On today's episode of Gathering McKens. I've always had the CNA personality about me where I just wanna keep going. Nothing is ever enough. What's the next best thing that we can Great. We hit 7 figures. Let's go to 8. We hit 8. Great. Let's go to 9. We hit 9. Just wanna keep stacking and keep going. You gotta have goals so big that you're scared of not making them Thank you.
You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe, featuring Fellow 7, 8, 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 reel of the reel. On what it takes to build a successful business today.
We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along the way Chaz give a true and accurate picture of the journey of assess 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. Alright, guys. Chaz Wolfe coming back at you, gathering the king's podcast. And today dude. Tyler Simpson on the show today.
We just got done with incredible pod. And and, Tyler, the energy coming from such a youthful seven figure owner, I'm jacked. I'm inspired on my side. Thanks for coming. It was awesome. Wouldn't it? Absolutely, dude. It was absolutely freaking amazing. I I I can't thank you enough for having me on today. It was fantastic. This guy has an incredible story. He literally breaks it down. Make sure you grab your pen and paper because it's about to go down. Alright. Welcome to the stage.
Tyler Simpson, dude. Thank you so much were coming and and gracing us with your presence today, we are in for a treat. Thanks for being here, man. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on, man. Glad to be here. Awesome, dude. You're a seven figure business owner, but you're a young dude. And so we got all kinds of stuff to talk about today. Because I know there's other young dudes and ladies listening right now. And and your story is unique just as we all of our stories are.
And so let's dive in with What does the business look like today, the current status of things? Just give us a quick overview of what you're involved in, what's your hands in, what's the business look like today? Absolutely. Absolutely. So, basically, we are in the grocery retail and restaurant industry. We're all in one to big family business that we got going on. We got RV parks going on.
Beer bar is going in grocery store, gas station, know, kind of a little conglomerate that we got going on around here. So I love it. I love it. Okay. So tell me a little bit about, obviously, with those 3 or or forward angles all kind of in one conglomerate. You're located in the same place. Your store is a little unique because you're in a small area, but little bit of a touristy area. So you're capturing local slash touristy business. Tell us a little.
Just give us another, like, 30 seconds on, like, restaurant? What kind of food do you have? What's unique about the the grocery store gas station combo? Give us a little bit of a history there. Definitely. I can for offhand, for say Chaz the restaurant itself is absolutely unique. We have the upside down buns. You won't find that for a few 100 around here. Actually, I really don't know is an upside down bun, Tyler. So you're taking your regular hamburger bun. Right?
The old traditional good upside Upside up hamburger bun. K? K. K. Flip it over. Flip it over. Bottom bun is now on on the bottom, but facing the wrong way. Thought button. It usually has the nice dome on it. Yeah. It's facing the other way. So you actually have a weird stack going on. Interesting. And and so what does that do for me as the consumer, Tyler? Help understand what's this doing to my taste buds? What Chaz is doing to your taste buds? So we actually have a fancy bun toaster.
It's a vertical bun toaster. So that actually allows us to get a nice butter crust on the bun as a toast. Yeah. So when you sink your teeth in, that is the absolute first thing that you're sinking your teeth into. It's giving you taste buds Chaz extra rich experience. I love it. I love it. And I love the butter top. We could talk about business all day, or we Chaz talk about butter. Both are basically just as glorious. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. That's awesome, man. And this was your idea.
Some of your history is this is a family business. It's been around for a long time. But you're not just the old chap off the block who's, like, just taking over what daddy did. You've come in and you've really done your own thing, and it's been incredible. The upside number, in fact, is your creation. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. It's 100% my creation. I I started the restaurant about 5, 6 years ago now.
And, We took the food program from doing about 10,000 a year to now doing a little bit over 2 30 a year on the last 5 years. And absolutely, my brainchild took the As the second, we introduced the upside down button, a sales went up 40%. So Wow. It's pretty hard to argue with the uniqueness of it.
