Hey there, I'm Tals Lotnitsky from Ignite IT Consulting.
You know me from the Braving Business podcast, but when I'm not behind the mic, I'm helping
tech startups and established companies ignite their full potential.
I also help entrepreneurs and businesses in distress reset for success.
With over three decades of entrepreneurial success, I bring hands-on experience to drive
growth, navigate turnarounds, raise capital, and lead to innovation.
Whether it's executive coaching or strategic transformation, I'm here to turn your business
challenges into success stories.
Visit igniteitconsulting.com and let's spark that change together.
That's igniteitconsulting.com.
Your journey to business brilliance starts now.
And one last quick thing.
If you enjoyed this episode, please stay on after the show to learn more about the Braving
Business podcast and other great episodes for you to discover.
And now, let's get the show started.
Well, hello there.
Hey there, handsome.
How are you?
I'm great, man.
How are you?
You're looking fantabulous.
Am I?
Do I?
Really?
I'm shocked to hear that.
I was in a workshop with one of my clients and we spent two weeks in a room in beautiful,
stunning Wayne, New Jersey.
Yeah, I don't know if you've heard of Wayne, New Jersey.
Not as a romantic or tropical destination, no.
Or for good cause and for good reason.
In any event, I ate like a pig and I came back some much heavier.
I don't know exactly how much I'm not even going to weigh myself, but I'm shocked to
hear you say I look good, but I appreciate that.
It's very kind of you.
I don't look as good as Reed.
Reed looks really trim.
Reed reads into it.
Reed is clearly a trim man.
You know what?
I'm not going to steal his thunder, but we know he's a Ironman triathlete.
So we'll have to get into that a little bit.
I'm not even sure how the hell you do that, but Ironman thing.
Thank you very much for the kind words.
I appreciate it.
I appreciate very much.
I'd be very curious to hear at some point how the two of you came into contact with
each other because you seem like you're like an old married couple in the best kind of
way how you bounce off each other in these conversations.
So I am just honored to be a part of this conversation today.
Well, I will say that the reason it was so easy to compliment you is because he's sitting
here shirtless.
I mean, normally we don't have guests sitting here without a shirt on.
No, we're joking.
For those of you watching a video, he's wearing a very nice shirt.
But actually, we dated in college, PJ and I, no, joking.
We actually met through a podcast that PJ and his wife host some years back.
I was launching a startup and I was doing a lot of media and I did his podcast and the
rest is history, as they say.
Now we've been doing this for this.
This episode is being recorded in May, but it will feature in season three because we
just finished season two.
In fact, today was the last episode of season two without the former president of Adidas
as, or I'm sorry, Adidas.
I apologize.
That's how he says that was our last guest of season two.
And Reed is with us for an episode in season three.
I know we're going to talk cicadas, but we sort of meandered a bit.
So why don't we just kind of go right to it.
Let's introduce our very fit guest and get this show on the road.
I'm strangely turned on.
Okay, so today folks, we have Reed Tyleston, who is an author and adjunct professor, keynote
speaker and expert in entrepreneurial business ownership, whose work has been featured in
publications such as the Wall Street Journal, as well as Cranes.
His new book, Grit It Done, like get it done, was released just a couple of weeks from when
this episode is being recorded.
And on Amazon, it's already a top 100 book in money management and budgeting and a top
200 book in entrepreneurship.
Reed acquired-
In two weeks?
That's crazy.
Well, and you know, we got like the best seller list the day it launched too.
And the best part is I was one below James Clear in like transformational and personal
transformation, so I'm kind of like taking a victory lap right now.
Anyway, just happy about that.
Very, very cool.
Virtual high fives.
There are a lot of books.
I mean, the entrepreneurship, probably, I don't know.
I don't know how many books come out, but there are tens of thousands of them and to
be in the top 200 in two weeks.
To be in the top thousand is big, right?
So Reed has acquired, grown and ultimately successfully exited four different companies.
And in today's episode, we'll talk a lot about not only just startups, but jump starts.
In other words, acquiring existing businesses and elevating them to new heights, which I
think is actually very cool.
In his new book, Reed shares insights from over 15 years of successful on the ground
entrepreneurship, or sorry, entrepreneurial business ownership.
And from his work with leading brands such as Harley Davidson, the Milwaukee Bucks, John
Deere, Tough Mudder, Master Lock and Microsoft.
But like all our guests and all successful people, Reed's story is not just about how
awesome he is, it's also about struggle.
We'll learn why Reed feels failure is the primer for success and to hear his very personal
viewpoint on loneliness.
Reed currently serves as an adjunct professor at Case Western Reserve University, where
he teaches curriculum he co-created from the entrepreneurship through acquisition course
and program at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he also serves on
an advisory committee.
Lest you think that Reed is just some dude, you know, chilling out boring entrepreneur,
he's also an Eagle Scout, an Ironman triathlete and a graduate of the National Outdoors Leadership
School, which I actually did not know existed.
He is in a perpetual state of finding his next life adventure, which recently entailed
racing up the world's tallest scare case in Switzerland, which sounds and truly sounds
terrible to me.
I was thinking the same thing.
