Ex-Military Turned CEO's Path from Chaos to Control | Keith Gause | EP22

What is up, entrepreneur DNA family?

We are back with another episode,

and it's gonna be incredible.

This is pure chaos, he's chaos,

and he's turned it into control.

Ex-military, ex-SWAT, and now

controlled CEO of a seven-figure,

multiple seven-figure business.

Keith Gauz is in the house. What's up, bro?

What's up, dude? Good to be here, bro.

Let's let this fly, dude. I'm excited.

Rip it. Let's rip.

I think many people can

understand, align, empathize with the chaos as a teenager young man even young business owner can be chaotic that's it but how did you wrangle in your life to get to where you're at in business and just so everyone knows we're talking about someone who makes millions and millions and millions a year but wasn't always that way no shit no just pure stupidness to not give up is really the ultimate seed, right? People say, like, what's the secret? I say ignorance. Yeah.
Continuing to show up every day and get kicked in the face and just rushing off. But chaos to control, and now I've refined that hustler to CEO as kind of the storyline.
Yeah. It just started with being a dumbass kid, like all of us, right? We all have that story.
No, I didn't go to prison for 15 years for doing stupid shit. I probably would have if I stuck to the game.
But it was one of those things like the time caught up with me and the judge was like, hey, idiot, this way or this way, prison or military. And it was one of those things like, all right all right stage right how do I sign up for the military and I just left and uh 19 17 when I enlisted and I like right at 18 I was pretty much out of here yeah so it wasn't very long after graduation and I was like I gotta bail do you think your chaos as a teenager and listen as guys this is a there's there's levels of chaos right you can take it to the furthest level right but I I think for the most part we all understand the chaos that we get into as boys yeah when I just had my baby boy I was like honey this is going to be a little different world than you're in for it right yeah so but do you think

this was innate a factor of location of where you were raised a function of how you were raised or simply you're a boy you were fucking picking your battles however you felt fit what do you think that chaos was a function of uh so my my mom and dad split super early when i was two uh so my dad raised me my dad was into the biker gang type shit and you know i was around yep now he you know he didn't let it be known that he was in the biker gang until i was i think 20 21 i saw a message and i was like your uncles just all seem to have a long hair bandanas and harleys bro you know it's uh i found a message when i was like 19 2021 i was home and it was like to my dad what's up vp and i'm like hmm yeah what's that mean he's like oh vice president i was like yeah yeah let's talk about it yeah and uh so i found out after the fact i kind of knew ish sure right but so i grew up dad uh just you know raising hell and he was an entrepreneur okay so he he worked for a plumbing company uh my upbringing and so he actually had in in i think this is somewhat of a myth but it's always cool to hear right so you think sons of anarchy at least i do because i was not raised around this it wasn't that bright though it wasn't that loud right i'm saying right it wasn't known yeah so he had a real job he was owned a real business had a real nine to five real income it's not like he was just did he was struggling dirty yeah i mean drugs and all this other stuff which is more common in the sunset you know yeah yeah no and and i never experienced any of that i never saw any of that i never saw violence and there I never saw fights and shit like that, right? But I saw the people. Yeah.
And those were family, and those were the dudes that I knew. Sure.
But the reality is, like, watching him go from that kind of just hanging out and partying on the weekends, like we all do. I mean, my dad had me when he was 25, right? Oh, my God.
So we grew so we grew up together yeah yeah the reality is like I saw the transition from employee to business owner so I got to experience it from like the very first decision like fuck this yeah tired of that yeah I want ownership yeah and I don't watch the full journey happen I watched business partnerships come and. I watched success happen and fail.
I watched him get off the ground and dust himself off and go again. And I think that that was just ingrained in my growth pattern as a kid, right? Yep.
So it was my makeup and my DNA to say, okay, get your ass kicked. Just get the fuck back up and figure it out and for me saw him do it yeah i just watched him live great role model and that yeah dude it yeah extremely and ultimately uh the vision was for me to go and run the company but i had to get the hell out of here first yeah i had to disconnect from who i was running with ultimately i was gonna end up the same thing slinging beers at the local bar or whatever the case was.
Right. Right.
So I got out. I went into military right after high school.
I was in the Air Force. A lot of people have no idea.
There is a special operations branch there. So you were in special ops in the Air Force.
Yeah. So I skipped school.
I got high as shit one day. day we went surfing i lived in jack's beach

