0:16
This is my amazing Co host Kevin.
Say hi, Kevin.
Hey everyone.
Hey, we are blessed to have a entrepreneur, business owner, Councilman for the City of Irma, South Carolina, but also a long time friend, Gabriel Penfield.
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He and I have been connected for 20 plus years and just recently reconnected and had a few conversations and we were just recapping over some of his story and his life’s journey and I said that would be an amazing episode.
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So we’ve got him here today live from South Carolina.
It’s Gabe Penfield and we’re just excited to share some Nuggets with you today.
And again, our goal is to inform, instruct and inspire those of you that are I’ve always thought about striking out on your own.
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Maybe you’re already out on your own and you just need to be uplifted or get some Nuggets.
And, and we’re just excited to have you tuned in today.
So let’s just break the ice, Gabe, Obviously you’ve had a long journey to where you’re at now as a Councilman and a respected member of your community and a difference maker.
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And you’ve always had a, a ton of energy and this drive to win and succeed and be somebody.
And, and I’ve been a, a witness to that for many, many years, decades now.
That’s how old we are.
And if you just want to break the ice, I know it didn’t all start that way, but that’s where you ended up.
1:51
So just break the ice and tell us a little bit about your story.
Yeah, I think I can tell it now because they say telling your story before you’re successful is called complaining.
It’s not an easy Rd. but it’s a worthwhile road.
And some of our mentors have said, you know, they knew what their life would be like after having paid the price.
2:12
They would have paid it 1000 times over.
And I, I could definitely say that there’s something called a recency bias.
And, you know, my, my primary bread and butter is, is helping people with retirement.
And, you know, navigating the markets is a big part of that.
But the recency bias is where people look at the last 18 or 24 months of a situation and they throw the baby out with the bathwater.
2:34
And I think entrepreneurs can do that too.
Without proper context.
I think we’ve been in the expectation management business for 20 to 30 years because we’re aware of the outcomes of behavior over the course of time that we have a much larger view of a situation as a coach then then a novice does.
2:53
And at the same time, no coach has much confidence as a novice.
You know, you’ve got that Dunning Kruger effect.
I don’t think anybody would try anything new if they knew how hard it was or if you looked at how many books you have to read and how many papers you have to write in order to get your degree.
I wonder if people would still, you know, run up the mountain.
3:10
But my story, it’s just like most entrepreneurs, you know, I had to walk uphill both ways in the snow to get to school on broken glass and iron and all that stuff.
I, you know, didn’t come from a wealthy or successful family.
3:27
I didn’t like school.
And, you know, I really like the quote from Mark 20 says never let your school and get in the way of your education.
When I graduated high school, I was both school spirit and I miss class clown by one vote.
I think that’s what qualifies me to be an elected official.
3:43
I love people.
I love to have a good time.
But at the same time, we need to have a purpose.
And you need to be, you know, madly in love with that purpose.
As long as you have it and and whatever it is it, it doesn’t matter to anybody else but you.
3:59
You know, Jim and I learned a long time ago that success is continuous forward journey towards a predetermined worthwhile goal.
And you know, if you couple that with the most powerful thing in the world is a made-up mind, you know, your success is inevitable if you do the work.
4:17
And I’ve never quit anything except my diet and exercise program.
So I think that, you know, there’s a testament to determination.
But I ended up at Home Depot.
I pushed shopping carts for 7:50 an hour.
I had sucker written on my forehead when I walked in the door.
4:34
I made $222 a week.
And I just thought if I could make $50,000 a year, you know, I could climb the corporate ladder and, and put all my chips on this table.
But I learned about corporate America and learned about politics before I knew what politics was.
And someone else wanted the promotion, you know, that I was going for and, and they got it and I didn’t.
4:55
But in the interim, I met a guy named Michael Skalinski and Michael changed my life along with a lot of the other people like Jim, who I bounced off of along my path.
But Michael took me to lunch and you know, he’s first generation from Poland.
5:11
And he said people put their families in 18 Wheelers that’s 100° and they put themselves on rafts and they go across shark infested water just for the opportunity to come to America.
And he said, you many people are born here and I’ll remember vividly.
5:28
He said opportunity blows around like leaves in the streets and you don’t even see it.
You just you’re just you don’t you don’t recognize it’s there.
But I I was looking like I wanted more and admittedly had a champagne taste and a beer budget and no way to get there.
5:50
And so he took me to, to lunch and he, he kind of helped me see that, you know, there’s more in the world than just working at Home Depot.
And I knew that, but I didn’t have a vehicle.
And so he took me to a meeting and just to tell you where I was at, I was unemployed at the time.
6:10
Within about six months, you know, I’d lost my W2 position that we talk about our, our financial Independence Day.
That was 12/18 O2 for me because I left that W2 world and went into 1099 and also learned along the way that people who own their own business tend to work 80 hours a week for themselves so they don’t have to work 40 hours a week for someone else.
6:34
But I was hungry and I wanted to to find a way to leave misery and go to a better place.
But I didn’t have any of the trappings of success.
So I borrowed a suit from one of my uncles.
It was too small.
It was wool, it was green, had buttons that looked like they were going to pop off and hit somebody in the eye.
6:51
And I didn’t have any dress shoes, so I grabbed a black pair of shoes from my roommate’s closet.
It turns out they were those like I stock shoes that Pee Wee Herman wore when he danced on the bar and Pee Wee’s big adventure in.
Platform.
7:08
OK, I walked in the meeting and I heard her whisper behind my back.
I think he’s European.
I didn’t have a haircut.
Like I had a big curly Afro of hair and we’re in a Class C office.
I didn’t know what a Class C office was then, but I didn’t care.
I wanted to leave a blue collar lifestyle and I wanted to to find out how do you make money with a computer and a phone?
7:29
You know, I was just very enamored by that.
And also, you know, I got sucked into energy.
I went into an office where there was a guy that used to work at Breakaway Honda in The Body Shop and painted cars and he still had paint under his fingernails, but he was on a tear with, you know, a group of fire breathing Dragons.
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And they were going somewhere and I want to be a part of it.
And I remember Art Williams used to say a group of deer led by a lion will be a group of lion led by a deer anytime.
And that energy was just romantic to me.
They they fed me rich dad, poor dad and cash flow quadrant smart couples finish rich.
8:07
They gave me power of positive thinking.
They gave me man’s search for meaning.
If I didn’t say how to win friends and influence people, how to master the art of selling.
Like, you know, when I graduate high school, I said I’ll never read another book again.
