The Founder’s Trap | Charles Gaudet | Growing Money with Sean Trace

In this episode of Growing Money with Sean Trace, I sit down with Charles Gaudet, CEO of Predictable Profits, to talk about what it really takes to grow a business in a world where hard work alone is no longer enough. 

Charles breaks down the difference between starting a business from scratch and buying into one with existing momentum, why so many founders fall into the “founder’s trap,” and how success can sometimes create more pressure, burnout, and dependency instead of freedom. We also talk about AI, business strategy, trust, authenticity, founder branding, and why companies need to focus less on outputs and more on real outcomes. One of my favorite parts of this conversation is Charles’ reminder that the most successful people he has met are also the most curious. They do not assume they know everything. They keep asking better questions, solving bigger problems, and building businesses around impact instead of ego.

What do you think is more important for building a successful business today: working harder, asking better questions, or solving better problems?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I had lunch the other day with a guy that runs a company $34 billion. Incredibly successful individual. Most successful person I've ever met before in my life. He is the most curious person I've also ever met before in my life. Constantly asking questions, constantly open-minded. He doesn't ask the question he doesn't say, does this apply to my business? In his mind, he's going, How can I apply this into my business? He's so curious. The most successful people I've ever met before in my life are the most curious. And I've learned that the more successful they are, and the more they know, the more they realize they don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Welcome everybody back to the Grand Money with Sean Trace Podcast. I'm your host today, and I have an awesome guest with me today. Would you like to talk to people, uh tell people who you are and what you do? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Uh my name is Charlie Godet. I'm the CEO of Predictable Profits. Uh, I actually run three companies, Predictable Profits being my main company. I own a portfolio of commercial properties and uh and accidentally started this other company here called Founders Fuel. So yeah, that's what I do. Uh Predictable Profits is uh is a company that focuses on working with six, seven, and eight-figure companies, looking to grow more predictably uh month after month and less dependent on them. And um, yeah, man, been an entrepreneur since the age of four. Never had a traditional quote unquote real job. After graduating college, I started a business nominated by Ernst and Young as being one of the nation's best seed stage companies. Created my first multi-million dollar business at the age of 24, and then from there just continued to build and scale companies until 2010. Somebody offered to pay me to help them grow their business. And here we are today. And we've had many companies go to the Inc. To the Inc. 5000 fastest growing companies list. Recently took one from 950,000 to 66 million in seven years. That's awesome. We've done some pretty incredible things. The press took notice. They called me the go-to business coach for seven and eight figure companies. Yahoo! Finance dubbed me the CEO Whisperer. Went on a bunch of other lists of the top lists of this and that, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, it's uh cool enough that my kids like it and they get to brag about it. Um, but you know, it is what it is.

unknown 2:45

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

That's awesome that your kids like it and brag about it because, man, that is the toughest crowd to impress. I've got a 10-year-old daughter, and uh, she is hard, man. She is she is hard to impress, and there's very there's very few things that I do that she's like, all right, dad, I I I respect that. It was uh yeah. So yeah, that's amazing to me. That's amazing to me.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

