Welcome to the Entrepreneurial Leap Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dubay. For context, this podcast is inspired by the book Entrepreneurial Leap by Gino Wickman. Gino is the founder of e o S Worldwide, and an author with over 2 million copies of his books sold worldwide. Now, in his next phase, he is taking his passion for helping entrepreneurs by partnering with five equally passionate, successful entrepreneurs, myself included, who have created the E LEAP Academy, where we teach the content from the book in a one year program guaranteed to increase the success of early stage businesses. Now, a quick note about me, I've been an entrepreneur since the age of 14. When I started my first business selling Blow Pop Lollipops outta my locker with my best friend, I ran a company that I sold to a public company and later bought back. I'm an author, speaker, host of an annual leadership retreat, and I'm partners in several other businesses.

I'll be your host for the Entrepreneurial LEAP Podcast, where every other week you will be hearing life stories from successful entrepreneurs who took the leap into entrepreneurship. You will learn from their mistakes and successes and be inspired as you move forward on your journey. Now, before I introduce my guest, I'm going to share with you a bit about Ewe Academy. The Entrepreneurial Leap Academy provides an immersive nine month experience for new entrepreneurs with a focus on the three Cs, clarity, competence, and community. Let's start with the first C Clarity. You'll learn to be clear about who you are, what you want from your business, and how to get it. The next C confidence, you will learn to be competent. You are on the right path equipped with powerful mindset tools. The last C connected you will become connected to a community of entrepreneurs just like you.

Now, all participants receive four full day in-person classes led by experienced entrepreneurs to equip you with the tools and strategies necessary to build a successful business. The Academy's dynamic community connects participants with a tribe of like-minded individuals for support and networking opportunities. During in between classes, students also receive a seasoned mentor offering personalized guidance and expertise to help you navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship. To start building the business of your dreams, visit our website@eleap.com. Again, that's e leap.com. There you can learn more about and sign up for the next Entrepreneurial LEAP Academy. Today's guest is Ryan Henry, a highly successful entrepreneur, certified EOS implementer and visionary of entrepreneurial leap from Lansing, Michigan. He is an award-winning entrepreneur in the construction industry and has a storied background through his experience in his family's group of companies with years of experience using the entrepreneurial operating system or e os in his businesses and seeing the effect it made in his business and personal life, Ryan began his journey as an e o s implementer and is passionate about helping entrepreneurs at every stage, discover, freedom, unleash their creativity, and make an impact.

Ryan has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs on their journey to living the EEO s life. In his 15 years of experience recently, Ryan became business partners with the creator of eos Gino Wickman, along with four others, myself included. To launch entrepreneurial Leap, a company focused on helping start up businesses and entrepreneurs, create clarity, establish confidence, and plug into a community of like-minded entrepreneurs. Ryan's expertise, leadership, and passion for entrepreneurship have made him a highly sought after speaker and mentor in the business community with the mixture of entrepreneurial experiences Ryan's had. He is the perfect person for us to learn from. You are going to love the wisdom he shares. So please enjoy my chat with Ryan Henry. Ryan, welcome to the Entrepreneurial Leap Podcast. This is amazing that you and I get to talk.

Well, it's always amazing to talk to you. It's even more amazing to be on the podcast right now,

So thank you. It, it's you're, we, it's kind of unique in that the two of us are partners in this business. So we're gonna riff a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey because this is what entrepreneurial leap is all about. But we're also gonna talk a little bit about this academy that the entrepreneurial leap group has put together. So this is what we're in for, but as the listeners are beginning to learn, I always like to start with a quote. So I'm gonna share the quote and then if you happen to know who said the quote bonus points. But I'm most interested in what comes to your mind when you hear it.

Got it?

Are you ready? Here

We go. I'm so ready. Thank you. Okay.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us. It is in everyone. And we let our light shine. We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I don't know who that is, but I do, I have heard it before and I love it.

So it's Marianne Williamson.

Hmm.

Bound on the entrepreneurial leap website, E leap.com. Little plug there.

So what comes to mind when I hear that? Well, my, my mind immediately thinks about every entrepreneur in the making who doesn't know what's going on with them and feels otherly. We talk about maybe you're like a alien in your world, and my heart, I don't wanna say breaks, but my heart rushes towards, it's a, it's a running towards which is the heart of elite, just to allow you to shine, to be your unique self. So that's, that's the thing that comes to mind, just allowing an entrepreneur to, to yes, be him or herself.

