Hello everyone, welcome to the book lounge. Today we are talking about the E-Meth revisited by Michael Gerber. Your hosts as always are myself Karin Richie. And me, Tom Butler Bowden. So what we'll do every week is we take a book and we analyze it and discuss it and raise it as well. So hopefully you'll get a sense of the book and work out whether it might be right for you.
That's right and each week I weigh in on the book along with Tom and our guest. We update you on the latest news about the author and don't forget to check out our book insights episodes. Those are for like the in-depth explorations of these nonfiction books. But here in the book lounge it's more of just an informal chat about the book of the week.
So this week we are bringing on author, entrepreneur, motivational speaker. He has experiencing and he has experience enhancing systems with multi-million and multi-billion dollar organizations and empowering employees and an entrepreneur to increase their wealth and all around perfect person to talk to about entrepreneurship. That's what today is all about that entrepreneur myth. So please welcome Marcus Garrett. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah. So glad you're here. Yeah. Yeah.
本周,我们邀请了一位作家、企业家、激励演讲家。他在提升多亿和十亿美元组织的系统以及赋权员工和企业家增加财富方面有着丰富的经验,是一位完美的人物,可以谈论创业。今天的主题是创业神话。请欢迎 Marcus Garrett。谢谢。感谢邀请我。真的很高兴来到这里。
So Marcus, I read somewhere that you're like a recovering auditor. So just if you can tell people quickly what is your journey to getting to this point? Well, still and technically a recovering auditor. I've been in the field of audit for I just say over a decade now and I'm like to do the exact math. But it's been well, I thought it was until I was reading the book. I thought it was helpful.
But it's been useful for me to set up systems. So I described that as moving people from goals setting to goal accomplishment. Having done this for well, I'm going to have to say it now 15 years. I noticed a lot of companies, organizations, individuals. Maybe that's redundant. They they have great goals. They got they got all the marketing and the vision and the strategic plans. And then you're like, you know, they write that in December to January 1st quarter. And then by February, like a New Year's resolution, everyone's forgotten. They don't even know where the document it is. I'm like bringing it up. I'm like, I see here in your vision statement. They're like, we have a vision statement. And so I realized that that could also be applied to personal finance and life. And so that's kind of what I moved forward with with establishing my own brand and a number of podcasts and businesses over the years.
That's great. And in your in your own journey through either through reading or through your own experiences, we usually like to start our listeners off with some quick takeaway right off the top of like something that you have found useful a lesson or just something that they can put into use something that's been life changing for you. As far as monetary, it's a so I read 15 books and I give those reviews away from free to any email subscribers. It's like the 15 best books.
I think I got it from like money or something like that. My favorite now actually changed in 2021. It was the simple path to wealth by J. O. Collins prior to that because it has some sentimental value. My father gave it to me in high school was the millionaire next door. I read that book at 17. Apparently didn't learn what I need to do as far as takeaways because I was not a millionaire. Presently or yet, but it kind of set that foundation.
So that's always going to have some sentimental value for me. And I read it again in my 30s and I had more takeaways. And I kind of summarize it as, you know, the takeaway from me would be spin less than your earn or earn more than you spin. Yeah. It's pretty much the breakdown. And you can overcome a lot. And I think maybe my life takeaway, I think the pandemic has got a lot of us feeling very existential is not to underestimate yourself.
Someone actually is a college student asked yesterday, I'm just talking about how do you overcome failure? And the answer is by failing. I don't know a way to overcome failure. But I can say that having failed multiple times and definitely more times than I've actually succeeded. What I have learned is I can get through failure. Failures of price I pay for success. And my turnover rate is much quicker. So she was like 22, 23. I think I was like, you failed. It might take you the rest of 2021 to recover from. And you know, you need to go through that.
I don't need to discount. I don't mean to discount the emotions of that. I fail on Monday. I'm good by Wednesday. I like my emotional turnaround is like two to three days now. Instead of, you know, I don't need the 12 month turnaround. So not to fear failure, but to understand failures of peace that you have to go through for success. I'd love to. Yeah. That sort of reminds me of that quote that says, the master has failed more times than the amateur has ever tried. Nice. I like it.
Yeah. Well, the whole psychological aspect to business is something we're going to talk about because I think the email is pretty visited by Michael Gerber came out in 85. I was living on the ground hit. But I think it's it's separate itself from the rest of the literature by really drilling down into the psychological aspects of being an entrepreneur.
A lot of other books were a bit sort of nuts and bolts. So hopefully we can get into that a bit. But just before we do, just a general breakdown, he's got this idea about business as a system. And you know, franchising and the whole idea of creating a sort of world of order in your business. But the sort of the way he gets gets you reading this book is this person called Sarah who's running a pie shop, right? You remember it. And she's been she started her own business. She's thrown herself into it. And a few months in, she's like drowning in in the business.
So Marcus, I mean when someone comes to you at the small business level, how do you sort of approach them? Is it do you come come there from the sort of psychological level or do you look at the business from the nuts and bolts? What do you do first to help people?
With the recovering auditor background, my instinct is to go through, I think he called it a technician. That's actually probably where I fall. My father explained it as a good business anyway. I think he was talking about relationships. Everyone has a dreamer and an architect. And you know, in the perfect world, well, he opens with the architects, actually the dreamers vision is the architects nightmare because architects got ability and the dreamers, you know, fanciful and tends to be, but if you can find that balance, what he calls a technician, that would kind of be the systems makes sense to me.
