Order of Man - OoM 035： Live a life of Success, Happiness, and Fulfillment with Aaron Walker

00:00:00.000 All of us want to improve in life. That is no secret. The challenge is understanding what

00:00:04.000 needs to be done, planning a course of action, and then executing that plan. My guest today,

00:00:08.400 Aaron Walker, talks with us about how to create and implement a plan so that you can live a life

00:00:12.620 of success, happiness, and fulfillment. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest,

00:00:18.260 embrace your fears, and boldly charge your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up

00:00:23.440 one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.

00:00:30.740 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day,

00:00:36.120 and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:00:41.020 Welcome to the Order of Man podcast, guys. My name is Ryan Mickler. I am the host and the founder of

00:00:46.000 Order of Man, and I'm glad to be back again here with you today. First things first, last week,

00:00:50.740 I completely neglected to thank all the veterans that listen to this podcast. If you're active

00:00:55.520 duty military or if you're retired, I want to personally thank you for your sacrifices. It's

00:01:00.820 because of your sacrifices and your efforts that we have the ability to do shows like this

00:01:05.580 and live the life that we do. So I want to thank you for all that you do. Guys, this is a great show

00:01:11.740 this week. I promise that after listening to this show, you are going to walk away feeling inspired

00:01:16.000 and you're going to be feeling motivated to create the life that you want to create. But real

00:01:20.340 quickly, I want to thank somebody, D. Wolf WD, who said this about the show. I stumbled upon

00:01:25.960 Order of Man podcast 25, which struck gold with me. I have since become a follower of the powerful

00:01:30.620 lessons given to help men become better fathers, husbands, and friends. Thanks for that, D. Wolf WD.

00:01:36.100 If you still haven't left your review, please head over to orderofman.com slash iTunes,

00:01:40.380 leave your review, and we'll try to feature that on a future episode. As always, I mention this all the

00:01:45.460 time, but our Facebook group is definitely somewhere that you'll want to be. Last week,

00:01:49.500 we talked about how to communicate with your significant other, how to develop manly skills,

00:01:53.240 and one of my favorite posts to date, an overview of the Marine Corps leadership traits. If you want

00:01:57.800 to join in the conversation we're having over there, head to facebook.com slash groups slash

00:02:02.220 Order of Man. Now remember, all the show notes, the links, the quotes, the information, all of the

00:02:07.820 stuff that you need can be found at orderofman.com slash 035. Now let me introduce you to my guest,

00:02:14.740 Aaron Walker. He is a businessman and life coach and has inspired many through his leadership,

00:02:20.200 mentorship, and constant pursuit of excellence. You'll be able to tell in this discussion that

00:02:24.940 Aaron truly enjoys helping others and believes experience is a great teacher. For the last 19

00:02:29.360 years, he has been taking classes from and has been coached personally by his friend, financial guru,

00:02:34.480 Dave Ramsey. He incorporates education and learning opportunities into his daily routine. So he's

00:02:39.380 always, always informed of the latest tools and trends available. A successful businessman,

00:02:44.440 Aaron helped take his construction company from doing one or two projects a year to a multi-million

00:02:49.600 dollar company, voted number one builder for three consecutive years. So you know the man knows

00:02:54.600 what he's talking about when it comes to success. Aaron Walker, thanks for joining us today. Glad you're

00:02:59.400 here. Man, thanks, Ryan. I appreciate you having me on the show. I've listened to some of the other

00:03:03.520 interviews and the conversations you've had. And so I'm excited to have the opportunity to be

00:03:08.200 having this conversation with you. Oh man, the pleasure is mine. Thanks for having me on.

00:03:12.720 So my first question is, how does a serial entrepreneur, because I know you've been really

00:03:16.740 successful in business, go from being an entrepreneur and having all these successes to

00:03:21.060 now this something that a little bit different, which is this personal development space?

00:03:25.060 Yeah, well, it all kind of ties hand in hand, but it's because I've been successful that I can do

00:03:30.440 this, what I'm doing now, coaching other men to achieve their goals, their dreams, their purpose in life.

00:03:36.200 And so it's a little bit different, but it's more of the same.

00:03:40.080 Right. And so how does that tie in with some of the other things that you've done in the past?

00:03:44.100 Well, the process by which I've been able to be successful is discovering what it means,

00:03:50.660 as you say, to be a man, what it means to be a husband, what it means to be a dad in every venture.

00:03:56.780 It's just another service or another widget, but the process by which we do that is more of the same.

00:04:02.400 So what are some of the key takeaways? I know that's a really hard question to answer because

00:04:07.600 there's so much depth when it comes to being successful and being an entrepreneur and being

00:04:13.240 a husband and a father like you talk about. Are there some key metrics that you are measuring

00:04:18.020 and looking at to help people be more successful?

00:04:22.060 Yeah, well, there are. Well, first of all, we have to determine for ourselves what success means.

00:04:26.680 And I had to go through that regimen myself thinking, what metrics are there out there?

00:04:32.720 How will I know when I've won? What will I have done to achieve? And what I have found out

00:04:37.300 by being in accountability groups and being in mastermind groups is that we always continue

00:04:42.740 to move the bar. Don't you do that, Ryan? Don't you get to this point and you say,

00:04:46.120 if I just had a little more of this or a little more of that, we keep moving the bar.

