$0 to $10 Million in 5 Years: The Sales Strategy That Worked

How do you build wealth from nothing? Jeremy Jenson did it, going from a childhood of moving between rented houses in Alief, Texas, to running Encore Search Partners, one of Houston's largest privately held recruiting firms. Shawn Lynch sits down with him to unpack exactly how, and why the strategy that gets you to your first million looks nothing like the strategy that gets you to fifty. Jeremy talks openly about growing up with a single mom, watching wealthier classmates drive brand new trucks in high school, and how that gap planted the seed for the ambition that drives him today.

The two get into the real framework behind scaling a company at every stage, from the hustle and grind it takes to hit your first million, to the leverage and reinvestment that carries you from one million to ten, to the relationships and trust that carry you from ten million to fifty. Jeremy explains why sales fixes almost every other problem in a business, why he would rather hire a strong operator than try to do everything himself, and why entrepreneurs who cut corners for quick money rarely make it past a few good years. Shawn and Jeremy also talk about parenting, raising ambitious kids without raising entitled ones, teaching financial literacy early, and why the real marker of success has far less to do with the size of your bank account than most people assume.

Subscribe to Official Success Formula for more conversations like this one, and catch the full episode on the podcast at the link below. You can also check out Jeremy Jenson and the team at Encore Search Partners if you are hiring or looking for your next executive role.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Everybody talks about success. Nobody talked about what it actually takes.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

I grew up two for four in Haley, Texas. My mom had me when she was sixteen years old.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

I guess today left it when she was nine years old.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

You didn't really know you were two-fork, because everybody around you is 2-4.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

The hardest part about business is not a strategy. Because failure is gonna come.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

The question is, what do you do after it? How fast you fail and how quick you learn I think is what directly is excuse.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

If you're ready to stop making excuses, put your head down and fucking grind and start making progress, you will not want to miss this episode. Before I get into the business side, I want to go back to the beginning. What was life for you like growing up?

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Man, so I'm pretty public and vocal about it, but uh but I grew up super poor uh in A-leaf, Texas, uh went to Killow middle school, and uh we lived with my grandparents in Lee Wood one. And you know, life growing up was I either had to learn how to fight in order to survive, or I had to learn how to talk, Sean. And so I think it's very evident that I learned how to talk myself out of any situation, right, that became threatening.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

And so well, that's actually probably the best skill you can have in life.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Absolutely. And so I'll employ the fighters, but I'll do all the talking, right? But uh, but no, grew up in A-Lif. Uh, my mom had me when she was 16 years old. And so I was raised by a single mom, and uh and we bounced around maybe six or seven different houses, right, by the time I was in high school. And uh finally we settled down in in Sugarland. We lived in the apartment complex in a nicer neighborhood. And at the time, you don't really know that that's gonna create a tremendous amount of childhood trauma, right? But I think that is actually what fueled my success, right? Because I had moved out of this environment where there weren't any Mercedes, there weren't any, you know, even two-story houses in A-Leaf, right? And so everybody kind of like looked the same, dressed the same, talked the same. You didn't really know you were super poor because everybody around you is super poor.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

That was similar to mine. I I I never considered ourselves poor at all because my family always bought clothes for me. Or always had clothes. We always went to a private school, very, very small private school. But other than that, it was, you know, paycheck to paycheck. Yep. And same thing. There was no expensive stuff in my town. I didn't even, I don't think there was any two-story houses. There may have been a couple. And so it it was it was very similar, I'm familiar with A-Lif, to to how A Leaf's, you know, lower middle class, I guess you would call it for sure. Definitely a lot of poor areas, but there's also I felt like I felt more, I guess, middle class at the time. Yeah. Now now when I look back, I I wouldn't say we were middle class, but yeah, yeah, you know, things have changed a lot. But I I mean I grew up the exact same way. I think about it a lot too. Does that does that cause someone to want to go be successful? Because a lot of people in that town, they don't go be, they're not all want to go be successful.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Yep. Yeah, because the people that are the the people that they're surrounding themselves with are all about the status quo, right? You graduate high school, you go work at the factory, you get married to your high school sweetheart, and there's really no ambitions of needing to become a multimillionaire, right? But like I said, whenever I went into the ninth grade when I moved into Sugarland in in Pecan Grove, right? And now there's these big 5,000, 6,000 square foot custom houses in my neighborhood. Oh, I happen to live in the apartment complex. I happen to drive a piece of shit 1987 Chevy S10 blazer that my mom bought for $700, right? And my friends are are driving brand new F-150s. You know, I had one guy that drove a brand new M3, another dude with an M5. That plants the seed at 14 years old. That's like, bro, I want what that motherfucker has.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

You had a blazer?

SPEAKER_00 4:15

I had an S10 blazer, a little two-door. Yeah. Put a lift on it, three-inch body kit.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

That was my first car. I'd showed it, I showed it to Brian the other day. My mom was cleaning out her her house because they were doing renovations. She started sending me all these old pictures. So I have it in my phone. I I didn't even know she had any pictures of it. Yeah. And they bought it. It wasn't 700 bucks, it was probably 1500 bucks. They baked oil all of the driveway. I had to put quarter oil in in a week, learn how to work on cars because you kind of had to keep it going. Absolutely. Felt like the thermostat went out all the time. There's a couple other things that like always messed up, but yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Well, you're you're an old motherfucker, dude. So so for her to have that on camera, that was before camera phones even existed. So she had the old uh Nikon.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Yes, yeah, excellent. Yeah, so no, uh very similar. You were exposed to some nicer things before I was. And so I I definitely would have done the same thing. Like I would have been driven a little sooner if I would have known that what was outside of my town. There's no internet, there was no social media, and so like you said, everybody in my town, they graduate high school, and if they couldn't figure out what they want to do in life, they go work at the chemical plant, right? That's the backup of you can make the most money, you work a shit ton of hours. It's not the highest hourly paying job, it's just you can work double time, triple time, and make a hundred grand a year, right? But they're working you know 70, 80 hours a week. But that was the mentality of everybody in my town. And I was like, I don't I just know I didn't want that. I didn't know all this other stuff existed in in Houston and everywhere else, and I wasn't exposed to it early. It took me a long time to actually see it.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Yeah, you know, it's funny that that you and I with with the similar backgrounds, and then now, you know, we've had similar growth trajectories in our career, right? And um, you know, we've aligned ourselves with other individuals that have complementary skill sets. What my uh kind of like secret sauce was I was really good at marketing and sales, right? And so I needed people that were the relationship managers and the builders and the subject matter experts, right? But, you know, now that I've got a little bit of money, uh, you know, I'm spending my money on houses, spending it on cars, spending it on watches, right? I see your wrist right there. And it's funny how when you grow up super poor, you don't really have that kind of like scarcity mindset where you're like afraid to lose everything because you and I created it from scratch. And so we know, hey, we're we're in the black, right? We're we're we're betting with with house money, right? And so whenever it comes to making investments, I think maybe you are similar to me in in the regard of I'm very, very risk tolerant, right? Because I'm not afraid of losing. I'm all about optimistic about winning.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

I'm I'm I'm very similar to that. Yeah, I feel like it's also more of a calculated risk because you're educated. You know, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Educated because you know your capabilities, absolutely, you know what you're good at. You you know, at the end of the day, when you invest in something, you have a lot of experience now. And so where others would think it was super risky, absolutely and then your mind it's like, oh, it's not really this is mild, but this is the worst downside that could happen. And then, you know, most likely X, Y, and Z will happen. So I agree 100%. Whenever what happened? So you get to Sugarland, you go to you see all these nice houses, cars, you're in high school. Yep. What happened after that?

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Oh man, you know, uh probably peaked in the ninth grade or tenth grade, right? Superstar on the football team. Uh, and then uh this kid, he came and he moved in from New Orleans and he stole my starting spot uh as the fullback and outside linebacker for the Austin Bulldogs. And and that was a little bit of an ego hit, right? I I think that I had gotten to that point by uh natural talent, right? And then now this dude that came in with just more talent than me stole my spotlight, right? And so that was a big, big hit. And uh, and so it forced me to kind of like take a long, hard look in the mirror and and and figure out like what was my identity, right? Because for so long I'd been the charming talker, football star, right? And here I was still making straight A's in school, but but but but not even having to study. It was just because I was smart, right? And so um, you know, I think that that was a turning point in my life to where I realized that I wanted to be a part of a group. I it didn't necessarily need to be like the ultra-popular group, as long as I belonged to a community, that was going to be super valuable. And so I really started to lean a little bit more into like building friendships and relationships and having a community. That way I didn't just feel isolated and alone all the time. I read somewhere that you ended up losing your father.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

What year was that?