There's got to be either free food or a pot of gold up at the top of those stairs.
Reed, thank you so very much for joining us today on the Braving Business podcast.
It's an absolute honor to be here.
And I just had so much fun watching the two of you, listening to the two of you interact
the last five minutes.
It's been the highlight of my day.
So I'm just thank you for the opportunity.
So kind of you.
We appreciate that.
We appreciate having you on.
It's always fun to talk to someone that's going to do something new.
And there are a couple of things about this conversation that I'm excited to talk about.
Entrepreneurial business ownership.
We'll talk about that concept.
We'll talk about EBO is the acronym for that.
It's not really a term I've heard before.
And we'll get into what that means.
But as we always do, we usually like to start by understanding the backstory, right?
Not just what led you from where you were to where you are, but mainly what led you
to even begin this journey from as you look at your personal story, how did it start?
What is it that, you know, got Reid started on his path to wherever he is today?
I think it's critical for me and for your audience to understand that my main life philosophy
at its core is be very thoughtful about who you surround yourself with.
Everything that I've ever accomplished in life, the good, the bad, the indifferent is
all based on people that inspired me to take action.
At its core, my journey through entrepreneurship, through acquisition, so acquiring existing
business versus starting a new one, it's actually is based on my relationship with my older
brother of all people.
I grew up in the Bay Area right by San Francisco International Airport.
So my older brother got paid an allowance and eventually my parents, when he could start
to drive, said, Trevor, we want you to drive us to the airport so we can save the 20 bucks
on taking a taxi.
And he did that.
And then eventually he started doing it for like friends of our parents and his parents'
friends.
And he started making really good money doing this.
When he graduated-
Did your brother invent Uber?
Is that where this is going?
That would be crazy.
Literally.
I mean, he touched the market of hitting what Uber ultimately hit on.
So he did this a little bit.
He went off to college then.
I got my driver's license and then I just took over the existing business that he had
and I expanded it.
I did it to my parents' friends.
I did it to our neighbors, full nine yards.
And I told him, PJ, I cannot express.
If the market cost of like a taxi cab was say like 20 bucks, people would have no problem
paying me like five times that to take them to the airport.
I wouldn't even have to ask it.
Even if I only charged them like 20 or 30 bucks, they would tip me two to three times
that because they just hated taxis so much.
So it was at that point that I understood that it can be a lot easier just to take a
concept that already works and grow it as opposed to having to start something from
scratch.
So that motivation, that intrinsic drive to get into this acquisition mindset has started
and actually has grown in a lot of ways with the relationship I had with my older brother.
Wow.
And Bay Area, I used to live in San Mateo.
Was it around there?
Yeah.
I was born at Stanford Hospital.
I grew up in Belmont and then I moved to Berlin game.
So it was literally from Berlin game, pumping it out to SFO.
Yeah.
It's about 20 minutes.
You're right.
And the car was not nice.
This was like 2000 ish.
I had a 1992 XL Horde Explorer with no tinted windows.
It was like this aquamarine color, very similar to Tal's shirt right now.
This car was not nice in any capacity, but it worked.
It's funny you say that because I spoke in front of students not that long ago and the
topic was what businesses to start.
And I actually talked about that the best place to go is look for businesses that are
look for areas where existing businesses are just not taking care of their customers or
not investing in whatever it is they need to invest in.
And taxi cab companies clearly were guilty of that still are guilty of that.
The cars weren't clean, the drivers weren't friendly and that gave birth to something
else.
So I can absolutely relate to that story.
Makes a lot of sense.
It's very cool.
So you ended up becoming what you coined as an entrepreneurial business owner or an EBO.
So let's start with the basics.
Tell us what that term entrepreneurial business owner means and what's different about it
from the plain old entrepreneur or plain old business owner.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I think about this in four avatars of which I go through the book.
You can buy the book at griddedone.com.
It's fantastic read.
I think I recommended to check it out.
So four avatars, right?
One is you can be an employee.
Employees are great.
They are the backbone of the economy, they're the backbone of companies and there's genuinely
nothing wrong with going that route.
I think the critical part is just understanding what your personal avatar is.
And I have an assessment tool that I have in the book and you can also check it out
at griddedone.com.
Second avatar is you have an equity employee.
Now an equity employee, we're going to say they're a CEO, right?
They work on the business and they don't work in the business.
They create equity value.
Ultimately though, their job is at the control of a board so they can get fired.
They don't own all the upside of what they do.
They don't have true autonomy.
Then you have business owners.
I love business owners.
I have been a business owner for many years of my life.
Business owners have that autonomy.
They own the upside, but oftentimes they're working in the business and not on the business.
And the business frankly might own them more than they own the business, still a good life.
Then you have an entrepreneurial business owner.
And the entrepreneurial business owner really acts like the equity employee.
They work on the business, not in the business, but they own all the upside and they control
their destiny.
Freedom, great relationships, autonomy await.
And I think that that is truly the 21st century manifestation of the American dream, which
despite what we hear is alive and well.
And the core reason that I'm taking the time to talk to you today and engage your audience,
it's about how they can live their American dream.
And that's what I wrote the book for.
