Latest / Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan / Executive Coach REVEALS The Secrets to Building a Business That Can Run Without You (ft. Angelo Sisco)

Transcript

Executive Coach REVEALS The Secrets to Building a Business That Can Run Without You (ft. Angelo Sisco) · Founder Talk with Alex Sheridan

• 0:00
  Cheers man, welcome to the show. Appreciate you Angelo Cisco,
• 0:03
  founder of Cisco Advisors. I'm going to read off a quick
• 0:05
  thing just to give the audience context in terms of why you're
• 0:08
  here and what you're all about and what you've done from a
• 0:10
  career standpoint. And we'll go a lot deeper.
• 0:12
  But I looked on your LinkedIn page and just doing some
• 0:14
  research and you know, kind of the, the, the main blurb that
• 0:17
  stood out to me was we help founders get off the treadmill
• 0:20
  and build businesses that can run without them.
• 0:23
  After building and selling multiple 7 figure companies, I
• 0:25
  discovered most founders are trapped in a cycle of constant
• 0:29
  execution that's unsustainable. So I also saw that you had this
• 0:35
  and I think we we should start with this.
• 0:36
  And if you're not watching on video, what I have here in my
• 0:39
  hand is a print out of something you posted called the founders
• 0:42
  trap. Yep.
• 0:43
  What is the Founders trap? Yeah, this is great.
• 0:46
  This is that new notebook LLM that makes everything pretty for
• 0:49
  you but. So you actually it actually
• 0:50
  designed that for you? It does this this notebook, I
• 0:53
  was heard about it chair. I was at chair world and someone
• 0:55
  was like, this makes the best info graphics and I just put it
• 0:58
  in there and I was like, it sure does.
• 1:01
  And so, you know, this is beyond business.
• 1:05
  And I think just in life is we get really caught up in what
• 1:09
  we're doing in order to get what we want to have.
• 1:13
  And very rarely do we focus on who we're being and how our
• 1:17
  energy is and how we're really showing up.
• 1:19
  And I've subscribed to the idea that it's more important about
• 1:24
  who I'm being than what I do. I think being comes from what
• 1:28
  you do. Like Jesus didn't think about
• 1:31
  doing things. He was just being Jesus, you
• 1:33
  know? And I'm not preaching religion
• 1:35
  on anybody, but just from like that standpoint that we could
• 1:37
  all relate to. And I think when people get
• 1:40
  caught up in that, you know, thinking they'll have money
• 1:43
  allows you to do things and that then you'll be fulfilled.
• 1:45
  Now you need to be first and then you do the things and then
• 1:49
  you have what you want. I think we're we're in this
• 1:52
  world where we need to have it to change, but in reality we
• 1:55
  have to change first in order to have it.
• 1:58
  Why do you think that is that we live in a world where we have to
• 2:01
  get to a certain milestone or accomplish this or, you know,
• 2:04
  hit certain revenue numbers to then be happier, be the
• 2:08
  entrepreneur, be the person we want to be.
• 2:10
  Yeah, I think it's just this lie that we've all been sold.
• 2:13
  I mean, this is out there that you need to have certain things
• 2:16
  or have a certain lifestyle or your business to be a certain
• 2:19
  size and then you'll be happy. And I learned this first hand.
• 2:23
  You know This is why this better so much to me.
• 2:25
  So I I started O'Hare crossing in 2010 in a little shack.
• 2:31
  It was 2500 square feet and I found a mentor in Connecticut to
• 2:35
  teach me the, the game of running business, gym business.
• 2:39
  And I would, I was so broke at the time, Alex.
• 2:42
  It's so funny to say it's I was so broke at the time.
• 2:45
  I would fly to LaGuardia Airport, rent a car and then I
• 2:48
  would drive up to Connecticut and I would sleep in the rental
• 2:50
  car because I couldn't afford like hotels or anything like
• 2:53
  that. And I would just go learn from
• 2:55
  this guy and learn how to do this business and how.
• 2:57
  Old are you at this point? How old was I?
• 2:59
  2010 so about 16 years in my late mid late twenties. 2728 OK.
• 3:05
  And we were just starting the business and I didn't want to
• 3:07
  spend money. And I was running my gym and I
• 3:10
  just kept learning from him. I would just teach me
• 3:12
  everything. And then I would go, oh, I'm
• 3:14
  going to go take whatever he did and I'm going to go implement
• 3:16
  it. I'll come back in another 90
• 3:18
  days and I'll keep implementing it.
• 3:20
  And my business took off. We, we went from 2500 square
• 3:24
  feet to 5500 square feet from about 0 to 250 members in 2 1/2
• 3:30
  years. I mean, we were just, we were
• 3:32
  just flying, OK. And back to this.
• 3:35
  So I believe that, you know, as soon as I get this business
• 3:38
  going, I won't be an asshole. I don't like, I won't be an
• 3:41
  asshole anymore. I'll be really happy.
• 3:43
  I'll be really joyful. All my problems will be
• 3:46
  alleviated. All the things that my
• 3:48
  insecurities will be gone. I will be, I will arrive at this
• 3:52
  utopia and there will be a this place waiting for me.
• 3:55
  And sure enough, I got there and I was even more insecure because
• 4:01
  I thought I was going to lose it.
• 4:04
  Wow. Right.
• 4:05
  And so I just realized that in order you don't you don't have
• 4:09
  it and then you change. You have to evolve yourself 1st
• 4:12
  and you have to be that person. You have to trick yourself in
• 4:16
  the very beginning to be that person because it's almost a bit
• 4:18
  of a delusion because you don't have it.
• 4:20
  But just from an energetic standpoint, from a place of
• 4:23
  abundance and not scarcity, I think if you could anchor that
• 4:27
  in yourself, you're going to have results come a lot quicker
• 4:29
  because you're not wasting energy.
• 4:32
  Do you think that's interesting that you got it all and then you
• 4:34
  were still insecure? Totally.
• 4:36
  It was worse. It went from like I need to
• 4:39
  accomplish this thing, climb the mount, climb the mountain to
• 4:41
  then I'm at the mountain. What if I fall down the
• 4:43
  mountain? That's going to be even worse
• 4:44
  than because then I had it and I lost it.
• 4:46
  Yeah. Do you think it's it goes back
• 4:49
  to how we're wire like a survival wiring that we want to
• 4:51
  chase the next thing that we want to get the next piece of,
• 4:54
  you know, food or reward or whatever.
• 4:57
  Do you think that's what it comes down to is just how human
• 5:00
  beings are wired in a certain way and you have to almost
• 5:02
  rewire yourself? You know, I hate to give this
• 5:06
  story, but like, it's always your childhood, you know, it's,
• 5:10
  it always goes back to how you were treated as a kid.
• 5:12
  And I was raised by a man that didn't applaud you for many
• 5:17
  things. And so you had to do very big
• 5:20
  grandiose things to get attention.
• 5:23
  And so I just was learning the life that way from my
• 5:26
  conditioning as a kid. Like, you know what I mean?
• 5:28
  My dad never was like, hey man, I'm really proud of you.
• 5:31
  No, it was like, if I did something extremely off the
• 5:34
  charts amazing, I'd get a little pat on the head.
• 5:37
  Other than that, though, it was like nothing.
• 5:39
  And I think if you're from a world where you are starved for
• 5:42
  that, you want the world to give you that and you will go to
• 5:45
  extremes and build big things to do it.
• 5:48
  I mean, it's, it's, I mean, it also serves in a lot of ways.
• 5:51
  And I'm not trying to like completely dismiss it, but I'm
• 5:53
  just saying that if that if you don't have the leash around that
• 5:57
  and that has a leash around you, you're living a hard life.
• 6:00
  I relate to that. And here's an interesting
• 6:03
  perspective. If you if your dad wasn't that
• 6:06
  way, yeah, let's say he was very Angelo, nice job.
• 6:09
  You're really proud of you. This is and this.
