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Founder's Story
The Real Reason Entrepreneurs Burn Out—And How to Fix It | Ep. 206 with Aaron Marcum Founder of Breakaway365
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- [00:00]
Host
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- [02:03]
Daniel
Hey everyone. Welcome back to Founder Story. Today we have Aaron Marcum, a serial entrepreneur and founder of Breakaway365, a coaching program helping home care leaders scale their business and reclaim their freedom. And the great thing about Aaron is he's very positive. And that's why I'm excited to have you here. Because I've been told sometimes I can be on the negative side and I. I need more positivity in my life.
- [02:30]
Aaron Marcum
Everyone does.
- [02:32]
Daniel
Thank you. See, Everyone does, right? Everyone does. And we could. We get. I'm sure we can dive in all these things and I'm excited, but I Know you, you're doing these events, immersive events, and you're helping a lot of people and impact. Five time bestseller, USA Today bestseller. You've done amazing things. So before we go into all the nitty gritty of those, what was the spark that made you say I want to create three Breakaway 365?
- [02:59]
Aaron Marcum
Yeah, you know, it's a culmination of many years as an entrepreneur. I've been in the home care space for 22 years, 23 years. I started as a, as a home care owner. I started my own home care agency at 28 years old. And through that journey, and that's a highly charged, emotional field. A lot of, lot of turnover, a lot of challenges in and of itself and they're doing an amazing work like these home care agencies, home care owners are doing amazing work. What I found, I saw this in myself is that I had a dream when I started what I wanted out of my business. And then through the day to day and the stress and the turnover and the challenges that brings in that industry, they lose sight of that. And so really the foundation of our program after 23 years of having, being involved, being a founder of one home care agency and owning another. And I started a company Back in 20 2009, data analytics companies that measured satisfaction and we raised the quality of standards for the entire industry. And I was seeing, because we were measuring so much data in that company that I started, Home Care Pulse is the name of the company and it's now Activated Insights. I saw that a lot of the turnover and a lot of the challenges were being caused by burned out leaders. You know, people who were just, we call it always on leadership or always on ownership. They thought they had to be involved in the business all the time. So Breakaway365, as the term states, it's I'm a cyclist. I got into cycling in 2016. But helping people break away from all of that and get back, back to why they started their home care business in the first place.
- [04:55]
Host
Oh, no.
- [04:55]
Daniel
I was going to say it reminds me of when I was a corporate regional manager and I used to message people at 2, 3, 4, 5 in the morning and they would become very stressed out thinking they had to respond. And it actually brought a lot of the morale down. And then, you know, I learned from that point bringing that into my entrepreneurial ship is I need to be cautious and how I do things. So I'm curious around these data points. What you were seeing, can you, can you dive more into what were you seeing about These owners and then, and then would love to go to the next step.
- [05:31]
Aaron Marcum
Yeah, yeah. So in the data points, one of the key questions we would ask these are surveys we send out. Think of like what J.D. powers does for the auto industry, we were doing for the home care industry. And so one of the key questions, we call it the net promoter question, but it's a simple question. It's how likely are you to recommend services? Or on the employee side, how likely are you to recommend employment to family and friends? And the other question that correlated the most to the impact like whether or not someone is going to score that high on that highly recommend question is when they would score their relationship with their supervisor really low or their owner, then that was the number one question that would bring down the highly recommend question. Right. That's just one example, is that their relationship with the owner or their supervisor and the connection they had with them was correlated to whether or not they would recommend someone to come work for them. I mean, it seems obvious, but we would find little nuances like that in the data that said, okay, this is, we're causing some of our own turnover. Yes, there's industry outside industry impact like Medicare changes and Medicaid changes and reimbursement rates and all these things. Impact, certainly. But the greater impact, what I believe, and what we found was often the leadership. Right. And, and that they, they didn't know how to delegate, they didn't know how to really let go of things and allow other people to come up and learn new skills. And they wanted to own the whole process. And a lot of these, a lot of these home care leaders maybe didn't have a business background when they started their home care business. Right. And so with our program, we're trying to teach them not only how to level up themselves, but also level up their, their leadership team. And so I went back, I was, I was beginning to say, I went back and got my master's degree. And when you say positivity in applied positive psychology, which is really the science of well being and why some people thrive and why some people don't, I studied under Dr. Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, very well known psychologists, and really learned the science of well being. And that's what we've incorporated into the program to help people solve that. Always on leadership. They don't always have to be on that. They need time for themselves. I write in my book, I talk about this concept of the lie of the either or. And the lie of the either or is that people Feel like either I can thrive personally or I can thrive professionally, but I can't have both. They have to choose one or the other. We're trying to help people understand that they can have both. They just have to know how to go about it. And usually the how is the tough part. They know what they want, maybe, but they just don't know how to get there. They're in the day to day of their business and all of those things. And so again in May, that immersive that you mentioned is kind of the foundational. We teach them the foundational concepts of that how, of how to get free of all that.
