Ask the Uncomfortable Questions

In today’s episode, I answer questions from a live meetup about choosing the right people, asking uncomfortable questions, building shareholder value, and protecting your time and energy. I share how timing and risk tolerance can guide better decisions, why self image is shaped by the meaning we give our past, and how wisdom becomes more valuable as knowledge becomes easier to access. I also explain how to think about hiring family, developing and retaining talent, setting boundaries with partners, and identifying clients who are making you money, breaking even, or costing you money. The goal is simple: make better decisions with greater awareness and accountability. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  So the idea is, you know, just ask questions, it'll flow. If you need help, let me know how I can help you. And, uh, you know, it, it helps other people too, because we do record it. At least my, my side. So, you know, if you're wanted, don't worry. But a lot of people, this is the best content they, they get from me. Invariably, better than the speeches, better than TV shows. They, they're like, I like the meetup content because it's, you know, coming through me, usually channeling what we do. So, all right, it doesn't work unless you ask questions.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  What's your favorite speech to give? You said you gave one to the corporate thing that was like your favorite one.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, my, my favorite speech is about my journey and tying in the lessons with my journey. So it starts with, you know, the world of not enough. It moves to the world of just enough, and it finishes in the world of more than enough. So I feel like I can take people through my personal journey and change in a very short amount of time, their mindset, heart set and hand set, and leave them with actual things that they can do, values, practices, execution models, even inspiration.

• 1:15Speaker 00

  One of the things I'm very cognizant of with the people that I'm around too, and the tours that I'm on, is I see a difference between what I call the intellectual entertainers. That, and they make a lot of money off of people, and I'm good at it. And, and I really started to distinguish, I don't want to be an intellectual entertainer. I don't want you to feel really good when you leave here. And then the next time I see you, you're in the exact same position. Because I was intellectually entertaining. I want there to be nuggets to go away with. And so I tell people all the time, when I speak, only capture or deposit something that resonates with you. So too many people write down nothing, too many people write down everything.

• 2:00Speaker 00

  But I believe God tells you what's important for you by making it resonate. So if you feel strongly about something I say, that, one of the quotes that I heard that I felt the most strongly about in my life was someone said, you know, my mom always said, you're either humble or you're about to be. And it just dropped me to my knees. So I wrote that down, texted it to myself, memorized it, used it a million times. And then there's other things that someone said that really disgusted and pissed me off. And I really capture those and want to know why does that bother me so much?

• 2:34Speaker 01

  Cause you don't like doing business with dicks.

• 2:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, or somewhere in me, you know, I'm still insecure about that, or it's something I did in the past. So there's a, a memory that's still in my conscious memory that I, that I have to release. So that I can spend less time interfering with my potential. Because, you know, and it, you know, it, it happens when, you know, stupid stuff that from the past. Cause you know, we all learn from our journey. And I would say like, when people touch on being like overselling and backend selling, like strong selling, like sometimes people say, and I, it, I just, I really get aggravated and agitated by what they're selling.

• 3:19Speaker 00

  So like, take like an Andy Elliott, who I really like, but like a lot of things he says pisses me off. And I think it's because, as I've explored, why does, why do I, why is it resonating to the negative with me? Because I still have my own stuff to heal, right? Because that's the kind of shit I used to do. So it's really interesting, and I don't like to do business with dicks.

• 3:43Speaker 00

  Good question.

• 3:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, we, we love it. It's a only, only book that I titled correctly, because people buy it out of my hands. Literally, where like Compassionate Capitalism, nobody's even asked me like, what's that book? Because I probably look at the title going, ah, that's kryptonite to me. What a boring title. Probably good for colleges, maybe I should sell it to there. But when people read it, they like it. The six people that read Compassionate Capitalism.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Why don't you change the title?

• 4:16Speaker 00

  Cause I just kind of learned that lesson through Simon and Schuster recently. So we'll rebrand, um, now that we've learned the lesson about marketing and can't sell a secret.

• 4:28Speaker 00

  Sometimes we let our own insecurities, where I, I wanted to be this new person. So I didn't want to be the guy who sold a book off of the title. I wanted to be this noble author who everybody loves Connected to Goodness, and I gave it away for free. And people bought, last year I gave over 20,000, bought over 100,000 of the book. Connected to Goodness, a little better title, but it still doesn't resonate like, don't do business with dicks. Cause not everybody understands it. Everyone that sees that title resonates, they're like, oh yeah. And they want to tell me their story. Or their marriage.

• 5:09Speaker 00

  It does. Very good. And next questions.

• 5:14Speaker 00

  There we go. Hi, everyone. We're in Miami with our great community. Thanks for joining us virtually. Anybody have a question?

• 5:22Speaker 02

  So David, you're so well-connected and you have a huge community. And I know that you're involved in a lot of different business ventures. What is your criteria, or how do you go about deciding who you're going to work with and who you're not going to work with? And the type of projects that you're going to work on?

