My first business failed because I wasn't listening to what my clients needed. Interesting. More specifically, I was focused on what I thought they needed. What was bringing in revenue first of all? What did I like doing? I will do that. What do I hate doing? I will have somebody else do And then what are the things that I like doing that aren't bringing revenue? That's a hobby. It's not everybody wants to be a speaker. They wanna be able to speak but not everyone wants to be a speaker.
I can make more money next week just by willing it, but I can't get my time back with my daughter. You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe Gathering 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 decision they've made along the way Chaz give a true and accurate picture of the journey of success and how you too can get The. Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and Kings like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. What's up everybody? Chaz Wolfe, Gathering the Kings podcast. We're back under host.
Today, on the king stage, I've got Tyler Foley I'm proud of the the speaker. Thank you so much for having me on. It's been this has been one that's been circled on the calendar ever since you guys reached out, I was, like, really excited. You know, it's not often that you get to be a guest on on one of the top ranked podcasts. I've done a lot of podcasts, as you know, but it's it's rare when we get to be in the upper echelon. And I very much appreciate the invitation.
So thank you for having me on. Wolfe, you speak too kindly, but I'll I'll receive those words. And and, actually, you know what here's what's nice is to have another radio voice here on the phone, or here on the phone. I actually just last week, I had a guest who at the very end was like, is this your real voice? And so now I have 2. You and me, but we gotta What did they say? Face for radio? Is that what they're calling The? Yes. Yes. A definite face for radio.
And it's funny too when my father passed away when I was quite young, I was six years old when he passed away. And my mom ever since has she's only had 2 long term relationships my father passed. The first was with a musician who had an incredible voice because he sang. And then when that relationship ended after 15 years. Her most recent relationship and now her husband is a former radio DJ. So he was James Dodge of light 96, CHFM, and, like, he still talks in a radio voice.
And I think because I have recordings of my father. He was an amateur musician and led the youth choir and was part of the the youth group for my church. And so he used to do a lot of hymanals, and he played Banjo, which was super cool. I've inherited his Banjo and can't play it. I've I always wanna learn, like, I pick it up, and I'm just don't get it. And a friend of mine that I actually performed in a musical with plays Banjo very proficiently. He's like, I can teach you.
And maybe we like sat down for three lessons. He's like, I don't think I can teach you. So I know what my father's voice sounds like, and there was a time where I definitely sounded like my father but it isn't now. It definitely sounds more like the other male influences because of the train You know, being in film and television Chaz long as I've been in it, this is this is now the adopted voice for for a microphone. And and it is how I would speak regularly, but it's definitely trained.
You can tell. Yeah. Totally. I love it. I love it. Well, Tyler, The this lease is right enough. So kind of business that you have. You Kings service the world in a unique way. Tell us how you do that. Well, it's so it's interesting because as you know, I actually have multiple companies under my control And the one that is kind of self sufficient and running on its own, the one that kind of allows me to do the things that I love is my safety consulting business.
And when that originally developed, The of the we we were multifaceted at that point. So we did program development, safety program auditing, safety training, and then I myself did keynote presentations because I will always want to be in front of a stage. And what was interesting as the business evolved, I did less and less and less and less of the auditing significantly less of the program development because I hired people who knew how to do it way better than I did.
And, you know, made sure that they were well compensated for it so that they stayed. I've just been able to to parlay that off. And then the speaker training, what was interesting was, you know, we had the full myriad of of training programs. You could come and do anything, but our most popular program was actually The that was originally called basic instructional technique.
And we called it basic instructional technique because if we called it public speaking 101, the majority of attendees would never come. Right. Because everybody's afraid of public speaking or so they think. And what we did with that program was actually over 2 days do a lot of deprogramming around the fears of public speaking and show people initially, if if we tricked everybody into public speaking before they realized that they were public speaking within about the first two hours.
And then when we pointed it out to them, they were all like, oh, that was just mean, but guess I'm not really afraid of it the way that I thought I was. And it became super popular. So initially, it was designed for CEOs and executives, and then it of became middle management and then frontline supervisors. And the next thing I knew, more and more people who were outside of because originally our target audience was construction personnel.
So we started getting outside of construction Industries, and then I had some engineering firm, sent some people, and the next thing we knew we had of gas people. And then before I knew it, I had people who had nothing to do with construction and had nothing to do with management, just wanting to come and take this basic constructional program just to learn how to be better public speakers.
