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- [00:00]
A
I think it was just being clear on what I wanted over 90 days, losing 20 pounds and quitting drinking and taking the actions towards that and then that actually manifesting in reality that made the biggest change.
- [00:12]
B
And then you see that it's possible. Anything is possible.
- [00:15]
A
A good business decision that I adopted from Ray Dalio is just if I won't work with somebody for a lifetime, I won't work with them for a day. The more I've gotten in deep connection with myself, my feelings, my heart, processing those things and connected with other people and being of service and asking those questions and telling those stories. My life has been more of an upward spiral than a downward spiral. The biggest driver of identity that I've found is environment and the people that we're surrounding ourselves. Having a daily winning formula is super crucial too, for results where it's like if you do these three to five things every single day, you will be successful.
- [00:58]
B
Welcome to Slay the Gatekeeper. I'm your host, Courtney Johnson, and I am here to un gatekeep the gatekept. Thank you so much for being here. Enjoy. Welcome, Andrew, to Slay the Gatekeeper. So excited that you're here.
- [01:15]
A
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited for this.
- [01:17]
B
Yeah, you've got some really interesting cheat codes. And I actually want to start with cheat codes around identity because I think identity is something that we often miss and overlook when we're growing our businesses. You have this formula where your business success is your energy management plus your belief systems. So I'm curious what this means.
- [01:41]
A
Well, to take you back a little bit, I was depressed for six years, from 18 to 24 in now, therapy, taking Wellabutrin, Lexapro, grow. I had the core belief in my mind that somebody was going to come into my life and save me. And I was just giving away my power. That was one of my core beliefs. And when I was 24, I came across this poem called Invictus by William Ernest Henley. And the final two lines are, I master my fate, I'm captain my soul. I don't know why, but as soon as I read that, that stood out to me and I'm like, that's my mantra. If I just put my mind to something, I can do anything with my life. That became my mantra. I set a goal to lose 20 pounds and to quit drinking. And I ended up doing that. I lost 21 pounds in 75 days. Day 90, I put my final X through the calendar and I was 90 days sober. And it was from that identity Statement that I reclaimed my power of I master my fate, I'm kept my soul, I can do anything that I put my mind to. That was the biggest thing that shifted for me in my life was just that core fundamental beliefs. And it goes back to all the ancient religions finding that mantra, the main thing that we're saying to ourself and what is our core belief? Right, because our belief drives our feelings, which drive our actions, which drive our results. I have a whole concept now called the identity waterfall where it starts with our values, what we care about. So like what are my tangible core values of mine are community, connection, philosophizing, travel and family. Those are things that light my soul up the most and what I design my time around. And when we know our values, we can tap into our purpose, our why for being and our mission, what we're actually going to do here on this planet. And when we have those things, then we can tap into the vision of ultimately what do we want in three years and 10 years. And then we can tap into the I am statements, the people are statements, the life is statements, the beliefs that drive our behaviors to our vision. And then one more category, principles of how we make decisions. So a good business decision that I adopted from Ray Dalio is just if I won't work with somebody for a lifetime, I won't work with them for a day. That's how I make hiring decisions. But we also have relationship decisions and, and work decisions and all of that. So I hope that answered your question.
- [04:28]
B
That's a great answer. I love that. So our audience is listening and they're like, okay, Andrew, I get it. That's amazing. That's a lot. But where do I start? And what I'm hearing a cheat code on how they can start is deciding on that mantra. So when they're getting out of vision, when they're getting out of focus, when they're getting overwhelmed or getting into victim, they can come back to the mantra that they're choosing. And this one almost found you 100%.
- [04:55]
A
And I always tell my clients it's the space between the notes and make the music. If like our mind is constantly running, it's just going to be a jumbled noise and we're going to get the answers from the external instead of the internal.
- [05:09]
B
So.
