Episode#14: Bryan Gray - Revenue Path Group

hello this is Coach Tim Campsall and i'm your host for the self-made is a myth make a difference together show where we're talking with successful business owners to hear their stories of the journey to building their business and because we know that success in business doesn't come on our own we recognize the folks who have helped us along the way to excel in our business today i'm excited to have a fellow business owner from indianapolis join us today my guest likes to seek out great vegan restaurants in cities that he travels to he is probably the most inspiring and excited introvert you'll meet and he is proud to be building his third business that will make ink's list of fastest growing companies from ideas that simply were in his head of where he believes the world is moving please join me in welcoming brian to the show today welcome brian hey tim thanks how about starting with the uh look for vegan restaurants and city's nice reversal of order yeah he's a total weirdo yes happy to be here thanks for having me yeah i appreciate you guys coming from vegan restaurants what a life no nobody has uh has shared that with me yet so i thought that was definitely worth calling out because it is very unique well it's it's uh there's a bit maybe a bit more to the story because uh you know my wife said once if it weren't for the lack of showers and the smoking pot i would have been a hippie in the 60s right so we've always had this weird kind of view of life and uh she is a vegan i've been a vegetarian for almost 30 years and what we have found though when we do travel when you find the vegan restaurants they're usually in the quirkier sides of town where there's usually nice trails so there's a bit more but it's almost like that that van halen brown eminem story right you know if they're not there then there's other things that fall apart from the other direction if you find the vegan restaurant you're probably going to plug into the cooler part of a community or city so that's kind of the undertone there love it so brian i'll have you uh start by introducing yourself and tell us a little bit of your personal story where you were born where you live your family etc yeah thank you tim my name is brian gray i'm i hail from the city of indianapolis indiana born and reared hoosier um sold my last business to group up minnesota so i lived up in the uh twin cities for a year uh but as was most of us midwesterners family brings us back to the midwest i've got twin boys that are 19. uh been married to my awesome best friend funniest person i know for 31 years congratulations i know i feel like such a settler we've lived in this house like 24 years as of like tuesday so this whole like where is my life gone thing you know it's just like hitting me so yeah it's um uh i grew up here um uh just proud to be like i said a hoosier i love to travel the world and do great things and see great things and and i'm just grateful to be here tim where's your favorite place to travel um well my if you talk to my wife by the caribbean just because the chill the chill lifestyle i love every canadian city i've been to i've adored uh vancouver uh toronto others so i've been in montreal yet but i just i like the northwest i like the woodsier side kim likes a little bit of the caribbean side so mostly in the north america western hemisphere area fantastic well we didn't talk about the fact that i'm a canadian so that wasn't a planted call out to my hometown no just the accent alone tim is all my friend you're gonna say decal's next and process so brian what's a funny story that your family uh likes to tell about you that you'd be willing to share with us uh well i don't story or just who i am uh there's two things that come to mind on that um uh more than once in my um the rearing of our children my wife has had to say to the boys kids i promise back in the 80s your dad was cool and i said why did you have to add the i promise on there more than once and i noticed that my best years were behind me but i was a child of the 80s but i i think the the funniest quirkiest things that i happen to enjoy and i think others do as well as uh we have the little uh little um boy and girl she poo and i sing to them daily and i usually come to the different song every day they all of course they have voices and i can pretty much do about voices for about anything in any situation uh that i think happens to be a talent that no one will pay for but i do have a new video

would you be willing to give us a little example uh no because you can see me it might slip out somehow some way i love it so um tell us about this uh this uh inspiring uh introvert yeah well it's uh it's it this kind of so i i think when thinking about our time together today um this has been a good healthy exercise for anybody i think to kind of look back and say who really helped me along my way whether you knew them or they don't know you or how they all inspired and i think that um this might be a tip of the hat or a shout out to some of your fellow introverts you talk to because it's not a natural thing for me to uh i have these social anxieties right like i get really worked up by going to neighborhood parties it just it just consumes my day my wife loves them it makes me nervous once i'm there i'm fine but i'm more comfortable from a room of a 500 strangers presenting than i am just with individuals and it's because so it's always been really hard for me to develop real close relationships with people i've learned to deal with it over time um but it's uh but it's what's i think is ironic is that when you meet me or you see me doing my day job or running my business you're like man what a great outgoing guy full of energy and very inspiring but i'm just like this person that's very very not private by design but it's just hard for me to uh do a lot of things when i see someone who can network well or can really communicate with other people it's just an admired thing i admire it's just harder for me to do totally understand i i think uh you and i are similar so it's almost like when we're on the stage where we're