Is wealth creation a good and biblical concept? If it is, why are so many Christians bad at making money? What if the Bible held the key to financial success? Kevin Love and I delve into an engaging discourse that challenges the conventional wisdom of Christianity and money—dismantling the notion that wealth and faith are opposites.
Join us as we dissect biblical teachings on wealth, navigating the fine line between the sinfulness of loving money and the righteousness of using it for good. In our endeavor to understand the relationship between faith, money, and business, be prepared for some thought-provoking revelations.
Our conversation extends far beyond theory, diving headfirst into the practical application of these biblical principles in the business world. Through a fascinating role-play scenario of a pediatrician, we explore the mechanics of high-earning professions and how value maximization can lead to increased income. From hiring the right people to recognizing talents and skills in your organization, we help you decode the blueprint to business success. We do not shy away from the topic of risk either, offering you insights on understanding and mitigating risks associated with starting a business and prioritizing tasks for maximum productivity.
Lastly, we take you through the exciting realm of real estate and growth. We discuss the potential of investing surplus business income into real estate, using it as a hedge against inflation, and generating passive income. Recognizing your value in the marketplace and leveraging it to its fullest potential forms the crux of this enlightening episode. As we journey through the intersection of faith, money, and business, we encourage Christians to embrace the wealth creation journey, keeping their faith and biblical teachings at the helm. So, come join us and redefine your perspective on Christianity and wealth.
Talk to Joe Garrisi about managing your wealth.
Sign up for Barbell Logic.
Place your meat order with Salt & Strings.
Start banking with Private Family Banking. You can reach Private Family Banking Partner, Chuck DeLadurantey at chuck@privatefamiliybanking.com, call him directly at 830-339-9472, or download his e-book HERE.
Is wealth creation a good and biblical concept? If it is, why are so many Christians bad at making money? What if the Bible held the key to financial success? Kevin Love and I delve into an engaging discourse that challenges the conventional wisdom of Christianity and money—dismantling the notion that wealth and faith are opposites.
Join us as we dissect biblical teachings on wealth, navigating the fine line between the sinfulness of loving money and the righteousness of using it for good. In our endeavor to understand the relationship between faith, money, and business, be prepared for some thought-provoking revelations.
Our conversation extends far beyond theory, diving headfirst into the practical application of these biblical principles in the business world. Through a fascinating role-play scenario of a pediatrician, we explore the mechanics of high-earning professions and how value maximization can lead to increased income. From hiring the right people to recognizing talents and skills in your organization, we help you decode the blueprint to business success. We do not shy away from the topic of risk either, offering you insights on understanding and mitigating risks associated with starting a business and prioritizing tasks for maximum productivity.
Lastly, we take you through the exciting realm of real estate and growth. We discuss the potential of investing surplus business income into real estate, using it as a hedge against inflation, and generating passive income. Recognizing your value in the marketplace and leveraging it to its fullest potential forms the crux of this enlightening episode. As we journey through the intersection of faith, money, and business, we encourage Christians to embrace the wealth creation journey, keeping their faith and biblical teachings at the helm. So, come join us and redefine your perspective on Christianity and wealth.
Talk to Joe Garrisi about managing your wealth.
Sign up for Barbell Logic.
Place your meat order with Salt & Strings.
Start banking with Private Family Banking. You can reach Private Family Banking Partner, Chuck DeLadurantey at chuck@privatefamiliybanking.com, call him directly at 830-339-9472, or download his e-book HERE.
This episode of the Hard Men Podcast is brought to you by Salt and Strings Butchery Order your custom beef bundle. Today, it's also brought to you by Private Family Banking, helping Christians take dominion through privatized banking. And finally, today's episode is brought to you by Backwards Planning Financial building multi-generational wealth with Joe Garrisey. But welcome to this episode of the Hard Men Podcast. I am your host, Eric Kahn. Join today again by headmaster pastor Rev Kev. Kevin Love. Never heard Rev Kev before, but I like it. That's a new one.
Kevin Love:Normally K Love, K Love, but I don't like the radio station, not like the radio station kind of threw that one off.
Eric Conn:So, kevin, we've been talking about and I think it has been a really good conversation but we've been talking about how do you get a business going. How do you make money is what we're going to be talking about today. These things all kind of go together. But as we were preparing for this show, it reminded me of something that Dale Partridge had actually told me in a podcast, where he said you know, because I asked him, I said what do Christians struggle with, like what is the need of the hour in the church? And he said, you know, he gave kind of some of the answers that we, you know, have heard before in the church and then he said you know, can I just be honestly? Christians don't know how to make money.
Kevin Love:Yeah, I remember listening to that one, actually, and it was funny because I think you were asking him some of the books that he would recommend and as he was going through, I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that one too.
Eric Conn:So I just want to ask you off the top of the show, like do you see that same problem? Do Christians have a problem with really their view of money? And maybe I would even tie it to the question of something Brian has talked about Do you think the church is overrun by also a poverty gospel, Like it's better to be poor.
Kevin Love:Yeah, you run into this all the time. Again, it's not with everyone there's. There's such a tendency sometimes, if you're trying to be catchy, that you say everyone is in this camp or everyone's in that camp and we're definitely not saying that. But there, really, there really is this implicit view of money that is not not found in the scriptures. I think it's a distortion of the scriptures in some sense, certainly, but, but you can see where people are coming from when.
Kevin Love:When you hear something such as money is the root of all evil, right, if you've, you've probably heard it like that before. The the issue is something like that is what we're doing. When we say that money is the root of all evil, is that we're actually taking a text and we're misunderstanding it, because the Bible doesn't say that money, as if, like the substance itself, is evil. It says the love of money. Paul says the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, or the root of all evil. There's debate about that how you actually translate that into the English. Obviously, but it's not that the money itself is evil. It's not that it substantially is evil. There's actually a lot of good that can come from money. But we do have this implicit view, almost in Christ, christendom or Christianity in general, that that you're not really allowed to make money as a Christian, like that would be bad, that wouldn't be okay to make money, yeah, even pastors.
Eric Conn:This was an argument for pastors being paid a low wage forever in the church, especially like Baptist fundamentalist churches that that we were kind of a part of. They would say well, we'll keep them poor and God will keep them humble. That's the way to do it. You're like have you ever read what Paul said?
Kevin Love:in first Corinthians about paying your pastor.
Eric Conn:What you're referencing though, 1st Timothy 610, the KJV, is interesting here, because obviously that is informed much of English speaking culture in the world.
Kevin Love:That's the inspired version. Right, yeah, that's right.
Eric Conn:Speaking of fundamentalist Baptist, but it says that the love of money is the root of all evil. But I think the ESV and trying to flesh this out better they translate it for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. So I think that's probably closer to the Greek, it's a little bit more helpful. But fundamentally, why should we not understand that passage? We have to take it in light of all of scripture. Scripture has other things to say about wealth and it's not that it's the worst evil and the root of all evils.
Kevin Love:No, no, no. It actually says a lot of good things about wealth. If you've ever read the Proverbs, just I mean read all 31,. Right, Read all the chapters, and would you walk away from that and say you know what Money is evil Money?
Eric Conn:is really, really low. Get rid of it at all costs. No, no, no.
Kevin Love:It does talk about making money. It presents it in a positive light. It talks about passing an inheritance to your children like this. They obviously certainly did not take the view that money itself was bad. Can money be used inappropriately? Can it be used in a sinful way? Yes, of course, because money is a tool.
Kevin Love:You can do a lot with money, but the fact that we're looking at money as if it's an evil thing itself, that's going to influence how we approach money ourselves. And so one thing I think we've done is in our circles, even outside our circles, in Christianity, you almost have this view that you're not allowed to talk about money or making money or being really successful. You're business to the point that you're rolling in money. You're not. You can't talk about that because that would almost put you in this like subpar, sub-christian realm, that you're just a greedy guy.
Kevin Love:Right, we have people even in our church, very wealthy, doing a great job in their businesses, who are very generous with their money. They're not being evil with their money. They're tithing, they're taking care of other people in the church, they're supporting their own family really well. It itself is not evil, and this is really what this comes down to and why I get kind of passionate about this idea is because if we were to boil this tendency down, we would have to say in some measure that it is phariseical, and this is why I say that, though I know that sounds harsh sometimes which part is phariseical?
