On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. I'd like to say I have a PhD in failure with all those mistakes so I can help somebody avoid some of those things and move along the path quicker. That's, really what gives me that fulfillment joy that people were always talking about. I didn't think it would happen to me. But it did happen, and it will happen to a certain percentage of us when we're not expecting it. So that was one of the most painful financial decisions I've made.
The only way we can grow Chaz people and as business owners. And as our companies grow, is by embracing that discomfort a few minutes ago. We're talking about, oh, I'd heard this before or whatever. Wolfe, good because you probably need to hear it again. What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe, gathering the Kings podcast, coming back to get here today with another king on the stage. My brother Robert Poole. How are we doing this morning, Robert? Yeah. Perfect. I don't know.
I'm talking to you, Chaz. Well, we're gonna have to disseminate that down, figure out why the heck that that that matters to you, but I appreciate that nonetheless. We're we're recording pretty early here this morning, and at least really early for you. I appreciate your attentiveness to not only just your your business and wanting to share with people what you do, but there's gonna be a lot of value here because of what you do. So I'm excited for that.
I'm excited for the listeners to pay close attention. They're gonna get plenty here today. So, Robert, tell us what kind of business that you got? Yes. Absolutely. My business is set up. Total business results. We're a b to b marketing firm. Kind of our specialty has always been the cold calling in particular with B2B, but we have, in recent years, branched out and started offering additional services to our clients.
So we do everything from educational work, you know, seminars, educational type of stuff, events, mostly virtually, we do business coaching, which is sort of my specialty and background, and then we also offer some implementation services along with the need to be cold calling. We also do, you know, limited social media stuff, management, advertising, a website design, you know, pretty much it's driven by whether a client's need And so that's that's where our business is right now. I love it.
I love it. You've got to get your hand and a few things that would be valuable for some of these listeners. I wanna talk, obviously, about your story and and some of your services and stuff. But before we do that, why are you an entrepreneur? Why why are you what's the bigger purpose? Maybe even below that, what why are you after this thing called life? What's it gets you excited?
You know, that's a that's always a good question because and I think it changes depending on where we are in our stage in business, our stage in life, I, you know, this may sound bad, but I'm just being real. When I when I started out, it was because what a lot of people do is you know, in my twenties, when I got out of the military, you know, I wanted to make money. I wanted to get rich. You know?
And I also had enough of having a a permanent boss like in the military, And so I wanted to didn't wanna be limited. So so many years, that was really my focus was making money. Yeah. And it it didn't it I just jumped from opportunity opportunity and what I thought was best to do that, which is great.
You know, I mean, hey, we're all in business to make money to start off with, but I think as I grew and I experienced different things in my business career and in my personal life, that that kind of shifted where I realized that I wasn't really in business for me. I was in business to serve other people, and that was a a huge transition. And I'm a man of faith.
And so I believe that I'm put on this earth with certain skill sets and one of those skill sets is in business and being able to help other business owners based upon the experiences that I've had. And so that's really my passion is to help others skip some of the mistakes because I've made a lot of them I like to say I have a PhD in failure.
And, you know, I with all those mistakes, if I can help somebody avoid some of those things and move along the path quicker, that's really what gives me that fulfillment joy that people were always talking about. It sound kinda cheesy, but it really does. As you get older and get more mature in business and in life, I think you start to value those things. Yeah. That's a great answer.
I love the the acceleration of that via maturity, via, you know, failures, via all the things that that we We do experience over the course of time. It changes our perspective. For for you, you mentioned military. First, I'll thank you for your service. But give us a description there. I mean, you kinda painted that as a picture of, like, a box and you were kinda in it. And then you were like, anything to do to get out of it.
Tell us, I mean, give us your, maybe, experience to kinda give us that transition there. Yeah. Absolutely. I, you know, I grew up. My father was in the army and not career, but so I always had And I was always been very patriotic family, and so, you know, service was always important. And so I was driven towards Chaz, and So I was able to get into West Point and Chaz which is the the academy for the army.
And then my army officer afterwards And when I got out where I graduated from West Point and and started as an officer, it was right in the the mid nineties where, you know, for lack of a better term, I think the military as a country, we're a little bit unsure of where to go and how to use the military. We were doing things like peacekeeping missions and you know, humanitarian things like going to Haiti, my unit did.
I I didn't go on that deployment, but, you know, to basically help with logistics and everything, but it wasn't I I kinda signed up to, you know, let's face it, fight the big bad Soviets, which is what I grew up with, and and that all kind of went away in the mid nineties, and I felt Chaz in the I felt the military was directionless at the time, and so I got a little bit disillusioned with it.