Yeah. That is so good. That is so good. Love the way you connected it in that way. And what I wanna start with, like I do with the podcast, is your real life entrepreneurial story because you have one and it's no coincidence that here you are as visionary of elite academy and entrepreneurial leap. But I wanna go back to the early days with your family and maybe you could share a little bit about this gene that you seem to have that went back a generation or two.

Yeah, so for context, I grew up in an entrepreneurial family. My mother's father was a carpenter by trade, sold Christmas trees and was heavily involved in the building industry in that regard. And then my dad's father owned a series, a series of lumber yards and shoe stores and real estate. And I was immersed in that family business my whole entire life. And, and with that plethora, I guess the best way to use it is of different entrepreneurs around them because of the different ventures they were involved with. Being around entrepreneurs was just something that felt very normal to me. And so that experience for sure gave me a context for which, how to, how to know myself to a degree, I would say to a degree. But it was something that I was very familiar with growing up and I would say, I call it the good, the bad, the ugly of, of growing up in in entrepreneurial family with entrepreneurs on both sides. And then, and then also watching my father and my grandfather attempt a business transition from one generation to the next. My grandfather being the founder of all those different ventures. So there's the context and then we can go anywhere you wanna go inside that, keep

Going with the story. I mean, talk about how it evolved as you grew up into your teens and so on. And you know, when you started to maybe notice like, should I be an entrepreneur too?

Well that's what's so interesting. Or

Where should I be a lawyer? I don't know.

Well, so although I was around all of that, the things that come to mind the most are really the pain of being in an entrepreneurial family, of, of being very young in the early eighties in that recession. And then knowing that that late eighties recession, those are very anchored moments for me. And any entrepreneur out there knows that in any 10 year run, there are, what we say, six good years, two amazing years, great years and, and two years that could, that could take down the whole thing. And so my emotions go back to those memories and those experiences. And it was never during those early days that I thought I was an entrepreneur, if I'm being completely honest, the words that come to me as I thought something maybe was just wrong with me, I did not like school at at all. Which is so ironic now of what we do is people who are part of a, an academy, a learning institution for entrepreneurs teaching people.

So that's, that's, that's there for sure. In high school, I just wanted to have a lot of fun. I was adventure oriented. I was definitely, somebody might be considered a partier. I think anybody that knew me, if they were listening to this podcast, they would go, that is a hundred percent you. I just had a lot of fun. But I was definitely in search of who I was. And I don't think I knew who or what I was. Most of that time it wasn't, it wasn't really until, until my twenties that I really started to understand more about who I was and that, oh yeah, I, I guess I am an entrepreneur. I didn't want to pursue anything in the family business. I was pursuing freedom, which is one of my deepest desires is freedom. And so they solved that, if you will. We talk about solving issues forever in the e o s and my father and grandfather's, I think attempt to solve that was to sell.

And so they, they sold most of that enterprise in my teenage years. And then my father left the family business. So those are marked experiences for me. And I went into the Marine Corps outta high school, I was 18, scared, didn't no, didn't want, definitely didn't want to go anymore school. And was, I would say, cleaning my life up. That's the best way I could put it. And I thought the Marine Corps would be a great fresh start for me to go off and do something. And it was for sure that it was an amazing adventure and, and really a formative piece of my life. But it was, yeah, it wasn't really those days that I wasn't thinking anything about, Hey, I wonder if I'm an entrepreneur or somebody. Nobody looked at me and said, Hey, you know, I think you're an entrepreneur. I think that's what is going on with you. And, and so, yeah. So that, that's the best way to answer that question. Did,

Did you ever even think about your family as entrepreneurs or, because back then entrepreneurship, not that you're so old, cuz you're not, what are you in your forties or something like that?

Yeah, no, I'm 44. Yeah,

44. Good number. Yeah. And you know, but back then, you know, entrepreneurship wasn't talked about like it is nowadays. Like it's a thing nowadays, you know, but back then it was like your parents had a business.

Yeah, no, it wasn't. There was no, no one ever sat me down and said, Hey, let's talk about entrepreneurship. That was no, no teacher, definitely not my parents or my grandparents. I think they were just all doing Yeah. What they wanted to do and pursuing business. And so, although I knew that was normal and available, I just didn't want anything to do with the pain I experienced in the family business. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think, I think there may have been an aversion to even that consideration in me. Yeah. Cause I, I remember just not wanting to go there, but no, no, no one ever stopped and said, Hey, I think I know what you are.

