EP 516 – Start Planning For Your Business With Aaron Young

NCS 516 | Planning For Your Business

NCS 516 | Planning For Your Business

 

When we stop planning, we leave ourselves vulnerable to the winds of change that are happening. How do you push yourself to think ahead while going through the day-to-day requirements of your business? Let’s hear it again from lifelong entrepreneur and trusted advisor to CEOs, Laughlin Associates Aaron Scott Young as he talks about the advantages of planning for your business and looking and working like a corporation in your one-man-business. Aaron dives deep into the mindset of some of the most successful entrepreneurs to find out what it takes to build a business that makes money even when you don’t show up. Aaron also touches on the danger of drifting and how planning can prepare you for the changes ahead.

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Start Planning For Your Business With Aaron Young

We have our wonderful brother from another mother Aaron Young join us here on a regular monthly episode of the Note Closer show. A big shout-out to Laughlin Associates for being a core sponsor for this event, for our show. Thank you. We wrapped up our Virtual Note Buying Workshop. We had a great turn with everybody, lots of great questions. Lots of people are taking action. We had Aaron speak on it talking about the corporate veil protection. What Laughlin Associates does to help entrepreneurs with their businesses, their LLC. If you’re reading this show for the first time, I highly encourage you to drop me an email and I’ll be glad to send you the replay of Aaron’s special breakout session that he did. Aaron, why don’t you share roughly what Laughlin Associates does for our readers across the country.

It’s good to be here as always with you. We’re coming up on 49 years in business. We’re almost on our 49th birthday. We’ve helped over 200,000 business owners form hundreds of thousands of companies, and the main thing that we do is we help people no matter where they are. If they’re at the beginning, they’re a jumping-off point. They want to start a business. They’re growing. They’re seasoned. They want to sell. We’ve got tools and strategies and education for people in any of those situations.

We’re one of the largest incorporators in the United States. One of the things we do and that’s what my talk was about at your program. It’s about our corporate veil protection service, which is this. All corporations, all limited liability companies are required by law to keep what’s called board formalities. Your board of director’s formalities. The vast majority of businesses in the United States have one owner, one director. Often one employee and if you’re a real estate investor, odds are it’s you on your own. When you’re by yourself, the idea of holding a board meeting seems a little silly like, “Why would I hold a meeting by myself with me and write down notes and keep minutes and pass resolutions? If I’m the only owner of a company. Why would I have to issue share certificates? Don’t I own all of them?”

What we do for tens of thousands of companies is we provide that board secretary sort of position. Where we’re gathering the information from the clients, putting together the minutes, the resolutions managing the stock ledger and so on. Even those one-owner companies, or if you’re a lot bigger than that, but you’re moving quickly and you don’t know much about those formal things that are supposed to be done. We do it for you. We do it for tens of thousands of companies. It’s a great system. Our clients love the program because it defends themselves against lawsuits. It protects them in an audit. It helps them if they want to go out and get funding. It helps them if they want to go get a government contract. Worst case scenario, you must have these things in place, even if you want to go bankrupt. The point is you must act like a real corporation or a real LLC. If you’re ever challenged, you won’t get the legal benefits or the tax benefits.

The main thing is that it’s got to be done. Most people don’t know how to do it or don’t want to do it. They didn’t get in business to do lots of little nitpicky paperwork stuff. If for a few dollars a month you can get it done. Less than $100 a month as a matter of fact, once you’ve been with us for a year, it’s less than $50 a month and it’s unlimited documents. You don’t have to know anything. You just have to be willing to get on the phone with us for five or ten minutes and we do it. That’s why almost 90% of the clients that use the service renew it because it’s required by law. It’s not a nice idea. It’s required by law. We take all the pressure off. You can stay focused on making money, and we’re less expensive than probably a works worth of trips to the coffee shop.

We have Debbie that calls us all the time here. Calls me and we get on the phone, fill out the form. Send the forms in, then she sends us back to forms and I put them right straight into my leather-bound document binder over here on the shelf and stay compliant with everything. The biggest thing we’re talking about is us as entrepreneurs, business owners. We’re always busy. We’re in the business of doing business not doing paperwork. We need to start planning our next move and start putting those things in place. Building that list of big rocks or action items that maybe we didn’t get accomplished this year, but we want to see those things happen next year. We need to start planning now.

