Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / Rebuilding After My Passion Business Failed: Dr. Al Philip Neri

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Rebuilding After My Passion Business Failed: Dr. Al Philip Neri · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

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you learn the hard way that running a gym is brutal,
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man. It's it's it's brutal
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the sad thing is everybody wants to be a fighter and everybody thinks they're gonna
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make millions, and that's just not the case.
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if you take on a fighter contingent on 10% of their purse,
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I mean it takes a lot of professional fights for even a guy to make 20 grand,
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what would you have done differently and moving forward in your next venture,
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or if you went into a new partnership,
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what would you do differently?
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Just because it's your passion.
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And you feel good. Doesn't mean that people will pay you for you feeling good
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and it being your passion. Like you gotta come to reality,
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man.
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Everybody wants to hit a home run right away,
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and it it just doesn't I've never done that,
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right? I've never hit a home run right away.
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All right, Doctor Al Philip Neri Welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
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How you doing, Dave?
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Hey, fantastic. How about you?
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Doing great. Doing great.
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All right. So, Dr. Al, I I want to read your resume back because I don't think
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our audience is going to believe it.
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you're born in London. You competed for the U.S.
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karate team at the Goodwill Games.
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You were a senior drill instructor instructor.
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~ you were the warden of a juvenile prison,
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and you ran the first program in the country for violent juvenile offenders
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sentenced as adults. You did hostage negotiation.
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You did thousands of real estate deals across 20 markets.
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Now you've got a doctorate in performance psychology,
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and you've got a performance advisory firm that ~ advises
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all sorts of organizations nationwide.
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So that's like five different lives.
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So so take us back to the beginning.
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Who were you before any of that and what set all this in motion?
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born in London, we immigrated to America with my family to buy a business.
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And you know, I tell people we left a first world country,
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so it's not like we escaped a third world country or poverty or anything like that.
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They just saw something in America that they had never seen anywhere else.
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And they both are from third world countries,
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my parents. And they just saw what I would label as the American dream.
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And you know, you don't hear as much about that like you used to,
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but it's still a big thing. that's really where it all resonated from
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the I watched my parents struggle as
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solepreneurs, business owners doing whatever they had to do to,
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put food on the table, and just grind through being a business owner
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to fulfill the American dream.
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And then, you know, as I as I got older I realized I think they came
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to America for me, They knew that this country had so much opportunity
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and so much potential if they planted my seeds here,
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my roots here, that that I would just,
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you know, explode.
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and take advantage of all the opportunity you have in in in this country.
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So I'm forever grateful that we did come to this country and everything
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it has to offer.
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Okay. All right. So you come over ~ from England,
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right? They bought a business and I guess the the business was failing,
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so they had to do all sorts of other stuff just for the family to survive.
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Absolutely. Yeah, dad would deliver pizza every day.
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~ when you shut the doors at five you'd deliver pizza till you know midnight
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and you know, Saturdays, Sundays.
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My mom was a nurse in London. ~ the nursing stuff didn't quite transfer smoothly
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right away. So she just did a lot of like home health stuff.
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She actually ~ brought a lady who was dying of MS into our home and took care
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of her because she had she needed twenty four seven care so it was easier
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for my mother to take care of her,
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you know, at our house. And ~ so they just you know,
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they just did what they had to do.
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to just make ends meet. ~ Eventually they ended up closing the doors
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on the business. And my mother,
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became a full-fledged nurse here.
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My father ended up ~ going to work for the IRS.
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~ he came from the government background in London.
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so that's what they ended up doing.
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~ but along the way, you know,
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they they partook
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in some of the ventures I've endeavored and some of them in all fairness were some
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of my parents' ideas and not my idea.
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but I was the conduit to being able to get it accomplished because
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of education or because of my resume,
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et cetera. So and we can chat more about that.
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so what's it look like when you you get out of school and you start off on your own?
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What does your entrepreneurial journey look like?
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so I spent a decade in government service,
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Very high ranking, had a great government career,
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agency to agency, a lot of exposure.
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did some remarkable, really, really cool stuff now that I look back on it.
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~ but twenty-two years ago I I was on a plane ride home from an East Coast state
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that had contacted me about cleaning up their juvenile justice system.
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And I went, I was with the Secretary of State.