00:04:50.420 So I had to determine for me, Robin and I sat on the porch and said, how will we know when we've

00:04:55.660 won? What are the metrics that we're going to use? And so we literally wrote down things

00:05:01.220 financially that we wanted to accomplish. We wrote down goals and dreams that we wanted to

00:05:06.000 accomplish in writing. And then we worked to an ends to meet those things. And so we have to just

00:05:12.520 decide for each and every one of ourselves what it means to be successful.

00:05:16.400 I know that I've gone through that exercise and I've spent a lot of time reflecting and thinking

00:05:22.400 about, like you said, what does it mean to be successful? What is the end game? What do I hope

00:05:27.220 to accomplish? Are there some skills or some strategies that men are using to find that out?

00:05:34.660 Because I think sometimes we just don't know what questions to ask ourselves to get to that point.

00:05:38.820 Well, I had to decide for me that choosing my own schedule was like on the top of the list for me to

00:05:44.240 be successful. I said, if I could do one thing in life rather than working for somebody else,

00:05:49.200 what are some of the things that would be, I would hit the mark. One of them for me was choosing my

00:05:55.160 own schedule. The other one was having financial freedom. And I think we all want that. At the end

00:06:00.220 of the day, we all want to be able to decide today if we want to go to work, play golf, empower,

00:06:05.140 encourage others. What do we want to do today? Another thing for me was, is having an engaging

00:06:10.920 family. And you were talking about doing some things intentionally. What can we do to be

00:06:15.460 successful? I found out early on that meaningful relationships were paramount for me to be

00:06:21.980 successful. My dad never had any money in his life, but relationships were everything to him.

00:06:28.120 And in 06, when my dad passed away, we stood at the casket and we greeted the people to pay their

00:06:34.740 condolences. For six and a half hours, Ryan, it took an hour and a half to get up to see us.

00:06:42.100 Every single person told me, let me tell you what your dad meant to me. Let me tell you how your dad

00:06:46.760 poured into me. Really? Yeah. Nobody said he had a great boat. He had a great house. He had plenty

00:06:52.140 of money. No one said that. So for me, a tip that I would give you in order to be successful is to

00:06:58.840 invest long-term in relationships. Yeah. I mean, every opportunity has its root in relationships,

00:07:04.900 right? Whether that's relationships with your family or whether that's business opportunities,

00:07:08.620 it all begins with a relationship. Yeah. Well, that's the way we've intentionally built our

00:07:13.020 businesses. And we've been very successful at it eight different times now is because our central

00:07:18.840 focus was on other people, how to fully engage and listen to the person, try to meet their needs.

00:07:24.900 It was not about taking advantage of people. It was about encouraging people. It was about lifting

00:07:29.960 them up and helping them accomplish their goals. When we built houses for people, we would listen

00:07:36.060 to specifically the things that they wanted in their custom home. When we would sell diamond rings,

00:07:41.040 when I owned the pawn shops, it was not what we had on sale or what we were trying to get over on them

00:07:47.040 or push on them. It was, what is it you want? It's the same in any industry, whether it's service

00:07:53.440 industry or selling a widget. If you will listen closely to the people and just try to meet their

00:07:59.540 needs, fully engage what they're saying rather than trying to make the sale, your sales will be a lot

00:08:05.140 more. Your relationships will be a lot deeper. They will be a lot more meaningful because you're

00:08:09.840 trying to accomplish what they want rather than what you want. And we hear that all the time. We hear

00:08:15.240 focus on the customer, focus on the people that you serve. But I think sometimes we just really

00:08:19.180 struggle doing that. So why is that? Because I don't think that's necessarily new information,

00:08:24.440 but it's not something that everybody is out there implementing. So what's the disconnect?

00:08:28.260 Well, the disconnect is we're so busy trying to make the sale because we have mortgages to pay or

00:08:33.520 we're paying for cars that we can't afford or we're overextended that our hyper focus is on getting and

00:08:39.940 closing the deal rather than meeting their needs. And when you really pay attention to the way you

00:08:45.820 leverage yourself and your time and your money, you can pay more attention to the client.

00:08:51.240 So I'm going to go back to something you said that I've had this conversation with my wife and

00:08:55.920 it's something that's always kind of been in the back of my mind. You talk about being successful

00:09:00.560 and then moving that bar, right? Always wanting a little bit more and a little bit more. So my first

00:09:04.500 question, and I've got to follow up to this is, is it ever enough? Do you ever come to a point when

00:09:09.420 you're successful enough or you have enough? And what does that look like?

00:09:13.340 It will never be enough unless you establish the goals, the boundaries by which you're playing

00:09:18.260 the game. It's kind of like when you're playing soccer, you know that you're out of bounds when

00:09:22.620 you cross the white line. If you don't have any boundaries and you haven't established the metrics

00:09:27.420 before the game starts, no, no amount will ever be enough. And here's what I tell people. Here's the,

00:09:33.760 here's the myth. When I get just 10 more thousand dollars, then I'll be happy. If I can just get that

00:09:39.760 new house, then I will be happy. And let me just tell you, it doesn't scratch the itch because you

00:09:45.780 get it and you think, is this it? Is this all there is? Because we place so much emphasis on

00:09:51.980 tangible possessions and we place so much emphasis on our identity. When we get there, we finally

00:09:58.000 realize that happiness is a choice, not a trait. See, we elect to be happy and content in the present

00:10:05.260 situation we're in, but I don't want you to be complacent. I want you to keep moving the needle,

00:10:10.960 but I want you to decide why you're moving the needle, why you want more money. What is it you're

00:10:16.420 going to do with it once you get it? If your focus is all about yourself, whatever you get,

