OoM 044： Taking Ownership of Your Life Through Entrepreneurship with Tom Reber
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Summary
In this episode, my guest, Tom Weber, shares with us the 5 most important reasons you should consider starting a business, the bare minimums you ll need to get started, and how you can take ownership of your life through entrepreneurship.
Transcript
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So many men out there are unhappy with the direction or course of their life,
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but I can tell you personally that there has been no greater move I could have made in my own life
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than to start my own businesses. The lessons I've learned, the progress I've made, and the life I've
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created cannot be duplicated living any other way. Today, my guest Tom Rebber shares with us the five
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most important reasons you should consider starting a business, the bare minimums you'll
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need to get started, and how you can take ownership of your life through entrepreneurship.
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly charge
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your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You are not
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easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are.
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This is who you will become at the end of the day, and after all is said and done,
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you can call yourself a man. Men, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. I am Ryan Michler,
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the host and founder of Order of Man. Now, we're talking all things manly, as you know, on this
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podcast, and today, specifically, we're talking about controlling your own life and your own
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destiny through this amazing tool that we call entrepreneurship. And before I get too much into
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this, I do want to, again, to send you a formal invitation to join our elite mastermind, which
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is called Iron Council. This month, me and the guys will be talking a lot about planning,
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vision, creating the frameworks for success, the blueprints for making 2016 all that you want
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to be. So, if you're telling yourself things like, I feel stuck, or I know there's more to life,
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or I'm ready to take my life to the next level, this is the group for you. This is the group that
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you have to get involved with. We're having real discussions each week, holding each other
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accountable to our goals and priorities. We're talking in our closed Facebook group. We're completing
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daily assignments and other assignments that we receive. You'll have access to resources to help you
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take your life up a notch in relationships, in business, in family, and in your community,
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and all the things that you want to do. So, head to orderofman.com slash iron council. Right now,
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watch the video, join these other solid men in their pursuit to become the men they were meant to
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be. Also, our giveaway with my friends over at Seneca Creek. Congrats to the winner of last week's
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giveaway, which was the fly fishing wallet. This week, we'll be giving away a field shirt by Edgevale.
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So, you'll want to check that out. You can head to orderofman.com slash Seneca Creek giveaway
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four. Seneca Creek giveaway four to enter into the drawing. Now, let's get into the show today.
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Remember that you can find all the links, the resources, the show notes, all of discussions
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over at orderofman.com slash zero four four. And of course, join in the conversation that we're
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having with now over 1700 men on our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash order of
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men. Men, I'm excited to introduce you to my guest and my friend, Tom Weber. He is an entrepreneur
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and he's also the founder of Strongpreneur Nation. Strongpreneur Nation is for entrepreneurs who are
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committed to creating strong lives and strong businesses. He teaches men how to get things done,
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deal with the head trash that we tell ourselves, get back our time and build companies our customers
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will love. And as you'll hear in the interview today, Tom takes a no nonsense approach to business,
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entrepreneurship and life. Tom, thanks for joining us. Glad you're here, man.
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Thanks for having me, Ryan. It's great to be here, man. How are you doing?
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I'm really good. Really good. I'm recovering from a cold. You know that. But on the men and
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feeling a lot better. So I appreciate you asking. Oh, good. I'm glad to hear it.
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So I'm really excited to have this conversation because this is something that obviously with
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order of man and what I see other men doing is something that I'm passionate about. And that is
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the idea and concept of starting a business. And the first question I want to ask you is why do you
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think it's important, assuming that you think this is important, that men start businesses and
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become entrepreneurs? Oh, wow. Man, you start out with a great question. That's good.
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I don't know. We don't mess around. That's like, you know, hello. Good morning. Here we are.
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No. Well, first of all, you know, a few things come to mind right away. Like I had this just
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flash of stuff that popped in my head when you asked me that question. And, and, and the first thing
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that came, came to mind is there's a show, I think it's on the history channel called Vikings.
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Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, I don't know, a year and a half ago or whatever, I was watching it. And
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there was this one guy who's kind of like the main guy and he wants to go west and explore. And the
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king wants to go east and raid every year. And this guy's got like 30 dudes with him. And he says,
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let's get in a boat and let's go, let's go west. Cause we don't know what's out there. And they were
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catching slack for it. And everyone's like, Hey, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in. And this guy, one of this
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guy's really good friends is standing there and he hasn't said he's that he's in yet. The dude
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walks up to me and he says, brother, are you, are you with me or not? Right. And his answer was so
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cool. And he says, of course, because I need stories to tell my kids. And that was the first
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thing I thought of when you asked, why should men start businesses? Because there's a lot of cool
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crap that happens when you start a business, a lot of crazy stuff and it's an adventure. And,
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and I just like the idea, number one of creating a story that I can't get working for a corporation.
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Uh, that that's the first thing that popped into my mind. The second thing is I want to control my
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future. And as men, uh, there's a lot of things in the world that I think are coming after us, um,
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in a lot of ways and making us feel like we don't have power over certain situations. And I
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think when you own your own business, you are 100% taking your future into your own hands.
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And I, and I love that. And I, and I also love the idea of making more money. A lot of people want
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to start side businesses and make extra income. But I believe if you start a business and you pay
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attention to some very, you know, core basic things and do them really well, money's not going to be a
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problem for you and you'll be able to give yourself a raise whenever you want. And that's cool.