• 6:11
  Would you have had the ambition in the drive to go and build the
• 6:13
  things that you built? No way.
• 6:15
  I wouldn't change it for the world.
• 6:16
  Isn't, isn't that the interesting kind of like
• 6:18
  paradigm shit, right? That's like the that's the
• 6:20
  interesting thing right there. Yeah, like people look at Elon
• 6:24
  and like Elon's dad was terrible to him, and this is a man trying
• 6:30
  to get his dad's approval, and he's building the coolest things
• 6:32
  in the world, all to fill this hole.
• 6:34
  I didn't know that. Yeah, that's how I really think
• 6:36
  of it when I see him. I think he lives a tortured life
• 6:38
  because the person that was supposed to give it to him
• 6:40
  didn't give him any. It does make you think that
• 6:43
  people like that are missing something inside, for sure.
• 6:45
  I mean, you just can't help but think it.
• 6:47
  Obviously, he's done amazing things.
• 6:48
  Yeah, entrepreneurial level. He's probably the greatest of
• 6:51
  all time. It'll be hard to find someone
• 6:52
  better more. Competitive champ.
• 6:54
  I mean Jesus line someone up that is even close.
• 6:56
  Steve Jobs Rockefeller not. No, no, no.
• 6:59
  Yeah, exactly. But it, but it makes you think,
• 7:01
  man, this guy is just, he's got something going on that and, and
• 7:05
  there's, I think it's a little bit DNA too.
• 7:07
  And then it's part environment, right?
• 7:09
  Some of the right combination of who you were and your
• 7:12
  chromosomes, you know, and then the environment that you grew up
• 7:15
  in, right? It's a little bit of both, I
• 7:17
  think. So how did you start coming out
• 7:19
  of that then? And is your dad still around?
• 7:21
  Still around? We have a wonderful
• 7:23
  relationship. Does he know this part?
• 7:25
  If he heard this, would he go? I know that.
• 7:27
  Yeah, he he kind of knows my so my unpacking this a little bit
• 7:31
  farther. My dad went to prison from from
• 7:33
  when I was 5 till I was 16. So we've had a wild ride of a
• 7:36
  relationship, my father and I. And so kindergarten he goes
• 7:41
  comes back to take me for a license.
• 7:42
  That was my childhood with my dad.
• 7:45
  And so he has, we have a great relationship now we're just
• 7:50
  buddies and me taking him off that pedestal of like daddy or
• 7:57
  dad or whatever title you want to give.
• 7:59
  And I could just see him as who he is.
• 8:00
  His name is Guy Cisco, just see him as Guy.
• 8:02
  And like now we're just homies and it's so much easier for us
• 8:06
  to interact with each other because we're not, we're here
• 8:09
  now and not here to here. And so, yeah, that's, that's how
• 8:13
  it is. And he knows like we've had
• 8:15
  conversations about this, like I, I tell them, I said, you
• 8:18
  know, guy, you are a wonderful father and I'm so grateful for
• 8:21
  how I turned out. But you are all nature and nor
• 8:23
  nurture. And he laughs and he knows it,
• 8:25
  you know, and that's it. Like he only knew nature and non
• 8:28
  nurture. So how did you get out of that?
• 8:31
  How how do you go from, you know, running on this treadmill
• 8:34
  that never ends? The next accomplishment, the
• 8:37
  next accomplishment to I'm going to start being.
• 8:39
  Yeah, So 2014. OK, the business is rocking.
• 8:44
  I am unhappy, I am angry. I've just, gosh, just a bunch of
• 8:49
  bad habits to like numb my my insecurity, numb my pain right
• 8:55
  And so. You got money in the bank,
• 8:56
  you're not sleeping in your car. You've essentially you've made
• 8:59
  it to a certain degree. That's that's why this was even
• 9:01
  more of a mind F, you know, because I was like, oh, I'm
• 9:04
  supposed to be this is supposed to be grand.
• 9:07
  This is supposed to be the utopia that I was dreaming about
• 9:12
  and that began that was 20. Oh, sorry, that was 2014.
• 9:16
  And that began a very intentional like journey of
• 9:19
  looking into myself. And I because I was just trying
• 9:24
  to find the answers to this because my biggest problem,
• 9:26
  Alex, is not that I have a problem and said I don't know
• 9:28
  what the problem is. When I don't know the problem.
• 9:32
  I am the most tailspinned I could possibly be and so someone
• 9:37
  recommended I look up emotional intelligence and maybe I start
• 9:41
  there. And so I read a book Emotional
• 9:42
  intelligence 2 point O and when you open the book they give you
• 9:45
  a test and the test is on self-awareness, self management,
• 9:50
  relationship awareness, relationship management.
• 9:53
  And I had really low self-awareness and I had even
• 9:58
  worse self management. I just couldn't manage my
• 10:01
  temper, manage my aggression. Like, I was the kind of guy with
• 10:04
  my team at the time. If you did something wrong, by
• 10:07
  the time I told you what you did wrong, I was wrong.
• 10:10
  OK? Like, I was that guy.
• 10:12
  I was totally that guy. And I just because that's the
• 10:15
  world I grew up in all nature. What do you mean?
• 10:18
  I'm just going to shame you into being better, of course.
• 10:21
  And so I started reading that book and I was like, oh, my
• 10:23
  goodness. I need to work on me and start
• 10:26
  figuring out my my lifestyle. And I just I'm the kind of guy
• 10:32
  that if I think I need to go do something, I go all in and do
• 10:35
  it. And so I would sign up for
• 10:37
  retreats and I would go out to these places in Southern
• 10:40
  California with these hippies that were barefoot and hugging
• 10:43
  me. I didn't even know another
• 10:44
  person could a stranger could hug you that didn't know you at
• 10:47
  the time. I was like, what are we doing
• 10:48
  here? OK, And put some shoes on, OK.
• 10:51
  And cut your hair. Like that's how I was when I
• 10:53
  first got there. But then, you know, the we've, I
• 10:55
  started doing some very interesting retreats.
• 10:58
  One retreat in particular in, in 2016.
• 11:01
  This was September of 2016. And it was a retreat where I
• 11:05
  went and looked at all my childhood life and like what I
• 11:09
  learned and did I really want to learn that?
• 11:12
  Do I want to take that lesson with me and all these certain
• 11:15
  things? And I found out that a lot of
• 11:17
  what I believed like in this was someone else's idea for me and
• 11:21
  it wasn't really mine. And that I began just cracking
• 11:25
  open this onion and peeling back all these layers.
• 11:27
  And I have done just countless amounts of work on this.
• 11:32
  I don't think there's anything else that's more important than
• 11:35
  understanding yourself. I think that's what true power,
• 11:38
  when people talk about power and success, I think it's owning
• 11:41
  yourself at every moment of your life and not having the world
• 11:45
  dictate who you are, who you're going to be.
• 11:47
  And once I just went all in on that idea and that thesis, this
• 11:51
  has been full journey. I still do.
• 11:54
  I'm still very much into this. But like, I went and lived in an
• 11:57
  eco village in Costa Rica for a week and a teepee, just weird
• 12:01
  stuff just to like get myself uncomfortable and be exposed to
• 12:04
  different cultures because so much of my conditioning was just
• 12:08
  this Italian American Chicago culture.
• 12:11
  And I never went anywhere. I never met other people, didn't
• 12:13
  know that other people could think other ways.
• 12:15
  And then I started meeting, joining business masterminds and
• 12:18
  started meeting other successful people that weren't wired like I
• 12:21
  was. They had different ideas is in
• 12:23
  different ways of approaching things and I was like, man, I'm
• 12:25
  going to go learn from this guy and learn from that guy and just
• 12:28
  putting myself around different people in different environments
• 12:31
  is how I was able to really shift.
• 12:33
  And so many things there first thing that I'm expressing a
• 12:38
  whole conversation, I'm just getting uncomfortable.
