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Bricks to Breakthroughs: Struggle Drives Innovation · Forge Fire Protocol Podcast

• 0:02
  Imagine breaking free from the grind and building a business that lights you up, ignites with purpose, and delivers the ultimate reward.
• 0:12
  Forge Fire Protocol gives ambitious entrepreneurs the proven five-step system to choose the right business, launch it successfully, scale it strategically, and exit on your terms.
• 0:26
  Turning vision into lasting wealth, forged in fire, built for legacy.
• 0:35
  All right, everyone, welcome back to the Forge Fire Protocol Podcast.
• 0:38
  We have a great episode here planned for you today.
• 0:41
  And this particular one is gonna be fun from our perspective, because we're sort of looking back and we're gonna have some different lessons from our time in business, but also we're gonna,
• 0:55
  be showing you how the solutions from the forge really help to overcome stuff that we've experienced in the past, and many of you have experienced.
• 1:05
  We're really looking for idea people, by the way.
• 1:07
  And I wanna put those words out.
• 1:08
  We're looking for idea people.
• 1:10
  People that have an idea, that think it could be great
• 1:15
  It could help a ton of people and it could be very profitable.
• 1:18
  If you're one of those people, you get that idea.
• 1:20
  And I think just about everybody listening here, you've got ideas.
• 1:23
  You've got thoughts.
• 1:24
  You've got things in your mind like if I could only do this, all right, I could help a ton of people, then you're the type of person we're looking for in the forge.
• 1:35
  And a lot of times people that are in that situation, we'll talk about that, really never had.
• 1:44
  the roadmap, they didn't know how to launch that idea.
• 1:48
  They didn't know how to build that idea.
• 1:50
  So, and that's what the forge is all about.
• 1:52
  We're going to walk you through that.
• 1:53
  So I know we talked about like the seven characteristics of the $10 million exit.
• 2:00
  We talked about things that we're looking for in businesses, right?
• 2:05
  And, and we talked about, um, starting right, Stephen, and you know, how we go about it.
• 2:10
  So, so let's, let's get into this.
• 2:12
  Let's, let's first, Mike, you, you were, you were telling us a little bit of a story earlier about, yeah, go, go right into that.
• 2:21
  So when the whole 2008, 2009, uh,
• 2:28
  depression, not depression, but the whole financial crisis happened.
• 2:32
  The Great Recession.
• 2:33
  The Great Recession.
• 2:34
  There you go.
• 2:36
  I was working for a company and it basically hit the top of my ladder where the CIO was married to the CFO.
• 2:41
  There was zero growth.
• 2:43
  I had hit the pinnacle of my growth within that company.
• 2:46
  And the company started going into a maintenance mode.
• 2:50
  And as I started going into a maintenance mode, I went to my CIO and I said, I'm a growth guy.
• 2:54
  I'm here to help grow.
• 2:55
  We've tripled this company in size due to a lot of reasons, not just because of me, but due to mostly other people.
• 3:00
  And then what we built in with technology supported that.
• 3:03
  And then some of the top leaders in that company, a bunch of us got laid off, surprisingly.
• 3:09
  Not really surprisingly, but surprisingly, considering the results that we had produced.
• 3:16
  But that was part of the recession.
• 3:17
  So I was like, I need something that I need to do in the meantime.
• 3:21
  I don't know how fast to be back in the workforce.
• 3:23
  I don't know how fast I'll be till I find the right job.
• 3:25
  So I created a consulting company.
• 3:27
  Doing what I was already doing, but offering it to small businesses and trying to take some of that mid to larger size enterprise knowledge, bring it to small business in an affordable and structural way that helps enhance them.
• 3:39
  Great.
• 3:39
  Great idea.
• 3:40
  Worked well.
• 3:43
  What's the first thing people do?
• 3:44
  They go straight to your website.
• 3:46
  So after someone was going to the website, they would not see anything because it didn't exist.
• 3:51
  I own the domain name.
• 3:52
  I bought it day one.
• 3:54
  I couldn't get exactly the name I wanted.
• 3:56
  I wanted to get SullivanSolutions.com.
• 3:58
  That didn't exist.
• 3:59
  So I bought Sullivan-Solutions.com because that was the closest thing I could get.
• 4:04
  No website.
• 4:05
  Went on different sites that were building them for you.
• 4:08
  Tinkered, played around, wasted hours, if not days on all these sites trying to curate something that just looked decent, something that I was proud of to put out there.
• 4:16
  Didn't do it.
• 4:17
  So I kept on delaying and went back to just doing and doing and doing to make money.
• 4:21
  Didn't have the website.
• 4:23
  It's probably wasted, I don't know, two, three weeks and two and a half years later.
• 4:28
  Still nothing published.
• 4:30
  So let me ask you a question.
• 4:33
  And I don't want to interrupt your story.
• 4:35
  That's it.
• 4:35
  That's it.
• 4:36
  Oh, so what I want to know is you tinkered with some different systems that were out there.
• 4:43
  None of them met your standards.
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  What came out of it?
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  Well, there were people out there who were doing it on those systems where it looked the way I wanted it to look.
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  I just had no experience in it.
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  And I didn't have the bandwidth to go in and completely learn a brand new system.
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  And when I did, a lot of it didn't align with my technical background.
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  So because of that, I was able to figure stuff out.
