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Content Is Profit
How To Build Profitable Without Losing Our Mind. Advise From Former Tony Robbins Head Trainer, David Waldy
00:53:35
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- [00:00]
A
Compare and compete and you'll live in defeat. This quote is what our today's guest told me towards the end of the show. And I was like, yes. How many times do we compare ourselves with people that are, you know, on social media, maybe pretending, maybe they are doing it, I don't know. But how many times do we compete? And that brings us down. Not only that, but the conversation that we had today. We break down the sales process for everyone, whether you're selling small ticket item to big ticket item. A lot of the problems that I see with people coming into our community and in our studio is that that is one of the first homes that we had to go if we want to make money with content. So this person has been on the show before, but I'll remind you, he is a former head trainer for Tony Robbins. He is a spartan race finisher just like you. Let's go. He's done More than $10 million in sales, consulted for seven, eight and nine figure brands, has more than 500,000 followers across social media channels. And the best part of all is he also lost 50 while on his personal journey. This guy also has like four kids. So MVP for today's episode. I'm excited. We it took a while to get him back because of scheduling. Both of us, you'll see the story in the episode, but we dive deep not only in sales, but also on the personal thing that we got to do to turn that content into profit. Please welcome to the show. David Waldy.
- [01:26]
B
Here we go.
- [01:31]
A
Welcome to the show. Everybody. Just listen your accolades in front of royalty here. You've been on the show before. We're going to link it right below. But dude, welcome back to Content is Profit.
- [01:42]
B
My man Louis. I'm so excited to be here, brother. We always have a great time. So thank you for having me.
- [01:46]
A
No, absolutely. A little behind the scenes. By the way, like, we've been trying to get this interview on for a few months. Like, let me let like full transparency. And every time we're gonna record either on my side, something happened or David decide something happened. And it was not a bad thing. But the fact that we're here today, extremely grateful and you know, everything happens for a reason. And maybe this is the perfect time for us to have this conversation. Maybe for me, maybe for you, or maybe for you, for the listener. So, dude, I'm stoked.
- [02:14]
B
Me too, man. It's been, I think it's been like six months we've been trying to line this thing up and so I, I'm believing that it's the perfect timing for, for a variety of reasons. And so I'm excited for this conversation and for those of you listening, thank you for joining us. It's going to be a powerful one today.
- [02:29]
A
Yes, sir. So obviously you have a ton of experience, not only, you know, run own business, but also, you know, crushing sales team and running sales for some of the most powerful, incredible people in the world. And you. I love frameworks. So I've been like on a frameworks like Kick and we just released like a little orientation video with our main two frameworks publishing pyramid and the six levers inside a business creator club. And you have something called the Fierce Empathy framework. And I'm like, please stop talking right now before the interview. Tell me live because I want to be genuinely surprised and excited about these things.
- [03:08]
B
Yeah, absolutely, man, I would love to start there. Yeah, for sure. So the Fear Sympathy framework, there's a lot of different contexts in which we use it and so one of the things that I try and focus on is, is simplicity. Right. A lot of times in business we are over complicating every single thing that we're doing and so we, we forget. I'll start with a simple framework that isn't necessarily the Fierce Empathy framework, but really if we look at business as a mechanism as a whole, you break it down into four buckets. You have marketing, you have sales, you have operations and, or fulfillment depending on what words you want to use. And then you have finance, right? That's it. You have four constituent parts of your business. And what I have found is that most people are really good in one of those areas and not so great in the other areas. And so we tend to emphasize and focus on obviously what we feel like we're good at because we enjoy doing it. But if you don't take those four components of your business and prioritize, prioritize them accordingly, you're always going to feel like you've got one, two or three squeaky wheels and you will never be able to take your business to where you want it to go because you're, you're over emphasizing marketing but you're not focusing on fulfillment and delivery or you're not keeping track of your finances and understanding how to read your profit and loss statement or keeping up with taxes. And you can be the greatest salesperson in the world. And there's this old adage that came from Dave Ramsey that I love is that in business and in sales, a lot of times we think that we can out earn our stupidity And I want to warn anyone listening here is that you're not stupid, but you may be ignorant. I'm ignorant. Louis is ignorant. We are all ignorant in certain areas. And when you can come to a place where you can humbly recognize, hey, I really suck at this, but without internalizing that as guilt or shame or feeling less than or feeling inferior, instead, you just look at it objectively and you say, yeah, I'm not good at managing my business finances, or I'm not good at marketing, or I'm not good at sales. I'm not good at putting things together in a. In a great package that can fulfill fill based on the promises that me or my team has, Has. Has given to our prospects. And so the first framework, you know, that I want to start with is that simple one, is that marketing, sales, operations, and finance. That's where everyone should start in this conversation. And so as you're listening right now, I want you to think about your business. Which one of those do you tend to emphasize over the others? And which ones are the squeaky wheels? So to answer your question, the. The Fierce Empathy Framework. The Fierce Empathy framework, Louis. It came out of a journey where about 10 years ago, I was approached by leadership in the company that I was working for, and they had seen my sales numbers. I was a top 1% sales rep in this $400 million a year company. And they started asking me questions. They're like, David, how are you absolutely crushing it in sales? And now, Louis. The truth was, is that I didn't feel like a salesperson. I was in a sales role, but I grew up hating sales. I thought sales was gross and pushy. And we all have those images in our. Of that pushy salesperson, where I don't know if you. You ever went to the mall when you were a kid with, like, your mom or your dad. And I remember walking through, like, Dillard's or J.C. penney's, and it's kind of, you know, those where they have all the perfumes and the colognes and everything like that. And you gotta walk through and there's all of these salespeople, and every single one of them is like, hey, you want to try this sample? You want to. And they're constantly vying for your attention.
