Faith, Fear, and the Power of Principle: Dustin Hillis with Preston Brown

Summary

Problems to Profit

Episode: Faith, Fear, and the Power of Principle

Host: Preston Brown

Guest: Dustin Hillis

Date: October 27, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Preston Brown welcomes serial entrepreneur, business strategist, and AI company president Dustin Hillis. Their conversation dives deep into growth, overcoming adversity, faith’s impact on business, and strategies for sustainable profitability and scale. They discuss the champion mindset, the pitfalls of ego, faith-based leadership, global business development, and highlight actionable principles from Hillis’s upcoming book, "Capacity: Building a Business Bigger Than You".

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Foundation of Success: Faith, Values, and Overcoming Adversity

• Success vs. Failure: Success needs managing just like failure. Fear of success can hold people back just as much as fear of failure (00:00–01:00).
• Early Adversity: Dustin describes formative experiences—his dad’s shift from entrepreneur to corporate VP for family sake, learning to stand up to childhood bullies, sports injuries, and pivotal moments of faith.

  "Life was a series of confidence anchors from becoming, like getting picked on as a kid, becoming a Christian, playing sports." — Dustin Hillis (07:00)

• First Major Setback: A single day marked by being named starter as a college athlete, then suffering a career-ending concussion (07:30–08:30).
• Initial Success: Selling educational books door-to-door led not only to big earnings ($26k first summer, $100k third summer), but early real estate investing—by graduation, Dustin owned four rental properties (09:00–10:00).

2. Professional Trajectory: Scaling, Sabbatical, and Current Ventures

• Career Path: From door-to-door sales, to building and leading a coaching conglomerate at Southwestern Family of Companies (responsible for 2,000+ people), to taking a sabbatical and returning to preside over Safe Space Global AI (10:30–13:00).
• Family & Perspective: Sabbatical involved "road-schooling" his daughter across North America, fostering global perspective and human connection.

  "She’s gonna grow up thinking Russian kids are normal just like her... It’s not the people that are the problem; it’s our governments." — Dustin Hillis (14:00)

• Global Entrepreneurship: Emphasizes the values of cross-cultural understanding, family-first travel, and life-long learning.

3. Identity, Ego, and Principle-Based Leadership

• Identity Beyond Work: The dangers of tying one's identity solely to career (19:54–23:00).

  "If your whole life revolves around your work, there’s so much more to life than just your work... My identity is in Christ." — Dustin Hillis (19:54)

• Faith and Business: Deep dive into Christianity, the example of Christ, and the importance of modeling principles rather than rules-based religion (23:03–32:00).

  "Jesus is the map. God is the destination... the Holy Spirit is the GPS." — Dustin Hillis (27:07)

• Judgment and Grace: Reflections on the parable of the prodigal son, using Tim Keller’s "Prodigal God" and C.S. Lewis’s writing as reference points to explore self-righteousness, grace, and the value of suffering as love (31:08–36:00).

  "The only person that’s going to be left out of the party, which, aka is heaven, is the self-righteous, the judging." — Dustin Hillis (33:02)

4. Entrepreneurial Mindset: Faith, Global Exposure, and Dying to Self

• Diversity of Faiths: Recognizes successful people can have various faiths, but all exhibit faith in something (36:02–37:16).
• Cross-Cultural Spirituality: Both Dustin and Preston share experiences with Indian yogis, Hindu rituals, and the lifestyle/spiritual lessons of yoga (37:31–40:00).
• Facing Death, Ego, and Spiritual Growth:

  "Jesus called it dying to yourself... When you realize you’re just a meat suit with a soul... Death is just an entrance into a higher level." — Dustin Hillis (41:13)

5. The Role and Management of Ego

• The Evolution of Ego: Success demands both construction and the conscious management of ego—pivoting from fear or self-sabotage into using ego for service and impact.

  "There’s an evolution to the ego where it’s a healthy thing and the ego actually drives you... But once you experience [success], you then learn how to not have the ego be what it’s all about." — Dustin Hillis (42:41–45:12)

• Memorable Quote:
  "Never let your ego be bigger than your dick... In business, there will be a moment of truth." — Preston Brown (45:12)

6. Building a Principle-Based Organization

• Principles Over Trends: The downfall of chasing trends vs. building on timeless principles and proven values (47:53–48:35).
• Six Pillars of Capacity: Dustin introduces three foundational pillars of his business-building method.

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Breakout Segment: Three of the Six Pillars of Capacity (Book Preview)

1. Executive Strategy (52:00–54:22)

• Key Point: Start by crafting your own CEO and CFO job descriptions and pay plans—even if you are the only executive. Build the systems and roles for the company you want to be, not just the one you are now.

  "If you want to evolve into a CEO, create a job description for yourself and a pay plan for yourself that reflects being a CEO." — Dustin Hillis (53:00)

• Tip: Don’t hire a CEO too soon; act as one first.

2. Marketing Strategy (58:20–62:32)

• Clarity in Branding: Leaders must embody brand identity; vision, mission, and core values must permeate all messaging.

  "The leader of the business personifies the brand... Your company's identity is driven off the leader." — Dustin Hillis (59:00)

• Operationalizing Values: Dustin requires all execs to read core values aloud weekly, cementing cultural alignment.
• Tactical Methods: Move from core values to copy, to data-driven decision-making in all marketing investments.

3. Business Development Strategy (68:11–74:30)

• Go Beyond the Rainmaker Model: Entrepreneurs must transition from being sole rainmakers to building scalable sales and recruiting systems.

  "You have to recruit A+ talent, train A+ talent, and manage A+ talent. Those are three different things." — Dustin Hillis (68:30)

• Global Sales Methodology: Customization is needed by market—what works in Singapore differs from London or the US.
• Complete Selling Cycle: Focuses on consistent lead generation, pre-qualification, presentation, closing, and referrals.

Preston: "If I lived in Tennessee, dude, we'd hang out. You just described in a minute probably the most impactful business framework I've ever seen." (74:30)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Faith and Leadership: "Jesus is the map, God is the destination, and the Holy Spirit is the GPS." — Dustin Hillis (27:07)
• On Ego: "Success and managing success is just as important, if not more important, than learning how to manage failure." — Dustin Hillis (00:00, 42:41)
• On Building a Scaling Culture: "Having a foundation of principles that you live your life on, you’re going to be more successful than if you’re winging it." — Dustin Hillis (47:53)
• On Business Development: "Until somebody sells something nothing happens." — Dustin Hillis (68:13)
• On Kindness as a Value: "We reserve the right to refuse service to assholes." — Preston Brown (63:51)
• On Book Preorders: "If you buy 100 or more books, that's a day with me in Nashville... 1,000 books is a couple of days with me in Cabo, Mexico." — Dustin Hillis (79:00–80:00)
• Humorous Wisdom: "Never let your ego be bigger than your dick." — Preston Brown (45:12)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Dustin’s Early Story & Bullying Lesson: 03:37–07:00
• Faith Experience & Confidence Anchors: 07:00–09:00
• Door-to-Door Sales & First Investments: 09:00–10:20
• Career Overview & Sabbatical: 10:30–13:00
• Global Perspective & Kids: 13:31–14:26
• Identity Beyond Career & Faith: 19:54–23:00
• Trinity and Parable of the Prodigal Son: 27:06–33:02
• Managing Ego, Success, and Failure: 42:41–45:12
• Six Pillars Introduction: 49:22–62:32 (Highlights: Executive Strategy 51:57, Marketing Strategy 58:20)
• Business Development Strategy: 68:11–74:30
• Book Offer and Connect with Dustin: 78:50–81:51

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Where to Learn More & Connect

• Book: Capacity: Building a Business Bigger Than You (pre-orders/dustinhillis.com, Amazon)
• Website: dustinhillis.com
• Instagram & LinkedIn: @dustinhillus (blue check for authenticity)
• Company: Safe Space Global AI, Stock ticker: SSGC

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Episode Takeaways

• True growth requires overcoming adversity, with values and faith as anchors.
• Ego is a tool, not an identity—manage it with humility and purpose.
• Principles and values, not trends, build durable business cultures.
• Systematic strategies—not just passion—allow businesses to scale beyond their founders.
• Business frameworks for scaling begin with executive/marketing/business development strategies.
• Memorably, embrace kindness, laugh at your own ego, and root both life and business in service and principle.

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For more on Dustin’s frameworks and the remaining pillars of capacity, stay tuned for part two!

Transcript

[A]

There's a point where you start becoming so successful success and managing success is just as important, if not more important than learning how to manage failure. I think it's all tied to this idea where the fear of success is because people don't want their ego to be so big. So they diminish themselves, they hold themselves back, they're scared of what they're capable of doing versus leaning into that and learning how to step into your gifting, step into your calling, step into doing the things that you're the best at. It makes a huge impact in the world.

