1000: EVERYTHING you've ever wanted to know about how we got here, and where we're going TOGETHER!

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Ah, here we are, episode 1,000.

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This is a milestone that I could have never imagined when this show started eight years ago 1,000 episodes.

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I'm so grateful for every single one of you who's tuned in, whether it's for one episode or whether it's for 1,000 episodes, because I know that there's at least a few of you out there and I love hearing from you.

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And so, ahead of today's episode, I'll be completely honest with you.

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Today, this is going to be a radically different episode from anything we've ever done in this show's history.

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Heck, it's going to be a radically different episode for me personally, because I don't even know where we're going today, because there's no words that I can say.

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The more that I thought about how I want to kick this episode off, the more I thought about what I want to talk about in today's episode, the more I just realized that I want it to be a human episode.

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I want it to be me and you and you're going to hear that I've invited someone very special to the Wantrepreneur, to Entrepreneur community here for today's episode, and someone who's very special to me, someone who I trust, someone who I really respect and admire the way that he thinks, the way that he sees the world and his energy.

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So I genuinely have no idea where we're going to go today, but I do know that it's going to be valuable.

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It's going to be a really human.

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I want to say it's going to be a heart-centric episode.

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Normally, when we're on these episodes, we talk so frequently from the mind and we talk about business and entrepreneurship on the whole, but underneath all of those conversations is the truly uniquely human component of it, and so that's why I'm really grateful to also introduce you, reintroduce you, to someone who's joining me for this 1000th episode, and that is Dr Zachary, dr Zachary Ginder.

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Zachary was our guest in episode 609.

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This dates all the way back to June of 2023.

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And Zachary stood out to me the second.

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We hit record together and finished that recording.

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I thought, gosh, this guy's brilliant, this guy's very insightful.

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This guy sees the world differently.

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And then it was no surprise to me, seeing how many emails we got from all of you listeners, that you also deeply resonated with his message and you were all in awe of him as well.

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And so I'm going to tell you about Zachary the entrepreneur in a second, but that's not why he's here.

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Truth be told, it's because there's so much more to Zachary than just his entrepreneurial accolades.

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So, to reintroduce you to him, dr Zachary Ginder comes from a family of entrepreneurs and is himself a three-time successful solopreneur slash entrepreneur.

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He's now the co-founder of Pine Siskin Consulting and he works as a psychological consultant in the field of applied occupational wellness and stress reduction.

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At Pine Siskin he works with individuals to cultivate well-being, build resilience, break negative thought and behavioral patterns and grow as leaders in their industry.

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He also works with organizations in a training and consulting capacity in areas of program assessment and development, leadership development and employee well-being.

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He has over 20 years of experience and he's worked with and consulted in the nonprofit, educational, corporate and healthcare sectors.

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He speaks nationally on aspects of health and well-being.

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He's provided subject matter expertise to various major media outlets and I love the fact that when our post-production team went through his episode for episode 609, the title that we came up with is Unleashing your Inner Champion to Conquer your Inner Critic.

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Very important, deep and meaningful work, and that's why I say to you that I'm so honored by Zachary's presence in today's episode, not just because of the entrepreneur that he is, but because of the person that he is.

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I so respect and admire his mind, his vision, his experiences, his transparency, his openness, his ability to converse with others and get the good stuff out.

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That's why I'm really honored for him to be here.

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So I'm not going to say anything else.

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This is episode 1000.

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Let's dive straight into it.

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All right, zachary, here we are, something that you and I have talked about for a while.

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Nobody has known what's coming, but here we are, man, thanks for being here with me.

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Brian, it is my pleasure and what an incredible day it is Just when I think about it.

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A thousand episodes, one thousand.

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If we spent a minute and a half talking about each of your episodes, from one to a thousand, we wouldn't be able to cover it in a 24 hour period, if my math's right.

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That's crazy.

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It's just nuts to think about.

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I mean, you know, some people get to 20, some people get to 30, maybe if they're lucky, but here you are, a thousand episodes in.

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It's almost hard for me to wrap my brain around.

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How did you do it?

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Where do we even start?

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I appreciate it, zachary, and I'm glad that you tried to do the math, because it's math I wanted to do this morning and I totally forgot to do it.

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But a thousand is a crazy number, you're right, and to put it into perspective is extremely difficult.

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I'll just tell you.

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Well, first things first.

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I think it's exciting because today is really a celebration of a big number, but it's so much more than just a celebration.

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I really, zachary, you know this we talked off air.

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I'm so grateful for the fact that we're going to go far beyond kind of anything that we ever publicly have covered or talked about here on the show.

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But I do think about the fact that the average podcast I don't know if you and I have ever talked about podcasting statistics the average show never crosses episode 50.

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And so that is wild to me, and that's why, leading up to a thousand episodes, zachary, I've been excited to talk to you for a few weeks now, and my mind just keeps going back.

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Truth be told, as much as everyone's been congratulating me on this milestone of a thousand episodes, I can't stop thinking about episode one, and that's really for me, so much of this celebration is truly about episode one.

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Can you take us back there?

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I mean what happened in episode one truly about episode one.

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Can you take us back there?

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I mean, what happened in episode one?

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Yeah well, it was terrible.

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I'll tell you that Totally transparently.

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Every once in a while I do go back and I listen to like the first 60 seconds of episode one.

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I sound so bored and the number one piece of feedback that I always get when people tune into the show is I have so much energy and I'm so alive and I'm so happy and all of those things.

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But when I listen to episode one, Zachary, to like impersonate myself, I basically said hey, welcome to the entrepreneur to entrepreneur podcast.

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I'm Brian and I don't know what I was doing and thinking at that time.

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I can paint the picture for you of what my life looked like at that time.

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So yeah, zachary, it's fun because we're going to get real personal in today's episode.

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I've never told this story publicly ever in the history of my life.

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So I was in a four year relationship back then.

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So this is all the way back in 2016.

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And actually, to preface it, you know, I started a business when I graduated from college and grew it to six figures really quickly with a business partner of mine and I just got burned out by it.

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And so it was because of that burnout that I did a lot of self-exploration, which all of that self-exploration and travel resulted in me sitting down and saying I've got a book inside of me.

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And so I wrote my book.

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Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur had no expectations of it, and within a year I was getting emails from people all over the world, complete strangers, saying holy cow, brian, like your book inspired me to take action.

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Your book did this for me, and it was amazing to me.

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And they all kept asking what's next.

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And so at the time, like I said, I was in a four-year relationship and after a year of those emails I thought I should do something else.

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I don't wanna write another book, but I think it'd be so cool to launch a podcast.

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So I shared it with my then girlfriend and Zachary.

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I'll never forget her response that night.

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It was it was a fall night in new England and she said to me she's like that's you so many crazy ideas, like who's going to listen to a podcast of you just talking?

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And I'm not sure she realized how important that conversation was to me.

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But I halted everything and I said hold on, do you really mean that?

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Do you really mean that you don't think people would listen to me on a podcast and I don't have stuff to share with the world.

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And she said, yeah, I really don't.

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And I said, if that's how you feel, then you'll never see me again.

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And so that was the end of that relationship and what I did and why I've been thinking about episode one so much, zachary is.

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I drove home that night and literally sat behind a microphone.

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The name was already decided for me because I based it around my book, entrepreneur to Entrepreneur.

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But I just recorded an episode talking about my vision of what this show is and what I'm going to put out there and how it's going to serve other people and why it exists.

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And I had no idea.

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But I just blindly jumped into episode one without much foresight.

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That's absolutely incredible.

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I'm grateful that you shared that story because, Brian, you ask a thousand guests now to go beyond the bio, and something that I don't think that we often hear is someone with your experience, you know, pulling back the curtain and allowing us backstage to see what the motivation was behind your initial podcast launch and then how you continued and how you continue to push on.

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That's something that I think many of us struggle with.

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Is that motivation to okay, I did one, I didn't get any traction.

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I did two, didn't get any traction, maybe a couple of listeners, a couple of subscribers but then just to keep plugging along onwards and onwards, just believing in yourself and knowing that you can do it, even if you're not receiving the external feedback yet?

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How did you keep that motivation going?

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Yeah, zachary, this is the first chills moment when I get hit in the feels.

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I get physical goosebumps and you just hit me with it.

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And there's something subtle that I did that night that I don't think I even really understood or appreciated.

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And when I recorded that first episode, zachary and I hit export for the very first time on an MP3 file, a couple things happened.

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One, I immediately thought to myself I should have said this while I was on the air.

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I could have said this.

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I should have used this example and I see it with guests all the time, you know even a thousand episodes in.

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It's so funny for me.

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You know you've been on the show after we're done recording, I'm sure for the rest of your day, as you were driving, as you were in the shower, as you were talking to your spouse.

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You probably thought that would have been a really good point to make.

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And for one reason or another that day I just said none of those things matter, I'll say them in future episodes.

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And so when it came time to exporting that first MP3 file, zachary, I had to name the file something and instead of naming it episode one, I named it 001.

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And there were placeholders before the one, two zeros.

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It was a triple digit episode number and it was very subconscious at the time, but kind of the challenge that I was setting to myself with that very small action of naming the file.

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Something was this is going to go into triple digits.

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This isn't going to be a one episode show or a 10 episode show or even a 99 episode show.

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I'm saving room for the day we hit episode 100.

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And it was that small marker in time that I said yeah, this is part of something bigger.

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And it kind of became gamified for me of saying, yeah, I mean I've already kind of declared to myself, of became gamified for me of saying, yeah, I mean I've already kind of declared to myself and maybe the world, if they pick up on the fact that these are three digit episode numbers, even though it's an episode one, that I'm going to make it to episode 100 and beyond.

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Wow, that's absolutely incredible.

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So it sounds like consistency is one thing.

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Believing in yourself is absolutely another thing.

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What are some of the other ingredients in that secret sauce for you?

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Yeah, it's fun because right now, obviously, we're talking about kind of the beginning.

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So I'm very much in that mindset right now and when I reflect on those early days, zachary, I think part of what we don't talk about enough in life and in entrepreneurship well, we very frequently talk about the fact that it's good to get external feedback.

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You know, in business and you're a fellow entrepreneur, which is why I think it's so much fun to be doing this with you today is that it makes sense for us to ask that there's sometimes in life and in business and in relationships and in anything really, where actually the feedback doesn't matter.

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We're driven by something so much more important than that, whether it be conviction or passion or belief.

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And so when I think back to those early episodes, it's not just about consistency.

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I really think somewhere along, you know, mid-20s Brian's mind.

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I just said I honestly don't even care what anybody else thinks of this show.

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I'm just going to keep plowing forward because I like it, and this is part of what I'm going to do, and I don't know what shape it's going to take.

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I'm certainly going to get better along the way, as we all do, inevitably the more that we do something.

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But, zachary, I honestly didn't ask anybody for feedback for like the first 200 episodes because I didn't care.

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Yeah, I just I knew, no matter what, what would their feedback have done for me.

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I mean, sure, it could have accelerated me getting better at podcasting and it could have given me external perspectives, but a lot of it is.

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I just signed up for a journey of self-exploration and experimentation and saying, yeah, I'm just going to keep hitting record and keep hitting publish.

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And I think that that point is also important about you can't just record the stuff.

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You actually have to publish it into the world, which sometimes is easier said than done.

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So, yeah, I was purely just driven on the fact that I intuitively felt good about this and I just wanted to do it, regardless of anything external.

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I think that that might be a main ingredient in the secret sauce right there.

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It sounds like that we all are engaged in social media.

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We somewhat have to be as entrepreneurs, and I think that a lot of us are at least maybe even from from a side eye looking for those likes, that external validation that we're doing something that's valuable for others.

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Obviously, we want to create value for others, we want to help others in whatever we're doing with our entrepreneurship.

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But also that feedback loop can be dangerous and it can lead to false assumptions about what is valuable.

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We don't always know who's listening and we don't always know who's watching, and I've had that experience too, where I put out a number of videos and then I'm like you know, no one's engaging, it doesn't even look like anyone.

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People are just scrolling past, scrolling past engaging, and it doesn't even look like anyone.

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People just scroll and pass, scrolling, pass, and then I'll get, I'll get a message out of the blue.

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That's like you know something that you said six months ago and XYZ, whatever.

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That really hit me and I've taken that with me and that's really changed my perspective on how to move forward.

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So for me, I always have to keep in mind and I think I mentioned in 609 that I'm a compare and despair kind of guy, so I struggle with that from time to time.

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But I have to keep in mind and I think I mentioned in 609 that I'm a compare and despair kind of guy, so I struggle with that from time to time.

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But I have to keep in mind that that external validation is just that, it's external, and when we believe in ourselves and we continue to reaffirm that we are on the right path and doing it with conviction, it really puts us in a different mindset to always reach further and always aspire.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Zachary, I'm sure you and I will both share some cheesy things today, but even you and I talking about this, here's the first cheesy story I'll share with you.

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It's from a movie, a seemingly inconsequential movie in my life.

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It's not one of my favorite movies, but the scene stuck with me.

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It's from we Bought a Zoo.

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It's that Matt Damon movie.

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Have you seen it, Zachary?

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I don't think I've seen it.

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Okay, you should definitely watch it, because this one scene gives me chills every single time.

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My sister's a veterinarian, so she loves that movie and I've watched it way too many times with her.

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And so Matt Damon's character in that.

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He's talking about 20 seconds of bravery.

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And so his two kids.

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So his wife, their mother had passed away previously, so his kids were always asking him for stories about their mother.

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And one day they're walking in Main Street of their town and he says do you guys want to know how I met your mother?

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And the kids get so excited and they're like yeah, yeah, dad, tell us.

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And so he reenacts the scene and he tells his kids I was just walking down this street one day and then I looked in that restaurant and I saw her through the glass and I told myself that's it, 20 seconds of bravery.

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That's all I need is 20 seconds of bravery.

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Walk in there and introduce yourself to her and he goes.

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I didn't have any time to second guess myself.

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I didn't have any time to second guess myself.

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I didn't have any time to fill my mind with doubt because I had 20 seconds of bravery.

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And so I walked up to the door, to the restaurant, and I opened the door and I still have 13 seconds left of bravery.

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And so I walked over to your mom, the most beautiful girl that I've ever seen in my life, and I said something to her and introduced myself and that was it 20 seconds of bravery.

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And now I was talking to her, my future wife, your future mother, the love of my life.

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And so, zachary, I so frequently think back to that scene.

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Where it takes me back to the night that I started the show is that when you, it's almost beneficial to be in that silo, because I think that that 20 seconds of bravery gets evaporated when we scroll through social media, when we listen to the thoughts and beliefs and limiting beliefs, especially of others.

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I think it's so much more powerful if we feel that conviction and that passion and faith and desire.

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20 seconds of bravery.

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It starts right now, and that's why I'm super grateful we wouldn't be here on episode 1000.

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Who knows what would have happened if that night, instead of just having the idea or instead of actually going home and recording it, I just had the idea and I said you know what I'm going to do, that starting tomorrow.

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I probably would have second guessed myself.

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My ex's feedback probably would have weighed onto my mind.

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I probably would have weighed onto my mind.

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I probably would have scrolled through social media and been like oh man, all these other people are putting stuff into the world.

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Why would anyone else listen to me?

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And so 20 seconds of bravery it's.

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It's something that I think about so frequently in life and business oh, that's, that's absolutely incredible.

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I'm gonna borrow that and thank you for the thank.

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Thank you for the movie recommendation as well.

00:18:05.893 --> 00:18:28.684
I think finding that 20 seconds of bravery and sometimes I think we have to find it over and over again like 20 seconds of bravery to click submit or click publish, and then another 20 seconds of bravery to do the next step in your process and we oftentimes are putting ourselves in a vulnerable position.

00:18:28.684 --> 00:18:32.498
We are not always comfortable, especially as entrepreneurs.

00:18:32.498 --> 00:18:43.761
We're used to leading our own charge and then to put ourselves out in the world and be vulnerable and, like you said earlier, second guess, oh, maybe I should have said this or said that.

00:18:43.761 --> 00:18:48.010
And when you said that same day that I was probably asking myself, oh, I should have said this.

00:18:48.010 --> 00:18:52.751
That was like a month later I'm still like, oh man, missed opportunity.

00:18:52.751 --> 00:18:56.923
Maybe there'll be another time to talk with Brian again about these things.

00:18:56.923 --> 00:18:59.808
So a thousand episodes.

00:18:59.808 --> 00:19:09.042
Was there ever a point when you thought, okay, I think I'm just going to hang up the hat at this point and just move on?

00:19:09.523 --> 00:19:13.132
Yeah, longtime listeners of this show will very much know.