And as soon as I realized that there was where that audience was really being served, that's when I created the other business with power to speak naked and all of the drop the mic training programs. And really kind of focused on the public speaking. I mean, that's when the book came about, and then the book became a number 1 bestseller, and then that's when I got involved with power of success and got to do, like, the big speaking Kings.
And that's when we started seeing that exponential growth, and that's when, you know, for the second time in my life, I got to see 7 figures. And that was that was really interesting how it evolved. And as you pointed out, it all came from finding that niche of serving the people where they were asking to be served, which was a lesson I learned my first business because we tried to do something that they weren't asking for.
Yeah. That's so interesting because I think that, you know, this topic of niching or or finding a bit you've done it, but in 2 different ways. Like you said, servicing The industry in one specific way, and you started trying to give them kinda what The people want it, but it eventually made its way over. And so what would you say the takeaway for Lister to Madison? Okay. Chaz 2. Some of your different businesses. The was born of as something that he was developing.
Well, we as our careers, we have a lot of ideas. How did how did you know that this was, like, something The needed to run with as opposed to The something we'd be taking out back and shot? Well, as I'd alluded to, my first business failed because I wasn't listening to what my clients needed Interesting. More specifically, I was focused on what I thought they needed instead of what they thought they needed. And I was still right. Like, my first business was a photochrometric business.
We did initially aerial photography. And anybody who's ever turned on Google Maps, that's what I did. I was a photogramatrist and we had a fleet of 3 planes. And we were one of the first companies actually to get into digital photography and actually get a digital Hasselblatt camera certified for photogrammetric work because camera lenses need to be measured and there's a whole process to it. And so there was a an industry adopted standard with analog photography.
So you're own photography before they moved into an acceptance of digital. My company was was one of the first in North America, if not one of the first in the world to actually specialize in this digital realm of it. And that was okay because people could get a product they were familiar with for less money. But then there was this explosion of lidar laser topographic information that was coming and and what I was doing pulling DEMs. The old traditional way was was going the way of the dodo.
And I could see Chaz, and we had this opportunity to move to interior mobile mapping. And it was fantastic, right, this beautiful technology where you could take a carton and scan 3 d interior. So you didn't weren't reliant on GPS and satellites. We had an an IMU, an inertial measurement unit.
And in fact, we had to get top secret clearance from the US government to use the and I'm in Canada to use the IMU that we had inside of this cart because the IMU is the exact same one that they put in Skudmus to guide them to the targets. So we had to we had I had to do all kinds of of background checks and security clearance to be able to this Kings, and then we had to have special arrangements around it. And I thought it was the greatest Gathering.
And I could see all of the applications for it. You know, realtors could use it. Builders could use it. My wife is a project manager and architectural technologist for the largest homebuilder in my province. And I had one on one with their VP. And I was like, listen. You can use this for warranty work. So if your trades screw up, you can have a digital map, and we can actually pinpoint with accuracy where where it was if we, you know, capture all of this and you've got great idea.
But again, I was serving a market with the idea of I knew what it could do, and these were all the possibilities, and it was great and wonderful, but they didn't care. They just wanted to put up houses. And the realtors didn't care because they could hold open houses. Now 15 years post when we did it, you can buy that same technology and it goes on a person's backpack and a realtor can walk around and make that virtual tour, and they can output that thing in, like, a half an hour.
For me, it was, like, a 3 day process Right. And it was expensive. So that was the other Kings. Like, why would a realtor want to do it for something that they didn't meet at the time? And and then you know, obviously now that's it's an easy thing to do, but we were way ahead of the curve and we were pushing things that people didn't eat. And, subsequently, Chaz business failed. Now that business failed for a couple of different reasons.
I my partner passed away over a weekend, and the business was in her name. And so that was where all the contracts were signed and everything. We didn't have the right director's insurance in place, and the business literally was gone overnight. But we were struggling before that because we had pushed into this area that people weren't asking for thinking that we could solve a problem that they didn't realize they had yet. And now everybody wants it, but it took a while for people figured out.
So with this new business, I was very hyper aware of only serving what was in demand. Yeah. Like, what are people asking for? You can push the envelope to make that service better and offer more, right, be of value by always offering more but the lesson that I learned from the first one was make sure that you are still in service Chaz there is the demand that is there and listen to what the demand is because that's the other thing.
Like, when we were offering the training, it was so it originally The design was to make it so that middle management could give better safety meetings. Sure. Because the this, the initial problem that I solved was safety meetings are an invitation to a lobotomy. Nobody wants to go. They hate them. And I know that because I've been the one who's had to deliver them where people are staring glassy eyed at you.
