Craig Gauthier: Every Rule You Follow Is Optional

Transcribed automatically and lightly cleaned up; timestamps open the video at that moment.

0:00Welcome. What does freedom mean to you? We just talked about it. That was good. Now I forget. Yeah. Freedom I think is agency. Being able to choose. I've been so lucky, like I've worked in 30, actually 33 countries now. Been all around the world, did millions of miles, and you take for granted the freedom you actually have to choose, right?

0:24When you have a house, when you have a found- when you have the ba- Maslow, the hierarchy, right? When you have the basics taken care of, you're able to have agency and freedom of choice, but when you live in a country or a place where you don't have that, people have no idea. We have no idea, right? So freedom to me is the ultimate way to live life.

0:44If you have choice and you have agency, then you can guide and direct your own life. When you don't have that, it's hard. When did you learn this? Or when did you start living with the agency of freedom? I got lucky because, and I say lucky because I experienced death at a very young age. I had very bad asthma and allergies, which my parents didn't know, and we always had an artificial Christmas tree f- every year, and that was more because my mom was neat and tidy.

1:17She was a nurse. She was very, you know, and the tree was messy. And I kept begging her. I was like, "Can we have a real tree? I want a real tree. I want a real tree." And sure enough, we brought it in, and we put up the ornaments and all that, and then I started breaking out, and then my throat started to seize and I couldn't breathe, and then I was turning blue.

1:35And my mom was a nurse, so she knew the signs, like something's not right here. Rushed me to the hospital, and long story short, the tree triggered my allergies, so I was allergic to trees, which then triggered my asthma. And so I went into this panic and I couldn't breathe, and then they brought me, put me in an oxygen tent.

1:55And so in my childhood, I learned I was allergic to practically everything: trees, dogs, dust, mold, mildew. I have some weird, food allergies as well, even today: chicken, turkey, poultry, wine, beer-... Where I j- my body just rejects it totally. So I think that moment triggered something where as a kid, and you know, you're seven years old.

2:23And again, I don't remember it, so I'm not gonna pretend that I remember the exact moment, 'cause I don't. But I just remember thinking, "Holy shit, like, life is so fragile. It could be gone." So but why wouldn't you do the things that you wanna do? Why w- like, why wouldn't you pursue things that of, were of interest to you or be curious about things?

2:46Now, I drove everybody crazy. We had a Roman Catholic upbringing and, you know, then you start going, "Well, is there a God? Why?" And you know, people didn't take... You know, you get the strap at school. Like, "How dare you not believe in that?" I just wanna know why. I don't wanna be a difficult kid. I just wanna try to understand if I'm believing in something, what is that reason?

3:04Where's the proof? Or why did we come to this conclusion that this is the way it should be? 'Cause, you know, life is fluid. Everything's changing. So at one moment, this may be a belief system, this may work at this point in time, but as we evolve, m- maybe it needs to change. And you're a little older than me That's like 10, 15 years older than me.

3:26Yeah. At that point in society, people weren't used to... Like, it's becoming more and more fluidity- Yeah... And people are do- Yeah... They have more agency to travel and do other stuff and- We have more access to it... More access. People are not just buying houses 'cause maybe they can't and there's different ways out there.

3:44Yeah. But I can't, I can also, I can't imagine you saying these things 20 years ago or 30 years ago. A lot of people might have- Yeah... Been really restricted to ch- different change, different- Oh, absolutely. And I don't think they meant to be malicious either. They didn't mean harm, but they didn't know either.

4:04Understand it, yeah. Because they just followed blindly. It was just passed down and they did it. Yeah. And then when you ask somebody, "Hey, so why is it like this?" And they can't explain, they either make something up or they get all defensive, and that's typically what it was. They got all defensive and like, "No, you just follow.

4:19That's just the way it is." And you know, like in business, you're a business guy, right? How many times have you heard, "This is the way we've always done it." Yeah. "So this is the way we're gonna do it." Yeah. Don't question it. When did you get your agency or what made you become an entrepreneur? Because really, entrepreneurship, I believe, is about that freedom to choose.

4:37There's a pain, there's a problem, there's an itch you wanna scratch, there's a path you wanna follow. Like d- what do you, did it start naturally or did you go into another world, like corporate world or something else, and then go, "This isn't for me. I need more freedom," or...? I went to corporate world and knew right away that it wasn't for me.

4:59I worked at the Ottawa Hospital, big organization, and I just remember people like looking at their pensions and like-... Crossing off the years until they get their pensions. Yeah. And then being in these rooms and not- Like, they're talking crap about the person one day, and then they're, you know, playing the game, just play the game to move up in the organization.

5:28And I was like, "I can't do this." And actually got let go. Like, didn't play the game, and there was two departments, and one of the departments fully got let go, and the other played the game and didn't. And I'm like, "Thank you for letting me go." Like, break through that whole thing, and that's where, you know, the kickoff of entrepreneurship happened and then, you know, the- Were you scared?

5:59Like, w- did you find... I guess to me, one of the, I think, and again, this is my bias though, because I think this way, I think one of the biggest risks, like people think that corporate is safe or govern- Complete opposite... Or government is safe. Complete opposite. And I say to people, a lot of times when we throw out these things, nobody really defines them, right?

6:19They follow us through history and there's a term for this, like motivational speaker. Some people call me a motivational speaker. I'm not a motivational speaker. I speak with passion and energy, and I'm a very energetic person, but it's not about motivating you. It's about encouraging you to go beyond your potential or believe in things that you never thought was possible.

6:37Do it in a way, but give you a system or give you something that you can then say, "I can plug into that and I can take away something useful," as opposed to just rah, rah, right? So for you, like going from unemployed or fired - Yeah... Right, to that, did you find or did you feel that there was a risk? Like is it, was it scary?

6:59Was it fear- 'cause you just said, "Oh, thank God," and it was almost relief. Yeah, and also I went through an institution of the schooling system where I got my MBA. A lot of MBAs were corporate, move up the ladder. Like, that was second nature to me or front nature to me of like- Yeah... That was- That's the path

7:20The path, right? And I would say my family was entrepreneur, euro- entrepreneurial, where they own rental properties, they did stuff, but they would never say they're entrepreneurs. They would, buy real estate and work for someone. Right? My dad started working for himself, so I saw that, but at a smaller scale.

7:41Like, he was an accountant. He did the accounting, so he was kind of like- just did his own thing as a technician, not as, "Hey, I wanna take this and grow it." Where my passion was always to grow stuff- Yeah... To, you know, break the barriers completely. So I never wanted to be an accountant and work and just do the taxes.

8:02I wanted to grow the business, which I wasn't really exposed to. And then I was exposed to it, and then it was a drug, and I'm like, "I want more of it and I love it, and let's go." But to your original question of, you know, looking back and seeing how much control that organization had, that, like, people are making decisions that are not even your direct contact.

8:24Like three, four levels up are making decisions about the whole organization. They don't even know how hard I'm working. They have no decision-making of who they're even letting go. It was a budget thing from the government or whatever it was, right? So I didn't take it personally at all. I'm just like, "Yeah, I-- You have zero control of it."

8:45Like- You're out of touch. They were out of touch. It's... I don't wanna, I mean, I don't wanna bash the corporate model 'cause it is for some people, and they can have a good life, and they can follow the ladders and steps and all that, and that's great. But you're so right in that you d- you don't have that control or you don't have that ability.

9:09You know, you get a number, right? Here's your number. It doesn't matter how hard you work, for the most part, or how little you work. If you check a few boxes, then you're gonna go through the process, and then, you know, you can apply for a raise, and maybe you'll get a little bit bigger of a number, and then a little bit bigger, and a bigger.

9:25Whereas when you have the agency and you're solving real problems with real value, and people are willing to pay for that, the sky's the limit. And that's what I want. And w- like you said, you got addicted to growth. Same thing. And I'm gonna take it a step further From a tax perspective- Yeah.... Okay, being middle class in Canada, there's no benefit.

9:48You don't get any credits. No. You move up that corporate ladder, you're gonna be taxed at 50-- over 50%. Yeah. When you incorporate or you run a bus- even in Canada, people say you can't grow businesses in Canada, it's full of shit. Our small business corporate is 12%. Yeah. It's very low to stimulate the economy and grow.

10:10So a person making $150,000 in the government or the hospital versus someone making $150,000 in a corporation, that person in a corporation is netting way more than the person working for someone. Yeah. So you actually have to work less hard and take less risk than this person to net more money. Yes.

10:33And people don't talk about it. So, like, not only agency with your life, agency with your money. You have more agency to do what you want with more money when you incorporate. Yeah. It's, it's similar to, you know, debt financing as a- Yeah... You know, people look at debt, "Oh, I don't wanna be in debt. I don't wanna be in debt."

10:52Well, everybody's in debt to some degree. There's good debt and there's bad debt. Right. Right? Because to your point, same thing. There's, there's... A- and again, it goes back to understanding the system. Yeah. Right? Which is what your software does as well, right? Yeah. It tax- like it, you, it shows you and it's e- and it's easier, like...

11:10I think everything is language, right? Anybody that says, "Oh, you gotta sign these contracts legal," everybody's like, "Oh, it's legal. It's, it's way over my head." Right? Or it's accounting, "Oh my God, I don't like numbers. I'm not good in math." Well, these are some of the skills that you should be aware of. Yeah.

11:24And you now have AI to help you with that. You also have professionals to help you with that, and it's really not that difficult when you understand the language and you get the basics down, and you can save a lot of money, right? And from taxes, and you can... Yeah, it's... So just by learning a few extra things.

11:43And I remember getting a raise at the hospital, and yeah, I went up $20,000, but I only netted an extra- Yeah... Few hundred dollars. I was just gonna say, yeah. And I'm like, I just got put in a different tax bracket. I'm like, is there any logic to going- Yeah... To keep on moving forward in the corporate ladder?

11:59And that's actually a big raise in considering t- you know, today's standards. A lot of them don't even cover inflation anymore. Right. And the value of money, right? That just keeps declining. So yeah, there's things, and they don't teach you this in school, right? And like you said, you went, and you have an MBA.

12:14Yeah. Right? Which is baffling to me. Some of the... There should be some mandatory things, like, in the book I wrote a few things on the skills that you need, right? That are, that are most important. I think one of them is obviously pattern recognition, empathy, all that, being, like the human skills, communication, sales.

12:35Learn how to sell. Yeah. And learn your numbers. Those are things that will never go away. Okay, AI can do all the computation of, but understand it. Yeah. Right? You have the... And if you have the agency to then understand what the balance sheet looks like, what the net profit and the income and what it looks like, where your money's going, then you have the ability, the freedom, the fr- to choose- Yeah

12:58Your investments, to choose your life, to choose different things. And regardless what anybody says, you know, money is, it's not everything, I agree, but I- You need it... I, you need... I come back to three things. It's interesting. Since launching the book, I've been on a bit of a book tour for the last four months, over Europe, US, Canada, and we talk about three buckets.

13:20There's only three things to me in life that you should be focused on, and one is your health, 'cause if you don't have health, you don't have life. Two is your wealth, because that gives you agency and freedom. You get more choices. Dan Martell wrote a really good book about buy back your time, right?