No matter what year we’re in we always want to be getting ready for the next year. Fully embracing what we’re doing but making plans. For flying by the seat of our pants every day we get up. Probably there are a lot of people that are reading who do that. They probably wonder why they’re not getting the success that they were hoping for. People that have a lot of success are working right now, but they’re always looking six months, twelve months, two years, three years ahead. Michelle and I go out in the morning and drink and drink our coffee out on the patio. We live on a farm and we look at the horses, goats, barns and the fields and it’s beautiful. We love it, but we went out this morning and we both had these big blankets around us and because it was about 52 degrees and raining.

I thought, “Where did summer go?” We had this beautiful summer and then somebody flipped a switch and it’s been full-on fall. Pouring rain leaves falling, cold mist on the fields. I’m like, “Where does the time go?” As a kid, I remember looking forward and thinking, “The year 2000 I’m going to be 36 years old.” I was a teenager way out there in the year 2000. We’re two decades past that now. I remember getting ready for Y2K and several years has flown by. We get so busy doing that we stop planning. When we stop planning, we leave ourselves vulnerable to the winds of change that are happening. All of a sudden, an opportunity comes up. Are you ready to take money? A lawsuit comes up. Are you ready to defend yourself? It’s time for your corporate taxes.

Have you got your stuff ready? Can you defend all the things that you want to claim as a deduction? Somebody sends you an audit notice and now it’s too late to get ready. Time goes by and we put off things that are out of our comfort zone. We put them off. We delay. I don’t care what it is. If you’re trying to get into the note business and you’re getting started, you haven’t done your first deal yet. You keep going to the events and reading the books and showing up for things like this, but you haven’t pulled the trigger. One year will go by. Another year will go by and you’ll say, “I’m going to invest in notes and you’ll miss the opportunity.” Scott, were there great opportunities five or six years ago that do not exist now?

Definitely. My biggest thing is I should have bought more. I should have taken action and bought more in the past when it was better pricing.

Are there opportunities coming up a few years from now that people right now can’t even imagine how good the opportunities are going to be? We’re going into another recession that’s going to happen. It always happens. People go, “Don’t be negative. Don’t be a bummer.” We’ve had an unprecedented boom. We’ve gone longer than we should have. It’s like the tectonic plates of the Pacific Coast. They’re on top of each other. There’s going to be an earthquake. There will be one. I’m not being gloom and doom. It’s going to happen. The question is, “Are you prepared? Are you unprepared?”

Scott, you live in Texas. You guys could get a tornado if you get down, by Houston or further south you can have a hurricane. It’s not that it happens every day, but you’ve got to get ready because these things do happen. We’re getting to the end of the year. Have you gotten all the deductions figured out that you could get? Have you spent money on things that you should be doing now because of the current tax climate that maybe will change when we get a new president? Will whoever get re-elected come in and change everything that’s been done? Who cares if you like Trump or don’t like Trump? There’s a certain environment now. It will change. We used to have a 90% tax bracket in the old days. Things change.

NCS 516 | Planning For Your Business

Planning For Your Business: Fully embrace what you are doing every day but don’t stop making plans.

 

We’re coming to the end of 2019. We have 3.5 months. Do we have any money for Christmas presents? I should start buying now. Do I think we’re at the top of the market? Should I be getting out and getting into cash right now? Is there another year of growth? I should by now because I’m going to end up with a more valuable asset in 2020. I don’t know. Whatever your belief system is. Are you taking action or are you sitting on the sidelines and watching the show? You’re watching the parade, but you’re not in the parade.

As I’m out talking to investors, you’re talking to entrepreneurs all across the country. People that want to do something. They have all the intention and goodwill of doing something, but they never take the time to carve it on the calendar and schedule it. To step away from everything. Because we all know there are distractions. We all know that, we’re all capable of drifting. If you’ve ever read Outwitting the Devil by Sharon Lechter and Napoleon Hill. I saw you had an interview with Sharon on your podcast.