And it's something that I've struggled with as far as as far as communications, it makes perfect sense to me because I'm like, it's the facts. Like you get out of debt because there's interest and you're spending more money than you need to. You're giving money away to the bank. And they're like, but I really like this car. And I'm like, let me, let me, I don't think you heard me. So the interest and you're giving money away. And so I really like that side. So my takeaway and this is something I've learned over the years more through on the coaching side is I'm trying to get better about people locking into their why and then building backwards to the facts, the technician side, if you will.
I kind of feel like I'm actually the exception. And the dreamer is the rule. I think dreamers got, you got to think about the type of folks that would even fathom starting a business. Why would you, you know, I asked myself that a few times probably a month, if not a week, is, you know, why am I even doing this to myself? This is a choice. Like I'm making the choice to work 60, 80 additional hours as it's set up right now into the business. And so I try to tap into people's why. I think he does that in the book too, as far as the pie maker is.
That's a good starting point that will ground you. Having that vision will motivate you and continue helping you move forward. Then how do you build the pieces around it? I call it hiring where you're weak. So I'm weak at marketing. I'm weak at dreaming. And so I need dreamers surrounding me to kind of break me out of the technician side.
Yeah, that's a great point. And that's a big theme in the e-mith is this idea that I guess the part of the myth is that the entrepreneur can just do it all. That if you have that vision to want to start a business, then you can just do it all by yourself. And just having the drive is enough. And so the book does a great job of sort of dispelling that myth that just because you have the desire and the drive to start a business does not necessarily mean that you have just what you're talking about, Marcus, both the vision, the dream and the actual capability of doing all the technical side.
And Michael Gerber calls it like a technician having an entrepreneurial seizure where you know, they know very technically how to do one specific thing. So in the example the book gives it someone who's very passionate about pies and knows how to make really, really good pies. And it's this myth that just knowing how to do something is enough to start a whole business. And the whole point is that there's so much more to it than just what it is you're selling or just what the business is about. It does require just like you're saying, Marcus, the marketing part of it. It requires the vision for the future. It requires all these other things.
And so if you've got that one technical piece of it, then you need to find those people and surround yourself with those people who can fill in all of those other gaps that it takes to run any business. So it sounds like you've done a great job of doing that, Marcus. And how do you help folks when they, how do you help folks when they are sort of blinded to those other needs and kind of want to be the super entrepreneur and just do it all themselves regardless of their skill set?
I think what being an audit has helped me with as well is realizing that no one seeks to be audited. No one likes to be audit. So I've been fortunate that I've kind of had a number of mentors and I've had a great network over the years.
But one of them said, no matter what field you're in, you're always in marketing. This was before I ever started a business. I thought it was crazy at the time. I still talk to this individual or friends, friends now on Facebook. So it's official. But he was my mentor at that time.
But I think what he meant by that is it's less important about why I'm there. It's more important for them to understand what they're trying to accomplish. Because I think you can build backwards from that.
I think I don't want to undervalue or undercut the emotional vision and importance that is necessary to start a business because that is actually what will keep people going because I'm an auditor. I jumped at some of the numbers. He's like 40% fell in the first year, 80% after five years. And then another 20% fell after that, which I think gets us to 100%.
If I'm doing this math correctly, but that being said, clearly, somebody is out there succeeding. But those are intimidating numbers.
如果我算得对的话,但是话说回来,很显然,有人在成功。但是那些数字令人望而生畏。
And so to differentiate yourself, you have to do differently. It sounds intuitive, but a lot of people are like, I'm passionate about making pies. I'm passionate about writing books. I'm passionate about looking at the data and doing the research.
But with rare exception, a lot of people aren't going to come to me for not for what I'm trying to do now for my auditing skills. For my ability to do research and analysis. So what is driving us forward and what's going to keep us motivated?
And what I kind of try to describe it as is being a leader through demonstration, so being humble in my own ignorance. So I can kind of now share my story. I failed here for these reasons because I was arrogant.
That's not what people call it, but they're like, I'm a great pie maker. So I should be putting the pie making game on its ear. The example I use is these folks still have their claws out there, but I think it's cut co or velcro. Whatever it is, they sell knives.
They talk you into this MLM selling knives. And it's actually amazing how many people I call it falling victim. I'm probably going to be sued by this company eventually. I always my saving graces, the only customer I ever had was my parents and they still have these knives. Great knives. Greatest knives on the history of earth. These knives cut through ropes, pennies. I still got the salesman in me.
But you're also a recovering co salesman. I see it good to know, good to know. I'm recovering what you call it. Vacuum the the Kirby vacuum. I accidentally got sucked into selling curbies. Actually, I think we're proving a great point. A great marketing plan.
That passion, you know, like I thought I was going to put the these about the vacuum game. I was going to like I was going to I now just saying out loud and I've told the story a hundred times. Like the idea that I was going to put the knife game on it's it like I was going to take over the knife. You know, Ramsey was going to be asked to be for advice on the knife.
Like I don't know Ramsey. I don't think you need to look at these cut cause you know, you could be slicing ropes and steaks right now. So you can't really underestimate that passion.
But I think to your point earlier into the books overall theme is you you need to round yourself out and you can round yourself out with strong hires. And usually as he points out not to hire yourself. So I try to make a concerted effort for myself and others like I'll say this and my my boss is really good at it.
When he hired me something I didn't really I actually I don't think I ever heard his interview. He's like, what do you need for me as a boss? And I said having lots of painful lessons learned and failures over the years. I said I want somebody that will make me the best me not another them.