So there was a roadmap based on what I've done that will allow your audience to do that.
All right, so people that listen to the show know that I have a real, I don't know, what's
the right word for it.
I'm not a big fan of buzzwords.
And I'm not saying you've used them, but I think we're getting close.
And so I want to pull us back and get out of talking about working, you know, what is
it you said?
Working at the business, not for the business or what was it?
What was that quote?
Working in the business versus on the business.
Yeah.
Or so, so let's let's talk.
Let's bring this to practice, because I think that at the end of the day, there are lots
of great ideas.
There are lots of important concepts and they're largely right.
It's not it's not a matter of me disparaging the concept.
The challenge is how to practice it.
Right.
So every entrepreneur that I know of, except for very few that actually pride themselves
on living to work, the vast majority would prefer if not work life balance, which is
actually a term that we've had some guests put down, interestingly, as not realistic.
It's not about work life balance.
It's about whatever the balance is for you, whatever it means for you.
Help me understand what you know, outside of the, you know, the highfaluting concepts,
which you didn't coin, I didn't coin, they've been around.
What is it that enables an entrepreneur to approach their business from a healthy mindset?
Is there one or two things that you think truly separates an entrepreneur that's capable
of having the right mindset from those that may be well intentioned, don't have that mindset?
I think there's two things.
One is just understand what you want out of the business.
If you want to work in the business full time and work 80 hours a week, that's fantastic.
I like doing that.
I've done that a lot in my career and I've gotten a lot of utility when I have that all
in mentality.
So it doesn't matter what someone like me says or any of your other guests say, just
understand like what actually drives you and makes you happy and where you get that true
utility from where you can enjoy the journey.
Cause the end of the day, it's about enjoying the journey.
Second is I think that the actual way to achieve whatever goals you want to have the business
is to surround yourself with the right business owner, pure groups.
If you want, cause it's uncomfortable for me and for people that I've seen and I work
with to do the actual hard things that require you to get to where the business truly operates
without you having to be there.
It's difficult.
If it was easy, everybody would do it.
But the best way to actually make that change happen is surround yourself with other people
that are in that journey to get that same level of autonomy.
And it will also push you and make you uncomfortable and allow you to actually make the hard choices
to quote unquote live.
One of those buzzwords that, that, that you're talking about or that, or that I was talking
about early, I had been blessed to have found pure groups like that in my career.
And I only realized how powerful they were because I was a multi-unit, anytime fitness
owner operator and I had to franchise and they were great.
I had other club owners.
They were great, but I lacked finding that pure group at that time in my career.
And that's what I think limited me from, you know, being what I was with a couple of clubs
and very successful with them, but from really taking that to what maybe could have been
an even better endeavor if I'd surrounded myself with the right people.
So you're saying peer groups is, is that so, and one of the things that we've talked about
a lot on this podcast is mentorship.
What do you see the difference is, or like, sorry, what do you see in, in difference between
a peer group and a mentor and, and how would you advise younger entrepreneurs or new entrepreneurs
which path to take, whether it's peer group or mentorship or both?
Yeah, I would tell them to take, to take both.
What I, what I have found is that in pure groups, right, the relationships that can
come out of the people that you're in a structured container with doing deep vulnerability work,
which you know, what we talked about early, it can just be transformational.
I'll tell you an experience share.
I was, I go, I go into this in the book and in some detail as well.
I was in the process of selling a business that had a critical team member and the team
member, I'd invested a lot in him over the years, personally and professionally.
And I, and I, and I prided myself a lot on that.
He decided to leave and what I would consider to be a way that he would probably regret,
you know, five years down the road when he thinks about it.
And this guy's like, this, this personally devastated me.
I mean, to be frank, it like, it brought me to my knees and almost brought me to tears.
Quite frankly, it's like somebody who I have bent over backwards for to help push their
life forward in a lot of ways, helping with house down payments, coaching on relationships,
helping them, you know, deal with operating while intoxicated, you know, things over the
years, like really serious stuff.
And but it was my peer group that ultimately held me accountable to my tagline of grid
it done and really helped me get through that and have a successful outcome.
Let's dig into the story.
Because, you know, it's interesting.
You said a couple of things that I truly believe are fundamental to happiness and success.
You know, surround yourself with people that are going to bring you closer to whatever
it is, whatever it is your life goals are.
And and look for people that are going to hold you accountable.
I mean, I think both those things are critical.
And and we will in our lives run into people such as the person that you just mentioned,
who will break our hearts.
And the challenge in those moments is to be able to separate.
And I'm going to use a bit of a cliche to signal from the noise.
You're going to have people who the experience is crap.
Okay, someone let you down.
The signal is perhaps you are not expecting enough out of people or you're willing to
accept less than what you deserve.
In this story, I mean, what did you learn from it?
You were held accountable.
It brought you to your knees.
What did you learn from it?
I learned from it that at my core, I have deep feelings of inadequacy.
I have deep feelings that I read tiles and I'm not good enough.
And I'm self aware enough that I can trace those back to my in my case, my mother issues,
right?
My mother was the more the breadwinner of the family.
And she instilled in me that sense that I'm not good enough that I don't deserve.