I hope my uh my oldest is 19. He's an entrepreneur himself, which is great because now he actually gets it. My younger daughter is starting to get it. Uh, she's in a junior and or now a senior in high school, but my youngest, my youngest is in seventh grade. Like you said, you know, I'm not quite sure what I could do, except for maybe be like, you know, best friends with, I don't know, some sort of like, what do they call them? K-pop or something? I don't know. Some like right, you know, that right there would impress her.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Nothing in business, I don't know, would impress her right now. Right. I I'm so with you right there. And uh maybe we need to just do a do a whole separate podcast about how entrepreneurs can impress their kids. That that would be some interesting stories, man. But I wanted to talk to you because, you know, as a business owner and hearing you talk about how you help these businesses grow and all of the stuff you're doing, you've got me hooked, you know. And I just want to ask, you know, like, where should people start? You know, like someone is doing some stuff, where where do they start? Well, that's a really good question.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Um so if I was to go back and start all over again, I wouldn't have taken the same path that I did. So I'm gonna be really clear about that. Uh there are really two paths to entrepreneurship. One path is you could buy your way into entrepreneurship. In other words, where you acquire a business and you you buy it. And when you do that, it's like when you're buying real estate, when you buy the business, you're buying a company that has already existing momentum. And when you price it, you price it so that the revenue of the business is enough to cover all the debt and pay the CEO, because they're running the company, the CEO, a little bit of a salary. So when you acquire a business, you can acquire a business and actually get paid while paying your debt and everything else. So it actually works out really well. And companies run all sorts of sizes nowadays, believe it or not. You don't even have to worry too much about going to the bank, though the SBA makes it very easy for you. So many entrepreneurs at this point are willing to offer seller financing because they're working harder than they've ever worked before, and they're absolutely exhausted. And AI is scary to them. They don't know what's going on. There's all these fears. On the other side, and the route that I took was starting everything from scratch. Now, you can do that. And the hardest thing about starting things from scratch, I think it's Newton's law that says an object in motion stays in motion, an object at rest stays at rest. And so most people underestimate the amount of time, energy, and resources that it takes to get a business up and running and get that thing growing. And so if you think about it, uh I call it momentum. It's like if you've ever gone camping and you take these two sticks and you rub these two sticks together, what you're trying to do is start a fire and you're using all the energy, your time, energy, and so forth, rubbing these two sticks together, all trying to get a red ember. At one point, you're gonna want to quit more than anything else in the world. Then you look at it and you see, oh my gosh, this is little red ember. And then you get that little red ember and it's still real fragile. So you got to put pine needles, you got to put, you know, bark on it, whatnot, and then boom, you get a flame. And now you get a flame, and now it's a little bit better. And then you feed the flame, feed the flame, and then you get this big giant fire. The more you feed it, the more you get the fire. And at some point, the fire is so big, it doesn't even matter. You could throw buckets of water on it, and you can't extinguish the fire. And that comes down to momentum. So a business doesn't survive or die because of a good idea. It actually all comes down to momentum. And as Richard Branson says, when you know how to leverage momentum, you'll leave your competitors trailing in their wake.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

I have to comment on that because literally, yesterday, I've never heard that analogy before. But yesterday I was talking to my friend and she says, How is it growing your business? And I said, Um, you know, when you start a campfire, and in the beginning, you have to keep feeding the fire. And I said, you know, you know, like in the beginning, and it's like the energy of feeding the fire. And in the beginning, like now I've got people that are helping me feed the fire, but I'm still feeding the fire. I'm still really leaning in on feeding the fire. The fire hasn't like fully taken off on its own yet. And I said, and it's, but it's, you know, I can see the ember starting to glow. I can see these different things starting to shift. And, you know, granted, I still feeding it, I still have the fuel and all that. Granted, no one comes and pours water on it, but it's going, you know, and that motivation's there, that intensity's there. But like the way you describe that, I was using that analogy last night, and I just it makes so much sense to me because there's a certain point in time that the fire catches and it's self-sustaining. But what do you do, you know, when it gets to that point? How do you then, you know, say, well, hang on, do we need a bigger fire pit? Do we need did we prepare correctly? Do we have the stuff here to protect ourselves in case this thing gets run away? Do we have enough fuel? Do we have, you know, is it a good place to have a fire? Do we have people that want to watch the fire? Do we have food to cook? You know, there's all these things that I sit there and I think about that analogy. Because so many people sit there and go, I want to start a fire, but they don't understand what's gonna go into that.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