So You know, the uniqueness brings attention, and we can get to some in a little bit when you tell us about your journey and story and stuff, but you hear that all across podcasts and and TikTok videos and stuff today. If you're in business and listening to anything business, it's you gotta get attention and you gotta get, you know, your people to to notice what you're doing.
And so we're gonna flip the buns upside down, create an amazing tasteful experience, and you're gonna wanna come try it is what you're saying to me. Absolutely. Absolutely. It gets people talking. That's I love it. I love it. Okay. So a lot to dive in here because you've got a business that that is is working inside of a family that you are now in in proprietary control of. But then also too, you've gotten things that you've done on your own and then new projects coming.
So I wanna dive into all that. So let's keep moving here. Before we go into some of that stuff, what drives you at this moment now. Yeah. All these things going on. You're a 7 figure business owner, the quote unquote, you've made it status. What drives you even at this moment to keep going? Chaz is a fantastic question because your goals are only still high. Right? At the end of the day, what I've always had the CNA personality about me where I just wanna keep going. Nothing is ever enough.
What's the next best thing that we can do? Great. We hit 7 figures. Let's go to 8. We hit 8. Great. Let's go to 9. We hit 9. Let's go to just wanna keep stacking and keep going. You gotta have goals so big that you're scared of not making them happen. So and that's how I look at it. I love that. And, obviously, there's a there's a all kinds of implementation and technique that goes into to making those things actually happen. But it starts with what you're talking about.
So if you're listening right now and you're taking notes, Tyler has already dropped a huge bomb on you right now, which is you've gotta be able to think big. You've gotta be able to put things in front of you that do make you scared. It can't just be the things that you already know you're gonna do. It's gotta be something that little nervous. You you wonder, is this even possible?
And then what that does then Chaz an entrepreneur, when you're writing the stuff down, as you guys, I'm sure heard me talk about, you your brain then gets forced into how do I make this happen or better yet, who do I need to work with or collaborate with or who do I need to hire or whatever onto them being able to complete these projects? That's gold. Thank you so much, Tyler. Alright. Tell me where entrepreneurship began for you.
Obviously, it probably ran in the family, but how did your journey start? So my journey actually started. I mean, my little brother, we started selling watermelon cantaloupe and snow cones outside dad's store. Back in the day, we're about 10. We little lads. So I'm flipping snow cones, but from there, it got spiraled off into I went into photography for years. Throughout high school, a little bit of middle school, that's how I paid my bills was, photography.
Wow. And then from there, blossom into did a little bit of construction work, but none of that was my own. And in about 19, that's when I started selling a soft stuff pretzels. And turn into a restaurant from there. So Yeah. I remember off off air because, obviously, you and I have gotten to know each other over the last even couple of weeks pretty good.
Yeah. And and you told me about this story about how you created this pretzel, a whole brand new recipe, basically, in in your nineteen years old, like, out of high school, most people are thinking about how do I party How do I be with my friends? And you're creating a new recipe for a pretzel that ends up basically going by It was outside of being, on TikTok, but it was huge. Tell me about the pretzel. Yeah. So the the pretzel, I so I went to call it for a brief, very brief stint.
And that's actually where it came up with the idea. And everybody in class was like, yo, dude, that sounds like a phenomenal idea. You should try it. Alright. Yeah. We'll see what happens here. 1st batch. Terrible. Absolutely terrible. No clue what I'm doing. Could've quit. You could've quit, but you did. Could have quit. Never baked a day in my life. Kept working out. I kept working out. Finally got a good pretzel re pretzel recipe.
And from there, we actually laid out the dough stuffed it, cheese, jalapenos, breakfast. We had pizza. All of that good stuff. And then started selling them in the store a little bit. My dad, gave me a little bit of a space. And then from there, it blew up. We went to schools. We did some fundraisers. We were in bars. We're all over the place with that thing. So That's incredible. The the journey here as you're listening and taking notes from Tyler is that he he didn't quit.
