Marquel Russell | Empowering Success- From High School Dropout to Successful Entrepreneur

If you're not having multiple ways to communicate with people, you're losing.

On your platform, I got a client of mine doing $250,000, $300,000 a month, and he does a TikTok live every day, right?

He jumps on, he engages with his audience, and he keeps his enrollment team calendar filled because of the nurturing that he's doing with his community.

And I discovered throughout my process and people getting results that my gift was taking these complicated concepts and then breaking them down simple so anybody can take them and implement it and actually get results because ain't nothing gonna force you to grow or expose you more than entrepreneurship.

Welcome to Mick Unplugged, where we ignite potential and fuel purpose.

Get ready for raw insights, bold moves, and game-changing conversations.

Buckle up, here's Mick.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged.

And today I've got a banger for you.

We're talking to an exceptional guest that is a highly successful entrepreneur, speaker, author, and business coach, known for his expertise in helping businesses scale and generate significant revenue.

And I mean significant.

With a proven track record of transforming startups into profitable enterprises, he has been a driving force behind numerous success stories.

His strategic insights and motivational approach have empowered countless of individuals to unlock their potential.

and achieve remarkable results.

Please join me in welcoming the innovative, the dynamic, the king of attraction, Mr.

Marquell Russell.

Marquell, how are you doing today, brother?

Thank you, man.

I love it.

I got to take you on the road, man, and just let you introduce me everywhere.

Hey, I'm available.

Flavor Flavor ain't got nothing on me anymore.

You know what I'm saying?

Hey, man, I've been a huge fan.

You know, we were introduced through Sean Anthony, but even before that, I was a big follower of yours.

subscribed to all of your stuff and actually input a lot of your wisdom into what I do.

So first, I wanted to say thank you

just for being available and present, because I think, you know, for a lot of people,

they forget that, right?

Once you reach a certain level of success, to be available, to be visible for those that are striving to get to where you are, to me, is a mark of true leadership.

So, again, I just want to say thank you for that, brother.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

It means more than you know.

I appreciate it.

So, let's go into it, man.

Let's talk about your journey a little bit, right?

Like, you know, I've heard a lot of your interviews, a lot of your writings and everything.

And you talk about, you know, initially, you know, am I going to be accepted with gold and tats and all that?

And then you said, hey, I'm me.

And that's what it's about.

So I'd love to let the listeners and viewers know a little bit about your journey that got you to where you are today.

Yeah, so yeah, so first of all, thank you for having me.

And once again, I definitely never take this lightly.

So yeah, so it's interesting.

I had an interesting, very interesting journey.

So I actually, I dropped out of high school in 10th grade,

you know, went, I tell people all the time, I come from the pharmaceutical industry, right?

So that was my first run in business.

I was selling drugs

early in my life because when I was growing up, the only mentors I knew, we didn't use the word mentors, but the only mentors I knew was people who sold drugs.

So that was the path I went down.

But I was always entrepreneurial.

I just didn't know how to channel it the right way.

I didn't know it was entrepreneurship.

But then,

fast forward, I, like I said, I dropped out of school in 10th grade started getting in trouble I was when my first son was born I was 19 and I the first time I met him I was in visitation I met him in visitation which was pretty crazy and then

this light bulb basically was like man like I'm going down the path my dad it seems like my dad went down because my dad wasn't around when I was growing up so I got out I was like I'm gonna do two jobs I'm gonna do the legit thing that that was short-lived for me because it just wasn't fast enough for me so I was like all right I'm gonna I went back into the streets i was like i'm gonna take the money i'm making and i'm gonna take that and and but i mean um put it into start an entertainment label uh a record label so i uh you know i grew up on master p and all those guys and they all came from where i came from and they started record labels independent labels I never rapped, never did beats.

I never had the desire to be famous, but I knew people who rapped.

I knew people who did beats and I had the desire to be famous.

And I was a visionary.

I always had some leadership and some influence.

So I was like, okay, how can I bring that together and create this label?

And that's what I did.

it was called get to it enterprises so uh so we started that that led me to doing i was in the club every night if you've ever been people who listen ever been to atlanta you know clubs are open every night in atlanta like monday through sunday every night and during the day so um so yeah so i started that and by me being in the club every night people started to know my face and then a buddy of mine introduced me to his cousin his cousin was managing a club here and the club scene is driven by club promoters, right?

