Freedom Blueprint Show

Ryan and Gabe interview Sean to talk about the crucial conversations you should be having and how you can show up as a better leader, business owner, and relationship partner. The guys dive into why it’s important to have one-on-ones with your team members, get to know them on a personal level, and the tough topic of raising children.

Key Takeaways:

• Who is Sean and what is his superpower?
• Sean shares what it was like to meet the football player Terry Bradshaw.
• It’s important to be calm during an important conversation.
• We often make a way bigger deal of how a conversation went in our heads than how it actually went.
• How did Terry Bradshaw calm Sean down?
• Ryan shares his tips for keeping calm in a high-stress situation.
• The most common way people deal with tough conversations is by avoiding them altogether.
• Always go to the positive firsts. It really helps ease the tension in the conversation.
• Gabe shares how he creates an environment for his team to open up in.
• How can you coach someone to improve their performance if you don’t have the heart-to-heart conversations with them?
• If there’s something going on in their personal life, it could explain why their performance isn’t up to par.
• How do you instill these important life skills and characteristics in your children?
• Gabe had a father who created so much pressure for him.
• Why do grandparents do so much better than the actual parents? Experience?
• What makes someone a successful parent?
• How does Sean encourage his team? You ask them how you can help them.
• Just have the tough conversation.

Resources:

Freedomblueprintshow.com

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High

Jon, Ryan, and Gabe discuss their plans for the future and where they hope to go. What got them to this level of success will not get them to the next level of success. As business owners and leaders, you always have to be constantly adapting to new things. Our three co-hosts share what they’ve learned throughout the years and how to show up better, smarter, and make a bigger impact on the people they’re serving. 

Key Takeaways:

• If you keep doing the same thing over and over, you’ll never go forward.
• Ryan is constantly trying to think and move 5-10 years ahead. 
• Why is it important to think 25 years out? 
• Ryan shares his long-term financial goals. 
• You really need better people around you to get to the next level.
• How do you transition bad (but critical) people out of your organization? 
• Ryan recently acquired two businesses. What are some of the struggles Ryan is facing right now? 
• What is Jon’s long term vision and plan? 
• Gabe shares what his vision is for his business.
• Meaningful relationships are the key to happiness.
• Emotional intelligence is key in business. Ryan had to really commit to managing his emotions and not reacting emotionally to things he couldn’t control. 
• Ryan realized he was being way too hard on his son and he wanted to change that. 
• The more you change and the more you learn to treat people better, the bigger of an impact you make on people’s lives. 
• Being tough on people has a lot of negative consequences. It’s not an effective management approach. 
• Being open to mistakes allows people to relax and actually get more things done. 
• What are the guys doing to put them in uncomfortable situations? 
• You have to make a conscious effort to nudge yourself closer and closer outside of your comfort zone. 
• If you want to make an impact on people’s lives, you have to put yourself out there, even when you don’t want to. 
• Gabe is grateful that his team holds him accountable and keeps him moving forward. 

Resources:

Freedomblueprintshow.com

The 25-Year Framework by Dan Sullivan

Jon, Ryan, and Gabe discuss how to identify, vet, and hire your key team players. You never want your company to be 100% filled with A players. They are always looking for the next best thing and it’s difficult to keep this kind of employee engaged. B players are good, they get their job done, but they’ll never push beyond that, and C players — you have got to watch out for these guys as they can really drag the business down.

Key Takeaways:

• Let’s talk about A, B, and C players.
• How do we define A player?
• It’s risky to hire A players!
• You don’t want your business to be filled 100% with A players.
• You don’t want an entire team filled with Michael Jordans, for example.
• Gabe shares his opinions on why you need a good mix of A, B, and C players.
• Gabe had one of his employees leave because they wanted to be a manager, and he didn’t think she’d be a good fit for it.
• Ryan always has a million questions on why someone wants to leave their current job.
• True A players never stop looking for jobs.
• How does Gabe vet whether a potential hire is going to be a good fit?
• As a business owner, you can get overly optimistic about a potential hire.
• What is a definition of a B player?
• When people are under pressure, all their skills go out the window and the only thing that remains is their character.
• Can you train someone on their character?
• The guys share their tips and tricks on how they conduct the reference check.
• Identify your C players and get rid of them. They will drag your company down.
• Business owners spend a lot of their time on C players. You gotta stop this.

Resources:

Freedomblueprintshow.com

Jon, Ryan, and Gabe talk about the book they recently read together, Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin, where it talks about how you see money and it gives you a deeper perspective on how you can have a better relationship with money. Money can be an uncomfortable subject for many people, but this is why it’s important to bite the bullet and really take a look at it because it can really be revolutionary and eye-opening to see how you spend, why you spend, and whether you want to keep down that same path.

