On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. Probably the biggest lesson I've learned in managing is being very consistent with what you say. If you say that, you know, you want people who have a positive attitude to work here and then somebody is negative and you don't address it, you just negated your first statement. You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe featuring fellow 78 and even 9 figure business owners who have real battle scars.
From business and life, but have prevailed as the king that they are designed to be. We welcome high performing entrepreneurs to the stage in order to reveal the real of the real on what it takes to build a successful business today. We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along the way that give a true and accurate picture of the journey of success and how you too can get there.
Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and keys like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. What's up everybody? Chaz Wolfe. Welcome back to Gathering the Kings today's guest. Bruce Burns brings us, just complete insight from somebody who had no idea how to brush the strokes of a paintbrush to running a unbelievably successful business and, and making it about his team.
He gives so much value here around building out a business, not just having a job or being a part of a trade, but building out an actual business. Excited for you guys to hear this one. Grab a pen and paper. Here we go. Alright, everybody. This is Chaz Wolf. I'm your host. Gathering the Kings. We got Bruce Burns on the stage here today. Welcome, brother. How are you? Good, man. How are you? Thanks for having me. Hopefully, I can provide some value for you guys today. Yeah, man.
Of course, you're king in the business. Tell us what kind of business that you have. Yeah. I own a residential interior exterior, small commercial as Wolfe. Painting company. Been doing it for about 4 years. I mean, my brother started it 4 years ago. Nice. I'm just year 5 and really excited about that. Yeah. And, you know, started out with me and him, we we're doing great. You know, we did, like, 500 k the 1st year, 850, 950, the following 2 years.
But, you know, you got if you wanna grow a company, you gotta hire people. Right? We went through those growing pains. That's a very specific skill set. But now, we have 6 employees that are amazing, fit the core values, have been really awesome. That's awesome. And, yeah, looking forward to I mean, we we did 1.5 last year. We probably do, you know, to 2.3 this year. But, I mean, the sky's the limit. Yeah. I can see 40,000,000 dollars in the next 10 years out of this company at this point.
Oh, I love I love the the energy that you bring to that number. Just like such a big number that most people would be what? You know? Yeah. It's funny because when we first started 500,000, seemed like a big number. Now every year, a big number just keeps getting bigger and bigger. That's Just another 0. That's all it is. Right? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Well, dude, I'm so glad that you're here, and I wanna get into your story about how you got to that place.
I love how you gave us just, like, the the sequential order there of the growth. I also liked what you said that it takes a skill set to grow a team. And so I definitely wanna dive into for sure because I think that the majority of people listening can use some help there. And so I think that we can we can definitely use your value there. So before we do a back, into your story into time. Tell me at this level. Like, why why are you trying to push Chaz 40,000,000? Why why is it a big deal?
Why not just sale off into the sunset at your 7 figure business? Yeah. I mean, I don't know Chaz I'll ever be at a point where I'm done, to be honest. Yeah. I thought that this would be the number, you know, that I would be like, okay. Cool. I did it. Now I just hire a general manager and and hang out. You know? But, right. Yeah. I mean, so I kind of we got to a certain point, and I'll admit my brother and I both kind of stepped back and were, like, enjoying it a little bit. You know?
Sure. And it's just not very fulfilling, honestly. Like, you think that you wanna build a business to go sit on the beach, but it's it's not very fun, honestly. So right? And not to say I don't want to take more vacations and spend time with family and whatnot, but Of course. I get the most joy out of, like, growth and doing things, learning new skills like, hiring, like, one that we just said. That's probably the thing I struggled with the most throughout the whole company.
And, like, honestly, in the last 2 months, I feel like I've just broken through to feeling like I'm competent at it even though I've been doing it for 4 years now. So Yeah. Yeah, those those kind of breakthroughs are just like invaluable. And the type of person that you have to be to run a $40,000,000 company just think about how, you know, team, how are they in dev? Yeah. Like, we'll think about how competent that person has to be, how level headed that person has to be.
