From Fear to Financial Freedom: Profit Strategies & Mindset Mastery w/ Kevin Barnicle

0:00 You know, I, but I was scared to do it. I was afraid, you know, I never run a full time company. I had two kids, I had a mortgage. The bills kept coming in and, and, but I, I'd met with a buddy of mine or wasn't a friend of mine at the time, but he also owned the company and he was kind of similar position.

0:17 And I met with him a number of times and meeting with him gave me a lot of confidence too. There was different exercises that I did like getting over fear, you know, doing a business plan. There were a tonne of things, you know, not only it's fine to have confidence, but then you also had to have data and you have to be able to back it up.

0:35 So I, I went through a number of exercises to kind of get me to, to have the confidence to do it. And that was like a 678 month process. I wrote a book called the blueprint, how I kind of figured all this stuff out. And in it I talked about this is exactly what I did. I met with other entrepreneurs, I did a business plan, I did a fear it studying exercise. I did all these things and so that gave me the confidence. Before we dive back into today's conversation, I want to share something important.

1:01 This episode includes a pay partnership with Better Help, a platform designed to make starting therapy easier. I know from my own journey as a leader and entrepreneur that life can sometimes feel overwhelming. There are seasons where stress, uncertainty, and pressure build up, and you need a safe space to process it all.

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2:17 Welcome to The Kingdom's podcast, where we share the stories of extraordinary people and dissect hot, relevant topics that shape our world. From visionary leaders to trailblazing creatives, we uncover the mindset, strategy, and grit behind greatness. Whether it's business, culture, or personal growth, we ask the real questions.

2:36 This isn't just conversation, it's transformation. The Kingdom's podcast, Your next breakthrough starts here. Music licencing reimagined your life. Ladies and gentlemen, you'll once again welcome to the King James podcast and today I've got will be fighting out of Chicago, IL Macwortham, Kevin. Barnacle, that's an amazing intro. I feel like this is like the Chicago Bulls intro or something.

3:10 I love it. Whoa, Chicago Bulls. That's the basketball team. Yes. How how you guys did in the NBA? This year we're not so great. I'm a season ticket holder a long time. We used to be doing great in the 90s with Michael Jordan. You might be familiar with but. Yeah, Michael. Jordan recently. Recently, not so.

3:30 Great. Hopefully. We'll turn it around, yeah. Hopefully, hopefully and let me see. I've not really been following the NBA somewhat lately, but the last time I checked, you know the box. Yeah. Milwaukee boxer won the on the tournament. Yeah. Of course. That's because there's a Nigerian on that team.

3:53 Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. It's a combo, yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. So you see, your son is a good son. That's, that's the, that's the reason why he likes you. Yeah. And if your son loves Yanis, he's going to like me. So you need, you need to get yourself to watch this podcast. I will for sure.

4:12 I always put him on the car and, you know, he could care less about listening, but I'll make him listen to it, yeah. OK, OK. And of course, you know I prepared your introduction, so please sit back and let me give you your flowers. So ladies and gentlemen, today I am joined by a remarkable guest, Kevin Barnacle.

4:30 Kevin is a tech entrepreneur, author and founder of Control Legal technology company. He builds from scratch without high experience, scaled into one of the fastest growing companies in the US, and eventually sold not once but twice for millions to Epic, a global tech giant. He's also an Amazon best selling author of The Blueprint, starting a successful business and currently exploring passions in publishing and film production. From learning leadership on the job to mastering financial literacy, give a team into subscription modules and practising mindset mastery through meditation and therapy, Kevin's story easily even proves that you don't need all the answers to start, but you do

5:19 need the right mindset to feel strong. Kevin, welcome to the show. Yeah, you, you're welcome. That of course, you know, you're always welcome. It's interesting, you know, reading through your introduction, right? You actually stand for everything that The Kingdom's podcast stands for. And when you look at The Kingdom's broadcast on or Spotify or Apple podcast, what do you see as the subtitle of a podcast? It's about growth mindset, leadership and business insights.

5:52 And if that were to be a person? Thank you. Yeah, I definitely. I read, Yeah, I read the description of the podcast. I'm like that. That's exactly what I'm all about as well. So that is exactly. So tell me, tell, tell me. I've like, done a good job, you know, curated. Yeah, you did phenomenal. Good job.

6:16 The King. The king of insurance. You know, it's, it's interesting how life just plays out. When I started, there's some guy in your neck of the woods who was telling me you need to create a niche. You just a generalist, blah, blah, blah. You cannot make it to the top, you know, without creating a niche. I'm like, I will discover what this is about. Don't worry.

6:42 And you know, when I be discovered it right, I knew, you know, when I started, it was about sharing the stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. And, you know, some people liked it and, you know, some people were like, Nah, I don't like the idea of being painted as an ordinary person who's spinning around.

7:06 We will spin it around. And, you know, over time, I've got to discover that what really do I care about? What really do I care about of growth mindset, leadership and of course, you know, with my pieces and find this background of pieces and sites and you know, I started to, you know, find big minds like yourself from around the world to speak to these topics. And I only say something.

7:30 I have only two goals to achieve with this broadcast. And those two goals are to educate and to motivate. If I do that, my job is done. I don't like to stress myself. Yeah, I love that. I love that you said that too. And the kind of the pivot of the podcast, and it's something I actually talk about in my book too, is like running the business is hard, right? You're running the business and you've got to do something that not only provides value for listeners, you're getting good feedback there.

7:59 Also something that you're passionate about and that you're interested in because it is hard running the business and you've got to have that. You've got to have that base of being passionate about it to want to push through all the obstacles because there are a tonne of obstacles. So you know, the fact that you're doing something, you're getting, you're getting up and talking to folks about the same topics that you're passionate about, that they're passionate about. That's how you persevere through the hard time. So good for you.

8:27 Absolutely. Thank you very much. And of course, you know, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, there's something that I always say that an attitude of gratitude is good attitude. I'm grateful to you to have you on the forecast today. And I always say that anytime a person shares their time with you, they share their life with you. But press the SI unit for measuring life as time. So I'm really grateful for your time. I do not take it for granted at all. Yeah, same, same with you.

8:54 Thanks for having me and thank you for. It's good having great minds like you. Think about it like 30 years ago. 30 years ago, these kind of things were not possible. I'm grateful for for technology and AI, you know, making these kind of interactions possible. Tapping into the video, I'm not I see myself as not very young.

9:16 I'm not very old. I'm just like the sweet sport after the three years old millennial growing up, I used to read, you know, my dad had, you know, this really massive library and I was introduced to philosophy and psychology very early in life, reading the works of, you know, great minds like Aristotle, Socrates, even contemporary philosophers like Bertrin Grossel, Winston Churchill.

9:44 A lot of people don't realise that Winston Churchill actually won a Nobel Prize for literature, like indeed, veteran Wassell as well. I read their books and I used to wish how I wish I could, you know, have a verbal discussion, you know, some of these great minds. Yeah. And I think I was born at the right time to grow up at the right time to do this.

10:09 Yeah. Right. Yeah, because back then you wouldn't have been able to talk to them, right? They're very unlikely. Yeah. Cool. So I'm privileged, you know, to be able to speak with the great minds, you know, like yourself across the world. But you know, talking about business, you actually builds control without any prior text that of experience.

10:30 What gave you that courage to to take that leap? You know, it's a constant leap into entrepreneurship. Yeah. You know, I was, my whole background was in sales and there's probably no more entrepreneurship type of job in corporate America than being in sales. You really, there's a lot of things that are on you. You got to wake up and you know, at least the roles that I was in go find opportunities anyway.

10:53 So I learned, I felt like I learned a lot about business being in sales from finding customers, keeping customers, building a business, making it profitable, all those type of things. And I was the number one sales guy at this company and, and we were selling software to to lawyers for them to help them deal with lawsuits and investigations. So they there be a lawsuit they had to go through, look through a bunch of emails and we would sell them the tool and then they wouldn't have a lawsuit for a couple months and all of a sudden they would have a lawsuit and they would forget how to use the tool.

11:24 They'll call me as the sales guy saying I need help, I need help. And I wasn't really supposed to be helping them with the tool. That was for another team, but I would kind of give them some advice or get people to help them. And this happening over and over and over and over. ANYWAYS, so I knew there was a market opportunity, right?

11:37 So that's what I would say to any entrepreneurs like start with what is the market opportunity and make sure that people actually care about what you're doing. I knew that they care because they kept coming to me and I was trying to find companies out there that could help them and there was really none or they were doing a bad job.

