January 17, 2025 • 46 mins
Imagine turning childhood passions into a thriving career. That's exactly what Eric Farewell did. At just 13, he started selling airplanes online, and today, he's at the helm of five businesses, including the largest paramotor flight school. In our latest episode, Eric shares his mission-driven approach to entrepreneurship, where purpose takes precedence over profit. We explore how his ventures cater to diverse clients, including special forces, and his unwavering commitment to innovation and safety in the aviation industry. Eric's story is one of inspiration and the pursuit of elevating human consciousness through his work.
The journey of an entrepreneur is filled with both triumphs and trials. Eric opens up about his transformative experiences, particularly the impact of personal loss on his professional trajectory. The tragic passing of his brother served as a catalyst for reevaluating priorities, leading him to embrace the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) and a more values-centered life. By stepping back from day-to-day business operations, Eric discovered that aligning personal values with business practices not only brought fulfillment but also financial success. Through his coaching and consulting work, he shares insights that inspire others to reclaim their lives and focus on what truly matters.
Community sits at the heart of Eric's ventures. We discuss the power of creating mission-driven communities that inspire and connect people beyond mere business or brand affiliations. With initiatives like Aviator and National Stoll, Eric is fostering environments where individuals can overcome fears and feel a sense of belonging. This episode unpacks the importance of meaningful connections, especially for the younger generation in today's disconnected world. We also touch on the significance of mentorship and the transformative Accelerator program, designed to promote personal growth and clarity in core values. Join us as we explore these compelling themes with Eric Farewell, a true visionary in aviation and entrepreneurship.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tony Johnson (00:00):
no-transcript.
(03:59):
Today we have Eric Farewellwith us out of Texas.
Eric, thank you so much forjoining us today.
Eric Farewell (04:04):
Truly a pleasure to be here.
My friend, Thanks for having me.
Tony Johnson (04:06):
Yes, sir, we have a ton of different topics.
Eric is a serial entrepreneur,has five businesses and does
nothing all day.
He seems to like to relax andspend all his quality time just
watching these businesses grow.
Eric, thank you so much forjoining us today.
Eric Farewell (04:25):
Hey, it's truly a pleasure, man.
I love what you guys are doingand your businesses as well.
My little bit of research onyou I think that you might be
the most passionate builder I'veever even heard of.
Tony Johnson (04:34):
Yeah, we love to build and love to make people
happy, and that's all we careabout.
So, yes, so you are.
Mission driven businesses iswhat you've stated.
That is you, so explain that ina little further detail to
everyone.
Eric Farewell (04:49):
Well, I believe that businesses that are
designed just to make money aredesigned to fail.
They may make lots of money,but everyone in that business
will eventually burn out and endup feeling like they've lost
their sense of purpose.
So I've been really blessedthat every time I found a
passion in my life from a veryearly age.
About the age of five I turnedit into a business, and those
businesses are in wildly obscureniches and somehow they have
(05:12):
flourished, largely because weget clear enough on what our
mission is.
So each of our businesses isreally directed toward helping
elevate human consciousness andkind of go above fear, because I
think that everything abovefear is where you find joy, it's
where you find peace, andthere's a lot.
We can go a lot deeper there,but that's the basis.
Tony Johnson (05:32):
I absolutely love that, yeah, so okay.
So you're saying from five, youown five businesses currently.
At what age did you create yourfirst business that had some
success?
Eric Farewell (05:48):
First business with employees.
I was 13 years old.
I had been saving for six years, working at my grandparents'
restaurant, to buy my firstairplane because I wanted to fly
.
I got my first airplane rightat three years old and I knew
that flying was going to be theplace where I could be me, where
I could overcome all theadversities of being a child and
, frankly, it became such anobsession I worked full-time at
(06:10):
a restaurant at seven years oldand at 13, I'd saved up enough
pennies and bought my firstairplane kit and quickly
discovered that ADHD kids arenot designed to build airplanes.
So I put it up for sale on thisnew thing called the internet.
It was 1999 and it sold, andvery quickly.
The guy I bought the airplanefrom said the interwebs Now.
He was about 78 years old atthe time and he had a hanger
(06:31):
full airplanes and offered me acommission to sell them.
So fast forward, over the nextfive years we'd sell several
hundred airplanes and hadmechanics and just an incredible
team of people.
That was built around that andthat was my first kind of brush
with entrepreneurship at scaleand it changed my life forever.
Tony Johnson (06:49):
That is amazing and so that developed a passion
for you.
I guess you already had thepassion, but it allowed you to
live out a passion for aviationthat you've had.
And so one of your mainbusinesses right now, a couple
of your main businesses, theyall seem to intertwine a little
bit with aviation.
So your main businesses rightnow, a couple of your main
businesses, they all seem tointertwine a little bit with
aviation.
So your main business right nowcould you kind of go through
(07:12):
that, Because it goes in theprivate sector and the public
sector.
Eric Farewell (07:15):
It does and it's a weird one.
So a paramotor is a fan youstrap to your back and a
paraglider.
You run into the sky with thisparaglider above your head and
it's kind of the ultimatefreedom machine.
I got into these.
I don't know if you have kids.
I have three nine, 11, and 13.
And when we were pregnant withour first, I was still flying
every day in my family'sairplane my uncle's airplane at
the time and airplanes areexpensive even if you don't own
(07:38):
it and I was flying to anairport and I'd stop and I'd
write.
I was writing a lot of copy atthe time.
I got into marketing and allthat, and at the time I was just
enjoying flight.
And then we found out we werepregnant and it was a total
shock.
And so I said I have to find away to keep flying, but do it
cheaper.
And the paramotor is soaffordable.
It's about $5 an hour, $8 anhour to operate, so it's so
affordable.
(07:58):
And then I went and learned andit kicked my butt.
Man, it was so hard.
Aviation had always been thething that I was good at that I
was kind of a natural at andthis was so physically demanding
I'd broken my back in anaccident about seven years
before in an aircraft accident.
So I had a lot of pain andyou're putting 70, 80, 90 pounds
on your back and sprinting.
(08:18):
So long story long, once againmy hobby passion turned into a
business because people startedasking me to teach them how to
fly them.
I was already an ultralightflight instructor.
It's kind of a natural fit.
And then my goal was how do wekind of revolutionize the
industry, how do we make thismore professional?
How do we inspire people andmake it as safe as possible?
So from that point forward now,13 years in that business, it
(08:40):
is by far the largest paramotorflight school, which sounds like
the weirdest compliment becauseit's still a weird, obscure
business.
But we employ about 25 peopleand we have hundreds of students
every year, whether they'relearning to fly for the first
time or they're getting theirtandem certifications they can
take someone with them ortraining the special forces we
trained the Delta, we trainedSEALs.
We've had such an incredibleopportunity to work with those
(09:03):
different folks.
And now research anddevelopment for all sorts of
crazy things I can't talk about,which is a lot of fun.
Tony Johnson (09:09):
That's amazing.
So people who understand this.
Basically, you're taking aparaglider and putting a motor
on your back, if I'munderstanding it right, and how
far can you travel on one flighttypically?
Eric Farewell (09:21):
So it depends on the glider you're flying,
depends on conditions,everything else Most people will
fly for 30 minutes to an hourat about 30 miles an hour.
As you get more experienced,more advanced, like my glider
does, about 60 miles an hour, 58miles an hour.
One of my students, dear friendof mine, flew 1100 miles in
just a few days.
I would not recommend this fortravel.
(09:49):
This is meant to see the world.
Tony Johnson (09:49):
It's more like riding a motorcycle.
Yes, you can travel the worldon a motorcycle.
I've done it and I'll tell youit's wonderful, but also your
body hates you afterwards,absolutely.
Yeah.
So this sounds, you know, to methis would be almost.
You know, I don't know that youhave to be kind of a little bit
of a rebel, wild and fearlessto be going up in a paraglider
with a motor and just flying allaround, although you know that
is a great way.
It's almost creating yourselfas a bird.
(10:10):
So you're not just going up fora short period.
I know.
Initially, when you mentionedit to me, I'm like it's not like
those little rockets, but thoseare.
You just go up and you reallyyou don't.
You can't travel high enough.
You don't have a long distance,you can go.
Eric Farewell (10:23):
We can fly up to 18,000 feet up to 60 miles an
hour fully aerobatic, if youwant to be.
I've been so blessed to fly indozens of states, and probably
close to a dozen countries now,and taking off out of a winery
that you spent the night inbefore in Czech Republic, flying
through three differentmountain passes, circling
castles, dropping into the nextwinery to spend the night.
(10:46):
It's a pretty unique andexceptional way to see the world
.
Tony Johnson (10:49):
That is great.
Now are there restrictions whenyou go to other places in order
to fly these things?
Eric Farewell (10:56):
There are.
Every country has their ownrules.
It really depends on where yougo, For instance, in Costa Rica.
We actually had a partnerschool in Costa Rica for a
couple of years and as long asyou stay away from the major
airports, they didn't care whatwe did.
There was no rule.
It was beyond crazy to me.
Places like Czech Republic aremuch more restricted, but it's
really actually a fabulous thingbecause the restrictions in the
(11:17):
US are limited but they'rereally designed to keep people
safe on the ground and in Czechthey have more restrictions
around what makes the aircraftsafe, will save on the ground
and in check.
They have more restrictionsaround what makes the aircraft
safe, and so you're allowed tofly over cities.
You're allowed to go downtown.
We flew into an industrial parkand looked at where they were
building parts for repair motors.
It was the most remarkableexperience.
It wasn't a rainstorm.
The rainstorm part may kind ofsuck a little bit.
Tony Johnson (11:39):
Oh my gosh, that is amazing.
Okay, oh, wow, that is awesome.
All right, and so, and withthis business, you have worked
your way out, and so wediscussed a little bit.
So we talk a lot here aboutentrepreneurial operating system
, the EOS, and how long ago didyou bring EOS into this business
?
Eric Farewell (11:59):
So in 2018, a bunch of things happened in my
life.
My marriage was on the rocks,like in a terrible place, and it
probably had something to dowith the fact that I was working
between 80 and 105 hours a weekand had been for years.
But I had a couple of studentswho came through and learned to
fly with us, who were phenomenalentrepreneurs, and they both
were EOS implementers, and theybrought us up to Atlanta.
(12:22):
We sat down and I was able togo through the process of
implementing EOS initially.
Shortly thereafter, my brotherpassed away and he was 22 years
old, died in a car accident andI really I hate to say this
because it sounds glib but Iwoke up here I am making at that
point, probably close to $6million a year, feeling like I'm
(12:43):
on top of the world.
I finally made it.
My ego feels like I have value,like I actually matter, I've
got all these employees comingto me and I'm feeling awesome.
