Welcome back to another episode of the play big podcast, where we're having conversations with people that are playing big in life, in business and in finance.

And today I'm honored to have a guest in here, Paul Clewell.

Welcome to the studio,

Thank you, man.

I'm so happy to be here.

Thank you for the invite.

Yeah, no worries.

is really cool digs.

You

Yes, we're just getting started.

Let's start off with who is Paul Clewell?

Paul Clewell is a man of faith.

He's a family man he's a Ardent, I guess our entrepreneur have been for many many years.

Spent a 15 18 years in corporate america And felt like I was in a prison many times traveled the globe.

And at the time, going back to the, I don't know, 2012, 2013 my children were, young toddlers at home.

I was globe trekking, which sounds sexy and, and, and, people envy the fact that you're in Paris and you're in Shanghai and you're in Rio de Janeiro and you're all these places, but, you're there alone.

Hotels are hotels and, and airline seats are airline seats, right?

And I was, I just was weighing on my heart that as a father and a husband I was spending way too much time alone.

And I, I built this fear up of, what would, what would happen if something happened at home?

And I, I couldn't get there.

So I came home from a trip in the, in the, in Singapore and I took that long flight home.

And literally on my way home from the Hartsfield on my way home in the middle of the night, I, I just said to myself, I'm done and walked in the door and my, my, my young kids were there to greet me.

My wife gave me a hug and how was your trip?

And the kids were saying, Hey dad, what'd you bring home?

And, and I looked at my wife, I said, I'm done.

I can't, I can't do this anymore.

And that was in 2012, late 2012, early 2013.

And then, went underground for about six months thinking I could catch up on some time with my family and and, recovering from being away and doing the best I could to be a good dad, be a good husband.

And that lasted just a few months and then God laid it on my heart.

He says, amen.

Like you have, you have too many things.

I've got, I've got too many big plans for you to impact other people's lives.

So let's get your butt in gear and get back out there.

Right.

So I started doing some consulting, it was just kind of, again, off the radar, right.

People who knew me from the industries I was in and say, Hey, come help us, come help us do something right in business.

And then I, one thing led to another and then I found myself back in corporate again.

And then yeah, yeah.

And that was just not, not too long ago, but along that way what I found was that I have a calling to work with small businesses.

That's really where my heart lies.

Cause let's face it, man, like they're the lifeblood of everything we do on a daily basis.

Like think about how inconvenient life would be without the local, the local laundromat and the pizza shop and all those things we rely on.

And what I found over time is like those small business owners, they're really good at what they do.

Like the HVAC guy, he's really good at, making sure your air conditioner works, but they don't necessarily know how to grow and scale their business.

Right.

in.

So in a nutshell, that's where my, my passion lies in working with small businesses, helping them scale, grow.

So they don't have to be the hamster on the wheel.

They can understand there is light at the end of the tunnel, whatever that exit ends up looking like.

That's me in a nutshell, man.

So

That's awesome.

You've lived a wonderful life for sure.

I have a lot of experiences.

I'll go back to one of the very first things that you said though man of faith.

When did, when did that begin for you and how did that develop?

Wow.

That's a, that's a deep, that's a deep one.

So it developed, I grew up as a, in a my wife or I'm sorry, my, my mom grew up in an Italian family, big family up in upstate New York, Albany area.

And so we grew up Roman Catholic.

So did I.

Yeah.

My great grandparents are from

go.

Okay.

So

Yeah.

So if you didn't go to church and kneel and pray, the earth was going to open up and the hell was going to swallow

You know exactly where I'm going with this.

Yeah, so growing up Roman Catholic and, it was my duty to be an altar boy, right?

And I'd put on this silly gown and I, at Christmas Eve as a nine and 10 year old, I'm at, I'm at

and help with the incense.

Yeah.

Ringing the bells gag on the smell of the incense.

And I can remember, my, my mom always said, you got to be an altar boy on for the Christmas Eve mass.

It was a big one.

The last thing you want to do is a 10 year

Yeah.

Midnight.

know?

Yeah.

Midnight mass.

You want, you want to be.

In bed thinking Santa Claus is coming.

Yeah, you want to be at church at midnight, right?

And I can remember sitting up behind the priest, like behind the altar there.

And there was another altar boy across from me sitting in his chair.

And I'd get tired and I'd start to like nod my head and stuff.

And I'd look out, into the pews.

And my mother would be sitting out there and she'd be motioning to me like, Sit up straight, like, what are you doing?

And I'm like, this is crazy, right?

So anyway, so I went through that process and then in college, I met my wife, who obviously at the time was my girlfriend.

And we, when we decided, hey, there's a relationship here that might be, the, the final relationship, right?

And and they had a, a Catholic church on campus, so we thought, well.

Probably the right thing to do.

Let's go to church as, as boyfriend, girlfriend, and we did, and it was the same thing.

It was stand up, sit down, kneel, stand up, sit down, kneel.

It was like eat a piece of paper.

Like what?

Right.

So I was like, what, what are we doing here?

And at that time, as a 19, 20, 21 year old, you, you start to develop as a man in class, right?

You start developing your intellect and you start building your opinions and views of the world, right?

It's something I've been influenced by professors and classes and stuff, but you start Becoming more of a free thinker than you were as a, as a teenager.

Right.

And I remember thinking by this whole Catholic thing, I'm sorry, God, but this doesn't make sense.

