June 10, 2025 • 33 mins
Scaling a digital agency beyond $30K months doesn't happen by accident—and it won’t happen if you're still running everything yourself. In this episode, I talk with Nathan Newberry about the exact systems, strategies, and mindset shifts he used to grow, sell, and then coach others to scale their agencies through what he calls the AI Freedom Method.
This isn’t surface-level automation talk. Nathan walks us through the leadership principles and operational frameworks that allow ambitious founders to shift from exhaustion and chaos into clarity and scale—without sacrificing their health, family, or freedom. We explore what it really means to delegate with excellence, leverage AI intentionally, and build sales and fulfillment systems that operate without your constant presence. If you’re ready to cross the threshold from stuck to scaling, this conversation will show you what’s missing, why it matters, and how to build a business that doesn’t rely on you being everywhere at once.
Books Mentioned:
- Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell
- Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
- Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
- The Bible (specifically, the Gospel of John)
Connect with Nathan Newberry:
DM Nathan on Instagram @nathannewberryofficial with my name, Dr. William Attaway, and he’ll send you exclusive access to his AI Freedom Method checklist and time-buyback toolkit—the same systems helping agency owners scale past $30K months.
Join Dr. William Attaway on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares transformative insights to help high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners achieve Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, and Confidence.
- Free 30-Minute Discovery Call:
Ready to elevate your business? Book a free 30-minute discovery call with Dr. William Attaway and start your journey to success.
- Special Offer:
Get your FREE copy of Catalytic Leadership: 12 Keys to Becoming an Intentional Leader Who Makes a Difference.
Connect with Dr. William Attaway:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. William Attaway (00:00):
I'm excited today to have Nathan Newberry
on the podcast.
Nathan is a husband and fatherof three, and he understands the
delicate balance betweenscaling a business and
maintaining a fulfillingpersonal life.
After nine years of running hisagency and later selling it, he
discovered that true successcomes from systems, not endless
(00:22):
hustle.
Through his journey from pastorto marketing agency owner to
leading sales teams that aregenerating over a million
dollars monthly, he's developedthe AI Freedom Method a unique
approach combining high-ticketsales, ai automation and
strategic team building thatlets you scale without sacrifice
(00:43):
.
Today, he is helping ambitiouscoaches escape the 10 to 30K
plateau, using proven frameworksthat create predictable revenue
.
Nathan believes in real resultsover empty promises, in
leveraging AI over manual gruntwork, and in sustainable growth
(01:03):
over quick fixes.
Through weekly coaching andimplementation support, he helps
founders build businessesthey're proud of, while
protecting what matters mosttime with family.
Nathan, I'm so glad you're here.
Thanks for being on the show.
Nathan Newberry (01:19):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
I hope I can give some wisdomand help some people that are
listening here to help scale andgrow.
Dr. William Attaway (01:25):
Always the goal.
Intro / Outro (01:29):
Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the
podcast designed to help leadersintentionally grow and thrive.
Here is your host author andleadership and executive coach,
dr William Attaway.
Dr. William Attaway (01:46):
I'd love to start with you sharing a little
bit of your story with ourlisteners.
I hit a few of the high points,but I'd love to hear
particularly about your journeyand your development as a leader
.
How'd you?
Nathan Newberry (01:58):
get started.
Yeah, I mean, the big one was,you know, being a team sports
right, growing up, you knowputting in place and leadership,
just because I have thatpersonality type that is just
kind of a go-getter and wants tolead, wants to help, wants to
support.
But my dad was a pastor, mygrandpa was a pastor, my uncle
was a pastor, my brother, mycousin, wow that's a family
(02:21):
business, right, it's a familything.
I mean, we love Jesus in ourhome.
You know we want to pointpeople to him as much as
possible, but it was just coolto kind of see how can we lead
people, and that was kind oflike the starting off of just
like, how do I coordinate doingthat?
I was a pastor for years tooand that helped me, you know,
learn how to lead people.
The other part of this, too,was I worked with a lot of
(02:42):
volunteers, and if anybody'svolunteered, the leading of
volunteers is way different thanemployees you know, that's so
true.
There's some different ways thatyou have to think through and
process and work with people andhave a lot of empathy with that
.
But that, you know, I the mystory was.
You know, after ministry I waslike what do I do now?
Like I got a bachelor's degreein theology.
(03:05):
I was thinking I would alwaysbe a pastor, but my mentality
was never financial.
Just because when you'reworking in nonprofits you're
like you're there for the impact, you're not there for the
dollar.
And I was like I justunderstood that.
But you know, and as a youngguy too, of not being married
yet and then not having kids,you don't really figure out
those responsibilities and stuff.
But I do remember vividly comingback.
(03:27):
We did some missions out inEurope and we came back and I
was like, all right, what do Ido now?
If I'm not going to do ministry, what do I do?
And I remember this old quotefrom Jonathan Edwards.
He said make as much money asyou can, save as much money as
you can and give as much moneyas I can.
I was like, all right, so ifI'm not going to be the one
doing the impact, I just want toat least have a lot of impact
(03:49):
by giving.
So I needed to make a lot ofmoney to do that, to sort
through everything.
But I do remember vividlycoming back and this was over a
decade plus ago now, but Iremember coming back.
I was like man, if I can makeyou know 40K a year.
Dr. William Attaway (04:07):
I'll be like.
Nathan Newberry (04:07):
I'll be.
It's like now you have family.
I don't know if I can evensurvive off of 40K now.
It was just like the growth youknow, and then the time
everything but that that shiftedinto some entrepreneurship
chaos and challenges, withleadership and growth.
And at one of the ventures Ihad, you know, coming back from
being nonprofits like you'realways I didn't want to talk to
anybody as much, I just want towork with my hands.
So one of the ventures that youknow I ended up hating was a
(04:30):
fencing company that turned intoa construction business.
But I, like I had 12 guys on mypayroll, I had an office, I had
trucks, I had materials, but Ifigured out all the marketing
side of it.
But I hated everything elsebecause people were ripping me
off and stealing from me my cupof tea.
It's just everybody finds thoselanes that they're great at.
But I learned the marketingside.
So the only one that had awebsite, the only one that had
(04:52):
leads, the only person thatpicked up the call when someone
called it, was just like somesimple things that I figured out
how to be and I started gettingasked by other people how did
you do this?
And so it just kind of grewinto a marketing business and I
figured out.
What I loved about this andthis could be helpful for
anybody that's listening in isthe reach that we want.
(05:12):
And freedom doesn't have to bemileage from our house.
That was a big thing.
From shift of like, I only canwork with people within the
driving distance of my office ormy house.
But really we're globalizedaudience now so we can help
anybody, everybody, and that wasa big understanding and aha
moment for me.
(05:33):
And when I started my agency andI know a lot of your listeners
are agency owners too is Istarted reaching and helping
people all over the world and Inever even met them, but I was
able to impact in such a way andmy niche was working with
churches and nonprofits too.
World and I was.
I never even met them, but Iwas able to impact in such a way
and I worked.
My niche was working withchurches and nonprofits too.
So there was impact part that Iwas able to help them
(05:53):
exponentially grow on thoselevels of things too.
But it was fun to work andcreate and build and I remember
I was traveling to one of myclients and I was coming home
after just a busy few days oflike capturing content and
developing stuff and workingwith their team at a big mega
church, and I was coming home Iwas like man, this is so fun.
(06:13):
This is exactly the you know.
You get those moments, or ahamoments Like this is what I love
doing and that that was great.
I did that for nine years andthen I had some kids and I was
like, all right, the one thing Ilike doing now is just working
with people and seeing theimpact.
Let me just do sales, andsomething that I realized you
know, even after you knowleading sales teams for a while
(06:37):
was there's four key skills in abusiness that everybody needs
to constantly learn.
One of them is you know how tomarket yourself.
