On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. You're wondering why you're not being, productive. Well, it's because you're never doing anything to be productive. Right. And you're not holding yourself accountable because you're always thinking, alright. Well, I'll just do double tomorrow or the next day. You're always pushing that buck But if somebody's holding you accountable, the notepad, right, how many times have you ever rolled over some of your top threes?
In the next day, you're like, it's extra insight because that should never have rolled over. Right? Like, you're holding yourself accountable with your notepad. And what's the point if I'm making all this money I have beautiful 401 k set up. Right? I have all these things that are are set up for retirement, and it's just trapping me for the next 30 what's the point of me working for the next 30 years, not living my life with my loved ones for a retirement trip, right?
That 401 case gonna be great. I have a rough. I have all these things, but I have to kill myself in the next 30 years to get to it. And I hope I live to survive and enjoy it with my loved ones. Yeah. What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe gathering the Kings podcast. Got a king here on the stage. My brother, Nick. Nick. Thank you so much. Have him, man. Oh, bro, you gotta say your last name for me. Cecilia. Everybody gets scared. No. I was gonna say that. But just go with it.
It's just like the pizza, just like the island, whatever you wanna call it. Right? Yeah. Everybody gets scared right now. Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm, you know, we're 400 plus episodes in. I always ask ahead of time on the recording, but as soon as I as soon as I started, I'm like, you know what? Just gonna roll with it. Let the listeners hear me. Make a mistake here because it's real. It's real. But, dude, great last name. Love Chaz. And everyone's first question is, are you from Sicily?
And I'm like, no. I'm from Turkey. Yeah. From Peru. Right? And it doesn't even matter. You just stick with it. Don't laugh. Turn the other way, let them think what they think. Right? Yeah. They'll get a oh, oh, okay. And, like, on to next thing. Yeah. Exactly. Well, Nick, tell us what kind of business that you have. I know you've got just an incredible background. We're gonna get to that, but tell us what you're up to now today. So I have a couple different businesses really.
I'm an inter entrepreneur. So I would have a roofing company. We have a real estate business, right, where we buy, sell, invest, rentals, subtus, everything. And then we have a educational platform also where we do local, we have a local and DFW market, private mastermind that we also do. And now we're And that's for investors. Right? Yep. Yeah. All 4 business investors.
So we're gearing toward real estate, but we're opening up for business owners in general, right, because leads are leads and leads are, you know, sales. So Yeah. And and we can talk a little bit more about that, but I I I do know that, you know, from that from that perspective of investing, it's not just buying an asset, real estate, or a business. It's it's a it's about, you know, really a portfolio and and investing at a high level.
And so there's a there's a strategy to that, and so I'm sure we can get into some of that as as we go in the show here. But you you kinda gave several pieces here. In fact, I feel like I'm a little bit looking in the mirror because I've got multiple industries, different businesses going on at the same time. And so that takes a little bit of a unique person to to want to do different things to win at doing different things. So if you don't mind, tell me, like, why?
I mean, it's it seems like a little bit crazy probably because I'm listening that that you'd be so spread out. Yeah. I'm not good at any of those things. Right? Like, I'm not buying houses. I'm not selling roofs or building roofs. Right? Like, what I'm good at is building out systems and teams. So that's kind of where I've when I got into this, right, I was like, alright, how how can I be effective? I first originally started pairing up with my brother, Tony, and he's the real estate side.
He's been in it for about 20 years now. So how can I help him? Well, I'm not gonna go in something that has 15 years of experience and try to reinvent the wheel or show him how to buy real estate, but how I can help him is with networking and like, oh, you're not with this, let me fill that gap. So that's kinda how, like, I got into it and I stumbled into it and why I'm like, alright, why why roofing now? Wolfe, just so happens that I have another brother that's a roofer, right, and same thing.
He needed to help X Y Z, so I can fill in those gaps. It's just putting yourself in your specialties to use. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a genius. It's still matrix. So that's what we swear about. Love it, man. Yeah. You're you're absolutely right. The specialty or, you know, working genius of sorts. Like, if you stay in your lane, you know, a lot of what I heard you say is that you've lowered ego, and you've just been a humble kind of almost utility player.
But from the outside, that that's maybe what people see. And that's what I just heard, but but I know being in your position also kinda just being where I've okay. I know I'm good at these things. Similar to you, and so I'm I can add value in these ways. It's not just a utility player. There's an actual skill set or a genius to systems, scaling, teams, networking, like, all the things that you just said that you're really good at.
Why do you think or or what's the deep piece of you where those things make you come alive Chaz opposed to the roofing or the real estate, the the tactics of it. You know what I mean? No. So for me, everything's very I don't wanna say analytical, but it's ones and zeroes, right? Like, It's a yes or no. Right? I can do this or I can't do this. If you tell me you can't do this, right, if we're like, oh, I can't run a mile. Why? Right? I want to know, like, oh, your leg is broken.
