Shahin's Corner - The Podcast That Bites
Shahin's Corner - The Podcast That Bites
Shahin's Corner with Special Guest Fred Cary - The Powerful Journey from Millionaire to Zero and Back: Insights into Resilience, Sales Strategy, and the Human Factor in Entrepreneurship
Imagine standing atop a mountain of success, only to slip and tumble down to the bottom again. That's exactly what happened to my old friend and serial entrepreneur, Fred Carey. Having scaled the peak of his first million and then losing it all, Fred's incredible journey of resilience and passion in the face of adversity offers a treasure trove of invaluable insights for every budding entrepreneur or seasoned business owner.
Join us, as we traverse the rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship. From discussing the art of selling in dentistry to exploring the tough journey of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, our conversation is as diverse as it is enlightening. Fred's unique strategy of 'shaming' consumers into lower-level products and his experiences with selling high-value products is a testament to his inventive approach to sales. We delve into the harrowing challenges and sweet victories of entrepreneurship, and Fred provides a fascinating peek into what investors look for.
Human connections are at the heart of every business venture. In a world that is often cold and unforgiving, Fred underscores the power of vulnerability in relationship building and networking. Apologizing, admitting mistakes, and turning them into learning opportunities is not weakness but strength. Fred's personal story of pressing the 'restart' button and his emphasis on self-awareness, humility, and the importance of helping others is a testament to his entrepreneurial spirit. Tune in for an inspiring conversation filled with gems of wisdom that will guide you on your path to success.
Dean's Corner podcast. I have a special treat for you guys today. Very special friend of mine you know doctors always talk about is it? Is it what? What's the advantage of being a business owner versus being an associate? Well, here's one huge advantage Patient walks into my office 2008 and on 2000, in 2023, he goes on my podcast. The point is is that if you're not a business owner, you're not going to have these opportunities to have these relationships with high end people in your community. And we have Fred Carey here, who I met as a patient of mine in 2008. And we've been friends ever since. We're going to get into it a little bit, but before we do that, watch this.
Speaker 2:Hey guys, I'm Fred Carey. I'm the CEO and founder of Idea. First, people have asked me when I made my first million dollars, and that was two years before I lost my first million dollars. I had a company called Boxlot, which we sold for 125 million dollars after 18 months. A company called Imagine Communications that now does about 800 million dollars a year in revenue, path one that was sold to Scientific Atlanta and is responsible for high definition television broadcasts all over the world. I have started 10 different companies. Three of them went public and two others got acquired by public companies. I raised billions of dollars and we've had billions of dollars in revenue and I decided it was time to give back. We're going to build a company and we're going to build a life that you're going to be proud of.
Speaker 1:Mr Fred Carey, how are you, my friend?
Speaker 3:I'm fine, but I think we should end it right there.
Speaker 1:Well, we talked about the three seconds, you know, and everything drops off, so shit you know, I mean nobody's no.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's see what happens.
Speaker 1:How are you man?
Speaker 3:I'm doing great.
Speaker 1:So you had somebody walk in and you started speaking some Spanish, and then the more you spoke, the worse it got, man.
Speaker 3:Well, you don't understand Spanish, because it was flawless.
Speaker 1:I wonder how many languages people speak after three seconds fluently Like they got the first three seconds down, but then it all falls apart into pieces.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I have about 10 different languages. I can speak for three seconds, that's three. That I can speak for a couple of paragraphs.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I think I don't know if I can speak 10 languages, maybe five or six, but and it doesn't all start with you know nice words. So there you go. So look, fred man, you walk into my let's talk about this a little bit. You walk into my office, 2008, and there's been a lot of talk about this. Actually, I put a couple of posts on social media just the past week talking about you know what consumers want from doctors and doctors practices, dennis, so my question to you is this when you go to the dentist, are you, are you? Well, you're a consumer. So let's just, you know, let's have kind of a sales discussion, but are you getting something from a dentist because you want it or because you need it?
Speaker 3:Well, typically it's because you need it. I think if I speak to the voice for a lot of consumers, you know that's a really that's a really tough profession because you know you associate pain with dentistry and even with all of the light of pain and everything else that you give though everybody hates needles and that's part of the process, you know. So, pain free dentistry I think that's that's the word for the future and being able to fix cavities Give me those things. Other than that I'm going there because I need to, other than when you want to have some cosmetic work done, then that's because you want to put. For the most part it's a need to type business and you know it's really a really tough business. The, I think, a great way to differentiate yourself is focusing on kind of the pain elements of it and the anticipated pain more than the real pain, because you guys get us all novocaine up and everything's good after that.
Speaker 1:So, if you don't mind, I want to just keep talking about this because I think a lot of doctors are listening. So you go in, let's say just, you're a patient and you're going to lose all your lower teeth and all your upper teeth, and the option is the doctor says, okay, well, you can get dentures and you know you could be on your way. Or you can get two implants on the bottom. You know four implants on top and we'll snap something on. You can be on your way. Or you can get this best product and this best service that we have, which is you can get six implants on top, six implants on the bottom, and then we can screw it in with the dentures into the implants. And here are your three options.
