2008. So if I start another business, I'll give you a call,
we'll short everything and we'll both make a ton of money.
Oh, geez. You got excellent timing for starting. That's,
that's great. So you made the brand transition. What was the
brand transition like? How costy was that?
I was relatively straightforward. I was still a
pretty small shop at the time. So transitioning the brand
wasn't too, too big a challenge. And it was much more in line
with a fit for the audience I was already in front of. And so
it was a pretty natural transition when it happened.
Okay. What's the audience look like?
Our audience is founders, owners, business leaders of both
in the business world and in the nonprofit world, surprisingly,
it's about 6040 business nonprofit. And what unites both
of those is that they are our folks are primarily very impact
oriented and wanting to scale to achieve impact. We really don't
have a whole lot of folks that are like scaling flipping private
equity that whole nine yards, it's proximate to what we do.
But by and large, we've got owners and and leaders and we
call the most senior executives that they've got a vision for
their organization. And they cannot do anything other than
scale to make that happen. That's our audience.
Absolutely. So on the NPO, what's what's the secret to
attracting the nonprofits and helping them understand that
you're not a money hungry giant?
Yeah, I think it sticks to you.
All right. Welcome in to vision pros live with Jackson Calame.
I'm your show host, we will be doing interviews for visionary
entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic
visions out there. What's up and welcome in division pros live.
My name is Jackson Calame, host of the show founder and CEO of
first class business. I'm excited to have Scott Ritzheimer
on board. I look up to him tremendously. He does very
similar things to what we do for his business as well as coaching
others to do the same. So he's got a great podcast, by the way,
make sure to check that out. He's also got some great
assessments built into what he does. So you're going to get a
ton of value in the show as well as after the show. Before we dive
into bringing Scott on stage, though, I also want to give
credit to some of the sponsors who help us build out what we're
building here at the show, cold click and tap mental. I'll keep
it fairly short. You can go back to the last episode to look at a
little bit of a longer introduction, but we use cold
click for our LinkedIn automation. And what that does
is it gets our brand distributed in front of more like minded
people. And then we don't have to have forced conversations
with people about why we're relevant to them. When you have
more of an audience coming to you based on their needs and
realizing, Hey, I kind of want to connect with this person.
You're in a really good position to pick and choose who you want
to work with versus so many companies out there that I see
trying to force case studies down people's throats when they
don't, they aren't asking for it. They don't want it. I love
Art Hoffman as a friend as well. He runs the company and they
pay really close attention to the algorithms as well to make
sure that we're compliant as we get in front of as many people
as possible. Tap mental came onto the show. His name's Dave
Goodall who runs that and Dave became a client of ours and he
helps in the blue collar business space. He helps
entrepreneurs that are in general contracting
construction. He has an incredibly impressive past and
IT development as well. And he has this incredible brain where
he can really think through all the CTO, CFO, COO and CMO
capabilities and he's got the diplomacy skills of a CEO as
well. I recommend checking out his case studies if you're in
that space, seeing what he's up to. We did some sessions
together to work on my mindset and some of my past traumas as
well. It's fun as I get to explore these clients I work
with. I also get to learn about their businesses and what they
do. And he was able to hit some really important keys to help
me unlock some things about my communication with team members
and with prospects, etc. And I was just scratching the surface,
but I recommend diving into some of his case studies and some of
the videos that he has. Again, if you're in that space, I
highly recommend checking out what Dave is up to. I hope
that's a resource to at least one of you that's listening in.
Lastly, before we dive into Scott's business, Scale
Architects, we're going to talk about the Water Project. The
Water Project is near and dear to my heart because water is so
far from so many people. It's not. It's probably near and
dear to their hearts as well, but they don't have access to
it. And I just can't imagine what it would be like to have
my own children living in a society where they have access
to water that's three, four or five miles away from their
home. They have to leave school to go get it, and it's still
risk water, water that could end up killing the family. And I
don't mean to take everything down to a real negative thought
process. I don't feel that way. I feel like we have an
opportunity, those who are listening in, to make a
difference, make this impact, to perhaps save a life by giving a
dollar. And if you know of a better cause that you would like
to support, don't hesitate to drop that in the comments
either. I'm constantly on the lookout, trying to become more
aware of how can we help the 8 billion people in this world.
That photo right there says a lot of this. Can you imagine
what if your kids were celebrating like they were at
Disneyland because they had access to clean drinking water?
Very cool opportunity to help out. You get to see the impact
of what you do. And again, I hope we all do our best to help
with situations like that in the world. So without further ado,
let's fill your glass in terms of entrepreneurship, being a
founder, conquering the journey along the way. Scott is, he has
this laser capability of helping people get right to the point of
what they need. And we're going to put that on full display in
this interview. So Scott, now that the pressure is on as high
as possible, thanks for being on Vision Pros Life.