Okay. No. Like, I don't care. You can you can walk or crawl a mile, but why can't you So if Chaz if there is a zero there, it better be a damn good reason. And I'm very brutally honest about that, right, too? So it just comes down to it and, listen, what what are you doing? What are you looking for? We're in sales. So you find your prospect or your your avatar right, what you're trying to look for, and you just go right at them. Right?
So whatever you're trying to sell, if I'm looking for distressed sellers, Right? That's what we're doing. We're just going straight at them. Don't don't pigeonhole and try to reinvent the wheel. Yeah. A lot of a lot of opportunity in what you just said. What before I go into your backdrop a little bit, tell us at after all the success. I mean, you've obviously you've positioned yourself Wolfe, multiple companies living in your genius, as you say. And so why still keep going? Why push?
Why why are you at it even today? I'm too behind me, honestly. But that's what I got into it before was an entrepreneur where I was working the 9 to 5, but I was working it ten times over. Right? I was I was a marine, so I was away from them. I was away from life for up to 10 months out of the year. Making great money. Don't get me wrong, but what's the point if I'm not spending it with my loved ones. Right?
So what keeps me going, and it's just my desire to keep building things Listen, if I was gonna retire, I would still build things. I was still dilly datto, right, if me and the wife went to the beach, I would still be sitting there on my phone, messing with people, and trying to make connections. So the whole facade of retiring, I it appeals to some people, but I think it's more so built up around age. But yeah.
Yeah. I think that there's, I mean, there's entrepreneurs who definitely wanna, quote, unquote, sit on the beach and retire, but I don't hear you saying Chaz. And I definitely don't ascribe to that either. What what my belief is is that as a doer, it sounds like you're a doer, that you love building things.
When I when I resonated, or when I settled my spirit down into the fact that I am a builder, whether I'm physically building something with my hands or a business or team or I'm investing, whatever it is that I'm doing Chaz far as putting something together, that is what I love. That's the work we're always gonna go after. So I'm interested hearing you say that you recognize your identity as someone who's always gonna be building something.
And if you stopped building AKA, what we call retirement, then you wouldn't actually be filled with joy. I mean, most of the people will wilt her way and die, right, like a body of breasts, that whole theory. Right? Yeah. So Yeah. We'll we'll take it we'll take it beyond a theory and say, you know, like, that's true. Yeah. Exactly. Things things that things that don't get used die. Let's just say it pretty plain. So, okay, let's go to your backdrop just in a half second here.
You kinda mentioned you were working the 95. Had a pretty unique career. Tell us a little bit about that. What what was that like? So I grew up on Long Island. You would think that I was a rich boy with, boats, but I wasn't. I was a poor boy. And then I went to college, SUNY Maritime, got my engineering degree from there. I'd go the whole talking about boats because everybody had SUNY as, like, rich boy from, like, used to ships and now all of a sudden they're going to maritime for a reason.
I was just looking for an engineering school, and it was a good one. So I got on. Next thing you know, I'm working out in the middle of the ocean doing that 9, 10 months out of the year. I did that for a couple years, and then my Damon, my oldest, right? He was he he had some issues, and he was non verbal until he was about 4. So there were times where I'm leaving for work 4 months out of the year. Right? I'm about to leave for 4 months, and I'm like, alright, buddy. I love you.
I'll talk to you later. You know, and he he would say, I don't love you. I love mommy. Right? Like, he would say that to me. And, alright, you want bastard. Right? Like, and then you can even. That hurts. Right? So It was getting too much. It was getting too hard. And again, what's the point if I'm making all this money. I have a beautiful 401 k set up, right? I have all these things that are are set up for retirement, and it's just trapping me for the next 30 years.
So what's the point of me working for the next 30 years? Not living my life with my loved ones for a retirement trap, right? That 401 k is gonna be great. I have a rough. I have all these things, but I have to kill myself in the next 30 years to get to it. And I hope I live to survive and enjoy it with my loved ones. Yeah. So, I was talking to my brother, Tony, and he's like, you know, you should just come home, get in the family business, your wife's entitled. My mom works at a title company.
My brothers are all in real estate. Alright. Well, I don't know anything about real estate. How the hell am I? I'm a race partner. I'm an engineer. Right? I literally have tattoos everywhere. How am I I'm gonna go for the oil field to engineering, and he's like, you don't have to. You don't need to know anything about that. All you need to know is how to talk to people. If you can go and have a conversation with people, that's all I need you to do. And I could.
I can go to a bar and talk to people, and that's all working was. So, when I got into it, I got into Art Money Lending. I was actually a loan officer. So, I went from engineering and you know, high KV power systems to now I'm selling hard money loans, talking about interest rates, and learning from the fire hose, but literally, I've lived my life by, Cortez is, sink the ships, you know, burn, or I burn the boats, burn the boats. Yeah. Just no turning back.
And You didn't burn the actual ship that you were working on before you came home. Right? Yeah. Okay. Good. Okay. Oh, I love I love the the transition there. Pretty stark difference. There's a lot of courage in that because major change of industry, major change of function, know, as an engineer, that's completely different than networking. What was the difficulty in that for you? I mean, obviously, you did well, but tell me what the difficulty was.
