On today's episode of Gathering McKinsey, Was there an ego check moment, or was it just, like, the pain was just so bad where you're just like, okay. I'm not gonna lose all my money. Well, I am gonna lose. I'm gonna give it to this guy, and, hopefully, he can help me Get there. What was that moment? What's up, everybody? Wolfe gathered in the king's podcast. I got Michael Mcleish on King stage today, my brother. How are you? Doing great, man. Thanks for having me on.
It's a pleasure to have you on. Thank you for being here. And, you know, we were just reminiscing before the show started of your your beard, but you're growing it back. And so not to not to be worried, it's coming, but you had this zoom picture that popped up here that I was like, oh, man, my my bearded brother. But it's about you're growing it back. So I just am I'm thankful, beard or no beard. I'm thankful for you to Oh, good. I'm glad to be accepted either way. Yeah. It's alright.
Hey. We we don't make any discriminatory marks here, beard, or no beard. But in all seriousness, Michael, what kind of business do you have? What are we gonna be chatting about? Yeah. So my my primary business is wholesaling real estate, and For those of you who don't know what that means is, it's basically a sales and marketing company and solving people problems, the vehicle of of single family homes.
And so to dive in a little deeper, what that means is we will market to homeowners that have a distressed property or maybe a distressed situation. And there's some analogies like a pawn shop. Right? You know, if somebody pull in something, they don't expect full value, but they need some money quick And so the model really follows that. We mark for those types of people that actually are helped through selling their home and getting the speeding and get outcome from that.
So from there, once we have an agreement to buy a property at a discount, We now have the option of buying it, keeping it as a rental, doing the traditional Joanna fix flip, making it look all pretty as selling at retail, or we can sell the deal, can sell the contract or the rights to buy the property to a third party. And so that's probably the primary exit strategy, but do look at all 3 for me. Love that. Love that. And and there's there's a there's value in each of those exit strategies.
And so maybe we'll get some of that a a little bit, but I wanna know at this level, you know, you've got multiple different exit strategies. You've got a team. You you've been doing this. You're successful. You're about to start a podcast. Why at this level do you push? Like, why are you why are you still motivated? Why are you still after it? What's the bigger picture for you? Well, I don't know.
I just said it's I'm just not satisfied, and I feel like I've been way at this stage a lot of ways, and I'm just getting started. And I really, you know, quite honestly, didn't get into the real estate space to be a real estate guy. It was just the path I took to get me really afraid to not be broke. And Yeah. You know, just as a quick aside, like, I got it to the business again with, like, this idea of financial freedom, but falling to us don't broke.
So that was really the mantra for the 1st years. Right. And then you, you know, we did pretty well for the 1st few years, and then it was like, okay. Really where am I headed with this? What's what's my purpose? Yet. Some of that's still getting sorted out. So I wanna, you know, continue to grow the company and make it better, but at the same time, use that as a tool as a as a jumping point for the next venture, whatever that might look like. Yeah. I love it.
I love what you said that you believe that you're, you know, in the embassy just getting started, I think there's a certain level of not only excitement that entrepreneurs carry with them, an optimistic hope. Something better is something that's down the road, a a future, something different, if you Wolfe. But I love what you said of just feeling like you're just getting off. Especially at the level that you carry. It was like, okay. So I've been successful. And I feel this way as well.
It's like, man, I I feel like we're just getting rolling. Like, I feel like we're just kinda just getting the momentum, which it it it is a direct like, battle with average. Right? Because at at a certain level, average thinks I made it. You know? And so what's your mindset there around? Like, obviously, what you're doing is not average, but was this mindset that was built out over time? Like, did like, was established by a mentor? Like, how did you come to believe this? Oh, man.
That's a that's such a great question. I I think just deep down normal makes my stomach turn. Average makes my stomach turn. Like, I just I don't wanna do that. I don't I and for whatever reason, I just always do. I was going to fight that. Right? And trying to articulate that a little bit better and give you some examples. You know, you're so here's here's just a weird quirk of mine. But years ago, I was try I was in the air force.