And a lot of bosses just try to mold you into the second version of them. I think both through bosses and entrepreneurship you want to surround yourself with the weakest version of you and that will actually make you the strongest version of you.
Yeah, this is something he here, Gover talks about. So if Sarah's got this point in her business, she's overwhelmed. So she thinks okay, I'm going to hire some more people. But then a month later that person leaves that she's put in invested a lot in and then she hires someone else and that person leaves a few months down the track that she spend a lot of time training.
So she gets this realisation that it's not just about hiring great people. They're often the answer but they're never the complete answer. It's really about creating a system that will work whether or not you've got great people or mediocre people that you have set up all these processes so that you know everything is going to work the product or services is going to get out there. The customer is going to be happy just because everything is written down you have a process and he calls it like a turnkey thing. And McDonald's is he has up there his sort of perfect turnkey thing.
And I guess I mean that's seems to take away a bit of romance of setting up your own business. But Marcus, I would have thought if you are able to create something like that, some system that would give you an incredible buzz because it would mean that it could be replicated many, many times.
Well, I agree with the principles of the book. One thing that, and this is like I said, something I'm working on in real time, is also digging into what motivates the individual. So for example, that's really exciting. I wrote it down. I have a little notepad that I have every time because I'm an auditor and it has a usually blue red black pen. I got a blue red pen today. And the quote I put was discipline provides freedom. I was excited when I read this. You know, yes, I know it. I'm, you know, anything that validates that I was right. I'm excited about. But that doesn't motivate some individuals.
But to that individual, I would say for your business to succeed, what you are passionate excited about, you need an individual who is motivated by systems thinking. You do need that person that will write the policies and procedures and make it turn key. I'm sure McDonald's has the same way, but example I would have, I used to live in this small college town. Actually, I think the town is still small. They probably think they're big because they got a Walmart now. I think what is the maker, the Buffalo Wild Wing? I think they have a Buffalo Wild Wing now.
So they're, you know, they're on the forefoot. Yeah, exactly. Just need to trade or jose and they'll be real. And I remember it must have been two weeks. Like, you know, you drive the same route every single time. And I remember there was a jacket box. And even the floor plan was fabricated. Like they brought four walls and stood it up one day. Like I drove by like at 8am, there was nothing there but a pallet. And then I came by and there was a jacket box there.
And I'm like to have someone that someone a system thinker, you know, entrepreneur Jack, whoever's under that big head, he probably does not care how those four walls came up. But somebody probably came up with a formula one day, like, like, like, an engineer technician.
It was like, we could save X amount millions of dollars and make Jack in the box franchises. So I'll say McDonald's stick with the book all across the country. If we just came up with a way to fabricate these walls. So you need those individuals on your team so that your business can grow. And in this case, and that's one thing I think should be clear is he was building businesses for franchising.
就像我们可以节省 X 亿美元并开办“盒中杰克”连锁店。所以我认为麦当劳应该在全国范围内遵循规章制度。如果我们能想出一种制造这些墙壁的方法。所以你需要这些团队中的人才以便你的商业可以成长。在这种情况下,应该明确的一点是他正在建立用于特许经营的企业。
Some people that like they would be happy and content. And I think that's fine if they know that that that's their vision. Like I just want my pie business on the corner to be successful with my friends and family to know me.
I have this vision that one day I've told my fiance about it that I'll open a bar and just everyone will know me. I'll be old and retired. And I'll be like, my goodness, you know, I'm like, hey, good. I'll probably be like barely making ends meet. But I've been dreaming about this for years. This struggling failed bar business that's going to exist somewhere. But like you can't underestimate having that passion for it as long as you I think if you're not it that you surround yourself with those people that allow you to be successful.
Yeah. And I think Ray Crock from McDonald's definitely had those people. I can't remember there was 304. But you know, Ray Crock was, he was easily inspired by stuff. Like he had this or religious moment when he first had his first French fries. The original McDonald's. And he thought, wow, this and this fantastic system, you know, I can see this working anywhere.
So he had a bit of both. He was very inspired by stuff. But he had this team around him that thought in terms of real estate. Like McDonald's became a huge real estate owner and created the whole franchise and everything. So I would imagine every great company has this blend of the original inspired creative founder and the system thinkers underneath them for sure.
Yeah. I really like the book talks about the life cycle of a business and about franchising. So just like that McDonald's example, he talks about how all businesses begin at infancy. So for the McDonald's example, it's when the brothers, the McDonald brothers just had their single location and they were doing really well with their single location.
They knew exactly their own system. But they didn't know how great that system was that it could be replicated. They only had the vision of the single location. And it took the Ray Crock to come in and say, you've got this down to a science. So that means you can do this anywhere.
So the infancy is when basically the owner and the business are inseparable. If the two McDonald brothers weren't physically in the building or they weren't actually doing everything, then the business would die. And so that's infancy. And then the book talks about how moving from infancy to adolescence is where you first start hiring staff.
And when you're bringing other people in and when it's sort of the owners and the business can work side by side, maybe necessary, maybe not. But maturity is when the vision, the goals, the achievements of the business happen with or without the owner, the founder, the person. That's when the business is really mature. When it's replicable because it's down so it's so systematized and it's separable from the owner because it's that much of a working machine.
So how does that sit with you? How do you resonate with that Marcus? I'm not going live. It was painful. And the reason was is so depending on how you do the math, this would be my second or third business, the third is running under my own brand. I've been in adolescence a lot.