• 12:40
  That's so important. Most people soon as they start
• 12:43
  to feel a little discomfort, they push back, they they get
• 12:46
  out of it to go through this feels my heart's beating a
• 12:49
  little fast. This is uncomfortable.
• 12:50
  I'm sweating. This doesn't feel normal.
• 12:52
  And but that's, that's right where the growth is going to
• 12:55
  happen in that moment is, is getting uncomfortable, pushing
• 12:58
  yourself, making your heart race a little bit.
• 13:00
  That is where the growth happens.
• 13:01
  People want the growth, but then they don't want the
• 13:03
  uncomfortability that comes with it.
• 13:05
  Second thing I was going to say is that you talked about really
• 13:08
  like leaning into yourself and being comfortable with who you
• 13:11
  are and going through this world not thinking, what do they
• 13:14
  think? What should I look like this
• 13:16
  pure person or this, you know, am I trying to keep up with the
• 13:18
  Joneses or do I need to act a certain way?
• 13:21
  Or, you know, and whether it's on a date or whether it's in a
• 13:23
  podcast or whether it's, you know, in a peer group, going
• 13:27
  through this life and being so comfortable with yourself and
• 13:31
  who you are in your own skin. I just think it's a superpower.
• 13:34
  And even the small little things like if you meet someone, it's
• 13:38
  like you think you got to act a certain way or you think you got
• 13:42
  to fill the gaps or you got you're on a date and it's like,
• 13:44
  I can't, there's silence. Oh shit, I got to say something
• 13:47
  otherwise I'm going to think I'm not conversational.
• 13:48
  It's like, no, you don't just chill.
• 13:51
  Just be you because the only reason you're worried about that
• 13:53
  stuff because you think they're going to judge you for not
• 13:56
  having something, but you already have it.
• 13:59
  You're enough. That's that's the unlock man.
• 14:03
  Nothing more attractive than when you know somebody could
• 14:05
  just be themselves and let their hair down and just chill out if
• 14:07
  there's nothing more traffic and it gives permission for
• 14:10
  everybody else around them to do the same.
• 14:12
  That's so true. And back to what you said
• 14:15
  before, the sensation between nervous and excitement are no
• 14:19
  different in your body. It's just how you how you define
• 14:22
  it. Interesting.
• 14:23
  And that's what I've realized too, is like when you, and when
• 14:26
  I get uncomfortable, it's like, wait, am I just excited?
• 14:29
  Am I just excited? Right.
• 14:31
  And like, really reinterpreting what that feeling might mean is
• 14:34
  is a great way to just do some crazy wild stuff.
• 14:39
  Yeah, that's a good that that's what they say when you were
• 14:40
  getting ready to go on stage is a is a secret to kind of get
• 14:43
  over that stage fright is to say, yes, I'm feeling nervous,
• 14:46
  I'm sweating a little bit. But am I really just excited to
• 14:49
  go out here and serve this audience and and deliver some
• 14:52
  value and tell some cool stories and make an impact.
• 14:55
  And if you flip that, it does it does help, I think frame it a
• 14:58
  little differently, a little better for sure.
• 15:00
  But yeah, being yourself, which I always tell, I tell my
• 15:03
  daughters two things every day on the way to school.
• 15:06
  Number one is one of the greatest gifts you can give
• 15:08
  yourself is to be yourself. And the second one is ask not
• 15:11
  and this little JFK ish, but ask not what you can get from the
• 15:15
  world, but what you can give to the world.
• 15:18
  And I just try and I have them finish it out and like ask not.
• 15:20
  And then, you know, and the greatest gift you can give
• 15:22
  yourself is and they're like to be ourselves, you know, and I
• 15:25
  and I don't know if they fully appreciate that now, but I'm
• 15:27
  trying to ingrain it and they're.
• 15:29
  Hypnotizing them. And I'm also trying to live it
• 15:31
  and be it, you know, not just say things, but actually show
• 15:35
  them the way too. Because I think lessons are are
• 15:37
  taught, but they're also caught. You see them, you catch them,
• 15:40
  you, you know, you witness them. And so I think those are
• 15:43
  important. I'm sure you probably do similar
• 15:45
  things with your kids. Too.
• 15:46
  I was thinking just how I do the same thing with my my son.
• 15:48
  We have two that we say and yeah, today is better than
• 15:51
  yesterday and then he goes tomorrow will be better than
• 15:53
  today. And then we say my world takes
• 15:55
  care of me, and I say my world, and he says takes care of me.
• 15:57
  And that's. So cool.
• 15:58
  So when you said? That I was like, dude, say words
• 16:00
  like, yeah, I love doing. That's cool.
• 16:02
  Every, every time we're in the car on the way to swimming or
• 16:04
  jiu jitsu, you know? What the other thing I think it
• 16:06
  does too is it just kind of gets them to think below the surface.
• 16:09
  You know, I think we operate in this world of, like, I have this
• 16:12
  task to do, and then I've got to do this and I've got my second
• 16:14
  period and then I'm gonna eat lunch.
• 16:16
  And it kind of forces you to get a little more philosophical, a
• 16:19
  little deeper. Are you thinking about how
• 16:22
  you're going through this life? Are you thinking about who
• 16:24
  you're being in this life? Right.
• 16:25
  And I think those types of things just really make a big
• 16:27
  difference. So you talk a lot about building
• 16:31
  a business that runs without you.
• 16:33
  How do you build a business that runs without you?
• 16:35
  Yeah. So I really believe that
• 16:38
  anybody's an entrepreneur. At the sole core of this, really
• 16:42
  freedom. No, no, I mean at the soul of
• 16:44
  anyone that is an entrepreneur, the sole purpose is freedom.
• 16:47
  Got it? That is what we are chasing.
• 16:49
  We are chasing freedom. And maybe in all acts of life,
• 16:51
  we are just chasing freedom, financial freedom, whatever it
• 16:54
  is, we want freedom. And I see so many times that
• 16:59
  people are building businesses and their ego gets the best of
• 17:04
  them and the business becomes about them.
• 17:08
  And I have this this way of defining this.
• 17:10
  I think a business is about a person, a company's about an
• 17:13
  idea. And when you start the business,
• 17:16
  it has to be about that person. Yeah.
• 17:19
  But then there's a point where you have to intentionally shift
• 17:22
  to making it about an idea. And a lot of times that point is
• 17:27
  when you're in the journey of running a business is when you
• 17:29
  are already successful. And so it's very difficult to
• 17:33
  let go of something that is giving you success and what you
• 17:36
  really want. And it's the time where you've
• 17:39
  been running this business and you don't have accountability.
• 17:42
  But if you have a company, everybody's accountable.
• 17:45
  Can you explain the idea piece more?
• 17:46
  Sure. So when a business is about a
• 17:49
  person, it's, it revolves around 1 human being.
• 17:52
  They're in everything. They make every decision, they
• 17:55
  decide where the business goes. They're they're the center of
• 17:58
  the universe. But for a business to become a
• 18:00
  company and not make it about a person, it needs to be about an
• 18:04
  idea. What are we really doing here?
• 18:07
  What impact are we trying to make here?
• 18:09
  What does winning look like for all of us?
• 18:11
  What's a shared sense of winning?
• 18:13
  Not what do I feel like today because it's Wednesday.
• 18:17
  And when it's like that, that founder needs to shift, needs to
• 18:22
  mostly it's a, it's a personal transformation.
• 18:25
  It's identity transformation. Then the business gets it.
• 18:28
  You have to change who you are and how you think.
• 18:29
  Because what I didn't share about this story is, is once I
• 18:33
  started working on myself, I opened another gym and then a
• 18:36
  nutrition coaching company and then an online programming
• 18:39
  company, and then I got into business coaching just by people
• 18:42
  notoriety in that industry. And so that all happened after I
• 18:46
  stopped making things about me. Now, did you think at at a
• 18:50
  certain point in time that the business couldn't run without
• 18:52
  you or did you think it was possible to even go there?
