Building Mental Resilience with Sergeant Q

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the work at home rockstar podcast. I’m excited for today’s episode. We had a good pre chat, so I’ve gotten to know Aaron a little bit here, but what we’re talking to is we’re talking to the CEO of Q actual and what he does is he helps people in business create good mental health, good mental health culture and reduce turnover.

So I’m very excited to be rocking out with Sergeant Q. Hey Sergeant, you ready to rock?

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: Yeah, man, let’s do this thing. I’m excited.

Tim Melanson: No problem. I think this is going to be awesome. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: Yeah, absolutely. So 15 years ago, I was actually living in my car in Auburn, Washington. I had come back from deployment and I was struggling with mental health. I was struggling with depression and suicidal ideations, and I learned how to take control of my mental health journey. I started reading these medical journals about the brain and how it operated at the same time.

I found the Lord and I’m reading the Bible. I was like, these are telling me the same thing. This book, whether it doesn’t matter if you’re a Jew [00:01:00] or Gentile, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, agnostic, it doesn’t matter. We can all respect the Bible as a great historical document. There’s some incredibly good wisdom in there if we look at it.

And that’s what I found. I didn’t grow up in church, I didn’t know anything about the Bible or God, but I found this book that was telling me the same thing that these medical journals were telling me about the brain and how it operates and how I need to live my life. And so I started focusing on taking control of my mental health journey and I grew an incredible business.

I started janitorial company, just scrubbing toilets in the middle of the night. And let me tell you that was, a far cry from what I used to do being a special forces operator in the Marine Corps and then now coming back and scrubbing the toilet. So it’s very humbling experience for me, if I’m honest, but I really focused on being the very best at That I could be and not the very best janitor, but the very best problem solver for my clients.

I never looked at myself as a janitor. I looked at myself as being a problem solver for my client. [00:02:00] The problem is the building’s dirty. The solution is I need to clean it and I need to give people a safe, comfortable place where they can come and be successful.

And that’s how I have all of my employees look at our job as being problem solvers. So growing that business, 15 years later, I have over 160 employees in the Pacific Northwest. I’ve started four other companies and now I’m one of the top business scaling coaches in the country.

It’s a reality TV show for entrepreneurs. I won season seven, season nine, and now I’m a coach and judge for the show. So that right there, 15 years ago, living in my car to becoming a multimillionaire CEO. And I actually own one of the largest commercial buildings in downtown Auburn. One of the buildings I used to sleep in front of in my car, I now own,

Tim Melanson: Wow. That’s a big story.

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: I try to condense it as quick as I could, but that’s it. And so if you’re listening to this right now and you’re [00:03:00] thinking like, gosh, I don’t know where to start. I don’t have any money. I don’t have any time. Trust me. I was there. There’s two things you need to do. Number one, you need to be consistent in your craft.

And number two, it takes time, time and consistency are what you’re going to help you be successful. So if you think I don’t have the talent, I don’t have the time. I don’t have the money. None of us did when we started. None of us are, the majority of us are not Donald Trump.

To start a business. We’ve all bootstrapped it, trying to make it work. I see a lot of people fail because they quit too early. So time and consistency are your best friend.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, well, it seems to me that success often is kind of like a pendulum Where you’ve got this really bad experience that gets balanced out by this huge success And hey, you mentioned donald trump he failed too and he got the money, right?

so what does that say for the rest of us, right? Isn’t it interesting though that? you’re talking about how, you know, in such a bad position, you’re in swings all the way to the good position, and [00:04:00] there’s so many other people that do the same thing.

I would argue that if you haven’t really had any seriously bad situations, your pendulum is kind of going like this. do you think though that it’s possible to look to that huge success if you haven’t really had a bad experience?

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: Yes, I agree. And so I love talking about the brain. This is called your ACC or anterior cingulate cortex. It’s a small part of your brain. And when you experience hardship.

Or when you choose to do hard things, step out of your comfort zone, that area of the brain will grow and it will allow you to do the next hard thing and the next hard thing and the next time. So when they studied the brains of special forces operators like myself or professional athletes, this part of the brain is enormous because we’re constantly challenging ourselves to do things in the special forces community.

They look for guys like me who have dealt with incredible hardship. I grew up in the mountains in [00:05:00] Northern California in the middle of the drug trade. So where I grew up was Humboldt County, and the only people who live up there are hippies and marijuana farmers, and my parents were both, okay? And so I grew up with no running water, no power until I was like 10 years old, in the middle of the drug trade.

Tons of trauma that you experienced there, but it built mental resilience. And it taught me how to endure hardship. So now when I go to bootcamp in the Marine Corps, it wasn’t as difficult for me as it was for some of the other guys who had never experienced hardship in their life.

So culture shock for them. And for me, I was like, Oh, this is a Tuesday. I’m good. Not to say it wasn’t difficult, but mentally I was more prepared than they were because my anterior cingulate cortex was much larger than theirs. So here’s the thing back to your question. Can you be wildly If you didn’t endure hardship, the answer is yes.

