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 EOS Worldwide, and an author with over 2 million copies of his books sold worldwide. Now, in his next phase, he's 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 confident 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 experience 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 Kelly Siegel. Kelly is the CEO of National Technology Management, NTM. He has an educational background in criminal justice and sociology from Western Michigan University. Kelly has been delivering results since running his first paper route as a 12 year old. Besides his goal to make NTM the gold standard of the IT industry, his mission in life is to leave a legacy, or in Kelly's words, make a dent.

His relentless drive to better himself is breaking his family's cycle of abuse, addiction, and poverty. Kelly takes personal progress to the next level by continuously improving his physical, emotional, and mental health and performance. By working out daily reading and practicing mindfulness, you'll find him feeding people at spontaneous cookouts in his backyard, volunteering his time for causes close to his heart, and mentoring the next generation of leaders. Kelly lives in Michigan with his daughter Ariana, their Yorkie, Sammy and Kat. Felix. He spends as much time as possible in Florida, preferably out on the water with Ari and good friends. You are going to hear lots of nuggets of wisdom during my chat with Kelly, so please pay close intention and enjoy. Kelly, thank you so much for joining me today. I know how busy you are, so this means the world to me. Plus I just love talking to you 'cause you are such a great guy. I'm looking forward to this. Thanks for being here,

Rob. I, I would've never thought years ago when I, when I ran into you at the end at the printer company that here we would be on a podcast. Here we're discussing how similar our business acumen is because I look at you as, as, as so far superior to my knowledge. But I'm, I'm trying to come right behind you and I really appreciate being here and you giving me the time to absolutely hear my voice.

You're too nice. So I always like to start with a quote. So I'm gonna read the quote and then I would love to just hear at the end of the quote, if you happen to know who said the quote, great. If not, don't worry about it. I'll let you know. But, but I'd love to know what kind of comes up for you. So here I go. I knew part of finding happiness in meeting meaning was dealing with the anger, grief, and resentment left over from my childhood. I knew I had to face those demons once and for all. Until then, I knew my life would continue on as it was. I was an involved dad, but never fully present as a drunk. I was successful in my business, but didn't know how to take it to the next level. I was constantly involved with different women, but rarely experienced a genuine connection. I'd built my physical strength, but neglected my emotional and mental health. Okay, so does that ring a bell? And I would love to hear what comes to mind for you?

Oh, man, you hit me hard, Rob, right off the bat, two things that, that, that was from my harder than life book. And it, it's, it's, it's bittersweet in that I've healed so much since writing that. I wrote that during the pandemic. We're a couple years away from that. It takes a long time to publish a book as you know, but it, it feels good because I'm always in the game and not the gap. And, and for those of you, I've always, how far have I come versus what am I missing? So that if you, the the readers haven't read the book, the ga the gap in the Gain read it. It's, it's, you're, I know you are familiar with it and if I fall into the the gap, then that makes me sad hearing that. But I live in the gain and it makes me feel how far I've come and healed. And you'll hear any business person, especially you say, heal your mind and work on your emotional intelligence and you'll be a better businessman, not the other way around. You can't be a great businessman and be a, and and understand personally you can, but it doesn't work that way. The reciprocal is true. So if you have a choice, work on your mind and you'll be the best businessman Yes. Versus, you know, going the other way. So

Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing that in your book. And I felt like I wanted to start that way because the vulnerability that you bring to the forefront and the success that you've had over the years, you know, says a lot because it's important to recognize where you came from, some of the challenges that you've experienced and overcome and still be able to experience success in a much healthier way now with a healthier mind and body. And I just really appreciate that and I hope these early, you know, the, the listeners, early startup, early stage businesses, entrepreneurs, I hope you're able to glean on that. 'cause you may have some, a similar story. And please, you know, hopefully Kelly will have some inspiration for you from his statement there. So now I wanna talk about the early days with you and your first business. So what was it, did you have a first business in those early stages of your life?