And the number of people who came up to me and said, why are your safety meetings different? Why are your toolboxes different? Like, I I don't mind going to them. And I had to reverse engineer that and figure that out. And so when I figured out how to make a toolbox meeting so that people didn't hate it or fall asleep through it, Right. I figured I could show other people to do it, and it became instantly popular Yeah. Because it's a big, big issue, and I'd solved it.
And then listening to how, like like I said, originally, I did it and then people wanted to stick The group of people in it. And then as I got exposed to, like, what I would call the reluctant supervisor. Yeah. So the lead or the foreman who got who has been promoted just because they happen to be good at their job. Yep. But they don't have those leadership skills yet or don't Wolfe, they don't want it. They're like, I just wanna do my job. I don't wanna have to be in charge of these people.
I just wanna do my job. I did my job, and I was really good at it. And now I've been punished by being promoted. And those were the people who really got served well because I could show them that they could they could have both. Yeah. And they could do it effectively. And so when I started doing that, then I got exposed to more people who were able to go and talk to their spouses and say, I just went to this crazy class. It was amazing. And then their spouse would be like, I want to speak.
And you got the the the weird people like me, who's like, I want the audience. Yeah. And then when they started asking, that's when I knew I had this different hook. And then that's when we we kind of pair off. We still have the basic instructional technique, but it then we have the power to speak naked. So they're designed differently. The one is designed for the attention weaker, the one is designed for the attention of Voyder. And we service both really well.
There's still the the, you know, it's I am have the freedom and flexibility to talk to you today because have that program in place, and it just makes money without me ever having to do anything. What do you think? Especially coming off the back of your your first business, being something that you were trying to basically trailblaze and you were just ahead of your time, technology to to rigid, to expensive, or whatever it was, then getting into the deal where you, like, riding a real bee.
You said you were hyper focused on making sure that it was in demand. What were you thinking, or what were those moments where you're like, okay, I'm I gotta calculate this so that I'm not pushing something that I think is valuable Chaz that maybe they don't realize. What were those calculations? Wolfe, so, again, it came down to metrics. Like, what we had a lot again, when I first started the the business, we had a lot of program offerings mostly because I was a single entity.
I was a sole proprietor, even though I was an incorporated business, had actually taken over my father in law's consulting practice because he retired, and his consulting practice had absolutely nothing to do with safe it just happened to be an incorporated business that I could take over for a dollar without having to pay the lawyers tens of thousands to get into it, and we could just literally facilitate the transaction between us. And for the to this day, I'm incredibly grateful to him.
One of the other reasons why I wanted to get into that was because I didn't wanna be dependent on somebody else ever again. And I I wanted to make sure that for this entity that I set it up correctly so that I knew that the with the first one, I was working in a business that I wanted to work in for the rest of my life. And this one I specifically got into with a 15 year plan of being able to parcel it off and just be the the director instead of the managing director.
Sure. Sure. And be able to to have have that entity run and eventually either pass it over to my daughter if she's interested in it and if not, find a successor that that wants to take it over or just sell the business completely. So I'd gone in with different ideas. And so with this one, because I was starting out on my own, I knew that I had the safety skill set, and I knew that these were all the things that were available in safety.
Yeah. I figured out the ones that were in demand by what people were asking for and what I was willing to provide And then what was the where were the bits that I enjoyed doing? So anything that was in demand that I hated doing, I found somebody else hired them and then just gave them most of the pie. You know, I I take a very small percentage as as an operating fee or initially did when I was subcontracting, and now I just we just have employees.
So I would basically, you know, I would get the contracts. I, like, I have a lot of work but I want you to do it. And then they were very people are usually really happy when they don't have to do the management portion, and they can just do the that they like doing. Right. And then everybody makes money, and then that's good. So I I focused on that. What was what was bringing in revenue, first of all? What did I like doing? I will do that. What do I hate doing?
I will have somebody else doing it. And then what are the things that I like doing that aren't bringing revenue? That's a hobby. So that's a Kings. Because for a long time, speaking was the thing that I loved doing, but didn't bring you, right, for a very long time, for probably the 1st 7 years of my business, it didn't bring revenue. It was a thing that I did because I enjoyed doing it. It was great to bring awareness to the company. Right. And so but it didn't pay initially. Right?
It was a it was a very long term ROI. Now it's paying dividends. Like, it's going out of style. Right. But it didn't upfront, but it was a thing that I loved doing. So that was a hobby. So it didn't get a lot of my time and attention. The training I really enjoyed doing because it was like speaking, but it was in demand. Right. And then as then it became well, these are the Kings. So what about these things do people like?
