June 22, 2023 • 46 mins
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Beyond Confidence is broadcast live Tuesdays at 10AM ET.
Beyond Confidence TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Beyond Confidence Radio Show is broadcast on W4WN Radio - Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Beyond Confidence Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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(00:00):
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We make no recommendations or endorsement forradio show programs, services, or
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(00:24):
Radio. This is Beyond Confidence withyour host Dvaparnk. Do you want to
live a more fulfilling life? Doyou want to live your legacy and achieve
your personal, professional, and financialgoals? Well? Coming up on Diva
Park's Beyond Confidence, you will hearreal stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and
achievers who have stepped into discomfort,shanner their status quo, and are living
(00:47):
the life they want. You willlearn how relationships are the key to achieving
your aspirations and financial goals. Movingyour career business forward does not have to
happen at the expense of your personalor family life, or vice versa.
Learn more www dot dvapark dot comand you can connect with div D contact
dapark dot com. This is beyondconfidence and now here's your host, d
(01:10):
A. Park. Hello, Hello, Hello, It's Tuesday morning, and
I am so thrilled to be herewith you. Why because it's always you
are the soul of my show andto be with you is the best thing
because you are so important to me. And also I want to thank each
(01:30):
and every one of you who hasreached out to us and shared what kind
of stories do you want us togrowing, which experts to growing and how
we can support you to live abetter life. And also thank you to
all of you who have purchased mybooks. You can see couple of those
in the bag. Expert to Influencerand the Entrepreneur's Gotten and they will help
(01:56):
you, especially if you're an entrepreneuror even if you're looking to build those
nine relationships, whether it's with moneyor with results or with yourself entrepreneurs,
Goden will help you. An expertto influencer will help you to become that
influencer that is like a rising tidethat lifts all boats. It's about the
(02:16):
impact, It's not about the numbers. It's not about the likes you get,
it's about impacting even one person.So if you've not got the books,
please get it, because when youpurchase those books, your investment helps
us help the entrepreneurs all across theglobe. And I'm sure you'll remember,
(02:39):
I'm still inviting you to spend thatone hour of your time every month,
with no strings attached, helping otherpeople, keeping that kindness circle going.
So let's go ahead and get started. I'm going to bring in our guest
erin Marcas Malcolm. Aaron, Hello, thank you so much for having me.
(03:05):
I'm excited to be chatting with you. This is awesome. Oh,
excited to have you here. So, Aaron, we usually started the beginning.
Do you recall any moment from yourchildhood that still stands out for you
today? Oh, my gosh,moments that stand out. What's funny when
you say that is there's nothing inmy childhood that stands out. Just keeping
(03:30):
this related to now that I wouldend up where I am right. I
didn't have an entrepreneur environment. Ididn't have a business owner environment. I
grew up blue collar in Chicago.My dad was a cop, my mom
was a hairdresser. Like just geta job and stay there would have been
(03:51):
very right, would have been great. And so I definitely, you know,
my young childhood fun all sorts ofthings, dogs, vacations, teenage
years. I was, I callit now, a professional juvenile delinquent.
I use the term professional because Imade money at it. You can argue
(04:15):
whether that was bad parenting or badchild I can't blame them for everything,
that's for sure, but something thatstands out, I think it's more if
I had to really stay like again, kind of relating it to where I
am now. One of the themesthat I from my childhood that I think
(04:36):
helps me now is knowing that Ihad to be in charge. Not I
had to be, but everybody shouldbe in charge of their own endgame like
that. If you're not making decisionsfor you, you're giving away that power
to people who are not vested inyou. So I always felt like I
(04:59):
could do whatever I want and Icould have whatever I want, but it
also always knew that I was goingto have to get there myself, not
in any negative way, not witha chip on my shoulder, but more
of a norm like, Okay,just go do it, that's what you
want that's great, Go do it. You have to make it happen.
So I think that theme is alot of what stands out in my childhood.
(05:25):
Well, as you mentioned that youtook it very beautifully, you did
not take it somewhere like oh,that's a chip on my shoulder and I'm
going to use it as a crutchrather than that, how can I keep
my power? Yeah, it wasnever I think that's because it was modeled
(05:49):
to me as an opportunity. Itwasn't modeled as a bad thing. This
whole idea that you have to advocatefor yourself, and truthfully it comes out
of health issues as a child andwatching my mother advocate for me instead of
sitting back and waiting to see whatsomeone else might want to do or might
(06:10):
think is the right idea. WhenI was a teenager and wanted money,
she said, great, you canhave all the money you want. Go
get a job, right, Like, how do you do that? We'll
see that street there with all thestories on it, Go into each and
every one of them and ask themin they're hiring until one of them says
(06:31):
yes, oh okay. You know. I wasn't happy about that, but
I did it and so it wasnever illustrated to me that having to take
care of yourself was anything except normal. Well, it's really great if you
kind of think about it, becauseso many it's very interesting. Recently I
(06:56):
was just kind of work with acohort on intergenerational communication, and it has
become very apparent that a lot ofzgen expect their parents to take care of
certain things for them, even intheir twenties. So and then what happens
is it allows for some growth insome areas, and in some areas it
(07:21):
miditer growth. So in your case, so there's no right or wrong for
anything basically, and yet like inyour case, it pushed you and okay,
hey, you want to create yourfuture. You want to create X,
Y and Z, go do it. And it shifted back the responsibility
(07:41):
and the power back to you.Yeah. And it also the other thing
it does is it creates self trust. Right because I want to go do
the things, all right, Iwant to go make money. I have
to get a job. So Igot a job, and I made money
and I got to spend that moneyhowever I wanted to. So again just
(08:05):
because that's who we are, thisframework of business owner, entrepreneur I think
doing that for so many years allowsme to take risk now, to go
for something bigger now, because thething that I know is I'll always be
okay, because I'll just always takecare of myself because I always did,
(08:26):
and again not with a chip onmy shoulder, but just because it was
normal. And going back to yourcomment about gen Z and the younger generations
that expect their parents to take careof certain things for them, like these
parents aren't doing their kids any favors, like can't blame the kids, they
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didn't raise themselves. Like Okay,now you're an adult, you have to
decide do you still want to stayin that situation? And I remember you
want to laugh, Like I rememberwhen I turned six teen, when I
got my driver's license, I wantedto be able to drive the car and
it was my mom's car that sheused ninety percent of the time. So
in order to even have access tothe car, not my own car,
(09:13):
but in order to have access tothe car that was seldom available to me,
my mother's car insurance went up.This was crazy, by forty dollars
a month in nineteen eighty six.Do you know how much money that was?
I mean, right, my mom, Oh my god, my mom.
To have me on her insurance costan extra forty dollars a month.
