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What's Your Big Bang?

What's, good to see you all and some new faces were talking via email and brandy faces we've just saying I now, uh, partners and friends. So travis haven't seen you in a year, but I think we talked at least once every couple of months on facebook or e mail. So it's good it's, great to see you all. Uh, I promise you we're gonna have an amazing time together. My goal is simply this I call the big bang. Have you heard of be hag? Has ever heard of the term b hag? Was that stand for patience? Goal? Yeah. Big, hairy, audacious goals when I first heard that jim collins wrote about this in his book called good. Too great. And he said all successful companies and individuals have b hags big, hairy, audacious goals and that's why I set for myself is encouraging everyone I ever met. Like what? Your b hi, jeff. What's your b hey, I have come to believe behave is not the best term that exists. I think big bang is better be hag stands for big, bold, audacious harry goal what's the big vision we have...

for ourselves in our lives in our business is then someone told me this term, I don't even remember who and he said, no, no, no it's missing one critical component, the bee hag it's, missing nobility speaking toe what our soul calls out to dio so he said we didn't have a big bank, which is a big, bold, audacious, noble goal what's the impact you're trying to have your souls calling out to do what's the impact you're tryingto have on the world? Well, my big bang for this session we're going to do together is to have every person in this room, every person watching wherever you are there you are anywhere in the world that by the end of two days from today you will be profitable that's my commitment, I want everyone walk out of this room that by your very next deposit coming into business, you're going posted profit and I'm not going we're not going to get rich quick scheme, you're not going to be a millionaire overnight, but you're gonna have the process to achieve whatever staffs of financial wealth you want in your business in your life by the end of the session and you're gonna post a profit by the end this session that's my big, bold, audacious, noble goal I have this event got started here I was invited by the great folks, a creative live a year ago worked with j k o and there was four of us in the room, I think or five was a small group, a small group and we did the pumpkin plan. This is a book I wrote about I studied pumpkin farmers and realize that most pumpkin farmers are ordinary pumpkin farmer's the ones right halloween, jeff, where you you go to pumpkin fields are these massive fields and you're with your kids, your pick and pumpkins in my son literally last, like last year or two years ago picked the most deformed pumpkin ever. He's like daddy, I want this for our stupid like that. Looks like my mother in law. No, no, I'm sorry if she's watching now and I'm kidding. Uh, but but pump ordinary pumpkin farmer's make their money on that holiday. They make it on in october released in the u s because it's such a popular times you make your money selling in the quantity game, but there was a small faction of farmers that grew colossal pumpkins and these guys made money through selling seeds and doing those different things very entrepreneurial group. So in the last session, we talked about the pumpkin plan and what this small faction of people had what they've discovered these pumpkin farmers to grow explosive pumpkins to do same in business so we came together four of his travis was there, jason was there, pearson was there and I think we had some changes that were affected in that meeting but the most significant thing that happened for me I don't know if if you three remember I talked about profit first and it was like a ten minutes it was a really small piece this is one little segment we talked about profit first to bring profitably to business. I go through this session we're taking notes were asking questions of each other and the very end one woman her name's debbie harvey she's not here today unfortunately couldn't make it she wanted to be here came up and said what you just did there? I want to do this with you and right now during the break so save running out and getting food the delicious food out here uh, debbie and I sat down and start going through this process and she started crying right here on this on this exact stage saying I've been a fool, I've been a fool the way I've been running my business and unfortunately what we're experience together that there might be some cold bucket moment some of us may get cafeteria teary eyed when you realized where your business stood stands today and what you could have done, but maybe it'll be a celebration and find things that could drive your business for it in that moment, she said, I said the next segment we're planning to do something else but what you're discovering here, I think it's going to be super impactful I want you to share it with everybody with the entire world I said we'd be willing to do it and she said, yeah, and she said no way that when I write about this I decided that day to start writing this book profit first, whatever it has in your hands there as I got back on the plane, the flight home I started writing this book the opening paragraph I said, daddy, I love to include your story but I don't want to embarrass you or share the challenges you face your business financially, I just make up a name you know she's no, no, you have to be my name just like I want the world to know it's mai that I I struggled here because she was this is not I'm not the only person experiencing this. A lot of people experience this a lot of us go through financial struggles and it's ah it's a shame almost we don't share it with others so she said, put my name in the book and that's what we did and so that story is in the start of the book it was this stage that invoked what we're doing today in the whole book well, here's, what I want to duke to kick things off, I want to make sure that I deliver on my big bang that I'm serving you in the way it needs to be served, so I thought I would be fun and kind of cool is if we go around and introduce ourselves individually just real quick, your name and what your business