It was just an idea, but his friends around him actually encouraged him, which is not always necessarily entrepreneur journey. Sometimes we get discouraged. Right? Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. You luckily had some folks around you, saying, hey. We'll try this out. That sounds awesome. And so you were able to press in, and I love the persistence there of getting the recipe right, even at a young age, to have persistence like that is is unique.
And so if you're listening right now, persistence is absolutely key. Like, that sounds cliche, but Chaz that means is that you gotta have some stick to itiveness. You need to not just make the decision, but then you need to stick to it, see it through. Be persist until it comes to fruition or until you can get the result that you're looking for. And so that's a that's an incredible example. Now you've given us an upside down bun, which makes me hungry.
And, now a cheesy pizza breakfast filled pretzel, I'm gonna I'm gonna at the end here, I'm gonna ask people how to with you. But right now, for the listener, please tell them where you're located and where your restaurant is, and they can get these amazing things. Just real quick. Tell tell us where you're located. I'm in a tiny town called Nissa, Oregon. I'm about fifty miles outside of Boise where our the restaurant itself is called Rockford Grill. Come on in.
We got brand new seating area to come check out. So Yeah. A incredible place, and you can do some fishing. You can do some hiking. I'm sure in the area. Beautiful place. Beautiful area. Alright. Let's continue on. So we're gonna go into decisions. I love this part of the show because for me, personally, decisions good and bad are the marker of where I am, period. Absolutely. Okay. And so do you have a formula or a process around making decisions Tyler.
Well, my basic formula is is this gonna make me happy? I I can't really get into something if it's not gonna make happy. Initially, everything's everything new always yeah. This is cool, but in the long run, if I'm not happy 6 months from now doing it, I'm not gonna do it. And Chaz really came about from making those bad decisions. Like, oh, I'm not happy no more doing doing what I'm So Yeah. That that's when that formula started. So I love that answer.
How do you how have you figured out the difference between I don't like doing this doing this anymore. So it's not good for me versus it's just hard, and I gotta press through. Because some people are gonna hear you, and they're gonna go, Oh, I don't wanna do this anymore. I don't wanna do the hard work. Tyler said just to follow my heart. How do I know the difference, Tyler? Right. Right.
So the difference really is there's a clear line of when something is actually hard and when you just physically, it is not good for you to continue on. So for me, it's you're wanting to sleep every day. You're not wanting to wake up. You're not excited to get out of bed. Even if it is a hard challenge, you still should be like, alright. Let's tackle the day to day. You know? And Chaz really is the definitive line of Yeah. This is no longer healthy for me. I'm not eating. I'm not doing well.
But people around me like, hey, dude. What's going on. So for me, that's the biggest thing. So I'm hearing emotional stability, basically, from the angle of am I fulfilling my purpose? Right? Am I doing what I should be doing? And if I'm not, what you're saying is there should be some adverse effects. Now Yeah. Some sometimes we that persistence word comes through, and we just gotta stick to it. Uh-huh. Correct. We just talked about. Yeah. But I hear what you're saying.
And so for the listener here, taking notes, want you to hear what he's the line that he's drawing is that every entrepreneurial journey is hard, period. Like, I already know from off camera here, some things that Tyler is, going through even right now. Like, you got some stuff placed on tough things on your place right now. But that doesn't mean that you don't press in like you said, and you're not like, let's go figure it out. Let's charge the hill. So that's the line.
And, and and if it goes negative past that, then you need to look at, does this fulfill my purpose, or maybe even a little bit more clear? Does it give me what I want? Does it give me what I want? Do I do I even know what I want? Is it pushing me to my dream? And and really at the end of the day, if you have a solid idea of where you wanna go in life, those decisions become really easy to make. Yep. That's right. That's right. Clear clear idea where you're going helps you make good decisions.
That's what I heard there. Okay. So give us an idea of bad bad decision that you have made that would be helpful for the listener to to not repeat. Terrible decisions I've made is making bad investments and stuff that doesn't make me happy. It is not pushing me towards what I'm gonna do. So for example, about 4 years ago now, I saw about $10,000 into, this real estate thing, this wholesale real estate thing taught by this guru. Couple months in, I'm like, man, I suck it.