Kevin Love:The fact that we're taking a text and we're saying, instead of saying, the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, or is a root, we're starting to say that money itself is. This is what the pharisees did. They took the boundary markers of God in God's law, where God said don't do this, don't do that. And they actually moved those boundary markers out, away from the center, even further out, so that the pharisees would say, oh, don't even think about it, don't even touch it. God said don't do it, and we say don't even touch it, don't even think about it, right? So there really is an attempt to be wiser than God in some senses, and that's what that tendency of thought, that's where that will lead you. And we do this with money, right, where we say okay, it says the love of money is root of all kinds of evil, but now we say money is, we've actually extended those marker boundaries out very far, because money can be a tool. Money can be a very good thing if it's used wisely.
Eric Conn:Well, it's interesting too, because when we think about projects like building new Christendom, this is one of the things. You know we started new Christendom press. You know we started St Brennan's and the school, and I know we've talked about this before, but it's worth repeating that when you're going out and you're saying, okay, we're telling our men in the community full send, take risk, go after the hard things, maybe get involved in real estate, because we know building Christendom, people need somewhere to live, but also you have to have resources to build cathedrals.
Eric Conn:Yeah you have to have all this stuff. To start a media company, you need resources. Fundamentally, you need money, and part of the problem is, when you look around Christendom it's like, well, if our view is that money's bad, so we never want it, we're never in a position to build anything. Meanwhile, the left is plushed with resources and they're able to build their version of culture in the world that you know is based with what they say. The good life is.
Kevin Love:Eric, we are building spiritually. Yes, remember that.
Eric Conn:We always tell this joke in the office, by the way, because we'll talk about money and startups and all these things, and Pastor Dan will say to me he's like Eric, our rewards are eternal.
Kevin Love:Are eternal and heavenly.
Eric Conn:Yes, which is also true. It is true, but we're also looking at scripture and we're saying, okay, we know a few things from scripture. As you've mentioned, 1 Timothy 5.8 is one of those, an excellent one.
Kevin Love:Walk me through that. Why is that important here? Yeah, so 1 Timothy 5.8, it says but if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Boom Right, ouch Right. It's interesting that this topic, this specific verse, probably doesn't specifically mean. It's not saying that you have to be super wealthy. So provision, yeah. Make sure we're not misunderstood here. We're not saying that you're in sin if you're not super wealthy, or something like that. However, think about the hindrance that you're going to have if you do not make money, cannot provide even for your own family and when I say your own family, just your wife and kids how could you then provide for your mother?
Eric Conn:How can you have something?
Kevin Love:to give. How would you have something to give? Yeah, there's actually another verse that we have, and that's in Ephesians 4, let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
Eric Conn:So it's insinuating that you ought to work in such a way that there's a surplus.
Kevin Love:There's a surplus. You're not just providing for your own needs, you're actually able to give to others as well.
Eric Conn:I also think, kevin, when you look at these verses and then you combine them with, you know we're called to be fruitful and multiply. In our camp especially, we're saying, hey, big families are a good thing. Yeah, well, there's a very real thing here where it's like, well, you need to make a lot of money. Then, if you're going to have eight or nine kids, you seriously have to think about what career, what calling can I do that is going to be somewhat lucrative. You have to be good with your money, investing all these sorts of things. The other thing I would say that Christians often miss all sit in counseling meetings for the last 10 years and people are like, yeah, there's just so much friction in our marriage, so much tension. And I say, well, when I look at your budget, friction and tension is inevitable because you can barely provide. So, of course, money is going to be a problem and I will tell the husband the thing you need to do is you need to go out and you need to make more money.
Kevin Love:But I don't want to fall in love with money.
Eric Conn:Right, yeah, that's exactly.
Kevin Love:But seriously, right, we do have that hedge as well. Yeah, or maybe that is a ditch that we can fall into. You can totally be chasing money, abandon your family, go all out in that sense and neglect your duty. However, there is the other ditch as well. There's the other ditch where you can say you know what money doesn't matter, that's not what the Bible says, that's not what God would have you understand, and we need to kind of have both of those in mind if we are to stay in the straight and narrow.
Eric Conn:Yeah, one of the other things Kevin, you're absolutely right is tied to inheritance. So this Proverbs 13-22 says a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, but the sinner's wealth is laid up for the righteous. So again, here's another surplus. To have an inheritance you have to have built up something over a lifetime, lord willing. You know, the ideal would be that you received an inheritance. Yes, you build that up and then you pass on something even better. I remember reading like in CS Lewis's biography Jack and this is kind of how Christianity thinks of inheritance today they were applauding CS Lewis because he made millions on his books. He gave away every penny, oh, wow. And when he died, I think, to his adopted son he gave like $37. That was all he had left. Yeah, he tweed jacket, yeah. And they were like what a gracious, wonderful man of God. And I was thinking like I think in that area that's actually unbiblical.
Kevin Love:Yeah, didn't Jesus say something about that? Right To the man who would actually neglect the fifth commandment to honor your father and mother because he, oh sorry, sorry, mom and dad, I donated that money to the temple.
Eric Conn:Yeah, it's Corbin I can't touch that anymore.
Kevin Love:Right, and that was the more spiritual path.
Eric Conn:And I think this is what you're getting to the point you made earlier, then we're holier than God, yeah.
Kevin Love:Wiser, wiser than.
Eric Conn:God Holy. It's like, okay, well, scripture is actually clear. Leaving an inheritance is a good thing, yeah.
Kevin Love:It says the good man, the good man, the good man leaves inheritance.
Eric Conn:The other thing that we might look at is it seems like an easy principle to overlook, but 1 Timothy 518. Walk me through that.
Kevin Love:Yeah, so 1 Timothy 518, for the scripture says you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his wages, okay, cool. So another principle that we saw in 1 Corinthians as well we're talking about pastors specifically shouldn't muzzle the ox while it treads out the grain. While the man is doing his work, he deserves to be compensated for it. It's not fair to expect work of somebody and then say you know what I'll decide for you, that you're doing that graciously, for free. Thank you.
Eric Conn:Yeah, thank you very much.
Kevin Love:That's true. It wouldn't be nice if the world worked like that.
Eric Conn:You could just force that we're Christians, so you have to give me a discount.
Kevin Love:You have to do your work for free. Well, no, we shouldn't encourage that thought, especially among brothers and sisters in the faith. You should want to support that brother or sister in their business for the good work that they're doing. Again, it's talking about the pastor. I can't remember the specific verse right now, off the cuff, but he's saying that the pastor who does a good job is worthy of like a double honor. Okay, the first one maybe by his respect in the community. The other one, financially as well. You need to provide for that pastor, someone who's laboring in the preaching, in the teaching, week after week after week. If you have never done that, by the way, it would be very hard to explain how difficult that is. When you've had to prep Sunday school and you've had to prep a sermon and you've done counseling during the week and you have all of these other, you also have a family that you need to care for. The one who does well in that is worthy of double owner.
Eric Conn:Yeah, so first Timothy 517,. Elders who do their work well should be respected and paid well, especially those who work at both preaching and teaching. I was like what is that translation? That's the NLT, oh yeah.
Kevin Love:That's literally the verse before, though right.
Eric Conn:Yeah.
Kevin Love:So that was literally the verse before what we just read. So it is saying that they're worthy of this double honor. Yeah, Okay, we don't wanna say we don't wanna say, wow, you are so good at what you do. I know that God will take care of you spiritually in this difficult time. Brother, I am sorry.
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Eric Conn:Joe starts with your values and goals, then provides impactful counsel to help you form and implement your financial plan. Click on the link in the description for Backwards Planning Financial and contact Joe today to get started. So, kevin, as you start to apply some of these things to a calling and to making money, you can also compare them to maybe some bad advice that we have talked a little bit about, but this whole follow your passion, that sort of thing. So how do you take these things Basically, how do you bring them together and you say, okay, bottom line, you need to figure out how to make money, and that's a good Christian quality thing to be thinking about.
Kevin Love:You need to as a Christian, surprise, surprise, yeah follow your passion. That was one I think we referenced in our first episode together. But that is one of those very bad pieces of advice that will land you $60,000 in debt, graduating with a degree that you cannot put to use. And you're saddled with this debt now and you have to do something with it. Right, you're gonna have to make money somehow. You're gonna have a family to provide for.