The other one is you know howto sell your service and product
.
The other one is you know howto do the fulfillment.
And then the other one isknowing how to lead people,
which is some of the big thingsthat we're talking about here,
but also creating systems,automations so those things can
work really efficiently, right,and so I did sales for a while
(07:01):
and then you know be able tolead people, cause I did really
well, cause I cared for people.
You know what I thought around.
You know sales part of things,but now I help people just build
an online business, run adsefficiently, lead media teams
and sales teams and build thoseout in a way that's really
efficient Uh, so that you canhave a lot of freedom in your
life and not feeling like youhave to be stuck to the normal
(07:23):
40 to 80 hour 100 hour hustleand bustle of you know building
the business.
You know so.
Dr. William Attaway (07:31):
It's an incredible journey so far.
I mean just to hear all thedifferent pieces, and I firmly
believe there's no such thing asa wasted experience.
I think every one of thoseexperiences made you who you are
and has helped you to add valuelike you do.
So somebody's listening andthey're like, wow, that sounds
great, this whole idea of youknow, sustainable growth and
(07:53):
real results and all that.
But where do I start?
I mean because I'm in themiddle of those 60, 70, 80 hour
weeks and I'm really good atwhat I do.
But, man, all those otherpieces you know, your, your,
your four things like I don'tknow about those when do they
begin?
Nathan Newberry (08:10):
Well, I'll tell you something.
Like I remember at a point inbetween doing construction
business and starting mymarketing agency, I ran a
recruiting office and arecruiting office.
You have a lot of churn and youhire a lot of people and I
remember at one point justtelling my wife about like the
struggles and stuff and she'slike maybe you should you know,
(08:32):
you're not good at thisleadership stuff okay, and I was
like, what are you talkingabout?
Like I'm like I'm trying mybest here, right, and I I
remember telling her notargumentative, but it but it was
also because I'm a verbalprocessor, understanding some of
this is honey, it's a skill.
It's a skill.
I'm still learning it, that'sright.
(08:52):
Like I'm reading books, I'mstill learning.
And so it was a registeredthought.
I'm like all right, I probablyneed to learn some of this stuff
and I'm constantly learning howto lead well and I'm not always
the best.
You'll never end with stuff andsomething that you know as well
as I do.
The interesting part about ourmarket now is that we have five
(09:14):
generations in the workforce now.
That's never happened before inhistory.
So I have five differentgenerations of people, depending
on the culture and everythingyou're building, but a lot of
people have to deal with fivedifferent generations in the.
You know the.
There's the this thing calledeq now where it's like you're
looking at the emotional part oflike, how people dissolve,
(09:36):
because we're mentally, we'rewired, we just react and make
decisions based off of emotion.
As much as people want to likesay they do it logically.
It's not the case, you knowcase.
So we're all emotional beingsin how we process this stuff.
But getting to your point of howdo we start, you just got to be
thrown in the deep end and seeif you can do it.
Everybody needs to know how tolead.
Everybody's leading on somecapacity.
(09:56):
Number one, leading themselvesinto strong, helpful disciplines
that help them thrive and feelenergetic.
And you know, being smart aboutsome things.
It's like do I stay up tillthree o'clock watching the
Office or the Parks and Rec?
You know I got to lead myselfwith saying, hey, I got to shut
off, even though I want to bingeit so I can wake up early to
still perform well in mybusiness or job.
Right, you got to lead yourself.
Dr. William Attaway (10:17):
And if you're not able to lead those
people, well, you're going tostruggle as well, I love how you
talk about leadership as askill and I think the
conversation you have with yourwife around that is one that a
whole lot of people have had.
They're like I'm really good atthis marketing thing, or I'm
really good at this constructionthing, or whatever the business
is that you have.
(10:38):
But leadership's a differentskill and as you find success at
whatever it is that you'redoing, you have to hire other
people to help you withfulfillment.
And then all of a sudden youhave to lead those people.
Like what was that journey likefor you as you began to scale?
And all of a sudden, peoplewere looking to you to lead and
you were realizing, oh man, Igot some growing to do here,
(11:03):
I'll tell you it was.
Nathan Newberry (11:04):
It was hard challenges, to say the least,
because I realized it's likewhat I'm wanting is someone to
do something and read my brain,right, right, and if I don't
have the right procedures, sops,playbooks, then I'm gonna be
frustrated when I'm hiring.
I've been recruiting andbuilding sales teams and when I
(11:30):
ran my marketing agency, Iprobably have hired over
hundreds of people in my teamhere and what I realized is two
challenges that I've had withhiring Either I hired
emotionally and it was acompetency gap because I didn't
hire well, right, yeah.
And or I didn't have the rightsystems in play for them to be
(11:50):
successful right, that's good.
So I'll give you an example ofwhat I mean by this.
When I was in ministry, I ranthe college group at our church.
That grew pretty substantially.
I grew a coffee business withinour church.
I ran all the sound and this isa bigger church, mega church,
(12:10):
7,000 to 8,000 people, nine-footanalog board.
Like you have tons of differentvolunteers and everything, and
I ran all the worship.
What I realized is I had fourdifferent expectations from four
different people.
It was never defined what I did.
It was frustrating, and they Idid it was frustrating and they
were frustrated and I was like Ihad to sit down and define
everything.
But then what that gave meclarity was if I can define my
(12:30):
role, I can also define theexpectations for everybody that
I lead, and if I don't have thatclear, um, they'll.
No one will ever feel like theylevel up because they'd have
never defined a bar that theyhit Right and they feel good and
confident that they've hit thatexpectation or even surpass it,
because they never know whatthe bar to hit.
Dr. William Attaway (12:49):
Yeah, what's the win?
You didn't define the win,right yeah?
Nathan Newberry (12:52):
And so it's the same thing with building any
team is you have to definethings, and the leverage of AI
now can help you craft this thanever Feeling like you don't
have to start at zero you canthis than ever Feeling like you
don't have to start at zero.
You can literally ask ChatGPTto help you define what a
standard operating procedure ora playbook in sales or marketing
or how to design checklists.
And at the point where I'm atnow with my business is, I show
(13:17):
up and I coach my clients, whichI love, and I show up to be the
talent to record stuff.
Am I the one that goes andedits all my videos, that lines
up the podcast, that opens upthe speaking engagements or
helps me with hooks?
No, my team helps me handle allof that because I've created
systems, created clearexpectations of KPIs and then
(13:38):
help them, continue to trainthem so they can hit those
expectations and go beyond it.
Right, and those are just hardlessons that I've had to learn
because, after hiring hundredsof people, it was because I was
not leading them well, like if Ineeded a website to be done, I
needed ads to be run, I neededthings to be set up, like you
can think in systems, and Iteach my team this, and anybody
(14:01):
that I coach too, is like I needyou to document and think in
systems.
If you're constantly doing thesame thing over and over again,
record what you're doing youknow, have it you know, have it
transcribed, put it in the AI tocreate the playbooks.
Or what I do now is and this isone of my mentors that I love
this phrase here.
He's like millionaires think insystems, billionaires think in
(14:23):
hiring people that build thesystems Right.
So if you can think ahead thatway and your growth in that
journey of success is, hiring isvery important, but marketing
is.
I don't need to worry about thefulfillment, I don't need to
worry about leadership, becausethere's nothing to automate,
systemize.
(14:43):
So it all starts off withgetting in front of people to
then sell.
So it's like every aspect of abusiness.
The importance of marketing isso essential and people don't.
(15:04):
They miss that, and I'vecoached a lot of marketing
agencies over the years too, andsome of the big challenges is
that they're in the business,not working on it, and then
they're based off a referral andthe cash flow is tight and they
feel like they can never hirebecause they never have
stability in the business andthat's just because they're not
marketing and doing what they'redoing for clients.
(15:24):
They're not doing it forthemselves.