She’s so great. Keep going with your thought but drifting is the bane of anyone’s hope for success. Being a drifter, which is almost everybody. They’re the ones that go, “What happened?”

We’re all guilty of this. Everybody in the world is guilty of drifting. It’s a matter of if you recognize it and deciding to do something different. We had the workshop and a lot of people were excited about it. It was also the kickoff weekend of the NFL. People were like, “I can’t make it because I got to watch my big game.” Like, “That’s fine. Watch the big game. That tells me exactly where your priorities are at.” What’s going to have more impact on your bottom line, on your 2019 and 2020. The fact that the Dolphins got blown out? The Cowboys scored 35 points? I’m glad they won, but I was in the office here working. Even afterward to make sure that the students that were part of it have the replays. Have the things to get going. I’m also filling out forms for Debbie at Laughlin Associates to make sure she’s got the things to do so I can finish up my taxes that we put an extension on. That’s the thing. You got to carve time.

There’s nothing wrong with watching a football game or a basketball game. As a matter of fact, I bet half the sporting events I’ve ever attended were with you. You sit there and watch that game and you give three or four hours to an NFL game plus going and buying your refreshments and getting ready and maybe having somebody over. Making a seven-layer dip whatever you’re doing to get ready for the big kickoff of the big season. You watch a bunch of people who are making millions of dollars a year because they’re not sitting around watching I Love Lucy. They’re working their butt off, practicing, getting in the best physical shape. Knowing the plays. Figuring out how to assimilate into a team and then executing on teamwork so that they make millions of dollars. You’re sitting there and you’re cheering. Isn’t it great that they’re making millions of dollars while I sit on my ass and watch TV?

It’s the great irony of watching, being fixated. There’s nothing wrong with watching the game. If you’re fixated on it, you’re probably a drifter. You’re watching the parade go by instead of being in the parade. I say to people all the time even when they’re going through a down-cycle. I say, “Isn’t it cool that you’re in the game and not watching and wondering why you don’t get any great opportunities.” Get in the game. You’re going to lose some games. You’re going to miss some field goals. You’re going to miss some opportunities, but you’re at least going to get in the game. Maybe you’re going to get the decent paycheck or maybe you’re going to get the ring. Get in the freaking game.

I’ll give you an example. I don’t want to say I was drifting. I intentionally took a couple of months off. I pretty much didn’t do any work and I spent a lot of money and a lot of time indulging myself and my family. We went to the beach house for an extended trip and we went on some other trips and I went on a week-long horseback riding trip. I got to the beginning of the following month and I came back into the office and I thought, “Revenue’s way down right now.” Don’t feel bad for me because I have a lot of revenue streams but on The Unshackled Owner side, that part of my business. This office not the Laughlin office, not the other businesses. This office, revenue is down. I have expenses here and I thought, “This is what happens when business is completely dependent on me to generate the revenue.” I’ve other team members, but in this company if I don’t show up money stops. For how many people reading, if they don’t show up, money stops.

I have to do what everybody else has to do right now is go, “It’s time to start to prime the pump again. Get the well flowing again.” When we do that money shows up. I’m telling you, for almost all the business owners in the United States. They are directly tied to the revenues of their company. I’m blessed because I’m able to make a huge income from other businesses that I built that now operate without me. Most people have one business that’s generating revenue. If you’re reading this and that’s you. What are you doing to get off out of your easy chair and make money? Get prepared to get all the tax deductions. Get prepared to take advantage of changes that are coming into the economy next year. What are you doing? The resources are here for all of us. Scott’s a great resource. I’m a great resource truthfully.

