120: Why Your Business Owns You (And How to Take It Back) w/ Jason Hull

Most entrepreneurs think they’re stuck because of their strategy, their team, or their circumstances—but what if the real problem is you?

In this episode, Sean sits down with Jason Hull, founder of DoorGrow, to unpack the hard truth: you might be the bottleneck in your own business. From misaligned priorities to building the wrong team, Jason breaks down why so many business owners feel trapped—and exactly how to fix it.

If you’ve ever felt like your business is running you instead of the other way around, this conversation will challenge how you think, lead, and build.

💡 What You’ll Learn

•  Why most entrepreneurs accidentally build businesses they hate 
•  The 4 real reasons to start a business (and where most go wrong) 
•  How misalignment—not strategy—is holding you back 
•  The truth about “freedom” and why more money often makes things worse 
•  Why you’re likely hiring the wrong people (and how to fix it) 
•  The “clone myth” that keeps founders stuck 
•  How to stop being the bottleneck and actually scale 

🧠 Key Takeaway

You don’t fix your business by changing your team, your marketing, or your strategy—you fix it by changing yourself.

When you get clear on who you are, what you want, and how you operate, everything else in your business has to change.

⏱️ Timestamps

00:00 – Why you’re actually the bottleneck
 00:35 – Meet Jason Hull & the DoorGrow story
 03:00 – Building a business around your life (not the other way around)
 05:00 – The 4 reasons entrepreneurs start a business
 09:00 – The illusion of safety vs. real freedom
 12:00 – Alignment: the missing piece most entrepreneurs ignore
 16:00 – Rebuilding your priorities to fix your life and business
 23:30 – How to find your true purpose (“the golden thread”)
 27:30 – Why clarity changes everything in your business
 33:30 – The real reason scaling feels so hard
 35:00 – The “clone myth” and hiring mistakes founders make
 37:30 – The 3 fits of hiring the right team
 42:00 – Why your business feels like it owns you

👤 About Jason Hull

Jason Hull is the founder and CEO of DoorGrow, a leading coaching and consulting firm for residential property management entrepreneurs. Over the past decade, he’s helped thousands of business owners scale, systemize, and build companies they actually enjoy running.

🔗 Connect with Jason

Follow Jason’s journey and insights:

•  Instagram / X / Facebook: @KingJasonHull

🚀 Final Thought

If your business feels heavy, chaotic, or out of control—it’s not a systems problem.
 It’s an alignment problem.

And once you fix that… everything changes.

No Limit Leadership is the go-to podcast for growth-minded executives, middle managers, and team leaders who want more than surface-level leadership advice. Hosted by executive coach and former Special Forces commander Sean Patton, this show dives deep into modern leadership, self-leadership, and the real-world strategies that build high-performing teams. Whether you're focused on leadership development, building a coaching culture, improving leadership communication, or strengthening team accountability, each episode equips you with actionable insights to unlock leadership potential across your organization. From designing onboarding systems that retain talent to asking better questions that drive clarity and impact, No Limit Leadership helps you lead yourself first so you can lead others better. If you're ready to create a culture of ownership, resilience, and results, this leadership podcast is for you.

Transcript

Sean Patton (00:00)
Most leaders think they're stuck because of their strategy, their team, or their circumstances. What if the real problem is how your life is occurring to you? In this episode, we break down why you're actually the bottleneck in your business, how your language is shaping your reality, and what it takes to finally build something that gives you freedom instead of owning you.

Sean Patton (00:35)
Welcome to the no limit leadership podcast. am your host Sean Patton. And today I have Jason Hall. He's the founder and CEO of door grow the leading coaching and consulting firm for residential property management entrepreneurs for over a decade. Jason has helped thousands of property managers grow their businesses by adding doors, improving systems and increasing profitability through his mastermind programs and coaching. helps owners eliminate operational chaos, build scalable systems and create businesses. They actually enjoy running. Isn't that.

That is the goal, man. Jeez, it's hard to do sometimes. Man, and Jason is on a mission to transform the property management industry by raising the standard and helping the best operators win. Jason, welcome, brother.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (01:11)
Sean, great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Sean Patton (01:14)
You've built such a. Co-operative and powerful business that to serve, you know, your target segment, property managers. Tell me about your decision early on to grow your own business and then decide, well, I don't want to just grow my own business. I want, to help train and coach others. Like what was that transformation? Like, was it smooth? Was it obvious? Was it a trial by fire? Like how'd it go?

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (01:41)
Well, I my I started the business originally was called Open Potion and and now now we're called DoorGro. But originally I thought, man, I'll do websites for people. I was a bit nerdy and tech savvy, so was like, I'll call it Open Potion website design and business solutions. And I'll do anything that I've helped do at any of the companies I've worked at. I'll set up their phone systems if they need it. I'll help them with the website.

I'm like, I'll be this tech guy, basically. I'll help them set all this stuff up. That's what my original thought was. Like, I'll just do everything, you know? And yeah. And so that's kind of how it got its start. But it was born out of this need. I was I was suddenly single after being married for a while. had two daughters. I wanted to be able to spend time with them. And so I was kind of thrown into entrepreneurship because I was a single dad and I was like, I can't do

I can't spend time with my kids if I'm have a full-time job and then I get the kids on like, you know, every other week or on the weekends or however this is going to work out. I need some flexibility to be able to be a dad and I need to make money and I don't want to be told when and how to spend all my time. I want to be in control of that. so my kids sort of pushed me into being an entrepreneur.

