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236. From Rock Bottom to Rebuild: The Mindset Every Solopreneur Needs · The Life-First Solopreneur

• 0:00
  Carly Ries: What does it really take to make it as a solopreneur? In this episode, Zachary Del Monaco gets honest about hitting rock bottom twice, and how rebuilding his spine, his mindset, and even his relationship with his dad forged unshakable resilience. Resilience. We dig into the power of micro wins, non negotiables, and thinking 10 times bigger than your environment, plus why authenticity, not AI copy and paste, is your unfair advantage. You'll hear how to reverse engineer a purpose driven business from the life you want, shortcut years with smart mentorship, and keep showing up when motivation fades.
• 0:35
  So if you need a shot of belief and a blueprint you can use today, then keep listening. You're listening to The Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for anyone on the solo business journey, whether you're just toying with the idea, taking your first bold step, or have been running your own show for years and want to keep growing, refining, and thriving. I'm Carly Ries, and along with my cohost, Joe Rando, we're your guides through the crazy but awesome world of being a company of one. As part of LifeStarr, a digital hub dedicated to all things solopreneurship, we help people design businesses that align with their life's ambitions so they can work to live, not live to work. If you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the place for you.
• 1:17
  But if you want real world insights from industry experts, lessons from the successes and stumbles of fellow solopreneurs, and practical strategies for building and sustaining a business you love, you're in the right spot. Because flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone. No matter where you are in your journey, we've got your back. Zach, we are so excited to have you here today. I feel like you have such a story to tell.
• 1:41
  And it's funny because you're a pretty young dude, but you have so much experience and so much life experience under your belt for that matter, not just in business. But before we dive into our questions, we have to ask you, what do you wish you knew before starting out as a solopreneur?
• 1:56
  Zach Del Monaco: That's a great question. There's a lot, but if I had to pick one, it'd be that I wish I knew that it would take more attention, more focus to achieve the goals that I had, and it would take longer in the process. But in doing so, that I'd be able to outlast everyone that I was competing with. I think that a lot of people start out in a business or in something that they're wanting to build. They think that they're going to be this huge success so quickly, or at least that's what I thought.
• 2:29
  It takes 10 times more effort than I would have ever thought, and it takes 10 times more time in that process, but over that process you reshape, you get creative, and you continue building. But I feel like in that up and down spiral is when a lot of people lose that quote unquote motivation to keep on going.
• 2:49
  Joe Rando: Yeah. have this running joke love, and I've said it about 10 times on this podcast, but it was a banner I saw. It was like a meme, and it said, we do this not because it is easy. And then it's small print that says, but because we thought it would be easy.
• 3:04
  But absolutely sticking with it and getting through that. If you outlast the competition, you can succeed. But you're so right. we heard yesterday for the first time in a podcast, a woman say, well, it was actually a lot easier than I expected. And I'm like, what?
• 3:20
  Carly Ries: who are you, and what did you have for breakfast? Yeah. Zach, you're right. You need that resilience. And I'm gonna expose you a little bit and piggyback off of that.
• 3:31
  You have already hit rock bottom, my friend. And I want to hear that story, but I also wanna know how that redefined how you show up in your business today.
• 3:42
  Zach Del Monaco: Yeah. Great question. So actually I speak about one rock bottom, but I've never said this before. I'll give you guys two rock bottoms that I've hit, which is interesting. The first rock bottom that I hit was in my spinal surgery where when I was young, I was growing up, I was really really short.
• 3:59
  I had the highest voice in my grade, I was very very unconfident, couldn't speak in front of anyone. And the next thing you know, I shot up almost to six feet. But because of that, my back couldn't compensate. So almost it felt like overnight, I had a 48% spinal curvature, which collapsed half of my lung, couldn't play any sports. at the time I was doing soccer and surfing, and when I took my shirt off at the beach or at the pool or go to workout, you could literally see there was a hump in my back. So I went in for the surgery, which was an eight hour surgery, and I spent three months prior to that building up my muscle, really developing myself.