It’s nothing that I wasn’t interested in learning.
8:23
I just wasn’t interested in being educated.
And I wanted to find my own path in the world and the group of people that I landed in with Jim and and countless others.
I mean, it was a university success in in true form.
And you can fail forward.
And I did that and I did it every single day and tried to get better.
8:43
And I made 10s of dollars as great Rich Henry used to say.
And but I got my doctorate people skills 2 times over because I wouldn’t quit.
And I never got tired of showing up and trying to get better.
But at some point, you know, I had to look in the mirror and say I’m not winning at the level that I need to win on this because of me.
9:04
It’s not because of who I’m attached to.
It’s not because of the environment I’m in.
You find a dandelion growing on the sidewalk and you understand that you’re going to win in spite of yourself if you have to, but you’re going to win.
But you got to do the work and you got to put the time in.
You got to read the books.
9:20
You got to listen to, you know, we had these things called CDs and cassette tapes back in the day and you know, now you’ve got YouTube like how you’re not successful with the access to information that we have today is just not an excuse.
You might have mental health issues that you’re going through or you might have relationship challenges that you’re going through.
9:38
But if you want to win and you define what winning is, you’re going to win.
If you just put it, you put it in there, you’re put your nose to the grindstone, you know, it’s going to happen.
It’s just a, a matter of time.
So sadly had to make a decision between, you know, the relationship I was in and marriage and family.
9:59
And, and, you know, I was very convicted that that’s the direction I was going to go.
But we couldn’t afford to sleep in the trunk of my car anymore.
And so I went to another broker dealer, and, you know, I was at the right place the right time.
There’s a quote that says when the student is ready, the teacher appears.
10:17
And when the student is truly ready, the teacher disappears.
And I met a guy named Bob Deaton.
And Bob Deaton was my version of Nick Saban.
If you don’t follow college football, you know, that’s probably one of the winningest coaches in our lifetime.
And, you know, he was the right guy at the right place.
10:35
And but he helped me understand that I made no money because I gave no value.
Money follows value or maybe qualify that better money follows perceived value.
So just because I wanted to win in the business that I was in, I was presenting an opportunity in a way that was turning off all the people that I was supposed to be turning on and vice versa.
10:57
Because I wasn’t convinced of my own value.
I didn’t have any intrinsic value going in.
I had to gain it by you don’t get skills by reading about them.
You know, you don’t get good at hitting baseballs by learning statistics.
11:13
You got to go strike out in front of people over and over and over.
And I remember Jim, I think I told you my first 10 or 20 presentations, we had a little 6 page, you know, kind of a brochure thing that it honestly, I just tried to get through the six pages before they threw me out on the front step like Jazz on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
11:35
If I can get through the presentation, that was a win for me.
But I found opportunity and, and people opened up their, their finances.
So when I got this coach, he said you made no money because you gave no value.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t trying to give value.
11:51
I just wasn’t giving the value to the people that, you know, I wasn’t in front of the right people.
And we always talk about having a market, having the right market and staying in it.
And I worked with a lot of people that I wasn’t intimidated by and I needed to work with people that I was intimidated by for me to grow and go to the next level.
12:12
So with that piece of advice in mind and eight years and two doctorates and people skills, I grew my practice every year for 13 years and applied a lot of the things that we learned in the environment that we’re in.
12:30
If you guys remember the five levels of leadership and John Maxwell, you know the first one’s position, that’s the worst one.
Then you have personality, then you have results, and then you get to develop people and then you become an icon.
But I wanted to develop people, but I didn’t.
12:47
I couldn’t have any tangible results.
And so my manager basically took me out of people development, put me back in production, and it was like pushing a beach ball down in the water and letting it go because I knew what to do.
Most people, you know, they don’t need to know more.
13:02
They need to apply significantly what they do know and then learn as they go along.
That bookshelf, Kevin behind you, reminds me of what Tom Hopkins said 25 years ago.
He said if you get a pine board and a bracket and put it on the wall and fill it with books and apply what you know from those books, you’ll have a library in your house.
13:24
And I’m sorry, I have to take, I have to take the moment just because of because Java 2 was in the room with me when that happened.
Just let me step over here for a second.
Remember I told you guys I’d never read another book ever again?
13:45
Nice.
And just like I think Bill Render said, there’s a book for every appointment I’ve ever been on.
Right.
So what was it that when you said I, I don’t want to read a book, you know, what was it that triggered that curiosity or that hunger?
14:12
What What was it that you just kind of became a self improvement junkie?
So life gives you the test 1st and the less than after I’ve been on, yeah, I don’t know, 20-30 appointments.
And I had a couple of small successes, but for the most part, I was a professional visitor because I was uncomfortable asking for the sale and I just didn’t have the self-image yet that, you know, I felt like an imposter maybe.
14:45
But my RVP let me sleep in his attic for a short period of time as a finished attic.
He couldn’t stand up, but it still was air conditioned.
But in order to make that space for me, we had to clean it out.
And I can’t, I can’t explain the emotions that I had when I opened up a Tupperware like a Rubbermaid Tupperware like a big one full of cassette tapes that said overcoming objections.
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If you’d given me that cassette tape the day I signed up, I might have set it aside.
But having gone out and had my rear end handed to me multiple times, I put that cassette tape in and I had these like 6 foot tall speakers with the big knob and the record player.
15:31
And I’m listening to the guy named Hector Vex effectively overcome objections and everything I’m hearing.
I’m reminding of appointment on this $400.00.
I could have paid my rent $200.
I could have paid my car payment.
And more importantly than that, the family that I could have helped.
15:52
Because if, if, if I could have had the skills and ability to be an effective communicator and help them see the risk that they were in or the terrible predatory product that they were in, then I could have helped them exponentially more than the money that I would have gotten.
16:09
But because I had went out and got my rear end handed to me, those tapes meant something to me.
Every broadcast that we watch, every seminar that we went to, I feel like every word of every speaker was essential to me escaping poverty and going to a better place.
16:29
So some of us might be on the spectrum a little bit or maybe some OCD tendencies.
But if you’re, if you’re not willing to operate at a level that most people aren’t willing to operate at, or you’re not willing to do what most people aren’t willing to do, then you’re not going to have the life that you want.
16:45
You know the, the amount of fuel that the space shuttle uses leaving the Earth’s atmosphere.
If you’re aware of how heavy the habit of our, the gravity of our habits are and how hard it is to change the Grand Canyon once it’s cut those neurons in your brain, it requires an extraordinary effort.