13:37When you have money, you're able to purchase these things. You're able to also, like, inject money into society and help other people, you know, provide their value. And then the third thing is relationships, right? Those, that's it. Those three buckets, and they all work together. When you can do that successfully and you dedicate time to each of those...

13:57I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying I'm perfect. I, it's hard. But those are the only three things that matter. All the chaos, all the new tools, all this we get so hyped up about, oh, this is the latest, and then we gotta change this, oh. Okay, stop. Stop. Just learn a few basic things, and if we were taught that in school, just think of how much farther ahead we'd be, right?

14:19Yeah. That's it And from my experience, there's not, there's not too many people that own all three. Yeah, it's-- Agree Agree. And I don't think you ever get... Like, there's, there's some things that's, okay, health. I'm a biohacker, and probably to a fault, 'cause I try every- everything, because I believe that if you can have ultimate performance...

14:44I mean, we're all looking for that, for the most part, right? If... We have this window, 24 hours in a day, but somehow we think that we can just keep stuffing more and more and more things in there and still perform at a high level without expanding the time in which to do it. Right? 24 hours, that's all we got.

14:59It's fixed. So now how do we optimize that time? So you can take away logistics, you can take away eating, you can take away sleeping, right? If you can minimize some of that, then you get more time to do more of the things that potentially that you would like. But I would agree, nobody owns those three, and it's very hard to do, and I think the people that I've met that, you know, it's not about net worth, it's more about self-worth, but it's also about what you give and what you get.

15:27Are those relationships, like do your businesses, how well do you interact with those relationships with your clients or customers, right? That will also determine your wealth. Do you- would you hang out with them if they didn't pay you a fee? Right. A lot, a lot of things are transactional now. Yeah. What's transactional, what's actual relationship?

15:43So you're right, tho- it'll never be perfect. Yeah. But I use it as a, as a baseline for me to... I mean, a very simple test you can do is you take your health bucket, your wealth bucket, and then you take your relationships bucket, and I mark it out of 11. 11 means it's outstanding, it's off the charts. Zero means it's terrible.

16:04And for health as an example, if you're zero to three, then maybe you have a debilitating disease or something serious like cancer. If you're four to six, if you're in that middle bucket, you're okay, but maybe you're just kinda cruising through life and not very excited about anything. And then if you're in the top, right?

16:21And you can measure that, and you can do the same thing with wealth and same thing with the relationships. And for me, that's my checkpoint, because I have a tendency to try to take on too much. Yep. I don't focus very well, on a lot of things because I wanna do everything. Yeah. So I'm all over the map, and when I get overwhelmed, it's like, okay, pull it back- Yeah

16:40And go back to these three buckets and go, okay, where are you missing stuff? How important is space for you? Big time. I'm an only child, so I grew up that way. My parents had very few rules. One was leave the house, get out of the house. Don't be in it. That was our generation, right? But be home for dinner, and don't be late.

17:00But go out and do stuff. Fail. Try stuff. And so I was always, I was, I was either cutting grass or I was playing sports or I was getting into fights or, right? Just no rhyme or reason, just living and trying to figure things out. And so I had very few rules, so I had agency. So having a family with two kids and sometimes it's difficult for me because there's a lot of things that go on there where it's just like, I want my space.

17:29I get it a lot with my travel. We talked about it earlier. When I'm up in the sky and I'm on a long flight, it's amazing. I can breathe. And I can digest, and I can think. Down here, 'cause as soon as I get on the ground, I wanna go. I wanna do stuff. This new generation coming up, how do you have agency with this phone and this technology and, you know, you talk about going out and playing at the park and all that, like people don't do that anymore, and sports is kids at eight years old playing seven days a week soccer, and they have to be a professional soccer player or hockey player.

18:10Like, it's getting nutty out there. Yeah. Do you have kids? I have three boys. How old? Six, three, and five months. God help you. Yeah, I know. That's a busy house, huh? Yeah. Those are the best years. - Yeah. But yeah- Do you have any kids? Two. Daughter is, my daughter is 20. She's in Dalhousie, plays lacrosse at Dalhousie, and my son plays golf at Laurier.

18:33Oh, nice. His first year. The agents- So I think one of the challenges with their generation and the generations after them is they think too much. Yeah. Because everything is recorded -oh, am I gonna look like an idiot? Yeah. Is that gonna come back to haunt me? Yeah. Who knows what somebody's gonna say?

18:55Yeah. And we're not in, in equality. Like it's- Yeah... Oh, well you said that and you didn't mean this, and then people take it out of context and then AI bl- Clip it out... Exactly. Clip it out and then AI comes in and makes something even worse that they didn't do. So they have a, I would argue they have one of the hardest- Agreed

19:13Times- Agreed... To figure out what is r- 'cause think about this. Think about this. What is the, what are the two most scarce resources in today's world? I would argue it's, trust and attention, right? So if you don't trust anybody or anything or you don't think it's real, that's an awful way to live. Yeah.

19:39And if your attention, because of your doom scrolling or whatever it is, how much time you spend on your phone, if you don't have the attention span and you're always getting fed that dopamine, dopamine, that drug, you don't know how to shut off. Yeah. So your brain is, there's no fight or flight, it's just always fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight.

19:59And then the comparison, like it's hard to have agency. Yeah. And how do you, how do you now put... I mean, it's interesting because, like my daughter as an example, she puts these, blocks on her phone where she can't go on social media or what. She did it independently and a bunch of her friends are doing it.

20:17And so I'm hoping, I'm hopeful, I know hope isn't a good strategy, but I'm hopeful that generation looks at this and goes, "This is not the way." There's a lot of great creatives out there. Social media, there's, it's, it's good for so many things and there's- Yeah... There's a lot of cool stuff out there. Yeah.

20:37But the amount of noise, the ratio of noise and garbage and fake stuff to, you know, then it's all, it's obviously it's sub- it's subjective, right? 'Cause I would criticize cat videos. I'm like, "What a waste of time." But if you're a cat lover, right? Yeah. You would like them, but- There's a niche for everything.

20:53But yeah, it's, I don't know. It's, I don't have a good answer for how you do that. I have a protocol that you can follow, but, or there's protocols that people have and I've, you know, you pick and choose from what it is. But I struggle with it too. Yeah. Big time, because I love that... I know I should be posting more, I know I should be out there more.

21:11I don't like doing it because I almost feel hypocritical in a sense that- It's like, okay, get off your phone, but I'm gonna feed you with seven of my things per day. Yeah. Because I want you to follow me or I want my message to get out, you know? And you have to be on your phone to start posting to capture those things too.

21:30Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I'm, I'm not a fan of... I'm looking at a strategy going forward of how I will do that, and I think I'll do more of just put the camera on and share my thoughts because I think I mean, I have thousands of... I'm sure you're the same way, right? You have an idea or you have notes- Yeah

21:49And you take it. And then just do those here's what I'm thinking moments, as opposed to here's where I am. 'Cause when I go to a place, I wanna be in the moment. Like if I'm doing an engagement- Yeah, me too... I don't wanna worry about where the camera is or how am I gonna look for the online audience. A client has paid me to come here to do something for them, to add value to either their audience, their team, whatever.

22:14I wanna be 1000% engaged in you. That's what we're here for. I know the scale is showing what we do and the results you get and all that. I get it, but I think it detracts from this. Yeah. Right? If there's somebody here recording us, like we're having an... There are no questions here. We just sat down and we're having a conversation.

22:35That's the best, right? So we're doing this for an audience out there, but we're here. Yeah. And that's why the, the media outlet that people pick what suits you f- and this is why I'm doing podcasting. Yeah. Because it's intimate, it's direction, it's conversational versus all the other stuff. You can do it in different ways, right?

22:57Yeah. Going back to relationships, wealth, and health With that in mind, and social media and phones and AI now coming up, how does one get a high score? And then, and I, maybe a high score is not the right question, but how do you maintain such a high level of health, relationships, and wealth while there's so much noise out there?

23:30So great question. Can I pause that? 'Cause I wanna ask you, do you think there's anything other than health, wealth, and relationships? No. And why I've been on a self real, like a A journey myself- Yeah... Of like, how do I build space? Who, you know, who am I? What do I wanna do? What's the bigger purpose? All that.

23:52And I've done a lot of content out there, like research a lot of content, and those are the... I knew you were gonna say re- I didn't read your book yet. I knew you were gonna say relationship third. I knew you were gonna say wealth third. I already s- know about those three buckets. Yeah. That it's, validating that you, y- you're saying the same thing.

24:13So I think everything falls into those three buckets. Yeah, I think, and again, we compartmentalize and, again, it's just my opinion. It's not right or wrong, and other people like Tony Robbins has seven different things, and the wheel of life, and diff- you know, everybody does their own thing. I try to simplify things- Yeah

24:31'cause I have to for my brain otherwise. In terms of the scoring and how do, how do you maintain a, or get to a high level in all three, I think health comes first in terms of if you don't have life and you don't have that, if you're not self-aware, then the other two can't... Like they... I don't know.

24:56Some people can fake it, and you can fake it to a degree. Like when I first started my company, for the first three years, I mean, I slept in my car, I worked 160 hours a week. You know, right, what it's like to... You burn yours- you can burn yourself out or you get to a point where you're like, "Okay, this is not sustainable anymore."

25:12Yeah. So I think for me, especially having all my health challenges, and maybe there's a bit of hypochondria there- Yeah... And everything, I focus on my health. And so I look at that marker and go, where do I sit from an energy perspective? 'Cause to me, everything is energy. If I have the energy, if it jazzes you to get up to do something, great.

25:32If it jazzes you to do something with a client or this or that, you know, you know it. Like, it's funny, we could get into a ton of conversations about wearables and other things, right? And they'd say, "Well, you had a shitty sleep because, you know, it's 56," and it gives you a number and a metric and all that.

25:48But if you take this off, you know you slept crappy. This just validates it, right? So the numbering system is just kind of an awareness piece to take you out and go, okay, what do, what, how do, how do I feel based on this? And the risk is some people will go, "Well, I feel like a five because I don't wanna do the work."

26:07Right? Like, as an example, I'm a big golf fan and I'm trying to get better at the game, even though I've played all my life. If it's miserable weather out, do you still play? Right? It's, it's kind of that thing. Well, do you not like the client because you don't like the work or because it's hard? Or because you really don't like the client, they're being a pain, or they're unreasonable, right?

26:31And they're, they're just sucking the life out of you. Yeah. So in those buckets, how do you maintain those? I just say without health, you have nothing. And again, it's just my perspective. That will dictate to now how you earn your income, because we talked earlier about transactional relationships. A lot of people can make a lot of money, and it's just a transaction, right?

26:55They don't even have to like you or vice versa. But if you provide some value that make me money or vice versa, you're like, "Pfft, check the box." Yeah. "I don't care that he's an asshole." Yeah. "He's doing good." Like, some people think that way. I'm not saying that's the way to do it, but you can. Yeah. So you don't need to develop the relationship bucket.

