Scaling With People
Tired of spinning your startup wheels but never gaining traction? Buckle up, founders and CEOs, because this podcast is your rocket fuel to profitability! Every week, we ignite explosive conversations with bold-faced founders, brainy experts, and even a few out-of-this-world vendors. Get ready to crack the code on growth, master employee engagement, and blast through your scaling goals. We’re talking real-world strategies, actionable tips, and perspectives that’ll make your business do a cosmic dance. So, strap in and prepare for lift-off!
Scaling With People
The Human Cost of Building a Business
If you've ever wondered what toll building a business takes on you as a human being, this eye-opening conversation with serial entrepreneur Elliot Kallen will hit home. After founding and selling multiple successful companies, including financial firms that managed over a billion dollars in assets, Elliot doesn't sugarcoat the profound personal impact of the entrepreneurial journey.
"You cannot be a great CEO right now and be a great parent and a husband at this very minute," Elliot reveals, challenging the harmful "you can have it all" narrative that sets founders up for failure. He breaks down the entrepreneurial journey into three distinct phases—startup hustle, growth momentum, and mature decision-making—each bringing unique challenges to personal relationships and wellbeing.
The conversation dives deep into the physical toll of founder life, from unhealthy eating habits to sleep deprivation, and explores how these patterns can lead to serious health consequences. As Elliot candidly shares, "having a heart attack at 52 is not a good example." His hard-earned wisdom includes practical advice about understanding your cash flow, knowing your strengths, and the importance of hiring for your weaknesses rather than trying to fix them yourself.
Perhaps most powerful is Elliot's journey through personal tragedy. After losing his son to suicide, he channeled his entrepreneurial energy into creating A Brighter Day, a foundation providing mental health resources for teens and their families. This transformation of grief into purpose demonstrates how the skills we develop as entrepreneurs can create meaningful impact beyond business success.
Whether you're just starting your entrepreneurial journey or leading an established company, this conversation offers invaluable perspective on maintaining your humanity while building something extraordinary. Subscribe now and join us for more authentic discussions about the real challenges of scaling with people.
Welcome everyone to today's Scaling with People podcast. I'm Guinevere Curry, your host and founder and CEO to Guide to HR. So have you ever thought about what kind of toll building your business takes on you as a human and the people in your life, not just the people that you're working with, but also your personal life? I have Elliot Kellen here with me and we're going to be talking about this, diving into it. Plus, elliot is a founder multi-time founder, successes, with some lessons learned, and he's going to be opening up to us to share some lessons learned that we can learn, hopefully, from him and not make maybe those same mistakes, or maybe make the great one about selling his business.
Speaker 2:So Elliot welcome.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for joining and tell the audience a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:Well, it's great to be here. Thank you so much. I am founder of Prosperity Financial Group Prosperity Wealth Management those are companies three and four that I founded. They total their financial advisory firms totaled a little bit more than a billion dollars in assets. And then I also have a foundation called A Brighter Day at wwwabrighterdayinfo, where we help create resources on stress and depression for teens and their families with the goal of stopping teen suicide.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, that's powerful Sporting companies, sold companies, working companies.
Speaker 2:I get it. It's not a straight line. You know, one of the problems out there is that we think of straight lines as facebook and we're hit with mark zuckerberg and entrepreneurs going to business thinking, well, if I do this for five years, I can go public and get my first billion dollars. Yeah, you know that's wrong. So I wrote a book called driven it's over my left shoulder and to teach lessons like that's not reality.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Let's get real on what the toll and the different aspects and phases of your business and what that means, so you can capitalize on your strengths and grow while minimizing your assets. If we can do that, you're going to have a successful business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. And so, from that, like, what are some of the things that, as someone is either thinking about starting their own business maybe they're in the middle of the growth and just kind of figuring out what that like? What are some of the things that, as someone is either thinking about starting their own business maybe they're in the middle of the growth and just kind of figuring out what that looks like, what they're selling product, services, so forth Maybe they're a little farther along and maybe have 20, 50 people or more in their business. But what is it that, like, as you've learned and as your family has dealt with, are some of the things that we should be considering in regards to the impact of our business decision on our family and personal life.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a great question for someone who's divorced right here oh and so, and remarried, but long-term marriages on both, but still it took a toll on the family. There are three phases of business. I write this in a book as well. Phase one is the startup. You do a great job with that Guinevere. These are all the phases of doing everything. I'm chief cook and bottle washer. Maybe I've got some capital. I'm hiring some people. I'm still emptying the garbage cans when needed. I'm still going on Saturdays to Costco to buy my Coke and coffee for the office, and that's phase one.
