Scaling Smart: The RISE Framework Every Entrepreneur Needs | Gary Harper | EP 59

I would encourage every entrepreneur to take the money for all the seats they're sitting in. If you're sitting in sales, pay yourself commission.
If you're sitting in operations, pay yourself the salary. Take the money if you're doing all the work.
But when it's time to vacate the seat and the business has grown past you, and you're now forced to hire someone, don't be shocked by the lower profit percentage because you were thinking that this was profit and it wasn't. It was false profit in a company.
And when you do this properly, you'll see what the real profits are and whether or not you should even scale that company. There's been a lot of businesses I've started.
Justin, I'm like, I ain't scaling this company. There's no way I'm scaling this company because the resources needed, high money and people are going to eclipse my profits.
And I don't want a profitable company or that low of a profitable company in a high revenue business. It's just not worth it.
What is up entrepreneur, DNA family? This is gonna be a hell of a podcast. If you are an entrepreneur, you're an aspiring entrepreneur, this guest is for you.
My boy, Gary Harper is here. He's a bestselling author and he has built

a business operating framework for no matter what industry you're in, no matter what vertical you're

in, you can lean on this business operating framework to be successful in your business.

I'm excited to have my guy, Gary Harper here. What's up, dude?

Hey, man. Thanks a lot for having me on, Justin.

Well, let's talk about your book, Bestselling Author, which is incredible. It's super, now that I'm in the author space, I'm getting all these authors coming into the book, but let's talk about your book, but really the fundamentals of your book, right? Because I've been an entrepreneur since the day I graduated college.
I graduated college 2003, so you guys can start to age me if you want. And that from that very day, I've never had a W2 job.
Never. And that comes with a lot of pain, but it also comes with a big upside, right? Now, I didn't have an operating system for the vast majority of those 20 something years.
The older I got, the more mature I got. When I started

making real money, I realized, okay, I can make money, but I don't have anything to lean back on. That is what Rise, your book.
And by the way, where can everyone go get your book first and foremost to make sure they know where to get it? Yeah. So it's best on an author on Amazon.
It's also on Audible. So you can listen to it as well as read it.
So let's just talk about it. What is the concept of Rise? So the concept of Rise is a business operating framework that allows you to scale your business depending on where you are and start wherever you are because businesses aren't all starting together, but allows us to scale our business using these four quadrants.
And so the four quadrants are bridges. They're bridges from stage to stage.
And Harvard Business Review talks about those five stages of business, right? From startup all the way through succession and reaching your 100%. And that's what I call success.
It's when you've reached your 100%, your purpose for the business. Every business starts with three things.
They start with a passion, a product and profits, the three P's to success. Right.
And so that's why every company starts. The problem a lot of times is that when they start it and they're making profits, they go straight to engagement, which is the E quadrant of rise.
And they want to go straight there and expand and get their product as many people's make as much money as they can. And that makes a lot of sense.
Right right everyone you know if people want your product you don't want to all know when you're first getting a starter so people do that and then what happens is they grow the wrong way they go from engagement and expansion to now they need a system they need something that allows them to let go without losing control from that they get back into at some, at some point, they're overwhelmed. They go, why am I doing this? What's the purpose of this business? What are my goals? Where am I trying to go? What am I trying to accomplish? The newness of the product and making profits is kind of worn off at that point.
They're a little overwhelmed, right? And then they go from that into like resources. Like where am I spending my time? How much money should I be making? How much money should I be spending? And they start to think about that.
And then more importantly, start to think about people. Do I have the right people? How do I get out of all these seats that I'm sitting in? You know, a business could have anywhere from 30 to 70 seats as an entrepreneur, right? Like we talk about it all time.
It's like not every one of those seats is a hot, you know, 40 hours a week, but some of them are five hours here, three hours here, 10 hours over here before you know it, you know, you go from working a 40, 50 hour week job in corporate America to working 80, 90 hours as an entrepreneur, you know, and people don't understand that. Yeah.
This is the thing you're bringing up something. It's are you trigger me.
No, it's good. I don't understand how people,

and I've educated thousands in the same way you have, right?

Just very specifically in the real estate space.

And it always blows my mind that someone will work 60, 70, 80 hours for a boss,

for a corporation that doesn't really genuinely care about them at all, right?

They're just a tool.