[B]

You know, if you act like you're, you know, bigger than you are, there's going to be some disappointment later on in that relationship.

[A]

Well, in business there will be a moment of truth that's going to be a reckoning, right?

[B]

So like in business, you should never let your ego be bigger than your ability to be productive.

[A]

The foundation of your life should be principle based. Like if you have principles that you live your life on, you're going to land in a better place than trying to just go with the flow or do what you think people want. That always ends in calamity eventually.

[B]

Welcome back to Problems to Profit everyone. I have an exciting guest today. Honestly, I read this Guy's bio on LinkedIn and and my first thought was like, is he married? Like I could introduce him to a family member. Like, holy smokes, this guy's amazing guy. This guy is like fantastic guys. Today's guest is Dustin Hillis. He's a proven leader, serial entrepreneur and a business strategist who's helped build and scale companies across AI, health care, defense coaching and more. Currently he's the president of Safe Space Global where he's raised millions of dollars and built a global team and he's also helped 10x the value of the defense tech company Dustin used to lead a $100 million company with over 2,000 employees and he co founded a coaching business that aligns that hit over $100 million in its first decade. If you want to learn how to lead, scale and win, Dustin's your guy. Dustin, welcome to Problems to profit brother.

[A]

Thanks Preston. Thanks for having me on and appreciate being able to do this virtual. I'm here in Nashville, Tennessee. So excited to be able to do it in this format.

[B]

We were just talking right before the show. I was like, nashville, Tennessee, Shit, I should have come to you. I've got a syndicator that I invested some money in with some apartments in Nashville. I don't think I've been To Nashville, Tennessee, for any of the good reasons, like country music or anything like that. I can go up there for that and go see why these apartments I invested in aren't doing so well.

[A]

I'll tell you what, the Ryman, actually, I'm looking out the window. Right here is the Ryman auditorium. I'm looking at it. It's the best music venue in the world. I've been to multiple concerts. I've seen Jack white play there, and it is insane. So if you ever get a chance, come to the Ryman. Come to our office is where I'm sitting, and right across the street is the Ryman. And you'd love it, man.

[B]

That sounds awesome. I look forward to that. If I come down to Nashville, I'm definitely going to hit you up. All right. So, Dustin, talk to me, brother. How did you get your start in problems? To profit, we kind of like to see kind of the beginning that made the man. Everybody will judge a story by the ending. It's easy. It's like, oh, look at that rich asshole. Just another rich asshole. Look at him. So successful. What a jerk, right? But when they hear kind of the beginning and what made you the man you are today, then all of a sudden the story becomes powerful and they might listen and learn.

[A]

Oh, sure. Well, yeah. I was born in Texas and grew up just middle America type of childhood. My dad was an entrepreneur and was traveling a lot building a business. Moved us to Tennessee actually for elementary school with his business. And around the age of 13, he had a come to Jesus moment in his life. It was at a meeting called promise keepers. And he came home and told my mom, hey, I need to get to know my kids. And. And I'm selling the business. And he moved us to Dalton, Georgia, where he was recruited by Mohawk Carpet. And he was the vice president of Mohawk, and at the time, that was the largest carpet manufacturer in the country. So we lived in, you know, a regular, I guess, middle of America neighborhood in a cul de sac type of thing. And I went to public school and junior high and high school, and I think that was formative years for me and learning in a county school, the kind of school of hard knocks and. And, you know, as a kid, I actually got bullied a little bit and had to learn how to deal with that and stand up for myself. So that was a learning lesson. I remember my grandfather hearing that this kid knocked me down on the playground. And he said, are you bigger than this kid? And I said, yes. And he said, well, do you know how to punch. And I said, no. And he goes, you know, let me show you how to punch, son. And so he taught me and he said, next time that kid goes and tries to knock you down on the playground, you turn around and you punch him right in the face. And I was like, okay. And, you know, I'm a little fifth grade kid. And sure enough, the next day, that bully was coming after me and going to knock me down in front of all the kids. And I turned around and punched him right in the nose. And that was the last time I ever got picked on. So I think that, you know, growing up as, as just having those experiences forms you and I have a disdain for bullies, even to today. And. And then in Dalton is when I started playing sports and, and I got into wrestling and football, and that was really the first time I remember experiencing success and winning and also became a Christian. So I think that was a pivot point in my life. When I was 13, that's the first time I experienced joy and enthusiasm in my life. So I would have to go all the way back to that moment to say what was the first problem I overcame that created upward momentum. What I call in my second book confidence anchors, which is the thing that you did that you didn't think you could do. And when you did it, it gave you the confidence to do the next thing. And so life was a series of confidence anchors from becoming, like getting picked on as a kid, becoming a Christian playing sports. I ended up playing college football, a small Division 2 school. And then, interesting enough, talk about a problem that happened. Then is the day that my coach pulled me into his office and said, hey, Dustin, you're starting as the middle linebacker. As a freshman, going into my sophomore year for the spring game, that was like a high high. I thought, wow, I'm starting. This is cool. And on that same day in the spring game, I received my fifth concussion. And so it was the lowest low in the same day. So I remember crying in the locker room and thinking it was the end of my life. And up to that point in my life, sports was all that I knew. And my dad set me down after coming home and transferring schools. And it was after my freshman year of college. And he said, what are you going to do with the rest of your life? And I said, dad, I have no idea. Probably something in sports. And he goes, well, son, I think you ought to check out this company that sells books door to door and get into trying to learn how to be a professional salesperson. I said, dad, that's your world. Sports is what I want to do. And he said, well, I know you've been asking me about that car that you want. I said, yeah, how are you going to pay for that car? And I said, I thought you were going to pay for it. And he said, no, no, no. He goes, I'll tell you what though, if you go sell books door to door, which is working 80 hours a week straight commission for 12 weeks during the summer, if you make enough money to pay for half the car, I'll pay for the other half of the car. And so I said, I don't know. And he said, well, I've seen kids in their first year make over $20,000. I was like, $20,000 in a summer. And he said, yeah. I said, okay, sign me up. So, and this is back.

[B]

It sounds like your dad knew how.

[A]

To sell the world. Yeah. So my first summer I made $26,000, I bought a car and then my third summer. So I did that job for four years in a row. My third summer I made $100,000 selling books door to door in a. In a 14 week summer. And that's when $100,000 was a lot of money. So needless to say, going back to University of Tennessee, with that much money, it was easy to make some friends. I walked into a bar and I said, around on me. So it was pretty fun. Also, what that afforded me was to your podcast topic. I started buying houses. So in college I bought a house every year I was in college. So when I graduated, I owned four rental properties by the time I graduated.

[B]

That was probably a nice inflation play for you.

[A]

It was great, especially here in Tennessee. So my last house that I bought was. Was here in Tennessee. It was actually right down the street downtown here and bought a penthouse on Church 7th and Church, the Benny Dillon Building. It was pretty cool. So, yeah, so that was kind of the start, the beginning and wasn't given anything. Started off selling books door to door and making straight commission money and started investing from. From working 80 hours a week knocking on doors.

[B]

Wow. Well, that's a hell of a story. And it takes us down into where you are today. And you're running now Safe Space Global, a tech company, correct?

[A]

That's right, yes. I'm the President of SafeSpace Global AI if you want to check out the website. And it is the global leader. Our vision is to be the global leader of multimodal AI and our mission is to help save lives. So we're in several verticals that we feel are the most vulnerable. So we're in senior living, schools, transportation, and prison systems. And so. And we have others that we work with as well. And it's amazing what I wanted to do after spending 20 years at the same company. So fast forward. After selling books door to door, I started a consulting business, ran that for 16 years, grew it at 60 plus percent. Our coaching business within the consulting business grew at 68% for over eight years in a row. Then I was asked to be CEO of the globe.

[B]

That's not easy to do in coaching.

[A]

Yeah, coaching. We had 150 coaches worldwide. We're in 12 different countries. The content that I helped curate and put together was translated into four different languages. I was an E citizen of Estonia. So kind of wild and crazy of that chapter of growing a global coaching business then that was doing so well that they asked me to be the CEO of all 30 of the global companies. So the coaching consulting business was one of 30 that were in a global conglomerate. And then I was CEO of the global conglomerate for four years and grew it significantly. Grew the profits, grew the revenue. And then after four years, left that global conglomerate and started doing my own thing, which led to where I am today. I actually took a year sabbatical. So I know your podcast also focuses on faith and family. So I bought an rv, I pulled my daughter out of private school, and we went to road school, and I was the math teacher, my wife was the English teacher. And we. We did 10 months on the road with an RV and went from Nashville, Tennessee, to Cabo, Mexico, from Cabo, Mexico, to Spokane, Washington, and from Spokane, Washington, the skinny Atlas, New York, and back to Nashville with 42 stops in between.