Speaker 1:So where is the want and the need there? Meaning is there? Is there a difference for you as a consumer that says I can just get dentures or I can get this amazing end product where I can kind of recapture my dentition again? That's the question for us as dentists is, when you go from the denture to the actual, the best of what dentistry has to offer you can you know you don't need that. You choose to have that based on your financials or what have you. But that's the question for us is from the traditional model to more of a progressive mindset. That's where the sales process comes in, because you're choosing to get the better product. How do you, how do you answer that as a consumer? Do you does that? Is it just all financial, like if you could do it, I want the best or is it something that you know is an upsell for you? Tell me a little bit about the consumer mindset there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is one of the rare instances where I would sell the highest level product to the consumer and then shame them into the other products. You know, shaheen, I know how important your teeth are to you and it's terrible and we have to remove them all, but I know that you want to be able to wake up and act as if nothing happened.
Speaker 3:You don't want to be taking your teeth in and out every day. I have a great solution for that. It is costly, it's x number of dollars, but we have a program where you can pay monthly for the next 24 months. And if that doesn't work for you, if you don't care that much about it, there are two other things I want to go over with you, just so you know everything that is available to you. So again, that's one instance where you start with a Ferrari and end up with a Ford if you need to.
Speaker 3:But I think it's a pretty dramatic thing for a consumer to face that they have to have all their teeth removed and nobody wants, nobody really wants to have. You know, I'm going to take my teeth out at night. They want to take their girlfriend out at night and having teeth that snap in and out every day is not a solution to anybody wants. So I think if you do it right as a dentist and understand there's a sticker shock involved to it. So instead of telling me it's going to cost $80,000 to do this, maybe let me know it's $1000 a month for the next 48 months or whatever. Whatever price point you make this $10,000 deposit, x number of dollars a month, and we can figure out what it's going to cost in the long run. But I got to tell you, even with a lot of money, some of those numbers are quite shocking, especially when I don't imagine most dental insurance is covered, something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so it leads to the question of is dentistry a sales process or is it a need based service? I argue that you don't need teeth. You can walk around without dentures. You can walk around without implants. It's not going to be the same quality of life. Your life expectancy might drop a few years, but you can do it, and many do. And so it's just interesting, because you walked into my office in 2008 and we had some things that we had to address. But so today, the word entrepreneur is very sexy, right? Tell me your definition of what an entrepreneur is.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, an entrepreneur to me, is a person who's willing to take extraordinary risk for the potential of future value. It really boils down to that and it is very sexy. It shouldn't be. It's a situation where social media has made it sexy. It's the hardest thing you're ever going to do in your life. It's a journey that never ends. Success is fleeting Little clip that you put at the beginning of the show. I've had ups, I've had downs. I've continued to have a lot of issues all the time, every day, even when things are going really great. You know, it's something that's the hardest thing that you're ever going to do and it takes a lot of metal, determination, perseverance to make it happen.
Speaker 3:You look at all the most successful companies in the world and look at how they started. Fedex was down to their last payroll. The CEO took all the money out of the bank account, flew to Vegas, bet on I think you bet on Black One got enough money to pay for jet fuel for one airplane for a week and he managed to get funding a week later. The Airbnb guys had to focus on selling political cereal to make enough money to make ends meet. They were the first real serial entrepreneurs, and almost all of them, have had really terrible stories. Elon Musk and his fourth rocket launch, but he bet everything on it. He had three failures. That fourth one failed you would have never known his name, and so the entrepreneurial journey is really, really tough, and people need to understand that before they want to take that leap, you have to have this burning desire inside.
Speaker 1:Do you have to fail to be an entrepreneur? I mean, is that how you respect it as an entrepreneur? Is that how you're known as an entrepreneur? How many times you've failed? Is it just a red carpet and somebody gets lucky and never fails? And are they considered the same? I'll share my experience as well, but what's your?
Speaker 1:what's your definition? I mean, do you guys talk about failures when you get around all bunch of entrepreneurs or, and if somebody says I've never failed, you're like I don't need to talk to this guy, he's not a real entrepreneur.
Speaker 3:Think about it You're creating something. In many cases again, depending on what you want to do as an entrepreneur In many cases you're creating something that doesn't exist in its present form. So what are the odds that you're going to get it right the first time? Very, very, very low. And when we look at people that we think made it right out of the gate, like the Facebook guys that were in college, they started this, this directory, at Harvard, and then it spread across the country.