But when I ask them to pour into their own business, when you, Gary Harper says, you need to pour into your own business, next thing you know, they have three-day weekends that they don't work. Next thing you know, they take every weekend off.
They never have to go into the office again because they have no boss, but they take every weekend off. And then they don't achieve their goals and they're making less money as an entrepreneur than they were as a salary employee.
And I say, you are willing to fight, cause, scratch, bleed for this boss or this company, but you won't even do a fraction of it for your own damn baby, meaning your business. It just drives me nuts, bro.
No, it does. I see it all the time.
I see people think that the visionary CEO seat of their company is a beach seat, and it's not. It's very much a seat in the business that requires your time, your money, and you as a resource to the organization.
And people think that it's not that way. They think it's because they have a great product and they're making profits.
They're entitled to go spend that money. They're entitled to go out and live on the beach.
They're entitled to have fancy cars and nice houses right out the gate because they have a product that's making profits. And that's so far from the truth.
Most people don't realize what it takes and sacrifice to be a successful entrepreneur. That's right.
And you just use the word profits. I would argue most people start buying shit, whether it's new cars, new houses, taking big vacations for men, watches, whatever the thing are, but it's not profits that they're making.
They're making revenue. Yeah.
Two very distinct definitions of those terms, right? And that's where I think people get caught. And you've seen this in the same way I have, their lifestyle goes up, but it's because their gross revenue number has jumped up massively.
Yep. Doesn't mean they made any more money.
No. And that's why I tell people you grew wrong because they go to expansion too fast.
They start making all that money and they don't build the business properly with a framework that protects this longevity of it and security for you, your family family and your business for a long period of time. And so every company has to go from those three piece, you know, product, passion and profits into time, money and people.
You have to predetermine where you're going to spend your time. You got to predetermine how much money their business is going to make and how much money you got to spend.
And more importantly, you have to predetermine what people you need, whether it's vendors, VAs, you know, contractors, whatever. You got to predetermine those things.
And going back to your statement about like it's revenue, not profit. That's what I see a lot of.
And that's why we in Rise for this framework teach about the business performa. You know, if somebody buys a house, they'll do a performa of what the arv is and what the repairs are and things like that but they don't look at the business and say what is how is this business going to perform and then they don't match that performa up to a couple things one the one year plan we have to have a performer that matches the one year vision because if we don't then that's a faulty vision.
And here's where I'll tell you. When someone starts a business and the first thing we want them to do is we want them to list all the seats that company's going to have.
You got a CEO, you got a COO, you've got your finance, your marketing, your operations, you've got sales, and you're going to sit in a lot of those seats and a lot of sub-se that. But what's really important is in that business performer, you budget for every seat you're going to sit in.
And what I mean by that, Justin, is five hours a week over here, what would you be paying hourly for that seat and putting in the budget for five hours a week? That's right. In the budget for marketing, putting in the budget for operations and finance and all the seats you're setting in.
And here's why that's so important. It's going to give us a true reflection of what profits are.
Yeah. Not what revenue is, but what profits are.
And what's beautiful about that is when you scale the company in these seats that are five hours a week here and here grow to 40 hours a week, your budget has grown with your revenue. And now you can afford to replace yourself in those seats.
And it gives us a true perception of what profits are, not what a false profit in your business is. And that's what guys steal from all the time.
They go in, they take from that revenue and they like, I'm making 500, 600, 700, even a million dollars. And, but they're only at by 10% margins their business i did that myself i tell that story all the time i made i made four million dollars and i was at like a single digit income level right for like two percent of that came to me and i said i could make more money working at fucking starbucks than running this high revenue high energy volatile 90 hours a week crazy i'm like this this something's got to change so my my philosophy was i i said i care more about you know actual profits than i care about revenue so in our world and gary you coach a lot of the major influence in our space of real estate.
And so for the longest time for us, it was always about, we did $4 million in revenue and we did 500 deals. And then I say, great, let me see your P&L.
Right. Because I've been that guy, literally on Instagram, $4 million, I'm the biggest, I'm the baddest.
And I'm like, I don't know if I could afford a dinner with my girl tonight. You know what I mean? And it's like, what the fuck is this about? So anyways, keep going because it's just one of those things that everyone cares about revenue and all this growth.
And you say, what is your bottom line? And if you don't account for the, like you say, in the way you build out the organizational, you account for that cost for that seat. Yep.