[B]

Geez, that sounds cool. I'm not one for driving. I took the jet route, but I'm kind of doing the same thing with the jet. I mean, you know, the history you get in all the different places. I mean, I. I think that's something that the kids need and getting to bond with them before they leave the house.

[A]

Well, they remember it, you know, for. For Haven. I remember being in Estonia and she was swimming in a pool with a bunch of Russian kids, and the parents looked like Russian oligarchs. And I'm sitting there.

[B]

Probably were.

[A]

This ought to be interesting. They probably were. And the kids were trying to ask Haven to play with them, but she couldn't understand them. And the kid ran over to the mom and said, hey, will you tell her dad that we want to play with her? So then this Russian mom walks up to me and says, hey, our kids want to know if it's okay for your daughter to play with us. And I was like, absolutely. And then I told Haven, hey, they want you to go over here and play with them. And she did. And the mom said, you know, thank you. Great to meet you. Where are you from? America. Oh, great. Where are you from? Russia. And I just left that conversation thinking, how cool is it? She's going to grow up thinking Russian kids are normal just like her. It's not the people that are. The problem is our governments that are the problem. And she has that perspective from the travel. So what a lesson. I'm a big fan of people getting out there with their kids.

[B]

It makes for a kid you can actually go and now actually teach that poly ticks is a root word. Multiple blood sucking arachnids.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. The politics are awful. And the people actually, pretty much anywhere you go, the people are pretty awesome. It's the politics that you just can't get in the middle of. And it typically causes division. And I think that division is one of the biggest problems in the world. So that was a bit of the backstory leading up to today with the AI company. And yeah, if we wanted to talk about that, we could hop into that.

[B]

Well, before we get to whatever you.

[A]

Wanted to, wherever you want to go.

[B]

Before we get to that, one of the things I'd love to jump into, and I liked it when you were kind of talking about wrestling on your highs and then wrestling on your lows. And, you know, a lot of times when an entrepreneur is telling their story, I can see a common theme and it's really cool. It's fun to a. I see it because I lived it and you, you've lived it. But like, for some of the folks that are watching this podcast that are thinking, hey, you know, I mean, what about me? You know, then they realize they're no different. Nobody has this, you know, you go, your greatest strengths and your greatest weakness are often the exact same thing. And I feel like you kind of touched on that. Like, your highest high was also the same day that you got that concussion and had your lowest low. So you're getting your wins and you're called to it, but you're also having your punishment and your problem, and it's becoming your teacher. It's kind of becoming a gift and a guide which is going to lead you to a new high. But you have to follow this process. You're, oh, my God, I'm on a high. I made it. I'M fucking there. And then all of a sudden, oh, God, I've got a concussion. And then. Who did that turn you into? I'd love to tap into that theme a little bit because I bet it doesn't just exist in wrestling. I'll bet you saw that. And this is a bet I don't know you before today. I'll bet you saw that in every business you've been in in some way or another. I'd love for you to hit another story or two.

[A]

Yeah. Including. Yeah. Another one that's relevant to business is, you know, I was at the Same company for 20 years and upon leaving it, it was, it was an identity check. I wouldn't say an identity crisis because I never put my identity and what I do as my sole identity. But it's a part of you. When you spend 20 years building a company, especially once you become CEO and you're helping grow. I was responsible for 2,000 people and they were some of my best friends and they still are some of my best friends that are there. And then when you leave and you're trying to figure out what to do next, it is a bit of a, like, okay, like you go on a journey. And what was the biggest blessing out of that is I wouldn't be here today doing what I'm doing now if I hadn't had to leave the 20 year career I was at.

[B]

Which company was this with the 20 year career?

[A]

It's called Southwestern Family of Companies. So it's a. A cl. It has a mixture of different companies in it. It's actually one of the oldest direct sales companies in the country. So that the company I was telling you about, that I sold books door to door. So that's the old. It was founded in 1868 was when they started selling bibles door to door. And then they started selling educational books door to door. Then they got into school fundraising and insurance and party planning, financial planning. And then I started with a couple of partners, the consulting, coaching, speaking business. And then now they're into real estate and they have a visa company that does global J1 visas internationally. There's about, I think almost 10 companies. So a door to door, smoke alarm sales business, at least there was when I was CEO. There was a fundraising business in Estonia, several businesses in Bulgaria. So it was a unique business that I was the leader of. And 20 years of your life with me. What's that?

[B]

20 years is significant.

[A]

Yeah. 20 years at one company was a lot of time. And thankfully I started when I was young and so I still have a lot of time to build and do other things, but I'm thankful for the experience I had there. And I learned a massive amount of skills on both the personal side of things with business development, how to run a business and how to start a business as an entrepreneur, all the way to how to be a CEO and an executive and manage a hundred million dollar company.

[B]

Well, you said something interesting and I do want to go to kind of the greatest strength, greatest weakness and the process here. But. But you made a comment where you don't let your soul identity get trapped in what you do. I'd love for you to dive deeper into that comment as well. Because I mean, I believe in that word or that set of words, soul identity. But I'd love to hear kind of the frame of. It's a unique way of saying identity.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the saddest things I've ever heard from, from someone, a leader, once told me that their goal was to die working. And it made me so sad thinking, wow, your life's goal is to. And they said my entire identity is my work and why would I ever leave and I want to die working. And I just thought, man, if your whole life revolves around your work, there's so much more to life than just your work. And so for me, I believe that your identity is who you are and to take time to really think about who you are and what God has gifted you in and what are the things that you bring to the world and to not have to get too spiritual. But to answer the question, for me personally, I think that the quick answer is my identity is in Christ. And through that, that, that has a foundation that then I can draw from where there's principles that are found in the bestselling book of all time, the Bible, that, that I can say, well, these seem to hold true. And there's people that are being referenced as case studies in this book. If you wanted to think of it like a Simon Sinek book where he's, he's pulling case studies out in the Bible with people like Solomon was like, well, he was pretty successful. What was this guy doing that, that I can learn from? So I think Proverbs and Psalms and all of that has more wisdom in it than any advanced sales book ever would have. And so, and then, and then it's a guide. I think that that for me, having my foundation with a set of principles that are, that are found in this book guides me so I don't have to wonder what to do, you know, if I ever feel lost, I have a place to go. So when I think of your identity, your identity is where you go when you don't know what to do next. Your identity is, is who you are. So, so be. And that's why I get kind of worked up when somebody tries to label me. I will push back really hard and really fast. When someone speaks a label over me, whether it's political or some name or something where they're like, well, you are. And then the insert whatever it is, whether it's a Republican or a Democrat, you're, you're, you know, you're a CEO or you're whatever. And it's like, you know, I've done that and sure I've voted a certain way, but that doesn't mean I'm going to do that the rest of my life. You know, I believe in certain things and if, if, if the tide turns and all of a sudden somebody has the core beliefs that I have and they're the right person. I don't care what the political affiliation is. But my identity, when you say who you are, that's your identity.

[B]

I love that. So you know what I want to jump into kind of the faith based entrepreneur. And I, I believe in, also believe in modeling Christ. I think everyone should. I think people, whether they're Christian or not, should model Christ. I mean, talk about like a guy that did the right thing. Like, you know, but I think Christ is such an interesting like to talk to a Christian. I'm assuming you're a Christian. You're going to church every Sunday, right? And you're kind of the guy that carries that armor of the Lord, which I like to think I do as well. But I've had a few Christians tell me I'm not Christian, which, you know, confused me. They aren't the most accepting fucking bunch.

[A]

Yeah, that's interesting. Tell me that theology where you get to be the judge.

[B]

Yeah, right. Like I was like, wait, but what do you mean? And you know, like, like one of the scariest things I ever get is when somebody walks in to sell me something, they're like, I'm a Christian. And I'm like, oh God, you're expensive is what you're trying to tell me. Like, because every time they do that, then yeah, it's like almost immediately after. I don't get me wrong, I really like my Christian friends. I love, like, I live in El Paso. We have a large Catholic community, large Christian community. Like, I've read the Bible several times. It's one of my favorite books. I think there's more wisdom in there than anything. But I also see that my wife comes from a very spiritual context. My dad was an atheist. So while I call myself a Christian, I also call myself a deep thinker and I trigger some of the Christians. And I'll give you an example of how I think I trigger Christians. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on it as kind of a faith based entrepreneur, because it's fun to talk about, I think, especially with people that don't get mad at you for an opinion.

[A]

I do too. Oh, yeah, I love it. Let's go there.

