928: The INVISIBLE factor that is the MOST important part of GROWTH and building!

Transcript

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Hey, what is up?

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Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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As always, I'm your host, brian LoFermento, and you are really going to get inside of my mind in this Solo Sunday episode because, as Q3 is racing to an end and we are rapidly approaching the end of 2024, I've been doing a lot of thinking, a lot of reflecting on my word of the year which is building, and we're going to go deep into some of the things that I've been doing a lot of thinking, a lot of reflecting on my word of the year which is building, and we're going to go deep into some of the things that I've realized this year and some of the things that I think are really important for all of us as entrepreneurs, but not only that, for all of us who are interested in growing.

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I'm excited about this one.

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Let's dive in.

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So there's really two things that are inspiring today's episode, and I'm going to weave both of them into our conversation here today, because both of these things have really been putting not only business but life into perspective for me lately, and I just think that there's so many insights that we can all glean from these thought threads, and that's why I'm super excited to bring them to you here on the air in this very personal solo Sunday episode.

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So the first thing that really inspired today's episode is just my natural surroundings, my environment.

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So a lot of you know if you follow this podcast for a long time, then you followed my journey from Boston, which is where I grew up, all the way to the city of angels, los Angeles, california, where I'm so grateful to have lived for quite some time some really awesome years that I lived in LA, and then for the past three and a half years I've lived back here on the East Coast, in Tampa, florida, and living in Tampa has really changed my perspective in so many different ways because, unlike Boston, unlike Los Angeles, this is a city that feels like I'm here in the middle of it building and big time on the come up.

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There's so many changes going on, even just in my short time here I've only lived here for three and a half years and, holy cow, has it changed all in great ways.

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Honestly, I love the changes that are coming to Tampa and long may they continue.

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But honestly, even just in a time that I've been here, I love the changes that are coming to Tampa and long may they continue.

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But honestly, even just in the time that I've been here, I've seen completely new neighborhoods sprout up, and that's just directly in the city, nevermind the surrounding area, which is one of the hottest areas here in the United States to be in, and part of what that means is this is a city that is literally not just figuratively, but literally building.

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There are new buildings going up everywhere.

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I live here in downtown, which means that I'm constantly walking, I'm constantly biking, I'm constantly hitting the streets to explore the skies and get some cool drone photographs, which is one of my favorite hobbies and so I'm just always walking past construction zones.

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And what does that mean for me?

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You might be thinking that you know, just like most people who live in urban environments, I'm going to say, gosh, construction is noisy.

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It's actually not the case.

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I don't know how.

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Here in Tampa, I just feel like maybe I've got really good insulation, but I'm quite sheltered from the construction noises.

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Instead, what I'm really left with an impression of is all the cranes in the sky, and especially when I throw my drone up in the air and I see these construction sites and I see the progress that's being made, it makes me realize something very important and it fits in with my word of the year, which is building, and I talk about building in the sense of a noun, but also as a verb.

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That really was an intentional decision for my word of the year.

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Obviously, we've had some incredible architects and interior designers and builders in so many different ways here on the show in the past year and, truth be told, I said it in my very first episode of the year, or maybe it was the last episode of last year, I can't remember when I exposed to you my word of the year, but we're almost getting to that time again, and so I told you is my conversation with John Gresko, who is an incredible architect in Southern California.

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Hearing the way he thinks about things.

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It is truly from that step-by-step blueprint and walking around Tampa and biking around Tampa and flying around Tampa.

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When I see all of these construction zones, it does stand out to me how much time they spend on the foundation, the foundation.

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It's funny.

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When I set out this year for my word of the year being building, I was picturing all these buildings that we have that make up any city skyline anywhere you look around the world, or buildings that we all live in buildings that are standing there tall, proud, for a long time most of them, and that's what I really pictured.

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And it's funny because the more introspection that I've done throughout the course of this year, and especially being in the environment that I'm in, the more that I realize that building really does start first and foremost with the foundation, and the foundation actually takes the vast majority of the time.

