The Top 5 Breakaway Mindsets to 10X Your Financial Freedom in 24 Months

That's really one of his biggest areas of genius, creating value and also creating an exit for himself and others. And in fact, yesterday, I had the good opportunity to chat with 2 of his previous business partners who hold him in amazingly high regard. You'll know why in a couple moments. So what he's gonna share today are some unique strategies for growing and scaling a business, but more importantly, how to package and position for exit, and how to do it in a way that's family and lifestyle compatible. You're also gonna learn about his new book, Entra Thrive, the Entrepreneur's 8 Laws to Reconnect with Your Calling and Create the Good Life.

And his new business strategy, the breakaway accelerator that happens in just 3 days. So first of all, welcome, Aaron. Great to have you here.

This was my 3rd year of doing the race. And it's, it's over 4 mountain ranges. It's intense. It's all in one day. It's the longest bike race in the country that's sanctioned as far as a one day bike race. And I was in the last leg. There's 5 legs. They're all about, you know, 50 or so miles. Mhmm. 30 to 50 miles each. And I was done. I was like, I had no energy left. I had what they call in the biking world bonked. Oh, yeah. I had fuel.

You know, I'd I had miscalculated my fuel a little bit, and I needed help. So you know, fortunately, my wife had gotten into biking the year before. And she's she's an animal. She's really good at it. And she was on the relay team, so they also do relay.

So I was doing the full race by myself and she was on this 5 woman relay. And she had finished and so she jumped in front of me. And the the term drafting, very popular biking term, that if you get behind someone's tire or wheel and I mean, inches from it, you can save just from one person in front of you, sometimes up to a third of your energy. Yeah. And that's exactly what Heather did for me, is she jumped in front of me and for the neck for that leg really helped me save that energy.

And not only did I finish, like, I wouldn't have finished without that, but not only did I finish, I had finished in a better time than the previous two times that I have done the race. Mhmm. And so that, and that caused you know, in drafting, we also, drafting is a great way to do what we call breakaways. And the Tour de France is very popular where you break away from the pack, but the best breakaways are with other people.

Mhmm. And that's where drafting comes into play as well. So I love the term breakaway. It's really distancing yourself from who you are today maybe, and and, you know, applying this into the real world as an entrepreneur Mhmm. And then separating, you know, from where you were and where you wanna go.

Because it really was the conversations we had, both to Todd and Eric, about their experience with you as a business leader, and, Yeah. Why these were such important metaphors. So dive into that a little.

Right? I was I was toast. Sometimes that happens as an entrepreneur, as a business leader, as you need that. But often, the best ones are when you're sharing that and you're kind of one's leading for a while, and then sometimes that leader needs some help, and so they let someone else get in front. Yep.

And it's this team effort. And with both Eric and Todd, that's how we work together. It wasn't always me leading, but I always knew that, okay, I needed them to jump in front sometimes. And that's the team, that's the the best breakaways. The ones that like, if we try to do that ourselves, we often fall back in the pack.

In fact, we use if we use that much energy to break away and we're not getting that help and that with that drafting. Mhmm. But just think about in business, often we can fall behind the competition. Often we can fall behind others, and we lose energy at in the long run. And so doing it as a team, as a team effort with the right people are the best breakaways in business.

These guys are still there. You still have, you know, some ownership, but they've had, in some ways, you had mentioned a couple of people you've been with have actually exceeded what you took away. And to have the courage to leave something at the right time to take care of you, first of all, it takes a lot of courage. And for them to like you still because getting bought is hard, and very rarely does it work out for the buyer or the people who are left behind. And very often, if you don't get all your money upfront as an owner, it's, you know, you get one check and that's it.

Whether we wanted to exit it or not, we wanted to build a business that we could exit or that was was was, had the the right the right framework and everything else that we can make that choice when that that count time came. And every buyer wants a company where the founder isn't in the business. Mhmm. Mhmm. Like that's a huge benefit.