Jackson, absolute pleasure to be here. Been looking forward to
this conversation for a while now.
Absolutely, man. Well, let's hear again, you defined this a
little bit in the beginning. By the way, those who wanted me to
get Scott to reveal his best kept secret for NPOs, I wasn't
going to do that to him. That's his business model. So you can
dive into that later if you want to, Scott, but just for
everybody's sake. Now I don't plan on diving into that today
unless you want to. So who should be listening? Scott, why
do you feel they should be listening to you? What is your
background contribute to those who, you know, where are people
at? Where are they stuck at? Where are they going to?
Yeah, so folks should be tuning in now, folks that are on that
founders journey, that business owners journey. And the reason
for that is it's a lot like, you know, we hear leadership all the
time. There are a million and two books on leadership, and
there's a lot of really good ones. There's some bad ones,
but there's plenty of information on leadership. But
the leadership journey of a founder is different than any
other leadership journey for one very specific reason. Any other
leadership journey you take part in, there are clear milestones
to demarcate the way. So for example, let's take the
leadership journey of your typical employee, wonderful
employee, crushes it on the front line and they're like,
hey, you've got potential, we see leadership in you, you can
be a manager. Now your frontline lead, you're leading a team of
five people. And that's a hard transition to make. For some
folks, you know, like the better they are doing, the harder it is
to become a manager and you have to do through others. But it
makes sense because it comes with a new title, right? We
understand that the game has changed and that we have to
adapt as leaders. Challenge is, though, for founders, there are
no milestones that demarcate the way that there's no specific
event that happens that says you have moved from being a startup
entrepreneur to being a manager. When does that happen? Right? Or
or to move from being a manager to being a leader. Here's what
it boils down to for founders, what do they always write on
their business card, the very first business card, even before
the business is has started founder and CEO, right? We are
CEO from day one. The truth of it is you don't actually start
acting like a CEO, maybe even better, you don't you shouldn't
start acting like a CEO until stage five. There are four
distinct transitions that happen on the journey before you've
ever gotten a single change in your title. And so because of
that, why founders need to listen is because the game has
changed around them. It's not the same game that you played, it
doesn't it's not governed by the same rules. You don't achieve
success the same way the strategies are not the same.
Even if you're in the exact same industry you were in three years
ago, just by virtue of being successful three years, you have
changed the game around you.
This is likely to turn into a live therapy session where I
start crying. As I feel like you're speaking straight to me a
little bit, which is good. I mean, we we had a strategy
session the other day, Scott and I where he was evaluating my
business and where I'm at. So some of what he's talking about,
it feels very pointed. But that's simply because I
understand the struggle of going through this process super well.
I love the insight you made to about, you know, you're not
necessarily called to be the CEO. As a founder, you've got this
very, very strong clarity about these five stages. We're gonna
come back to that. I just wanted to plant the seed for anybody
listening that I know what this is like to, you know, and Scott's
Scott's preaching something that I think is very important to
people. And I think that's preaching something that I don't
hear in the market, and I don't necessarily have developed in my
end. So it's what makes me super intrigued with what he does. So
Scott, what's your vision for those that you serve on the
other end of this? What what are we looking forward to
overcoming and then moving towards as we conquer the
journey?
So I've helped start around 20,000 organizations help scale
a lot of them. And one of the things that I've found is it's
like, this is a difficult journey. I did it myself. It was
accidental. At first, I somewhat accidentally ended up co
founding a business back in 2008. We scaled it up to $10
million business before I sold it. And, and the thing that I
want is, I don't want people to have to struggle as much as I
did for as long as I did, for, you know, for no reason at all,
right? Like there isn't we, it's hard, but you don't have to
struggle and you definitely don't have to get stuck. And so
even though I'm a relatively young guy, I had a lot of
success relatively early on, there were still protracted
seasons in my life where I just felt stuck, I felt isolated. And,
and it's I've found now I thought that was just part of the
deal, right? I thought, you know, to be at the top is to be
alone or, you know, it's, it's hard, right, etc. It's, it's
nonsense. You don't have to ever get stuck. You should always
know where you are. You should always know what you have to do
to move forward. It may be hard, right? But you can do it. And
what I found, and this is why I love founder so much, is that as
the moment that they know what to do, there is no force in this
world that will stop them from that, right? Like, it's like,
you will see people do unbelievable things. And yet
they're stuck all the time. Why is that? And it's because we
don't have a way of knowing how how we need to adapt and evolve
over time. And so if I can just start to create clarity, if I
can give people the map that already exists, right, and then
free them up to do the one or two things at any given point
in time that they need to do, the amount of success that they
can achieve in the short period of time that's necessary, is
it's what drives me day in and day out. Excellent. I want to
circle back. You talked about the transition of titles and
roles as leaders. Again, not something I had thought through.