[B]

My belief on Christianity, like one of my core beliefs, is that we bastardize the gift of Christ. And what I mean by that is, when Christ came here, what did he do? He overturned every Pharisee's table. I think it's Matthew 27, brood of vipers, brood of snakes. He called them vipers, hypocrites, all sorts of things. I mean, I'm not going to quote them directly because I'm not good at that, but he came to break all the rules. And so a lot of the Christians that come at me, they come at me and they always come at me with all these rules. And I'm like, you missed the point. Christ came to disrupt the structured relationship. Not that you shouldn't go to church, not you shouldn't have a community. But he also says that anytime two of us gather in his name, that is the church, you don't need the big group and you don't need all the rules and the subsets. You need to, if you go think about what he said, like, love him above all else, love each other. When he was asked what are the greatest two commandments, like do those two things and how. I mean, we bastardize the gift of Christ. And, you know, this is my own thought, and so I'd love your opinion on it. When he was here, I think God sent him as a gift, almost like a brother. And, you know, I believe he was God, just like I believe, you know, God is a community of souls. We are a community of cells. We are made in the image of God. Right? Community of souls, community of cells. I'm one soul in the billion, trillion, whatever souls that make up God. So, you know, here comes Christ down to earth as a manifestation of God, like perfection. But when he was here, we didn't call Him God, we called Him Teacher, we called him brother, we called him friend. God literally in his wisdom, sent us someone to be so close to our equal that we could duplicate and follow Him. When he was here, we called Him Teacher. So whenever I pray, I actually call Christ Teacher. I don't call Him God. Now, I don't want to diminish his divinity because I do think he's divine. But I think anytime that we as Christians project God godhood on Christ, we make ourselves so small and him so big that we cannot duplicate and replicate the behaviors he had. Because how could we ever be anything more than dirty rags to God? So in a way, I think we bastardize the gift of Christ.

[A]

Yeah, I would say that for me, it will be a couple of different things. You just unpacked a question with some interesting thoughts.

[B]

I think a lot about this.

[A]

I love it. The last part. No, I like it. To start with, I would say for me personally, it's the Trinity. So you have Jesus, you have God, and you have the Holy Spirit. So I think Jesus is a map. So Jesus's life. Imagine that he was giving you a road map of how to live your life. It was an example. God is the destination. So if you're thinking of it like a map, Jesus is the map. God is the destination of where you're going. And the Holy Spirit is the compass, is the gps. So as you're navigating through the terrain of life and you got Jesus as the map, the Holy Spirit is telling you, turn left, turn right, and the destination is God. And that's how I've always thought about the Trinity, where the Trinity is a hard concept to wrap your mind around, but that's the simplest way that I've thought about it.

[B]

I think you just explained the Trinity better maybe than I've ever heard it explained. Like, I always tell people that Jesus is a paradox. And anywhere where you find a paradox, you find truth. Okay, like, can God create so much? Can God create a rock so big that God cannot lift the rock? And the answer is of course, yes. And the answer is also of course no. It's a paradox. It's one of those things that proves God. It's why, you know, what do they say? A mustard seed of faith. If you have that, you can move a mountain. Right? But you need faith in everything to find truth in this magical thing called the paradox. Well, what was Jesus? And you just framed it perfectly as a map. You made him a map. If God is God, he did not need to send Jesus to die for our sins. He could have done this. He could have just snapped his fingers and then our sins would have been forgiven. Because God is God. So why did God send Jesus? According to the Christian faith. And I call myself a Christian because facts tell, but stories sell. We needed the story, we needed the thing to duplicate. We needed to follow something. We needed a map. I think that is the most beautiful and articulate way I'm just complimenting you that I have ever heard the Trinity explained.

[A]

That's awesome. Well, thank you for that. So the other part of what you mentioned, I think is super important is I think Tim Keller described what you were saying about the Pharisees the best in his book, the Prodigal God. And if anybody out there that's searching and they're wondering like, yeah, Christians really have pissed me off. Kind of like what you said, like the self righteous that judge you and you're like, man, I have a really hard time with these people telling me I'm not a Christian. Most people, back when I was CEO at Southwestern, we had a couple of thousand young college aged people that were part of that company and they often would want to ask me about spiritual questions. So I would always be like, now, did you grow up in a Christian house? And a lot of them were like, yeah, but now I'm an atheist because of some person that judge them or made them feel shameful or whatever. And so I think Tim Keller does the best job of explaining like what Jesus really thinks about that in his book called the Prodigal God. And it's the story of the prodigal son. And I grew up hearing that story and thinking I knew the meaning behind it. And actually as a, you know, from 16 to 22, I lived a pretty wild and crazy party filled life. So I related a lot to the prodigal son and the story of, you know, being, you know, falling face first into a trough of pigs and you know, being bloody and dragging himself home.

[B]

And you know, for the sake of the podcast, Dustin, you're welcome to go into explicit detail.

[A]

Yeah, just, I mean it was sex, drugs and rock and roll from 16 to 22. And I'll tell a story in a little bit, but let me finish my thought on this. And in the book, Tim Keller makes the point that when the prodigal son comes home, that the most important part of that story is actually what happens when the father goes running out to embrace the prodigal son and he's squandered on his inheritance, he's gone out and had sex with prostitutes, he's been doing drugs, like he's a complete wreck. But the. But because he comes home Asks the father for forgiveness. The father throws on his robe, his best robe, tells them to kill the best calf, opens up the best wine, and throws the biggest party that he's ever thrown. And as he's coming in with his son, the eldest son walks out and says, what's up, dad? Like, why are you giving him your best robe? Like, why are you giving them the best food, the best wine? Like, I've worked so hard for you, dad. I haven't made any mistakes. And now you're having my loser brother come home and you're throwing a party for him. And the dad tells the elder son, hey, you can go outside. And then the story ends with the eldest son not being part of the party. And then the party happens without the eldest son. Well, what Tim Keller points out that what Jesus was doing in that parable was he was actually talking to the Pharisees. So the Pharisees at the time, those were the preachers of the day. So those would have been the equivalent of, you know, probably the more religious preachers. I have an amazing preacher. There's a lot of really great.

[B]

Yeah, there's greats, and there's not greats like anything else.

[A]

Right, right. So whoever the preachers are that would judge you for whatever the reason they're judging you for, I'm imagining those were the Pharisees that he was talking to of the day. So the way they would have heard that story, they would have been completely offended that Jesus is telling the story about this prodigal son and the father, you know, accepting him and bringing him back in after squandering his inheritance. And they would have related to the eldest son. So they would have been highly offended that the eldest son was kicked out of the house and left out of the party, while the prodigal son was the one getting to go party with his father. And so the point of the whole book was, hey, I am the father and all of you are the prodigal son. And the only person that's going to be left out of the party, which, AKA is heaven, is the self righteous, the judging. The ones that are going to, you know, not. Not accept people with grace.

[B]

I would say.

[A]

I think it's.

[B]

I would say there's an immutable truth there. I mean, do you know how to measure love? Do you know the main measurement for love?

[A]

Well, for a kid, it's time.

[B]

No, no, no, no. More than that. What Jesus taught us about the single most important measurement for love. One thing.

[A]

Grace.

[B]

Suffering.

[A]

Suffering.

[B]

Think about it, huh? Are you married?

[A]

I am.

[B]

Do you love your wife unconditionally?

[A]

I do.

[B]

Were there vows at your wedding?

[A]

There were. There were.

[B]

Are those conditions?

[A]

I guess so.

[B]

Now she broke a vow. Would you still love her if you suffered through that?

[A]

Oh, I see the point. Yeah.

[B]

We measure love through suffering. And so the father in the story that you just told understood love. The good son didn't understand love. He understood works, not grace. And in that moment, he decided to be the judgmental person and he had to suffer in his own mind. And even had he gone to the party, he'd have been the guy there sitting there judging everybody, angry, suffering in his own version of hell in that moment. I mean, hopefully not going to hell permanently for being an asshole for a day, but like creating his own living hell, at least in the moment. I think it's a beautiful story. I love the way you told it to.

[A]

C.S. lewis would say you can. In his book the Abolition of Man, he says heaven, we don't know if heaven is on earth and hell is on earth. And if you're constructing hell now, if that's the same hell you live on into eternity or the heaven that you construct on earth is the heaven you live on into eternity. So CS Lewis talks not deep into that topic of, you know, what you're doing here on earth could be the reflection of eternity. So there's that. You got me going, man. You got me going. You got quoting C.S. lewis.

