On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. It was like the greatest moment ever on Friday when he got the wire. He was like, oh my goodness. And then Saturday morning, when he woke up, it was like, uh-oh. What now? What do I do? What now? And, obviously, for him, luckily, he's able to reinvent himself, which is a whole another skill set, but that guy that you're talking about sad. He didn't know how to reinvent. He didn't know that it was okay to be grateful but not done. Yeah. Yeah. It was sad.
It was super sad. It was a good it was all one of those life lessons where you saw that go down and you're just like, dude, had everything, but nothing. 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 successful business today. We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along the way that giving true and accurate picture of the journey work and surrounding yourself with power players and keys 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, and I've got Paul.
Call me here on the king stage. My brother, Paul. Excited to be here. Good, man. I'm glad. It's Monday morning. Right? We're fresh. We're ready. Ready to tackle the deal, and we're talking about igniting entrepreneurs, man. This is what we do with gathering the king, especially here on the podcast. And what better way to ignite people than to be on fire ourselves. Right? It's the only way. Paul, what kind of business do you have, my brother? I'm a little bit of everything.
So I started off BRICK and mortar. I'm doing MMA and Jujitsu. I grew Chaz, and then everybody's like, hey. How how do you run your gym? How do you do this? How do you do that? Can I pick your brain? I'm like, my one of my friends, like, hey. We gotta start a consulting company because this is getting ridiculous. Did Chaz, and that did really well. And then, of course, 2020 came and we were consulting for non essential businesses. So that was a lot of fun.
And so we've been working out of that, but those are the 2 main things doing, you know, I have my I sell my own business Chaz I do consulting and then also, like, personal finance coaching, things like that, which is a big a big piece to everything. Yeah. I love it. I love you. We're similar in this way where we we've kinda held on to our first love. We both still have some of those initial businesses.
Yep. I'm not not sure how much longer I will, but I I can appreciate the fact that there's multiple things going on and how that requires a different skill set. Sometimes a different level of Chaz, maybe. Yes. Yeah. Definitely levels are crazy. Well, I I wanna I wanna know your story. I wanna get to know how you gotta to, you know, Jujitsu and and the retail and, of course, then consulting.
But before we do, we've already talked about igniting desire, and and I feel like genuinely the best way that I know how to do that is first, myself being on fire or burning desire. So I wanna know yours, man. What what burns on the inside of Paul, man? What's the bigger pick What's your why? Man, my why is just to be able to do things. I never thought I could be able to do. I grew up, you know, typical, you know, Midwestern kid, family had no money. Parents made enough money to survive.
And that was about it. I grew up, like, most people listening to this probably like, oh, we can't afford that. We can't do that. Just grew up with all this negativity in my life. And it was like, people I talked to in the same situation. I was like, man, this sucks. It's like, I wanna I want more than this. And then started, you know, I got into Jiujitsu and started meeting people accessible.
And I'm like, man, these guys got way better attitudes than all my friends and family, and it's like, wow, this is a whole another world. And I met entrepreneurs. And I'm like, Wolfe. This is crazy. You guys are like live like this. Yeah. You're like you just do your thing and people pay you, and then you just Wow. And there's, like, I got hooked on that. It was just but that just drives me every day. It sounds kinda cliche, but I'm just becoming the best version I can of me.
It's, like, taking care of my health, my family, my finances, of course, you know, traveling, having fun enjoying it, you know, and going to that. That's my biggest driver. Yeah. For me, I've I've because I don't know if I could have said the way I feel about it like you. Like, I'm not done. Gratefulful. But, yeah, never done. And so it's like, what inside of that? Like, what is the not done? Like, I've been trying to explore this over the last maybe couple of weeks.
It's like, Is that because I love to win? I think it's because I love to win. Is it because I just there's just like this. There's just this fire inside, and it hasn't been quenched yet. I don't know. But I I feel very similar to you in that way where it's like, no. No. No. I just wanna win in all these areas, not just one. But in all of them. And and it seems like every time we win, there's another level to go to. Would you agree? Always. 100%.
It's like you get you get that next level, and that's I would correlate life a lot to jujitsu. And jujitsu, you have different belts, different ranks. Every time you get to that next level, you're like, I did it. Then you're like, Wait. But there's another level after this. And it's like, oh my god. And it's like yeah. Every time you get there. So one thing I've learned, you know, through ups and downs, life is gotta enjoy the journey at the same time too. Like you said, be grateful.
Like, man, it's like, I can't tell you how many times I've looked back at something and realized, like, I made I hit this a huge accomplishment, and it's like, Okay. I feel the same. Should have really enjoyed it a lot more on the way up. He he opponents. Like, yeah. Yeah. So now I really try to make sure I enjoy it and celebrate my wins. Yeah. Well, it's, I mean, I mean, if if we're saying we'd love to win, why why would we not wanna win on the little things every day? Like, every day.
And in fact, if anything, that should make make the fire burn hotter. It's like, man, I don't freak him just one. I just no. I'm I I just doubled down on the winning today. I got up. Got I got my work out in. I got my, you know, like, all the little things even is what I'm saying, but I feel you on that, man. It's like, there I guess for guys like you and I, people that are listening, if there wasn't another level, Like, oh, I guess you could look at it 2 different ways. You could say, okay.
Well, like, oh my gosh. There's another level again. Or it's like, no. Thank goodness. There's another level because If there wasn't another level, what would I do? I would probably just fall apart because then then there were go there there goes my purpose. There goes there goes the driving force. Like, what Wolfe you agree with this? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Once you lose your drive and your purpose, it's real tough.