I was active at the time, and I was trying to figure out, like, this whole fitness thing because, clearly, Air Force's model was not going to, you know, their test wasn't going to get in shape. It was game of the system and and to pass the test. Right? And I knew I wanted to be in, like, some incredible level of fitness, and I tried all these things. I was getting injured. I wasn't getting great results. And a coworker of mine, this is, like, 2005 era here.
And a coworker of mine who was in his late forties, you know, he was like, Man, I'm doing this cross fit thing, you know, and I was like, that sounds dumb. You know, like, what are the good? 100 reps of anything and do it fast? He's like, man, just give it a try. And I, you know, I watched a few videos and there wasn't much content in the world to across it then. Right? And I was like, whatever these girls are spoken, I want of that.
So I went all in about a whole bunch of equipment that was hard to find, started doing it, and it was so not normal. Right, that my own mind, I just made it work. And I've erased that for several years Chaz just this is normal. This works. And I can say the same thing as far as, you know, my my spiritual beliefs are probably not normal compared to most of the world, but I'm drawn to it because of because the one says, no, that's that's silly. That's not normal.
Yeah. That's a really good perspective because I think that a lot of people listening at least to a degree in the entrepreneurial world, right, where there's a little bit of a chip on our shoulder. We think a little different. We're a disruptor. We challenge things. We ask questions, and we shouldn't. You know, like, like, there's always this this back and forth. I think that the principle of what you're describing causes in in us as entrepreneurs. That's why we that's why we run a business.
We, like, Wolfe problems. We like to, you know, attack new challenges. And so, I love the perspective. It fires me up just to know that there's another person out there that's as crazy as I am about, you know, trying new things or being challenged, by maybe status quo and going, no. Yeah. Just just no. Yeah. I mean, it's like when your doctor's like, you you go to your doctor and you're like, well, I gotta stomach ache and, you know, my heart just kinda doesn't feel right.
That's why you're out of shape and and, you know, might have some harsh, but don't worry. It's normal. Right. No. Better than that. Exactly. So yeah. I gotta gotta hurry up quick and throw on the brakes. When average or normal, those words, it's like, no. It gotta gotta run far away from that. Okay. Let's let's use this to parlay into your into your story. Did you get into real estate, or was there a business before that? Was entrepreneurialism in your family? How did how did you come to be?
Oh, Yeah. That's great. I didn't realize it, but I actually grew up in an entrepreneurial family, but we we're on a family farm in North Dakota, my dad was an entrepreneur. Yeah. I did. It didn't occur to me till Chaz, like, mid thirties that or, like, it's such a real adventure. Yeah. But what's interesting about that is my dad's generation you know, really came from, like, find a great job, work that career, you know, work it to the top. My mom is a perfect example of Chaz.
She and a perfect example of why that might not work at Moore, she worked for, TWA Airlines. So And Chaz all went sideways, and she got, ultimately, furloughed for a while then went to American. And then they just said, yeah. Thanks. But now you're the bottom wrong. 30 years of flying it or just let you go. Exactly. And so I saw, you know, what dad was saying and what their generation was saying was what it should do.
That was a little bit ingrained in me, and he struggled, I mentally, with the farming end of things. It was a it was a few years in the eighties, so for climate. So so I just went down the, like, I'm gonna work my butt off and I'm gonna get the best grades possible. I'm gonna be top of the class. Graduate with honors, which I did in high school and college and went back to the end of the air force. And Wow. It wasn't long, though, into that real career when it just was bothering.
It just feel right. You know, it's I didn't like Chaz. A lot of my roles just were like, I just see orphan. I was like, this is not. Right. This is not what my life is all about. Fast forward a few years. You know, I did get out of the Air Force, and I was like, what am I gonna do? Nothing really gets excited. I don't really wanna do this kind of work. I was an engineer Trading. And I started my first company. Crossed it.