Kevin Love:You need to be mindful about these things. I mean, think about it. You know the one who says well, I don't really know what I wanna do. No, I don't wanna be a doctor, don't wanna be an engineer, so I'm not going down that path. You know what? I'm gonna follow my passion and I'm gonna get that art degree Four years, maybe I get my masters right, so you even do schooling after that. You took out debt because you weren't working during that time, obviously, and you get out on the other side and you're $60,000, $100,000 in debt and looking around now with a hard pill to swallow that says you have to pay that back, unless Lord Biden forgives it, obviously, but I've seen a lot of that, like people who've got like over $200,000 going to art and dance and theater type schools.
Eric Conn:you get out and they're like the only job you're qualified to do is like a waitress. Yeah, and you're gonna have to pay that back.
Kevin Love:That's not a good place to be yeah, every last penny again, unless it's forgiven.
Eric Conn:It's funny because I think about, yeah, as you're piecing these things together, that means parents too, like you've gotta be involved in helping your kids figure out, like, if there's an interest, there are ways to find careers that match skill sets. But one of the parts of the equation that's it's not like materialistic to say, well, how well do those people get paid? That should be part of your thinking.
Kevin Love:Yeah unless you're independently wealthy or you're supplied by some patron who says you know what, I will provide for you and your family the rest of your life. But even that, think about how quickly you can get cut. Yeah, anything could happen, right? You need to be prepared, especially men, young boys becoming men. You need to be prepared to provide for your family. Just share with others who are in need. If you are not able to care for somebody of your own household, paul says you are worse than an unbeliever. Right, money's important, so don't follow bad advice. Bad advice will land you again $60,000 in debt, crying because you have to pay that back on top of all the other stuff. You have to pay your mortgage, you have to pay a rent, whatever it is, pay all those taxes. That hurts. That hurts really bad. So don't follow that advice.
Eric Conn:Yeah. So, kevin, as we jump into maybe some of the, I guess, fundamental mindset shifts that have to take place, we start out with the first one, which I'll let you kind of tee up here. Where do you start us off?
Kevin Love:Yeah. So let's be clear, as I was thinking through this and just my own reading and past experience and everything, I recognize that this conversation is massive, oh, big time. We could talk for hours and hours and hours about this. I could recommend book after book after book, but the thing is we have to boil this down somehow. We have to kind of start somewhere. So I think what would be most useful for our listeners as you're kind of just, you know, fly on the wall listening to this conversation, in some sense, I tried to boil it down to seven fundamental mindset shifts, because you're not born with these.
Kevin Love:That's why we're calling them mindset shifts. If you are used to the hey, I started working, you know, 750 an hour at McDonald's and then now I got into a painting business. Now I made this money and you're kind of just, I don't know that's how you work through college and now you're on the other side as an engineer and I get paid this amount per hour and I get these benefits. This is for you, because we do not we oftentimes have not grown up with a father, maybe, who has walked us through these this mindset to have. So this really could be a shift for some people, depending on your background, but I think if we boil it down to these seven, it'll be helpful at least just to kind of talk through it. Yeah, perfect, okay, so let's start with number one. Number one is businesses are not all that different, especially from one trade to another, and this is what I mean when I say that. This was a huge revelation for me.
Kevin Love:A few years ago I'd been reading through a few different books Michael Gerber's, the E-Meth Revisited I don't know if you've read that before. There are two books really that are the fundamental mindset shift for a lot of people, that I've talked to a lot of people in my circles, especially in the real estate circles. It always comes back to these two books. One is Michael Gerber's, the E-Meth Revisited, and the other one is Rich Dad, poor Dad, robert Kiyosaki. Those are like the go-to. Wow, these changed my literally changed my life, because I think about money differently. Now, if you haven't read both of those, even if you just read the chapter summary book, the little purple version of Rich Dad, poor Dad, I think that's what I did at first. Those are two excellent starting points because they both address money, but from a different aspect that maybe you haven't thought about even business. The E-Meth Revisited thinks about business differently, but this is what I found through some of my reading. Businesses are not all that different, and this is what I mean. I've used this illustration even in our conversations a few different times.
Kevin Love:But think about a doctor. Okay, doctors make big money. That's why you're going to high school and they say you should become a doctor. Or do you wanna be an engineer? Because they make big money, they get good benefits. Okay, so let's talk about that.
Kevin Love:Why does a doctor make so much money? Let's just be very concrete here. Let's talk about a pediatrician who makes $250,000 a year. Does he make $250,000 a year simply because he went to medical school? The answer is no. You might've been thinking, listening to this, that the answer is yes. Well, it's because he went to medical school. It's actually a lot more complicated and simple than that. This is why he makes so much money ready, because they have built a business around him providing that value. Sure, he went to college, he got his degree and has an enormous amount of value to provide to his clients, but it's not that simple. It's because all he does is provides that value. Let's just role play this a little bit like thinking through this.
Kevin Love:Imagine if that same pediatrician. He answered the phone calls, he took all the notes. He followed up with your insurance to make sure they paid on time. He scheduled your next visit on your way out. He took the kids' weight when they showed up. He made sure it's tracking along the chart, all of that. Imagine if he did all of that. He would not make $250,000 per year. He would make more, like 100,000, 150,000, maybe right, kind of just throwing numbers out there but he wouldn't make 250,000. This is what I found out. He makes that money because they have built a business around him providing the highest level of value that that business can provide, and that's what he does. He's not allowed to do the other stuff. That's a waste of his time. $250,000 a year, that means he makes about 125 per hour. 125 per hour. He will not make that. If he's answering the phone calls, if he's being the assistant, if he's being the front desk, if he's playing the whole field, he's not going to make as much money as he could.
Eric Conn:And so what you're saying is like in a doctor's office they've really built this business to maximize the value that he provides, to free him up so that he's actually making more money. And it's funny, kevin, because, as we talked about this a lot of times, we think we have like the opposite instinct. I think this is why it's a fundamental mindset shift, because you're thinking, okay, well, I'm gonna start up, I have to do everything. Well, not necessarily, I mean, there are some points where you have to do that, but you should at least be aiming at this point where you're saying no, we have to build a business around. What is our max value?
Kevin Love:Yeah, what is the value we provide to our clients and how can we build a business around? Maybe I have the gifting to do that specific thing and so now we build a business around me doing that thing. Like it. Really is that simple in some sense. But when we try to play the field, of course you're not making as much money. I think there's actually more money to be made when you go out on your own business because you're accepting the risk. There's also high reward that could come with that if you're diligent, if you're good at what you do Really. Again, this is why sorry, I'm like sidetracking a little bit, but this is why we had to have that first conversation. What is my map? What is my calling? Not Eric's calling, not Brian's calling not Dan's calling.
Kevin Love:Where can I contribute unique value, both because of my talents but now because of my skills because our second conversation I've really committed to becoming the absolute best at what I do. I provide a tremendous amount of value through my vocation to my people, to my clients, and you get paid for that right. Here's what you don't wanna do, you don't wanna say. Here's where I provide all my value. Now let me do everything else that anybody else could do. Right, think about it.
Kevin Love:Think about the plumber Again, just making this really concrete for everyone. Think about the plumber who's just so good at what he does. Should he be the guy doing scheduling that he's really not good at? Like, let's be completely honest, he's not good at. He shouldn't be doing the scheduling. He shouldn't be doing the invoicing. There are a lot of things in his business he is not cut out for. But can he turn that wrench? Oh yeah, he can, he's very good at it.
Kevin Love:Or, alternatively, maybe you're thinking about your map and you say, hey, I'll be honest, I'm actually not good at being a plumber or anything like that. I'm a sales guy. I'm just really good with people. I like being around people. I think I can put on a convincing presentation where I'm demonstrating my value, but I don't think I should be the plumber guy. I should partner with the plumber guy. I should be the guy who does his sales because he sucks at it. I'll be that guy. He is the plumber guy and now we're both providing to our company the maximum value and because of that, we're providing, as a company, the maximum value to our clients and we get paid for it.
Eric Conn:Yeah, so it also seems like, kevin, there's a number of ways that you could set up your business in a way that is gonna work. Yeah, right, there's not like one, no way. Like the doctor is one. Yeah. What are some other examples of how you could set things up?