So there's two things that you bring up, and it's a really good point. Um, and I'm gonna get to the second one here shortly. Uh and the second one is the part that surprises people the most that nobody ever talks about. Ever. We'll get to that in a minute. The first one is about momentum. See, there are a couple different ways that you can go ahead and you can create that momentum. Many people think, well, I've just got to go ahead and I've got to sell one unit after another, after another, after another, after another. And a lot of this is built on word of mouth and referrals. At some point, they get a little more strategic and they can create something a little more scalable. Sometimes it's gonna be organic through social media, other times it might be through paid media, but then it becomes a little bit more scalable because now you're able to put forth an effort and generate multiple sales through one effort. But what I found is actually I created what's known as triple win JV partnerships. And I did this by accident because back when I was 20 early in my early 20s, so this is many decades ago, a million dollars was worth a lot more than a million dollars today. And I was in well over a million dollars in debt paying double-digit interest rates on that money. And so I was at this point of major desperation. And I needed to find ways to be able to pay back that debt as fast as I could. And through that, I created this concept of triple win partnerships. And the way a triple-win partnership is, is I would go to these companies and I would say, hey, look, I've got I've got some people that that I can put in front of you to buy your product. And what I'd like to do is I'd like to put them in front of you in an exchange. I'd like you to give them an offer that is uh that they can't get off the street. It's got to be some sort of preferred offer. They can't get off the street, something like that, whatever that might be. And then you end up winning. So they win because they get a preferred offer. You end up winning because you get a client, but then I want a percentage of whatever they they buy because if you can give me that percentage, I'm already doing the work for you. I'm selling them and you don't have to pay for customer acquisition. The result of that was I started getting thousands of dollars that are coming into my bank account every single month, not uh just one after another after another. I didn't realize it was a big deal until one day a partner of a big accounting firm out in Boston showed up to my house completely unannounced. Let me tell you something. You want something scary? It's when you know that one of the head guys of a big accounting firm shows up unannounced. You just realize that maybe you're in trouble. What is happening right now? I open the door, he lets himself in, and he goes to sit down at my breakfast table. Said, um, what's going on? You know, what's happen what's happening? And he said, All the numbers line up, your cost of goods line up, you're selling things at fair market value. You got one of the highest profit margins in the industry, and I can figure out what the heck you're doing. And I just need to know, is this legal? And I'm like, my gosh, I think so. Uh and I told him about the partnerships, and he had never heard anything the way that I did it. And that's when I realized I was really onto something. And so from that point, any business that we went on to build, we said, where's the fastest source of momentum? So we're one of the, actually, we are the largest uh partner for many of the biggest media companies in the world right now. And we go to them and we say, hey, look, here's the deal. We know that your clients, when they come to you, ultimately they come to you, your business clients, because they're hoping that there's some sort of benefit they can get from working with you that's gonna help them grow their business. Is that a fair statement? I said, Yeah, no, it is a fair statement. I said, got it. And when you lose clients, chances are you lose them because they don't know how to leverage the full benefit of what it is that you have to offer into their own business. And so, because they don't know how to use it in the best way possible, you oftentimes lose them. And he goes, that's true. What if I could fix that? What if I could show them how to best leverage the work that you do into growing their business and I can help them grow the business? What would happen to then your client base? And he goes, Well, they would stay longer, they'd spend more money, they'd be happier, they'd give us more referrals, that'd get write us more positive reviews. Fantastic. Would a conversation be worthwhile about a potential partnership? That would be great. And so we formed this triple win with them. And I mean, just last week, they sent us 178 opportunities just last week. So if I was to pay for 178 opportunities, on average, the way the metrics work, just for an opportunity, industry average is about $200 per opportunity, and I would have to pay for that. Now, the way that we've structured it, I only have to pay a commission once money hits my back. Once their clients agree to work with us, they've paid us, it's entered into my bank, then I pay them a commission. So it costs me nothing. All I have to do is serve, make an impact, and then we stay together. They've been working with us now since 2019, 18, 19, something like that, maybe even longer. Um, because what they realize is their clients are growing. And as a result of them growing, they're spending more money. They're staying longer. And so we've become a pillar of their organization. So when you think about this stuff, and we have partners all across the board. We've worked with partners from agencies to you name it, because it's more than just where partnerships fail is they'll say, Hey, Sean, here's the deal. Tell you what, can you refer business to me? If you refer business to me, uh then uh I'll pay you a commission, and that's awesome. And it's like, okay, so Sean, you'll refer business to me, I'll pay you a commission. The client that ends up getting referred, like eventually they may find out that I offer affiliate commissions or whatnot. Then they're gonna wonder, did Sean really refer somebody over to me because they were paying a commission? And so there's a little butt, is that why they did it? And then you, you know, they're working with me, and now you kind of forget that they're working with me, and it is what it is, and so be it. That's the way most partnerships end up formed. Instead, it's structured a little bit differently, which is what is the core challenge that you're faced with right now with the businesses that you're working with? How do we make a meaningful impact into your KPI so that the commission we pay you is just gravy, just icing on the cake. It's just bonus. Some of our partners don't even care about the commission because their businesses are spending more money with them and they're growing and everything else. They're like, I don't, I don't even care about a commission. That's nice. Some of them even like, just pass the savings on to our to our clients. That's fine. There's no problem. Because as long as our clients are staying with us and growing, like our business is thriving. And so, and then they end up getting a preferred benefit. So when you think about partnerships, don't think about just what do I need to do to get a client and pay somebody a commission. Solve a problem. A partnership is another, is another service that you're offering. You think about it like a service line. How do I solve a problem for you? What is that KPI that is going on that I can solve a problem? And if I can then solve the problem, then it goes from just a referral relationship to a real deep integrated partnership. And that's how these partnerships can go on forever and ever and ever and build real strong. I mean, some of our clients actually integrate our services into their product line because they just need them to work with us because they know if they work with us, then their business will blossom as a result. Now, any questions on that before I move to the next part of masterclass. Keep rocking. All right. The second part, this is the part that nobody talks about. There are two really hard times to grow in a business. When we think about growing a business, the hard time is in the beginning, like you're talking about, when you just get started. Now, these companies, as they get started, they're growing the business from hard work, word of mouth, and referrals. And when we think about an org chart, we often think the CEO at the top and then the employees and everything filtered down to the bottom. And that's what we think about as an org chart. Fair statement. That's, I mean, that's what we think. But then what ends up happening is, though, it's actually not that way. Up for from about zero to sometimes you feel it to 500,000, often it's a million, kind of caps out around that 3 million. What happens is the CEO's in the middle. All the deal flow and whatnot is a result of the CEO's network, hard work, word of mouth, and referral, so that that all the marketing and deal flow goes back to the CEO. The CEO's used to closing all the deals. So calendar is all in the CEO, closes all the deals. They start becoming successful. They hire more people. At the same time, the people go back to the CEO and they're waiting for approvals, tugging on the boss's ear. Hey, what do I do? Can you help me with this? And then the clients expect a direct channel, a great direct connection to the CEO. So again, the CEO, the founder is all again stuck in the middle. And then many people tend to think, oh, here's the deal. If all I need to do, all I need to do is just make more money. If I just bring in more leads, if I close more deals, then I'll finally get out of what we now know is called the founder's trap. I'll finally get out of the founder's trap. But then here's what happens. Now you go ahead and you you bring in more, you bring in more deal flow, more leads, and then that means there are more appointments on your calendar. So then now you have less time because there's more appointments now on your calendar. And then as you have more appointments on the calendar, then what ends up happening is now you have to hire more people because you're closing more deals and you have to hire more people. And that's more people saying, hey, boss, what do I do? Can you approve this? And then you have more clients that are then expecting you to then still be available and accessible to them. And now you're working harder than ever before. You feel like you're making less money, you're getting burnt out, and you're saying, is this even worth it? I'm not having fun anymore. Now you're looking for the exitor. And so that's the hard, the two really, really hard parts to grow in a business. It's when you start, and then it's because you are so successful that you fall into this founder's trap. And then once you're in the founder's trap, you can't work your way out of the founder's trap. And that's the interesting part about the founder's trap. You can't work your way out of it. It actually takes strategy to be able to get yourself out. And that's that's really one of the core things that we focus on over at Predictable Profits is getting them out of that founder's trap.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