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  But then as I figured out one thing, I realized there was 10 more things.
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  So it was like you got one step on a ladder, but there's a thousand steps.
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  I can get there.
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  But I didn't have the two things I didn't know how to do.
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  I didn't know how to compartmentalize at the time.
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  So I could just establish like one skill and take one step at a time and just go.
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  Because the only way was through.
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  unless I hired and outsourced, and I didn't have the bandwidth to hire someone, the finances to do that.
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  I wasn't, and that, by the way, back then, that was at least 10,000, 20,000 plus to do what I wanted to do at a bare minimum for something decent, unless I wanted to offer ownership stake in my company for someone that was going to do something once and probably forget about it.
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  With that being said, I instead procrastinated myself.
• 5:52
  got a little bit better over time, and then would find a new tool and try to do that and find a new tool.
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  And then I found HubSpot and loved HubSpot, but that was $300 a month.
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  And at the time, I didn't have $300 a month to be putting just into like a website solution.
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  So I did that for six months and then the expenses climbed and they were pretty much matching what I was bringing in.
• 6:14
  I was bringing in more than that, but when you take out other expenses that I had in addition to that, I was right up against the wall 24-7.
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  So what I created rather than creating this great system that showed what I did, my product was great.
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  My idea was great.
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  My pricing was great.
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  All that, boom, checkup.
• 6:32
  But what I did is created a third job on top of the other jobs that I had on top of being a father, a newer father at the time.
• 6:40
  My kids at the time were single digits, like four and five, I mean, three and five and newborn.
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  So my son wasn't even born yet.
• 6:49
  Yeah.
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  But it was just going, going, going, going and burning the candle on both ends up consistently to two, three in the morning, just trying to make things work and try to keep, try to juggle everything.
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  And it was a nightmare.
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  Like it was, it was great from a learning process of what not to do.
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  But I spent so much time and energy trying to build something that I just didn't have the expertise in.
• 7:10
  And it really cost a lot of time and it could have cost a lot of money.
• 7:13
  I try to do it mostly myself, but again, I just didn't have a system or anything that was an affordable system, I should say.
• 7:20
  I think a lot of entrepreneurs out there do what you tried to do because there are a lot of entrepreneurs.
• 7:26
  I've done the same thing, right?
• 7:27
  We, we try to start something with virtually no cash, right?
• 7:33
  They call it on a shoestring, right?
• 7:35
  And that's the value of it.
• 7:38
  But we, we do that and we're wearing 15 hats.
• 7:41
  I think there's a CRM out there called like 21 hats or 12 hats or something.
• 7:45
  I forget what it is.
• 7:46
  So sorry guys.
• 7:47
  If you know,
• 7:48
  But whatever your name is.
• 7:50
  But that's what CEOs of a one-person company typically do.
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  And it's very difficult to spin all of those plates and to make anything happen, which is why most businesses fail.
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  The first year, even, most of them go away.
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  And because, one, you didn't make any money.
• 8:13
  Two, you put a whole lot of time in, and it was a whole lot more stressful.
• 8:19
  Right.
• 8:20
  So going going back to that time, if if you knew everything that you knew today, Mike, and I know I didn't prep you for this question.
• 8:28
  Right.
• 8:29
  But if you went back in time and you knew everything you knew today and you had today's technology, what would you do different?
• 8:37
  I don't want to be self-serving, but the first thing I would have done is got it bought into a system or I could have had a minimal cost that would have taken care of how to find the right CPA.
• 8:49
  So I had all finances checked to make sure I was doing everything right from a tax perspective.
• 8:53
  I would have hired a tax specialist or would have found out how to get a tax specialist.
• 8:57
  I would have made sure that the things that I wasn't good at, I didn't do.
• 9:00
  Because that was the biggest thing.
• 9:01
  You talk about spinning all those plates, right?
• 9:03
  And again, I'm going to go back.
• 9:04
  If you guys haven't read the book E-Myth and you're an entrepreneur, it needs to be on your list as one of the books.
• 9:10
  Definitely.
• 9:11
  Great book.
• 9:11
  But the reason why I referenced that is in that book, in reality, I think for most of us when we're starting out, we're great at one thing.
• 9:22
  Okay, we might be good at a couple of things, but what truly separates us is we're great at one thing.
• 9:27
  And that's where our time needs to be spent.
• 9:30
  The more balls we try to juggle, the more plates we try to spin, we're taking away from what we're great at.
• 9:36
  And we're pretending or trying to learn to be good at something that we're just typically not that great at.
• 9:41
  So I would have all those critical business processes that I'm not great at, I would have focused on what I was great at and handed off the rest.
• 9:47
  Now, the problem is I didn't have any idea because I didn't have a system.
• 9:52
  I didn't have a community.
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  I was creating it on the fly.
• 9:57
  And I would talk to people who had done things in a similar thing, but everyone did it differently.
• 10:03
  And what works for this business doesn't work for the other business.
• 10:05
  There's some similarities, but you had a lot of old school thinking of just like, and I'm hearing people talk about even certain things in terms of outreach.
• 10:13
  I'm like, that doesn't make sense.
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  That's the old way of doing things.
• 10:17
  And so I'm hearing it, but I'm not knowing how to implement all these new things.