Dr. William Attaway (15:27):
That's so true no-transcript.
Nathan Newberry (15:53):
They're more tech heavy, they're analytical,
they're like if I could justdesign systems or websites all
day long and I never have totalk to another human being.
They're in, you know.
But here's the interesting partSales is hard because you're
thinking that it is Okay.
(16:13):
Here's what I realized withsales.
Everybody gets the bad taste intheir mouth with film, like
they've been pushed intosomething that they didn't want
to do and so they're fearful.
Well, it's the limiting belief.
Okay, they watch the movie Wolfof Wall Street, the the boiler
room, and they see these sleazyguys trying to push stuff.
That's hurting people more thanhelping people.
(16:34):
But here's the interesting partof selling Everybody does it.
Okay, yeah, I have to.
I have to sell my wife to marryme.
You know, I have to convince mykids to eat vegetables.
I have to go, you know, talkwith the guy to help me.
You know, convince him to giveme the best deal on.
You know, mowing my lawn.
Or you know, getting a piece ofproperty or negotiating on
(16:57):
whatever, right, yeah, and so it.
That's a skill in itself, andso it's just like learn
marketing, but you also need tolearn sales.
There's a, there's a book.
This is where I learned thisand why I went into learning
sales myself was because I wasthe same way.
I was like if I could justdesign websites all day long
it'd be the blast Right.
And then I realized I got tobuild teams, to scale and I got
(17:19):
to work with people and so I hadto develop, you know, the skill
of learning and of sales andnegotiate.
And there was a book from RobertKawasaki called Rich Dad, poor
Dad.
It's well known, yeah, but justin a quick clip notes is he had
a poor dad which is reallystill a well-to-do professor dad
(17:39):
that's making good money,that's the normal noble job.
But his rich dad that's reallywealthy, that owns a bunch of
stuff, and told him to go learnsales.
Why Is because he realized thatit's like if you can learn that
skill, you'll be able to besuccessful in everything else,
because everything is, it's,hinged off of the transaction of
money.
(17:59):
A business doesn't start untilthere's transaction of money.
So it's like I can market allday long, but I still need to
convince that person or thatcompany to work with me and then
I can do the fulfillment andlead and build teams and systems
.
So I think there's a blend ofmarketing sales that goes so
well.
But I think if your offer iscompelling enough in what you're
(18:21):
doing, it will sell itself andI think you need to have that
blend of being able to marketand sell really well.
So the time you have that salesconversation, it's a layup to
do it, but I think there's somesimple conversations in some
service and information productsthat everybody can learn, with
just some simple frameworks andthen being able to know how to
handle objections, which isreally just overcoming the
(18:44):
challenges that you have becauseyou didn't come up with the
right discovery questions to askin the first place.
So it's all part of the processof learning how to do some of
that sales.
But yeah, that's good.
Dr. William Attaway (18:55):
I like that .
You mentioned AI a couple timesa minute ago.
People in agency world, ofcourse, are familiar with this.
They're seeing this every day.
It's a part of the agency worldin a very big way, but a lot of
the other business owners andleaders who are listening may
not be as familiar with how thiscan benefit them and help them.
(19:17):
You talk about this a lot.
I would love for you to sharejust a little bit about some of
the ways that you're seeing thisused or using it yourself.
Nathan Newberry (19:24):
So Dan Martell in his book called Buy Back your
Time actually I have it on mydesk here.
It's a good book to check outVery tactical approaches of how
to think through it.
But his hiring ladder is firstyou need to get out of your own
inbox and calendar and then youhelp, you have someone to help
you with the fulfillment, andthen you work on marketing and
sales and then you're in thatleadership role that everybody
(19:46):
wants to be in but they don'tknow how to ever get to.
But it's really kind of leadingthat empire where you have all
the different information andyou're kind of the controller of
the company and ultimately youcan hire a CEO to do that and
then you're just being able tocome in and check in a few
different points, right.
So this is what I realized isevery aspect of those hiring
ladders.
They can leverage AI for thepeople that are in it, but you
(20:08):
also need to know how to beefficient to buy back the time.
So I thought about every aspectof the things in my life that I
wanted to do and I had myassistant help me with it, me
drive and I count for everything.
So the time I have is verylimited.
That's what everybody doesn'thave, like the wealthiest people
and the poorest people all havethe same exact time, so I need
to account for it.
(20:28):
Well, the Bible talks aboutthis.
You know a lot, too in theproblems.
So, anyways, I look at my timein terms of like drive time.
What am I doing in this?
I think about my calendar andwhat's on it and the time I need
to do this.
So here's a few different stepsthat I look at.
In terms of sales market is Icarve out specific time on my
calendar of when I'm doingcontent, when I'm looking at my
(20:50):
finances, when I'm doingmarketing assets and creating
things like this.
But I also do this with salescalls and podcasts, so my
assistant will go through andresearch a bunch of different
stuff on my behalf.
So in the steps that I have, Icreate a system of like this is
what I normally do when I'mlooking for someone or I'm
vetting someone, or these areall the links I need to help me,
(21:11):
do you know?
And they create a dossier andso that way, five minutes before
the episode, I literally can goin.
I just have it dictate.
Read it to me.
I click on a few differentlinks gives me some
understanding of it.
I'm able to jump into the salesconversation or jump into the
podcast or jump into negotiationor jump into, you know,
partnerships and connections,because now I have context and
(21:33):
so my assistant will use AItools to scrape this, use some
of these different elements.
That buys back my time.
We use this with content, youknow, to create content.
Ai can help you with creatingwhat we know now for the time
that someone watches somethingYouTube video or everything you
need to have the hook thatsomeone watches something
YouTube video or everything youneed to have the hook that's
(21:53):
really good within the first fewseconds, and so AI can help you
craft some of those things andscript out things, and so some
of the AI prompts and stuff thatI create for myself and for my
clients is helping create an AIbot that understands someone's
pricing, packaging and offeringand their style of speech.
Right.
That allows AI to really kindof script out something in a way
(22:15):
that seems genuine and cleararound some of the key buckets
of content and everything thatyou're doing, and then even the
ads, right.
Ai knows more about anybody'sindustry than ever, and so it's
like pulling from thatinformation and that capsule of
knowledge, I think is going tobe so, so helpful for people to
just kind of use it as tools andleverage in every aspect of
(22:38):
marketing, sales, leadership,kpis like dashboards, excel
spreadsheets like have it create, have it edit, have it help you
kind of process and thinkthrough every aspect of your
hiring and firing and sales andmarketing.
And I think if you can think insystems and then have AI to
help you build some of thosesystems, people are going to be
(22:58):
able to run quicker and beefficient and then if you train
your team to run in that leveland think in systems, you're in
an unstoppable force.
Dr. William Attaway (23:07):
I agree.
You know, we've been using itdaily for probably a year and a
half now and it has been atremendous difference maker for
our team, for me, in not onlysome of the smaller tasks, but I
use it as a brainstorming toolTotally, where I'm like, hey,
help me think of 15 ways ofthinking about this.
(23:29):
I'm thinking about this topic.
Give me some off-the-wall waysof looking at that.
It's astounding.
It's a brainstorming toolunlike anything I've ever found.
Even another person is notgoing to give me sometimes some
of the perspectives and anglesthat I'm going to get from AI.
(23:49):
That has been incredibly usefulfor me as I think about content
, as I think about things thatI'm creating for clients or for
teams.
It's been helpful to thinkabout different perspectives
that I simply would not havesolo.
Nathan Newberry (24:03):
I use it in everything, like today.
I use this for my fitness stuff.
I'm big on transformationfitness journey right now.
And today I was like why am I alittle sluggish?
And I went and chat to you.
Here's what I'm doing.
This is what I'm eating.
Why am I feeling this way?
And they're like oh, you didn'teat this.