And so seeing it prescribed like that, and he's right, where you're inseparable for the business. I think it's garnered, Lori Garner from Shark Tank, she says only an entrepreneur will wait eight work 80 hours to avoid working 40 hours. And you know, you can't escape it from for two points. One, you're either not making enough money to hire or number two, you think you have to do all the things either because you're the best at it or you're if you don't do it, it won't have your touch on it or things like that.
Those are like the failures, if you will. I guess that was in the 20 to 80% math as far as the failed businesses I had. And what I'm trying to do now, I guess a call to action or take away that I'd have for individuals, is I have two in a business coaches.
One might say I have one and a half because like we can't afford them. So he like he gives me guidance and then he's like come back to me when you can afford me. He sent me his price rate one day. I was like, can I just ask him a follow-up question? So he talks to me when he has time.
And either franchise or sell to another company to take over.
要么进行特许经营,要么出售给另一家公司接管。
And to have that forethought coming in, what does work for me is as soon as he said that, he's like, I can work backwards really good.
而且要有先见之明,对我有用的是,他一说那句话,他就像说我可以很好地往回推理。
That's the auditor in me.
我是审计师出身。
So he's like, here's what 10 years looks like.
那么他就像是,这就是10年的样子。
So I'm like, okay, that's, you know, 31, 2031.
我就像,好吧,那就是 31 年,2031 年。
What does 2021 look like?
2021年会是个什么样子呢?
And I can start putting those steps processes and pieces together to get there.
我可以开始把这些步骤、过程和部件组合在一起,以达到目的。
So sometimes, as I guess I'll continue to echo, you need someone to tell you what there looks like.
有时候,我想我会继续重复,你需要有人告诉你那里看起来怎样。
And you need to be receptive to that advice, whether that's going to be this book or an individual that you can surround yourself with.
你需要接受这些建议,无论是通过这本书还是身边的某个人。并且要乐于接受并接纳里面的内容和建议。
And then to follow that roadmap, you definitely don't have to reinvent the wheel.
然后,要跟随这个路线图,你绝对不必重新发明轮子。
I think a lot of entrepreneurs think they do.
我觉得很多企业家认为他们是这样想的。
I'm going to put the knife, pie, and Kirby vacuum game on its ear.
我要让刀子、馅饼和柯比吸尘器游戏翻个跟头。
But clearly it's been done because the reason I knew that Kirby is because my mom owned the Kirby.
显然这已经做过了,因为我知道柯比的原因是因为我妈妈拥有柯比。
I sold knives.
我卖刀子。
So clearly they will be around and stick around.
很明显,它们会存在并继续存在下去。
So you don't have to reinvent the wheel.
所以你不必重复造轮子。
Yeah.
是的。
So it's all about, as he says, working on your business instead of in it.
所以就像他所说的那样,重点在于把精力放在经营你的企业上,而不是在企业里面忙碌。
But I mean, as you mentioned before, if you don't have enough money to hire another person or hire a business coach, you can sort of be in a bit of a chicken and egg situation, I guess.
So I think many people must be stuck in that actually.
所以我想很多人可能会陷入这种情况。
I mean, when I was like in college and stuff, worked in a lot of small businesses, people running shops and things.
我的意思是,当我还在上大学时,曾在许多小公司工作过,比如经营商店之类的人。
And they didn't really get beyond the family running phase.
他们并没有真正超越家庭经营阶段。
They do pretty well out of it.
他们从中做得相当不错。
But even hiring one or two extra people was like a sort of leap of faith.
但是,即使雇用一两个额外的人也像是一种信仰的飞跃。
And you felt like you were not really part of this clan.
你感觉自己并不真正属于这个家族。
So I think, yeah, or what you're saying resonates.
所以我觉得,嗯,你说的话有共鸣。
It's just sort of getting to the next stage.
它只是逐渐进入下一个阶段。
It's very psychological.
这很有心理学意义。
And I think where this, this is where this book is so good.
我认为,这就是这本书的好处所在。
He, go ever really gets almost sort of mystical.
他,走得越远越近似于神秘。
I mean, he's got a few authors he mentions.
我是说,他提到了几位作者。
He's influenced by quite sort of spiritual people like Zen, people are Robert Persig and Carlos Castaneda.
他受到了一些比较有灵性的人的影响,例如善良的人,例如罗伯特·珀西格和卡洛斯·卡斯塔尼达。
And you think you're reading a business book and then he comes out with stuff like this.
你以为你在读一本商业书,结果他提出这样的东西。
And it's good though because it makes the the individual really think about what they're doing.
这是很好的,因为它使个人真正思考他们正在做的事情。
You know, do you think guys, I mean, is there a particular type of person who can start a business and cope with it?
你知道吗,你认为有些人特别适合创业并应对吗?
And is there like an employee way journey mindset that are very different?
那么,是否有一种雇员的旅程心态,它们非常不同呢?
Or you know, how much sort of, how much blurred lines is that between them?
你知道吗,它们之间有多少种相似和模糊的界限?
Yes, I definitely think and I have to break out of it because I've got a foot in both worlds right now and probably why I was not successful before and I'm talking about employee versus entrepreneur.
I think the simplest is as an employee, I'll give today as an example, like my boss had literally said, you know, these are your two priorities for the week.
I think there's, he said for the day, we kind of go back and forth.
"我想今天会有点来回,"他说道。
I think we're joking.
