Latest / Harder Than Life / 32: A True Partnership w/ Aaron Opalewski

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32: A True Partnership w/ Aaron Opalewski · Harder Than Life

• 0:00
  I'm Kelly Siegel and this is harder than life a podcast about self-love self-awareness business and health We tell outrageous stories and boil everything down to simple practical advice. You can start using today. Let's get living
• 0:15
  Everything happens for you and not to you. Meeting Aaron Opelouski on a plane to Nashville for the Arte Syndicate was no coincidence. More on that shortly. Aaron is a husband, father, entrepreneur, business coach, and founder of several companies. In his business coach, he's positive, charismatic, handsome, and oh no big deal, extremely successful at all facets of life. This servant leader can now add friend of Siegel to his impressive list. Welcome to the Heart of Life podcast, my brother from another mother.
• 0:44
  Thanks for having me, Kelly. It's great to be here. Great intro, by the way. Thank you, man. Aaron, I tell you, we're going to get into the plane story, and I'm going to let you tell it. But what's your story? Why does your story matter?
• 0:58
  Well, I've never heard it asked that way specifically, but I have lived in Michigan my whole life. I grew up a pastor's kid and grew up in Saginaw, Michigan area, and then moved down to Detroit when my dad left the ministry. He's still an ordained minister, but went into IT actually. I'm sorry.
• 1:24
  Started an entry-level career in IT with four kids, a bunch of credit card debt, and just kind of like restarted his life. You know, what I didn't know about that time when I was young is he was fighting depression, had left the ministry, tried a business with one of my uncles, and it just didn't pan out. You know, all I knew is we were bouncing around from house to house, and life kept changing. You know, things kept, you know, we kept moving all over the place, and I'm going
• 1:53
  By the time I got down in the Detroit area, I was a little older and realized that, you know, okay, you know, my dad, you know, that business didn't work. He started a new career. And, you know, that's where I really started to realize that, like, I don't know.
• 2:10
  life was like, we didn't, we were never like homeless or anything like that, but we, uh, we're struggling financially. And, um, as hard as that was for me at that point, right. It's really some of the most, you know, grateful times of my life. I think it really shaped a lot of what was to come in my life. Some of the ways that I,
• 2:29
  felt about that time and um fortunately as the years have gone by my dad had a very successful career in it and is doing very well and has since retired from that and is now uh coaching other pastors and helping them uh work on their mental health and just how they operate day to day and that business is flourishing for him so kind of a cool story i didn't know that that's awesome so he started off as a pastor then it and then back to pastorial so yeah yeah
• 2:57
  What did he do? I'm going to digress automatically right off the bat. What did he do to overcome his depression? You know, I think, you know, the first thing that he had to do, and he could tell the story better than me, but from my perspective and from talking to him is that he had to not try and be everything to everybody. And should have had your dad on. Yeah.
• 3:20
  Um, I'm sure he'd love to come on, but, um, you know, that I think is a big thing. And then just having to learn how to like recreate yourself, you know, is a big thing for him too. So I think that, you know, it ultimately led him back to what he's doing now, where he's working with pastors and can see some of the, uh.
• 3:39
  It's very similar to entrepreneurship. I have to relate it to that because I've never been a pastor, but know more about entrepreneurship. And I think that, as we were talking about before we started, it's easy to, you know, you always got stuff going on. You're putting out fires, you're grinding, you're doing all this stuff, and you're trying to be everything to everybody. And so I think entrepreneurs and pastors, in a lot of ways, that parallels that you're trying to, you know,
• 4:06
  be of service to a lot of people and doing your best. And within that, like sometimes we don't take care of ourselves. You know, so I know the feeling. So I'm going to use a Friday after next reference. It's it's as if you sell drugs, do hair and babysat. Cops don't know when to break down the door. That's a funny story. But anyways, you have three different companies, Spark Talent Acquisition, John Joseph Partners and Spark Packaging. I still don't. All I know is I pay you a lot of money and I love it because we get a great value.
• 4:35
  So you're also, as I said in the intro, a father, you're a motivational speaker, you're a business coach. What is your superpower? What is your superpower?
• 4:45
  I think it's really, you know, the ability to overcome adversity and learn from our failures. Like that's what like God's, you know, I'm, I'm a short guy. I'm five, six, you know, when I was in high school and I had a not like this great sports career or anything, but you know, I did some pretty cool things like in the high school realm for basketball and football specifically more basketball. But,
• 5:12
  it just taught me a lot about life and I didn't realize it at that point, but I had to work really hard, be really consistent. I mean, I had to work harder than anybody else to do anything of substance in the sports world, just being undersized. So, um,
• 5:29
  I kind of embraced that challenge. And as I kind of transitioned from sports and I didn't end up playing in college, you know, I got asked to play at a small school and pay for it. And I had no money at the time. And I'm like, Hey, I'm going to sit the bench and, um, basically pay 24, 25,000 a year to sit the bench. Like that doesn't sound like a good thing to me. I think my career in basketball is over. Yeah.
• 5:52
  And, um, that was hard for me, right? Because then what followed up with that was I replaced that somewhat with exercise, which was healthy. Uh, but also with getting into fights, drinking, um, you know, I mean, at one point being in jail for a DUI, like just doing some, some dumb stuff as a kid. And what I was really trying to do was replace this like void that I had in my life. Right. Um, yeah.
• 6:18
  And shoot, it probably took a couple years to figure that out. But once I got into the entrepreneurship world and had some success, first in personal training, then ultimately in recruiting and learned that I could apply some of those things that I learned at a young age about being disciplined, being consistent, doing things when you don't want to do them.
• 6:37
  being the hardest worker in the room, like doing whatever it takes to, to, you know, be the best or, you know, the best you can be. As soon as I learned how to apply that into a business, it was like light bulb. And I love it. Yeah. So I've tried to not look back, you know, from there. It's like, I'm looking into a mirror. Everything you just said I had, so I got to digress again. So is it, do you,
• 7:01
  Muggsy Bogues or Spud Webb? I love Muggsy Bogues. I like them both, but I grew up with Muggsy Bogues. Spud Webb was like right before my time. That's right. You're younger. So I played basketball and football too, and I'm just a skosh taller than you. And man, I tell you, I had forgotten all about that. The adversity that I had to overcome, and I imagine yours was like, because I was always the smallest guy, but I was the hardest worker, and you could not...
• 7:29
  out hustle me that's correct and i would when when people wouldn't be given 110 i'd be given 150 and that kind of adversity and i was called i you probably this is probably before your time i was called smurf you just triggered me like there's no matter and it made me smile because i was the smallest guy and i was skinny and then i went into working out and now i'm not the smallest guy yeah but i'm still the hardest worker well
• 7:55
  not with you in here. So, uh, kudos about that. I'm, I gotta get some pointers from you in the gym. Kudos to that, man. Cause that, you know, that's your vibe attracts your tribe and that's how we met, uh, on a plane and on our way to the Arte syndicate down in Nashville. And, you know, I felt a tap on my back and I'm looking back and I'm talking to everybody in the front because this is what I do. I like to talk and, um,
• 8:19
  We'll get to that in a minute because I'm going to bring in family before we ask that question. And we're going to keep going and plug along. What do you want your legacy to be? It sounds like you're very, very busy kind of following the footsteps of dad. And what do you want your legacy to be?