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Yeah, so it actually happened later. Um, my dad passed away in June of 2012.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

But there's there's really no love loss there, man. My dad left whenever I was nine years old. And so I was raised by a single mom. Um, you know, I probably have some childhood trauma and some wounds there, you know, some daddy issues for sure, right? My my my father-in-law is only uh, I think he's like seven years older than me. Uh, but I'll I'm like starving for his affirmation and validation, even though he doesn't even speak English. Um, but uh, but no, my dad left. And then I I remember getting a phone call from the chaplain at uh the Waco General Hospital informing me that he had just passed away. I don't know how he found my phone number, but uh it was one of those scenarios, Sean, where I probably cried for about five minutes and uh and and then there was a lot of hurt, a lot of resentment. Um it wasn't really a scenario where I felt like uh he owed me anything, but in a way, I almost wish that he was around to see my success so I could fucking put it in his face. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

I always wondered how somebody could or a a father in particular, like leave their kids and not raise them. It was always really, really strange to me. I don't know what would be going on somebody's has like, you know what, I'm out. Like I don't know, it just seems so weird and not Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

I mean, as a father That's what I'm saying, it would be amazing.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Yeah, to think of a father now seeing my kids is like there's no way I'm be like, all right, peace.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Like it just I I don't even see how somebody could get to that point. It's kind of weird, it's just weird to me.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Yeah, or or the dads that just fucking pull it, pull the trigger and blow their fucking brains out, man. That's what's insane. Yeah, to just leave them like that, right? So crazy.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Yeah, I don't my father passed away when I was 18. Wow. And you know, it's the same thing, but I had a great relationship with my dad, of course. Best friends, and then of course, when I was like 15, 16, kind of a jerk to my parents, you know, like trying to figure my life out, then became best friends with him again. Excellent. And then so 17, 18, then he ended up passing away, so super sad. And I used it to as an excuse to kind of be mad at the world for no reason. I don't really know what I was mad at, just it it gave me an excuse to be angry, I guess, and made a lot of bad decisions drinking, partying, fighting, just stupid that I I'm not gonna say that absolutely wouldn't have done him, but I he would have he I don't think he would have that would have happened if he was around. So, you know, single mom, probably me acting wild, going out on my own. And it it took a little while to figure it out. Uh, you know, it it took me about two or three years to be like, what the hell am I doing?

SPEAKER_00 12:04

I mean, figuring it out by the time you're 21, 22, right? I mean, that's a lot easier than some of these young guys today that are in their mid to late 20s and they're still trying to figure it out. Yeah, I felt like they've got no guidance, they've got no structure, right? Um, and man, don't be so hard on yourself, dude. You know, losing a father, you know, that's very, very tough, especially whenever he was your mentor, your advisor, your best friend. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Yeah, he taught me he taught me my parents were amazing parents. I had a great childhood. There was nothing bad about it. They just didn't know anything about money, and it wasn't their fault. I mean, they grew up in the same school system. They were mom was a nurse and my dad was in construction and then eventually became, you know, some supervisor for a home builder. But the money side of it, they were really, you know, paycheck to paycheck, didn't really understand anything, didn't know anything about wealth and savings. So they taught me everything else. Yep. Good values, just nothing about money. They just and again, they didn't know anything to teach me.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

So that that's why I'm kind of so like flip side with my son. The stuff I was I lacked, which was communication.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

And since I wasn't naturally good at it, I never practiced. And nobody ever told me how much I needed it and worked with me. And so I I overdo that with my son because I I want that to be his best skill eventually one day. And then I and I'm I communicate a lot of money, um, you know, financial literacy.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Absolutely. What I'll call that, you're you're saying communication, but I'm gonna call that knowledge transfer, right? Because, you know, you're a little bit older than me. I think I'm 42. How old are you? 45. So you're I just turned 45. Yeah, happy birthday, man. I'm sorry I missed it. Yeah, you know, so you're 45 years old, and you're talking about all of the knowledge and and and hard knocks and life lessons that you've accrued over the last 25 years with just windshield time with your son in the backseat, man, over the course of a year, you can fucking teach him almost everything that you were able to learn between 18 years old and at least 25, 30, right? And so how can you accelerate that that growth arc, you know? And as a father myself, you mentioned being an asshole to your parents. I've got an oldest son that's about to turn 14 and he's already given it to me, right? But you know, with where he thinks he knows everything, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:19

But I don't know what it was, it was also kind of me uh maybe going through that phase of like trying to, you know, be fit in with my friends and wanting to hang out with them a little bit more than my parents, and like didn't really want them around like I did before that. And you know, a couple years go by and you eventually you know snap and especially the way I was raised, you know, didn't make bad decisions for too long. Yeah. And it, you know, became just really close with them again. But I I I think it happens, it's just natural when you're a teenager kind of trying to figure it out. I mean, you hear it with girls. Well, I have friends now that tell me when teenage girls come around it's it's a little tough for a couple years.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yeah, yeah. He's not there yet, but you know, I'm I'm I'm excited and optimistic that it's gonna come soon. He's a real good-looking kid that's uh but he's more consumed with sports right now than girls. Uh that's a that's a lot of kids.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Better better thing to be.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Well, what I was gonna say is is one of the things that I found. So I've got three sons, right? And they're uh they're they're about to be uh 14, 12, and 10. Um, but whenever you do that knowledge transfer, it's important to recognize that as a parent, we can't make their decisions for them. They, you know, they're going to be adults one day. They're they're gonna make choices independent of what we would have advised them to do. But if we teach them how to think critically, yeah, if we teach them about our mistakes, our fears, our anxieties, our failures, then my hope and intention is that they're going to make um informed decisions, right? And and even if they fail, they take a little bit more ownership because it wasn't just they were doing what dad told them what to do. Yeah. You so I I love that you're teaching your son all that shit.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Yeah, you have to let them fail for sure. 100%. I've realized that. And but I think if you do instill all those values along the way, when they do make a decision at some point, which there's going to be some bad ones, they are probably not going to make the same mistake twice, or hopefully they will make a lot better decisions than we did when we were younger. Yeah. Which I I think they will. I think if you instill the right values, I think if you're open with them and tell them about your actual your experiences, instead of just saying, you do this, you do that, you do this, and say, hey, I made this mistake. And so they they see number one, see you make mistakes and you can overcome them. But I think you have to be honest with them. That's kind of how I am with our kids. My my wife's the same way. I mean, we're pretty direct and open, but you know, at the end of the day, if you install the right, if you instill the right values, I think the right decisions will come over time.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

How old are your kids?

SPEAKER_00 16:55

So my oldest is about to be 14. Uh, my middle is about to be 12, and my youngest is 10. So they're going into 9th, 6th, and 5th. That's awesome. So cool. All boys? All boys, man. Studs. Straight A students, great athletes, young men that operate with the highest character and integrity. I couldn't be prouder to be their dad. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

That's so cool. Tell me about after high school. Did you go to college? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Yeah, so I went to college for a couple of years, but I didn't finish. Yeah, right. And so I think that's a big reason of why I've organically gravitated towards the mission that's calling you to doing what you're doing with these kids, right? Um, I didn't have a dad, right? Nobody really taught me the ropes. I didn't have a formal higher education. Um, I think the biggest reason why I just never finished is I was a cocky, arrogant little motherfucker, dude. I was always the smartest kid in every single room. And uh, and I I didn't think that I needed it, right? And so at 20 years old, I actually went to go work for a reseller of Direct TV and Dish Network. And at 21, I made six figures for the first time in my entire life.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Which back then. Oh, dude, it's like 200 grand now. Yeah, yeah. I feel like the first hundred grand is like the biggest benchmark. Like, you feel the most wealthiest out of any point in life when you make the first hundred, like hundred grand interesting. I don't know. I like everybody's like in your mind. I remember my age, like a hundred grand was like the goal.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Like that that was 100 grand's the goal, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's because we grew up in the 80s, right? Yeah, the kids that grew up in the 2000s, you gotta be a millionaire. Yeah, you gotta be a millionaire. If you're not a millionaire, you're a fucking scrub. That's what they're telling each other.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

I I definitely wanted to be a millionaire, but I had a realistic goal. I I was like, look, I want to make you know, uh, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in my 20s. Yep, I want to be a millionaire by the time I'm 30. That was my like driving goal every single day. And you know, I I feel like that is a little bit more realistic. And it definitely, if you start early, easily get there if you if you make the right choices. Yeah, but I think with social media now, it it it's hard to think. It feels like everybody is a millionaire at that age because that's what you see a lot of, and it's not the case. And I I I do that is gotta be hard for some of the younger guys, especially thinking that oh, all these dudes just made overnight money and they just killed it. And there's there's a backstory for they sell the end result on there most of the time. 100% if it's real, if it's real.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

