Escaping the Ownership Prison and Scaling: Richard Walsh TYF Ep15

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In  this episode of the "Transform Your Future" podcast, host Eddie Isin engages in a profound conversation with Richard Walsh, an accomplished entrepreneur, business coach, and author. Richard delves into his journey of starting from scratch, facing significant setbacks, and eventually building a successful and scalable business. He shares invaluable insights on achieving personal freedom while scaling up and ensuring business sustainability.

Key Topics Discussed:

Struggling to Make Money in Business: Richard's early challenges and how he transitioned from low-paying jobs to a profitable business model.
Overcoming Business Crashes and Losses: Insights from Richard on rebuilding his business after the 2008 financial crisis.
Balancing Business and Family Life: The crucial shift Richard made to prioritize his family and personal life alongside his business.
Scaling Up and Increasing Profits: Strategies for reducing workload, raising prices, and effectively delegating tasks to enhance profitability and freedom.
Navigating Marketing and Advertising Strategies: Understanding the importance of targeting the right clients and avoiding common marketing pitfalls.
Developing an Effective Exit Strategy: The importance of planning an exit strategy early on and creating a business that can run independently.
Dealing with Business Failures: Embracing failures as learning opportunities and building resilience.
Building Mental Toughness and Grit: Developing a resilient mindset and staying motivated through challenges.
Practical Advice and Rituals: Richard's daily routines and rituals that help maintain focus and productivity.
Quotes:

"Failures are just stepping stones; they are opportunities to learn and grow."
"The easiest thing to do in business is make money. The hardest part is everything else."
"We are defined by our rituals. Own the first part of your day to set the right tone."

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Transcript

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I had to figure out how am I going to make money? What am I going to do? I'll do anything. So I always tell, I started with a wheelbarrow and a shovel in the back of my Jeep, and I would shovel granite in Arizona. I'd do 35 tons a day, a shovel at a time, and do all that a hundred degrees, whatever. But the beauty about that, Eddie was like, well, I was making, literally back then,$6 an hour working for someone doing basically the same thing. And now I'm making a thousand dollars a day because my business, I went, I like this. I will shovel granite all day every day. This is okay. So that was really my first taste of, well, I can get whatever I want. And then that turned into water features and custom rocks, and then real rocks and my whole new business. Papaya! Hello all, and welcome to another episode of Transform Your Future with me, Eddie Isin, where I sit down with entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and high achievers as they identify areas I can improve on and guide me to further my self-improvement practice. For more information and insights, join the newsletter@transformyourfuture.com, where I write about reinvention, personal growth, and identity. Today's guest is Richard Walsh, CEO of Sharpen, the Spear Coaching. Richard is a 30 year seasoned entrepreneur. He's the bestselling author of Escape the Owner Prison, the Contractor's New Way to Scale, regain Control, and Fast Track Growth While Loving Life. He is a speaker and podcast host whose expertise lies in combining both the strategic and the tactical. He's able to deliver immediate problem solving results, tactical, along with strategic long-term implementation of systemization and scalability. With over 30 years in business himself, Richard has embraced time compression, sharing the secrets and strategies that bring rapid and lasting results to the companies he works with. Welcome, Richard. Hey, Eddie, how you doing? Thanks so much for having me on. I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Thank you so much. So let's jump right in and talk about your book, breaking the Ownership pri. Yeah, I'll tell you, Eddie, it really started, I wrote it in 2019, but in oh 8, 0 9, I'd been in business for about 20 years. I was a custom water feature builder. I was a steel sculptor doing a lot of stuff like that, and that was great until it wasn't, as they say, oh 8, 0 9 hit and things kind of crashed down, lost everything. So thought I had this incredible business making a ton of money and everything else, and everything got overnight evaporated. Matter of fact, in one day I lost half a million dollars, just people contracts with all that stuff going on. They weren't wrong to hold onto to their money. No one needed a water feature in their backyard, kind of a luxury item. But then I realized like, wow, I have six children under four years old, my wife house all, I didn't lose my children, I lost the house finances. So kind of really had to start over because I just knew it wasn't going to work. So that started me on the new path, but really looking back saying, well, how come I didn't weather this? How could I do this for 20 years when it's over? So I started connecting dots, and there's a lot of dots, Eddie Connect, things that I did. I could make money real well. I was an artist. I was the best at what I did, but the business things, I kept pushing to the left of my desk saying, I'll get to those. I'll get to those. I had some people in the office and things like that. But really that was the big downfall because those things all of a sudden started to compile. And then when things get really, really tight, like they did in oh 8, 0 9, that's when everything came crashing down. So I had to reinvent, let's start another business. Let's fix this. Let's do it right this time, let's not that happen. Let's not let that happen again. And it worked. And I was putting it all together. And then I had other entrepreneurs say, well, how'd you do that? They kind of knew my story, and I said, well, I can help you. And I started showing them the way, and then I came, well, let's write a book. I said, it's time to write a book. I've done a couple more businesses since then. And so I put together this, and really in the services industry itself, you'll see a lot of people who were doing, I was, again, they can make money. They're really good at what they do, but they don't understand the business aspect. So I wanted to put this put together to show 'em the steps and really the areas in their business that seem obvious but are left behind. They're one man shows they're wearing nine hats. They trying to get this stuff done on their own, and they don't realize, wow, I can't grow past my first two years. So what happens, Eddie, is they repeat their first two years for 10 years. So they're basically on this hamster wheel and they can't scale. So that was the big thing. And they don't see their families. They're working 15 hours a day like I was and stuff like that. So this book gives 'em the guidance and the reasons why and how to really get their freedom back in their life because no one, what happens with a lot of these guys, they end up serving the business and the business serving them. None of us get in the business to be a slave to our business. So that was kind of the whole thing with the book. I really want to get my story out there. So I weave my story in there, how the whole thing can and came together, and it's helped a lot of people, and we're doing a lot with, our goal is to help 10,000 business owners create more freedom, profit, and impact in their business so they can make a difference. I really identify with everything that you were talking about. For example, I'm a trained artist as well, by the way, and I've had years of experience doing film and video and producing and directing with celebrities and stuff. But I realized I got involved in this business because I was good at something and I loved doing it. And then I didn't want a job. I wanted to be able to call my own shots, but then I ended up just chasing the hamster wheel, and everybody wanted to work with me, and it was always about me, and I felt like I had to be the guy doing everything, and it was exhausting. And so I too had this weird journey. And it's interesting just when I started figuring out how to have freedom from the business and get away from it so that I didn't have to do everything, that's when the crash hit in 2008. So I had to reinvent the business myself at that time. Throw you back into the doing everything again. No. Pivot. No, no. I just pivoted. I just pivoted and started over and carried