00:10:21.600 the next whatever will not take you to the place that you hope it will. You've got to decide. That's

00:10:28.100 why I wrote this document called, what do I want? And you just intentionally sit down with your mate

00:10:33.600 and you say, what do we want it to look like in 30 days, five years, when we retire, when there's an

00:10:39.140 empty nest, what do we want our life to look like? Robin and I did this early on when we had our

00:10:44.180 business, our first business when I was 18, we paid off a 10 year loan in 36 months. We could have

00:10:51.160 done anything we wanted to at that point. I could have bought a much bigger house, a nicer, faster car,

00:10:56.720 but we said, you know what? We're going to reinvest the proceeds back into the business. We're going to

00:11:02.020 feed the machine. We're going to grow the business, right? The Joneses though, a nicer car, bigger

00:11:08.920 house. And I'm like, Hey, we're not comparing ourself to them. We're going to stick to the

00:11:12.920 course. We're going to do what we want. So when I'm 21, we open our second store and then we service

00:11:18.280 the customers. Well, we give better service than the other guy. And we grow this business. Now I'm 25.

00:11:24.400 We open our third store, 26, my fourth store. Now I've got something that's big enough that a

00:11:30.560 fortune 500 company, cash America, they're in Fort Worth, Texas. They notice I'm on their radar.

00:11:35.780 Now they want to be in Nashville. So rather than doing a startup, they growing through acquisition,

00:11:40.840 they come to Nashville and they say, we want to buy your stores. And I'm like, I'm 27. I don't want

00:11:45.980 to sell out. Right. Right. Right. And I go back and say, no, I'm not for sale. They come back a second

00:11:50.640 time in 90 days. We want to buy your store. And I'm like, I'm not for sale. I'm doing really good.

00:11:55.840 What would I do if I'd sold out? What would I do? Right. At 27. Yeah. They said, we don't care

00:12:00.900 what you do. We want to buy your business. And so the third time I finally said, you know what,

00:12:05.940 I'm going to get rid of them. And I said, if I were going to sell my business, this is what it

00:12:09.760 would take. And they said, sold. And I'm like, what? Are you serious? And they said, we want it.

00:12:16.060 We want to be in Nashville. So, you know, in a couple of months I was done and I found out and

00:12:21.600 discovered it was one of the worst mistakes I've ever made. And let me explain why. Yeah. I had

00:12:26.720 a little bit of money, but 18 months later I was depressed. I didn't have a purpose. I didn't have

00:12:32.600 a reason to get up every day. I gained 50 pounds in 18 months. And my wife woke me up one day in the

00:12:39.660 middle of a nap and she said, Aaron, what are you doing? You got to do something. You got to get

00:12:43.780 another job. You got to go into business. I don't care what you do. Do something. I went back,

00:12:48.380 went in partners with a guy I started with. We spent the next 10 years. Now I got a purpose again,

00:12:53.360 right? I've got a reason to get up because I want to grow this business. We grow it four times the

00:12:58.380 size it was when we started 10 years earlier. And then my life changed forever. August 1st, 2001,

00:13:05.720 I'm going to work at 730 in the morning. A pedestrian's crossing the street to catch a bus. He didn't look my

00:13:11.660 way, stepped out in front of me. I hit him. He kills him three days later. He's in Vanderbilt trauma unit. 0.55

00:13:18.380 And my life stood still for a moment. And I'm so nervous. I can't dial 911 with my phone and

00:13:26.460 I'm shaking. And I'm like, that could happen to me just as easy as it did him. And I went back to

00:13:32.800 home. My wife and I had a meeting. We decided to sell the business. I'm going to take time off.

00:13:37.200 I've been chasing money, right? What I discovered over the next five years is that my life had no

00:13:42.400 significance, right? I was all about success. I was all about the stores, getting more money,

00:13:48.560 but I wasn't doing anything for the community, for people outside of my sphere. There was nothing I

00:13:54.180 was doing that provided meaning and success and significance for others. It was just all about

00:13:59.560 myself. Went in the construction industry, built houses for eight years, number one, three consecutive

00:14:04.100 years at 50. Uh, I retired for the third and final time. My wife said, you've retired more than the

00:14:10.160 law allows. I'm in a mastermind group with Dave Ramsey and Dan Miller and Ken Abraham. Some of

00:14:16.900 those guys you may or may not know. And they said, Abram, you cannot retire. You're too young.

00:14:20.980 So Dave invited me to do entree leadership mastery series. And I went and did that. Dan Miller invited

00:14:27.040 me to do innovate. I went and did that. And I fell in love with coaching. I thought now I'm making an

00:14:33.460 impact on other men's lives. Now I have clients all over the world and mastermind groups, and I'm

00:14:38.280 leading guys to teach them how to have meaning and purpose, success, and significance. Ryan,

00:14:44.320 I'm having a better time now than I've ever had in my entire 37 year career. I was going to say,

00:14:49.520 you don't really sound retired for the third and final time. You sound like you're just as busy as

00:14:53.360 always. You've always been. My wife looked at me last week over her glasses and she goes,

00:14:57.220 you're working harder than you've ever worked. And I started laughing. I said, but you know what?

00:15:01.340 It's different now because now it's not all just about me.