17:08
And it’s very difficult to do it alone unless you’re in very dire circumstances like pursuit of happiness or something like that.
Or better.
When you have a tribe of people, when you have people who are going with you who can remind you that it’s worth it, or, you know, when someone else has success, it furthers your success.
17:29
You’re not threatened by the success of other people.
You’re emboldened by it because, you know, Jim and I both know we’ve gone to big events with, you know, no gas in the tank.
And then you get there and you see somebody who’s uglier than you, Dumber than you from a worse situation from you who’s who’s just wiping the floor because we all know hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.
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So I think that that office that I was in that defining moment, finding that cassette tape and and putting that in and hearing all these opportunities that would have happened for me and for the people that I would have been able to help if I had been better prepared.
It grew me.
18:11
And then to, you know, I’m I’m better at listening sometimes than reading, but I would listen to, you know, cassette tapes of people and the things that they were telling me and saying to me, you know, they were very fruitful.
And hold on one second.
18:28
Hey, Alex, I’m on a call.
Can I call you later?
OK, Thank you.
I need to shut the flag door.
Probably So at any rate, the the the the pain of failing.
18:45
They emboldened me to have the success of learning.
And that’s not sitting doing math problems.
Jim, I think I told you I didn’t pass the life exam until my third try and it was a open book home study course.
19:06
I.
Took I took my 6.
I took my series 6/6 times.
I took my series 26 five times.
I took my my 26 twice, but I made an 87 on my Series 7 and I took three months off and I studied until I passed.
19:25
I never questioned whether I would pass during the exam because I prepared hard enough.
I learned you can understudy for an exam many times, but you can only over study for an exam once.
And so I think you know, how long do I have to stay in misery before I get up and decide to leave?
19:43
I think it was Harriet Tubman said.
I prayed and prayed for freedom, but until I started praying with my feet that I’d become free.
That’s good.
Those defining moments I think we talk about, you know, seeing you and other people encourage me and say, you know, you can do it, you just have to do it.
20:02
Well, one of the things is you were so hungry to win.
You were so coachable.
You know, I just reminded of a story when we did meet in Florida at a retreat and I don’t remember the exact conversation as many moons ago, but it was like, I want to win.
20:25
How do I win?
What do I need to do?
And I was probably on the verge of going to RVP then or something.
I was very direct with you because you had like 5000 questions and I’ve met a bunch of people with questions before, like a lot of questions.
20:42
And it’s the 8020 rule. 20% will do what you tell them to do.
The other 80% or?
Assholes.
Talking to hear themselves, you know, and I said well you we’ve got this workshop it’s in Cincinnati you need to figure out how to get there and if you can figure out how to get there, I’ll make sure you have a place to stay.
21:07
That was it I mean that was that was it I didn’t draw a road map.
I didn’t do anything else.
And next thing you know, I don’t know if you, you called me on the way, called me as you were leaving.
Call me when you got there.
It was like I’m coming, I’m here.
21:23
Kevin, let me tell you how direct he was.
So I said, hey, I sat down at a table in this hole in the wall crab shag, and I just happened to sit across from a guy named Kent Preston.
And Kent Preston was everything that I wanted to be.
21:41
He was gregarious, he was knowledgeable, he was confident, and he had already achieved a lot of the career milestones that I hoped it would take me a lifetime to get there.
But I said, hey, it takes me about an hour and a half to do my interview.
21:57
And he goes like this.
He goes, he says you need to talk to Jim Batu and John Altman.
And that’s all he said to me.
And for years I gave Kent so much credit for for being the connector.
22:13
And as a council person today, you know, I don’t feel potholes, but I see that they get done.
I don’t, I don’t save cats from trees, but I know where the fire department is.
So I think, you know, being the connector is actually a really cool spot because you share in some of the benefit without having to do all the heavy lifting.
22:31
And then ultimately our job as a leader is not to show people how great we are.
Our job is to show them how great they are when they’ve lost sight of that.
So I did whatever I could do.
I think I was like the T1000 going through that retreat looking for Jim for two and John Altman, like a private detective or something.
22:47
But I found him in the pool and, and I said the same thing to Jim and, and he said, well, have you read any books on how to conduct a professional interview?
And I said, well, I don’t really have any money.
And he said, well, do you have a Public Library?
Like like 0 excuses, right?
23:07
And he said, and just so you know, Barnes and Noble has a 14 day return policy just like the library does.
And you know, winners want to be held accountable.
You know, then you can’t, you can’t hurt my feelings because my feelings are not worth anything.
23:22
Like, you know, my pride is not going to make make me successful about being coachable is so I, I went to my dad’s house and he had a big a gallon pickle jar that he would throw change in when he came home from whatever he was doing.
And I didn’t ask him for it.
23:37
I just liberated it.
And I didn’t even know how much was in it.
I didn’t count it.
I just put it in the truck and I put the car seat around it.
And I and I, you know, took my goodwill suit and, and, and I went and I drove all through the night to Cincinnati.
I think I slept in my truck and washed up in the gas station bathroom.
23:56
But I could tell you one of the most humbling things was true to what Jim said.
It was $200 for that weekend, and I didn’t have $200 in a month.
Those guys all chipped in, you know, 1020 bucks apiece.
They had a cooler with some wet sandwiches in it.
24:13
And I was in heaven.
And I was a part of something.
And I sit on the front row and, and I think if I recall, they had told the speaker, you know, the commitment that I made to be there.
And when you’re absolutely broke, you don’t want everybody to know you’re broke.
24:28
But he, he made me stand up in front of everybody and told him, you know, that I basically slept in my car to be there.
And he was making the point that there’s people right here in town who don’t want to win.
And you have someone here that, you know, one of Gemini’s heroes, he talks about the thief, the gambler and the champion.
24:50
The thief wants something significant, but he’s not willing to pay a price for it.
He’s just going to steal it.
The gambler wants something significant, but he’s only willing to put in a little bit.
The champion puts in whatever they have to do to get the job done.
And I found a room full of champions and I failed at home.
25:07
And I did everything I could to to learn and apply the things, not just, you know, parroting them, but internalizing them.
And I came back three years later and you know, when, when they hosted the event, Tom asked me to come up on stage and go through the overcoming objections with the crowd.
25:27
And you know that the it’s not just winning, it’s wanting other people to win too, because of what it does for you.
But it’s, it’s the doors it opens up.
And because of that, I went to Lowe’s on a Saturday morning.
25:45
I remember this very vividly.
You know, I made next to no money for a very long period of time and I got a hose reel and a hose and I think I got a weed eater and, you know, the accoutrements to go with it.
