📍 How are you doing Dr. Knaub? 

 

I'm doing good. Yeah. Feel free to call me Lance. Mark.  

 

So Lance, you are the author of the 4 percent Breakthrough. What is that book about? Wow. 

 

Good question. First of all, for everyone listening, make sure you subscribe and follow Mark.

 

He, as you guys already know, he delivers a ton of value in our pre call. His engineering background is shown through and he loves to be very specific. And we're going to do exactly that today. Cause that's the kind of value he likes to deliver. So the 4 percent breakthrough is the culmination of my My life and entrepreneurial journey right up until 2018.

 

And a lot had happened in that time. So the short version is that in 2018, I was able to create a self managing company, five locations, about 50 employees. And one of our partners, I really studied. Partnerships because I feel it's underutilized and one of our partners wanted to run the company. So I put it all into a step by step process to help other leaders and entrepreneurs who wanted to stay healthy while they were creating a self managing company.

 

So I'm excited to really dig into it with you today. 

 

Love it. Love it. Running a company, owning your own business is a dream, but after some point it becomes very exhausting for many people. So the idea of a self managing company is extremely exciting. I can't wait to talk about more about this. Tell me a little bit about you, up till 2018, you were you were an entrepreneur of your own and then you moved into the new shift.

 

Tell me a little bit about that life. What kind of businesses did you run at the time? 

 

Yeah. So at 2018, then when I was able to pass the baton of breakthrough physical therapy and fitness, what we're going to talk about today, I had to really introspect and figure out, what I loved and what I wanted to do next, my next move.

 

And it was exciting and scary at the same time. I talked to, I knew I wanted to diversify from a brick and mortar healthcare business. And I knew I didn't want to, I wanted to have a little more geographic freedom and lifestyle freedom. So I talked to a franchise broker, franchising sounded fun. I had researched it on the other side of it, considering Fran, being a franchisor.

 

So it was really fun to be on the shark tank side of the equation. And I did a little bit of due diligence for a couple of weeks. I was recommended and presented my wife and I healthcare companies, a medical weight loss, I say type company from California a salon And then one outside of our industry, what, Oh, eyelash extensions.

 

And then one outside of our industry, which was a co op space. And I studied several of them, but it didn't take me long to realize that I was too entrepreneurial and I wanted to, spend as much as my time with other entrepreneurs, and I didn't want to build something that the franchise agreement would have all the control and 10 years could take back.

 

So just for a lot of reasons  I decided to do some coaching and consulting. And, the real story on that is probably in 2019. I went to podcast movement to see John Lee Dumas, who someone big, I emulate and, big in the franchise world wrote the forward for my book. We're going to talk about and self publishing school was at pod match in Philadelphia.

 

So this has allowed me helped me connect the dots on writing, why writing a book would be good for some expertise and credibility and this new venture, which I had made the decision at that time. Yeah, and now for the six years I've been spending, more and more of my resources, a hundred percent of my time now on coaching consulting.

 

I did treat until 2023. And that was weird because that was such a big part of my life. Michael Gerber's words, that was the technician work. And just yesterday I met with my mentor, Marilyn, who big inspiration really taught me a lot of a lot of things, including the marketing business planning process.

 

And She was asking me about how I was enjoying spending my time in coaching consulting. And I said, I, I'm completely fulfilled. I'm very lucky to have been fully satisfied as a physical therapist, entrepreneur and with coaching. That's a little bit about what I've done since 2018.

 

Fantastic. So let's dig deep. I know the audience members are trying to figure out what are the steps they can take. So we're going to just assume that the person who's listening to this podcast wants to start a business, wants to have a balance in between life and work. They don't want to work a hundred hours a week.

 

They want to be able to run a self managing company. What is the first step? How does one even get started with this? 

 

Yeah. So the first step, the first section and the end is really what I just touched on, like getting to know yourself and doing some introspective work. And just a couple of days ago, I was in New York city at the Aspire tour and Eddie Wilson and Andrew Cordell are the founders and they've done an amazing job creating a company in 18 months.

 

I think it has a 400 million valuation. And they. Yeah. Andrew Cordle told a story about meeting with Mike Tyson over the last 18 months, and he, Andrew likes to ask the guest what money is blank, and he asked Mike Tyson this, and Mike Tyson said, he sat there just and saying, I finally said, I don't know what have other people, commonly said.

 

And Andrew said, many people have said freedom. And Mike broke out into hysterical laughter and started walking around the room and pacing. And everyone was like, Oh my God, what is going on? What is Mike Tyson going to do? And Mike finally walked over to his team and said, they think money is freedom. And finally he sat down and said, If you think money is freedom, you'll always be a slave to money.

 

You'll never have freedom. And it's so profound, right? Because, I think some of the takeaways on that is things like money and external things will never give us happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction, success. So this whole first section, which the very first step of the first section is your personal mission, your why, your cause, your reason.