And I like I missed like oats,which was a specific carbs,
(24:25):
because I ran a bunch of milestoday and I just felt sluggish.
I'm like what's going on?
I took all my vegetables,electrolytes, what the heck is
going on?
And I'm like oh, I missed that.
And they kind of helped mediscover that of what my
quandary was.
I'd give you another example.
Our brother-in-law turned 50 afew days ago.
My wife's like hey, don'tforget to text him.
And I asked you at GPT hey,write something up for me.
(24:46):
You know this style of voiceand I want to include this kind
of humor with it.
All right and it.
You know I had to give it a fewdifferent.
Say I don't like that, tryagain, you know.
And it gave me some differentstuff until I liked it and in
two minutes I had a text messageand I was able to send off
Right.
So I think it's totally inreasoning, processing in every
area of your life, like do it.
Dr. William Attaway (25:07):
Nathan, you , you have to lead at a higher
level today for your team, yourbusiness, your clients than you
did even two, three, four yearsago, and that same thing is
going to be true three, four,five years from now.
How do you stay on top of yourgame?
How do you level up with thenew leadership skills that your
team, your business, yourclients are going to need you to
(25:30):
have in the years to come?
Nathan Newberry (25:33):
I'm always learning, so there's always
books on leadership I'm reading,but I'm also like buying clear
on my objectives and goals andreally stay focused and
(25:59):
disciplined on doing the hardthings.
And I think so often we try tothink, hey, if we get in
retirement, once we're out ofschool, things will be easier.
Or once I have this amount ofmoney in my bank.
Or once the kids leave whateverit is, it's not.
Or once a kid's leap likewhatever it is, like it's not.
Is it going to get easier?
It's just harder.
(26:20):
And if you can come to grips ofit's just hard, you're going to
be able to learn how to riseabove it and not feel smothered
or drownded in the heart.
And I think people feel likeleading is just hard.
But it's like once you buildsome systems and animations and
some clarity around as clearexpectations, you're going to
(26:42):
see people take off and be ableto help you do more than ever.
That you think you know it'spossible.
That way you can really havemore clarity.
And so this is where I think ofthe AI freedom method is it's
like you got to build thesystems.
You know that people can, youknow, create and hold true, so
that way you can have morebandwidth of time, flexibility
(27:04):
and freedom to go and deploy andcreate more.
But if you're grounding in thefulfillment and not working on
the business, then it's it'sgoing to be very challenging for
people to even think about it,cause it's not just reading
another book.
It going to be very challengingfor people to even think about
it because it's not just readinganother book, it's applying
(27:24):
what you probably already knowto be true.
And first time is like leadingyourself.
How can you show up to be yourbest?
You're a high performer.
High performer athletes takeaccount of every little thing
the amount of time that yousleep, that you veg, that you
eat crap and like those inputs.
And so it's like as I've grownin my entrepreneurship journey,
I realized the inputs of thingsand the voices in things in my
(27:45):
like I don't look at news, Idon't really watch a whole lot
of TV and movies.
I might do it once in a while,but those are other voices and
influence that just affect mymood and how I think and
translate and see the lens ofwhat's possible in this world.
You know, and so even thepeople you're around too, like
that's a big thing If you gotyour bowling club or you know
(28:07):
people around you, like nowadays, like when I talk with people,
even new people I meet, say atchurch or other people, it's
like if I, if I can't talk aboutwhat I'm passionate about, it's
very hard for me to connectwith other people.
And I'm okay with beingmisunderstood because I'm in a
lane of high performance andexcellence and so if you want to
talk about football, you wantto talk about Joe Smoad, this,
(28:30):
that and the other.
I'm like I have no idea, noconcept of that stuff and I'm
completely fine with it.
But they want to connect withme on some of the other stuff
and I was just like I got mycrowd that I just I hang out
with that's more at a high level.
That can that appreciates moreof that high level context of
like what you're dealing with ona business level and a personal
(28:53):
level.
Like I'm always trying to readand level up with those kinds of
connections level on a personallevel, I'm always trying to
read and level up with thosekind of connections.
Dr. William Attaway (29:02):
I think most people underestimate the
power of the people that youspend time with and how much of
an influence that makes on yourlife.
We've heard it, we've read it.
It is so incredibly true and Ilove that you're living that out
and expressing that in such aclear way.
You've mentioned at least onebook so far in our conversation.
Is there that one, or is thereanother one that you would say,
hey, this book has made a bigdifference in my journey and I
(29:25):
would love to recommend it tothe leaders who are listening
the way.
Nathan Newberry (29:27):
I learned is I learn in seasons and stints.
There's, you know, thoseconstant skills I'm always
refining on, so I always have adifferent season.
I'm learning on certain things,like when I was doing sales
full time.
You know I read books on sales.
When I was managing sales teams, I was reading books on
management and leadership andsales teams.
You know, it just depends whatseason I am, but I'm obsessed in
(29:51):
like learning that one thing.
More often than not, peopleswitch like they'll read a
leadership book and then theirsales book and then they'll read
a biography and this, that theother, and then I think it it
confuses our brain of what weneed to focus on.
So like if you took the nextquarter and say all I'm going to
read about is sales, all I'mgoing to read about is marketing
(30:13):
or ai, where I'm going to studyand consume on YouTube, is like
focused on just that, and youcan stop of like yourself and
say, hey, I'm not focused onthat, right, I'm focused on this
.
And that season will allow youto build and scale quicker
because you're condensing theamount of information you're
receiving, but then it'll createthe inputs and outputs that you
need to kind of stack thoseskills.
(30:34):
But some of the books that I'mreading at the moment is just
definitely Buy Back your Time.
I've read that a few differenttimes, but I'm involved in
different communities that aretalking about scale and leveling
up.
But the big one that everybodyneeds to learn and this is why
I'm saying this is theconfidence that you create in
(30:54):
yourself to do.
Whatever you need to have iscoming from a place of identity,
and most of the time peopledon't know who they are because
they never align themselves withactually who created them.
So people need to get real ofjust everything I mean.
The reason why I studiedtheology is because I remember,
at 17, surfing in the mostbeautiful spot in San Diego,
(31:16):
where it was sunset, thedolphins were popping up.
It was the best.
It was just amazing and I waslike there has to be a creator.
If there's a creator, I got toknow who they are, and that got
me into traveling all over theworld.
I lived in Israel, where Jesusdid most of his ministry, and it
became so real to me thatpeople need to have that clarity
(31:39):
as well, and so studying theBible is so, so important.
If someone wanted to start,there's 66 books in this whole
book start in the gospel of Johnand that's going to open your
eyes, to be the real realisticpart about everything.
And another book that I readevery year that I just like I
don't know why I read it, butit's Pilgrim's Progress by John
(32:01):
Bunyan.
I've been reading that foryears.
Every year start of the year, Iread that and then I read
through the Bible every singleyear.
I've been doing that over adecade and I try to just.
I'm an audio learner so I haveit read to me and I'm able to
read through it in 10 to 15minutes every day and it allows
me to really kind of get aclarity on who I am from the
(32:23):
maker that created all of us.
And my kids were asking me theother day how do you know God's
real?
The Bible says we've watchedthis, that nature itself proves
that there is a God.
So if there is a God, then tryto figure out who it is and have
a relationship with him, andthat's the journey I took into
the Bible.
It's another good book.
(32:43):
Love it.
Dr. William Attaway (32:46):
Nathan, I know our listeners are going to
want to stay connected to youand continue to learn from you
and more about what you're doing.
What is the best way for themto do that?
Nathan Newberry (32:56):
Yeah, I appreciate that.
I mean I'm everywhere.
I mean one of the things I talkabout is being omnipresent.
You can look my name up, nathanNewberry, anywhere I'm mostly
on Instagram.
I have a full checklist foranybody that's wanting to learn
how to buy back their time.