27:13But what I found then... To make money. Yeah. But what I found, myself included, and I've done it, is that if you don't build those relationships, and I would argue that's probably one of my weakest areas- Yeah... Is that, I don't maintain relationships probably the way I should. - It's harder for me as an introvert, I guess, and I always think of, okay, what's the value?

27:39Is this... And then I c- I come- You're an introvert? Yeah, I'm an introvert. Oh, wow. Big time. Wow. And I... When I say introvert, how I measure that, 'cause there's introvert- Yeah... Omniverts- Right... You know, all the psychology in that. For me, introvert means where do you get your energy? And I get my energy from myself or my space.

28:00Okay. I'm not to say that I can't interact- Yeah... And be extroverted, because I love that, but after an event or after this, I'm gonna be zonked. Okay. I'll be like, "Don't talk to me. Go away." Got it. Yeah. So that's, that's what I mean by that. Yeah. I love this. I need this, 'cause I'm a social creature like everybody- Yeah

28:18Else. But where I get my energy is I recharge. So I can think about, digest the conversation we had, and it will fuel so many ideas or things for me. But the longwind- that's a long-winded answer to say, you know, it's always a work in progress, and I find, though, if I can focus on my health and maintain that, I'm working on the idea of building better relationships to have better businesses as opposed to just transactional and making a lot of money.

28:49Then that way those relationships, it's, it kinda serves a bunch of p- like, a bunch of purposes. I wanna be around you, I wanna b- y- right? And if you can feed that... Like, I like... Are you familiar with, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's company? No. So they created a company. I could be wrong with the name, but it's Artists Equity or something.

29:12And what they did, they made a deal with Netflix, for their movie which was, it was a Miami, it was shot in Miami. It was about the drug raids. Based on true events. But they pitched it to Netflix. But their model was basically this: Netflix is gonna kick them back revenue based on how many people stream and watch it.

29:33But what they did is, in Hollywood there's a above the line and below the line, right? Above the line are the people, the talent, and they will get, they can negotiate deals where they can get equity or they'll get royalties or things. People below the line, the blue collar people, typically don't. Matt and Ben said, "You know what?

29:53Screw that. Everybody that's worked on this project is gonna get a piece of that revenue." And I think that's the way that the model should go in the future, where people have skin in the game. Yeah. And I think it will go that way. Yeah, I agree. Now, not, now you can, we can debate whether- Yeah... You know, how much they get of it.

30:13Yeah. Like, who's taking the risk, who's investing, and it's gonna be proportionate or how you, how you determine how much they get. But I think... And their philosophy was on that particular picture, they said everybody put their heart and soul into it, 'cause they knew that if we do a good job that we're gonna get something back out of it.

30:35And I like the line I used to work for, I did some,.. I won't name the name, but I worked for a, a high-up individual, and he said, "People will support what they help build." Yeah. And I really believe that. And so we wanna be- belong, we wanna be part of something. So if you can be part of something, do something interesting, build those relationships.

31:02But again, it's easier said than done, and it's never perfect, right? Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, back to the health, wealth, and relationship, I do think everyone's is different of what's priority for a second. Yeah. Like, for example, I wouldn't put health for me number one. Maybe because I've never had a health scare or-

31:26Like, I wouldn't wanna wear... I wore it for like a week-... A month, and I'm like, "This thing's crazy." Like, I don't wanna know all my sta- Like, I started... I felt good in the morning, but my sleep score was not optimal, and I'd, like, get in my own mind. I'll like- Yeah, yeah... Like, the opposite thing happened- Yep

31:47To me with health. I feel like Fortunately or unfortunately, the relationship's always the third, right? Where a lot of people might have relationships as number one, but then lack the financial or whatever because relationship takes so much time and energy and- Yeah... You know, there's a lot of... You, you could tell the m- I don't wanna, the masters of relationships when you're texting them and they're following back and they're continuing the conversation, and I'm like, "Dude, I don't have time for this."

32:21Like- Yeah... I'll, you know, because there's all these other business things that are going on, where I would, I would put the wealth, the business number one for me. Health number two, relationships number three. Right or wrong, I've noticed where when I sold my first company, and this was gone in the sense of time-

32:46Then I focused on my health and relationships, and then the wealth came third. So it's like, but it was a completely different mindset for me. It was like, oh, now it's like, well, building relationships and spending the energy on that versus- 'Cause you could... 'cause I could, right? Yeah. There's no right or wrong.

33:05No, definitely not. And that's, I think that's where self-help or professional development, personal development, whatever you wanna call it- Yeah is misleading in a way. Big time. A lot of people think that this is the way you should do it, and you see so much on social media. If you wanna do this, do this, and I'm gonna show you how, this is the way you do it.

33:25Yeah. And it's like, l- number one, life is super fluid, so it's always changing. Number two, just because somebody did something at a certain time- Yeah... They had their variables, their circumstance. Not to say that there's not, not to say you can't pull things from it- Yeah... Because there's definitely things, but people try to mimic that model exactly.

33:44Yeah. And most of the time it doesn't work. Yeah. And if it does work, a lot of the time it's like, "Holy shit, I didn't want that." Yeah. 'Cause they've never had that self-awareness. So yes, as human beings, you know, we mimic and we model, and we should do that, but we should pull. Okay, there's three buckets. You can decide- Yeah

34:03And then go from there. You pu- start putting health first like you said. I don't want this thing. Okay, no, that's not first. Yeah. Right? Some people want... You know, I had a chip on my shoulder. I grew up in a small town. We didn't have a lot of money, and it was a great life and a great childhood, but I'm like, "I'm gonna prove that I'm gonna get out of here, and I'm gonna do something.

34:20There's gotta be an easier way, a better way, a, you know... I wanna be rich. I wanna make great..." And it's not right or wrong, it's just- Right... It's just what it is. And some people dedicate theirselves to, you know, relate... Or it's like artists. Yeah. They love the craft. Like Robbie as an example, he was my illustrator.

34:38Brilliant guy, right? And he dedicated himself to that. That was his first thing. He didn't sacrifice creativity for... He kept on the path, and he kept doing and kept doing, and now look at it, right? Yeah. Or like the DJs in the '90s. They made no money. Right. Now look at how much money DJs make. Yeah.

34:57Right? So there's all... It's- Yeah... It's, it's super interesting- Yeah... On how people choose, but that's what agency is right there. Yeah. You get that freedom, and nobody's knocking at your door saying, "You have to stay inside," or, "You have to do it this way," or, "You have to believe in this." You're free to choose, right?

35:13That's- And is that what the book is? That's essentially what the book is. It's a framework for freedom. We go through steps. So- My work with companies right now, mainly I advise and I consult on business strategy. So I help them, you know, organizational efficiencies, leadership, culture, all that. We do a huge audit, for lack of a better term, of what the business is doing, where they're at, and where they wanna go, and what's the gap.

35:45I took a lot of those principles and I wanted to make something because I've seen so many people struggling, especially with AI. I've seen so many successful people who were lost. I've seen so many people fearful of their jobs being lost. I wanted to make something accessible in a, in a book basically, right?

36:05It's not a massive six-figure consulting thing that you have to go through. It's a $20 book that you can read and you can, you can use. So e- essentially it's how do you choose from yourself, and it's for yourself, and it starts with rules. So I looked at, you know, what rules... Like if I were to say to you, "What rules do you think are unbreakable in life?"

36:33What would you think or what would you say? That they cannot be broken. Is there a few or like is it, is it fixed? Is there a lot one rule that I've set w- with myself recently having a young family is from 3:00 to 7:00 my phone is in my room and I'm really present with my kids. Because I know that time is, it's gonna be so short with them- Yeah

37:01That it's a rule I set for myself. Is that the type of thing- Yeah, so it, so what you've done basically is you said, 'cause today's society, I would argue, you, we're almost codependent on the phone. 100%. Right? If you wanna do anything, they're gonna send you a password or they're gonna do something or you need to check this or you gotta d- like everything is there.

37:25Your life is there. And it's, fricking addicting. Like- Yeah. It's like, it's just- There's always something going on, right? Yeah. So yeah, so you broke a rule, what, which I would c- in the book I call it a rewritable rule. And, go just through the basics of, okay, what's unbreakable in life? Besides gravity.

37:44Death? Right? Like if you look at science, I was a professor for five years and we would do research on things, and I have a different view of research, and we'll save that conversation for another day. But the whole idea of science and research is to figure out probabilities, right? If we take a study of a certain number of people to do a certain number of things, what is the probability that the outcome is the same?

38:07So that we could say if everybody does this, right, there's a guarantee or there's an 80% or 60% or 70%, whatever the number is, probability that this is the outcome that they're gonna get. That's what we're trying to achieve, right? Like with cancer and if we do it at this, they know, they know all the numbers.

38:26So same thing in life. And so for me, 100%, if everybody goes to the top of this building and jumps, they're going down. Yeah. Right? That's an unbreakable rule right now. The Wright brothers fi- changed it a little bit and they said, "Well, okay, the gravity doesn't change, but we can manipulate it and we'll, we'll, we'll build planes."

38:46But besides gravity and death and a few other b- biological needs like sleep and food and things, like there's, there's not a lot that's fixed, which means we can rewrite it just like what you did. Right. So the whole, the whole book starts with that. What are some of the th- what are some of the rules that you're following that no longer serve you?

39:07Right. And it's amazing how when you do... Have you ever heard of the- So you're thinking bigger, like gravity. That's a rule that can't be broken. That can't be broken. So we got to adhere to it. Okay, so there's five big rules. Yeah, five, six- Right... Maybe. Everything else- Everything else... Has agency.

39:31Everything else does. And you just proved it as well earlier by saying about the tax advantages of having a business. Yeah. You have to pay your taxes. Yeah. But you can pay less. Yeah. Right? So there's a rule, right? People are like, "Well, I gotta pay my 50% tax." I'm like, "Well, no you don't if you start a business."

39:51Right. Right? So it's getting people to think, and there's an old study about fleas in the jar and bugs in the jar, right? When you put a lid on and they keep bumping their head, bumping their head, and then you take the lid off, they won't go out. Because they've done it so many times that they're conditioning, they don't know how to get out.

40:09It's the same thing. We're so conditioning by our upbringing, this is a rule. Yeah. Right? This, you eat at 5:00. Yeah. Right? You go to work from 9:00 to 5:00. Yeah. It's a rule. Why is it a rule? Yeah. Why is it a rule? Did your curiosity in life get you on this path of like- Yeah, I was always curious. Yeah.

40:29It, I mean, I c- it's, it's one of those things I can't shut off. Like, if I go to Disneyland, I'm, I'm thinking about how the rides are built and how this- Yeah... How this works. Like, I can't shut off the curiosity, which sucks to some degree because I have a hard time enjoying things sometimes. Yeah. Because I'm just so focused on how it was done.

40:49Could we make it better? Like, the brain is just always going, and it got me in trouble a lot of times because I was curious about things that maybe I should have just let-... Let go, right? But yeah, it was just, I just wanted to know why, and I just wanted to push that, right? We, we wanna push, push, push until you get that kick in the groin, and then it's just like, "Okay, I went too far.