That's how they get people in there.

So he was like, hey man, I want to give you a night and let you promote the night and you can do whatever you want to do.

And I was like, well, do I make money off the bar?

And he was like, well, no, you don't make money off the bar, but you can get the 100% of the door.

Like anybody you bring in, you can get the door.

And I was like, cool.

So it was a Tuesday night.

So we did that.

So

that started to build up.

Now, fast forward from there, I was in the club one night at a buddy of mine's mixed hat release party and I was pitched on network marketing, right?

And network marketing for those who don't know that's like some people call it a pyramid scheme some people call it MLM people call it different things right so I went to one of those meetings and they were like hey you know all you got to do is get two people and they'll get two people and they'll get two people and so forth and so on so I dove in head first

and

it didn't blow up as fast as they said it was going to blow up the beautiful thing it did for me though was introduce me to personal development So it introduced me to guys like Jim Ron and Miles Monroe and John Maxwell and Darren Hardy.

It introduced me to this world and all these guys was just talking about something I had never heard of.

So that helped me begin to change how I viewed myself, right?

Because it was a game changer.

I didn't make a ton of money in the oil marketing.

I became like number one recruiter in one company and won awards and all that different type of stuff.

But income-wise, I didn't make a ton of money.

However, the personal development changed the game for me.

And it led me into, it helped me overcome my fear of public speaking, right?

Which I guess God knew that I was going to eventually be on stages and so forth all across across the world.

So I had to go through that to break through that, right?

So that also led me into online marketing.

And that's where I learned direct response marketing, lead generation, how to acquire clients, things like write and copy, all those different skill sets, which led to us starting a company called Klein Attraction University.

And we grew that one significantly.

And we helped thousands of companies.

install automated acquisition systems.

But what we quit, and it became an Inc.

5000 fastest going company.

And what we quickly found out was that client client acquisition is just part of growing the business, right?

Like we was helping individuals attract more clients, but it's like a lot of times they didn't have the infrastructure and the systems and so forth to actually deal.

They wanted double or triple the clients they were bringing in.

However, they didn't have the infrastructure to actually deal with that growth.

So it was like, okay, cool.

So what we looked at, okay, what did we do when we scaled?

So we knew we had systems, we had process, we had team, we had a whole process, but we weren't really teaching it, right?

Outside of our high-level private clients so we started another company another division i should say called strategic scale institute where it's all about and that's our main focus right now we still help businesses with the client acquisition process but it's part of our greater eight pillars

and it's just one eighth of it so that's kind of where we are now helping businesses scale so now to have businesses that's more profitable more sustainable more scalable more enjoyable and potentially sellable if they desire to sell but even if they don't want to sell the company they can still exit it and hire a ceo or if they want to have it systemized where they can pass it it over to their family, you know, they can do that as well.

Love it.

And we're about to unplug a whole lot of what you just said, man, because we have so much in common.

And again, some of the things that I've even learned from you, and one of those things is this.

And I want everyone that's listening to pay attention to what Marquell's about to get into.

One of the things that I admire, Marquell, is you talk about,

it's not about leads.

You can have as many leads as you want, right?

But if they're not moving through your process, you just have a very heavy top end.

And at some point, that top end falls down, right?

Yeah.

You say it much differently than I do, but you get what I'm saying.

Like, let's talk to the listeners and viewers about that because so many people get focused on, oh, I just need eyeballs.

I just need leads.

It's great, but if you can't close them, if you can't move them through a funnel, it doesn't really matter.

100%.

So we have this, this mechanism called, because you know, the traditional, a lot of times people teach the funnel process is awareness.

People become aware of you.

Some of them are going to be interested.

Some are going to engage.

And then some are going to become a client.

We take that a bit further with this mechanism that we have called the client attraction flywheel.

So basically the client attraction flywheel, you know, of course, a flywheel is designed to create momentum and sustainability.

So with the flywheel, it's four components.

So the first component is

captivate.