So growing up, no particular business that you started or anything, any little venture that we sometimes hear about from entrepreneurs?

Yeah. The only thing that comes to mind, which was never a thing that actually mounted to anything, and it's probably a very silly story. When I was a kid, my parents would say, you have to eat the crust of bread. And I'd go, what? Why? And they'd say, it's the healthiest part, you know, it's just not right. It's

Hysterical.

And I go, well, why? And they go, well there's, you know, there's starving kids in Africa and you know, you have this food. And that was a really interesting logic. And I, we had an apple tree in the backyard and I got all the kids in the neighborhood to pick all the apples off the apple tree. I thought we could sell these to these kids and they wouldn't be starving anymore. Oh. The apples didn't go anywhere. They didn't, didn't mount to much of anything.

Interesting.

Really, the pursuits of doing things as an entrepreneur came after I, I ca I got out of the Marine Corps. I was in the Reserves after a year of active duty and I bought a home. And that's really when allowed that spark became something. Yeah. And so I I, I had a three bedroom house with an attic and the east side of Lansing and I was working construction and going to night school and, and I thought, you know what? I could run these rooms out. Yeah. I could make some money. And so I became a landlord at 19 and I went to Home Depot and I bought all the 1, 2, 3, how to doit books. This is back when Home Depot was doing like workshop series on how to lay tile and put a roof on. And, and I thought, well, I can probably do that. And so I started fixing up my house and writing it out and, and, and that might have been maybe the early sparks of my entrepreneurial pursuits.

Yeah. Lansing, Michigan by the way, is where you're from.

Yeah, that's right. And, and grew up in Owasso right outside of Lansing. Yeah. But I've been in Lansing since 1998.

Yeah. And so we, part of what we teach and what you learn about in the book Entrepreneurial leap is, is college for you or not for you? So you chose Marine Corps, did you do college after Marine Corps?

That's a really good question. I'll try to keep it as as brief. The answer is I did, I had money to go to school, but I remember going to Lansing Community College and I just picked classes I wanted to take. And I remember one semester my counselor was like, well you actually need to take this math class and this science class and this history class. And, and that wasn't interesting, any of that kinda stuff, Rob, I was taking business classes and just different economic things. So I was very interested in business for sure. But I remember that semester I took those classes and I hated it. I mean with like a passion. I hated it. And I dropped out all of them except my history class. And I love history and I'm a curious soul. And that's where I met my wife actually in a night class. I was, remember I was working construction, I was pouring concrete and I would just come into class a lot of times without having the ability to clean up and I was just a mess. So, you know, thank God Kelly still that didn't dissuade her from us interacting. And that's, thank God that I met my wife in community college in a history class. But no college in the early days was not like a thing. I was not trying to get a degree. My dad would always tell me he was a CPA a and he'd say, well I haven't been a CPA a for over 20 years. So it's not like you need it.

But I thought after I started a business when I was, and this was 2005 when I started my first construction business, I, I felt insecure that I didn't have a degree and I went pursuing a degree. I had done some other schoolings, I had done some leadership institute stuff. They were church plant in the vendor movement they were part of. And I loved that. So I really found an ability to learn and love and these are the real books. And you asked me that earlier and I, I found a way to learn that worked for me. And I found that I really did love learning. I just didn't like to sit in the class Yes. That I wasn't really interested in. So it was a little bit of a mishmash. I ended up did, I ended up getting a degree from Spring Arbor in management and organizational development.

And it was good. It was pretty good. I was actually just trying to see if I could get an mba. Cause I thought, well maybe if I get an mba you'll understand how to be an entrepreneur and a business owner and sort of get an mba, you have to have a bachelor's. So I kind of took all this stuff from Marine Corps and been leadership Institute and community college and some other stuff. And they, they accepted all of it. And I, I got a degree. Got your degree and, and I've used it zero days of my life since I've had that degree.

Well

I don't don't even know where that degree is. I don't even, I don't even know where it's

Well, one theme that you know is important for the listeners to understand is you're a learner. So you were searching for learning and you thought maybe I'll find it at the community college. Maybe I'll find it this spring, Arbor College, which is a school in Michigan, a small school in Michigan for those that are, are familiar, but you wanted to learn, obviously the reason you went to community college was to meet your wife. That's obvious.