41:16Okay. Th- there's my, there's my line right now." Yeah. Right? And then as we evolve, then you kinda go back. It's the Roger Bannister four-minute mile. Yeah. It's all those things that say that can't be done. Then you do it, and then all of a sudden there's a floodgate that opens up. How about you? What, like wh- after you, after the job into entrepreneurship Was growth, once you figured it out, was that just like, "Hey, I found a model, now I'm just gonna replicate this"?

41:46Yeah. And that was something that- Yeah, and then I hit a boundary of like, wow, I'm growing so quickly, but now I don't have a platform to grow. Meaning, like I was growing people, which is great, but very hard to grow a multi-million, or a really big business- Yeah... Without a platform, without software, without everything.

42:15And my unblock was working for a billion-dollar software company who had 1,000 employees, but valued at a billion dollars Where if I had a thousand employees as an accounting firm, I wouldn't be valued at a billion dollars. I'd be valued at $20 million, which is still great. But if I put a platform behind there and had the same amount of employees doing the same thing, now my valuation goes from 20 million to a billion dollars- Yeah

42:45Doing the same alot- amount of effort, why wouldn't I do that? And that's how Taxifi started. Yeah. That's crazy. I mean, it's great. Like, I- And it goes back to the hospital versus incorporation. -huh. Same revenue, same income, different structures. Business is the same way. You can sell a company for a one times multiple, or you can sell a company for a 10 times multiple.

43:12The level of effort is very similar. It's your risk tolerance, your capital, your network, your knowledge, your beliefs, all that- Yeah... Can get you the 10X for doing the same thing. So did you-- So question for you. As you grow, right, when you start something, there's a, you know, a startup incubation period. You go through it, validation, market, then you start to grow, and then you get to a point, like you just said, where you reach a point of, "Okay, now I need to scale in some capacity."

43:45So then you look at your options. Is it software? Like, right? Because you just can't continue. Most entrepreneurs then go to V- VCs and say, "We need more money. We need more employees." That's the old model, right? Bring them in, then we can have a higher burn rate, and we bring in more employees to produce more m- all of a sudden with AI.

44:04For you, when you get to that point, were there any rule changes that you had to shift? Like, 'cause you do some- you do something, you do s- you do things to start up a certain way. Then when you grow and you get into at least a little bit of stability and you get into, let's say, a mil or so, and you go, "Okay, now I'm gonna do things this way," because now you make that, and then you made that jump.

44:27Was there anything there where you went, "Okay, we need to change the rules on a few things because we need to do things differently"? Everything. Everything. So you had to reinvent the business, basically? Yeah. Everything at different inflection points, and I'll give you a perfect example While the growth was happening, every account would be time and billing.

44:49Time and billing. Like, this is how it takes 10 hours, I'm billing $150 an hour, here's the bill to clients. I said, "I'm not doing that," because every month they argue the fee and it goes back and forth and whatever. That was the preset rule across the industry. I said, "I'm gonna give a monthly subscription.

45:12I'm gonna see your business, Craig. I'm going to charge you a thou- $1,000 a month, and I'm gonna do your bookkeeping, your payroll, your tax, all under one roof. Maybe it's more money. It's a predetermined set of amount- -huh... But I'm gonna charge you once a month. And I don't, there's not gonna be another conversation at the end of the month.

45:33We're gonna be on the same page before I bill you first." Set that. Now my value of my ac- accounting company went from one time to two times because I changed the rules. Yeah. Because now I'm getting, also from a cash flow perspective, I'm getting billed at the beginning of the month for work to do that month versus wait till the end of the month, bill, and then wait another 30 days.

46:04So instead of getting paid within 60 days, I get paid at the beginning of the month

46:11MRR. Yeah. Yeah. So now investors love MRR, future buyers love MRR, banks love MRR. Everything loves it. Consistency. There's consistency, there's cash flow, there's everything. Yeah. So I think every business- So what made you, what made you go there? Because that's, that model I would argue is from SaaS, right?

46:32Like the subscription model. It's been around forever, but now when it jumped to SaaS, there's no longer se- Like, I mean it's incredible 'cause I'm, I'm t- I grew up in tech, right? That's how I... All my companies and businesses were tech-based businesses, and you used to get a CD from Adobe or something, like somebody, you know.

46:51And then they might create an update, and then you get another CD, and they charge you once a month, or sorry, once a year for that CD. And then they're like, "Oh, well, we're gonna pull it back, and we're gonna make it the equivalent of what we pay." But to your point, they do it monthly at the beginning of the month, so then you have the recurring.

47:07And then they just skyrocketed the prices. Like they 10X the prices, and people still paid it. Yes. Why it hasn't been done in f- a professional service, because now you're s- locked into $1,000 a month. If your employee is not well-trained, a part of your culture, understands the client, a lot of other stuff needs to happen, they might be two, three...

47:35You might be getting billed by your cl- your labor two, 2,000, 3,000 and you might be- Yeah, so you're losing money... So you're losing money. So now it becomes how good's your operation? Yeah. Now it falls on me versus fall on the client. Which is great because, I mean, you look at any sort of agency in billable hours, right?

47:58They love that because you stick six consultants around a table and they'd be billing you like crazy, right? Because they were corporate, and corporate wouldn't care because they had budget and... But now that whole, even, like PA and stuff like that, same thing. So now you're right, like the system, now you need to know your shit.

48:16Absolutely. And- But you have the tools now with AI to do that... Where they weren't there. Yes. Right? When you did it, yeah. But also from an agency perspective, now with time and billing, for example, if we keep on going on that example, your margins could be 20%. Let's just say that professional service is 20%.

48:37So your labor, your fixed costs, and then you, whatever you bill a client, you wanna make a 20% margin. If you do this operation, you hire the right employees, and you hire individuals like yourself to build a, the right culture and the right mindset and the right everything, well, now this profit margin could be 30, 40, 50%.

49:00Yeah. Right? Like- Yeah... The numbers change. You just gotta look at it from a different lens. Yeah. And from your cur- curiosity, that's where my curiosity is. It's like there has to be a better way to do it. Yeah. Let's do it. Let's, let's challenge- Yeah... The status quo. I, I mean, I love that because that's, I think, where I've been successful in...

49:24Like, I'm not good at a lot of things, but what I'm good at is taking pieces from different verticals or industries and understanding the situation and thinking outside the box. That's why people bring me in, 'cause we all have blind spots. Yeah. Right? And I have blind spots in my own business- Yeah... In my own life, in my...

49:42I'd argue that my marketing for myself is terrible. Right. But I could do marketing lights out for somebody else. And I don't know why or how that is. I would rather promote somebody and spend my time doing that, but I just see things that, maybe they don't because they're inside of it. And that's why I have people help me because I can't see those things either.

50:06I'm in it. Yeah. Right? I need somebody to say, "Okay, no," or, "Hey, what about this or that?" That's like when I first wrote the book. I don't feel that I'm a very good writer. I've, I had, you know, I- I found it difficult to write the book. I'm a good communicator and speaker, and originally I thought, "Oh, how hard could it be?

50:29Just, you know, say the words and it'll, it'll automatically be on paper." But I had a really good network of people that I said to them after I wrote the first draft, "Tear it apart, 'cause I wanna know what I don't see." And they were brutally honest, and which was good, and they tore it apart. So then I wrote it again, and then they tore it apart, and then I wrote it again.

50:51But it's good because you need those things to see, and I love doing that for organizations, especially ones that are open. If I go into an organization and say, "Well, we've always done it this way," I'm like, "Well, I'm not your guy. I'm out." Yeah. I'm out. Like, but if you're willing to listen, I guarantee you I can help you.

51:10And this is your first book? First one. How is doing the tour and, like, what's it's fun. It's fun. It's really good to get it out. I'm still working on it. I plan on making, you know, adjustments as we go, 'cause I wanna serve the market in the best possible way. But it's been very well receptive, or recept- or received, I should say.

51:32It's... A lot of people say it's timely, it's needed. A lot of people are at that point of inflection where, you know, they wanna reinvent themselves, or businesses especially are very, interested in, you know, how do we get to this next phase or through the next phase with AI? What do we do? You know, there's a lot of really good companies out there that are really caught at a crossroads because they have investors, they need to maintain profit margins.

52:01Yeah. And they don't wanna, they don't wanna let go of their people. Yeah. They don't wanna kill the culture. But they see it as, hey, there's a really good opportunity here to increase those margins because maybe VCs come in and they got some heat, or the board is on them, or whatever it is, right? So that's...

52:19They're, so they're trying to figure out how do we keep the people and utilize the tools to the best ability. And the ones that I've seen so far are the ones where you have customer interactions. And I'd, I would say, I'll u- I'll use this as an example. I have a client who's a bank, a top bank in Canada, and one of...

52:39What they're trying to do is, you know, they're like, "Oh, this AI is, it's so good for this, but, we don't wanna hire." And I said, "Look, think about this. All these other institutions that are coming up, online banking and all that, yes, they're gonna have their place. Yes, it's gonna be simpler, easier." But I said, "What do people want?

52:59They want to talk to another person that knows what they're doing, especially with their investments." Yeah. So a lot of investment arms of these companies are like, that's your asset They invest with you. Like, think about it. If your people leave, where do you think your money goes? It doesn't stay with the bank.

53:17They go with that financial advisor that... Because they know, like, and trust them. They've been with them years. They're getting a certain rate. So utilize that to your advantage. What about your customer service, right? How do you... Don't let the robots talk to the people. Let the robots do all the grunt work and the behind the words, but let your people do the interpretation, and then figure out how you serve them better.

53:41And a lot of times it's just even listening to them. You will gain more clients just by listening, and, the retention will be higher just by listening because people wanna... Like, we want people to talk to I totally agree with you. Even now selling accounting with AI, the first conversations I had with customers was, "AI's gonna do it all for you."

54:07Okay? Or leading with AI first. Hang up the phone, off the Zoom, no call. We have a set of accounts that you can work directly with. AI's behind the scenes doing the nitty-gritty. And instead of pricing at 199, you're pricing at 799- Yeah... Because it's a human and they're okay with it. They don't care about the...

54:40I mean, they care about the cost, but not relevant to the trust, the integrity, the- Yeah... Relationship. We're not at a society... It's funny, in my first business while I was growing, we were the first people online. So we were on Zoom before everything. M- the biggest argument with consumers was, "Why am I gonna use Envolta versus GGFL, Welch, whatever?"

55:10The-... The localized account. Didn't have an argument. Like yeah, you- 'cause you have to a- you have to actually do more work to be online. Take pictures, send us the documents, versus just drop it off, whatever. Until the pandemic hit. Then these guys weren't set up the way we were set up. So I would also make an argument that there might be an inflection point, maybe in a year, maybe in five years, maybe in 10 years, where the consumer behavior changes-

55:42And they completely trust the AI. We're definitely not there yet. Nope. But we gotta be aware of it too. 100% agree. I mean, this, we could take this into, I love this stuff because you could take this into like human behavior, psychology. Yeah. And if you think about not so long ago, nobody wanted to buy anything online.

