story. If you're okay with that, you're okay. So yeah, give us context for the audience real
quick to guys. You might see Brian and I throw some haymakers at each other. We might throw our
laptops at each other. No, I'm just kidding. But he's a strategy ladders and strategy ladders is
super similar to first class business. And because of that, there are some extremely powerful
topics that as all of you who are loyal followers of Vision Pros know, I'm constantly talking about
the 96% of business owners that fell within 10 years and the 4% who survive. And out of the 4%,
the majority of them are just making crap up. And they are not actually winning and knowing how to
duplicate what they do. So here comes Brian with these superpowers to help with that reality.
They're doing things extremely similar to how we're doing things. And I'm like, okay, this could
be one of those situations where one plus one equals 11. And the compound effect takes off,
or it could be one of those one minus ones. Right. We end up eliminating each other in the process of
battle to the death. So that said, I love what they're up to. I love like so many of the principles
that they're building upon. And we'll talk later about what perspectives I see where I would also
experience caution. I've invited Brian to do the same with me and anything that I say.
And that authenticity will lead us to help you guys build your visions with a lot more perspective
and power. That said, Brian's living down in Mexico and I'm jealous about that. Some of y'all
know I was this close to moving to Mexico, but COVID shut that down. He moved because of COVID.
I'm like, we have like the exact opposite story. So I got hair on my head, you got hair on your
beard. You know, like, oh, yin yang, brother, let me stop talking. Tell us your story.
Tell us your story. Well, even the shaving the head was just pragmatic during COVID because the
the woman that used to cut my hair and I was very picky, she upped her price. It was $150
to come to your house and cut your hair. So I said, you know what, I'm just going to shave it off.
But no, we were living in LA. Up until 2019, I was a super competitive outrigger canoe and
stand up paddleboard racer. So I was in the water literally multiple times a day. And if you know
anything about LA, they shut down the waterfront entirely. And they were handing out tickets. I
have friends that, you know, had pretty severe run ins with cops just going down to the water.
And so, and they'd shut down everything, even walking your dog, you know, they shut down the
parks, they shut down everything. So I'm in Texas, I'm going to own it. I wore a mask maybe 100 times
total. Okay, just really, oh, yeah, no, like, like almost never. Sorry, guys. Yeah, sorry to all.
Yeah, I was in LA, we had a little bit different experience. But I did live in the South Bay,
which is operated a little bit differently than other parts of LA during COVID. And, but my wife
and I, we had our oldest daughter at the time, we started looking at options. And prior to COVID,
we were looking at moving to Portugal. And COVID shut that down for us. And then, you know, we
bought a storage unit, put some stuff in there, and then bought a trailer and drove my truck south.
Originally, we went to Ensenada for six months. And then a bunch of our friends were telling us
about this place called La Paz. And I hesitate to say it here, because it's still sort of a hidden
gem. It's about two and a half hours from Cabo. And unlike Cabo, there's no cruise port, there's
no like big corporate resorts, there's no big corporate restaurants. And so it's still very
Mexican. And we were able to go there, still, you know, somewhat isolate because of COVID. But at
the same time, you know, we could go to beaches where there wasn't a single person. I used to
literally get on my paddleboard and go paddling in the morning and jump off and swim with whale
sharks before my first call in the morning. And yeah, I loved it there. I'm a waterman through
and through. I mean, I've got shark tattoos all over me. But I, yeah, we were there until full
time until about a year, a little over a year ago. And we had had an apartment here for about a year,
year and a half before we moved. So we were here generally like once or twice a month.
And our youngest was getting to school age. And it just made sense for us to move here. It's a much
easier to run a business here. La Paz is pretty isolated. And what I think a lot of people don't
realize is Mexico City is just exploding as far as entrepreneurship. This city, I think in the next,
within the next two to five years, people are going to be talking about this is one of the
hotbeds of entrepreneurship in the world. And it's growing incredibly fast. I mean, even just going
and having a coffee or running into a founder from Norway or a founder from, you know, Australia,
things like that. And unlike other cities in the world that I've been to, people don't have those
established bubbles. And so coming here, you're meeting people, connecting, doing business with
them at a speed that I've never experienced living throughout the United States.
Ooh, that's a really, really powerful vision. I appreciate you sharing that, Brian, because
even as somebody who does work globally for the most part, you know, I don't do a lot of,
I don't do anything local. And I learned that superpower and secret, but there's still, there's
such a big globe, right? There's so many different places. And like, if you chose to live in La Paz,
right, your experience will be different than if you lived in Mexico City. And we're looking to
expand to Panama, right, and go to Panama. Most of my team lives in Colombia, in a little place
called Pereira. And there are these pockets of opportunities, right, that pop up. The people
who engage in those environments, you didn't, again, you hit a huge secret. They're not there
to pretend to be successful. Yeah, they're there because they're authentically appreciating life
in its fullest, right? And it's present in the moment. And I can see how that dynamically
changes the type of networking that's taking place, right? Versus we go to some dumb, free
networking event, you know, in our local American piece where everybody's like, yeah,
I'm an insurance broker and hey, I'm a licensed blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And there's like
no, it's all roles versus realities of like, who is doing what for bigger impact. So thank you for
sharing. That's a gold mine for everybody listening. I mean, we all need to leave the country,
you know, and I'm not promoting the idea of one or the other as much as visionary, it's the world
of opportunity at your fingertips is so vastly expansive. And so it's good to have an open heart
and mind. Thank you for sharing that Brian and all the years of wisdom that you've been gathering
stuff to what are three resources that have helped you as a visionary that can help other visionary
leaders? Well, I'm somebody who, you know, I generally, when it goes to resources, things
like books, I'm always somebody who goes back to the classics. And so I am, you know, one of my very,
probably the book that I've read the most times is the Daozi Chang. And I've read, I believe,
12 different translations of it. And it's one that has probably taught me the most about leadership
and just finding your way through life and even understanding authenticity. That is by far the
most powerful for me, I think it's far more powerful than Marcus Aurelius's Meditations,
or some of the other more stoic related books. Probably the most gifted book, the book that I've
gifted the most to people to understand leadership and sort of interacting with others and actually
executing your vision is a book called Leadership and Self Deception by the Arbinger Institute.