Speaker 3:But if you look at any interviews from him, you'll see he started like 10 companies before that Nothing big. Obviously. He had all these little incremental growth periods of things that he tried that didn't work out, and so failure is just part of the recipe towards success. You know you're mixing up your brew. Oh shit, that doesn't work. Let me try this other thing. Well, that doesn't work so well either, and you finally get the proper mix to really make things happen. But it's not. There's nobody and I'm sure somebody's going to come up with some rare exception, but there's really nobody that hasn't gone through a failure process to get to a win at the end.
Speaker 1:What?
Speaker 1:What do you? And we can talk about this. I mean, obviously you know you've gone through a lot of different companies. As stated in the outset, you've built 10 companies. What are investors looking for when they come to you and what are you doing when you're trying to raise money? I'm curious to know. There's a certain part of you know, and I'll just speak from experience.
Speaker 1:In 2014, when I kind of started to dabble into this entrepreneurial world, it was just, you know, waking up middle of the night multiple times every night. I still do an hour or two hours every night. I'm up working. You get a lot done when everybody's sleeping. But I look back and I've pivoted probably 40, 50 times over the last 10 years into different things and each time I've grabbed something, a small piece before I let it go from something that I was doing. But I want to go back to like when I first started. It was. It was like what are you doing? Like you're a licensed dentist, you should just go work as a dentist, go open up a clinic, work five days a week, 30, 40 hour clinical days, and just shut your mouth and come home. You don't have to explain yourself, you don't have to prove anything. You're a licensed, you're a doctor and you've made it.
Speaker 1:And during that time and even today I mean I'm laughed at I've probably, you know, been called so many names, some that I'm sure they would never say in my face. And there's a certain level of there's a certain level of commitment, fred, that I can and you know, I mean you know me better than anybody. I didn't really talk about that too much, but for those that don't know, fred is somebody, he's my confidant, I go to him for everything. I mean, you're my mentor, you're my therapist, you're my lawyer, you're my. Yeah, it's been a special relationship for me. You've helped me in my deepest, darkest times and it's been a very interesting. You could probably, you probably laughed at some of the ideas that I came up with and some of the things that there were moments where you're like, dude, get your head on right. This is not the right path, but the point is it's so lonely. It's so lonely to be an entrepreneur, it's so painful to be an entrepreneur, and this is why I said being an entrepreneur is sexy, because there's nothing sexy about it.
Speaker 3:And first of all, thanks for that. I'm happy to be there, but I need to ask you the people calling your names and everything are they using the A word?
Speaker 1:Well, there's a lot of A words that can be used, so I don't know what A word, but but you know.
Speaker 3:I just wanted to make sure it wasn't me, because that's.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:It is a lonely ride and it doesn't get better. When I was a year and a half ago, I was working with Coldplay when they were getting ready to start their tour and Chris Martin talking about how lonely he had been over the last year. And you're somebody, he's an entrepreneur. If you have a band like that, you're an entrepreneur. And just being at the top by nature means you're by yourself. And if you can surround yourself with two, three people that can be your confidants, they can talk to you and help you through things. It makes it better.
Speaker 3:I say to all my entrepreneurs in fact, we had a meeting yesterday called the boardroom for my partners who've launched their companies from Idea Pros. Find groups of entrepreneurs, Find even this once a month little happy hour group of people who've started their companies. Be around people that have experienced the same things you're going through, and that makes that journey a little bit better, but it is. I don't want to discourage anybody from being an entrepreneur. Just know you're getting in the prize ring. It's not like you're playing laser tag. You're going in for a prize, fight 15 rounds and you better be able to stand up the whole time. It's not easy.
Speaker 1:On the same side as you said, on the other side of the coin. It's such a great ride, it's such a high and, being an ex-pro athlete, I can tell you. When somebody roars, when there's 15,000 people in an arena and they roar, it's a high. And, being an entrepreneur, you can have those experiences and those highs are very addicting. In some ways, being an entrepreneur is a drug, because you're always looking for the next high, right, yeah, I've done some public speaking. I speak in front of six people and I've spoken in front of 300 people, but each time there is a certain level of that high that you get when you go on stage and you talk live. That live interaction with doctors and dental professionals, in my case, is just what it's all about for me. And I get the same high when I talk to small groups as I talk to large groups.
Speaker 1:But in between those highs those are the peaks there's a lot of valleys and those are the valleys that you have to grind through yourself. You can't. There is nobody who's going to do that for you, but you. You are the person that's going to be the driver in everything that you're doing. You're in full control, which has its positives, because if you believe that you control everything that's in your life and that's a whole discussion. I talk about this in length.
Speaker 1:But being in control is a very powerful aspect of being an entrepreneur, but it's also very lonely and you lose a lot of money Trying to find that success, that path to success, and you try many different things. And you're right, many of the people that everybody sees on social media today, that's successful, whatever that means, has a different definition for everyone. If you dig deep underneath, they've had very difficult times and they probably still have very difficult times. What is one or two traits for you, fred, that you really, when coaches go and look for talent for teams, they're like, yeah, he's got it. What are a couple of traits for entrepreneurs? Where you go, this guy's going to make it.
