Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. Today’s guest, we have the CEO of SSSE, and what he does is he specializes in using creative deal structuring to purchase cash flowing assets and to build ground up institutional grade self-storage facilities. I’m super excited to be rocking out today with Fernando Angelucci.

Hey Fernando, you ready to rock?

Fernando Angelucci: I am, Tim

Tim Melanson: Awesome. We always start off on a good note. Tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. So, um, I think the, the biggest success I had was leaving the corporate life and deciding to chase my dream. Um, I read a book by Tim Ferriss called "The 4-Hour Workweek," and it had a very interesting exercise in it, which was called the fear setting exercise. You know, I was so afraid to leave my engineering job.

Um, I didn’t know what would happen. You know, what if I would fail? And basically what the book said is put basically two lines on a piece of paper, number them from zero to [00:01:00] 10. The top line is, what is the worst thing that could possibly happen? Zero is nothing changes. Uh, 10 is you die. Nine is you go to prison for life.

So there, there’s your range. Now score it. Then go to the second line, also zero to 10. This is what is the best possible thing that can happen? Zero is nothing changes. Ten is you’re living your, your absolute dream life. And so I had ended up doing the, you know, the mental gymnastics, and really the worst thing that could happen was I put it as a three.

I, I still had my degree. If it didn’t work out, I could always go back into the job market. If I was tough on cash for a little bit, I’m sure I could, you know, stay with friends or family, et cetera. But on the positive line, it was a nine. Uh, I should have put a 10 knowing what I know now, but it was a nine.

I said, "Hey, three to nine, that, that makes the most sense." So I ended up quitting, um, basically jumped out of the plane and built the parachute on the way down. I cash advanced almost $100,000 off of 12 different credit cards to [00:02:00] start the business, and then, uh, never looked back. Um, today, uh, I run a, a self-storage private equity company.

We’ve done over 55 transactions across 26 states, over $240 million. I travel nine to 10 months out of the year, uh, working from virtual offices, if you will. Um, and it’s… I’m living my dream life.

Tim Melanson: Wow. So you didn’t, uh, burn the candle at both ends and keep it, keep the job and work at the same time? You just went all in

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. So, you know, I started just a little bit, so maybe a couple months doing that, and I r- I realized how much output that I was being able to achieve just in the nights and weekends. And I realized that the longer I keep this up, either I’m gonna get burned out from the business that I wanted to create or the job or both.

And that was not a healthy strategy. So instead of trying to keep my foot in both sides, I figured the best thing w- to do was just focus [00:03:00] 100% of my, my attention on the one thing that I wanted to do that I think would move my life forward, and that’s, that’s what I did. So I, I did some real estate on the side for a couple months and then decided to quit.

And the way I quit was a way that made sure that I’d have no way to come back to that same company ’cause I, you gotta, you know, you gotta set, you gotta set the ability to, to hold yourself accountable. And if you always know that there’s a way to go back, um, you’re not gonna really try as if it’s the last possible thing that you can do.

So I had to make sure that, um, there was no other option but success.

Tim Melanson: Wow. That’s awesome. Well, I mean, that’s a really cool exercise that you got into. I, I’m wondering, uh, how did you find the book?

Fernando Angelucci: I’ve, you know, since I was a teenager, uh, I never thought I liked to read, um, but then picked up a book called Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert [00:04:00] Kiyosaki, and then that’s when I discovered the kind of, I hate this word, but kind of self-help books. Books that are not fiction or, you know, things that you can actually apply in your life to make your life better.

Um, maybe sales psychology, personal psychology, mindset, et cetera. So I just started going down that, that rabbit hole of, you know, buying one book, reading it, finding it fantastic, and a lot of these books, they usually reference other books. The authors will reference other books in their books. So then I start buying those, and then all of a sudden in a couple years I have multiple bookshelves filled and, uh, Tim Ferriss’ was one of the ones that I had gotten early on.

I think I was 19 when I read his first book

Tim Melanson: Wow. Okay. Wow, that’s awesome. Yeah, I was in probably my early 20s, so just a little older than you when I started getting into the self-help stuff, and I just remember, like, people, like, thinking I was so weird, ’cause I was always reading these, like, business books instead of the fiction that they’re reading, right?

And they’re like, "Uh, when you say you like to read," they’re like, "Yeah, but [00:05:00] that doesn’t count." I’m like, "It, it counts, I think," you know?

Fernando Angelucci: I agree.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Now, okay, so, uh, along with the good notes, sometimes there’s some things that don’t go as planned when you’re, when you’re setting up your business, when you’re getting moving, and I don’t like to call them failures, ’cause, I mean, they’re all, all learning experiences, but

Fernando Angelucci: Right

Tim Melanson: they are what keep people out of the game a lot of it, a lot of times, right?

They’re just scared about that stuff happening. So I like to, I like to bring a couple of them up or one of them up that might be a bad one that might scare somebody, but you can… You’re still here, right? So can you share a, a story with me?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. Um, you know, I think the, one of the biggest challenges people have when they go into, you know, business, working from home, being a business owner, is thinking that they should do everything themselves because they wanna keep the max amount of profit that, that, that they can. And the problem with that is as you start scaling, you start [00:06:00] burning out, and now that thing that usually made you excited to wake up in the morning, the thing that, that got you out of bed, becomes something that you don’t look forward to doing anymore.

And that’s usually because you’re overworked and you’re not using systems and processes and procedures in your business to either, you know, automate, eliminate, or delegate tasks to people that have, uh, lower per hour, uh, value on their time. So one of the, the first times I burnt out, uh, I was in the single family home space and, uh, buying, fixing and flipping, wholesaling single family assets, not, basically not building up the team like I should have, and I was working too many hours.

You know, I, I went from working a 60 hour per week corporate job to working 80 to 85 hour per week. Basically, I built a job for myself. It wasn’t– I couldn’t call it a business because I wasn’t an owner. I was basically just the, the main [00:07:00] employer, one of the main employees. And then I got burnt out, and it, it, it really made me want to quit and go back into the corporate world.

Um, but luckily did a reassessment, got, um, got some third party advisors into the business, showing us what we’re doing right, what we were doing wrong, where we can put systems and processes, procedures in place. And from that point on, we started to scale pretty heavily until we decided to finally, uh, get into the commercial real estate, um, space or self-storage spec-specifically

Tim Melanson: Hmm. When you say we, who was we at the time?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah, so when I started the business, it was just me, and every time I would get a quick win, you know, a small check here or there, 6,500, 10,000, I would take a picture of it and I would send it to my best friend that, uh, was my random, uh, randomly assigned roommate in college freshman year, uh, Steven. So eventually, you know, s- Steven was being a g- good guy about it.

He didn’t like his [00:08:00] job. He wasn’t making a lot of money, and, uh, he eventually said, "Listen, you either gotta stop sending me pictures of these checks or you gotta show me how to do this business." And I said, I, you know, "I thought you’d never ask." So finally brought him in w- and since then we’ve been, um, we’ve been 50/50 partners all the way

Tim Melanson: Wow. Okay, that’s awesome. And so w- uh, if you were to do it again, like would you do it any different or did you need to get to that, to that burnout mark before you could hire?

Fernando Angelucci: No, no, I would have done it. Knowing what I know now, you know, a decade or more later, I would’ve started larger. So a lot of people think that you have to start small and then bank, you know, a l- a little bit of cash here and there to eventually get to the point where you can go to the next level, and then do the kinda the same thing.

That takes a ton of time. And when you look at, you know, our lives, people don’t realize kinda how finite it is. One of the things that I like to do is break down what your life expectancy is into weeks, [00:09:00] and then see what you’re doing on a weekly basis, and you really don’t have a lot of time. So why put the same amount of effort in going after, let’s say, a $100,000 payout when you can put the same amount of effort into going for, for a 10 million or a $20 million payout?

So what I realized in the beginning is that I should have just started adding zeros onto what my goals were and what type of deals I wanted to do, and then realized that I don’t… Again, uh, going back to the previous, the previous no- uh, point, I didn’t need to do everything, and that includes my money. I didn’t have to use only my money.

I could have s- from the beginning, started raising capital from external, you know, third parties to help build the dream, and then give them a great return along the way. And that’s how we’ve been able to scale so quickly over the last, you know, seven to eight years, is by focusing on the point that doesn’t need to be my cash equity, it doesn’t need to be my debt.

You know, someone else can, can sign on the debt for me, as long [00:10:00] as they’re properly compensated. You know, as long as I have the, the operational wherehow, the opportunities, the deal flow, um, I can put that all together much faster. So I w- I just wish f- for… You know, in the beginning, I was flipping $40,000 houses on the south side of Des Moines, Iowa, when I could have already just been building 10 million, $20 million assets from the get-go

Tim Melanson: Wow. Well, was there some people that came into your life that helped you, to help you teach this stu- or to teach you this stuff, or?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. So this is one of the things that I always tell kinda new real estate investors is, you know, s- surround yourself with people that are successful in your field. Um, there’s, there’s a great saying, I forgot who said it, but you’re the average of the five people you spend the most amount of time with.

So, you know, if you’re spending time with a bunch of people that are making minimum wage, you’re probably going to be making minimum wage. But if you have the ability to surround yourself with people that [00:11:00] are, you know, at the next level or the next two or three levels of where you wanna get to, that will start rubbing off on you.

So easy ways to find this, there’s always local meetup groups, um There’s also, you know, paid membership groups. So if you wanna get really serious about your craft or your trade, you know, you gotta go to the places where, you know, most of the masses aren’t allowed to go because there’s some type of paywall.

Um, and in most cases, that paywall makes sense because then, you know, the, the guys that are doing 100 million a year, they’re not gonna go to the, you know, the community center free meetup on a Wednesday afternoon or Wednesday night, right? They’re gonna go to the 35, $50,000 a year paid, you know, once quarterly, once a, a week-long trip.

So these masterminds are super important. Um, I have always been parts of masterminds g- going through the business, uh, you know, life cycle. I, I learned this from, uh, Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, where he talks [00:12:00] about masterminds and how important they are. So I’ve always had a general business mastermind.

Didn’t have to necessarily be about my, my asset class or industry. Uh, and then I would also be a part of a, a, a mastermind that was specific to what I was trying to do at that time. And, you know, you don’t have to start at the $50,000 level. What I always tell people is set aside a number of top-line revenue for educational purposes.

So, you know, start with 1% or 5%. I think 5% is pretty aggressive, but if you wanna scale faster, that’s how you do it. And then that money goes into a special education account. And in the beginning, it may only be a couple hundred bucks, but a couple hundred bucks can buy you some really awesome books, right?

Then all of a sudden you maybe get 1,000 bucks or 2,000 bucks, and that’s a great three-day weekend course that you could pay for. And then very quickly that starts growing, and then all of a sudden you have 10,000 in that account or 20,000. Now you can start paying to get into those higher level rooms, those higher level groups where you [00:13:00] really…

It’s crazy how fast you can compress learning. Something that took somebody 20, 30 years to learn how to do, just by being next to them and, and going to these, these masterminds, you can compress all of that knowledge, all the, the successes and failures that they’ve had into a period of one year for you.

So now you’ve– you’re getting to catapult and almost, you know, skip over all of that pain and heartache and discovery that someone else had to go through. So I always tell people, you know, you can learn from other people’s successes, but you can also learn from other people’s failures. But to learn from people’s failures, you have to be in a room where people are willing to be vulnerable and share those true failures.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, I mean, and then that’s the next question. Like, h- uh, what do you think is in it for them to be vulnerable and share those failures and, and, and help you?

Fernando Angelucci: You know, they’re in the room for the same reason. They’re trying to grow and, and level up. Um, there’s that old adage that, you know, two heads are better than one. Sometimes all it takes is a fresh [00:14:00] perspective for somebody to see something that you have been stuck on for one, two, three years, and sometimes it comes from somebody in a different industry than yours.

Because in their industry, they do things a little bit differently. They look at problems differently the, than the way that you look at problems in your industry. That’s why I always say it’s important to not only be in a mastermind that is industry specific, but one that’s just general business, ’cause then you can learn how other industries are tackling problems.

So they’re there to, to learn as well. It’s not like these are people that aren’t getting anything out of the groups. The people that go to these groups, typically the structure is you go… It’s multiple days. They’re broken into rooms, and then each person has to present anywhere between 30 to, you know, 50-minute presentation on a give that they’re giving to the group, something that they learned, something that they think is valuable to the group.

And then at the end of that presentation, they have maybe 10 minutes for an ask. Here’s what I’m working on. Here’s what I’ve been struggling on. You know, q- Q&A. Let’s, let’s figure it out together in this room. So it’s kinda like a sounding board, [00:15:00] almost like a, a board of directors that you don’t have to pay for their insurance and healthcare, et cetera.

So it, it’s, it’s super awesome structure

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and sometimes you can learn from somebody who is even at the beginning of their journey because, uh, maybe you might have gotten away from some of the fundamentals, right? And you’re like, "Oh, geez, I used to do that, and I got success, and now I’m stuck," and maybe that might be the kind of the aha that you get from someone who’s just getting started, right?

Fernando Angelucci: 100%. 100%.

Tim Melanson: So now you do a lot of traveling. H- how do you, how do you set up your, your, your jam space, your, your home office if you keep on moving?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. So the, the key is to have a, an office that is easy to set up and take down on, on a moment’s notice, but then also to have kind of processes and procedures in place to make sure that you’re always in a reliable space or reliable mindset. So for example, anywhere I’m traveling, I do a lot of podcasts.

I always find podcast studios to rent. So this is not in my office. This isn’t a virtual [00:16:00] screen. This is a real podcast studio that I rent on a, you know, on an hourly basis. Uh, the other thing is to kinda… For me, because I try to travel as light as possible, I travel around with just one backpack. It’s a travel backpack.

I think it’s 45 liters. Um, so my workspace has to be super refined. So laptop, phone, um, a Wi-Fi- uh, satellite Wi-Fi, uh, just in case I, I’m in an area where there isn’t reliable internet. Or like we were talking before we started recording, you know, there was a period of time where I worked from a Airbnb that I rented in the middle of the, of the, the tropical rainforest, so there was no internet connection there at all.

Um, and then, you know, making sure that you have a proper work hygiene. So just because you’re working from home, I mean, and this is just my opinion, so I’m sure there’s a lot of people that would disagree with this, but just ’cause you’re working from home doesn’t mean that you should be working in your pajamas, you know, rolling out of bed.

Treat it like I at least like to treat it [00:17:00] like I’m going to work. I get up, I take a shower, I brush my teeth, I eat breakfast, I put on work clothes, and then I go into my work space, wherever I set up that space to be. Typically, it’s not in the space that I’m relaxing in because that mental separation is not only good for when you’re trying to get things done on the work side, but then also when you’re on the, you know, the, the balance side, the work-life balance side.

You know, when you’re done working, when are you actually done working? F- and for me, it’s I put away all my stuff, I take off my work clothes, I put on my chill clothes, and I’m done for the day. Um, because, like I said, you want– Uh, for people that have been business owners for long enough, burnout is a real problem, and if you lose your passion for what you’re doing, all of a sudden you’re in a nightmare of your own making.

So you gotta make sure to set boundaries, just like you would set with someone else paying you. You know, you’re not gonna answer phone calls and emails on the weekend when you’re with your family. Why would you do it in your own business, [00:18:00] right? So just making sure that you have that, that proper hygiene is super important.

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s, that’s really good. I remember actually when I was first starting to do, uh, cold calls, I, I actually did put on a suit and tie to make phone calls, and it, it actually did help. I, I was, I was more confident on the phone. It, it just was, it is what it is, right?

Fernando Angelucci: Look good, feel good. You know what I’m saying?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Now, uh, I, I imagine that, uh, it might be a little bit weird for the people around you.

Like, what are you doing sitting in your office with your, with your suit on? But I mean, hey, if it works, it works, right?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah, exactly. There’s a ton of books on, on, uh, the psychology of this exact aspect of working from home and how do you separate work-life balance that I’ve read, and it’s– I think it’s super important. It may seem weird, it may seem cheesy, but it really does have awesome results, uh, both from stress levels and from, you know, being laser-focused when you are in work mode, and then being super relaxed when you [00:19:00] go out of work mode into, you know, chill mode or, you know, I’m at home.

You know, ’cause y-you’re in the same space usually. You’re in your home, you just move from, I don’t know, your kitchen or your office to your, to your living room, or in some cases, like when I first started, I was in a st- a studio apartment. So there was no different zones, if you will. You ha- I had to, like, make my own zone.

So that’s why I forced myself to, you know, put away all my things, put them out of sight, ’cause just even seeing my laptop would, would start making me think about th- work again when it was 9:00, 10:00 PM. It just started disrupting my sleep. That’s not healthy. So making sure that you have proper work hygiene, I think, is one of the most important things, um, for your kinda jam space if, you know

Tim Melanson: Now I don’t, uh, I don’t remember, um, I, I don’t know what’s going on in, in, uh, school systems today, but I know when I was going to school, I don’t remember a real big, um, curriculum on cash flow and, and that kind of stuff. And I, I’m wondering, like, uh, is, you know, how do you learn [00:20:00] that? How do you keep that going?

H- how do you make sure that you’re making more than you’re putting out? Like, do you keep an eye on those numbers every day? Do you have somebody

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. So, you know, there’s obviously levels to this. So at the beginning it was, it was just me. Now I have a full, you know, bookkeeping team and an accountant to handle that stuff for me. But in from the beginning, you know, for your listeners that are thinking about taking the plunge, you always gotta focus on your profit first.

I know this sounds kinda backwards. Most people think, "Hey, here’s the revenue, pay all your expenses, and then whatever’s left over is what I’m gonna take home." But what you end up realizing is expenses start growing as the business start growing. So if you don’t take profit off the table, you have problems.

So there’s a really good book, I’m, I’m s- blanking on the author, but the name of the book is called Profit First. I really recommend people take a look. I not only use that system in that book for the business and the, the multiple businesses that we have, but then also for my personal life. I created a profit first flow that makes sure that I’m taking [00:21:00] chips off the table all the time because I…

You know, in these masterminds, I’ve met guys that, you know, that they had successful businesses for a decade, two decades, and all of a sudden they f- they file for bankruptcy. How can that be? Right? How can you be successful for multiple decades and then have nothing to show for it at the end? And it’s usually ’cause they were never taking chips off the table.

They just kept reinvesting into the business and then all of a sudden, once the business was no longer viable because either the economy changed or we had a p- global pandemic or whatever happened, they had nothing to show for 20 years of work. So I think that’s a huge mistake that a lot of people make right off the bat.

So definitely read Profit First. I think it’s Mike Michalowicz, I think is the name of the author. Super cool guy. I saw him speak in person, really animated dude. Um, so go out and ch- and check out that book. And then the second thing that I’d, I’d tell people to focus on is when you’re… You know, you gotta have clear goals.

So when you go into business [00:22:00] being extremely vague, um, you don’t really go anywhere. It’s like getting into a car without a GPS or a map, and then just driving hoping that you’re gonna get to your destination. That doesn’t work. So the other book that I tell people to read is, uh, Traction by Gino Wickman, Gino Wickman.

Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman, and it basically shows you how to set up a operating system for your business with very clear and concise goals on a 10-year, three, five or three-year, one-year, 90-day, one-week, and daily level. So you know exactly where you are and ha- you have a scorecard that you can easily look at to see, am I on track or am, am I not on track, and why?

So those are two books I really recommend for as far as cash flow management goes.

Tim Melanson: I love that. What other tools do you use? I mean, you’re, y- I mean, you probably have a pretty good tech stack, right? Be- being, with doing all your traveling. What, what, what do you use?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah, now it’s been getting a lot easier, but when we first started this business over a [00:23:00] decade ago, um, the– we– you had to be very, um, nimble, and you had to be able to kind of MacGyver things together. Uh, now there’s a lot of full tech stacks that are kind of all, all-encompassing. But then what I found out is, you know, that the KISS method, keep, keep it simple, stupid, is still a really great adage to keep in mind because you can get, you know, over your skis and all of a sudden decide that this, you know, this Salesforce massive package that costs $10,000 a month that’s gonna solve all your problems will solve all your problems, and then it doesn’t.

So what I found is that, you know, e- I l- I live on Excel. I love Excel. No, no reason to migrate from that. Email, email client is great. Um, I do have a, a CRM that I use. It’s kind of… It’s called Asana, but there’s many similar to like ClickUp and Monday, and there’s a ton of them. Just kinda helps keep projects-oriented tasks, and the great [00:24:00] part about it is those tasks also have deadlines that they start pinging you via email or even text message if you allow it to, um, so you can kinda stay on track.

So, you know, as far as total tech stack goes, we have, um, Asana is where we live kinda most of the time ’cause that’s what keeps the rest of the team and the rest of the company oriented towards their specific goals for their specific departments, et cetera. But then also it flows up to the company-wide goals and what we as the owners are setting for everybody.

Um, and then, like I said, just kind of super basic stuff, keeping it simple. Excel, uh, G- we use Gmail. We use the, the corporate version of Gmail, but it’s still a Gmail account. Um, pretty, pretty basic. And then, you know, with, uh, with all the AI stuff that’s coming out nowadays, um, we, we do dabble a little bit into, you know, some of these LLMs that help reduce the amount of time it takes to produce certain deliverables like presentations [00:25:00] and, and summaries of financial data, things like that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Um, and, and that’s the thing. I mean, sometimes these all-encompassing sort of tech stacks might be kind of mediocre at everything rather than picking something that’s, like, really good at what it does type thing, right?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah, and then not only that, but then it’s also a single point of failure. So we saw recently when there was like a massive outage, I think it was the Cloudflare, C- Cloudfla-flare, something like that outage, took down something insane like 23% of the internet. So if you had everything in your business housed on one of these CRMs that was a do everything for you CRM, and now you have no access to that CI- CRM for gosh knows how long, that could be a huge problem in your business, especially if it, your business deals in kind of very tight deadlines and large money transactions, things like that

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, and you see a lot of businesses running their, you know, their whole marketing on Facebook or whatever happens to be their social media platform too, which is super [00:26:00] dangerous, right? I mean, something could happen. You could lose your profile, right?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. Sing-single point of failure. You always want at least two to three vendors for every, every thing that you need, every vendor that, that, that you’re looking at to use, so

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I love that. Let’s get into your guest solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. So, uh, up until recently, how we’ve raised money for every one our deals were what are called single asset syndications, which means that when I need money for a deal, I go out and tell people, "I need money for this one deal." And the hard part about that is before I can raise the money, I have to get everything else lined up, the financing, the deal, everything.

Which mean- meant that I usually only had couple weeks, three to, three to eight weeks to raise all the money I needed for some of these projects that were pretty large, you know, $15, $16 million build that I had to raise $3 to $5 million on. The cool thing that I’m super excited about now is we have launched our [00:27:00] first fund, and it’s actually a general partner fund which offers kinda higher returns than what a limited partner fund would offer.

So now we have kinda like this, this, you know, this track record from the single asset syndications. All these investors are coming into the GP fund, which now means that we have cash to play with before we actually need the cash, which allows us to do some very creative things. So for example, when we’re negotiating, um, a purchase on a property, we can say, "Hey, here’s the regular price.

Here’s a severely discounted price, but we’ll pay you in 10 days. We’ll give you your entire purchase price," and it could be a couple million dollars, right, in 10 days. And usually there are some people that are willing to accept that because time is money to a lot of people. So super excited about the GP fund.

It is our first fund. It’s a $25 million fund, um, and it invests alongside me and Steven as the owner on a lot of these single asset syndications that we do. So, um, super excited about that. I know it may sound a little bit like gobbledygook to some of the [00:28:00] people that are out there, but in the syndication space it’s a, it’s a huge milestone.

Tim Melanson: Hmm. Cool. Now, what is the type of person that would benefit from that?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah, so we help, um, you know, a lot of high income, um, business owners and W2 investors. So a lot of what we do is focus around tax advantageous structuring of deals. So for example, we closed on a deal in Rochester, New York, uh, at, uh, on New- uh, literally on New Year’s Eve. Um, and every investor that invested into that project, for every dollar they invested in, they got to write off 90 cents on their, uh, tax returns, uh, for any passive investments on their K1.

So that was huge, and it helped a lot of our investors out that were trying to, you know, plan taxes. They, maybe they didn’t, uh, hold tax money in a reserve account as they were working throughout the year, which I know has happened to a lot of new business owners. [00:29:00] It happened to me when I was a new business owner.

You know, because now no longer it’s being taken out of your paycheck ahead of time, you’re just getting all that money and then you forget to set things aside. So then they come scrambling to me and say, "Hey, Fernando, I have a $300,000 tax bill. I have $50,000 to pay this. What am I gonna do? Can you help me out?"

I said, "Actually, I can. I have these deals that you can invest in that will lower your tax burden." So, um, y- you know, typically high, high income W2 earners, uh, business owners, especially if you’re a business owner that you have passive gains that you need to offset, we’re very good at offsetting those

Tim Melanson: Hey, interesting. All right. And, uh, I mean, that leads to something that we could have talked about earlier, which is the tax issue, right, in, in your business and making sure that you save enough money for the taxes, right? Wow. So now how would someone f- what’s the process of someone finding out more information about this?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah, so there’s, there’s– I always tell people there’s kind of two ways to reach me. So if you’re more of a active outreach guy, you’re a cold [00:30:00] caller, you’re a sales guy, you’re, you’re listening to this right now and you’re just like, "Fernandez, just give me your number. I wanna call you right now," here is my cellphone.

My, my real cellphone number is 630-408-8090. So for all my extroverts out there, 630-408-8090. If you’re somebody that’s more of an introvert, let’s say, or a little bit slower to, uh, reach out when you have questions or, or interests, you know, I always tell those, those folks to go to our website. It’s www.ssse.com, and there you can find out all about us, what we do, uh, the 100-plus podcasts I’ve been on, um, a f- a FAQ page with video responses to every question.

I think we got like hundreds of questions on there. Uh, and then if you want to schedule a call on your own time and terms, there is a link that you can go right to my calendar, and you can schedule a time that works for you

Tim Melanson: Okay, awesome. All right, so before [00:31:00] we go, let’s talk a little bit about music. Who’s your favorite rock star?

Fernando Angelucci: It’s a tough,

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Fernando Angelucci: a tough question. Um I mean, I know we were talking about this before. I don’t know if I can pick one of the guys in the band, but my favorite band of all time is Umphrey’s McGee. It’s a jam band. They are pretty rock heavy for a jam band. So I’d say if, if you’re allow, allowing me to answer with a whole

Tim Melanson: fine. Yep.

Fernando Angelucci: Okay. Umphrey’s McGee

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Right on. And so y- you like, w- what do you, have you seen them in concert? Or like, how, how, do you follow them?

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah, I’ve, I’ve probably seen them more than 40 times live. I go to the, you know, I go to the music festivals that they headline. I, I camp out in a, in a tent. Nowadays I’m getting a little bit older, so it’s more of a, I rent an RV and then rent an RV space to g- camp out instead of just being on the ground like I used to.

But yeah, I, I follow them around all the time. I love the, I love the music [00:32:00] festival culture and the food and, uh, exploring new music that you hear just from walking from one stage to another stage. So really love that

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever played an instrument?

Fernando Angelucci: I have. So, uh, piano, guitar, I sing. Um, nowadays it’s more of a hobby than, than something I spend a lot of time on. But, you know, high school, college days, I, I was playing guitar a couple hours every day. Piano when I was at home. My parents have a piano in their house. And now, uh, like we were talking before we started recording, uh, because I travel a lot, I go to countries sometimes where I don’t speak the native language.

I found that one of the easiest ways to connect to people that don’t speak your language is to go up onto the stage and sing some karaoke, and you end up making a lot of friends for life real fast.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. That is an awesome, awesome tip for sure. Rayon, well so, thank you so much for rocking out with me today, Fernando. This has been a lot of fun

Fernando Angelucci: Yeah. It has been a lot of fun. Thanks for having me on, Tim

Tim Melanson: No [00:33:00] problem. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information. We’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar podcast

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work At Home Rockstar podcast. I’m super excited for today’s episode. We are talking to Clay Green again. I met him 10 years ago. We’re t- we’re figuring this out just now. So, uh, this is really cool. He is the chief enthusiasm officer at Conscious Flow Control, and what he does is he helps people to master the skill of controlling the contents of their consciousness so they can master conscious flow control and more than double their efficiency, output, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So super excited to be rocking out today with Clay Green. Hey, Clay, you ready to rock?

Clay Green: I’m ready to rock. I

love it

Tim Melanson: love it. Well, we always start off on a good note. Tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by

Clay Green: Uh, a story of success. Uh, like Tim- like you said, Tim, we, we just kinda realized that we met about a decade ago, and I’m celebrating big time. I, I realized it about two or three months ago that I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing now 12 plus years, over a [00:01:00] decade. And previously in my careers, I was in a job for about six years.

So I’ve been celebrating the ever-living devil out of that. It’s, it’s mind-blowing to me that, I mean, your, your podcast, we did that a decade ago, and I was already working from home. I wasn’t… There’s, there’s a whole story about that, where I’m living and all that stuff, but traveling or whatever. And so I’m just celebrating that.

I’m really, really, really thrilled and happy about this, this lifestyle and how it’s changed how I feel on a daily basis. It,

it just is amazing. Yeah

Tim Melanson: yeah, that, I mean, that, and that is a great story. I mean, to be able to do something, you know, f- that you’re passionate about for over a decade, I mean, that’s a big deal, right? I mean, people

Clay Green: I didn’t, I didn’t realize it. Like, that’s the part, just like you, I didn’t even realize it until I really started thinking about it. That’s the part. Yes

Tim Melanson: Yeah, time flies, and I, I feel the same way ’cause it’s been over a decade [00:02:00] for me as well, and my previous record would’ve been eight years with a company. And I mean, the, the funny thing about it, that, is that that was eight years. I knew it was eight years, right? However, now with this, uh, with this over a decade, I’m just like every once in a while, I’m just like, "Wow, I’ve been r- just

This has been going on and on and on. Like, this is amazing," right? Yep.

Clay Green: It’s been flowing

Tim Melanson: Now, uh, now, uh, I mean, I can’t say that it was all sunshine and rainbows though. There was some things that didn’t go super well over the, over the last, you know, you know, decade or so. And I’m wondering for you, can you share with me one of the bad notes that, that you hit over the years?

Clay Green: Well, I mean, it’s been a decade. We, and we kind of joked about it when we first got on here is a lot has happened. Um, COVID.

Tim Melanson: Oh, yeah

Clay Green: Uh, like, and regardless of which side you fall on, the political situation in America, it’s just been, the last decade has been quite turbulent and newsworthy.

Let’s [00:03:00] just now, now that we touched that, let’s step back from that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah

Clay Green: Um, it’s, it’s, it’s crazy. Um, and then, you know, uh, I, I guess, uh, I went from, I went from being in this amazing, wonderful relationship, and y- it’s funny. It’s like timing, man. Uh, I was in a wonderful relationship when we, when we met,

and I was traveling around the country in my RV. And, um, fast-forward, that relationship is over.

Thanks, COVID. Thanks, all the stuff. Uh, but I mean, it was, it was appropriate, but it was, it was a tough, it was a tough breakup. Um, it was hard, but I still kept serving my clients. I still kept generating revenue. I still was able to keep the cash flow going. Um, cash flow, learning about that, because I’ve spent, like we were talking about jobs, most of my adult life I’ve been in a job, in a business.

Or not a business. I’m sorry. A [00:04:00] job, a s- a career. Yes, successful. Yes, wonderful. Uh, but it’s a whole different mindset when you start managing your cash flow that, as a business owner. And I guess a decade ago, you know, when it was like, I was like two to four years into trying to figure all that out, it’s, that’s a whole mind thing. Uh, so then, yeah, moved out of the RV. I’ve, uh, kind of returned to what I’m considering home right now, and I’m enjoying life. Um, so several challenges, if you wanna tear into any of them. Um, all of them telling me the importance of that, uh, controlling the contents of your consciousness

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Clay Green: statement that you made.

That is so important.

Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I, and I mean, on that note, I remember, you know, years before, uh, you know, lockdowns and all that other stuff that, that, uh, I remember, uh, I think I was listening to Jim Rohn talking about this kind of thing, and he’s like, "You know, it doesn’t matter who’s in power and who’s, [00:05:00] you know, whether it’s this or that, and, y- you know, really, you know, there are people that are having success regardless of that," right?

And a lot of that has to do with just not really worrying too much about any of that stuff. However, I will say that, um, there was, th- there was an impact on me only once depending on who was, who was in, in, uh, in office, and it was those lockdowns. I mean, that, that was one of those things that, I mean, it, it really did change a lot of things.

However, you know, uh, as probably most of us realize, I mean, there’s are always gonna be something… There, there is often something external to your business that can happen, and maybe it’s not political. Maybe it just is what it is, and

now it’s probably AI, right? That, that’s happening out there. And it, and it forces you to, to make a pivot and to make some changes [00:06:00] into what you do, and I, and I did, and it ended up working out really, really well for, for me.

Um, but I think what happens a lot of times is people get stuck with maybe, "This is what I do, and I can’t think of doing anything else," and, you know, you, you hang on too long. Is that… Do you think that might happen?

Clay Green: So, so I like how, like, you’re connecting the lockdowns to political, and it’s like that was… We could, we could segregate that out and it, but the lockdown, it was a very, in my mind, that lockdown, it, it, and, and the, the isolation and the work from home and all that, it freed a lot of people.

Tim Melanson: It, did

Clay Green: So I’m with you. Uh, I have a phrase that I, uh, say and that I lean on a lot. Everything always works out perfectly for me.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, I think, I,

Clay Green: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: yeah, I, I think you’re right. I, I think that the biggest silver lining that came from those lockdowns is, I, I remember I probably told this to [00:07:00] you 10 years ago on, on the podcast, at some point most people are gonna be working from home, right? And having their own business. Now, I did not see that coming, right?

But, but I

Clay Green: your fault. Is that what you’re, you’re trying to take ownership?

Tim Melanson: well, g- ’cause what, what it did is, is it, uh, it proved a concept to a lot of these big companies that, uh, they were just resisting. I, I know, uh, you know, when I was in high tech, I did work for a company that allowed us to work from home, and in, i- in that aspect, I think it was because they realized they could get more out of us.

You know, nerds that were sitting around. You know, I was a programmer, right? So they, they’d get

more out of us, you know, coding at 2:00 AM. And, you know, giving us access to that, to that infrastructure, right? Uh,

but I do know that most companies, they didn’t, they frowned upon that stuff. Like, you were working from home, they figured that you were just slacking off all day.

And they realized real quick that, [00:08:00] yeah, there are some people that are not meant to work from home. They, they, they need that,

right?

Clay Green: structure. Yep

Tim Melanson: But there’s also a huge number of people that are far more productive working from home, and I think that that really did open that up. And so, you know, i- in the short term, I think maybe it might, uh, allow a lot of companies to start utilizing that.

But also, I think it can help a lot of us self-employed people, ’cause it now has opened up, you know, improved some tools. Zoom is much better now. Uh, you, lots of other teleconferencing tools that have come out. Like, it, it has improved a lot of things, right?

Clay Green: So much, so much. And the, and the, I love that phrase, man, the contents of your consciousness. Master the skill of controlling the contents of your consciousness. Now, the reason I’m saying that is because it, it, I’m very aware of, ’cause of what I do, of how many people struggled with, with, with, [00:09:00] like, there’s this, here’s normal and now there’s this change.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah.

Clay Green: it’s such a struggle

to adjust for, for so many people, and that’s the gift. If you can learn how to do that, if you can learn how to adjust and adapt my buddy Clint Eastwood in that one movie from, from the ’80s I think it was, uh, that’s the trick.

And, and I think that it, I think that the last decade, I’ll just say it that way, has helped people… It, it’s segregating people into the, into, into I need to hold onto these systems. ‘Cause I, I have clients right now that are struggling to transition into freedom,

into, into no job, but they’re still kinda holding on in their mindset with, with the, the s- the structure.