This is not helping me out at all. What am I doing? I'm $10 in a whole of no clue what I'm gonna do. So, yeah, that that's an example of a very bad financial decision and emotional decision in my manager right there. Sure. The end result ended up not being what you thought it was. And so I'm sure just because I know you well enough at this point so that you pulled out nugget from Chaz? Because because it no bad decisions actually a failure. Right? Like, we learn from it. We know this.
It's it's all success. It's all success. So what specifically with that decision because you're not in wholesale anymore, or maybe you never even really climbed the ladder on Chaz, but what did you learn in that process of spending the money, doing the learning, figuring out it wasn't for you, what was the lesson for you? I've always been a huge a floss for a big dreamer. So the big lesson for me was, Make sure you got your assets in the right place.
Don't over stretch yourself with what you got going on around you. And and that really put me in a financial bind. From here on out, from then on out, I really was like, okay. Where are my financial assets at? Where are my best strengths and how can I best spend that money to double it? To triple it. So you didn't fall back into fear of, oh, I could never spend money again. I made a bad choice. It was, no, let me take a look at this choice. Let me learn from it.
But then as I go forward and continue to make financial decisions, because as a 7 figure owner, you're making $10,000 decisions almost every single day, probably. Absolutely. And so you can't be fearful, but you, you're like, okay. Let me just put a little structure to my decision making, which you already gave us a little bit of that formula. That's that's fantastic. Alright. Let's transition to a good decision. Can you give us just a highlight of something that was just like, yes.
A good decision? Straight out of the gate, it had to be starting those pretzels. Had to be coming up with that recipe. That that was a a banger from day 1. So that's an example of a very good decision that I made. Yeah. And so the decision there, what I'm hearing, just for the listener, to kinda break it down a little bit, is I took a risk. I had no idea what I was doing because you said I'd never baked a day in my life. It was just an idea.
I had really I was uncertain about whether I was actually gonna fulfill it or not, but once some legs got underneath it, I'm like, maybe this could be something, so I pressed into it. Several good decisions back to back, it sounds like. Mhmm. Yeah. I I took the chance to invest in myself And that was the best decision you could ever make. That's so true. That's so true. Okay. I love all of the good and bad decision stuff.
Let's switch lines just a little bit and talk discipline for just a half second. All areas of life, business, finance, family, Chaz whatever it comes down to. Or even working inside of a business with family. And so that that might even be a little unique part of your story to tell, but how do you stay disciplined in all of these things you got going on? Personally, I I'm up at 5 AM every day. It became known to me years ago that I was a big dreamer.
And, if I didn't write stuff down, stuff got lost. That's a cool idea. There it goes. There it went. Okay. I invested in paper tablets. I invested in notepads to keep me on track. What do I gotta do today? What's gonna push me forward? And I wake you up at 5 AM every day, working out, sweating, eating right, drinking right, that'll definitely help keep your mind right. That's awesome.
I I you've hinted several times Chaz, yeah, your personality or some skill sets that you have naturally and then also then the opposite side of that, which is a weakness. And I do the same thing inside of my programs as well as my employees. We've talked about this as well. You and I of, off the record here, but knowing who you are, it sounds like for you, has been able like, first off, you have to be honest. Right? You've had to be honest with yourself that I'm a dreamer.
Okay. That sounds cool. But what does that really mean for Tyler? What you just told us is a dreamer isn't necessarily known as an executor or an implementer. And and until that stage where all you can do is just dream and that'd be your only role, you gotta have to implement. You're gonna have to execute. So writing stuff down, being up at a specific time. So that way you can start working through the checklist of the day. Those things have been super practical.
Even though we know these things, we we know get up earlier or hit the gym, like, create a to do list, write it down. We know these things. Mhmm. Why don't we do them? Why didn't you do them before? I was actually very fortunate to start learning these habits. I really didn't realize I had these habits because I I grew up race professional motocross, so I was always out training and doing doing stuff.
