Action Academy | Millionaire Mentorship For Your Life & Business

Host: Brian Luebben
Episode: I Paid $515,500 To Learn A 3 Step Business Framework (Here It Is For FREE)
Date: September 23, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Brian Luebben shares the keynote from Action Academy's recent international event in Cancun, revealing the three-step "Freedom Formula" he developed after over four years—and $515,500—of personal investment in business and mindset coaching. The episode is a distillation of the frameworks, stories, and tactical exercises that have helped entrepreneurs in Action Academy move from early acquisitions to sustainable, scalable freedom in their businesses and lives. Brian’s central mission: to debunk the myth that buying a business alone is enough to achieve freedom and to illuminate the deeper work needed post-acquisition.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Post-Acquisition Myth: Operations Beat Acquisition

Timestamp: 03:10 – 07:10

• Brian identifies the commonly held false belief: “Acquisition alone will get you freedom.”
• True freedom comes not just from the initial business or property purchase, but from learning to operate, manage, and scale that asset beyond acquisition.
• Quote:

  “The biggest lie in investing is that acquisition alone will get you freedom... Every person I know that's an eight-figure individual thinks like a business owner, not just an investor.” (06:22)

2. Where Business Owners Go Wrong

Timestamp: 08:55 – 14:05

Brian distills years of coaching and observation into three pitfalls:

• Failing to manage emotional state.
• Falling victim to past stories and broken mental patterns.
• Executing the wrong strategy.

The biggest constraint on progress is almost never the strategy itself, but the state and story underlying an entrepreneur's decisions.

3. The Freedom Formula

Timestamp: 14:30 – 23:30

Brian’s Proprietary Simple Formula:

• Acquisition + Acclimation + Architecture = Freedom

  • Acquisition: Purchase of assets/businesses.
  • Acclimation: Shifting into business ownership identity (“full ownership, full accountability”).
  • Architecture: Installing people/process/systems for passivity and scale.

• Brian emphasizes that passivity is a function of architecture, not just asset ownership:

  “Passivity doesn’t exist in acquisition alone.” (22:41)

4. The $515,500 Business Framework: State, Story, Strategy

Timestamp: 24:05 – 31:40

Framework:

• State
• Story
• Strategy

This framework is what Brian attributes to a 600% increase in Action Academy’s business within one year.

Bonus Insight:

Identifying Urgency in Problems:

“You have to determine what fires in your business are a dumpster fire versus a kitchen fire.” (26:22)

5. Deep Dive Into Each Step

A. State

Timestamp: 31:45 – 43:25

• State is the entrepreneur’s physical and emotional condition—body, focus, and language—at any given moment.
• Brian shares his extreme stress in 2023, despite “freedom,” leading to health issues (e.g., hair loss).
• The cognitive cost of stress: “You experience on average 37% cognitive decline when under stress.” (37:15)
• The importance of practicing routines and discipline (learned from Tony Robbins, Hal Elrod) to maintain peak state for decision making.

“Bad state equals bad strategy. No wonder you can’t figure things out pissed off and stressed.” (41:10)

B. Story

Timestamp: 43:26 – 58:49

• Story is the internal narrative—beliefs, patterns, and the personal myths that shape perceptions and possibilities.

• Candid business example: “F September”—years of low revenue every September led to a self-fulfilling negative story until Brian made a conscious choice to change his internal narrative, resulting in a record-breaking September.

• Brian references Hal Elrod’s “miracle equation”:

  “Unwavering faith plus extraordinary effort equals miracle results.” (54:10)

• Quote:

  “Just because the stories make sense logically doesn’t mean that we have to accept them as fact.” (53:45)

• Your ceiling:

  “Your bank account will never exceed the level of your personal and self development. You are the cap on your business.” (57:30)

C. Strategy

Timestamp: 58:50 – 1:15:55

• Strategy is the logical, practical approach—the “rhythm of decisions, constraints, and actions that move a business towards its destination with clarity and consistency.” (1:10:14)
• Key Point: 80% of business challenges come from issues in state and story; only 20% are truly strategic.
• Real examples (100k, 1M, 10M strategies) show that strategies are often simple, but psychological resistance makes execution hard.
• Strategy = Knowing your data + Modeling your market.