So it’s segregating those people really clearly in my mind.

And there’s

so many people now with doing s- Like, I ask everybody, "What, what are you, what are you selling on the side? [00:10:00] What’s your side hustle?" Like the baristas, the, you know, everybody, everybody. Anywhere I’m at, like, if I’ve got a minute and I’m wasting time or whatever in a, in a line, that’s the question.

And so many people will be, immediately say, "Oh, I, I sell paintings. I sell, I resell collectible pins." Whatever, you know, so whatever it is.

So it’s been great. I think it’s been great.

Tim Melanson: Good. So let’s talk a little bit about, you know, this, th- these practices and these ways to, I don’t know, control your consciousness ’cause, uh,

I mean, without

getting into the politics themselves, the, the, the issues that are going on right now are very, very polarizing, and people are really wrapped up.

And I, I’m, I’m just wondering, like, I mean, obviously if you’re upset about whatever’s going on out there, that’s gotta impact your business. So how, how do you, how do you not let that impact you?

Clay Green: You know, I, the first thing is [00:11:00] awareness.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Clay Green: The first step in anything is awareness, and I think more and more people are realizing today, and, and it is just happening in my im- from my perspective, and I could be distorted. I see more people going, "Wait a second. Huh?"

And they’re becoming aware of

those triggers.

They’re becoming aware how, let’s just say BMW or Mercedes or Volkswagen or Po- Ralph, Ralph Lauren Polo marketing triggers people.

And, and, and how, how trained we are to exist triggered.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Clay Green: So that awareness is, is in my mind the first step. It’s why, and, and I have, I have a little three-step process that I share with people, and I think we’re all doing this. And I’m g- it’s gonna be kind of weird the way I’m gonna present this, but regardless of… And, and I’ve, I’ve [00:12:00] talked to a lot of people over the decade now, over decades now. And, and regardless of religion or non-religion or politics or anything else, I ask this question: "Why are you here?"

And, and I, and I ask them to zoom out to the point where it’s like I’m talking about this lifetime.

I’m not talking about you building your podcast, you building your business, you coding, me teaching flow. No, I’m talking about as a human, why are we here? And the theory comes down to we’re either here to learn and grow or have fun

and experience. And so it’s, it’s very simple. If you just start there and it’s like, okay, well, if I’m here to either experience this or have fun or I’m here to learn and grow and get into heaven or, you know, whatever that growth reason is in your religion or your philosophy, it’s all good.

I don’t wanna change any of those things. But the point is learn and grow or experience [00:13:00] and have fun. How are you doing it? With this body. So my first step, the first most important, I tell people now it’s the most valuable thing that’s ever gonna come out of my mouth. Grow your awareness of your body.

Grow your awareness of your body. I have my clients write it down in their journal, "Grow my awareness of my body." And if you just focus on that every day, you- you’re like, "I’m gonna go to the bathroom. I’m gonna go take a shower. I’m gonna get in the car and go to the grocery store." Why am I doing that? One of the reasons, deep down, is to grow my awareness of my body. I wanna feel the difference in temperature. So you, you turn that awareness up. That would be the first, most important thing. The third thing, the third step in this process is why are you growing your awareness of your body? It’s, it’s because you may not like going [00:14:00] to that grocery store. You may not like your shower head. So, so the third step is what do you want? What do I want? the way I say it. What do I want? Right? So I want a new shower head, so I’m gonna go to the store, but I don’t like that store, so I’m gonna go to this other store. So I skipped number two on purpose because I kind of alluded to number two, and I just…

And, and I’m, I’m curious, Tim, like, do you see this? Do you, do you… Like, everything we were talking about, the last test, 10 years and everything that’s going on Most people make most decisions like I just described. I don’t like the shower head. I don’t like my car. I don’t like my partner or my girlfriend or my boyfriend. I don’t like it when my kids get bad grades. What do I want? I want their grades to improve. I want it different. I want something different,

right? They start from a place of lack [00:15:00] and fear

unconsciously. So my second step is let’s get rid of the lack and fear. Let’s, number two, so number one was grow my awareness of my body. Number two is chase, attain, and maintain gratitude. Then and only then, in my opinion, is it beneficial for you to ask, "What do I want?" Because when you’re in a state of gratitude, you’re empowered. You’re in a place where it’s abundant. There is love. You’re feeling good. So what do you want? I, yeah, I want the shower head to be harder, right?

Instead of, "I don’t like that." What do you want? I want the shower head to give me more pressure, and I want it to be able to go to this one massage setting. Because otherwise, you’re gonna go to the store and you’re gonna see a whole bunch of different shower heads, and you’re not gonna pr- the odds are you’re not gonna find the one you want unless you’re looking for what you [00:16:00] want.

That

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Clay Green: make sense?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and, and I mean, you know, sometimes you might have a salesman that’ll tell you, that’ll ask you those questions, and you end up getting getting what you want. But, uh, but, but on the other hand, yeah, you might just replace it with something that you also don’t want

Clay Green: The k- the key thing I’m saying is the default for most people that I meet and, and I see in the world is, "Eh, I don’t like that. I don’t want that. I’m gonna go over here."

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Clay Green: Instead of, "What do I want? Oh, I want that."

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Clay Green: with it. Yeah

Tim Melanson: Well, I think, I, I think the way that, that I see that is, is sort of acting, uh, reacting to things versus acting intentionally, right? Like when, uh, when you’re reacting to something that you don’t like, then you’re not necessarily going towards what you do like. You’re just running away from what you don’t like

And depends on which direction you happen to be running. Whereas if [00:17:00] you instead figure out exactly what you want, then you can run in that direction for sure

Clay Green: 100%. The, uh, I love that word reacting. I, I, I don’t know if I said it in our first interview a decade ago or not. It was, I said it was nine and a half years, whatever it’s been. Um,

uh, but I, I used to say this a lot. A- and it’s I help people learn to think, not react.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Clay Green: And there’s a very clear delineation there. ‘Cause those three steps that I just shared with you, except for the chase, attain, maintain, we’re doing it. Every day everybody’s doing it. Why’d you get up and go to work today? Why did y- If you’re listening to this right now, why did you l- click on this podcast? Was it because you wanted something or because you’re trying to get away and change your life from something else?

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Clay Green: Right? It’s, it’s, so we’re doing those three steps, and you just cracked into the, the, [00:18:00] the, piece that matters is you’ve gotta be aware of your body. Am I… We are aware of our bodies, but if, if, something hurts a little bit, we’re not gonna change much. It usually takes a pretty big impetus, like you got fired, you got laid off, you got… Your, your, your girlfriend broke up with you, so you’re gonna change how you’re acting. You know what I’m saying? There’s the, there’s these big things that prompt us usually.

M- my pitch is grow your awareness and listen to the little things.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yep

Clay Green: Increase your s- excuse me, increase your sensitivity so that as soon as you see that commercial, as soon as your partner says it this way, you’re aware there’s something a little off and you’re able to figure out what it is. You’re able to satiate your reactivity then solve the problems

Tim Melanson: Well, and, and the way … [00:19:00] So the way it’s worked in my life anyway is that I think that these cues that our body gives us, like the, you know, the pain here, the pain there, or the uncomfortableness here, the uncom- comfortableness there, those are all sort of cues. And I think that they’re attached to what we think, but w- whatever.

Either way, um, i-

if, if something happens, uh, that’s like a little annoyance, and you don’t handle it, well, isn’t it just gonna grow? So I think everything works kind of the same way, is that, like you say, we only change when something really big happens. Well, that’s because you ignored all the signs that led to that point, right?

I mean,

there was … You know, even when you think about something that’s not like a pain in your body, like a, like a, like getting fired or something like that, I guarantee you that didn’t happen overnight. There, there was, there was something that led up to that, and you just ignored all those signs and eventually got blindsided by that, right?

Clay Green: Like the, like the, the great prophet said, "Signs, signs, everywhere there’s

signs." [00:20:00] I love that song.

Um, uh, yes, 100%. I don’t know if I asked you this when we first met. I, uh, I c- now I kinda wanna go back and listen to that first podcast.

One of my favorite questions that I always ask people when I first meet them, if I’m, if they’re thinking about working with me or whatever, is I ask, ’cause this connects to what you just said about your thoughts. I ask, "What did your mom and dad do for money when you were one year old?" So you can think about that. I’m not actually asking you right now, but if you think about that, here’s why I ask that question. I ask that question because it tells me a lot about your unconscious mind.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s true.

Clay Green: Your, the first 18 months, your brain grows more than the rest of your life. More gray matter is created, and in the creation of that gray matter is when the way your parents and the, the caretakers and the people you spent time around [00:21:00] as an infant and what you were going through then is what’s programmed in. And so you said your thoughts create a lot or if not all of those ouchies or those prompts.

I agree 100%, and it’s the majority are unconscious thoughts,

things that you’re not aware of. And yeah, I help… So the first step I help people do is learn, is master the skill, like you said, of, of controlling the contents of your consciousness,

because your unconsciousness is trying to control that all the time.

Um, so you gotta master that skill, and then we can get into the productivity stuff.

Tim Melanson: yeah.

and it, and, and I think to that point, uh, I, I once learned that you can’t focus on two things at the same time. So it really, what matters is that you’re not necessarily trying to think, like, don’t think of the purple elephant . It’s, it’s think about the thing that you want, [00:22:00] and then you, you’re not thinking about the purple elephant, right?

And, and I think that that’s a, a, you know, that’s kind of goes back to the same thing that you just said a second ago with f- you know, go towards what you want rather than away from what you don’t

Clay Green: I have nothing to add.

I have no comment other than hell yeah.

That was a hell yeah.

Oh,

Tim Melanson: so tell me about your learning journey. Like, have you… D- do you hire coaches? Do, like, do you have mentors, masterminds, any of those things?

Clay Green: Um, yes.

Tim Melanson: To

all those, yeah

Clay Green: Uh, um, yes. Oh, my learning journey. Whew I’m sorry for the pause there. I’m just taking a moment of feeling grateful. There is, there h- I… It is shocking. It is shocking when I stop and try to think about everything I’ve learned. Um, and the [00:23:00] way that I feel that is, one, I’ll bring on a new client.

I j- I recently onboarded a client that is, uh, he’s a da- a data scientist, like a, a master’s or PhD. He’s like a director of data science for this company, and he’s, he’s, he’s doing… I, I don’t wanna get too personal here, but he wants to develop a side hustle. And so I realize the delta between my understanding now of marketing, cash flow, managing my day so that I can run a business.

See, all these, all these things, these are little tidbits I’m dropping here. There’s so many things. Um, there’s so many things that he needs to learn over time, and it becomes a challenge. Like, which one’s the first? And I, and I, I always go back to, you’ve gotta master the contents of your c- learn the skill of mastering your contents, your consciousness.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Clay Green: Um, and every mentor that I [00:24:00] bump into, every book I read, every, every m- mastermind that I’m a part of, the, it’s, it’s, it’s the sa- Yes, there’s, there’s a skill of, uh, marketing, and that’s changing like crazy with AI, ads, the

cost, the way you get clients, how, and your business and all the different options and ways you can get clients for your business. There’s so many.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Clay Green: But I, I, I, I don’t… Did I answer your question? Yes, my learning journey has been massive.

It’s like I don’t even know how to start to tell it. Um, did

Tim Melanson: do you, h-how do you find, uh, how do you go about finding a m-mentor? Like, if you, if you’re looking for some help, what, what would you do?

Clay Green: Uh, I said it earlier, everything always works out perfectly for me.

Tim Melanson: Ah, so it just comes into your life. Yeah.

Clay Green: find, I find [00:25:00] that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Clay Green: Now, and this is, and this is that hard part. This- so, so someone that’s just starting on this journey is not practiced in trusting their intuition. They’re

not practiced in listening to that still, small voice. And so they’re seeking and they’re looking.

Well, here’s, here’s what I would say. And, and I did this, I did this. I, I, I… Going back to the beginning of my l- learning journey, um, it was all about the person I resonated with. I heard, uh, I don’t know if you’ll remember this name or not, but I heard Dane Maxwell on a podcast, on the Smart Passive Income with Pat Flynn. I- it was, like, episode 14 or 34 or something like that.

And I heard his interview, and I just felt that man’s heart. And, and it resonated with me. And so I looked him up and I checked out his class and I joined [00:26:00] his class. Six months later, pr- a little bit, in that six months my life changed dramatically

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Clay Green: Huge.

Um, and, and somewhere in that six months or shortly thereafter, I met someone who was just completely the opposite almost of of this big-hearted, open, vulnerable Dane, and he was Brendan Bouchard.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Clay Green: And Brendan Bouchard at the time when I met him many years ago, he was a very structured person. And so what did I, what am I explaining?

I am explaining that my heart, I r- I recognized, I recognize now I resonated with Dane’s heart. But, uh, logically, I quickly understood that it was my technical background, my engineering and nuclear science, all that stuff background that made me resonate with Brendan and the way he delivered this information. Um, and here’s, [00:27:00] here’s, here’s what I’m gonna say it one more time to, to answer that question. There’s not really a whole lot of new information out there. You can learn how to use AI, and that’s new and a little different,

but, but in regards to the things that a new person needs right now, it’s not a whole lot, there’s not a whole lot of new information. I’ve got some, I think, way of doing some stuff. Um, but again, it’s not new. I’ve been doing it for a decade.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Clay Green: uh, so go with your gut. Go with your gut. Make sure they got a money back guarantee and, and, and hire somebody to help you.

Follow a leader that you resonate with, because you’re not gonna make a mistake because everything always works out perfectly for you.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, yeah. I think that, uh, I, I think that, uh, you’re right. There, there… I mean, there’s, uh, the information out there, uh, maybe you might need to hear it a different way in order for it to, like, connect with you, you know? ‘Cause, uh, I mean, [00:28:00] you might hear it many times from many different people, but it’s almost all the same thing.

Now, there are some certain tactics, like you say. There are some new technologies that you can learn and all that stuff. But when it comes down to it, I, I think, uh, in my life anyway, the most valuable coaches that I’ve had have been more the, the accountability type stuff. It’s, it’s holding yourself accountable for doing the things that you say that you’re gonna do, because that’s real- I mean, it, it, we all know how to go out there and be w- more, more successful.

I d- everybody knows what to do. They’re just not doing it, right?

Clay Green: You know what, Tim? I, I lo- I love you went there. We haven’t talked about this. Uh, what, but, but I’m just gonna share it. 100% agree. Uh, and I realized early on that there were two things that got me moving.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Clay Green: One, we can label accountability. Not [00:29:00] my favorite word because, frankly, I don’t enjoy the, you know, "Hey, Tim, h- did you, did

you do 10 pushups today?"

I don’t like that kind of burden in my life.

But the other one I’m gonna say was engagement. Engagement from that mentor, engagement from that system that is, I’m learning from. And so I literally built an app called Your Engagement and Accountability Helper, YEAH, the YEAH app, for coaches, and I’m using it.

I’m using it today with my clients, and it’s like a, it’s an automated engagement and accountability thing. But my clients don’t, the clients don’t download an app. It’s just text messages. And so, so I have a daily check-in, sometimes a couple times a day, with m- some of my clients, um, where I’m asking, "Hey, did you meditate

today? Did you accomplish this journaling prompt today?" Whatever it is. And if they didn’t, then I get a [00:30:00] notification, and I can reach out to them if I need to because that is, that engagement, that, that connection. I, I, I… The, this, if there was, there was two things that drastically changed my life. And if you haven’t heard, I, I, I’m sure I talked about it back in the day, I hit a deer going 85 miles an hour on my motorcycle, and I did not crash. That moment drastically changed my understanding of my brain and my body, and it changed everything. Um, not from a motivation standpoint because, well, anyway, it doesn’t matter. The other one was a multimillionaire convinced me that let me take it off, that, that using these beads five times a day would change things.

And f- I, and he made me promise to do it for seven days. Four days in, everything shifted. So it was that engagement and that accountability from that mentor that [00:31:00] drove… That, that, I look at that as this, "Oh, I understand now," full circle, "how to start managing and controlling the contents of my consciousness."

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Wow.

Clay Green: Meditation,

Tim Melanson: Well, you know what? Let’s get into your guest solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now

Clay Green: That mu- there, okay, so I, I’m building, I’ve built this app and I’m in the early stages of releasing it and letting early adopters come on and test it. So we’re in the, in the process of that. Uh, ironically, 2012, so 15 plus year, 14 plus years ago, uh, the class I joined was a SAS class, software as a service.

And it’s taken me this long and, and now I’ve got customers and I’m producing an app. Um, so I’m excited about that. But more importantly, I’m excited about how for the last decade [00:32:00] I’ve basically been honing and teaching the same thing, which is, which is the enabling and empowering process, and I’ve got it right here. These are my words. Enable, empower, enthuse. And the enabling part is controlling the contents of your consciousness. The empower part, the empowering part is high performance habits and conscious flow control. Um, but the exciting thing is the realization that I’ve been doing this 10, 12 plus years now, and w- what I’m doing with the new clients because of the way that I ask that question.

What would I do differently after I’ve worked with someone for two or three years and they’re doing great, but what would I do differently? And I go back now and I, I really, really, really, really focus on, uh, the enabling part. Learning to actually do… And it’s different for everybody, just so we’re on the same page.

I’m not someone that says you have to [00:33:00] meditate this way or you have to journal that way. It’s completely unique. You gotta figure out your method,

and that’s what I help people do, and it just excites the crap out of me, man. Like, that’s… Seeing someone, uh, realize the power in their hands after they journal for a week, after they’ve meditated for a week and, and they come on a call and they’re like, "Oh my God, everything’s different.

I met this girl, I met this guy," and they’re like, "I got five clients."

These, these shifts that happen almost instantly once someone understands the mind-body connection and how to manage this thing. I, I love it. I’m so ex- and I, it’s happening so quick. I love it

Tim Melanson: So how do we find out more?

Clay Green: Uh, the safest way? consciousflowcommunity.com. Consciousflowcommunity.com. Uh, my email address is clay@enthusiasticclay.com, which is not the same [00:34:00] URL, but you can find it through there.

Um, that’s,

that’s the path.

Tim Melanson: So before we go, let’s talk a little bit about music here. Tell me, who is your favorite rock star?

Clay Green: My favorite rockstar.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Clay Green: Uh-uh, no. It’s too varied.

Tim Melanson: Such a hard con

Clay Green: I’m bouncing Meatloaf, I’m bouncing

Believe it or not, believe it or not, this, and I gotta say this, uh, I was going through a divorce back in like ’98, ’99, 2000, and there was an artist that came out with an album and it really meant a lot to me, some of his very confident words. Uh, and today he’s not one of those favorite people,

I’ll put it that way. but but so it’s this, it’s this weird answer. I wanna tell you him. And then there’s Tesla with Signs, man.

Tim Melanson: Yeah?

Clay Green: Song. And then AC/DC, ZZ Top. Rockstar, uh, Run DMC with Aerosmith changed my life in the ’80s, man. I’m

an ’80s [00:35:00] kid. Uh, Prince.

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Clay Green: Prince. Still, in my opinion, the greatest halftime show ever.

Tim Melanson: Yep

Clay Green: In the purple rain, that man, that man made it rain for him. That was insane.

Tim Melanson: I’m surprised he didn’t get electrocuted.

Clay Green: He rocked that show. Oh man, so many rock stars. I, and I feel out of touch with modern music, I ain’t gonna lie.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The, they don’t make it like they used to. Although, you know what? There are some good stuff out there now, too. it’s, It’s

Clay Green: Oh, I agree. It’s great

Tim Melanson: coming. Right on. Well, thank… Oh

Clay Green: you- Wait, wait, wait, Tim. How would you answer that question? Who’s your favorite rockstar? I mean, holy, no, there’s so many.

Tim Melanson: There is a lot.

Clay Green: many.

Tim Melanson: The one that’s make the m- The the the band that’s made the most impact on me is The Beatles.

So, I mean, uh, and that’s just because it’s been a… a… When I was learning music, uh, the guys that were, you know, I was hanging around with at the time were big [00:36:00] Beatles fans, and I got into the Be- Beatles music.

And it’s just, it’s a great way to learn music because they were just so creative, and they broke so many grounds, and they wrote… Like, I mean, if you just learn The Beatles catalog, you’ll, you’ll get everything.

Like, you, you’ll learn blues, you’ll learn rock, you’ll learn, uh, you know, you’ll learn everything.

It, it, they, they even went into some of the Indian-type music. It’s

crazy all the stuff that you c- that you can learn through, uh, The Beatles. And that’s, that’s the reason why I choose them. Mm-hmm.

Clay Green: I love that.

I, I gotta drop Billy Joel real quick.

One of the greats. Yeah.

Uh, Neil- can’t, can’t leave out Neil Diamond. You ever see the movie Saving Silverman?

Tim Melanson: I have seen that movie, yep. Yep

Clay Green: Neil Diamond’s in there, that’s why.

Those are …Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Well, thank you for rocking out with me today, Clay. This has been a lot of fun

Clay Green: Tim, you’re the greatest, man.

I am so glad we touched base again.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, me too. Me too. This is a great episode. Make sure … To the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information, and we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar [00:37:00] podcast

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work-at-Home Rockstar podcast. I am excited for today’s episode. I have a, a, a, a, uh, fellow podcaster with me, actually, so this is really cool. Uh, we’ve got the founder and owner of Success at Last!, LLC, and what he does is he helps his clients with email campaigns and other things.

He’s also got three podcasts. We’ll talk about that a little bit later, but I’m super excited to be rocking out today with Tracy Brinkmann. Hey, Tracy, you ready to rock?

Tracy Brinkmann: Yes, I am totally ready to rock. You know, it’s funny you s- you, you use the, the terminology rock because I’m sitting here looking off to my right where I have pictures of myself with Kiss and Mötley Crüe, and behind me is my signed Gene Simmons Axe bass guitar. So, a- and I’m, I’m a drummer at heart, so we are gonna vibe 100% here

Tim Melanson: Awesome. All right. Yes, we’re gonna keep the rhythm.

Tracy Brinkmann: There you go.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So we always start off here on a good note. Tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by

Tracy Brinkmann: Oh, you know what? I- I’m lucky enough to [00:01:00] be married to an amazing woman. And I know this is business, but, you know, i- in the big scheme of things, uh, your life reflects your business, and your business can easily reflect your life, ’cause the two are very intertwined. And I, I found I was lucky enough to gain the winning side on both by sitting down and journaling, uh, writing out what it is I really wanted.

And, and I’m talking more than just the, "Oh, I wanna be a millionaire. Oh, I wanna be, you know, I want the sexy woman with the long hair and the curvy body," and all that stuff. I, I actually sat down and said, "Here’s what I want her to, you know, what kind of personality I want her to have." And the same thing in the business.

What kind of people do I wanna serve? So for me, the big win would be, A, having a business I’m very happy about and being able to work with people that are just completely amazing, and having a woman by my side that, uh, that loves me dearly, and every once in a while, you know, will give me [00:02:00] the kick in the pants that I need.

Tim Melanson: Um, yeah. Hey, I resonate with that 100%. I’ve definitely done e- exactly what you’re talking about as well, in journaling exactly what I wanted in a, a partner, and then, and then I had to write the, a- also the list of what I think that that person would want in a partner so that I could become that, Right.

Tracy Brinkmann: 100%. That’s how you get in rhythm, right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So now tell me, uh, I mean, along with the good notes, there are things that don’t go as planned. I’ve been doing this for a long time. So tell me, can you share one? We can-

Tracy Brinkmann: Yeah. I, I’ll tell you, and it, it’s kind of a, it’s kind of a bad note as well as a learning lesson at the same time, which most stumbles and bumbles and fumbles, and some people will call them failures.

They, they really are if, if you let them be. So, um, my first podcast, uh, Your Success DNA, was all about personal development.

I’d gotten into the coaching field, had been coaching people, and it was my way to reach out to even more [00:03:00] people, which, you know, really brought some people in the door, and I had monetized the podcast through a, um, a pay gate, and it was doing great. And then one point in my life, I was, I was getting on the microphone and with my best amazing personal development voice, telling people how to win at life.

Meanwhile, I was going through a wicked divorce. I had just hit bankruptcy. I mean, and everything was just kind of falling apart, and that, uh, that imposter syndrome that so many of us feel at some point in our life took over, and I hung up my microphone, and I hung up my headphones while I got my, my kaka together, we might say, right? Um, so, so the failure in that to me is if I would feel that now, I would lean into it and talk about it on the mic. But I didn’t have the confidence in myself, uh, or my abilities to, to do that at the time. So, uh, learning [00:04:00] 20– you know, hindsight’s always 20/20. Again, if I would, uh, experience that today, I would just kinda lean into it and share with the audience, "Dude, I’m feeling what you feel.

Trust me, uh, I, I’m not following my own advice, ladies and gentlemen, so here’s what we’re gonna be doing," you know, and kinda sharing that with them

Tim Melanson: Wow. Yeah. Wow. And I have had some guests on the podcast as well that have really capitalized on those really negative notes, ’cause I think, I mean, that’s a good point. I mean, when we are looking for somebody to help us, we wanna see somebody that actually understands what we’re going through as well, right?

And I mean, you know, it’s one thing to be like, "Oh, well, this person, everything they touch turns to gold, and they’ve never had a thing bad happen to them. How are they gonna help me?" ‘Cause y- it’s almost like you think they don’t get it, right? I mean, maybe they have a rich father or something like that, but I mean, this is not, you know, this is not what my story is.

So, you know, hearing somebody with that [00:05:00] story can really help you get there, right?

Tracy Brinkmann: Mm-hmm. I, I actually did, uh, an episode on that very topic. I, you know, the, like, the last episode I did on that, on that same podcast, uh, just this weekend

was five reasons why you should not listen to me, and it was some of the things you just said. You know, I, I wasn’t born rich, you know, I… and I wasn’t born super poor, so I, I didn’t, you know, I don’t have this amazing rags to riches story.

You know, I was a m- middle class kinda guy in a military family, and just found something that resonated with me and resonated with other folks, and leveraged that into more opportunities. Not exactly a rags to riches story, but certainly a success story. So it’s like I gave them those five reasons, but at the same time, each one of those reasons would also be the same reason why someone might want to listen to me. Because while I don’t have the rags to riches story, I’m also not a, you know, a, a Tony Robbins preaching down from on high because, you know, [00:06:00] I coach all these amazing people, these, you know, senators and presidents and everybody. I, I, I reach out to Joe Schmo.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah. And isn’t it funny how the, this, the wording on there, reasons why you shouldn’t listen to me is probably the reason why they click on it.

Tracy Brinkmann: Exactly. Little clickbait,

right? But I delivered the clickbait.

Tim Melanson: No, I, I, I, I hear you. Like that, that mediocre kind of thing, and I… You know, we have a lot of similarities ’cause I, I’ve, you know, haven’t really had anything really that terrible happen, and also really that a- amazing.

Like, you know, so it’s been kinda like this comfortable level. And o- oftentimes that’s really, that’s really something that holds you back from really getting that success, ’cause you, you hear people on lots of podcasts or success stories, and the people that have these really, really big success stories, they talk about this really rock bottom that they had hit and then they bounced back from.

So it’s almost like there’s this [00:07:00] pendulum, right? Where if you don’t, never really had anything really, really bad happen to you, then you maybe have never really gotten that kick in the pants to go make something really, really good happen to you

Tracy Brinkmann: Sure. Yeah. I have had, you know, rock bottom moments. You know, I’ll call them three of them across the, the course of my life and, and my business career. Um, but I think everyone goes through them at some point,

and my perspective of a rock bottom moment might be different than

yours or than, you know, the, the other person who’s listening to the two of us discuss right now.

I mean, my three were overcoming an addiction, uh, to am- methamphetamines,

uh, the loss of an 18-month-old daughter, and then that moment, you know, where, where I was, like, going through the divorce and the bankruptcy and everything and hung up my microphone. That was, that was kind of a, all right, well, obviously the physical, we gotta overcome that addiction.

Uh, the relationship, the loss of the daughter. And then more of a spiritual moment, y- you know, as I [00:08:00] was, like, coming to grips with, all right, this is a big change in my life, and who do I wanna be and what direction do I wanna go? A- and y- all of those could be the make or break moment that some people are, have gone through recently or maybe they’re going through right now. And hopefully knowing that folks like you and I, who aren’t, you know, an Anthony Robbins and aren’t, you know, a president, whoever, uh, still survived and, and continued on forward and inked out a nice life for ourselves at the same time

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Right on. Yeah. And there you go. I think that that’s the thing is that you did have a few of those rock bottom moments which did catapult you into some better success, and, and, and so did I. My, my rock bottom moments might not be as severe as some other people’s rock bottom moments as well. However, I mean, y- everything’s, everything is relative, right?

I mean, I mean, if I’m having a bad day, I’m having a bad day. Is it as bad as that guy’s [00:09:00] day over there? Maybe not, but it’s still my bad day,

Tracy Brinkmann: It’s my bad day, damn it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And, and I mean, it’s, it’s the same thing with a good day, too. But I mean, oftentimes really it’s a, it’s a matter of trying to, trying to find that middle ground and not getting too upset and not getting too excited.

Trying to kind of keep that, that even, that even mindset, right?

Tracy Brinkmann: 100%, 100%. And that’s a tough one. I mean, you just, you, you said that little word real fast, mindset. And I think i- in the world that we live in, in the entrepreneurial space, um, especially for folks that are trying to break out of one type of space into another, there’s a mindset shift that comes with that, right?

And I, and I know you service the folks that are trying to escape the, do the cubicle escape. I, I, I service the same folks. And one of the biggest things I think most of them struggle with is, "Well, what would I do?

Why would people pay me for X or Y or [00:10:00] Z when there’s, there’s Tim out there, and then there’s Tracy, and then there’s, you know, Tony Robbins, and whoe- whatever." Just name all the names to talk themselves out of it. And it’s that mindset shift that folks have to go through, um, a- and usually they go through it while they’re living the experience.

Does that make sense?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah. Well, a- and I think to answer that question, the way, the way that I see the world is that there’s two things. Number one is that people do business with people they th- that they know, like, and trust. And so it is very possible that everybody on listening to this has some people in their circle that they know, like, and trust or that know, like, and trust them that might actually pay for their services.

But the second thing is I think we’re seeing a bit of a revolution in terms of, like, a, I don’t know, I don’t even know what to call it, like a buy local type thing. Like, people wanting to, people wanting to support the smaller businesses or support the people in their communities rather than the big, big, big companies, right?

Now, [00:11:00] I, I know that there’s a bit of a gap in terms of what the big companies can provide in terms of pricing versus the little companies. I mean,

Tracy Brinkmann: Mm-hmm.

Tim Melanson: going to go to the store and buy something local, or are you gonna order it from Amazon? The price is way different, right?

Tracy Brinkmann: Sometimes you’re absolutely right, yeah. And, and there are times when, um, you know, I’ll use the example here. We live, um, uh, out in the middle of nowhere. Uh, not in the middle of nowhere, but I think I can see it from my front porch. Um, and there is a- an amazing Amish community around us, and this is one gentleman, uh, Hank, uh, noticed a need and started a little shop, and it has miscellaneous farm goods and foodstuffs and repair items and whatever seasonal items are relevant.

Uh, his prices are pretty comparable. They’re, uh, to your point, they’re a little higher, but the point is I can drive seven minutes, uh, have a chat with [00:12:00] Hank, pick up the things I need the same day, right away,

right? And support my local community at the same time. And I think one of the reasons, and this is my humble opinion, uh, that so many of us have started to lean into the, you know, buy local opportunities is an erosion of trust in some of those bigger corporations that are out there

for a varied, for a, a whole number of reasons, and that could be a conspiracy episode of a podcast all, all

by itself.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, no, I, I 100% agree with you. I th- I think that there is an, an erosion of trust, and I mean, I think it’s just gonna work out in our favor, right? ‘Cause it,

Tracy Brinkmann: In the long run, you’re absolutely right. Yeah, 100%.

Tim Melanson: it is opening up the possibility for more of these small businesses to open up. And I mean, we t- uh, in the pre-chat we talked a little bit about the, just the technology changes that have happened that is allowing more people to now access, you know, these small business [00:13:00] opportunities.

I mean, you know, you, you, you can set up a pretty comparable business nowadays from your home versus y- like, 50 years ago or 100 years ago. Uh, maybe 100 years ago, actually, everybody… Is that timing right? Maybe not 100 years, but at one point th- there was a lot of self-employment going on and, you know, it sort of went away a little bit, and now I think it’s probably gonna come back

Tracy Brinkmann: Yeah, the pendulum seems to be swinging back and forth, and it, and it’s a pattern across time.

I mean, you could go all the way back to the feudalism days where the lord of the lands rented out parcels of land and homes and equipment to the folks on his land to farm it, and he would get the crops and then sell it.

Uh, f- it, it was kind of a trade labor. Okay, well, that started switch to everyone started buying their own land and, and that’s… And then, you know, over time it just keeps swinging back and forth. And like we mentioned, like you said pre-interview, back in the ’40s, ’50s, and [00:14:00] ’60s, lot of small businesses were everywhere, and there, there were a few big companies too.

Um, and now we’re starting to swing, I think, back the other way once more. Hopefully we’ll, we’ll stay the, the, the, the, the buy local opportunity’s there.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, one of the things that I wish we learned in school was, is things like sales, marketing. So some of those… Because really, uh, I think that when, uh, someone thinks about starting a… I know, I know when I started my business in the first place, uh, luckily I did have a bit of sales training prior to that.

Um, but a lot of people think, "Okay, well, I do this thing. This thing is, I’m really good at this thing. I really like doing this thing, so I wanna do that as a business." And then you learn real quick that you’re gonna be spending a lot less time doing that thing than you are gonna be d- doing the other things that are involved in, in, in creating a business.

And one of those things that’s most important, if you don’t have anybody in, in your business, then you don’t have a [00:15:00] business. So how do you approach getting a fan?

Tracy Brinkmann: You know, uh, I think it d- it, it depends on what the business is, obviously.

But one of the ways I love to do it is to approach said business, said fan, said opportunity with my best music. I’m gonna ro- I’m gonna roll with this music

thing as much as I can. A- and here’s what I mean by that. Let’s say, uh, I do email marketing campaigns, a- as an example, like you mentioned.

Uh, and I, I prefer to work with the local business folks, so I’ll see a business opportunity m- Let’s talk about Hank. Um, Hank, because of his lifestyle choice, doesn’t have access to any technology, so I could be that intermediary for him. So I’ll… What I might do is I might walk into Hank’s shop and say, "Hey, here, I have a great idea, Hank.

You have all this great Milwaukee product sitting right here, and I’ve noticed it’s been sitting there pretty [00:16:00] quiet for the past couple of months. Let me do this quick little email campaign to all the folks in the community that are around here and see if we can move some of this stuff for you." And obviously the question’s gonna be, "Well, what’s that gonna cost?"

"I tell you what. The difference between what you’re selling right now and how much we sell because I sent out the emails, let’s split that 50/50. Does that sound fair?" And I haven’t met a person in their right mind yet that would say, "No, that doesn’t sound fair at all."

Because if all I’m asking is for 50% of the revenue I generate through my efforts through your business, well, then maybe you shouldn’t be in business.

I don’t know. I’m… You know what I’m saying? So usually for me it’s, it’s taking a, a good piece of music and walking into the person that needs that piece of music and saying, "Here. Use this to play in your business and just pay me [00:17:00] 50% royalties." There it is

Tim Melanson: Wow. Hey, that’s a, that’s a really good offer. I would probably say yes, too.

Tracy Brinkmann: You know, and, and I know you do businesses, right? Uh, you know, and I, I’ve played with websites, not because I’m a web designer, ’cause I’m not, but with some of the tools that have been developed since AI has hit the scene, I can go to a, a, a small business and, you know, who has a, especially around here, a website that looks like it’s from the ’90s

or is very MySpace-looking, and, you know, copy the s- the code, drop it into this AI, and it gives it this nice, sleek, modern look, and you can even focus it down to their niche so it focuses on what they need to focus on, because plumbers focus on different things

than restaurants do.

