Join us on this episode with Mr. Clarry Herrera, CEO of Agenix Digital, as he and Mr. CEO at 22, Sean Si, engage in a compelling conversation about starting and upscaling SEO as a competitive business, proper delegation and leadership processes as a CEO, and what to look forward to in the age of AI .

Listen as Sean shares his journey on growing SEO Hacker from the ground up. Get tips on how to delegate and manage your company effectively as CEO. Learn valuable insights on how to navigate through the Age of AI within the next 5 years.

If you're a startup owner or aspiring to venture into the services industry, this episode is for you!

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Clarry Herrera

Website: https://agenix.digital/

Join us in this episode with Mr. Clarry Herrera, CEO of Agenix Digital, as he and Mr. CEO at 22, Sean Si, engage in a compelling conversation about effective hiring platforms, team structure, and leadership strategies.

Listen as Clarry shares his journey in building a thriving services business. Learn about the ALT framework, the secrets to hiring the right people, onboarding effectively, and retaining clients in the competitive field of SEO.

If you're a startup owner or aspiring to venture into the services industry, this episode is a must-watch!

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Clarry Herrera

Website: https://agenix.digital/

Sean: Why would some companies not attract talent? Was usually the problem and what's usually the solution?

Tony: Well, the first thing I always say to people who are leaders and I've always felt it myself, is that if you're the smartest person in the room, you've got a problem because you shouldn't be the smartest person in the room. You might be the most well-rounded person in the room. If it's if we're talking about this, there should be somebody else in the room who's smarter than you are on it. Hiring is very difficult.

It's very difficult at the moment because there are so many new dynamics that you have to bear in mind working from home. You know, the hybrid model that people want work-life balance, which is a particularly important aspect. When I started, it was all about higher, faster, and stronger. We stayed up later, we worked harder.

And that's how you beat your opponents. But the new generation working in that, that isn't what motivates them. They're not necessarily motivated in the same way. So one of the things that can put people off is if you're still working to that kind of model I was CEO of, I would still be there if I had to be there at 1:00 in the morning working to get That's how I was trained to be. 

But very quickly, you realize I can't go and expect that of everybody. In the old days, people expected me to stay later than my boss. And it's not right. And what you have to do is listen. One of the things that's interesting is that we still think and I'm as guilty of it as anybody. We still think sometimes in running our businesses in terms of almost military. We talk about campaigns. We talk about people who walk toward the gunfire. We tend to think about it in that sort of slightly confrontational, aggressive way. And that isn't how a lot of the newer entrants into the job market want to think they want to advance.

So I think the companies that fail are the ones that are not thinking about what it is that the new job entrants would look for. They want to know that you have a purpose. They want to know that you're thinking about more than just profit.

What are your environmental policies or charitable endeavors? How do you keep us together? How do you entertain us? What is your culture like? You know, and I do feel for many current leaders because I find that a sort of odd paradox of workforces that desperately want enlightened cultures, good working experience team they like are rewarded properly with the flip side of they want to come in when we have to or we want to do hybrid working because it is very difficult to create a culture when there is minimal contact.

But we will find a way through it. At the moment because we never legislated for it, it's going to be difficult and there are all sorts of wonderful experiments going on all over the world. A company I know called Hutch, which is a sort of production company that has gone four day week. Everybody is on four-day weeks. We have three-day long weekends.

And they did it well because the people who worked four days already had some. Well, I'm a part-time worker. I work four days. Their salaries went up, then paid full-time as if they were on five days. You know, I think we're going to see some best practices and we just all have to be prepared to learn from it.

But I think this whole thing about, Oh, millennials are terrible and Gen Z and we can't work, that's nonsense. You just have to listen to what they want. So I think the difficulties come from if you're still a fairly unenlightened employer, they can smell it on you.

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Tony Harris

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Sean: Okay. We have our next question from Chucks - how do you find the time, energy, and space to keep working and improving your business?

Ven: That is the hardest thing because time is the most precious valuable resource out there. But this is something you need - we need to build into ourselves. You can't 'not' do it because there's such a thing as working on your business and working in your business. So working in your business is what you do - the things that are bothering you right now, that's your in your business. But working on your business is another important thing you need to do and you have to institutionalize that. So I do have my own - I just finished my think week, so I do take a few days to just think about the business, what we need to do. This is normally around the time that we're planning for next year. So you're really looking at the things you want to do for your business that's not related to what's the current concerns, the current crisis. Like in our family, we learned seven habits very early on, and a large part of that is actually knowing what's important and what's urgent.

Ven: And normally you should really work on what's important even more. And what's important is the viability of the business, the big view, the long-term view, the investments you're making. So it depends on where you're at in the business. Like right now, maybe you feel like there's like wave after wave of problems happening. Just do a little bit of the important stuff first. You'll have actually less crisis down the road. So if you're in that moment right now, this too shall pass camion. But you need to really figure out what's important and try to solve that. And then you go back to what's urgent. And for us it's what's really important is working on your business.

Ven: So like for us to realize like our business is and we're really kind of like a logistics company. So we had to take a look at our warehouses, our relationship with our truckers, our own fleet, the kind of people we would have, and the kind of software that we would recently digitalize our warehouse management software. So these are not easy tasks that you have to really push together. It's like the WMS one is like a two-year thing. It's not easy. And but if you're saying, okay, if logistics is one of the most important things we can do as a business, then we need to put our best investments, our money, our effort, our energy towards that. And it might be difficult in the short term, but you know that you're moving in the right direction and it will pay off in the long run. I think having that courage is really in that perspective is needed. So personally I do think weeks we also follow the Sabbath every week. You really have to take time for yourself. Really step back and have perspective. But yeah, it's probably the most important priority you're going to have, even though it feels like you want to attend to that crisis right now.

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Sean: What kind of leadership style have you adopted that you found to be most useful for your company, for your team?

Ven: That's a great question because I did not adopt it. It was always been who I was. So that's the thing. I found the best parts of myself and offered that. I think you - Sean and I are familiar with strengths, and strengths development. So I lead with futuristic. So I also lead with ideation, strategy, competition, and relator. So that unique combination of strengths is who I am. I had to use the best of me for the company. So if I had a different set of strengths, I would be a different kind of leadership style. So I had to look at and own who I was and be able to use that.

Ven: So for me, I'm futuristic, so I love thinking about the future, I love planning, I love telling others about what I see and giving them a lot of excitement about what we're going to do. Let's look at the technologies, all the cool things, all the gadgets. Let's get into the cloud and the automation and all of that, everything. And because that's who I am, and if I try to be like, let's say I wanted to be just like my dad or just like my mom. I would do a very poor job of that because I don't have those strengths. I had to be the best version of myself.

Ven: That's probably that kind of thing - I didn't really adopt it. It's who I am. And that's what SCPA, our company, got. So if they got a different president, they would get that person's best as well. I'm not going to force that guy to be like me. In the same way, I will never force my kids or my nephews and nieces to be somebody who they're not, but offer the best of yourself and understand yourself. So that's one of the hardest things right, then really in a company, actually, we have everybody take that strengths finder test so that everybody knows what they're good at and how they could offer that to everybody. And even though they're not yet in a leadership position.

Ven: And, you know, there are times, you know, the imposter syndrome strikes. I wish I was like my dad. He was like this. He was like, I wish I was like my mom. She was like this. She was like that. But in the end, I have to be satisfied with the strengths I have and they're pretty awesome as well. And what's funny is that when you talk to the others and they're going to say,' Oh, I envy you have that, I envy you.' And then we just stay in the company and let's work together, right? So that's the best thing because you have things I really need, you know.' So my sister and I, she has an activator. I just love working with her because anything that I want to happen, she just likes, just gets it done. Perfect for futuristic. So yeah. So you have to adapt it. I would say that in our company we adopt the strengths that you have. We offer that up as your best.

Sean: Yeah. For those of you tuning in and who're not familiar with Strengths Finder, just look it up online. Gallup Strengths Finder 2.0. Very powerful stuff. And as SEO-Hacker, we also use that. So all of our regular team members, unlock their top five strengths and we use that to see who they are, profile them and see if they're at the right seat on the bus in our company and how we can utilize their strengths as well. So very good stuff. And we all have strengths. These are things that we love doing, we look forward to doing and we are really good at and we focus on using our strengths in our lives, not just at work but in our family, how we lead our kids or how we deal with our parents or siblings. I think that overall we will have a better quality of life and better temperament as well.

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Sean: The first question, straight to the point - would be about family business. What skills did you find to be the most useful in managing a family business?

Ven: I didn't expect that question because that's a lot of reflection. The thing about family business, they haven't been really writing any books about it, right? They tell you how to be a good employee. And I remember actually there's this really great article like ten skills you need at your job that have nothing to do with your work. So I was thinking just now like, what are the ten skills that entrepreneurs should have that have nothing to do with business, right?

00:01:28

Ven: So I would always think the first thing I would probably say when it comes to family business, in particular, is your ability to manage your relationship. So you have to know your parents, you have to know your siblings and your children in the future. So I had the benefit of having a good example for my parents

Ven: So one of the conclusions my sister and I had when it comes to succession planning, in fact, it's actually succession planning is actually good parenting. One of the things I think that's essential if you're running a family business, it's different if you're just running with business partners is that that relationship management is really key and you need to really do a lot of 'give and take listening' also knowing the times that you're going to be able to say your ideas. So I had a good mentor in my father. He made it easier. It's not easy, but he made it easier. But for me, I had to learn how to pick my spots. Know my place. Leave the ego out the door. I think that's super important. That's going to destroy your business experience or entrepreneurial experience if you let that really affect it. So that's the first skill, I would probably say if you're really managing a family business.

Ven: The second skill I wouldn't say is necessarily just in family business alone, it's really having a clear plan - clear vision. That is something that's harder for the second-gen. I'm a second-gen because the initial vision was from my parents, so I had to come up with my own view of the future and own that because you're always going to feel like I'm just following them, you know? And right now I have the right titles already - I'm president and CEO, so I need to really have that plan in place. I really need to have a view of where we want to go. So those two things are probably in a relationship and the vision is probably very important.

Ven: Going back to the idea about second-gen, I think when I met you I introduced myself as a Gen 1.5 owner, not so much as a second-gen, because the true experience of me owning the business, so to speak, was really about identifying myself as a founder as well. Especially for me, because I kind of started with the business almost immediately. So I joined in the fifth year of the business. So right after college, I jumped in. I was still part of the growth journey. I saw my parents work hard. I saw them by example, you know, lead the company. And then when they turned over the reins to me as president and just last year as CEO, I really had to have a good plan already.

Ven: And it wasn't an excuse anymore that, 'oh, you know, your parents are leading the way.' I became president relatively early on. I mean, it's about my 10th year already. So I've had to develop that vision. And then that's where your siblings will also follow you if they know you are heading them somewhere. You know, it's not something you take for granted. So those are the things I think are important.

Ep 392: Skills You Need in Running a Family Business

Sean: What would be something that you would suggest for people to build into their habit routine to become a better leader and manager at the same time with their work or career?

Darby: Yeah, so I think it's going to be different for everybody. However, what I would say is that what everybody should focus on because this is related to habits is, as you analyze, like sitting down and thinking about what are the activities that you do throughout every day. And I mean, like the main things you do to accomplish what it is you do at work, to accomplish your goals as a company or whatever. What are the things you're doing every single day? Just list out everything and then go through that list and pick whatever that top 20% is. Now, this list, depending on how big it is, could be 10 things. It could be 20, it could be 5, it could be 2, whatever that is. Find the top 20% of activities. A lot of times folks will call these high payoff activities. And those activities are the things you should be setting as habits that you complete first every single day.

Darby: The reason being is, you've heard of the 80-20 rule. So the idea behind this is that this guy named Vilfredo Pareto in the late 1800s came up with this idea. He was studying wealth distribution in Italy, and he basically determined that 20% of all people held 80% of the wealth, which this holds true today, maybe even more lopsided than that. But eventually, he obviously didn't call it that. Eventually it became known as the Pareto principle. And what we know is the 80-20 rule. And basically what it says is that 20%, no matter what it is, 20% of activity results in 80% of the results.

Darby: So Microsoft uses this to their advantage. They determined early on that 20% of all their bugs accounted for 80% of their support calls. So what that meant was, if they went back and only focused on those 20% first, they could eliminate the bulk of their support calls. And it worked. This applies to customers. 20% of your customers usually account for 80% of your sales. 20% of your products account for 80% of your revenue. It may not be exactly that ratio anymore, but that's the idea.

Darby: So in your life and in your daily activities, if those highest 20% of things account for 80% of your results, do those first every day, build those into your habit. Because if you accomplish that 20% and you don't get to some of the other things each day, at least you are 80% of the way there - on completing and helping you achieve success.