- [08:44]
Daniel
It would be great to understand when you started studying under, basically the, you know, the father of this modern positive psychology.
- [08:56]
Aaron Marcum
Psychology. Yeah, UPenn is, is the flagship program for that. That's, that's where I went. But yeah, it's, it's been around about 30 years. It's definitely one of the most researched in the last 30 years. It's the proactive side of psychology. So often behavioral psychology, not to knock any of that kind of, that all has its place, but it's more reactive, like dealing with the problem when it comes up. Positive psychology wants to get in front of it. Right. And how do we do that? And how do we help people thrive from the get go. Right. And really own their, their, their, their outcomes, regardless of what challenges they may be facing.
- [09:39]
Daniel
Can you give me maybe three ways, two or three ways that you find maybe it's yourself or, you know, others that we can remain positive. And the reason why I ask is I think we live in a world that sometimes promotes negativity and sometimes people thrive under the ability to make others negative.
- [10:05]
Aaron Marcum
Yeah.
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Daniel
And I think sometimes it's hard for us, I think, to get out of the weeds.
- [10:08]
Aaron Marcum
Gravity, we gravitate to it. It's something we're all pulled to. I'm pulled to Dr. Seligman, who's the father of positive psychology. He's pulled to this. In fact, he became fascinated with this topic because of his own mindsets at the time and, and that he even proclaimed himself as a pessimist back then. I don't believe he does anymore. But that's kind of where his mind was at, where he's like, there's gotta be a better way. And one of the key principles I think that might be helpful for people to understand is that to think positively, you've got to think about how you look at setbacks. Optimists look at setbacks as temporary. Right. Pessimists look at setbacks as permanent. And if everything you're being faced with, if you can stop yourself and say, is this, is this permanent? Usually most things aren't. Like there's always a solution or a way around it. Now, now I realize in death, like when we lose somebody, that can be permanent in that situation. But how we look at it, depending on our eternal perspective or how we look at God and how we look at that can also be temporary. Right? We can see that as a temporary, like we're going to see them again, for example, or how we, how we keep that kind of perspective. And so I think optimists get kind of a bad rap sometimes. Like we think of them, they're all. Optimists aren't realists. Actually optimists can be realist as well as being optimist because all they're looking at, they're looking at these setbacks is like, this is just temporary. We're going to figure this out. In positive psychology, we call it, we use this term called self efficacy. And it's a fancy term for saying, I believe I can figure this out, that I can, I can get around this. Entrepreneur. Successful entrepreneurs are wonderful optimists because they see things as temporary and they have great self efficacy. Like they really believe that they can figure things out. Like, when I started my home care business, I had no knowledge of home care. Like none. I had some business knowledge that I could lean on. And by 28 years old and most of the owners in the industry, most of my competition, most of the my referral sources were all twice my age. But I believed I could figure it out. And that's what created success for me, is I had this confidence and this belief that I'm just going to figure this, I'm going to somehow it's going to work out. And, and I saw that my knowledge, my lack of knowledge at the time was temporary, that I would figure it out. I mean, that's a huge, huge, like self awareness factor. Like if we could just be more self aware of how we view current.