And then you print off a couple of sheets of that or walk in with your phone and, "Y- Mr. Business Owner, look at this website I did for you. W- do you think this would bring more customers in?" Well, well, duh. And you can almost guarantee that that [00:18:00] business owner has called somebody or emailed, exchanged with somebody, or at least, at least done some online research about, "Wow, that’s gonna cost me," I know it used to be, "thousands of dollars, and I’d have to wait days or weeks or sometimes even months to have some big agency do it.

And how much are you gonna charge me?" Uh, and then you give them a number that makes sense for the time you spent, and they’re gonna go, "Yes, please."

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, I did actually just that last

Tracy Brinkmann: There It is

Tim Melanson: funny. Uh, but I mean, you know, ’cause there are a lot of businesses that you- like you say, I mean, they’re a small business. They’ve had a website forever. It’s not really doing a whole lot for them, so they don’t wanna spend a whole lot of money on it.

They don’t necessarily know what it could do for them, so there’s that. But even if, even if the business, even if the business is just using their website as a, as a, a business card, I mean, the great news about nowadays is that, you know, if you have, you know, a little bit of background skills, then you can actually generate something [00:19:00] pretty passable pretty quickly.

So really, what’s the loss that you get? Like, I mean, I know when we thought about doing it, it was like, okay, well, what am I gonna lose? I’m gonna lose time. Okay, well, how many of these do you think I’m gonna need to do in order to get one sale? And it turned out it was one. But, but I mean, I didn’t think that that was gonna be the case.

I, I thought it would be a few, and I figured, okay, well, let’s just average out the time. So I mean, yeah, I, I think that, I think that if you are only… If, if all you can lose is time, well then, you know, that’s, I think, something that we all have that we can run a business. And way back when, you know, marketing used to sp- you used to have to spend a lot more money to compete with the big guys.

But now it does seem like things are moving towards time instead of money, which r- levels things out a lot

Tracy Brinkmann: Oh, 100%. The, the tools that have hit the landscape, r- let’s just say in the past 24 months, let alone the last six,

um, have [00:20:00] really made it really easy, a- and he says easy with quotes, you know, with air quotes, for the average ma and pa, you know, Tracy and Tim,

to, uh, compete against some of those bigger agencies that are out there,

whether they’re, you know, big AI agencies or marketing agencies or website agencies

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Now, okay, so let’s, let’s just take that back a step because, I mean, it’s not easy, right? It’s, it might be

Tracy Brinkmann: Easy is a four-letter word, ladies and

Tim Melanson: y- because there is, there is a, a fair bit to it, and there are a lot of… I mean, let’s even just talk about the practices that you need to be, to have in place. Uh, let me ask you this question.

So one thing that I’ve noticed a lot, uh, I mean, is that it seems as though a lot of these self-employed entrepreneurs have some sort of, like, personal care, some self-care, or some s- sort of routines to keep, I don’t know, their mindset clear. Do you have any of [00:21:00] those?

Tracy Brinkmann: I do actually. You know, I usually spend, uh, the first part of my morning, um, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday is all about, uh, the, the physical body, right? So I’m lucky enough in, like I said, we live in the middle of nowhere, a little farm, 40 acres. We have an on-site gym. A- a- and, you know, I said gym with air quotes, but it’s got some pretty decent equipment in it.

A lot of folks are gonna go, "Wow, I would pay to come to your house monthly to use that gym." And, and my, me and my wife will work out together in the mornings, and then I spend a little time, you know, writing in the journal, getting my head right, and then kind of organizing the one, two, or three things that if I got these done, I feel productive. And that’s one of the key things about any endeavor that you’re taking on. You wanna feel like you got something done today. And

even if that something is something really, really small, you could say, "I got that done," and that gives you that little hit of dopamine and gets you jacked up and [00:22:00] ready to go for the next day. So I do that, and then the end of the day, and I actually have a little ticker that comes up on my phone, uh, to remind myself to kind of review the goods and the bads of the day,

right? So before I start winding down for the evening, it’s like, "Oh, I got that done. I got that done. Oh, crap, I didn’t get this done." And just kind of… And it’s not a critique. It’s not a slap upside the head kind of moment. It’s like, "Wow, did I over, you know, did I, did I under budget the amount of time with the other two things were gonna take and that third one was never gonna get done no matter what? Or did I F off some time that I could’ve put to that?"

And it’s kind of a self-regulator. You know, you start to learn what you can get done in the, the amount of time you’ve allotted or, or not. So then you, then it’s also gives you the opportunity to take that item and move it to the next day or move it where it belongs. ‘Cause sometimes it doesn’t belong in the next day.

Sometimes it belongs in the trash can,

and other times it belongs on [00:23:00] someone else’s desk. "Oh, I shouldn’t have been doing this in the first place. I should hand this off to my AI to assistant or my VA or my wife or my daughter or whoever, uh, you know, should be doing the work."

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, wow. That’s really good. And, uh, you know, having those things to check off, too, I- and the things that don’t get done, I think a lot of it has to do, like, why don’t people do that in the first place? And I think that maybe the other part of it is that you have to forgive yourself when you do not get those things done, right?

Tracy Brinkmann: Yeah. ‘

Tim Melanson: cause I, I mean, why else wouldn’t you write your goals down, right? I, I, I think, I think I’ve heard many times, "Well, I don’t want to get my hopes up." I’ve heard that so much.

Tracy Brinkmann: Well, you should get your hopes up. Yeah

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, it’s, it’s terrible programming, really.

Tracy Brinkmann: Yeah, it really is. And there’s so many things you hear out there that are, I’ll call it anti-programming. What

I mean by that is it’s [00:24:00] anti-positive programming.

"Okay, well, don’t get your hopes up too high because, you know, the economy’s getting ready to take a

dip, or because AI’s taking all the jobs, or becau- ba, you know, ba, ba, ba." Look, my hope’s already up. Uh, you’re in… And you’re not pulling them down, right? That’s, that’s the mentality I, I think we should have. It’s the, uh, hard charger, "I’m gonna find a way." Yeah, I’m, I’m probably gonna have to walk through some barbed wire and some mud and some poop or whatever to, to find that way, but damn it, I’ll find a way

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and, and, and that’s, that’s the journey. That’s what’s, that’s what fun is, right? I mean, if, if y- you just look at sports. I mean, we play sports for fun. Well, someone’s gonna lose, so why even bother playing? If, if, if your, if your attitude is, "I don’t wanna get my hopes up," right?

Tracy Brinkmann: It, it’s funny you say that. Uh, um, I, I’m a father of four amazing women, and one of them got into cheer at, [00:25:00] like, age 12 and stayed in… And, and I’m not talking about the standard high school collegiate rah, rah, rah kind of thing, you know, sideline cheer. I’m talking about competitive cheer, where they’re throwing themselves around a mat seven days a week to go compete for three days and come back and do it all over again, and she did that from 12 to 18. And they were gonna lose, and, and they knew that, and, but they always went in, "We’re gonna get, we’re gonna kick butt. We’re gonna do our best." And, and the mentality of these ladies and, and, and the guys that were there, of course, were if you left it all on the mat, blood, sweat, and tears, then it doesn’t matter what the score was at the end of the day.

You did your damnedest. You did your best, and all you can do is improve and come back the next weekend and try it all over again

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I do think sports are so important, uh, when, when you’re raising kids, ’cause that, [00:26:00] that las- that lesson there is, is huge. I mean, that’ll, that’ll stick with her for sure

Tracy Brinkmann: sports can teach you a lot of amazing things. I think one of the, uh, caveats I would toss in there is make sure you have a good coach.

‘Cause unfortunately, like anything else around nowadays, you know, the wrong people get in the wrong environments and start teaching the wrong angles and, ah, no. No, thanks.

Tim Melanson: Well, I mean, sports, uh, th- that’s one thing in sports. Also, it works at school too with teachers. I mean, y- I, I don’t know how many times you hear people say, "I don’t like this subject," and if you dig in far enough, you’ll find out it’s because of a teacher,

Tracy Brinkmann: Yes,

it’s usually the t-

And it may not be their personality. It may just be their teaching style

versus the student’s style, you know, ’cause we’re all, like some of us are visual and some of us are kinetic and some of us are auditory. And, and if that teacher, beyond just being boring,

uh, just teaches this one way, then guess what?

About 30% of the class is [00:27:00] going, "Ugh."

Tim Melanson: Yeah

Tracy Brinkmann: It’s about, uh, it’s like anything else. It’s like being a good entrepreneur. You want to engage your clients because that’s how you’re gonna find those little nuances about their business that you can use to make their business better through whatever, uh, skill set you have that you’re helping them with

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Do you know what I’m thinking is, I mean, maybe this is a, well, this probably is a huge rabbit hole. But I

Tracy Brinkmann: Yeah, let’s go

Tim Melanson: for me, uh, I’ve been using AI a lot for even just training me, and just, uh, like, it, it is my accountability partner in a lot of ways. And it, it’s different than a, than a piece of paper, ’cause I, I mean, I’ve been doing goal setting and journaling for a long time, and, and that’s one thing.

But putting it onto the AI thing and having it talk back to you is really r- cool. Um, now I’m wondering if this is gonna start to translate into teaching styles for even children, because now with these tools, a teacher could [00:28:00] theoretically set up multiple meal plan, or sorry, meal plans, learning plans,

Tracy Brinkmann: Mm-hmm.

Tim Melanson: lesson plans for all these different children with the specific learning style of each child in mind.

Tracy Brinkmann: Yeah.

It, it’s

Tim Melanson: they could do that pretty quickly,

Tracy Brinkmann: Yeah, uh, and, um, uh, uh, oh gosh, it was like two or three months ago, I heard about a school system, it was out west somewhere, I don’t think it was California, but I know it was out west, who was testing AI with human teacher intervention that the AI would lean into your, the, a student’s preferences and st- and stylistic mannerisms to get them to learn, which also allowed them to learn at different times.

So the same teacher that would normally teach this class from 8:00 AM to, you know, 9:30 could give that same lesson, but then that student, maybe their best learning time [00:29:00] is after lunch. Well, then they can take that same lesson and learn it when they’re at their peak. So there’s a whole realm of win-wins in that opportunity.

It’s, uh, i- it’s another one of those cautionary tales. I think it’s an amazing opportunity. It’s just let’s make sure we have someone in there making sure that our kids are being taken care of the way we want them to

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and you know what? I think, I mean, this, I guess maybe just my thought is that I think parents would probably be best served to have a lot more of that input on that as well.

Tracy Brinkmann: Yeah. I’m a big proponent of, like, homeschooling. So for me, taking an AI opportunity or an idea like that and applying it in a homeschooling environment, ooh, now you’re really just– you’re, you’ve pulled down all the guardrails because in a homeschooling world, the, the biggest [00:30:00] struggle, the biggest barrier is the parent’s knowledge, not the student’s knowledge.

‘Cause here I am, I gotta teach you something that I’ve totally forgotten 12 years ago because I don’t use it on a daily basis, but I have to make sure you know it so that you can pass some, you know, state te- standardized test. It, it, it’s really– it, it’s a cool opportunity because AI could take it over, and it also pulls everything back into the home like we were talking about earlier.

I think there’s a win-win inside of that

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree. And, I mean, also you can even just at the very minimum allow AI to kind of sit in on your child’s… Like, even if the, even if the schools still are playing a part of it, yeah, you could have note takers sitting in on your child’s, uh, you know, lessons and actually reporting back to you on what they learned.

Like, there’s a lot of things

Tracy Brinkmann: Another great

Tim Melanson: do big broder- br- big brothery [00:31:00] you know? Uh, why don’t we use those things to our own advantage rather than letting someone else, you know, do it, right? Yeah.

Tracy Brinkmann: Yeah.

Yeah.

Tim Melanson: So I, I think, you know, I, like I say, I’m a, I’m a, I’m an optimist, so I think the future is bright with all these tools.

I do agree with you that we need to keep an eye on it. I don’t think we just let them do whatever they want and do whatever experiment that they wanna do, which is what kind of happens, right? We, we wanna have a little bit more of a, of an active role in this. And the good news though is that we have all these great tools that can help us to do that, right?

We can actually… I mean, technically we could send AIs into even school board meetings and even city council meetings, and we could all be updated on all this stuff. Man, these are all great ideas I’m just com- go- coming up with right now. But, but, but I mean, imagine that. I mean, I, I, ’cause I do know that that’s why we have these, these boards, is they’re supposed to be making decisions for us ’cause we’re too busy to make them ourselves.

And now we might [00:32:00] have a way to actually have a lot more input into our local communities.

Tracy Brinkmann: 100%. 100%. And I, I think that’s one of the big things, um, about being involved is, uh, you can’t be everywhere at

once. And when you start– And when you just start getting involved, you don’t know what you don’t know, so you have to go through that learning curve, and you could even use AI to help you. What is he talking about here?

While you’re sitting in a board meeting or reviewing the minutes. What does that mean? You know, without having to ask anybody in case you’re embarrassed about that. Anyway

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s true. So let’s get into your solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now

Tracy Brinkmann: You know what? I think one of the things I, I’m really enjoying is the, uh, the email marketing thing that you mentioned earlier is, ’cause I think there’s, there’s a lot of folks that will say email marketing is dead. Uh, I, I think we’re a long way away from email marketing being dead.

Um, I, I think it went through, uh, a peak period and then kind of dropped off as [00:33:00] other things, uh, entered in, but it’s still this amazing, uh, tool in the background of things. And for me, what I really enjoy about it is so many local businesses, they might be smart enough to be collecting emails, but most of them are either are just too busy or just not in-depthly knowledgeable enough to leverage that pot of gold of email lists, um, e- effectively, let alone at all. You know, some of them might, you know, occasionally send something out and, uh, which is good, right?

It’s better than not doing anything with it. But the effective marketing tool that an email list is, is we as standard entrepreneurs are like, "Well, duh." But imagine the pizzeria down the road down there, and, and they’re collecting emails, but they’re still doing good business. If you walk into their store and tell them, "Look, let’s go ahead and tap into that list, and I bet you we [00:34:00] could probably get you a month’s worth of revenue in a couple weeks."

But first off, they’re gonna, they’re gonna scoff at you potentially, which is fine. Go ahead and let them. Say, "Hey, let’s just give it a shot. You know, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll even do it for free." Again, the, the opportunity becomes, "However, whatever I generate, you just share 50% of that with me. If I don’t generate anything, well, then guess what?

You don’t give me anything, and we can go our separate ways and ev- there, you know, no harm, no foul."

Tim Melanson: I love that. That’s an, such a great idea. So how, imagine someone’s listening to this and they actually do have that pizzeria, how do they get in co- in touch with you to, to take advantage of this offer?

Tracy Brinkmann: Well, they can, uh, obviously they can just stop off at, uh, darkhorseentrepreneur.com and just, you know, there’s a contact form up there. Go ahead and reach out for me directly with that. I don’t put this one out publicly, um, because of the fact that there are a number of local businesses that will just scr- [00:35:00] "Ah, let me, let me find out, let me find out."

And then as you af- you- they don’t really have the interest in it.

So I find that if they’re willing to take a minute to fill out, um, a contact form and have me reach out to them, then everything works out a whole lot better. So yeah, darkhorseentrepreneur.com, fill out that contact form, and I’ll reach back out to you, and we can, we can discuss things

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I love that. Small price to pay, right?

Tracy Brinkmann: E- exactly.

I- it’s like anything else. It’s like some folks are saying, "Hey, I wanna see the band." Well, pay the ticket price.

Well, pay the ticket price?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, it, yeah, exactly. So, um, that was awesome. I got one more question for you. So we talked about literal music earlier. This might be the hardest one, though. Who’s your favorite rock star?

Tracy Brinkmann: Oh my God, that is a hard one

because, uh, I’m… My music likings are very eclectic, right? Now, obviously I mentioned a couple of the rock bands here, uh, Kiss and Mötley Crüe, but I’m also a big Michael Jackson and Prince fan. So, uh, [00:36:00] wherever, uh, my mood sways, my music goes with. I will have to say probably one of the most instrumental bands has been Kiss in my life as a whole, which, and inside of that, um, Gene Simmons. Um, but more because of his entrepreneurial side of things than his, you know, demon tongue, blood-spitting fire guy. Because I, I’ve, I’ve been lucky enough to, uh, meet him on a couple of occasions and chat with him briefly. Uh, we actually, my wife and I, that I was bragging about, got married at the Kiss Chapel in Vegas, and Eric Singer, the, the drummer, uh, was our ring bearer there.

But anyway, sidebar. Um, he is, he just has this mind for business that just, I think, operates at a different level, not because he’s this rock star, but because he built himself up [00:37:00] through an entrepreneurial mindset. How do I, how do I leverage this as a revenue-generating opportunity? Which in the early days of the band, you know, was about makeup and theatrics to get people to come in and, you know, doing some shenanigans to offset the fact that they were the opening band and the, the main band would come on, like, how do we play after that,

you know? And then, you know, you toss in the merchandising that no one was doing back then. It, it… Right? And now merchandising is everywhere. And then you go back behind the scenes and all the different things he has stepped out into from football to Indy race car to, you know, uh, chateaus in, in Aspen and the whole nine yards.

He’s just, he’s got this mind that if I could, if I ever had a star on my podcast, that’s the guy I would want.

A- and not because, again, [00:38:00] because he’s this amazing rock star. I thought he was an amazing rock star. But because of that entrepreneurial spirit, uh, I think that is what fueled the band more than anything else.

Because let’s be honest, musically, they weren’t breaking any records

musically. You know? They did some amazing things, had some really cool songs, but they didn’t have a lot of intricacies that, you know, a Pink Floyd or a Led Zeppelin or any of those old bands from the same time frame. Does that make sense?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it does make sense. Yeah, it, I mean, really he’s a masterclass in learning how to make your passion into something that generates income, right?

Tracy Brinkmann: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Which, I mean, that, that’s the thing. I mean, it, it turns the whole starving musician thing upside down. I mean, he’s definitely figured out ways to, to make that happen, right?

Tracy Brinkmann: Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

to- totally did. And I mean, I think, I think he was one point early in their, when they were first starting the band, he was teaching, uh, English to non-English speaking folks in the New York, Brooklyn kind of area. [00:39:00] So he was working, trying to start the band, and then also doing other side hustles.

And I, I, and my mind is skipping on what they were like, you know, uh, uh, getting com- comic books and then reselling them kind of thing. So he had his fingers in all these pies, and I think he just kept up that pace his entire life. It’s just that the, the bank account’s got bigger.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, absolutely. Wow. Well, thank you so much for rocking out with me today, Tracy. This has been a lot of fun

Tracy Brinkmann: Uh, no, it’s my pleasure to have been here. Thank you so much

Tim Melanson: Awesome. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information. We’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar podcast

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. I’m excited for today’s episode. We are talking to the owner of Digital speaker Agent, and what he does is he helps speakers get on more stages so more people can hear the message, learn from experience, and improve lives. Super excited to be rocking out today with Glenn Freezman.

Hey, Glenn, you ready to rock?

Glenn Freezman: Hi, I am ready to rock. How you doing this morning, Tim?

Tim Melanson: I’m doing excellent this morning. We always start off in your good notes, so tell me a story of success. We can be inspired by.

Glenn Freezman: I wanna give you a crazy story that happened 13 years old,

Tim Melanson: Yes.

Glenn Freezman: which was the through line of my entire life. In a nutshell. Uh, family went bankrupt for the third time. are in, repossession house is on foreclosure. I’m a latchkey kid playing basketball with the JCC. I literally live there from one o’clock in the afternoon or two o’clock when the school let out through nine o’clock at night.

When I get picked up playing ball one day on A [00:01:00] and clink it off the rim, and I hear somebody yell from the other court, Hey, little help. reached out and I look up. I’m 13 years old. I’m only five foot five. I need a center at all times to be able to play and get into big games. Ends up that this guy, he asked me, I said, what are you doing here every day?

He says, what are you doing here every day? I thought, I’m latch key kid. Here’s what I do. I said, I have nothing. This is just where I hang out. I said, what? Why are you here every day? He said, I’m just a vendor. I said, what do you ven? He said, Philadelphia soft pretzels. I said, really? I said, where do you sell ’em?

He said, from parade routes, from Maine to Virginia. And every Philadelphia Phillies game, Eagles game, Sixers games, flyers games, the parade route all up and down the east coast as well as, uh, concerts and parade and, uh, circus. Anywhere there’s venue. We’re selling pretzels. I’m 13, we’re broke. Tim, I say to them, where do you sell ’em?

How much do your [00:02:00] guys make? I have to go do this with you. He says, Glennn, I don’t know you. He says, and there’s no way I’m allowing a 13-year-old to come do what you’re doing. I said, Mitch, I need the job. I can do this. He comes over, he meets with my parents, and I said, basically, I will give up my childhood for my adulthood.

He goes, I am not going to do what my father did. So I ended up getting very, very lucky, very, very early on by meeting a very, very street smart pretzel guy.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: It changed my life and literally his, I like to say his lessons were salty. He was a pretzel guy. His lessons were salty, his lessons were hard, and his lessons were twisted.

But it set me up for a lifetime of success because I got to hang out with people when I was 13 who were obviously resilient,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: [00:03:00] resourceful, selling. Magic air, you know, pretzels. And it ended up that through our stories today, hopefully we’ll get to some of the great stories. But he changed three generations because the time that we needed it most, which was about 30 days into our relationship of me selling pretzels.

And I’m talking every night taking a subway to the Phillies games. And we worked a few parade routes. I had heard Tim, that overnight that. They were taking the house and they were, and we were done. And we were in dda, Maryland that that Saturday working a parade route. And after the day, I made my 150 bucks cash and he said, Glenn, you’re off today.

What’s wrong? And I told him this story and I said, Mitch, here’s the deal. I need $13,500 today. And I already did the math. And if you [00:04:00] give me that money, I will have you paid off in two years and I’ll give you 10% interest. And he said, Glennn, I will give you the money. No interest. I control the money. We can learn a lot. He gave me cash that day, which I came home as I did every other night that I came home from work. But normally I put $25 on a kitchen table. This time I put 13,500 and went to bed. That one act from Mitch changed my life, changed my parents’ life, and because of what I learned for the next five years working for him, of which time I sold 500,000 soft Bretzels changed my kids’ life because it set me up with the lessons that I learned while doing it for a lifetime of success.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: That would be my, that, that would be the greatest story that that happened to me, that I’ve told [00:05:00] numerous amount of times, and I’m still friendly with him. He’s a professional now. He professionally plays cards at the, at uh, the Borgata

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Glenn Freezman: and still hustling on the streets. Still incredible mentor. Still an incredible friend.

Tim Melanson: Wow. That’s an incredibly good mentor and incredibly lucky that you were able to. Just be there at that time. Right, Right,

place, Right.

time.

Glenn Freezman: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow.

Glenn Freezman: and, and, and as a 13-year-old I had, I had no idea what you were allowed to say. Not allowed to say. There was no, which is one of my, through lines of life, no inventor’s, remorse.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: I didn’t know what couldn’t be done, so I didn’t know what I couldn’t ask at 13 years old saying, listen, I need $13,500.

People said to me at 13, you’ve asked that question. Yeah, because I knew what was happening at home. There was no other choice.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yeah, you’re not living within a box, right? Like, uh, I know, I, I know that, that, uh, that comes up in music sometimes as well where, [00:06:00] uh, you know, they talk about the Beatles actually is one of the examples. And the, the way that that history goes is that, uh. Paul was the educated one. He had some musical experience and John was not.

He, he just kind of went by feel, and the things that he would come up with would be outta the box. It’d be things that he didn’t, he didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to do. Right.

And, and, uh, isn’t that interesting as kids, like, we don’t know what we don’t know. And I, I, I always think, isn’t it amazing how these kids learn so fast?

Well, they don’t know. They’re not supposed to learn that fast.

right.

Glenn Freezman: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and when, when you think about, when people say to me, well, like, who is your mentor? Or, or something like that. I think everybody that has ever spoken to me has come into my life for that particular second.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: Good or bad, they have mentored me.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: It doesn’t, we can learn a lot from a bad example.[00:07:00]

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: It all depends how we disseminate it, right? And how and what we end up with from everything that we interact with.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. I think in a lot of ways we learn, we learn a lot more from our bad, from our bad experiences

than we do from our good ones. Um, which is why we do talk about the, the bad notes. So, I mean, can you tell me something that didn’t go as planned? Like what, what’s, what’s the biggest mistake that you made on the journey?

Glenn Freezman: Yeah. I will tell you that I got into the title insurance business when I came, when I started my real life, let’s say, and there was a piece of the title insurance that I thought it would be very, very cool. Now, this goes back 25 years ago, so before the internet and before wifi,

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Glenn Freezman: because people don’t understand that you and I, well, I, I am older than Google had people going.

Really? Yeah. I’m older than the internet.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Glenn Freezman: You know, because people just think it’s been around forever and ever. [00:08:00] So prior to wifi. We own title comp. I own the title insurance company, and I was tired of my people having to leave to go to drive to someone’s house or to drive to an appointment to sign papers.

I thought it’d be really cool to have like a ability to sign papers over the inter over over a trunk line,

Tim Melanson: Right.

Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: which, is the precursor, which would be strong enough. And spent a lot of money and spent a lot of time designing what was called that settles it. ’cause we were, it was for the settlement portion of our title insurance and we were doing a lot of deals and by people were just running around.

And I thought to myself, you know, if we could solve an hour up in an hour back and not having my people be outta the office three hours, but only one hour, I could do three times the amount of settlements. Plus I believed that all the [00:09:00] customers would love it, I, Tim, I was dead on, right? The problem was that I learned that there was nothing that was impossible, as long as that’s what you wanted to do.

So I went off of my merry way because this was my first real, real life opportunity. It wasn’t just hustling and grind, you know, on the streets. So I basically built everything and I did it in, in what I now consider ready, fire, aim. I just didn’t use the correct order.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Glenn Freezman: So I got ready and I opened and was partnered with a company called Mag Networks at the time, which was owned by Sony, so we could get the trunk lines run into certain office complexes that were very large, so those people could come to an office complex and we could phone right into that office complex and run the paperwork with them.

Tim Melanson: Right on.

Glenn Freezman: Well. Part I missed was that the notary, which I [00:10:00] believed was there to make sure that the customer understood the documents and that Tim was really Tim, right? That Tim Mellington, when you showed up, you were really you.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: However, this second part of that, which is buried deep in is that you are not under any duress while you are signing these documents.

Tim Melanson: Uh.

Glenn Freezman: The president of the National Notary Association out in California, I get a call from him saying, you can’t do what you’re doing. And I said, why? He said, because. I can’t, we, you have no way of knowing, number one, who these people are and I said, yes, I do. Because our technology shows that they can hold their license up to the screens.

We wrote the technology back 25 years ago that would read that strip and know who you were and go right into your, what they now call this wallet, uh, questionnaire. You want to ask you questions that only you would know.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: I said, and it’s way stronger than me just sitting there plus. The threat is, [00:11:00] Tim, I have you on film.

If you are not you, while you’re signing these papers, good luck telling this to the judge. I have you on film. I view Dead to Rights. I’ve cut out that fraud. He said, but how do I handle dur rest? I said, there’s a three day right of rescission. I said, every time someone signs a mortgage, right, there’s three days that they can rescind that mortgage.

These, these were second mortgages, so it was a three day right Sion. I said, so you’re telling me that the bad guy’s hiding behind the door for three days? He says, I’m telling you, you’re not doing it. We’re gonna shut you down.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: And I was in the middle of a very successful title insurance and didn’t do what I would normally do and what I’ve done my whole life and say, I’m glad you told me that.

Now I’m gonna beat you at that.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Glenn Freezman: Right? You taught me what the miss is, so now I’m gonna figure it out.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: because I was successful doing something else, I didn’t poke the bear. Two years [00:12:00] later, the National Notary Association changed the laws read that the, the rest was out and that remote closings were now available.

And guess who was the founder of that company? The president of the National Notary Association.

Tim Melanson: it was. Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: Okay. Yeah. Right. So that one I would say is something that. Because of, because of the way I’m wired, which is, Hey, this is the great idea. Make it happen. Now was a big lesson early on that said, you got, you have to, at least you can’t rush time and you can’t fight the law unless you’re powerful enough to have the law changed on your behalf.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Glenn Freezman: Uh, it, it was a huge one, but it, but now if you look every, so. It dragged along, and if the laws changed in Virginia, that Virginia became, in America, a national notary remote [00:13:00] closing network,

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: because they were the first state that allowed it. So every remote closing was happening, would use a remote closing, sitting in Virginia.

It was my exact business plan.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: Closings today are done that way because COVID made it sexy.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: It never became mainstream. It was always, well, we don’t like this. We don’t like it. You know how it works. And then all of a sudden something happens and everyone goes, yeah, we think we could do that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, we got no other choice.

Glenn Freezman: We have no other choice now.

So now we’ll, now we’ll allow it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah.

And then they realized how good it was.

Glenn Freezman: They, they, right, right. Uh, I was, I was proud of the fact that I was part of it. And I made something happen, but I didn’t really get anything out of it other than the, you know, the, the try the swing at the bat and to know that a deep down, I know who started this.

Tim Melanson: absolutely. Yeah. Well, the guy literally took your idea[00:14:00]

and just implemented himself because he had the power to change those rules

where he could have done that for you, right?

Glenn Freezman: Well, you could have, but that’s not, but I know where I’m at in life.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: And I, and I don’t really care what he is in life, but I know where I ended up.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Cha, I, I don’t know. I, I do believe in karma, so I think, I think that

things happen the way they’re supposed to. Right?

Glenn Freezman: yeah, yeah. I believe so. Yeah, I believe so.

Tim Melanson: Now I like you, I like the way you think about mentorship, like meaning that everybody that you meet is, is teaching you something. And I’m wondering if we can take that a little bit further.

Like what, like, do you, do you hire coaches? Do you have masterminds? Like what, what do you do anything structured when it comes to mentoring?

Glenn Freezman: For me every time I interview any speaker, it’s gonna be to say, working as within my new company, they all bring their own little slice of what it is that they’re selling on stage. So I have this [00:15:00] passive ability to speak to every one of my. People who pay me to be on my system, I have an incredible ability to learn from every one of what they go out and teach internationally to groups all over the world, and each one of them have a nugget in there, every single one of ’em.

And I’m a huge believer. Again, that knowledge is every place. So I don’t have one particular, because I think that there’s too much good that can come from too many people. I think one of the big problems that I have with what’s going on in the world today is that everyone’s source of truth is whoever they spoke to last.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: I would rather know a hundred people’s truth and then make up my own mind.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, me too. Me too. I find, uh, I mean, not to get into the, into that, those weeds too much ’cause it’s, it’s very charging. But yeah, like there’s, [00:16:00] everybody’s kind of created their own little echo chambers and their own little bubble bubbles where, you know, the people that they’re listening to and they’re talking to are the ones that think exactly the way that they think.

And therefore, uh, you know, and, and then the misinformation runs wild in that circle. Right? Uh, I,

I’m the same way as you. I, I, I don’t, I’m not the type that’s gonna go if you, you know, if you like this guy, I am delete me. Right? Which you, you see people doing all the time. I’m like, no, I, I, I wanna have this, this breadth of people that I can connect with, right? I like having all these different

ideas and then I can make my own idea up, you know? Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: Right, right. And then you tell to somebody and that becomes their source of truth.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: I, I love the idea that there’s so much going on. I mean, it, it makes it very difficult and we won’t get into it. I understand why, where, where we’re not going with this conversation,

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well,

Glenn Freezman: make it difficult to, to understand the truth.

It really [00:17:00] does. So,

Tim Melanson: yeah.

Glenn Freezman: but as far as the mentors go, my, my strongest one again goes back to when I was 13. The lesson that I learned at that literally were my through, through line. What I, the way I started DSA today. Not today. The way I started DSA, which is digital speakers, uh, agent goes back to this mentor Mitch, who I, I’ll give you a great story. I owed him $13,500. The deal was that if I made a hundred dollars on a day, he was keeping 80 of it, I would get 20. He taught me this thing called the 80 20 rule. I was 13 years old that any time in life, if you don’t end up with your father while you are, every paycheck you make bank, 80% live off of 20%.

You’ll never be like your father. Start it today, and when we get up to being [00:18:00] 21, you’ll have money and that money will keep going. When you get married, go to 30%, you have a buy a house. 40% have kids, 50% have a second kid, 60%. goes to college, 50%, another kid goes to college, 40% and back it in and back it out.

But always pay yourself first. You’ve heard this lesson a billion times. Pay yourself first. was in control of all of that. Every, he would pick me up from school on a Friday and basically I went back to his house. We would work whatever event was Friday night and then the parade route, Saturday and Sunday. We wake up on a Saturday morning and I’m at his house and I, and I knock on his door. It’s eight o’clock in the morning.

I go, Mitch, what are we doing it? It’s eight o’clock in the morning. Where are we? We’re, why are you still sleeping? He goes, we’re not selling anything today. Well, there’s no parades. I go, Mitch, there’s gotta be something to sell. Something. He’s all right. Grab the daily news and figure it out. [00:19:00] Now, Mitch had eight words that changes.

The, the, the landscape and for me changed everything. What do you see? What do they want? They were the eight words I had to live by. What do you see? What do they want? So basically I had to go into the, into a newspaper and find somewhere to sell something today. So I said, Mitch, there’s a temple football game, small college at the time, 40 years ago.

Very small, very small stadium. He says. He says, alright, we’ll go there. We get dressed 12 o’clock game. We drive over to the stadium. We’re walking and I said, Mitch, we have nothing to sell. We didn’t get the pretzels. He said, we don’t order the pretzels before we don’t get pretzels. I said, really? He said, yeah.

I said, then what are we doing here? He said, we’ll figure it out. We walk into the stadium and we’re walking around the concourse and everything is closed ’cause there’s only 2000 people at [00:20:00] this football game. We’re sitting at the, we’re, we’re walking around now the, the stands on one of the, where you can walk around the entire stadium.

And he asked me, what do you see? What do they want? What do you see? What do they want? And I said, well, I see 2000 people. What do they want? Watch the football game. Great. We can’t make any money from that. What do you see? What do they want? What do you see? Well, I see 2000 people. What do they want? Well, there’s nowhere for them to eat.

There’s no food because all the concourses were closed. What do you see? What do they want? Well, now I see that there are four stands that they could buy something, which is on the two ends of the end zone, on both sides of the end zone.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: What do you see? What do they want? Well, they obviously don’t wanna get outta their seat and go stand behind the end zone, where now they can’t see anything.

It’s going on with the game. They probably, they want, what do you see? What do they want? They want someone to bring them the [00:21:00] food. Exactly. Let’s go do that now. Street smarts, pretzel guy. We have nothing. I said, how are we going to follow me? And don’t laugh, just play your role. He’s six five by the way, so he is, you know, overpowering.

He goes down to the southwest portion of the end zone. He says to the guy for the end zone, and there’s only four stands we were just sent over from the, from the east north side, and we need soda. We gotta have soda right now. You gotta gimme three cases of soda. They hand us soda. We went to the next stand and same story, but we needed cups and then we went to the next end.

Same story. We needed ice. They were selling the soda for a dollar a piece. We now have 200 sodas. 200 cups and ice we go through. He says, what do you wanna sell these for? I said, well, we’re [00:22:00] delivering and we might as well sell ’em for more than a dollar. He said, okay, let’s sell it for $3. We walked through, we sold our, our, we have 600 bucks now, literally out of thin air because he was a, because we had the ability to find money everywhere.

That was his lesson. The cool part of his story is that now it’s halftime and we’re sitting at the 50 yard line. We’re watching a football game, halftime. They’re doing a 50 50 rally for raise money for the school. He says, Glennn, how much money did we make today? I said, 600. He said, okay. What about the cost of the goods?

I said, we didn’t pay for that. He said, someone paid for that. I said, okay. Then we made 400. He said, great. Give me 150. So I gave him 150. He took 150 and he put 300. Into the bucket. I said, oh, that’s cool, Mitch, so we can double our money, right? He goes, no, that was our donation. We have to pay for the goods that we just took.