11:54 So I was always very entrepreneurial, you know, minded. I always want to run my own company, but I was just about your age. I had two young kids. I was married. My wife didn't work at, you know, I was, it was a high paying job and but I felt like, man, there's someone has got to do this business and it, there's no one better to do with me.

12:12 And that the confidence I had was, I've always been a kind of a confident person because I know I, I work hard, I try hard, I care a lot. So, you know, I, but I was scared to do it. I was afraid, you know, I never run a full time company. I had two kids, I had a mortgage. The bills kept coming in.

12:31 And, and, but I, I'd met with a buddy of mine or wasn't a friend of mine at the time, but he also owned the company and he was kind of similar position. And I met with him a number of times and meeting with him gave me a lot of confidence too. There was different exercises that I did like getting over fear, you know, doing a business plan.

12:50 There were a tonne of things, you know, not only it's fine to have confidence, but then you also had to have data and you have to be able to back it up. So I, I went through a number of exercises to kind of get me to, to have the confidence to do it. And that was like a six, 7 eighth month process.

13:05 I wrote a book called the Blueprint, how I kind of figured all this stuff out. And in it I talked about this is exactly what I did. I met with other entrepreneurs. I did a business plan, I did a fear it, studying, exercise. I did all these things. And so that gave me the confidence. I was still afraid to do it, but I did it, you know, and the courage.

13:23 And then the minute I did it, I knew it was the right decision. Wow, the right decision. You know, talking about you having that relationship with your friend reminds me of what the Bible sees as ion sharpened ions too. Shot by Chaplin, the continent of fighting brethren. You know, it's very important to what I say, associate and fraternise with people of like minds and like goals, like directions in life. And of course, you know, to our audience, I hope you're picking up on this, right?

13:57 So I remember when I was going to start the podcast, there are people who did not understand the dream. And you know what they there's? There's always gonna be funnier, though. Yeah, that. Always does discourage me because like, oh your finance guy? What's the finance guy looking for in the world? Media.

14:18 Yeah. Let's have a conversation today with global top 2.5% today and you know. You know, yeah, it's all Congrats. Yeah, that's great. Now there's always people, you know, there's there's always doubters, there's always haters. You know, I don't know how many people told me I was crazy. You know, they're like, you're making all this money.

14:41 You're we've got a pretty easy job. Wouldn't you don't start your own company. I thought about starting my own company. I never do it. They were, this is things that they were saying to me. I don't so many people and I was like, they don't know. They don't know what's going on in my brain. They don't know what I'm capable of. I'm not going to listen to them.

14:57 And and it's also like one of the better pieces of advice that I think I've just cultivated in my own mind is don't ever take the advice of someone who hasn't done what you're doing right. I can't guarantee those people at a podcast, right? None of those people in a pocket. Like what? Why would I care about your opinion? Yeah, and yeah, you're right.

15:17 You're what I'd like to see. I'd like to tell people that the best part of your opinion is the fact that your opinion does not count. That is the best part of your opinion. I like that, no. That's good, right? It, it's crazy. You know what? You just reminded me of something. I saw something on LinkedIn yesterday and it sort of baffled me.

15:38 I think this person is an XC suite executive and they must probably be in there in their 50s or 60s. And this guy dropped a post that he's been job hunting for the past nine months and that, oh, he, he's done really, really high profile, you know, jobs, high profile organisations, international organisations, being it being called CEO and, you know, for certain organisations.

16:07 And, you know, he's unhappy he's unable to get a job for the past nine months. And my head, I'm like, what happened to entrepreneurship? Why are certain people so conditioned in their minds that you have to be on the bygone that was greeted by another person? Right, right. Yeah. Why? Don't you create something for yourself with so much experience and expertise?

16:37 Yeah, You know, I, I don't know, I think probably a lot of it is how you're raised, you know, and I mean, education's a big part of it. I think most people are told get a good education, get a good job, go on to management, try to move up the corporate ladder. And I had no interest in doing any of that. Like I saw those people that were 50 and 60 and had worked their asses off for these companies and then all of a sudden they're gone and they can't get another job right or whatever.

17:10 And I remember thinking, I do not want to be that person. I don't want to be that person who's 5560, you know, maybe 10 years away from retirement, can't get another job or whatever. I had no interest in doing that. And then it was a matter of, OK, how, how do I make it happen? And so when I saw that market opportunity, I took it.

17:31 But I think you know, you're either working on your dream or you're you're working to help someone else achieve their dream. Right. For me, I was like, I know how it our work. I know how talented I I was and AM and the things that I'm good at. I'm not great at everything, but some things I'm very good at. And I was like, I rather, you know, see the rewards of that. I don't mean you were talking about reaping. You reap what you sow I'd rather reap those rewards that I've sowed and not someone else reap those rewards. And there's a trade off to that.

18:00 Of course, it's hard, you know, there's a lot of challenges of running a company, but it's absolutely worth it. And it's really comes down to knowing yourself and your own personality, right? That some people, they want a place to be, go somewhere and be told what to do every day. And there's nothing wrong with that.

18:17 That's not me, it's not you. But there are people like that. I think they're crazy personally, but hey, to each their own. And I don't know how they were raised. I don't know anything about them. And and that's also like why I don't take people's opinions like you were talking about, like they don't know me. I don't know them, they don't know me. You go, do you?

18:36 I'm not going to worry about you. But yeah, I think it's a lot of it's conditioning, a lot of it's people being told that's the safe route and they believe it. And for me, it just, I don't know. I've always been kind of rebellious and contrarian, but I had no interest in doing that. The interesting part is that they also think you're crazy. So yeah, right is crazy.

19:00 Yeah, well, I think we're all crazy, everyone. We're just now we're human beings. We're just totally flawed running around. We're all trying to figure it out. And you're on this, you know, plan it for such a short period of time. It's like, why not go after your dreams? Why not see what you're capable of? You know, it's like I talk about my book. There's the whole Maslow hierarchy of needs right in the top of the pyramid.

19:23 It's self actualization. Like it's innate us to want to know what we can actually achieve. If you're at a corporate America, you don't know that you're not going to get every opportunity you want to be. There's only one person is going to be the CEO who's going to be at the top of that pyramid. And you know, you a lot of times you don't know what you're capable of when you're when you're an entrepreneur, you find out what you're capable.

19:46 Of real quick you. Know, like all of a sudden, you know, you thought a podcast two years ago, now you're in the top 3%, right? So you're finding out. You're finding out. You find it out like and I like that song. If you are what you see you are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I love that song. Like if you are what you say you are, Yeah.

20:13 That that. Yeah. Entrepreneurship is Oh yeah, prove. It that's yeah, prove it. Because Oh yeah, prove a job there is. Because the market, the market speaks man, you know the market always wins. Yeah. And of course, speaking to what you say about the market speaks I when I advise people, especially upcoming entrepreneurs like myself, I tell them you don't sell what you want to sell, you sell what the market wants to buy. It's simple.

20:41 Market forces demand and supply, right? I've been sales my whole my whole career. You I never sold anyone anything. You know, I always understood what they were trying to accomplish and then figure out whatever I could do to help them, you know, whatever products I had, whatever services I had. But you're not going to like if someone doesn't want, you know, a Droid phone over an iPhone, you're not going to convince them or it's very unlikely or it's not worth the effort. It's better to understand that person, their situation and and then try position whatever you have to help them that that's all sales is and and same with the market, right? You're either increasing pleasure or you're decreasing pain.

21:23 That's what every product is. It really is. It's that simple. So go find people's pains and decrease them and in problems and solve them, and you'll find what they like doing and enhance that experience and you'll still sell. Yeah, exactly. You know, you need to speak to people's pain points, right?

21:41 And somehow lengths in economics, you know, from first degree this money is a store value. And if money is a store value, it means people will give it to people who offer them perceived value. Yeah. So as long as you master the art of creating value, you will definitely get money. And you know, people don't like to be sold to.

22:10 People like to buy to meet their needs 100. Percent. Right. So if you are telling somebody what they don't want or they don't need, they sticky like why, why are you pushing it? You're you're pushing your lock. Yeah. No, that's exactly right. That's it. That probably is, yeah. But you know, you actually build control like without, you know, the whole experience in tech, right? And leadership actually, you know, comes or would I say improves over time with experience, right? And of course you, you never had managed anyone before finding that company.