Darby: The other part about that is, that those things will change over time, based on your priorities, based on your career. So you should be reassessing those every now and then. You should be sitting down and making a list of everything and then figuring out the top things and constantly reassessing them because they will change and they're different for each individual. So my list I would not list in my high payoff activities checking email. It's probably not for a lot of us. However, if you're an executive assistant that works for a CEO whose main goal is to direct the email and sort that out for their CEO to keep them focused on higher level things. If that's their role, then that may be in their high payoff activities. So it's different for everybody.

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Sean: I want to start with a question. What's the big difference between a leader and a manager?

Darby: Yeah, well, first I will say, in our world in general, we love to have this or that. You can be this or you can be that. And I actually start off the whole premise of my book with this idea of you've heard the question or you may have been asked the question, are you a manager or are you a leader? And I start off the book by saying, that's a ridiculous question. Like, I know quite a few managers that are really good leaders. And if you say, are you this or that, it kind of gives you the idea that you can't be both. You have to be one or the other.

Darby: And those manager folks are the ones who are - these are skills like people who are highly organized, they're methodical. They're all about, how are we going to do this? What are we going to do? This is how it's going to get done. They're the ones that are able to identify. These are the challenges or the barriers we're going to overcome. They're the ones that are checking a box to make sure the stuff gets done.

Darby: The visionary folks, if you're on that side of that, if you think of it as a spectrum, if you're on that side of the spectrum, those folks are that the high idea people, they think of a lot of ideas, a lot of entrepreneurs who start businesses are high visionary, not all of them, but a lot of them are. So they think of a lot of ideas every day. They're the folks that are highly passionate. They're the ones that - they're not saying what or how. They're the ones that are saying why we're doing it. This is why we're doing it. This is why it's important. And in their mind, when they think of an idea like they can visualize it, it's done. 'We're there.'

Darby: Now, here's the deal. You need people that have both sets of skills. You either need people that are on both sides, or you need individuals who can pull in both sets of skills because you don't want to be at either end of that spectrum.

Darby: If you're that high manager person, you're way over there on the left side of that spectrum. Then that person may only be focused on checking a box and getting stuff done. They don't care why they're doing it. They don't care about who they have to snow plow through to get it done. They just need to get it done. If you're way over there on the other side, you don't really care about how it gets done. You just have all these ideas and in your head it's already done. So what's going to happen is you're going to frustrate people because you're going to move on to the next idea and the next idea and the next idea, and nothing is going to get done.

Darby: So what you've got to do is, is instead of thinking of it as a spectrum, I encourage folks to think about it more like a Venn diagram where you have two intersecting circles and try to choose the best traits from both sides of that spectrum and put those into what I'm calling The Indispensable Leader, which is the title of the book. So if you pull in the best traits of both sides and try to utilize those best things and understand what those are, that's going to help you be more indispensable, be the best leader that you can possibly be.

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Darby: The first thing is, as a leader, I want you to always be curious, be constantly learning. Your goal should be a lifelong learner that's going to help prepare you for change. Change is going to be constant. It's going to help you continue to evolve and grow your business as an entrepreneur. If you're running your own business. So make sure that you just stay curious about things. Constantly read, utilize coaches, training, and anything that you can do to continue to expand your skills, your knowledge base, and your experience.

Darby: The other thing is, just understand and this is something I talk about people when I coach them as well as understand not everything is going to be easy. It sounds very simple to say that, but I think sometimes we just think that we want an easy button. We want a button we can push that just makes everything easy. And there are going to be challenges, you're going to encounter them in your career, your life. There are going to be things you cannot even imagine will happen, that will happen to you.

Darby: But looking back, I use that as a learning experience. That really gets to my next point, which is to view your setbacks, view your challenges as learning opportunities. Good leaders will do this. Yes, you have to deal with whatever the challenge is at the moment. Put the fire out, deal with whatever it is at the time, but then make sure you look back at it and determine how you can utilize that to move forward and utilize that experience to get better and make sure it doesn't happen again to help others grow in that as well.

Darby: That leads me to my next point, which is just listening. And when I say listen, I think we have a tendency as humans sometimes to listen to respond, which by that I mean you're listening to somebody and you're thinking about what they're saying and you're thinking about, 'Oh, I know what I'm going to say.' And that's all you can think about. You're only thinking about what you're going to say when they stop talking and we're all guilty of it.

Darby: But instead of listening to respond, especially when you're dealing with team members or colleagues, listen to understand. So really pay attention to what it is that they're talking about and really listen to help you understand. The other part of that listening is one of my mentors actually told me that his advice for a leader was to listen, but then also know when you need to take action because you're in a leadership role for a reason, there becomes a point where you have to make a decision and move forward. You can't get bogged down in it. So listen and then just know when it's time to move on.

Darby: And then the last thing is again, overarching as leadership, this overarching as a human being is just to be compassionate. Everybody has their own crap they're dealing with in their life. I mean, just think of some of the stuff that you have in your life and your listeners have in their lives that nobody else necessarily knows about, or maybe only those very close to you, but certainly not people at work with you. So as you manage people and as you lead people just remember when you're dealing with those individuals, they have challenges they're going to have bad days.

Darby: I mean, your goal should be to help your folks that you're leading continue to grow in their career as well. One of the things I always tell people is, that I want the people that work underneath me to want to take my job, like I want them to be striving for that. Because I'm striving for something above me and beyond what I'm doing. So I want them to actually want that too.

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Sean: What coursed through your mind in deciding that 'okay I'm going to try nonprofit this time, I'm going to try a leadership organization at this time?'

Darby: Yeah, it's kind of one of those things when I coach young people in particular that were just exiting college and getting into their first career. One of the things I tell people is that, what you believe your career is going to be, is probably not what it's actually going to be.

Darby: When I was going to college, I never imagined - I maybe could have imagined managing a retail store. I never would have imagined that I was CEO of a livestock association, especially a livestock association for alpacas. So not something that I could have actually imagined.

Darby: And actually they were advertising - it's an interesting story. They were advertising through an agency, so they didn't list the company name or what it was. They just described the role - reporting to the board of directors, running the company, all of those sorts of things, and so I applied for it. And then when I got my interview, they will tell you who the company is, and I had to look up what an alpaca was before I went to my interview. I had a general idea that it was kind of like a llama then, but I actually had to look up what an alpaca was so that I knew going into the interview what it was.

Darby: And I always tell people it's kind of funny and I use this in coaching also. So if they had put the name of the organization in, I probably never would have applied for it, because I would have honestly thought, how big can it really be? And I wouldn't have wanted to go somewhere where it was just me and one other person or something really small. And it turns out it was much bigger than I anticipated. And I ended up with multiple locations and we went through an international merger with another organization. And it was an interesting experience. And I certainly learned a lot over that time.

Darby: But again, I never would have anticipated that. And in coming to the end of it, like looking back, I was speaking on alpaca DNA testing. And how to verify or validate parentage and bloodlines. And breeding values and stuff, stuff that I never was educated for early on, that I just had to learn as I went. But again, you just don't really know. So as you are evaluating, you're ready to take that next step. It's different for everybody.

Darby: So like. When I was managing at Kinko's, I just kind of got to the point where I'm like, 'Man, I am ready to be done with this 24 hour management thing and this retail management, it's a lot of work. I mean, at one point I worked a 37 hour day.

Darby: So it was pretty crazy. And I was you know - my wife and I were considering starting a family and all of that. So at that point I was like, you know, I'll start looking around and I saw this role and I'm like, 'That sounds like something that I would like to do, and I've never been in the nonprofit sector, but let's give it a try.' And then kind of the same thing 11 and a half years later, when I was ready to move on, it was a similar thing where I felt like I had done everything that I could do for that organization. I felt like they needed to move on to somebody else and it was time for me to move on as well.

Darby: I also was kind of to the point it was a similar situation where I worked for a board, a nine member board of directors, and I got new board members every year. There would be a few that would switch out every year. So you were constantly getting new bosses. So I was ready to kind of be done with that and I decided, let's go back into the for profit sector. And move on to that. But yeah, you just kind of evaluate it as you move on.

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Sean: But what's going to be your advice for me, for example, when I'm faced with these kinds of offers, and let's just say I'm open to it because I wasn't open to it when these companies approached me. So, number one, why would I be open to that? What are some of the good reasons why I should be open to that? And number two, should I give them my information, the books that they're asking for? And why is it that that's the first thing that they're asking for, not your three questions.

Jeremy: The best way to approach this would be looking at this from a time travel perspective, which is if you were to invest and receive an investment of several million dollars this year, and in three years you receive, let's say, $5 million, and in five years receive $10 million, as I say, and eventually receive like $50 million. How big a company is you going to be? That’s really the question, right? Because the truth is if I have a time travel machine and I could be like fast forward and be like, oh, if you take a couple of billion dollars and then later you take a few more rounds as a result of that and you become $1,000,000,000 company. And having only raised, let's say, $20 million in total or $30 million, I'll be like, I'll come back from the future. I'll tell you, 'Hey, Sean, take the money. And by the way, that money comes from me,' right? And then it would be great, you know because then we know that, you know, you're going to become a $1,000,000,000 company, that your fundamentals of the company are geared well for high growth and high profitability and everybody's happy. You walk away rich, and a king and the VC are very rich as well for having the investment. Right. So that's the truth.

Jeremy: The reality is that there's another time travel where you hop into the machine. Right? And you see we fast forward, right? Receive a couple of million dollars and then you raise a couple more million dollars, that's to say. And then it turns out that you're not growing as fast as what the capital requires. Right. And you're not achieving that thing. And truth is, your trajectory is going to become one of the 30 of the 40 that don't succeed at 39 or 40 - that failed to achieve a positive outcome for the capital. And at that time travel you see arguments and debates because the VC put money in you wanting you to become $1,000,000,000 company, but you're failing to achieve it. And so, they argue with you at the board, they are debating with you, you come home and you're beating yourself and you work harder to try to make it better.

Jeremy: The truth is that would be the advice I'd give to the founders that have that time travel machine. It's hard to tell, but the truth is the investors don’t also have a time travel machine - that's why they're talking to you and trying to evaluate you to see if you can do that trajectory. But it takes two hands to clap. Right. And that's really, tough. So, the answer is yes. Let's invent the time-travel machine and let's find out - you know, unfortunately, we don't have one yet. It requires the VCs to be self-aware about that because you know, I try to tell you right now there's a lot of Tier two and Tier three and Tier one VCs who have made bets on the roulette wheel thinking that it would be $1,000,000,000 company. And it doesn't work out because that's the name of the game. The difference is that as a founder, you have one spin of the wheel. And for the VC, they have 20 spins on the wheel, right? There's a very different element of the game and one level, but I've also different level expectations and requirements.

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Sean: If, for example, I approach you and say, Jeremy, I have a startup and I need funds and I know you're an angel investor, what are the questions that you start asking? What are the things that you want to know first?

Jeremy: The first question is, why do you care about this problem? And then the second one is why and how it has become $1,000,000,000 company. And the third is what's the hardest part about this business or how would this company fail?

Jeremy: So, the first is very simple. And you really want to find someone who has found a problem fit. That means, you know, the founders often are looking for a problem market fit, which is what can be built that fits the market that it cares about, and does it make sense from economic basis? But I think as an investor, we're looking for founders who understand what they're building and have empathy for the customers and is willing to tough it through. Right. And I'm not saying that if you don't have found a problem, it doesn't mean that you can't succeed in that. On a net market basis, probably the whole population is probably going to take longer for you to understand problems, is going to take longer for you to build a solution. It's got to be longer for you to fundraise. You know, things are correlated with that. So, understanding founder-problem fit is key.

Jeremy: The second is like, why will this be $1,000,000,000 company? And I think the conversation is there as a form of constructive discussion is like, is this going to be a billion a company and how will it become $1,000,000,000 company? And I think looking for mature, thoughtful discussion to say is, is the market size big enough? Are there competitors? Would this be able to generate monopoly profits over the long term? Those are tough questions that the truth is they don't know, and you don't know.

Jeremy: And the last of course is - if this company is going to fail, how would it fail? What are the proof points? Because the truth again is - the majority default case for most startups is they're going to fail to achieve $1,000,000,000 valuation. And so having that mature discussion, again with the person is like - what are the proof points where if we fail, these are points we fail. So that you are aware as the angel investor that the failure happens at that point in the best-case scenario. And a worst-case scenario that you're using to manage risk and understand what the tricky parts of a business that you need to support them more on if you choose to come in. Right.