I don't deserve the success.
I don't deserve this happiness.
All it takes so simple is it takes people that see that they see that vulnerability.
They see that sense of shame.
They see that me and be like, dude, read, you're an idiot, man.
Like this is not that big a deal.
It sucks.
It's like a problem.
But you tell us every week, there's no problems in life, only solutions like step it up, stop
the world's smallest violin.
Just go out there, hire replacement and get it done.
So I've learned that pure groups get ready.
It's going to be it's going to be a it's going to be a tagline here.
Okay.
Pure groups I've learned over the years can save me from myself.
It is as simple as that because I tell myself there were stories I want to in my head.
Pure groups that know me and know me well can hold me accountable.
Yeah, so much so much to unpack there.
Yeah, go ahead, PJ.
Well, I was gonna say it's it's super interesting.
First of all, thank you for being vulnerable and sharing these kind of things.
It's it really helps us get to know you and get to know your drivers and to get to know
where you're coming from.
And so we're very appreciative of that.
I'm sorry you went through that growing up, right?
No, there's no child that should feel inadequate or not good enough, especially especially from
a parent.
And so that sucks.
Your your peer groups, though, they could also, you know, so yes, they're there.
From what I'm getting, what you're saying is they're like the backstop, right?
Like they help you from regressing further and pushing you forward, which is which is
awesome.
I will say, though, that there are times when when you're going through something traumatic,
when you're when you're dealing with something that you know has been castigated upon you
that is not you, right, where someone has an opinion of you or someone says something
deep or directed that's extremely negative about you and it's not you.
It's still a process.
It's still something that you got to work through because it friggin sucks, right?
I've had that done to myself personally, and I'm sure many other people who are listening
to this can also relate.
How did your how did your peer group or even did your peer group help you on that side,
the repair part?
Not so much the not so much the get out there, you know, rub some dirt on it.
You're going to be OK, kid, which is also super important and great.
But what about the repair part?
What about making sure that re Talsten is is inside as rock solid as he can be?
It's a good question.
I think that it's a dialectic between the validation, right, and the push.
But what it really comes down to is that because these this particular peer group as a member
of two of them at the time, I'm going to talk about one person in one peer group.
I had known this individual.
We've been doing this work for a number of years and we meet once a month for a number
of hours and we get really deep.
We get really vulnerable about personal issues, about work issues.
So these individuals like like they can see through my soul.
You know, you guys just met me, right?
These people know everything about me.
They know what makes me click.
And in the same way they can, you know, be effective.
And I guess like raising their children because they know their children so well, they know
me on that level.
So they know the kind of love that I need the time.
They know the kind of push that I need at the time.
And there's no way to substitute for that except the previous vulnerability work that
had been done.
And also I'm really open to accepting the coaching and the guidance from them because
when they've been in those similar situations before, which they all had right of varying
degrees, I've seen them be vulnerable with me and it gives me that strength to be vulnerable
with them.
And it also helps empower me to actually take the guidance that they give me and not just
let it go in one ear and out the other.
And the best part is that those relationships are still going strong to this day, right?
And what I can't stress to people enough about these peer groups is take your time finding
the one that feels right to you to join.
There's no right answer, no wrong answer.
Just go into it with an open mind because these relationships will transcend business.
They will transcend your personal life.
They can, I just seen them for me and others go in very powerful ways.
Reed, I'm sorry, go ahead, PJ, if you have a follow up question, I don't want to interrupt.
I was just going to ask, how did you find your peer group?
What did you do to get yourself plugged into such an excellent group of people?
Which I'm glad you sought that out and I'm glad you found that because if nothing, you've
been extremely vulnerable since the first moment your camera turned on, right?
So I appreciate that about you greatly.
What did it take to find this peer group, right?
It's easy to say there's a peer group out there, but where did you find it?
What did you do?
Yeah.
So one misconception I want to give out to people, which I go into in the book is that
I think people have a misconception that you have to join a peer group once you're successful.
The truth of the matter is you join a peer group to become successful.
I cannot illustrate that point enough, but let's go to the intrinsic motivation.
Why did I actually find these peer groups later in my career?
It's because I went through the pain when I was a multi-unit top performing, any time
fitness franchisee and I had a great life.
On paper it was a great life, but I felt some loneliness doing that for sure.
I felt some loneliness and it was actually having to feel that pain that drove me to
get scrappy and find the right peer groups for me.
How did I tactically do it to answer your question?
Well one example, which is not the right thing for everybody, I went to business school and
I built a community around entrepreneurship through acquisition.
Then after I graduated, I joined a peer group of other business school CEOs or owner-operators
where we could commiserate together.
The other one is just simply internet research.
I did internet research on what ones existed for the size of my company.
I diligence all of them and it was the one that I really felt the right gut level with
I joined.
I always had two.
I really think it's critical for people, both if they're searching for a business to buy
and also when they operate, to have at least two peer groups to go with.
When people ask me about, well why should I pay money to join a peer group?
I just sit to myself and I think like, and I'm not trying to sell them, don't get me
wrong, I have no upside in it.
I'm just like, the amount of money, it's almost invaluable because the power of the relationships
you will get from that are going to be instrumental.