Speaker 3:Um, there's a, there's a few. Number one is perseverance. I mean you, you, you have to know that this man or woman is going to go into the fire and and stay there as long as it takes to to move forward. Number two is intellect. You really have to be able to embrace the subject matter that you're going into wholeheartedly, learn everything you can about it, or everything you can about every position in your company. And the third one is integrity that to to know that you will do the right thing even when it's really the hard thing.
Speaker 3:With Idea Pros, you know you talk about all my prior successes and we've had some real successes with Idea Pros. In fact, we're starting to see some of our partners come out. We just had one of our companies sold for a 10X. We've had another company that had just launched their product and is, uh, talking to a major tool company that wants to brand them. So we're seeing things that are really starting starting to percolate now.
Speaker 3:But on the other hand, it's also really, really hard, and with Idea Pros it's so much heavy lifting that I had to make a decision in February this year to not take any new partners.
Speaker 3:So we figured this shit out and dealt with the backlog we had from existing partners that required me to reach into my own pocket.
Speaker 3:For example, last month I put in 125,000 of my own dollars into the company and the month before something similar, and since that day that I decided not to take new partners, I've been fueling the beast to be able to finish the job that we promised we would do, and that's a really, really hard decision. Mind you, during this process, there's some subset of clients slash partners who's like oh you know, these guys are a fraud. Or this guy took my money and didn't do anything and meanwhile haven't paid myself in two years. Throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars into my company and keeping my head held high because I'm doing the right thing. That, I think, is the most important trade of a really good entrepreneur, because the future is dictated by how you address the present, and if you're doing the right things today, then your future, no matter how hard that journey is, is going to get better and better till you get the outcome that you want. If you don't have all those elements, you're just never going to make it.
Speaker 1:So you know, I think one of the key factors here is really the journey is in the understanding of being committed to something. And I can tell you in 2014, I started as a marketing firm in my entrepreneurial endeavors and I soon realized after about 12, 15 months, that I'm not a marketing expert at the time. Right, and people, when they give you money, they're different right.
Speaker 1:They're not. You know you meet people when money is exchanged. You meet their character, their integrity, their threshold for risk, their threshold for failure. You know it's a different. It's a different transaction from being friends than when money is exchanged. When money is exchanged between individuals, it's a game changer because now you're in there every day, many times, depending on how much they've given you, and then I look. You know my path in 2015, 16, 17, 18, 19, and all the things that I did and it's the work that I think is really important in this entire process is I haven't quit. I haven't quit.
Speaker 3:Perseverance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I haven't quit and it's not. It's been financially damaging. I could have made a lot more money being a dentist, but I will tell you that being a dentist doesn't have a hundred million dollar exit either. So it's an interesting balance between should I just go make $300,000, $400,000 a year in work as a clinical dentist and I don't know, I have a net worth of $4,000,000, $5,000,000, $6,000,000 when I'm done, whatever those numbers add up to be, or do I want to live something that internally makes me happy? That really is why I think my calling what I believe my calling was for is to be able to be able to do what I'm doing today, and it's been a great journey. It's been a painful journey. I've helped many people, which I think is very powerful, and I've had some losses along the way as well. But I want to talk a little bit right now about.
Speaker 1:You talked about starting 10 companies and doctors right now. Some of them want to get out of the clinic, some of them want to create a side hustle, as they say. Some of them want to maybe be completely done with dentistry. How can somebody get started? So, yes, you have to have an idea, and this is where Idea Pros comes in because I believe, basically, in a nutshell, you take that idea and you create a business from it, and there's a lot of steps in between.
Speaker 1:And you know what's interesting? I'll tell you, and we've had this discussion. I could have come to you and said, hey, I got this idea and then you run with it, but the other side of it is is that journey would be missed, and thickening your skin as an entrepreneur, I think, is a really important aspect of this journey as well. It's easier to give money to someone to have them develop something for you and then you miss all the highlights and the nuts and bolts of how it was all created and built, or you can go through the journey yourself. Takes you seven, 10 years longer. It might cost you three to four X more, but maybe you're smarter on the back end of that seven to 10 years. What's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm going to answer that question. Then I'm going to go back to the dentist question and how they can become entrepreneurs. With this second half of what you're talking about the journey, the knowledge that you get from that journey that's one of the things that I recently changed with IdeaFros. Before people would come in, they'd be a partner. They'd sit on a couch and we'd update them every couple of weeks and to some extent you were not able to judge the character of the person that was your partner only by some things delayed for three weeks, three months or more months. And they can sit and complain. And there's others that will sit and say what can I do to help? Do you need more money? Do you need my time? How can I assist? And it's only there that you're seeing the character that's necessary to become an entrepreneur and be a successful one. So in our new process, what we do is we make anybody who comes in as a co-founder. We make them their own project manager. So they're basically coloring within the lines. We know what you're supposed to be doing, but they're doing it themselves. So they're feeling the pain, they're feeling the urgency, they're feeling the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. And you're right. That is a critical part of the journey. If you don't have that experience, then you're really not going to understand what it's all about and why the rewards are so meaningful at the end. When you get there Now, as far as any dentists or other professionals or any person really that's listening and wants to take that journey and believe the kind of structured environment that they're in and go out on your own to do something that you've always dreamed about, you have to make sure that this is really something you're passionate about.