Yeah. And you see that people win the lottery or somebody that sells their business and then they get super depressed because they have nothing to drive anymore. They're like, you know, I've I've seen in my own life, I've seen guys that were super successful, sold their businesses, went down some really dark rabbit holes, and they're not with us anymore. And I'm like, oh my god. That guy had everything, and it wasn't enough, you know, because he had nothing to do.
It was like, Yeah. Gotta have a mission. Yeah. And it becomes greater than the money. In fact, I I I literally just recorded a pod right before this, and he had sold a business. And he explained this. So that 1st couple of weeks, it was, like, it was, like, the greatest moment ever on Friday when he got the wire. He was like, oh my goodness. And then Saturday morning, when he woke up, it was, like, What what now? What do I do? What now?
And, obviously, for him, luckily, he's been able to reinvent himself, which is a whole another skill set, but Chaz guy that you're talking about It's sad. You he didn't know how to reinvent. He didn't know that it was okay to be grateful but not done. Yeah. Yeah. It was sad. It was super sad. It was a good it was one of those life lessons where you saw that go down and you're just, like, dude had everything, but nothing. So it's like Yeah. Keep keep the little things important.
Like you said earlier, tooth, having those daily wins. Like, you know, making sure you're getting in your work. I'll make sure you're spending with your family. Make sure you're, you know, working on your mind. You're studying something. Listen to podcasts, reading a book. Right. You know, just keep evolving. Yeah. Exactly. Alright, dude. Well, let's get let's hear the story. I wanna know, like, how did you get into business?
How did that translate to you know, Jiujitsu and then, of course, then consulting. Give us a little bit of the story here. Yeah. It's been crazy. Jiujitsu's kind of been the driver of everything, which is so crazy. People see me now, and they're like, when I I actually played golf in college in the Midwest in South Dakota. People are like, you didn't what? Cause Wolfe in South Dakota. Yeah. I don't hear Jujitsu. Nothing. Nothing. I was a nerd.
You know, it was like a a, you know, it's the golfer, you know, dad bod, you know, didn't work out in anything in in college. You have to do NCAA study hall, and I met this one guy It was in my in my dorm. Like, it seemed a couple times, and we were gonna study all together. We started talking. And he's like, yeah. He's like, you're watching UFC. And I'm like, what is that? He's like, oh, you gotta come watch this UFC thing. I'm like, alright. Cool. So we wouldn't watch it.
Like, oh, that's pretty cool. And then he was a wrestler at the time. She's like, well, let's try to learn Jujitsu. I'm like, this is not fun. It's like, every day I get hurt or someone hurt. I'm like, I can't. He's like, I got I go I got 3 I'm gonna finished college, and I'm gonna play Pro Wolfe in my fantasy world in my head, you know, because we always have these big goals because you have to. So I'm like, no. I'm gonna do this. So he's like, well, let's lift together. I'm like, alright.
Cool. That'll be fun. We started lifting together and started getting stronger and helped along my golf. And I'm like, oh, this is pretty cool. And then get to my senior year, and I'm gonna graduate. He's like, hey. I'm moving to either New York, California near Texas. Because those are the three places you could do to get to see in the nineties. It's like 3 choices, and he's like, I can't afford New Yorker, California, so I'm going to Dallas. Excellent. I'm like, alright. Sounds cool.
And then looking around, and I was like, man, do I wanna stay in this small town that I grew up in my whole life and be like everybody else and, you know, or don't wanna go just do something different. And got the best advice ever for my grandfather. He was like, he goes, go do it for a year. What's the worst that could happen? You come home. And I was like, because I was overthinking the whole thing. I'm like, I go? Do I do this or do I stay? He's like, it's not the end of he goes, you just go.
You know, he's all out of every no no one else supported me. He's the only one. He's like, just Worst case scenario, you bring your stuff back home. Be scared. And I'm like, you know, without his push helped me get to that level. So Yeah. End up in Dallas. My buddy's doing jujitsu, and I'm done golfing now, and I'm I'm working. I'm like, alright. I'll start doing some legit stuff now.
And it was way more fun because there were people that weren't as good as him because he turned out to be Travis Luther who fought in the ultimate fighter. Finance with silver, which, Frank, so it's like, my training partner was absolute a monster. So when I got to go do this with other people, I'm like, hey. This is kinda fun. I actually can win some tire. I can I don't get my my honey cooked every time? Oh, dude. It was it was brutal. So, you know, so it got to be more fun.
And I I fell in love with it. And then when I moved out here, I met a girl that I got ended up getting married too. We're still married. To kids. You know, it's been 20 full got 26 years, so it's been crazy. Yeah. I'll start with what you did too. Yeah. And I'll start with what you did too. And then, of course, you know, she got pregnant. And I'm like, oh, I'm getting a job, and I'd I had friends that were stock brokers from Jiujitsu, and then I had friends at retirement from Jiujitsu.
I'm like, okay. I like both those jobs on good pipe. Well, first one that hired me, took and ended up being a stock broker job. So I did that for 6 years. Wow. Greatest education in my life. Best job I ever had at how to recommend it to anybody just to learn about you know, get in the trenches and learn about money, but it was weird. Like, I kept climbing that ladder. Like, I'm kinda like, yeah, I'm just goal driven. You put me a thing. I'm I'm a climb climb client.
I got to this point where I just wasn't happy anymore. Like, I was gaining weight. I wasn't doing as much you did too. It was, like, I got caught in the corporate hustle and there's, like, There's gotta be more out there. And then Travis was like, well, I'll probably hit my gym a little bit because I'm really busy with fighting. This is before he got in the ultimate fighter 4 when they did the comeback series. And I started helping with this gym. Like, oh, this is kinda fun.