00:15:05.200 Well, so how do you suggest that men find the balance? Because it sounds like early on in your

00:15:09.320 life, it was either go, go, go, go, go, or stop. I'm going to retire and sit back and do nothing and

00:15:14.300 have that. And like you said, have no purpose. How do you find balance between, you know, for example,

00:15:19.140 with me, I'm young, I've got a young family and I've got to be, spend my time with them because

00:15:24.540 that's what excites me and that's what I want to do. But then also I need to drive my business forward

00:15:29.600 and be able to provide a lifestyle. And so how do you find the balance between those couple of

00:15:32.920 things? Well, I don't know that you fully ever get what I would call good balance. And as I said

00:15:38.020 earlier, first of all, you've got to develop boundaries. You've got to establish when you

00:15:43.360 have won. You have got to establish things in your life that you want to accomplish written down.

00:15:49.200 It's just a dream unless it's written down. Now we have a goal. So be sure and write it down.

00:15:53.600 The second thing is, is embrace the tension. And I tell guys this all the time because the

00:15:58.640 tension never goes away. I don't mean to be a downer. I don't want to depress you,

00:16:03.400 but the tension never goes away because we're all overachievers. We want to accomplish. It's

00:16:09.960 just innate in us to want to do better and want to accomplish. There's always one more email you

00:16:15.900 could write. There's always one more letter you could send. There's always one more customer you

00:16:20.380 could talk to, but you've got to establish clear boundaries. You've got to say, I'm going to work

00:16:26.040 from this time to this time. Now, when you're an entrepreneur, it doesn't always work out like

00:16:30.380 that. Believe me, I got 40 years of this. I know there's often times that you're going to have to

00:16:35.460 work more at this stage in your life than you will later, but have open communication with your

00:16:42.300 spouse, be willing and able to sit down and say, Hey, these next two weeks are going to be tough.

00:16:47.740 And I want you to know right now, I can't be at Billy's baseball game and Susie's recital.

00:16:53.020 I don't want to miss those. I can't help that. But on this date, I'm going to say, I'm done now for

00:16:58.960 this period of time and stick to that and have open dialogue and communication with your wife or

00:17:03.780 your husband, whoever the case may be and say, I'm not going to do this forever. And here's the

00:17:08.860 thing. You're an addict when you catch yourself sneaking into the bathroom to check your cell phone 0.81

00:17:12.600 and you're doing under the covers and you're looking, you know, the wife turns her head and

00:17:16.720 you're checking an email. It's like, have open conversation, be adult enough to sit down and say,

00:17:21.660 we want to live a great life. Here's the biggest fallacy of all. More money is going to make me

00:17:28.380 happier. I just want to tell you that's not the case. I don't want to squish your dreams. I want you

00:17:34.260 to do good because money does make a difference. It gives you options and it allows you to do some

00:17:38.820 things. It gives you great opportunity. But if you're not happy making $50,000, chances are,

00:17:44.780 you're not going to be happy making 150,000 or a million dollars. As I said earlier, happiness is

00:17:50.080 a choice. It's not a trait. So let's enjoy the kids today at two years old. Let's don't wish them

00:17:55.840 grown. So they're driving. Let's enjoy this time. I'm all about family. I love family. Both my daughters

00:18:02.320 work for me. They're my full-time assistants. They live five minutes from me, you know, six miles down

00:18:08.800 the road. I got four grandkids. I always want to spend time with them. But when I'm spending time

00:18:13.980 with them, oftentimes it'll creep in and go, you could be doing this other client. You could be

00:18:18.840 doing this other mastermind. You could be doing this other whatever. And I'm like, you know what

00:18:23.060 though? Money is a tool to help me live the life I've chosen to live. It's not my life. It's not my

00:18:29.760 central focus. Money is not my God. It is not the only reason because here's what happens.

00:18:35.660 successful people often climb that ladder and they get to the top and it's not the view they

00:18:41.760 thought. And they do it at the expense of their family. They come home one day. They hadn't been

00:18:47.060 to any of Little Billy's baseball games or any of Susie's recitals. And you've got a lot of money,

00:18:52.680 but you've got a family that don't know you. That is the ultimate failure, not success.

00:18:59.020 Well, I'm glad you said that because one of the questions I was going to ask you is,

00:19:02.720 you know, what's the point that your desire to get ahead becomes dangerous? And it sounds like

00:19:10.840 it's just a different level for everybody based on the boundaries that you've set for yourself.

00:19:14.900 It is. I mean, once you determine this is good, I mean, I'm content here. I can be happy with this.

00:19:21.220 The quality of life is good. I don't have to forsake my family, you know, to have 10 more clients.

00:19:26.600 I can say this is enough. That's the reason you need to predetermine some of these things.

00:19:31.580 You need to say, what's the kind of neighborhood we want to live in? What are we willing to spend

00:19:35.940 on a house? I could spend way more on a house than I did way more, but we live in a very modest

00:19:43.820 house. We live back in the woods. I've got a quarter acre of grass and I've got eight acres of

00:19:49.560 woods that surround my house. I could have way bigger house, but it, this serves the purpose.

00:19:56.400 It meets my needs. I don't, I'm not a slave to the house. The last house that I owned was big.

00:20:03.480 It was a big house on the hill, you know, in the big yard and it's very expensive to maintain.

00:20:08.560 And I'm like, Robin, we're a slave to this house. We spend every weekend working in the yard and

00:20:14.260 for what, what is the reason? I mean, when is that day coming where we go? Today's the day,

00:20:19.600 right? It's like, well, later when we get, well, later may never come. Something may happen that

00:20:25.080 will prohibit you from living the life. I've heard of people spending their whole life waiting for

00:20:29.620 retirement. They retire, they get cancer and they die. They've missed their whole life. I don't want

00:20:34.540 people to do that. I want people to have that good balance, but it's done intentionally. It's not done

00:20:41.000 accidentally. If you're not sitting with your mate and saying, what are these things? What do we want?