- [06:26]
A
Race, man. I mean, you've completed some aspiring races, so you're like, dude, every time I go, my guy, let's just skip this haul.
- [06:34]
B
So I remember my mom be like, being like, duck your head and let's just get through, because we got to get through this department store without somebody stopping us or, you know, we've all seen those shows and we've watched, you know, where you've got the pushy salesperson or you've got someone that uses not, not really healthy persuasion or influence, but they're actually manipulating and they're using things incorrectly. And so a lot of us have this aversion. And so for me, I never really felt like a salesperson. All I knew is that I wanted to really help people and I wanted to provide solutions for them based on the problems that they were facing. And the leadership, the executive leadership team came to me and they said, we want you to start coaching. Like, coaching. What do you mean coaching? Right. I'm thinking like little league softball or something, right? And they're like, no, we want you to actually work with and coach and train our, our top sales reps because you are absolutely crushing it. And my close rate was around 65, 66%. And my average ticket close was around $1400. And so I was generating millions and millions and millions of dollars a year for. I was in a, you know, just, I was just being a guy doing my job, right?
- [07:46]
A
Yeah.
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B
And what I discovered through that process that it really forced me to systemize things is that I realized that I was following a process, I was following a system, I was following a framework. But I had never really taken the time to boil that down and to, to actually put it into a step by step process. And so hopefully some of that is what we'll be able to go over today. But suffice it to say, Louis, I ended up being able to train sales reps all up and down the east coast, which was, was so much fun. I got to travel, I got to do a lot of things, which led me into the opportunities where I became a speaker and a head trainer for Tony Robbins. I got to do a bunch of cool stuff with some really cool people, some huge names in the industry, which was a lot of fun. I also saw a lot of stuff in the industry that I'm not a big fan of, but it was really cool because I constantly got to immerse myself around these high level individual who were cutting edge, who are looking at different ways to approach things. And for me, the development of this, the fierce empathy coaching framework of the fierce empathy self coaching framework was really something that, that came out of pain, right? It came out of. Of pain because I realized that I did not know how to help people create the results I was creating. And so it forced me again to take that step back and say, how can I put this in a simplified way to communicate to other people and help them create the same results. And of course, I'm sure we'll be diving into that today. So that's kind of the foundations for you.
- [09:19]
A
I love it, man. I love it. I think, you know, I resonate a ton on the content side because similar thing, right? Like where we started working on, you know, you're in the weeds and for you it's like your day to day, you start executing, you do this and all of a sudden it's broken down into these faces and is clearer than ever. And then you start helping some others and like, wow, they do fall in these buckets. So. So, for instance, I'm not going to go through this, but people can go to business creator club and we have an initial training there with the six buckets on the content side. And the cool thing is like, one of those is monetization, right? And we talk about the sales side and a lot of people come in the community, they have businesses or they have a small business and sales is the lifeline. But sometimes they might be a little uncomfortable to have those conversations. And, you know, I made my mind a long time ago when I was a sales guy for a fitness studio, boutique fitness studio. And I had these conversations and I competed for nose man. Like, I was going for nose. But I truly believe in the product. Do you know? Yeah, I think we can relate. You competed on Spartan races. I did Spartan races. I did Tough Motors. I believe so much in the product that that was my training. And I was like, I love this. So those conversations for me were very easy because, like, you're on point A, you want to go to point B. This is the place, this is the. And it became like, really, really simple because I really, truly believed in that. And I really believe that we're helping people. You know, back then and now with our business, with the studio and the production team that we have, I do the same thing. So what do you think? Like, doubt comes when maybe they're starting, you know, And I have obviously my own theories and I go through this, but, you know, you having, you know, conducted and trained teams and people and leaders all around the world with these incredible people like Tony Robbins. Right. Like, where do you see most of that come from? And what are the first couple of steps that people can take to go and own that process?
- [11:08]
B
Absolutely. So it's a great question, Louis. And so I'll kind of orient this for those that I would consider maybe in the startup phases of their business. It doesn't matter how long you've been in business, but if you're generating less than, I'd say, you know, five, six hundred thousand dollars a year in annual revenue, this is going to be very applicable. If you're above that, these principles can still be applied at scale based on your sales teams, right? At that stage, you probably have some sales reps, you probably are building out a sales team, or you have a pipeline. And so there's a lot of different strateg. And what I tell people is this, Louis, is that all of the strategies work. You just have to find the strategies that work for you. And that's the challenge. Because anyone can go out there and buy a billboard, Anyone can go out there and run Facebook ads. Anyone can go out there and create content. Anyone can go out there and do these things. And you have people constantly, all day, every day, inundating you with particularly online ads, selling their strategy as the way, the path, right? And so I'm not going to be presenting a strategy today that says, like, this is the path. What I want to do is I want to use this framework and help people understand the mindset and the philosophy behind sales and then how you can position yourself to succeed, Whether it's just you as a solopreneur, if you're building out your first sales team, if you're just in sales full time, maybe you work, you know, you have this plan for your own business, but you're like, hey, I'm really good at sales, but I want to start my own business. And so I say that because entrepreneurs at every level can really, really benefit from this. And so the first thing that we have to look at is one of my nerdy indulgences is behavioral psychology, neuroscience. And so I have, like, studied for years how the brain works and why people make the decisions that they make. That really helps me in a lot of the coaching that I do. I have a segment of the work that I do that just works with men. And so when I'm working with men, we're not just looking at their business. We're looking at how they're showing up as a husband, how they're showing up as a father, how are they showing up in their health. And so it's this holistic approach that requires our ability to understand why we believe what we believe believe. And so let me start with this statement, Louis. Understanding begins when we understand that we don't understand. I'm gonna say that again. Understanding begins when we Understand that we don't understand. Because what I have found is that there, a lot of us are really, you know, good at a lot of things, but very few of us are exceptional in any one area. And that's just the human condition. It's very rare to find someone who truly extraordinary in one given area. Sometimes we call that genius. But the point of this is that you can become really good at just about anything with just a little bit of applied practice. And so what we have to look at is the. The mindset and the belief behind sales. We're going to start there, and I'll use the Fierce Empathy framework. So the foundations of the Fierce Empathy Framework. That's the f. So everyone say foundations. If you're riding in the car, if you're listening, if you're taking notes, say foundations. Okay? So foundations is where you have to understand the motivating reasons for why people take action and want to change. Right? You have to be aware of what is really driving them. And a great example of this, and you mentioned go for no. A great example of this is that a lot of times in sales, people will. There's. There's two parts here. One is that people are focusing on getting yeses, right? For everyone across the board right now. Stop focusing on getting yeses. Stop focusing on closing the deal. You're getting way too emotionally attached. Chances are you're getting way too emotionally attached to when a says yes or a customer says yes, and you celebrate and you pop the champagne and you have all the fun, right? And what happens if you are in business or you're in sales? You typically have an idea for how many deals you want to close. Say that you have a personal services business, and you're like, hey, I really want to close four clients per month. And those four clients for you are worth 20$500 in monthly recurring revenue. You just did 10k to your top line, which would be amazing. So you're like, I got to close 4. I got to close 4. I got to Close 4. 4. Well, the problem with that is that if in the first week you close four people, guess what you're doing for the next three weeks of the month? You're not selling.