• 8:35
  You know, I mean, I want my kids to remember me as a good man. You know, I'd like to have a legacy that, you know, goes farther than them. You know, where we build something that has the ability to outlast, you know, me being here, them being here. But, you know, be generational. And not just for me, but for, you know, the other families that I get to, you know, interact with and affect them.
• 9:01
  mostly in the business sense. I mean, that's where most of my best friends at this point, I, either they're clients or they're people that I work with on the day-to-day. Some of the companies that we've created that I don't run the day-to-day, the people that do are some of my best friends, and some have become some of my best relationships. And we look at them as extended family, like not just them, but their families, right?
• 9:30
  To be building something that, you know, is a part of all those legacies is just becoming important to me. Like our purpose as a company is to help people grow. And I look at that as like, okay, like that is in every job, you know, placement that we do. Can we put someone in a situation to get in a better spot or have the ability to grow? Yeah.
• 9:52
  uh, indefinitely, internally on like, how are we building our people? Like I have a saying, you know, people don't come assembled, you have to build them. Uh, and, um, that's just something I live by. Like none of us are perfect. We're all a work in progress and, um, we got to work together to help each other get better. Speak for yourself. I'm perfect. No, I know I wish I'm perfectly imperfect. I was just telling you before we went on air, I, I struggle with,
• 10:18
  Being comfortable being comfortable, which they tell you it's supposed to be be comfortable being uncomfortable. My whole entire life has been uncomfortable. It's what the Harder Than Life brand is. It's just I have overcome so much in my life. And now it's kind of coasting a little bit. I'm able to relax and realize I'm not in a fight. So how do you plan on achieving that? Because it's a big talk. I know you enough to know that it's not talk. There's a lot of action. So unpack that a little bit for the listeners so we can say, you know, how
• 10:48
  How do you build these relationships and how do you build these people up? Well, I think first it's just seeing, you know, we all have potential, you know, we all have God given abilities, you know, or just abilities that we have that, you know, are unique to us. Right. And so how do you help people like tap into those? A lot of times people have those and.
• 11:11
  they might have like an inkling of it but they can't even really see it in themselves so how can you help bring that out for people so i don't know if that answers your question core premise for me is helping people you know being vocal with people about what you see in them um not doing in a rah-rah way where it's like oh like i believe in you and like you know like
• 11:34
  they're going to have to do some work, you know, to pull that out. They're going to have to get better, which includes constructive criticism. It includes learning from failures, like, but like, make sure that that you're speaking into them, what you see their unique talents to be, and then help them with that on the day to day on bringing them out and then empowering them to like take on more responsibility. So at its premise, like that's a big part of like what I believe in and what we do.
• 12:04
  how do you discern between people that don't want, because my, what I'm noticing in the universe is some people just don't want to listen and don't. I call it the denial is not a river in, in fricking Africa. It is, it is real. It is people deny, deny, deny and self justify. So when you see that, do you just discern that person out of your life or, or,
• 12:29
  Do you keep banging on that ice chip, so to speak, until you chip it away? Because even water wears away a rock after a long time. And that's where I get myself into problems is I'm always trying to help. I believe everybody is good. And I believe everybody is good.
• 12:46
  If you just listen and you can just get them to look in the mirror and then you do the rah-rah after they're available. They got to be available and ready and willing to accept, whether it be constructive criticism, whether it be love, whether it be belief. I had the hardest time in the world accepting love for the longest time. I didn't understand it. And I couldn't take...
• 13:13
  charity i couldn't take you know anybody can give me anything i'll earn it um so that was a struggle for me um what do you find when somebody just doesn't they're just closed off if you think that their walls up probably only
• 13:28
  Well, you know, I don't look, none of us are going to be for everybody. And I think the sooner, you know, kind of back to like where we started this, like with what, you know, I was talking about with my dad or, you know, for me as a young entrepreneur, like you want to please everybody. You want to see potential and like, that's good. I'm not saying don't do that, but like also be okay with that. Like maybe you're not the person to help everybody. Like that's how I look at it. Like,
• 13:54
  what we do, like how I am, like I'm not going to be everyone's cup of tea. And that's completely fine because maybe there's someone else out there that's better suited to help that person.
• 14:05
  You know, what my job is, you know, like I'll look at this from a recruiting standpoint is to put people, you know, around my life in our ecosystem, in what we're building that do have the skills that are open to it or can progress along the way. Because, you know, if I was talking to.
• 14:27
  you know what I try and be now every day is the, I try and be this for other people. But so when I was 19 and started to get in a bunch of trouble and I was trying to figure out my life, I remember points back in my life where I was like, man, you know, I had some friends that had done some things that like they'd found a company that they worked for or someone like, Oh man, I'm working with this guy. And like,
• 14:51
  I'm learning all this stuff and I'm successful. And I'm just like, man, I really want to find that like mentor or like I will run through a wall. Like, but I need someone. I don't have no clue what I want to do. And I need someone to be there for me and be that person. And I never found that like the way I envisioned it in my head. I had this like in my head, like how I, you know, wish I could just have this mentor. But I did find them through.
• 15:16
  like getting into the staffing industry through, which I got connected to that through personal training and meet people along the way and had kind of like these micro mentors that really helped me out. So fast forward a decade now, 15 years later, but specifically probably about a decade ago,
• 15:39
  or after a decade of that, so like five years ago, when we started to build out these other companies and I started to get clear on my vision for how we're gonna grow the companies. And you mentioned Ed Milet, he's the person that really helped me with this somewhat indirectly.
• 15:54
  but through Arte Syndicate and just talks that he had given to us in there, he helped me get really clear on this. And, you know, this may sound kind of hokey. It happens to be what I believe. So I don't, you know, if it's not true, so be it. I believe it. And, you know, it's part of our purpose. But, you know, I think that, you know,
• 16:12
  you know, this vision that I had in my head of like this, like mentor that I wanted to find in my life. And I was searching for, I think what that was, was God telling me what I'm supposed to be for other people and help bring other people up within what we're doing. Now I wasn't in a position to do that then because I hadn't achieved anything.