It doesn't make sense to me.

Like, I don't understand.

Like, is that my way to show that I love you?

And I have faith in you by kneeling, standing, sitting, kneeling, standing.

So I didn't get it.

Long story short we got married, we moved to Atlanta or, to this area in 90, 1997.

So we've been here a while and we got invited to go to a church and it was at the Alpharetta Community Center.

It wasn't even a church.

It was just like this big community center.

And it was what they called a non denominational church.

I had no idea what that was.

And I, I, we, we went there and I thought, wow, this is really like, this is my, more my vibe, right?

People are wearing jeans and t shirts.

There's no stand up, sit down, kneel, stand up, sit down, kneel.

It was just a really cool guy on stage who was just sharing love and sharing message and, and, and just speaking truth.

Right.

Cause you remember growing up as Catholic, like I remember sitting in the pew as a kid and always seeing a Bible sitting there, but no one ever said, pick it up and read it ever.

No.

Maybe have a reading and then you'd hear a homily.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Never sink in.

never sunk in.

So.

What I liked about this was because I was searching and it was God laying it on my heart saying, come look, come find me.

I'm here.

You just got to come find me.

I've always been here.

Right.

And I thought, wow, this is, this is a different environment.

This is really different, but they're speaking truth because they're speaking directly from the Bible.

I went, I could, I could dig this.

Right.

And we just started going, started going.

And before you know it, we gave our lives to Christ.

We got baptized.

All over again.

Right.

'cause I was baptized as a baby, but what's the

don't know what you're doing.

Yeah.

Dunking you in water.

Dunking

me in water and I, whatever.

So, that's where it all started.

And that was probably 1998.

We've never looked back.

Yeah.

So how has that impacted you through your life?

Obviously, that, that, that's a marking moment

yeah.

Growing up with one belief system that shapes, that shapes people to finding truth for you and for your wife.

How has that impacted your your life together with the family and business and, through some of those choices that you're making a hard choice of coming back from Singapore?

Is, is, is God and Jesus somebody that you lean on in those tough moments and other moments?

How has that impacted

Yeah, that's a great question and it has impacted us as a family and me as a man exponentially, like in profound ways, right?

And I, and I lean, it sounds cliche because we're, none of us are perfect, right?

I tend to think that I lean on God's understanding and Jesus guidance.

for everything.

But, but I have a, like, like you, right?

We're alpha males, we're entrepreneurs, we're movers, we're shakers, we're high performers, we're all these things that people want to define us as.

I find myself getting falling into this trap where if I have a struggle during the day, depending on what that struggle is, especially if it's a business challenge, there are times where I'll say to myself, God, you know what, dear Lord, like what do I do?

But more often than not, if it's business related, I find myself self talking going, you know what, God, I got this one.

Like, I don't, I don't need you for this one.

I need, I'm going to need you for something bigger.

So I got, I'm dealing with this problem.

I'll just deal with this.

I got it.

Right.

And then, and it's like, you hear this voice, right?

And it's like, no, dude, you don't got it.

Right.

But I get, what is it?

The stubbornness, maybe.

Where I think, hey, you know what, God, I'll call on you when I need you because you are so much bigger than this little problem I have.

So I fall into that trap of, I go, ah, if it's a small problem, let me just handle it.

Where he's going, no, no, no, no, no.

Bring them all

I'm in everything.

Bring them all.

Right?

And we do the same as a family.

My wife is much more faithful in and consistent in,

right.

handing it over to him than I am.

So we have that little bit of a dichotomy every once in a while.

And she's like, well, maybe you should just pray about it.

And I'll be like, I need to do something about it.

Right.

So I think there's a, it's a, but it's, it is a balance, right?

Cause we've been married for 28 years.

Right.

But I think there is a balance because I think he does lay things on our heart, but he also expects us to take action.

Right?

Like, like people talk about manifesting and all this stuff and I'm sure there's truth somewhere in there, putting stuff out into the universe and things will happen good and positive thought, positive thoughts, all those things.

But at the end of the day, like if I have, if I have firewood right here and I need a fire, like I can't stare at it and wait for it

hope that it leaps, I hope that it leaps

Yeah, exactly.

I think someone, I think it was Wayne Dyer that said the, the problem he had with the law of attraction and that is that people think you can attract what you want.

He's like, you don't attract what you want, you attract who you are.

Right, so it's, yeah, getting, getting in tune with, with who you are.

Take me to

I

that moment when you came back from Singapore.

And you made the, this realization on the way home from the airport to your home.

going,

Tell me what, what, what emotions were going through you?

Had, had this been something you were contemplating for a long time and then finally the levy broke and you're just like, you hit a wall and this was it.

Tell me what, what was that like emotionally, internally, on the drive home first?

Yeah.

So the, the first emotion I had was frustration and it was because I'd been gone for maybe two and a half weeks and this goes, I got back to the airport and I forgot even where I had parked my

right.

And so I had to sit in one of the little security golf carts and they, and they drove me around and I had my key fob and I was hitting the panic button, right?

Waiting to get close enough to my own car.

Right.

So that, so it started with frustration.

And, and I remember I was having like a victim mindset at the time.

And I'm like, can't believe this has happened to me.

Of course, I've been away and now I'm back home and I can't even find my car.

Like none of it was my fault.

It was like, I wanted to project it.

And then as I, as I was driving home, I remember feeling a rush of desperation.

I felt, I felt desperate.