The Magnify Your Wealth Summit that we do in San Diego, that’s the first full week of November 7th, 8th, and 9th. There we will have experts talking about what’s coming up. What should you be getting prepared for? What’s changing? Get out ahead of the game, ride the front of the wave. Get rich instead of going, “Everybody’s buying foreclosures that have been going on for several years. Maybe I should try it.” The people that were buying in late ‘08 to ’11, they’re the ones that got rich. Now people are making a living at it. If we’re preparing for the next wave. There’s another big wave coming. Scott probably talks about this all the time, whether you’re buying real estate. Buying intellectual property buying companies, there’s going to be a buyer’s opportunity when everybody else is tragically suffering because they didn’t pay attention. Who are you going to be? Are you going to be the one selling at fire-sale prices or buying at deep discounts? We got to start planning.

You start playing. That’s the thing, if people are jumping in right now, there are opportunities and you have to get yourself. Let’s tell people, “Right now is a great time to jump in.” You set yourself up. You learn what to do. Learn to earn so that by the fourth quarter, as the bank starts to dump their inventory, they start to get rid of the non-performing stuff. You’re available and ready to rock and roll. We had our Note CAMP Convention. I sent a survey out. I asked the attendees to fill out a survey and we get about 30%, 40% of those that attend fill out a survey. I asked them, “When was the last time that you sent an email out to your database? How often do you send out to your database? Once a week, twice a month, once a month or never?” Over half have never sent an email to the database to market.

The same thing, “How many times have you have you ever sent an email blast out to banks and asset managers or picked up the phone and called at least 50 of them at a given time?” The same thing, over half have never done that. Which tells you and tells me that a lot of people like to get up and watch the parade. Wave at those in the parade. Wave at those that spent the weekends working out, spent days getting up early, eating right. Spent days making the phone calls and getting the noes, the rejections, the figuring out the email blast or calling the asset managers to be transferred too many times. That was one of the things that I did in our virtual workshop. Friday is never a good day to call the bank, but I still did it on in front of the people in the webinar. I called asset managers one. I got a voicemail. They said, “No,” and one I talked to the guy like, “Definitely. I hadn’t thought about that in a while but send me an email and I’ll shoot you over what we got available.” Three phone calls and one was yes.

It’s not that hard. What’s hard is doing what’s unfamiliar. If you’re unfamiliar with it, or if you think, “What if somebody answers the phone? What will I say to them?” It’s okay to have a bunch of false starts while you’ll earn. If you pay attention to a mentor like Scott, for that industry. You’ll be able to hear little words. You start to have a little bit of an understanding, so that when they say, “What are you looking for?” You can say, “I’m looking for this.” “What do you do?” “I do this.” I tell you, there’s nothing more emboldening than having a yes. You get a yes you, “Let’s call some more.” If you got three noes, your people watch you would probably go, “There it is. It’s impossible.” Not knowing that maybe on the fourth call would have been the perfect one.

NCS 516 | Planning For Your Business

Planning For Your Business: Doing the unfamiliar to scale your business is difficult.

 

When I first started doing the phone calls to asset managers years ago, I got 53 noes before I got my first yes. I made 53 phone calls. We don’t have anything, no. That yes turned into a lady out of Houston. I remember her name is Kim. She has a company called Aegis Mortgage. She was not having a good day. It was her and the president of the company with the last two employees at this bank and she was tasked with selling this last portfolio of Houston notes. It was a $5 million purchase price. We made five points on it. I ended up having to split those five points with four other people. It took four people for us to get it together, but I still make $50,000 on that 54th no.

There are people who work all year long for $50,000 or less. There’re some people who feel like they’re well employed at $75,000, $100,000. Few people make $100,000, and yet we know that one deal can make $100,000. My very first fix-and-flip was because we were able to divide up to other lots of the main lot. It was a house on three acres. We sold the house on one acre and two other lots when the market was good and I made $450,000 on that deal and I remember distinctly thinking,Where has this been all my life? How did I not know this was possible?” It was a huge success. I made $450,000 after expenses.

That was not bad and it took me maybe to do the whole thing, maybe six months of not full-time, but it took time to do. Well who doesn’t want to make $500,000 or that would come out to $900,000 a year. Who doesn’t want to make that kind of money? It’s not that I’m so brilliant or that I had magic wands or something. Somebody told me about this house. I went over and talked to the owner. I made a deal with the owner. She was thrilled. I found out I could divide it. I thought it was a good deal on the house on three acres. I got with the county, all of a sudden it got better and better, but somebody said something I took action. I took some more action found out there was more opportunity than I realized. I made a bunch of money. I don’t want to say it was dumbbell easy, but it’s way easier to make money or make progress on anything in your life. If you actually do something instead of watching.