clients over, and a small staff that I had and just kept doing everything where I had a lot of freedom. So that was worthwhile. And then the next thing, by the way, is I know you talk about exit strategies and whatnot. So I started an exit strategy to create a bunch of residual income where I sell it one time and then I just get paid forever. And then from doing that, I was able to take a real break where I didn't have to do anything for two years, and I played my drums, hung out with my kids, worked on my spirituality, worked on myself in those areas I lacked in and figure out what do I want to do when I grow up. So it was a great experience, but I really wanted to ask you about the book. So you explained that many people were interested in your story and what you did and how you shifted and created a successful structure for yourself with the freedom and the enjoyment. Was that the first book you wrote? Yeah, first published book I write, I've written since I was a little kid. I was weird. I write little screenplays and stuff like that when I was a kid and packed them out. It was a release for an escape for me. I didn't have the best childhood, but writing was an escape for me. So I did a lot of that. It was like psychotherapy. It really was. It really was. I wrote my, yeah, I identify. I wrote a book in sixth grade. It was like 170 pages on time travel. Now I'm a sixth grader, so it's a sixth grader book that I wrote, and I remember doing that. I spent every recess, I'd go out and just write little study halls. I'd write, I write write. I made this whole thing and it disappeared. I lost from my locker or something, so I had this whole book, but that kind of stuff. But yeah, this was my legitimate first published book, ended up being a bestseller Amazon bestseller, which it really was. And this flew people. I did an editor, and there's a fascinating thing about editors, and you may know this, that people think they changed your whole story. I go, well, mine really? I literally stood at my kitchen counter and I wrote, I produced it very, very fast. But the editor was so genius about her. She literally would move one word, put in a period or common somewhere, and oh, that sounds even better. It wasn't like she's changing paragraphs and tell me how to write my book. It was a great experience. Matter of fact, I sent her chapter after chapter, then I kind of got done. I go, so what's next? She goes, well, I don't know. No one ever gets done this fast. I mean, it was like lesson three weeks. I all things. I'm like, well, whatever we got to do, let's get this thing ready. I'll get some cover art made. I'll find someone to do that. And I got all this stuff done. So it was a fun experience, but it was just something that was in me. So it was really easy to write because it wasn't like I'm researching and doing all this stuff. I go, I know what it is, just put it in the book. So it was fun. Well, that's great. And I just recognizing that that's not an easy thing. That's a big goal and task, and you did it. I think that's great. I think a lot of other people would like to have a book about their business and about putting their formula and their strategies together to help other people, but they don't get off their ass and do it. So you did, which is awesome. You didn't just have an idea. You followed through. I love the saying, there's many starters, but very few finishers. I'm a finisher, okay, I'm a doer for the most part, but I finished stuff. I don't like unfinished things. So if I'm going to start, I'm all in. But I also, I tell people about podcasts. Here we are on a podcast. If I'm listening, listening to your podcast, you have 100% my devoted attention. I can't do anything else. So I don't do whatever, clean the house or drive or work on something, listen to a podcast. I don't hear it to keep rewinding everything else. So books to me are the same way. I read every page out of respect for the author. It took time. He built it. He wrote this, did it, and everything means something. But I'm a little different than most people, but that's just how I operate. What are you reading now? I'm just wrapping up. Grit. Have you read that? Angela Duckworth? Man, that's a good book. I mean, you talk about someone who research. Holy cow. Does she do some research? A buddy of mine, another big entrepreneur, a friend of mine, we worked together and he sent me a text. He goes, this is you. This book is you. He go, oh, I'll read this. It's a great compliment. Yeah, that's what I said. I go, well, I don't know if I'm worth 300 some pages. He goes, but you are a pretty good. But I was like, yeah, that it's a good book. I was 97% on the grid scale. That's what I scored. So that was cool. Yeah, I like it. I'm reading Gap Selling right now, which I find really, really good book and really gets into it with real strategies of how to do gap selling, which I really love. So that's interesting. So tell me a little bit, Richard, I want to talk a little bit about your background, because your background gives us an idea to understand where you're at now and how you have this very strong mindset that you have that you're talking about. Tell me about how your Marine Corps mindset has really business. So I went in the Marines when I was 17. I already got out of the house per se, but not totally, but I really want to get in the Corps. So my mother was not a fan of the Marine Corps. My older brother, he was only a year older, but he's in the army, and she said, any branch put the Marines. I'm like, well, I can't do that. I have to be the best. So I got to go into the Marines. She's like, you're not going to the Marines. So I brought two recruiters over. They sat on each side of her on the couch and browbeat her for three straight hours until she finally, fine, I'll sign. Because she had to sign because I'm only 17, and she goes in the room crying. So we have not the best moment, but I got in the Marine Corps, okay, three weeks later, I'm in. You set yourself up for success there. That's right. I get what I want. Start early. And the Marine Corps, my son is actually in the Marine Corps now. He's been in it for about six months, which is great. But what I got from is not that you're this trained killer performance company. You are, but it's really our mindset. It's about achieving whatever the objective is, no matter what it is, drop on that shoulder. It's pushing forward, going forward, achieving achievement against any odds. It doesn't matter. We're going to get it. We get things done. And I kind of had that in me, obviously. A lot of times this stuff's just brought out even more because there's guys who go in and they can't make it. They quit, they drop out, whatever things like that do happen. It's not for everybody. Obviously that's whether the few and the preps, because none of em can do it. But it just honed that mentality. And then you're around other people who had the same mentality, and that's why it's amazing. We always want to surround ourself with those who are on the same mission or have done more than us. We are who we surround ourself with. So that was very formative. Steel. Sharpened steel. That's right. And so I'm looking at like, well, and again, at a young age, you're still very formative. At 17, 10 years old, your brain doesn't even developed. That's why they get us in at 17, 18, because we haven't given enough thought yet. But it was really good so that I got out of the core. And then me too, I'm like, okay, I'm kind of done taking direction from people. You do that a lot in the Marine Corps from others. So I'm like, I'm going to try to find my own path here. I told people, I'm your best employee you'll ever have for a year. Then I'll need to run your company because I'll show you a better way. And I get ideas. So for me, it's like, and I am a great, but I'm like, okay, I need to do this for myself. So I got to figure out how am I going to make money? What am I going to do? I'll do anything. So I always tell, I started with a wheelbarrow and a shovel in the back of my Jeep, and I would shovel granite in Arizona. I'd do 35 tons a day, a shovel at a time, and do all that a hundred degrees, whatever. But the beauty about that, Eddie was like, well, I was making literally back town. I was making like five,$6 an hour working for someone doing basically the same thing, and now I'm making a thousand dollars a day. My business, I went, I like this. I will shovel granite all day every day. This is okay. So that was really my first taste of, well, I can get whatever I want. And then that turned into water features and custom rocks and then real rocks, and my whole new business bloomed from there. And it was awesome. And that mindset is what pushed me through though, because