- [15:16]
A
Yeah.
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B
Because you've met your quota, because you hit your yeses. But, Louis, you know, this is that instead of saying, I gotta. I have to get four yeses, you need to say no. I need to get 50 no's this month. I need to get 50 people to tell me no. Because then guess what happens? You close that for that first week, but you've only got 20 no's. That means you got 30 more no's. You got to go collect out in the marketplace or on social media before your month is done. And what you'll find is that that will catalyze you to the next level. But outside of detaching from sales and going for no, what you have to start doing is recognizing that if you truly care about people, if you believe in what you provide and you are not willing to ask for the sale, you are literally doing people a disservice. Because what's going to happen is they're going to go find a solution from someone else somewhere else. That, and chances are the solution that they find that they pay for that person that they purchase from is not going to care as much as you do. They're not going to have the quality of service that you provide, and they're not going to. That customer is not going to have the experience that you could have provided. And so, effectively, not only have you self sabotaged yourself because you didn't present, you didn't sell, but you have basically just kind of condemned them to a lesser solution to go find it somewhere else. And so when we understand the motivating reasons for taking action, creating change, I want to use an example here. And Louis, we'll do this in real time for fun.
- [16:46]
A
Okay, I'm down.
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B
And so I want you to imagine that you work at. At a department store for, like, Ace Hardware. A hardware store. Okay. And you're a sales rep. You're a sales rep on the floor at the hardware store. This is a great example.
- [16:59]
A
Okay, can we pick a soccer shot? Because I know nothing about hardware.
- [17:02]
B
Stor. It's fine.
- [17:04]
A
First, you have the job. Let's go. I'm up for the challenge.
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B
We're going to stay with the hardware store because that's the only way I know how to share this story and it makes sense. So. So somebody comes in, right? And I want you to pretend like you're the senior sales rep. I'm the newbie. I'm the guy who doesn't know anything about sales. And it's my day to, like, you know, you're watching me and you're saying, all right, go sell stuff. Right? And so we have a customer come in, and you kind of, you know, you. You welcome the customer in and say, hey, this is David. He's going to be happy to help you today. And so I walk off of the customer, and I'm conversation with the customer and the customer Tells me and says, hey, I need to buy. I need to buy a shovel. And immediately I'm like, oh, awesome. I can show you where the shovels are. And I go over to the shovel wall, and there's all sorts of shovels, right? There's flathead shovels, there's wide shovels, there's skinny shovels. And I start pointing out all the different types of shovels, and they're like, I really just don't know which one to get. And so I'm just like, well, this one is really, really good because of this. And we start selling features and benefits. It's extra shine. It's got shiny, it's got the chrome plating. It's all this, you know, this is the. This is the $70 one. And here's the 40 do$1. And, you know, here's the $10 one. And we start going into all these options. And the customer is still kind of unsure, but I'm. I'm, you know, zesty as a new sales rep. And I'm like, I gotta get this sale because I want to get my $2 in commission or whatever it is. And so we come back to the counter, and they set this shovel down. And you're standing there, and you ask the question. You say, hey, did you find everything all right? And the customer says, yeah, I think so. I think, you know, you know, David was helpful of telling me about the different kind of shovels. And you go to ring it up, Louis. But before you do, you ask a question. Question. You say, hey, before you purchase the shovel, can I ask you a question? And the customer says, yeah, absolutely. And the customer looks at you, and you say, before I sell you the shovel, can I ask you, what kind of hole are you trying to dig? And the customer says, oh, I'm actually trying to dig a hole because I'm. I'm building an in ground pool. And your eyes go wide. And my eyes go wide. And the customer is just like, customers, like, I'm just, I gotta go dig a hole. I want to put a. I want to put a pool in my backyard, right? And all of a sudden I realized, like, oh, my gosh, like, I'm selling this customer something that is going to take them, I don't know, four months to hand dig out. And as you look, you look at the customer, you smile at me, you smile at the customer and say, hey, follow me for a second. And you lead the customer out the back of the store to where you can rent backhoes and excavators yeah. And what happened in that moment is that you took a, you know, a $50 sale where I might have made two or four dollars in commission and you effectively asked better questions to understand the intentions and motivations of that customer. And you ended up having a thousand dollar sale for a one week rental on an excavator so that they could dig out the hole they needed for their in ground pool. Right?