It was the again, like everything I just said, you I had to break chains, mental chains, right? Like, I had, I had a 401 k. I had a rough. I had all these things that my company was contributing to, right? So on my head, I'm thinking, oh, these are you know, unbelievable things. And when I left, I never, you know, you no longer have those safety nets. Chaz is a huge fear. Right? Like, that's a that's one of those, like, again, I have the 2 kids. I get that imposter syndrome all the time.
I'll have that that nightmare where I'm flying on a helicopter back out to a rig but my license is expired. I know it's expired, but everybody else on the rig doesn't know it's expired. So I'm out there working on the expired license and it's just a nightmare, right, from me. But that in my head is Chaz, what am I doing here? This is what I should be doing. This is what I went to school for So I'm constantly having those internal battles, right?
Like, wanting to go back to the security net, but you just gotta fight it. You gotta wake up every day. Say, you know, all those cheesy things. Right? Like wake up every day. Save five things that you're grateful for. You know, make your bed and get to work. Yeah. It sounds cheap, but it it's true. Yeah. There's a lot of there's a lot of, order, you know, in that. And so I was actually gonna follow that up with you know, how do you how did you break the mental chains?
Would you say that that was kind of the start of that as just creating order in a new way, or were there other things that you used? No. Absolutely. I may I'm a very regimented person from, I would say, from the the back around, right, military school and engineering. I everything goes on pen and paper. We have whiteboards everywhere. You have to get it out of your head onto pen and paper. And then from there, you can play around with it, but you have to constantly be have some sort of order.
Right? Like, get in, list your top 5 priorities for that day. Alright. These are my hot focus items and as your day comes along, you're gonna add things to it, but just having a pen and paper will make tremendous difference for people. And everybody's like, No, I got it in my head. I, I got it. Thank you. You're missing something. Yeah. Most likely.
Always until you realize until you take the time to write it down, then you're like, oh, or like myself, you know, I've got it, you know, my my list. I do something very similar to what you just described. And I highlight the top 3 because those are the ones like, absolutely. And so my eyes are drawn to that highlight. I'm like, uh-oh. It's Wednesday. And I got some work to do. But the really I guess the the impact here that I want you to kinda maybe help some of the listeners.
I've seen the impact, not only in my life, it sounds like in yours, there's been you know, clients of of of our mastermind, I'm sure clients of your mastermind that have experienced this where they're like, oh, I see the power of getting it out of my head into a piece of paper or onto a whiteboard, putting it into an actual system, letting it the implementation work, and go, oh, now I'm getting results. Right? But all those things are steps in the process. Obviously, you're an engineer.
So help break down for the listener right now who's going, I hear you. It sounds good, but, like, what do I do? So, again, this gonna sound cheesy, but I would go with the goals route. Right? Like, you have to know what your goals are. So, what does that mean? If you want to change your job, if you want to change your life, if you want to lose £20 if you wanna, learn how to ride a motorcycle, whatever the goal is, if you wanna make a $1,000,000, you have to put it down somewhere. Right?
Put it down somewhere where you're gonna see it, and it's always gonna be in your field of view, right, somewhere where it's always gonna It's spark a mental. Oh, there it is. Right? And then once you set that goal, you have to sit down and reverse engineer how you're gonna get to it. So if it's a 12 month goal of losing £20, right? Every month, I wanna lose £2, right, plus or minus, and then step it back. Right. Well, then I need to start working out once a week, twice a week. Right?
Like, Again, this is very broad and very basic that I'm talking about, but step it back into very small chunks, right? I had an old engineer, and you got a big, big rock, small hammer, just start chipping, breaking into the little rocks. Should keep on breaking into little roads. It's the only way to eat it. What's the power as as your you kinda gave us two things here. You said, originally, you gotta gotta get out of my head. Then now you're talking about breaking it down.
And and if we put these 2 together, it's, you know, breaking it down on paper that it's not in my head because everything you just said, I could still do in my head. Like, oh, okay. Cool. Like, I'm gonna lose £2 a month. I'm gonna work out a couple times a week. And I just it lives here, and I just and I just do it. Right? And it's not on the calendar. I'm not writing it down. I'm not I don't have any targets that I'm, like, you know, paying attention to, like you said, that are in front of me.
What's the magic when it comes, like, out of the head? Like, you talked about the first principle to setting those kind of micro targets and then merging those 2 together. What's the power for you? Commitment. Right? So the first step is always commitment. Like I was saying earlier, burn the ships what do I mean by that is I, when I quit my job, I went to 4 years of engineering school, I went. I sat for all my licensing US Coast card licensing exams. These are very hard exams for engineering.
Steam turbines, unlimited tonnage, all that fun stuff, they're comparable to, like, let's say, the bar for an engine, for a lawyer. When I quit, I just let my license run. I let it expire. If I tried to go back to work, I would have to start back over and renew my life I would have to go and take all those exams and test again. So going back that route isn't an option for me. Right?
I pulled my 401 k and I lived on that for the 1st 6 months and stuff, right, while I learn and give myself a something to pull back on and and feel safe. And then, escape to. So commitment is always step 1. If you're not ready to commit, hold off a little. But when you are, to jump wholeheartedly into it because that's the only way you're gonna do. Yeah. I was having a conversation here recently with, what it has become. A great friendship, but started off as a client relationship.