putting on a costume or jumping into a role that right it's it's we're performing more than we are having that individual absolutely conversation right yeah and when you when you um not that i'm a in the vein of a celebrity a lot of a lot of actors or people that that they'll tell you the story like i'm just a real introverted shy person but not when when you see them act or on stage like wow they're unnatural and it's just it's just so it's is people might think that um um how we get our energy is really what defines us as introverts right we kind of get energy from within so in fact when i was looking at the people who've inspired me there's a couple that really stand out but some of my best advice i've gleaned which is stuff i've read or listened to because i'm such a curious person uh that the people have made a big impact in my life don't even know who i even exist which i think is kind of cool too that is cool so brian tell us about how um how the business came about and you know at what point in time did you have the confidence that you could run your own business um it all started no i was i started i had a baseball card shop when i was a teenager and i and i grew up really poor i had a really rough childhood by most people's standards and but what i didn't have is i didn't have parents that told me i couldn't do something right had nothing but but never had these limitations or just self-limiting beliefs put around me and donnie deutsch said it well he said growing up he had this naive sense of entitlement like why not me right so and i but why couldn't i do that and i've always just had these visions and followed him and just acted on my on my gut so my entrepreneurship started when i was you know 14 years old having a baseball card shop and it was just a wonderful experience and then working first generation college student you know paid my way through school and all those things but every single business i've started um was something that i saw out there that i just believed enough in myself to never ever ever give up and just and just to go you know go and and do something about it and and and not will your way to success by any means but just never giving up which i guess comes across as willpower but because no one else really sees what you see sometimes and and while people help you if you fall down people rarely will lift you above for their own reasons so you have to really follow that inner voice and i've just been blessed or cursed with this inner voice that just that drives me to in every single my business was some kind of weird thing that happened to me at some point that that i just never let go of that became something you know down the road so as as you've come up with these new ideas of things that didn't really exist before how do you have the confidence to keep getting back up and and pushing forward it's i think it's that inner belief right you know it's you know that's why the things that always mean something to us like the quotes that mean something to people usually is the reason they resonate it's who they really are like that japanese proverb fall down seven times stand up eight you know one person with belief is a majority or the things like that and so so we we kind of look for those sayings to to kind of motivate and drive us through this in you know my first business that actually the first multi-million dollar business we built um we put atm cash machines out in convenience stores grocery stores you know back in the 90s crazy when they weren't anywhere but at a bank branch this all came from i was in you know bloomington i was in the university back in the late late 80s and uh you had to go outside the bar to get money to come back in right and during the summer you could do it because there's nobody there but in the school year like there's no way you'd leave to ever come back in and i remember this moment you know i woke up with all these receipts going i think i cleaned out my account last night 10 10 withdrawals you know and then i i saw one day 10 years later that you can own your own atm like oh my god then also just boom just opens up and and when you see something and this is like i like to teach and help everyone when you see something just act on it right and so why not why wouldn't they be everywhere so then all sudden you start looking at how can i do this how can i do that and you start connecting the dots and it you know and then lo and behold you know years go by we have 1500 machines out there and we're making nickels dimes and quarters in every transaction like i never saw myself here and then the next business came from a challenge in that business so i always just kind of find little openings and find things that aren't being resolved in in in realizing that that that can be that opportunity to take advantage of that's awesome so you've had a few successful business tell us a little bit more about what you're doing today yeah what we're doing today is uh i leave an organization called the revenue path group and what we're doing is we're reimagining value how it's bought how it's sold and how it's even positioned because the world of business to business selling is so fundamentally changed right and we live in this environment called three deadly seas everybody's becoming commoditized decision making teams are getting bigger so consensus decision making and compressed selling time right for those of us who started selling before the internet right or early days of the internet we had a hundred percent influence on the sale right now it's down to like six to ten percent so we're being squeezed down to the very end and we believe that that organizations are going to really struggle from a sales perspective moving forward to uphold their margins when they can't get access to the right people early enough so we help groups better understand how to create value how to communicate that value and how to sell that value and it's been a really exciting journey but again it's just challenges i've seen along the way that helped us get make some breakthroughs that now we're kind of helping other people do the same and what type of clients