Even more, I have a fullchecklist and some workshops and
other free training that I cangive.
If someone DM me on Instagramor anywhere chops and other free
(33:16):
training that I can give issomeone you know DM me on
Instagram or anywhere uh, youknow your name, I will
definitely give uh, all thoselisteners some access to some
exclusive things for them ifthey messaged me there.
Um, but I have my own podcastas well.
Uh, I got to have you on it oneof these days as a guest, for
sure, and uh.
So, yeah, anybody can find meeverywhere, nathan Newberry, and
that's where they can connectwith me more.
Dr. William Attaway (33:38):
Excellent.
Well, I'll look forward to thatand we will have those links in
the show notes.
Nathan, thank you for yourgenerosity of time and insight
today.
I know people are going to beblessed by this.
Nathan Newberry (33:49):
Thanks so much for having me, man.
I'm excited today to have Nathan Newberry
on the podcast.
Nathan is a husband and fatherof three, and he understands the
delicate balance betweenscaling a business and
maintaining a fulfillingpersonal life.
After nine years of running hisagency and later selling it, he
discovered that true successcomes from systems, not endless
(00:22):
hustle.
Through his journey from pastorto marketing agency owner to
leading sales teams that aregenerating over a million
dollars monthly, he's developedthe AI Freedom Method a unique
approach combining high-ticketsales, ai automation and
strategic team building thatlets you scale without sacrifice
(00:43):
.
Today, he is helping ambitiouscoaches escape the 10 to 30K
plateau, using proven frameworksthat create predictable revenue
.
Nathan believes in real resultsover empty promises, in
leveraging AI over manual gruntwork, and in sustainable growth
(01:03):
over quick fixes.
Through weekly coaching andimplementation support, he helps
founders build businessesthey're proud of, while
protecting what matters mosttime with family.
Nathan, I'm so glad you're here.
Thanks for being on the show.
Nathan Newberry (01:19):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
I hope I can give some wisdomand help some people that are
listening here to help scale andgrow.
Dr. William Attaway (01:25):
Always the goal.
Intro / Outro (01:29):
Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the
podcast designed to help leadersintentionally grow and thrive.
Here is your host author andleadership and executive coach,
dr William Attaway.
Dr. William Attaway (01:46):
I'd love to start with you sharing a little
bit of your story with ourlisteners.
I hit a few of the high points,but I'd love to hear
particularly about your journeyand your development as a leader
.
How'd you?
Nathan Newberry (01:58):
get started.
Yeah, I mean, the big one was,you know, being a team sports
right, growing up, you knowputting in place and leadership,
just because I have thatpersonality type that is just
kind of a go-getter and wants tolead, wants to help, wants to
support.
But my dad was a pastor, mygrandpa was a pastor, my uncle
was a pastor, my brother, mycousin, wow that's a family
(02:21):
business, right, it's a familything.
I mean, we love Jesus in ourhome.
You know we want to pointpeople to him as much as
possible, but it was just coolto kind of see how can we lead
people, and that was kind oflike the starting off of just
like, how do I coordinate doingthat?
I was a pastor for years tooand that helped me, you know,
learn how to lead people.
The other part of this, too,was I worked with a lot of
(02:42):
volunteers, and if anybody'svolunteered, the leading of
volunteers is way different thanemployees you know, that's so
true.
There's some different ways thatyou have to think through and
process and work with people andhave a lot of empathy with that
.
But that, you know, I the mystory was.
You know, after ministry I waslike what do I do now?
Like I got a bachelor's degreein theology.
(03:05):
I was thinking I would alwaysbe a pastor, but my mentality
was never financial.
Just because when you'reworking in nonprofits you're
like you're there for the impact, you're not there for the
dollar.
And I was like I justunderstood that.
But you know, and as a youngguy too, of not being married
yet and then not having kids,you don't really figure out
those responsibilities and stuff.
But I do remember vividly comingback.
(03:27):
We did some missions out inEurope and we came back and I
was like, all right, what do Ido now?
If I'm not going to do ministry, what do I do?
And I remember this old quotefrom Jonathan Edwards.
He said make as much money asyou can, save as much money as
you can and give as much moneyas I can.
I was like, all right, so ifI'm not going to be the one
doing the impact, I just want toat least have a lot of impact
(03:49):
by giving.
So I needed to make a lot ofmoney to do that, to sort
through everything.
But I do remember vividlycoming back and this was over a
decade plus ago now, but Iremember coming back.
I was like man, if I can makeyou know 40K a year.
Dr. William Attaway (04:07):
I'll be like.
Nathan Newberry (04:07):
I'll be.
It's like now you have family.
I don't know if I can evensurvive off of 40K now.
It was just like the growth youknow, and then the time
everything but that that shiftedinto some entrepreneurship
chaos and challenges, withleadership and growth.
And at one of the ventures Ihad, you know, coming back from
being nonprofits like you'realways I didn't want to talk to
anybody as much, I just want towork with my hands.
So one of the ventures that youknow I ended up hating was a
(04:30):
fencing company that turned intoa construction business.
But I, like I had 12 guys on mypayroll, I had an office, I had
trucks, I had materials, but Ifigured out all the marketing
side of it.
But I hated everything elsebecause people were ripping me
off and stealing from me my cupof tea.
It's just everybody finds thoselanes that they're great at.
But I learned the marketingside.
So the only one that had awebsite, the only one that had
(04:52):
leads, the only person thatpicked up the call when someone
called it, was just like somesimple things that I figured out
how to be and I started gettingasked by other people how did
you do this?
And so it just kind of grewinto a marketing business and I
figured out.
What I loved about this andthis could be helpful for
anybody that's listening in isthe reach that we want.
(05:12):
And freedom doesn't have to bemileage from our house.
That was a big thing.
From shift of like, I only canwork with people within the
driving distance of my office ormy house.
But really we're globalizedaudience now so we can help
anybody, everybody, and that wasa big understanding and aha
moment for me.
(05:33):
And when I started my agency andI know a lot of your listeners
are agency owners too is Istarted reaching and helping
people all over the world and Inever even met them, but I was
able to impact in such a way andmy niche was working with
churches and nonprofits too.
World and I was.
I never even met them, but Iwas able to impact in such a way
and I worked.
My niche was working withchurches and nonprofits too.
So there was impact part that Iwas able to help them
(05:53):
exponentially grow on thoselevels of things too.
But it was fun to work andcreate and build and I remember
I was traveling to one of myclients and I was coming home
after just a busy few days oflike capturing content and
developing stuff and workingwith their team at a big mega
church, and I was coming home Iwas like man, this is so fun.
(06:13):
This is exactly the you know.
You get those moments, or ahamoments Like this is what I love
doing and that that was great.
I did that for nine years andthen I had some kids and I was
like, all right, the one thing Ilike doing now is just working
with people and seeing theimpact.
Let me just do sales, andsomething that I realized you
know, even after you knowleading sales teams for a while
(06:37):
was there's four key skills in abusiness that everybody needs
to constantly learn.
One of them is you know how tomarket yourself.
The other one is you know howto sell your service and product
.
The other one is you know howto do the fulfillment.
And then the other one isknowing how to lead people,
which is some of the big thingsthat we're talking about here,
but also creating systems,automations so those things can
work really efficiently, right,and so I did sales for a while
(07:01):
and then you know be able tolead people, cause I did really
well, cause I cared for people.
You know what I thought around.
You know sales part of things,but now I help people just build
an online business, run adsefficiently, lead media teams
and sales teams and build thoseout in a way that's really
efficient Uh, so that you canhave a lot of freedom in your
life and not feeling like youhave to be stuck to the normal
(07:23):
40 to 80 hour 100 hour hustleand bustle of you know building
the business.
You know so.
Dr. William Attaway (07:31):
It's an incredible journey so far.
I mean just to hear all thedifferent pieces, and I firmly
believe there's no such thing asa wasted experience.