(09:37):
So in order to even be allowedto use the car if it was available,
I had to pay that forty dollarsa month. And actually, what
you're telling is something that was verynormal for our generation. They're so for
example, like you know, whenI was using one of the vehicles,
(09:58):
I had to pay for the guests. So in my case, if insurance
was covered, but I had tocover the guests. And when you're doing
that, then you learn to appreciatemore. And because of internet and social
media, everything is so much runninginto instant gratification. So coming back to
(10:20):
your story, you know you mentionedsomething about professional juvenile delinquent. Can you
expand on that. I was abad kid, right, we made money
doing illegal things. But the otherthe part of that though I was in
Chicago, first of all, Ialways grew up in the city in the
seventies and eighties, and looking atthe situation now and watching, first of
(10:48):
all, when we have reunions,a lot of us talk about it's amazing
how well a lot of us aredoing all things considered. Huh, isn't
that interesting, But the activities thatwe were involved in were usually not harming
(11:09):
people who weren't choosing to be apart of those activities. So I think
that's a difference versus what you seenow with jobs downtown and steal it,
you know, just destroying. Wewere we weren't being good kids, but
we weren't being a menace to societytype of situation. But the other thing
(11:33):
is, and maybe it's because Idon't have kids, I do still tend
to relate to that story versus theparental version of the story, where I
think, if your kids managed toget through teens and young adulthood without doing
anything so horrible that it do completelydo rails them, what's the big you
(11:56):
know, really it isn't really wellfor themselves. I agree, like there's
a line between Okay, this wasn'tbehavior, but it also really does it
really have lifelong consequences? No?Then why are we making such a huge
deal out of every little thing?So true? So true? And that's
(12:22):
another thing that I've seen a lotof parents putting that pressure on youngsters that
you can do this, you cando that, and you've got to achieve
this, and you've got to achievethat, So that has repercussions of its
own. So moving the story forward, as you said that, you know
you had your escapades, but nothingthat I gotta say something like, you
(12:48):
know, as teenagers, we allmake mistakes and as you mentioned, that's
how we learn, that's how youlearn. And I think you know the
plus a negative. The plus sideis there was no social media, so
there's no proof. There's no proofof any of this. I don't I
don't have a police record. Itnever got to that point, so there's
(13:11):
no proof of this. But theother thing is the lack of allowing failure
creates fear of failure, intensity overevery little thing, having to be perfect,
having to be the top of whateverit is, creates this fear of
(13:33):
failure, and fear of failure createsfear of trying. Yeah, and that
takes us to the risk, Likeso many youngsters are afraid to take risks
because as you mentioned, it's abovebus on being perfect. Especially social media
has created this fake facade that oh, yes, like because mostly people will
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take the selfies they're they're looking good, they're they're having like a dinner at
a really good restaurant when they're outon vacationing or you know, when it's
something really good happening. So itappears that everybody is doing so well,
and that's not the reality because mostpeople have something going wrong for them each
and every single day. So comingin of that, yeah, did your
(14:26):
life take you beyond your eye years? So I went to college right after
high school, which not because ofmy grades, because back then it was
easier to get in college, justbecause I tested literally tested into it.
And then it got more interesting,right like school got more interesting. I
was surrounded by people who were doingexcited about doing things within their classes as
(14:50):
opposed to externally. And it wasreally what I ended up doing for most
of my career was just having areally good work ethic. Right. I
never was one of those people who, like, I think it's an absolute
miracle that's someone at nine years old, I want to do this, and
(15:11):
then they set out to do itand then they actually do it, Like
I never knew what did I reallywant to do? So what I did
do, though, was I hada very good work ethic and I would
do a good job. And everytime I would do a good job,
it would open the next door leadto the next promotion and the other thing
that I did at the same time. Now there's labels for it. It
(15:33):
didn't need it didn't need a labelback in the nineties to tell me to
quit every job I hated. Butif I wasn't happy, I left.
If I wasn't happy, if Ididn't feel that there was an opportunity,
I found my next job. Andmy success at job A either led to
a promotion or it led to abetter job at the next company. And
(15:58):
I did that for several years.And what was the area that you were
working in? Where did that startin? It's so weird, like when
you look at back, my lifeis very segmented. So I started out
just because you got to get ajob out of school. I actually started
out in property management large apartment complexes. And I started out there because I
(16:19):
did it as a child. Mymom was a beautician when I was little,
but then she became a leasing agentin downtown Chicago, and as a
kid, I would go to workwith her on the weekends and help because
that's what we did, right,Like you go to work with your parents
and you help you do their job. You do the job. So I
had jobs as a child, whichis hysterical ten years old. Here go
(16:41):
show this vacant apartment on the thirtiethfloor to this forty year old man would
possibly go wrong, like you wouldn'tdo that now, But I helped.
And so when I needed to geta job when I graduated college, I'm
like, well, I already knowhow to do that. I've been doing
it since I was ten. Andso I applied for a job in as
a leasing agent. I got ajob, and I just moved up in
(17:03):
a property management and bigger and biggerand bigger apartment complexes. And I laugh,
you know, at fifty three yearsold now looking back at twenty six
year old me. Then who intheir right mind put twenty six year old
erin in charge of their multimillion dollarassetists the manager? Right? But that's
what happened. It eventually led tocommercial real estate, and that eventually led
(17:29):
to where I really had a bigcareer was in financial services. But the
theme was always marketing and sales.Marketing and zoos, do a good job,
step up, learn more, helpmore, be interested, take action.
Right. So what I'm hearing isthat your life traversed through a lot
(17:51):
of corporate venues and how did thetransition occur? What was that toning point
that made you go from being corporatedto becoming an all So my ultimate career
was I was there for twelve years. My fancy title before I left was
senior vice president of business Development,and that was at the largest long term
care insurance only wholesaler in the country. So I was putting together these regional
(18:15):
and national deals with manufacturers of insurancemet Life, John Worth, John Hancock,
and then the people who sold it, the banks and the broker dealers.
And I had amazing people that Iworked with, Absolutely amazing people that
I worked with who exposed me tothings way above my pregrade. That I
got an MBA while while I wasin that company, right, So huge
(18:38):
exposure to big business, right,corporate level business, multiple million dollar deals,
things like that. And when Iwas it's really weird when I was
I don't know why this happened,but when I was about thirty nine,
forty years old, I started tofeel weird about what I was doing because
(19:00):
as the company gets bigger, yourjob gets smaller. So I was doing
a less variety of things and I'mwatching this business again with people that I
loved in a company that was amazing, but I was watching what it started
to feel very contrived, like itwas being made complex in order for more
(19:25):
people to make a nickel in theprocess. And I think we're way down
the rabbit hole on that and somany of our industries in this country that
the reason things are so expensive isbecause everybody wants to make a nickel in
the process, and so things getvery, very complex. And I was
watching that happen, and as thatwas happening, I was getting further and
(19:45):
further and further removed from having animpact or feeling that I was having an
impact on anything, not because ofanything anyone was doing wrong, but just
by the nature of companies. Soat the same time, I was getting
a little older, and I'm startingto feel like I want something for me
(20:07):
right. There was a couple ofthings that I had been involved in where
we had been planning and working ona project for six months, nine months
a year, and then someone inthe someone in there decides to change their
path and buy buy project and soand it just felt very like I wasn't
in control of my situation. Iwas subjected to what other people were going
(20:33):
to decide, not in a badway, but just not in control,
which, as we established in mychildhood, was kind of a thing,
and feeling like I wasn't having animpact, feeling like I'm now old enough
where i have some information in myhead where I've got some experiences, I
want to go do something different,And so is this mixture of boredom,
(20:56):
constant striving to learn new things,no longer seeing a path where I was,
even though the people were amazing,and it took a little while,
but I'm like, all right,what if I didn't have a job anymore?
What if it was my thing?Abject horrifying right, Well, it's
(21:19):
hard to break those golden handcuffs.Yes, oh yeah, and I had
the expense account and the big income, the whole nine yards. Absolutely absolutely
yeah. So when he started thinkingabout it, what fears did you face
and how did you transition out?So I couldn't figure out what I wanted
(21:45):
to do. That was one ofthe first things I say, I didn't
know what I wanted to do.And it actually took me probably two years
while I still had that job,where between the time that idea started floating
in the back of my mind andactually doing some thing because I couldn't.
And at the time, the twothings that I was way, way,
way into was dogs because I volunteeredevery week at a dog rescue. I
(22:08):
grew up with dogs, I wastraining dogs, lots of things around dogs.