do you work with we work with organizations they have to be in the business-to-business space they have to have a sales team but they're mostly in that the manufacturer traditional type sectors um but it doesn't really matter what industry they just have to be facing the similar challenges others have i can't get access my sales people can't get in early enough and they're they're having all these challenges so sales teams that are from 15 to 150 sales people globally is we prefer because of our online programming helps us do some things uniquely that you can't do um with dispersed sales teams and and more specifically how do you help them to overcome those three challenges yeah it's uh that's a great question so we help them by understanding what real value or impact they're creating we help mirror that with how your the prospect's brain truly makes a buying decision because what we hear people say is i can't get access i can't meet with the real decision maker well the reason you can't because you're not saying anything that makes them say boy i'd like to meet with that person so how do you understand how you can gain that access earlier at the higher level that's the only way to avoid this race to the bottom that's driven by the three deadly seats you've got to get that earlier access at a higher level but most don't know what to say they don't know how to say it they don't even know who to say it too so we help them capture their value communicate that value and execute against that that approach fantastic awesome

you mentioned it earlier it it kind of sounds simple but the the devil's in the details right the challenge is how do you actually do oh yeah you know it's it's uh that is so well put because i like simple things that are hard i don't like complicated things right because if you think of simple things i can deal with simplicity and this is a perfect case because no one would argue oh yeah i who wouldn't want to get it earlier to a higher level yeah but getting creating the bravery or the messaging to be able to do that is so hard because it's just easier to respond and react to my prospects requests versus work hard to get an earlier to higher level and i think that's going to be the real um fleshing out of the future of what a future sales person actually looks like i mean we can go on to details i mean the world is changing at such a pace that if you're stuck at the very end just responding and reacting you're going to lose your job to artificial intelligence it's just going that's an inevitability it's just where it's three years or five years right so yes it's a simple challenge but to it's hard to be able to have the right conversations at the right level with the right people that's the biggest challenge i think yeah especially with all the gatekeepers and absolutely busyness of of executives that the folks that you want to talk to just don't have time on their calendars right so yeah because it's not unless you make it a priority hence the priorities say what's our most recent book we published it's all about getting to people's priorities yeah right and the reason we're busy is because it we always make time or room for a priority right so that's the whole idea of busy it's just you're not important enough right it's not urgent enough or it's not a priority enough and so um it's just like money nobody has money but they'll always fund priorities everything else there's just no money or there's no time or i'm too busy well speak to a priority and priorities or commitments to make my threats go away so if you understand threats you can help align the priority yeah love it so brian share a story where someone pushed you or inspired you that you could do it and how that impacted you um okay that okay so i would say that that early on in my business career so i've been an entrepreneur you know or less than the growing up as a baseball card shop and i took a straight commission sales job right out of school and today those are unheard of right but 30 years ago i remember it was a straight commission job and i was hanging out with some buddies in chicago and one of my college roommates he got a job at arthur anderson you know and we're all hanging out a bunch of guys and i told him what i was doing and he said oh are you just going to do that until you find something better you know i was like no straight commission i can make as much as i want right this stuff that concept still fascinates me right so i had a my first boss's name was dan burkhauser and i don't know if you remember the book uh swim with the sharks without being eaten alive by harvey mckay it was a huge business book in the late 80s and i did exactly what that book told me to do and it helped me land this this job and dan was a wonderful man it's funny as he was 40 years old when i started in my girlfriend of the time wife now uh said how was your first day i said dan's pretty cool for an old guy it was like 40 years old right not 56. the uh but but dan was a wonderful person so it's so it's that what dan gave me was the ability to he gave me the guard rails and allowed me to find things and help grow the business so it's it's so it it was almost like guidance by not being as involved like he was always there for me to share ideas with i usually say no out of the gate but that was okay because i learned over time that when dan just said no all it meant was you're not prepared your idea is not ready because if i came back he'd say sure go ahead right so so you know he was valuable to me because he helped check me on my ideas and make sure they're better thought through because if i never came back with the idea again that's okay we just didn't do anything about it in fact that that's what led to the atm business is he was not for the idea whatsoever at first but i ca i came back two or three times on it because it was a pretty radical shift compared to what we were doing and it ended up being um just a wonderful opportunity for us both so he became my first real business partner at the same time oh very cool yeah so so brian what's your biggest learning as a business owner over the years uh i would say