• 4:39
  And in less than eight hours, all the muscle was gone. So I basically had to start to rebuild myself. I had to relearn how to walk, how to even stand, how to run, and I had to redevelop my whole entire mindset. Because at that time, I fell into such a deep path of constantly asking myself every single day, when's the next time that I'm gonna be able to do a single pushup, be able to walk, be able to hang out with friends, or even be able to go on business trips with my dad like I've been doing for the past three years. The whole time, that six months, that one year was me in rock bottom sitting with myself saying, I've literally been reduced to the beginnings of where I came from when I was born, and I have to rebuild everything that I've ever created, which was, to be honest with you, on broken foundations, which is why I say that that was rock bottom because it allowed me to reanalyze my whole entire life, reanalyze who I was, what I was doing, and why I was doing it.
• 5:41
  And in the process, I was able to take the lessons from that story and be able to rebuild myself using that as my brand. And it's interesting because I use this analogy of climbing Mount Everest, you get to a certain point, you think you're at the top, and then there's a little valley that you have to go down to go back up. And this is kind of similar to what I've never shared with people, which is after that surgery I was building, I thought I was on the highest of highs of life. I was with my dad building father son duo. We're going to take over the world.
• 6:17
  Then something happened in our business where we started to separate. It started to feel like it got neglected, and something came in between us. And it was at that moment where my relationship for twenty two, twenty three years of my life with my father, like, ride or die with him, I honestly didn't even wanna be in the same room with him, which kills me to even say. I was even thinking about I went to church one night thinking about I was gonna move cross country to get away from everything, which hurts me to even say it. So that rock bottom at that time was in business.
• 6:54
  And moving forward, I was able to start to rebuild that trust with him, rebuild that connection with him over time slowly because he had to get to a better place within himself, within his mind. And I had to get to a better place saying, you know what? I can actually still trust you. You're not quote unquote what I felt in that moment abandoning me. And then when we were able to slowly move past that, the connection between myself with that surgery and the connection between my father and I moving past that struggle in business, that difficulty, is what built us to this day, to the point where I truly believe nothing right now can have any momentum in stopping what we're creating because we're starting basically, I'm starting from scratch again.
• 7:44
  Carly Ries: So let me ask you, because you are resilient. You overcome these obstacles, but it wasn't like you woke up from surgery and the next day you were like, I'm on top of the world. And same with everything with your dad. my assumption is that you had to take baby steps and you had small milestones that you would reach, whether it was walking That's not a small milestone.
• 8:05
  But like, these little things each step of the way that kept the momentum going. So how can solopreneurs take the story of yours and find those mini milestones on what may seem like an insurmountable journey for them right now?
• 8:22
  Zach Del Monaco: Yeah. This is really interesting. So I'm actually working with one of my coaches, his name's Tim, on the story of how it went from possible to impossible back to possible. And that's one of the things that we're talking about. I have this friend, his name's James, and he said this quote that really hit me, it's, in the beginning when you're starting something up, your successes are gonna be small, but they create a momentum for bigger successes.
• 8:48
  And those small successes might not be the monetary ones that you're thinking of. Instead, it might be the knowledge that you gain, the skills that you gain, what you're able to take on and move forward and teach other people. So when starting out, I would highly suggest that everyone focuses on where they're where they wanna go, what that goal is, and then focusing on those small wins that will ultimately for me surmount into those bigger wins. So for example, waking up. I'm gonna go work out because to me, when I work out, I tame my body, I tame my mind.
• 9:22
  Now I'm in the mindset to go throughout the day that I did the hardest thing, was going to the gym. Okay, next thing I wanna do if I'm building out my brand, I'm gonna have to make some content. Okay, amazing. We created x y z pieces of content. Now we're gonna post them up.
• 9:38
  Amazing. We did that. That's another one. Now I have to send out 10 emails. I have to do 10 calls.
• 9:43
  Okay. Amazing. Let's get them done. Bam. Whether they answered or didn't, we got them done.
• 9:49
  Now over a specific amount of time, you're gonna build more trust, more credibility, more confidence in yourself because you're doing that. Those big win those small wins for me is what ultimately created these big wins that I have in my life right now. It's what I set out, I created basically re engineered the goal and then re engineered what steps I have to do in order to hit that. And each day I had these non negotiables. No matter what happens, you are getting these non negotiables done because in the end it's gonna help you achieve this goal.
