow's day 1. All right, let's get 1 guy, let's get 2. Hopefully by the end of the year we hit it, and, and then we are going to celebrate together. And realistically, you should celebrate month over month as you go getting closer to that goal, but then there's the big celebration or payoff for everyone at the end.

Man, Nick, you're hogging, but I love hearing all this, and you're asking great questions, so don't, don't even worry about it. This is awesome. I feel like we're getting a little mini class in building a culture, which is amazing and something that lots of people struggle with. Is building a culture in your business, was that something that you worked on right from the start? Was it something you thought about? What drove you to understand that whole world of building a good culture in your business? Because it seems like you were able to do that really, really well.

So I was only able to do it really well after I met Keith Cunningham, which is the real— so have you ever read that book Rich Dad Poor Dad?

Yeah.

So Keith Cunningham is the rich dad, right? He's the real rich dad. He's the man. He's the freaking man. And I studied with him for a while. It's cool because he told me that was— I graduated. It was really awesome. He had me at the last time I went to see him, he had me stand up and acknowledge me in front of everybody. It was super badass. But anyway, the point is I didn't think about culture at all for maybe the first 12 or 13 years of my business. There was a culture, right? There's a culture in every business, but I didn't think about making people happy. And after I met Keith, he shined the light on that, so to speak. And I started to experiment with making people happy, asking people what they want, And, and if, you know, you've read my book, so you, you know, it's clothing and the vending machines and all these little things. And it became like, once you see it works, like one thing works, you're like, okay, I want to do another one. Okay, I want to do another one. I want to do another one, another one. And you kind of get addicted to making your staff super happy, right? And, and it becomes addicting because you're like, man, when these people are all happy, First of all, it's great to be here. The energy's freaking awesome. And then all that energy goes out into the world. It goes into all my customers and I get more business and this is a better place to work and people wanna work here now. We're taking in more applications than ever and we're getting more accounts than ever. And you say, wow, this is really powerful stuff. Because if I walk in, I just, I'm gonna pay you guys all $1 million a year. Yeah, maybe some people work for the money. but you might walk in and it might just suck. The energy might suck. You might get 10 times better results paying someone $100 grand a year, but giving them this great environment and these great tools and keeping them happy and a smile on their face and things that are important to them, which could be super small, like a fricking vending machine. And that develops the culture. Dude, towards the end, when I sold my business, people would literally, I wrote about it in the book, they'd come and hang out. Come to the office and hang out. Friends of mine. Hey, we just want to hang out. And they're shooting hoops and they're on the trampoline and on the power play and just doing dumb shit. I go into the conference room, my friends would be there talking to one of the employees. I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Oh bro, I just wanted— I had the day off so I wanted to come by. I'm like, what? You had the day off? Employees that had the day off at the company. Like you think like this is the last place you'd want to be. They just loved being there. It was fun, man. It was fun. It was super fun.

So that's the best example of culture I've ever heard.

Oh my God, it's incredible. It was incredible, dude. It was. And it was fun to be a part of that, you know. And everything was about making people happy, you know. We did the, uh, end of month meetings where we'd, uh, get the whole company, order the pizzas, put music, call out birthdays, play games with each other. You know, there's a game that we used to do it. I used to love it with the toilet paper. You get a roll of toilet paper and you don't tell them what you're doing. You just say, everybody, you could take between 1 to 8 plies of toilet paper. But for what? What are we doing? Just, you could take between 1 to 8, just hand it around. So, you know, we had like 70 people in the room. They're all taking, one guy takes 1, the other guy takes 7. They think it means money or something or whatever. And then after that, I put them in groups of 5. And then you say, okay, now for every piece of toilet paper that you have, you're gonna tell your group something that they don't know about you. So if I had 3, now I gotta share with Luke and Nick things that you don't know about me. Okay, well, I have 5 kids. Holy shit, Angel has 5 kids? Like, what? We didn't know you had 5 kids. I'm a black belt in karate. You're a black belt in karate? And dude, all of that, think about how that brings everyone together. Now you know personal stuff. I know personal stuff about Nick. He's been here for 5 years. I didn't know he was a black belt in karate. I didn't know he was born in Cincinnati. You know, like there's things that you learn and it just—

yeah, there you go.