Because you can choose to live a life of discomfort. You can choose to [00:06:00] do the hard things. You can choose to sacrifice what you have right now, for what you want in the future. Here’s the deal, 4 years, 5 years ago, I could have retired 5 years ago. My goal was to retire at age 40. And I would have nailed it.

But God called me to do what I’m doing now. To take this message of healing through serving, To the world. So I sacrificed everything I had. I sold my property in Mexico. I sold my cabin in Montana. I cashed out over a million dollars worth of assets. Everything that I had built to build some technology to prevent suicide and build this platform that I have now to teach people how to take control of their mental health. You can do the very same thing. A lot of times we’re afraid to lose what we have. And so we’re never able to reach out and get what we truly, truly desire. There can’t be a plan B. If you’re looking at your life, like I’ve got this business, but I’ve got my other job over here. [00:07:00] In the Bible, it says you can’t serve two masters.

You’re going to love one and hate the other. So you’re either going to love your side hustle and hate your job, or you’re going to love your job and hate your side hustle. So if you’re going to be an entrepreneur and you want to do it, you got to go all in. There is no plan B, there is no retreat. You’re going to do your business every single day and it’s going to be successful.

And if you don’t have the grit and the guts to do that, then you’re never going to make it. But there’s nothing inside of me that’s not inside of everyone who’s listening right now. You all have the ability to endure hardship. If you want to try this, just try it. Do the cold plunge. You heard of this, the cold plunge, Tim?

Yeah, I get into 48 degree water every three days. It sucks. Every single day. It is very difficult. And I sit there for five minutes to endure that hardship. It’s not comfortable. It’s much easier to just roll over, pull my covers over my bed, stay in my nice warm bed. But I get out and I get in that cold plunge because it’s difficult and [00:08:00] it’s hard.

And then the rest of the day becomes very easy because I’ve grown my cingulate anterior cortex in that moment. And so these are things that you can do every single day. I do the hard things every single day. And you’re going to see that you’re going to be able to endure greater and greater hardship, which means you’re going to be able to make more phone calls than other people, endure more rejection, ask more questions.

You know, get that extra training that you need to get so Anybody can grow their anterior cingulate and it’s by choosing to do the hard things every single day.

Tim Melanson: Wow. So deep. I love it. And you know what? I think, because I do think that there’s, you are going to endure some hardship. Everybody’s going to endure some

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: Oh yeah, absolutely.

Tim Melanson: That some people’s pendulum goes really, really, you know, extreme, but there’s going to be some ups and downs in every day, all the time.

And I think what you’re [00:09:00] talking about is almost like controlling them. It’s like creating the hardships on purpose that you’re going to have to endure no matter what. But I mean, that makes sense to me. I mean, would you rather have something hit you blindsided? And now you have to deal with it? Or would you rather create the hardship on your own, and, you know, at least be able to control the circumstances around it?

That’s exactly right, Tim. you’re conditioning your body to be able to handle those things. Now, here’s the thing that I think is really funny. I see these guys in the Northwest. There’s a lot of these militia types out here, but these guys are 300 pounds. They can’t barely walk to the grocery store and they’re talking about, oh, you know, we would, fight the next revolution.

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: I’m like, bro, you can’t even fight off a big Mac. You’re not fighting off, gunfire. they have this goal? They were like, Oh, we would do this. We would stand up for freedom, but they’re doing nothing in their life that would assure victory. If they truly believe that they could do that, then they’ve got to do the hard things.

Stop eating McDonald’s, hit the [00:10:00] gym, lose the weight, condition their body. Because here’s the thing. If we got invaded tomorrow, red dawn, right? We get invaded tomorrow and now the citizens have to become part of the militia to fight against this opposing force. If you weren’t training, And getting yourself prepared for that.

Now, you’re not going to be ready if that happens tomorrow. It’s already too late. You need to be training right now to achieve those goals. It talks about this in the Bible where there’s these 7 virgins and they have oil in their lamps.

And they fill up their oil before they showed up to this event, and some of them didn’t do that. And so they’re waiting to the late hour, the oil in their lamps run out, and they ask the other ones like, hey, give us some of your oil. They’re like, no, no, no, go to the market and buy it. So they leave. And when they’re when they left, that’s when the bride groom comes and takes everybody away because they weren’t prepared.

If you are not honing your [00:11:00] craft every single day, if you’re not working towards success, if you’re not doing the little things every single day, you’re never going to find that success. Here’s what I see people do a lot.

I see people run around chasing the wind, trying to find the right time and place for their big break. That’s never going to happen. It’s like chasing the wind. You’re never going to catch it. But here’s the thing, if you focus on being the right person, God will arrange the time place for your opportunity, your big break. You’re never going to be able to find it on your own. So focus more on being the right person, having the right solution, being trained, being ready to deploy those solutions for your customers. That’s where you’re going to find success. That time and consistency, focusing on being the right person.

Because here’s the thing. If you aren’t prepared and you do find yourself at the right time and place, that opportunity is not going to be for you because you’re not going to be ready. So focus more on honing your craft and being the very [00:12:00] best in the world at whatever it is that you do. Tim, have you read the book from good to great by Jim Collins?