• 5:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, good question. So it took me years to figure this out. Thus, don't do business with dicks. So there, there's several criteria. So first I try to distinguish, are you a, a almost never person? Are you some of the time person or almost all the time person? So I immediately can categorize you of how I can work with you. I know exactly how I work with almost never people, some of the time people, and almost all the time people. And so that's the first way that I prioritize my relationships, which then leads to the next prioritization of doing business with you, which would be, one, how relative are you to me? What's our association?

• 6:19Speaker 00

  And then the most difficult analysis is how much am I going to be fed? I, I, you, you've heard, you feed that that feeds you, fire that that bleeds you. A lot of times, that which bleeds you will feed you the most. This is a later epiphany of mine, when my mom got sick. She bled me mentally, physically, spiritually, and financially, emotionally. It was awful how much she bled me. Not nearly as much as I bled her, I'm sure, as a kid, having my own kids. I, I know that, but you expect your kids to bleed you. You just, for some reason, don't ever figure your parents are going to bleed you in this manner. But yet, that process of bleeding was one of the greatest feedings of my life.

• 7:04Speaker 00

  And so I've really done this analysis in business. And so when, when you are ranked high in relativity, association and feeding, now I can analyze the inventory of capability. And when I say that, my capability. Because our first, our model is to capture all these options, opportunities and touches of favor, and then distribute them internally or externally. Internally with my team, externally for those and prioritize those, we have an overlap agreement so that we can also benefit from the introduction. A non-binding overlap agreement that says, hey man, if I bring you a family for your dental offices, you're going to give me a Starbucks card if you can.

• 7:45Speaker 00

  Non-binding. And if you give me a speaking gig, I'll give you 20% of gross. That's an overlap agreement. And I have thousands of them. They're all searchable. They're in a capture folder. And I just write as many as I can via email or what. It's non-binding, but it's a reminder, who was that dentist in North Carolina? Cause we have a family moving from my neighborhood to North Carolina. They got four kids. And he would really appreciate the business. And they'd appreciate doing, finding a dentist that I know. So they have that commonality. So you have capture options, opportunities and touches of favor, distribute them internally and externally, and then teach people to prioritize the internal ones. And so they go through the analysis themselves. If we distributed the opportunity

• 8:29Speaker 00

  into that same relativity, association, feeding and bleeding, then they decide, am I going to execute on this? Or am I going to redistribute it? Either internally to someone else that has better capability than me, or most likely if it's through that process, it's going externally to somebody with an overlap agreement. And so that's simple execution model. With the framework of how you evaluate that, allows me then to create buckets as well. So as you do and decipher through that qualification process, you realize that not everybody is in a position that they need to be in at this time.

• 9:09Speaker 00

  So the buckets would be free, some group opportunity, one-on-one opportunity, or business advisory or investment. So our team and me are constantly putting all of you into buckets of free group, one-on-one waitlist now, business advisory or investment. And below those, I now am building out sub buckets with distribution. So I have Melzer Capital to do all my funding. I have Melzer Funding to bridge capital for women and women of color. Right? I'm starting to build out all those things, which I found would be seen as different businesses, but they're not. They're just evolutionary, not revolutionary businesses.

• 9:50Speaker 00

  They're just what I'm already seeing and have a demand for, capability of, and take one on, then two, and two turns to four, four, eight, 16, 32, 64. And I have a timing and risk tolerance analysis to everything I do that allows me to keep guided on understanding the greatest qualification that'll save you is timing and risk tolerance. 90% of the people or more that ask me for help, when I ask them the first question, well, what's your timing and risk tolerance? Give me the same answer when someone tells me I changed their life and I said, well, how? What did I say? What video was it? And usually the response is, uh.

• 10:28Speaker 00

  All they remember is how I made them feel. And so I recognize that I want you after I speak to tell me, wow, that speech changed my life, but you better F and be able to tell me how, not uh, whoa, whoa, what was it that you said about your mom, man? It was it's what you said about your mom. That's what changed my life. But what did I say about my mom? Well, you know, I'm all, yeah, I fucking know. I say it like a million different times because the way to be a good teacher, mentor and coach is to be repetitive and honest. I apologize for being annoying to you because you obviously like me and I hope this doesn't give you a distaste not to like me, but I really want you to learn something from me. And I so appreciate you think I changed your life, but tell me what I said. If it was about my mom, was it you're humble

• 11:13Speaker 00

  or you're about to be? Or was it that just because someone loves you doesn't mean they give you good advice? Or was it the fact that she told me when I felt as if God was punishing me that I had to grow up and God doesn't punish anyone? He protects, promotes, loves and perfects you? What was it? Because let's hold on to that together. Let's dive deeper into it and see why it resonated with you. Let's just not be intellectually entertained by Dave Meltzer because he tells a great story and teaches great lessons. And we do that in our business as well. We don't cheat ourselves. We ask the hard questions. We all give suggestions. Anybody can shadow me. You might not be able to hang all day with