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But I think the most important thing, uh, why I think men should start businesses is
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in order to succeed in business, you have to make a lot of changes and do a lot of growth
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personally. So I think, um, just looking at who you need to become in order to be a successful
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business guy, um, is really the big, the big reason because I've had to change so many things
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about myself for the better, uh, in order to be successful at the things that I've been able
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to do. Are these things that you identified beforehand or have they just come at you when
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there's a new problem to be solved or a hurdle to overcome? You know, there, there are things that
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I've just learned through the years. When I first started my very first business that I started was
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a painting business. Um, and, and I did it, I grew up, uh, you know, out of the Marine Corps and
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campus ministry and did a lot of stuff, sales and this and that long story short, I got fired from a
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church that I worked. Wow. Yeah. You top that one, man. Yeah, that's tough for sure. I got fired
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from Burger King once, but it doesn't, uh, it doesn't, uh, top that. That's for sure. I got
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fired from a nightclub in Palm Springs called Palm pays. Uh, anyone that's in Palm Palm Springs might
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know that place. When I was in the Marine Corps, they used to hire Marines to work the door and, uh,
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and I let a girl in a back door. We weren't supposed to, she was an employee and she knocked on this
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door, side door, whatever it was. And I let her in and we weren't supposed to let anyone in.
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And I was canned in five minutes. I was gone. So anyway, um, no, this is stuff, you know,
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I started my first business cause I needed to feed my wife and kid. I had one kid at the time and,
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and I knew the trade. I grew up in the trade with my, my uncle and grandfather and, and, and, and I
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really got into it and not having a clue what I was doing like a lot of us do. And so these are just
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things I've learned through the years and I've learned helping, you know, several dozen other
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business owners and entrepreneurs, you know, through their journey as well. But I really
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think the biggest thing is I've, I've had to become a better person. And so that's, that's one
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reason that I think it's a good idea for a guy to start a business. Yeah. So you, I'm going to go
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back to something you said earlier. You said there's three or four core concepts that if guys learn
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very quickly, that they'll be able to make money quickly. And I think obviously that's one of the
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reasons why you would consider starting a business going out on your own. What are some of those
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core concepts? I think that'd be very valuable for everybody to know.
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So the, uh, the first thing for me that, that I, I personally believe is if you just operate
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your business from a position of respect and everything you do, no matter who you're dealing
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with, your employees, your partners, uh, your vendors, your, your clients, obviously, um, so many
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businesses are blowing it because they just, they miss this whole respect thing. And, you know,
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you see it wherever you go, you know, it's, um, I, I took a picture and I'm, I'm debating on whether
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I'm going to post it. I was at Panera yesterday. Uh, and I stopped in to use the wifi. It was rush
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hour. Like tons of people are in this Panera and there's hardly any seats available. And I find a
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seat and next to me at this table of five is one lone Panera employee laying down on the table,
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taking a nap. Oh, wow. Interesting. Yeah. You got to post that for sure. Yeah. I got to post that.
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So, um, you know, respect is all around us. So to me, this is low hanging fruit. I think
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if you're just a respectful human being to everyone you deal with in your business, that
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right there gets you brownie points and helps. It's almost sad that we need to even bring
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that up, but it is reality that, that I think businesses, I see it. We see it all the time,
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especially this time of year, you know, we're at Christmas time and, and, uh, there's huge
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opportunities for businesses, but, uh, employees don't want to be helpful. They're almost put
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out that you show up and you want to purchase something from them, whether it's dining
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out or, or buying clothes or whatever it may be. And it's incredible. Every time I see
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it. Oh man, a customer came in, I got to put my phone down and help them now. You know,
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it's that whole roll of the eyes. And, you know, we interviewed a guy, uh, my, one of my painting
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companies years ago, we interviewed this guy for a sales position. We were going to hire
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him. My business partner and I were sitting there and we're like nodding, like, this is
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the guy, this is the guy. Our office manager walks in, who's a female, uh, into, and she
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hadn't met this guy yet. She came into the office. She had to interrupt us for something
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and needed a signature or whatever the heck it was. And we were like, Hey, you know,
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Laura, this is so-and-so, so-and-so this is Laura. And, and we were all sitting at a
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desk when she walked in and or at a table and he didn't stand up when he met her.