• 10:21
  So that's why I started trying to get education here and education there so I could come up with my bottom line is I sure just bought into a system.
• 10:27
  Nothing existed like we built.
• 10:29
  And this is how this is why we built this.
• 10:33
  Is we've been there and we've wasted so many hours.
• 10:36
  And I'm going to if I'm going to I would say that just in terms of time and the lack of momentum and the lack of exponential growth, because it was very linear.
• 10:46
  And it was like decimal linear, not even whole numbers.
• 10:50
  So what a way to say it.
• 10:56
  What I mean by that though, is I probably, I can't even count the millions that I lost by, by, by not being efficient.
• 11:08
  And that's a huge key right there.
• 11:10
  That last statement, that's what I was looking for because, um,
• 11:14
  And I want to go to your experience at a bank in just a minute, Stephen.
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  Go ahead.
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  With Mike, because I've been there.
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  And by the way, that was 2009.
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  Guess what, folks?
• 11:27
  Same thing is happening today.
• 11:28
  If you're an entrepreneur with an idea and you've attempted something or started, the vast majority of you have gone through the same experience that Mike is going through.
• 11:40
  Right?
• 11:40
  I've done the same.
• 11:41
  Right.
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  I've done it multiple ways, but I've done the same.
• 11:45
  And it's just because either we don't have the resources at the time and we're trying to launch something anyways, because we've got the guts to do it.
• 11:52
  That's that's the one thing I got to I got to come in, commend every single entrepreneur out there that has the guts to step forward, take that step and actually do something to make something happen, to change their lives, their families lives and to serve others.
• 12:07
  Because I don't care what anybody says.
• 12:09
  Right.
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  Right.
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  entrepreneurship is, it's, it's, it's sacrifice for others.
• 12:14
  It always is, you know, in the end we can potentially win, but we, we sacrifice a lot.
• 12:20
  All right.
• 12:21
  So, but I commend you for what you started, Mike, and what you did.
• 12:26
  And that business is still around today and it's running a lot more efficient today than it did a long time, a long time ago.
• 12:34
  But I can tell you just to, I just want to briefly touch on one thing you just said is I've had people look me in the eye and say, you're just not good at this.
• 12:44
  You're great at what you do, but you shouldn't run a business because you can't do that.
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  Like you're not good at that.
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  Or say it's going to fail.
• 12:51
  You're going to fail.
• 12:52
  I've had those words said right to my face because I was trying to wear hats that I didn't have the skill set to wear.
• 13:01
  And because of that, I made mistakes.
• 13:04
  But I've never viewed mistakes as failure.
• 13:06
  Mistakes are lessons.
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  Some of them harder than others.
• 13:09
  It all depends on how you interpret a mistake.
• 13:13
  Find me one entrepreneur.
• 13:15
  Actually, every successful entrepreneur that I've ever asked this question to or read about or listened always regrets not making more mistakes.
• 13:25
  That's the regret.
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  It's not doing something.
• 13:27
  It's they regret not making more mistakes.
• 13:30
  That's a big fear of people.
• 13:31
  Exactly.
• 13:33
  They don't want to go in that direction.
• 13:34
  And, you know, a lot of times, one of the talks that I give on stage, I won't get into that other than to say,
• 13:41
  that I'm describing a process.
• 13:44
  And in that process of describing, most people think that success is over here and failure's over here, and you're just trying to figure out which way am I supposed to go so I can get to success.
• 13:53
  That's not how it is.
• 13:54
  What really happens is you start over here, failure is here, and success is on the other side of failure.
• 14:01
  You have to go through it.
• 14:03
  If you don't make those mistakes, you're not going to get to success.
• 14:06
  You have to learn.
• 14:07
  You have to overcome.
• 14:08
  You have to get through.
• 14:09
  You have to find the solutions that will make you successful.
• 14:13
  I always looked at that, Don, as success being up here.
• 14:16
  Yeah.
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  And I'm down here, and that's where I want to go.
• 14:20
  Yeah.
• 14:21
  Yeah.
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  but failure are the bricks that I'm using to build the steps.
• 14:25
  And each brick I get is just another brick that I lie in.
• 14:27
  So I'm ascending higher and higher and higher.
• 14:29
  Now, now I'm not moving up every step because sometimes I got to lay across to get something I can step on.
• 14:35
  Right.
• 14:35
  Okay.
• 14:35
  But the, those lessons are the bricks, but now imagine, imagine if back then we had a tool that I could go into and a lot, this community was there that could guide me through this.
• 14:48
  The tools were there where I would say, by the way,
• 14:52
  Here's the steps on where to find the bricks.
• 14:54
  And that's how you build a 50 step stairwell.
• 14:59
  Yeah.
• 14:59
  Go here.
• 15:01
  I'd be like, oh.
• 15:04
  I love the way you said that.
• 15:05
  I always show that linear.
• 15:07
  When I'm going up in a direction, right?
• 15:09
  Which is always for me, it's always up and to the right.
• 15:12
  I'm talking about vision in that case, because I know that if my vision is big enough for what I'm going after, whatever is in front of me looks like a molehill.
• 15:20
  I can see over because I'm looking through to my vision.
• 15:24
  But either way, however you describe it, it's the same darn thing.
• 15:27
  It's like you have to go through, you have to build past, and you have to learn.
• 15:34
  I want to talk about that and talk about, you know, a vision.