 

Sedek did an excellent job. In his Ted talk and well known book of really identifying that. And we all know the psychiatrist from Auschwitz when he did his research, he identified that when the other, prison prisoners lost their meaning.

 

When they didn't have something to look forward to, then they died. They couldn't make it. Viktor Frankl, so I really think it's important to, to do this exercise first. So the very first step. Would be determining that, and I know you wanted to be specific rather than just talking, from a high level.

 

So my editor, Matt Macon in 2018, when we started working together on the book, he was actually in North Hollywood. He was dog sitting. And so he was in Hollywood. So he could do screenplays and just try to break into the scene. And now five plus years later, he's got an exciting opportunity to he's a perspective equity partner and he's.

 

Really speaking to the founder about being the CEO in a short timeframe. So he was asking me for guidance recently, and I was pointing him back to the book on all the things he's doing. So yesterday we caught up just to prepare for your show. And the answers he gave often when people have a hard time on this first section, putting it into a beautiful sentence, and I know you're reading the book right now, so I want to hear your immediate thoughts.

 

But what I do is I ask people if they don't have that perfect sentence done, I asked them to create a list of their priorities. And for Matt, he, number one was his family's health and happiness. Number two was his career. Number three was himself and hunting and fishing. Number four was uplifting and supporting the people around me.

 

Mark, how far did you get on what's most important in your life? Are you able to share anything? 

 

For me, the most important thing in my life was to, and it always has been trying to create content that could help me 10 years in the past. 

 

Okay. Okay. 

 

Because when I was going through my own journey, I was hopelessly looking for information that could help me.

 

And either I didn't know where to go or the information that I stumbled upon was just simply useless. So I guess 

 

my, my, I love this. And my question for you would be, and this is almost what many entrepreneurs in what I call my jolt framework, which is helping entrepreneurs, the title of my book is the 4 percent breakthrough.

 

And that's because 96 percent of small businesses fail within 10 years. And I also realized that's a complete match. With the number of entrepreneurs that have a business plan, a plan in place. And when I do this process that I call a jolt with people, I've realized it's about the same, any 10 percent or less have a plan.

 

So my question for you is that your, your professional mission, like there's a lot of expert opinion would be your health first, oxygen mask approach or your family or spirituality, is there anything else that is important to you even as number one and what would be the next couple of things 

 

For me, the type of person I am, that is number one.

 

I'm a very purpose driven person and I'm just being a hundred percent honest because I know there's other people out there listening to it who are going to be like that, just like Mike Tyson, that he could have given the textbook answer of money is freedom, but honesty where it's at. And for somebody at his level to come down and say, I don't know.

 

What did other people say? That's honesty. So I'm being 100 percent honest. For me, my purpose in life is to help myself 10 years in the past. And I believe that if there are other people in the same position, they could get help from just listening to and reading my content and conversations with people like yourself after that.

 

Yeah. It's part of the reason why I built a business before I started my bodybuilding journey, health and family are the same level too. And the reason is because they feed each other. If I am not healthy, I'm not there for my family. And my family, the relationships that I have with my family also feed into my physical health and mostly mental health.

 

Okay. And when you say they're the same level, you mean they're the same level as the first one? 

 

Or the second one. So first would be the purpose. Second would be that. 

 

Okay. Got it. I love it. No, that's great. And obviously there's no right or wrong answer. So this is good. No, I love that. And even for myself, obviously this kind of work evolves.

 

I'll mention to your listeners. I know we have a lot of, people in tech who are looking to start their own company. So this is what I recommend first, really getting to know yourself. For myself. My, sentence version is I will live in the moment to enjoy my life and be my best self through love and positive support and help my family, friends, and myself, and that myself was an addition live an active and healthy lifestyle and avoid burnout and create clear visions and success plans to help others achieve their goals and dreams.

 

So I can see even for me, how, I just love helping entrepreneurs and helping them stay healthy, achieve their health and goals and dreams. So I do think there. Can be a connection on that. It's, that's pretty cool because hopefully for you, just like me, you're completely blown away, excited every day you wake up, doing what you do and high fulfillment.

 

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. 

 

Okay. Because in Tony Robbins word we can move to step two. It would be very easy to have incredible financial freedom, but if you don't look through this first lens and satisfy those things, then it would be very easy to be. Unfulfilled, unhappy, dissatisfied, burnout.

 

Exactly. Because even in my experience, and I'm sure we're having worked with dozens of people's scores of people in the past, that there is more than one way to make money. So when we are just using money as the common denominator, we are lost. Yeah. Because you could make money. You're running a pizza shop.

 

You could make money running a scam. The spectrum is so large. Now we start picking what am I good at? What am I great at? What am I best at? What am I going to enjoy doing? What am I not going to enjoy doing as much, but there is more money. And all of these things that you said, when you are not dialed into who we truly are and acknowledging what we really want and what is a priority.