Speaker 2:And sometimes you're phase one starting a business and you're also phase one in your family, because a lot of times your kids are young or your marriage is young, and if that's what you're doing and I used to have this phrase that says that kids and family are great, they're great together. Kids and marriage are oil and water. Running a business, kids and marriage is, you've got a recipe for disaster there. Yeah, because you cannot be.
Speaker 2:We've been told our whole lives this false narrative that says that you can have it all. You could be a great entrepreneur, a great spouse and a great parent, and you cannot at the same time do that, but you've been told that and in Virginia Slims, if you remember them from the 70s, did that to the women's movement. It was Baby, you Can have it All. It was their theme song and it just led divorces skyrocketed because you can't have it all. I cannot be a great CEO right now and be a great parent and a husband at this very minute, because I have to be in a moment with you when I'm home tonight.
Speaker 2:I could be either one of those really good, but sometimes I need to be a great dad and sometimes I got to put that aside and be a great spouse. I get to my dad's stuff. So it's hard to do all three things. When you're at home and you want to be into your kids, you need to be into your kids. When you need to be into your spouse, you need to be into your kids. You need to be into your kids. When you need to be into your spouse, you need to be into your spouse. But you cannot be say I'm going to be with you, let's go to the movies, let's go to the opera, let's go to a ballgame, let's. You and I have a really great date night and all I talk to you about is my company.
Speaker 1:Or you're on the phone dealing with business, right? Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 2:My phone has rung seven times since you and I have started this company. You just can't do it all A lot of times. That is phase one. Phase two in your business is I've got stuff happening, I've got some momentum building, I've got some cash flow coming in. I'm now expanding. Maybe I'm going to buy some companies out, maybe I'm going to go into brand new markets. This is exciting. I'm starting to make real money here. And then phase three I've been doing this for five, 10, 20 years.
Speaker 2:What's the next step in my life? Am I going to sell my company? Am I going to bring my family into my company, which is almost always a terrible idea? I would agree with that. Am I going to travel? What's part of my life, like I've been to for my wife and I? We decided a decade ago that we would make travel and food and wine a big part of our life, and we are in Europe every year. We are wineries. I've got a thousand bottle wine tasting room. I've got some great Michelin restaurants that we visited. Now we're looking to start another business in food, wine, travel, just because of all of our experiences Wow. And so that's another world of doing that, and so we've talked about that you cannot do all those things, but you've got to think about all that. And companies like yours that somebody can go to and either outsource something to be done or get great input that they can't see what needs to be done can change a life.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, as a CEO I would make a lousy HR manager because I want most CEOs do? I want to cut corners, I want to fire. I've got Mary Lou or Jim and I need to fire them and I'm going to do it all the wrong way. And now I got to explain this to a judge.
Speaker 1:Yep, and now you've actually cost yourself 10 times more than just bringing on an expert to help you execute correctly.