• 11:54Speaker 00

  me from 4am to 5pm, but you can shadow me. But all I ask is you give me questions and suggestions. You'll pay for yourself by the suggestions. I've had kids shadow me and all they did was keep telling me and pouring how lucky they were and all this stuff. And then they gave me, hey, have you ever heard of this app? And that app makes me like $160,000 of either savings or some right one app like because I just don't know what I don't know. And I've been wasting my time or have employees. And I'm like, man, that was a good employee. That was a good trade. One day of shadowing me for, you know, 160 grand a year I'm saving. And these aren't exaggerations. That's how much you need people to give you suggestions. You don't know what you don't know. They, they know all kinds of cool shit. And you

• 12:38Speaker 00

  know, because people have given you stuff that changed your life. You know, this is like simple things. You know, there's a TSA app that'll tell you how long the line is. Do you know how much time that saves me a year and how much emotional interference that gets rid of? Because I know exactly when to get to the airport or whatever. There's all the types of cool stuff you learn that seems irrelevant, but it's not. Great question. All right. Oh, actually, that gave me the mic. Okay. This is only for recording, by the way, obviously.

• 13:10Speaker 03

  It's just an observation from beautiful question just now. So in terms of like my new entertainment, who to work with? Because I even like thinking to myself, like, we've worked with some big people now.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  You guys like his Texas accent?

• 13:25Speaker 03

  So we've worked with some really big people. And I even go back to the day when I was in Mayfair and I was supposed to have the meeting, Kishore. And you're bringing me up saying, Liam, before you go in this meeting, doesn't get any bigger than this. And I'm like,

• 13:37Speaker 00

  Well, there is five more people richer in India. So it does actually get bigger. And I know the number one guy for you.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  But you know what I mean? So and when you think me, I mean, I know what I'm capable of, but I'm thinking, oh, my God, like, this is dangerous contact. I've got to go in now. I hope it don't make a fool of me or Dave and stuff like that. So there's actually a lot of trust from your side, isn't it? And we have that in our, in our own business where like we're trying to trust our employees and trying to lead a little bit. And it's just finding that little balance of how can I put these people in front of my people now and not make a fool of me. But I feel like you do it on a much bigger scale. It's like we're not, we're not talking about, these are like billionaires.

• 14:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:19Speaker 03

  No, it's, and it's hard.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  So whether you're a billionaire, millionaire, entrepreneur, celebrity, athlete, entertainer, or looking to be one of notoriety, doesn't matter. You all have made introductions that suck.

• 14:35Speaker 00

  So if it not, if I lose credibility, then that guy, I didn't have credibility. It wasn't you, right? I chose the wrong guy because he'll call me and on, you know, look, I'm accountable. I literally thought that was a good meeting for you. And I didn't do my due diligence on the person well enough to know exactly what he was going to ask you or the credibility of that person. I take accountability and most of the really successful people that are abundant, they run their same risk all day long, but they're here to help. And so I never worry because I trust and do my best to vet people. And I've learned along the way, I'm much better than I used to do. You, you know, people who just, they

• 15:20Speaker 00

  make the introduction to make themselves look good and they don't have any knowledge of either party and they waste your time and then the guy doesn't show up or, you know, there's all kinds of ridiculous things that happen. I've learned, one of the best capabilities that I have now is to ask uncomfortable questions. Instead of saying to myself in my head, that doesn't sound right. Give you an example, someone the other day raising money is like, our revenue is up 300%. My immediate lawyer skeptical, inherently messed up thinking is, how much revenue is that? Well, you want me to invest? Seems like a pretty easy question to ask, but believe it or not, most time I never would ask it. I'm like, well, kind of offend the guy. It's kind of like when you're interviewing someone

• 16:04Speaker 00

  and they're like, in my last sales job, I made $360,000. And in my head, I'm like, I'd like to see a W2. Every time some sales guys told me that. And I never would say it. And then what would happen is the guy was lying to me, overselling me, back and selling me, manipulating or cheating me. And then I find out that he was lying, cheating, manipulating, overselling, back and selling, find out that was his character. Anyway, after I hired them or after I invested, and then who do I blame? Them. For what? Lying, cheating, manipulating, overselling or back and selling me when I already knew you were? I was just too much of a wimp to ask you one question. How much money did you make last year? $9? $90? $900 or $9 million? Because you just, that question makes a big difference

• 16:49Speaker 00

  if I'm going to invest in you. Yeah. And it also exposes you as a liar, cheater, manipulator, overseller, back and seller, if it's $9 or $90. You're bullshitting me. And I don't want any part of that. I'm gone. Same thing with asking a W2. I have no problem when people tell me how much money they have made to use as a point of credibility. Show me it. Show me the money. Yeah, show me the money. Well, honestly, this other guy the other day who I'd known forever is going on. I think Nick was in the car. I had him on speakerphone. He's bragging about all, all the deals that he has with this company and I got to get involved. And I've known this guy way back, Lee Steinberg, Super Bowl party, Warren Moon Pro Bowl parties. We like, this guy was family. I did shit I should not have been doing with him. He

• 17:33Speaker 00

  knows every bad thing about me from when I was, you know, in my early 30s. He was too, by the way. And he's bragging about these clients. And I asked one simple question. Do you remember what I asked?