And it was over $300.
And I got to the car and I just happened to glance down at the receipt and I was just overcome with emotion because I just, I just went in the store and got what I needed.
26:11
I didn’t, it wasn’t a lavish situation, but I was empowered to do what I needed to do to take care of the needs of my family.
And I never forget, you know, Jim didn’t do my appointments for me, but Jim gave me direction and he, he showed me where the Oasis was, the watering hole was so I could show up and drink and be nourished.
26:32
You know, when I was hungry, they fed me.
When I was naked, they clothed me.
And I don’t know a better example of leadership than that.
So thank you, Jim.
That’s all good, man.
I don’t feel like I did anything.
You did the heavy lifting, but some soggy Bologna sandwiches is sometimes all you need, right?
26:52
That’s right.
Gabriel, we’re like, you know, we’re over 20 minutes in here.
I’m just sitting here.
We’re like, I love listening to you speak.
I mean, you got so much in your story that I didn’t want to interrupt.
It’s so good to hear how you got here.
27:07
But man, I’ve got I’ve got so many notes that we’re never going to get through them in this podcast that you dropped so far.
So Jim, it’s not going to be hard for you to find Nuggets to to post here for this conversation.
But a couple of things that you know, you are or seem to be the pursuit of happiness.
27:24
You mentioned it earlier, but just does seem like you’re telling this story and all I’m thinking about is this movie because it does feel like it.
But anyway, a lot of what I’m picking up here is this hunger that you had.
You know, you’re always going back, going back, going back.
27:40
You don’t have much.
You keep going back.
What do you think really drove this hunger from?
I mean, this is when you were younger, this might have been maybe sounds like prior to you having a family.
This is this is driven maybe from childhood, I think.
What do you think, really?
27:56
Where do you think?
This hunger for like never stopping and this persistence for you to get where you are today?
Where did that come from, you think?
It comes from a study from the 70s by Don Beck and, and, and Claire Graves.
And without sounding too nerdy, it’s it’s basically, it’s called Integral Spire Dynamics and it’s a study of civilizations and individuals.
28:22
And it really helps make sense of things for me.
Jim and I probably for 20 plus years have been using something we call the star test.
Jim, you, you fax that to me.
When we used to use sticks and rocks to communicate across electrical wires.
I still give out the star test, Jim.
28:41
I’ve given that out 1000 times because it’s just an easy way to kind of find out how to best communicate with people.
But I say.
All the simplified version of the disk.
Yeah, it’s a simplified.
Version of that.
So if you look at let me go, I’m going to go a little scriptural for a second.
28:58
So if you look at before the flood, the world was so bad.
It was so chaotic.
You know, there was just no order.
And we call that the Red Village.
So Red Village is about power.
That’s the that’s the dominant need is power.
We can’t have a civilization where people are just stealing and killing murder.
29:20
Like he can’t drive on the wrong side of the road.
We have a monetary system, a legal system, a traffic system.
I have a circulatory system, a nervous system.
There’s an order.
So when they came back, they went to the blue village and the the word in blue is order structure.
29:39
And they even gave them, if you ask Mel Brooks, the original, it was 15 commandments.
They dropped one of the tablets, if you recall.
So there were 10 commandments, but we have to have order.
But order for the sake of order.
Is he just?
29:55
He didn’t say I didn’t come to abolish the law.
I came to fulfill the law and you fulfill the law.
I love your neighbor as you love yourself.
But beyond that, blue village is an orange village, and that’s the achievement village.
So if you look at Solomon, Solomon said I held nothing back from my eyes.
30:12
I had wisdom.
And ultimately it’s vanity of vanities.
It’s all chasing the wind.
So you get to Green Village and Green Village is kind of like community and relationships and, and social justice and things like this.
And So what we take away from this model, they’re kind of like decoder glasses that you get out of the crackerjack box.
30:34
So you can kind of understand that people dominate in a sort of a Maslow’s hierarchy of need.
And, and when you’re recruiting, if you’re in a recruiting business and you’re recruiting people who are in the Red Village and you’re like, well, I don’t understand why you don’t like you’re in this place.
30:51
Why don’t you go and leave misery and go to a better place Or you find people who are orderly.
People who are orderly are great.
They’re very important.
But sometimes they can’t get things done if they don’t know, like entrepreneurs, they say pack their, their parachute after they jump out of the plane.
31:08
Structured people need to know steps one through 8 before they jump out of the plane.
They won’t do it.
They have to have order, but once you get past order and you get to achievement, that’s where you have multidisciplinary studies.
You have the 90’s, the stock market, driving a Hummer, you know, getting in the business that I was in with Jim, I grew up a Jehovah’s Witness.
31:29
And so I already had, you know, a lot of blue.
I already had a lot of order.
I already had a lot of structure, and I was fairly rebellious from it because my hierarchy of needs was eager to go to orange.
So I went to the office that I signed up for and I saw, you know, my manager pulled up his last 10 checks, and his last 10 checks were more than I made in a year.
31:52
And I met people that were living that orange achievement lifestyle and I was hungry for it and I wanted to learn and grow and, and, and I was at the right place at the right time, but I wasn’t prepared.
And it took a season to get me prepared.
32:08
But when you’re looking at people like I have a, a parking lot business that my partner is 20 years retired Army, so he’s high blue emerging orange.
I have a furniture store that I’m a partner in.
32:24
And you know, Beth has been with DHEC most of her career and this is second career.
So you have a high blue emerging orange.
So you have to have people who carry their own internal structure to be able to go into business because there’s so many hats.
32:40
If you look at the E myth or the E myth rediscovered, you get watered down by all the things.
And somewhere along the line, we were taught only do what only you can do.
So I got into orange early, but it took a season for me to be able to prepare myself to be structured and to follow through with the things.
33:01
But also going back to that 8020 rule, if that’s true, then I only need to hit the top two things and let the other 80% fall by the wayside because those don’t give me the most effectiveness.
So part of coming from, you know, not having a lot of money, you mentioned childhood.
33:21
Everybody’s got their their violin, you know, moment.
I didn’t get a yearbook in second grade when everybody did, you know, I felt like an outcast or whatever.
So I said, I’m never going to let my kids not have anything.
And so today my kids don’t want for anything in a material sense.
33:38
But at the same time, Uncle Phil on 1st Prince of Bel Airy says, sometimes you work so hard to give your kids everything that you didn’t have.
You forget to give them some of the things that you did have.
My kids have never had a wet Bologna sandwich.