 

When we are not dialed into that, that will cause us to go down the wrong direction, which would cause initially burnout, dissatisfaction, and then eventually closing down the business in 96 percent of them in 10 years. So I love it. I love how it gets started. So what's the next step? I have now find the answer.

 

I have a little bit of understanding. Where do I go from there? 

 

Yeah. So step two and three are really along these lines. Just looking at it from different perspectives to really make sure we're not missing anything. And I, because I know you just read up to chapter four. So it was chapter two is what I call your perfect life.

 

And I want you to write it in the present tense. So speaking to Matt Macon, my editor and friend. Just yesterday, he said he's envisioning being his perfect life would be being done work by noon. He wants to be able to not work at all on Fridays and weekends. He wants to make low to mid six figures.

 

He wants to spend the rest of his day with his family. He'll be working as a professor. So in academics and also in publishing, and then he'll have all of his own projects. He. Yeah, he'll be doing his own writing and running a publishing company, which is actually right in front of him. It's, he's going to be able to manifest this.

 

His work is being sold and enjoyed. He's teaching classes again. He's being very specific. The more specific, the better he's going to be teaching classes one to once to twice a week. He will retire his wife 10 years and she'll become a partner in his, in their businesses then. Financial freedom.

 

He'll have multiple streams of income. He's going to start with some real estate. He's going to have a second property on a mountain. His kids are becoming happy and healthy. They are oh, he's and some causes that are important to him on this, like clean food, clean water, clean air. And other things he wants to help political transparency as another thing.

 

So this perfect life, the more clear on what your day might look like to you the better. So you can start to manifest that and really make sure you're heading in that direction. How about for you, Mark, you think your listeners, are you willing to share some of your thoughts on this one? 

 

Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to get to my perfect day every single day.

 

Yeah. I wouldn't say I'm very close, but I'm close enough. I like to wake up in the morning. I know myself. I have the most amount of creative energy then. So I like to do a little bit of creative work. Then I like to take a break, spend some time with my son, spend time with my dogs, drop him off, come back, get back to work at midday.

 

When I have had a couple of meals, I like to go to the gym that gives me time to work out with strength. I'm back to some work and ideally I would like to stop working around six o'clock, which is not happening right now. 

 

Okay. 

 

So that's the part that I'm trying to work through. I love working and it's not that I have to dread it.

 

It's just, I enjoy it so much. So it's hard to stay away from it. So yeah, I would like to stop working at six o'clock and then just a little bit of work on Saturday and Sunday in the morning and then be able to have family time. 

 

Okay, that's great. I love that. So do you feel like that captures the second step well enough?

 

I guess the one thing on the second step that I'll just mentioned. I've identified that a lot of people I've included a sub step in that like your perfect professional life. So I recommend to our listeners to just like you and I have the, blessing of our professional life is really satisfying to us.

 

So consider that I call your perfect professional life and really what I've learned, even since I published the book, several of my coaching clients have financial freedom and I just finished Brian Lubin's book and he's part of a national mastermind that I'm in, which, many of the people have financial freedom and.

 

Even once you reach financial freedom, like some people think they might want to sit on the beach or just relax, do nothing. It's not the case. The people I'm closest to and what Brian Lubin's research found is that's why you really need to know your cause because the people that do that, Brian Lubin went and did that for a year and then he had no fulfillment.

 

So now he's helping, high income W2 people transition to entrepreneurship. Yeah. Perfect professional life, map that out. And if you really think that, once you hit some freedom, financial geographic lifestyle, that you're going to do nothing, dig a little deeper because it's probably not the answer.

 

So I think that brings up a great point, which is what I wanted to ask. Having talked to so many entrepreneurs on a daily basis, people who want to be entrepreneurs. I think most people think of entrepreneurship as a golden ticket. And you asked them at a very surface level why do you want to be an entrepreneur?

 

What do you want your ideal league day to look like? Maybe they have read the four hour work week book, but now they want to run a business where they want to work four hours a week and have financial freedom and travel the world with their family. And just have really nice cars and a really big house, right?

 

You and I have built businesses from scratch. It's not that easy. Yes. Maybe eventually down the line. You can convert into that model or some type of a model, but somebody who's just absolutely getting started from the groundwork, it's just not possible to do that little amount of work and have dreams that really are more focused on enjoyment as opposed to bringing value out, right?

 

Which is exactly what your exercise is trying to do. So if somebody is listening to this and they're saying, Oh Lance wants this thing and Mark wants this thing, but I only just want to walk four hours a week. How do we help them understand? Oh, that's a good answer and a great start, but you need to start digging.

 

And furthermore, at what point do they really realize that they have reached a place where they actually have something substantial and not just Sitting on the beach and sipping wine coolers all day. 

 

Good question. I think that John Lee Dumas, who I just mentioned from entrepreneurs on fire podcast, he has a great answer.