And then, yeah, all the people that like, the impact that you're making with that amount of people too is, I mean, Chaz just those, you know, that would take me, like, 60 employees, at least, to do that. But then all their kids, all their families, not to mention all the painters underneath all that. That's hundreds of people that I'm impacting at that point. A 100%.
Yeah. I love I love how you just so quickly in your brain did the math on how many employees it would But then your perspective, obviously, is one of putting it on your shoulders because immediately you calculated their families, which that's ownership. Like, if you're owning if you run a business and you're thinking about taking care of your people's family Yeah. That's like, that's a lot of weight. You know? Yeah. I mean, that's what makes me want to keep doing this too.
You know, like, I feel like if I was to just take a step back, it would be like a disserve to those people. Right? So they're relying on me to show up. Not to say that, like, nothing would happen without me because those people are all super competent themselves now. Right. But, you know, none of this really would have started if I didn't wake up in the morning and and go do it. You know?
There's a saying that I have, you know, obviously, podcast called Gathering the Kings, and it's only the king knows how heavy the crown really is. Sure. Yeah. And what we're talking about is only just a piece of the weight of the crown, but it's a big piece of it. When you have a team, a team that you love, of their family. Their family is like family. It's like a big deal. And, that's just weight on us. Not that it has to be a bad weight, but it's motivating.
It's it it it propels us into our purpose Sure. Of more. Right? Yeah. I mean, it's funny because I don't really think about it too much. I just do it because I want to. But I actually had my one of my employees mentioned that to me the other day. It's like you're the only one that has pressure from every side, like marketing, you need to produce enough leads like sales. You need to, like, sure that we're hitting our numbers production, like, every single part of the business.
And and not to mention, you know, the admin and the the taxes and all that stuff that, like, just come up randomly. All that happens too. So Yeah. I don't really think about it too much because I, like, enjoy doing it, but, there's there's certain things, that come up. It's funny because you I was thinking about that lately. Things that come up, and I'm just like, I don't wanna do this. You know? Like, haven't I reached a certain point where I don't have to do this anymore?
Right. And, yeah, like, I have to snap out of that, like, right away because there's never gonna be a point where I'm I should be so far removed that I don't I'm not willing to get in the weeds. Totally. Totally. There's a there's this perspective, and I'll go with you and and at the same point, give you a challenge. There's this perspective that I seen, especially in that, like, 1 to $3,000,000 range. And this is also for the listener too.
Maybe we've got some 7 figure owners listening, but Yeah. There's this transition from warrior to king. And the warrior stage being the 6 figure, you know, the king, you know, being the 7 figure, just for example, purposes, And there's this transition from war to king where you're still a warrior king, and that mindset that you just gave is very much warrior king where Like, you wanna get in the weeds. I'm the same way. Like, I love getting in the weeds.
There's fulfillment in the weeds for me sometimes. But eventually, if the king realizes the value the the owner, in this case, that you bring to the table, you can't go to war. You can't go to battle anymore because if you if you die, the whole thing, the whole the whole house comes down. You know? So the value that you bring sometimes, although it feels different, it's almost like this, like, imposter syndrome is what they call it.
You know, you get big enough to where you're like, I I I'm not that big. Like, I I need to be involved with Chaz. You know? Like, everything that you just said, you know? And, but the reality of it is is that the value of your time is actually that you need to build the team. Like, they're that that person that who, needs to be on your team doing whatever that weed task is. You know? Right. Yeah. Like, I'm not don't get me wrong. I'm not picking up a paintbrush.
I'm not going out there and producing projects or anything like Chaz. Anymore. Right. Right. Right. I think what what they kinda what I'm more referring to is, like, there's an issue internally, you know, whether it's like personnel, Oh, yeah. Or the SOP is not being followed or something like that. You know, it's like, I already I already built this system. I already solved this problem. But taking the time to, like, ask the right questions and figure out what needs to be refined.
That's kinda more what what I'm talking about. Like, there is a level, as to what you're saying. Like, you you you know, the warrior and the warrior king, I'm probably right here, like, now. And I'll eventually get to just King and hopefully soon. I I think for me, it's all about the people that I hire. Right? So 100%. I hire really good people. They take things off my plate without me even asking. So That's right. That's right. I and I agree with you.