- [19:58]
A
Yeah.
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B
And so the foundations here is that sales always comes down to questions. The better questions you ask, the better results that you'll get. Most people think that sales is about speaking and talking. You have two ears and one mouth, right. It is much, much better for you to be intentional with the questions you're asking to find out whether or not what you even provide is what they're looking for. And that's one of the biggest mistakes that I see, you know, early stage entrepreneurs and, and people in sales make is that they think that their solution is for everybody. Everybody. They're like, I sell water, everybody should want water, everybody would buy water. Right. And, and they think that they're God's gift to mankind. But the fact of the matter is, is that if you want to close more sales, you need to get better at asking questions and pre qualifying people before you even say hey, I have this solution. And I think it would be a good fit because if you try and sell ahead of time, the customer is not going to feel like they understand. They're going to be asking that question, scratching their head, saying well, I really just don't know if this is the right solution. I don't know if I need this shovel, I don't know if I want this shovel. Right. And it's didn't ask better questions. And we'll end up potentially either selling them something that they're not going to use or that they don't want. And we may feel good in that moment because we closed a deal, but we won't feel good in the long term because we didn't actually help them solve a problem.
- [21:13]
A
Yeah dude, I love it. I relate a lot because obviously when we are running the fitness studios we had these people are like, well why do you want to come in? Well, I want to lose weight. Awesome. Well like let's get specific, like why do we want to lose weight? And often, you know, we had a large like female group that will come in, in the studio but it often like a, well a wedding was coming and they wanted to look good for the wedding. Right. So that was huge motivation. Right. Or you Know, they were, they just, they just got married or they just had a kid and they wanted to get back and we had older people. And so those motivations were a lot harder than I just want to lose weight. There's always something else. There's always something. And we're like, perfect. If we frame it, if we have the conversation based on that, I'm sure we can. We're getting you a better experience with your grandkids. You know, we're. We're getting you a better experience in that wedding because you're going to feel good through fitness. It just happened to be fitness, right? It could be any, any other thing, but I love the, the hardware store situation. But it's very similar. Like, you know, in our studio, people come here and obviously we have, you know, a ton of shovels in the content world, right? Like, we could do clips, we could do the, you know, sit down podcast, we could do office online podcast. We could do a multi camp thing. There's many, many options. And, and people often don't know they might not be educated, right? There's always an education gap. So that either happens in that conversation. But I think also for the people that are listening and they're out there putting the content out there and adding value to them, I think the sale starts at the beginning of that journey, right? Because people are going to get to know you. People are going to see your brand like you are that first impression if you're the face of the company, right? And everything has to align, right? Are we adding value? Are we educating people? You might be a little bit more technical if you want more technical people. I think your content also works as a filter for the people that you want connected with you. And I think when we first started creating content, that was a huge friction point for us that didn't allow us to create a ton is because we're like, man, like, we, like, we were in that space of need. We like, we like, we need to sell. Like running it like this was like Covid time. We had 60 days Runway. We're like, if we don't sell this service, Luca was just born at the time and I was like, Katie had no idea. I took out, you know, $40,000 and put it into a mastermind. So it was like, what the hell? Like, pressure was on and like, there's a lot of fear on that side that make us maybe not make the right decisions or ask the right questions that you are saying, right? And then after that, the decision was like, look like it got to A point where it was, we call it this screw up moment was like, screw this, we're just going to be ourselves to remove the friction. And guess what? We started attracting more people that, you know, loved us and, and their relationship started forming, like, very genuine. And we're convinced that we could help people, right? So here's a what if, like, there's some, there's some moments where people might be in a, in a tough situation. You know, you have your name, your, your four buckets, right? Marketing, sales ops and finance, right? Like, they might not be as educated on the finance world because they have been like so into the marketing, into the tactics, into this, you know, the excitement of content, right? And then they're like, dude, I'm, I'm selling some stuff. But then they get stopped, you know, in the fulfillment. Maybe it's not as profitable as they thought it was because they had to hire somebody else on the back end to, to do the work. Like, like, how can we start looking at this and, and eyeing some indicators of like, okay, I'm building a very solid floor to be able to do this, right? I'll give you an example. When we, when we acquire the studio, you know, we have a fractional content agency that we work with people all over the world. An opportunity came up because of, you know, we, we were in a tight spot in that side because we weren't selling. You know, we're like just busy on the fulfillment side building the production team. And the cycle was broken. So we decided, hey, let's go for the nose. And we started reaching out every single person that we asked. And one of those nos was this guy that owned the studio and he's like, guys, I am leaving Jacksonville. You guys want to take over? And that became an opportunity and we ended up buying the studio a couple years ago and we're like, oh, oh, sweet. And then we go, you know, opportunity came because we're chasing the nose, but now we're trying to integrate this thing altogether, like podcast services with like the agency side. And it's like all these puzzle pieces all over and like, okay, where do we put this service? Like, how do we sell it for like, what's the profit margin on this? Like, how do everything plays in the, in the big picture? This is a very complex map that we're trying to put together. And I think after two years we finally got to a point where like, I distantly can say, say that, but not a lot of people have two years, right? A little bit like, man, like, how do I Build this solid foundation that I can build upon. What are those indicators that they should be looking to be like, okay, what is the profit margin I should be aiming at? You know, how many sales, you know, calls should I have? Obviously, it probably depends, but, like, what are some things that we can start looking and measuring against?