And then my brother died and hemoved in with us when he was 18.
So we had a one-year-old and wehad an 18-year-old which is a
very interesting experience andhe worked for me and when he
passed, I just kind of woke upand said none of this matters
(13:10):
Like.
None of this matters.
The money doesn't matter, thefame doesn't matter.
That the you know constantgratitude from employees and
customers didn't matter to meanymore.
All that mattered was fix mymarriage, get to know my kids I
get to work before they woke upand I get home after they went
to bed for week after week.
And it had to change.
So EOS was implemented and ittook me a while.
It took me a couple of years toreally get out of the way, to
(13:30):
have the ego death of saying Idon't need to be the solution to
everything.
And then over the last so Iguess it's been about two years
now since I've worked in thatbusiness two and a half and it's
been like a whole new, a wholenew reawakening of who I am Like
without the title of CEO.
How do I matter?
Right, even though I have allthese other companies and some
of which I still have that title, I'm not doing CEO work and
(13:51):
it's really been fascinating tosee how systems and operations,
things like EOS, can step in andjust fulfill such an incredible
role, because they get you soclear on your vision, they get
you so clear on your mission andI've taken a lot of those
things from EOS and Gazelles andeverything else I can and now
built it into what I'm doing forclients and my coaching and my
consulting, and it's really beenamazing to witness these humans
(14:13):
, who are already super coolpeople, start to reclaim their
life and what happens for theirbusinesses as they begin to
align with what their realvalues are.
And it's just I mean, money's abyproduct of living in alignment
.
It really truly is, in myopinion, and these people are
just attracting money, like youwouldn't believe, and they're
actually feeling confident aboutwhat they're doing, and we
track their time to make surethat they're only doing things
(14:34):
they actually like to do, andthey hire people to do the stuff
they hate.
They sell the businesses thatdon't serve them.
It's really fun.
Tony Johnson (14:46):
That's fantastic.
Yeah, it's critical inunderstanding this.
Eric Farewell (14:49):
now, you just gave a bunch of information very
fast there.
Uh, sorry, that's great.
Tony Johnson (14:52):
No, it's, it's fantastic.
I just want everyone to be ableto, you know, to absorb some of
these items in one.
First of all, yeah, it's greatthat you were having your
brother live with you.
I'm so sorry, uh, that you lostyour brother.
I can only imagine I have abrother.
He's, you know, my best friendin life, so I'm sounds having
your brother live with you.
I'm so sorry that you lost yourbrother.
I can only imagine I have abrother.
Eric Farewell (15:08):
He's you know my best friend in life, so I'm.
Tony Johnson (15:08):
It sounds like your brother was to you, so give
him extra hugs, buddy Give himextra hugs?
Absolutely, yeah.
But you know many things thatyou mentioned.
So one marriage right.
So a lot of entrepreneurs.
It's actually one of the mainthings that happens when you are
a driven entrepreneur yourrelationships all fall to the
wayside for the business becauseyou do everything business and
(15:32):
everything else pales incomparison.
That's just the way that a lotof entrepreneurs are wired.
So you know.
Great for you for realizingthat and trying to take some
proactive steps.
I've been through the same thing.
Where it comes to a point in amarriage where your wife doesn't
want to just sit around anymorewaiting on you and doesn't
really care how much money youmake.
(15:52):
There gets to a point where, aslong as everyone's living well,
the rest of the money doesn'tmake any difference.
Right, it is, it is goes backto you just ego.
So one thing that you said thatI really think is something
that we should discuss a littlemore is, once you get to a
position of delegating out allof these things as an
(16:15):
entrepreneur, you lose and youquestion what's my purpose?
I don't have anything to doanymore.
So a lot of people have a hardtime letting go of these day to
day things because that's theirpurpose.
So could you go through alittle more of the iteration of
how that kind of formulated foryou and what that path looked
like?
Eric Farewell (16:35):
What I think is really fascinating is that most
of what we do as entrepreneursis really working to cover up
all the insecurities of ourchildhood.
It's working to cover up thepain of not feeling loved enough
, of being bullied, of beingtormented, of being mistreated,
whatever may have happened.
We find things that we're goodat and that people tell us we're
good at, and we believe thatthese are the things that make
(16:58):
us have value.
I've done a ton of men's work.
I'm in a couple of differentcommunities with men that are
just some of the best men I'veever met.
One was called Front Row Dads.
It's a group for family menwith businesses, not business
men with families, and thatgroup changed my life because I
learned that, even though thesemen were doing hard work,
somatic work they're doing themeditation, they're doing the
therapy, they're doingeverything they possibly can the
(17:19):
number one challenge that thesemen held in common was they did
not know how to love themselves.
They could love themselves atwork, they could appreciate how
they showed up there, but theydidn't understand that their
value as a human was more thanthe sum total of the work they
did.
And I'm saying they a lot, butwhat I really mean is me.
I didn't know how to have avalue outside of what I was
(17:41):
producing.
I was a striver from such anearly age because it allowed me
to believe that I had merit onmy own, that if I could set a
goal and pass it or surpass it,I actually mattered.
And that's nothing you know.
I could sit here and berate myparents or my siblings or
whatever else.
That's not my point.
My point is we all have stories.
We all have stories of our lifein early childhood that we were
(18:04):
running from for most of ouradult lives.
And when we get successful, wetriple down because, oh my God,
now I'm good, now I'm lovable,and we look at that outside
influence so much so, as I wasmoving away from work, realizing
that I wanted to align mypriorities with my family, I was
like and the funny thing is thenumber one thing that changed
(18:26):
COVID hit and I was high risk.
I had bronchial spasms, asthmatype.
So before we knew what itactually was and how bad it was,
we had the affluence.
We just said, okay, let's stayhome.
So we didn't see another humanfor four months.
By the way, that's a great wayto either fix or destroy your
marriage.
We repaired, thank God.
My wife and I are in anincredible place.
We didn't see them for fourmonths, and then I did the
(18:47):
logical thing, which is a normalentrepreneur thing is I bought
a bus and I loaded up my kidsand we actually made it as far
as South Carolina before the busblew up and we had to buy
another bus, so we bought busnumber two.
We also put a videographer inthe trailer and so he stayed in
the trailer and we hit the roadfor what was supposed to be a
six-month trip Turned out to befour.
We get home, we found out somecrushing news about a partner
(19:10):
that had been with the businessand some negative things that
happened there, and suddenly weget a call from our warehouse
manager saying oh, I'm going togo work for your ex-partner,
okay, oh boy.
Five days notice and my wife,who's been a stay-at-home mom
all this time.
This is now October, Novemberof 2020, my wife goes.
I can do it, so she goes intothe office and I have to stay
(19:31):
home with three kidshomeschooling.
You know how quickly you haveto let go of your ego when, all
of a sudden, your entire worldis reversed.
I'm not in the office.
No one can ask me questions.
Suddenly.
I have to build systems becauseif they keep asking me
questions, they keepinterrupting math time.
Right?
Tony Johnson (19:46):
Oh boy Yep.
Eric Farewell (19:48):
So definitely an interesting journey and voyage
and so so grateful for that push, because that push really
started the domino fall of howdo I build the right systems,
ask the right questions, hirethe right people, have the right
vision and just clarifyeverything to such a point that
now, when we hire people, notonly do we hire people for a
fraction of their formersalaries because they believe in
the mission and they're paidwell I'd love to pay everyone
(20:10):
billions of dollars, but sadlybusiness doesn't work that way
but we hire people who have somuch passion that I don't have
to be there to carry the torch.
So 18 months ago, 19 months ago, we realized that what we were
lacking most in our life wascommunity.
So we left the businesses inFlorida, packed everything up
and in five weeks, from thedecision-making, from the visit
(20:31):
to decision, to leaving, tomoving into a new house, we
moved to Texas.
So, proof positive, thebusinesses are still working
without us.
Tony Johnson (20:39):
That is amazing.
Now, based on what you're justsaying, hiring people for
passion and alignment with themission how are you identifying
those traits in the interviewprocess?
Eric Farewell (20:55):
So one of the things that we've done is we
very purposefully have almostexclusively hired former
customers.
So over 95% of our staff arepeople who have deep passion for
whichever business they're in.
They love it, they live it,they breathe it.
About 30% of our employeesliterally bought vans, turned
(21:15):
them into campers and parkedthem outside of our business.
This is their life.
This is not a lifestyle job.
This is a life, and when youhave people that bought in, it's
hard not to have them, and whenyou have people that bought in,
it's hard not to have them.
The number we turn away isactually really sad, because I'd
love to hire everyone thatwants to come work for us.
It's an incredible, incredibleenvironment.
Actually, flying back toFlorida in a couple of weeks for
(21:36):
Thanksgiving, we throwThanksgiving at the hangar with
all the employees, theirfamilies, all the students that
want to come.
We may have somewhere between60 and 150 people there easily.
It's the family.
They chose.
Tony Johnson (21:49):
Yeah, that that is amazing.
So when you were transitioningum, could we go through a little
bit of these iterations?
So, when you're saying that youdecided to start getting out of
the business to focus on familyand started you and giving away
, delegating responsibilities,how did that look?
(22:13):
Who did the documentation ofthe processes?
Did you have someone come andhelp you?
Did you figure all this out onyour own?
How did that look?
Eric Farewell (22:23):
I can't take all the credit, that's for sure.
I'm very grateful for the teamthat we have.
Most of what I've discoveredover the years is, if you have
an SOP that goes into a binder,that binder never gets opened
again.
So it's more about empoweringyour team to make good decisions
.
One of our core values is to beentrepreneurial.
We want them to believe that ifthey're 80% confident that
(22:44):
their decision is right, don'trun it up the flag chain.
There is a limit.
If there's a half milliondollars attached to them, let's
have a conversation.
But the reality is, if they'reconfident, we hire them for
their smarts.
We just started to iterate tothe point where our employees
take more ownership, andcertainly there are systems and
things in place to ensure thatwe have KPIs we can follow.
Our shipping department makes amistake.
(23:05):
We know what percentage ofpackages are shipped to the
wrong place that kind of thing,because it is I mean it's a
fairly vast operation.
We have 3,800 SKUs on ouronline store.
There's a lot of differentmoving parts and suppliers from
all over the world.
All of a sudden, covid hits andyou go from a 30-day backlog to
a year backlog on receivingthings and you have to
(23:25):
anticipate what you can do, andthere's a lot to do, but most of
what it's been is, yes,creating systems that if someone
dies or quits or leaves for amonth, the business can still
operate.
And so in 2022, it's exactlywhat I did.
I left the business for a monthand I took my wife with the
time, with our warehouse managerwith me.
We went to Alaska with the kidsno email, no phone, all right.
