← Fullerton Unfiltered
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This year, lawntrepreneur Academy Live is built for the whole team. Join us November 7th at Vibe Credit Union Showplace in Novi, Michigan for Hands on learning, expanded breakout sessions and crew leader training designed to help your business grow. Group rates are available so you can bring the entire crew to this can't miss team building event.
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You're now listening to the Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast. Straightforward, no nonsense business advice completely on filtered. Grow your business, grow your life.
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Now here's your host, Brian Fullerton.
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Hey, what's going on, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast. It is your host, Brian Fullerton here hanging with you guys and good morning. Same Intro for like 975 shows, right? Not too bad. I think I had that one memorized. Well, welcome back to the Fullerton Filtered podcast. It is a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Law and landscaping, Lawns, Lessons life podcast. It's exciting to have you guys here. I'm really excited about talking about today's topic, which is urgency. And there's only a couple of topics that I can really think about in the history of my life and career in, in anything and everything that I do that I will just tell you is a tenant, important, tent pole, priority, critical, whatever, strong adjective, whatever word you want to use, kind of story, scenario, synonym, whatever, whatever. Dude, this is like the thing that can define me. I will just tell you like nothing is more important outside of like being consistent than also having urgency. And what I've, what I believe has led to a lot of the success and quote unquote, accomplishment in my life, whatever that means. And, and I think not only for my life, probably for your life if you think about it. And also the folks that are fantastic titans of business and in business. Today's topic is very, very important to me. There's no way I'm going to, you know, really be able to do a 20 minute, 30 minute conversation here with you and really no matter what I say, get the emphasis across about how important creating artificial urgency is in my life, in your life and how it can benefit you and compound everything you do around you than what I'm going to be able to share with words today. It is that big of a deal. It is that important. I've been thinking about topics that as I've grown, if I've changed, as my, my education and my, the people I get to hang around with the last two, three years has evolved and elevated and changed like things that I've recognized about what I've been able to accomplish last couple years. Like, why was that? And it was really a lot of things that I set up for myself in my 20s and my 30s. Right. I just, I just have a lot of gratitude and a lot of introspective thought. Well, this topic of urgency is something that is so critical and I do have some analogies and some thoughts and some notes I wrote down. And I tried to formulate a couple thoughts here to, to make this show make the most sense. But what, what I'll just tell you is the topic of urgency and creating direct pressure, you know, on your life with these artificial urgent goals. Right. Is honestly what I feel is one of the biggest differentiators between, like, those that do and those that don't, those that accomplish and those that don't. And not even those that accomplish and those that don't, but those that accomplish in days, week, months, or years, which those versus those that maybe accomplish things in years, decades, or never. Right? Like, think about that. So the topic I wanted to discuss here in urgency is creating a timeline or a, an urgency in your life to get certain things done quicker. Faster. Because the upside of having them completed is that awesome. It's that grand. It's that great. Like, for example, the urgency of hiring a certain position, the urgency of creating SOPs, the urgency of getting another crew or route going. The urgency of getting a shop built into functional and operational. The urgency of getting married and then having maybe some extracurricular benefits. Just kidding. But having a more romantic relationship with your spouse. Right. And a deeper relationship, you know, with a, with a covenant, you know, in that blessing around that. The urgency of, you know, maybe having kids when you're ready or more ready, but you're never fully ready. Right? So we'll play that game today. But the urgency of having kids and versus maybe the, the timeline of never or choosing not to have kids and maybe even the urgency of having them when you're a little bit younger than maybe a little bit later, like my wife and I were having. Good or bad, Right. Right or wrong. I'm not really here to get so nuanced in today's topic about any of those things. There's, there's pros and cons to anything and everything, right? But the urgency of, dude, we got to get this done and we got to get this done, like, sooner than later. And, you know, again, let's say you're setting a goal and the idea is, well, that's going to take us a year to do. Well, why, like, why not six months? Why not six weeks, right? Like, these are the things that I want to kind of address and talk about today because I feel like only I. Dude, I only have a couple of like, superpowers, right? I can't sing, I can't dance, I can't play football. I couldn't tell you anything about athletics or sports at this point in my life. All I've done is eat, sleep, and breathe, YouTube and lawn care. I mean, sincerely, like, that's all I've done. I'm just. I hate it or love it, you know, that's fine. I'm really trying to set up my 20s and 30s for my 40s, my 20 30s and 40s for my 50s. I've lived a lot of life the last, like seven or eight years with Liz and I. Like, my daughter's been on 60, 65 flights. She's four and a half years old. Like, we've lived a little bit of life last couple years. We started to make some money, got out of debt, not anything ostentatious. And we're not like, you know, writing jets and running, you know, yachts and flying first class all the time exclusively. Nothing like that, hardly from that. But we've taken a hundred micro, three, four day trips. And we've tried to do business and work and work as business and have an integrated life. So these conferences and events that we go to, most of the time I'm bringing the wife or bring the wife and kids. Not every time, but we try to live a very integrated life. Well, all of that is a derivative from me putting some very heavy pressure on me, fixing my stupid fricking life when I was 30 years old. And that's what I want to talk about today because, like, you know, dreams have expiration dates, right? Like these things that you want to accomplish. Go fly fishing, world traveling, deep sea fishing, you know, whatever with your, your dad or your grandpa that has a timeline. Like being able to go travel the world with your wife before one of you guys get a, you know, a stupid doctor report and somebody's got, you know, some terminal thing and you got 6, 812 months to live. Like, these things all around us can happen at any time. And so the, the, the world out there is just so. I just am so sick and tired of like, the casualness that people have in their life. Like, like life just happens to them versus, like, life having you happen to it. And I'm not here to be like a motivational guru and get like, too heavy on this kind of stuff, but I'll just Tell you what, like, man, I, I, I expect certain things, I demand certain things based on my work ethic, the amount