 

He's he recognizes that the startup phase is going to be all in. Now he was able to about 12 months in 12 to 13 months in to. Start really significantly monetizing from the podcast. And that's when he really lowered it and scaled it down because he knew what he was going for. He'd really done some thinking.

 

So I think that the expectations for our listeners has to be the startup phase is going to be all in. And you will have to develop skills. You won't be able to have a lifestyle business like John Lee Dumas, who works eight hours a week and does, one to 2 million in profit annually. He says that's his enough.

 

He's not trying to be a billion dollar company and a hundred million dollars in profit. He pays 4 percent taxes work in Puerto Rico, works eight hours a week and has the life of his dreams. So I think you need to know what the life of your dreams is and go that. And as soon as you do get some traction and you're coming out of the startup phase, then you do have to, Make your priorities a priority and be careful not to continue chasing the hamster wheel and just going, like Mike Tyson, right?

 

It's very easy to chase false idols and just go too far on the wrong thing. 

 

Absolutely. And I think analogy that helps me that has helped my clients recently. As I, at some point had found myself in an extremely bad health condition at a 41 percent body fat. 

 

Yeah. 

 

Getting from a 41 percent body fat to a 7.

 

9 percent body fat was extremely difficult, but once I hit it now maintaining at a 10 percent body fat, it's pretty easy. And when I have a competition coming up this Saturday. And I started cutting down again a couple of weeks ago, it wasn't as hard. So that's the difference. And I think that's another way to explain what you're saying, which is the great point, which is that at the startup phase, the start of your weight loss journey, at the start of anything, it's going to require massive amounts of effort, right?

 

It is massive amount of distractions. It's an enormous amount of skills that we need to learn knowledge that we need to acquire because I didn't know back then how much cardio to do. What to eat, what not to eat. All those things, but having gone through that initial painful, extremely stressful straight now for me to maintain and get back on the stage over and over again and maintain a six pack ab year round is not that difficult.

 

So it is possible to work very little and have the life that one wants. If somebody does want to work only four hours a week or eight hours a week. And relax and enjoy life. It is possible, but it's not possible to do that without that initial startup phase, where we are in a constant struggle to learn the information, apply it, see how it works in the rinse and repeat the process.

 

Totally. Because you make me think of a couple of good points. If you think of a ladder analogy, you can't skip steps. You'll never get to the next rungs. So you won't get beyond this startup phase. If you really want to have, a good lifestyle business and, if your priorities are exactly what you're going to lay out until you're developed, this whole first section is all about your personal development.

 

It's like the Jim Rome quote, very rarely do people exceed succeed beyond the level of their personal development. It never happens in my opinion. So yeah. So your listeners are developing themselves. Now this is going to be the hard work at the first, getting to know what's important to you, committing to that, developing yourself.

 

Love it. Love it. So we have done step one. We have done step two. Let's move to step three. Where do I take it from there? 

 

Yeah. So step three, this is really important in my opinion, probably most people know Stephen Covey, seven habits of highly effective people. So Stephen Covey has a, what he calls a funeral exercise and it's, what would you want people to say about you at your funeral, right?

 

And it's a great exercise. However, I have between, I think my mentor might've sparked this in me, but I improved this exercise because, and the exercise is what do you want to be able to say about yourself at the end of your life? Because everybody else has their own perspective, their own childhood, their own, upbringing, geography, all these biases.

 

It doesn't matter what anybody else says. In my opinion, it really only matters. What we say and what we believe. So again, this is just another thought exercise that is part of the 4 percent breakthrough process that I think is important. And what Matt said to me yesterday he really had some great things and it was similar to me, even for me, only in the last.

 

Years. So I realized that success for me is going to be having fully developed children, just mentally, emotionally, physically, just the able bodied people that are going to go on and do great things. And. Probably a great test is how their children are. If they're great people, cause great leaders, create other leaders.

 

Matt actually had a kind of a similar answer. He said, when his children are adults that they wanted to spend time with him and his wife, he wants to have lived in the moment and enjoy the day, not to take himself too seriously And then he started telling a story about man shouldn't step in the same river, which some people might be familiar with that story.

 

He also said, doing right by the kids are, that the kids are successful. And they have families that they look back fondly. on him and his wife. He said having children is the most successful thing that him and his wife can do. And he wants them to have a good life. So yeah, mine and his are a little bit similar on that.

 

How about for you, is this exercise spark anything different? 

 

What is interesting about this exercise is that. The answers to step three can be achieved without going through without through step two. In this example, we can raise our children to be a certain way and make sure that the legacy that they are giving over to their children is a certain way without having to go the whole entrepreneurial route at all.

 

That can be done with even a 30, 40, 50, 000 salary a year. And I have great friends who make very little money. And they are not entrepreneurially minded at all, but they are family minded. So it is not necessary that one can only have these dreams if they are an entrepreneur. These can be had by anybody and they're not.