And then the other thing in mylife was working out physical fitness,
personal training. I had done bodybuildingand powerlifting. Those are the two things
in my world. And I'm like, Okay, well what if I did
a business in either one of those, because those were the two things I
(22:30):
knew a ton about and I absolutelyloved, and so I did look in
those arenas like, well, whatif I was a personal trainer, Well,
what if I bought a gym?Well what if I had a doggy
daycare? And I what if Ihad dog kennels and grooming? And I
had some visions of what that wouldlook like. But one of the things
(22:52):
I knew was I didn't want tobe tied to a physical building from sun
up to sundown. Like I knewI needed more variety than that in my
environment. And I'm happy I nevertook action on only those two things because
to me, that was still goingto be very it was going to be
(23:12):
a very small world. It wasgoing to be my own world, but
I somehow in the back of mymind felt it was still going to be
a very small world. And whichmakes sense because here you are. You
were tied to a nine to fivejob in your previous company anyway, and
(23:33):
you didn't want to go from sameto same. So how did you come
to doing the online entrepreneurship that you'redoing right now? Well, there was
a step in between. So Iwas in Potomac, Maryland, beautiful,
beautiful place if you haven't been.I was in Potomac, Maryland traveling with
(23:53):
my mother and my stepdad to goto my cousin's wedding. And I was
on all sorts of medication because Ihad been very, very very sick before
this, and so I was stillrecovering. Very small wedding. There was
only like thirty five to small familywedding. But I'm traveling with my mother
and her husband, great people,but still you get the boy right,
(24:15):
Not easy, and I don't feelgood and I'm way too many people even
though there's only thirty five of us, right, because there's all these activities
and I had left dinner. Ialso had a little bit too much to
drink at dinner because I was travelingwith her in her husband and a little
bit too. So I left dinnerearly and I had walked back to my
(24:37):
hotel room and here I am andmy aunt, one of my aunts,
was also not at the wedding becauseshe her husband was sick. My uncle
was very sick, and they couldn'ttravel. And so now I'm on the
phone with them, and they wereforever, she was forever looking at businesses,
and she says to me the nameof this business, And just because
(25:00):
I'm laying in bed, I'm onthe phone. I've got my laptop.
I looked it up and I'm like, ah, Now, this was something
I could see me doing, andshe wanted me to move to Vegas and
do it with her. I didn'tdo that, but I did buy that
franchise. That was the one thatinstinctively dropped in because it was a new
(25:23):
franchise I would be out in theworld. It was senior relocation in a
state liquidation, so it was thesame market as the long term care insurance.
Right. I felt I had thisstory in my head that I would
already know how to do this becauseof a very narrow attachment that I evidently
created, but it was building abusiness and it wasn't tied nine to five.
(25:47):
It was much more flexible. Itwasn't a physical location. I wouldn't
have to take out a loan,right like, there was some things in
there. Then I'm like okay,And so that's what I ended up doing
when I left corporate. Was Ipurchased that franchise and how did like bring
(26:08):
you to doing branding and helping businessstrategy. So what happened was because of
my business background in corporate, becauseof my MBA, I got my office,
my franchise to the top ten outof two hundred offices in eighteen months.
And so the franchise ventulations thank youand the franchise or would I would
(26:37):
I would get hired by the franchiseor to train new franchises. They would
buy their offices, they could comespend a week with me. I would
teach them how to do it.I was also speaking at the franchise events
on how I was doing it.And then when I was involved in networking,
I would want to give a presentationwhen it was my turn to prison
(27:00):
vent at the networking events about mybusiness and they were like yeah, yeah,
yeah, we know, why areyou doing so well? Teach us
that? And after a couple yearsof that, you know, it's kind
of like getting hit over the head. I'm like, Okay, even though
my franchise was doing well, therewere parts about it that I was realizing,
(27:21):
we're not for me again. Ihad stopped learning. I kind of
figured it out. I didn't wantto play with it anymore. And at
the same time, I'm helping allof my networking friends grow their businesses.
I'm helping all of my vendors growtheir businesses, and that's what people are
coming to me for. And that'swhere I'm getting excited, and that's where
(27:45):
I'm having an even bigger impact thanwhat my business did. And so at
the end of what twenty seventeen,I tried to do both at this for
a while didn't work. The universe, you know, you try to make
the change in your verse goes nono, no, no no, right,
And so I tried to do both. That didn't work, And so
by the end of twenty seventeen,I'm like, Okay, if I'm going
(28:07):
to do this, I have tomake a break. And then I called
twenty eighteen errands, you're a failurethough. Truthfully, so I went from
this big, fancy corporate job withall these accolades and bonuses and things,
to this franchise where again great greatsuccess, external accolades, awards, financial
rewards. And then in twenty eighteenI made eleven thousand dollars. So that
(28:32):
was fun, and looking back now, I've had somebody helped me reframe that.
It really was more of a repositioningand figuring out what I wanted to
do more than You're right. Ididn't have a clear enough picture. So
twenty eighteen was really spent not necessarilymaking money, but figuring it out.
And then twenty nineteen is when wecreated, when I created Conquer Your Business,
(28:55):
where I really now just focus onbusiness and randing strategies, the marketing,
the business strategy. How do wegrow, how do I kind of
my own story right, how dowe help how do we help people come
out of corporate and get through allthe trials and tribulations in that transition to
(29:18):
entrepreneurship, but also how do wehelp solopreneurs get over the bridge in a
business owner? How do we thinkthose transitions? Absolutely, and that's powerful.
So let's say there's someone in corporatethey're thinking about leaving the corporate to
start out their own business. Whatare three to five things they should be
(29:40):
thinking about. I think you know, to shortcut the learning curve right to
give you a chance at us.One of the things humans do that messes
us up is we have very muchall or nothing thinking, and that's not
actually how things work. You cantake like, if you are in a
(30:03):
situation now, you can do itthe way I did it. I just
jumped off the cliff. I justleft. But I also don't have children,
I was renting, I didn't havea mortgage, I didn't have certain
risks that I know not everyone's inthat situation. So if you're in a
situation where you're a little bit mostpeople are more risk adverse than I am.
(30:25):
Right, get but if you needto take you know you there's so
much you could be doing on theside, in your extra hours, to
be setting to be laying the groundwork, to be setting yourself up for success
that it doesn't have to be allor nothing. And I think right,
(30:45):
So instead of looking at it asa problem, instead of looking at while
I have a full time job soI can't do my business, Instead of
looking at that as a problem,ask yourself, Okay, in a world
of infinite possibilities, how could whatcould I do right? What step could
I make right? So break yourselfout of the all or nothing thinking so
(31:06):
that you don't mess yourself up.The second thing is be prepared for everything
you know about business to be wrong, it to just be wrong. Because
there's two things being in corporate helpyou with when you become an entrepreneur.
Number one, delegation, right,we don't try to do all the things
(31:29):
incorporate, right. I have theweb guy, I have the finance guy.
I don't try to do it allmyself, so that helps you.
Number two work ethic. We're usedto working a full day. So those
two things will help you. Andbasically everything else you know about business will
kill you as an entrepreneur, becausecorporate is right. Corporate is completely risk
adverse, but entrepreneurship, your successis tied to how much risk you can
(31:53):
handle without passing out. And you'retrue and right. So what really resonated
with me was it's not all ournothing thinking. Yes, because a lot
of people like, oh, yeah, you know, I'm passionate about it,
and yes, you're passionate about something, but passionate. Being passionate doesn't
(32:17):
mean that you can't be pragmatic too. Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
And the other thing is one ofthe mistakes that I watch people make is
not everything you do has to earnyour money. Not everything you do has
to earn you money. And I'mvery glad that I didn't go down the
(32:39):
route of doggy daycare because then mypassion for volunteering at animal rescue might not
be what it is, right,Not everything you do has to make you
money, and that's really a bigthing that you mentioned. So going back
to like of things that you mentioned, one was that doing things is important,
(33:09):
but it's also important to know thatyou don't have to do everything because
you're not good at everything. Sothe key thing is what I'm hearing,
is that do what you're good atand form it out to other people that
they're good at, because you know, when you play things that you're playing
at, it's play and it keepsyour passion going. Otherwise passion drives off.
(33:30):
And also, as you mentioned,it does not have to be money
for everything. You can do someof the things as impact creation, especially
the example that you shared about volunteeringwith dogs, or it could be meals
on wheels, anything that you have, you can still do it. There's
(33:51):
nothing there to stop you. Sothese are like really good points. So
let's say, okay, people havethought through, people have some clarity,
they're putting in that additional work,and now they started building the business.