Now what?
And we came back and we hadmore profit that month.
(23:48):
We killed it.
The employees were all happy.
I felt like the most rested manI'd ever been.
My wife was overjoyed.
Life is good, right, sobuilding out systems that can
sustain without you is doable,but it's all about finding the
right people who believe in whatyou do.
And if you don't believe inwhat you do, you have to get so
refined on that, because themission can't just be making
money.
It doesn't work, and maybe inwall street it works.
(24:10):
It just doesn't work for me.
Tony Johnson (24:12):
Well, I, and I would tell you it's so
refreshing to hear you saying somany of these things are the
same things that happen at mybusiness.
So I wholeheartedly believe inso much of what you're saying.
And not a lot of people saythis.
We get a lot of platitudes whenyou have people on and they
talk, but this is the simplereality.
And just to speak to your pointof empowering your employees.
(24:35):
So it is difficult.
Some employees they want tocome bounce things off you.
They want to come bounce things.
So, especially when I get newemployees, they want to bounce
off.
Most people don't bounce themoff of me, but they bounce them
off of everyone.
And I'm the same way Makedecisions, Make decisions.
I would rather it cost me money.
You make a bad decision and itcosts me money, Then no decision
(24:56):
be made and you have to rely onme because you're never going
to grow at that point.
And so my whole goal is for anyof them that works here is to
for them to.
But what are your goals?
Let's set your goals.
So that's one of the biggestthings we do here is we set the
90 day goals.
I follow up on their goals.
We add in their personal goals,everything.
So we have to outlook on whatdoes someone want, to make sure
(25:20):
that's in alignment with whatwe're doing right.
Eric Farewell (25:23):
I think there's a huge opportunity that people
lose.
When I was in the office in2021, excuse me, 2020, my
assistant would use a stopwatchto see how often people would
open my door when there's noother person in the office.
Hey, can I ask you a quickquestion?
It was, on average, every 45 to115 seconds right, Less than
two minutes.
(25:44):
Someone's asking a question.
My personal assistant when Ihired her part of that process
was hey, I would love to helpyou, but I'm paying you to help
me.
Before you ask me a question,please Google it.
For three hours, I have neverbeen asked a question by her,
ever.
What's remarkable is that thescope of work when you hire a VA
(26:06):
, oftentimes it's like I don'tknow whatever it needs to be.
So this week, she found RVs forrent in the areas I had to rent
to go camping with my familyand to go to this last air race
that we had, and sent me aspreadsheet with which ones I
should pick and made it sosimple, probably saved me 20
hours of work.
No joke that if you've everrented an RV, it's the worst
experience on the planet.
I don't understand RV share.
(26:26):
Please call me.
I can help you make it better,but she has this philosophy
she's not going to ask mequestions.
So when I asked her to make mea new website, she never made a
website before, so she Googledit and she just did it.
And she said which websiteswould you like it to look like?
And I sent her a whole draft ofdifferent websites that were
good and dude.
I don't love my website.
It's fine, it has my bio on it,a way to contact me, but it's
(26:48):
why do I need to be perfect?
Right, it's just.
It's just a page for people tofind out more information about
me.
I don't have to be MrPerfectionist and ask for things
to be changed.
I do send her whatever I do topodcast.
Hey, throw this in the website.
I have no idea what the loginis for that website.
I have no idea where it'shosted.
I don't know anything about it.
I just know that the website'sup now and when you hire people
with that idea that they have somuch onus, they have the
(27:10):
ownership to be able to believethat they can make decisions and
they need to learn, especiallythese younger generations,
because everyone you know ourage and older is terrified that
these kids don't want to work.
No, they need boundaries.
Sports aren't fun without rules, right?
It's great to create a boundarythat says, hey, let's be
insatiable learners all the time.
Tony Johnson (27:31):
Well, that's great .
Now, something you just broughtup is another one of your
businesses.
You brought up air races, sotell us a bit about that
business.
I know we discussed it before,but you own a company that does
air racing, and so tell us whatis that.
Eric Farewell (27:46):
So it's a bizarre experience.
I grew up in aviation, startedall aviation businesses.
My biggest dream in life was tobe an air show pilot.
This is, after all, my otherdreams died when I broke my back
, but I was very excited to bean air show pilot.
That dream came true in 2016.
We got to fly at the world'slargest air show with my
paramotor aerobatic team andthrough that I'd started air
(28:07):
show announcing, becauseapparently I can say a lot of
things very quickly and that'sgood in the air show announcing
business and I can't seem toforget any aircraft fact.
If someone mentions whatengines in their airplane or
what pistons they're running,I'll remember it forever.
I don't know, I can't remembermy name half the time, but that
stuff just sticks.
So in 2020, I started gettingasked to come out and announce
(28:29):
for this new company, nationalStoll.
It's S-T-O-L or short takeoffor landing.
These are bush planes, likeyou'd find in Alaska, that are
designed to take off inincredibly short distances and
land in the same, and we havefull-blown race airplanes that
are taking off in less than sixfeet, landing in like nine and a
half feet, and we have bigairplanes that have six eight
(28:49):
seats that can take off still ina hundred feet or less.
So what happened was I'm hereannouncing and the founder is
like, all right, this is so muchwork, we're losing money like
crazy.
And I'm like, well, yeah, youstarted an aviation business.
It's a sure way to lose money.
So he wanted to roll it back.
He wanted to go from fourevents a year to two and the
opportunity came up to invest inthe series and we did, because
(29:11):
what's incredible about thisseries is it inspires so many
people to fly.
We have over 83 million viewersin the last 12 months.
And what's really neat for me,the reason I'm so passionate
about aviation is aviation isthe.
For many people, it's the oneentry point they'll have to ever
seeing the world and then thusthemselves from a different
perspective.
Astronauts call it the overlookeffect.
It's that opportunity to seethe world differently, and you
(29:33):
can get there with meditation,you can get there with therapy,
you can get there through lotsof different means, but for me,
aviation was my gateway drug togetting to know who I really was
.
So I want the whole world to flyand this aligned with that
mission perfectly.
So we we get to go all over thecountry promoting aviation and
really cool humans that flythese airplanes some really
(29:54):
crazy airplanes and we get toinspire the next generation.
So our whole mission there nowis how do we get it to pay for
itself?
So if you, if you happen tohave an N, our dream sponsor is
Viagra, because we're the onlymotorsport guaranteed to get you
up and we have 30, we have 35to 65 year old guys that watch
our shows.
That's all it is.
It's all, almost all male, andit's all 35 to 65 year old guys.
(30:15):
It's Viagra's target market.
I'm just saying, if you knowsomebody, we'd love to make
something happen.
Tony Johnson (30:21):
Oh wow, yeah, yeah , we'll get.
You should target hymns orsomething.
Eric Farewell (30:27):
We've talked to a few.
We need the right person,though it's all about people.
Tony Johnson (30:30):
That's right.
Oh, my goodness, that's great.
So a couple of this is well,this is going in so many
different directions it's hardto keep up.
So one of the things that youjust mentioned right Was 80, 83
million views on, and we're justlike anybody who's listening to
(30:52):
this, whoever does anything onyoutube.
It's like you know, most peoplejump on youtube.
They throw some things on there.
Uh, you maybe get a thousandviews, two thousand views.
So my daughter is very good.
She got some things with amillion views.
You know million views.
That's her.
Nobody's getting 83 millionviews.
So what the heck are you guysdoing on youtube to get that
many views for aviation, forcrying out loud?
Eric Farewell (31:08):
I know it's pretty wild.
Our videos go mega viral on allthe different platforms because
it's so surprising.
Our actual average viewer timeper video is between 1.7 and
1.96 times per video.
They don't watch the video once.
They watch it almost twicebecause they can't believe what
they've seen, which is why it'sgreat for sponsors, because
they're getting that ad, that adfeedback twice, and that's part
(31:30):
of why we invested in theseries.
The goal was how do we actuallymake this?
You know it's?
It's like owning moto gp orformula one in the 1950s, like
we have all these opportunitiesand cool things we can do with
it, and the crazy thing is thisso here, hear me out 83 million
views is cool.
We have zero employees.
Tony Johnson (31:49):
We have over 700 volunteers.
Eric Farewell (31:51):
We have one contract employee.
She's our COO.
She manages all the events.
She's incredible and she did itfor the first year for free,
all right, absolutely incrediblepeople all aligned on a very
clear mission to understand whatthey're doing and how it's
making the world a better place.
I'm telling you, it's notrocket science.
Eos had this figured out yearsago and I just keep following
that system, plus all the othersystems I've learned throughout
(32:12):
my life.
And we build these incrediblecommunities because it's not
just about the brand and themoney and the views.
It's about the communities.
It's about bringing peopletogether that feel like they're
with their family.
This last event we had in Texaswas our finals for the year and
I watched people hugging likethey would never hug their
brother.
These are people who haveescaped death together.
(32:32):
Right, it is an incrediblecommunity of people.
I tell people like the brandsbehind me.
I have my logos of differentbusinesses.
I have friends who've gottentattoos of my logo as their
first tattoo.
Tony Johnson (32:44):
Like that tells you you built a brand.
Eric Farewell (32:45):
That's about community.
It's about something biggerthan just me.
It's never going to be the EricFarewell show, right?
I want it to be about how wemake the world better.
Tony Johnson (32:53):
Yeah, I mean, you know a brand's made it when they
don't even know who the heckyou are.
That's what you'd like.
You don't even want them toknow who you are, so you know,
that's.
That's the biggest thing thatyou can see is normally when
someone's naming business withtheir name in it.
Then you're like, oh, this isyou know?
Are they really trying toelevate and create something or
it's?
It becomes more of an ego thing.
But go back.
So the things that you'resaying are validating this.
(33:16):
Now, when, when these peopleare first engaging, how are how
are they understanding yourmission, or is it?
Yeah, because this?
This is astonishing to me thatyou're getting all of this.
Where is the mission?
Is there a mission statement?
They're seeing.
How is the mission gettingunderstood?
Eric Farewell (33:39):
So it's a really excellent question and I have
two answers for you.
Every business actually has adifferent answer.
For many, many years we alwayssaid that at Aviator, our
parameter company, we said look,our job is to get them in the
door and then surprise them thatthey're not just here to learn
to fly, because they thinkthat's what they're getting and
people want to get what they payfor and of course, they'll
(34:00):
learn to fly.
But our real mission is toinspire them to overcome their
fears through that flight andstart to shift other things in
their life that they've beenfearing.
Right, that's the real mission.
That's the real mission.
That's the mission of DeviatorAt National Stoll.
People want to come out andwatch something really cool and
they want to be a part of it.
They want to volunteer, theywant to fly in the competition.