Common misconception people have is that you become successful once you've joined one.
I believe the opposite.
You become successful by joining one.
Awesome.
Yeah, I think there's a lot, I need to go back because so much valuable stuff, both
what you shared, Reed, and PJ's question and feedback.
I want to go back to the point that you made in sharing with us the story of your mother
and how you were vulnerable.
You had vulnerabilities, you had insecurities.
I also had very similar things in my life, a mother that loved me conditionally and despite
some great successes in my life, didn't always give me the credit that I felt I deserved
and sometimes actively took the credit away.
That does mess with your head.
Now, you took this, the next thing you said there threw me off and I want to dig into
that.
You said that as you went to your peer group and you talked to them about it, their reaction
was essentially, as PJ said, rub some dirt on it.
Don't play the world's smallest violin.
I got to say that strikes me as discordant with what I would expect to get out of a peer
group that cares about you.
Well, callous, yeah.
Because when you share something that vulnerable or when your point of origin into a problem
is something that's rooted in your childhood and it's deeply emotional, it's plain wrong
to dismiss that as irrelevant and bellyaching, it's fundamental to you as a human being
that that's acknowledged and that your truth is respected.
So tell me I either misheard you or there was something else between those two things.
Oh, no, you got it right.
You heard me correctly and I'll say this, I'll call it a dialectic.
Based on previous vulnerability work that I'd done in this group setting, they knew
the issues, they knew the scars, they knew the pain, they knew the negative impacts that's
had in areas of my life.
And because of that, they could look at how close I was to achieving this success of selling
this business, which turned out to be life-changing wealth for me.
Big retention bonuses to all the team members.
I go through the story in the book, so check it out if you want the details.
They knew how important this was to me and it's acknowledging, yeah, listen, you've gone
through some pain and we get how this is salt on that wound for you big time.
The abandonment is salt on the wound big time.
We get why.
We are here to acknowledge that and we are here to lift you up and to push you through
that man because you're 0.1 miles from the finish line here.
You're so close.
Don't let this inadequacy stop you.
If you do that, it is going to let the inadequacy win, right?
But read, don't let the inadequacy slow you down.
Don't let it stop you.
Just push yourself and you're going to be so happy you did.
And they were right.
I love that and I feel relief, honestly, that that is the fuller version of the story because
I think that there is a tendency, particularly around entrepreneurship, there's this machismo
even among women entrepreneurs.
Now we are just tough and we could just take it and we're just going to soldier through.
And to a point, it's true.
One of the things we've learned in this podcast now through 60 some odd episodes is that entrepreneurs
are able to take some serious looking and keep on taking some unbelievable challenges
that would knock people who are not cut from that cloth down and bring them someplace else
other than continue to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.
And I love and completely relate to having people in your corner who know you, who respect
you, respect your story.
They're not about disparaging your story, but who also see your goals, which is what
I'm hearing you say, and are able to, if you will, be the wind beneath your wings that
your mother wasn't and push you through.
Yeah.
And the best part is that let's think that this whole deal had fallen apart and I declared
bankruptcy and it had been like a big SBA 7, a personal guaranteed loan for this deal.
Let's say it worked out like the complete counterfactual, the disastrous situation.
You know who probably would have been there for me in that process is individuals in my
peer group because they would have been like, you know what?
You were all into it.
You did all the right stuff.
You, you know, you did everything right.
It didn't work out for you, but you know what?
Next venture you do, I'm going to back you.
I'm gonna get all my friends to back you as well.
So those peer groups can just provide so much value, whether you win, whether you lose or
whether you're anywhere in between.
And I will say in some of the peer groups, there have been people that have dealt with
very significant setbacks and I've been successful, right?
And I want to, I am always intrinsically motivated to help them in any way that I can.
I am their biggest cheerleader and it's that kind of like life relationships that's come
out of it, which I could just, there's one, two key pieces of advice I'd give from this
to your audience.
One, if you're not all in, you're in the way.
Definitely join peer groups and really invest yourself on a vulnerable level in them.
The rewards can be amazing.
Yeah, that's, it's very cool.
I want to touch on one thing.
I, I have a follow up question for everything that you just asked, but, or said, sorry.
But take a look at your history.
You're, you're, you're in triathlete, you're a triathlete, you're in ironman competitions.
God bless you.
You're running up the tallest staircase in the world.
You're an Eagle Scout, which is no small, like, you know, I think sometimes people don't
understand the amount of rigor and focus and work it takes to be an Eagle Scout.
I'm not one, but I know some.
So I know that they've dedicated a lot to it.
Is that part, but all of that is about pushing yourself, right?
All of those, if you boil them down, it means you're striving.
You're striving to, to challenge yourself up that next rung, whatever that next rung is.
Are you drawing that from, do you think that, that part of that motivation is from your
past from, from your, from your familial relationships, or is that more of the peer group stuff or
like, how does that, how do you think that works?
Yeah, no, it's all, it's all about the relationships at the end of the day.
It is all about the relationships.
I can push myself to go climb the world's tallest staircase, Nissan Trump and loft seven
times, the number of stairs in the empire state building 11,674.