• 10:22
  Carly Ries: I love that. I think that's such great advice. And just from a practical standpoint, but also just listening to you talk, you're very personal. Like you're transparent, you're Zachary on the screen, but I'm like, but can I call you Zach? Because I just feel like I've known you for longer than ten minutes.
• 10:40
  What role do you think authenticity plays, not only in your success, but success for solopreneurs?
• 10:47
  Zach Del Monaco: I think authenticity is sometimes hard to come by nowadays, but I think it's the key to really building something that is massively impactful and having that connection with others. Because to me, it's really easy to see all in authenticity, and I get disassociated. I'm not attracted to it. Like, you could really feel it over the screen and when you're talking to someone, and it doesn't feel good. So to me one of the things that I actually had to learn in this whole process, which I'm still doing to this day, is almost complete, not almost, complete authenticity.
• 11:26
  Complete vulnerability, opening up and sharing with people, and I really feel that that's one of the ways that I'm able to differentiate myself from everyone else in this industry or in this life because each person's different, so why are we trying to act like everyone else? If we're able to just be as authentic as possible and hit that energy level, that vibration if you wanna go there, people are gonna be able to feel it and really connect more with you. And then I believe in that connection with you, whatever your business is, whatever your brand is, whatever your surface or your product is, they're most likely going to be buying it in that case because of they know who you are and they have a strong connection with you because everyone has the same thing that they're building. The only difference is you.
• 12:09
  Joe Rando: Question. Do you think it's gotten worse with AI? Do you think AI is making this lack of authenticity worse?
• 12:15
  Zach Del Monaco: Yeah, I do. I think people, don't get me wrong, I love AI and I'm learning how to use it, but I think in my opinion people are using it as a crutch too much and not doing an eighty twenty, which is 80% taking in the information giving it, and then 20% putting your authentic touch on it. I feel like people are just lazy with it, putting everything in, taking it out, and just sending it.
• 12:43
  Joe Rando: Yeah. And that's not them anymore. I's it's ChatGPT or Gemini or whatever.
• 12:50
  Carly Ries: Zach, I'm curious. So you were talking about the non negotiables in the morning, and in the past you've talked about like becoming the most elevated version of yourself. And using those terms, it seems like you have big goals and big dreams. But not that you're not deserving of that. You're absolutely deserving of that and you should have big goals and big dreams.
• 13:09
  But a lot of times solopreneurs think small. And I'm curious how you foster and how you nurture that kind of mentality to shoot for the stars.
• 13:21
  Zach Del Monaco: Yep. So I think that was my biggest setback early in life, is thinking way too small. And I blamed that on myself, I blamed that on the environment that I was in, the people that I was listening to at that time. But I think that's one of the biggest crutches or faults that I had and many other people have in life, is thinking small. One of the ways that I was able to get past that was actually with my father and going to these different business events, and listening to these entrepreneurs that I see online aspiring to be like.
• 13:54
  And they were basically every time that they talked, every time that they said something, it seemed like there was no limitation on what they were thinking of, of what was possible. And then I started to delve into this idea of well, maybe I am going too small. Well, maybe if I do shoot for the stars and I land short, I'll still be further than I was than other people. And I started to go back and forth with this concept of thinking big versus thinking small, and I realized that the thinking big was able to help me expand my expand my thinking. Right?
• 14:30
  Like expand what I was doing, expand what I was sharing with other people, and it really inspired me each day to get up. It inspired me, okay, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do this, but let's try it. It kind of gave me that drive to push forward. I'd say, especially when starting a brand, especially when starting a business, constantly be thinking big, because everything in this world is going be telling you to go small, it's not going to work, because it's other people's limitations that are on you. But the more that you're able to hush that, silence that, really think big, expand your thinking as much as probably I know I keep on saying this over and over, but it's so simple yet so powerful because when you do this, you're like, wow.