Tim Melanson: Absolutely.

Glenn Freezman: What I’m not gonna teach you is how to be a thief. [00:23:00] I’m gonna teach you. There’s opportunity everywhere. Keep your eyes in your ears wide open and do the right thing. Yet we didn’t steal their soda, we borrowed it. We taught them you have a better way of selling this. He literally, we donated that money, so he didn’t put his money on anything, so no one ever called the raffle.

So they got to keep the money ’cause they must have picked one of our tickets. Okay. But then he went back to the guy who runs those concessions and said, listen, my little buddy here and I ran doing a little test and you could sell three times the amount of soda at, at triple the price if you just take your product and walk it through those stands. That’s mentorship. That’s mentorship not only in business, but in life.

Tim Melanson: wow.

Glenn Freezman: deal I have ever made, Tim, everybody had to win everybody.

Tim Melanson: And now they all do it.

Glenn Freezman: And now they all right. And now they all do. Oh yeah. Right. And now they all do it. Yeah. But [00:24:00] again, money everywhere. So that, that’s, that’s pure mentorship. Giving, giving yourself to somebody without the expectation of a return.

Tim Melanson: wow, wow, man. So many lessons in that. Now what, what about, what about practicing? Because, uh, I mean. Like, how do you hone a craft like that? Like, it’s so random, right?

Like is there something that, that, uh, like did he teach you any lessons about, about getting good and staying good at, at what you’re doing?

Glenn Freezman: You know, it’s funny you say that because I think most of the, I think all the lessons I ever taught were just by watching.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Glenn Freezman: I’m watching, I’m watching guys that, and he would hire, most of the guys played basketball with, or he grew up with and they were from people who were, you know, like me, almost homeless to attorneys that just needed extra cash. So, you know, on a four hour ride listening to, and I’m 13, listening to [00:25:00] people who are 25 to 30. Talk about their lives and about what’s happening and how they’re succeeding, and just soaking that in.

Tim Melanson: Uh,

Glenn Freezman: You don’t, you don’t need to be, there doesn’t need to be a quiz to learn. What have you learned? What do you see?

What do you want? So let’s move forward. And now I, I get the opportunity after selling a, I sold the 500,000 soft bretzels. I went to college, paid for my own college, paid for my own car from the pretzel money because, let me back up for a second. At 16, well, I was 15 and 364 days old. When we’re driving to a, a bravery, he goes, by the way, if you had any car within reason that you wanted to buy, what would it be?

I said, Oldsmobile Forza. They were 6,500 bucks. He says. He says, well, we’re driving by to pick Karen dealership. Why don’t we go take a look at that on the way? I said, okay, I’ll show it to you. We get [00:26:00] there, it’s on the little spinny thing, you know that they put the cars on and he says, oh, is that the car?

I said, yeah. He said, oh, that’s really cool. He goes, yeah, it’s 6,500 bucks. He says, do you want it? And I literally say, yeah, I want it. He says, okay, well then let’s buy it. I said, how are we doing that? He said, well, let’s bring the guy over here and see what, what he has to, uh, you know, what the numbers are and do what, do what we taught you.

Do what you’ve learned, work your deal. Let’s see what happens. The guy comes over, he starts talking to Mitch. Mitch is going, I’m not buying a car. He is. So I said, all right. So we lay it out. He gives me a price, he walks out. I said, Mitch, how am I paying for this card? And he literally, he pulls out something and he says to me, oh, this is your Schwab stock account. the 80 cent, outta the 80% of the money you have paid me back. I’ve invested it for you the whole time.

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Glenn Freezman: He said, so let’s buy [00:27:00] this car cash. I’m already paid off. He said, I’ve been paid off ’cause I’ve invested your money. And the money we made, I took my money. I’m good. He says, you now have enough money in here that let’s buy the car for cash so you have no debt.

And in two years we can, you know, you’re, you’re good for college.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: So we ended up making that deal on that car, and I bought a car a day before I was legal to drive it right now, so. So you. We have that now. I go into the title insurance business. Four years later I leave college. My mother had had really gotten bad with her cancer, so I left college with the idea that, dad, I will run our one candy store and you take care of mom at home.

So I left the University of Hawaii if there are one semester to come home and take care of that. When all that was finished and I was done with the title business, my mother had passed away. And my [00:28:00] father took over the one store and I went back to, to, uh, my brother who was a struggling attorney, was opening, was looking for business.

So he got very lucky. Someone from the money store, I don’t know the money store ever hit Canada.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, we did have them here.

Glenn Freezman: Okay. So, so it was a second mortgage title at second mortgage, uh, company. So it was before credit lines existed. You would take a second mortgage on your house.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: He happened to be in a, in a strip center there.

So the person from the money store one walks down and says, Hey, we have to have an attorney close our loan. No one showed up. They say, okay, uh, will you close this loan? My brother says, yes. He goes up and he finds a mistake on the paperwork that happens like three times in a row, and they finally say to him, you’re really good at this.

Why don’t you close our lows? That leads into the fact, well, why don’t you open a title company? My brother says to me, are you done doing whatever you’re doing? How about you partner with me in the title company? You do the sales and the marketing. I’ll make sure the [00:29:00] title company runs great. I walk up now again, ready, fire, aim.

I walk up to them five days, intubating the title business. I know nothing. I say to the, and it happens to be that the, the area manager was there and then the district manager was there. So it was from like, Washington was there, Marilyn was there. Everybody from Trevose, Pennsylvania was there. And I sit there with my breast little balls and I said, listen, I know you, I know you wanna give my brother five deals a month, which is very nice.

What I would love to know is what every other title company that you’re using is giving you. Right now that you’re, that is making you happy so I know what my brother has to put together in order to get all your work, because we can’t really live with five between here and New Jersey. You have 30 offices.

That’s what I want. Tell me what I have to do to get that. [00:30:00] The guy from Washington literally stands up and he turns around and he says, why don’t you go take a seat in the, in the waiting room there. I’m like, oh my God, I’ve been in this five days. So I go out there and I come back and he says, here’s what we want.

We want, we are gonna order it. We are, we are gonna have Tim and his wife come into our office on Monday morning when they’re at our office. We’re gonna call you up and we want you to figure out in the courthouse exactly who owns Tim’s house, the names and the address. I need you to send me that, that I need you to call me ’cause we fax machines.

Were not even there yet. I need you to call me. Gimme those. Gimme those names. Wait 30 minutes and come up and close the loan. Great. What else? Well, we’re going to, we’re gonna close, we’re gonna close that loan Monday before you even ordered title. So you have no idea what’s even going on in the courthouse.[00:31:00]

And we’re funding it Friday. So between Monday and Friday you have to order the title, get back to mortgages and liens, figure out the payoffs, see what’s, see what’s actually a lien on any property, and clear all that out because we’re funding it on Friday. I said, okay, what else? He says, I need you to be able to close that loan the day of application. Everyone else is doing that. Okay? I go back and I tell my brother, he goes, impossible. Can’t do it. No way. No way, no way. I said, Brad, I just spent five years. I’m telling you everything’s possible. So I just make a few quick calls to his searchers and I say, you know, to one of the guy who was a Philadelphia surgeon, lemme ask you a question.

How did you, uh. How much do you charge my brother? $15. How long does it take? 12 days. I said, you’re making $15 [00:32:00] every 12 days. He says, no, but you know, he says, that’s our timeframe. I said, what if I doubled your money? I need him back the same day or the next day. I’ll double your money. I’ll give you 20.

I’ll give you, I’ll give you $25. He said, I could probably do that. story short, I do all five of his things and we’re giving him back and I go a respectable 30 days and I call the guy back and said, can we please have another meeting? I think we’ve nailed it. We’re good. He says, okay. He goes, the guy from Washington’s coming in next Thursday.

We’ll do a meeting. Bring your brother. said, okay, great. I tell my brother and he is like, I know you screwed this up. I know he is very opposite of, I was, he’s very, he’s a lawyer, I’m not. He goes, I hope you didn’t screw this up. I don’t wanna go out to work for a bank. Come on. I said, I think it’s okay. We go out to lunch and the guy from Washington turns around and he says, my brother says so, so what are we doing here?

The guy from Washington. So I thought, well, [00:33:00] you’re, you’re a little asshole, brother. Walks into our plays. I’ve been doing this 30 years. He’s been doing it what, five days. And he walks in and he tries to tell us that he could do exactly what every other company can do as long as we just tell him what it is. He says, we thought he needed to learn a lesson. So we brainstormed and decide what five things would be nirvana for us that no one else would ever consider doing. We gave it to him just to kick him out of our office. He did all five of them.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: He literally did all five of them. How would you like Pennsylvania and New Jersey’s work Now what do I see? What do they want? told me exact I didn’t have to be a, I didn’t have to go be a magician or the Wizard of Oz. They told it to me.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: when you say, how did [00:34:00] I hone those skills? I went right back to the fact of if they want it, then 60,000 people in that stadium also want it, which means that every one of the money stores competitors, champion Mortgage, Upland Mortgage, statewide, capital, American business Credit, all wanted the same thing.

And that’s how I got from five deals to a thousand. Eight words, what do you see? What do they want? That’s the through line of my life.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow. Great stories, man. Okay, well I’m excited to get into yours, guess guest. So to find out a little bit more about how you,

how your business is working. So tell me what’s exciting right now in your business.

Glenn Freezman: What’s exciting now is when I had thought I was retiring at 50.

Tim Melanson: I.

Glenn Freezman: I had a bunch of, I went to the National Speakers Association, the NSA and Toastmasters, [00:35:00] and I joined a club that taught standup comedy. I had realized that the grind of trying to get on a stage as a keynote speaker was ridiculous.

It was looking through. Air because you had to find, there was no internet

Tim Melanson: Yeah,

Glenn Freezman: that that had a basis. So you had to find an opportunity and then apply for an opportunity after you figured out what that opportunity was even looking for. It was a, it was a it, it took two and a half hours. It just to apply and just like apply for a job.

You send out 90 of them, maybe you get called back, maybe you don’t. It was so brutal, Tim, him that I said, I, I can’t, I’m not doing this. So I went and I went into consulting for a mortgage servicing company and then a sub servicing company. I do my 10 year [00:36:00] stand. The service, the subs servicing was horrible.

A lot of good lessons of everything I would never do in a business. Got lucky. Got on the servicing side after 10 years, decided, you know what, I’m done again. I’m retiring again. Decide I’ll go back to speaking. Tim. Nothing changed. Nothing changed except the technology. I said, well, what do I see? I see 1,000,200 thousand speakers out there.

That are going through the same grind, and I keep using that word. It’s the same grind that I was, that I walked away from 12 years ago. I am going to create a simple thing for me, a bot for me, an agent for me that can go out into the internet and find these opportunities and something that is going to then fill out my paperwork, meaning.

I wanted to say, here’s what my learning objectives, [00:37:00] takeaways, and challenges in my bio are. Here is exactly what the opportunity’s looking for. Here is the perfect resume for that opportunity so I can do them in 20 minutes. When I wrote a rudimentary coded that and created that, I’m showing to my buddies who are speakers and they’re like.

You wanna speak, you’re gonna speak on this, right? You’re gonna go out and sell this? I said, no, I just bought it. I just created it for me. They said, well, gimme a, gimme one of those. And my, everybody who I spoke to said, well, gimme one of those. I want that, right? I want what you’re doing. I said, all right, well then I guess I’m still not gonna speak ’cause I would rather create this in real,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: real terms, real times.

So we are right now launched. We have built a, a system that literally does exactly what I had envisioned a [00:38:00] 100% from start to finish, and it’s proactive. So what happens in our world is we, we, uh, we’re asking you for five things. What is your, what category do you speak on? What geography do you want to talk on, talk to?

Would you go international, state, local? we ask you for certain pieces of information on something we patented, which we can clone the way you write by what our video voice, your psychometrics, meaning what is your Myers-Briggs score, what is your DISC score? What is your personality like? And then through. A, b, c testing, we can figure out exactly how to write, which means that the answers we’re giving you are as if you actually wrote them. So all of that took 10 months to build and rebuild and reconstruct.

And the difference in this, Tim, was I was totally blind on [00:39:00] what it actually took to open up a technology company. Everything else I opened was bricks and mortar. Well, it was pretzels, it was title, it was candy stores, it was title insurance companies. You opened it up, you had a product. Here you’re inventing a product,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: and then you have to get it out into the world. So one of the, so they, else goes onto TikTok and they go onto Instagram and everyone has their, you know, their selfie and they’re walking down the, you know, this street as if they’re nonchalantly talking to nobody about it. Everything. And it just, I said I can’t mark it that way. I am not a big fan of fighting in the Red Sea.

I need to find a blue sea. What is it? I got lucky again because people came into my life, uh, who were speakers and one of ’em was a TEDx coach

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Glenn Freezman: nickname. My last name is Freezman, so nickname was Freeze Pop, right? So, hey, freeze pop. What will you give me [00:40:00] if. I can basically, I, I coach people who pay me $7,500 to teach ’em how to get on a TEDx stage. another program that teaches different groups of people for $7,500, how to speak and grow rich. So let’s say I have a hundred people that now already that have paid me. I said, here’s what I wanna do, Frank. I want you to bring my product to them because you’re their trusted advisor. They already trust you and I will make you a partner. everything that you bring to the table, everybody has to win. Okay? So what goes on with that is instead of me looking for Tim, the speaker and Billy the speaker, and mark the speaker and married a I went to who they trust the most. So my affiliate marketing [00:41:00] plan, which is so important to me because I’ve learned from all these people, and then I said, well, if I’m gonna learn from you, that means your people learn from you.

They’ve already trusted you. And if you said to me, Hey, this digital speaker agent, now that I taught you how to get on a stage, can actually find you the stages. Now I’ve actually taught you how to be a TEDx coach. These, this thing points out the world that TEDx opportunities are, and it fills out your paperwork for you. The person who, anybody that’s with does anything with speakers, became my client then they sell to their people, which again removed my grind, which moved my, my, my friction and my grind was going out and saying to a million speakers, Hey, do you want to buy this? No. I would rather give your trusted advisor the ability to say to you, I know this works. I think you should buy this.

Tim Melanson: Wow. [00:42:00] Wow. Love

Glenn Freezman: That was, you know, and that, and that was that. And then again, it’s the through line that tails back to we partnered with the money store when competition, when, when our competition later years started to say, this is a great idea. We’re gonna start like taking bites out of what you’re gonna do. We’re gonna come after you to protect our, our kingdom. And you, and I don’t know if Canada has it, but in America, every real estate office right now owns their own title company and owns their own mortgage company.

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Glenn Freezman: That was because I started that with Jack Kemp, who was the secret, who was the secretary of HUD at the time in America, had said to them, when I walk into a realtor’s office, they extort money from me. They tell me, how much are you gonna make on a title policy a thousand? Then if you’ll give me $400 of that thousand, I’ll make sure my buyer knows you’re alive. Otherwise I’m giving it to another company.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: And I said, well, you know [00:43:00] that I’m not doing. And I went down to Jack Kemp and I actually met with him with our title underwriter and I said, this is what’s going on.

He took us off the record. He reached over, he pressed the button. He took us off the record. He said, Glennn, there are 2 million realtors in the country that vote Republican. There’s only 10,000 title agents. Who do you think we’re rooting for here? And he reached back over. He said, now we’re back on the record. He said, tell me what your plan is. My plan is to go and partners with the realtors, go and partners with the mortgage companies. Let them put up half the money. We’ll put up half the money, we’ll do all the work. They can control the sale. At the end of the day. I’ll split the profit with them, but it leaves their teeth in the game.

It keeps it, it should be, it keeps it more legal and open to all your, all your buyers and all your mortgage orders. Right? Why don’t we just do it that way? He goes, I like that. Yeah, let’s do that. Let work on that framework. [00:44:00] That was the framework of, of. A controlled business arrangement, which is nothing more than a partnership, was nothing more than what I just did with digital speaker agent.

That mortgage company was my affiliate. They controlled the buyer, they trusted the money store, and yeah, they could get title insurance anywhere, but no one knows what title insurance is. It’s 40 years later. Still know what knows. The title insurance is.

Tim Melanson: I

Glenn Freezman: It, it it great. It’s known as a ripoff at closing.

You go there, it’s another 3000 bucks on there. It was born out of commercial real estate where there’s actual claims. The amount of claims in residential is so infinitely small that it’s just a, it’s, I did, I made, I put two kids through college and built an entire life and got great wealth out of it for the, for the residential. It’s not, it’s not as necessary as it, as it is sold to be. But [00:45:00] the, the lesson being that that same through line that I learned at 13 years old and showed itself in title insurance is the exact same thing I came back to again, where, how do I reduce this friction for everybody? How does everybody win? So now I say to my.

TEDx coach, we’re gonna have a controlled business arrangement. You control your buyers. I’ll do all the work at the end of the month. I’ll give you a piece of the profit.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So how do we find out more then?

Glenn Freezman: Well, digital, uh, digital speaker agent.com

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: is our website. You can go there. All our information’s there, my contact information you wanna consider this conversation. Hit me up there.

Tim Melanson: Awesome.

Glenn Freezman: You know, wide open. I, I love to, I like to, I, I did a Ted, TED talk on that, right? On giving without an expectation of return.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.[00:46:00]

Glenn Freezman: And I, I think it’s incredible how many people in my life that I have gone back to and said, you remember what you said to me here? And they’re said, no, I have no idea. How many people have come into my life? That said, when I was 17, I remember we were at, and you said, and it changed my life. So I think we have to be careful with the words that we use because people do listen and we are, and we are considered mentors

Tim Melanson: Yeah,

Glenn Freezman: whether we know it or not.

And I think it’s important that the lessons that we give are the lessons you wanna be remembered for if it should happen. So. If you’re a speaker, if you’re a coach, if you’re an affiliate, if you’re anything that kind of fits into anybody in the speaker’s world, you know, look us up. A digital speaker agent.

You just wanna have a cool conversation. We can have a virtual coffee, and if you’re close enough, I’ll meet you for dinner.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. I love that so much, Glenn. Alright, so this might be the hardest question. Let’s talk a little bit about music. So who’s your favorite rockstar?[00:47:00]

Glenn Freezman: Lifetime Springsteen.

Tim Melanson: Ah, yeah, of

Glenn Freezman: I’ve seen him over a hundred times. Uh, he was been, you know, the, I, I loved, I liked the energy he brought. I, I remember seeing it, I remember sitting in the concert the first time and looking at it, was at the spectrum and looking around and saying, oh my God. Like if he tells people, like when he stands, they stand, when he clap, they clap.

When he sings, they sing like, this guy’s got total control over this. It’s just incredible. So, you know, and, and I grew up and right in that sweet spot of his era watching, you know, watching his entire career, you know, he would be my ultimate favorite.

And then, and then music wise, anything with steel drums,

Tim Melanson: Oh,

Glenn Freezman: ’cause it puts me right on vacation.

Tim Melanson: right on.

Do you play any music

yourself?

Glenn Freezman: do not, I, I, I, I didn’t, [00:48:00] I was probably the only person ever to get thrown out of choir. ’cause I couldn’t do the recorder. the recorder,

Tim Melanson: The little,

Glenn Freezman: couldn’t screw up.

Tim Melanson: yeah.

Glenn Freezman: I would. They gave me a recorder with the holes cut out because I couldn’t do it. Our fifth When, when I graduated from Les Elementary School, it was fifth grade, I was told by the, we had to sing three songs.

Lip Sync. What’s nuts with that is that years later my daughter incredible. She had a Broadway voice. She was in every play. She was, you know, working out, she was in plays everywhere, but I I, I brought nothing to that table. Yeah, nothing.

Tim Melanson: had plenty of other

Glenn Freezman: who’s your influence?

Right.

Tim Melanson: my, my favorite band is The Beatles.

Um, and that’s a huge influence. And actually when I was learning music, it was through The Beatles and actually Dave Matthews band as [00:49:00] well. Uh, those were the two influences when I was

learning.

Glenn Freezman: Great. How’s it

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, and very, very different types of music too.

But, uh, but it, it, it allowed me to learn lots of different stuff. ’cause The Beatles wrote so much,

so many diff, so many different types of music.

Glenn Freezman: One of the greatest quotes, not quotes, but one of the things I remember from the Beatles, Beatles was The 10,000 Hour.

Tim Melanson: Oh yeah.

Glenn Freezman: You know? And no, very few people understand how power those 10,000 hours are, but the, you know, and the Beatles didn’t understand it, you know, either probably. But they were so ready to hit this ground running when they hit America.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: Explode because they were already there. And, uh, lemme give you a crazy quick analogy. I think that’s why I was successful in life. I started out in, in second grade, my defense mechanism was everything was shutting down in my life. Was comedy, making people laugh. Being the class clown is gonna sound crazy.[00:50:00]

Being the class clown literally is the greatest position you can have growing up.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: Because at the end of 12th grade, we have learned how to speak to power on behalf of the powerless and learned how to listen and react in real time constantly. We put in our 10,000 hours of public speaking by the time everyone else was ready to begin. I would love, I’m trying to get together the, the ability to do a TED Talk on there’s no such thing as a broke class clown.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: And I’ll ask you this question, do you happen to remember who your class clown was growing up?

Tim Melanson: Oh geez.

Glenn Freezman: who’s the guy who always had the funniest line and the teacher allowed it because she knew it was part of the ecosystem?

Tim Melanson: I, I, I don’t, it might have been me. I don’t, I

don’t even know ’cause I was pretty loud in my classes.

Uh, but I don’t know. Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: And your success, if you asked that question, everyone’s gonna go, you know what? It wasn’t me, but who was this [00:51:00] guy? And I’d say, well, what does he do for a living? Very successful. We’re all successful

because we had the, we learned to speak and, and the analogy, and I’m not comparing myself in any way, shape, or foot to the Beatles, but that 10,000 hours of what we honed our craft on,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: whether consciously or subconsciously brings us to our, whatever, 10,000 hours you put in to get to where you’re at right now. There was there, there was an ability, ’cause you’re great at what you’re doing.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve always loved public speaking and I, I do. Yeah, I think that’s a really great topic. Just that whole class clown thing. I think you need to do it. Do it. I want, I don’t wanna watch that.

Glenn Freezman: I’m gonna keep going. I like it.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for rocking out with you today, today, Glenn. This has been a lot of fun.

Glenn Freezman: This has been great. I so appreciate you having me on and every success you can have to you and everybody you love. Okay,

Tim Melanson: Thanks, and to

the listeners [00:52:00] picture you subscribe late and comment. We’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. Today’s episode, we are talking to a speaker, an author, a podcaster, an insurance agent, and what he does is he helps people to navigate working from home. So I’m super excited to be rocking out today with Chris Castanes. Hey Chris, you ready to rock?

Chris Castanes: I am Tim. I am. All ready to go, man. You got me all juiced up here now. Ready and excited.

Tim Melanson: Nice. Right on. Well, we always start off in a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Chris Castanes: Oh, great. Uh, one of, one of the, one of the stories of success is, um, honestly, I just, I wanna, I like bragging about my books. I, I’ve written a couple of books. Um, one of them, the first one I self-published, it was just a learning curve that was took forever and it, when I published it. I felt like I had really accomplished something.

It took me about six months to figure out how to do it, edit photos and all that stuff. And it was just fun [00:01:00] to do, you know, it was just like a good project and the book was, did exactly what I wanted it to do, which was just be a good marketing tool and get my, my name out there and let people know this is what I do.

And it, it was just, you know, it was like a little win for me. It was, it was a good one.

Tim Melanson: Nice. Yeah. Writing a book is kind of a big deal, isn’t it?

Chris Castanes: Yeah, I mean, it was fun. I, it was really a lark at the time. I was wanting to just write a book on something that I wish somebody had told me before I got into the business of sales. So the book is called, you’re Gonna Be Great at This, and. And, um, and the reason I call it that was because anytime, I don’t know if you’ve ever been on any, uh, interviews for sales jobs, but especially a, a position that’s a hundred percent.

Uh, commission, you know, where they don’t, you don’t have a salary and they can’t find people. They, they’re always looking for people for these positions. So they, they just tell you [00:02:00] stuff, you know, oh, it’s the best product ever, and we’re the greatest company ever. And, and, you know, we’ve got the best products and you’re, and people are gonna love it, and you don’t even have to sell it.

They’re gonna come to you and ask for it, which is all, you know, not

true. And then of course they always throw in that, you know, we’ve, even though we’ve only known you for eight seconds and you’ve got a great personality, we know you’re gonna be great at this. And I always, I always tell people, when you hear that run, you know, that’s so people think when I say, yeah, it’s called, you’re gonna be great at this.

They think it’s like motivational, but I’m like, no, it’s not, not, that’s not what it’s.

Tim Melanson: It’s a bit sarcastic, I guess.

Chris Castanes: Yeah, it’s a little backhanded, you know? Here you go. So, but that’s what the, that’s the whole tone of that book is, is just, here’s stuff that’s out there, the landmines and what to look out for if you’re going into a sales position and it’s, and it’s all, or, or if you’re self-employed.

’cause if you’re self-employed, you’re in sales. And that’s the whole point of the book. But yeah, that was my, that’s [00:03:00] my, my win, I guess.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Right on. Well, along with the good notes, sometimes things don’t go as planned, and I do like to talk about the bad notes as well. So can you tell me something that didn’t go as planned and how you recovered?

Chris Castanes: Uh, well, that’s every day. You know, it’s, uh, being, being a business owner, you always have those, those down notes. And, um, I, I, a great one was just yesterday, as a matter of fact. It was just, you know, coming out of the new year, you’ve got your, you. New motivation, you know, I’m gonna go out there and knock it outta the park.

And my resolutions and what I’ve been doing recently is just sending people emails and notes on LinkedIn and saying, Hey, here’s my calendar. Book a time and I’ll come to you and we’ll meet. And um, sure enough, I got my first, uh, stood up for my first appointment of the year yesterday after driving 20, about 20 miles to this coffee shop and.

Nobody showed up and I’m calling ’em, and they didn’t even return the phone call. So that’s my [00:04:00] one, one of those little failures that it just, you know, there again. It’s, it’s, it’s just those things that happened, but it’s, you know, and it’s, it was a little extra punch in the gut because this person booked the appointment on, on to, on their time.

So it wasn’t, like I said, I’m gonna see you, you know, at this point and this time they did it, and it still didn’t, they still didn’t show up. So, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s par for the course when you’re in business though.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, uh, I mean, nowadays, like thank goodness for Zoom, uh, like I moved everything pretty much to zoom now. I barely ever go and meet anybody in person anymore. And you know, so this sting is much less when they don’t show up to a Zoom call as opposed to driving across the city just for a meeting, uh, you

Chris Castanes: I know it is, it is painful and, and Zoom is, is great. I’ve actually done a few more Zoom calls, especially since COVID of course, but you know, [00:05:00] I’m still old school, you know, let’s go meet for some coffee, I’ll buy you some coffee, and I give ’em some brochures and you know, that kind of thing. And it’s hard to do that when you’re over a computer, but at the same time, you know, I’m not wasting, you know, a gallon of gasoline.

Whatever else, you know. Uh, hour of my time, hour and a half driving all over the place for nothing. So there’s good and bad, but yeah, I, I get it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. It, it, it does happen, eh, uh, and, you know, ’cause, uh. Mean, you had mentioned that you’ve been self-employed for a long time now, 25 years, right? Isn’t it? Something like that or

Chris Castanes: yeah, I mean, I’ve been, I’ve been in sales since I got outta college back in 1985, but I went, I went. Back to the corporate world for a little bit, um, and gotten back in back, gotten back into sales in 2000

and, um, and I’ve been self-employed ever since. And it’s, you know, it’s got a lot of ups [00:06:00] and downs.

It’s fun. You know, you have to, you have to learn how to navigate ma, manage your time wisely, um, market yourself, all those things that are. You know, customer service, once you get the sale, you still have to service the customer and you know, it,

Tim Melanson: Yeah, there’s a lot of juggling. Mm-hmm.

Chris Castanes: yeah. You gotta wear a lot of hats and, you know, I, I ha luckily I haven’t had many HR complaints on myself, so, but, but if I don’t start behaving, I, I might turn myself in for something.

Tim Melanson: Jeez, you’re, you’re lucky. You’ve got a good boss.

Chris Castanes: I know.

Tim Melanson: Well, uh, I, I do think so. I mean, talking about sales, I, you know, I, I did spend some time in, uh, in commission sales as well, mostly in the network marketing industry actually. And, uh, I, I think it’s, it’s, it’s interesting because it’s one of those things that, [00:07:00] um, when you start a business. You know, you think, oh, you know, I’m, I’m a great, you know, whatever it is, you know, a mechanic or hairdresser or web developer, whatever it happens to be, and you think I’m just gonna start my own business and cut out the middleman.

And you really realize really quickly that sales is like a lot of it, like a lot of it. And, uh, I don’t think, I don’t think a lot of people are really prepared for that. Uh, we don’t, we don’t learn sales in school, do we?

Chris Castanes: No, we don’t and, and I wish they. Hal it, uh, uh, honestly, I do, and, and I talk about that in my first book about how there you get people who get caught up in network, network, uh, sales and, and affiliate sales and things like that, and, and they’ve bought a franchise into some multi-level marketing. And, um, you know, okay, it’s just a side hustle.

You don’t have to, and they don’t realize it’s, it’s sales, you know, and, and you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta go out there and, and, and do the stuff. You gotta [00:08:00] network. You know, you can’t, what, what do we say? You can’t just put your lamp. I think it says it in the Bible somewhere. Like you can’t just put your lamp under the, the table, you gotta put it on top of the table for everybody to see it.

So you can’t just sit at home and, and hope that, you know, invite your 37 Facebook friends to your new business page and expect them to buy things. You gotta go out there and hustle and, and go to networking events and online things and LinkedIn and everything. It’s, it’s, you gotta, especially now with.

Social media, you’ve gotta really do a whole holistic approach to your, your marketing. And if you do the marketing. Efficiently and effectively that takes more of that sales workload off of your plate. The, the, the sales is a whole lot easier if the marketing is done right. So that’s always been the, you know, the thrust is like, let’s, let’s figure out how to market first, then we can set the [00:09:00] table for the sale.

Otherwise, you’re just going in and. To cold call people, and it’s brutal, you

know? So,

Tim Melanson: Yep. Oh yeah. And I’ve been there too. The cold calling and all that stuff. ’cause I, I, you know, I, I, it’s, it’s funny ’cause I mean, you know, a lot of people have a really negative opinion of, you know, multilevel marketing and all that stuff. And yeah, there’s a ton of scams and a ton of scammers, that’s for sure.

However. Uh, the, the, the other side of it is that if you were to get into it, not thinking that you’re gonna be a millionaire, ’cause come on, you’re, you’re probably not, uh, especially if you have no experience, uh, but you will learn, you will learn a lot about people, about, about communication and about sales.

And I think what the, the kind of like a bit of a distinguisher between what you just said there about the marketing and the sales, you know, part of it is you gotta figure out a way to get people to come to you in the first place. And then once they come to you, you gotta figure out a way to talk to them to try to connect you what you do to [00:10:00] what they do.

And that would be more like the sales side of it? Is that how, how you see it too?

Chris Castanes: Oh yeah, I mean, exactly. I mean, I mean take, take for something for instance, like, um, you know, hamburgers, you know McDonald’s. Does all the marketing upfront. They don’t have a sales guy just walking around town going, Hey, who wants a double cheeseburger?

You know? And, and so you walk into their business and then they still upsell you, you know, Hey, did you want fries with that or do you wanna supersize that, or whatever.

So. Even though every industry’s not the same, you know, nobody, people enjoy hamburgers, people don’t enjoy buying life insurance. And so you really have to make the marketing even better or more effective on that, in that industry. Um, because people are going, gosh, you know, if I got a choice between, I’ve got 10 bucks in my hand and I’ve got a choice between having a happy meal or having, you know, covering my family if I die. [00:11:00] They’re gonna take the.

Tim Melanson: They are gonna take the hamburger. We know that. Yeah. Well, yeah. ’cause uh, I mean, now, you know, the, the world is so different, like, because there’s, I mean, there’s two types of businesses that you might be running. You might be running a business where nobody knows what you do and nobody understands what you do, and you have to spend some time educating them on why they even need you in the first place.

But then there’s the other side of it of. Everybody knows what you do. You know, it’s something that everybody needs. But now you gotta figure out how to, how to distinguish yourself against everybody else who’s selling the same thing, right? And both of those are very challenging,

Chris Castanes: Yeah, I mean, especially if you’re, uh, you know, if you create your, uh, something totally new. If you’ve come up with some totally new product or new market that nobody even knew, knew was needed, the education part, like you said, that could, that could cost you. Thousands of of dollars just to, just to [00:12:00] get people to wrap their head around what you’re trying to explain to ’em.

Um, you know, compared to, you know, well, we sell screwdrivers. Everybody, everybody’s, everybody that’s ever had a toolbox has a screwdriver in there, but nobody’s gonna know about some new. App that measures houses or something, you know, whatever. So there’s always the education part that kind of ties in with the marketing, but it’s, it’s such a, a bear sometimes if you’re doing something that’s just people don’t understand, or, you know, what, what I tell people a lot of times is there’s, I, I’ll give them the fill in the blank, uh, scenario.

I’ll say, okay, I am saving up for blank. Just think in your head, what do people save up for? You know, they save up for a down payment on a car or a home. Uh, nobody saves up for. Long-term care insurance.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Chris Castanes: you know, so, so if, if your industry doesn’t fit in that, [00:13:00] that little blank very well, then you’re gonna have a much harder time selling that product.

And so, and that means you’re gonna have to figure out how to market it. And if you’re not good at marketing, you might want to spend the money to hire a marketing firm. You might want to go and learn how to be a marketer, but. If you’re that poor guy that went out and joined, you know, you’ve been working in the engineering field all your life and now you’ve decided that you wanna sell protein shakes on the side as part of a multi-level marketing, just as a side hustle, and you don’t know anything about sales or marketing or anything like that.

It, it can be a bear. And I, I go to networking events all the time and I see people and they’ve come from these, you know, well, by the way, I’ve also got this other product and they just look sad, you know, they just, they look like somebody just punched them in the gut. Like, nobody told me I was gonna have to come to do all this stuff.

You know, they told me people would just come to me and, and get it, you know, so it, it’s. It I, it’s one of those things where you just wish people would [00:14:00] be honest and upfront when they say, Hey, we’ve got some idea for you, a business idea or sales product. We want you to sell and tell you, here’s the batting average and here’s how many people have come through the door in the last week that didn’t do well at this.

And here’s, you know, they always wanna show you the leaderboard. You know, here’s all man. Look at these top producers. Well, those are three guys out of 10,000 that have come through in the last six months. Where are the other ones? You know, so it’s, that’s one of my big gripes has always been, just be honest with people.

If what you’re selling is difficult, let ’em know that because turnover costs money too. And when you’re hiring salespeople or you’re hiring people to come onto your on board and sell your products, that costs you a lot of money as well. Uh, time and effort and get materials and training, training and all that stuff can cost a lot of money.

So you could really nip that in the bud. By just telling people upfront, here’s the real deal. I’m not gonna give you the rose colored glasses. [00:15:00] I’m gonna let you, you know, do you think you’re up for this? That’s, that’s the way I, I position it because I also hire, I don’t wanna say hire, but I have a little downline of insurance agents and, um, and I don’t take ’em unless they’ve been in the industry at least two years.

I, I don’t want the rookies, I don’t have time for it. Um, let, there’s a whole other. 10,000 other insurance companies out there that will hire the rookies and they’ll weed ’em out. And then I’ll take those that are sticking around and I’ll say, okay, come and work with me for a little bit also. So it’s, we’ve kind of gone off topic here a little bit, but the marketing and the is just, is such a.

Big, you know, part of it and, and making sure that you know how to position your products and, and if you don’t know how to position your business, especially if it’s a, a service industry, you know, something like that, real estate or something, you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta really learn that part of the business as well.