Jim, maybe, you know, it’s it’s like the boy named Sue.
33:57
You know, it’s the it’s pressure in time.
So to your question, you know, I was driven because I didn’t have much.
And, you know, if you only make enough for you, how do you help anybody?
How do you influence anything?
How do you have any hierarchy of needs and people development?
34:15
If you can’t get results for yourself, how are you going to get, how are you going to teach somebody else how to, how to do that?
You know, there’s, there’s a quote that says a guru is someone that steals your wallet and sells it back to you.
You know, I, I wasn’t able to walk the talk.
I, I could talk the talk, but I couldn’t walk the walk.
34:32
And so it took some time for me to get there.
But once I did, you know, I never look back.
And I think one of our mentors, he says, I don’t know why I am, but my butt’s always burning.
And so I went through a, a season of I think 14 years of quote achievement.
But how many multidisciplinary studies do I need?
34:52
How many rings do I need?
How many exotic cars do I need?
Like how much is enough?
And it’s very self oriented, these villages.
The red village is self focused.
The blue village is self sacrificing the red the orange village is is self achievement.
35:11
The green village is is looking out for others.
As people go through these different stages of maturity, they vacillate between self and other.
And so I think for me, living in a new house and a pristine neighborhood and having dice cars and healthy children, but it but I still had things to work on inside and climbing this mountain thinking I’m going to find a guru.
35:34
And all that was up there was an orange robe and a straight razor like I had, I had to become the thing that I wanted to, to aspire to achieve.
And it’s an empty victory.
Just like Solomon said, if you’re on a desert island, you can only burn money to stay warm.
35:49
You can’t eat it.
So I, I think for me, growing up in a very modest place, you know, making the type of income that I was making at that point, it just felt, it felt a little empty because money doesn’t make us happy.
It, it gives us an opportunity to do things with other people.
36:09
But even if you had a, a big mansion and nice cars in the middle of nowhere, what good would it be without sharing with people that you care about?
And so I got into a different type of self improvement.
I got into emotional development.
36:25
Pizzero has a great book called Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.
And it’s basically the thesis as you can’t be any more healthy emotionally than you are spiritually.
And so he did a lot of work where psychology and theology overlap.
And you know, and I, I delved into that and done a lot of self discovery since then.
36:44
But I will say this part of being broke for eight years and and make no money because you gave no value.
It’s cash flow.
It’s not cash hold.
So be a good tipper, volunteer your time, give clothes away like the nature doesn’t like a vacuum.
37:03
So if if you’re if you’re thinking that money’s limited and resources are scarce, well, we’re not serving the same God.
The sun nourishes all things and does not Lord it over them.
37:20
So giving value is sort of borrowed by B and I groups and they say givers game.
So the more you give, the more it comes full circle.
And that may be superstitious, but that has been my life experience and it’s been what has happened since I got the advice that I made no money because I help no people.
37:41
So come back to your question.
I was driven by not having much and wanting to achieve something and and be somebody that I’m quite proud of.
I have parts of me I’m super proud of and other parts of me that I know.
We’re still in the dark ages, so it’s not a destination to get to.
38:00
It’s just a process that you work through as you grow old and mature.
Yeah, thanks.
That the scarcity abundance thing, you know, I mean, I grew up in some scarcity as well.
And so it it really, it really it’s easy for people to stay in that forever.
38:16
Do you, do you know what, what was a turning point for you?
Like it sounds like you came from scarcity as well.
And you, you learned at some point that giving comes back in other ways, not necessarily financially or whatever, but in just like fulfillment or achievement or just the way you.
38:33
Feel how good that.
Felt even being a connector like you talked about earlier, I’ve noticed that right you it’s not easy to be a connector when you haven’t done much.
So when you start doing things, the man in the arena, right, you talked about can’t just read books.
You got to get out and do these things.
38:50
And so the more you get out, you learn, but you go to go do.
And once you go, do you get new experiences, new doors open, new pathways open up, you meet new people.
Now you get to become a connector.
And it feels amazing, doesn’t it, to connect other people to Someone Like You are connected that changed your life.
39:08
So back to scarcity, abundance.
Do you know if there’s a time where that really clicked for you, where you thought, wow, I mean, I got to I got to keep what I have and I got to keep getting more versus I’m going to give some of this away and wow that I didn’t expect that or it’s changed my life to give.
39:27
So my mom had a beauty salon, it’s called the $5 haircut company.
You can, you can figure out how old we all are when a haircut was $5.00.
But we were driving home and there was some, some children like maybe 10 or 12 walking.
And she opened the car door and gave him a ride.
39:45
And as it turned out, all three of them were completely infested with head lice.
So this is Sunday.
She went and bought 3 head lice kits and took them to her salon, which I think is probably illegal in most states.
And she treated these kids that had head lice for several hours until there wasn’t a head lice left.
40:06
You know, there wasn’t anything left there.
My dad was always the oldest of a lot of siblings and cousins.
And you know, he did everything that he could possibly do to make sure that.
There were turkeys for Thanksgiving and that, you know, if people needed bail money, that they got what they needed.
40:23
And so I have that kind of model in my head that, you know, I don’t need to just make enough money for me.
I’ve got to make enough money for other people because that’s kind of the, the, the, the, the role model that, you know, that I lived out.
But aunts, uncles, I’ve always seen people around me demonstrate a lot of benevolence.
40:43
And I think there’s it’s OK to say there’s no such thing as altruism.
I don’t think there’s a thing called selfless.
I think we use the term self full because we’re in consent.
And it’s OK to say it makes me feel good to help this person across the street.
40:59
It’s OK for me to pay it forward.
It’s OK to be in consent.
I don’t have to be a martyr and I don’t have to just lose myself into thinking that it doesn’t feel good to go out and help other people.
And, and honestly, it’s contagious.
You know, when when you help people, other people want to do that.
41:15
It’s just in our nature, I think is to collaborate that.
But I recently saw a different term for it and and it was referred to as surplus value.
Surplus value.
So, you know, I’m not just looking for myself.
41:32
I’m looking for to help other people.
You know, I’m trying to plant trees that I’ll never sit under the shade because that’s what some of the most respected and loving people do.
You know, we’re talking about putting nuclear weapons on Mars to create hydrogen to create rain, that we might have an inhabitable planet at some point in the future that none of us will be alive to see.
41:56
Like that’s making an impact.
Like that’s making a difference.
But you can also make a difference when you give a generous tip at a restaurant.
Even smile.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. 100% I I just had a conversation with the lady yesterday.