skipped school went third period because surf started to suck and was too high to go to class right and so the teacher's like you just can't come in here so i went to the to the auditorium and they were having the asvab test which is like the military entrance test back then i don't even know if they still do that we got a 96 out of 100 out of 100 so at that point I was like well I don't I wasn't intending to go to the military I think I was in 10th 11th grade right fast forward they're like hey you can have any job in the military you want wow because my score was high yeah and uh and and so I picked the air force because it was the shortest boot camp I probably no fucking other reason yeah I was like how do I get in and get out as quick as possible because no one like my ego at the time was super gigantic like no one could tell me shit right and then knowing that these dudes were going to be all up in my ass totally I just wanted just wanted to like shorten that time. Yeah.
So. Oh, that's a good, that's a good philosophy for almost all of it.
It's carried forward. A hundred percent.
How do I condense my time to win business? How do I condense it? Like, dude, that's the right way of a hundred percent. So go through, uh, this was in 2000, but we all know what happened in 2001 of course right so halfway through boot camp these

guys are like they come in and they show their shit off and and my job initially wasn't special operations or anything of the sort fast forward i'm deployed september 11th happened i was in chemical warfare refresher class in hurlburg field which is in the panhandle florida and uh pagers start going off and i'm 18 right 19 at the time and i'm like all right cool they turn the tv on the second plane hits and i'm like oh boy yeah i don't know what what that means specifically but that shit doesn't feel good some shit's about to happen and then dude chaos like report to the talk go here do this go home pack five years you're not coming home that was the that was kind of what i was told yeah go pack your shit take care of your affairs personally we're not telling you where you're going when you're leaving or when you're coming back tell your family five years and i'm like jesus have you been in how long out nine months at 10 months 11 months like after all the schooling and all the bullshit yeah yeah this was my first two weeks on base i had just got stationed wow right so i'm still like trying to figure out where the hell i'm supposed to go on base right so i call my dad up like yo uh i'm leaving and i don't know where I'm going. I don't know when I'm coming back.
And he's like, let me stop the car. Yeah.
Yeah. And it did.
It was nuts. So action packed chaos.
Yeah. My life was chaos starting right there.
Right. How quickly were you actually deployed from that like moment to.
It was like seven days. That fast.
they were joking yeah it was quick and when that happened it was just like all right this is this is this is the new me yeah told where to go when to sleep how to sleep where to shoot but all the things and it was just chaos and so the storyline was you know we were involved in a bunch of shit and helicopter crashes and four years later i'm out right and luckily i'm i'm okay no ptsd right now you ask my wife that and she's like yeah you got some episodes player like don't hide it uh but for the most part like i'm physically fit i'm good i can operate i don't have any you know thank god yeah because i got some homies who were fucked up. Oh, right.
Of course. So I came home and it was 2004, right at the beginning of 2005.
And my initial play was to take my dad's company over because, you know, it was like, hey, your ass is getting a little older. Let me come in.
Right. And Paul Sr., Paul Jr., you american chopper yeah it was brutal yeah it was brutal so that shit just didn't work out and i was like all right well i'm missing like running and gunning and shooting at things and and where can i go do that and so law enforcement was the solution only place here that i could go run with guns and jump fences and and do bad shit and you know have fun without being a criminal right and so uh that was the plan and I went to school and and you know 2005 I got hired on in a small city uh county in Clay County I actually lived there up in Florida and it was really uh hillbilly shit redneck shit right it was a lot of country and my vision was like this isn't chaos can't hate I was bored yeah so I didn't last long there and I went to JSO which is up in Jacksonville it's a sheriff's office and I was like you know put me in the shittiest part of town it's where I want to be not.
Not a lot of people opt for that. No, and it was, you know, what was funny is my buddy growing up with, Gabe Rose, he was actually my instructor.
Okay. Because I had to go through their training for 16 weeks after being, this was in 09.
Okay. So, 08.
So I had to go kind of through another police academy. Sure.
And so that sucked, right? Because I was already damn on the streets. Yeah.
But Gabe Rose was a childhood friend of mine, and he was the instructor. And so me and him had a good time with it.
And he's like, yo, where do you want to get a sign? I was like, bro, Moncrief. That's the hood.
That's the hood. Send me.
Midnights. I want to be there when it's dark.
He's like, you're an idiot. Yeah.
I'm out on that.

Yeah.

So that was a thing, man.

I rode the streets there for a bit.

I got picked up on the team and narcotics, undercover narcotics work.

And I did that.

But that's where I was making $38,000 a year, right? You would risk your life every day to make $38,000 a year.

Yeah, man.