- [26:05]
B
Yeah. So it's actually perfect transition into the next two parts of the FIERCE empathy framework. So for anyone that's caught on so far, FIERCE is actually an action acronym. So F is foundations, I is intentions, and then E is expectations. So let's talk about intentions and expectations as the next part of this framework is that if you're not crystal clear on what your goals are and what you're aiming at, then I had a mentor of mine tell me one time, he said, if you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every single time, right? And a lot of times people are aiming at things that aren't actual goals. They're just wishes. And so you. You talk to the average person, like, and they say, what do you want? Well, I want a million bucks. Bucks. Okay, well, why? Right. They can't really answer it. They think that it's going to solve all their problems, or they say they want more sex or they want to get married, or they want to whatever it is. Right? There's a lot of things that most people say, but you talk to the average business owner, and what's their default response? It's like, well, I'd like to make more money. Okay, well, if you don't have clarity around what you're going to use that money for, I'm a firm believer that you're not going to be given that opportunity to expand and grow unless you have. You have set the intention. And as we know, intentions are worthless without actions. Right. You can intend to tell your wife that you love her, but if you never do, right? You're like, yeah, but I told you one time when we got married and never again, right? Like, it's worthless. The intentions are worthless without the actions. And so in order to create that alignment that we're looking for, you have to look at. At your business and say, okay, for where I am, what's realistic? Number one, with my current schedule, with my current demands. Like, for example, Louis, I got four kids. I have three businesses. I've got two business partners, right? Life's wild, dude. I mean, it took us six months for this podcast. Like, there's a lot of things.
- [27:53]
A
And now I. I'll say, I have your. Your phone now, so I'll be Like, dude, David, I'm on a walk, let's chat.
- [27:59]
B
Let's do it, man. Four kids.
- [28:02]
A
Bye.
- [28:03]
B
We're all in these different seasons of life and I think sometimes that's what we forget is that you can't, you have to be incredibly careful with comparison. Like, you've probably heard that comparison is the thief of joy. And it can be, right. I've also, I had a mentor of mine tell me one time, he said, compare and compete and you'll live in defeat. Right. And while that's true in certain contexts, what I do think is useful is comparison, but only if you can be objective about it, right? So in sports, I know you're a soccer fan, football fan, right. They have this concept called running the tape, right? And so what you want to do, if you want to watch tape or review tape, what you're doing is you're looking at your competition to try and get an understanding of how they operate. Right. But there's no emotion attached to that. It's purely logical, it's purely analytical. You're trying to get an understanding, like how are they doing things? And that's a great, a great foundational lesson for everyone to model the people, people that are, are achieving and succeeding in the areas that you want to achieve and succeed. But. And this is a huge but with a capital B, but, okay, but recognize that you are in a very different season of life than them. You may have different demands than them, you may have different responsibilities than them. And so for all the, especially guys, I'm going to talk to you for a second. For all you young guys that are out here, that you're trying to build your business and you also, at the same time, like you want to get married and you want to have a family and you want these things, stop looking at 40 year old solo guy with the ripped six pack abs and using him as your model for success because he doesn't have a wife, he doesn't have kids, and his entire life and world is his career. Not that I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing. That's his choice, that's his lifestyle. But if you want to be able to have a family, understand that there's opportunity costs there, right? And my values personally in this season of life, Louis, is that I want to prioritize more than anything time with my, with my kids, especially while they're young. And so even though I have multiple businesses and I, I have a lot of activities going on and there's a lot of demand for my Time and my attention. That is one of my non negotiable values because I know that I'm not going to get that time back and there's going to be a point in time where they grow up and they move on. And guess what? Lord willing, I'll have another 20, 30, 40, 50 years to build business, which is great, right? And I'll do that. But the point of all of this is saying what are your goals? Goals? What do you really value? What do you really want? I don't give a crap. If you want to go after a million dollars a year, that's fine. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Because you might be really freaking happy making 125 a year and being able to, to, to work three days a week. Right? And you might also be someone that says, yeah, but I've got a billion dollar vision because I want to do this world thing. That's fine. Just understand if you're not clear about why you want what you want and you set and define those goals, what we call them in business eyes, you're looking for your key performance indicators. You can't measure performance and get an indication of how well you're performing if you don't have something to compare it to. And so talk to your mentors, talk to your coaches, talk to, talk to Louis, talk to me, have those conversations. Say what do I need to be aiming at based on my values? And that's an extraction process because you have to be really intentional with defining what it is that you can realistically do on a day to day basis. I'm sure you'd love to go out and create a hundred pieces of content on a week, but if you're broke and you don't have a team, that's going to be really, really, really hard. And that means yay. You're emphasizing marketing, but you don't have any time for sales calls. You don't have any time to build out your operations. You don't have any time to worry about like take care of your finances. And so you have to. Every individual needs to have awareness, self awareness for the season that they're in. And so that's about intentions. And that leads us into expectations, is that you have to be very, very clear about what you can reasonably expect. Expect from yourself. Right?
- [31:58]
A
Yeah.
- [31:59]
B
Because a lot of times. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.
- [32:02]
A
No, no, no, no, finish. You can finish this up.
- [32:05]
B
A lot of times as entrepreneurs we place unrealistic expectations on ourselves and we constantly live in this land of not good enough. Right. The money's not good enough. My team's not good enough. I'm not good enough. Our systems aren't good enough. My finances aren't good enough. And we live in this perpetual cycle of beating the crap out of ourselves because we just don't feel like we measure, measure up. And so what you have to do is you have to create boundaries and you have to create transparency around what you expect from yourself and from others. This means you've got to learn how to say no yourself. You've got to learn how to let people know on a call. Like if you have somebody call or schedule for a meeting, or you've got a sales call, or you're meeting with a, you know, potential client, you need to be very intentional to operate with boundaries. Don't just sit down and say, okay, well, you know, we've got until kingdom come when people call me. Now, Louis, I have made this a habit. When someone calls me, I give them a defined, specific timeline for how long I have to take that call. I try and answer my phone anytime that it rings, right?