Kevin Love:Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because there really is a whole spectrum that you could go through and oftentimes remember, if you're starting out your own business, you're gonna start small. Yeah, and you are playing the field and that's okay. Right, this what we'll see in some of our later principles or mindset shifts. This is a process. This isn't gonna be done overnight. So it's okay to start small, where you're playing the field, and organically work your way. Remember we were talking about the start stop list or the excite drain list. You could do that process and, over time, step further and further and further into what you are just totally gifted in. And maybe you did start playing the field, and that's okay. So it would kind of look like this First you could be a one man team. You're doing everything. After that maybe you hire an assistant. You could hire either a transaction coordinator A lot of people might not be familiar with that, it's more common in real estate, but I think it should be more common in other trades as well but maybe one man with an assistant. Then maybe you have a team lead, like me, maybe I'd be the team lead, and then I have a crew and we all work together and an assistant. Or maybe you have a CEO with multiple crews overseeing, kind of all those. Or you have a COO who pairs with the CEO right, we're talking about Rocket Fuel, the other book, gina Wickman A CEO and a COO who are gifted in their various areas ones an integrator, ones a visionary they come together now and they rocket fuel, right, their business takes off.
Kevin Love:Or you have a business owner who just hires a CEO, right he? Maybe he says hey, I'm stepping out of this CEO COO, he just hires them. Or here's another one that we actually have even in our own church is a guy who says you know what? I think where I provide value is actually getting the clients, and then I am going to pay other independent contractors, I'm gonna sub out this work, so I get it at a certain value.
Kevin Love:And then I go to my subcontractors and say, hey, you want this job, this is how much you would get paid. They say yes, and then you take a little bit off the top, right? I mean, this is basically what a GC does. Oh, that is what a GC does, totally yeah, and they're overseeing the whole show, they're responsible for it at the end of the day and, yeah, they take their cut, whatever percentage off the top is kind of how they bill. So there are so many different ways that you could go about this, but again it goes back to that first mindset shift is that this could be your business too. You could be the doctor of your business if you're mindful about it, if you grow this organically, if you apply your excite versus drain, your stop versus start, and you systematically, over time as you're growing your business, step into where you want to be.
Eric Conn:Yeah, I think that's a great point. So, Kevin, you take all that. How would you then connect that to your map?
Kevin Love:Yeah, that's a good question. So again, this is why these conversations build, because, to be completely honest, not everyone is cut out to be the CEO of their company. That's kind of a brutal truth. But one thing I found in secular business literature is they almost talk as if everyone should be following that path where they eventually are the CEO, owner of their company. And if we're just leveling with one another right now, that's not true. Not everyone is cut out to be the CEO.
Eric Conn:And I would even say I would probably even go further, like most people aren't.
Kevin Love:No, you need somebody who can drive that ship. You need a specific skill set.
Eric Conn:Yes, you know.
Kevin Love:And so you need to be okay. If you're the guy who kind of started this business and you're growing it, just be mindful of that. You might have to fire yourself one day and hire somebody else who's way better, who can take the company further than you would have. Maybe you step back into the COO function, right? Okay, again tangent.
Kevin Love:We were just reading Plutarch this last term and we were reading through Aristides, the life of the Aristides, and it was really interesting. He was Aristides the just right. He was. He would literally lose money rather than gain money by deceit, like that's what he was known for, aristides the just. Anyways, when they came together and they were in the Persian Wars, he had another commander, pausanias, and he was from the Spartans and there was a lot of budding heads at first and you know what Aristides ended up doing. He said you know what Pausanias, run the show, you're gonna do a great job, I'll be your right hand man. And they were wonderful together. They were great together because Aristides recognized I probably shouldn't be the guy up front and that's okay, cause I'm gonna be a lot more effective as his right hand man. Eventually he ended up taking his place, cause Pausanias kind of messed things up and frustrated a lot of people, but that recognition that could be you right as a business owner, where you say, hey, maybe I shouldn't be at the helm, that's okay.
Eric Conn:Well, and another thing that I've found out. You know, one of the problems is if you're a CEO type. In a lot of businesses I had been in that position fundamentally, whether it was editor-in-chief or CEO, because you work your way up, meaning you know how to do all the jobs from top to bottom. But then the problem becomes Do you do all the jobs? Yeah, that you do all the jobs. And then your great discipline, that you have to discipline yourself is to say, okay, leading the organization is not the same thing as doing all the tasks. It's this sort of working in versus on, yeah, which is Gerber, that's Gerber.
Eric Conn:Yeah, working in your business, or, sorry, working on your business, not in your business, if you're in it, if you're down in the weeds every day, if you're down in the trenches a lot of times, you miss the big picture vision you do.
Kevin Love:Yeah, and with this, maybe just to close out this, this first mindset shift, I wanna give a few book recommendations, just cause I think these are excellent, really helpful as you're thinking through this, and it has a common thread. There's a thread that goes through all three of these. The first one is a book that I might have mentioned last time, who it's called, who Blue and white. Cover Smart is the author of that one. His dad is the one who did top grading. But again, this is like in a more condensed version, he says that you want to hire the specialist, not the generalist. The generalist can kind of play the field. It's the specialist, though, that you wanna like.
Kevin Love:Let's take the CEO. Once you recognize talents versus skills, you begin hiring for talents. And now you want a CEO who has CEO talent. You can teach him the skills, maybe right If you're willing to work with him, if he's willing to grow, if it's the right guy. But that book is excellent as far as like hiring the different chess pieces that you need to have a thriving business. That's the first one. The second one we've mentioned is Good to Great, so Jim Collins. On that one, he says get the right people on the bus first and then find them the seat. That's a really interesting concept, because if you can find really great people and you understand talents versus skills, you can look at their talents and then you can start well, hey, I think you'd probably be the best fit for this job. I think you talked about that with a previous employer as well.
Eric Conn:Yeah, and I think that it tends to work better if your organization is somewhat large, like if you have a lot of hiring capital for example when you're a small business and you're like, okay, I can hire one person, you can't quite follow that, you don't have that flexibility.
Kevin Love:No, that's an excellent point. So that's Jim Collins, good to Great. The third one is first, break all the rules, and that was one where I read Appendix C I think it was last time just to give a few examples of talents versus skills. He says that the manager, as opposed to the leader the manager sees diversity and understands how it contributes to the whole. So if you wanna read that book, that's really helpful as far as kind of getting more in this mindset of like you might not be the best fit to be the CEO, and that's okay, right.
Kevin Love:But you can see a common thread in all three of these. They recognize that you hire for talents. You don't even hire for skills. Hiring for skills is expensive because you're asking somebody to come in with everything already dialed in. That's really expensive, that's really hard to do. But if you can hire for talents and you can train skills, then you could recognize okay, this is probably your best place in our organization. This is where I want you. You're a man of high character. You're gonna add to this company. I can tell already this I think would be the best fit for you. And then you try them out and if they suck, you put in a different spot or fire them. There's always that.
Eric Conn:There is always that. Yes, that's part of the job, Kevin. As we move on now to the fundamental shift, number two, we're gonna be talking about understanding risk. Why is this an important thing? To have a mindset shift on.
Kevin Love:Especially when it comes to business, right, especially when it comes to business, because we do have conversations, right, understand risk and your boys and all of that stuff Very fundamental even for this conversation. But as it pertains to business, risk is very important to understand because it really plays back into that principle of high risk, high reward. When you make an investment maybe it's a certain stock or something you would kind of start speaking this language. Well, this is really high risk, but it's high reward as well, right, same thing with business. Business is high risk.
Kevin Love:Let's take the man who has three kids and he has a wife. He needs to feed and clothe and house and all of that and he says I wanna get into this business venture. Okay, cool, but recognize it's high risk. Yes, you could make more money than your desk job, whatever you're doing before. You could make more money if there's value that you're actually providing to your clients and you could sell all that kind of stuff. But it's high risk, high reward.
Kevin Love:What an employer does and this is where I don't know if you wanna say it's that the boomer mindset or whatever it is but we get locked into this where we're giving advice to our high school boys, especially where we're saying you know what you need to do with your life. You need to go find a very secure job, the pay will be decent, but you're going for security, that's what you need. And it's emasculating in some sense where the boys are like I wanted to go do something great with my life, I wanted to go be challenged and I'm gonna go sit at a desk for the next 40 years and not get challenged.
Eric Conn:Yeah, and a lot of the trade off is menial work. Yeah, like you're trading menial work for security, so you'll be secure, but a lot of the stuff that is risky and dangerous. That's where you're like, but that's actually the thing I wanted to do.