Speaker 3:You have to make sure that this is something that, no matter whether you're having a good day or bad day at it, when you wake up in the morning, when you put your feet down on the side of the bed, you're likely to be smiling. You're smiling because you're doing what you're doing and if you don't think that what your idea is going to get you there, then don't even do it, because you're giving away a lot of security the education that I don't know what it costs to be a dentist half a million, I'm sure, at least in school or more and you've worked your butt off to get to where you are and to have that security of knowing you have the paychecks coming in, you're saving in a 401k. You're going to have a net worth at the end that's going to keep you in your retirement years. If that's what makes you happy, stick with it.
Speaker 3:But if you think of what I just said and it makes you think, oh shit, I don't want that, then you really need to start looking at finding the thing that you're passionate about. And if you can first focus on what you're passionate about and then see is there a way to put a business around that that's when you're going to have the best experience, then take a long time anyway, but you're going to have the best experience If you can align your purpose, your passion, with what it is that you're going to be doing for your work in your life. So there is no work life balance. It all becomes life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, self-awareness, I think, is a huge part of that Because, to be honest, when you're you know a lot of these social media, you know multimillionaires. It's difficult for me, I could say, when I was 20 years old or 25 years old, to know what I wanted to do. I mean, I was an athlete in my 20s and I decided to be a dentist at 27 and went to dental school at 29, graduated at 33. And it was still at that time. You know this is Internet was just starting. This is 2001,.
Speaker 1:When I got licensed, there was not anything close to what there is today as far as opportunities for people to have their voice heard, have their content spread. I think Gary Vee and Hormozzi they have 250 pieces of content that comes out. I believe it's every week and you know you can spread the message across so many different channels and do so many things that were not possible 20, 25 years ago. So social media has really created this noise of really at scale, bringing in all these entrepreneurs that want to have a voice, and I think that's really important to understand. But you know, self-awareness in this journey of what you're really passionate about, what you want to do the rest of your life. I think it's fair to leave room that. It is okay that if you're 25 and you think you're passionate about something and at 32 it changes, that's okay.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you have to lose in order to gain. You talked about going to school. You know, doing all these, all the education, I'm still around it. I still practice dentistry. I still, you know, I'm helping the dental profession. So it's not like I've completely erased everything that I've done. But I think the key component many times is understanding what you really want and sometimes that doesn't come naturally. Sometimes you have to go through the, through a journey or process of learning more about yourself, understanding a little bit more about yourself and developing as an individual, emotional intelligence is it doesn't come for a 23 year old right. You have to go through some life experiences. Life has to humble you a couple times. Whether it's the stock market, the real estate market, divorce, business partnerships that have gone south. Life will humble you. And if it hasn't humbled you yet, it's just either you're young or you've been a little bit lucky. But you'll get there.
Speaker 2:But with that said.
Speaker 1:you know, self awareness is a huge component in all of this and and I think that's something that people have to understand and leave- room for that.
Speaker 1:Maybe you don't have the answer today because a lot of people are on the sidelines like I think I'm passionate about it, but I'm not really sure. I kind of like doing this other thing and you know, you start questioning yourself as far as what you're really passionate about, and then it's analysis, analysis, paralysis, and you're still on the sidelines three years later. So I think it's important to what you're saying. I agree 100%, but you also have to get in the game and learn more about yourself as you get in the game.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and self awareness is one of the things that is really fleeting. If you think about it, the chances are that all the people closest to you know you better than you know yourself. Because what we do and here's a good exercise what we do is we excuse behaviors that are not up to our standard or up to our park. We're always late at meetings. We told somebody we're going to call them back and we didn't promise we'd help with something and we didn't help, and we look at those things as kind of aberrations that are not really what we're all about. But everybody around us sees those things as a central element of the character who we really are. So the first step in self awareness is accepting your flaws and recognizing that's part of the character that you have. That way you can start working on them. If you continue to excuse those behaviors, then you're going to be more and more isolated from the person that you really are, while everybody around you has this different impression of you than you have of yourself.