And I think I felt desperate to figure out a way to take back time and regain time because I'd spent so much time, not so much, but enough time away from my family and my kids at times when they need your dad, they need their dad home, right?

And missing birthdays and.

It could just, it just didn't feel good.

And my kids would contribute to this.

And this is interesting, but it's cute.

My daughter was maybe 7, 8 at the time.

My middle one was 4, 5.

Something like that.

And we had a little one.

And my daughter specifically, and both of the two older ones really, but more of my daughter, she, before I would leave for a trip, she would write little notes.

Like, hey daddy, and we have this saying in our house, be your best, do your

Yeah.

So she would write this note, Hey, daddy, be your best, do your best.

Please call me when you get to London, right?

Or some, some little notes, some little cute things.

You draw a little picture, right?

And my, and my, my middle one would draw a little picture of, the two of us dressed up as army guys.

And so they would fold these up and they would stick them in my bag and in my brief.

So I'd show up at hotels or wherever I show up and I'd find these little notes and I, and I, I so loved it and needed it, but it was also so heartbreaking because it was just a constant reminder of I'm not with them.

I'm not where I should be.

So that was where that feeling of desperation came in on my way home.

And I, and even pulling into the driveway, I had this like feeling of anxiety because I was like, man, I can't do this anymore.

I'm killing it.

Like in business, just absolutely crushing.

How do, how's my wife going to take, is she going to realize that my, my spiritual and physical and emotional wellbeing are far more important to me.

right now than my financial position.

Yeah.

And so I was feeling a lot of anxiety.

But it was this again, this duality of, if I make a decision, I'm hoping the anxiety is going to go away.

So it was like, I was putting all, I was, I was all in on red,

the chips are

putting all my chips in.

Right.

And obviously it's worked itself out.

So, but yeah, there was a lot of, I didn't feel relief and I was hoping that I'd feel relief wasn't until weeks later where I had, Consistent mornings of getting up and waking the kids up and doing breakfast and making lunches and taking them to school.

It took a couple of weeks for me to go, Yeah, this feels good.

This feels good.

Yeah.

Why there's a lot of people in that situation, people that are in, in corporate America, which, what you were in that time were an entrepreneur.

I certainly have spent a lot, a lot of time away from my family over the years, why do you think some, some people like yourself,

people

have the courage.

You felt desperation, but I see it as courage.

Yeah.

You, you feel desperation, but making that decision as a courageous decision of honoring you, what you value, who you value, and where and how you wanna spend your time.

There's a lot of people that are in that position.

Maybe what wavering because of the fi, the duality, like you said, because of the financial.

Aspect of it, but they continue to only look at that and self sabotage their own internal well being.

What is it that you think is courageous about you in that endeavor and what, what advice would you give someone that's sitting in a similar situation?

Because I think there's hundreds of thousands of people sitting in that same, same spot.

Yeah.

I mean, I mean, first of all, thank you for, for categorizing it as courageous.

I, I, I, I don't know if I'd classify myself that way.

I hope I project myself sometimes that way.

I don't view myself that way.

Yeah, to me, it's, it's, it's the courage to honor yourself, right?

The, the courage to honor yourself, what, what you're really feeling, what you're really going through and your family like that to me, that's, that's an act of, of courage in a moment of desperation.

Some people just, they don't they don't, they don't listen to their spirit as much their ego gets in front of them.

And then they look at, well, how am I going to survive and make money?

Opposed to how my, what you said, your spiritual and emotional wellbeing is far superior.

I think it comes down to, for me, it was a moment of identifying this idea of self love.

And I don't mean that in an egotistical way or a conceited way.

What I mean by that, Jason, is like, I came to a moment where I realized that if I, if I, if I wasn't taking care of myself, if I wasn't really dialed in on my spirituality and my physical health and, and, and my just.

Everything about me as a, as a being, right, if I couldn't get dialed in on those things, how can I, how can I serve anybody else?

How can I get them to where they need to be if I can't get there myself?

How can I be a good leader in my home if I can't get spiritually dialed in first?

How, right, how, how can I demonstrate, courage if I can't find it myself?

So for me, it was more of an idea of self love because how could I serve somebody?

Specifically, my family at the time, if I, if I can't take care of myself first, it's like, when, when the airplane hits turbulence, the, the, the oxygen mass falls and what do they say, put your, put your Ozone on first, cause you can't help anybody else out if you pass out, right?

So it's that, it's that, that, that acute awareness of self love and again, not in a, in a conceited way at all, but taking care of myself first so that I can pour into those that I love and maybe even more importantly, those who need.

Love or need what you have to offer and

right.

Where, where do you think that you learned.

That from like, how, how did, how did you come to that awareness?

Was it something that grew things that you have learned or studied or listened to, or is it just conversations with God or where, where

so, so I think there's a combination.

I'd like to say it was from things I've learned and things I've read and people I've followed and people that I've looked up to, right?

But it's definitely more of a God thing, right?

And, and, and like, it's funny because like, like I, we all have our own view of our relationship with God, right?

It's, it's, even though there's some universal truth, we all have our own relationship, right?

Yeah.

For me, he gives me a lot of tough love.

I also think he has a sense of humor at times.

But for me that like, it, it was, it's tough love.