42:16
She’s in customer service and a friend of mine had feed her up as a potential candidate to work for our company.
And she was just telling me her story.
She works in retail and I said, I, I was in the trenches of retail for many years and I said, first of all, my first impression is you have a great way with people.
42:40
And I said, this young lady introduced me to you because she thought there was something special about you.
I said, how often do you get told that on a daily basis at your job?
She said, well, this is just the first time ever, so it doesn’t take dollars, right?
42:59
But I also had a mentor one time.
It reminds me, I, he was like a 7 figure earner and I got some time with him just to pick his brain.
And he said, what’s your income goal for the year?
43:15
And I don’t remember what I said.
Maybe I said like 200 grand or something like that.
And he said I thought he’d go, oh man, that’s, that’s incredible.
Dude.
High five man.
You’re, you’re going to make it happen.
And his face got dead serious.
43:30
And he says, interesting, he goes, how does it feel to know that you just sentenced your entire team to poverty?
Man.
I mean, it was devastating, man.
43:46
I felt like a physical punch with words for the first time, right?
It was unbelievable.
And I mean, I, I was just baffled and confused and I understood what he meant after the fact, you know, but that wasn’t what I was expecting.
44:02
And he said, if your goal is to make 200 grand, how many people on your team are making 200 grand?
So is your goal not to help other people and make a difference in their lives as well?
Right.
Yeah, Kevin, I think another part of that question is if you look at how many people have invested in you from the time that you were born until now, how can you not pay a forward?
44:37
Like, how can you not collect wisdom to share with other people?
Like, how can you?
I mean, that’s, I don’t want to take the moral high ground.
I’m just saying like, look at Schindler.
Like in the end, Schindler still had a ring in the car and he felt upset that he hadn’t helped more people.
44:57
Like when I was in recruiting, I felt like Schindler, I felt like I’m leaving misery and I’m we’re going together, let’s go.
And and I didn’t have any question that I wasn’t going to a better place.
I didn’t get there in the vehicle that I thought I was in, but I still got there and I still have that brought people along that.
45:21
And, and also, I think it’s fair to say that not everybody that starts the race or joins you in your race will finish the race with you or you with them.
And that has a bittersweetness to it.
But the important part is that whether you don’t have money or, or resources now, you can give time or you can give love and appreciation.
45:40
It comes full circle.
Yeah, it’s a great response.
I mean, I know I’ve heard people I don’t know that they really think about it deeply enough.
I think when they say self-made, I don’t believe in that because you were born so someone had you.
45:57
So therefore, I like there’s so many ways to think back about how where you are now took a village.
It it was not just you, even though you might have been the one doing, you know, what you think in your story is the one that did the work here.
46:13
But you know, we we all were taken care of by people.
And along the way, whether it was advice, whether it was your parents having you and giving you that family, that loving home to live in that Turkey at Thanksgiving, the conversations, just all of it adds up to create who you are and what you’re able to do or what you have done.
46:31
So, you know, I just don’t believe in the self-made thing.
I think we all have, we all have a lot of people to thank and appreciate for what we’ve been able to to do.
That’s right.
Is that philosophy and that mindset that you’ve developed over the years.
46:48
It is that what opened the door to Dovetail and to be a Councilman and to get him to where the political side of things.
What what was it that you went from entrepreneur to that door opening?
What was that road like and why did you choose that and what gets you excited about it?
47:12
Maybe there’s a part of me that notices patterns or maybe I, I think we talked about the reticular activation system when you, you know, when I bought a nice car, I finally saw how many other people already had that car.
And so I think, you know, if you’re looking for opportunity, you’ll find it.
47:34
If you’re looking for things that will enhance your journey, you’ll find it because you have to be switched on to it.
But I’m on the HOA board.
I handle violations.
So I’m very popular in the neighborhood I’m in.
But I had a situation where the city tore up my yard to quote fix the pipe and they literally left mountains of red clay in my front yard and I said I am not going to pay my water bill until you come back and fix my yard. 18 months went by and being on the HOA board is frowned upon in a community where the average person is probably 68 years old not to have your yard in a pristine shape.
48:18
So we had a, a hall neighborhood meeting and there was some discussion about selective enforcement and, and there was some heated conversation, but a woman came up and, and she said, you know, I wasn’t picking on you.
What you’ve done is, has been tenacious.
48:35
And I know about your financial business and I know about your coffee shop and your furniture store and your parking lot business.
And you’re, you’re a hard working and a good guy.
You should run for council.
And I never more thought about being involved in, in local leadership.
48:51
I used the term local leadership instead of politics than being an astronaut.
But I had gone to a council meeting and I had seen people in leadership that really we’re still developing their countenance and their diplomacy.
49:11
And, you know, I have a model in my mind of what a, the decorum that a leader has and, and, and, you know, strength, anger is a weak person’s attempt at strength.
You know, real strength has poise.
49:28
And I thought about it and I thought, you know, after being in wealth management for over 20 years, sometimes you work so hard to build a relationship, to earn trust and get business.
The coffee shop was a project, the internship that I started in 2015 for USC students.
49:47
And we had this one way glass, actually this glass you see behind me separated the lobby from the internship.
And I noticed a lot of people that I knew were coming in the coffee shop and buying coffee from us and they did not know that I was involved.
And I, I just really love the contrast of owning a business and earning business without being on the front of it and not being the face of it.
50:12
I felt kind of like the little bit like the Wizard of Oz I guess in a sense.
And that coffee shop served 26,000 cups of coffee.
It helped launch two churches, four small groups, a wedding, a rat video, open mic night, poetry night, spoken word, the coffee shop, the cigar shop, the furniture store.
50:34
You know that in my father’s house there’s many mansions.
And so I couldn’t run for council and I couldn’t keep the coffee shop going at the same time.
So someone approached me at a local level after hearing me in a Waffle House say I couldn’t do both.
50:57
So, so serendipitously he approached me and offered to take it off my hands.
And it was 2 best days of a coffee shop owners life is the day that they started and the day that they the day they sell it.
51:13
So, so you know, it’s kind of just a serendipitous thing that these intersections of business and and local leadership come together.
But I ran in November of 23 and I came up short by 25 votes and there was a special election the following February.
51:32
So I ran there and I got I think 77% of those votes.
And then someone said, guess what, you got to run again next year too, because I got two years left of a four year seat that was vacated by someone.
I didn’t want to be someone who just shows up during campaign time because I feel like that you know it.
51:52
For me, it feels disingenuous.