Kevin Love:Well, and if you zoom out a little bit, you gotta recognize that the only reason they're hiring you is because they can make money off of you. I mean, let's just make it very simple they are hiring you because, with the pay they're giving you and the benefits they're giving you, they took on the high risk, high reward. But now they're in such a point with their business the risk does go down over time. You have an established clientele. You have right. Like business, risk actually does go down after you're out of that startup space.
Kevin Love:Your startups are so risky yes, very risky, but once you get out of that stage, you don't have the risk as much. Now you're hiring other people where you're telling them hey, come work for me, low risk. You don't say low reward, but that really is the truth Low risk, come work with me also. Low reward, but low risk. And that's what's appealing for a lot of people.
Eric Conn:And I think a lot of people have kind of figured out as we've talked about these head conversations. They're like if you're doing it for somebody else and you're really good, you can probably make more money doing it for yourself.
Kevin Love:Yes, Can, can, can, can. It takes time to build that up too.
Eric Conn:It does like in. You know, chris Wiley's talked about it, I've talked about it. I worked for a long time in corporate America and I realized I'm gonna have to build it's basically apprenticeship while getting paid, but I'm gonna have to spend 10 years building a skill set yeah, where I do have to work for somebody else yeah. But the mindset was always, you know, I wanna eventually be able to do this for myself, even though I knew it was gonna take a long time, which is fine. But I also think part of it is a lot of people ask like, why is my ceiling so low? Yeah, and not realize why that is.
Kevin Love:Yes, yeah, it's because they're making money off of you and at a certain point it's not really worth their money or their time. So you come in and you're saying, wow, look, I started at $30 an hour. This is gonna be great, I'm gonna get my pay raise and all of that. And then the next pay raise comes around and, hey, we're gonna do you a solid 30, 25.
Eric Conn:We're gonna knock you up, we're gonna put you up to $31 an hour.
Kevin Love:What do you think? Do you accept? Yeah right, like thanks, I guess I'll take my wife out to McDonald's for dinner to celebrate. Yeah, cause you run into that issue that your ceiling is so low. You walk in the door of those businesses and you're already hitting your head on the ceiling and a lot of times I've worked in businesses.
Eric Conn:we've seen this all the time where it's like, even if your sales tends to have high commission, some big deals, depending on your business, but I've heard guys say this to me like, okay, I sold almost $4 million with the product this year, I got like a 3%. And then you're looking at that and you're like, wait a minute, compared to what I brought the company, I didn't get very much Okay.
Kevin Love:So sales is a perfect example too, because, especially if you're purely commission based, it is almost no risk to your employer and very high reward, Because if you don't bring in any money, well they don't have to pay commission.
Kevin Love:That's okay. They don't have to pay you. They weren't paying you per hour, but if you do bring in money, they're clearly making way more off of you. I think Jim Rohn was. There's some video I saw recently where he was saying that. He said your economics, or our economics in general, are determined by how much value you provide to the marketplace.
Kevin Love:So think about this is there a way that you, if you were maybe working for somebody else, if you made them $2,500,000 as a company, would they pay you $250,000 a year? They totally would. No, they totally would. If you were only getting paid $250,000 and you made them $2,500,000, you're totally worth $250,000 to them. Right, it's all about how much value you provide then to the marketplace.
Kevin Love:But that's what an employer is able to do, because they took the risk on themselves. They built the business up, they're hiring you in and you're sealing. Right, you really do have this sealing that you're bumping up against because they have to take a margin on top of that. But when you own the business, you don't have that margin. Right, you might be hiring other people and having this consideration too, and especially if you hire Christians, remember you need to pay them. Well, don't forget that Again. That's this whole conversation too, because not everyone's meant to be the CEO, not everyone's meant to be the business owner. Some people are meant to answer the phone calls. Maybe that's what they're gifted at. Pay them well.
Eric Conn:It's also interesting reading Thomas Sowell talking about economics. So there's two things in play here. One is that when you start a business, you're assuming all the risk, which is why you receive such a substantial reward in that. But it's also part of the risk is also I don't remember what the percentages are here but, like most businesses, fail.
Kevin Love:Yeah, I think it's about 50,. I've heard two different numbers. I've heard 80% in the first five years, but the more common one, as I was looking it up, I think it's 50% in the first five years.
Eric Conn:There's a lot of risk.
Kevin Love:Every one out of two businesses are going to fail in the first five years. It's risky.
Eric Conn:And there's another one in the podcast we're doing with Lucas from T-Rex Arms. It's a very small percentage of companies that make it past 10 years, oh yeah, so longevity the further out you get, the likelihood of stability increases, right.
Kevin Love:Yeah, well, no, it does. So. If, given enough time again, you get settled, you can hire talent because you have the income coming in, so a lot of that helps. I will say, though, even the startup cycle, though you have the startup at first, and then you have these dips, kind of as you're going up. There's another book about this. It's called Scaling Up. It has a little purple cover with like a little green thing going through. Vern Harnesh is the author of that one, and he talks you through this whole.
Kevin Love:It's a bumpy road. It's definitely a bumpy road, and there are different skill sets that you need at different stages. If you're a one man show, it's different from if you get your first assistant, and that's different from when you have your first crew, and that's different from when you have 10 people in your company versus 100 versus 1,000, very different along the way and you have to be able to grow with that and manage that growth. That's an excellent book for that, by the way, but we really just keep coming back to this idea that it's high risk, high reward, low risk, low reward. If you go into the business and you're hitting your head against the ceiling when you walk in the front door. You should maybe reconsider, just think through. Is this the right fit for you? Is there a way that you, as a man, having to provide for a wife and kids, especially that you could maybe go out on your own and again do this organically? Don't jump ship. We keep warning against that. I think that's a really relevant warning.
Eric Conn:Yeah, I think that's really good. One of the other things, Kevin, if you're, you know, maybe you're one of the guys in the church who has money, maybe you're a parent who has money they can also assist in a lot of the startup process.
Kevin Love:Oh yeah, if you have definitely if you have an investor, I think the most practical one really is just your parents. So if you are fortunate enough to be a parent listening to this before your young boy goes out, leaves the nest, think about this and I gave this encouragement even in the first podcast we did together but think about how much you can actually minimize that risk for your son.
Eric Conn:And it doesn't mean that you have to go dump $2 million into a project.
Kevin Love:Oh, no, you don't even have to give any money. Yeah Well, honestly, think about this. You don't have to give any money, but give him the fallback. Maybe he is living in the basement for a few years while his other friends are in college and he's really hitting this hard, building up a plumbing business, a painting business or whatever it is, learning the skills he's identified, the talents. You've helped him through this process. But now you are giving him hey, you can stay in the room downstairs, I'll let you stay for three years. That's what I'm giving you Three years covered.
Kevin Love:Think about what that does for him, just even for his psyche. There's a bad sense in which that could be. Well, I can float now. Or if you have somebody that you're actually training to be really intentional at this time, you've almost eliminated risk for him. What if he goes out, crashes and burns? It's fine, oh, ok, he's fine, he'll pick it up. He's back home, right? It's not like he had to go out and was paying $2,000 in rent every month and putting everything on his credit cards and then he burns. That would suck, that would be really bad.
Kevin Love:But if he's at home, if he's under your shelter for some time, as he is going out and taking on a lot of risk on himself. Yeah, this doesn't have to be multimillion dollars. That's not what we're talking about. We're saying somebody who's going to go out there, hit it hard, work really hard, get the skills that he needs and actually build this business around himself. You've helped him through that startup phase that people were having to, during the startup phase, pull money out of the business to pay for their mortgage. That's way harder to do. So if you're a parent who's thinking through this, that could be a very valuable thing. Don't let them coast. But if you could recognize this as you shifting some of the risk so that he doesn't have to take it purely on himself. Now you have low risk, high reward still. Yeah, he still has the reward dangling there that he could go for.
Eric Conn:At least that risk is mitigated quite a bit. Yeah, yeah, I think that's great, kevin. It brings us to the next point on our list. Which man was a huge shift in my thinking, which was getting away from the hourly mindset?
Kevin Love:Yeah, so, number three, focus on getting paid for the value you bring, not the hours you put in. I will tell you, this is hard to do.