And this gentleman, he was kind of referencing the same level of commitment. He was you know, basically saying before he wasn't really committed. He thought he was. Right? He had thought he had made that decision where he'd gone all in. But there's a difference where, you know, you know, for sure Chaz no matter what, and then, you know, it's not just like, hey. I'm gonna work out. It's like, no. No. No. I'm working out. It's 3 days a week.
It's at 5:15 AM. I'm I'm losing the like, it's just really dialed in and detailed to your point. It's written down on a piece of paper that I'm looking at constantly. I'm obsessing over it. And until you get to that level, would you agree that they're just thinking about it. They're not actually committed. Yeah. Because you have to set alright. So you have to set your plan in motion to a point where you can't back out of Right. So let's just go back to the losing weight. Right?
I'm gonna I'm gonna work out 3 days a week, Monday to Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I'm gonna wake up at 5 AM. This, again, this is very drastic, so I'm saying it, but you can do whatever time you want, and then set that on paper. And then when that time comes and you're like, oh, I don't wanna get out of bed. No. You're not mad at yourself. You have to because you wrote it down. You're not met. You're you're met at the plan now. It's not your fault. It's the plan.
If you have problems with the plan, we'll change the plan. Maybe you'll push back to 7 o'clock. And you'll do 5 days a week instead of 3 heavy days. Right? Like, you can always adapt, but never you can't just cancel the plan, right? That's that's the sinking. So, it's sinking. You better start swimming. Yeah. A as a as a facilitator of your own, you know, group, even though maybe you guys are focused around investing, and maybe not fitness.
I'm sure commitments of all kinds come up in discussion. And so tell me just the power real quick. I know because obviously, I'm like you. I've not only do I facilitate, but I I specifically put people in my life on all these check marks. What's the power of not only committing like you're saying, and then having those little, like, you know, micro commitments along the way, but then putting people there as well. What what's the power there?
You mean, like, putting putting people in place to hold them accountable? Yeah. Yeah. Accountability, obviously, pressure, peer pressure. I mean, you call it whatever you want. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. That so that's one of our we have in the mastermind is we we sell forced accountability, right? Like, Listen, we're gonna sit down. We're gonna do a, a discovery call, and you're gonna say, Hey, listen, my business is lacking because X Y Z, I need more leads. I need more distress sellers.
Okay. Well, when we sit down and we say, alright. Well, are you are you making this many calls a week? Are you going out? Are you driving for dollars? Are you putting in the leg work? And a lot of times, it comes back to no x, y, z. Alright. Well, it's that simple. Alright. You're you're wondering why you're not being, productive. Well, it's because you're never doing anything to be productive. Right. And you're not holding yourself accountable because you're always thinking, alright.
Well, I'll just do double tomorrow or the next day. You're always pushing that buck But if somebody's holding you accountable, the notepad, right, how many times have you ever rolled over some of your top threes? In the next day, you're like, it's an extra anxiety because that should never have rolled over. Right? Like, you're holding yourself accountable with your notepad. 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. Yeah. Exactly. You're right. It's simple, but what's simple is also easy not to do.
And so you you bring up, an interesting just from, like, a production standpoint, again, using your engineering mind here, I'm not an engineer, but I have a sales background. And so it's like, anytime. 100% of the time, no exaggeration when a sales rep that I was either training or was on my team or has been part of my companies, anytime that they're not performing, 100% of the time, there is some sort of a thing. Like, what you're saying? I wasn't driving enough. I wasn't making a phone call.
They think that they are. They think that they're working because they're busy, but they're not actually doing the things that are necessary to get the result that they're looking for, which seems so simple. Just do the things that get you the result, but we find ourselves busy with other things. Talk to that for a second. Is it is it focus? Is it is it commitment? Is it accountability? Is it a mixture of all these things? Like, how do I how do I win in this? Everybody is different.
That's one thing I didn't find out about until after I got into this Wolfe, right? When I was offshore, Man, everybody's rough, and everybody's just working. Right? Like, there's no nobody's dealing with anxiety offshore. You have anxiety, you just go and yell and curse and smoke cigarettes on the back deck. Right? Like, there's no thing. No such things as Chaz. Right? So Yeah. When I came here, and now I'm like, well, when I'm hiring people, now I'm giving them a disc disc test, right?
I'm I'm seeing what type of analytical brain they are, if they're, dominant, all that thing. I didn't know what the hell that was before. Yeah. But it's something that I had to learn and understand Right? No two people are the same. When I first got into this, I was working for, great guy in the loan industry. But he was very pick up the phone and dial. You have to make your 250 calls x, y, z. Like, that didn't work for me. Right? And just my my brain, I needed to time block, stuff like that.
So Right. I could still do it, but I did it a completely different way. And me and him never, never were seeing eye to eye like that, right? Because again, it was just two different styles. Well, since nothing wrong, Right? Like, it it was proven, but you have to understand what you're capable of. So Same thing going back to holding yourself accountable. If you know that you can't make your 250 calls, right, if you're getting lost in the weeds, you know, doing the squirrel, Right? Whatever.