00:20:46.880 How can we go about it? Delay gratification. That's the biggest hangup I see with young

00:20:52.200 entrepreneurs today. They want it and they want it now that they want the big house, the big car,

00:20:57.020 the boat, the vacation home, and they want it now. So they leverage themselves to death. They borrow money.

00:21:02.420 They can't repay. One hiccup happens in bat in business and the whole business comes tumbling down 1.00

00:21:07.800 and then they've lost everything. Now their identity is tied up in their possessions. They don't have a job

00:21:12.840 anymore. They feel like a failure and they're forever crawling out of that. Let's go slow. What about that?

00:21:19.700 What about let's do this incrementally? Let's do it how we can afford. You can tell I've spent 20-something

00:21:24.780 years with Dave Ramsey, right? We've been in the same room together for 20 years. The message sounds familiar.

00:21:30.120 It's the same, but it's true. It works. That's the thing. That's what's so cool about it is we live

00:21:36.120 below our means and let's prepare for the future and let's do it right and let's do it methodical

00:21:41.520 because it works. That's what I want your audience to hear is what I'm teaching works and then you can

00:21:47.780 enjoy it. You don't have those pressures on you that if one card falls, the whole deck falls.

00:21:54.060 Let's assume that somebody has an idea of their purpose. They've created some boundaries,

00:22:00.460 but there's still a lot of things that they need to do, a lot of hats to wear, if you will,

00:22:04.920 which I'm not a big fan of that. I think just you have one hat and that's your life,

00:22:08.800 but let's just assume that's for a minute. How do you prioritize? Are there some things that you do

00:22:13.760 internally or ask yourself some questions to prioritize when and where and how much effort you

00:22:20.380 put into each one of these activities? Sure. First of all, if you haven't read Essentialism by

00:22:24.920 Greg McCowan, you need to order that book today. Greg McCowan helps us discover what is essential in

00:22:31.740 our life. You get the non-essentials out of the way, the things that really don't matter, and you

00:22:36.400 focus on the vital few things that really move the needle, such as your faith, your family, your career.

00:22:43.120 See, we think we can do 15 things well, and Greg talks about in the book, when you do that,

00:22:50.500 you stretch yourself so thin that you're a mile wide and an inch deep. If you'll take that same

00:22:56.880 energy and niche down and get about two or three things that are really important, you'll be an

00:23:03.280 inch wide, but you'll be a mile deep. You'll really become an expert at that niche market. Now, think about

00:23:10.220 this. I deal with a lot of people that have internet-related businesses. The world, we have

00:23:15.640 7 billion people. It doesn't take many to be really successful, and when you have an internet-based

00:23:21.180 business, if you're niched down to ... I heard a guy tell a story the other day about a business he

00:23:26.820 owns called Chicken Whisper, and I thought, what in the world is Chicken Whisper? He teaches people

00:23:32.140 how to raise chickens in their backyard. I'm like, there's no way you can make a business on this.

00:23:37.560 This guy's making millions of dollars. He has a magazine out now. He has a huge following,

00:23:44.060 an audience. I just gave him a shout out here on your show.

00:23:48.540 Well, I probably ought to link up to that because I know my wife would be all over that. We've got 0.99

00:23:52.840 10 chickens in our yard, and she just got attacked yesterday by one of them, so we need that.

00:23:56.640 Well, she's not watching Chicken Whisper enough to get on there. My point is that you can make a living

00:24:02.160 really niching down, and some of the things that I teach people is just before you launch your

00:24:06.940 business, you probably should niche down about 50% more, and then you're probably not down far

00:24:11.960 enough. There are all kinds of business that we can do, but see, we think we've got to know about

00:24:16.320 everything. We think we've got to do this and this. The secret is having your 10,000 hours invested in

00:24:22.400 a particular niche in order to be the expert at doing that, but we so diversify, and we get ourselves

00:24:29.580 spread so thin. We're not good at anything, including being a husband, being a dad, being an

00:24:35.360 entrepreneur in the community because we want to do everything. You don't need to do everything.

00:24:40.840 Figure out what your purpose is. Figure out what your gift is. Figure out the areas that you would

00:24:46.320 do it for free anyway because you so enjoy it, and you can monetize that. You can then not have

00:24:53.160 to work for a living. You do what you enjoy doing. You get paid as a result of it. I know it sounds

00:24:57.920 like a pipe dream to somebody that's out there that's in the nine-to-five or they're doing something

00:25:02.760 that they hate to do, but you weren't created and designed to do that. You're not going to do good

00:25:08.200 either at it if you take that approach, and you'll flame out pretty quick, so do it slowly.

00:25:13.720 Transition into something else. Don't just quit today because you've got responsibilities.

00:25:19.020 I'm not suggesting that, but you can slowly build another business. You can slowly transition into

00:25:25.260 something that you so love and then work your way into that full-time.

00:25:29.660 Right. I think motivated and ambitious men, a lot of the guys that are probably listening to this,

00:25:34.160 myself included, need to get very good at the skill of saying no tactfully so that they can focus

00:25:41.040 on the things that are important in their lives.