Like I hear him talking to me in, in very matter of fact terms.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yo, bro, like you need, this is what needs to happen and so I just always had kind of felt this stirring, to, to, to follow what he, he's, he's teaching me and maybe not even so much what he's teaching me, but what he over times reveals to me.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

And I find that, the, the quieter I can get.

And the more in tune I can get, the more, I hate to use the word revelation because it sounds so but you know what

Angels coming down.

Angel's coming down.

Yeah, it's never happened, but.

So I, I think that's true that the more that you're, yeah, the quieter you get, the easier it is to tune into something that, that's powerful.

Talk to me about the, the, the six months.

So you, you've made the, made this decision.

Reality probably also sets in that, there's no income at that moment from that particular thing, but you're, you're spending time with your family, you're building your spirit back or getting fulfillment, not necessarily trying to make up for lost time, but spending time, talk to me about that six month process or journey that it took a little while.

And then what, what

what

started the going out and consulting or saying, this is how I can use, use my talents,

So the six month window was Like I was fine financially, right?

So when I decided I'm done, right?

And I talked to the owner of the company who I reported directly to who was in Washington, D.

C.

That's where the headquarters was.

And I, and I said, I'm done, right?

And he, and he, he and I built that business together.

And he said, ironically enough, Paul, he says, I think I could be done too.

If, if we have a, if there, if there's a decent exit and he's a big boating guy up in Delaware and the Chesapeake area.

And he, his desire was to move down to the Tampa area and be on his boat and all this stuff.

So he said, okay, I understand where you're coming from as far as being done.

Being exhausted.

Can you help me sell the business?

Let's, let's figure out an exit strategy.

So we did.

And it was December 21st.

And I remember this because it's my birthday.

December 21st of 2012.

That we closed on the business.

And did really well.

He had like a, maybe an 18X exit.

It was really beautiful.

And of course I was part of that exit.

So I didn't feel stressed financially at all.

But, but that financial piece didn't matter to me.

What mattered to me was Who am I as a man?

What am I doing as a father?

What am I doing as a husband?

So as I started to, like you said, catch up for some lost time, which I know I couldn't do, but I was trying my damnedest to try to do that.

Right.

I mean, we, in that six month windows, we paid, we played more Legos and we had more tea parties and army guys.

And we did more stuff in six months than we did in all the other years, but then, there were, the, I have a, I have a very tight inner circle by design.

And it's funny cause the more quote unquote successful you get, the tighter that circle becomes, and one of the guys called me up and he goes, Hey man, like, what are you going to do next?

And I went, I don't know.

And he goes, what the F what do you mean?

You don't know.

I'm like, bro, I really don't, I don't know.

He goes, well, you need to do something.

I go, I know.

I just don't know what it is.

So he was the first one.

He said, look, I need, I need a fractional CMO.

Come on and help me.

And I was like I'll just help you just because I love you.

He's like, no, no, no.

Come on.

So he like forced me back in, if you will.

And, but it was as a consultant, right?

And I was like, this is cool.

So I did some consulting for a while and, and I ended up not liking it.

And the reason I didn't like it is because somebody would say, Hey, we're going to pay, we're going to pay you X.

Here's what we want.

And then at the end of the day, you, you, you create a report or you help them with something, but there's no.

Being a consultant is, it's not a long term

Right.

And I didn't, I didn't want just a short term flash in the pan, because, especially as it relates to a small business, I wanted to be, lock my teeth into something that I could have impact on over time.

And that, and that's where the whole migration from consultant to coach, like success coach, scaling coach, which then migrated into the whole Cardone 10X ecosystem thing.

It just kind of went that way.

Right.

So I, I I just wanted to be more of a coach.

Can you, can you explain in, in your, in your experience?

What, what, what do you consider the difference between a consultant and a coach?

Because I think oftentimes they can get overlapped or people really don't understand or they just have this perception of what a consultant is or what a coach is or I think they're the exact same thing.

What, what is in your experience of actually really doing both?

Yeah.

What is it that is different with when you're consulting versus when you're coaching?

Yeah, that's an awesome question.

And I think a lot of people are misguided by this.

So you are totally in tune with that.

It's a great question.

I, for me being, being a, the, the, the main driver, the main difference between being a consultant and a coach is that a consultant, again, this is just my opinion.

A consultant is very much a transactional process, right?

Whereas being a coach is more of a relational.

Process where as a consultant, you pay, you pay me X, I'll give you Y.

Right.

As a coach, it's you come in and be a part of our collaborative team to get where we need to get to.

It's much more collaboration.

It's much more relationship.

It's much more of you're part of the unit.

Whereas a consultant is just, it's very transactional, right?

Pay me 50, 000 a month and I'm going to do this, right?

Whereas a coach, it's hey, let's look at.

What's long range, what's short term, what's mid range, what's long range, what's the exit and let's work together to build towards that goal, right?

So it's more of a common, there's a, there's more of a duality or mutual mutual benefit or mutual goal on the coaching side.

I think it's phenomenal the way you said it.

One's transactional, one is relational.

And there's a, there's a major difference.

Yeah.

People, people look to just transact business, but in business, business is relationship and relationship is a form of gold and a form of currency.

And very few people know how to build relationships.

And so I think it's a tremendous difference.

Tell me about, tell me about that journey then.

How did you make the shift then from just consulting to, I don't want to just be transactional.

What was your.

First move into coaching?

Was it around the Grant Cardone thing or were you already doing that and then you got introduced

No, it, it, was it the first experience or the first decision to say, I, I wanna be a coach, was influenced by the 10 x.

ecosystem.