I love the perspective there that you gave to the clarification. That was, there's a lot of value there. Appreciate that. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's go back into your story, man. I'm excited to some of the things that got you to where you are. Tell us first, though. How how did your journey in business start? Like, was it this business? Was it a business before? Was it your, you know, slinging Candy bars as a kid. What what'd you do, man?
Yeah. And I've never been, like, entrepreneurial growing up or anything. That would be cool if I could say that. You know, nothing. I mean, selling things on eBay, like, small time stuff like that. Okay. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. But, it's funny because I had our small time stuff. Right. Yeah. I I actually, Chaz an interesting kind of trajectory. So didn't do that great in high school. Kinda, like, screwed off, you know, partied with my friends and whatnot.
And then senior year, I was like, man, maybe I should do something with my life. So I got got it together. I got straight days that you're went to college for management and marketing. Turns out that doesn't really, like, qualify you for very much. Like, I really thought that going to Purdue would be like, alright. You're set up for life now. Right? Like, because every every time I tell people I went to Purdue, they're like, oh, man, that's a great school. Like, It didn't do anything, though.
I just got a sales job out of out of college. Right. I will say I got in a little bit of trouble. I got a DUI, in college. So luckily that's gone now. Yeah. Yeah. Out of Chaz, but that's actually a blessing in disguise, because it qualified me only for smaller companies. So no corporate companies are gonna hire anybody with a criminal record at all. Like I said, I got rid of it now, so it's all good. But you're not trying to get hired anywhere now anyways. Right.
Yeah. At the time though, I was like, you know, it really hurt me, like, emotionally. I hurt my ego, you know, like, I have this, like, scar on my record now. And anyway, so, like, it kept me from getting a lot of jobs. So luckily I worked with a lot of startups. So Yeah. It was a lot of, three, four person, maybe 10 person teams. Yeah. So I got to see what a good boss does and what a what a bad boss does. Yeah. So I worked in, like, you know, signage, and I worked in digital marketing.
So I did project management and sales. Okay. It's kinda funny. It just set me up for this perfectly. So Yeah. Yeah. Like, I knew how to do sales. I knew how to do project management. And then, yeah, another another, like, not so awesome statistic or factoid about me. When we were it's not a bad thing that I did, but, when we were starting the company, 2017, I had I I broke up with my 3 year, girlfriend, which sucked terribly. That was my first long term relationship. Oh, yeah.
Then my mom passed away. And then, my dog passed away, and then I got fired. So all of that happened in, like, I think it was, like, 6 months that that happened. Wow. 2017, bro. That's Yeah, man. I know that was the year. Yeah. My head and everything. So My brother also, he was in the medical marijuana industry. He was making tons of money doing that, which because it was so lucrative then. But they basically were like, you can either take a hat. 15% pay cut, or we have to let you go.
So he lost his job too. I was like, hey, man. Maybe this is a sign, you know, like, which maybe we should do something together. And, he Chaz a painting company in Vail before. Which in college, I used to come out. And I don't know if you're familiar with Vail, Colorado, but it's amazing. The houses are multimillion dollars. So we did that. I would come out for the summers, and he did that for years. I was like, what if we started a painting company? He's like, I don't wanna paint anymore, man.
Like, it's hard work. You know? Yeah. I mean, what if you don't have to paint? And, yeah, and then we decided to start it. I had a, like, $5 in savings. And, and he had, like, a similar amount, maybe, like, twice as much as that. Sure. But I was like, alright. Well, I Chaz, I can float myself for, 2 months? So Yep. Let's roll. See what happens.
And, yeah, it was really grassroots just like, you know, you hear from a lot of entrepreneurs going out, knocking doors, leaving flyers on people's, doors, getting pulled off because we're interrupting their dinner, getting made fun. This You know, we're out there and bothering people, getting assled by people. All that. But anyway, it worked, and made the first sale, invested that money into marketing.