It's real, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

A lot of guys, you know, that's how you can make money, and so if you can portray that lifestyle, if you can make money off of it, that's what creates a lot of the stuff online. And there's a lot of them that do make it, and you just have to realize that there was a backstory, and there was a lot of probably sleepless nights and risk, big time risk to get there, especially when you're at a young age.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, you talk about uh these guys that are faking it till they make it and trying to portray this lifestyle with rented watches or even sometimes fake or or or rented cars or or or AI generated images and fake trips, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:07

But anytime you can make money off something, there's always gonna be some level of that. Like if there's some way to make money off of something, there's people trying to game the system. There's gonna be imposters trying to try to rob you.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what you know, what I was saying is is um uh you know, I think that trust and and credibility are like critically important in business, right? And the second that I lose trust in the service that you provide or in you as an individual, there's just zero percent chance that you're gonna get my business for anything.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Yeah, and I think I think that that goes for pretty much most people.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Yeah. And what and you can you can fake the lifestyle, but one of the things that I'll say, and and you've been married for a long, long time, right? Um, you can't fake the woman on your arm, bro. Right. And so I think that like your wife is a massive, massive testament to like the level of caliber of man that you are, right? I would agree to that.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

I would think so. And I think a lot of people think that's just when you say that, they probably think it's just looks, but no, I know, I know, but like it's not you're not saying that ambitious, is she educated?

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Does she support your roles? Yeah, yeah. Is she humble, right? Is it's is she innovative, creative? Is she a confident speaker, right? Yeah. No, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Yeah, I think that's definitely underrated. You know, we've gentry's helped me a lot in my life. Not you know, money assistance, but through I mean, she's an amazing speaker and she's a lot of encouragement, you know, has a lot of encouragement on the public speaking side and getting in front of people. And then vice versa. I've never given her a dollar, she started her own business, but I I just given her advice along the way, you know. Uh mistakes that I've made, especially on the business side, is like, don't do this. I promise, like I've done this 10 times and it never works out the right way. So, but we're a good team. Like she's good at a lot of things, uh, just like a business partnership would be. She's good at a lot of things uh that I'm not good at, and then vice versa, she is not good at a lot of things that I'm good at. So it it's it's worked out really well, and it's more of like a we're like a team, man. We're we're just trucking through life and like trying to win as a team. So it's fun.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

And your definition of winning is gonna evolve probably every five to ten years, right? I mean, when you guys were wide-eyed little 28-year-olds, right? You you you thought success was something very different than maybe what you uh your image of it is today. I think so.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

It does change.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Yeah, and that's good. That's why communication is so important.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

Yeah, goals change too. You know, times change. Sometimes you get you're doing something your whole life and you go, you know what? Do I really want to do this for the rest of my life? And you know, so things change in life.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

What on so you go to be are you the top salesman at the sales job for DirecTV?

SPEAKER_00 22:57

And I was the number two sales rep out of 108. Was it door to door or what was it? It was all call center. So think like they pay, and it this is funny because it had existed before meta-ad campaigns and and Google ads, they paid a million dollars a month in door flyers, right? You know, the things that get put on your door and then that go in the in the mailbox, a million dollars a month. So the leaks can be direct TV 1999. So our fucking phones would just ring, bro. So, like if you just sat at your desk 50 hours a week, you took hundreds of ups. Gotcha. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

So all the inbounds. All pure inbound from them, just like uh old school marketing or gorilla marketing. Yeah, gorilla marketing. Gorilla marketing.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

And so if I sold, you know, if I sold what they wanted to what they wanted to buy on that call, I probably made 16 bucks. But then we had all these premium upsell opportunities where I could make as high as $150, right? Right. But but you're paying to originate the lead, right? And so it's funny because I wish that I had had clarity on that business model whenever I was 21, 22 years old. Because if I would have applied that strategy into my business when I first got started, that growth arc to 10 million in revenue would have been a hell of a lot faster.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Yeah, it hindsight's always easier. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

So what happened after you work for this company, you're making good money? What was the next step?

SPEAKER_00 24:23

Yeah. So I started to buy all the cool shit, right? You know, the the BMW 330i, the jacked-up tundra, yeah, 22 years old. Yeah, yeah. Still living with my mom, right? Yeah. Uh and uh and you know it's way more important to have a BMW in the jacked-up truck. Well, it's funny because I I saw somewhere where they were explaining wealth and and the definition of of what this advisor was saying is wealth is your income minus your lifestyle multiplied by your expectations, right? So here's an example. If you make 200 grand a year and your lifestyle only costs $50,000 a year, but your expectations, right? You know, you really only want to compete with the guys that are making $80,000, right? That you're all drinking fucking coors light in your cul-de-sac and you're watching the Dallas Cowboys lose every Sunday, you're probably the wealthiest motherfucker in your group. Yeah. You see what I'm saying? But but the challenge becomes you you you get to the a certain level, right? You mentioned earlier you felt super rich the first time you're making six figures. Well, I might make three or four million dollars a year, but I'm friends with fucking dudes like you that live in fucking $11 million houses in River Oaks and Swole and's got three kids and it's like cool as fuck. It's got a Rolls-Royce, got a Lamborghini, got a bunch of new Ferrari, right? And I'm like, fuck, man, I'm not doing enough. And so it's crazy, but because my expectations are so high. You see what I'm saying, Sean? Yeah. So when you flash back to 21, 22, 23, you're making six figures, you're always the dude, the rubber band man. You got that brick, dude. You're you're ready to go to the club, right? Go go through make it rain, get some bottles, dude. That's the wealthiest motherfucker in the group.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

You know, though, it's it's it's I got Brian laughing over that. It's it's also not, I I think a lot of times it is that where you you see what's possible, which which which is helpful. But a lot of times when you just yourself like when driven people just get to a to that level, like that guy's there, and he's like, Well, what else is there? What else is there? And he's like, I gotta do more. And so I think a lot of it doesn't all come from yeah, you see what's possible with other people for sure. But I think a lot of it is from driven individuals. Once they get to a level, they're not really satisfied. And not just always the money thing. It's just like, how can I do better every day? How can I make this better? How can I make my relationship better? How can I make this better? Which is a a good mindset to have. But I think that's why people always are just like they get there and they go, wait a second.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

And not all people, this is yeah, and not all people, right? You know, I think entrepreneurs are wired very differently, right? And if you're just doing it for the money, well, guess what? Money is a moving target, right? You you know, like you said, a hundred grand was the number, and then when you got a hundred, you wanted 200, then you wanted five, then you wanted a million, then you wanted two, then five, then ten, then twenty, then fifty.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Well, if you look at the wealthiest people in the world, Elon's not starting all these companies because he wants another billion dollars. Same thing with like Zuckerberg, everybody. They all still work, like they're not laying on the beach and they're not doing it because they need another billion dollars.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

I don't know. Bezos is kind of like laying on the beach right now.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

But yeah, yeah, I get what you're saying. He he did he hit you know, the second half of his life, you know, I think he was like, you know what? Maybe there's more to, you know, maybe I want a little bit more. But but if you think about it, most billionaires in general, like that level, they're all still just taking big risks. They're obsessed with winning. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

That's the key. You have to be obsessed with winning. And if you want to win at being the best fucking plumber, or if you want to be the best commercial real estate developer, you gotta be the best. That's what I think. Because if you're the best, you're gonna make a lot of money no matter what you're doing. Best cosmetics person.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

The best person that works for a company that creates the most value, you're gonna get paid more than everybody at the company.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Very true, or at least you should be. And if you're not, call Encore Search Plumps.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Yeah, yeah. Seriously, though. Yeah, like in that is why people leave companies, because if they do know they are the best and they're not getting compensated, or in some other way, shape, or form don't enjoy their job, they leave, right? Absolutely, and then you have uh which creates just the market and competition.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Which is good. Competition is the most healthy thing that's driving our economy, man.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Yeah, I I have always wanted just to do better. Not necessarily in just money, like just like I want to how can I get better? How can I uh be a better whatever? Now it's how can I be a better father? Now it's how you know, like how can I just do better? And so I'll I'll try every week, some shape, some way, shape, or form is like just better and better and better. And then I do that every week, and it ends up adding up to be a lot over time. So I just don't see it any other way. I could never just stop and lay on a beach and be like, I'm good, I'm good. I guess this is I'm I'm good to go. I'd be miserable, super miserable. Absolutely agree. Hey everyone, real quick, I just want to let you know this podcast is 100% independent. No ads, no sponsors, just real. If you're finding value in whatever we're doing here, the biggest help that you can give us is hitting subscribe and sharing this with someone who you think needs to hear it or someone that it will provide value to. That's how we continue to grow. And if you did that, I would really appreciate it. You go from falling out in your twenties, buying jacked up trucks, going to the club, most wealthy guy in your town, in your group.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

How do you transition that into starting the company?