Picking up the calls, making 53 noes and 54 was $50,000. You can make 53 calls in less than a day. If you could work for one day of prospecting to get $50,000, is that worth it? The in case anybody’s stammering on this the answer is yes, it’s worth it. Everybody thinks it’s so hard. One of my favorite quotes from Henry Ford is men spend so much time working, there’s no time left to make money. It’s from the ninth wealthiest person to walk the planet ever. We get so bogged down in everything that’s hard. We quit looking around for the opportunities. It’s the end of the year. What opportunities have we missed? What opportunities are still available for us? What new things can we learn still in 2019 to take in or will 2020 be the hindsight year? We look back and go, “What should have I done?”

It’s something the people have to look at. Now’s the time to be looking back at what you haven’t accomplished in 2019 and start taking the action that you haven’t done. Start doing the little things now. Start putting those habits into place so that they are a habit, come the first of the year. That way you’re not sitting here a year from now doing the same thing. Stammering and wishing and, “I wish I’d done that.” It’s the easiest thing to start taking action because you got to do it. It gets easier and easier. You’re going to roll out of bed in press suit and be perfect at whatever you’re doing. That’s not the case. You screw up. I was talking about embracing the crap. I only got good at calling banks because I’ve made, been told and hung up on thousands of times more than most people ever thought about it.

Two things have come to mind. That last thing you said was, “The masters failed more times than the student has ever tried.” The other thought I had as you were talking you said, “I looked back and I wish I would have bought more back then.” We talk about the hindsight year and that Crosby, Stills & Nash song came to mind and the lyric is, “I’m older now. I have more than what I wanted, but I wish that I had started long before I did.” It’s true we get good at something and we go, “That wasn’t that hard.” Once we do it, we go, “That wasn’t that hard.” We then go, “Why did I wait?” We’re not getting any younger and we don’t know how long we have, so what is the risk of trying? What’s the big failure, this big embarrassment that’s keeping you away from your dream? That’s keeping you away from the wealth that it would take to put you and your family on a cruise ship and go for a week-long cruise or go tour Europe? “I can’t do it now because it’s the big game. I’m going to watch somebody else fulfilling their dream while I sit on my butt and watch.”

That’s why people love sports and heroes, things like that. I’m a big fan of baseball. I love baseball. It’s one of the few sports that don’t penalize you for taking action for the best of your team, whether it’s a sacrifice bunt or a sacrifice fly.

A 300-batting average, you’re good, which means 70% of the time you’re failing. You’re not getting on base three out of ten times. You’re good. You’re a successful batter.

That’s the thing. You look at Tony Gwynn, who’s one of my favorite players. Number nineteen, played for the Padres, his home team. Never hit a lot of home runs, and you look at him, he does not look like an athlete with his stomach hanging over. He hit a lot of singles. One of the best contact hitters out there, but his aspect was that he hit a lot of singles. He didn’t try to go hit it out of the park and get upset. Look at Crash Davis or Chris Davis here were the Orioles who earlier in 2019 went over 44 in a row striking out all the time without a hit. He’s one of the highest-paid players in the Orioles, but he’s still the Major Leagues. He’s still swinging. He’s still taking his cuts. What happens is that, we often as entrepreneurs get up there and we get afraid to take our cuts. We get afraid to do the things that we need to do. We’re like, “I’m scared to.” Get in there. It’s not as difficult. You got to take the batting practice.