Jeremy: And so, you're really looking for someone who has that mature discussion across all three because any day you're not necessarily looking for someone for who delivers three perfect answers to those three things. You’re looking for someone who's mature enough and has hopefully thought through those three aspects about it, about why they care about a problem, about how it would become $1,000,000,000 company and thinking about what they need to avoid or d risk. And you're looking for someone who's thought through those three things. And if you find someone to talk to, those three things actually is choosing one thing. You're choosing a great founder, right? The two questions are not there to find true. Perfect answers are to find a person who you're comfortable collaborating with to help answer those three questions on a recurring basis every year for the next ten years.

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Sean: I'm wondering, how much autonomy did you give this person? Did you let go of your control of the company to this CEO that you hired? And just to give people like me an idea like how much equity are we talking about when we're going to give them a slice of it? Is it like 1%, 5%, 10%? Hopefully not, but I have no idea. And I'd like to learn from people like you've done it before.

Jeremy: So, I'll give you example would be, you know, if you gave away half the company but the person doubled the size of your company, then you broke even, right. If that makes sense, right. A minimum - right? And so, one way to think about it is if you could find someone who's going to 10X your business, then giving away half company is no big deal because yeah, you know, you grew your stake by 10X, right, you know? Even though you gave up half of it, right. So, you still up by five x, right? So, I think I always tell people is that you want to think about your equity stake and then find someone who is so good, that you think is cheap that you're giving this equity stake to - right. And it's a no brainer.

Jeremy: In terms of like letting go of control. I mean, you know, the funny story is that after that hand over, do the handshake and form team, I went for a solid meditation retreat, you know, and it was like ten days. And I remember, you know, it was my first time that I didn't have a phone, no electronic devices. And it was a pain in the rear, honestly, because there was a lot, and I would, you know, be meditating and visualize my phone vibrating in my pocket, even though I didn't have my phone at all. So, it just goes to show how addicted I was to vibrations and notifications.

Jeremy: And, you know, it's all about letting go and being present in the moment. Yet what was interesting was I remember we got a phone back at the end ten days and I was like, open my, you know, WhatsApp? And I was expecting like a bunch of messages from the new person, you know, to ask me for help. Ask you where stuff is? And zero - there was like zero messages, you know, she had gone off and kept going into everything.

Jeremy: And I remember I felt disappointed, you know, I was like, you know, I mean, obviously, intellectually, you know, it would be great if she did not because she was getting stuff done and everything. But I felt like, unwanted - unneeded I mean, obviously, intellectually, I knew that was good. She got it and she had it under control and things didn't explode in those ten days, you know, and she was off to the races, and she did a better job for the company in the next stage than I could ever have had done. Yet, you know, I was saying, like, it was just interesting to have that dynamic, right? Which was to feel that reluctance. Right. And, you know, having to name that feeling was tough because, you know, I felt lonely. I didn't feel as wanted right? And dethroned, right? You know, like that role. Right. And so letting go of that was actually quite important for me. So, it was just over time just being like, Yeah, you know, you always want to find someone better than you, you know, certain aspects.

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Sean: What are some leadership principles that you learned there that you still practice today and you teach it from time to time with some people that you mentor?

Tony: Well, interestingly in the book a lot of it is quite nuanced. There's a lot of overlap between some of the observations. There are 101 of them, but there are some overriding themes, and those are things that I kind of keep coming back to.

The first of them is always remember that you are more often than not 99% of the time you're a leader on merit. Somebody somewhere thought you could handle the responsibility or the situation demanded that you were the best person. But whatever it was, you're there on merit. And a lot of you may think that you're not right about that.

A lot of people have doubts. Churchill used to talk about his black dog because, you know, he became angry and doubted things Lincoln did, lots of great leaders do. And actually, one of the first things is if you're not having doubts, that's when your problems start.

That's a theme that I kind of keep going back to. You're there on merit, and even if you doubt it, remind yourself somebody thought you were good enough. The other one is really about protecting the team dynamic. The team dynamic is important, there is a difference between culture and team. You have to make sure you have to protect your culture but you have to protect your team as well.

That means you need to listen a lot more than you might. A lot of leaders think that their job is to talk all the time. It's not. It's to listen to what's not being said. You then need to do that and involve people.

So make sure that the team always feels that you're bringing them into play. You know, there's an old phrase, why have a dog and bark yourself? You don't. You brought people in to be experts. Let them do their job. Keep checking in and keep listening.

Take the sting out of confrontations. That's another major one to do. And if you have to, you have to remove difficult participants, however skilled they may be. If they're not helping the team, they had better be doing something incredible and I doubt they ever are. Those are the kind of things that I sort of keep going back to. So the one about doubt listening to the team, it's all interrelated.

Sean: Amazing, I remember another saying. If you want to go fast, go alone but if you want to go far, go together.

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Tony Harris

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Sean: But when you hire your own CEO, that means that you found someone who is very capable of replacing you and running the business so that it can work on its own. How did that look like for you? What are some key traits that you were looking for? Was it so expensive to do that?

Jeremy: Yeah, I think the fundamental fact is that, you know, work is work. And, you know, companies are made of people and the environment changes, the company changes, and you change. And so, a lot of people are like stuck in a sense that like, 'okay, I will change when I want to change, right? Or change doesn't happen unless I approve it, or I influence it.' But the truth is, every day, you know, the markets change, your competitors get smarter, your friends have different requirements, your clients choose to do different things. That stuff is really changing. Your company is changing because you're already building company. You put your time and effort and if you have that team, they are themselves making decisions about how to grow, how to get better, how to get smarter. And the company is no longer the company you founded but is now a company that's going on to do things by itself, it has culture, has values and so, so forth. And lastly, you change, right? You know, like you're getting all the time and entropy is happening. And truth is all of us are going to be gone for sure in 100 years.

Jeremy: And the truth is, if you think about it like we must give ourselves permissions that we ourselves are allowed to change, that we can want to do different things, that we want to build different things, that we want to create different things.

Jeremy: You may say, like, I want to do something different, but the company shouldn't change. Then it’s very hard to find someone who's going to be replacing you - I think that's one way you described it. But I always remember my mentor was talking to me and he said, Jeremy, your job is to find a successor who's better than you for this next phase of the company. Because the truth is, at a start of this company, there is no one better than you at the founder in building this first stage of company. But your job is to find a replacement who's going to be better than you.

Jeremy: I think the tricky part that you must do is to say, I'm looking for someone who's better than me for this next phase of the company, because the company has changed, and you look for someone who is better fit for that. And the reason why you're leaving, I would like to leave or find someone is because you don't feel like you're the best person for that job because you may have the skills even, but you maybe don't have the passion anymore for it as well. And that's okay to acknowledge because I mean, you know, in today's world, you know, they say Gen Z and millennials are like switching jobs every two years, right, you know? And then here's the founder CEO hanging out for seven, ten more years. Right. And then, you know, like give me enough clothes to get to explore different things.

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Sean: When facing obstacles and conflicts, how do you keep your team motivated? Alright, I'll let you answer this first Le-an

Le-an: The interesting thing with 2XYou, Because with 2XYou we only have a few clients who have more than two assistants. Like most of them are like 1 to 1. So when it comes to obstacles and conflicts between the team, there's rarely any, which is, I'm really lucky to say. And usually, one of the things when it comes to motivation, team motivation specifically, I always say that my job as a leader is not to motivate but to inspire. It's to keep reminding them, especially when there are hard days, especially when they're like their family life is mixing with their work life. I always remind them that take it one day at a time, and also to remind them of what they're currently pursuing.

Le-an: One of the things is I always ask when they're starting out is what's their big audacious goal? It's something you're really working towards because then I use that of like, this is what you want. And you said that you wanted this, right? So I'm going to help you the best way that I can to get here. What do you want to do next? So it's, it's again, it's going away from motivating them. Like, 'you want this, right? You want this. Let's do this,' into inspiring of like you want this reminding you that this is what you wanted. So what do you want to do next?

Le-an: So it's more of getting them out of the feeling of 'I'm stuck. I can't do anything. I can't, I'm just here' into like, 'Oh, yeah, I have a dream bigger than this. I have a dream bigger than this small problem, if I get to that point of my dream, this is such a small thing compared to everything else that I want in my life. So it's keeping in mind, again, that it's not my job to motivate them. They're self-motivated. That's why they're in this company. But it's my job to inspire them, to keep them seeing the light at the end of the tunnel if they're having difficulties with work, and just take care of them the best that I can. Like I said when it comes to conflicts rarely so far. Fingers crossed there have been rarely any when it comes to obstacles that do happen, again life and work mix up. But I keep in mind of I always - reminded myself like, 'okay, what was your big audacious goal again? Okay, that one. Yeah, I'll help you realize that and then help you in whatever way that I can to get to that point.'

Sean: I love the Jim Collins reference. So you probably read his books, huh

Le-an: Yeah, I did. I read a ton of books. So sometimes I like to spout out quotes and I'm like, where did I get it from again?

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Sean: Next question. This is specifically for you, Ms. Le-an. How do you find the right virtual assistant for your clients? There you go.

Le-an: I have a whole YouTube video on that. Anyway, so the main one is actually the values, that's the biggest one is I do kind of have all of the questions that I have the interview questions when I'm interviewing the potential assistant is based on those five values that we have. And then the other one is before I even hop on the interview, is actually give them a skill test so I can see where their skills are actually at on the tasks that their client would need them to be able to do. One of our policies is that once someone's in they’re in like once they're accepted inside of our company, we take care of them the best way that we can. And even though later on our paths change, they shifted or they're doing this, we still try to part as friends.

Le-an: So we kind of have that as going in your taking care of and going out, you're also taking care of having that cycle, having that good - everyone knows that this is how it's been. We kind of get to have the right people right away. It's easier to filter when people see like, 'Oh, this is not just another. I don't even think of us as a corporate job, this is not just another job that you're getting. You're getting into a company that will take care of you, in the best way that we can. And at the same time, you have to show up in the best way that you can, because then that's the only way that the relationship can work. So basically, it's just a mix of values, skill, and then also taking care on the way in and on the way out.

Sean: And that sounds pretty sweet for people who are going to be applying. And there's a follow-up question about that, how do you know if they're going to be responsible and able to manage their tasks?

Le-an: It's an interesting one because, for me, one of the things that I had to learn really fast, working online, being a remote leader, I just have to trust people like that was the first thing I had to give them. So if they're not being able to manage their tasks, I know that they'll tell me if there's something wrong - I can also tell that's the other side of it. Like, one of the things that we have inside of our company is there - even the assistants that are for our clients, they need to send me a daily report every day. Because of that, I am able to catch like, 'Oh, something wrong? Or They weren't able to manage this,’ and I check in on them.

Le-an: So it's just the mix of trust and also having the systems that even if you trust them 100%, there's still some sort of feedback that you receive that you're able to see like, oh, someone's not being able to do as well as they can. And then I go ahead and schedule a coaching call with them. So it's making sure that you do the feedback as fast as you can. This is the fastest way someone can grow and then just giving trust out front, because no one is supposed to really earn your trust, especially as an employee, because you are literally trusting them, at least for me, to another client who's paying us to take care of them. So that's kind of my logic of like I just trust them right away. If I can see any red flags and give them the feedback and usually nine out of ten, like 9.5 out of ten, it works out every time.

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Sean: All right. Next question. As a leader, how do you manage a team or a team member that broke your trust? There we go.

Le-an: Very interesting question. So like I mentioned, I've had times in my leadership that - I've been very honest with this with people, they know - mostly if they ask some things, I do forget because I don't know. I don't know how to bring that up. But like, whenever people break the trust, there is usually like, I always give people the benefit of the doubt. That's one of the things that my mom taught me over and over again is always giving people the benefit of the doubt. There's always more to the story that you see. And when I was at a very short stint as a journalist, I also learned the lesson that people might, will say something on the surface, but something else is going on.

Le-an: So usually when people break my trust, I know that something might have gone wrong, that they're either too shy to admit it or they're too ashamed to admit it. So then I give them that space of like, okay, basically I give them that feedback of you admit that something did go wrong and you didn't you weren't able to tell me or you broke my trust in this way. Are you still going to do this going forward? Of course. Nine out of ten, they'll say, 'yes, I won't do this moving forward.' But then the next time that it does happen, you already had that commitment with them, that they know that what they did was wrong and they broke your trust. And they also agreed, even though it might have been half-heartedly, that 'I will not do this again and they do it again.' That's now up to them. That's not any more me. That's not anymore, like anything that the company was doing. It's now their responsibility to live up to their words.

Le-an: So whenever the second time opens, usually they're really nice, and then usually sooner or later they actually let themselves out. That's one of the things I've seen multiple times is then they see like, 'Oh crap, they're not going to trust me anymore to do this. I'm just going to go.' So that's kind of the natural thing that does happen.

Sean: Yeah. Yeah. And it's always really good when they show themselves the door because we don't have to do all of this government-required stuff and, you know, giving them something, even if they're the ones who screwed up. Good answer. Good answer.