And so I had to figure out something else. So was like, well, okay, well, what if I start doing all this stuff to help other businesses based on the nerdy things that I've done at the companies that I worked at so far?

Sean Patton (03:04)
Well, I love the way that you looked at what is the life that I want to create first and then said, OK, so what work-wise can I do to support that? And I feel there's so many entrepreneurs who get so caught up in the dream of the business and what's going to happen there that they end up so roiled in that that they create a future that they don't want to be in anyway.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (03:11)
Mm.

Yeah, think a lot of entrepreneurs are wired to be entrepreneurs. I think really what makes entrepreneurs different than everybody else on the planet. And you have to realize if you're entrepreneurial, if you're an entrepreneur, you're a minority. Not most people on the planet are not willing to take the risks and to start a business. And so one of my frameworks I call the four reasons for starting a business. And the first reason is fulfillment. Like we start a business.

and we want to get some fulfillment out of it. The second reason is freedom. We're hoping we get more freedom. And most business owners initially, they make more and more money, but they have less fulfillment and less freedom initially as they build their business. This is part of the entrepreneurial journey. You're making more and more money. You're like, I am a slave to my business and I'm working way too many hours. And this isn't, I thought more money would make me more freedom and more fulfillment, but.

It doesn't necessarily. And so we lose sight of that goal. The third reason, once we have freedom and fulfillment, then we want contribution. We want to benefit others. We're now feeling pretty good. We want to help everybody else. Contribution is why businesses exist. If a business doesn't actually contribute to the marketplace, it's just stealing from people. It's snake oil, right? And so that's what a business is. It's supposed to contribute value. It's supposed to benefit other people.

As entrepreneurs, we usually entrepreneurs are very contribution focused. care. sometimes people start a business thinking they want to make money, but I think God eventually tricks us by doing that into changing the world eventually, because we start making more and more money. And the only real way to make more and more money is either you have to be super evil and clever.

or you have to do what the marketplace wants and they want value and you have to actually have a positive impact and contribute. And so eventually, even if your goal is selfish and it's to make money, eventually if you either give up on the business or give up on business or you figure out what actually works in the marketplace, which is to benefit other people. That's the easiest business model. It's really hard to churn and burn clients. It's really hard to build something

that isn't going to last. I mean, that's easy to do. It won't last, but it's hard to build something that everybody's going to talk good about you. You're going to have a good reputation. There's going to be good word of mouth. You're going to get long-term clients because they see that this is a mutually beneficial thing. This isn't just snake oil. And so we learn over time, we evolve, business evolves and grows the entrepreneur, which I think is a beautiful thing.

Rarely do you see an entrepreneur just become a worse human being as they progress through this journey. There's a lot of bumps and bruises and we learn through friction, through feedback from the marketplace, from our clients, from our family, from everyone around us. This isn't working. So what does work and what does work always comes down to truth. so entrepreneurs are always focused on reality, truth. And that's my favorite, one of my favorite names for God. God is reality. He is what is.

We could curse our reality, really reality always wins. Reality is God. Like it always wins because that's reality. What works in the real world, what works in the marketplace, that's reality. And we can fight reality, but we always lose when we fight reality. so eventually, unless we're really dense, and I've been pretty dense, right? Like going through my entrepreneurial journey. I mean, I joke often that DoorGrow was built on thousands of mistakes.

Sean Patton (06:44)
you

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (06:50)
And that's the thing. Like, so the fourth reason we can't have the first three fulfillment, freedom, contribution, unless we have the fourth one and that's support. So we started business, so we get more support. And that means we have to have a good team because there's no business owner on the planet. And I've talked to thousands. I've talked to personally, I've personally talked to thousands of property management business owners, for example, who we coach. I've never met a business owner that enjoys wearing every hat in their own business.

They enjoy doing everything. And so that necessitates, if you want fulfillment, you want contribution, you want freedom, you want all the good stuff, you have to have a team because you are not going to be happy if you're doing everything. And there's only a few things that most entrepreneurs or business owners really love or want to be doing. And everything else should be somebody else. We have to fire ourselves. We would fire somebody else if they hated the job and we were always having to push them to do that role.

And that's why we need to fire our own selves from those things that are not giving us those four reasons. If we're not getting more support from the business, more contribution, more freedom, more fulfillment, then the business, we're out of alignment with it. And we're basically usually a slave to it and we're miserable in it. And so a lot of times entrepreneurs in their early stage journey, they grow this business and then they wake up and they're like, I'm miserable. Why did I build this thing?

I was so focused on making money. I didn't stop to think, what do I want out of this? And then they usually have this magic moment where they go, this is not worth it. I need to change some stuff. This Jerry Maguire moment where they're like, I'm writing my manifesto. I'm changing how I do everything. I'm not taking on every client anymore. I don't want to work with everybody. And so we start like taking control of the business. But if we build it right away from the beginning, we would be focused on those four things. So there is what I call the fifth reason.