Speaker 1:So I will tell you, fred, that I think everybody needs to kind of look at themselves right now and then, when somebody's having a conversation with them and having and is saying something to them, just ask yourself in general, do you come back with yes, but or do you come back with yes and and I think that, right, there is a huge part of being an entrepreneur I believe most entrepreneurs are the yes and group because they're always going to take an idea or they're always going to take a thought and expand and grow on it and build on it. When you're the person that's the yes, but you're always going to be that person that's going to doubt and question everything that's being told to you and that doubt and that questioning within your operating system slows you down and makes you a little bit more of a, a w2, versus a, an independent contractor, so to speak.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the but word completely negates everything you said before. So when you're trying to have a dialogue with somebody that's important to you whether it's business, personal relationships and you start throwing that, but in that truly indicates that you didn't really agree with anything that they said and you're going to acknowledge it, then you're going to go on your own journey.
Speaker 1:So that's probably one of the worst words in English and also in relationships, right, because you have to have the ability to apologize and you have to have the ability to listen, and apologizing is is humbling and listening is absorbing. Yeah, and absorption is, can be very defensive in nature because you want to push back. And I can tell you, in my relationship, even in this last year, I've learned to absorb and I've learned to, to, to have that ability to listen and to apologize.
Speaker 3:Let me tell you something about apologies, heartfelt apology. I know they're very difficult, but they're incredibly empowering. To be able to sit with somebody and and admit that you did something wrong or you didn't follow through or that your behavior could have made somebody feel a certain way, even though that wasn't your intention, a really heartfelt apology with no but gives you so much power. Number one it helps you on the self awareness side of things. And number two it really takes all the wind out of the sale of dispute that you're having with that person. It's very, very empowering and it says to the other person your voice is heard, your voice matters to me.
Speaker 3:What, what I did and hold inside I didn't really mean to do that pull that inside you. What I did, I can see, really hurt you or upset you or put you in an awkward position, whatever it is, and I apologize for that. This is a learning experience for me. I'm not going to let that happen again. That's really, really powerful. It shows that you're above the fright and that you are going to try to always do the right thing. If you can make that part of your habit, it ends up becoming part of your character and when it does. The road ahead is going to be really a lot smoother than otherwise.
Speaker 1:Well, and and. Words are powerful, but action is even more powerful, right? So you know it's. It's easy to use words and say words, but you really have to stand by that and and and I've gone through that on a personal level and also on the business side as well. I will also say this I think, as an entrepreneur, fred, sometimes it's okay to press restart. It's okay to press restart.
Speaker 1:There's nothing wrong with going, going going in a certain direction and realizing that, yeah, there's a dead end there. Now, at that dead end, you have a choice to say fuck it, I'm just going to go back, in this case, just be a dentist, or you can press restart button and start on another path, knowing what you've known that got you to that dead end. And and I think that's also important as well there's got to be points where you identify when something is not working out and or identify when a new direction is going to create new momentum for you. And I think momentum is a very important word in entrepreneurship as well. As we're always looking for momentum, we're always looking for relationships.
Speaker 1:The word access. How important is networking and access in in entrepreneurship for you, fred?
Speaker 3:Well, you talked about earlier at the beginning here about I've been somebody you could rely on and a mentor of sorts for you and I think being able to get and I've been terrible with this, I'm just starting to change but get out there in your environment, make connections, find people that are in your similar situation, they're trying to do something different with their life. Just establishing those types of relationships with people who are similar to you and what you're trying to accomplish is extraordinarily powerful. I mean, you have a role of decks that you can pick up the phone and rely upon with whatever thing you want to do next or whatever issue you happen to have today. It's again empowering, just like apologies are, because now you're building up an infrastructure that's going to support you in those real times of need. And, by the way, as you grow, as you become wiser, as you've had more and more experiences, you can impart that knowledge the other way too. It's two-way street.
Speaker 1:Are you?
Speaker 1:you know when you the word vulnerable comes to mind right now, and I believe in networking and in access, in relationship building. You have to be vulnerable and you have to be able to have communication, uncomfortable discussions with people that you're starting to meet and connecting with in your line of work and exposing your downfalls, exposing your weaknesses, exposing your liabilities, exposing your mistakes. Sometimes that opens more doors than you would believe, because the person that you're talking to respects the fact that there's a man in front of them, not only talking about their success stories and all the great things that they've done in their life. Yes, I've done some great things in my life.
Speaker 1:Being a pro athlete was not easy. Getting a DMD, becoming a doctor, was not easy. Migrating into the US in 1970, immigrating into the migrating, immigrating into the US in 1978. For for my dad was not easy. As a family was not easy. Moving into Utah, in an area where there was a lot of hatred at the time. I was young, but I saw what my uncles went through in college during the Iran hostage crisis, and so I've gone through periods of success and hardship and still do today.