• 15:38
  It was 1986 in the fall in the state of Connecticut, the banking laws had changed.
• 15:45
  And there was a pent up demand for smaller community banks and towns.
• 15:50
  And it stayed going through a lot of growth and the legislation got changed and allowed this to happen.
• 15:56
  And I knew and I was aware of it.
• 16:00
  because I had an internship with a bank, Hartford National Bank, when I was in college at the University of Connecticut.
• 16:05
  And they actually did a paper for credit on how to start a bank, realizing the application was only two pages, plus a, you know, a analysis report that was about 50, 60 pages.
• 16:20
  And it was not, didn't seem like a lot of barrier to entry to me.
• 16:24
  So when this opportunity came up, I went to four of my friends in town,
• 16:27
  Graham, 27 years old now.
• 16:30
  They were each a couple of years older than me.
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  All had our own business.
• 16:33
  So we're doing some good success as young people.
• 16:36
  And I told them about it.
• 16:37
  And they were like, okay, let's go.
• 16:39
  So we started the process.
• 16:42
  And then along in that process, there was a group.
• 16:44
  And I'll call them the Rotary guys, you know, my father's friends.
• 16:47
  Back then, Rotary was all men.
• 16:48
  Women were not allowed to participate.
• 16:51
  And we started, we went forward.
• 16:54
  And they did it the same time and they thought they would just knock us out.
• 16:58
  But I knew the banking commissioner would not make a decision in a competing town between two groups.
• 17:03
  They had to come together or no decision because he had done that four times in the last two years.
• 17:08
  So I kept doing the research and the consulting report that we needed.
• 17:15
  At the time, I was doing commercial real estate appraisals, and it was almost like that.
• 17:19
  There was some technical information that needed, and I couldn't find it.
• 17:22
  It was, you know, deposits first, you know, a standard metrical area.
• 17:26
  And I called the banking department, and they had the books there.
• 17:29
  I went down to their library and got the books and got the info, and we went forward.
• 17:34
  Lo and behold, you know, we did merge together and we started and it was successful.
• 17:39
  But there were none of these tools.
• 17:41
  I mean, the Macintosh first computer didn't come out until 1989.
• 17:47
  There wasn't that technology.
• 17:49
  So, and there was nobody else to talk to.
• 17:51
  I'm a young kid.
• 17:52
  Nobody really wants to talk to me.
• 17:54
  And any of the peers I could have in town, older people, I couldn't talk to because they were in the other group.
• 18:01
  But we charged forward.
• 18:02
  We got open.
• 18:04
  And fortunately, we opened in the end of 1988.
• 18:12
  Now, you had the October crash that year in October.
• 18:17
  And we opened up after that.
• 18:19
  And we're very conservative.
• 18:20
  It went slow.
• 18:21
  So we knew enough to take on a lot of the bad loans that other banks had right at that time when people were scrambling.
• 18:27
  Because there was a credit crunch also at that time after that.
• 18:32
  So, you know, there's an example there.
• 18:34
  Didn't have this, didn't have a community to work with, didn't have the tools that were available here to lay out a plan and a schedule to go with it, with that blueprint.
• 18:43
  It keeps you on track and it's fast.
• 18:46
  It moves fast.
• 18:47
  And we've actually used that here.
• 18:49
  We've used it in building the Forgefire protocol.
• 18:52
  And then there's another app that we're about to come out with.
• 18:55
  And Don will explain that to you.
• 18:57
  It's called pressure.
• 18:58
  It's a social media app.
• 19:01
  But with that, we've also adhered to the protocol and it keeps you on demand.
• 19:07
  It keeps you on track.
• 19:09
  Yeah.
• 19:10
  And that's, that really is the key.
• 19:12
  You know, I want to, looking at your experience at the bank, you know, that was back from the eighties.
• 19:16
  I remember that time.
• 19:18
  I was in high school at that time, by the way, you have just a few years over me, not many, but yeah,
• 19:23
  It was a wild time.
• 19:25
  I know people that were in real estate that lost a fortune back at that time.
• 19:30
  And good friends to this day.
• 19:33
  But I mean, they lost a lot.
• 19:37
  And it was a wild time.
• 19:39
  But it sounds like you started at just the right time because you're just right after that.
• 19:43
  So you could see that the worst of it had already hit.
• 19:48
  But you also had regulation that was on your side.
• 19:50
  But the real key, I think, is that
• 19:53
  You didn't go it alone.
• 19:54
  Like Mike and I, when we started, well, actually, when I started my first business, I had actually had a partner, had a business partner.
• 19:59
  But I started things on my own.
• 20:02
  Mike started things on his own.
• 20:04
  And and we tried to do it all.
• 20:07
  You didn't.
• 20:09
  And that was a huge key.
• 20:10
  And you were you were very successful.
• 20:11
  That bank was successful.
• 20:13
  He was very successful.
• 20:15
  The board had made the right decision and the right president to hire.
• 20:20
  And that was a debate within the group because there was a local guy who was vice president of a local bank.
• 20:28
  And half the group wanted him, the other half wanted someone who was significantly more experienced with a broader...
• 20:35
  mindset and they got the right person.
• 20:38
  And that bank acquired within the next two years, five other banks that were deemed insolvent by the Comptroller of Clarency when they came in.