That's interesting. Well, that was like going to be one of my first questions. Like, what is the founder's trap? But like, it's so interesting too because you know, a lot of people, a lot of like people that I meet that are in business have this belief that they can work themselves out of any problem. And so they're no, you can't. You can't. And I wanted to ask you this because why do so many business owners end up building businesses that trap them instead of freeing them, you know?

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Well, I mean, I went into the same trap when I was a kid. My dad told me the secret of success was hard work. And that was just what I believed to be true. I took that literally. I would work seven days a week. I'd set my alarm for 3:30 in the morning so I wouldn't quote unquote oversleep. And I was committed to work harder than anybody else because if that's a secret of success, then I'll just work hard. And all that meant was that it did a toll on my health, my relationships, you name it, ended up in the hospital. And it never really allowed me to make more money. It instead, I just started hitting this cap. So it wasn't until after uh it almost killed me, literally, in the hospital, that I had to change the way that I operated. We we just don't, we don't think in terms of scalable strategies. It's just not something that just comes to us. We're we start the business because of hard work. We get success because of word of mouth and referrals. And then we're so busy being in the business, putting out fires and whatnot, that we don't give ourselves enough time to step back, observe things, and say, what do I need to do in order to now uh create more leverage and get to that next level? And this is where a lot of people will get that breakthrough. Oftentimes it's when they find other mentors, advisors, coaches, consultants, whatever that might be, so that as they're working in the business, somebody else can give them that objective point of view to say, hey, you know, this is a direction that you're gonna need to take in order to then get you out. And it's just, I mean, that's it's um there's nobody really, that's the tough thing about businesses, you know, there's even though I won't graduated from one of the top business schools in the world, they they teach you how to grow these big, massive, you know, companies through business planning and writing, you know, business plans and all these like org uh charts and culture. And like they teach you how to basically run massive organizations, but they don't actually teach you how to grow a small business. And most of us just have. Small businesses. I was actually a professor of entrepreneurship. I did this for a semester. I volunteered one time. And I'm teaching these kids how to run companies. And at one point, the kids were just like, um, Professor, can I ask you a question? So, yeah, what's up? How come nobody's ever taught us this before? Right. So, what grade are you in? I'm a junior. And I'm like, what is your major? Entrepreneurship. And nobody's ever taught you this before. And it's like, yeah, how come nobody's taught us this before? Because there's because the world is teaching you how to write business plans, raise money, and then they skip a number of steps and then, you know, tell you the bigger parts of a business. But I'm teaching you how to run companies that, you know, will get you to your first million, your first three million, your first 10 million, your first 50 million, 100 million. And for for many of you, if you just made $10 million a year, would you be would you be okay with that? Would you be happy? And they're like, Yeah, that's awesome. Yes. And I'm like, they don't. Nobody teaches a class, you know, here's how to run a six, seven, and eight-figure company.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