I like to train. I like to sweat. I like to go hard, but I want to finish. I want achieve. I don't want to be beat again. There's always failure. We've always got failures along the way, but failure is just a stepping stone. Too many people get knocked down and they stay down and it's sad. It's like you're not dead. Just get up and keep going. If you're still breathing, you're in the game. Get knocked down seven times and get up eight. That's. Right. That's right. I think for some reason I am very much motivated by competition. And sometimes how that competition started was like I would work with somebody else, work for somebody else, and then I would realize what's the difference between me and this guy? I think I know more than this guy now. Now I've really gone all in and I've learned everything I possibly could. And so what's the difference? He's got two arms, two legs, and so why don't I just do it myself? What do I need him for? And that's how I started opening up businesses and doing stuff. I just felt like I could do it and like you, because I had that kind of attitude that I was going to be the best at something. I was going to learn everything I can about it. So I want you to continue. I'm sorry to interrupt you. Go ahead. No, I was going to say that's exactly right. But you're one of the fortunate ones, Eddie, who realized, I can do this because some people, they have really low ceilings and they put these limitations on themselves for whatever. There's a million reasons for that. I'm not knocking anyone, but when you're blessed to have million excuses, well, that too. That's a better way to say it, really. But it is a blessing when you are able to not have that, because that's another reason why I didn't want to work for people. I don't want limits. I can only make this much. I'm not interested. Guys would always, union guys would tell me, well, I make $26 an hour. I make $30 an hour. And I go, yeah, but you can't make 32. They won't let you. They go, I'm not working for someone like that. I'm worth more than that. I want to make more. I want to do more. Don't tell me I get it. You got a good in your mind. To me, that's not good that someone holds me back and I can't be held back. If I want to go slow, I'll go slow. If I want to live comfortable, I'll just live comfortable. But if I want to live uncomfortable and I want to push forward and I want to do great things, I want that freedom too. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So talk about, when I talk about your background and what you're doing now and how you're helping CEOs and solopreneurs and independent business owners to create that better business for them to have that freedom and that impact, I know a large part of it has to do with your strategic vision and helping to create a strategic vision so that they can transform their company. Can you talk a little bit about how that strategic vision, how you figure that out? Yeah, it's an overused word, but I do call it a game changer. Okay. Because I think what happens, Eddie, in people's business, they're good at what they do. They do it well, even if they grow and scale and they get a lot of things going, but they've never really sat down and they have a mission statement on the wall that no one ever reads. They read it once, and then it becomes wallpaper, right? No one ever sees it, no one cares. But a strategic vision is very different, a strategic vision. What we do, what I do is I help my clients create it. So we want to create a strategic vision, and the way we create is we do what I call future cast. So it's not what you're doing right now, it's what you want to be doing in the next 18 to 24 months. How are you going to serve people at a higher level? Why do you serve them? So it is how you do it, why you do it, and who you do it for. First, you establish those three things, and then you take that entire customer journey and you build it out. This ends up being six to 10 pages long, but everybody in the company is a part of it. Everyone is a hero and they're part of the journey, and you write it in a way that they see it. This is what I call an internal document. So I don't use it for marketing, but if someone's going to come on the team, someone I'm going to hire, they have to read that first. And I say, where do you see yourself in here? In there? Oh, I'm. You want them because you want them to take ownership. You want 'em to ownership, and you want 'em to understand the culture of the business. So a strategic vision establishes the culture of the business, and that's another right, oh, company culture. But what does that really mean? Everyone throws the word around and go, you don't have a culture, you have nothing. You have just what everybody else has. You have to be able to define the culture, and the strategic vision is able to do that. So it's where you want to go, which what it does, Eddie, is gives everybody purpose. Purpose is the number one driver that people want to work somewhere for. It's not money. Money's like number three. They want purpose. They want quality feedback. They want to know they're doing something well or not well, but they want that feedback. Then they want the money. I'm not saying they don't want money, I'm saying, but that's not going to, if you do it that way. If you do purpose and you do feedback, then money, they're not going to leave for 50 cents more an hour somewhere. They're not going to be drawn away because of money, because then they're taking a chance of not having purpose, not having the feedback, not having levels to move up. And it's a very big project. It's probably the most difficult thing we do in the entire coaching program because it's the cornerstone that you build everything off of. You build systemization this way and everything else that strategic vision and everyone who works for you, Eddie is fulfilling the strategic vision. And when they're not, it's not because they're incompetent of this. You just say, you're not fulfilling the strategic vision. I got to let you go. If everyone's not moving in the same direction, which is very seldom in most companies, then it's not going to happen. You're not going to deliver that end product. The outcome is more than I put A into B and delivered B. That's not the outcome. The outcome is the feeling people have. Why do they refer you? Why do they love you? Why are they a raving fan about you? What do you do? What was the experience from the first call until product delivery, service delivery. That's what you detail out. So now you know what it is, and no one has any question on what their job is. Obviously there's more to it inside that, but in general, that's what it is. So being vision driven Eddie is what it's about because we're all visionaries and we're founders and whatnot, and that's all cool, but what does it really mean? I don't want to sit around sipping coffee, talking about what could be, let's nail this down. Let's get it on paper, write exactly what it's going to and let's make it happen. Then in 24 months, we achieve it, we write it again, and we go out the next two years. That's the model. So we're getting better and better. And through this process, that's how I could totally understand from the way you explained it, how they're giving the impact. Then. So this strategic mission, this vision, this is what's going to drive the impact and the profit. How does it give them freedom? So because when you lay this out, now you have a roadmap. So you want to systemize your business. So you'll hear that too. Okay, there's a lot of buzzwords, but systemizing means that basically your business can run without you. You've built systems, you have departments. You automate, delegate and eliminate, automate whatever you can automate, delegate all the rest, eliminate the stuff you don't need. Redundancies, inefficiencies, things like that. We eliminate those. So what that does is now everybody is on a mission. They're on that vision. I don't have to go and micromanage. I don't have to be the one to do it. All of a sudden I just shave 30 hours a week off, 40 hours a week off. Now I'm putting in six to 10 hours a week at my business. I'm doing what I call working on the 5%, the 5% of the stuff only I can do as the owner. That's where you want to be, and that's growth and strategy, bringing in clients, stuff like that. That's what only you can do as the owner. That's where you want get to, and that's where the freedom comes. And that vision too, Eddie, when you look at that, I have 'em build in. What are you giving to? Do you have a charity you love? You have this, you want to do a mentorship program? What do you want to do? And you write that into your vision. So everyone in the company understands, Hey, a