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Well, you know, I met a girl, right? And I think that every uh uh successful person story starts with I met a girl. Because when you meet a girl and you start to think about a family and you start to think about building a foundation to build a future, you have to get your shit together. Yeah, right. And and you know, a lot of times as a young man, it is easy to be distracted and to chase that instant gratification, right? But when you meet a girl, that may challenge you and motivate you to build that foundation. And so for me, you know, I got engaged, you know, at 24, you know, married at 25, the same exact year that I started my first business, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:54

But what gave you the thought to start the business though? How did you transition?

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Yeah, so great question. So I was in corporate, right? I was working for a $50 million a year pipe valve and fitting distributor, and I was working directly for the president of the company. And I was like his little right-hand man. I would carry his fucking briefcase everywhere that he went, right? And uh I was making good money, right? Like $90,000 when I was 24 or 25 years old as an individual contributor, right? Not a rainmaker, not a manager, not a leader. And and back then that's probably equivalent to like 150, 160 now. Um, but I increase his productivity, right? And so you could call me the executive assistant or the chief of staff or whatever it was. But that one year that I'd spent with Bob Gajesky exposed me to financials, building out the CRM, custom programming the website, launching an email marketing campaigns, calculating the commissions for all the salespeople, right? And and in and actually equipping me with the ability to run my own little micro business. And I was somewhat of an intrapreneur inside of this $50 million org. And so that gave me the the idea of starting my very first business in 2010, which was a company called Market Share Solutions. We were in email marketing and lead generation business. And so companies would pay me anywhere from $3,000 to $6,000 a month to generate leads. I would make them rich. I was doing that for about two and a half years, Sean. And I was like, why the fuck am I making them rich? Let me generate all the leads for myself. So then that's whenever I started my company that I have today, Encore Search Partners.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Yeah, generating the leads is actually one of the hardest parts because you can if you can generate revenue. Oh, yeah. Like, I mean, you you can you can hire people for the rest on the company. Oh yeah. Hardest part is driving sales, driving revenue. I tell a lot of parents ask me, and a lot of you know, young kids now that I talk about the the school and college and and do a lot of stuff on the education side, they say, you know, what do I do? I don't really know what I want to do in life. I know, and I'm I'm really interested in XYZ, but I don't know where to start. I'm like, best possible thing you can do, as young as you can, go work for a company in the field what you're trying to do, but not just any company. A very, very small one where you can at least be close to the manager, close to the president, close to the owner.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

This is so valuable.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

That is the best, that is the best thing you can probably do at 18, 19, 20, because they're gonna learn what you learned and they're gonna see everything and go, holy shit, okay. So number one, I I know how to do it now. Number two, I see what they do good and what they do bad. So there's probably a couple things you're like, you know, I could probably do that a little bit better. Yep. And it it just and then it also just shows you do I even want to work in this industry? Is this like I see all the behind the scenes now? Is this something I really want to do? So I'd I I recommend for parents that their kids are lost, they don't know what to do, they think they want to go into XYZ, tell them to go try to work for a company, even if it's for a little bit of money, to try to, but they need to be around the top people.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

They don't need to be in the mail room. You gotta be close. You're not gonna be in the mail room.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

They need to be even an executive something that you need to be close to the top management. Could be management, could be president, could be whatever. Smaller companies, you can usually get close to the owner. That's what I did whenever one of my first jobs. Yeah, that's how I learned. Uh, you know, one of my first jobs, I was working at a fitness center, became really good friends with the owner. I was making the gym a lot of money. He didn't want me to leave. I'd flipped a couple houses. I went to him, like, hey, I'm I want to start my own business, man. I love you to death, but like I just want to leave. And he's like, Don't leave, let's do something together. And then, you know, me seeing behind the scenes, I ended up buying into half the business. Excellent. Yeah, yeah. That's that's that's kind of how it started. But I was that would have never happened if I wasn't close.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

You know, it's it's funny that you're saying that, right? Because you and I have a mutual friend that started a business at such a young age, and he's actually become one of my good friends now, Brendan, the power washing kid, right? So he slid into my DMs, mine too. Yeah, yeah. And you know what?

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Dude, and you know what? He said, he said, Sean, I don't want anything from you. He's like, I just want to show you that I my my quality of work. Yeah, and I was like, come do it, man.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

It was a lost leader for him, and now I've hired him twice ever since then, and I refer him to my friends. I do too. And so here's the key though when he started his business in high school, so you know, he's probably sick of the biggest.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

I didn't know his I haven't know his I don't know his backstory.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

And he's a fucking hustler, bro, does incredible service, has the best equipment. But the challenge with Brendan is all he thinks about is pressure washing. And and what I told Brendan was my very first business, Market Share Solutions, was a company that I built to $250,000 a year in revenue. In my early to mid-20s, I was making $250,000. If I stayed in that business, what would I be making today? $500, $600? It was the next business. It was all the shit that I had learned from that first business for me to realize, man, I can scale something entirely different. And the challenge with a young entrepreneur that only knows one thing is he's not around that mentor that's showing him, hey, this got you to here, but but but what got you from zero to 500,000 is probably going to be different than 500,000 to 2 million. And that's probably gonna be different than 2 million to 10 million, et cetera, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:30

I love the that was the other thing. Two things you can do when you're younger, or two things that the parents can recommend to do with their kids is like I said the first time, go work for somebody, try to learn everything you can, be around the owner, be around the president. Second thing is start a service company.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

Because you will learn everything about business that you need to know in the first 12 months. I mean, everything. The client's gonna tell you too what problem that they have. Yeah, it's gonna be you're but you're gonna learn all the aspects of a business because you're doing it yourself. It's not like you have a hundred employees. I see what you're saying. And so you're you're dealing with the sales, you're getting rejected, you're trying to figure out how to generate leads, you're learning the cost of materials and goods and the price of your labor and how much time it takes.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

Quality control, everything.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Let me make sure it's doing a good job. I gotta go do it again. Fuck. Referrals, following up with the customer, getting like let them refer you, coming back and generating more leads, and that is the other best thing you can do. And that's why we teach a lot in our to our students. Entrepreneurship is a big part, just because of all the things you learn from it. Not every single person is gonna go start their own business. Yeah, but all the things that you learn from starting your own business or entrepreneurship is all the stuff you need in life, anyways. Communication, sales, just overcoming rejection, yeah, leadership.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

And the great thing about providing a service is the the capital required to get into that space is very low as opposed to starting a manufacturing company.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

The risk is extremely low because it's your time.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

And so if you do that for 12 months, there will be no downside. You will learn a lot about life, you'll learn a lot about business, you'll learn a lot about sales, you won't lose a lot of money.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

And if you don't make money, you're just probably super lazy. Because it's you should at least be profitable.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

Or you don't understand your target client profile. And Brendan knows his. Let me go after the big motherfucking houses because all their friends also have big houses.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

But you know what though? The thing that he does that nobody else does is he was willing to work for free. 100%. And he said, You don't owe me anything? I said, Man, let me pay you. And he's like, No, I just just if you can refer me, if you do think I do a good job and you want to refer me to somebody, I'm good. Excellent. You want to shout me out? I'm good, but you don't owe me anything. Excellent. All right, I was like, All right, come on. So yeah, no, and then and of course I referred him to a bunch of people. I was like, hey, he does a great job, he shows up. Like, I saw his work ethic too. Yeah. Second part is you got to deliver a good product or a service. Like he showed up, he did really well, he communicates really well. And I mean, I don't mind referring him because I know that he's gonna give that same service to somebody else.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

It's funny because the first words that you use were you said he showed up. And I think nowadays, I mean, the fucking bar is on the floor, Sean. You just gotta show up, be honest, be responsive. How many times have we tried to hire contractors? We can't even get a fucking call back, dude.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

Yeah, it's it's really bad.