[B]

I, I, well, and that, and that's the point of these things, man. I mean, I, you know, you want to get to know the person I love, faith based entrepreneurs, because I truly do believe faith in something. Now I have friends that are Jewish, Muslim, Christian. I have friends that just have a level of self confidence you could call faith. And I'd never met anyone successful without faith. Now I've seen different faiths that cause success, but I've never met anyone successful without faith. And so anytime there's a faith based entrepreneur, I like diving into it, at least getting some bites out of it because I want to go see, hey, when it jazzes you, then that shows who you really are and it's cool. I appreciate you going that level of authentic and playing with me there.

[A]

So, yeah, glad to do it well.

[B]

And it's cool and it's something people need to hear. And as a guy who calls himself a Christian and I don't get mad when people say, oh, you're not a Christian, you know, to me they're just saying, you're not my flavor or I'm afraid of exploration or, you know, don't go learn anything else. That would be terrifying. You know, my thought is like, why would you go to a Bible study if not to prove God? Like, I, you know that we go there because we have questions. Right. And why would you not study every other religion? I, I, I've studied many of them.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I'm going on to a trip to India here shortly and I'm gonna, I'm gonna go study all these amazing gurus and yogis and, and, and folks that they, they live in a different, it's not a religion necessarily, it's a lifestyle called yoga. And what I found that's very similar.

[A]

Between these yogis I just got back from India.

[B]

Oh yeah. Did you get any of the yogis or the gurus that could basically like read your mind? And it was almost like they were speaking in four language. The mind divides, the heart connects, the body feels and the soul knows. Did you meet any of these guys?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I did yoga in India. It's funny with our, so I went with the CEO, my business partner of our AI company and also our CRO, who's from Singapore and we got a yoga instructor to meet us at the, at this crazy looking, it was like an old palace that we were staying in. We're in the courtyard and we all did yoga there in India. So it was pretty cool.

[B]

I mean. Yeah. And we think of yoga here in the States as like stretching and we don't realize how deep it goes into lifestyle and balancing the body and, you know, quieting the mind and opening the heart. I mean, you know, the best part.

[A]

Is the asana at the, at the, I forgot whatever it's called, all the yogis are going to make fun of me. But the part where you lay down at the end and you, and you've just kind of had a good, you know, like I've, I've had some, some journeys. At the end of yoga sessions where you're, you're in like kind of another realm is where is, is an interesting place. And I experience it all the time when I do yoga.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You want a wild one, Preston, to add to your checklist? Go to Bali. Check out Hindus in Bali. When I was in Bali and they were doing a death parade and they had these like huge, like 30 foot, like demigod looking things that these people were wearing and they had the hands that were moving and like dragon tails behind them and a coffin. And I don't know if the coffin had ashes in it. Maybe it Did I think it was a burial. And then these gods and all these people were wearing, like, white cloth, you know, whatever, and they. And they went through the whole city, and they walked all the way into the ocean. All the way into the ocean. And sitting there watching it, you know, it was wild. It was crazy.

[B]

You know, one. One thing that I really appreciate about the Indian culture is their relationship to death. Okay. And very different than the Western culture. You know, I lost my dad back in 2019, and. And. And it. It was kind of the first time I really realized what death was. Like, oh, shoot. Like, there is a hard ending to this life. Like, you're in your 20s, your 30s, you think you're going to go forever. You think you're invincible. And I'm looking at my kids, I'm like, oh, wait, shoot. I'm the same age difference to my kid as my dad was to me.

[A]

Whoa.

[B]

I. You know, it kind of sets a different agenda for life, right? And, yeah, you know, I've thought about it a lot since, and in one of the downloads I had, and one of those moments like you just described, kind of after doing the yoga and you're getting that, like, you're like, no place, no space, no time, and your whole life is just like is. And you get downloads sometimes you get a wild amount of information. And it was like, do you fear death? And I'm like, yes. And it's like, well, okay. Do you think death is a part of life? Yeah. Is life a gift from God? Yeah. And then. And then it said, well, if you fear death, you worship life, not God. Where's your wisdom? That was a download that hit me like, okay, all right. And. And. And ever since then, I follow the speed limit less.

[A]

I'm taking flight school and thank God.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Jesus called it dying to yourself. And that's kind of a crazy term to try to wrap your mind around, but I think that there, if you really unpeel the layers behind that term, that's what you're. You're looking at is. Is when you. When you realize that you're just a meat suit with a soul and that your soul is eternal. Death is. Is just, you know, an entrance into a higher level. And when you really believe it, like, you really, really believe that your soul is eternal and connected to God, then the meat suit becomes less meaningful, and it actually becomes like, man, when I get to that next thing, it's going to be even better. And, you know, to transcend to where you actually operate that way, I think that's what dying to yourself looks like.

[B]

I think so too, because that's. Well, another piece of wisdom I'd heard is the beginning of spirituality is being able to remove the question, what about me? From every aspect of your life for at least a moment. If you can get your emotions or your triggers out of the way and remove what about me? I think we're saying the exact same thing and just a different way of saying it. I'm just trying to put a frame on dying to yourself. Then you can sit and you can look at the frame from the other person's eyes, and you can actually truly be a more generous lover of that person in that moment based on what their needs are.

[A]

I love that I have a coach, his name is Jamie George. And I was part of his mastermind for several years. And what he would say is, I always thought of it as like, you have to kill your ego. And part of that game is not letting your ego rule you to where you're putting other people first and not letting the ego just drive you and rule your world. And he gave me a different point of view of that, is he goes, a lot of people never even learn how to build their ego. So they're. They're stuck in this, like, this. This zone where they never have enough confidence, they never have enough momentum, they never have enough ego to drive to the point where they even have to kill it. And I was like, I have never thought of that. Is like, there is an evolution to the ego where it's a healthy thing and the ego actually drives you. It actually causes you to succeed at some level. But then there's a point where you start becoming so successful. You know, it's interesting. Success and managing success is just as important, if not more important, than learning how to manage failure. And there's a lot of books and a lot of theories out there about failure and how to handle failure, but rarely do people talk about how to handle success. And there's a fear of success. So the way that people know that there's a fear of failure, there's also the fear of success. And I think it's all tied to this idea where the fear of success is because people don't want their ego to be so big that they're scared of themselves with that much money, that much power, that much influence, whatever it is. So they diminish themselves. They hold themselves back. They're scared of what they're capable of doing versus leaning into that and learning how to step into your gifting, step into your calling. Step into doing the things that you're the best at. That makes a huge impact in the world. And you do it for the right reasons. You're not doing it just to make money. You're not doing it for selfish ambition. And that's where I think the tweak happens that you have the ego kind of break you past the fear of failure or the fear of success. But once you experience it, you then learn how to not have the ego be what it's all about. Otherwise you'll become a narcissist.

[B]

I agree with that 100%. When I was young, the way I framed it, well, somebody very close to me, she's asked me not to mention her, especially with this piece of advice that she gave me on public forums. But she said rather vulgarly, never let your ego be bigger than your dick. And I always kind of was like, what the fuck does that mean? And you know, in dating, you know, if you act like you're, you know, bigger than you are, there's going to be some disappointment later on in that relationship.

[A]

Well, in business, there will be a moment of truth at some point.

[B]

It's going to be a reckoning, right? So, like in business, you should never let your ego be bigger than your ability to be productive, which is kind of saying the same thing. And so I kind of developed my own internal formula that I used for me, and it was like, okay, well, the size of somebody's ego, that's what I look at as their potential for success. Okay, I'll always clarify that the size of their ego better not be bigger than their dick or their productivity. If we're in business right now, when I take that thought, okay, that's their potential, but their ability to maintain the success potential that they will probably hit. Because we've all seen these people, they go hit it, then they lose it, then they hit it, then they lose it. And they do this like 10 times in life. They don't. Learn your ability to bring your ego down and control your ego, not make it go away. It's not a bad thing. It's your greatest strength and your greatest weakness. But it's not you. It's not your identity. It's that little voice in your head saying, let's fucking get them. And you need that peace. But then sometimes let's get them is not the right thing to do. So you have to be like, hey, you know what? Let's. Let's shut you up. Let's create a win win. You know what I mean? Like, there's yeah, but you know, like, I came from, you know, my early upbringings were probably a little more not church and Bible centered. You know, I had the atheist dad and the Christmas Christian mom and great lady, but Christmas Christian. Like we were there on maybe Easter and, and sometimes Christmas. And other than that, we didn't really see churches. And, you know, I got educated in a different way. But you know what? I think all the moms say those types of things, all the dads say those types of things, all the family members say those types of things. I just got the vulgar lessons that help me remember.

[A]

I love it. Yeah. I, I do think that having a foundation, you know, the, the foundation of, of your life, regardless of who, who's listening to this, should be principle based. Like if you have principles that you live your life on, you're going to be more successful than if you're winging it, or you're going with what the media says, or you're going with what the people down the road tell you to do. But when you can guide your life based on good truth and principles, you're gonna land in a better place than trying to just go with the flow or do what you think people want. That always ends in calamity eventually.