 

It's not like they go together. They can be independent of their own. So to answer your specific question, absolutely. I am a person, but I'm also a husband and I'm a dad. And a lot of the content that I said, I'm trying to help myself 10 years in the past, but also to help my son and my other future children that I might have.

 

Because there's going to be a day when I'm not going to be around. The reason I know whatever little I know is because I've suffered enough. I've suffered a lot. There's a point in my time that when I was homeless, From going there to a seven figure consultant, it was very difficult. I have failed in every way possible that I could have to learn the lessons.

 

And then I don't want my children to go through that. So if I can find a way to communicate and give them that information and the knowledge. I would love to, and that's part of the whole journey. So yeah, I think it's going to be similar for me as well. 

 

Okay. I love that. And yeah, I'm that's so wonderful that you've been able to decrease your body fat from 40 percent and get healthier and rise above the homelessness that you're such a success story on this step three, one thing that. Rises up for me and for the listeners who are obviously leadership minded and trying to figure this out. I would, and this is probably in the pro column of considering a business because having a business is probably not for everyone. And Gino Whitman wrote a great book a couple of years ago called the entrepreneurial leap.

 

And it's a test and you'll see where you score. And, his opinion is if you score high then you might try to be the next Steve jobs and really go for it. If you scored lower. You might not even want to jump in the entrepreneurial pool at all. And if you sir, score a little bit higher, maybe a franchise is a better option for you.

 

The one thing I was going to say is I feel like leading a business, starting a company, being an entrepreneur is the ultimate personal development tool. Because I just think about those. Individuals and families that may not be owners. I feel like they, they can really develop themselves as leaders, but it is going to be hard.

 

I feel like you are going to learn fast having a business. And that's a major plus. I'm extremely, even though I had the Just as many failures as you that in 2004, that after, working as a physical therapist, I did not feel ready. I didn't have any business training or background, but it was fortunate for me that I jumped in after only being a clinician for four years.

 

And fortunately I had some mentors in place, which is definitely a strong move to arm yourself with. 

 

Absolutely. Absolutely. 

 

Awesome. So yes, step four is a little easier and then we can even talk about step five. So step four is. But I recommend for people is another way of getting to know yourself in this section is tapping into the Myers Briggs and all the possibilities of self assessment tests.

 

Obviously use, better tests, more validated tests. There's disk. There's lots and lots of tests. There's new ones on the market. There's ways to take the test for free and even to get your score for free. And I actually started to use this on interviewing and then even with our team and so many benefits.

 

So take advantage of that. And for me personally, I actually moved from a field marshal to a teacher. So that's in line, just interesting note with what I'm doing and what my passion is. Have you taken any tests personally? And do you use any for your team? Any that you recommend?

 

I have not taken those tests. I have taken some in the past, but I just don't use them on a daily basis. Yeah. 

 

Yeah. Even I prefer 

 

getting to know somebody, I don't want to move one on one level just then to rely on a test because people, when you're self answering questions, if you're not truly being honest with yourself, those tests can only deliver what is being inputted.

 

And I think primarily the problem is many of us have a great gap in between what we think of ourselves and who we truly are. And that goes both ways. I've met incredible people who are incredibly talented, but they think so little of themselves. And then I've also met people who need a lot of work, but they think they are already amazing and entitled to a billion dollars.

 

Unfortunately we live in a society where at least the people I interact with fall into one of those categories and very few people are pragmatic and rational and are truly honest themselves. I think that's a skill set that even I had to develop for many years, where I'm absolutely brutally honest to myself.

 

That's where my position is on that, but I can see the usefulness of it if it's run properly, 

 

yeah. Interesting enough. My wife had the same reaction as you, my wife, Jody, when I asked her to take the five love languages assessment, she was just like, it's just so weird being, it's so obvious and I can control my answers.

 

However, when I use the Myers Briggs at Breakthrough, 99 percent of the people actually agreed with the answers. It's a whole study and I even met a consultant that did his PhD on this topic. It is a whole rabbit hole that we could go down and there's definitely not perfect tests your point, but I did find it, provide some useful data.

 

And the other thing is even in getting to know people and getting to know your team, actually jumping ahead in my journey and story. Beyond the 4 percent breakthrough when private equity approached us and we weren't looking to sell it's a position I recommend everyone be in. They did use a test, very expensive tests.

 

So obviously, private equity is pretty sophisticated when they're spending a lot of money on a test, but they didn't leverage a property. Your point is very easy to do things and then not actually. Put it to use. But what I was going to say is even to see if people on the interviewing process can follow through, take a test, get the scoring and what it means, send it to me, a little three step process was invaluable on just like ruling out a lot of people.

 

Absolutely. And for the purposes of this conversation and for the purpose of the audience, we're primarily focusing on ones. For those who are looking to get started, who are looking to find themselves. And part of that is in life is to be a seeker. nobody in life is ever should ever be at a point where they think that they have all the answers, right?