56:03Right. They were scared. Yeah. "Are they gonna steal my credit card?" Yeah. Nobody wanted to put their picture online. Right. Wasn't real, wasn't fake. Yeah. Now it's almost the opposite. 100%. Amazon, yeah. And that wasn't so long ago. No. Right? You look at, there was an old graph, I remember in school I'm trying to think of what it was.

56:24It was the three Is. It was the innovators, the imitators, and the idiots. And it was basically a graph showing the adoption of something. So you had the innovators, which had to go through hell because every- most people were like- Yeah... Not gonna do it. Then it got to a point where they're like, "Holy shit, this is real."

56:45Everybody's gonna copy it, right? 'Cause it's gonna work, and then there was the idiots that were the late, you know, late to the game. It's been proven, it's been done, it's oversaturated. Oh, I should jump in now. Yeah. Like somebody starting a Blockbuster now. Yeah. Right? Great business. Right. Right? So there's, there's always that curve of adoption, and I think, I, you know, I hear the emotional...

57:08It's, it's kind of like politics in a way, in that people are talking about AI being the best thing that ever happened, and the worst thing, it's the end of humanity. Yeah. And I'm like, whoa, whoa. Is that even worth debating right now? Yeah. 'Cause we're terrible predictors of the future. Yeah. It's a tool, and that's all it is.

57:25Yeah. Right? You now are ha- you had a hammer and a nail. Yeah. Now you have a drill. Yeah. It's not about debating which one is better. Yeah. Does it make your life easier? Yeah. Can you use this for something? Yeah. Is it applicable? Figure out how to adopt it and work it into your life. Yeah. Right? It's not about...

57:47But we get so emotionally attached to things. Yeah. And I look at it as an opport- I, like, I love innovation, I love things, and, you know, people say dis- I wanna be a disruptor. You look at the taxi plates. It was a business that I looked into a long time ago about getting the- 450,000. Yeah, for the plates.

58:05That was people's retirement. Yeah. And now they're worth nothing. Yeah. Uber killed that, and they're like, "Ah, stupid Uber, stupid Uber." Yeah. We have, we've got to adapt and evolve, right? Either you adapt or die. That's a cliche, but it's true. Where do you see AI going? That's a great question. It's definitely going to replace a lot of the knowledge work, in my opinion.

58:33I think plumbers will make more money than lawyers in the near future, because I think plumbing, until they get the dexterity of, you know, robots and the intelligence and things like that, good old blue-collar stuff is gonna become hyper valuable. - We c- again, we can get into the weeds in this because i- it, he- here's what I think, here's what I think.

59:00Again, I'm a ter- I'm a human, so I haven't been able to predict, anything of value. I'm an, I'm a M- a Miami Dolphins fan, so in the pool I said- Dolphins fan. Yeah. We've had, we've had a rough go. And I said, "You know what I'm gonna do? I'm just gonna pick everybody th- in the suicide pool, I'm gonna pick everybody that plays against Miami, because they could go 0 and 17."

59:23Yeah. That's m- that's my prediction. But h- here's, here's what I, here's what I see. I term it kinda the Spotify model. So if you're an, if you're an artist, right, and you make music, you put it on Spotify. Do you make any money? Nothing, right? But that's where you get discovered and you get known. Yeah. And if you get good enough- Concerts are going through the roof.

59:44Bingo. Yeah. Business guy. Yeah. Same thing. Yeah. Right? And people are paying that. So where I'm going with this is AI is gonna widen that gap- Yeah... Whereby if you don't figure out how to adapt, innovate, start a business, or do something of value- Yeah... That's worth a lotta money, you are not gonna be able to have or get the most out of life IRL, in the real world.

1:00:10Yeah. You're gonna live in a box. Yeah. We could call it the Matrix. Yeah. And you're gonna have an existence of online. Wow. You'll eat basic food, you'll get a basic,.. Y- it has to. Yeah. Because AI will replace so many, like, there'll be extreme poverty- Yeah... 'cause of that model, right? Yeah. There will. If you replace people- Yeah

1:00:31Who can't afford to buy things- Yeah... Like, there's gotta be something there to buy. So the online world will become extremely commoditized and cheap- Yeah... Where you get everything next to nothing. Yeah. The real world will be stupid expensive. Yeah. And you can see a lotta businesses, like Louis Vuitton- Yeah

1:00:47As an example, doubling down in experiences. Yeah. Like Porsche- Yeah... Saying that, "We are now no longer gonna produce all these cars. We're gonna sell you one at $400,000." We're gonna eliminate the, you know, the lower-end ones. And I think that gap is just, that's what AI is going to do to society. Now, how we react to that, how long we can sustain that, but the rich and the poor, unfortunately, th- you said at the beginning, middle class was always...

1:01:20I mean, I didn't grow up, in the early industrial. I wasn't that old, but I know the Industrial Revolution, you know, middle class was, you know, they were coming from the Depression, so they, it was extreme poverty. They didn't know where their next meal was coming from. So middle class factory work was like, "Holy shit, I got a job.

1:01:39It's consistent. I get a regular paycheck. I'm gonna do this for a little bit, and then I'm gonna get retirement? Amazing." Right? The model changed, and it worked back then, and then we carried it into the knowledge worker era, the same kind of philosophy of work, industrial age thinking and knowledge worker era, and now we have something that's gonna replace that, where it's like...

1:02:02I mean, my parents were the same way. They didn't go to university. They wanted me to go. I never wanted to go to university. Yeah. But they never did, and they s- like, my dad was a carpenter, my mom was a nurse, and they thought, "Well, I'd get a job so I can make more money and sit in an office and punch some keys," that somehow that was better than what they did.

1:02:19I would argue what they did is, was way more important. You know, he built houses and he built, he fixed homes, and my mom cared for people They didn't get rewarded like they should have. Right. Right? Like, the, I mean, what do you think of the imbalance of wages, right? Somebody hits a baseball and they can make a billion dollars, but if you run a country, you might make, you know, 400,000.

1:02:42Yeah. Or you're, you're an EMT or you're a first responder making $50,000 a year. Teacher, yeah. Right? Te- like, all, like... So we could argue the are you getting paid for what you should? Like, i- is it equitable? Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you. I completely... I think the wealth gap is gonna get, unfortunately, bigger and bigger, and I think it's gonna be a short time.

1:03:10I mean, I agree, humans are not good predictors of the future, but I'll give you a perfect example. This podcast, what I do, I get an edited version, I give it to an editor, they parse out a trailer, thumbnails, and all these reels for me. Take those, post it online. Last week, I saw on social media people are using Claude Code to do all the edits.

1:03:42I tried it this morning. Said, "These are my reels. Replicate these reels and multiply it." Without going back and forth with my editor, without paying a fee, it's a drag and drop. It was just as good. So when people say- Jobs are not getting removed. I'm looking at that and I'm like, "They're lying to you."

1:04:09Like, so be ahead of the curve- Yes... And learn skills on how to set up these AI- Yes... Infrastructures for businesses so they can leverage it. Charge them a consulting fee, a support fee, whatever. Be that guy, that person, versus be the editor now- Yeah... And lose your job. Yeah. Or be a premium, like Louis Vuitton, like the 1% where that reel is the best reel you ever see.

1:04:42Yep. So that when a business owner will pay $2,000 for it, and it separates that reel or that YouTube Shorts compared to all the people that are using AI. Yep. Like, you have to either be the 1% or be the one- the person that figures it out and sells it. Well, I think back to your point, even if you are the 1%, you're gonna use AI to speed up your process.

1:05:06Yeah. Like your editing flow as y- an example, right? Your workflow. But then you're gonna put your creativity and your... Like, if you think of... Like, I don't think AI could write "Ted Lasso" as good as- Right... What they did. Right. Right? But what they could do is they could go in and they could do dailies, and they could, they could cut clips or something that speeds up the production to, right, to get a better idea of, oh, no, maybe this camera angle or whate- whatever.

1:05:34Right. Whatever it, whatever it is. So I agree with you. Agree with you. And that's the opportunity that presents us. And is that what you're communicating to business owners? Is that like- Yeah... Is the level of conversation ev- are they open to having these, or are they still really caught into So, it depends.

1:05:56Some are still caught up in their own way, old ways, especially older institutions that have been around for a long time, or older businesses that have been around. I think one of the best opportunities is for the small business person to, like you said it best, to me everything is about margin in business.

1:06:12Yeah. Right? Sure, it's about relationships, satisfying customers, doing something of value, all that. Yes, yes. So you have a good business, you have a good bo- model, you serve a market need. Yes, all that, table stakes. How do you now take that small business? Like one of the things that I'm interested in, I have a few friends that have purchased farms or they've done that, and that's a really rough go right now.

1:06:34Right. I'd be interested to see how we can make that better from multiple angles, because I'm a health fanatic, you know, so better food, better quality, get your nutrients, get your chemistry aligned, like all that stuff. Is there a way to manufacture food that is more beneficial to us than we currently consume?

1:06:52Right. So interested for that. Two, is there a way that you could do that and increase margins? Like it baffles me that I could purchase something that gets shipped from Peru to the US to here to whatever, that is a fraction of the cost of the farmer down the street from me. Agreed. It's mind-blowing. It's mind-blowing.

1:07:13Yeah. Right? It's the, it's the airline model- Yeah... Of I'm gonna charge you 10 times the price for a direct flight. Yeah. Or I could put you on three flights to the same destination. It's gonna cost me more fuel, more energy, but I'll charge you a cheaper price. Yeah. It's gonna cost you more time.

1:07:32Yeah. So the short answer to your question is it's all about mindset, it's all about rules. Yeah. So one of the first things I do when we go into an organization and strategy is we debrief. What are some of the rules that are serving you? Yeah. And they're like, "Oh, yeah." So basically it's your system, it's your SOPs, like, right?

1:07:50It's, it's your s- it's what do you have in place to earn the income that you do? What are your margins? Don't tell me about revenue. I don't care if you make $2 billion or $200,000. Talk to me about the ef- efficiencies. I'd rather have a business that is very low maintenance and you net the same amount, as opposed to this giant conglomerate and you're losing, you know, $20 million.

1:08:13"Well, I made 40 billion, but I lost, you know, 100 million." Well, give me 40. I, I can lose 100 million pretty easy. Yeah. Right? So profit first, margins first, and if they're willing to accept... A- again, it goes back to that I, I. Like, where are you on the adaptability and the realization? 'Cause if you're making money, like when did you, when was, w- is, was there a tipping point for you to s- to shift from scale?

1:08:45Because you were always a, you know, your mindset is about growth. Do you just go, "Okay, in order to get here, I now need to change my thinking"? Well, and this is what I was gonna ask you about rules. Like- When you're growing through 10 years, you're, you have to challenge yourself maybe not every day, but every quarter, every year.

1:09:09Like, the rules change at a longer period of time. But now you're going into these companies and you're saying to them, "Hey, there's a tool out there that your competitors are gonna use." All the stuff that you've been successful for in the last 10, 15, 20 years, you're gonna have to change.

1:09:32And you're gonna have to rip all those rules up-... And start over. That would scare the heck out a lot of business owners. It does. Yeah. I call it the ugly baby. Yeah. Right? You know all the ideas you have? I'm very lucky because I've, I've got good friends where people go, "That's, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," right?