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And so today, as I was biking down Bayshore Boulevard, which is a beautiful stretch of just uninterrupted pedestrian walkways and sidewalks and workout stations, as I was biking down that road, I couldn't help but think about the fact that the foundation is so fascinating to me because it's actually the part of the building that, once it's done, we never see it again.

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When we look at any building, whether it's a huge skyscraper or even just a one-story house, we see the walls, the roof, the windows, the doors.

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We see those structural elements, but the reality is what's actually truly like.

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Literally, underneath all of it is the foundation, and it's the thing that when you and I sit down to work on our businesses, we think about all those things that are visible, we think about our brand, we think about our marketing funnels and campaigns, we think about our offers, we think about our proposals, we think about our social media, we think about all of these things that are in plain and obvious sight, but what we don't often think of is the foundation, the very foundation of anything that it is that we're setting out to build, and how appropriate I think it is that, when it comes to the foundation, we have to look inward, we have to look under the ground, we have to look way beneath all of the things that can be seen to the naked eye, and I think that that is a perfect illustration for us as entrepreneurs, because so often we hear, you know, marketing experts or branding specialists or literally anybody who is concerned with us growing our businesses.

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We always hear them talk about looking inward and finding those answers and knowing what we stand for and coming up with your unique selling proposition.

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All of these things are incredibly important, but the thing about all of them is that they can't be seen, and so I think it's so appropriate here, especially for me personally.

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I'm very biased because of the way that I use time and how intentional and strategic I try to be at all different seasons of the year, and you all know how much I think in terms of quarters, but I think Q3 is such an important time when it comes to working on the foundations of our businesses, working on the foundations of our lives, working on the foundations of everything that we want and everything that we want to build and everything that we want to focus on.

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And I say that because Q4 comes at us fast.

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A lot of things happen in life in Q4.

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We've obviously got the holiday season and, in business terms, it's the peak season for most businesses.

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It's the season where most businesses make the most amount of their revenue.

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There's a reason why we call the day after Thanksgiving Black Friday.

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It's the day that, historically, businesses cross into the black, into the profit part of their income statement, going from the red into the black.

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It's the old reference to those accounting terms.

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And so I think that when I reflect on the way that I've really used this year, and especially this quarter, I can't help but come back to the foundations and how important all of this work and introspection and reflection and intentionality and strategy and executive time, how important all of that stuff is going to be, not only for the Q4 that lies ahead of us which, by the way, is just weeks away, but, most importantly, for the stuff that I'm going to truly be building.

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You're going to see a heck of a lot of stuff coming from entrepreneur to entrepreneur in 2025.

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And I say that in full confidence and with a lot of excitement, because it is not just me driving all of this stuff that you're going to be seeing coming out of our headquarters next year.

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It's the entire team behind the scenes, which we've got some brilliant minds driving a lot of our growth.

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You've obviously heard from Laura Chavez, who is, for sure, the most important person behind the scenes, and I love when she's not behind the scenes and when she comes on the air.

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You're going to be hearing from her again in about a month, maybe a month and a half, because we are doing our team in-person retreat in Boston this fall, and the reason why I share that with you is because that's the second thing that really inspired today's episode is because I'm already getting all the fall feels.

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I'll tell you what here we are, beginning of September.

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You already know I live down here in Florida, but I'm a New Englander at heart and I'll always be, and especially as a Libra.

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My birthday's in October.

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That's also coming up fast.

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There's just something so reinvigorating about the fall season, and especially in New England, especially in Boston.

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I always argue it is the single greatest place on planet earth during the fall months.

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And so when I think about Boston, when I think about the fall, you can't help but think about all those cliched pictures that we all have seen about New England fall foliage, and we see all the leaves turning oranges, reds, yellows just the craziest, coolest, most beautiful colors your eyes will ever see.

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They're so vibrant.