Tim Melanson: Well, I mean, yes, but also [00:16:00] there’s another thing that I noticed too, is that there. Uh, I, there are some people that tend to, it doesn’t matter what they’re selling, they’re good at it.

Chris Castanes: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: You know, like it’s just, you, you know, you have, you have some people that just, you know, especially in those, in those companies that will jump around from like protein shakes and now they’re selling insurance, and now they’re selling and they’re, they’re making boatloads of money and no matter what they sell.

So there is some sort of like, like com, like there is sort of some sort of base skill, right. Involved. Right.

Chris Castanes: There’s, there’s a mentality there, and you’re right. You know, you can get that person and they’ll say, dude, I’ve been selling cars and I’ve been really good at it, and I’m just tired of it. I want to go sell. Refrigerators

Tim Melanson: Right.

Chris Castanes: whatever. And there are, those people are always gonna be out there, but they’re the, they’re far and few between really.

Um, and, and usually when you see those veterans at some, whatever business it is, say, say it is a, a big life insurance company, that guy [00:17:00] that’s been there for. 25, 30 years, he’s that person. He or she’s that girl that can go out and go wherever she wants to go. And if you’re good at sales, that sales set, that skillset is transferrable,

Tim Melanson: Yes. Yeah.

Chris Castanes: you know, and, and, and they can sell Yellow Pages ads.

They can sell ice to the Eskimos. But the question is. There, you know, how much ice did that Eskimo really need? And are you really doing that? Uh, that person, the service that you, you say that you are, are you, you know, are your values, uh, being translated through that transaction? So it’s really a matter of making sure that you know.

You know what you’re doing, how to do it right, and, and you can learn it. You know, there’s always positive. We’ve gotta have a positive mindset and all this stuff. I know some people that have really bad mindsets and they still sell, you know,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Chris Castanes: you know, so I, it, I’ve never, I’m not a psychologist. [00:18:00] I’m, I don’t even play one on tv, but I can tell you that I’ve worked with all sorts of people and, and the ones that usually are successful, the ones that are just.

Let me, let me talk to you like we’re just friends and have a good conversation, and I’ll tell you the, the ups and downs, I’ll give you the positives and the negatives of this product or service. And those people gain trust, they gain credibility, and they’re gonna get the referrals and they don’t have to do all that.

Stressed out. High pressure selling. You know, I, I always say don’t do high pressure selling. Do good pressure selling. Um, you know, don’t tell people you have to have this life insurance product. Just go, look, Tim, you know, you’re married, you’ve got a, a family, you’ve got a mortgage. This is something you need.

If you or my brother or sister right now, I would highly recommend this. And that’s, that’s just good pressure. You know, I’m not, I’m not gonna beat you up if you don’t buy it. We’re still friends, whatever.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Chris Castanes: And just [00:19:00] take it down a notch.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yeah. So what about, uh, what about mentorship? Like, do you, do you have mentors in your life that have gotten you to this point?

Chris Castanes: I’ve had a few mentors and, um, you know, my, my big thing on that has always been just. You’re always gonna have like a manager or a sales manager or somebody, don’t regard that as a mentor. Regard them for what they are. A good mentor won’t have any kind of financial stake in your success. And if you can find that person who, like for me, I had a older gentleman years ago who took me under his wing and he was retired and he just said, you know, I’ll just check in with you every once in a while and if you’ve got a a problem.

Call me and he showed me the ropes and, and really taught me a lot. And when I was doing well, he. He was happy, but he wasn’t making any money off of me. You know, he wasn’t going, Hey, [00:20:00] yeah, I finally got that guy making me an override commission, whatever. So, you know, and then when I was doing bad, I could pick up the phone and, you know, cry my blues to him and he would say, you know, well, let’s, let’s figure out what you’re doing wrong.

You know, so that’s, that’s a great mentor there. But a sales manager. No, not really. They’re just, they’re just trying to get you to stay in line and make sure that you’re doing, you know, they’ll, I mean, they, sometimes their intentions are good, but you have to understand that their intentions are also to keep their job and your job is to help them, you know, so.

Tim Melanson: There’s a bit of a conflict of interest. So I mean, it, it can, it can go in your favor because I mean, the conflict of interest is on a positive side. They win by you winning, so that’s good. But on the negative side, they might talk, not give you those like tough to hear truths, right?

Chris Castanes: Well, and they will, but they’ll, but then they’ll say, you know, well you need to get out there. And

you know, when somebody says, well, if you [00:21:00] just change your attitude, well, you know. Or, or like my, like my old man used to say, you know, all you need to do is go out there and get 10 pounds of confidence, you know?

And I’m like, well, you get confidence from getting little successes. And that’s, that’s how you build that confidence up. You don’t just go like, alright, I’m confident now. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s a progress. So, yeah. You know, it, it, it’s good and bad both. But I just always try to find somebody that’s a little bit more detached from the situation and it can be a little bit more objective and, um, you know, they’ll, they’ll help you out.

You can always find somebody.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think that’s important too. Like, I think, I think that having a, you know, a rich circle of influence, you know, in and outta your business. I mean, because I mean, if. Is it, it’s blind spots, right? I mean, you know, if, if you’re talking to somebody who’s in the same business as you all the time, then they might not be able to see what somebody who has no idea.[00:22:00]

Like I, I remember when I, even when I was in university, um, when I was struggling with a tough. Problem. It was more helpful for me to talk to somebody who had no idea what I was doing than it was for some, for me to talk to one of my, to one of my, my classmates, because you have to explain it to them in a way that they would understand.

And then they go, oh, well I see your problem. Or they don’t even, sometimes they don’t even say anything. It’s just you work through your own problem by going, oh, that’s what I’m doing wrong, just by explaining it to somebody.

Chris Castanes: by explaining it and breaking it down into very basic pieces, you’re, you’re explaining it to yourself. You know, and, and that’s a great con. That’s a great idea. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And, and I mean, hey, nowadays we can talk to chat, chat bots and stuff like that and probably flesh through some of these things without even taking someone’s time. But on the other hand, having a person is, is, is, is better, I think.

Chris Castanes: Yeah. [00:23:00] Or cat, you know, I just get my cat and talk to my cat.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, so now you mentioned like, uh, you know, confidence comes from getting little wins.

Like, do you have any practices that, you know help you to get that those little wins or

Chris Castanes: Uh, well, one of the things I do is I just keep my calendar, uh, booked. You know, I try not to have a whole lot of downtime, uh, between, we always used to say, uh, between 10 and four you should be either seeing clients or fighting to see clients and. So between 10 and four, it’s either seeing a client or I’m got it written in the calendar, you know, I’m going to do some marketing, or I’m gonna do some, make some phone calls, or I’m gonna be sending out emails or whatever I gotta do.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Chris Castanes: And just keep that, keep that everything’s got plugged in on that calendar. Uh, otherwise I’m sitting around playing, you know, candy Crush or watching TV or [00:24:00] whatever, hearing, you know, being self-employed and working from home. You can’t see it, but right over there’s a TV and you know, and then right back of me below this futon is my, my base.

And so, you know, there’s always that, you know, I just wanna like get up and go, man, I really would like to learn that, that new baseline that I didn’t learn, you know, whatever. So it, it’s fun. To be self-employed, but you have to have that discipline to go, I’ve got to stay narrowly focused, just if nothing else, between 10 and four.

And then, you know, from nine to 10 I’m still waking up, brushing my teeth and getting my head together and doing those things. And from four to five, I’m wrapping up the end of the day and getting ready for the next day. So if you just plug in that calendar, make sure everything’s. Good and make sure that you’re not wasting time.

Like when I get done with this podcast, I’ve probably got about 20 minutes and then I’ve gotta drive half hour up the road to a networking event and, [00:25:00] um, where I will be, you know, handing out brochures and trying to talk to people and doing all those things that are fighting to see clients, as we say, and fighting for referrals as much as you can.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and, and, and that’s, that’s just it, right? I mean, when you’re self-employed, you don’t have a, a boss that’s telling you what to do. You don’t have that same sort of like pressure, but it’s like, um, if you don’t work, then you don’t eat. And it might take a few weeks for that to start to happen, right?

Chris Castanes: Right. I mean, you gotta get out there and just plant those seeds and, and, or it’s funny, a friend of mine, he always refers to planting seeds that will blossom down the road. And I go and, and my analogy is always I’m planting landmines and I’m waiting for somebody to step on ’em. You know? So you.

Either way, you know, you’re, when you’re in sales or self-employed or whatever you’re doing, you’ve gotta play the, play the long game as well. And you gotta really be understanding that if [00:26:00] you’re not gonna just, you know, turn on the computer today and money’s gonna come in, I’ve gotta go out there and do the work, set the set the landmines, and keep setting those landmines.

And sooner or later, the ones I, the 10 I drop today, one of ’em is gonna explode next week. And you know, that’s a violent kind of analogy, but it’s one I like.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, well there’s, there’s so much faith involved too in business. ’cause you, you, you, um. You know, it’s just, it’s different when you have that two week paycheck coming every time and you’re like, okay, well I know it’s coming. Whereas this right here, it’s like you plant all these seeds or you drop all these landmines and, and are they gonna, are they gonna pay off?

I don’t, like, you don’t really have that, uh, that shore thing, right. But I mean, on the other hand, you know, I, I mean, you’ve been self-employed for how long? I’ve been self-employed for 20. It always comes back. It does, right?

Chris Castanes: Yeah, I mean, it’s [00:27:00] it having a little faith in yourself. Goes a long way. And, and, and there again, it’s all about how, you know, those are, that’s marketing. That’s if, if it’s not working and your land minds are just duds and nobody’s stepping on ’em, then maybe you need to adjust your marketing a little bit and you have to be a little bit more self-aware of what’s working and, and just being honest and saying, and, and, and the, and the other trap is when you, when you set one landmine and somebody steps on it.

Then you think, oh, that’s always gonna work. And then you find out that that was just a fluke and that was, you know, not, it wasn’t the case. So sometimes we have that one little quick success that, and then we think, well, that’s a good pattern to get into and realize that it’s not. So it more of a trends kind of guy sometimes, and I say, let’s, let’s see what’s happening over the long term. And look at some numbers. Let’s see where the numbers are going. You just had that one one little pop, but you didn’t have another pop for a [00:28:00] month. Maybe there’s something wrong there and that’s why you’re eating mayonnaise, sandwiches for lunch instead of a, a real hamburger or something.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Right on. So let’s get into your solo. Tell me what’s exciting your business right now.

Chris Castanes: Uh, the most exciting thing right now is, is probably my podcast. I’ve, um, as, as I was telling you earlier, I, I do insurance, but I’ve branched that over into this other field. ’cause my, what I’ve done with my insurance agency, mostly since COVID, is I’ve just put it online and it’s, a lot of it is self service.

People can go on there and get their own. You know, dental and vision insurance and things like that. But what we’ve done, uh, also is with the two books and I’ve done some speaking engagements and, um, things like that. And so we’re, we’ve opened up this podcast. Arm of the business about six months ago, and I’ve just had a blast.

It’s, it is just fun. I’ve enjoyed it. I, um, I’m [00:29:00] comfortable in front of the computer talking to the camera and talking to people about, you know, fun subjects like sales and marketing and things like that. And, and I have my own podcast. I’m marketing that and it’s just fun. I mean, it, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s just something I enjoy doing and talking to other podcasters and being on a guest on other people’s shows.

It is just been, it is just been a hoot and, um, you know, and people are, are most, haven’t had any bad experiences. Everybody’s been very nice and I’ve only cried twice and so, you know, I’m very sensitive.

Tim Melanson: So what is it that you guys talk about then?

Chris Castanes: We, well, it’s very similar to your podcast here. We talk about, uh, things that can help, um, small business owners, solopreneurs, uh, anybody that’s self-employed. You know, ten nine, what we call 10 99 salespeople here in, in the states. Um, you know, we don’t have benefits, so we have to get our own [00:30:00] ’cause everybody else has employee benefits and we don’t.

So we have to do our own, uh, thing when it comes to that. But we do our own marketing and so I’m very active in, in like the local Chamber of commerce.

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Chris Castanes: you know, and I, and networking events and those, and what you find is that’s, that’s that world, more of those people, uh, and we’re all in the same boat.

And even though we’re not, I, a lot of times I’ll go to a networking event or, and there’ll be, uh. Competitors of mine there, and we network. And just because somebody’s your competitor doesn’t mean you can’t get along with ’em and talk to ’em. And, and I’ve actually gotten more business referrals from my competitors who don’t like doing some of the things I do.

And I don’t like doing some of the things that they’re doing. So we’re swapping referrals amongst ourselves and that’s the kind of thing we talk about on the podcast, uh, mindset, uh, skill sets. Just tips and tricks, uh, you know, [00:31:00] things that can help people. You know, one of my, one of my favorite little pieces of advice, you know, sometimes it’s like if you got a sign magnet on your car, where are you gonna park your car at the grocery store?

You know? And I always tell people are like, huh? I don’t, I’ve never even considered that. Park it next to where you, everybody pushes their shopping carts, right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Chris Castanes: Because that’s gonna be the highest visibility. And, and, and I’ve had people, I’ve never even thought that that would be a thing. But you know, I don’t know if that’s gonna help, but it’s not gonna do you any good to park your car in the back of the parking lot ’cause you’re afraid another car might hit you if you’ve got a sign magnet.

What was the point of getting the sign magnet? Nobody’s gonna put it, come out there and see it, you know? So you might as well make it in braille if you’re gonna do that. So I don’t know. So that’s the kind of thing we put on our show. It’s just, uh. You know, tips and tricks and helpful advice and marketing and networking and things like that.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So how do we find out more then?

Chris Castanes: Uh, well the show is called, um, you’re gonna be great at this. It’s on [00:32:00] Spotify, YouTube, apple, all those. And, um, it’s just there. You just tune in. I’d love to have. Some more listeners. Uh, we’re very, uh, as I say all the time, I have dozens of fans all over the world. So, so it’s a new podcast and I, and I’m learning it and I’m not, I’m not, you know, upset.

You know, people are like, how do I want to have 10,000 subscribers? And I’m like, dude, I’d be happy if I have like a half dozen at this point. I’m keep the bar low.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Awesome. So then, uh, this might be the hardest question. So who is your favorite rockstar?

Chris Castanes: Well, let’s see. Um, that’s a good question. I mean, I’ve always been a, a fan of, uh, Elvis just because he was just such a pioneer. But, um, my, my new favorite genre of music, let, let’s do it this way. My new favorite genre of music has been punk covers of old classic rock songs.

Tim Melanson: Wow.[00:33:00]

Chris Castanes: So, so there’s a, there’s a, uh, several bands out there that do, uh, you know, a lot of punk bands that will do covers of classic rock songs.

And then there’s some that, that’s all they exclusively do. And I really like that kind of stuff. So like, there’s a band called Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of

Tim Melanson: heard them. Yeah, I’ve heard of them.

Chris Castanes: yeah. They’ve been around for years and years. I, I mean, I love listening to that. Uh, that’s what I like playing on musically and, um.

So, yeah, that’s a, you know, it’s one of those things where it’s just fun to hear it and listen to it and, and it’s, you know, fun to play. Uh, um, you know, when you’re, when you’re in a, you know how this is when you’re in a band and somebody’s like, well, let’s play this song and it okay. But it’s really slow and. People might want to hear it, but it’s not fun to play. You know, and then there’s things that you just want to play, and it’s loud and it’s, you know, keeping you busy and making your brain go a hundred miles an hour. That’s, that’s the kind of stuff I like. So, and, and I, especially when you’re a little a [00:34:00] DD like I am, and, you know, so.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for rocking out today with me today, Chris. This has been a lot of fun.

Chris Castanes: Well, thank you Tim, and you’re doing a great service out there too. I, I appreciate your podcast, you, you share a lot of great guests and have lots of good information to share with people, so thank thanks to you as well. I.

Tim Melanson: Oh, thank you so much. Right on. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information. We’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. I’m very excited for today’s episode. We’ve got founder Mark Aylward, what he does is he helps successful men rebuild confidence after hardship. Actually, better yet, he helps capable men rebuild confidence after hardship.

I’m very excited to be rocking out today with Mark. Hey, mark, are you ready to rock?

Mark Aylward: I am Tim. Thank you for having me.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So we always start off here in a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, so I built and sold two, uh, successful IT staffing companies. The first one was with my mentor. He basically invested in me and taught me everything about starting a contract recruiting firm. And then I went off and did it on my own with a buddy of mine years later. So I think the, you know, all of the topics that you, uh, talk about are very interesting to me because I spent my entire life.

Helping people progress professionally, [00:01:00] mostly in the forms of getting them better jobs or promotions and negotiate on, on their behalf. But the, I remember my first placement was a single father with three young boys who was about to lose his house. And uh, that’s the first time I ever heard, mark, you saved my life.

And, uh. I’ll never forget that. I remember thinking that day, this is what God wants me to do, so I should start, I should start to figure this out. And there’s all kinds of other stories around that one. But that, when you said what you said, that’s the one that popped into my head.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Well, and now unfortunately, sometimes the good notes have to come along with bad notes too. So the things that don’t go as planned. And I do like to talk about both of those things. ’cause yes, I mean, we all have great success stories, but also a lot of things that keep people out of, of making changes in their lives is the fear of failure.

And I wanna make sure that people understand that we all, we all have the bad notes from time to time, and you can recover from those. [00:02:00] So can you share one that we can, uh, learn from?

Mark Aylward: Yeah, I think even though I have a, a litany of interesting stories around a very contentious divorce and my children and I are all happy and healthy now, and, and very loving relationships. So we came out of that storm. The one that strikes me as most relevant perhaps to your audience is, you know, when I sold my second company, um, it was under duress.

Uh, and that’s related to the divorce. One of the things that we did not do, and I would advise this of anybody contemplating building a company or selling a company, is we did a great job on the due diligence with regard to the financials. Uh, we were great with the numbers. What we didn’t do is investigate the culture and the culture of where you’re going to work.

Because I went to work for these people for a two year contract post sale. What we discovered about the culture is we weren’t a good fit for the culture at all. And, [00:03:00] um, I regret not investigating that. It did impact my earnout, it impacted my satisfaction, my happiness. It was a rough couple of years. And, uh, but, but who knew?

You know, I mean, when you don’t, when you’ve never done something before, you’re usually going to miss something. And, uh, investigating the financials is great, but you also do need to investigate the culture because. Companies buy other companies for reasons they might want geographic locations, they might wanna expand in a particular direction.

From an industry standpoint, there’s a purpose behind the purchase. And without understanding the purpose behind the purpose, the purpose behind the purchase, if you will, um, you’re probably gonna get it wrong. And we did. So that was, uh, that’s a big one. There are many others, so if you wanna talk mistakes, we could stay here for a while, Tim.

Tim Melanson: Well, uh, the, the idea of culture does keep coming up quite often and more and more now than it did 10 years ago when I started the [00:04:00] podcast. And, you know, it, it is interesting because people do think about the numbers. I mean, not everybody, but, but, but you, you tend to think about, about the numbers. Okay, is this a profitable company?

Is this something that I’m gonna buy? And even when it comes to hiring, when it comes to. Finding top talent, people will focus on the talent instead of the culture. Like there’s so many, like areas of your business that, you know, you think of the obvious thing, but you don’t think of the culture as much.

And now that’s becoming more and more important because I think a lot of people are, um, gravitating towards culture and there’s so many different types of companies that you can be interested in. I’m wondering, like, is is that something that comes up in other areas of the business too? Is culture.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, I, you know, I spend a vast amount of my time on LinkedIn. It’s my source of marketing and leads, and I create a lot of content. I build my authority there. I build my credibility there. And there’s a lot of talk on LinkedIn about work. I mean, that’s what the platform started for. [00:05:00] It’s become other things as well, but.

The big thing about culture is I’ve gone into hundreds of companies over the course of about 30 years, maybe thousands, from small companies to Fortune 100 companies, and when you look at a company through the lens of how they hire people, what I’ve con my contention is that how companies hire people is how they do everything.

And the, it’s hiring, it’s onboarding, it’s training and development, and I see. An almost absence of consistent culture because I don’t think, to your point, I don’t think people pay attention to it. I think people kind of expect it to occur or it’s gonna trickle down from the top because whoever the CEO is, or the founder or the owner, who he or she might be is what the culture’s gonna look like.

I think that’s a false assumption. I think culture needs attention. And what I see on LinkedIn is one of two [00:06:00] things. People complaining about their culture and not doing anything about it, or people not talking about it for fear that they’ll be punished for talking about

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Mark Aylward: And I never understood that probably ’cause I’m an entrepreneur, I say whatever I want and that.

That’s usually helpful for everyone, but not always. Um, and I remember having a conversation with my first boss when he was yelling at me in front of people and I pulled him into his office and I said, look. I love this work. I love this job. I, I appreciate you signing my paycheck. I’m very grateful. But if you ever yell at me in front of other people, particularly people that you want me to supervise, I’m walking out that door and you’ll never see me again.

It can, it completely changed our relationship for the better. And I told, I’ve told him recently, ’cause we still talk. I don’t, were you doing that on purpose or you just being a dick? And he doesn’t even remember the incident. It was probably 25 years ago, but that was my first taste of. [00:07:00] Am I gonna do anything about this or am I gonna let myself be treated poorly?

And that’s a cultural thing for me. It’s, it comes up as toxicity on the LinkedIn platform, and I just think I, I don’t think anyone pays enough attention to it. I don’t think most companies do it well. I think it’s often just a sign on the wall that you walk by every once in a while and you’re reminded of this vision or this mission, but it doesn’t translate into the day-to-day environment.

And I think it’s a really missed opportunity for most companies.

Tim Melanson: So do you have any suggestions on how, you know, if you were just starting a new business or if you were trying to overhaul your current business? Just some, some tips on how they can create that culture. Like intentionally.

Mark Aylward: Well, I think it comes down to values. Think this is when I coach people individually, I talk a lot about alignment and then what I mean by alignment is are you doing and saying things that are in alignment with what you [00:08:00] truly believe in? And Tim, I find most people never have that discussion with themselves.

We just make assumptions about what our values are like. Everybody wants to be known as honest. Everyone wants to be known as kind. Everyone wants to be known. But I think about things like clarity. And being concise and being consistent and being personally accountable. And those are all admirable traits, but left unsaid, left, you know, alone.

They don’t just happen. Right. So I think that if I were to advise someone, which I do advise people when they’re contemplating starting companies, ’cause that’s kind of in my. Wheelhouse. Um, I would, that’s the first thing I do with everybody, whether they’re starting a company or just looking to improve their personal circumstances, is let’s talk about what’s important to you and let’s, let’s get that on the table.

And I’m not here to agree or disagree with what your values are. That’s not my judgment to make, but I do [00:09:00] think it’s helpful and it’s critical that we, if you start writing content, if you start speaking out loud, if you start visiting clients and making phone calls. What comes outta your mouth should start with, this is what we believe in, this is who we are.

And I think it’s that simple. I think it’s just give it attention, make it an exercise, and then understand like any exercise, like sit-ups, you gotta do ’em every day. You can’t just do a hundred of ’em one day and expect you’re gonna have six packs. Abs. That’s not the way stuff works. So I hope I answered your question.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, you did it. I mean, really it’s, I mean, when we choose our friends, when we choose our relationships, I mean, all those are hopefully considering values first. Right? And, and picking people that will fit that. So why not your companies? Right. I think people just, I. Assume that they gotta fill a spot with the, the best, you know, technical talent of that AR area, but they don’t necessarily think of, [00:10:00] you know, how is that person aligning with what I believe?

And if you believe the, the same things, you don’t have to convince anybody of that, right? Mm-hmm.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, it’s, it really is a, a, a heavy ball, um, the, this, not this idea of hiring people, which is my, you know, if I have an area of expertise, that’s certainly one of them, just from the, the amount of years I’ve done it is, is the. This idea that I never hired anybody because of their experience. Not once. And uh, ’cause I didn’t care what their experience was.

I wanted them to be honest. I wanted them to be hardworking. I wanted them to be personally accountable. And my favorite question in the interview process, Tim, and sometimes it was the only question I asked was, tell me about the hardest thing that’s ever happened to you in your life and how you came out the other side.

Um, and, and I get storytelling. I get creativity. I get imagination. I get personal accountability. I get everything I need. Or I don’t with that answer. And, and I think, [00:11:00] and you’re a software guy or an IT guy. I don’t know if you’re, I, I assume programming is part of that skillset. So, you know, the garbage in, garbage out thing is, is something you’re aware of.

But I, I think the other thing about hiring is people hate to do it. It’s the process itself is so cumbersome. It’s so burdensome. It takes so much time. And, uh, I’ve never met. A CIO that liked hiring? Not once. So I think what people do is they get into the hiring process and then they settle because they get sick of it.

And I think that’s way more common than most people understand.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And then what’s even more fun is firing.

Mark Aylward: Oh man, it’s the worst. Uh, it’s I’ve, I’ve never done it without allowing people to keep their dignity. I was always very sensitive to that. But also Tim, even though it’s the hardest thing to do as a business owner, in my estimation, [00:12:00] it was also always the best thing to do for both parties. And I used to tell people, look, this the way that I do this recruiting thing.

Is my way. You don’t, you don’t fit into my way. And it took us a few months to figure that out and that’s okay. So you’ll be better. Better off going, finding a way that suits you. ’cause my way is not the only way and will be better off because we will have one less frustrated person, you know, working here every day.

So let’s just agree to, to part ways, respectfully and um, that always went pretty well. It just looking, getting ready for it was always the hardest part. You know, the actual doing it was, was, wasn’t always that hard. Couple times it was.

Tim Melanson: Agreed. So I’ve got a lot of analogies in this, uh, podcast, and one of them we talk about is practice. So, I mean, in music it’s, it’s, it’s obvious, you know, you do need to practice before you go do your big show in business, I’m not sure if it’s as obvious. Do, do, do you have practices that [00:13:00] you do to make sure that you’re up on, you know, the latest in your business?

Mark Aylward: I do, I, I, and it’s a great topic. I really, I was resistant to goal setting. Um, I always have been, I always felt pressure from goal setting. And, um, I was, I worked for people that set goals for me, set goals with me. And, but when I started working for myself and even more recently, I’m, I’m a huge. Proponent of process and, and if, if the process works, if it’s something you can do relatively quickly, something you can look forward to doing consistently every day, something that it has a simplicity to it that doesn’t make it burdensome and it supports.

Whatever your goal is, and for most of us that run our own companies, that one of those goals is revenue, right? And you could take revenue, you could take profit, you know, six of one half dozen of the other profit’s [00:14:00] more accurate, but they’re both aspirational goals, right? One comes with the other usually. I get first thing in the morning. I get up and I do, uh, I have a prayer ceremony. I’m, I’m a Catholic and I went to Notre Dame and they send me an email every morning about whatever gospel’s being read at mass that day. And I read that with my girlfriend in person or on, on FaceTime. That starts me off.

That’s really cool and it’s simple. Um, then we do some breath work, Wim h breathing, if you know who Wim Hof is, and if you don’t, you should look ’em up when we’re done. Um, and that’s a 15 minute exercise that is vibrates. I get my face in the sun, I drink some water, and I, I open up my journal and my journaling is, uh, is, is the point of your question.

And that is, that’s where all of my processes and systems sit. And I could go into detail on that. At another point in time because it’s fairly detailed, but it’s very simple. The exercise of [00:15:00] filling out that page in my journal takes me about 10 minutes. And so by the time the sun rises, I’m ready to go.

You know? And, and I think all of that sits well into your concept of. The musician that, you know, you gotta play those chords over and over and over and over again. So, um, my, my repetitive tasks are pretty obvious. They’d be creating content, commenting on posts, writing posts, doing videos, guesting on podcasts, anything to get the word out there to people about who I am and what I do.

And then what comes back is people with whom that resonates, usually engage me in some capacity. That’s an oversimplification, but that’s the way that works.

Tim Melanson: Well, okay. So for me, uh, with journaling, uh, we’ll take that as a, as an example, I’ve been an off and on journaler for 20 years. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll be very, very good at it for a while and then just sort of forget about it. I don’t even understand how that [00:16:00] happens. And then I’ll be on a podcast or something like that and someone will mention journaling.

Oh yeah, geez, I haven’t done that in a while. And they’ll get back to it. I’m wondering, how do you, how do you stay consistent? How are your, or are you also off and on?

Mark Aylward: I was for a long time. Uh, and then I bumped into a guy that had a structure that resonated with me. It had a spiritual bent to it, which resonated with me. Um, it was funny, I was wrestling with myself a couple years ago, the difference between prayer and meditation, and I had this little kind of. Pagan versus Catholic argument with myself, like, if you’re meditating is, are you doing a disservice to God?

Or like, it was really interesting. I was really struggling with the conversation, so I just got rid of the meditation and stayed with the prayer. That was part of it. And so, uh, that makes me feel an obligation. ’cause God’s involved. I gotta, I gotta show up for God this morning, you know? So. That might be a large part of it, but you know, sometimes we’re just ready [00:17:00] for things that we weren’t ready for two years ago or five years ago.

Sometimes things resonate because someone says them to you differently, and one of my favorite phrases is we need to be reminded far more often than we need to be educated. You know? So most of the stuff that you tell me, I will have heard already, and most of the stuff I tell you, you will have heard already.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yep. I agree. So a structure is, is, is useful and, and I agree. I, I find, I think that the times that I’ve. Been very good at my journaling has been when maybe I’ll get like a book that has a journal component to it and you’ve got this structure that you can follow. ’cause I mean journaling, what do you write?

What, like, unless there’s something, some sort of steps that you can follow, it’s just, I, I don’t even know what to do. Right.

Mark Aylward: Well, there’s a, there’s a school of thought that says just brain dump, just free flow, right? I mean, I think getting things out of your system is cathartic no matter what it looks like. [00:18:00] So I would say to people that are contemplating this or are struggling with it, as you’ve suggested, as ’cause I did too, structure for sure is one of the solutions.

If you’re, if you’re a God person, you know, being obligated for to God for something is pretty powerful. If you’re not, of course it doesn’t make any difference, but, um, the structure of mine is there are things that I write. And then there are boxes that I check like, did you pray today? Boom. Check. You know, did you, what’s your flow anchor today?

Gratitude. Okay. Check. You know, and then I was, I don’t know if you know Andrew Huberman. The, the psychologist therapist, celebrity, um, he talks about psychological things all the time. He’s a very bright guy. Uh, interesting fellow. I heard him long, not long ago. Say, people do, I am statements. I am, you know, I’m, I’m struggling with self-doubt.

I’m struggling with imposter syndrome. If you flip that, instead of saying [00:19:00] I am, say you are. You then become a third party advocate of you. It’s not you telling yourself anything anymore. This expert is telling you this and it’s incredibly interesting. I see you nodding your head when I, I said that to my doctor the first time months ago.

She goes, dad, that makes perfect sense. I go, yeah, it’s pretty crazy, you know, so something to consider trying, you know, if you, if you want to get back into some journaling and some structure. So I make a list of things and instead of being self-doubt, I am confident. Right. Instead of being, you know, prideful, I’m humble.

You know, it, it, they’re, they’re easy to flip, right? But the, the notion of saying, and so that’s a list. There’s two or three lists. And then another thing is I pick five areas of my life that I just throw a little love and gratitude at. And could just be a five second thought. It could be a prayer, it could be a phone call.

These five things require my love and [00:20:00] attention every day. And before I did that, like my children, God, my girlfriend, my business, my health, before I did that, I would, like most people probably, I would go all in on one of them and neglect the other three or four. And that’s just human nature. So this, this reminder to give all five of these areas.

A little bit of love. It’s pretty powerful. So that, again, back to the structure of my journal.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Now another thing that I found is good for accountability is being accountable to another person, right? Like either finding like a mastermind or a coach or some sort of accountability partner because like, like you say, I mean trying to be accountable to yourself. I mean, you let yourself down all the time,

Mark Aylward: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: But as soon as you put something else, like either God or, or maybe another person in into the mix, now it’s like, oh, I’m gonna go meet with so and so. I better do what I said I was gonna do before I go meet with him.

Mark Aylward: yeah, it’s very powerful point. It’s really, I, I, um. [00:21:00] I just wrote something about accountability and, and human nature being, uh, we don’t like to be held accountable. Um, none of us do. And but even the ones of us that don’t like to be held accountable know that we need to be held accountable. And, uh, I I, I don’t practice the accountability buddy.

Uh, I just, that phrase just turns me off. Maybe I should just call it something else, but I do have a few guys. Um, and my children and my girlfriend and my dad and my, my older brother in particular who don’t let me get away with things. And I, I don’t think, I try to get away with things. I’ve, I learned a long time ago that the light shines on all of us eventually.

You know, you can hide whatever you try, whatever you want to try and hide, but they’re gonna, people are gonna figure it out eventually. But I think you’re right. I think. You know, if you’re going to the gym in the morning, not to meet anybody, you’re gonna miss some days. But if you gotta meet somebody there at [00:22:00] seven o’clock, you’re gonna probably be a lot more likely to get there because you don’t wanna let them down.

So, I agree.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And what about o other types of coaches? Like are you a type of person that hires coaches in in the past or even in the current.

Mark Aylward: I just terminated a relationship with a coach and it wasn’t for anything bad. It was just, I felt like I’ve reached. At the end of what this person can offer me. And I started to hear some redundancy in the messaging and I’m like, this is just a decision I need to make. And, um, yeah, I think that hiring, ’cause I’m a coach, right?

I, and I think that, you know, the, the classic example everyone wants to talk about is just Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan, or, you know, they all have coaches. They all have multiple coaches for exactly what we’re talking about. To be held accountable to help, to help you get outta your own way. You know, we often cannot see what’s wrong with us.

Um, there’s biblical verses about [00:23:00] that all over the place. Um, you know, the, the, we can see the splinter in someone else’s eye, but we can’t see the log in our own eye. You know, that’s. That’s a parable. I think coaches are great. I think the most important part of a coach is that he or she has to resonate with you.

I don’t think the messaging is, is as nearly as important as the resonance, which would involve integrity and values and consistency and accountability and, um. I have this phrase that keeps coming up that I started using that I’m gonna keep using ’cause I like it. It’s called kind candor and, and kindness to me is telling people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Mark Aylward: That’s being nice. And I think being nice is basically kissing someone’s ass. I don’t think it’s productive at all. Uh, and candor is required because I’m not gonna gloss over something because I’m concerned about how it might make you feel. But if I’m trying to be kind while I’m being candid, then it probably will be.[00:24:00]

Accepted. It probably will be heard, it probably will resonate, but candor without kindness is ineffective. It’s old school. And kindness without candor is a waste of time. So, um, that’s, those are my thoughts about that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I, I agree. And I mean, if, if the person on the other end of it doesn’t take your kind candor, well then they’re not, they’re not in a place where they’re ready to grow anyway, and there’s really nothing you could have done to, to help them at that particular

Mark Aylward: know? Yeah. It’s, it’s so true. And I think, you know, I’ve had family and friends experience with things like addiction and, and alcoholism, and it’s almost unlikely that, that any of us don’t have some connection to that. And if you have, you’ll, you’ll know. And I’m, I’m in it right now with one of my brothers to be transparent and, um, he’s not ready for help.

And it doesn’t matter what I do, [00:25:00] it doesn’t matter how logical I am, it doesn’t matter the damage that’s being done. It doesn’t matter, uh, until someone is ready to be helped. It’s very difficult to help ’em. So I don’t push myself on people for exactly that reason. I, I want people to come to me. I want people to say, I, I read your thing over here, and it was interesting to me.

Can we talk a little further so I don’t chase people down for exactly that reason?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and, and uh, to flip that around too, like I, I, I have noticed that if I react poorly to something that someone else says, like, to, to that, you know, kind candor, I, I find that that’s like a. It’s like a, like a, a marker for me. I, I kind of go, okay, why am I getting upset right now? Because, you know, there’s something in our, probably in our psyche that’s just blocking us just like it is with the people in our lives that we’re trying to help, that they don’t necessarily know that they’re getting triggered for, for whatever it is.

