Tell me about your vision when you decided to start the business.
Well, service really is the foundation of it.
And I think in today's world, particularly with young people,
purpose and service is just so fundamental and an important component
in regards to whether or not you're going to be successful as a business owner,
successful as a entrepreneur, successful as a manager,
in dealing with people because getting a check just doesn't cut it anymore.
People want to have a reason to go to work.
So I had literally retired.
I had a very successful career in the financial industry in New York City
and was living in Breckenridge, Colorado.
I was retired.
And as I had mentioned, I was living what I thought was the closing,
the closing chapters of my life, which for all of you, how could I put this,
more mature business owners that are out there, don't stop.
Because this whole facade of I'm going to retire and put my feet up,
and don't get me wrong, I was having a great experience in Colorado,
but my life has taken on such a fuller level of involvement and joy
and interaction and reengaging in areas of life that I want to do,
as I was mentioning, in service, not just chasing the check anymore,
but in how can I help others and get paid along the way.
And it's just been such a rewarding experience.
Yes.
The points that you made were exceptional.
Don't stop.
And I believe that even at my age or even younger,
I thought about what am I going to do when I retire.
I don't even know why I'm thinking about that so early on in life.
And as my career went on and I saw people that were retired,
but they were going back to work,
the boredom or missing the camaraderie.
And so all the things that you were speaking about and why you came back
and being more fulfilled and now truly doing a service for others,
it's almost like you've decided, you know what, I'm going to give back.
It's really true.
Retirement is just another way of positioning yourself in death's waiting room.
I'll take a number.
I'm ready up next.
Life's about engaging.
Life's about having relationships.
Life's about participation.
And again, I'm not knocking those that want to retire or that do retire.
More power, if that's your joy, I'm happy for you.
And if providing service in some way during your retirement years is a way for you to give back,
even better.
But as a lifelong entrepreneur, as someone who has been involved in the business world my entire life,
I find that being reengaged in work, thinking, talking, finding ways to create solutions,
because that's really what successful business is all about.
It's not just about selling a widget.
It's about how do I provide a solution to a challenge in the marketplace or for my customers?
That's really what business is about for me.
And it's just really reengaged me in regards to my health.
I'm far more active.
I walk.
I exercise this morning.
In regards to the growth of my relationships, I have far more friends now than I did before,
simply because I come in so much more contact with so many more people.
And I think more.
I read more.
I interact more.
I'm smart again.
I love that.
I dated a woman who was, she's a Canadian at one, she was a Canadian, she is a Canadian.
I dated her and she was still living in New York and very engaged in work.
And I had retired and I would go and visit her and she'd be like, you got to get out of that place.
I was like, why?
She's like, you're becoming dumber by the year.
And she wasn't being mean.
She was trying to throw me a life jacket.
And she was right.
I'm becoming smart again.
And you know what's funny is when you're sitting there alone, whether it's with someone or by yourself,
if you don't continue to feed yourself knowledge, I believe that.
I strongly believe that.
And I love the fact that you enjoy getting back in the world and meeting new people and choosing to move forward to help businesses do the same thing.
Right. Because also, I think, Chris, when people start businesses, they focus so much on the business that they forget about the people.
And so with what you're saying right now is like, hey, still a business, but it's also a service that involves relationships.
So let's not get too deep in the business where you lose the true core of why you have that business and service and helping others
and trying to get them what they need if it's a product, then it's a product.
So with it all being said, what's your why?
So as I had originally stated, it's about serving business owners who are struggling.
So one of the one of the challenges that small business owners that private business owners have is that they're many of them feel like they or become isolated in their in their role as the leader of the organization.
They don't have a team that they can be vulnerable with.
They don't have people that they can talk to about some of their personal challenges.
And they when you don't have someone to be able to ask for help.
You don't get it.
Yeah. So I personally, I'm in recovery. I've been in recovery for many, many years.
I've struggled with drugs and alcohol. My whole family has has experiences, the ravages of drugs and alcohol.
And I find that small business owners, they're under a lot of stress.
They don't have a lot of people that they can talk with.
They can't talk to the people at home. They can't talk to the people at work.
Sometimes they can talk to other business owners.
But, you know, again, there's this whole peer thing of not wanting to feel like you're less than.
So it's very isolating. And when you're when you're a business owner and you're the one who's making all the decisions,
there's also not as much oversight. So you don't have a boss looking over all of your behavior.
And what I found is that sometimes people fall into shenanigans.
We'll put it that way. And, you know, there's little lies that we tell ourselves.
No one will know. No one will find out.
Only this one time. And then the next thing, you know, you might be taking from your accounts receivable.
You might be delaying the payment of your bills.
You might be falling behind in your cash flow because you've been gambling.
You might find that that you're drinking a little bit too much.
Now you're starting in the middle of the day.
And I try to talk to people before they get into crisis.
But what I found is, unfortunately, is that most people don't change until something bad happens.
Their marriage, their family, their work, their situation with the law
forces them to come to grips with the fact that they've wandered from a healthy path.
Their health. They have a heart attack. Something something comes up.
Now, I'm on this podcast trying to wave a red flag because we all know when we're doing silly things.
We all know that it's like, oh, I'm doing it again.
I shouldn't be doing this. And you justify it to yourself.
Those are actually really loud voices, red flags that are giving you a warning of saying,
I'm trying to help you before you're forced to get help.
So don't ignore those voices. They're for real.
They're for real because they're trying to prevent the disaster.
Now, again, unfortunately, most people end up in disaster.
And here's the good news. You can come back from disaster.
OK, 2008, I lost all my wealth and a lot of my family because because of that.
And I felt back into drug addiction. And it was a horrible, terrible situation.