(34:23):
You know we have 280 pilotsthat fly with us something like
that now and yet we finallyoffered our first cash prize in
four years, right, and they'respending $20,000 to $40,000 a
year on Avgas to go to theevents.
It's not cheap, right, but theycome for the camaraderie, they
come for the people, they comefor the fact that the biggest
shift over the last 2000 years.
In the way that humanity worksis we stripped away the idea of
(34:45):
community and family in favor ofpersonality and identity.
And identity is beautiful.
It's powerful.
Marry who you want be who youwant to be.
You can be anything.
I love all of those things, butthe gaping hole in our hearts is
feeling like we belongsomewhere and feeling like the
people we are with share thesame values.
Share that Even if we havedisagreements on beliefs like
(35:06):
there's a ton of people who votedifferently than I do or go to
different churches than I do itdoesn't matter, because we all
believe in something.
And what I love about flying is, once you're in a cockpit, it's
the great equalizer.
It doesn't matter if you'restraight, gay, man, woman,
doesn't matter, you're justanother pilot, right?
And that's what's really fun isyou start to build these
communities.
I do the same thing in myentrepreneur businesses, like
where I'm coaching andconsulting.
(35:26):
It's like all of these storieswe all have so many similar
stories and it's more about howdo we bring people together
versus trying to polarize andseparate them.
I hate the polarization.
I think there's so muchopportunity for growth when we
come together.
Tony Johnson (35:40):
That is amazing, yeah, and especially this day
and age, you know, and to speakto the younger generation,
they're so disconnected.
It's such a lonesome generationthat we have going right now
All of the connection on theinternet, the social media, the
games.
It feels like there is such alimit to connection.
(36:04):
Kids barely know how to talk toeach other.
I know kids, they're not dating.
Boys and girls aren't datingeach other until much older.
They don't even know how tospeak to each other unless it's
through an app and they don'ttalk, it's all texting.
So they have very limitedinteractions physically,
(36:26):
one-on-one.
Your point, and that is probablyyour biggest driver, is that
creation of community and givingsomeone a feeling of belonging
is you.
It doesn't matter how much thatcosts, when you say 20, 40
thousand dollars, what does itmatter?
Because, to go back to ouroriginal beginning, to you, when
(36:47):
you're working, you're doingwhatever your family, that's all
that really matters.
All all the financial stuff,that's you know, great, that
allows you to do things right,but really, the more money that
you have normally, the lessconnection that you have.
So you would give all thatmoney for a deep connection,
which is you know what?
Eric Farewell (37:08):
what really matters at your funeral right
money in your bank account arethe people who show up for your
family when you're gone.
Yep.
Tony Johnson (37:14):
Right, I care more about that.
Eric Farewell (37:16):
I had to witness that for my 22 year old brother
and I watched probably 600people file into that room from
all different walks of life.
You wouldn't believe he hadcommunity and I want to ensure
that the community that walksinto my funeral are the best
dadgum humans they can possiblybe.
And I will tell you right nowmy community is incredible.
I say this very clearlycommunity is currency.
(37:38):
You cannot be broke when youhave great community.
If everything wash up today,right now, there's probably 15
people I could call and walkaway with seven to eight figures
of capital to do whatever Ineeded to do.
Community is currency.
Belief and love is currency.
Tony Johnson (37:59):
That is amazing.
Yeah, now I don't have thoseconnections, but that's great
that you do.
That is very good.
I would say you know you weredefinitely greater at community
than I would be.
You know it takes somethingdeeper inside, so that's great.
So now to speak to that, as Isay that, right.
So another business that you'rein and one this is fresher,
this is your most current newbusiness is consulting business
(38:21):
consulting, and probably youknow a great thing Listening to
you and your story is veryinspiring.
So, based on that, tell me howyou got into the consulting.
How is that going?
Eric Farewell (38:33):
Well, I was firmly retired.
I pretended to be retired anddid a whole bunch of work for a
mastermind community instead ofstopping working because
stopping working is really scary, you have to be alone with
yourself.
But I actually fully didn't doanything.
I watched most of YouTube, gotnear to the end not quite all of
it played a bunch of videogames with my kids and I was
(38:53):
bored.
So when a friend asked me to beon his podcast and tell my
story, much like this, we endedup wrapping the conversation
after an hour.
He turns over and he goes Eric,I want you to teach me how you
did that.
I said did what he said ownedall those companies and you
don't work.
I was like, okay.
So for about six weeks we wentback and forth and we looked at
his business and got all thedetails and I understood the
(39:15):
model and understand the marketand understand what he's doing
that he hates, which is acrucial question to ask yourself
and your employees what do youdo every day that you hate?
If there's anything on thatlist, anything on that list,
there has to be a way to get off.
For me, it was email.
I hated email with such avicious passion and I hated
email with such a viciouspassion and I was getting about
400 plus emails a day, right,and I just hated them.
It's hours of my day, every dayand I'm answering the same
(39:36):
questions.
At this point I'm in thebusiness for what?
Nine years Like?
There's very few new questionsafter nine years, right, there's
hundreds of thousands of emails.
So eventually I was like, okay,how do I do this?
So I would go in and I wouldask my assistant to go through
and look at the emails and thenwrite replies.
And she'd have to Googlethrough my inbox and find the
answers and she'd leave them asdrafts and I'd go in and I'd
(39:58):
make a loom and I'd correct theareas where she messed them up
and then I'd send them.
So I went from four hours a dayto 40 minutes and then after
about a month of that, she gotgood enough that she could send
them.
And every once in a while I geta mistake right.
It's not often, but you getthese little mistakes and we
learn from them.
We make a quick loom.
Now it's done.
So I learned these little pieces, these little tools to give
things away that I hated.
And I did the same thing for myfriend, witnessing him discover
(40:25):
what his real mission is, whathis real vision is,
understanding how he can hireand fire based upon those things
, and that every time he hiressomeone new, he's giving them an
opportunity to take his passionand turn it into food for their
family.
And what a gift that is.
Changed his business, changedhis world, and I had more fun
doing that than anything elseI'd done in years.
It was so inspiring to be ableto take my experiences and share
(40:46):
them.
And then his podcast dropped andI got seven people who
contacted me and said, eric, wewant you to coach us.
I said, oh, I don't want towork.
I'm working through YouTube.
Man, I'm on a mission, but Idid take some of them on as
clients and it has been such awonderful year.
It's been 11 months and it'sbeen so much fun and I actually
had not put anything togetherofficial until this past week.
(41:08):
So in January we're running ourfirst accelerator and it's the
freedom accelerator.
How do you build a businessaround creating freedom for you
so that you can leave a reallegacy?
And, yeah, it's going to be alot of fun.
I think we're probably going to.
I'm going to keep it small,probably 15 people, but I can't
do as much one-on-one coachingas people would like because the
reality is I still don't wantto work more than six hours a
(41:30):
week.
Tony Johnson (41:31):
I have my limits now.
I mean, I had the inverseproblem I had before, right?
Yeah, well, that is fantastic.
Now, when you're doing this,does it matter?
Are you niching it?
Your other businesses areextremely niche.
Are you niching this to just aspecific client type, a specific
level of industries?
Just a specific client type, aspecific level of industries?
(41:53):
How are you approaching this?
Eric Farewell (42:01):
So what's been really interesting is apparently
I'm the niche If people thinkthat I'm weird enough or fun
enough or have done enough crazythings, and trust me, I've done
them all.
Not really.
I'm pretty darn cautious,actually as a person.
People wouldn't believe that,but it's the truth.
What I found is people who aredrawn to my story and would like
to have something similarhappen in their lives.
My current one-on-one clientsare in such diverse groupings.
I've been with a woman who hasa beauty brand mastermind,
(42:24):
helping founders of beautybrands, makeup companies, that
kind of thing grow.
I've got a guy who's in privatelending and building homes,
single family homes and inmortgage brokering so three
different companies.
I've got a car dealer very,very diverse and another coach
also as well.
So there's this very broadgroup, but they're all the right
(42:47):
people and I vet for a longtime for one-on-one, especially
because it's very expensive andit's my time and I want to make
sure it's going to be a win-winfor both sides and thus far the
results are.
I got a text yesterday.
One of my clients.
She goes Eric, my business isup 21% in the first 30 days of
working together and I am up121%.
(43:08):
I'm like, okay, they were doingsomething right.
I'm like, okay, they were doingsomething right.
It sounds that feels good, Ilike that.
So yeah, it's been not reallyhyper-niched.
It's really more about findingpeople at the right place in
their life, when they're readyto make a big change.
Tony Johnson (43:20):
That is fantastic, yeah, and I do always recommend
anybody.
If you're struggling in yourbusiness and one of the is the
biggest game changers in life Ifyou can get someone that aligns
with you, it has to be theright person, but if you can get
someone that aligns with you,your business can skyrocket.
(43:40):
If you have someone that canjust come in and it will seem in
the beginning like, oh, whydidn't I think of that?
It's so simple, why didn't Ithink of that?
But you really have to take thesteps to get that right person
to step in and you would notbelieve how quickly if you get
(44:00):
that right player to help you,how quickly your business can
elevate and elevate, and elevateagain and it is truly you
taking.
So now that Eric's taken thesereps reps right, so now he has
some reps going through withbusiness owners and
understanding, you know whatjust like with any business,
once you get some reps in thatand you can quickly identify the
(44:24):
things that are holding youback from growth and you could
sit and think about these thingsall day.
But if you don't have reps ondoing that, you're going to
struggle.
So someone with your experienceis massive for so many people's
businesses and small businessowners all over.
So, eric, I think that that'sgreat.
I wish you all the success inthat.
(44:44):
If somebody wants to see if youand them are a fit, what's the
best way to reach out and detailthat further?
Eric Farewell (44:52):
They should absolutely go to my website that
my assistant made, that I don'tlove but works, and that's
ericfairwellcomE-R-I-C-F-A-R-E-W-E-L-L.
Ericfairwellcom, I'm very easyto find, very easy to reach.
Either myself or my assistantwill reply to you.
Tony Johnson (45:08):
Awesome, and are you still taking clients right
now?
Eric Farewell (45:17):
So the accelerator in January is really
the push.
Right now I'm not sure that Iwant to sign any more
one-on-ones, but the Accelerator, the goal is 12 weeks.
Every week's a really intensivefocus on some different tool.
There's different ways that wecan start to understand how
we're using our time, how we cancreate the most clear core
values.
Tons of different frameworks.
We have so many coolopportunities and the way that
this will be run is going to bevery much like a.
(45:38):
It'll feel more like aone-on-one experience because
each of the differentparticipants will be working
together.
So you're going to be learninghow to share without giving
advice and learning how toreally be present with other
people who are also goingthrough some really cool or hard
things.