I'm kinda good at this. And I I joked with my wife. She could tell us unhappy with my job. I was like, hey. You know what? I should look at maybe open a gym someday, blah blah blah. Be pretty hard. And then one day, I'm never forget. She calls me at work, and she's like, hey. I found a place and they'll do a 1 year lease with a 3 year option. I'm like, that's crazy. Nobody does that. She was, yeah, I just talked to him and, you know, blah blah blah. So, like, let's just do it.
And I'm like, because I wouldn't have I was I'm a scaredy Chaz. You know? So my wife pushed me and is like, okay. End up open the gym It was horrible 2 years. I did both for 2 years. I kept my stockbroker job and ran the gym. Did everything wrong, but then one day it all started to click and started to make a little bit of money, and we started doing better and better. And I wanted to compete more. And then Travis was fighting more. So I was like, I can't do both anymore.
And then I was like, alright. Let's take the jump. And so we took the jump and, into Jiujitsu and then had the gym since 2003, so 23 years. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It's a long time to have a business. Yeah. It is. Wolfe, and and especially in a in a in a niche and a retail niche, even at that, it's like, you know, pretty pretty intense. Although what I love about that you just do community, if you will, is that it's just so tight. Yep. It's crazy. Like, it's like a brotherhood. You know?
Yeah. Yeah. I Chaz I joke around? I can go anywhere in the world and find somewhere to train and literally they'll treat me like a brother. Like, you know, they're like, hey. What can I get you? You wanna grab a wonderful? And it's like, It's just as it's it's amazing. Like, you can travel anywhere in the Wolfe, you know, and it's like, especially at you get to the level I'm at now where I've been doing it for so long. I know so many people It's like, oh, yeah.
And, like, you just get really tied in, and it's just an amazing network of awesome people. Yeah. Yeah. I believe it or not. My younger sister has been doing Jiujitsu for a little while. And and I think she's about to get her blue belt. I think she Nice. That's awesome. Moving up from the white, I think, is what it is.
And so Anyway, she she's excited about it and and and explaining the the community, you know, just like just a super tight knit deal, which I think even as entrepreneurs, we desire. I mean, that's why gathering the Kings exist on the peer to peer side. It's like Chaz successful business owners, as Jiuitsu, you know, artists or or fighters, we it's it's comfortable or it's better.
It's it's like a it's like a it's like a place to belong cool, but, like, it spurs us on to the next belt or the next level of business or the next rung of success and family and business in life. Right? Yep. 100%. And James Claire talks about this in, Tom McCabits. Oh my god. It's great.
Yeah. You gotta join the community to take your individual habit commitment or discipline to another level because you gotta you wanna join a group of people who are like you because then you, yourself, imagine doing it because you think that they're like you, but they already have the have it. Dude, yeah. It's the support that you need that helps so much when you have that community.
Yeah. Yeah. Which is why it becomes a brotherhood because you can go anywhere, like you said, and they understand you. You're traveling in. They've never met you, and they're so willing to help because they know what you've been through or gone through to get to the level you are, And that's the same in business that I have found. Whether it's a a podcast like you and me, we've never met each other before today, and we've already have a mutual respect for each other.
Yep. Or it's like we're in a in a live event, and we're just shaking hands for the first time. I already have, like, this, like, what can I get you feeling? Because it's like, dude, I know I know you've been through the fire. Yeah. There's no way you're at your level of business, and then you haven't been through the fire. You know what I mean? Yeah. A couple times. Yeah. Exactly. You walk out on the other side, and it's not like you were not burned. It just, you know, we we lived. We survived.
Dude, yeah, it's tough. But we we get through it. That's right. Okay. Let's go practical. Let's go on down deep. You gave us a little bit of your journey, a little bit of the overview, at least, but wanna know of a good decision that you made. Something that you can look back on, and it it it's like the crux of the rest of all the other decisions. What was something that that you had Chaz to do? Yeah. It goes back to jujitsu again as, like, choosing choosing hard, choosing hard things.
You know, that's that's the biggest advice I can give when it comes to, you know, like, business and life, things like that is choosing the hard things and doing it. Like, when you're consulting gym owners, because in my industry, it's pretty cut and dry. Like, I can teach anybody, Adam. Do these things. Follow this process dot dot dot. And you get the guys that just like, okay. Cool. I'll do it. And then they do it, and they they're successful. They get the ones that They complain.
Oh, I tried this and it didn't work. And then I'm like, well, what did you do? Well, I I ran the ads for, like, a week, but then, you know, I wasn't signing anybody up, and I was just wasting money. I'm like, Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So you take in the easy way. You're just gonna complain. It's like so you got to choose the harder path, especially with entrepreneurship, in small businesses, if you make those hard decisions, it makes the other stuff so much easier.
Just, you know, sticking to the plan and, like, and doing the hard picking the hard things. Yeah. And and you said underneath the hard thing there, you said you gave a really good example of the ads, but just kinda like to press that out a little further. It's unreal. Yeah. Well, cause cause we, as even entrepreneurs, we have this, like, okay. Risk take. I don't don't put me in a box. Like, I'm gonna go for it, but even it's just it's survival, actually, is what it is. It's fear. It's fear.
And it and it keeps us small. It keeps us scared and and and we want things to happen right away. And that's just not, unfortunately, how life works or how success works, is that you kinda gotta hit the rock a lot of times. And sometimes you realize after hitting it hundreds of times that you were hitting the wrong rock, like oops. But you can't only hit it a few times. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's crazy. People everybody want it's like, everybody want I want success. I want this. I want this.