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toured around, you know, a lot of the juvenile prisons,
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things of that nature. And he said,
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hey, can this is a mess. Can you clean it up?
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I said I can clean up. I can definitely clean it We couldn't agree
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on a dollar amount at that final meeting.
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And so I said, well let me let me fly home.
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Let let's chat in a couple of days.
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Give me some time to think about it.
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I have a family that'd have to move.
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And I also told him, I don't think you understand the work that's going
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to be involved with cleaning up an entire juvenile justice system.
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You can't just send emails and write memos.
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Like I'm gonna have to lead from the front.
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I'm gonna have to be in these facilities like seven days a week,
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like showing the staff how to how to run groups,
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how to do this, how to like someone someone's gotta lead by example
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so people know what to do. That's the only way you can set standards.
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So that plane ride home, I realized something.
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It was a four-hour plane ride home from the East Coast.
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I said, You know what, man.
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I'm starting to get a reputation to be this cleanup guy,
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which is fine. I like it, I enjoy it,
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I thrive off of it. But at the end of the day,
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I'm just a pawn on the chessboard.
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They're gonna continue to use me.
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They're gonna continue to, when they're done,
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create another opportunity for me because of a referral Raven fan.
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But it's never really gonna like I'm just gonna continually be used
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for what they think monetarily I'm worth.
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So I said, you know what? We came to this country
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for the entrepreneurial journey.
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What if I start my entrepreneurial journey?
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So I literally landed and was like,
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okay, I'm gonna be an entrepreneur.
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And that was twenty two years ago.
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And the first business I opened up was was a gym,
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a box and martial arts gym, because I I fought in the ring for many years,
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boxing, sport karate, kickboxing,
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and ~ so it was a passion, right?
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And I was like, let me open up my own gym.
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Partnered with an individual who also had an extensive fight background.
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we ran that gym, you know, for seven years.
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But
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that's how I got started was it was just like,
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let me see if what if we can if I can pull this off.
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you obviously had your parents in the background too of when they came
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to this country for the entrepreneurial dream,
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the American dream, the the journey,
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right? You were involved in government service.
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you're kind of disillusioned with the way things were going.
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They're using you. You're not really getting what you're worth per se,
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but yet you you have a reputation for fixing things.
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So you knew you had confidence there.
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And you you have this desire to do it and you just landed from that plane ride
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and like how how quick from then to to when the gym was open?
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quick because you know obviously I had a lot of contacts,
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right? I mean I'd coached at other people's gyms,
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right, o over the years. So I had a lot of contacts and so just approached
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a couple people that
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You know, had small gyms training out of the garage,
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or in their basement, right? Things that nature.
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And I just said, Hey, Do you wanna explore doing something bigger?
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We'll both take on the risk, we'll both split the workload,
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we'll both split the coaching,
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right? and that's what I ended up putting together.
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~ the funny thing is my father told me don't do it.
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He was like, Don't do it. I was like,
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just keep coaching at other people's gyms.
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this is not a good business idea.
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He was like, understand it's your passion,
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but go find something else to do.
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Like and don't take on the risk like coach at somebody else's gym in 2020.
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he was right. Because you learn the hard way that running a gym is brutal,
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man. it's brutal and in regards to dollars and cents.
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~ and so I was like, man,
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he he knew something I didn't know.
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I had to live through that myself and grind through that myself and
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you know figure it out.
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~
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we jumped into some other entrepreneur adventures simultaneously.
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so that brought in you know additional income,
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offset, things of that nature.
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So I just started playing this game of multiple streams of income.
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And sometimes, you know, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul because one's
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not working well, one's doing really well.
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And so I just started learning like the art of balancing being
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an entrepreneur and you know, trying stuff.
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And and it was never about
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Like, you know, did you fail? I don't know that that's really a fair question.
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It's you know, what did you learn from the journey and what would
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you have done differently and moving forward in your next venture,
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or if you went into a new partnership,
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what would you do differently?
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And I think that's the whole trick is in the entrepreneurial world,
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some things work and some things don't work.
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But you'll always grow if you allow yourself to be self aware to be like,
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~ man, I should have done it this way.
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I should have asked this question prior to us getting into a partnership.
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and you you can't beat yourself up.