• 16:32
  But over the years, as we built, you know, businesses and, uh, established somewhat of a track record, even though we got a long way to go, we're trying to get better every day. We need to get better every day. But as we did that, it put me in a position as we're opening these other companies and bringing out CEOs to run those companies where I could be that type of person for these people and help them expand on how fast they could grow and get better. And, um,
• 16:59
  I know that's when I feel the most fulfilled is when I'm working, you know, with some of our leaders and helping them in that capacity. And I just feel like that's the direction that God's pointing me in. Man, that's, you were wise beyond all years. I wish I had your acumen at 38. I was deep into my party and face at 38 and I knew something was out of line, but so I'm going to, they say that, uh,
• 17:27
  The mentor that you are now is who you needed when you were having your troubles. I think that's what you were trying to say. That's...
• 17:34
  Literally what I try to become because someone like me and you, if they would have come to me at 19 and said, dude, put their arm around me and say, if you follow this, this is the life. And if they just explain my life right now, this is the life you will achieve. I wouldn't have taken all these damn twists and turns, but you know, as you said, we learn from our failures. We learn. If you're smart, you're learning from everything and everybody. Yeah. So, yeah,
• 18:02
  I may not have been acting like I was paying attention, but I paid attention. I got to tell you something. I think I told you this the first time that we actually really did business together. The thing that made me do business with you was that you were the most expensive. I'm sorry I put that out there, but I like that. I think that...
• 18:22
  you raise the bar who has access to you. And when you value yourself, and you value your value that you give, you charge a premium for it. When you go to Starbucks, you pay $8 for a coffee because it's a good freaking coffee.
• 18:39
  So we're not the most expensive, but we do have a premium at national technology management. And that's why we get along. And like I said, there's no coincidence, man. Like attracts like. There was a reason why I was sitting in first class going to the same freaking thing you were going to. Because the universe wanted us to collaborate. And I'm so glad we finally got in the studio. Because as I get to know you more, we definitely need to do more business together. At least I want to learn from you.
• 19:08
  Well, feelings likewise. Thank you. Thank you. I'm like you. I'm just trying to figure this out. I want to get better every day. And I do. And that's what we're going to go into now. So my routine is documented. I get up at 4.15, gratitude, workout, journaling, podcast, whatever.
• 19:27
  I want to make sure that I'm modeling and the behavior that I want my, my daughter to be. And then everybody that I am trying to inspire. Yeah. Tell me about your daily routine.
• 19:40
  Yeah, so it's actually flipped since we had our second child. Hold on, they say that when you have the second one, it's not double the work. It's like 10 times the work. Yeah, probably more for my wife than me. She's an absolute rock star. And I definitely try and help out. But for most of the day, I'm in the office on phone calls. I'm not...
• 20:04
  I'm not actively helping during the day. So she's a rock star. We have some other people that help us out. She does work as well. She works in the business, right? Yeah, she does. And she's amazing. You know, I'm getting ready to leave this morning. And she's on with one of our vice presidents. And they're talking about some stuff on the accounting end.
• 20:24
  And they're doing that and having a conversation and she's bouncing our one and a half year old on her leg at the same time. Wonder woman. I love. Yeah. And I mean, she's amazing that way. We have a lot of amazing women in our companies like that, that, you know, the whole COVID thing really switch some things within our business. And it's really put us in a position to be flexible with people's schedules more. And man, like just, yeah,
• 20:52
  I think as I've had kids and we've done that and I've got like more exposed to just how some people operate, but still get their stuff done. Just a ton of respect for anyone that, uh, is taking care of children and still getting their stuff done and not using that as an excuse to, you know, not perform. Um, but they, they just figure it out. Like it's, it's amazing. I'm a single dad. So I, I,
• 21:15
  My days are insane. Like, so I, I do that all in the morning because then I got to switch to dad mode in the afternoon. And I have a 14 year old and yesterday she had an emergency at school and dad had to drop everything and run and, and take her a change of clothes. Uh,
• 21:31
  And there's certain days where it starts off with self-care. I am a big, I have to be healthy or else nothing exists. I have people that report to me. Everybody's counting on me to be healthy. So it's my duty to make sure that I take care of me. Got to be the example. And then it goes into...
• 21:50
  National technology management, then usually harder than life. And then it's daddy. Yeah. But daddy is the most important role because she it's I'm breaking the chains of the poverty. I'm the one in the family that says enough is enough.
• 22:06
  And she's going to, I want to create generational wealth, not just her wealth, her children and her children's children. I want to create that kind of legacy. But you kind of talked a little bit about, but you can go into the detail. I want to know the detail because the devil is in the devil's in the details.
• 22:22
  So I used to work out in the morning like you. I'd actually like to get back to that because as you know, there's just a lot of benefits to working out in the morning compared to night. But since we've had our daughter, my routine looks like I get up in the morning, I will pray. I listened to a lesson on like faith related. So specifically I'll throw a shout out to Joyce Meyer. I don't know if you're familiar with her or not, but yeah,
• 22:48
  She's she's throws out like a 15 minute podcast five days a week. And so I will pray in the morning. I listen to that. And I try and do that because like for years, for many years, it used to be get up, roll out of bed, start emailing right away.
• 23:05
  And if that's someone's process, like, hey, I did that for like a, like, it worked pretty well. But for me, like mentally to be in a good space with the people that I'm talking to every day, it was a good way for me to start my day was to start with, like, let me pray. Let me then kind of fill up like the faith side of what I'm doing. Can I stop for just a minute? And if I'm praying, just tell me something.
• 23:30
  I'm Jewish, so I do gratitude, and then I meditate, which I believe is a form of prayer. Could you share with me, because I'm curious, what do you pray about? All kinds of stuff. That's a good question, because I struggle with this for, I think, a lot of, for a long time. Like I told you, I grew up a pastor's kid, right? But for a long time...
• 23:53
  I felt like, okay, if I'm going to pray or I'm going to read the Bible or if I'm going to have a relationship with God or, you know, whatever that may be for someone, that's what it is for me. That I have to be like formal about it. Like, oh, did I read this book in the Bible like today? Did I do this? Did I do that? Like, was my prayer X amount? And did I, you know, you know, pray about this, this, and this? Like,
• 24:19
  A lot of times now I'm just praying about, it could be different things that I have going on. If I'm concerned about something, I have a trigger to just, I'm just gonna pray about it. So I do that in the morning. I will generally pray for good guidance and direction throughout the day, that my interactions with people are positive and that I don't pull, you know, you're gonna get into frustrating conversations within a day. Something I struggled as a young entrepreneur
• 24:48
  And I'm a lot better at it now because I'm aware of it and I pray about it, but I'm still not perfect. I will mess up on this is like,
• 24:56
  having something going on and pull that into another conversation. And again, I'm, I'm, wait, are you, are you saying be present? Look what we talked about. Part of it. Yes. It would be a form of being present. Now I am eons from where I, this used to be one of the worst things. Like I, if I, like as we were growing as a company, one of the biggest things, like we grew 800% like the, the first year of spark talent. So this was 2014 to 2015. Yeah.
• 25:25
  And if you didn't, if you came into the company in 2015, you would have just thought I was a complete asshole. Like, like you just would have. And I was. And, you know, here was one of the issues that I had. We'd grown so much and we'd grown outside of my capacity of like where I was at and within my development. I love that self-awareness, bro. And I didn't.