- [05:09]
A
So what I would say to anybody starting out on this journey is like get yourself into energy rituals and spaces that allow your mind to shut off. Maybe that's a 40 minute ex, 40 minute exercise where you're just present in the Moment after lifting those weights or going for that run or Maybe that's a 30 minute breath work session to totally just get everything out of the mind or a meditation. Because when the answers come from the heart instead of the head, around our values, around our vision, our mission, our purpose, that's when we get the true answers instead of living somebody else's life. So I would say, number one, implement more energy rituals to get into the space of kind of absence of thought and mind and get exposed to more of these methodologies and these quantities questions to find those answers within yourself and within your heart. Like your mantra, like what you care about with your values, like your core beliefs, like your principles and making decisions.
- [06:12]
B
So I have this question I love to ask everyone and that is like when we're talking about values and that is if you had to choose just one value that you would sacrifice all the other values for which one of those values would that be?
- [06:28]
A
Deep connection.
- [06:30]
B
Connection.
- [06:31]
A
Yeah. I always say the people in our life are life. I wouldn't be where I'm at today without the people in my life. When I was depressed, I was around other people that were kind of depressed and drinking a lot. And I would say the more I've gotten in deep connection with myself, my feelings, my heart, processing those things and connected with other people and being of service and asking those questions and telling those stories. My, my, my life has been more of an upward spiral than a downward spiral.
- [07:05]
B
So that's so, so powerful. Did you have like one moment that changed or was it a series of a lot of little moments.
- [07:13]
A
The biggest moment was reading that poem where it was like, that's my mantra, that's my core belief that's going to drive me. And then it was a bunch of little moments of like 45 days into that journey. I remember I got into the shower, just broke down and cried. The first time I cried in six years. I was like, holy crap, I'm feeling something. This is insane. And then stepping on the scale at the YMCA and I was 21 pounds lighter and proving to myself I can make a change and then 15 days later putting that X through the calendar. So I think it was just being clear on what I wanted. Over 90 days, losing 20 pounds and quitting drinking and taking the actions towards that and then that actually manifesting in reality that made the biggest change.
- [08:01]
B
And then you see that it's possible. Anything is possible.
- [08:05]
A
Exactly, yeah.
- [08:06]
B
That's so powerful. Well, you also have a really interesting cheat code around legacy and identity. That's if you don't choose your identity, your past will choose it. So we're always like actively choosing into our new identity. So I'm curious how this all relates to identity.
- [08:24]
A
Yeah, I mean there's the really good book, be your future self now. And like when I got into business, I didn't really know what my future self was exactly, but I had a rough idea of like I wanted to make 10k per month at first. Then like the biggest driver of identity that I found is environment and the people that we're surrounding ourselves with. So I joined a course, I joined a coaching program and I lost all my drinking buddy friends and I stepped into those environments that shifted and changed my identity around. Oh my God, this is possible. I can make 10k per month and I can take those, those actions. And then it was just like leveling up from there into new identities by shifting my environment and identifying what I wanted. So like for first it was a 10k month, then it was having 100k month and a 300k month and doing all that by shifting and changing my, my environment. But also like a burnt out in 2018. I was like, I don't want to operate my business this way and I don't like the way that I'm feeling. So I went to Shivananda Ashram Ranch in upstate New York and hung out with monks and I was like, oh, maybe this is the way for a week. And that helped me shift and change my identity around my spirituality and who I am internally. Like, you don't need to be a hundred percent clear of what you want. Have a rough idea and just get in the right environments to have those shifts and changes. I love the phrase of just like shake up the snow globe. I feel like I was stuck for so long because I wasn't trying new things and just shaking up the snow globe and seeing where it went, you know.
- [10:16]
B
So I'm hearing two cheat codes. The first cheat code is surround yourself with people who have already accomplished your goals or your goals are already normalized. Like you become. And it's so trite to be like, you are the five people you spend the most time with. But literally like the income of the five people around you is going to be your income. The fitness level of the five people around you is going to become your fitness level. Like it, it's, it's such a trite saying, but it's so true. And it's like put yourself in those situations. So if we're thinking of a really tangible cheat code, I love what you're saying of like, put yourself in a course of people that are learning what you're learning. Put yourself in a mastermind. Put yourself in those rooms. I always say, like, pay. Pay for your friends. Like, go pay to be in the room with people who are going to level you the fuck up. I love that. So surround yourself with those types of people and then shake the snow globe. That's such a good cheat code. We're shaking the snow globe. If things are seeming monotonous in our life. If things are, you're really frustrated, you're trying to break out, take a risk, do something really big, make a big change. Like shake the fucking snow globe.