of giving that I do, and a little bit of this and that and the other thing and more on that later. But like, the topic of urgency for me to fix my life has allowed me to live a very, very big, best version of my life the last couple of years. And so when I say it's like, it's, I'm not commanding anybody to do this. It's my strong suggestion, like, get your business built, get your money in line, get your finance finances in order, get your education under your belt, get your whatever in a row so you can then do the thing that you most want to do. Does that make sense? Like if you want a car, a fast car, a supercar, a sports car, whatever car, a nice car, a safe car, I don't know, luxury car, an SUV car for the wife, whatever, that's, that's awesome. I want you to do that too. But to do that, we have to get something done right. Probably build an asset that pays for a liability. And let's take our long care businesses, for example. Like, build a certain book of business that derives a certain amount of revenue and, you know, hopefully net profit, and that allows us to go buy some stupid car. The sooner we get the business built, the sooner we can get the car. And many times people are like, well, if I just kind of keep on this, like, steady, casual, 3 to 5%, whatever, or 1, 1 extra this per day, or 2 extra that's per week, like we'll get there and you know, you know, five years or 10 years, and I'm like, okay, that's fine. But what if you wanted to get it done in the next 12 months, right? Like, what, what would happen if you actually short up that timeline? And, and again, one of my favorite conversations was from the. I think it's the biography of Elon Musk. I don't think it's an autobiography because I don't think he wrote it. I think, right, A biography is when somebody else writes it about you. But somebody said, like writing a book about Elon Musk, and Elon, do you want to participate? If not, I'm gonna put this all out, but you can fact check me. Last chance. Whatever the author is that wrote the biography on Elon Musk. There's a book about a decade ago now, my younger brother recommended it to me, and it's probably the last biography autobiography of anybody I've really read recently. But it was fantastic. And the whole idea behind SpaceX and Tesla and all this stuff was urgency, urgency to like get a great product working. Not a perfect product, but a great product working. And some of you guys have heard and read the story. If you haven't, I'm telling you, just from a dude, like a human life appreciation of how smart and awesome that dude is as a, like literal Albert Einstein or whatever you want to call it, of our Leonardo da Vinci. He's just a, a genius dude is. You owe yourself in like a societal civilization favor to read that book. I'm telling you, like, it's that good. And the mindset behind what he did with his companies and the crazy stories, like we have 10 million left and we can do payroll for one company for six weeks or two companies for three, you know, two weeks. And he split the baby and, you know, betted on both and both could have literally died in the vine and, you know, had a breakthrough and both accomplished. First model, last world off the line, first Falcon rocket, like launched and landed, right? And now today, people are always a trillionaire. And it's like, dude, this guy was like sold PayPal for whatever, 20, 30, 50, 100 million and dropped it into a rocket company and a car company. Not a, not a, not a single successful car company has been launched in the last hundred years. I think the last one was like, literally like Dodge or like, you know, Chrysler, you know what I mean? It's like 1916, not a single successful car company. So, yeah, like, let's go take our, you know, winnings. When somebody could like literally grab a yacht and sail into the sunset. He's like, I'm going to start a car company, an electric car company nonetheless. And also I'm going to build rockets. You know, we're going to one tenth the cost of, you know, space accessibility. Sounds great. Okay. That. Don't bet against that guy, right? No, I'm just kidding. But one of the great tenets of that book that I remember, at least, of all the things and all the stories and all the analogies and all the anecdotes that I remember was they would basically say when they were testing the rockets, long story short, they would test the rockets and they would make changes on the tarmac, or whatever you call it, rocket testing platform. And they would make changes on the tarmac or like days later, weeks later, depending on how quickly the parts could come in. But they would fire the rocket, look at what blew up or broke, fix it on the spot, order the part in, same day, next day, call the Shop machine, it, have it out same day, next day, next week, next month, right? And they were able to refine this, this rocket building process from literally decades, decades, down to months, down to months, years at, at, at the worst, right? And, you know, there's a, a great reel that's going around right now, real time. I love, I love Instagram. I live on Instagram. It's, you know, first get it going and then make. Right, like, first get it going and then go get it right. First launch something and then make it perfect. Go launch something and then make it beautiful, whatever that thing may be. Well, that's what they were doing. And in, you know, less than a decade, they were able to build a successful rocket company that, you know, could literally launch and land, which I don't. Right. I don't know about rockets, but from what I understand, nobody's ever landed a rocket, you know, on planet Earth in the, in the dawn and the, the history of all of civilization. Pretty cool accomplishment. And then also, you know, by the way, doing it on a freaking floating barge and, you know, some, some golf, you know, like, not too bad, right? Well, the urgency for them to do this was always paramount, was always critical, and I don't, you know, totally. Well, let me rephrase that. I do know why, because as you guys know, if anybody's listening in, what's Elon Musk's mission is to have extra planetary exploration or whatever you call it in life on a different planet. Because of one single planet, civilization is at risk. And I'm like, okay. I'm like, I just try to pay my last, like, YouTube taxes, but glad to, you know, think about, you know, living on Mars one day. And I always talk to my daughter. I'm like, hey, one day you might go travel to Mars. I won't, but maybe one day you will. And, And I really think that big, like, I really think, like, I'm catching onto that dream. I'm like, what if my daughter could go on a cruise, is what they might call it, right? Like one day, like, you know, some Fifth Element type shit, and they'll be able to cruise to, like, a different planet or solar system. Who knows, right? Like, look at the growth curve of technology. Eric Tremonde, who came into the Leanscape event last year, said, you know, the growth rate of technology where technology used to double every, you know, hundred years, fifty years, you know, ten years, four years, three years, eighteen months today he said, the amount of technology doubles every 12 hours, whatever the frick that means. But I would Believe it. The amount of data created and the amount of like information and technology and breakthrough is like, you know, on a daily basis literally. And I don't think on that kind of growth curve exponentially. Do not think that our kids, or kids kids, at least in the next 20 to 50 years won't be, you know, space traveling civilization and people and beings wild to think about. You know what I mean? Well, the urgency for all this stuff that Elon is doing, from electric vehicles to you know, neural