That's very obvious now. That's correct. Right?

Yes. That's why the universe set you there. But that's

Really good, Rob. I never thought about it like that, that that very direct wayly That's why you went to community college. That's true. That's that's a good point.

But you know, the other two things you mentioned, and then we can segue into what business you ended up starting and getting into. You know, you mentioned you, you came out of the Marine Corps, you got a house, you were renting out the rooms, like mini entrepreneurial stuff here you got real estate, all of a sudden you're thinking, how can I supplement my payments or whatever you were thinking, you know, you had, you had to collect money, make sure that all worked. And then it's, you were pouring concrete, you said, so you were out there, man. I mean there, that's, that's a job, you know, pouring concrete. And so why don't you share a little bit of about how you got into your ven you know, your first venture.

Yeah. It's so funny. You're just taking me back thinking about all those things. So I, I loved being outside. I still love being outside. Before we got on the podcast, I was taking a walk outside and, and I hated being inside. And the Marine Corps was great cause I was outside all the time. And at the family business in the lumber yards, there was lots of big equipment and all kinds of stuff. And, and the Marines had this one m o s military occupational specialty called heavy equipment operator. And I, I got to operate graders and bulldozers. So if you're thing excavators back hose, I just became certified in all these different types of equipment implements. And I loved it. It was so fun. It was like video games in real life. And so I I, when I got back out of active duty for a year, I, my mom was a stockbroker and she had a client who was an entrepreneur who poured concrete and she said, Hey, this guy's kind of like your dad.

And I, he's, he's real fun and he's a hard worker. I think you might like working with him. And man, it was great. I worked for him for two years and, and he'd always ask me, what do you wanna do? What are you doing? And we'd have all these different conversations about business. And he taught me quite a bit by just literally me working for him. I left that business to go, it was seasonal. We worked seasonal when I got married at 21 and we kicked the renters out of my house and we moved in together as a married couple. My wife wanted to go to school and pursue nursing. I eventually became a pa. And so we, I went to work full-time and I worked for an excavating company for, for two years. Another small business owner that was working in the business mostly a little bit on the business, but mostly in the business.

And that was phenomenal. I learned all kinds of stuff about how to read prints and how to talk to people and survey and understanding how to build roads. Eventually became a owner rep, a project manager, and did that for four years, helped plant a church, bought some other real estate that was right. That was quite an adventure. And then right before I started my business, the Iraq war came up and I missed going to the Iraq War by two days. And that was, that was quite a wow. That was, that was quite an experience to, to watch my unit go with First Infantry Marines and Storm Baghdad and to sit on my couch and watch the men and women that I served with go. It was, it was quite an experience. But yeah, there was just a different pursuit in mind. So one of my good friends from high school was also kinda on the same path, had done carpentry, started doing some side work, was into architecture engineering like I was and done owner rep himself.

And we thought we could take his vertical construction experience and my horizontal engineering civil roadwork experience and start a company that focused on real estate development as a service and construction management. So I was oh five, we were 26, 27. And I said, I can't start it until my two years of inactive ready reserve is done because I don't know, I still might get called up. And so the day it was done, I called him and I said, I'm in. And he went, what are you really serious? I said, yeah, I just told my boss I quit. And so that was the plan. We were just gonna start this company and that was 2005. And I always laugh and say I think I cried more than we constructed anything in that first year because the brutal realities of being a very young entrepreneur and a very mature building environment situation was, was pretty heavy. So that's how we, that's how we just started. It was just like, let's go on the kolby profile. I'm a nine quick start. So felt like the right thing to do and we just jumped head in.

Yeah, and for those that aren't familiar, the Kolby profile is a great profile to go check out. Kind of just gives you insight into who you are. So if you're not familiar with it, just Google Colby profile and you'll find it. You know, we have a tool at Entrepreneurial Leap called My Biz Match. And I'm curious, if you were 26, 27 years old, if you took my biz match, then would it have matched you with the business? You got into

A hundred percent.

Yes. Yes.

Alright.

Yeah.

