On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. What's the problem? What's the shortest path to success? What's the best path to success? Which one am I gonna choose? I'm gonna start moving on that right at this moment. You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe featuring fellow 78 and even 9 figure business owners who have real battle scars from business and life, but have prevailed as the king that they are designed to be.
We welcome high performing entrepreneurs to the stage in order to reveal the real of the real on what it takes to build a today. We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along the way Chaz give a true and accurate picture of the journey of 6 and how you too can get there. Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and kings like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in.
What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe gathering the Kings podcast today. I've got Matthew Griffin aka Griff. Here on the King stage. My brother, Griff. How we doing? Good morning. It is a Monday morning. We're up on coffee, and we've already complimented each other's beers. So I feel like we're ready to to roll into a great podcast. We we checked all the boxes. The last one was the beard, but but we're good now. So I appreciate that per that permission to take off in this conversation.
Super excited for this conversation. I was telling you right off of air, that's obviously we're excited about all of our guests. We've got some incredible guests that come on the show, but this one particularly, Griff is well known inside of my team. He didn't even know this. I've got a team member that was fanboying hard. So Jake, I'm I'm I'm putting you on front street here, but but Jake was like, this is this is this is the guy.
Like, we we you know, this and this all about all about grip story before I can even get grip story. So we're excited about sharing this story of success and and all kinds of things that you're doing in the marketplace. So tell us what kind of business that you have. I run a clothing and footwear company. It's called combat flip flops, and we are a mission based company. We make stuff in war zones or post war zones, and then we use our profits for philanthropy efforts. Love it.
Combat flip flops, badger running, horse or fighting. Love it. I love it. Oh, it's snuck in the snuck in the, the extra there too. Okay. So there's there's a lot going on with with just the combination of combat and flip flops. It's so confusing to everybody. Yeah. But we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna get to all that. But before we do, Griffith, I gotta know, what's the deep, like, burning desire? In you.
I mean, yes, there's all this stuff that you just unpacked it for us, but you've had a certain level of success. You've been doing it, and you're still doing it. What's that? Like, really down deep in you. You're a guy of face. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Is we're put here for a purpose? That's right. If you listen to it, it will respond and answer so well. And I just listen a lot, and I've had amazing adventures all over the world and got to help people and never gone hungry.
I've never not had a roof over my head, and life's been hell of a blast. And I just feel like I've been driven to it, and I'm just gonna keep going that way. It's been fun. Yeah. I like it. You know, I I I hope that the listener is is keenly listening like I am because even just the the short few minutes we've been on the call here, you you've said things in, like, 1 or 2 sentences that have, like, 4 layers.
Like, even what you just said, there was there was faith, there was purpose, there was fun adventure. Like, all of these things that I know now make a grip. Like, have you always been like this, or has this been developed over the course of time? Per is if if you hear the stories about me from the people who have known me, they'll say I've been the same ever since I came out of the womb. But, yeah, I've just always I've always just felt the need.
I was really blessed, you know, with where I grew up. And fortunately, I was given a healthy body and got to go to a great school and I just figure if I'm gonna have these blessings, I might as well turn around and try to help as many people with them as I can. Yeah. I love that. Simple. Let's just let's just go with what we've got. I love it. The the principles taught to us are actually kinda simple. Right? And they haven't improved on them in the past few 1000 years. Yeah. It is.
We I think we I think we've tried to improve on them, but, actually, it it's sometimes if we take that stuff away, then we can get right to the meat of it. Wouldn't you agree? I agree. Yeah. Okay. So tell us tell us more combat and flip flops. She said it's confusing. I wanna know how the business started. How how did you become an entrepreneur? Give us some of the backdrop. I'm a I'm a I've been really trying to, like, suck this short story down, but I'll just say, like, I got a book. Right?
It's Yeah. On our website, you can buy. It's called the unarmed forces. It tells the long and x whatever written story of everything, but the condensed version is is I was an army ranger. I graduated for West Point in 2000 and 1 right into the war. Went to special operations, did a whole bunch of tours to Afghanistan and Iraq. And what I saw there was that we weren't curing the root cause of the problem. Yeah. We just weren't. And I, you know, I was there to win.
And if winning meant doing something other than using a rifle, then I will pick up that tool and use it. And I didn't know what it was in 2006. Got out. Took a job as a homebuilder. Lost my job during the great recession in 2008. Right. And then I faked my way into a job for a company called remote medical international in which we sold medical gear and equipment and clinics to people, government contractors and officer research vessels all over the Wolfe.
And I started bouncing around to war zones. And this twenty nine year old civilian guy with a backpack, you know, and some hiking boots and doing this job all over the Wolfe, and I wanted to stay safe. And if you go to these areas where the bombings occur are around military bases, embassies, and reporters, Yeah. And as long as you stay away from those three spots on the map, you're generally pretty safe. And, you know, are the areas that don't have bombings and problems? Those 3 areas?
No. Businesses. Oh. Small business owners. Right? Wherever there's businesses on the street and bustling traffic in everyday life, there are no security issues. I wouldn't say none, but but it's everywhere I went, I was seeing businesses making the difference in the communities. And I thought to myself, as a civilian, is why are we rolling, you know, $20,000,000 m raps down the street that aren't really doing anything for security.