Again, I didn't expect talking about that so much today, but that was my first business. We started what was then Cross Federal Coast, and there was I don't know. I I wanna say there was less than 500 CrossFit affiliate gyms at that time. Like, we're pretty new to that area, and and it was great. But, again, this was 2005, 2006 Handhandle. It was not the best economy. Whenever it's distribution out of the business and, you know, it got buried. And my wife's like, hey, honey.
We we actually need some bit. We actually need to live. Chaz I can I eat? Can I go to the grocery store? So I I my first business, really, in a lot of ways, I hate to use the word failure. But it it didn't pan out and set free and, you know, all these things. Right? And it went back to work for that demand. It worked for the government as a civil servant for another several few years. And really Chaz what shook me from that was my first son was born, And there's a picture of me.
He was three weeks old. We flew to California to my in laws, and I've taken a nap with my arm around up at the right next to the pillow is Ridged up. So I read rich dead poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki. Chaz was really the catalyst because I was seeking, like, financial freedom. I wanted that are starting to read books about it, and that really started the juices flowing. It's because we got back to Colorado. We're living in Colorado Springs at the time also.
I went to a investing club and just like, what's this all about? I gotta just yeah. And that's where I learned the concept of wholesaling, And while lots of water under the bridge, I finally, you know, went full time in the fall of 2016. Is that right? Yeah. So that's a folder. Crazy story, I can tell you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, the the journey to get there. I love how you pointed that's your dad, you know, being a farm, are you growing up in that environment?
Is a whole lot more entrepreneurial than than a lot of times people see, but, man, you wanna talk about the tough of the tough, like, the original entrepreneurs. You know? You Yeah. You grow this. I grow Chaz, and we swap. I mean, even before your dad even, you know, so I just I just appreciate that journey. I wanna know now that, like, you obviously, you kinda transitioned into this. You said you went full time in 2016. What was that tipping point for you at that time to go full time?
And then I want you to parlay it right into Did that make a difference? Like, was it an all in mindset or was, like, to where you are now? Yeah. Oh, man. So these were the craziest times and the biggest act of faith that I think I've pulled off in my life because me at where I was mentally at that time, it was a humongous, what I thought was a few months risk. And now I I've why did they center? That was what I think. So what that looked like though was I'm trying to think 2014.
I think midyear, I I did my first wholesale deal. K. It was a messy, ugly, drawn out deal. And I did another one in 1 or 2, you know, shortly after Chaz. It was, like, 1 to 3 deals a year here, and I was working full time. It actually took a different job within the civil service that allowed me. As long as I did, my core job. I could work from home and telework the rest of the time and be on call. Yeah. And and so I took that with the mindset of, okay. If I'm not absolutely needed, at work.
I've accomplished what, you know, I hate to do. I Chaz use that extra time to work on building this business. So, you know, there's a little bit of a, you know, 4 hour work But at the same time, I was not getting a lot of traction. I don't think I believed in myself enough, so I put a lot of work, but it wasn't necessarily The most productive. I did a handful of deals. I tried another methodology of wholesaling. I was flipping houses at Tampa when I lived in Denver at the time.
And, you know, one day, though, really, the tip point was my wife came to me and said we've got our our three year old. We've got a baby on the way. And you need to work full time and love it, or you need to quit it and go real estate full time, and you don't have to do both because I was I was up at 4 in the morning, and I was at bed at 10, 11 o'clock at night just absent. Yeah. So my wife really was the catalyst. You know, throw me off the cliff. And let's go. So I said, look.
If you've got my back, you trust me. Got proof of concept. I believe in this. Let's go. So here's where it got crazy. Is we put our house on the market. It we're in Littleton, Colorado, and we did court to stay there. I didn't have any cash, like an hate liquid with cash to live on, much less to marketing, so we had to move. It's at a $100,000 in equity in house. So we put the house up for sale, and we, you know, so where should we move? Well, we need some a little less expensive to live.
