The Grit Factor Podcast w/ Karl Jacobi

TGFP Audio Ep 39

00:00:00 Speaker: Average is the enemy of greatness. Comfort is the enemy of growth. Welcome to the Grit Factor podcast, where we strip away the highlight reel and get into the darkness beneath it. The real stories, the real battles, and the battle plans used to conquer them. I'm your host, Carl Jacobi, combat vet, entrepreneur, resilience and performance coach, keynote speaker, husband and father. I built, scaled, and exited multiple companies totaling over forty million in revenue. But here's what that highlight reel doesn't show you. Life has been smacking you in the face with a two by four since that was just five years old. Broken home. Constant chaos. No playbook. No safety net. Just grit. And if you're anything like me, you know you've got another level in you, in your business, your career, your faith, your leadership. You're just not sure how to get there. That's exactly why we're here. Be sure to follow me for more great content, and check out my website success with Karl dot com. Now that's Karl with a K. Now let's get to work. All right. Welcome back to another episode. Today I have another guest. Or actually I have a guest that I feel a lot of you will resonate with his journey and everything we're gonna be talking about today. This young man has tried the safe path not once, but twice. The steady job that everyone says you're supposed to want, right? And hate it both times. I can definitely resonate with this one. He even landed a manager role straight out of university In a couple of months in. He was let go. However, instead of letting that break him, he let it tell him the truth. He didn't even want that world in the first place. He just thought he was supposed to want it. So he made the quiet decision that most people are too scared to make. He made the bet that he would rather struggle on his own terms than stay uncomfortable on somebody else's love. That that bet was slow and uncertain for years. But he kept at it. He built lean, and he turned it into a six figure business with very healthy margins that essentially runs entirely on his own terms. The reason I want you to lean in on this conversation is not because of the revenue or the agency. It's what he learned in the years where nobody was clapping for him. Bonus. I know I just butchered that last name just as we were practicing in the green room. My apologies, my dude. Welcome to the show, man. No worries Carl, thank you so much for having me. I think it's going to be an awesome conversation. Yeah, man. Absolutely. Again, I apologize anything more than one syllable. I'm hos so even my last name, I get screwed up. So, you know, but, uh, but badass man. Dude, I'm so excited for this conversation because especially in the phrase that I said where nobody was clapping, I definitely want to jam into this, but let's paint this picture for, for me and the audience before the agency, before the business, before any of it. You were a young guy who was or younger. You're still a young guy. You were a younger guy who already sensed that the conventional path wasn't for you. Right? So paint us that picture. Take us back to who you were and what you thought you were supposed to want when you're first stepping into the working world. Yeah. I mean, uh, my my father is a businessman, so I kind of always, uh, knew or expected that I wanted to start a business, but I, you know, I thought that I would do that maybe in my thirties, in my forties, something like that. I mean, I, I thought I needed some experience. I thought I'd need, you know, how can I just start something from nothing? Yeah. So, uh, although I did read a lot of business books and had a lot of influence from my father, I, you know, after high school, I kind of followed a very traditional path. I got into university and at the time, my goal, um, after finding marketing as sort of my passion, my goal was to work at Google, work at Apple. Uh, I mean, I was, I had my sights set on these tech companies. And I thought that after finishing university, I would actually go on and work, uh, you know, for these companies. And then maybe by the time I'm thirty, I have experience. I have, I don't know, connections network. Maybe then I'll begin something. Um. But, um. What? Uh, I also started doing very casually is I started freelancing while I was in university, uh, because I did, uh, while being in high school, I had this urge to create something like an app, a business, something, but I mean, I, I, I never thought anything would take off. It was more like, hey, let me just let me do something like I want to explore and build something more as of more as a way to gain experience and just to build something. And so I, uh, but high school was very tough. I, I wasn't the best type of student, so I needed to actually study hard to get my exams right and stuff like that. So I kind of vouched that as soon as I, you know, as soon as I'm accepted to university, this is where I'm gonna to start doing something. And that's exactly what happened. As soon as I sort of got into university, the first thing that I bought in my dorm room was a whiteboard and a and a pen, so that I can just start writing ideas. Start, start, start, kind of creating something. And, and, uh, what happened is that after almost like three months of doing just the ideation, I felt like I haven't moved a bit. I just wrote things down, wrote things down, but I felt very stagnated at that time. Um, and, uh, but eventually broke through and got to, you know, uh, develop my first project eventually kind of landed into freelancing and, uh, took that, you know, as a way to earn some, uh, kind of pocket money at the time and basically did a lot of different projects alongside freelancing while I was at university. So that's kind of the initial initial journey of what has happened in my life. That's awesome man. That's a that's a very interesting start. You know, and as as I'm listening to your story, I wrote down some notes here and wrote down some questions because I found some trends, some patterns, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, because I heard that your father was also in a business, right? He was, you know, a business owner and so forth. And I would love to hear more about that. You know, the personal part of this, but do you feel that led to you the path that you're on now as far as him being a business owner, or do you feel that it was solely your drive solely what you landed with you? Uh, I think my father definitely had the