If we took that $20,000,000 and invested it into the street, how much more secure would this area be? Right. And that and that was the thought that kept going through my head. And eventually, I walked into a combat b factory in Afghanistan. I saw 300 people working there, and I I've spent a lot of time in Afghanistan, and that was really the first positive thing. That I had seen that we had done.
Yeah. And I asked the factory manager what they were gonna make when the war ends because that's what you do with military capacity. When the war ends, you make something else. And he said, no. We're all gonna go out of work. Nobody's gonna buy anything from Afghanistan. Wow. And I got really mad. Yeah. Right? All the all the time and effort and energy we had put into creating the opportunity Right. For these families to go to work.
I live the American dream, put their kids in school, everything that we said that we were gonna do for them, and then knowingly pull the rug out from underneath them. I got in that moment, I got down to the core of my being. I got angry. Yeah. And in that moment of anger and frustration, I looked down on the table and there's this combat boots soul with a flip flop thong punch through it. And it was ugly and cool, and it was a burly.
And I was like, man, this thing probably feels like 70 or 80 bucks. Some American would pay for this is is it. It's like, hey, John, do you mind if I run with this? And John was the factory manager's name. And he's like, yeah. Sure. And I walked out of the factory, got my little beat up Toyota, rolled back to my hotel, called my Ranger buddy, who knew about the internet, I really didn't know too much. I was like, hey. Can you check to see if combatfliplops.com is available? And he goes, yeah.
It's for 299 on GoDaddy by it. We're gonna make some flip flops in Afghanistan. And then that's how the story began. And it's taken a very global and tumultuous series of events over the past decade, but I tell you what, like, we're still here. We're still putting people to work We're growing our business like crazy right now. Then in spite of all the haters, he said we couldn't be done. We're just continuing to charge forward. It's been great.
It's been a really bad adventure, and we've got to work with truly heroic human beings over the last decade. Yeah. I love I love the, not only just the story, but the heroic human beings. And and maybe not ones, like, unexpectedly. Right? Like, the ones that that to the families that are probably represented in in that factory, you know, like, some at least that's my perspective on a lot of businesses. Sometimes it's it's those people that are the heroes or that have the the hero story.
And, yeah, it's cool that you got to kinda come in and save the day, but I know that you see it you know, where it's the where it's them that get to be part of the the mission. I don't think we we don't save the day at all, and that's never the attitude. Right? Just you're cool. I'm cool. Let's make some cool stuff together. Yeah. And let's just see how that supports our families. Cool. Right.
And from from the beginning all the way down to the guys who make our rubber, then the factory is going down there. It's just people going to work. And if you're doing your best to take care of them, to Chaz way they can survive and you you treat every business relationship in a positive way. That way with the intention of where you go, you're fully present and you're contributing as much to the to that relationship in that moment as possible. Right. Beautiful things happen. Yeah. They do.
I mean, really, I just I it's funny because I went down to Columbia in 2019 when we were redoing our line, and we had done our first trip there in 2012. And walking through the factory door and just seeing it, it didn't register in my brain because I still have our absolutely fearful photos. Of when my brother first found this manufacturer, and he was a Okay. Super high end footwear manufacturer in Columbia who, like, a lot of us, like, the other people, they lost it in 2008 as well. Got it.
Everybody did. The whole world lost. This guy had a crushing business, badass condo, family, and then he had to move to an industrial section of town and building a park above his factory. So that way him and his family could keep going. Keep going. And when Andy first met him, he walked in and they were remodeling it.
There were garbage bags stacked you know, 10 feet tall coming through for the 1st 20 feet of the entrance as this guy was building it and he goes, yeah, you know, we can do this work with you. And 11 years later, he's still our man. You walk in there. It's a beautiful modern factory, clean, putting people to work, and the product they put out is banging. Yeah. Like, that's those kind of heroes. Yeah. And we just met him every step of the way. Yeah. Love it, man.
I love I love the the simplicity of your thought, even goes back to the first couple of things that you said there. These are principles that we've known. And and we don't really have to add on to them, but you seeing other humans for who they are and even just maybe the talents that they've been given and being able to collaborate on those is pretty cool. Inside the business, you've already given us a little bit of practicals here, so I'm gonna kinda keep the segway head in that way.
What what have you done, or what's been a good decision, practically, that we can maybe replicate in our businesses? We have checklists for everything. Is that is that does that come from the military? Yeah. I think it did because it just makes things so much easier when you're getting ready to throw, throw, like, a £100 trailer around 15 miles. So you kinda wanna make sure that you got everything right, and it's gonna land where it's supposed to land.
Yeah. But if you build checklists, you know, you can blaze through them really quick. And then also, we track them over time. So I've had the same running checklist since and they've modified a little bit here and there, but since 2017, so I can when I make notes in my checklist and I can go through my spreadsheet I can look at them, and everything's hyperlinked down on the column a. All the tabs that I need to go to every morning, I hit my home button I need to check-in on my finances.
I need to check-in on my marketing return on ad spend. I need to check-in on my commentary and my engagements. I need to check-in on my shipments. And instead of thinking and remembering. It's just in a logical order that we've dialed in. Yeah. And that took what used to be a 8 hour day, and it really made it about 2 hours. Over the course of a couple of years. I mean, because you're just making minor course corrections. You're making huge muscle movements.