And then again, with the training, we had all of these training offer Kings. But what were the ones that people were consistently coming back at? And what was the ones that I didn't have to compete with? Cause that's the other thing. Like, I was doing fall protection, elevated work platform, first aid, confined space. Right. But they could go anywhere to get that. So to try and grab that market piece Right. Or be up front of it or try to compete with other service providers.
Was it was a fool's game, but not a lot of people offered this base constructional technique. And the ones that did have something like it didn't do it as well as me. So, again, where what were those components? And so it just became a metrics game. What is popular, what isn't. And then when you can do the cause then you can start to be innovative. Right? Right? You can start to offer that tweak and say, hey. This is the Kings. And it it the AB test become a lot easier.
Yeah. When when you are hyper focused on those metrics. Because now you can see if that tweak gains more for you or if it if it keeps the line state static. So Chaz that was really the approach for me was what is going to further the bottom line Chaz is going to further my job satisfaction and what is going to push me closer to not having to do this business ever again. Right?
Yeah. Well, I think actually Chaz that formula is is not only good, but it gives the listener, I think, a good depiction of know, like, this this ever changing thing of, like, what we wanna do versus what our customers are really asking for, because that's I think we're all honest. Half of The meetings, it's out of existence where we just, like, really run hard in this angle right here. It's like, not really everybody loves that.
And even, like, with The the Kings, it's a fairly new business for us. It's about a year and a half old. We've got a master plan we could start originally on Estes came out of because it was a people I wanna help, but I didn't let into the group. And so it's like, okay. Even that, even the podcast is an iteration of people raising their hand saying, want help, but I didn't have a space for them. So I think that I think that what The saying, really, the list of it is for them to The.
Not not us us talking here today, but to listen to those that they're serving and figure out how they find this this beautiful mix of what you love to do, what you like to do, what can do versus what they really want and somehow find a blend. Is that is that what I mean? No. You're absolutely right. And it's funny because we actually do an exercise in my two and a half day workshop.
So my actual, like, do we have the power of influence and then the power to speak naked, the power to Naked is kind of Chaz. Once you've gone through the power of influence, you and you know, like, you want to be a speaker. Right. Not everybody wants to be a speaker. They wanna be able to speak, but not everybody wants to be a speaker. So once we get you to the point where we know that you can speak, The we can take you to Chaz.
K. Now who wants to actually do this because you're an attention whore? And we'll, like, we'll help you out with that. And so on that first one, you know, a lot of people are doing this because they have a business. They wanna be on stage. They recognize that speaking The many is is a better way of leveraging their time and informing people of their product or their availability or their expertise or whatever they wanna do. Yeah. But everybody always says, like, who's my ideal audience?
So we have this this exercise where we have 2 ways of determining who your ideal client is And the first one is, you know, you 5 years ago and what would you what advice would you give you and how would you do it and how would you structure it? And then being real honest to a deep dive, like, where were you really at, not in your imagination, but, like, what is the reality? What did you need to know? What did you need to find out?
What what did you already have as a skill set, what were the what was the assets that you had available to you, what were you taking advantage of, what weren't you taking advantage of, we can go through this whole list. But then the other one that we do, because a lot of people are like, well, who I was 5 years ago or 10 years ago was so drastically different, and I wouldn't actually serve me anymore, or I don't I wouldn't want The.
And that's fair because, like, I would not work with me 10 years ago. I just wouldn't. No. But then the other way of determining who your ideal client is is what do people what advice do people most often ask you for? Like, we all have that thing. Right? Like, my uncle was an airline mechanic and was, you know, very mechanically adept, and nobody came to ask The how elevators worked on the back of a plane. But what he was incredible at was woodworking.
Like, he had this woodshop in his basement, and people from miles around would come and ask them, how do you do this? And he would show The, like, this is how you get the lathe Kings, and this is you know, this is how you work some of the wood. This is how you can bend. Like, he just had this wealth of woodworking knowledge. Yeah. And if he would have been able to make that a training course. Like, you know, this is 50 years ago. Right?
Yeah. But if he had the tools that we have now, he could have made that a course, a YouTube thing. He'd been a TikTok superstar. My grandfather Wolfe, I'm sure. You know? And so what is that advice that people come to you the most about, and that is very good insight into what people want. Because if they're coming to you, they view you as an expert And then this is the critical part. What is the demographic?