我觉得我们是在开玩笑。
I think he's serious.
我觉得他是认真的。
You know, everything's a priority.
你知道的,每件事情都是优先事项。
There's nothing's a priority.
没有什么是更重要的。
He stares at me.
他盯着我看。
Blinkly's like, get him both done.
把 Blinkly 的事情都处理好,不要犹豫。
And see, what I say that is that's very clear.
你看,我的意思很明白。如果需要,可以这样改写:你明白我说的话了吗,这很容易理解。
Like he told me, this is, you know, I break him down his most important task and I got that from something else I read.
就像他告诉我的,我把他最重要的任务分解出来了,这个我是从另一篇文章里读到的。你知道的。
So every week, you could say month and or year by extension, I've got what I'm using now as Microsoft planner.
所以,每个星期,如果延长到月份或年份,我现在使用的是微软计划。
And it's, you know, it looks like a Christmas tree.
你知道,它像一棵圣诞树一样。
You know, it's got all these different colors than it and you know, high priority, low priority and you know, no less than 25 projects if not 100.
你知道的,它有很多不同的颜色,高优先级、低优先级,还有不少于25个甚至100个项目。
And the list only grows.
而且这个清单只会越来越长。
The list has never shrunk since I've started this job. And it never does an any job that I'm in. So functionally, what that means is I sit down with my boss who is one of the better bosses that I've had. And he tells me, this is your priority for the week. Do this and you will make me your boss person who signed your check happy and successful. You have a job next week. That's employee. That's like going to school. As you mentioned, going to colleges, you're told what to do complete this syllabus. You will graduate, do these things. That's that kind of system thinking that it aligns with me for an auditor.
So in some ways, not to discount it, employee is inherently easier if for no other reason someone's telling you what to do. And then, you know, I log off 501 and I log into my business accounts and I start catching up there. And there's no one to tell me what to do. Even my business coach has only meet with me once a month. So unless I want to do nothing for three weeks out of the month, I've got to figure it out.
You know, I've got to figure out, you know, how do I scale this business? Let me look over here at my, I have a vision board over here behind. So I have it broken down by quarterly, for example. So I had to set up and this is done like my community letter, new subscription, for example. I had convert kit. I had started out with there was a male champion. Now I'm with active campaign, great brand. And I wish they were in affiliate because they're awesome. And I plug them. But I'm now with active campaign. But there was no one to tell me which was the best software. So I had to try all three. I had to fill with a few. And then I'm also tech, I'm not, I'm a technician, but I'm like technically challenged. So I have to like watch YouTube videos and fit because there's no one there's no one.
你知道吗,我得想办法,你知道,如何将我的业务扩展起来?让我看看这边,我后面有一个展望板。我按季度分解了这个问题。例如,我需要进行社区通讯、新订阅等设置。我使用了 Convert Kit,一开始使用了 Male Champion,现在我已经转向 Active Campaign,这是一个非常好的品牌。我希望他们参加联盟,因为他们非常好,我向大家推荐他们。但是没有人告诉我哪个软件最好,所以我不得不尝试使用所有三个软件,并选择了一些。而且我也不是技术专家,所以我得看看 YouTube 视频,因为没有人可以指导我。
I'm a solopreneur. So there's no one I can tell. Hey, figure out active campaign. And really I got there from the recommendation of another successful entrepreneur. And I was talking to her. We had a mastermind. And I was like, Hey, you know, there's this new tech I'm trying to figure out. What would you do? This woman makes multi-millions. And she's like, I tell my tech person to figure it out. And I like, all right. Well, I'll go back to watch a YouTube videos. And I don't know that there's, you know, not to be cliche. I think anyone can succeed. But my quote is, this is more so for the trolls because I noticed as my brand has grown, the trolls have come, which is no one was listening to me at 100 followers, but now suddenly the trolls are showing up. Now that I'm more successful.
Oh, it's a good time. That's right. Yeah. They don't realize that's validation. I'm like, yes, they're hating on me. That means something. The brand is successful. But you know, my simple quote is, if you could, you would. And if you can, you should. It's really easy to be, you know, behind the road talking about what's going on in the club, you know, but that being said.
So I think anyone can succeed. But it is two different mindsets. And it can be frustrating, frustrating. And as he mentioned in the book, which was one of the painful takeaways we used to do this. So we ran one company. We were in our 20s. Is when it gets difficult, you want to stay in the adolescent phase? Because any said, you'll regress. So you were talking about hiring. That moves you to actually, I keep saying adolescence, because it's nicer. It's the infancy phase.
So you get stuck in infancy because think about infancy. You know, you go to sleep, you wake up at home and bed, you know, someone, you just, you don't even know how to have to wake up comfortable, build bottle fed. And it's a, it's a very comfortable place. And literally what I wrote down is if you're going to be an entrepreneur, you've got to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. There will inevitably be something today. If not this week that will go wrong in my business that will make me uncomfortable. And if I want it to be in one of the 10%, not the 40% to 80% that fell, I got to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And I've got to figure it out.
Yeah, I mean, there's definitely an amount of risk that you have to be willing to take in order to move through those phases because moving from infancy to adolescence as Gerber describes, it is a big risk to, to hire people and to know that their livelihood relies on you in some kind of way. It's, it is a risk that, you know, as a solar-punior, if you fail, you fail. But then when you move from that infancy into that adolescence, if you fail, multiple people fail, multiple people are relying on you in a very public way.