initial, um, the initial push towards, uh, I think my father just normalized being an entrepreneur or having a business as normal. So I think, you know, if I wouldn't have that, I think I would have viewed business as something very complicated, maybe not even for me. So I think it just normalized that thing. And obviously he had a lot of success in his life. So obviously I wanted to basically do something very similar. Uh, so I think that is what at least drove me to explore this option. Everything else afterwards was basically just me figuring things out. But I think the initial motivation and drive was like came from, from him makes sense, you know, because you're seeing it firsthand in life, right? With entrepreneurs is looking like and you just get acclimated to that, right? That's the programming you receive versus, you know, to your point where you wash your father, work in a career for thirty forty plus years. Right. That golden handcuffs, right. And, uh, in working on somebody else's terms is what you, you know, what I highlighted in your intro? Um, it makes sense that it helped you gravitate to a sooner path to entrepreneurship versus later on, right? Because later on in the years, in my opinion, I saw it in my own life where, you know, it wasn't until later on where I wanted more time freedom, more financial freedom and so forth. Right? And if I found myself spreading my wings, you know, sooner. But I like you, man. Man. I, I can't even recall when I first started entrepreneurship. I didn't know entrepreneurship. I just knew it as I want to make some extra money, you know? Yeah, exactly. I mean, honestly, that's the way I viewed everything in the beginning as well. I thought having a business was something so complicated and so far away that for now, let me just stick with freelancing. Let me stick with some internet projects that make some change on the side. So yeah, it was very, very basic at the start. I just wanted to see how I can make something where people basically pay me for that. Yeah, one hundred percent man. Mastering your craft, right? Mastering your craft and really honing in and, and, uh, developing that skill, not time, but developing your skills so that the skill rewards your income versus your time. Right? Mhm. Exactly. Yeah. You told me that the season that shaped you the most was quitting your last corporate job with no backup plan. I'm reminded of the phrase burn the boats. Right? You're laughing, as you probably have heard this, and you probably embrace this. Yeah. Right. Um, and you said you would rather struggle on your own terms and be comfortable in someone else's man. That's a gut punch. Um, you know, so take us to that decision. What was happening that finally pushed you to walk away from the safe thing? Right. The safe, golden handcuffs is why? You know, I often say with nothing guaranteed on the other side of that decision. Yeah. I, um, I was, I think a bit lucky here in a sense. Uh, so love to hear that version of lucky. Yeah, yeah, it was, it wasn't that, um, so I actually didn't make that decision. Well, sort of basically. So here's the story. After university, uh, I was already freelancing, I, I was earning some, some pocket money. It was, I was doing it sort of like part time, uh, something like that. Um, and I after university, I thought, hey, I need, I need some experience. I love doing marketing, but you know, it's I'm freelance. I have some projects under under my belt, but I, I probably need to start working at an agency. It just felt kind of natural progression for, for me. And so I found an agency and, uh, kind of a applied to it and eventually got a job at it. But I got a job as an SEO manager with no managerial experience prior. So it was me and two other people were also hired at the same time. It was, um, I think it was like a twenty people like marketing agency. And I was hired basically almost at the top. Like SEO manager was basically was like for SEO managers, then a chief marketing officer and then a founder. So I was basically at the. Yeah. So the SEO managers were the main account managers going, talking to clients and managing all the work and stuff like that. And that was, um, uh, I mean, I think at that time, I didn't even understand what I was signing, uh, like on to do until I actually go went through the doors and I think it's partly on them. I mean, probably I oversold oversold myself during the interviews and stuff like that, but also, I think understandable. Yeah, kind of, uh, overestimated my abilities as well. I was like, how old I was like maybe like twenty three, like fresh out of university and being hired as a, as a, as an SEO manager. Uh, well, not even an SEO manager. I was as a, as a, just an account manager actually. So just managing all of the marketing activities. And so I had the drive. I was young, I wanted to change things. I wanted to improve things. I already had experience at least working with clients. So my goal was to, you know, how can we improve what we have? How can we make these things better, how we can deliver better work to clients? And I think I stirred a lot of, um, internal, uh, chaos within the marketing agency, especially for the people that deliver the work. So all of the, uh, people that run advertising, all of the people that, that did SEO and stuff like that, because I was talking to clients, I was starting to promise them things. I was trying to understand what they want and kind of try to change a lot of things. Um, and, uh, now looking back, I think because of that, because I, I, I thought, well, this is my job. I mean, I need to see what clients want and then basically see how can we do that and how we can push more and do more and move forward. And apparently nobody really wanted to do that. Like, why do you like, uh, try to change things that work? You know, we built by the hours we have the clients, everything goes well, everything mostly moves slowly. And I think I tried to change that status quo. And I don't think that it landed well, because I was looking at the other two people that were hired alongside of me, and they were just like, you know, forwarding emails, just chatting with clients, maybe, you know, passing tasks along. And I thought, well, that's just like, it's not, I mean, this is it. Like, no, you just try to improve things, try to do something more like, I don't know, I, since I had some experience working with clients directly and sort of trying to kind of please them and understand what they want, I thought, I need to do the same thing