So fun time.
We want to talk more about that, but I can do that for a couple of reasons.
Like one is that when I was growing up, my mom took me up half down to her for a day
hike and that like empowered me to know that I can do anything in the endurance world that
I want to.
Second, outside of that, again, all about relationships.
It's my mother that inspires me to go after that endurance stuff, right?
It's my brother that inspires me so much to do the entrepreneurship through acquisition.
I'm also by the way, doing a PhD year and a half.
I'll be done with it on entrepreneurship, do acquisition.
And the big reason I'm doing that is that my grandma was a professor.
She has a PhD and it's my relationship with her that inspires me to go out and do that
doctoral work.
Right.
And the reason I'm an adjunct professor is when I was at Booth, I TA teaching assistant
for the first class on entrepreneurship through acquisition with two first time adjuncts.
I've seen how this class has changed people's lives, including my own over the years.
And I told myself, when I am successful, I'm going to be an adjunct professor because of
the positive impact that those two professors had on me.
Everything that I've ever accomplished and I will accomplish is based on relationships.
So I want to dive into entrepreneurship through acquisition and before I do, so we'll get
to that and neither PJ or myself will ask a question down that path.
But you touched on something, it's come up several times and it was the issue of loneliness.
It was something that actually came up in your pre-interview as well.
And on this podcast, we generally seek to just demystify this assumption that successful
people are masters of the universe who are somehow immune to normal human experiences,
whatever they are, depression, loneliness, addiction.
Right.
So we've had people on this podcast that have overcome addiction and have gone on to lead
inspiring and impactful lives.
Tell us how loneliness fits into your story.
Is this something from the past, something that you experienced as an entrepreneur?
I definitely experienced it when I owned the fitness clubs in California, Central Valley.
I was like, I just got that sense of like, it's like lonely as a business owner.
There's these things that I can't talk to my significant other about.
I can't talk to my employees about, I can't talk to my friends about.
I need like a peer group of business owners to talk about.
So I experienced the pain of it at that point, which is why my later endeavors, I was always
very thoughtful, very thoughtful to have those kind of people around.
And take your question to a vulnerable level.
One thing which I learned in my childhood, which I had to unlearn later is that I went
through like standard bullying when I was in high school and things like that.
So I started to think about at times surrounding myself with people as being a bad thing because
they're going to be mean to me, right?
Like why would I surround myself with people that are mean to me?
And it took me years in the professional world to realize that there are bad people and I
don't want to surround myself with bad people, but I can't project that upon everybody.
And there's actually a lot of upside in surrounding myself with people that allow me to live towards
my ideal self.
And if we want to talk about some of the PhD research I'm doing right now, it is basically
studying relationships as a predictor of effectiveness in small business because my hypothesis, and
there's a lot of academic research around this in other areas, is that relationships
are ultimately what drive effectiveness and relationships would ultimately drive results.
Wow.
So I could just blame my parents for everything.
This is awesome.
Well, most people can't.
And you know, all kidding aside, all kidding aside, I mean, it's not a matter of blaming,
but we are all a product of whatever our upbringing is.
Even well-intentioned parents make mistakes.
And if you are less fortunate and you have either parents with mental illness or parents
who are not present or parents that are not mentally ill and present but still do arm,
that's very difficult.
And entrepreneurs, successful ones, including Reid and me and others, are not immune to
it.
I think that's kind of the bottom line.
Now, it's no reason, and I think that that's maybe the second part or the other half of
this coin, is just because that happened to you is not a reason not to go out there and
believe, not a reason to go out there, not to go out there and be the very best version
of yourself, accomplishing the absolute most that you're capable of and doing it through
multiple means.
One, pushing yourself, but B, and I think Reid, you've made the case very strongly and
I think well for the benefits of peer groups.
And you know, we didn't invent that, right?
Whether it's fraternities in college or even AA, right?
Meaning into others is a proven, you know, absolute foolproof way to improve your life.
I'm not guaranteeing you business success, but I am guaranteeing you more wisdom if you
choose to surround yourself with people that care enough about you to be invested in you
in any way, shape or form, which is what generally successful peer groups are about.
PJ, let's pivot.
We've been talking a lot about important topics that I'm actually really excited about, but
I want to get to the book and I also want to get to the concept of entrepreneurship through
acquisition, which I think is a very interesting concept.
So why don't we go there a little bit?
Sure.
Well then, how about this?
Grid It Done, tell us more about the title.
How did you, you know, like why did you name the book that?
It's a great title, by the way.
Thank you.
Hey, no surprise here because of one of my team members.
I was working with a team member named Marilyn.
Marilyn's awesome.
She has tenacity.
She's not really good at balancing books.
So not good with numbers, but part of her job is to balance, you know, AR with balance
AR field service management.
So it was late in the Thursday night.
It had been a terrible day already and it was set out to be a really terrible Friday
and she couldn't balance the books.
And ultimately she cranked stayed till like 10 o'clock at night, maybe a little bit later
stories in the book and she got it done.
I was like, Marilyn, you are so awesome.
You have a grid it done attitude.
Right.
And I just like spout that term out.
