Transcription
[Music] These are the three things that are going to help you achieve exactly what you want in life. Number one, control your time. Number two, you'll gain the wealth that you want and then it'll allow you to live inside of your purpose. If you've heard that, right? Like time is the most valuable asset you have. However, most people live in in a contrary position to that.
My father growing up would often say, "If time is your most valuable asset, then why don't you manage your time more than you manage your money?" Most people act as if money or capital is their most valuable resource. Um, and so they spend all their time looking, thinking, pursuing, um, curating money. I've learned in my life that the more I manage my time, the more my time ends up bringing me back money or resources. I don't think wealth is amassing a lot of treasure. I think it's about how you use the treasure. You would say, "Oh, that person's probably wealthy." And they are. But by definition, wealth is not tied to a dollar amount. Wealth is tied to the experience, right?
Most people will say this. They'll say, "Well, once I get to this level, then I will do." That's never the case. What happens is they're still pursuing the wealth. They'll never pursue the purpose. And they actually never will take that step. Purpose is something set up as an object or end to be. Meaning, you ever heard the phrase, what's your end game? Like, what is it that you're trying to accomplish? I would say that most people don't understand their purpose because they don't understand the end game. Most people are looking for something magical. They're looking for this one thing that fills this one void in their life that only this one thing can do. And I think that if you are struggling with purpose today, you should number one look down the pathway and say, "What is the end of what I could produce to make a difference in this world?" And it's tied to my talents and my passions.
2019, I sold 76 companies in one year for about 1.27 billion. And that year as I sold those businesses, I got to begin living the life that I wanted to live. It would have taken me 20 or 30 years. My very first exit um was an unintentional exit. Um, I was just trying to source capital and some corporate giants came in kind of behind the scenes took advantage of me at a level that I just I didn't even know the game we were playing, you know, and at the last hour it was like, "Hey, by the way, this is about what this is about what's going to happen to you." And it cost me, you know, like it probably cost me in the long run 20 to30 million that I could have had personally. Like it was a big big lesson. And they gave me 24 hours to make a decision. I was outclassed. I was outplayed. I had no idea. I really had no business playing the game that they were playing. Um cuz I wasn't prepared.
And so I'm driving back in the next day. I have to go in and sign some papers mad and frustrated. And the words of my mother kind of like came back like in any low if you can find gratitude in the moment, it becomes a catalyst for your greatest lessons in life. And I started thinking and I was like, you know, this is interesting. I I I'm trying to get to a place of like positivity. Like how do I actually see the benefit in what just happened to me? And it dawned on me they were actually giving me what what's in the business realm you know like in in this exing companies what was called seven times multiple on my IBIDA right so like if I were to work the same amount of month same amount of hours for the next seven years doing the exact same thing and I didn't see any increase or decrease essentially what they're doing is giving me 7 years of my life back in this moment now I might have wanted 10 or 20 years of my life back but they're giving me seven and I found this like moment of gratitude on the way back in after like the one of the worst days of my business career and thought you know what if I could live my life today as if I'd want to live it in seven years with this revenue what would my life look like I started to like who gets that blessing in life right like and then it it became the catalyst for the mantra of of how I do business how do I get how do I shrink down my time so that instead of living you know my you know trying to live a hundred lifetimes you know and and dying with this expectation of giving back later. What if I could actually live a 100 lifetimes today in this process of shrinking down time by selling something at a exponential multiple without having to go through the process and then take that capital and go do something massive with it.
Capitalism in its right context is very serving of the general population because what it says is is may the best service or product delivered in the right way win right with the right price and that part of capitalism is amazing right because it it at that point it serves the consumer. My businesses exist to make money, but my businesses should also have an altruistic look at serving the customer and having a greater reach than just the business itself. And to me, that's where I think capitalism in its purest form does the greatest good.
There are really five phases to business. Um, there's what we call the startup phase. Then we move into perseverance. That's like pre-profit. It's when we're still wearing lots of hats and there's not enough people. We get into viability. That's phase three. That's when we actually like look at the business and it's ready for growth. Then scale and then lastly succession. Um I have a systematic way of pushing the businesses through every phase with complete intention. And that's the problem with most small business owners. Like you got a guy that he's running a small tech company or a dry cleaner or whatever it is. They will get into what we call perseverance mode where they're making a little bit of money. Like and perseverance is like you might be profitable one month, you might not be profitable next month. You might be profitable for 6 months and then you might not be right. And but you don't have the right people in the right seats. You don't have the right systems. You don't there's no way to scale it. But what they do is is they go they start taking all their revenue and they start putting it into areas that really shouldn't be invested in until they're truly viable. And they they misstep because they don't know the sequencing. What I've realized is there's a sequencing to growing businesses. And it really doesn't matter what the business is. There's a sequencing to it. And if I can actually grow the business properly, hire the right people, create the right governance layers, understand the right KPIs, right, at the right time, then I can systematically get it through that process faster than just about anyone else. I've mastered that and that's how we grow and run and scale and potentially exit all the businesses.