• 25:48
  I, we had so much stuff going on. I didn't know how to process that. Like, man, if you didn't get better at like kind of being present in your conversations and understanding, like I knew that you're going to have to overcome problems as an entrepreneur, but I started as soon as something bad happened in the day, I would then drag that into everything else. And I just, or, you know, because things weren't done exactly how I was doing it, I would get really frustrated and,
• 26:16
  and go off on people at times. And I was, it's not that you don't want to hold a standard or you don't want to work with people to get better or, you know, but there's just, you know, if you're going to try and grow like that and then think that you're not going to have any problems, like you got a rude awakening coming. And if you don't learn how to deal with that, then you're just going to be miserable every day. Emotional intelligence is what you're saying. But here's the funny thing about it. You were 30.
• 26:44
  You were 30 years old at that time. Yeah. And here you are with the self-awareness at 30 that most people don't ever find. So kudos to you. I don't take my hats off to you. That's, oh, I had it, but I did nothing about it. I actually,
• 27:00
  I mean, at 30, I was making a ton of money and pissing it all away on alcohol. So, which is my next question is, do you drink alcohol? Rarely at this point. I have. I've never like gone cold turkey on not drinking. Like I will drink. I'll have wine every now and then. My wife doesn't drink at all. And so, well, I'll enjoy wine from time to time. I rarely even have it because I'll joke like, hey, I'm not going to open this bottle and drink the whole thing. So...
• 27:29
  I was trying to think about it because I thought this might come up, right? I think I drank maybe once this year. I drank in Mexico. We went to Mexico for our company trip, and the first day I didn't drink at all because part of that, in years past I have, and I probably didn't set a good example for the team on that. But I think this is an area that is continuing, like,
• 27:56
  I'm continuing to do it less and less. And I don't have a problem if someone does drink. But for me, I noticed things like I'm, I am very regimented. I'm very disciplined. And I see things that like, it's harder. Like I'm a little more lethargic in the older I get, the more that seems to be prevalent. When I do you turn 40. So, um, you know, I just drink less and less.
• 28:23
  And, you know, I don't know if I'll ever fully, like, say, oh, I don't drink. But, shoot, I mean, I'm going to be able to count on my hand how many times I drink this year. Well, you're big into Andy Frisella, too. So he does the same thing. It's like if I drink five times a year, that's a lot. But he smoked an incredible amount of weed. That's just not my thing. So I don't know. But I will tell you that, like.
• 28:54
  I it's becoming less and less of a thing for me. And it's just because, um, one, I, I think like, like, so with back in this Mexico scenario, right? Like, look, like we got a lot of like young business people that work for us. Like they go on a trip like that. It's exciting. Like there's something to, you know, there's the camaraderie of drinking that we've all been kind of like brought up on and,
• 29:20
  you know, I don't, how do you unpack that? You know, for it's wired into everyone's DNA. So, um, you know, for me though, watching that, it's like, well, you know what, I'm going to lead by example on it. And I'm not one, I'm not going to get sloshed. And like the first day I didn't drink at all. The second day we were there, I did have like a couple of cocktails with everybody, just like, whatever we're celebrating. We're there. But, um, I think I started to watch this
• 29:49
  you know, being around some higher level people that I look up to and just like think the world of watching how they interact with competition, watching how they carry themselves in a social setting, watching how if they are at something where people are drinking, don't be the person in the room that's out of control. And these are things that like,
• 30:13
  I guess I learned like, or started to look at and some things that I, you know, my parents don't drink. My wife doesn't drink. Like it's, it's already there in my life. That's like, Hey, like, you know, not that it's bad, but like, it's not like I have people like pressuring me to do that all the time. Like I have a very good setup to just not do it at all. And I've been on both sides of the coin, but it's like, as I like, at one point it's like, Oh, this is just what business people do. You go out, you drink like whatever, you,
• 30:43
  And, you know, seeing this other side of it, it's just like, hey, look, if you're going to do that, you better have some good discipline. And then thinking back on times where like, you know, when have I done stuff or said stuff that maybe I wish I didn't say where I where I've done something and been like kind of like, man, you know what? You're so disciplined. Why would you?
• 31:05
  How'd you do that? I got the answer. Tequila. And that's one of the things I tie it back to is that like I've become way better in these areas. But somewhere where I kind of lose control of that a little bit is if I drank a little too much. And especially because I haven't drank a lot for years, probably since I met my like pre-meeting my wife.
• 31:29
  I wouldn't drink a lot during the week, but I'd go out on the weekends and just get annihilated, which I don't. That was fun. I used to do that, too. I couldn't even. I could tell you 50 reasons why I don't think that's a good idea now. But like, so I think this is something I started working on then. But I still had this thing where it's like, oh, well, yeah, when you celebrate or when I'm out for business, like, yeah, that's just what I'm going to do. And then I start to see just more of this stuff throughout the years. And it's like, no. No.
• 31:57
  I'm just kind of moving farther and farther away. And then I think about it and I'm like, man, like you, you're lethargic the next day. You don't want to go get your workout in. You don't like. And so, yeah, I mean, if I. Sorry, that's a long. That's a long-winded answer to just say barely. It's just changed for me over the years, though. The only reason I'm asking, it's not to judge. And I want the listeners to hear because we have some really high.
• 32:23
  highly successful, at least monetary, and I think in life figures on the show, on the Harder Than Life podcast, and more and more, I mean, almost every single guest says I don't drink. I don't drink. And I just ask because I'm wondering. I'm curious. I could have been way more successful if I hadn't drank, but you're either wanting to feel some sort of way or not wanting to feel some sort of way. And if you can...
• 32:51
  work through that and realize that you can feel any sort of way that you put your mind to and your heart to, I'm more crazy now sober than, or than I was drinking because I would, I would start thinking as drunk as I would be, even if I wasn't, I would think that, how did, how was that taken? And now I know I can read the room because I'm completely sober and I can, Oh, that went over bad and I can rebound from it. So,
• 33:18
  Turns out that I had some childhood trauma that I would drink away, and then I could be the real me. Well, now I've addressed the childhood trauma, and now I can be the real me on times 10. And I formed these relationships with you and your family and your employees, and I do the same. And life just got so good, and I just cleared out all this noise. And I got rid of some people that...
• 33:46
  word would lead you to get sloshed. It's just what life is a bunch is choices, what choices you make. And if you're overindulging in alcohol, you're probably kicking a can down the street because I can tell you, I was successful. I made a lot of money, but I was miserable because I was never present. What reaction? It's a great one. What reaction do most people have when you walk into a room?
• 34:14
  I don't know how to answer that exactly. So I would hope that they're happy I'm there, that I'm there to help them with something, and that they feel like I have a track record and I can do that. That's what I would hope. But I've never been asked that question. I don't know. We were talking about it, and it sounded... I remember times being in A-hole too and slamming doors, and that was usually when I was hungover. I didn't have...