is, so we all get to know each other, but I also want to know what could what will be most impactful for you, for you in your business? What can we do in the next two days together? That would change everything for you when it comes to the financial aspects of your business? Is that cool? You're the first one up. Tell me your everyone tell the world your name in your business and I'm only quartered and I'm an entrepreneur and three different areas I focus on consumers, commerce and citizens, and I been working with the city of san francisco on civic innovation and helping the city a little bit more like a startup and it's been a little bit stressful. Government contracting is not easy, very difficult, and I'm just feeling I'm feeling like I want to be able to product I some of the things that I do on a regular basis face to face with the city and move on to possibly something more on the commerce and I'm just kind of struggling because the government stuff has been paying the bills even though it's you know it's very hard to scale but really wanting teo kind of shift into something that could scale a little bit easier now is this your business or do you works? My business is your business so you your client is the same city san francisco okay, so what's the biggest thing we could do for you in this session um help me move away from trading time for money. Yeah, well, I was trapped in that, right? Yeah, so that when I hear time for money, that means if you're not working no money coming in I'm consulting I'm in front of people I'm doing workshops and if I'm not, then there is no money. Okay, I got you that's a great how many people who experienced that the time for money? Okay, all hands go up. So how do I stop or get out of the time for money trap? Exactly. All right, jeff, I'm jeff winger I'm a c p a and a certified profit first professional so I know the system and I do accounting work taxes but I also help clients with, you know, profitability maximizing profitability yeah and just, uh differentiating myself by helping doing that everybody could do taxes and things but not everybody helps profitability yes funny right? I mean, I was doing a seminar actually great regret if you and I met the next day we met in philadelphia I went to a seminar to seven hundred entrepreneurs I asked people who has an accountant of course every hand goes up I said whose account helps drive profitability and no hands went up it's amazing that that's most accounts just do what accounts do but but the most important thing the elf in the room is howto make business more profitable so what's the biggest thing you can get out of this session I mean is your business perfect lets all of course not eyes any business perfect I think just a simple system tau help people you don't be profitable and actually take home a paycheck. Yeah, okay and profits and have fun and what's the biggest challenge your client's face I think they just don't have they don't understand that it's taking little steps and just putting a certain percentage away and yeah and just doing little things at a time they think you have to do the big thing all at once and become, you know, making fifty percent profit all at once but so they're they're overwhelmed yes sounds like yeah yeah you don't experience that it's just you got so much to dio there's income statements to re balance sheets like you what is this stuff yeah ok good good we're gonna answer that hi it's good to see you thank you I read in the coal I am the executive producer of renaissance woman productions and I put the cart before the horse just what you are saying I had a big audacious noble goal and I just planned out the whole thing and then I froze and I looked at it and said okay well what I'm gonna do with this right so um I have made a little money haven't been profitable I'm bleeding red right now I'd like to get back in the black okay okay so they have a strategy for it for doing that that's that I can take those small steps I don't know what small steps to take okay okay so how long have you been in business? Er well I started with the idea about four years ago two thousand ten and you're making money I made a little money but you're not taking money you're making not taking right so you're just making it but none of us ending up in your purse or wallet well yeah it's it's a little complicated because I I don't have any business background so I've been also like a learning as I've been going along and my husband's been supporting me up until now so I'm donna this is being broadcast of three or four thousand people right now is your husband still becoming at the tractor is he's supporting you? I mean you know so I didn't know in what regard is like no like so not financially helping not with my business now what about is the emotionally supporting izzy cheering ok whose experience out we're spouse or something? Well I think it's ee oh my my my marriage is perfect things perfect yeah well you know I think it's a different when when there's an employee mentality and his entrepreneurial mentality that I've even as being an entrepreneur are even as being an employee I always had an entrepreneurial mentality so my it was always a clash and so when I like let it go and said okay what is it that I really wanted dio and found that there was nothing out there for what it is that I wanted to create in the world I just decided I would create it and so I did my own research and I tried to you know took classes for women entrepreneur or you know developing business all these different things and so you know it's it's a struggle because if there's no formal education there's no money coming in you goto library you hang out here creative live we'll take all the courses here and that's how I found you know this was was yeah at least I know what I like to argue right here is things like this it's going to the library was the best education happens former education is great for certain things by leave entrepreneurs are designed to break rules like it's here's the count that doesn't do accounting and so he's becoming very successful doing that here's something you don't know the rules so you have to break him right so it's a crossover done making money versus taking money yeah okay is the challenge nice to meet you thank you man hey there. How