22:55 So what were like some of the hottest leadership? Yeah, you know, I think. Since you learned, you know, yeah, you know, trial and error. Yeah, yeah, a lot of trial and error for sure. I mean, a lot of it in the beginning was, you know, I'd never manage anyone. We grew really fast. I had 10 employees by the end of year 1. And I don't know, because I didn't have a lot of experience managing people.

23:17 I just always thought people were like me and I worked a lot. I was hard. I was hard. Yeah, I, I was a hard worker. I took things very serious. I had attention to detail. And I remember a couple people that came in early and they were not like that. And I would bark at them. I'd be like, what are you doing?

23:35 Yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You got to do this, that and whatever. And I'm like. And then I remember meeting with my mentor and I was like, you know, I feel like I don't even want to hire people because I can just do it better. And he was like, of course you can do it better. But and you're going to care more about your business, but you have to figure out the stuff that you're not any good at and then outsource it to those folks and then let them be, let them figure out they're not going to be like you. And that's OK because there's probably a lot of things you were not good at either.

23:59 So I think the biggest thing was trying to hire for need and realised that I had to give them autonomy and that's what I wanted to write. I the the best bosses I ever had were kind of let me do my own thing. But I think it was the, the, the error in the beginning was trying to fit them to do things like I did things versus how they did things. And then how I got better at it was just, you know, a finding really good talent that helps because then I don't worry about telling them what to do because they already know what to do. So I always kind of found a plus talent paid them well versus trying to coach up people.

24:37 I was found people experience. That was something that worked for me. And, you know, just really trying to see it from their perspective, you know, not being so reactive, trying to listen more instead of talking. That was a lot of the things I learned with with folks and and giving them space and, you know, giving them opportunity.

24:54 So that those are the big things is just, you know, not forcing them to do things the way I wanted them done. Let them figure it out on their own, but measure the results more than the process. I love the way you talk about hiring A+ talent, but there's something that I like to say, and I think I said this on the podcast before, it's gonna have talent, right? But hard work beats talent when talent does not work hard. 100% and.

25:25 I have a problem with when I say, coping with or trying to teach people the right attitude. I don't know, I'm a young entrepreneur myself, right? But I think it's quite difficult or maybe almost impossible teaching people the right attitude, right? Because how do you teach a person to be hungry? How do you teach a person to be determined? How do you teach a person to be ambitious? How do you teach a person to go above and beyond, right? You can give a person a task, right? Give them a deadline and they might come to you and just to trust enough, right?

26:08 How do you teach them the fact that you need to consciously, actively find ways to become more efficient at whatever it is that you do? How do you teach them that you have to be innovative, right? And, you know, keep up with current trends, right? And of course, you know, in the tech industry, you can attest this.

26:34 Sometimes you you're working on a particular research and another company has done that research and has put that product in the market. And whatever you're working on becomes sort of obsolete. And you need to probably have an add on to that service or that product line in order to make it relevant, right? How do you teach people attitude? For me, yeah, I think I struggle with that, but I'd like to. Yeah, I don't.

26:59 I don't know that you do. I mean, I think you struggle with it because I don't know that you do. I think it's more about finding people that already have it and that is in your interview process. You know, I mean, we used to have a saying that if we have to manage you, we're going to manage you out of the organisation, meaning you want to find leaders, right?

27:18 You want to find people with that hunger, you want to find people with that determination and that grid. And I don't know that is something that you can teach them you they can observe someone doing it. But when you're in a company, especially like ours is a, you know, fast growing tech company, we didn't have a lot of time to be teaching people. We, we needed people that already knew and bring them in and then give them opportunity.

27:42 But I've, I'll tell you one thing that just made me think of that is, you know, I, the company that I was from EMC and I know a lot of companies and, and the tech space do this is they would look and I did one of your other guests talk about this the the Flickr guy or clicker, Sorry, I can't remember the name of his company. Sun Tepper a tiker.

28:01 Yeah, yeah. But he thought about this. But it's about athletes, you know, finding athletes and a lot of athletes and have a lot of those attributes already. So like one of my first questions, when I was being recruited to go work for this company called EMC, they were like, what high school sports did you play?

28:16 I was like, I was not expecting that. You know, I was like, huh. And and I did play high school sports. So I talked about that. And but it's because those people that played those sports, they usually are hungry, they are competitive, they have a lot of that attitude, you know, properties that you want, right.

28:38 And those things get, do get instilled as a kid through sports. So it is kind of a little bit of a hack to say, do you have some of these things? Not everyone probably played sports has those things. But I talked about it in my book. I would ask, how competitive are you? That was one of my favourite question.

28:57 And if they would smile before they even were saying anything, I knew I was going to hire them because they're like, Oh yeah. So are you going to hire me now? Because I was smiling when you're saying that. Now, but like some people like get scared. They're like, oh. Shit, how do I? Start writing for my language.

29:17 But Oh no, how do I answer this versus if they are competitive, they're like, all right, let's go, you know, and, and most people are competitive, obviously at least anyone's achieved anything in their life. But that that was a good hack to finding those that are already like have that attitude versus, like you said, teaching them. I don't know how you teach them.

29:37 I mean, I would tell them to go read a bunch of books that helped me along my way. And you know, there's a bunch of podcasts are things you can do, but you've got to, you know, I, I'm not going to hire someone that I have to teach attitude. They better have it. And you know, the sad part is this right before I get to the sad part, I've tried that approach, you know, even that certain book, certain materials, okay, go read this or read that. They don't add really anything.

30:06 Wait. Yeah. No, no, totally. It's like you wish your tag. Yeah, no, unless, no, it's kind of funny because I, I actually forced my my new employees to read one book. There was one book I forced them to read and I just did it with my daughter too. And she was like, I don't, you know, she's going to college. She didn't really want to read this book. I'm like, well, if you don't read it, I'm not paying for tuition, so you better read the damn book. But it is, you know, it's whatever. It's how to win friends and influence people. It's my favourite book and and that. Was a great that was the first book I bought with my own money. Really.

30:47 Oh yeah, Dale Carnegie. That's my favourite book of all time. And the art of public speaking, Yeah. Yeah, I have both of those. I actually have like I can pull it up at some point. It's over there, but I've got like a fourth edition copy of that book like from the sitting on my desk right over there.

31:03 But I love that book. And but anyways, that is a when you own your own company, you can force them to do some things. And that was the one that was the one book I would, and this is for younger employees. This wasn't like, you know, someone's coming and later in the career. I'm not forcing anyone, but I had a couple, we we did decide at some point to hire some kind of junior engineers and and they didn't have the best people skills. I could just tell.

31:26 And I'm like, you got to read this book. So and they all, you know, I don't know if they're be asking me, but they all seem to say like, hey, thank you for making that. That actually was helpful. I get it, you know, da, da, da, da. So. But anyways, yeah, so you're right not as they won't read it. And it's, it's not like you're wasting your time. So I'll figure something out.

31:44 I'll figure something out. But you know, the sad part is, you know, when you have those ones, you know, with the right attitude and with the right talent, the turnover is very high. The need for better opportunities is very fast. How, how? How do you do? Well, you have, well, you know, we actually did a pretty good job of keeping our talent.

32:02 I mean, a, an easy way to do is pay him more than the market's paying. That's one of the things that I did. I was like, you know, I I would rather hire less people and pay them more than the opposite. So, you know, a lot of people in the running business, they want to say, Oh, I have this many hundreds employees.

32:21 Like I didn't care. I'm like, I want to keep it as small as possible, but I want to really, really good people. So I would poach people from like sometimes our customers and you know, they'd be making, I'll just, you know, say some rough numbers making $100,000 to some corporate job. I'd say I'm going to pay you 130.

32:38 And you know, they would come in and they would get other benefits and I would like, hey, I don't care. I'll pay above market rate because we were moving fast. We needed experts. I, I knew when I found the right people, I was willing to pay them. So that helps, you know, we didn't lose a lot of people.

32:56 We would then give them structures and incentives that were aligned with the company goals for them to make more money to no matter what their role was. But yeah, you know, you're always going to have people poaching talent. But if you give them upside like, you know, stock options, things of that nature, when you're an entrepreneur, you can give them, there's creative things you can do being the boss and being entrepreneur to kind of keep people around. Yeah, I feel like that equity stake actually has a big way of motivating people.