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I mean, you just you you're going with the punches,
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but you know, as an entrepreneur,
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you know, the the biggest difference is,
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you know, if you don't succeed,
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you don't make money, right? There's no sick days,
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there's no vacation days, there's no thing as I'm gonna take a time off.
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Once you've built your business and you got your systems and things that nature,
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that's very different. But when you're in the grind mode and you are the business,
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you're the face of the business.
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it's a real grind. ~ But I tell people you'll never know unless you try it.
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So I'm that guy that's like, try it.
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Like try it. Like like try it.
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you know, does that mean you quit your nine to five?
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I don't know. I don't know your life circumstances,
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right? For some people don't do that,
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for some people maybe you do that.
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I don't really know. But, you know,
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if you got something that you want to get after,
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I'll go back to this is the country to try to get after it in.
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There's no other place in the world where you can you know
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grabbing the first thing here's a ruler,
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right? When my son was in Olympic school or something,
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right? If you want to make rulers,
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go make rulers, man. Right? I I mean that's the view,
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He's
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right? there's a way to succeed in America if you're willing to grind hard enough,
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navigate, listen, take mentorship,
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know what the competition's doing,
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People do it every single day.
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People do it every single day.
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Just just you just gotta
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Yeah.
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get out of it.
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Okay, so clearly you've got some incredible perspective twenty-two years
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in with the self-awareness and and what you know what it's really like
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on the journey and learning from your failures.
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But when you first started, when you're disillusioned with your corporate job,
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you make the decision to just jump in and do it.
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your dad told you don't open a gym,
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but you did it anyway. Dr. Al twenty years ago,
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what what's that like when you get into it?
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What was the biggest surprise when you jumped into being an entrepreneur?
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Just because it's your passion.
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And you feel good. Doesn't mean that people will pay you for you feeling good
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and it being your passion. Like you gotta come to reality,
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man. You're running a business and it takes marketing and you know,
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there's a lot of competition people will bounce around because w it's
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in their best interest and y you know,
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probably the biggest thing I learned was
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the common sense approach, like,
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but you know, I'm traveling a lot for work this month.
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So I'm only gonna be able to come in like,
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you know, a couple of weeks out of the month.
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Is there any way you could cut my monthly,
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Fee in half, right? And me being like a nice guy,
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right? I'm like, yeah, that's you know,
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that's fine. But then you realize,
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like, holy shit, the landlord don't cut the rent,
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right? Like, you know what I mean?
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Yeah.
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Like
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he don't care. And so, you know what I mean,
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the way that
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Most of these gyms make money,
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right? Is subscriptions, right?
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Like looking they want you to sign up and never show up.
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Like that's the model, right? And so,
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~ and in a fight gym, the sad thing is everybody wants to be a fighter
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and everybody thinks they're gonna make millions,
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and that's just not the case. So,
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you know, if you take on a fighter contingent on 10% of their purse,
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I mean it takes a lot of professional fights for even a guy to make 20 grand,
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and then you get two, right? and you put in a lot of time,
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effort, and energy.
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energy. So everybody thinks it's like,
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you know, like you're gonna get paid like,
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you know, training with Floyd Money Mayweathers of the World,
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the Manny Pacquiaos of the World.
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It no man, that's that's like point one percent that you you ever really
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get that opportunity, you know?
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And so you even think about a fighter who you know gets big enough
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and you know maybe he's making you know 250K,
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300K as a trainer you I mean you in ten percent,
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you're getting twenty five thirty K.
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I mean do the math you you've been working with this guy for five,
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six years before he got that
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and you know to make twenty, thirty try grand and you're like,
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my lord. Right. But obviously you you know,
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you love it for the co the coaching,
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the you know, the relationship,
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things that nature. That's why people say like you don't go into coaching
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if you wanna if you want to make make money.
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In r in regards to like athletic coaching,
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You just gotta do it for the passion.
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Unless you can get to the big leagues like for example like college coaches,
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right? Like I went to Colorado,
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everybody looks at what Deion Sanders is making.
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Right, but but there are plenty of coaches on that coaching staff probably working
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for about fifty grand a year.
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that are assistant assistant coaches,
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right? So not everybody is making what Deion makes.
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And he and he's not making what some of the other college coaches are making,
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right? So so you just do it for the love.
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So you know you learn a lot, right?