the thing that and i think this is something tim just knowing what you do i think it's it's important like you on your bio you mentioned you help people get through the bottlenecks and and if i can infer it's about how helping entrepreneurs get out of their own way and and one thing i've learned over time in in in been credited to a couple of um the strategic coach a canadian organization not toronto um i did that program years ago and that was really helpful for me because it helped me understand um my talent and strengths and what i can do and what i can't do and i think that most entrepreneurs and leaders have this rugged individualism i can do it i know how to do it and and they don't realize the problems they stay with or inherent or keep with unless they can learn to let go of things but what do you let go of and if i don't know what my strengths are i can't i'm unsure of what to let go so i don't let go of anything so something i learned along the way that was really helpful to me is understand my natural talents and celebrate that in others and and delegate thinking not just tasks to other people that's been invaluable and i if nothing else for the young entrepreneurs or the striving business owners i don't think if you're young or old but early in their entrepreneurial journey um to realize that you can't do this on your own because you know the we have these narrow sets of talent right and there's a lot of other stuff that comes with that and you can't go far when you're when you're dragging so much other stuff along with you and you've got to be able to set that loose or set that free to other people you mentioned getting out of your own way that it we sometimes we can't even see what we what we can't see right so i've met a lot of folks who have had you know successful year-over-year growth in their business and then it's plateaued and they they don't they just don't understand why right and and they go back to what got them there right they're working hard and working long and and what they haven't realized is that they've hit their own capacity absolutely absolutely for the business to go to the next level they they've now gotta you know implement systems and teams to be able to get stuff off of their plate and and be able to scale up so yeah in that journey of discovery man when you understand what your world talents and gifts are that's what you should be doing only that and you start feeling guilty going that's the easy part well work shouldn't be hard yeah right you should charge more for what's easy for you which is a contradictory kind of statement isn't it yes right but do more of what's easy and awesome wow this this whole idea of being entrepreneur isn't as hard as i thought it was but it just took me years to get to that simple statement fair enough right right so um brian tell us about a business as a challenge that you had because we know that business success doesn't happen in isolation right so what's a challenge that you've experienced through the years where a fellow business owner helped you get through it um i wow that's a that's a good question i i think that um it my my life being at 50 i started in business in late like 89 89 and what's really weird is um all the shocks we've gone through right 911 the 08 0708 collapse most recently coveted and these just minor minor recessions along the way as well and so you pick up so much along the way and and a lot of advice you do get you don't really see the vibe until years later and you know i've been faced with um not be able to make payroll right and that's just you know and having people say you know what you're not a real entrepreneur or a business owner until you have to look everybody in the eye and say there's just not enough money to go around you know and so it's almost like i look for these comforting thoughts of other people you know as i've hit these these real walls because the first time when disruption happens if you don't know where to go you just start scrambling and freaking out like everybody else and it's not like i'm immune to any of these things but they're just shocks to the system that the longer you've been at this it just it just you deal with it there's always another side of this you always come out differently we always usually come out better um we just don't know how long of a shock it's going to going to truly be yeah i hear a lot of times from folks that how lonely it can be at the top and and you don't have somebody to talk to so to your point just simply being able to reach out to someone and say hey have you ever gone through this and hear that yes they have can be reassuring of oh good i'm not alone absolutely i mean that's the whole thing is everybody every leader is lonely in their own way but there's a way to connect with them right just like oh my god you understand me right just sharing ideas and i think that's that's really helpful and i think today i think that's what i think cove would help do as well everything a lot of people reconnected right yeah we're in our basements or in our upstairs bedrooms and let's just zoom chat with somebody and now you think about just a phone call it's like i can't even see this person this is really weird yeah but just just to see something for five minutes or so just to connect is a real healthy thing to do um and i think it's been just really important i think for people to to share their experiences we're not alone we all share the same fears we all have the same challenges and issues and it really doesn't have to be lonely if you have that right kind of network set up it's interesting that pre-covered people either preferred to meet in person or a phone call and and i remember like why not zoom so that way we can at least have a face-to-face conversation and now now the world's just completely changed everybody's uh more than willing to jump on a zoom call and it to your point it makes it a lot more personal than a phone call absolutely absolutely i mean you know a lot of a lot of salespeople struggle with this right they thought they were right back to face-to-face selling and and with decision-making teams getting bigger and