Well, I wrote about it in the, in the book. My first business was a paper route to, to feed myself. And, and I was a salesman right off the bat, really. I was a salesman as a younger kid trying to survive the physical beatings from my family. It was, I knew what to say and what to do to try to stay steer clear of those, which made me a great salesman to read people as sales or as reading people and listening and responding correctly to their queues. So I, I inherited a paper route that was neglected. I think there were 20 subscribers and I immediately took 'em to 80 and, and secured myself a lot of money in that growth to be able to feed myself. Let's not mince words. I i it, I was just, it wasn't AAAA case of thriving. It was more of a surviving survival.

I, I wanna go back for two seconds and talk about that vulnerability that you said, because please, if you, the, the number one cheat code and hack is to be vulnerable. And I mean ultimately vulnerable with your family, with your team, and with your coaches. They always say you don't lie to your doctor, you don't lie to your lawyer. I'd also probably add your business coach in there and I mean, ultimate vulnerability. Like, hey, the reason why I haven't done this 'cause it scares the bejesus out of me. And as you scale and you get a leadership team, the vulnerability brings you closer. And people think that it's, oh, I can't do that. They're gonna think I'm weak. Only weak people are gonna think you're weak. So the more vulnerable you are, I say vulnerability is cool. If you listen to any of my podcasts, I'll say it over and over and over. Vulnerability is cool. I'm feeling this. I have that limiting belief and the right team, the right people will pick you up. We talk more in our EO in our level 10 meetings, our weekly level tens about feelings than anything. So vulnerability is cool. Definitely, definitely lean into that.

Thank you for changing the narrative and I love the way you're saying vulnerability is cool and it is. And you know, I was curious because your upbringing was challenging and I got curious around how do you feel like that showed up for you in the early days when you were starting the business? And obviously now, and it's a really great place now 'cause you've done such hard work, but what about in those early days? So, you know, an early stage entrepreneur can pay attention to this and maybe not make those same mistakes that maybe you made.

Oh, that's Rob I'll use one with you. When we try to do business with your printer company, you had, you were obviously well into your EOS and you had your standards and you were trying to implement your standards. And I took it as an, as an insult. And I took it like, well, he's not so I had a chip on my shoulder, he's not respecting me. And I was completely wrong. So if I would've just checked my ego at the door and, and, and released everything and worked with you and said, this is, I'm uncomfortable releasing control because I didn't know, because of my upbringing, I thought I could control everything and I tried to control the narrative, we would've made a lot more money together. But everything happens the way it's supposed to happen. So yes, what got you here won't get you there, but what got you here will also keep you here.

So I did, I got to be relatively successful by working really, really hard. And then I kind of let off a little bit. So the, the upbringing made me work really, really hard. So yes, my parents were, were not the greatest of parents, but they taught me how to work very, very hard. Yeah. They taught me how to survive. So you also gotta give them credit or credit was due. They also taught me to make life very hard on myself and still survive and thrive during that. You know what I mean by that is, hey man, when I met you, I was a party animal. So I made things hard on myself and still managed to survive, manage to increase the business. Number one thing I would say is get your, get your demons in, in check, get your demons in order, go to therapy, any kind of modality, whether it's EMDR, whether it's talk therapy, get your mind right and you'll be a better businessman because I had chips on my shoulder that just, they weren't true. Thoughts are magical lies in your head. And, and, and I would, I would create scenarios that I thought I had to survive. And, and you were just looking out for us. I thought it was an attack.

So,

So great. You know, it's, it's so great, you know, it, it, you know, it's, it's fight if you're always taught or to fight, fight, flight or freeze. You know, everything's a, it looks like a fight to you and it wasn't. You were trying to help. And man, if I would've just released that control, life would've been a easy little easier. But I learned it, I did learn it. I'm stubborn. So I hope that answered the question there was. It

Does. And go, go ahead. One of the things I wanted to say is during, you know, one of the things you mentioned that you learned early on that you brought in, and I believe that you still have this today, is, is, and it's one of our must-dos is work hard, really hard, you know, and, and you ke you do have to work hard. It doesn't, we don't wanna suggest that you have to bring yourself to the edge or beyond burnout. Please don't do that. But you will have to work hard, really hard. And so you did pull away that good lesson from that upbringing, and I appreciate you sharing that. And you know, you did go to college and that's something that we always talk about, you know, with early stage entrepreneurs, sometimes those that have an idea, and it hasn't even materialized yet. They're trying to decide should I go to college or should I do this business? You obviously went to college, you went to Western Michigan University, but was, did you feel that that was a good experience for you and would you suggest that to an early stage entrepreneur?