One of the things I struggled with as a consultant was, let's say it's a three month contract or whatever, whatever that is.

It's hard to be a consultant and get totally consumed and serve that client.

And at the same time, figure out where's your next client going to come from, right?

It's the whole in the business on the business in the business kind of thing, right?

So I struggled with that a lot.

I was like, I got one one month left in this in this three month process I got to give them everything I got but how do I find the next one?

So I think being a consultant is difficult financially where again, where's the coach thing?

Not that that's not difficult, but Because it's, it's a much longer runway and you're collaborating for a much longer time, you have more time to figure out what's going to be next.

But it was the 10X ecosystem that, that pulled me into that.

And in fact, it wasn't Grant, it was Brandon Dawson, who I'm sure you're familiar with.

Brandon was actually my mentor for a while.

He's a brilliant man.

And this whole concept of here's why coaching is really the way, and it's not consultant because I, I didn't think that way before I thought, what does it to me at the time?

I thought a business coach was more of like a motivational life coach thing, and I can never really understand what the hell

What are you doing?

They're like, who are you to tell me how to run my life, right?

So I, I, I, the Tenex team approached me and said, Hey man, like we've seen some of your stuff.

We know who you are.

We know where you've been.

We know some of the things you've done.

You'd fit in really well.

Right.

I'm like, yeah, no, thanks.

Right.

Because at the time I knew Cardone only with limited view and it was undercover billionaire, right?

It was his real estate stuff, right?

And then I got exposed to this whole 10 X coat business and scaling opportunity.

And I went, yeah, you know what?

Appreciate it.

But yeah, I'm gonna do my thing.

And they were so persistent in which they're good at, right?

That's what good salespeople are.

They're good at staying on somebody, right?

And so just over time, they just kind of wore me down in a good way, in a really good way.

And so, so I just eventually decided to, to.

Throw my hat in the ring and, and, get the designation of 10X elite business coach and speaker.

And there's very few of those.

Very few.

40, 40, 50 of them maybe.

Something like that.

And but the speaking part is, is the part that I've enjoyed the most.

Going through that certification process, what did, what did you realize that maybe you hadn't realized?

Because before you started, you knew the difference, you didn't know the difference between a consultant and a, and a coach.

Going through that process, what was it that you were learning around that methodology of, use the word scale.

I think people use the word scale, but maybe they don't understand what scaling means.

Yeah.

Explain to me that, like, what did you learn during that process of certification and scaling that you're like, yeah, this is,

dude, you are so

this is my jam?

You are so dialed in.

I can't believe it.

Yeah, I, I, the, the biggest thing I learned and it was big and I learned it quickly because I was also struggling from this.

And that is scaling a business is really built around algorithms.

And what I mean by that is if you're have an ambition to grow or to start and scale a business to 3 million a year.

There are very specific algorithms and and simple steps that you can put in place.

There's a game plan.

There's a, there, there's a there, there's a box cover to the puzzle that you can look at and say, Oh, this piece goes here, this piece goes there.

And if I just follow the process, I can scale to 3 million and then from 3 million to 10 million, there's that same process, but it's, there are a lot of different elements, but as long as you understand and have visibility to the fact that there are algorithms that do exist.

And if you do things in a very sequential way and do them, right.

Scaling to 3 million and scaling to 25 million.

One's not harder than the other.

So what I learned was that like this revelation again of, yes, you have to grind.

Yes.

You have to work hard.

Yes.

You have to have a good product.

Yes.

You have to have that process and all things.

Right.

But there is a very specific and what's really cool about the Cardone team is they have studied over 25, 000 businesses to, to gather this data.

to create and build those algorithms, right?

So they know if you want to go from 25 million to 75 million.

There are specific things that need to happen sequentially to get to those next levels of, of, of top line revenue, if you will, but that was so new to me, I just thought, well, if someone asked me three years ago, how do you go from 25 million to 75 million in revenue?

I would go, I would give all

more Yeah.

yeah, hire more, I don't know, more products and I would ask, I would answer in all those typical NBA kind of answers, right?

Because I really did not know.

Now I do, now I do.

So it's, it's very there's, it's very process driven.

And as long as you understand the process, like, like you have a wildly successful business, right?

And at any point in time, there are these elements that I'm talking about, there are 75, up to 75 elements that have to be put into play in sequential order, like dominoes.

And if you pull a couple of dominoes out of the middle, you can't, the chain doesn't run.

And most people don't understand that.

However, like a businessman successful like yourself, others, those, those things get put in play.

Those elements and sometimes you don't even realize you're putting them in play because you're instinctive, intuitive, you have experience, you have a good team.

So sometimes the puzzle gets built and without the box cover just because you know that the blue pieces must go up here because it's the sky and the red pieces go here because it's the barn and you can collate them in categories and before you know it you start, painting this picture, so.

It's that, that's the long answer is, is, it's very algorithmic in nature.

When you say algorithmic about scaring off people that.

I don't know how to, I don't know how to spell it.

So don't ask

I don't know how to spell it either,

I'm not

speller.

But if someone is listening and is like, oh I don't like math and algorithms scared me and calculus, whatever part of math that you learned it.

But you said a couple things algorithms You also use the word simple the word I love the most was sequential and explain to me what, what does, what is an algorithm when you use the word algorithm as it relates to, to business?

to me, it's a really good question.