I want this. But then it's like, some as soon as somebody gets uncomfortable, they're like, you know what? I'm just gonna, you know, back off a little bit. And it's like, yeah, then how are you gonna move forward? If you back off, it's like Yeah. You use any and the worst part is you talk to these people a year from a year later, and they're in the same exact same spot. And they're like, oh, man, I haven't really grown. I'm like, weird.
Only somebody giving you a plan and giving you everything you needed to do, and then you chose not to do it. And they're like, yeah. Maybe, you know, but then their ego gets in the way and they're like, I don't think that was it. I'm like, okay. I don't even argue anymore. I'm like, oh, okay. Cool. Yeah. See you. See you next year. See you next year. We're in the exact same spot, and you're wondering someone says got such a better gym than you. You know, it's like Yeah. It's just crazy.
It's real. It's so real. In fact, I want the listener to really, really pay attention here. What Paul's talking about, he he actually gave you the solution and the answer. The the the problem is we don't want to do hard things. And in business, like running ads for a long enough period of time to test and get results and modify and change so that you can adjust and get results. That all has to happen in order to have success.
But if you don't do hard things outside of business, like working out or getting up at a specific time or cold showers, love cold showers. Yeah. But but fat or no fat, what we're choosing to do is I do hard things. Okay. So that way in business, when someone across the mic phone, like Paul is today, tell me, actually, you're not spending enough money. It's like, oh, oh, that makes me really nervous. You tell me he's not gonna spend more money? That's something hard.
Okay. Well, do I have a track record or a history of doing things hard? That's what you're saying. Yep. So how so are are you doing these things inside business inside out? Like, It what I just said, does that make sense? Like, give us your 2¢ on this. Yeah. You gotta choose to do the hard things like we said earlier. It's like, when you pick those things Chaz you said, even people are like, well, I don't wanna do Jiu Jitsu. Jitsu's dumb. It's like, okay. Cool. I was listening to Rob Durdick.
I I love his style and, like, his machine thing and everything. But, like, He talked about how, like, he chose to do harder things by getting up 1 hour earlier every day and starting to work and end up giving him, like, an extra. I forget how many days a year over his competitors. He goes, Right? He goes, I choose to do something harder. Like you said earlier, cold showers. It's like, you can find something that you don't want to Chaz makes it where you're like, yeah. I I and then you feel it.
Like, if you do something hard, you feel better. It's like, you know, you're like, oh, yeah. I'm gonna go conquer this day versus we've all been there where you get up and you're kinda like, oh, I'm just not feeling it today. So I'm just gonna lay in bed a little longer. Alright. I'll get my coffee and sit on the couch. And the next thing you know, it's 11 o'clock and you haven't gotten anything done to open around. And then something challenging comes up and you're like, Oh, yeah.
Didn't, you know, well, today was a bust. You're like Yeah. You know, you're starting you're starting in that negative space where it's like if you would have done something Chaz challenge you push you a little bit made you feel like, oh, man. I accomplished something a little, like, atomic habits. It's something small. Yeah. You know, move you forward. And it's like, boom. Know, picking something hard and doing it, but it doesn't have to be legit. So I totally glad.
It's like, that's my thing, but Sure. Some people's things lifted. Some people's things yoga. Some people's saying cold showers and running. It's like, you can pick anything. Yeah. Yeah. It I think the thing, the the point here that you and I are both hoping that the listener takes away is that it's not woo. It's not like just this, like, code. It'll come. Hard things. It'll help. Like, no, like, seriously, like, if you do something hard, Yeah.
Like, literally choose and go, like, I know this is hard, but I'm going to do it anyway. And what that does is that when the challenge does come, you lose it just, you know, 30 seconds ago. Is that I'm I'm I'm so prepared for that challenge. Now that specific challenge I may not be, like, waiting for, but I'm ready for ready for something hard. Yeah. Because it's coming. If you run a business, you know, things pop up, and you're like, oh my god. It's like, okay.
Three deep breaths, and let's just fix this problem, you know, because Oh, you you know, you fix or do you dwell on it? And so that's why I love that. But, you know, just dialed in. 3 deep breaths and fix the problem. Just go. Chaz is such a logical answer, and I want it. Because what else are you gonna do? Just dwell in it. Gosh. You're gonna have to quote that. Hey, Kings and Queens. Chaz Wolf. I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort.
We, meaning myself and my team, into this podcast, into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any sort of value or insight from this, we want it to be able to reach other business owners too. So we would love if you would like, comment, share, leave a review, post, share again, all of the things. On social media, on all the different platforms, or even on the podcast mediums of Apple and Spotify.
We would love to be able to get our content into more hands more entrepreneurs so they can grow their business as quick as possible. Together, we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So let's do this. Let's help each other. Let's help each other grow. Okay. Well, let's flip the coin. Paul, tell us about a bad decision because they all haven't been good. Tell us something juicy. Man, bad decision.
And it's one that I'm going through right now. So give you some real time updates is, you know, I come from an investing world. I was a stock broker. I've always been investing, always doing these things, and then I hit this sweet spot in 2019, and I was like, kinda got a little cocky going into 2020. Like, I got everything dialed in. I got my investments dialed in. I got my business dialed in. My consulting dialed in. I started hearing about all these private equity deals.
I'm like, oh, I wanna do that. All these guys are pulling money together. Like, oh, I wanna do that. That sounds cool. And they're like, well, you gotta be at this level. This all blah blah. So I do all the stuff through my accountant prove that I am eligible to to do some of these investments where you're you're pulling money together into, like, restaurants or different things. And I'm like, yeah, this will be great. You know, ballwise and the no brainer do all that stuff.