Like, what is what is the similarities of those people who are coming to ask you that advice. Right. So you know who is asking it of you and what they are Kings. And even if it's, like, on a small sample scale, for those entrepreneurs who are just starting out, That's a pretty good clue as to what you want because that was for my entire life since I was six years old, that's the thing that people have asked me How do you do it?
And what they're asking is how do I get up on stage without any fear? And it's funny because it's not that I'm I'm I'm without fear, but I don't fear the stage and I don't fear speaking in look because it was never something that I was taught to fear. Right. And so that's that was always my specialty and my skill set.
So no matter what if I was working for myself or if I was working for somebody else or if it get in the 25 years that I had a professional actor as my resume, before I got into the engineering and then before I got into the safety, all of all of the key components and all the similarities where I was always having public interaction.
I was always the one that was asked to speak in public, whether I was working for somebody else, doing, like, I remember working for an hearing firm doing their lunch and learns because engineers do not have this personality for the most part. Nope. And I was the only one who was willing to do it. And then subsequently, The skyrocketed the awareness of of what that company was offering Chaz I ended getting offered. I first I got bumped up.
I got a massive raise from the president, and then I got offered stock options just because I was adding so much value into into that company. And then they they helped support me when I when I transitioned into doing this on my own. So, like, it was just things like Chaz. Listening to what people have to say when they're asking you. Yeah. That's good. Start to make note of what that pattern is. Be aware.
Like, the universe will present things to us over and over and again until we learn the lessons. So Until, yeah. Exactly. And I'll just chime in just to add value to what you're Kings. It's happened in my own life. Gathering the Kings is probably, like, maybe, like, a, like, an external, like, version of this, but I was in sales for a long time of ups run bulk business there. Let's go have multiple businesses in different industries.
And so the skill set isn't sales or team building or strategy or, you know, finding it. Although all of those things, I feel like we aren't good at because what you're talking about is The all these people over the course time Chaz wanted me to help them make the decisions because I take complex Kings, and I make it simple. Best as podcast. I I can't tell you how much feedback I've gotten from the podcast of, like, super great content. The get rich, but it but I understood it. It was great.
Yeah. Like, Dude, if we can take things that are really, really complex, supposedly, to help you understand them and you take those value That makes perfect sense. You make good decisions. That's why I'm always asking you on the show. What's a good decision? Okay. What's a bad decision that you made? So I wanna transition here. You said something a few ago Chaz I think that I pressed into, you're gonna be able to add a lot of values of this. So you've been on over 400 podcasts just this year.
I've served more forward with Chaz. On in addition to that, you've been on stage. You you've been promoting for a long time. You also said The was for 7 years. It was a hobby because it was a So I wanna know, 1, what was the transition? Why did it go from hobby to now it was a benefit to your business? Number 2 is why should the listener start getting on podcast, start a podcast, start speaking on stage, even if it is, they do not exactly beg your pardon? 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 Kings.
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. Well, here's the thing.
There, first of all, it is so easy to do, particularly the podcast, barrier to entry, super, super low. And if you want to really discover what if because we just discussed, find out what people are asking you about. And if you're going, I don't know, podcasts are an amazing way of discovering what your piece or what advice you can offer because the host will ask you.
Now if you're only on The podcast, that isn't a very large data set, but you do 20 or you do 50 or you do a 100 podcasts, you start to see what the consistently repeated questions are where you find the most. And the other thing is too, you'll know where you light up. Yeah. Like, when people ask you, like, there's the things where I can just spout, and then there's the think people will ask me a question. I'm like, well, I don't know. And I'll say a thing. But it's not a very long answer.
The ones where I can monologue for 20 minutes. Yeah. And the host doesn't feel the need to interrupt me. Because I'm adding value, not just rattling on. Right. That's that's where you know that you're in the jam. So and here's the other thing too. My search engine optimization. Organic SEO. Yeah. Shot through the roof. My webmaster phone. And he's like, what are you doing? And I was like, I don't podcasting.
He's like, because I'm back linked to, like, 400 episodes and it's it's constantly updated content. So it's better than a blog. Because a blog, sure, you're you have new content on your website every week, but if nobody's actually reading your your blog, then it it doesn't it's not driving traffic where with the podcast, somebody else is promoting my stuff on my behalf. They're creating social media stuff for me.
The I have a post at least every day and a half on Instagram, if not more, because people are constantly tagging me in it, and then I just have to hit share. And so I've I've got a very active Instagram account that I have zero input into. Same with Facebook. Same with LinkedIn. And all of that is driven by podcast host who are promoting the episode that I've been on. And then you amplify that over. I run a a challenge called a 100 podcast in a 100 days.