• 17:44Speaker 04

  I don't remember the word for word.

• 17:46Speaker 00

  I said, oh, cool. How much revenue? Right? He listed off all these big clients with, and the solution, by the way, was it, he has a way to cure cancer. And he went through, right? He literally has a cure for cancer. It has been, you know, of course hidden by the United States government and, but he has all these, you know, clinic, like you wouldn't believe it. In my head, I'm thinking, oh, fuck, get my checkbook out. I can't believe that he thought of me to be involved in this. And then I asked the one question that I never would have asked. How much revenue did you have? He never answered it. Well, you know, like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's why blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, Charlie Brown's teacher, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. That's all I kept hearing. And then

• 18:31Speaker 00

  I decided I'm not going to be a dick because he's an old friend. So I just instead say, I certainly appreciate the opportunity. All you need to do is send me your deck with a balance sheet and P and L because I'd love to look over the revenue. Instead of saying, come on, man, guess how many, guess, guess, have I received a deck? Do you think? No.

• 18:58Speaker 00

  This happens all the time. And then we blame them for lying to us, cheating us, manipulating. We do it in our relationships with our kids. We don't call them on their bullshit. We do it with our spouses. And then we blame them because we didn't feel confident enough to ask those questions, to be annoying, repetitive and honest. And a lot of times you don't have to do it, especially if your spouse, you're like, well, you know, you interrogate your, hey, I'm really interested in that. Tell me more about this. Because I, it's usually, if you've been married as long as me, your spouse is not lying, cheating, usually.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  So when you ask, it's clarification. Oh, I thought, explain to me, like, I thought you were here. Oh, yeah. And then there's this real, but if I didn't ask the uncomfortable question to my wife, then I would start worrying over 28 years. Because I was too afraid to figure out a diplomatic way to say, hey, I thought you were here and why were you here? You know, or just being honest about, hey, look, I know your tennis coach is a piece of shit. Right? So I'm not comfortable you hanging out. You can have your tennis coach coach, but there's no one on one coaching with this guy. I'm not comfortable with it.

• 20:24Speaker 00

  And I don't want you to be put into that position because I know he's a piece of shit. And those are harder conversations to have, right? You don't trust me? No, I do trust you the same way you trust me. But you don't want me to be in a situation with people that aren't trustworthy. That there's temptation. Now, she wasn't drinking at two in the morning and doing cocaine like I was where now I'm impaired in my decision making process and getting tempted. I've never seen in my whole life, most of my friends that do bad shit, none of it happened. None of it before midnight and sober. And sober, none of it. They all were happily married, right? At eleven fifty nine and sober.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  But at two AM and not sober, none of them were happy married anymore. And if they were, they were forgetting it.

• 21:16Speaker 04

  It's a stupid slope.

• 21:17Speaker 00

  It's stupid slope. Yeah. And so that's this idea of uncomfortable questions. When your mind says this isn't right, then ask about it. You don't have to attack. Just tell me, what are the revenue numbers? Tell me, you know, explain that to me. I'm not really getting it. People will hang themselves really quickly. And those who don't, now you've done your trusting and vetting. Now you can align with the timing and risk tolerance and make an investment of your time, money, emotion, value, relationships, whatever it may be. And if it doesn't work out, at least you know your timing and risk tolerance. The advantage of timing and risk tolerance, by the way, you've heard me said it 10 times already in this thing, is that it stops you from limiting your self-image.

• 21:59Speaker 00

  Resentment and guilt stop, they damage your self-image and you'll never overachieve your own self-image. So what happens is, and I'll use a lottery ticket, which applies to almost everybody here, but when you buy a lottery ticket, it's $2 in America. And on Saturday at eight PM, you know that you have a one in a billion chance of making a half a billion dollars. Everybody knows it. It's automatic in the system of lottery that you know the timing and risk tolerance of a lottery ticket. Not so easy with other things in your life, like making a referral of somebody. That's a very subjective timing and risk tolerance, but you want to try to align it.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  Saturday comes at eight PM for my wife, because she loves to buy lottery tickets, and she loses. She is not stopping her self-image. She's not resentful and guilty that she wasted $2. She's just disappointed. And that disappointment actually is an experience and the value of that experience is more than $2 for her. She loves the thinking about everything that she's going to buy with a half a billion dollars and the people she's going to help and what family members she's going to give money to and how much and which one she's going to give less to, you know? I love this. For two bucks, for two bucks. And then she gets to experience the disappointment, which is worth something too, right?