Eric Conn:Well, I especially noticed it when I shifted to 1099 work as opposed to W2 when I was working as a contractor, because I started realizing, wait a minute, I can get this job done in two hours or eight and I'm going to get paid for the finished product. Yeah Well, there was actually a lot of incentive for me. It was like, well, just get it done and then you can go do something else.
Kevin Love:You're going to be more efficient with your time.
Eric Conn:It was much more freeing than other jobs that I'd worked in the past. It's like I'd finish a project and they'd be like well, you're here for eight hours, so you're here, no matter what. I guess you better find something else to do.
Kevin Love:I'm kind of appealing to the lazy bum. Yes, to be honest, it says, hey, as long as you're here and you punch the clock, you're going to get paid.
Eric Conn:But this even goes to something and I want you to unpack this point. But Joel Salatin said this about children. He said, yeah, I would have my kids collect eggs and I would pay them for it. And he goes I never, ever, ever tell my kids hey, you have to collect eggs for two hours. He said I pay per finished egg and he said it's amazing, because they get more done, they don't break any eggs and they're much more efficient at it. Then if you said, hey, you just have to do this for two hours.
Kevin Love:Well, it unlocks your creativity as well, because, yeah, if you're fairly driven and you don't want to waste your life and you say, well, I could just sit here all day and do this slowly and complain all day, or I could figure out how to do this faster and more efficiently. It brings up a thought that I've heard before. There's a guy who I think he was a waiter or something like that, and what he ended up doing is he would pay the bus boys to do a portion of his work and he would give them a share of the tips and it allowed him to cover way more tables. Oh smart, then he would have been able to otherwise. So again, going back to that idea of him providing his unique value to more and more clients, he was able to do that paid them like they got like half half. Basically, for every extra table I get to take, you get half of that. So it's a win-win for everyone. And he was like paying these bus boys and he was just doing way more money, but he's making more money.
Kevin Love:Yes, because instead of just going by the hour, he's thinking about how much value he provides and then tries to provide that to more people. Right, so he's already benefiting from it. But if you can take this fundamental mindset, shift away from the hours that you put in and more towards the value that you present to your clients or to the company or whatever it is, however you're looking at it, this will be so helpful for you in getting you to think creatively, getting you to think about passive income. Even, but especially for those who have just been locked into this hourly mindset for a long time, it's going to be hard to break out of it.
Eric Conn:And it'll kind of lead into the next point. But it sort of ties into the hedgehog principle in the sense that it's focusing you to essentially look at your job and what you do, your calling and sort of whether you have a formal one or not, but a P&L statement, profit and loss and you're looking at that sucker and you're saying, ok, where's the actual monetary value in what I'm doing? Because a lot of times, kevin, I've done things and it's like OK with the publishing. It's like OK, we're going to do this style of book. And you do it, you invest the hours, you start adding everything up and you look at your returns and you're like this is not profitable. If you look at how, much.
Kevin Love:You have to play the numbers game.
Eric Conn:Yeah, but other times and I think this is what we're kind of getting at is what are the things that you do that bring the most value and then in the marketplace you're going to see that economically we want to maximize the efforts that we put toward those things, Because that's going to better returns and maybe tying something together that we didn't quite pull out of our second conversation but now it's appropriate to bring out, is in conversation number two.
Kevin Love:We're trying to maximize the value Because you're identifying your talents and adding the skills Over time. You need to get better and better and better and add more and more and more value to your clients, to your clientele. Well, think about it now when you're adding more value, what does that mean? That means you're going to be making more money too. Think about it Just very practically. If I'm way better at what I do than anybody else, I'm going to get paid for it. Like that's how this works, right? So if you think about value and maybe it's good to clarify even what I'm talking about when I say value when I say value, I mean what is x, y or z, this thing, this service, what is this worth to me right now with my present understanding and we'll come back to why the present understanding is important, as it plays into sales too and talking that up but think about the man who buys a bottle of water. He pays, if he buys in a big pack, $25 a piece. If he buys it just from somebody, maybe like a dollar or $1.50 in one of those machines. But think about the man who is traveling in Cambodia and just wants clean, pure water. Is it worth $1.50 to him? Probably more. To be completely honest, it's probably worth more than $1.50 to him at that moment Its value is higher than $1.50. So don't confuse value and price. Value is actually going to be relative to the person in their present moment with their present understanding In your market yeah, in your market. So if you're thinking about when you're providing value to somebody else, you're thinking about how is this going to help them in such a way that they say I am willing to pay this price for this value If they are getting more value out of it than the price they're giving away.
Kevin Love:Let's say you're doing a painting job $5,000 for the job and they say you know what? Absolutely not. I would never paint this house. I just don't have the time, I don't have the tools, I don't have the resources. I would get frustrated and yell at my kids and my cat. You know what I mean. It's worth $5,000 to them, value-wise. But maybe to a painter like my dad growing up, he might say I'm not going to pay somebody else $5,000 to paint my house, because I could paint it myself and I could do it way better, anyways. So when we're talking about value in conversation number two, increasing the value that we provide to other people you have to link that to now the economic driver. I'm trying to make money. I'm not ashamed of that. I'm trying to make money for the good work that I'm doing for other people. Ok, well, I want to get better and better and better at the value that I'm providing. No-transcript, a price is going to go with that. You're going to get paid better for it too. Yeah.
Eric Conn:I think that's a great point. As I said, ties to number four and you're talking about scaling the ladder to higher and higher dollar productive activities, so this seems to make quite a bit of sense. What are the things you are going to make the most money doing, which hopefully reflects the value in the marketplace? To some extent it does closely, and then you want to do more of that.
Kevin Love:Yeah. So it goes back to number one, and he said that businesses are really not all that different. The reason the doctor makes so much money is because he is doing the highest dollar productive activity. This is just another way of saying he is providing the most value for the time that he puts in. So instead of answering the phone, instead of writing up the emails, all that kind of stuff, he trains to be really good at being a doctor and that he provides that value In every business. You actually have these. You have a whole scale.
Kevin Love:So let's take painter the painter. He again has to do a lot of the same things. He has to go out and bid. He has to have some email correspondence or a phone or whatever. It is where he says, okay, we accept your bid, or they accept the bid. Okay, we're going to be there on this day at this time. It's going to take us this long. This is how we do business. This is how you pay afterwards. There's going to be that conversation, right. There's going to be the actual doing of the business. There's going to be the collecting of the invoice afterwards. I mean, there are all these things that he could be doing, but where does he provide the most value?
Kevin Love:Well, and people could argue back on this there's actually two places. The first one is the doing of the job. The second one is actually getting more jobs. So there's kind of two ways you could look at that. But in every business there are higher or lower dollar productive activities.
Kevin Love:Again, making this very concrete when you go out to bid a job in painting, let's say you make $250 per hour, because that's actually not unreasonable to say $250 per hour that you are out bidding jobs. You might not get all those jobs, but for the time that you put in that turns into elsewhere $250 times however many hours you put in. But if you are on the phone or you're being the assistant or something like that, maybe it's $20 an hour. So if you could think about this very practically. Okay, let me take a step back. Is it possible for me to spend more time doing the higher dollar productive activities and less time doing the other ones, because I just pay somebody else to do it? Absolutely the same thing that we talked about in the doctor's office. You can pay somebody to do the $20 per hour activities and you can focus your time, your efforts, on the higher and higher and higher dollar productive activities.
Eric Conn:Yeah, it is a huge, especially as you go through your career. I think you start to realize, like, even if you work at the bottom in a company, you're looking at the task, and that's what I would tell young guys who are new in a profession or field. Look around the job site who's driving off and which vehicles and how did they get there. And a lot of times it really actually is tied to which work is highest yield.
Kevin Love:Yeah, when we've talked about that really practical test case, if you can't really think through this well or you're getting kind of confused on which tasks do I kind of sub out or pay to somebody else and which tasks do I keep for myself, this is a really helpful tool, I think. If you make $50,000 a year, you cut that 50 and a half 25. That means you make about $25 an hour. Okay, again, this is like an average, but $25 an hour will get you about $50,000 a year. So think about that. If that's what you make, then anything less than $25 per hour you should pay somebody else to do, because, if you think about it, that 25 is an average because you're playing the field.