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It's as if someone turned the saturation setting in Photoshop all the way up to the maximum.

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Your eyes can't even believe the richness, the fullness of those colors.

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And so when I think about that, you know, I get all the nostalgia for living in Boston, growing up in Boston, and wondering why again did I leave Boston?

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And the reality comes to me very quickly in that the answer is the winter.

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And so when we think about the winter, what is the visual that it's accompanied with?

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Well, of course, during fall, all of the leaves fall, literally.

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That's why we call it fall.

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And so when winter comes, you just have barren trees, and it's so depressing.

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Honestly, for me, winter was always depressing, even growing up there, even living there.

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And so when I picture the winter and I look at all of these barren trees, what really strikes me, especially in this mode and mood of building that I'm talking to you about today, is that the trees don't care that the leaves have fallen from them.

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It's what they do every single year and it's because they've got roots, they've got an ecosystem inside unbeknownst to our human eyes.

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We can't see the inner workings of the tree.

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It's easy for us to marvel at its outer beauty, but the reality is it's that root system.

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Again, we're talking about the stuff underneath the ground, underneath the soil, that feeds into everything that keeps that tree alive and that makes that tree healthy and makes that tree stand tall and stand proud, and so, sure enough, come spring the tree grows its leaves back, and it's the natural cycle of the earth, and it's one of those beautiful examples of the way that nature and the environment works.

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And so when I use that analogy to really connect all these dots that we're talking about here today, it just brings me back to the importance of that foundation, and I think that this is the important stuff.

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It's easy to pick a business model.

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It's easy to pick a product or service.

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It's easy to analyze your competitors and do a SWOT analysis and use AI to further refine those ideas and all these things that we talk about literally every single week here on this show five days a week.

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Not an episode goes by where we don't talk about all these very important building blocks building there's that word again all these very important building blocks of what makes up a business.

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But I think the biggest challenge for all of us is working on that foundation, and I think we don't talk about it often enough, because it is the one aspect of our business that is the most intangible.

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It's that one thing that can't be taught.

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It's that one thing that no AI tool, no consultant, no coach, no one on planet earth is ever going to be able to give you the right answers.

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For I can make your copy better.

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I can help you make your marketing campaigns better.

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I can show you all the steps in order to launch a podcast that's going to reach the top 200 charts.

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I can help you in so many different ways, but the one thing that I'll never be able to help you with maybe I can guide you, maybe I can ask questions, but ultimately you're the only one that can work on the foundation and, hopefully, me saying the word foundation and building a million times here in 13 minutes together that we've had so far today really forces you to look inward and start asking yourself what am I made of?

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What are the values, the principles, the beliefs, the desires, the wants, the goals, the dreams, the ambitions, the limiting beliefs, the positive affirmations, what are all of those things that form the foundation of all the things that I wanna build?

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Because, as someone who's been an entrepreneur for literally 16 years now, 16 years of my life we're coming up to the point where it's going to be super exciting when I can say, hey, I've been an entrepreneur for half my life.

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We're probably a few years away from that.

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Can't do that math.

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Thinking about when I started my business, I was 18.

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Either way, 19,.

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There's a lot of math that goes behind that, but the reality is, over those 16 years, what I've realized is that the leaves will always be changing.

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I'll always be shedding and dropping those leaves and hopefully making them beautiful before I do.

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But even the most beautiful leaves in the world, they all fall down and then sprouting new leaves and maybe I'll change the walls and the roof and the doors and the windows.

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All of these things will change Inevitably.

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They change in every tree, they change in every house and every building, but the things that don't change are those foundations, are those roots, are those things that give life and make everything above it possible, and so there's never a perfect time to sit down and work on those foundations, and there's no one question that I can insightfully give you here on the air.