And remember the first time that we ever did a paid advertisement for that on Facebook, The I I felt so validated that I had found the right thing to offer because it was the first time my content had gotten trolled. Interesting. And I was like, yes. I finally hit that hot button where people are like, you can't do that. And I remember this one guy because he's, you know, he's it's a paid advertisement, so it sucks because when they interact, they cost you money.
So not only are they trolling you, but they're like they're hitting your bank account. It's not much, but it's still does. And I was I was laughing because the guy was like, at best, if you did, show a week you couldn't do 52 in a year. And I'm like, why would you only do a show a week? I'm like, I do three shows a day. I'm like, if you really wanna make an impact in 10 weeks. 10 weeks, if you did 2 shows a day and most shows are a half an hour to an hour long to record.
Yep. So if you really wanna do this, like, if you wanna skip from hobby to try to push this on the envelope. And the thing is you Chaz do it with the advent of technology. You can do it anytime a day. Why do the podcasting then if it's a hobby and well, because you stick that on your website, people can passively interact with you, but then they have to actively interact with you. It's because they still have to click it. They still have to listen.
They still have to Chaz, and it creates The, and it's social proof too. If you've been on 2 podcasts, whatever, you've been on a 100 podcasts, you're obviously, you know what you're speaking about, and it doesn't take long to do that. In 10 weeks, you can developed this entire repertoire and say, you know, I've done this Kings, and this is my area of expertise. You could go to the other guy, but, look, I have been on a 100 shows, and they've all asked, and it becomes the social proof.
Alright, Tyler. You've given the value around why to be on a podcast, why to be on a stage, how to have intimate conversations, why we should be a speaker, why we should be promoting our businesses. Tell me how you've done all of The? You've got multiple companies, and you're helping 100, if not thousands of other companies Brother Authority Brothers.
I wanna transition here and ask you how you've done all of that and get focused on your family when I was creating this enterprise, I was very deliberate in how I was going to spend my time and what I wanted. So, like, I had a very clear roadmap of what I wanted to do. And I always wanted to make sure, particularly because I had my daughter late in life. Like, I was 35 when my daughter was born.
And The there's only so much time that I have on this earth, and there's only so long that my body will still be able to function. Now I do my best to stay fit and healthy. I still play hockey 5 days a week. And in fact, my daughter comes and watches me whenever she's not in school, and that's been a a great joy and and a thrill for me. But I have structured my time specifically to put in family time first, the business will always be The. And that's why I've always found the people.
Like, even as when I was a sole proprietor, I was always looking at who can I who can I farm this off to? Like, I one of the first things I did was get a VA. Right. And initially, I had a very inexpensive VA And then as I was able to generate more revenue, I was able to upgrade the quality of VA that I was able to hire. Yeah. And then VA stopped being VA's and became assistance. And then I was subcontracting a lot of the, again, jobs that I didn't want to do, but I knew well.
So I just became a project manager, and there was a time where project management within the business was not paying the the big bucks. Right? You know, I remember for 3 years, my subcontracted auditors, both of them, and my subcontracted program development manager made six times what I did. Wolfe, because business ownership. Right? Yeah. Because I was only taking, you know, 10 to 15% off the top, right, as a project management fee.
But year 4, when all those clients had been served and were repeat business and were coming back and I needed to get more Chaz soon as I got to that 10 time multiple, and it was, you know, 10, 12, 14 people inside the business instead of 2 or 3. Yeah. That 10 to 15% didn't feel so bad anymore because I was still only having to put in 20 to 25 hours of actual management work per week. The work that I wanted to I got to do what I wanted to do. And I was able to schedule in the time.
So I always scheduled in like, my wife and I have a scheduled tea time, and I don't mean golf. I mean, we sit down and we have tea. And she's actually the one to cancel it more than I am because she she still works for somebody Kings what is supposed to be a 9 to 5 job, but as she Chaz grown in her career, a 9 to 5 job is come 7:30 to 8:30 at night. A lot of times, but I'm always there. I always have T ready so that if she's there, She's there.
And if my wife can't have tea with me, then I have tea with my daughter. And, you know, Kenzie and I have our like, tomorrow, I have blocked off all of tomorrow because we are going to go hiking. It is the last week before I start. I have a a tour that's coming up. I'm gonna be gone 2 out of every 3 weeks from now until Christmas. Wow. And my daughter's gonna be going back to school. So she's gonna be doing her thing.