The fifth reason is what sets entrepreneurs apart from everyone else on the planet. Now, everybody on the planet, they would say, yes, I want freedom. I want fulfillment in life. I want to contribute. Sure, that's nice. However, what makes entrepreneurs different from everybody else on the planet is everybody else on the planet values the fifth reason more than those other four. The fifth reason is safety and security or safety and certainty. Most people on the planet.

would rather they have to feel safe or certain first and then freedom and fulfillment would be nice. And we saw this really heavily during the pandemic. It was very polarizing. Entrepreneurs were walking around going, hey, like freedom is the most important thing. Like don't take away freedom. And then most everybody else on the planet were like, forget your freedom. I want to feel safe.

And neither one's really right or wrong. We just have a different hierarchy of needs or priorities. so entrepreneurs, just, we want safety too. That's why have SOPs and process documentation and systems and hiring systems and all this stuff that I have in my business. That gives me safety, but that's not the, that's not king for me. That's not the first thing I focused on when I woke up in the morning, decided to become an entrepreneur. I'm not like, Hey, I'm choosing safety today. I would go get a job. And the ironic thing is that.

Sean Patton (09:47)
you

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (09:49)
That's what everybody is thinking that works for us as entrepreneurs. They think they're getting safety, they just don't realize they're working for a crazy person.

Sean Patton (09:56)
I love that the four, four reasons to start a business fulfillment, freedom, contribution, support. And then to your point that safety and concern, you know, how many people do we know that there you're chasing that what I would call like a false sense of security or safety with the quote unquote job somewhere. And then you're killing it or you're doing great. You could be doing perfect, but

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (09:59)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Sean Patton (10:17)
You know, that whole division just doesn't make sense in some larger strategic plan. And all of a sudden you're out, you know, like no one, no one cares. So like, is it really, it's almost a false sense of safety and security. lot of times I feel like.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (10:23)
Yeah.

Yeah,

sometimes, sometimes we have to be thrown into it a little bit. I did. And, ⁓ you know, I was working at a job and then I found out they're like, Hey, we can't pay you. Like, we're like the market's shifted. There's things are weird. We, we, we can't pay you. I'm like, okay, cool. You're now a client pay me when you can pay me. And now I'm going to go do this for other people that couple with the kids situation. I was like, I got to figure out how to make money. So.

It just, was like, I'll start a business. Now I was always wired to be an entrepreneur. I just didn't know it. I didn't know that was an option or a vehicle. I thought the goal is, but I was doing paper routes. was pre-selling CDs door to door when I started a band in college. And it was like, like I was doing entrepreneurial things, but I thought I was just thinking, how do I get money and how do I like live my dream? I wanted to produce a CD. So I'm like, I got to get money to pay the recording studio. Cause I asked him how much it costs. And now got to go door to door.

and play guitar for girls and get them to sign a clipboard saying they'll pay me and get money from them and take orders in advance. And and but I wasn't an entrepreneur. Right. I was going to school at the time to get a degree so I could go work for somebody because I thought there's people that maybe invent stuff and there they get to make a bunch of money. But I couldn't think of a good invention. So was like, I guess I'm just going to go. I got to go find a really good job and climb the corporate ladder.

And then I started working at companies and then eventually one company was like, Hey, was working for them. They're like, we like money's weird right now. The, the, the sec came out with new rules. They did mergers and acquisition deals and they're like, so we can't pay you right now until we get this next deal on. I'm like, cool. You're a client. Plus I needed to take care of my kids. And so I had to just figure it out. And so they kind of thrust me in. So sometimes I joke that my daughters made me an entrepreneur.

and I just love them, right? So, yeah.

Sean Patton (12:17)
Yeah. was an entrepreneur before I have, ⁓ just came a new dad. ⁓ son just turned one in January and thanks, man. Yeah, it's, it's awesome. It's super fun right now, but it changes. Yeah. And, know, I, part of my business model over the last few years was building up my speaking business, like professional paid speaking.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (12:25)
Congrats.

It changes you.

Sean Patton (12:38)
you know, it works great. You get paid to go speak. And then if you speak and do well, you end up with more leads to do more business. And so someone's paying you to do markets. It's awesome. I mean, there's a lot of other things to it. but I sort of got to this point where it was like, I had put, you mentioned tens of thousands of dollars into coaching and training in a couple of years and, was having some success. And then just realized like,

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (12:52)
.

Sean Patton (12:58)
this you talk about alignment, right? Business alignment. It's like, then I have this son and all of a sudden I see I'm fine with what I'm doing now, but the next, if the next level to pursue that is like, I'm going to be a speaker. It's like my friends that are doing that, they're, you know, they're on the road 150 days a year. And it's like, is that really, is that aligned with the time I want to have with my son at this time? And so it was a, it was this having to real look.

you know, my personal alignment, was it aligned with business? And I'm wondering, you're talking about how important that is. Is that something that you revisit, you know, maybe especially early on, like should we pivot? Should we add things? Like, am I still in alignment? Is this still what I want? Like how did you address that?

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (13:34)
Mmm.

Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, actually, I think that happens periodically when we start to notice friction in our life and we start to notice that things are off. That's a clue that it's time to renegotiate that, right? It's time to figure those priorities out. I was just pulling up a note that I created when 2024. So this is not too far off. But I was looking at what are my priorities?