Money wasn't the thing. It was, you know, my impact was servant leadership.
Sure, of course. You're in service.
Military and officer. That's what I knew.
Service. Yeah, that's what I knew.
And even today, you fast forward, you're in service. You haven't changed anything.
You just are a lot safer and make a whole lot more money. Yeah.
And actually, most likely, actually impact more lives now than you did then because the people that you were helping as they didn't want help they don't want help you're right right and so you're you're in the shit and i can only relate to growing up with an alcoholic mom dad they don't want help until they're ready to get help right so if you're in the middle of their season of not wanting help they're just going to shoot at you in your case yeah yeah so which i was all about was like, yeah, just throw me in the most dangerous shit and let's figure out who comes out on top. And if I don't, then that's what it is.
Have you been shot? Yeah. Like in, not shot at, shot.
Yeah, I was shot in the leg. Been shot in the kind of back fat area, my lower role that I asked us not to get on film.
From one year adrenaline's running and whatever but like how painful or is it just like you don't really feel anything until you finally get to the hospital um I don't know I'm asking just because like adrenaline's crazy yeah it can push you it's a number bro it numbs shit and it's uh it like when you come to fruition with it, like, okay, something's wrong. Like it burns.
You know, when you notice it, it burns for sure. Uh, but you know, to me it wasn't painful and I don't say that as like Billy badass, but it was like in the moment thinking back now, it just wasn't, I didn't feel it.
Yeah. I knew when it happened.
Yeah. Yeah.
For sure. But it was one of those things like okay i'm not dying we're good yeah we'll figure it out it's like falling off your bike and skin in your knees and your elbows like fuck that sucks yeah but i'm here let's keep riding bikes you know yeah so when i got out all that it was uh you know so why did you decide to get out of that? Just like, all right, I should probably not risk my life every single day.
I'm a dad. I'm a husband.
Well, I was definitely married. But, you know, we found out we were pregnant with our first in 2008, right? And I had been tired of the game, you know, working 12, 14, 16 16 hours and then going to figure out off-duty work to make extra money to be able to take my wife to dinner like i was working it was working you know 17 18 hours a day average and uh oddly enough man i i've always had this entrepreneur shit in me just from watching my dad it was a seed right i never forget we were in the hood it was 2008 uh we're doing a search warrant and there was a bounce house in the middle of this apartment complex this apartment complex is probably responsible for 40 of the murders like it's a shithole yeah and there were three bounce houses and there were probably 200 kids.
Oh my God. It was 2 a.m.
This is 08, right? So if we think economically, 08 was as an adult, right? One of the worst times you and I have experienced, right? And I'm like, man, if those types of dollars are being spent in this environment in this time people on the other side of the tracks have to be spending two or three times that yep and so that weekend this was a thursday night i'll never forget that friday afternoon i found craigslist i found a bounce house used and I found this was how stupid I was back then without this is me just kick the door in and go figure it out. Yeah.
I spent 20 G's which was all the money we had in our savings account and this was right before our daughter was supposed to be more sweet right decision. Yeah.
A business name. Okay.
And a bounce one used bounce house. Yeah.
Well if knows anything about business now, I can generate a business name for $150 in Florida. Right.
I paid $19,000 for this business name, but I loved the name and I knew a play on it. Bounce Around Jack's Party Rentals.
So I bought this one bounce house and I owned a Nissan Armada at the time. I went to Harbor Freight.
freight i picked up a 29 dolly and i posted on craigslist bounce house rental hundred dollars right and hundred dollars an hour for the day yeah i need any money doing that anyways keep going yeah so so i had so many phone calls in the first hour of that post, I took it down and I increased the price.

Yeah. Right? But at this point, I'm just kind of throwing shit at the wall.
Sure. I made $1,700 in the first four days.
$1,700. And I'm like, well, fuck, dude.
That was more than a two-week paycheck. That's great.
I'm on to something. Yeah, yeah, uh at this now today i know what i did back then i just borrowed money i went and raised capital yeah there you go and i bought five more bounce houses in the first 30 days that i'm in the business and i put in my notice good for you so fuck it we're all in 2009 to 2011 we went from the one bounce house to 500 inflatable units wow outdoor dj equipment like anything for our kids or any party outside we had what you needed right and we just blew it up and the thing about that is that aggravates me days i didn't i didn't record any of it i didn't back then i just didn't know right i, film any of this shit, SOPs, what the fuck are those? You're just going.
So it was chaotic. But it was what I knew.
I knew chaos. I vibed well there, right? Yeah.
And that led me to where we're at today. Yeah.
Sold the business, got my ass kicked in taxes, learned that lesson. Fast forward through four or five more companies, and today we have Black Label.
Yeah. Which is kind of the culmination of all of my experiences through business and what I know today entrepreneurs need that they don't know they need.
Like business owners, right? And the solution is Black Label, which is a one-stop shop for every component of business that you could possibly fathom. So who's your perfect clientele for Black Label? Everyone from a really entry level about to start their company to we're helping three roofing companies exit the market right now.
Wow, through an exit. That's phenomenal.
So, you know, my dream was like, how can I serve an individual being the focal point, but also have impact on their entire ecosystem of employees by helping the one person? So what do you focus on at Black Label? And by the way, just so we're clear, Black Label is the company, right? So that is a service company that helps entrepreneurs like myself and anyone watching this on YouTube or listening to this on Apple or wherever you might find this.