00:19:13.132 --> 00:19:21.564
The most big answer to that question, because I think back to episode 499, was a special one for me because I had Ian Westerman on the show.

00:19:21.564 --> 00:19:24.371
He's one of my favorite human beings on planet earth.

00:19:24.371 --> 00:19:25.884
He's based out in Milwaukee.

00:19:25.884 --> 00:19:31.163
He's the CEO and founder of essential tennis, the world's largest tennis instructional channel on YouTube.

00:19:31.163 --> 00:19:32.708
Ian does incredible work.

00:19:32.708 --> 00:19:40.563
He epitomizes so many of the most amazing things about what it means to be an entrepreneur and he's a great person, which is just like the total package.

00:19:40.623 --> 00:19:42.647
And so Ian and I went on.

00:19:42.647 --> 00:19:47.605
It's it's the longest episode in our show's history, zachary, because we talked for an hour and a half about content.

00:19:47.605 --> 00:19:50.682
And is content the answer and does it enable others?

00:19:50.682 --> 00:19:53.288
And that's kind of where I took the conversation is.

00:19:53.288 --> 00:20:03.289
I reached this point, zachary, where I love hearing from listeners, and I know that our listeners are equally nerdy and love entrepreneurship as much as you and I do.

00:20:03.289 --> 00:20:06.824
They love learning, they love consuming content, they love growing.

00:20:06.824 --> 00:20:08.748
It's what fuels all of us as entrepreneurs.

00:20:09.349 --> 00:20:21.260
And so it got to the point at that time in my life and there was personal stuff going on during that time as well but it got to the point where I asked myself am I enabling people by putting content into the world?

00:20:21.260 --> 00:20:30.194
Am I enabling people to get those good feelings of, yeah, I'm consuming things and it feels like I'm moving forward without the action to support that.

00:20:30.194 --> 00:20:31.840
And I probably felt that way.

00:20:31.840 --> 00:20:36.563
The more I think about it, zachary, and especially doing it here in real time with you, the more I think about it.

00:20:36.643 --> 00:20:44.895
It's probably because I was probably feeling that way a little bit as well, and you know how we project our feelings and emotions on others.

00:20:44.895 --> 00:20:50.056
I probably had a sense of that feeling as well of why am I consuming more than I'm creating?

00:20:50.056 --> 00:20:52.346
Like consumption is not the answer here.

00:20:52.346 --> 00:21:06.992
And so Ian, who's a content creator who's put out thousands of YouTube videos he's got a hundred million views on YouTube Him and I talked about it and towards the end of that episode, ian knows me extraordinarily well and he said to me off air he goes are you thinking about quitting?

00:21:06.992 --> 00:21:15.394
And the very intentional reason why I invited him for episode 499 was because the title of episode 500 was the End.

00:21:16.060 --> 00:21:17.827
That was it, zachary, I was done.

00:21:17.827 --> 00:21:20.126
The show wasn't supposed to go on after that.

00:21:20.126 --> 00:21:25.992
In fact, that day that I recorded episode 500, titled the End, I genuinely believed it.

00:21:25.992 --> 00:21:33.688
It wasn't a clickbaity title, and so when I got behind the microphone, I was talking about all the reasons why I want to see people make that transition.

00:21:33.688 --> 00:21:36.424
This show is never meant for you to remain a entrepreneur.

00:21:36.424 --> 00:21:38.434
It is one entrepreneur to entrepreneur.

00:21:38.434 --> 00:21:40.221
It's about that transformative process.

00:21:40.221 --> 00:21:47.888
And so when I record episode 500, I talked about that that and said I don't want to continue giving you content because you have all the content it's.

00:21:47.888 --> 00:21:48.411
You know.

00:21:48.411 --> 00:21:54.151
Whatever year it was at the time let's call it 2021 and I said you have everything at your fingertips to make something of yourself.

00:21:54.151 --> 00:21:54.932
Go do it.

00:21:55.602 --> 00:22:03.065
And as I was saying it, in that week, zachary, I was getting all these emails from listeners all over the world, and they must have sensed it in my energy.

00:22:03.065 --> 00:22:08.577
You know, a mom in the Midwest emailed me and she's like your podcast has helped me to raise my kids.

00:22:08.577 --> 00:22:12.729
I'm a single mom and you gave me belief to start my business, and now I get to be there for them.

00:22:12.729 --> 00:22:24.348
Everyone was just hitting me in the fields that week, and so as I was recording episode 500, the end midway through I was like but it can't be the end, it's going to have some changes, and it certainly did have some changes along the way.

00:22:24.348 --> 00:22:29.805
But I made it abundantly clear that we're going to strike new chords here and we're going to function a little bit differently.

00:22:29.805 --> 00:22:34.608
I'm going to function differently and I expect our listener base around the world to function differently.

00:22:34.608 --> 00:22:37.780
So that's the big time that I wanted to quit.

00:22:37.780 --> 00:22:42.569
But, truth be told, gosh, probably probably every hundred episodes, zachary, I wanted to quit along the way.

00:22:43.872 --> 00:22:45.361
You're like oh, that's enough, that's that's.

00:22:45.361 --> 00:22:46.986
Uh, you know, another hundred we're.

00:22:46.986 --> 00:22:47.970
We're good to go here.

00:22:50.059 --> 00:22:53.569
Honestly, because that's the thing is, I think we forget about in business.

00:22:53.569 --> 00:23:18.332
When we hear success stories, it's easy to hone in on the business side of things and it's probably what I like most about my role as the host of this podcast is I know all of you guests not for the business stuff we talk about on air, but for the human side, and I think that's something we need to talk about more and that's why I'm very grateful for this episode for episode 1000, to have that chance for you and I to go there with listeners, because it's the stuff that matters.

00:23:18.332 --> 00:23:41.561
I mean, you could have the most perfect marketing funnels in the world, you could have the best service or product or offer, you could do all those things right, but gosh, at the end of the day, we're all just human beings and we've all got real world problems and thoughts and doubts and people around us that we care about and worries, and that's the real stuff that's also going to influence us, whether all the strategies there I totally agree.

00:23:42.701 --> 00:24:03.647
You know, I'm curious when I listen to you and I know you, but when I listen to you and others, there's such a high level of top tier performance in what you do, and just even how you interview others, how you talk about business and how you inspire others.

00:24:03.647 --> 00:24:05.989
How you talk about business and how you inspire others.

00:24:05.989 --> 00:24:06.269
How do you?

00:24:06.269 --> 00:24:08.490
This may seem like a silly question, but I'm curious.

00:24:08.490 --> 00:24:10.630
So if I'm curious, I know that others are curious too.

00:24:10.630 --> 00:24:12.490
How do you balance it all?

00:24:12.490 --> 00:24:14.290
How do you blend the two together?

00:24:14.290 --> 00:24:16.432
As you mentioned, you are a human being.

00:24:16.432 --> 00:24:19.113
We all have our stumbles along the way.

00:24:19.113 --> 00:24:25.413
We have our pivotal moments, as you mentioned, for episode one and then for 499 as well.

00:24:25.413 --> 00:24:30.536
How do you make it all work in this really chaotic world that we live in?

00:24:31.375 --> 00:24:37.897
Yeah, well, my gut reaction to that, zachary, and you know me personally, and so I'm easily excitable.

00:24:37.897 --> 00:24:48.963
I'm very easily excitable, so that definitely partially plays into it, and I think a lot of it is.

00:24:48.963 --> 00:24:50.712
I'm willing to find the excitement within any single thing that I'm doing.

00:24:50.712 --> 00:24:53.483
People always ask me about all the interviews that I do and they're just like well, how do you interview this person?

00:24:53.483 --> 00:24:58.146
And I do eight interviews, typically on our recording days, so I'm bouncing from one interview to the other.

00:24:58.146 --> 00:25:00.280
People always ask if I lose energy along the way.

00:25:00.280 --> 00:25:11.406
Truth is, I gain energy along the way because I'm just constantly more and more excited about the people that I'm talking to, because I look for that excitement, whether it's a lawyer or a web designer or whatever it may be.

00:25:11.406 --> 00:25:14.441
There's so much excitement to be found and so much to learn.

00:25:14.441 --> 00:25:23.484
So being easily excitable is one thing, but even broader than that holy cow, like the two things that I feel like we have to talk about today, is I also freaking love.

00:25:23.505 --> 00:25:26.670
What I do, like what I do actually makes me happy.

00:25:26.670 --> 00:25:31.056
I think that that's an underrated thing in the world is, you know?

00:25:31.056 --> 00:25:41.823
Because we've all grown up and been accustomed to go get a job and work it for 40 years, and nobody talks about the importance of doing things that you really enjoy, and for me it goes far beyond work.

00:25:41.823 --> 00:25:45.480
I don't just do work that I enjoy, I for sure do Like.

00:25:45.480 --> 00:25:48.130
I love my quote, unquote job.

00:25:48.130 --> 00:26:12.667
I love what I get to do every single day, but even outside of that, I always prioritize what I love to do as silly as some of these things may be I'm a man of many hobbies, zachary, as I'm sure you are as well is that I get easily excited about playing chess, playing soccer, playing tennis, flying my drone or just going on a road trip or even just driving around a city bumping the music and singing along, like anything and everything that makes me happy.

00:26:13.068 --> 00:26:14.573
I have to do those things.

00:26:14.573 --> 00:26:18.609
I think back to when I was in one of my low moments, zachary.

00:26:18.609 --> 00:26:20.942
I can't remember if you and I have ever talked about this personally.

00:26:20.942 --> 00:26:24.186
Did we ever talk about Jonathan Fields in the Three Buckets to a good life?

00:26:25.229 --> 00:26:26.490
No, I don't think so Please.

00:26:27.031 --> 00:26:29.255
Yeah, this is interesting, you'll really dig his work.

00:26:29.255 --> 00:26:32.145
So in 2013, I was super burned out.

00:26:32.145 --> 00:26:33.829
I had started my marketing agency.

00:26:33.829 --> 00:26:36.042
I had a bunch of clients, awesome client roster.

00:26:36.042 --> 00:26:41.384
It was so cool, all the different projects we were working on, but just the nature of the work was burning me out.

00:26:41.384 --> 00:26:45.869
I was working 80 plus hour work weeks and we were working out of my parents' basement.

00:26:45.890 --> 00:26:48.192
It was the cliche entrepreneurial story.

00:26:48.192 --> 00:27:02.507
My dad is a very early riser, so he would wake up at five o'clock in the morning and come downstairs and me and my business partner would still be working from the night before and my dad would say you guys are crazy, like go to sleep and so that's not sustainable.

00:27:02.507 --> 00:27:10.565
So, sure enough, a few years into that, I was super burned out and I didn't know where to turn, and I'm a big believer there's far wiser minds than me out there and I want to learn from them.

00:27:10.565 --> 00:27:39.468
So I came across Jonathan Fields and an event that he was hosting in upstate New York called Camp Good Life Project, and basically the quick version of Jonathan's story is he was a high powered attorney in Manhattan and one of the best of the best, earning a ton of money, taking on huge cases, amazing clients, but super unhealthy, because he was just a workaholic and his then girlfriend, now wife, stephanie she's amazing Her father said to Jonathan when's this going to end?

00:27:39.468 --> 00:27:41.092
You're going to kill yourself, literally.

00:27:41.092 --> 00:27:56.686
And so Jonathan got to the point where the only time he'd leave the office was to go downstairs, move his car from one side to the other of the street for street cleaning, take a nap while the street cleaning vehicles came through, move it back to the other side and go back up to the office and keep working.

00:27:57.107 --> 00:27:58.592
And so eventually he got a stomach ulcer.

00:27:58.592 --> 00:28:01.726
And that stomach ulcer was what woke him up.

00:28:01.726 --> 00:28:05.133
And so he started assessing something needs to change.

00:28:05.133 --> 00:28:06.405
I need to do something differently.

00:28:06.405 --> 00:28:08.386
So he signed the lease.

00:28:08.386 --> 00:28:10.807
He decided I'm going to start a yoga studio.

00:28:10.807 --> 00:28:13.648
I know nothing about yoga, but I'm going to open a yoga studio.

00:28:13.648 --> 00:28:17.050
So he signed the lease for that yoga studio in lower Manhattan.

00:28:17.050 --> 00:28:20.611
He signed the lease on September 10th 2001.

00:28:21.840 --> 00:28:31.227
And so the next morning he woke up, as all of us did that day, and saw the news, and many of his neighbors worked at the top of the world trade center buildings.

00:28:31.227 --> 00:28:35.763
And so he lost friends, neighbors that day and that night.

00:28:35.763 --> 00:28:36.767
When he tells the story.

00:28:36.767 --> 00:28:42.510
That night he went to his neighbor's house who had passed away, and obviously the guy's wife knew that, but the kids didn't know that.

00:28:42.510 --> 00:28:43.473
And so Jonathan read them a bedtime story.

00:28:43.473 --> 00:28:52.244
But the kids didn't know that, and so Jonathan read them a bedtime story, the kids that night thinking to himself these kids don't know, but they'll never see their dad again.

00:28:53.067 --> 00:29:01.375
And so from there he went on a lifelong journey of studying what makes a good life, and he came up with three buckets to a good life.

00:29:01.375 --> 00:29:07.689
He said that the quality of our life is determined not by the most filled bucket but by the least filled bucket.

00:29:07.689 --> 00:29:10.114
And those three buckets are contribution.

00:29:10.114 --> 00:29:11.843
What do we contribute to the world?

00:29:11.843 --> 00:29:18.425
Whether for a lot of us it's work, for example, it could be volunteering, there's a lot of ways that we all contribute to the world.

00:29:18.425 --> 00:29:20.311
The second bucket is connection.

00:29:20.311 --> 00:29:26.663
What are the connections like with my friends, with my family, with myself, with the environment around me?

00:29:26.663 --> 00:29:28.365
What's inside that connection bucket?

00:29:28.365 --> 00:29:30.247
And the third is the vitality bucket.

00:29:30.247 --> 00:29:31.587
What makes me feel alive?

00:29:31.587 --> 00:29:32.969
Am I taking vacations?

00:29:32.969 --> 00:29:34.190
Am I healthy?

00:29:34.190 --> 00:29:35.391
Am I moving?

00:29:35.391 --> 00:29:36.570
Am I exercising?

00:29:36.570 --> 00:29:37.491
Do I have hobbies?

00:29:37.491 --> 00:29:39.953
Am I doing things yoga, for example?

00:29:39.953 --> 00:29:43.797
Am I doing things that really contribute to my vitality.

00:29:44.237 --> 00:29:59.329
And so what Jonathan realized through that research was, yeah, his contribution bucket was overflowing, but the rest were lagging, and so, going to his event in 2013, at that moment of burnout for me, zachary, I just took a deep look at my life and I said, holy cow.

00:29:59.329 --> 00:30:01.779
One, I need to make sure all three of those buckets are filled.

00:30:01.779 --> 00:30:08.913
And two, I need to structure my days and weeks so that I'm doing things that consistently fill all of those buckets.

00:30:08.913 --> 00:30:14.412
So in those moments, I mean, we're kind of talking about energy right now and the will to keep being a high performer.

00:30:14.412 --> 00:30:25.269
Every single week, I look at those three buckets and I say, okay, I'm going to play basketball tomorrow night and that's going to be awesome, and I'm going to do it with someone that I really enjoy their company, so that also fills my connection bucket.

00:30:25.269 --> 00:30:37.311
I'm always very intentionally looking at those three buckets and then, when I feel not so great, zachary because it does certainly happen from time to time I just reassess, using that framework of those three buckets.

00:30:38.279 --> 00:30:39.520
Wow, that is.

00:30:39.520 --> 00:30:40.701
That's incredible.

00:30:40.701 --> 00:30:42.623
I'm going to have to look up his work and the three buckets.

00:30:42.623 --> 00:30:43.022
That's incredible.

00:30:43.022 --> 00:30:44.644
I'm going to have to look up his work and the three buckets.

00:30:44.644 --> 00:30:45.845
I like it.

00:30:45.845 --> 00:30:48.467
And it's defined by the bucket that's least full.

00:30:49.626 --> 00:30:51.048
Yeah, I think it's brilliant.

00:30:51.048 --> 00:30:57.152
It's easy to see our filled buckets, but it's the not filled buckets that reveal so much more about what we can do.

00:30:57.972 --> 00:30:59.913
Absolutely, and I think we're.

00:30:59.913 --> 00:31:22.135
Oftentimes the scale is tipped in one direction or the other, whether it's service, but I feel personally like vitality is often the one that is least filled, that we have a very difficult time replenishing without putting forward a lot of intention into that area, that bucket Wow.