Speaker 2:That's right. So we want to do it right. You want to bring on the right people, the right consultants. I'm a big fan of consultants. I've hired them over the years. I've hired personal. It's like hiring a personal trainer at the gym. You cannot be expected to be an expert on food, what to eat so you get the perfect diet. I mean, there are people that have perfect diets and perfect bodies, but I'm not one of them, so I've never had that. I'm not perfect with weight equipment. I need people who can help me and put me on the right regimen. Those are personal trainers. Those are outsourcing to somebody else's expertise to make you better. Business works the exact same way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's such a great analogy. I'm going to have to steal that from you, elliot. So I think this is such an important factor of really thinking through what is it? What is you're trying to accomplish? Why are you building this business and you said it kind of earlier, like you know and then what do you want to do with it, like in five to 10, 15 years? Like, what is your ultimate outcome? I've had this ask of myself is this a lifestyle business? Is this a business that you want to turn into a business business? Are you looking to sell it, partner off, whatever it might be? But whatever, the answer is how you interact and engage with your family, yourself, taking care of yourself. I mean, you use the gym as a great example. Like, your self-care is also important. Being the perfect, the great CEO, the great dad, the great spouse what about great self? Like, you also need time to just have some self-care as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, having a heart attack at 52 is not a good example Not that I have, but I've known too many entrepreneurs in their 50s. They eat poorly. They do drive-through fast food all the time because it's fast and we're all type a personalities male, female. We are type a. Yeah, they means we want to get the job done and get it done fast.
Speaker 1:And now yes, and don't take that moment to celebrate you got it done, because there's 10 other things you got to get done now as well, on top of it I get up at 4 45 every day and hit the gym, and I have to because if I don't, I put put on 10, 15, 20 pounds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, only thing keeping that weight off. And the reason for that I'm so much better today that I used with food than I used to be. Because when you're in a hurry, what are you doing when you go to McDonald's? You're getting a quarter pounder with cheese and French fries the meal. What are you doing at Kentucky French? You get the meal. Well, that's French fries. Well, I was teasing my wife a couple of months ago and I said I just want you to know that if we ever get divorced, my next wife's going to be potato Because she's perfect, and so that's a really big issue is eating well and eating smart. And I have to go and outsource that to talk to somebody to remind me to eat smarter. And what did you do today with food, ellie? What'd you have for lunch today? Yeah, you know, besides a salad, which can be completely unfulfilling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah. That's the hard part too. And I will even add when you're in a rush and you get that fast food, what do you then do? You literally scarf it down in five minutes, which just compounds the issue of not taking care of yourself and giving yourself that space to recognize what you're eating, even your breathing space, like, take some time off of that computer or that phone and just kind of let your mind wander. And as a founder, letting your mind wander it could be the most powerful tool and moment you have, because that's where ideas get generated. Different ways of thinking about running the business and doing things can happen, and sometimes we don't give ourselves that space.
Speaker 2:Well, creativity when you're alone can be absolutely amazing. It's great. But you know, but for the people that are listening to your show and really understand the value that you bring, if they recognize the fact that they're probably drivers and some are extroverts, some are engineers and not quite as extroverted as a marketing salesperson, but that's okay, because maybe that's a company that needs more of an engineering type of company If they understand that they are driving the force, then they also understand that leadership is so important and that they are the leader of their organization and they're the role model. And so if they start self-destructing and self-destructing comes in many forms, but if they start self-destructing and doing dumb things, so will their company, and then things begin to unravel. So you are the leader at all times, and that's not really fair because you think, wait, saturday night, I just want to get rip roaring drunk because I haven't gotten drunk in months. Well, that's okay too. You need to unwind. Unless you're driving, that would be different.
Speaker 1:Just turn off your phone so you don't start texting somebody something inappropriate.