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When someone is filling that seat that is no longer you, what that cost is going to be. 100%.
And I don't care if you take the money. I mean, I would encourage every entrepreneur to take the money for all the seats they're sitting in.
If you're sitting in sales, pay yourself commission. If you're sitting in operations, pay yourself the salary.
Take the money if you're doing all the work. But when it's time to vacate the seat and the business has grown past you and you're now forced to hire someone, don't be shocked by the lower profit percentage because you were thinking that this was profit and it wasn't.
It was false profit in a company. And when you do this properly, you'll see what the real

profits are and whether or not you should even scale that company. There's been a lot of businesses

I've started. Justin, I'm like, I ain't scaling this company.
There's no way I'm scaling this

company because the resources needed, high money and people are going to eclipse my profits.

And I don't want a profitable company or that low of a profitable company in a high revenue business. It's just not worth it.
Hey, man, dude, say that louder. If you're listening to this, rewind that one part.
If you're watching it, rewind what he said. And you probably should.
Meaning, sometimes staying small and keeping y'all is the very best play you can make. It may not be sexy on social media, but your revenue can stay at a tighter number, which keeps your profit margins way higher.
And Gary, just because you and I are talking about it and I want to get back to the book, but what would you say is a good net profit number for an entrepreneur, a business? And I don't want to necessarily include the massively larger businesses at scale because their number is going to be way low relative. But let's just talk about like a million dollar a year business or something like that, which is probably more of my listeners.
I mean, it's 20 to 35 percent is what we're looking for. I mean, if you're if you're making 10 percent or less, you're losing money.
You know, so like that's what I felt. A hundred percent.
You know, we don't want a business at 10 percent or less. I mean, there are a couple of other financial reports, a cashflow report, and other reports that come off of the P&L.
And so just because a P&L says you're at 10% doesn't mean that's what you're cash flowing. And so that's really important to understand.
And understand your numbers, make data-driven decisions. I can't emphasize that enough.
We got to make decisions based on data. When you get when you get bigger, your profit margins aren't as much, but unless you're a company that's a low operational company, you know, like, you know, there's Uber out there and there's other companies, tech companies and, and a SAS companies that are typically higher profit margins.
And ones I actually much rather scale because the profit margins are much higher than they are in a service-based business. If you're in a service-based business and you're making 20, 25%, you've got a really good healthy margin.
I think when you get above that in your service-based business, you actually are more susceptible. Your product better be much better because you're susceptible to being a commodity and somebody outpricing you and somebody taking the business from you, especially in service-based businesses.
So I think those are the important things to realize and stay healthy. I mean, we talk about entrepreneurship.
You got to be a smart businessman to be an entrepreneur, but you also have to be a healthy business. You have to be very healthy.
That's what's not taught really anywhere right now. You teach that, right? That is why you are a consultant for a lot of the names that most people listening to this know.
A lot of the names you know of in the influential world, Gary is their consultant, their coach, right? So I want you guys to really always know that. But people don't, like I got a degree from UCLA.
No one taught me how to run a company financially, right? And then people shortchange investing in proper bookkeepers and proper accountants so they can actually have proper P&Ls, right? They make money, they spend money and they look up and say, God, I made a lot of money, but where the fuck's my money? Yeah. And that's part of it.
You're not used to it. So let's get back back to rise so everyone starts typically you're saying everyone starts with the e first right well that's when they're growing the wrong way they typically go straight to engage that's right and we want to push them back to starting with time money and people which is resources so walk them through you know let's just say someone's out there is like dude going to go start something.
Let's walk them through a cliff note version of the book of what you would

advise them to go do. Once you predetermine that you're passionate about what you're doing

and you've decided that this is something you can get behind, you got a heart for it.

Then the next thing is you want to determine if it's got a good product, a product in demand,

and then you want to get into like profits. And that's where we start with the resource

quadrant is how do we make money? And so resources, the first thing we want to do is we want to