It can be both, and sometimeslife is both incredibly
rewarding and awesome andincredibly traumatizing and
(46:00):
terrible, and that's the journey.
Tony Johnson (46:03):
The ebbs and flows of life.
That's exactly right.
That is it.
So again, and I'll put it inthe show notes, it's
ericfarewellcomE-R-I-C-F-A-R-E-W-E-L-Lcom.
Eric, it's been such a pleasurehaving you on today.
I sincerely appreciate youjoining us and hopefully we can
keep in touch in the future.
(46:23):
Sir.
Eric Farewell (46:24):
Tony, thank you so much for having me.
Eventually we'll have to buildsome property in Charleston, I
guess, or somewhere in SouthCarolina, so you can help me out
.
Tony Johnson (46:30):
That's right, sir.
no-transcript.
(03:59):
Today we have Eric Farewellwith us out of Texas.
Eric, thank you so much forjoining us today.
Eric Farewell (04:04):
Truly a pleasure to be here.
My friend, Thanks for having me.
Tony Johnson (04:06):
Yes, sir, we have a ton of different topics.
Eric is a serial entrepreneur,has five businesses and does
nothing all day.
He seems to like to relax andspend all his quality time just
watching these businesses grow.
Eric, thank you so much forjoining us today.
Eric Farewell (04:25):
Hey, it's truly a pleasure, man.
I love what you guys are doingand your businesses as well.
My little bit of research onyou I think that you might be
the most passionate builder I'veever even heard of.
Tony Johnson (04:34):
Yeah, we love to build and love to make people
happy, and that's all we careabout.
So, yes, so you are.
Mission driven businesses iswhat you've stated.
That is you, so explain that ina little further detail to
everyone.
Eric Farewell (04:49):
Well, I believe that businesses that are
designed just to make money aredesigned to fail.
They may make lots of money,but everyone in that business
will eventually burn out and endup feeling like they've lost
their sense of purpose.
So I've been really blessedthat every time I found a
passion in my life from a veryearly age.
About the age of five I turnedit into a business, and those
businesses are in wildly obscureniches and somehow they have
(05:12):
flourished, largely because weget clear enough on what our
mission is.
So each of our businesses isreally directed toward helping
elevate human consciousness andkind of go above fear, because I
think that everything abovefear is where you find joy, it's
where you find peace, andthere's a lot.
We can go a lot deeper there,but that's the basis.
Tony Johnson (05:32):
I absolutely love that, yeah, so okay.
So you're saying from five, youown five businesses currently.
At what age did you create yourfirst business that had some
success?
Eric Farewell (05:48):
First business with employees.
I was 13 years old.
I had been saving for six years, working at my grandparents'
restaurant, to buy my firstairplane because I wanted to fly
.
I got my first airplane rightat three years old and I knew
that flying was going to be theplace where I could be me, where
I could overcome all theadversities of being a child and
, frankly, it became such anobsession I worked full-time at
(06:10):
a restaurant at seven years oldand at 13, I'd saved up enough
pennies and bought my firstairplane kit and quickly
discovered that ADHD kids arenot designed to build airplanes.
So I put it up for sale on thisnew thing called the internet.
It was 1999 and it sold, andvery quickly.
The guy I bought the airplanefrom said the interwebs Now.
He was about 78 years old atthe time and he had a hanger
(06:31):
full airplanes and offered me acommission to sell them.
So fast forward, over the nextfive years we'd sell several
hundred airplanes and hadmechanics and just an incredible
team of people.
That was built around that andthat was my first kind of brush
with entrepreneurship at scaleand it changed my life forever.
Tony Johnson (06:49):
That is amazing and so that developed a passion
for you.
I guess you already had thepassion, but it allowed you to
live out a passion for aviationthat you've had.
And so one of your mainbusinesses right now, a couple
of your main businesses, theyall seem to intertwine a little
bit with aviation.
So your main businesses rightnow, a couple of your main
businesses, they all seem tointertwine a little bit with
aviation.
So your main business right nowcould you kind of go through
(07:12):
that, Because it goes in theprivate sector and the public
sector.
Eric Farewell (07:15):
It does and it's a weird one.
So a paramotor is a fan youstrap to your back and a
paraglider.
You run into the sky with thisparaglider above your head and
it's kind of the ultimatefreedom machine.
I got into these.
I don't know if you have kids.
I have three nine, 11, and 13.
And when we were pregnant withour first, I was still flying
every day in my family'sairplane my uncle's airplane at
the time and airplanes areexpensive even if you don't own
(07:38):
it and I was flying to anairport and I'd stop and I'd
write.
I was writing a lot of copy atthe time.
I got into marketing and allthat, and at the time I was just
enjoying flight.
And then we found out we werepregnant and it was a total
shock.
And so I said I have to find away to keep flying, but do it
cheaper.
And the paramotor is soaffordable.
It's about $5 an hour, $8 anhour to operate, so it's so
affordable.
(07:58):
And then I went and learned andit kicked my butt.
Man, it was so hard.
Aviation had always been thething that I was good at that I
was kind of a natural at andthis was so physically demanding
I'd broken my back in anaccident about seven years
before in an aircraft accident.
So I had a lot of pain andyou're putting 70, 80, 90 pounds
on your back and sprinting.
(08:18):
So long story long, once againmy hobby passion turned into a
business because people startedasking me to teach them how to
fly them.
I was already an ultralightflight instructor.
It's kind of a natural fit.
And then my goal was how do wekind of revolutionize the
industry, how do we make thismore professional?
How do we inspire people andmake it as safe as possible?
So from that point forward now,13 years in that business, it
(08:40):
is by far the largest paramotorflight school, which sounds like
the weirdest compliment becauseit's still a weird, obscure
business.
But we employ about 25 peopleand we have hundreds of students
every year, whether they'relearning to fly for the first
time or they're getting theirtandem certifications they can
take someone with them ortraining the special forces we
trained the Delta, we trainedSEALs.
We've had such an incredibleopportunity to work with those
(09:03):
different folks.
And now research anddevelopment for all sorts of
crazy things I can't talk about,which is a lot of fun.
Tony Johnson (09:09):
That's amazing.
So people who understand this.
Basically, you're taking aparaglider and putting a motor
on your back, if I'munderstanding it right, and how
far can you travel on one flighttypically?
Eric Farewell (09:21):
So it depends on the glider you're flying,
depends on conditions,everything else Most people will
fly for 30 minutes to an hourat about 30 miles an hour.
As you get more experienced,more advanced, like my glider
does, about 60 miles an hour, 58miles an hour.
One of my students, dear friendof mine, flew 1100 miles in
just a few days.
I would not recommend this fortravel.
(09:49):
This is meant to see the world.
Tony Johnson (09:49):
It's more like riding a motorcycle.
Yes, you can travel the worldon a motorcycle.
I've done it and I'll tell youit's wonderful, but also your
body hates you afterwards,absolutely.
Yeah.
So this sounds, you know, to methis would be almost.
You know, I don't know that youhave to be kind of a little bit
of a rebel, wild and fearlessto be going up in a paraglider
with a motor and just flying allaround, although you know that
is a great way.
It's almost creating yourselfas a bird.
(10:10):
So you're not just going up fora short period.
I know.
Initially, when you mentionedit to me, I'm like it's not like
those little rockets, but thoseare.
You just go up and you reallyyou don't.
You can't travel high enough.
You don't have a long distance,you can go.
Eric Farewell (10:23):
We can fly up to 18,000 feet up to 60 miles an
hour fully aerobatic, if youwant to be.
I've been so blessed to fly indozens of states, and probably
close to a dozen countries now,and taking off out of a winery
that you spent the night inbefore in Czech Republic, flying
through three differentmountain passes, circling
castles, dropping into the nextwinery to spend the night.
(10:46):
It's a pretty unique andexceptional way to see the world
.
Tony Johnson (10:49):
That is great.
Now are there restrictions whenyou go to other places in order
to fly these things?
Eric Farewell (10:56):
There are.
Every country has their ownrules.
It really depends on where yougo, For instance, in Costa Rica.
We actually had a partnerschool in Costa Rica for a
couple of years and as long asyou stay away from the major
airports, they didn't care whatwe did.
There was no rule.
It was beyond crazy to me.
Places like Czech Republic aremuch more restricted, but it's
really actually a fabulous thingbecause the restrictions in the
(11:17):
US are limited but they'rereally designed to keep people
safe on the ground and in Czechthey have more restrictions
around what makes the aircraftsafe, will save on the ground
and in check.
They have more restrictionsaround what makes the aircraft
safe, and so you're allowed tofly over cities.
You're allowed to go downtown.
We flew into an industrial parkand looked at where they were
building parts for repair motors.
It was the most remarkableexperience.
It wasn't a rainstorm.
The rainstorm part may kind ofsuck a little bit.
Tony Johnson (11:39):
Oh my gosh, that is amazing.
Okay, oh, wow, that is awesome.
All right, and so, and withthis business, you have worked
your way out, and so wediscussed a little bit.
So we talk a lot here aboutentrepreneurial operating system
, the EOS, and how long ago didyou bring EOS into this business
?
Eric Farewell (11:59):
So in 2018, a bunch of things happened in my
life.
My marriage was on the rocks,like in a terrible place, and it
probably had something to dowith the fact that I was working
between 80 and 105 hours a weekand had been for years.
But I had a couple of studentswho came through and learned to
fly with us, who were phenomenalentrepreneurs, and they both
were EOS implementers, and theybrought us up to Atlanta.
(12:22):
We sat down and I was able togo through the process of
implementing EOS initially.
Shortly thereafter, my brotherpassed away and he was 22 years
old, died in a car accident andI really I hate to say this
because it sounds glib but Iwoke up here I am making at that
point, probably close to $6million a year, feeling like I'm
(12:43):
on top of the world.
I finally made it.
My ego feels like I have value,like I actually matter, I've
got all these employees comingto me and I'm feeling awesome.
And then my brother died and hemoved in with us when he was 18.
So we had a one-year-old and wehad an 18-year-old which is a
very interesting experience andhe worked for me and when he
passed, I just kind of woke upand said none of this matters
(13:10):
Like.
None of this matters.
The money doesn't matter, thefame doesn't matter.
That the you know constantgratitude from employees and
customers didn't matter to meanymore.
All that mattered was fix mymarriage, get to know my kids I
get to work before they woke upand I get home after they went
to bed for week after week.
And it had to change.
So EOS was implemented and ittook me a while.
It took me a couple of years toreally get out of the way, to
(13:30):
have the ego death of saying Idon't need to be the solution to
everything.
And then over the last so Iguess it's been about two years
now since I've worked in thatbusiness two and a half and it's
been like a whole new, a wholenew reawakening of who I am Like
without the title of CEO.