here. And, uh, obviously it didn't work out and just after two months, so I didn't even pass the, you know, initial probation period. I was basically fired because they're like, no, dude, this is, this is not what we need. This ain't working anymore. No, this ain't working. I think a lot of people also complained about me. I'm not sure about that. But I, I have this gut feeling that probably the team that I was kind of trying to manage, uh, probably complained that he's just doing a lot of things, changing a lot of things, and kind of ruining, ruining the way we used to work. Um, and so, and so I was let go. And, uh, I at that time, I felt very angry. At that time, I didn't understand why I didn't sort of it was, it came like it was very sudden and very unexpected. I thought I was doing the best possible work I was ever doing. And apparently that was a completely the wrong thing. And so I felt a lot of anger not towards the marketing agency, but towards like the initial, like core, like the corporate nine to five. Yeah. Thing. Like I was like, well, if I'm trying my best and all I get is being fired, then why do I even bother? And, and then I made a decision. You know what? I, I, I had this freelancing thing, like going on for me for now, a couple of years. What if I actually put all of my effort and become a full time freelancer? Go on. Instead of yeah, instead of just working for that marketing agency. And that, that was probably that was the best decision that I ever made. Because even that first year I remember calculating I actually made three times more money than if I would have worked at that marketing agency for a full year. So, you know, the rest is basically history after that decision. Uh, after that first full year as being a freelancer and seeing how I was actually able to earn more, do better work, I was happier. I had way more freedom. I mean, the benefits just go on and on. I, I never looked back. Man, that's so good. There's a few things you said there. I'm going to kind of correct on. You said it was luck, but I don't think it was. It's not luck. Right. I mean, um, you know, for me, my perspective is everything's supposed to, you know, happen when it's supposed to happen, right. So, um, what people view as luck is me saying, well, we hear this a lot. I think you've seen this is where opportunity opportunity meets preparation, right? Mhm. That's that's luck in my opinion. Right. And so for you on the sidelines, you have been preparing already. You've been building, you know, your agency and so forth. And the opportunity just merely said, hey, you know, man, we love you. It's been fun. But, you know, so the opportunity came, right? So the luck wasn't luck. It was this is where opportunity, opportunity met preparation, you know, and so this is where the universe, God, you know, whatever your beliefs are said, hey, it's time for you to walk on your own two feet here. Mhm. Um, one thing I want to highlight is you said you're angry. You you said that you had a chip on your shoulder essentially is what I'm hearing against not necessarily the company itself that I'm sure that was kind of a small little flame, right? But the much larger flame was the, the, uh, the story, the, the, uh, what I want to call it here, uh, the story that we're told, I guess for lack of describing it. Right. Yeah. Um, where, you know, the nine to five is where it's at the security, the safety and all of that. But for you, you use that as, as fuel, as anger to drive this next chapter sound, right? Yeah, exactly. Because I did like I had other nine to five, um, jobs before I had an internship, like at a very big company. Uh, I was working at a few startups, uh, that, you know, had like forty, fifty people in them. So I had experience and, uh, with those other experiences, I actually have, you know, that actually went way better for me than that last marketing agency job. But I always felt kind of a bit out of place. Uh, I always felt like, damn, uh, like I, I didn't, like, feel like I kind of belonged there. I, I felt like I wasn't able to do my best work. For some reason, the corporate environment restricted me in a sense that there was a lot more, I don't know, meetings, conversations, decisions, kills productivity. Yeah, just overall drag. Like I, I think I since because I started working with, uh, like on my own, on my own projects, on my own clients before I ever got any for, for first job, I think I got used to just being way more efficient, way more productive, way more quicker on things. And when I moved from that to any, any job that I had, it felt way more slower, um, way more like sluggish, uh, a lot of inefficiencies in there. And I don't know, it just it didn't really click for me. And I think, you know, that marketing agency was just the final nail in the coffin where I'm like, well, you know, I tried other, other jobs. They also didn't really, you know, felt right. This one also didn't felt right. So why do I even bother? Mhm. That's so good, man. That's so good. Well, I mean, you look at it from this perspective and here's what I want to highlight to you. You said you weren't the best student in school. I can completely resonate. Right? Um, you know, I, I know you're you're in Europe. I forget exactly where. Um, but here, you know, um, when you graduate high school, you get a high school diploma, then you go to university, right? Or college or trade school or, you know, or military, whatever the next chapter is. Right. But for me, I didn't graduate high school. In fact, I went, um, it's called a general education. I think it's general education diploma. Anyways, it says you you have met the minimum requirements to get a high school diploma, right? So I'm that guy. I got a good enough diploma, is what I. A lot of people says because for me, I mean, I didn't I didn't click well in school, right. I found it very, very hard for me. Um, and I, I went through a ton of schools. Um, but where I'm getting at with all of this is for you, you, you were trying to not trying. You operated on productivity and efficiencies and things that really mattered for you and to move the needle. Right. And so that's one thing that I heard for you is the motivation for you. And where you found effectiveness was increasing productivity and really focusing on the things that move the needle for your business, not just being busy. I hate that, right. Being in meetings, Emails like for me, I told my assistant, I don't want to touch my inbox. Like, I don't do emails. I hate them because it comes, it becomes a massive to do list. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. Um, but do you think that's a fair statement or fair assessment? It is, it is. I always like, um, uh, I, I also didn't really fare well at school. I was, I mean, I was doing okay, like I had like average grades and stuff like that. And, um, you know, funnily enough, I also like here in Lithuania also just graduated, like only, um, you know, to get that basic education certificate. So I didn't even have the full high school diploma. I went, I mean, I did get that in UK because I went to UK boarding school, so I actually got a high school diploma there. But in Lithuania here, I don't even have the high school diploma. If I would just need to start applying to jobs, I had nothing here. Um, so that's uh, quite, quite, quite funny. Uh, but yeah, I, I always felt that, uh, um, I didn't really like the way people were, like, so unproductive. Unproductive during like, you know, uh, office hours. And I don't know, for me, maybe I was young, maybe I felt the drive, but just like I, I wanted to do something a lot more. I, I wanted to achieve a lot more. And I think that drove me to do things instead of just, uh, look busy. Like I, I didn't, uh, I don't think that's the style that I kind of, you know, I mean, even to this day, it's not something that I subscribe to. Mhm. I agree, man, I, I can, I can tell, you know, especially in, you know, the type of business that you operate and at the scale you operate at tells me everything I need to know. Instead of focusing on productivity and efficiency. But let me rewind here for a second for. Yeah, just for a couple of seconds because, you know, we've said this a couple of times, but I want the audience to really listen in because oftentimes the audience, myself included, for the longest time, felt like there's got to be some type of ingredient for success in any type of endeavor where it is, it's either in a career or it's an entrepreneurship or business owner or whatever. What's what are your thoughts on that? Because you and I, you know, have a lot in common where, you know, we're C or D students, right? But, you know, we didn't like that, you know, dictate our level of success in business. What's your thoughts on that? Um, I, I honestly feel that, um, like school has very little to do of what, how you think about business and stuff like that. Like the school, the system that it prepares you. Um, at least from my experience, it was mainly, uh, so much memorization like, like the critical thinking part was so like, I, I, I'm so glad that I actually went to UK because I did have critical thinking lessons and I had some interesting teachers, but generally like seventy over seventy percent of stuff, there's just a lot of memorization. And I was the type of, I am the type of person that I, I really like to see the patterns. So honestly, how I studied was just like I took previous years exams and took a look at what types of sort of questions they ask, what types of maybe, uh, sections they use. Then I actually try to study only those relevant things instead of just studying everything. And that helped me actually a lot because I reduced the number of things I needed to study, because I wanted to study only the things that I know are going to be in exam. So I don't know just the way examination works and school it like it has the. It has so little to do with the real world that. That's the thing. I mean, maybe it teaches you organization and structure. Yeah. That that those are good skills. But beyond that, I don't know. Everything else that I did, uh, with business was, uh. I went into the unknown. And that's the thing that the school doesn't teach you like experiment, see how it like, works, doesn't work. Uh, try again. Learn from your lessons. It like the school doesn't teach you all these things. It actually teaches you to avoid risk rather than to take risk. So risk aversion. Yeah. So you're like, you're going into completely opposite direction. And then it's no wonder that a lot of people finishing high school, they're very afraid. Like one of, one of the key things that I hear people say about freelancing or starting a business or an agency They're afraid of doing that because they have like, have a fear of failure, fear of, um, uh, like if they, that they don't know how to start things and stuff like that. So, and it seems that a lot of these things come from the school system. So if you are not doing well at school that or doing well, it doesn't matter like for business at all, like you can be the best student ever and you can be the best business owner ever. But like, there is no basically, I don't think there is a correlation here at all. One hundred percent man, I, I agree, in fact, I'm of the belief that the school system actually trains you to be part of the system, right? Whether it's, you know, working for the government or it's working nine to five. But what I heard from you is the three things that really helps you propel in, in business and just in life is critical thinking, creative thinking, being able to recognize patterns. Man, I won't forget. I was telling one of my clients this just the other day. You know, as soon as you learn how to identify patterns, the game changes, right? Because then you build to to recognize patterns, be able to change patterns or recognize them and build a shift course. You look at the economy, look at everything that's going on in the world, not to, you know, go into, you know, anything doom here, but, you know, be able to recognize these patterns in business and life. Yeah, the school misses that, uh, dramatically, you know, um, and I think this is where the system fails so many people and you look on social. I'm sure you can resonate with this. The, the we stopped normalizing adversity. We stopped normalizing experimenting and all of that. Right? Instead, we only focus on all the amazing wins, right? The cars, the what's in the bank account. You know, the houses and vacations and jets and all of that stuff. But in fact, we've we've really stopped normalizing what actually got to that. And people are looking at it like, man, what's wrong with me? You know? Mhm. Um, so, so good here, man. This has been a great conversation. Um, so take us to, you know, a moment where. The journey might have gotten lonely for you, right? Because you're doing this for a while. You're building for a while. You know, was there any part of this journey where you wanted to give up where you thought, man, this, this isn't going to work? Or maybe it got lonely, you