And it makes everybody more of a family. And it's cool, man, because then it's like, hey Nick, I know you're black belt. You know, my son's actually taking jiu-jitsu. Do you think you could give him some pointers? Yeah, we'll meet up on the weekend. Everybody's getting tight knit, tight knit. You know, so stuff like that, I had a blast with it.

I love that. It's getting me just. It's getting me excited, man.

I love your energy.

It's just like you can feel it. You can feel it. That's cool.

Oh man, we did a lot of stuff like that.

Yeah, that's so awesome. And I think it's so important to to have fun in your life. We don't we don't do that enough. We take everything so seriously all the time, constantly, and especially in the the corporate world. Everything is just like so. Cookie cutter, and it makes life— it sucks the life out of you, honestly. And that's why I love working where I work right now at Book Thinkers, because it is more fun. The culture that we're trying to create is a lot more fun and a lot more casual, and like, it's just, it's so much better because you can show up with your full self, which is amazing. Yeah. Now I want to skip ahead a little bit just for sake of time. I want to talk about your book and the title of it specifically, because it's one that stood out to me immediately. I mean, you sent it to us to Book Thinkers in this beautiful package. And the book is amazing. And it says, Who Is Max Lewis? That's the title of the book. So I'm curious about how you came up with that title and like what it meant to you.

So I changed all the names and character names in the book, businesses, everything, just for the sake of protecting people's privacies and things like that. And the name in particular, it's funny because for every business and every character, I really thought about it. I really was like, okay, we're gonna change, for example, Danny's name to, you know, what's the list? Robert, Juan, whatever. And I'd look at meanings. I mean, I really spent time doing this. So for then, for the Max Lewis, my middle name is Louis, but it's spelled L-U-I-S. So I kind of drew some inspiration from there. But the first name, it— I went through like a process like I just mentioned. But the reason I use that name, Who Is Max Lewis? It's a pseudonym, right? But there's more to it, and you can really only find out once you finish reading the book. So you'd have to finish reading the book to get the whole meaning. Um, but that's basically why I did that. And I didn't want to make the book about myself. The book is not about me. The book is about a story and how the reader could benefit from this story. As you know, with the reflections and the questions at the end of each chapter. So it's not about— it's not a story about my life or my business life. It is, but really the benefit is it should— it's for the reader. I don't want it to be about myself. If I did, I would have used my real name on the COVID of the book.

Well, I know we're, we're getting close to wrapping up here, so I, I suppose we had so much fun talking about the culture stuff, and these are actionable, constructive lessons. And you can read more about some of them in here. So I suppose my— I have 2 final questions and then I'll kick it back over to Luke and then we can wrap it up, see if he has any final questions. If somebody's listening today and they're like, oh, this guy Max is pretty cool, but I'm not really sure if I've really heard what the book is about. Could you just kind of describe what is somebody expected to learn if they choose to read this book? Who's the target reader? So that's like part number one. We'll go there first.

Okay, so the book is one part my story, one part a, a, let's say, an interactive workbook that's going to illustrate what challenges you may encounter from starting a business to selling it for tens of millions of dollars. And it gives you an inside, like, front row seat at that entire process, and it's going to teach you several things that I guarantee you did not know. There's a lot of things that people aren't aware of, and I think that the readers will find that extremely helpful.

All right, I love it, I love it. I'm sure you'll sell some books. Part number 2, this is a question I've started to ask recently. In fact, Luke, I forgot to ask it earlier today, but what book have you gifted the most other than your own? Throughout your life? That could be to employees, friends, family, but what book comes to mind when you think about what have you gifted the most?