Key Takeaways:

• Ryan’s rule is that he will never go on a road trip for more than six hours.
• Jon has decided to relocate to Florida for seven months!
• Today’s episode is a book review from Vicki Robin.
• In the book, Jon really likes the purposeful intention concept on how you spend your money.
• What is money, really?
• There are additional costs to chasing money.
• What is your hourly rate? Once you have this number, now you know when it makes sense to do something, or not do it.
• Most of the time in society, we worked very little. Our modern age has sort of corrupted this.
• Ryan’s dad is in his 90s and still working. He said he likes to work because retirement equals death.
• In the book, Vicki defines what work really is vs. what you do for money.
• Jon really wants a little more runway with his financial situation, which means he’s willing to sacrifice a little bit now for a better life two years from now.
• Grinding isn’t hard, but grinding every day without getting results is very hard.
• You’re not going to have nice things at the very beginning because you’re busy hustling to reach the next level.
• What advice do the guys have when it comes to grinding without seeing the results?
• Track how much money you’ve made throughout your entire life. How much do you have to show for it?
• Jon really liked the dollar-per-hour exercise. It really puts things into perspective.
• Gabe knows his team has problems with money and they bring those problems to work. If you can get the money piece right, they’ll be happier and more productive people.
• Jon thinks the word “need” is a very disempowering word.
• Reframe your mind to “I want” or “I get to” instead of using the word need.

Resources:

Freedomblueprintshow.com

Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence, by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World, by Cal Newport

Gabe, Jon, and Ryan recap what they were going through in the business when everything shut down in March. Hindsight is always 20/20 and everyone tells you to buy when others are fearful, but boy, psychologically that’s easier said than done. The truth is, we don’t know when the bottom really is and it can be a hard pill for the mind to swallow when your recent investments keep losing cash. The guys talk about some of the critical lessons they learned throughout this process.

Key Takeaways:

• How do the guys feel about the year 2020? Let’s do a recap.
• The guys who struggled the most had the $50K budgets for marketing.
• Gabe lost half of his sales pipeline.
• Ryan also lost money and wasn’t sure what to expect. It was like it was 2008 all over again.
• It’s so hard to have a good frame of mind when everything around you is falling apart.
• You want to buy when there are panic and fear, but that’s easier said than done.
• It’s so critical to be flexible and nimble when stuff changes.
• Ryan is just not willing to risk everything in order for him to have an “influencer’s life.”
• When a society gets prideful, they start to get greedy.
• Jon is preparing for the downturn and is hoarding cash right now.
• The market can stay irrational for a long time.
• The more cash you can generate, the better position you’ll be in when there’s a downturn.

Resources:

Freedomblueprintshow.com

In this week’s episode, the guys share what they’re doing to invest the extra cash they have in their portfolios. It can be so easy to get caught in the fix-and-flip hustle, but the real gold lies in rental properties that are cash-flow positive. They also talk about what they plan to do if they see another market crash, and how they’re tweaking their portfolios right now so that they are still in the green when it does happen.

Key Takeaways:

• How does Ryan invest his extra cash?
• At some point in life, you have to have money to make more money.
• Saving is critical and in order for you to do that, you have to live below your means.
• Jon started with $100K. Ryan says $50K is a good starting point.
• Gabe started with $0. It’s a lot harder and you have to do everything you can to be more resourceful.
• Jon shares his advice on how to start investing wisely.
• Okay, you lived below your means and you have some cash now. What do you do with all this extra cash?
• Here are some money traps you can fall into if you’re not careful. For example, fixing and flipping.
• Gave shares tax strategies he wished he knew about five years ago.
• There’s money out there from private investors that you won’t find from private institutions.
• Jon shares how he got started on one of his very first deals.
• It helps a lot to keep your full-time job and do this on the side. There are a lot of variables that can happen and that extra income will always come in handy.
• Everybody’s chasing this seven-figure wholesaling business, but why?
• Ryan did things smart in the beginning. He bought all he could in rentals.
• No one really knows when the market will crash.
• There will always be rental deals in any market cycle.
• Ryan understands that cash is king, especially when the market crashes. He wants not to suffer along with it.
• Gabe shares what he’s noticed in people who tend to be the most financially successful in real estate.
• Why is Jon interested in buying mobile home parks?

Resources:

Freedomblueprintshow.com

Ryan attributes the success of his business to how he was able to scale up effectively by empowering his employees to think like an owner. Jon and Gabe agree that life is just easier when they can trust their team when they’re “out.” Your three co-hosts share their tips on how you can make your team accountable and autonomous in their work.

Key Takeaways:

• Ryan gives Jon some wise dating advice.
• How do you create a team that thinks like an owner?
• Ryan attributes this as one of the biggest reasons why his business grew.
• If the business is going to work when you’re gone, team ownership is the best way for you to go about it.
• In other parts of the world, people are still living in extreme poverty and their decisions can be critical to whether they live or die.
• You have to have someone in your organization that’s good at holding people accountable.
• Ryan shares some advice on how he empowers his people.
• Jon shares how he treats his team.
• Gabe is reading a book right now that is blowing his mind on how to best manage people.
• Ryan currently bought two competitor companies. He shares how he’s going to help them to get to work together.
• You never want to create a culture where people are afraid to make mistakes.
• A disengaged employee is the worst thing that can happen in your business.
• How do you structure employee incentives? Ryan weighs in.
• Jon asks how do the guys feel about flexible work hours as a policy?
• If you have the right culture and the right people who care about their job, they’re not going to leave you hanging.
• As Gabe has evolved as a business owner, you empower your team by helping them decide what are the best system and processes for them to use.
• Ryan’s process is, let’s define the outcomes together, but let his team figure out the behaviors on how they are going to get there.
• When you track people’s behaviors, that’s when it starts to feel like you’re micromanaging people.
• Gabe gives an example of how your team can really surprise you when you just let them do their thing.