33:26 Yeah, the golden handcuffs. Correct. The golden handcuffs. Yeah. That that's that's a treat. That's a very, very fantastic trick around keeping these people. So. But then, you know, you had zero accounting background and you educated yourself and worked with accountants. So what's the most important financial principle you think every founder should master Very early? Yeah, You know, I, that was the thing I was more intimidated by when I started my company is because, you know, I did like my family personal accounting and I talked about this in my book too, but it's like I, I was like, man, I don't know anything about accountants.

34:05 I, you know, accounting. I don't, I've never, you know, done a general Ledger or anything. So I read a tonne of books. All of them are kind of boring, you know, but I like accounting one O 1 books and then and you know, I talked about it. I, I really recommend people outsource that function. I know that's something that you do right? You're a fractional CFL, but for real. Bring them my way.

34:30 My company would do that. It's. Great. Well, that's actually my advice in the book is get a fractional CFO. And if you don't know it, like I didn't know, I didn't care to know it. I wanted to know it to be informed and to have good dialogue, but like I didn't want to be an accountant at all. And it was like one of my weaknesses. And so I hired a a fractional CFO outsource, you know, small consulting company.

34:55 The guy was amazing. He taught me a tonne. And then I would say, you know, you got to understand the P and LS. The biggest thing, you know, in my opinion, for a young entrepreneur and and keep costs down and you know, it's not necessarily an accounting principle. What? I would just keep costs down solo.

35:12 You know, I didn't take a salary myself. I didn't bring out a full time kind of W2 employee until like 8 months in and I was just paying people's contractors. You know, I waited too long to hire people, but it helped me sleep at night. And then at the end, especially if you're looking to sell your company, you really got to understand GAP principles. That was not something I understood. I learned real quick, you know, I went through the cold quality of earnings thing with selling the company and it's a bunch of really smart accountants in the room and I'm like, I'm just going to shut up and let my fractional CFO do his work. But you know, I, I would say this with accounting, for those of you out there listening that

35:48 are like me and didn't have a lot of accounting experience, it's scary. Like accounting and law. Those are two of the scarier things with selling, with running a company, outsource them, you know, and you'll figure it out. It's not that complicated. It's just like a different language, you know, you got to learn, learn how it works. But really at the end of the day, a business really just money coming in, money going out. So it's not that more complicated. And so just making sure that you can control what you can control in the beginning, that's money going out. You can control how much money is going out in the organisation.

36:22 You can't always control how much is coming in. So that's what I would say from accounting principles perspective. Why you just said I'm gonna summarise it. Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is king, if you wish. Cash is reality. You know, profit says that you're winning in the game of business.

36:44 That's right. And cash flows determines how long you can stay the business. That's right. So make with that information whatever you wish to make with it. So you're actually successfully transitioned, you know, from project based services to subscription model. I love subscription model revenue a lot though. And of course you use Caraca to the growth. So can you walk us through how that came about and what was the impact?

37:13 Yeah. You know, I think it was like year 4 or five. I was, you know, we've gotten a lot of interest from companies investing in US and even potentially purchasing the company. And I, you know, was trying to understand that whole game, right? Like if you sell the company and I really learned a lot about you know, so any Long story short, I made the Inc 5000, my company makes the Inc 5000.

37:39 I talked to a couple private equity companies and venture capitalists and they all were really honing in on the amount of recurring revenue that we had. And I had a decent sense of it, but a lot of our stuff was products. So like an example, you know, a customer has a new software system that in their environment they want us to configure out, we'd say, hey, it's $15,000, we go in there, we get it done in a week and then we're gone.

38:02 And then they pay us and then maybe they'll call us later on if they have problems or we would try to outsell them other stuff. But that's, that's it, right? It's one and done versus when I learned more about the reoccurring revenue subscription model, I was like, you know, a, not only does it make it you more valuable from a, you know, selling the company, but it makes you a lot more valuable to the customer if you've got something that you can annually provide to them. So I just sat down and thought through, OK, how can I actually turn these projects and these other things that we were doing into, you know, annual contracts? So I kind of made it a no brainer in the beginning and just said, look, you know, that

38:41 same customer, right, $15,000. I'd say, look, we're going to give you a managed service for the same price, $15,000. We're going to come in, we're going to do the install and then for the next 10 months, you're going to have support from us and we're going to get in the environment. We're going to proactively take care of the software.

38:58 And you know, they'd be like, what's the catch? You know, do I got to sign up for multiple years? I'm like, Nope, there's no catch. I just I'm that confident that you want to re up on the service in a year from now and it's the same price. You get, you know, option A is you get work for us for two weeks and we're gone. Option B is you get to our first of the whole year. And you know, we were taking some risks doing that. And like me and you talk before we jump on, sometimes you got to do stuff for free.

39:22 And I would say like 95% of the customers would sign up for it. They're like, yeah, that sounds like a no brainer. And then 75% of those customers in year 2 would re up because we would go above and beyond for these customers. We would take care of stuff. We got to know them. We're in their environment doing stuff and they were like, you know what, I don't want to deal with this crap anymore.

39:43 I'll let you guys deal with that. And then it was just like stacking those customers up. And then instead of, you know, January 1, we're going, what the hell are we going to sell this year? Now we're like, hey, we already got twenty of those customers. All we got to do is keep them and then add them.

39:59 And we can still do those projects if we want to. We could do other things. So, you know, for me it was like, this is a no brainer. Why did I not do this sooner? And it all started with, I read a book called Built to Sell by John Warlow and he talked a lot about it and that, and that was more about, hey, this is how you make your, your company more valuable. But I was like, man, I, this is making the company easier to run.

40:20 So anyways, that's why we did it and it worked. By the time we sold the company about two years later for the first time, about 75% of our revenue was recurring versus 40% two years prior. So which gave us a great multiple on the on the actual sale. You know it it, it's beautiful when you have that recurrent revenue, especially by way of a subscription model about, you know, in terms of scaling up right?

40:47 It, it, it makes it easier as well, right, because you have that multiplier effect course having multiple customers that you can service at the same time, right. And of course, you're keeping up cost as low as possible, but another strategy that a lot of consulting or service professional services that companies or firms use is upselling. So were you guys able to upsell any of your, would I say food or?

41:22 Other service, yeah, because we have software products too. Yeah, I mean, the beauty of it is when you have a recurring model and this was more of a managed service, right? This was a service. We actually had a software product that we did as well. So we, we would use that managed service. That's usually how we would get introduced was through this managed service.

41:40 And it was around technologies like Microsoft and, and other, other companies. And we would get in there and they're thinking there's going to sign up for a project with us. They actually sign up for a man's service. And then, you know, my team would get to know them, you know, and in this space, we're taking care of a software that is associated with like, you know, legal services and, and these lawsuits.

42:04 So when then three months later a big lawsuit hits, we're already managing the software for them. They have a relationship with the, with my, with my, my engineer. And they'd say, oh man, I got to be all weekend doing these searches, running this for the lawyers. He would say, you know, we do that as well. And they'd say, oh really?

42:25 So then that was another service line that we had that that was, you know, they could work with our team and we had lawyers and they could actually go in and do the searches. And then we would understand about the type of litigation they would have in the industry that they were in. And then we had our own software that we built to help them manage their data proactively. So the next time that this happens, we can help them as well.

42:46 So it was it all kind of started with that one. And then there was all these add on services that we could do and some of them were projects, some of them were software subscriptions, you know with the software subscriptions recurring revenue as well. And it was just it just built, you know. So now we've got you know, 4050 of these customers 50 to 100 and that's why our revenue kept going up. And then we could manage our expenses a lot easier because we knew, OK, going into the year, we're going to have 5 million bucks of this recurring revenue, OK? You know, we had really good metrics on how much work we were actually doing for those customers, the profitability. And we're like, OK, we don't

43:26 even need to hire that many more people. We can just tweak some of our, you know, tweaks how we're doing things. And then profitability starts going up and you're like, that's when things get exciting. You're like, OK, now the flywheel spinning. Yeah, the flywheel, it's very important to be able to like recognise the the different elements or the components or the flywheel and of course the activates, you know that engine at the middle and of course it's just like an automated system.

43:56 I love the SAS system, right? The SAS easiness model, you know, pretty much like the the flagwheel. But one thing that comes with that fast growth is possible burnout. Right now it can be quite exhausting. So how did methods like meditation therapy help you avoid burnout? I'm like what? What's your advice, you know, to young founders like myself, you know, about managing residents and I'm I'm quite that exhaustion.