Money, resources of any kind. I mean money specifically, but really resources really become the greatest revealer of actually what's inside. You know, most people they get to speak, they get to speak from their audible voice. Some people get a megaphone and a microphone. And I feel like the money and resources we get is it just like it just it's an amplification system of who we really are. And I remember having a real deep thought when I was making my first good money, thinking, who do I want to be? Yes, I can live a good life. I can up my standard of living, but in the end, it's like I I want to make sure that this doesn't just serve me, you know? And so, um, I I think that money is the ultimate revealer. And I think that as you see people, um, it and they're they're they're attain obtaining this money with greed, you just find more greed. they they take advantage of more people. For instance, it's like you take somebody like Elon Elon Musk, you know, Elon's goals is he wants to change how we navigate not just our globe, but the entire planetary system, you know, like he's and the more money he makes, the more it reveals his real desire, which is like to really change how we navigate everything, you know, and it's like from cars to rockets to trains to and it's like it really just kind of reveals who Elon was. Well, if Elon was sitting there broke, like he might have all these dreams and aspirations, but Elon wealthy is like showing that's really who he is.
Life success. I, you know, to go back just a step, um, I have amazing parents and, you know, I was super fortunate, uh, to grow up in an environment where my father was an entrepreneur, but also my mother was an entrepreneur. Both of them started businesses, both of them ran successful businesses. And um I learned so much about just like the life operating system through them um that I was super fortunate. I feel like I I had a jump start where a lot of people did not, you know, and and it wasn't really my college education or formal education any way that led me to where I am really was it was the life education and really just some some basic principles that that were huge for me.
Um is I had a father who um who understood and had a great relationship with fear. um he left his corporate job to try to pursue what was his dream and I watched him do it. Um and sometimes he was successful, sometimes he was we were extremely poor as a family and sometimes we were wealthy and I watched that and he also was also present in my life. Um, and so I saw this great dad who also had the ups and downs of the entrepreneurial journey. And so for me, while he probably looks back on those periods of time and says I, and he probably says to himself, I never want to go back to those low moments, I look at those low moments and I think, what's the worst that can happen if I go allin? I end up spending time with my family. I end up having a good relationship with my kids, right? Like so like he really had a great relationship with fear and taught me and gave me a great gift and that is is to understand you know what to truly fear right like the fear of loss is really not something we should fear sometimes in loss it brings us our greatest opportunity the greatest times I ever had with my father was when we were at the lowest point financially right so like to me it's just like watching a person navigate that and experiencing that really helped me deal with fear.
The second thing that he taught me is is really ego is the enemy. Um my dad is a quiet leader. Um who is not going to be an alpha, you know, beat his chest. Um you know, you're never going to find him on social media touting his wares. He was a guy who led from the back, who was never afraid of picking up the shovel himself. Um who was quiet, who was a leader in his own right, very demonstrative, but in a very quiet sense. and his his actions and his results always far uh outspoke his his words or the volume of his voice.
The thing I learned from my mother though was gratitude. Um and that you know I had suffered quite a bit of loss in my younger life. I lost a sister then later lost a brother and my mom just a very strong you know an emotionally aware person constantly bring me back to towards this point of gratitude. She would say, "Eddie, like, tell me about I would be I would struggle with the loss of my sister." And she would say, "Eddie, let's talk about your sister. Let's talk about your favorite day. Let's talk about the favorite toy she had. Let's talk about what was your favorite moment." And then she would help me rehearse gratitude even in loss. And some of the greatest lessons I've ever learned in my life was to be afraid of the things that actually that you should intentionally be afraid of. to remind myself constantly that ego actually is the enemy. Ego actually prevents me from getting where I want to go. And if I can find gratitude in the low moments, they become catalysts for massive growth.
The very first time I ever bought a car, yeah, I went to my dad. I said, "Hey, I'm going to buy this car. It's $1,800. I'm 16 years old. It's a, you know, not a nice car. It was just wheels. It got me around. He said, "Well, how much is it?" And I said, "It's $1,800." He said, "No, like how much? How much is it?" And I was like, and I knew what he meant was, "I made $4 an hour. I only would get 20 hours a week." What he was asking me is, "How many weeks of your life, how many days of your life do you have to give away to exchange for this car?" And my dad always put in context the cost of things based on time.
The lessons I think I've taken the longest to learn, I'm still learning, was that if you chase wealth, it eludes you. If you chase time, wealth often times is the byproduct of it. We're either running from something or running to something. If time is my most valuable asset, I should spend more time managing my time than managing my money, right? Like I should have a really good relationship with my calendar and making sure that I'm I'm putting and getting out of my day everything that I actually want, desire, need, and be relentless with your calendar and your time. because it's in the breaking of those patterns that we actually get the success we want.