Yeah. I'm an EOS implementer now and of course we teach in academy, we'll talk about that in a minute. But I've always said, I just teach what I've needed the most. That Daniel Kennedy quote, I teach as one who is an entrepreneur, not as a, a coach per se, although I do coaching. But yeah, no, the biz match would've nailed me. Perfect. It would've been like, that's it, that's what I love to do. Yeah.

And that's a tool you can you go to the website and, and

Great tool fill

Out. Yeah. So it's a free tool. I I highly recommend it for any of our listeners. So look, you got this business, it's tough, it's construction, it's real estate development. You got a partner. We, we, there's a couple parts in the entrepreneurial leap book that talks about the nightmare and the dream. So can you give us a story like tie us into the nightmare?

Sure. So it's 2008 we're growing. We became a contractor that could bid in bond work in, in public work. So we were, I'll never forget, we were building MSU baseball softball complex Michigan State universities. And I'm think I remember thinking, wow, we've kind of made it, we were working for one of the really great developers, Gillespie Group here in Lansing doing an old armory in town, which is just phenomenal. We're doing these amazing award winning projects. Our company had won an award for entrepreneurship. I had won an award as a leader in the, in the, in the, in the, and the industry and in the community. And so externally we looked like we were phenomenal. Like we were just great. And then internally, my partner and I were just, we, we were just creating hell for ourselves. And it wasn't that he was a bad guy and I was a bad guy, it was just, I am a partner person.

So if you're an entrepreneur out there and you're wondering am I a partner person or not? And so it's, it's really a yes or no decision. And if it's no, then, then you can, then you're the owner. You own a hundred percent of the business. And I am not against that. But I love doing business with other people. Collaborating in that, in that kind of a partnership. And what I learned really early on and what that crisis of the late oh eight period taught us was, oh, I don't know that this is the right fit because there's a problem when you're a partner person and you're in partnership with a partner who's not a partner person.

And that was the problem. So that happens in oh eight and that's a very fulcrum moment. Cause that was the realization. But that's also when the economy completely tanked. Our line of credit was pulled, we had contractors going out of business, our bonds were being called. And it was, it became a nightmare. And in that financial nightmare there was the realization that we aren't actually compatible as business partners, but it was either face personal and corporate bankruptcy or stay together and, and, and try to come out of it. And you know, thank God that's when I got introduced to e o s, my accountant Jeff Cole, hey Jeff gave me the book Traction. It was self-published at the time. I always laugh and say maybe there was seven implementers in the world at the point. But we, we read that book and that book, applying those principles which are also baked into entrepreneurial leap that saved our business and pulled us out of that, the really, really bad place.

But it wasn't until about 2018 when we had hired an e s implementer because I started realizing that although we were applying us, we weren't fully implementing it. And I was super curious and I was leaning in and books were being written like how to be a great boss and what the heck is e u s? And we hired an implementer and it was probably session three when it was so obvious to everyone, including our, our staff, our leadership team that the issue, yeah. Process for sure different pieces. But the people component, that was a challenge because my partner was sitting in the integrator seat and I was the visionary. And the problem was is that he was a visionary too. He just had different visions. I'm a serial entrepreneur. He's, he is not that kind of entrepreneur, at least wasn't at the time. And so he was trying to control my craziness, if you will.

And we were in hell, that's the best way to put it. We didn't see eye to eye and we didn't have the same ideas. And we were now at the point where we weren't as financially constrained as we were. And so in an e os session we decided to split up. And I, I said, you're the integrator. You're a great builder. I'll, I'll take the crown off if you will. You can, you can have the business. And so sold the business. Probably one of the scariest moments in my entrepreneur career. Cause I, I had no idea what I was going to do, but it felt like absolute freedom. So it's good to get outta hell. I got a little bit of money too, so I got paid to leave. I got paid to leave. Hell, that's pretty good.

That's not bad.

No.

So the nightmare starts to come into a little bit of a dream actually. But it does. Before we move forward, I just wanna share and help you can help me share with the listeners some of these terms that you're using.

Yeah, for sure. First things

First, what is E O S

E OS stands for the Entrepreneurial Operating System. And it is a holistic system that addresses six key components in your business. Vision, people, data issues, process and traction. And so that's what our other partner Gino created. And that was my first introduction to the world of Gino Wickman. Yes. But that's, that's e o

S. Yeah. And we're gonna circle back and then what's an implementer?

Yeah, that's a great question. So an implementer is a entrepreneur that teaches coaches and facilitates the implementation of e os with a leadership team, the entrepreneur and his or her leadership team. So that's what an EOS implementer is.