That's one of those tools that really brings it home and helps you understand your role in terms
of how you're impacting other people. And lastly, this isn't necessarily a book or a resource, but
I have spent so much time out in the wilderness. I was a wilderness EMT, a safety boater, search
and rescue, and then, you know, competitively racing in some of the most dangerous sports that
there are in open water. And I think that for anyone, especially people that are still sort of
developing their idea of self, there's nothing like you versus the natural elements and getting
yourself out there and spending time far away from electricity, far away from roads, far away from,
you know, the things that we come to take for granted here and learning to have to do things
that you have to depend on nothing but yourself for survival. I think that that is a life altering
experience. And I mean, we see it with children, the people who spend, the kids who spend a lot of
time outdoors, generally are more confident, more proactive, and have a better sense of self as
well. So even with adults, I encourage that as much as possible.
We are overgrown children. I get to color commentate. It's fun because you get to put
yourself out there and make the tiny mistakes. And then I get to just come in and act like the
wise one. But my friends, he unlocked something that I want all of us to hear. And that is he said
that it's not really a resource, you know, humbly positioning the reality of what it is, but the
wilderness, nature, like those are all of the raw resources that we have at our disposal. And so I
love that you share that and that you think outside of the box. Big shout out to one of my
favorite guests ever, Rand Selig, who happens to be a very predominant investment banker out of San
Francisco. You would never know that. You all did not catch that on his episode because he never
once talked about it. He wrote that book, Thriving, and how to help you build a purposeful life and
dive into happiness and be relentlessly positive. Rand Selig also shared one of his big three was
wilderness, was being out in the elements. So I love when I hear leaders, visionaries that I
respect tying the same principles together. It reminds me like, yes, I can dive into that with
more force. It doesn't matter how many people say dive into your tablet, right? 2000 people can say
that to me. But if Brian Smith, CEO, founder of Strategy Ladders and Rand Selig, also author of
Thriving, says, hey, maybe we should spend some more time in nature. Those are the voices to me
that say things the loudest. So we'll be right back. We'll cut for a break. We'll be talking
about empowering entrepreneurs even further, wondering how do we build this lasting impact?
And we'll dive into Brian's company as well as we go through that. We'll see you guys on the other
side. All right. Welcome in to Vision Pros Live with Jackson Callum. I'm your show host. We'll be
doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic visions
out there. What's up, everybody? Welcome into another episode of Vision Pros Live. I'm your show
host, Jackson Callum, founder and CEO of First Class Business. I'm missing my guitar back here.
Oh man, it's over at Brian Rockwell's house. We had a really neat experience actually. We had a
really neat experience actually this weekend. I did not plan on sharing this, but here I am driving
to Brian's house for dinner. Shout out to Rockwell Consults. And I see this family walking along the
highway that nobody walks along and they've got a little three-year-old. And so I feel prompted to
turn around and go see if they needed a ride, which they did. And it turned out I'm in New
Braunfels. They were walking to Houston, Texas. That is like a four-day walk. You do not walk
to Houston. So I take them to Brian's for dinner without asking. He's super awesome. So he just
immediately greets them like friends and family. I explained the situation, ended up I have my guitar
with me. Well, they needed to pick up some things to take with them. So I left my guitar at Brian's
house. Just a little reminder behind me of I need to go get my guitar. But the opportunity to then
drive them from New Braunfels to Houston was on my radar. So why not? So I did that on Sunday night.
Super great to get to know these new friends and help them along their way. And again, I want my
guitar back. So I got to go get it. Before we dive back in with Brian, I want to give another couple
resources. So there's my resource for you, the biggest one. The more you give, the more you get.
It is literally how life works. Sponsors, opportunities for Latinos. Guys, I can cry
about how exciting I am about this. Look at that. It says a little bit over 1.1. I can't see how
many members. This is too small for me. But we've grown by like 200 members in the last couple of
weeks thanks to a couple of strategic leadership changes and how Cindy is guiding this process.
A huge shout out to Cindy and Vicki, who you just saw, is also guiding this process of the production
today. We help Latinos figure out how the online world of virtual assistant programs work, but we
don't believe in VA relationships. We call that virtual abuse. I believe in taking care of people.
And I believe we should all do a better job of taking care of the people who are serving us,
not throwing all of our work on their shoulders and pretending that they're somehow going to
magically get done what we never could, even though it's hurting their lives. We don't believe in
doing that. So opportunities built to protect and help and really bridge the economic gap
between North America, South America, and the rest of the world. And we're looking for Latinos,
whether you speak Spanish or not, who are willing to go on our show, Obrador de las Latinas,
and share your inspiring story of how you've gotten to where you are. You never know how many
millions of people you could end up inspiring to take a leap of faith and start improving their
lives and go into this program. All of that is absolutely free. And we love the leaders who have
helped and supported us and that we get to interview over there. In addition to that,
we have learnandgrowrich.net. Learnandgrowrich.net is run by Zach Ullman, who's also been on the show.