And I also I think my personality, I realized that I tend to be, for lack of a better term, a little rebellious. When I when it comes to authority, I, you know, I love all in great leaders. I have no problem with that and admire people, but sometimes in bureaucracies, you end up following leaders that, yeah, you know, you've fallen because you have to nut because they're a good leader, and that drove me nuts.
And so when I got out, I I really Wanted to get into entrepreneurship to be able to sort of write my own ticket and all that. And so when I got out, I did a variety of sales jobs, everything from commercial real estate, to you know, head hunting, corporate head hunting. You know, I did the financial consulting. I I did a variety of things, but it all sales oriented because I know and knew then that sales is, you know, what drives our companies. Yeah. And is the oxygen, if you will.
So I figured I had to get good at that first and And that kinda kick started my my entrepreneurial career that came out of the military at a a fantastic experience in the military at West Point, and you know, taught me a lot of those lessons that, you know, just proved invaluable in business. And that's why I always highly recommend it, you know, service or any young person because you learned so many great valuable lessons that you can use in life. So real positive experience overall.
Yeah. And I appreciate the, maybe, the distinct between structure and being maybe boxed in. I think you did a great job there of of kinda given the the distinction, but You you mentioned sales. I'm a big sales guy as Wolfe. Big history. I know that you have a huge history in cold calling, and now you even offer that as a service, like you said.
Let's let's talk about cold calling for a second because there's a lot of people that know there should be cold calls happening in their business, or some sort of outreach. Let's just say that because maybe cold calls isn't applicable, even though you and I both know probably every business could use a cold caller too. Talk about that for you. Like, how did you learn how to cold call? What's the importance of cold calling? Why do you offer it as a service?
Like, you've been in that lane for a long time. Give us a little juice there. Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, cold calling is one of those things that particularly these days, you know, the let's face the buzz is digital marketing, and a lot of people think that that cold calling is obsolete or, you know, it doesn't work anymore.
And that's understandable because, I mean, when you've a lot of people think of cold calling, they think of you know, the eighties nineties type of, you know, getting the the call, you know, interrupting your dinner type of thing. And Chaz that residential consumer based cold calling is definitely gone. Most of the calls you get today or some kind of scam. But so we started, or I started back in, you know, the mid nineties cold calling, and it was primarily out of necessity.
There was The internet was just coming online. There wasn't really any kind of digital marketing. And so, you know, when you're starting out, a lot of times you don't have the money for advertising and, you know, things like that. And so I I started in and out of necessity and just started to learn you know, by by experience a lot of it and, you know, it was in different coaching programs. I was heavily into real estate doing a lot of cold calling then.
And, you know, you start doing thousands of cold calls. Eventually, you kinda figure things out. Right. And, you know, I I stopped counting, I think, when I was about 15,000 cold calls in, And so on, you know, over the years, I figured I'd probably done several 100,000. And, you know, experience is the best teacher, as you know, for anything in life, but Cokelling is one of those things that that was was very relevant back then, and it's still relevant today.
But, yeah, as you mentioned, Chaz, it has to be with the right type of business. I mean, it's a good experience for anyone to do. Most people will have a fear of cold calling like they do of death. You know, it's right up there next to know, public speaking or something. Uh-huh. But it's a skill that can be learned like anything else. And, but it's also one of those things that you know, there's a lot of passive activity in marketing.
Cold calling has the benefit of you're you're putting somebody on the spot, you know, unlike You're trying to get them to click or you're trying to get them to call you or or things like that with cold calling, you're forcing them to make a decision right now. And for the right type of businesses in in B2B, typically, it's higher ticket items, you know, that makes more sense. You know, if you've Chaz get the right list of people to get access to them.
And it's just like everything, it's your your right market. We did a survey of some of our client services. 2 or 3 years ago. And, you know, we did a survey of what, you know, how do you consume things? You know, how do you do marketing your business? And how do people approach you in we were just shocked because I think it was 72% of our clients pretty much said they don't use social media. In their business at all. And and, of course, that's changed a few, you know, as it goes on.
But the point is that the those small business owners are not reacting. They're not sitting there on Facebook all day. And so there's a there are different ways to reach them. A lot of times, those business owners you know, we'll pick up the phone if their receptionist is out for the day, you know, so you'll get to the owner that way. And they respond much better to a human because we're all starving for that.
So Yeah. I know there's a long answer, but, you know, co calling is is definitely effective in the right context. And it's not something that you necessarily have to do yourself. There's companies like us. You know, I think it's a great exercise for people to get comfortable with it to learn how to do it themselves. Right.