And so we’re very active on social media, unlike where you live, there’s a lot of potholes here.
And so I’m always out trying to fix those things and so.
I don’t understand the concept of a pothole in South Carolina, but that’s a different episode of a podcast.
52:11
It makes total sense in Central IN, Yeah.
Mosquitoes, and we call them Palmetto bugs, are also different here than they are in other parts of the world.
I think it could probably put the mosquito as a state bird in some seasons of life.
But hey, I just applied the same thing to local leadership.
52:32
I keep qualifying local leadership.
There’s people who are, who are averse to, you know, they’re not religious, but they’re spiritual.
And I think if you didn’t have a government, you’d still have a group of people who came together to do what, to create surplus value.
52:48
That’s what the original people did.
And even when you talk about leadership, George Washington said, don’t let your allegiance to your party supersede your allegiance to your country.
And what I learned when working with Jim all these years is, you know, we kind of keep religion and politics and certain topics off the table because we’re there to help everybody.
53:11
And we don’t want to limit our ability to do that because of, you know, something that’s ancillary to the conversation.
So I feel potholes for Jews and Gentiles, male and female.
Like Jesus said, I’m here to serve everybody and you know, I saved cats from trees for people that are agnostic and people that are Catholic, and I help get trash cans out of driveways for people that are Republican and Democrat alike.
53:37
You know, that’s one of the great things about being a municipal leader is, you know, I don’t only help a certain subset of the population.
I’m here to help everybody to the best of my ability.
So applying the work ethic that we learn in orange and go back in blue in a rigid, structured environment and you can really walk circles around people, not because of pride, just because of the expectation of what it takes to get the job done.
54:07
You know, if if you never had anybody model how hard it is to start a business and you’re doing it by yourself, you just don’t know until you have an example.
And so I think, you know, going back to the levels of leadership, being in a position and elected official is the worst level.
54:23
And sadly, 99.99% of people don’t want to be involved.
And there’s a lot of reasons why they’re busy with their family or you know, they don’t like the contentious nature that things can become.
But of the people that do want to get involved, most of them shouldn’t be involved because their hearts not in the right place or they’re not going to, They’re not going to apply themselves at the level they need to be to be truly effective.
54:48
And so it’s a very difficult thing to look at how most of our local municipalities operate.
They just really aren’t achievement oriented.
They may have some themes of achievement, but they’re really order based and government really isn’t a achievement oriented system to begin with.
55:05
But it can become stagnant and it can become complacent if things are just accepted as the way they’ve always been.
And we don’t have a why can’t we do this differently attitude.
And so I think some of the success that I have had has come from what I’ve learned in the last, you know, 20 years of, of, of being in a business that I truly believe helps people.
55:28
And it’s, it’s not selfless, but it’s self full.
And we want to apply that to local leadership.
I’d also say, Jim, you remember, we were told never forget the thing that blew you out of the water when Art Williams, when Art Williams found out what what term insurance was and that that affected his family in such a dramatic way, you know, he set himself on fire and people came from miles around to watch him burn.
55:55
And, you know, when I first got involved, I really conflated national politics or leadership with local politics or leadership.
And I think a lot of people do.
And they told me get a list from the voting Commission of people that you can call upon because those are the people that vote.
56:13
And in my area, you know, give or take, there’s 12 or 13,000 registered voters on the voter rolls.
But you had as many as 1600 vote in a mayor election.
Do you have 5 or 600 vote in a non mayor election?
And that’s not different in any other place in the country.
56:32
And So what blew me out of the water is 90 plus percent of the people are relegating their choice about who is making decisions in their town to someone they probably don’t agree with, who probably doesn’t look at the the world the way they do.
But most people don’t know that because it’s they’ve never been shown that.
56:50
And so that’s a big part of Jim.
Did you happen to see my Forrest Gump video last year?
I dropped before the election.
I dressed up like Forrest Gump and I ran around town in front of all the neighborhood signs.
And the point I’m trying to make is people love their town.
57:07
They love the history of their town.
They love their favorite restaurant.
They love the, the, the, the, the festivals and the parades.
And a lot of people claim old school spirit.
But guess what they don’t love?
They don’t love picking the leader.
They don’t love picking the people that make the decisions about what roads are going to be paved or not paved.
57:27
They don’t they don’t want to get involved in who’s making decisions at the school level.
You know, there’s a lot of contentious people, but there are far, far fewer in number than than the total population.
And I think the only thing that’s really going to push the voting numbers is either a draft or having great, inspiring local leaders.
57:51
So at 45, I have the the old age of youth and I have the youth of old age.
And I think you guys probably do too.
So, you know, we’re handing the baton off to another set of people that don’t think the same way and don’t have the same values, but the baton is going to get handed off.
58:11
It’s just the course of time question is, who’s going to be holding that baton and what decisions are they going to be making and how does that impact your your life?
So a lot of people want to vote for the president, but the the president doesn’t fill your pothole.
Like, you know, when we talk about the concept of the company, you know, Jim, you always told me never to sell the company.
58:33
It’s about who I am, where I’m going, you know, come to my office, talk to my assistant.
I’m going to be there for you.
I’m going to be the one that that picks you up when you get knocked down.
The company’s not going to necessarily be more than a concept.
58:48
And I think from a local leadership standpoint, you know, your, your big house senators and your, your, your big level people are there doing what the best they feel they can.
But your local level people, and those are the people that you’re going to call when there’s a geyser in your front yard, you know, and if you’re not tuned into that, then you know, you’re not influencing your local area the best you can.
59:11
And and it’s not yes, it’s just a lack of knowledge.
Well, I can tell you that I’m super proud of the man that you’ve become, the father and the husband that you’ve become, and the leader that you’ve become.
And our friendship, again, it is now what it always was.
59:29
There was a connection from the beginning.
There was a kinship or whatever because we should have not been friends.
We, we’ve never lived in the same state, you know, with a different life pass.
But yet for whatever reason, I’ll just be driving down the road.
59:47
And it’s one of those promptings that I always pay attention to.
And Gabe will just come to my mind.
And that’s when I usually pick up the phone and give you a call.
And how the heck are are you, man?
And I’m just super excited to have you as a guest and super proud of what you’ve done so far.
1:00:07
But you’ve got a lot more to give, buddy.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
And I’ve again, you know, when I was at my most vulnerable, you were there and you pointed me in the right direction.
I was hungry and you fed me.
I was naked and you clothed me.
OK, but thank you.
1:00:24
Thank you for sharing your story.