Yep. And then we've used the term visionary and then you just use the term integrator. What are the differences? What are those two things?

That's great. So a visionary is a seat in what we call the accountability chart. Someone who has big ideas, like a lot of them, big relationships sells big ideas, the future closes big deals is very r and d working on the business, solving big future problems for the business and big sticky, hairy issues. And is, is very enamored in culture and works on the business, primarily leading and thinking an integrator is a fit for the visionary to lead, manage, and create accountability in the leadership team in the company to execute the business plan, run the business day-to-day, keep the trains aligned, remove obstacles and barriers for the major functions of the company and the, and the visionary. And to execute upon special projects for the company. So that's a duality of leadership that exists in many great entrepreneurial companies. So that's a visionary integrator.

Perfect, thank you for that.

For sure.

Okay, so you mentioned, I thought you, you made a really interesting comment about your business before you exited it and before things started to shift in that challenging time. And then from there, we're gonna go into a little bit about the academy, but sure. You, you said this thing about from the outside everything looked great, but on the inside it wasn't so great. And so for any entrepreneur, any entrepreneur listening to this, we are masterful at presenting our businesses to the world in a beautiful way. But on the inside it's messy. Yep, yep. So thank you for sharing it in that way because it, it's so relatable and I, I imagine anybody listening in this stage can, you know, connect with that. So with this in mind, what is the difference now between this idea of EEO s that you've shared in this book, traction and Entrepreneurial Leap, that book and the e academy, because I wanna make sure we're clear about Yeah. How they're different.

I'm just gonna do a 62nd vignette on what you said there because the feeling that I had, that internal feeling and if you're feeling that and I just, I just use the word shame, maybe it's a different word for you. We had to present like that growing up as a business family. Yeah. And I hated it cuz I wanted just get this, this issue solved. And the worst was, is that even though all my intentions were not to do that in my, in my entrepreneurial pursuit with my business partner, that is exactly what was created. And it was just, I just wanna say to you, life's too short. Get your freedom. Find your freedom. So just if you feel that pain doesn't mean you have to leave your business partner. It just means you gotta deal with the issue. Yeah, of course for me to solve was leaving.

But find your freedom. It's worth it. Yeah. However scary it is, it's worth it. So there you go. Love. But the difference, I don't know the difference between e os and entrepreneurial Leap. So the context of Eli is, Gino wrote the book E Elite for his 18 year old self. And Eli's purpose is about identification, about who are you, are you or are you not an entrepreneur? And so, you know, God I wish I would've had that at 17. And somebody said, Hey, you have these traits, visionary, passionate, problem solving, driven, risk-taking, responsible. And I would've been like, oh my God, I do. And they go, dare you dare Who? That's who you are. You're an entrepreneur. So there's a difference. It's about focus, it's about finding that early stage and emerging entrepreneur and helping them understand who they are and owning who they are.

And then there's a part of like helping them that gain that clarity but also gain the confidence about how they can get what they want out of their business. And I always think about it like, there is no problem with you telling us what you want. Dan Sullivan's with Strategic Coach says that great leaders are great wanters. And so E Leap helps you create context for what you want. And then E leap we say brings you into community. I call it a collaborative community to help you on how to get what you want to do it in community. And, and the inverse is it's isolation and competition or feeling alone cuz you feel other an alien and you're comparing, you're competing. And, and what I found in EOS and in Strategic Coach, which I'm members of both and is a collaborative community, not competitive and not, and not isolating a family, a tribe if you will. And so Eli's passion is is bringing that collaborative community to that emerging entrepreneur that might feel alone and isolated, maybe a little competitive. Cause we're pretty competitive in nature and that's okay. Or that early stage entrepreneur who's who's, who's pretty scared and feeling the same way.

So with the academy, is there a certain size business because I mean, do you go to, do you go to the academy if you're just trying to figure out if you're an entrepreneur but you haven't started a business yet?

That's a great question. So the academy, the heart of the academy is for an entrepreneur who identifies with those six essential traits, visionary, passionate, problem solving, risk taking, driven and responsible. And if you're wanting more on that, if you're listening, just go to e leap e leap.com or grab the book entrepreneurial leap and figure out if that's you. But the academy is for entrepreneurs that identify with, that have taken their leap, they've started a business and and they want this experience. So I, I guess the best way to, to just kind of tell you the academy is I'll give you what it is. What it is is a nine month immersion experience with four collaborative classroom environments with entrepreneurs who are just like you in what we call the early stage that one to 10 people, this pre e os if you will. And you're making less than $200,000 in income.