How do I matter?
Right, even though I have allthese other companies and some
of which I still have that title, I'm not doing CEO work and
(13:51):
it's really been fascinating tosee how systems and operations,
things like EOS, can step in andjust fulfill such an incredible
role, because they get you soclear on your vision, they get
you so clear on your mission andI've taken a lot of those
things from EOS and Gazelles andeverything else I can and now
built it into what I'm doing forclients and my coaching and my
consulting, and it's really beenamazing to witness these humans
(14:13):
, who are already super coolpeople, start to reclaim their
life and what happens for theirbusinesses as they begin to
align with what their realvalues are.
And it's just I mean, money's abyproduct of living in alignment
.
It really truly is, in myopinion, and these people are
just attracting money, like youwouldn't believe, and they're
actually feeling confident aboutwhat they're doing, and we
track their time to make surethat they're only doing things
(14:34):
they actually like to do, andthey hire people to do the stuff
they hate.
They sell the businesses thatdon't serve them.
It's really fun.
Tony Johnson (14:46):
That's fantastic.
Yeah, it's critical inunderstanding this.
Eric Farewell (14:49):
now, you just gave a bunch of information very
fast there.
Uh, sorry, that's great.
Tony Johnson (14:52):
No, it's, it's fantastic.
I just want everyone to be ableto, you know, to absorb some of
these items in one.
First of all, yeah, it's greatthat you were having your
brother live with you.
I'm so sorry, uh, that you lostyour brother.
I can only imagine I have abrother.
He's, you know, my best friendin life, so I'm sounds having
your brother live with you.
I'm so sorry that you lost yourbrother.
I can only imagine I have abrother.
Eric Farewell (15:08):
He's you know my best friend in life, so I'm.
Tony Johnson (15:08):
It sounds like your brother was to you, so give
him extra hugs, buddy Give himextra hugs?
Absolutely, yeah.
But you know many things thatyou mentioned.
So one marriage right.
So a lot of entrepreneurs.
It's actually one of the mainthings that happens when you are
a driven entrepreneur yourrelationships all fall to the
wayside for the business becauseyou do everything business and
(15:32):
everything else pales incomparison.
That's just the way that a lotof entrepreneurs are wired.
So you know.
Great for you for realizingthat and trying to take some
proactive steps.
I've been through the same thing.
Where it comes to a point in amarriage where your wife doesn't
want to just sit around anymorewaiting on you and doesn't
really care how much money youmake.
(15:52):
There gets to a point where, aslong as everyone's living well,
the rest of the money doesn'tmake any difference.
Right, it is, it is goes backto you just ego.
So one thing that you said thatI really think is something
that we should discuss a littlemore is, once you get to a
position of delegating out allof these things as an
(16:15):
entrepreneur, you lose and youquestion what's my purpose?
I don't have anything to doanymore.
So a lot of people have a hardtime letting go of these day to
day things because that's theirpurpose.
So could you go through alittle more of the iteration of
how that kind of formulated foryou and what that path looked
like?
Eric Farewell (16:35):
What I think is really fascinating is that most
of what we do as entrepreneursis really working to cover up
all the insecurities of ourchildhood.
It's working to cover up thepain of not feeling loved enough
, of being bullied, of beingtormented, of being mistreated,
whatever may have happened.
We find things that we're goodat and that people tell us we're
good at, and we believe thatthese are the things that make
(16:58):
us have value.
I've done a ton of men's work.
I'm in a couple of differentcommunities with men that are
just some of the best men I'veever met.
One was called Front Row Dads.
It's a group for family menwith businesses, not business
men with families, and thatgroup changed my life because I
learned that, even though thesemen were doing hard work,
somatic work they're doing themeditation, they're doing the
therapy, they're doingeverything they possibly can the
(17:19):
number one challenge that thesemen held in common was they did
not know how to love themselves.
They could love themselves atwork, they could appreciate how
they showed up there, but theydidn't understand that their
value as a human was more thanthe sum total of the work they
did.
And I'm saying they a lot, butwhat I really mean is me.
I didn't know how to have avalue outside of what I was
(17:41):
producing.
I was a striver from such anearly age because it allowed me
to believe that I had merit onmy own, that if I could set a
goal and pass it or surpass it,I actually mattered.
And that's nothing you know.
I could sit here and berate myparents or my siblings or
whatever else.
That's not my point.
My point is we all have stories.
We all have stories of our lifein early childhood that we were
(18:04):
running from for most of ouradult lives.
And when we get successful, wetriple down because, oh my God,
now I'm good, now I'm lovable,and we look at that outside
influence so much so, as I wasmoving away from work, realizing
that I wanted to align mypriorities with my family, I was
like and the funny thing is thenumber one thing that changed
(18:26):
COVID hit and I was high risk.
I had bronchial spasms, asthmatype.
So before we knew what itactually was and how bad it was,
we had the affluence.
We just said, okay, let's stayhome.
So we didn't see another humanfor four months.
By the way, that's a great wayto either fix or destroy your
marriage.
We repaired, thank God.
My wife and I are in anincredible place.
We didn't see them for fourmonths, and then I did the
(18:47):
logical thing, which is a normalentrepreneur thing is I bought
a bus and I loaded up my kidsand we actually made it as far
as South Carolina before the busblew up and we had to buy
another bus, so we bought busnumber two.
We also put a videographer inthe trailer and so he stayed in
the trailer and we hit the roadfor what was supposed to be a
six-month trip Turned out to befour.
We get home, we found out somecrushing news about a partner
(19:10):
that had been with the businessand some negative things that
happened there, and suddenly weget a call from our warehouse
manager saying oh, I'm going togo work for your ex-partner,
okay, oh boy.
Five days notice and my wife,who's been a stay-at-home mom
all this time.
This is now October, Novemberof 2020, my wife goes.
I can do it, so she goes intothe office and I have to stay
(19:31):
home with three kidshomeschooling.
You know how quickly you haveto let go of your ego when, all
of a sudden, your entire worldis reversed.
I'm not in the office.
No one can ask me questions.
Suddenly.
I have to build systems becauseif they keep asking me
questions, they keepinterrupting math time.
Right?
Tony Johnson (19:46):
Oh boy Yep.
Eric Farewell (19:48):
So definitely an interesting journey and voyage
and so so grateful for that push, because that push really
started the domino fall of howdo I build the right systems,
ask the right questions, hirethe right people, have the right
vision and just clarifyeverything to such a point that
now, when we hire people, notonly do we hire people for a
fraction of their formersalaries because they believe in
the mission and they're paidwell I'd love to pay everyone
(20:10):
billions of dollars, but sadlybusiness doesn't work that way
but we hire people who have somuch passion that I don't have
to be there to carry the torch.
So 18 months ago, 19 months ago, we realized that what we were
lacking most in our life wascommunity.
So we left the businesses inFlorida, packed everything up
and in five weeks, from thedecision-making, from the visit
(20:31):
to decision, to leaving, tomoving into a new house, we
moved to Texas.
So, proof positive, thebusinesses are still working
without us.
Tony Johnson (20:39):
That is amazing.
Now, based on what you're justsaying, hiring people for
passion and alignment with themission how are you identifying
those traits in the interviewprocess?
Eric Farewell (20:55):
So one of the things that we've done is we
very purposefully have almostexclusively hired former
customers.
So over 95% of our staff arepeople who have deep passion for
whichever business they're in.
They love it, they live it,they breathe it.
About 30% of our employeesliterally bought vans, turned
(21:15):
them into campers and parkedthem outside of our business.
This is their life.
This is not a lifestyle job.
This is a life, and when youhave people that bought in, it's
hard not to have them, and whenyou have people that bought in,
it's hard not to have them.
The number we turn away isactually really sad, because I'd
love to hire everyone thatwants to come work for us.
It's an incredible, incredibleenvironment.
Actually, flying back toFlorida in a couple of weeks for
(21:36):
Thanksgiving, we throwThanksgiving at the hangar with
all the employees, theirfamilies, all the students that
want to come.
We may have somewhere between60 and 150 people there easily.
It's the family.
They chose.
Tony Johnson (21:49):
Yeah, that that is amazing.
So when you were transitioningum, could we go through a little
bit of these iterations?
So, when you're saying that youdecided to start getting out of
the business to focus on familyand started you and giving away
, delegating responsibilities,how did that look?
(22:13):
Who did the documentation ofthe processes?
Did you have someone come andhelp you?
Did you figure all this out onyour own?
How did that look?
Eric Farewell (22:23):
I can't take all the credit, that's for sure.
I'm very grateful for the teamthat we have.
Most of what I've discoveredover the years is, if you have
an SOP that goes into a binder,that binder never gets opened
again.
So it's more about empoweringyour team to make good decisions
.
One of our core values is to beentrepreneurial.
We want them to believe that ifthey're 80% confident that
(22:44):
their decision is right, don'trun it up the flag chain.
There is a limit.
If there's a half milliondollars attached to them, let's
have a conversation.
But the reality is, if they'reconfident, we hire them for
their smarts.
We just started to iterate tothe point where our employees
take more ownership, andcertainly there are systems and
things in place to ensure thatwe have KPIs we can follow.
Our shipping department makes amistake.
(23:05):
We know what percentage ofpackages are shipped to the
wrong place that kind of thing,because it is I mean it's a
fairly vast operation.
We have 3,800 SKUs on ouronline store.
There's a lot of differentmoving parts and suppliers from
all over the world.
All of a sudden, covid hits andyou go from a 30-day backlog to
a year backlog on receivingthings and you have to
(23:25):
anticipate what you can do, andthere's a lot to do, but most of
what it's been is, yes,creating systems that if someone
dies or quits or leaves for amonth, the business can still
operate.
And so in 2022, it's exactlywhat I did.
I left the business for a monthand I took my wife with the
time, with our warehouse managerwith me.
We went to Alaska with the kidsno email, no phone, all right.
Now what?
And we came back and we hadmore profit that month.
(23:48):
We killed it.
The employees were all happy.
I felt like the most rested manI'd ever been.
My wife was overjoyed.
Life is good, right, sobuilding out systems that can
sustain without you is doable,but it's all about finding the
right people who believe in whatyou do.
And if you don't believe inwhat you do, you have to get so
refined on that, because themission can't just be making
money.
It doesn't work, and maybe inwall street it works.
(24:10):
It just doesn't work for me.
Tony Johnson (24:12):
Well, I, and I would tell you it's so
refreshing to hear you saying somany of these things are the
same things that happen at mybusiness.
So I wholeheartedly believe inso much of what you're saying.
And not a lot of people saythis.
We get a lot of platitudes whenyou have people on and they
talk, but this is the simplereality.