link, which is a whole nother crazy conversation, to space exploration, to boring, you know, tunnels, because you can't live on the habitat of all these, the surface of all these planets because you'll die because it's, you know, minus 200 degrees plus 600 degrees, like not going to work. But we can bury tunnels and have robots with the Tesla bots, what are they called, go build all the infrastructure. So when we come there, like there's a functioning quote unquote city. You're like, Jesus, gosh, this guy is a brilliant, you know. And again, the autobiography is just fantastic or the biography is fantastic of this read. Well, my big takeaway was urgency. And I, and I. That stuck with me. It stuck with me. I've always been like that. It's a try, fail, adjust. If you want to be more successful, don't try to like double your success rate, double your failure rate. That's Watson from IBM, right? All these things have always stuck with me. And my last decade of life, like this sounds, sounds weird, but folks, work with me here. I went from double wide trailer then to 700 square foot of apartment, halfway housing, crappy, crappy home, crappy life, to three or four years later living in a decent little like, you know, new construction condo to then not even three or four years later building, you know, a nice home. And my income has gone, gone up exponentially with all of our businesses and all of our life and went from no business basically to three businesses. And all of them are doing about a million. And it's like, it's actually wildly fricking crazy. And along the way we started a YouTube channel every, by the way, all these are all things that almost everybody thinks that they would love to do, say they would do and have never done it and like won't do it. And because they're looking to like get it perfect and they just don't think it's attainable even though millions of people have done everything that I'm about to lay out. I started not only a business, but a lawn Care business, a service business. Extremely hard to do, extremely hard to, you know, still make profit and be profitable at. We're doing it along the way. I started a YouTube channel. Okay, like, how many people have ever said, I want to make YouTube videos? And they make the first one. And I've had this story a thousand times. They make one or two or three or they keep at it for a day, a week, a month and they go, dude, this is actually really hard. Hell yeah, it's really hard, like to make content consistently all the time for 4, 2, 4, 5, 10 years or to be relevant with something a decade into it. Like Jake and Logan Paul are, you know, still relevant somehow. And they've made pivots from YouTubers to boxers to, you know, nutrition drink founder company people to sports betting, right? Like crazy stuff. Like they've had to make pivots in their career too. You know, from kids that got started on vine, but, you know, we did YouTube and then we didn't just like start a YouTube channel. I feel like I succeeded at making a YouTube channel because at least to me, my goal was to get to a hundred thousand subscribers. Well, then along the way was like, sustain the business of being on social media. And we have like, we have a decent financial revenue stream coming in from all that because we put out an enormous amount of content and our followers and fan base reciprocate because of the value that we add. I believe that people reciprocate and because we have been excessively reciprocated to my only litmus of that is we've been excessively value driven. Right? So like it's always, if I put out 10, maybe I'll get two back and if I want to get four back, well, then let's put out 20 whatevers. And it's like very linear to me. It's very like, get this, do that, like if this, then that. It's very sequential. It's like it's just a pattern. So we. That's what I do. People are like, well, I want to make money on YouTube and social media. I'm like, well, you need to help people first. You need to help yourself and actually be credible with what you plan to talk about. But then number two, you need to actually teach it well. And then number three, have other people get results. And that's like probably one of my, like, greatest accomplishments and things that keep me excited is not only is it working for me, but all the content we keep putting out, I've seen it working for you guys and you Guys are vocal with that. Your guys business is growing. I hear it on link. Our revenues are all growing. Everybody's double, triple, quadrupled since we started that group. The last two, three years. I see people at leanscap and like, dude, I. I didn't know what I didn't know. And I get around Mark Bradley and my life is wildly different, you know, six months, 12 months, 18 months later, and you feel more hopeful, more excited, more encouraging for sure. Right? So like we did the YouTube thing and we're still doing the YouTube thing. And actually I have plans to 10 20x that in the next 12, 18 months. Way more to come. Way more to come. We're not done yet. I still want to get the goal play button right and help a million people, not just a hundred thousand people. But then think about the things along the way. We started an Instagram. While I'm on Instagram, you're on Instagram. Always got an Instagram. Everybody's got an Instagram. Yeah, but we decided to grow it. We decided to like be influencer, quote unquote, on an Instagram page and get over 1,000 followers. 2,000 followers. There's 75, 000 people that follow that page on Brian's Lawmain. It's awesome. And I don't care about the metrics. I'm just saying, like, we decided to grow an Instagram and we succeeded. How many people are like, I'm gonna grow an Instagram page and go sell T shirts, I'm gonna sell a grow on Instagram and I'm gonna go sell courses. I don't know, like thousands, dude, Millions of people. That's the side hustle. And then think about all the other stuff that we did along the way. We started a podcast. It's not just a podcast. It's the most successful green industry podcast today. That's awesome. Like, I'm very, very proud of that. And I'm proud of that because of the value it's driven to. Hopefully everybody out there listening in. And that's because of you guys. And trust me, I didn't like set out to like be number one at anything or to be the best anything. I just was like, dude, I'll just give it my best. But I'm gonna do it. We're gonna do it well. And when we launch it, we're gonna do our best to keep it going, be consistent at it, build a system and process around it to keep it going. So we didn't just start a podcast. We built the most successful green industry podcast. Today, period. If you look at the social media business terms of revenue generated from anybody out there other than probably Tigran, we probably have the largest revenue producing social media platform I'm very proud of. That doesn't mean like, wow, I'm hognasty rich. It means I have a lot of money to reinvest in fuel, as Mark calls it, back into the industry, in the community. That's why I can fly around and drive around and go everywhere to get anything you guys want, anytime, any place, and likely, likely bring in almost anybody, anytime, any place to our events or to our conferences. And because there's such a great reciprocity going on with you guys coming to those events, it's fertile soil for those speakers and those folks and those sponsors and those brands and those coaches and those industry leaders to come on in and share and I'm very, very, very proud of that. Like lal's tickets going to drop in a couple weeks and when you see that speaker lineup, you're like, you're going to say holy, holy shit. I pay a thousand dollars to hear just one of those guys talk for an hour. Usually you