with uh you know remote work policies you'll never have everybody in the room anymore and the challenge is going to be how can you leverage something like this prior to going to on-site i'm not against face-to-face selling but we can still use technology to help take some of that inefficiency out of the process yes oh certainly the the travel the you know to to go to a especially if it's a flight uh meeting to take a flight and then you know in the first five minutes that it was a you know it's not going to be a good meeting probably better to figure that out on zoom right absolutely absolutely and and have the hard questions covered before you leave the house versus four states away going i should have asked that question before i got on the airplane but we wanted to look busy we wanted to stay active and all that in in and that worked i suppose when the world wasn't accelerating around us which is my fascination on accelerations and i think that um most of us aren't prepared or equipped for it and it's going to happen whether we like it or not and there are some things simple things we all can do to combat these accelerations but that's a great example of what was acceptable behavior in the past is to waste a whole day not really getting much done feeling like you're busy and i just don't think those days are available anymore yeah so brian if you had to pick three people in your business journey that you're most grateful for being there um as a you know helping with your business growth who would they be and how'd they help you well i would say first of all dan burkhauser who dan gosh he's probably been retired for some time now and i helped him get there by working together because he's my first business partner he was the he was the person that hired me gave me my first job that was just as cool after nine years as he was the first day i met him just a wonderful wonderful person um dan had just tremendous impact on me in letting me uh mature right as a business person and became my first business partner um richard salevich who has passed away was our um accountant and he was a very very smart man and he helped us sell our first business but also taught me how to really not just read a financial statement but just to really help financial statements work the business i'm not prone to be numbers oriented and i don't pay attention to those things like i could or should and richard helped me really see the world from using financial statements or p ls to really make better decisions moving forward so richard was until he passed away probably about 10 15 years ago um was instrumental in every business venture we went down the road jesus yeah i wouldn't ever do anything without richard's not blessing but just his feedback or input um and those are two of the people personally that have met from a business perspective that meant the most to me um the third as i mentioned he don't even know me but dan sullivan's strategic coach i think what the work they're doing is just fantastic um it was through the strategic coach program that i first understood what delegation really was right of thinking not tasks and it has to start at what are your unique talents right what is it that i do that's different than everyone else out there and to your point not not accepting a blind spot but understanding and then understand how to find that in other people has just really um opened my eyes to what you know freedom to be yourself is like and allowing people to do great work because i've always felt weird that people spend more time with me and my organization they do at home with their family and i took as a real responsibility you know you spend more time awake here than you with your kids that's kind of stanks let's just have fun with it if you got to be here let's have fun with this and and and and i found that fun is really letting people be their best person right that sounds kind of weird but this idea of doing the best work of their lives and i just i just don't believe in in anything but that every day should be the best day we've ever had this should be the best meeting we've ever had and you know and i i just can't accept that my best days are anywhere in a rear-view mirror so every day at the stripe we're saying what would make this the best interview what would make this the best presentation because i don't think i've done it yet right and i and i want the people that work with me that actually feel and believe that same thing and so that that's something that that was invaluable i said dan i've never met him personally but huge impact on anybody who's worked around me or with me for the last 20 years um hopefully has benefited from some of the things that that i've learned and applied from the strategic coach that's awesome it can be any coaching program so i don't want to sure yeah yeah yeah absolutely i um to that point people will tell me that i reach out to folks and they'll tell me they have a coach and i'm like fantastic right congratulations for you because you know it doesn't matter to in my head whether it's me or somebody else i just want to make sure that business owners are getting the help they need which is a true belief in what you're doing because you can't take on all the work i bet i bet you probably couldn't even double your business right now which is a good thing right because you're that busy yeah so so the reality is i can't serve everyone so i've got at least be a proponent or an advocate for the work that you're doing yes right yeah so that's absolutely correct yes and and it's your point it's more about you know progressing the the business the small business owners forward right and and making sure they've got the tools and the and the best practices to be the best versions of themselves right and and one tool is going to fit somebody's personality better than another so absolutely absolutely so right as you think about the next three to five years what are the biggest challenges that you see coming to reach your goals and who are the types of people that you're going to need to be in your life to help solve those challenges yeah i i i think that what what