Kevin Love:If you can pay somebody else to do the $15, the $20 an hour activities and be wise now with your time and spend it on your $40, $50, $100 per hour activities, you, on average now your average time spent, you're going to make more money per hour. So maybe now you've bumped yourself up to $60 per hour on average because you paid somebody else for the other stuff. You're not doing 25 anymore. Now you're doing 60. And once you get to 60, now that's your new average, and so anything under 60, if you can. Again, you have to have the business coming in to be able to do this. You have to grow organically. But now you pay somebody to do everything under 60. And that bumped you back up even higher to now you're making $80 per hour. That's something just very practically. If you're looking at all of your activities, it's a helpful test case, I think, in thinking through what should I or what shouldn't I be doing?
Eric Conn:When you see this a lot with scale for guys who are unwilling to do that, you generally your company, won't grow and scale up. I've seen this in construction where it's like maybe you're the guy at the top but you kind of do everything. You sort of refuse to hire people, you're happy with what happens whatever. Maybe you're a $500,000 a year company at that point Until you're willing to scale and delegate and have pretty clear divisional labor. Once you get those things, that's when you're a two, 10, $20 million a year company. But you almost never see companies that are like that generally, where it's just one guy who tries to do everything. It's much harder to because you don't have these breakdowns and pay our tasks.
Kevin Love:Yeah, let's be completely honest too. Us talking about this again fairly simple, landing this in practice much harder oh, big time, right. So when we're saying it, even as we're saying it like this, we recognize we're saying simple, not easy, yes, and that's okay. We recognize. If you can have this mindset shift and apply this day after day after day in your business, this should give you the tools to be able to step back over time and start making your strategic decisions If you have a direction that you're going because you have this mindset shift. Now you know what you're aiming at, which also means you know what not to aim at, how not to spend your time.
Kevin Love:If you wanted to go for the holy grail kind of in the business world, you would be shooting for that target of passive income, which is where you grow and grow and grow in your business, higher and higher and higher dollar productive activities, to the point that you reach actually passive income. And that's where I put in zero hours now and I still get a financial return. That's kind of what a lot of people, especially in the business world, are aiming at. I'm not talking about retirement necessarily. I'm just saying that on the side, even you would have passive income. That comes in because you set up an asset, and a business is an asset, not just real estate. A business is an asset, can be an asset, at least where it's going to bring in passive income for you. If you have gone up this scale up this ladder and fired yourself a few different times, yeah, it's really helpful.
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Kevin Love:I kind of mentioned this before, actually, but we have to separate in our minds number five, separate lead generation from the doing of the business. So lead generation is you bringing in more customers, more clients, more business, and then you have the doing of the business. You almost in your mind, you kind of have to keep these separate or else you run into this problem and again, this is what everybody does. So if you hear me saying this and you're like that's me, so is everybody else. Okay, so this doesn't feel too bad, but we need to work on this. It's too easy, once you have business coming in, to get so focused on taking care of that business, which is good, it's an important thing. But you, as the CEO, wearing that CEO cap or the visionary cap or the business owner cap, whatever you want to call this if you get so focused on the doing of the business, eventually you might have business dry up or you're not going to grow to the, to your full potential, where you could have been focused on growing this business instead of simply just doing it. Maybe you need to pay somebody else to help you do the business, to take care of the clients, but you need to go get more clients. So a fundamental mindset shift, especially if you've grown up in the W2 world where, hey, you punch the clock, you get paid the money. If you've grown up in that world, you need and you're stepping out of that for the first time you're already needing to separate this in your mind. It's not, it won't be good enough for your potential to simply do the business. You also need to be focused on growing the business, and the way you grow the business is you get more clients and there's a lot that you can do kind of on that front. But but it really is. It's too easy to get caught up in the doing. So I really wanted to say that upfront and maybe to build off of a conversation that we had last time. Remember we said in our second conversation that this really comes down to your character and your competence, your character and your competence. Do I like you? Can I trust you? Okay, character and then competence. Are you the best at what you do? Or am I knowledgeably having to lower my expectations and settle to work with you? Okay, character and competence. You need to work on this right. But there's a third one too that I didn't mention last time you have character, you have competence, but you also have communication and this is going to play into what we were talking about before and how I kind of defined value. Again, with your present understanding. What is this worth to me with my present understanding?
Kevin Love:Because when you own a business let's say you're painting a big part of what you do is going to be sales. When you're getting more clients and maybe you're going out for a bid and you're trying to, it's one thing to go out for a bid, rip off your piece of paper and say $5,000. Do you want to do it or not? There's a very big difference between that and preemptively talking through with your potential client with this prospect about what you guys do in the business, how you take care of your clients. How many bad experiences you've heard about about not business owners homeowners doing this on their own and just like whack jobs coming out because they're settling for the lowest price. You're preemptively answering a lot of objections that they already have in their mind.
Kevin Love:You are, through your communication, actually helping you get more clients. So if character and competence answered the are you gonna be good at what you do? Am I gonna work with you in the first place? Now, when we talk about communication, we're saying getting more clients, more people that you can add this value to that, you can actually help. So it really comes back to that you have character, you have competence and communication. You can't just focus on the doing of the business. You need to also focus on the lead generation getting more leads, getting more business to grow organically.
Eric Conn:Yeah, and I think that's one reason it seems cliche when you look at company structures, but like they were actually smart to have, you know, an operations department and a marketing department. Sales and marketing sometimes different, but you know it really is like, well, you need the people who are focused exclusively, in some sense, on the execution of the business. Yeah, but a lot of times what I would hear from companies is like, well, we have enough business right now, so we don't need to focus on lead generation. And you're like, well, but you're not really thinking about the future, because those things can dry up pretty quickly and I think a lot of people who are really focused on the operation side, they love doing the actual work. I've often fallen into the mistake of this where I've said my work should speak for itself.
Kevin Love:Yeah, and there is a sense in which that's true. Right, you know, repeat and referral customers, that's what you want, period. But at the same time, there's another sense in which you're cultivating those relationships. You don't just let those dry out on the vine. Yes, you should do an excellent job, agreed, you should let your work speak for itself, agreed. However, you want to cultivate. If you're focused on repeating referral, you also need to cultivate those relationships so that they bring in more leads. Yes, Right, so that they're saying hey, Eric's the guy. If you need painting done, you're gonna pay for it, let's be completely honest. But it is so worth it because of the work that he does for you. Right, you need that, but you need to cultivate those relationships. So you have to focus on that lead generation, not just the doing of the business.
Eric Conn:Yeah, and it seems like I think you mentioned this earlier was it Gerber's work on this concept that a lot of people had brought up to me. We had some business consulting done, which is where I learned about rocket fuel, but it was really helpful because the guy was talking about yeah, it's different to be working in versus on your business, and particularly if you're in the COO role, you know you may be, hey, maybe you're more the in guy, but the CEO hey, you're kind of more on, you're working on the business. Some of those roles are gonna vary and you kind of have to do both, but basically you don't want to get so caught in the weeds that you miss the big picture.
Kevin Love:Yeah, you need some kind of emotional distance, almost from your business so that you can step back. This is why a lot of the best thinkers, the best CEOs, the best managers of companies will actually take time away, where they'll go for a week. I can't remember who it was, if it was Steve.
Eric Conn:Jobs, bill Gates did that.
Kevin Love:Like people do this, where they go out for a week no cell phone communication, right, like just to think. Think week, right, like that is what I'm doing during this time because I am kind of wrapped up in my business. Let's be honest you're the captain of the ship, right? You're there, you're giving orders, you're receiving, you're receiving information, all of this. And so one helpful strategy is to take a day, take a week, take a few days, whatever it is, to step back from your business so that you can work on it and not just in it. But again, lead generation is a big part of that Working on your business to let it grow, grow organically.
Eric Conn:Yeah, super helpful, Kevin. The next one that we've got to talk about is lead versus lag measures. That doesn't explain itself.
Kevin Love:I was gonna say have you heard of that before? I have.
Eric Conn:Lead versus lag.
Kevin Love:Okay. So lead measures versus lag measures I got this first and I'm not sure if he's the first guy who said it, but the four disciplines of execution I think it's Chris McChesney, but he talked about this idea lead measures versus lag measures. In other words and I'll come back to this in a second lead measures. You need to focus on lead measures. Lead measures are the things that are going to move the needle for whatever you're trying to do. Here's the example, and I think it illustrates the point really well. Okay, you're trying to lose weight. If you were to say you know what? I'm sitting at 200 pounds, I wanna get back down to 175. Okay, starting today. I wrote that down and I'll check in again next week. Okay, cool, so I hop on the scale next Saturday, whatever it is, and you recognize nothing too.