Tim Melanson: from good to great. Did I read that one yet? I don’t remember. I don’t think so

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: He

Tim Melanson: is that the one

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: talks about the hedgehog concept. And so the hedgehog concept is three questions you need to ask yourself, which is, what are you passionate about? This is your business. Now, what are you passionate about in your business? What can you be the very best in the world at, and how does that drive your economic engine?

And when I coach businesses, this is the, these are the three questions that I ask about their business. What are they passionate about? That’s the why behind them. What can be the very best in the world that so a lot of times people want to be all things to all people and you’re, it’s not going to happen.

Tim Melanson: You got to really hyper focus on what can you be the very best in the world at and do that over and over and over again. And then how does that drive your economic engine? How do you get people to pay you to do that? I [00:13:00] heard a quote. It said luck is where opportunity meets preparation

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: Yes.

Tim Melanson: I thought that was really good because you know, like people say oh you’re lucky you’re lucky But if you weren’t ready, you know, I think about that in music I mean if I get my big break to be on the top stage of the world and I haven’t practiced Not very good.

Well, how is that going to work? Right? But if you’ve been practicing your whole life and you’re at the top of your game and you get that opportunity, people are going to say you’re lucky. Right?

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: Yep. Because they don’t see all the hard work that we’ve done to get to that.

Tim Melanson: tell me a little bit more about this practicing stuff. Like, how do you hone your craft and stay on top of things?

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: Yeah. So for me, I want to be able to make impact on stage. So I do podcasts. I have my own podcast as well. I do virtual events, but I love being on stage in front of a live. I love the energy that you get from the crowd. It’s electrifying. And you experienced that being on stage [00:14:00] and playing gigs, like the energy you get from the crowd is electrifying and it helps me.

be better. But before I ever get on that stage, I have practiced that speech a couple hundred times. I had an opportunity to do the invocation and the benediction at the Veterans Day ceremony at the State Capitol this year. I got called seven o’clock at night two weeks ago, and they said, hey, the current chaplain, he can’t come.

I’m the chaplain for the Seattle Seahawks Task Force 12. So could you come and, you know, do the invocation, which is the opening prayer and the benediction, which is the closing prayer. Absolutely. I sat in prayer. I wrote this thing out. Took me two days to write. A minute and a half on the front end and a minute and a half, making sure the words that I was using were impactful and grammatically correct.

And then I practiced it. I must have practiced that thing 30 times, maybe [00:15:00] more getting my brain conditioned. to say the words in the right order. Now, I didn’t memorize it. I could still speak off of notes, but I wanted my brain to be conditioned for what words were coming next, but not just what words were coming next, but what emphasis am I putting on the words?

Where are my pauses? Every time that I would practice it, I’m recording myself. So I would practice it and then I would watch the recording and it’s cringy. It’s like, Oh, you watch yourself. It’s pretty cringy, but I’m watching it and seeing, okay, that I need to slow down right here. I need to pause for impact.

That word doesn’t fit. Well, it doesn’t roll off the tongue. I need to find a different word that fits right there or change that sentence structure. And so I’m doing all of these little things, making sure that when I get up on that stage, that I’m giving the best to the audience. That’s how I can make impact.

Nobody knows. And nobody cares how much, you know, until they know how much you care. And that’s the number one thing I hear from people when I come off [00:16:00] the stage is that I was so passionate about what I was talking and that passion comes from preparation because I’m choosing the right words because I’m building this sentence structure because I’m telling a story as I’m going through and I’m helping capture people’s heart and their imagination.

And then I can capture their mind. But if I can’t capture their heart, I’m never going to get to the head. So I got to focus on how do I get to their heart? So then I can give them the knowledge that they need to be successful. All of that, you know, a week’s worth of preparation doing just that. For three minutes of speaking.

if you’re not willing to have that much dedication to your own craft, I would question whether or not you’re ready for business because you have to have that level of dedication to what you’re doing. If you want to be the very best in the world, if you want to be mediocre, that’s fine.

There’s a lot of people who make a good living being average, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But [00:17:00] for me, I want to be the very best. If I’m going to do something, I want to be the very best at it. That’s why I joined the Marine. I wanted to be the very best. That’s why I went to selection for special courses, because I wanted to be the very best.

And if that’s you, you want to be the very best at your craft. That’s the level of commitment that you have to have.

Tim Melanson: So tell me, when do you know you’re ready? Sometimes when I’m practicing, let’s take it to the guitar, practicing this riff. And then all of a sudden it’s almost like I’m going backwards. It’s getting worse as I practice it.

What’s up with that? where do you get to the point, I talked to some people that have had wildly big, successful careers, and they started off being terrible at first, is there going to be a place where I’m going to be practicing too much, and then I’m not going to even get to the point where I’m actually going to go on the stage in the first place?

where is that line?

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: That’s a great question, Tim. So think about it like this, lifting weights, right? Something that probably everybody’s done is lifting weights. So when you’re lifting weights and you go to fatigue, like [00:18:00] you can’t lift anymore. That’s what you’re talking about. Like you’ve gotten to this point where now you I feel like I’m going backwards

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: and that’s where it’s time to pause.