• 23:28Speaker 00

  You're living. You're living when you feel that disappointment. But resentment and guilt are not emotions that have as much value, right? It interferes with your potential. It interferes with your self-image. You're not going to enjoy things next time, right? You're going to limit yourself. Total different. Timing and risk tolerance is a lesson for everyone that totally will help enhance your life and give you statistical success. All right, perfect questions.

• 24:27Speaker 00

  Yes, good to see you. This time I figured you'd be here. He just showed up in Vegas the other day. Like, people just show up to meetups? And I'm like, what are you doing here? He lives in Miami.

• 24:40Speaker 05

  So my question would be, I'll make it more generalized so that the rest of the group can appreciate it, but just a little bit of context. Two years, coming up on two years with my girlfriend and you've given her a recent layoff. She experienced, I have certain things in my business that she can actually be very supportive of and like help enhance and help make my business with. And it's like kind of a strengths weakness is my weaknesses are her strength type of thing. So kind of a general question for the group of being, what have been some of the things you've seen in all the entrepreneurs you've met where like, you know, maybe they get to have a partner get involved in their business, a significant other get in their business? And what advice do you have for that kind of like general topic?

• 25:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, I like that topic because it applies to partners and family members and friends. First of all, I've tried to stay away from that the best I can, but what happens to me is because of the way I develop talent, the people who work with me become family members. So I've created this idea of, you know what? If they're going to become family members anyway, like Nick, surrogate son, after six years, I might as well hire my daughter. And I did. So it's understanding the strengths and weaknesses are important, capabilities are important, but it's more understanding managing and developing that talent.

• 26:06Speaker 00

  Because you can't manage to develop, three stages in a business, all are critical. You should have different strategies, ask for help. Talent acquisition, essential. Talent development, critical. Talent retention, economical.

• 26:22Speaker 00

  Right? That last one is not critical, it's just economical. The greater you retain talent that you've developed, the more economical it is. You are way more profitable. They establish your own relationships, they are way more efficient, effective in statistics, it's very economical. But the first two, you have to apply to a partner or, you know, a significant other or a child or a brother or sister that's working with you. And so acquiring talent, you have to know why they're coming, right? Is it out of desperation? A lot of people will think they can acquire talent because of money. It's the dumbest thing that you can do because the minute, it happens in sports all the time and you see it and it disappoints the fans.

• 27:06Speaker 00

  If I acquire you because you're looking for a certain amount of pay and I give you that pay, then guess, you're going to leave me and you're hard to develop. Because someone's going to offer you more money, you're going to leave. But if you come to me, which is how we build our business, you come to me to learn and be empowered to be a leader or, you know, change your mindset. It's very hard for someone to steal my people away. They'll offer them more money, but that's not why they're working with me. They like the access that they give them. They like the development, they like the Monday, Wednesday, Friday trainings. They, you know, like their own future businesses and the capability.

• 27:50Speaker 00

  And so there's people all the time like, hey, come work for me, man. You know, I got more money for you. And they're like, okay, that's cool, but what do you do on development side? What do you do on relationship side? What do you do on event side? What do you, you're going to take me to the Super Bowl, the Pro Bowl, the Masters, Kentucky Derby, Breeders' Cup, SBs, Emmys and Oscars and Grammys? The Miami FC game with Jorge Masvidal, Mark Efron, DJ Ronnie and family? Are you going to treat me like family? Are you going to give me unlimited time off? Because we're family and you're dedicated to making sure we're successful so you know when you could take off, how long you could take off, what you'll do when you, like all these things? Nobody can.

• 28:31Speaker 00

  And good for you if one of my family members, my employees, the people who work with me, good for you if you have a better opportunity for them, I'm all for it. It's my job to try to give the best I can and if it ends, it ends. So you do that with your, you know, where and why do you want to come here? And then manage that. Now, the other side of it is the boundaries of when you turn it off. And I see that as the biggest problem for spouses that work together, intimate partners, right? Like, I do not want my wife, you know, thinking about P and L when I'm nibbling on her ear. Like, that sucks, right?

• 29:16Speaker 00

  So I would never do, like, have my wife, and, you know, and it's easier, I didn't even let my daughter work with, for me, she works with me. So I manage the boundaries with Marissa as you need to be coached and trained and taught by me and respect that. Mandatory Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you need to be there, but you don't report to me. You work with Mikey and Colleen and Nick and, you know, I don't care when you, you know, and every once in a while she slips. The other day, I use this as example of the difference of your kids. Anyone that has more than one kids knows this. My oldest Marissa is an angel, right? I can have 40 of her. She's the one that works with us. So Marissa calls me, we're going, I'm speaking in Puerto Rico, used to represent the Clementes,

• 29:58Speaker 00

  have a whole family trip and I get to speak and pay for the trip. So Marissa calls me, Dad, it's 120 extra dollars to fly direct. And I'm like, why are you calling me? Well, because I don't want to waste your money, Dad. You know, I just want to make sure it's, I was like, no, I appreciate that, but from now on, it's not more than a thousand bucks, just, I trust you. But if it's over a thousand, then ask me and I appreciate it. 10 minutes later, my daughter who's in college at the time, she's a senior and she calls me. Yeah. Dad, only $1,200 to upgrade to first class. And like, was like entitled, right? Or are you flying private? I'll meet you. No, I'm not flying private. But you're not going first class. Can I use your credit card? That's me paying.