So your pre strategic coach, the point is, is it's a nine month experience with four collaborative classrooms where we give you a different way to learn, learn about clarity, about who you are, confidence in what you want in a community on how to get it. We assign you and pair you with a mentor because we know that entrepreneurial mentoring has the, maybe the best statistics on increasing the odds of success for an entrepreneur. And then we bring you into a place where you can have peer relationships, where you can talk to an entrepreneur who's in that same place, a, a team if you will, of people that you can talk to about anything. So that's the academy. It's purpose is really, I call it the great leap ahead if you wanna call it that. Or just if you wanna just really leap ahead and take all of our wisdom that came from all of our failures and all of our foolishness, how we've turned it into success and you know, maybe a little bit smarter.

Yeah.

We're happy to tell you literally everything we've learned and give it to you because well, you're just like us and we just feel like that's the right thing to do. So it's a little bit about the academy.

One of thing, one of the things I noticed in the academy, when everybody is gathered together, especially in the first, the the first class is at the very beginning, there's a sense that I feel is it's people feel, feel very tight to me. So they're coming in and there's maybe a lot of stress and anxiety and sense that I am alone and I am going to burst. Like I need help. Tell me something. And what you do so masterfully when you teach these academies, Ryan, is that you allow that tension to subside and you see it as the day goes on where everybody starts to feel like, oh

Yeah,

Oh my god, okay, wow. I am not alone in this. I'm starting to get clarity about why the heck I even did this to begin with.

Yes.

And do I even wanna, I mean this is a hard one too. Do I even wanna keep doing it? Yes. Most, most do. Most do wanna keep doing it. Yeah. And then helping provide a pathway forward to, to ensure that we have a higher percentage of success within our business. Because we all know the odds are not good about success. Terrible. What are they share,

What is it like half of all businesses fail in the first five years. Right?

That's, I mean, that's like, here's your entrepreneur friend, here's your other entrepreneur friend. One of the two of them going down is probably gonna be out failed. Exactly. Which, it's not a bad thing to fail failing. You learn. It's how you learn a lot of stuff. Most of the great entrepreneurs have bankruptcies and failures in their past. And just to say something about that, we, we ju we're coming off of our first academy, it's Friday and we had our first academy class on Tuesday. So you and I were both there and saw that that that tense like, oh, like I do, I have to compete with these people. Do I gotta present a certain way? And it was like, you don't have to do any of that. You're just like us. It's okay. Yeah. And so they started talking, we had this one exercise of just list your three successes in life.

Life, that's your three failures in life, your biggest, what's life prepared you for? I'll never forget that exercise. We had the whole room share, which was really powerful because everybody went, oh I, you're just like me, I'm not alone. Okay, this is okay. And the, and just knowing that there's people out there that are just like you, that are going through the same things, that in and of itself brings a sense of freedom. Release. Trying to think of the word that's opposite of tense loose. Yeah. The room got loose. That's what happened. We would take breaks Rob and people would just continue to sit there and talk and go deeper and deeper. And I, you know, it's interesting. Lifelong collaboration was created by just allowing people the space just to be honest and, and be themselves and, and just tell everybody what's really going on. And that's the heart of why we created the academy because we experienced those things as people who are in eeo s with EOS companies. And we experienced those things as people that are in Strategic Coach, but those aren't available to the, to the early stage entrepreneurs. And I thought, well let's bring it to 'em.

So

Yeah. So the structure of the academy. The academy which has four full day sessions that take place over nine months, can you take us through each one of those full day, kind of the themes of each

I can, day one is about who am I identifying if you are or not an entrepreneur? And so maybe you have started a business, but you go into the academy and you're not completely sure, hopefully you are, but if you're not, that's okay. We'll actually give you your money back $5,000 for the nine month academy. And if, if you stand up and go, yeah, you know what, I'm not an entrepreneur. That's why this is so hard. It's hard anyways. It's really hard if you're not an entrepreneur. So knowing who you are, discovering your passion in life, discovering your personal core values, discovering if you're a partner person or not, and really just setting up the, the road ahead of, of what is to come. And our job is to increase the odds of success. And the first part is, is really just who are you identification of who you are.