00:31:22.135 --> 00:31:32.564
Area, that, that bucket, wow, that's so you walk me back to that time when you were burnt out.

00:31:32.564 --> 00:31:33.727
If I could, can we go a little bit deeper here?

00:31:33.787 --> 00:31:33.967
on that?

00:31:33.967 --> 00:31:34.709
Yeah, for sure.

00:31:34.709 --> 00:31:45.648
It's funny when, when people ask me about that time period, zachary, what I typically do is I bust my phone open, I go to my photos, I type in, like you know, know, november 2013.

00:31:45.648 --> 00:31:46.431
It's not hard for me.

00:31:46.431 --> 00:31:49.809
I could pick any month from that year in that time period of my life.

00:31:49.809 --> 00:31:55.701
And you could see especially you because you know me you could see that I was burned out, zachary.

00:31:55.701 --> 00:31:57.167
I was so overweight.

00:31:57.167 --> 00:31:58.484
I was unhappy.

00:31:58.484 --> 00:32:01.259
I didn't have the same smile that I typically have.

00:32:01.259 --> 00:32:06.541
My eyes didn't look the way that they typically do, like I was.

00:32:06.541 --> 00:32:08.204
Physically, you could tell that I was burnt out.

00:32:08.204 --> 00:32:12.554
I was not healthy inside or outside because I was overworked.

00:32:12.554 --> 00:32:15.484
I was taking on too much of a burden.

00:32:15.484 --> 00:32:20.453
I mean, as a young CEO I was 22, 23 at the time.

00:32:20.453 --> 00:32:22.823
I had run my soccer blog before that point.

00:32:22.823 --> 00:32:28.933
But this was my first service-based businesses where I had clients who were calling me, emailing me, who had those real world needs.

00:32:29.461 --> 00:32:32.471
I'll never forget it was Christmas Eve that year.

00:32:32.471 --> 00:32:39.615
One of our clients was a doggy daycare down in Rhode Island and on Christmas Eve it was snowing so much.

00:32:39.615 --> 00:32:50.288
That day my entire family was in Massachusetts to celebrate Christmas, of course, and the last thing I wanted to do was drive an hour South to fix an email server for a doggy daycare.

00:32:50.288 --> 00:32:54.727
But they were insistent, and so the entire drive, zachary.

00:32:54.727 --> 00:32:56.114
First of all, I didn't enjoy.

00:32:56.114 --> 00:33:02.864
I don't think anyone truly enjoys driving in snow, let alone on Christmas Eve when they want to be with their family, and it put it into perspective.

00:33:02.864 --> 00:33:12.032
It just I've always kind of been good at recognizing I'm not enjoying this, and that's always been a trigger for me to reassess.

00:33:12.032 --> 00:33:15.109
And it was that day that I said I'm not enjoying this.

00:33:15.109 --> 00:33:19.285
And we were slipping up because we were just working so many hours.

00:33:19.285 --> 00:33:29.416
There were certain client projects that we would make a small mistake here or there, and I have high standards of excellence, so that kind of stuff would eat me alive and it just wasn't sustainable.

00:33:29.416 --> 00:33:30.720
I wasn't exercising.

00:33:31.060 --> 00:33:34.711
Talking about the three buckets man, there was no vitality in my life at that point.

00:33:34.711 --> 00:33:36.807
My relationships were also suffering.

00:33:36.807 --> 00:33:40.401
That's something I don't think we talk about often enough, zachary.

00:33:40.401 --> 00:33:42.123
I'm sure you've experienced this personally too.

00:33:42.123 --> 00:33:49.875
Is that when we're so committed to building our businesses, we think about it so much that it leaks into other aspects of our lives.

00:33:49.875 --> 00:33:53.750
It's inevitable, like everything leaks into all other aspects of our lives.

00:33:54.300 --> 00:33:55.445
I was just snappier.

00:33:55.445 --> 00:34:00.539
I found myself snapping, even if my parents would say something and they're the most supportive people Like.

00:34:00.539 --> 00:34:15.869
I'm more grateful for my parents than anything else on this planet and we could definitely talk about that as well but they would say something well-mannered and well-intentioned, zachary and I would snap at them and the snapping had truly like in hindsight, as a more mature person now, it had nothing to do with what they said.

00:34:15.869 --> 00:34:17.135
It had nothing to do with them.

00:34:17.135 --> 00:34:18.460
It had everything to do with.

00:34:18.460 --> 00:34:25.932
I was somewhere else, I was thinking about something else and I've come to realize that that's part of.

00:34:25.932 --> 00:34:33.050
A very important sign of burnout is if your reactions to something are coming from somewhere else.

00:34:33.050 --> 00:34:36.001
Something not so great is happening there.

00:34:36.802 --> 00:34:41.592
Yeah for sure, and I have experienced that the way you describe it.

00:34:41.592 --> 00:34:57.070
It brings me back to some of my own experiences of burnout where, as you mentioned working 60, 80 hours a week, not seeing my family it impacted my health and I think I mentioned this before it darn near killed me and ruined my relationships along the way.

00:34:57.070 --> 00:35:03.884
And yet the whole time I had this idea like I'm reaching towards something, I'm continuing to grow.

00:35:03.884 --> 00:35:16.344
I'm just so hyper-focused on it that I was focused too narrowly on the end goal and not really enjoying the journey and all the beautiful things around me.

00:35:16.344 --> 00:35:32.534
And it was a very rude wake-up call for me when I finally got to the point where I'm having to go to specialists, having to figure out what the heck's going on with me, and a major contributor was just the work.

00:35:34.679 --> 00:35:57.407
I hope that these types of discussions will one normalize this for everyone else, that burnout can be a fact of, and hyper focus is certainly a fact of entrepreneurship, but that we can also ideally put in some stop signs or some awareness factors along the way so that we can check in and tune in with ourselves.

00:35:57.407 --> 00:36:17.492
You have said before that you love a coffee date with yourself to kind of journal to see what's working for you right now and what's not working for you, and I think that's brilliant, that you're able to help cultivate that greater awareness through that and through the other activities that you do.

00:36:17.492 --> 00:36:23.192
How did you, though, unwind the burnout?

00:36:23.192 --> 00:36:36.472
So I know you went to this workshop and that you started moving in a different direction and doing things differently, but you still had the business right At this point.

00:36:37.260 --> 00:36:38.324
So we actually shut it down.

00:36:38.324 --> 00:36:41.867
To be honest, oh, you did, okay, it got to that point and huge kudos.

00:36:41.867 --> 00:36:43.159
I've never told him publicly.

00:36:43.159 --> 00:36:44.943
I should send this podcast episode to him.

00:36:44.943 --> 00:36:58.240
But it was actually his recognition because, for better or for worse, Zachary, I think a lot of us entrepreneurs we're willing to dig in, we're willing to persist through through maybe some things we shouldn't persist through.

00:36:58.240 --> 00:37:06.851
And so one day I woke up to an email from him where it was one of the nicest emails I've ever gotten in my life, and he just spelled that out and he's like dude, I don't think we should do this anymore, and it was a low point for me.

00:37:06.911 --> 00:37:08.715
So we actually did shut that business down.

00:37:08.715 --> 00:37:09.896
That night.

00:37:09.896 --> 00:37:24.536
I remember again I don't think I've ever told this story publicly, zachary I was Googling MBA programs and I remember being in tears with my parents telling them maybe I'm just not cut out for this, Like, maybe I should just get my MBA, get a job, and it is what it is.

00:37:24.536 --> 00:37:28.083
And so it's also crazy thinking all these.

00:37:28.083 --> 00:37:38.623
I mean you and I could both tell a million stories about the moments where we were done, so to speak, or we thought we were done and and we wouldn't be here today without pushing through those super low moments.

00:37:39.666 --> 00:37:48.753
Absolutely, and the people that surround us, I think, help support us being able to move forward in a different direction.

00:37:48.753 --> 00:38:01.833
You have a tagline on your email that says, if you're going through hell, keep going by Winston Churchill, but I think that there's another little end to that, that we can say that you can keep going, but maybe in a different direction than where you're at right now.

00:38:01.833 --> 00:38:04.027
So you talked about your parents.

00:38:04.027 --> 00:38:08.847
I'd love to know more about them and how they supported you or others in your life.

00:38:09.608 --> 00:38:10.650
Yeah, a hundred percent.

00:38:10.650 --> 00:38:17.282
All right, zachary, I should have sent this to you before we hit record today, because this gave me all the feels last week.

00:38:17.282 --> 00:38:20.931
It's one of the most impactful clips I've ever seen on social media.

00:38:20.931 --> 00:38:28.054
I saved it, I'll send it to you afterwards, but it's from a preacher in a church and he basically was telling the congregation.

00:38:28.175 --> 00:38:36.391
He's just like look, everybody is afraid to fall, but what I want to remind you of today is that the fall doesn't hurt.

00:38:36.391 --> 00:38:39.722
There's nothing that hurts when we fall.

00:38:39.722 --> 00:38:43.869
What hurts when we fall is hitting the ground.

00:38:43.869 --> 00:38:49.195
And so, zachary, as he's preaching, there's two giant dudes standing behind him.

00:38:49.195 --> 00:38:58.387
And so the preacher, as he's saying all this and sharing all this, he just keeps throwing his body backwards while he's talking and he's just like, look, I can fall right now.

00:38:58.387 --> 00:39:02.168
And he literally throws himself, but someone's there to catch him, zachary.

00:39:02.168 --> 00:39:04.525
And so, of course, he doesn't get hurt.

00:39:04.525 --> 00:39:06.625
And the guy helps him back up and then he goes.

00:39:06.625 --> 00:39:09.900
It doesn't matter if I'm walking and I'm talking and then I fall.

00:39:09.900 --> 00:39:14.494
He's like as long as someone's there to catch me, the fall doesn't hurt.

00:39:14.976 --> 00:39:21.740
And so when I saw him say that, my first thought was, for sure, my parents and I'm so grateful for every single thing that they've done along the way.

00:39:21.740 --> 00:39:36.565
It really put, put into perspective for me, zachary, how fortunate I am because I feel their love, I feel all these other things, but what I don't think I recognized my entire life growing up and I'm so grateful because they're still like this to this day, which is an amazing trait.

00:39:36.565 --> 00:39:42.525
My mom is from Albania and I think every immigrant mom always says you know once my kid, always my kid.

00:39:42.525 --> 00:39:42.726
Here.

00:39:42.726 --> 00:40:05.307
I am 36 years old and they still treat me like I'm their little kid and it's awesome to have that support from both my mom and my dad and it made me realize that I've felt free to take more risks and I felt more free to do these things and just chase anything that I dream of because, yeah, there's a very real risk that I will fail and I've certainly failed along the way.

00:40:05.380 --> 00:40:09.047
There are many points at which I failed and I've fallen.

00:40:09.047 --> 00:40:16.449
However, I've always been caught and that's not lost on me and I'm so appreciative of that and I think it makes it easier.

00:40:16.449 --> 00:40:26.822
And at the end of that clip that I saw, the guy said we need to find people in our lives that are not there for when we fall, or that are not there to catch us when we fall.

00:40:26.822 --> 00:40:28.867
They're there for the fall.

00:40:28.867 --> 00:40:33.344
They're intentionally there to say I know you're going to fall and I'm going to catch you.

00:40:33.344 --> 00:40:45.293
And to me, it's really redefined and reshaped my view of support, because I used to think support was making sure you know guiding and, zachary, you're a parent, aren't you?

00:40:46.014 --> 00:40:46.375
Yeah, I am.

00:40:46.715 --> 00:40:53.831
Yeah, and so I always kind of viewed the role of a parent as that guidance and everything.

00:40:53.831 --> 00:40:55.260
But you can definitely speak way more to this than I can.

00:40:55.260 --> 00:41:05.989
But now I recognize that your role as a parent is not to guide them from ever falling, it truly is just to catch them when they fall.

00:41:07.192 --> 00:41:10.452
Absolutely yeah, that's something well.

00:41:10.452 --> 00:41:13.543
Children for me and my experience as a parent.

00:41:13.543 --> 00:41:36.668
My daughter has taught me so much about myself, about the things that annoy me about myself, that I see as well as how best to help facilitate and support and guide and to catch my little one when she falls and to help keep her moving forward and to help cultivate resiliency for her.

00:41:36.668 --> 00:41:42.367
She is an incredible human being and I'm so proud to be her dad.

00:41:42.367 --> 00:42:03.610
But yeah, the neat part about parenting is that now it's changed my worldview, it's changed how I approach life, it's changed my level of kindness, it's changed my level of acceptance for things and myself and for others, and then I can pay it forward to others.

00:42:03.610 --> 00:42:08.099
So it's yeah, it's really something special that.

00:42:08.159 --> 00:42:09.182
I've been able to do.

00:42:10.085 --> 00:42:13.458
And it's interesting because all these things we for sure don't recognize it.

00:42:13.458 --> 00:42:18.045
I'm sure that you view your parents through a new lens now that you're a parent.

00:42:18.045 --> 00:42:20.429
It took so many of my experiences.

00:42:20.429 --> 00:42:21.197
I'm an uncle now.

00:42:21.197 --> 00:42:23.510
Any podcast listener knows how much I love my niece and nephew.

00:42:23.510 --> 00:42:27.143
They're seven-year-old twins and it's even changed my perspective.

00:42:27.143 --> 00:42:32.978
I love them more than I could have ever imagined loving any living being.

00:42:32.978 --> 00:42:35.201
Like when they came into the world the first time I held them.

00:42:35.201 --> 00:42:39.467
It's like this is my brother's kids, like this is our family.

00:42:39.467 --> 00:42:48.146
This is something that created, that was created out of love, out of goodness, out of purity, like they're the two most pure creatures on this planet.

00:42:48.146 --> 00:42:53.885
And so, yeah, it teaches you new depths to these feelings that we couldn't appreciate without these experiences.

00:42:55.255 --> 00:43:06.704
I think there's a through line through all of this that you've been talking about your relationships with others and how they've pushed you in different directions, how they've supported you along the way.

00:43:06.704 --> 00:43:08.918
So you have a lot.

00:43:08.918 --> 00:43:15.626
You have a large listener base, a long-term listener base and those that are just probably tuning in for the first time today for this thousandth episode.

00:43:15.626 --> 00:43:19.514
Can you tell me about those listener relationships and what they mean to you?

00:43:20.036 --> 00:43:22.201
Yeah, they mean everything.

00:43:22.201 --> 00:43:28.083
The cheesy thing that I always say when I go on other podcasts is a podcast is nothing without the listeners.

00:43:28.083 --> 00:43:30.835
It truly is just a collection of MP3 files.

00:43:30.835 --> 00:43:57.306
I know this to be true because on my hard drive I have a collection of MP3 files, and the only reason why it's anything is because people tune in to listen to it, and so, ever since the very beginning, there's so many people that I could shout out specific listeners that have gone on to do amazing things, and I think what I didn't foresee when we launched the podcast, zachary, was that it would inspire people to do more in life, not just in business.

00:43:57.306 --> 00:44:09.056
You know, entrepreneur to entrepreneur has always been my focus, but the positive attributes and the personal growth and development that come through entrepreneurship serve us in every other facet of life.

00:44:09.056 --> 00:44:17.626
So even those listeners that have gone on to grow families like, shout out to Mitch Lohr, who came to my first ever retreat in San Diego in 2017.

00:44:17.626 --> 00:44:26.021
Mitch built an amazing business, and then you know what else he built that was way more incredible than his amazing business An incredible family.

00:44:26.021 --> 00:44:41.014
Seeing what him and his wife, sarah have done with growing a beautiful family, it transcends entrepreneurship, and seeing the man and the father that Mitch has grown into he's one of our longtime listeners, dating all the way back I mean the show started in 2016.

00:44:41.014 --> 00:44:51.847
He was already tuned in at that point and seeing that Mitch has become an amazing father and man because of the personal development journey that he went on through entrepreneurship.

00:44:51.847 --> 00:45:11.005
That's what I really appreciate is that I always say entrepreneurship is just a microcosm for life, and I think everything is that I learn more about life and business and myself while I'm sitting over a chessboard or while I'm on a tennis court than I do sitting and working on my business, because all of these things are just a microcosm of it.

00:45:11.005 --> 00:45:14.257
So yeah, zachary, we've had some crazy stories along the way.

00:45:14.318 --> 00:45:24.164
I remember in 2016 or 2017, kind of when I was still finding my way and finding my voice here on the show I got WhatsApp messages.

00:45:24.164 --> 00:45:25.820
Podcast listeners are resourceful.