• 20:48
  Debate whether they were or not, but there was an opportunity there and it worked.
• 20:54
  We made offers for those banks and we got an injection of cash plus all their assets.
• 21:00
  Plus within the first year, any ones we didn't like, we could send back.
• 21:04
  I mean, it's a complete, complete win.
• 21:05
  Oh, that's beautiful.
• 21:06
  I mean, completely win.
• 21:08
  That really is awesome.
• 21:12
  But I wouldn't have known that, but this individual did, that president that we had picked, yes.
• 21:19
  See, that's huge.
• 21:21
  So having the right team there, you know, we talk about in the forge, building out your systems,
• 21:30
  So you're not wearing all of these hats.
• 21:31
  You've got systems wearing the hats now.
• 21:33
  You've got AI in a lot of cases wearing those hats.
• 21:36
  So first of all, it's a whole lot more cost effective.
• 21:39
  Two, it's very predictable, right?
• 21:42
  When you think about having an employee or even a business partner, right, can you predict like you guys?
• 21:51
  I mean, we like each other.
• 21:53
  You know, we're friends.
• 21:55
  But can I predict what Mike's going to do later today?
• 21:57
  I mean, I have an idea of some stuff he's going to do today, but I don't.
• 22:00
  I can't predict everything Mike's going to do or Stephen or you me.
• 22:03
  Right.
• 22:05
  But when you're building something and you want to be, if you're going to be bringing people into something, you want to be pretty close to them.
• 22:11
  You want to trust them.
• 22:12
  All right.
• 22:12
  That's, that's, that's obviously that's, that's a pretty obvious one.
• 22:15
  Right.
• 22:16
  But, but building systems, instead of hiring on employees, every time you bring on an employee, what have you got?
• 22:25
  You've got somebody that you can't always predict what they're going to do.
• 22:27
  All right, you want them.
• 22:29
  We want to take care of people.
• 22:30
  We want to create jobs, but it's a liability.
• 22:34
  Every employee you bring on to your company is a liability to you.
• 22:39
  Why?
• 22:39
  Because one, if you ever have to lay them off, you've got unemployment insurance.
• 22:47
  If you have, while they're there, you've got other insurance, you're covering their payroll and other things.
• 22:53
  You have to make sure you have that payroll, right?
• 22:55
  You can't just not pay somebody.
• 22:58
  And you don't know how they'll act.
• 23:00
  So they could actually do something to completely kill your company, right?
• 23:03
  Or steal.
• 23:04
  I mean, look, anything can happen.
• 23:06
  And I don't wanna make it sound like people are bad.
• 23:08
  People are good.
• 23:08
  And inherently, I believe people are good.
• 23:11
  But you can't predict what people will do is the point.
• 23:14
  When you build systems and you're using AI, you can build it if you know how, you have tools to build those systems, which is what we provide in Forge Fire Protocol.
• 23:26
  When you have those, instead of adding headcount, you're building systems that are predictable, that aren't going to tank your company, that can't steal from you, right?
• 23:37
  That are not liabilities at all.
• 23:39
  They're actually assets.
• 23:41
  Those are tools that build upon each other.
• 23:44
  Kind of like Mike's example of success going up, but those building blocks, that's what those tools are, right?
• 23:51
  Those, they're building blocks.
• 23:53
  And so that's a difference.
• 23:56
  So it will save you from doing some of the stuff that Mike and I have done.
• 24:02
  And it'll almost be like what, what Steven has done with the bank where he had a team around him because you have a team.
• 24:08
  Right.
• 24:09
  But you know, it's,
• 24:12
  One of my favorite parts about when we were building this out, and Steve touched on Crusher, and I'm not going to go into detail on that right now.
• 24:21
  We can talk about that on another episode.
• 24:23
  Let's do that in the next episode.
• 24:25
  Perfect.
• 24:25
  Let's do it.
• 24:26
  But this is what I wanted to get at really quick.
• 24:30
  So yes, in the protocol, you come in and you have the systems.
• 24:32
  You go from the idea, you validate the idea.
• 24:35
  Now you can go into the next steps, and now you know you have a product, but now you don't have a website, you don't have a domain name,
• 24:42
  You don't have anything.
• 24:43
  You have an idea that you know you have a good idea.
• 24:44
  So you get that pat on the back, that boy or girl.
• 24:47
  You have a great idea.
• 24:49
  Now what?
• 24:51
  What we did in the system, as we were building stuff out in multiple places, and then took AI and leveraged AI to do exactly what we were saying and what we were building.
• 25:05
  And more and more tools were coming out.
• 25:07
  And as stuff came out, we were able to build websites like that.
• 25:11
  So when you're inside the protocol, you need to build a website.
• 25:15
  You need the technology to take that idea to reality.
• 25:19
  The timeline to do that is now gone from months to years to days to weeks.
• 25:27
  Even hours.
• 25:28
  It's hours.
• 25:29
  I have two sites that I'm going to do for a project later today.
• 25:34
  They will be done within two hours, both sites.
• 25:38
  Right.
• 25:39
  And you think about that.
• 25:41
  And how much time am I going to put in in those two hours?
• 25:45
  20 minutes.
• 25:46
  Right.
• 25:47
  And then all you have after that is looking at it because now you have a minimal viable product, something that you can see and use.