I hated math too, and I'm scared of it still.

So when I'm referring to algorithm, I'm really referring to the process.

And in its simplest form for listeners, like, Was it 98 percent of, of businesses in America?

There's 36 million of them.

25 million of them will are under 3 million in revenue.

There's a reason for that.

It's because those business owners, as smart as they are and as much as they hustle, they just haven't understood yet that they have, that there's a code to be cracked, to move to the next level.

That's what the whole 10 X.

ecosystem brings, right?

So to answer that question, like in its bare bones, we have what's called the four Ps.

This is the algorithm and it's letters.

It's not even numbers.

Right.

But it's, it's the four P's and it's promote profit process and people.

And essentially what that means is, if you want to get to 3 million bucks, it's a quote unquote, simple algorithm.

You have to have, you have to be able to promote your product or service.

In other words, you have to be able to sell it, market and sell it.

And from that, you have to be able to make a profit, make some money doing it.

Once you make some money.

The third P process.

Now you can afford to put a process in place, whether that be a CRM or putting QuickBooks in place or whatever that process is.

Once those three P's are in line, and this was going to make total sense when, when I explained this to most people anyway, when you get to the fourth P and that's the people piece, I always say to people like good people, like high caliber, high performing people are never going to come work for lack of a better word for shitty business owners.

Right?

You'll never, you'll never attract them and retain them because a good high performer, like if I said, Jason, I really want you to come work for me because you're, you're, you're the, you're the bomb.

You're going to look at it and go, okay, can I make money?

Can I have, does, does he have a product that I can sell?

Right?

Does he have processes in place that can support me and my growth and my own revenue targets and my own income targets and all that stuff?

So it's only if you can get those first three P's in place that you can put the people in place because good people aren't going to come work for bad companies.

Right?

So that's the algorithm in a, in an umbrella view, right?

It's those four P's promote, profit, process, people.

I love that you use the word process because it's, it's been a mentor of mine many, many years ago.

People use the word systems and processes and he'd always tell me the magic is in the process.

I'm like, ah, explain it to me because, like, I thought systems and processes just like go together.

He's like, well, system is just the steps that you take.

So a system is step one, step two, step three, step four, step five.

The magic is in the process and most people don't focus on the process.

The process, the process is how you move an individual through the system.

Like, how do you move them through your sales funnel?

How are you moving them through what it is that you're doing?

It's, so some people get, I think, I love the word, I love that you focus on process as well.

And so tell me, what have you, what have you learned about you said you, you predominantly go into small, medium sized businesses and, and you enjoy that marketplace, which I think is, It's phenomenal because there's so many of them and there's so many people that are great entrepreneurs just for starting something, but then they get lost in just just doing what they do and having dreams of wanting something bigger or expanding or buying a business or selling their business.

But tell me, what, what do you see?

With the average small to medium sized business owner that they are struggling with the most or what, what is it that they're afraid of?

Or what is it that they, they predominantly need help with besides the, the four P's that you're coming in and doing that.

I'm talking about the individual.

What are they internally battling inside of themselves that maybe their employees or other people don't know that they feel comfortable talking to you about.

Yeah, that's a good question too.

I think there's a couple of the, the most resounding one that I come across is when you get to a place where you can they feel comfortable in talking with you.

Yeah.

The biggest thing is fear.

They have a fear that they, they, they they can't grow the business.

They have a fear that it's not going to last, that it's going to go out of business.

So there's a lot of fear and we, like we've all experienced, right?

I've met a lot of small business owners who just like me at one point in time spend many nights.

Sitting up with their head in their hands going, Oh my gosh, like what am I doing?

And they don't even know, they don't, number one, they don't know what they don't know.

And we've all been there.

We all, I get, we all understand that and can empathize with that.

But I think they just, they, they.

Their their fear is that they are a hamster on the wheel, right?

They're doing, I don't know, 200, 000 a year.

They take home 40, 000 a year in their salary.

They're working 12 hours every day and they go, where's the light at the end of the tunnel?

Like, I don't know.

How do I get out of this?

Now that I've gotten into it, how do I get out of it?

And I asked a lot of them that question.

I'll go like, what is your, what is your, tell me about what happens in 10 years from now.

Tell me where, where you imagine yourself in 10 years.

They all say the same thing and just same response.

We would probably, Hey, it's, I want to be retired.

I want to have some money in the bank.

And I said, well, what does that mean?

Money in the bank?

What does that mean?

That mean half a million dollars?

Does it mean 5 million?

What does that mean?

I want to be, I want to move to Florida and I want to spend time with my grandkids and, but very, very few have a plan to get there.

Very few.

And so for me, Part of that algorithm that we're talking about without scaring listeners away is reverse engineering, right?

So I spent a lot of time kind of deep with with a small business owner going.

No, no, no No, I understand you want to retire in 10 years, but What are we gonna do to get there?

What steps have to happen to get there and when you say I want to move to Florida What specifically does that mean to mean?

I want to move to Bradenton.

You want to live in Tampa?

You want to be with your like we get really granular To make it real And, and almost tangible, right?

And then we just reverse engineer all the way back to where we are today.

And at the end of that long conversation, it's okay, what do we, what's that step we have to take today to start moving us towards that ultimate goal?

What do you think, what do you think holds, holds somebody to do that standard?

So it's, you also talked about things that are simple and I always like trying to make things more simple.