• 18:57
  I knew that I wanted that. I I knew that I wanted to go
• 19:01
  take off for three weeks and go to South Africa and not be
• 19:05
  anywhere knowing what's going on and everything was still making
• 19:08
  money. I thought that was like such a
• 19:10
  key metric of victory. Yeah.
• 19:12
  Is that being able to just whatever you want?
• 19:14
  Yeah. Freedom.
• 19:15
  Like when someone was like, hey, you want to you want to go here
• 19:17
  this weekend? I'm like, let's get on a plane,
• 19:18
  let's go. You know, this was when I was
• 19:20
  still single. You know, you could just, you
• 19:21
  were, you know, just grabbing a backpack and you're gone, right.
• 19:24
  You know what I mean? And I really wanted to enjoy
• 19:27
  that. And I'm not the kind of person
• 19:29
  that thinks, oh, I'm going to work till I'm 65 and then I'm
• 19:31
  going to have fun. No, we're having fun today.
• 19:33
  Hell yeah. And so I, I wanted to, to build
• 19:37
  that. And then once I was able to
• 19:38
  really look at myself with that journey, I was like, oh, I'm the
• 19:42
  problem. I'm making everything about me.
• 19:44
  I'm a control freak. I have trust issues.
• 19:47
  Well, maybe if I sat down and talked to a therapist and wrote
• 19:50
  these crazy stories down and came face to face with them, I
• 19:54
  wouldn't, I would be able to unravel some of these things.
• 19:56
  Because every business that isn't that smaller business
• 19:59
  state under 5,000,000 bucks is mirroring the founder.
• 20:04
  Everything that's great about it and everything that's not so
• 20:07
  great about it. You know, if the business is
• 20:08
  chaotic, I bet you the founder's chaotic.
• 20:10
  If the business is too tight and too wound up and micromanaged, I
• 20:14
  bet you that guy's a military like her girl, right?
• 20:17
  And so it's getting to understand that once you shift
• 20:20
  that business will just mirror that reality.
• 20:22
  Well, what if you have a consulting or an advisory firm
• 20:25
  where it does depend a lot on that founders experience and
• 20:29
  working hand, you know, one-on-one with clients.
• 20:31
  Yeah. What are some of the steps you
• 20:32
  take to to scale a business like that?
• 20:34
  Yeah, that's a, is that trickier than than?
• 20:37
  Yeah, I mentioned my 2 businesses here are kind of the
• 20:39
  consulting, advisory, strategic work I do from a marketing
• 20:42
  standpoint with companies. And then also we've got this,
• 20:44
  we're running out this podcast now and we're going to do
• 20:46
  editing and posting for people and that's more of a process and
• 20:49
  you have a team and you have someone run the equipment, it's
• 20:51
  more scalable to me and you could sell that, which we
• 20:54
  probably will at some point. The advisory piece is where I
• 20:57
  get stuck sometimes from like how do I scale this because
• 21:00
  what's what's the path? Interesting.
• 21:02
  You know, I've thought about the same thing with my practice, but
• 21:04
  this is where I've I've really because.
• 21:06
  You've done both, yeah. I've yeah, this is this is where
• 21:09
  you could go. So an advisory to me, the first
• 21:12
  thing you could do is you create some sort of program that people
• 21:17
  go through. So when people are everything
• 21:19
  isn't one off like that. It's that no, you're going
• 21:22
  through here and this is going to be a 12 week thing.
• 21:24
  It could be a group program or it could be individualized.
• 21:28
  And that's, that's one way to do it.
• 21:31
  You could create definitely some sort of recurring revenue model.
• 21:34
  I tell everybody that's in this consulting coaching game, if
• 21:36
  you're not figuring out some recurring revenue, you are in
• 21:39
  some deep SHIT. You have to figure out that and
• 21:43
  that'll give you that freedom, some sort of program, something
• 21:46
  like that. And then also too, I think you
• 21:50
  also have to realize you get to a point where you need to charge
• 21:54
  the value that you really create.
• 21:55
  And everybody in the beginning of this coaching game isn't
• 21:58
  charging enough. And they don't maybe have the
• 22:00
  right yet. But over time, you should be
• 22:03
  able to have freedom in your lifestyle because you are really
• 22:05
  getting what you're worth. And then you don't have to take
• 22:08
  on an extra 10 clients to pay. No, you could do the same thing
• 22:11
  with five. And I really think that that's
• 22:14
  the path. You know, some other people have
• 22:16
  talked to me. Angela, are you going to bring
• 22:17
  on other coaches or anything like that?
• 22:20
  Well, as of right now, the way my business stands, I, I believe
• 22:26
  that maybe I'm this is my ego and everything, but I believe
• 22:29
  that I deliver a certain medicine and I want to deliver
• 22:31
  that medicine. I don't want someone else to try
• 22:33
  to deliver it the way I do it. Because they won't be able to,
• 22:36
  yeah. Yeah.
• 22:37
  And so for me, I, I think that the other way in this game is
• 22:41
  obviously getting some assistance, getting some low
• 22:43
  level task stuff off through you and I just for me, I try to just
• 22:46
  make sure the time is doing, giving the medicine and then the
• 22:50
  other stuff someone else is taking care of for me, I could
• 22:53
  just show up and do the thing. That's what I try to do too,
• 22:55
  especially if, you know, if you think about this podcast, I
• 22:58
  don't do any of the editing, the posting, the thumbnails, the
• 23:00
  titles and descriptions. I don't do any of that stuff.
• 23:03
  I just literally record. I show up here, I'm the talent.
• 23:06
  I, you know, the guest is the talent too.
• 23:08
  We're both the talent. We show up, we're the people on
• 23:09
  camera. We make a great show.
• 23:11
  The files get uploaded and then that's the last I ever see them.
• 23:14
  You know, everything. We've got some AI and automation
• 23:16
  in there too. And then it gets posted and then
• 23:18
  it, you know, it performs and we bring in a new guest.
• 23:20
  And so that's the stuff that I think makes a lot of sense to
• 23:23
  have. Why would you spend?
• 23:24
  Why would I spend my time editing videos or like posting
• 23:27
  on, you know, making thumbnails? Like, it doesn't make any sense.
• 23:30
  But the part I do get hung up on is exactly what you just said.
• 23:33
  It's like I do if I don't deliver that service, it's not
• 23:39
  the same level of quality. Now, I know someone might listen
• 23:41
  and go. That's your bottleneck, you
• 23:43
  know, that's your thing. You think you got to be involved
• 23:45
  in it all, but from a consulting from certain businesses, no.
• 23:48
  I'd love to hand it off and like that's the podcast, the studio
• 23:51
  rental, that whole business. Hell yeah, I'm going to hand off
• 23:53
  every single thing as much as I can, right?
• 23:55
  Like absolutely. But with this, it's like they
• 23:58
  are paying for my knowledge and skill set and expertise and I
• 24:01
  have a certain way I deliver it that is different than other
• 24:03
  people. Now I've thought about and I
• 24:06
  know other companies that hire 1099 people or other consultants
• 24:09
  or, but then you just have to be OK with, hey, I, I want Angelo
• 24:13
  and I'm getting Ron or Sally. OK, Well, I want an Angelo
• 24:17
  though, you know, and it's like, OK, well there's a premium for
• 24:19
  Angelo and if you don't want to pay that premium, then you got
• 24:22
  Ron or Sally. Is that how you structure it
• 24:24
  potentially? You could.
• 24:27
  The other thing I want to, I wanted to bring up is a guy
• 24:29
  named Mark Abbott, who is a really great visionary CEO.
• 24:34
  You know, he, he shared this one time that there's different
• 24:36
  types of entrepreneurs. There's visionary entrepreneurs
• 24:40
  who make things out of nothing, Elon, right?
• 24:43
  There's legacy entrepreneurs who take an industry and make it
• 24:47
  even better. So Steve Jobs didn't invent the
• 24:49
  computer, but he made it better, right?
• 24:51
  Or the the phone, Really. Yeah, yeah.