percentage of our profits goes to this or this. You build that stuff out so they know. So again, it's all part of everyone being, it's very transparent. Know the buzzword, get all the buzzwords, but it's what it is. Buzzwords. For a reason. That's right. That's right. But how do they work? That's the key. How do we actually put this into play and make it work? They sound cool, but how do I actually make it happen? That's what we do. Yeah. You can't just say it. Right? Yeah, absolutely. And throughout my business careers and my businesses, I have always looked at ways to basically use my time at the highest level and all those other things, like anything that I don't like doing that I'm not interested in, I always find somebody else to do it, right? Why should I do that? And always looking at how I could actually work less and get more impact from working less because I'm the kind of person that ends up just working, working, working, working, working. And I'll just keep working. So I'm always looking at that. How do you help people to work less and increase their profits? What's your formula for that? So again, it comes back to your cornerstone. We're building on this. So as we systemize, as we draw, because the beautiful thing about when you have a strategic vision is you're going to draw incredible talent to your business. People are going to want to work for you because again, they want purpose. They know what's expected of you, built out their job functions. They have boundaries. They're not crossing, they're not stepping their toes, they're not figuring things out. Too many people hire good people and expect them to figure it out. Fix what's broken. They're not there to fix what's broken. They're there to use their skills to, if they're in sales, they're there to sell, they're to close. Give them all the tools, all the opportunity, exactly how to do it. Let 'em go close. That's how you do it. That's how you make more profit. Let the people do what they do. Don't have them doing side projects and helping you fix your business and all that. That's not what they're hired for. Okay, that's on you. You got to get a coach. You got to bring in other experts, bring in different system builders, and you got to get that stuff taken care of so your people can perform unhindered. And that's how the prophet's created because now they can just generate and generate and generate and they love it. They're called to do that. So let 'em do that. So we look for three things. Usually, Eddie, it's, we call it calling character and competency. So when we're bringing someone on the least of those is competency, actually. So we want people who feel like they're really called to do this. There's people who just, they're called to be salespeople. They're just great at it, right? Well, I want that person, but do they have the character, character is next the biggest? Do they have the integrity? Do they have the foresight? Do they understand how things work? Can they operate in the group? Do they have the character for that? They withstand this competency. Yeah, we want 'em competent, but we can also teach that. I can get people trained up. That's the least of my worries. But you get the first two and the third one's going to fall into place. Now you got to build a powerful team, and that's how you create your profits and also how you step away, the focus on what matters to keep that ship moving, keep steering the ship while everybody else is working on the ship and making things happen. So that's kind of how it works. Yeah. Do you find that some of the people that you consult with, they have some blind spots. Do they have areas that maybe they like to control things? How could I just walk away and let people work? I have to be involved and they have to all report back to me. I need to know what's going on every minute, things like that. Oh yeah. So I have a term for it. I call it what you need is outside eyes. Okay? I'm the outside eyes. I can come and I can look at your company with no bias. I can just look at it and be very, very objective about what's going on. And I will call out that owner. If he's that way, I'm like, okay, I'm not saying stop it today, but our goal over time, you're going to get your hand slapped again and again and again, and it's different stuff you do, but I'm going to show you how you're not going to have to worry about that. I'm going to show you, I'm going to de train you from the micromanagement because all you do is all you do is instill bitterness you because you don't trust them. You have no confidence in them. I tell 'em, I go, this could be hard, but I'm telling you it's abusive. And I was that way in the beginning. Right? Well, I think we probably all were in the beginning, but if you're wise and have a little bit of self-awareness, you're going to figure out that doesn't work real well. I definitely, I'm not the person I was 30 years ago, 35 years ago, right? Thankfully, thank God. Yeah, exactly. So I'm totally with you. But those guys, it's just a process. And if they're willing to bring someone on to help them, now they just have to do the work. But the guidance, I do a lot of my clients, and it's actually a fun part of my business is, I mean, they'll call me for a consult. We use Voxer as a walkie-talkie app, and they're about to go into a job or something or be with a client. They say, well, what should I do this? I'll give'em a quick, do this, do this. Okay, just try that. Don't forget, don't do that. And then they go and they come back out. It was unbelievable. I closed it down. I'm like, that's what I like to hear. So little thing they have to get rid of someone. Same process, walk through it. So you got to retrain them. But then it's kind of like the bird from the nest. We're done, dude, you got this man, you can trust yourself now, man, you got this. You've done it again and again and again. I'll show 'em the time I go, you're good to go, man. That's great. As I listen to you, it's like basically you could take somebody who has been living as a solopreneur and as an independent one person business into a real business with systems and strategies so that they could breathe. And the whole reason why they got involved in business to begin with was so they would have freedom. Now they can have that by actually working with you. That's really great. So what kind of results do you get with these people? What kind of impact? Well, it goes from we will talk money first, which is something I seldom talk about because people are like, well, you don't talk about money and well, because if you build your strategic vision and you're driven by vision and you start to systemize and you delegate and you automate, guess what happens? You'll make a lot more money. So it's like a byproduct. I go, I don't have to focus on it. What I have to focus on is getting you free, getting your business squared away. The money, I tell people, Eddie, money's the easiest thing to make in business. It's the easiest thing to do. If you don't think it is, well, you got even bigger problems because making money is the easiest thing you can do. It's everything else that's difficult. So we get all make the money. I did it, millions make it, but then for the other show, didn't do ruin me. So it's not the money. So what happens is the goal really is, let me take some of my construction clients. I got kitchen, remodel, bath, everything else. At one point, he's doing 12 jobs at a time, right? He's doing about 2 million a year in gross revenue, working 12 jobs at a time, going through this. And he's like, it's all of crashing around him. So he brings me on, excuse me. And the first thing I do is say, well, how about we cut down how many you do? Well, how am I going to make money? I go, you're going to raise your prices. I said, you got to bring more value. He does phenomenal work. So it wasn't like I'm dealing with someone does schlock and now I got to teach'em how to do good work. Okay, that's beyond my pay grade. Alright? So I'm like, you do phenomenal work. You're not charging enough. You're not working with the right clients. Let's really define who you want to work for. Who is the best people you ever worked for? Tell me about them. And he does. And I go, that's your perfect client. So a year later he went from an average of 40, I think it was $41,000 per job in a kitchen. Now he doesn't do anything under a hundred in a year. Now the average is a hundred thousand. He's doing three to four jobs at a time instead of 12 and making more money, keeping more money. He's got lower payroll. He got rid of all the guys to do 12 jobs at a time. That's a lot of people working, got streamlined, all that. Now he's at 3 million for the year and he's working a third of the amount