So you have to captivate.

people's attention which is also awareness but you want to once they become aware of you you have to captivate them and capture them and keep them right and then

once you captivate them i kind of jump the gun the second stage is capture to your point now they saw you now how do you now they become a lead right so now they're gonna they like okay this is very interesting now they become they give you their name their email and their phone number and if you and if you're dynamic with your marketing you can actually build it in what we call an invisible list because now you got pixels and so forth where you can actually capture individuals data without them actually opting in in a legit way right not in a weird like spammy way but like in a legit way so now you capture the details now a lot of people miss this part

the third piece of that is cultivate

so if you learn if you've learned any sales training or network marketing or whatever we've always heard ABC always be closing I believe in ABC always be cultivating right so you always cultivating the relationship always cultivating the relationship and there's multiple ways to do it because you want to be building three assets at all times You want to be building an audience asset, right?

You want to be building

an audience, I mean like social media, right?

Social media, whatever platforms you're on, that's one asset.

You also want to be building a email list asset because that's the actual, that's the only asset you actually own.

Like you can't, I know people who have massive social media followers.

I was talking to a gentleman the other day and he has almost 2 million followers across all his social medias, but he has no email list.

I was like, man, that is detrimental.

Because at any moment, YouTube could shut you down, Instagram should shut you down, could shut you down, and that'll kill your whole business, right?

That's detrimental.

So, so you want to have your email asset because you actually own that.

You can actually shut down an autoresponder and you can move your list over somewhere.

That's something you actually own.

It's people that sell their email list, like newsletter companies, not sell it to like for people to spam it, but they can build a newsletter company and sell it for 10, 15.

I was reading the other day, a guy, they sold a newsletter for $75 million, right?

It's an email list.

So it's a massive asset.

So that's your email list.

And then you want to have a pixeled audience.

I mean, a pixeled asset.

A pixel asset, if somebody engages with your content, they go to your website or anything, now you can actually start retargeting them.

and showing them the stuff you want and now you're going to stay on a newsfeed so in that cultivation phase you want to be building that asset in the capture phase now when it comes to cultivation how are you what's like your content rhythm right so are you creating a podcast right where you're cultivating relationships and giving value, right?

Are you sending out emails?

Like sometimes I talk to people to your point, you was like, how do we move them through?

Like I ask people, I'm like, I'm like, hey, how many y'all got an email listening?

Everybody raised their hand.

And I'm like, well, how many of y'all email your list every day?

Everybody hands go down.

And I'm like, well, when was the last time you emailed your list?

And it was like months ago.

And it was like, so you came to us because you want to get more leads and you want to get more clients, but you're being a bad steward to the leads that you already have.

You're not even having conversations with those.

You're not even reaching out to them.

And sales teams are typically the worst because they're like they want fresh new leads but they're not even maximizing their existing pipeline right and that's when it comes to the cultivation and it's not like you following up with them every day like hey you ready to buy hey you ready to buy hey you ready to buy it could literally be like hey we just released this new piece of content it's about xyz i thought of you check this out or hey we just released this new podcast episode i thought about you check this out let me know if you got any questions so again we're cultivating those relationships so this could be through daily content, just through daily email.

People be like, daily?

I'm like, yeah, daily, because your social media platforms is literally like your own TV channel, your own TV show, right?

So it's like, if you think about the most successful TV shows ever, they typically come on pretty regular.

They got a regular cadence, regardless if that's daily, weekly, or whatever.

So what's your regular cadence, right?

Especially with social media becoming so much more noisy.

How are you standing out and being consistent?

So we got that cultivation page.

And when you cultivate consistently, then the last phase is close right and it's not you closing them it's them closing themselves because at this point they're like i'm ready to enroll so prime example i actually um i spoke at an event this past weekend and when i went there because we do so much in the captivate capture cultivate when i go out people like oh my god it's you i've seen you everywhere blah blah blah i started talking to this gentleman he has an amazing company and he's like man uh i've been checking on stuff for so long he came into my breakout we did thing and i'm like hey he he was gonna be scheduled to chat with my team but i was like hey man since we already you know let's just have a conversation there's no need to make make this formal like let's just continue the conversation so we chatted before you and i got on here and uh uh he's like i'm like what i'm like what stops you from like you know what's working before he was like it's just timing man he was like now is just the time again because people buy when they want to buy not when you want them to buy so that's why we got to continue to be moving through that process i didn't have to close him right he already came to the call with his mind made up that we were going to work together.

He just wanted to figure out how we was going to work it out logistically

to make it happen.

Yep, I totally agree, man.

I had that same type of conversation with one of my clients, and they have a really good close ratio, right?

And they wanted to get better.

So I was like, let's break down your sales process.