• 24:53
  OK, there's opportunistic entrepreneurs who basically just
• 24:56
  jump on any opportunity, any wave, but then the other one is
• 25:00
  a lifestyle entrepreneur and I'm a lifestyle entrepreneur.
• 25:03
  As much as I want to raise my hands and be this big bad, no,
• 25:06
  I'm about lifestyle and I'm about working and building a
• 25:09
  business that serves my lifestyle, not the other way
• 25:12
  around it. And I think when you understand
• 25:15
  which one you are building, you will never go too far out of the
• 25:18
  way. Now there is upsides and
• 25:20
  downsides to lifestyle because I maybe I don't take advantage of
• 25:23
  as much opportunities as I want, but right now in my life, I have
• 25:26
  two small kids. One will be here another 28.
• 25:29
  This is my this is my time to be in that lifestyle mode because I
• 25:33
  want to be at the practices. I like family dinners.
• 25:36
  I'm into all of that. And so I don't think you have to
• 25:39
  do it one way. And this is the way forever.
• 25:41
  I think right now where you are with your family, you want to go
• 25:43
  take those rides with the girls every morning.
• 25:45
  You want to do all that stuff. Well, you're a lifestyle and
• 25:47
  then you ride this till then when they all go to college,
• 25:50
  we'll let the let the dogs out and we'll go build some real
• 25:52
  crazy if we want, you know, and that's amazing, man.
• 25:54
  I think it's about knowing which lane you're in and which one
• 25:57
  you're trying to do. And then just stepping into it
• 26:00
  and understanding that it's not forever.
• 26:01
  Nothing is. It's just now.
• 26:03
  That's such a good point that you just said.
• 26:05
  I really felt that because that is so true.
• 26:07
  You think about this moment that you're in now and you think it's
• 26:10
  like, this is I got to figure out every decision in this
• 26:12
  moment now. And it's like 2 years from now.
• 26:15
  Life's going to be different. Six months from now.
• 26:17
  Definitely five years, definitely 10 years.
• 26:19
  And we got, we got a ways to go. You know, we're just getting
• 26:21
  started in a lot of ways, you know, whether regardless of your
• 26:23
  age. And I think that's a good
• 26:26
  perspective to have, man. Yeah, that's a really, really
• 26:28
  good perspective to have going back to the control thing,
• 26:30
  because most entrepreneurs are like, I do want control or I do
• 26:33
  want a freedom, I think was the word we use.
• 26:34
  Freedom, freedom. If you want freedom and you're a
• 26:38
  entrepreneur, it's a little bit tricky sometimes because you
• 26:41
  think, OK, freedom. Well, I think I think that's
• 26:44
  like the lifestyle business, right?
• 26:46
  I don't want freedom. I'll take my kids, do this
• 26:47
  vacation. You know, obviously I need money
• 26:49
  to do all that stuff. So there's a there's a lifestyle
• 26:52
  business that presents freedom. But then someone might argue,
• 26:55
  but if it's all you, are you really free because the business
• 26:59
  is so relying on you? You are the bottleneck in a lot
• 27:01
  of ways. Touché.
• 27:02
  And then the other aspect is, well, if you build a business
• 27:05
  that's scalable, I get this thing going, the studio rental,
• 27:08
  the build your own media company, it's scalable.
• 27:11
  But then am I now managing teams and I'm pulled in this and I've
• 27:15
  got more meetings and I'm now talking to investors, you know,
• 27:18
  and you've got this whole other game that you're playing that
• 27:21
  you say, wait a second, I designed this to have the
• 27:24
  freedom so it didn't have to run with that.
• 27:26
  It could run without me. And now all of a sudden, I'm
• 27:29
  more stuck in this shit than I've ever been.
• 27:32
  So what? What, what am I even doing here?
• 27:34
  You know what I mean? You think about that kind of
• 27:36
  dichotomy. Yeah, I think, I don't think
• 27:39
  there is ever this like passive income thing.
• 27:41
  I think it's not a real it's good for people selling crap on
• 27:46
  Instagram and that you're gonna make all this money and Amazon
• 27:49
  drop shipping or whatever the next thing is gonna be.
• 27:52
  I I think every business involves a certain amount of of
• 27:56
  work and and I. The only cyber, the only thing I
• 27:59
  would say there is if you want that kind of money, go invest in
• 28:03
  smart investments like stock portfolios or maybe crypto if
• 28:06
  you're into that or whatever it is, right?
• 28:07
  This isn't financial advice, but invest in things where you don't
• 28:10
  touch it. You put money in and over time,
• 28:13
  if you're patient, not next month.
• 28:14
  Is it gonna get me rich? But five years from now, I'll
• 28:17
  have big cash in the bank. I think that works.
• 28:20
  But from I'm with you, from a business standpoint, it's like
• 28:23
  that's with income real estate, just about a few houses and all
• 28:25
  of a sudden it's like, yeah, who's going to manage that shit?
• 28:28
  The construction, the bills, the tenants, the anyways, go ahead.
• 28:31
  We're getting involved in all these businesses that we don't
• 28:33
  understand and we're wondering why they don't work.
• 28:35
  We don't even want to do them. Totally.
• 28:37
  And so for me, I think also to like defining freedom for me is
• 28:41
  doing the work that I really enjoy doing and that feels free
• 28:45
  to me. I feel, I don't feel like I, I
• 28:47
  wake up, I get to talk with people I'd like, I get to
• 28:50
  interact with people I like. I am living days of, of what I
• 28:54
  would consider freedom. I am doing what I enjoy doing
• 28:57
  and what I feel is aligned with my true purpose.
• 29:00
  And I don't think freedom means not doing anything right.
• 29:04
  What's that with like, like Jocko, sort of like a freedom
• 29:07
  requires responsibility. It's an important thing.
• 29:10
  It's not like you could just play around with it.
• 29:13
  It's a responsibility to have it.
• 29:14
  And so you could build your business and I think you're
• 29:17
  doing only your superpowers in it is is freedom and it doesn't
• 29:22
  require so much of your time that you could learn how to
• 29:25
  build it and step away from it. Like that's what, around 25,
• 29:29
  2015, 1617 and 18 are travelled everywhere.
• 29:33
  Like I said in that earlier story about my dad, I never went
• 29:36
  anywhere. I finally got a passport.
• 29:37
  You couldn't stop me from going somewhere and it was just
• 29:41
  because I had the right people. I had them incentivize really
• 29:44
  well. I trained them really well.
• 29:46
  I didn't skip those steps. And I think we just want to go
• 29:49
  from A-Z really quick. But you got to do all that stuff
• 29:52
  that you have to do to to make sure that your business is ready
• 29:55
  to be stepped away from. You have some unconventional
• 29:58
  ways of doing of working with customers, OK, At least from
• 30:02
  what I've seen. So this is a picture here of
• 30:05
  actually somebody that was on the show, Alex, and you posted
• 30:07
  this publicly, so I can share this totally.
• 30:10
  This I believe was an exercise or something you were involved
• 30:13
  with with some of your clients. And I imagine you probably do
• 30:15
  more of this with other clients. Why is he laying on the ground?
• 30:19
  What is going on in this exercise?
• 30:21
  So before 1/4 a quarterly planning session, I had them do
• 30:25
  a Wim Hof breathing exercise. Wim Hof is known as the Iceman
• 30:30
  in the world. Like he's the guy that really
• 30:32
  brought ice baths to this to the world.
• 30:34
  What we really know is the popularity and before you do an
• 30:37
  ice bath or even by itself, there's a breathing technique
• 30:39
  where you take 30 big breaths and you, you hyperventilate, but
• 30:44
  you do it on purpose. It's, it's not, it's hypo.
• 30:47
  It's like you're not forcing it, but you fill up with oxygen and
• 30:50
  then after the 30th breath, you let the exhale out and then you
• 30:54
  hold. And because your body is so
• 30:57
  oxygenated, you could hold this hold a long time.
• 30:59
  Some people like the goal is 90 seconds.