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Sean: From Alana, what lessons you've learned from your past mistakes can you advise a new business owner?

Le-an: I've been a business owner for like six, seven years now, for like multiple different businesses. There's a ton. I think I'll pick my top three. One is, to surround yourself with the right people, which is what we've been talking about this whole time, is you could have the best copywriter, you could have the best web designer, you could have the best marketer. If they don't have the right personality, if they're not the right people for you, whatever business that you're trying to do, that's just going to fall apart in a few months. It'll have a high, sure - because you have the best people, but then it's going to fizzle out really quickly. That was one of the reasons why I had problems with other employees before, was - that I didn't have a set of values. I didn't have the clarity of who did I really want to work with. And that's how the toxicity started and how all of the other stuff that I was talking about happened was, because I didn't myself have the clarity of who I wanted to work with.

Le-an: Second is to learn from the mistakes of others, which is again books, courses, TED talks, watching out for the people that you like their books, and then watching their interviews. So it's learning from mentors even though you never will really meet them. And then if you can, get an actual mentor also in person who can - have years of experience for the new, and who can advise you on their mistakes and then so you can skip it.

Le-an: And the third one is to - this is a little bit soppy and more for - something I realized as a female leader, not really as a general leader, but just keep in mind to take care of yourself. Like I am such a giver like I have that as one of the things that I know is part of my core, it's just I always try to give, as an ate as like, you know, 'Ate I need this' - 'here you go,' 'Ate I need that' - 'here you go.' I have to keep in mind of setting boundaries and also taking care of myself and being an 'ate' to myself. Like I know if I am not being able to sleep right, I know something's wrong. I'm not able to do my morning routine. Something is wrong. So as a leader, you can only show up as much as what you have in you, what you have inside of you. And if you don't take care of yourself in the right way, you're neglecting your sleep, neglecting yourself, neglecting your own needs because you want to make sure that everything works out fine for your business. The reality is you keep doing that, then even if you have this billion-dollar business, but you're kind of dying that it's not worth it at all. So just find the things, as I said earlier, find the things that you find joy with that you enjoy doing to take care of yourself, to kind of do that refill before you start giving again.

Sean: Yeah. Kind of dying, sounds like a sucky plan, right?

Le-an: Yeah, exactly.

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Sean: From Pam. What are the most important attributes of successful leaders today? Alright. Very good question. What is it for you Le-an?

Le-an: Someone's always curious? That's the biggest - that's one of my core values, is if you want to be successful in anything, whether you want to be a successful leader, you want to be a successful entrepreneur or you just want to be successful at your job. You have to stay curious. You have to be the kind of person who what you see isn't you know, it's not what you get. You know that there's always something that you could chase, you can improve, or you can upgrade, or even replace altogether.

Le-an: And there's always more and more combinations that you never see. So if you're always curious, if you're always trying to see if there's a better way to do what you're currently doing, it's so much easier for you to succeed, especially as a leader, because then you are also open to the different personalities that you'll have, the different projects, the different, you know, at least for me versus assistant kind of personality. Whenever I see that there is some sort of schism, basically not a full conflict between a client and an assistant, I go in and like, why is this happening? What is something that you're saying that they're understanding differently just because of the cultural differences? So it's giving that space that there's always something to learn. There's always something to explore and dive into and to never really take things as just as what it is.

Sean: So Curiosity being an internal student or - in SEO Hacker, how we call it, is having a beginner's mindset that is very important as a leader and that takes humility as well. So I would say humility is one of the biggest, most important attributes of being a leader. And we tackled that in the question earlier of what if it gets to your head? So you have to have the humility to know that I'm not the alpha male here, I'm not the biggest name boss here around. I'm here to serve my people and to make sure I clear obstacles for them so they can do their best work. That's why you hired them. That's why you want the dream team. That's why you built this company. And if you don't have the humility, guess what happens? You yourself will burn your company to the ground. And that's the most horrifying thing that you're going to be telling your grandchildren. Right.

Sean: So it's humility, for Le-an, curiosity. I would add another one. And this also is very important for me, integrity. You as a leader should be a one-man person. You have to practice the one-man principle. Integrity is a word that comes from the root word integer, which means one or hole. When you're not a whole person, you're different at home, you're different at work. And at work, you're different from person A and person B, that's a red flag. You're not going to be a leader for long, and you're also going to be burning your company to the ground. Because no one likes a person who is not authentic.

Sean: So integrity is very important, both with your people and your clients. Clients will not hire someone or a company who they know doesn't have integrity. And integrity, the problem with it is it's either you have it or you don't. Because it's either one or zero. If your decimal places, it's also not being an integer. That's also not being an integer. So that's also not integrity.

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Sean: How do you prevent the power of being a leader from getting to your head? Alright, this is about ego.

Le-an: Yeah, that goes back to the beginning of my story of like - when I became CEO, I was 20 years old when I became CEO. And I let the power go into my head immediately, and I had to be brought down also immediately. Basically, the fastest way to do that is to realize that you are not the person anymore who is going to create the results. You're actually the support now for the people who are creating the results. So that's the biggest thing that I still carry to this day is that I am only as good as the people that I support that I work with. That was the one that brought me down of realizing, 'oh, no, yeah, I might have been this amazing employee when I was still the employee. But now that I'm the leader, I can't think that way anymore. It's going to hurt me more and it's going to hurt other people as well.

Le-an: So that was the biggest one of like, I was no one, that was kind of the thought in my head. I was really no one. I became CEO. Yes, because of hard work, but I still had a lot more to grow and improve. And also just keep that in mind of like - I can only be or the company can only be as successful as the people that I work with and the people I support.

Sean: That's very good. And we have a lot of things in common, how we think and our weaknesses. So there were points in my leadership when it gets to my head, especially when people are just straight up going against the tide, you know, it ticks me off. So those are the times that I snap and it gets to my head and I just tell them off. I'm more of a straight shooter, so I could really pierce some people and upset them with my words. And those are the times that I would say, if I could turn back time and change them, I would change them and handle it very differently.

Sean: And you're right in saying that if you realize that a CEO, the endgame is you're going to be helping your people and serving them rather than you being served rather than you doing the work. Then that really changes your perspective and helps you to realize that, 'Oh, okay, if I let this get into my head, I'm going to be doing this all my life until the day I die. I'm going to be working like a horse.' And that's not the future that I desire. Right? So we have to change and adapt and humble ourselves there.

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Sean: There are some things that for me are extremely difficult for someone to be able to do. And I would say that I know human nature to do to a certain degree, I am a lot younger than you are. So I know you have much more wisdom to share and, you know, human nature much more than I do because you've read tons of books. I haven't read any of them. But I know that when you have that kind of discipline, that means you have extremely strong areas of discipline in other areas of your personal life. Can you share some of that with us?

Dave: And so for a lot of my life, I was effectively kind of an outsider. And I think that that fundamentally was a blessing, not a curse for me because it taught me to be very introspective and very observant of human nature, as well as it gave me a really, really thick skin and frankly speaking, not giving a darn about what other people think of me. And so I know that it's really hard. I know it's really hard not to get caught up in what other people think of you, what other people are doing, how you measure yourself about other people. But I fundamentally think I was blessed because I really don't care about that stuff. And I think it goes back to this notion that - for a lot of my life I was effectively alone. Like I was not part of the crowd. I was not one of the cool kids. You know, I had these scars. I was fat. I was obese. Right. Like I was definitely not part of the crowd. I think that actually built resilience in me, which actually propelled me through my career.

Dave: And I would say that thematically, I have seen something very similar among people that are very successful. I'm not saying that they have the same thing as me, but I think that when you deal with some level of adversity, that tends to isolate you. I think that there are kind of like two major reactions, actually. One is they don't maximize their potential and they live tough lives. Right. But for many of the successful people I know who dealt with that type of adversity, it actually hardens them and makes them plow their own path and not care about what anybody else thinks. And so, unfortunately, if you're not born with tremendous adversity, I think you have to think about how to manufacture it. But I think that that's fundamentally what really helped me and not really caring about what other people think and also helping me be very mindful and disciplined about what I wanted to accomplish.

Dave: Because one of the things that I realized when I was a junior person and I was still kind of introverted and not very outspoken, was that if I didn't take ownership of my career and fundamentally change and break some of these stereotypes, I was going to end up in an office dungeon for the rest of my life. I was going to end up being a junior guy crunching away on spreadsheets that nobody cared about, was highly replaceable, and probably underpaid. And I didn't want that for myself. I wanted to ultimately become a senior leader and be really successful. And so I took it upon myself to isolate those skill gaps that I had, whether it be salesmanship or gregariousness, or presentation skills. And I practice and practice those like crazy, just constantly, just like, you know, a basketball player after a game shooting a thousand hoops, I would do the same thing. I would practice presenting in front of mirrors, in front of my dog, in front of my family. Right. I would. I would really analyze the data around like - is my methodology working is effective and I would analyze that and I would iterate, but I think the root of it all comes down to my own resilience, from my own upbringing and really trying to take ownership of my life and not worrying about what other people think.

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Sean: Hey, Dave. Just want to say you're a modern-day hero to a lot of people.

Dave: I'm not a hero. I'm just someone that's trying to give back in a really small way. And it's really one of the prongs of my efforts around helping the community, particularly the Asian-American community. I would say, you know, we can talk more about it, but there are really three things I'm really focused on. One is helping Asians get more economic power. And unfortunately, not all of us will be Jerry Yang or Eric Yuan of Zoom. Most of us will work in companies, and most of us will need to figure out how to rise the corporate ladder. And so this book is really my gift to people trying to better themselves economically by rising the corporate ladder.

Dave: The second major area of focus for me is really around policy and politics, but from a new standpoint. So I'm the vice-chairman of one of the leading Asian-American news sites in the U.S. called Asia AM News, ASAMNew.com. And we're a volunteer network. We're nonprofit, but we want to keep reporting stories that are important to the Asian community. And if you have been tracking, for instance, #StopAsianHate before, some of the more tragic events with Michelle Go and Christina Euna Lee, before those events, the mainstream news had actually stopped really reporting on Asian hate crimes. And I think there was a general perception among non-Asians that the Asian hate crimes have subsided. And in fact, that's not true at all. In fact, they've actually gotten worse. And we were one of the few news outlets that continue to report on it. So it just illustrates to me that we need a source of news for our community that will continue to report on the news that's important to us when all the other mass news outlets have gone away. So that's kind of the second major focus of mine.

Dave: And then the third is entertainment. So I'm a big believer that we need to get more Asian faces and more Asian voices in the media. Otherwise, particularly in America, we will continue to be viewed as the other, will continue to be viewed as a foreigner. And so I've been working with media production companies that are primarily founded by Asian-Americans. I've helped finance them. I've helped advise them as well as I just started a new company called Reel 8 - Reel8.com where we've effectively built an NFT marketplace for Asian filmmakers to help Asian filmmakers further monetize their films. So that just kind of gives you a more holistic sense of the things that I'm focused on. And you can get a sense of the commonality is that I'm trying to help the Asian community, and that's a big focus of mine, not the least of which is because I have two boys and I want to make the world a little bit better for them when they become adults and grow older.

Sean: For sure. For sure. And by the way, thank you so much for doing the work for me. I have two boys as well and I'll just ask them to read your book when they grow up. But I'll get a copy for sure. I want to read it. I'm very interested in it.

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Sean: You don't need to tell us the number, but how many months of your personal expense would that be before you finally threw in the towel?

Dave: Yeah, it's a little different than that. The way I do things is I and I advocate this actually for people that are looking for yield and chasing opportunities, investment opportunities. I think that fundamentally when you chase investment opportunity, I think you're actually missing the boat. I think you're fundamentally potentially making the ultimate sin, which is trying to keep up with the Joneses. And I think trying to keep up with the Joneses is the most insidious thing you can do in your life. It's the thing that frankly contributes to, I think, the most unhappiness, because then it results in situations where no matter how much money or how much power or how much prestige you have, you're always worrying about what the Joneses are up to. You're always worried about, do they have more money than me? Are they more powerful than me? Are they more famous than me? Do they have more followers than me? And I think that fundamentally becomes a root of unhappiness.

Dave: And I think that a lot of people, particularly on the investing side, get caught up in, 'hey, my buddy at the country club made 10x money or 100x money on some bitcoin investment. I should be doing the same thing.' Or 'my neighbor down the street was telling me about some stock he bought and that really chops me because like I should about that stock.' Right? So the way I think about the amount that you really need to retire and walk away is your personal cost of capital. And everyone's personal cost of capital is different. I happen to be in a situation where I actually grew up in poverty and I know what it's like to make $3.35 an hour cleaning toilets because that's what I did. I worked at Safeway and I was a bagger and I was a janitor making $3.35 an hour.