and he's got everybody doing everything. He's got a project manager on now handles it. He's got a client advocate who lead does all the communication with the clients. I'm like, you put this on, you elevate your service to your client level and when you do that, they will pay. And it's all about the experience. I said, it's from the first call all the way to the end. We wrote it out and here. So that's how they do it. That's one of the big benefits. And now he's got time with his five kids, his wife, he's taking vacations. I have another one. Same thing, custom war. He hadn't taken a vacation in eight years with his family. Took two this year already because he's automated, he's expanding. He's done something. He's got out of the 2000 square foot shop of the house, got a full expanded like four times the size he is producing, he's automating. And he's like, okay, he's almost there. Systemization workflows, automated guys are doing sub bringing in the right people and it's that freedom he wants. He doesn't want someone popping in his office every five minutes and asking him a question. So it's that kind of stuff. That's the freedom that they get because their business can operate. We train the people to do it. We bring on the right leaders who can run the shop. We have the accountability and they get it done. And we have to separate the owner from the business. I know everyone wants to be there. Everyone's buddy, but everyone can't have access to you. That's why nothing gets done. That's why you're working 15 hours a day. So those are some of the fruit. That's some of the fruit that we get by doing this. I think when we originally started talking just now, I'm thinking about how sometimes business owners, they see marketing and advertising and somehow that marketing advertising starts to inform them what they think they're supposed to be doing because they see all this marketing advertising. What you need is you need to set up a funnel and a system and whatever and be online. And then this is going to solve all your problems. And by the way, I just want to say that I'm suffering from carpal funnel right now. So when people say the word funnel to me, I'm like, Hey, I'm out. Okay, I'm out. But it's difficult and it's interesting. I was working with somebody the other day, and it's just interesting how entrepreneurs tend to think and commission only salespeople tend to think sometimes, but it's like he's complaining about the poor quality of the people that he's talking to and not being able to get momentum in any of these deals because of these people that can't move forward for whatever reason. And I asked, well, why are you talking to people who are that way? Why don't you find the people who are the right people who actually are ready to move forward and do something instead of wasting time trying to convince people to do something that even if you gave them the money, they wouldn't do it for God's sakes. You got to have the right person. So it's just interesting sometimes that you need somebody outside to say, Hey, wait a minute. Why are you doing that? Especially if you're not getting results. Yeah, it's the definition of sali. Keep doing the same thing, expect a different results. It doesn't work. So the outside eyes, that's what it's about. Let someone come in and just go. I did it with another company and they were doing well on their sales. He was at about a 48 to 52% close rate. I said, well, if you're already there, I can do better than that. So I started looking at their process, started changing their process, did a couple of key things that they were pretty resistant on doing. I said to me, let's give it a shot. Let's split test it. Those are the things, always the things that you fight for that you try to keep. Those are the things you really got to take a look at. Right? Brought 'em to an 82% consistent close rate month after month. Wow, okay. Who doesn't want that? That's great. You thought you're good because you're closing over half. You're at 52%. I took you to 82% just because I said do it. Just try this way. This will make a difference. I did it with one of my construction guys. I'm like, he's emailing estimates two, 300,000, just emailing them the estimate. I go, what are you doing now for a year? I've been telling 'em, don't do that. Yesterday. He goes, I think this might be wrong. I go, dude, if I was in South Carolina, I'd be slapping you right now. I said, I've been telling you this for a year. I go, you must present the estimate. You do not mail it. They just go to the bottom number. They don't attach any value to the number. Yeah, exactly right. You got to go and repaint the picture. The kitchen's going to look like this. This would be amazing. Can you imagine the onyx tops here, what this will look like? Walk through and it'll be this. Now let me show you how that works out in the estimate. It's like this from doing funnel stacking, right? They only remember the last thing you tell 'em. So if you're there a week ago, two weeks ago, and the last thing they heard was they're going to have two inch higher toilet, that's all they're going to remember. And you give 'em a bid for 300 grand. All they remember is, I'm buying a 300,000 toilet, but you got to go and paint the whole pillar. We got to move this here. And then they go, oh yeah, it attaches the value. I go, you'll close so many deals. And he goes, I got a million and a half out right now. I just finished writing an estimate. Go. And you didn't set an appointment because I'm about to set the appointment at the estimate. Talk to him. Go, okay, I'll come back with the estimate on this day. Is that okay? 10 o'clock on Thursday this day? Yeah, yeah, it'd be great. You'll both be here. Perfect. Alright, I'll see you then done. Now he's got to chase him trying to get him to say yes, no, I don't like this. Don't like that. Right? So again, outside eyes, simple things, Eddie. But you got to understand your clients. And the strategies. Just like your guy. He's chasing the wrong people. He doesn't get it. You got to understand that. Yeah. So I think also I want talk about exit strategies because in my past experience, my exit strategies were usually figuring out a ways to create residual income and then just letting that run or selling the book of business once it's up and running. Let's talk about exit strategies and why exit strategies are important. It is really important. Okay, now I'm going to give you another counterintuitive action. People say, well, when should I put together my exit strategy? I go, well, the best time would be before you start your business. That'd be the best time to put it together. The second best time is the day after you start your business. And then the third best time is right now. Okay, whatever. And here's why. You were smart to know residual. How do we create passive income to replace my active business income? The goal, right? So exit strategy is starting with the end in mind. So I tell people, okay, well how long do you want to do this? Five years, 10 years, 20 years? How much do you want to exit? What are you going to need? You want someone to write a check for your business? How much? Throw out your number. I don't care what it is. It could be 5 million, it could be 10, it could be 500 million, whatever. I don't know what you're building. Whatever you're building, what's the number you're going to take? Okay, they figure out their number. Great. Okay, now we have to reverse engineer this. Now what's it going to take to get to that? Can you do that in 10 years? What's that going to look like? How much passive income do you need to replace your active business income? Are you making seven figures a year? So you need seven figures. You need a million dollars a year to replace your passive income or your active business income, your salary. Okay, so you're going to need, what, 80,000 a month in passive income and you're close to a million. How are you going to make $80,000 a month real estate business investment? What are your investment vehicles? You got to start putting that into it, right? It's called Parkinson's Law. Anything, anytime money doesn't have a place to go, it evaporates. If I give you a hundred bucks by tomorrow, you won't even know you had it because I gave it to you and you just went out and bought lunch for the kids and did this, this and a hundred bucks, whatever. So we need to have a plan for it. So if you're building assets, like you're saying, getting residual income, what is that? Is that a house a month? Two houses a month? I'm doing commercial real estate X amount. So you create the exit strategy. Now, the best thing about it, Eddie, is the exit strategy becomes your best business filter. All the little opportunities are