And then I didn't realize, you know, they're like, oh, yeah. It could be, you know, a year, year and a half. You start seeing things, which technically I'm learning now is, like, 2 to 3 years. So it's, like, literally always longer. I got ahead of myself where I'm like, yeah. I'm at this level. I can do that, but I was at, like, the very, like, choosing I choose way too hard, you know, and it caused some stress too because I was like, embarrassed. Like, trying to help my Wolfe. Like, hey.
I put a lot of money in some stuff, and we're not getting any money back. It could be I don't know when and but she goes, been super supportive. She's like, well, it's cool. Long didn't put all of our money into stuff. I'm like, no. No. It wasn't, but it was it was more than I should have put in, you know, because I got cocky. I'm like, you know, they're like, well, the the entry level is this.
I'm like, well, I'm gonna do double the entry, but, you know, because I wanna I'm gonna be Cause I'm a big dog. Yeah. Can you go in these rooms, you know, and these guys, some of these guys are just they have so much money. They're so successful. Like, I wanna be like Chaz. I'm gonna I'm gonna jump ahead. That's why it's been kinda my thing, but I got a little bit big for my breaches, and and I put too much money in. And it's like and then, you know, you know, 2020 happens and you're, boy.
Things are getting real tight now, and it's like, I picked the worst time ever. So it's like, this is a perfect storm of bad. So it was like, yeah. You can't blame the the group that you're in, things like that because everything's happened, but then you realize that there's a reason why people shouldn't do private equity until they're at a certain level in their life for Chaz. Like Right.
I probably wasn't I was probably about 2 years ahead of where I should 2 or 3 years ahead of where I should have been. So Yeah. You know, sometimes, you know, like, it's the smaller steps is better than trying to, like and I've seen people get burned and other things, and then they're like, oh my god. Like, the crypto phase, like, Yeah. I like crypto. I bought crypto. I made money crypto. I lost money in crypto, but I didn't go crazy in crypto.
Like, I had some friends Chaz were put everything in, like, Oh, it's going to a gazillion. I'm like, calm down. You know? So it's like, see, you see those things where it's like, you know, it's the Warren Buffett model of just, like, consistently investing and doing that. So That was my biggest mistake recently. That's good, man. I think it's just really, obviously, vulnerable, though. So thanks for sharing. The wound is I I feel I feel the wound's still closing up a little bit.
So, like, it's a little bit tender, but I think I think I can relate to that because, you know, I'm you know, for years years, I was a Grant Cardone fan. I still am. Yeah. And and he talks about this this philosophy of growing going broke. You you make your money. Yep. Store it, and then you go broke. And and I think that that's right. Like, anytime that I've ever gone all in again and gone broke again, and really what that means is that you take all your money and put it in a big investment.
Yep. And when you invest, whether you it's in private equity or in real estate or in your own business, there really isn't there shouldn't be a time horizon of immediate. In fact, Alex Alex Ramosi talks about this a lot. He talks about if you can make a decision that's a decade of impact or or a 100 years of impact as opposed to 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 quarter, Yes.
Those are good, and we have to make those decisions, but the the more decisions that you can make, especially financially, that are gonna impact you 5 10 30 years from now, Wolfe, okay. So using that lens, you said, okay. Well, I would have looked at this and been like, okay. Well, maybe I'm not quite ready to make 30 year decision or a 5 year, whatever the time actually was, you know, just wait 2 more years or whatever, but I love it because you have been through it now.
And you can please but you're still hearing you lived. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It hurt a little bit. It's like it wasn't really that bad of a decision, you know, because you did it. You still have the investment. I'm sure it's gonna start paying you if it hasn't already. And you still figured it out. It forced you to figure it out. Dude, yeah. It was it was something else. It was like, yeah. I got a little little too little too confident. You know, it's like you said, have that longer time frame.
Yeah. If I had gone into it, like, I'm not gonna see this money for 5 years, and I've been like, yeah. Let's not put that much money in. Okay. Let's be a little more reasonable. Like, oh, yeah. I'll be like a year or so, and then Right. Yeah. It was a good learning process. Which is what I love about the going broke piece because it it's unreasonable. Right? Like, you just said, like, I didn't know. So I was I was unreasonable looking really through the lens of of what I should have done.
It's like, no. But it forced you then to make it happen. Now I'm not I'm not advocating for a 100% risky moves all the time. Like, I'm a I'm a man of calculated risk, but I love the idea of, you know, okay. Like, how can I really press myself here? Because if I do give it all and put it all in an investment, that's not gonna pay me for 5 years, What does that force me to do? It forces me to use my talents in an active way Yeah. To go do it again. You know? Keeps me on refilled.
Hey, Kings and Queens. Chaz Wolf. I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort. We meaning much Wolfe and my team into this podcast into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any sort of value or insight from this we want it to be able to reach other business owners too.
So we would love if you would like, comment, share, leave a review, post, share again all of the things on social media, on all the different platforms, or even on the podcast mediums of Apple and spotify. We would love to be able to get our content into more hands, more entrepreneurs so they can grow their business as quick as possible. Together, we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So let's do this.
Let's help each other. Let's help each other grow. Okay. Let's talk about your decision making process. Paul, I wanna know if a decision comes across your desk today. What's the magic formula? How do you determine how to, like, you know, the right thing to do or how do you make good decisions today? Yeah. The day is look at the data. You know, I'm a big data person. So if someone comes across the table and it's like, We're thinking about doing this. It's like, alright.