Our yin yang experience, very similar to Brian Smith, actually. We had so much overlap in what
we were doing that I knew we were either going to fight or become friends. And we're like,
and Zach said it last week, he said, Jackson, we're like the same person in two different bodies.
He's got quirkiness like that, by the way. He's got over close to a thousand people in his group.
And he is now chief financial officer of first class business because he's able to scale the
way we're able to scale. And our systems overlap almost perfectly. So we've combined our bridges
together to help more people. He has been awesome to work with. Go check out what he's doing at
learnandgrowrich.net. See if maybe he can help you with your generational wealth and help you
maximize your cash flow and build the things that are super fun to build. He's a nicer guy than I
am too, by the way. I think you'll really like Zach. Then there's the water project. We don't
have an affiliation with the water project, but we do contribute to it as much as we possibly can.
I've never been thirsty in my life right now. I keep clearing my throat. I could use a glass of
water, but the nice thing is I have instant access to that, just like most of you listening in.
My hope is that you consider the kids, the families, the parents who have to leave work
just to walk three to five dangerous miles to potentially find a source of water that may not
even be clean and suitable, but it's all they have. We have the opportunity to make an impact on this.
And thanks to the water project, we get to see how that impact unfolds. They set it up just like a
Kickstarter project, meaning you get to see the exact tribe or the exact, what do you call that?
I'm thinking in Spanish here, town, village that you would get to help. And you get to see these
kids as they receive the water project, because they're going to give you social media updates
or pictures of what they're doing in the community, how they're helping them. These kids celebrate
water more than my kids celebrate Christmas day. That is humbling. If you don't have the financial
means to help and support with this, my hope is that you just talk about this with your friends
and family, maybe share this with somebody else. You never know the ripple effect. You might inspire
somebody to end up contributing $10, $100, $100 million to this project. And I hope that you
can help to build a project like this and the generational impact that it can create to provide
water to these individuals so they can stay focused on their schooling, stay focused on providing
for their families is absolutely phenomenal. We hope you join us on that. And if you know of a
project or a cause that you'd rather see us talk about, please drop the link in the comments.
It's not a challenge. It's not a matter of like this or that. The Abundant Mindsets says we can
do this and that. So let us know what's going on in your world and how we can help. And we'll try
to dive in and do just that. Without further ado, Brian Smith, thank you for joining me on Vision
Pros Live. Yeah. Thanks again for having me. Absolutely. And I know you got all sorts of
projects going on with your exposure to being in Mexico and what's possible there too. And so
there's a good side of it where the entrepreneurial powerhouse is starting to thrive there. I think
for decades, but it's more talked about internationally at this point. And then
there's that extreme poverty side that exists there, just like exists in North America. There's
both sides to those equations. You talk about lasting impact and driving that. What does that
mean to you? And what can you share with us as far as where you guys are headed with that?
So when I think about impact, we're looking primarily at impact on people and
how they change. And so I'll give a little anecdote in a moment about that. But a lot of people
tend to look at impact as far as what can be compared to other people, the size of a building,
the size of a company, the amount of money that's been generated. We internally and with all of our
clients, we practice something called a non-monetary measure of success. And it's one of the most
powerful tools that you can use. We look for what is the transformation, the problem you can solve,
or the situation you can alleviate for a client. And that's the measure of success within the
business. With our business, it's the number of founders that we free from their business.
And we break that down into sales, management, and operations of the business. Now, when we look at
lasting impact, though, a lot of what we end up looking at is, we're talking to founders,
we're built around working with founders. And I made that decision over a decade ago,
because I saw that as one of the biggest force multipliers. You can have the biggest impact
on a massive amount of people by working with people that are leading and really having a
massive impact in the life of other people. Working with one founder, they might have 50
people on their team, and each one of those 50 people have anywhere from two to seven people in
their immediate family, their communities, and so forth. So a lot of times we think about that just
as far as how much money that we put into those communities. But we also look at it as far as how
do people change the way that they operate? How do they change the way they show up? And how do
they really act as leaders within their community and foster leadership within their teams? And so
for us, lasting impact is something that, yes, at one level we can measure, but a lot of it is just
seeing the natural change in people over time. And I'll give an example that I think some people
would view as a failure, but we viewed as a success. We had a client who, this particular client was
very, very difficult. They were difficult in their communication. I would go so far as to say that
the way they communicated with their vendors is that they would bully them. And some of my team
did some execution work for this client. And I let the whole process go through and basically
bullied into working out of scope and so forth, and just very, very negative throughout.
And I sent a message and broke down why that type of communication was not acceptable.
Well, the response I got back is, I'm terminating my engagement with you. I am not going to work
with anyone who insults me. So I said, you know, please describe to me how I've insulted you.
What exactly, like I'm working on my own communication. I did not intend to insult you.
And basically I got an F you email back. Now, even though that relationship ended and even,
they didn't show up to any of the subsequent calls or anything like that, what we did find was all
of a sudden the communication with some of the other people on our team and other vendors that
we were in contact with changed dramatically and was much kinder saying thank you, a lot less of
the bullying that we had experienced through that. And so we, as somebody who's here looking at just
overall change and impact, even though financially or business-wise, you might count that as a loss,
as far as what our purpose is here, we counted that as a win, seeing that that did create a shift.