helps my business right now i need really good operators right and you know because what you don't want an organization of nine different visionaries right and so i i'm good at that part and i play that role well i'm not good at a lot of other things and in one thing that i think that you know i read years ago like project management is like the career of the future and i think great project managers are just fantastic they don't have to work for you they can be outsourced project managers that's just a role that's so valuable so along those lines i would say great operators so operators are people that that have a bit of a roll up the sleeves that can actually move things to closure but understand the business of what's being done and can can move it along in in support so i look at true operators gonna be important i think the biggest challenge that we're gonna face in the next three to five years me personally and anyone in this in the world is acceleration i i just don't think we as humans can grasp what true acceleration is going to do to us or for us um and and we've reached that point friedman talks about this in his most recent book thank you for being late but there's a lot of books out there now on this whole idea of not just the the rate of change but the speed of the rate of change is accelerating at the same time and we've outstripped our human adaptability and when you've outstripped human adaptability you start getting really uncomfortable right we start fighting things we start wanting to go back in time and you look at whether it doesn't matter what politics or the world around you is just hard to deal with an uncertain future that's going to accelerate even faster and as hard as that is for most um if we just simply understand how to contend with it that's probably the best we can do because this is an accelerating and there is a riding this curve that if you can't stay on that curve you're just going to fall behind faster and that's why the biggest risk we face as business leaders and i think this really plays to your the the business that you're in as well tim is that you can't take a rugged individualistic approach to a world that's accelerating around you and it's not about getting on the curve it's about the pain you're going to live with if you fall off the curb because you just can't catch back up and friedman tells the story you know bow and arrow 1.0 to bow and arrow 2.0 took about 450 years so you didn't have to really stay on the bleeding edge you know with that but now things are changing so rapidly and we can't keep up economically time wise all this stuff going on the only way we can is to be as efficient as we can be which if you understand your talents we could so all these things kind of tie back because the future scares should scare all of us unless we're properly positioned and aligned to make that happen yeah or not make it happen but to contend with it to stay up with it yeah i i i as you were explaining that i'm thinking about so my past life was marketing and uh now that i own my own business i'm doing some of my own marketing right and it's like oh my goodness right i don't know how to do all the all of today's stuff i need to hire somebody and outsource it because you know i i feel old tim it's so funny because even my son who does a little bit of interning was dead we haven't posted an article on you and post an arc on linkedin and so i was like i know i just don't really know how to do it it's just like and the excuses are just so lame tim they're horrible but you know but give me in front of a group of people i'm fine you know but this is it's really weird just this little tiny things that you feel like you're so far behind like why jump on twitter now because i look like a total noob if i get on there right so i was like i'll just just lurk and watch other people i can't i can't say anything yes it's like i feel like that this is going right right past me and it feels like almost every other month there's a new platform launching like i i haven't even caught up to the old platform what what i mean tic tac my nephew was doing or tick tock tick tick tick tick that's old school tick-tock tick-tock right i remember my nephew was dancing on tick-tock four three or four years ago going that's just a silly app going now we're not on tick-tock and i think it's gonna cause some problems here it's just it's just really really bizarre but it's it's fascinating at the same point yeah and to your points it's it's moving so quickly that it's almost impossible to keep up so i like your perspective just just kind of hang on and you know make sure you're doing everything you can to to continue to learn and grow with the way absolutely and build strong cultures i i think you know the the what we really do for organizations build strong revenue cultures because you know as you know your work with culture that right culture is just ritual and routine behaviors everybody has a culture you may not be able to articulate it uh but you have one and you may not like it but you can do something about it and and i believe that the only way to con to counter these accelerations is to have stronger and stronger cultures and again culture is nothing but ritual and routine behaviors and in getting people and we know that change is hard right so that that's but that's the real work to be done um is to is to help culturally align organizations and culturally strengthen them so they can contend with all this uncertainty and change yes absolutely so jim rohn um favorite uh one of my favorite authors he says that we become the average of the five people that we spend the most time with so uh as you think about that is that something that excites you or makes you nervous what's your perspective on that it's funny if it makes you nervous at my age i got changed my friends man the uh you know that's interesting because i think that that kind of dogs us or stays with our whole lives right go back to your college friends go back to your high school friends you know and we do have a chance to change our environments and our friends but i i think that that's something that that you