Yep. And so my mindset had to change. And that's one of the big things that I've really gotten into in the last few years through positive psychology is that it really does start with your mindset. Mhmm. It really does start with getting you know, we talk about the thinking part of our accelerator program that we're building out.

It starts there as we've gotta help people or we're gonna try to help home care providers specifically in thinking bigger, thinking about their mindset, thinking about what their business needs to look like regardless of whether they're gonna exit or not Right. So that they can live the freedoms that they've always wanted to live. Get back to that original dream or that original calling that they they had, hence the the subtitle of the book. You know?

Like I, as expected, a totally different answer. But the feedback they gave me is that you guys are too much in in your business. The business is way too dependent on you, especially you, Aaron, as as, well known in the industry.

I started actually listening to my coach, Dan Sullivan, and what he had been teaching because I was still a part of strategic coach early on. Mhmm. But, you know, maybe a couple of years before that, but I was finally getting it. Like I was understanding what he was trying to say is the who not how concept. And and so I I started leaning into all of that.

And that was in my mindset and how I looked at my business and said, I have gotta build a business that does that's no longer about me and my ego. I had to build it so it was scalable.

You know? My first is about 7, closer yeah. The next one is closer to 10. But what what changed between those 2, and what do you think you either got lucky at or you learned or you didn't learn the next time around? Like, what was the psychology there?

Yeah. Yeah. And he, he was not being maximized. I was I was not letting go of the things I needed to let go of. And so, I did not learn what I should have learned because when I exited Arbor Senior Care, I had a right hand person who had taken over the business. I had moved 3 hours away from my business for 2 years before I sold that business.

I got it. I April 2016, ordered my bike. Same day I signed up for that 200 mile bike race 5 months later. People thought I was crazy. Mhmm. And we talked about acceleration and and changing myself so quickly, but I did. And it was it's incredible. You know?

Yeah. So how does that fit into the big picture? And if we were gonna I I have a add on question. I'm gonna just set that one up first. So what about that and why?

Positive psychology, a lot of people say is that how to be happier, and I guess there's some elements to that, but it's really the science of well-being and why why do some people thrive and why do some people don't thrive. You know, in psychology, especially behavioral psychology, where it's a traditionally a reactive field. Right? Is that they're reacting to people's behaviors, as they get down into addictions or whatever that might be. Positive psychology is a proactive psychology.

The father of psychology, Martin Seligman, who was my professor and still my men one of my great men

He's the one who who who's learned helplessness, all the research behind that in the sixties. And so he, he was tired of that reactive stance as a psychologist. And that's when he started. We've got to get on. We've gotta help anyone understand how to thrive regardless of whether or not whether there's dealing with behavioral issues or not.

We've gotta understand that that science. And so that's positive psychology. It's and and for my purposes, why I got into positive psychology, I was laser focused on the entrepreneur, the home care entrepreneur, of course, my background, but the entrepreneur in general. Hence, the book is for a wider audience, but very specific also to to that niche of of home care entrepreneurs. But it's it just I just was I wanted to know rather than than than talk about it or have some Anadol type answers.

I wanted to know the science, and I was just fascinated with it. And so in 2021, it was a good time to just go into the program. I applied. Very difficult program to get into. Yep. And I was I I didn't I didn't expect, I guess, that I would, but I did. And I'm you know, it's 38 of us in the program, and Mhmm. It was, amazing journey, transformational for me. Another another because I'd already it was on my journey of change and improving myself. This was just an added layer.

And now, I felt like I can really go out and help and guide others. After having 20 plus years of of being a successful entrepreneur, EOS, strategic coach, and now positive psychology, it's a it's a great time for me.

Yeah. You had this burn inside you, and there's a lot psychologically going on at the same time. And then, know, ultimately, that leads us to your latest reinvention as well, which is just rethinking your life and your business. So kind of work work your way through the book and what was the big draw there. Because because, again, I see it now.

I see how the combination of all these things makes sense to me as an outsider looking in, getting to know you, and getting to know your life and your background. But, let's talk about that the why behind it.