What would be the next steps.There becomes a time where you have to
get if you really want to builda business. It's the clarity around knowing
(34:15):
what type of business you want.And there's no wrong answers. I'm a
big fan of. If you justwant to hobby, hot side, hustle,
more power to you, but chooseit. Don't settle for it.
Too many people settle for the sizebusiness they have because they can't figure out
how to get what they want,so they settle for what is handed to
(34:39):
them. So whatever it is thatyou want, it's perfectly fine as long
as you're choosing it. So atsome point, if you want a big
business, you have to learn howto get out of launch mode and into
leveraged mode. Right the way thatI describe businesses, there's like three stages
(35:00):
launching, leveraging, and leading,and how do you transition from one to
the other, and it doesn't haveto be all at once. It doesn't
have to be all at once.But you have to realize that if your
business is all in your head,not but you're imagining it, but everything
that happens is internally you're so thebusiness is so dependent on you, you
(35:23):
end up pigeonholing yourself. That's whenyou burn out. That's when you don't
get downtime, that's when you've cappedyour income and learning how to, especially
women, that your business is notabout you. Your business is not about
you. Your business is about theclient. And the more you can realize
(35:44):
that your business is not about you, you'll be better at it. You'll
be willing to risk more because itwon't be so tied to all of those
things we talked about that the storyis from childhood, the fear of failure.
The closer that's tied to you,the harder time you're going to have.
(36:05):
So true, and it's about servingyour clients to succeed. So that's
a really really important point because whenyou keep the focus on you, then
it's very hard to continue objectively andprevent the bone out. So the key
is working on business, not workingin business. You mentioned three things,
(36:30):
launch, leverage, and lead.Could you shed some light on each three
of the steps. Sure, andyou can be at different steps under different
categories within your business. So Iconsider launching mode anything that's not yet been
(36:51):
systemized, so you're still figuring thatpiece out, which means we go back
to launch mode. If we havea new offer, we're launching the new
offer. Right, we go backto launch mode. When we have excuse
me, an expanded team, we'regoing we're figuring. So launching something is
(37:15):
the figuring it out phase tried,Yeah, it's not. It's not bedded
yet, or you're recreating the wheelevery time you do it, So you
might be selling the same thing overand over and over again. But if
you haven't systematized the delivery of itautomated, right, If you haven't leveraged
(37:43):
right, because that's the next step. If you haven't gotten to the point
where you if you're at the pointwhere you're trading dollars for hours, you're
still at the launched stage, andthen you move into leveraged. And leveraged
is what happens. You have tomove into leveraging your resources when you've run
out of hours in the days anddays in the week when you can no
(38:07):
longer make more money because you areout of time, you have to learn
how to move into leveraging your resources, leveraging teams, leveraging marketing, leveraging
your time. That's beautiful because letme tell you, like, that's a
(38:29):
good problem to have, and it'simportant going It's an important to refer to
the earlier point when you talked aboutsystematization, because that's where when companies are
scaling up fail because they don't haveprocesses and systems. And because they don't
now they're working in business, andthen they become the roadblock to their business
(38:54):
subscrib and the business building up.Yeah, always the roadblock. And here's
the thing. People think that there'sa dollar amount associated with this face,
and that's not actually true. Iwork with people making with a million dollar
business who have no client acquisition system. So their back end, right,
(39:16):
the back end is systemized, butthe front end isn't because they're just getting
their business through networking or one toone relationships. Now not necessarily a problem.
You just have to really recognize that'swhere you are. And that also
means the business is still dependent uponyou. As an individual. That's not
(39:38):
sellable. By the way, youcan't sell a business when the entire business
is dependent on you as a humanto be their twenty free seven definitely doesn't
work perfect, right, so youcan have million. You know, there's
large CPA firms, architectures, lawyerswho are one, two, three million
(40:01):
dollar businesses that don't actually have thefront end of their business systematized. There's
no client they've never had to doa client acquisition system. So now people
have systematized, and as you mentioned, it's never fully done because anytime you're
bringing in a new product, newservice, opening up a new branch,
(40:22):
you will be doing some portions ofit. These are just different segments of
running a business. So let's talkabout leading. When you have a team,
that's such a beautiful phase to bein. Great. Yeah, leading
is when you get to really stepinto CEO role of thinker not doer,
(40:45):
and leading is when you set theoutcomes and the team creates the processes and
does the work to meet those outcomes. Right. It really and again different
(41:07):
phases. You could be leading atsimple parts of your business but still launching
at other parts, but leading createleading requires full on letting go hmm,
full on letting go, and leadingrequires that team processes the whole miners absolutely,
(41:34):
and leading is so beautiful because youhave empowered other members of your team
to step in and grow to beyou come into their own and start leading.
And now when they lead, ofcourse there's succession, planning and all
that. That's a topic for anotherday. And I also just real quick,
(41:58):
real quick. I think one ofthe reasons people get stuck is they
see leading as a challenge and ahard thing to do instead of an opportunity
and an empowering Like going back tofull circle where I was always told I
could have whatever I wanted, Ijust needed to go do it myself and
seeing that as an empowerment and nota chip on my shoulder. Same thing
(42:22):
with leading. Instead of looking atthe team and thinking, oh my god,
I gotta hire someone, Oh mygod, I gotta train somebody,
oh my god, I gotta managesomebody. What if instead you saw it
as empowering people to have their dreamjob within your company, right, all
of a sudden, leading is notso bad. Oh yeah, Leading is
so beautiful because leading means and Ialways say that servant leadership, you are
(42:47):
there to empower somebody else. You'rethere to create that impact, and that
is so beautiful. I love thatshare with us. How can people get
in contact with you? You've givenus a lot of different areas to think
(43:07):
about and a lot of nuggets thatpeople can take and run with it.
So how can people get in touchwith you? How can they connect with
you? If they're thinking about startingtheir business or scaling their business, or
creating that story as you mentioned forthemselves, how can they go about it?
(43:30):
We make it real easy. It'sreally easy. Conquer your Business dot
com. We put everything you needin one place. You can find my
podcast there, you can find allour social links there, you can find
contact form there. Everything is allin one place at Conquer your Business dot
Com. Well, that's fantastic,Garen. And if you were to leave
(43:52):
our listeners with one or two tipsthat they can take them right now and
implement them, what might that be? Reverse engineering? Every every every single
thing is reverse engineered. The whatdo you got to start with? What
you want? What do you want? You can't you have no idea what
(44:14):
you need to do until you knowwhat it is you're trying to accomplish.
So it sounds easy. I totallyget it's not a necessarily an easy question
to answer. But what do Iwant? What do I want to happen?
What do I want to have happened? What am I trying to create
and then reverse engineer? Okay,what has to happen to get there?
(44:35):
Who do I need to be toget it there? And what do I
need to believe in order for itto happen? And there's your plan,
there's your roadmap. That's beautiful.Well, thank you so much for joining
us and sharing your wisdom, apass and your story and being vulnerable.
I'm sure that our listeners are goingto get so much value out of our
(44:58):
today's conversation. Awesome. Thank youso much for having me. It's always
great to chat with you. Absolutely, Thank you again, and listeners,
thank you for joining us because withoutyou, the show would not be possible.
And do reach out to us andlet us know what you're thinking about
(45:21):
our podcasts, different episodes and whocan be bring, what we can bring
so that you know how to livethe life that you deserve. How can
we serve you to the best ofour ability? So thank you for joining
us, and thank you one formaking the show technically possible and until next
(45:42):
time, be well and take care. Thank you for being part of Beyond
Confidence with your host, Devia Park, we hope you have learned more about
how to start living the life youwant. Each week on Beyond Confidence,
you hear stories of real people who'veexperienced growth by overcoming their fears and holding
meaningful relationships. During Beyond Confidence,Divia Park shares what happened to her when
(46:05):
she stepped out of her comfort zoneto work directly with people across the globe.
She not only coaches people how toform hard connections, but also transform
relationships to mutually beneficial partnerships as theystrive to live the life they want.
If you are ready to live thelife you want and leverage your strengths,
learn more at www dot dvapark dotcom and you can connect with Diva at
(46:28):
contact at dvapark dot com. Welook forward to you joining us next week.