I think humans make complex situations complicated as opposed to simple.

And it's actually, it goes against the law of nature.

But when you, when people set a goal in the future, and especially if you're talking about 10 years, if I set a goal in the future, I'm not able to achieve that unless I, like you said, do something every single day.

How do you, how do you help hold someone to a daily standard of simple things?

That they may not think of and this is these three or four simple things that if I just did them every single day is actually going to get me to where I need to go in the future like the futures is like and visualize it, I can see it, I can write it down, I can do all those things, but it's harder for me to get there if I don't do simple practical things on a daily basis and hold myself to a standard.

Well,

do you find a successful way of holding another individual who you're not responsible for?

They have to, I mean, they make their own decisions, but as you're coaching them, how do you, how do you hold a standard for them that then becomes, I guess, embodied in them that allows them to re achieve the results that you're able to get

awesome.

Yeah, that's a great question.

So we, we build action plans and we, we build these business processes that are specific to the individual.

Right.

And, and you're absolutely right.

At the end of the day.

They have to hold themselves responsible, right?

I can cheerlead for them all they want to I can give them knowledge I can give them information.

I can give them Insights and vision of where they want to go But the word the word that I want to throw into this response is the accountability word, right?

I can't hold them accountable.

I have to they have to hold themselves accountable So like in my engagements as a coach like we talk every week Right.

So what we will assign tasks, if you will, and we'll agree, these are the things that need to happen between now and next week.

Can you hold yourself accountable?

Period.

End of story.

Like I don't, I don't sugarcoat, you know what I mean?

Cause like, if you're going to pay me as a coach, number one, you're paying good money for me to be a coach.

So what are we doing here?

Right.

If you can't hold yourself accountable, like I would rather end the engagement.

Then, then try to get you to see how good you are and what your potential in your business is.

If you can't hold yourself accountable to it

Tell me about, tell me about that.

Because you work with a lot of people, you've been a lot of places clearly you have a unique skill of what you just said, seeing something in somebody that maybe they don't see in themselves.

How, how do you, how do you personally deal with that?

If they don't see it themselves, like how, how do you deal with that or how do you help them see, see themselves for what you see them as?

Because you've seen a lot of people, so you would, you would recognize something in somebody that represents something of.

Like the potential in somebody it's almost like a parent and a child like I see you as this and maybe they don't see themselves as that but you can see them as that and you sometimes you want more for them than what they, than they want for themselves and you can't, you can't take responsibility for someone else's lack of responsibility.

How do you personally deal with that when you are working with people where you can see something in them that maybe they can't see in themselves.

good.

That's good.

That's a great question.

And I'll admit that I don't think I'm very good at that.

Because I get frustrated.

Right?

Because like, if I see the potential Like I'm, I'm more of the guy who's going to like, not physically, but literally like I want to grab you by the shoulders and go, bro, like you, you, you've got so much potential.

Right.

And they're like, but I don't see it.

Right.

But, but I think asking pro I ask a lot of probing questions that are very reflective in nature.

And what I mean by that is I may say to you, Hey, Jason.

If you, if you do what I asked, I've asked you to do, and of which we've agreed that these are the next steps.

Where does that, what would that, how does it, how would that make you feel if we actually accomplished that between today and next Tuesday?

Typically the response is, Oh, I would feel, I would feel good.

Okay, good.

Do you want to feel good?

Yeah, I do want to.

Okay, great.

Then can we agree?

Here's how we're going to move forward.

So I ask a lot of reflective questions and I like to see people, business owners, kind of just go, go internal.

Right?

Instead of, instead of looking at me as like their magic pill, because I'm, because I'm not.

Right?

But I going deep, reflectively and forcing them to really answer their own not answer their own questions, but, but answer who they are and what their true intentions are.

Cause sometimes, sometimes they come out and they go, Hey man, like, I don't know if I'm cut out for this.

And I go, great.

You stay happy at 500, 000 a year.

Don't pay me anymore because you've just told me you're happy where you are.

I'm not here to keep you status quo.

I'm here to take you somewhere else.

So if you're really not committed to it, that's cool, but it's not for you and I, right?

So I just like people to think about who they are, what their purpose is, and are they really truly committed to doing what they think they want to go do?

Because sometimes when the rubber hits the road, they're not in.

Oh, stomach for

in.

They don't have the

What are you most excited about that's going on in your life right now?

Wow.

I am, so there's a couple things.

Number, number one is I'm working with Derek Fay right now.

I'm sure you're familiar with Derek Fay.

He's got 3F management, which does a lot of mergers and acquisitions.

Again, big heart for small business.

He's got a new initiative that just launched yesterday where he is he's, he's taking applications from small businesses.

And that are doing less than a half a million dollars a year, I think.

And he's going to, through his C suite team, he's going to scale that business to a multi million dollar business and take nothing in return.

So it's like this really cool, it's almost like a, I describe it as a American Idol.

Shark Tank and America's Got Talent kind of all put together, right?

So he's, he's getting this incredible, overwhelming response from these small businesses who say, Yeah, I own a HVAC company and I do 250, 000.

So anyway, so I'm working with Derek on that and his team.

He, he's an incredible.

incredible entrepreneur, but more importantly, he's an incredible human being.

So, and and you get to our age, quote unquote, you, you, you want to just be around people and you, you, we have the luxury.

I think if it's a luxury to choose who we want to spend life with and do business with.

Right.