And, you know, we have our priorities that we're always trying to get, right? That we're always trying to get or achieve. But a lot of times those priorities are if we focus on them in the wrong order, it creates pain in our life, it creates friction. So, for example, like one of my key priorities is like intimacy or sex. But you can see if I place that above all.

my other priorities, that could be really destructive, right? And some people do. And so we need the priorities in alignment. so, you know, there's a framework, I believe it's from Tony Robbins, but it's like your basic needs, your basic needs. I think the basic needs are something like, one is a power and achievement. That's my wife's primary.

Sean Patton (14:32)
Yeah, yeah.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (14:50)
She just got her pilot's license. She has a black belt in American tempo karate. Like she she wants to be achieving. It's like give her a system with levels of achievement. She's like, I'm going to I want to do that. That's exciting to me. Me, not so much my my primary basic need is love and belonging. So I've always had this need feeling like I want to connect. I want to belong somewhere. I want to get approval of others. And, know, you can see how if I prioritize that too much, I'm a pleaser.

I ended up in bad marriages. Like, you know, it's a negative thing. And for some, it's fun and, you know, an adventure. For others, it's safety and security. So little similarities to this framework I had come up with of the four reasons. And so there's these five basic needs. And in looking at those, I was like, if you prioritize these in the wrong order, like my primary that drives me is is love and belonging.

But I recognize if I put that above everything else, if it's overly prioritized, I still end up with friction and pain. And so I thought, how do I restructure this? What would need to come before that? And so here's my, this is my priority list. These are my five top things in the order that I think they need to be for me.

in order for me to get the best output. And it's not what I want. This is what gives me the best outcomes. Because my primary one is probably it's way down at number four. I had to place it below the others in order to make sure that I'm doing the right things. Okay. So number one is for number one for me is what God wants or the highest ideal. That's my top. That needs to be my top priority.

Sean Patton (16:08)
Okay.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (16:26)
Because even if that conflicts with me getting love and connection with others, I want to, I know in the long run, I need to be doing what deep down I know is right or is true in order to love myself at the end of the day, to be able to love others and connect with them. So that, I'm like, that's gotta be number one for me. I've gotta prioritize my own spiritual development, my own personal relationship with the divine.

And that allows me it's like putting on my oxygen mask first. Then I can take care of everything else. And I got to put that first. It's not natural for me to put that first. Right. What's natural isn't necessarily what's best for you. Right. So that's natural. That's not natural for me. Number two, I have power, wealth, status and impact. Power and achievement, basically. That's not natural for me to place that that high. But if I don't place that high,

I don't have the vehicle or the ability to have the relationships and the impact and the connection that I want to create in the world. I just got to I just got had this beautiful opportunity to be at a funeral. It was bittersweet. It was sad of one of my favorite mentors. He crashed his plane. He took it along with him.

his one of his best friends, another major, like significant CEO in Nashville, where he was based, this was Aaron Stokes and he crashed the plane with his son, with his nephew, his son and nephew were same age. So they were all going on a ski trip and another CEO that was Aaron's buddy. So it's four guys going on a ski trip and crashed into a mountain like it was a really difficult approach at night.

probably, I don't know, why it happened, but you know, I think God needed some amazing people to coach some people in heaven. I have no idea. But I went to his funeral. There was like over a thousand people at this funeral. And this is one of two funerals. They're doing another one for his company, which is ShopFix Academy. I think they're doing it tomorrow. It's like right here at the end of the month. And they'll probably be, I would imagine, two, three thousand, maybe more.

because he was like a father and a spiritual leader of some sorts and a business leader to thousands in his programs. And, you know, he's like what I aspired to be. There's very, I've had a lot of mentors. I shell out six figures annually on coaches and programs. I'm going to hang out with Russell Brunson and his group in the inner circle. I'm leaving tomorrow with Sarah, but.

You know, and I try to pick mentors that are people that I would like to be like. Aaron was one of the few that I would like to be like. I was sitting at his funeral and I felt called out by God. So this was a big transition for me lately. And I was looking around, I was like, he's had such an impact. And I felt like God was saying to me, hey, Jason, if this were your funeral, it would look nothing like this at all. It was very humbling. I was like blown away. I was like, can't believe, like listen to what an amazing life he's lived.

Listen to all the charity stuff that he's done, all the money he's been able to donate, houses he's built for people, like all this stuff that nobody knew about, but he's gone. So everybody's like, let me tell you about how amazing Aaron was. You didn't know this about him. And his kids were amazing. he had just built something. He left a crater, right? Because he had such a massive impact. And I like God was saying, hey, Jason, you're...

It was, I felt like Ebenezer screws screws waking up on Christmas morning. But I was still sad, you know, because Aaron's gone, but I was like, there's I still have there's still time. I I'm not dead yet. I got to see a glimpse of somebody that was only two years younger than me. I'm like turning. What am I turning 49 this year? And and I have an opportunity to maybe before I pass to have that level of impact.

and that level of connection and that level of depth. And what would be more rewarding than that? Love and belonging, like that's like so much love and belonging, right? And so Aaron put God first, like no question. He prioritized what his highest ideal was. And if you can't imagine God for those listening, whatever you can imagine is your highest ideal, that is your God. So hopefully it's something good.