I have some friends in Greenville, South Carolina that said we should visit. Let's just look online. The market looks pretty good in real estate. Let's just move there. Comes like, I can wear sandals most of the air. Let's do it. That's why. So I'd never been there. Never had been there, and we put a house under contract, put out there to do the inspection with it, and it'll checked out. And it was go time. We sold our house. I quit my career. Yeah. I fired my boss, and Wow.
We bought a house across the country. And started a new business, a market that I've never been in before, all in about, 120 days. Wow. So that was the leap of faith, the burden of the ship's moment Chaz was scary, but I don't know that me personally, I could have done it any other way. Because it forced my hand. Like, now it's up to me. There's no help. There's no safety net. There's no, you know, like, in government service, you can big and not lose your job. Right.
So for me, that was that was tremendous, and that was really the, like, the moment was, like, on Wolfe hands. Yeah. The the catalyst, really. I love how you describe the the the moments there. A lot of uncertainty. A lot of I love how you said do you do you trust me? Do you, like, will you support me through this this craziness? And you're not the first person, you know, to be on the show, even in my own story, I can point to Julie, my wife, and both things that you said.
Number 1, her challenge immediately going, hey, champ. I need you to be involved in the family. Number 2 is I trust you. I I know that if you just if you just go for it, we're here. Like, we'll cheer you on and and and we believe in you. And Chaz sounds it sounds so simple, but but to your point, to my point here, it's like, man, that was all the fuel that I even had. It's all that I needed. For at least that period of time, I could have driven for miles and miles and miles on that fuel.
And I still I try to tell her today. I'm like, look. All you gotta do is tell me, like, Not like how great I am, but, like, man, thank you. I appreciate, like, I love you. I we we we believe in you. For me, I don't know. Maybe you can resonate with this, but That'll just fill up the tank Yeah. For for weeks of week. You know?
It you know, I I Wolfe Kim and I had to talk just months ago about if that season, and and I was like, did you have any, like, I was like, I was so scared, and and we were this close to, like, daddy going to work for McDonald's and You know, like, it was that 1st year was rough. And she's like, she goes, I trusted you, and I didn't worry about money because, you know, I'd be, but And I was like, holy you know, like, that was that was disturbing. Yeah. I love that.
Okay. Let's let's get tactical here. Tell me about a good decision. So you move to South Carolina. You've never been there. You're brand new. You've done a couple of wholesales. There's a proof of concept. You're You you have the trust of your family. Give me a good decision that you made once moving there Chaz you can look back on in that the decision that you can share here today that's, like, not maybe the exact reason why you're successful, but it was a huge part of it.
Yeah. What comes to mind there? Yeah. I think this is the most appropriate answer for that is, well, I'll give you a little backstory to this in that. I was boots on the ground. I think October 1st, and, you know, it took us a month to unpack the income and kinda get the lay of the land and all that. And, you know, November, I started marketing. And I had taken all these different, like, Guru courses. I was trying to mix match. I was trying to do all these for things and spread a white Chaz.
Yeah. And by the end of January, of that next year. I was like, I don't even have, like, a solid beat. Like, you know, I'm on I've I've just arranged deck chairs on the Titanic. Like, I really was feeling like, I don't know where I'm going. I didn't have that much money. I mean, I I probably told myself I had less than I really had. But it I could see it draining every month without it. Yeah. So what I did was I I there was actually, again, give credit to podcasting.
There was a podcast Chaz was name too, and I and I knew some of these people that were getting these results from this coach. And, like, that is credible. And so I I finally came to the point of, like, I Chaz figure it out myself, maybe. Right. Or I hire the best person I afford, maybe not even afford, but I'm gonna hire him anyway. And I'm gonna go down with the best arsenal of tools I have. Right? So Chaz like, you know, let's go forward. So I hired him, so I'll give credit.
I mean, this is top role with wholesaling inc. And Tom has since sold the company but he was by coach. So, again, the so the answer, the short answer is hiring a coach Yeah. That knows how to get you for point a to beat the most efficiently. Yeah. He was able to give you the blueprints, and then obviously underneath that, being coachable and just having a desire. What do you think? So for the personal listening right now, I can I'm trying to relate this to my own story as well.