• 34:42
  I used to think it was a badge of honor. I'm going to drink all night, sleep three hours, go to the gym. And I never missed a beat. I would still go to the gym. I would still work all day. I would still drink. But it just was a freaking merry-go-round of misery until I puked and said, this is enough. This is stupid. So then define happiness for me. So defining happiness. Yeah.
• 35:07
  Here's what I'd say about that. I think part of happiness is understanding that we're not always going to be happy in every moment of life. God, you're so smart. It is.
• 35:19
  it's a feeling, right? It's an emotion, just like sadness or, you know, I mean, there's, there's different emotion, emotions for different reasons. And so, you know, when I see people that talk about like, oh, you always need to be happy or do everything that makes you happy. Like, like,
• 35:39
  I just really don't agree with that completely. It's not that I don't agree with that at all. I think you should try and do things that make you happy, that fulfill you, that, you know, make you, you know, feel like you have a purpose in your life. But part of doing that is embracing the suck of some of the day-to-day of that too. Like, you know, any relationship, anything worth, you know, doing and fighting for or being a part of, like, you're not going to be in this like blissful state 100% of the time.
• 36:08
  So I think defining it would be chasing things that give you purpose, that, that fill you up, that, that make you feel like you're going after being the best version of yourself. You know, for me, like I want to be feeling like I'm improving and going after being the best version of myself. But within that understanding that like,
• 36:29
  that like peak state or that happiness state is not the only part of what I'm going to feel. So I hope that you said embrace the suck. And I think what you meant to say, be harder than life. There you go. So the person that sat in that chair just before you that interviewed before you was a pastor Julian Hayes. So how ironic is that? And he said, happiness is not what's happening. Right.
• 36:55
  And that hit me hard. I'm like, whoa. So that's pretty much what you just said. So kudos to listening to your dad, the pastor's son. But you just said something that I found very ironic being a man of faith. You said chasing. Chasing. How does chasing lead into what we're told, surrendering?
• 37:19
  What's your philosophy of the two of those? Because we're taught, and even in the Bibles, is surrender to God. But you said chasing. And it's probably the entrepreneur in you. But what's your thought about that? I just wrote that down. So what do you think? Well, I hope this answers your question. But when I'm saying chasing, it's like pursuing chasing.
• 37:44
  whatever your purpose is, and at first you got to figure that out. But once you have that figured out, like part of you being happy is feeling like you're going after that and you're making progress on that, right? Now, for me, you know, in order to do that, like,
• 38:03
  the reason why part of the reason why I start my day praying is because it gives me a, a sense of calm, like knowing that there, you know, for me, God is there to help me out. And in the fact that like,
• 38:18
  Like, look, you got these big goals, these big aspirations, and there's times in what you're doing where it's going to feel lonely or you feel like you don't know what to do or there's a lot on your plate. But that's like a centering thing to just feel like, like not feel but know that you have –
• 38:38
  like you're a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things. So that there is someone behind you that has your back that is going to help you. You know, they're not going to just do it all for you, but they're there. Like you're not alone in anything you do. And so if that's your belief or your premise, that gives you a lot more courage to go out and go after what you want to achieve.
• 39:02
  So I asked you what you wanted your legacy to be, what your superpower is, what you want. Do you have a specific, more defined purpose? Mm-hmm.
• 39:13
  Yeah, so, I mean, mine is tied to, you know, I think we're going to build the legacy of multiple families, multiple people, like multiple layers within those families through our businesses. And I don't shy away from that. People say, oh, that's like kind of, you know, come on, you should have like something more, you know,
• 39:39
  That sounds better than that, but look, what we do is put people in opportunities to grow. We call it creating opportunities, right? So we want to create 100,000 opportunities a year. That's the big mission that we're going after. Right now, we do somewhere north of 3,000. You know, hopefully we...
• 39:57
  get four or 5,000 this year, you know, we'll see, but we're north of 3000 opportunities a year. Well, that's like 3% of the big mission. So we got a long way to go. Um, I love how you measure what
• 40:10
  So within that, in looking at all the landscape of what we've been able to do, and I won't get into every personal story, the relationships we've built, the people that we've built, and take them from their situations where they're at now and just completely seeing their life change, like we're like 3% into that, right? So I think that my ability to...
• 40:40
  achieve that mission and help, you know, coach people, you know, along within that and help build them up is, is just like really, really,
• 40:51
  That's a focal point for me. Now, within that, I'm not a pastor. I'm not really someone to... I'm not... Because I've grown up in that atmosphere where it's like push, push, push. And I don't really like that. That's not my thing. But what happens is I get opportunities to talk about God and faith and stuff all the time just in my conversations because people ask me about it. Like, here we are. You're asking me some stuff and I'm just...
• 41:21
  I have to talk about it because it's a big part of my every day. So it just naturally comes up. And so if that's the way that I'm supposed to minister to someone or help them, you know, figure out what their own faith is or, you know, just kind of get on a better track in life in general, like, cool. Like, that's my ability to do that. And like, that's kind of my platform to do that.
• 41:44
  If that changes over a period of time, cool. But I just do it. I mean, there's not a day that goes by where I just don't naturally talk about the stuff in conversations that I'm having. I just, sorry. I hope you know I'm paying attention. I just take notes because things you're saying. You're remarkable. So I literally, I've got a page of notes already. In addition to what I've already prepared, because I prepare in detail, especially for someone that I think is amazing, which is most of the guests. But yeah.
• 42:14
  So you do inspirational, motivational speaking. Is faith part of that message? It's a big part, and I do do some of that. The one that I'm – I just recently did one, and it was an Evolve event, which was awesome. Angela, who's running that, is amazing. You should definitely check out the event. This is, I guess, a plug for her event. Go ahead. Sounds good. Sounds good.
• 42:41
  But, you know, I'm not, you know, the coaching that I do is specific to the staffing industry. Like I won't like I have friends that do coaching and stuff like I will anyone that comes to me with general stuff. I'm just like, you know, go to someone else because where I can really like because I know someone that can do it better. Like I can give them good general stuff.
• 43:02
  But I have other people that could... That's more their thing. If someone's specific in the staffing industry, I will work with them. And literally, that's how we created one of our companies. And that wasn't the intention, but that's where it came from. So I'm open to doing that in that area. I'm also...