SPEAKER_00 39:22

It's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

I ran a kids' camp the last two weeks uh for seven to eleven year olds, and we were learning just life skills, and of course, like I said, entrepreneurship, business. And today we went and Chick-fil-A actually showed us, you know, they let us work their drive-thru, they let us mirror for customer service. The kids introduced ourselves to the people that were the drive-thru, the managers explaining how they build the company culture. And I told the kids, but between that exercise and we went to a car wash, a hand car wash in town. Uh, one of my friend owns most of them, and they saw teamwork, work ethic, managing people, customer service, and all these things that are simple that no one does. And in the car on the way back, I'm like, so what did you guys notice today? And I was like, What what do you have to do good just to be successful at business? They're like, customer service, you have to have a good product, yeah, you have to give uh a good service, and you have to be nice and you have to show up. And I'm like, Exactly. I was like, no one does that. I was like, so you the successful places we went to, they are beating everyone by miles because they just do that better than anybody. And I was like, it's not rocket science, like it's really not like people get so lazy and complacent, and even businesses do, or they don't really care about company culture and they'll just let employees do whatever, and then you end up with bad employees, or you tolerate bad management. Yep. And then as you grow, it's even way harder. I mean, because you're not there and you have to have this, you know, in different locations somewhere else. I ran into that one in my 20s. It was hard.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

Well, that's one of the challenges of being an entrepreneur is your standards are so high, right? You know, you're super responsive, your quality of work is impeccable. And when you start to hire staff, I think one of the things that was difficult for me is I just expected everyone to give a fuck as much as me. And and in recent years, right, in order to scale from like 5 million to 15 million in revenue, I've kind of just had to lower my expectations a little bit. I hate to say it, right? Because, you know, if if they wanted to, they would, right? They they don't want to go out and be entrepreneurs, they're looking for you, looking to work for you because they do want stability, right? Um, and so it's important to hold them accountable to your mission, vision, and core values. But I don't think that your staff is ever gonna put as much blood, sweat, and tears in it as the entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Correct, but you can still build a staff of high performers in good company culture. They pay well, yeah. And that's part of it.

SPEAKER_00 41:58

You recruit well. I think that's important.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Yeah, it it it it's it's talent, right? The if you can create a bunch of value for a company and you can make that company a lot of money, they will pay you a lot of money. Yep. And it just it it is the easiest way to generate money, and that's what I told the kids today. That was all you needed to start a business to be successful, was to follow those three or four things and be good at them and consistent. And then the other thing was just to create value. So whether you're an employee for someone else or you have a business, if you create a bunch of value for somebody else, you will get paid more no matter what. If you create more value, if I worked for you and create a bunch of value, whether it was sales or whether it was leads or whatever, you would pay me a lot of money.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

And the same goes if I had owned a business and I create a bunch of value for all my customers, they would pay me a lot of money. Absolutely. Yeah, so I think people overthink the that it's it it's hard. Is is it hard? It's hard because you have to do boring stuff for a long time and you have to be consistent for a long time, and you have to not make money for a long time. And but it it's not raucous, it's not it's not this mysterious thing that no one knows how to do. It's just hard. But it's simple and nobody can stick to it.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

Just yeah, I think I think people have just misaligned expectations of what they need to be taking out of the business too. I think that's one of the challenges in today's environment is even if they kind of figure out that early success and they get to 20 20 grand or 30 grand a month, they want to consume all those profits, right? They're not willing to reinvest, right, in an operations person or in a lead generation system or more marketing and top of funnel, right? And so people like nowadays service entrepreneurs plateau around 500 grand. It's really unfortunate.

SPEAKER_01 43:51

Yeah, yeah. Well, just because you make five hundred grand a year and you bring that home doesn't mean you make a lot of money. A lot of people spend four sixty. Yeah. Yeah. So you know going back to what I was teaching him, I was like, it a business is very, very simple if you can stick to these core things. It's it's not rocket science. And the more value you create, the more money you will make as at some point in your life. Like whether it's working for somebody or whether owning a business. Either one, create a bunch of value, you will be good, I promise. You dropped out of college. I probably didn't go as long as you. I went for like three or four months, and then same thing. I was like, uh, you know, I could just be working for myself. Like, I'm not learning the things that I wanted to own a business, I just didn't know what the hell I wanted to do. And I'm like, this isn't getting me closer to that goal. I was like, I could be learning hands-on, doing something. Absolutely. What are some of the things that you learned after you became an entrepreneur that that you didn't learn in school? Some of the things that are that are really important that that you think are some of the most important things that they left out.

SPEAKER_00 44:58

Yeah. I mean, you know, school was so far back, I probably don't even remember what I did learn in school. And I maybe the quadratic formula, right? Yes. Uh or Pythagorean theorem theorem.

SPEAKER_02 45:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

Um, but you know, one of the things that that I've learned as an entrepreneur, and you might have a different opinion, but I think that sales cures everything, dude. Right. I mean, if you have an inventory problem, go fucking sell more shit and you can kind of hide the inventory problem. You have a customer service problem, go out and sell more shit. You have a taxes issue, you have turnover, you have a training issue. Sales cures everything. I would agree with that. Because if you have gross revenue, you can deploy that capital to go out and solve some problems. But if you have a fucking sales problem, bro, you're out of business.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

I would agree with that.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 45:52

That if you can be good at sales, it's gonna help you. Number one, in every area of life, even if it's the individual or the company is good at sales, whatever it is, if you can master that skill, you can fix a lot of other things. Absolutely. If you have a bunch of sales and you're making a lot of money, you can go hire really smart people to go scale the company. Absolutely. Like you can pay the competition because you're making more money. I mean, you can pay the talent more than the competition.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

Yep, yep, yep. So that's probably the number one thing that no one teaches you, right? Is like just focus on top of funnel, right? Uh, and then everything kind of works itself out. Uh, another thing I'll say, um, you know, doing business the right way is the only way that you can create sustainable success. I think that in today's day and age, there's a lot of people that want to get rich quick, right? Because they made money on, you know, flipping houses or doing cash out refines or, you know, gaming the PPP system or the ERC system and NFTs and crypto and all these fucking get rich thing quick things that people have been doing for the last six years. Well, if you if you try to get rich quick in your business, well, your employees are gonna kind of see that you're cutting corners or you're doing things unethically, right? Word will get around. You start fucking over your vendors, right? You start fucking over some clients, word's gonna get around, right? And so there's a lot of people that can make money for two, three, maybe even four years. But if you want to be successful for the long haul, where that net income really starts to compound into seven or eight figures, you have to do business ethically. And sometimes that means you have to do refunds to a client. Sometimes that means you got to cut your net margin in half, right? In order to save a deal or overpay somebody to stay, right? But I think ethics is is the really the key to long-term growth and success too.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

I I would agree with that. And I never understood why somebody would think in terms of like a one-off deal or screw somebody over. Man, the things that have benefited me the most in life are doing the right thing. And then sometimes it takes 10 years to realize that the thing that you did 10 years ago paid off. Like there's been so many weird weird situations in my life that like I try to do the right thing, maybe it didn't work out so well, whatever it was. I'm like, you know what? It is what it is. Maybe I lost money, whatever. And then somehow, and sometimes it's even longer, yeah. Something will come up, and I'm like, you know what? If I would have never done that, like I would have this wouldn't, X, Y, Z wouldn't have happened. Absolutely. So I it does take a long time. Sometimes it happens fairly quick, but it always seems like at some point that the dots connect, and you're like, holy shit.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

Like well, you're you're you're you're giving me a story, a memory that I just completely lost. And I'll say number three, time heals all wounds, right? Um, you know, I had my friend Haneen Al-Kareshi come on my podcast that I had called The Path to Success. And Hane was telling me a story about how she had an office manager that she loved and she needed uh bookkeeping and accounting, and so she put the office manager in charge of accounting. Well, because she's not a fucking accountant, she fucks shit up, ended up costing her $50,000. And at the time, you're just like, oh my God, this is the biggest deal in the world. Yeah. But that $50,000 mistake that was made ended up making sure that she shored up everything in her accounting and finances, right? So she probably saved herself from making a $500,000 mistake because she lost that $50,000. But you don't see it at the time, right? Yeah, it takes a long time. It takes a long time to really see the why behind the what when a lot of these things happen. But at the time you think that the fucking sky is falling.

SPEAKER_01 49:51

Oh, all always. I don't know who I was telling that to the other day, is when you're going through it. If somebody was going through a tough time, I don't remember the exact situation. But I was like, I know there's not much I can say, but all I know is whenever I've gone through these tough times, it's the same story. Sometimes it takes five years to figure out why I went through it. Like it doesn't make any sense at the time. And you think you're getting singled out, and you think it is only happening to you, and it's the worst thing in the world. And somehow, five or seven or ten years later, you're like, Man, if that wouldn't have happened, I wouldn't have been where I'm at, or I wouldn't have made this decision or hired this person or done this deal or whatever it was, or not done a deal, or dude.