But a reality that founders do face, you know, it's gonna be
really hard for those who love recognition, right, as a form of
compensation, right, you you've founded a business, you hope
your spouse, you know, is excited about it, if they are
excited about it, awesome. Then you find out your CEO, you get
your little business card printed where you say your
president, CEO, principal, whatever, whatever title you
choose, you know, in the beginning. There's no clapping
that occurs, right? Nobody cares, right? You know, your
spouse wants to know how much money did you make today? You
know, probably like it's a good question to ask those around you
same thing, you know, your parents, your siblings, you're
still just Jackson. When you found that company, it never
really changes. There's there's not, you're not going to get the
recognition. You know, it's not going to happen. And that can be
such a disruptive challenging thing to face, not only for the
founder. But like we're talking about, like I'm talking about
the, the ones who are supposed to be supportive, they can wear
out very fast with that reality. If you don't mind, we're going
to derail a little bit. What can a founder do to responsibly go
through that transition? What can they do to support and help
their family friends understand why they're doing the crazy
thing they're doing?
Yeah, I'm gonna give you a slightly disappointing question.
And that's not your job. Right. So, so here's, here's the
problem is that we take entrepreneurial advice from
non entrepreneurs, right? That's fundamentally what's going on.
You can't expect everyone in your life to get it. In fact,
what you're doing is crazy, right? And you take the
entrepreneurial journey, how it starts, you got someone who's
making decent money, usually good money somewhere. And they
give that up to go do something that's got an 80% chance of
failure, and they make $0 doing it right? Like that's nuts. If
your family loves you, they should tell you to stop, right?
Like, that's them doing their job. And so I don't want to
paint them in a bad light. They love you, they want what's best
for you. And starting a business is not what's best for you,
right? If we're just playing a numbers game, that's a bad idea.
So you expect like if your family loves you, and they try
to discourage you from doing it, they are not trying to tear you
down. They're trying to protect you. They may not write, but
they are trying to protect you. And so you can't change them.
You can't make you being okay, requisite on them changing. So
what do we do? Because we have to have support. It is a tough
those early days. There's two things that we have to do from a
support perspective. One is that delay getting into the game as
long as you can. So people skip this is the first part of the
process, the entrepreneurial journey starts before you become
an entrepreneur. And it's what I call the dissatisfied employee,
right? It's the stage where you're still working for
somebody else. But you've got a vision, a desire and a passion
to start your own your own business or nonprofit. And we
are, we're so vision oriented as a group founders that we as
soon as we get the vision, we go. And I'm not necessarily
trying to discourage someone from doing that. I'm just
offering what lessons can you learn before everything is on
the line? Right? The beautiful thing about being and staying in
that stage is uncomfortable and angst ridden as it is, is that by
staying there, you are learning the lessons on someone else's
dime. Right? Someone else is covering payroll. Once you jump
in, and you got to even make your own payroll, right and pay
yourself, let alone somebody else, it the game gets real,
real fast. So the very first one is delay starting as long as
you possibly can. It maybe means working it as a side hustle.
Maybe it means getting another job that's closer to the
industry you want to work in. Gary Vaynerchuk was a successful
successful in the wine business. He wanted to get into media. He
went and volunteered for free at media companies so that he could
learn the game. And he had built a multi
I'm glad you shared that I didn't know that.
Yeah, yeah. And he had built a multimillion dollar business wine
business on social media, like the guy knew what he was talking
about. But he recognized that he was getting into a different
game. And so he became a student of the game. And so as much as
it's all rah rah, and let's go and let's get started. And there
is a point where you can wait too long. That's not the problem
for most founders. The problem for most founders in the
beginning is that they start too soon. So that's support. Number
one is just learn the lessons on someone else's dime. Support
number two is you got to get around other entrepreneurs. They
can be further in the journey. That's wonderful. They can be at
the same stage in the journey. That's wonderful. They could be
at stage one still, and earlier in the journey. But you've got
to get around people who who have the same kind of vision and
passion that you do. Now they won't have vision and passion
for the same things as you do. But you've got to get around
like minded people, people who understand the risk, they
understand the fact and most people don't get this, you
actually need some risk to do your best work, right? You can
not expect your spouse to carry that same level of risk as you
can. But if you can find comrades, right, if you can find
people who will walk the road with you, they don't even have
to have the answers. That's not what we're talking about. We're
talking about just being there for each other. And so the more
supported you can be with your community of other founders,
other entrepreneurs, other leaders, the less demand there is
that you put on your family to fill that need, and it's not
their responsibility in the first place.