know, walk us in the moments where, you know, yeah, you might have felt lonely or maybe you wanted to quit. Is there any time you wanted to quit? Yeah, I, yeah, there was. I mean, for me, I'm kind of introverted. I mean, person, so I do work well alone. And I think that got me through a lot of like probably the first maybe five, even six years. So I mean, it took me like a while before I started, uh, feeling, um, any kind of loneliness or any kind of things where I, I want to give up. But yeah, those feelings eventually came to me because, um, a couple of things. First of all, I, now that I have a team, uh, actually I'm, uh, it's so much fun to actually work with people and to, uh, and to have a team with me and to kind of collaborate and stuff like that because I was working, uh, alone for so long. Real quick, before we keep rolling, maybe life hit you hard. Business fell apart. Career isn't working out. Relationship ended. Health took a dive, and now you're standing in the rubble trying to figure out what the next move even looks like. Or maybe nothing blew up at all. On paper, you're winning. Sure, but on the inside, something's off. If you're not in crisis, you're at a crossroads. And the playbook that built the life you have is not the playbook that builds the one you want. Either way, you're stuck. Not broken. Stuck between who you were and who you're becoming. Most self-help just piles more weight on the load you're already carrying. I do not want to do that. I put together a free video series called the Grit Code Exposed, and I want to invite you to check it out. Seven short videos. That's it. The five laws that change everything for me. In every client, I coach the same five that every person who's ever come back from the fire has walked through where they had a name for it or not. No fluff, no ninety minute webinar, no bait, just the free video series. You can start it tonight. Grab it at grit. Code exposed dot com one more time. Grit code exposed dot com. It's free. You don't need any more hustle. You need the next version and this is how you find it. Check it out. See if it speaks to you. And if it does, I'll see you inside. All right, let's get back to the conversation. All right. So my question to you before we got rudely interrupted by the internet was, you know, in this journey that you've been building your business, right? You left that career or they, you know, they left you in that time where there, you know, your ability and so forth. Two things. Was there ever a time you wanted to give up? And two, how lonely was that journey? Yeah, I, I since I'm kind of an introvert, it actually took me quite a while until I felt lonely or until I felt that I wanted to give up. I think the first five, six years felt very good. I was earning more money basically every year I was living the dream. I had the remote work, so I, I was really, really, uh, happy with the way sort of life went. I, I was very, uh, relaxed about all of that. But at some point I kind of started to want more and it started to become very difficult to, to grow. Uh, I actually started feeling more lonely because it started taking a toll on me since, you know, after I'd been working alone for five years. You know, you're kind of, uh, debate yourself if you're missing out. Then I also had this feeling of I didn't know which direction I should go to. Uh, it felt like, okay, I'm a freelancer, but what do you mean, what? What's next? I mean, I can create a marketing agency, but maybe I should do something else. So I had this period of even, I think several years where I just tried to understand the direction I want to go because I had other websites, side projects, businesses going on. So I think that distracted me from freelancing. So there was sort of this a couple of years of period where I doubted myself, I felt lonely, I didn't know which direction to go. I think at every sort of, um, business person, business owner, entrepreneur life, do you come at a point where you don't know what to do or where to head. And it took me quite a while to figure out what to do next. Uh, but, uh, there were like these couple of years of, uh, of, of that period where I, I think I stayed in that period where for far too long, I think it was like three years of where I was like still freelancing, still doing things, kind of doing something, but not really moving in any direction. So I think I now looking back, I, I didn't like that I stayed there for too long since I could have started something and could have, you know, now by the time that, that we're now here talking, I probably could have done a lot more, but I stagnated, I think, for far too long before sort of making a decision to move on and do something. I think I was sort of in a golden handcuffs, but, uh, for a freelancer where I was earning like Quite enough to not to not, uh, want to basically do anything else or move away from this sort of. Yeah, yeah, I think I got a bit too comfortable here. So, um, so I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm sad that it, that it, uh, went for far too longer than it should have. It happens to the best of every everybody. I've been there myself. Right? We, we, we get comfortable, we get complacent. And um, there's no longer that drive, if you will, for the next level, right. For, you know, because there really is nothing else, right? I mean, for all our needs are met, right. You know, um, and we're making enough money if you don't have anything else that's driving us, then for me, in my experience, and especially working with so many, uh, leaders today and entrepreneurs, I find the same thing, right? They get to that level where they stagnate because there's nothing else to take him to the next level. Right. So for you, what caused you to finally say, mm, I need to do something different? What, what was the changing point for you to change that narrative about your business? Um, I kind of, I don't know. I think there was like a couple of things. I think I finally understood that I have to make a decision. You know, after, you know, being, being not, you know, not doing anything for the past couple of years, I, I understood that I need to make that decision. Uh, because if nothing's gonna change, then, uh, I might even lose what I have right now because it doesn't, it doesn't feel like I'm improving or I'm improving my workflows or systems or the way that I get clients. So I thought that if I, you know, become complacent, everything will just slowly die down. Uh, another thing is AI. AI came into place and that