You know, as a business owner, just in general, I think we should be able to do most of the roles that are in our company, maybe not doing well, but have a understanding of how they work. Yeah. So cold calling is one of those things that I think, that we should all have an understanding of. Yeah. I I agree with you. What do you think about just maybe the the shifting of the mind of what a cold call is?
I'm just thinking of like you know, most business owners, even, you know, like, thinking of a guy that just got started this last year, right, and he's like, okay, I gotta go get new business. Well, he's probably gonna join, like, a local, like, lunch meetup or a chamber of commerce, or he's gonna you know, call his friends and family and say, hey, I'm now in business to do whatever. I mean, that's kinda cold calling.
You know, whether I know this person well, I've decided that would maybe wouldn't be considered a cold call, but it's outreach. And so I think that's why in my mind, if if I'm outreach, if I'm reaching out to people that I know or don't know, it doesn't have to be this, like, strenuous, like, another cold call. You know, I went to the chamber. I had lunch. I shook hands with 10 or 15 people. I got a couple cards. I'm gonna follow-up with them and have an individual lunch.
That's called networking, but That was the same as me making 10 phone calls. And just, hey, I'm a local business owner. I do marketing, and you are a contractor. And I'd like to see if I can help you, or You wanna grab lunch. Like, it's the same thing. Right? Yeah. The bigger picture is that it's this misperception of sales that I think a lot of people have in in a lot of business owners.
We think, you know, a lot of business owners, let's face it, think, well, you know, I'm I'm I'm not a salesperson. I don't like to sell. I hate selling any number of that sentiment. And The what it's a misunderstanding because everyone in life is a salesperson. We just don't realize it. Like, you're talking about Chaz, you know, if If you're talking to people and you're telling about your business, you're selling.
And, you know, if you're talking to your friends, you know, for instance, you know, you just saw a great movie. What do you do when you see a great movie? Can you tell your friends about it? You know, hey. Wow. I saw this great movie with a blah blah actor in it, and I wasn't expecting much, but it really turned out great. And here's story line, and you should go see it. In fact, I'll go see it again. You wanna do it Friday.
And you just did the hook story close on them, but you just didn't even realize it. And so it's the same thing with cold coin. And I think if we change our mentality to, you know, hey. I'm a business professional. I own a business or, you know, representing a business. And I'm just gonna talk to other businesses that may have a need for our service, and I've gotta find those that do. And if I don't reach out to those people, then I'm actually doing them a disservice by not doing that.
They're they need my service. There's somebody out there that needs it desperately needs it. They're gonna get taken by another company that doesn't do a good job. It doesn't have good ethics. And so it's our moral responsibility to get out there and and ask them and say, hey. I'm here to help you. And I said, but it's like, exactly like you said, it's a misperception because we do it all the time. We just don't even realize it.
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting that you kinda almost categorized it as a duty. I've thought that way for a long time. One of my one of the part of my visualization that I read through every morning Gathering the Kings is a peer to peer mastermind group of entrepreneurs. And part of the what I read is that that there's incredible owners that are already looking for exactly what we do. And and I have to meet them. Like, it's my duty. It's my obligation because they they need what we have.
And you can fill that in with whatever business that you have. For me, I'm helping people with a community and helping them better themselves and become better business owners, but then obviously I've read their part of their life. And so it's like, okay. I can build decks or I can do marketing or I can do whatever.
And it's like the scenario still remains the same Chaz there are people out there literally, to Robert's point, that needs your service, that today wrote down in their goals for q 1, need to find a good marketing agency. Or I need to I need to we we're gonna redo our deck this year. They've they've wrote it. They've written it down, and they're looking for a high quality company, and then it Chaz as a matter of you reaching out to them in some form or fashion, phone call, networking, podcast.
I I mean, whatever whatever works. Okay? Alright. So, Robert, you've given us a little bit of a story here on this line. I appreciate that. You mentioned that you've got hundreds of failures. I'm only gonna beg you for one. Okay? But but I want it juicy, man. I wanna know, like, how much money did you lose? What how how terrible was it? It just did just did you spin into some sort of a downward spiral? Like, give us the juice of this terrible situation.
Yeah. Absolutely. I I think Probably the the number one thing that's affected my business probably in the last 6, 7 years. And now, in an event that happened, I think that might be the most relevant wasn't something that I initiated as far as a mistake, but well, part of it, anyway, but I'll I'll just tell you. I this is back in 2017. There was the the week before 4th July. I went out with my family to our concierge in Carlsbad, California. You enjoy life blah blah blah.
And I, you know, I'd mentioned always been very muddy driven, and that was kind of my reason for doing business. And I I read a book and I I, for like me, I can't remember it, but it was about how to create raving fans as customers. Yeah. And I just had a light bulb moment where I realized Jeez. You know, I've been doing this wrong all these years. I I should be in the service business of serving people. I'm doing it for the wrong reasons.