It's a heavy, it's a heavy load to bear. You know, and it's,
it's amazing to me the spouses that are capable of doing that.
But it's also there's a reverence to be said about, yes,
we shouldn't be putting that weight on our family members.
You mentioned Gary Vaynerchuk, you know, following the
principle of understanding the value of work ethic. Robert
Kiyosaki is who I learned that from and Rich Dad Poor Dad,
where he talks about don't become a slave to money, you
know, work for the sake of the value of work itself. And he did
the same thing. He went and he found somebody to mentor under
that he was willing to go to a project for that person. I'm
sure that person turned him down, he would have found next
person or the next person. You know, I jumped in a little bit
too early, probably. But I also jumped in as a originally as a
sales rep, then as a junior co founder. And like you said, I
was working on somebody else's dime to master certain skills.
I remember my first hire, I was going to go ask Adam to invest
in this LinkedIn guy for me. And I realized that the last minute
and he would have chewed me out so bad because I was about to
ask him to invest in it. And I was so scared and nervous about
the whole entrepreneurship thing that I had this guy was gonna
work for me for one hour per week at $3.33 an hour. And I
almost went and asked for him to pay for that for me. And I
stopped myself last minute realized, why don't I just do
it? I don't need to tell Adam I'm doing this is kind of my
decision is my account anyway, I felt like a big man. I went and
spent my $3. I'm another 24 year old or whatever. But the point
being, I'm so glad I had that opportunity like you talked
about to incubate to watch how he interacted with proposals for
companies like QL and golf resort and the Masters
Tournament in Augusta, like I watched him and how he prepared
for the Baylor Angel Network and helped him prepare the slides
and be behind the scenes on that. And all of those things
that I got to do behind the scenes helped me prepare myself
for running my company that I have now. And there's still so
much I need to learn about about building companies even after
all the opportunities. Let's show us shift gears a lot though
Scott, I want to dive into your personal vision a little bit. So
beyond the clients beyond what you're doing for others. What
do you see for yourself over the next five or 500 years or five
months, whatever your vision horizon looks like?
I want to restore the nobility of work. You've mentioned this
earlier, it's work for work sake. I think from my generation
on, I'm technically a millennial, but from millennials
on, we have a downright awful view of work, right? It is a
disease to rid ourselves of and it couldn't be further from the
truth. And, and so we got to start with why is that? Why is
it that way? And a lot of its culture and things like that.
But organizationally, the reason why is a lot of us are not doing
the work that we need to do as leaders to get our companies and
nonprofits to a state of health that makes work noble, right?
That that makes work worthy. We ask our people to do so much
stupid stuff. No wonder they're frustrated by it, right? We ask
them to sit through so much bureaucracy or chaos. That's
just it's an it's almost entirely avoidable. And so the
vast majority of what I do is with founders, vast majority of
how we implement is through their leadership teams. But the
driving force behind that is I want to create a world I want to
create an environment where folks can enjoy going to work
where they go to work. And their work matters not just in the
sense of like it's all nonprofit mission oriented, but it matters
because it actually works, right? We're not there was a
story. I don't know if it's true or not of a team of folks in the
army that they didn't really have much to do. And so the their
boss wanted to keep them busy. And so he had them go out and dig
holes. And they did this for like three weeks. And no one
had any idea why they did it. And, and it was I mean, it's
miserable backbreaking work. And one of the guys goes missing in
the middle of the night around the third week, and they can't
find him anywhere. They find him out of these holes, and he's
filling them back in. Because he he actually chose to do more
work because of the sense of accomplishment that it would it
would bring, right? So that there's there's this point of we
have to have meaning behind the work that we we need, we have to
have mission and vision, yes, but we also have to have
progress and movement toward those goals. And so for the
vast majority of companies that I work with, they are stuck in a
suboptimal stage, much like founders get get stuck. Their
organizations get stuck as well. And when we get stuck in that
suboptimal stage, yes, it's hard for founders. Yes, it's hard for
leaders. It's downright miserable for the people inside of these
organizations.
As a lot of a lot of powerful truth to that, I think a lot of
military personnel have the both the adversity, as well as the
the strength building opportunity to go through that in a way most
of us can't comprehend where they're they're stuck waiting
around for something to happen, you know, or holding the front
line, as depicted in like a great movie like Band of
Brothers, for anybody who's seen that if you haven't, it's pretty
pretty hard thing to take in. But you know, if you're in that
if you're in that foxhole and stuck with a lot of idle time,
then it can play with your mind. You know, if you don't if you
don't exercise great control over, you know, self mastery and
awareness and find those purposes. So thank you for
sharing that, Scott. What's your worst business experience ever
today? I've even a little bit darker. You know, what, what
about you? What's what's been just a difficult experience
you've had to go through in this process?