Speaker 1:But I think being vulnerable in this access and this networking community, it's not something that, even when I go on stage and I talk, I talk many times about the areas that I've failed in, things that I've learned through my failures as a dentist. Being vulnerable is not easy for a doctor. Because we're so smart and we're so great and we're so wonderful and we have the shield that we're just smarter than you, we know more than you Some of us anyway. So that ego, like I said earlier, is something that life will eventually humble you, and it certainly humbled me on two, three different occasions throughout the 22 years of being a licensed dentist. What's next for you, fred? What's going on with you and Idea Pros? I know we on the promotional video we stated that you are the CEO of Idea Pros. Tell us a little bit about Idea Pros, why you came up with the idea of Idea Pros and what the purpose is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so there's several things going on. Like I said, the beginning of the year, we stopped taking new partners. I really needed to, as you point out, restart. Like what am I doing? Because I knew I could get from 400 partners to maybe a thousand partners, but that's it. I mean already straining at the seams with what we're trying to do. So how do I reinvent Idea Pros and make it something that can help more people? And that was the reason I started Idea Pros in the first place to help entrepreneurs.
Speaker 3:95% of entrepreneurs in the US are what we call outsiders. They're not going to get venture capital, they don't have access to accelerators, they don't know how to play the finance game, they don't know what to build, going from idea to nationwide launch. So how can I help more and more of those people? And so, with the restart of Idea Pros, if you go to IdeaProscom right now, the very first thing you're going to see is free membership, and in that membership, we give you stop every single week on what you need to learn about to be an entrepreneur, how to grow a business, everything for free, and then you can work your way up the food chain. If you need help from us, we have all sorts of smaller packages we put in place so that anybody, no matter what they think they can afford or no matter where they are on their journey, they can go forward and have somebody who will act as their co-founder think of them as well as thinking of themselves. So that's part of what's going on. To enable that journey.
Speaker 3:For the very first time, I also am out raising capital with IdeaProsInvestcom. We're doing what's called 506c. We're raising money from accredited investors and we're using that to fuel the next generation of growth for Idea Pros. There's an opportunity here for us to do a couple of mergers and really my ultimate goal is find a way to become the Amazon for entrepreneurs. Like, if you have an idea and you need help, it's the first thing you're going to go to, and on Amazon I buy everything from iDrops, the toilet paper, the food to electronics. Literally when I feel I need something here in the house, I think about them first. That's where I want to bring Idea Pros, so that if you're an entrepreneur, you know there are all these resources available for you, free and paid that are going to help you on that journey and turn you as an outsider into an insider. I got that going for me and I recently promised my kids I'm going to retire by the time I hit 90.
Speaker 1:Well, actually this is what I was going to ask you how many years have you been an entrepreneur, fred?
Speaker 3:Well, I really started at 20. Yeah, so 50 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, has it been worth that for you?
Speaker 3:The only thing I know how to do. I've always felt like an outsider. I never felt like I could work in a corporate environment. Reporting to somebody else lost its luster at a very early age for me, so I've always wanted to do something. If you look at my history, it's, in the sense, looking at it from the outside.
Speaker 3:It's kind of schizophrenic, but the reality is that with every company I started and this is what I recommend for everyone I looked for a market that was robust, that was growing, that had competitors but also had a big hole in the market that wasn't being filled. And that's why I've been in entertainment and food and software, hardware, e-commerce, banking I've been all over the place. But if you look underneath the covers, you'll see every one of those places I went to is a place that had a real opportunity in it that I exploited. So how do I line down with my passion? Helping others. And if my passion is helping others, then I can be in a lot of different industries and make a difference, because I'm trying to enable, empower other people to do better in their lives, which helps me in my own.
Speaker 1:You've known me for 15 years. What advice do you have for me?
Speaker 3:Keep evolving and don't take that easy path. I think you're amazing and I love to be sitting on the sidelines, and sometimes in the trenches, on your journey so far, and I think you're doing the right thing. You're doing what you're passionate about. You are constantly growing and I think that's a good journey for you. You're doubling down on your personal life, too your family, your kids, your beautiful kids and I think that's really important.
Speaker 3:As we grow and grow in our entrepreneurial journeys, we seem to have less and less time for the people that matter the most, and remember that they are part of your journey as well. Maybe they're even one of the main reasons for your journey. So all of us think about that when we're out, waking up at three in the morning to figure out what to do next or how I messed this thing up and what am I going to do to fix it. When you're thinking about those things, realize that the people around you that really love you need that same detail and same attention. And I would say treat your personal life like an entrepreneur. As entrepreneurs, we never give up With your personal life. Never give up when you're an entrepreneur. If something's not working out, you pivot, you try a different approach your personal life, do the same thing, and if you can take that power of entrepreneurship and make it part of everything you do, then you're going to continue on your journey and I can't wait to sit there with you and watch this thing continue.
Speaker 1:Let me, let me add one more thing to that. During this past couple years, I've come to you a lot and I want to thank you. It's been, it's been special that you've always been there for me. I Called you at five in the morning, you answer. I call you it Sometimes at midnight. You answer Do you ever fucking sleep, man? Like what the hell are you like me? You don't sleep, or what. But here's, here's what I want to ask you, because I'm all I've always been curious, like have I come up with any idea that you've liked? Like, is there I mean, I've probably given you, like I Don't know what over a hundred different ideas that the last 15 years, any of them that you liked, I mean?