44:31 Yeah, I mean, I'm quite passionate about this particular subject. I, you know, it was like year 2 or year three of the company and, and everything was going well, right? We're having a lot of success, but I'm working a lot. I typically am working like 14 hour days, you know, and I'm not sleeping a tonne because I've got to get, I got to stay up late and I got to get up early and you know, things are going, I'm hiring all these people feel like we're having a lot of success, but I felt like really low energy. I wouldn't say depressed was the right word, but just kind of blah.

45:04 And I'm like, man, I got to, I got to do something like I'm just constantly kind of running out of energy and I was still pretty young and eating well for the most part and exercising. And it was like year three of the company I met with my same mentor. I kind of talked about and I'm like, man, I, I don't know if I can keep doing this.

45:21 Like this is a lot. He's like, you don't want to quit. You're tired and you need a break. And he's like, you need to go on vacation And every vacation I take in a couple years prior, I wasn't really, I was working on the vacation. My kids were on vacation, my wife's on vacation, but I'm working. So I was like, I don't care.

45:37 I'll burn the house down. I'm going on vacation. I'm shutting off my e-mail. I'm shutting off everything. And I've heard a lot of entrepreneurs talk about meditation and specifically transdental meditation. And I tried it like the whole lie down on the floor thing. And I'm like, I, this is not working for me.

45:54 And, and I was like, you know, I just, my brains racing and I'm not calm at all while I'm meditating these things. And I, I read something that you've got to, you got to give it a week. You've got to do it every single day for a week, right? For like 10 minutes, whatever. So I'm going on vacation. I'm like, here's a perfect opportunity. I would lie down.

46:14 I would like to listen to guided meditation. And, you know, it still wasn't great. It was like, you know, you're walking in a forest. I'm like, OK, it's fine. But it was it, I did feel after day three like I'm becoming a little bit more relaxed and focused. And then by the end of that vacation, we, you know, we full week of it, I'm like, God, I feel good. I feel energised.

46:34 Obviously being on vacation was part of it too, and being around my family, but I felt really, really good. And I was like, all right, I kept doing that. But then I wanted to take it to the next level. So I learned transit lamentation and doing it for 10 years now every day, first thing I do, I wake up 20 minutes.

46:49 I'll probably do it right after this podcast around 3:00 in the afternoon. I do it and it's a mantra based, you know, meditation and more than anything, it's not like a lot of people think of meditation. They think, you know, oh, I'm going to be like my, my brains going to be empty and I'm like levitating and like, no, that's not what it for me. It was getting me.

47:11 It was getting me in touch with what was going on with myself, right. So like you're dealing with a lot when you're running a business and for me, I'm dealing with a hundred, a hundred different things. So sometimes I'd be bothered and I would close my mind and I meditate and it you real quickly get in touch with yourself, right? You're like my brain be going, oh, I can't believe that employee did this.

47:32 You know, what a jerk, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, OK, this is what's bothering me and now I need to go address it. So that's what really helped with me. And then I, it would just give me like energy. Like I would, I'd be tired by around 3:00. I would meditate. It was like the equivalent of taking a nap. You know, you take a good nap, you feel good, you feel refreshed.

47:52 And then I'm like, oh, I feel good now. And now I can be a better husband when I go home. I've got a couple more hours in me with my team and then I can have the energy for later on at night. But meditation is a huge thing, you know, sleeping. I learned to probably, you know, year 4, I really need to start focusing on my sleep. That is a much better.

48:13 Yeah. But burnout, you know, vacation scheduling time with friends and family. Like it's easy to non-stop work and I started scheduling blocks of time like 3 hours every night with my family where I'm not working. I might think if I might be thinking of work every once in awhile, but like you need to do those things. And then mental therapist, I went and saw, I started seeing a mental therapist deal with the stresses of it and. Therapist, I'm really happy you talking about these and of course, you know, I, I guess this is the right time right now, right?

48:42 Your episode, you are you are a fantastic guest. And of course your episode is the episode where we break the good news. We are now partnering with the world's number one therapy brand and that is better health. So what a great time. That's awesome, man. Congratulations, partner with us. So Better Help is not officially a sponsor of the Key Dips podcast. And of course, what a way to say we into you talking about mental therapy.

49:15 Yeah, I mean, and I would say, you know, and the nice thing about Better Health, as you know, is, is it's an online mental health programme, people travelling, etcetera. I personally have been seeing, you know, a therapist since before the online thing even existed. But it's great, right. And, you know, I think sometimes entrepreneurs probably put too much on their spouse to kind of be like their therapist, like they come.

49:40 Home and untrained, Untrained therapist. Right. And you know, they might be having a bad day. They might be dealing with like my situation, my wife's, the old little kids. And it was nice to be able to go talk to someone that doesn't know me, that's not judging me, that has is equipped to be able to deal with some of these things.

49:58 And I joke like I used to just go and complain, you know, like sometimes I didn't really want to talk to anything. I just go and complain about my team. And then I would leave and I'm like, I feel better. Great. It's out of my system. So yeah, I'm a huge proponent of therapy. Congrats on your your partnership with Better Health and that'd be awesome routine. Thank you very much, brother.

50:16 And of course, you know, guys, if you least injure us, therapy is something that is very, very resourceful, very helpful for you. I'd be grateful to have a better help as a sponsor of the King Games broadcast. And if you use the if you link that is betterhelp.com/king Games, you will actually get a 10% discount on your first month of therapy. Therapy is very helpful.

50:46 I cannot under emphasise the the importance of the help that therapy actually does. You know, due to once a mental health, I've only gone therapy myself. I have used better help myself and of course, it is actually very helpful. I don't, I don't know what to say, but really therapy, a lot of people, especially where I come from, find it when I say difficult to have this difficult conversations about mental health.

51:21 But if you can see a doctor right, for physical health, why can't you see a trained practitioner for your mental health? And a good thing about, you know, better health is the fact that it's online. You don't have to see the therapies face to face. Yeah, it's, it's, I would look at it. I would look at it as coaching too, right?

51:45 It's, it's not my experience with therapy. Being an entrepreneur is not going and talking about all my problems of childhood, right, or anything like that. People see in movies. It was OK, here's what I'm dealing with. You know, how can I balance work life? How can I, you know, be a better communicator? You know, like it's there's all these different tools. And if you're listening this podcast, reading books, you're already seeking that information. This is someone that you can have a personalised one-on-one mentorship and coach with you.

52:19 And you know, the nice thing about things like these online tools is you could try a couple different ones, right? You don't, you might not jive with the first person you meet, which is harder to do in person, right? Meet to drive, to meet all these people and figure all that out. It's hard, but you can. From the comfort of your phone, just just read the therapist right?

52:39 Yeah. And you know, but yeah, I did a lot of online therapy during COVID because of course, because I had to. And it's great, you know, it's it's anyways. But yeah, I agree. Thank you very much, brother. So, you know, talking about exit strategies, by the way, I do have a particular episode on exit strategies. And of course, the guy I spoke with talked about that book to to sell.

53:06 So you told your company twice. What are the top two or three things entrepreneurs should prepare for if they hope to sell their businesses one day? Yeah. I mean, you better be prepared to know your numbers really, really well. You should be prepared to talk about recurring revenue and predictable revenue, right?

53:28 That's what they care about. And I would say understand if you go through a process like I did and you know, I met with about 10 companies, it's, it's, it's an interesting process. It's challenging, it's mentally challenging to go through it it for me, I was kind of explaining like your dream is right here, right? Like a lot of selling a company for a lot of people to dream because financial independence, whatever it is, you know, seeing what the company can go and it's a roller coaster and you know, like my process is about 100 days, 120 days. And man, it's like if anyone's ever sold a house and you get a home inspection and it's very stressful. It's like doing that everyday for 120 days and they're going to, you know, it's, it's just,

54:11 it's a process, right? So having a mental therapist, my I don't know how I would have gotten selling through my company without having my therapist. It was very, very stressful, mentally taxing, exciting as well and worth it by the way. But just know that you know it. That actual process is pretty brutal.

54:31 You know, tough diamonds don't last, but tough people do. And the Survivor also like to say that God reserves his toughest battles for his toughest soldiers. Yeah, there you go. You're a tough one, you know, but your book, Let's talk about your book, The Blueprint. It aligns seven faces, you know, to start in a successful business. So which of these faces do most entrepreneurs underestimate? The first one is fear, How to get over the fear of actually starting a company.

