The entrepreneurial journey isn’t all peaches and rainbows. If it were easy and straightforward, everyone would be doing it. Even the best of us fall to hard times, and such has been the case for us in 2023. But a true mark of an entrepreneur is the ability to rise from their setbacks and start anew. Starting with this episode, we are unveiling the third season of the podcast, and we’re taking a major shift from what we have been doing before. Tune in and learn what to expect!

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Starting Anew And Flipping The Page For The Next Chapter

Welcome to another season of the show. I’m going to call this Season 3 because we took a big break from what we call Season 2. I’ve been doing this show since 2016 and I’ve had a wonderful time talking to amazing individuals through the years. I’ve gotten to be on an amazing journey. I’m looking forward to sharing a lot moving forward in 2024 and beyond with the audience.

Here’s an update. We have published a show already with Jason Lavender. Introducing Jason Lavender, he is going to be hosting the show on Wednesdays moving forward. I have Ben Gaines hosting the show on Thursday moving forward. You’ll have the show three days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, from this point on until further notice. We will be rolling those out pretty consistently from this point on.

I’ve had a lot of great opportunities to work with amazing people. I want to elevate those people where I can so I look forward to the show from Jason, who happens to be in Wichita, Kansas, an amazing rehabber and wholesaler, and Ben Gaines, who happens to be in North Carolina. We have the East Coast, West Coast, and in-between. Ben is in North Carolina and he is wholesaling. He’s running some amazing businesses as well, doing some rehabs and cool stuff. A lot of cool stuff is coming out there. You will see some great content moving forward.

A lot has changed for me in 2023. It was probably the hardest year I’ve had in a long time. I took on a business I probably shouldn’t have taken on, plus trying to grow a couple of other businesses and continuing to do deals and everything else. It’s been a struggle, to say the least, with a lot of personal stuff as well. It’s part of the reason why I went dark for a while. One of the biggest mistakes I make and I’m sure some of you make is that when we have tough times, we isolate ourselves instead of reaching out for help and reaching out to our community.

I don’t know if it’s a pride thing or a people-won’t-understand thing. I put my head down. I go to work and try to work through whatever the issues are and come out the other side better. 2023 was a struggle. 2024 is looking to be a much better year. It has its challenges but we have a lot of cool things going on. I am back and I’m energized. I’m ready to bring content. I’m not going to be the big fluffer out there or the guru telling you everything you want to know.

My mission in 2024 and beyond is to continue to do what I’ve been doing and that’s being real and authentic about the struggles, trials, and tribulations, what I’m going through, and what’s working for me. I can tell you that a lot of personal stuff has been in my way, too. Hopefully, a lot of you reading can relate. I’m going to unpack a lot of that in future episodes. I want to try to do a lot more personal conversations with the community along with a lot more directed conversations about marketing and what’s working in marketing, private money, and systems and processes as well. We’re going to pack a lot of that.

I do want to unpack the personal side. I had my wife on the show and we talked about some of the struggles we’ve had. To be honest and I’m surprised I’m putting this out there but we’ve had a tough marriage through the years. I’m at a point where I don’t even know if we’re going to make it. We’ve had two years where we had a resurgence of what had the potential to be something good after twenty-something years of not good, and a lot of hurt and a lot of stuff along the way that wasn’t the best.

I always say that me being an entrepreneur and her not, at least she was constantly battling me every step of the way. We were at a point where we lived our lives almost separately. For a lot of years, we slept on separate sides of the house. We did separate things. We didn’t always communicate or enjoy each other’s company. We had a resurgence a few years ago where she came and she was the instigator of that. It looked like we had a lot of potential. With the PTSD from the previous years and fundamentally not being on the same page about a lot of things, it doesn’t look like we’re going to pan out.

I’m sharing that because entrepreneurship and life aren’t always pretty. There are people who will stand up here on a soapbox and tell you about how wonderful and everything their life is. A lot of them are full of crap. I don’t ever want to be that guy. I want to share with you as we move forward in 2024 and beyond. Do we work this out on our end? Do we not work this out? What am I doing as a father, an entrepreneur, a business owner, and an ex-husband to get my life back on track and not have things fall apart? What am I doing if we decide to work it out and move forward? What are some of those things that we’re going to work out and move forward?

Entrepreneurship isn't always pretty. Life isn't always pretty. There are people who will stand on a soapbox and tell you about how wonderful everything in their life is. And a lot of them are full of crap. Click To Tweet

I want to start to show more of the personal side of entrepreneurship and maybe even launch an episode about it separately. For those of us who are men and entrepreneurs, I have a handful of people in our ICE community who have had struggles through the years with not connecting with their spouses or having to move on. There needs to be a platform for that because those of us who are good men, and I consider myself, hopefully, a good man, want to make sure we do right by our kids and family. We don’t want to let people down. How do you manage and handle that? How do you come out the other end?

I’m going to unpack a lot of that moving forward and share that transparency. Hopefully, that’s okay. That’s what I’m going to do. If you don’t like it, turn it off and don’t listen again. That’s what I’m going to do, along with the good stuff too. There’s a lot of good stuff happening. We have an amazing community over at the Inner Circle Elite. We have amazing things with Jason taking Wednesdays and Ben taking Thursdays. We’re going to have consistent content.