Thank you. product and demand.
And then you want to get into like profits. And that's where we start with the resource quadrant is how do we make money? And so resources, the first thing we want to do is we want to list out the seats that the company has, what positions are in the company and who's going to sit in those seats.
The next thing that we want to look at is we want to look at if you're not the person for that seat as the entrepreneur, who do we need to go higher? How do we optimize the talent in the company and get the right people around us? And so that's what we're looking for. We partnered with Predictive Index.
So we do a lot of predictive index assessments of people and bringing that in at that stage as well. The next thing we're looking at is we're looking at our nine box.
So a nine box for us, we have a nine box for each quadrant. In resource, We're looking at, do we have someone who is high performer and are they a high potential? In other words, can they do this for a long period of time? And so based on that nine box, it helps us evaluate if we have people sitting in the right seat.
And you've heard that cliche statement for right people, right seats. Right is not a what to do.
It's how to do it. We became very implementing, um, you know, structure for rise versus just, you know, information.
It's not an information program. It's an implementation program.
That's key. Yeah.
And I tell people all the time, I mean, you could, you know, information is available on podcasts. Information is available on YouTube, everywhere you can get information.
What we fail to do really well in this industry of entrepreneurship is implementation. And so that's why when I wrote Rise, I didn't want to just another information book.
I wanted implementation. I didn't want to just say, put the right people in the right seats.
I wanted to show you how to put the right people in the right seats. And so once we have that framework, we have time, right? Where we're going to spend our time.
And then we have the people that we're going to have to hire. Now we look at the money.
When should we hire them? There's another operating system out there. Entrepreneurs actually are really excited about over the last 10 years.
And the problem with it is it has nothing in finance on it. And so when we put people in seats, we hire these people because we feel we need them, but we don't do it at the right time because we don't have a business performer that supports hiring them yet.
Right. And so we walk entrepreneurs through rise of how to create a business performer, how then to take that performer and create a budget with your accountant, how to then take that budget and review it monthly with a P&L, and then how to create what we call a variance report.
And a variance report shows us the difference between budget versus actual, which is the P&L. And then creates an accountability for the entrepreneur of why they're over and under in each one of their areas of finance.
So we protect the company and keep it healthy. You know, Justin, I always say companies like mama and if mommy ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.
Right. Amen.
Now, where are we right now in the, again, cliff note version of rise? Where are we? Are we still in our right now? And resource, you're still in our, you're still getting resources dialed in because if that foundation is not laid properly, the rest of it builds on it. It builds on the Zan and crumbles 100%.
It does every single time. So once we have resources dialed in, we have felt good about it.
Now we move into inspiration. Those resources have to be inspired, right? People have to be inspired.
There's a verse in the Bible that says, where there's no vision, the people perish. And I think that's very true.
I mean, I find it very true that entrepreneurs kill off their employees and people quit all the time because they're not inspired to be there. And it's what I call the emotional paychecks that people have to have.
From 2020 to now, there was a time of what we call the great resonation. And the great resonation ushered in and ushered out a lot of people out of entrepreneurship and also jobs.
And the reason why people quit, I think it was the study showed 67% of the people that quit cited the lack of emotional paychecks. And then people quit people.
And so inspiration's about knowing your employee's purpose. Yeah.
Yeah, so I say it in a way that I consider myself to be a pretty darn good leader, and it's because I study it a lot. Okay.
And so a lot of entrepreneurs, they want to hire, they want to go in the R, and they want to start to find resources, people, and put people in these seats that you're mentioning. And I always caution people about that because I'm not saying it's the wrong thing to do, but then you need to understand how to be a leader when you have those people.
And most people think they're good leaders and they're not necessarily, right? They may be good trainers. They may be good salespeople.