00:45:25.820 --> 00:45:29.563
The extent to which they'll go to reach out to podcast hosts.

00:45:29.563 --> 00:45:30.286
I love it.

00:45:30.286 --> 00:45:33.083
I'm so appreciative of it because I get WhatsApp messages.

00:45:33.083 --> 00:45:34.005
I get text messages.

00:45:34.005 --> 00:45:36.380
I get Facebook messages, instagram DMs, emails.

00:45:36.380 --> 00:45:38.605
I'm very public about how to email me directly.

00:45:38.605 --> 00:45:40.307
Hello at imetbriancom.

00:45:40.307 --> 00:45:42.463
Listeners, don't be shy, hello at imetbriancom.

00:45:42.804 --> 00:45:50.762
But, zachary, I remember that year I got a message from a student in Egypt, very young student, ishmael Shout out to Ishmael.

00:45:50.762 --> 00:46:00.664
I still keep in touch with him to this day and he shared with me very, very vulnerably that he was at a low moment in life and he was thinking about committing suicide.

00:46:00.664 --> 00:46:14.038
He was genuinely at the end of that rope and and in his message that he sent to me on WhatsApp, it struck me and it still strikes me to this day, zachary, it's in those moments where I say, ah, does anyone really want to hear about this for a solo Sunday episode?

00:46:14.038 --> 00:46:16.902
I still think about Ishmael's journey and he's amazing.

00:46:16.902 --> 00:46:32.128
He's working on his business now, all these years later, and he shared with me that what got him through the long bus rides to and from school were tuning into the podcast, because he felt good in those moments and it made him feel better.

00:46:32.128 --> 00:46:36.052
And so for me, it's those listeners relationship, zachary.

00:46:36.052 --> 00:46:36.695
We get them every day.

00:46:36.695 --> 00:46:38.684
In fact, this is unprovoked.

00:46:38.684 --> 00:46:39.989
Let me go into my email inbox.

00:46:39.989 --> 00:46:42.376
We get these messages every single day.

00:46:42.376 --> 00:46:46.686
Here's an entrepreneur who I so respect the way that he thinks.

00:46:46.686 --> 00:46:48.498
Zachary, he is like totally our people.

00:46:48.498 --> 00:46:52.317
I want to introduce you to him at some point, but his email to me this is just yesterday.

00:46:52.317 --> 00:46:53.139
It's top of my inbox.

00:46:53.498 --> 00:46:57.849
I like your entrepreneurial show more than a lot of others because I usually feel good after listening to it.

00:46:57.849 --> 00:47:07.010
When I listen to a lot of other podcasts that have mega successful entrepreneurs on, or listen to content from people like Alex Hormozy, it just makes me feel like I'm doing everything wrong.

00:47:07.010 --> 00:47:08.077
Don't get me wrong.

00:47:08.077 --> 00:47:09.943
A lot of those creators give really good advice.

00:47:09.943 --> 00:47:15.387
It's just I usually feel bad about myself after listening to them for not doing the things I need to do.

00:47:16.414 --> 00:47:19.427
Your podcast just makes me feel like I'm doing my best and that that's okay.

00:47:19.427 --> 00:47:26.039
I don't have mega stress over figuring out how to break my business so that I have to rebuild it back better, or how to think about how to 10x something.

00:47:26.039 --> 00:47:31.902
It's just real people expressing that they're doing the best they can and it's not perfect, but it's working for them.

00:47:31.902 --> 00:47:40.123
Zachary, that fuels me so much and I'm sure you feel the same way, because you and I we actually this is one way I have failed.

00:47:40.123 --> 00:47:48.817
I've never shared with you the amazing feedback we got from your episode because you spoke so much to the inner workings of the human mind.

00:47:48.817 --> 00:47:52.547
Now you have the clinical advantage in the way that you talk about it as well.

00:47:52.547 --> 00:47:56.505
So you understand this to more depths than we understand.

00:47:56.505 --> 00:48:00.702
But it's the human journey, it's that human connection.

00:48:00.702 --> 00:48:02.568
I would argue it's truly everything.

00:48:02.568 --> 00:48:05.282
Without that, there's no purpose for us to do anything.

00:48:05.324 --> 00:48:22.050
To be honest, yeah, I was going to actually ask you how you find meaning in each episode, but I think you kind of just nailed it right there with some of that feedback and how you are inspiring and the folks that you have on are inspiring.

00:48:22.050 --> 00:49:05.873
And it normalizes the process where when we're looking at I'm on LinkedIn a lot and I'm looking at these guys in the Lambos, the 10x multiple people and all of that, and I think oftentimes we're external facing, we're looking at the material and I see a part of your podcast is really working on the internal processes, the mindset, internal processes, the mindset and the removal of the stigma about having you know the necessity of failure along the way oftentimes and the fits and starts that we have in entrepreneurship.

00:49:05.873 --> 00:49:08.900
But maybe I will circle back to that a little bit.

00:49:08.900 --> 00:49:14.878
So, meaning, what gives you meaning and how do you convey that to your audience?

00:49:16.059 --> 00:49:21.789
Yeah, it's shout out to John Allen, who we had on the show at some point in 2024.

00:49:21.789 --> 00:49:27.932
There's so many episodes at this point that, like, my mind is just flooded with the amazing people and entrepreneurs that we've had on.

00:49:27.932 --> 00:49:42.965
But you know, zachary, like I love keeping in touch with our guests and John Allen's one of those guests that I got virtual coffee with recently and John asked me a huge, broad question that I had never that intentionally thought about and he said what are you here for?

00:49:42.965 --> 00:49:45.275
And I think it ties in with what you're asking me right here right now.

00:49:45.275 --> 00:49:53.960
I'm a big fan of intuition and I generally think and believe and you know this because you've been a guest on the show that the good stuff comes out when it's unscripted.

00:49:53.960 --> 00:49:56.045
The good stuff will always bubble up to the top.

00:49:56.045 --> 00:50:05.240
And that's why, when, when guests are coming on and they say can you send me the questions in advance, I say there are no questions in advance, like whatever comes out is going to be the good stuff and that's the valuable stuff.

00:50:05.240 --> 00:50:16.326
And so when John asked me that, I went straight to a story with him and that story is from when I was a young kid again like being the son of an immigrant mom is so core to my identity.

00:50:16.385 --> 00:50:16.505
It's.

00:50:16.505 --> 00:50:18.208
It shaped the way that I see the world.

00:50:18.208 --> 00:50:19.610
It shapes the way that I was raised.

00:50:19.610 --> 00:50:20.679
It shapes my values.

00:50:20.679 --> 00:50:23.952
It shapes so much of what, the lens through which I see the world.

00:50:23.952 --> 00:50:29.215
And I remember as a young kid when we'd be driving through some of the richer suburbs in central Massachusetts.

00:50:29.215 --> 00:50:31.840
I did not grow up in a rich suburb, I thought we were rich.

00:50:31.840 --> 00:50:34.606
In hindsight, the stories that my parents tell me, I'm like holy cow.

00:50:34.606 --> 00:50:39.565
We literally didn't have much when I was young, but that's great, because my parents made us feel like we had everything in the world.

00:50:39.565 --> 00:50:48.264
And so we would drive through these neighborhoods, zachary and I would just gawk at these beautiful cars and these massive houses.

00:50:48.264 --> 00:50:52.065
And my mom always still to this day, she gives me this advice.

00:50:52.065 --> 00:50:57.577
She would always say, brian, they're just normal people like you and I.

00:50:57.577 --> 00:50:59.425
Anything is possible.

00:50:59.425 --> 00:51:08.679
And it's those three words that have followed me through all of life, whether it was on the soccer field as a young player, whether it was in the classroom, whether it has been in my career.

00:51:08.679 --> 00:51:10.306
Anything is possible.

00:51:10.748 --> 00:51:20.250
And I think what really gives me meaning is because I've so embraced that, zachary, when I started speaking at high school, so that's been a really impactful thing in my life.

00:51:20.250 --> 00:51:52.222
When I started speaking to students and seeing their eyes light up because someone from the outside world who was in their seats literally went on and started multiple businesses and traveled to 30 plus countries and gets to interview all these amazing people, when I see their possibilities broaden and that horizon completely opened up for them, that's what gives me meaning and if I had to summarize, like my one mission on this planet, it's to wake people up and invite them for themselves.

00:51:52.222 --> 00:51:54.007
It's not something that I can do for them.

00:51:54.007 --> 00:52:04.804
I hope that my stories and experiences and message is just an inspiration for them to step into it for themselves, but I want everyone to see that anything is possible and genuinely.

00:52:05.204 --> 00:52:11.847
When I think about my love for entrepreneurship, I think that's why, zachary, yeah, I love business, I love marketing.

00:52:11.847 --> 00:52:14.581
I'm a geek about all these things, as you are as well.

00:52:14.581 --> 00:52:20.255
We love this stuff, but it's just a vehicle through which we experience things.

00:52:20.255 --> 00:52:26.795
It's a vehicle through which we experience our own personal growth, our own personal emotions, our own personal potential.

00:52:26.795 --> 00:52:30.980
It's just a vehicle through which we experience life and that truly is that.

00:52:30.980 --> 00:52:32.724
If we had to strip away entrepreneurship.

00:52:32.724 --> 00:52:33.847
That's the real thing.

00:52:33.847 --> 00:52:34.960
That gives me meaning in life.

00:52:35.795 --> 00:52:37.179
That is so powerful.

00:52:37.179 --> 00:52:43.673
You are really walking in your authentic why your meaning there.

00:52:43.673 --> 00:52:45.860
You're walking in that path.

00:52:45.860 --> 00:52:47.686
That's beautiful.

00:52:47.686 --> 00:52:50.916
I don't think that many people have necessarily found that yet.

00:52:50.916 --> 00:52:59.077
I do think it's possible for everyone, but it takes some exploration and pivoting to that.

00:52:59.077 --> 00:53:05.409
How do you have a way to keep yourself authentic?

00:53:05.409 --> 00:53:10.985
How do you check in with yourself and say am I still being true to myself?

00:53:10.985 --> 00:53:11.967
Am I still being authentic?

00:53:11.967 --> 00:53:13.599
Is this working for me?

00:53:14.320 --> 00:53:15.264
Yeah, I'm so glad.

00:53:15.264 --> 00:53:27.036
I'm totally going to put you on the spot as part of this part of the conversation, zachary, because you said something that it sounds like you and I do the same thing and think the same thing, but we just use different verbiage for it.

00:53:27.036 --> 00:53:32.456
You used the example of stop signs earlier and you said that we need to have stop signs in life.

00:53:32.456 --> 00:53:36.306
I am such a subscriber to that Ever since I read this book.

00:53:36.306 --> 00:53:37.699
It's called how to Not Die Alone.

00:53:37.699 --> 00:53:38.581
It's by Logan Urie.

00:53:38.581 --> 00:53:42.442
It's about dating and relationships, but again, everything is a microcosm of life.

00:53:43.465 --> 00:53:52.527
In the book, Logan Urie talks about a psychological study that researchers did and they brought test subjects in and they had them.

00:53:52.527 --> 00:53:53.309
Do you know?

00:53:53.309 --> 00:54:08.028
Silly tasks, completely meaningless tasks, and so the participants thought that the tasks were related to the study, when in fact, what they were actually studying, zachary, was they would give half of the participants.

00:54:08.028 --> 00:54:14.166
They gave them a giant bag of M&Ms and they studied how many M&Ms that those people ate.

00:54:14.166 --> 00:54:16.222
The other half of the participants they gave them individual packs, small packs of M&Ms that those people ate.

00:54:16.222 --> 00:54:20.329
The other half of the participants they gave them individual packs, small packs of M&Ms.

00:54:20.329 --> 00:54:24.740
So you know those like Halloween-sized packs that we get that have a few M&Ms in there.

00:54:24.740 --> 00:54:29.081
They studied how many M&Ms on average those participants ate.

00:54:29.081 --> 00:54:39.981
Well, sure enough, the participant group that had the small, individual packs of M&Ms ate far fewer M&Ms than the participants that had that giant bag.

00:54:40.335 --> 00:54:54.065
And when they summarized the findings, what they found was they called it decide or slide, and we've all experienced this in our personal lives is that if I have a giant bag of chips, I always joke to my friend Zachary that everything is a serving size of one.

00:54:54.065 --> 00:54:57.822
If you give me a giant bag of chips, I will eat that giant bag of chips.

00:54:57.822 --> 00:55:01.155
If you give me a small bag of chips, I will eat that small bag of chips.

00:55:01.155 --> 00:55:03.641
And so it's all about those decision points.

00:55:03.641 --> 00:55:12.423
Is that if you give me an individual size, a Halloween sized packet of M&Ms, okay, I'll eat it for sure, guaranteed, I have a giant sweet tooth.

00:55:12.423 --> 00:55:22.978
But at the end of that small bag I have a decision point built in Do I want to open another bag, yes or no?

00:55:22.978 --> 00:55:27.655
Now I like to think I have at least enough discipline to, at a certain point, I will stop doing it, whereas the big bag I don't have that decision point.

00:55:27.655 --> 00:55:31.483
I can just keep sliding right into it, keep grabbing more M&Ms.

00:55:31.523 --> 00:55:40.909
And so I've realized that those decision points are key in my life and you already alluded to it, because you know me so well is that for me, it's Sunday coffee dates.

00:55:40.909 --> 00:55:44.641
Gosh, those Sunday coffee dates keep me and they're with myself.

00:55:44.641 --> 00:55:47.097
When people hear the word date, they're always like well, who are you taking out?

00:55:47.097 --> 00:55:48.300
I'm taking out me.

00:55:48.641 --> 00:56:07.739
It's me that I go to the coffee shops with and I sit and I think very intentionally, typically, at different points in my life, it's different questions that I ask myself, but typically there's an activity of about seven questions that I run through with myself to make sure that I'm happy, fulfilled, on the right path, staying true and authentic to myself, that my energy levels are there.

00:56:07.739 --> 00:56:15.445
I'm so important like energy's, so important to me, and so all of these things are things that I intentionally confront every single Sunday.

00:56:15.445 --> 00:56:19.181
Are there times in my life where I slide right past them?

00:56:19.181 --> 00:56:26.545
Because I'm traveling, or it's the holiday season Sure, that happens and guess what, I get a little bit off the rails, as we all tend to do.

00:56:26.545 --> 00:56:33.840
So, zachary, I want to throw it back to you because that psychological study I hope I did the researchers some sort of justice about their findings there?

00:56:33.840 --> 00:56:41.378
But you obviously understand this not only at the human or the entrepreneurial level, but also at that clinical level, and you talked about stop signs.

00:56:41.378 --> 00:56:44.326
Talk to us about the decision points behind all this.

00:56:58.027 --> 00:57:02.052
Wow, and I think that routine is absolutely essential.

00:57:02.052 --> 00:57:06.094
That's how I stay on track with my self-care.

00:57:06.094 --> 00:57:14.650
I have a philosophy of holistic care called GEMS, which is gratitude, exercise and environment.

00:57:14.650 --> 00:57:15.615
Environment is absolutely essential.

00:57:15.615 --> 00:57:16.554
Med exercise and environment.

00:57:16.554 --> 00:57:24.706
Environment's absolutely essential Meditation, social support, mindset I'm sorry, meditation, mindset, social support and spirituality.

00:57:25.275 --> 00:57:45.751
So if I'm hitting on some of those touch points throughout the week and I have to stick to a routine and I think that's essential as entrepreneurs we are answering emails, guilty, at 10.30 pm or later and then up again very early in the morning answering emails, responding to things, trying to keep the momentum going.

00:57:47.876 --> 00:57:52.847
But with that, because we're so busy, oftentimes the self-care just gets thrown out the window.

00:57:52.994 --> 00:58:03.070
It's the thing that slides first, because it's the easiest to push off the list when we're thinking about everything else that we have to do, all the other necessities, if you will.

00:58:03.675 --> 00:58:15.150
But ultimately, if we don't have ourselves then and we don't have a holistic sense of positive, subjective well-being, then we don't have much that we can give to the world.

00:58:15.150 --> 00:58:33.744
Then we don't have much that we can give to the world and especially if our mission is to serve others in whatever way that is, for entrepreneurs it is absolutely essential, as oftentimes priority number one, to make sure that we are able to put our best foot forward through things like self-care and whatever that means to the individual.

00:58:33.744 --> 00:58:45.041
I know you love to play tennis, you exercise, you spend time outside, you do your reflection, coffee dates, all those things are just.