• 43:22
  there's so many coaches out there, right? And there's probably only a handful of actual good ones, but like, you know, I'm not going to give someone vanilla information. So either I'm going to either be able to help them exactly, or I'll just kind of pass it on. If someone goes there and they're not in staffing, I'm just going to refer them to someone else. Cause I, you said three, I'm, I'm actually managing partner on five businesses now. So like, I,
• 43:47
  My business, and I don't include the coaching business in that, like that's there. I will refer people out to people. If you're in the staffing industry, I'd love to talk to you, right? Because if they're in the staffing industry and they're, sorry, I'm going to get technical for a second, but their gross profit, let's say their gross profits between 500,000 and a million, a million and three, three and 10. Those are my sweet spots for like,
• 44:12
  If you are at those levels or call it maybe 50 million in revenue, it really depends more on their gross profit, but that's who I would work with one-on-one because that's who I can help. I can take you through exactly the steps of where you're at,
• 44:28
  listen to what you got going on. And we probably experienced some of those same challenges and have overcome them and feel like I'm qualified to help those people out. If you come to me and you're a digital marketing company, you're an it cybersecurity company.
• 44:44
  I'm going to say, well, I know a great guy in the industry. Why don't I set you up? I'm going to say no because I don't know what the hell I'm doing. But you get my point. Like, those are not. Now, if they need help specifically with staffing, yeah, let's have that. Who doesn't? Yeah. Well, and that's, you know, one of the things we love about our business is that we can solve a problem for pretty much everybody. You know, if we do that. And I'm going to.
• 45:06
  Shamelessly plug you. You've every candidate that you've sent us have been quality. We've hired most of you stand behind. It's a, that's why you're here today. This is, we only have 52 spots and you're, you're filling, I think number 32. So I'm real real. I think I sent you this email. I sent you a voicemail and said, I don't say this very often, but this is a true partnership. National technology management and your company, we, we,
• 45:33
  value it. I mean, you, it's a, it is a give and take and give and take back and forth. It's just not, you give us one thing and then we give you money. It's, oh, here's someone that might be a good customer. So that's, you, you've, you practice what you preach. And, and that's why I just said that of a preacher's or pastor's son, but that email was, or that voicemail was awesome by the way. And Amanda, who, you know, works with you guys directly first, she's amazing. Um, but I can't even tell you like that meant the world to her. So I think she,
• 46:01
  thinks I'm crazy. She did this whole long dissertation and presented to me. And I said, honey, I'm a visionary. I got the attention span of about three minutes. Get me to, here's how we're going to make money in the first three minutes.
• 46:16
  how can you help us and then you lost me she did this whole and i go how long did you work on this presentation she's like wow it's up till like 2 a.m i go don't go to sleep you're a mother take that's the first thing i do family is so important i didn't have a family so family is everything and i it's our core value at ntm so you're part of our family that's why we're going to switch to that in two seconds if you were offered a mulligan in life what would you do over
• 46:45
  it's hard to want to do anything over because every, you know, you're able to reframe the stuff that you do wrong and turn it into a positive. Um, you know, if I could do anything over again, um,
• 47:00
  I probably would have got into staffing quicker. I didn't find it until 22. Man, it would have been awesome to find it at 18. I mean, I think it all worked out how it was supposed to. But, man, I would have loved to have another four or five years in. So if I could have...
• 47:21
  got into the industry sooner, I, I would have loved to do that. That that's probably the only, now there's been a ton of adversity, right? But it's like, I can't look back on anything that's happened and not feel like it's shaped me into be the person that I am today. And, um,
• 47:39
  So it would really just be that. I'd like to start quicker. Such a good answer because you're talking about adversity. You're facing it right now. I mean, this is some of the most unprecedented times of hiring from HR and business. We have deals at NTM pushing that they've already signed and like, oh, we just want to wait to see what the economy is going to do. And Michigan, where we're at right now, it's.
• 47:59
  This is some tough, tough sledding. So even more remarkable that your response, it makes me admire you even more because you're like, bring it on. And that's the way, that's why we like each other. We're going to switch total gears now. And we're going to talk about family because I'm a bit, I just said to you, family is important to me. I believe the right partner in your corner in life is paramount.
• 48:21
  Your wife hunted me down in the room of 2,000 people to make certain that we exchange contacts, and I thank her for it. Or else we wouldn't be here today, and you wouldn't have made all the money you've made off of national technology management, which is just a little... We've just only begun. Tell the listeners about your beautiful wife. You started earlier. She's the mother of your children. She is your partner. I love, love. Gush about her for a little bit. All right. Well, I mean, my wife, Anna, I mean, she's amazing. You know, we...
• 48:52
  you know, there's some key decisions in our lives. And, uh, I think that who you pick as a partner is there's, there's nothing more important than, than that. That's who you're going to do life with. And, um, you know, I think that puts people on a trajectory for either, it's not the only thing, like you're going to have to do the work within it, but
• 49:16
  if you're not aligned with your partner on where you wanna go in life, it's gonna make things an uphill battle in ways that like, yes, I just said you can reframe things for the better. And I think you like, hopefully you figure that out, right? But if you pick the wrong partner,
• 49:34
  you're just going two different directions, like, on stuff. That's not a good place to be. So, you know, someone that, you know, you feel aligned with, you know, spiritually, someone that you feel aligned with, with, like, life goals, your family goals, like, all that stuff, I don't think there's anything more important because everything –
• 49:55
  How do you get everything else in sync in your life if you don't get that right? It gets much more complex, and life's complex enough as it is. So she's absolutely amazing. She makes me a better person. You know, maybe we're still sitting here today doing this if, you know, we weren't together, but probably not. I doubt it because I tell you what. Yeah.
• 50:20
  I wasn't even... I was just a spectator there, and so many people were grabbing on me. I'm like, hey, Andy Frisella and Ed Milad are up there. Why are you... I mean, it was like whatever I was emitting was some crazy energy vibe that everybody wanted, and it was...
• 50:40
  If she wouldn't have done that, I would, and I finally had to break off from the group and go like off by myself. And then people still found me. I found this little hole in the wall cigar bar and I'm hiding in the corner and people are rushing in. I'm like, God, that was a great event. But the one thing I took away from there and I'm sorry to digress for a second is that.
• 50:58
  I want to be on that stage. That's what I'm going to do. That's what harder than life is because my story, what I've overcome is bananas. And I could have got up there and told them the story. And that's why I'm just, that's why I'm doing all this, but I'm going to dig deeper into, into, into your wife. Her name is Anna. So I thought it's been a minute since she gave me the card. Uh, where'd you meet her? Met at the gym. So I knew of her, um,
• 51:26
  I knew of her outside of the gym, but we met, we started talking and, um, I mean, Facebook helped a little bit. I shot her a message on there, but, um, you know, it was like, we started interacting at the gym and I ultimately asked her out like at, at the gym. So.
• 51:43
  How'd you propose? Up in Harbor Springs. Oh. So, yeah. Tell me about it. Well. You seem like a romantic kind of guy. So be mushy. Put your vulnerable guy. Depends on the day. So, you know, I think...