00:25:42.580 The shiny object syndrome kills people in anything. That looks good. Dan Miller, as you know,

00:25:48.840 we're good friends, have been for two decades now. He's my personal mentor. He's the reason I'm

00:25:54.220 coaching now, 48 Days to the Work You Love. Dan's just a champion guy. Dan will take his calendar,

00:25:59.980 and I've watched him do this now for almost two decades. He will take his calendar. He can tell you

00:26:04.280 today. We're in August right now. Dan can tell you right now in September on the 23rd,

00:26:09.080 November 22nd, December 26th. He can tell you right now that day what he's going to be doing.

00:26:16.080 And then when the shiny objects don't come along, he says, no, I'm not doing that because it's not

00:26:20.740 in my plan. He doesn't have to decide then. He's pre-decided. Dave Ramsey's the same way. He'll get

00:26:28.260 all of his 12 guys together, you know, the department heads, and they'll say, we want to do this. And he'll

00:26:33.320 say, is it on the schedule? No. Well, I don't even want to talk about it then. What's the next thing?

00:26:37.400 I want to talk about our plan. And see, people don't have plans. That's the problem. They don't

00:26:42.620 take the time to sit down to craft out and design a plan, how you want to live and how you want to

00:26:48.380 do business. When you do that, you quit chasing the shiny objects. How long are these guys and

00:26:53.480 yourself included planning your calendar out, planning out your business and your life? Is it a

00:26:57.940 quarter? Is it a year? What's it look like? I just left Nashville, Indiana three weeks ago. My COO

00:27:03.860 lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He met me there. And that was, uh, in July and we planned through

00:27:10.060 February. Now I know every week what I need to blog about. I need to know what the community's

00:27:15.720 doing. I know what Iron Sharpens Iron Mastermind groups are doing. I know I don't have to think

00:27:20.660 about it. See, it's like, what am I going to do today? What am I going to do next month? Well, I don't

00:27:24.840 have to decide because you get six or eight months ahead of you. Now you're a content creator. You

00:27:31.340 go out there and you're gathering information to build on what you've already established you're

00:27:36.020 going to do. If something else comes along now, I don't have to decide. I know what I'm doing in

00:27:41.260 November, in December, in January. I know what's coming. Dan does it a year in advance. That's a

00:27:47.560 little far for me. Six months for me is, is good because things change so quickly. You know,

00:27:53.260 of course, of course. But if you're not doing at least six months, I feel like you may be chasing

00:27:57.880 the shiny objects. That's a, that's a great way to be extremely productive. I just, and we talked

00:28:03.620 about this before we hit record on this podcast. Uh, I did a video about how to be more productive

00:28:08.840 throughout the week and we talked a little bit about it. That's a great way to be productive

00:28:12.520 because you're not spending a lot of downtime thinking about what needs to get accomplished.

00:28:16.160 Are there some other productivity tips that you have? Because I know that's a big wheelhouse

00:28:19.440 area for you. Well, I wrote what's called steps to a productive day and all a life is, is a vast

00:28:27.620 amount of productive days, right? You can't think about if you're not doing today well, you know,

00:28:32.480 tomorrow's not going to be well either. And so in this document that I wrote, it's kind of like a

00:28:36.980 to-do list on steroids. I'm a very regimented, methodical kind of person. That's just the way I

00:28:43.020 think. I like it. I like my life that way. I like to know what I'm doing. So I get up usually within

00:28:48.240 30 to 45 minutes between four and five o'clock every morning. You know, I go through drinking

00:28:53.480 some coffee, drinking some water. I'm a Christ follower. So I spend some time reading the word.

00:28:58.420 I listen to praise and worship. I get my day focused and centered. I have two prayer lists,

00:29:03.100 one for family, one for clients. I really take serious how I teach and train people. So I pray,

00:29:08.020 God, give me the direction, give me the right things to do. And then I go through just like

00:29:12.540 everybody else with my email, coaching clients, doing interviews, whatever I do. But then I live by the

00:29:18.160 calendar and then I block out times. I know that on Thursday and Fridays, I block out a certain

00:29:22.520 amount of time. This is going to be for my family. This is going to be for me personally.

00:29:27.020 I've decided, I know that I'm going to have that time coming. I'm willing to work really hard

00:29:32.040 today. And then I know that these days are coming and I can take a little break.

00:29:36.240 But if you just grind away, working, working, working, you know, you're going to get tired of

00:29:40.740 that. I don't care what the money is. You're going to get burned out and then you're not going to be

00:29:44.300 any good to anybody. And I guess balance is the best word you can use. You know, there's going

00:29:49.260 to be a tension always there. I can do a little more. I could do a little less, but it's just

00:29:54.200 designing. That's the important thing is predetermining what you want in advance.

00:29:59.960 Now we can back up. We know what we've got to do to do that. There's a certain amount of money I want

00:30:04.080 to make to live the kind of life that I'm living. And so I know what I got to do to make that happen.

00:30:08.880 And when I get there, then you can say, is it ever enough? Yes. Because now I'm doing what I've

00:30:14.820 pre-described that I want to do. Right. Once you reach that point of not necessarily dollar amount,

00:30:20.000 but the lifestyle, like you said, that it provides. Well, that's what we want. You know,

00:30:23.660 there's some things that I don't want. You know, there's a great big house I don't want. I'm like,

00:30:29.600 man, because when you buy something, I don't care if you pay cash for it or not,

00:30:33.100 you've got to insure it, put it away, clean it, store it, maintain it. It takes time.