- [33:05]
A
Yeah.
- [33:05]
B
But if it is, like right now, you know, let's just imagine we're not on this podcast. If someone calls me at 12:41, there's. There's like two or three things that go through my mind. Number one is, what do I have at 1 o'? Clock? Because usually I have things on 30 and 1 minute or a 1 hour interval, and I'm gonna immediately think, okay, what do I have coming up at 1:00'? Clock? Then I'm gonna think, do I have 18 minutes to talk to this person? Yes or no, right?
- [33:25]
A
Yeah.
- [33:26]
B
And if I don't, what I'll do is I would answer. It's 12:42pm right now where I'm at. I would answer the phone and say, hey, John, I got three minutes. What's up? Yeah, I'm setting the frame and a boundary and expectations for myself and for others. Because if I don't, I can't live with intentionality. I can't honor my calendar. And a lot of people are waking up, especially every single day in. In small business land. And they look at their calendar, they're like, I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing today. If you don't know what you're supposed to be doing, that means you need to go back to those foundations and those goals and those intentions and say, okay, what is it that I want to achieve in the business? Because it's just a numbers game. If you want to Make a hundred thousand dollars a year. And that's your goal right now. Awesome. Don't let anybody look down on you for that. That's freaking awesome. Right? If your goal is just to make a thousand bucks a month in your side hustle, or your goal is saying, you know what I want to make, I want to make $10 million this month. Everyone's at different levels. Be careful with comparison and look at where you're at, your reality, and then create your calendar and your structure, your boundaries for yourself so that you can adhere to your intentions and align with those goals. Otherwise you're constantly going to be torn in different directions.
- [34:34]
A
Yeah, I think what you talk about as we wrap up here on the comparison game is such a, such an important element that not a lot of people talk about. I mean, you asked me before we jump on the sh. Like, what is something that we can talk about that maybe, maybe we haven't touched in the last 600 episodes? This. This is it, man. Like the comparison game and it's so. Especially on content, right? Because on content is very simple. Everybody has a facade, right? Everybody's like, oh, you know, the shiny thing, the, the great studio, the whatever, the top microphone, doesn't matter, man. Like we could record content with this thing today that is gonna feel genuine. It's all about the messaging side thing, but also is on the business side. I've seen it. I've seen it with people internally in my team. I've seen it with people like in our, you know, in our company. And it's hard to watch at the end of the day because there's different backgrounds. Like, like I resonate obviously, you know, you're a dad. I'm also a dad. You know, I have a six year old and a three year old and same thing, man. Like when we bought the studio, the studio was open till like 9pm and we're like, no, dude, like we're closing. Like, I want to get to have. My goal is to have dinner and I put my kids to bed every single night, man. Like that's it. Weekends, we. No, we're closing on weekends, man. That we want to spend time with family. That this is not happening. Well, you know, somebody could, you could employ somebody and they can run it on the weekends. I don't want to manage a guy on the weekends. As simple as that, right? Like, I was, I was that life. Waking up at 4am in the morning, like, I know it's like. And, and I think I recently had a call. I can't remember exactly. The person. Even if I remember, I wouldn't name them. But it was, it was eye opening in a sense, right? Like, people perceive you on a online, maybe in a different way and they don't know the background, the full background of like, what's going on in your life. Like you mentioned, right? And it's like, man, like, the comment was, I see you guys everywhere. I, you know, you guys have everything and like all this potential to be at this level, right? And maybe it was coming from like, maybe from a place of love, right? But the perception was, I think, like today for me, yeah, I stepped out of that comment and I was like, huh, coming from a good place. Intentions, maybe, but it could be reframed as like, man, like, we're late. Like, what are you doing with your life that you're not at this level? Right? Like, and it's like, it might make some people think that, like, crap, like, we're not enough, we're not moving fast enough. We're like not doing this enough. It's like overwhelming. Like, we have to do all these things. I'm like, is that serving your life? Like, are you going to be working extra? Are you going to, you know, like you said, creating all these pieces of content with like, no direction, like, no intention. Are you going to enjoy the process? I'm at this point in my life where like, I, if I don't enjoy doing it, it's like, it's not going to happen. Man is going to be delegated if it's like, crucial to it or we're just going to move away from, from that. And, and not a lot of people, what I've seen, are willing to have those conversations early on, maybe because, you know, they're hungry to go get that success. But at one point, you get to that screw it moment and we' I'm going to be shaping my life based off, you know, what I want. And there was a stage in my life where I was lost because you know that we come from Venezuela, we come here on a soccer scholarship. To me, my goal back home was to come to the United States, live in a place like the one I'm living right now with my family, my kids, access to incredible facilities and in this very nice neighborhood, own my own business. Business. And I, I got it, you know, I got there. And for the longest time I felt very lost because where is my, where's my new North, North Star? And it was crazy because it was affecting me emotionally, it was affecting my business. And it was like I had to sit down and really think, okay, what is my next stage? Because I am very happy, don't get me wrong. And I thought I was like, okay, this is it. This is where I'm gonna stay. Stay. But at the same time, it's like for my goals and my business, like, it could stay like this for the rest of my life and I'll be, I'll be happy. But then I started thinking, family back home, do I want them here? What does it take to bring him here? Opportunities for my kids. Like a legacy. Like, what is all these things? And that reignited the fire so bad that now we're reframing the business and we're like, how can we move it to the next level, Man, I need. I'm so excited. So thank you for that.