1:09:53And I don't take anything personally. I don't fall in love. Like, I'm not offended if somebody goes, "Well, that's terrible," or, "That's bad," or... Okay, give me a reason. Yeah. Tell me why you think it is. Yeah. And then I wanna... 'Cause I wanna learn. Yeah. I'm here to serve and to add value. It's, my idea-- arguably, my ideas are not my ideas.

1:10:11They're c- they're a collection of my environment, what I've learned, what I've seen, what I've heard. It comes from everywhere. Yeah. So all I'm trying to do is piece together what are the needs, what are the wants, and can I serve that need or that want or that market? And if so, can I make that profitable so that I can take a little bit of money- Yeah

1:10:30And enhance my existence? Because then if I take that money, then I can distribute that somewhere else or start somewhere else, and then it just... Y- you get into things that you never would otherwise, right? When you're worried about where your next meal is gonna come from or y- the roof over your head, that's a hard...

1:10:47Like, that's not a good place to live. Yeah. Right? So if you can... I don't know. It's, it's a never-ending circle or cycle of things that you give, give, you get, get. And it's figuring out how you can,.. Again, I look at the market. I've had, have a lot of great ideas, but if nobody wants it or nobody cares about it, cool.

1:11:12It's a good hobby. You learned something. Yeah. Nobody wanted it. Or maybe the timing wasn't right. Right. Or maybe you didn't go long enough You know what I mean? Like, people I see give up a lot easier. It took seven years in my last business to really break through. Yeah. Right? Like, it takes a lot of time, a lot of patience, a lot of- Yeah

1:11:33Willpower, right? So- There's no one hit... There, so there's, sorry, there's no overnight success- I know... In my opinion. No, I agree. There might be that 1% of the 1% of the 1% that hits it. Yeah. That was at the right timing, but- And they had a, they had a house advantage somehow. Yeah. Where they had money or they had inheritance or they had, they had something where they did, and I would argue that they become a one hit wonder because they think it's that easy.

1:12:02Yeah. Right. And it's not. Yeah, and then they lose it all. And then they lose it all. Or they make the royalties off the one hit and they, I don't know. Yeah. What else about the book?

1:12:16I don't know. There's, the, I pretty much put everything in there that I, that I use or I've learnt. It starts off with a journey of,.. So I broke it down into three parts. So first is the break, build, become, and maybe we'll go through this with you. I'll ask you questions as we go through- Sure... If you're cool with that.

1:12:38So break, build, and become. If you notice, the first thing that you had to have happen to get to where you were is your job. Yeah. Had to lose it. Yeah. Had to break. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Something has to happen. Are you familiar with, Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey? No. So Joseph Campbell, he wrote a book called "The Hero's Journey," and a lot of Hollywood movies or storytelling is based on this hero's journey, where there's a, there's an arc.

1:13:06So you're born, you have normal life, you have an environment, you get beliefs thrown at you from school, parents, friends, whatever, reading, like everything, right? And then all of a sudden something that you need to leave that world to go to another one to figure something else out or to fight a demon or to slay a dragon like Batman or Spider-Man or whatever, and then you come back kind of a changed person.

1:13:31Right? So you go through that cycle. So once you break that mold... So my question for you would be what ch- 'cause you said, "Oh, thank God." What was the first thing that you did when you had that thank God moment? Like why didn't you go into another corporation?

1:13:54Because that was familiar, right? Yeah. School, MBA trajectory. You saw a few things, but why didn't, like, why didn't you continue on that path and look for a better company or a different company and continue on that path? It was just everything I didn't want. Like, it was s- I didn't see myself in there at all.

1:14:20So I put myself in if... I don't think it would be different at another corporation, and I can't listen to people. That was like, I, I just, yeah. So there was a lot of, like, behavioral things that- So what was the timeline for you from leaving that to starting- Okay, so-... The next? While I was there, I started my business.

1:14:47Did you know that this, like, you could let g- let go? Or were you already thinking, "I'm not gonna survive this"? The hospital? Yeah. I'm not gonna survive it. So you were already planning. Yeah. So the, th- if they wouldn't have gave you the papers, you were, you were gonna be gone anyways. Eventually, yeah. Had to be.

1:15:10This just sped up the process. Yeah. Yeah. So then after that moment, okay, so what was the... So you started something on your way out. Yeah. About six months before I got let go. Okay, that was a side hustle though. Yeah. And then that just confirmed, then you di- you dove right in right after? The next day I worked 12 hours.

1:15:30Yeah. Yeah. And then didn't stop for 10 years. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Is that your, is it- Yeah. So, so part of that break, I mean, you naturally... You were in an environment where you knew that you didn't belong. Yeah. And that wasn't for you, so it was easier for you to do that. Right. For most people, it's not that easy.

1:15:52Yeah. Because a lot of people, what they try to do is they go, "Okay, this is still the path." They don't change the game. They're like, "I need to play this game harder." Or, "I now need to go to another company and find another title." Right? And- Exactly... Whatever they're chasing, so usually it's the ladder.

1:16:12Yeah. Right? And the ladder, I don't know how they did the ladder or who came up with the idea of the ladder, 'cause it's terrible. Yeah. You get good at a skill, you're an engineer, you're something, whatever, and then you- Go to management... You go to management and you have no, you've never managed a person in your life.

1:16:26Yeah. I've seen so many people- Yeah... Myself included- Yeah... That I would rather talk to a screen than a person. Yeah. Because at least I felt like I was doing something- Yeah... As opposed to, okay, now I gotta look after you and your work. Your, yeah. I have no clue how to do that. And in my opinion- Nothing against project manage, 'cause I still do project management, right?

1:16:48We do it all the time. Yeah. We do it all the day. You should be able to manage yourself. Yeah. Like, humans really should be able to do, you know, they should be able to do their things- Yeah... Without somebody telling them what to do. Yeah. If they're good at it, right? So you look at that and go, is that...

1:17:05Okay, so that's break. So that's the first part of the book is you break out of the trance. So you take yourself from the... I mean, the simple question is, you know, what rules are no longer serving you? Then we get into the framework, which is built. So now you go through, okay, now that you see that there's a possibility of something else, we go through R-U-L-E-S, which is the framework, and the first is to rewrite the rule.

1:17:32So what rule is no longer serving you? So you said, "The next day I worked 12 hours a day," which was basically, "I'm not gonna work for a salary anymore, and I'm gonna control my destiny." Yeah. Right? You just rewrote that. Question for you then: How did your identity change? Oh, the whole identity question. Yeah.

1:17:54I mean, it changed so much that I then made that business my baby, which was like all my identity went into it. 'Cause now it was probably like, "I have to prove people wrong, that I just lost my job. I'm whatever," that story. Yeah. That went into a chip on my shoulder- Yeah... All that, identity around that.

1:18:21Yeah. For sure. So that's the you. So we go through a process- Yeah... Which is unlock identity. Yeah. Okay, so third thing, so then L, we're still in build. So we rewrite the rule, we unlock the identity. L is learn. What did you need to learn to bring you from corporate world to entrepreneur? Would not Just one thing that w- that really you needed to learn, like a skill.

1:18:48Because the corporate world was different than... Like, you had a job- Yeah... Right? And you had a skill there. What business skill or what did you, what did you find that you needed to learn the most to run that business? Sales. Sales. Yeah. Big time. Yeah, which is one of the, which is one of the skills I think that everybody should learn.

1:19:08Yeah. Right? Sales, influence. Yeah. Right? Robert Cialdini, six principles of influence. Any sort of sales, big difference. Yeah. Right? So okay, so that's the L. The E. So then E is evaluate, and evaluate comes down to your time, 'cause you only have so much time. And time is based on decisions, 'cause you have a choice to go to work 9:00 to 5:00, right?

1:19:37And you clock hours in and out, and then you get paid for that. Business, what did you do in terms of your choices, how you spent your time? How did you... How did that change from corporate to entrepreneur?

1:19:53'Cause you said 12 hours. Did you ever work 12 hours in corporate? Never. So you, increased the time- Yeah... For one thing. Two, how did you spend your days versus corporate?

1:20:09Well, corporal was coffee breaks and other stuff. Head down and go Did you find that you did most of the BD at the beginning? Yes. Yes. Right? Yeah. So client acquisition. Yeah, I went out to every networking- Hustle, hustle... Called people, get them on. Yeah. Yeah, so majority of your time went from coffee breaks and, you know, you have your agenda, you have your schedules- Yeah

1:20:41And your meetings, all that, to now taking agency over your calendar and going, "If I need... If I'm gonna make this work," right? "I'm gonna hustle, I'm gonna go out there, and here's what I need to do." Did you find that... What was the biggest thing that you found helped, like, build that business? Like, was there one thing or a series of things that you did that allowed you to grow?

1:21:02Or was it just constant BD, sell, sell, sell? I think it was a lot of small things of head down. I didn't have a family at that time, so I had a lot of time and energy going towards it. I was 23 years old, so I was really ambitious and motivated. I had a routine every morning where I woke up, I went to the gym and got all that going before I even tackled the day.

1:21:30And then I just learned, like, every day it was just the small steps forward of like, okay, I spoke with a client today. He accepted. What did I say and do then for the next client? And I'll give you a perfect example. At the beginning, I was only going after the year-end taxes, which that's a bigger trust, relationship than going after the bookkeeping, right?

1:22:03Once I evaluated that I wasn't landing the year-end clients, I was landing the bookkeeping and building the relationships for the year ends after, I started landing more clients. So it was just a constant evaluation of the day or the week to keep on building it forward. And then you adjusted and course-corrected based on your learnings.

1:22:25Right. So you were pretty fluid and you weren't stuck. Y- I mean, you found out what worked. Did you find, if you can go back and remember, your energy, eight hours a day, coffee breaks, which is seemingly, eh, it's pretty easy, pretty good, should have a... Versus 12 hours a day grinding sales. Like, were you happier?

1:22:48Oh yeah, way happier there. Isn't that incredible? Yeah, like-... Even now with my Taxifi, it's, I'm, after 7:00 I put the kids down, I'm working till 12:00 with a smile on my face. It's like the energy just comes up. It's crazy. And people think, and again, I, a lot of people think That, you know, working 12-hour days, yes, it's hard, yes, it's a grind, or, you know, some people say, "Oh, well, you have to be built for it."

1:23:19And I guess I'm trying to figure out the answer to that question because I feel the same way. Knock on wood, I've traveled the world, I've done a whole bunch of different things. I've never missed a speaking event. I've never been sick for anything, and it... I look at some of my schedules, and, like, it was ridiculous.

1:23:34Was I tired and exhausted? You know, 1,000%. There's only so much that you can do. Like, you're human. Yeah. You need to take care of that. You need to have a... But I felt some of the positions that I held, early on or clients that I dealt with w- were just... And I was working maybe six, seven hours a day, and then you get into 16-hour days and so then it's just like, yeah, yeah.