It did create a change, even though it ended up losing a contract for us. It was well worth it to
have even that small of an impact because this is somebody who has a team and works with a lot of
other teams. And when a leader communicates in that way, it has a negative impact on the people
around them and also then makes it okay for them to continue that type of communication.
So we're really looking at lasting impact as far as how we impact the individual, the people that
we're dealing with. It's a lot less about what's left behind other than the change in the individual.
It's massive. I love the example that you shared too and the ripple effect that exists there,
the compound effect too. One, I could feel and hear a little bit of vibration in your voice
as you're revisiting and reliving that story. And that says a lot about your empathy,
your ability to connect and care. You still care about this person. You care very much about
what happened there. And that's a gift to be able to take that in while also learning
to set those healthy boundaries and protect yourself and to protect your team members from
their realities. Anybody's welcome to come into the kingdom of first-class business.
All right, the door is open and that door is open for both directions. And if we see somebody in
our wheelhouse not being loving, patient, persistent, consistent, or reliable, we will guide them out
of our kingdom. They can come back in, but they have to be part of the culture. They have to accept
that those are boundaries for us. And you shifting that, like you said, it gives everybody that breath
of relief, like, oh, good, this isn't shifting or changing to make room for somebody who's got more
of a tyrant mindset. And that's what, if you were to look at the definition of a tyrant and you're
to look at the symptoms or the realities of how does a tyrant act or respond, the types of
communications that you just outlined are all part of that. And so I was talking with another client
today, Brian, and as I gave some difficult, pointed feedback for this person's level,
they felt a little bit defensive for a minute. And then I said, this is not an accusation,
it's an observation. And I never said that before, I never heard it. I was like, hey, that's kind of
nice. I'm going to use that from now on. But it wasn't, I wasn't accusing them of doing anything
wrong. I was observing a reality that transpired and bringing it to light so they could see it too.
And that's what you were trying to do with this entrepreneur through your incredibly kind and
compassionate email setting a tone there. And as visionaries, we have got to learn to make that
space as leaders for communication because it's not always perfect. There's good, bad, and ugly of
all relationships, but that impact on everybody's daily life has a, to me, I believe it has an
eternal ripple effect for good for everybody. So I love the example. Brian, what's your vision for
the people that you serve? So the people I serve directly are founders of businesses,
and my vision for them is really twofold. First is freedom to be able to live the life that they
want to live, which is, you know, a lot of times when you start building a business, as you know,
you kind of get stuck in a particular space and people get up to a certain level and tend to cap
out for a number of reasons. And so what we really seek to do is shift their mindset about business
to understand that business is just merely a vehicle for personal growth and that business
itself is a mirror of you and your capacity for personal growth. And once they see that in
business, then they start to see that in all aspects of their life. And we are, you know,
really what we're doing is helping our clients be better leaders, more show up more authentically,
and be more effective at expressing their vision in the world. And we run into, you know,
there's many mindsets that you run into with founders. I think the one that most of us are
used to encountering at some point is the, you know, screw everything, burn it all down, I'm done,
like, I'm just going to walk away and, you know, go deliver pizzas or something, this is too much.
And, you know, that's one of the forms of resistance that show up a lot. We also see a lot of
resistance that, you know, once they start getting into managing or building a team, they start to
then have that resistance around, you know, oh, well, I just want to be the best practitioner that
I can be another mindset challenge where what we do is we continually help them shift back to
service to realize if you are actually delivering a service or delivering it differently in such a
way that it is a net benefit to the people in your world, then you need to continue going out there
and serving as many people as possible. And even when it comes to money, we're often shifting that
mindset, we talk a lot about how money is really nothing more than energy. Money is a store of
energy. It's the energy that you or someone put into it, to then give it to you. I mean, you can
think about the fact that if you buy a $3,000, you know, beat up 20 year old car, you're going to
treat that very differently than the $300,000 supercar. And the difference is the amount of
energy that had gone into both the production of that vehicle and the amount of energy that you
put into acquiring it. And so once people understand that money is just merely energy,
and if you're going out and actually creating a positive impact or even, you know, to put it into
more business terms, positive ROI, what you're doing is you're actually creating positive energy
in the world. And so we push people to go out there and understand that your role is to be
a source of positive change and creation of positive energy in the world. And the only way
that you can do that is by pushing people, creating again, that positive impact and doing
it in a way that's sustainable. And I think that when people start to make that shift, it's how
they're able to, you know, you're probably familiar with Dr. Gay Hendricks's upper limit theorem.
We're going to put a pause on the theorem real quick. There's a lot to break down there. And if
I had a bell, I'd be like, ding, ding, ding, like, I'll make the funny noise. Like, I think we've
unlocked our first, second, third and fourth arguments. Okay, let's go. Such a great
opportunity to man, I, and I'm actually really excited for us on this. So we're going to give
a couple different paradigms, because there's just so much to break down there. I'm going to go back
to the first part. So your mission that you and I wish I could read my doctor handwriting. You said
that you want to help these entrepreneurs live the life that they want. Right. And I totally respect
it. This is where that paradigm shift comes from. It's almost the exact opposite of what we do for
our clients, which is so weird. It's like, well, wait, why visionaries out there? My goal is to
do what is best for those that I serve. Those are at a paradox oftentimes, because we are overgrown
children. My children want a lot of things for their life that are not appropriate or good for
their life. They would love to just eat dessert all day long. Most of my adult friends want the
same thing. And so my discipline side says, you know what? I want, I'm not here to control it
and tell people what it is that they need or what it is they want. But I'm going to make sure that
if the person who's working with me wants something that is out of alignment with what I feel, think,
and based on my perspective is best for them, then I'm going to tell them when I can't help you.