 

Me, you, anybody, right? So if that, if such is the place and we're looking to get started and we're looking to build a business, absolutely utilize every single test and tool that is available to you, who gather as much information as you can about yourself. Yep, there is no, there's not going to be one single test that is going to answer all your questions, just like there's never going to be one single friend who is just.

 

Understands you at every single level. It's never going to happen. You're going to have many friends who are going to understand different aspects of you better than the other. And the cumulative community of those friends makes our lives longer because it feeds into that relationship matrix. So I think these tests that you're mentioning are amazing because we can continue to take them and continue to gather data points until we have something substantial that we can possibly act off.

 

Yeah. 

 

And maybe for your listeners who are really considering taking the leap, The one that I mentioned, Gina Wickman's the entrepreneurial leap. It's a free test available online. Consider that because that will, Gina Wickman, cause John Maxwell. In 21 laws of leadership. One of my favorite books, he's one of my favorite leadership people.

 

He takes the position that every one of these laws and leadership criteria can be improved. Gina Wickman takes the position that look, if you don't have some of these things, you be careful. You probably don't want to do a startup, franchise, or you might not want to go into business at all.

 

So that might be a good one to start with. 

 

Absolutely. And I love that idea. I've not read the book. I will read the book, but I love the idea because not everybody's meant to be a doctor, not everybody's meant to be a lawyer. And why do we believe that everybody should be an entrepreneur? But we feed into it.

 

We get stuck into this idea because that's what we see on TV and that's what's glamorized. But again, Honesty with ourselves would be to take a test like that, to really understand where our strengths lie, where our priorities lie, and then take a decision from there. So I love it.

 

I highly recommend it. I will link the book in the podcast so that people can get to it easily. And I myself will, I'm going to read it and take the test as well. 

 

Awesome. So let me tell you and everyone listening about step five, chapter five, because this is where the rubber meets the road, all this introspection now, this is where ask you to.

 

Put it on paper, what people call it a time map and what I call a success schedule. And really this is where on a weekly basis, I want people to lay out their priorities. They're non negotiables. So time for the definitely they're sleeping, they're exercise, right? When they're going to, Stop working right for you.

 

We might want to talk about that six o'clock and see how you could adjust that and still have enough time. Or it might give you permission. Actually. I know for me, just having this map created, I'm like, okay, it's time to flip the switch. I can move on. I've done my best. So even with business, then having time set aside for working on the business because.

 

For everyone listening, once you guys jump in, you will need to be, it'll be very tempting and easy to do your, what your technician work, be a doctor, be a lawyer, be a, software writer for me, be a physical therapist and not to, do some of the entrepreneurial work and the management work, which is all the other hats and it's critical, just like in the E Myth.

 

The story about a baker, you will absolutely fail if you didn't do some of that work. So this is really an important step. And yeah, I think it's critical. And I continue to update mine. And even when I have people to do it, I share partly to hold myself accountable. I share tabs of my life, all my success schedules over the last five years.

 

And I color code this and ask people to do that. So they can really at a glance, see if they're out of balance. Do you have anything like this? And this is totally different than your weekly schedule, your calendar, this is your big blocks of time. 

 

I have something like this, but I will tell you something that I struggled with, and maybe you can help me with this.

 

And maybe some audience members will resonate with it too. That's somebody who wants to get there as fast as I can. I have a tendency to create unrealistic goals, right? Because I am working. I am smart. I can do this. Why wait till tomorrow? I want it done today. Yeah. So when I create this map, this vision map the plan, whatever you want to call it I have a tendency to put unrealistic deadlines.

 

What are some mechanisms that I could use or someone can use to make sure we are not failing at the get go? Because if I am saying that, it takes nine months for a baby to be born, right? If my plan is to have a baby in three months even before conception, I have failed. So how do we do that?

 

Yeah. 

 

Just so the success schedule is not defeating, you'll never be perfect on any week, but you should be aiming for 80 percent of it. And if you're really below 50%, I'd recommend making some adjustments, making it more realistic, and then phase into it because. The magic with sleep, for example, right between seven and nine hours on the research.

 

I was not getting anywhere near that. My third, during my 13 years as an operator, maybe towards the end, right when I had better leadership closing, getting close to that 2018 time when I really had some good leaders in place at the higher level positions, but yeah, be more realistic with yourself and then create some milestones and timelines.

 

And by the way, setting big goals is not Always a bad thing either. I just started rereading for the third time this morning. 10 X is easier than two X by Benjamin Hardy, a psychologist. And he goes through the research and detail on how setting big goals you are actually, they're more exciting and you actually are more likely to achieve them.

 

So I definitely want to encourage everybody to think big about your dreams. And even yesterday I was telling my mentor when I had lunch with her that I didn't dream big enough with. One of my bucket list things was having a short house and we got a shore house in November, but it's a shore, it was, it's a combination of a short-term rental in a shore house.