00:58:45.041 --> 00:59:08.922
They're hitting me too, because I have a routine where I actually have to schedule out my time for quiet, my time for meditation, my time for exercise, all those things, and it may seem a little rigid, but if I don't follow that routine then it all slides and then I'm just, I'm grinding instead of enjoying the process of entrepreneurship.

00:59:10.025 --> 00:59:14.045
It's interesting hearing you say that you and I have never talked about this specific topic together.

00:59:14.045 --> 00:59:16.735
I'm the exact opposite, zachary.

00:59:16.735 --> 00:59:18.518
Really tell me please.

00:59:18.518 --> 00:59:27.983
Yeah, for me, the more regimented and scheduled my week is, the less I enjoy it, and I find myself unhappy in those moments.

00:59:27.983 --> 00:59:31.175
And yeah, it's funny thinking about how different we are.

00:59:31.175 --> 00:59:32.579
Do you know your myers-briggs type?

00:59:34.603 --> 00:59:34.983
I should.

00:59:35.264 --> 00:59:40.302
I'm drawing a blank right now okay, you, you owe it to me after we're done recording today, but but for me so.

00:59:40.623 --> 00:59:44.960
I've got a p at the end of it, so I'm an ENTP and I'm very much like a classic ENTP.

00:59:44.960 --> 00:59:51.320
And the p at the end as a perceiver speaks to my preference towards a lack of scheduling.

00:59:51.320 --> 01:00:00.447
And so, zachary, if you and I live near each other and we hung out as often as I know that we would if we lived close by I would drive you insane.

01:00:00.447 --> 01:00:08.076
Because if you say, hey, brian, do you want to do something on Friday, my answer to you inevitably ask anyone who's close to me personally in life.

01:00:08.076 --> 01:00:10.699
I will say ask me on Friday.

01:00:10.699 --> 01:00:14.965
It drives everybody crazy.

01:00:14.965 --> 01:00:22.534
And it's because my parents, for example, they live an hour south of me here on the gulf coast of florida and they always ask me what are you doing this weekend?

01:00:22.534 --> 01:00:33.503
It's the one question that drives me crazy, zachary, because every single week for years, without fail, I tell them I have no idea what I'm doing this weekend, like it's it's Thursday.

01:00:33.503 --> 01:00:35.786
How would I know what I'm doing this weekend?

01:00:35.786 --> 01:00:39.617
And so for me, it's that freedom.

01:00:40.659 --> 01:01:02.282
And it definitely has been a journey to get to this point where I just know that I need to allow myself that grace and that freedom to ride my natural energy waves, because my energy like I have a lot of energy, and I know that about myself, and I also know that with this much energy, there are times where there's certain things I have to do in business reply to emails, for example.

01:01:03.184 --> 01:01:17.163
If I am on an energy high, the last thing I want to do is just sit there and reply to emails, and so I'd much rather leverage that time to think big, to create brand new things, and so I allow myself that so more.

01:01:17.202 --> 01:01:29.777
What I've started doing is I have this tool that is like the anti-to-do list, and basically on a Monday or a Sunday evening, admittedly, I'll sit down and just map out here's all the blocks of things that need to happen.

01:01:29.777 --> 01:01:41.606
I have no idea when and where they'll happen, and I intentionally say where, zachary, because for me, part of my unregimentedness is the fact that I'm always on the go.

01:01:41.606 --> 01:01:43.070
I am never home.

01:01:43.070 --> 01:01:51.179
I am from one coffee shop to my office, to another coffee shop to potentially home for a little bit, if I have to be home for, like, recording days.

01:01:51.179 --> 01:01:53.925
I'm just always on the move, and I know that.

01:01:53.925 --> 01:02:07.724
I mean you even said it our environment plays so much into the way we're thinking, the way we're feeling our energy levels, that I just allow myself to ride it, while also trusting and having that discipline that, like I still do need to finish all the things this week.

01:02:08.775 --> 01:02:20.820
That's, that's incredible, um, and I know people like you exist and I know people like you exist, but I kid but the power of unstructured time.

01:02:20.820 --> 01:02:24.922
And for me, I actually have to schedule my unstructured time.

01:02:24.922 --> 01:02:26.264
So we are different that way.

01:02:26.264 --> 01:02:35.530
But there is a beauty in just being able to float around or to find your flow, find your rhythm and then just go with that flow.

01:02:35.530 --> 01:02:38.552
And that's really fascinating.

01:02:47.335 --> 01:02:50.581
A book changed my perception of how to get things done for me as a very active person in personal life, my volunteering and in my business.

01:02:50.581 --> 01:02:57.583
And that's Getting Things Done is the name of the book and it talks about chunking, it talks about scheduling, it talks about prioritizing.

01:02:57.583 --> 01:02:59.608
Before that, I was lost.

01:02:59.608 --> 01:03:03.199
I was just all over the place.

01:03:03.199 --> 01:03:16.476
I think my parents would describe me as a free spirit and I think that they probably thought well, this guy, we'll see what he does, because I was always just kind of floating around, I will see what he does.

01:03:16.476 --> 01:03:24.190
But because I was always just kind of floating around, but I needed to find something, a method, in order to be able to move forward in an intentional way.

01:03:24.190 --> 01:03:26.036
So that works for me.

01:03:26.036 --> 01:03:28.644
But I am, I'm kind of, I'm really impressed.

01:03:28.644 --> 01:03:37.346
And now I'm very curious, brian, about about your process, and I'm going to have to give it some thought and see if there's there's ways that I can do more of that.

01:03:37.346 --> 01:03:40.271
Getting into the flow of things, yeah.

01:03:40.333 --> 01:03:44.914
Well, a big part you have to remember and I think you know this about me is that I'm also a big subscriber to batching.

01:03:44.914 --> 01:03:57.606
So, for example, tuesdays, part part of this process in working is you also have to give yourself a lot of grace, and so the way that I've found to give myself grace is to batch things.

01:03:57.606 --> 01:04:02.829
So, tuesdays, the only thing I'm on the hook for is podcast interviews.

01:04:02.829 --> 01:04:05.416
I do eight interviews every single Tuesday, that's it.

01:04:05.416 --> 01:04:12.217
If I don't reply to a single email, it doesn't eat me even 1%, doesn't even bother me whatsoever.

01:04:12.217 --> 01:04:22.760
I could see the emails piling up and I remind myself today all we're responsible for is podcast interviews.

01:04:22.780 --> 01:04:23.784
Similarly, on Mondays, I just record content.

01:04:23.784 --> 01:04:30.815
In general, it's just kind of a content day for me, and it's cool because it gives me a lot of flexibility to kind of be loosey goosey with a lot of responsibilities, like this Monday, for example.

01:04:30.815 --> 01:04:40.684
It was a beautiful day here in Florida, and so I just said to myself as much content as I had to record Zachary, I just said to myself I really want to go for a 15 mile bike ride right now.

01:04:40.684 --> 01:04:45.364
And that's exactly what I did, and I felt no pressure, no judgment.

01:04:45.364 --> 01:04:58.840
I just gave myself full grace to do that, knowing that my only responsibility for the day was going to be content, and so I will have to sit down and do it later.

01:04:58.840 --> 01:05:01.768
But I'll probably do an even better job at it when I honor what it is that I feel like doing right now.

01:05:01.789 --> 01:05:04.579
And so, yeah, batching, it eliminates switching costs.

01:05:04.579 --> 01:05:05.161
That's what.

01:05:05.161 --> 01:05:19.541
When I see the way that others work, even if they schedule out their time and I'm not calling you out for this, because I have full faith that you're better than most at this, zachary but when I see others blocking out their time, you know, and they schedule on their calendar, I've got 90 minutes of email replies.

01:05:19.541 --> 01:05:25.621
Then a notification will come through on their phone and they'll switch to that and switching costs add up.

01:05:26.094 --> 01:05:35.940
I have so few times in my day where I switch from one task to another because of batching, and batching for me doesn't mean like a whole day is just dedicated to content.

01:05:35.940 --> 01:05:43.621
Maybe it's a half a day and another half a day is focused on something else, but I don't switch tasks in between there.

01:05:43.621 --> 01:05:46.307
If it's not email time, I promise you I will not reply to a single email.

01:05:46.307 --> 01:05:57.978
And the last thing I want to add here, because I feel like it lets me a little bit off the hook is I also fully acknowledge, zachary, that you have a wife, you have a family, you have a wife, you have a family, you have more responsibilities.

01:05:57.978 --> 01:06:02.175
As a single 36 year old, it is definitely at least a little bit easier for me to do this stuff.

01:06:03.338 --> 01:06:05.382
Nice, I get that.

01:06:05.382 --> 01:06:12.184
So I just want to dive a little bit deeper, because this is interesting for me and I think it'll be interesting for the listeners too.

01:06:12.184 --> 01:06:19.320
When we're talking about someone, if I may call you a peak performer, I mean you are really operating at a high level.

01:06:19.320 --> 01:06:37.297
So when you talk about batching, talk to me about your phone usage, because I think the phone is oftentimes a huge distraction, even if it's necessary work, such as those push notifications for emails or those text messages from folks, not even necessarily social media.

01:06:37.297 --> 01:06:40.815
But can you talk to me about your relationship with your phone and your business?

01:06:41.358 --> 01:06:43.987
Yeah, zachary, it's funny going here on the air.

01:06:43.987 --> 01:06:49.081
Anyone who knows me personally is going to hate the fact that I'm about to say this stuff out loud.

01:06:49.081 --> 01:06:51.867
Zachary, I don't like my phone at all.

01:06:51.867 --> 01:06:53.780
I pretty much don't use my phone.

01:06:53.780 --> 01:06:57.411
If you and I were hanging out in person right now, my phone at all, I pretty much don't use my phone.

01:06:57.411 --> 01:07:04.516
If you and I were hanging out in person right now will not touch my phone.

01:07:04.536 --> 01:07:07.547
No desire to touch my phone because I don't feel, for better and for worse, I don't feel at the mercy of push notifications.

01:07:07.547 --> 01:07:24.588
Because I'm so disciplined about my time and I'm so disciplined and controlled about access to my energy, to my time, to my attention, to literally anything and everything, I'm perfectly okay with ignoring my phone, which is why a lot of people are not happy about this.

01:07:24.588 --> 01:07:29.786
As of recording, I have 2,856 unread text messages.

01:07:29.786 --> 01:07:36.432
Now I know that a lot of them sometimes it weighs me down, and that's certainly a thing, and I feel bad about that that a lot of them.

01:07:36.432 --> 01:07:38.858
Sometimes it weighs me down, and that's certainly a thing and I feel bad about that.

01:07:38.858 --> 01:07:46.684
But I also just know that in order for me to serve others and also serve myself, I have to make cuts somewhere and so you bring up email notifications.

01:07:47.005 --> 01:07:48.608
I have no email notifications.

01:07:48.608 --> 01:07:57.141
I have so few notifications enabled on my phone because I don't like touching my phone and I don't like being around people who are constantly on their phone.

01:07:57.141 --> 01:08:04.382
So for me, most of this stuff that I'll do communication wise that others would view on their phone, I exclusively do on my computer.

01:08:04.382 --> 01:08:07.940
I pretty much only reply to texts from my computer.

01:08:07.940 --> 01:08:16.372
So it's a very intentional time because I have to open these software applications up on my computer, like I've got got max everywhere that I am.

01:08:16.372 --> 01:08:19.079
So I opened the iMessage app and that's okay.

01:08:19.079 --> 01:08:25.528
I'm going to reply to some of these that are urgent or important to me or people that I care about and that's important to me.

01:08:25.528 --> 01:08:28.756
So yeah, for better and for worse, I don't like my phone.

01:08:30.137 --> 01:08:36.606
So where did that discipline come from to be able to batch and then to have that?

01:08:36.606 --> 01:08:46.296
It sounds like just pure focus, where everything else is pushed to the sides and you're just purely focusing on what's in front of you right there.

01:08:46.777 --> 01:08:48.582
It's funny to think about the origins of this.

01:08:48.582 --> 01:08:52.721
I've actually never thought about it this intentionally until you asked that it's when I moved to LA.

01:08:52.721 --> 01:08:56.511
So I moved to LA at the very end of 2016.

01:08:56.511 --> 01:09:08.125
So a few months after starting this podcast and you know, it was winter was approaching in Boston, so I packed my car and moved across the country and all of a sudden, I was in permanently warm weather.

01:09:08.125 --> 01:09:16.497
I could do things outside all day, every single day, 365 days a year, and so when I moved to LA, I was freshly single.

01:09:16.618 --> 01:09:17.842
I was in my mid-20s.

01:09:17.842 --> 01:09:18.779
It was so exciting.

01:09:18.779 --> 01:09:20.567
I'd only been to LA a couple of times before.

01:09:20.567 --> 01:09:28.467
There's this whole big, wide city of 17 million people to explore, and so all I wanted to do was exactly that was explore.

01:09:28.467 --> 01:09:42.979
I wanted to go to Griffith Observatory and the Grove and Santa Monica Pier and Venice Beach, and I had bought a bike my first week there and I was just like permanently attached to my bike, exploring neighborhoods and everything, and so that's when it put into perspective.

01:09:43.600 --> 01:09:44.923
I really want to do these things.

01:09:44.923 --> 01:09:52.118
I really want to have a lot of fun, but I also really want to be successful and productive and keep my businesses afloat, and so I was just forced to.

01:09:52.118 --> 01:10:00.082
It's almost like because there were so many non-focused things that I wanted to do in my focus time.

01:10:00.082 --> 01:10:01.454
I had to be even more focused.

01:10:01.454 --> 01:10:04.284
So I'm really grateful that that forced me to.

01:10:04.284 --> 01:10:10.034
And again, speaking of the environment, it was a move that taught me that because I was comfortable in Boston.

01:10:10.034 --> 01:10:13.445
I had my friends I grew up with, had my friends I went to school with.

01:10:13.445 --> 01:10:18.266
I had my ultimate Frisbee group and recreational soccer group that I was playing with.

01:10:18.266 --> 01:10:25.164
But now, all of a sudden, there's a million distractions in LA, so I just if I wanted to do it, I also had to focus.

01:10:26.155 --> 01:10:26.939
So that was definitely.

01:10:26.939 --> 01:10:28.704
It sounds like a shift in mindset.

01:10:28.704 --> 01:10:33.180
What other types of did you have to?

01:10:33.180 --> 01:10:36.666
How often do you shift mindset?

01:10:36.666 --> 01:10:43.793
Do you say, okay, this is a point for a pivot for me and I'm going to have to think about things differently moving forward.

01:10:43.793 --> 01:10:47.801
We talked about episode 499, your episode one.

01:10:47.801 --> 01:10:51.828
Let's talk about the 500 to 1,000 here.

01:10:51.828 --> 01:10:56.005
What are some other times when you've said, okay, now's the time to make a change?

01:10:56.994 --> 01:10:58.618
Yeah, a couple answers there.

01:10:58.618 --> 01:11:08.907
First is very intentional about New Year's, and I'm not a big fan of New Year resolutions, but I do think that we can use the calendar to our advantage.

01:11:08.907 --> 01:11:16.985
I think that, speaking of decision points that you and I both have harped on quite a bit today, a calendar offers a built-in decision point societally.

01:11:16.985 --> 01:11:22.904
So it's important for us to reflect, to be introspective, to look forward.

01:11:22.904 --> 01:11:24.823
It's important to take advantage of those things.

01:11:24.823 --> 01:11:29.403
So every year, I said a word of the year, and that really sets the tone.

01:11:29.403 --> 01:11:35.819
So in a couple of weeks, here on the podcast, I'll be revealing my word of the year for 2025, but it doesn't happen by mistake.

01:11:35.819 --> 01:11:38.203
That is clearly me taking inventory.

01:11:38.203 --> 01:11:40.347
It's a term that I use with myself a lot of.

01:11:40.347 --> 01:11:45.765
Okay, it's time to take inventory Where's everything at and where do I want everything to go?

01:11:45.765 --> 01:11:48.076
Because when you paint that picture now, you can fill in the gaps and it becomes a lot easier.

01:11:48.076 --> 01:11:53.505
We're actually pretty good as human beings at filling in those gaps, but we have to paint the picture first.

01:11:53.505 --> 01:12:00.762
So year end and year beginning is huge for me, but even then I always joke around that I create January 1st.

01:12:00.762 --> 01:12:05.359
Every single quarter, every 90 days, I create a January 1st.

01:12:05.720 --> 01:12:11.400
I don't know how people operate without taking advantage of quarters, because 30, 60, 90 days is such an actionable time period.

01:12:11.400 --> 01:12:13.527
You can change pretty much anything in your life in the span of 90 days.