Hopefully it's not just some scientist or some guy or whatever, but hopefully it's something pretty amazing that you view as your highest ideal that you look up to. That's whatever God is to you. That's what motivates your outcomes. And maybe some of you, if you're an atheist, it's just like whoever you think was like one of the best people ever. Like could I be one of those best people? Whatever resonates with you. So my number two is power, wealth, status, impact. My number three was health.

I had a hard lesson early on in my entrepreneurial journey where my back gave out. think I had a bulging disc or something. I hadn't been taking care of myself. I thought if I just work hard enough, I could get more money and take care of my family. And then I wasn't eating. I wasn't sleeping. I was working way too many hours. I wasn't super productive because nobody is when they're doing all that. I thought I was. And then I couldn't even work. I was laying on the ground and I was like in so much pain. And then I realized, yeah, this

this vehicle I have, the body, is the only vehicle I've got and I've got to take care of it. And so I have to prioritize my health over what I naturally want to do, which is number four, friends, family, and fun.

I have to prioritize health over love and belonging or love and connection. Because then I have something to be able to give to others. I can take care of them. But if I don't have my health, I lose everything, right? And that facilitates all the others. God first, power wealth status impact. So if I have the resources financially, then I can invest more in my health. So I had to think logically, how do these most effectively stack for me in order so that I can maximize what really matters?

to have impact. So I had to put my primary natural thing to number four and number five, sex or physical connection. Cause to me that goes along with love and belonging. Right. And so that's gotta be before family. Cause otherwise you reverse those. Well, then you don't care as much about the family. Then you're doing stupid stuff. Right. That could be a problem. And so family's always been, it's been a big deal to me. Right. And I like being married. like being in a relationship.

Sean Patton (21:59)
Yeah.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (22:20)
but I'm on my third marriage, which means I didn't always have all my priorities properly aligned where I allowed, I was so focused on love and connection and pleasing that I wasn't even a stable human being that would make my partner feel safe. I was always trying to please them. Instead of being connected to God and source, power, health, being solid and taking care of myself so that I knew who I was and I could then

bring them along with me into my universe, which is a much better frame, especially as a man, right? That women, that makes them feel a lot safer. And so, yeah. And so that's how I restructured mentally how I prioritize. So when I think like, what do I want? I go back to these and I'm like, well, I know what I want, but this is the structure that makes the most sense. Because if I reverse that, if I focus on sex and.

Sean Patton (22:51)
Yeah.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (23:10)
loving connection, first and foremost, then I'm not going to have the relationships and the stability and it's not going to feel like the love and connection that I want. Yeah. And then, you know, going to Aaron Stokes funeral was a big kind of wake up call for me that, I need to refocus on my core purpose. And I think that's a big deal is everyone needs to figure out what their hardwired core why or purpose is that God wired into them, because it doesn't it doesn't change. It's built in. It's you. It's who you are at your core.

Sean Patton (23:19)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (23:38)
So, and I can chat more about that if you want, but that's to answer your question about how restructuring those priorities.

Sean Patton (23:45)
Yeah. So if you're feeling sort of like out of alignment or like maybe those, you're not sure what those parties are. Cause what I'm hearing from you there, what I heard was like you created vision first, like you created, like, here's the life I want to have. Like what order do these things need to go in? Like almost like to architect the life I'm trying to create. Right. Um, and that's what I heard from you is it.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (24:08)
Yeah,

a good initial framework for most entrepreneurs if you're listening is first, am I aligned with the four reasons? Am I aligned towards that? Even the fifth reason, right? Am I aligned with the four reasons? Is my business in alignment with that? Am I getting more freedom and more fulfillment and more contribution from it? And if I'm not, I've built the wrong business, which means I'm showing up as the wrong person in my business. And then I'm building around this center puzzle piece that I've

misshaped myself, it's not accurately who I am. And then I build the puzzle of the team and the business and everything around me. And then by default, if I'm not enjoying what I'm doing, then I've built the wrong team. You cannot build the right team and the right business around the wrong person. And so if you're out of alignment with your own business, you got to get clarity on yourself first and then you build the team around it. So the four reasons is a nice framework to kind of, you know,

figure out, I getting more of this stuff or less? Because I want to get more of it. Then you can look at things like maybe the five currencies. I got this framework from one of my mentors, Alex Sharpen, C-H-A-R-F-E-N, really cool guy. And five currencies are time, energy, focus, cash, and effort. These are the five things, the currencies I can invest towards getting the four reasons in my business.

in life, these are the five currencies I have to invest. And if I'm short on some of them, then I have to invest more of the others. Like if I'm short on cash, then I got to invest more time and energy and maybe effort. Right. And and eventually I can buy other people's time so I can be very time rich. And by other people's time, they're willing to give it to me. And so that might be another lens to look through. But then eventually you got to figure out the core.

Who am I and what's my hardwired purpose? And we have clues throughout our entire life. Every time period where you felt alive, on fire, inspired, in momentum, is that there's this golden thread that's existed throughout your life that is your purpose. And every time you were in alignment with that, it felt really good. You felt like connected to something. And every time you were off from that, you felt stuck, confused.

frustrated, overwhelmed, annoyed, triggered, whatever, stuck, especially for entrepreneurs, stuck, damned, blocked. You were out of alignment with it. So we have a lifetime of clues. And what is that golden thread? And what's the opposite? Sometimes the opposite, contrast helps us figure it out. But what's that golden thread that's existed throughout my life? And whatever it is, so my...