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Yeah. And immediately my partner and I looked at each other and we just knew this ain't the
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guy. So everything was in his favor until he failed to show respect because that's something
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I just, I'm not willing to teach you. If you come to me, I'm your employer. My job's
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not to teach you to be a respectful person. If you don't have that already, then I don't
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want you. And, um, to me, something you should have learned long ago before you ever stepped
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foot into an interview. That's for sure. Yeah. So, you know, these, these four things
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or so that come to mind, you know, I, I guess I call them my non-negotiables and one of them
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is respect. You just have to be respectful. The, um, second thing is clarity. So many entrepreneurs
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and business owners, you know, it's a blessing and a curse. We have a lot of ideas. Our brain
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is moving a million miles a minute. Uh, and, uh, but then week to week, month to month,
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we change course, we change direction, we change our goal or our strategy or our approach. And
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we're just not clear on what we want. So I think if you can nail down truly being clear
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in who you are as a business, who your ideal client is and what you do and what you don't
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do, I think that right there, you know, is, is another one of those low hanging fruit things,
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which, you know, third thing that comes to mind is, uh, consistent before, before we get to the
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third one, I want to ask you, how is it that you found clarity in your business? Is there a process
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that you went through? Does this take time? What does this look like for you and the, and the,
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the clients that you coach? I wish I could say that I had this perfect plan when I went into my
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coaching practice years ago. Uh, but truth be told, I, I was very unclear and it took throwing some
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stuff against the wall and working with several different types of people. And I was, uh, I tried
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to be competitive price-wise and all this other stuff. And I just hopped around and I never had
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a clear direction. I never had a client that, um, I could really hang my hat on and in it, and it took
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working my tail off for not making a lot of money for a while to realize, you know, I'm,
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I'm adding something of massive value here to people. And, uh, and I'm pretty darn good at what
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I do. And it honestly, it took a while to get to that point where I could really feel that deep down
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like, man, no, I am good at what I do. And that's okay to feel confident in that. And I'm, I'm watching
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all these companies that I helped make tens of make me watching these individuals making tens of
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thousands more dollars a year. And I was looking at what I was charging and some things like that.
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And, uh, and it didn't, it didn't, uh, compute, you know, it didn't make sense. So it took,
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it took a while to realize that, uh, you know, my ideal client is generally,
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generally a service business owner, you know, the contractor types, the people that run gyms,
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uh, they offer a service where there's a lot of personal touches with the clients and they're
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dealing in man hours and they're dealing in, you know, marketing tactics and strategies that are
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very, very connected to the experience that they give for a business.
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Um, so that's big. The other thing is, uh, my clients have to have thick skin cause I don't,
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I don't want to waste a lot of time pussyfooting around things. Right. You know, and when you and
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I shake on it and we're going to work together, I want you to know that I got your back and you got
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mine and we're in this together. And, uh, sometimes I'm going to, I'm going to be your biggest fan,
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but I'm also going to call you out, you know? And, um, and, and so you got to have thick skin and then
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you, you have to be willing to find the money cause I'm not going to be cheap. And I'll get
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to that one in a minute. Cause that's one of the other four things that I was going to talk about
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was the money. How do you recommend that somebody who's starting a business or looking into doing
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something on the side, whatever it may be shortcut that system? Because I know that there's a lot of
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things that you can only learn through experience, but I also know that we should be learning from
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guys like you and other people that have already gone through the process.
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What can you recommend to someone to shortcut that clarity system, if you will?
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Yeah. Oh man, your timing. And this is perfect. Cause one of my last blogs was actually,
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how do you start a business, a small business without the typical stress?
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And, um, and so I would say right out of the gate, do the bare minimum that you need to do to start a
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business. A lot of times we, we get all caught up in the, the details of it. Now, obviously if you're
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in an industry where you truly need some sort of certification or legal status and things like
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that, do what you got to do. But in general, you need a problem to solve is what you need to start
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a business. Um, you need anything required by law and you need a bank account. You don't need a logo.
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You don't need cards. You don't even need a website yet. A lot of us think that we need all these things
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that we don't, and we get bogged down and we never actually start the business. And in reality,
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uh, you don't have a business unless you have a need to meet and a customer find a need, find a
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customer, uh, who will pay you. And so you find a client, you help them, they give you some money.
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Now you have a business. And at the end of the day, that client, that person with that need is
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not going to care that you don't have a website or your business card is ugly. In most cases, uh,
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as long as their problem is gone and they have the results they want, they're going to be happy
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and they're going to tell somebody else. And then the next thing I guess would be, uh, once you
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find that client, it's awesome that you've got somebody to pay you, but let's try to serve them
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in ways that your competitors never will make the experience. So mind blowing that they're going to
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measure all future business transactions by that. And what are some ways that you do that personally
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in your practice? Yeah. So, you know, as a, as a coach, I'm, when I work with somebody one-on-one,
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I'm pretty much available to them all the time. I don't punch a clock. You know, you got something
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blowing up in your life or in your business and you need help with, you shoot me a text and we're
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going to figure out a time real quick to get on the phone together. I worked with a coach years ago
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where we had one call a month and it was this, this accountability call. But what I personally found
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was that, you know, there was a lot of things happening between those calls each month
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that I really needed mentoring on. I really needed some guidance on. And so when I started this,
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I wanted to be, I really wanted to be part of your team, kind of a partner without being a partner,
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if that makes sense. You know, legally saying so. Right. I'd say that's the biggest differentiator
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is that I'm pretty much always available for my clients, which is why I don't take that many
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one-on-one clients. Right. You know, so right. Cause you want to make yourself personally available
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to them. What do you say to the guy who, who really wants to start a business, wants to get out on
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his own, but maybe doesn't have any ideas. Do you have any, any thoughts about generating ideas and
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solving problems in the world? Like you mentioned, did we just have on order, man, was there just a
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post about following your passion or not? There may have been there. We always have, that's always
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one of the underlying themes. So there's always conversations about this. So this is really
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timely that we're talking about it now. You know, it's funny, depending on the day of the week,
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I might have a different answer for you here. One part of me says, do what you love and what
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you're passionate about. And the other side of me says, well, if you're starting a business,
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cause you truly got to make some money and take care of your family, um, and some extra income
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and stuff like that, then you don't necessarily have to start a business around your passion,
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but I think you can be passionate about serving your family. And so that's where I say, okay,
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well, what, what's a need out there? Identify a need and just go meet the thing. And maybe
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you've got, you know, certainly if you've got experience in something that quickens the
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learning curve for you, you know, if you play, if you love guitar and you can teach guitar lessons
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and start a guitar school, then that's awesome. But I see, I also see a lot of guys that say,
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well, I'm not going to do something unless I'm passionate about it. And I think that's a mistake
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too. Uh, I just think as a, as a human being and as more in particular, a man, there are things
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that we just need to do sometimes that we don't necessarily feel like doing.