They may be good CFOs, but being a leader is something completely different that is not talked enough about in the entrepreneur space right might be another book i write but i say that because if you don't want turnover and you want people to stay with you to your point that emotional connection understanding what would their perfect life look like understanding what are they using their for, understanding what are their passions in life. Those are the things that will keep them with you because you are connected with those things that they're connected to.
It's 100%. And in inspiration, that's what we're dialing down on.
We're coming down, we have assessment on leadership versus management. And those are two vastly different things.
And what I'll add to what you said, Justin, you could be a great manager and a terrible leader, right? And you could be a great leader and a terrible manager. But the truth is when growing an organization, we have to have both.
Leaders inspire, managers get results. That's right.
And so like a lot of times we'll have great leaders that don't get good results because they don't want to hold accountable or manage people properly. And the vice versa of that.
Sometimes we have people that get results and drive hard on their employees, but they're not inspiring their people to want to go the extra mile. And so George Carlin said, when you have that scenario, people work hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough not to quit.
Right. And as great leaders, and I love that you said you studied leadership because I always tell people, if you're going to be a great leader, you have to be a student of leadership.
No doubt. You can't stop.
You got to always be studying it. And I think that's so important to be a great leader.
You know, you know, I, I made this comment the other day to a team I was coaching. I said, if you want A players, you have to be an A leader.
Because level A players won't work for a level B leader. That's right.
Yeah. You got to attract the like kind, right? And if you're B, then you're going to get Bs.
Or Cs. You're not going to get As.
Because they're going to feel like they're better. You might even get them because you're good at recruiting, but they're not going to stay because they're going to see through it.
They're going to be like, dude, I'm better than this guy. I can do what he does it twice this, you know, twice the ability.
Right. And so that is a skillset people.
It's a muscle just like anything, right? But it's a very difficult muscle to work out. Yeah.
Yeah. And it takes a lot of time.
It does. It takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of effort and you got to be a student of it.
You can't stop it. It's just like working out.
Your muscles go away when you don't work them out. Leadership diminishes when you don't study it.
And I think we always have to be students of leadership. In inspiration, we create long-term vision.
We create short-term vision. We do assessments around the leadership and management, as we alluded to.
We help discover the company's core values. We want to know what the non-negotiables of the business are.
In the inspiration, we're creating long-term vision, but we're creating that short-term vision, the one year and 90 days so we can drive the results in the company as well. And we have a second nine box in inspiration.
It's our, do we have the right people? Nine box. So in resources, are you in the right seat? Nine box.
But in inspiration, we are. Are you the right people? And we measure that two areas.
One, two axles. One is, do we trust you with our values? And do you align with our vision? Where we're going.
I call it the double V effect. When you're the right person for my organization, Justin, if you hire someone and they're the right person for your organization, then they're going to align with you.
You're going to trust them with your values and they're going to align with your vision of where you want to go. And that's not one-sided.
That's also they align with your vision because they can see how the long-term vision, the purpose of this organization is going to help them achieve their purpose. Yeah.
If you're in alignment with their purpose and their vision, then it's going to be a long-term deal. I mean, they don't want to quit because that same type of alignment.
Yep. And what we find a lot of times when we do resource and inspiration, we do those two nine boxes, we find a lot of times we'll have the right people sitting in the wrong seat.
Or we'll have the wrong people, which is even worse, sitting the right seat. Yeah.
And I would say most, and just for clarity, some of you might be listening or watching to this and thinking, well, I don't have any people. And in my own opinion, Gary, I'd love your thought on that, but my own opinion is good.
I think there's a lot of people who want to have people, right? The entrepreneur who wants to have people. And I'm the coach that actually would tell you don't.
Like if you can't go put 250 grand in your pocket as actual income, having more people creates operational bloat. You will make less money.
You won't be as efficient. So I'm not an advocate of people growing for growing sake.
I want people to get rich because if they can get rich,