get like one good keynote and a couple fillers. Like the whole conference is going to be keynote people, keynote worthy people. Okay. And then think about like a couple other things along the way. We decided to save some money to build and accomplish and build a custom home. Awesome. I mean a whole crazy story. Then a barn same time. Awesome. I decided to get a Tesla model X. Set a goal, get it. Awesome. How many people have ever said I want to write a book? Lots and lots and lots of people, no doubt about it. Like everybody wants to write a book, an autobiography, some, some journal, some great conversation, some great whatever. Usually it's based on what they've done or accomplished or some breakthrough or something that, that's like a key principle to their life. Fantastic. I have met hundreds and dozens of dozens and hundreds of people that have have a story in their heart. And I'll tell you, it's not that hard. It's about 100 hours of real focus, commitment and a workflow to do it. But it's not that hard. But how many people have went to the grave with a book in their heart that they didn't accomplish, that they didn't write, that didn't publish? I wrote 0 to 100k. Fantastic, awesome read. I'm telling you, fantastic, awesome read. I'm very, very proud of it. But then I decided to like do something different. I want to write a child's Book, a children's book for my son crew. And so I wrote Momo Kid and then later followed up with a fun little anecdotal story with Plow. Plow Kid. Call it dorky, call it cheesy, call it whatever you want, but I can say, hey, accomplished, published author, child book author and regular nonfiction author. Like business entrepreneurship author. And I find that to be very fun and exciting. But what? And I could keep going. I mean, like, literally everything I've, like, quote unquote accomplished. It's absolutely wildly ridiculous. Like, they're all things that most people want to do and just won't get it done. Then why am I the one that has gotten it done? I have no more resources, no more talent, no more time. Everything I do is like after, you know, 5:00pm or 9:00pm at night or, you know, before 7:00am for, like the first nine years of doing this until I just started kind of building a team. Last, like, year or two, literally. And so the difference, though, isn't those that do and those that don't, right? Or those that do and those that stick with it. I think the difference, and I know the difference to be, is an urgency to get something done. And that urgency, like building rockets on a tarmac and try failing, adjust and doubling your rate of failure and having an artificial timeline to get something done. And it has to get done by such and such, date and such and such time. Why? I don't know, but because we said so. I don't know, but because we said so, sales needs to be up 25% this year. Why? Honestly, if sales were up or not up, it doesn't really freaking matter in the grand scheme of life. Nobody's taking any of it with us. But why does it need to be? I don't know why not? Like, I don't know why not some of you guys. And I've said this many times long time ago on coaching calls, I would talk to one guy in one hour and he was like, dude, we're up 3% or whatever. And that's awesome. He's got a great game plan. We talk some things through. Next guy. Hey, like, my wife's about to leave me, life sucks, and I don't know if I want to do this anymore. And that would be a totally wildly different conversation. The next guy. Hey, man, it's my first year in business. We did 800,000. I got 12 guys working for me. I just want to know, like, a couple extra, like, nuanced thoughts and like, weirdly, like, their questions are Always like, X marker skag. And I'm like, jesus, like normally, like you graduate past that after you're like, you know, 75 grand in revenue. It was always wild. The conversations were always wild in coaching calls. But he did 800 grand his first year and he's like, yeah, we should do 1.5 million next year. And then I got other guys that haven't done, you know, about 200 grand in revenue in 10 years, like myself previously. And that's okay, but like, there's a different level of urgency with that other guy or his expectation, and that's okay. But the. But the thing is, as I've looked at the playing field, this conversation of urgency is such a great differentiator of those who do and those who don't and those who start and those who finish. It just is. And I'm not saying, hey, you should write a book and have an urgency to have it done in 30 days or an urgency to have it done in six months or an urgency to get it done this year. I don't know, that's up to you. I'm not going to get that granular in telling you guys what to do. But I will say those that say I want to write a book versus those that actually get the book written have a timeline, an artificial urgent timeline that they adhere to. And by the way, if you miss it or you blow it, it's okay. I've done it on pretty much every single thing that we've done. I wanted the book written by a certain such time took longer to do, podcast to launch, took an extra year. Paul Jameson started his in 2018. I didn't start mine until 2019. I want to do what he was doing. I'm like, I just can't do it all. At the time I was doing YouTube and going to a hundred thousand subscribers. I couldn't peter out of that lane to go do something else. It took me an extra year and that I'm totally fine with that. I, Liz and I started the building of the home process. We were supposed to break ground in 2021. We didn't start breaking around until 2023. Life Covid finances, extra cost, overages, etc, it sucked. But we had an urgent timeline to get the home done. And we had to move the needle then move the needle, move big project, big money, one year delay, two year delay, big delays. But we still got it done. But the urgency or the conversation wasn't, well, that train left the station will never accomplish it. We're losers. Maybe it's just not in the stars. Maybe God's telling us something different. No, no, none of that malarkey. It was, what's the lesson here? What do we need to do? How do we make a pivot? What do we need to realign? How much more do we need? What's the plan to do that? What's the timeline? Let's go. And I was a savage. In 2020-2022 with my finances, my income doubled and then doubled again in that. That timeline because I knew what I needed to do to have not only an extra down payment that I was on the gap on, but the income for the mortgage, for the level of the home that we were now building. And there was an urgency. And there's no Calvary coming. There's no, hey, like, let's phone up dad. Hey, can you spot me 50 grand? We don't have any access to anything like that. So I was like, if it is to be, it's up to me. And I. My daughter was just built, and I was like, you know what? She's a baby. She's not even going to know if I'm here or not here, other than me playing with her all the time that I can. But I've got another year or two to get this thing going. And I did. And I don't work as hard as I used to two, three years ago, but I had an urgency window to get the home accomplished. Summertime for the Momo book. I wanted to get it launched from winter into spring, so it's timely. The Plow Plow Kid book, I wrote in the fall, and I wanted to drop it by December in Thanksgiving to be a stocking stuffer, hopefully for folks on Amazon. Just a little like $10 buy for your kids for Christmas. And we did that, the 0 to 100k book. I wanted to launch it at LAL and we got it done. I remember talking to my friend Jeff Joyner. I've known Jeff for 20 years. Jeff Joyner wrote the book say like it matters, when it matters. Fantastic read. And I knew Jeff wanted to write a book for 20 years. He's