And it was a and I had business partner for many, many years. We started our company in 2002, and we'd done other ventures before then. So you know, he was, you know, like, family to me, and and he was always better about that. He was less money driven and more about the customer than I was. And so I literally was planning on having a conversation with him when I got back and say, you know what? You've been right all these years.
I've I've been wrong in We did really change our company fundamentally and how we look at things. And so I I think 4th July was on a Monday, and I came in the office just because you know, I I tend not to, you know, take time off too much. And he didn't come in, which wasn't abnormal. And then the next day I came in, and he didn't come in. And I thought you know, he's just late or, you know, he was busy doing something that wasn't totally out of the norm for him.
And then his fiance started calling me, And she said, yeah. I haven't heard from him since yesterday and blah blah blah. And I thought, you know, he's just he's got always been that way. You know, sometimes they'll just go MIA for short periods of time and but she kept bugging me. So she's can you go over to his house and because he didn't answer my call. And so I I went over there and, unfortunately, I found him slumped over his computer. He had passed away with a heart attack thing before.
And so here I am. I'm suddenly in charge of this multimillion dollar company that we'd built up for, you know, 17, 18 years at that time. And, you know, he had always been the public face of the company. He had always dealt primarily with the clients, and I was kinda behind the scenes running operations and doing running the Salesforce and and things like that in, you know, enormous amount of work. And the great thing about having partners, I was able to take as much time off as I want.
I took a 3 week honeymoon. You know, like like I said, multiple vacations a year because I knew he could kinda cover for me temporarily and everything would be fine. And then then suddenly, I realized, oh my gosh. I'm stuck. I can't go anywhere. I can't do anything. I was at the office at 4 in the morning working till 7 at night, and, you know, it was just overwhelming trying to do everything he was doing And I wasn't the person that he was because we are completely different personalities.
Yeah. And then, you know, so I'm I'm going through this, you know, decision making process. What do I do Do I try to continue the company? Do I fold the company? Do I sell the company? And, unfortunately, we had put together a quick buy and sell agreement out of you know, paranoia from me primarily. I literally wrote it myself, like, 2 years before Wow. There's two pages. And one of the things I put in there was, you know, we'll have to have a business evaluation done.
And so I started to do that with his errors, and I I went through that process and you know, part of it, of course, is what's what's typically good advice for businesses to have what they call, you know, key man, key person insurance. You know? So if one partner dies, the others, you can buy out the estate of the other ones. Yeah. Well, you know, we thought we had term policies that I think we're, like, 10 year policies or something, and they came up for renewal or lapse or whatever it was.
And we were like, neither of us are in great health right now. We're out of shape, you know, Let's take a few months off and we'll we'll reapply to get the insurance. We'll let it lapse and get in better shape, get better blood work done, all that good stuff. And we never got the new policies in place. And so here I am with this valuation that's saying this company is worth 1,000,000 of dollars And guess what? I had no way to buy out his estate. And, boy, talk about costly mistake.
I mean, literal cost. This was not Chaz. I'll say it that way. And that was one of the most painful lessons I've I have learned over the years is so If you have a business partner, make sure you have key person insurance and you have that worked out because you think it won't happen to you and, like, as I didn't think it would happen to me. But it did happen, and it will happen to a certain percentage of us when we're not expecting it.
So that was one of the most painful financial decisions I've made. And this is a little bit different topic, but, you know, going through that process also changed me as a person and forced me to grow as a person, and a business owner that, you know, had I sit far reaching, you know, kind of a cascade of things of changes I had to make as a person. Right. And so it actually turned into a lot of ways, you know, positive.
So it sounds like doom and gloom, but, yes, make sure you're covered with insurance wise. Whether even if you don't know the partner, you know, for your family's sake, because when you don't think it'll happen, it will happen. And but, you know, sometimes bad things turn can turn into positives, you know, as well. So Yeah. I I think that's probably the number one thing, you know, financially, at least as far as mistakes that I've done over the years. Hey, Kings and Queens. Chaz Wolf.
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Yeah. I mean, it literally cost you 1,000,000 of dollars for that one Yeah. Decision. Know, the crazy part about a decision like that is that it it it seems so simple to you because you had already made that choice ahead of time. And then, unfortunately, the bad choice of letting it lapse and, you know, that type of thing. But there are some people listening right here who's hearing this for the first time. Like, oh, Chaz makes sense. Have a strategic partner.