SPEAKER_00 50:32

I'm living proof, man. Don't even need to show up in business, right? I got divorced in 2019, and I thought it was the end of the world, man. I just got married three months ago, and and and now my life is unbelievable. No, I see that. It's amazing. Congratulations, yeah. Thank you. And and it's like you have to go through those valleys in order to equip yourself with the climbing ability to not only climb yourself out of that hole, but that then to be capable of climbing the mountain that's ahead of you.

SPEAKER_01 51:01

Yeah, and then to be the person because of you went through all that stuff. 100% to be the better person because you would have gone through all that stuff. There's something that I think about with my kids a lot, and it probably scares me the most because they are growing up in a different life than me and you grew up. And it worries me that I never want them to grow up entitled with our handout. And so I I probably overcompensate and get real crazy on not giving him anything. And like he's buying his own car when he's 16, and I'll I'll give him the skills to make money, but he ain't getting anything from me.

SPEAKER_02 51:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 51:41

Because he is around all this life and all these cars, and just in general, just his life is a lot different. We have nannies, like it's I do not like the last thing in the world I would be extremely upset and disappointed if I would have raised somebody that grows up with their handout or is just a jerk or you know, just has a certain outlook on life. And so I how do you how how are you thinking about that with your kids, or what are you what's your plans like with the future? What I mean, what did you buy them all cars? Like what what what was the idea?

SPEAKER_00 52:12

Yeah, so you and I definitely have a different uh perspective whenever it comes to that, right? You know, if my kids needed anything in the world, I would just fucking do it.

SPEAKER_01 52:21

And that's my natural instinct.

SPEAKER_00 52:22

Like I I want I want to do that, yeah, but then I get nervous if I did that. So what I so to so to be honest, I've kind of really realigned my own expectations. And and I'm kind of like you where I already have three kids and I fucking want more, right? So I got remarried, I'm gonna have at least two, right? Hopefully three, she permits.

SPEAKER_02 52:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:42

Um, but you don't really need three CEOs in that batch, right? And so I've realigned my expectations to think, you know, I might have a Brazilian jujitsu trainer, I might have a scuba diver diving instructor, I might have an artist or a country music singer. Not everybody needs to be a fucking CEO. So but if they have the values, character, integrity, right, work ethic, pride, right, that then that's what I guess that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

Not not I not not just money. I I don't want them to grow up with a life without purpose. You're right.

SPEAKER_00 53:18

So it wasn't necessarily So you have to live a life of purpose.

SPEAKER_01 53:21

Yeah, so because we're their role models. It wasn't necessarily I don't care if he's I they're not gonna all run businesses. It just naturally the you know everybody's gonna have a different personality. Yeah. Will one of them probably yeah, will the other two? Probably not. They're probably gonna get as far away from it as they want because they're tired of hearing us talk about it or tired of seeing it.

SPEAKER_00 53:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:39

But it was more of that. I wasn't really saying entitled as in the it was more yeah, they're gonna be able to do it. Because if you if you are if you if you're waiting for somebody to fun baby that or if you're waiting around for somebody to give you something all the time, you will not have a good life and you won't have any purpose to wake up and you're wanting to that was more of you're right. I don't want them to grow up. Yeah, and just I don't really care about anything. My dad's not gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 54:02

They may not care about making money because because they know, you know, dad ain't gonna be on this fucking earth forever, right? And there's only you know four people that are gonna inherit nine figures, right? So uh, but here's the deal. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say this, right? And this might be an unpopular popular opinion, but whenever I was young, I kind of respected and admired people that were rich, right? And then whenever I became rich, I respected and admired people that were famous, right? And then once people kind of like generally knew who I was, that didn't really appeal to me anymore, right? And so now in this new season of life, I lost 95 pounds, right? I took some GLP 1 to lose the first 60. I don't really drink anymore. I play pickleball all the time, and I'm friends with all these successful guys that drive Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Rolls's, that have way more expensive houses than me, right? Now I admire, are you a good father? Are you a faithful husband? Do you take care of yourself physically, emotionally, right? These are the things that I respect and admire. So when I look at what success looks like for my children, dad's got the money thing handled. I want you to go out and be good men of character, integrity. I want you to be good husbands, good fathers.

SPEAKER_01 55:18

And so I think if they have all that, yeah, they'll have a life with purpose, anyways.

SPEAKER_00 55:22

They're gonna have a life of purpose, but it doesn't, you know, I don't think that it needs to be money because, you know, at the end of the day, if they're trying to compete with dad, just if like if gentry was trying to compete with you, come on, bro. Like you guys are successful, you're in different categories, and success is defined in very, very different ways with every single generation, right? You know, Donald Trump's dad was successful, yeah. Then he became successful in business, and then he created a completely different career in a completely different lane and became successful there. Does that mean Baron Trump needs to be the president of the United States in order to be successful? Not necessarily.

SPEAKER_01 55:59

I would agree with that. I yeah, I guess my the entitled handout thing it would be living a life with no purpose. And so that I wouldn't want him, I wouldn't want him to grow up and be like, oh, he's got this, I don't really care about it, I don't have to worry about anything.

SPEAKER_00 56:13

Like that, it was more the mentality of it's not ever gonna happen, bro. I know you wouldn't allow it to happen. I'm working every day not to let that happen. You would never allow it to happen, zero percent.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

Yeah, I just I I worry about it a little bit just because they're just growing up with such a different life. Yeah, so in the back of my mind, it's always like a little bit like, man, I would hope they don't grow up to be no purpose jerks, you know, make a how's it gonna happen?

SPEAKER_00 56:39

I don't think it will.

SPEAKER_01 56:40

Their dad's not a jerk.

SPEAKER_00 56:41

No, I know.

SPEAKER_01 56:42

I don't think it will. I just I I worry about it sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:46

What's one parenting mistake you think you made? I mean, I don't want to offend anybody here. I've made a I've made a I've made a I've made a handful. Um, you know, I would say, yeah, I mean they're gonna offend my ex-wife, her husband, or my wife. Um what I'll say is uh children coming from a broken home, it's a really big uphill battle to climb. Yeah. Right? One of the things that I regret is not being there with my three children each and every day. Um I don't miss any games. I'm there every weekend, I have them every other weekend. Uh I I provide far more than I'm legally obligated to. I try to be their role model, especially in business and in my relationship. Um, but their stepdad is there 90% of the time, right? You know, he's a master's educated geoscientist. Um, and and he doesn't think the same way that I do as an enterpriser, as an innovator, right? And so when you say, what is the mistake that I made, man, I am super grateful for my children's stepdad, right? But I wish that I wasn't there to be the number one influencer of their goals, their ambition, and their creativity, because they're not gonna have that same fire in their belly that their dad has. They're not gonna have it. They were raised by different people.

SPEAKER_01 58:17

I don't think so. I don't I think I bet I'll bet I'll bet I bet I I I I beg to differ a little bit. Yeah, yeah. I think they're around you enough, just like when you're saying about me, like my kids aren't gonna grow up like that. I think when they when when you set the example that much or and you set the bar that high and they see your values and your work ethic and everything else, not just business, but like everything, like you said, I I think they're gonna have a lot of respect for that and and not wanna disappoint you and and I don't I don't I don't think that's gonna be the case.

SPEAKER_00 58:54

I don't and you know if my kids just decide they want to go get you know their masters in mechanical engineering and be an engineer and go work for fucking SpaceX, who knows? Maybe they can be billionaires just off of SpaceX stock. Hey, look at that.

SPEAKER_01 59:09

Shit. A lot of people made uh hundreds of millions of dollars that work. Unbelievable, bro. Isn't that insane?

SPEAKER_00 59:14

Yeah, so crazy. So crazy.

SPEAKER_01 59:17

First trillionaire. Which again, he created the most value in the world and he solved the biggest problems.

SPEAKER_00 59:25

Uh or he's just the greatest, you know, magician. Something people believe in his magic, yeah, and they're willing to put all their money behind it. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 59:37

Well, he's also God executed on almost every thing he's ever done, like, which is insane. To start that many big companies, I mean, you know how hard it is to start a company. Just even hire the right people. Even have the skill of getting it off the ground, putting all the people in place is extremely hard. Doing that five times is like almost and I think you have to let go, right?