[B]

You know, I think that's a really good segue to jump into your book and the six pillars that are in.

[A]

The book, let's do it.

[B]

Because I mean, you call them principles, I call them values, but I mean, six is one, half a dozen is the other. Same thing. And you know what's cool about every successful person I've ever interviewed that has been part of the conversation? When you get close to them and you hang out with them, everybody that's wildly successful is talking about values. You know, you get on the boat, you get on the airplane, you're hanging out, they're talking about family, they're talking about values, they're talking about all this other stuff. Yeah. We get on the podcast, we'll talk business, we'll talk money, we'll talk this. But the principles and the values. And you have a book. I think it's capacity, right?

[A]

Yeah. Capacity building a business bigger than you.

[B]

Yeah. And capacity is one way.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Well. And you know, one of the things that caused me to name the book Capacity was hearing so many people use the excuse, I just don't have capacity. I just don't have time for that. You don't understand how busy I am. And that excuse is the most self limiting thing somebody can put on themselves.

[B]

It's Literally, the words you say that trigger me the most and tell me I need to end you as an employee. I don't have time for that. I'm too busy. If you say those words to me, you've basically said, please shorten my career at your firm.

[A]

I agree, I agree. And starting with just realizing that the strength of your or your capacity is based on the strength of your systems. So how big you want to grow, how much you want to scale is directly in proportion to how strong are those systems that you have built to have the unlimited growth potential. And that's what the entire book is about. And so the case studies are built on. You have to start off as an entrepreneur. You have to have a starting point where you are kind of doing everything, and that's okay. I was an entrepreneur. I've been an entrepreneur over almost a dozen times. I think 10 different businesses that I've started from scratch.

[B]

So you're a real one.

[A]

Many of them. I'm a real one.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't know what at point you get to be able to call yourself a serial entrepreneur. That's a. But I think double digit. I'm a double digit entrepreneur. That could be a way to say it.

[B]

Yeah. Well, you know, you hear all the Instagram stories and you see all the kids standing in front of a Lamborghini. I see, see people standing in front of airplanes and stuff. It's like, guys, I have three airplanes. You don't see me standing in front of them. Like, when somebody's doing that. That's okay.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The guys that are like, oh, I did this one thing and made 10 million off, you're a real one. You've had the failures, you've had the successes. It's not a bullshit hype story. So this book goes through six pillars. Right. I want to give people a little taste of this and get them to go read this book, get them to buy this book. Let's dive into some of what the six pillars are.

[A]

All right, let's do it. Pillar number one is executive strategy. So without executive strategy, then there is no plan. And this is where I've worked with many entrepreneurs. I do capacity coaching and consulting with leaders with businesses over $5 million. And what I find when I do an audit of their business is that they are working really hard, they have a really good product, they have really good people. But there's not a five year business plan with a detailed strategy behind it to propel them to the next level growth. So the executive strategy says how to build that out starting with. To build a great business, you have to build amazing people. So assessing your current team, assessing yourself as the leader of that team, and saying, what are my strengths? What are my weaknesses as a CEO? Do you have a job description? Do you have a pay plan that actually pays you to do the things a CEO should do? And if not, you're probably still an entrepreneur doing entrepreneur things. And if you want to evolve into a CEO, create a job description for yourself and a pay plan for yourself that reflects being a CEO. Then from there you have a CFO job description and a CFO pay plan that does exactly the same thing. So I think that's always where you start, is the CEO, then your cfo. That's the most important two people in the whole company.

[B]

Can I throw in a comment? Because I've also had a coaching company for most businesses out there, especially the small businesses that are in management by crisis, the CEO needs to be you. Please don't go immediately hire a CEO like what he's talking about, in my opinion, correct me if I'm wrong, Dustin, is you build your pay plan, you build your job description. Don't go become a fucking idiot that has 10 employees that hires a CEO, because CEO stands for chief Executive Officer. And if you don't have any executives, then you can't hire one of those. You need to fucking be that guy. But if you don't act as if you are that guy before you have executives, you'll never get them. So he's not saying hire that guy, he's saying be that guy. And then bring in the cfo, the likely second hire that you should have after you hire Jim.

[A]

Bingo. You nailed it. Like, spot on nailed it. And it's funny, I find it comical when I'm on LinkedIn and I see people's title as CEO and then I do a little bit of research and there's no other executives on the team. So I'm like, oh, you're the chief of yourself. Got it. It's like there's nobody else to be chief of. And so usually a CEO, if it's properly structured, means there's other chiefs that you're managing. And usually if you really want to get technical, the CEO's only direct reports are the chiefs. So the CEO structure should be the cfo, the cmo, the cso, whoever it is, and then that who then. Then those people have everybody in the company reporting to them. So eventually, if you had seven chiefs or five to seven chiefs, and then you had those people with the President or the vice presidents or the directors and the managers all the way down to your frontline workers. That is a proper corporate structure and that's where you get a proper way that you can sell a company globally.

[B]

Yeah, that's where you get to the corporate boards is you have to build these executives. The CEO is the leader of the executives. You know, I've also got a really interesting theory. As a guy guy that's built some fairly large businesses, I actually am still the CEO of my business, but I have a co CEO and I literally used all of the different personality metrics out there to make sure still wildly high motivation, but that I got the opposite human being from me. And so as a co CEO, I'm seeing the world this way, she's seeing it this way. Then we have our executives beneath us. I mean, I never want to stop being the CEO, but I now have gotten to the point where I've brought on a co CEO. So I'd make the advice that when you are with that executive team and board, don't stop being the CEO. Bring in your polar opposite that matches you only in motivation and you're going to double your vision like phenomenally well.

[A]

So I love that and I'd like to massage it just a tweak where instead of saying polar opposite, I'm a huge fan of strength. Finder 2.0 is written by Gallup Consulting. I personally take it and I give all my executives the book to take. And when I hire new people, I have them take it as well. This is actually going to be the next meeting at SafeSpaceGlobal AI when we have our leadership retreat. I've already bought a copy of this book and I plan on giving it to all the executives. And what the theme of the meeting will be is I'm going to give them a printed copy of my five core strengths. That the test. So it's a test that you take online. Then the book tells you what those strengths are, what complements those strengths, and how to maximize your strengths. And so what I try to do is pair myself with someone that has different strengths than me that causes the company to grow exponentially. So the polar opposite of me, I don't know if I'd want a polar opposite of me because I think I have some stuff that's going in the right direction. And the polar opposite would be like a lazy bum doing nothing, you know, so, so there, there's, there's like a way to look at it. I don't, but I don't need somebody that has all the strengths that I have.

[B]

Polar opposites. I look at it like, is probably a better frame.

[A]

There you go. Yeah, there you go. And then you're maximizing your strengths with their strengths, and you're combining superpowers. And now you're like the Avengers going to save the world, where, you know, Iron man is much different than the Incredible Hulk, but, man, you put them together and game over. So.

[B]

Right. Amen. What's. What's your second pillar? I love the executive strategy pillar.

[A]

Marketing strategy. So marketing strategy is one that often gets delegated and relegated outside of the C suite. And they just think, oh, it's this thing that we do, and it's kind of nebulous. So I always find it funny when I meet people and I say, what do you do? And they go, I'm in marketing. And I go, okay, awesome. What part of marketing? So I look at marketing.

[B]

Define it for me.