- [11:23]
A
Yeah. I love that you were used the word trite. I haven't heard that in forever. Great word.
- [11:29]
B
It's funny.
- [11:29]
A
Amazing word.
- [11:30]
B
Yeah. I've been recording all day and we're talking a lot today. It's like a theme about how, you know all these phrases are very trite, but then you experience them and you get to embody them. And then you're like, oh, fuck. Like, the joke is like, live, laugh, love. Like, you see that in someone's kitchen and you're like, what a fucking bitch. Whatever, I don't really give a fuck. But then you're. You embody it and you're like, oh, my God. The farmhouse girlies have been right this whole time, you know, 100%.
- [11:56]
A
And going back to that. We need to be reminded more than we need to be taught. It's just like these core principles going back to them over and over and over until they become our foundation. It becomes who we are.
- [12:07]
B
So we've talked a little bit about transformation, identity work. I want to shift into business. And one cheat code you have around business is design for an exit. Like, build your business like you're going to sell it even if you're not. Tell me more.
- [12:21]
A
Yeah, I think there are different phases. So somebody is going from like zero to multiple six figures per year. It's just like a lot of imperfect action. Like, find your product market fit, build your audience and your ads and your marketing and get really good at conversions. So if you're an agency or if you're in coaching, it's just like booking calls and close calls. That's all that matters. Like, just get that product market figure off the ground and start there. But after that, when you have the product market fit, the weight is scaled to seven. Seven figures profit multiple, seven figures per year. We've got to shift from, like being the doer to being the leader. And kind of going from doing to more being and leading, which comes down to systems and team and knowing what each department is, what the core KPIs, who's taking care of each department and building our business in a way that we're using leverage to ultimately scale ourselves out of the day to day operations. So for me it was actually that shift when I went to the Buddhist monastery back in 2018. I made a half million dollars in, in that year. But I was burnt out and I was like, I gotta do things differently. And we had a pretty good product market fit in the coaching space. And then I just started hiring and I remember I was scared crapless with the first like brain hire on my team where he helped take over fulfillment for the clients, he built out the course material, he held him accountable, all of that. But it freed up so much time so I could focus on marketing and sales. And then it was like crap, I'm taking so many sales calls, I need to get somebody in here. And then I hired a guy, he crushed it so I could focus on marketing. And then later on I hired a guy to be our sales manager and he got me out of that whole department, training the setters and the salespeople. And then it was like, crap, I'm doing all the marketing. I need help with this, with the ads and the copy. And hired another guy, Jimmy Rutowski, who took over the marketing side of things and then hired a COO a little bit later on. By the way, anybody listening COO is responsible for one thing and I didn't know this at the time, there's they're there to help your team members set KPI key performance indicators and surpass KPI so the company reaches their goals. That's all COO is responsible. It's not for downloading the Latest tools or AI. That's it. So I, I went through some COOs before I found a really good one and knew that, yeah, I ended up removing myself from the value chain of business, generating leads, converting those leads, fulfilling for those clients. That's kind of a high level overview of how to think about and exit. And then I was able to exit my business in 2021 and took a year off and it was great.
- [15:30]
B
So that's amazing. Yeah, it's really interesting. Cause a lot of people don't think of coaching as something that you can exit from, but you're proof that it's totally possible.
- [15:40]
A
Yeah, I had a, I, I, I removed myself from the face of the brand and it was just under tribe of buyers had a really good team, had really good IP and processes and I was out of the fulfillment of the offers. So it made it exitable and we had over a million dollars in contracts that were coming in over the next 12 months. We had big marketing lists and all of that. So it made it really sellable.
- [16:08]
B
Another cheat code you have around building business is that around ads. Ads are accelerants, but they're not lifelines. Like they amplify what's already working organically. So you can't necessarily expect ads to save what isn't there. So I'm curious your perspective on that.