01:12:13.527 --> 01:12:18.139
If you want to period, you can change pretty much anything in your life in the span of 90 days.

01:12:18.139 --> 01:12:22.338
If you want to do some big stuff with your business, 90 days is more than enough.

01:12:22.338 --> 01:12:26.520
If you want to do some big stuff with health and fitness, 90 days is more than enough.

01:12:26.520 --> 01:12:28.929
So I love quarterly reflections.

01:12:28.929 --> 01:12:31.957
It's basically a much bigger version of my weekly coffee dates.

01:12:33.000 --> 01:12:54.969
Wow, that's incredible, and I know I'm picking apart these things, but I think that again, if I'm curious and I think others are curious too after listening to you for all these episodes, I love that we're getting a little bit of the behind the scenes action here, and I was going to ask you if you had your word of the year yet, or words or phrases for the year.

01:12:54.969 --> 01:13:01.287
I have one for myself that I'm not ready to verbalize yet as well, but I'm thinking about it.

01:13:01.287 --> 01:13:06.762
How do you use those words in your everyday process?

01:13:06.762 --> 01:13:08.146
Are they top of mind?

01:13:08.146 --> 01:13:09.211
Do you post them?

01:13:09.211 --> 01:13:10.675
Can you talk a little bit about that?

01:13:11.256 --> 01:13:12.779
Yeah, it's always top of mind.

01:13:12.779 --> 01:13:20.109
To be honest, any time I'm faced with a decision, I ask myself hold on, what was it that I wanted out of this year?

01:13:20.109 --> 01:13:23.097
And this word should guide me there I think about.

01:13:23.097 --> 01:13:24.963
I can't remember exactly what year it is.

01:13:24.963 --> 01:13:32.641
I've been doing this for a long time now, and so, as part of my one word for the year episode, I always go back and talk about past years words of the year.

01:13:32.641 --> 01:13:40.001
One year, my word was output, zachary, and it was cool because that word was so influential.

01:13:40.020 --> 01:13:52.543
In any time I was faced with any sort of decision, I thought to myself choose the one that outputs, choose the one that puts more things into the world, and so it's so hard for me to not say out loud my word of the year for 2025 yet.

01:13:52.543 --> 01:13:57.516
But yeah, so this year, for example, 2024, my word for the year has been building.

01:13:57.516 --> 01:14:09.842
I mean that as both a verb and a noun, and so, for me, anytime I've thought about things strategically from a business perspective heck, we can honestly and I'm sure you feel this way too is that my word of the year isn't a business word of the year.

01:14:09.842 --> 01:14:16.688
It transcends, it impacts my relationships, my friendships, my life, my health and fitness, my travel.

01:14:16.688 --> 01:14:18.234
It impacts everything.

01:14:18.234 --> 01:14:28.529
And so this year, with building, I thought it was going to be a year of just like fast paced, just put one brick on top of the other.

01:14:28.529 --> 01:14:33.364
But what I really realized because I've leaned on this word so much this year, zachary is.

01:14:33.746 --> 01:14:54.908
I felt more like an architect, and it's very intentional, because we've had quite a few architects on the show in the past 12 months, and anytime I talk to them, I think about the buildings that I see when I walk on Tampa's Riverwalk, these buildings like pop up out of nowhere, but when I talk to the actual architects, it's all from the blueprint and it's all from the foundation.

01:14:54.908 --> 01:15:07.547
When I look at these construction sites cause I love flying my drone around the city and so I've seen all of these construction sites for the past 12 months it seems to me I don't have any scientific backing of this.

01:15:07.547 --> 01:15:17.960
It seems to me like they spend so much time on the foundation and it's that time and investment that then, all of a sudden, things start popping up so quickly.

01:15:17.960 --> 01:15:35.461
And so, Zachary, whatever I thought it was going to yield for me this year, I am leaving 2024 with the strongest foundation I've ever built in all different facets of life, which is going to set me up for a huge 2025 that it is so hard to not say the word, but I know that it plays into it.

01:15:35.520 --> 01:15:36.685
So, yeah, very much.

01:15:36.685 --> 01:15:44.680
So it's top of mind every single day and you know, because you know how the brain works, I start seeing it everywhere because it's top of mind.

01:15:45.442 --> 01:15:48.688
Yes, absolutely the you.

01:15:48.688 --> 01:15:51.819
You spoke about a blueprint and the foundation.

01:15:51.819 --> 01:15:54.101
That's, that's really fascinating.

01:15:54.101 --> 01:16:00.978
And do you take the words from the past and do they compound, I guess, or is it?

01:16:00.978 --> 01:16:06.155
Let's cast it aside and then let's pick a new word and a new intention for the new year.

01:16:06.155 --> 01:16:07.319
How does that work for you?

01:16:07.820 --> 01:16:09.364
Yeah, it's the latter for me.

01:16:09.364 --> 01:16:21.685
I just kind of I'd actually argue no, you know, Zachary, I'm not gonna answer this question because I want to throw it back on you, Because for me I almost feel like I don't choose the word, Like the word just kind of bubbles up throughout the year.

01:16:21.685 --> 01:16:25.639
I hear it in my thoughts and then, when the time comes, that's the word.

01:16:25.639 --> 01:16:26.442
How's it work for you?

01:16:26.442 --> 01:16:27.385
I've never asked anyone.

01:16:28.095 --> 01:16:28.976
That was actually going to be.

01:16:28.976 --> 01:16:31.420
My question to you is how do these words come to you?

01:16:31.420 --> 01:16:41.923
For me, it requires silence, it requires time to pause, to reflect and have that nothing time where I'm not doing anything.

01:16:41.923 --> 01:16:49.306
I'm just thinking, processing, thinking about the future, thinking about what I want for the future and for me also.

01:16:49.306 --> 01:16:52.403
I tune in somatically and I will test words out.

01:16:52.923 --> 01:17:00.420
So sometimes I'll start with what's the quality of the feeling that I have right now related to this next year?

01:17:00.420 --> 01:17:02.783
Is it hard?

01:17:02.783 --> 01:17:05.368
Is it more butterfly-esque?

01:17:05.368 --> 01:17:07.420
Is it excitement?

01:17:07.420 --> 01:17:08.904
Is it stimulating?

01:17:08.904 --> 01:17:12.957
And then from there I'll start to say okay, and then I'll start to narrow it down from there.

01:17:13.037 --> 01:17:25.344
So I've identified the quality, I've identified the feelings in my body, and then I will just some words will start to bubble up for me and I will play them off of each other and say is it?

01:17:25.344 --> 01:17:26.185
What is it?

01:17:26.185 --> 01:17:26.988
Is it compassion?

01:17:26.988 --> 01:17:28.319
Is it growth?

01:17:28.319 --> 01:17:31.521
No, is it mindset?

01:17:31.521 --> 01:17:32.765
Is it scalability?

01:17:32.765 --> 01:17:34.440
Is it kindness?

01:17:34.440 --> 01:17:36.055
What is it?

01:17:36.055 --> 01:17:57.582
And I'll just keep moving back and forth and trying different words out, and sometimes this process will go over many months, as I do this as a part of my reflective and meditative process, and eventually I will say yes, that's it, and I will feel it not only cognitively, but I will also feel it in my body as well, and then I'll be confident.

01:17:57.582 --> 01:18:03.591
This is this is my word, this is my intention for the next year, but I'd love to hear how you find your word.

01:18:04.113 --> 01:18:07.751
Zachary, it's like so different from your approach and I love both of us for that.

01:18:07.751 --> 01:18:10.078
I love this.

01:18:10.078 --> 01:18:15.854
So I've got to link you up with Ann Gillespie, who's been on the show probably around the same time that you were on the show.

01:18:15.854 --> 01:18:18.703
She's an amazing branding specialist based out of Colorado.

01:18:18.703 --> 01:18:29.902
Ann and I have so many similarities in our energy, in the way that we think, and we recently got a virtual coffee and we were both dying laughing because I said out loud I don't do many things in silence, zachary.

01:18:29.902 --> 01:18:36.520
The second that you said, like you do it in silence.

01:18:36.520 --> 01:18:40.746
I'm like, oh man, no, nothing productive would happen for me if I did it in silence.

01:18:40.746 --> 01:18:48.979
Yeah, mine's very much not in silence, and here's why I remember I only worked in healthcare for about 10 months.

01:18:48.979 --> 01:18:50.577
It was the only corporate job that I had.

01:18:50.577 --> 01:18:58.786
It was right after I graduated college, in between my soccer blog and starting the marketing agency knowledge, in between my soccer blog and starting the marketing agency.

01:18:58.786 --> 01:19:06.895
And I remember back then one of my tasks was my manager asked me to make sense of some patient satisfaction surveys.

01:19:06.895 --> 01:19:13.297
I was a business analyst at a large hospital in central Massachusetts and you know, 22 year old me was like, oh gosh, I don't understand the healthcare system.

01:19:13.297 --> 01:19:15.122
I don't understand patient satisfaction.

01:19:15.122 --> 01:19:17.114
I don't know how to make sense of this stuff.

01:19:17.114 --> 01:19:18.297
I don't understand.

01:19:18.418 --> 01:19:19.582
I didn't major in healthcare.

01:19:19.582 --> 01:19:24.832
I felt like a fish out of water in some ways, but I was really good with data and analysis and computers.

01:19:24.832 --> 01:19:25.676
I love technology.

01:19:25.676 --> 01:19:31.511
So and most of it was qualitative data it was literally people typing on a survey response.

01:19:31.511 --> 01:19:36.840
And so, zachary, what I did with all that data was I dumped it into.

01:19:36.840 --> 01:19:39.984
It was almost like a clip art feature in Microsoft Office.

01:19:40.024 --> 01:19:40.364
Back then.

01:19:40.364 --> 01:19:47.380
I just dumped all the responses into the word cloud feature, which the word cloud feature.

01:19:47.380 --> 01:19:51.386
All it does is counts how many times the same word has been mentioned.

01:19:51.386 --> 01:20:03.692
So, for example, if a ton of patients said the word waiting you know they hate waiting in the waiting room then the word waiting in this word cloud, you'd get this actual picture of all these different words.

01:20:03.692 --> 01:20:09.470
You know 50 to 100 words, and however big that word was was how many times it was mentioned.

01:20:09.470 --> 01:20:12.998
And so that's what I would present to senior management.

01:20:12.998 --> 01:20:18.572
I was like look out of all the responses, tell me what you see the big ones are, and they would.

01:20:18.572 --> 01:20:19.615
It's visual.

01:20:19.615 --> 01:20:27.296
They'd be like wow, people really don't like waiting or people really don't like our phone system, those words would rise to the top.

01:20:28.170 --> 01:20:31.994
So, zachary, I think, for me personally, I think all day long.

01:20:31.994 --> 01:20:33.579
All day long I'm thinking.

01:20:33.579 --> 01:20:37.341
My mind is never kind of just chilling, except for when I'm watching Manchester United.

01:20:37.341 --> 01:20:39.329
For better or for worse, I'm just in those feels.

01:20:39.329 --> 01:20:48.837
And so all the time I'm thinking, and because I'm visual, I'm pretty sure my mind translates those thoughts into a word cloud.

01:20:48.837 --> 01:20:51.118
It's genuinely what I see.

01:20:51.550 --> 01:20:59.274
And so by this time of the year, once Q4 starts rolling around, I feel like my mind starts accumulating and building out that word cloud.

01:20:59.274 --> 01:21:03.893
Looking at the frequency, so I'm very cognizant of those thoughts along the way.

01:21:03.893 --> 01:21:06.378
And I go this word's getting pretty big.

01:21:06.378 --> 01:21:07.871
I'm thinking about this word a lot.

01:21:07.871 --> 01:21:09.095
Does it serve me?

01:21:09.095 --> 01:21:10.882
Is it something that I want to aspire to?

01:21:10.882 --> 01:21:13.490
Am I simply reacting because of current events?

01:21:13.490 --> 01:21:18.539
Because I don't want to suffer from recency bias, which we all do, I still want to cast that future vision.

01:21:18.539 --> 01:21:32.581
And so, yeah, I just analytically go through those words and by this time of year, man, probably two or three of them are massive in that word cloud and then, intuitively, I'll just know that's the one.

01:21:32.581 --> 01:21:39.793
That's the one that challenges me and forces me to think bigger, so that next year is going to do even more new things for me.

01:21:40.895 --> 01:21:45.323
Wow, you're right, it's so different, but yet I love it.

01:21:45.323 --> 01:21:51.684
I love hearing how other people conceptualize their thought process, their words, their intentions.

01:21:51.684 --> 01:21:53.275
It's fascinating for me.

01:21:53.275 --> 01:21:57.161
Part of the reason why I love psychology too is just kind of exploring that.

01:21:57.161 --> 01:22:03.462
So I'm not going to put you on the spot for your word for 2025.

01:22:03.462 --> 01:22:14.326
But if I could put you on the spot for hindsight, as you've mentioned before, everything kind of adds up in the rearview mirror.

01:22:14.326 --> 01:22:22.301
Final thoughts for the first thousand episodes, and I'd love to know what you're thinking about for the future.

01:22:23.570 --> 01:22:24.916
That's a good question, zachary.

01:22:24.916 --> 01:22:31.335
It strikes the right chord of making me a little uncomfortable and putting me on the spot, totally unscripted.

01:22:31.335 --> 01:22:38.649
Here's the thing when I reflect on it, zachary, sorry.

01:22:38.649 --> 01:22:38.990
Here's the thing.

01:22:38.990 --> 01:22:39.994
When I reflect on it, zachary, I think back, truly.

01:22:39.994 --> 01:22:42.623
I've been thinking back all the way to episode one and and I know what my mission was back then.

01:22:42.623 --> 01:22:45.817
It truly was getting people from entrepreneur to entrepreneur.

01:22:45.817 --> 01:22:48.372
You have to remember how different the world was in 2016.

01:22:48.372 --> 01:22:51.181
Entrepreneurship wasn't what it is today like.

01:22:51.181 --> 01:22:56.436
We are so far down the path of entrepreneurship, so many more people view it as a possibility.

01:22:56.436 --> 01:22:58.983
Just recently here on the podcast, I interviewed Chris Hardy.

01:22:58.983 --> 01:23:00.355
I went to college with Chris.

01:23:00.355 --> 01:23:04.136
We were in a group project together and that was junior year.

01:23:04.637 --> 01:23:11.752
Yeah, it was cool because when him and I were on a group project together, I was already running my first business you know, my soccer blog.

01:23:11.752 --> 01:23:49.690
We reached three and a half million people around the world a month from my dorm room, and so at that point, I was only thinking in entrepreneurial terms, whereas Chris, like most of my classmates, was thinking I want to get a prestigious job, I want to have a high salary, I want to get benefits, I want to build my career, and so for me this year, just recently, having Chris on the podcast put into perspective for me that, yeah, chris went into the corporate world, got his skill set, got his proof of results, and now he's crushing, doing an amazing job as an entrepreneur, and it's cool to me that that's not looked down upon.

01:23:49.690 --> 01:23:59.024
It's a totally natural progression, whereas in 2016, oh, zachary, the amount of times that people asked me are you ever going to get a real job?

01:23:59.329 --> 01:23:59.751
I'm sure.

01:24:00.273 --> 01:24:02.761
Yeah, drives me crazy.

01:24:03.510 --> 01:24:03.609
Yeah.

01:24:04.051 --> 01:24:15.243
And so in 2016, it was like totally cool for people to use that term around entrepreneurs, and now it just feels like everyone in their Instagram bio has the title of entrepreneur.

01:24:15.243 --> 01:24:19.055
So it's a it's a rapidly different world is why I paint that picture.

01:24:19.055 --> 01:24:26.257
So what we were facing back in 2016 in the first couple hundred episodes, it's it's a different landscape.

01:24:26.257 --> 01:24:31.780
Now entrepreneurship is in the mainstream and I'm so grateful for that, and in podcasting, as well as in the mainstream now.

01:24:31.780 --> 01:24:33.551
So it's just a lot has changed.

01:24:33.551 --> 01:25:04.456
So when I think about our original mission of painting the picture that anything is possible and inviting people to think like entrepreneurs and entertain entrepreneurship for their own journeys, now what I see is all these people are aware of it, all these people want to pursue it, and there's also more resources than ever before, which has made it even more difficult to cut through the noise, and so that's why some really eagle-eyed listeners might notice that on our website, shout out to Laura Chavez, who's been on our show a few times.

01:25:04.456 --> 01:25:06.938
She's our most key staff member.

01:25:06.938 --> 01:25:10.037
Behind the scenes, laura, and she's been in front of the scenes as well.