And it was that goal of I wanna be really good at this Chaz kinda helps put tracks in place for you. For me, getting up every day, doing all that stuff really just helps hone in my skills. 100%. Skill set has to be obtained in order to then master it. You can't have any sort of real success without mastery. And so to your point, even with Motacross, it's getting out there and practicing. Right?
Like, you just gotta do it multiple times and and have a discipline a schedule of some sort behind it, a purpose in your practice, all of that. Cons yeah. Consistency has been absolutely key for me. So making sure I'm staying on my schedules, making sure I'm doing this. Because even if I get off one day, it throws me off. I go, I can sit down all day and think and dream and do whatever I want. Inside my head, it's awesome. But out here, I'm like, oh, wait. I got stuff to do. So Right. Right.
The real world calls. And, I think there's a good balance there. So you know that you you have strength of idea, strength of creation of new things, strength of pulling nothing out of thin air, really, as a dreamer. That's what you do, but to know the other side of sword, I'd like to know that, okay. Like, I'm gonna need people around me and, and tools around me, which you've already mentioned, to be able to help you get there, which I think is huge. Absolutely. Absolutely. Correct.
Say most entrepreneurs listening right now are probably in that vision boat of some degree. Right? You've got big hopes, big dreams. Right? You have to. Otherwise, why'd you start the business? You know? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Nobody goes in just like, maybe we could do this. Maybe we could do this. Exactly. Exactly. You already know, but but the tools along the way, to Tyler's point here, are are what has helped him be successful. And I would seek I would take a second here.
Even if you need to pause show here and and write down some tools that you're either using that are helpful or that you need to use better or tools that you should be using that you have access to or maybe you need to go find new tools, and there's all sorts of technologies or, like, Tyler even said, good old pen and paper or a little notebook that that can help you keep things on track. So you making sure you're using those things around you. Absolutely. 100%. Alright, Tyler.
It's time for the speed round. K. In the speed round, we're gonna go fast, but I want, like, punchy really practical, really helpful answers. Okay? So I'm gonna ask you a series of questions and, might ask you to expound, but this is the this is, for the 6 figure owner who is trying to get where you are, dude. And these questions are gonna be super helpful to them. They're taking notes right now. Absolutely. Yeah. Fire away.
Okay. First one is if you could only track one metric in all of your businesses forever and ever going forward, only one. You can only pick 1. What metric do you pick? Your hand you're tying my hands here, man. Employee satisfaction, man. If my employees are happy, everyone else is gonna be happy. Got it. Okay. And so can you give us anything unique there that you either do special or to increase the employee satisfaction. Give us a little give us a little nugget there.
Some fun things we like to do around here. A lot of us are of sports type people. So we go go kart racing. That's what we do. Some good friendly competition to keep people, happy, keep people with each other. Competition is great for camaraderie. It's great for talking a little shit to somebody. It Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It it keeps people happy. So That's awesome. And then that happiness then entails to the customers. Then they are taking care of the customers as if they're their own. Right?
No. That's huge. The end, a customer result to your point. We've all walked into that restaurant where that employee is just does not wanna be there. They hate their job. They hate their boss, all that. Okay. So I'm hearing work hard, play hard. Yeah. Absolutely. 100%. Good. Alright. So next question. What book does a 6 figure owner need to read to help them get to the 7 figure level? It is actually a book that I was just introduced to myself, a $100,000,000 offers by Alex Ramosi.
That book is a solid book. I've read a lot of books in my day, but that one definitely hits home for a six figure owner. That's an incredible book. I too have read it, and I would highly recommend it as well. A lot of very practical things in that book that can help you out. Definitely. Alright. Next question. Do you intentionally network and or mastermind with other high performing entrepreneurs. Yeah. Dude, actually. So I actually have a unique situation with the store.
There are a ton of people, business owners alike Chaz come in the store all the time. So I get to sit by the counter. I get to pick their brain and get to talk to them all the time. Yeah. And outside that, I do go to business conferences to see what other people are saying, see what industry leaders are doing in the world. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. That's awesome.