And it wasn't until I crawled out and into an A.A. meeting and asked for help that I was able to,
first of all, get the help that I needed and completely change my life around in a manner that is beyond my wildest dreams.
So if you're struggling a little bit right now. Do a little homework.
Yeah, do a little homework. Do yourself a favor. Find a way out before it gets too late.
Yeah. And you're so right. Only your own business definitely has this this I have to do it.
It's on me. And I was actually just having this discussion with someone is that if you fail, it's because of you.
If you succeed, it's because of you. And that mindset already is pretty daunting to beginning to start a business,
because in order to become successful, you have to fail. But you can't live in those moments.
And living in those moments do bring on the isolation and the and the the feeling of loneliness and that it's not going to happen or it's not going to make it.
Well, all the while you're missing all the good moments, all the product that or the or the business that someone has.
There's definitely often a reason for that.
And thank you so much for sharing that, because I believe you're probably the first leader or person that I've gotten on this call to actually admit that it's hard.
It's a very hard thing. And you didn't say those words. It's hard that anyone can do it.
Anyone can do it. It's a mindset. It's a mind shift.
And and if you do ask for help, such as what you did, things can change, things can change.
And so with that being said, and as we talk so deep within that, what would you tell?
What tips do you have for entrepreneurs that are just beginning or that's in that moment or in that season right now?
So isolation is is. Isolation is the trap.
OK, I found that women seem to have a better ability to be able to be vulnerable and share that they're struggling with something than than men.
So I find that particularly older men are are terrified of failing.
And because the consequences are for real.
You know, your your family struggles, your your friendship struggle, you find out who your true friends are, your self-esteem struggles, often your health struggles.
It's it's I'm not I'm not going to sugarcoat it.
It can be difficult. OK.
With that said. It can get worse.
Yeah. Yeah.
So stop. You know, when you're when you go in, when you have a gunshot, you go into triage, they stop the bleeding and they do the repairs.
So you have to stop the bleeding. And again, if it's if it's you know, if it's gambling, if it's drugs, if it's alcohol, if it's sex.
We all know what's distracting us. OK.
I'm not going to ask you to go to therapy and find those underlying causes of what's causing you to act out.
What's causing you to spend all your time on social media?
What's keeping you away from the things that are important that are the harder work?
OK. I'm just going to ask you to find a way to stop the bleeding.
And if that means going to a 28 day rehab, go to a 28 day rehab.
If that means going to a gambler's anonymous meeting, go to a gambler's anonymous meeting.
Right. Oh, you don't want to. Believe me, nobody goes into these situations skipping with joy and excitement.
OK. You go in. I mean, I do volunteer work at a detox center at a local hospital here in Chicago.
And I asked them how many people. Well, first of all, one of the really dispiriting things is how many times I see people again and again and again.
Yeah. OK. So if you think that you're going into a detox or you find yourself in the county jail
and it's and you're asking yourself, well, how the heck did I get here?
Or and you're telling yourself, well, this was an accident. This will never happen again.
I'm here to tell you you're lying to yourself. OK.
The likelihood is if you continue down the path that you're going with the same behavior patterns, you will end up there again or worse.
Yeah. OK. It's funny. If you go into hospitals that deal with addiction, they literally have a chart and it shows the downward path.
It shows that you're going to start losing your friends. You're going to start losing your home, your job, your family, your self-esteem, your health.
It's it's a it's a chart for God's sake. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That's how predictable it is. It's well documented. OK.
Same chart has when you stop when you stop the bleeding, then you can start to take care of the things and start digging yourself out of that hole.
Yeah. And start changing your life into a way that is again, nobody thinks that it's going to be great.
But I promise you it's beyond your wildest dreams.
I've seen and worked with people who are homeless, who are addicted, who are have lost everything, who are at the bottom, who are a frickin mess.
Yeah. And then you see them three, four, five years later.
Literally unrecognizable. Yeah. Unrecognizable. And I'm not saying that you have to be that bottom homeless mess.
In fact, again, I'm waving my arms here with with red flags saying you don't have to go down to be at that point.
You know, for some people, that's what it takes. But if you can stop before then, just take one simple action.
Ask for help. And that's the advice I have in regards to what action step it's an action step that people can take to change the pathway that they're going down.
Yeah. And I it's putting it all together in twenty twenty one. You chose to start get looped and then twenty and you ended up realizing how
of a need it would be to get businesses back on board. But what's so interesting as I as I sit here listening and thinking is I'm sure around the pandemic, that's where a lot of that increased, you know, because you were alone and because you were there.
And which is, you know, in my mind, I'm thinking one of the reasons why most businesses probably did close was because of the stress and the depression and not knowing how to get through it, et cetera.
And so starting get looped and now you are three years, nearly four years in, you have a different journey for business owners and to get them to start really focusing on what they're doing, what they want out of it.
And then not to mention with the experiences that you've shared from being in New York and your background of financing to recovery, to loss, to now having a life that sounds extremely fulfilling and you're running your own business.
You have the experience to share with them that they don't have to take that route. You can actually start a business without all that experience and still do well.
And so it's about the work that you do within yourself. And I am elated that you chose to share this with me, Chris. I'm elated you chose to share this with us because it definitely brings a different twist to not just your business, but the business itself.
And I'm elated that you chose to share this with us because it definitely brings a different twist to not just your business, but the business itself.
Any comments or anything you'd like to say? So I'm happy to act as a guideline. Okay, I'm not selling you anything. I'm happy to talk with you about options that are out there on how to get help.
You can go to our website, www.get-looped.com. That's G-E-T-L-O-O-P-E-D.com. Go into the information section and send me a comment and I'm happy to respond and we'll connect.
And again, I'm happy to listen to where you're at and offer some support in regards to some direction or options that you might be able to take to get out of whatever quandary you might find yourself in at this moment.
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 and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.