01:25:10.097 --> 01:25:20.460
Here on the show, laura has been cataloging all 1,000 of our episodes, zachary, because now we realize how do you make sense of 1,000 episodes If you're struggling with sales?

01:25:20.460 --> 01:25:22.722
Where the heck are you gonna find those episodes?

01:25:22.722 --> 01:25:38.113
So Laura has cataloged it and on our website, as of this month, there's so many changes because we've intentionally recognized that we no longer just want to get you from entrepreneur to entrepreneur Any single place that you are in your entrepreneurial journey.

01:25:38.113 --> 01:25:41.381
Let's face it a thousand plus episodes and we're just getting started.

01:25:41.381 --> 01:25:54.179
I mean we're cranking out amazing episodes and incredibly insightful and smart and strategic and transparent guests every single week that we're realizing we want to serve people at every stage of their entrepreneurial journey.

01:25:54.179 --> 01:25:58.893
We want to go so much deeper in a far more intentional way.

01:25:58.893 --> 01:26:01.819
So that's why we're cataloging all of our episodes.

01:26:01.979 --> 01:26:02.823
Zachary, you don't know this.

01:26:02.823 --> 01:26:03.813
I didn't tell you this off the air.

01:26:03.813 --> 01:26:07.112
You're truly getting me to reveal a lot of this stuff for the first time here.

01:26:07.112 --> 01:26:15.176
But we are starting to create and roll out entrepreneurial guides where, when you go to our website, it explicitly says where are you?

01:26:15.176 --> 01:26:18.002
You say I'm a wantrepreneur, I'm at zero.

01:26:18.002 --> 01:26:23.341
Okay, perfect, we've painted a roadmap for you, a blueprint if you will, from my year of building.

01:26:23.890 --> 01:26:31.265
If you are struggling to get to $5,000 a month, maybe you've got your first client, maybe two clients Perfect.

01:26:31.265 --> 01:26:52.259
We've got an exact roadmap for you featuring our content, featuring trainings that we've put together, featuring our amazing guests that we've cataloged their episodes to give you an intentional path to follow in a world where there's more noise than ever before, there's more resources, there's AI that you can seemingly get answers in an instant.

01:26:52.259 --> 01:26:54.853
But we want to give you that proven roadmap.

01:26:54.853 --> 01:27:03.552
From my own experiences 16 years of being an entrepreneur, our team's experiences and hundreds of incredible guests that have done this for themselves.

01:27:03.552 --> 01:27:10.255
That's what we want to become and that's why, for us, wantrepreneur to Entrepreneurs is not just a podcast.

01:27:10.255 --> 01:27:19.658
From this day forward, we want to build out the entire Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur ecosystem with every single thing that any entrepreneur needs to actually grow their business.

01:27:21.101 --> 01:27:21.863
I am astounded.

01:27:21.863 --> 01:27:24.390
That sounds absolutely incredible.

01:27:24.390 --> 01:27:33.451
I've mentioned before off recording to you that the podcasts that you have all 1,000 of them are like a masterclass.

01:27:33.451 --> 01:27:44.738
They're a master class in business and you can pull ideas from all these different areas to really get a good sense of different approaches on how to move forward in a meaningful and successful way.

01:27:44.738 --> 01:27:50.844
And now you've just dialed it down even more into, as you mentioned, the blueprint, the foundation.

01:27:51.304 --> 01:27:55.766
I think a lot of folks I know this was my experience starting out is that one.

01:27:55.766 --> 01:28:05.751
We make mistakes along the way Oftentimes because we may not have a good roadmap, we may not have a good idea of what's all involved.

01:28:05.751 --> 01:28:16.689
We can learn some from books, but then to actually hear it, hear it from others who have walked that path that have been in the same shoes that we're in now, that is incredibly valuable.

01:28:16.689 --> 01:28:19.259
I know it would have been valuable to me.

01:28:19.259 --> 01:28:21.778
Your podcast is still very valuable to me.

01:28:21.778 --> 01:28:29.360
But you mentioned your staff and I want to talk about, just for a moment, the other folks behind the scenes.

01:28:29.360 --> 01:28:30.382
We talked about your parents.

01:28:30.382 --> 01:28:36.938
We talked about former business partners, friends, podcast hosts or, I'm sorry, podcast guests that you've had on.

01:28:36.938 --> 01:28:38.953
But could you mention?

01:28:38.993 --> 01:28:39.493
your staff.

01:28:39.493 --> 01:28:45.315
Yeah, for sure that's been so much fun because for a long time, I mean we were a one man show, zachary.

01:28:45.315 --> 01:28:56.730
A lot of people always think there were all these hands behind the scenes, but, truth be told, I mean for let's call it 550 ish episodes it was just me, zachary.

01:28:56.730 --> 01:29:02.518
And so for a long time, the first person that I ever hired and onboarded shout out to Andrew Feldman.

01:29:02.518 --> 01:29:03.600
He's based out of San Diego.

01:29:03.600 --> 01:29:04.872
Andrew's amazing.

01:29:04.972 --> 01:29:21.324
So because you have to remember, the podcast is one part of what I do, it's one part of my business portfolio, and so when I was starting hosting retreats, my first retreat was in San Diego, which is why Andrew was a very natural fit, and then I started the Launch Coalition in 2020 and eventually sold that business in 2022.

01:29:21.324 --> 01:29:31.520
So, for the first time ever, bringing someone else behind the scenes that could capture my energy and add to my energy and take things off of my plate, it's been a huge help.

01:29:31.520 --> 01:29:35.777
And so Andrew coming on board truly changed the way that I viewed business.

01:29:35.777 --> 01:29:51.721
Honestly, because I inject so much of me into my business and I'm sure you feel the same way about all your business stuff is that it's easy to place ourselves in it, but to bring other hands into it makes it far bigger than just ourselves, which, in turn, the most important thing there is.

01:29:51.721 --> 01:29:56.356
It means we can reach and impact more people, which ultimately is the goal for all of our businesses.

01:29:56.356 --> 01:29:58.181
So that was very exciting.

01:29:58.181 --> 01:30:02.121
And then Laura Chavez, like I said, who listeners have heard from multiple times on our show.

01:30:02.121 --> 01:30:10.250
She came on board a few hundred episodes ago and just totally changed all of our processes behind the scenes.

01:30:10.250 --> 01:30:12.878
I am so on the Notion board now.

01:30:12.878 --> 01:30:18.235
Everything lives inside of Notion and it's cool because everyone on our team can just walk into it.

01:30:18.235 --> 01:30:34.591
Recently, we onboarded Aranza, who's based out of Peru, and so when she came on the board with her sweet and kind energy, it's just she was able to jump straight into our tools and learn things because of the processes that we had set up behind the scenes, and Laura spearheaded so much of that.

01:30:34.832 --> 01:30:38.137
Zachary, I never had processes, I never had SOPs.

01:30:38.137 --> 01:30:57.489
That's not a thing, because I did all the work, and so we're in a really cool position now and, even extrapolating that, there's people behind the scenes that enable all of my businesses, not just the podcast, and for me it's been a really interesting way to blend my ecosystem together, whether it's staff resources, whether it's strategies.

01:30:57.489 --> 01:31:02.632
There's things I do in the podcast that I go holy cow that would be really amazing for my podcasting agency.

01:31:02.632 --> 01:31:08.498
Or holy cow that'd be really great for the PR agency that I invested in this year and that I get to be a strategic advisor for.

01:31:08.498 --> 01:31:20.502
So, yeah, all these things work together and there's so many people behind the scenes that I could shout out every single one of them individually, and I think that that's a celebration that we get to reach more people.

01:31:20.722 --> 01:31:25.819
And for me, I want to shout out Nat Harward, because he's someone behind the scenes who's pushed me along the way.

01:31:25.819 --> 01:31:27.192
He's been a guest on this show.

01:31:27.192 --> 01:31:28.494
He's multiple times.

01:31:28.494 --> 01:31:30.019
He's one of my best friends on planet earth.

01:31:30.019 --> 01:31:43.953
This year, when I started onboarding even more help behind the scenes Nat said something to me and the way he articulated it really struck a chord with me, where he said Brian, when you're able to hire others, it means that you're creating excess value.

01:31:43.953 --> 01:31:51.235
For most of my entrepreneurial career, I've created enough value for me, so I create value for others.

01:31:51.235 --> 01:32:09.615
They reward me in monetary terms and other ways with fulfillment and happiness and joy and excitement, but I've created all of that in enough to satisfy my life and the things that I have going on, but I'm really grateful to be at the point where we're creating excess value that we can do that for and with others.

01:32:09.615 --> 01:32:13.007
So it's been a whole different mindset shift, zachary.

01:32:13.007 --> 01:32:15.953
It's truly changed the way that I see business on the whole.

01:32:16.774 --> 01:32:26.979
I see that in your messaging, too, and your emails, um on your website as well, you're really creating so much value for for entrepreneurial community.

01:32:26.979 --> 01:32:32.635
So you, you talked about um supporting entrepreneurs to entrepreneurs.

01:32:32.635 --> 01:32:44.640
Um, now let's say that someone's in the entrepreneurial phase and they're at your early 500s episodes where they're realizing that they need additional help.

01:32:44.640 --> 01:32:57.922
What was it like for you to hand over some of the reins and release some of the control after being a one-person show where you did it all and you know, for better or worse, uh, you put that product out there.

01:32:57.922 --> 01:32:58.972
You know how to do these things.

01:32:58.972 --> 01:33:00.275
You learned how to do these things.

01:33:00.275 --> 01:33:04.640
What was it like to hand over the reins to someone to loosen control a little bit?

01:33:05.101 --> 01:33:10.076
yeah, it's gonna sound a little bit cliche, zachary, but I know that you know this as well, being your own business owner.

01:33:10.076 --> 01:33:16.555
It's so scary, it's so hard, because we know the way that we do things and when.

01:33:16.555 --> 01:33:21.465
When I say I inject me into everything that I do, like I mean that my, my emails.

01:33:21.465 --> 01:33:25.958
I I'm going to say a joke right now I try to not write average email, zachary.

01:33:25.958 --> 01:33:30.970
Every email that I send, I want it to feel like when the person reads it, they're like man, that's Brian, like.

01:33:30.970 --> 01:33:38.296
I feel like Brian just wrote me that email because I did and I put my energy into it, whether it's in video form, in person or written form.

01:33:38.296 --> 01:33:41.699
I always want people to feel my energy through all those formats.

01:33:41.699 --> 01:33:44.782
So, for the first time ever, I'll go back to when Andrew was onboarded.

01:33:44.782 --> 01:33:46.703
It was intentional with him.

01:33:46.703 --> 01:34:08.682
Part of it was a personality decision where, when I met Andrew, we met on Upwork actually and I thought to myself man, this guy's super cool, like I would want to hang out with him, and so that very much weighed into it to the point where I was comfortable with him sending emails on my company's behalf and I thought to myself, yeah, it's not my energy, but I think Andrew's really cool.

01:34:08.682 --> 01:34:10.497
I really enjoy his energy.

01:34:10.497 --> 01:34:12.497
Others are going to as well.

01:34:12.497 --> 01:34:23.051
Like I just always had to remind myself of that, zachary, is that if I hire people that I really enjoy their energy and their attitude and their ideas, why would I be so afraid of it not being my energy?

01:34:23.051 --> 01:34:28.233
Because if I like their energy, others will like it too, and so that's been a constant reminder for me.

01:34:28.713 --> 01:34:31.680
I recently had a conversation on the show.

01:34:31.680 --> 01:34:32.962
It was an amazing guest.

01:34:32.962 --> 01:34:34.975
I'm trying to think I think it was Gilles Van Puka.

01:34:34.975 --> 01:34:37.001
I'll give him credit for it, whether it was him or not.

01:34:37.001 --> 01:34:47.965
But he talked about the 80% rule and he said that when you bring someone on board, if they can do it 80% of what you would do it or want it to be yourself, it's more than good enough.

01:34:47.965 --> 01:34:51.220
We're not aspiring for 100% in any single thing that we do.

01:34:51.220 --> 01:35:01.623
It's never attainable, and so it has taught me to reflect on that 80% rule of we're going to get so much more done when we're doing it still at a very high level.

01:35:01.623 --> 01:35:10.899
I do have very high standards, but also just recognizing that there's personality differences and if I like them, which I like, everybody who I get to work with, then why wouldn't anybody else like them?

01:35:12.909 --> 01:35:14.172
That's really sage advice.

01:35:14.172 --> 01:35:20.885
I know for myself when I think about releasing control of emails and things.

01:35:20.885 --> 01:35:31.101
Obviously it wouldn't be my voice, but I represent what I do and, like you said, it's a little scary to think that someone else is going to be out there representing me.

01:35:31.101 --> 01:35:46.414
But it also sounds like you did some vetting on the on the front end with, with Andrew and with Upwork, and then from there you you developed a level of comfort with him to then eventually be able to to hand over a portion of it.

01:35:46.855 --> 01:35:53.896
I love, I love that 80 percent because I I found that no one is going to work as hard as me at my business, as me at my business.

01:35:53.896 --> 01:36:07.930
But there is a point where it's good enough and if you have high standards, like I know you do and I've seen Andrew's emails as well, I believe then it's, it's still at a very high standard and it's more than good enough.

01:36:07.930 --> 01:36:08.692
It's exceptional.

01:36:08.692 --> 01:36:17.742
It's not Brian, but but I know Brian, you bring a certain high level of energy to your, to your emails and your communication overall.

01:36:17.742 --> 01:36:19.051
Like I know it's you.

01:36:19.051 --> 01:36:23.743
I don't even need to see who it's from, I can read it and know it's you.

01:36:24.711 --> 01:36:25.713
Yeah, and that's the goal.

01:36:25.713 --> 01:36:32.801
One of the rules that we have behind the scenes when it comes to communication in particular, is any single thing that someone says in an email.

01:36:32.801 --> 01:36:36.515
So let's say, someone gets back to us and let's just use the podcast as an example.

01:36:36.515 --> 01:36:42.233
Let's say a potential guest emails us back and they say, oh, so sorry for my delayed response, I was on vacation.

01:36:42.233 --> 01:36:45.702
And then they say whatever they need to say, business-wise, zachary.

01:36:45.742 --> 01:36:53.158
It is so ingrained in my approach to life and you hit the nail on the head earlier in this conversation about how important connection and relationships are to me.

01:36:53.158 --> 01:36:57.851
I've told everyone on the team reply to every single thing that they say.

01:36:57.851 --> 01:37:02.481
Don't let that comment slip by unseen, unnoticed, unheard address it, call it out.

01:37:02.481 --> 01:37:11.742
And it's something that I do, even in my day-to-day communications with friends, with family, with everybody is that if you say something to me, zachary, if you, I view it as an offering.

01:37:11.742 --> 01:37:19.798
So if you and I get on a video call together and you say, oh, I was just grabbing a coffee at the local coffee shop, cool, what was that like?

01:37:20.690 --> 01:37:26.319
And a lot of people will call it a tangent or off topic, but like you offered that for a reason.

01:37:26.319 --> 01:37:34.078
It was notable If someone because they could have easily just excluded that from the email line I want to address it, I want to call it out.

01:37:34.078 --> 01:37:36.676
That's where connection happens.

01:37:36.676 --> 01:37:42.856
It doesn't just happen through business and I feel like we let ourselves down in the business world with that B2B.

01:37:42.856 --> 01:37:48.579
You know how we make that distinction B2B versus B2C, business to business versus business to consumer.

01:37:48.579 --> 01:37:50.516
There's no such thing as business to business.

01:37:50.516 --> 01:37:53.735
No business has ever sent an email in the history of humanity.

01:37:53.735 --> 01:37:54.658
It's impossible.

01:37:54.658 --> 01:38:03.301
It's always humans, it's always people, and so we always need to have that people component at the forefront of literally everything that we do.

01:38:04.411 --> 01:38:08.381
So it sounds like, you see it, I think there's two types of communication.

01:38:08.381 --> 01:38:20.139
Well, there's probably lots of types of communication, but I usually have big buckets of transactional relationships and more transactional communication and relational communication, and the two can intersect.

01:38:20.139 --> 01:38:34.702
But if I'm having a interaction or business interaction with Amazon, where I'm simply ordering something, that's, of course, transactional, but alternately, if I'm communicating with a human being, then I want that to be relational.

01:38:34.702 --> 01:38:40.796
That's part of the reason why I'm in the business that I'm in is because I love working with others, I love getting to know them.

01:38:42.140 --> 01:38:47.899
John Gottman and his partner do relational work and they talk about bids and relationships.