The topics and opinions expressed on thefollowing show are solely those of the hosts
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We make no recommendations or endorsement forradio show programs, services, or
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(00:24):
Radio. This is Beyond Confidence withyour host Dvaparnk. Do you want to
live a more fulfilling life? Doyou want to live your legacy and achieve
your personal, professional, and financialgoals? Well? Coming up on Diva
Park's Beyond Confidence, you will hearreal stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and
achievers who have stepped into discomfort,shanner their status quo, and are living
(00:47):
the life they want. You willlearn how relationships are the key to achieving
your aspirations and financial goals. Movingyour career business forward does not have to
happen at the expense of your personalor family life, or vice versa.
Learn more www dot dvapark dot comand you can connect with div D contact
dapark dot com. This is beyondconfidence and now here's your host, d
(01:10):
A. Park. Hello, Hello, Hello, It's Tuesday morning, and
I am so thrilled to be herewith you. Why because it's always you
are the soul of my show andto be with you is the best thing
because you are so important to me. And also I want to thank each
(01:30):
and every one of you who hasreached out to us and shared what kind
of stories do you want us togrowing, which experts to growing and how
we can support you to live abetter life. And also thank you to
all of you who have purchased mybooks. You can see couple of those
in the bag. Expert to Influencerand the Entrepreneur's Gotten and they will help
(01:56):
you, especially if you're an entrepreneuror even if you're looking to build those
nine relationships, whether it's with moneyor with results or with yourself entrepreneurs,
Goden will help you. An expertto influencer will help you to become that
influencer that is like a rising tidethat lifts all boats. It's about the
(02:16):
impact, It's not about the numbers. It's not about the likes you get,
it's about impacting even one person.So if you've not got the books,
please get it, because when youpurchase those books, your investment helps
us help the entrepreneurs all across theglobe. And I'm sure you'll remember,
(02:39):
I'm still inviting you to spend thatone hour of your time every month,
with no strings attached, helping otherpeople, keeping that kindness circle going.
So let's go ahead and get started. I'm going to bring in our guest
erin Marcas Malcolm. Aaron, Hello, thank you so much for having me.
(03:05):
I'm excited to be chatting with you. This is awesome. Oh,
excited to have you here. So, Aaron, we usually started the beginning.
Do you recall any moment from yourchildhood that still stands out for you
today? Oh, my gosh,moments that stand out. What's funny when
you say that is there's nothing inmy childhood that stands out. Just keeping
(03:30):
this related to now that I wouldend up where I am right. I
didn't have an entrepreneur environment. Ididn't have a business owner environment. I
grew up blue collar in Chicago.My dad was a cop, my mom
was a hairdresser. Like just geta job and stay there would have been
(03:51):
very right, would have been great. And so I definitely, you know,
my young childhood fun all sorts ofthings, dogs, vacations, teenage
years. I was, I callit now, a professional juvenile delinquent.
I use the term professional because Imade money at it. You can argue
(04:15):
whether that was bad parenting or badchild I can't blame them for everything,
that's for sure, but something thatstands out, I think it's more if
I had to really stay like again, kind of relating it to where I
am now. One of the themesthat I from my childhood that I think
(04:36):
helps me now is knowing that Ihad to be in charge. Not I
had to be, but everybody shouldbe in charge of their own endgame like
that. If you're not making decisionsfor you, you're giving away that power
to people who are not vested inyou. So I always felt like I
(04:59):
could do whatever I want and Icould have whatever I want, but it
also always knew that I was goingto have to get there myself, not
in any negative way, not witha chip on my shoulder, but more
of a norm like, Okay,just go do it, that's what you
want that's great, Go do it. You have to make it happen.
So I think that theme is alot of what stands out in my childhood.
(05:25):
Well, as you mentioned that youtook it very beautifully, you did
not take it somewhere like oh,that's a chip on my shoulder and I'm
going to use it as a crutchrather than that, how can I keep
my power? Yeah, it wasnever I think that's because it was modeled
(05:49):
to me as an opportunity. Itwasn't modeled as a bad thing. This
whole idea that you have to advocatefor yourself, and truthfully it comes out
of health issues as a child andwatching my mother advocate for me instead of
sitting back and waiting to see whatsomeone else might want to do or might
(06:10):
think is the right idea. WhenI was a teenager and wanted money,
she said, great, you canhave all the money you want. Go
get a job, right, Like, how do you do that? We'll
see that street there with all thestories on it, Go into each and
every one of them and ask themin they're hiring until one of them says
(06:31):
yes, oh okay. You know. I wasn't happy about that, but
I did it and so it wasnever illustrated to me that having to take
care of yourself was anything except normal. Well, it's really great if you
kind of think about it, becauseso many it's very interesting. Recently I
(06:56):
was just kind of work with acohort on intergenerational communication, and it has
become very apparent that a lot ofzgen expect their parents to take care of
certain things for them, even intheir twenties. So and then what happens
is it allows for some growth insome areas, and in some areas it
(07:21):
miditer growth. So in your case, so there's no right or wrong for
anything basically, and yet like inyour case, it pushed you and okay,
hey, you want to create yourfuture. You want to create X,
Y and Z, go do it. And it shifted back the responsibility
(07:41):
and the power back to you.Yeah. And it also the other thing
it does is it creates self trust. Right because I want to go do
the things, all right, Iwant to go make money. I have
to get a job. So Igot a job, and I made money
and I got to spend that moneyhowever I wanted to. So again just
(08:05):
because that's who we are, thisframework of business owner, entrepreneur I think
doing that for so many years allowsme to take risk now, to go
for something bigger now, because thething that I know is I'll always be
okay, because I'll just always takecare of myself because I always did,
(08:26):
and again not with a chip onmy shoulder, but just because it was
normal. And going back to yourcomment about gen Z and the younger generations
that expect their parents to take careof certain things for them, like these
parents aren't doing their kids any favors, like can't blame the kids, they
(08:50):
didn't raise themselves. Like Okay,now you're an adult, you have to
decide do you still want to stayin that situation? And I remember you
want to laugh, Like I rememberwhen I turned six teen, when I
got my driver's license, I wantedto be able to drive the car and
it was my mom's car that sheused ninety percent of the time. So
in order to even have access tothe car, not my own car,
(09:13):
but in order to have access tothe car that was seldom available to me,
my mother's car insurance went up.This was crazy, by forty dollars
a month in nineteen eighty six.Do you know how much money that was?
I mean, right, my mom, Oh my god, my mom.
To have me on her insurance costan extra forty dollars a month.