Cool. What what what is the outcome? Like, what are we looking at? And like you said, Alex from a I love his stuff. Listen to his stuff. And I'd actually he's kind of in the similar industry, so I've known of him Yeah. God 6 years or something before he became famous, famous. You know, so it's like, how is this gonna so a decision comes across like, hey. Can we Wolfe this help us?
Is this gonna hurt how much time and I'm more right now of, like, if something comes across and it's, like, it might be something that could be good, could be bad, but to me, more important is how much time is this gonna take? Yeah. You know, because to me, I, you know, I go around, like, I'll be 48 next month. So it's like, you know, I'm just not old, but I'm not young anymore. So it's like, you know, when I'm in my twenties, I'll do everything. Let's go. Give me 47 things.
I can work 20. Now I'm like, I wanna go on vacation. I wanna hang out, and I wanna do some fun stuff. So How much time is this gonna take? Is it worth the time for the reward? If it is great, if it's not, then, oh, okay. Yeah. No worries. We'll pass on it. And then If it is worth the reward, then trying to build off of that from there. Yeah. I think also too, you know, noting your age or or just business maturity, is that you have the ability to know what's worth it.
Like, you know, like, I've seen both sides, basically, is what you're saying. Yep. Yeah. When I was younger, I said yes to everything. Yeah. Because you kinda have to. Like, what what do you have to lose? And and you don't have anything, so you kinda just have to. Right? Yep. Exactly. Work your nuts off. And that's okay. Like, hey. You need to like, if you're listening right now and you're in your twenties, go hard. Go up and go work. Just do. Just work. Put money away and just work.
It'll work way out. Just a little bit. Not not 40 hours. Like No. No. Part time jobs. And there's nothing wrong with that in that season. And that's not hustle culture. That's not, you know, don't love on yourself and and no. No. No. Like, just just go do the work. To choose the hard thing because Yeah.
If you can do that in your twenties, especially like I did, even before my twenties started, then that sets up the rest of everything which then gives you the poise, like Paul's saying right now, he knows how to look at an opportunity and go, you know what? This fits what we're looking for. Or if it doesn't, no. Thanks. Yeah. No. No. No. Thanks. Maybe they maybe another day, you know, maybe another time. So, yeah, looking at that and just making those decisions.
Yeah. It takes away the desperation. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Definitely don't want Chaz, especially the older you get the light. You wanna be less desperate. I love that. Okay. I got some speed round questions here for you. Alright. I wanna know inside of either the consulting and or the martial arts business. I wanna know It's the number one KPI that you would track. If you could only pick 1, what would it be? For us Chaz we track it, we've kind of called round and round his appointments set.
Is the one key number for us. Yeah. Cause leads, we can pretty much control, you know, leads. You just spend money to get leads. You do different things to get leads. You know, appointments that show and close, you should have systems dialed in. But the one that we can really track is appointment set, because that way, that you know, the people that are doing their job at getting keeping that pipeline going. It's the skill set that is a little bit more variable, it sounds like. Yep. Oh, yeah.
That's been the biggest one. Yeah. So so from that number there, the rest of the pipeline and revenue and numbers and success, you can kinda do the math in your mind. Yeah. We can do the math because you used to revert. It's so cool because hated math in the school, but I love I call it money math. I love money math because like you said, you just nailed it. Reverse of engineer, the numbers.
It's like, I know if we're getting for appointments, it's gonna equal, you know, 2 sign ups, which is gonna equal, you know, 30 a month, which is gonna equal, you know, so 9000 in down payments. Okay. Cool. Then in this month, and you can go up all the right off of that numbered leads. Leads is pretty pretty basic. Once you get your business up and running, you know, you get Chaz point where if you're spending money, you can kinda control it. But Right. The appointment set. That's that's key.
Yeah. It's the skill set. Generating leads is a skill set also. Oh, yeah. It's just something that you're saying earlier on in business that it's more of a variable Right now, it's not so much. Yeah. Early on. Yeah. It's all about leads early on. This leads leads leads in more Life blood, baby. Yeah. Leads leads. And then once you get a dial in, you realize like, hey. I get the systems running. The leads kinda, you know, kinda come in, you know, because you you've gotta establish brand.
You're running Facebook ads, Google ads, YouTube, you know, all that stuff so that you should be getting leads unless something's really messed up. Right. Yeah. It's good. It's good. I'm sure that in itself is a really good courage to the listener because I'm sure somebody's listening right now that's just hard up for a lead. You know? Yep. I need leads. Yeah. Which You do. Yeah. We all do. We all do. You can see some leads, man. Yeah. But there's there's just more to the game. Oh, yeah.
Different levels. It's good stuff. Okay. What about a book or a podcast or a business resource that you'd recommend that has given you some great insight over the years? Man, my favorite book is the compound effect. Okay. Super simple book. It's very similar, like, atomic habits type thing, but it really helped change my attitude on a lot of things because I was always a thought. You have to do all these big things, and you gotta go go go go and do these things.
And I read this book, and it was like, just slap me in the face of like, oh, no. You do little things. And then those things compounded this, this, this, and then then you create these big movements. And I was like, yeah. Like, oh my god. This is so simple. I've had it so wrong, but I was always trying to hit hold runs. It's like in baseball, guy always hits home runs. Yeah. He hits a few, but it's like the guy that's hitting singles and doubles in the occasional home run.
That's the guy that's gonna be in the hall of fame. And it's, Yeah. I missed it. So that book, I rec I read it every year. It's it's it's a staple to my life. So I reckon that one. Yeah. That's so good. Such a great reminder too, since especially since we've already talked about atomic habits and just the idea of winning. Yeah. All of the little winnings, like, when you really can understand, I wanna make bigger, longer term decisions. Like, we're just talking about earlier a decade at a time.