And he's one of those guys, he's just, he has such a heart for people, he has such a heart for enabling others to have success because he's been wildly successful and he knows what it means to give back and what that, that requirement of, of social benefit, right?

If you're in a position to be able to do it, you should do it.

So anyway, so I'm really excited about that.

And I'm really, really super excited about what 10 x and, and that Cardone ecosystem is doing.

I'm getting ready to, well, I'm my, my first book's coming out.

Oh, is it?

Yeah.

My first, yeah.

So I'm excited about that.

First book's coming out.

It's coming out.

It's supposed to come out next month.

Title, title is Success.

Success.

So it, it's a collection of, it's not just me, it's co-authored.

It's a, it's a collection of kind of what we're talking about here today.

Tell me about success from a certain C suite person's point of view, right?

What were your struggles through life?

How did you overcome them?

How did you get to where you are and what lesson learned is there, right?

So it's a, it's a collection of these.

So that comes out next month.

And when it does come out, will, is it on Amazon or where will people go to?

It'll be on Amazon.

The, the publishing company I forget their name.

But they, they, they have a track record of but getting put on the Wall Street, was it the Wall Street's bestseller list, Wall Street Journal bestseller list, something like that.

So we're looking forward to that.

But anyway, so I'm really excited about that because initially what happened was the publishing company came to me and they said, Hey, we would like for you to come down to Columbia.

For a week and we're going to do a deep dive and we're going to teach you how to become an author and we're going to help you write your book.

And I went, that sounds really super cool.

I don't have time for it.

Right.

Cause at the time I was, as I was working as a COO in a publicly traded company, not too long ago.

And I was like, I don't have time to break away to go to Columbia as much as I'd love to.

And they said, well, can you, can you write a chapter?

I went, yeah, I can write a chapter.

And what was amazing about that.

And I'm, I'm gonna, I'm digressing here, but this is.

It's important to share this.

So I write this chapter and the whole chapter was discovering throughout my childhood and my early adult life that I had struggled with some trauma and, and the fear of abandonment many, many times.

And that kind of led me to who I am today.

And it was through a transition, a transformational coach who is now a very good friend of mine.

She took me through this process of, of going deep into my soul and understanding why I have these feelings of fear of abandonment.

And we were able to connect all these dots throughout my childhood and my adolescent years and my high school years and college years and all the way up.

And it wasn't until I was in my late forties, it's not too long ago that I discovered that I absolutely struggled with this fear of abandonment.

And it wasn't until I could.

Discover it, address it, call it out for what it really was, that what it ended up doing was creating this superpower called vulnerability, where I, I finally felt like I could give the world and give people who I really am, rather than who I want them to think I am, like this imposter syndrome thing, right?

So it really opened up like this superpower for me to just be raw.

authentic.

Not that I, not that I ever was not.

But I was always, I built walls around me these walls of fear, but they were, they were, there were permeable walls where I might let you in to a certain extent, but I'm going to keep you at, keep you at arm's length to a certain extent.

And the reason I was always doing that throughout the years was this fear of abandonment.

But like, it was like, look, we have this relationship, but I'm going to keep you at arm's length because I'm afraid you're going to leave this relationship and hurt me.

So I'm going to keep you at arm's length so that when the relationship ends, I can end it on my terms.

And I did that personally, professionally, for many, many, many, many, many years.

And it all came back to this deep rooted fear of abandonment through childhood experiences.

It blew my mind.

So anyway, that's what I write about in the

Wow.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

So that's what I'm excited about.

And I'm really super excited about the 10X speaking.

Platform, so I'm, I'm, I'm setting up

me, tell me about that.

yeah, so I'm setting up some keynote.

Setting up my schedule for the, for this year, for the rest of this year to do keynote talks, at different masterminds and conferences and things like that.

And it's all about essentially what we've been talking about and it's small business, it's scaling, it's, building high performance teams.

And, and a lot of it is centered around, if you want to build a high performance company, which most people do.

Sometimes they leave out the fact that you need a high performance team to run that high performance company, right?

And we use the analogy or the metaphor a lot of, of like a a race car.

We can go build you a race car, right?

But if you're not professionally trained to drive that car, and you don't have a professional pit crew, and someone who can change tires quickly, and you don't have an owner who can promote you, like, if you don't have the high performance people around the high performance machine, the high performance machine is useless, right?

So that, and that's really where that's really where I find my flow, right?

It's in that space of how, how do you build those high performance teams to match, High performance instead of building a house of cards, that's going to fall.

How do we build something with good, solid, strong longevity and a good foundation so we can build.

So that's what a lot of that talk is around.

that's very cool.

Well, I look forward to it.

Look forward to reading the book and being what you're out in the world talking about.

It's been an honor and a privilege to have you in here.

You can see there's a lot of stickers that are here.

So you're going to do the honor of

I get it in my own

you get to write.

Any words of wisdom on here, or a tagline that you want, and autograph

know about that, but

Or you can just write your name, whatever you want, and then you get to Then you get to pick a spot, whatever spot, whatever spot

All right.

Can I think about it for just a second here?

I'm gonna, I'm gonna say what do I want to say here?

So this says, is good.

Find him.

He's waiting.

Awesome.

God is good.

Find him.

He is waiting.

Very good.

Well, it's been an

man.

I love this.

This was awesome.

for being in here.

Thank you.

Until next time, always ride the wave of life and always play big.