are you all right so I'm travis and I'm a photographer slash stone balance artists and what I do is I go out into amazing landscapes like the coolest places I could find um finally available rocks and then put him into a cool little momentary or temporary sculpture take a photograph of that and then show it to people and most of the people don't think that it's really so it gets to a deeper element of like destroying their limiting beliefs and yeah so uh great sales pitch me on the idea um what I want to get out of this is like everybody I come in contact with doesn't believe that my stuff israel which is like makes it so powerful and I want to get that buzz into something that's profitable because I can see the power in it I'm just not able to like get that so it sounds like people love it what you're doing but I'm not paying you for like in this modern era of social media it gets like three seconds and then that's it but I've seen people cry when I like hang the stuff in galleries and I just I know that it has a lot more power than it's getting so it is not as probables you want to be is it is it bringing in some money yeah I mean, I've sold a couple prince definitely okay, okay the system's there but I just need to like kick started okay? Okay. Fantastic sea again and when we met last year here uh you were still trying to find what your business would be I think right exactly thank you. No, it was no us you're the one that we're like, you know, because I was debating doing paintings and this little side stones that last thing you like well, what are you doing over here? And I really just taking that and run with it I'll never forget you said I'm a rock stacker I'm like what the f is a rock stack I had never heard of this have you seen these artists? I seem everywhere now I mean amazing and tribes you have some of the best stuff I I purchased one of his paintings is in our kitchen and our family looks every day were like no one's allowed to leave our kitchen saying something's impossible because you see his stuff is a stick going up there's a boulder that the stick can't technically support the weight that there's a thing balanced on it's unbelievable and that's like ultimately what I'm trying to do is like get people to look at that so when the chaos that happens every day they have that point of like centeredness that they can realize that yeah, they're external environment isn't like who they are yeah no, I love it so the challenge you have is you're getting noticed for what you're doing or you stand out you have an amazing interesting story is very compelling but you're not probable that it yet okay, we're gonna make that happen accuracy then good to see you first person I saw when I got here this morning yeah super early um I'm kirsten um my company's called sprout shell we make a cover all, um for everything from baby car seats, two swings, shopping carts, highchairs all that kind of stuff all in one little cover um and we use really cute fabrics not like anything like baby you're childish like we do cool stuff for modern moms that you know want to carry cool stuff around um so people love it when they see it they're like that is awesome but one of the things that we have is there people don't really know like what to do with it unless they say see it like in action um so we're working on that, but for this the biggest thing I need is I just get stuck like because I've you know, I was here last year and I heard the you know a little bit about it and I've heard it a couple of times and I'll start but then I just skip stocked with like, the assessment and the number of an imploding profit for and just implementing it right? Because I totally believe in I think that's awesome and I've, you know, done a little bit and start did but actually like just get stuck, okay, so yeah, the process we go over ninety nine percent of us don't even know this process yes, I don't feel like oh, she's getting stuck on going on, we're might toe walking teo s o u you discovered is a year ago and still suck so it's interesting, I think you'll find this system that we're going to go over to be very simple but not easy and those are two different things simple to understand but the execution is top so totally so I'm getting stuck how do you stick with it? How do you get it going exactly? Okay, good next and take care while we're doing this then we've got some comments coming online all right there's gonna ask yeah absolutely thanks might we've got xnyr put dar who's actually joining us from d c and they're saying they'd like to really learn how to create a business plan on how to learn to market within a limited budget because they're concerned how do you accumulate savings if you have a fixed income okay yes that's a great question I interpret I pull spent on it is she's a business plan how to grow and to be profitable because we've all heard it and talk about some myths that are out there there's an axiom or belief that says it takes money to make money and I called b s on that on dh so that I commonly hear this if I'm gonna be profitable I can't grow my business anymore I can't do a trade off that's that's truly nonsense but the folks out there that are listening in right now keep the question I'm coming in I want to hear what they have to say toe all right you're up hello hi I'm marcy marcie and I in the last six months went from working in a law firm to kind of doing my own business um I'm doing consultancy and I'm trying to do work and get a business up and running at the same time you're just starting out yes and terrifying it's awesome and terrifying what kind of consultant worked I work on death penalty cases I worked with attorneys and with experts and I managed their data I work on reports I helped two presentations for uh testimony that kind of thing death penalty cases death like really intense work it is er ok and so you're consulting who the clients through this or is it other law firms and I work with either attorneys or the experts so I have a couple of clients that I work with at this point okay cole okay, so what's what will be most impactful for you I think um about two months ago I realized that I was freaking out um like I was so overwhelmed by all these different possibilities of what I could d'oh that I didn't know what to do