Dave: And so I always thought about, okay, how much money do I need, Dave Liu, how much money do I need to live and what rate of return do I need to generate in order to hit my personal cost capital? And the reality is, for me, even though I was this big managing director and co-head of an industry group, I lived and continue to live a very modest life. I remember when many of my other managing directors were driving, you know, seven series, BMW, Mercedes, Ferraris, high-speed sports cars. I was driving around in a $20,000 Honda S2000, and many of my partners were making fun of me. Like, dude, like, what are you doing? Like, why don't you go buy a Lamborghini or a Ferrari? And I said, No, I don't want to. Because at some point I want to be able to walk away from this place and I want to make sure that I have a certain lifestyle that I can finance through a modest rate of return on my portfolio without having to work, without having to deal with the rat race.

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Sean: Stefan What would you say? And I'm hearing you speak, you sound very chill, you know, very relaxed, but very calculated as well. What would you say is your leadership style like? How do you lead your people?

Stefan: Yeah, leadership style. I like to split it between 10% visionary and 90% servant-like serving leader. So the leader needs to determine where the ship is going and also explain why we are going there. Our higher level objective is like automating the advisory process, but of course, enabling our clients to go without having to always add headcount to their business and we create a software layer to enable that. So have to explain to people what's also the value of that and also like the business or the vision, starting a company being an example for other entrepreneurs can also do that starting company in Europe because like a lot of our software is coming from the US, but we can also do it in Europe for the future generations. It's important because software is an important part of our economic system. So proving that we can also start a software company here, being a good employer, being an example, having a positive impact on future generations, that's some of the things that we want to do and that have to explain also to people that work here. They have a purpose. The other 90% is serving as a leader, making sure that the resources are provided, that everybody can be productive in his role, and that those resources can be software tools. Coaching external consultants provides all the resources, then it's almost sure that someone will be productive. And when someone is productive in his role, the company will also move forward and reach its goals.

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Simon Severino

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Sean: And I know you mentioned that it took three years for you to turn over everything and for you to make sure that you're leaving on a good note, what hinted you that it's high time to do this now and then on the third year, what made you realize that? Okay, you can't wait any longer - you just have to do this?

David: Yes. So I would say that it was actually in the running you know, I was planning to do this for quite some time. And one of the things that I advocate to young people in their career, which I practiced, was observation and really studying the path ahead of you and determining whether that's a path that you want. As I mentioned earlier, you know, I wrote a book and I have a chapter in my book where I talk about this notion, of mapping the salt mine when you first join an organization. And it always surprised me how many people join a company, start a career, and don't really spend a lot of time understanding what their boss does or even their bosses boss does. And the reason why that is really shocking to me, is that if you're going to invest years, maybe potentially tens of years of your life in a company, don't you want to know where the career ends up? Like, don't you want to know what you're fighting for?

David: And so in my early thirties I started to plan out my own path and my career, and I decided that what I was going to do was I was going to squirrel away enough money so that by the time I hit 40, I would have the option to walk away or have the option to spend more time with my family if I wanted. And so my thirties were really all about maximizing my earnings potential and salting away as much savings as I could so that by the time I turned 40, I would be able to say, you know, this is not for me anymore and I want to do something else.

David: And so when I did turn 40, I finally hit the number that I was seeking in my bank account. I finally hit that hurdle rate that I needed to be able to walk away. And at that point, there were really no excuses for myself. It was like, okay, you got to that number. You saved enough money. You live a modest lifestyle. If you're going to stick around and potentially become that cliche, who is not around for their kids. Then you have nobody to blame but yourself. So at that point, I decided, you know what, I think it's really time for me to pursue something else in the second half of my life. And family is going to come, number one, and then entrepreneurship is going to come number two.

David: It took a full three years before we could find a replacement and I felt that the franchise was in good hands. But I have no regrets. I was able to leave on my own terms as well as leave on good terms with the firm. And I think that bears dividends throughout your career. And so I always advocate to people, if you're going to leave your company, try to leave on good terms because the world is a very small place and you never know when your past will cross again with the people that you worked with. And you never know when you'll need a good recommendation or suggestion on something - related to your career down the road.

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Sean: And I'm wondering, aren't a lot of companies good at hiring people? A lot of companies have their HR team?

Ugis: Oh, they're terrible. Terrible. They don't know what they're doing.

Sean: Why is - why is it?

Ugis: I don't know. That's why I have my business. I really don't know. Well, first of all, you have to try. And a lot of people just think, "okay, you know, for some reason, this is not that important. I'll never understand it. But outside of sales, I mean, I struggle, maybe product - I struggle to think, what's anything else that's more important than the business? And if you don't hire right, most likely your sales team is not going to be right. Your product is not going to be right.

Ugis: So you know, you can't even separate those two few things. For some reason, people just don't prioritize it. They think, Yeah, it's going to happen. It's going to be fine. That's, you know, if you want to create a nice business, that's just not how you do it. And then okay, let's say you have the first step down. You're trying and that's already good and it's already more than what most people do. You just need repetition. You need to do it a few times. Make some mistakes. Learn from them. Get better.

Ugis: And you know, being a business owner, everyone wants the kind of overnight success. But in reality, it just takes some years to get there. Read books, listen to other people. Tried to shortcut some of those years, so you don't have to take like six or seven years like I had to. Maybe, maybe you'll get there in a year or two.

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Sean: And what would be some of your best tips? And I'm not sure if you're going to be monitoring the A-player all the way, but a lot of companies also suffer from attrition. And I'm wondering if you hire an A-player, how do you best keep an A-player in the team?

Ugis: I can't say it's necessarily my specialty, but at the same time, I've been a business owner and that's kind of a really important topic. You know, it's again, everyone knows the things that should be done. It's kind of, you know, if you've been on LinkedIn for five minutes, someone's blasting in your face. This is how you make a great culture and they're not wrong. The problem is that it's just not easy to do.

Ugis: So you have to be kind of - your company culture and making sure it's really, really good. I mean, some of the things, some of the practicalities, I think the listeners will have heard them before, but you know, I'd like to provide structure, kind of make sure I'd check in on people regularly, I listen to their feedback. They always know their goals. Another thing that's really important to me and many of these A-player is a meritocracy. Or, you know, a fancy word for saying, if you deliver results, you move up in the company, you get more responsibilities. No toxicity. You know, it's someone's rude or anything like that. You just don't allow it, that's not okay.

Ugis: People, especially big trend these days is flexibility, so let people schedule their own time to work. You still want them to do full-time work, and most people are fine with that if you're hiring full-time, of course. But yeah, if you're allowed them to design their own schedule, even their own way of working kind of, the best people really enjoyed and they appreciate it, and that's what they're looking for. And yeah, if you have some sort of fun elements and sort of company culture, or some sort of events online, in person, that's also a bonus.

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Sean: And I love the definition that you gave earlier for what an A-player is. Can you define that for the listeners?

Ugis: Yeah, absolutely. And just kind of as a side or background, you know, it is a job market, we call it the job market. And when you go to the market and you're shopping, one of the things that you're looking for is the best prices as well? So that's a part of, you know, getting a good deal and that's a part of what I help my clients get.

Ugis: But how do we define A-player? They don't need to be, you know, have this like high credentials or high pay or anything like that. Actually, high paying can hurt, as I just mentioned. How we define A-player is someone who is in the top 10 of the people who are willing and able to do the work that you want them to do, at the pay rate that you have in mind. So even if you have planned a really low salary, that can be fine if you truly know that's what you want to do because you're still going to select one of the - someone in the top 10 percent for that range.

Sean: I want to start with what you mentioned earlier, which are the job ads? All companies pretty much run job ads now today. Right? I don't know if you agree, but a lot of companies, if not a majority or if not all companies run some sort of job ads, either it's going to be in front of their store or in the newspaper or online. A lot of companies I know to do it online.

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Sean: What do you do if you feel uninspired or demotivated to carry on?

Sean: I list down 20 things I'm thankful for and I would thank God for them out loud. That always gets me going. How about you, Karlo?

Karlo: Yeah, that's true. I agree with what you mentioned Sean because I love this principle. It's about thanks-living. It's about being grateful and counting all the blessings that you have right now. And of course, going back with your 'why' in your life. 'Why' you are doing things that you're doing because you want to help your family, you want to bless the community. So I always go out with my own desire and whenever I look at the people around I become motivated. Though, sometimes it's okay not to be oka,y because there will be down moments. But as long as you have people around you, and your families around you, you can be motivated again. And so like what Sean mentioned, you need to always count your blessings.

Sean: Yeah. Motion before emotion, right? Action before inspiration. Make sure you act first. So list down those 20 things, I'm sure you could think of 20 things right now. I'm thankful that I'm alive. I'm breathing. I'm not sick. My family's not sick. I have a roof over my head. So there are so many things to be thankful for. When you remember those things, you feel a lot better. You feel a lot more motivated to do stuff, that for me, always works, and I hope that works for you as well.

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Sean: Causes for a person to be materialistic?

Sean: I'd say two things. Number one is greed. Number two is lust. That's it. When you lust for things, you want to get them. You want to buy it. You want to own it. And when you have a lot of lust for things, that's greed. So I think those are two causes.

Sean: The root cause would be the heart. The Book of Jeremiah Chapter 17 says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick, who can understand it. I can understand it sometimes and want to buy stuff. I don't even know why I want to buy stuff, even if it's not to impress other people. It's just sometimes you want to buy something useless. You know, I don't understand why I'm like that sometimes. Thankfully, ninety-nine point nine percent of the time I refrain from buying that thing. But yeah, so that's my take on that.

Sean: How can one get over materialism?

Sean: Have an eternal perspective. If you know that everything's going to burn at the end of the day, then you're not going to invest in this world, and the stuff's in this world, you're going to give. Like 10 percent, I give the God of everything I make. And then I also give to other people like pastors, missionaries to help further God's kingdom. And yeah, I make it a habit to give every month. And I know a lot of people who also have that much faith that they give their tithes and then they give and support pastors and missionaries as well. And God has blessed those people immensely. And I want to be as blessed as they also. The Bible says, give - literally, the Bible says this give and it will come back to you. Good measure. Pressed down, shaken together, running over, overflowing. So that's God's word, that God's promise. If you believe that, then it's going to be true for you. I know it's true for me. And the question is, is going to be true for you, right?

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Sean: Is it important to save for an emergency fund within your monthly budget?

Sean: Short answer to that is yes, and the explanation is when tough times come so that you'll not be taking a loan and be indebted with the interest, you should have an emergency fund.

Sean: For sure, and you know, a lot of people who have emergency funds, if you're single, it's usually because of when you lose your job in the rare case, in the rare event that you lose your job and you didn't plan it, you know you got fired, you got laid off, you have X number of months for you decided to apply to numerous other places, and you can choose.

Sean: Unlike when you lose it suddenly, and it's not your choice and you were shocked. Now you're going to have to bite the next hook, you know, and sometimes that next hook is not the best hook. It sucks. It's not a job that you want to be in. So that's actually a very good reason to keep an emergency fund. But with what Karlo said, there are different strokes for different folks. It's different 'whys' for each person, could be your family, could be a career, could be anything.

Karlo: That's right Sean, it is very important, and especially nowadays, there's a lot of uncertainties.

Sean: Yeah, I heard that the emergency fund that is advisable turned from three months into one year's worth, because of the pandemic.

Karlo: A good story could be the ants, you know. Like the ants they are saving during the sunny days, saving their food and resources so that when rainy days come by, they are prepared, they can still eat their food and survive. So it's the same thing with us. We need to save during the sunny days or during the good times.

Sean: Yeah, for sure, 100 percent. All right, Karlo, what really is it?

Karlo: When it comes to personal emergency funds, we need to know our big "why". Why are we doing it? As Simon Sinek mentioned in his book. We need to start with the 'why' also, in saving money and building our emergency funds. If you're a family man like me, of course, you need to prioritize your family in case of uncertainties. Just like what's happened to this pandemic, a lot of people lose their jobs and some had a salary cut. And so when you have savings or personal emergency funds, you will always go back to your 'why'. Is it your family? Is your organization where you are part of? Or maybe you are helping with some volunteer activities as well?

Karlo: So once your 'why' is clear, you will be motivated despite the challenges because challenges will really be there. There will be uncalculated scenarios, no matter how much we plan, there are just some things that cannot be calculated. But if we are prepared, somehow we can utilize our resources. Just like what Sean mentioned, we are after stewardship. We are entrusted with the resources that we have right now, and so we can use those resources to bless our family, our community, and whatever your motivation is, which is your big 'why'. So I believe that will be our motivation, which we should keep in our mind.

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Sean: How can I encourage my team members to speak up?