Like, I don't know how to make you rich robbing banks, and nor do I agree with the idea of robbing
banks. And so there's a boundary that gets set up and saying, I'm probably not the provider for you.
But if that person's goal is to provide generational wealth to their family,
then maybe we could shift some perspectives, talk about how we can do that without having to rob
banks. And I don't think you would support bank robbers, right? But there's a huge paradox and
shift between those two realities. We'll come back to it. The other one is this practitioner idea.
I just want to be the best practitioner I can be. I almost love that client's reality. However,
our word choices, our intentional word choices, to me, the word just is the challenge in that
scenario. The word just is the one that eliminates the value. I just want to be the best husband that
I can be. Like, why is there a just put in there? Right? That's the challenge. Shouldn't that be a
noble and great thing? And then taking that individual, and I love that you help them focus
on service, because that's the shift I would make, the difference in the way that you're
focusing on service, because that's the shift I would make, the difference in the shift that I
would want them to make would be moving towards understanding that if they are truly the best
practitioner they can be, then the byproduct will be their service will improve. However,
if they're being the best practitioner, it's because they focused on what you're talking about,
being the best servant they can be. But the big difference between how you felt about that and
how you felt about that is you have this feeling that people need to serve more people in the
world. At least that's what you said. You said you need to be delivering this to more people.
I don't play God. And when I say that, I don't mean any disrespect by it. It's that Grant Cardone
style mentality that Grant Cardone knows better than others what they should do versus them.
It's the same mentality of telling people what to do, scale and get the F out of ops.
It's a forced language of enjoy your business ownership. Businesses that crush it with
strategy, that's great. But the scale aspect, just telling people what to do, it's an okay.
It might be the perfect approach for you. It might be the thing that the people who turn to you need
to do. I say might because I don't know. It's not how I do things. And so another thing that you said
in relation to that was money is nothing more than energy. The two words I would eliminate
with my clients is if I ever heard a client say that, I would say, can we work on that phrase a
little bit together? And I get the permission and then money is energy. Yet if I say it's nothing
than energy, I'm putting a negative, a deprecation on the value of that versus just recognizing.
And I say just versus recognizing that money is energy. There's nothing negative,
there's nothing positive. It's just something that exists. And then that got exacerbated by
just merely. And I was like, imagine saying she's just merely my wife.
That wouldn't go over too well with that relationship. And then the only way
is by pushing people. I used to love Grant Cardone, Brian. He was somebody that I used
to emulate. Same thing with Sam Ovens. In fact, I still love them. Our opportunity with word choices
in America, it's so hard because we live in this society of hyperbole. We live in the society where
we want the absolutes, this or that. My hope is to one, not become a nut job, like a lunatic about
word choice, yet to become so intentional with the word choice that I maximize the abundance
available. And so I'd have to 100% disagree. The only way is not pushing people. There is another
way. And the other way that I saw and follow is one that it was emulated by Martin Luther King,
by other great leaders. The easiest one to pull to that's more universally well known is Jesus.
And a little bit polarizing for some, but the man only ever invited people to make change. He
didn't push. He invited and said, the person who can hear it, let them hear it. The person who can
hear it, let them hear it. The person who can see it, let him see it. Everybody else, let's let them
be. Let's let them do the things the way they want to. And so I don't want to portray you as this
evil villain, opposite to Christ by any way, shape or form, or lose sight of the focus on some
religious dogma as much as just explore the fullness of this paradigm because you have
superpowers, I do not. You have influence too that I do not. And as we share those paradigms,
maybe my influence grows as well. In addition to some of the things that I share,
might refine the way that you guys are going about things. At the end of the day, we got
8 billion people to help. And so doing that together is the objective and goal on my side.
I'm done. Mike, pass. Brian, I'd love to hear your side.
Yeah, I think you brought up a really good point. So a few things. And I think, let me start with,
because word choice and sort of framing some of the things that I said, I think you pointed out
here that I think first and foremost, I think that most people misunderstand their role in
attracting clients. And in terms of how do you align yourself with the right people?
Correct. I believe that your role, and when we talk about marketing with our clients,
whether that's personal branding, whether that's your business, or really just about anything that
you're doing until you get up to the point where your household name, your role is not to attract
right fit, but to actively repel wrong fit. And so that is why, like, if you look at what power is,
at its fundamental core, power is polarity. That's why the two people that you brought up,
Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus are both incredibly polarizing figures. Power is polarity
at its core. So if you're not engaging in that... The thing on both of those though is that
they leverage the art of strength versus the weakness of force. There's a huge... Go ahead.
Yeah. What you talked about was they invited, and I would actually disagree with that
characterization. You cannot invite someone to change. You also cannot push them to change.