I’m going to do an exercise that’s going to be cool that we’re going to announce here quickly, show you how to go from 0 to 7 figures fast in your business, and put my money where my mouth is or my chips on the table so to speak. We have a lot of cool things coming up. I’m going to call out some people too. I’m not going to mention any names but there are a few people who are on soapboxes and stuff like that that I’m going to call out and challenge. That’s going to be a lot of fun.

A lot of things are planned for 2024 and beyond. I’m looking forward to bringing amazing content. I’ve got a lot on my plate that I want to share about on the entrepreneurial side. We’re not just rehabbing and flipping anymore. We’re doing the mastermind community and helping folks build better businesses and get systems and processes in place. I have picked up a SaaS company in the space. I am the owner of Forefront CRM. If you’re looking for a great CRM, I’d love for you to check out Forefront CRM. We have some other things going on. There’s a lot of exciting stuff to talk about.

What’s working in all the businesses I see is making sure that you’re running a good business, you have good systems and processes in place, and you have the right people on your teams. You’re holding accountability. You’re not taking things for granted or letting things go longer than they should. I see people in our community who have gotten themselves in binds. They unwound those binds and became very successful by running things the right way. That is something that we’re going to harp on a lot as well.

This episode has some meat or doesn’t. It’s going to tell you where I’m at, where I’m going, and what I’m doing but there are a lot of changes. Hopefully, a lot of great things and blessings come out of those changes. I tell this story about my daughter and you may hear me tell it again. I was 40 years old when I found out that I was going to have my daughter. My boys are 13 months and 1 day apart. They’re Irish twins.

After that, my wife and I decided we didn’t want to have any more. We were good with two. A handful of years later, she changed her mind and I didn’t. Lo and behold, she decided that she was going to stay steadfast in wanting to have a girl. I avoided her for about two years. I tried to timeclock and do all that kind of stuff to make sure that I did not get her pregnant. I misjudged one month and things happened.

On my 40th birthday, we go out to dinner and come home to a scavenger hunt. I go through the house to each item and sticky note. I go from place to place following the scavenger hunt. The last sticky note I see goes to the one place in the kitchen I don’t use. I’d be lying in the oven. I opened the oven and saw inside that there was this big giant sourdough roll. I looked at her and the sourdough roll. I told her, “I don’t get it.” She says, “What does it look like?” I said, “A bun.” She’s like, “Where is it at?” I said, “The oven.” She said, “Put those two things together.”

The night didn’t end the way I expected. It was my birthday and was turning 40. All things lead to the bedroom. They’d ended in me not talking to her for three days. I did not want to have another kid. We have our daughter. She is the glue that holds the family together. She is the most amazing thing. I would kill for her or throw myself in front of a bus for her. She is everything to me.

I like to share this story for this one reason. Sometimes, the things that we feel like we passionately don’t want in life and we think shouldn’t happen to us end up being the biggest blessings. My daughter is one of the biggest blessings in my life. I cherish every moment I get with her. I did not want to have another kid. Sometimes the things we don’t want in life are not to be the biggest blessings.

I want to share that because whether or not you’re out there and you’re crushing it or you’re going through trials and tribulations, you need to know that everything that you’re going through is building you into who you need to be. Everything you’re going through is going to one day be a blessing and an opportunity to do amazing things. I wouldn’t change any failure or stumble I’ve had. I wouldn’t change anything that’s happened to me through the years that shaped me into who I am and made me the person I am.

 

I could only hope that each day I grow better and become better as an individual and as an individual contributor to those of you out there who hopefully are being affected by this show and some of the things that we’re doing in a good way. Don’t run away from the things that make you grow and stronger. We don’t want to necessarily do them on purpose but understand that they can be a blessing in disguise. That’s my big thing. These trials and tribulations through 2023 and some of the things that I’m going through personally will hopefully shape me into the individual that I need to be to be able to accomplish amazing things, impact lives in a big way, and be a better person for it.

With that said, I look forward to bringing you amazing content. Look out for Jason’s episodes. The first episode You Can’t Rehab Your Way Out Of A Bad Buy With Jason Lavender has already been released. As well as Ben’s episode. We will have the consistent Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday coming your way as I speak. Make sure you’re checking out FlipTalk.com for all things cool in the Flip Talk universe. We are getting ready to release an amazing free community along with some other amazing things so keep your eye out for that.

Maybe get on our email list and get notified when that community launches. We’re going to be going live, putting in resources, and doing a lot of free training and cool things. It’s not going to be on Facebook because Facebook sucks when it comes to notifying you anything. I don’t know what it is. Somebody posts something in the morning and I don’t see it until the evening or the next day. It does not work for me anymore. It’s an amazing off-Facebook community. When I talk to you again, I don’t know when that’s going to be, but until then. Have an amazing day.

 

Important Links

• Jason Lavender – Past Episode
• Ben Gaines – Past Episode
• Forefront CRM