then they become wealthy, right?

And so that's my perspective on it, right?

We're talking a lot about people and people seats and you coach larger organizations that have people,

but I also want those people out there

that are solopreneurs.

I'm not at least suggesting go higher

and leverage people necessarily.

Making a quarter million dollars,

you've probably created something pretty good, right? That'll start to leverage people necessarily. Making a quarter million dollars, you've probably created something pretty good.
Yeah. Right? That'll start to leverage people.
Now start to build that organizational chart, right? To Gary's point, even if you're every seat in that organizational chart and you are paying yourself for every seat in that organization, great. Yeah.
There's nothing to do. Right? And then to Gary's point again, go back and say, okay, well, if I'm going to hire for this one specific seat and I've been paying myself five grand a month every month, then hire that seat for five grand every single month so that you know that it works in your P&L.
Yeah. And that's why that business performa is so critical because if the performa, if you're not hitting the revenues that then allow your margins to stay the same and hire the person that you've been paying yourself to set the seat for, you have no right to hire them.
Right. And so that's where I think a lot of operating systems miss the boat is they say, you know, go out, find these people, go out and build these charts and then figure out like all the seats you shouldn't sit in.
But Justin, you and I both know if we're going to be successful as entrepreneurs, there are some seeds that we're going to have to suck it up and embrace that suck for a little while because a business hasn't earned the right to hire anybody yet. No.
And everyone wants it. You know, they look at me or you or any of your clients and they say, oh, well, Justin has this or so-and-so has this.
So I want to start to build and grow. And you haven't earned the right.
That's a great way of putting it, right? I'm 18 years in this very specific field of real estate investing, 18. Where I was at even 10 years in is vastly different than where I'm at 18.
Many of you guys have been in this business for a year, two, three, or four since COVID for God's's sakes. And you want to either compare yourself to me 18 years into the business, or you want to be like me, but you haven't earned the right yet.
And I'm saying it humbly because I see too many people go for that. They go for the gusto and they fail because they don't have an alignment with leadership, management, revenue, P&Ls, good bookkeeping.
There's all these missing components. They just see it and they want to try to emulate it.
Yeah. And I'll tell you, one of the biggest errors I see in entrepreneurship is bad bookkeeping.
And they don't hire properly based on it. They don't have the performance.
They don't have the budgets. They don't have the P&Ls.
And then they hire irresponsibly and they put themselves and the people that entrusted them in jeopardy if they fail. And I think that's very poor leadership.
And talk about leadership. I think it's one of the worst ways to lead is to put people in insecure positions or an insecure company based on poor bookkeeping.
And going back to now that we've gotten through resources and we've got inspiration in, now you earn the right. Each one of these quadrants is earning the right to go to the next one.
You don't just have all four. You have to earn the right to graduate from one to the other.
The third quadrant is systems. Now that we have all the resources, now that we have all the inspiration, vision, values, goals, all those things, we have right people setting in right seats.
Now we have to let go without losing control. Some people are going to want to try to scale at this point.
They're going to try to expand at this point. But we've really got to dial in the systems, the processes, the procedures.
And understanding in RISE, we talk about the difference between a process and a procedure. Vastly different things.
We teach people how to process, map out their processes so they know what to do. And that's it.
That's all processes. It's just what we do, right? Like we're going on to buy a house, Justin, your backgrounds and that.
Then we're going to make, we're going to set the appointment, right? That's the process. Then we're going to go on the appointment and then we're going to survey the house and then we're going to make an offer and then we're going to get a contract.
Those are, that's the process. That's just what we do.
How we go on the appointment, how we get the contract signed, how we make the offer, that's the procedure. And so we teach people, the entrepreneurs, how to let go the right way so they don't lose control.
So it's how, not what, right? Because what we do is all those five things, but then how do you do that? So even when you say procedure, I think of a doctor. There is a process for how they're going to give you surgery.
Right. This is what we do.
And we sanitize. And then we do this and we do it.
And then how do you actually deliver the surgery? Yeah. That is the difference.
That's a huge difference. And the reason why we go in that order is so many entrepreneurs out there will document SOP, standard operating procedures.

That's what they are.

But they don't reduce waste.

And so I have a background in Six Sigma.

And the process allows us to identify in the process where there's waste, where there's rework.

There's eight deadly sins of waste in the world of Six Sigma.

And we talk about those eight deadly sins of waste and rise.

And we want to eliminate as much of that waste as we could possibly eliminate before we document the procedure. Because the system's quadrant is all about productivity.
It's how do we get rid of any inefficiencies in the business? Because when we're building, we will allow inefficiencies to be there. But once we start to add more fuel to the fire and want to grow this thing, we don't want to grow inefficiently.
So in this quadrant, we have a nine box that evaluates what we call EVA, essential and value add, right? And so any process that we have that is essential to our company and brings value either to our internal or external customer that is what we call a core process right and we want to make sure that we take every core process and make sure we have the right person sitting in the right seat for that core process in the systems quadrant we're eliminating anything that's not valuable or not essential anymore and they're more outsourcing delegating or automating anything that's not valuable or not essential anymore. And they're more outsourcing or delegating or automating anything that's low value, high essential, or high value, low essential.
Anything that falls in those quadrants of low value, low essential, we want to drive to our lowest cost denominator as quickly as possible. So that's what the systems quadrant is all about, is having that structure so that we're driving productivity in the company.
Because once we have a productive running business, it has the right people sitting in the right seats and we're making profits and we're a healthy company, we're making healthy margins. Now we've earned the right to expand.
There you go. Now we're right to push the product to as many people as we can get it to as many states as we can get it to.

I studied a company that I think did this impeccably well.

It was crumble cookie.

Yeah.

They didn't start the organization until 2017.

And we're eight years into the organization.

There were nine over nine or 50 locations around the world now.

That's crazy.

I mean, it exploded overnight from making cookies two cousins making cookies in their kitchen to 950 plus locations around the i mean everybody's heard of them now yeah for sure 2016 you didn't hear about them they weren't alive right probably didn't know much about them in 2018 or 19 Think about the first time you had a crumble cookie was probably post COVID.

You know why?

No, we did go to, we did go to crumble a lot during COVID.

During COVID. Yeah.
And so think about that. But I mean,

your first cookie probably wasn't 2017. No.

2018 to maybe not even 2019, but sounds of it.

You enjoyed them a lot in 2020 probably kept them in business 2020 kept those doors open baby and i love that why because they didn't go straight to expansion they didn't go straight to the e-quadrant they dialed in the resources they inspired the resources they built systems to allow them to let go without losing control and then they earned the right to expand and go as big as they wanted to go.