Would I have found the difficulty in doing what you just said that you did? Is maybe the pain isn't great enough. Right? Like, we're pretty sharp guys, even though the business isn't, like, super big get. You know, we're going back years. You know? It's like, you know, how how can I how can I really learn from that guy, or maybe I can do it on my own? You understand what I'm saying? Like, a little bit ego. Right?
Like, Did something happen for you, or was there an ego check moment, or was it just, like, the pain was just so bad where you're just like, okay. I'm not gonna lose all my money. Well, I am gonna lose. I'm gonna give it to this guy, and, hopefully, he can help me get there. What was that moment? Hey, Chaz Wolfe here.
As many of you know, I have been on absolute mission to help entrepreneurs from all across the country in many different industries, level up their game and grow their business, and intentionally connect with other entrepreneurs. We do Chaz, obviously, through the podcast, but we also have a peer to peer mastermind group specifically for 7 to 9 figure business owners.
We are bringing some of the best and most successful entrepreneurs and minds together in a regular and a super intentional way to not only grow our network but to be able to leverage.
And at a certain point in business, success becomes about leverage, leveraging time, leveraging resources, leveraging key relationships, This is exactly what we're doing inside of the peer to peer mastermind group called Gathering the Kings, specifically for 7 to 9 figure business owners, So if that's you, if you're ready to level up your 7 to 9 figure business, even to the next level and get around other big hitters just like you, I want you to
go to gathering the king's dot com, fill out a short application, and, it'll come to an application, call with me and I wanna chat with you to see if it might be a good fit. Talk soon. Yeah. Oh, man. I don't want to answer that. It was kind of a blessing in the curse because there's a lot of people Chaz will say, you don't need to hire a coach. Everything's on YouTube. All the information in the same day and age is out there. Just go to it. Right? Yeah. And that works for some people.
I'm just not one of them. I I honestly think one of my earlier flaws in life is Chaz I needed somebody in my corner, and I needed somebody to validate. And keep it on track. And as I mean, even mature entrepreneurs, if you could say such a thing, love the shiny objects, what's on this, what's on this, what's on this, They really need somebody in their life to say, pick one path, master it before you do the next thing.
And I recognize that in myself of one you know, the validation piece, but I do need a path, like, instead of reinventing the wheel myself, I don't Yeah. I don't need that ecoboost. I just don't wanna probe. Yeah. Yeah. Well, because what we're talking about is a greater or lesser desire. Your desire to not be broke was greater than your ego in that moment of figuring out, you know, Okay. Good. What about a bad choice? Let's flip the coin here. What did you what did you do?
What was the what was the the dirty moment? Well, what I was thinking was is actually the opposite of that was what led me to that precipice Like, I've gotta gotta spend more money, put it on my credit card than I have because I'm trying to do everything, trying to take this guru's idea on, for example, like, wholesaling lease options.
And I'm gonna create a financing here, and I took the course on how to buy house is subject to the existing financing, meeting them buying somebody else's house and keeping their name on the loan, and there's a billion ways to see the Chaz. Again, I just was trying to do all of it. And I guess where I didn't quite learn that lesson early on was it marked. I tried You know, I'm gonna do a Wolfe direct mail. I do a little cold calling. I'm gonna throw out some bandit signs.
I'm going to, you know, whatever. I'm gonna I'm gonna go spend an hour for the grocery store to talk about, you know, like Right. Trying to do all these different marketing strategies, but not one single marketing strategy was consistent or dialed. And so I think where I was wrong, again, just the inconsistency in coaching, inconsistence and exit strategies and consistency in marketing. All those things were just the perfect storm to failure.
And and I've, you know, fortunately caught it before it bottomed up. Yeah. I'd I think every entrepreneur goes through this. I have you know, even even a partner of mine in one of my real estate companies, you know, we we've got a little bit of a delay on his specific focus on the business just due to other projects that need to get done first. And his immediate thought was, okay. Great. Well, no worries. I'll go I'll go do this other thing over here.