You know, and I had to do a lot of research. It was 60 plus pages of of research and I had to put together. That was kind of the foundation. At the time, I I really hadn't planned on writing the book. I writing a book based on that.

Mhmm. It was after I had left the program and decided this has to get out there. I started putting the laws together based upon the research. And those 8 laws, you know, it starts with the first law for especially for entrepreneurs, is clarity. Entreclarity is what we call it Mhmm. For the entrepreneur. But that's getting really clear on what we call the guiding truths. Years ago, I, I created that. I I was part of the E Myth revisited. I did a mastery program with Michael Gerber.

And he calls it called it the primary aim. I kind of evolved it because I felt like there are more questions Mhmm. To get to that. And so I added some some more questions to it. But I've had my guiding truths for years.

My mind is at peace. My life is filled with abundance. My family receives of my time. And so I have these guiding truths. And I feel like before you even kinda get your core values in a company for your company, you personally as an entrepreneur have to know what's truly what you wanna be true about yourself.

And that's that that's kind of the beginning stages of the or or that law, the unterclarity law, which then goes in in that in that law. I talk about the breakaway. In that law, is that is that once you have those guiding truths, get clear on what the breakaways you want in your life, personally and professionally.

Listening to you, getting to know you, Exits, you can kinda plan them, but you you gotta depend on a lot of relationships, a lot of connections. Lucky circumstances that you influence but don't control. Yeah. Yeah. So talk about the random versus the not random breakaways.

Is they've got to think they've gotta know what corner is the best corner. They even look at the headwinds. They they they do make some plans, but some of my best breakaways have not been planned either. Yeah. You know?

Is that but I I was ready for them. And that's I think the key is that when I exited my second company my first company, I prepared for that. I I I approached brokers. I was like, I'm ready to exit. The second one, what happened within a few months because it was kind of this mute, you know, I I got approached and my business was at a point where I had already down as CEO.

I had prepared everybody. I had done my 7 week sabbatical, which I know we're gonna talk about here. And I had proved the concept and that I could be away from my business and it would not only would it survive, it would thrive. Mhmm. And that's the key is those those are the best breakaways. Right? When they're not planned like that. And they come out of left field, they're really good things, and you're ready. Because you you planned all those other mini breakaways along the way.

Because if if I were again using this framework and the structure of, you know, what led you to if you had 5 big breakaways to plan and what they are, setting yourself up for success. And if you were to redo, like, knowing what you know now, going back to the punch in the gut moment, and thinking about how could you have reached your exit, or if you're gonna reach your next exit a lot faster, a lot more effectively, what are they? What would you do? So this is your chance to basically have and just for the record, I know you're you're pretty open about this. You walked away with enough from your last exit where, technically, you don't have to work again.

You get this is a an act of want to not have to.

Action taker. Mike Koenig's here, and I just wanted to interrupt for a second let you know that if you're ready to reinvent yourself and your business, go to connect to mike.com to learn more and book a conversation with me right now. Alright. Back to the episode.

And to change their mindsets. You know, in the in home care space, many are in their business day in, day out, evenings, weekends. Even when they're not working, they're thinking about it. I certainly relate with that. That was me in 2015 is that I could not even be home when I was home.

Mhmm. Right? I wasn't present. And so helping these entrepreneurs, these in home care entrepreneurs especially, to get to to understand the right mindsets, how to change the way they frame their past so they can create a better and brighter future, and using, of course, the science of positive psychology to do so. And all the the the research I've done, I've done a lot of the work for these entrepreneurs so that they can learn from that and help hopefully, be their guide through that and and help them get the right mindset.

So that's the first step, the the first kinda rung to that. Once we we can get around that, we really have to look at the talent. We have to look at we call it keep. You know, how do you keep the best people and and retain them and create those positive culture? We call it the culture of retention.

And really building out a business, a home care business in this in this example, that can eventually be run without them with the right people. And so, again, going back, again, that's, like, kind of a positive psychology approach to keeping their people and making sure that they're creating this culture of retention.