also started to affect the overall search engine optimization industry. So I knew that, okay, I need to kind of move and do something or AI might, you know, literally take over my job or that, you know, that thing might not even exist, you know, in kind of a couple of years time. So that also prompted me to kind of, uh, move along and do something. But I think the, um, the, the best, uh, not the best, but like the most crucial part of this was I went to this kind of mastermind, uh, where it was like people like business owners. I think it was like fifteen, uh, group of people that earned at least one hundred thousand dollars per year. They were actually, you know, in that room, there were few earning like one hundred thousand dollars per month. So it was a very big room with a lot of different business owners, app, uh, app owners, creators like different caliber of people. And I got to just chat with them and talk to them about, you know, my own things and just share ideas, hear what other people think. And from that mastermind, from talking to people, I think somehow I finally made peace with a decision to, okay, I need to start an agency and I need to move forward. And this is, this is just the way, the way it goes. Um, I think just it showcased me not only that the mastermind, but just everything prior started meeting people. I found some people online where I, I'm the type of person that really learns from the example. So I started seeing people that do something that I see myself doing. So I started seeing agency owners that do agencies in a way that I want to do agencies because before that I thought, you know, we need an office, you need a twenty person team, you need to become a manager. And I thought, no, that that's that sounds horrible. But then I started seeing following people. I started noticing how other teams work. And eventually I think everything clicked on that mastermind where I'm like, okay, I can actually create something that, uh, is gonna be, uh, under my terms and it's gonna run the way I want it to run. And, uh, based on everything that I found out, this is the only option for me. Because if I stand still, I thought in a couple of years time I might have nothing. So that is the moment where I basically decided to move forward. Mhm. That's two interesting points I just grab from there. One is there, there is no like I hear from a lot of people I'm just going to hold here. Right. I'm just going to hold here. And it. There's no. Especially in business, but there's no form of life where you just stay steady, right. You're either growing or you're dying. Right? And that's in every aspect of what you do. But one thing I just heard here, correct me if I'm wrong, change joining that mastermind, joining that community of people who thought bigger than you, thought differently than you, um, and or different caliber of people than you, that's what caused you to grow. AM I hearing that correctly? Yeah, exactly. Because I think, uh, since I was working as a freelancer for, I mean, yes, I did read some business books. I, I, I knew something about entrepreneurship, but something clicked where I, I think I reached my ceilings, uh, as a freelancer and I didn't know how to grow further. Like I think I basically capped out at everything that I know about freelancing and entrepreneurship and, business and everything that that that was my maximum thing. And in that room, I think, uh, my mind opened up to new possibilities of how things can be done, of how people think about growth, of how people think about building a team, of how people hire people, of how just the, the goals, the numbers, everything just expanded. And I think I, in a, in a weird way, um, I got, I got permission to do more and then, and then and then I was like, oh, okay, it now I can actually do more because it feels that it's possible. Uh, previously I didn't, you know, I didn't know what, what else to do. That's wow. I think that's the best way I heard that ever been put What you just said. I feel like I was given permission, which hindsight, we never really, truly need permission from anybody, right? Yeah. But you just said it felt like I finally got permission, and it gave me exposure to ideas I never thought was possible, you know? And I can completely resonate, man. I mean, this is one of the reasons why I intentionally put myself in bigger rooms. I hire coaches because they think they're not in my mess. Right? They're not in my life. So, you know, when they when we can distance ourselves, when they can distance themselves away from the emotions and all the chaos, you know, we have the ability to think more creatively and be around people who think differently, think at a different level, who have done bigger things. It just exposes our lens, our perspectives to what's possible or even more right. You know, it's so good there, man. Exactly. I mean, I didn't previously, I didn't I mean, not that I didn't know. I knew that there is a value in talking with people that achieved more that it's, it's that people like having a bigger network of people that like do business. It's valuable. I knew that, but I didn't I didn't think I understand why people valued it. And after I think I got into that room and got, I don't know, motivation, permission, like open mind, like I now understand like all of these like very, very intangible things that are probably very difficult to explain to people if you haven't like felt that. But that is what was sort of the purpose of that mastermind. That's the purpose of talking your ideas out loud with people that are sort of doing the same thing. So now I see huge value in networking, in masterminds and conferences and all of this stuff, where previously I kind of knew that people say it's valuable, but I didn't understand it. Is it fair to say that you won't until you actually do it? Yeah, I think so. I think so, at least for me, because I've read about these things. I've heard people say that, but then, you know, it's like, okay, but, you know, I still don't get it. You know, I can read a book and it's the same things. No, it's, there's something about people interacting with people that kind of, uh, helps you out more than reading the same things on books or seeing them on a video. I agree wholeheartedly, you know, I agree. I, I, I, I was the same way, right? It wasn't until I went to my first conference. I'm like, Holy smokes. It wasn't necessarily the content at this conference. It was more the relationships, the connections with people. After that, I, you know, hey, you