Yeah. Wolfe, and and you can only do that if you're checking every day or regularly. You know? So I I love the the the, I guess, the consistency of Chaz. When you say checklist, everybody listening and myself included, we're like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sure. I'm a huge checklist guy also, so I'm I'm I'm in alignment with you on this for sure. However, for the guy that's listening right now, it's like, oh, yeah. Checklist.
And then it's like, this is a loose idea, and I have really no idea how to build 1 or I hear about it, but, like, that's for somebody else. What would you say? Obviously, other than just condensing time, because I think that's pretty valuable in itself, but what are they missing that you have or that your team has because you follow, you know, like, I guess you the freedom comes from the from the checklist or the from the discipline. That that type of mindset.
What would you say that they're missing if they don't have that? You're missing peace of mind. Love it. You are. You're just missing peace of mind. If I go through my checklist and I know that all of my blocks are checked, my brain and my stress level goes to the floor I can relax. I could be creative. I can think about the next thing that I need to do in order to move forward or add a big project into my business. And my favorite part of my checklist is at the bottom.
It's projects, like, which projects am I working on right now? And those involve more time and thought. And then I just put them on my calendar and I work on those sections, but that's I still gotta do all the benign stuff throughout the day that everybody hates doing. Yeah. Rip the Band Aid off, get it done first thing with your first couple of coffee and then move on to the step that's really meaningful for you and for your business. Yeah. Love it. I love it.
The the freedom that comes from that inside of the peace of mind because what you like, the you're on this side of the the result, but on the other side, on the inside of someone who doesn't have that, they're running crazy. They're doing their, you know, 3 sixties in their head flips and and chasing their tail and busy and tired and all the things. Right? So, I mean, I my per I have 2 different checklists. I have one for myself, and then I have one for my business.
And the one for myself is, like, did you weigh yourself this morning? You know, did you meditate? Did you exercise? Right? How'd you sleep? Just if you just track yourself in those 4 Yeah. And you just say, okay. Before I'm gonna get, you know, because business is hard. You know, everything else in recovery is hard. The one thing that you can manage is yourself. And if you can discipline yourself out of £2 in a week, which is totally feasible for everybody, and then you, oh, okay.
I can improve just a little bit. I'm gonna go for 3 next week. But when you start seeing it every day, you get that motivation, you know, when you're sitting down at night, getting ready to go to bed and you're like, oh, man, I really wanna have a snack, but you go No. I wanna get that extra half a pound out tomorrow, and it's a mindset that you create. Yeah. Not only are you putting blocks on checklists, but know, we also enter, like, our key metrics in our checklist.
And so I can see the patterns of when they go up and down. Yeah. And it's a for your person, just if you're afraid of a checklist or do it, just literally have 4. I have a Google sheet. It's free. I'm sure everybody has a Gmail account, column a, Yep. Put it 4 or 5 down there. Do it for a month and see how you feel. It'll literally take you 2 minutes every morning. See if it works. Yeah. It's good. Yeah. Simplify the already what seems to be simple, but overwhelmingly.
So what's easy to do is what's also easy not to do. Oh, it's so so simple to skip by it. Oh, I'll get it tomorrow. Yeah. I'll get it. Yeah. And it's also easier to go ahead and eat that snack late night, if you don't have this thing, like, that's close to what you're thinking about. If you don't have the checklist, then it's far away. It's it's aloof.
It's it's in it's just out there Chaz opposed to, like, no. I'm probably thinking about my checklist as I'm going to bed or as I'm winding now for the night. I'm looking at my calendar I'm looking at my checklist or, you know, what, some of these things, especially if you look at it every single day, now I'm just training my subconscious to, like, really hone in on these things. Yeah, yeah, of course, you're gonna think about whether I wanna eat that extra bowl of ice cream or whatever.
You know? Mhmm. Alright. Well, let's flip the coin here. Griffin. What's the bad decision that you made, brother? Something Chaz we can we can learn from. Focus away from the 8020. Yeah. Yeah. We we were mentioning it in the pre call, but the 80 20 is a real thing. You can think you're a unique and special butterfly and every account is gonna be huge, but you're not. Right. The math says it the other way. The math says 80 20.
And when you really find, you know, your your 20% that are generating 80% of the revenue, really make that your life's purpose. And there was so much thrown at us so fast as a young business If you can imagine the story of army rangers going to Afghanistan and all these war zones to make stuff, like, we made it to shark tank in less than 3 years of business, and we didn't even apply. Yeah. Like, we never applied. They called us and asked us to be on the show.
Yeah. So if you can imagine, they had 2 young kids, and, you know, job transition, new business. I was still doing a side hustle. I had so much so fast coming at us that I'd I'd couldn't even look to see where I would pick up my where the 100% was even coming from. It was just a mess everywhere. But as soon as we started focusing on our 80 20, things really the ship really rallied itself.
Yeah. What would you say for the person listening right now who big or small business because it every business at some point, even if someone who's dialed in because we've recently I was telling you off air, I've recently had, like, a strategy expert come in and and really go in-depth. He was on the show probably 6 or 7 months ago.
But even after you've done the 80 20 and you get rid of that bottom BB box, you still then eventually work yourself back into some form of that other piece that you need to get rid of. Even though you've dialed it in and even though eightytwenty is on the top of your mind, even though it might be for that for the listener, what would you say for the person listening big or small business?
