I Built a 9-Figure Business and Almost Lost Everything, Here's What Nobody Tells You

We carry these labels of past lessons as present truths, and therefore our identity gets off track. There's not a healthy identity. There's not going to be healthy leadership. If there's not healthy leadership, there's not gonna be healthy culture, which means by definition, like I said yesterday, you end up trying to scale dysfunction. Start your day by getting still. Save yourself a decade of forcing and frustration and overwhelm and anxiousness and all these things. Your presence was preceded in your identity. Your identity is now shaped by authenticity. Your authenticity is now actually shaping the ability to actually have authority. Only ego craves control and power. Presence pursues authority. You were never called to be king of the world. You were called to be king of a path. So your business is your path. Your business is the embodiment of what— who you become. So whatever your business functions right now, it's the embodiment of how you operate. If you work on how you operate and co-labor with God in this process, you'll become it. Literally, you become the thing. What's been on my heart as I've been kind of watching the men in this room have cross-conversations, talk about business, talk about life, talk about marriage, talk about kids, talk about relationships, reminds me of the importance of understanding titles and labels. When we live by titles and labels, we don't live by identity. So, "I'm a divorce guy. I'm someone who lost this. I'm someone who lost that. I used to be this way. I'm a former this. I'm a former that." Like, it's like we carry these labels of past lessons as present truths. And therefore our identity gets off track. And what's been on my heart recently is when there's not a healthy identity, there's not going to be healthy leadership. If there's not healthy leadership, there's not gonna be healthy culture, which means by definition, like I said yesterday, you end up trying to scale dysfunction. You'll try to force your will to bring something to pass that may not be ready for that. Mm-hmm. So I'm gonna jot down, I'm just, these are the things that I've been hearing in my spirit the last little bit. So the first one I've got is identity is most influenced by what you say about you when no one's looking. How do you see yourself? One of the things that's come up is like, I was sharing upstairs before I came down that I went through the season of not feeling enoughness. Not feeling a smartness or an intelligence, not feeling like I had the skill set. And then I realized that if I would just reframe it as someone who just becomes a student of all things, that I can learn anything. It's true that certain things come more natural to other people. So for musicians in the room, they've got a heart and a soul for music. Yeah., right? Some of us have a heart and soul for business and other of us have to work a little harder. Like I have to work a little harder to play the guitar. I darn sure have to work a little harder to sing, right? And that's okay. But we understand who we are at our core. It's why I'll share with you guys, I have my own affirmations. Ken and I actually talked about this a lot on the podcast and I breathe in between it because I want to do what's called embodiment. I want to embody. I want the frequency of what I'm putting out into the world and what I want to become in the world to become a healthy embodiment of a future identity, right? So that actually happens first in the nervous system and the emotions. Most men are not taught how to go backwards and actually become vulnerable people. We're taught the other thing. We're taught not to become vulnerable. So therefore we go isolate when problems arise, when we need the help the most. Mm-hmm. Because we're told we're supposed to go figure it out all ourselves, right? So I would like you to jot down 2 or 3 things that are labels that you currently experience, and just hold those between you and God. I'll give you 3 of mine. I'm a divorced person. Mm-hmm. Okay, so this is a label I have no intention— I may have been divorced, but I'm not divorced. Like I am not, I am not the embodiment of doors. Does that make sense? I once made a mistake of not being present with my family, not being fully present, putting the phone away and putting the stuff away. And as a result, over time, I accidentally injured my family and I had to go back and repair that. But I'm not, I'm now not the spirit, if you will, of the lack of presence. Now presence is a core focus. Mm-hmm. Does that make sense? A third one is like, I can't scale. I can't replicate what I've already done once. It's the fear of being a one-hit wonder, right? Scaling a 9-figure company once, I can't do that again. And God has been telling me, not only will you do it again, I'm going to compound it because I know what you're going to do with it. You're trustworthy. Mm-hmm. See, the other thing too I've got over here