I think every one of thoseexperiences made you who you are
and has helped you to add valuelike you do.
So somebody's listening andthey're like, wow, that sounds
great, this whole idea of youknow, sustainable growth and
(07:53):
real results and all that.
But where do I start?
I mean because I'm in themiddle of those 60, 70, 80 hour
weeks and I'm really good atwhat I do.
But, man, all those otherpieces you know, your, your,
your four things like I don'tknow about those when do they
begin?
Nathan Newberry (08:10):
Well, I'll tell you something.
Like I remember at a point inbetween doing construction
business and starting mymarketing agency, I ran a
recruiting office and arecruiting office.
You have a lot of churn and youhire a lot of people and I
remember at one point justtelling my wife about like the
struggles and stuff and she'slike maybe you should you know,
(08:32):
you're not good at thisleadership stuff okay, and I was
like, what are you talkingabout?
Like I'm like I'm trying mybest here, right, and I I
remember telling her notargumentative, but it but it was
also because I'm a verbalprocessor, understanding some of
this is honey, it's a skill.
It's a skill.
I'm still learning it, that'sright.
(08:52):
Like I'm reading books, I'mstill learning.
And so it was a registeredthought.
I'm like all right, I probablyneed to learn some of this stuff
and I'm constantly learning howto lead well and I'm not always
the best.
You'll never end with stuff andsomething that you know as well
as I do.
The interesting part about ourmarket now is that we have five
(09:14):
generations in the workforce now.
That's never happened before inhistory.
So I have five differentgenerations of people, depending
on the culture and everythingyou're building, but a lot of
people have to deal with fivedifferent generations in the.
You know the.
There's the this thing calledeq now where it's like you're
looking at the emotional part oflike, how people dissolve,
(09:36):
because we're mentally, we'rewired, we just react and make
decisions based off of emotion.
As much as people want to likesay they do it logically.
It's not the case, you knowcase.
So we're all emotional beingsin how we process this stuff.
But getting to your point of howdo we start, you just got to be
thrown in the deep end and seeif you can do it.
Everybody needs to know how tolead.
Everybody's leading on somecapacity.
(09:56):
Number one, leading themselvesinto strong, helpful disciplines
that help them thrive and feelenergetic.
And you know, being smart aboutsome things.
It's like do I stay up tillthree o'clock watching the
Office or the Parks and Rec?
You know I got to lead myselfwith saying, hey, I got to shut
off, even though I want to bingeit so I can wake up early to
still perform well in mybusiness or job.
Right, you got to lead yourself.
Dr. William Attaway (10:17):
And if you're not able to lead those
people, well, you're going tostruggle as well, I love how you
talk about leadership as askill and I think the
conversation you have with yourwife around that is one that a
whole lot of people have had.
They're like I'm really good atthis marketing thing, or I'm
really good at this constructionthing, or whatever the business
is that you have.
(10:38):
But leadership's a differentskill and as you find success at
whatever it is that you'redoing, you have to hire other
people to help you withfulfillment.
And then all of a sudden youhave to lead those people.
Like what was that journey likefor you as you began to scale?
And all of a sudden, peoplewere looking to you to lead and
you were realizing, oh man, Igot some growing to do here,
(11:03):
I'll tell you it was.
Nathan Newberry (11:04):
It was hard challenges, to say the least,
because I realized it's likewhat I'm wanting is someone to
do something and read my brain,right, right, and if I don't
have the right procedures, sops,playbooks, then I'm gonna be
frustrated when I'm hiring.
I've been recruiting andbuilding sales teams and when I
(11:30):
ran my marketing agency, Iprobably have hired over
hundreds of people in my teamhere and what I realized is two
challenges that I've had withhiring Either I hired
emotionally and it was acompetency gap because I didn't
hire well, right, yeah.
And or I didn't have the rightsystems in play for them to be
(11:50):
successful right, that's good.
So I'll give you an example ofwhat I mean by this.
When I was in ministry, I ranthe college group at our church.
That grew pretty substantially.
I grew a coffee business withinour church.
I ran all the sound and this isa bigger church, mega church,
(12:10):
7,000 to 8,000 people, nine-footanalog board.
Like you have tons of differentvolunteers and everything, and
I ran all the worship.
What I realized is I had fourdifferent expectations from four
different people.
It was never defined what I did.
It was frustrating, and they Idid it was frustrating and they
were frustrated and I was like Ihad to sit down and define
everything.
But then what that gave meclarity was if I can define my
(12:30):
role, I can also define theexpectations for everybody that
I lead, and if I don't have thatclear, um, they'll.
No one will ever feel like theylevel up because they'd have
never defined a bar that theyhit Right and they feel good and
confident that they've hit thatexpectation or even surpass it,
because they never know whatthe bar to hit.
Dr. William Attaway (12:49):
Yeah, what's the win?
You didn't define the win,right yeah?
Nathan Newberry (12:52):
And so it's the same thing with building any
team is you have to definethings, and the leverage of AI
now can help you craft this thanever Feeling like you don't
have to start at zero you canthis than ever Feeling like you
don't have to start at zero.
You can literally ask ChatGPTto help you define what a
standard operating procedure ora playbook in sales or marketing
or how to design checklists.
And at the point where I'm atnow with my business is, I show
(13:17):
up and I coach my clients, whichI love, and I show up to be the
talent to record stuff.
Am I the one that goes andedits all my videos, that lines
up the podcast, that opens upthe speaking engagements or
helps me with hooks?
No, my team helps me handle allof that because I've created
systems, created clearexpectations of KPIs and then
(13:38):
help them, continue to trainthem so they can hit those
expectations and go beyond it.
Right, and those are just hardlessons that I've had to learn
because, after hiring hundredsof people, it was because I was
not leading them well, like if Ineeded a website to be done, I
needed ads to be run, I neededthings to be set up, like you
can think in systems, and Iteach my team this, and anybody
(14:01):
that I coach too, is like I needyou to document and think in
systems.
If you're constantly doing thesame thing over and over again,
record what you're doing youknow, have it you know, have it
transcribed, put it in the AI tocreate the playbooks.
Or what I do now is and this isone of my mentors that I love
this phrase here.
He's like millionaires think insystems, billionaires think in
(14:23):
hiring people that build thesystems Right.
So if you can think ahead thatway and your growth in that
journey of success is, hiring isvery important, but marketing
is.
I don't need to worry about thefulfillment, I don't need to
worry about leadership, becausethere's nothing to automate,
systemize.
(14:43):
So it all starts off withgetting in front of people to
then sell.
So it's like every aspect of abusiness.
The importance of marketing isso essential and people don't.
(15:04):
They miss that, and I'vecoached a lot of marketing
agencies over the years too, andsome of the big challenges is
that they're in the business,not working on it, and then
they're based off a referral andthe cash flow is tight and they
feel like they can never hirebecause they never have
stability in the business andthat's just because they're not
marketing and doing what they'redoing for clients.
(15:24):
They're not doing it forthemselves.
Dr. William Attaway (15:27):
That's so true no-transcript.
Nathan Newberry (15:53):
They're more tech heavy, they're analytical,
they're like if I could justdesign systems or websites all
day long and I never have totalk to another human being.
They're in, you know.
But here's the interesting partSales is hard because you're
thinking that it is Okay.
(16:13):
Here's what I realized withsales.
Everybody gets the bad taste intheir mouth with film, like
they've been pushed intosomething that they didn't want
to do and so they're fearful.
Well, it's the limiting belief.
Okay, they watch the movie Wolfof Wall Street, the the boiler
room, and they see these sleazyguys trying to push stuff.
That's hurting people more thanhelping people.
(16:34):
But here's the interesting partof selling Everybody does it.
Okay, yeah, I have to.
I have to sell my wife to marryme.