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In order to support those that we love. And, and I think in addition to that, if I can add
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something to that, because I remember there's, there's been experiences in my life where I've
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done things from a, from a professional standpoint that I haven't really enjoyed. One I can think of
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is landscaping. I actually did electrical for a little while and that wasn't something I really
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enjoyed. But at the end of the day, I came from it with the attitude, knowing that I was going to
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transition into something else, but wanting to take everything I possibly could from that
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experience. So that when I was ready to make a move and was ready to make a transition,
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I was able to take these skills and these knowledges and these different ideas and
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different concepts and implement them in other areas of my life that maybe I'm more passionate
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about. Absolutely. You know, when you talked about taking the job as in landscaping or whether
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it, it makes me think of, um, you know, if you go to LA right now and you go to a restaurant,
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what are the chances of somebody waiting on you? That's an actress.
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Right. Of course. Yeah. And what do they say? Yeah, I'm just doing this until I can
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live my dream. Yeah. And I think they've got it, they've got it down pretty good in that
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whole mindset. Like I'm not above waiting tables. I'm not above being a, you know, third shift
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custodian, you know, I'll do what it takes because I got a bigger plan in mind. But right now this is
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the need of the hour. I got to have some money to come in to fund my dream. And I think it's also
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okay if you don't know what that big dream is yet, but in the meantime, you know, look for
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opportunities to develop and grow and learn. Um, if you can put yourself in a, in a situation where
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you, you learn how to truly serve people and you're dealing with people and you're putting out fires
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and, and you're going to, you're going to learn a lot of things about navigating emotions and you
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know, all that other stuff with, with customers. And so I think that's a great training ground for
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many businesses. Yeah. I think there's this huge problem in society in general today. And that is
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that I think a lot of people will just sit there and mope and feel sorry for themselves and complain
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and gripe about the situation they're in and they feel entitled, right? I'm entitled to something
00:20:03.680
better I deserve, or I, I should have something better. And at the end of the day, if you should
00:20:07.440
have something better, you'd already have it because you will have earned it or you will have learned
00:20:11.000
the skills necessary to get to that point. Well, and also, I mean, Ryan, if, if you're that good at
00:20:16.220
what you do, if, you know, at what you say you are, time will tell, you know, you could go into a
00:20:22.360
business as the, the third shift security guard and end up running a division in, you know, uh,
00:20:29.100
and it, and it's happens all the time. There are people that they're like, Hey, that's all right.
00:20:32.660
This is just a short stop for me. I'm learning the ropes here and I'm going to figure this place
00:20:36.300
out and I'm going to own it one day, you know, back at, back in one of my painting companies that I
00:20:40.260
had, we loved bringing up a guy and turning them into a foreman who started as a laborer with us.
00:20:46.220
You know, I mean, we're, we're growing our own and there's a lot of business owners out there
00:20:50.340
that would give anything to have a trusted right hand man. But too many guys are knocking on their
00:20:56.800
door as the owner going, Hey, I'm awesome. You should hire me and give me a hundred grand a year
00:21:00.420
right now. You know what I mean? Where, where I think, I think you have a much better shot at making
00:21:06.520
that a hundred grand a year. If you come in and just say, Hey man, how can I, how can I make your
00:21:11.420
life better add value to you? Bring my mojo every day and, and help the culture around here get
00:21:17.320
better. I guarantee you there's a place for guys like that, even if they didn't want to start at
00:21:22.200
their own business, but they just wanted to move up and in their career. Well, and not, not only just
00:21:27.700
asking about what, what can I do to help, but I think we need to be self-starting. We need to be
00:21:34.740
motivated and take initiative. And that means identifying areas of weakness within your current
00:21:40.320
company or even in the market. And then taking the initiative to just do it. Don't ask for
00:21:45.780
permission. Just go out there and do it. And people, bosses, customers, clients, friends, family,
00:21:51.480
coworkers will start to recognize that in you and build you up as the leader without you having to
00:21:56.500
tell everybody you're the leader. Absolutely. I mean, one of the, there's an event I do down in,
00:22:01.240
I'm part of in Cabo every winter and January. And, um, one of the guys that puts the event on his
00:22:07.720
name's Jerry Nelson. He's one of the founders, a ticket master. He's 85, 86 year old guys at 44
00:22:13.140
companies. He, he found, uh, he drilled for water in the desert and developed Scottsdale.
00:22:19.620
So, um, well, the guy's been around the block a few times. Yeah. I mean, I'm at dinner with him.
00:22:24.760
And I said, I said, Jerry, at what point did your businesses really start to take off? When did you
00:22:30.100
really go, okay, I got this. And without hesitation, he said, when I learned to get out of my own way.