is presence precedes integrated identity. You guys heard the word presence repeatedly over and over again yesterday. Start your day by getting still. Save yourself a decade of forcing and frustration and overwhelm and anxiousness and all these things. Like, save yourself that time by getting still. You can't become whole until you can become still. I'm telling you that from personal experience. After striving for 48 years of my life to be something I was never called to be in the first place, to chase validation and almost like a bit of a savior complex of my own. It was my responsibility to make everybody else's life. When we interject and put ourselves in the position of becoming the saving piece for someone else, God can't take them on their journey. Mm-hmm. We're impeding progress because we're playing God. But if you can get present and get still, God will talk to you in the way that only he can talk to you. And it will happen in the quiet moments. And let me be honest with you guys, when I do my journaling practice upstairs, what I hear you say is— and I gave you guys a little snippet of that yesterday, I actually opened my journal to show you that this is a practice that I do. Sometimes you'll sit there for 10 minutes and not hear anything. Mm-hmm. And God is actually training your nervous system to get still. That's why the silence is there. It's not because he has nothing to say. It's because he's teaching you how to do what David and Jesus did. He's teaching you to pause and literally get still. That's one of the reasons I've been resonating so much with what Ken's been doing the last couple years, is because stillness, being still, has been like become an anchor for everything. Yeah. You can't overflow if you can't make sure the vessel doesn't have cracks and holes in it. Well, you make sure the vessel doesn't have cracks and holes in it by getting still and identifying where those things are, and let God help you find the solution. He actually wants to repair the vase, if you will, with you. So it's like you're— He's like, "Come over, let's get all these cracks in this vase over here. Son, hand me the glue." And you're like, "Okay, God, here's the glue." son, hand me the stone. And you go and get the stone and you hand him the stone. He wants to do it with you. That's why he doesn't just interject and just fix your life. You don't learn anything that way. It's better if he actually shows up and you do it together. And then you'll get on stage and do what Ken and I myself have done recently, and you'll be able to literally say with all authenticity, I'm whole. Mm-hmm. I need nothing, I perform for nothing, I don't have to prove myself to anybody under any circumstances. Now, now you're ready to lead because your presence was preceded in your identity, your identity is now shaped by authenticity, your authenticity is now actually shaping the ability to actually have authority. Only ego craves control and power. Presence pursues authority. You were never called to be king of the world, you were called to be king of a path. Mm-hmm. So your business is your path. Your business is the embodiment of what— who you become. So however your business functions right now, it's the embodiment of how you operate. You can— if you work on how you operate and co-labor with God in this process, He'll become— it'll become a smooth operator, right? You'll become it. Literally, you become the thing. Okay? Sorry, I'm gonna go real super fast here. So the question is, who do you say you are? All dysfunction in business starts with doubt, which goes to, did God really say? The fact that you're in business for yourself and pursuing the calling that you're pursuing right now is by definition God already whispering in your ear saying, "Go this way." And when we doubt circumstances, things like that, what we're actually hearing is, "Did God really say I was called to do this? Did God really say I need to triple my landscaping company? Did God really say I can use my company as a training ground for my team?" Like, we keep making the big things that God has put in our hands small things. Therefore, we're not actually valuing the thing He actually put in our hands in the process. Ken's always talking about, "What did God put in your hand?" What's in your hand right now? Does it make sense so far? All right. Another quick principle I want to share with you guys is, we talked about this upstairs, lion and lamb, okay? In immaturity, we're aggressive, angry, We carry control, we carry ego, and by accident, even if we're well-intended, we can actually hurt people. Flip side of that, on the lamb side, if we're in immaturity, we're pushovers, we stay in overwhelm, and we continually feel anxious. These emotional things that you're feeling, either on either side, or you can be over here on Monday and be over here on Tuesday, but these are emotional things that say nothing more than you're out of alignment. Yeah. A signal that you're out of alignment also signals that