- [12:59]
Daniel
Setbacks, you know, that's amazing. No, thank you for sharing. I sometimes will tell people I'm a realist, but I'm not really doing myself a favor. And now that I think about it, I need to rephrase how I say that. I also need to rephrase how I'm thinking. You're right. We. When I hear someone who's too nice or too optimistic, we almost want to make fun of them. And like you said, they're not Real or they're just being too optimistic. Like, who wants to be so happy and positive? It's really funny now that I think about it, but I'm going to change my mind. You have convinced me today and I appreciate that. So I'd love to learn, I want to learn more about the keeping culture and exactly what that means and how does that help companies.
- [13:45]
Aaron Marcum
Yeah, Keeping culture, something we Created at the Breakaway 365 Keep is an acronym. It's our second element of our breakaway framework. And it stands for knowledge, empowerment, engagement and then partnership. That comes with keeping your top talent. Like those are four key elements to keep your top talent. And so we have this keeping culture model that reinforces those four areas through various, like, again, positive psychology science back. Like what I'm more interested in why people stay in a company. Our principles are so agnostic. Like, if I realize much of your audience, most of your audience are not home care agency owners. Right. That's our, that's who we work with right now. But it's. So it applies to every business, every workplace that the more you can instill, like help your, your team members with more confidence in positive psychology. There's a, there's a theory called self determination theory. People are more likely to stay when they have three, these three ele. And this is part of our keeping culture. We help our members incorporate these three elements in the workplace is if people have more autonomy in the workplace, more better relationships and greater confidence. I actually, I use the term. So self determination theory is the theory that supports this. But I use a term that we've created called the arc of growth, which is part of the keeping culture model. And that's just the acronym. Autonomy, relationship confidence that when their relationships and their autonomy is strong, their confidence grows.
- [15:27]
Daniel
Yeah. So when you, when you look at these home health care owners, I, I know a few people that own them. For example, I have a friend. It was started by his parents. And then, you know, he's now in his 40s. So now he started getting into it and then I, I'm guessing eventually he's going to take over, you know, their business because they'll eventually retire. But I'm curious on how, you know, for example, his parents, who are in their 60s, how they see this compared to him who's in his 40s. And then I'm sure like you, you were in your twenties. So are you seeing different generations, different people from, from different decades being able to leverage this, but also like their openness to wanting to implement.
- [16:12]
Aaron Marcum
Yeah, you mean on The. On the receiving the care, on the act workers on the in. On the culture side.
- [16:19]
Daniel
Yes. Like the owners of these businesses or management. On the culture side, like keeping culture and these other things that you're doing. What is their openness to this?
- [16:28]
Aaron Marcum
Yeah. So going back to that arc of growth, the autonomy, is that when you think about the younger generation coming up, they're very open. Like you're getting younger ones. Like, I was a little bit of anomaly back then. Back when I started, the average agency owner was about 52 years old, which is how old I am today, 20, 23 years later. Right. And so that was back then. Now you have younger coming in. But what they're looking for and what they're missing, often because they get into the grind of their business and they, they, they may not know how to create a positive culture in the workplace is they, they're lacking the autonomy that they're really looking for. This generation, this younger generation, they want even more autonomy than I wanted 23 years ago and more freedom in their business and be able to free. Freedom to pursue other, other passions, of course, and so forth. And so we try to work with the, on the keeping culture, we try to work with, with even these younger owners on helping them get all that back. And then once they get that back, the autonomy and they strengthen the relationships and grow their confidence, then they can share, they can actually do that with their team far better. Like they're in a much better place. They can't do it from down here. We got to get them up here so they can pull their team members up who are also so overwhelmed. Care professional didn't show up for a shift. You know, there's a, an elderly person who doesn't have someone to take care of them in that moment. The stress that comes from this, they're doing such an important work like helping people age gracefully in their home. I mean, you can't think of too many other industries that have a greater impact on life. Right. And so my goal with this program and keeping culture is to help them build cultures that retain top talent, that keep their best people and get them, these owners, back reconnected with what, why they started their business in the first place. But they've got to get the right people, as Jim Collins coined it, right people in the right seats and build a better business to do that so that they're not always on that they have a support, better support, so they can actually grow their business and then grow in their community and make a greater impact on the lives of Seniors that they're caring.