I don't. It's it's wild like that. And we are wired, so many of us are programmed, I should say, to think that you're going to outwork that problem and you're going to do it this the other way. But we're not taught to be smart about things. I had a problem right now, and I had was today, was working with my team, just a small issue, but like we had a client send over to us 120 videos that were two angles each, uh shot in 4K video. And she's been trying to download this for the last week. And she's like, I can only download so much at one computer at a time. And I said, and that's the problem. I said, tomorrow and the next day, we're shutting down all editing. And all of our editors, we are going to use every single computer station to download and upload to our editing software. Like, that's it. And she's like, but we're going to get behind. I said, we are behind because you think you can do it through one computer. If we work together as a team, we can do this and get it done. But you can't outwork. I mean, she's like, but Mr. Shaw, I told you I was going to be able to do this. And I said, you can't outwork this. You can't force this through. We have to do it a different way. We have to see how it can be done a different way. And what I'm bringing up is like, she's my best, hands down, my best employee. And, you know, she's, well, not, she's one of the top, right? And because my editor is going to watch this and be like, screw you, Mr. Shaw. Um, you know, but like, she's one of the top. And she's one of the top because she hustles. But the thing is, is it's like sometimes we have to change our mindset, you know, and that mindset shift, we all have different things programmed into us. And we, here's the thing. And this is something I get on this podcast all the time. You don't know what you don't know. And, you know, like those call, those, those students that were juniors, they they're like, I why didn't we get taught this? They wanted that information. They would soak that information in, but they had no idea that they were missing it because their teachers might not have known that they needed to have it. The teachers might not have known it. And it's like, we're at this place where it's like the blind leading the blind. And I'm just wondering, you know, again and again and again, I think about this, you know, what's the difference between businesses that are going to be successful and businesses that are not, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Well, yeah, the the questions changed dramatically just in the last year or two, right? Because now there's AI. Yeah, right. And you know, in the in the past, you the you know, it was it was a lot different because you had the output and then the outcome. And you could talk about how you're great at the output and you're great at helping somebody with the outcome and everything else. But you know, nowadays uh the output is becoming more and more commoditized. Yeah. And so I had the CEO of a very successful mobile app company call me up a few weeks ago and he says, uh, can we talk? I said, Yeah, what's up? And he said, I feel like my industry is facing an existential threat. I said, Yeah, it is. And he goes, um, okay. I go, no, it is. Yeah, it is. And he says, So, um you're telling me that I should try to get out of the business? I said, No, I didn't say that either. And he says, so what exactly are you telling me? I said, I think every industry is facing an existential threat. Every single one across the board. And he said, Okay. He goes, but yours isn't. I go, what do you mean mine isn't? I'm a business coaching. Why didn't you just go to ChatGPT or Claude and ask ChatGPT or Claude the question that you're gonna ask me? He goes, I tried. I go, what happened? He said, I I realize I don't even know the right question to ask. Exactly. I I go, got it, got it. And I said, so that's why we're on the call because you didn't know the question to ask. And he says, Right. You know what the funny thing is? I've never built an app before. I never have. So if I turned around and I'm sure I could teach myself how to build an app, vibe coding doesn't seem that hard. So I can go ahead and I can build this app. Can I ask you? So let's say I build an app and I vibe code this app. What are some of the problems that you're currently seeing with these vibe coded apps? Well, they don't know how to do this and this and this. And all of a sudden he started throwing terms that I've never even heard heard before in my life. I said, Hey, you know what the funny thing about this is? And he goes, What? I go, I never would have known to ask those questions. Yep. And he goes, I see where you're going with this. And I'm like, right. We went from an output-based economy where there was so much going on on the output and so much focus on the things that we did that we have to switch into an outcome-based economy and become the best at that outcome. And there's so many different things that end up having to go on in this new AI forward buyers journey about being the best. Um, but really, this is we have to be focused in on obsessing ourselves over delivering an outcome for a very tight, specific group of people. And in developing doing this outcome and becoming the best, that also means that you have to have some sort of unique IP framework advantage that you can articulate in such a way that says working with Sean, you are going to, the reason why our results are so uncommonly different from that of our competitors is because we have this advantage. And every company across the board, regardless of who it is, I don't care if everybody's buying, you know, name tags out of China and you're sitting in the name tag business, everybody can perform and have a unique advantage. But this actually then becomes what is going to be the difference between you surviving over the next few years and not. What is that unique advantage? Who is that market? And how can you obsessively focus in on that output? And then on top of that, it's also going to be the context that you create that allows you to ask the questions that nobody else thinks to ask. And because the answers are all out there. It's just providing them with the questions that they don't even know to ask.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