Class two is about what do you want? And we start to build that in the form of identifying it in what tool that we call my Vision clarifier. Class three is about how do I get it and about starting to build your team and starting to build the momentum. And then class four is a big wrap up of all those things and sending you off towards our great collaborators with e os and Strategic Coach. So that's the, that's the highlight of those. What's one of the really cool things that we do is that we bring in a driven, visionary entrepreneur. We call em people from the future who've taken their leap. They got an integrator, they've implemented e s, they live their e s life. Maybe they're in 10 disciplines or strategic coach, but they're people from the future. And we have them come back and tell their story story and share their wisdom and then just do q and a. And so every one of the classes we do has that component to it. And, and that's just all about connection. Gino taught or tell his story at the first class. And there was two comments that I thought were really, really neat by some people. They said, you know, he's so normal. It's almost underwhelming cuz he is just like me. He's just so normal. And that's what I love is, is taking that down, that veil down and just going just like you, like it's like when you meet Rob Dube, you go, he's just like me. He's just a normal guy.

He's the, is not anything weird or anything like that. Or although Lee and no that somebody else came up to me and said, I had no idea that Gino had went through what he went through this, this the family business and the struggles and the bankruptcies and God maybe just go, oh God, he's, if that guy, if that's happened to him. Okay. It's

Alright. Out outside in like we talked about before. That's right. Right. All right. I need to, I wanna get back on the academy in a second, but always clarifying. So the 10 disciplines and full disclosure, I'm owner of the 10 disciplines is a group coaching Sure. Program for entrepreneurs, driven entrepreneurs to help them free their true selves. Okay. So now you've talked about community quite a bit. And so as part of the com as part of the academy, you have incorporated this idea of community. And so can you talk about not just what happens on the day of, because certainly you can see the community coming together with everybody for sure in person together. But what happens in between the session, the classes?

Yeah, that's a great question. So in between the sessions, you are assigned a mentor whom you met meet with once a month. And this is a successful driven, visionary entrepreneur who's kind of been there, done that. And so you have a chance to sit down with them virtually and ask any question. And that person's, that mentor is just there to help you on your journey. So it's just somebody there who has been there, done that, that wants to help, that has that core value. And you are, you get that experience to do that. And then you also are meeting with your peer group. And so we, we bring the class together, we set up a subject and then we break into peer groups to share, to share experiences, to share wisdom, to share nuggets, to share pain, to share a problem, just to help each other. And so you have times with your mentor and times with your peers in between the two. In between the classes.

All right. Is there anything else about the academy that I'm forgetting?

It's a lot of fun,

That's for sure.

It's meant to leap you, pun intended. Sure. I say it's further faster and funner. And funner is a word. Just so we're clear. So that's what the leap is all about. It's just a concentrated effort to help you leap forward.

So if I go through the program, I, I have four employees, let's say, and I'm generating a few hundred thousand dollars in gross revenue every year just making up a number. Yeah. For a potential kind of person who might come to this by the end, what's the outcome that I get?

Well, our goal is to increase your odds of success. It's to help you avoid what we call the eight critical mistakes to make sure you are, I'll use the word implementing the little tongue in cheek, implementing the eight must dos to increase your hours of success. And that you have awareness of what stage you're in. There's nine stages so that you know what lies ahead

And you And we teach all that.

We teach all of that. Yeah. Yeah.

Critical. Okay. Ryan, last question. With everything that you're doing now and all this experience, what advice would you give to an early stage entrepreneur at this point?

Man, so, well, if you're early stage and you have a lot of ideas and you are all over the place, which is probably pretty much every driven vision entrepreneur in the early days, you, you must stay focused on generating cash every day you wake up, there's all kinds of things coming at you because there's, it's just you. So there's sales and marketing things coming at you, operational things, customer service things, finance and admin things. All kinds of things coming at you. But you just have to remember, you've got to go out there and generate cash. Cause without cash, this thing ain't gonna work.

Yeah. That's beautiful. So true. Okay, my friend Ryan, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today. I'm so grateful you were able to take the time to do this with me.

I would love it. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure to be with you

And to all the amazing, amazing entrepreneurs listening today. I greatly appreciate your time and I wish you all much love and gratitude.