If he goes away or if she goes away, that's bad. I should get that liability covered, which is what life insurance or are those types of policies are for? Okay. Great. But that person didn't even know. So, like, if that Chaz ex that you know, situation had happened to them yesterday. They would not have even known that they were experiencing a bad thing. Right? And so Chaz, again, fast forward to your story of Well, I learned a bunch.
And, actually, I became a better person, and I learned some this. And I learned that, and I was able to persevere. All of those things were the gift that the other person would have experienced too, but now that you gave them this next gift of, hey, go get policies, that that transition probably would have been a whole lot easier. There would have been a payout. There would have been a payout to the family. You would have kept right on going, but maybe you wouldn't be where you are. Right?
Oh, yeah. That's that's the way life works. So we Chaz never really see it coming, you know, so be prepared as we can, but that's kind of, like, get in the army is to say, you know, you have a great plan, but when the bullets start flying, but, you know, it gets real. Out the window. Yeah. That's right. It gets real. Well, tell us about a good decision.
I mean, I I love the vulnerability of that one, but tell us something that you've done well with Chaz maybe these listeners can go implement in their business today. Yeah. I I think, and this this is actually related to that. You know, I mentioned that that it be I became a a better person because of Chaz, because I was forced into it, was forced to grill in a good way.
But one of the things that I picked up along the ways was sort of a different way of looking at you know, we can call it whatever you want, catastrophes, challenges, you know, problems, what, you know, I'm not talking about, you know, your Coffee's got cold. I'm I'm talking about, you know, significant problems like that. Yeah. You know, those kind of problems can either, you know, sink you or you can use those problems to actually accelerate your business and accelerate you. That's right.
And so I think one of the biggest things that I learned was that to start stop looking at those situations like I Chaz. Because in the past, I would, you know, we have a catastrophe like that. I'd be running around, you know, checking with a head cut off, you know, type of thing and all this stress and, you know, gloom and doom, and, you know, it's very easy to go down that spiral. Yeah. But I, somehow, I picked up this idea that, you know, what happens to me happens for me.
Yeah. And, you know, of course, it's it's certainly helped by my faith that, you know, that God is ultimately in in charge and that nothing's gonna happen without his consent. But Yeah. But even if you're not a believer in that, you wanna have the universe or whatever, doesn't really matter because if you take the attitude that, okay, this horrible thing happened, but there is gonna be good that comes out of it in Not only. It's not really a positive thinking type of thing, not a silver lining.
It's as much as okay. You know, sort of looking for the good, you look at what is this gonna force me to do? Who is this gonna force me to be? And when you look at it, something like that, not only do do you focus on on how to get something positive out of it, but you also kind of change yourself in, you know, the mentality that that goes with it.
And so when you when you change that mentality, it gives you a certain certain power, a certain confidence that you didn't have before because Let's face in some of those situations, you feel powerless. You feel like, what am I gonna do? The world is fall you know, sky's falling, you know, type of thing. That's right. But when you start to take back your power, so to speak, and start to use it as, okay.
This is gonna force me to grow into this person that's gonna take my company to the next level. Suddenly, Chaz gives you the confidence and the power that you need to go forward. Yeah. And so somehow, you know, I kinda stumbled along that concept by what Chaz or what happens to me happens for me. And I think it just fundamentally changed the the way I look at business and in life, quite frankly.
And probably one of the biggest, probably one of the biggest things Chaz made me money over the last 5 or 6 years, you know, is that mentality. So if if I was talking to the the me of 15 years ago, I would talk to me about, you know, that concept and how to use difficult circumstances to figure out what's it's gonna cause me to do, Wolfe, how is it gonna cause me to grow How can I use this as impetus to grow? Because, ultimately, that's where it's about as growth in business and in life.
Yeah. How do you tie this to I mean, you you're you're giving the opposite of comfort. Right? You're saying that you were in a very uncomfortable position, but you embraced it so that you could grow. How is maybe the achievement of comfort the opposite or maybe the the the wrong mindset that keeps us actually or maybe sets us up for thinking like, oh, this is such a terrible thing Chaz opposed to I wonder what this can do for me.
If if we're seeking comfort as opposed to learning or just sheer optimism of, like, being okay with whatever happens to me again, Whatever happens to me is happening for me. If I genuinely believe that, then I'm not really seeking comfort.
I'm seeking the next level, whatever that looks like for me, the better version of me, the better version of my business, the better version of my marriage, the better version of me as a father, like, whatever those those definitions are, but but I'm not I'm not seeking the easy road or the comfort. It's like to tie these together and maybe your experience. Yeah. Absolutely.
I think, you know, along with that, and it's prop I've probably been better at the last few years, but I think it's, you know, it's embracing, Chaz, the the the discomfort that you're talking about. And understanding Chaz if if I'm comfortable, if things if I'm just hanging out and I'm not challenging myself, I'm not gonna grow. And if I don't grow, my company's not gonna grow, and it's actually gonna go backwards. It's gonna be stagnant.