Your peers, your event mentors are here to help you take the swings. As I was talking with people in the workshop, I was like, “Get out make some offers. Don’t sit here. Taking that three-day class is great. A four-day workshop is great.” If you want to make the instructor or the person teaching the class happy, implement the things that you do. Implement the things that you need to do. I’m a big rocks kind of guy. I hate to-do lists because a lot of times we lie to ourselves with a to-do list by checking off all these little things that can be done at any time and avoiding the big things, but we sat down with big rocks. After an event everybody gets all jazzed. Out of the event, “I’m going to do this,” and then life gets in the way and slaps us around. Start making those big rocks, lift those big rocks. Readers, do you need to get your books in order? Get your books in order. If that big rocks list is, you need to have the corporate veil protection to halves. Are you incapable of holding yourself accountable for getting the document together? Hire Laughlin.

Everyone needs that. Start taking the actions to separate yourself. Let’s face it. Most people, they’re in a job. They’ve got their specific requirements that they do on the daily basis. That’s not an entrepreneurship aspect of that. If you are going to be an entrepreneur, you’re going to be raising capital. You’re going to be marketing. You’ve got to do those things in your side hustle. We joke about Gary Vaynerchuk and saying, “Everybody has a side hustle from 7:00 PM to 2:00 AM.” What are you doing with those times? If it is sitting in front of the TV watching Monday Night Football. You got two or three games that are back to back if you want it to.

At least your Monday Night Football games are back-to-back. How’s that going to help you with your income? What’s it going to help you in the long term? Unless, you’re betting on the games. Not much at all.

NCS 516 | Planning For Your Business

Planning For Your Business: If you’re going to be an entrepreneur, you’re going to be raising capital and marketing instead of Sittting in front of TV watching Monday Night Football.

 

I’m thinking about fall again. I keep coming back to this because if you could see what it looks like out of here. It looks like fall is here. I know it’s 100 degrees where you are, but where I am it’s 58 degrees. There’s a poem. You’ve mentioned it during the workshop, when the frost is on the pumpkin and the fodders in the shock. The poem is about fall and it’s all about this guy who’s a small farmer. He talks about when the frost is on the pumpkin. We know there’s pumpkins in the field and the fodder which is that the cut-up haylage that they make to feed the animals. He talks about the straw stack in the matter and you got the horses now put away in their stalls. You’re talking about all these things around the farm. As a guy who lives on a farm. I can’t help but think every one of those having the pumpkins there to reflect on, to see them, means you planted pumpkins and you planted other crops. Having the hay that’s put up for the winter means you cultivated. You fertilized. You let it grow. You cut it. You swaffed it, you baled it.

This is all work that leads to the moment of repose where you can sit back and look at it and go, “Look at how fabulous it is.” It all comes from work. It comes from work that takes time. You can’t have hay immediately. You have to plant the field and you have to let it grow for months. When the weather window opens upwards perfect for cutting it and letting it dry for three days before you bale. You’re not going to get it wet during that time. You have to wait for the moment, and then do it now as the opportunity arises. Everything that we look back on and go, “It must be nice for that person. It must be nice to live in that house. It must be nice to drive that car. It must be nice to have that kind of money. It must be nice to get paid $8 million to run the football up and down the field, sometimes.” The reason is that the work got put in. Whether it’s the work of the commission, the work of the things we did or the omission, the things we didn’t do. At some point, we’re going to have to reconcile the work that we did and what happened from it or the opportunities that we didn’t do that we missed out on.

My grandfather, who worked his butt off standing at a lathe his whole life, first at a machine shop and later at a wood lathe where he trims. He was he should have gone to World War II, but they froze him in his job, so he could build wood components for the ships that the Navy was ordering. Instead of going to fight, he fought domestically by building naval ships. Southern California, Montebello, California, I can’t tell you how many times my grandfather said, “I could have bought land in Anaheim. It was nothing but orange groves. The land was cheap. I could have been rich now if I bought it. They built Disneyland and then all these things happened and I missed it.”

I’m like, “You didn’t buy land. You didn’t even buy it once Disneyland started. You didn’t go out a mile from Disneyland and buy land. You didn’t do it. You watched, you complained. You know bemoaned the fact that you didn’t do it, but guess what? You didn’t do it. What good are the tears? What good are the moaning and groaning? You didn’t do it. You sat and you watched other people take the risk.” How many people are reading your show right now are going, “As soon as, but if, if only.” It’s never easy. As a matter of fact, almost all your heroes that are rich, did something that almost nobody else is willing to do. Which is lived a harder life, a lower life financially. Restricted themselves so that then they could come out and say, “I’ve put $10,000, $30,000, $100,000 together. Now I get to play.”