• 15:11
  I heard this person talking about going on a private jet and doing a $100,000 mastermind when I was thinking about a $10,000 mastermind. Wait. A $100,000 mastermind is able to be achieved? How can I do that? Wait.
• 15:26
  I'm thinking about touching a million people's lives? This person's thinking about a billion. Am I able to achieve a billion people's lives? Like, impact a billion people's lives? I don't know.
• 15:37
  But I'm gonna try. And in the process of trying, I'm gonna have to become a different person to do that. Okay. Now how can I reverse engineer that? See, the whole purpose of me saying think bigger is that you could expand your mind, expand what you think is possible and how you're able to get there.
• 15:55
  And then I believe, which I'm always striving to do in the end is, who do you become in that person? Who do I become in that process? And in that process, am I able to achieve quote unquote that full potential that I have at the end of my life?
• 16:11
  Carly Ries: Zach, I feel like I could just visualize you on a TED talk stage giving that response. Like I feel like I need the pom poms or the foam finger right now. But it's so important that something that solopreneurs just struggle with a lot is motivation and inspiration and all that. I feel like you've just gave so much of that. But you talked about a coach in the past during this interview.
• 16:38
  You've talked about your dad. What role do you think mentorship plays in success for solopreneurs? Is it necessary?
• 16:46
  Zach Del Monaco: I absolutely think this is necessary. I actually think that I take this overboard, to be honest with you. But my idea behind mentorship is you have two different paths in life. One path is let's call it path a, plan a. Right?
• 17:04
  Where you're going down and you're starting at whether it's 15 years old, 20 years old, whatever. A decade goes by. Okay. You learned a new skill. You started a new business.
• 17:13
  Now another decade goes by. You scale that. Now another decade goes by. So you're at 40 to 50 years old, you're learning all of these things by yourself because you think you have the belief that you could do it on your own. You don't wanna invest in anyone.
• 17:27
  You know how to do it. You got it. Amazing. You're at 50. Now let's flip to path b, which is over here.
• 17:36
  You start out at 20 years old, let's say. You have a decade, that's 30. Instead of trying it all on your own and spending ten years to learn that one thing, that that one skill to hit that one target, say a million dollars in your business, you pay someone $30,000 $50,000 and at the time you're like this how is it even possible that I could pay this? It's crazy. But you investing in that person $50, you basically just shortcutted that whole entire decade.
• 18:09
  You took fifty years of that person's life and now you just learned exactly their playbook, their mentality. And now say you do that five times, five different mentors for each goal that you have, you are going to do so much further in life than you were if you didn't invest. I believe that constantly investing in yourself and in your business are the two most important and powerful things that you can do. Because my whole entire thing is I always try and value time more than money, so that investing that money can get me back my time in the future in the end. And I wanna be able to have the smartest, most brilliant, most powerful people by my side, and to me that means investing in mentorships, investing in other people.
• 18:53
  The whole thing that I'm doing with investing in these mentors like Tim and buying these books is just shortcutting my way, shortcutting my time to the success that I want to achieve, And then when I'm able to achieve that, it's like a whole another cycle. You just repeat, you're able to mentor other people in the process. That's why I feel mentorship is so important, especially when you're young, and why so many people are held back because they don't understand that simple fact.
• 19:24
  Carly Ries: It's such a good point, and it's amazing that you figured that out at such a young age. And with that, you do work with a lot of young entrepreneurs. What would you say the biggest mistake is that they make when launching a solo business?
• 19:37
  Zach Del Monaco: Oh, that's a great question. I'm gonna give you guys a little bonus on this one. Number one, I'd say is the simple fact of thinking big, thinking bigger of what's possible. The total addressable market of what they're able to achieve. I think many people cut themselves short on the possibilities that they're able to have, and then that hinders them.
• 20:01
  Second thing that I think is really important for solopreneurs is the foundations. And what I mean by that is, because I'm in construction, I love talking about foundations and blueprints. In order to build a massive building, you need a solid foundation. If you don't build a solid foundation to start out with, you build 50 stories high, next thing you know, you go build the fifty first, and the whole building collapses. So being clear on why you're doing it, where you're going, and being able to promote and share that, to be able to wake up each and every single day, that's gonna inspire you to go out and to build this actual entity, this vision that you have, but it's gonna allow other people to see it, connect with you, relate to you, buy into what you have, what you're building, and then also in the end, be able to come onto your team, and that way you're able to actually start building out a team of people behind you.