And everything on the front end was good from your term cultivating.

Everything was great, except

once they do a proposal, there was no follow-up.

And after X amount amount of time in their system, it moves that lead or prospect to dead or close.

I'm like, wait a second.

One, why is your sales team not following up?

Two, what is your follow-up communication method?

And did you find out how that client or prospect likes to be communicated?

Just because you like to do email doesn't mean that they respond well to email.

So we did a few minor tweaks.

They're closing far more than they were closing before, which was really, really good.

But more importantly, they have a true system of

just because someone didn't respond today or tomorrow doesn't mean it's a closed deal or that it's obsolete.

And so, just by understanding how customers and prospects want to be communicated with, is it social?

Is it email?

Is it text message?

Is it send me a form?

If you're not having multiple ways to communicate with people, you're losing.

So, I'd love to have your feedback on that, Tape.

I agree 100%, especially today's day and age, right?

Email, depending on your email, is like

as email is evolving and as these ESP, these email service providers are evolving, they're making it harder to get into these individuals' inbox, right?

So, you got to get really creative.

It's important, and it's not even more so having the biggest email list, it's having the most engaged email list.

So, getting people to reply to your emails, getting people to make your emails priority.

Like, you really stand out so you can actually show up in the inbox.

Outside of that another thing is um that's why we part of again part of our eight pillars is multi having a multi-dimensional marketing system like if you're only relying on one methodology like you're missing it so it's like you want to have email right you want to have this ecosystem you want to have email you want to have social media right you want to have like what whatever your live weekly show is it could be a podcast it could be a live zoom um where you just bring it on doing q a it could be a live stream on your platform i got a client of mine doing 250 300 000 a month and he does a TikTok live every day, right?

He jumps on, he engages with his audience, and he keeps his enrollment team calendar filled because of the nurturing that he's doing with his community.

So you want text message, right?

You're not going to text as much as you email, but having that touch point is going to be a game changer.

Even a lot of people, a lot of people think, because I know we're in the AI and the digital world, but people miss the opportunity, what it looks like when it comes to in-person stuff.

Like what kind of in-person events are you putting on?

But my partner and mine, we're looking at doing like this

in-person networking event where like high-level business owners can come through monthly and connect and bill and create that collaborative connecting, you know, environment.

And then also even direct mail.

Like people think direct mail is old school and doesn't work no more.

No, direct mail, it's still extremely powerful.

You even see politicians doing it, right?

So we do that as well.

So it's like, what are the different ways, even DMs, right?

Personal text messages, like, what are the different ways that we can touch individuals and get in front of them?

Because I was, again, I was telling somebody the other day, it's like

everybody, just because you check your email every day multiple times a day, doesn't mean everybody else checks their email every day, multiple times a day.

So you literally got to be touching them, you know, multiple different ways.

Same, man.

Like, and again, that same client we were talking about, you know, their main method of follow-up was leaving a voicemail, right?

I was like, I'm going to break this down to you.

My kids who are in their 20s don't even set up voicemail.

Yeah.

Like most people today, voicemail is so obsolete.

Like if a number comes on my phone and a name doesn't pop up, right?

Like if someone calls me and it's just a number, it's going to voicemail and I'm probably not checking it for 30 days.

Yeah.

I never checked voicemail.

Right.

And so for those that are listening and watching, you have to understand it's 2024.

As much as people talk about things used to change at a rapid pace in the past, it has nothing on today's time.

And this, I don't even want to call it this new generation because it's not even generational it's just the time and technology we have today if you're doing voicemail drops please stop like if you're going nowhere with your efforts

yep yep yeah i on my tech on my voicemail i say i say hey don't leave me a voicemail like if you got this number like it means we've got some kind of connection shoot me a text

i i just don't check voicemail so you have a faster response if you text me same way 100 100

and i want to i want to let you educate the audience on something that you were talking about because i know this is something that most people need to start understanding which is retargeting so you talked about you know the pixels and the retargeting can you break that down for us and help us understand

what the concept is and why it's a strategy that you've got to have as an entrepreneur and business leader today what we found When somebody goes to a website,

let's say you're selling something on your website for $97 or less, right?

Typically, if your sales page converts strongly, you're probably going to get about a 3% conversion rate, right?

What about those other 97% of people, right?

Even like a higher ticket call funnel model.