And then you, you know, you go to sleep, you let your muscles rest, and then you come back the next day and you’re a little bit stronger and a little bit stronger. And nobody notices that on day one or day two or day three, but on day 30, on day 40, on day 50, you notice how much stronger you’ve become.

And it’s the same thing with you playing guitar tips. Where you’ve played and now your fingers are hurting, you feel like you’re doing worse. So you’ve got to take a little bit of break, rest, let your muscles repair, your tendons relax a little bit. And then when you come back, you’re a little bit better than you were before and a little bit better than you were before.

And it’s the same thing with anything that we’re doing, any craft that, our listeners are, working on. It’s going to be the same thing. Now, here’s the thing with entrepreneurs. It’s a little bit different is that at [00:19:00] some point. You’re going to hit this ceiling where you can’t do any, you’re maxed out, maxed out.

You cannot grow anymore. And that’s what we call a lifestyle business. There are millions of people in America that have a good lifestyle business. There are people who are working a job and they’re, working in their own company. They basically have built themselves a job and there’s millions of Americans that are super happy doing that.

They could be plumbers, they could be, janitors, they could do housecleaning. They could be teaching. There’s so many different lifestyle businesses. You could own a flower shop, anything, but you only, you maxed out because you can only do so much. Because as an entrepreneur, you’re doing everything in the company.

You’re the CEO, the COO, the CFO, you are the bookkeeper, you’re making the phone calls, you’re returning the emails, you’re ordering the supplies, you’re doing the physical work, you’re doing all of it. And there’s only so much you can do. So you have limited income potential because you only have a limited amount of time, money, and resources. [00:20:00] That’s when you need to start hiring people and start automating everything. So the first thing I say is automate, automate, automate, right? You want to be able to automate a lot of these systems create SOP’s be able to automate. You know, your social media, be able to automate some of your onboarding processes for your customers, automate as much of that as you can.

But then you create what we call an S O P standard operating procedure. And you have to build these things out before you hire someone. a lot of times they do it in reverse. They hire somebody, bring them in. they’re telling these people what to do. They’re spending a lot of time and energy trying to invest in teaching them what to do.

And then people get burned out because they don’t know the expectation they leave. And then you hire another person. It’s just revolving door. So if you are at that limit right now, where you are struggling to grow, but you don’t have enough time or money to do it, you need to start developing SOP standard operating procedures and looking to figure out who do I hire next.

And I do this with my, with my [00:21:00] customers. All my clients, I make them do an org chart, an organizational chart of all the different positions they need in their company. And then what are those job duties and responsibilities for each one of them? And then I say, now, which of these are you doing? Which do you have an employee doing and which are being contracted out?

And 90 percent of the time. the entrepreneur, the business owner is doing almost all of those things. I say, okay, so who’s the first person that you need to hire? Well, I need to hire this person. Okay. So then let’s start building those SOPs for that position. Once those are built, Now we’re going to hire somebody and I do hiring totally different Tim.

A lot of times people focus on finding somebody with the best skill set for their company. I don’t do that because anything I need you to know, I can teach you or send you somewhere to learn it. I focus now on culture. Are you the best fit for the culture that I’ve created in my company because companies [00:22:00] with aligned goals and values grow revenue faster and are more profitable than companies that don’t.

And so I super focus on the culture that I’ve built in my company and then Do you align with our core values? Because every decision that you make in my company before you make that decision, you don’t necessarily need permission from me, but you need to reflect that against our core values.

Does this help us accomplish our mission? Yes, it does. Does it stay in alignment with our core values? Well, this one, yes, because it helps us be more efficient and it provides greater customer service. Then they can execute on that because anytime someone wants to start a new initiative, that’s the first thing I ask them.

Does this help us accomplish the mission and which core values is it aligned? And that right there gives them permission. I call it the three E’s I educate, empower, and encourage. So I teach them what they need to know. I empower them to go do it. And then I encourage them So that is my, focus [00:23:00] now as an entrepreneur and business owner is just doing those three things, educating, empowering, and encouraging my people.

And this is what I teach to business owners that want to grow and scale that if they want to grow their business, they themselves have to grow first. And then they have to start investing in their people. And I started with investing in the mental health of my employees and it reduced my turnover rate.

Janitorial company has a turnover rate of over 300%. And I’ve reduced mine down to 90 last year. And this year we’re sitting at 67%, four times less than the national average. And that’s helped me scale my company to over 7 million.

Tim Melanson: Are you ever worried about someone in your team so much that they now become your competition?

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: You know what? That is a great question, Tim. That’s a great question. And the answer is no, no, because I create such a good environment that. I don’t want them to leave. But if they do, they’re not going to leave. It’s my [00:24:00] competition. They’re going to leave as a collaborator because I asked all of my employees.

It’s everybody understands the bell curve. And if you’re not sure what the bell curve is, you can look it up. It’s just a scientific method they use when they’re trying to gauge, a population and how much they like something or do something, right?