There's been there's been plenty of them. I think one of the
things that a lot of folks don't quite understand is that a
partnership is every bit as challenging as a marriage is,
right? It's every bit as rewarding as well. But second to
marriage, a 5050 partnership is one of the hardest relationships
you can ever deal with. And, and I was in a business partnership
with my co founder, and every single one of those really
difficult times had to do with that relationship, right. And
it's just you take two hard charging guys, going after
something, we loved each other, you know, to the end of the
world, and that love was tested again, and again, and again. And
so that and really the kind of theme on a couple of these is,
you know, at times I'd fire a couple of my best friends. And
so when work, when when work not only is hard from a business
decision standpoint, but also from a relational decision,
those are are, and have always been the hardest points for me
in my walk as a leader and a founder.
I agree. Any of you who have, you know, think of your favorite
team ever, you know, or your favorite coworker, your favorite
person and your best friend in school, etc. Your spouse, as
Scott's talking about, I couldn't agree more. It's that
what's one of the same, you're now dedicated, you found
somebody who finally believes so much in what you believe in and
want to accomplish that they've dedicated their lives to to
playing your game with you at your speed and on and moving on
that. And when it doesn't work out, you know, it has to end or
just doesn't or they just disappear. It is one of the
most gut wrenching, you know, knee jerking whiplash
experiences that that you can go through. I have a former
business partner, I don't I don't name his name. But when we
had our final conversation of, you know, business, I said,
Listen, man, there's this highway in 16 called 1604 goes
around San Antonio, it's a giant loop. And I said, Dude, you're
you're headed east on 1604. And it's awesome. No, but I'm headed
west. I was like, we are so backwards and how we do things.
And I hope to God that we come, we end up in the exact same
destination in heaven. But I want nothing to do with you in
this life and the way that you do things. And it was a very
obviously hard thing for for him to take. One of his favorite
quotes was disturbing. It was a revenge is a dish best served
cold. And I have to look over my shoulder nowadays, you know,
because of that reality. But it's, you know, that was
somebody who was I mean, we were in, you know, suits. I don't
know if you've seen that show, Mike and Harvey, like that, that
that was us. You know, we that was our dynamic was perfect. But
we were so opposites. And so our brotherhood had to pause for
life, because of the way that we both chose to do things. And if
you as a founder, you as a visionary in our facing that
reality, you're having to go through that. You're definitely
not alone on that reality. And let's let's dive all the way to
the opposite end of the spectrum. Scott, what's your
best experience and business been? What does that look like?
Or one of them? You probably have quite a few based on the
books behind you.
Yeah, I struggle with best and worst because it's it's all the
little thousand things. Yeah, it's the thousand little things.
And some of some of the best have been it's always been
someone else's success. That's definitely been true is it has
not been my own successes. So I remember about two years after I
had transitioned from, you know, owner and CEO of my company.
And, you know, I worked hard ahead of time to get the
leadership team to where they would thrive without me. That's
a hard thing to do, right? You talk about ego and what that's
going to push the buttons. And I remember, you know, seeing them
grow the next year and grow again the next year and grow
again the next year. And just hearing about that success was
was so encouraging to me. I mean, the one thing I wanted to
do for really about the last half of my time there was to
make sure that when it was time to leave, I left well. And and
now afterwards, I would say, you know, the previous business was
more financially rewarding, you know, it was a multimillion
dollar business. But the little emails I get from clients today
of just like, this happened, you know, change. This is just
these thousand little wins and getting to see that firsthand.
That's, that's the gold for me.
I love that. That's awesome. I'm not gonna see your thunder on
that one. We're gonna keep going. So let's talk about
before we talk about the evolution of the founders, and
what that looks like. Breaking that down even further. One more
powerful lesson. What's another powerful lesson that other
visionaries can learn from your experience?
Yeah, there is a map. I mean, I went for a very long time. And I
had lots of different experiences that affirmed that
there was no map for success for what we did. We mostly created
an industry that wasn't like we were part of an industry. And
for a long time, that served us really well, right? The just,
hey, we're going to go out and figure it out. We're pioneers.
That served us really well for a while until it didn't. And, and
I remember going out and it's like once if you think that
there's no map, if you think, you know, that you're the one
who's got to figure out the next step, right, you're the pioneer
who's going to do it. What do you do when you can't figure it
out? Right? And it's like your world will come crashing down
very, very quickly. And so the reality of it is, is yes, you are
on a journey that is every bit unique as you are, but you are
also walking along the footsteps of 1000s of other people. And so
one, if you can recognize, hey, there's a map to this, someone
else knows what's ahead of me, and it's going to look a little
different for me, but the pattern is the same. It does two
things. One, it creates this moment. I tell the story, I was
you remember malls, I think we're both old enough to
remember malls. I was I was in a mall, I wanted to go and foot
locker and look at a pair of Nikes or something like that.