[A]

What is marketing exactly? Yeah. What does that mean? It would be like walking up to somebody and saying, what do you do? And they go, I play sports. And it's like, you play all the sports. Like, are you playing tennis? Are you a golfer? Do you play football? So marketing is in that same, like, it's a huge area that if your business is not putting a marketing strategy together, I'm willing to bet that that is what's stymieing the growth. That's the reason you got stuck at 10 million and you're not at 100 million is you didn't break down and put a proper marketing strategy together. So what does that look like? It starts with your brand. The brand identity is the peak of the top of the pyramid. When it comes to marketing strategy. I think the leader of the business personifies the brand. So if the leader is not congruent with the brand, then that is the beginning of all the problems that a company's having in the marketing strategy. It's like you have a company and a brand and an identity. So we going back to the word identity. A company's identity is driven off of the leader. So I look at someone like Elon Musk and talk about someone that drives the identity of Tesla. It's like it's starting with that guy, and it's going all the way down to the frontline workers that he is owning the brand and the identity of Tesla. And if a CEO or an entrepreneur is disassociating themselves from the brand identity that the marketing team is coming up with, you got to start there. From there, then you can go to your messaging. So your vision, your mission and your core values are the next most important thing that you need to spend time on within your marketing strategy. Most people, they just do this cookie cutter thing. It's something that's old, it's stale, they put it on the wall and it doesn't actually become this living, breathing thing. What I encourage people to do is to take a whole day with their executive team. Key leaders, distill their vision, distill their mission, distill the core values, create a leadership pack or a constitution. So at SafeSpaceGlobal AI, we actually have a leadership constitution. Every Monday on our executive call where we have leaders all over the world, we take 10 minutes of an hour long call to read our vision, our mission and our values. And there's 20 core values that we have all agreed upon that these core values are what we're going to do as a leadership team to run the company. And we go person by person around the virtual call and we read it out loud like you're reading like doing the pledge of allegiance or something. And we all read out loud the principles of the leadership constitution. And I actually think that that's in the strategy of marketing because once you have that messaging, it then goes into your marketing materials. So when you're giving a speech or you're giving or you're building your website or you're doing your printed materials, that vision, that mission, your core values should be reflected on everything the marketing department does. So from there you can then get into copy. So what's the copy within your website? What's the copy within your marketing? What's the copy within your social media? And now you're getting down to the granular level that people think of marketing where you're talking about website traffic, you're talking about creating leads and you're talking about the social media marketing and then banners and billboards or whatever the case might be. But if you don't have the brand identity, you don't have the core values, and you don't have the big building blocks of your strategy, then it doesn't matter how good your social media marketing person is.

[B]

Dustin, this is gold, bro. You know, so one of the core values, I mean, we have several core values. We've bought into that strategy. I mean, I haven't read your book, but I'm buying it now because we're speaking the same language. But one is kindness. And it wasn't a core value until Covid. Right? And when I saw everybody like going after each Other I added kindness to the core values. And being in the home building business, I noticed that when you're building production homes, every builder that I had marketed for had just horrible warranties. Not that the warranties were necessarily horrible, but horrible warranty calls, like narcissistic buyers beating you up because shit went wrong. I mean, stuff. And even the guys that honored their warranties and did it right, the warranty tech was like the most commonly replaced person. Okay, so just a fun story for how we enforce the value of kindness. We actually went into what's called reverse marketing to get rid of anyone that wasn't our target client. We have an A frame. Reverse marketing. You'll fucking love this. I mean, we're speaking the same language. We have an A frame sign outside of every model home, okay. And it says, we reserve the right to refuse service to assholes.

[A]

I love it.

[B]

Is. I love. So fucking cool. Because we were able to test this and basically split test this. People that got offended by this sign were also the ones that were going to complain about everything, not be reasonable, yell at your people, cuss at your staff. And so when people would come in and say, that's a funny sign, we're like, welcome, brother. You ready for a fun presentation? And when others would come in and say, that is rude and you shouldn't have that, we're like, dude, this is not the product for you. You don't want to buy it. The builder will just cancel your contract the moment you get frustrated. So don't. Don't do it. And you know, it's funny because they were. Yeah, yeah, this is not your product.

[A]

An would be offended by a sign. Like, right?

[B]

And. And. And so what's funny is we. We take them through the full tour, and for the people that thought it was funny, we take them to the bathroom. We build production homes. One of our upgrades is a bidet. And we're like, you should demo this toilet. They walk up to it and opens for them. And we're like, we really don't have problems with assholes because everybody's got one, but we just don't want dirty ones, you know? So, like, we try to make sure we help clean you. And so we make it a fun, lively, human presentation. But, I mean, your keys on marketing are fucking gold. I mean, we went through a thing where we're replacing a CMO fairly recently because some of these aspects weren't in there. And, you know, we knew it needed to be there. We gave them the time to put it in there, like, we love the person, but they didn't have a fit. So we went through the process of replacing it and exactly what you're going through. The other thing I would say that I think is key on your marketing is data management.

[A]

Like, oh, totally. And we're in the data age. I mean, without a proper data strategy, you're flying blind. Like, you need to make database decision making. So that rolls up as a KPI for your marketing team should be helping us make ROI based decisions with every dollar we spend within marketing to make those database decisions. And Facebook, I think, changed the game with that. You know, whether somebody likes or doesn't like Mark Zuckerberg, you can't argue that the guy's a genius. And what he and Amazon, I'd say invented around that is, it changed the world. So.

[B]

Oh, yeah, for sure. I want everything split, tested.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

I want everything verified. I want to see which leads are going where. I want the leads to come into my platform. Like, I don't want a lead to come into my platform for my book and then go to Amazon. I want the lead to come into my platform for my book and stay on my website. Because the moment they go to Amazon, it might turn around and hit fucking. And this is what we started finding with our CMOs. They were building those things and great person, but they just didn't have that little piece where they were like, no, let's redirect here because I don't want them to go see, oh, fuck. I need to buy this product and this product and this product and this product. Oh, shit. I got distracted. I wanted to come to my website. And then the book becomes an upsell for the course. Courses. And the courses become the upsell for the coaching, and the coaching becomes the upsell for the events and, you know, like all the different pieces and, and exactly. Most CMOs don't have the data management.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I think we could talk about just the marketing piece for another hour. It's so important. And that's. That's why it's a pillar. You. That is a. Well, a key pillar out of the six pillars.

[B]

And you know what? I want to hit one more pillar because these two are so good. But then what I want to do just to be a dick, okay, is I want to stop because, dude, I'll tell you right now, executive strategy is gold. Marketing strategy, gold. Whatever the next one is. I mean, if it's as good as these two, I'm sure it is. It's going to be gold. And then people are Going to be like, whoa, wait, Preston, why were you a dick? Why did you stop? Buy the book, fuckers. Like, go support a guy that's putting time into writing a book.

[A]

So let's just leave them three that.

[B]

They gotta buy the book to get.

[A]

Oh, Preston, you're, you're, you're. You're the dick and the man at the same time.

[B]

But my ego's not bigger than my dick. Okay.

[A]

All right, one more. And there's three more after this. And obviously I'm biased. I think all of them hold equal weight. So what I'm about to share with you, the other three are just as good, but you gotta buy the book to hear the other three. So here's the third one is business development strategy. And business development strategy is the lifeblood of your business. If you are not selling, then your business is not growing. And until somebody sells something, nothing happens. And so a lot of times the entrepreneur becomes the rainmaker. And they never learn how to transition out of that role. And it's the biggest thing holding them back from becoming a CEO is they're so good. They love the hunt, they love the kill. They just get exhilaration out of doing it. And I'm right here raising my hand saying, it takes one to know one. And one of the hardest things I learned how to do was to not be the top producer and to not be the rainmaker and to build a team where I'm recruiting A plus talent, I'm training A plus talent, and then I'm managing A plus talent. And those are three different things. So recruiting is a sales process in and of itself. Back in the coaching business that I was the president of, we had a 26 step recruiting process that we put the coaches through to. We would interview sometimes 100 people that would apply for the job to hire one coach. Then once you hire the right person and you find somebody that's a cultural fit that that checks all the boxes, then onboarding somebody is a whole skill in and of itself. So I think sales training begins in the recruiting process and the, and the interview process. And then those first 90 days of you training somebody to be a business development rep is the most important days of their life to their career. And those expectations that you set, the way they see the job being done is what they'll do for the next 20 years if they stick with you. And then once they're rolling, the way you manage people really matters. So do you have management systems that are scalable to a global level? And once you start talking Global. You know, I used to have sales teams. I currently have a sales team with SafeSpace Global AI and I have a CRO, his name's Theo, he's amazing. He used to be the head of business enablement for Google Asia. He left Google and now he's our CRO and he's based out of Singapore. So he has a sales team in Singapore, he has team members in London and we have sales team members in the Netherlands and then we have team members all across the United States. And the reason I bring that up is it's a little bit different. So you even have to think globally if you're wanting to grow your business to that scale. Is what, what is your, your go to market strategy? What is your sales methodology within Singapore that might be a little bit different in London, that might be different in California and it might be different in Texas. So when you start thinking this way, you're thinking as a global leader and you can build your company. As Stephen Covey would say in his book the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, you begin with the end in mind. So you be the global leader. Now when you're a $5 million company to then get to be that a hundred million dollar company that's in all the different countries and opening new markets and all the fun stuff that you might envision yourself doing. But that business development strategy is how you get there. So what are the hierarchy of that? It starts with what is your sales methodology and how are you going to generate leads? How are you going to pick up those leads and set an appointment? Once you set the appointment, what are you going to say to qualify the person to make sure that they're the right person for your product? How are you gonna set the stage for the meeting? Are you gonna make sure all the decision makers are there? Are you gonna pre qualify those decision makers? Are you gonna have individual calls with those decision makers before your presentation? Are you gonna answer all the objections before they come up, then go into your presentation? That's a whole skill in and of itself. Are you doing a tech demo? Like right now we're doing tech demos. We have a team of people out running AI tech demos today in schools and prisons and healthcare systems. And we have a tech demo for that, but they're doing a lot of things before that tech demo to set up the proper business development methodology. Once you do that, then having a closing process where you go through the price, you go through the contracting, the procurement and then you complete the selling cycle. So think of the selling cycle like A circle which ends in referrals. So if you do a great job, you win the business, you serve them right. They're like exceeded their expectations. They should want to share you with their friends. So then training, training your team, hey, get 20 referrals from every single person that you talk to. Then that's the circle of life. So in essence, we've had people that we've worked with generate a hundred leads that were referral, cold leads, doing a Hot 100 list, whatever, and then they're so good at working referrals, they never have to make a cold call again. So that's the level of strategy we're talking about when we talk about business development strategy. And if you don't have that within your business, you need it. And that will cause you to scale to a level that you never thought was possible. And I've coached people that have dry cleaning businesses, people that have insurance businesses, real estate businesses, financial planners, you name it. It doesn't matter what industry you're in, whether it's selling technology or selling books door to door. Having a sales methodology within a selling cycle that drives your go to market strategy that you then implement to a recruiting strategy that you then implement into a sales team. That is a business development strategy that we're talking about.