Speaker 2:But just remember if you're going to do that, don't be upset if somebody else does it to another degree. The day did it Thursday. You saved it for Saturday. The day did it Thursday, you saved it for Saturday. They did it Thursday because they oh, you were talking about what a great time you had. You know drinking, you know 11 gin and tonics, you know from the best gin on earth. These are things that you need to put into perspective, because you are the leader, the leader of the family, you're the role model of the organization and you're the one that drives the conversation and the growth. And if you're not the one doing that, then hire people that can help you do that, because maybe what you are is much more of a chairman of the board type of person than a CEO type of person, and that's okay too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love this. This is great. So, when you're thinking about the pitfalls that we encounter inside of building our businesses and the wealth and staying on course, what are some of the things that you would recommend people thinking about in regards to health, whether that's with their community, their family, their community, their self, physical health or even, like you're, a financial advisor, right, so financially it's like. What are some things that we should be thinking about as founders here?
Speaker 2:That's a great question here, I feel like it was a little bit big.
Speaker 1:So if you want to.
Speaker 2:Let me narrow it down to health and wealth. Let's talk about health and wealth. So health is wide. Health is not just about your body. It's about the health of your marriage or the health of your family. And are you paying attention to them? Are you reading through? Are you asking questions through the lines versus the line? And let me give you a good example, because I deal with teenagers in my charity a lot.
Speaker 2:When I grew up and my mother was sick when I was in high school, so I didn't get very much of my mother in high school my dad was a small business owner. I don't think he ever made more than $40,000 a year and his thing was look, I'm not going to put on you a I was the youngest and on a Chevy Vega in the driveway my mother's Chevy Vega. I'm not going to put on you anything. You have to be home at a certain time or sleep a certain time. If your grades don't change when your mom is sick, I'm good, because I know you're going to go to college.
Speaker 2:If you're out till one in the morning, you got to call me by 11 and tell me where you are, and we were mostly hanging out at White Castle, anything like that. We were doing that kind of stuff. But what? He would come home and he'd say, how was the math test today? And I'd say, fine, what's going on at school? Nothing. And so I was asking, answering him like a caveman, monosyllabically or simple words. And so when I was raising my kids, I would ask them similar questions and I would get similar answers, but that doesn't work anymore.
Speaker 2:You have to ask better questions. You have to ask as a parent, what's going on with your best friend, what's your favorite class, your least favorite, your favorite teacher, your least favorite, and listen for the answers. Because teenagers today, the teens of today, are the most depressed teens in the history of our country and you want to be in front of that and that goes for your business, because these people are coming to work and they probably have teenagers. How's it going with Mary or John, your teenager? How are you doing with that? Because that's the interpersonal skill side that misses in so many entities. We work in our world today.
Speaker 2:You and I do on a very interpersonal level. We don't just work on how's your health? Fine, you want to know a little bit more than that. Really, how's your? I noticed you're going to the gym. Good for you. How's that going? Yeah, you really work out a lot, or I don't know about you, but my hips are killing me. How are you? That's that's what I mean by health health of your personal health, your family health, your marital health, your employees health, and that's mental as much as physical.
Speaker 2:On that, yeah, when you're talking about wealth, nobody gets in business to go out of business. Nobody gets in business to finish with less money than they started with. So you're going to have all these challenges in business Lawsuits, accounts receivable, how to finance aggressive growth, all these things. Make sure you're talking to an expert at that. The mistake I made in my 20s when I had a company. We were growing 40% a year and I was burning through cash and I could not understand how I could be so profitable and not have any money. And the people I was asking outside of the bank were telling me well, you're really profitable, don't worry about it, it'll work itself out. One time, the bank was the only one that was telling me that's because your burn rate is so high, and at 25, 28, I didn't understand the term burn rate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what is that? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And so at some point I hit such a wall. They owed half a million dollars to a bank, and to get another half a million, which is what I needed they needed certain pledges that I was really uncomfortable and my wife was really uncomfortable doing.