- [18:57]
Daniel
I mean, I keep hearing it. It's, it's a. Well, first off, I, I'm in California and it's very hard to even get, from what I hear, license or even get approved to do this. And, and there's like a waiting list of people that would be willing to do it because it is, can be, from what I hear, a lucrative business, but also a very challenging business from, I'm sorry, regulations to like you said, people. It's, it's a very, a people centric business that is also relating to people as they age, which is, you know, a sensitive subject in itself. If I was to attend your event and I have this kind of business, what do you think I can walk away with in the end?
- [19:38]
Aaron Marcum
Yeah, you know, there's, there's so much, you know, that we, because it's so customized even in that three day event, is that we want to figure out what do you want out of your home care business? Like what is it that you want? Don't, don't be concerned about what your neighbor here wants or what other people want. What do you want? Because everyone seems to want something different and it, and based upon that, then you create this blueprint. So by the end of the third day they have more clarity on again what it is they want out of their business and how to get there. And we call it the breakaway blueprint. We, we help them start the process. It doesn't happen overnight, but we help them start their kind of first draft on this breakaway blueprint. We have other tools that accelerate that, that blueprint. But the blueprint has their vision, their goals, and not just goals. We hear that a lot. There's other programs that do that, but we do it in such a unique way to help them figure out, okay, if I want this, if I want to achieve, I want to double my revenue, for example, you know, in my business. Because these are for profit businesses that, you know, when they're, when they're growing, they're making a greater impact on the people that they care for and the people they employ. We want them to grow. And so if they're grow, if they had this goal to grow to this certain level and it's, it's a big goal. They've got to be willing to drop a lot of things that, that maybe they hadn't even thought of before. So what we help them identify is what's the 80% that's getting in your way that you have to drop to get there? What do you have to Decrease and stop doing. Like maybe you're doing things too manually. Right. All entrepreneurs are guilty. Most, at least most, I shouldn't say all. Most entrepreneurs are guilty of creating complexity in their business. And so what we try to do is help get rid of some of that complexity. That complexity creates chaos. Visionaries like myself, we constantly, if we don't have the right systems in place, we're constantly flying down from up above the trees, creating all kinds of chaos in our business, you know, trying to fix things. And then we fly back up and we've just created a whole mess. Right. And so we're really trying to help these members and then that three days, helping them get clarity on what is it I want, how do I get there, what are the right team members, what's the right kind of structure to help me get help get me there. So they're building a plan that's specific to what they want out of their business. We use technology, we actually use AI. We have some really cool AI tools that they get to work with not just in those three days, but throughout our program. Because our program is really a three year. They don't sign a contract for three years, but we're committed to them for three years to help them grow an exceptional home care business in that period of time. And that three, three day immersive is, is kind of where it starts. We're pivoting from just three days. We're actually allowing people to start right out of the gates. They don't even have to wait for the three day immersive. We have trainings in place that allow them to start right away.
- [22:49]
Daniel
So that's amazing. I mean, I've attended events not only from like you're saying the learning experience, the networking and then you get to be around other people and then you learn. You're not the only one. Because I'm like you said, when we're, when we're working in the company, we're doing 15,000 different tasks and jobs. We rarely get to like network with other people. And it becomes. Everyone always complains about the loneliness factor. I like how it's not really three days, it's really three years. It's continuing to ensure that their business grows. My last question is around AI since you brought it up.
- [23:22]
Aaron Marcum
Yeah.
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Daniel
I am very curious of how AI is transforming more traditional businesses in the sense, you know, of businesses that normally lack the use of technology. And I'm curious, how is AI transforming this industry?
- [23:41]
Aaron Marcum
Because we are a traditional, have been a traditional type of industry. Right. We provide real hands on care and so I've really been on the forefront of how we can better leverage One.