next and I was completely paralyzed and I realized that I needed to make a decision start doing something and create a life that I actually wanted to live ok was I needed to go back to having a job where I had a regular paycheck and all that and since then I've been trying to decide how to use my time most effectively and you know, like take care of building and all of that because I'm also pretty passionate about my work so so you're looking at how to become very efficient is that I think it's an efficient it's it's that I I'm efficient at work I'm not effective in terms of turning it into money okay, so you're great at what you do this you don't see this coming in okay, so how to convert expertise into money, right? Yes. Okay for international viewers I hope you you're cool with me I'm gonna use the dollar sign I totally recognized like this all the time they have a lot of international readers saying why do you always use a dollar sign? Um it just makes it real simple for me and I know you know what? Okay, rick you're a mike are you good to see you, bro? Good to see you too. So I'm rick clemens and I am a life strategist life coach, but I call myself a life strategy because I feel like what I really do is help people stop pretending in their life and really start living so that they can just be who they are and that comes from my own experience of coming out of the closet as a gay man. And when mike and I met I was right on the cusp. But really this thing opening up too this isn't just about being gay, lesbian, bisexual that's about everybody's got these fabulous closets we all live in and especially as business owners we have tons of closets we hide in all the time during our businesses since mike and I met, a lot of stuff is catapulted I've got two books in the works one is complete, um talking to publishers right now and I'm starting to get on bigger stages and so my challenge right now is I'm transitioning like my business from time for money guy coaching one on one right to bigger stages and books and taking the profits that I'm making and helping that seed all that work is the real challenge because I could just stay and make money right now, but I want to catapult what I'm making and use what I'm making to take me to that next level and not only is that a mind game it's like you really got to stay focused if your gonna go to that next level catcher so you're transitioning and how to use money to go to the next level, right and use it wisely, you know I could you know, you and I talked about, you know, do you self published do you not self published? Well, if you self published there's money has got to come from the profits to go get that done, do you take and invest money and training on speaking and, you know, getting into some of that sort of stuff to get explain, yeah, so I love the word uses was wisely, right, um we can all we all have access to money varying degrees of it may be small amounts maybe big amounts but it's really our use of it that matters it doesn't matter the amount if you can take a dollar dollar and stretch it one hundred thousand dollars well that's that's really great you know? So we're definitely doing diggings this we're talking about thing called parkinson's law all the stuff that you're gonna learn is around human behavior our man management management of money are actually any resource is all behave really triggered so is actually going to study in psychology and how it implied and employee's itself with money um so you'll see that we human beings junior not wired to be so wise but we can put certain guard rail certain rules in place that actually makes us pretty wise and stretch of dollars thanks good to see a man into congratulations won't do what you're doing my first met you were just introducing this topic I don't know how people respond to it like it's going to crush it so thank you for you it's good to see you hey, how are you? Good michael really good uh my name's john chronic I'm from reno, nevada I've been a big fan mike for a long time red toilet paper entrepreneur it was a buzz warrior for pumpkin thank profit first so uh I've enjoyed it I've been a which protocol serial entrepreneur I look a lot of people are probably the oldest one here um so I've had a lot of experience and businesses have had several of my own businesses some small some large uh you know it seems to me there's this when you when you talk about profit first from an entrepreneur standpoint if you're an employee who works for an entrepreneur all you think that the entrepreneur thinks about his profit first he doesn't think about the employees right the entrepreneur looks out from a different standpoint and says I want some profit I never get any profit I pay my employees I pay their benefits I do that sort of thing and yet why do they always think I take all this profit and they're not making any and a lot of people become entrepreneurs for that yeah they say well gee how come they're making all the money I'm here working forty fifty hours a week for him and they're taking all the profit and I get what's left over yeah ok eso then they become an entrepreneur on like michael gruber says then they start working in the business instead of on their business all the time on realize that gino I'm working eighty hours fifty hours and I make less than I made when I was working for the guys took all the profit right okay so you know from from my standpoint I guess I like to look at it to full is entrepreneur one uh if I want to focus on profit first, which makes eminent sense when I when I first heard you say that I thought, why didn't I think of that? What I think of that because there's always you know, it's always sales as expenses equals profit and what you're saying is no, no, you know, sales minus profit equals expenses, right? A cz long as I've been in business, that concept to me also a light went on and I thought, well, you know, employees have always thought that's the way you do it, right, right, right, uh, but his entrepreneurs we haven't done that that way, all right? And so I guess the most helpful thing to this about me is there has to be this paradigm shift in the way we look at evaluating expenses because you can read books, you can listen to experts and everybody will tell you what you need, right, what you