Speaker 2:And I ended up selling a company because it was the right thing to do. That's a cash flow mistake. I would have been smarter if somebody had given me better advice when we talked about financial health is to hire, and today maybe a part-time cfo or who could have given me advice and say, hey, we have to work on your burn rate and being more profitable and projecting better cash flow. And I would have said explain that to me because I don't get it. Yeah, yeah, so that that's important. If you're putting me in marketing, I'm a whiz on that. I, I get that, but I have I have two full-time marketing people that work for me because they know social media and digital marketing way better at their age than I ever will at my age. So you got to understand that too. Yeah, yeah, world of digital media today, your drivers, your entrepreneurs, they better have people in their 20s working for them in digital media.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's very true, because you don't?
Speaker 2:know what you're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's an HR characteristic. I would agree with that for sure, and it's also like a matter of you just said it. You know marketing, but you still have two people and maybe they're in the realm of the area that you think, okay, that's the marketing area, I don't know. But even if it's somebody doing something that you know, that then opens you up to continue to do something that you should be focusing on in regards to whether or not you should be going to this kind of convention or, you know, going and spending time with this investor or whatever it is like the CEO's time is precious.
Speaker 1:And then you got to add on, as we said earlier, that compounding like you also want to be a good parent, a good spouse, a good person to yourself, your health, you want to stay alive longer than 50. And so when do you end up, kind of pushing yeah, I can do it, or maybe I don't know it, but, or I can do it, one of those two right, and giving that to an expert and giving yourself space to do something else.
Speaker 2:I think, if you think for a moment, another very good question, I think, if you think for a moment, which is hard for an entrepreneur to do, is what's my end game here? Yeah, because one thing I learned because I've been in the financial business for 30 years is I would go to the Schwab and TD Ameritrade and Raymond James meetings when I was younger and I'd look at these white haired, white men sitting there in their 80s, still going to these, and I'd walk up to them out of curiosity, because I'm a curious person, and I'd say what are you still doing here? And I'd get answers like well, I can't be home with my spouse all day, I would drive her nuts, I can only play golf once a week or I have no hobbies.
Speaker 2:And I thought to myself I will never be one of those people amen to that and that's why in my financial world, I have in my mind that I want to take that those companies and put them in the next level of a transition so I can start doing something different and start another company that can hold me for five years. Yeah, I think that's it is.
Speaker 1:It's important to really kind of know what your end game is. What do you want to do and what do you want to get out of it? Because if don't have that direction, then how can you actually drive your business to the place you want to go?
Speaker 2:you need to know where you're going but the adage is steven covey, adage that always begin with the end of mine. I don't buy it, because when you're young and you're starting something and the company's young, it's really hard to see where it's going.
Speaker 2:That's true yeah, you're deep in the weeds and then you suddenly begin to come out of the weeds and get some help, but with companies just like yours going to there. Um, I mean, I got some help because I went to anthony robbins tony robbins and I did the walk on walking on fire, destiny weekend and he made everybody in that room and there are probably 400 people in that room people think what that fire represented. You're going to walk on 80 feet of fire. What does it represent to you? And everybody had different things. And then hook up with somebody you've never met and discuss what it represents to them and what it represents to you and see if they can shed some light on that. And that was so enlightening to me that I began to think, wow, I got to get out of my own space here because what I'm doing is much bigger than who I am.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's powerful. So in the last few minutes we have here, you shared that you've sold businesses. This is your. You're on business three and four. I'd love and probably have hours and hours of worth of lesson learned.
Speaker 1:But knowing our audience and what they want to hear, what you think they want to hear- what would be some of a lesson, one or two, that you could share with us, maybe a positive, and then maybe one that is like oh, that really hurts and you don't want anyone else to make that same mistake well, you know it's funny when you, when I grew up in business school, they said always work to your work, improve your weakness every single year and hire out to your strength.
Speaker 2:And that was going around for about 20 years. They don't teach that anymore. Yeah, now it's higher to your weakness, and that was going around for about 20 years. They don't teach that anymore. Now it's higher to your weakness. Don't try to fix your weaknesses, don't even work on your weaknesses. Improve your strengths. Make your strengths over the top spectacular. So understand your strengths is probably the first thing that your entrepreneurs need to know.