What are the steps for them to kinda like, how do I get rid of that that that bottom that's most likely dragging me down? It's not associated to most of the revenue. It's causing all the problems. I mean, this is this is the negative of the a d 20. Right? Like, I spend as much time on those as I do my best client who's the easiest to serve, who buys the most stuff Chaz is the most margin.
I get the best results with them, you know, but I but I share my time with not not the best client and and also the best just say the guy right now who's listening going, how do I do this? Again, I just honestly, I I have my checklist. I have a spreadsheet. I know what my customers are. I know they're forecasted revenue for the year. I know what they brought in so far.
And so when you hit that little right click button on the top of your spreadsheet, sort by size descending, it becomes real apparent and every day you check-in on those customers in that order. Right? And if there's any issues, make a note on the right hand side, take care of the issues up top first. And just over time, you're just gonna keep grooming yourself into into a pattern of taking care of your best customers first.
And that will it it will just play out because of how you're spending your day. Do you know when I feel like you're failing people? Right. At the same time, you you if if it's, you know, a customer and you you say, like, I I'm I can't support you. Like, I had to fire customers. And it sounds so odd for a flip flop business, but I I've literally told people, I I really just don't want you wearing my stuff. I'll send you your money back. Is that cool? And then we'll just call it even.
Yeah. But but for guys like you with service based business and other different, you know, clients, I understand it not for everybody. Our business is unique in that way, but Yeah. Take care of your biggest customers first. Make them your priority. Yeah. You're you're a 100% right. It it goes across all industries.
The question that I have for you, because you spent a good amount of, like, intentionality at the beginning of the show here, basically recognizing how you see people, right, whether they're the heroes inside of the factories or the heroes that are, you know, buying the stuff that they're the they're the AA client, whoever the people are, you, I think, genuinely see people for who they are, especially based on your faith.
So how how with good measure seeing people for who they really are, how can you still then decide to spend more time or better better spent time with an AA client as opposed to a BB? It's not like, I guess what I'm I'm prefacing here is you're gonna get rid of the BB. It's not because you don't like them or you don't, like, there's a disagreement. You're you don't want them to wear your stuff. But you wanna press in on on you wanna spend more time over here.
Like, there's actual you that's what you just told me. Pay more attention to these people. Well, how do I do Chaz, but see all people? So this is gonna be a a cold hearted army ranger comment on this. K. It never I'd never actually been able to articulate it until a guy wrote about it after I got out of the military, but everybody run into falls into 1 of 2 categories. Right? And you you fall into 1 of 2 categories and you flip flop back and forth between the 2 depending on what your mindset is.
You're either an asset or your reliability. K. It is a very it is a very binary switch. So, you know, just say I got my team and we're going out and doing stuff and everybody's well fed, well rested. They've all got the mission plan. We bought it at the time. I got 30 assets. It's great. But if we've been out and running for 2 to 3 days, there's some guys who haven't eaten. They might have an ankle screen or whatever. That guy becomes he was an asset transitioned into a liability.
Yeah. And then you're gonna run into people who were just straight liabilities. All of the time. And when you start looking at that time that you're spending with now your a level client Chaz a liability, to your a level client Right. Then you start, like, I'm really risking bigger business by interacting with these other things and just keeping that just ask yourself the question. You still wanna take care of them.
There's nothing wrong with taking care of that customer, helping them be a better customer, if that makes sense. Yeah. But if they're a liability to your a level client, then they fall into the liability category. And you just have to make a very cold, harder decision real quick. Like, oh, they wanna have an appointment with you. I'll be free tomorrow at 3. Yeah. I I you will schedule their time in order to place them where they belong for your priorities. Right?
Yeah. And and that's being true to yourself, being true to your mission. That's what you said at the beginning there is that for an alignment on the mission, there's kind of an understatement there, but I think that you can't determine whether someone's a liability or an asset unless you know where you're going or what the mission is.
And so once you have that clear, what you're saying is that I can put people in categories and but not to be not to be super quick to just put them in a category and then leave them because they can they can go back and forth, and I need to be aware probably on a daily, weekly, monthly basis on where these people fall. Clients, team members, networking opportunities, all of it. Right? And you and you gotta look within yourself. It starts within you. Right?
You have to recognize when you go into a business discussion, am I being an asset Yeah. For the person that I'm working with, or am I being a liability? Yeah. And it it really starts within. It starts with you. Yeah. It sounds very judgmental. When you say it, oh, this person falls into 1 to 2 categories, but I also preface it with it. It's like, everybody flips back and forth between the 2. I know that I am a liability before 8 AM and my first two cups of coffee.
I am not to send any emails, right, or hop on any social media because I'm a liability at point, and I recognize it within me, but I know, like, after my first two cups of coffee, after I got my checklist done, I'm not stressed out. I'd become more of an asset to do these things. So it it everybody goes back and forth. You have that's the number one rule, but you just have to assess where they're at right now, according to your mission and your plan.
Yeah. And then and then make action based on where they are currently and what the mission is. Love that. What you you kind of already maybe answered this question a little bit, but I want you to be able to just answer it fully. If a decision comes across your desk right now, today, if you've been through not only just all this military experience, but not now business experience and success. Is there a certain checklist that you have around making a good decision?
Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. The first is we're a mission based company, so we have our mission statement. Right? And you the reason you create a mission statement is because if you or any of your employees are not with an eyesight of any of your other employees or team members and they need to make a decision, is that decision gonna push them closer toward the mission statement or further away? And it's, again, binary. Make it simple for him.
Is this going to get us further toward enabling the mindful consumer to manufacture piece through trade? Right? Is is that the decision that's happening right now? If no, then you don't make it. It's fine. We won't live long. So it's it's just really simple. Like, And then the other one is is it gonna be fun? There are some things that just might not be best for business, but, man, they're just good for morale. So it's good. It's good.
Or looking at options of what could be good for business, one is fun and one is not. I mean, you pick the one that's fun. Naturally. Right. Yeah. You know, we've got, one of our core values with Gathering and Kings, the Kings bring Levity or Kings are Levity.
And so it's, you know, a very serious thing a lot of times to be in charge or to be a leader or to be an entrepreneur, to be a dad, to be a husband, to be, you know, whatever, to be an army ranger, And so I think that there's, you know, there's a lot of weight that comes with the checklist and having, you know, responsibility for other people, especially if lives are at the stake or or family's income, But, man, you what you just described as far as
having fun or levity removing pressure or removing that that sense of weight from a scenario, oftentimes comes from just morale or just being able to just suck out stress and remove it with or and exchange it for a level of joy, a level of of enjoyment. You know what I mean? Well, as freaked out as you are about making a tough decision, you know, that all the people who are involved in the outcome of that decision. They're more freaked out than you are.
Yeah. So bringing that levity is important. Like, hey, guys. It's gonna be okay. We're gonna get through this. Here's how we're gonna do it, and then you watch everybody else's stress decline. They go from being a liability to being feeling like they're gonna be an asset to be a hero in the story of what you're about to do. Love it. Love it. Yeah. Griffith, I'm gonna go to our speed round here. My first question is always the same around KPIs. I say it like this.
If you could only pick one thing to track forever and ever and this awesome apparel combat flip flop business of yours, what would you track? Return on ad spend. Oh, love it. Tell for it. Looking at your OS. You know, we run a product based business and we'll and because of the state of the Internet and where you're consumers are at. They're on their phones and they're on their media platforms. It is a pay to play game.
And so if you're not there, and you're not being effective there as a on a as a product based business. Yeah. Like hours, I should say. You're just not gonna do it. So you just really gotta manage your spend because all of those social media platforms will tell you to spend more to get a better result, and they're all lying to you. So watch your ad spend.
That is the biggest spend outside product that we make, and they will bankrupt you if you're not careful, and you will have nothing to show for it. Yeah. So true. It's so true. Yeah. I I feel like maybe there was a bad decision in there that you could have shared about a little bit ago. Oh, no. It's it's it's ever present.
Just when you think you got things clicking and your return on ad spends going, they change up an algorithm or Apple and Facebook don't like one another and all of your metrics for your small business. That you revolve around completely change. You don't have access to the data and you're just kinda drifting. Hoping that it works, looking at your top line revenue numbers and your marketing spend, and it's it's scary. Yes. Yeah. I feel you on that.
I think that, you know, I I've I actually have experienced that the good the bad decision as well as the drifting. I think that there's that that's gonna be pretty normal for for a while when it comes to social media marketing. Maybe maybe one day it'll be a little bit more predictable, but there's a lot of experts out there to like to to make it sound like it's predictable. You don't never answer those emails. Never. No. I'm gonna get you 10,000 x return on ad spend. I'm gonna do this.
Like, just Marcus spam, carry on. Yep. Yeah. It's interesting because that that topic, I really don't I I'm extremely optimistic. Like, I love possibility, like, in all areas of my life, really. And but that that leads me vulnerable in certain scenarios, but not anymore when it comes to marketing. I've I've been down that road where I was super optimistic and and got a hold of somebody who maybe also was optimistic or maybe just didn't even know what they were doing. I really don't know.
That's a road that where I become almost not cynical, but I I just ask a whole lot more questions. Or I try to do it myself in my team. You know what I mean? I really try to be a better human in most interactions, but when those guys get a hold of my personal cell phone and they call me Yeah. They they meet old me. Yeah. They get the they get the pre 8 AM pre 2 cups of coffee, grif?
Yeah. Ranger Grif. Yeah. And I just I long throw them into someone to burn their time as much as they're burning mine. Right? But Yeah. It's it's so frustrating to have these guys call you who have 0 liability in your business. They can take tons of money, generate nothing for it, and then walk away with no culpability, Oh, it's just social media. It's building uh-uh now. Uh-uh. Yeah. Nothing makes me angrier than that.
It's tough because they're like, when you study marketing, specifically branding, there there is truth to time and money over the long course of of of action, being spent, energy, effort, all of it, and not really knowing exactly what it's doing. Like, that that's a reality to some degree, but but when it comes to direct marketing or direct response, you can track that stuff. So, like, it is what it is. Input output, does it work? Doesn't do the numbers work?