like, I want to write a book. I don't know what the title was, what the topic was, obviously. Right. But I was a groupie. I'm a fanboy. I love Jeff. And I know Jeff's conversation, his jokes and his speeches and his points and his messaging. Like, it's not the first time I've heard Jeff when it comes to lal. I've been to a lot of his events. He's just like one of my guys when I was at together in the trades, I think it was Nashville in 2020. What two. Whatever it was. We're at the pre con dinner the night before with speakers and sponsors and we're just hanging out. And Jeff sat down and said, hey, Jeff, I got a challenge for you. And Jeff will accredit me to the catalyst or the urgency creation. For him to write his book now, Jeff had to do it. And if you want to talk about somebody who is sanguine, is fun, is just super organized, but his dominant personality type, his default personality type, right, is sanguine. Like those people don't like details, timelines, dates count. Like, that's not them. Okay, so a someday is what their default is. But a melancholy or a detailed person is. Yeah, who, what, when, where, why and how and what's the process to do it? What do you want? When do you want it? What are you willing to give up to get it right? Like, I need timelines. And so one day I was there and I was like, hey, Jeff, you came to LAL last year and I know you've been hinting about writing a book. Jeff, I have looked through the whole land of books and I don't know, a modern day example of public speaking leading from the middle sales process, public speaking, team building. You know, last, like great books were like bringing out the best in people and friendship factor and think and grow rich and how to win friends and influence people. Like, these books are literally 30 to 100 years old. And that's fine, that's fine. They're still classics, you know. You know, it's always fun, like hearing somebody like, you know, find how to win friends and influence people. And they're like, you know, hi, John, nice to meet you. John. John, it's great to meet you, John. I'm like, oh, man, you're. You're reading how to Win Friends and influence People, aren't you? Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. I love it. And John, what's the most thing that you like about yourself? I'm like, Jesus. Like, they're literally applying chapter one and then they smile like psychopaths because the first chapter's about smiling. And I'm like, well, at least you're applying the book. And we've all done that. It's like, you're like, friend who just like found, you know, Christ. And they're like, get the Jesus necklace or get the Jesus tattoo and they like change all their clothes. I'm like, awesome. I'm like, at least I Knew who just got saved three weeks ago. And that's awesome. You know, it's like. It's awesome. It's a public display. Like, I'm with you. But when my friend Jeff is, like, going back full circle, I said, I say, jeff, like, I want you to write a book. I know. I know you know this topic better than anyone. I want to give you a challenge. And Jeff perked up. He's like, a challenge. I like a good challenge. And I said, I'm going to give you a timeline. You got 15 months, but I want you to come keynote LAL next year, and I want to buy as many books as we have attendees, and I'll support you that way. And we bought 350 books. That was expensive. And not only pay for the books, pay for a speaking fee. Ouch. That was expensive. But I made that investment into the conference, and I wanted to. And it was like a 6 to 7, $8,000 investment plus his travel, plus his hotel. So it's probably 10 GS, honestly, when you're all in. And he wrote a book, but I gave him a timeline. I said, you got 15 months. Can you get it done? He's like, I'm actually going to take you up on that challenge. And he did. And, dude, like, one of my most exciting. This is, like, so stupid. And this, like, gets me nothing, hopefully, or not hopefully, but this probably earns me nothing anywhere other than, like, a cool story to tell you guys right now. But I'm like, dude, I'm the guy that, like, challenged the Jeff Joyner to, like, write a book. And he did it because I was like, dude, I know Jeff. Like, I know how to work with that personality type, and I'm really proud of that. Not from any other reason other than I'm like, dude, he wrote a book that now is like, he's probably sold, dude, literally tens of thousands of copies. I know. Fact, he's made extra six figures in his life because of that book. Because not only the book sales, right? But the bookings he's gotten from speaking engagements for that book. And trust me, it's not cheap to book Jeff if you know, you know. And I'm like, dude, wildly awesome story. That's like, you guys are me going up to, like, Dan Martell and saying, hey, dude, you should write a good book. And then, like, two years later it comes out. It's like, I had this, like, pipsqueak challenge me to write this book and actually did it. And you're like, dude, I was that pipsqueak you know what I mean? But it was the urgency, it was the timeline to get somebody who had said for, I know, 10 to 20 years, I want to write a book, to have something communicated to them differently in an urgent fashion. That was something that just struck a chord. Right time, right place, that obviously allowed them to go, bet I'm going to do that. It wasn't the idea, it wasn't the starting, it's not the finishing, but it was the urgency. It was the challenge of the urgency. I'll give you a 15 month challenge, a plenty of Runway to do that linked him up with the right people. And lo and behold, 15 months later, he wrote a great book. A perfect book. No, an excellent book. I believe so. But he got it done. And so, as many people have said, like a man within an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an opinion. Like, I'm not here to convince anybody else or you guys that you need to have urgency or more urgency on your life. That's not my point. My point is letting you guys know. Everything that I've accomplished, my wife has accomplished, my kids are accomplishing, the people around me that I've been able to work with and see and challenge and just be observant of and be a part of their thing. The urgency of getting leanscaper off the ground and the urgency of Mark Bradley selling LMN to get into leanscaper. The urgency of some of the great folks at LMN working with some great speakers and trainers to backfill some content that's out there and some webinars like I've had the privilege and opportunity to do lately. Like the urgency to get things done well in an artificial timeline, right or wrong, I feel has made all the difference. Like if we are an interplanetary species an extra decade or two decades out, is it that big of a deal? One would argue no big deal. We've been doing this for a couple thousand years or a couple of million years, depending on whatever you think and believe with how long we've all been here. Don't know, don't care. But what if there's a comet? What if there's an asteroid? It'd be nice to know that we have, you know, 1.2 million people on Mars and we don't have to really worry about building a rocket. When we find a comet that seven months out, you know it's going to smack into the Earth like Deep Impact or Armageddon. Two classic, great movies by the way. Do you know what I'M saying, like, it's nice to have it done and enjoy the fruits than to get caught with your pants down. Whether it's having a great book when you're in some revenue split from that, or to have an extra planet with some extra civilization spread out across the cosmos, Pick your thing. Elon Musk would say, you never know what's going to happen tomorrow. Let's get it done today. And I subscribe to that.