So when we work with service providers and they have like a call funnel, when they get like a lead that opts in, and then they have somebody book a call, show up for the call, what we found is about

on average, about 10% of those people book a call, right?

Of those 10% that book a call, about 70% are going to show up for the call so again just even if we just stop right there at the 10 who didn't who book a call what about those 90 who didn't book a call for whatever reason right that doesn't mean they're not interested they could have been about to get on the flight they could have been in the back of the uber they could have been scrolling their phone on while it was on the toilet right and then they just didn't book the kids cooked it was probably about to book but the kids walked in and got distracted whatever so now it's our job to get back in front of them like hey what happened i saw you was on the page you didn't book a call right what does that look like so now we want to make sure we're showing them ads that's relevant to them it could be testimonials it could be you know other content of you showing like who you are how valuable you are so you can actually move them to the next next phase of your process so it's everything because again you're only going to get only two to three percent of the market is ready to buy right now at any given time so now you want to be touching them in those other phases as well to continue to move them you know down through your process I hope everybody was writing that down because again, when I saw his video breaking that down, five pages of notes, and I immediately called my marketing team and said, Hey, we have to change, and we have to change right now because it is that valuable and it works.

Like, what he's talking about literally works, and I'm living proof that it works.

So, thank you.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So, absolutely, you know, all make unplugged.

I like to talk about people's because, right?

Like, that deeper purpose that we all have, going beyond your why.

What inspired you to do this?

So I think this was,

I think this was a calling.

I honestly think like God like called me into this, to be honest with you, right?

Because I had, there were times, you spoke to it earlier, there were times when I had some like why me

moments, right?

So I came into this world and was like,

Because when I came into this world, it wasn't like because you see a lot of like black experts and so forth teaching and so forth now marketing and different things right you see some influencers and so forth but when I came into this world about 14-ish years ago you didn't see that right it was all the guys it was like white guys older guys they had backgrounds in real estate or corporate or whatever and

you just didn't see it so here I was coming out in this thing I'm 25 or so

fresh off the streets goals tattoos from Atlanta so I talk a little fast got a different type of vernacular so to speak right

and it's like man are people gonna to actually listen to me?

Like, this is what I'm up against.

So it's almost like when God called Moses and Moses was like, like, why me?

Right.

He was like, well, because

I'm going to be with you.

And

I'm going to speak through you.

So I was like, it took me a while to like get that.

But also, I understood that there were a lot of business owners

that were underserved, right?

Because a lot of times people talked about this business stuff at such a high level, people couldn't get it.

Right.

And I discovered throughout my process and people getting results that my gift was taking these complicated concepts and then breaking them down simple so anybody can take them and implement it and actually get results.

And from there,

other people winning, that's what drove, that's what drives me seeing them win because they're implementing how that changes their life, right?

How their lives, right?

So I get to impact, I think just in just, I would say just directly through our videos, we've impacted millions of people, right?

And we got like the data, like, yeah, you being one of them.

And here's the crazy thing.

We just met today, right?

And of course, we're going to like, we're going to go way deeper from this particular point.

Like, we're locked in now.

So we're going to go way deeper.

I'm definitely looking forward to having more conversations with you.

But it's like you being one, and we never even communicated, right?

So just think about that.

So now, through the work that from me and you connecting, and now you calling your team, like hey we need to implement this right now and now because of you doing that now all the millions of people you've been able to impact that's how we impact billions of individuals through working with and impacting brilliant individuals like you and it becomes a ripple effect and then I can also show my kids and my family and those directly connected to me what's possible.

Like even if they don't want, a lot of people say they want their kids to be entrepreneurs.

It's like me, I like to expose my kids to entrepreneurship and then they can decide, right?

Because I don't think entrepreneurship is for everybody, right?

But I like to expose them though, and then they can decide, right?

And I think even if they decide to go into corporate or whatever they decide to do, the skills and the mindset and the mentality and everything that you get from being an entrepreneur, you can take that into being an amazing employee or you can take that into being an amazing teacher or you can take that to be an amazing parent or whatever.

But I think that's the thing that...

excites me and drives me and also growth

because ain't nothing gonna force you to grow or expose you more than entrepreneurship.

So I think the growth opportunity and all that drives me as well, Nick.

Man, you just said something that I swear we're almost like the same.

Like I was having this conversation this weekend

and it caused a little bit of an argument, but in a good way.