 

I wish I would've dreamed bigger to immediately have a second home. So I had a hundred percent of that time and energy with my kids and family because I can just see how wonderful it is 

 

looking back at that moment. 'cause everything is obvious in retrospect, right? Even when I look at my life, I'm like, why did I think of this?

 

If you had to problem solve this and say, what did I have? What would I have needed to do back in the moment when you were setting that goal? How would you have gone about it differently so that you would arrive at the answer that you know that you should have answered arrived at? 

 

Yeah, it's a great question.

 

I think a lot of it comes down to who you spend your time with. And just surrounding yourself by with people that are like minded and driven because Even the most successful companies like private equity companies, like right now, you and I, even with our new companies or many times people listening, you're going to be charting on, on, doing uncharted waters all the time, gone from a 1 million company to 2 million, 3 million.

 

What the private equity companies do is they put somebody that's already hit 10 million mark, the eight figure mark and the nine figure and a 10 figure to mentor that, that leader. So they have people that have been there because frankly. The national mastermind that I'm in, if I had been around people like this sooner, rather than two and a half years, right?

 

So 49, 50, when I got in, I would have known that and realized it sooner, that I should have been dreaming bigger, but I just didn't know. And even in that same group, I didn't know it was possible to have more than one company. A lot of these same people, they have two, three, four companies. And I was, had a limiting mindset that, wow, I'm maxed out on one organization right now.

 

And it wasn't true, but I just wasn't around people that were doing bigger things at the time. 

 

Yeah. This is really profound. And it is a cliche, but it is extremely profound when you truly strive to understand it. The old saying that, who we surround with ourselves would define who we end up being.

 

Yeah. And it is incredible power in this because everything we know in life, we can see if, when I think about everything I know in life today, perhaps for you too, we have learned it from somebody else. So when we are not surrounded by, in your example people who are in your mastermind, you're not learning from somebody else who has done more than you.

 

You're only surrounded by those who are probably at your level or maybe even not at your level. So if everything we have learned is from somebody else we just have to keep on finding the next level person. Because whether we want to learn how to tie a shoelace or build a rocket ship, somebody already knows how to do that.

 

If 

 

we can find that person, we can learn from them. So I love it. I run a mastermind myself. So it's the same idea. A lot of times, not everybody's privileged to live in the New York, New Jersey area or Austin or some big city. There are a lot of people in small towns with really big dreams. And sometimes I have clients like that.

 

It's difficult for them to. Find those people, it's a small town. nobody there is driven and they're the quote weird one. Why can't you just be normal? Why don't you just go to job, come home, drink beer, watch TV and go hunting and fishing every weekend? That's wonderful for some people, right?

 

Cause we already said entrepreneurship isn't for everybody, 

 

but 

 

then the entrepreneur who has that drive, who has the motivation just cannot find someone like them, that's where masterminds come into play. That's why groups like this come into play because all of a sudden you're not that weird one.

 

There are other weird ones like you. And then all of a sudden you find people, not only you give energy to, but also draw energy from, right? Agreed. 

 

A thousand percent. 

 

No, I love that. Fantastic. So step five, what's next? 

 

Yeah. So you can let me know how deep you want to get on section two or three. I think you mentioned section one and section three might be the most valuable.

 

But section two, this is where Matt Macon, my editor is now with this, CEO role in the near future and potential equity partner and managing partner in the, near future. So I said, Matt, listen, there's a lot going on here, but just like in the book, we need to map out the chess board.

 

We need to have an org chart and org board and know what pieces are on the table. And frankly, you're wearing a lot of them right now in his case. And that's good. And then the next step, step seven, chapter seven is having position descriptions that match. With all those roles so that, and this is a really a pearl, so you can rapidly replace their hatcher in because many people listening are going to be wearing all those hats have, be in all those pieces on the board initially.

 

Be very clear. And even just for myself I just hired my first full time VA last week. So step a chapter eight, it forced me to really practice what I preach with my new company. To get my playbook in place systems and processes and have them all mapped out. And then step nine, chapter nine is what I mentioned earlier.

 

Marketing business plan. So this is critical in my opinion. So many entrepreneurs, as I mentioned, just don't have a plan in place. And I realized even the traditional plan is probably. too bulky. I had a 50 page business plan for Denali consulting in 2018. And after it took me three years to realize I could boil it down.

 

I'd recommend that everyone listening do some planning. It can't be zero, but it can only be 10 percent of your day, your month, your year. It doesn't need to be massive amounts. You can't stand on the mountaintop forever. But you also can't run straight down to the trenches, either way you'll fail.

 

So you need to do some of that. And then the other step in this section, which is all about your business fundamentals is a skills gap analysis, really identifying whether it's you or, you have your partner, your spouse, whoever, a couple of key people. We don't have any financial acumen.

 

We don't have any tech acumen. We don't have any legal expertise. We need better accounting, whatever it is, just identify that. So that then you can work towards filling that. So that's the second section in a nutshell. 