Like you said, but it affects all of our areas of our life. You know, if we don't put work into our marriages, if we don't uncomfortably grow and do things that, you know, maybe I'm not used to not one of those people that compliments, you know, people all the time. But guess what? If I don't compliment my wife all the time, You know, that that's gonna eat away. And, you know, that's gonna hurt our relationship over the long term. So it's things like that.
You know, if we if we don't embrace discomfort, if we don't realize that this this it's a good sign to have discomfort. Yeah. If we're If things are not scaring us a little bit, let's be real. You know, if we're not nervous about doing something, probably shouldn't be doing it because it it's not getting us anywhere. The only way we can grow Chaz people and as business owners as a and as our companies grow is by embracing that discomfort.
And it's almost like if you're uncomfortable with an idea or something you're doing, you know, obviously, not something you're doing. That's unethical or whatever. But if you're uncomfortably because you've never done it before or you're worried about what other people think of any of those things. If you're uncomfortable, well, guess what? You're probably in the right track. And so that's kind of like a a sign to me anyway that I catch myself and go, okay. I I don't wanna call this client.
I don't wanna do this. Thing, you know, it kind of makes me nervous in the back of my mind. I'm a little bit scared if I'm honest with myself. Then I I've learned to tell myself Oh, hey. You're on the right track. You definitely need to do this because that's what's holding me back. I think it was I think it's Keith Cunningham, one of my favorite authors said, you know, every and maybe this wasn't his original quote, but everything you wanna is on the other side of fear.
And I've I've really focused on the lack last few years to try and do that to try to remind myself that, hey. If I'm uncomfortable, I'm I'm on the right track and I'm doing I'm going in the right direction. It don't make sense. Oh, yeah. It's great. It's a great point. It's a it's a super cliche point, but I think that there's value there. That's why it's cliche. It's Like, this actually means something. So, you know, the the listener paying attention here right now is like, okay.
I've heard this before. It's like, no. No. No. Stop. I know you've heard this before, but this is real. You know, you've gotta be able to you've gotta be able to embrace it. Okay. So what you're tying to Chaz, though, just that the last little piece there was fear, love it. How can I practically be in a new uncomfortable you know, pressing situation that you described, but also then remove fear?
Now fear is gonna come naturally to a new situation like that, but then how can I deal with it and move it because you and I both know, if I step into a situation and then am absorbed with fear, I'm not either gonna take action? I'm not gonna do what I need to do. I'm gonna be limited in my either thinking or my ability. How can I then remove it, or how have you removed it?
Yeah. And, well, I'll say it this way, at least for me, I don't know, maybe different for others, but the fear never completely goes away, at at least, you know, when you're first initially trying something. And that's natural, and that's okay. You know, it's it's to be expected. But how do you the only way to get rid of that fear is to actually do what you're afraid of. I talk a lot about how small business owners are heroes in our society.
You know, we give a lot of credit to first responders and things and health care workers and, you know, because of COVID and everything and, you know, military law enforcement, And that's all absolutely true. They are heroes, but small business owners are heroes too, and it's because of this exact concept. You know, if you look at the definition of courage, it's really is that you're afraid to do something, but you do it anyway.
Yeah. And so, you know, when you come to that point where you're like, Oh, jeez. You know, I'm, you know, I'm freaked out. I don't wanna do this. You know, I'm I'm freezing up. That's the point where you need to have it in your mentality in a reminder, a little voice in your head that goes, okay. I'm gonna be a hero. I'm gonna be courageous and do this. Except the fact I'm scared of it. Do it anyway. And because I know that once I do it, most likely it's gonna be a lot easier.
Definitely be easier the second time I do it, and the more I do it, the easier it's gonna get. Just like cold calling, just like anything. It's, you know, Tony Robbins talks a lot about physiology and, you know, sometimes you gotta get the body to move first. Right. So sometimes we have to physically take an action. We've gotta pick up that phone. You know, we've gotta show up to that meeting, force ourselves to go into it. Knowing that once we get there, things will be okay.
So I I think we it has to be an artificial pushing of ourselves sometimes. And so we have to and the best way I've found to do it for me is that I've got that little reminder bell again going off of my head that says, Okay. I'm scared. I don't wanna do this. I don't wanna go into this meeting. I don't wanna talk to this client, but here I go. And I do it anyway. And I know on the other end of it, it'll work out.