It makes me think of a story when I was a banker for JPMorgan Chase back in the day. It was a businessman. One of my clients, let’s say his name is Mr. Winn. Mr. Winn owned the local Chinese restaurant in the food court here in the mall. He and his wife came here from Asia. He traveled over here. He got lucky enough. He started working as a busboy, a dishwasher and saved enough money so he could buy a spot and lease a spot there in the food court. Which is a lot cheaper than to open up his own restaurant somewhere and a lot less overhead. He and his wife bought this place and set it up. They would clean up at the end of the day at 9:00. They would sleep on the floor in the kitchen of the restaurant because they didn’t have a place. They didn’t have an apartment. They slept in grass mats. They did that for a few years. They came about time they put enough to either buy a house or an opportunity came up to buy another restaurant, take over another restaurant in a different mall. They decided, “We’ll wait.”

They bought the other restaurant and for another few years. They slept on the floor in the kitchen again while they ran both restaurants. Eventually, they bought a house, but they had enough income at that point. It didn’t affect their cashflow. They bought a third, fourth. Now, he owns twenty different restaurants around Austin. Huge house, but they don’t realize that for over a decade. He slept on the floor in his restaurant to do everything he could do. That’s the type of dedication that you’ve got to do to getaway. We all could do a lot more we all do more. We could all do more with less than what we’re doing. The point is, he’s successful. Everybody in the community was, “You’re so successful.”

He goes, “Scott, I had people that made fun of me. We had five shirts that I rinsed out, five pairs of pants. More than that underwear and socks but that would recycle out. When my friends and families were off doing other things, they were making fun of me because we stood very diligently to get this done. Now, they’re in the opposite direction of were. They live paycheck to paycheck, hand to mouth. Whereas we could do whatever we want to with life, but the fact is that we put that investment in on the front end because it was hard to say no to that first half. It was hard for my wife and me to decide to put off having a family for a couple of years. We had a bigger picture in mind, we had a bigger goal of what we want to accomplish and we listened to us versus trying to keep up with the Joneses or trying to keep up with everything else around us.”

It’s such a great story and we hear these stories. I mention Mark Cuban a lot because a lot of people know him especially there in Texas, the Mavericks. He talks about eating packages of ketchup from McDonald’s because he couldn’t buy food. Your story is a great one. The whole world changed in the mortgage industry. You sold everything you had. You and your dog jumped in the truck and off you went for a couple of years teaching about notes, not having a home. Living from place to place and putting in the effort. You got to go out. See the people. You don’t have to live fancy. You got to get out and you got to do something and that established you as a leader in this industry. I’ve chosen to live low when I didn’t have to in order to push the business forward. I’ve been willing to lose my home. In a short sale in order to push the company forward and grow it. People didn’t understand that.

I love the expression, “You can choose to eat the goose that lays golden eggs.” If you’re super hungry. You think, “I got to eat then you can eat the goose. Forget about gold eggs, they’re gone,” or you can say, “I’m going to go eat the pig food. I’m going to live low, but I’m going to make sure the goose that lays golden eggs. It has a nice dry nest, safe, out of the weather, is good, and it’s taken care of. Because that’s going to take care of my way into the future.” Sometimes we have to make big sacrifices in our personal comfort like your story in order to get the big payoff. That’s the other quote we’ve heard one million times. It almost seems trite. Some people will live like nobody else is willing to, so that someday they live as nobody else can.

Everybody wants their two flat screens, two cars, a microwave oven. Their home, their comfortable place. They need all that. They’re going to pay for that instead of paying to do something. The biggest mistake I see business owners make is when they start to make a little money. They increase their lifestyle and then they wonder why they can’t grow. They sucked up all the money and then they’re still not rich. They think, “If I could make $3,000 a month that would solve my problems.” They get up close to there. They go, “If I can make $5,000 a month that would solve all my problems. If I could make $9,000 a month that would change everything.” They’ve tripled their income and they’re still paycheck to paycheck.