know, and I still have relationships to those to this day, you know, fifteen, almost twenty years at this point. And, uh, it's led to some amazing opportunities that had I not gone, I would not be where I am today. That is one hundred percent truth, you know? Yeah. I mean, my, my business is, was built like on eighty percent of referrals for the past like three years. So I know exactly what you what you mean that the opportunities that arise from you just being in, in the, in the right room and connecting with people. It's it's insane. What what can happen? One hundred percent, man. One hundred percent. Well, dude, fast forward today, you know, you're, you're building this business, you're putting yourself in a bigger rooms, right? Um, you know, fast forward today again, what is the version of business and his agency that the world has not yet met? Uh, what are you most fired up about? Uh, I'm fired up about, uh, building personal brands like I, because I finally found, uh, the thing that I, that I finally found an outcome that I can build towards. So previously I was a freelancer and I was delivering a very specific service search engine optimization. And I always thought about tools like, this is the tool, this is the skill that I have, and I can provide that tool or that skill to, to basically in exchange, um, for money. But I always felt that I wasn't building something bigger. I was, I mean, eventually I moved to outcomes I was building. Keywords. I was building leads for businesses. I was building organic traffic growth. That is all good and well, but it still felt like there wasn't any underlying bigger thing under that. And as soon as like last year was, was all the when all of this will kind of clicked for me. But, uh, I found the right client type. And then after working with these people for like many years now, uh, I finally found that I wanted to build something more than just, um, than just search engine optimization, than just keywords and stuff like that. And that thing was personal branding. Uh, I thought that if I can work with people and build their personal brands, it feels much bigger, much more, uh, relevant and much more important for them. Like for me, I would feel way more happier building somebody's personal brand than they gaining a lot out of all of this, instead of just me ranking them on, on, on Google and stuff like that. So I moved into off like offering more services. I moved into sort of this personal branding stuff. I like believe in that myself. That is why I'm on podcast. That is why I'm doing it myself. So it's not like I'm doing that for. I also believe that in this AI age, in the next like five years, personal branding is going to become even more important. So I'm doing that for myself, and I'm also applying the same playbook to all of the clients that I work with. So, uh, yeah, this is where I stand right now building that personal branding agency. Nice man. I agree with you, the human connection and humanizing the personal brand of every person. I think there's going to be critical for anybody's success in today's age, especially with the rapid evolvement AI man. Real quick, before you go, if you're still with me this deep into the episode, something in it hits you. Maybe it was the guest. Maybe it was one line. Either way, you're still here. And that feeling in your chest right now, that's the signal. Most people get a signal like that and do absolutely nothing with it. They close the app. Life rushes back in. The moment's gone. Six months later, there are then exact same spot. I don't want that for you. So I put something together. I want to invite you to check out a free video series called The Grit Code Exposed. Seven short videos. The five laws. I walk every client through. The same ones that rebuilt me when everything else fell apart. And if you listen closely today, you heard them running underneath the entire conversation because everyone who's come back from the fire walks through these five laws. Some find them on their own, some get help, but the laws don't change. Free video series. You can start it tonight. No fluff. No ninety minute webinar. Just the series. If you're going to do something with what you heard today, do this before life talks you out of it. Go to grit Code Exposed dot com one more time. Grit Code exposed dot com. And hey, before I let you go, thank you for riding with me this long. It means a lot more than you know. Thank you. Dude. I love to give every person sixty to 90s to talk to the previous version of themselves ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. However long years it was. knowing what you know now, what would you have to tell that person to maybe get there sooner or to help the courage that person? In other words, to all the businesses out there that were, you know, in your path ten years ago, what do you have to tell that person to keep them encouraged, to keep them growth minded? What do you have to tell that person? Um, ah, I if I'm, if I'm thinking about myself, um, and the person that I was, I, I would you need to move faster and fail faster. I think I moved very slowly. I think, you know, ten years sounds amazing. Like sounds very a lot, but looking back, I feel I could have done the same things in half of the time. I think I, I became complacent, I became stagnant, I in the beginning I enjoyed my just time way too much. So I would rather move a lot faster while I was younger to build things and just fail faster. I was also, you know, when first starting I was again afraid and I eventually I, I think I made all the right moves, but it just took me so long to take those decisions and to overcome those fears. So if I, if I could have, uh, wish something for my younger self or for anybody listening, is that just try to move faster or fail faster and don't look back. Uh, you will figure this out eventually, but just the faster you, the more faster you do it, the better you'll reach your like, the faster you'll reach your results. And, uh, for me, if I could have just did if I could have just done things. Even just a couple of years earlier today, I would have been in a much, much better position. So for me, that's the speed of, of things was the thing that really, uh, hold me back, man. That's such gold right there. The biggest thing I extracted from that was move faster, fail faster. Exactly. That's so huge. So huge. Well. Cool man. Well, as we wrap up, I've got some rapid fire questions for you, some of which I've already prepared you for in in the greenroom before I hit the