• 31:01
  You could even go farther and you are in like just complete
• 31:04
  bliss when you are in this hole. Like if you've ever, if you've
• 31:07
  ever seen people like free diving, just like that cruising
• 31:10
  and you're at that place and what's happening is your body is
• 31:13
  building up CO2 and depending on where your nervous system is and
• 31:16
  where your mind is, is the length of that hole.
• 31:19
  And then you take in a deep breath and then you repeat that
• 31:22
  for a few rounds. But the biggest reason I had
• 31:24
  them do this at this meeting is, is I really believe that there's
• 31:27
  2 core things that need to be in place to be successful.
• 31:31
  And they have nothing to do with business.
• 31:33
  And I focus on them with people is 1 your nervous system.
• 31:37
  I think you need to learn how to regulate your nervous system.
• 31:41
  I don't think I know you do. You need to know how to move
• 31:44
  your system from sympathetic to parasympathetic.
• 31:47
  Sympathetic is survival, fight, flight, freeze to
• 31:51
  parasympathetic, rest, digest and reproduce.
• 31:54
  And I just look at it this way. When you're in survival mode,
• 31:57
  everything is is out of fear and scarcity.
• 31:59
  And the decisions that you make are rooted there.
• 32:02
  Over here, you're rooted in abundance and long term
• 32:04
  thinking. Where do you want to be thinking
• 32:06
  right, man, that's that being where do you want to be looking
• 32:09
  at the problem from here, here. OK.
• 32:12
  And so I'm really big on regulating their their nervous
• 32:14
  system. And then the other thing that
• 32:16
  I'm really big on is understanding their energy and
• 32:20
  their energy to me, you have three meta kind of, I know this
• 32:23
  is woo woo, but three kind of meta energy that we all work
• 32:26
  with. We have masculine.
• 32:27
  It has nothing to do with men. It's masculine, which is like
• 32:31
  logical, direct, disciplined energy.
• 32:34
  We have feminine energy, which is still nothing to do with
• 32:37
  gender. It's just an energy out there,
• 32:39
  everybody. And it is creative, free
• 32:42
  flowing, very, very wonderful. And then there's divine energy,
• 32:46
  which is trust and gratitude and in what we're doing.
• 32:49
  And I think a lot of people when they talk about burned out, I
• 32:52
  think they're in an energy too long and they're not regulating
• 32:56
  all of this. And so with guys like Alex and
• 32:58
  Enroads, we're talking about regulating your nervous system
• 33:01
  and then understanding like, if I'm one of these type a more
• 33:05
  masculine energy dominant people, I need to go find
• 33:08
  something to do that's feminine. And for me, I will share this
• 33:11
  openly. It's one of my favorite things
• 33:13
  to do right now. I'm married eight years, two
• 33:16
  kids, one on the way. I'm have a growing business.
• 33:19
  The majority of my life needs to be in a masculine energy state.
• 33:23
  I have to get up and go take care of things.
• 33:25
  I can't lay around my wife. My wife is a wonderful mom at
• 33:28
  home. I have to take care of things,
• 33:30
  but then if I stay in that place too long, I wind up being
• 33:33
  controlling. I wind up being aggressive and
• 33:36
  angry. And so I find activities that
• 33:39
  are feminine to help me relax. My favorite one is I like to
• 33:42
  dance. I love to dance the house music,
• 33:44
  so I go dance the house music. Dance the damn kitchen, yeah.
• 33:46
  That's it. Sometimes I like to just draw or
• 33:49
  do some sort of art, something that feels like play, because
• 33:53
  then it takes me off the hook of this seriousness, right?
• 33:56
  And then you have some people that don't aren't really good at
• 33:59
  like structured and all of that. They're more on the feminine
• 34:02
  side of things. And so when I'm coaching them,
• 34:04
  I'm trying to get them to have more of a routine.
• 34:07
  I'm trying to get them to go to the gym more because that's a
• 34:10
  masculine like activity. I'm trying to get them to take
• 34:13
  ice baths. But if I have somebody over here
• 34:15
  that's this hell bent guy, I'm going, yeah, let's go do yoga.
• 34:19
  And when you're doing that, I really think you stay in this
• 34:21
  game longer because this is an endurance sport, right?
• 34:26
  It's last man standing. This is an endurance sport.
• 34:28
  And I think if you are not looking at your nervous system
• 34:31
  and not looking at your energy and how you're taking care of
• 34:34
  that, you're just going to burn out and you're going to blame
• 34:36
  all these other things. But these things could be really
• 34:39
  helpful for how you show up. And so like with Alex, like
• 34:42
  everybody, this is this is the gears and the knobs that I try
• 34:45
  to play with 'cause I don't think a lot of people are
• 34:47
  looking at them. They're looking at your business
• 34:49
  plan, but I'm looking at the executors of the business plan.
• 34:54
  Let's say you're a successful business owner, but you're fat
• 34:58
  and you're out of shape and you're not taking care of
• 35:00
  yourself. Oh my gosh.
• 35:01
  What is your advice to those founders and entrepreneurs?
• 35:04
  Do you address that when you're working with them?
• 35:06
  Do you wait for something to come up?
• 35:08
  They're like, how do you handle Because like certain at a
• 35:10
  certain point, if you don't take care of your body and your
• 35:12
  health, which does get neglected.
• 35:14
  I've noticed a lot with the founders and business owners
• 35:16
  because they're they've got this great business, they're building
• 35:18
  it up and then it's like they're not healthy.
• 35:20
  They end up in the hospital. Something happens.
• 35:21
  Now you don't have anything. So it's like, I'm curious how
• 35:24
  you address that. All right, I, I, I think I could
• 35:26
  address this in the way that I want to address it, but I want
• 35:29
  to share something first. At 25, I lost 100 lbs doing
• 35:33
  CrossFit by myself. I saw you.
• 35:34
  Were 300. Pounds I was £300.
• 35:36
  I I was the kid at the pool with the boobies all embarrassed.
• 35:40
  So I could say this full blown. If you aren't taking care of
• 35:43
  your body, you are showing the world that you don't love
• 35:46
  yourself. You're not taking care of
• 35:47
  yourself. How am I supposed to trust you
• 35:50
  with my business interests if you can't even take care of
• 35:52
  yourself? It's, it's from my heart,
• 35:56
  honest. You can't, you can't control
• 35:58
  what you put in your body, but you're going to control how me
• 36:00
  and you work together in a business opportunity.
• 36:02
  No, I don't know. I don't know.
• 36:04
  I have a little less trust. No different.
• 36:06
  If you had a drug habit, I would have less trust.
• 36:09
  It's just to me, it is the baseline of showing the world
• 36:12
  that you love yourself, that you value yourself, and that you're
• 36:15
  trustworthy. Because I can't trust you if you
• 36:18
  can't even take care of your side of the street.
• 36:21
  It's powerful, man. I don't disagree with that.
• 36:24
  Either I, I, I don't know how anyone can't.
• 36:26
  I think the only downfall is like, you know, if someone
• 36:28
  smokes or has a drug addict problem or they're an alcoholic,
• 36:31
  you sometimes can't see that stuff.
• 36:32
  You know, where if you're not taking care of yourself
• 36:35
  physically, it's just more apparent like that addiction,
• 36:38
  but that sometimes it is an addiction.
• 36:39
  People can't. They struggle to not eat the
• 36:41
  right, you know, foods. It's like that's a drug.
• 36:43
  Food is a drug than a. Drug and you can't like just say
• 36:46
  I'm not going to eat food anymore.
• 36:47
  Like you got to eat food, you know, but you got to have the
• 36:49
  right stuff and you can't overeat and stuff like that.
• 36:51
  I think we all have of those temptations for sure.
• 36:55
  But So what? What have you found that because
• 36:58
  I think a lot of people know and people even listening right now.
• 37:01
  We love you guys. We want to help you here.