I've gifted Think and Grow Rich. That's the one that, uh, I loved. I bought a bunch of those once when I was going in, when I was in my journey. You know, that book is old, so sometimes it's like harder to read and like kind of, okay, in today's terms, what the hell is this guy saying? But I got it, you know, and I used a lot of the tools that, uh, that he gives the reader, and they work, man. You know, you have to apply faith and you have to really push and, and get after your goals. You know, no one's going to motivate you as, as much as you can yourself. But his book, I think, is extremely valuable. It's timeless. I think that at some point we need to do a rewrite and kind of make like 2023 English, but, uh, yeah. And it's small, you know, it's not like, it's not a huge book. So I think it's helpful.

Yeah, it is. So I'll, these will be my final words. I'll quit rambling. But one of my favorite Napoleon Hill quotes is that action is the real measure of intelligence, action. And so what's great about your book is it's written in a way that you can take action, you can reflect, you can write right inside of the book. It's one of my favorite things to do. So I appreciate authors that make their books actionable and help the reader implement what they're talking about and really think about it, reflect on it. And Think and Grow Rich is a great book. So Luke, I'll kick it back over to you.

Thanks, Nick. Appreciate it. Yeah, I just have 2 final questions. One is just my personal curiosity, which is you sell your business for that $37 million. What are you feeling like? Like what's going through your mind? Is it like just the sum of money that just gets trickled and put into your account and then all of a sudden like everything changes? Or how did you feel at that time when you accomplished that?

So that's a good question. So when I envisioned it, I literally envisioned getting my close staff, like, you know, there was a lot of, there was like 70 people there, but there was maybe 6 or 7 heads of departments. And I envisioned myself on a yacht. We're partying, we're popping bottles, there's champagne everywhere and we're having a blast, right? That's what I envisioned. Um, but the actual day was, um, was much different. So this is what I did. I got my wire for— the first wire was for $24 million and change, and I had all the employees line up. So we got 70 employees lined up outside of my office, and I had them come in one by one, and I gave everybody a check based on their contribution. to what I felt was, you know, our success. So the, the largest check I gave out that day was $1 million. But, you know, I gave out a lot of money. I gave out a lot of money. And, you know, I think it was only right because they helped me build my business. I didn't do it by myself. You know, we all did it together. So everyone got a check, everyone got money. But as far as the money going into my account, It was like nothing. They called me, hey, the money should be there. I said, okay. I walked to my office, logged in, look, $24 million. Okay, cool. I did nothing, nothing. It wasn't— there wasn't like the video game, no fireworks, nothing. I was just like, okay, cool. Because it wasn't about the money, man. It was never about the money. From when I started, it wasn't about the money. From when I started, it wasn't about the money. Money was just like, cool, I make money. This is great. Put the money to work to make me more money so I can do the things that I wanted to do and want to do, which is you know I still invest and have businesses and things like that. But I felt no different. I don't I don't think it should. I mean, it should be a happy day. It should be you know if you hit your goals, you should be happy. But what made me really happy was dude, those seventy people. You know me, tears were shed. I mean, we cried. I cried more that day. We cried and hugged and laughed and joked. I mean, it was imagine seventy people one at a time. You have a relationship with each one of these people. Remember the company meetings and all that stuff? So we have we are we have relationships. So one at a time. Hey, thanks for working here. I got goosebumps all up my arm right now. Thanks for working here. Here's your check. Oh my God! If I give you the check back. Can I stay working here? Can you not sell the company? Dude, I'm getting teary-eyed right now. People told me that. I'll give you the money back if we can stay working here and you don't sell the company. That was hard, bro. But that just showed you how cool of an environment it was. You're giving these people life-changing money, you know, and I'd rather stay here working forever and not take this money, which is cool.

That's a huge testament to yourself and your character that you have. I mean, I was getting goosebumps as you were telling that story.

I feel emotional for some reason.

Yeah, I'm telling you, it was emotional, man.

Oh, what an amazing story. Well, listeners, if you're out there, go pick up Max's book. It's an amazing one. This is the last question for you, Max, that I have that I ask everyone, which is this. All the stuff that you've put out there, the books, courses, and whatever other information that you put on social media or wherever you have stuff disappears, but you're allowed to leave the world with a single piece of advice, what would it be?