00:22:35.860
Hmm. And I said, what do you mean? He says, I can't control everything. I need good people
00:22:40.600
around me and I need to trust them and treat them like big boys and let them go do their thing.
00:22:44.860
And I share that story because Jerry's just, he's a, an example of the millions of business
00:22:51.580
owners that are out there that would give anything to have that person who takes initiative,
00:22:57.020
who will allow me to get out of my own way. There there's like, you know, uh, a hundred things
00:23:03.060
in my business that need to be done. And I'm honestly not good at like 98 of them.
00:23:07.800
Okay. So I would much rather hand it off and, um, and let you run with it. And, uh, and I,
00:23:16.360
I see that as in all the business owners I work with, one of their biggest struggles is finding that
00:23:21.140
right hand person who will take that initiative. I coach high school football. You and I have talked
00:23:26.940
about before and I, um, years ago we had this, this, uh, younger coach goes to my head coach buddy
00:23:34.680
and he says, Hey, I want to be the defensive coordinator next year. And we were going into
00:23:39.280
a new season and he said, all right, well, I'll tell you what, um, this season, he was a sophomore
00:23:43.660
coach, uh, head coach. He said, he says this season after the sophomore games, I want you to go up in the
00:23:49.240
box for our varsity games. I want you to scout our offense, our own team. And then he says,
00:23:55.280
I want you to break down the game film after that. And by Sunday night, I want to report on
00:24:00.260
how you would exploit our offense for the whole season. Basically. He said nine games. That was
00:24:06.200
his interview. Uh, guy wouldn't do it. He says, well, I'm not going to do it. If I'm, if I don't
00:24:10.280
have the title, I'm not doing that much work. Oh yeah. Everybody's wrapped up in that title,
00:24:13.900
right? Yep. Like you said it, you know, take the initiative. You see something that needs to be
00:24:18.160
done in the business that you're in, go get it. Just like serving a customer. Your, your employer is a
00:24:22.840
customer in a lot of ways too. They have pain and they have problems and needs and you know,
00:24:26.860
you can alleviate some of that. It's worth something to them. A good employer will find
00:24:30.640
a way to get you some more money. Let's jump back to these core concepts because I think I cut you
00:24:35.020
off and got sidetracked a little bit. I think you were going to talk about charging the right amount
00:24:38.180
or not being cheap. Let's talk about that. And then I want to move on to your strongpreneur pledge,
00:24:42.140
which is something I think myself and all men need to hear and be a little bit more aware of.
00:24:46.220
Sounds good. So yeah, there's, there's two more things that the one I won't elaborate on what,
00:24:49.920
so we had respect, we had clarity, consistency is huge. Once you realize, you know, that you need
00:24:56.000
to be doing certain things in your business, do them consistently. Don't, don't hop around from
00:25:02.420
thing to thing. So anyway, and that's mainly on the marketing side of things or it's in the
00:25:07.460
leadership side of things with, you know, the way you treat your people or hold them accountable
00:25:11.060
or whatever. But the last thing is the money mindset. I see so many business owners project their
00:25:15.880
beliefs about money onto their customers. Oh, there's no way they'd ever pay $5,000 for this.
00:25:21.920
You know? And I mean, obviously you, you, you're in money every day of your life, right?
00:25:26.520
So it's, I would work really, really hard to wipe your hard drive clean. If you have negative money
00:25:34.440
mindset and, and just don't set your prices based on the going rates. Don't set your prices based on
00:25:42.860
what you think they'll pay, but I would set pricing based on what it's worth to the client,
00:25:48.820
the value that it brings to the client, not even what it, what it costs you. If something costs you
00:25:54.360
a hundred dollars, that doesn't mean you should only charge 150 or $200 for that thing. You know,
00:26:00.100
there was a, uh, uh, in one of my Facebook groups, uh, for my business, we had a guy share,
00:26:06.340
um, he's like, man, I had a pipe break in my house over Thanksgiving weekend.
00:26:10.580
All the plumbers were closed. It's the middle of the night or it wasn't middle that it was a Sunday.
00:26:16.560
He would, he was out of town. That's what it was. He was out of town. I'm sorry. It wasn't
00:26:20.180
Thanksgiving. He was out of town. I have a great memory. It's just short. Um, so he was out of
00:26:25.700
town as wife and baby, two babies were home alone. So it's an emergency plumbing situation. The guy
00:26:31.420
charged 125 bucks to come out and deal with it. Oh yeah. And my buddy Andy was like, I would have paid
00:26:36.720
five grand. Yeah. Easily. You know? And so here's an example of a contractor who's totally hosing
00:26:42.720
himself. Cause I guarantee you, if I got into the life of that plumber that he hired, you would see
00:26:49.080
he's on the hamster wheel running himself ragged, trying to make a buck. He probably doesn't have
00:26:53.080
much money in the bank, you know, and his wife's upset because he's running around for nickels.
00:26:57.960
Cause I've been there. I was a painting contractor. I, I used to chart. You understand.
00:27:01.360
I totally get it. And, and I, I would bet, I would chop my pinky finger off in a bet right now
00:27:07.880
that I'm right about that particular plumber. And so that all starts with him having a, uh,
00:27:13.720
just a skewed money mindset, uh, and even a deeper view of himself and the value that he brings people.