So it's a it's sort of you're forcing yourself into that uncomfortable action, and that's really, in my mind, at least in my experience, the only way to get rid of that fear, if that makes sense. Yeah. I hope that listeners paying attention. You did a great job of breaking down the fake until you make it. Kind of mantra, and it's not actually being fake. It's just doing something that maybe you don't know how to do super well yet. With courage through fear unto doing it better.
And and there's actually I have a I have one of my favorite worship songs that I listen to, you know, somewhat frequently, but there's a freight there's a there's a a bridge, a chorus. I don't know, music that well, but that that the artist sings. It says sometimes you gotta sing your way into the truth. And so it's like, I can I can hear it? I can I can I wanna believe it? Sometimes I just need to do it until my belief grows is in essence what you've said, what the song says.
And so I think that you're right that doing and belief are attached, but you've gotta define what that belief is. What you said in that moment is that when you take I was having this conversation with somebody on social media just this past week. And he was like, you know, look, actions are everything. You are not your thoughts or beliefs. You are your actions. And I was like, well, let me let me just come in here and just tickle that a little bit because you're right.
I think that just like what Robert just said, I think that if you take action, your belief grows. But that has stemmed from a belief that if I take action, my belief grows. So let's Yeah. Absolutely. Once I get it twisted here, then I have to first have, I believe. And it could be one out of little bit of fear, little bit unknown. I gotta take courage to get there. All those things are still thoughts and beliefs that I can say, okay. I'm gonna go do this.
And then the courage to actually go do it is the next step, which then can build the belief or the confidence in the thing that I'm saying that I'm fearful about. And so I I I just appreciate your perspective there. All of you gave belief. You gave the action. You even the result. The result is then eventually at some time, I'm a master of cold calls or I'm a master of talking in front of people when I'm an introvert, or I'm a great husband because I compliment my wife constantly.
And at the beginning, when I was doing that, it was kinda odd. It felt like I was forcing it. But now it flows out naturally. I do it multiple times a day. She loves it. Like, that's what I'm hearing you say. That's what I do, of course, as Wolfe, but Man, it's like, you we just start building it into who we are. Would you agree with this? Yeah. Absolutely. And and I appreciate that last brace. I and I think that's the key. Chez is The more we do this, you know, it's like anything.
It's a muscle, you know, it's a mental muscle. And the more we train ourselves to to be able to take that action to to to have that belief and then put it into practice by, you know, like you said, you're you're an introvert. You don't wanna go to that big meeting and network on of people, but you, in the back of your head, you know, that little alarm bell goes off and goes, walks through the door and walk through the door before you have a chance to change minds. Right.
And so if we have that mantra and that that little reminder voice in us, that helps us get us over that, you know, that helps remind us because, that's one of the things, you know, that I think that's helped me a lot in business is that we tend to get away from the basics, if you will. You know, you you mentioned a few minutes ago, we're talking about, oh, I've heard this before, whatever. Well, good. Because you probably need to hear it again.
And I know that, you know, for me, I need to constantly hear things because, you know, you can set goals at the beginning of the year, for instance, or whatever. In 6 months later, you realize, geez, you know, what happened? You know? And it's because you didn't constantly remind yourself and we have to consciously remind ourselves of things like this, but to remind ourselves that, okay. I'm doing this. I'm scared of it, but that's okay. Doing it anyway.
And if we remind ourselves of the basics, if you will, that's really what it comes down to because businesses in life is not that complicated if you focus on the basic stuff, it's when we get wrapped up in all we get sidetracked with all these other things that We kinda forget. And so being cautionary reminded, of, you know, everything in life, I I think, is key, and and I know it certainly helped me a lot. Yeah. It's so good.
Great way to wrap it up too because I think that the mindset of the entrepreneur, you know, it's just tied to everything. You've just done a really great job there of kind of painting it as a baseline. You mentioned a few minutes ago that, you know, if you had to talk to your, you know, Wolfe 15 years ago that you Wolfe talk to him about this concept.
It's it's typically my last question, which is, you know, if you had to talk to the younger version of you, you and you had a chance to whisper something in his ear. What would you say? And so I've kind of already set this up because you already you already answered it partially, but Is that phrase what you would say? Is there encouragement behind it? I mean, imagine yourself at whatever age. Maybe it's 15 years ago. Maybe it's you as a teenager.
But if you did have that opportunity, what what do you just instill into that person's maybe belief? Cause that's really what we're talking about for that younger version. What what do you give to that guy? I think. You know, in business in particular, I think a concept that I didn't get for a long time was that My business is only gonna grow to the extent that I do.
And I I don't know who said that to somebody famous and brilliant, I'm sure, if and but and I didn't believe that for a long time either, especially when I was younger. But I think if I were to be able to talk to myself, I would say, hey. You know, you need to focus on growing you. You need to get around the right people. You need to get the right mentors.