And then just kept repeating the process, repeating the process until, you know, we did 500 that 1st year. That's awesome, man. Okay. So you just gave us so many things, even just in that last sentence, that I wanna break down for the listener. So first off, I love I love the story of like, how the stars aligned. All the bad circumstances basically led to, you know, what do I have to lose? It sounds like. Yeah. Kind of.
I mean, I always, I always hear that story or that saying, like, what would you, what would you do if you knew you couldn't fail, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like for me, I wasn't thinking that way. I was thinking the opposite thing. I've already failed. So, fuck it. Let's see what happens. You know? Exactly. What what could possibly go wrong here? Right. We can't get much worse than this. We're and, you know, I just moved back home to Indiana and go be a bartender again if I need to.
So Let's see what happens. Yeah. Yeah. And there's something to be said there, obviously, when you burn the bridges, if you will, when you when you when you have nothing to lose or when you're not afraid of failure. You just kinda walk right into it. Yeah. And I think that that's a piece of what's holding some of the listeners back as obviously just inaction or not running straight at whatever is holding them back.
And you had no fear in that because it wasn't like you were gonna lose anything anyway, so you just went for it. What I also heard you say is that you didn't have a problem you kinda laid down the ego, again, probably because you didn't have much to lose and you had no problem doing the flyer thing and the knocking on doors and getting rejection and that's kind of sales in general, but, like, yeah.
That's how you grow a business is that you have to talk to people and you and eventually through the numbers, you're gonna find deals and you get clients and then those people refer you and you keep knocking on doors or calling people whatever. And then the last thing that you said that I wanna bring up for the listener here is that you you said rinse and repeat, basically. Yeah. You created a process, a couple of steps there to get a sale, and then repeat, and then repeat.
And then repeat and then have someone else help you with that and then repeat and then repeat. Have someone else help you and repeat and repeat. And that's really what what I would agree with you is that the person that's listening right now who's not at the 7 figure mark is that they just haven't been able to hit the repeat button enough yet. Yeah. That's kinda what I was saying in, you know, our initial call too is, like, not doing anything monumental over here. My sales ratio is, like, 40%.
You know, it's not like I'm the best salesperson in the world. Not like my brother's the best production manager in the world. We just have really good systems. And, at this point, we have a really good culture too, but at the beginning, it was just a a system that we know is repeatable and generates a, you know, strong profit. Exactly. I love it. It doesn't have to be this, like, mystical thing. It can be known. It can be easy, simple, and repeatable. Yeah. And, and we're painting houses.
People have been painting houses for 1000 years. This is not a new concept. When we when we first started talking about starting a business, We have that same thing that I think a lot of people who are interested in entrepreneurship have. Like, we need to invent something new, or we need to, like, create some new solution to some problem. Yep. All it really is is that I can see in this industry that there's a lack of service, and I can do it better. So I'm gonna do it better. Exactly.
I love that. I think even just that, like, we could end just in the in the podcast, boom, mic drop and, like, that's it. Like, as long as as long as you see that right there, like, how do you fill the void and whatever the market is that you're in? How do you do it better? It doesn't have to be new and sexy, creative, anything like Chaz. You just have to go do something that works and just do it better. Yeah. Okay. Let's let's let's get into your decision making process here.
Give me a good decision along the way that you've made that was just instrumental to your growth. Oh, that's a good question. I think I I would have to go with, my philosophy at the very beginning of the business, was, like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. So I still feel the same way. And that has led me to I think at this point, we spent, like, $80,000 on coaching Got it. Since we started the business. So going out there. Basically, it's a very simple idea.
There's someone out here that's already done this. Who are they? Gonna identify them, and then I'm gonna ask them how they did it. And that's what I did. And then since then, there's been other programs and stuff like that, that we signed up for as Wolfe. And Makes sense. Yeah. It's been ridiculously invaluable. And I still I mean, we'll get to the networking, portion that you wanted to talk about too, but Yeah.
Since then, I've I I can hit up any one of these people with any one of the problems that I run into. Yep. And and they do the same with me. You know, we just go back and forth and, like, that's right. Hey. How did you solve this? And they tell me what they did, and I give it a shot. It might work, might not, but That's right. Way more info than I would have if I just tried it on my own. So now 100%. I'm sure that the person listening has heard. Oh, yeah.