“All of the strategies for what you’re doing have already been done before, unless you’re Elon sending up rockets to the moon.” (1:01:42)

D. Case Study In Application: Building a Million-Dollar Permitting Business

Timestamp: 1:16:00 – 1:28:49

• Brian coaches listener (Soli) from emotional state/stories into clarity of numbers and strategy:
  • State: Build confidence, calm nerves.
  • Story: Unpack and challenge beliefs about unworthiness, about money.
  • Strategy: Set clear financial goal ($40k/month profit), identify “drivers” (key metrics), and reverse-engineer daily actions (e.g., 5 contractor calls/day).
• The process:
  • Inner work first (state/story)
  • Tactical plan second (simple, focused, trackable)
  • “If what I just said sounds complicated to you, I work on this a lot. And this is something you guys can grow as a skill too. The skill is making the complex simple so you can execute.” (1:28:19)

Notable Quotes & Punchlines

On Freedom and Operations

• “If you can change your perception from being an investor in real estate to being a business owner of a business that is backed by real estate, you will 10x to 100x your wealth.” (07:39)

On the Framework

• “State before strategy. Your state controls your fate.” (41:03)

On Limiting Stories

• “You cannot scale past the stories that you tell yourself.” (57:20)

On Strategy

• “When you fix the junk in your head, great strategy comes in two parts: knowing your data and modeling your market.” (1:11:08)

Essential Writer Downers

([denotes actionable summary points highlighted in the episode])

1. The Freedom Formula: Acquisition + Acclimation + Architecture
   (15:25)
2. Three-Step Framework: State - Story - Strategy
   (24:26)
3. State Before Strategy: Bad state = bad strategy
   (41:10)
4. Stories Set Your Ceiling: Cannot scale past the stories you tell yourself
   (57:20)
5. 80/20 Principle: 80% of issues stem from state and story, only 20% are strategy
   (1:10:50)

Memorable Moments

• Hair Loss as an Entrepreneur:
  Brian’s candor on sacrificing health and joy for business stress, only to learn that state management transformed his results (38:30).

• ‘F September’ Case Study:
  Turning a low-revenue pattern into a record-breaking month by changing belief and action, not just tactics (46:15–55:45).

• Cancun Event Debt:
  From being $165k in the hole to breaking even in 20 days, purely via focus, mindset, and then execution (55:57–57:15).

Recommended Applications & Takeaways

• Front-load your internal work:
  Don’t obsess over "what to do" until you fix "how you're being" and "what you believe."
• Build your business architecture:
  Freedom is found in systems, org charts, processes — not just asset ownership.
• Simple strategies > Complex tactics:
  “If you know your data and model your market, strategy is straightforward.” (1:13:52)
• Identify your drivers:
  “What are the 1–3 key things you must do every day to move towards your goal?” (1:24:37)

Suggested Listening Flow

| Segment | Topic | Timestamp | |--------------------|----------------------------------------------|--------------| | Opening | Keynote intro, myth busting acquisition | 00:00–07:39 | | Three Pitfalls | Where business owners fail | 08:55–14:05 | | The Freedom Formula| Brian’s custom formula | 14:30–23:30 | | The 3-Part Framework (Overview) | State, Story, Strategy Summary | 24:05–31:40 | | Step 1: State | Managing yourself first | 31:45–43:25 | | Step 2: Story | Upgrading beliefs | 43:26–58:49 | | Step 3: Strategy | Tactical business building | 58:50–1:15:55 | | Case Study | Coaching Soli on building her business | 1:16:00–1:28:49|

Final Words

This episode is a masterclass in the “post-acquisition playbook”—guiding high performers beyond the “how do I buy” question and deep into the realms of internal mastery, business design, and strategic simplicity. It’s both motivational and actionable, backed by Brian’s transparency about his own struggles, investments, and real-life results.
Action step: Focus on your state first, then your stories. Only then are your strategic decisions likely to take you where you want to go.