need to spend to make your business successful, right and profit always ends up with the tail into that, right, so leftover thing that fascinates me about this and that I like not just for me to understand, but for people who work for me, who are my partners in my business? More or less, I understand that you know I can try and drive things to them I could drive processes aiken drive new software programs that could drive all these other sort of things but I've never looked at those as okay there should really be a pool of money that identify after we look a profit after we look att yeah, everything else and now we can look at those things more critically and say I don't know how to do that yet yeah, it was already says you have to have I love the john use the word paradigms and last palette I didn't always know with dee I mean that's good parenting and yet that's the goal of this over this over our king classes just to change our perspective of how money operates its understand that you me we are all set in ways they're called behavioral patterns we get up, we do the same process, drink coffee, brush teeth or whatever your order is and we do it repeatedly and therefore you come to assume that's how the world operates this is how you have to do things so I'm gonna introduce were collectively going teo experience a different way of looking at things and I'll see potentially a whole new reality reveal itself around money so thank you it's good to see you bryan hey jay say like for those that don't know me, my name is jason spencer, I'm uh owner of spencer whiting's entertainment where I am an everlasting experience designer which I discovered through mike the last time he was here I think mike, I worked with mike on that for about a month and a half uh so thank you mike and uh I guess at the end of the day is kind of a fancy term for saying wedding deejay, wedding master of ceremonies but all the behind the scenes things that happen that make make a good solid fun wedding come together what I do so so I find challenging because you you have the propensity downplay yourself because you know, we're gonna know each other pretty well now you know me like yeah and you know me and I'm humble we'll say that your humble but but your self deprecating, which is a great quality but also can go too far and so you are an ever lasting experience designer and then you say, well, basically I'm a deejay you're not you're in everlasting experience designer did you do with deejay mike? I'm a king, you know you are I know you are and that you know, we have to be aware that for ourselves there's lots of rocks stackers but there's only one travis russell's who combines photography and these amazing pieces of art that are so my modeling experience facilitator, yeah and so listen these terms maybe they're not appropriate for marking terms may they come across even cheesy but we have to understand this and own it for ourselves because we'll present ourselves that way so I just wanted to call you on that but one I think sir what's the biggest thing I can give you when we give you in this class can I give you two because one of them you might not be able you might not be able to get to one of them in the next two days let's do it man I'm actually going to jump out of that one first because I had the honor of actually helping proof and one of the first people hate this book so I've been implementing profit first for a while yet including since last year when we did get plan and uh so I've kind of got the prophet accounts down I got my tax accounts down which some people are going what the hell you're talking about that will right? We'll go through that way totally well what concerns me is I start to figure those things out and this might be a more advanced topic is as I'm getting older I'm thinking long term and retirement and when where do I take either? Is it from the prophet account is it from something else is that the owners pay where do I put that? It lets me retire and twenty five, thirty years so you want to know about long term financial security pretty much yeah. Okay, good in the terms you're talking with we're all getting familiar with over the next two days the two next two sessions together so don't be afraid of in his terms is talking about what is he talking about? You got sneak peek at the book so, um great and you another winners at it? I did, but I don't remember it right now. I'll plug you with it later. All right? Um I want to share my story, but I want to put you on the spot one more time, okay? You were here because I remember when debbie hajrovic was up here and we're going through the instant assessment, the first delivery of profit first and she's crying I look on my shoulders one guy just walking back and you were the first guy back in to see this. What was your impression? What happened that day? Just people gets I don't even know ford is khun really this time it was surreal. Uh, it was almost this aside from what everybody else in the world was seeing, and I'm glad that she was able to bring it live after the fact, but uh to watch her, you know, she's probably watching debbie and tio tio watch her breakdown and then to watch you break down with her on stage and I mean the tollan concert prior so anyone besides the crying here I'm going to be with you so uh but I I was there too I came in as I've been owning my own business five and half years I was paycheck to paycheck and mostly read uh it's because I didn't I didn't understand expenses I didn't understand the profit I didn't you know I really didn't get it and so that matter planet too much but planted the seed to get us to where we are today and I know debbie's doing better I'm doing better and watching someone else have the same realization yeah and just it was almost like dumping a bucket of cold water on your yeah lesley also it was intense intense thank you the ah ha moment that you realized you're not not doing it bad you're just doing it slightly wrong and and you need to right the ship and it'll go it'll flow so yeah yeah, yeah coco, thank you for sharing that. Um that moment was a big deal for me too and, you know, usually different words what I was doing, what she was doing, her business, what I've been doing I don't know if it's wrong it's the way we've been told to do things