going to float all around you, right? People are going to see you doing well. Oh, you got to get into this. Well, I got into this, and then you're going to get pulled these directions to invest or make more money. But what you're going to do is go, okay, yeah, lemme take a look at that. Okay, is that going to get me closer to my exit strategy or is it going to pull me away if it's not getting me closer? It's a big no. So everybody can't do it, can't be distracted on that. So it becomes an incredible tool for the business. Keeps you focused on your main thing to build it because you got to generate this passive income. And the best thing about n exit strategy, well, there's a lot of good things, but one of the best is you're actually building a business to sell, which means you're systemizing. It runs itself because the goal is Eddie, you want someone to come say, Hey, I'd like to buy your business. Okay, great. Negotiate and you get the number that you wanted. Right? Here's your $5 million, but here's how I want it to work. Here's 5 million. I shake his hand, thank you very much. I'm out the door therein, nobody knows the business sold because it's so well run. Okay? Now they can tweak and do whatever they want. I'm out. But that's what you want. And then if times get bad, as we've seen like oh 8, 0 9 economy dips, and you're either forced to sell or the market, you're still getting the highest value for the market because you've built it properly. So it's not a complete, you're not getting 10 cents on the dollar. You get 75 instead of a hundred. So there's so many benefits to it, but it really keeps you focused. And then whether you want to do succession or whatever, it's going to be, oh my want kids to do it? That seldom works out anyway. So it'd be nice if they do, but don't plan on your kids taking over the business. There's a takeaway tip for you. It'd be nice, but don't make 'em do it for one. But if they want to do it great and they want to do it, that's a whole nother conversation we can have. But the exit strategy is key to having a well run business. Kids, they have a mind of their own and they should, okay? I mean, you're not raising robots. You want 'em to do what's going to make them happy, and there's going to be some humps and bumps along that road for sure, but they'll figure it out. You can be there to support and help 'em and encourage 'em, but just they don't want to do the business. There's plenty of people who want to do my business. So how did I end up in that situation? How did I end up in that situation where I felt that the business was robbing me of my free time and consuming me, and it was just like I was on a hamster wheel? How did I end up in that situation to begin with? Well, I think what happens is, like you said, you could do it well, you're learning your trade, you're learning the craft, I'm better than him. He's running the company, which is sidebar. You want people who are better than you working in your company. That's secrets. That's a secret. But now here you are. Now you're going to go out and do it, but you've never done it. He's already done it, right? So he's got scars. He learned and he went this way. Now you get in it. So all you know is I got to make this work now. It's all up to me. Yeah, I got in it because like I said, I thought I can do it. If he could do it, I can do it. I don't need him. But at the same time, I also was then found out the reality that you have to learn how to run a business. I knew how to do something, but I didn't know how to run a business. So that was really where the struggle started in the beginning, that I have to figure out how to actually run a business, how to set things up, how to hire the right people, how to systematize things. And the problem, Eddie, is a lot of people think they're going to be the ones that do it. You're going to learn accounting and do the accounting. You're going to learn marketing. You're going to do the marketing. You're going to learn sales. You're going to do the sales. Well, that's the hamster wheel. Remember old Henry Ford, they tried to say he doesn't know what he's doing. And he goes, well, how do you do tires? He goes, well, hold on. And he hits a button on the phone. He goes, here's my tire guy. Okay, how do you do this of, hold on, let me just here, here's my light guy. He doesn't know. I think he even said one time, one of his quote was, I might not know how to do it, but I have the phone number as somebody who does. Exactly. Exactly. But most guys get into it, and they don't do that because they feel them or there's financial restriction. I can't afford that. And there is a time span when you can't. But again, exit strategy will give you a timeframe when you can do that, because you'll know. Because you understand what you're building for. That's part of your exit strategy. So if you don't do that, you're going to pinball. You're going to keep bouncing back and forth. Then, then you get a CPA. But you just drop a box of receipts off the end of the year and you don't have any strategy. You're not saving out taxes. You're just getting a guy who's doing numbers on a calculator. So it's harming your business because you are going to do it yourself. So there's a lot of letting go. There's a lot of letting go, a lot of delegation that's needed. And progressively, you can't just hire 35 people to do everything, but you have to set priority in this executing one at a time, and that's going to start to create margin in your life to get the things done you want to get, or again, be with family, be with friends, be fit, get to the gym, balance your life out. That's what it's really about. Yeah. Do you work with, is there some kind of minimum criteria of the people that you work with? Yeah, so we call it the ICP, right? Ideal client profile. Mine is in business five to 15 years. They have five to 50 employees. They're doing about a million a year of gross revenue and up. So really my sweet spot is probably one to 10 million revenue. I do between one and 30 with most companies, manufacturing companies, construction trades, all that kind of stuff. But I don't work as startups, really, Eddie. I have an online startup program I created with a couple buddies of mine, a couple books based off our books, which is awesome. It's a 16 week startup program. If you have an idea and you want to get into business, what I recommend is drop a thousand bucks on my program. Do it. And if you actually do it, it's not easy, but you put all this, I lay it all out, it'll exponential increase your transfer success. If you go through it and decide you don't want to do business best thousand dollars you ever spent lose tens of thousands figuring it out, trying to figure out that you don't want to do it. No, that's great. I think that's a valuable resource. So many people who want to get out of their full-time job and start a business, and they're not prepared for what that is. I wasn't prepared for it, but I'm like a stubborn son of a bitch, and I was not going to lose. I was going to figure it out if I had to work day and night to figure it out and talk to everybody in network. But that's the kind of guy I am. If I want to talk to the president of the United States, I will find somebody who's close to him and get in there as best I can. Maybe I won't get the meeting, but I'm going to get close. And that's it. That's that grit thing we're talking about, right? That's high in the grit score, and that's okay. And there's some people that can do that. But other people just, if you could just put together a plan. Which, but Richard, it would've been much better if I would've took your program. I mean, it would've been much better. Why I didn't think of those things at that time. I don't know. My first business, my first venture, living my dreams do anything I didn't think, let me find somebody who knows how to really do this already and show me how to do it so I could save time and save money and stop running around a chicken with my head cut off. I never really thought of that. Yeah, I'm same way. And my thing was, it was worse. I'm going to throw myself the bus here. My ego was so massive. I was not going to accept help from anyone. I am doing this by myself, and it was twice as hard. It took twice as long I did it. I tell everyone, don't be me. Get someone to know. And back in the day, there was no coaches. Now there's a plethora of help, right? Internet and all that kind of stuff. So way back there. But then I remember I had a really good friend of mine, very successful couple guys. He said, because I was buying stuff for cash or 50,000 for this machine and this, I'm making all this money. He's like, You should think about maybe getting the bean counter. That's what he