Probably gotta remember, I'm, I'm, I'm 47 years young now, so we're talking 30 years ago. It's, it's different culture, different times. I went to college with a chip on my shoulder. I grew up in the poorest of ghetto and I went to college a ignorant young man. And I, I, I came out a a a tolerant man who understood I was, I got more cultured. I had never been around anybody other than poor people. So I got to see culture. So it was, and I, I joined a fraternity and I got some brotherhood and I got love and I got belonging that, so for me it was much needed. I would've ended up dead or in jail like the rest of my friends. Today's climate is much different. So, and I also wanna go back to your thing. Work works the harder you work, the luckier you get and you, you do have to keep your foot on the gas pedal, but you gotta know where that break is and then you gotta know right back where that gas pedal is.

So one of our core values are tenacity. So you definitely have to freaking work hard. So I just wanted to go back to Absolutely. Thank you. So I do think that, I do think you need some sort of secondary education and, and you need experience. I think as you come outta school, outta high school, 18, you're still a little bit young, especially in today's environment. So you need something, whether it be a secondary school, whether it be a college, whether it be an apprenticeship program, you have to go through the hardships of life of, of what's next before you can go right into to the world's business. Yeah. Now in today's world and with the new advent of ai, it's gonna get real different. You're gonna have some new opportunities. I mean, who would've known what a web web developer is, who would've known what a social media expert is?

And, and those jobs are gonna go away with, with ai. So they, they'll go away, but we'll get new jobs that we never even heard of. Yeah. That will, will come out. So, you know, you have to be able to be creative, be able to expand your mind and be able to communicate. If you're gonna work on one thing besides vulnerability, learn how to effectively communicate. And that means responding, not reacting. Reacting means it's an emotional retort. And heck, I've probably done that a thousand times where I thought, well, some I, someone was attacking me when they weren't. So work on your mind and, and I, I highly recommend, I think that you're a big part of this is you start meditating and you start journaling and you do this. Self-care is early on. I have a 14 year old daughter, I have her doing it, I've had her doing it for years. You have to be emotionally intelligent in this world. I believe that is more important than, than IQ any day of the week week.

That's so good. Now you got into the IT space and we always like to encourage our early stage entrepreneurs to actually question is this business right for me? So that's a question I wanna ask for you is how did you know this was the right business for you? What drew you to it and how do you feel about it these days?

Such a good question. I started off as being a, a broker in the telecom business and it evolved into full blown it. And I will be completely blunt, there are times that I tried to get out of it where I was like, this is insanity. Everything is the it company's fault. I mean, you were in the printing business every time a printer broke, it was it's fault. Anytime anything goes wrong, it's it. So there were some tough times as we were going through our technology boom, so to speak. You know, you and I lived through it through the whole.com craze. I mean, I sold companies their first ever internet connection. There's kids that are right now going, what, what? There, there we were. We actually worked pre-internet.

So imagine that. And I did, I sold people. I was selling $2,000 T ones, 2000 for 1.5, four megabits per second. I remember when 14 four modems were, were were all you had and now we're connecting at a thousand megabytes. That's insane. So I will tell you, and this is a shameful plug for the EOS genome. I am loving it more now than I ever have in my entire life because we partnered and implemented EOS, it has given me my life back. The freedom, but part a lot of that was surrendering control and letting my ego and letting the things that that got me here stop. So, so being scared all the time and holding everything and being macho and being masculine and thinking I had to have all the answers. No, no, no, no, no. None of that. A leader has two ears and one mouth for a reason.

And the more I listen, the more I learn and I lead with a lot of love. You sure you get burned, but more, not, not nearly as much as you grow together and grow. Yeah. So I will tell you I love my job and honestly we get offers daily to sell. It is weird not for sale. I will not sell. I will, if anything, give it to the employees because as you know, we have the, the, the personal development brand of harder than life. And that's taking off like wildfires, which EOS allowed us to do.