But I do find that those triggers are, are illuminating.[00:26:00]

Mark Aylward: I agree. I think that’s a great level of self-awareness and which is a great quality to have. I, I pride myself in being self-aware. I don’t think you can be too self-aware, but maybe you can. I, I think that, you know, like yesterday I, something happened that made me angry and I don’t like to be angry. I very rarely am angry, and to your point, I, I stopped myself and I thought I was about to say something to someone else I was talking to, and it was.

It was layered in this anger that had nothing to do with them, and I paused, which is another thing that I teach people to do. When emotion comes, you don’t re, you don’t respond. You pause and regain object activity to the extent that you can. My, my dad taught me that as a fighter pilot. What’s the first thing you do when an engine catches on fire?

He says nothing. Absolutely nothing because if you react out of fear, chances are people will die. And if you don’t, if you stop yourself and regain your objectivity, all that training that’s in your head will come back to you and you’ll know what to do. [00:27:00] And I just, I, um, that’s a powerful lesson that, that I share with everybody.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Yeah, no, I, I, I agree. So, okay. I’m excited to talk about your business. So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now.

Mark Aylward: So as I, as we kind of alluded to in our pre-game discussion, I, I really had, I had to make a choice because on one hand what I do, helping people improve professionally. As well as personally, ’cause I can’t do one without the other. Um, and I think they’re closely tied. I can’t help everybody. I’ve had so many conversations with people who would not want to have a discussion with someone who is an expert in getting better work.

Right? Almost everyone is open to that discussion. Well, you can’t market to everyone. You can’t message everyone or you’ll help no one. Right. And that’s a classic marketing, uh, mistake that people make. I’m, I’m, this thing’s good for [00:28:00] everybody. Well, that, that doesn’t matter. So I had to pick, and over the last couple years I thought, I, I’m investigating this notion of how confused we are about what a man is today.

And that’s not a political statement, that’s just an observation. And there’s all kinds of historical data to support this. If you’re familiar with the Harvard study of men that goes back to the 1930s, they got 85, 90 years of data. They just interviewed men about happiness, and over the course of 80 to a hundred years, they went from just white men to all kinds of different colored men to their children, to their wives, to some of them are grandparents, some of them have passed away.

So it’s a really robust set of data and it, it. It really intrigued me that men were struggling so much and then I thought, well, I have some of this experience. I have had some hardship, I’ve had some adversity. I lost everything, and I’ve been able to recover from that. What a wonderful thing to be able to help someone else do.[00:29:00]

And to your point about how many female coaches there are out there and how few male coaches there are out there. I remember walking around in the courthouse ’cause I was in that courthouse for. 10 years off and on, like all the time. And people are wandering around and they’re scared and they’re anxious and they’re depressed and they’re frightened and they’re unclear about what to what?

Like where is this room 3 0 5 where I have to go in and lose my house and you know, my children. And I just thought to myself, there’s a lot of people that need help, so I’m just gonna grab this. The sliver of middle aged men, because that’s when life, you know, you’re running in your twenties, you’re running in your thirties, you’re starting a family.

Maybe you’re having kids every, you’re just running, right? And then at some point, probably around 40, but there’s not a number. It’s just a guess. All of a sudden, life slows down a little and you get to look around and. [00:30:00] Not all of us, like what we see when we look around and, and we recognize I haven’t had time to even breathe until now and I don’t like the way that looks.

So what do I do about that? Well talk to Mark. You know, so again, an oversimplification, but that’s it. It’s so serving other people like that and having people say things to you like. You saved me. You know, you, I’m, I feel completely different now. I’m optimistic again. I’m hopeful again, I have a plan of action that you’ve helped me define, and I’m gonna start taking these steps and I’m gonna come back to you to get refreshed periodically.

And that’s, that’s really worked out well. That’s really become my messaging is there. My coaching is there, my content is there. Everything is kinda lined up nicely and I, I feel again, like this is kind of what God wants me to do.

Tim Melanson: Why do you think it is that there are so many female coaches, but not as many male coaches?[00:31:00]

Mark Aylward: It’s a great question. I, these are just opinions.

Um, so, so not facts, but I’ve got two daughters. Both of them are entrepreneurs. Both of them are successful, they’re beautiful, they’re intelligent, they’re hardworking, they’re feminine and they’re tough. And, um, women are more open. To being coached. Women are more open to talking about things that are bothering them.

That’s gotta be one of the reasons. Um, guys, on the other hand, in my experience, you know, if I had conversations with some of my friends that I grew up with, that in a really intimate fashion, they would start to tease me. They would start to make fun of me. They would, they would say, they would call me names that I can’t repeat here on your podcast.

And that’s all fun and good. Um, I think it’s those two reasons. I think that men are not willing, at least by perception, to be coached about intimate [00:32:00] things. And that’s the only way to get past hardship is to talk about tough things and, and women are more open to it. But I also think that the culture that we live in is yelling at the world You need to help the women more.

The men are fine. And the men are not fine. That’s a misinterpretation. But I, I think it’s something that’s kind of lasted even after it stopped being fine and we just haven’t adjusted yet. I’m writing a, a book right now, Tim, and it’s, I’m in the middle of this historical transition from my, my dad knew exactly who he was.

He was a fighter pilot. He was an airline pilot. He was a father, he was a provider, he was a protector. There was never any question about that. Right when I started to grow up, that’s when things started. Feminism arrived in the seventies, maybe even arguably the sixties, and a lot of that was good. We needed a lot of those things.

Women deserved a lot of the stuff that came with that. But what we didn’t do is we didn’t [00:33:00] replace the old masculinity definition with a new one. We just said, don’t do that. We didn’t say, do this instead. So that just leaves men confused. And I, I see examples of that everywhere. So that’s, that’s a long-winded answer to why I think there are more female coaches than there are male coaches.

And then when I went to study my competition there, there isn’t any, you know. it’s crazy.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, because, because I mean, the other side of it is that there are probably less men willing to even take on that role in the first place, let alone the men that wanna take it.

Mark Aylward: I, I certainly didn’t see that path coming. It, it came for me. It didn’t come because I was trying to, to attract, I mean, who wants to attract hardship, right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it, I, I think, I think you’re right. I think men are sort of like supposed to be strong and have it all together, and they’re supposed to be the [00:34:00] leaders of the households and all that stuff from what we’ve been taught. But like you say, things have changed. And now a lot of those things were like, you know, I remember just being even confused if I’m supposed to hold a door open for a woman or not.

Mark Aylward: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: you know, just like, just the basics of it of going like, I, I think I, I should, isn’t that nice? Like, aren’t I being a good person by holding a door open? Why am I getting yelled at right now? Right.

Mark Aylward: yeah. No, it’s, it’s so funny that I’ve used that analogy many times. ’cause I, I opened the door for everybody

Tim Melanson: so do I.

Mark Aylward: and, and I say hi to everybody. Matter of fact, I was pulling into the grocery last night and I, I was coming around. From this angle and there was a open parking spot there and there was someone in front of me.

That was coming this way and she was there before me, but I had the, I had the space to just slide into that spot and essentially flip her the bird. And I just, I just chuckled and I, I went straight past her and pulled into [00:35:00] the left and gave her that position. And we both got out of the cars at the same time and she just said, thank you so much for doing that.

You’re a good person. And I said, that would’ve been a dick move. And we both got a laugh out of it. It was really funny. I think, I think strong women are really comfortable with masculine men. I think it’s insecure women that aren’t, and I don’t, I don’t suffer. Insecurity. Uh, I’m not judgemental about it, but I’m like, if what I say or do in kindness and good intention is offensive to you, that’s not my problem.

That’s your problem. And I’m not taking that on as my problem, whether you want me to or not. I’m sorry, not doing that. So that’s a very interesting place to be. ’cause as you seem to understand, it’s, uh, why are we confused about these things? Right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it seems, but I mean, hey, who, who knows? Uh, however, I think I, I hope that now men are gonna be [00:36:00] more open to accepting that help. And I, I think maybe can kind of like even flipping back to what we talked about earlier about the, the, the kind candor, right. You know, if. If you’re feeling like triggered regularly by, by things and angry and, and upset and sad and all that stuff, well then maybe that’s the time to kind of look inside and go, okay, maybe I need a little bit of help with this ’cause I don’t know how to fix it right now.

Right.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, well, there’s a humility to that that’s, that’s challenging for people to call upon. I, I think it certainly was for me, I mean, a couple things that happened to me after my contentious divorce and being a single dad was I just became a much better listener. And that’s a good thing. I told you a little bit about the fact that my daughter’s, you know, I, I went through everything that a mother’s supposed to go through as a father.

I’ve had a couple people tell me, I think your experience as a single father of two girls has shaped you in a fashion that makes you somewhat unique. And I keep getting reminded of that. And I think the other interesting and kind of funny [00:37:00] part is, you can’t tell this on, on the podcast, but I’m 6 4 225 pounds.

I’m not a small man and I can be very loud and, uh, so people assume I’m masculine and I believe that I am. But when I come at them with the soft side. I see a lot of surprises. Like I’ve had people tell me before, I didn’t expect that at all, and I’m like, good. That’s good.

Tim Melanson: Good. Alright, so then how do we find out more then?

Mark Aylward: Yeah, I mean mark a word.com and it’s mark with a k and a word is A-Y-L-W-A-R-D. And everything that I do can be accessed from there. I would also suggest looking me up on LinkedIn and my name, a word mark is, is my, my, I think if you type in mark a word, I show up, my LinkedIn profile shows up as the number one choice.

’cause it’s a, it’s an obscure English name that doesn’t really. Have much, um, presence here in the States. It’s a Newfoundland, [00:38:00] Ireland, England Trail, you know, Nova Scotia and um. So, yeah, there’s a, and I think the first step for anybody that is intrigued by anything I’ve said would be just click the button that’s on that front page.

There’s like three or four of them. As you scroll down, it just says, schedule a conversation and it’s a 30 minute call. We, I do it for free and I basically just get to where I can tell you at the end of that how I can help you. If I can help you. And I’ll also, if you choose not to. Access my help at that.

I’ll give you a couple things that you can take action on that will move you forward, uh, free of charge. So it’s a, it’s a kindness gesture, but it’s also, you know, there’s a sales component to it. I just don’t get salesy on the call. ’cause as I told you earlier, I’m not interested in convincing anybody about anything.

I’m interested in people saying, that resonates with me. I want to hear more.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. You can’t help anybody who’s not ready anyway. Right. So

Mark Aylward: No, no,

Tim Melanson: right on.

Mark Aylward: no. You can’t.

Tim Melanson: One more question might be the hardest one. Who’s [00:39:00] your favorite rockstar?

Mark Aylward: Ha,

Tim Melanson: I.

Mark Aylward: that’s easy for me. He passed a couple years ago, but Tom Petty, um, I went to a Tom Petty concert when I was 15 years old at the Cape Cod Coliseum, which doesn’t exist anymore. And he was the backup band for a band called the Jay Isles Band, which is a, if you’re not from the northeast, you might not know them, but they were.

They were, they had their fame for a while and uh, they were a big deal. And then this band that the blue stage lit up and all of a sudden this song called, I Need to Know, started getting played. And I’m like, man, and I saw him three or four times and it’s, he’s always the best cons, best live show I’ve ever been to.

And, um, my daughters are fans of his now we’ve got all kinds of literature around the house, books about him. And yeah, that was an easy question for me.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Don’t get many that know it. Exactly. That’s awesome. Oh, Tom Petty is amazing. I’ve got so many, uh, I [00:40:00] know so many of his songs that I do in my cover work and it. Always gets a, a great reaction from everybody. Like men, women, everybody, everybody loves Tom Petty.

Mark Aylward: have you, have you seen, I think it’s called Wildflower, the

documentary.

Tim Melanson: I have, yeah. Very good.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, it’s a fantastic, it’s a fantastic film. Rick Rubin’s in it. I, as I recall, really interesting. I just found him to be a really interesting guy the whole time. He was a great musician. I mean, he did, he’s the one who said, these tickets are too expensive.

Don’t raise your prices. I want my fans to be able to see me. He was, uh, he had a very challenging life as well, personally. But, um, yeah, that was an, that was a, that was an easy question for me,

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, mark, for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, me too. I’ve had a great time and uh, maybe we can do it again sometime.

Tim Melanson: Great. Yes. Awesome. To the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. Excited for today’s episode. We are talking to the owner of Fight Club, martial Arts and Archery Training Center, incorporated. He also the Master’s method. So I’m excited to be rocking out with today with Emmanuel. Hey, he helps people to go inward and I guess figure out who they are and, uh, we’re gonna learn a lot more about that in a few minutes.

So welcome to the show, Emmanuel Manolakakis.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Man, look. You got it, man.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So, hey Emmanuel, you ready to rock?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: I am right.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. We always start off here in a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Oh, many, many, uh, stories of success. I mean, uh, for fight club, uh, man, it’s been, um, getting close to 25 years for, uh, martial art club, and I still remember. In the first year or some first year that I started, uh, uh, teaching. It was just the part-time thing at the time. Uh, you know, somebody came in [00:01:00] and said, uh, straight out to me, if you could imagine this set out to me.

Uh, he was looking at different packages that I had for training in martial arts and he said, uh, I’ll, I’ll take the six month one because. Most martial art clubs don’t make it to two or three years. So he goes, I don’t wanna Right to like imagine right to your face. I was still shocked and like basically said, you won’t be around so I don’t wanna commit to you.

And I’m like, wow. That’s, that’s it. I I, and at first it upset me and then I realized, but that’s the truth. And this is the hard part of, of, of life, right? This is the truth. And I said, you know what? I’m gonna make sure that I do everything in my power to make sure that it makes it to three years.

Tim Melanson: That’s a good goal.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: it’s now it’s 25, and it was, I, every time I’m here, every time I do another year, and January’s coming around the corner now, every time I do another year.

I’m just, I’m so grateful and blessed that to be able to do this, I know there’s not many martial arts schools, uh, operating at a full-time capacity, uh, for this long. Um, so I’m quite special. I mean, it, it’s a testament [00:02:00] to a lot of the hard work, but at the same time, it’s still, um, so much of being an entrepreneur.

Being a person is a little bit of luck, right? Like, you gotta, you gotta get lucky too. You gotta be good. You gotta be lucky too. So I’ve been blessed with both. Um, so that’s a great, that’s one of my good, one of my favorite stories that it’s still around ’cause of what that person said.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Uh, I mean it’s, uh, it, it’s definitely the same in just about any business, right? I mean, there’s, most businesses don’t make it through even the first year. So,

Emmanuel Manolakakis: No they don’t. Yeah, they don’t.

Tim Melanson: yeah. So now I.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: go ahead.

Tim Melanson: Well, well, so I was gonna say like on that note, I mean there are things that don’t go as planned, which is the reason why most businesses don’t get through.

And I like to talk about these bad notes because it’s something that keeps people out a lot. You know, they think maybe that person who would’ve said that to them, maybe, maybe they might’ve went, ah, okay, maybe I shouldn’t be doing this. Right. Um, so I was wondering, can you share with us something that didn’t go as planned, something that was a [00:03:00] big mistake that you recovered from?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Okay. Big mistakes, so. When I first started, so there’s, it’s not. I, I don’t see things as right and wrong. Uh, but you can, we can look at this for your listeners. There are things that just happen and no matter, you know, no matter how good we all are, like as an athlete, when I was a younger athlete and I played it pretty high level sports, um, you know, we practiced all week long and we had a great plan and we, we thought of it, everything that could happen.

But when the game happened, man, it all went, it all went. The shit, you know, just went crazy and you just realize the team that will really make it to a higher level. Are the ones that are adaptable, the teams that are able to be, you watch it in hockey, you watch it in baseball, the teams that play together, and that can adapt quickly because everybody’s figuring you out and you’ve gotta be adaptable.

Even as a martial artist, as a person in general, society is changing. You are changing. I mean, getting older, your, your views are changing. Your knowledge is changing. So, you know, [00:04:00] in. When it comes to martial arts, you see a lot of it’s, I, I can only speak specifically to martial arts, but it’s also to musicians.

Anybody that is in the creative realm, right? Like there’s, there’s some creativity there. Everybody begins by copying somebody, right? Like if you’re a musician, of course you’re gonna play Stairway to have it if you stay there like. For five or 10 years, you see the problem, like you’re not, there’s no authentic, and people will realize that, right?

When you’re running your own business, the biggest mistake you can make is copying all the time. Um, it’s fine to do it a little bit at the beginning only to get your bearings and then find out what’s your take on it. How did you, you know, like how did you change it? And that only comes from authenticity.

If you’re a chef, it’s you, you cook from the, the foods that you like, the things that you experienced. Or if you’re a musician, well you, you develop your voice, you develop your song, you develop the stories [00:05:00] and the, and the, the, the, the writing material to be more authentic. And then you connect. So, you know, in martial arts, there’s a tendency to think that you can make everybody happy.

Like somehow cover all the bases. But you can’t do that. That’s ridiculous. You can only, you can only connect with some people that wanna listen or agree with your perspective. That’s it. So don’t make the mistake of trying to make everybody happy. You don’t need to. You could just, you could just do what you do and find your raving fans that, that love you.

You know? So really start it small and like kindling wood and create a big fire of people that, um, like what you do and like exactly how you do it. That doesn’t mean that they hate other people, but they like how you do it and what you do. Right? Like, I like Johnny Cash for Johnny Cash. Like, I didn’t want Johnny Cash to be Bernie Spears.

I don’t want him to. I want that, that, that. That, that’s what I like. So I think a big mistake is, uh, [00:06:00] um, when people start to copy too long, and that can go for even a restaurant. Find your niche, man. Find your niche, find what you, find what you do, and do it really well. You know? And that, that, that is, is probably the the mistake.

The mistake I’ve seen that I did at the beginning too. I started to copy what other martial arts schools did and it was fine. It was a starting point, and then I’m like. That’s not me. I’m not, and I I’m not one of these guys that’s gonna scare students. Like, oh my God, someone’s gonna jump you and beat you up.

And I’m not, I can do that. I’m gonna teach you how to fight as a, as, as a, as a, a warrior poet, as a something. It’s beautiful. I’m not gonna, I want you to understand, you don’t have to fight because you’re angry. You can fight because you love what’s behind you. You don’t have to hate what’s in front of you.

You can just love what’s behind you. That’s all it really is. Like it. Those are old warriors we’re warriors in, in old societies, not that long ago, couple hundred years [00:07:00] ago, it was the most respected person. It’s the person that protected your society, you know, and he was, he was a noble person. It wasn’t like an animal or something.

What’s happened now in martial arts specifically is um, people are crisscrossing entertainment versions. And you know, so well listen, you know, I don’t wanna upset people. We need to be honest about stuff. Boxing used to be a beautiful martial art, but then, and then it was, but then it got associated with entertainment and then it got associated with Vegas and drinking and gambling.

And then so now it changed and it became entertainment. It’s not so much and people can’t, if you can’t see that, you don’t, you, you’re missing it. Right? Uh, MMA is a wonderful thing. Uh, it’s great, but it’s also entertainment. Right. So forget that when you’re protecting yourself, it’s your country, it’s your life.

It’s something really important. It’s not like to, to entertain you. It’s [00:08:00] like, remember that scene from Gladiator? Or you’re not entertained. Like, it’s like, he’s like, I’m in general man. I protected you guys, but now you want me to entertain you. He’s so, he was so frustrated with this concept. I’m a warrior.

I went to battle and protected freedoms and had liberty and noble and respect, and you want me not to dance around and entertain you? It’s like, I, I can’t do that side of martial arts. You know? I can appreciate it. Um, but I, I can’t, I can’t do that side. There’s, if you wanna entertain, you can go see a movie, play some sports and stuff like that.

But for me, martial arts is something a little bit different and I, I think that. Um, for your listeners, you have such a spectrum in music as you’re a musician, right? You have people that do it just for the love of music, right? And, and then they still make a quite a good living. They don’t, they’re not poor.

They’re, but they don’t want like a Britney Spears, they don’t want that, right? There’s a lot of people like this, you know, very impressive people, um, in, uh, [00:09:00] in, in the food industry. And there are people that wanna run a Michelin Star restaurant. What is the difference between a regular restaurant, Michelin, it’s just more detail. The bar is much higher. It’s really simple. They don’t care about more customers or more patrons. It’s like, this food represents me, it represents everything. And it’s like, whoa. And when you, who wouldn’t like me, part of a Michelin star, whoever hasn’t had an experience you gotta do at least once in your life, it’s pretty amazing, right?

It’s, and that bar is set by the entrepreneur.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: That the person running that restaurant, it’s a chef. His and he, he holds what he does at a very high standard, right? And entrepreneurs can choose that you, it’s your choice. Now. You can have a low standard, high standard, or somewhere in between. It’s up to you, right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, when it comes to music for sure, I mean, there’s so many things that you went through there. [00:10:00] There’s, uh, you know, even genre, right? I mean, if you’re trying to make everybody happy, you know, there are people that sort of gravitate towards one genre and if they like country and you’re playing death metal.

Probably not gonna like you very much, right?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: but I, I will tell you, I will tell you this though, there’s two, um, musicians at the Fight Club. Um. Both longtime students and one of them is a death metal guitarist. And I will tell you, I I, I’ve known him for a better part of 15 years, a wonderful man and he, um, his taste in music is all over the place.

You can go to his house and he will listen to jazz. He’ll listen to blues. He’ll, he listens to everything. This is a big misconception people have of a lot of it. At the metal guys, like people on the extreme listen to all kinds of music. You know, they’re, they don’t, they love all of it. They’re not saying, oh, it’s not, it’s not this or that.

Like a good chef, he doesn’t care. He might, he might be cooking, uh, making a [00:11:00] Japanese chef, but he can appreciate his French cooking. A, a great chefs, great people, great musicians, they totally appreciate, they love the authenticity. They see that, right. That’s, that’s a, that’s the highest to me, when you’re talking master level stuff, which is the course masters method that I teach.

It’s, it’s really just who you are. And the person that does that, uh, in, in a seamless way and who they are. It doesn’t matter if you’re a chef, a musician, a martial artist, you are showing people who you are. And that’s, I mean, I’m not sure what greater thing anybody could ask for, um, in this world than before you leave this world that people knew who you were, like most people that they don’t know that, you know.

So it really is authenticity that that’s at the core of all of this, and that doesn’t come easy.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and a lot of that, that very, very heavy, heavy metal. It’s, uh, it’s technically very, very, very difficult. Right.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Yeah. Oh yeah.

Tim Melanson: kind of like at the top level, which to [00:12:00] me that kind of makes sense. I think that’s why it’s so difficult to understand for the average person, the average person.

Um, you know, we’re bombarded with all this formulaic, very, very simple, simple music. That’s the stuff that ends up on the pop charts, right? Uh, so something that’s, that technically difficult like , you know, even in the seventies when music came out, uh, in, in the eighties and even in the nineties, I think it started change in the nineties.

Remember when you had to like, listen to something a few times before you liked it. Like, like, that doesn’t happen anymore now. I mean, you, you, the music is created in such a way that you listen to the first time and you’re hooked. And that’s how it’s created. It’s, it’s not, uh, it’s not the same, you know?

And, and I think that, I think that’s the difference between music. I think a lot of people ain. Uh, I mean you say that about fighting, it’s the same in everywhere. I think that everything has become more entertainment. It’s built for the entertainment value of it, rather than [00:13:00] just for the love of it. Right.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: I love it. Yeah, and you can always tell, because listen, like I said, copying is fine at the very beginning. We all do it. We copy our teachers, it’s fine. But at some point you have to look at yourself and say, would I really do this? Like, that’s all I’m saying. Would I really do this? Because under pressure, um, real pressure, talking game pressure, the game is on the line pressure or.

For more serious matters like a military people, like your life is on the line. Like that kind of stuff, right? Like that, that’s a lot of reality for people, right? Any of the first responders, every time they go to a call, you don’t know what you’re gonna face. It can be, people may not understand that ambulance, police, firefighter, whoever gets their first.

Somebody calls 9 1 1. Whoever gets there first is responding. And if it’s violent, it’s violent. If it’s, if it looks calm, but then becomes violent like you, their, their lives are on the line, uh, in many cases. And you, when you’re that kind of a person. You are gonna be ’cause you [00:14:00] won’t care. You’re gonna be who you are.

Right. It that’s not just for old people. You know, you meet those old people that just don’t care. Right. They just tell you if they don’t like you tell you to go to. I love, that’s so funny to me because they, they realize they don’t care. They finally reach that point where this is who I am. If you like me, great.

If you don’t, I got this way somehow. You know? And if you want to care to understand how I got here. Right. So as a teacher, I try to, I try to really understand who somebody is. So I’m, I’m teaching an art of course, but I’m also trying to understand the person and seeing how we can bring them together.

Right. And if you ever watch those shows, like the Voice. It’s really amazing how these top level singers look at a person saying, I, I, I, you’re, you’re playing somebody else’s song, but I want to hear it your way. I don’t wanna hear that person. I don’t wanna hear Billy Joel. I want your version of Billy Joel.

And then what, what those professional, you know, uh, you know, [00:15:00] singers are, are, are analyzing is, is the authenticity of that voice And it’s like a, a, somebody looking at a painting, is that a Rembrandt, you know, like. Man there, a lot goes into it, right? If you got, if you are comfortable with your voice and you’re comfortable with who you are, and you can sing somebody else’s stuff in your way, that’s what I want.

That, that I think is a good life. Like you, you’re finding your way. ’cause there is no purpose that that serves Canada, the world, anybody. If you’re just copying somebody all the time, there’s just no purpose.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: It’s just you. It,

Tim Melanson: gets you,

Emmanuel Manolakakis: yeah. The old, the old.

Tim Melanson: figure out what your style is, right?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: the old, the old Greeks used to say, when you need a hero, like when you need a hero in life, you need him now.

Not you don’t have time to train him. So who is a hero? A hero is somebody who sees things differently that nobody’s prepared for. This is the whole kung fu panda. [00:16:00] This is the whole how to train a dragon. The person was absolutely different from the, from the society and, and the enemy or the, or the problem was not ready for them. And that’s how you are victorious. And, and that says so much. Like I, that’s why I I, when I see teachers, especially with young kids, because I teach kids too, and again, here’s a whole other story. I didn’t want to teach kids if we all, I didn’t wanna teach kids, but I’m so good at it. Um. Because I don’t treat them like kids.

I imagine them as an adult. I, I fast forward to the 5-year-old, 10-year-old boy and I say, or girl and say, what do you like at 21? How do I get you to 21? That’s what I do when I teach kids. I can’t teach them at that age. Because they’re just annoying. Everybody is, is lying there that what I’m trying to do at that age is not get in their way.

Don’t, don’t change them if they’re, if they’re like loud, try to get them to quiet down, but don’t take the loud from [00:17:00] them, like that’s their voice or that’s their way. Right. Kids change so much, but people always try to correct them and then they’re, they always feel they can’t be who they want to be.

Feel that, right. Don’t take that from them. That’s the, that’s their gift that was given to them. So try to teach a kid and seeing how they’ll grow and connect the dots. That’s what a teacher should be doing, not just for kids, but for adults. The same thing. Kids are big men are just big babies. Come on.

They break. They’re all the, they’re all the same. You know?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s funny. Yeah. You take

Emmanuel Manolakakis: for, we all are.

Tim Melanson: the adult and you take the adults and you treat ’em like the

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Yes. Yes. A hundred percent. Uh, 100%. And they love it. The, the adults are so tired of adulting. They’re so tired of it. They, they wanna play more. They’re tired of being right and wrong, and they, they just wanna play more for sure.

So,

Tim Melanson: So now you mentioned earlier that, uh, you know, when you get into, uh, you know, sports, music is the same. I mean, you, you, you get, you can practice all you want, but then you get into the, to the game or [00:18:00] whatever it is, and unexpected starts to happen, and all of a

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Oh yeah.

Tim Melanson: you know, everything you practice is not the same.

So how do you practice? How do you get ready for the unexpected?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: great, great. Absolutely, great question. So you, your training has to be like that. So I, I remember, uh, watching, so I, I did, I did quite a bit of bodyguard gigging as well, so I, I did a lot of close protection work, celebrities, musicians as well. I, I won’t say their names. I’m, I’m obligated not to, but I, I still remember one musician, uh, guitarist, great guitarist by the way.

And. Nowhere. He’s, I’m watching him, right? He’s on stage. There’s, I don’t even know how many people, I’ve never seen this many people. I couldn’t run a damn mic across that stage. It was so many, I, I mean, which I was scared to just walk across the stage. Forget about sing. This guy was in the middle. He was in a rift doing just, and I was just enrolled by the, by the music.

And all of a sudden he just stops. He turns and grabs another [00:19:00] guitar and continues away. And it was like, and then I look and he broke a string in the middle of a solo, and he just seamlessly, I, I just noticed that he turned around, which like, that’s kind of an odd time to be turning around and grabbing a new guitar.

Without a hesitation, your training has to, uh, you have to say to yourself, what can go wrong? So let’s give you a martial art example, or even in as an entrepreneur, you can pick your examples. You pick a problem. So I could be in a situation with a person, all of a sudden what appears to be one person comes to more people, all of a sudden there’s three people or two people I’m facing or more.

How do I deal with that now? What would I do now?

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Okay. Or all of a sudden, in the middle of everything, I, I hurt my hand, so now I can’t use my left hand. I can only use my right hand or. What happens if in the middle of this altercation somebody grabbed me from behind? Not even a bad person. It can just be a loved one trying to [00:20:00] pull me away from the fight, but doesn’t understand all that’s going on.

And that happens a lot. A lot of people in real situations, bodyguarding for sure, they don’t understand what’s happened because a bodyguard can see things much clearer. He is, that’s. He sees ahead of it. So most people are trying to calm things down, but the situation is escalating and we need to remove people and they don’t understand them.

So you have to look at those situations and and prepare for them. And you don’t have to freak out. You just have to say, what if? Okay, we do that. So I need to practice with one hand. I need to practice against three guys coming at me. I need to pro. What if a weapon comes out, okay, now I need to have some weapons training, and then.

You have to layer and it has to surprise you in training. Your training has to be organic like that. So if I was teaching a class, I’d be like, okay guys, um, you know, go on the ground and wrestle with each other, just one [00:21:00] person at any given moment. If somebody from another group feels like jumping onto the other group, they can. All of a sudden it’s a game. But what you’re doing is you’re preparing those people for things that will not go your way. That’s all. It’s, it’s not, I, I want all your listeners to understand this is an entrepreneur’s life. You, you have to plan everything can go wrong. Like the pandemic. Think about it. For me, the pandemic, I mean, as for martial arts, it was devastating.

Right. It was devastating, but I made it and I made it because I had really dedicated students. I got online, we trained outdoors, we figured it out right, and it was seamless for me. I didn’t hesitate at all. I, I didn’t. When things go wrong, right when they go wrong, they go wrong real quick, and you need a steady hand at that exact moment.

Right. Whether you’re a general in the military or whether you’re a [00:22:00] CEO at a business, you have to not be ready to be with cliches. You have to be ready to do the real work and, and be ready to adapt. Stay positive, but not false positive. Right. Not false positive. Right. Um, I had the luxury of training with quite a few, uh, military special forces and.

It’s, the stories they tell me are, are so funny. They’re not even scary. Like we’re talking about a unit that’s completely surrounded by the enemy and they’re pinned down. They’re waiting for help. They don’t know how long it’ll be. They’re just taking fire from all sides. Like there’s just no front.

There’s like, it’s all around. They’re completely surrounded. The only help is a helicopter that could come in and rescue them and it’s like a scene of a movie, but this was real. And they said, I go, God, what were you thinking? He goes, I don’t know. One guy started talking about how his wife is probably repainting their house.

Another one is probably saying how he’s probably trying to sell his car. Like I go, they’re just talking about normal things. Because it’s too [00:23:00] intense. We, you, you and, uh, I still remember that in my sports days we’d be talking about some of the funniest things in the middle of a quite serious game because it calms you down.

Right? And there’s a scene, there’s a scene in Saving Private Ryan, the movie where the unit was starting to fall apart towards the end of the movie. They were getting all over each other and that. And, you know, uh, Tom Hanks being the, the commander of that little unit that’s looking for, for private Ryan says, uh, to his sergeant, uh, what’s the, what’s the, the, the company had this toll, ’cause he didn’t say what job he did in his civilian.

So people started raise money to see when, if they reach him out the money, he’ll say what he does and he turns to the. To the, to the unit. And he says, uh, how much is the, the, the Tali? He

Tim Melanson: pod A.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: the pod, a couple hundred bucks. But he goes, he goes, I’m a teacher and everybody. Your teacher, like if for a moment it broke that [00:24:00] like, it, it, it normalized this thing, this craziness that is the war.

It normalized it for a second. It’s like he’s just, he’s a teacher and it brought them back to when they were civilians, they took them out of like this soldier mode of like constant pressure. So, um, a, an athlete that is at the highest level. Real high levels, not amateur levels. Amateur levels is different.

High levels, they, they don’t understand how to add pressure. They study how to remove pressure because too much pressure hurts them, much like a musician. What do they think about before they go on stage? They’re getting up, but they’re also calming down.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Right. They’re also calming down. So, um, and I, I’ve watched this, you, for all your listeners, look at those people in the Olympics.

It’s a great event. Highest level, right? Pretty high. Pretty high level. Watch what a sprinter is doing before he is about to run or she’s about to run as fast as possible. They’re bouncing, they’re shaking out tension. They’re wiggling [00:25:00] their hands, they’re wiggling their feet, they’re trying to relax.

Nobody is saying they’re just trying to relax. And I’m the same under real pressure. I’m just trying to calm down and when I’m calm, that’s where my confidence lies. When I’m angry or tense, that’s where my fears go, and I don’t want to be in my fears. Right? There is a lot of things as a teacher that will piss you off and anger you.

Um, not just, not just the students. Lots of stuff life. Different obstacles that are put in your way as an entrepreneur, a lot of things will anger you. That is not where your best work lies. It’s not where your authentic work lies. The best a person can be is when they’re calm and relaxed. And it’s also, um, like I talked about, creative expression, right?

Creative expression is when you’re chill, man. That’s, that’s that. That’s when you come up with your song, that’s when you find a solution to this problem that is daunting, right? [00:26:00] So. I hope your listeners understand this. And so, as I was going along teaching martial arts, these threads were coming along.

Students were talking to me. You know, they were saying, oh my God, I, I’m going home showing my kids what you’re showing me. And I, I, I, I, they love it. I mean, you should start teaching kids, oh, I don’t teach kids. Oh my God, no. How, I can’t do this. I can’t do this. And then all of a sudden I sat down. What if I imagined them at 20 one’s so that I can do. Right. And then the fighting aspects of martial arts is an, is is another thing. Um, I, I can do that, but there came a point where I’m not really angry and the situations that I’m coming across don’t warrant a fight, but yet they are tough. So I realize that it’s inside your head. So we start working on, uh, mental training.

At that exact same time I was, I was doing very well in archery ’cause I was competing, I was still competing in archery competitions. And I realized how much of it is mental. And I really started to connect these dots. And I started showing a handful of [00:27:00] students this mental training that I go through.

And they loved it. It was, it was more important to them than the physical training. And I fully believe, um, that the future right now for all people. Going forward, past 2026 is gonna be a lot of, is being able to control your mind? That’s not a, is it? There’s just too much information, Tim, for all of us to be sitting here going that we can handle this.

This is like a crazy buffet. There’s no way we can eat all this food and people are trying to. And they’re just getting an upset stomach. They’re getting, they’re getting. And if people don’t believe me, just talk to any medical professional and look at the rise of A DHD drugs. Look at the, look at the rise of, of people that are going on, uh, medication for anxiety, for stress.

All of this is manageable. It’s just stop the information. Do, how much do we need? We have more information than a hundred years [00:28:00] ago. A president or prime Minister had, we have so much information. You don’t need more. You don’t. Last thing is you need more. If you wanna be happy for your listeners, you need less.