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Let's just wrap it up with all this guys. The conversation about, you know, can we accomplish this in 10 years? What if it only took two or three? You know, we just came out of leanscaper and everybody's all excited and I'm thinking to myself like, dude, all the stuff we learned about working better with people and metrics and roadmaps and dude, all this stuff I took all my notes, every photo from every screenshot that I could get dumped it in the chat, chat. Give me a 90 day game plan for all this. It wasn't give me, you know, 12 months, it wasn't like five years. Let's get our greeniest done, let's get our job descriptions done, let's get our job ads done, let's get our crew pathway roadmap completed, which we have a lot of this done. A lot of this is part of the SOP bundle. Like let's get, you know, all these things done and accomplished. And because we go 90 days to 90 days, sprint to sprint, summit to summit with the leanscaper folks, if you're, you know, part of that ship and drinking that Kool Aid, I'm thinking like, hey, I want this all done before the finance or whatever intensive that is going to be next in September I think in Nashville if I'm not mistaken, right? The 90 day window is enough time to get this all done. Like that's a lot to do in 90 days. It sure is. But by the day 90, when we go into the finance intensive now you got another 90 days worth of something stacked on top of you. You're like, I gotta Fix everything about my finances, or after a year or two of going through the mill, obviously you're like, okay, let's just continue to get to 80 and then refine the last 1 to 2% every year for the rest of her life. That's typically how it works. But I have a lot to accomplish. You guys have a lot to accomplish. I've got a lot to fix. I don't know if you have a lot to fix, but I have a lot to fix in every area of my life because I'm trying to get better. So I'm trying to create this urgency to get it done right. And again, I don't think the difference on any of this is talent, right? It's literally urgency. It compresses time. And a lot of folks are. Also. One last thing I'll say is people are like, well, I need to see the thing and then go do. I need to see it and then go do it. I'm with you. But I think if you do it, you'll start seeing it come together better. I didn't have my entire book mapped out when I first started writing the first, second, third chapter, but the book evolved as I continued to do it. Another joking one for this is probably TMI with, you know, significant other. You know, then the intimacy category. You know, there's a lot of people that are like, I'm gonna get in the mood and then go do it. I'm like, hey, that, like, I'll take that when it works. But that's like 1 in 10. Especially when you got kids, you got life and you got stress and you're busy, you got no time. It's not always going to be. And I've learned this and my wife will learn this and this is stuff that we're learning as we go through different seasons of our life. It's not always, hey, like this perfect one hour session, brother. It doesn't work like that. It's not like, hey, I'm finally in the mood. Because all the stars aligned. If you wait for her stars to align and your stars to align and then all the stars to align, you're talking about once a year, bro. And people are like, well, we're stuck in the roommate phase. I wonder why. I've got some suggestions, I've got some theories. I know what's working for us and what's not working for us. And I'll tell you what, the whole, like, get in the mood and do the thing versus doing the thing and then get in the mood. And that's just not a ploy or apply, you know, for, for, for guys to say to wives because they're emotions first, thinking second type of kind of folks. When it comes to that category and that topic, guys are just, you know, they can get turned down by, you know, pretty much anything these days. You know what I mean? It's like you're just like, whatever. It's not like a, a tactic to get the, the spouse engaged. But I'll just tell you, like it's a do the thing and get in the mood versus, you know, being in the mood and do the thing. Okay? Like clarity comes after action, not before. It's the whole ready, fire, aim analogy from, you know, the military, right? Like that kind of a joke. People like, I've been thinking about getting into commercial work. I think about starting YouTube. I thinking about whatever. Like you're thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking about, thinking about working out, thinking about getting healthy, thinking about kicking pop, thinking about drinking, you know, 120 ounces of water a day. Why don't you just start? Why don't you just start today? In fact, two days ago I started working out again and I kicked pop. And I'm on a 100 day kick to kick pop. I haven't had pop for three days. I'm a crackhead with it. I'm a fiend for sure. Addicted. No doubt about it. Like many of us, I grew up drinking soda and pop. But I've also decided that I'm going to master my emotions, master my will. I'm a creature of habit just like anybody else. And if I do certain things to keep it out of my sight, out of my area, out of my purview, don't go to fast food, don't get the drink, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, outside of the practical and the personal commitment and decision that I'm not that person anymore that drinks that stuff, then it's no big deal. And people are like, well, how do you get to quit smoking? And people like, I just decided one day that wasn't me anymore. They just decided, they created some urgency. And then, you know, maybe they had some strategy behind it on how it worked best for them to stay away from those substances. I'm not gonna drink alcohol anymore. Like when, you know, when, like when's the urgency to be sober and to not, you know, drink your pain away, you know, And I'm being super candid with you guys. People are like struggling in their life, their business, and like, I just can't wait to get home and drink beer and, you know, dull the pain, brother. Like, that's not the solution. The solution is to fix the problem. You're working too many hours or you have bad people or you need to make some new hires or fix some processes or get rid of some pain in the butt customers. That's. That's what we need to work on, like yesterday. Well, we can't work on it yesterday because we're today. So let's work on it today. Not in days and weeks and months and years. People like, I need to get credit cards on file next year. Sounds great. Next year, Spring. I'm like, you know, you've been saying that for three years. How about this? Your next rain day, text and call 50 customers and tell them we're now moving to card on file. Well, what's the exact script? Look, it, it's not the script that's going to make you successful. It's the fact that you picked up the phone and called the 50 people. And I don't care if you butchered it and said, we just want our money faster. And you said the most wrong thing ever. But you did it 50 times and you still got 47 customers that stuck with you after that. And you got, you know, again, now 100% of your cash and cash flow, these from residential, because you got cards on file. You just solved so many problems from payroll to profit by just picking up the phone for two hours on a rain day. And you've been dragging your feet for two years. What? What are we waiting for? All the green lights are not going to be ready to look green and go on the street. All the people, I'm getting my ducks in a row. There's an old joke I heard once, like, ducks don't get in a row. If you see five ducks in a row, there's a, there's a, there's an issue. You'll see mama duck to the left, four ducks in a row, and two ducks that are probably Liz and I all abstract and, you know, walking around like dumb ducks. You know what I mean? Ducks don't get in a row, bro, when they cross the street. I've