- [39:02]
B
Man.
- [39:02]
A
In and it is not about, you know, the example with, with the, with a 40 year old with a rip six pack and whatever and supercars all over the place. I'm like, bro, when I get home, I just want to play, you know, uno with my two kids, man.
- [39:18]
B
No, I heard a recent, recently I heard there's a very popular. I'm not going to name drop. I don't, I don't ever believe in, in publicly, like, you know, attacking people. I think we can attack ideas and I think that it's, it's good. But I. This individual, just a very high level. Call them a power couple, if you will. And one of them said, it's like, you know, I have 15 minutes for my kids every single day, and that's their kid time. And they said it in such a way that they thought it was admirable. They're like, I got 15 minutes of dedicated time with my kids, but everything else is business growth. Business growth. And it's hard for someone like me because I look at that and my instinct is I want to judge that. I want to be like, yeah, you're. You know, that's. That's a horrible philosophy. You're destroying your kids. Like you're teaching them and modeling for them something that you know is. Is going to haunt you and haunt them for. But what I did is I took this step back and I just realized is that, that they have different values. And that is so critically important that many of us don't stop and ask when we're looking and comparing, does this person have similar values that I have? Right. And that's one of the things, like even in working with Tony Robbins and his team is that I realized through that process, like, I have different values. Than Tony Robbins, who's like the godfather of personal development and business growth. Right. I don't share those values. Like, Louis, there was a season over the past, like, several years, especially during COVID like, I flew and traveled like crazy while everyone was like, buckled down, like, oh, you can't fly and travel, dude. I traveled more during COVID than anybody. I to was going crazy, hated the mass, like, the whole nine yards. But, like, I was on an airplane, like, multiple times, like every month, just going, going, going, going, going. And I came to a point where I realized I was like, okay, one of my values is being at home with my family. And I refuse to travel more than twice per month with a three day maximum. That means three days max margin.
- [41:16]
A
Yeah.
- [41:16]
B
And. And even that goes back to how I built my business is that, like, I'm in my office that I built behind my house. I have three companies that I run from here or my phone. And the reason I wanted that is because I wanted to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with my kids. I want to be able to dance in the kitchen at 10am on a Tuesday with my wife if I want to. Right?
- [41:38]
A
Yeah.
- [41:38]
B
Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't those times where, yeah, it's 11pm, I'm getting a client call, or we've got an issue over here. That's going to happen. But understanding what I value was critically important for me to create. Create this. This alignment in my life. And that leads us to the R in fear. Sympathy. Actually, this. You're. You're teaming me up for some perfect segues here, Louis. This is great.
- [41:59]
A
I know.
- [41:59]
B
The R is. So we've gone through foundations, intentions, expectations, and the R is relevancy. Does this really matter? Does it really matter? And if it does matter, where do I need to put it on my list of priorities? Right. Like, you can look at your business and say, like, you know, it really, really matters what you're doing for the world. And you may believe in it, and it may be incredible, and it may be awesome, but I personally believe if you're doing that at the expense of the human beings, that you have a covenantal obligation to, like, your wife or your husband or your kids. You might want to. You might want to take a step back and reevaluate that.
- [42:44]
A
Yeah.
- [42:45]
B
Now it's not this equal. I give eight hours to my family and eight hours my business. That doesn't work. This perfect concept of balance doesn't work. But what does work is integration. And you've got to integrate things in your life in such a way, based on the relevancy, maybe for you, like, your health is irrelevant, right? I wouldn't recommend that. But for some people, they're like, yeah, I don't really care, like, what my. And there's a lot of people that argue, especially now, I see this in the fitness influencers, like, you know, health and fitness is the key to success. And I'm like, okay, go talk to Jack Black about that. He seems to be doing just fine. And, you know, he's right. And so there's a lot of these things that are pushed and they sound like great tenants. And. But really, it's not about, like, trying to figure out the perfect formula, because there's no perfect formula. What you experience, Louis, and what I experienced is that when you can just be yourself and you are anchored into your values, you know, what you believe and why you believe, believe it. And you position your service or your product in the marketplace to truly add value. And then you are taking all of that and saying, okay, how can I take ownership of my life? How can I define these goals in a way that helps me create a beautiful life, not just try and get to the very end? And I heard this story recently. This 95 year old woman, she was being interviewed, and I don't remember if it's like CNN or something like that, but the question came up was like, what's the greatest regret of your life? And this lady sat back and she thought for a minute and she said, my greatest regret is that I wend my life away. And when I first heard that, Louis, it probably like, everyone listening is like, what do you mean you wend your life away? Right? And she said, my entire life, I said, when this happens, happens, I'll do this. When I get the car, when I get the house, when I get married, when I have kids, when my business crosses six figures, when my business crosses seven figures, eight figures, when I finally have a sales team, when I can finally hire an assistant, when I can finally take a vacation, when, when, when, when, when. And you can live in such a state that, yeah, you maybe have. You see that map and you look at the map and you know where the buried treasure is. You know, success is out there.
- [45:06]
A
Yeah.