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You just start learning a lot.
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~ probably another lesson I learned was I was passing up on opportunities because
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I had a schedule. So I had a schedule with government obviously,
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right? And it was used to that.
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But now I'm thinking okay I'm free,
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I'm an entrepreneur, I'm running a business.
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But that type of business had hours
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And people expected the gym to be open.
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so then I realized, like, man,
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like I just pitched and hold myself into a different schedule.
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One that goes to like eight o'clock at night,
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right? Where I have to be here.
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~ and then in the interim, we did this able car rental thing because
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my dad wanted to go do it. That's a whole different story,
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and now it's seven days a week.
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And I'm like, ~ what are we doing?
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Right? Like
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Like we created more structure than I even came from to some degree,
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you know? Because the business doors had to be open.
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And so that was something that I learned moving forward.
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That I didn't really ever want to be involved with aka a brick
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and mortar business ever again in my life.
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That had like hours that is one thing I learned from having the gym
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and having the Avis I was like,
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no, new moving forward, whatever I do,
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it's not gonna have set hours.
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Like it's just not. That doesn't mean that I'm not gonna work my tail off,
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but it's just not gonna have set hours where I have to be there
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for specific things on a
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regular basis. And so that was an epiphany for me moving forward on what
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I wanted the rest of my entrepreneurship journey to look like.
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Okay. All right. So you go through that experience.
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~ you certainly learn a valuable lesson about brick and mortar and
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in those specific hours. So what happens next after the gym?
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How do you pivot out of that into something else?
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So what I started doing is I mean,
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we had the Avis, we had that only for a few years.
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So I got into real estate. I started buying ugly houses per se,
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fixing them up, selling them. and did well at it.
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got connected with some guys on a much bigger scale,
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started learning more about opportunities
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out of state. ~ so I started running right but with that stuff.
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~ you know, so we were buying houses,
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fixing them up, renting them, buying houses,
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fixing them up, selling them, buying older buildings,
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like playing the fame. We bought an old maternity hospital,
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turned it into, you know, like luxury condos.
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So I just kept ramping up, ~ ended up having an opportunity that required
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a real estate license. So I went and got a real estate license.
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So I started doing just retail real estate.
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Like residential real estate, right?
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~ which then led to also doing commercial because obviously I had signed leases,
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right? I had businesses that had brick and mortar,
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so I understood.
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leases, I understood running a business.
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So you know, then you start getting into business brokerage,
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investing, you know, increases.
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So then I ended up speaking for all the big boy TV shows.
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So all the ones that people used to watch on HGTV Discovery.
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think of like Dean Graziosi, Property Brothers,
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~ Restoration Addict, like those those kind of companies.
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So I would basically fulfill events.
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So people would, you know, go through the sales funnel and
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Ended up saying, okay, well, we want to be a real estate investor,
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so they pay X number of dollars,
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and then there'd be a three-day boot camp.
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And so I would fly, I did about 44 events a year for six years,
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teaching people how to get involved in real estate,
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how to become a real estate investor,
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whether that was flipping houses,
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buying rentals, working with agents,
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So I was then just basically a hundred percent in the world of real estate,
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right? Because it was either I was being a realtor or I was being the investor
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or I was being the teacher, and it everything was real
16:54
estate and so ran that hard for many years and then
17:00
you know just kind of got tired of the travel.
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~ every Wednesday night I was on a plane,
17:05
every Saturday I was flying home and man it it it takes a toll on you right takes
17:10
a toll and you you're now back to kind of that schedule thing again
17:13
a little bit right a little bit different because I could be like no
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I don't feel like traveling this week but if you wanted to make money
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you you gotta go travel. So ~ that wore off.
17:22
~ enjoyed the teaching so then I
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I basically ended up creating a big real estate team
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ran that for, you know, a number of years and then in that journey
17:31
I found a doctoral program and so I went,
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you know, full fledged into being a student again while doing,
17:40
you know, more realtor type work and investor type work,
17:43
like fixing flipping a lot houses.
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That's kind of what I did through my PhD journey and then I wrapped
17:48
up the PhD towards the end of twenty twenty four and then basically said,
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you know what, I'm gonna I'm gonna dive out of real estate.
17:55
I'll still flip houses if
17:57
you know, the right deal comes.