I told like three of my best friends,

everybody shouldn't be an entrepreneur.

And they were like, well, why are you going to limit people's dreams?

And I'm like,

Because sometimes

we give people dreams that aren't their dreams.

They're hours that we're we're trying to give them.

Because every entrepreneur isn't a good leader and every good leader isn't an entrepreneur.

And the world needs both.

We need good entrepreneurs and good leaders.

Very rarely are they the same person.

The ones that are the same people, you know about, right?

You read about, you see them, but that doesn't mean they're the only ones.

And so I love that you said that because it sealed the fact that I won the argument this weekend with my buddies.

But more importantly, it's a true thing.

Like everybody doesn't have to be an entrepreneur.

and sometimes being a good leader is what you should just strive to be just strive to be a very good leader or a good good contributor to human society how about that bingo and you can and there one thing that's not talked about enough is entrepreneurship right so you don't have to be an entrepreneur you can be an entrepreneur so an entrepreneur for those who are listening and not familiar with that that term is an entrepreneur is somebody who has a skill and now you bring that skill into the company and to somebody else's vision and then help them grow that so for example steve Steve Wozniak, who helped start Apple, wasn't an entrepreneur.

Like, Steve Jobs was the visionary.

He was an entrepreneur.

Steve Wozniak was the tech guy, right?

He had the technology, he had the software, and all that.

Steve Jobs didn't really create anything.

He was the visionary, though, and he went out front to make these things happen.

But Steve Wozniak was like, okay, I can bring this skill.

Even if you look at

Steve Ballmer, who owns the LA Clippers, multi-billionaire.

He's a multi-billionaire because of the work that he did at Microsoft, right?

But he didn't start Microsoft.

Bill Gay started Microsoft.

We all know that, right?

And I think Paul Allen was his guy who was probably an entrepreneur.

However, Steve Ballmer had a job there.

And because he was in the right position and he brought value in his role, now he's a multi-billionaire in the world.

And of course,

we can't name actually all the other billionaires that were created through Apple, through Microsoft, through Facebook, who we never heard of.

They didn't start businesses, but because they was entrepreneurs and they brought skills to those startups doing when the IPO happened, they all made billions.

And most people would never, never know who they are.

But a lot of times we think that we have to start something and we have to be entrepreneurs and we don't have to be.

Like find a dope entrepreneur who's doing some things and you may be amazing at operations.

And this entrepreneur is great at running and gunning and they got ideas, but they just aren't organized.

Now you come in as an opera.

I was talking to a guy the other day.

He sold a company.

They sold a company for like nine nine figures.

And he was like, man, I've never really been entrepreneurial.

He was like, I've just always been an entrepreneurial person.

So he was like, I teamed up with these guys.

We created this company.

We sold it for eight figures one time.

And then we kept a percentage of it.

And then we sold it again for nine figures.

But he was like, my role wasn't creating anything.

My role was operations.

But because he brought that skill set and he didn't have ego about, I got to be the guy, I got to be the guy.

He was like, I just know my stuff and I don't know what I know what I don't know.

He focused on that.

But again, to your point, we, a lot, that's not talked about enough because a lot of times we make entrepreneurship so ground so glamorous,

which many times it's not, to be honest with you.

Man, you know, I could do this all day.

I can talk to you all day.

I feel blessed to have you here, man.

So I want to make sure I give you your proper due.

What do you have going on?

What's coming up for Mr.

Marquell?

So, I mean, we just, we're just, so I am, I'm more so, I'm at a place right now where

a couple of things.

I'm very intentional about working with business owners who we know we can serve and they're doing amazing things.

And then also just clear on my values.

And so clear on my values and operating from that place and not, and making sure I'm not operating and building my life based on somebody else's scoreboard.

Because a lot of times.

the

society and social media would tell you that you need to have these things or you should want these things or these should be your goals and at some points honest transparently i was sucked into some of those things but when i sat back i was like man what's the thing that's really important to me and to be honest with you the other day i was kind of going through this thing we have called a lifestyle design calculator and i was going through it like okay what do i really want based on our goals Why do I want that goal?

Is that really my goal or is that somebody else's goal that I just thought I should have just on mimetic desires, right?

But I was like, what do I really want?

And I sat down and we ran through, I ran through our numbers, how much it takes us to live, our ideal life,

investments,

you know, travel, travel fund, all that good stuff, because we love to travel.