And just to speak to your pointof empowering your employees.
(24:35):
So it is difficult.
Some employees they want tocome bounce things off you.
They want to come bounce things.
So, especially when I get newemployees, they want to bounce
off.
Most people don't bounce themoff of me, but they bounce them
off of everyone.
And I'm the same way Makedecisions, Make decisions.
I would rather it cost me money.
You make a bad decision and itcosts me money, Then no decision
(24:56):
be made and you have to rely onme because you're never going
to grow at that point.
And so my whole goal is for anyof them that works here is to
for them to.
But what are your goals?
Let's set your goals.
So that's one of the biggestthings we do here is we set the
90 day goals.
I follow up on their goals.
We add in their personal goals,everything.
So we have to outlook on whatdoes someone want, to make sure
(25:20):
that's in alignment with whatwe're doing right.
Eric Farewell (25:23):
I think there's a huge opportunity that people
lose.
When I was in the office in2021, excuse me, 2020, my
assistant would use a stopwatchto see how often people would
open my door when there's noother person in the office.
Hey, can I ask you a quickquestion?
It was, on average, every 45 to115 seconds right, Less than
two minutes.
(25:44):
Someone's asking a question.
My personal assistant when Ihired her part of that process
was hey, I would love to helpyou, but I'm paying you to help
me.
Before you ask me a question,please Google it.
For three hours, I have neverbeen asked a question by her,
ever.
What's remarkable is that thescope of work when you hire a VA
(26:06):
, oftentimes it's like I don'tknow whatever it needs to be.
So this week, she found RVs forrent in the areas I had to rent
to go camping with my familyand to go to this last air race
that we had, and sent me aspreadsheet with which ones I
should pick and made it sosimple, probably saved me 20
hours of work.
No joke that if you've everrented an RV, it's the worst
experience on the planet.
I don't understand RV share.
(26:26):
Please call me.
I can help you make it better,but she has this philosophy
she's not going to ask mequestions.
So when I asked her to make mea new website, she never made a
website before, so she Googledit and she just did it.
And she said which websiteswould you like it to look like?
And I sent her a whole draft ofdifferent websites that were
good and dude.
I don't love my website.
It's fine, it has my bio on it,a way to contact me, but it's
(26:48):
why do I need to be perfect?
Right, it's just.
It's just a page for people tofind out more information about
me.
I don't have to be MrPerfectionist and ask for things
to be changed.
I do send her whatever I do topodcast.
Hey, throw this in the website.
I have no idea what the loginis for that website.
I have no idea where it'shosted.
I don't know anything about it.
I just know that the website'sup now and when you hire people
with that idea that they have somuch onus, they have the
(27:10):
ownership to be able to believethat they can make decisions and
they need to learn, especiallythese younger generations,
because everyone you know ourage and older is terrified that
these kids don't want to work.
No, they need boundaries.
Sports aren't fun without rules, right?
It's great to create a boundarythat says, hey, let's be
insatiable learners all the time.
Tony Johnson (27:31):
Well, that's great .
Now, something you just broughtup is another one of your
businesses.
You brought up air races, sotell us a bit about that
business.
I know we discussed it before,but you own a company that does
air racing, and so tell us whatis that.
Eric Farewell (27:46):
So it's a bizarre experience.
I grew up in aviation, startedall aviation businesses.
My biggest dream in life was tobe an air show pilot.
This is, after all, my otherdreams died when I broke my back
, but I was very excited to bean air show pilot.
That dream came true in 2016.
We got to fly at the world'slargest air show with my
paramotor aerobatic team andthrough that I'd started air
(28:07):
show announcing, becauseapparently I can say a lot of
things very quickly and that'sgood in the air show announcing
business and I can't seem toforget any aircraft fact.
If someone mentions whatengines in their airplane or
what pistons they're running,I'll remember it forever.
I don't know, I can't remembermy name half the time, but that
stuff just sticks.
So in 2020, I started gettingasked to come out and announce
(28:29):
for this new company, nationalStoll.
It's S-T-O-L or short takeoffor landing.
These are bush planes, likeyou'd find in Alaska, that are
designed to take off inincredibly short distances and
land in the same, and we havefull-blown race airplanes that
are taking off in less than sixfeet, landing in like nine and a
half feet, and we have bigairplanes that have six eight
(28:49):
seats that can take off still ina hundred feet or less.
So what happened was I'm hereannouncing and the founder is
like, all right, this is so muchwork, we're losing money like
crazy.
And I'm like, well, yeah, youstarted an aviation business.
It's a sure way to lose money.
So he wanted to roll it back.
He wanted to go from fourevents a year to two and the
opportunity came up to invest inthe series and we did, because
(29:11):
what's incredible about thisseries is it inspires so many
people to fly.
We have over 83 million viewersin the last 12 months.
And what's really neat for me,the reason I'm so passionate
about aviation is aviation isthe.
For many people, it's the oneentry point they'll have to ever
seeing the world and then thusthemselves from a different
perspective.
Astronauts call it the overlookeffect.
It's that opportunity to seethe world differently, and you
(29:33):
can get there with meditation,you can get there with therapy,
you can get there through lotsof different means, but for me,
aviation was my gateway drug togetting to know who I really was
.
So I want the whole world to flyand this aligned with that
mission perfectly.
So we we get to go all over thecountry promoting aviation and
really cool humans that flythese airplanes some really
(29:54):
crazy airplanes and we get toinspire the next generation.
So our whole mission there nowis how do we get it to pay for
itself?
So if you, if you happen tohave an N, our dream sponsor is
Viagra, because we're the onlymotorsport guaranteed to get you
up and we have 30, we have 35to 65 year old guys that watch
our shows.
That's all it is.
It's all, almost all male, andit's all 35 to 65 year old guys.
(30:15):
It's Viagra's target market.
I'm just saying, if you knowsomebody, we'd love to make
something happen.
Tony Johnson (30:21):
Oh wow, yeah, yeah , we'll get.
You should target hymns orsomething.
Eric Farewell (30:27):
We've talked to a few.
We need the right person,though it's all about people.
Tony Johnson (30:30):
That's right.
Oh, my goodness, that's great.
So a couple of this is well,this is going in so many
different directions it's hardto keep up.
So one of the things that youjust mentioned right Was 80, 83
million views on, and we're justlike anybody who's listening to
(30:52):
this, whoever does anything onyoutube.
It's like you know, most peoplejump on youtube.
They throw some things on there.
Uh, you maybe get a thousandviews, two thousand views.
So my daughter is very good.
She got some things with amillion views.
You know million views.
That's her.
Nobody's getting 83 millionviews.
So what the heck are you guysdoing on youtube to get that
many views for aviation, forcrying out loud?
Eric Farewell (31:08):
I know it's pretty wild.
Our videos go mega viral on allthe different platforms because
it's so surprising.
Our actual average viewer timeper video is between 1.7 and
1.96 times per video.
They don't watch the video once.
They watch it almost twicebecause they can't believe what
they've seen, which is why it'sgreat for sponsors, because
they're getting that ad, that adfeedback twice, and that's part
(31:30):
of why we invested in theseries.
The goal was how do we actuallymake this?
You know it's?
It's like owning moto gp orformula one in the 1950s, like
we have all these opportunitiesand cool things we can do with
it, and the crazy thing is thisso here, hear me out 83 million
views is cool.
We have zero employees.
Tony Johnson (31:49):
We have over 700 volunteers.
Eric Farewell (31:51):
We have one contract employee.
She's our COO.
She manages all the events.
She's incredible and she did itfor the first year for free,
all right, absolutely incrediblepeople all aligned on a very
clear mission to understand whatthey're doing and how it's
making the world a better place.
I'm telling you, it's notrocket science.
Eos had this figured out yearsago and I just keep following
that system, plus all the othersystems I've learned throughout
(32:12):
my life.
And we build these incrediblecommunities because it's not
just about the brand and themoney and the views.
It's about the communities.
It's about bringing peopletogether that feel like they're
with their family.
This last event we had in Texaswas our finals for the year and
I watched people hugging likethey would never hug their
brother.
These are people who haveescaped death together.
(32:32):
Right, it is an incrediblecommunity of people.
I tell people like the brandsbehind me.
I have my logos of differentbusinesses.
I have friends who've gottentattoos of my logo as their
first tattoo.
Tony Johnson (32:44):
Like that tells you you built a brand.
Eric Farewell (32:45):
That's about community.
It's about something biggerthan just me.
It's never going to be the EricFarewell show, right?
I want it to be about how wemake the world better.
Tony Johnson (32:53):
Yeah, I mean, you know a brand's made it when they
don't even know who the heckyou are.
That's what you'd like.
You don't even want them toknow who you are, so you know,
that's.
That's the biggest thing thatyou can see is normally when
someone's naming business withtheir name in it.
Then you're like, oh, this isyou know?
Are they really trying toelevate and create something or
it's?
It becomes more of an ego thing.
But go back.
So the things that you'resaying are validating this.
(33:16):
Now, when, when these peopleare first engaging, how are how
are they understanding yourmission, or is it?
Yeah, because this?
This is astonishing to me thatyou're getting all of this.
Where is the mission?
Is there a mission statement?
They're seeing.
How is the mission gettingunderstood?
Eric Farewell (33:39):
So it's a really excellent question and I have
two answers for you.
Every business actually has adifferent answer.
For many, many years we alwayssaid that at Aviator, our
parameter company, we said look,our job is to get them in the
door and then surprise them thatthey're not just here to learn
to fly, because they thinkthat's what they're getting and
people want to get what they payfor and of course, they'll
(34:00):
learn to fly.
But our real mission is toinspire them to overcome their
fears through that flight andstart to shift other things in
their life that they've beenfearing.
Right, that's the real mission.
That's the real mission.
That's the mission of DeviatorAt National Stoll.
People want to come out andwatch something really cool and
they want to be a part of it.
They want to volunteer, theywant to fly in the competition.
(34:23):
You know we have 280 pilotsthat fly with us something like
that now and yet we finallyoffered our first cash prize in
four years, right, and they'respending $20,000 to $40,000 a
year on Avgas to go to theevents.
It's not cheap, right, but theycome for the camaraderie, they
come for the people, they comefor the fact that the biggest
shift over the last 2000 years.
In the way that humanity worksis we stripped away the idea of
(34:45):
community and family in favor ofpersonality and identity.
And identity is beautiful.
It's powerful.
Marry who you want be who youwant to be.
You can be anything.
I love all of those things, butthe gaping hole in our hearts is
feeling like we belongsomewhere and feeling like the
people we are with share thesame values.
Share that Even if we havedisagreements on beliefs like
(35:06):
there's a ton of people who votedifferently than I do or go to
different churches than I do itdoesn't matter, because we all
believe in something.