And they reached the purpose as 10x, right?

Some of us, we're going to reach, we're going to stay small and keep it all.

We're going to have small entrepreneurships.

That's why the SBA exists.

But that's okay.

But the point here, guys, is to make sure you grow the right way.

And I always tell people, you can grow as fast as you want to grow.

You ever heard the statement before? They grew too fast. That's not a thing.
It's they grew wrong. That's right.
They grew wrong. And you can grow as fast as you want to grow as long as you do it the right way.
Gary, I really appreciate this. If you're an entrepreneur and you don't know Gary, make sure to follow him in all social medias.
Obviously, links will be everywhere. You can pick up his book, Rise, Amazon, and Audible.
This man's incredible. Like I said, he's coaching some of the names that everyone here listening is aware of, and he's helping them with their business.
And so get his book, reach out to him if he can help you. Now, Gary, just to qualify a little of the people listening, you don't necessarily work with newer entrepreneurs, right? You want someone somewhat established that's running a business so you can actually create the efficiencies and help them put the building blocks together, correct? Yeah.
Typically, it's somebody who's been in business for at least six months. They already have a product, a passion product, and they're making profits.
That's usually where the entry to our door is. We have, we have rise workshops that people can go through and those are for the smaller businesses just getting started or have been in business for less than a year, but they should already have been in business.
I'm not looking to work with somebody that's looking to start a business. Yeah.
And listen, if you're a solopreneur, there's the, to Gary's point, the three Ps is really going to be important, right? Find the passion first, because it doesn't matter, you know, how much you potentially can make or not. Like if you're going to have tough days and if you don't have a passion to get through those tough days, you're not going to stay in the game long enough.
And Gary, I'm assuming that you've seen this time and time again, that, you know, these days, weeks, months, and maybe even years can get really crucial, really brutal for entrepreneurs. And we all, by the way, myself included, none of it is always just puppy dogs and rainbows out there, right? And so talk a little about this passion part because to me, in the real estate sector, this is where people break.
This is where they quit. They give up because they might've lost money on a deal and they think it's not for them or whatever, but really they didn't go in.
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Tap or visit SympericaTrio.com to learn more. Do it with the right passion involved, right? Well, passion is, is something that comes off.
It's an offspring of purpose is what it is. So that's probably the best way to describe a passion is it's offspring to your purpose.
And so what I mean by that is if you don't take time and discover your purpose in life, your personal purpose, and then marry a business to it that helps you achieve your purpose, there won't be any passion. Right? Yeah, I agree.
Purpose comes from three areas. It comes from the past, the present, and the future.
So when 2011 came around, I was in the moment of transitioning from corporate America, executive Fortune 500 company, to real estate full-time. And now I had been in real estate already since 1999, right? I was a part of the crash of 2008, lost it all, had to rebuild it, never thought I'd ever go back into real estate again, honestly licking my wounds from 2008 to 2011.
And in 2011, I actually had a moment that I called it my God moment. God struck me with Lyme disease, right? I got bit by a tick.
I came down with Lyme disease and I'll call this back into purpose in a second. But I found myself from a Fortune 500 executive, you can see all the awards I won here behind my head, but all these awards of corporate America, highest out on revenue, highest client retention, executive of the year, eight out of 10 years, all trips paid, executive trips paid around the world.
And I found myself not being able to function anymore. I got Lyme.
It bit me on the back of my neck. It went into my brain.
I was having 26 panic attacks a day and I could not function. I couldn't leave my house.
I became really a prisoner to my own house, right? Like I didn't panic attack. As soon as I walked outside or drove a car and I had to almost for a full year stop functioning.
And so I was forced out of the corporate world. Like I didn't want to leave.
It wasn't a decision that I wanted to become an entrepreneur. I was forced out of it.
And giving like the real estate world had really rocked me at that point. I was, I called it my year of job, man.
I lost my health. I lost my wealth.
I lost my job. You know, I lost a lot that year, lost my investment every, you know, million dollars gone.
And, uh, I remember sitting there and thinking like, what am I going to do next? And I had to discover my purpose. Like, why am I here? And I remember sitting there with my head in my hands and the doctor telling me if i don't get this under control i was going to be here in six months yeah and the tears running down my forearms i remember thinking to myself oh dear god like what did i do with my life sure you know um i think you know when those moments happen in our life we we get like really hungry to live at that point we I call it mortality motivation.
And I found myself wanting to know what my purpose was. So I started studying.
And I'm like, before I expire, before I'm gone in six months, I want to know why I was put there. So I read the book Intentional Living by John Maxwell and Star With Why by Simon Sinek and Purpose Driven Life.
And then others, I've read some other books on it. But these different books help me, give me focus around purpose, my own purpose.
And if you're listening today and you don't know what your life purpose is, I'll tell you, man, you need to take some time alone and go figure this out. Read these books, do the exercises, and rise in the inspiration quadrant.
We talk about how to discover your purpose. And we say the past, the present, and the future.
So the past gives us what we love to do. Because we've already experienced it.
So you can pull from the past and what your experiences are to give you a passion. We'll figure out what you love to do.
Number two is your gift. That's the present.
I call it the present because it's a gift. And I figure out like what gift do you have? Justin, you have the gift of leadership.
You have the gift of connection.