And that's it. You know, and I think that one of the things that I see is like we are in this time where people are running in this, this, this like a hamster wheel. Like they're going around and around and around, and they'll ask, I'm gonna go and search this. I'm gonna go and search this, I'm gonna go and search this. And you spend so much time thinking of the props, but you don't even know where to be going with it. And I that's what I said with my business is I I talked to my team. I said, you know, there are AI is threatening everything, but you know, we have to figure out what separates us from everything else and how to like I handhold people. I hand hold people to creating content. Like I will call you up and say, are you ready to create today? Are you ready to get something done today? And you know, AI was great. I have helped people do over 700 plus videos, you know, and handheld the way through that. And for me, that was blood, sweat, and tears, but it doesn't have to be for you. And that's where, like, that's kind of my my my pitch, you know. And it's like, I think that what I'm enjoying about that is just one of the things that I think is still so important in living in Asia, I see that is that connections and relationships are still so important. And you know, and this is something that you were talking to uh about earlier, is like the referral programs you have. But like at the core of so much of this is um you have to be able to connect with people in a true organic way. You know, and how do you think we can, in the age of AI, in the age of all this change, really make those connections with our customers, with the people that we're trying to reach, you know?

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Well, I you know, there there is gonna be this obsession with uh creating trust is gonna be a big one and authenticity. Uh that uh you can still create this connection without actually needing the human one-to-one type of conversation. It's really how do we create connection? Or as a friend of mine, her name is Carrie, likes to say, it's empathy at scale. Yeah. AI has a double-edged sword, and we recognized this right off the bat when it came to Sora. People got so excited because Sora was coming out. Yay, I can make AI videos. And in the beginning, everybody's tripping over their own feet, trying to get an invitation code so that they could get access to Sora. We're creating videos that, oh my gosh, it just blows your mind. It's so phenomenal and it's amazing and so forth. And then uh, I don't even think two weeks went by. And now on social media, you see this video that comes across. And example that I that I think of offhand was my mother-in-law sent over this video about this shark swimming in a parking lot in Jamaica because the storms were so bad that the the sharks were swimming in these these parking lots. And she's going, Oh my God, this is ridiculous. I can't believe how bad the storm was. And I told her, that's AI generated. And she was like, No, it isn't. Yes, it's AI generated. And this is after she shared it on social media. She sent it to all our friends. Oh my gosh. And then in that moment, she felt duped. In that moment, she felt like she felt stupid. She felt duped. And then all it's happened to every single one of us. It's happened to me. I'm sure it's happened to you. It's happened to all of us where we see a video and we believe it to be authentic, only to find out that it was actually AI generated and we feel duped. And whether it's text content or AI content, now we get this just negative type of feeling when people are trying to make it seem authentic and real, but it's actually not. And it's it actually is now we feel angry by that. Like, don't try to fool me. I know this isn't real. Now, if you want to create animations through AI, that's different because it's like you're obviously not trying to pass it off as something that it's like it's real, but I'm talking uh fake UGC videos, user-generated, where people are like, oh yeah, hey, look, I love this product, it's the best thing in the world, you know. But and marketers are trying to why pay an influencer all this money when you can create your own influencer that's gonna. And so it's like now the results of that are people don't want to see AI generated content pretending to be real, right? And the more you can just be authentic and connect with people with who you are, people will gravitate towards that. We're also seeing this anti-guru type movement. When I say the anti-guru type movement, it means that the guru of the past would tell you, this is how awesome I am. Look how great. I'm the best because I did this and this and this and this. Nobody's better than me. Yeah. And now the anti-guru moment is, hey, I failed over here and I messed up, and I messed up, and I managed to get myself out of the hole and create this. And it's like, oh, wait, you're real and you're human and you make mistakes, and you're not afraid to admit when you have mud in your face. Right. And that type of communication is really resonating great with people when they feel like you're in it with you. They're in it with you. You're not perfect, you're gonna make some mistakes. You just so happen to be doing this long enough and made more mistakes than they have that you can share how to get from point A to point B that much faster and less expensively and with less headache and overwhelm and so forth. But you're not claiming you're infallible. And so that's another part of that, of that story. You're also seeing the importance you talk about content. Every company right now is faced with this dilemma. They used to have these faceless organizations and feel great about being faceless. But now the big companies right now are recognizing we need to have an executive brand. And so founders, small businesses have known the benefit of a founder brand in conjunction with their business brand being important. Now the bigger companies are saying we need to have, we need to have these founders' brands, uh, these executive brands. People don't want to do business with a faceless organization. They want to know who's behind it. What's a big reason for doing this? And so we're seeing a lot more of that type of content. And just because you have a founder's brand, and this is the one thing I hear, I talk with thousands of founders all the time. And as soon as we start talking about founder's brand, they're like, oh, but I don't want the company to be dependent on me. I thought you helped people escape out of the founder's trap. I said, I didn't say the company had to be dependent on you just because you have a founder's trap, uh, uh founder's brand. The difference is if I make myself the hero of the story, I'm gonna make the company dependent on me. But the hero of the story is not me. When people say, Well, how have you generated those results that are unlike anything in the industry? I mean, when uh we were ranked number one uh by uh DM News for marketing and sales thought leadership, it's like we weren't ranked because it was like, hey, Charlie, it's all Charlie, and everything is all Charlie. No. We just so happen to have the only operating system, the only framework that exists, to the best of our knowledge, for six, seven, and eight-figure companies looking to grow predictably month after month, year after year. I don't know of any other framework that ever exists or that has existed for these companies. So the hero of the story, I might be the architect of the framework, but everybody in my company contributes and adds and and shares that framework. And now the framework is then the hero of the story, it has nothing to do with me. And so that becomes the hero of the story. And so the result of that is you're not building a business that's dependent on me. Again, it's all about that. And so, you know, that's uh I just went on a little bit of a rant, but no, that that is important.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Master's class tonight, man. I appreciate this. But I want to ask this because you work with a lot of successful founders. What's something they secretly struggle with that most people never see? And what's something that all of them have in common that is a positive trait?