can look at where you were in your life and in those three to five people probably drove your life and there's probably a lot of psychological reasons why that that happens um i i will say personally that that i've always enjoyed being around people uh when i do hang out with people that actually work me up a bit right to get me excited about things we you know we riff on funny things or ideas but i always lead them with more energy than when i got there and it's not a selfish thing because i want them to feel the same thing and i hear that frequently that hey you know i always feel more energized after i hang around with you and it's like well i'm it's a self-serving mutual beneficial thing because i wouldn't keep coming back if i didn't feel the same thing because it's harder to get me to do those things but i i so i i really um um i really watch how i interact with others this is hard for me uh but when i do the the people i do hang out with i just i always feel better i always feel more energy and we always riff on an idea or two and it's like seinfeld i heard seinfeld jerry seinfeld an interview once say that even when he goes to parties or events he's always working on bits right and i feel like that's me too like i'm always working on something in my head and so i got to make sure i got to give something back that the others feel the same way that that we can kind of get further faster together the other side of that quote is it doesn't have to be um a live person right it could be books we read or you know videos that we watch we can you know we can our five people can be somebody we've never even met absolutely you're very well read so you've you know you've probably gotten a lot of you know influence from the authors that you follow and read yeah i i there there's a couple uh the future is faster than you think i don't know the authors i just read that there's like three or four books i'm reading on the future because and i'm just an insanely curious person and i think that that if someone said you know what were the attributes of what made you successful beyond you know this entrepreneur spirit about me it's i'm just super curious right and i think that that the curious people are the most interesting ones i i think anyway because i find a lot of interest in the people i'm just fasting with other people in their stories and and i think that's always helped me ask better questions because i'm genuinely curious it's like your whole thing with the business of coaching i just you you love this whole idea of it and that you'll exude that right and and i think that that you're curious people are very similar is you know they always ask the insightful questions i hope they do because they really want to know not because you know i need to get you to say this so i can respond with that so i i think that um uh my curiosity takes me to uh content and meeting new ideas just because i really like to figure out what's behind that and so i'm always been fascinated by personal stories of people i don't care where you come from if you've achieved something you've had to overcome a lot of odds right and i just i'm just always fascinated by the stories yeah what's one of the most um unique or odd stories you've ever heard ah wow that's a that's a that's a good on-the-spot question what what comes to mind i don't know if this is the right answer but i for some reason years ago i was given a uh a subscription to rolling stone and now with my 40s reading this going you know this is clearly not my demo but i'm going to read this and i remember uh lil wayne there's a story in lil wayne and he was on the cover and for a you know middle-aged guy the suburbs seeing a picture of lil wayne gold whoa you know that guy's got tattoos everywhere you know but i i was like you know i'm going to read this guy's story just because i you just can't get to any level of success like that or the cover of the rolling stone without having a fascinating story yeah it was interesting to me that tim is that you read this and how hard he had to work and i can't give you details because the details don't even matter just how i felt about the story was just you know it doesn't matter where you're from or who you are if you get anywhere in life you change you you had very similar challenges and you never gave up right and you always kept going when no one believed in you and i'm gonna get all weepy here right this idea of just everyone has a fascinating story so i don't know if there's as much weird to me but every there's a story behind everything and i i just it maybe if we could expand all of our minds just just read a biography or a story of someone that you just don't think you'd ever want to be around or especially a good person right not an evil person yeah but just just read about them and just it comes from a different perspective but i think you'll just learn there's so many similarities that you all share that we all share that we're all striving and and i think this is a real interesting kindred spirit with that wouldn't it make us all a better world if we just took that time to ask people their stories and get to know the the behind the scenes why of oh my god where they're at yeah it's uh i i tell you man it's it's uh a hundred percent and i i think that in in this world everybody has that story right and it's it's if you could just spend that time but you know in in and i don't can you develop curiosity in people i mean i you could probably nurture it i think you could nurture it for sure yeah how to ask good questions there you go let's let's use that for those that are listening or watching on that you want to be a you know more curious person how to but think about that that's a great point tim what about hey find out someone's story of just a complete stranger because everyone has an amazing story if you really think about it their journey they've gone through and the three coolest things have happened to them the three most challenging things have happened to them we would find that we pretty much face very similar things but i think you'd be inspired by that as well yeah i think the the coolest thing