So this week, I knew was was kind of our last window of good weather and free time to do whatever we wanted. And it's funny because I've had a lot of projects that are trying to push into this week. Right. A lot of things, you know, are there, but they're still gonna be there next week. That's right. And I have people who I can parcel off the work to. And if I can't do myself, there are other people who can. And so I'm that's what I've done. I've, you know, I've put a little bit more on.
It means that I'm making a little bit less but it's fractional at this point. Right. And who cares? Because Chaz that time that I get to spend with my daughter is Yeah. So much more valuable because that's the precious thing. That's the thing that I can't get back. I can make more money next week just by willing it. But I can't get my time back with my daughter. And so she is my priority along with my Wolfe. And so we schedule in that time, and then it's sacred.
And every it's amazing how everything else flows around it. Right. Like, it it finds its way. Even, like, today, I was supposed to be doing work. Tomorrow is going to be not a nice day, but it's still my daughter's day, but, like, we wanted to go for a hike, but it's gonna rain. So now we're gonna do something else. But I was like, oh, it would be great if I could have that hike today. And the meetings canceled this afternoon.
Boom. So I'm like, Chaz and I are gonna have a conversation, and then I'm going to take advantage of it. I'm not gonna try and fill it with work. The is work that can fill it. Always. I don't I don't care because I'm gonna take advantage of it. We'll go for the hike. And then tomorrow, if it doesn't go as well, I'll probably do a little bit of it'll be a rainy afternoon. So she can do some painting and I will do some work.
It will all find its its place, but you have to schedule what is important. And The and I just do that and it's sacred, and then that's that's how I've been able to to maintain that balance. And being a professional speaker pretty nice because when I get to go and do things like go speak in Dallas or when I get to go and speak in Dubai or when I get to go and speak in Thailand, or Mexico. Yes. She's coming. Gets to come with me. She's had her passports since she was two years old.
Yeah. You know? I love that. The the the picture that you gave there is really important, and I'm glad that you shared all that. The one piece that I want you just to give me just a little bit more on was that work, you know, this week, you had said it aside and you're like, you know, work can always creep in. And that that moment right The is gonna be true, renewed for me, for every entrepreneur or ever and ever and ever.
And the difference that I've seen in my own life Chaz well as other people who are masterine The very Kings The the time now is in that moment, when you feel it's hard to prevent is that you just have The pause to say, today. I'll get to you next week, and I don't feel this, like, unsettled unworthiness of not handling it right now before the no. It's okay. Poise. I'm gonna set this down, and I'm gonna focus on what I that is important. This moment for this hour or The block of time.
So for you and that, like, what gave you that poise or what was the realization was like, oh, Actually, that will be here for me tomorrow or next week when I come back for it. And I don't have to be like, oh my gosh. Sorry. Quick. You know what I mean? Wolfe, a couple of things. I think, you know, a lesson I've learned very early in my life is that our lives are finite. You know, my my father passing at six years old was a very pivotal point in my life.
And I remember I didn't actually grieve my father's passing for many years. I it was I he passed away when I was 6, and I didn't really fully appreciate the what that meant until I was twelve years old. And I still remember the time I was getting an award for being the top student in my elementary school. My mom had been invited to the assembly.
It was the year end assembly, and it was packed, right, because it's the last, so teachers are The, parents are there, students are sitting in the gymnasium. And I remember my name being called, and walking past my mom, And in this packed gymnasium, the seat beside her was empty. And I remember thinking, first of all, why is that chair empty? And then thinking, you know, my dad really should be sitting there. And then having this, like, japanese bullet train of thought.
Like, leave the station and fly. Like, that thing was a jet engine on a take off and and it just, you know, my whole future flash before me. My dad was never gonna see me graduate from elementary. He was never gonna see me actually graduate high school, and that means he was never gonna see my commencement from university. He was never gonna see me get married. He was never gonna see his grandchildren.
He was never gonna any of his grandchildren, whether mine or my sisters, life was gonna go on and he was not there. Yeah. And I remember having this existential crisis at twelve years old walking up to get this award. Yeah. And his bursary check and tears streaming down my eyes ever thinking that I was crying because I was happy, and it was because I was having this moment of realization. And then it was weird because instantaneously it snapped.
I was like, well, actually, I don't know that that chair is empty. If this is a full gymnasium, it would be full. There is a presence The. Presence is likely my father, and then it just kind of changed the way that everything was viewed. You know, my father will see all The stuff. I just won't be able to physically see him do it. He will have his presence there. Wow. Which has been very important to me because that's guided me a couple of ways.