That doesn’t mean, that doesn’t mean be ignorant, doesn’t, doesn’t mean be ignorant or naive. It means you need less information and maybe more wisdom. Wisdom is the combination of I get some knowledge and then I practice, or I do that thing a lot and then I get a little bit more knowledge with a lot more action, and that becomes wisdom.

People just, they’re, this is, and this is not my opinion, this is the old Greek philosophers said this, they, they, they were the same, right?

Tim Melanson: Well, I think, I think, uh, I think you’re right. I mean, I mean this is a deep conversation that could go on forever, but, but I think that, I think that, uh, you know, back, you know, 30, 40 years ago, we really were only in contact with our bubble. And the, that bubble sort of [00:29:00] thought the same. We were sort of like similar.

And now with the social media and with the, the world becoming smaller, we’re exposed to everything all at once. And a lot of it

Emmanuel Manolakakis: In

Tim Melanson: the way we think. And people are getting triggered very, very quickly and focusing on the things they don’t like. Right.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Or they can’t control. Or they can’t

Tim Melanson: Or they can’t control. Yeah, exactly. And I think, I think that’s where it is.

I mean, when you, when you think about the people that are the happiest, it’s the people that just. Let it be, you know, whatever. I mean, they’re doing what they’re doing over there. It’s not really affecting, is it really affecting you? I think that that’s the thing is that they’re only being affected because they’re looking at it and they’re focusing on it.

Whereas before we didn’t even have the ability to see it. We might see it walking down the street, oh, I don’t like those people over there on the, you know, whatever, under the bridge, whatever it happens to be, and, and then they just kind of keep walking. But now it’s. It’s in your [00:30:00] hand, it’s on your screen, it’s everywhere, and you’re kind of going like, I hate that.

And, and people are not managing those triggers very well. So I think, I think, I think you’re, you’re into it. I think now is the time to figure out how to handle those triggers and, and, and not be triggered by it, right? Mm-hmm.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Yep. No, go ahead.

Tim Melanson: so let’s get into your solo a little bit. Let’s, let’s talk about what, uh, what’s exciting your business.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: For me now, it’s the. A shift from when I first started martial arts, a very physical thing. And, and it was great. I mean, I loved it like that as well, but I’m realizing more and more now that it’s the mental side and I’m just, I’m, I’m really digging, helping people manage that side. And they’re like, it’s, it’s so refreshing for people to understand that, um, wow.

Because let’s say to be physical, you gotta go somewhere. You might have to go to the gym, or you gotta go outside and go for a run. Or if you’re in a cycling, you gotta get on your bike. And mental training can be done anywhere. This is what’s great. Like you, you, you have 10 minutes. You can just [00:31:00] sit down and, and, and just, and focus like the, the research on visualization training, which is, you know, maybe long time ago has been, I mean, Pele was talking about that.

I mean, it’s nothing new, but it’s now it’s gone like 3D like visualization is kinda like, okay, me imagining doing a sport and positive outcomes and that being real. But now there’s just so much more to. To that kind of training people starting to understand how deep the mind is. Right. And I, even, me, I’m, I’m amazed that like, it’s not just left and right half of the brain, but it’s, it’s like.

Really maximizing, um, what we do with this thing. And I really see the connection, um, to happiness. I really see the connection to, uh, performing at your utmost best. Like I, I don’t even care about winning. At all winnings like subjective. There are some, there’s some Archer competitions I won, I didn’t deserve, and there’s some that I should have won that I didn’t.

Um, winning is, [00:32:00] is I care about performing at my best. Like when I go to teach. I don’t, the class might not have gone as good as I would’ve liked. Maybe the students didn’t understand the lesson as as good as I would’ve liked, but I know that I, I did my best. I can’t control how it will be understood and really.

Dissecting that, that there’s this idea that we have a powerful brain it, but it’s hard to walk around and just tell people, look at my beautiful brain. You know, it’s much easier to say, look at my six pack. Right? You, you know what I mean? Like, look at my big arms. The problem with inner work mind, like mind and the, and the spiritual stuff, like inside of us.

Nobody can see this, but that’s also what makes it so special. What, what makes your home so special? Nobody sees this. You invite people in and who comes into your house? Only the people that you trust, right? So the inner workings of your mind and, and your spirit. These are places that very special and we should treat them like that.

A long time [00:33:00] ago, I, I grew up in them. I’m a 69 baby, so I grew up like, you know, mostly in the eighties were my, my teen years and everybody in Scarborough and in Toronto in those days, you know, if you’re Greek, Italian, Portuguese, European, you had that nice room. This is, you only went in that room when it was like, you know, Easter, Christmas, you know, that was the good room.

You know, that was a very special place where you went to celebrate over. And, um, the mind is a very special place. It’s a place that only you go really, and, and you go there to find your authentic self, not to copy other people. So I’m really excited about the mental training. I, I think it’s, I think. As a society and as people living in Toronto, for me, my students, this is gonna be the hardest part of living in a big city.

Not the physical ability of it, it’s the mental. So helping them navigate that is, is really exciting. Me.[00:34:00]

Tim Melanson: Wow. So I, I’m d different, I, I, I know that because I talk to people and, and I have no problem being alone with myself and with my own thoughts. However, I hear that a lot of people do have a hard time with that and.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: I like how you said that. I hear,

Tim Melanson: I hear

Emmanuel Manolakakis: yeah.

Tim Melanson: so, uh, uh, I’m wondering, ’cause this might actually be scary to those people thinking, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I don’t think I wanted to be doing that.

Or maybe they want might be pushing it away. What would you say?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: 10 minutes. Come on guys. 10 minutes. You can’t sit still like you. I, I hope everybody listens. Do you understand? If you can’t say, if you can’t sit still for 10 minutes, you under listen. In Scarborough, if you rode the bus back when I was, before I had my car, you’re on that bus for like 30 minutes.

There’s, there was nothing to do, guys. Okay. Like I, little did, I know I was practicing 30 minutes of mindfulness. I’m doing not, I was so progressive. Back [00:35:00] in the eighties, you had no cell phone? No. You just sat there, man. You just sat there and you guess what? You looked at everybody. You were mindful, oh, there’s a woman that’s pregnant coming up.

I got it. I should get up. Let a pregnant woman sit down. Or, oh, there’s an older person come up. I should get up. Or you, you just take 10 minutes, man, sit down and don’t look at your phone. Breathe and just observe the world. Just observe it. It it just 10 minutes. It is beautiful. It is beautiful, um, to do that.

And it starts with 10 minutes, and I don’t want anybody to do anything more. I, I did it long time ago and I, I quickly made it 20 minutes. Like you should never, like, I, even though me and you are talking to people now, we’re asked, we’re we’re telling ’em some stuff. I am not a guru. I am, I will present information.

I want everybody to test everything I say and if it’s, if it works and it’s good [00:36:00] for you, please continue it.

Tim Melanson: Love it.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Come on. Like eat some good food. I dare anybody to have a little bit of cabbage with their meal, a dinner for a week straight, just a little bit of cabbage, and watch how their gut will feel. Great. Tell me you don’t. If you don’t like that feeling, well then go back to eating whatever you’re eating. So read something past something, eat something. Try some training to anybody that doesn’t understand how beautiful it feels to go for a 15 minute walk after you have dinner. If that doesn’t feel good, don’t do it. But I will. I will guarantee you, you’ll, you’ll enjoy it. That’s a wonderful practice. Very simple. So I’m all about starting very small. Letting things grow and enjoying it. Just like you’re planting a seed. Let it grow. Don’t, you don’t have to yell at it,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: let it, let it grow.

Tim Melanson: So how do we find out more about you then?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Uh, for me it’s really simple. I have, well, I have a book I’ve written, so if people [00:37:00] want, you can go, you’ll find on Amazon, it’s called Eudemonia the Highest Human Good. By a manual I’ll, I’ll, I’d be happy to. Uh, so it’s on Amazon, eudemonia is the name. Um, they can also go to my website. There’s fight club.ca and there’s another website I started off just after the pandemic, which is a lot more the personal growth, personal development.

Um, it’s called Masters method ca. And I’ve kind of put all my kind of more mental training. There because it seemed like there’s a, a different group of people that not necessarily want martial arts, but do want to want that training without the punches and kicks, which I get right. It’s not for everybody, right?

Not everybody’s a martial artist in a physical sense, but we definitely need, it feels like being a martial artist, living in, living in our society these days. We’re wrestling with so many issues.

Tim Melanson: Nice.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: is, there is that side of it, right? Um, yeah, those are, those are definitely the ways of, of getting in touch with me and just, um, I, [00:38:00] I want to thank you as well for putting me on the podcast.

It’s, it’s, it’s a wonderful way and for all the entrepreneurs listening, um, be adaptable. Find some authenticity. It’s not easy. I know it’s not. You’ve gotta sit quietly. You gotta go back into your history and look at what you did. Talk to your mother if you can. What did you do as a kid? How were you? Stay close to those things, right?

If I can do it as a martial artist, if I can literally play while I’m training, even when I’m fighting, because all of a sudden I’m very authentic. I’m not doing things I regret.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Because it’s, it’s like me to do everything I do. So please find a way. If I can do it in fighting, you can find it in your, in your business and in your personal life as well.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. One more question before I go. Who’s your favorite

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Yes. Oh man, you got so many. I rockstar. I, so I grew up in the eighties, so I listened to all kinds of music back then. It’s really hard. Uh, but I did watch the Rise of Rap [00:39:00] and I’m not a big rapper, but I watched it like NWA Public Enemy and I was like. What the hell is this? Like, it’s like you had Bon Jovi, you had, you had, uh, you know, Michael Jackson, you had you this, and then there was this thing that was like so different.

And then to watch the evolution of that music. And how it’s transformed. Um, I don’t think I, ’cause I can’t say saw that with country or blues or, I, I didn’t see that, but I was, you know, I was literally, that was exactly when I was a teenager and I still remember the people blaring some of that public enemy or, and it was like, what the, we were shocked.

That was like a, a very different type of music. So I think that one is the one that really sticks in my mind. It really, it’s, it’s, it’s really to watch something from the beginning and watch it.

Tim Melanson: Expand.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Expand, like, and, and the characters, and some of them are still around, which is, you know what I mean, like [00:40:00] Jay-Z and all these guys, they’re still around.

And to watch them mature, you know, same with Mike Tyson. I, I grew up boxing and, and he was the guy. And to watch him now what a, what a change. What a changed man, what a changed person, you know? Pretty awesome.

Tim Melanson: Love that. Well, thank you so much for rocking it with me today, Emmanuel. This has been a lot of fun.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Man, been a lot of fun. Thank you so much, Tim.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. And to the listeners, make sure you go to, you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information. We’ll see you next time on the Work At Home Rockstar Podcast.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. I’m talking to a career ownership coach with Entrepreneurs Source, and what she does is she helps senior corporate professionals, typically at the director level and above, to transition from corporate careers to business ownership through franchising.

Super excited to be rocking out today with Maja Taylor. Hey Maja. You ready to rock?

Maja Taylor: I am hi Tim.

Tim Melanson: Hi. We always start off here in a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Maja Taylor: Story of success. I will get into that after I, I first wanna say to your listeners

that, um, go support Tim. Tim and I share a passion of helping people. Uh, launched our own businesses, become business owners and entrepreneurs. I really love the great work that you’re doing, Tim. I think more people need to hear your stories and your interviews,

um, and the wonderful guests that you have on, so, so please. If you’re [00:01:00] listening right now and you haven’t done it yet, give Tim a five star rating so he can continue the great work that he’s been doing and I am thrilled to be on with you today because we share that passion. I feel the future is an entrepreneurship, so,

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Maja Taylor: um, and I appreciate you having me on. So, success story, a recent success story.

There’s so many. I have the best clients, I have to say that. Um. Most people come to me at a time when they’re at a crossroads going through a transition. Um, e either they’re really feel stuck or or frustrated in their career, or they have been let go capsized, downsized, right sized, um. And through challenges in the job market or their job search?

Um, I mean, there’s a lot of uncertainty in the market right now. I I hear crazy stories every day from my clients. So I was working with this one [00:02:00] gentleman, um, I think we worked together for six to eight months, and he had been looking for work for almost a year. Not quite. and and had gotten to a point where, you know, when he went through all the stages of frustration, um, and then felt pretty defeated.

So when we met, he was at a real low. Uh, I would say depressed.

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Maja Taylor: I, some, some calls that he jumped on, it felt like, you know, he was late or, you know, maybe just came outta bed. ’cause it, it was like, you know, what’s the use? Why am I even getting up? Why am I still doing this? Nobody wants, wants to hire me. And, um, he had an incredible background. He was an engineer. Um, by training. He had managed teams. Really successful mid-level. You know, career professional into, uh, going into senior level career professional and just couldn’t, couldn’t land anything. So [00:03:00] we started working together and it was really just helping him see. His his greatness and his strengths and his skills again. And, uh, trying to focus again back on what he really came here on this planet to do.

’cause I think he had lost sight of that. I’m a pretty spiritual person. I think it’s important to be really clear on what you want to do while you’re here. Um. The, the only, the only thing that we can’t get more of is time, right?

Time is precious, right here, right now counts. So we focused all the energy on, on what he really wanted to do, and I helped him craft a, a vision and some goals. What does he need from his career? To live the life that he wants to live. And he, he had several aha moments and points of clarity and we found a, a business that really helped him achieve what he wants to achieve.

He has now, uh, chosen a pet sitting. [00:04:00] Walking business,

which is very different from his background right now. This was a journey. It didn’t happen overnight. And the beautiful part is that his two kids are working it with him,

so it’s now a family business and he always wanted that to spend more time with the kids. So now his daughter and his son are working with him, um, in, in that business, they all love animals and this is not something that he was even looking at when we started talking. So. I guess what is the moral of the story? Be open to the opportunities that present to you

as you’re exploring your career, what you, you never know what might be around the next corner and just be open to learn and explore and, and, you know. You never know what might happen. So he, he’s now an entrepreneur and is done with the job market. It’s, it’s funny, he had some choice phrases for, um, the last interviews that he had, um, which I will not repeat here, but it is just [00:05:00] so great to see somebody just completely blossom and bloom from when we met, just, you know, six months prior where he thought his life was over.

Um, so anything can happen if you’re open.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. So why do you think he thought his life was over? Like, what, what, what do you think got him into that position? Was it just that the identity of losing the job or whatever it was, or.

Maja Taylor: Well, I mean, identity was part of it, I’m sure. Um, but money is

what people worry about, right? If you,

if you don’t have income and you can’t afford the things that, um. You need to do, want to do. I mean, he was okay. He, he had, uh, he had prepared properly, um, which, that, that’s important in business, right? You gotta prepare properly.

Um, but, but just not being able to see a future for himself, I think that was the biggest show stopper. So I, I’m happy that I [00:06:00] was able, able to help him with that.

Tim Melanson: I think, I think it’s interesting because if he did prepare, then, I mean it’s, it’s almost like in a way that might have been one of the reasons why he couldn’t get outta bed. ’cause it’s like, if you’re in, if you’re in like, uh, you know, panic mode where you know you lost your job, you need to go get money right now, well then you’re gonna, you’re gonna be motivated.

But having that little cushion. Might have actually kind of made him go like, well, you know, I don’t have to get up right now. And then it just kind of puts you into this depression and now you’re not sure where you’re going. But it’s

so fortunate that he ended up having somebody like you that could kind of talk ’em through things.

’cause sometimes you just, it’s tough. It’s tough to think about what’s next, right. When you’ve been doing something for so long. Right.

Maja Taylor: Right. It, it is, and entrepreneurship is a team sport. So it wasn’t just me. Right. I, I, I referred him to other resources to help him. Um, but I, [00:07:00] what I’m seeing is that especially with, with men. The job, the career is tied to identity

and it’s often tougher for men to come kind of dig themselves out of the hole.

So a asking for help is hard, right?

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Maja Taylor: So.

Tim Melanson: I didn’t wanna say that because I didn’t, I didn’t wanna be like, well, men versus women, all that stuff. But you, uh, I, I agree with you. Like

Maja Taylor: I mean, women have it too, right? But yeah, it is different for men because, you know, you’re the provider, the protector, and I must, you know, for the family, I mean, he had kids still right, that, that needed his help.

So yeah,

Tim Melanson: Yep. But, uh, but yeah, so now along your journey though, I mean, sometimes things don’t go as planned. So there are some

bad

Maja Taylor: is true.

Tim Melanson: we might hit and you know what, but those, those, those failures we’ll say, you know, those

are, uh, those are some of the things that keep people out of, of, of doing something.

They, they are

scared to get [00:08:00] started, so I like to talk about them because, hey, you’re still here, right?

After all, after all those things, can you share with us something that didn’t go as planned? Maybe something that we could learn from.

Maja Taylor: Oh yeah. So failure is good. I’m gonna just say that right.

Fail. Fail fast. If you’re gonna fail often. Fail

fast, right? And, and, um. Uh, this, this has me go back. So, so I was thinking about that question, right? Um, in my current business, I have not yet experienced failure because the prior ones had lots of failure.

So I’m going to rewind. I’m gonna rewind and go back to, to my twenties. I’m not gonna tell you how old I’m right now, but it’s, it’s a bit ago. Um, where my. Naivety and failure to prepare financially really bit us. Um, so, so [00:09:00] married twenties, I had a 2-year-old. Um, we were exiting. He was leaving the army. So we were, I was the army spouse, let’s just say that we were moving back east, um, because he had promises of a job there. And getting out of the military is, is a transition for an an active military member. It is definitely a change. Um, and we did not prepare financially well because, well, we didn’t have a lot of money. And I remember the moment sitting in a brand new town where we didn’t really know anyone or anything on the main strip and some pizza joint. I don’t even remember what it was. Pizza Hut, little Caesar’s, one of those, right? And we spent our last $10 on a pizza. It was me, him, and the baby. Or, well, 2-year-old, not quite the baby. Um, and I remember it hitting me. I’m sitting, I was like, oh my gosh, we [00:10:00] don’t know where our next meal’s gonna come from.

He hadn’t started his job yet. Um, we, we had just kind of, sort of moved into to an apartment. Um. And like, what, what, what’s tomorrow? Like, what are we gonna do tomorrow? So, so we had a couple of groceries at home, but, um, you know, then having to rely on on close family who wired US money, sent us money gift cards to help us get through those initial weeks in our new town. That was very humbling and that, I just remember sitting in that restaurant then and I was like, this will never happen to me again. This will never happen to me again. So, so, so the lesson for me was, you know, that, that kind of fear of, oh my gosh, what’s happening tomorrow? How am I gonna pay for breakfast tomorrow?

What am I gonna feed my kid? Um. Really helped me just prepare better financially when I transitioned into business. So [00:11:00] I don’t necessarily tell this story to my clients, but Well now they’ll know it’s on the podcast, but it’s, but it’s, um. If you have the desire to go into business for yourself, which I applaud you, go do that.

It’s

amazing. Um, but it’s not easy. If it was easy, everybody would do it.

Most businesses fail because of lack of money, right? So set yourself up for success. So, so I, I, there’s lots of recommendations out there. In, in my case, I, I preplanned when I left my job, job, corporate job, I preplanned to be good for a year in my personal budget and the business budget.

If I don’t make any money for a year, I, I knew I was gonna be okay because when you’re focused on. The worry or afraid that you don’t know how to pay the bills for the next month for you, either personally or the business bills, then you’re not [00:12:00] focused on the right things. You’re not focused on growth, you’re not focused on, you know, getting out into the world, the great service that you do, or the product that you have for people that’s gonna help them, right?

You’re doing others a disservice. By not showing up and giving you a gift, and therefore you can’t get paid, right? I want you to be out there thinking and planning and doing the thing that you’re good at and get it out into the world. And when there’s lack of money, you can’t do that. So prepare financially, please.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Maja Taylor: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: You, you act different too when you don’t have money, right? Like

isn’t your sales process just a little bit kind of wonky a little bit,

Maja Taylor: Desperate. Don’t be desperate. No. People can smell that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And it’s not that you, the irony is that it’s not that you’re bad at what you do. You probably are very, very good at what you do, but if

you sound desperate, they’re not gonna wanna hire you for some reason.

It’s

just they can feel it on you. Right.

It, it, it gives it kind of like a red flag right

Maja Taylor: Mm-hmm. It does

Tim Melanson: now, [00:13:00] uh, a year in advance. That’s pretty, that’s pretty, pretty good.

Maja Taylor: So I am very conservative.

I know there’s some people who say, oh, you know, have three months cash

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Maja Taylor: six months cash flow. I just, for me, that wasn’t comfortable enough because of that experience that I, I share with you, right? I never wanted to be in that position again. So I’m like, double, triple, safe.

Tim Melanson: That’s good. Well, and cashflow is a good thing to talk about too, because, I mean, that’s the thing is that you, uh, it’s difficult. I mean, there’s a lot of this up and down, right? I mean, uh, you know, if you think about it from a business perspective, from the, you know, the, the CEO of a company like.

If they’re, if they’re running of this big business, somebody is thinking, well, there’s clients dropping, there’s clients coming in, somebody is thinking, I don’t know where the next, where the next payroll is coming from.

Somebody’s

thinking it. Now, as an employee, you might think, oh, well I have a secure job, and so I’m fine, but. When you start to run the business, you [00:14:00] now all of a sudden are wearing this hat of like, now you know that things are going up and down. So how do you, how do you deal with that? You know, of course you, you now keep a, uh, you, you keep a, a stash, right?

Of, of, you know, a year’s worth of expenses. But how did you even get that in the first place? Or what if that starts to dwindle? How do you make sure that you keep making more than you’re spending?

Maja Taylor: Great question. So budgeting, I’m going to quote my fantastic financial advisor who taught me how to properly budget, um, just, just personally. And then, and then I applied those same kind of rules to my business budget. But just know what your expenses are, know what you need to. To run the business and stay afloat, I would say for a minimum of six months.

Right. You, you don’t wanna go overkill. ’cause if you have a lot of cash sitting around, that’s not working for you, that’s not good either. Make your money work for you,

right? Have enough reserve. It’s, it’s that balancing game. So it depends on the business a lot, right? I, I don’t know. Um. [00:15:00] W what businesses your, your listeners go into.

But some of ’em, uh, might be high ticket that happen at various times throughout the year, but there’ll be lull periods or you need to make sure you’re prepared for those lull periods. That’s how my business works, right? I mi I might have a couple of, you know, placements and clients. Then there may be six months where there’s nothing I need to be okay for those six months.

Right. Um, maybe you have clients who have more regular, smaller or, or even bigger increments that come in monthly because they have, you know, memberships or things like that. Then you can budget differently. Know and understand your cash flow and what’s coming in and know your responsibilities of that.

You have to keep paying out to keep your business running. And yes, payroll, payroll is one of the bigger expenses in most cases, especially for, you know, remote type of businesses. You don’t have a ton of overhead, you don’t have real estate, ideally, right? [00:16:00] Um, that’s why a lot of people like working remotely and the flexibility. But, um, payroll is one of the biggest one. Prepare for that.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, and know your numbers. I mean, that’s one of those things, right? You, you, um, I think, actually, let me ask you a question. Why do you think any business owner would not know their numbers?

Maja Taylor: That’s a good question. I don’t know that I can answer that question. Maybe,

um, maybe they’re just not good at keeping track of it, or there’s, there’s too many other things they’re focused on. Um, maybe they don’t, they don’t know. Then I would say ask for help and hire yourself an accountant who can keep your books straight for you.

Right. I mean, I, I have someone who does that for me, because that’s an area I don’t wanna worry about every day.

I, I do the, you know. The high level planning, but the nitty gritty I give to someone else in that department [00:17:00] because it just makes sense. I don’t wanna spend my time in accounting.

That’s not my strength, right?

Uh, my strength is in coaching people and talking to people and helping them be better, but, um, I guess know what you’re good at maybe and, and, and work in the strength zone rather than, um, in an area where, you know, you can’t keep track of it. Well ask for help. I know we, we have that topic already. It’s maybe tough to do, but

Tim Melanson: I think that that’s, I think that’s right. I think that, I think that’s the way, because I don’t know if everybody is a numbers person. I

think, I think most people are probably not numbers people. I, I don’t, I’m a

numbers person. I like it. I mean, I, I like it. I, I look at my numbers every day more than once a day.

I love it, but that’s not.

That’s not everybody. And I know it’s not everybody. And I’ve, uh, you know, even my, my wife doesn’t want to look at the numbers like that. She lets me do it. She want, it stresses her out. And so I [00:18:00] think that when, when that comes to to play, I think that a lot of people are just like, well, whatever.

It’ll just work itself out. And it, it absolutely does not work itself out. The budget doesn’t balance itself. Right. It’s one of

those things where. You do

need somebody. And like you said, if you have somebody that’s working for you, all they have to do is just give you the high level stuff, right?

Because they can handle the nitty gritty of it all and making sure all and, and then they can also start to give you advice.

And now you have informed decisions. Can you afford this upgrade to your computer? Ask your guy. Right? Like there’s a lot of things that will come, and then there’s a lot of. Uh, great salespeople as well that will, you know, come and try to sell you this new whatever it is. And, you know, if you’re not asking the right questions, you know, and you don’t have somebody that’s, that’s gonna ask the right questions, then that can, that can be messy.

Like you can end up in these financial compromising situations [00:19:00] where it seems like it’s a good deal, but is it a good deal? Right.

Maja Taylor: Yeah, I, I, I would say as long as your overall strategy is aligned with, with, with where you wanna go, I think that you need to make sure. Is right and not, and, and matches. I don’t think you have to look at your numbers every day like you, Tim.

Tim Melanson: Nope, you don’t.

Maja Taylor: Um, unless you actually really enjoy it.

Tim Melanson: I love it.

Maja Taylor: I, I don’t, I don’t, I feel it’s a distraction if I do, but maybe check in monthly, check in quarterly, whatever makes sense for your plan, like how, how, does your business flow?

Is it more long term? Is the client journey, um, a pretty long cycle, or do you have a shorter cycle? If

you have a shorter cycle on how you work with your clients, maybe then you need to look at it more often to make sure things are actually right.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, well, well, you do have to look at it at least monthly, and I, I, I’ll give you one reason why is because if [00:20:00] something, if there were to be some fraudulent activity on your credit

card. You need to notify them within a month. Otherwise, otherwise you could end up paying for it. So

at at least once a month, you need to look at that and make sure that you’re paying things that you’re actually buying.

And nothing weird is going on in your account. And sometimes it might even be fraud. It just be, could be subscriptions that you don’t need anymore that keep on popping up. So there are, there are certain things that need to be looked at. So if it’s not you, then somebody in your team needs to be looking at it at least once a month.

But I think, I mean, I am definitely overkill. I like I say, I like it. It’s fun. I like numbers. So for me,

that’s why I do it right. But I don’t recommend it for everybody else. It stresses them out. Let’s talk a little bit about, um, about, you know, coaches and, and mentors and all that stuff, because I mean, you, you are a coach.

You, you, you teach people, but do you have a coach?

Maja Taylor: Of course

every [00:21:00] good coach has a coach. Um. I’m a learner. It’s one of my top five strengths and I’m also a teacher. It’s always an exchange,

just like you and I are have. We’re learning from each other,

right? You’re teaching me things. Um, I think having a coach is critical. Most, if you look at the successful people, they all had a coach at some point.

The best teams have great coaches and that’s how they win Super Bowls or. World Cups. Right.

Um, so, so I think it’s critical. And for, for me, I got here because I had really great mentors and coaches. I didn’t do this by myself. Right. And it’s, I think it’s perfectly fine to admit that. So, so do you learn from the best? Maybe. But people are brought into your life for a reason, right? You, it’s. [00:22:00] It’s an, it’s an attraction. Teachers show up when the students are ready. And I know I had some really great, I had some great bosses in the past who I learned a lot from in my, in my, you know, corporate career. Um, I’ve had some that were not so great, but they still taught me things. Right. They teach you what not to do.

That’s also, that’s also, that’s also important. Um. Then seeking, seeking out people who are good at the thing that you are struggling with. Like, like me and marketing, oh, that doesn’t mix so well. It’s an area that intimidates me. It’s an area that, um, I feel weird about, like, how do I even talk about myself?

It’s just a challenge. Right? And um, I’m sure once I hear the recording of this podcast or see it, I’m like, oh my gosh, this is what I sound like. This is what I look like. I can’t see. Stand it. I, I wonder if everybody thinks that, [00:23:00] but for me it’s especially bad. It’s better not for me to look at it, but I’ll just go and you and I have a conversation.

It’s better that way. But getting some coaching around the areas where you are not quite feel at home, and I think that’s really important to keep stretching yourself out of the comfort zone. That’s what a coach, a good coach is supposed to do. Right? Kind of question your existing thinking and stretch you out, and it’ll feel uncomfortable. It should, it should feel uncomfortable because if you do what you always did, don’t be surprised if you don’t see anything different in your

life, right? If you want to grow to higher levels, if you want to launch a business, if you want to learn a new skill, you’re gonna have to be prepared to get a little uncomfortable.

So I’m a huge fan of that, uh, because that’s how you grow. And yeah, there’ll be some failures, quote unquote, in there. So you stumble and you fall. Uh, none of the star football players or you know, Olympic athletes got there overnight. It takes a lot of practice [00:24:00] takes, it takes a lot of, you know, sweat equity too.

It’s the same with business, right? So surround yourself with people who have done it and been there

and can share their stories with you

so you don’t make those.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And it’s great to have that, even just to have the self-awareness to, to recognize that you’re not going to be good at everything. You, you, you can’t, like, I mean, even if we look at sports, I mean, take anybody who’s a pro football player and put them in. I don’t know, tennis, are they gonna be pro tennis?

Maybe if they put the same amount of work into it. Right. I mean, it, it’s just, it’s one of those things where you’re good at something, which means you spent a lot of time on it, uh, and energy on it, which means you didn’t spend a lot of time and energy on something else. And having that awareness of going like, okay, well I’m good at this.

I’m not good at this. I need to find somebody that’s gonna help me with this, that, that is huge. Right. Um, and I, I think that that does hold a lot of, [00:25:00] definitely some, a lot of entrepreneurs back is they had this thought that, well, I’m, you know, it’s my business. I need to be doing everything. I need to know everything.

Uh, you know, but you don’t, you can, you can delegate some things, right? You, you can have other people help you, right.

Maja Taylor: For sure, for sure. And, and that’s what, uh, coaching really does. I, I will sit there with you and will peel back the layers about what are your strengths, really become aware of them. I, I think most people don’t spend enough time take just taking a step back. And really, I, I provide that time and space, that thinking space to, to really understand, here’s what I’m good at and here’s what I’m not.

Here’s what I wanna do and here’s what I will not, it’s, it’s hard to really clearly to find that when you’re just stuck in your own heads. I think a, a coach or a mentor, if you, if you’re part of a mastermind, if you’re not yet, go find one. Right? Those are people who, who ask the [00:26:00] right questions that make you. Hmm. I’ve never thought about it this way, or I really ought to look at that. Maybe I do need some help in that area. And then working with a coach will help you get clarity. That’s, that’s my role, right?

My goal is to help you get to a point of clarity, because when you have clarity, Ooh, it makes my hair stand up right now, it gives me goosebumps. That’s when you know what the right step is. The right next step is, and that. You’re not gonna wander around in confusion or make the wrong choices, you’re gonna make the right choice if you have clarity. So that’s really a coach’s role. And I, I do that with, with some assessments. We do disc, we do career questionnaires and some other entrepreneurial, uh, questionnaires that will help you get clarity on what’s the right choice for you. So I think coaches are almost mandatory in my life. I’ve, I’ve always said, uh, in my heart of hearts, I’m a coach, but having one will allow you to, to, to rise to [00:27:00] higher levels.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree. Uh, some sort of coach or mentor or somebody who’s got your blind spots, right,

because I.

you know, the, we all have the blind spots. It just is what it is, right?

Maja Taylor: Yep. And if you talk to the, if you, if you listen to any other podcasts at all, and if you listen to like the, you know, the people who have made it to the top, that’s what they all say they have in common. They found themselves good mentors and coaches.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Maja Taylor: So that can be the, you can go to school and you can get degrees and you can certainly practice makes perfect right doula, but you can get there quicker if you have good coaches and mentors.

Tim Melanson: And, and hey li like listening to podcasts and, and taking courses. All that is learning from somebody else too. Uh, but I guess there’s a big difference, um, between. You know, listening to something prerecorded or, or, or going to a, you know, a, a structured class versus somebody actually asking [00:28:00] you those questions and working with you on one-on-one.

There’s a very big difference between those two things. Right.

Maja Taylor: Yeah, there’s a huge difference.

Tim Melanson: What do you think would hold people back from, from, from getting coaching help or some sort of mentorship? Mm.

Maja Taylor: Oh gosh, lots of things. Um, people think they can’t afford it. You have to ask yourself the question, why, why, why would it, wouldn’t you? What are you giving up by saying that? Um, maybe lack of awareness, lack of time, uh, not really knowing what they’re good at. I run into that a lot actually. PE people often don’t realize all the skill sets that they already have right now, right now, and they think they’re not good enough.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Maja Taylor: That, that is actually probably the biggest one. I should have started with that one. Um, I hate using the word imposter syndrome. It’s kind of floating around social media quite a bit. Um, I’m not really sure what [00:29:00] that means, but the whole thing of, we have those internal voices

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Maja Taylor: that usually tell us that things are a lot worse than they actually are, you know?

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Maja Taylor: How, how not good we are. How stupid this is. You’re not fast enough, you’re not pretty enough, you’re not, those voices can at times get really loud and the, the hard stuff is easy to believe, especially if someone externally tells you, whether it’s a parent, whether it’s a boss, whether it’s a friend who makes some comment, all of a sudden you own that comment in your head and it’s not even true. Right? I, I often see my clients surprise themselves. On when they realized that, wow, I, I did that. Yeah. Those are my accomplishments. I did all these things and these are my strengths. Own. Own that stuff. Own it.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yep. And I, I think that what, what we do find out over time is that, like you say, the people that have had the success [00:30:00] tend to have some help from somebody else, and there’s no shame in asking for help.

Right.

Maja Taylor: Yeah. There is no shame.

Tim Melanson: Yep. So let’s get into that a little bit into your solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business.

Maja Taylor: Oh gosh. Um, my business is coaching

and I am excited to offer something really great to your listeners. Es especially, especially, um, if you reach out to me either on my website. Maja taylor.com. That’s M-A-J-A-T-A-Y-L-O r.com or on social media. Most of the time I hang out on LinkedIn. Uh, do some Facebook and Instagram too, but mostly LinkedIn. Um, and you reach out to me, you book a call, I will give you a free disc assessment, so

that’s, that’s an assessment that helps you understand.

Tim Melanson: Who, you are?

Maja Taylor: Yeah. Who, yeah.

A a little bit of how you like to work, how, how you prefer to [00:31:00] communicate. What are some of your motivators and drivers. That’s pretty important to understand when you’re looking for the right fit for yourself.

Right. And I will give you a debrief. Um, it’s about a $200 value. I’ll give you that for free if you reach out.

Um, I’m really excited about learning and teaching and often that starts with self-awareness, right? That’s when growth happens, when you become more aware. So. I offer a complimentary learning journey for you to first help you craft your career and your life vision.

What is it that you need from your career so you can live the life that you wanna live, right? And maybe it’s business ownership, maybe it’s not. Um, but then we’ll explore options and possibilities to help you get there, to meet those goals and vision, right? Everybody’s journey and needs are different. I meet you where you are. That’s the most exciting thing for me.

And I love seeing those aha moments and people when they see, oh, I can do this, that, um, that’s my high. that’s.

Tim Melanson: [00:32:00] Yeah. That’s amazing. That’s an incredibly good gift. ’cause I, I know that those disc assessments are expensive, first of all. Uh, but also they’re so useful. It is so nice to, it, it’s so great to know where your strengths and weaknesses are. Right. And it, it’ll actually open up some ideas of what you could possibly do next.

So who would be like, let’s just say, uh, yeah. Who would be the best person or the most. Um, the person that would get the most outta working with you?