My why, my personal why statement is to inspire others to love true principles. And so my entire life, I've enjoyed studying books and business and spirituality and relationships, but it's always I want to figure out what works. What are the true principles that actually work in reality that I could then apply to maybe even other things or to that, to my situation? And I love being able to figure those out and then share it with other people.

I would do that for free for fun. I'm doing it for free for fun right now. Like I would, love doing this. It's like fun for me and that's my purpose. And so anytime I'm in alignment with that, I'm at my best and I'm enjoying life and I love getting to do it. I would do it for free. I would do this for free to the person next to me on the airplane. They're like, well, you know, I don't know. I'm struggling with this thing. Cool. Let me share this cool stuff. I've learned about this, right? I was like, like, let me help you. I have awesome stuff. Awesome ideas. So

That's my why. And so I built a business that allows me to live in that why and I get paid for it, which is crazy. And that's the ultimate. mean, so I get the four reasons. I feel fulfilled. I feel like I have a sense of freedom. I get to contribute and benefit people. I feel like I have a team that I've attracted that support me in that vision.

Sean Patton (27:33)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (27:47)
so I can stay focused in my lane where I feel like I'm a Ferrari on the racetrack instead of plowing a field, right? Which is a bad move for a Ferrari, right? And so I get to live in that state way more often and it's because I had that clarity first. But when I first figured out my personal why, I saw Simon Sinek, he wrote the book, Start With Why, I saw his Golden Circle formula. If you watch his Golden Circle videos, it's like...

blurry old Ted talk and it went viral and it built his whole career, right? And I was like, what's my why? And so I went on this quest to figure out what my why was. And when I figured it out, I was like, I am so out of alignment with this. I'm like, I don't want these type of clients anymore. I don't want my business to look like this. These team members don't fit my values. And I just like, changed everything. I think I fired half my team within like a month and I just changed and I changed who, what type of clients.

Sean Patton (28:14)
Yeah.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (28:39)
And I was like, I got that clarity. And when you get that clarity, everything else changes by default. It's like you as an entrepreneur at the center of the business are like the sun at the center of the solar system. That sun changes, everything else has to change. And I got cleared on my why, then I got cleared on my how, was my values and what mattered to me. And then I could shift the what and build out the right business. And I changed a lot of things very quickly.

because of that clarity and that's something I coach and help my clients through is to figure out their why because I know if I can get them clear on that, they change everything. It changes how they sell, it changes the type of clients they allow, it changes the boundaries they have, it changes what they tolerate, changes the team members they are allowing on their team or that they attract. Everything shifts as a result.

And I think that's the center. That's what eventually the four reasons was a nice, can be a nice stepping stone for some to kind of get to that. Like what, how do I want my businesses to feel right? But ultimately you've got to figure out who am I? What do I want? Where do I really feel like I'm living my purpose? And then can this business be a vehicle that gives me that purpose? And usually it's not the industry. I've had entrepreneurs I've coached go, well.

I got to leave property management or I got to do something else. No, it's, it's almost never the niche or the industry. It's just your role in it. It's just a role, right? So if your role is like some people's why is about relationships. For me, it's about principles, but whatever it is, whatever your why is, when you feel alive, you can, if it's your business, you can build or have that role. It's like, if you own Walmart, you could be the Walmart greeter. If that gave you the greatest fulfillment, like you were like, you know what guys I'm stepping down to CEO.

and owner of Walmart, and I want to be the Nashville Walmart ⁓ greeter. And that's going to bring me the most joy. No, nobody can say no, it's your business. You can do whatever the hell you want. Right. And so that's probably not what a CEO would probably find the most joy in doing. But that gives you the idea. Like you can do whatever you want in the business instead of thinking, I'm the business owner. I have to do the sales. No, you don't. I'm the business owner. have to do the accounting piece. I can't trust anyone else to do that. Well.

Maybe, maybe not. I'm the business owner. have to do the ops. Maybe you're bad at ops. Most CEOs or entrepreneurs are not the greatest operations person. I'm not like, that's not my favorite thing to do. Sarah likes doing that. She's COO, right? And so, yeah. And so that, that lets us off the hook and then we can figure out where do I find the most freedom and fulfillment? So that's how I think about it anyway.

Sean Patton (31:04)
love that. And, and, and, and going through that, you know, looking inward for the wisdom first, as opposed to, you know, so many business books, whatever the NBA, whatever books are like, you know, doing the, you know, the market analysis and where's the opportunity and where's all these other things, which I'm not, I'm not saying those are bad or good or anything, but it's like, but if you haven't done that inner work first,

Like, what are you pointing at it? Cause cause the assumption, what I, what I hear there is if it's all external, then like your, you're not considering you as the main variable and you being different than that's like saying, well, if we do the right analysis, then this right, this business opportunity is right for every person, regardless of who they are. And we all know that's like not true, but so little do we kind of start inward and then look for where the external opportunity matches internally.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (31:39)
Yes, that's the key.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah, so true. We externalize everything. And I was that guy. Like I was like, everything was external. And if we're the sun at the center of the solar system, we start with the furthest rings out. We're like, wow, I need to get leads or I need to focus on marketing or I need to focus on this or I need this team member to be different or people are team members are difficult or whatever. And we're focused on all the external things and we don't acknowledge we're the problem. We chose all of this. It's our business. We created it.