(09:37):
So in order to even be allowedto use the car if it was available,
I had to pay that forty dollarsa month. And actually, what
you're telling is something that was verynormal for our generation. They're so for
example, like you know, whenI was using one of the vehicles,
(09:58):
I had to pay for the guests. So in my case, if insurance
was covered, but I had tocover the guests. And when you're doing
that, then you learn to appreciatemore. And because of internet and social
media, everything is so much runninginto instant gratification. So coming back to
(10:20):
your story, you know you mentionedsomething about professional juvenile delinquent. Can you
expand on that. I was abad kid, right, we made money
doing illegal things. But the otherthe part of that though I was in
Chicago, first of all, Ialways grew up in the city in the
seventies and eighties, and looking atthe situation now and watching, first of
(10:48):
all, when we have reunions,a lot of us talk about it's amazing
how well a lot of us aredoing all things considered. Huh, isn't
that interesting, But the activities thatwe were involved in were usually not harming
(11:09):
people who weren't choosing to be apart of those activities. So I think
that's a difference versus what you seenow with jobs downtown and steal it,
you know, just destroying. Wewere we weren't being good kids, but
we weren't being a menace to societytype of situation. But the other thing
(11:33):
is, and maybe it's because Idon't have kids, I do still tend
to relate to that story versus theparental version of the story, where I
think, if your kids managed toget through teens and young adulthood without doing
anything so horrible that it do completelydo rails them, what's the big you
(11:56):
know, really it isn't really wellfor themselves. I agree, like there's
a line between Okay, this wasn'tbehavior, but it also really does it
really have lifelong consequences? No?Then why are we making such a huge
deal out of every little thing?So true? So true? And that's
(12:22):
another thing that I've seen a lotof parents putting that pressure on youngsters that
you can do this, you cando that, and you've got to achieve
this, and you've got to achievethat, So that has repercussions of its
own. So moving the story forward, as you said that, you know
you had your escapades, but nothingthat I gotta say something like, you
(12:48):
know, as teenagers, we allmake mistakes and as you mentioned, that's
how we learn, that's how youlearn. And I think you know the
plus a negative. The plus sideis there was no social media, so
there's no proof. There's no proofof any of this. I don't I
don't have a police record. Itnever got to that point, so there's
(13:11):
no proof of this. But theother thing is the lack of allowing failure
creates fear of failure, intensity overevery little thing, having to be perfect,
having to be the top of whateverit is, creates this fear of
(13:33):
failure, and fear of failure createsfear of trying. Yeah, and that
takes us to the risk, Likeso many youngsters are afraid to take risks
because as you mentioned, it's abovebus on being perfect. Especially social media
has created this fake facade that oh, yes, like because mostly people will
(13:58):
take the selfies they're they're looking good, they're they're having like a dinner at
a really good restaurant when they're outon vacationing or you know, when it's
something really good happening. So itappears that everybody is doing so well,
and that's not the reality because mostpeople have something going wrong for them each
and every single day. So comingin of that, yeah, did your
(14:26):
life take you beyond your eye years? So I went to college right after
high school, which not because ofmy grades, because back then it was
easier to get in college, justbecause I tested literally tested into it.
And then it got more interesting,right like school got more interesting. I
was surrounded by people who were doingexcited about doing things within their classes as
(14:50):
opposed to externally. And it wasreally what I ended up doing for most
of my career was just having areally good work ethic. Right. I
never was one of those people who, like, I think it's an absolute
miracle that's someone at nine years old, I want to do this, and
(15:11):
then they set out to do itand then they actually do it, Like
I never knew what did I reallywant to do? So what I did
do, though, was I hada very good work ethic and I would
do a good job. And everytime I would do a good job,
it would open the next door leadto the next promotion and the other thing
that I did at the same time. Now there's labels for it. It
(15:33):
didn't need it didn't need a labelback in the nineties to tell me to
quit every job I hated. Butif I wasn't happy, I left.
If I wasn't happy, if Ididn't feel that there was an opportunity,
I found my next job. Andmy success at job A either led to
a promotion or it led to abetter job at the next company. And
(15:58):
I did that for several years.And what was the area that you were
working in? Where did that startin? It's so weird, like when
you look at back, my lifeis very segmented. So I started out
just because you got to get ajob out of school. I actually started
out in property management large apartment complexes. And I started out there because I
(16:19):
did it as a child. Mymom was a beautician when I was little,
but then she became a leasing agentin downtown Chicago, and as a
kid, I would go to workwith her on the weekends and help because
that's what we did, right,Like you go to work with your parents
and you help you do their job. You do the job. So I
had jobs as a child, whichis hysterical ten years old. Here go
(16:41):
show this vacant apartment on the thirtiethfloor to this forty year old man would
possibly go wrong, like you wouldn'tdo that now, But I helped.
And so when I needed to geta job when I graduated college, I'm
like, well, I already knowhow to do that. I've been doing
it since I was ten. Andso I applied for a job in as
a leasing agent. I got ajob, and I just moved up in
(17:03):
a property management and bigger and biggerand bigger apartment complexes. And I laugh,
you know, at fifty three yearsold now looking back at twenty six
year old me. Then who intheir right mind put twenty six year old
erin in charge of their multimillion dollarassetists the manager? Right? But that's
what happened. It eventually led tocommercial real estate, and that eventually led
(17:29):
to where I really had a bigcareer was in financial services. But the
theme was always marketing and sales.Marketing and zoos, do a good job,
step up, learn more, helpmore, be interested, take action.
Right. So what I'm hearing isthat your life traversed through a lot
(17:51):
of corporate venues and how did thetransition occur? What was that toning point
that made you go from being corporatedto becoming an all So my ultimate career
was I was there for twelve years. My fancy title before I left was
senior vice president of business Development,and that was at the largest long term
care insurance only wholesaler in the country. So I was putting together these regional
(18:15):
and national deals with manufacturers of insurancemet Life, John Worth, John Hancock,
and then the people who sold it, the banks and the broker dealers.
And I had amazing people that Iworked with, Absolutely amazing people that
I worked with who exposed me tothings way above my pregrade. That I
got an MBA while while I wasin that company, right, So huge
(18:38):
exposure to big business, right,corporate level business, multiple million dollar deals,
things like that. And when Iwas it's really weird when I was
I don't know why this happened,but when I was about thirty nine,
forty years old, I started tofeel weird about what I was doing because
(19:00):
as the company gets bigger, yourjob gets smaller. So I was doing
a less variety of things and I'mwatching this business again with people that I
loved in a company that was amazing, but I was watching what it started
to feel very contrived, like itwas being made complex in order for more
(19:25):
people to make a nickel in theprocess. And I think we're way down
the rabbit hole on that and somany of our industries in this country that
the reason things are so expensive isbecause everybody wants to make a nickel in
the process, and so things getvery, very complex. And I was
watching that happen, and as thatwas happening, I was getting further and
(19:45):
further and further removed from having animpact or feeling that I was having an
impact on anything, not because ofanything anyone was doing wrong, but just
by the nature of companies. Soat the same time, I was getting
a little older, and I'm startingto feel like I want something for me
(20:07):
right. There was a couple ofthings that I had been involved in where
we had been planning and working ona project for six months, nine months
a year, and then someone inthe someone in there decides to change their
path and buy buy project and soand it just felt very like I wasn't
in control of my situation. Iwas subjected to what other people were going
(20:33):
to decide, not in a badway, but just not in control,
which, as we established in mychildhood, was kind of a thing,
and feeling like I wasn't having animpact, feeling like I'm now old enough
where i have some information in myhead where I've got some experiences, I
want to go do something different,And so is this mixture of boredom,
(20:56):
constant striving to learn new things,no longer seeing a path where I was,
even though the people were amazing,and it took a little while,
but I'm like, all right,what if I didn't have a job anymore?
What if it was my thing?Abject horrifying right, Well, it's
(21:19):
hard to break those golden handcuffs.Yes, oh yeah, and I had
the expense account and the big income, the whole nine yards. Absolutely absolutely
yeah. So when he started thinkingabout it, what fears did you face
and how did you transition out?So I couldn't figure out what I wanted
(21:45):
to do. That was one ofthe first things I say, I didn't
know what I wanted to do.And it actually took me probably two years
while I still had that job,where between the time that idea started floating
in the back of my mind andactually doing some thing because I couldn't.
And at the time, the twothings that I was way, way,
way into was dogs because I volunteeredevery week at a dog rescue. I
(22:08):
grew up with dogs, I wastraining dogs, lots of things around dogs.