Here’s the thing. It’s the end of the year. We can’t change what we’ve done but we can make a commitment to do something different to achieve more. We can make a decision to get up off the couch and walk and get our steps in. We can make a commitment to put away the Oreos and eat an apple once in a while, which believe me is a struggle for me because I like Oreos. You can make a choice to only watch one of the back-to-back Monday Night Football games and spend a little time looking at investment opportunities. You can make a choice to fix your company so you can take all the deductions that you want, or to take money out of a retirement plan and put it to work. You can sit back and go, “Sure would have been cool to get up on the stage. It would have been cool to be in the parade. It would have been cool to buy property in Anaheim. I wish I would have done it.” We can always be sad in hindsight of what we didn’t do or we can take action and do something. Even if we’re going to get 53 noes in a row, know that 54 means $50,000. It’s a matter of choice. I hope I don’t sound like I’m preaching. I’m just saying I’m 55 years old. I have more years behind me than in front of me. I’ve decided I don’t care about the failures. I’m going to keep swinging.

The biggest thing we have to share is getting off the curb and get in the parade. Get off the bench and get in the game. You’re going to be better off you’re going to take and you’re going to take your share of strikeouts, getting dings, whatever. Get in the game and look at what you want to accomplish. If you worked two hours extra a night. That’s 200 hours. That’s five weeks of a side job to get ahead of where you want to be. Where would you be five weeks from now if you put something into your side hustle, your passion, your project? Investing, fix and flipping, whatever it may be, think about that. Two hours a day instead of ending a day at 5:00 and rushing home. Maybe you do go home at 5:00, but then you went from 7:00 to 9:00 on your dreams and your passions make it happen.

NCS 516 | Planning For Your Business

Planning For Your Business: Get off the couch and spend a little time looking at investment opportunities, fixing your company, or taking money out of a retirement plan and putting it to work.

 

Make that first phone call that you’re terrified to make.

That’s the thing. It gets easier the more you do it. Aaron, thank you so much for joining us here on the show, as always. Thanks for being a part of the Virtual Note Buying Workshop as well.

We’ve talked about a lot of important things. We have this event. That is on November 7th, 8th, and 9th in San Diego. You’ve spoken at it many times. It’s called The Magnify Your Wealth Summit. If you want to learn how to make money. It’s not and there’s not a bunch of selling. You’re not going to get sold a bunch of programs. This is teaching you hard facts and sitting down with all the experts so we can answer your specific questions and get you pointed in the right direction. You can go to MagnifyYourWealth.com and check it out. If it’s right for you, we’d love to see you there. We’re about two-thirds sold out and it always picks up the last month. If you want it, if you say I’m ready to get off the curb and get in the parade. Maybe this is the place to start.

It’s a great place. One of the best ways to get started there to get your year on track. Everything is put in place so that you can really magnify your wealth in 2020. That’s great stuff, Aaron. Thanks as always.

Thanks, Scott.

Check out MagnifyYourWealth.com, a great event, mentors, a place to network with other entrepreneurs, raise some capital, and it’s in sunny San Diego in November. Who can go wrong there as well? Have a great day. See you at the top.

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About Aaron Young

NCS 516 | Planning For Your BusinessAaron Young, is a lifelong entrepreneur,  trusted advisor to CEOs and business owners and creator of The Unshackled Owner a program for entrepreneurs looking to build a business and not just a glorified job.

Aaron is Chairman/CEO of Laughlin Associates, a 44-year-old company that has helped over 100,000 entrepreneurs start, grow and profit from their business. This has given Aaron an ideal vantage point to observe common mistakes and successes in businesses from Main Street to America’s largest yacht broker from medical professionals to manufacturers to investors.

For over 34 years, his experience founding, acquiring and directing multi-million dollar businesses as well as working as an officer for a publicly-traded, multi-national, sets him apart from the crowd as a voice of real-world knowledge and authority.


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