Sean: They're comfortable talking to me, but it becomes a challenge when we ask them to speak their mind in an app or platform. I guess you have to first, create a culture of safety, an environment of safety where people can speak up. That doesn't mean they're not going to be responsible about what they say, they have to be responsible about what they say. They can't just say things like, they can't just tell you that I feel like resigning and I feel like this, this, and this also feels the same way. Like they can't just say that, they have to qualify it really well. So those are things that they have to take responsibility for.

Sean: All I'm saying is when you create a culture of safety, a psychologically safe zone where people can tell you stuff, they still have to be responsible about what they say. They can't cuss you, they can't say bad things to you. They have to respect you. They cannot behave in a way that is going to be a form of misconduct.

Sean: So that said, make sure that as a leader, you listen to your people. And when I say, listen, you don't just listen with your ears, you listen with your hands also, you act on what it is that they're saying if it makes sense. If it makes business sense if it makes team sense if it makes cultural sense to your team. So I'm not telling you to be a subservient CEO or a subservient leader - that you are going to follow everything that they say, if that's the case you should have just worked as an employee rather than a CEO. You have to make sure that you are making the critical decisions that are best for the entire team, not just for one or two people who are telling you their opinions in that circle of the safety zone.

Sean: So it is a tough dance that you have to do as a leader, but people will speak up if they know that you listen, you have a sound mind, you have wisdom, the wisdom of God and you actually act on the things that make a lot of sense for everyone. I think in SEO-Hacker, that's the kind of culture we have. People just speak up. They tell us what they think. In fact, they rate the management, they rate me and the other leaders. Can you believe that? Every month we get that twice, and when we get scores around 7 and 8 we already get weary? That's how we are as leaders and we really act on what we can.

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Sean: OK. If someone is interested in trying out multiple investments, which one would you recommend?

Karlo: What we always say to our clients as financial planners, is to always invest in an instrument that you understand, do not invest in something that you understand because there are a lot of platforms at this point in time. There are a lot of new platforms that are upcoming, and many people are hyped about it. But that is what we're trying to avoid, it might be a good platform but if you don't fully understand it, you might lose money. So you need to understand a particular investment first.

Karlo: I suggest, starting with a simple one, of course before investing, you need to have an emergency fund. You need to have protection from life risks. So we are teaching it on a step-by-step approach because what happens Sean, is if we dive in investments right away without savings or protection, we might really lose our money because there are risks involved in investing. But once you understand a particular platform, for example, you understand mutual funds, stock market, or even cryptocurrency, you have some parameters. You have some strategies when to cut the loss or realizing game. Maybe you can do it one step at a time.

Karlo: So investing you should focus first on one platform and then eventually you can diversify because diversification is very important to manage the risk. Because our goal is to maximize profits and minimize the risk. Nowadays, a lot of people are being hyped. For example, there's a newly launched platform, people say "let's invest in that, we'll become rich for sure." But that's not really investing, we need to know that there are risks involved, and I know a lot of people who already lost their money because - first, that person did not understand the platform. When investing, it is important to study the platform, once you have a certain volume, maybe you can go for the next platform.

Sean: Yeah, completely agree. In my opinion, one of the easiest ways to start for me is the stock market. Easiest because you can do it yourself, there are so many resources out there. I personally learned from Marvin Germo. I attended his Stock Smarts seminar when he was doing it live, I'm a big fan of his work, his books, and I cannot recommend him enough. Like, if you want to learn about stocks, he is the go-to guy, and the technical and fundamental analysis that I know now is because of him.

Sean: Right now, stocks are doing better - earlier this year. So if you're starting out, now's a really good time. But also invest first in herein, what you know, how much you know about the platform, right? If you're going to trade stocks. Study fundamental and technical analysis first. Don't just buy stocks because someone told you to buy stuff. Crypto is very high risk. 

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Sean: What are some spending habits we should avoid to help us grow our income? I will let you go first, brother.

Karlo: Well, that's a very good question, yeah? It's really about our habits, well, maybe being unaware of where your money is going, because right now because of the online platforms, it's much easier to just buy and spend right? Then out of nowhere, someone will be knocking at your door saying that they have a package for you. So I think we need to set some limits. We need to be aware. For example, we want to buy things online. You should set around three to five thousand and limit, depending on your capacity of course.

Karlo: Because the moment that we become unaware of our spending, we often get carried away, right? Or maybe for some, by using their credit cards because they can just swipe their cards easily, especially if they really want that certain thing. So, we are becoming unaware of where our money is going.

Karlo: So I believe we need to be aware and we need to set some limits. If we don't set or have ourselves these 'limits', we'll easily be carried away. And of course, 'accountability' or the lack of 'accountability. Maybe if you're still single, you need to have someone who can check your finances, or who can just ask you about your financial management. And the moment that we lose our accountability, is also the time that we will become unaware of our spending.

Sean: That's good. And I'm going to just add on that - the mindset of our money not being ours, you know. I'm a man of faith and what I share is only stuff I really believe in, and what I believe in about money, and about business is we're just stewards. We're not really the owners of our money and our businesses. It's God who owns it, and we're just managing it for Him. So if you see it that way, you will really not spend needlessly. You will not spend out of wants, don't spend 'wantonly' like, "if I like something, I'll just buy it, that's the ultimate decision."

Sean: And that's not how we should do it. If it's a major purchase, meaning it's 10, 20, 30 percent of your income, or of your capital, your savings, you have to pray about it. Don't spend wantonly. But if it is, you know, if you're buying chewing gum, just buy the chewing gum, right? So it depends on how big the purchase is going to be but always be disciplined in how you're spending and always realize that it is a matter of faith. It is a faith-based decision, especially if it's a big amount.

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Sean: Who are the people that are going to be answering your survey, and why would they answer your surveys?

Stefan: Yeah, the people that are answering our surveys are mostly the customers or the employees or the audience in general of our customers. So our customers create the assessments and send them to several respondents.

The difference with the normal survey is that the normal survey at the end, it's just like, thank you for participating in this survey. That's typically a one-way transfer of information that is just data collection, which is not bad also, but at that point.

It only starts at that point for us because then at the end of the assessments that are made with our tool, it says like, Thank you for taking the assessments, and here is a button to download your personalized report. And then for example, if I don't know if it's a cyber security assessment. Then it can ask questions like, do you already have an antivirus on your PC?

And if you download the report then it will give you advice based on what you've answered. If you've answered that I don't have antivirus, then it will probably recommend installing antivirus.

But also of course more complex advice and more complex rules. So it can be highly personalized and that's exactly the value for the respondents.

So if you ask why would someone participate in such an assessment, it's to get this personalized advice, of course, automatically and efficiently because they don't need any human interaction or to pay a consultant for it.

- - -

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- - -

Simon Severino

Website: https://pointerpro.com/

LinkedIn: https://be.linkedin.com/in/stefandebois

Sean: How do you plan all your content as a podcaster?

Edwin: Real quickly. In my podcast, I planned around amazing conversations when I initially launched. And it was very intentional when I launched, I was looking to get to the Big Tech founders here in Toronto, Canada, and the US. Because it was very specific to business leaders, the business leadership genre is a very big space. But if you look at the people I interviewed, you could see there's some intention behind it than most of the companies they were in are tech businesses. And if it wasn't a tech business, it was a tech role or very specific. So that was my intention, how I created that. I've done many other podcasts now. When I got inspired, I did one on Spotify in December after we spoke to Sean and it's called "20."

Edwin: And that's sort of me dabbling in my creative side. But it was a very specific topic on "20" because it was COVID. I wanted to share the five things I learned in 2020. And most people, I'm sure Sean, you've seen this where people at the end of the year, they'll write a blog and they'll write this, they'll do an Instagram Story and they'll do this. So what I did, as is I'm going to do a five-episode mini-series of the top five things I learned in 2020. Like, I literally did it over the weekend. I was so inspired. I allowed myself to geek out on the downtime of the holidays. That's how I planned that

Sean: Amazing answer, dude. That's really, really good. I wish I could say the same for me and Leadership Stack, but how we plan our content is we get a lot of people contacting us for guesting so LinkedIn, email. I don't even know how to get in touch with us. I don't even know how they find out about the podcast, but we got a lot of people wanting to guest the podcast and we just schedule them out. We figure out who the best ones are and we schedule them.

Sean: And also we figure out which ones would be able to work on my time because I'm also a very busy person, especially now when digital marketing is catching up, it's catching up. We're very late here in the Philippines, so now it's catching up surprisingly or unsurprisingly because of the pandemic last year. And we're just trying to schedule the best ones for me to be able to interview, when the date and time are set, I proceed to research about the person. Then I proceed to write questions and then brief the person, the guest on how the show goes.

Sean: We also do the AMA's, the Leadership Stack lives like this episode, and this is going to be turned into an episode on Spotify and YouTube as well because of the content that we're able to produce with your help and questions. So this episode is going to be there someday. I don't know, two or three months from now, you're going to see Edwin again, recorded and YouTube and Spotify. That is how we do it. So there's not as much thought, effort, and preparation as Edwin do for his podcast, and I'm sure his podcast has a lot of beautiful episodes that you'll learn a lot from because of the - you know, Seth Godin who doesn't want to hear Seth Godin, right? I got to hear that brother.

Sean: And yeah, we the podcasts that we do, we also want to make sure that it's also bite-sized, like what Edwin did. By the way, this is the best way to do a podcast or piece of content, whether it's written, it's a video or it's a podcast - when you're inspired, don't let that inspiration go when you're inspired. Grab that moment and produce. That's the best stuff you're going to be able to produce out there. So 100 percent agree with you there, brother.

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Sean: From your experiences meeting different leaders, what are the qualities all leaders need to have? Wow, big question.

Edwin: I think I've interviewed almost 200 business leaders on my podcast called the Business Leadership Podcast and everything from super excited tech founders. But what I find is that they are visionary in the sense that they know what they want to achieve, but they are also humble, and empathetic that they don't know everything. So they want to build a super team around them, and they want to have them and treat them like, you know, with respect and want to empower them and get them out of the way.

Edwin: But that's what I find, really quickly in terms of what is like - to get out of your own ego. And you know, we all love the title CEO-Founder. Ultimately, we're at the bottom and we're trying to raise everyone else up. We're there to make everyone successful, and there's no job, no role that we can't do to help them. You know, at the end of the day as the founder and the entrepreneur. If everyone fails, it comes to you, and you gotta do it. And that sort of comes with the job description. It may not be written anywhere.

Edwin: Because it's not your people's, you know after they quit, you know, you can't expect them, you need them to have a life. So that's also the empathy and life balance that you want to give your people. But I think my answer is 100 percent visionary, empathetic, and humble.

Sean: Really good qualities. I run a lot of - pre-pandemic, I do run leadership conferences, and I ask people this question: What is your idea of a leader? And then I proceed to write it on the glass board or whiteboard. And you know, some of the most common things that people would say - humility, it's there. Empathy, initiative, execution, diligence, integrity, the list goes on. It's an amazing list, that is what I could say, it doesn't run out, right?

Sean: People expect all of those qualities, right? Kind takes care of people, thinks about their people. Generous, honest. There are just so many qualities of a leader that people look for. And these are people who are team members, their employees, their team members, team players. They look for so many things with a leader that it is hard for even me to say, what are the qualities all leaders need to have? If I'm going to have to say the top three, top four, it doesn't encapsulate what kind of leader you and I should be. Because people expect it to be all of those things. And whenever you and I are not all those things, we're failing as a leader in their eyes, it's that they hold us to very high standards. That's really the job of a leader.

Sean: I would just add integrity to the mix, be a one-man person. When you know how I am here in Leadership Stack, talking to you guys who are tuned in. This is how I am with my team. This is how I talk with them. I'm a one-man person, who I am at home, when I talk with my kids and my wife, I'm a one-man person. It's the same way I talk with them. And I treat everyone the same.

Sean: When you have a private life, and public life, and a different persona at work, it's tough for people to see you as a good leader because you're two-faced and it's hard for people to also trust you, and you're also unpredictable. And when you're unpredictable, that means you're inconsistent. And when you're inconsistent, that means you're not accountable. People can count on you. So integrity is one of the biggest things that I think a leader should have. Otherwise the foundation of people trusting you and allowing themselves to be influenced and led by you. It's not going to happen. So I hope that helps.

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Sean: What are the challenges you faced when starting up your tech company?

Edwin: You know, a lot of the challenges, like any entrepreneur, is the ability to do many things. So it all depends if you're coming with a large team. But most entrepreneurs, most tech founders, they're doing many things. They're not only building out their stack or their tech stack, their MVP but they're also needed to - we built our business on paying customers. We bootstrapped it, right? The biggest challenge I found was finding that balance of finding new customers, delivering a product, a superior product. The challenge that I'm seeing is finding that rhythm, right, and that balance. But if you want to grow in scale, you got to exit yourself from these different positions.