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Um I was in a boardroom one time, and the of a company that virtually every person here knows of this company. Um they have you know over a hundred employees, the whole deal. And at one point the CEO said, I need everybody to leave. So I grab my stuff and I start walking out. He goes, Charlie, I need you to stay. I said, Okay. So he has everybody walk out of the room, he has me stay. And he goes, Oh, I just need to breathe for a minute.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Whew.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

I go, what's the matter? I'm waiting until people find out I'm a fraud. I go, wait, wait a minute here. I'm like, dude, what are we talking about right now? And he goes, no, no, no, not that type of fraud. He goes, I just look at everything that we created, and I just say to myself, could I have done this again? Could I do this again? Right. And he's like, we're doing such amazing things, and we got all these people that are counting on me. And every once in a while I just feel like, oh man, like I feel like almost like this imposter. You know, and you know, and I just it makes it makes me uncomfortable. And and I've heard that um from this gentleman, I've heard this from a billionaire, I've heard this from uh somebody who runs a company worth hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, hundreds of millions of dollars. And it's just it's natural because what happens is they realize they didn't build that business all on their own. They happen to be a conduit that attracts some really smart, brilliant people into the organization. They for they have some really amazing advisors, they have some really uh talented network, and all of that sort of just adds up. And so uh for these people, it's just uh recognition that you know, what people, what a lot of people don't you know, don't see is that when we show up and we're wearing masks, we have to ask act a certain way. You know, we want the team to see us being confident, we want the employees, uh the uh the clients to know that we're confident in the future and our ability to deliver. Rarely do we have that opportunity to take our mask off and just be like, oh, this is what I'm afraid of. Here's my weaknesses, I need some help. Um, so that happens a lot. Um, and I would say the next one is what?

SPEAKER_00 41:27

Uh what are what are these people doing? What are a lot of them doing right? Or what's the common thing that they're they're actually doing right?