We we knew they could figure it out. Our first really big investment was in Todd, who you met yesterday. And Todd, we had before that, we had had people in that sales and marketing seat who who were managers, but not leaders. And Eric and I knew more about sales and marketing or finance, sometimes, more than many of those team members. And so we had to change our our mindset about that.

We had to realize that we need to hire find people who are smarter than us. So Todd, much smarter than both of us in sales and marketing, but also a pretty more money or more of a bigger investment that we'd ever been willing up until that point to do. So we had to change that. And that was one of the, if not the best, hiring decision we ever made, especially for that business, is he was phenomenal. And we had so much trust in a short period of time where we just would tell Todd, this is how we want it to look at the end.

Just go and figure out how to do it. And he did. And he learned the industry extremely fast. Mhmm. And has become now, you know, in the he's still there and is one of the foremost experts in the industry. So it's it's not it's that mindset. He also had to figure things out. We call it in positive psychology self efficacy. He just believed that he could do it. You know? So That's that's awesome.

Go slow to go fast. I realize that's a popular term, and that's the that's the mindset and the keep right part of that is that's the slow part is we got to make sure those are right before we can really accelerate because if you accelerate too fast what happens things fall apart you know you don't have the right the right tires or at the right level and things just fall apart and so this acceleration means that we've you know, we can now get our strategies in place. The right strategies, marketing, sales, pricing, our contracts. You know, we went from Once we had more of the right people, we're able to take our contracts from a month to month contract to an average of 27 month contract within a fairly short period of time. That's acceleration.

Mhmm. Our value because of those contracts went up exponentially. But we really couldn't have gotten there without those first two steps. So acceleration, understanding the the, you know, what needs to be accelerated and where you need where those gaps are, of course. You know, I have a great story.

I invested in in in January 2021 or 2022, actually. I partnered with Jen Stengel out of, Raleigh, North Carolina. Golden Golden Harmony, Great home care agency. I became a 40% investor. And in within 24 months, we had 4 times their their revenue.

And that's just a revenue. It's not their val their actual enterprise value is even more than that Mhmm. Because of the growth and the trajectory that we're we're taking them on. And that and that's so much as far as just accelerating their growth. Once we had the right people, she didn't have, in the EOS world, I'll call them an integrator, but a right hand.

She was the visionary, and she was flying down kind of being in that integrator seat, and she was, you know a visionary trapped in an integrator seat per se and So that that was causing chaos in the business always always right And so once you get that right, you can now accelerate and get all those other things in place. So That's great. Yeah.

Like like, that's like a a constant. Like, as you're growing, you have to constantly be thinking about that. That's, again, scaling your business by hiring smarter people than yourself. Turning data into actionable strategies like getting good at reading the data, understand what should be tracked and what shouldn't. Yep. You know, and tracking that on a weekly basis. Mhmm. Understanding what it's telling you and what actions you need to take from it. Having the right blueprint for growth. Yep.

Very important for for scaling. And then creating a culture of accountability.

And when we first started to get that data, to call clients and their employees, to see how satisfied they were services and with employment, Every month, our customers were downloading that data into from an Excel spreadsheet. Very cumbersome, not scalable. And in that industry, there are what we call scheduling software providers, really the brains of these home care companies to help make sure the caregiver gets there out on time, scheduling them. It's that's the key to their their success Has everything about the client, everything about that care professional. And so we took we got in line with all these software companies who are fierce competitors, frankly.

Mhmm. And got them to work together and integrate directly with us and trust us with that data. That that took 2 to 3 years, but to get about 10 integrative, that's a fairly short period of time to get that many integrations working together. Mhmm. And we had all the data now.

It was the first, no one had ever done that in the industry and it really set us apart. And obviously, our customers loved us because they no longer had to do that, and we had better data, and it was scalable. Now we had we could grow exponentially. We also had great relationships with these software providers for additional. Mhmm. It's that we had the same target market.