Is it making me money if it's not either you don't know what you're doing or we don't have the right offer or the right copy or the right something. You know what I mean? Mhmm. Just the way Chaz is. Okay. What what resource or maybe book would you recommend for a business owner if I wanna grow? Oh, there's just so many. I think the the one that I've that I've read that probably made them most sense and this is gonna sound really odd is why we sleep.
Okay. Okay. It was the largest sleep study done on human beings, and there is no study that's ever been done that proves that sacrificing sleep improves performance. Wow. And that was a that was a big thing for me because I I've, you know, grew up in a hardworking Iowa community. You had to be 1st in the weight room. You know, you work all the time. Military, it's the same same with business. And so I've been thrashing my sleep since I was fourteen years old and didn't it wasn't improving.
And then as soon as I really started taking my sleep and sleep routine seriously. Everything in life evened out for me, including my business. And it's so counterintuitive, but the the vibe starts at the top. Yeah. Always does. It really does. Right? And if you're taking care of yourself and you're getting you're shown up rested and aware and focused, then the rest of the team is gonna have to or they're gonna be gone. Yeah. And that's the kind of people that you want around.
Is it the people that are gonna stay in that lane and and continue to drive forward. Yeah. There's I think there's a distinction here that I hear you making, but I'm gonna just hit it all the way home. Because we both believe in, like, work. Right? Like, there's there's gotta be work that needs to be done, disciplined effort. We choose hard when when when easy is available, but we choose hard because it's the long term decision. That's not what we're talking about.
What Griff's talking about is taking care of like, being vigilant around the tool, which is your mind and your body. And so there are there are certain times where I don't get enough sleep, and there are certain times where I'm on it, and it's cadence, and it's like, I feel great at the 8 hours or whatever the number is.
I guess to say all that because we're all different in our in our like, our body makeup and our DNA makeup as far as, like, what we actually need, what you're talking about is just taking care of yourself. Like, just generally, probably what you eat, how much you sleep, like, paying attention to the cues that your body's giving you, like, all these things. It's kinda all in one decision. Right? Yeah. It's and it it it's just interesting because I grew up with horrible eating habits.
I grew up with horrible sleep habits. I the only thing I did get, you know, growing up was a good, like, physical fitness routine, but, man, but that might have been the best because I was destroying myself the whole time. But really just living in your life. Live living in your body and living in your life, like, you're gonna have to live in it for the rest of your life. Right. At a and and resolve to doing so at a high level.
Yeah. You don't need to be a gold medal athlete, but you need to be able to be mentally aware and focused for 12 to 14 hours a day. If called upon to do so. Yeah. Yeah. I think that all the time. Yeah. Tell me if you relate to this because this is definitely me for sure. Like, if I when I think about fitness or when I think about eating right or or sleep, like, all of these things that maybe I'm not naturally been doing for the last 15, 20, 30 years. I I feel like I'm either all in or all out.
Wolfe you, like, Chaz is does that help it? Does that does that keep us from, like, just doing the little bits every single day? I I really think it hurts a person to be just so hyper manic Wolfe, hyper manual in that way. It's whatever the word is. I'm gonna go be a body builder. Yeah. Yeah. It just now you just live a good life.
You know, when you when you sit down at a restaurant is, you know, I could order that huge juicy burger with a side of fries, or am I gonna order a black and salmon salad? Right. Black at the same and sour taste just as good, and I feel better on myself after eating it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like, I could take this phone call sitting at my desk or Is this person cool? Can I just get up and go walk around for 45 minutes outside?
You're not, like, I'm not asking you to run a marathon, but move your body. Yeah. Yeah. You know, things like that. It's just you need to be able to make those just better minute decisions throughout the day. Right, that just maintain your physical fitness.
Because as business owners and entrepreneurs, I don't have the time to spend to be hypermeniak athlete, mountain biker, big mountain skier, like I used to aspire to, but I do wanna go out in the mountain, and I do wanna shred with my friends and family if I need to. So I make better decisions, and it really just starts with sleep and diet. Yep. Love it. What, I got a question for family.
Grif, what would you say about we we just got kind of office, taking care of your body, but I believe in a level of obsession. Right? Like, we are obsessed humans. What we were just trying to talk about was maybe obsess with the, like, a optimal performance. Right?
So in order to have optimal performance, we sleep and we eat and we choose a salmon, that type of a thing, but when it comes to my business, I know that I'm successful because of my obsession, but when I look at my family or when I look at my kids, The level of obsession that I've had in the past years hasn't been there, but when I started to apply obsession, it wasn't balanced. It was obsession.
What would you say or things that you've done to be able to be obsessed about your business and your family and the all the other things that that matter to you like that at the same time? So I think I, you know, I probably didn't do so well with this when I first started. Like, most of us do. Like, it's it's common. Like, just gotta have a little bit of forgiveness and grace around yourself with that. That's right.
Because it's a the starting a business is so scary, but as you start getting a hold of the bull, start managing it on a daily basis and get the pen around it. You know, you can actually lock the padlock at night and go home and hang out with the family.
And Specifically, though, I think COVID was really the big one is when it really, like, made that pivot and change because were just all hanging out together and that quality time together really it really solidified the fact that I need to be on my checklist, and I need to be on the big eightytwenty tasks So that way when I put that stuff down at the end of the day, I'm gonna go home and hang out with my daughters. I'm I'm fully present in doing the best that I can to contribute to them.