Speaker 2:My strength is marketing. My strength is finance. My strength is engineering. My strength is marketing. My strength is finance. My strength is engineering. My strength is people. My strength is rain making. You know making deals happen. Understand your strength and then, like I wish I did in my 20s, is hire a financial person, because, even though I have an accounting background and I went to rutgers when the accounting major, um, my, I hate me, I hate that stuff, so I never would pay attention to it and and that's what I mean, you got to hire your weakness away. Hr is not my strength. I would hire you in a split second or your firm to do that. But marketing is a big thing for me. Yeah, day-to-day marketing for my employees and salespeople here. I hate that job, your sales manager and your mother and your father. I don't want any part of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, job, your sales manager and your mother and your father. I don't want any part of that. Yeah, yeah, I think that's so great. I hope everyone listening is just takes a moment to think about where, what their strengths are and how that fits into what they're doing, whether they're thinking about running their own business, starting their own business, but they're currently in an employee situation, employer, employee situation. Are they working to their strengths? And, if they already are a founder, are you doing what you are like? Your strengths are? And and it is so validating to hear this from you, elliot, because for me, my strengths is the building of hr, that foundation, and coming in and just creating a space that will allow founders to scale their business from a people operations perspective. And then, once they get there, then we start talking about, you know, coaching and mentoring and all these other things. I'm like that's not really my strength. I think I'll bring in my, my recommended, I'll recommend. Let me rephrase that Melvin cut that out.
Speaker 1:I'll recommend to my customers. Okay, here are some. Here are three different amazing experts in this section of HR that you'll want to work with directly and not with me.
Speaker 2:It's okay Again. Find what you do really well and do it. Learn to love that and hire the rest out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. Well, as we wrap up here, any last thoughts or tips or tricks that you'd like to share with the audience today?
Speaker 2:I think again, the hiring to your strength is a really big tip. Watch your cash flow. And the old phrase is if you do what you love, it never feels like you're working. There's a lot of truth to that. Work can be exhausting, but if you wake up and you say I really enjoy what I do and find a way to do that, then you're going to love going to work. And if you love going to work and you make good decisions and you surround yourself with people like you who could take over stuff that they're not good at you're just going to, you're going to have great success.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I love that, and I realized I forgot to ask you. So you're actually doing two businesses right now, but one is a foundation and I would love to give you a minute to share what this foundation is all about to our audience.
Speaker 2:It's great it's called A Brighter Day or abrighterdayinfo is the website we build resources for teens and their parents with the idea of stopping the goal of stopping teen suicide. Unfortunately, I have a son who committed suicide and he was a sophomore at the University of Montana and he wrote a suicide note to us which we got before we.
Speaker 2:We knew he was dead and it was long. But it said mom and dad, I've been thinking about this for a long time, I never would have asked for your help, I would never would have told you how I felt and I would never would have taken your help. And it was that paragraph on a six-page suicide note that was the impetus and a motivation to say we don't want this happening to other families and we created this resource where teens get free texting help 24-7, all 50 states, for free. They get live Zoom meetings with counselors in their state within seven days, which could take locally six to ten weeks. We make it happen at seven. We get them inpatient help if they need that. We are trying to change the lives of teens, one teen at a time.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is so powerful and we'll definitely display all that information and links to that org in all of our postings. Thank you for sharing that. I'm sorry to hear about your son, but out of tragedy you're making something that's really going to be impactful and help hundreds of thousands of people. You may not even know how many people you actually get to impact from this one.
Speaker 2:We're trying to change lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so impactful. Well, thank you for sharing that, elliot, and thank you for joining us today and sharing your lessons learned and talking about how building your business has an human impact on yourself and your family. I think that's important to consider as a founder myself and for those listening. So, thank you again, elliot, for joining us and thank you for listening in audience, and we'll see you on the next podcast. Thank you.