So it’s the bell curve. Well, a lot of times on the far left end, you have your initiators. It’s guys like you and me who want to start an initiative. People in the audience who are listening, who have an idea, we’re initiators. We’re one to 2 percent of the population. Then you have your early adopters, which are 10 to 12%.

These are people who want to go first. They’re standing in line to get the new iPhone. They’re pre ordering a Tesla that’s those people Then you have the bell curve, which is the masses, the number twos, which are people who don’t want to go first, but they’re happy to go second. And then you have what we call FOMO, fear of missing out.

That’s the other half of the bell curve. And they come on really quick because they don’t want to be left out. Then you have your detractors, people who are just kind of the stick in the mud. And then you have the really negative people, which are [00:25:00] only one to 2%. And those are what I call your turkeys, right?

Those are guys that are never going to be happy. They’re never going to get involved in what you’re trying to build. But it’s a bell curve. It’ll find balance. So those people who are kind of on the fence, they will slide into that.

Now, here’s the thing in a lot of the companies that I used to work for, I was that Turkey, not because I wanted the company to be, to, to fail because I wanted them to be successful. And I thought that I had a better way to do it. And if I could just get them to listen. These would be easier. And that’s where I became disenfranchised.

So those people right there, that you train up, I, when they leave my company, because they’re not a good fit, if they leave my company, they leave not as an adversary, but as an advocate for me. Because I want to find out here’s the question that I ask when people come in and it looks like it’s going to be the end of the road for them.

The first thing I ask them is, do you still want to, [00:26:00] and that really sets the tone. You have to think about it. I don’t know. Do I want to work here? Sometimes they say yes. And then I give them a plan. Like, here’s what you can do to, to find success and stay here. But sometimes they say, no, I said, okay, what is it that you want to do?

Well, I really want to go back to school and I want to, you know, get my nursing degree. Okay. Well, What does that look like And how do I help you be successful? Nobody does that.

Tim Melanson: No.

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: How can I help you here? Take the next four days off, come back to me with a plan.

I’m going to pay you. you need to come back with a plan on how we can execute this to get you to that level. there’s so many people that have left my company like that, that still send their friends and family to come work with me that are now in positions that have been able to open doors for me.

To get better contracts to get on bigger stages because I didn’t just cut him off and tell him to get out of here. I help them be successful on the way out. Everybody in my company knows that if [00:27:00] they want to start a business, come talk to me. I’m a business coach. I’m going to show you how to do it.

Anybody in my company I’ve got a couple right now. She’s my secretary and he does landscaping and they’re going through my next ABC course. And I know that when I teach them how to do this, that she’s going to leave. And I’ve been working with this girl for two and a half years to get her to the point where she’s at right now.

And so losing her is really going to suck. But I know it’s the best for them and their family. And if you’re an entrepreneur, you have a responsibility to leave people better than you found it, to build them up, to encourage them, to impact their life, not just as a producer for your company, but as a person in our society, you have that responsibility.

And if that’s not the mindset that you have, then you’re not somebody that I would be willing to work with because you have to want to help people be more successful tomorrow than they are today. And that goes with your clients. That goes with your [00:28:00] employees. You need to look at every time that you go in for, to do a sales console or to sell your product or service.

I never look at it as a sale. Never. I always look at it as how can I help this person be successful? Never hired a sales team in my janitorial company because every one of my employees is my sales team. Because the way we treat customers, the way we solve problems, the way we help them, not just in janitorial, but if we see something, they’re having a plumbing issue, I got a plumbing guy.

If they need some pressure washing done. I’ve got a guy who can do that. They need snow removal. I don’t do that, but I know a guy and I just try to solve problems for them to make their life easier. And that’s why they keep me around. That’s why they refer me out. That’s why when they grow.

I grow right along with them.

Tim Melanson: And you know what? I would argue that, it’s when you have the opposite attitude to that, that your turkeys end up being, those competitors that start trying to tear you down, right?

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: Absolutely. And then they put bad reviews. And then there’s a lot of [00:29:00] what we call black hat SEOs that people can do to you and just make your life miserable. That stuff always comes back. And now not every one of my employees has been great when they left, you know, some of them have stolen some things.

We’re a second chance company. So we let people come in who have, you know, felonies and things like that. We keep an eye on them. And, there’s some safeguards we put in place, but we try and help people out. sometimes it works out great. Other times it doesn’t, but you can’t let that burn you.

And then you get burned. And then you’re like, okay, well, I’m never giving anybody a chance again. Well, people are always going to burn you. we’re entrepreneurs. There’s not a lot of us Who are willing to take that risk and put in that hard work. They don’t think like we do.

They’re thinking I need to get everything I can today. Cause I don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring. And for us, we’re thinking, what can I give up today so I can have longevity We think totally different. So when people burn you and do stuff like that, I don’t get upset anymore. It’s just par for the course.