And then fast forward like four days, I'm at my peer group business owner CEO thing.
And I was telling that story and my buddies like, whoa, grid it done.
Read.
That's a cool term.
He like pulled out his phone, looked it up on the trademark website and he's like, it's
not trademark.
He's like, you should trademark that saying.
And that's how the term was born.
So key person coupled with my peer group.
And that's how the book title came about.
I like that.
You know, most, you know, people think that a lot of time and a lot of effort is invested
into every cute turn of phrase or every impactful turn of phrase.
Many of them just happen.
You know, just do it by the way, famously, not quite as not quite as intricate as people
think.
So that's the story of that.
Go look that up.
Let's talk about the second half of that.
So the book is in part about the journey, but it's also about this concept of entrepreneurship
through acquisition.
Tell us about that.
What is it?
I mean, it's interesting because I think that generally not everybody is born an innovator,
meaning you may not have this great new startup idea, but you may still have a drive to be
your own boss, to do something impactful, to touch lives, et cetera, et cetera.
You just don't have that one big idea of your own.
Talk to us about how entrepreneurship through acquisition is not, you know, it's not the
lesser sibling of entrepreneurship.
It's another path.
Help us understand what this concept means.
Yeah.
I think you brilliantly summed it up quite frankly, like nicely done.
Let's go back to the story I kicked it off with, right?
I literally took over my brother's taxi business and I grew it, right?
Entrepreneurship acquisition is just lower risk entrepreneurship.
It's lower risk business ownership.
Ten years failure rate for startups is 65%.
What I would say is let's look at an acquisition entrepreneur.
Say you find a business that's doing $500,000 of EBITDA.
Let's say that you're the average American making $1,118 a week in wages, gross it up
to 70K a year.
You can go out and buy a business making $500,000 of cashflow.
You can lever up 80% with SBA, 7A, government-backed financing, get a 10% seller's note, put 10%
of your personal equity into it, friends and family savings, full nine yards.
You're going to make more money while you own that business.
Even if you don't grow it at all during that 10 years, once you pay off the debt after
10 years, assuming you bought it for the same multiple that you sold it for the same multiple
you bought it for, you're going to have a seven figure exit.
You're going to be a millionaire.
In addition, I would argue that you're going to have more autonomy, more freedom.
You're going to own the upside of your work through that 10 years.
You're probably going to enjoy the process more.
It's a no-brainer.
Is it for everybody?
Heck no.
It's a ton of work.
There's personal guarantees in this world.
Failure is real and it has high costs.
Is it something that I think every American should seriously consider?
Absolutely.
We live in a time now because of the demographic changes and the silver tsunami of all the
small businesses that are going from generation to generation now with all the retiring owners.
It's actually a really good time because of demographic tailwinds to consider this option.
If I am a $70,000 a year person who wants to go and expand my legacy for my children
and make a better life for myself, how do you go about finding these companies that
are ready to be swooped up?
What I would tell you is that the first step in that process is spend the money to read
and spend the money.
It's been three hours to read the book that I wrote about it, which is like the nine steps
to do that.
There's a lot of great literature out there, but the gap that I want to fill with it is
it's the steps and it's the frameworks that I've applied successfully in my own experience.
It's also coupled with the actual stories of what it's like, some of which we talked
about earlier, to actually own and run a small business.
Time is life's ultimate commodity in my opinion.
I see a lot of people that kick tires in this space.
They like the vision for it, but it's not actually the right fit for them.
I hate to see people spend $10,000 on a weekend workshop or a lot more money on an MBA and
just invest their time going down this route if it's not the right step for them.
Read the book, get a sense of if it actually inspires you and you get like, yeah, I really,
really, really want to do this.
Reach out to me or reach out to others in this space, schedule a follow-up call, and
then we'll talk about what some of those next steps could look like.
The first chapter is essentially assessment, right?
And I have a quick little eight question tool you can take online, which will give you an
all in or not all in answer to it.
If the answer to that survey is not all in, don't take the time doing it.
Go back to whatever it is you're doing before and just find what you can truly be all into.
I'm all into this and I get super excited about it for all the reasons I talked about,
but it's not for everybody.
So my guidance to your audience, my guidance to you is do the assessment part of it first
and see if it's something that actually intrinsically fires you up before you spend time on it,
before you spend a lot of money on it.
That's great.
And Read's book, by the way, is also available on Amazon and you can contact Read in the
show notes.
We're going to have both his LinkedIn and I think your Instagram or something.
There's a second, you know what, I should have it, I don't, but there's another way
to contact you that'll be in the show notes.
You can also obviously contact us at bravingbusiness.com and we'll be happy to put you in contact with
Read.
And Read, I wonder if you'd be up to making a couple of books available to our audience
if people write in and maybe tell us a story that would resonate with either PJ or myself.
Would you be comfortable sharing a couple of books with the audience?
Yeah, totally.
You know, it's funny because I'm guessing your audience likes Audible.
So I have like a couple of Audible promo codes left, so we definitely can get that going
and definitely happy to send you guys a couple of books as well.
Nice, fantastic.
Although I gave most of them away at my book launch where I think I have like five or six
left.