I am the creator of this business. And when I advocate and focus on everything external and try and solve all the external things first, that's hard because it's like an impossible game. It's like whack-a-mole. There's a thousand different things externally I could focus on trying to change, but that's difficult. But if I change myself, if I get in alignment with myself, everything has to change by default. And then it's done with clarity.

because any action you take without clarity is a little bit wrong.

So we're taking a lot of wrong actions in our own businesses until we get clarity. And that's hard. Art is a good teacher over time.

Sean Patton (33:01)
That is really hard.

That's true.

So if you work with a lot of business owners, primarily in the property management space, but I know you have experienced a lot of places and a lot of businesses, as that growth starts to happen, and maybe we start seeing there's an opportunity to scale the team to, maybe we first start off from our solopreneur, we do have to do everything because we are one of one. But as that starts to grow,

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (33:12)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (33:28)
I think a lot of us as a, as a sense of entrepreneurs of like where, you know, I always that they try to maintain that level of control and can sort of unknowingly become the bottleneck. would, I would almost argue that the, that entrepreneur, that leader, whoever wrote like that driver of the business, like you are the limiting bear variable regardless.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (33:37)
Hmm.

Sean Patton (33:50)
you know, it's kind of my thought process. But if you feel like you're kind of holding back or struggling with that process of creating the team and scaling, where do you see people struggle the most with that?

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (33:51)
Yeah, yeah.

You know, there's certain milestone journeys you have to go through, I think, as an entrepreneur. just don't I don't see people really skip past them. You can move through them quicker if you have good mentorship or good coaching or where there's you have good examples. You don't have to make every mistake yourself. You know, but in the in the beginning, as an entrepreneur, one of the early things we think is is we do everything and entrepreneurs are really adaptable.

Sean Patton (34:19)
Okay, it's good here.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (34:28)
because of the nature of how entrepreneurs are wired and how they think, we can do every role in the business. That doesn't mean you should in the long run, but in the beginning you do, you have to. And so you figure it out and you're willing to figure out and you're willing to push through. But then you have to have the wisdom to start giving up the stuff you don't actually enjoy and recognize if somebody else enjoyed this, they would be better at it than you. And that's the hard thing that Alondale of entrepreneurs are not.

initially humbled enough until they have enough pain, but they're not humbled enough to acknowledge that somebody else could do this better than them. So in the beginning, entrepreneurs, we have a lot of ego. I did. was like, nobody else could sell as effectively as me. Nobody else could do the marketing as well as me. I'm going to, even though I don't even know how to do everything, I can watch the YouTube videos and figure it out better than anybody else and read enough books. Right. And there's this ego and, you know,

wisdom is lots of humility and thousands of mistakes maybe, but initially we usually believe what I call the clone myth. The clone myth is I just need to go find somebody else like me. Eventually we're like, I've hit capacity. So now I just need to go find someone else like me. So we make the mistake of going and hiring another entrepreneur or somebody that should be. And then we wonder why they walk away and steal our clients or they take off because they're highly adaptable. I mean, as an entrepreneur,

Would you work for anybody else? No, you've probably become unemployable if you're listening to this. And that's a great joke you can tell anybody. Well, I'm unemployable at this point because I probably couldn't work for anybody else because having somebody else tell me what to do all the time and whatever, I want freedom, right? But they go and they are like, I need to go hire somebody like me. Biggest mistake. What we want to do is hire somebody completely not like us.

Sean Patton (35:54)
Yeah.

dude.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (36:09)
We want them though to match our share our values. So we need to be clear on our values. And if you have more than three or four company core values, more than three or four company core values, then you don't really value anything. It's like we value everything. So it has to be like three max four values that are your top most important things that if your team members also believe these things, then they, you would trust them to do it.

But if they don't share those values, a lot of times we make the mistake of hiring people for money. This is a huge blind spot early entrepreneurs make. We are money motivated and money driven. Most people on the planet, everybody that wants safety and security are not money motivated. This shows up on disk assessments. There's a values index typically, and there's these different scores like aesthetic score, like how visual they are, how things look pretty.

One's the economic score, one's the political score, right? And so there's all these different values. One of the values is the economic score. For most people on the planet, the economic score is low, which means once their basic financial needs are met, more money will not motivate them. It will not improve their performance. It will not change their behavior. You giving them more money as a business owner or bonuses will not incentivize them in the long run. It won't make them be better.

And what do we do? We go out and place a job post into the marketplace and we say, here is a list of duties. And we don't say, hey, if you would love doing this, if this is your personality, instead we say, are you willing to do this for pay?

Are you if I pay you enough, would you do this? And so we attract people that are like, I'm willing to do this if you pay me enough. And that doesn't mean they love it, which doesn't mean they'll ever be great at it. So one of one of the key things initially is I have a framework for hiring. We call the three fits. The three fits to hiring are they have to be the right culture fit, which means they share your values. If they're not the right culture fit, you cannot trust them. They will always if they're here's the thing to realize, I want entrepreneurs to understand this because you like money.