called it. Just someone that manage all that money you're playing with there, because you're not really, he was a little intimidated by me. I can be a little me, but he just trying to be nice. And I had a multi-billionaire client who would always give me this advice, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, okay. I think so, Gary. I'd tell him. I'm like, what does he know? He's a multi-billionaire. I'm just some goof making water features, but I'm going to not take his advice. He was right. Every time. It's just, I look back and I was just an idiot. That's why I wrote my book. That's why I help people. Now, that time compression thing, that's what it's about. These people have a wealth of knowledge. They've been doing this for 30 years, 40 years. They've climbed the mountains, all of 'em, and you don't want to listen to 'em. You don't want to get just one nugget, just push off a couple crumbs from the table for me. Would you? That's all. Just give me something, but I had it and I just, what do I know now? I don't have the ego. I think. Also, I'm sorry, I want to just interrupt you because I think also something else that happened for me was that, I mean, I did seek counsel of successful people. I would have very successful clients, billionaires, millionaires, people running big companies, and I might seek counsel for them. How can you help inform me so I can make this better so that I can make it work better for me and create the lifestyle I want to live? And probably some of the advice that these people gave me since they weren't experts really wasn't the best advice for me. So I really think it is important today if you're right now struggling with things to find somebody who has already been there, already done that, to give you the secrets to make it happen faster so you could scale quicker and do that. I really agree with that. And it's a matter of spending some money to get that education now or spending the next two or three years to figure it out and get the education that way. Which one's better for you? Right? Right. Yeah. I mean, just you got to move the business forward and pushing an entire organization yourself is heavy. That's whatever the guy's name is rolling the rock up the hill, right? It's that guy. That's all you do. Yes, him. You're going to be that guy. Okay. That's no fun. It kind doesn't have for work. So you want to bring in the smart people. People already been there just to compress that time. All the heartache, all the cost and mistakes, the bad decisions, all that kind of stuff. There's a great, one of my favorite sayings I learned from a mentor of mine years ago, people often judge their business success by revenue, gross revenue. I'm like, yeah, but I've worked with a lot of guys who they're doing 10 million a year. They can't even bring home a hundred thousand. Okay, that's broken. Okay, that's not a good return. And the quote that this mentor gave me, he goes, he goes, gross revenue feeds the ego. Profit feeds the family. So revenue feeds the ego, profit feeds the family. What do you keep it? We're your margin. And that's what we do in Sharpen the Spirit. We focus on RNP real net profit, the real profit, not to pretend profit. The pile that's there when everything is paid. Taxes, your salary, their salary, everything done. How big is the pile? What's left? And now whatcha going to do with that? Now whatcha going to do with that? So that's a key. That's a real key when you get that mindset. Business changes. If you're chasing revenue, gross revenue, it's a bad scorekeeper. Really bad scorekeeper. It's going to lead you down a bad path. Yeah. Well, you've laid out a lot of very good information and I want to talk to you more privately about some things about to do with that. But at this point I wanted to talk about that shift that happened for you. So when you hit that point that everything crashed for you and you had to figure things out and you had all these kids that you had to take care of when you hit that moment that all that happened to you, what was your mindset at that time? What kind of things were going on? What were you thinking about? And it's very vivid, even though it was 15 whatever years now. I'm just glad it's getting further away from that point. But I remember Eddie because I was six little kids and one day. So things are, you see the house crumbling, right? You see it, but you're kind of frozen. It's like slow motion. It's over. But you're not really doing anything. You're just kind of in awe. You're mouth open, you're looking. Everything's coming down around me, but I'm thinking about my little kids. And one thing, and I worked a lot of hours when I came home, whatever time it was, seven o'clock, eight o'clock, nine o'clock, they all run and just attack me. So kids all, and they're all under four. They're four and under six kids running. They give me love 'em. They don't want to see me. And then in the morning I leave like 4 35. My one son, I would be up and he would chase my truck down the driveway crying. I mean, do that a few times and see how you feel. If that doesn't matter to you, you need to go get some help. Okay. So I'm like, I'm like, dang. So I'm laying there one morning and I'm like, you know what? My kids don't care what I drive, what I wear, how many trucks I have, who I know, what kind of house we live in. All they want is me to be around. I'm like, and then I started thinking if I stayed on this path, even if I start over and do. The same thing, yeah. Business is everything. What's that? Teaching my kids business is first, everything else is secondary. I'm going to ruin them. I'm going to ruin my children. They won't have good relationships. They won't be able to raise a family properly. They won't have any faith. They won't know God, the whole thing. I'm like, no, I'm not doing this. So that was the moment. That was an epiphany moment. That's when I walked in. Tomorrow we're done. She goes, what do you mean? I go, no, we're done. I'm close. Went to the yard to my guys who worked me for over a decade, same guy. I'm like, guys, sorry man, we're finished. I can't do this anymore. This has done this. And I sold everything. I have video of me burning my Y uniforms, all my rick rocks off. I'm like, Nope. I never get brand new publishers. I'm throwing away. I'm going, I sold all my welding equipment. I haven't touched the weld. I'm like, everything's gone. I go, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm not being brought back into this. I wouldn't get my CDL license. I'm just like, Nope, I'm just. Come on. Was that a ritual? Was that a ritual that you went through to burn it all down so you could raise yourself from the ashes? Like I said, I'm an all or nothing guy, so I was going to keep one foot in. Now, my wife was not a big fan of that plan because I mean, I'm talking trucks. I owned everything. Everything I had I owned. So there's no payment. But I'm like, no, I don't want to look at it. I don't want to be tempted to go back into it, which maybe not have been the best decision, Eddie, but really it was like, well, I'm going to do it this way. This is how I operate. It worked. It worked. But yeah, it was an epiphany moment. And now my kids are, like I said, my oldest is 19, my youngest is 16, my oldest is in the Marine Corps. They're all working, man, they're awesome kids. We homeschooled 'em the whole way. So we homeschool our kids all the way through, and two more are graduating this weekend. And however hard it was totally worth the struggle. All of it, every last bit of it, because of who they are. They're one of those things that give you that pure joy that can never be taken away. That's what I loved about it. So that was the turning point. So I operate at a different level now. I have a different purpose, a different. Viewpoint. So I like the way you did that. I really liked the way you did it. I identify. I've done things like that in my life. Do you find that you create rituals like that to break off from something old, to go into something new? Do you do that in other areas? Yeah, I do. And the word ritual is very good because I think it was Jim Rohn said, we're defined by our rituals and you love people. Well, what do you do every day? I get up at 4:00 AM every day, seven days a week. Okay. I get up, I make the special mushroom coffee I I listen to music. I go through the day, I'll do some prayer. I'll get going, okay, now I go to the gym at five 30. I get a workout in a real hard workout. I come back, I do it. So I have a ritual the first couple hours because. They're, you own the first part of the day. That's. Right. You own and no one's up at four in the morning. You can do whatever you want. And I've always done it, but it's just, that's part