• 25:52
  And now we just find what do I want to add?
• 25:54
  What doesn't to do that ideally I wanted to do?
• 25:58
  So you go back and take your specialized knowledge and you just say, I want something that does this and this.
• 26:03
  And we can add that.
• 26:05
  And then on top of that, let's say you're a product or idea, it needs a dashboard.
• 26:10
  It needs this, whatever it needs, we have the ability to do that.
• 26:16
  Okay.
• 26:17
  So- Yeah.
• 26:18
  I'm sorry to interrupt you, Don.
• 26:20
  I mean, that one morning, in the brainstorm between the three of us, we came up with Forgefire Protocol, the name.
• 26:29
  Yep.
• 26:30
  The URL was available.
• 26:33
  We got the basic logo design that ended up getting tweaked over the next couple of days, but that all came together literally in one morning session.
• 26:46
  And part of that, and why though?
• 26:47
  Because we were all leveraging the mastermind of the three of us.
• 26:50
  Correct.
• 26:51
  We were leveraging AI.
• 26:53
  Each individual, one of us was leveraging AI while we were doing it.
• 26:56
  So we were using AI as a tool, which is, by the way, now part of the masterminds.
• 27:01
  All the people that contributed to that AI, that mind and that brain within that technology is part of the mastermind that we had.
• 27:09
  With the props.
• 27:10
  Yes.
• 27:11
  Right.
• 27:11
  So we're entering that information in.
• 27:13
  And that's where we are.
• 27:16
  So we build Clusher because we were going through and we need to be able to do this.
• 27:21
  We don't have the bandwidth to do this.
• 27:22
  We don't have the knowledge to do this.
• 27:23
  How can we build this out?
• 27:27
  And as soon as we said it, we just kind of smiled.
• 27:28
  It was like, let's just build it.
• 27:30
  I'm going to give you one extra little tweak on Crusher.
• 27:34
  So we needed to create content and we needed to get it posted and we need to do it fast and efficiently.
• 27:40
  So within Crusher, create content and you can post it immediately or post it as you want to schedule it right into the social media platforms.
• 27:50
  Yep.
• 27:50
  And we let that.
• 27:52
  Yeah.
• 27:52
  And we'll cover that in the next episode.
• 27:55
  But but I mean, it was a solution.
• 27:59
  We had, we looked at this, we're building this thing out.
• 28:02
  We were building something massive, by the way, right?
• 28:05
  This was not a small endeavor.
• 28:10
  We knew that taking and helping people to get to a $10 million exit in three to five years is not a small thing.
• 28:19
  It's not an easy thing, right?
• 28:22
  To create that roadmap, not just the map, but create the systems
• 28:27
  that they can adopt, the tools that they can utilize.
• 28:29
  We have to create all of that.
• 28:31
  By the way, what was our origin date?
• 28:35
  June 16th.
• 28:35
  June 16th.
• 28:37
  June 16th of 2026.
• 28:39
  Yep.
• 28:40
  Today is September 3rd of 2026.
• 28:43
  But if we had not said it for them, we wouldn't be here today.
• 28:46
  That's right.
• 28:48
  Was it aggressive?
• 28:49
  Yes.
• 28:50
  But it held us to a timeline.
• 28:54
  Yeah.
• 28:54
  Right.
• 28:56
  That we would not have come up with ourselves.
• 28:58
  Yeah.
• 28:58
  No, no, we wouldn't have.
• 29:00
  But in that time, I wrote the book.
• 29:03
  Now, I had all the knowledge and stuff beforehand, so it was just a matter of writing it, right?
• 29:06
  But I wrote the book.
• 29:08
  We did, I effectively put it on paper.
• 29:11
  I guess that's the way to say it and got it published, right?
• 29:13
  We built out an entire ecosystem, a roadmap with tools.
• 29:20
  We've launched a podcast.
• 29:23
  We are about to launch the Forge Fire Exchange.
• 29:28
  We have a living book.
• 29:32
  We've got all kinds of different tools and ways to help entrepreneurs.
• 29:38
  And we did that in under three months.
• 29:41
  And now we're getting ready for the challenge.
• 29:43
  Our first challenge, which starts next week.
• 29:47
  I can't wait for that, I'll tell you.
• 29:49
  Yeah, it's absolutely remarkable.
• 29:54
  And you have never been in a better time and in a better country to achieve your dream.
• 30:02
  100%.
• 30:04
  You are the only reason you're not there yet.
• 30:07
  And that's okay.
• 30:08
  That's why we're here.
• 30:09
  As you said before, Don, you're in business for yourself, but not by yourself.
• 30:13
  So as you run into issues, we build solutions.
• 30:16
  As we run into issues, we build solutions.
• 30:19
  And then those solutions, as we'll talk about in the next episode, they go into the exchange or they can go into the exchange, but then other people can buy that software and use that software or those solutions to help solve their problems.
• 30:30
  Yeah.
• 30:31
  Yes, so you'll be added to the marketplace.
• 30:34
  Yeah, before you go on to the challenge, Don, a moment to explain more on that.
• 30:38
  I'll call it the wake up and break the pattern.
• 30:41
  We really got every single day there's millions of brilliant, capable human beings sitting on a goldmine of potential.
• 30:47
  And we're all dreaming of financial liberation, but while staying trapped in that cage of
• 30:54
  hesitation.