- [16:24]
A
Selling people just like, oh, you put this ad, you put this funnel in and then you'll scale past a million to whatever it is. I think that's so easy for people to sell, but it's so much harder for people to actually deliver and get results on. So where we start with our clients and what we did in tribal buyers is really honing in the organic and the content side of things and making sure we have the right offers in place and dialing in that product market fit before we run to ads. Because ads will be an accelerant. And if we have organic marketing, we're big proponents of school skool now. And if we can hone school in without ads and we have different ways to drive traffic to it. But you can be so much more flexible with your messaging and scale past those 20, 30, 40k months with agency and coaching at the beginning instead of pumping a bunch into ads and getting a bunch of low quality sales calls where you're just banging your head against the wall, spending so much time on that. So I'm a big proponent of honing in offers in organic first and then putting in simple paid ads to drive that growth.
- [17:44]
B
Yeah, I see that so often with my clients. I'm like, it doesn't matter how awesome your ads are, how much money you're putting behind it, or how many people on your sales team. Like if your product sucks, it sucks. And I think some people don't don't lay the foundation enough of like testing and iterating of what again the product market fit to actually put fire and leverage behind what they're doing and then they wonder why it doesn't work.
- [18:06]
A
Yeah. And honestly, we're just like one product market fit away from massive growth. For tribe buyers, it was like, yo, don't do webinars and ads, like have a client getting Facebook group. That's what I sold in 2021. It was giving them a Different way to get clients. I worked with Cole Gordon with his initial offer. He runs a $40 million sales agency now but his initial offer is Facebook. Build it past a million on sales training. But then he found the gap in the marketplace which was oh, coaches and agencies need setters and salespeople. And when he switched over to that then he scaled past eight figures, multiple eight figures where it was just that product market fit was the thing that allowed him to just accelerate.
- [18:53]
B
That's so powerful. What would you say? What, what cheat code or tip would you get give to somebody to find product market fit if they're early, early on in their journey?
- [19:03]
A
Couple of things. We can't read the label inside the bottle. I'm always just like hiring people to help with my messaging, with my content, that sort of stuff. I can't read the label inside the bottle. I need somebody else's support for that. Right. They need to read the label and tell me what I'm doing. But number two is have a crap ton of conversations like especially at the beginning. Done is better than perfect. The clarity will come in the doing. And it's not about sitting behind automations or sitting behind building this really fancy funnel. It's about having conversations with, with anybody that you can around what you're thinking about for your offer and with your messaging and really dialing that in. And like our offer is not going to be a hundred percent dialed in until we start getting clients. Like the big thing for us we just have a Google document that we help our clients create in the first week and then it's like have these conversations and close these deals. The best messaging you'll ever get from somebody is somebody who pulls out their credit cards and buys your stuff. It's not from posting on Facebook or Instagram. Hey, what's your biggest fear? What's the biggest thing you want to learn? You're not going to get the best feedback from like people might be freebie seekers. It's from people that are actually paying you money.
- [20:28]
B
So yeah, that's such a great way to get feedback. I love that. And the bit the cheat code around you can't read the bottle inside the label is so, so good. I think that's true for messaging but that's also true for so many other parts of your business. Like getting feedback, getting outsiders perspective and being excited and open for that feedback is so vital.
- [20:50]
A
100%. Yeah. And when we tried to do everything ourselves. Another quote I love it only hurts when we're hiding. That's why I'm always telling my clients like yo, show up, like be seen and ask for help. And because like the only time we don't make progress or it really hurts is when we're just hiding from ourselves.
- [21:11]
B
You know, it only hurts when we're hiding. Show up, be seen. That's so good. I'm going to put that in my pocket. Do you have any cheat codes or tips around providing transformation in your clients? Especially behavior change? Because you know, coming into the age of AI, we have all of the information in order to do something right. Maybe not the exact expert information from you, but we can find this information. I think really the differentiator is going to be psychology, transformation, implementation, maybe even entertainment, like really getting people to implement. So I'm curious if you have any cheat codes around getting your clients to implement to provide that transformation.