So we have to ask me after this to make sure I still have some, I'll send you guys some
of your way.
We'll do.
Or no more.
That sounds good.
We will, to our audience, if you'd like a chance at either an Audible or physical copy
of Read's book, go ahead and write to us at bravingbusiness.com.
Tell us why you think you should get a hopefully a signed copy of Read's book or at least a
copy of his.
If it's Audible, I don't know what he would sign, but that's okay.
And we will be happy to hold a raffle and as we do with many authors, give away a few
books.
Read, before we go, there was a quote that you gave us that I was curious about that
I wanted to dig into.
It's a little rah rah, but I'm curious what you mean by it.
You said, if you're not all in, you're in the way.
I think that in life, there are moments that you're all in.
You may be all in, but there are moments in the day, the week, the month where you are
not, the energy level isn't there and you don't necessarily feel as all in, even though
you are as a whole.
So help me understand how this is not just a catchphrase.
If you're not all in, you're in the way.
How do you separate the normal ebbs and flows of life and the fact that you're not always
going to be at your best from whatever it is that you mean by this phrase?
Yeah, great question.
I'm super glad you asked that.
Clarify in the context of going out and buying a small business, you need to be all in.
If you're halfway in, you're halfway out.
Now you can achieve absentee ownership.
You can achieve entrepreneurial business ownership, especially if you follow some of the steps
in the book, but you need to realize that at least for the first couple of years, you're
doing this, if not longer, despite what you might hear in sales pitches or talking to other
owners, make sure that you are really dedicated and you have the time, the resources and the
gumption to dedicate your life to this, whatever that looks like.
Make sure you have your spousal support.
Make sure you have, you know, your family situation lined up.
Make sure you have the right assets lined up.
Make sure that in this context of entrepreneurial business ownership, that you are truly all
into it.
Because if you're not all in, you're in the way and that can have catastrophic consequences
for people.
Gosh, I feel so much better having you clear that up because I can absolutely relate to
that.
I think that makes a ton of sense to me.
In general, in life, whatever your true goals are, personal or professional, you do need
to constantly assess how invested you truly are in those goals.
And if you realize, and by the way, that requires awareness and I'm a big advocate of self-awareness
through meditation and other means, and it's very, very difficult to actually know what
it is that moves you if you're not in good close connection with yourself.
And I know that may sound silly, because we talk to ourselves all the time, but naturally
we don't talk to ourselves the way perhaps we should.
A lot of us end up having our mind talk at us as opposed to being mindful about it.
And I think what you're talking about really is the opposite of that.
It's about making sure that you fully understand what you're looking to do.
And if it is in fact what you want, be all in.
And I think that makes all the sense in the world.
And I wrote the book so that people could understand what that lifestyle is actually
like and decide if you're rah rah, let's do it or haha.
I love my business owners.
I have a lot of respect for them, but you know what?
It's just not for me.
And that's awesome too, right?
But just don't be in that middle.
Don't be in that uncomfortable middle ground.
Real quick, is this for small mom and not even mom and pop, but this is for individual
businesses that people want to buy or are you talking about franchises?
Talking about both, but in the context of the silver tsunami, I'm talking more about
the non-franchise concepts.
I think that franchising is a great option as well.
And whether or not the silver tsunami is happening or not, franchises are always going to be
available out there.
It's just a matter of taking something that already works, at least the right franchise
concept is, as opposed to reinventing the wheel.
Sure.
And what is the silver tsunami?
Is it the boomers?
The aging of the population.
You're talking about basically the baby boomers retiring.
I've been hearing about that for years, man.
They're still not done retiring, the baby boomers?
That's the crazy part is that people talked about this, like you said, 2010, 2015, some
cool academic research was done about it.
And the original hypothesis was that the owners are going to retire in their sixties, right?
Which would have been 10 years ago.
Now with the numbers are starting to show that business owners aren't actually retiring.
They're now holding on to their seventies and they might hold on to their eighties.
I guess business ownership is that much fun of a life.
But with this opportunity, it's not in the past, right?
It's actually like in the present and it probably has at least a couple more years behind it.
So it's not one of those things where it's like, oh, I could have gotten involved in
this.
I missed it.
It's actually happening right now.
And it's something that I think everyone should give a good hard look at pursuing.
I love that.
Well, I'll tell you one more thing that's happening right now is that your book, Great
It Done, is kicking ass and taking names.
And I encourage people to pick it up and to reach out to you.
Reed, it's been a pleasure.
I think that we both got to know you as a human being and got to see what you're passionate
about.
So, PJ and I thank you for making time for us today and we hope to have you back on the
show talking about the next book or the next adventure.
And while I'd say, you know, I always love a good challenge.
One thing you wouldn't catch me doing, you know, unless my life depended on it is racing
up the world's tallest or even shortest staircase to anywhere.
I think it's great that there are people that want to do that.
But for the life of me, I can't understand why.
It's your point about assessment.
Just know it.
Know what floats your boat, right?
God bless you.
That's the truth.
Our guest today, Reed Towson.
Thank you so much, my friend.
Have a great rest of your day.
And that's a wrap, folks.
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