Yeah.

Black Label.

What's the website?

Where can they go to even check out?

Yeah.

Black Label Solutions dot com.

Black Label Army dot com.

Black Label Solutions dot com.

Black Label Army dot com.

And make sure you check out my boy Keith.

What's your Instagram handle?

Own Your Own Economy.

Own Your Own Economy.

That's it.

That is what O-Y-O-E means. That is, I've been staring at that hat thinking.
I got you a freshie in the truck, bro. Oh, come on.
I should be wearing it. Own your own economy.
Let's get to that. Let's talk about Black Label.
So what are the things, what are the services? Why would an entrepreneur like myself or anyone out there, why would we want to be working with Black Label? So the kind of, let me kind of back up a step. So Black Label started via Tideland Consulting, which started via me being in financial planning at Northwestern Mutual.
Okay. So when I sold the company, had some decent money, I retired.
What the fuck else did I want to do? I didn't want do anything because i had i won right quickly at 27 you realize that all your boys are working yeah right so life will do life was boring and uh and so that didn't last very long and and i don't sit well yeah right i don't either do like do you vacation well no no we're. We're going to Costa Rica next week, and I'm like, my wife's super excited, and I'm like, eh.
Yeah, you'll have more fun. You got some boys.
Well, I'll forget. Yeah.
We'll make it happen. But, yeah, to answer the question, it's like, two days, I'm okay.
That third day, I'm like, well, now, if I vacation, like, fun vacation, doing for kate i'm pretty solid you bring me to the beach for more than two days and i'm gonna lose my hair again again yeah this this time it's from here yeah yeah yeah so you know vacations that's not for me i'd rather work uh but that's also not great right no there's there's a fine line i'm I'm similar. Like I just, not to detract the conversation, but like, you know, people are like, you know,

people are like i can't believe you're already working again and i'm like i don't have that urge to be with my baby for 12 hours a day like i love my baby i'm with him and i love my three-year-old but like i also don't have the maternal urge to just do that right like my businesses are also my baby and I love it and I love hanging out with great people and so I totally can resonate with you know so the the idea of like black label was was a culmination of all these experiences that I went through and learning curves right sold the company got my ass kicking taxes okay that happens every day. People bitch about paying taxes.
Okay, well, how do I then go learn that game? So I went and studied, right? I didn't want to become a CPA. I don't wear a pocket protector.
I'm not doing that shit. I'm not going to be in a suit and tie.
Would be awesome if you did, though. I may show up next time with one just because.
It's funny because I have nerd glasses with white tape that like when people try to nerd out

on me on like our actual zoom meetings I put that shit on hold up this is how you sound right now but I just took my L's right and my losses and and I figured out let me go study that because I don't if I get my ass kicked once you're not kicking my ass again yeah it's just in me so I went and learned the game