55:06 I think that was, you know, looking back at my journey, I spent a good eight months, you know, kind of really contemplating starting the business. And like I said, I in the beginning, I, I was leaving a high paying job. So that actually made it harder in some regards. But that process, I look back and like, man, did I expend a lot of energy on that.

55:26 And it's obviously the most important thing because you got it. You got to make that first step. You got to take that that leap off the off the Cliff, so to speak. And then a. 1000 miles begins with a step. That's right. It's that first step, right? And overcoming that fear. And that's, I start off my book talking about it, the exercises that I did to get over the fear. That's the number one thing because once you do that, I found the rest of it actually easier than I expected it to be. I found it easy to be successful running the business and making profit.

55:58 And there's a lot of challenges, but man, that first step was hard. And so that's why a lot of reasons why I wrote the book is I wanted I know how I felt about it at the time. I know the things that I did to overcome the fear and it without taking that first step in my life is like, I can't even believe it.

56:15 It's my life now. You know, I've been retired since I'm 45. I get to do whatever I want a daily basis. None of that happens without that first step. So that's the biggest thing. I think people if they're very serious about making it and they're leaving a kind of situation like I was, it's it's nerve wracking. So how do you get over that?

56:32 That's that's the thing, people under, under. That I think you need some therapy to get over that. Yeah. It's like about failure. Failure and resilience. You know, you're to share a moment where you thought things might collapse. And of course, maybe heaven might fall. The heaven never falls. And how did you turn that obstacle into an opportunity? Sure.

57:02 Yeah. You know, in 2015, we, we've been kind of running for about, you know, 3-4 years and things were really good. And most of our business model was, was, you know, building services and products around large technology companies and kind of filling in gaps. And we had two major partners and both of them got massively disrupted in the same year and that massively disrupted us.

57:27 So, you know, we had built our kind of whole company around these two technologies. The one company was like selling off and going to sell off this technology. They didn't care about it anymore. The other one was kind of like they were getting acquired as well. And it was just all, they were very disrupted, which made us very disrupted.

57:47 And I kind of was like, oh, and our sales started going down because customers weren't investing these technology, weren't sure. And I was like, we've got to find another partner. We've got to find a different alley because we're not we, we probably could have milked those customers and done OK. But you know, I was like, we've got to find an opportunity here. And I and Microsoft, it kind of just got into our space and I tried to like reach out and find out what they were doing, but it was very kind of closed off group. And I just threw persistence and resilience. I was like that Microsoft is going to change this industry. And I just non-stop all day for months figured out any angle I could to try to get a meeting

58:24 with Microsoft. And I was flying to New York on the maybe the promise of meeting for with someone which that didn't even happen, just to try to get any angle that I could. And finally got a meeting just through pure persistence and resilience and made the pitch about why we should be entered into this programme that Microsoft had kind of closed off and got us into that programme. And, you know, and we didn't know a lot about their technologies.

58:50 We didn't, my team was very sceptical, but we got in there and then we just, you know, took off and then that that part of the business became our most profitable, our largest part of the business. Now the company's still running even though I left and you know, I sold the company, it's like 90% of revenue. And if I wouldn't have just stubbornly non-stop work to get in this Microsoft programme, the company would would have gone under, I'm sure, or, or certainly would have been what it became.

59:18 So, you know, sometimes when these things, you know, doors close, the window opens kind of thing, that's the way I looked at it and it's scary. Well, you just got to do it, right. It's, it's sometimes it's almost about survival. And it wound up being the greatest thing for us. And at the time, it did not feel like a great thing, you know, that these companies were kind of going away. It was not a good feeling at all. But you know, here's this new, this new company and that we just took off with them and we got off to an early start. And that's why companies wanted to buy us. They wanted to get into the Microsoft space and we were the leaders.

59:50 So anyways, but yeah, it's it's those things and you can't control it. So all you can control is what you do about it. You cannot control what happened outside of you where you can control what happens inside of you. And I love the way you structured it really beautifully wet. One door closes. It's it's the opportunity for another door to to open each of these as human beings, it never makes sense to us in real time. It never makes sense to us in real time, but, you know, down the line, you know, after some months or years and then you get back and you're grateful because to myself, I'm always grateful that setting opportunities that I really wanted very, very badly did not come my way because I

1:00:42 ended up, you know, harnessing bigger and better opportunities. Yeah, I mean that. And everyone has that, right. You can look back at your life, whether it be a relationship, whatever, be whatever, you know, and everyone has those moments in their life where they can look back and say, man, at the time I was pissed. I didn't get that.

1:00:59 But it wound up being the best thing for you. And it doesn't, like you said, it doesn't feel great at the time, but, you know, draw, draw on those past experiences because, yeah, you never know. You just never know. You'd never know, you know, you talked about the Maslow's Hercule weeds right there. And of course, like I told you very early in life, I was exposed to reading books on psychology and philosophy. That is, you know, one of my favourite psychology models because it, it really much, you know, articulates human desires very to a high level of precision and, and accuracy. And when I look at that triangle, I think you, you're actually right up there trying to get that self actualization. So when I look at you, you're

1:01:51 tired. And of course, now you're exploring publishing and even film production. So how important is it for entrepreneurs to pursue creativity? Passion. Projects, yeah. I think outside of business. I think it's great. I mean, you know, for me, I started the company because I want to be able to control my future a little bit of control free.

1:02:13 And so I put myself in that position. So I was, you know, 45 years old and here I am retired and, and I had all these dreams and, and ambitions as a kid, right. And I think a lot of it's like going back to what you want to do as a kid. I always wanted to write a book. I always wanted to make a comedy movie.

1:02:31 I wanted to be able to do whatever I wanted to do when I was older and I'm like, I'm going to go do those things like now I have I worked really hard. I took some risks, you know, had this with a lot of value for our customers that turn into value for me. And now I'm going to go do these things and it it is those that Maxwell hierarchy needs, right?

1:02:50 It's like I felt like I could write a really good book and the market right now is telling me that that's what I did. And I felt like I could really make a funny movie and I'm still working on it. But I feel like that's what the market will think and it's that self actualization, right? Like I felt like I could run a successful business.

1:03:07 I did, right. So it's like I felt these things, I've actualized them. And when you build, when you have success in one thing, it builds another's right. Like a lot of people were like a lot of people were like, oh man, what if you write this book and it bombs? You know, you're going to be so embarrassed.

1:03:22 I'm like, you know, people said that to me. And I'm like, I don't, I don't think it's going to bomb because I, I know I read a lot of business books, blah, blah, blah. Same thing with this movie. Like, man, what if it sucks? I'm like, I'm not worried. About it, If it sucks, I'll do a sequel. Yeah, I love that. That's funny.

1:03:40 You know that's what I always tell people, right? Even if it feels I just found another way. We things don't work, I will keep going. You can't stop. Yeah, and it's all right. A lot of these things I'm doing for myself, like the book I wrote for myself, like I wrote it for the kid that was 32 years old going through that, right? Like what was helpful for me in the same thing with this movie, I'm like I'm making it for myself. It's a passion project.

1:03:59 So I think it's important for entrepreneurs to scratch those creative itches because in general I have found, I know hundreds of entrepreneurs, they're all very pretty creative, right? You get in, be running a business is a very creative endeavour. And so I have found that most of them have a lot of interest outside of, you know, just being running a business, right.

1:04:22 And you know, being being an entrepreneur is a very creative process. Like you're creating products, literally, you're bringing on people. You're, you're do, you're, you're creating. So I think naturally for any entrepreneur to have those other interests is important. I don't think I probably need even say it that much because I bet they're doing it already.

1:04:42 Like, I'm sure you have creative interests that you do, you know? I mean, look at your backward setup. After that, you didn't see more episodes of my podcast, right? I've had creatives on the forecast. I've had even musicians on the forecast. Maybe I did not tell you growing up because I was a skinny kid.

1:05:03 They used to want to believe me. So I go into martial arts. So I started with Taekwondo, karate, moved to mixed martial arts. So I've had world champions in boxing, world champions in MMA, you know, guys in the UFC. But there's more Cage Warriors. They've all been on this podcast, you know, and I love, I love mixed martial arts.

1:05:24 Anybody that knows me closely knows 3 letters are very dear to my heart. That's the UFC and yeah, what about the country? London. And I'm there. I was there at the Altar Arena and at the CA, you know, and, you know, that's something creative, you know, outside of building the company that, you know, I'm very passionate about. And even the way to tease, you know, people on the broadcast is the Brisbane for introduction.