And so my mom didn't want to go to foot locker. I was
getting the shocks and Nike shocks.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's what yeah, or the pumps, it
might have been the pumps. But I want to go and it's just she's
like, Okay, meet me at JC Penney. And so I'm like, Okay, great.
I'm not paying any attention to what anything is. I just want to
go in the foot locker. And so I come out of foot locker after a
while. And I look around, I'm in this giant mall, and I have no
idea where I'm gonna go. Right? I know I got to get to JC
Penny. I just, I don't even like I didn't even know where I was.
And so you also remember in malls, they had those triangle
like kind of pylons by half of the entrances. I don't know why
it wasn't in front of all the entrances. They had a big map on
one side. And what's the little sticker on the map say, you are
here. That's exactly right. You are here. And I remember the
relief that I had even as a six, seven, eight year old, just from
knowing where I was because once I knew where I was, then I could
start to look around for where JC Penny was and then I could map
the the the route in between. And so when you feel like you're
pioneering out and there is no map, it's impossible for you to
know where you are. Right? You don't get to have a you are here
moment and and you don't get the relief that comes from that you
don't get the clarity that comes from that. And and as clear as
you are about your vision, if you don't know where you are, how
are you ever going to map the process of getting to that
destination. So I would say there is a map. There's a couple
of them actually. And the very best thing you can do is to
understand where you are right now.
Yeah, your boy scouts are going to come in and argue with you on
this, by the way. And that's OK. I mean, if we get past a
semantics game, you know, they're they're screaming right
now, Scott, you need a compass. You know, you don't need a map.
You know, and we could open that argument. But at the end of the
day, the map, the compass, the stars, there are resources,
there are assets, you're not alone. You don't have to feel
lost. You can choose to be lost. You can choose to try to think of
the only one with that problem. But knowing that you have a
series of resources and assets to move out of your own way is
one of the most important things that a visionary could probably
dive into. So let's let's explore that from the evolution
standpoint of founders, Scott, the time is yours. If you have a
question that I should be asking, what's that question?
What's the question people should be asking you?
Yeah, I think the question would be like, why does it matter?
Right? We've kind of talked about this a little bit. And
here's super practical. Here's why it matters. If you're feeling
stuck, if you feel like you're spinning your wheels, if you feel
like you're doing a lot of the same things, but not getting the
same results anymore, or maybe even worse, you're getting the
same results. Then, you know, the question is like, why, how's
that working for you? Right? It's something has changed or
something has to change to move forward. And we all kind of get
that we all understand that here. But the problem with that
sentiment is it's only like, it's like saying there is an
equation. Okay, great. What's the equation? Right? So how do
you do so practically what it looks like is there's not a
person listening to this who is not wasting probably at least
10 hours this week on stuff that they do not actually need to do.
Right. I agree with that. Not not one. And, and again, we can
kind of Okay, I got that here. I'm wasting time. We've both
done some time in marketing. So you can say like, 50% of
marketing works, we just don't know which 50% it is, right?
Like there's something about what you're doing that's
creating success. But what is it now? And here's what makes it
even trickier is the thing that created success in the past,
even if you can prove this is specifically what created
success for me, there's a great chance that if you did that and
you did it well enough, and you did it long enough, it's not
going to create success anymore. And you talked about ego was
this tile this together. So, you know, you're we we want folks
to see us make the diving catch, right? Yeah, here's the
twist. If you've been doing this long enough, you're stage
three, stage four of the process. You've actually moved
off, you should have moved off the field by now you should be
the coach on the sideline. That's the role that you play.
We're not even talking CEO yet. We're just talking about a
leadership role of being a coach on the sideline. And so
what do you think is going to happen if like, let's say it's
all on the lines, the the end of the game championships on the
line, we got to make the we got to make it to the end zone. And
they throw the ball and you see it happening and you take off
down the sideline and you go make the diving catch as the
coach, what's going to happen? Right? That same diving catch
that you were celebrated for in the past. If you still pride
yourself on how high you can jump or how good your hands are
or how fast you can run, not only are you not going to win,
you're going to become an embarrassment to yourself, to
your team, you're going to frustrate your best people and
they're going to leave. And so the the exact thing that
creates success at one stage can become the exact thing that
prevents success in another stage. And we need to
understand what those are for going to succeed as founders.
I loved reading that in your book. I absolutely love it.