But inside of that, in order to be able to do that, I gotta know that, like, The little incremental compounding effects or habits are being done. You can't think decades in a format if if the little hasn't been mastered. Exactly. Good stuff, man. Appreciate that. If I got a question for you about family, dude, because Yeah. You've been doing this business thing for a couple decades. Right? And you've got family, you've got a wife, you've got some kids, and and here's what I found.
Every entrepreneur that I've to. Every single one, 100% no exaggeration has this obsession in their business because they're sick at least, let me say like this. Every successful entrepreneur. Because that's what it takes to be successful in business. We talked about the Bernie desire. It's obsession. Okay. Fine. How have you over the years been obsessed with your wife? Your kids, your family, the other things in your personal life Chaz much at the same time of your business.
And at the really hard thing is, you know, you see it a lot. Like, I have friends that are super successful, and they've been there on, like, marriage number 4, you know, or their or their know, they burn out and they're they have a horrible relationship with their kids. So when I when I started becoming an successful entrepreneur, I was like, like you said, 40 hours. That's like a part time job is, you know, it's like I was working a 100 hours or whatever.
I mean, I'm working 20 hours a day if I could because I was trying to grow the business, start making money, Yeah. And then I when I started making money, I always I made this commitment. I, you know, it's like, told and I forget who I heard from the first time was like, don't stop dating your wife. You have to have 8 night. It's not negotiable. It's like, you know, it's like, hey. We're going out. We're gonna do this.
And then at least once or twice a year, you go on somewhere, like, we couldn't afford to go on a long trip. We'd go, you know, a town over and say to hotel for 2 days. You know, just keep dating your wife. And then with the kids, the biggest tip that I ever got, it made a big difference because my son's he's 20 now, and he still talks about it is, like, from, like, I think he was probably 6 or 7. We started doing it, but every year, we go on a him and I trip somewhere.
And we're just, you know, oh, hey. I'm not gonna buy you a lot of stuff for your birthday, but we're on a cool trip. Like, we You know, in New York, Miami, he's a big Bronco's fan, which makes no sense to them in Dallas. I took him to Bronco's game file. You know, so it's like, but he talks about that kind of stuff. Like, those are his memories. Hopefully, it passes down to his kids and stuff like that, but, yeah, you have to stay involved because it's so easy to be like, oh, yeah.
Yeah. When when I got more money, we're gonna do this. And then by that time, they don't like you anymore. You know, it's like, when I talk about people with their finances too, people are like, oh, man, I wanna invest like you and I have money. I'm like, You never will. And then they get pissed. And I'm like, if you Wolfe do it now with a dollar, you're not gonna do it when you're making $10,000,000 a year because you're gonna blow it on some stoop, Yeah.
You know, it's a really sustained staying focused. I love the idea of the trips of the kids' birthdays, which I like our kids' birthday special like that, but I love the idea of trips because you're creating memories, not not just always things. You know, we I've really been kinda wrestling with this idea of what it means to be wholesome business owner, and it's not that you can't have nice things.
It's not that I don't have a nice home or that I would never drive, you know, Ferrari or something, but I'm just not that that's just not what I'm after. Yeah. I'm after the memories with my kids. I'm after creating legacy in business where there's just so much money to where it's like Who who can we help today? Yeah. And that's that's funny that you said that, like, when you get that point where you start making money, you start start thinking about it.
Like, man, maybe it's the time I buy that stupid crazy car, but then you're like, how many trips is that? Like, I do the math. I think in trips, I'm like, If that thing's like $3000 a month, that's $36,000 a year. I can go on, like, 3 insane vacations, like, over the top insane. And it's like, to me, that's, like, That's way better than a car because Yeah. You know, it's like, it's just so much better.
Yeah. Yeah. They're well, the think about all the other people that get impacted by the trip, don't get impacted by They have the car. You driving in the little sports car by yourself because I'm assuming that you're a pretty big guy because I can see you can zoom here. Got look. I'm not I'm not Wolfe like you, but I'm 65, so I'm not fitting in a Lambo. You're not fitting in any way. No. Let's just go on a trip. You know? And and and to to each their own.
Like, you can you can interswap the things. It doesn't matter. I think the point that we're trying to make is, like, make a special. Be obsessed with your kids and your family like you are with the business. Like, that's really what we're saying. Yeah. Like that because that's the worst thing.
I mean, I shouldn't say the worst thing spelling this is probably one boot, but it's, like, know, you get to that point where, you know, I see it a lot, and you've probably seen a lot of these guys hit the pinnacle of their business success, and they blew up their family. So then they're you know, 4550, and they're starting over with a new family. And it's like, man, I'm too tired to do that.
Like, I have friends that, you know, are starting over in, you know, late 40s late fifties, and I'm like, Dude, I'm physically tired just thinking about your day. It's like Yeah. You know, it's like and then the whole time, then they'll still talk about their ex. And it's like, Yeah. Chaz doesn't sound happy, you know, because they chose, you know, and it's tough. It's a it's a tough battle, but you gotta someday you gotta sacrifice a little bit to, you know, keep the family happy.
Yeah. Yeah. And and I you use the word sacrifice and you're right, but it you know, you use the word investing earlier. And I would say that that's probably a the better word is the if I can Yeah. Better than sacrifice. Or be obsessed. It is a sacrifice. When we invest, it's a sacrifice. You're sacrificing now for later. Yep. That's like, okay. Well, so what what you really just said is that I'm sacrificing a individual pleasure today so that I can have a lasting marriage.