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~ as a family we have rentals,
18:00
things of that nature. ~ but I was like,
18:02
you know what, I'm gonna I'm gonna create my performance advisory firm
18:05
and we're gonna hit the road hard.
18:07
that's what I you know do now.
18:08
I wrote a book based on my frameworks.
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~ but that's that's kinda how the the evolution of the entrepreneurship journey,
18:15
just kept growing and growing and growing and growing and growing.
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Okay. So after all that, after your experience,
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what made you like what was the impetus for starting this performance advisory
18:27
group?
18:28
I didn't really know what I was gonna study my PhD.
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Just I I liked the whole thing of performance psychology,
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right? I liked it. Through there
18:35
I started really working on team cohesion and in high stake environments,
18:38
how do people create cohesion?
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And then, you know, I come from athletic elite athletic backgrounds,
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my kids were all elite athletes,
18:44
the government work, obviously,
18:46
cohesion was huge. So that's what I did my research on.
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So when I came out, I was kind of like,
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Okay, I don't want to be a tenured professor.
18:55
that's not my cup of tea. Adjunct faculty,
18:57
that's different. but goes back to that freedom thing.
18:59
But I was like, you know what,
19:00
I'm just gonna do a bunch of workshops.
19:02
bunch of co consulting regarding team cohesion.
19:05
So I reached out to athletic departments that I had good contacts with,
19:09
law enforcement corrections, and that's what I that's what I was doing
19:12
was basically just how can I help you guys create a more cohesive unit.
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And and the tagline I use is culture as a feeling,
19:21
cohesion as a system. So that's what I was doing.
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And then about a little over a year ago,
19:26
~ funding got really, really weird for a lot of those environments.
19:29
So I had to pivot. And that's when I pivoted into more of the private
19:33
CEO world of guys just running companies who wanted to scale
19:38
and started implementing behavioral analytics and then that led me to writing
19:42
a book and now I have my own frameworks.
19:44
And so I tell
19:45
People, right, entrepreneurship is about just continuing to nudge the door open,
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nudge the door open, nudge the door open,
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nudge the door open. And I could say that another hundred times,
19:55
right? You just gotta keep nudging and you gotta keep testing.
19:58
You gotta keep nudging and you gotta keep testing.
20:00
You gotta keep nudging and you gotta keep testing.
20:02
And through that back and forth,
20:05
through the communication, through the exposure,
20:07
through the opportunity, you'll start refining what it is that you bring
20:12
the value to the world.
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And what the world val values for for your knowledge,
20:18
experience, etc. And that takes time.
20:21
Right? Everybody wants to hit a home run right away,
20:24
and it it just doesn't I've never done that,
20:27
right? I've never hit a home run right away.
20:29
I I realized when I look at my journey,
20:31
what has been my strength is that I would listen to about anybody.
20:37
And I would continue to just continue to nudge doors open to create conversation,
20:42
to create opportunity. And I was just relentless at nudging that door open.
20:48
Like I tell people, like I'm a professional stalker.
20:50
Right? Like I just
20:52
Yeah.
20:53
like I I just keep nudging, man.
20:55
because you know, timing is everything for somebody on the other party,
20:59
right? It may not be right today,
21:00
but they're intrigued by what you do,
21:02
and then all
21:02
a sudden something happens right an instant happens so they end up
21:07
on the news whatever whatever case may be right and all of a sudden they're like
21:12
~ man we need Dr. Al. And then you're glad that you kind of stay top of mind
21:18
in a in a professional sense with a level of respect just willing to be
21:21
of value to people. that's a lot of what I discovered.
21:24
and entrepreneurship's a grind man
21:26
it's not for the faint. you gotta be willing to like pound the pavement,
21:30
roll up your sleeves and get to work,
21:32
man. That's how you that's how you eventually create success or create
21:35
a business that you can now scale,
21:37
right? And has systems and workloads and things of that nature.
21:40
but if you want true success, which is obviously money
21:44
time with your family, good health,
21:45
things of that nature, being able to give back to others,
21:48
charity contributions, support,
21:49
etc. I mean you've got to grind,
21:51
man. You you gotta you you have to grind to to be able to award that lifestyle
21:56
for yourself.
22:38
All right. So you're doing this performance psychology and you mentioned
22:42
the the nudging the door open and the creating conversations.