Speaker 3:Little sarcastic here, but no, I love the whole love bites thing, which I happen to have named, and I think I think there's a lot more you can do. Do with that one. I'd love to talk to you more about that. I'd see the Dentistry of the future there and I think you already been working on that. Turnkey Small operation, low overhead, great customer patient service. I think there's a real need for that and I thought that that was a really good idea.
Speaker 3:The fact that you're going out and doing training and Helping teach Dennis how to actually be business people so that they understand what a bottom line is and what cash flow means. I think I think I really really enjoyed that as well.
Speaker 1:Well, in that in that conversation we also talked about something else. That that Somebody can take on right now is is this idea of preventive dentistry.
Speaker 1:Yeah where you basically create a membership model and and, for example, I mean we'll just throw a random number but let's say you know $99 a month and you can come to the practice and Get your cleanings and get your x-rays and have your preventive care done.
Speaker 1:This is one thing that's really missing in our profession and is education and and the people Understanding that if you brush twice a day, if you floss every single day and If you had fairly decent diet and nutrition, kept everything in moderation, you can live a cavity free life. And this is one of the things that Can happen at the eight, as, as a pediatric in the pediatric arena, it can happen as an adolescent, if you see a lot of teenagers, and obviously as adults as well, and it could be generational, because the adult parents can educate their kids and and it can continue to go on. But preventive dentistry is the least expensive form of dental care and the best form. If you're scared of needles, if you're scared of the dentist and the handpiece and the noise and the smell and you know the sounds and all of those things, preventive dentistry is the way with the future. We had that conversation as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I believe that, as well as other types of medicine as well, flossing is a hard one. You might want to invent something.
Speaker 1:We just don't have. You just don't have like tactical skills, man, you can't just be if you can't play with the floss. Come on, by the way, every time Fred walks in with like these Toothpick brushes and he's like always like is this a floss? I'm like no dude, it's not a fucking floss. Stop being lazy.
Speaker 3:I think you said but hey, fred, when was the last time you flossed? And I said she ain't. No, do you remember you were there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so preventive dentistry is huge and and I think there's that wellness and prevention is a is a big market as well. And, fred man, listen this, this was special for me. I know we've been talking about doing this for a while and I appreciate you coming on If you had any positive advice for somebody that's in in a hard time right now, that's looking to either raise money or that's kind of stuck, that really wants to continue to be an entrepreneur. I have a 50-year entrepreneurial Career because that's who they are, that's what they want to do, but they're stuck. They don't know what to do, what direction to go to, their out of ideas. What do you recommend?
Speaker 3:You know, I've recently gone through this myself because, as I said, we stopped taking the partners a lot of financial strain subset of partners yelling, arguing, you know, wanting refunds, things like that and to work through those types of bad experiences, the most powerful tool you can have is acceptance. It really is. If you could, because we sit there we worry every night what's gonna happen? What if this happens? What if that happens? Why don't you take what if this happens and face that as a reality? The worst thing that can happen is this and be comfortable with whatever that is. And so now you don't become complacent.
Speaker 3:You have acceptance that I'm gonna try everything I can possibly do in the worst case scenario Is this thing, and I'm gonna accept that is my worst case scenario and be okay with it because I know if I have to end up there, I'm gonna be able to get out of it. If Elon Musk's Fourth rocket failed and he lost everything, we'd still probably hear about him today because he finds some other way to restart and build it up. So acceptance, whatever hard thing you're going through, accept it. Accept the consequence of whatever the worst thing is that can happen, and that's gonna give you a clear road, to start Doing the positive things that you need to take you along your journey and find the solution that's waiting there for you as soon as you get all that doubt out of the way.
Speaker 1:Fred carry, ceo of idea pros, a friend, confidant, mentor. Thank you for your time today. I hope you have a great rest of your day and and I'll probably just call you after this podcast Another one of my ideas that I think is gonna be great and that you got to listen to you. Welcome, buddy, have a great day. Yeah, that was special for me. I want to thank all of you for being here for our, for our podcast. We're. We're really excited.
Speaker 1:I would like you to subscribe to Shaheen's Corner podcast on YouTube, follow me at Dr Shaheen Safari and on the social channels LinkedIn, instagram, facebook, tick tock. We're. We're putting a lot of content out. We want to help it's all free and we want to build relationships with our community of professionals and If you have somebody that you think is going to be an excellent guest, we have a list of people that want to come on and and we're deciphering through them. But if you know someone that could be a special guest for what we want to do, please, please, let me know. Just shoot me a message on one of those social channels. I'd appreciate it. I'm Dr Shaheen Safari and and thanks for joining me on another episode. I.