This has been it’s been awesome to hear me personally just hear your story and your connection to Jim.
And you know how Jim helped you become, you know, you know, part of what you’ve become.
I mean, you’ve done most of that yourself.
But Jim was definitely an influence.
1:00:40
I can tell from the stories you’ve told and the things that he’s how direct he’s been with you, which is good medicine sometimes.
So thanks for taking the time.
Thanks for diving deep into your story and dropping plenty of Nuggets for for us to share with others.
1:00:57
Sounds like you have not only with your serving your community, which is an awesome thing to do and I wish more people would do that serving your own neighborhood like I do as well.
I’m on my HOA board and help out.
And you know, even though it’s a smaller community, it’s still helping others and it takes time and it’s volunteer work and so forth.
1:01:18
But it’s a good thing to do for for people and appreciate the stories and the Nuggets.
I want to take a a second, especially since both of you have experience with the same, the same background in a way.
Jim, we really don’t talk about what you do outside of this podcast.
1:01:34
Maybe you could share just a couple of Nuggets about just a little bit about what you do at Primerica, how you help people.
Yeah, I mean intentionally.
This was about other people and inspiring others to maybe strike out on their own by, you know, as we talked about before, Gabriel, like just taking everybody’s excuses away.
1:01:58
We’re going to put so many entrepreneurs from different backgrounds, different genders, different stories that are making it and it made it that it takes away everybody’s excuses.
And you know, I had three goals because you, you set goals based on where you’re at in life, right At my three goals at one point, because of my upbringing and just being a latchkey kid and having a couple alcoholic parents is never be married, never have kids and never have a job where I can’t wear a hat every day.
1:02:35
Those are my three goals.
I mean like, like in college, these aren’t like 10 year old goals.
Like these are like 3 things.
Those are my set in stone.
Luckily, God’s plan for us is a little bit better than the plan we set for ourselves.
1:02:51
And now I’m been married 28 years and have two kids and I’m not wearing a hat, Right.
But I think I found out how much.
Yeah.
So I about the same time as Gabriel launched this and it was just because I was frustrated at my current career.
1:03:11
I had done everything that I was asked to do.
I went into the military to gain money for college so I could get be the first person to get a degree from my family.
I got a great job.
I got promoted.
I became the youngest executive in the company and within two weeks of getting the biggest raise and promotion of my life, it didn’t feel right.
1:03:35
I went and talked to my wife and I said I don’t think this is where I’m supposed to be.
And I had already been talked to by the company and I had started very part time but I worked a lot of hours.
So she said, well, why don’t you just launch your business and I I’m not good enough.
1:03:59
What do you mean I can’t replace my income?
And she said, do you think if you work the 60 plus hours a week that you’re working at your job and put that into your business, you won’t be successful?
And that was it.
You know, 24 years ago I fired my boss and we run a wealth management company.
1:04:19
And I mean, we do a little bit of everything.
I’m a fiduciary and I’m mortgage licensed and we help people with term life insurance and we help people with budgeting and getting out of debt.
And I’ve got 50 plus license reps that work with me and we’ve helped open up a couple offices and our goal is to open five more locations over the next five years.
1:04:43
Like we’re not done yet.
And there’s until the bad statistics go down, until the divorce rate goes down, until the bankruptcy rate goes down.
You know, I’ve had to update my presentation, Gabriel, like every 3, two to three years for the last 20 years because when I started, the stat was the average household has $6000 of credit card debt.
1:05:06
And people were like, Oh my goodness, that’s it’s 22,000 now, you know, So that’s where my passion is helping families.
And there’s 2.1 million people in Indianapolis metro area and statistically 5% are getting to financial independence.
1:05:29
So we want to help everybody.
We want to help the 95%.
You know, helping wealthy clients is awesome, right?
But helping middle class families that a wealth manager is never going to talk to still drives my passion.
1:05:46
That’s where I came from.
That’s where we were at when the company met us, as we didn’t have a clue about personal finance, definitely didn’t have an entrepreneurial spirit.
I didn’t even know what that was.
I come from a very blue collar background, but I did want more out of life, you know, and there were certain things when I had a divorced my parents when I was like 15 years old from all financial responsibility and decision making in my life because I saw the.
1:06:18
Zoom I’ll be there in just a second.
Their lives.
And so, yeah, we’re excited our our mottos, we help people tell their money where to go instead of asking where it went.
And you can go to meet with Jim dot today.
1:06:35
But thanks for the selfless plug, Kevin.
We don’t really talk about each other’s businesses.
And so I put you on the hook last podcast and said you got to give a commercial because we never talk about our business and you know, my wife prefers that our business is a for profit Gabriel versus a non for profit right.
1:06:55
You were the non for profit for several years, but we know we do financial Wellness workshops at companies and we just help a lot of people and we’re excited and we do have a sponsor and I for our podcast, which is the Hayes Group, Hayes Group marketing.com.
1:07:13
You go there, you take their assessment.
If you’re a business owner, small business owner, big business owner and you just need to drive more sales and you need to create and put a funnel from your website and all the time, effort, energy and money you’re putting into social media website and actually get that funnel down to making sales, that’s what they do.
1:07:36
They make websites, they do marketing campaigns, they come up with a strategy.
Kevin and I are both members and clients and they’ve helped us in a great way.
But also, most importantly, Gabriel, they’re great people.
1:07:52
You know, Adam and Andy and the gang are just tremendous respected people in their communities and have done a great job.
But Gabriel can’t tell you how proud I am of you, buddy.
1:08:09
But you know, I know you have more to give and I know I have more to give.
And iron sharpens iron.
And so we’re going to continue to push each other up.
And I’m thankful for you, Kevin.
And there’s another episode of Fire Your Boss, Guys, I hope you got a ton of Nuggets from it.
1:08:25
I hope you get a ton of inspiration.
Doesn’t matter what your background is.
If you are here to serve people and you want to make a difference, but you also want to get out of the corporate prison, maybe elevate your income.
Or in my particular situation, if you’d have told me that I could replace my income of 70 grand, but get the thumb off my neck and make my own schedule, that’s all I needed.
1:08:50
I wasn’t looking for six figures at that time.
I was looking for freedom.
So whatever that catalyst is, if you need any advice, if you want to pick our brains over coffee, you just want to get a Zoom with us and figure out what you need to do to get to the next level.
1:09:06
We’re available and we’ll help you in any way we can.
And we’re thankful for you for tuning into another episode of Fire Your Boss.
You guys have an amazing rest of April.
Thanks everyone.
Thanks for having me.