- [23:53]
Host
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- [27:46]
Aaron Marcum
There'S companies coming out like on the scheduling helping match care professionals with the client more efficiently. Using AI and using some of the AI knowledge and database powerful tools that help like we have like I'll give you a wonderful example that we're using in our, in our program is one of the biggest challenges and this, this ties in with the keeping culture is when people hire a professional caregiver, you know, a nurse, an aide, whatever it might be is that these, these people have never had someone sit down and and ask them what their purpose is and help them identify that. And so we've created a tool that our members use with their employees, with their team members that help them identify. It's an AI driven tool to help their care professionals identify what their personal purpose is and then they can align the core values of the company with that personal purpose so that person in, in the first week feels more connected to their, to their employer than they would have otherwise. While this employer took the time I they they had this really cool tool that I use that helped me identify a purpose statement for myself. No one's ever done that. No one's ever tried to help them with that. Typically they haven't been in that process and they haven't been able to maybe afford to go to a Tony Robbins event or something like that. This allows the home care owner to be in the driver's seat and helping these home care professionals identify their own personal purpose. Too many employers we are guilty of telling them how cool we are right. And what our purpose is and what our core values are. We're not taking the time to find out what their purpose is and what really drives them. And this AI tool helps them do that. And I won't give away too much of the secret sauce of that tool, but it's really, really kind. It's very innovative how we use it and how our members are using it to help them identify their personal purpose. So that's just one, one way scheduling more efficiencies, care plans. Like creating a care plan for a client or a patient in a home health environment. AI is great about like giving it, here's the information about this person. Please create a care plan. Now you've got to really be careful about HIPAA and other things that, that could be in violation there. You got to make sure that you're in compliance. But it's changing even our industry and the way we go about our business, even the way we market. Right. And the marketing, that's probably the biggest impact that AIs had on our industry. That's where it started was the marketing and now it's trickled out into the care, which is pretty cool.
- [30:36]
Daniel
No, it's amazing. I mean, yeah, the marketing of everything. Now Jack Riv, AI is like completely changing so much. But everyone I know who's, at least in this industry, it's never that they really have too much of a lack of people that they can take on clients. It's. They don't have, they have a lack of employees culture, there's a turnover, they can't take on new people because they don't have people to work. I'm always hearing complaints from them about systems and processes like they don't have the foundational thing set which they can never really grow in scale. It becomes so hard for them to do so and they're working 24 7. So I can, although I've never had this type of business, I know many people who do and I can relate to listening to, to their pain points and seeing what you are solving. But at the same time many people today are going to be able to learn how to be positive, which is amazing because entrepreneurs, you know, we can, it's easy to get negative and at the same time we can take a lot of the things away no matter what industry you're in. So Aaron, this has been great. If you want to want to learn more about the events, learn more about you. How can they do so?
- [31:49]
Aaron Marcum
Just go to our website, breakaway365365.com breakaway365.com they can also go to aaronmarcum.com and there's two sites there that you can learn more about me. My book is is on Aaron Markham.com More front and center there if they want to learn more about that, about the book. But yeah, those two websites would be the best way to get a hold of us. Appreciate it.
- [32:13]
Daniel
Well, Aaron Marcum, thank you for joining us today. I feel like I need to just open this business just so I can attend your event. Because you should.
- [32:21]
Aaron Marcum
I'll help you with that, Daniel.
- [32:24]
Daniel
I'll document my, my journey, but it sounds amazing. Maybe I can live vicariously through somebody else that I know who, who will be a type.
- [32:31]
Aaron Marcum
Maybe we could have a reporter attend it. You know, I just report on, on the event. There we go.
- [32:35]
Daniel
You go. But Aaron, this has been really great and thank you for joining us today.
- [32:39]
Aaron Marcum
Hey, thank you. Appreciate the time. Thanks to tax reform, American businesses have opened doors throughout our communities, investing in US Manufacturing workers and innovation, spurring half a million new jobs with higher wages and better training. And setting a new record high in corporate taxes paid telco to extend and strengthen the tax cuts and Jobs act paid for by Business Roundtable.
- [33:16]
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