And it doesn’t, it doesn’t stop me from helping the next person. [00:30:00] We had people steal from us before and it costs us a bunch of money, but I’ve also had really great employees. I have a fantastic employee. She started out, her name is Jessica. She worked for me as a janitor and about three months into her working for me, she says, Hey, I got in some trouble.

I got to go to Prison. What the heck did you do? Is drugs, right? Drug charges. She had to go to prison. She’s like, but can I have my job when I come back? And I’m like, sure. I’m never going to see this girl again. Well, I don’t know. It’s probably six or seven years later. She comes knocking on my door.

Hey, I’m back. Remember me? We’re like, yeah. Oh my gosh. Congratulations. You got out. Can I have my job back? Let’s give her a job back. Within the first three months, we ended up promoting her to foreman and then she became a supervisor.

Then she became the night operation supervisor in January one. She’s going to be the COO of my entire

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: amazing. And all we did was invest in her. And she [00:31:00] had that spark. She wanted it. She wanted to change her life. And I mean, she’s right around the same age as me. I think she’s maybe a year old.

I think she’s like 46. So she’s right around my same age, but she took a different path in life. Realized that’s not what she wanted. She came to us. We gave her a chance. We never treated her because of her past. We always invested in her, invested in leadership training, mental health, spiritual counseling.

We just invested in her as a person and she’s going to be running my entire company. January one.

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s amazing.

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: That’s what happens when you invest in people. Those are the things that make it worth it. When you watch somebody who society would just throw away, if you know felons out there, they’re working dead end jobs because nobody wants to give them a chance.

But as an entrepreneur, you have a responsibility to society to help people do better and be better.

Tim Melanson: I would also argue that chasing down the [00:32:00] turkeys that are screwing you over is probably a wasted energy. I mean, wouldn’t it be better to spend your energy on doing something than trying to destroy somebody else? Because like, what are you going to get back from that? Really?

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: You know, that’s funny, Tim. I have friends, like I said, I grew up in the drug trade, right? And so I have people that I grew up with that are just continual hustlers. You know, they’re running some scam. They’re always doing something and trying to hustle and it’s criminal, right? They’re criminal, but they’re always trying to hustle.

And I just thought like, man, if you just took all of that time and energy. And focused it on a legitimate business. You would be so wildly successful. The problem is they don’t understand delayed gratification. They want as much as they can get right now in the moment, no matter the cost, not realizing that if they would just take a little bit of time and focus that energy on the longevity of a business, they would be wildly successful. we want that [00:33:00] microwave generation, we want that instant gratification. We want a hundred thousand followers right now. We want $50,000 in revenue a month right now. Well, let’s just start out with $500. What is $500 a month? What does it take for you to get $500 a month in revenue? And then

how do we do that 10 more times? How do we do that 100 more times? How do we do that 1, 000 more times? And a lot of times people get focused too far in the future. It’s Good to have a goal. But they stay focused on that. And they miss the little steps that they need in between. And so that’s where that hedgehog concept.

For me, I’m super passionate about helping people take control of their mental health journey. And I want to be the very best at helping people at training people how to do that from the stage. And how does that drive my economic engine? Well, there’s no shortage of people hiring me to come to their companies and teach this to help them grow and scale. so if you’re listening here, those are three questions [00:34:00] that you need to be asking yourself. In your business, what are you passionate about? What can you be the very best in the world at? How does that drive your economic engine?

And when you figure that out, you may provide 10 services, but when you figure out which is that one that you’re really, really focused on, how do you make that the core of your business? And so we provide a lot of different services, marketing services, business development services. I do a lot of different training when it comes to scaling.

But I’m super passionate about mental health. And so that’s where I focus is helping the entrepreneur first take control of their mental health. And then number two, how do they teach that to their, to their people? And a lot of times people want to call me in thinking that I’m just going to solve their problem and I’m not going to do that.

What I’m going to do is I’m going to teach you how to do it because you couldn’t pay me enough money to go into your company and fix it. You just couldn’t pay me enough money, but I can teach you how to do it. And then I walk beside you as a cadre. We do coaching calls, monthly coaching calls, where we talk about these different things.

How do you, [00:35:00] what programs are you guys using right now to monitor the mental health and well being of your people? What resources are you putting in place? What events are you having? People think like, Oh yeah, we value mental health. We are in may, we do a mental health awareness month and we have, you know, somebody come in and speak and that’s it.

It’s like, dude, that’s like going to the gym one weekend out of the year and thinking you’re a fit. Like it doesn’t work like that. What are you doing every single day? How is that part of your culture? What events do you have every single month? How are you investing? And here’s the thing people say, ah, you know, I don’t have time or money for this.

It’s like, you don’t have time or money not to do it. When we look at the turnover rate, the national turnover rate is 47%, 47 percent of people leave their job with 31 percent leaving in the first 90 days, the first 90 days. Now I have reduced my, my turnover rate. That’s helped me with my business. The [00:36:00] number one reason people say they quit their job though, is toxic work environment.

They actually like their job. They don’t like the people they’re working for. Because the managers care more about the production than the person. And so they leave. You can change that. It was actually rated 10 times higher than pay. I’m a janitorial company. There are tons of jobs that pay way more than me.