Maja Taylor: The person who would get the most out of working with me is

the person that keeps an open mind.

So it doesn’t matter where you are in your career, in your life, as long as you can keep a learning mindset. You and I are a great fit. Um, people who can’t, can’t commit to that learning journey ’cause it is a journey. We’re not gonna uncover, you know, the world in a half hour conversation. That just doesn’t happen. So, so, so being willing [00:33:00] to. Go on the learning journey and commit the time. Um, when you work with me, there’s always gonna be some homework because in coaching, the growth actually happens in between the sessions.

So be prepared for that too. And, and then we’ll see if, if you have the entrepreneurial itch, hopefully we can find you a venture that you can be successful in and thrive. I’m willing to bet that there is one. And if, if you don’t, then. We’ll go in a different direction.

Tim Melanson: I love that. I love that. Yeah. ’cause I mean, if you’ve got this learning, uh, mindset and now you go find out what your strengths and weaknesses are and you are open to finding out, you know, doing the homework and all that stuff, then there’s definitely something for you. Because I mean, that’s just the type of personality that’s going to see some success.

Right.

Maja Taylor: Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. So how do we find out more then?

Maja Taylor: You find out more by going on my website, Maja taylor.com,

or look me up on LinkedIn, um, [00:34:00] and let’s have a chat and see if it makes sense to work together.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Last question. This might be the hardest one.

Maja Taylor: Okay?

Tim Melanson: Are you a music fan? Who’s your favorite rock star?

Maja Taylor: oh boy, that is hard. Who’s my favorite rock star? I’m gonna date myself now. Um. I don’t know if you consider them a

rock star, but Depeche Mo is

probably my favorite band. Um, they were my first English speaking band, um, that I listened to in Frankfurt, Germany. I am from Germany, so, so that was a big, big event and I was it last year they came to Philly, um, and I saw them their life again and they were just as amazing as back then.

That

was a good, good concert.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Depeche mode. That’s awesome. We done and I’m so happy you got to see them. That’s

Maja Taylor: Me too. I’m glad they’re still singing. It was, it was phenomenal actually.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much, Maja, [00:35:00] for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun.

Maja Taylor: Thank you Tim for having me. You are a lot of fun. And um, well keep up the great conversations. I really love listening to you.

Tim Melanson: Great. Tell the listeners make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. Excited for today’s episode. We’re talking to the founder of Community Growth Academy, and what she does is she helps coaches, experts, and passionate hobbyists launch and grow paid communities. So I’m excited to be talking to Carol Tice.

Hey, Carol, you ready to rock?

Carol Tice: I am ready.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Rock and roll. We always start off here in a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Carol Tice: Well, I am teaching the paid community model now because I built a previous paid community, two 1500 paying members, and, uh, it generated about 6 million in revenue over the decade. I ran it and then I sold it for Life-Changing Money in 2021. Now I’m teaching how I did all that to, uh.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Okay. So this was, when did you start building that community?

Carol Tice: 2011, the Stone Age of [00:01:00] Paid community. Yeah. I say I’m a community dinosaur.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. ’cause uh, that’s pretty common now. Paid communities. I, I see them all the time.

Carol Tice: Well, there are, because there are platforms like skool, which I’m on, um, that make it easy. Back when I did it, it was not easy. It was a hand coding. You know, I paid thousands to webmasters every month to keep it all going, and it was much more technically complex. Now, super easy and cheap. The, the barrier to entry is way down.

Tim Melanson: totally, totally. Well, I mean, I would love to know about the bad note then, because I’m sure there were some things that didn’t go as planned along the way. You share one.

Carol Tice: Um, uh, in that business. Uh, well, the thing I was gonna say is over time my webmaster made more and more and more and people kept telling me she was overcharging me and stuff, and eventually she made a demand that I. That was completely unreasonable and I had to [00:02:00] fire her. And, uh, we had been together a long, long time.

I loved her like a daughter. And yeah, I paid like half as much when I got another webmaster who was better than, than they were so. It was, it was really a heartbreak. It was like losing a child or something. It was, it was like traumatic. I’d had no, I had no turnover on my team. But yeah, it was a, it was like way I, I, there wasn’t enough profit left at the end of the day, you know, at, as we went along.

The demands got higher and higher and because there was so much to do hand building WordPress things and making plugins talk to each other and updating them all the time and, you know, running campaigns, it was all so much. And I think that gave her cover to just kind of keep escalating what she was charging me.

So it was pretty, it was pretty painful,

Tim Melanson: Uh,

Carol Tice: probably to the tune of a hundred grand or so over the life of the [00:03:00] relationship.

Tim Melanson: a hundred grand, like more than what you should have been paying.

Carol Tice: Yeah. In terms of what I could have put in my pocket if I hired better help. So yeah,

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Carol Tice: did that thing where you become friends with your, with your staff, and they say not to do that.

And there’s a reason they say not to do that is that it does blind you to things. And you start to have less and less of a business head about who’s in what role and what, what their income and what you’re paying them. So yeah, I was pain. It was a lot of pain.

Tim Melanson: So I, I’m, I’m, I’m just curious because I’m sure that this probably does happen quite often, and I’m wondering like, what, how did that look like when, when you started to get word that this person was overcharging, did that conversation come up with that person? And, and then how did that person react to that?[00:04:00]

Carol Tice: Um, I felt like what she was doing was essential to the business and it was. Worth it. And I trusted her. I liked what she produced visually. She really was a designer. Um, was her strength as I learned once I got a real webmaster and, uh, they were like, Hey, all this stuff’s about to break, you know, like apparently a lot was not happening actually, even though I was paying a lot.

So, you know, I’m not a technical person. And that leaves you a little open to be exploited because you don’t really know what you don’t know. So now I pay $97 and everything on skool just works all the time and it’s amazing. I’m very happy.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s, uh, I, I think you hit something really good with, so the whole thing about, and by the way, I, I am a webmaster, so I guess that’s my main business is, uh, my wife and I work together. She does, [00:05:00] uh, a lot of the graphic design stuff and I do all of the, like, tech stuff, the programming stuff, and I, I’ve, I’ve had this conversation so many times before.

It’s very, very, very, very difficult to find somebody who can do both, right? Like you’re

Carol Tice: It’s like she was, yeah, she was good at the design and kind of, so she brought in someone on her team to do a lot of the tech and stuff, but

Tim Melanson: That makes

Carol Tice: I don’t know. Um. Thankfully it’s five years, six years in the past now. And, um, life has continued and I was able to say I wouldn’t have been able to successfully sell that business if I had not gotten the new webmaster who cleaned up the backend

Tim Melanson: Oh,

Carol Tice: it was,

Tim Melanson: Absolutely.

Carol Tice: a lot of cost on, on my end in the sale process, otherwise.

Tim Melanson: Well, and, and I think that, uh, I think for anybody listening, ’cause there’s two sides to this. There’s the side of her and there’s the side of you. [00:06:00] Right? So the side of her I am, I, I’m just gonna guess is, is that because I, I, I, I’ve seen stuff, stuff like this before. As soon as things get out of your realm of expertise, all of a sudden you think it’s worth more, right.

Carol Tice: Right. It’s worth a lot to me because it would take me all week to do one tiny thing. So yeah, that’s very how that high value to me.

Tim Melanson: But it’s also high value to her because let’s, let’s look at it from her perspective. So if she’s a, uh, a designer and not a, a coder, and all of a sudden she has to do all this code, imagine how much longer it would take her to figure all that stuff out versus someone who actually is a coder. So all that would be charged out to you.

So it’s possible, and I’m not saying that it is. The fact, but it’s possible that she was not purposefully overcharging. She just didn’t know what she was doing, and it was taking her twice or

Carol Tice: That’s [00:07:00] entirely possible. I don’t really know. Uh, we don’t really talk anymore, so I don’t, I don’t know. I just feel like over time I came to be seen as a real cash cow opportunity. Um, I. To, uh, work with someone in a small business setting and not have to do big corporate, but to earn really well and ’cause I paid everyone on my team really well.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Carol Tice: ’cause that was sort of part of my philosophy.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Raw. Wow. So, so I think, uh, like, uh, what people might be able to learn from that is two things on the business side, on your side, you know, if you are starting to jump out into areas that you don’t know, that doesn’t mean you charge more for it, it actually means you charge less for it, right?

Because I’m, I’m sure if

Carol Tice: That’d be

Tim Melanson: charging you pennies for it right then, you wouldn’t have never gotten rid rid of her. She would’ve, she would’ve managed to keep that position for quite a

Carol Tice: Well, and at one point I offered her equity in the business in exchange for a [00:08:00] project I wanted done, and she turned it down for the cash, which I think, uh, played out very badly for her. ’cause I did have a successful exit that, and I paid out everyone on my team. I didn’t have a, um, written. Profit sharing, you know, agreement with them or anything.

But I, I just based on time of service and what they were earning, I handed people money

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Carol Tice: when I quit

20 grand out the, to my team, just I. No obligation, but I was like, yeah, this wasn’t possible without you and, and you need to find another job now, most of them, and you know, I wanna give you some money to cover that, you know, time of hunting around.

So.

Tim Melanson: Good, good. So what did you, what did you end up learning from that experience then? I.

Carol Tice: Um, well, I feel like that experience rolled into the experience of selling it and really seeing how a [00:09:00] buyer of a digital business looks at your business versus how you look at it. So, and there’s a big difference. Um, for me, I feel like we’ve jumped to the end of my story of the, of the story, but, um, you know, this is something that.

Not many online business owners achieve, especially coaches. Coaches tend to be the business. They’re selling hours. Or small groups and they can’t, if they go on vacation, that’s a week, they don’t get paid. There is no exit, there is no retirement plan. Uh, where they get an exit with a lump of money that sets them up for not having to work.

And that kind of breaks my heart and is, was a big motivator in me starting Community Growth Academy. So what happened in the e, in the exit was that of course. The buyer’s first questions is like, why are all of these people getting paid? All of what is, what do they do? [00:10:00] You know, and who can I cut? What can I cut out?

And this business began it. It served freelance writers, which I was one of, and still am. In my free time, I ghost write books. And I came out of, you know, journalism and writing, and had ramped my freelancing business to six figures. During the 8 0 8 0 9 downturn and, ’cause I was at like 50, 60 and I was like, well I wanna go to a hundred.

And the fact that the economy is crashing and burning doesn’t is a macroeconomic thing that doesn’t matter to me. I’m just one tiny me. You know that I, these things, it’s like when your body surfing, I can just let that wave kind of go over me and Z enter and keep, keep swimming and, um. I gradually became aware that many other writers did not have the, the same attitude I did, that they were starving.

They were writing [00:11:00] for content mills for $5 an article, and I was very upset by that. And I basically wanted writers to stop getting ripped off and avoid scams, which there are a lot of scams to target writers. And I started a blog originally to kind of. Get out, share what I, I knew I wanted to write a book about freelancing and I thought, uh, that would sell a million copies and I’d be rich.

’cause I didn’t know anything about online business or book sales. Um, but eventually I joined a community for bloggers. To learn how to be a better blogger. ’cause I was running a blog and trying to monetize my blog and that’s where I discovered paid community. And I went, this is amazing. I love it. I’m learning so much.

This is a fantastic format and there’s nothing like this for freelance writers. And there should be. And that was sort of the beginning of the journey to starting that community. And so it was really. [00:12:00] Half business, half Hobby, gone mad, I wanna say, um, half Passion Project to, you know, I thought of myself as like a crusader against writer scams and for Fair Writer pay.

And I really wanted to elevate the whole industry. I had these lefty calls, I wanted to influence a lot of people. And that format of, it’s 25 bucks a month, no obligation leave any time allows you to do that. As opposed to selling high ticket coaching and coaching 12 people a year, that’s making no impact on the industry.

So that’s, you know, so I had a lot of that. It’s kind of a, a crusade and also a business. And when a business buyer comes along, it’s only a business, you know, they’re just like, what’s the dollars and cents here? So yeah, they were like, all of these people are too expensive. Some of them are not needed. Um, one of them actually ended up continuing on and the first thing they did was of course raise the membership rate to 40, [00:13:00] which I was always hesitant to do because to me it was against mission, which my mission was to impact as many people as possible.

So you raise the price, fewer people can afford it, and I just never wanted to do So. There were decisions I was making that were not strictly business decisions, that were more about. You know, I was ma to me, I was making enough money. You know, I had a five bedroom house on like Washington and Seattle and, you know, we went on vacations and uh, I felt like I.

I was making enough and I wanted to pay my team well and have a great lifestyle. And, you know, business people are just like, how many dollars can this throw off for me? Um, so they look at it differently. We had a job board. They got rid of it. It needed a manager to get the listings together, so they just killed it.

I thought it was really important. You know, they, they look at it differently than you do.

Tim Melanson: They do. They do.

Carol Tice: And I had some coaching [00:14:00] programs going on in there and I actually hired a business consultant, did 10 grand of business consulting ’cause we were stuck at a thousand members and I wanted to grow to 1500. I’d figured out that was where the math was gonna make sense to sell it, that I needed to grow another 50%.

And she was like, get rid of the, stop selling the coaching program. Stop selling all these other side projects. You have all roads lead to den membership because that’s the cash cow they’re buying. You know, and she was totally right. That’s, I just shut down all my other offers and all roads were join the Dent and you know, that is what worked to get us to 1500.

Tim Melanson: I like to think that, um. There’s sort of somewhere in between those two things, right? Because I mean, would the community have grown to where it was, had you, you know, not paid your team as much or had you not had this crusade, right? I mean, all these things all [00:15:00] led to the point where, you know, you probably worked tireless hours because you had a a big why.

Right, and you paid your people really well, so there was less turnover, so you were worried less about that stuff and they were probably harder working for you. But then once you get that community to a certain point, then I think you had probably, I mean, you obviously had the right idea that you started to transition into, okay, what do I need to do differently to sell it?

Right.

Carol Tice: Yeah, that’s why I built a course called Built to Sell that I have in Community Growth Academy. ’cause you could just, you could set it up better from the start than I did. And also it’s about you not being the branding or the name of it or you know, I did have kind of myself a cartoon. Me was like all around the branding and yeah, it all had to be kind of changed over and cleaned up.

So it was the kind of thing anybody could operate and wasn’t about me. But yeah, that was one of the reasons I wanted to sell. Um, I got the advice from a friend of [00:16:00] mine who also sold. A similar business and she was like, well, just take yourself outta the business, replace yourself in all the roles, and just collect whatever the net is, you know, from that.

And I kind of tried it and I couldn’t, I could not stop caring about my 1500 needy children. You know, I, I wanted them all to succeed and I’m, I’m hopefully at a little bit more of a reserve of a business-like attitude with Community Growth Academy.

Tim Melanson: Okay. Wow. Well,

Carol Tice: but I’ve, but I’m going a totally different direction with it because I don’t wanna scale it big.

I’ve decided it’s going to 97 a month and limit a hundred members,

and that’s it.

Tim Melanson: so you’ve raised a price on purpose to make sure that you’re picking the right people. Right.

Carol Tice: Well, and, and because it’s gonna be an ex, a small, exclusive community, it’s sort of a whole different vibe. And I’ve just learned that, you know. Prepping and launching and [00:17:00] running a community is complex. There is a lot to it, and I’d like to just really support my people. I don’t really need another big exit.

I did that. I’m good. Um, I, I could sell this thing, I guess, but I am not thinking along those lines. This is sort of my semi-retirement, uh, project

Tim Melanson: Yeah,

Carol Tice: that, uh, it’s in a way, it’s my give back. Um. To just try and create the kind of great life that paid community gives you for other, for other people,

Tim Melanson: well.

Carol Tice: it’s amazing.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And if we circle back to, you know, your original bad note, which was, you know, getting a little, maybe too close to some of the people in your team, uh, having that attitude of like, okay, I’m just gonna build this to sell even though I may never sell it. It. It probably would mitigate that quite a bit.

Now all of a sudden, you’re making choices. If you are gonna make choices to get close to your team or to pay them more, then these are all very conscious choices rather than just, [00:18:00] you know, oh, well they deserve that, so I’m just gonna give it to them, type thing. Right.

Carol Tice: Yeah, I’d say it’s all, it’s all easier to do the second time, you know, around, you know, I, I always, um, I always felt a little bit like, I, I used to feel it was tight walking, tight rope, walking across the Grand Canyon, you know? Um. I was, I’m not a marketer. I had not sold anything online before I started this, and I just kept.

Pushing myself out completely out of my comfort zone. I would do live one hour events that sold a class that would have, you know, I need to make 50 K off of this riding on it, and it would be so intense. And I had, you know. Three young kids at home, two of whom have special deeds and might just start wailing or anything at any time.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Carol Tice: Um, one of them used to come in and, and put [00:19:00] post-it notes in front of me. I was doing these things and I’d be like, I can’t talk to you now. You know, just, um, I don’t know. It was always just a crazy ride, but literally we never, I think we never lost money on anything we launched. Except for one thing that was towards the end, and that was what queued me in the, I we needed to look at this webmaster.

It’s like she made money and I didn’t.

Tim Melanson: yeah,

Carol Tice: That was a, a moment of insight. Yeah. On that.

Tim Melanson: Okay. Wow. Okay. Well let’s talk a little bit about your jam room. ’cause I see a nice view back there. What’s going on with this?

Carol Tice: So I live in a van. Yeah. Um, we sold our house. We bought the van in 2021. In, in 2021 when I sold the business and we did a tryout trip in it. Thought we really liked it. Um. And we were thinking about downsizing the big house when our kids graduated and the last one graduated. And then we looked at each other and said, [00:20:00] where do we wanna recharge to?

And we were like, I don’t know. Hmm. And so then we started to drive around to try and fi figure out a place that checked all our various boxes and we kind of didn’t. And eventually we came to feel that the RV is, this is the downsizing that I want. And then in 24, we kids kept coming back in, they were bouncing back, and then we hit a point where no one was there.

And literally the next morning, like after when moved out, my husband looked at me and was like, we should sell the house now, should we? And I was like, yeah, probably should. And so we did like a year ago. Summer, like a year and a half now or so. And um, yeah, so we’ve been full-time in the RV ever since.

We’re currently at the epicenter of RV existence, quart Site, Arizona, which you can see a little of back there, just, uh, here on Bureau of Land Management, cheapo land, hanging out, doing whatever [00:21:00] we want. We can bike into town and play bingo or go line dancing or.

Tim Melanson: Oh, that’s awesome, Carol. You know that that’s.

Carol Tice: but we’re, we’re basically, you know, out, uh, we’re, you have to be totally like self-contained here.

You’re not on electricity or anything. We have solar and uh, have starlink. We travel. That’s my motto,

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. That’s my, my goal. I actually, uh, it’s, it’s been in my long-term plan, like, uh, our kids are now, uh, uh, almost, almost out, I’d say in the next four or five years. Like, uh, they’re, they’re outta out of high school, but still not quite out yet. But I think it’s probably gonna be a similar situation to you.

As soon as they’re out, it’d be like, let’s sell now. Like.

Carol Tice: Well, um, I mean, I’m glad we were still there for the few years that we were, that was probably good. Um. We do have special needs ’cause and they’re sort of slower launchers maybe than, you know, they didn’t sail off to Columbia or something. Um, they continue to need our support, but I have [00:22:00] now solved their problems from the RV many times.

And, you know, we did this last winter as well. Uh, we tend to be in Seattle six months of the year and down warmer places. Uh, the other half.

Tim Melanson: That’s amazing.

Carol Tice: So we, you know, and it’s like we could always drive to Phoenix and get on a plane and go be there if we need to. Um, so yeah.

Tim Melanson: So now, you mentioned earlier that, I mean, a lot of this stuff that you’ve been doing has been fairly new. Like you’re, you’re just sort of figuring out as you go, but like you also mentioned that you hired a coach at one point too. Is this something that you’ve always done? Like have you always been hiring help to, to help you with this then?

Carol Tice: Well, I had mentors from pretty early on on the blogging side.

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Carol Tice: I got into blogging in like 2008. Blogging was really kind of just taking off and becoming a major way to create an audience and, you know, then monetize that. And [00:23:00] I always say I was like discovered on a, you know, virtual bar stool, a drafts by uh, one mentor who, uh.

Is still really a big part of my life. Um, John Morrow, he was then the editor, an editor at Copy Blogger, which was one of the biggest copywriting sites and. He then had me write some things for them and just, it sent a ton of traffic to my blog. Uh, he just, he shared a post of mine to his audience and, uh, he’s a super inspiring person who can only move his face due to spinal muscular atrophy and was supposed to die when he was three.

So, what’s your excuse for not having a successful online business, folks? Um, but what it gives him is time to think.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Carol Tice: All he does is think about how to do this better. And um, so he’s always just this foun of, of [00:24:00] information. He knows everything about his metrics. I was never a KPIs person. And you know, he’s like, you have signed up a hundred people on your affiliate link, and that means 20 of them will buy and one will get a refund.

And I’m like, how do you know that? You know, he’s one of those people who just have his system so dialed. Uh, he’s always like, been like that. And that’s how I ended up with Community Growth Academy is really, he called me up because he was doing this new program called the Hands-Off Creator and where they do the marketing and put up your course for you and you know, do things.

And I was like, well, I can’t do anything else because I have a non-compete. You know, I sold my business and all I know is freelance writing. And he was like, and what did you learn in. A decade of running a paid community. And I was like, oh, paid community. I community. I could talk community day. I love it.

Um, you know. You [00:25:00] need mentors because you just, like, you don’t know what’s in front of your face. You don’t know what, you don’t understand. Your gifts, really, we’re all just head down, grinding it out, you know, and, and the years are going by and you’re not realizing what. Knowledge or accumulating. And as soon as he said it, it was like, I, I just was sucked back into the world of community.

Um, because I did miss it. You know, I, I was gainfully employed, I was ghost writing books and doing well with it. Um, but that’s. Only influencing one person’s business. You’re back to the sort of limited impact, um, and the power of being able to influence that. Literally like 14,000 people came through Freelance writers den in the time I owned it, you know?

That’s really so, so gratifying. This past spring we went to Europe and I got to meet like [00:26:00] four of those members in person who live in Paris and Amsterdam and in Portugal. And, and I mean, one of them was literally like, it’s just not a joke that you saved my, you’ve, you’ve changed my life. You know, it’s very, very, you, you become friends with these people and they become your raving fans on social.

They’re constantly sharing yourself, talking about your ex. Expertise to people. Um, I love this model, so I’m excited to be back, uh, in it and, and teaching it.

Tim Melanson: Well, okay. Well let’s just roll right into that then. So tell me what’s exciting in your business.

Carol Tice: Well seeing people launch, we actually had an early member who was a longtime financial advisor. He’s like 80 now, literally, and had never sold anything online. It was very word of mouth investment manager, and he was in a couple of free Facebook groups talking about investing. Had a book of past clients and he just told them he got in the community.

At first I [00:27:00] told him, you should, you should set up a community. I met him ’cause I ghost wrote his book. So he had a great calling card for setting up a community and I was like, you should totally do this. I think it would be a great way for you to operate. ’cause he sells various things and he could just stick them all in the community and just say, join the community.

Um. He was, at first he was like, uh, no, I don’t really learn anything new. And he ended up hiring a marketer to do his whole launch. He ended up seeing that he was having to spend a lot of time on the Facebook group saying, buy my investment universes of the months, you know, buy my consulting, blah, blah, blah.

And now he doesn’t have to. Now he, he has a 150 KA year income, 600 paying members. It, it really ramped in like just a few months. So that’s what I’m here for is if you are, if you’re a coach or an expert, you have an audience from what you’ve been doing and [00:28:00] you’re tired of one-on-one consulting, selling hours, or you can’t find clients and you’re wondering how to market, your marketing isn’t working.

Um, I actually just did a strategy that I said I’d never do. Um, I opened up a free level. So you can now join Community Growth Academy for free and get started. You can talk in the forums and you can do the first two modules of finding your best opportunity and doing the competitive research to kind of see how to position yourself to be something different in the marketplace.

And, um. It’s just, it, it’s like 25 people joined in the few days that I’ve added at a free level and some of them have already upgraded. So just I, I thought I’d never go there. But there are very high earning people on school with free community pools and they just upsell them. And I [00:29:00] was always a hater of free.

I was taught don’t make your book free. Don’t make your bait piece free. Don’t you know. Don’t sell for free on a, a free book on Amazon, because those people are looky losing and they’re never gonna buy from you. You haven’t made them open their wallet. You know, this is a, a conventional wisdom that’s been around for a long time and in the den.

In my first community, we sold one day, free passes, one week free passes, one month free passes, one year free passes, and tracked them all and they all converted zero. But something has changed in the world of community where this is really working and it’s particularly working as a way to get an audience when you don’t have one.

So it quickly. Because it’s free. There’s no barrier to entry. You know, they get in and they get a chance to meet you and get to know you very intimately. You’re in there every day talking and. They come to trust [00:30:00] you. So I think the reason free is, is on the rise as a viable thing, is because of the trust crisis that you may know we are currently in.

We all know that like half of what’s online is lies. It’s an ai, it’s not even a real person. They’re secretly in the Philippines. You know, you don’t know what’s going on. And it’s a big problem that a lot of us are struggling to overcome. You know, so I think the, the free, you’re in the club, uh, and you get some love and you just get a chance to see what’s going on.

You see the successes firsthand. I already had a couple of people upgrade to paid. So that’s, I guess that’s what I’m excited about is I, I just thought this might be a complete waste of my time and a lot of, you know, people asking questions that aren’t ever gonna buy from me, but that doesn’t seem to be the way it’s working.

So, know, you have to keep [00:31:00] an open mind because things evolve.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, I, I’ve seen that change even just in my interviews with, with, uh, with people because, uh, it, it’s, it has been over the last, I’d say probably year and a half to two years. Ironically, since chat PT was launched that, uh, coincidentally maybe, I guess, uh, that a lot of people, uh, will talk about how number one, that’s how they’re getting clients is by some sort of free community that allows people to get to know them a little bit because that know, like, and trust is very important.

And then on the other end of the spectrum as well, when I ask people about, well, how do you find good talent? And it’s very similarly the same thing. They’ll say, well, I’ll, I’ll look them up, I’ll go join their free community, find out a little bit more about them, and then end up hiring them. So it’s, it’s going on both sides now.

And I, I think that makes sense because people really, like you, say, there [00:32:00] is a trust issue. There’s just so much fake stuff out there that you have to see if this is real. And I mean, so anybody can now, I mean, uh, imagine even now with ai, uh, you know, videos and all this stuff that you could. Literally create a fake video of you flying around the world, right?

And with all these riches and whatever, and, and make it seem like you’re rich.

Carol Tice: in a free community I’m in that I’m kind of spying on, it’s a very large free community that they just upsell into it. Um. They just had a joint venture, you know, training that was like, make an AI of yourself, make it, make a bunch of ads and you don’t have to do anything. And they played some of them and I was just like so revolted.

And I’m, and I’m like, is no one in this 800,000 woman audience thinking, um, AI. Engages [00:33:00] in theft of inter of intellectual property are thinking that, um, because it does and thinking about the incredible energy use, uh, it is consuming and what that’s doing to the planet. Am I the only one disturbed by this?

And because everyone else would seem to be like, what? And, and I thought it, I don’t know. It’s, it’s not for me. Let me say that I’m gonna not be creating an AI video, me to go make videos and oh my God, I don’t know. I, I guess, I think that there are niches maybe where that will work for physical products where you’re showing the physical product and you just put it in an AI wrapper, maybe who cares?

But when you’re selling your knowledge, your expertise. To someone. I, I don’t think so. You know, I don’t think that’s [00:34:00] a way to go, but, you know, I’m a person who paid all Americans and I, I am just not the Tim Ferriss outsource it all to people who work for $5 and then you’re rich.

Tim Melanson: Well.

Carol Tice: you can be rich and still create living wage jobs.

I’m here, I’m living proof and you should do it.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yep. I,

Carol Tice: don’t think in, yeah, don’t think in terms of, oh, how can I rip everyone else off in my work ecosystem? Think what do I need to charge to run this like an ethical business? And that was really important to me. You know, I had been a business reporter, I talked to a lot of CEOs, seeing a lot of businesses run well and badly.

And I, how I operated was important to me and still is.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and I, I think, uh, so there, there are a lot of people that have been on the show that hire people from, you know, Philippines and all that stuff as well. And now the, the [00:35:00] benefit there is that you can pay them much less and it’s still a very comfortable living wage for them. Right? So you’re still paying a, a living wage by doing that.

Carol Tice: I get it,

But

Tim Melanson: like, uh, I, I think it’s one of those, yeah, it’s one of those values things. I mean, if you want to, you know, give back to your community, then why not hire somebody in your community for that living wage? You know, really what it comes down to is, is whether you can set your business up.

To give that money internally or, or externally. I, I know that I’ve been in kind of in a situation where I wanted to hire, but I don’t really want to hire anybody in the Philippines or in India or anything like that. And so what?

Carol Tice: when they don’t do the gig and you’ve sent them a check, you, there’s no recourse

on that. You know? Um, you’re out the bunny and there’s so much, so many stories of flaky situations like that all over the world of Upwork, you know, [00:36:00] uh, heard this guy. I mean, like, never did it or what they turned.

Ghastly bad. You know, you have to go through, kiss a lot of frogs if you wanna pay little to get to someone who’s maybe good and pays little. I didn’t wanna go through that. Yeah. I wanted to hire my people. I had like zero turn turnover

Tim Melanson: yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, and I, I think that that’s, uh, like I’m.

Carol Tice: and I could, I could rely on them to do things, you know.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I think that when you’re starting to deal with out of the, out of the country, then I, I think probably gets a little bit more com well, probably a lot more complicated. Did any do any type of lawsuit? If anything? If something happens, right. And you know.

Carol Tice: Forget it. Yeah. You have no, it’s not happening.

Tim Melanson: Also, depending on your AR area of work, I mean, now actually there’s potentially some privacy issues as well with things going over overseas.

I mean, there’s, there’s lots of, but now on the AI front though, uh, the AI front is one of those things where if. If that’s what you’re looking for. If you need to hire [00:37:00] somebody that’s gonna be less than, you know, you just, your business just isn’t a place where you can actually hire another, uh, local person, then there are a lot of things that AI can help with that it will speed up your workflow quite a bit.

Um, but like you say, I, I, I don’t because I, I actually did, uh, I’m a tech person, so I, I embrace AI big time and I’ve been using chat g PT quite a while for quite a while now. And I just started looking into some of those, uh, AI clones and all that stuff and the video stuff, and I, I don’t think it’s quite there yet.

It, it’s

Carol Tice: For sure not.

Tim Melanson: Still too noticeable. Um, but I can see where it’s going and I, I, I do think that unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how we wanna look at it, that is where the world’s going. We’re not gonna be able to stop that now.

Carol Tice: as a, as a creator of a lot of ip, more than a dozen books of my own, more than a dozen ghostwritten books, um, thousands and thousands of articles. Um. [00:38:00] You know, we need to get out of the Napster phase where I AI’s just ripping everybody off and into the phase where creators are compensated for this before.

I’m going to get real excited about doing something like that. Um, but yeah, I guess. This is, these are all decisions about how you run your business and how you wanna show up. You know, if you wanna use chat GPT to help outline your article or your book you’re writing, you know, that’s behind the scenes and doesn’t hit your credibility, I think.

I think you need to really watch out when it’s things that hit your credibility and your authenticity and showing up in the world, you know? That to me is, uh, you should probably think pretty hard on that.

Tim Melanson: I also have a feeling, well, I mean, I, I, I can typically tell what is written by AI versus what is written by a person. And, uh, I [00:39:00] think that, um, and, and like you say there, there are plenty of things that AI is. Better for you probably should use it for, you know, creating, you know, maybe some summaries things based on an original work.

I mean, it’s gonna just do it so much faster than you’re gonna be, be able to do it, but

Carol Tice: Well, I mean, we’re, we’re all, we’re all interacting with it. Chat bots are asking you questions and we’re, and answering questions for you. It’s like there’s probably no. No person with the internet who is not interacting with it, whether they like it or not,

but I think you have to think about it as it gets closer to your brand identity.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and I think the more people that use it responsibly and also, uh, because I, I. What I fear is that people are going to sort of reject and then if the more people that reject it that have good morals, right, then the less likely it’s going to actually change. It’ll probably just go down that [00:40:00] direction.

But if a lot of good people start using it and start noticing, I mean, one of the things that we’ve noticed is that when chat PD was launched originally it was like this beta thing. It was just, let’s just throw it on the public and see what happens and like they’ll give us feedback. And so the more good people that are using it, the more good feedback they’ll get the, probably the better direction that it’ll go in.

That’s my fingers crossed, so we’ll, we’ll see how that goes, but uh,

Carol Tice: know. We shall see. But yeah, for now, I mean community is sort of the antithesis of using AI though though I gather you can train, you can train an AI to leave your comments in the community and I was just like, that is the last thing I’m doing. You know, just this is, to me, community is about authentic human connection across.

Geography. Uh, bringing people together have a common interest, a common desire need a common [00:41:00] transformation in their lives. And the magic of bringing them together and letting them become friends with each other and help each other from all over the world, and having a robot inserting a robot of answers into that or something, just, I don’t know,

it’s not for me.

Tim Melanson: sit well.

Carol Tice: Let’s just say

Tim Melanson: So, Carol,

Carol Tice: for other people who don’t care as much about the experience they’re giving people in their community, but it’s not for me.

Tim Melanson: yeah. So how do we find out more about you and your community?

Carol Tice: I’m at Community Growth Academy on school, and I usually give, it’s like school. I have to look up to, like the best link for this is to go to, uh. school.com, and that’s spelled S-K-O-O-L. For anyone who doesn’t know school.com/community growth dash academy slash about. That is where the page where you will see testimonials and see [00:42:00] my, me and my video about what’s going on in the community and test and all kinds of things.

Um. See me on other podcasts and talking about community and why it matters. And um, there’s a free case study you can grab on there. There’s a link in the community box that says free case study. And that is the end way too much depth story of, um, exactly how I built and sold freelance writer stand. So if you’d like the full blood blood blow on that, you can grab that.

Tim Melanson: Love that. Right on. Well that’s excellent. So this is gonna be probably, might be the hardest question of the day. Carol, who’s your favorite rock star?

Carol Tice: Ooh,

Tim Melanson: I.

Carol Tice: only one.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, no. You can mention a couple.

Carol Tice: I don’t know, um, bono, um.

I’m listening to a lot of Led Zeppelin lately. They’ve aged really well. You know, [00:43:00] I don’t feel, remember that I was that into them when I was back on my Diandra lawn with my yellow tuta loop radio getting suntan growing up in the San Fernando Valley of LA listening to 93 KHJ. Uh, but, but like over time they, uh.

I don’t know. They’ve worn really well, they’ve worn really well. Uh, the, you know, Roger Alt tree, uh, I’d say

Tim Melanson: right on.

Carol Tice: just to name a couple

Tim Melanson: You are into the classic rock. Of course they don’t make music like they used to.

Carol Tice: They do not, but they make it the way they make it now. And just think 20 years from now, those people who, who are listening to that will be listening to that on the oldie station.

Tim Melanson: Oh, that’s

Carol Tice: And that’ll be the old rock. And we’ll be dinosaurs.

Tim Melanson: Well, do you know what’s interesting? So I, I, um, I know I don’t have a whole lot of time, but I host, uh, jam Nights regularly and I’ve been bringing in younger bands to, to come play [00:44:00] and it is great. They are playing the classic rock. They’re playing the Led Zeppelin, and it’s so cool to see, you know, the 20 somethings and even the, even the, the high school kids playing Led Zeppelin.

That’s so

Carol Tice: They all, they all know the classic rock from Guitar Hero and cartoon, uh, at the end of animated cartoons. know, like the Shrek cartoons use a lot of classic rock. Um, so it’s like it all gets rediscovered that that’s how my kids know a lot of it, or from us inflicting it on them.

Tim Melanson: It’s probably us.

Carol Tice: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Carol, for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun. Awesome. To the listeners, make sure you, you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.