• 30:55
  And it's why?
• 30:56
  Because, you know, they let invisible psychological traps dictate really their destiny.
• 31:01
  And yesterday we were talking about maybe like top five crippling fears holding people back from launching their
• 31:09
  their dream business, and then the exact operational blueprint in the Forge Fire Protocol that uses to shatter those chains and really install an unbreakable certainty.
• 31:20
  And I'm just going to list five, I won't get into them, that, you know, they use the AI and the tools we have in the Forge to come up with it.
• 31:29
  And so your five...
• 31:32
  fears that keep you trapped, keeping you small.
• 31:35
  And one is that paralyzing fear of financial ruin, that you don't have the capital risk and what you need to do.
• 31:42
  And here in the Forge Fire, we got the zero to launch playbook so that you keep your expenses under $500,000, often within under $1,000 in 14 to 30 days.
• 31:55
  And it teaches you to build lean, keep fixed overhead under $150 a month.
• 32:00
  And we're doing that here ourselves.
• 32:02
  And eliminate that financial ruin before you even take your first step, right?
• 32:07
  And then the second is like the terror of building something nobody wants.
• 32:12
  You know, we have the 72-hour market test.
• 32:15
  So you don't have to spend money
• 32:18
  months and years testing something to see if it can get done.
• 32:22
  You can validate it in the first 72 hours.
• 32:26
  Then headcount, complexity, nightmare.
• 32:29
  How many people do I need to manage?
• 32:31
  How many employees do I need to have?
• 32:33
  And that's what really burns out a lot.
• 32:35
  And the responsibility of having those employees and their livelihoods, that was my always biggest thing.
• 32:41
  And, you know, it's ambitious people really look at traditional business owners and they work 70 hours a week managing everything.
• 32:50
  You know, here with the ForgeFire breakthrough, you've got a 12 role AI agent workforce and that's described in here.
• 32:58
  But it eliminates that and cuts down on that.
• 33:02
  And then number four would be information overload and like what's next.
• 33:07
  And you're like in a fog.
• 33:08
  What do I do?
• 33:09
  And I don't know those steps.
• 33:11
  Now the forge fire breakthrough again, sequential operating systems.
• 33:15
  You know, that's it.
• 33:16
  It's in the protocol.
• 33:17
  Spells it out.
• 33:19
  And.
• 33:20
  Number five would be the golden handcuffs, that lack of exit vision.
• 33:24
  I'll just be building rather than having a job, but you get stuck building.
• 33:29
  And there's high achievers and their fear that starting a business will simply trap them inside a high stress prison and a permanent bottleneck.
• 33:39
  That can often happen without an end game.
• 33:42
  The sacrifice feels almost painless.
• 33:45
  Forgefire breakthrough, day one, $10 million exit architecture.
• 33:50
  From the very first offer, the business is reverse engineered.
• 33:54
  And we'll talk about that more in the future.
• 33:57
  But it's engineered for a $10,000 buyout in three to five years by installing transferable reoccurring revenue models and passing the CEO vacation test.
• 34:06
  We talk about that.
• 34:07
  Can you really go away and leave your business and have it run?
• 34:12
  That's a key point.
• 34:13
  And you really know, if you step into the fire and you stop negotiating with your fears and you will remember the ultimate truth.
• 34:22
  And this is a line that I've had and it's not making decisions, making decision.
• 34:27
  And I'll touch about that in another episode.
• 34:29
  But lying to yourself that you will start someday.
• 34:33
  Simple decision, and you stay stuck.
• 34:36
  And you keep saying, I'll do it tomorrow.
• 34:39
  And we've all run into that.
• 34:40
  And right now, just, you know, now's the time.
• 34:45
  Now is the time.
• 34:46
  That's very well said, Stephen.
• 34:47
  And, you know, that's all of those issues that we as humans have that stop us, right?
• 34:55
  You listed five key ones from a business perspective.
• 34:59
  And those stop people.
• 35:01
  You know, a couple episodes ago, I mentioned about what is, you know, the richest place on earth.
• 35:06
  And we said it's a cemetery because of all those ideas and dreams that are still inside of those people that are now buried in that cemetery, right?
• 35:16
  They're there because of fear that kept those things inside of those people rather than coming out.
• 35:23
  And that made it so that they couldn't help people.
• 35:26
  Everything we do as entrepreneurs serves others.
• 35:28
  The only way for us to make money to be successful in that way is to serve others.
• 35:36
  You're going to make the money based off the value of providing to society.
• 35:41
  That's what it comes down to.
• 35:42
  No value, no money.
• 35:45
  So it's a simple concept.
• 35:46
  I was going to say the whole scarcity mindset versus the abundance mindset.
• 35:49
  And not to go crazy off in a personal development world on this.
• 35:54
  You hear it a lot, but there's so much truth to that if you think what's behind it.
• 35:58
  And for me, I think I've mentioned it before, but until someone really called me out
• 36:03
  And let me know that I was one of the most incredibly selfish people they've ever met in their entire life.
• 36:07
  And I was so offended.
• 36:10
  Because I was like, I am not a selfish person.
• 36:12
  Was this one of your kids?
• 36:13
  No, it wasn't.
• 36:14
  But I had one that would absolutely say that.
• 36:16
  Not because of that, but because of what I'm about to share.