So yeah, I totally empathize and understand that, you know, that uncomfortable that you're talking about has to do with a lot of different things. But one of them is the risk of failure. And failing privately alone just yourself is a lot easier than failing others who, you know, have depended on you for their income, their stability, all of that kind of stuff.
Yeah, yeah. Things the, well, the Uber entrepreneur of the day, Elon Musk said, starting businesses like chewing glass and staring into the air. And you should know, yeah, I mean, you have to be tough. Yeah, it, I think the, I think everything is a risk.
It's interesting because all of us really, your, your taught school inherently teaches you not to take risk, you know, it encourages you to follow a plan and go and get a job. And that's what 90% of people will do. Don't give it wrong. There's nothing wrong with that. With the exception of the millionaire next door points out that I think, I think it's 80%.
But undoubtedly entrepreneurs are overrepresented in a millionaires. So there's, there's reward in the risk. But what I was going to say is every decision is a risk.
And I deal with this a lot because most of my advice to date has been in personal finance. So it's literally personal and it's literally money. So there's emotional all around. And people were like, well, I don't want to invest in this and I don't, that's a risk, that's a risk. I did that's a risk. But you know, I'm like, you know, not investing is a choice, but also is a risk too.
You're going to lose 10% every year. You buried under a mattress. You're going to lose 10% to inflation every year. So even if you put in a, well, what used to be a few years ago, a high yield account, a high yield is a misnomer these days. I think they pay like 1%. But I was like, at least be inflation so that if you put $1,000 on your mattress, you'll have $1,000 later because it would have netted between inflation and your high yield account.
Now you'd actually still be losing a percentage a year. So people think they're being, they're avoiding risk or have a risk strategy because they're like, I won't do anything risky ever. I'll be good. And I'd say to take away from that monetarily, that is blatantly false. So that goes back to the data. So I had to check back into the emotion of that, but I can prove that to be wrong. I can do the math to prove that wrong.
So on the show, I say use fax to form opinions instead of opinions to form fax. That's like one of our takeaways. So a lot of people like to use opinions to form fax. And I'm like, that, that is wrong. Like we, you know, I can prove that wrong. But the other side of it is if you can get comfortable being uncomfortable or realizing the calculated risk, then you can kind of paint both sides.
And so I can just tell, you know, this scenario choice A that you're making right now, these are the results of it. And we walk through that, you know, whatever that looked like. And there's here's how the story ends. So let's say that your $1,000 is worth $500, you know, 20 years from now, because in a lifetime, you'll lose about 75% of your value and your money. If you don't earn any interest on it, just, just to inflation on average, if you're okay with that, then if you're okay saving money and making less later, cool. Like it was a great conversation. You know, probably we can do that in a consultation 15 minutes.
Great talking to you. Yeah, hope you have a good day. But if you're a goal, which a lot of people is, is to either make money or be successful or be richer than they are today tomorrow, your choice does not align with your goal. So now, Marcus isn't telling you you're wrong in the facts online with what he's saying.
You're telling me that your choices to not take a calculated risk is not allowing you to hit your goal. You know, let him process that, you know, first of all, they don't have emotional around. Marcus, how dare you? It's always my fault. This is where the trolls show up. How dare you, you know, drop this consumer business report. I didn't even write this report.
It's actually a screech that being said, you know, let him get through that. And then I was like, now let's talk about choices B. So I was fortunate. My dad has a background in sociology. So I've been lectured on my life as well as tell people. I'm qualified to lecture just because I've been lectured on my life.
You know, dad's college professor. I've been hearing lectures all my life. I'm a subject matter. I've heard 10,000 hours worth of lectures. So I'll ask. But one thing he used to, he used to always say to me, and I never really understood it when I was young. Oh, when I came home with the knives as a perfect example, I'm like, that, you know, I'm cutting up rope and, you know, cutting through the penny. And he's like, you know, look at this new age still.
And he just would always say, what's plan B? And as I got older, I noticed he asked that. So he, my dad was at that time. I was been in his 40s or 50s. I've been very humbled by this now realizing that my parents are my age raising me. I was like, oh my god.
That being said is, you know, most people don't have a plan B. They barely have a plan. Hey, so just to even ask them like, what's plan B is like a mind-blowing experience? It's like when my business coach said, what's the 10 year plan? I was like, I don't have a five day plan to be perfectly honest with you. And that's is something you can bring to the table for yourself and others. And then inherent in that. Here's where you get to really scary. As, you know, there's 24 other letters in alphabet. So it's plan C indeed, indeed, and E and E and E is on all down the line. And that's when you start to get in that turnkey and that business planning.
Yeah. You know, that reminds me a lot of when we did a book insight on the Robert Kiyosaki book, the cash flow quadrant. And he talks a lot about that of how people feel like they don't want to invest because of that risk factor. But he says, even if you just have a job and you just have one, you know, you're just an employee, that means you have one stream of income. And that is a huge risk because as we've just seen during the pandemic, if your whole industry goes under suddenly, unexpectedly, as we have seen, or if your business fails for some reason, or if your, you know, boss turns out to be one of the end-run guys or something, you know, there's no way to predict that your one stream of income is going to sustain you in perpetuity. Chances are it's not going to.
So if you think you're avoiding risk by just having a job and like you said, saving money in a bank account and just hoping for the best, you are you are taking risk. You're just taking different risks than, you know, then what actually works as you've said with the numbers that do not lie. Yeah. I think during the pandemic side hustles have increased like 100%. Yeah. Because people have suddenly realized this. Probably even the people have still got their job, but are wondering what the hell is this business still going to exist in six months time. So yeah, make sense.