Yeah. Love that. What would you say for the person right now who who definitely hasn't been able to lock the padlock and and leave that obsession and and press hard into the next obsession, family, or kids, or whatever, what would you say to that person getting to that level. They they heard the they heard what you just said, and they wanna get there, but it's tough. It is tough. Right? And you need to create those windows. Like, luckily, I'm super fortunate where I live.
I can look at my daughter if I got a half an hour or 30 meetings or whatever and she walks through the door and say, hey. You wanna go get some frozen yogurt? And there's a frozen yogurt place right down the street from our house. But just the walk there, grabbing frozen yogurt, sitting down, checking in, and be like, alright. Hey. I gotta get back. I love you. Like, let me know what you like, and then Yeah. But just creating those micro moments. Yeah. I love it.
If if you can't get the full time that you want, really focus on creating those micro moments, And I I remember my my oldest daughter when she started going to a private high school in Seattle. It's a half an hour one way, and I wanted to drop her off and pick her up every day. 2 hours out of my day as an entrepreneur that is dumbfounding. Yeah. I would I would trade my entrepreneurial time for those car rides any day. Yeah. Chaz was the most valuable thing I ever did in my life.
Yeah. So as scary as it seems to spend that time or to make that focus, you're never gonna look back at it and have, you know, buyers or more on it ever. Good. Good way to say it. Good way to say it. Would you say about intentionally networking or master mining with other entrepreneurs? Your network is your net worth. Love that. Also, go back to the assets and liabilities. Yes. A lot of talk to renewers, a lot of entrepreneurs, a handful of good entrepreneurs, and then there's businessmen.
That's right. And then you just gotta figure out And, again, not being judgmental, but I really have to be really focused at my time where people fall in. Am I adding value to them first question? Are they adding value to me? 2nd question, it has to be mutually beneficial. Yeah. Yeah. I was just reading in a book this past weekend, which I've I've known for a long time that mutually beneficial part of a relationship.
In fact, it's not actually even considered a relationship if it's not mutually benefiting. But I love the angle of showing up first with value because how could you expect you're not willing to give. And so I think that that's step 1, like you said. But step 2 is to be able to make sure that they're in the asset Chaz category, not not the liability. Liability. Yep. Because I've had some guys who are businessmen, but, like, when we hang out together, I become a liability. They become a liability.
We all become liabilities. It's bad. Right? So just I don't I avoid it a 100% haven't gone. Yep. Yep. It's good. Yeah. It's good. It it doesn't mean that you can't have fun in the asset category. It just means that the result looks a little different. Yeah. It's like I was just gonna get physically hurt. Like, the the sports and the activities we were doing, like, could have like, really injured me. And I just like, ah, you know what, guys? Like, I'm I'm okay with this.
Like, I'm gonna give this up. I'm gonna go skydiving now. I'll see you guys later. It's interesting that that would be your your your distinction there. Like, Wolfe, what were you doing that then skydiving was the safe option? It was just mountain biking up here. Like, I've I've grown up racing My because I'm an entrepreneur, I spend more time working instead of training, and my brain can write faster than my body.
And the third time I put myself in the room, I had to give up my bikes and say, like, I'm not gonna do that anymore. Yep. I'm gonna go to something safer like skydiving. So I I I think we're gonna probably have quote that. I have to go to something safer like skydiving. This is a this is a type of intense guys that I just love to be around, like, I I if we if I had not known anything else from the past, you know, 30 minutes of the show, I would wanna hang with you.
Now I've never been skydiving, and I don't know if I really want to. But the intensity of of that is what fires me up. So Oh, you know, people ask like, you know, why do you do it? And I have a lot of my friends ask me is is like, Chaz entrepreneurs from the moment my eyes open, it's idea, idea, concept problem, idea. It's just here the whole time, and it's endless. You you you fill pages in a journal stuff that you can't forget. You're adding stuff to your checklist.
You're constantly making phone calls. It's to the point to where your headphones are in your ear, and you hear the phone ringing. It doesn't really matter. You're you're gonna answer whoever it is call, and you're gonna take care of a problem. And it just goes on for weeks Yeah. And months, and it just goes on and on. And it really feels like you don't get a break from it. And when I hop into Chaz airplane.
I can really only think about going out of the airplane doing what I need to do and getting to the ground and everything else shuts off. And I'm smiling, and I'm happy for you know, an hour afterwards. So it's that big dopamine hit. I really think is what we're all after. Yep. And I would encourage all guys. You gotta find something whether it's fly fish or whatever where you can just toss that stuff to the back and give yourself a mental reprieve.
Yeah. Yeah. Got a guy in our mastermind group that runs at just bike shop. And he's helping a lot of guys, like entrepreneurs, but just, you know, high paced individuals, intense individuals find freedom. By riding a bike because when I get on a bike, I feel the same way, even though I'm not a a huge biker, but when I get on the bike, I I have to think about nothing order to be able to operate is just kinda odd. It's kinda like mowing. Or for me, El Cunning.
Like, El Cunning is a big thing for me. It's like, man, we, like, this big old, like, to do about you gotta make sure you have the right gear and you go into the right place. And we've already mapped everything out, and there's, like, a lot of a lot of work. But when you get there, you got the weight on your back and you're hiking, there's nothing else around you. And then the stars up above you at night, it's like, I'm not thinking about anything else, which is just an incredible feeling.