I go through an exercise every year now um where I actually toggle I use a app called toggle where I toggle a lot of my time and I at the end of the year I give that to my CFO and we look at my active income based on the time I exchanged like this is how what every minute of your life was worth last year. This is what you exchanged it for. And for me then I'm constantly dialing that in every single year. I know it's a little crazy, but it's like for me what it does is it gets me into this place where I'm really hyperfocused on what I exchange my time for.
I think one of the greatest lessons I've learned is to really understand who I am, not in kind of my conscious self, but trying to understand who I am in my subconscious self. You know, in our conscious brain, we're making seven decisions a minute, but in our subconscious brain, it's 10,000 or 20,000. You know, it's like we're making all these decisions based on our subconscious mind. the thing that we're unaware of. And typically our subconscious is tied to traumas. It's tied to fears. It's tied to all these things. And I think that if if we're not getting the outcome we want, I think we have to stop looking at the activity of our day and we have to look at the activity of our life, right? Like there are patterns in our life. Sometimes you just need that honest friend or mentor that's going to say, "Okay, let me show you this pattern that maybe you don't see." um because it's in the breaking of those patterns that we actually get the success we want.
Really number two is is that oftent times the things you chase elude you so if you chase the right thing you ultimately get what you ultimately want. Um I wrote a book a few years ago called time, wealth, and purpose. I didn't start with purpose. I actually started with time because most often times what you ultimately want is a result of actually just managing your time properly. If time is my most valuable asset, I should spend more time managing my time than managing my money. For me, the principle of getting what I want out of my life is a timebased principle, not a wealth-based principle. If you chase wealth, it eludes you. If you chase time, wealth oftent times is the byproduct of it. So I rarely look at my world as the wealth or the achievement or the goals, but I look at my world as in these like micro these pieces of micro time that I will exchange for something that I want something in return for. Um and that would be the second thing I say would say to a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of business people, people that are pursuing, you know, they're maybe they're in a W2 job and it's like, you know, in the end it's so important that you manage your time. I know that's cliche, but I will tell you that that to the degree that I manage my time, everything else comes into purview.
So, what I'm doing is I'm constantly looking at my my motives and my actions, determining like am I passionately pursuing something cuz that's a love based activity or am I actually avoiding something? I don't want the liability. I don't want whatever it is. and then identifying and then go okay okay okay that's fear and then let's let's actually like reason through that you know like um and then it goes back to what what should we be afraid of like there are really only a few things in life that we should be afraid of and most of it actually the things that we're afraid of and we imagine in our mind actually if we went through them would better us right like it might be painful but it's about having the great a decent relationship with your but I think you have to understand what what you do it, you know, in your daily activities. And it's being conscious enough uh to look at what you do and determine, am I avoiding something or am I running to something? That's where purpose, mission, and all this stuff anchors into it. Because if I can kind of stay rooted in purpose, impacting someone else's life, impacting the lives of those that can't impact themselves, it's like it's it's a lot easier to kind of like root that fear-based activity out of my life.
One of my favorites is Kevin Oolir. You know, he's on Shark Tank. They call him Mr. wonderful. He's this gruff, grouchy, mean guy, right? Like it's it's his persona. And then you get behind the scenes with him and we're talking about life and his passion for whatever it is, you know, like watches, cars, like people. And what I notice is that there's something in common with all of them. And it's um it's it's they've got kind of what I would call like the seeker mentality. They have this passion for life and they're all going deep in certain areas and it's all really random stuff like but most of them have like this personality that's like they go really deep in areas and they're seeking and they're searching and they're always learning and they they don't treat people as if um they know it all right like the most successful people we have on the stage the Mark Cubans. I mean, Mark's multi-billionaire, you know, just exited the Mavericks, made another billion. And it's like the guy is super super successful. We were sitting backstage and he was watching somebody else on the sta on the TV in the green room, you know, we got it publicized back there and we're just chatting. He's like, "Hold on a second." And he's like in listening to the speaker and he's like, "Wow, that was really good. Hold on one second." He pulls out his phone. He's like taking a note, right? It's like he was acting just like me, you know? like that that I was like and I'm always just so enamored by by that in people. Um, and so I think that sometimes their brands kind of position them as like they've found it all. They found all the success. You can't help them. You can't interact with them. And the funny thing is is behind the scenes they're all students of the game. They're all seeking. They're all learning. They're all passionate. Um, that's what I've learned a lot is that it's okay and it doesn't diminish who you are. You know, that authenticity of always being okay with not knowing something and being passionate to to learn and and to grow inside of something that it doesn't diminish your brand by showing that you don't know something or that you still haven't achieved something in your life. It actually it's it's a blessing at at that level because they have access to the people that can help them achieve it even quicker, you know.
[Music] Hey. [Music]