00:30:38.620 To do all those things. I don't want to invest the time. One of my clients had a camper. He paid

00:30:44.520 $50,000 for it and I saw it at his house and I said, how often did you use that? And he said,

00:30:50.160 I used it for a week last year and I've used it for a weekend this year. I said, so 10 days. And he

00:30:55.860 said, yes. What did you pay for it? Well, I came home. I didn't tell him. I came home and I wrote a

00:30:59.800 blog and the title of the blog, you can read it later. It's called count the cost. And I figured it up

00:31:05.480 and it was costing him $1,150 a night to stay at the KOA. And I said, I hope you enjoyed your stay.

00:31:11.960 Right. Yeah. Most of the time we don't count the cost. His mother-in-law read the article. They

00:31:16.260 had a vacation home. She went and sold the vacation home. You start counting the cost of what it's,

00:31:22.540 you know, you, you spend that much money. You can stay anywhere all over the world you want. You

00:31:27.280 don't have the headache of owning it. I'm saying be deliberate in your transactions.

00:31:31.960 Right. Yeah. Such a great point. I want to shift gears a little bit because you're rubbing shoulders

00:31:36.840 with some extremely successful men. And I'm sure a lot of guys out there, myself included, are

00:31:40.780 wondering how you do that. How do you surround yourselves with the likes of Dave Ramsey and

00:31:45.940 Dan Miller and some of the guys that you're around? I'd like to have a little bit of insight to that.

00:31:49.640 Well, in 1995, I had a pawn shop in Madison, Tennessee. We just built a brand new 10,000 square

00:31:55.900 foot store. It was state-of-the-art. Everything was really cool. I was at a chamber of commerce breakfast and

00:32:00.500 there was this guy speaking there, never heard of, didn't know who he was. And he was starting a radio

00:32:04.960 show in Nashville called the money game with a guy named Roy Matlock. And I went up, introduced myself

00:32:10.220 to him. He came to the store and looked at it and he said, this is really cool. I'd love for you to

00:32:14.700 advertise on my show. And I said, no, thank you. I'm not interested. That was my first encounter with

00:32:20.140 Dave Ramsey. Interesting. And he said, listen, I'll give you a week free. Just try me. And I'm like, well, I can't

00:32:27.420 lose on that. So I signed a contract for a week. He did a week and three days. I called him and I

00:32:32.740 said, listen, I don't know what you're doing, man, but I want more of it. We signed an annual contract

00:32:36.720 every day since 1995. We've been an advertiser on his show. Now it's 20 years in the makings.

00:32:43.580 Dave and I have become very close friends. My point in telling the story is not to boast that Dave's my

00:32:48.880 friend. My point in the story is Dave was nobody, right? Dan Miller had just started his business.

00:32:55.140 He was nobody. See, we were just a bunch of knuckleheads trying to do our businesses together.

00:33:00.440 Dave invited me to join his mastermind and I came together. Now Ken Abraham was a guy in there.

00:33:06.040 It's got over a hundred books in print. He's got 10 New York times, number one bestsellers.

00:33:10.720 He didn't then. My point was we grew our businesses simultaneously. So if you're waiting to get in a

00:33:17.620 mastermind group with Dan Miller and Dave Ramsey, don't do that. Go out and get a bunch of great guys and

00:33:24.260 y'all grow your businesses together collectively and build that rapport and that relationship where

00:33:29.920 you have trusted advisors that are around you that you invest inordinates amount of time in

00:33:34.980 that you build that trust where you can say, I think I'm going to do this. What do you think?

00:33:38.800 They go, no, you idiot. You don't need to do that. Or hey, do more of that. Come on, 1.00

00:33:43.740 you got this. You can do it. And they encourage you on. I can't even imagine living my life without

00:33:49.380 a mastermind group. I can't even fathom it because I attribute the bulk of my success to my mastermind

00:33:55.720 group, not because of what they did, but because they were trusted advisors. They had no skin in

00:34:01.380 the game. They didn't have anything to win or lose based on what they were telling me other than they

00:34:06.780 cared about my wellbeing. And so they have stopped me from running off in the ditch so many times and

00:34:12.280 I have them. And we just spent time together. We built that relationship to where we empower each

00:34:18.720 other and encourage each other. So don't go looking for famous, wealthy people. Get a group of people

00:34:23.840 that you want to do life with and do business and form a mastermind. Are there some traits that you

00:34:28.540 should look for? Because I know it's easy to find somebody successful and say, I want to spend time

00:34:32.060 with that guy because he's already proven himself. So are there some traits that we should be looking

00:34:36.380 for in potential mastermind members or guys that we should be around? Absolutely. Well, first of all,

00:34:42.340 just because you've been successful financially doesn't mean I want to do business with you or life

00:34:46.960 with you because the means by which you acquired it may be good, may not. I don't know. But what I

00:34:53.020 look for, first of all, is character, right? Because everything else stems out of that. I'm a person of

00:34:59.000 faith, as I pointed out a while ago. And so I want to be in alignment with people that have the same

00:35:04.400 faith as I do. I want to have the diversity of different occupations, but I want people to be

00:35:10.600 credible. I want them to be honest. I want them to have high integrity. Those are all things. Now,

00:35:16.060 whether you're doing a service or selling a widget, it doesn't matter to me. If you have those quality

00:35:21.020 traits, the rest of it will go. The second thing, or the final thing I should say, is the chemistry.

00:35:27.160 If you're going to align yourself with people, you want to like them, you know, first of all,

00:35:31.560 you're not going to be in a group of somebody long-term you don't like. And so I would just

00:35:35.760 suggest that you really test the boundaries on the chemistry to see if you would enjoy spending

00:35:40.940 an inordinate amount of time, whether it be virtually or whether it be in person. A lot of

00:35:45.880 the mastermind groups that I have now, I have people all over the world that are in these groups

00:35:49.840 and we do it virtually. We meet on, it's called Zoom. It's like Skype, but we meet together.