• 30:44Speaker 00

  You could pay for it? No, why would I do that? That's expensive. Exactly. Thus again, if you don't fly first class, your kids will. So fly first class. All right. Great questions. All right, who's next?

• 30:58Speaker 02

  Would you say it's a good or bad thing? Or how would you advise on? Do you prepare for an exit from the beginning? Or do you get to a certain point and then do a mind shift?

• 31:09Speaker 00

  So good.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  To think about it?

• 31:11Speaker 00

  So good. That, that, that's the question. Cause it took me years to figure this out. We don't prepare for exits ever in a sense. Because there's one thing that guarantees you the best exit. It's shareholder value. So within the context of articulating shareholder value, building shareholder value. You know, for me, when I started a business, I want to build as much shareholder value. Because I know the more shareholder value that I build, the more options, opportunities, and touches of favor I'll have, and the more people I can go find to prepare for an exit that's aligned with my timing and risk tolerance. So within the context, that exit could be an acquisition, it could be a acquire, hire,

• 31:55Speaker 00

  it could be IPO, could be a SPAC. There's no way that you can prepare from the beginning for a SPAC, IPO, merger, roll up, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all the shit that I've been involved with. But I'll tell you what you can control day one. Shareholder value. Right? I'm gonna enjoy the consistent pursuit of my retention. I'm gonna make as much money as I can for the sake of helping others and having fun. Because if I have a business that makes a shitload of money for the sake of helping others, and it's a ton of fun, and if anyone's been around my business, that's how I would like you to define it. I'd like you to find it last night and tell me I'm, I'm not on the right track. That if you were there last night and you didn't see how I was making a lot of money

• 32:38Speaker 00

  for the sake of helping others and having fun, then you missed what I do. Right? Experiential business development and post-production content are the key components that I bring to people to do that. I'm an expert in creating experiences, business development opportunity, and then post-production content, which has extreme value. That wasn't always part of my business model. The first two have always been a part of my business model. That's what I bring to people. And for, for the sake of making a lot of money, for the sake of helping others and having fun. So it's always a backdrop of something that's super fun. It's just a backdrop. So that's what I would concentrate on. Excellent group of questions. Awesome. All right, who's next?

• 33:23Speaker 00

  Yes, sir. What's your name again?

• 33:25Speaker 03

  Jonathan.

• 33:26Speaker 00

  Jonathan, thank you for coming. I like your hat, by the way. Either one.

• 33:30Speaker 03

  So earlier you said something along the lines of resentment and guilt damages self-image?

• 33:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:37Speaker 03

  And then that got me to think about, what are some of the best ways that you've seen to develop your own self-image? And how important do you think that is in order to create abundant and generous life?

• 33:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, easy. That's a good one, too. You guys are deep. I like it. All right, so let me tell you how this works. Self-image is only based off of one thing. It's the one thing that we control. It's based off a meaning of your past. The meaning of your past will determine your self-image.

• 34:11Speaker 00

  And you have the power to give meaning to your past, whatever meaning you want. So for example, when I lost everything, over a hundred million dollars, bankrupt, told my mom, I lost my mom's home. Only reason I wanted to be rich was buy my mom a house.

• 34:28Speaker 00

  My mom gave it a different meaning that day than I did. I gave it a meaning of punishment, of failure. All, right? My mom gave it a meaning of rebirth, promotion, protection, love and perfection. It hit me in the face with it. While she should have been resentful, guilty, whatever, because she had to move. But there was none of that there. There was just, son, we gotta figure this out. It's time for you to grow up. God doesn't punish anyone. Even when I told her I don't believe in God, her response was, you believe in God, you just believe in the wrong God. That was the meaning she gave my screw-ups, my disappointment, my... But it allowed me not to limit me moving forward. I, I could switch.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  If my mom was telling me that God loved me more than she did, and knew more than she did, and was going to get me to a place to save me and my marriage and everything that she saw and warned me about, the reason I sat there and hated my mom and my dad and my best friend and my wife? Why? Because they told me the fucking truth. I hated myself. So when we change the meaning of our past and say, and, and any super successful people, I was there last night with them, and they've all had their trials. Courtney Epps was there last night, right? And she's gone bankrupt and she, right? And she's killing it now. And she's like, God bless me. Thank God that happened to me. Thank God that happened. Thank God. That's the way I feel.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  Now, is there a lapse of time between the problem and the solution? Between the resolution that God has given me? Absolutely. Every problem already has a solution. The only one person in the world that knows it is God. So there's a lapse of time for the dummy tax to be paid by human beings to figure out the re-solution, the resolution. My job is to help you shorten the distance of resistance and time between the problems and the solutions that are already there. And the evidence today and tomorrow, every single day, the evidence in your life, the circumstantial evidence in your life, will never be proof that you're gonna get to where you want to be or better. So if it's a contrary to, or conflictual to, or nonexistent, doesn't mean you're not gonna get there. And if it's a hundred percent indicative that you're gonna get there, doesn't mean you're gonna get there.