i've experienced is when i look to somebody who you know i think wow they're so successful and so above my my level and then they tell me their story it's like oh my goodness they're just a human like me yeah absolutely uh so mark cuban we love mark cuban right love the mark cuban and i love the shark tank and i watch at all times there's a neighbor friend of ours that loaned mark cube in front of my wife susan that lone mark keeping 25 back in bloomington back in the late 80s or early 80s to open up his bar and he never paid her back the reason i bring that because that guy was a hustler ready and they called him they called him studly and they said they called him studly for not obvious reasons but uh it's great hearing susan tell mark cuban stories and you see where he's come from it's like that guy came from just a just a guy going to school yeah and then did all these things but uh whenever kim will always record off the tv mark cuban saying something that should do a voiceover going susan i promise i'll pay your twenty-five dollars i love it yeah that's awesome so he's so reachable i was like susan go on linkedin ask for your 25 dollars back yeah create a great in a great exchange yes and he'll jump all over it too because it'll be absolutely publicity yeah i had a friend of mine he was at a tech conference a few years ago and uh he uh he was passing with mark hugh and mark you had a shirt i'm saying said talk nerdy to me on his t-shirt and he goes i just want to start talking to him you know because he talked geeky stuff i was like that's a guy that's just got it going on but just super curious right because you'll see he'll jump into all kinds of conversations on linkedin with people and all you do is throw it out there and i think that kind of plays to who he's always been to so another curious person yeah fantastic so wrapping up here brian if there was something catastrophic that happened in your business today who's the first person you'd call and what would that conversation look like you know it's got to be my wife she's my best friend yeah you know and i tell you it's it's in and i don't even know if it would be just like what would i do business-wise you know because we all need in our lives a significant other that we can just talk to right because a lot of times what i've learned in my life also is thing you know that's saying that things are never as bad as they seem or as good as they seem and so i think that just a a personal connection um that you can talk to just to kind of bring you back to we're gonna get through this you know it's happened to other people before it was like setting yourself on solid footing and so i would say to anyone just who gives you that that best grounding of yourself because sometimes you just don't need advice right away i've learned that the hard way too right i'm not asking for advice i just want to tell you something yes because i want to fix everything don't put it i think i just need to get it off my chest yeah yeah and i think the same is true when we get those bad news calls right you just need someone just to just to listen without any any sort of advice so i would talk to kim who's been my best friend for so many years of my life awesome so brian um you've been blessed with some incredible people who have helped you on your journey so they were all on the show here today what would you like to say to them man that's that's great you know it's i i hope i i i only hope that this is where you try to get the guest all weepy right yeah how am i doing yeah do it great

i i tell you quote since we're friends here and i don't know who's listening um i've been through prostate cancer uh when was 49 years old when i got it and and this is the last time i was called a young person because every old guy gets prostate cancer and when i got you know in these moments you get it and the doctor said well it's you know when when young people get it it's cause for concerns like that's the last legitimate time we call the young person but i was on these uh this hormone suppression and testosterone right because testosterone is what spreads the cancer from your prostate to your bones that's how it all goes down uh so i was on this suppressant for a year where um my testosterone was reduced to nothing that was the weepiest guy i would speak to groups honest to goodness i would i would stand in front of a group of people i would thank them for their time and i'd start crying because it did really mean a lot to me maybe they take time out of their day for me i get all weepy and i told kim i'm not gonna watch this is us and time off this lupron i i just i just can't do it so i'm gonna i'm gonna fight back to tears but i i do hope that that you know richard and dan and others that they realize the impact they've had on people because i think that just so it's so good for our spirit and our soul right to know that we make a difference because we don't always hear it from people all the time um but it's in and i hope you'll feel the same way about the people that i've met in my life but i you know i hope and wish that they would know that that the things that they shared and the guidance they provided the guard rails they you know provided along the way um help better my personal life my family's life and in what gets really cool is that they see this passed on to other people so it's truly that pay it forward so i just it'd be nice if we all knew that because i think we'd all appreciate that but that's what i'm grateful for awesome thank you brian well it's been a pleasure speaking with you today and uh really really enjoyed your insights and uh thanks again for being on the show my pleasure tim thank you i hope this made for some good audio absolutely welcome to to everyone who tuned in thanks for listening to self-made is a myth show with your host coach tim camsell be sure to help us spread this movement by liking it and posting it on your social media to join our movement go to be mad together dot com okay folks that's a wrap make sure to pay it forward and i'll see you all next time take care

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