• 51:58
  for, for Ann and I, one of the big things that we had, you know, that was kind of like a glue for us is, is we both had like a faith background. And, you know, I was in a point in life where like when it was the right timing, because had we have met a couple of years earlier where I was out every weekend drinking and like, she would have been like, nope. Like, so she's never been like that. Never. Oh,
• 52:28
  It was probably less than a year before we started dating, but I was really starting to evaluate some of that stuff in my life. And to be real, though, it's hard at the same time. Things have changed now. This is kind of like right when people started using dating apps and stuff like that. But I don't know how you felt, but there was...
• 52:49
  I'd work all week, you know, and, like, where are you supposed to meet people or interact with people? Well, you go do it at the bars. And I wasn't disciplined enough to do that and not drink most of the time. Like, you're not, like, so what do you do? You go out, you go to the bars, you meet people, and it's just the cycle, right? So – Wait, little did you know she was right there in front of you at the gym. Yeah, but so –
• 53:18
  you know, God has time for everything. And there's just some stuff that, that I had to work on. And, you know, finally, whether it was like coming up on turning 30 or, I don't know what it was, but I just started to look at stuff. You know, I think part of it was, you know, we had just had this amazing, you know, it was after I mentioned earlier, we grew 800% in our first year. And then I was always frustrated though at the same time.
• 53:45
  And by no means was I anywhere close to perfect on this at this point, but I was starting to work on it then. That's like, man, like something's got a shift here. Like we're going like crazy. Yeah. Everything's not exactly how you want it, but you better figure some of this stuff out because you're literally miserable. Like, are you saying that chaos and, and lack of,
• 54:04
  love and calmness was leading to that unfulfillment? I think what I'm saying is like, you know, you're, you're having, you know, I had already had some success. I had, had made, you know, good amounts of money, but we really kind of exploded to that point and had reached another gear. And I had this like life event. Now I kind of laugh about it cause I'm sure I'll feel the same way at 40. Like, Oh man, like you're getting older. Right. But at 30, like it's coming up and,
• 54:33
  I'm just like, okay, you're making more money than ever. The business is growing. This is your second staffing business, and the whole premise of starting this business is you wanted to do some things different than you did in the first one. But you're walking around kind of miserable all the time. Like, what is going on with that?
• 54:52
  you know, you're going out, you're partying, you're doing all this stuff. And so I started, and again, like it was, this has been a like progressive thing for me. It hasn't been all at once. Like, that's why I was, the reason why I was long winded in the alcohol question is because I don't know that everyone is going to just, it might not be like that for everyone, but I tell you, just when I was drinking, if you didn't drink, I didn't like you and you were not in my ecosystem, which happens to me. I'm on the other side of that now. So if, if someone is, uh,
• 55:22
  misaligned with alcohol, which I was, you don't want to be around people because it's your reflection. I'm a reflection of what they want to become. And if you would have met me now, you'd be like, oh, even though deep down you're like, ooh, that kind of resonates with me. I'm kind of a little bit envious. That's the life I want. I assure you, I was the best freaking partier you've ever seen. And I am probably one of the best sober people I've ever met. I mean, this is so much more rewarding. But –
• 55:50
  that's it's your wise beyond your years but what they say wisdom comes from making bad decisions you know so i think that was it though like had i not been i started to work on some of that stuff four or five six months into that and what do you know like this person that i probably worked out like i was at the same gym i was like things just happened right and i was in a better position like
• 56:14
  And like, I guess I was in a better position to be, you know, looking in different places. And I was maybe not completely, but becoming more of the person that like she would be open to talking to. It's called being available. You made yourself available. You're not available for this chaos and calamity. And you were available for calmness. And she was that. Is that the single...
• 56:39
  biggest reason for the success in your life? Her? Or is it your self-awareness? Because it's... You sound amazingly self-aware. I can't wait for your 40th birthday party because I want to... It's life-changing. At 40 is when I feel like I finally grew up. Even though my 40th birthday party was a disaster. That was when I knew...
• 57:01
  I had to redefine the nature of my association with alcohol. Yeah. She's, you know, my honest answer to that is I don't know for sure, but she has been a huge part of my continued growth as a person. She's been a huge part of me continuing to not just, like, getting that to a certain point, but continuing to, like, she pushes me to want to work on myself and be better.
• 57:27
  Um, and you know, she's the same way. Like she's, she's up and at it. Like say, like you guys are up same time working out and like, she's one of the most disciplined people that I know. And it's something that I like, I respect, like, regardless of if we were married or not, I would respect the hell out of her for how she goes about life. Um, how long have you been married?
• 57:50
  So we're coming up on seven years. Congrats, bro. Congrats. I can't say enough superlatives about you.
• 57:59
  or what I wish I was at your age, but I am rapidly getting there now and making up for lost time. And everything, as you said, everything happens, God's timing. So my time is now and we're here together. So let's do some stuff together. What's the single work project or task that you would consider your most significant accomplishment to date? You know, so if you want me to pick one,
• 58:30
  I think the relationship that I have with our CRO at Spark Talent, his name's Fletcher. I don't know that you met with him. So it's...
• 58:43
  we we've been working together for over 13 years now. So he, he was the first person that we hired at our, at my first staffing company. He came out of college and started working with us for 10 bucks an hour. And we worked out of Panera and you know, I mean, he's doing very well for himself now, you know, and that's the true, true Mark. This is why I like you too. I mean, I love you for everything. I just love everything about you.
• 59:10
  The true mark of a real leader is lifting everybody else up. And, and until you realize that that's when you really grow up, it's if everybody else is doing well, you're doing well. So nobody else has to,
• 59:22
  Lose so you can win. That's just, that's silly. So kudos to you. And I see it. Everybody we interact with in your organization, you can tell that it is run by a strong leader. So we're trying. But I think that that's what I'm most proud of because this has been a relationship that's been, it's a sustainable relationship. He's gone from...
• 59:45
  uh you know our first recruiter to you know he's the chief revenue officer at spark talent and he's an equity partner in our other two companies and um you know i don't know exactly what the future holds on the other seven companies that we want to either acquire or start but an it company uh just kidding
• 1:00:04
  Well, we'll see. Probably stick to our game in staffing. It's not for sale. It's not for sale. We get lots of offers. It's not for sale. Yeah. We probably wouldn't be the best suited for that. You guys got a good thing going. We do, man. I tell you what. It used to be when I was drinking, every day was a fire drill. Every day. It was like, what's the world going to give me today? And it was just a universal sign to get my shit together, and I kept ignoring it. So that's one thing that I can give people is...
• 1:00:32
  is what we don't repair repeats and the universe is going to keep sending you that till you get your head out of your butt. And, um, I want to point out that that's the third time that you inadvertently said that you've, you're helping your people grow. And that's a,
• 1:00:49
  that is example of it. I always say big hat, no cattle. You know, if you have to tell people how amazing you are and you're just showing it. So again, I'm sorry to be so kudos and I'm just, I'm glad you're here and I'm glad you're in this world. And I just, we've only scratched the surface of what we need to be doing together. And I apologize it's taken so long, but...