They paid for a coaching program or whatever before. Yeah. Do you think that that was you saying, like, I just wanna get there faster or I don't have the ego here or, like, what was the piece that allowed you to go? Okay. I'm willing to pay for someone else's info expertise, whatever. Because I I've been in the same shoes. I've paid a lot of money for that as well, and it's helped speed things up, but I wanna hear your perspective. I don't know. If it was a desire to get there faster.
I'm definitely impatient. It's something that I've been working on lately, honestly. Because I know it's it's funny because you think it would push you faster, but it actually has held me back a little bit. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So I've made some mistakes along the way because of my own pace. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And set some goals that were a little too lofty and whatnot, but don't think it was necessarily that.
I think it really was just like, I don't I feel like I don't know what I'm doing, and I want to learn. And what's the best way that I can do Chaz? Definitely trial and error too, like, a 100%. That's a great way to learn. Growth mindset is one of our number core values for that reason. Like, don't be afraid to make mistakes. And we don't wanna just sit back and think about everything before we do it. We also wanna just take action and find things out, but Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, the first we signed up for a cheap program that was like 7.50 bucks just to to get started. And then since then, it's just been like, one thing after the next. And not everyone has been good for that matter either. That's right. That's right. But but even the ones that, you know, you spend 20 hours on and you get one piece of information and it's proven to be worth it.
So I'd say, yeah, it's it's wouldn't say it's lack of ego, but more so just like, I legitimately felt like I didn't know what I was doing, and I wanted to find out how to do it this way I could. It's also a competitive thing for me too. You know? Like, I wanna be the best. Yeah. I love that. Let's flip the coin. Tell me about a bad decision. Yeah. So we have hired, about 4 employees that have been not good fits which usually isn't a great or a huge deal for a company of our size.
But the way that our company is structured, each employee is essentially worth, like, a $1,000,000 in revenue. So it is a big deal. So not all of those were catastrophic. Some of them just weren't a good fit, and it worked out for a little Wolfe, and then we let them go. Right. Yeah. They were they were Yeah. I don't wanna name any names or anything, but there are at least 2 of those employees that having them on board, brought down the entire team.
Yeah. Either through quality of work or through attitude, mainly attitude. It's funny how, like, I feel Chaz positivity spreads really rampantly. I I do like that, but I think negativity spreads quicker. Yeah. And I think that's proven in statistics too if you're looking up. But Oh, yeah. Yeah. It it brought down the team quickly. So, I think, really, it it wasn't even necessarily the hiring. Chaz was the mistake. It was the letting them stay for too long. That was the mistake.
Yep. So the the pain point there that the listener, can maybe relate to is you've got somebody on your team right now that has a poor attitude, whether it's about the work or, even It may not even be about the job or about you. It may just be stuff that they've got going on, but they just bring negativity to the job. Yeah. 100%. But then keeping them around too long, not addressing it or not getting rid of that person. At first, it I wasn't addressing it. Now I address it right away.
Like, I don't care if you work here for 2 days. If you do something that I can obviously, infer as negative, then we're gonna talk about it immediately. So that's, probably the biggest lesson I've learned in managing is being very consistent with what you say. If you say that you know, you want people to have a positive attitude to work here and then somebody is negative and you don't address it, you just negated your first statement. So a 100%. Yep. That's the thing about the English language.
Right? You gotta the actions, back up what we're saying. Right. Okay. So do you have a process for making decisions that you try to follow or some sort of a discipline? No. It's something I'm working on right now, actually. Okay. That's what I was talking about earlier. I I found that, honestly, the biggest thing that tells us back has just been, overthinking and not taking action. Yeah. So, Did you did you learn that though through something, or or was that just like an 8?
Like, you just figured that out. Along the way. No. I mean, it's it's through it it is through my experience, but it's also, you know, the books I read and everything too. Sure. Okay. So, like, my only real, process for decision making would be the growth mindset, and integrity. So Okay. Oh, well, screw it. All three core values, compassion too. Like, that one's in there too.