22:45
And you told me off camera too,
22:47
this is the hardest thing you've ever done.
22:49
And and like you said too, you've done some you've done some hard shit
22:52
in your career. when you decide to do this,
22:54
right? Because you wanted your freedom.
22:56
You wanted more time, you wanted ~ set hours,
22:59
but obviously, like you said, you have to grind and and basically
23:02
be a professional stalker. Like was there any even given all your experience
23:06
up to this point, was there anything that surprised you once
23:08
you started this advisory for forum?
23:11
I have tons. ~ I mean, number one is you know,
23:15
like I never sat down and was like,
23:17
How the hell am I gonna get clients?
23:19
Right. Like you can't you can't buy leads,
23:22
right, for this kind of shit. And so you I just didn't think that
23:27
one through long enough, right?
23:29
'Cause I thought like, you know,
23:30
I got good connections in the athletic environment,
23:32
I got good connections in law enforcement corrections,
23:34
right? Like I got you know, I can break the ice immediately 'cause I was part
23:38
of all those environments, right?
23:40
Like, you know, go ahead and do workshops and that all worked fine
23:44
and dandy until they have no money.
23:45
And then you're like,
23:48
Shit, now what? Right? And so and then you're like,
23:53
well, fuck I, you know, like I can't throw in the towel,
23:56
right? Like I I gotta figure this out.
23:58
So then you just start realizing,
24:01
okay, who who would find value in my services,
24:06
in my skill set, and my brain,
24:07
and my power to think big, connect the dots,
24:10
help them with execution.
24:12
And through some other other commitments I had,
24:14
you you realize it's, private visionary style CEOs,
24:18
right? Because there's no red tape.
24:19
They may have to go to the board depending on how they're big,
24:21
but it's not bureaucratic, right?
24:23
It's not like getting something done in government service,
24:25
right? And so I'm like, well, fuck,
24:28
I don't I don't know anybody like that.
24:29
I don't know anybody running companies like that.
24:31
And so I'm like,
24:34
man, I gotta
24:36
How do I go meet people that are running companies like that?
24:38
So that's how I start how start figuring out,
24:41
right? Like where do they hang out?
24:43
I don't play golf.
24:44
so I'm like, well, golf course is out.
24:46
So then, you know, you just that's where you nudge the door forward,
24:50
right? You tell enough people what you do,
24:52
show people what you do, do Zooms for free,
24:55
do workshops for free, just get eyeballs on what you do,
24:58
and just keep asking, do you know anybody where this could be of value?
25:03
And sometimes you get a middle manager that gets captivated by what you're doing,
25:07
and they're like, my god, my company could so use
25:09
You well, the problem is they don't have any any pull,
25:12
any decision making. But that was a door,
25:14
right? And you're like, well, could you introduce me to your supervisor?
25:18
Right? And then, could you introduce me to yours?
25:21
And then could you introduce me to the COO or the CPO,
25:25
right? Could you then, right? And so you just gotta start layering it,
25:29
man, layering it, layering it,
25:31
layering it. And and then I I had an epit epiphany,
25:35
and I said, Okay,
25:36
Who works with the clientele that I want,
25:40
that I can serve, that I can help?
25:42
And I bring a very diverse background.
25:44
So I know that it's not a sales pitch.
25:47
People are like, what? You did what?
25:50
You ran a prison? What? You did what?
25:53
my god, like that's crazy, dude.
25:54
Right. And and when I start extracting the lesson from that.
25:57
So then I realized like there are industries where we all have the same avatar.
26:02
So I started saying, okay, how can I be of value to people in those industries
26:07
who have my avatar? How can I start collaborating?
26:10
How can I give them a different point of entry compared to the thousand other people
26:16
that they're competing against?
26:17
So I started networking with wealth management companies.
26:19
And I started to realize they're not all the same.
26:22
When I started really networking,
26:24
learning, right? So I started saying,
26:28
hey, can I be of value to you,
26:30
to your client, or in regards to acquiring a client,
26:34
because of some of the things I do.
26:36
So again, I started just offering my value for free
26:41
to create a relationship, to create that edification,
26:45
to create that, wow, yeah, this is really cool,
26:48
man. Hey.