That's right. Hold yourself accountable. Get a get a get a piece of paper and say for the next 20 minutes, I'm gonna call as many people, and then I'm gonna go fuck off for in the next hour. Pardon my French. But you're gonna go do something for the next 30 minutes. You're gonna reward yourself then you're gonna sit back down and you're gonna hit it for the next 30 minutes. Right? Whatever it is. You're right. Think about it in sports. Right? Doing wind sprints.
Get them, get them out of the way, and then he goes to the gym. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great analogy. I used to have a sales guy on my team. We use a culture index. So similar to disc, but there's a few additional pieces that they that they survey that I really like about the culture next that the disc doesn't do, but one of which is called the energy unit. And so I I had the sales rep who, based on the profile, and then as well as the energy units, it was just really low.
And it doesn't mean that he's a bad guy. I'm still great friends with him today. But I needed him to do things a little different. So two things that I did with him was, number 1, he had a standing desk. He was the only guy that Chaz I I made sure that the company I've went out of my way. I was like, I need this guy right here to have a standing desk because I because when he sat down, He, like, he would slouch back in his chair. And not because he was a lazy individual, he wanted to win.
It's just the design of how his his human is. Okay. Fine. So you gotta I need you to stand up. And then on the hour, every hour, he would step outside and get a 3 to 5 minute, like, refresher of sunlight, glass of water, and then he'd come back. Like, on the hour every hour without fail, he didn't want to. I'm like, no. No. No. You are going outside. Because I needed him to refresh those battery Chaz that that that those energy units. And it's okay.
Once you understand, that's what I'm hearing you say is once you understand who you are, then it's like, oh, okay. Well, I just need create a system that works for me. I still have to make the phone calls or whatever the activity is that's gonna give me the result. I just need to figure out a way Chaz works for me. It may not be exactly like Nick. It may not be exactly Chaz mean, that'd be exactly like that guru who's telling me, you know, I gotta do it all in this order, but I got okay.
So instead, I'm gonna time block, and I'm gonna give myself a little reward or whatever in between. But I gotta make it work for me. Am I hearing you right? No. Absolutely. You have to sit there and hold yourself accountable. Right? But Chaz, as we grow, because I'm not only am I constantly holding myself accountable, I'm trying to hold everybody out there accountable, and I understand every one of my guys are all different.
So I, like you were just saying, I treat everyone different Some are harder on, some their, you know, love language is yelling, right, like getting yelled at. Right? So everybody has their own strengths, weaknesses, personality types, right, you have to be able to work with them. Right? Don't hire somebody for a position if they're not mentally there for Chaz. Right? You don't take an extrovert, or you don't take an introvert and put them in an extrovert position, right?
You're just gonna try to you're gonna burn more money and try to force that person to change than anything. Yeah. Yeah. You're burn you're gonna burn the person, actually. Okay. So you've given us actually a lot of things that you've done proactively in your business, the ability to make really great moves. Do any of these stick out as, you know, like, wow.
This was probably just the most impactful or maybe a decision that you've made that you haven't shared with us, where you would just do it over and over and over and something that we can go implement in our business. Team meetings, I think, is something that you need to have. K. But at the same time, not too many. I I know some companies try to do team meetings once a day, once twice a day, right, before work, after work, you'll burn people out.
With that being said, we do Monday, Monday touch meetings, right? So everybody comes in, and touches for the week, right, first thing. How was your week? How was your weekend, right, touch on home and then moving forward, what do we have planned? What are we following up with from last week? And then everybody goes and does their job, right? Like, don't micromanage, but Chaz Wolfe thing for me was life changing. In the beginning, Tony and I were we were stepping over people.
We were re you know, he was doing his job. I was doing my job, and he would do my job, and I would do his job. And then just because we thought somebody was catching it, and then we would drop a ball, and then finally we're like, Let's come together, let's start having more regular meetings, stuff like that. Yeah. And like I was saying earlier, once you start systemizing it, and treating me like a business, the sooner, the better, right?
A lot of times people wanna get into these things and like, I'm gonna I'm gonna start doing x. I'm gonna start selling, but they never treat it like a business. They start doing it as a side gig, and then they'll start doing it full time. But one of the best things I've ever heard was always you always have to build out the foundation, otherwise, it to your business before you start scaling. Otherwise, you're gonna scale Chaz. And if you're scaling chaos, you're you're just gonna collapse.
So that is Yeah. That was a huge one. Okay. So here we are. The listeners, you know, they're like, okay. I gotta You know, I gotta put, some meetings in place, but I but but not too many meetings. You know, there was a comment that I heard the other day. I was in a training, and they said, meetings are the playground or the graveyard for leaders.
And meaning that this is where you either make or break a lot of things like you said, you can either bring clarity, which then activates confidence and, hey. Here we go. We're on the same page. You're going this way. I'm going this way. This is what we're trying to accomplish. Or there's confusion, or there's even too too many meetings, and now I'm just burnt out. And so what's the first thing that the listeners should do?