never seen ducks perfectly get in a row. It's like a flying V. Okay, think about this. For some of you guys that might think things a little bit differently. The cost of delay. Building that thing, building that business, building that route, getting in the snow, getting out of this, getting into that. Or what's the cost of delay if that actually worked and you built a System and a process and sustained it and it worked. How much money are you leaving on the table for whatever that thing is? How much intimacy are you leaving on the table with those deposits and whatnot with your spouse or your kids? I'll just play with my kids once I get, you know, an ops manager in place at the business and then I'll have some more time back. It's not going to work that way. Go play with your kids and hire the ops manager. You can do both. It's not an if and right and if or it's an if and I don't do an if or around me. I'll, I'll slap you. Well, I can spend time with my wife and grow the business or grow the business. No, you can grow the business with your wife. Right, and the business will grow you and your wife. It's not an if and an or kind of conversation. It's an and. I'm telling you this stuff like set me free a long time ago, dude. I'm just trying to help you guys out. Well, what if we prune that route? What if you got rid of those customers? What if we got rid of that client that we don't like? They're slow paid, they don't pay anyway. They're slow paid, they're no pay, they're non payers. Right? Let's be honest, like what if we got rid of them, Replace them with somebody who actually appreciates us. Like, what is that in terms of savings and revenue and profit? One more thing I'll just say, and I'll wrap up with this, and this is a huge one and hear me when I say this. How about what's the cost of you respecting you because you actually did the thing that you said you're going to do. Pause for dramatic effect, right? Like Mark Bradley, when he does his speeches, like he is the master of like pausing for dramatic effect. I'm just like, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. You know, I'm a yapologist over here. Yapanese, as the kids say. I will just tell you, like, what is the, the balance, the, the respect, the price, the cost, whatever you look at it however you want to say it, like, what do you earn by actually having your own self respect? You know, like the Bible's like, you know, forgive me, you know, I, I know what I'm supposed to do and my, you know, my sin nature still does it. Anyway, I get it. We're all gonna sin, fail and miss the, Miss the glory. I get that. Oh my gosh. Like, you set a goal for 100 days out to be 100 days more better in shape and you do it. Some of you guys started 75 hard. I think everybody started 75 hard at least one point in their last 10 years career with listening to Frisella. And that's awesome. And I know like of a short stack of people have actually did it and done it, and the people that do it, I will applaud you. I will high five you, bro. I will send you a Brian's Law Maintenance T shirt if you finish 75 hard. Whatever it takes, like whatever your, you know, gets you the, you know, your cookie to get you to accomplish it. But like, what is the. Imagine the upside feeling of and respect that you have for yourself because you actually did the thing that you said that you were going to do. Like, think about that for a minute and maybe you've never accomplished that much. I know I hadn't. Sincerely, like, I was a fricking loser at 30. I had accomplished literally nothing. Miraculously, I got married to somebody way out of my league for real. But other than that, in terms like sheer accomplishment, other than staying alive, not much, dude. Now when my wife sees me focus and fixate on something, she goes, oh, man. And I go, what? She goes, I just know you. And I go, what? And she goes, I just know that when you set your mind on something, give it 12 months, 24 months, 36 months, maybe 60 months max, and you're gonna get it. I go, yeah. She goes, oh, yeah. She goes, there's just something about you. And I'm like, what do you mean? She goes, you just scheme, you fixate, you strategize. You're like, if I do do this and I do that, but I do this 21 more times and that times two, and that's, you know, PI squared, cosine, tangent, this, this, this, you know. She goes, I just know. I just know you're going to get it. And you know, dude, I'm super candid with you guys. Like, I'd love to get a Lamborghini tomorrow. I love to get a Beneteau and Terry's 12, you know, yacht boat, you know, both are five year out window. I'd love to put a million in the bank, you know, and foreign investing. I'd love to pay off my mortgage early. These are like the next five year. Big goals. Big goals. Like why you want to go to 5 million? Because I need a ton of money. You know what I mean? Why do you need a shit ton of money? Because these dreams cost a lot of money. How are you gonna do it? I gotta grow a big business. How are you gonna grow a big business? I don't know. I gotta learn how to grow a big business. It starts with some foundational things. Great software, great payroll, great estimating and sales process, great icp, great branding, great customers, great, great team making the investment in my team training, training, training. I'm not like so bullish on LMN and so bullish on Gusto and so bullish on coast pay and so bullish on Greenness and so bullish on Leadscaper and so bullish on all this stuff. Hear me the reason I'm so excited about all, all those things because if I get eight out of eight of the ingredients in place to bake the cake, then I'm going to bake the cake. And if I'm at four and then one more month, or one more six month or one more year period, I get the extra ingredient in place. Now I got five, like I'm collecting the infinity stones here, bro. And then one more year I get one more in place and then another year I get another thing in place and all of a sudden we're doing 2.7 million at 20%. We make 550,000. I give, you know, 20 people on my team one to five grand bonuses and I split 200, you know, 250 grand with them. I take 250 off the table and then I can go put a down payment on a nice fat, you know, $800,000 boat. And I got the cash flow from the businesses and my incomes and my businesses, excuse me, to be able to afford the monthly payment on a 3, 500amonth boat. And I've got a great team in place that's going to be able to allow me to go take week long vacations and trips, you know, five to ten times per year over the Great Lakes and take my, you know, family that's all young between the ages of 3 and 10 over some, you know, Michigan Great Lake Loops. And then in another decade or so when our kids are, you know, youngest is 8 or 9 and my oldest is 12 or 13 and my wife and I sell that boat off to go buy a 200 year old trawler to go do the great loop and take a year off, it's going to cost me 100 grand because we have a great leadership team in place and a management team in place for brands. Lot Maintenance says it's doing 4.3 million and I'm an absentee owner for a year as I'm taking a year off and pausing life because you don't get life back. And I want to, you know, still put all the best values and spend as much time as I can soaking it all up with my wife and I at our prime, while we also have our kids at the perfect age between 8 and 12, before the culture in the world gets them at, you know, 13 to 18 years old, and then the world really gets them between 18 and older. And you're like, you can't do it. Watch. You won't be able to do that. Watch. People can't do that. I will. I'm learning from people have done it and I absolutely will. The urgency, though, to get it done is what drives me. It's what motivates me. It's what keeps me moving and going. I'm not the smartest, I'm not the sharpest, I'm not the best. I'm trying to learn from all those folks that are. But I'll tell you what, your boy's a doer. Your boy is a doer. I will get it done. I've told Pat, with coaching, I will be your most coachable client and I will do everything you tell me to do. You tell me what, you tell me when, and I will do a lot of thinking to add and bring to the table what I think needs to be done. But you tell me, you call, I