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It's really just more of an introspection type of episode or a reflective type of episode that I hope invites and challenges you to start thinking about yourself and your life this way, because I know firsthand how much effort and intention and focus and all of the things that we all give to our businesses because, gosh, do we love this stuff, and I can tell you from my own personal viewpoint is that I love entrepreneurship, I love talking about it, I love being in it, I love working on things, I love building, I love nurturing my team, I love impacting others.

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I love talking about it, I love being in it, I love working on things, I love building, I love nurturing my team, I love impacting others, I love reaching people, I love helping people, I love serving as many people as possible.

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These things absolutely light me up and it's easy for me to get lost in them.

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It's easy for me to just dive deep into them.

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But I think it's important to put into focus the foundation and always give ourselves that time, that clarity and, most importantly, that prioritization of focusing on that foundation Because, like I said, in a life where things are going to change inevitably that's what life is certain of is change is inevitable.

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And so, knowing that we need to make sure that foundation is set and we need to make sure we're clear on what that foundation is, it's going to prop up all the other things that we're doing.

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And when you start injecting your values, your personality, your dreams, your goals, your experiences, your stories, your beliefs, when you start injecting all of those things from the core, from your foundations, into all the visible things, that's where greatness is unlocked.

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So this is just me sharing my thoughts.

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Honestly, I'm excited.

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Q3 has been great.

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2024 has truly been an incredible year, and what I know about all of the greatest years in my life is that the impacts of them, the effects of them, are felt not just in those moments, but they set off ripples and they start waves that are going to be felt in the year and the years to come, and so much of that happens from this foundational work.

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So thanks for tuning in for this episode.

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It's not like all the others.

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That's.

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The fun thing for me about solo Sunday episodes is I never even know where the heck we're going to go in these, but I trust the fact that it's going to set something off in you and hopefully challenge you and inspire you to do this important work, because it's going to set us up for success.

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And speaking of setting you up for success, gosh, do we have got some incredible guests this week.

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Speaking of setting you up for success, gosh, do we have got some incredible guests this week?

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You're in for a real treat because tomorrow we're kicking things off with the very brilliant Tiff Quillen.

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Tiff, actually, she's an incredible person, she's an incredible entrepreneur and she makes for a very incredible guest, because Tiff is super transparent, she is incredibly brilliant and all of the insights that she gives us, you're going to walk away with ideas for your own business.

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And guess what?

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It is super appropriate when it comes to today's episode because she works in the field of architecture, engineering and construction.

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So this is a real builder at heart, not only as an entrepreneur, but in the industry that she's in.

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And then in Wednesday's episode, we've got the absolutely brilliant Avi Hacker.

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I love the fact that Avi has such a dynamic background as a lawyer, he's worked in real estate.

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He now brings all of those perspectives across business law, real estate, fatherhood, all of those things into the world of AI.

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I know a lot of you listeners are keen on deepening your knowledge of AI.

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Well, wednesday's episode is going to open your eyes in so many ways.

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And then in Friday's episode with Kristen Peipel.

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Kristen is amazing because she really talks about the real fears that I think we don't address when it comes to entrepreneurship, which is balancing security, something that we all chase after with passion and she does all of that while operating at a very high degree of creativity, following her dreams and aspirations.

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Kristen, honestly, is gonna get you super excited and lit up about your own passions and working on your own business.

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Sheeran, for a real treat.

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Honestly, we just have such incredible guests coming at you this week and every single week, so make sure you pound that subscribe button because we'll see you, as always, every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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Hey, it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there.

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Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at thewantrepreneurshowcom.

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And I just want to give a shout out to our amazing guests.

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There's a reason why we are ad free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate.

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These are not sponsored episodes.

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These are not infomercials.

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Our guests help us cover the costs of our productions.

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They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible.

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So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there.

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We also have live chat.

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If you want to interact directly with me, go to thewantrepreneurshowcom.

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Initiate a live chat.

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It's for real me, and I'm excited because I'll see you, as always every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the entrepreneur to entrepreneur podcast.

928: The INVISIBLE factor that is the MOST important part of GROWTH and building!

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