• 1:01:09
  everything's timing i'm ready let's all about time next week we're gonna we're gonna meet up and and i want to meet this guy fletcher and whatnot so you are amazingly positive every time i see you and i don't know if it's i don't know you well enough to know but i get the feelings i can feel your energy that you are uh overwhelmingly positive but every one of us gets down once in a while so when you get down what's something you can think of that makes you smile
• 1:01:34
  Uh, family, my family, number one, I mean, just looking at our little girls, looking at, you know, the, the life, you know, that we have like, uh, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm an ambitious guy. You know, I'm so focused on growth and all this stuff, right. And, you know, I, I don't think there's anything wrong with, you know, aspiring to, you know,
• 1:02:00
  whether it's a house or a watch or cars, like I'm, I'm a watch guy. Um, I think we both are. I have nine watches. I love watches. So, um, so do I. Um, but it's like, you know, with stuff like that, like one, I like tying that stuff to achievement, like more than just buying it.
• 1:02:21
  So in anchoring, this is my 30th birthday present to myself. Well, there you go. I'm the same way, brother. We're like two peas in a pod, man. And this I'll just be blunt. So this one that I'm wearing, like I go through my watch. Like I could tell you what the achievement is and anyone that I just bought randomly, I've sold because there's no attachment to it. But the first year I made over a million dollars, I bought this watch.
• 1:02:47
  So I'm attached to that. Now there's all kinds of other things. Like now it's more like I bought a watch and we just bought a building and built it out for the whole team. And I was wondering why we haven't got called for the IT.
• 1:03:04
  We didn't know each other. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But so the point, like, if I stretch these out and you look at, you know, what they are, like, like this one, like, oh, OK, that's kind of like that's very, like, selfish or what, like you like. I don't know. Maybe it was. But that was that was that then. Yeah.
• 1:03:23
  And I could show you some of the other things. And it's like, hey, this is this, this is that. You definitely don't strike me as an egotistical guy where you're buying it to flash. And I hope I realized that on the book cover of my book, I have a very expensive watch on it. I did not mean to do that. And if I would have thought that shows you how I don't even pay attention.
• 1:03:43
  I don't think, I do it for the same thing, I buy it for me. I don't buy it for, I don't care about anything else. It's, there's a sense of accomplishment and when I accomplish that, I want to celebrate it. For so many years, I have just, what's the next thing, what's the next thing, what's the next thing? And I never took a second to smell the roses. Which leads me to- It's important to do both. Yeah, it is. It's good to have that mentality, but we can get probably too much that way. Oh man.
• 1:04:12
  I mean, I, and my, the lady that runs my company says, you know, we just want to take it in for a second. You're already on to the next. And, and I do. Cause I, I had my superpower is being able to see things before they happen. And I'm like 10 steps down. You're a visionary. It's a curse. Tell us, this is going to be a tough one. And this is, this is going to wrap it up. Okay.
• 1:04:40
  Tell us a time you almost gave up, how you felt about it, and what you did instead of giving up. Well, I'm a big proponent of don't give up. I did this in here. Yeah. So, you know, here's my answer.
• 1:05:05
  you wouldn't think of this as giving up on the surface or someone wouldn't. But so I referred to this time, you know, so we grew 800% in our first year. And then we got into a situation where the next year, you know, we grew a hundred percent and I was working on some of this stuff. But as your work, like when you're working on yourself in any area, maybe it's golf,
• 1:05:29
  you know for but like you can be making progress and the the fruits of that progress might take you know some time to go out so like
• 1:05:43
  really all of 2015 and then the first half of 16, there's a lot of things that I was working through. Like God was, you know, working with me on stuff. I was just working on it in general. Well, this, this matches up. So, and then I got married in June of 16 and I,
• 1:06:05
  I had a situation like during that time when I was working through this stuff and I was disconnected from parts of the business and it was just too early to do that. It's not that that's not a good thing, but the business was literally like one year old. It was a baby business.
• 1:06:23
  And I pulled out of the day-to-day sales. Fletcher pulled out of the day-to-day. Like, we did things, and we did them early. Overcorrected? It was like over, we took a light switch mentality, and I'm big on, like, the less light switches, and the more we can chip at stuff and improve it over time, the better it'll work. Yeah, that's a good analogy, too.
• 1:06:46
  Maybe in 10 years, I'll have different perspective on that and say, no, that held me back on some growth. Like, I don't know. Maybe I'll have a different perspective. But during that time, there was parts of it where I was like, okay, we have the business here.
• 1:07:02
  And I think I can kind of put like, here's our mission. And this is what we're saying outwardly. But there was times in that part of it where I was still like so frustrated that it's like, maybe I should just do it like this. And this is what it's going to be. And this is a pretty good run. And a lot of people will be happy with this. And we'll just kind of put this thing on autopilot.
• 1:07:25
  And I wrestled with those things in my head because I knew, okay, if you're actually going to go after this mission that you put out there, you're going to have to go in and correct some things. There's going to be rolling up your sleeves and doing some hard work. And I don't know that I've talked to people internally about this for sure, but I don't know that I've ever talked like this about it.
• 1:07:49
  That was the that's not you wouldn't really think of that as given up, but I would have known I would have been given up on what the mission was. And even if we still had it up on paper, that we weren't actually putting the action steps towards accomplishing it. And so that's the closest I think that I was ever to given up in that time frame. And I decided to go the opposite direction.
• 1:08:10
  We went all in. Kudos to my wife for that because, like, for a period of time, I was back to working 100-hour weeks, and she didn't see me much. And that was, like, right after we got married. And, like, we kind of worked through that. We communicated well through it. But, like, man, some people would have been like, hey, this is not what I thought it was and been, like, out. And that's not how it went. I believe that.
• 1:08:37
  I've always been all gas and no brake. So I believe that we have to let off the gas a little bit. And even if you have to tap the brake, you know exactly where that gas is again. So I believe the universe was just telling you, hey, go, go start this thing off on the right course with Anna. And then, boom, you hit the gas again. So everything we started off with, everything happens for you, not to you. That's right. And, you know, that's how we're here today. You know, and I love it. How can I personally support you?
• 1:09:05
  You guys already are, man. I appreciate the partnership. I appreciate the referral you tried to give us before we started. So anything like that, that's great. You know, we're not the right fit for everybody, but, you know, if there's business owners out there or people that run teams and they need help, you know, with their staffing support, we'd love to talk to you. You know, we work with at Spark Talent, nine different sectors, and then our other two companies are pretty niched out into their spaces. Yeah.
• 1:09:33
  Well, I'm going to come spend a day with you at the office if you'd have me and ask a thousand questions and annoy the crap out of you. But I have to remind everybody that each and every episode is sponsored by National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. And until next week, be harder than life.
• 1:09:57
  Thank you for listening. Please rate and subscribe to Harder Than Life, and let's take this to the next level. Get connected at the links below.