You need to build those skill sets and the business part of it will take care of itself because, you know, you look at it, and it's like, you know, take Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk, any anybody who's super successful in their business. And if you had taken Zuckerberg when he was just starting out with Facebook, just founded Facebook, just came up with the technology, and you had plopped him into the role he has now. Facebook probably bankrupt in a year or 2, not even that.
And it's because he couldn't handle it because he hadn't become the person and Chaz can build that business, sustain that business, and grow that business. And so if I were talking to myself, I'd say focus on you focus on growing yourself because that will allow you to become the person that can do the thing, so to speak, that can grow that business Chaz can be the husband be. That can be the father you wanna be if you focus on growing you.
And it sounds, you know, touchy feely, but I really think that would be one of those fundamental changes. And if I'd known that earlier, I think that would have made a a huge difference in my life. Yeah. I appreciate that. I think I'm going back through atomic habits right now for the teeth time.
And he talks about everything that you're you're the principal that you're referencing, which is rather than focusing on the result, focus on the habit or the belief that you have Chaz then the actions can follow so that you can become the person that you need to be. I think is great advice.
So I think for the listener paying attention right now, whether they're new in business or they've been in business for 40 years, it we're still paying attention to, not necessarily our new targets for 2024, but who we need to become in order to hit those targets? That's just so much more important. So I appreciate that perspective. What do you think some of those things that you would have, like, okay, focus on you, younger, Robert?
What would be a thing or 2 inside of that that younger Robert maybe needed to focus on as he was focusing on himself? One of the things that I suffered with over many years was my people skills in how to build the right team at a company, and I came from a a military background, which people in the military understand. That's very top down mentality. Yeah. You know, as in If you're a leader, you tell somebody what to do, and they have to do it.
And they don't do it because they necessarily believe in the cause or believe in you know, what you're doing with the bigger picture. They're doing it strictly because they have to, and they'll there'll be some consequences Chaz they don't. And that's the way I ran my business for many years. It was a very top down, you know, I give the orders you implement.
And that can work in the military context because you can't have people questioning things, but in business in general, when you when everybody's sort of a volunteer, if you will, and they have other choices, I didn't understand that.
And I think if I'd understood how to deal with people better in how to build that team, how to hire the right people, how to get rid of the wrong people, quite frankly, how to build that culture I think that would probably be the number one thing that would have affected me differently if I'd be able to do that earlier in life because I know you know, like I said, the last 6, 7, 8 years, but maybe a little bit longer. That's really been a focus, and that has paid just huge dividends.
So Yeah. If there were one thing that I could change, I think that would be a, you know, would be how I deal with other people, a particular people that worked for me to work with Megan. Yeah. You said it earlier that everything we want, maybe it was Keith that said it, but everything we want is on their side of fear. And I agree with that.
I also think that everything we want is on like, in an exchange with another human, you know, clients, family, fulfillment, joy, like, if you were just by yourself, all the time. Like, what would life really be? And so I think that all of those things that we've talked about here today are through another person. So I think that you're spot on with with the the skillsets there. Okay. Robert, there's people listening here today that are like, this is really good.
A great mindset, but the guys, I think he said he he helps people grow their their business through marketing, or maybe some business coaching services. How can they get a hold of you? Maybe they wanna get more information. Maybe they just wanna network with you. How can they find you? Yeah. Absolutely. I'm on all the major platforms, but probably the biggest LinkedIn is probably the easiest way to get a hold of me. But all of them are the Robert Pool, like a swing pool of the e on the end.
Shoot me a message on LinkedIn. Be happy to to talk to you or, you know, about what's going on with your business and what you're looking to do, or you can always email me directly. I can make myself available Chaz way. So just email me at robertoperator2owner.net.
There's some other company that's got.com that doesn't even make sense for the the domain that you know, but So it's robertoperator, to owner dot net, and I'd be happy to to set up a time we can chat and find out a little bit about your business and see if there's any way that, you know, we could help each other out. You know? Love it.
We'll put all that in the show notes as Wolfe, but, Robert, I appreciate your mindset and even just story of you making your way through that sticky situation with your with your partner and, of course, being able to experience grief in the middle of all Chaz, just I admire you. I admire your success. I appreciate you sharing all that here today with the listeners. Thank you for being here and blessings to you and your family and your business here in 2020 Thanks for being here. Absolutely.
Thank you. 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 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 1 1000 kings, specifically who are grateful, but not done.
We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and communities, and here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy. So if that relates and and resonates with you, and you know that you need people around you, sharp, qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gathering the king's dot com.
Want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Talk soon.