Like, you're talking about, it's like just like, an empty, a freedom. You know? Yeah. I'm I'm really stoked for the self season. I had to skip the last 2 years. So and I'm pumped. Can you say Chaz you say where you're going this year? I I hunt in Western Washington. Okay. So archery, Western Washington. Yeah. Oh, I brought a I brought a black powder because the area where I hunt, I could Yeah. I'm I'm tired of taking down bowls. I'd really like to get a nice, tasty, like, young, young on.
Yeah. And, yeah, I've been I haven't made the decision yet which which Wi Fi I'm gonna use, but Gotcha. Archeries there. All good too. Yeah. Yeah. Love the love Archer upcoming. There's there's I already know that you're about the journey. Simply because number 1, you're all kind of, and number 2, you're a bow all kind of. Because it can't it can't be about the prize. There's a lot more that goes into it than that. That's for sure. Yeah. I got one last question here for you, Griff.
I wanna know if you could whisper in the younger Griffs ear. What would you say? Don't panic. Literally, just don't panic. Gonna be a lot of stuff that comes out of you. Just don't panic. Love it. Yeah. And and it's it's Yeah. If I if I were, you know, honestly just talking to a twenty two year old Lieutenant Griffin, right, before everything, happened. Yeah. There's been a lot of really crazy, hairy things that have happened in life.
Yeah. And the ability to just stop when you're in the moment and not panic. Get a deep breath trust that everybody else is freaking out around you. And if you're able to not panic, you're gonna be able to make a really, at least gonna be able to make the best decision possible for you and those around you. So not panicking when something bad happens, you get hit with bad information.
All of that comes where you feel like you're in a business meeting and all of a sudden something happens and your your stomach just goes into your, you know, into your feet because it's just something bad so happens. Yep. Don't panic. Love it. I love it. I think that that's a message that can be taken away.
For everybody listening, no matter how big or small their business is, I would I would even go as far as to say, it's those moments in a history, like, a in a combined, like, how long can you not panic, which then builds a history of good decision making over the course of a long period of time with your friends, family, business, team members, business associates, podcast guests, you know, whatever.
And it's like, you now you build a reputation reputation of somebody who can make sound decisions, and it all started with you going that moment. What needs to be done here? Yeah. What's the problem? What's the shortest path to success? What's the best path to success? Which one am I gonna choose? I'm gonna start moving on that right at this moment. Yeah. And that's it. Yeah. It's good. It's good, man. It's it's I think I've said it three times already, but it's simple, but it's so profound.
Yeah. I think that most yeah. Like, in I I there's a couple different things that I think about when keeping it simple, but you guys all remember taking the ACTs or the SATs. Oh, yeah. Okay. Like, in the English, they have multiple choice. Yeah. Alright. And if they said if you don't know which one it it is, which is the correct answer, which one is it? The notice. No. It it's always the shortest one. Oh, is the shortest one? Interesting. The least the least amount possible. Right?
Perfection and design is when you could take nothing more away. Interesting. You know, the parables that we started off talking about are referencing they're pretty short. Yep. You really can't take anything away from them, and a lot of people have tried to add stuff to them, but they haven't made it improved upon them. So really focusing on those simple principles. You're eightytwenty. What are the best things that move you forward? Do that.
Yeah. Griff, you've been profound, honestly, but probably, you know, just a another layer of not only encouragement, but to truth, out there. So for entrepreneurs across listening here, I hope that you've enjoyed this. But, Grif, how can we find your product? First off, the tell us where to go because we need combat flipflops and all the other things that you have. And then how can we find you individually? So everything is at combatflipflops.com.
Alright. The Instagram, Facebook, social media, everything's at combat flip flops. What else are you gonna find there besides flip flops? You're gonna find flip flops choose be a better human apparel jewelry made from land mines. We make some scarves in Afghanistan sandals. Fun company. Right? And we have a lifetime warranty. So if you buy our stuff, I promise it's good. If it falls apart, I will have a I will take personal fence to it and replace it for you. Yeah. That's awesome.
And then if you wanna follow me personally, it's instagram combatflops.griffgriff. And that's how you get a hold of me. It's pretty simple. Love it. Graff, you've been incredible. I just am thankful to get to know you. And then, of course, with my team, a fanboying on you. Hopefully, we'll be able to do some cool stuff together. I love the way that you said that. Do we get to are you a good person? Am I a good person? Do we get to do cool stuff together?
Well, I heard sure to hope so, and I hope the listener got as much out of this interview as I did. Blessings to you, your family, your business, all the people that you're touching all across the world. Thanks for being here, Griffin. Thanks, guys. Bye. Thank you for listening to gathering the Kings today. Hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away.
More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more to be successful than just being by yourself doing it all on your own, carrying the weight all by yourself. What I have realized, not only in my own journey from multiple businesses and multiple different industries and now interviewing literally over 2 or 300 other very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is that it's tough to do it alone.
And so gathering the Kings literally exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1000 kings, specifically who are grateful, but not done. We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and communities, and here's what we believe. That in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy.
So if that relates and and resonates with you and you know that you need people around you, sharp, qualified, other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gathering the kings dot com. I want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Talk soon.