Edwin: And this is something Sean talks about a lot in terms of and I know we talked about, you know, firing, getting, and how to grow. But ultimately it's finding that rhythm carving out the time to build out the system. So when you hire someone, they're not just there waiting for you to tell them what to do, that there's a system and a process for them to follow. Otherwise, they're just sitting there twiddling their thumbs. So I would say the biggest challenge now that I said that out loud is doing the work when it happens. When I say doing the work is to write out the process right away, like, OK, I close a deal. This is what I have to do next. I got to send an onboarding email. So here's the template, and then I got to do this. I got a log into this system, so they're there. Or what if it's all integrated already, but write down that process right away.

Edwin: I've seen entrepreneurs not have a process after running their business for 10 years, and they're wondering why it's difficult to hire people because you know, "the people come and go. And when I don't know why, I can't keep people" and I say, Well, do you have a specific job role or do you have the process for them? What are they doing when you hire them? You can't just hire them and let them sit there. They get very quickly unmotivated. If you're not empowering these people, then they don't feel worthy or not motivated to work, they're already leaving. That is my biggest challenge - is probably on the scale, understanding processes and systems. It's easy to - especially today, Sean, there are so many tools out there. Like I said, like Bubble, you could resell a tech stack and just label it and you could sell right away. But the problem is scaling the sales, scaling the customer support, scaling the billing, and doing all those types of stuff.

Sean: And that is true 100 percent. But that is also something that you're going to want to do as you scale. Otherwise, you're building the company in a linear way. And the problem is when you lose someone's key while you're building it in a linear way, you're in line suddenly goes flat or goes down because you lose a key person. But if you have your processs documents to back you up when you hire, it's automatic. You hire, they get onboarded, they learn stuff, they read the process document.

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Sean: What are important things to consider if you are planning to start your own tech business?

Edwin: I mean, that's a great question, Pam. I mean, I would have to - that's a whole can of worms. I'd be asking you, Pam, like, what's the tech business? Do you know? Are you a tech founder or are you looking to partner with a tech founder? I guess depending on those answers, you know, understanding where you're fitting this technology in, you know what the pain points are, how did you find those pain points? Where were you connecting with?

Edwin: At the end of the day, whether it's a tech business, a service business, you got to know that there's a need for it and you're filling a gap, because all of us have a billion ideas and whether it's technology or service or whatnot. And we got to make sure that it works well. The challenge, if you're not tech, is finding a partner or someone to help you develop your MVP. Having said that is, if you want to build out an MVP, you don't need to know code anymore.

Sean: Really good stuff. Like Edwin, it has to boil down to what kind of tech business you are planning to start. It's hard to answer this question with just an open-ended, vague assumption that is any tech business because there are just so many tech businesses that you can start today. So many problems you can solve.

Sean: It's going to have to be number one, can you be the best in something in that tech startup that you're going to try to get into? So what is going to be your number one-shot or number one feature if you want to try and go head to head with these other startups because it is a global business, when you start a tech startup, if it's a software as a service business, it is on a global scale and platform, and you're going to have to compete on a global scale.

Sean: And competing globally is very, very tough. A lot of players don't play fair, they don't play nice. I've had the experience of starting a SAS business - Qeryz. It's still up, it's still running. We still use it and a lot of our clients use it as well. And my experience in running that, there's just so many dirty players that you're going to have to go up against. And I'm sure Edwin you've experienced your fair share of that with Slingshot VOIP. So that's something that I would strongly consider. Like, what can be the best? Like who's your target market? Are they startups? Are they scale-ups? Or are they at the big enterprise level? And what will these features fit very well with them?

Sean: So there are so many factors we could go on and on, and Edwin mentioned is a can of worms that you're going to be opening. Yeah, that's true. So qualifying the question further would help a lot. If you're still in discord, you might want to qualify it further so we can help you out better. But otherwise, for me, it's going to be like, what's that one thing you can be the best at when you're starting your tech startup?

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Sean: When will you get funding, like taking SEO Hacker to the next level?

Sean: Oh, I've been getting a lot of those questions recently. Strangely enough, this is the fourth time that I've gotten it in a four to five-day span. Seems like a lot of people are interested in investing in SEO Hacker. I think that if I could keep it 100 percent owned by me, like what it is now, I would go for that. It's hard for an entrepreneur to always have someone telling him or her what to do, and I'm the type of entrepreneur where I like being at the helm. I like being on the hill.

Sean: So it is hard for me to tell you when I will get funding because honestly, right now, SEO Hacker does not need funding. We need to invest as well. That's all we need because when you're in the services industry, you usually cannot just buy more stock and sell it for a higher price, like when you're in the merchandising industry. the merchandising or trading industry, like the retail industry, they buy stuff, they sell it in the malls or online, whatever. And what they use with the money when they sell stuff, what they do with that money is they buy more of those stuffs that they think they can sell. So the money just circulates.

Sean: The difference between that and a service company like SEO Hacker is we don't have stocks to buy. So the money does not circulate in that way with SEO Hacker. As the CEO and founder, we have this stockpile of cash, and we do need to invest it somewhere because just leaving it in the bank is not the wisest thing to do. It is not the best thing for me as the CEO and founder to do.

Sean: So if I do need to get funding, it would be for a huge reason. It should be for a huge reason. And I don't believe that we would need funding for the next few years unless we want to buy out a competitor, who is also selling. A really good competitor who's selling. I might get investors just to buy competitors. That's it. Otherwise. I don't think we're going to really need or get funding. Hope that helps.

Sean: Taking SEO Hacker to the next level, the answer there is we're always taking it to the next level. So during this pandemic, where we have a slew of inquiries, and a slew of customers coming in, clients coming in. We are able to already see the trajectory on where we should go and we are leveling it up. We're actually professionalizing the entire company and we are hiring executive-level people already right now. So that is hopefully going to double, or allow us to double or triple our revenues when we professionalize in the next three years.

Sean: My target is the CEO and founder, and the main salesperson of the company is to grow 100 percent each year. So far doing great. Can I take it to 200 percent? I don't know. That's the next question, but 100 percent every year is great for me, and that has been my target ever since I started the company. So we have grown more than that when we were at the very beginning. When you're at the beginning, it's possible to grow 300-1000 percent. But when you scale to a 50 man team, it's already hard-hitting 100 percent sometimes, especially when you're in the SEO industry, not in the tech industry. So I hope that helps.

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Sean: From Viane, how should I or how do I go all-in with what I've started?

Sean: When you go all in, that means you're sure you're doubling down on what you have. That means, for example, with me, that's when I resigned from HP and finally just went full time doing SEO Hacker because I was so sure that SEO was going to be big because I was an avid user of Google before. Now I keep searching. I'm a very curious guy. How I learned stuff is by searching for it in Google and learning it on my own. That's how I learn SEO on my own. That's how I experimented on the ranking factors. That's how I put up my first blog. That's how I learned to do certain kinds of coding. That's how I learned to edit some plugins and so on.

Sean: And curiosity. Google serves curiosity. Google serves desire. How can it go wrong? How can it not grow? So I doubled down on SEO because I saw how powerful Google is. In fact, today there are people asking Google, Where can I find God? How do I get a love life? Stuff that you usually ask your parents or a close friend, you know? So, you know, given that thought, which is not that, you know, when you think about it, it's pretty sad that people are asking Google that.

Sean: But that shows you how powerful Google is, and that showed me how powerful SEO can be. And so during 2010, 2009-2010, no one knew what CEO was, but I was doubling down on it. I quit my job, which was my only job, and I was very fortunate to have that job because I feel 28 units college. I didn't know why they hired me, but they did. They took a risk with me and I quit, you know, how bad that feels. But I doubled down on SEO and I knew this is the way to go.

Sean: And looking back, it's now 2021. That was over 10 years ago. I'd say it's one of the best things I've ever decided on and I've ever doubled down on. And building the brand SEO Hacker up to this point. This, I believe, is the time for me to finally see how the seeds I planted are growing, because now I can see how many people are just saying, "SEO? If you need SEO, SEO-Hacker." I don't even know some of these people, but they keep referring SEO Hacker to people who are looking for  SEO, which is great and I love them, and I'm going to be forever grateful to these people, referring SEO Hacker to all of these clients that also, I don't know, but that's the power of word of mouth. That's the power of doubling down on what you believe in. That's the power of branding.

Sean: Invest in good branding. Make sure you do business ethically and with integrity. You take care of your clients and go the extra mile for them. They'll love you. They will share who you are with the rest of the world who need your stuff as well.

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Sean: How can I make more enticing copies on my social media accounts?

Sean: A lot of people forget social media is not about selling stuff. Social media is about connections, that's it at the get-go. And I was there when Facebook was starting. I was one of the people who hopped in. I was one of the people who ran ads for the very first time when Sheryl Sandberg finally released the ability to run ads on Facebook. I was there when it was full of Facebook games. I was there. So I've seen the growth of social media, and it didn't grow because it was a great place to sell stuff. Social media grew because it's a great way to connect with people, how you share your ideas, how you share memories, how you are able to consume other people's memories and ideas, and thoughts. It's about connections, so copies on social media that are meant for you to connect with other people, are the copies that will do really well. When you say enticing copy, it's not a copy that should sell, it's a copy that should connect to your target users. That is pretty much the only way you can do it to make it “enticing”.

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Sean: What are the best ways to grow organically, especially when your startup is still in the early stages?

Sean: The best way to actually generate a lot of words is word of mouth about your business, about your product, about your service because that's free. And that is very, very effective in the sense that when you get referred by someone to another person who might want to get your product or service. That is a very powerful referral right there. And I know because my clients who are loyal to SEO Hacker and what we do and who have reaped the benefits of our work have been referring us left and right, and I'm so pleased and happy whenever I am personally tagged in Facebook groups, whenever there are people looking for SEO makes me so happy.

Sean: It's word of mouth, right? Can't beat it. And one of the other things that I used to grow my business organically, SEO Hacker, is to do content marketing, and I was writing, so it was free for me. That was organic-free growth for me. When I was blogging about SEO, everything I was learning, I made sure that people could subscribe and tune in whenever I had news about the SEO industry or new strategies out there about the SEO industry. And we still blog about new strategies and updated strategies.

Sean: We were able to publish earlier about SEO copywriting, by the way, for those of you who subscribe to the SEO Hacker newsletter, sorry for the double send. The first send was completely broken and we were testing things out I really am really sorry about that, but we were able to fix it. And now, if you want to go ahead and read the SEO copywriting article - How to do copywriting right? Then just go ahead and tune in to SEO-hacker.com, you will be able to find it. So, yeah, definitely content marketing. Write the content yourself. If you're a thought leader like myself during the early days of SEO Hacker, that is one big way for us to do it, and word of mouth marketing is generated when you have a word of mouth marketing strategy.

Sean: And for SEO-Hacker, we follow the Purple Cow principle, which is to make your product or service so good and so great. Go the extra mile that people can't help but talk about you. That is the strategy I use for SEO Hacker, and it worked mighty well.

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Sean: So what do you mean about being strategically unpredictable?

Len: You do want to be consistent in terms of the brand that you deliver? Right? But as you said, you can become so predictable that you become vulnerable. So what this comes down to, and one of the things and what I talk about in this chapter in the book is what's called the OODA loop.

Len: So it's O-O-D-A, It's an acronym. O-O-D-A right, OODA. It stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. OODA loop. Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. This was born from the military where they were trying to come up with How do we understand how fighter pilots make their decision process and how do we win more fights in the air? And so what they began to understand is that we all, everybody goes through this OODA loop. Every time we make a decision, we go through the OODA loop. But here's the trick. If we're going through the OODA loop, we observe, we orient, we decide, we act. If something happens that disrupts us. We have to go back to the beginning. We have to re-observe, reorient, re-decide, and re-act.

Len:  OK, well, let's talk about basketball. So you're a basketball player, right? The guy you're guarding is coming straight down the court, going right towards the basket, you're in the corner somewhere. You don't have to be a mathematical genius to figure out at what speed and what angle to run, to intercept him or her. Right?

Len: Now, when you get up to that person, if they juke, if they dribble behind their back, if they fake or feint and move, that's when we start seeing those ankle-breaking videos where people fall all over themselves, right? Because what's happened is when you observe, you orient, you decide, and you act. You've observed you've oriented yourself. You decide and then they move and everything changes, and your brain goes back to the beginning. It's too late for your body. It's already moving. It already has inertia and momentum, and then you fall over, right?

Len: But how you get there can dictate how successful you are, based on how predictable you are. In business, if we're doing the same things all the time, the same way. And we do and it's all the same, how hard is it for our competition to be able to meet us?