If they're listening to you right now, maybe they're in that mode where they're they're not treating it like a business. Meaning, they're not taking it serious enough to meet with their people regularly. What Wolfe be the first thing that they should do? Listen, even if you're a one one stop shop sorry. That's not even the right analogy. But even if you're a one man show there you go.
Even if you're a one man show, wake up in the morning, grab a cup of coffee, sit down in the morning, and have a meeting with yourself. Right? Like, go over the day. You have to sit down and break down what what you're going to, right? The second you start doing that, you will be more productive. Right?
You will start saying, oh, well, actually I have a I have a pretty easy day today, I can fill in spots here or there or the other, right, or, oh, shit, I have a very busy day or, you know, you might start to find weaknesses And then the, that's when you're like, alright. Well, I can start implementing other things to fix it. So just giving yourself 15 minutes That's all you need. Doesn't have to be an hour. Doesn't have to be long.
Listen, in the oil field, we have a 150 people on the rig at one time. And every day, they're we're working 12 hour shifts. We do 2 meetings. So if you wake up, you go to breakfast, you go down, and you have 15 minute meeting with the entire rig that's going out for the next 12 hours, and everybody on that break knows what every other department is doing for that day. Just so they're not stepping on toes. And and it's quick. It's meaningless. It's very efficient.
And then they go out and throw branches at each other and bunch of grease monkeys. Right? Like, they're just pure mayhem, but you're you're very controlled. You're setting up your meeting for that day. And you're going out and crushing your goals. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I think that clarity is what I hear you saying Chaz is the major benefit there.
And for those that are listening that feel like they're chasing their tail all the time, which is a lot of entrepreneurs a lot of times until you start putting some of these very simple things in place, but it's, like, I have to be able to connect in the right ways or even with my team, even if you've scaled and you have a team, a 5 or 10 or 50, I've I've met a lot of entrepreneurs who have a team of 50, and it's chaos.
And it's like just a little bit of order, a little bit of thinking ahead being proactive versus reactive is, in essence, what Nick has given to you. So slow down to speed up is another little phrase there. What about a bad decision, Nick? Like, something that, I mean, you obviously pretty calculated being an engineer, but What's something that you've done? Just like, dude, don't do this. I'm hiring. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. So so this is one of my fault. Right?
Like, when I was getting into it, I'm not a hiring person. I'm not an HR. So now I'm doing all these interviews, and I'm this was before I was doing this test and stuff like Chaz. Right? Sure. One of my first hires I shouldn't have hired him. It was a it was just not a right fit, right? Like I was saying, I thought I thought it was a right fit for the job. We were trying to force around pegging a square Wolfe, and we lost so much money. That individual, we failed him all around, right?
Like just So with that being said, slow to hire, quick to fire. That's always a good one, but really going back to the making sure you're ready to scale. Right? Make sure that you're that person you're gonna need and they're gonna fit a Wolfe. They're gonna solve something, right, But then on the same time, don't don't wait around for years waiting for it. Oh, I'd get into so many people and they're they're waiting to scale. They're waiting to scale them.
And I'm like, you just need to to let go. Right? A lot of times, people have trouble letting go, and that's what holds them back, but It's a fine line. And I know I've been doing this wishy washy thing where I say one extreme than the other, but Yeah. Make sure you're ironing for the right reasons and then treating them Right? That's another thing I hear all the time, harsh. Yeah. I heard you say that you you didn't serve them well because you didn't, a, have a system.
You weren't ready to scale. You're saying. And then, b, because you you really didn't know the description of what they were gonna be doing, there was no system, then you weren't able to really find the right person top of that, you weren't using the personality assessment. There's just a lot of key factors that that you just gave that make a really great hiring process. Talk to, I mean, you you kinda just alluded to a second there.
You've because you've been here and then here, not not flip floppy. It's both and. And that's what I want the listener to understand. It it has to be both and. You have to be ready to scale, but you can't wait forever. It can't be perfect. Right? And so if they're listening to you and and they're they're okay. How do I know when is the perfect time? You know, because I don't I don't wanna scale it yet because it feels chaotic, but if I wait forever, it's it's never gonna be perfect.
There's always gonna be some level of chaos. How do I know when to just go? So for an for perfect example, it's just going back to my that hire that we were just talking about. When I say I failed him, I failed him, and when I hired, I probably shouldn't. I definitely should not have hired him. I should have, you know, declined them and then kept on searching.
My my fault wasn't looking and hiring the position, it was taking the first person that applied and then not understanding how to hold an interview when we held the interview, my brother, Tony, did 90% of the talking. And I'm like, I'm like, oh, you need them to talk. Right? Well, you still hired him. Yeah. No. Like, these are all the red flags that we were throwing up, and I'm like, so with that being said, pump your brakes, right? That's where it goes slow to hire, right?