And then the other thing in mylife was working out physical fitness,
personal training. I had done bodybuildingand powerlifting. Those are the two things
in my world. And I'm like, Okay, well what if I did
a business in either one of those, because those were the two things I
(22:30):
knew a ton about and I absolutelyloved, and so I did look in
those arenas like, well, whatif I was a personal trainer, Well,
what if I bought a gym?Well what if I had a doggy
daycare? And I what if Ihad dog kennels and grooming? And I
had some visions of what that wouldlook like. But one of the things
(22:52):
I knew was I didn't want tobe tied to a physical building from sun
up to sundown. Like I knewI needed more variety than that in my
environment. And I'm happy I nevertook action on only those two things because
to me, that was still goingto be very it was going to be
(23:12):
a very small world. It wasgoing to be my own world, but
I somehow in the back of mymind felt it was still going to be
a very small world. And whichmakes sense because here you are. You
were tied to a nine to fivejob in your previous company anyway, and
(23:33):
you didn't want to go from sameto same. So how did you come
to doing the online entrepreneurship that you'redoing right now? Well, there was
a step in between. So Iwas in Potomac, Maryland, beautiful,
beautiful place if you haven't been.I was in Potomac, Maryland traveling with
(23:53):
my mother and my stepdad to goto my cousin's wedding. And I was
on all sorts of medication because Ihad been very, very very sick before
this, and so I was stillrecovering. Very small wedding. There was
only like thirty five to small familywedding. But I'm traveling with my mother
and her husband, great people,but still you get the boy right,
(24:15):
Not easy, and I don't feelgood and I'm way too many people even
though there's only thirty five of us, right, because there's all these activities
and I had left dinner. Ialso had a little bit too much to
drink at dinner because I was travelingwith her in her husband and a little
bit too. So I left dinnerearly and I had walked back to my
(24:37):
hotel room and here I am andmy aunt, one of my aunts,
was also not at the wedding becauseshe her husband was sick. My uncle
was very sick, and they couldn'ttravel. And so now I'm on the
phone with them, and they wereforever, she was forever looking at businesses,
and she says to me the nameof this business, And just because
(25:00):
I'm laying in bed, I'm onthe phone. I've got my laptop.
I looked it up and I'm like, ah, Now, this was something
I could see me doing, andshe wanted me to move to Vegas and
do it with her. I didn'tdo that, but I did buy that
franchise. That was the one thatinstinctively dropped in because it was a new
(25:23):
franchise I would be out in theworld. It was senior relocation in a
state liquidation, so it was thesame market as the long term care insurance.
Right. I felt I had thisstory in my head that I would
already know how to do this becauseof a very narrow attachment that I evidently
created, but it was building abusiness and it wasn't tied nine to five.
(25:47):
It was much more flexible. Itwasn't a physical location. I wouldn't
have to take out a loan,right like, there was some things in
there. Then I'm like okay,And so that's what I ended up doing
when I left corporate. Was Ipurchased that franchise and how did like bring
(26:08):
you to doing branding and helping businessstrategy. So what happened was because of
my business background in corporate, becauseof my MBA, I got my office,
my franchise to the top ten outof two hundred offices in eighteen months.
And so the franchise ventulations thank youand the franchise or would I would
(26:37):
I would get hired by the franchiseor to train new franchises. They would
buy their offices, they could comespend a week with me. I would
teach them how to do it.I was also speaking at the franchise events
on how I was doing it.And then when I was involved in networking,
I would want to give a presentationwhen it was my turn to prison
(27:00):
vent at the networking events about mybusiness and they were like yeah, yeah,
yeah, we know, why areyou doing so well? Teach us
that? And after a couple yearsof that, you know, it's kind
of like getting hit over the head. I'm like, Okay, even though
my franchise was doing well, therewere parts about it that I was realizing,
(27:21):
we're not for me again. Ihad stopped learning. I kind of
figured it out. I didn't wantto play with it anymore. And at
the same time, I'm helping allof my networking friends grow their businesses.
I'm helping all of my vendors growtheir businesses, and that's what people are
coming to me for. And that'swhere I'm getting excited, and that's where
(27:45):
I'm having an even bigger impact thanwhat my business did. And so at
the end of what twenty seventeen,I tried to do both at this for
a while didn't work. The universe, you know, you try to make
the change in your verse goes nono, no, no no, right,
And so I tried to do both. That didn't work, And so
by the end of twenty seventeen,I'm like, Okay, if I'm going
(28:07):
to do this, I have tomake a break. And then I called
twenty eighteen errands, you're a failurethough. Truthfully, so I went from
this big, fancy corporate job withall these accolades and bonuses and things,
to this franchise where again great greatsuccess, external accolades, awards, financial
rewards. And then in twenty eighteenI made eleven thousand dollars. So that
(28:32):
was fun, and looking back now, I've had somebody helped me reframe that.
It really was more of a repositioningand figuring out what I wanted to
do more than You're right. Ididn't have a clear enough picture. So
twenty eighteen was really spent not necessarilymaking money, but figuring it out.
And then twenty nineteen is when wecreated, when I created Conquer Your Business,
(28:55):
where I really now just focus onbusiness and randing strategies, the marketing,
the business strategy. How do wegrow, how do I kind of
my own story right, how dowe help how do we help people come
out of corporate and get through allthe trials and tribulations in that transition to
(29:18):
entrepreneurship, but also how do wehelp solopreneurs get over the bridge in a
business owner? How do we thinkthose transitions? Absolutely, and that's powerful.
So let's say there's someone in corporatethey're thinking about leaving the corporate to
start out their own business. Whatare three to five things they should be
(29:40):
thinking about. I think you know, to shortcut the learning curve right to
give you a chance at us.One of the things humans do that messes
us up is we have very muchall or nothing thinking, and that's not
actually how things work. You cantake like, if you are in a
(30:03):
situation now, you can do itthe way I did it. I just
jumped off the cliff. I justleft. But I also don't have children,
I was renting, I didn't havea mortgage, I didn't have certain
risks that I know not everyone's inthat situation. So if you're in a
situation where you're a little bit mostpeople are more risk adverse than I am.
(30:25):
Right, get but if you needto take you know you there's so
much you could be doing on theside, in your extra hours, to
be setting to be laying the groundwork, to be setting yourself up for success
that it doesn't have to be allor nothing. And I think right,
(30:45):
So instead of looking at it asa problem, instead of looking at while
I have a full time job soI can't do my business, Instead of
looking at that as a problem,ask yourself, Okay, in a world
of infinite possibilities, how could whatcould I do right? What step could
I make right? So break yourselfout of the all or nothing thinking so
(31:06):
that you don't mess yourself up.The second thing is be prepared for everything
you know about business to be wrong, it to just be wrong. Because
there's two things being in corporate helpyou with when you become an entrepreneur.
Number one, delegation, right,we don't try to do all the things
(31:29):
incorporate, right. I have theweb guy, I have the finance guy.
I don't try to do it allmyself, so that helps you.
Number two work ethic. We're usedto working a full day. So those
two things will help you. Andbasically everything else you know about business will
kill you as an entrepreneur, becausecorporate is right. Corporate is completely risk
adverse, but entrepreneurship, your successis tied to how much risk you can
(31:53):
handle without passing out. And you'retrue and right. So what really resonated
with me was it's not all ournothing thinking. Yes, because a lot
of people like, oh, yeah, you know, I'm passionate about it,
and yes, you're passionate about something, but passionate. Being passionate doesn't
(32:17):
mean that you can't be pragmatic too. Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
And the other thing is one ofthe mistakes that I watch people make is
not everything you do has to earnyour money. Not everything you do has
to earn you money. And I'mvery glad that I didn't go down the
(32:39):
route of doggy daycare because then mypassion for volunteering at animal rescue might not
be what it is, right,Not everything you do has to make you
money, and that's really a bigthing that you mentioned. So going back
to like of things that you mentioned, one was that doing things is important,
(33:09):
but it's also important to know thatyou don't have to do everything because
you're not good at everything. Sothe key thing is what I'm hearing,
is that do what you're good atand form it out to other people that
they're good at, because you know, when you play things that you're playing
at, it's play and it keepsyour passion going. Otherwise passion drives off.
(33:30):
And also, as you mentioned,it does not have to be money
for everything. You can do someof the things as impact creation, especially
the example that you shared about volunteeringwith dogs, or it could be meals
on wheels, anything that you have, you can still do it. There's
(33:51):
nothing there to stop you. Sothese are like really good points. So
let's say, okay, people havethought through, people have some clarity,
they're putting in that additional work,and now they started building the business.
What would be the next steps.There becomes a time where you have to
get if you really want to builda business. It's the clarity around knowing
(34:15):
what type of business you want.And there's no wrong answers. I'm a
big fan of. If you justwant to hobby, hot side, hustle,
more power to you, but chooseit. Don't settle for it.