Eric Conn:I'm actually 202 pounds now if went up, yeah it actually went up.
Kevin Love:And so you start to think, well, what can I do to change this? When you look at a lag measure, a lag measure is something like the weight on the scale. It is fundamentally a rear view mirror kind of picture you can't really do anything about it at that point.
Kevin Love:It's well, that's where I am. And even if you were to take your weight every day during the week, what are you making adjustments on? All you've given was the final product of well, now I'm 202 pounds, but I haven't really done anything about it, so that's a lag measure. The lead measure is the thing that's going to move the needle, or at least very reasonably, will be the thing to move the needle on the lag measure. So in this case, the obvious one would be I'm counting calories. So I'm looking at my diet. What am I doing for my diet? And I'm exercising. Well, now, during the week, I can say I'm gonna exercise five days a week for 30 minutes each of those five days and I'm going to restrict myself to 2000 or less calories. I'm just gonna make it really concrete. That's what we're gonna do. And then now I hop on the scale and I hit 202. I don't look at my 202 and say, well, what can I do about that? I look at my. Did I do my lead measures? Did I actually do those five days a week and did I stay under my calorie count? If I didn't do that, then I need to change my lead measures. That's what I'm focusing on who cares about the lag measure, in some sense, because you need to put all of your effort behind lead measures. Okay, let's make the translation now.
Kevin Love:If you were to say I wanna grow my business, maybe you actually said that to me. You said, hey, my business is flagging and I've been trying to do this repeat and referral thing. It just seems like, again, they're drying out on the vine. I don't know what's going on and I said, okay. So how many phone calls have you made this week and you said zero, because I want my work to speak for itself. Well then, that's where you're gonna focus. How many thank you cards have you written? How many phone calls have you made? How many business relationships have you cultivated, not just your clients, but business relationships, business to business? How many of those have you cultivated to grow your business?
Kevin Love:If you say zero and then keep getting frustrated that your business is flagging or that it's not growing like you totally thought it would, like everyone said it'd be super easy, right Again, danger of this conversation. It's not. It's simple, it's not easy. Are you doing the work? Are you focusing on the lead measures? That's a fundamental mindset shift. Get away from the lag measures focus on the lead measures.
Eric Conn:Yeah, and a really helpful book that I've read on this Atomic Habits, james Clear. He kinda talks about how, like your goals even can be overrated in the sense that unless your goals take you to a place where you're changing your lead measures, fundamentally it doesn't matter. And on the flip side, james will talk about football coaches who said I don't even care about focusing on the end result, let's just, nick Savin, let's focus on the process. If we get the process right, we take care of everything. In practice, we're prepared for the game. Lo and behold, we're a winning team.
Kevin Love:The game takes care of itself right, it's kinda that mindset. Yeah, you have to focus on the lead measures. Are you actually putting your weight behind? That's funny. That wasn't a pun on purpose, but are you actually putting your weight behind the lead measures? That will very likely reasonably affect the lag measures. If you are, then that's where your focus needs to be lead measures, not lag measures. Yeah, really good point.
Eric Conn:Kevin, we're gonna wrap up with number seven millionaires. I wanna talk about millionaires because that's what we all wanna be. That's what we wanna be so.
Kevin Love:Number seven is really kind of a throw-in here. I was thinking about at the end and I put and I took this from another guy I follow on Instagram I can't remember his name now, but millionaires start or end up in real estate.
Eric Conn:I don't wanna say period afterwards.
Kevin Love:But that's almost how I feel about it, cause I know there are exceptions, but millionaires start or end up in real estate. So what I mean by that is somebody might start real estate investing and then eventually they're millionaires cause they have so many assets and their net worth is actually a million plus.
Eric Conn:Okay, See, I thought you were gonna say millionaires start or end up in Bitcoin or Bitcoin it is.
Kevin Love:It's all about Bitcoin. It's all about.
Eric Conn:Bitcoin.
Kevin Love:But millionaires start or end up in real estate. So it's really interesting.
Eric Conn:I just wanna interject. Yeah, so he used to work for KSE Cronkies Sports and Entertainment and this is owned by Stan Cronkie and so you know, everybody knows him. I mean, he owns the Avalanche and the LA Rams and you know all this media based stuff and we were talking to some of his executives at one of the meetings and we're like, wow, so he's a media mogul type guy, stan Cronkie.
Eric Conn:They're like actually, Stan makes most of his money in commercial real estate, cause what he would do is like when he'd move a media company in somewhere. He's like no, no, no, no, we're gonna buy the building, we're gonna buy the land, we're gonna build it, we're gonna rent it out to other people, blah, blah, blah. That's where he actually became a billionaire Was through commercial real estate.
Kevin Love:Well, it's funny when you're if you can make your business productive, if you can not just paying your bills but actually having surplus as well. Think about what you can do with that surplus If you could put 20, 25% down on a rental property because you're just like, hey, I have, I honestly have too much money. I need to do something. I've been tithing, I take care of our members at church I'm really intentional with that and I still have a surplus cause the Lord has just blessed me and our business is doing so well.
Kevin Love:Well, what do you want to do with that money? Honestly, if you can put that 20, 25% down into a rental property where the bank is throwing in the rest, and then you do that again and again and again because your business is doing pretty well, you got to park the money somewhere, right, or else it's just going to, you know, get eaten away with inflation, especially today. So I'm going to park it into a rental property. I'm going to take care of those rental properties. Honestly, over time you pay those off and then they're bringing in even more money for you.
Kevin Love:That you didn't really quite think about it first, but over time that totally helped you, cause you just got house after house after house or whatever you can have this commercial property, whatever it is, whichever way you want to land it, but it oftentimes is going to end up in real estate one way or another, because it's a good hedge against inflation. It's going to have somebody else paying it down. It's going to have the bank putting a lot of the money up front for you. It's going to be a tax advantage, for I mean all these different aspects. You have people who start making real money in their business, funnel it into real estate because that's going to give them even more money on the money that they invested. And that goes back to again the Holy Grail where you're going to passive income.
Eric Conn:Yeah, it's really helpful. The other thing is a book we've talked about with Cal Newport, but so good, they can't ignore you. What's the tie in here with that in particular?
Kevin Love:Yeah. So this is kind of just the reminder. With all of this, these conversations build on one another. We talked about map. We talked about identifying what is your calling, what is your unique gifting from God that you can employ in your business, for your family, for your people at your church. Whatever it is that conversation then builds with you need to be so good that they can't ignore you. That's Cal Newport's idea. You need to be so valuable what you do is rare and valuable that people can't just go to somebody else. You're part of the conversation from day one because you've worked hard to be that way.
Kevin Love:That's the second conversation that now we have built on, where we say if you do that, if you follow this path, and you really are working within your gifting, within your calling, and you have increased your value over and over and over again, day after day, the money's gonna be there too. Again, as long as it's not maybe for if you're doing art or something like that, but I'm talking about things like we would typically think of, like painting or being a doctor or whatever it is. You're getting better and better. You're gonna get paid better over time as well, and so if you can follow this conversation. Take on that mindset you're gonna be so good they can't ignore you. The money's gonna come with it too, and that's what we've been trying to address today. Right, it's a topic that isn't talked about enough, and there's other resources that maybe we can talk about at a later time if people are interested. But really, it comes down to this it's a mindset shift. So much of it is a mindset shift, and once you've done that, now the hard work begins.
Eric Conn:If you can follow the path, yeah, you can build your business, have some passive income, kind of follow those steps. I know we've in our own way, we've each kind of done that and can say, yeah, it's hard.
Kevin Love:But it does. We're still working on it.
Eric Conn:We're still working on it. It's a process, but you can definitely make headway there, especially to a lot of the guys I knew in ministry. Like you, don't have to be poor. Yeah, yeah, awesome. Well, kevin, I appreciate the conversation and hopefully it's been beneficial for everyone. Yeah, thanks for having me, absolutely. Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Hard Men Podcast and special shout out to our Patreon supporters. If you're not yet a Patreon supporter, you can join today for as little as $5 a month, and that definitely helps keep this work going. We are glad to partner with you for content that builds a new Christendom and reclaims biblical masculinity. At the same time, you can check the show notes for the link to become a Patreon supporter of the Hard Men Podcast today. Stay frosty, fight the good fight. Act like men.