I got enticed to go to northwestern mutual i learned how to sell life insurance like a motherfucker but i realized that that wasn't financial planning that was a component of it sure but it wasn't and that's all they wanted you to do right so in my analogy they're a hammer everything's a nail there's one thing you're not a tool belt you are a hammer dude and if yeah it was commission only and if you weren't using that thing you weren't eating so i figured out the game there uh i was good at it uh but it wasn't fulfilling for me because i wasn't able to coach and teach on all the shit that i had learned because they compliance, right? They want you to just talk about what they want you to talk about. Yeah.
So I learned, I got my series six and seven and 63 and all this shit, the nerdy shit you have to have to be able to give advice. And I got out of there.
And so I, then I started Tideland Consulting, which was the consulting company that allowed me to start consulting for business owners. Then I realized what I was missing.
And it was the analogy that I use for all you sports enthusiasts out there is as the CEO, we're the head coach, we're the quarterback, we're the defensive coach, we're the offensive line coach, we're everybody. But nobody nobody's truly communicating you know what I mean yeah it's me at the helm getting 15 lanes of information trying to make the best decision on all this info that I'm getting from random people and a decision I make today offset some shit that I set up two years ago that I've forgotten about and it breaks things right but we don't know that it's broken until it's too late.
Okay. So the vision was like, how do I refine and become the person that all that information goes to for me to then sit with the business owner belly to belly and help them make the best and most efficient, effective, educated decisions.
Right. And when we started doing that, I realized there was a lot of other components to this game marketing component there's websites there's crms now there's facebook ads there's instagram like there's all this shit tax mitigation work financial planning retirement exit and so it was funny i was having a conversation this morning someone's like dude you're the master of all things I said no no but I'm a damn good delegator right and so I know a lot about a lot my focus is on the financial side of the world and my co-founder of Black Labels Chris Zizzo and together we've known each other probably five years and he has run a very successful marketing company.
He's got a very successful content creation company, and he's also an engineer by trade. And so we all know that partnerships very rarely work out.
So this partnership's five years in the making on very intimate conversations and understanding each other's genetics and makeup and how we operate move and do this just mesh so well so our our thing was like let's not partner but let's take our concepts and prove them right so the financial side and the business consulting side and the things that i do right we've multi-million dollars a. It's a proven concept.
Same on his side. And now in the past 12 months, we've just created Black Label and we've merged all of that.
So Black Label, if you had, it doesn't matter the vertical, you're talking about any business owner out there could use a Black Label solutions, setting up trust, right? In the real estate space space owning assets and understanding how to protect those assets in case of death in case of taxes in case in case in case in case all case of lawsuits that is a function that black label would serve that's right um what about i mean what else what other services like that's just top of my mind right the second because real time. I'm going through some of this stuff.
Sure. Right.
With the assets I'm acquiring and making sure like the thing that goes through my mind, which is important, which I, you know, now that I'm 42, unfortunately I'm starting to see people pass and that sucks. Yep.
And I'm seeing people pass that they don't have their shit together and their wife is like, what the fuck do I do? I just don't even, I don't know where to start right i don't have a login to the bank account i don't even know how to pay the next bill right um and so i'm slowly unfortunately i wish i was doing it faster but setting things up where like if god forsake it i pass early yeah steph is locked and loaded she's got it she doesn't have worry. Can Black Labels solution help entrepreneurs do that kind of stuff? Yeah.
And so that's kind of one of the entry points when you come to our ecosystem, right? It's first and foremost, how do we automate a lot of things that you're doing today and create time, right? I think if we ask any entrepreneur, like, what are you missing? I just need time. I want more time, right?

And when you ask that first, it's like more time to do more shit.

I'm like, okay, cool.

So you want to be more busy because you don't have enough time already.

So how are you going to do that?

So when we come in, it's more of like we fact find.

What are your current processes?

How are you automating things?

Are you automating things?

What's your CRM?