And this is something that a lot of founders don't give themselves permission to do, because they don't know how to receive, and they also don't understand their true value. But it's being willing to be a premium brand, being willing to ask for more and receive more. And in a business like yours, where there is so much resistance, thinking that, you know, no one will pay more for home care.

Yeah. Right? So and then from there, like I said, in your case, the scaling, but also thinking about the software. And that's really where your mindset is now. There's huge opportunities where you can come up with new ways to automate and combine all these things. I think that's gonna be your your next breakaway.

It really does apply to most any business is that we start our businesses with the this whole idea of financial freedom and living the good life as Aristotle would put it, the complete life. And then we get into our businesses and it's harder than we thought. The uncertainties are are are are mount you know, they just keep compounding and and growing inside our our companies. And that freedom gets lost, you know. And that's a lot of my book is about that and and helping them find that.

But that freedom is is imperative. And so the reason, you know, that's at the end there is that to get that freedom, we have to kinda go through the process. Mhmm. And to to build a company, and again, building a company that is sellable, even if you're never gonna sell it Yep. Is really important because then you're building a life for yourself.

And I I hit that I hit that point in 2018. We had gone through the scaling process. So we have from 2015 to not having, like, anything that was scaled. That was the $800,000 valuation.

But I had so much confidence in, but we hadn't test the confidence. Like, could what would happen if I stepped away? And Mhmm. I think this is a great question for all entrepreneurs. What would happen to your business if you left for even a month? What would happen when you you came back? What would you find? Mhmm. Well, I asked the same question.

And they had secured some some opportunities that I didn't even know we were working on before I left. And they had done some things, I was just so proud of them. And I was able to go, wow, this does work. And it gave me so much confidence and it's the confidence and confidence and I love that Eric talked about this yesterday that that I had the confidence in him but we hadn't tested the confidence yet. And that was that was an amazing and gave me so, like, the freedom that I had always desired.

I just left for 7 weeks. And then after that, I would leave for weeks at a time, you know, without any concern about what was happening back in the business, and even started investing and going into other other other opportunities. And so it's that freedom component is pretty key. And there's there's certainly steps within that step to get there.

And part of that's having the applied wisdom, the guide, the coach, the tools, and the resources to get through the 5 steps in the first place to achieve that? Yeah. And how do you make that leap to say, maybe it's possible for me? Actually, imagining yourself, not wishing into taking a month off or 7 weeks or longer off, but being able to make that leap and say it's possible and make that investment in themselves. Yeah.

And, just try it on as possible. Yeah. Where where would you get that from? What do you say to someone who's in that, I I I want it, but I I don't believe it.

And so we have to believe that it's possible. And that, again, goes back to working on reframing how you look at even your past, where you're at today, and and where you really wanna be. And then, you know, there is a you can do those planned breakaways. And, again, the mini breakaways are those breakaways that you do plan so you can have the bigger breakaway later on. Right?

Mhmm. And so starting off again in those steps, getting your mindset right first and believing that you deserve this. You know, Dan Sullivan talks about being okay and not apologizing for wanting what you want. Mhmm. And I think as entrepreneurs, especially in the service industries where you're serving others, and that's certainly the case in home care, is that we we give so much of ourselves and we lose ourselves in the service of others that we feel guilty for wanting what we want too often.

And what I'm trying to help these entrepreneurs understand is that let that go. Like, let's let's lean into what you want and have that as, like, your big, like, in the cycling world in Tour de France, that's the yellow jersey. Right? The freedom is the yellow jersey. The the the the 4 week sabbatical is the yellow jersey, the big breakaway.

And then work backwards and say, okay. I've got a star. I gotta believe that, that I that I'm worthy of that, that I can achieve that, and then start the process of who what people do I need to have in my business to help support that dream and that calling of mine? Right. You know?

It's such such a tongue twister for me. And also, for people who are in the home care business, a discovery call with someone on your team or you Yeah. To learn more about working together. So is there anything else that you wanna add before we wrap up the, the experience and and how you work with

So any last words before we wrap up?

See you in the next episode. Bye bye.