• 36:20
  When I said that, when they said that, I was offended.
• 36:23
  And I was like, I am the furthest thing from a selfish person.
• 36:26
  I'm like, all I do is give.
• 36:28
  I'm like, I did this and I've done this.
• 36:30
  And I gave like five examples.
• 36:33
  And he was like, okay, well, here's the problem.
• 36:37
  I think you're an extremely intelligent person who everything you end up touching, you improve and you make better.
• 36:45
  So now I'm wondering how much more is inside that head that the rest of us don't get to experience.
• 36:50
  And the rest of us, there's people out here struggling because you have the fear.
• 36:56
  I'm moving forward and taking this part.
• 36:57
  You are, you have so many ideas.
• 36:59
  I know just by talking with you and working with you for a couple of years, you have so much inside there that can help so many people.
• 37:06
  He's like thousands at a bare minimum.
• 37:09
  And the fact that you're not taking that out of your head and sharing it with them is one of the most selfish things I've ever seen in my entire life.
• 37:18
  Just think about that.
• 37:19
  Cause I had never thought of it like that.
• 37:21
  Like you were doing society a disservice.
• 37:25
  Yeah, you really are.
• 37:27
  Yeah, and he's like, even from a religious perspective too, he's like, you're not serving.
• 37:33
  You're not helping these people.
• 37:35
  You talk about this being one of the things that inspires you, yet you're not doing it.
• 37:40
  He's like, either you're extremely selfish or you're letting scarcity take over and drive your decisions, which is again, extremely selfish because no one else is benefiting from this.
• 37:52
  So it was just a very interesting take that I think of a lot of you out there
• 37:56
  truly apply that to yourself, I'm going to bet that 90% of you are pretty damn selfish.
• 38:01
  Yeah.
• 38:01
  Yeah.
• 38:02
  I think we all have it.
• 38:04
  Because there are things in life, doesn't matter.
• 38:07
  I mean, people call me the rhino because I keep traction forward.
• 38:09
  I take action.
• 38:10
  But have I taken action on everything?
• 38:13
  No.
• 38:13
  We've all done the same darn thing.
• 38:16
  So here's the thing to wrap this episode up is, look, we're looking for idea people.
• 38:23
  We're looking for those people who say, I've got an idea.
• 38:26
  I want to help.
• 38:26
  I want to make a difference.
• 38:28
  I just don't know how.
• 38:29
  Because we can provide you the Forge Fire Breakthrough.
• 38:33
  We can give you that roadmap, everything that you're going to need, including helping to build that technology out.
• 38:38
  We've got the tools.
• 38:39
  We're doing it.
• 38:40
  All right.
• 38:40
  And actually, when we talk about Crusher in the next episode, we will talk about that because the technology that's available that we have that we can share with you,
• 38:52
  it will completely blow your mind how quickly and cost effectively you can launch whatever it is that you have an idea for.
• 39:01
  Yeah.
• 39:01
  And the only, only thing I just want to say is we're closing out here.
• 39:05
  We talk about that selfish nature of what we're saying to you is resonating with you.
• 39:09
  And like, I know when I listen to stuff like this, ideas pop in my head, I've, you know, who would really benefit from this.
• 39:14
  And I think of a person or a few people, every time you like comment or share,
• 39:19
  our episodes that just helps get this message and get it helps share what we're doing out with hundreds, thousands more people.
• 39:26
  And it gives us the ability to impact every one of them.
• 39:29
  Is it right for all of them?
• 39:30
  Absolutely not.
• 39:31
  Absolutely not.
• 39:32
  Some people are not at that stage and that's okay, but we need to let it be their choice.
• 39:36
  Yeah.
• 39:37
  And the only way we can do that is by getting it in front of them.
• 39:40
  Really appreciate your help.
• 39:41
  Again, like, comment, share, help us get that out.
• 39:43
  And again, from that, eliminate the selfish aspect of being afraid to do things and just take action.
• 39:51
  Well, that's right.
• 39:52
  Really, you want to just step into the fire.
• 39:56
  Stop negotiating with your fears.
• 39:57
  Remember the ultimate truth that not making a decision is making a decision.
• 40:02
  And that lying to yourself, you will start someday.
• 40:05
  It's simply a decision to really stay stuck.
• 40:08
  And stand up right now, just put your shoulders back, you know, put absolute conviction in your spine, and decide that your vision is bigger than your excuses.
• 40:17
  And plug into the Forge Fire Protocol, surround yourself with a community of relentless builders.
• 40:23
  And let's turn that spark into an empire, attack at Dublin.
• 40:27
  The Forge is waiting.
• 40:31
  That's it for this episode of the Forge Fire Protocol podcast.
• 40:34
  Take at least one step from today's episode while the fire is still hot.
• 40:39
  Don't let the insight cool.
• 40:42
  Our goal is delivering real value for you and your business.
• 40:46
  Subscribe now to never miss an episode and help other ambitious entrepreneurs like you find the show by leaving a review on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
• 40:58
  Want the complete five-step system, the tools, the scorecards, and the exact playbooks we use inside the protocol?
• 41:06
  Head to forgefireprotocol.com and sign up now to step in to the full forge.
• 41:12
  Because we are Forged in Fire.
• 41:15
  Built for Legacy.
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• 41:43
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