Chaz I can have children that are 2030 who wanna do business deals with me and don't not wanna call me. You know? That's the dream, man. It's Chaz joke off of my kids. It's like, man, do you someday, you know, you guys are gonna be doing this, and I'm gonna be working for you part time. It's gonna be great. Yeah. You know, so it it that that, to me, that's gonna be the ultimate definition if I was successful.
If I have a good relationship with my kids and, like, we're doing stuff together and we're, you know because my job as an entrepreneur is to give my kids this this huge head start life of, like, understanding money, understanding business, You know, like, the first thing I taught my son is, hey. You might not like sales or anything, but you need to learn sales because this is the lifeblood of everything. And I resisted that till I was twenty five years old.
Yeah. And it set me so far back because I was, you know, typical. It's probably worse now, but I came out of college. Like, I'll never sell anything. I won't work for the man. And then I got my wife pregnant. And I'm like, I'll sell. What can I sell? What can I sell? It's like, I I can't afford this kit. What do I do? And they're like, oh, yeah. Because I know I see, you know, anybody's had a corporate job.
You know, you go to work and you're eating your little cheap meal and you see the guy's nice. And they got the nice stuff, and they're eating the cafeteria, like, what do those guys do? Well, they're in sales. I really I really messed up. It's, showing the skill set 7 years ago. Seriously. Yeah. But I also love the hope in that because what you're saying is that even even though it was 7 years later, you still did it, Yep. And it then impacted the rest of your of your career.
So if you're listening right now and you're like, oh, I don't know about that sales thing. Maybe it's too late. Nope. Just stop everything. Learn sales. It'll change everything for you. It changes every second. Yeah. It gives me a huge advantage. And when I went to the business world, because, like, Jujitsu guys are they're a little bit cocky. They're a little bit all said it about themselves where I took a whole different approach because I wasn't as good as everybody else.
So my thing was, hey. I'm gonna provide better customer service, sell better, be more of helpful selling instead of, like, you know, just trying to be like a transactional. Like, give me give me give me. I'm like, hey. Why are you here? It's like, are you on this £20? Why do you own this £20? Well, you know, I kick you both with my kids and I wanna grow up like, well, yeah, you need to do Chaz. So could not go to the gym. You need to be coming here, but we're gonna hold you accountable.
We'll come here 3 days a week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Night and Day differences. Just because you care about people. Selling's easy when you care about the customers. Boom. Microp. I got one last question here for you, Paul. Are you ready? If you had an opportunity to whisper in the younger Paul's ear, what would you say? The Amazon. I love that answer. I'm surprised, though, as a stock guy, you didn't you didn't give yourself some stock advice. But Oh, no. No. No. No. No.
I would've I would've bought Amazon because Oh, but oh, I think Amazon. Yeah. Amazon. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because I joke around about it because I was literally working in the industry when Amazon was at, like, after the crash of 22,001, whatever. The big crash. You know, Amazon was trading, like, $2. And it's like, I looked at it. I'm like, gosh. Yeah. I don't know about that Amazon thing. Now I look back at it.
It's like, that's obviously me being funny being the broker person, but I would just I would say the one thing Chaz helped me out though, I'd tell myself, you know, I learned it later on, I think it was in Robert O'Neil's book. The operator was like, he talked about what got him through, Buds and all of his life and, you know, basically all his things he did was just keep moving forward.
It's like no matter what happens, if you take that analogy, because that hit me when I read that in his book, I'm like, that's so crazy. It's like, no matter what happens, things are gonna go bad. You're gonna have bad things happen in your life. Just keep going forward. Just keep moving. Keep moving. Don't stop.
You know, because when you stop and you mope and you just, you know, that's when you sit there and you're like, oh, man, I wasted a year doing nothing because Susie, whatever, broke up with me, you know, and I couldn't live without her, and you're like, yeah. You wasted a year. There was, you know, then you finally met the other girl and you know, so it's just keep moving forward. Yeah. So good, man. And I think it's applicable for every single stage.
Doesn't matter if you're a multi billionaire or just getting the business started. Just just keep moving forward. It's almost our duty, our responsibility. Right? Like, because if that's where you are now, then then going back to the Grateful not done at the beginning, it's like, well, there's still more to reach for, so it's almost my duty to keep going. 100%. Love that. How can the listener find you, Paul.
Number 1, if they if they if they own a gym and they need your help to grow their gym or if they just wanna reach out to you and get to know you as business owner, how can they find hit me up on Instagram. That's my favorite social media. It's happier than any of them. You know, liking a lot. You know, it's like, you know, the Paul period, h a l m e, was actually another Paul homey, which is an old lawyer in California, which is pretty funny. So Yeah. Total opposite guy.
Yeah. Tow it's it's funny. Yeah. So you'll see mine. It's Paul, period Hally. I put a lot of free content out there because, like I said, my passion is like finance and helping people understand the basics of personal finance and business stuff. But, yeah, if you got a gym or a small business, you know, you're like, hey. I need some help. Hit me up on there. It's my it's my favorite spot. Love it.
Well, they should take advantage of you in that way and reach out and get to know you better and and maybe you can even help their business like you said. Definitely appreciate you being here adding value because I've, I mean, just the energy flow here between the zoom and is is is fired up, but I wish you nothing but blessing and success in your family and businesses that you're you still got going on, all the crazy things going on in your life. Yeah. Yeah. We just so appreciate you.
Don't know what the next chapter is. Just keep going. Exactly. Flip the page. Let us go. Thanks for being here, man. Thanks, man. Thank you for listening to gathering the Kings today. I 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 789 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 1 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 Chaz 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 king's dot com.
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.