- [21:50]
A
I would say it comes down to three things. Number one is clarity right off the bat. So each of our clients gets a custom roadmap of a 90 day roadmap. And usually 90 days is perfect. Todd Herman's 90 day year, all that where it's like first section is focus three. If you just focus on these three core projects over the next 90 days and ignore everything else, you will hit your goals. And then specifically with business, we give them cash collected goals for each month over the next 90 days. If somebody knows where they, where they want to go and what they need to do to get there. Clarity right off the bat is the most important, important thing if you're doing coaching. Having a daily winning formula is super crucial too for results. Where it's like if you do these three to five things every single day, you will be successful. That's it. Just keep it as simple as possible. And clarity. Number two is creating a culture of winning inside of coaching, inside of agency, if that's what we're talking about. But our very first post in and at the top of our community is our client wins posts. And then people come in, they see, oh, other people are winning, I can do it too. And on if you do group calls and that sort of stuff, always leave space for wins. Number three, I would say process as much as possible out. That adds so much leverage to our agencies and coaching programs. If we just have really simple trainings and processes, I just use loom and notion and then it's like cool, I don't need to repeat myself over and over and over. Here's exactly what you do in this process. If we get that question over and over and over again. So document everything with processes, culture of winning and clarity.
- [23:39]
B
So, so good. I think culture of winning is such a great cheat code like anyone listening can implement right now. Just check in with yourself and ask yourself, like, where am I bringing up wins and celebration with my clients and even in myself? Because it's if you're not doing it, your clients aren't going to do it. And from this, like, can you identify one area to implement wins? Like you're saying, could that be at the end of every call? Could that be in your slack channel, in your group? Could that be something you do every Monday or Wednesday? Like, how can you organically implement that into your program if you aren't already? It's also so important because a lot of people in my experience can be like, oh, well, I didn't see the results from this thing this month where they really did see results. They're just waiting for something to like fall out of the sky and be like extremely obvious. But if you train your clients to see every little thing as a win, just compounds and compounds and compounds, and they're able to see things that aren't as direct or clear because the wins are never direct and clear. Right? It's multiple inputs that are creating these wins.
- [24:40]
A
And with that, we gotta train our clients to like speak those wins and find those wins. So on our group calls, we alternate between starting the calls either with gratitudes, what are you grateful for? Or what are your wins? No matter how big, how small business or personal, what, what are your wins? And then that builds that culture.
- [25:02]
B
It's so, so powerful. I have one last question for you. Do you have any thoughts or cheat codes around building your personal brand or importance of personal brand?
- [25:11]
A
Oh, I love it. I know you're the expert at this with building the personal brand. It's the best thing that you can ever do. I was running an agency before I got into coaching and it was semi successful, but I, it was such a burden trying to get clients. And I was doing door to door and working with gyms and chiropractors and all that. And then I hired a coach to help me launch a Facebook group. That was my first, like personal brand where I was getting myself out there with content. And I remember like two months into it, I launched an offer and I made $6,400 in a day. Instead of having to go out and hunt down clients, I was like, holy crap, this is incredible. Like so much easier. And I built that into a multiple seven figure business, five seven figure businesses online now. And it wouldn't have been possible without a personal brand. I think core components is document. Don't create with content. So just document your journey and get results and show results, get testimonials and crank those out there. And YouTube, Instagram and school are the platforms right now. They're. They're crushing it.
- [26:32]
B
You had a great exit. You're chilling now, but what are you working on now? How can people find you and work with you and learn from you? I. I gotta say, your newsletter is so good. I learned something, like every day. So definitely subscribe to that else. Can they work with you and find you?
- [26:46]
A
Yeah, I would say my school community, we have the AI and systems for coaches. School community hit that. We have a bunch of courses in there around offer creation, marketing, sales. And then I. I run a Tuesday call. So come test it out. Come say hi to me. Tell me your favorite thing from this podcast. And then I got a YouTube channel just Andrew Crusy. Those probably be the best two places.
- [27:10]
B
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on, Andrew.
- [27:13]
A
Yeah, Courtney, thank you so much for having me in. The questions, they were great.