1:05:50 You know, I fused it into, you know, yeah, the the podcast, you have a big party for your. Hands like this too. I was like, we're getting into a fight. This is great. I felt like I was going about hearing like literally that's what I thought of when you were the intro. I mean, actually I said the bulls thing as well, but when I listen to some of your other episodes, I'm like, man, it's like a Ding, Ding, Ding, let's go here. And of course, think about it.

1:06:11 Life is actually fine. I think about. It oh 100%. Oh, we have lots of battles. Yeah, yeah. No, I I've got a lot of. Battles. I've got another idea book that's just going to be called Fight, and that's what it's just about. Life is going to fight you every day. Let us collaborate on that one. And of course you know that. That's why I love working with athletes. They, they understand.

1:06:39 They understand the concept of teamwork makes a dream work. Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. If you, if you're doing a team sport or an individual sport, you know what it means to have that discipline. Dr Consistency. A lot of people tell me and even people that don't really know me because they've seen my body of work, you know, over time, they said, how do you manage to be consistent?

1:07:03 You know, even when I was in a corporate world, still putting on my body of work, like it's a function of commitment, right? And finding ways to be efficient. And when you're committed to something, it's really crazy how much you can achieve over time. It's just like compound interest. You say I am going to save $1.00 one pound a day for the next, you know, 300 assets or five days. You'll be amazed with, you know what you're going to put together.

1:07:34 But people don't have that discipline to be able to stay committed. And you know, I say, yeah, I know I'm not need you video with a high IQ. That's not what really sets me apart is sets me apart is that ability to stay disciplined and consistent and just cheap in the, you know, cheap the block every day.

1:07:55 Yeah, it's the only way to do it. 130 episodes Like how? How did I come from? Yeah, Discipline. Equal success. Yeah. I mean, you've got to be disciplined. You've got to stay committed. You have to have a process that's just a essential building block of anything being successful. But you know, that's funny thing, right? Yeah, I'm going to talk about this. Yeah, there's a book either work, right? I'm about to publish a book at that book is on helping podcasters, you know, to succeed in this podcasting journey. And I have a podcasting management service under my company and I had 6 broadcaster on the management 6. But now we have 5, The five of them, you're on the Kingdom's forecast.

1:08:47 That's the highest ranked. Global top 2.5%. We have Guy over CFO global 5%, top 5%. We have bricks and backs by Stephanie. That is global top 5%. We have the crews tycoon global top 10%. And of course, we have business 11 global top 10% or we have one that I'm not going to mention the name. I think everybody deserves, you know, their dignity to be protected.

1:09:17 And this was the only person who struggled with consistency, right, right. And also this person, I don't like the fact that they weren't faithful about, you know, their financial commitment to the programme, right? And they thought they could be smart about it. And you know, which are not like I, I was just laughing behind because if you're not investing in me, you're investing in yourself. Right.

1:09:44 Yeah, that's sure changed. That's just stupid. But yeah. And they are the only ones that I left behind right now. Yeah, I feel sad for them. I feel sad for them. You know, back to where you have a SAS tool and somebody is trying to use that SAS tool, right, without paying the subscription like.

1:10:01 Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not gonna work. Yeah. Well, life will teach them plenty of painful lessons. I feel bad, I feel bad for them. You can lead a horse to the stream, but you cannot force it to drink. That's one lesson. I'm learning this word of entrepreneurship. But like I said previously, it's hard to teach people attitude. Yeah, I was just going to say it brings us back to earlier about like you, you can't teach them.

1:10:26 They either have it or don't have it. And like that's where we used to say if we have to manage you, we're going to manage you out of the organisation. Like you shouldn't be here, like, you know, you know, you should be a leader, you should have those things, you should have those attributes. So that's, that's part of it is, you know, but it's, it's a lesson learned for you too, you know, like that's not everyone's going to be above board with how they act and how they, and, and that's, that's what I found in, in management and leadership is once you identify those people, get them out like we would just, you know, sorry, you're not a good fit. You know, we used to say, you know, positive attitude, positive results, you'll love it

1:11:06 being here. Positive attitude, not great results. Hey, we'll work with you. We'll help you figure it out. Negative attitude, negative results, you're gone, you know, and that's going to be the. Cut off. Yeah, gone. We're not here. You don't even, you're not, you're not going to last. You're going to be exposed.

1:11:22 So like that last person you mentioned, that's a negative attitude, negative results, right. So get out here, you know, just goodbye. Wow, lots of lessons, you know, I've been learnt here and of course, I think that's a good way to segue to the last question I have for you, and that's about your legacy and impact. So looking back and of course looking forward, what do you hope your entrepreneurial journey inspires in the next generation of of founders?

1:11:52 Yeah, I mean, you know, that's why I wrote the book a is just to inspire people to be an entrepreneur. That's what I was really hoping to do because I know what a great life it's given me. And you know, it's something I teach my kids about, you know, being an entrepreneur. And and I think in this age of AI where a lot of things are going to, oh, there are going to be job loss and they'll be job created because of AI too. I'm not saying that, but I think I don't know what profession I would tell my kids to go learn to be in college right now that isn't going to just get totally disrupted by AI, but you're always going to need entrepreneurs. So if I could inspire one person to be an entrepreneur that was kind of on the fence, that have

1:12:33 been worth it for the book for me. And I've actually received a couple emails saying just that. So that's it. I think I would just, it's inspiring people to be entrepreneurs and then if there's anything they can learn from my lessons and my trials and errors and tribulations, I would be thrilled about that.

1:12:51 I think that that is actually well said. Something just popped on my mind. I I want to make you make a commitment. I don't be recorded right. So your book I, I, I really need a copy of that book. I have a couple of books that are ready to buy, you know, from a guest. So we have this. You know this.

1:13:09 I'll send you. Here it is. There is mine, yeah. Don't just want a copy of the book, I want an autographed copy of the book. No worries. I will send you on. Just just just like, just like what Professor Bruno did, right? I think I need to start connecting this autograph. There you go, I accept. Accept your challenge.

1:13:28 OK, OK. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. So you know what time it is, is the quick fire round. Let's do it fun, fast and of course insightful. Just give me the quickest answer that you can provide to this questions. Are you ready to rumble? Yes. Let's go. OK, So what is one book that you think changed your life? Yeah, I, you know, I know I mentioned how to win friends influence people that that one day, but I already said that so and I know another common entrepreneur 1 is rich Dad, poor dad.

1:14:04 But when I read that book. Robert Kiyosaki. Yeah, I was young and it just like changed my mind. Like I, I, I was thirsty for something. I was searching for something. I didn't know what that was. And I read that book and I'm like, this is it, This is what I'm talking about. It seemed like a major life hack to me. I, I definitely assimilated with that book. I don't know, it's not the right word. I'm looking for whatever.

1:14:30 I saw myself on that book and that my dad was kind of like my real dad growing up was kind of like the poor dad in that book. He's get a good education, etcetera. I don't mean poor, like, you know, whatever he, that was what his opinion was. And then I had a buddy, one of my best friend's dad was like an entrepreneur.

1:14:45 He was kind of like the rich dad. So there was 2 very influential men in my, in my young life. And so that kind of made sense to me. Anyways, I, that book changed my life. I went on AI, went on a reading spree, I learned about finance, I learned about entrepreneurship I real estate, which I still do to this day as well that that book changed my life.

1:15:06 Do you want to hear a phone fact? Yes. Robert Kiyosaki says the same birthday with me. Robert Kiyosaki is April 8th 1947 and of course I'm April 8th, 1992, so. That's cool. Know, know that you are. You're talking to the rich dad. Yeah. I want that. Well, maybe maybe everyone born on April, like there's an entrepreneur, you know, like that's. Yeah.

1:15:38 Oh, where's your birthday? On November 17th. November 7th. OK, you close to my 1717170. You're Scorpio. Scorpio. Yes, Scorpio. Yeah, you, you can. My mom is a Scorpio. We we don't see eye to eye and everything that's. All we need to worry about, yeah. I'll tell you, I'll tell you, you know, like I feel, I feel like my mom feels like I'm this troublemaker personality. But you know, the troublemaker is honest is only making things happen.

1:16:10 But I don't know that is what I feel. But she told me that no, that's not what I think about you. But on my mind, that's what I think you think. It's funny, I like that. But think about it right, Right. What did you say? That I'm also troublemaker, so all good there. I'm telling you, I I feel like if you are going to be great at entrepreneurship, you have to be a disruptor and you have to be a troublemaker of some sorts.