And I ran the numbers, right?

And I was like, okay, if we invested this at a conservative 10% a year, or then I did based on 6%, and that snowballs over 10 years, that would have us here.

And this would pretty much cover.

that lifestyle without me doing anything and I could still do this work because I'm never going to retire.

I love this work.

And I text my wife.

I was like, what do you, I was like, what else do you think we need to, what we require to add to this to be our dream life?

And the first thing she was like, for these kids to get jobs, talking about our older kids.

But then the second thing, she was basically like, nothing.

So it's like, we, because a lot of times we can be living in our dream life, but because of continuous desire for more, just more meaningless, right?

Just more, more, more, more, more, bigger, bigger, bigger, faster, faster, faster, we'll get caught up in like this rat race.

And then we'll miss all the abundance.

Everything that we've thrived for for years, we'll miss that.

Man, I'm living in that right now.

But because I continue to move the scoreboard, I mean, the goalposts, I'm not even enjoying what I work for.

So I'm more so working on, and again, I'm learning a lot of this through therapy, which I highly recommend all entrepreneurs have a therapist.

I'm learning more about just being present and enjoying the process, enjoying the moment, and being aware of what's happening around me.

So I can really take this in and not to look, you know,

I got a dope life.

Like, I heard, I heard a billionaire say a few years ago on a video.

He was like,

Money is great, but he was like, The real win is having adult kids who still want to hang out with you, right?

Uh, and I have that.

I got a 23-year-old still likes hanging out.

I got my son to be 21, still likes hanging out with me, and I have a four-year-old, a nine-year-old, and an 11-year-old that likes hanging out with me, right?

So, I'm winning, so I'm just My focus is more being present with that and enjoying the process while doing the the work God created me to do

and having meaningful conversations like this and really doing real meaningful work.

And then the money is just like a byproduct, you know, to take care of the stuff.

But it's like, I think meaningful work

is even more important.

So that's what we're at with that in terms of making that happen and not just chasing arbitrary goals just to be tracing arbitrary goals.

Does that make sense?

I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

So where do you want people to follow and find you?

Yeah, so a couple different ways.

So number one, whatever your favorite social media platform is, I'm there.

So

if you send me a direct message, I typically reply to all my messages on any platform.

But if you message me, I think we're most, probably most active on Instagram.

If you message me on Instagram, send me a direct message and be like, tell me you saw me on the Mick Unplug show.

Let's connect.

I got some cool stuff that I can send you.

Also, if you go to scale made

easy.com, that's scale madeeasy.com.

Got a ton of free resources over that you can dive into, whether whether that's marketing whether that's sales whether that's operations whether that's scaling we got this cool thing called the scale ready assessment that shows you how scale ready your your business is and what holes to fix so all that is going to be there you get you can dive into it all for free um so it's a lot of fun there and it breaks down our whole predictable scale flywood that we talked about a little bit here as well and again my got a i got a show called the strategic scale

strategic scale show where we do legit deep dives with businesses it's not like an interview show which i love interview shows but it's literally like we're sitting down with businesses and we're doing like a real-time deep dive and mapping out a game plan to help them scale to the next one, five, ten million.

It's really, really cool.

So we just launched that.

So that's the scale ready show that's on our YouTube.

So Mark Core Russell, go check that out.

And yeah, so like we got put tons of content out.

We're on all the different social media platforms.

So whatever your favorite one is, connect with me there and let's have some concrazes.

And go to scale made easy.com to get all the other cool resources that we put together for you.

There we go.

I'll make sure that all of that information is in the show notes.

So everybody do me a huge favor and make sure that you are following.

Make sure that you get access to all the crazy, cool tools that Marquell has out there.

And I promise you, the show that he's talking about, if you're a business leader, entrepreneur, or thinking about becoming a business leader, entrepreneur, it's a must-watch.

It's a must-subscribe.

And I promise you, it will be worth every moment of the time that you spend there.

So Marquell, brother, thank you so much for blessing us with the wisdom and information that you gave us today.

Thank you.

I appreciate you having me.

You got it.

And to all the listeners, remember, you're because is your superpower.

Go unleash it.

Thank you for tuning in to Mick Unplugged.

Keep pushing your limits, embracing your purpose, and chasing greatness.

Until next time, stay unstoppable.