You have the gift of information.

You have the gift of speaking.

You have these gifts.

And those gifts are what you can give back to the world today.

Right?

That's the present moment.

Now, every day you're learning something new and you may gain new gifts that might morph

your purpose into something else as you go throughout life. But today, your gift are these things, and you're using that gift to give back.
Number three is what do you want to be remembered for? You know, all of us are going to come to the end of life at some point, and we're going to, you know, somebody's going to walk by our coffin, they're going to look down, and they're going to remember you for something. Somebody's writing your eulogy speech.
And the truth is you get to write that for them if you live right yeah right so when we answer those three questions what do i love to do from the past what gifts do i have right now in the present and what do i want to remember for and you take those three answers go to chat gbt put those answers in and say chat help me discover my purpose help me formulate a purpose statement based on these three answers and it may take you a little time massaging it and getting it quite right but the truth is at the end of the day once you've discovered that and it's something that fires you up and gets you excited about getting up every morning and then you go marry that to a business that's where passion ignites i love love that. And, and, you know, you told about your story.
And, and I think the thing is, again, doesn't matter how many years in there's always painful days, weeks, months, maybe even a year or two or three. I had a very close buddy of mine and he's a very well known entrepreneur and he went through it for the last three years.
And not that everyone really saw it like he's been very very successful and there's challenging times that happen whether you know it happens to us no it happens for us every time and it takes that enlightenment almost an emotional iq to be able to say okay this is happening for me i need to reframe and back to your point you have that moment of like, in the pain, you find purpose or in the, in the down times you find why, what am I really willing to fight for? Right. Um, and so those are the things that I think most entrepreneurs in, in combination with understanding their business and their business operating framework that we're talking about in rise, like you lay into what are you willing to fight for what are you willing to to die for so to speak uh metaphorically right like you have the secret sauce you have the framework and then you have the drive the passion determination that no matter what in the good in and in the bad you're gonna go win and uh to to kind of end this little segment which would be jalen hurts the philadelphia eagles quarterback was benched his senior year alabama for a younger i think sophomore quarterback uh who's now the miami quarterback and he could have quit right then and right there but he was determined and, and they won the national championship, and he was benched for the championship game, and you could easily give up right then and say, you know, ruin your life and go on a bender and, you know, get a DUI and whatever, or you can say, I'm going to prove everyone wrong.
I'm going to prove I can do better, and I can prove I'm a champion. He just wins the Superbowl last weekend and showed everyone.
He is the best of the best. Not only that, he was the MVP of the Superbowl.
And I say that just to give everyone an understanding. You take a framework like Gary has built in rise, go get rise, go listen to rise.
And you combine that with a passion, a drive, a desire that is more than I just want to make some money, you have the winning secret sauce. Yeah, you do.
And people are attracted to that. People want to be a part of that.
They want to be led by someone who has a purpose. They want to be a part of an initiative, the movement.
That's what we get inspired by. And so when you can find people, first of all, you know yours, but then you find people that can see themselves achieving their life's purpose by helping you achieve yours.
That's a great recipe for success. Gary, this has been an honor, a pleasure, uh, excited to do a lot more collaborating with you as I help a lot of these entrepreneurs to get to a place where, uh, they can start to build out their operating framework.
Uh, everyone go follow Gary Harper, go to Amazon, get his book. And what was the website that we want everyone to go check out? Sharperbusiness.com.
Sharperbusiness.com. Gary, it's been a pleasure.
All the links will be in the comments below. Appreciate you.
And if this was helpful and you think maybe one or two your friends might need to see this or hear this, share this episode with them. They'll thank you.
All right, y'all. That's

it for today's episode. Peace.