1:16:37 That, yeah, I agree. Yeah, maybe this is. Wrong. Go go check them out. Like you, most others be a disruptor and I always like to say those mouths don't get fed. Yep, right. Yeah. So we always have to stand our grounds and, you know, be assertive. And sometimes being assertive leads to being borderline aggressive. And aggression is not.

1:17:03 It's not a bad thing entirely. But I think people get uncomfortable with, you know, people being aggressive because if you're ambitious, you have to be aggressive, you know, to chase those things. That's difficult to achieve. Well, I don't know if you want to speak to that. No, no, I agree. I mean, I think it's just about being pointing it in a positive direction, you know?

1:17:28 Absolutely. You know, Yeah, You know, And of course, when they see the results, they not come and say, oh, wow, I'm proud of you. But excuse me, coffee, meditation or both. Meditation. Oh wow, you just did that should have a little question. OK, Biggest misconception about entrepreneurship? I found it easier to be successful than I thought it would be. I think it's all the other things that go with it, like we talked about today.

1:18:06 Yeah, I think it's a misconception that it's hard to run a successful business. I do. I think it's about determination and grit, and you got to have some talent, too. But I think people, you know, they hear the numbers, 5% of businesses fail in the first five years or whatever. I think that's a misconception.

1:18:22 I think it's people give up or quit. They're not resilient. Yeah, determination that greets the grind and of course the the execution. So if you could have dinner with one entrepreneur, you know in world history even or dead. Yeah, this is a good one. I, you know, there's a the couple that rattle in my brain.

1:18:45 I'll give you kind of one that is not probably talked about as much. You know, Tim Ferriss, who wrote the four hour work week. I was big fan of that book. That book really helped me run the business to the beginning and be more efficient and effective. And I listen to his I was like early listeners podcast.

1:19:02 I just think he's a great teacher and it would be more more so to say thank you because I feel like he he changed my life. I've never met him or anything and listen to his podcast, but there was an opportunity at one point when he was kind of on, he wasn't very well known where you could bid on a dinner. You could bid on a charity to go to a dinner and I'd try bidding and it like they didn't get my bid or something. And I was like, I'm going to, I'm going to make this happen. So when I saw that, I was like, yeah, that's I would try to go back in time and, and do that.

1:19:33 But I think you guys are brilliant dude. And he I would, I think I would enjoy talking to him so. OK, fantastica team first, right? OK, yeah, we work something out, We work something out. There you go. Make that happen, right? Yeah, you know, I'm the go to guy. I'm the one who makes this happen.

1:19:53 That's why I'm called the troublemaker. I love it. Wow. So before I let you go, you are pretty much like a Big Brother, right between us and entrepreneurs. So what's your last statement of advice, especially when it comes to a growth mindset for Statue of Business? Yeah, I would say just just look at as obstacles as opportunities. There's a famous military hero in the United States, some Jocko Willenic.

1:20:28 I don't know if you know who he is, but he he has something that he calls the good mindset where it's looking at setbacks as opportunities. Like, oh, I didn't get that job good, I can go start a company. Oh, I didn't get financing to start my company. Great, good. Or you know, excuse me, good, I will own more equity.

1:20:50 You know, I didn't get that deal Good, I can go get a more high profitable customer. So it's hard to do that right? It's difficult. Your your natural reaction is to not feel that way. But if you do look at that way, and that's what I would try to do is like, OK, how can I look at the good in this? OK, it's not natural, but how would I, how would I, what would I do?

1:21:10 What would become something good out of it? Like I talked about before, that situation where the two companies we build our services around were like kind of very disrupted. It's like I could have just kept going and rode that out and whatever. But I was like, OK, good. I'll look at this as an opportunity to go partner with Microsoft.

1:21:27 And then that took us off to a whole new level. And so, you know, it's, it's difficult, but it's an important mindset to have. I think I really love that mindset. It reminds me of a book I read growing up. And of course, I'm really grateful that, you know, while I was a teenager, I was exposed to a lot of really good self help self development books.

1:21:50 Well, I remember this one, it's by Doctor Willie Jolie. Of course the Titan of the book is a set back is a setup for a comeback. Yeah, I've heard that phrase, obviously, but I did not. I've never read that book. That's great. It's a book everybody should be, you know, it. It talks about a particular formula, the dad, and that's a vision, decision, action and desire. And when I think back, you know, full second moment about how those books have affected my life, influencing my mentality, my attitude as a person.

1:22:24 And now looking how it's helping me to impact, you know, younger ones, you know, while you're younger, you, you feel like you're going to be young forever. But when you see these younger ones look up to you and they tell you, oh, you're giving us gems. Really appreciate you. And my social media and somebody was messaging me on X formerly cheater yesterday.

1:22:49 And the person said, it's really wonderful connecting with you. I feel so honoured, you know, having advice from a person like you. And I'm like, who am I? Well, you never know your impact and congratulations to you on the podcast. Everything you're doing, man, and wouldn't possibly I like like all the Jerry, your quote and stuff. It's good stuff.

1:23:16 So keep it going and. Thank you very much for that. You know, faith, faith, faith is a sometimes of these hope for the evidence of these not seen. You know, I'm very, very big on faith. And do you want to know what my best Bible verse is? Yes, I would love to. Philippians chapter 4, verse 13. I can do all things through crisis transcends me. It keeps it going.

1:23:39 Yeah. And I was going to tell you something. The very first book my father ever gifted me was thinking Queries by Not Totally going to Kill. Oh, yeah, the holy hill. Yeah. Oh, of course I read that book. Yeah. What I read that book? I love it. I agree with it. You know, it's one of those things you read and you're like, is this true? And it seems kind of weird that I could just like think it and grow rich.

1:24:01 But that that book I read on Millionaire Next Door is kind of similar kind of realm. At least I read a lot of those self help books. But yeah, think and grow rich. I mean, I never thought I'd be in my position that I'm in now. And IA lot of those books were very influential for me too. And I love that you talk about reading so much because I'm a avid reader myself. And that would be like probably one of the biggest things I would say.

1:24:24 And I tried it and it's part of my kids. It's like read, you know, it's like all the like secrets of life are hidden in books and it's for you to unlock them. And you know, we it's really easy to get caught up and you know, TikTok and Instagram or whatever these kind of quick knit things, but like to have concentrated time and energy.

1:24:44 And I think there's some beautiful about the written word, which is why I wanted to write a book myself. You know, like you can really fristalize, you know, what what you're trying to say. And that's hard to do even like in a podcast, like I'll listen back this like, Oh, I should have said that or I should have said this or whatever.

1:25:00 But when you're writing, you can actually edit and really adapt it. And so you're getting someone's best, you know, So if you're reading all this stuff like that book, like that was his best, you know, and that's the beauty of books that is doesn't exist. Otherwise your movies a little bit, you know, but and that's you know, I don't know.

1:25:21 I am huge avid reader and I just thought I love that I could tell that you are too. So that's great. Thank you very much. I think there's sort of like a solution to to what you were just talking about. And I think that solution is audio books and of course the contents of versions SO11 brand or what product that I really appreciate is Blinkist. So hi guys, Blinkist, please tell them it's high time to become sponsor this broadcast.

1:25:49 So I have a one year subscription with them. So for me, I I love to get sponsored by brands that I use personally. So I'm the most authentic person working on the surface of the earth. So I'm an endangered species. So I cannot advertise something that I don't use. I cannot endorse something I don't use. So that's a help in thank you very much, guys. And of course, being kissed you up next. Let's do this whoa And of course to Kevin Barnacle love and of course respect to he.

1:26:23 I only say that when a person shares the time with you to share their life with you at first. Thank you for sharing your life and your time with. Me. Thank you man. I'm very grateful to our audience. Can you see that gorilla behind Kevin, right? If you do not share and subscribe and comment and show love to this broadcast that Karina is from your way.

1:26:45 And of course, for me, it's goodbye Kevin. Any last last words or do you want to give a shout out to anybody before you run away? No thanks, man. I really enjoyed talking with you and yeah, being a guest, so thank you. OK, out of Chris. Hopefully. We'll see. You'll see in the part too, brother.

1:27:05 Wow, like I like to say, guys, guys, always go for something in your life so very, very important, conceive, believe, strive to thrive and of course achieve. And so that can't be a way next. I love and I respect your way. Goodbye for me.