You cannot give them a handout to change. The only thing that you can do is live the change
and inspire someone else to do that. Inspire. And that's the thing is we're not... So the context,
I did not suggest that they invite people to change. The change has to be... So I agree with
you. For me, it's intrigue, attract, and inspire. And if somebody is inspired, then they will welcome
invitations that come their way. And I think that the inspiration also, when there's... The people
we work with are not the average person. They will not be the average person. They're... By the time
they get to us, they are already in... A small portion of our society actually steps out into
entrepreneurship. We're talking about a small fraction of those people who actually can get to
the point where they're working with a team like us. Now... We work with the same groups. So we
speak the same language. Yeah. And when they get to us, a lot of what has happened and a lot of what
continues to happen is there is this talk about vision and a lot of talk about people want to
do strategic planning and have their inspiration and their purpose, but none of that happens
without action. In fact, I tell people all the time, purpose is a victim mindset because you sit
there and you're, oh, I don't have a purpose. I don't have a... Well, the purpose is the outcome
of going and actually taking action. If you sit there and wait for purpose to hit you...
I disagree again. And here's why. And I appreciate you making space for it. Right? You're welcome to
push back on that, the interruption thing. So the... I find it sad when entrepreneurs leverage
virtues as a means to create friction for making a point. People do this with authenticity right now.
They say, oh, it's a word of the year. I don't mean to play with the buzzword.
Okay. Just because a word, a virtue became the word of the year does not mean that it's
automatically now disingenuous. Right? And so purpose is very much a virtue through and through.
Now, if somebody has mislabeled or misunderstands the value of it, that's a lot like a child who
was abused and told, I love you every day. I love you. Whack. I love you. Whack. Right? I love you,
but you suck at blah, blah, blah. Right? Some of us grew up in traumatizing cultures. I apologize
to those of you who still deal with that. I went through something similar in relation to that type
of word choice. I could easily turn my back on love and say that love is the problem, but in reality,
it's my, it would be my inability to look at those zeitgeists, the world perspective,
to look at the potential definitions of that word and to consider, wait a second,
am I misinterpreting something here? Because I risk alienating myself from an entirely,
incredibly large volume of wholesome individuals if I villainize the word love and say that love
is the problem versus realizing that it might actually be my own interpretation that is causing
me to miss out on the virtues associated with said word. So feel free. I want to, you're, you're,
I think, yeah, I think, I think that there might be jumping past some of the things that I said
here. So this is a victim mentality. That's what I heard. I said, I said, purpose is often
a victim mentality. And one of the reasons is that if not having identified your purpose is
the reason for you not taking action, that is fundamentally, if we want to break down
what a victim mentality is, purpose is your rescuer from inaction or malaise or whatever it is.
Super fair. I want to correct the record. If you said the word often, then I do apologize.
And I did not understand what you said. I missed that word. If you did not say the word often,
that is what put me in the paradigm to jump in and say, whoa, wait a second. But I love,
if you combine the word often with it, I 100% agree with you. And we're on the same page on
that, that that makes sense that we're now, we're now positioning this word in a way that while it's
a strength on one side, if we lean into heavily on it, we can get ourselves in a real, in a real
challenge and real problem. Good point. Keep going. And so, and I'll take this a little bit,
further, even, you know, some might say, somewhat metaphysical here, but when we start looking at,
you know, the concept of masculine and feminine, I'm not saying male or female, I'm talking about
really- Can you define metaphysical for me? I don't know what that means.
Sorry? Define which? Metaphysical. I just don't know what it means.
So what we're talking about are different types of energy that we have within us. And so we're
talking about, you know, in the masculine sense, the masculine wants to naturally get to completion.
And so there's this one of the reasons why, like, when we talk about the most masculine
religions, the most masculine religion is often identified as Tibetan Buddhism, because how do you
reach nirvana? It's through death, through full completion, right? You're the most masculine state
is actually dead, right? Fully completed. If we look at the feminine, the feminine is the
pure opportunity. It's really that energy that exists even, you know, preconception, pre-life,
all nothing but pure opportunity. And none of us are all one or the other. If we are pure feminine,
we would have never existed. If we were pure masculine, we would be dead. And when we start
to look at, there are endeavors in life that are more predominantly masculine or more predominantly
feminine in terms of just overall energetic space. Business is a process of
just overall energetic space. Business is a predominantly masculine endeavor, and it must be
because we don't sit and just talk about opportunity. We put it into a contract, we sign it and we put
it to an end, right? We stop the negotiation and then we start right. It's an it's a it's one way.
So I can't say yes to the right, but I can I get where you're going. And I see how often the
world goes that way. Yet we need another hour and a half, right, to go over all of the other
case studies of businesses that have been able to scale and crush most masculine companies,
not in relation to like I'm trying to crush it in terms of results generated,
because they predominantly move towards the feminine side. So there's.
I'm not in any way I'm not in any way whatsoever talking about social constructs of male, female,
masculine, feminine. I'm following you. But I and I see perfectly I actually see quite well.
I shouldn't say perfectly. I see quite well where you're going with this. I understand
metaphysical. I didn't pretend to be unaware as much as I needed to know how you understood
metaphysical. I also understand the masculine, the feminine energy concepts. I love everything
that you said, which is why I maintain a quiet stance is because I'm eating an apple learning
like, oh, cool. I didn't know about this about Buddhists and dead and completion. Like that
makes a lot of sense. Right. All of that hit in the line with my heart, as did what you're talking
about with the feminine, pure opportunity and pure life. Like all of that was math formulas
that I saw. You're a great mathematician, Brian, if we're talking about math and there's so much
that I learned from it. And as another professor who's looking at the chalkboard you're drawing on
every time you make a mistake in the formulas, it's my opportunity, our opportunity to step up
and say, well, wait a second, let me let's pause and look at that segment. If you talk less with
clarity and brevity, it gives me more time to validate the concepts that I do agree with.