00:35:55.400 There's 10 men that come together and we do exactly what I'm talking about virtually that you can do,

00:36:01.000 you know, in person. So those are some of the things. If you're trying to get somebody

00:36:05.260 like you that thinks like you do, you don't need them. Right. I mean, right, right. You already

00:36:11.240 know that stuff. You get 10 people that think just like you. You don't need nine of them if they think

00:36:15.000 just like you. So get a wide, diverse group. That's awesome. There's people in our group that

00:36:20.440 are solopreneurs that just have an office, no virtual assistants, no secretaries. And then we have

00:36:26.380 people like Dave Ramsey who have, they're on 800 radio stations. He has 550 employees and have 8

00:36:32.920 million listeners. But we all have common ground when it comes to character, integrity, honesty,

00:36:39.100 and the rest of it will flow nicely. Great characteristics to look for.

00:36:43.740 We've talked about a lot. And so I just want to make sure that everybody knows we're going to have

00:36:47.580 all of these resources, the books and everything that we've talked about in the show notes. So just

00:36:51.020 make sure you stay tuned for that. You know, as we wind down on time, I want to ask you a couple

00:36:56.320 additional questions. And the first question I want to ask you is, in your opinion, what does it

00:37:01.320 mean to be a man? Well, to me, it means being a servant leader. And I think about my personal

00:37:07.400 family and I want to, first of all, put my faith first, my wife second, my children third, and then

00:37:13.500 my business. And if you'll keep things in that order, you will be a great man. Awesome. Thank you for

00:37:19.840 that. And then I want to know how the listeners can connect with you, reach out to you. You also

00:37:24.140 mentioned a, for lack of knowing the right title, the productivity tool or tip that you have. Can

00:37:31.300 you tell us how we can connect with you? Sure. Absolutely. Well, first of all, if you don't

00:37:34.960 mind, Ryan, I've got a little gift for your audience and it's, all right, go to viewfromthetop.com

00:37:40.900 forward slash order, O-R-D-E-R, all in lowercase letters. I want to give you the three documents I was

00:37:47.880 talking about earlier, the personal assessment, what do I want and steps to a productive day.

00:37:52.740 I've taken the cost off. It's free to your listeners. So go there, download those. Hopefully

00:37:57.380 it'll be a catalyst to kind of move you forward. You can connect with me there also at viewfromthetop.com.

00:38:03.860 Twitter is at VFT coach. The thing that I'm most excited about without a doubt is the community.

00:38:11.340 I started it a couple of months ago. We have people from all over the world that's joining.

00:38:15.160 They are people that have really excelled in business, have 20, 30, 40 years of business.

00:38:21.440 And we have guys that are transitioning out of the corporate job into being an entrepreneur,

00:38:27.440 solopreneurs, the resources, the encouragement, the accountability, the empowerment that is going

00:38:33.500 on in the community right now is phenomenal. Every Wednesday at five o'clock central time,

00:38:38.460 I teach a webinar for an hour, a lot of interaction. We have authors like Dan Miller come and speak to us,

00:38:44.260 Bob Berg just spoke to us last week. We have phenomenal resources. Here's the best part.

00:38:49.620 It's $37 a month. That's it. 37 bucks. A lot of people can't afford me one-on-one. A lot of people

00:38:56.460 don't want to invest the money in the mastermind groups. Anybody can afford a buck a day. Okay.

00:39:01.540 So it's $37. Get involved in the community. And I'm telling you, it'll take your life to the next

00:39:07.080 level. Aaron, I appreciate you sharing all that and the resources, then gift, and then just taking your

00:39:11.600 time to impart some of your insights and your knowledge that you have. Thanks for being on the

00:39:15.160 show today. It's been awesome, Ryan. Thanks for having me, man.

00:39:17.860 There you go, guys. Mr. Aaron Walker. I really appreciated this conversation with Aaron. And I,

00:39:22.240 for one, am motivated to implement what Aaron talked about today in my personal life. I hope

00:39:26.600 that you'll do the same. We begin to change our lives when we take action on the information

00:39:30.520 that we have. Now, we talked about a lot of things today, including some resources you'll want

00:39:34.940 to check out, which can be found at orderofman.com slash 035. If you want to say thanks to me and

00:39:41.180 Aaron for this episode, you can do it orderofman.com slash iTunes. Leave us a review. Tell us what you

00:39:45.880 thought about the show. And we'll try to feature that on an upcoming episode. Last reminder of the

00:39:50.180 day to join in the conversations we're having on our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups

00:39:54.620 slash order of man. Now, next week we talk with a guest. I'm so excited to introduce you to,

00:39:59.280 we're going to be covering how to be a better presenter. Now you might think that this only applies to

00:40:03.440 professional speakers, but as my guest shares, learning to present yourself in the best light

00:40:07.780 possible is applicable in so many different situations, job interviews, first dates, team

00:40:12.860 sports, even communicating an idea to your team. So I hope you'll tune in for that guys. I look

00:40:18.380 forward to talking with you next week, but until then take action and become the man you were meant

00:40:22.260 to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

00:40:28.360 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order

00:40:32.080 and order of man.com.

Order of Man - November 17, 2015

OoM 035： Live a life of Success, Happiness, and Fulfillment with Aaron Walker

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