26:49
Now, ~ you know what? We've got one,
26:51
two, three. We'd like to introduce you,
26:54
right? To to this individual, and that is the decision maker,
26:58
I'll tell you, dude, it's been a year of that kind of work for me.
27:02
That kind of hitting the pavement,
27:04
just running hard, meeting people,
27:07
and just being just trying to say,
27:10
Hey, this is what I do. I I'd love to show you what I do,
27:13
and then if there's alignment we can talk.
27:16
After I show you what I do. You know,
27:18
and are there companies that have used me to show them what I do?
27:22
And then of course when it comes time to proposal,
27:25
they're like, Yeah, go ahead and send that.
27:26
And then they just they ghost you?
27:28
Sure, because they they got a lot of free stuff out of you.
27:32
But that's just part of again,
27:33
that's part of the grind. Just part of the grind.
27:35
You can't be mad about it, right?
27:37
And you can't be like, Well, I'm I'm never gonna do anything for free again.
27:40
Well, that's a tainted view, not everybody operates that way.
27:44
And yet again, you don't know when their organization is going
27:47
to have something happen that's really good or really bad where they're like,
27:50
my god, I need Dr. Al to help me clean this up.
27:52
All right, so through this whole journey of grinding,
27:55
right, you didn't think that went through.
27:56
You didn't know how you're gonna get clients.
27:58
So you're you're doing all this conversations and networking and do Zooms
28:03
for free and just grinding hard,
28:05
just trying to create anything you can.
28:07
Through that whole process, was there ever a point in time you thought about giving
28:10
up?
28:10
Yeah, I mean in the last twenty two years ~ that that thoughts come more than once,
28:14
right? You're like, holy shit,
28:14
should just go back and get a job.
28:16
and I'm like some some of you will hire me,
28:18
right? and you know you do, you sit there and you're just like
28:21
how long can I sustain this before,
28:23
I've gotta just be like fine, I'll I'll just go get a job,
28:25
right? And then, you know, people were like,
28:27
Well, I've never heard of being a fractional CEO.
28:29
And I was like, How the fuck does a fractional CEO work?
28:33
How do you run a company being fractional?
28:35
Doesn't even sound remotely correct to me,
28:37
man. Like if if some board is hiring a fractional CEO,
28:40
you deserve to like dissipate.
28:43
Like come on, like like who came up with a fractional
28:46
Leader. Like what you only lead like one hour a week?
28:49
Like, come on, like that's just the dumbest thing I've heard and like known
28:53
to mankind, right? And sorry, I didn't mean to like cuss to your audience,
28:55
but I'm like, what planet are people from?
28:58
So, you know, but you do, you start looking for stuff,
29:01
right? But what I knew was that I wasn't gonna give up on
29:06
my performance advisory firm, were there things I could potentially do?
29:11
that would give me the flexibility,
29:13
but also, give me even more exposure.
29:15
But it really wasn't my thing.
29:16
I was I was again partnering. And and what I've really found is what's really worked
29:21
well for me, and the solution that's worked well for me is collaboration.
29:24
Is just aligning with other individuals who've got the same
29:29
client perspective and saying how do we how do we tag team them to get what
29:33
you want or what I want because we're both coming with two different lenses
29:37
of very high value and we can both offset each other but but conjointly help this
29:44
client. So I have personally found a lot of value in collaboration.
29:48
The reason I speak on as many podcasts as I do is I found insane relationships
29:55
from podcast hosts. I mean that I never expected.
29:58
Right? When I was gonna be on a podcast,
30:00
I I I started out with kind of like,
30:02
well, you know what? This is a great way for me to get content to repurpose.
30:07
I know I can bring value to the show,
30:09
to the audience, so it's a win-win.
30:12
But what I never expected was the relationships I would start creating
30:17
with people who host podcasts.
30:19
I never anticipated that. And now some of the collaborative efforts that
30:24
I have created with people who host podcasts who like what I have to
30:28
say and they're like, hey man,
30:30
can we talk offline after the show?
30:32
I've got some ideas. I'm like,
30:34
sure, let's talk offline after the show.
30:36
I never envisioned that would come from being on people's podcasts.
30:42
I I seriously didn't. So you know,
30:45
what does it go back to? It's just relationships.
30:48
But yeah, I mean
30:49
At times do you wake up going God?