record button. Um, in this season of build that you're in, um, what is your definition of grit? My, my definition of grit is, uh. Basically making sure you don't, uh, don't listen to the, the, the people around you? For some reason, if the person is not into business, entrepreneurship and all that stuff, it feels that, uh, they can stop you really easily. So like you have to become very, very resilient to all that stuff. And sometimes trusting your own gut is, is the way to go. So good. I agree one hundred percent. Awesome. Last two questions. When the lights go out and you're in trenches, what do you need? What do you find repeating to yourself? Either a quote or directive or scripture to pull you out of those dark seasons? Is there anything that comes to mind? Yeah. Uh, at some point I started viewing, um, failure as just a Google Drive, uh, project folder. So, so, you know, so it's like, uh, if I do something, I open another folder on my Google Drive. I named that project, whatever name that is. And I do that if that project ends. That's the end of the project. It's not a failure. It's just the end of the project. And it's time to open another folder and start another project. And then when I viewed all of the things, experiments, whatever I did as projects, and then I knew every single project has an end to it. So I was never afraid to fail because that was that's just the end of the project. Let's start another one. MM. That's so good, man. That's so good. I never heard anybody put it in that perspective. Really never have. Yeah, it's really good. Nice. Thanks. I can just, I just, I can just end the whole show right there and, you know, um, we got the knowledge bombs, but, uh. Well, awesome. Well, this last last question comes in two parts. This, which I prepared you for in the guru. Those are listening to this for the first time. Guys, I love to give my guests an opportunity to challenge my future guests with the question of their own. And the lineup is completely anonymous, so I had no idea. It currently doesn't have any idea who's coming up. So when I ask him for his question of his own, he has no idea. And so far these questions have landed perfectly. So again, bonus. No pressure here. But my previous guest, uh, Kanika, I out of Australia had this one question for you. And I think it I think it's going to go, well, what is the thing that scares you in your life right now and why aren't you doing it? Uh, what scares me right now? Um, oh, that's a good question. I feel what what scares me? Funny. What scares me right now is to is to move faster. Like I just talked about how I need to move faster and I'm building agency. But again, I'm trying to take it a little bit slower, trying to make sure everything works. And, uh, I think I'm scared to scale faster than I can manage. Uh, so that that is the thing. And I feel that I, I probably have the capacity to move a little bit faster for sure on all the things that I do. So, uh, yeah, that's, I love that man. Love it. So what you're saying is the very thing that you tell yourself, you try and tell yourself from ten years ago is also the same thing that you're struggling with, right? Yeah. Yeah. Feel faster. Hey, man, I totally get it. Makes sense. I mean, this is. But this is the thing, though. You're you've you're learning this, you've learned this, and you're, you're actively trying to work on overcoming that. So that's perfect man. Bonus. My dude, what would you love to challenge my next guest with? What would be the question of your own? Uh, I would love to know. Um, uh, what, uh, uh, what type of experiment have you run that has failed, but left a very, very big, uh, mark on you. Ooh. MM. I'm looking at my guest lineup that's working out perfectly, man. Nice. Can't tell you who it is, man. So you have no. No worries. No worries because I, I view I've done so many experiments and in my, you know, projects and I view a lot of projects as experiments, and I feel that some experiments, you know, open up you to new opportunities and stuff like that. So it's very curious to know. Usually the experiments, it implies that something that might have not have worked, but it might have stuck with you for some reason. And I would love to know what that reason is. So good man. Awesome. Well, good. That's a good question for sure. Absolutely. Well, awesome. Well, for the person who's listening right now, they want to connect with you either about your story or just the support you encourage you, or they want to learn more about your agency, especially as the building brands, personal brands, where can they connect with you to find out more? Uh, avium dot VIP that's the agency website. So anything to do with agency is there, but I'm very active on LinkedIn and YouTube. I document my agency building process there if you really want to get into nitty gritty stuff, but LinkedIn, my name and my surname and you'll find all the content there as well. Awesome, man. Cool. I'll definitely be dropping all that in the show notes, guys, so make sure you check it out. My dude, thank you so much for coming here and sharing the last hour with us. Technology issues aside, if you haven't noticed, that means my editor is just that good. But this last thirty thirty five minutes has been mass technology issues. So it is Monday, at least on a day that recording. So go figure. Even technology doesn't want to work on Mondays. That's right. But man, I appreciate you sharing this last hour with us. Sharing some knowledge bombs, some wisdom and not just showing, you know, the fact that you've developed this six figure agency. You know, you live life on your terms, but you share the journey you shared all the things that you've learned in even the hardships, right? And that takes a lot of courage. So thank you for sharing all that, man. No worries. No worries. Carl, thank you so much for having me. It was such a fun conversation. Uh, you were such a great host and you had such an amazing questions prepared. So that was amazing. Oh, thanks, man, I appreciate you. All right. To those who are listening and watching, the gap between average and excellence is just action, guys. Even imperfect action. Don't just listen to us today. Take one thing he shared and use it in the next twenty four hours. That is our challenge to you. Listen, be the reason someone doesn't quit today. Don't just keep this episode to yourself. Someone in your circle needs it right now. Send it to him again. My dude, thank you for stepping in arena. It was an honor to have you today. Thank you so much.