you're out of authority. So in order to operate in authority, you always want to get back to alignment. You get back to alignment by getting back in presence. Okay? Now, if we look at the lion on maturity side, they're protectors, they're courageous, they lead, but they don't do it with ego. They do it with authority. Mm-hmm. On the lamb side, they're compassionate, right? I'm not— by the way, I'm dyslexic, so I'm gonna misspell all kinds of stuff in case you guys are like spell geniuses. How's it going, brother? Right? Right? Compassion, love, empathy, like all these things, right? I own my— I own the things that I have no control over. I'm dyslexic. It is what it is. I'm ADHD, so I might go off on a tangent. Like, I might go chase a squirrel for a minute. I'll come right back. Give me a minute, right? So what we want to do is we want to become one part lion and one part lamb, which is called the— I call it the Integrated Alignment Method, the IAM. You can't become integrated and aligned without understanding how important it is about the quotation marks of how you say, "I am," and whether or not what you say about "I am" is in conjunction with what God says about "I am." Does it make sense? It takes one I AM to know another I AM. If you don't know this I AM, you'll never know this I AM. Follow me? Mm-hmm. All right. I got 3 minutes on mine. So we're going to go arrogance, 5 constraints of any entrepreneur, of any business leader. They're going to have to face arrogance, ignorance, impatience, fear, and insecurity. These are the core things that I had to overcome to build a 9-figure business. And still to this day, have to make sure that I don't swing into. These things are on the other side over here. These are signals that you're getting out of alignment. The opposite of arrogance is humility. And I don't mean humility as in you become a pushover and you make— you may say yes to everything. And in fact, sometimes the most humble thing you can do is just be present and say no. Yeah. No. Okay. The next thing is gonna be ignorance. Ignorance is the unwillingness to learn something new or not have a mentor to show you what's missing in the first place. The opposite of ignorance is actually teachability. If you can't be taught, you'll always be ignorant. Follow me so far? Yeah. All right. Next up, impatience. The opposite of impatience is not patience. It's presence. Being where your feet are. I've got— I'm like you guys. I have all kinds of other things happening out in the ethos. I've got business stuff. We're building funnels. We're building lead magnets. We're creating videos, all kinds of stuff, but I'm here with you. I'm going to be present where my feet are. And I'm gonna choose where to place my feet based on what it is I think I'm trying to achieve and go. Yeah. I've become really good at saying no. I have 4 other opportunities this week alone that I said no to so I could be here. I decide where I say no to by figuring out where I have the greatest leverage. Where do I get the greatest lift? Well, if I say I'm here to lead leaders, to make them better leaders that have enterprises, then I have to put my feet where leaders are. And then I have to share from authenticity and my experience of all the dumb stuff that I've done, losing millions of dollars at different times for different reasons. Mm-hmm. Reasons to prevent you guys from doing the same thing, okay? Fear. The opposite of fear is not just faith, it's intentional faith. It's choosing faith when things are hard. It's choosing to lean in. I was sharing with Jake yesterday, I call it walking into the forge willingly. When the world teaches you, when you most want to run from God, is when you lean in, okay? Finally, we've got insecurity. Insecurity comes as a byproduct of compounded confidence. Compounded confidence uses past wins with humility to recognize, "Hey, I thought this thing was gonna take me out. This thing happened over here. I came through. God showed up, and here I am again." And you keep doing that to realize that God's got your back. He's never gonna leave you. He's never gonna forsake you. He's never gonna let you lose it all unless you run away from him. He'll probably have you pivot a thousand different ways. He may teach you something different. You may have to fire people you don't wanna fire, you feel really uncomfortable firing. You may have to promote someone someone that deserves a shot. You may have to bring someone in from the inside. But if you're always in presence, God will tell you exactly what that is. I hope you enjoyed this video. And if you did, I want you to check out this podcast right here. I think it's amazing. One part lion, one part lamb. Share it with a friend. You're never going to want to miss it. And if you like this type of content where I get to talk directly to you, I want you to go ahead and check out this video over here. Because I really think it's going to speak to you next. Until then, God bless. Much love. Take care. Peace.