30:51
Should I've just stayed at government service?
30:53
And I'm like, absolutely not. Because everybody I know that's still
30:56
in law enforcement corrections pretty much like hates their life for
30:59
all like they always hate their life.
31:01
they just can't wait to retire.
31:02
But if their pension is based on the stock market,
31:05
it's not a good time to exit,
31:06
right?
31:07
Yes.
31:07
And so they're like, dude, Alan,
31:09
writing out the days, brother.
31:10
Right. And I mean I've I know buddies that have bought out years,
31:13
like bought out three years, four years just to get out,
31:16
because they're just like, man,
31:18
it's not the landscape that you once worked in and let in.
31:21
You know, it's just changed a lot.
31:22
So to have those thoughts, are you asking me if it's normal?
31:25
Absolutely.
31:26
Mm.
31:27
Mm. Okay. All right. And so Dr.
31:29
Al, looking at your whole journey,
31:30
right? From being in government service,
31:33
taking the leap, all these different experiences,
31:36
pivoting and and all these kind of ups and downs you've had,
31:40
and then still grinding through it and and growing this company,
31:43
this current company you're at,
31:44
looking back at your whole journey,
31:46
what's been the best part of it for you?
31:47
Along my journey I've I mean, I've created lifelong friends,
31:51
right? Whether that's from government service,
31:52
whether that's from entrepreneurship,
31:54
right? I mean you just you create relationships that are you know you know,
31:57
they're gonna go all the way till the end.
31:59
~ and I'm grateful for that. but I think probably the biggest thing
32:04
I'm grateful for is that I've been able to award my family a lifestyle of
32:10
I I wouldn't say it's luxury, right?
32:12
We live a modest lifestyle, right?
32:14
But, you know, my kids were all,
32:16
in competitive travel sports. we live in a nice neighborhood.
32:19
We were able to go on vacation,
32:22
I didn't miss games, that kind of stuff,
32:24
right? Where where that's probably what I'm the most grateful for
32:29
is especially in the entrepreneurship journey,
32:31
is that I now controlled my time.
32:34
And so I'm not afraid to work hard.
32:35
I'll stay up till one, two, three in the morning.
32:37
I'll wake up at three. I don't care.
32:39
I'm not afraid to work hard. But it wasn't gonna come at the sacrifice of
32:44
one of my kids' games or us going out of state.
32:47
I mean we traveled so much out of state with my kids,
32:49
it's unreal just for for sports stuff.
32:52
And not only were we able to afford it,
32:55
but we were also able to enjoy it and I could still work,
32:59
right?
33:00
So I would say that you know going back to I just wasn't held hostage on my time.
33:06
And that's probably the greatest the greatest blessing is that ~ I didn't
33:12
get to miss out on my kids because they're old now.
33:15
They're all older now. I didn't get to miss out on their activities and
33:18
be there as a family. So I wasn't that successful dad that was in the office
33:24
at 6 a.m and came home at 9 p.m every night and missed everything.
33:28
For the greater good of either running their company or running somebody else's
33:31
company. that doesn't make whole lot of sense to me.
33:33
Okay. All right. And Dr. Al, so if people are hearing this and they want
33:37
to learn more about ~ your performance advisory firm and and how you know
33:42
you could potentially help them,
33:43
what's the best way people can find you online?
33:46
LinkedIn is probably the best.
33:47
I mean Dr. Al Philip Neri you're you're not gonna find another one.
33:50
~ so you'll know you'll know it's me.
33:52
just connect with me on LinkedIn,
33:54
send me a message and we'll jump on a Zoom and we'll just shoot the shit,
33:57
right? We'll just figure out where you're at,
33:59
what you need, what I do, can I fill the hole?
34:01
And I tell everybody like I'm not a good fit,
34:04
for whatever reason, or I'm not the right person,
34:06
I know a lot of people.
34:07
and I probably could find or refer you to somebody else that might be a better fit.
34:11
And I have I have no problem doing that.
34:14
Like no no problem doing that whatsoever.
34:16
All right. We'll link all that in the show notes for everyone.
34:18
All right. Well, Dr. Al, thank you so much for taking the time to
34:21
be here and sharing all this incredible wisdom from your journey with our listeners.
34:25
We greatly appreciate it.
34:27
You're welcome. Thanks.