But I have a waiting list of people that want to come work for me. Because the culture that we created when MIT did the study, they rated it 10 times higher than pay of the reason why people leave their job. They’re willing to make less money to have a better place to work. And that’s been my experience.

MIT did a study on it. You need to figure out what your culture is and then have people align with your culture and then continually build that culture, build that mental resilience for them.

It’s going to be an absolute. Game changer for you.

Tim Melanson: Tell me what’s exciting in your business right now.

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: Yeah. So what I’ve done being on the blocks and helping [00:37:00] with these different entrepreneurs, I teach this really large, 12 week program that is investing in the mental health of your team. Now, this is for larger companies that have good infrastructure and kind of have culture already figured out. And that’s where I’ve been working.

But since I’ve been working with the blocks, there’s a lot of early stage entrepreneurs or a lot of solo entrepreneurs that just Aren’t there yet for that big of a program. So what I’ve done is I’ve created what I call the ABC course, which is accelerating business culture. So whether you have one employee, 10 employees, or you’re a solopreneur, this class is for you.

Because it helps you build the culture that you want for your company. And that culture just doesn’t extend to your employees, but that culture also attracts the right customers to you. So if you’re wondering why I’m on all these sales calls and my close rate is really low.

It’s because your value proposition does not align with the value set that you have in your company. [00:38:00] And people say, Oh, my product or service, it works for everybody. And if that’s your attitude, you’re going to really struggle. You want to get hyper focused on who your customer avatar is. Who’s your ideal customer?

And that starts with what is your mission? What are you trying to accomplish? What are your core values that you’re focused on? And how do you use that to attract the right people in? Because if you have aligned goals and values, It’s not a sales process.

You’re literally just presenting what you have and what you can do and people with the right goals and values. Are going to want that. then you take that verbiage and that becomes what you use for your value proposition. My customer base are people who already are investing in mental health. They’re already investing in their employees. They just want to be better at it. That’s become 90 percent of my clientele. And so think about that in your business. That’s why getting hyper focused on it, on your mission, your ethos, your core values is super important [00:39:00] because then I teach people how to use those values to attract the right customer.

So now you’re, instead of closing one out of 10, you’re closing eight out of 10 because the people are coming. Because the year of goals and value, but I’m not the cheapest guy in the world, right? When it comes to janitorial, there’s a lot cheaper companies out there, but I’m the best.

And we give the very best customer service that attracts the right people because people are looking for price. They’re not going to come to my janitorial company because I don’t talk about being the cheapest. I talk about being the best. And if you’re the best that comes with a price, people who want the best are going to come and seek me out because they don’t want a cheap product. So think about that with your customers. What are your value sets? What are you trying to accomplish, and how do you use that to attract the right customers? We teach this in our A BC course. It’s four weeks long. First thing we talk about is leadership going [00:40:00] from level three production to level four, which is people, which is now your building people instead of processes.

The second thing is the mission ethos, core values that we just talked about. And how do you use that to attract the right customer, but also attract the right employees according to that value set. Now that you have that built, how do you use those core values to recruit and retain the very best people out there?

I do it three ways, educate, empower, and encourage. So I teach them what I want them to do. Through the ethos, through the SOPs and through the org chart.

And then I empower them to go and do it. And here’s a problem that a lot of entrepreneurs have. We’re control freaks. Nobody can do it as good as we can. They probably can’t because if they could, they’d be your competition,

Tim Melanson: Absolutely.

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: but if they can get it up to 80%, that’s great. And here’s what I tell guys.

I said, look, if you can do this at a hundred percent, that’s great. But if I got five guys that can do it at 80%, I’m going to [00:41:00] outwork you every single day of the week and I’m not going to be exhausted. So that’s what I try to teach entrepreneurs.

You can empower them to do the job and get out of their way. It frees you up your cognitive load. It allows you to now. Focus on the bigger picture. I’m bringing in the next product, bringing in the next service, bringing in the next customer. If they’re doing these daily tasks that you’ve already set them up for success.

those are the 4 pillars that we really, really focus on is the leadership, the mission, ethos and values, recruiting and retraining. And then the last one is educate, empower, and encourage. once they’ve got those four things down solid, then I can introduce them to our much larger program, which will help them with those three E’s.

We call it the echo three, which is educate, empower, and encourage, but I’ve got to get those fundamentals down.

Tim Melanson: As you were saying that I was thinking about some possible programming that might be holding people back. think about what most of us who have been [00:42:00] employees probably think is that, the guy at the bottom is doing all the work and the guy at the top is just making all the money.

And he’s not really doing anything all that important. And maybe that might be holding people back from, hiring some people because they don’t want to be the guy doing nothing. from what you just told me, there is plenty to do at the top, right? So do you think that holds people back?

First of all, how would you start to talk about someone or start to convince someone that maybe they might want to jump out of that role of being the worker bee and doing all the work and get them into that place where they’re the CEO?

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: Here’s the thing. A true CEO doesn’t work in the business. They don’t do the job. Their job is to build the people. So if you’re the CEO, your job is different. It’s not better or worse than theirs. It’s just different. You have to stop focusing on building your business and start focusing on building your people.