Go ahead. Oh no, I was just going to say, like everywhere, I don't think I'm a unique experience, but I had two kind of wake-up calls, both in age and pandemic. So I'm a senior millennial later leaning millennial, not quite Gen X, not quite Exennial. I want to be very specific about the rage that we're talking about. But I say that because, you know, going through that in your late 30s, it's a different takeaway. And like the pandemic was a different wake-up call. And like you mentioned earlier, time is almost existential because it's like, you know, when you're locked in the house, I was literally locked in the house, like everybody else in the rest of the country. When I was locked in the house, you kind of, you know, watching the sun move across the roof is like, what am I doing here? Is this really, well, I want to spend my life and my time.
It was actually, I had already started the business, but it really solidified more things that I want to do with my life and legacy and purpose and how I want to spend and allocate my time. But even at the pandemic, hadn't ever occurred. Like one of our first episodes, we used to have a personal finance podcast is we tried to make a tagline. We helped millennials make money, save money and get out of debt, talking to data and interview experts every week for four years. And our first episode, I don't even know why people came back.
Our first episode was the paycheck plateau. We had like, you know, I'm on the audit side. So I looked to grab interesting stories. In fact, they tend to be dark. I'm an auditor. They're fascinating to me. And we kind of read through the analysis and they found that on average, the paycheck stagnates. I believe for men, it was 48. And I want to say it was around 90,000. And for women, it was 38 for a number of issues that we have in the United States. And if not broad, as far as pay gap goes.
And you know, think about that that functionally, because we get lured into this place of comfort. I think you can in a business. I think you can as an employee. 40% of your on average, these are our averages. A little 40% of your income comes between 25 and 35. I literally had a 40% jump in my salary at like age 27. And so you're like, this will be forever. You know, every time I negotiate my salary, I'd never had another 40% jump in my salary to tell you how this story ends to force that. And I probably never will. I couldn't even fathom a job that would increase my income right now 40% in the field that I do right now.
But when a lot of people do because they're on plan A path, is they get to 40, 48 or 38 regardless of what it is, and you all can Google this information to validate it to make sure I'm not making it all up.
And then you're like, oh, my, my pay is, first of all, you wouldn't might not even know to call this stagnation. You might just be like, I'm not making more money.
I'm actually making less money between taxes and health savings. And you know, the healthcare costs have gone up. And my family has grown and got better. So you're like, I'm making less, my salary says a bigger number than it did 10 years ago. And I'm bringing home less money. It's a very confusing paradox.
And if you, one avenue, one plan B, for me, no matter what happens, whether this business succeeds or fails, a lot of it's automated. Yeah, I got, I have seven actually, but I got seven other streams doing something to work for me.
So when inevitably, and I know for a fact that it will, that is the downside of being ordered. I know for a fact, my salary will stagnate at some point. If it has not already, I might be into not. At least I've got six or seven other things already working for me.
And then inherent in that is I didn't start with seven. I started with one. I think the book was first. And then the book led to courses and then the course like they lead to other things.
And then Tom to your point, you use Elon Musk. I try to find like you said, you need something that resonates with people like a meme, you know, the meme God. And so I'm like, you know, I'm building something similar to Jeff Bezos model, just not as successful.
I don't think I would be a billionaire. I'll take it if it comes. But that being said, I can guarantee you for fact, Jeff has no ideas of tiredness actually, but he had no idea what was going on in Amazon at a certain point.
No idea. I guarantee you Jeff did not know that you bought like what did I buy? I bought this little camera stand that actually I could be using here that spins and you think Jeff knows that Marcus Garrett bought a 29, 99 camera sell. He doesn't care.
But he will gladly take whatever percentage point that adds to his billion dollar empire. And then that's what I'm talking about is the I keep saying, infancy stage, the step is the first step.
So now a lot of people, because you know, senior millennial, they come and they're like, oh, how did you do it? You know, the weird benefit is when you get older people think you're smart and you just failed so many times that you know to what doesn't work.
Sounds like intelligence. And so I'm like, the first step is the first step. Like there, there, there is no magic step. I know a lot of shortcuts now, but the first step, whatever it's going to be, is the first step.
And then you can kind of, people hear that and it sounds so, you know, crazy, but it's like, I know I'm going to fail. I know something this week will break. I know for a fact, because it does every week.
I don't know what the thing is, but something about like my website, form, move the other day and people couldn't sign up for no reason. I didn't even log in or touch the website. The Russians got in and did something to me. I don't know what happened, but like my site just was not working.
And then, you know, we just got a log in and figured it out. But these are all calculated risks. I think the simplest calculated risk that you can take is while you have that job, working to whatever your point of inevitable stagnation will be.
What can you be doing to increase your salary? Well, that's the example that I use, because I'm in the personal finance world. But whatever motivates you has made you passion or has gotten you clarity to tie it all back during the pandemic, are you moving towards that goal?
And then, if not, that's fine. What choices can you make today that can meet you towards that? I posted this yesterday. You're never, you're never too old to start, but you're, yeah, you're never too old to start, but you're always young enough to start, you know, like it first step is the first step.
Yeah, and we should also say that that first $10 or $100 that you get from some stream of income, that's not your job, it's incredibly exciting. I remember some first message I got from an agent about a book deal, my first book, and was much more exciting than any wage slip I'd ever got.