First of all, I know that my physical existence on this plane is limited. Yeah. So I better take advantage of it because some of my fondest memories. And one of the things one of the reasons my daughter and I are going on a hike and one of the reasons we went on a hike on my birthday is my last memory of my father was my 6th birthday going from 5 to 6. Him taking me for a hike in our in the Canonascus. It's the Rocky Mountains. They're, like, 40 minutes west of where we grew up.
I still live in the area and and sharing that moment with him. It's a fond memory that have of him, and I want Kenzie to have those memories with me. Yeah. Because I don't know if tomorrow will come. If tomorrow doesn't come. I don't want her last memory of me to be that I put her off to help some safety audit. Yeah. I want her last memory of me knowing that work wasn't so important that I couldn't spend time with her when it was when it was our time.
And that has really guided me because my father is watching me. Yeah. And I want him to be proud of the man that I became, and I think that would that is a bigger testament than than the empire that I built. I love the empire that I've built, but I've built it in a way specifically that I don't need to be in it. It will run without me. The directors could vote me out tomorrow, and the business would run. I wouldn't like it but it would run.
But if my daughter votes me out of her life, that relationship will not So that is my priority. Being with my wife is my priority. And so if I just measure it like that, it becomes obviously, that's the choice that you make. The clients will always if they're demanding it today, they will want it tomorrow. You just have to come up with a really good way of explaining the boundaries so that you're not making them mad. Right?
The particular client that was trying to schedule in today, we were supposed to have that business done last week, and they kept delaying delaying delaying. I was prepared. So now delays this week are still on them because I had it scheduled. I let them know. This was when the availability of the window was. If we don't have it completed by Friday Yep. It will be delayed until mid September because of my schedule. So let's get it done now.
And I think as long as you can create those boundaries that allows your clients to understand are not being unreasonable. In fact, you're making every accommodation to help them. Exactly. I wanna ask you one last question, Tyler. You've given us practical. You've given us philosophical, emotional, you've been really, really great here today, giving us so much value. Where can the listener find?
Number 1, if they wanna connect Number 2, if they find value in needing some sort of safety or if they wanna speak make it. How can they find? Well, the the best thing to do is to go to my website, which is seantilerfoley.com. That's the best way to get in because if they want the the safety side, it'll redirect them to total buy in, which is my safety company. If they're looking for speaker training, seanteilerfully.com is kind of the the place to go.
If they just wanna have me come and speak to their company, that's the place to go. But you will post that in the show notes, Chaz, which means that they're already on gathering the Kings podcast. And it would behoove me to not point out that they are already an active listener to your content. So if they have not done so yet, I would encourage your listeners before they get to my information in the show notes they have to scroll past those little 5 stars in the little comment box.
And if they could actually use them for their intended purpose, which is to give you a 5 star Gathering, and let you know what they're enjoying about the content that you're bringing. What was an episode that they liked? Who was their favorite guest? What have you brought to them in the experts that you're bringing on to Gathering the king's Chaz. And if you can if you, the listener, can please let Chaz know if gonna help all of us.
First of all, it's gonna help me because there will be more 5 star ratings which boost the podcast, which means that more people will likely hear this episode. It's gonna help Chaz because for the same reasons, it's gonna boost the popularity, but it's gonna help you because then Chaz knows who to bring on. And the whole team behind gathering the Kings podcast.
And there's a lot of people involved in this enterprise, and we'll be able to better tailor the information for If you are willing to give Chaz and gathering the Kings podcast, a 5 star review and comments on why you are enjoying the content, The as my thank you to you, if you go into the show notes, you click on Sean Tyler Foley dot com, right at the top of the page is an offer to join my endless stages Facebook group. It's a private Facebook group.
If you come through the website, we will also give you a free PDF download of my number one best selling book, The power to speak naked. And we will give you access to my drop The Mike's speakers training program, which is a series of 7 videos each under five minutes. So over the course of a week, you can digest it in a coffee break, and they'll give you actionable steps to make you a better public speaker and make you more comfortable delivering material.
Chaz, it was an absolute joy and a pleasure to be on with you today. And thank you so much for bringing me on. You, sir, are a Kings, and I'm honored to be a king amongst your court. Thank you for listening to Gathering the The 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 Kings 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 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 ignite 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 The very successful business owners. I want you to go to Gathering. Kings 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.