Reminded me of reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, the four hour work
week and this book, The Effective Executive. The
caliber of the content was huge. I mean, I have a lot of
guests and you do too, right? The applications that we get,
the amount of lead magnets and stuff we go through to filter
and make sure our audience is served well. Yet here I found
myself saying, dang it, I have to get this book in. Like I
just had to as I read page by page. Wasn't because I needed
to be prepared for this. It was because the content was so
good and that story was so compelling and new to me that I
was like, whoa, this is huge. And like you talked about that
coach going out in the field doing that, the flags would fly,
right? Foul. The fans would be disappointed. You know,
everybody, it would be laughable, but it would be
miserable. And as coaches, I've been playing with that concept
with other entrepreneurs ever since reading that in your
book because it's become foundational to one area of how
I look at business now. And I actually talked about Pete
Sena. And if you haven't met, I look forward to you guys having
each other on each other's shows as well. He talked about
how there's another stage of Foundership and you've also
alluded to it. We'll see what we can cover in five minutes. But
he said Jackson, there's a time though, and it's not a
defined sport where you do have to get back in the game,
depending on the size of your operations, depending on what
you're doing. We talked about Bill Russell and how he was a
player coach before the NBA became as big as it did. And so
I was like, fair, good point. Awesome. But it's again, it's a
refinement of the map. It's the deciding. You're saying it's
knowing that I'm moving in the right direction and I have full
control to take this exit if I want to enjoy this little
detour and get back on knowing that's going to help me heal or
that's going to help me prepare, help me move. But I just I
can't stress enough anybody who's listening right now, you
got to get Scott's book and read this thing. It will
completely open your paradigm to a more healthy perspective of
what it's like to be a founder. And I thank you for living your
life in a way where you've created that much clarity at
such a young age. So feel free to dig in, just dive in. Where
should we go next, Scott? Yeah. So one of the attempts like in
a format like this is tough to get through all seven stages. So
we're not going to like, like just destroy everyone's mind for
a second. The books there for that. It's great. Here's the
here's the one thing though that's easy to miss in the book.
But I think it's actually really, really important. One of
the difficulties whenever you learn that there is a map and
you start to see the destination really clearly and you see the
gap between where you are and where you want to go really
clearly, you know, it actually gets a little harder. It gets
harder to to deal with those gaps. And what that can
translate to, especially for founders, is I've got to get
there. When I get there, I'll be OK. I'll be happy when, right?
I will have arrived when I'll be satisfied when will be a
success when and it's always something out into the future.
And the catastrophe of that, to be blunt, is we miss almost
all the journey ahead of I just had someone on my guest, her
name is Jen Drummond. Look her up. Anyone listening, go find
Jen Drummond. She is unreal. She climbed Mount Everest as a
training run for another mountain. Let's just put it that
way. I asked her, how much time did you spend training? And she
said, at the top of Everest, I realized I only got to be there
for 10 minutes because the weather was changing and I had
to get off. But that 10 minutes took me 1026 hours to train for.
And she said, if I did it just for the summit, I would have
been the most miserable person alive. But because I enjoyed
that's her because I enjoyed the journey. That's what made it
all worth it. And so for us as founders, you know, it's this
natural progression that we go through. But once we start to
really get clear on what the next level actually is, we can
start putting everything into getting to that level. And again,
the tragedy of that is that we missed the joy that's available
at this stage. And so one of the things in the book goes to
it's pretty much the end of each chapter. But I pause for a
moment before we move on to what's the next level and and
just go through what is the joy that's available to you right
now in this stage, because there's something unique about
every single stages, no matter where you are, there's seven
different stages, no matter what stage you're in, there is a
joy that is most poignantly felt in just that one stage. And
if you're so busy trying to get to the next stage, you'll miss
out on the joy of the stage that you're in. And the question
I have for you is like, is it worth it?
Well said. I have to give that a moment of silence. Because
figuring out is it worth it is not an immediate response
thing. You know, you got to meditate and walk on that to
really know, you know, if that if that's the case, you can
justify it quickly. You know, you can tell yourself, no, I
don't want to hear that and dive into it. But take some
time and some space to consider this concept, even if that
means sacrificing one Netflix movie, you know, even if that
means not seeing the game tonight, but catching the six
minute highlight reel that shows you all the best parts
anyway. You know, there's lots of time we can carve out. I'm
grateful for Dr. Peter Drucker on that this chapter to know
thy time very much changed my own ability to look at that.