Interview a couple of people, make sure that they are the right fit for that job. He wasn't the right fit for that job, and I was ask asking him to be who he's not, and that's where I set him up for failure. So, again, I would have been better off not hiring him. For him himself also. So this goes back to myself. Right? You always gotta be able to hold yourself accountable.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that some of the some of the, you know, the action in there or the activation, maybe rather, is you have to go. Like, you learn some of Chaz? By doing it. And then you're like, ugh. Right? So that's half of it is that you have to you gotta just do. You gotta take action. You gotta make You gotta hire somebody when maybe you aren't ready or maybe it's not the right person. And so it's like you're saying, it's tongue and cheek.
It's, you know, to the best of your ability you wanna look at going, okay. When I hire this person, And day 1, what are they gonna be doing? Because there's a lot of times I've talked to a client. They're like, well, we need to hire, and I start building a sales team. Okay. Great. What's the CRM? Where are your leads? You know, like, there's a lot of things that and because, of course, you're gonna wanna hire a qualified salesperson. You don't wanna just hire somebody brand new.
Okay. Fine. So that person's gonna they're gonna demand things to do their job properly, and you don't have any of those things currently. And it doesn't mean that you can't hire a guy and he can't work off of a piece of paper and a telephone. Like, that's possible too. I just mean that he's probably not gonna stick around for very long. And one of the downsides of hiring people is that they have to eat, right? So it sucks.
So you have to once you start hiring people, you they're their food is your is on your mind now, right? You have to make sure that they're making a living. So be ready for it. Yeah. I love that. Alright. Well, let's talk about, I mean, you you've obviously integrated family in your business from a from, like, a brother and family perspective.
I'm sure there's other things that come into your to your thought when you think about your your kids and your wife, that level of family, but I'm gonna just bring family to the table for a second. I'm just a big fan of the word obsession. We've talked a lot about that already here today and going all in. And and I think that every entrepreneur listening right now knows how to do that in their business. How have you, though, Nick been able to do that and obsess over your kids?
You already made a big decision to come back from the oil field and go all in with them. But how practically does that look for you on a daily when you're trying to obsess and grow the businesses, but yet also still be, you know, super dad, super husband, that type of thing. One of the one of the biggest I and I didn't start doing until January this year, but one of the biggest changes was I stopped taking my laptop home.
For me, that was You mean you mean the the it it waited for you until the next day? Man, it was you know, but like, again, that was, that was, I, I pulled myself out of sales and when I did that, but that was a huge light off, right? Like, letting go and setting business hours, that's huge. And it took me a while to realize, like, you always from a sales perspective, we wanna be there for our clients because they appreciate it, right?
Like Chaz But what I found quickly is they don't appreciate it for that much. Right? Like, when times get tough, they're gonna leave you, right? Like, for whatever reason. So for an example, I was in mortgages. I was in loans, right? I remember hard money loans and all Chaz. Rates went through the sky, and I was losing clients that I had for years over an 8th of a rate And these are people that I would talk to on the weekends on Sunday. I was on vacation.
One of my best clients, he would call me. I'm pick up his phone on a Sunday, and I would answer. I'd be like, you're lucky it's you. Otherwise, I'm not talking to anybody, and I would be at Great Wolf Lodge working for this individual. But when rates went up a little, he left and and he's like, oh, it's just business. You gotta understand. And I said, no, I understand that I was giving you a different treatment than what you were giving me. And he's like, well, you took this really personal.
I was like, no, I no. I am, but for that reason, because at the time, I wasn't. I was treating it like my entire life, and it was, but You have to be able to break the 2. Right? You're working and you're doing this like it is your life, like everything matters, and it does. But you have to be able to disconnect, put the phone down, put whatever, set aside, t come home, take off your work boots, Right. And unwind. Right?
Yeah. Yeah. I love the the the depiction that you gave in that in that story because it wasn't that your client you had this epiphany that the clients weren't as important and that you now are gonna put all your focus on your family. It's just Chaz, well, first off, that there's a distinction between if I'm in business, then great. If I'm not in the business hours, then that means I'm in my family time or whatever. And And then now that's my focus, what's what I heard you say.
But and, also, it doesn't mean that now that I've got my family time designated, It doesn't mean that I don't care about my clients or that it's only business to me now. I didn't hear you say that. I heard I heard you say that I'm gonna take amazing care of you, but just in a in a limited way so that I can also serve the other people in my in my life. It did I hear that right? Yeah. No. And it it took a minute for me to realize that I, I had people misaligned, right?
Like, I was putting because again, you you got you're chasing that dollar in the beginning, right? So it wasn't until later on that I realized, like, you gotta realign sometimes. And Always, always come back and and recheck yourself, right? Make sure you're you're everything is in alignment where you're where your goals are, right, everything. Yes. Some it yeah.
I heard on a podcast the other day, and as a gentleman speaking, he said, you know, the only person or people that are gonna remember that that you hustled for 17 hours a day are your kids. And I could spend that in a good way and say that the life that you're creating that they're gonna remember and the legacy and, you know, maybe the wealth generation. But at some point, the 17 hours has to be just more evenly dis distributed.