Can it, can it be like a 2-part piece of advice?

No rules.

So this is what I tell people all the time: think it through, think it through with pen and paper, right? Write things down and take action. Simple, simple. It's kind of similar to what Nick was saying earlier. People don't do that. They either don't think it through, right, and don't take action, or take some type of action but it's not well thought out, you know, which is— it's just, it's like, dude, this goes together. It's like baking a cake. You need the flour and you need the egg. Let's say you have to— if you put both, man, it's gonna taste much better than if you just made a cake with flour or a cake with just egg. Put both ingredients in and it's— your chance of success is going to be much greater. You're going to have clear, focused thought, but then you have to do, now let's take action. Let's go after it every day, every second. And when I say now, I mean like now, like now. Like we discovered something. Hey, the best pen to use is this one. Okay, great. Where can we buy them right now? Check Amazon, check Office Depot, check OfficeMax, call your friends, call your grandmother, and let's start that now. And in minutes we have actionable solutions. But a lot of people, for whatever reason, they don't do that, man. They don't want to take the time to think things through. And/or they'll say, yeah, I know, but I don't want to do it. Or, you know, I don't have the time. It's like, man, the time it took you to say that sentence, you could have called somebody and got something done. You know, let's just get some shit done. So that's what I would say.

I love that. Do you have a— sorry, I usually end it there, but I'm just so curious. Do you have a Time limit on how long you should think for and how long you should think through whatever you're thinking through? Is there like a time limit on that before you take action, or is it like think through for 5 seconds, go to the action? Like, what's the formula there?

It's a skill. We actually, we're doing a video on this now. It's a skill. Asking yourself questions and journaling on it is a skill. So you really have to get good at it, and you're going to know the better you get, you're going to know how much time you need. But generally speaking, I would say if you sit and I mean no phone, no distraction, no dog, no girlfriend, no mom, no cousin, complete isolation, window shades closed. I don't want anything even to pop into my environment to potentially distract me. Your questions, your pen, your paper, and you start asking yourself questions and answering them, asking, answering. Your initial answers Or like the obvious ones. And then you'll hit a roadblock and you'll say, okay, I wrote 3. I guess there's nothing else. And then a couple seconds later, well, actually, I think there's one more. The next thing you know, you fill the page. It's all in here. You guys have it. You have all the answers for everything in your life right now. I guarantee you, you gotta pull it out. And the way you pull it out is asking yourself creative, well-thought-out questions. You do that and you start to see, wow, I do— I think I do have that. I could call this guy, I could do this, I could try this. And maybe 30 minutes, maybe an hour, you're— like I said, you're gonna have this page full of notes and be like, wow, look at all— maybe a couple pages. And when you're done, get the highlighter or the pen and say, all right, what are the best ones? That one's badass. Oh my God, this— I, I can't— I'm gonna circle this one 10 times. I can't believe I have never thought of this. You know, so you'll go developing and you'll know, okay, I need this much time. Me, depending on the problem, you know, I might say, oh, I need 20 minutes. Or if it's like, man, this is a big one, I need to really— I need to come up with something like incredible, maybe it's an hour. I don't think after an hour, I think you're kind of— you're pretty much done. So 30 minutes to an hour.

I love that. Well, I, I've enjoyed this so, so much. Your energy is amazing. Your wisdom is amazing. I appreciate you taking the time to come on and talk to us. This has been Just such a fun conversation. For those in our audience who are looking to learn a little bit more about you, where can they go and what can they do?

Well, I have— we just started like an Instagram page not too long ago. We've been slowly getting it to where it needs to be. So Instagram, I'm, I'm working on that. And, um, yeah, YouTube, we're working on that stuff. But I'd say Instagram. Instagram is probably the best place to reach out or get content, little nuggets from the book and things like that.

I love it. Well, thank you so much, Max Lewis, for coming on our podcast. What a great time.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was a great time.