That becomes your number one [00:43:00] job. I was a ground pounder in the Marine Corps, special forces. I get in there. Accomplish the mission and I’d get out. And I really struggled in the Marines when I started to pick up rank. And now I wasn’t the guy out there doing that anymore.

I was the guy back doing all the mission planning, investing in my people because I wanted to be on the front lines, but that was a lot of ego. Because I have very limited scope when I’m there, I can do one or two things and I can do it really well, but I’m not going to, I’m gonna have limited impact, but what if I could take 10 people?

I can teach them everything I know. Now I have become what’s called a force multiplier where I’m having 10 times as much impact the target because I’ve trained every one of these people to be able to do it. That’s what we can do as entrepreneurs. That’s what we can do to scale our company is to invest in our people.

You are giving them an opportunity to make a living to support their family. And if you’re just doing all the work, you’re not a job creator. You’re not [00:44:00] building the GDP. American GDP has been sliding over the last two decades.

And if it keeps going this way, we’re not going to be a world power for very much longer. Here’s the problem. Is that all of these businesses, small businesses that are out there that are lifestyle businesses. Unless you’re making over a million dollars in revenue, you are not adding to the American GDP, the gross domestic product.

My personal goal is to help every one of my clients get over that million dollar mark because when you get over that million dollar mark, you’re adding to the GDP because now you have the time and the money to be able to invest in real estate, to be able to invest in the stock market, to build out a new product or service, to start a new business.

That’s what that over 1, 000, 000 allows you to do. And if you can’t do that, that’s okay, that it’s totally fine. But my goal is to help you get there. If you want that is to help you get over [00:45:00] 000 mark, because selfishly I want you to grow the American GDP and keep us a world power.

I want us to maintain what we have. And the only way to do that is to get as many of you over 1, 000, 000 as I can. And if you’re stuck just doing all the work, you’re never going to make it. You’re never going to have sustained growth and success. You’ve got to educate, empower, and encourage people. Give them an opportunity to work for you and be able to support their family.

Because of this, the tools and the training that you’ve given them, it’s a huge responsibility as an entrepreneur. if you guys can get on board with that, you’re going to have a much easier time when it comes to scaling.

Tim Melanson: so now, I agree. I think that the job of a CEO is to grow your people, right? I’m wondering, has that been what’s been happening in practice? Or do you think that there might have been a disconnect for a few years? And perhaps [00:46:00] now we’re going into a place where, like you say, the turnover is so high, maybe we’ve gotten away from building people and now we have to get back to it.

is that what’s going on?

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: I agree with you 100%. And they call us the feral generation. We’ve just had to figure it out. And so, That was my attitude for a long time. Like figure it out, sink or swim, like either you got it or you don’t. And that’s how it was in the special forces. Like you either had it either pack the juicer or you don’t man.

And that’s it. Like nobody’s going to help you. You got to figure it out. And if you want you figure it out. Now we’ll help you get better. I took that same attitude into business, and I tell you what it was, it didn’t work great for me. It probably didn’t work great for a lot of the people listening either, right?

That sink or swim, it doesn’t work really well because you have limited amount of resources to keep your business going, and if your turnover rate is super high, you’re burning through those resources left in row. So it’s better to number one. Try and recruit people that have the same goals and values.

So you’re starting with, you know, a better pool of individuals that align with what [00:47:00] you’re trying to accomplish. But then you have to really pour into, really help them become the very best that they can be. Knowing that some of them may leave your company to, to go to another company, to become your competition, to start another business.

That’s okay. Your job is to help them be the very best that they can be. And if you do that, you’re never going to create an adversary. You’re always going to create an advocate. Because when those people leave your company for whatever reason, which they do, they’re going to say good things about you.

They’re going to refer you out to other customers. They’re going to refer other people to come work for you because they know how much you care about the individual. It’s really been a game changer for me. God had been showing me this for years, that the people are the mission. Cause I was so focused on the mission, but God showed me that the people are the mission.

Tim Melanson: Once I made that fundamental mind shift of the people are the mission. And I focused everything I did into building my people. They built my company much bigger than I could have ever done [00:48:00] I could talk to you forever. This is awesome. But thank you so much for rocking out with me today. This has been awesome. But, so before we go though, how do we find you?

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: Yeah. Absolutely. The best way to do it, you could, sergeant q. net. You can see all the different things that I do book me out for a speaking event. But if you’re interested in the ABC course, go to the ABC course. com. You can sign up right there. Get into my next class. It’s starting in December. there’ll be another one in January.

You can sign up for that. I’ll teach you these fundamentals and we’ll get you well on your way to scaling over that 5 million.

Tim Melanson: Thank you again for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun, Eric.

Sgt. Aaron Quinonez: I love your audience. I hope you guys got something today. Go out there and make a difference in the world.

Tim Melanson: Absolutely. To the listeners, make sure you subscribe, rate, and comment. We’ll see you next time on the Work At Home Rockstar Podcast.