SPEAKER_00 59:59

I think one of the things that he does real well is he doesn't necessarily need to be the chief product officer, right? The chief human resource officer or the chief sales officer. He knows that he's gonna get the highest leverage return on his time by being a marketer, right? By by doing investor relations, right? Because if he can constantly have a flow of capital infused into his business entities, he can go out and hire the most brilliant minds in the industry.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:28

People thought he was crazy for buying Twitter. And he knew so much or had the intuition and so much forward thinking to know that personal brand was like almost more important because he had a personal brand. People bought Tesla because of him for the most part at the time. I mean, until he got a little political and then everybody all of a sudden hated him, which is kind of weird. But at the end of the day, he had a massive personal brand, and then he bought Twitter, and then he had made it even more massive. They couldn't cut him off. I think he was afraid they were gonna, you know, pretty much you had no power if if you know your your competition. Your competitors own social media networks. Like you, you you can't do to compete, you have to own one of those. Or media companies are not really social media, they're each competitor owned a media company. I mean, you have Google and you have Microsoft, and that's a great point, man. Yeah, yes, uh, Mark Zuckerberg. They all had media companies that could pretty much direct whatever they wanted to. And if Elon said something, they could just they could cancel his account.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:27

It's crazy. And was that worth 44 billion dollars?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:31

It was. I think he rolled it up into SpaceX. Absolutely. All those investors made a shit ton of money. But at the time, I mean, could you imagine the pressure that he had? He raised all that money every day. You saw it's like companies worth a third of it what it was. He fired everybody, like it was massive public pressure, and I don't know how he has the ability just to like him and Donald Trump. If there's two people that like have no, I guess things don't phase them, it it's definitely those two. Like, you just absolutely like the whole world can be melting on, and he's like, eh, we need to do this. And Elon's that way too, and that's why he can probably push through and solve so many problems.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:14

So it just goes to show that one of the keys to success to answer your question on what are the things that school doesn't teach you uh is the ability to emotionally regulate, right? You can't let the highs get you too, too, too high, right? You gotta humble yourself a little bit, and then you can't the low, you let the lows bring you all the way down to the bottom, right? You have to be a little bit more neutral. That way you can endure the tough times, right? So grit and resilience are probably two critical components to overcoming failure.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:47

Yeah, we we learned a lot about that this week when I had the kids camp because I'm trying to instill some of the stuff that no matter what path they take, whether they're an entrepreneur or not, that they will need to be able to do that, need to be able to solve problems, pretty big things, like coming up with solutions. But what is the success formula then for you? So the your your your formula, your success formula. I mean, you've been through a lot, you didn't graduate college, yeah. And grew up rent house to rent house and apartment to apartment, and what's the formula?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:21

You know, if you were to ask me what was the formula from zero to fifteen million, it would be a very different answer than the answer. Well, then give both.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:31

Give both. What's the formula to get to a certain point?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:34

Let's say zero, let's say zero to a millionaire. You want to be a millionaire, right? You got to put your head down, you gotta fucking hustle, you gotta grind. You have to learn each and every day the why behind the what. Somebody said no, figure out why they said no. Somebody said yes, figure out why they said yes, do more of that, lean into that. So you're constantly learning, you're constantly improving, evolving, becoming a better version of yourself. Then you fast forward five years, seven years, you wake up, you string together a hundred thousand, one fifty, two fifty, four hundred. Guess what? You're a fucking millionaire at 30 years old. Yeah, it happens fast, it happens really fast. Okay. So put your head down and fucking grind and continually improve, have a growth mindset. Don't fucking spend your money. Just hustle and grind. So then when you say, okay, how do we go from one to 10 million? Well, you know, I think that um leverage is a big, big way to do it, right? So you take some of those resources that you've created. Now you got rich in addition to oil field services and other companies, real estate, right? Now that's the highest leverage opportunity in order to get rich. So you take your capital, you invest it, and then obviously you operate it effectively, and then you cash out net income or you roll it into a bigger asset. And it could be leverage is the biggest opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:58

And I wouldn't, yeah, for people listening, uh, leverage could also mean people, could be top-tier talent.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:04

Buy back your time. Yeah, whenever I was making $600,000 a year, I went and gave a guy an offer for $150,000 to come work for me. And he did so well after five months, I went and got another one at $150 to come work for me. So I cut my net income in half, but without doing that, I wouldn't have been able to build something sustainable beyond my own capabilities.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:23

Yeah, so not leverage and just you know, asset ways, it's more it's also leverage and talent and talent, investing in people, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:33

And so then when you look at okay, how do I go from 10 million to 50 million? I think that relationships is the key, right? Because um, I'll give you an example. If I if Brendan really fucking gets his power washing shit in dialed, great. And he's got the relationship with you, with me, with AK, right? Well, guess what? Now he can start offering. Complete suite of services. What if he starts doing our pest control? What if he starts doing our lawn maintenance, right? Our landscaping, our lighting solutions, our Christmas lights, right? You know, you're you're taking those relationships and you're mushrooming out. And in order to get to that 10 million, you spent a lot of money to acquire those relationships. And now, because you have trust, rapport, and credibility with those accredited buyers, you've already proved that you're the best. Go start selling them more shit, dude.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:31

That and also from the standpoint of when you get to that point and you prove to a lot of people you can get to that point, I mean, we would probably give him the money to invest in his next company. He's like, hey, I have this thing that came across that I really think we could knock it out of the park. You'd be like, Done, man. I I know you're gonna kill it. And if you believe in the person and you understand the business model, that's how you can go make a lot of money.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:54

And the thing about believing in the person, you hit the nail on the head earlier, is that growth mindset. If they think they know everything, if they think they have the fucking recipe for success, that playbook, oh, I'm the fucking man, right? I don't invest in arrogant operators. I invest in operators that know that it's their job to continually improve, and it's their job to steer the ship, right? Not point the ship and pour fuel in it, because that might work for a mile or two, but if you're pointed in the right direction, or the wrong direction rather, for too long of a time, well, guess what? You're way off track.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:33

Hey everyone, real quick, I just want to let you know this podcast is 100% independent. No ads, no sponsors, just real. If you're finding value in whatever we're doing here, the biggest help that you can give us is hitting subscribe and sharing this with someone who you think needs to hear it or someone that it will provide value to. That's how we continue to grow. And if you did that, I would really appreciate it. We have been pretty successful in the last five years finding the right operator and making that business a success. Like, I would I would say that's probably like 90% of what I've been really good at for the last five years. Maybe it was all the experience I had going through bad people, having bad business partnerships, good business partnerships, and like over time, I feel like I'm pretty good at picking a good operator. And that is one thing I look for. And then the other thing is the ability just to figure things out. Man, like if somebody can always just solve problems, figure it out, solve problems, figure it out. You're not gonna get everything right. But if you're like you're like, there's you don't take no for an answer, you figure it out, there's always a way, no from that customer, no, there's always a way, not giving up. Like, if they can do that a bunch of times, usually you become pretty successful because you hired them because they're already a good operator. So they're probably gonna be okay at that. But if they can just like continue to get better and never take no for an answer and always figure away when you lose a contract, when you get something canceled, when you do this, you lose revenue, you gain revenue. Like if they can always just figure it out, figure out a better way, another way, those people always tend to be super successful.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:09

Yeah, and I think that's one of the challenges with AI now is people are not figuring it out anymore. It's like oh let me because they're just asking, right? And I and if you have an inability to figure it out, then it's going to be impossible for you to innovate.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:26

One of my best friends is probably one of the best people at this. Like, I just I've watched him over the last 20 years, and not that he, you know, he had a very successful business. One of his first ones was, you know, did 10, 15 million a year, and then he got a divorce, and then she it was like a fight of half the company, kind of went to shit. And then so he started a couple other things after that. Those didn't really go well, but he just always can figure it out. And now this is recent in the last three years, they he definitely has a 500 million dollar business right now, and I very wouldn't be surprised. I don't know if he'll be a billionaire, probably could be in the next two years, but definitely the company will sell for over a billion. Yeah, and so he'll be he'll be close, but he's he's he's just a master at always figuring it out no matter what. I mean, no matter what. And every since I've known him, he's just like a master and just nothing phases him. He's like, Okay, that didn't work, do this, okay, lost this contract. Oh, I need to do this. Not that people don't have stress and they don't go through things, but he he will always figure it out no matter the situation, always figure a way around it, a way over it, a way under it, something like there has to be a solution out there.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:45

And I think that one of the one of the requirements in order to do that is to is to not just wallow whenever something's going wrong, but to like take ownership. Oh, this is where I fucked up. What could I have done different? How do I fix it? Now let's move on.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:02

Yeah, a lot of people were oh, it's his fault, it was his fault, it was the government's fault, it was the market's fault. You just have to say, look, I made a mindset, but I made made a bad decision. How can I fix it? How can I not make that bad decision again? Exactly. Or sometimes it's not a bad decision. Maybe it is just like market conditions and you just didn't know, and you made an educated decision or you know, best guess, and shit didn't work out.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:24