Chaz will just allow me to be self sustaining. He was just thinking partner. I don't wanna be a burden while this piece is not good, but the reality of it is is that he could jump in over here and keep us all, like, dialed in and focused. I know that's kind of a a, like, a little bit of a secure example, but what you're saying is that, you know, don't reach for the shiny objects, although it's super exciting.
We hear this over and over and over again, but this is a live example of, okay, not only just the idea of your product, so you already even said that at the beginning. You said, I can do all these exit strategies, but mostly I do one. Right? And and then now even in your marketing, so do you do you find in, like, one channel of marketing has really been your go to more than others.
It's it's flip flopped around by and and I guess that's what as you kind of grow and and mature in your marketing strategies, barely liked the real estate perspective of what I've done. I started. So this is where the coach stepped in. I actually it's a history. I was doing is, like, just do direct mail. It's gonna only do direct mail. And, you know, based on your budget, this is how you should lay it out. So I did that, and I just spent all this money on direct mail.
And there was actually another moment in there where I think it went sideways. I wasn't closing And as a coach, he stepped in and just and kind of I understand now why he did it, but he he shook me up. He's like, Mike, you're done. Fired. From your market, and you are going to remote wholesale, pick 1 of these 3 markets, other parts of the country, and I do now going to be cold calling only. So completely kick me out.
Yeah. What I was doing shook it up and said, now you're focused on this, and and you choose this, this, this, go. So what was interesting was I had leads from the direct mail, and all of a sudden, a couple started up, and I closed a couple bills. And I said, look. I accidentally just closed a couple of deals. Do I need to still shift markets? He goes, nope. You now believe that it works. Right? And I was like, I do. You know?
So There's a magic moment there, but I had already shipped into cold calling. So he's like, so I got really good at cold calling. And I did that until I was hiring people now I can hire hold callers. I think I hired at 1.2. And now the leads work coming in without me doing it, Right? The leads were coming consistently. And now I could look at other marketing options because I didn't need to worry about that not happen. So based on my mood or whatever. You know?
Big thing when entrepreneurs start is they say, well, I've got this much for marketing and they spend it on. They're like, oh, I'm a little scared. I don't wanna spend anymore. The market drops off. Yeah. It's up, and they're on this swing. They don't see the results, so they're constantly chasing results compared to their marketing. So I switched into direct mail, started doing Chaz, getting good at that, And what happened actually in 2020 was we're still most of our revenue was cold calling.
2021, it actually swaps. Direct mail. Now it's king. We are actually producing more revenue from direct mail than cold calling, and that's been consistent. And know, so if I even started with direct mail, like, right where I'm at now, I have enough leads. I don't need it anymore. I don't need to add a cold calling system because we the leads will be wasted. And there's, you know, there's extra overhead managing that that side. So, yeah, so you max out 1, and then you're like, okay.
I've got overhead. I have it for more leads. I have a hit for more revenue. Now you can add on that next mortgage. Yeah. I love I love dialing in like that, what you're saying, and and not moving on until there's certain either revenue necessity or revenue generation, depending upon what the target of the of the campaign is, even right before that you said this, and this has come up recently in the Gathering of King's mastermind.
You know, we were comparing, you know, how much you spend on marketing and your different businesses across the, you know, not all of them are real estate, of course. And and there's a general range, you know, they just spend, but the question that had come up that you just said is, man, if you just play the game of, like, okay. Things are going well. I wanna market more, and things are not going well. So I'm gonna I'm gonna hold back Generally speaking, marketing is a consistency game.
It's an awareness game. And so you just need to be there all the time, whether times are good or times are bad, And usually, it's when times are bad or when, you know, your competitors are retracting, and that's when you need to stay consistent, if not, double down. Which is so difficult at the moment because, man, it's, like, it's a little scary. It's a little bit unnerving.