So, basically, at this point, because I used to have this list of, 25 values that I was like, I wanna live by these things in my life. And it just got so complicated that I was like, you know, Wolfe, I wanna be compassionate, but I also wanna, like, work hard, like, Right. This is more important in this specific instance. And Sure. Yeah. Just boil it down to those 3 core values. So growth mindset, integrity, and compassion. And if I am making decisions in that regard, then I go for it.
And if, if it doesn't align with it, then I don't. And that's kind of it. The biggest thing though is afterwards, make sure that you're double checking and making sure it was a good decision or bad decision and what you can learn from it. Right? So Yeah. Yeah. That's kinda what I was talking about with, like, being less cautious is sometimes you have to just do it to find out the best way to do it.
Like, I can teach you how to swing a golf club, but if you don't go out there and put in the reps, then you're never gonna know how to swing a golf club. You theoretically know, but you don't know until you put in the reps. That's right. So the the takeaway there is know what your identity is, whether it's a company you as an individual, however you make decisions on behalf of the company or as an individual, know who you are.
So that way, whatever your north star is, in this case, it's growth mindset, integrity and compassion for you. If that decision fits into those things, you do it. If it doesn't, you don't. It makes it clear, black, and white, logical, yes, no. Yeah. Right. But then follow-up. I'm also hearing you say follow-up to see, was it a good decision, bad decision, not to, like, soak or or think and and cause in action, but to learn. Right. Yeah. 100%.
I mean, if you're not, like, learning from your mistakes, then then it becomes a failure. But if you do learn from it, then it's still a win. And it makes it a lot less scary to make mistakes when you do it that way too, totally. Yeah. I'm not I'm not afraid to to fuck up. And when we if we look back at the 1st year, we made so many mistakes. It was kinda Chaz. And we still did awesome. Like You look back on that 1st year and think, oh my goodness. Well, like, it was a mess, probably.
Yeah. It was real messy and lots of hours and lots of stress. But, you know, that's the only reason I feel like At this point, if you were to ask me a simple question about my business, I know the answer immediately because I've tested it at this point so many times. That's right. That's right. That's good. We could all relate to that looking back and going, oh, jeez.
If I had known what I know now, like, oh, I, you know, just the craziness of the mess of, but I said that I was guessing on a podcast a couple years ago, and I said this. I said, you know, if the failures are what's gonna get me to success, like, if the perspective that you just said If they're the dues that I have to pay, then let me just pay them. Like, let's just go. Like, let's get to them as fast as possible. Let me get through it. Let me learn the lessons. Yeah. Because they're gonna come.
Right. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. And I I feel like that's kinda why I'm working on this right now too is because at the beginning of the businesses, 100% let's do it, whatever it is. I don't care. Let's try it. I've gotten more cautious over time because I feel like I have learned a lot of lessons But that doesn't mean I should stop trying new things. And just because this system work doesn't works doesn't mean that there isn't something over here that I haven't thought about. And haven't tried yet.
So Yeah. That's good mindset, man. You're giving us good stuff here. I appreciate it. Okay. Let's go to speed round. You ready? Sure. Okay. First question. Bruce, if you could only pick 1 metric in all of the business. You said you know your numbers. You know everything about your business now. You only pick 1 metric to track, what would it be? Oh, man. One metric to track. It's tough because there's so many that are valuable. I mean, I have to go to to net profit.
Because Chaz is what means that we're going to be around for a long time. It means that we're gonna be able to take care of all of our people. It means that when there is an issue for a customer, we're gonna be able to back it up. We have a warranty that we can actually, like, back up because we actually collect money for the company. And I also think it's something that a lot of entrepreneurs give up be just because they wanna see that top line go higher. Right?
I would rather produce $2,000,000 and make, you know, a 20% profit than produce $4,000,000 to make a 10% profit. At the end of the day, that's the same amount of money, but you had to do twice the amount of work. So I'd say net profit. I wanna say something, you know, philosophical, like, net happiness or something like that. We do want it to be, like, very enjoyable, but it's only it's only enjoyable if we make enough money to make sure everybody can pay their bills at the same Yeah.