• 37:02
  We want to make an impact. But you know, we know you might
• 37:04
  be listening now saying, you know, I'm not in a good place
• 37:07
  with my physical health, my mental health, whatever it is
• 37:11
  what what needs to happen first for them to really make a
• 37:13
  change? If there was 2.
• 37:17
  So first of all, I don't think everybody needs to be this like
• 37:19
  jacked Adonis by the way, definitely not I I just want to
• 37:22
  get that out there. You don't this is me.
• 37:24
  This is what I enjoy. Like you, you and your like no
• 37:27
  way. I just think you are on a path
• 37:29
  of taking care of yourself. You are a better person when you
• 37:32
  are doing that. And for me, you know, I, I
• 37:34
  equate love with acts of service.
• 37:36
  So I really believe it's the most loving thing you could do
• 37:38
  for yourself for anybody out there.
• 37:40
  I think there's two tools, 2 simple things that everybody
• 37:43
  could do that would just alter their life in such an amazing
• 37:47
  way. Wake up every morning, grab a
• 37:50
  journal, set a timer for 5 minutes and just write
• 37:53
  everything that is in your head on paper.
• 37:56
  Don't worry about what it is. It could be like, I can't
• 37:59
  believe I'm doing this. I heard Angelo on this podcast.
• 38:01
  What a stupid bastard making me do this.
• 38:03
  Just keep writing OK? Because I think a lot of times
• 38:06
  our minds are so stuck with so many thoughts and we have no
• 38:11
  real release from them because we don't we can't articulate
• 38:14
  them or we don't have anybody we could share them to.
• 38:17
  So a journal is like taking a mental dump to me.
• 38:20
  And I think if you want to start understanding yourself, you need
• 38:24
  to look at yourself from an observer's perspective.
• 38:26
  Love that. OK.
• 38:27
  And the other thing is walk, walk.
• 38:31
  Get a walking pad for your desk, go for a walk outside, do
• 38:35
  anything. If you took, if anybody was just
• 38:38
  journaling and going for walks, I think they would be a lot
• 38:41
  better. That's such good advice, man.
• 38:44
  Moving your body is there's something around that too.
• 38:47
  Yeah. And walking simple.
• 38:48
  You can do it. You can do it inside.
• 38:49
  You don't need, if it's like, oh, it's shitty outside right
• 38:51
  now, walk in place, you know, do some damn jumping jacks or
• 38:53
  whatever you can do walk up a couple stairs or get out, Bundle
• 38:56
  up and get outside. You can, it's not Antarctica.
• 38:58
  You can go outside. You just got to bundle up
• 39:00
  sometimes depending on where you live.
• 39:02
  And then, yeah, the writing piece.
• 39:03
  I, I, I try to make a point every morning when I get up.
• 39:06
  I do like a page or two, a reading just cuz I like to just
• 39:09
  kind of not have a screen or something or anything else.
• 39:11
  And then I go into writing and for me it's a lot of content and
• 39:14
  things like that. I may write a skip video.
• 39:17
  I may write a post for LinkedIn or whatever it is because I want
• 39:19
  to get in my creative space before I touch.
• 39:22
  I don't look at e-mail. I don't check stocks.
• 39:24
  I don't check, you know, I just like want my brain to go there
• 39:27
  first and then, you know, try to do my best to work out and stay
• 39:30
  active. So I love that.
• 39:32
  I did have a couple questions from our founder talk community.
• 39:35
  Two that came in today knowing you guys are going to come on
• 39:37
  the show, you and another guest today, this was the first one.
• 39:41
  What is your most successful marketing strategy and how do
• 39:44
  you use social media? Most successful marketing
• 39:48
  strategy. I really believe in
• 39:54
  relationships. I think it's about making
• 39:58
  genuine relationships. And there's a book called
• 40:02
  Influence by Robert Childini. I think it's the the Bible on
• 40:05
  sales and marketing, and he has something in there just called
• 40:08
  reciprocity. And you give before you ask, and
• 40:12
  I think that is my favorite marketing strategy is you give.
• 40:16
  And I really believe if I did something for you, it's not even
• 40:20
  the universe isn't going to have you give me it back to me
• 40:23
  directly. It's just already out there that
• 40:25
  I'm cosmically on this. And that for me is the greatest
• 40:29
  marketing strategy there is this reciprocity and building great
• 40:32
  relationships. And how do I use social media?
• 40:36
  Full transparency, I I only have LinkedIn.
• 40:39
  I mean, I have Instagram and Facebook, but I I don't have
• 40:44
  them on my phone. I'm really kind of archaic with
• 40:46
  it. I have a grayscale phone.
• 40:48
  I only have LinkedIn on my phone and I try to eliminate a lot of
• 40:52
  distractions. But for me, I love to write.
• 40:55
  Every Saturday morning I I sit in a coffee shop for a couple
• 40:58
  hours and I just recap my week. Every every evening I have a
• 41:01
  reminder on my phone to think about what I talked about with
• 41:04
  people that might be a good content idea for me.
• 41:07
  And then I get there on Saturday and I have this whole thing and
• 41:09
  I just start writing. And I think the hardest thing
• 41:13
  about social media or any kind of marketing like that is that
• 41:17
  you are planting seeds that you have no idea when the garden is
• 41:20
  going to grow. And you just have to have faith
• 41:23
  that you are moving in the right direction.
• 41:25
  And it, it don't put a timeline on it like, oh, I'm going to
• 41:28
  give it six months. And if it doesn't work on this
• 41:30
  platform, because the the hardest part I think is, is that
• 41:34
  every one of these platforms, and you know, this way better
• 41:36
  than me is unique unto themselves.
• 41:39
  There's a way you got to talk and interact on LinkedIn that
• 41:42
  you don't do on Instagram. And not only do you have to
• 41:45
  learn your voice and who you're trying to talk to, you have to
• 41:47
  learn how to translate it into that platform.
• 41:50
  And that takes time, takes time. You know, I, I started really
• 41:54
  being diligent October of October, November of 24 on
• 42:00
  LinkedIn. And for the first like 3 or 4
• 42:02
  months, I, I contemplated quitting like 20,000 times
• 42:05
  because it was just like this. And then I found my voice, I
• 42:08
  found my rhythm, I found my cadence.
• 42:10
  And so it just takes a lot of time to, to really master them.
• 42:13
  And that's why I only stick with one for me right now.
• 42:15
  And that serves my purpose. Love it.
• 42:18
  Second question is you have lots of you're in a very competitive
• 42:21
  market. I'm in a very competitive
• 42:23
  market. If you are in a very competitive
• 42:26
  industry, how do you stand out and how do you specifically
• 42:29
  stand out in yours as a business coach?
• 42:32
  Yeah. You know, you we we talked about
• 42:34
  this earlier is really being authentically yourself and not
• 42:42
  shying away from that like I am. Like there's times when I'm in
• 42:47
  quarterly planning sessions, I'll walk around barefoot
• 42:49
  because I love being grounded. And I put on when I when I feel
• 42:53
  like the energy is getting a little low, I put on disco house
• 42:56
  music because I love it and everyone else perks up.
• 42:58
  But just finding who you naturally are and then how does
• 43:02
  that lend to your work and being that way?
• 43:04
  I think it's very attractive for other people to feel confident
• 43:08
  to be their way. And no matter how competitive
• 43:10
  the market is, there's only one you.
• 43:13
  So true. And you can see even from the
• 43:15
  picture I showed earlier, you know, you got your clients
• 43:17
  laying down on the floor, just you're doing some unique things
• 43:20
  that maybe other business coaches like, all right, let's
• 43:22
  go through this and this and this.
• 43:23
  And you're like, Dave, the vibes off change the time out.
• 43:26
  You know, I think those things are very unique.
• 43:28
  Yeah, so you're part of Vistage? I am.
• 43:30
  Has that been worth it? It's a peer-to-peer, you know,
• 43:32
  CEO type group. Yeah.