Too many people settle for the sizebusiness they have because they can't figure out
how to get what they want,so they settle for what is handed to
(34:39):
them. So whatever it is thatyou want, it's perfectly fine as long
as you're choosing it. So atsome point, if you want a big
business, you have to learn howto get out of launch mode and into
leveraged mode. Right the way thatI describe businesses, there's like three stages
(35:00):
launching, leveraging, and leading,and how do you transition from one to
the other, and it doesn't haveto be all at once. It doesn't
have to be all at once.But you have to realize that if your
business is all in your head,not but you're imagining it, but everything
that happens is internally you're so thebusiness is so dependent on you, you
(35:23):
end up pigeonholing yourself. That's whenyou burn out. That's when you don't
get downtime, that's when you've cappedyour income and learning how to, especially
women, that your business is notabout you. Your business is not about
you. Your business is about theclient. And the more you can realize
(35:44):
that your business is not about you, you'll be better at it. You'll
be willing to risk more because itwon't be so tied to all of those
things we talked about that the storyis from childhood, the fear of failure.
The closer that's tied to you,the harder time you're going to have.
(36:05):
So true, and it's about servingyour clients to succeed. So that's
a really really important point because whenyou keep the focus on you, then
it's very hard to continue objectively andprevent the bone out. So the key
is working on business, not workingin business. You mentioned three things,
(36:30):
launch, leverage, and lead.Could you shed some light on each three
of the steps. Sure, andyou can be at different steps under different
categories within your business. So Iconsider launching mode anything that's not yet been
(36:51):
systemized, so you're still figuring thatpiece out, which means we go back
to launch mode. If we havea new offer, we're launching the new
offer. Right, we go backto launch mode. When we have excuse
me, an expanded team, we'regoing we're figuring. So launching something is
(37:15):
the figuring it out phase tried,Yeah, it's not. It's not bedded
yet, or you're recreating the wheelevery time you do it, So you
might be selling the same thing overand over and over again. But if
you haven't systematized the delivery of itautomated, right, If you haven't leveraged
(37:43):
right, because that's the next step. If you haven't gotten to the point
where you if you're at the pointwhere you're trading dollars for hours, you're
still at the launched stage, andthen you move into leveraged. And leveraged
is what happens. You have tomove into leveraging your resources when you've run
out of hours in the days anddays in the week when you can no
(38:07):
longer make more money because you areout of time, you have to learn
how to move into leveraging your resources, leveraging teams, leveraging marketing, leveraging
your time. That's beautiful because letme tell you, like, that's a
(38:29):
good problem to have, and it'simportant going It's an important to refer to
the earlier point when you talked aboutsystematization, because that's where when companies are
scaling up fail because they don't haveprocesses and systems. And because they don't
now they're working in business, andthen they become the roadblock to their business
(38:54):
subscrib and the business building up.Yeah, always the roadblock. And here's
the thing. People think that there'sa dollar amount associated with this face,
and that's not actually true. Iwork with people making with a million dollar
business who have no client acquisition system. So their back end, right,
(39:16):
the back end is systemized, butthe front end isn't because they're just getting
their business through networking or one toone relationships. Now not necessarily a problem.
You just have to really recognize that'swhere you are. And that also
means the business is still dependent uponyou. As an individual. That's not
(39:38):
sellable. By the way, youcan't sell a business when the entire business
is dependent on you as a humanto be their twenty free seven definitely doesn't
work perfect, right, so youcan have million. You know, there's
large CPA firms, architectures, lawyerswho are one, two, three million
(40:01):
dollar businesses that don't actually have thefront end of their business systematized. There's
no client they've never had to doa client acquisition system. So now people
have systematized, and as you mentioned, it's never fully done because anytime you're
bringing in a new product, newservice, opening up a new branch,
(40:22):
you will be doing some portions ofit. These are just different segments of
running a business. So let's talkabout leading. When you have a team,
that's such a beautiful phase to bein. Great. Yeah, leading
is when you get to really stepinto CEO role of thinker not doer,
(40:45):
and leading is when you set theoutcomes and the team creates the processes and
does the work to meet those outcomes. Right. It really and again different
(41:07):
phases. You could be leading atsimple parts of your business but still launching
at other parts, but leading createleading requires full on letting go hmm,
full on letting go, and leadingrequires that team processes the whole miners absolutely,
(41:34):
and leading is so beautiful because youhave empowered other members of your team
to step in and grow to beyou come into their own and start leading.
And now when they lead, ofcourse there's succession, planning and all
that. That's a topic for anotherday. And I also just real quick,
(41:58):
real quick. I think one ofthe reasons people get stuck is they
see leading as a challenge and ahard thing to do instead of an opportunity
and an empowering Like going back tofull circle where I was always told I
could have whatever I wanted, Ijust needed to go do it myself and
seeing that as an empowerment and nota chip on my shoulder. Same thing
(42:22):
with leading. Instead of looking atthe team and thinking, oh my god,
I gotta hire someone, Oh mygod, I gotta train somebody,
oh my god, I gotta managesomebody. What if instead you saw it
as empowering people to have their dreamjob within your company, right, all
of a sudden, leading is notso bad. Oh yeah, Leading is
so beautiful because leading means and Ialways say that servant leadership, you are
(42:47):
there to empower somebody else. You'rethere to create that impact, and that
is so beautiful. I love thatshare with us. How can people get
in contact with you? You've givenus a lot of different areas to think
(43:07):
about and a lot of nuggets thatpeople can take and run with it.
So how can people get in touchwith you? How can they connect with
you? If they're thinking about startingtheir business or scaling their business, or
creating that story as you mentioned forthemselves, how can they go about it?
(43:30):
We make it real easy. It'sreally easy. Conquer your Business dot
com. We put everything you needin one place. You can find my
podcast there, you can find allour social links there, you can find
contact form there. Everything is allin one place at Conquer your Business dot
Com. Well, that's fantastic,Garen. And if you were to leave
(43:52):
our listeners with one or two tipsthat they can take them right now and
implement them, what might that be? Reverse engineering? Every every every single
thing is reverse engineered. The whatdo you got to start with? What
you want? What do you want? You can't you have no idea what
(44:14):
you need to do until you knowwhat it is you're trying to accomplish.
So it sounds easy. I totallyget it's not a necessarily an easy question
to answer. But what do Iwant? What do I want to happen?
What do I want to have happened? What am I trying to create
and then reverse engineer? Okay,what has to happen to get there?
(44:35):
Who do I need to be toget it there? And what do I
need to believe in order for itto happen? And there's your plan,
there's your roadmap. That's beautiful.Well, thank you so much for joining
us and sharing your wisdom, apass and your story and being vulnerable.
I'm sure that our listeners are goingto get so much value out of our
(44:58):
today's conversation. Awesome. Thank youso much for having me. It's always
great to chat with you. Absolutely, Thank you again, and listeners,
thank you for joining us because withoutyou, the show would not be possible.
And do reach out to us andlet us know what you're thinking about
(45:21):
our podcasts, different episodes and whocan be bring, what we can bring
so that you know how to livethe life that you deserve. How can
we serve you to the best ofour ability? So thank you for joining
us, and thank you one formaking the show technically possible and until next
(45:42):
time, be well and take care. Thank you for being part of Beyond
Confidence with your host, Devia Park, we hope you have learned more about
how to start living the life youwant. Each week on Beyond Confidence,
you hear stories of real people who'veexperienced growth by overcoming their fears and holding
meaningful relationships. During Beyond Confidence,Divia Park shares what happened to her when
(46:05):
she stepped out of her comfort zoneto work directly with people across the globe.
She not only coaches people how toform hard connections, but also transform
relationships to mutually beneficial partnerships as theystrive to live the life they want.
If you are ready to live thelife you want and leverage your strengths,
learn more at www dot dvapark dotcom and you can connect with Diva at
(46:28):
contact at dvapark dot com. Welook forward to you joining us next week.
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