I mean, that's what we're doing it for, and that's what our people are doing it for. Like, let's not get it twisted. We're all here because we we wanna make money. So there's nothing wrong with Chaz. And I also think that the way that you gave it to us was very, very just good perspective. Also, I think that the the the net is something that a lot of people overlook, like you said.
So I think Chaz, a lot of guys, especially at the 6 figure mark, they don't even they probably don't even know what the net is. Like, they're just they they kinda just take whatever's left and then wake up tomorrow and do it all over again, and and it's pretty stressful to be in that without it being systemized and productive and predictable. Yeah. You gotta pay yourself first so you can sleep at night. Right? That's right.
And I guess the reason why I went there, what you said was the net profit was allowing the company to be stable to back up a warranty. It wasn't you as the owner get to you know, drive a fancier car. Right. It was because at Chaz net for you as that's after you got paid. Right? So that's the company retaining earnings and and and being healthy and making it makes sense for a long period of time, the stability in a business.
Yeah. There's something I say internally all the time, but I don't I don't say out loud a lot. But it's very applicable to what we're talking about right now. Exemplary painting, my my company, any company Chaz its own needs. It doesn't give a shit about your feelings. At all. It has its own needs. It needs this to be healthy. You need to give it what it needs regardless of how you feel about it. So That's right. How does an entrepreneur get to that place that you just described?
Because it's so true, but it's so raw. How do they get there? I mean, that's a that is a tough question. I think for me, it's just because I I love what I built at this point. Like, I had it's kinda like, like a child to me. You know? So, like, you would do anything for your child. Right? So that's kinda how it works for me. But, yeah, I mean, it's also just an objective truth. Right? Like, the business must be healthy to survive. It must be healthy to pay its people.
It must be healthy to take care of its customers. So, it's the same thing as a human being. You gotta take care your body for your mind to work right. It's the only way it works. You know? Right. Great perspective. Okay. Next question. What book do you recommend for a six figure owner trying to get Yeah. So I think the the number one book that I recommend to anybody ever is atomic habits by James Clear. And I don't it's not super applicable specifically to getting to more money, per se.
There's probably other books if you're just focused on the money that might be better. But at the end of the day, it comes back to your habits, right? Like, are you taking the actions that you need to take to reach the goal? And are you objectively doing those things or not. If you're not objectively doing those things, you're not gonna get to that goal. So, Tom McAbwitz is kinda like breaking it into the the little things that you have to do so that it becomes automatic.
If you get to the phone where, you know, these high value habits are automatic, including in the way you think, are automatic. Then it just it happens. It just happens anyway. Now you still need to, you know, the atomic habits will implement the habit of reading. Right? So you're gonna read a bunch more books after you implement this book to begin with. So that's why I think it's so valuable. Yeah. Yeah. I I love the perspective there.
I think the what you were saying there as far as, like, when you get in the habit or when you build these good habits, you just do it. For me doing it, obviously, we can break that down to a lot of things, but it it's decisions.
And it's really why I try to break down good and bad decisions even in this show because For me, when I look at successful people and when I look at my own history, we are where we are based on the decisions that we've made, and those decisions are so tied to our habits, our disciplines, our daily actions. And so What do you think? The way that you think, man. And so I love what you said there because it's a 100% true.
If you can get that stuff down, the rest, like you said, happens, which for me is, like, the rest meaning you make good choices. Yeah. You make good decisions. Yeah. Good decision backed by good decision backed by good decision is really what what breeds success. It doesn't mean that you don't make bad decisions. So it just means that you make enough good ones in a row that you get some momentum going. Yeah. Yeah. Momentum is is huge. So That's good, man. Okay. Next question.
Do you intentionally mastermind or network? You kind of already mentioned this a little bit, but give us a little bit more Yeah. Definitely do. It's it's evolved over time. I started right away with a BNI group. Of course. And you know, usually smaller businesses in there, but still great resource to bounce ideas off of people and obviously get referrals, which is the point of the group. Yep. Still have great friends, from that group.