SPEAKER_01 41:34

Another good question. When I and when I say I work with some of the most successful people in the world, I talk about working with the six, seven, eight figure companies. I don't talk about because it's not my target market, it's just they actively seek me out. The comp the people who are billionaires and so forth. Um, and the one thing that every single one of them has. Here's a funny thing, Sean. This this is amazing to me. I will work with somebody who is a startup in an organization, right? And they feel like they know everything. Trying to talk to them and give them some advice, they're the first ones to tell me every reason why I'm not right. Every reason why they know what they're talking about. And we call these people yeah buts. They just think they know everything. Yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but they think they know everything. I had lunch the other day with a guy who runs a company $34 billion. Incredibly successful individual, most successful person I've ever met before in my life. He is the most curious person I've also ever met before in my life. Constantly asking questions, constantly open-minded. He doesn't ask the question, he doesn't say, does this apply to my business? In his mind, he's going, How can I apply this into my business? He's so curious. The most successful people I've ever met before in my life are the most curious. And I've learned that the more successful they are, and the more they know, the more they realize they don't know.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

That's that's Taoism man right there. The uh Lao Tzu, I was a philosophy major, history with an emphasis in philosophy. Taoism, Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism, has this great quote that says the fool, uh, the master, uh, the uh wise man thinks he knows everything, but the true master knows that he knows nothing. And you know, and it's like there's so much that you don't know. You might get A bit of um expertise in an area, there's still so much that you don't know. And I think that that humility is so important. But I wanted to ask you this. If an average person listening wanted to build a more stable financial future or business, what's the first thing you tell them to focus on? Good question.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

They have to focus on solving a problem. And solving a problem that they're passionate about solving. So that it actually means something to them. Being able to solve that would mean something to them. And people don't people don't do business to me with me because they're like, oh Charlie, I want to put more money in your pocket. Like they don't make that. They don't be like, I want to do business to Charlie, put more money in his pocket. They don't do that. They don't make that decision, right? Uh what they'll do is they'll pay me to help solve a problem. When the average person thinks about starting a business, oftentimes they are drawn to it by this idea of more money, more freedom. Yeah. So in their mind, they're constantly thinking about what do I need to do to be able to convince this person, persuade this person to give me more money and give me more money and give me more money. And then at the same time of giving me more money, I also want to make sure that I want more freedom. So I don't want to work as hard, but I want more money and I just don't want to work as hard. Because I want that freedom too, right? Give me more money and I don't want to work. And then they struggle, struggle, struggle. Never really works out. The math, the math doesn't math for them. It's the people, Richard Branson, another, you know, I brought him up a couple times. He's he's uh my professional role model in many ways. Um, Richard Branson was like, if you go into business to become rich, then you're probably never gonna get that. I mean, you gotta be in business because you got to solve problems. People want to pay you to solve problems. So if you decide that you're gonna go ahead and you're really gonna focus in on solving somebody's problem, you'll get paid in direct proportion to the impacts that you provide others. You'll get paid in proportion to how big the problem is and how severe the problem is for somebody. You focus in on that, you'll get paid even more. You focus on that, then you're you'll make money. The more you decide to solve and understand the problem of what bothers them. And in terms of the freedom, I mean, the the gentleman that I just mentioned, the $34 billion CEO, when I said to him, I was like, what's your average day look like? I'm curious. He says I get up at 5:30 in the morning, I'll read, blah, blah, blah, work out, then I work back-to-back meetings till five, then I'll have dinner with my family, five to seven. And then for the rest of the evening, uh, I'm then back working. And then on Saturday and Sunday, I work four hours each day. And I'm like, wow, you work a lot. Um, and he's like, well, it doesn't really feel like work because I enjoy what I do. Uh Elon Musk works a ton of hours, the whole deal. All these people work a ton of hours, uh, but they actually have all the freedom you could ever ask. Yeah. Because the freedom is options. They have the option to work if they want to, and the option not to work if they don't want to. And that's all freedom is. It's the option. It's the option to do what you want to do when you want to do it, with whoever you want to do it at whatever costs you have to pay for it. And it's that's the op that's freedom. Yeah. And they just choose to work because they love it.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

Some mic drop moment right there, man. Where can people go to find out more about you and what you do and what you that like all of the stuff that you teach people? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:40

So predictableprofits.com would be the best place. Again, that is predictableprofits.com. I wrote a book called the Predictable Profits Playbook. I can also find that on the website, and uh I think it's free plus shipping, something like that. So you can check that out over at predictableprofits.com. Um, we also got a podcast, Beyond Seven Figures Podcast. They can check us out there. Um, yeah, and they're if they're ever interested, foundersfuel.cl. They're happy to check that out as well. And that's my accidental company that um that we started. It's pretty cool.