Resources:

Freedomblueprintshow.com

Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them, by Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini

For you to just be in business, you have to think. This is why so many successful entrepreneurs have intentional “thinking time” scheduled into the calendars so that they can think about the different sorts of problems happening, and find solutions to them. Gabe, Ryan, and Jon talk about how they structure their thinking time in their very busy lives!

Key Takeaways:

• Where in the world is Jon right now?
• The guys are doing a live show for the very first time!
• Gabe has the most “thinking time” out of anybody.
• Ryan lives an “organized chaos” life and it’s hard to find thinking time for himself.
• What does Gabe think about during his “thinking time”?
• Ryan wakes up in the middle of the night and that’s when he has time to think.
• Ryan feels like it’ll be more productive if he took a vacation to “think.”
• How does Ryan manage his productivity?
• Jon shares some of his productivity tips.
• Thinking time is so important, it helps make things in your life more efficient.
• Successful billionaires have “thinking time” scheduled in their calendars.
• Ryan is constantly “on” and gets a bit of slack for it, but he loves to think about business.
• How did Jon get out of the work grind and into doing his own thing?
• It’s hard to be a business owner and not think.

Resources:

Freedomblueprintshow.com

The Wealthy Gardener: Lessons on Prosperity Between Father and Son, by John Soforic

Daniel Marco is the CEO and Co-Founder of Growth Institute, the leading online executive education company for C-level executives at fast-growing firms. He is a keynote speaker and a CEO Coach, with a mission to help one million entrepreneurs scale their companies faster and with less drama. Tune in as Gabe interviews Daniel and they discuss some of the common pitfalls entrepreneurs end up falling into when they begin to scale their business in this week’s episode!

Key Takeaways:

• Who is Daniel and what does he do?
• What are some of the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs are constantly making?
• A daily team meeting is huge.
• More doesn’t always equal better.
• You can scale down, make more money, and be happier!
• The ideal sweet spot for profit is between eight and 12 employees.
• Every growth stage your business goes through, you have to go through the “valley of death.”
• Usually, when you have between 20 and 50 employees, you are having a horrible time.
• Daniel was happiest when he had four employees.
• What is Daniel’s “why”? Why does he keep creating companies?
• Daniel shares some of the growing pains he’s currently experiencing.
• When you’re thinking about growing, what should you be aware of?
• What’s Daniel’s BHAG right now?
• What’s Daniel’s process to help you scale effectively?
• It all starts with defining what you believe success is.
• Whenever there is no trust, there is no commitment. No commitment means no accountability.
• What are some of Daniel’s favorite books this year?
• Daniel shares what he wishes he’d learned sooner about his career.

Resources:

Freedomblueprintshow.com

Danielmarcos.co

Impact X

Daniel on LinkedIn

The Automatic Customer: Creating a Subscription Business in Any Industry, by John Warrillow

The Challenger Sale: How To Take Control of the Customer Conversation, by Brent Adamson and Matthew Dixon

Jon and Gabe talk about enjoying/loving the entrepreneurial journey you are on and how to learn to appreciate the hustle with a huge smile on your face. Gabe has this dialed in, but Jon, he’s still trying to learn how to enjoy the process and he takes some time to ask Gabe how he’s achieved this seemingly impossible balance.

Key Takeaways:

• Why is it important to actually “enjoy” what you’re doing and the journey that you’re on? Gabe goes first.
• When entrepreneurs get burned out in their business, it always comes down to them not enjoying what they do.
• When you’re starting off and building a company, yes, you might be doing things that you hate, but don’t make that the status quo.
• Jon finds this concept difficult because he likes doing certain tasks but he doesn’t “love it.”
• How do you enjoy the journey? Gabe loves to have fun in the morning before he gets to work.
• Gabe shares what he loves about his job.
• How often do you keep employees around when you know in your gut they’re not a right fit?
• What are your roles as a boss/CEO/Founder?
• Jon shares how he’s kept his employees happy over the years!
• You can have more joy in your business when you’re not having to micromanage your people.
• People want to be treated like adults. When you empower them, it makes it easier for you.
• Jon shares some of his best employee hires and what gets him excited.
• We are so consumed by our work that our work becomes our life. When do you have time for fun?
• Jon realized he doesn’t have to be so serious all the time. He’s trying to have fun during the team calls.
• When you’re having fun, you make better decisions. So embrace it!

Resources:

Freedomblueprintshow.com