I'm I'm not a fan of the work balance, but I am a fan of going, look, there's a period of time where maybe it does require a higher level of attention. Okay. Fine. But at the end of the day, to this guy's point, my kids, same ages, about yours, are the ones I'm doing it for. And if I'm if I'm real on that, then I can be all in. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna do more. We already talked about being doers. I'm gonna do more than most because I'm dialed in. I'm focused.
I got my my priority list, like, like, everything Nick's given to you guys, but then I also can do the other pieces too. If you if you set it up in a way where you have everything dialed in and systemized, right, like to an extent, it just your life ends up running on autopilot almost, right? Like, where you can Alright. And, you know, from this time this time, I'm going to the gym. From this time this time, I'm doing X. I got calls and then it's dinner time.
I got I'm gonna read to the kids and then bedtime and whatever. Right? But setting those things in place, even for your kids, is great. Right? Like, my kids know, if, what throws me for a loop is when a daylight savings changes, and then you're trying to, oh, it's time for bed. And I'm like, but it's still like that. Oh, man. Yep. I've been trying to explain to them what the sun does and Yeah. Just trying to brush your teeth. That's right. That's right. I've been right there in that place.
Sounds like we have a pretty similar evening routine. But honestly, that's some of my most precious time. I I've done that from the beginning. Sounds like you have as well, but And and there have been moments where I slipped in the door. I spent the 10 minutes right before bedtime, and those were just as powerful. Chaz I don't want that to always be just 10 minutes. I'm looking for 2 or 3 hours, typically, but it's always been at least 10 minutes.
So I think that there's a there's a priority or a commitment to your point from, you know, earlier in the show. Right? Any everybody always says, like, Wolfe, do you love about being, you know, your own boss or an entrepreneur or whatever you want to say? And my favorite thing in the world is just taking my kids to the office. Right? Like, having that freedom yesterday, I had to take him to the doctors. And then after that, he had a half day.
So he spent it with me and, like, we just rode around, came to the office, couch and TV and just having that availability to have them in my life, right, at any time, from what I was used to is just night and Day. So Yeah. People always ask me, like, would you go back offshore? You couldn't pay me. You couldn't pay me enough money to to go back, right? To give up what I've built in a sense, right? And it's not just because what I built is my time. Right?
That's what I've realized that I was giving away. Yeah. Yeah. The result of those systems that you've been so so prudent in building is time. And, obviously, you can fill that time with really special moments. Okay. I got one last question here for you, Nick. As we wrap up, I wanna know, especially with you being, you know, kind of in that similar situation that we just talked about as far as being able to go back and you still have, obviously, you wouldn't.
If you could go back in time, though, and you could whisper in the younger Nick's ear. What would you tell him? I man, I'd stop being a a dill hole. I I was the the typical troubled child, right? I, you know, how many people I talked to and they give me, like, the back end compliment of, like, I'm so proud of you. I never it because, again, I was trouble team. Never thought you'd amount to much, but here you are. Exactly. And they're so proud of me and happy.
And at the same time, I hate myself for it. With that being said, I don't know if I would change it, right? Like, is it it made me who I am. So if I can go back and give myself any insight, it would be that, mental, like, The Wolfe, what I was saying earlier, everybody's different inside, that took me until I was 30 to realize that anxiety and all of those things, they're all natural. They're all normal.
And when you're having a rough moment and you're in your own head talking, you're, like, fighting in your your own worst enemy and, like, All of those moments, that's all noise. And you're giving it to yourself, and it took me a while to realize that. So if I can go back and whisper anything, it would be, Hey, listen, it's normal. Just keep going. Yeah. I almost I had a picture of you just, like, you know, quiet down. It's okay. Yeah. And it's just things will get better.
You just gotta keep on going. Right? The only the only time they don't get better is if you stop. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. I heard a quote, I don't know, a couple months ago, that makes me think of this moment where it said life will get better and better forever and ever. And I was just like, wait. Say that again. Life will get better and better forever and ever. It's like, wow, man. Is that if that's a real belief of yours, for real.
If you genuinely believe that life will get better and better forever and ever, then let's keep going. Right? Nick, you've been incredible. First off, thank you for sharing. How can the listener find you? Number 1, there's a couple different things that you got going on. You're in the DFW area if if they need roofing services, if they need real estate services, they wanna learn how to do what you do in real estate. You've got soft products for them to be able to learn.
If they're investing in their real estate and they wanna join a mastermind group, how can they find you? So go to REIAF Chaz stands for Real Estate Investing as We're gonna keep everything pretty simple and confident. So reaf.com. That's our web site. That's for the mastermind. We're on YouTube. We're about to break a 100,000 subscribers, the Sissilian brothers, So check us out on Facebook, TikTok, all of those fun things. It's amazing. Well, you you are no short of the the title of king.
And so, I appreciate you being here, taking your time with us, sharing, vulnerability. We wish you nothing but success in all of your endeavors. Thanks for being here, brother. I appreciate you very much for having me, 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 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 communities, and here's what we believe, that in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy.
So if that relates and and resonates with you and you know that you need people around you, sharp qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gathering the king's dot com. I want you to take a look at what we're doing if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Talk soon.