And I use that on a regular, almost a daily basis to optimize
what I'm up to. This the journey, I was very blessed,
Scott, to have set a personal boundary for myself with my
second startup. I told my co-founders, my daughter's three,
I'm out, you know, I'll be the janitor, you know, I'll be
behind the scenes, whatever you guys want, but I'm not going to
be the face. I'm not going to do the 100 hour work weeks
anymore. And we got to that point, and had I not told myself
that we would have gone 10 more, they were begging me, go
10 more years, Jackson, we got this, we can do this. And I
told them, no, I said, I'm not going to come up to my daughter
at 13 years old and say, hi, my name is dad. What's your name?
Their definition of providing wasn't wrong, but it was very
different than mine in terms of what I want to do and how I
want to show up. And part of that was knowing that we have
such an awesome journey to enjoy. And I wasn't doing that.
I sacrificed those three years on purpose. But I also realized,
Scott, near the pinnacle of what we were doing, where we
really hit the mountaintop, we were at 36,000 recurring monthly
revenues. We were scaling fast too, it was like five to 10,000
per month in addition, and we're all taking the same
salaries every month. It was awesome. It was a pain for my
realtor, but it was awesome. And I saw, I looked out, it was
like that scene in Homeward Bound where the dogs get over
the mountaintop and all I saw was mountain ranges. And I was
like, oh my gosh, this is just a first. We have to go through
all, and I said, no, you know what? I'm going to set up a shop
on the other side of this mountain. I'm going to be very
happy here. I'm going to stay right here while they continue
on and build up a good life here. I didn't know years later
that would prepare me for wanting to conquer the rest of
the mountain ranges. But I'm so grateful I had that little
thought and insight. And I look for people like you in my life,
leaders, coaches who understand the value of the journey and
understand the importance of not getting addicted to the
destination. Because I don't want to end up at the end of my
founding journey being the only one celebrating it.
Yeah, it's so true. And I think
life is not up and to the right. It just isn't, right? Even if
you followed a process like mine to the T, it is not up and
to the right, at least experientially, right? And so
when we can recognize that there's waxing and waning,
there's ups and downs, and we can be present in the moment,
enjoy the ones that are with us, and focus on walking each day
the best we can, that's where joy comes from. Absolutely. Joy.
And I've also seen you express fun in the process as well. You
call one of your stages fun. And I'm more of a nurturer, so I
kind of get into like the healing and the touchy feely
stuff. But we can all use more fun in our lives. And those of
you who are looking for it, Scott has that as a big part of
his culture and what he does. So if you want to reach out to
Scott, reach out to him through his business, we showed that a
little bit, Scale Architects. We'll put it in the show notes
as well. Don't hesitate to comment as well and just ask a
question. We'll make sure to get it to Scott so that he can
respond to that. And Scott, how would you prefer people get in
touch with you? Yeah, the website's the best place.
You kind of pick your own story from there. The best resource
coming off of the tail end of this conversation is that
ebook. If you do it, you'll see an opportunity to just chat
with me directly. I'd love that. There's nothing that I enjoy
more right now than hanging out with people who've read the
book and they're putting it into use in their life and in
their business. It's a ton of fun. So start there and we'll
see where the journey goes. I'm also going to be a little bit
more direct about one of the other opportunities you have
with Scott. And that is he's got an amazing podcast.
Predictablesuccess.com can guide you to it. And you can go
check out his show. Scott, what's the show name?
Yeah. So what you're looking at there is a show by my business
partner, Les McEwen. It's called Scale with Predictable
Success, which is fantastic. We've got another one, yes,
called Secrets of the High Demand Coach. And I bring in all
these just unbelievable business and life and marketing coaches.
And my heart with that is I had some really bad coaches and I
didn't realize until I started, I got into the coaching
profession that actually lots of people have had a couple of bad
coaches. And there are just some unbelievably amazing coaches
and consultants out there. And the passion and heart behind
the show is to introduce you to as many of them as I can find.
So check it out. You'll find some unbelievable folks.
They'll challenge you. They'll encourage you and everything
in between.
I love that. They're not all created equal, just like
basketball players, soccer players, or everything in
between. There are different levels. And that's why I
recommend, you know, if you're at that advanced stage of
entrepreneurship, then I hope you're not listening to every
single one of my episodes. You have big fish to fry and
things to do. But when you have a specific need, what I do is
I usually Google like Gary Vaynerchuk and the specific
problem or Pat Flynn and specific problem. Same thing
with Scott. He's now one of those resources where I'm like,
oh, what is Scott talking about in relation to this? It's
very helpful to know who knows the map super well and can get
me moving to the next phase fast. And if you want to reach
out to each of us and mastermind with us, don't hesitate to do
it. But he's now one of my best kept secrets. And Scott, I
appreciate you being on the show, man. Thanks for being
here today.
Jackson, it was an absolute privilege. Thank you.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you
tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing
your reactions as these episodes continue to move
forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have
more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to
participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your
time.