• 43:34
  Has that been worth it? And then I got a question for
• 43:35
  you afterwards, because we're going to be building our own
• 43:37
  founders group. Nice, so I am a member for
• 43:40
  almost three years and I recently became a chair myself.
• 43:43
  I have my own group and one. Do I think it's worth it?
• 43:50
  I 100% think that there is something important about being
• 43:55
  in Group and a group setting. You know, I, I, I coach people
• 43:59
  1:00 to 1:00. But there's something about a
• 44:00
  peer, A peer group that there's a level of accountability and
• 44:05
  camaraderie you can't get anywhere else.
• 44:07
  And I told this to, to somebody who just joined my group or I
• 44:11
  told this to my group at our last meeting.
• 44:13
  I have friends in my life from my 10s to my 20s.
• 44:16
  Still friends from grammar school and high school.
• 44:20
  Then I have friends in my life from my 20s and 30s.
• 44:22
  You know we're drinking shots of Patron.
• 44:24
  We were those friends, right? OK, I had hair.
• 44:26
  OK, hair gel, those friends. Then I had friends from my 30s
• 44:29
  to my 40s. And now my truest friends in
• 44:33
  this decade of my life have come from my Vistage group in my 40s
• 44:37
  in age at being busy and owning a business and having a family.
• 44:41
  You need to know that there's a curated place of quality people
• 44:44
  that you could go have these relationships with because you
• 44:47
  are not on the playground anymore and you can't find these
• 44:49
  people, but you want these people.
• 44:51
  We want this community deep down.
• 44:54
  And if you know that there is a somebody there leading the the
• 44:57
  the group, making sure that these people in this community
• 45:00
  are vetted, they're a good fit for the vibe that the culture is
• 45:02
  there and that everyone's going to maybe not be exactly alike,
• 45:06
  but have good common. I think that that is so valuable
• 45:09
  to this world today, beyond the business expertise and
• 45:12
  everything like that, just knowing you have that place of
• 45:15
  safety of community that is irreplaceable.
• 45:19
  And what is the biggest piece of?
• 45:21
  Advice that you would give someone that's starting their
• 45:23
  peer-to-peer group or community. For us, we're starting our own
• 45:26
  founders group. It's going to be 20 of us in the
• 45:28
  area. Yeah.
• 45:30
  What's one piece of advice that you'd have to say, Alex?
• 45:33
  If you want this thing to be really impactful and worth
• 45:35
  people's time showing up and they're excited to be a part of
• 45:38
  it, what does it need to have? Three things.
• 45:41
  I'll give you 3. OK, I'll give.
• 45:43
  You one, I'll give you 3, OK. So from the very first meeting,
• 45:48
  you get everybody together, you come up with a three-year vision
• 45:51
  for the group, you come up with core values and operating
• 45:54
  agreements, and everybody makes a pact that we are going to hold
• 45:57
  each other accountable to this. OK.
• 46:00
  The second thing is, is there's one person leading the group.
• 46:02
  That is my one of my mentors, Mickey Williams says is a
• 46:05
  benevolent dictator. You're never afraid to call it
• 46:08
  out. You're always there.
• 46:10
  We're moving this forward. Everybody's accountable.
• 46:12
  There's one person that is in charge that everybody gives that
• 46:15
  responsibility to that this person is here to hold us
• 46:18
  accountable. And they're not.
• 46:20
  They're not doing it out of malice.
• 46:21
  They're doing it out of love. So that can be anyone.
• 46:24
  I can look around the room and say, who wants to be that?
• 46:25
  Person and just and maybe after a few.
• 46:28
  Meetings everyone of votes on somebody, but there needs to be
• 46:30
  the values, there needs to be a benevolent dictator and then the
• 46:34
  lovely dictator. That sounds so bad it.
• 46:36
  Sounds so bad, but it's so. It's so true.
• 46:38
  Because you're also getting people in the room that are very
• 46:40
  powerful and they're going to love feeling that they don't
• 46:43
  have to be that person. The alpha gets to relax.
• 46:46
  It will be a joy for them. But if they feel, if any of
• 46:49
  those founders ever feel for a moment that there isn't someone
• 46:52
  running the show, these are alpha control freaks.
• 46:55
  They're taking over. And then all of a sudden the
• 46:58
  inmates are going to run the asylum.
• 47:00
  Man, I forgot, I went on a tangent.
• 47:02
  I forgot the third one, but I got those two.
• 47:04
  Even if we stopped there, the vision, oh, last one is this is
• 47:08
  you are always giving them responsibility.
• 47:12
  That's the other. Thing like in my groups.
• 47:14
  Like I am the chair of the group, I facilitate the
• 47:16
  meetings, but everybody has responsibility, everybody is
• 47:20
  always contributing to this 'cause I am not here to put this
• 47:23
  on for you. That's it.
• 47:26
  Vision operating agreements, values, benevolent dictator and
• 47:30
  then everyone contributes. I don't care if someone brings a
• 47:33
  water or something we are always contributing to this circle no
• 47:37
  one's a taker here no one's just taking and to me that's what
• 47:41
  makes a great community that's excellent man.
• 47:43
  I appreciate you sharing that. I'm glad we're.
• 47:45
  Recording this because I'm going to go back and take every one of
• 47:47
  those things you just said and put it into it.
• 47:50
  Last section here and it's a little bit of more of a rapid
• 47:52
  fire. I'll ask you like 4 different
• 47:54
  questions here. What's the one word that
• 47:56
  separates winners from wannabes winners?
• 48:01
  One word, winners. Winners from wannabes.
• 48:04
  One word. Which, by lots of words.
• 48:06
  Yeah, so many. Consistency.
• 48:11
  Mine would have been disciplined but.
• 48:12
  I think that's the hand in hand, right?
• 48:14
  Yeah, I love it, the non sexy stuff.
• 48:16
  What's the what's the biggest lie that entrepreneurs actually
• 48:19
  believe that they could do everything better than?
• 48:22
  Everybody in their company. That's a good one, yeah.
• 48:26
  What area of self improvement are you working on most right
• 48:29
  now yourself? Curiosity.
• 48:35
  Be curious. Yeah, be curious.
• 48:37
  That's good. It's the toughest.
• 48:38
  For me to I have to anchor. Myself in it and last one what
• 48:42
  is? The game of life about for you
• 48:45
  Self actualization. What does that mean?
• 48:47
  It's about getting closer to to God.
• 48:50
  This is about this is business is just a vehicle for self
• 48:54
  actualization. Marriage is just a vehicle for
• 48:56
  self actualization. Parenting is anything that you
• 49:00
  are fully committed to is just a vehicle for self actualization.
• 49:04
  It's all disguised. That's all it really is.
• 49:08
  It's about becoming a better person, more self aware, more
• 49:10
  empathetic, more understanding that other people aren't like
• 49:13
  you and you having trials and tribulations and growing from
• 49:17
  them. That's what this whole thing is.
• 49:19
  Come on guys, you think God just made business only for money?
• 49:22
  This thing, this great powerful being, What a silly man.
• 49:25
  What a silly person, right? It's all about that.
• 49:27
  It's about you growing, and that's the true reward.
• 49:31
  Love that, that's a great way. To end the show, man, you have
• 49:34
  exceeded my expectations. I know we chatted a little bit
• 49:36
  beforehand and stuff and I've seen your content so I know I
• 49:39
  knew a little bit about you, but this was wow.
• 49:41
  I hope you guys enjoyed this. I'm sure you guys enjoyed this.
• 49:44
  So thank you guys for watching. Where can people find you,
• 49:46
  connect with you, learn more about what you do?
• 49:48
  Sure, LinkedIn. I'm on there all the time.
• 49:51
  Posting stuff so LinkedIn, Angelo Cisco on
• 49:53
  linkedinciscoadvisors.com is my website and those are two of the
• 49:57
  best places. Cool.
• 49:58
  We'll link everything in the description and again I thank.
• 50:00
  You for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.
• 50:02
  Be here, buddy. Great.
• 50:03
  Thanks, Angela. Thank you.