That's right. It allowed you to bring a new passion to the world with that, which is so exciting.

Another shame, another plug is I went from every day walking in going, oh, I wonder what today's going to bring us, what fire is today gonna bring us? And it, and it literally is to every one of our customers loving us. I, I'm not kidding you. Love us. And that started with EOS and the personal development. It all started really in the pandemic. I used the pandemic for me, and I'll argue I hate that people died and I'm sad and I hate that we were shut down and we went through this. But I used that time so wisely at National Technology Management and personally Kelly Siegel, that I came outta that pandemic a new person. And, and we at National Technology Management were able to go to every single company, every single office since everybody was working from home and, and implement our standard. Amazing,

Amazing. And,

And, and we came out guns blazing, fighting and grew revenue like there was no tomorrow.

Oh my God, that's amazing. And you know, we always like to give our early stage entrepreneurs a glimpse of what it's like, and that's part of what we're doing right now. So they can see like, this is what I'm in for to a certain degree, obviously the circumstances will always be different, but us as entrepreneurs who have been doing this a while, we have an opportunity to give them the glimpse into things. Like, I'm gonna ask you about what is your story? I'll give you two of the nightmare, you know, like, this was a nightmare. And then I'd love to hear also what's been the dream, you know, where, where you just were like, this is like a dream.

Well, the nightmare, I hate to to to spin it positively, but looking back, they say hindsight is 2020 and every one of the nightmares were happening to teach me a lesson. And if, if I were to wouldn't so stubborn to say, what is life teaching me right now, I probably wouldn't have had the same nightmare over and over and over again. Thank you. So my advice to remember, I started off as I did everything on my own. I was a one man band for several years and until I was a two man band for several years, and then I went up to four and now we're I think 25 people. So the Nightmare was walking in and, and your number one customer leaving overnight. And it happened, it's happened to me in 25 years in business, probably four times. So that's the nightmare. I will tell you, nightmares are short-lived it, it's amazing how resilient business is.

And you are. It it, I replaced every single time, doubled the revenue, and not too short future right after. So don't ever think that it's over until I, I I say you can, you can fix anything but dead. So as long as I'm breathing, we're gonna be fine. The dream, the dream is coming soon. Well, I'll tell you a little bit about it. So I'm very passionate having grown up extremely poor to give back to the community in any way, shape or form. So NTM is able, we're in a position financially to be able to donate to a lot of nonprofit organizations, which we do. We donate it, we donate gear, we donate anything we possibly can. And now that I, we have such structure and, and, and we're winning at a, at a, at a very good clip, I'm able to do this harder than life mantra where we're able to then even donate further.

We're, we're, our goal is to donate well into the six figures and eventually seven figures to children's charities. So the, the, the dream. And then here, here's the other thing. And, and, and, and this is ego speaking. And I'm sorry, I don't know any other way to say this. I have two houses. I have two boats, I have two Harleys, I have five cars. It's been good to me. And I was just on a, a competitor's boat and we laughed and we looked around and said, boy, it is really good, isn't it? As we're at his 10,000 square foot house. You know, that's the about the level of bragging you'll hear from me.

Entrepreneurship, you make the world go round, keep doing it, keep grinding because life will ultimately pay off. It took Rob, it took five years of me grinding every day to get back to even money. And there were days and that early days where little things would happen, where commission checks didn't, wouldn't come in and billing didn't happen. And you were like, how am I going to pay the rent this or pay the mortgage? I made it really hard on myself when I started my company, I bought a house that I couldn't afford because I knew it would be five years till I would have AK one that would get me approved. Oh. And I made it even tough. I got married, I got married, built, bought a big house. So I made it tough on myself. Yeah, don't do that.