• 20:56
  Carly Ries: Yeah. And just for clarification for people listening, team can be like, that's not employees, that's like contractors, anybody you surround yourself with. That's just too cool. And so let's say there's somebody in their early twenties, mid twenties, and they're just directionless and they don't know where to go, what do you think is the best way to start a purpose driven business today?
• 21:19
  Zach Del Monaco: I'd say it's actually funny, someone asked me this the other day and I spent like thirty minutes thinking about the right answer because I could talk about this for three hours long. I'd say it's asking yourself the question of what am I interested in and what do I have a passion in? I don't know if it's more so the love, but the interest and passion, because when you have an interest and passion, you dive into it. You're interested, whether you're making money or you're not. So that's the first part of what you're actually interested in, what your skill sets are.
• 21:54
  And then the second part that I tie into this is, again reverse engineering. So figuring out the lifestyle that you want to live in the future, what you need for that to happen. Example is the money that you need, where you're going to be living, who you're going to be surrounded by, and then reverse engineering exactly what vehicle, so what skill set, what interest, what passion you have, can be the vehicle that gets you to there. Because one of the things that I did as a mistake was I had like five different interests that I had, five different passions that I had that I tried to pursue, but it wasn't the vehicle that was gonna lead me to that lifestyle that I wanted in three years. And when it was three years later down the road that I thought that I was gonna accomplish it with that vehicle, I was unfulfilled and I didn't know why.
• 22:44
  I got aggravated with myself. Then I realized from one of my mentors that exact thing. You gotta be able to connect the lifestyle, the dream, the goal that you have in the end with the actual vehicle, or else you're gonna be driving with no GPS and wondering why you're running out of gas halfway through the journey not being able to hit the destination.
• 23:03
  Carly Ries: So Zach, we always end the episode asking our guests their favorite quote about success, but I feel like you just gave an original quote about success that I could steal. But what is your favorite quote about success?
• 23:16
  Zach Del Monaco: Absolutely. I have this. I actually have this quote written down on my phone. So I have these two . It's first one is success is not owned, it's rented and rent is due each day.
• 23:33
  And the second one is from the bible, it's Proverbs, pulling this up right now for you guys, Proverbs ten four. And what that is is "a slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich". Both of those quotes correlate in my mind together saying, you have to be able to be able and willing and disciplined enough to wake up each day, put in the work, whatever that might be, and to continue moving forward in order to reach whatever that might be for yourself, whatever rich or wealth that might be for yourself. Those who sit back and expect versus putting in the work will ultimately lead to poverty and not be able to achieve that success that they have. So those to me hit really hard because again tying back to the beginning when I was in that hospital bed unable to move, family having to take care of me, I began to crumble because I wasn't able to get up, do anything, do work.
• 24:39
  But the moment that I was able to start creating and putting out and flowing out, I felt a lot better not because I was achieving a goal, but because I was in the process of giving value and providing value out to people.
• 24:51
  Carly Ries: So Zach, if people have been hearing the Rocky soundtrack in their heads throughout this entire interview, where can people find you if they wanna learn more?
• 25:00
  Zach Del Monaco: Yeah. Absolutely. It's Instagram at my name, zach del monaco. Simple as that. Basically, it's my main channel, Instagram.
• 25:08
  So see my content there, follow the journey there, reach out to me any questions that you have on that platform.
• 25:13
  Carly Ries: Well, thank you so so much for coming today. I have really enjoyed this episode. I actually after we hang up, I feel like I need to go like climb a mountain or something. But listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. As always, leave that five star review.
• 25:26
  Subscribe on your favorite platform, including YouTube, and we'll see you next time on the Aspiring Solopreneur.
• 25:32
  Zach Del Monaco: Thank you.
• 25:35
  Carly Ries: You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.