1:23:58Yeah. It's interesting, right? That dynamic. And so I always try to work my calendar around energy, what gives you energy- Yeah... And what doesn't. When am I most energetic? How do I manage my time around that but based on the energy? And then the last, the last one is S, which is share. When you built your company, one of the hardest things to do, right, is that ownership.

1:24:26It's yours. How easy or difficult for you was it to share the knowledge or let other people come in and take on certain roles that you maybe oversaw a little bit, but you let them run with? Like, were you okay with expanding and going, "Okay, I'm gonna hire a COO," or, "I'm gonna bring in other people to help me and I'm gonna give them agency.

1:24:48I'll teach them and I'll show them. I'll share my experiences, share my knowledge, and then let them run with it." Was that hard or easy? Or what was, what was that process like getting people involved with it? Yeah, it's, probably easy to a fault, meaning, like, I'm a big believer in, like, g- going to your energy.

1:25:14Like, I love sales, customer service, growing. Everything else, pass it on. Like COO, like p- human resource, all the other stuff, I had people around me that took care of everything, and I really just focused on my energy, and did you find... You said almost to a fault. Did you give too much-- Did you give, did you give people too much agency?

1:25:43For sure. Without- And then without- Structure, coaching. Yeah. Yeah. Backfire, let's say they left or they got sick, and then, like, not checking in on them or, like, all of that other stuff of way too much agency. Passwords, like I just give it out. Like it, I trusted way too much. Yeah. That's, that's my fault, too.

1:26:11Yeah. 'Cause I, I don't like to micromanage people. No. And I give them the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. At the same time, my fault is checking back in. Yeah. I think my newsletter that I do, I'm terribly inconsistent with it, and it's like I need to do it more, but it just... It's like, I don't know. I feel the same way.

1:26:31It's, it's, it's just- Be consistent with it, do it, give people the opportunity to do it, but touch base with them and check in with them and make sure that they're okay. Like, they need that, and I go the opposite extreme- Yeah... 'cause I'm the same way. I like, I'll go for a month, like I'll disappear.

1:26:49Yeah. I like that. Yeah. And then I'll do a whole bunch of, a whole bunch, then I'll disappear, and I won't tell anybody or what. I just, I just do that, and I like that. From my, from my n- my experience, it actually does more harm than good because then they're not getting structure, they're not getting- Yeah

1:27:06Acknowledgement, they're not understanding. It, there's a whole other aspect of that. Yeah. And that one I think is super important, is the acknowledgement. Yeah. Yeah. And it, so that's the second part of the book. So you, you go through a framework, and then the last part is become. So one of the things that I wanted to do is most books, again, they tell you what to do.

1:27:29This is how to do this. This is the way you should do this. My book is more about a design because I feel that... Like, if you think about this, if I'm gonna tell you to do something, you have to have the willingness just to follow the steps, right? And be okay with that. But if I say, you know, "What if we did it this way?"

1:27:50Or, "Here's what research shows," or, "This is this, da, da," and give you options to think about and then say, "How about we try this?" Or, "What do you think is a good starting point?" And get you to have some input in it, right? The latter usually sticks more, right? As opposed to me just telling you having some involvement in the process, it helps more.

1:28:11So that's how I designed the first eight chapters. It's, it's design. But that's great. You wrote it down on paper, you set your goals, you reinvent, blah, blah, blah. That's great. The last three chapters, I love it because it's a gut punch. And there's something called CODE that is how everything works in life anytime that you start something new.

1:28:34And most self-help books or professional development books, they're rah, rah, they're energy, which is great, but they don't give you the reality of things. So I gut punch you in chapter nine that basically says, "Look, this is great that you did all this, but now you've written it down. You now have to go live this and do this."

1:28:51There's a huge gap between first being aware- Right... Then knowing and designing- Yeah... And now doing. Yeah. So CODE, real quick, stands for, it's an acronym that basically says when you start something new, you're gonna suck at it. So C is clueless. You don't know what you don't know. Brand new, you're probably gonna suck at it.

1:29:12You might have some a- ability, athletic or some background where you might be okay, or you might get lucky the first time around, but in general, you don't know what you don't know. You're gonna suck. Then you get into the O. Now you realize how much effort and time, and you said it earlier on the podcast, how much time it actually takes and people give up.

1:29:31So O is for overwhelmed. So now you get overwhelmed, right? So let's say that you're, you wanna lose weight, as an example. So you're like, you're all excited. You read this new diet. You're like, "Yeah, you can lose 30 pounds in 30 days. Great, great." So what do you do? You go buy the shoes, you get the membership, whatever.

1:29:46You're all pumped. And then you go to the first day and you realize that you're not coordinated, you're awkward, you're all this. You gotta learn the moves. You gotta... And you gotta do this now for the next 20 years of your life. So now you're overwhelmed with all this stuff, right? So then the D is if you stick it out and you get past that point, you start becoming deliberate.

1:30:07You're consciously thinking through the motions of whatever it is, business, health, food, recipe. Everything in life follows this. You get deliberate. And then what happens when you do it long enough like a great athlete? It becomes E, effortless. Right. And that's the zone So it gets into your subconscious.

1:30:28Think, or even think of something simpler, walking. Yeah. Right? When you're a baby, right, you crawl, you can't do it, you can't do it, you can't do it. You don't know what you don't know. Yeah. And then you realize, oh my God, I gotta stand up, and the baby's all over the place. Yeah. And then they consciously, you see them start to balance, and they have to think it through.

1:30:45They have to think each step through, and all of a sudden you do it naturally. Yeah. Could you imagine if we as human beings had to do everything deliberately? Like if I wanted to move my hand, I had to consciously think, "Okay, I gotta move my thing and move it," you couldn't do it. So in the book, so that's where chapter nine goes.

1:31:01So to become something, you go through a process, but I show the realities of things. And then 10 and 11 are chapters on, you know, how to schedule your time, how to ape over ego, how to let your ego kinda check, get through it, and then start before you're ready. The, I believe there's no such thing of you'll never be ready.

1:31:22Yeah. And the philosophy is you don't get energy and then go to the gym. You go to the gym and then you get the energy. Yeah. And many people have it backwards. Yeah. So yeah, so that's, that's kinda it in a nutshell. And who's, who are you speaking to? So it's interesting you say that. So one of the hardest things that I had to do for the book is I'm one of those people that I think everything can apply to everybody, but then guess what happens?

1:31:48It applies to nobody. Right. So I wrote two avatars, one in particular. It started off as one, but then it became two. So my avatar was the person who is uber successful, checked all the boxes, went through life, did the school, the house, the family, the everything in relation, and are now at a inflection point going, "So I checked all the boxes.

1:32:10Now what?" Now what do I do? They never thought for themselves. They were just basically handed this guide of society, their parents, their upbringing, their schools, whatever it is, and they just followed it. And they probably had a really good life, but now they're l- they're looking back and going, "Well, do I have any stories?"

1:32:30Yeah. Right? No good story started with, "Well, I was in the office at 9:30 in the morning, and..." Yeah. Right? It's all the failures. It's all the stuff that you go through that made you who you are. So that was the first... That was who I wrote the book for originally. As I did the tour and started meeting more and more people, there's a second audience, and those are the people who are g- are very vulnerable to AI, which is pretty much any knowledge worker, where they feel that, again, they followed this path.

1:33:02They've made a bunch of money, maybe not. They, but they followed the path, did pretty well, are pretty successful, but now AI is gonna come in and rip their world out. So now what do they do? Because again, they followed that path. Yeah. So it's, it's a book for reinvention. It's a book for freedom.

1:33:20It's a book for agency. And you said it earlier, like, the, the younger generations maybe buying a house isn't gonna be their thing because they can't afford it, and maybe they don't even want that. Right. Right. Right? You see them not drinking anymore, but they're going to these different party...

1:33:35They're like, challenges or whatever. Like, they get to create their own thing. We could say it's stupid or not. Like, look at all the stupid stuff w- each generation does. Yeah. Right? So we could debate stupid, not stupid. Go, go have some... Go live life. Yeah. Try some things. If you wanna go and, and open up a smoothie club and instead of drinking alcohol and getting drunk every night, doing smoothies and playing whatever games you come up with, great, do it if you're happy doing it.

1:34:04But go do it. But go do it. Don't think about it and scroll and go- Ah... "Oh my God, should I, should I?" Yeah, thousand, million percent. Yeah. I'm hopeful that IRL makes a comeback. I really am. IRL? Like, in real life. Yes. Yeah. Because, you know, the, I, I follow a lot of comedians, and, Des Bishop is one, and he said, "Do you remember whenever you were on a bus trip?"

1:34:33He goes, "You just looked out the window." Yeah. Right? But now we have so much distraction, and they're like, "Oh, Osborne, I can't do that." They can't sit still. They always need to be entertained. Yeah. But those moments of looking out a window let your mind actually settle- Yeah... And think about things and process things and digest things.

1:34:54I don't know how that generation processes things. Yeah. 'Cause it's constant one thing to the next, to the n- Yeah... They don't remember anything. Yeah. And they're constantly on high alert- Yeah... All the time. Yeah. Like, you can't even go to the can without bringing your phone and s- and scanning for, like, right?

1:35:11Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. It's just a constant. Yeah. I don't know how, well, I mean, how do you, what do you say to your ki- I know they're still young. I'm very, probably too... So to your point about experiences, I agree. I think there's gonna be two big types of businesses, the ones that hit AI and the ones that leverage experiences.

1:35:32You look at Saunders Farm. Yeah. Yeah. From 10 years ago to now, Fright Fest is coming up. Like, it is incredible. Brilliant. Yes. They are- It's such a good show... Such a good job, and they're improving every year. Like, that business is gonna be the billion-dollar business. Yeah. Like, could be- Oh, for sure... Yeah, the next- For sure

1:35:54You know, whatever. Back to your question about my kids. I'm like, I see it so I'm so against it that it's a fault where it's like, don't go on phone. Like- Yeah... I'm like s- It's hard... So bad at it where like I don't want them watching anything or doing anything, but then I play with them and they don't have time to think either.

1:36:24So it's like I was talking to my parents, they had a pot and pan and they were outside playing with pots and pans 'cause they had no money, right? Yeah. He has a million and one toys. Yeah. So okay, he doesn't have the TV, but he has a million and one toys that could stimulate him too- Yeah... Which is probably not good either, and I wanna give it...

1:36:42So I think being a parent is it-- You see it. You want them to also Be like your daughter in the sense of blocking stuff and being putting it away. Like, you want them to develop that self-awareness to push it away, but it's such a drug that it's- Yeah... It's, and they're so young too, so but- It's so hard with the, with the biology, right?

1:37:10And I struggle with, like, the wants and the needs of marketing, right? So you can give people what they want. We can debate what's good and what's bad, right? 'Cause people will want that dopamine hit all the time. They will always gravitate. It's just biology. So the business is you can build a business to try and change human behavior, which is super hard.

1:37:34Yeah. Or you can be Tostitos and sponsor the Super Bowl. Yeah. Right. Right? Like, you have some of the greatest athletes in the world, and then you have junk food- Yeah... As a major sponsor. Yeah. Mars is one of them. Mars. A- again, no d- like- Yeah... Don't get me wrong. Like, I eat, like I, like I love Na- like maybe eat, but the point being, and the same thing, like gambling as well.