00:27:20.660
So I would work really hard on making sure that my mindset was where it needed to be before I started
00:27:26.080
a business as far as money and my value is concerned. So I think we're going to answer that when
00:27:30.500
we get through this strong printer or pledge, because this is going to help bring some clarity
00:27:33.640
to guys that probably need to hear this and, and take their lives and their businesses and
00:27:38.400
their entrepreneurship to the next level. So let's, let's run through this. Cause this is really
00:27:41.900
valuable. The first time I saw this, I loved it. In fact, I need to create an order of man pledge.
00:27:46.680
So I'm going to ask you permission to be able to steal this a little bit from you.
00:27:53.400
Yeah. So number one, a strong printer pledge or the promise is, uh, I will shut up. It's just as
00:27:59.540
simple as that, that talk is cheap and what matters is what I get done. And so I, I want,
00:28:05.480
I want people to promise to talk less and do more. The world's full of talkers. You know,
00:28:10.520
I don't know much more to say about it other than that, because we've all been in situations where,
00:28:14.940
you know, somebody tells us one thing and they, they don't get the results that we need.
00:28:19.660
Right. Yeah. I think we have this desire. It's probably ego driven, but the desire to
00:28:23.700
talk and a lot of us like to hear ourselves talk myself included. I fall into this trap as well.
00:28:28.160
So when really we ought to just be listening, right? That's the advantage of even these
00:28:31.660
podcasts is I try to talk as little as possible because I want to hear what you have to say and
00:28:35.260
what the other 40 guys that we've interviewed have to say. So I can learn from that.
00:28:39.300
Yeah. And let me, let me say here, these, these promises are like at any given time,
00:28:43.240
you know, we're stronger, not so strong in one of them or a couple of them. So it's not like,
00:28:48.380
you know, you're ever going to arrive. So, but I would just encourage people to, uh,
00:28:53.120
just speak with their actions and less with, with their words. And, uh, cause people will notice
00:28:57.700
when you step up and do the things you need to do, the right people notice. Definitely.
00:29:01.900
Second one is, uh, I will do what I say I will do. And that just really comes down to no more
00:29:08.040
broken promises. This one came from looking back at, I had a, um, a residential painting company
00:29:14.940
outside of Chicago years ago, and we grew it to about a million bucks in the first three years.
00:29:18.620
And the average painting company residentially does about 300 grand a year. So we, we really
00:29:24.340
cranked it. And, um, we built it because we, we 100% of the time did what we said we would do.
00:29:30.980
If we said we were going to be there at four o'clock for a meeting, we were there at four o'clock.
00:29:35.980
Um, if we said we were going to clean up and you wouldn't have to lift a finger to clean up after we
00:29:40.600
were there, you didn't have to lift a finger to clean up. Um, and so the reason that company grew
00:29:46.340
so quickly and still to this day is doing really well, I sold my half to my business partner years
00:29:51.380
ago, um, is because of this number two thing that we simply do what we say we're going to do. And if
00:29:56.720
more businesses and individuals did that, uh, I think we'd have a much better, uh, environment.
00:30:03.060
Number three, I'll be hungry for mentoring. Hey, listen, I, whether you pay for coaching and
00:30:07.700
mentoring, or you have a good, you know, group of friends or a private Facebook group,
00:30:12.660
like order of men or whatever it is, uh, we all need somebody in our lives to, uh, point
00:30:19.700
out the things that we can't see. And, um, and so I, I encourage people to invite that
00:30:25.480
accountability, that encouragement from other, uh, other people as trusted advisors, you know,
00:30:31.180
Jim Rohn, the old motivational speaker says become the average of the five people you hang
00:30:34.660
out with the most. Yeah. Right. And, um, so, you know, look at the five and make sure that
00:30:39.640
your five has some strong mentors in it. Yeah. We're so afraid to bring mentors in. I think,
00:30:44.560
I don't know. It seems crazy to me because I have mentor. And here's the other interesting about a
00:30:49.540
thing about this concept is that we have mentors in a lot of areas of our life. We have spiritual
00:30:53.840
leaders. We have physical, you know, training like coaches, uh, even golf instructors. But then when it
00:31:01.540
comes to our life, our overall life, for example, or our businesses, for some reason we clam up and we
00:31:08.060
refuse to reach out to other people. And it's absolutely ridiculous. Every time I bring somebody
00:31:13.240
into my life, who's been more successful in any one area, my results automatically increase just
00:31:18.780
because I'm surrounded by that person. I'm, and I'm consuming the information and the lessons that
00:31:23.780
they've learned, the good lessons and the bad, the hard lessons they've learned as well.
00:31:26.540
Oh, absolutely. It's, uh, you know, and I, I have two, I have three kids and two teenage boys,
00:31:31.940
you know, and I'm giving them bits and pieces of my wisdom and I'm like, Oh, will you please just
00:31:36.740
listen? Yeah. Right. And they already know that dad, right? You know, my one son, he's like,
00:31:42.480
yeah, I got my plan worked out. I'm good. Thanks. Anyway. Good, good luck with that boy. Let me know
00:31:47.380
how that goes. Um, but you know, that's where, that's where your group has been so great. You
00:31:51.320
know, I mean, especially the private Facebook group, it's a safe place for guys to come
00:31:54.920
and dump, you know, I've shared a couple of things just about needing to be a better husband and dad
00:32:01.340
in the group. And that's great. You know, you get these other guys weighing in and, you know,
00:32:06.100
I've shared things about, uh, things I need to get done in my business. And then, you know,
00:32:10.940
the next morning you're like weighing in again. All right, Tom, how did you do on that?