So good. So, you know, I, I mentioned before we started recording, we always talk about the six essential traits. So if you listen to the podcast, you're getting sick of this by now, but I'm never gonna stop because I really want you to look inside for the early stage entrepreneurs and ask yourself, do I have these essential traits? So I always like to ask, do you have these essential traits, visionary, passionate, problem, solver driven, risk taker, and responsible. So Kelly, do you feel like you have 'em

Besides you? I, I, I'm probably number two of all those I, I I, the, the, the problem solver is, is one of the biggest ones because that's what you get paid money for. If you can uniquely solve people's problems, company's problems, you, this is a results-based business, a world, you have to provide value. It's not just cheaper, it's not just you have to solve problems and the ability to solve them quickly, efficiently, and then charge appropriately and be unapologetic about it. Yeah. Because people have a problem, they'll pay any money to fix it. So that's the one that's all of the six of those are important. I'm gonna tell you right now, if you haven't read Rob's book, you'll hear, you know, do nothing. It's a part of it. And he got his co he sold his company, bought it back. This guy knows if he's saying these six disciplines are what it is, believe him. Sorry, I had to plug you because, okay,

Thank you.

I I wish I as a young man, I wish I would've, I would've gotten closer to you sooner.

You're too kind. You are too kind, you know, and, and those are six essential traits. And you just talked about something so important. You talked about problem solving. You pulled that outta there. So thank you for that because one of the, one of the must-dos that we talk about is the bigger the problem you solve in the world, the more successful you'll be. And this is what you're bringing, you know, a as one that has the this essential traits, you're, you're one of your unique talents is solving these big problems for your clients to grow the company for team members, even in the community with the work that you're doing. And so I appreciate that. I want to, well,

Let's talk about that for just quick second. 'cause remember, make sure that as you're young entrepreneur, that you, you clarify what the problem really is. 'cause sometimes it isn't. Thank you. What you think it is. Like we sell it. We really don't. We're selling people their time and efficiency back to them. Because if we're doing our job, their computers run flawlessly so they can do their job. So we're selling time. I'm not selling it. That is so true. So, so I liken it to the, the guy that sells steak knives and the guy and the person buying 'em asked him, are they sharp knots? And he's, yep. They're the sharpest in the business. Maybe he assumed that that's what he want. You know what, it's funny, I want serrated nuts. Boom. Lost the sale. So clarify what the problem is. Make sure both parties agree, then solve it.

I love it. I love it. Did you have a mentor at any point? And if so, has it been useful? And if not, did you feel like you, you felt like you needed one?

Oh man, you're, you're, you're growing up, the way I grew up, I didn't trust anybody. Didn't trust myself. I didn't trust anybody. So no, I didn't have a mentor. I had negative mentors of what I didn't wanna be. So would it have been easier? Absolutely. I I, I have a mentor now. I have several mentors and I reach out to, to people and I ask them, I am not too proud to ask for, for mentorship because I don't know everything. Even at 47 and 25 years in business, I don't know everything. So I ask for help from a lot of people. You know, I'm gonna join your group to be able to, to ask help from the best. That's good. So definitely recommend getting a mentor. And that's the pers even if you don't get a mentor, get a business coach and, and be honest and be vulnerable and, and, and discuss. 'cause I'm gonna got a newsflash for you. Your problems are not unique and the limiting beliefs you have in your head are not unique. We all have 'em. Your, your fears, your phobias, your, you, we've all have 'em.

Was there ever a point where you felt like reaching out to a potential mentor was like, maybe your ego was in the way, or, or, you know, there was something blocking you from being able to do it. 'cause like you should have the answers and, you know, and, and what got you past that, if that was the case?

Absolutely. I mean, I, you have, I'm gonna shamelessly plug you and, and I could see your brilliance when I met you years ago. I sh I knew that if I'd have lashed on you, I would've been better. But you know, our familiar misery, it is tough. Change is tough. It, it, it's easy, but it's not simple. So definitely wish I would've done it. What got me over it was doing personal development work. And I'll be honest, you could read it in the book. One big change was just stopping numbing out of without alcohol. It just, you know, in sales and in it, it's, it's what everybody did. So I would tell you, you want a fricking cheat code, don't drink or one, you know, I, I just, I I, but that held me back tremendously. I made that one decision, which led into several other decisions to work on my mind and understand my mindset. And then I just became addicted to the advancement of my mind. I consume more books than probably anybody but you. And I just, I read a book a week to to, and I take in podcasts. I'm constantly feeding my mind like I feed my body.