How are you accepting clients? Like, what are all those flows financially? What are your, what are your benchmarks? How is your company structured first and foremost? Like, are you a sole prop guy and you just don't know, are you a C corp or do you not have a clue? And restructuring all of those things, not only for protection, but for tax mitigation, right? Like for, for movement of money. That's the game.
You know, everyone talks. So do you have like in-house accountants or is that? Yeah.
We have in-house accountants. We have the in-house attorneys.
We have, I mean, we have everyone you could fathom that you need as a business owner. If they're not underneath the black label umbrella, they're a third party and we just plug.
Yeah. Right.
And so setting your business up structurally into your point, like if something happened to you and you got a business partner, well, your wife is now a partner of your business partner. Right.
And does she want that? And does he want that? Or she want that? And what does that look like? So we, I mean, I break it all the way down into like, how did you even apply for your business license? What are your articles of incorporation? What does your operating agreement say? And people are like, what is that? That's right. And I'm like, yeah, yeah.
Sit down. So it totally, it is, is a, um, I think the service in itself that is needed.
I think too many people want to go become an entrepreneur because it's sexy. Yeah.
Name the name from Grant Cardone to whatever, Bradley, like they've made it sexy to be an entrepreneur for sure. And to some extent it is for sure.
I mean, I live an incredible life and it's because I'm not beholden to a boss or a company, right? Same for you. But, uh, I've also gotten my teeth kicked in several times because I didn't know what I didn't know when I first started.
Yeah. I with a business partner and thank god that yes it's over and we're not but it didn't end terribly right it wasn't a tragic ending right right thank god I've seen my clients in my coaching program all the time they're boys they start real estate investing together and it becomes a nightmare and relationships are broken and crushed I think it's a lot about how you start right i would almost encourage people if you're watching this or listening to this reach out to keith now if you're starting a business if you're just getting going i think that's really pivotal because too many people get going which you and i are the same right we just go we figured as we're going dude that's why most people probably are that way listening to this right but if you can stop for a second and go to own your own economy go to blacklabelsolutions.com like get a hold of keith i would encourage everybody to like set these things up right from the get-go if you do have a business partner awesome make sure it's set up correctly where if you die or if there is a divorce who gets the money who gets what like find this shit out now because there's too many doesn't matter where they're in real estate there's just too many business owners that start it because it looks good it's fun they want to be their own boss they just don't do it with a good foundation yeah you know what we found is like to your point like people just move quick right and then six years later they're like oh i want i'm successful now there's's six years of shit to clean up yeah to make sure that your success doesn't go away because you know this lady rear ends you and now you're dealing with some bullshit right so that that was like the focus of like how do i start protecting these people from the very seed so what they when they do grow the harvest they can reap the benefits of the harvest and they can keep a lot of that.
Right. And so that's, that was the kind of the thing of like, all right, I want to be able to the one to many concept of, I want to help you, which in turn helps all your employees.
Everyone keeps more money. We're able to, to really take you to market and you can scale and do the things you want to do, which then what is that? That's you impacting more people.
That's right. So it's the pebble in the lake, but there are a little pebble in the lake, all the ripples continue.
Right. And that was our kind of mindset going into this thing.
I found the right business partner. We mesh well, we put it together.
We have all the connections and proof of concept has been there. Yeah.
Right. So now it's about marketing and getting the word out in which we're're not even really trying but it's blown up yep and uh you know it's just we're doing the right things being on podcasts like this i mean it's not cold calling or direct mail or you know ppc ad but you have an audience right now listening and watching to you that hopefully follows you on instagram now with the own your own economy but talk about that brand what is that is that a cool way of saying the same thing or man on your clothing line or what is it going to be yeah so um i'd say eight nine months ago now i had a had a crazy dream right and in this dream i saw these letters and i've never been that guy to like wake up and jot shit down that i'm dreaming of or whatever but i woke up and it was one of those like wake-ups where you just knew you weren't going back to sleep yeah so it was like two in the morning I go out to the kitchen and grab my computer and I'm working because that's just what I do right if I can't sleep and everyone's asleep it's me time oh yeah I'm not gonna go to the gym at two but I'm gonna go at five so I got a couple hours to knock some shit out and I just couldn't get over this dream and and if you ask me today, I still can't recall the dream itself.
I just kept seeing the letters. And it hit me when I was kind of just working.
I was like, own your own economy. And I jotted it down.
And that day, I had one of my VAs go and apply for the trademark for the letters and the actual phrase. And I didn't, I still didn't know like the direction that this was going to go, but what it is now, it is, it is a lifestyle.
So it's a movement, man. And it's not a movement with one of these lame ass, you know, mastermind things with a bunch of rah, rah.
It's not a paid movement. You can get into my ecosystem 100% free.
There is no, like, hook. It is literally a bunch of people trying to take better and more proactive decisions and implement them into their life.
And what I found, like, thinking back on it is, like, fuck working 18 hours a day, day right if you can find something you enjoy doing to me black labels not work right to you to you real estate is you already said it or it's family like it's it's your baby yeah so it's not work it is a movement on impact and so for me I wanted to band together as many people who were stuck in the nine to five or who were stuck in the mentality of like, I just got to go to work, got to go make more money. Let's go make a movement.
Let's own our economy, whether that's in real estate or business ownership or relationships or whatever the fuck it is, take ownership of it and grab it by the horns and let's make it something that you enjoy. Right.
And so like when I think of that, you know, we just finally, after two years, got the pool put in at the house, right. We live on the, on the river up in Jacksonville.
It's probably way too big of a house than we need. But this point that I'm making is my kids have all their friends over my kids hang out at the house right my friends come hang out this isn't our economy right this is not money by the word economy this is my lifestyle this is who i enjoy spending my moments with and all the way back to like dude we're not here very long totally like that dash between the numbers is short that's it and if we don't take advantage of it like i'm 42 bro like that yeah we'll be 70 like that and so it was more of a thing like i'm gonna force this bitch to slow down i know time's not gonna slow down but i'm gonna force my my time and my experiences to So now I'm going to force this bitch to slow down.
I know time's not going to slow down, but I'm going to force my time and my experiences to slow down. I'm going to take ownership of those.
And that's what I've been working on. And I am not a great solo learner, right? So if I have an ecosystem of people hustling and doing the things that I can do, I can learn off them.
They can learn off me and own your own economy happened. And so now I and you know, I don't do it to make a shit ton of money.
Like if you look at my Shopify story, like, well, why do you waste your time? It's not for money. It's so people can wear this and have a constant reminder of like, what am I doing right this second? That's right.
And that's what it was. I think it's really empowering for any entrepreneur, anyone who has been there and done that for,

to help people understand it is about looking in the mirror and taking

ownership.