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haul,
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and I feel like I'm doing that right now. The respect of getting it done, the respective accomplishment and the momentum it builds to then give you the confidence to attack the next thing. That's what I want everybody here to feel. That's what I want all of you guys to think about. Why do I think I'm so, like, have the ability to do everything I just proposed to you? Well, I started a YouTube channel. Did it. Built a house. Did it. Wrote a book. Everybody wants to write a book. Nobody does it. Did it. Wrote another book. Done it, did it. Wrote another book. Done it, did it. Started a podcast. Done it, did it. Married for more than a decade. Done it, did it. Had kids. Done it, did it. Built a barn. Done it, did it. Hired some great guys. Done it, did it. Hired some great guys who then are able to start to train the replacement. We got duplication. Done it, did it. We got greenist going. Done it, did it. Nobody's got green yet set up in their account. Nobody literally like maybe five videos and they like made a little road map, career pathway of some of the default videos. That are part of Greenus, which are terrible. So you know what I did? I said, I'm going to create 50 to 75 SOPs and 50 to 75 SOP training videos to. To supplement and accomplish that and take care of that. And we're working with, Right. Right now, literally, with Greenus, to make that library available to all of you guys. Because I'm just realizing, like, not that people can't, it's just that people won't. And that's fine. That's okay. They can pay me a gob to go give them my library. And I'll do that. Because I didn't just make them for me, I made them for everyone. Because I. I don't want the. The press, I don't want the glory. I want whatever it takes for you guys to steal, borrow, and use anything else that anybody else has built to make you the most amount of money for you to have the most amount of time to go spend with your wife and kids. That's literally the goal here. And when Bradley said that three years ago at an Element Mastermind, I said, I think that guy's doing what I'm doing. I think I'm doing what that guy's doing. And I'm still trying to catch up to him, if you know what I'm saying. As Mark said, and I love it every time. And he cries on stage and I cry every time. We are not here for you. We are here for your kids. I'm here to make sure that your guys kids get to Disney. I'm here to make sure that your guys kids can go do a dance at the Stein Ericson in Park City, Utah, if you so choose. And you guys can have a beautiful, intimate dinner. I'm here to make sure that your guys kids can travel. I'm here to make sure that all the things that you guys never got. Sorry, that ship has sailed, bro. But you and I together can help make sure that all of your kids get the things and have the experiences and have the thought process that nobody gave us. That is why we have a thousand consistent podcast episodes in 13 or 1400 consistent YouTube videos. People like, how do you not get burned out? How do you not get tired? Oh, no, no, I get tired. I get burned out. I just wake up the next day and go, what's the goal here? What are we trying to accomplish and when? And I'm charged with helping you guys. And until every one of you guys esoterically accomplish everything that we're setting out and proposing right now, then the job's not done. It's like my favorite line from Blackhawk. Now, Josh Eckhart, right? I think it is. He's like, what are you, where are you going? He's like reloading bullets with his partner, you know, at the end. And he's like, we're not done. Job's not done. And oh, it's just such a beautiful scene. If you guys know Blackhawk down, that last scene, he's like freaking a. He goes, the job's not done. You got, we got more guys out there, we gotta go get them. It's just such a beautiful thing. All right, a lot of words said on this one. You might want to listen to this one a couple more times. I'll just tell you, like, folks, earn your own self respect. I, I've earned my own self respect. And because I've earned mine, I feel like my wife has been able to respect me. Right. Because how can she respect you if you don't even respect yourself? A lot of people can get married. A lot of people can be a father. It's, it's hard to be a dad. A lot of people get married. It's, it's hard to be a, a fulfilled husband and wife with, with a deep, real connected relationship. Right. Like, these are the, these are the things that I, I have wanted to feel over the last decade more than any stupid material accomplishment, I'll tell you that. And I want you guys to feel the same way. And yes, we'll get you the cars, the money, the house, the clothes, whatever, the watches, whatever stupid things you want along the way. Let's be real, there are, there is money to be made in this industry and you guys can make good money. You can pull chips off the table and you can build a great big business that allows you to have some time, freedom back. Absolutely. And if you want to go to the highest levels, big money, big time freedom that can come down the road, that's what I got for you guys today, man. I love you. I appreciate you. How about that for a light Friday, light hearted episode on Friday. I will tell you other, mean, consistent, nothing has made more of a difference in my life, quote unquote, right in this kind of conversation than the conversation of urgency. And I still got a lot more to accomplish. In fact, my problem is always bandwidth. I'm like, I have so much I want to do and the Lord is only giving me 8, 10, 12, 24 hours in a day. How many days can I not sleep to get this done? Be like, oh, you look tired. I'm like, no, I'm tired. I've got a lot to do. I got a lot to do. Is the priority sleep. It's a priority to get the word out and get the message out and to get the things that I was charged with to get done. They're on my heart for a reason. And you guys got things on your heart for a reason that you're supposed to do. Just start doing it. All right, that's where I'm gonna leave you guys today. I love you, man. Have a great, beautiful day. If I can do anything for you guys, I'm always here for you. Shoot me a dm, shoot me an email. If you guys got something out of this one, do me a solid repost on Instagram. Share this with a lawn bro. This is a good show. And let's set some other people free. Amen. All right, over now, guys. I love you. Appreciate you. Have a good day. We'll catch up with you here on the next one.
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Thanks for taking the time to listen to the Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast with Brian Fullerton. We hope you enjoyed this production. If so, please consider leaving us a five star review for the show. While the techniques and ideas presented here are designed to help you grow a more successful and profitable business, no one can guarantee these results for you. We want to emphasize that entrepreneurship is not easy and the ideas presented here are just the opinions of Brian Fullerton and his respective guests. No one can guarantee success for you. That being said, we hope the ideas presented here help you and motivate you to go on out there and crush it with your own business.
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Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast.
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Thanks for listening and we hope to see you on the next episode.
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This has been a Brian Fullerton and Mr. Producer Production.