But when you go on five to 10 minute opportunities of discussing and I notice there's a lack of
intentionality with word choice, which has happened several times. It wasn't just the often
opportunity. There was many of them. It made it, I have a responsibility for my audience, a duty
to help them see, let's close some of the gaps on this before we keep going, or at least expand
the reality that he said one street here and he keeps saying only and just and need. And I'm saying,
there are other streets that can also create this depth. And so I'm not challenging the fact that
your street is valuable and the fact that it does present an opportunity for people. I just keep
trying to say the map is bigger than you keep boxing it into. And that's the only, that's the
only correlation of conflict that you and I have managed to constantly go back to throughout this
interview is trying to make sure that we don't push people down one path when in reality they
have lots of other paths that might be better for them based on their unique knowledge. And if they
submit to you, they put themselves in a position of submission, which too many people do with
Grant Cardone and with other leaders who tell them what to do. Then we rob them of the reality
that they are strong visionaries who can't rely on you or me to be their savior. They need to
think for themselves and I want to make sure they have enough paths to be able to do that and then
decide where they want to go from there. The good news is everybody who gravitates toward you is
like, man, this guy's a real jerk. I mean, I'm just going to work with the Brian guy, right? And
they're going to go work with you because they see the alignment and feel it with you. The people who
needed me to step up, I said needed, the ones who wanted to see that more full perspective are going
to go, dang, I didn't necessarily see it that way, but maybe I should take a step back, meditate on
this for myself and consider my options. So I do want to finish that thought because it's valuable
on masculine and feminine energy and in relation, and I will agree with you that most businesses
predominantly gravitate towards the masculine energy for their success, but I disagree that that
is the best path or the path that makes the most sense. The path that I recommend people go down
is a different street that to me is far easier and far more aligned with abundance. Please continue,
though. I, what I will say two points here. One is it does feel like there's, you're speaking to
an alternative without necessarily like it's a, it's almost a creating a distinction without
identifying the difference. And what I'm doing here is not saying this is how we work with every
client because one of the things that happens with our clients, they take all different paths.
So they come from all different backgrounds and their businesses all look fundamentally different.
So one of your earlier points, you had spoken about how, you know, some people have only
experienced business success once. And oftentimes as I know, you're very well aware, there's many
consultants that go out there and they don't work with a business owner to identify the best path.
They say, this is the one that works. And they just put them down that path. What we're talking
about here is philosophy and my personal philosophy. And what it sounds like is the way,
the way the interview sort of feels as though you're, you're advocating for a group of people
to counter the philosophy rather than dig into the philosophy. See, it's, that's the thing. It's,
I've dug into that philosophy and I'm happy to dig further into it with you. And we share different
philosophies. So I'm saying that's a path of philosophy, a choice of philosophy that I don't
agree with. But it doesn't mean I don't agree with our holistic relationship in the fullness.
But I want people to be able to see that there are other philosophies out there that go along
with this. I will define mine when I am on a podcast or somebody else is interviewing me about
me, or if you were to ask me, if you were to sit, if you were to put the leadership hat aside and
say, well, wait a second, maybe I should just ask Jackson what his philosophy is. Then I might do
that, but I'm not going to disrespect your time where you're here to share your philosophy as much
as again, when I see it happen, where a philosophy comes out, that's not quite aligned with how we do
things, then or not the way that I would present that philosophy, I might say something about it.
So I know we're running low on time and I hate that we, I do, I hate the fact that I didn't plan
this timing out enough to get to where we can close the gap on that and ask my favorite question,
which is what powerful lesson kind of the visionary has learned from your experience if this was your
last chance to talk. And we may not get to that because we're, I don't want to rush it, but one,
I want the audience to know, I love what you're doing. I love how you're helping. I can see it,
I can see and feel your heart, right? You are doing everything that you can to help people win
and to move people. You're moving mountains better than from what I can tell from what I've seen,
90% of the companies I've ever consulted with in business. And I can see that. And I'm not worried
about bridging the gap on a philosophy moment because I know you and I have decades to figure
this out, right? We've got all sorts of calls that we can come on and jump on and maybe they
are a one plus one equals 11 opportunity still. Maybe it's something where we're meant to divide
and conquer, right? And go our separate ways. Peter helping Israel, Paul going and helping Romans,
right? It's not an either or reality, but I do know I want to be respectful of your time because
you might have to go in four minutes. I don't. I happen to have a time after this. So my request
for you is do you want to explore the two points that you brought up? Do you want to finish the
masculine and feminine energy conversation? Do you want to dive in towards power lesson?
Do you want to come back on the show and expand the conversation? All options are on the table.
I'm open to all of it. Whatever you think is going to be most valuable for your audience.
Thank you. I love that one. We'd love to have you back. All right. So let's make sure
that we get you back because there are so many great paradigms to come from and visionaries.
Part of this opportunity at hand between Brian and I is we got again, two imperfect mathematicians,
myself included, right? So if I call Brian, I'm like, man, I like that formula. It doesn't make
sense to me based on what I've learned, but we get the proper opportunity to explore it with perhaps
30 more minutes or with another mathematician like Zach Olman coming into the conversation.
Right. And maybe Brian has somebody else too. Maybe it's that importance of a paradox to us.
Then 45 minutes later, we might find out, you might hear me say, dang, I was totally off base.