 

Yeah. I love it. I think this is a great point because primarily there are two different stages of growing your business.

 

When you're starting out, you're a genius with a thousand hands. You're doing everything yourself, but And that's great because it allows you to get started, but we'll never allow you to scale. Because at some point, what you said and what you lay out in your book is that some point you have to start hiring the right people, creating those positions, creating the descriptions and forming a team around you that is competent and is going to be able to execute how you want them to execute.

 

Without that step, the small business will never be a big business. The big business will never be a bigger business. So I love that that you laid out that way and the importance of that, because I work with a lot of entrepreneurs who get stuck at the very first stage, because this is a baby they have built from scratch.

 

And they're so used to doing all the tasks themselves. Sometimes even though they intellectually know they need to hire, they can't let go of the control. I think there's a lot of mindset being done as well. When it comes to marketing plan, the importance of it. We'll share a small story. I have a friend who was starting pizza shop after pizza shop, the bestest of the locations, and he was making great pizza, but he was shutting down every couple of months.

 

Pizza is one of the most commonly consumed food items in America. So when we sat down and we talked about it, he just didn't know what was going on. Same time went by. I saw him again in a year or so. And this time around, he had a really successful business. And I said, what was the different?

 

Difference. And he said, I stopped chopping the lettuce. I said, what does that mean? Because when I was running the previous pizza shop, I was so hands on. I was literally counting the pepperoni pieces that goes on and telling them here's 13 pieces on this side, there needs to be 13 pieces on this side. I was chopping the lettuce.

 

I was focused on the individual small level task at such a high level. But I didn't focus on running the business, which is marketing. But he was used to that because when he started his pizza business journey, he was the genius with a thousand hands. The way he made good pizza and got the name was by controlling the quality, was by controlling everything else.

 

But at some point he needed to be able to transition that to somebody else and focus on the big picture. So it fits right into what you're saying. So I love it. 

 

Okay. I know that's a great story to highlight that. So yeah. And then the third section is what I'm passionate about because I didn't similar to you, the message that I, is really my core message in helping entrepreneurs stay healthy and scaling goes back to my personal life and having a failure moment, a rock bottom moment in 200  11, we had, Three offices, 30 employees, and we just had our third child.

 

So we had three children under the age of four and I was working 80 plus hours a week, not sleeping enough, not exercising enough, abusing my body and my digestive system had enough and shut down my GI system stopped working. I, Couldn't get any nutrition in. I was embarrassingly there in the bathroom or running to the bathroom.

 

And at that time I was supporting all 30 people. I was here direct report. So it did not, it was not good. I had to rule out cancer celiac Crohn's. It was pretty scary. Go through an endoscopy. Fortunately it was temporary and I was able to get myself back on my feet, but that's I don't know. Part of my story and the reason I love to help other entrepreneurs, not to make too many sacrifices and, go too extreme for too long, right?

 

Beyond that startup phase, maybe there's a little bit of, pushing the needle in the red, but you definitely have to scale it back. Again, along the lines of really just trying to share all my life and business experiences, I put it, I tried my best to put it in order, but there is a compounding effect with this, a synergistic effect.

 

I think if you break in on sleep, exercise, nutrition, it all is going to help. So chapter 11, step 11 is your mental health and then nutrition and then sleep and then exercise and then posture. And if I was to add another, Step in chapter would be like play and humor and laughter because there's a lot of research on that as well.

 

You can literally it's mind control. When you make someone smile and laugh, you're just having all their happy, positive hormones released. And there's so much benefits of that as you're building a team and growing an organization. 

 

Absolutely. It's about living a full life. Yeah. A full life isn't just work and money.

 

That's right. A full life isn't even just freedom just to go wherever you want. The full life is a life where you have people who love you, people who want you, people you can spend time with. And that kind of a life is nothing without laughter and stories and kinship. Somebody you can call up in the middle of the night, somebody who will be there for you in the middle of the night if you need them and vice versa, knowing that you are also the type of person who people rely on.

 

And you are also the type of person that is wanted and needed. None of that is possible by just tactical measurements of business success. So in, in a way, your book is taking, giving people the blueprint to have a full life. It starts out by trying to find yourself, what are your passions? What are your drivers?

 

Takes them to the technical steps of then building a business and then ends with giving them again. A sense of reality into life is truly supposed to be. It's about fitness. It's about health. It's about love. It's about relationships. It's about humor and laughter. So thank you so much, Lance. It was wonderful speaking to you.

 

I highly recommend everybody buy your book. I will look, link it in the podcast. Any last words before you before we let you go? 

 

No, so much fun to get in so deep. I love everything you're doing. Love hearing about your journey and really serving all of your community. Good luck in your competition and everyone listening again, please follow, share, everything that Mark's doing.

 

It's incredible. So thanks for the opportunity. 

 

Thank you, Lance.