No, I I went to I went to lunch with my buddy yesterday. He's actually a competitor of mine. Uh he's got about 85 employees, does 40 million in revenue. I have, let's say, 32, 33 employees, and I'll do 15, right? Um, and so I really respect and admire him. And and what he was telling me was is like, Jeremy, you got one business, you do it exceptionally well, your headaches are low, right? You, you know, he goes, I got a big fucking graveyard of entities that I started with business partners and I ended up having to shut down, and it's a fucking pain in the ass, right? And then I said, Well, how many companies do you have now? He goes, Oh, I have five badass companies that all fucking hum and we're killing it. And I said, Matt, if you didn't have the risk tolerance to go out and do the 12 or 13 or 14, you wouldn't have had the four that turned into fucking winners, bro. Yeah, and so like failure is just a part of the game, dog. You're not gonna get every single one of them right, but it's how fast you fail and how quick you learn. And and and and and that I think is what directly leads to success is failing fast and learning from your mistakes.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:38

I would agree with that. I taught in my last event, a lot of the parents and and young adults that were there was every person that you see out there that is successful or you perceive to be successful, or you look up to or you admire, has failed hundreds, if not thousands of times. And and and you're not talking about you know, life-ending failures all the time, you're talking about all these like failures every day, losing this, losing the client, losing this, and just always adjusting, always trying to get better, you know, losing a relationship, using it. And but if you're always like adjusting, okay, I'm not gonna do that anymore, and you just get better and a little bit better and a little bit better and a little bit better, then you end up being successful. And when you see the person, you're like, Man, that guy's so successful. You just don't know that he's failed like thousands of times in the last like 15 years. Yeah, and so I think people just don't get to see that. They get especially with social media now, you like see the end result, you just don't see that. That's a great point. Yeah, you don't see the just thousands of failures, the whatever they ended up going through because everybody goes through different stuff in some way, shape, or form. But people don't see that, they just I think see the end. So I do think failure is a big part of success, ironically, right? And people don't think that, or they're scared to fail.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:50

They're scared to fail, bro.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:51

The biggest thing I see when I I have a lot of people that message me, um, oh, you know, yeah, I'm just I'm nervous to do this. And so the biggest thing is they never get started because they're like, oh well, you know, they make an excuse and like, oh, I don't know about this, my parents, my this, my this, but they're scared to fail, and so they never even start, and so they stay in this like kind of mediocre place that they didn't really want to be in because they're so scared to fail, which is I mean, what are you scared of? Yep. People are it's not gonna work out and you're gonna have to do something else. I mean, or you're gonna fail for a week and then you're gonna figure it out and what to know, know what to do better. But it keeps a lot of people stuck. I think the fear of failing keeps a lot of people from actually ever even doing the thing that they want to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:36

Yeah, so we're talking a lot about success. We're talking about social media, we're talking about failing. Uh, last night I was talking to my wife, and she told me that her little brother is training for an Ironman. And he was a uh a swimmer in high school. He just graduated, he's 18, and he tried to sign up for this event, and he's like, it's it's all booked. Like, you know, apparently it sells out like immediately. I didn't know, right? And then my wife said, Yeah, whenever we signed up for this Hyrux event in in Dallas, like it sold out in the first 13 minutes for some fucking VIP, whatever. And what I told her is I said, Well, honey, everybody who's ambitious wants to win, wants to be successful. And there's only a finite number of ways in order to achieve that in your corporate career, right? Like if you're a lawyer or you're an engineer, a wealth advisor, an investment banker, whatever, but they still need to win. And so one of the ways that people win is by doing all these fucking competitions, dude, you know? And so I think that in this age of social media and this age of AI, that people are gonna be leaning in more into competing, right? In high rocks or events like that, because they still want to stand on top of that podium and hold the fucking medal and say, I did it, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:02

I do agree. I think the the AI new world, because there's gonna be robots really soon. I think 100% people are not understanding what's about to happen. Because once companies start to put them in, competitors have to do it and it's gonna be overnight robots everywhere. I do think the live events, I do think the people are never not gonna want to be around people. Like, I think it might even go the other way because AI is gonna get so weird you can't really tell what's real or not unless you like you're with someone. Because it's gonna be so real that you're not gonna tell that if a social media post is real, if it's a real person, it's gonna be so good. Yeah, and probably in five years. He could just do paid ads. Or you're just not gonna know. And so I think I think the live stuff, whether it's a high rocks event, whether it's a whatever groups, communities, mastermind of something, something people that are with with each other, learning from each other, wanting just to be around people because it's weird because there's robots everywhere. Like I think I think I think that's what'll probably actually do better in the future. It's like people, people are still gonna want to be around people.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:06

I think you're gonna have two two experiences. That online experience, you're gonna have a restaurant that has all robots, and you just go in there and you want your food in five minutes and it's super cheap, and you just walk through and they just give it to you. And then you're gonna have like the steakhouse where you want to go, and you just want to like talk to the waiter and like hang out with your wife, and there's a bunch of people in there, and you're gonna pay way more for it or a premium.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:29

Or, you know, you know, my wife is from Poland, right? And you know, they're all like English speakers. If they're under the age of 30, they're all very educated, advanced degrees are are the expenses covered by the United States or by their government. Um, but they have a little bit more traditional values and they don't have as much expectations on on perceived wealth through material objects, right? They don't really give a fuck that I have a Ferrari, they don't give a shit that I'm wearing an AP on my wrist. And so I've even thought that when that happens, I'm just gonna pack my shit and go to Poland, dude. Let me build a couple of pickleball facilities and just like hang out with my family. You know, have you ever thought about that of just being like, fuck it? Let me let my investments compound because I'm invested in the robots, I'm invested in the AI, I'm invested in the data centers.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:21

I I think I think I would always have to have both. I I I can't not like be involved in deal. I don't want to be a CEO. Yeah, I definitely don't want to, like, that's not what I want to do for the rest of my life. I don't want to be the operator, I don't want to take calls at two o'clock in the morning. I know I don't want to do that, do that, but I do want to be involved in some way, shape, or form, whether it's advising, involved in some of the day-to-day. I just I don't want to be like the main guy, yeah, for sure. That's what I don't want. But I also don't want to do nothing. Yeah. And you know, even if it was, you know, being busy every day, I still would want to take a little risk, be involved in some of the deals, like try to figure it out. Like, I don't know. I would just, I don't think I'd be happy not doing it in some way, shape, or form.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:05

Yeah. Yeah, getting those wins at this point in my life.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:08

I don't know. 20 years, maybe it's different. Maybe my kids are just I I my values might change or something. But right now, how it's been for a long time is like, don't see myself retiring, don't want to be the main guy. Yeah, but would always just continue to like.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:22

Yeah, but you're somebody with your resources, you know, you really do have the capability to where if I'm like, you know what, I want to take six months, I want to, I want to move to Bali with my kids, and we're all gonna become fucking Reiki masters and fucking, you know, uh who knows? You could do some cool shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:40

Yeah, you you could. And my kids aren't old enough yet, but yeah, that's why I'm saying my values might change. Yeah, yeah. Where I do want to travel with my whole family. And I mean, I can't, but you know, we have two month-old and uh whatever, but I mean, when they're all teenagers, maybe like it that would be an amazing experience to go somewhere for three months. Like, I don't travel a lot, yeah. I don't enjoy it really. I'd rather just stay here. But if my kids were older, maybe I would enjoy it because I'm going with all the people that I really care about. Yeah, so I don't know, she shit might change.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:06

Absolutely. Well, I didn't like traveling until I married a European woman. No, now we're at I think 11 or 12 countries in two years. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:14

It's awesome. Things will change. I think when my kids get older and they're able to experience it with me, I I don't I I think I would like it. I do. Yeah, I think it'll be fun. Well, man, thanks for coming on. Really amazing to talk about success, what it takes to be successful in whatever that person's idea of success is, right? Not always money, but I I would say success is just having purpose in life for sure. Like if you wake up every day and you're excited to do something, you you you're good, you're pretty successful in whatever that yeah, like whatever. If you're excited about your life every day, you're I think you're pretty successful in my mind. So because everybody likes doing different stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:02

So true, man. Yeah. You know, that kid that that is a superhero in his gaming community every time he logs in and puts on that headset. Happy as shit. People recognize his screen name when he logs in. That motherfucker's successful. In his mind. He's the man.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:20

I am that man. Yeah. I appreciate it, man. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for all the wisdom, all the all the life experience. Hopefully. I know people would probably get a lot out of the conversation, so thanks.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:35

Absolutely, man. Thanks for having me.