- [45:06]
B
But what's really fascinating, and I love this, comes from a book called the Greatest Salesman in the World by OG Mandino. He says, what man among 10,000 defines success? The same. We all define success differently. Every one of us defines success differently. Now, here in the United States, unfortunately, in my opinion, uh, Success and money seem to be the two things that most people think of, right? When people say success, they think, oh, you're like, you got a lot of money, right? And I can't tell you how often I have conversations with extraordinarily high level leaders who have achieved everything that they wanted to financially. And their marriage is falling apart because they don't know how to be connected with their spouse. Their kids won't talk to them because they haven't given them any financial form, a real presence at home. They don't know how to regulate their emotions or be in control of themselves. But guess what? Everyone sees them as successful and they're dying inside. And it's not that money's bad. It's not. Money is a beautiful vehicle through which you can use to bless people and take care of your family and grow your business. The moral of the story is not that money's bad. I want you to go make a crap ton of money. That's part of this conversation. But I don't want you to lose your soul in the process. And so you have to take the time to define what success means for you and ask those questions like, does this really matter? Is this relevant to the life that I want to live? Because on that journey, if I'm not working with people that I love and clients that I love and that I'm having fun and enjoying the process and I'm learning and I'm growing, like, you're going to live your life and you're going to win it away way. When I finally make this much money, when I finally get the six pack, when I finally da da da da da, whatever it is. And that relevancy, I think is so critical is when you're looking at your goals, you've set your foundations, you, you're, you're being intentional, you're. You're creating boundaries. You need to ask yourself, okay, is this relevant to the definition of success that I've defined? And here's the last part from OG Mandino. He says, but every one them of, of us defines failure the same. And failure is our inability to reach our goals, whatever they may be. And so be careful with those goals because yes, they can be. They can help you, inspire you and encourage you. They can also cripple you. They can crush you because you're constantly seeing, I'm not there yet, I'm not there yet, I'm not there yet, and you feel horrible instead of recognizing, yeah, I'm not there yet, but I'm on my way. And this is fun and I'm excited to get there, but I'm going to enjoy this process and I'm going to get there. It's just. I got to be patient. I got to continue to grow and learn. It becomes a pressure through the negative frame rather than. It's something that inspires us to what.
- [47:55]
A
A way to close out the time together, man.
- [47:57]
B
You're going to.
- [47:58]
A
We're not. We can speak about this for. For days, man. I got to bring it to my other show, Matt's Life, who's more on the personal side, but dude, so cool. Thank you for sharing your framework. I think maybe let me do the.
- [48:11]
B
Last two real quick. I'll make them really, really fast because we only got to r. So C is constructs. Okay. And so C is constructs. And this is what we're talking about. Mindset. You've got to think about what you've constructed in your mind about success. Right. You've got to really, really evaluate that. And then the last part of it, the last E is escalation. How do you scale. How do you scale the vision for yourself? And so anyone can get that free. I'm sure that Lewis will put that in the show notes for anyone who actually wants to see it.
- [48:36]
A
Yeah, it's going to be in the show notes. It's going to be in the community, everywhere. But where. Where can we go now?
- [48:40]
B
So Fierce Empathy framework dot com. Yeah, just go to Fierce Empathy framework dot com and you can download it and you can apply it to your life, your business. It's a very useful framework.
- [48:47]
A
So I was going to tell people to reach out to you so they could ask for the last twos, but it's fine.
- [48:54]
B
You would?
- [48:55]
A
Yeah. Like, last two. Go, go, go. Ask him directly. I'll ask him as soon as we hop off. I love it, but thank you, man. I mean, you do live by your values and everything you said, hey, we're gonna. We're gon. I think we did. The conversation was slightly off for what I had in mind, but this was way better than what I have in mind. So thank you for elevating the show, man. Thank you so much. I think this is super helpful. It's very meaningful. I relate to all of it. I saw myself in many of these situations. I still do. And, you know, as. As an entrepreneur and, you know, content creator, I think personal growth is number one there. Like, we face our, like, worst enemy, which our is ourselves every time we have these conversations and. And we put our message out there. And when we're trying to build, you know. Yeah. You know, I think it was Alex Arozi, the one that said, bill, the dark hours. What was it called? Ah, man, I just. I just had it. I need my caffeine. But it's like, oh, do the dark work. And it's. It meant. It's like either early. He meant it either early in the morning or, you know, late at night. And I relate a ton because at the end of the day, I do we. That vision based on those values that we have, are we willing to do the work? Are we willing to go that extra mile, you know, to. To get to that point? And how do we, you know, compare. How do we align with, like, noise versus signal? How do we identify those signals? And I think your framework is incredible to go deep into this, not only sales, but in everything.
- [50:25]
B
So here's a simple. A simple little analogy to leave everyone with based on what you just just said, is that the acorn doesn't look at the oak tree and feel less than. The acorn doesn't look at the oak tree and feel less than. An acorn's only ever inspired by that oak tree because it sees. Okay, I'm an acorn and I have a certain capacity right now, but my capacity is not my potential. And that's one of the biggest things that people get confused. You can have all the potential in the world, but you have to have awareness for what your current capacity is. Because if you constantly try and water and nurture that acorn too much because you want it really desperately to grow in the oak tree, you'll kill it. You'll kill it. So recognize you're on a journey. And when you look at the oak trees, the people in your industry, you look at Lewis, you look at Tony Robbins, you look at Alex Hormozi, you look at these people, recognize, like, if you're feeling less than when you look at them, then your perspective needs to shift. They should inspire you. But you're on your journey, and that's why you need guidance for where you are specifically. That's tailor made because. Because your journey is not like anybody else's. And I know you know this, Louis, being a part of masterminds and working with coaches, and I know that's why you guys do what you do, is that it's incredible when you have someone who understands the journey and can help you see what you can't see. So focus on. Focus on your capacity and doing what you can do with what you have right now.
- [51:46]
A
So cool, dude. David, thank you so much. We're going to leave all the links right below. Dude. I want to quarterly invite you to business Creator Club and go, you know, we can go deep dive in there for the community. I think it's going to be incredible. But yeah, thank you so much for hanging out Continuous profit fam. And I'll see you in the next episode. Take care.