Sure. Yeah, so out of five, I give this book four out of five bookmarks. I love it. I think it's a wake up call to the current culture that says like, anyone can do anything anytime.
Like I think part of that is true, and there are bits of it that are good, but I like that this book is not the raw raw, anyone can do anything, just put your mind to it, and you know, I think it's a lot more nuts and bolts, which I enjoy.
I like the stats. I'd like the systematization and just, you know, really keeping a grounded perspective on what has worked in the past, what's working now, and what is projected to work in the future. I really like that. So it's tough medicine, but it's enjoyable. I say four out of five only because I think a revised version that addresses more of the like personality influencer based businesses, so that we're seeing so much of that now of like the coaching and just the, you know, like you mentioned, the sole opinioner is like, that's a big thing right now. And so that personality driven, you know, the thing, there's something to that. And I do think that this book misses the mark on that. So that's the only reason that I give it four out of five.
Yeah, what do you think, Marcus? Yeah, I'm going to echo that for the same reasons. I'll give it four out of five as well. Like I said, I'm very comfortable in the darkness. I exist in the darkness sort of like Batman, it's just like, you know, I was molded by the dark. And so I like the facts, the figures, and I like the idea, this is going to sound weird, but knowing that others have failed, knowing that 80% failed, that actually gives me a place of comfort. Like going in, knowing that, hey, only one in five people succeeded this. So if I'm actually in better company failing with the four and five, then I am succeeding with the one in five. That helps me. I'm like, I just probably going to fail and suck. So let me just go ahead and start it up anyway, because it's statistically likely to fail. And he made a great point.
I didn't even realize this. So despite all of this, I'm actually like an emotional hoarder. I'm a complicated individual. But I have my emails turned on for so when I get alerts, when someone buys a course, I can alert with someone buys an affiliate. I don't have to. I mean, I could, but I like hearing that ding. I rush over to my phone. It's like, you have made. I'm like, like, and what I tell people is, you know, tying it back to the book. One thing that I, you can, it is invaluable. Even to this day, and I've been doing it, my dad asked me yesterday, somewhere between five or 10 years, how do you do the math? I've been in this person with personal finance realm. The idea that I can just sit down and like, I come up with a concept. Now I've got about seven contractors that I work with. And we've been working together so long. Like, he calls it a wireframe, a graphic designer. I'd be like, Hey, I've got this idea. And before I even like get to detail, he knows, you know, he's been in my head long enough. So he's like, I got it, man, I'll put something together to tell me what you want. I was like, I want the graphic here and I wanted to fly out. Now, you know, I always go over, boy. And he's like, yeah, I can't do any of that. But I'll, I'll get you a model. And then I go to my graphic designer. I was like, Hey, the graphic site designers designing this, you know, and then we all start with like, and to go from idea to concept to that email where we get paid, I wish I want everyone to have that. And if this book or any book can move them towards it, like, and it sounds crazy into like Tom said to you to see it. It's, I won't be cliche, but it's amazing. It's an amazing, it's an amazing, every time I get an email, I'm excited.
Yeah. I give it four and a half. I think in the whole personal finance business canon, it's really up there. Such a classic now. I mean, people still getting a lot out of it. I see it. You know that book, the hard thing about hard things? Which is like a CEO level, how to run a big, big company like the White Nuckle Ride. This is more like the small business version of that. And I think this book is saved a lot of people from blindly going into opening a business when they didn't know anything about how it was actually going to be. So I think it's been very, very powerful book. And it's just a great read. I mean, Gerber writes well. It's even funny in bits. So yeah, very good. Yeah, Karin, I think we're coming up to our hour, so we should probably wrap up.
All right. Yep. So news. So today, Michael Gerber has authored dozens of books, including numerous versions of the EMF. So a lot of these versions are specialty. So about particular industries or occupations, just like EMFs for optometrist, EMF for real estate agents, HVAC contractors. Like he nailed this down to very specific industry. franchise. Yep. He's franchise. He figured out a book that people liked and worked. And then he franchised the heck out of it. So example. Yep. Yep.
Exactly. Today Gerber is regularly quoted and interviewed by Forbes, Business Insider, and many other news outlets as the expert on small business development. He also has a new business training company called Radical U, which is like online courses and classes for entrepreneurs. So that's the latest on him. All right.
So this is the part where we get to ask Marcus how we connect with you. So how do our listeners or viewers on YouTube connect with you or any upcoming projects you've got or what's what's new and exciting in your world that you want to let everybody know about? Try to make it easiest for the people on the platform.
So if you're on YouTube, just go to the search bar and search the Marcus Garrett. I have a YouTube channel as well. But I'm universally branded. I have a podcast that I'll be bringing out. I'm at vmarkersgaret.com. If you visit there, the Marcus Garrett.com, it'll give you a button slash webinar. You can also sign up for our free webinars and free replays. And I'll send you a free replay for how much debt you can afford on a 3050 or $100,000 salary. It's one of our most popular. So of course, it's hidden and available at vmarkersgaret.com slash webinars.
That's great. And we'll be sure to include those links in the show notes. So they're not hidden. And we can make sure folks can easily find those great resources. So thank you. And as always, if you want to connect with us, book insights. Our handle is at book insights pod on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. And then you can also watch all these interviews on YouTube as well. Book insights podcast.
All right. Thank you so much for joining us and Marcus. It's been great having you. Really appreciate you sharing your insights with us as we discussed the event. Thank you for having me. Thanks, Marcus.