You know, I have to convince mykids to eat vegetables.
I have to go, you know, talkwith the guy to help me.
You know, convince him to giveme the best deal on.
You know, mowing my lawn.
Or you know, getting a piece ofproperty or negotiating on
(16:57):
whatever, right, yeah, and so it.
That's a skill in itself, andso it's just like learn
marketing, but you also need tolearn sales.
There's a, there's a book.
This is where I learned thisand why I went into learning
sales myself was because I wasthe same way.
I was like if I could justdesign websites all day long
it'd be the blast Right.
And then I realized I got tobuild teams, to scale and I got
(17:19):
to work with people and so I hadto develop, you know, the skill
of learning and of sales andnegotiate.
And there was a book from RobertKawasaki called Rich Dad, poor
Dad.
It's well known, yeah, but justin a quick clip notes is he had
a poor dad which is reallystill a well-to-do professor dad
(17:39):
that's making good money,that's the normal noble job.
But his rich dad that's reallywealthy, that owns a bunch of
stuff, and told him to go learnsales.
Why Is because he realized thatit's like if you can learn that
skill, you'll be able to besuccessful in everything else,
because everything is, it's,hinged off of the transaction of
money.
(17:59):
A business doesn't start untilthere's transaction of money.
So it's like I can market allday long, but I still need to
convince that person or thatcompany to work with me and then
I can do the fulfillment andlead and build teams and systems
.
So I think there's a blend ofmarketing sales that goes so
well.
But I think if your offer iscompelling enough in what you're
(18:21):
doing, it will sell itself andI think you need to have that
blend of being able to marketand sell really well.
So the time you have that salesconversation, it's a layup to
do it, but I think there's somesimple conversations in some
service and information productsthat everybody can learn, with
just some simple frameworks andthen being able to know how to
handle objections, which isreally just overcoming the
(18:44):
challenges that you have becauseyou didn't come up with the
right discovery questions to askin the first place.
So it's all part of the processof learning how to do some of
that sales.
But yeah, that's good.
Dr. William Attaway (18:55):
I like that .
You mentioned AI a couple timesa minute ago.
People in agency world, ofcourse, are familiar with this.
They're seeing this every day.
It's a part of the agency worldin a very big way, but a lot of
the other business owners andleaders who are listening may
not be as familiar with how thiscan benefit them and help them.
(19:17):
You talk about this a lot.
I would love for you to sharejust a little bit about some of
the ways that you're seeing thisused or using it yourself.
Nathan Newberry (19:24):
So Dan Martell in his book called Buy Back your
Time actually I have it on mydesk here.
It's a good book to check outVery tactical approaches of how
to think through it.
But his hiring ladder is firstyou need to get out of your own
inbox and calendar and then youhelp, you have someone to help
you with the fulfillment, andthen you work on marketing and
sales and then you're in thatleadership role that everybody
(19:46):
wants to be in but they don'tknow how to ever get to.
But it's really kind of leadingthat empire where you have all
the different information andyou're kind of the controller of
the company and ultimately youcan hire a CEO to do that and
then you're just being able tocome in and check in a few
different points, right.
So this is what I realized isevery aspect of those hiring
ladders.
They can leverage AI for thepeople that are in it, but you
(20:08):
also need to know how to beefficient to buy back the time.
So I thought about every aspectof the things in my life that I
wanted to do and I had myassistant help me with it, me
drive and I count for everything.
So the time I have is verylimited.
That's what everybody doesn'thave, like the wealthiest people
and the poorest people all havethe same exact time, so I need
to account for it.
(20:28):
Well, the Bible talks aboutthis.
You know a lot, too in theproblems.
So, anyways, I look at my timein terms of like drive time.
What am I doing in this?
I think about my calendar andwhat's on it and the time I need
to do this.
So here's a few different stepsthat I look at.
In terms of sales market is Icarve out specific time on my
calendar of when I'm doingcontent, when I'm looking at my
(20:50):
finances, when I'm doingmarketing assets and creating
things like this.
But I also do this with salescalls and podcasts, so my
assistant will go through andresearch a bunch of different
stuff on my behalf.
So in the steps that I have, Icreate a system of like this is
what I normally do when I'mlooking for someone or I'm
vetting someone, or these areall the links I need to help me,
(21:11):
do you know?
And they create a dossier andso that way, five minutes before
the episode, I literally can goin.
I just have it dictate.
Read it to me.
I click on a few differentlinks gives me some
understanding of it.
I'm able to jump into the salesconversation or jump into the
podcast or jump into negotiationor jump into, you know,
partnerships and connections,because now I have context and
(21:33):
so my assistant will use AItools to scrape this, use some
of these different elements.
That buys back my time.
We use this with content, youknow, to create content.
Ai can help you with creatingwhat we know now for the time
that someone watches somethingYouTube video or everything you
need to have the hook thatsomeone watches something
YouTube video or everything youneed to have the hook that's
(21:53):
really good within the first fewseconds, and so AI can help you
craft some of those things andscript out things, and so some
of the AI prompts and stuff thatI create for myself and for my
clients is helping create an AIbot that understands someone's
pricing, packaging and offeringand their style of speech.
Right.
That allows AI to really kindof script out something in a way
(22:15):
that seems genuine and cleararound some of the key buckets
of content and everything thatyou're doing, and then even the
ads, right.
Ai knows more about anybody'sindustry than ever, and so it's
like pulling from thatinformation and that capsule of
knowledge, I think is going tobe so, so helpful for people to
just kind of use it as tools andleverage in every aspect of
(22:38):
marketing, sales, leadership,kpis like dashboards, excel
spreadsheets like have it create, have it edit, have it help you
kind of process and thinkthrough every aspect of your
hiring and firing and sales andmarketing.
And I think if you can think insystems and then have AI to
help you build some of thosesystems, people are going to be
(22:58):
able to run quicker and beefficient and then if you train
your team to run in that leveland think in systems, you're in
an unstoppable force.
Dr. William Attaway (23:07):
I agree.
You know, we've been using itdaily for probably a year and a
half now and it has been atremendous difference maker for
our team, for me, in not onlysome of the smaller tasks, but I
use it as a brainstorming toolTotally, where I'm like, hey,
help me think of 15 ways ofthinking about this.
(23:29):
I'm thinking about this topic.
Give me some off-the-wall waysof looking at that.
It's astounding.
It's a brainstorming toolunlike anything I've ever found.
Even another person is notgoing to give me sometimes some
of the perspectives and anglesthat I'm going to get from AI.
(23:49):
That has been incredibly usefulfor me as I think about content
, as I think about things thatI'm creating for clients or for
teams.
It's been helpful to thinkabout different perspectives
that I simply would not havesolo.
Nathan Newberry (24:03):
I use it in everything, like today.
I use this for my fitness stuff.
I'm big on transformationfitness journey right now.
And today I was like why am I alittle sluggish?
And I went and chat to you.
Here's what I'm doing.
This is what I'm eating.
Why am I feeling this way?
And they're like oh, you didn'teat this.
And I like I missed like oats,which was a specific carbs,
(24:25):
because I ran a bunch of milestoday and I just felt sluggish.
I'm like what's going on?
I took all my vegetables,electrolytes, what the heck is
going on?
And I'm like oh, I missed that.
And they kind of helped mediscover that of what my
quandary was.
I'd give you another example.
Our brother-in-law turned 50 afew days ago.
My wife's like hey, don'tforget to text him.
And I asked you at GPT hey,write something up for me.
(24:46):
You know this style of voiceand I want to include this kind
of humor with it.
All right and it.
You know I had to give it a fewdifferent.
Say I don't like that, tryagain, you know.
And it gave me some differentstuff until I liked it and in
two minutes I had a text messageand I was able to send off
Right.
So I think it's totally inreasoning, processing in every
area of your life, like do it.