And but what I just heard you say is the same thing that we were just discussing like, look, if anything, you just gotta stay consistent. You wanna add anything with that? I mean, that's that's a lesson I keep learning over and over again. Well, it's it's an emotional one. Right? Like, in the moment you're go you can see it going down. You're going Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It it really is. I don't know that I can add.
I it's, again, it's it's the consistency in your exit strategy, consistency in ish, your exit strategy, marketing, you know, because everybody's gonna come up Hey. Here's a webinar on this shiny strategy that you need to be implementing today. Right. Oh, that sounds great. And now you you risk consistency in the other, unless it's really dialed in and it happened. I think Joe McCall used to listen to him a lot.
Like, marketing should happen for you in spite right, Chaz get your channel set up some marketing habits for you in spite of you. Now you can look and obtain these other Thanks. Yeah. Smell that perspective. That's good. What process or maybe decision discipline do you have now? We've talked about your good and bad one from the past. How do you process decisions now?
I'm trying to, you know, I still feel like a a baby entrepreneur in a lot of ways and still learning some hard lessons, but I'm trying to now use KPIs and metrics instead of, like, how I feel about things. And, you know, maybe I should have said this was my big mistake. Recently was operating from one bank account and saying, well, I see a big pile of money in there. Why don't we go spending money off this who endeavor or Right.
Right. Why don't I take a big distribution out by, you know, this thing that I want for my personal life? And what I've learned over just this last year is really being consistent putting things into this. Like, well, profit first really spoke to me. So I went at that And, again, that's just helping me more consistent in this much money always goes to these pots. And now I can make decisions based on what's in my operating expense account versus my gut feeling behind it.
Eventually, you get big enough guts wrong, because there's just too many pieces to kick back up. Exactly. So now, you know, it's I can use more data and Mark Evans, my mentor says more data and opt drama. Right? So now I can make decisions based on guys based on the correct bank account and over there. So, again, just being more methodical behind how we process it. Love it. K. I'm gonna go ahead and switch over to the speed round here.
My first question to you is dwindling the entire business down. If you Chaz only pick one metric to track forever and ever, what would you choose? Oof. That is such, a good question. I don't know how well this would work, but if I had to pick 1, I would say meaningful conversations. K. Yeah. Because, you know, in my industry, it's sales and marketing. It's a there's a lot of variables that go into that. Don't spend any marketing, you're probably not gonna have any leads.
But at the end of the day, what you're looking for is how many people are we talking to and how meaningful way. So for us, meaningful conversations is for a seller lead is, are we moving forward together and what's the next step? Or are we not a it's very clear. It's concise, and we know one way or the other, add that conversation. And from a high level, you know, if you've got a certain number of those, the business is either on track to hit targets or behind measurement, something like that.
Right? Yep. The more people you talk to, the the luck you get. I love that. Okay. What book would you recommend Chaz a 6 figure business read, Michael. Oh, man. What, bud? You've mentioned profit first. You've mentioned, you know, risk dad poor dad. Anything anything other than that? Oh, man.
I think This is probably one of my favorite books that comes up a lot in conversations, and it's called Die with 0. I don't know if you've read Dial 1 and I would have all of a sudden, the the author is escaping my Let's bring him here. We'll look it up, buddy, and the show notes. Yeah. It's an amazing book.
I think a high level entrepreneur should read it And I think the high school graduate should read it, and it probably ever here because it really helps you prioritize what all the standards that you're putting into a business is for using it at the appropriate time in your life for what serves you. So I I think that's a that was Great. And give me the tie. Excuse me. Give me a title one more time. It's called dive with 0. Die with 0. Perfect. Okay. You've already mentioned, you know, coaches.
You've mentioned, I can't remember if it was on the show or before we got started. Mastermind group that you're a part of. My question normally is what do you think about intentionally networking or master mining, but I'm gonna twist it a little bit since I already obviously know that you do these things and find value in them. What would you say to the listener today who maybe doesn't do those things yet? Maybe knows that he or she should, or maybe doesn't know. That he or she should.