00:32:15.340
Yeah. Yeah. You know, and so that's, um, the mentoring's out there and, and so you, you gotta
00:32:20.700
have it without it. We'll never grow to our full potential. Um, number four, uh, there's two more.
00:32:26.720
Number four is I will make no excuses, man. This, this comes from a lot of things, but,
00:32:31.580
uh, mostly just as my experiences being a high school football coach for 16 years,
00:32:36.900
at the end of the day, did you make the block or not? I don't even know why, you know, you run a
00:32:42.000
six yard hitch route and you didn't run it to the inside of the corner. And so he undercut it and
00:32:46.560
had a pick going the other way for a touchdown because you ran the route right route and kids
00:32:51.620
would come off the field and go, Oh, well I slipped or he had inside leverage on me.
00:32:56.620
Or he got across my face, or I think he jumped off sides coach and they didn't call it. And I
00:33:01.740
just got sick of hearing excuses. And it's the same way in business. It's the same way in our
00:33:05.800
relationships. At the end of the day, listen, if it's important to me, I'll find a way. If not,
00:33:10.040
I'll find an excuse. Yeah. And, uh, great point. So I, I would encourage everybody listening that the
00:33:16.080
next time you screw something up, try to notice where your mind and your mouth first goes. Am I about
00:33:22.780
to make an excuse or am I just going to raise my hand and go, my bad? Yeah. You know, it's funny.
00:33:27.520
I, in the group actually this morning, I posted something about intentions versus results. And
00:33:32.280
everybody wants to say, my intention was this and I wanted to do this and I wanted to have this.
00:33:37.200
But at the end of the day, we measure our success and other people measure our level of success,
00:33:40.800
especially when it comes to the people that are relying on us, like business partners and clients
00:33:44.780
and family by the results that we get, not by the intentions that we have. Yeah, absolutely. Let me
00:33:52.500
tell you a story on excuses here too. Cause, uh, I just told you my one son, he's like, I got my plan
00:33:58.060
and everything. So, but I, I want to give him props here too. He's his name's Tiga. He's, uh, he's 15.
00:34:05.360
He's from Haiti. We, all three of my kids, uh, uh, were adopted and Tiga's from Haiti. We brought him
00:34:10.300
home when he was just turning nine years old and he'd been here for about a year. He was still kind of
00:34:14.580
learning English. We're driving down the road and he goes, dad, in this little accent. And I go,
00:34:19.240
yeah, buddy. He goes, I would like to have a big house. And I go, well, dude, you are in the right
00:34:25.160
country. Absolutely. And, uh, I said, but it's going to take two things. The first thing it's
00:34:29.440
going to take is you're going to have to learn how to read because he'd really been struggling with
00:34:33.100
that and kind of getting lazy with it. And, uh, and I said, the second thing, dude, is you're going to
00:34:37.640
have to work really, really, really hard. And he gets quiet. He's in the passenger seat. I'm in the
00:34:42.780
driver's seat. We're cruising in my truck. He's looking out the window. It seemed like 10 minutes.
00:34:47.120
It was probably only about a minute. Yeah. And he gets really quiet and I could tell his mind is
00:34:51.740
moving and he turns and he goes, dad. And I said, yeah, man, he goes, I think I'm good with a small
00:34:59.080
house. And so he's trying to decide which one is more important, right? Yeah. So what I appreciate
00:35:06.840
about that is he, he wasn't going to make an excuse. You know, it wasn't, it was, Hey, I'm at
00:35:12.940
this point in my life, not willing to pay that price. Yeah. And that's okay to be there. I respect
00:35:18.900
that more than I respect the guy that says, yeah, I'm going to do this, this, this, and this. And he
00:35:24.420
comes back and all he does is make excuses of why it didn't happen. Yeah. So it actually brings me
00:35:29.480
back to my military days. It sounds like you were in the Marine Corps. Uh, but it brings me back. I
00:35:34.000
remember basic training. I, when I went, I had a couple of buddies who had gone through basic
00:35:38.420
training before and they said, just get used to the phrase, no excuses. If you mess up or a drill
00:35:43.960
sergeant's in your face and he's chewing you out, don't make excuses. Don't try to come up with a
00:35:49.040
reason that it didn't go through or it didn't work. Just say no excuses, drill sergeant. And I said that
00:35:53.840
so many times. And each and every time I said that the drill sergeant just looked at me and walked
00:35:59.020
off, but I saw other guys making excuses and it made life so much harder for them. And the drill
00:36:04.400
sergeants went on attack mode every time they tried to have an excuse for why they didn't perform the
00:36:08.860
way they should have. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, to me, being a strongpreneur is, is, um,
00:36:14.120
it's being a winner and winners find a way they just, they find a way. Um, and you know, being in the
00:36:20.040
military and I, you know, I was a Marine Corps, you know, listen, if our job is to take that town,
00:36:24.820
we need to take the town. We're going to find a way to do it. And, uh, even if it ain't pretty,
00:36:30.060
I'm going to find a way or, or, or in a, uh, in a business, I'm going to find a way to support
00:36:35.440
my family. Right. You know, uh, I'm not going to make excuses. I'm going to find a way winners
00:36:40.780
find a way they don't make excuses. So, uh, number five, last one here, man, I'll, I'll move on for you
00:36:46.960
is, uh, I will have fun. And what I wrote under that was I will enjoy the ride and lighten up.