And then eventually, that just no longer financially made sense. The return wasn't there. So I moved on to another coaching group. This one's called breakthrough academy. That one, learned a lot from a lot of other contractors, similar to me. So let's talk to him to this day. And, actually, it's funny. One of them, we're both gonna go to, a different coaching. We're in a different coaching program now. That we just kind of naturally transition to. That's great. I'm gonna see him.
I actually meet him for the first time next week. We've only only ever been digital. Yeah, I think the important part is for me, I'm a personal relationship kinda guy. I'm not like a group type of person. I never have been. I always, even in high school, I was like, if I'm friends with you, it doesn't mean I'm friends with him, right, people that I have around me.
Yeah. That's, like, a complex thing from my childhood, but picking those people and creating those, like, deeper relationships has been really valuable for me, which just goes back to, like, I have a problem or something that I'm working on I can float it by those people and Yeah. Get a lot of insight. I love that.
I I what I heard you say in there, and maybe correct me if I'm wrong, but based on your profile here, you're maybe not so much like a group person or an extrovert, but but you've had to put yourself in those situations to find those individual relationships. So you had to get uncomfortable in order to get what you were looking for even on the one to one level. Yeah. Absolutely. And I'm not afraid. Like, I am I would say I'm an introverted heart, but I'm not afraid in any way to be extroverted.
It's just not something that, like, I naturally seek out. I just know how beneficial it is to me to do so. So I've left it. Yep. Yeah. That's the same boat that I'm in. We'll learn extrovert. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It's Good stuff, man. You'll you'll meet amazing people, but only if you try. 100%. I mean, I've had people, ask about this show. Why why do you do the show? I'm like, Have you seen some of my guests? Like, I've had some amazing people like a guy named Bruce. You know? Yeah. Awesome.
Okay. Last question. You ready? Yeah. Sure. If you lost it all, what would you do? Man, 20. I I would just do it again, honestly. This is I have big plans for the future. This isn't the only venture that I want to have anyway. But this is a great foundation. And I think one of the beautiful parts about this business is the simplicity of it. You know, like I said, I'm not doing something monumental. It's something that we've been as humans doing for 1000 years.
I personally feel like it's not going away anytime soon. I know the industry is always here. The economy is always changing, so we'll see what happens. In us. Hopefully, if it does change, I'm in on the ground level of that. But, yeah, like, this sets the foundation for everything that I can do in the future and I would literally just start the company again. Yeah. That's awesome. I love the, the grit that comes in that answer. That's what I'm hearing you say.
Just Knowing what you know now, how could you go do anything else? Right. And I could do this so much faster the second time. Like, It would be I could I've I personally feel like I could get from point a to now that it's taken me 4 years. I could do it in 1 year. I feel very confident that that's true. 100%. I love that. Okay. If someone, listening today just super connected with you, how do they find you? How do they connect with you online or, website or social?
Yeah. I mean, I'm not super out there, to be honest. Just Facebook, Instagram. And then the company itself, exemplary painting. If you You really wanna see my face. That's that's where it'll be. That's great, man. Well, we appreciate you coming and and sharing just nuggets along the way that you've learned. Your story is just valuable, man, is hearing the things that you've gone through. Good decisions, bad decisions to love it, every piece of it.
So thank you for me, and thank you from for my audience, for being here and being, just, incredibly valuable. We appreciate it and and wish you nothing but success in in your 40,000,000 Trek. Thank thank you. Yeah. I'll let you know when I get there. Thanks for listening to gathering the Kings. We hope you got a ton of value today and learned a thing or 2 about taking your business to 7 figures and beyond.
If you desire more and want a community around you to help you get there, I want you to go to gathering the king's dot com. That's gathering the king's dot com, and I want you to apply for our next becoming a king 90 day intensive. We are extremely exclusive by nature as a group. What that means that we're really wanting only the entrepreneurs who take their business and targets super serious to apply.
So if that's you, you think you got what it takes, To level up your business, I want you to go to gatheringthekings.com and apply, and we will see you on the other side.