Talk about you, you mentioned one of your core values earlier, and we talk about the stages that you go through in a business. How important are core values in your estimation?

They're paramount because if you don't know where you're well, who you are, well you don't know where you're gonna go. So it gives you the baseline of how you make all your decisions. And I'll tell you what, when you're, when you're in line with your life and, and you're really working on yourself, those core values are easy because I'll be honest with you, the core values for the, for national technology management are the same core values I have personally. And that's the beauty part about being the entrepreneur, being the visionary. It's like the only thing you get to do is really kind of set the core values. Now, I will tell you an interesting thing. We set one core value that absolutely did not resonate with me. And I listened to my team, I set my ego aside and it's one of our most important core values because we, our team needed it.

It's honesty, integrity. And I'm a firm believer that if you're honest and you have integrity, you don't need to tell anybody. Your actions show that. What happens is when you're tested and your team has to do it, they look up on, on the wall and they say, we have to be honest, we have to continue no matter what. And it isn't telling people it's for us internally. And I'm grateful to this day that I set my ego aside and I listen to my team because we look at it every day. And when inevitably a business relationship fizzle and everybody wants to treat that person who's leaving us horribly or like a redheaded stepchild or someone who's leaving, we look at our honesty, integrity and say, no matter what they do, we are going to treat them with kindness and with respect and with integrity. And every single person that has has suffered relationship has said, you guys did that with class and, and we avoid any kinda lawsuits, you know, things happen. That's right. And the beauty part about it is, is with the, with the core values, is you realize when they're leaving that they actually wouldn't, you wouldn't have taken them on as a customer. Now they got the core values.

It does

Happen. It's, it's weird how the, how it works. Literally everything is a vibration. And when you put standards in your life and in your business, people and companies will exit themselves out because they're no longer in alignment with you. Yeah. And it gets scary, but it actually works because you're gonna vibrate and attract the right customers and they'll be in alignment with those core values.

Love it. Are you a partner person? In other words? Yeah, in in business. Do you like having a partner? Do you not like having a partner?

I had, I had a partner and we put a very good separation agreement in place and it was much needed. Now life happens. It, I would, I'm open to a partnership. I believe now that with the core values, with vulnerability, with emotional intelligence, I could totally align with somebody. And with EOS how it structures the company, there's no, there's nothing ambiguity. My partnership didn't, it didn't fail, but it didn't flourish because we kept stepping on each other's toes. I was clearly a visionary and he was clearly an integrator, but didn't wanna do it. So he would fall over into the visionary role all the time and we would, you know, they talk about Right, right. But right seat and, and just if there's two people in it, there's nobody in it.

Right.

So I am I, yes, I would never say never. And I would totally do it, but do I like being the sole person? Absolutely.

It's just, it's one of those things that we just encourage those early stage entrepreneurs to know about themselves. You know? But I love it. You at your core, you know it's your best without a partner, but you're open to it, which I think is great.

Well, I partnered for the wrong reasons. I, I, it was a limiting belief. I didn't think that I knew operations and I went in with all the right intentions. Turned out I'm really good at it because when I, when I separated, I implemented EOS and that was the smartest thing. And we try to do it with him and, you know, we didn't do it fully and we adapted the, the rules to us, which is not what you do, right. The system works, but you have to follow it to AT And when you have two owners dissenting, it's just, it just doesn't work. So if you're gonna do a partnership, you gotta be in complete alignment. One is in, in, in an integrator, one is a visionary or on some part of the, the leadership group, right? And then they have to stay in those roles and they're clearly defined, right? So we kind of, we, we got off the wrong foot, love him. We're still friends to this day. It, we separated amicably. Everything is fine. I will tell you, get a good partnership agreement that is in place that's clearly on, just in case inevitably happens. 'cause truthfully what happened, life happened. They had some, it was nothing between the two of us. It was some family things that happened. And, and health, it could be completely outta your control.

Right. You mentioned you have an integrator, and I'm curious, at what point did you say, I need this person as my counterpart at the business? And, and obviously I'm assuming it's important to you, and talk a little bit about that.