• 36:41Speaker 00

  You're gonna get to somewhere better.

• 36:45Speaker 00

  That's faith. And today, wisdom and faith are the two things that you need, not knowledge. Knowledge is a commodity. You know, I teach people a lot of time to listen, because most people don't know that listening is not active. But you can hear when you sleep. You, you can hear things without paying attention to them. Right now, if something exploded behind you, all of us would know it. It's not active, though. Right? It's just passive. We, we hear all the time. So we have to work on being active listeners. And it's really, but here's a bigger nuance of this wisdom idea, is if knowledge is now a commodity, because, you know, I went to law school, business school, went to good

• 37:29Speaker 00

  schools, did very well. But if I asked you, or someone asked us a legal question, and I didn't have technology and you did, your answer would be at least 10 to 100 times better than mine. So knowledge is now commoditized. Right? Before it wasn't. You couldn't do what I could do and answer the legal question like I could. I'd be 10 to 100 times better than you. Now, knowledge is a commodity. Why is this so dangerous? Because, first of all, it's great if, if you believe in wisdom and faith. Because AI and technology will never replace wisdom and faith. No way. And the more it goes down that path, the more valuable I am, because I'm a man of wisdom and faith.

• 38:12Speaker 00

  Wisdom, see, what, what happens now, because of this knowledge problem, knowledge becomes, it used to be active, right? We'd memorize it, we'd practice it, we'd execute on it, to know the laws and all these things. Now, since knowledge is not, knowledge is like listening.

• 38:31Speaker 00

  Knowledge is passive. That's why thoughtfulness is so valuable, because people don't have to think.

• 38:41Speaker 00

  So if we practice thinking the same way we practice active listening, active thinking, now we create this capability that most people won't have.

• 38:52Speaker 00

  It's my biggest fear for the kids today. They don't have to think.

• 38:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:56Speaker 00

  Right? They just add, and so where does wisdom come from? Thinking, practicing thinking. Because, you know, our thoughts become our perceptions, our perceptions become the meaning. The meaning determines where we're gonna be or better, because it derives our intention to give us, this is what I'm gonna do, think, feel, believe, which creates what? Our behaviors. It, it's the equation of results. I, I know how to get you results better than you can think of. It's, I gotta get your thoughts right, your perception right, your meaning right, your intention right, and your behaviors right. I can categorize your behaviors, knowing your timing and risk tolerance and where you think you want to be or better, because I can say, is that behavior aligned with your divine direction in the meaning of the past? Or is that behavior interfering with it?

• 39:40Speaker 00

  So you not sleeping until you're dead, you think that's interfering or in alignment with your divine direction in the meaning? That's why sleep's so important. Eating shitty food, do you think that's aligned with your divine direction or better? Or interfering with it? It could be aligned depending on your timing and risk tolerance. Like, I had a friend, he's passed, but his timing and risk tolerance for his life, he was one of those human fly guys, you know, the bodysuit? You know what I'm talking about? The Red Bull flying dudes?

• 40:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. Whatever it was. And, and he was very, very wealthy. Very, very wealthy, very, very spiritual. And he, he believed that his soul was infinite and that he was here to enjoy, you know, he was born into all this money and he was just here. And next life, he'll learn some other lesson. And so it's extremely dangerous thing. It's kind of like motorcycle riding in California. This is a true statistic, even though 99% of statistics are made up. If you drive to work every day for one year on a motorcycle in California, 100% of those people crash.

• 40:48Speaker 00

  So there's a number in this flying thing that if you fly this many times, 100% of the people crash. The only difference is you can crash your motorcycle and still live. There is no living when you crash nothing. So he's dead. And that's what he wanted. So when I was coaching him, right? I kept on trying to say like the human experiences and he taught me so much because he was very set on his divine direction. And he was doing everything I taught him, aligning his, what he did said, think, feel and believe with his divine direction and getting out anything that canceled it. What actually can't or interfered with his divine direction were people like me and his

• 41:31Speaker 00

  parents and everyone going, you're fucking crazy. Why would you want to kill yourself? And his answer was, I'm, it's just a body. I am not a body. I am free. I am as God created me. That's what he kept telling me. I am not a body. I am free. I'm as God created me. And he had way more faith than me. And I would sadly say, I think he had way more wisdom too. I'm just more fearful or I believe I want to enjoy. I'm not ready. I'm not afraid of dying, but I'm not ready to die. He was ready to die, but I'm, I don't want to die, but I'm not afraid of it. I believe like he does. I have wisdom and faith to believe that, you know, this is not the end. This is an embodiment. I'm a body. I'm free.