What would you what would you say about intentionally networking or master mining as a, you know, not yet 7 figure owner? Oof. That's that's a good one. I think you have to maybe go back a little bit introspective and ask yourself, what if I did Chaz work? What am I afraid of? Like, what's my fear that's keeping me if I know this is something I should do? What's the fear that is really driving? Spend a little time, look on on YouTube, find, like, professor Ted talk on it for your setting.
Wonderful exercise to really go back and, like, Okay. If if I do this thing and it fails, here's the outcome and here's how I'd cover. And what's the odds of that? Right? And then What if I do the thing? And it's a success. Right? What does that look like? And what's the odds of that? And you're gonna paint yourself a pretty clear picture of why she So I think just, again, really looking at it, like, what are you looking for? What do you want out of, you know, this potential opportunity?
What are you trying to build or grow? Who has the answer to help you get there. And, I mean, I'm I'm a big believer Chaz, you know, as an entrepreneur, that would be any real successfully successful entrepreneur is standing on the shoulders of giants. They need people. They need to network with others. They need to build a community to support them. And and have great working for them and also create mentors to lift them up.
So I think it's and if you're hesitant to do that, It's something you need to take some time and really understand behind it. And and then come to a clear conclusion. This isn't for me, and I need to go and to get it. And and you'll know. Yeah. I love that methodical rational approach. Last question here for you. If you lost it all, Michael, what would you do? Oh, I think about this sometimes, but Never had been asked directly.
Well, last at all, well, this is just really piggybacks on your last question, and I still have a network. I mean, you can't really lose at all. If I was a prisoner of war, I still have knowledge less than learned in my mind, in my brain, in terms of how to interact, well, how to negotiate, like, just various different things. But in a more, like, I just screwed up and I lost all my money since I'd go to my network and say, hey. You know, even I connected, you know, my values. I know yours.
This is what I wanna do next. We're a kid. We work together. Right? And I get just starting to talk. Again, if I'm gonna pick my path, just start up the phone, getting the streets talking to people and using my network to help me magnify that Chaz effort that I have to go on the hit day. Love it. Michael, you've been incredible. How can a listener find you? Whether they're in the local area, whether they're they just wanna reach across the country and and get to know another Bearded fellow.
What how can they find you? Yeah. Perfect. Probably the easiest place to find me right now on social media is just Michael Mcleachiofficial. And it's the same on Instagram. Michael Mclicious official might be there. And my profile sure still has the beard. So if you wanna if you wanna see what the Chaz is talking about out there, And and you have a podcast coming out. Tell us, just give us, you know, 15 seconds on the podcast. Yeah. Appreciate that. Yeah. It's called expanding boundaries.
And it's I don't really have a set agenda other than sharing my journey of where I've been in terms of There there's just been, like, big monumental mindset shifts. Some are smaller, some are bigger than others, but as I've grown in this journey. And so I wanna share some of those stories. It's gonna be largely interface, you know, with former mentors, coaches I worked with, other people in business that had big, game changing, mental shifts.
And, again, my goal is also to have people that I'm looking up to that help me grow and also sharing that education, if you will, and help the audience grow. So, again, that's that's what it's all about. I'm really big on travel of camping, particularly outdoors, and we're building this ridiculous sprinter van. So, you know, like, the the whole idea of expanding boundaries and traveling beyond Yeah. Where you know really resonates with. So that's Yeah. That's all.
Wolfe, maybe you'll do the podcast from your your mobile unit. Oh, yeah. Once you once you have the the Sprinter van ready to roll. Absolutely. Michael, you've been incredible. Mindset is is on point. Thank you for sharing your time. Nothing but blessing to you, your family, your new sprinter expounding boundaries physically, obviously, on the podcast as well. But, again, just thank you for being here. Okay. Well, it's been a pleasure. Thank you very much for having me on today.
That's a lot of fun. 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 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 exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1000 Keynes specifically who are grateful, but not done.
We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and community 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 gatheringthekings.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.