00:36:51.740
If I'm not having fun, something's got to change. And, and that came from looking back,
00:36:56.540
you know, building one of my businesses years ago, when it became a drag for my partner and I,
00:37:03.000
it's when we stopped celebrating our little wins along the way. Uh, in the early days,
00:37:08.880
every time we'd make a sale, we would call or text the other guy. And I'd be like, Hey,
00:37:12.460
just sold 3,500 bucks. Yeah. You know? And then he'd text two hours later ago. Yeah. Well,
00:37:16.760
I just got five grand, you know? And I would text and I go, okay, I got a thousand bucks.
00:37:20.880
And it was like little celebrations along the way. And we had a lot of fun and we did a lot
00:37:26.260
of laughing. And as we grew the business and that it got bigger. And I think, uh, me personally,
00:37:32.080
I just stopped enjoying the ride. And so I really want to encourage people to have fun. At the end
00:37:40.000
of the day, this is a business. It's not, it's really not your life. It shouldn't define who you
00:37:44.640
are. Businesses can come and go, but you get one shot at life and having fun. And I, I needed to
00:37:50.680
make, you know, looking back, you know, I wish I would have made it more fun along the way for my
00:37:55.380
family and my, you know, my wife and my kids as I was building it. So I really encourage people to
00:38:00.160
have fun. So valuable Tom. I appreciate it. I've got to ask you questions. We wind things down and
00:38:04.560
you know, I ask all my guests this question and that is, what does it mean to be a man?
00:38:09.140
Well, you're, uh, you're ripping off the idea for the pledge for me.
00:38:13.580
That's right. And, and I'm, I'm ripping off your definition of this that you shared on my podcast
00:38:19.200
a while ago. Okay. Because that's fair. That's fair. Because when you said it, it resonated with me
00:38:24.820
in such an awesome way because I, and I, and I've honest to God, it's been on my mind for,
00:38:30.020
you know, a week and a half now I'm like, no, this, this works. And it's basically a man is somebody
00:38:35.240
who is accountable and responsible for their life. You know, that's, that's what I remember
00:38:40.040
from our talk. And, and, um, and as I look at that, I'm like, you know what? That works. I mean,
00:38:45.740
that 100% works. And it led into some great discussions I had with one of my sons the other
00:38:50.600
day. And so I'm, I'm just kind of stealing what, what you gave me, man. Tom, I couldn't have said it
00:38:55.380
better myself. Hey, I want to let you know, I appreciate you. I appreciate all you're doing
00:38:59.380
in the conversations we've had. Tell us, uh, tell us how we can connect with you and learn a little bit
00:39:03.720
more about what you're doing with strongpreneur nation. Yeah. I'd love people to head over to
00:39:07.060
strongpreneurnation.com. And, um, there's a lot of content there. There's some blogs,
00:39:12.460
there's a podcast on iTunes, uh, where I interview, uh, people that are doing, you know, really cool
00:39:17.900
things in their life and in their business. The whole gist of what I'm doing there is simply to
00:39:22.000
help people do that. It's just to be stronger personally and professionally. And we deal with,
00:39:27.140
you know, the head trash, we help you get back your time, build a company that, you know,
00:39:32.180
um, you'll be proud of. Uh, so we have, uh, a lot of good stuff going on over there. So I'd love
00:39:38.060
people to just check us out there. You can also hit us up on Facebook. Uh, we have a strongpreneur
00:39:43.180
mastermind group. It's a private group. Just, uh, hit us up. We'll let you into the group
00:39:47.060
and, uh, you'll get other content videos and things there. Tom, I appreciate you. I know you're
00:39:51.600
doing great things over there. I follow you. I track what you're doing. You've been insightful
00:39:54.620
in some of the stuff that we're doing with order of man. So I really want to let you know that,
00:39:58.840
uh, that I'm grateful for you and appreciate you. Thanks for joining us on the show today.
00:40:02.060
Thanks for having me, Ryan. I really appreciate it, man. There you have it guys. Mr. Tom
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rubber enlightening us with some of his entrepreneurial wisdom. Make sure you follow
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Tom, check out his work. Him and I have really hit it off and that our personalities are very
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much alike. We don't mess around. And both of us have the ability to cut out the clutter
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when it comes to taking control of our life. Keep in mind also the elite mastermind iron council.
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You will want to be part of that. If you're ready to take your life to the next level,
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if you're committed to actually making big change in your life, this is how we're going to do it.
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We're going to build some solid relationships with each other. And you're going to have more
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accountability in your life, which I know is just as important for me as it is for you.
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Remember also our weekly giveaway by our friends over at Seneca Creek had order man.com slash
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Seneca Creek giveaway for to enter. And also keep in mind, it's a weekly drawing. So if you don't win
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this week and or again, because you might just win next week, guys, I look forward to talking
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with you next week. But until then, take action and become the man you were meant to be.
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Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life
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and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.