And what I love about flying is, once you're in a cockpit, it's
the great equalizer.
It doesn't matter if you'restraight, gay, man, woman,
doesn't matter, you're justanother pilot, right?
And that's what's really fun isyou start to build these
communities.
I do the same thing in myentrepreneur businesses, like
where I'm coaching andconsulting.
(35:26):
It's like all of these storieswe all have so many similar
stories and it's more about howdo we bring people together
versus trying to polarize andseparate them.
I hate the polarization.
I think there's so muchopportunity for growth when we
come together.
Tony Johnson (35:40):
That is amazing, yeah, and especially this day
and age, you know, and to speakto the younger generation,
they're so disconnected.
It's such a lonesome generationthat we have going right now
All of the connection on theinternet, the social media, the
games.
It feels like there is such alimit to connection.
(36:04):
Kids barely know how to talk toeach other.
I know kids, they're not dating.
Boys and girls aren't datingeach other until much older.
They don't even know how tospeak to each other unless it's
through an app and they don'ttalk, it's all texting.
So they have very limitedinteractions physically,
(36:26):
one-on-one.
Your point, and that is probablyyour biggest driver, is that
creation of community and givingsomeone a feeling of belonging
is you.
It doesn't matter how much thatcosts, when you say 20, 40
thousand dollars, what does itmatter?
Because, to go back to ouroriginal beginning, to you, when
(36:47):
you're working, you're doingwhatever your family, that's all
that really matters.
All all the financial stuff,that's you know, great, that
allows you to do things right,but really, the more money that
you have normally, the lessconnection that you have.
So you would give all thatmoney for a deep connection,
which is you know what?
Eric Farewell (37:08):
what really matters at your funeral right
money in your bank account arethe people who show up for your
family when you're gone.
Yep.
Tony Johnson (37:14):
Right, I care more about that.
Eric Farewell (37:16):
I had to witness that for my 22 year old brother
and I watched probably 600people file into that room from
all different walks of life.
You wouldn't believe he hadcommunity and I want to ensure
that the community that walksinto my funeral are the best
dadgum humans they can possiblybe.
And I will tell you right nowmy community is incredible.
I say this very clearlycommunity is currency.
(37:38):
You cannot be broke when youhave great community.
If everything wash up today,right now, there's probably 15
people I could call and walkaway with seven to eight figures
of capital to do whatever Ineeded to do.
Community is currency.
Belief and love is currency.
Tony Johnson (37:59):
That is amazing.
Yeah, now I don't have thoseconnections, but that's great
that you do.
That is very good.
I would say you know you weredefinitely greater at community
than I would be.
You know it takes somethingdeeper inside, so that's great.
So now to speak to that, as Isay that, right.
So another business that you'rein and one this is fresher,
this is your most current newbusiness is consulting business
(38:21):
consulting, and probably youknow a great thing Listening to
you and your story is veryinspiring.
So, based on that, tell me howyou got into the consulting.
How is that going?
Eric Farewell (38:33):
Well, I was firmly retired.
I pretended to be retired anddid a whole bunch of work for a
mastermind community instead ofstopping working because
stopping working is really scary, you have to be alone with
yourself.
But I actually fully didn't doanything.
I watched most of YouTube, gotnear to the end not quite all of
it played a bunch of videogames with my kids and I was
(38:53):
bored.
So when a friend asked me to beon his podcast and tell my
story, much like this, we endedup wrapping the conversation
after an hour.
He turns over and he goes Eric,I want you to teach me how you
did that.
I said did what he said ownedall those companies and you
don't work.
I was like, okay.
So for about six weeks we wentback and forth and we looked at
his business and got all thedetails and I understood the
(39:15):
model and understand the marketand understand what he's doing
that he hates, which is acrucial question to ask yourself
and your employees what do youdo every day that you hate?
If there's anything on thatlist, anything on that list,
there has to be a way to get off.
For me, it was email.
I hated email with such avicious passion and I hated
email with such a viciouspassion and I was getting about
400 plus emails a day, right,and I just hated them.
It's hours of my day, every dayand I'm answering the same
(39:36):
questions.
At this point I'm in thebusiness for what?
Nine years Like?
There's very few new questionsafter nine years, right, there's
hundreds of thousands of emails.
So eventually I was like, okay,how do I do this?
So I would go in and I wouldask my assistant to go through
and look at the emails and thenwrite replies.
And she'd have to Googlethrough my inbox and find the
answers and she'd leave them asdrafts and I'd go in and I'd
(39:58):
make a loom and I'd correct theareas where she messed them up
and then I'd send them.
So I went from four hours a dayto 40 minutes and then after
about a month of that, she gotgood enough that she could send
them.
And every once in a while I geta mistake right.
It's not often, but you getthese little mistakes and we
learn from them.
We make a quick loom.
Now it's done.
So I learned these little pieces, these little tools to give
things away that I hated.
And I did the same thing for myfriend, witnessing him discover
(40:25):
what his real mission is, whathis real vision is,
understanding how he can hireand fire based upon those things
, and that every time he hiressomeone new, he's giving them an
opportunity to take his passionand turn it into food for their
family.
And what a gift that is.
Changed his business, changedhis world, and I had more fun
doing that than anything elseI'd done in years.
It was so inspiring to be ableto take my experiences and share
(40:46):
them.
And then his podcast dropped andI got seven people who
contacted me and said, eric, wewant you to coach us.
I said, oh, I don't want towork.
I'm working through YouTube.
Man, I'm on a mission, but Idid take some of them on as
clients and it has been such awonderful year.
It's been 11 months and it'sbeen so much fun and I actually
had not put anything togetherofficial until this past week.
(41:08):
So in January we're running ourfirst accelerator and it's the
freedom accelerator.
How do you build a businessaround creating freedom for you
so that you can leave a reallegacy?
And, yeah, it's going to be alot of fun.
I think we're probably going to.
I'm going to keep it small,probably 15 people, but I can't
do as much one-on-one coachingas people would like because the
reality is I still don't wantto work more than six hours a
(41:30):
week.
Tony Johnson (41:31):
I have my limits now.
I mean, I had the inverseproblem I had before, right?
Yeah, well, that is fantastic.
Now, when you're doing this,does it matter?
Are you niching it?
Your other businesses areextremely niche.
Are you niching this to just aspecific client type, a specific
level of industries?
Just a specific client type, aspecific level of industries?
(41:53):
How are you approaching this?
Eric Farewell (42:01):
So what's been really interesting is apparently
I'm the niche If people thinkthat I'm weird enough or fun
enough or have done enough crazythings, and trust me, I've done
them all.
Not really.
I'm pretty darn cautious,actually as a person.
People wouldn't believe that,but it's the truth.
What I found is people who aredrawn to my story and would like
to have something similarhappen in their lives.
My current one-on-one clientsare in such diverse groupings.
I've been with a woman who hasa beauty brand mastermind,
(42:24):
helping founders of beautybrands, makeup companies, that
kind of thing grow.
I've got a guy who's in privatelending and building homes,
single family homes and inmortgage brokering so three
different companies.
I've got a car dealer very,very diverse and another coach
also as well.
So there's this very broadgroup, but they're all the right
(42:47):
people and I vet for a longtime for one-on-one, especially
because it's very expensive andit's my time and I want to make
sure it's going to be a win-winfor both sides and thus far the
results are.
I got a text yesterday.
One of my clients.
She goes Eric, my business isup 21% in the first 30 days of
working together and I am up121%.
(43:08):
I'm like, okay, they were doingsomething right.
I'm like, okay, they were doingsomething right.
It sounds that feels good, Ilike that.
So yeah, it's been not reallyhyper-niched.
It's really more about findingpeople at the right place in
their life, when they're readyto make a big change.
Tony Johnson (43:20):
That is fantastic, yeah, and I do always recommend
anybody.
If you're struggling in yourbusiness and one of the is the
biggest game changers in life Ifyou can get someone that aligns
with you, it has to be theright person, but if you can get
someone that aligns with you,your business can skyrocket.
(43:40):
If you have someone that canjust come in and it will seem in
the beginning like, oh, whydidn't I think of that?
It's so simple, why didn't Ithink of that?
But you really have to take thesteps to get that right person
to step in and you would notbelieve how quickly if you get
(44:00):
that right player to help you,how quickly your business can
elevate and elevate, and elevateagain and it is truly you
taking.
So now that Eric's taken thesereps reps right, so now he has
some reps going through withbusiness owners and
understanding, you know whatjust like with any business,
once you get some reps in thatand you can quickly identify the
(44:24):
things that are holding youback from growth and you could
sit and think about these thingsall day.
But if you don't have reps ondoing that, you're going to
struggle.
So someone with your experienceis massive for so many people's
businesses and small businessowners all over.
So, eric, I think that that'sgreat.
I wish you all the success inthat.
(44:44):
If somebody wants to see if youand them are a fit, what's the
best way to reach out and detailthat further?
Eric Farewell (44:52):
They should absolutely go to my website that
my assistant made, that I don'tlove but works, and that's
ericfairwellcomE-R-I-C-F-A-R-E-W-E-L-L.
Ericfairwellcom, I'm very easyto find, very easy to reach.
Either myself or my assistantwill reply to you.
Tony Johnson (45:08):
Awesome, and are you still taking clients right
now?
Eric Farewell (45:17):
So the accelerator in January is really
the push.
Right now I'm not sure that Iwant to sign any more
one-on-ones, but the Accelerator, the goal is 12 weeks.
Every week's a really intensivefocus on some different tool.
There's different ways that wecan start to understand how
we're using our time, how we cancreate the most clear core
values.
Tons of different frameworks.
We have so many coolopportunities and the way that
this will be run is going to bevery much like a.
(45:38):
It'll feel more like aone-on-one experience because
each of the differentparticipants will be working
together.
So you're going to be learninghow to share without giving
advice and learning how toreally be present with other
people who are also goingthrough some really cool or hard
things.
It can be both, and sometimeslife is both incredibly
rewarding and awesome andincredibly traumatizing and
(46:00):
terrible, and that's the journey.
Tony Johnson (46:03):
The ebbs and flows of life.
That's exactly right.
That is it.
So again, and I'll put it inthe show notes, it's
ericfarewellcomE-R-I-C-F-A-R-E-W-E-L-Lcom.
Eric, it's been such a pleasurehaving you on today.
I sincerely appreciate youjoining us and hopefully we can
keep in touch in the future.
(46:23):
Sir.
Eric Farewell (46:24):
Tony, thank you so much for having me.
Eventually we'll have to buildsome property in Charleston, I
guess, or somewhere in SouthCarolina, so you can help me out
.
Tony Johnson (46:30):
That's right, sir.
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