01:38:47.899 --> 01:38:58.511
So and I think you touched on it here, just using a different word that people will offer bids for attention, bids for or you said an offering, but I think it's the same thing.

01:38:58.511 --> 01:39:11.435
So they mentioned they're on vacation or they just returned from vacation, and I love how you said that you see that as an offering to then communicate back to them and build a more personal and a more deep relationship.

01:39:11.435 --> 01:39:30.295
And again returning way back to the front of the episode, I think that's another secret sauce of yours, brian is that you have that ability to recognize oh, this is an offering, this is a bid for communication, for an opportunity to build an additional, deeper aspect of a relationship with someone that's really special.

01:39:31.229 --> 01:39:44.073
Yeah, I appreciate those insights, especially from your perspective, which I value so deeply, zachary, because everything that we do is, for a reason, like, even here we go I'm going to totally make you blush in this moment.

01:39:44.073 --> 01:39:55.753
Episode 1000, it's deeply meaningful to me, zachary, and you know how seriously this episode is for me and how big of a milestone it is, and there's not a single guest that I don't love.

01:39:55.753 --> 01:39:57.371
All of our guests are amazing.

01:39:57.371 --> 01:40:02.100
And so I really grappled with what do I do to celebrate episode 1000?

01:40:02.100 --> 01:40:09.471
And when I thought about all the different things I could do and who I could bring on and who I can entrust with this huge milestone.

01:40:09.471 --> 01:40:11.998
I'm only ever going to get one episode 1000, zachary.

01:40:11.998 --> 01:40:12.501
Like that's it.

01:40:12.501 --> 01:40:14.131
You and I are tied for life at this point.

01:40:14.131 --> 01:40:14.533
That's that.

01:40:14.533 --> 01:40:19.380
That's very exciting, and you'll forever be the one that I celebrated episode 1000 with.

01:40:19.801 --> 01:40:40.436
And it's because there's that connection that we need to recognize, even from our episode that we did together, even from the off-air conversations which I so adore, that about every single interviews I get to talk to every guest before record and after record, the emails that you and you and I exchanged afterwards it's those small things.

01:40:40.436 --> 01:40:41.498
You call them bids.

01:40:41.498 --> 01:40:49.792
I love that from the Gottmans is that it's those small bids that you offered me your energy and every single interaction I've ever had with you, zachary.

01:40:49.792 --> 01:40:54.493
I've never had a straightforward interaction with you where we just did what we needed to do.

01:40:54.493 --> 01:41:16.063
It's always been that human component, and so I firmly believe I guess I'll put this out there and I think it's really appropriate to come out in this episode is that the most generous thing we can do for any other person on this planet is give them our energy, and that doesn't mean attention, it doesn't mean time, it truly means energy.

01:41:16.122 --> 01:41:27.832
And, zachary, that's why it's deeply meaningful to me that every time I connect with you, I feel your energy, because you so generously share your mind which you're brilliant, by the way, and I'm so appreciative for how openly you share that stuff with us.

01:41:27.832 --> 01:41:30.560
You so generously share your heart.

01:41:30.560 --> 01:41:38.452
I feel your emotions in every conversation that we've ever had, and that's the most special part of life, and we're all fortunate.

01:41:38.452 --> 01:42:09.159
If we find five people in this lifetime that we have that with, we've won Like that's incredible Five people that will offer us their energy and and I'm very grateful I can honestly say that there's dozens of those people that I've encountered in my life that genuinely offer me their energy and vice versa, and I want to take care of that, I want to reward that, I want to like have that by my side forever and ever, and so that's the special stuff in life, and I think that when we talk about marketing, we talk about sales and we talk about everything else.

01:42:09.159 --> 01:42:13.154
This is probably the forgotten stuff, but it's for sure the most important stuff.

01:42:14.676 --> 01:42:19.747
I love that, the energy.

01:42:19.747 --> 01:42:47.184
I'm just going to pause for a second because bringing one's whole self to a conversation, to an interaction, I feel like that's what you do and again, that secret sauce and you bring you to everything and it's characteristically you, it's it's so special and unique and I'm I'm grateful that I have had the opportunity for our lives to intersect.

01:42:47.184 --> 01:42:50.113
And um your podcast.

01:42:50.113 --> 01:42:52.537
For me, um was a springboard.

01:42:52.537 --> 01:43:07.934
Our your podcast period has been an absolute inspiration for me every time I listen to it and our conversation during episode 609 was another touch point of absolute inspiration for me.

01:43:07.934 --> 01:43:24.483
I left that discussion motivated and elated and so excited to just take that next step, to just keep moving forward, growing my new venture at the time at Pine Siskind Consulting and just reaching for the stars.

01:43:25.789 --> 01:43:55.493
And that aspect of that part of that came from the relationship that we had, that confidence that you had in me, that you shared with me, and I just want to express my pure gratitude for you and what you do for us as entrepreneurs, as those in the pre-contemplation, contemplation stage of entrepreneurship that haven't quite taken that step yet.

01:43:55.493 --> 01:43:57.283
This is pure gold.

01:43:57.283 --> 01:44:02.427
Some of the things that you've shared with us today are absolutely you use brilliant.

01:44:02.427 --> 01:44:17.216
I would never call myself brilliant, but what you've shared today is brilliant, and I so hope that that folks listen to the entirety of this um, this podcast, because there there are nuggets of wisdom that you've shared all along the way.

01:44:17.216 --> 01:44:20.939
So I'm going to ask you a couple more questions, if we're okay on time.

01:44:20.939 --> 01:44:25.518
I know we're getting close here, but what is working for you now?

01:44:26.421 --> 01:44:29.697
Yeah, you're hitting me in the feels, zachary.

01:44:29.697 --> 01:44:38.858
Honestly, I'm sure you feel it too, because it's the real stuff that we're talking about here today, which has only ever been my only ask.

01:44:38.858 --> 01:44:49.538
I mean, you know this, listeners won't know our off-air conversations, but, you know, the only thing that I kind of teed up for today's episode was I just want it to be real, and that's what we're striking here.

01:44:49.538 --> 01:45:13.591
And hearing your observations and even just your reflections on episode 609 together, I'll tell you where my head goes and it's what's working and it's probably, if I look back, you bring up the secret sauce it's probably the one thing that's worked throughout my entire life and it's the thing that's working the most right now and it's what's creating our giant wave of momentum heading into 2025.

01:45:13.652 --> 01:45:16.096
We have just reached milestone after milestone this year.

01:45:16.096 --> 01:45:19.965
In whatever way we want to measure growth, it's been an incredible 2024.

01:45:19.965 --> 01:45:33.243
And the thing that's working the most, zachary, is I see the potential in people when hearing your perspective and your side of the microphone for episode 609, hearing what you went through.

01:45:33.243 --> 01:45:42.721
It's so interesting because, from my perspective, I can tell you the mindset that I'm in before I talk to you for your episode or any guest for any episode is like man.

01:45:42.721 --> 01:45:44.564
This person is a freaking rock star.

01:45:45.010 --> 01:45:49.362
I'm sure you felt it on our episode is that I thought so highly of you.

01:45:49.362 --> 01:45:51.956
The number one thing that guests always joke around.

01:45:51.956 --> 01:45:54.301
You know, at the beginning of every episode I'm like, hey, welcome to the show.

01:45:54.301 --> 01:45:59.126
People always say it's kind of a joke in that moment of our episode flows where they go.

01:45:59.126 --> 01:46:01.707
Can I just bring you around and you introduce me everywhere.

01:46:02.050 --> 01:46:08.501
And I know that people feel really great after those intros and it's because I see everyone as freaking awesome.

01:46:08.501 --> 01:46:11.859
It's probably my favorite feedback that I get from listeners.

01:46:11.859 --> 01:46:16.637
We get emails all the time from listeners and it puts such a smile on my face.

01:46:16.637 --> 01:46:25.259
They always say you know, I can't even tell who's like super successful on your show versus who's just starting out, because everyone's so smart, everyone's so polished.

01:46:25.259 --> 01:46:30.002
And I just think to myself how many guests feel the exact opposite before we hit record.

01:46:30.002 --> 01:46:45.622
How many guests email me, you know, a few days before our interview session and they say I'm'm so nervous, I don't know the questions, I don't know this and because I see so much potential in them, I always get complimented about this and it feels silly to me, but people always say, oh, you make people feel so comfortable.

01:46:46.150 --> 01:46:53.391
I'm like how I actually think of myself as kind of like an abrasive energy and personality, because I'm a lot.

01:46:53.391 --> 01:46:55.876
I'm a lot to handle in every single aspect of my life.

01:46:55.876 --> 01:47:00.203
Like I'm a typical Bostonian I talk fast, I'm easily excitable All these things come out.

01:47:00.203 --> 01:47:19.158
And so when people say I make them comfortable, the only thing I can bring it back to is I think it's because I just genuinely love people and I love how awesome people are and I am not shy in giving praise and giving compliments, in stating how awesome I think they are.

01:47:19.158 --> 01:47:23.671
And I think that's what makes us feel comfortable is if you and I went to a party, zachary, it's funny.

01:47:23.711 --> 01:47:26.099
As extroverted as I am, I don't enjoy going to parties.

01:47:26.099 --> 01:47:38.895
But if I go to a party and someone's like this is Brian, he's amazing, he's the man, he's done this and this is how he is, and I remember this story about him Well, and this is how he is and I remember this story about him Well.

01:47:38.895 --> 01:47:39.759
Okay, now I feel like I'm in my element.

01:47:39.759 --> 01:47:48.502
That makes me feel good, and so I would say that's what's been working for my entire life is I've never felt that responsibility to be like, oh, this is who I am, this is how great I am.

01:47:48.502 --> 01:48:01.417
I'd rather just always put the spotlight on others and share that with them, because that's what brings me joy and seeing them light up and seeing them shine on that stage it's what I think.

01:48:01.417 --> 01:48:04.023
It captures a lot of the magic of the show here.

01:48:05.711 --> 01:48:06.231
I think so.

01:48:06.231 --> 01:48:13.591
I think you are able to see the beauty and the spirit and each person that you talk to.

01:48:13.591 --> 01:48:15.697
I can see that it's infectious.

01:48:15.697 --> 01:48:22.176
Everyone else sees it too, and I can't wait for the next 1000 episodes of this podcast.

01:48:22.176 --> 01:48:26.144
I can't wait to hear about things on the horizon.

01:48:26.144 --> 01:48:29.621
You've mentioned a few of these things and hinted at some others.

01:48:29.621 --> 01:48:31.046
I can't wait.

01:48:31.046 --> 01:48:40.837
I can't wait because there's so many good things happening with you and your work, and I'm honored to be able to celebrate that with you here today.

01:48:40.837 --> 01:48:47.510
Okay, last question you asked me this question, or a version of this question, on episode 609.

01:48:47.510 --> 01:48:53.162
And that is what's the final thought that you'd like to share with the audience today.

01:48:55.510 --> 01:49:07.845
Zachary, give me the chills here, because here's the thing I asked at the end of every episode and for some reason I never thought you'd throw that on me at the end of today's episode, which that seems like the most obvious play from your end.

01:49:07.845 --> 01:49:09.490
Huge kudos to you for that.

01:49:09.490 --> 01:49:11.319
I love that, gosh.

01:49:11.319 --> 01:49:14.250
I ask it so frequently that I never think about what my own answer would be.

01:49:14.250 --> 01:49:18.099
It's fun being on the other side in the moment, unprefaced.

01:49:18.099 --> 01:49:37.582
I guess my answer would be that is something we talked about super early on in our conversation is do something that you genuinely don't care about anybody else's feedback in relevance to Do something that you genuinely don't care if it works out or not.

01:49:37.582 --> 01:49:48.180
When I think about the greatest things that have happened in my life, zachary, it's always those things that I went into saying I don't care if it works or it doesn't work.

01:49:48.180 --> 01:49:49.451
I'm still going to do it.

01:49:49.792 --> 01:49:55.902
When I started my soccer blog, which completely changed the entire course of my life that blog that I started in 2008,.

01:49:55.902 --> 01:49:59.518
That went on to become one of the most read soccer websites on planet earth.

01:49:59.518 --> 01:50:05.921
I mean, we I was flying to England all the time to catch games, interview players accept awards from the English football association.

01:50:05.921 --> 01:50:07.353
I'll never for.

01:50:07.353 --> 01:50:08.416
Until the day I die.

01:50:08.416 --> 01:50:10.400
I'll never forget the night that I started.

01:50:10.400 --> 01:50:20.296
It was at my parents' house, it was summer of college, it was after freshman year and I just wrote an open letter to cristiano ronaldo, as if he was ever going to read it, but just from a fan's perspective.

01:50:20.296 --> 01:50:27.835
And I wrote it not because I thought it would get traction or not, because I thought ronaldo would read it, because he didn't and he never would, and that wasn't the goal.

01:50:27.835 --> 01:50:33.029
I wrote it for me, zachary, and I didn't care.

01:50:33.029 --> 01:50:35.582
And for six months I was writing 10 to 30 blog posts a day and didn't care.

01:50:35.582 --> 01:50:40.199
And for six months I was writing 10 to 30 blog posts a day and didn't care that nobody was reading it.

01:50:40.199 --> 01:50:45.673
I mean, there were days where I had three visitors One was me, one was my mom, one was my girlfriend at the time.

01:50:45.673 --> 01:50:46.475
That was it.

01:50:46.475 --> 01:50:47.720
And guess what I did?

01:50:47.720 --> 01:50:49.537
I kept writing.

01:50:49.537 --> 01:50:51.432
And same thing with this podcast.

01:50:51.432 --> 01:50:53.015
I started it, zachary.

01:50:53.095 --> 01:51:06.481
I've had businesses come and go along the eight years of me having this podcast, but the one thing that has remained, even in times of inconsistency, is I love being behind a microphone.

01:51:06.481 --> 01:51:07.444
I'm going to keep doing it.

01:51:07.444 --> 01:51:23.337
And so that's why, when I titled episode 1001, saving those spots for episode 100 and all the way to 999, is I said to myself it doesn't matter if people listen, it doesn't matter if people tell me it's stupid, it doesn't matter anything, I'm just going to keep doing it.

01:51:23.337 --> 01:51:35.818
And I think we need to pursue so many more of those things in our lives that we pay attention to and we say if I'm willing to do this without external feedback or results, it's worth doing, and I'm going to do it and I'm going to stick at it.

01:51:36.949 --> 01:51:39.694
Oh, beautiful way to wrap up the show.

01:51:39.694 --> 01:51:43.082
Thank you again, Ryan, for sharing your wisdom.

01:51:43.082 --> 01:51:53.932
Thank you for sharing your ability to host and subsequently to interview all these amazing guests that you've had on the show as well.

01:51:53.932 --> 01:52:01.698
Thank you for sharing your love for entrepreneurship and for inspiring so many people and countless others to follow.

01:52:01.698 --> 01:52:05.140
I can't wait to see what happens onwards from here.

01:52:05.140 --> 01:52:08.399
Congratulations again on episode 1,000.

01:52:08.810 --> 01:52:09.956
Thank you so much, zachary.

01:52:09.956 --> 01:52:11.315
Honestly, from the bottom of my heart.

01:52:11.315 --> 01:52:13.599
I want to thank every single listener.

01:52:13.599 --> 01:52:15.578
I want to thank every single guest along the way.

01:52:15.578 --> 01:52:22.011
I want to thank everyone personally who has guided me or given me advice and everything, and truly, this show is nothing.

01:52:22.011 --> 01:52:32.032
I mean today, you and I talked a lot, zachary, about me and the story behind the scenes, and the staff and the guests and the listeners and all of that, but it's truly, it's everybody that's been a part of that.

01:52:32.032 --> 01:52:36.798
So today's a celebration of all of that and, zachary, I want to personally once again thank you.

01:52:36.798 --> 01:52:45.256
It means the world to me, that it's you that I got to celebrate this occasion with and you are absolutely spot on that.

01:52:45.275 --> 01:52:45.798
This is not the conclusion.

01:52:45.798 --> 01:52:47.409
This is the beginning of so many bigger things to come.

01:52:47.409 --> 01:53:02.350
You know some of those things, but it's going to be a great 2025 because we are more committed than ever before at supporting and elevating and lifting up entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs at all levels, because why we believe that a rising tide lifts all boats.

01:53:02.350 --> 01:53:10.037
So, zachary, on behalf of myself, all the listeners, all the guests, everybody who's ever been a part of it, thanks so much for being here with us in episode 1000.

01:53:10.037 --> 01:53:12.003
It's my absolute pleasure, thank you.