If you read the book, she was in there. I put, I I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna blow your mind. So I wanted to implement EOSI love it. I, I said, this is, there's gotta be a way. I was recommended by a dear friend, a a billionaire that you know, who's local in Michigan. And he said, you gotta implement the us. So I wanted to do it, but the person who would've been, who was running the company at the time was not for it. And out of nowhere I received a resume from some, from a customer who said they have a friend that's in the IT business. And it was like a gift from God. It was the magnetizing of, of what I needed. So I interviewed her, I said, I don't even have an open position right now, but something is telling me I gotta hire you.

I hired her before she started. I said, what do you know about EOS? She said, I implemented EOS at my last company. Brilliant. We're doing it. Soon as I say that to the person who was running the company time, he gives me his resignation and the rest is history. So everything happens for you, not to you. And it just perfectly aligned. And then we were missing, we had a couple of young kids on our leadership team and one of our customers was left his post and then, and he said, and so I was trying to coach him and get him a job. And then I said, why are we not talking to you about? And he goes, I don't know. Right? When I said that three days later, we hired him and he was our missing. He was, we, we have a three-prong, we have a tripod and it's strong. We, we trust each other, we love each other. Our, our level 10 meetings are hilarious. But it, it was, it was divine. Somebody was looking out for me and I think I just, I I I was, I was due. 'cause I've released and surrendered and allowed it to happen. Yeah.

Thank you for sharing that. And you know, there was an awareness there because these things are around us all the time, but we're asleep. You were awake and, and you took action on your awakeness. And so that's an amazing story. I love that. And and please go ahead.

I like to say I was available. You gotta be available. Mm, good. You know, I, I, and, and growing up I was, I was unaware. I you call it asleep, I wasn't available. I thought I knew everything. So the number one thing is, is you don't know what you don't know. And most of what you know is wrong. Yeah. Yeah.

One last question for you. You talked a lot about your personal growth, which I know also goes into the business growth in terms of your ability to show up as a leader, do great things in your industry, and be a better person altogether. How do you capitalize on this and keep this at the forefront for you? You know, the ongoing growth that is imperative as we're building a business.

And you can see right there,

For those of you that are watching this on YouTube, he has a picture on his wall. Consistency is what transformed average into excellence. So consistency.

So absolutely no days off. Every single day I'm doing personal development, whether I do a lot of gratitude. I wake up in the morning, I'm grateful to that, that I'm on the right side of the dirt and I have a roof over my head. And I sometimes it's, I'm, I'm ha I'm grateful that my cat is laying in bed with me. It, it, it doesn't take much. And then I go to the, i I walk in and I do my meditation, I do journaling. I'm at the gym all before 5:00 AM I'm not saying you have to do that, be at that early, but it's wor works for me. Some sort of that I highly recommend. Whether it's at nine o'clock, whether it's at five o'clock or whether it's five o'clock at night, I, I know that you, you agree with me on this. 'cause it's what you guys teach in the 10 disciplines and it's just, it, I I be, I became a better father, a better leader, a better businessman.

I liked myself a lot better and I became more patient and understanding. And I'll tell you one more. I got a million more friends that are very, very close. Yeah. And I, I get calls daily from people that wanna collaborate now because I'm open-minded and I also know that I just understand people a lot, lot better. And, and my way, it's not my way or the highway. And that's the way it used to be when I was younger. And there's more than one way to sack the quarterback. And as long as we sack that quarterback, you know, you can do a spin move, you can take a bull rush, you can go around the end. As long as we get the results, that's all that matters. Results matter. Which is one of our core values delivering results. I love

It. Way to bring it back around. I love it. Kelly, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today. I am just so grateful to you for all these nuggets of wisdom that you've shared.

Rob, I appreciate it. And anything I can do to support you, I'm sorry, I am gonna join your, your, your your guy group and, and I'm gonna push you to the group rank. But I think we're gonna do some great things together. Love. I look forward to learning from you all. Thank

You. You're the best. You're the best. You're too kind. And, and to all the amazing entrepreneurs listening today, I greatly appreciate you spending time with us. And as always, I wish you much love and gratitude.