And so my next question was, do you pay for and and you've already given me a couple different examples of of being able just to network locally without paying. So you don't have to pay if you have the right intentions, but then also too, you have sought out conferences and other types of things that's, that you've had to pay for, but you found good value in that, it sounds like. Yeah. Definitely a good strategy of paid and unpaid is definitely the way to go. That's right.
So for the six figure owner, here's what I've found oftentimes is that they hear someone like you say, it's worth time and money to get around other entrepreneurs to be able to think differently, think bigger. You don't know what you don't know. All that sounds good. But when it comes down to it, it's like, man, it like, that money could be used for equipment or materials or to pay my people or just like, what do you say to them in that? It's tough, but because I've been there.
I can spend this $3000 on this conference, or I can spend the $3000 on a new sandwich prep station. You know? What do I do? I spend it on this because this helps you get a mindset to then pay for this 2 times over. Yeah. I love Chaz money. I love that depiction. And you've gotta be able to basically trust in yourself first. Right? Because you trust in yourself, you say, hey. If I can get a better mindset, I'll know I'll produce twice as much so that I can go buy 2 machines if I wanted to.
Correct. Correct. Yeah. That's awesome. And, obviously, a little little little side secret note here that, Tyler's inside of my 7 figure gathering the king's mastermind. And so we've already had some incredible strategic, moments between the two of us as well as in the group. And so you got some awesome stuff here just a couple days ago when we when we launched, it was pretty cool. Yes. It was fantastic. I I happen to be a part of it. That's awesome, man. Okay. So last question. You ready?
Fire away. Dude, if you lost it all today, all of it, what do you do? All of it, taking it all from me? Taking it all. I would probably personally I would probably hop back into photography. I would hop back into that game from there, save up some cash, I'll probably start an online business, go from there, write a book about how I struggled from there, start helping people, start coaching people, who are in the same situation that I was in. So There you go.
Always go back to helping people, and you'll never lack for money. Yeah. And here's what I didn't hear him say is roll over, right, or or cry about it, or And not that they say Maybe for a day or 2. Maybe for a day or 2. I'm good with that. You gotta have it like, oh, dang. That that that kicked my teammate. That sucks. That sucks. Exactly. What what what the fortitude or or the balls to do it again is what I'm hearing you say is it didn't even it didn't even come as a hesitation to you.
It'd be like, well, I guess I would try it again. In this case, photography, earn up some money, go do another business, because that's what you're made for. Chaz king before if we're gonna use this gathering the king's language. As a king, this is what you're made for. You're made to go create, you're made to go, and and that includes businesses. And yeah. Exactly. So you do it again, that sounds like. Uh-huh. Absolutely. I do it 100%. I cannot stand working for somebody else.
That's not to say it's bad to work for somebody else, but that's just not for me. Just not how you're designed to love it. Alright. So, Tyler, how can someone connect with you? You already share with us where your restaurant is, but share with with where you're located again so they can come check out your restaurant, come visit, do a vacation. But how does someone connect with you personally if they just wanna hit you up and and get to know more about you?
Yeah. Hit me up on Instagram, Simpsonator 9 27s where I'm out on Instagram. Rock store grill, waihi grocery got a few pages to hit me up on. Facebook's all the same. So you can find me there. We're, again, we're located in Nissa Oregon about actually about eight miles outside of Nissan Orchid on the way up to Lake Hawaii. So that's awesome. Come out, check us out. There's about fifty miles of reservoir to explore. There you go.
Tons of outdoor exploratory options, and you can get yourself an upside down burger. Chaz one unique of its kind right there. It's on my list, bro. I'm coming, and I want 2 of them. That's all I'm saying. Better. Gotta get a double. Awesome. Sounds good. Okay. Tyler, you've been incredible. Thank you so much for being on the show. You've dropped a value here today. The listener, if they were paying attention, has really actionable items to be able takeaway from this. So thank you so much.
Awesome. Thank you, Chaz. I appreciate you having me on. Thanks for listening to gathering the Kings. We hope you got a ton value today and learn 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