Dr. William Attaway (25:07):
Nathan, you , you have to lead at a higher
level today for your team, yourbusiness, your clients than you
did even two, three, four yearsago, and that same thing is
going to be true three, four,five years from now.
How do you stay on top of yourgame?
How do you level up with thenew leadership skills that your
team, your business, yourclients are going to need you to
(25:30):
have in the years to come?
Nathan Newberry (25:33):
I'm always learning, so there's always
books on leadership I'm reading,but I'm also like buying clear
on my objectives and goals andreally stay focused and
(25:59):
disciplined on doing the hardthings.
And I think so often we try tothink, hey, if we get in
retirement, once we're out ofschool, things will be easier.
Or once I have this amount ofmoney in my bank.
Or once the kids leave whateverit is, it's not.
Or once a kid's leap likewhatever it is, like it's not.
Is it going to get easier?
It's just harder.
(26:20):
And if you can come to grips ofit's just hard, you're going to
be able to learn how to riseabove it and not feel smothered
or drownded in the heart.
And I think people feel likeleading is just hard.
But it's like once you buildsome systems and animations and
some clarity around as clearexpectations, you're going to
(26:42):
see people take off and be ableto help you do more than ever.
That you think you know it'spossible.
That way you can really havemore clarity.
And so this is where I think ofthe AI freedom method is it's
like you got to build thesystems.
You know that people can, youknow, create and hold true, so
that way you can have morebandwidth of time, flexibility
(27:04):
and freedom to go and deploy andcreate more.
But if you're grounding in thefulfillment and not working on
the business, then it's it'sgoing to be very challenging for
people to even think about it,cause it's not just reading
another book.
It going to be very challengingfor people to even think about
it because it's not just readinganother book, it's applying
(27:24):
what you probably already knowto be true.
And first time is like leadingyourself.
How can you show up to be yourbest?
You're a high performer.
High performer athletes takeaccount of every little thing
the amount of time that yousleep, that you veg, that you
eat crap and like those inputs.
And so it's like as I've grownin my entrepreneurship journey,
I realized the inputs of thingsand the voices in things in my
(27:45):
like I don't look at news, Idon't really watch a whole lot
of TV and movies.
I might do it once in a while,but those are other voices and
influence that just affect mymood and how I think and
translate and see the lens ofwhat's possible in this world.
You know, and so even thepeople you're around too, like
that's a big thing If you gotyour bowling club or you know
(28:07):
people around you, like nowadays, like when I talk with people,
even new people I meet, say atchurch or other people, it's
like if I, if I can't talk aboutwhat I'm passionate about, it's
very hard for me to connectwith other people.
And I'm okay with beingmisunderstood because I'm in a
lane of high performance andexcellence and so if you want to
talk about football, you wantto talk about Joe Smoad, this,
(28:30):
that and the other.
I'm like I have no idea, noconcept of that stuff and I'm
completely fine with it.
But they want to connect withme on some of the other stuff
and I was just like I got mycrowd that I just I hang out
with that's more at a high level.
That can that appreciates moreof that high level context of
like what you're dealing with ona business level and a personal
(28:53):
level.
Like I'm always trying to readand level up with those kinds of
connections level on a personallevel, I'm always trying to
read and level up with thosekind of connections.
Dr. William Attaway (29:02):
I think most people underestimate the
power of the people that youspend time with and how much of
an influence that makes on yourlife.
We've heard it, we've read it.
It is so incredibly true and Ilove that you're living that out
and expressing that in such aclear way.
You've mentioned at least onebook so far in our conversation.
Is there that one, or is thereanother one that you would say,
hey, this book has made a bigdifference in my journey and I
(29:25):
would love to recommend it tothe leaders who are listening
the way.
Nathan Newberry (29:27):
I learned is I learn in seasons and stints.
There's, you know, thoseconstant skills I'm always
refining on, so I always have adifferent season.
I'm learning on certain things,like when I was doing sales
full time.
You know I read books on sales.
When I was managing sales teams, I was reading books on
management and leadership andsales teams.
You know, it just depends whatseason I am, but I'm obsessed in
(29:51):
like learning that one thing.
More often than not, peopleswitch like they'll read a
leadership book and then theirsales book and then they'll read
a biography and this, that theother, and then I think it it
confuses our brain of what weneed to focus on.
So like if you took the nextquarter and say all I'm going to
read about is sales, all I'mgoing to read about is marketing
(30:13):
or ai, where I'm going to studyand consume on YouTube, is like
focused on just that, and youcan stop of like yourself and
say, hey, I'm not focused onthat, right, I'm focused on this
.
And that season will allow youto build and scale quicker
because you're condensing theamount of information you're
receiving, but then it'll createthe inputs and outputs that you
need to kind of stack thoseskills.
(30:34):
But some of the books that I'mreading at the moment is just
definitely Buy Back your Time.
I've read that a few differenttimes, but I'm involved in
different communities that aretalking about scale and leveling
up.
But the big one that everybodyneeds to learn and this is why
I'm saying this is theconfidence that you create in
(30:54):
yourself to do.
Whatever you need to have iscoming from a place of identity,
and most of the time peopledon't know who they are because
they never align themselves withactually who created them.
So people need to get real ofjust everything I mean.
The reason why I studiedtheology is because I remember,
at 17, surfing in the mostbeautiful spot in San Diego,
(31:16):
where it was sunset, thedolphins were popping up.
It was the best.
It was just amazing and I waslike there has to be a creator.
If there's a creator, I got toknow who they are, and that got
me into traveling all over theworld.
I lived in Israel, where Jesusdid most of his ministry, and it
became so real to me thatpeople need to have that clarity
(31:39):
as well, and so studying theBible is so, so important.
If someone wanted to start,there's 66 books in this whole
book start in the gospel of Johnand that's going to open your
eyes, to be the real realisticpart about everything.
And another book that I readevery year that I just like I
don't know why I read it, butit's Pilgrim's Progress by John
(32:01):
Bunyan.
I've been reading that foryears.
Every year start of the year, Iread that and then I read
through the Bible every singleyear.
I've been doing that over adecade and I try to just.
I'm an audio learner so I haveit read to me and I'm able to
read through it in 10 to 15minutes every day and it allows
me to really kind of get aclarity on who I am from the
(32:23):
maker that created all of us.
And my kids were asking me theother day how do you know God's
real?
The Bible says we've watchedthis, that nature itself proves
that there is a God.
So if there is a God, then tryto figure out who it is and have
a relationship with him, andthat's the journey I took into
the Bible.
It's another good book.
(32:43):
Love it.
Dr. William Attaway (32:46):
Nathan, I know our listeners are going to
want to stay connected to youand continue to learn from you
and more about what you're doing.
What is the best way for themto do that?
Nathan Newberry (32:56):
Yeah, I appreciate that.
I mean I'm everywhere.
I mean one of the things I talkabout is being omnipresent.
You can look my name up, nathanNewberry, anywhere I'm mostly
on Instagram.
I have a full checklist foranybody that's wanting to learn
how to buy back their time.
Even more, I have a fullchecklist and some workshops and
other free training that I cangive.
If someone DM me on Instagramor anywhere chops and other free
(33:16):
training that I can give issomeone you know DM me on
Instagram or anywhere uh, youknow your name, I will
definitely give uh, all thoselisteners some access to some
exclusive things for them ifthey messaged me there.
Um, but I have my own podcastas well.
Uh, I got to have you on it oneof these days as a guest, for
sure, and uh.
So, yeah, anybody can find meeverywhere, nathan Newberry, and
that's where they can connectwith me more.
Dr. William Attaway (33:38):
Excellent.
Well, I'll look forward to thatand we will have those links in
the show notes.
Nathan, thank you for yourgenerosity of time and insight
today.
I know people are going to beblessed by this.
Nathan Newberry (33:49):
Thanks so much for having me, man.
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