• 42:16Speaker 00

  I'm God created me, but I'm not ready to die. I want to hang out with my kids. I want to hang out with you guys. I want to impact more people. So I'm not doing bodysuit shit.

• 42:28Speaker 00

  No, yeah, no base jumping. Last question. All right. Who, who wants the golden? Yeah, sorry.

• 42:36Speaker 06

  Very, very deep conversations. So much. It's kind of bringing it out to a little bit more tactical level.

• 42:41Speaker 00

  Cool. Yeah, please.

• 42:42Speaker 06

  So we talked about holding yourself accountable. Talked about your spouse, how to, you know, be able to partner with us. How do you hold your clients accountable? What are some tips and tricks that you have when you give it all to your clients and it just, no matter what you do, your clients are still asking for work and try to either expend a scope or be honest.

• 43:05Speaker 00

  It's a good question to end on. So statistic, this one's made up.

• 43:12Speaker 00

  Some of them are 99% of them. 100% of the things you do now get done. That's not made up. 100% of short putts don't go in, not made up. This one's made up. 80% of people's businesses, 80% of your business will bankrupt you. Now that's a made up statistic. It's a guess by me from the experiences I've had with the businesses that I coach. Think about it. 80% of your business is with clients that are either breaking even or losing you money. And if that's the only business you had, clients that break even and lose money, you're out of business. And so what we need to do is to have mechanisms and systems to identify the clients that

• 43:53Speaker 00

  are, and quantify the clients that we're breaking even with and figure out how to create margin off of those people. And absolutely without a doubt, fire the clients that are losing you money and refer them to your competitors. Double bonus. Double bonus. And it's not small companies. I am talking, I've had a multi-billion dollar company CEO have me do this analysis. And I said, why do you have this $20 million client when you're literally losing money every year off of this 20? Well, look, they have great potential and they're going to be a $2 billion client someday.

• 44:35Speaker 00

  And I said, hmm, I said, see this $2 billion client you currently have? You have less people working on this $2 billion client, less people than this $20 million client. Why wouldn't you take all these people, fire that motherfucker, give them to your competitor? Take all of these people and put them on your $2 billion client. I promise you, it will take you less time to make your $2 billion client a $4 billion client than it would to take a 20 million to make a 2 billion. And that's just math. Do you know how long it takes to go from 2 million to 20, to 2 billion compared to 2 billion to four? It takes about 18 years to go on average from 20 million to 2 billion. And then it turns to 4 billion the next year, 8 billion the next. It takes one year.

• 45:20Speaker 00

  If you put the right resources, the same resource, that's the way exponentiality and growth happens. That's why their overnight successes are usually 17 and a half years. It takes 10 years to get to 50% of the way there. Five years to get to 75% of the way there and two and a half years to get to 100% of the way there to overnight success. That's the average, made up statistics again. So when you are dealing with clients, create the systems, the modality, the quantified awareness of, is this client making me money, breaking me even or losing me money? Fire the ones that are losing you money. Put the resources in the ones that are breaking even to make you money. And if you can't, that means you're losing money. Get rid of those.

• 46:01Speaker 00

  And then give all those other resources to the people that are making you money already. It's a mathematical guarantee of success. Great questions. All right. Couple asked for me, if you want mine. One, I'm really growing what used to be my private networking group. It's now called the Strategic Accelerator or something. Some people have been in it a long time, so they'll vouch for it. But here's the deal with my group and I want all of you to consider joining. I do charge for it. If you can't afford it, it's $497 for the year. If you can't afford it, don't join.

• 46:42Speaker 00

  Come to my free shit until I help you figure out how this is a no brainer to afford it. The second thing, if you're not going to show up, if you're not going to be engaged, don't feel guilty. Don't join. I qualify and curate this room. Thousands of people are in it with people that one, can afford to be there and two, they want to be there and they're involved and engaged. So they're there to help people, know people that help people and vice versa. I also will tell you this, I will guarantee it, meaning, and everybody knows this to be true. If for any reason you have a financial thing happen, or you just don't like my new haircut, or you know, something I said offended you, I will refund you fully the money. So you have no risk.

• 47:27Speaker 00

  So the only people that are in this group are people that can afford it and want to be there, that are going to be engaged. It's not the right time for all of you, but if anyone wants to move the needle and is, can afford it and will participate, I promise you, so will the people that are members of my, my group. It will exponentially change your life. We show, it's Mondays, virtual, replays are available. We have a networking group. You get at cost, all of my events. So when people are paying 1,500 for something, you may pay 250, whatever my hard costs are. So, yeah. So I wanted you to know, if you want to join, just see Nick, that would be great. And then my final is I always like to get a picture.

• 48:12Speaker 00

  So unless you're again, wanted by the police, please, or FBI, or CIA, or any three letter organizations, take a picture.

• 48:23Speaker 00

  All right. Remember, thank you everybody for joining our live meetup. Be more interested than interesting. Be kind, be kind to your future self and do good deeds.