Oh, I missed it. Thank you for having the patience and time and compassion to help me see it because
that unlocks new levels of life. So it's a process of trying to unlock understanding
and then also unlock the application of that understanding in our lives. Do you have to run
in two minutes? That's my next question for you, Brian. No, not in two minutes. No. Okay. Well,
then let's not rush too much. Let's settle through again, knowing that I have the time and you have
the time. We'll try to keep it to five to 10 minutes. What gaps do you want to, what loops do
you want to close today so the next time when we talk, we can dive in with the powerful lesson
and other aspects? I think one really, and I'll try to keep it to one point that might sort of
bring some of this all together. We talked about purpose and vision. I think that there comes a
point early on and we all experience this, the people just starting out in their business as
well. A lot of it is feelings driven, right? There's this feeling, does this feel right? Does
it feel not? Then there comes this point of momentum and enthusiasm, but then at least with
the people that I work with, we reach a point of responsibility of this is now much bigger than me.
This is something that I now basically have to work like hell to get out from in front of,
because I often as the leader become the thing holding it back the most. I think in a lot of
what we're talking about, the underlying piece of it is there comes a point where there's this
internal feeling of responsibility that what I am doing is bigger than me and I'm doing things,
not because I love doing them, but because I feel a fundamental pull, drive and responsibility to
be doing these things, to go build this, whether it's to serve my team, to serve my clients,
to serve my community. I think that when we, a lot of the things that we're talking about
stem from working with people that have that deep seated feeling of responsibility about their work.
I love that. It leans heavily into the idea of civic duty. Thank you for using the softeners
to talk about the people you serve, the people that you're working with. That is very helpful
for me and my audience to feel that respect of like, okay, this is where they're at with this,
versus the feeling that it could be domineering. I work with mostly feminine energy individuals.
So the process of submissiveness is something that a lot of the people I work with gravitate
towards doing and we're all learning to not be people pleasers, to not accidentally
succumb to somebody else's will, even though it's our responsibility to maintain that.
So thank you for making the space. That's a whole
bag of tricks to unpack. We might do that on the next episode. We might not. That might be
something for all of you visionaries to learn and explore on your own and also to provide in the
comments. I'll give you some potential questions to answer. Jackson, how can Jackson be a better
host? How can Brian and I make more room for these different concepts? If you've got ideas on that,
do not hesitate to lead us. I look forward to feeling that you're a better host.
I look forward to it. Feelings, momentum and enthusiasm and that responsibility.
We are fully aligned on that, my brother. Those are big aspects. One final resource to put out
there that is absolutely free is passionpro.org. That is our program to help people figure out
what their passions are and figure out what their purpose is. And some people love, if you're an
English Lit major and you like writing, it's a great program right now. If you're a student,
you're already a student, you're already in a program right now. If you need somebody to guide
you through that more and more of an interaction and conversation, then you might want to wait.
But the neat thing is we have another resource here to help with that. That's Brian Smith,
the founder and CEO of Strategy Ladders. It's obvious that they're going about
doing that compassionately for people out there. And again, I love what he's built. I'm excited to
explore and continue to see how these two nations are building. How do they interact with each
end up helping people who go from one to the other or explore the world out there.
How do we get our lighthouses right as big as we can so that people can see
what's available and how they can come in and get help along this path?
We'll have the action steps of how to get involved with Brian down below
in the show notes.
We'll also have the resources that Brian and I both talked today,
talked about today and vision pros.
If you want to join us in the show and talk about your vision
on the top right corner, there's a button that says, be our guest.
Come and tell us what great things you're up to.
Brian, any final thoughts you want to share before we close out?
I appreciate the conversation.
And yeah, I think it's always fun to
to push back against one another's,
you know, perspectives and philosophies.
And I think I'll add one one interesting thing
that I think might define some of the distinction here.
Quite often with our clients, we're having to intentionally introduce
feminine elements both into their business and into their life.
And it sounds like our clients may be coming from, you know,
different starting places where they're philosophically person and so forth.
So I think we could unpack quite a bit there.
Dude, I love it. And those of you listening in again,
that's that's the neat thing about this is the brotherly wrestling match
that we just had was not a let's rip each other's heads off
and hate each other for life match.
It was exploring the values. And I see that, Brian.
So it's nice because we have a lot of people who come to our brand
with that extremely masculine energy.
And if I'm going to do what's best for that person that I'm serving,
usually the bro marketer or the person who I tend to make fun of
and I was trying to do stuff like that.
My goal is not to hurt them when I say things publicly.
My goal is to figure out like, all right, how do I help them?
Usually I don't have an entity to send them to.
So the odds are now I'll be like strategy letters, strategy letters.
Strategy letters. Go to strategy letters.
All right. Get I'm doing that backwards.
Get over there like they're your people. That's your tribe.
That's the ones who are going to speak the way that you want to be spoken to
and talk about all the skateboard things and and the people on the opposite.
Maybe you guys end up sending them back our way.
It doesn't it's not about receiving something in return, though, my friends,
back to that reality of driving a family to Houston.
I didn't do that to get something out of it.
I did it because it was the right thing to do.
And I got a wonderful God who takes care of the rest.
All right. Just show up and serve.
And if I show up and not just.
I show up and I serve and I love and I hope you guys do the same.
You call me out when I don't do that.
Brian, thanks so much for joining us and for being here for extra time.
We'll see you guys all on the next episode of Vision Pros Live.
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.