Len: One of the things that you can do is self-disruption. The best type of disruption is self-disruption. As an example, I use Netflix. Everybody knows that Netflix disrupted the movie rental business, right? And you know, that's a big story about what they did to Blockbuster and all that, and Blockbuster's gone and all that. But to me, the bigger story with Netflix is what they've done since. Because they did not stop, they could have stopped and just been this company that delivers DVDs through the mail. Yeah, but they did. They moved to stream right?

Len: And then did they stop there? No, they didn't. They then moved to original content production where they're producing their own content. And did they stop there? No. Now they're getting into game development and gaming. Every time they do that, they force their competition to rethink what they're doing. You know, the competition at first was like, OK, how do we deliver movies through the mail? And then the competition was like, Wait, that's not the game anymore now we got to figure out how to do this streaming thing. Wait a minute.

Len: Now we got this figured out and now we've got to figure out how to do our own content. The more that you force your competition to move by disrupting yourself before they can disrupt you, the best type of disruption is self-disruption. That is a concrete way that you can remain strategically unpredictable. You are not unpredictable in terms of what your goals are, but you're unpredictable in terms of how you get there, which forces your competition to slow their decision process down.

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Sean: How do I, or all the business owners who are to actually, keep at the edge of our seats, not in paranoia, but in vigilance, in our own lives, in our own habits? What's the mindset that we have to have?

Len: I think what I hear from you is, you know when I hear about where you might be becoming complacent. I don't think about you becoming complacent in terms of the business that you have - that business, that you have people running, You're in danger of becoming complacent in life. Right.

Len: And you know, when you talk about what the mindset is, the mindset that I tell people is, and this is why this is so important. The goal, the end goal is not success. The end goal is keeping it. So becoming successful is not the pinnacle. It is the start. How do you keep that success in business and in life? Right. So you're at this position now where you have a successful business and you have taught people and you've given people the right skills and the right autonomy to be able to run that successfully.

Len: So now what's your purpose? Right? So how do you remain useful to your family, to your friends, to whatever relationships you have? Right? How do you push beyond? How do you look at where that next step, right? The goal is not success, keeping it is. And success is not money. Success is happiness. Success is productivity. Success is a purpose, right? And so, you know, you said, you know, after 10, 11 years, I think you said you finally came up with a purpose for your business. Right? Do you have to start spending a little bit of that time thinking about what is your personal purpose? What is your purpose in life? Because what entrepreneurs have a tendency to do is define themselves as their business. But you are not your business. That is not your legacy. Your legacy goes beyond that.

Len: And that's what you have to figure out is, what is my legacy? Do I want to create another business? Do I want to create ancillary businesses as I come out of this? Do I want to be a philanthropic person? Do I want to be, you know, the best father, or the best husband, or the best partner or whatever? I can be, right? What is your purpose that goes beyond that business? Because it sounds like you've done a great job to set that business up for success. And now it's like, what's the next stage for you?

Len: So this applies to personal life as much as it does anything. We have a tendency as entrepreneurs also to further our business to the detriment of our personal relationships. Our personal relationships become second seats to what we're doing. And so, you know, here's a great opportunity to evaluate that for yourself. Where do you stand in there? Like how do you feel about that? What do you want to do about that? So, you know, the way to not be complacent is to continue to ask, why? Why am I doing this? Why am I here? Why am I moving forward? What am I moving forward towards right? And where could the threats come from? If you do that in your personal life, in your business, life will always continue forward.

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Sean: Simon, I wonder with businesses that you've worked with and these are above 35K what are the most common things that they usually struggle with?

Do you usually struggle really with the CEO not having that much time and being too involved in the trees themselves? Or are there other things that you find are common outside of that?

Simon: The main thing is they say, I'm in a time crunch. I'm always in a time crunch. I don't have enough time for my family, for my kids, for my workouts, or for my hobbies. If I go on vacation for four weeks, I will feel guilty. So that's the main thing.

I started a business to feel free and I am not free. The business is running me. I am not running the business. So that's the main thing. So for example, Anthony, he came, he's an amazing sales trainer.

When the Nasdaq needed sales trainers they called Anthony and he came and he said, Simon, I'm doing super well in sales, but the whole thing is dependent on me. So if I go on holiday, nothing happens. And I have to do so many things that I hate doing.

I like only being on stage, crushing it on stage, and selling from there, and then I want everything else to be done by my team. But I don't have a team, so I need to hire. I don't know how to hire, how do I start the job description? How do I onboard them? How do I create the processes?

So many questions. I get a headache just thinking about it. Can your sprint deliver just immediately the processes? And we say, Yeah, sure. And so Anthony became a testimonial, had an amazing sprint, and now he has the team running everything and he just does his zone of genius, which is being on stage selling from there.

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Simon Severino

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Len: That idea is, what this builds into is being able to articulate your 'why.' We talked about this a little bit already, but what this gets into is understanding what your true purpose is.

Len: So, you know, if someone walks into a store and steals something from a store, that person, if caught, can go to jail or they can walk away with a ticket, or they can walk away with a warning. Right. It all depends on a lot of different factors. Right. And I have that discretion to be able to do that. But I also have to understand what the law is. So within your own organization, you have to understand what is the law right? What are the parameters that we work within? Right? It's not willy nilly. It's not like everybody gets to decide what we do. There are laws, right? We have to document that. We have to make it clear what we can do, what we can't do and where the middle ground is right, where we can play.

Len: But the second piece of that is really understanding your purpose. And this is the hardest thing, I think, for entrepreneurs, because your purpose is not making money, that is not what differentiates you. What is your purpose in this world? Why does your business exist beyond making money? And then you have to be able to focus each one of your employees to be able to make decisions within that 'why', within that purpose. Right? So my purpose when I go out into police work is to maintain the peace and provide safety and protection, right, but also to provide the best outcome for all involved.

Len: Sometimes that outcome has nothing to do with somebody going to jail. Right. That is not what they need. That is not the best for anybody, but I have to understand what that means. Right, and that's why we spend so much time going to academy and field training and all the things that we do. Because we have to understand what we can do. What is the law, right? And then where do we have that discretion? But then how do we use that discretion to further our why to further our purpose?

Len: And it's not our personal purpose, it's our organizational purpose that kind of gets you away from like "this person believes that that person believes this." You know, everybody, if they're going to work with any organization, they have to be aligned with that 'corporate why'. Why do we exist? What is success for us beyond money, right? What are we trying to do for this world? What would happen if we weren't here? And then how do we make sure that everything we do falls within that?

Len: So again, there still could be mistakes. There are always going to be mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. But if we're making mistakes with the right purpose in mind, those mistakes are not going to be too bad. Right? You know, maybe you refund somebody that shouldn't have got a refund. OK, that may cost some money, but the reason? What was the reason, why? Why did you do it, right? If the why is right, you're not going to be too far off base? So to me, those are the two most important things as it relates to a business, especially an entrepreneurial business, because they're hard things to do. You have to document what the law is. What are your procedures and your policies? And what do you do? And then you have to make sure that everybody understands why we're here. What are we here to do? What is success for us?

Len: Yeah. And I love the fact that you just said that time because of a purpose statement, right? So many organizations spend so much time on their mission and their vision that nobody ever understands what it is, and nobody even understands what the difference is between the two of them. The most important thing that a lot of organizations don't do is a purpose statement, and a purpose statement is the one that actually will guide people the right way.

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Len: And so what we learned about complacency is that number one, the more successful you are, the more vulnerable you are to complacency. Right. So you look at people, you look at businesses, you look at relationships. And that was light bulb number one. I was thinking to myself, "Man, how many times do we say, how could they have fallen so far, so fast, right? How can you know, blockbuster has messed it up? So bad? How could Kodak? How could Sears? How could Circuit City? How could all these businesses that were so big, like too big to fail? How did they miss it?" Right. And so obvious to us right now? How did that happen?

Len: So that was like, I mean, and you say, how did this, you know, these friends that, you know, I've had this long marriage and happy marriage, and all of a sudden they're getting separated or divorced. How does that happen, right? I start saying, Well, gosh, that relates back to this idea that the more success you enjoy, the more vulnerable you become to complacency. So I was light bulb number one. Light bulb number two was this idea that complacency is born from overconfidence and self-satisfaction. Right. And we see it all the time and we see it. You know, there are things that we do because we think we've got it figured all out, right? We understand our competition. We understand our business. We've been doing this for years. Nobody knows it better than us. That's the danger point, right?

Len: Once you start thinking like that, that's when you become vulnerable. And so that was light bulb number two. I was like, "Man, because this is, you know, in law enforcement we talk about, you know, something simple, like doing a traffic stop and we might do ten thousand traffic stops and never have a problem. But with that success, then the danger is that you become overconfident instead of watching where everybody is and watching hands and doing the things that you need to do as you're walking up to a car, you saunter up.

Len: Instead of being aware of where you are in relation to the light behind you in the mirrors you're not paying attention to. When you're talking to the driver, you might lean in and put your elbows on the window or something, and they might put their hand out and you might reach into a car and shake a hand. Right? All things that we're taught not to do because they put us in danger. But you do that enough times with success. And you can convince yourself that you're successful because of the things you're doing, as opposed to the fact that you've been lucky. And so that was kind of light bulb number two, is that this idea that overconfidence can breed this thing? So you want it three light bulbs on it? You didn't give me this question ahead of time. I don't know.

Len: But, you know, I think light bulb number three is how quickly things can turn, you know. And this is what we see in the academy because we watch videos. We, you know, we watch some pretty hard things to watch, you know, things that start out as seemingly innocuous and seemingly safe that can turn on a dime. And all of sudden, someone's getting shot, the magnitude of how quickly things can go from right to wrong. And that's kind of like one of the things I talk about in the book and a saying that I tell my kids all the time is everything goes right until it doesn't. And when it doesn't, it often goes really bad. So just because things are going right doesn't mean they're always going to go right. And that was kind of that third light bulb that says, "You know what? This is something that people need, that I need, that I need to find out for myself." And then because I needed it, I knew that I could translate it to other people.

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Sean: How much is too much to pay for self-improvement? What are the factors to consider before enrolling in a high ticket course, or hiring a mentor or coach?

Toni: Interesting. Okay for me, in my experience, I've never paid for a coach or a mentor. I never hired one, although I do know that there are people who will accept mentees, and then there's like a fee in exchange. But I actually allocate a portion of my income to my education fund. So on that fund, I know that, for example, if I come across a seminar, a paid talk or a course that I want to be a part of, then I just tap into that fund because I know that fund is really reserved for that purpose. So it's a bucket that I replenish every month so that in case I come across just what I've said, like a mentor that I want to hire, or a course, I can just tap into that fund. So I guess it really depends on how much of your income you're willing to budget for that. But in your case, since you are a mentor to a million already. So what do you say about that?

Sean: Actually, it's funny because a lot of people ask if I can mentor them, but I have rules if you want me to mentor you. It's not a lot. It's just three rules. Number one, what did you do about what we talked about? If we had the session already, what did you do about it? Because if you don't didn't do anything about it, then don't ask me to be your mentor or we can be friends, but not a mentor-mentee relationship, right? Number two would be, to ask me questions. Ask me your questions. So before we meet, I require you to have a list of 10, 20 questions or, you know, five questions, whatever it is you want to learn. And that's it. And number three, would be, when do you plan to apply all of these things? So it could be like questions first. When do you plan to apply? And then the next meeting, 'okay, what did you do?" just like that. It's actually quite simple how I mean their people. But if that isn't followed, then we shouldn't be mentor-mentee. And then I also don't book you. Usually, as the mentee, you book the mentor, you ask for the time.

Sean: And then this year we're planning to professionalize. So it's the first time we're considering hiring an executive, you know, an EVP, an executive vice president to join the team. I had no idea. Again, I'm an idiot when it comes to that. So I hit up the president of Ayala Land International, Ms. Ana Tatlonghari. I ask her, 'Hey, can you just give me one hour of your time?' And she's like, 'Of course.'

Toni: She's really open to it, huh?

Sean: Yeah, I spoke. I spoke at their event like three or four years ago, and she's game, and I learned a lot. And right now, we're trying to figure out how we're going to meld that in. So. And guys here's the thing: I didn't pay anything for any of that. I didn't pay anything. But I love these people. They know if I could be them, I would. But they didn't ask for my money. And this is because these are people who also love helping other people. Now, nothing wrong with paying for self-improvement, having an education fund like Toni, actually, I would recommend you have that because when an opportunity comes that there's a really, really good webinar that you could enroll in, or a really good coach or mentor that you can get might be life-changing, but do your research first.

Sean: "Okay, is this person really good to be a mentor? Does he or she really have the heart to help people or just for the money?" Because there's a lot of so-called "gurus" who are really con-artists" So there's a lot. I'm not going to name any. I'm just going to tell you, do your research.

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