1:37:57Yeah. That's another hard one because it does make things fun, it makes it interesting, and they have all the money. Yeah. And yet I don't blame the business. Like, the leagues are trying to make money, and they have the money, and they wanna be sponsored, and it's a great relationship for them because they're both profiting in certain ways.

1:38:15But if you throw in human behavior, right, it's, it's, then you, there's a little disclaimer, you know? I'm gonna feed you 100 million gambling commercials, and I'm gonna say, "Please gamble responsibly." Yeah. Right. It's, it's... So back to your parenting, right? It's the same thing. It's stupid hard. Like, and everybody's there.

1:38:32Their friends are there. They're all doing it. So you're like, "What do we do? Do we go off and live in the woods?" Right. I don't want that either, right? Like, we don't need to go back to the 1800s and... Yeah, so it's tough. It's a tough one. - What's next for you? What's next is to... So, every, I try to do my 2027 forecasting now.

1:39:03So since this was a, book was a first-time thing for me, brand new. Learnt a lot, but now I need to take those learnings with my team and go, "Okay, so now what do we wanna build?" From this, what does 2027 look like? Is it more speaking? Is it getting into the experience business? I have a few other ones.

1:39:25I have a golf app that we're looking at launching and a few other things. But similar, I have to, again, comes back to my time. I have to figure out where I'm going to spend that and not be scattered all over the place. And I'm looking at those extreme ends of, okay, what makes the most sense? And I fully support the IRL.

1:39:49Like, I love that, so I wanna do something in that space. That's where I would lean to next. Continue to work with organizations and help them with their strategy and business. Keep the human element to it, but also get more efficient and use AI as a tool. But that's, that's kinda my focus. What about you with Taxifi?

1:40:09What's-- Where are you at? Where, what- Yeah... Where are you going with it? So Super exciting to s- to say the least. I want it to be at an ability where you click a button and your book- bookkeeping is done. You know where you were as a business from a numbers and a financial arm perspective. "Hey, I made this much money.

1:40:38My expenses were this. This expense was a little higher than the month before." Like, take your health app. Why isn't there something like that on the business side, where you can have a scorecard every day of where your numbers are at- Yeah... So you can actually make decisions? You can actually know how much- In real time

1:41:01In real time, how much taxes you owe. Yeah. Yeah. And you're not getting a $10,000 bill at the end of it. You can forecast all that. Or you have an extra $10,000 in your bank account just sitting there. Why don't we invest it here where you can, you know, make another 10% until December 31st when you have to file your taxes, right?

1:41:19Like, do all these little tricks to help the business owner, and then eventually S- take business owners' business models and be like, "Hey, if you did this in your business- Yeah... What's the probability of this?" I have one client, I had a conversation with her the other day. She's amazing at lead generation.

1:41:44Incredible. Best I ever... Like, one of the best, business owners I have ever seen get leads. But her leads are one time. So she just, it's a funnel system where she's just acquiring clients, and then she has a network of clients that might come back to her in a year or two, but then are gone. It's like consulting a little bit, too.

1:42:07Yeah. Right? How do you, how do you take that, those clients, what do you do with all the network of clients that you've generated? You have an audience. And apparently a ne- like, an audience that wants to buy from you. Right. That trusts you. That trusts you. That trusts your integrity, trusts all that. Okay, now imagine you have this AI model that's 10 times, unblocks c- all these things, where now she can type in stuff and leverage me and collaborate and take her business to a whole different level.

1:42:45Build that experience maybe. I don't know. Yeah. I love the scorecard idea, and I think one of the best uses, I think if somebody was to start a business, they could just build scorecards for that. Yeah. Like f-for anything. Yeah. You could build a scorecard for like if you, if you were coaching a hockey team, like for kids.

1:43:07You could do it for like professionals and... The scorecard thing is like a self-awareness check all the time, right? Like, where am I at? Checking in, because you get so in a trance where you pick up the phone, you do scroll, you do this, you don't do that, da da da, next thing you know you're off track. But that scorecard, if there was something there to, like, include in your calendar, here's where your revenue is.

1:43:32Here, like just remind triggers. Yeah. Right? And use psychology that social media uses. I think you're, you're on this, like, press a button, here it is. Yeah. Or a push notification. A push notification. "Hey, good job." Yeah. "I made an extra $4,000 this month." Yeah. Just let, I'll let you know. Here's your tax, here's what you actually made.

1:43:58Yeah. Keep going. Yeah. Right? Have that- All that, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's cool. That's cool. We have a final tradition. We have a closing question- Yeah... On this podcast. If you left a sticky note- Shit... On your first laptop before you ever got started, what would it say?

1:44:33So one of my favorite words is relentless

1:44:39I'd lean to be relentless I mean, there's, there's so many things that I could long winded, but I would probably say be relentless And yeah Because you have all the cliches of, you know, never give up and all that. And while that's true, when you put context around it, there's times when you do need to give up, and you do need to pivot, and you need to be fluid.

1:45:12So for me, relentless is a word that allows you to, adapt

1:45:26And not give up, but pivot as required. But just be relentless in your pursuits. And I would say that I'm, I'm pretty good with that, in terms of I'm, I'm either in 1,000% or I'm out. So when I'm in, I'm relentless. Has anybody ever asked you that? No. What's on your laptop?

1:45:58Easy to ask the question. Yeah.

1:46:09It goes back to before we even launched the podcast episode is, like, the judgment. Like, your scare gave you this ability to have agency of your life. I think fear eliminates a lot of opportunity. So to be fearless. And really, people are gonna judge you no matter what. You are gonna fail financially.

1:46:40Get back up. You are gonna piss people off from a relationship. Get back up. Like, figure out what your North Star is and go all in on it and remove the noise. When you say North Star What, how would you describe or define that North Star for you? So to your first avatar that you talked about of the check boxes- -huh

1:47:12That was me in a different sense of, like, the financial check boxes. Like, I did it when I exited type of thing. But then it was like, what's next, right? What's my purpose? It's not about money. It's never about money. My purpose is completely shifted to my family, my legacy, what I enjoy doing, what I want to do.

1:47:42I love growing businesses. I love being with my family. I love taking care of my health. I love being with my friends So for me, the North Star is being aligned with myself daily. So my North Star might not be 20 years out, it's today. Yeah. I think that that's important, and how you define that is brilliant because so many people are looking for their true authentic self, and I think that's a myth.

1:48:20And so what they're doing is they're trying to find something, right? They're like, - It's not-... Harrison Ford in, you know, the, what's it? "Indiana Jones." I'm looking for the treasure. I'm looking for that, my one true self or my one authentic self. I think it's, that's all BS. And how you defined it is a day or a week or whatever, you're checking in with yourself and you're allowed to change that.

1:48:48Yeah. Right? Like, it's like identities. Hopefully, you don't have the same identity you did when you were 5- Yeah... Or 12 or 20, right? It's, it's, it's fluid. It changes. We go through these stages and it's hard to release those identities because it feels like death. You're losing something. Yeah. But how you define that, no, it's, it's brilliant.

1:49:09And then people say, "Well, just North Star," and they think that it's just one destination. Yeah. But it's at that point and it's allowed to change. That's agency. Yeah. Yeah. Right? And it's okay. Yeah. People can grow up. People can change. Like, life change-- Like, it's there, but we get so comfortable with it, and the longer we do something, the more it's, it's a habit.

1:49:33Yeah. It's not good, it's not bad. Yeah. It's just ingrained. Yep. Right? And we just continue to do it because we know it. Yeah, and checking yourself every morning or whatever of what your North Star of that day is even like- Yeah. People are so focused on the future, but, you know, being in the future, you're in anxiety.

1:49:55Being in the past, you're in depression. Like, how do you stay so present? And it's so hard. Yeah. But being aware of it is the first step, and for me, it's every day. And then I'm fortunate too that I've created space for me to be able to, "Hey, I don't have to work tomorrow." But you deserve that because you earned that.

1:50:21Yeah. So you are fortunate- Yeah... But you, y- it didn't- Yeah, I figured- It wasn't handed on your lap. And the only reason why I say that is because- You put yourself in the situation... You put yourself in the situation. And I would, as a Canadian or as a humble person, I would always say that. And one of my friends said to me, "Don't ever forget that you worked your ass off for it, and don't let anybody ever take that away from you."

1:50:46Yeah. Yes, appreciate it. Yes, be grateful. Yeah. But you to- you took with what you had- Yeah... And you did something with it, and you created your success. Yep. And that's what people should see so that they can follow that model for them, and that's my hope that people do that as well, right? They see what's possible.

1:51:06It's not handed, it's not a gift. Yep. Sure, was there breaks and luck and all that? Absolutely. Yeah. But the harder you work, the luckier you get. I do believe that. Yeah. The more you put yourself out there, the more failure, the more whatever, the more times you go, sooner or later something's gonna hit. Yeah.

1:51:22And then you can determine if that hit is big enough or if you keep coming back for more or how- it's up to you. That's the best part. Yeah. But yeah, don't ever second-guess yourself or, you know, be proud of the fact that you did it. Yeah. Right? You took stuff, you worked your ass off, and it wasn't all easy, was it?

1:51:43No. No, and, it's a good call out because you give power, I gave power to something else, right? Yeah. I did it, right? And sometimes you see society of, like, fortune, not fortune- Yeah... Whatever, but- Yeah... That's, like, a small mind thinking of, like, the lens, like- Yeah. Yeah... 100%. Where? 'Cause I see, I hear so many people say, "Well, you're so lucky."

1:52:131,000% I am. Yeah. And then I was just reminded that, hey, don't forget that you worked your ass off, and you, like, you did all those things. Yes, did you have help? Absolutely. Yeah. You can't do it alone, and I'm grateful for all the help, too. At the end of the day, though, you, like, you did it. Yeah. Right? You could've sat in that job and felt sorry for yourself when you got let go.

1:52:37You could've went back to that knowing that it was not in alignment with you, right? And continued to grind harder or whatever, or you could've taken another road. Yeah, 100%. But you didn't, so. Appreciate that. Thank you so much. You got it. Where can people find your book? Everywhere books are sold. The easiest actually is Amazon.

1:52:56They're being a pain in the ass with reviews, so- Oh, yeah... If you don't, if you don't purchase an Amazon book or you don't purchase from Amazon, they don't... It's debatable whether they're gonna give you a review or not. Like, if somebody writes a review for me and they didn't purchase it from there, they might put it up or they might not.

1:53:12So I'm having a little disagreement with Amazon right now. But the whole goal of an author is the more reviews. It's social proof, right? I want people to legitimately like the book, and so if people read it and they like it and they leave a review, that's, that helps out authors more than you know.

1:53:29So any books that you read or that you like, you know, help out a fellow author and leave a review. But yeah, Amazon's good. And if you don't like to read or books, it's, Spotify, Apple Books, Audible. You can listen as well. I did the audio, which is, which is fun. We're gonna do some more stuff audio-wise so it's more digestible on there.

1:53:51But yeah, this has been great. Perfect. Thanks, Craig. Thanks so much