Yeah.

Right.

Is is,

you know,

I am pretty money driven and some people will look at that as bad,

but frankly,

it's just because I want to take ownership of my life and money affords me

to have a really awesome life.

Like we're making a real life decision right now about moving back to scottstall arizona which is not cheap and it creates chaos and all those other things but money fixes a lot of that i can go do that i can go pay for my cars to get shipped out there i can go like and that's why i do what i do is to take ownership of the life and i love this mantra of own your own economy, not necessarily the financial,

but your life's message.

Just take ownership.

Yeah.

And I think a lot of the evolution of money,

we don't have it,

then we get it,

then we use it incorrectly because it's new.

And then when we get to a certain level,

it just becomes a tool,

and I'm going to speak for myself here, it is a tool for me now on how I can impact other people yeah and the cool shit I can do for other people like uh just random shit like my wife has friends and sometimes I get in fucking financial issues you know I you know one of our close friends went through a shitty divorce and he was an asshole and left the house and like her refrigerator went out and killed all her food. Right.
And I'm like, she's crying to my wife on the phone. And I overheard it and I, and I tapped my wife.
I said, get in the truck. We're going to home Depot.
Yeah. We're going to buy her a fucking refrigerator.
It's a stupid, put the refrigerator in the same day. Like those are the things that I love to do just because someone else is a need and I can do it now without even hesitating.
Right. And so I think the evolution money is like, we blow it, we fuck a lot of things up.
And then we realize like it is a tool. So to your point, it is the tool that allows you now to get the hell out of here because of whatever that reason is and go where you want with no real hesitation.
Right. No friction.
It reduces friction in life right but it goes back to the point of what own your own economy is just the ownership part is the most important yeah right because it's also okay to not necessarily have the same drive to create a lot of money it's okay just take ownership of the fact that like if you wanted to move it's going to be a lot more friction more chaos chaos and hard to do. Yeah.
Right. Yeah.
But that's why business owners in a general sense, I think it's really imperative for them to hear you're good and you're bad or you. Yeah.
Right. And so if you're not going to go look at black label solutions, then that's on you.
If you're going to have a partnership and you don't have your divorce papers written before you even get divorced that's on you right i mean that's that the services you provide business owners everyone needs to be going to black label solutions because they just go and get an entity they get an ein number and they start doing business and start transacting they start making money until the irs sends them a tax bill and then they're like oh shit trust me i literally just went through that not that it was my fault my bookkeeper fucked me no longer my bookkeeper but you know i had to make some very quick decisions because of that right you make enough money and you got to pivot and move and so tax implications as black liberal service have you know do a lot of people yeah we do a lot of conversations around you know uh not how to avoid taxes because they don't like that word avoid. Right.
But I do not, what should you be doing inside of your day-to-day operations with your money to pay less? Yeah. Right.
And, and we've all heard it. Uh, the tax book wasn't made to pay taxes.
A little bit was on the rules of why you're paying 90% of that is how not to pay taxes people just are too lazy to look they need to reframe how to read the book right meaning if you frame it i'm going to read this book and no one's going to really read it but you know like i need to follow the rules on not paying because they're line-ighting them like we just had a discussion about buying 10 doors. And if it's commercial, there's a big tax write office.
Residential potentially is a big tax write office, depending. Okay, well, as long as we play the rules, do you need to go create that into a commercial and rezone it? Right? Because then you have a major tax.
Those are the decisions you know you can play because you know the rules of the game. right versus just buying them being like oh man i just bought 10 homes that there's not much of a tax right off there know the rules turn that into a commercial asset and then you can go get a bigger tax right off just knowing the rules again donald trump gets hated on billionaires get hated on they just know those rules i study those people because i want to figure out how the fuck they're doing it and you know i think the reality is like a lot of us don't have time to learn so if you don't have time to go find someone that knows it and just copy them so let's talk about time really quickly you said something earlier that i wanted to hit i'm glad you brought it back up you're big in business partnerships like partnering with others that have an asset class that you don't have in turn you know their skill set or whatever it is right the older and older i get the more i buy into this concept i'm not a fan of people just partnering for partner's sake yeah hey bro you're my bro let's partner breakups are terrible yeah terrible right divorce almost eminent right um but when you have someone that can provide you time value strategic value experience value i am a hundred percent all for it we are talking about things that we can be doing together based around that type of stuff right where i don't have to be the guy to go do the thing and in our world you probably aren't either but you have the resource the connections the people the systems the structures that i'm not going to have or vice versa right and i've even gotten to the point now where i'm telling my leadership within my companies if there are other people services companies assets that could reduce our obligation to grow scale hire recruit train i want that partnership.