of what it is the rest of the day. And I try to keep it structured, but it can go different directions, but it doesn't matter because I start it properly every day. So yeah, I'm very much like that. Yeah. That's good. I certainly, I do the same thing in my life and I don't know any other way to do it. The day belongs to me the first few hours, and I take care of myself, do what I have to do, get myself in the right mindset and take care of my health and everything so that I could move forward the rest of the day. Yeah, I think it's great. In your morning rituals, I know you mentioned several things just now, do you do anything else besides meditating or reading the Bible study, the exercise and that? Do you do any other things like I do a hot cold shower and the cold is five minutes cold to start the day. Why don't you get yourself a chiller and dip into that? I thought about that next. I thought about that. I don't know. I need a little bit more commitment to do that. If you do five minutes of the cold. Shower to turn everything to cold shower, which is probably about, I don't know, 45, that's 50 degrees. I mean, it's just cold water. And that's good too. If you five minutes. Of that, it's not frozen. It's not frozen. I'm not jumping into ice cubes. Right. But that's a good thing. What I do is I come back from the gym and then shower, and then it's nutrition. Just like I see you're drinking a green juice, right? Is that what you're drinking there? Yeah. Okay. I do that. I do a juice. I do a fast. I don't eat until three or four o'clock in the afternoon. And during the day, I drink these homemade juices that I make from vegetables and fruit. I make juice all the time. We could exchange recipes and do this all the time. Yeah, sure. But what I do is in the morning,

so I'm fasting from 4: 1:02:21

00 PM till 8:00 AM so I didn't have anything

during that time. So 8: 1:02:26

00 AM I do vegetables and egg, and I do different combinations of, it's real good. I'll do juice like that. All that's in the morning. That's another thing I add to it. That component of being nourished properly is all. That's why I do my workout early, so I'll right combo of carbs, protein, the whole thing, and take that in. So I feel amazing. And then get to work. I'll do either podcast appearances, I'm coaching people, so then the rest of the day is going with that. I'm in and out. And then end of the day is kind of a wrap up. Same thing. So I'm done eating at four, so I don't have any more food things to do, and I just kind of wind down the day. I'm in bed at nine o'clock every night, first one in the house to go to sleep, say goodnight to everybody. I'm out. Me and my oldest used to race. We used to both of us hitting nine the clock, because I was training him before he went in the core. So we were doing three a days for seven months straight to get him ready to go. And he's kind of a stud. That's good. But yeah, so those are some of the rituals. Yeah. Yeah. And what would you say to individuals who are listening to this podcast who they've had failures? Right. So for me, for whatever reason, my mindset when I was young was, failures are just part of what you got to do. I didn't look as a failure. I was a failure. I looked like, okay, so I just figured out that didn't work the way I did it and I need to do something else. But some people try things and they fail and they feel like it's something wrong with them and they beat themselves up. What kind of things would you say to help somebody who's had some failures, they're afraid of doing certain things right now, what would you say to encourage them? I think a couple things. First is I, obviously I don't know your beginnings, but if you're young and you fail and you figure out like you did, well, that's just a thing. Either someone taught you that or what someone didn't do was beat you down for the failure. The problem why a lot of these people get stuck is because they had a parent, a brother, a friend, a coach or whatever, that beat them down because they failed and they drove that home major negative reinforcement, which can be good. But when you're older, that works. Or if you're a marine like me, I thrive on negative reinforcement, but most people don't. So I think what happens is, first you got to realize that like, whoa, why do I react that way? But you also have to learn and educate yourself by looking at other people's failures and overcoming, whether it's reading their books, reading great stories. I encourage my kids to read about the endurance, right? Ernest, Shackleton being stuck in the South Pole, two years on the ice, touching the void. All these different stories of guys who have overcome tremendous setbacks. I mean crawling for 50 miles or whatever it is, stuck on the ice. Bring 28 guys back alive because whatever you are going through is nothing like that. And if they can do that, you can handle the simple failure here. The setback and failure is only a setback. It's a temporary setback. That's failure is an opportunity. Okay? Problems are opportunities for opportunities to overcome things. So like you're saying, and that's what I say now too. Failures are what made me who I am. Anybody can win. Can you come back and play the next day after you lose, I was a boxer, right? So I box, I would get beat pillar to post on some days, got to come back the next day and walk up those four steps, get back in that ring. And s sparr again. Those are the longest four steps in my life every day. And some days I got to do the beating. Other days I took the beating, but I kept going in, going in, going in. Now I got really good. So that's what they need to just embrace that you're not looking to fail to learn, but failure's going to happen. And if it doesn't, they'll say you're not trying hard enough. If you're trying hard, if you're trying to achieve and you're pushing forward, failure's going to happen. They might be little failures, they might be massive failures, but regardless, they're going to happen. You have to anticipate those, and you have to anticipate your response to the failure. Part of what you're saying I get, and it's like, so you have a mental toughness about you. You have the grit. Now I have the grit and mental toughness, but somebody who doesn't have that grit and melt to toughness, they need to develop that. They need to develop that. So what would you suggest for some people to do to do that? Would you suggest they read the book Grit? I would, but I would because I think what that does is it shows these great people in there, how long it took them to become great, and how they never gave up setback after stepback after setback. You need to be inspired by other people's stories because take the four minute mile, Roger Banister, right, broke the first man to ever break four. Mile. I love that story. That same year, seven more people broke the four minute mile when they said it could never be done because one man did it. So when you see that other people got through just unbelievable hardship, unbelievable setbacks and failures, that will encourage you. So if you struggle with failure and not being able to overcome it, you need to read. You need to read these, get those and get them. And you're like, they're just people. We're all just men, women, we, that's it. We can all do way more than we ever thought we could or think we could. So that's where I would begin. Eddie, that's probably one of the easiest steps to take because it's a, you're not going to read one book and be, I'm a failure overcomer. It's going to take time, and you're going to start with the little failures, the daily stuff that happens, and then you're going to get strength in yourself there. Then you're going to get more and more and more. And then as you progress forward, hopefully your failures aren't bigger, but they are going to be because pushing harder, you're doing bigger things. Bigger things mean there's going to be bigger failures, but there's also way bigger success. So the rewards far outweigh the negatives. If you want to have an extraordinary life, you have to live extraordinary. That's right. So listen, I really had a lot of fun with you, Richard. I had a great time. I'm going to put the links in the show notes and information about your book, your program, the thousand dollars program for startups and people. Were just starting out, and probably I'll have you back on someday. We need to talk more. I could keep talking right now. I could tell that we could talk for at least another hour. So. That's good. That's good. I appreciate you, my friend. Thanks for having me on, Eddie. I really appreciate the time. For more information and monthly topics of interest, please go to Transform Your future.com and join our newsletter.