[B]

Oh, gosh, Dustin, if I lived in Tennessee, dude, we'd hang out like, I mean, so your business development strategy, I have this framework that I've been teaching for years. You know, one of my backstories is like, I was like, turn around with Tony Robbins, part of his platinum group, part of his lions group. And I was a business guy, so I'd be teaching a bunch of the other lions and platts my stuff. One day, Covid hits. And I was like, well, shoot, I don't want to stop traveling. So I created a little travel agency for high net worth people.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

Somehow, well, Tony stopped traveling, so I figured he wouldn't be mad. He always said, if you don't do it with me, do it with somebody else. I was still going to stay part of his program anyway, so I started traveling with some high net worth people. And I was like, yeah, I'll coach on your business. And well, I'll pay in a few grand a month. And we'll hire these great travel experts because it's a recession. Best time to fucking hire top talent, right? And. And they'll put on destination trips. And so we went all over the world. It was amazing. I triggered Tony Robbins somehow. His legal team got triggered too. And so they Sued me. And that made what was supposed to be like a 10 person deal to like fill the gap between Tony traveling and Tony traveling into everybody's like, hey, why, why, why is Tony coming after you? I was like, I don't fucking know. Like, I'm not doing anything wrong. And it blew up. Turned into 100 people overnight. And so all of a sudden I was forced into making frameworks. And one of my frameworks that goes over exactly what you just described, I call the four flows of capacity. I've had people pay me 50 grand to go into their business and look at it. And you know what I look at? Leads, sales, delivery and cash. And in every one of these four flows basically makes up all the stuff that I know in your book is going to go through business strategy. I want to look at your leads, I want to look at how they're done. I want to look at how they're coming in. I want to look at how they're tracked. I want to look at conversion ratios. I want to look at all that. I want to see your sales process. I want to see it's aligned to the brand. I want to see, you know, all of the things in sales. I want to see that you're selling. You've got leads and sales that match up to your ability to produce. Like, like, like. If progress equals happiness, which one of these is the weakest? Guess what that these fingers ain't the same finger, but they're tethered to one another. Guess which one's limiting your business. Your business strategy is about solving for the one that's limiting the other three. And so I had to go develop all these frameworks. And what you just described in like a minute was probably the most impactful framework that I ever made because that is the first thing I look at when I go into a business. I'm looking at your lead generation and your sales. I'm looking at your delivery and fulfillment and how you collect cash. And I can always find, you know, an owner can work in all four of these, right?

[A]

Why?

[B]

Because he has the relationship to risk and reward. Do you know what I look at and find? In almost every business, the owner believes in people the way that they. The way that he believes in themselves. And employees don't have the same risk, reward, relationship, dude. Like, like. So I'll see people putting an employee in all four areas. And I found, yeah, in my own data, that no employee can work in more than two non consecutive areas. So a person can work here or here or here. But you can't put them here and here. They don't think through the chain the same way an owner can. A C suite can. Because they're paid to think like an owner, but an employee can. And so the first thing I do is I go like remove and I align the people to the roles they're supposed to be in and we save some of these companies millions.

[A]

I would call that executive strategy. That's pillar number one. Yeah, executive strategy.

[B]

Executive strategy kind of mated with business strategy. Yeah, yeah. And we're looking at sales process, we're looking at lead flows, we're looking at fricking delivery, we're looking at can you fulfill upon. And there's always a weakest link. And that's the part you have to be solving, bro. Like I don't want to have the other three on this show, but I'd love to have you back as a guest another time to go over the other three.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because you know how it is. The listeners are going to listen to this show or they're going to listen to the next show and either way we'll bait them with the same hook and we'll go go over the other three just so that we can kind of like resell some books.

[A]

I'm in. I'm in.

[B]

This was such a great show. I mean we touched on so many cool topics. You're such a cool guy. And I mean I love the alignment to. I mean everybody's. There's so many people out there with the right way to do it. You just have to find your flavor of mentor and go learn from that person. Where can people get a daily dose of Dustin?

[A]

Yeah, so a couple of different locations. So my website is dustinhillis.com and so it's my namE-U-S T-I-N h I l l I s.com and then you can bulk order the book there or order a single copy. We do have some incentives. So if you order 10 or more copies you get a series similar to this but in much more detail of all six pillars. So it's a video series for pre ordering the book. So this is a pre order purchase. So I'm with Ben Bella Books and we're doing a big book release and the book is coming out in January. So anybody who's willing to buy the book now we want to go ahead and get you as much content as possible. So by ordering 10 or more books you unlock that package for yourself and you can find it on the website. Also we have a hundred book package and if you buy 100 or more books, that's a day with me in Nashville. So we have a very nice first class theater where we're going to put the first 200 people who buy 100 books and we're going to do an amazing six pillar integration training here in Nashville after the book is launched. And then anybody who orders a thousand books or more Moore is going to come spend a trip with me a couple of days in Cabo, Mexico and I have two houses in Cabo. We're going to go deep sea fishing, we're going to play golf, we're going to get individual with the people that go on that trip and we're going to integrate capacity into your life and into your business. For anybody who pre orders a thousand books and that's all on dustinhillis.com you can also just go to Amazon and just buy it. A single copy on Amazon. That's easy. But Preston, as you like, as you said earlier, sorry, I appreciate people buying on the website because then I get to know you and you get to know me and we can stay in communication but Amazon doesn't let you do that. And then I'm on Instagram. So Dustin Hill us on Instagram do the one with the blue check as I'm the certified Instagram, whatever and then LinkedIn as you said, I'm on LinkedIn there. So also I'd be remiss to not share if anybody wanted to hear more about the AI company. Safe Space Global Corporation is the whole company name. The website is SafeSpaceGlobal AI and our stock ticker we're publicly traded is SSGC. When I started with the company it was trading at about $0.06 per share and the last time I looked at it it was at 85 cents per share. And our market cap has gone from 7 million to over 150 million in less than a year. So that's a cool thing to check out. And you can learn more about our AI company by checking out stock ticker. Ssgc.

[B]

Ssgc.

[A]

Awesome.

[B]

I'm going to look that one up today. Dustin, you have been an amazing guest. I'm gonna have my gals reach out to you. We'll schedule another episode because I would love to go over Safe Space Global as well. And we can go over the other three pillars on that show. Man, you've been an amazing guest.

[A]

We can talk about military drones and all kinds of other stuff on the next one too.

[B]

Heck man, I'm looking forward to it. And honestly I'm gonna hit you up next time I'm in Nashville. This is just such a fun call. I'm glad that you are my first, like, I guess, Zoom or Riverside or whatever. We call this, like, virtual podcast, not in person. Thank you for being on the show.

[A]

Well, maybe the next one when you come to Nashville. We'll do the podcast in Nashville together, in person.

[B]

I love it. Don't threaten me with a good time.

[A]

Yeah. All right, guys, Well, I appreciate it. I've enjoyed it, and thank you very much.

[B]

Oh, it's an honor. All right, guys. Well, you heard it here. Dustin Hillis another rock star. More alignments. Buy this book. Reach out to him. Connect with him on Instagram. There's not a million ways to get there. There's 1, 2, 3, 4 ways to get there and a million ways to communicate it. Right. Find the source that aligns to you. Honestly, I'm vibing with this guy. I hope you are, too. Thank you all, and have an amazing day on purpose.