Because I'll give up the 50% or whatever the negotiated partnership split will be so I don't have to take on the brain damage and time suck it takes to build. That's a lot of things like back to black label.
That's what we're trying to give people. And we've even had people, once we run them through our process, they're like yeah why don't you just partner with us take 10 of the equity in our company and just stay with us forever that's a great business model right and and it's enticing and shit right but it's like maybe yeah for the right people right so i i think as as entrepreneurs and and all the cool shit we always talk about is time like that it all comes back comes back to time, right? Time, money, time, this time it's time.
And to your point, like this relationship, it doesn't happen often. Right.
Right. And I think that if people can, can look at it and give time and give value first, which is what black label and I personally am all about.
How can I provide you with something without expecting any fucking thing yeah and we're sitting in miami right now and i told you this from this morning like i walked outside this morning i was like everybody wants something like i feel it in miami yeah i feel energy right and and to me it's like i look through the lens of how can i give to you like what what is it in your world right now that I can plug and fix? Right. And, or just give you a tip on.
And I've led that way for now 10, 12 years, like intentionally. And the shit pays off a million times over.
But you are patient because most people say, well, yeah, but I want it mouth's not a good look no you know what I mean like when when I'm trying to help you but alternatively I want something out of that it's it's not compassionate it's not real it's not organic mission mouth commission mouth fucking love that yeah bro I need something from you let me fake help you to get paid no thanks bro that shit's for the birds like within seconds if someone calls you you can tell yeah hi my name's keith gauze and i went no bro stop there's there's a a hard um lesson that people or skill set whatever we want to call this people don't have the patience right they want the thing now? like what's in it for me, right? You hear that a lot. Almost every conversation I get into, I can hear on the other side.
They're having a conversation with me because of my notoriety or whoever I am, and they're thinking, how can I leverage Justin for me? I'm okay with that. I'm a capitalist.
I'm not opposed to people making money, but if you aren't willing to just serve to serve, you're short-sighted because one of my first mentors in real estate said every meeting you sit down with is a paycheck. It just may not be right now.
Yeah. So take the meeting, right? And it's always stuck with me to this very day, that meeting with my mentor stuck with me.
And I take meetings because I know one day where we will sit down and we will make money together. It may not be today, this week, next month, next year.
But in four years, we just talked about a mutual friend. It took us two years.
We're about to do some business, make some money. But neither one of us really saw anything.
And so we just were patient with it. Yeah.
You know? Well, that's the, I mean, when the government took away the debit card and gave us a credit card and then gave us the buy now button. That's a great.
The dopamine hits are fucking fast these days. That's a great.
And the buy now button isn't because you can get it quicker. It's so you can feel good about buying the thing today instead of, oh, let me think about this thing, right? And to me, I correlate that with relationships.
It's like, what can I do for Justin over the next 12 months that is going to leave impact and legacy and whatever? And I don't expect shit. I've exchanged the quick thing for the long-term dopamine hit.
If I can give you something today, my dopamine hits there. That's right.
It's not when you give me something. And I think when you correlate those two things and you can process that in business and you can help deliver that through your business, like your business doesn't hurt for new clients.
Yeah. Right.
You, you grow and you don't have to try as hard, which the fucking great part that's the great part and your service and your in what you do is so good that literally just it grows because of word of mouth it just grows because you're you're a compassionate human being that's not out to fuck someone over that's right people can hear that in language right and and also you have to have a great deliverable yeah you can't just talk smooth oh yeah yeah so i mean that's what really what we're all about man the service and people where they're at uh you know we find people where they're at whether it's a concept of startup to exit and black label army is kind of the that's why we named it that that's the main solution is black label army it's an ecosystem of professionals right it's not a mastermind you don't have to pay to be in it but we're all here to fucking push each other yeah and if i can take one thing away from you each day and put it in my book which i'm pissed off i typically have a book in my hand most of the time. Here's a great tip.
If you don't have it, do you have Black Label Army Facebook group? We do. Okay, good.
Yeah, we got all that. Well, make sure you guys go join that.
Can people just join that for free? Yeah, they can send in a request and all that. Yep.
All right, so follow you on your own economy on Instagram. That's all that's for you.
Black Label Army Facebook group on Facebook. That's it.
Black Label Army. Yeah, they will work to the solution side.

Let's go, bro.

I appreciate you being here.

Yeah, dude.

We could have done this for a lot longer, but we got to go.

We got lunch to eat.

All right, y'all.

Appreciate you.

See you on the next episode.

Entrepreneur DNA.

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