Imagine that you're hiring people and the number one reason they're working for you is money. This is I want you to understand this is dangerous unless they're a salesperson or an entrepreneur, which means they should be a bit money motivated. Their compensation is structured that way. But everybody else, if they are not money motivated, but their primary reason for working for you is money, they will always steal from you.

in some way because the values are off, the alignment's off. They don't like the role. So they don't like you. They like the money, but they don't really, they're not money motivated. So they will surf the web, they will surf Facebook. So they might steal from you in a benign way. Or I've had a property manager have, or property management business owner hire a property manager that stole.

$100,000 from their trust account. This is where they keep the security deposits for the rental properties. It is not their money. They hold it for the owners. And this property manager stole $100,000 out of all of these security deposits by writing checks for security deposits to herself. Just slipping them through occasionally, stole $100,000, right? Obviously this person had a different set of values.

even though they had the skill and that's the third fit is skill fit. They had the skill to do the job, but they didn't have the values that fit the business or the business owner. They had the personality fit for the job. They were good at it, but they didn't have the culture fit. weren't, they didn't share the values of the business owner. And so we have to have all three. And what's interesting and we've helped a lot of clients with hiring, lot doing a lot of placement, a lot of cleaning up of teams.

What we found is that it's really rare in a lot of businesses to have team members that are all three, but you have to have all three or you have to fire them. They have to be a culture fit. They have to be a person for you and for your values and for the business. have to be a personality fit for the role or they will never be able to be great at it. Not everybody has the personality to be great at sales or great at the details of operations or great at accounting.

and numbers and math, right? Not everybody has the right personality type for these things. So, and then they have to be the right skill fit, which means they have to have the intellectual capacity to develop the skill to do the job.

they might be the right personality for the role, right? Like a COO and a really good executive, a decent executive assistant or assistant might be a similar personality, but one needs to be a lot more intelligent than the other. And if they are, hey, your executive assistant might become COO. That's happened in some businesses, right? But eventually, because you trust them and they're really sharp, but they have to be all three fits. And if they're not, you have to fire them. You cannot...

change their personality, you cannot change their values and you cannot change their intelligence, their skill ability. You have to find all three. And so this is one of the things we get out of the clone myth and then we start focusing on the three fits, but we have to have clarity on ourselves. So we're building the right team around us, but because we need to know what our values are, we need to know what our culture is at the company. We need to know what what's important to us, what our company's mission is.

That is true and we actually care about so we can attract people that go I would love to work for you Sean I'm so inspired by what you're trying to accomplish and create this value you're bringing to the world and that's different if their primary goal is to to latch on to the culture because they a lot of people have had jobs they hate Because they were not aligned with the values or the culture of the business owner Most people want that

But they want safety first. So if safety is having a paycheck, they will go work somewhere they're miserable, even if it means, well, the business owner sucks. And I really just complain about my boss and I live for the weekend and yay, I get to go get drunk this weekend. And I don't care about improving the business or improving in my role or right. And that's kind of sometimes the standard American employee. It's like the joke, like complain about your boss and live for the weekend. We want to find people that

are the right personality for that role. They would, and the thing to realize once you get clarity on this, on these three fits, I'm not all three fits for every role in my business. I'm not the personality fit for most of the roles in my business. I would not go, like that would not be the job that I would go try to find. I don't love doing that thing. And so this is where we have to start realizing what is the most painful thing. And we start building

our team based on what we need, not just based on what the business needs. We need both lenses. And so the business might need, if you're a property management business owner, you might need another property manager or a maintenance coordinator or a front desk receptionist or that's what the business needs. But what does the business owner need? They probably need an assistant. That's one of the first hires most business owners should make as an assistant. But we're so external in our focus, like you were talking about.

We're focused on the furthest rungs out of solving these challenges and we don't take care of ourselves. And then we wonder why we wake up one day and we hate being in our own business. Because it's become this high chair tyrant, flinging food in our face and it's our master. Because we never built it around what we wanted and those four reasons.

Sean Patton (43:19)
Yeah, Jason. ⁓ I feel like you just, yeah, you just bit fire for like 40 minutes. That was awesome. I appreciate it. Yeah. It was great, ⁓ Absolutely. Dude. This was, ⁓ fantastic. I really appreciate it. Well, obviously put links to you and, door grow, ⁓ you know, in the show notes, but if someone's trying to get a hold of you or message you as like, is LinkedIn email, like what's the best way if someone's like, this was awesome. I want more of Jason.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (43:25)
I'm a dragon, I don't know.

Yeah, so, you know, if you're a property management business owner, go check out DoorGrope, but 99 % of everybody else that's listening to this is probably not. And so if you enjoy hearing about entrepreneurism business, seeing my journey. My goal this year is to take the business to do 10 million in revenue this year. We did like 13 million so far over the last several.

many years, but I want to do 10 this year. If you want to follow my journey and follow what I'm up to, my handle on every social media platform is King Jason Hull. That's H-U-L-L. So King Jason Hull. There were other Jason Hulls, so I just decided to add King to the front to preempt them. Yeah. So now, sorry, all the other Jason Hulls out there. But so King Jason Hull, and that's my handle on X on ⁓ Instagram.

Sean Patton (44:26)
Yeah. Take the crown. Yeah.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (44:38)
Facebook, everywhere. So feel free to follow and connect.

Sean Patton (44:41)
Awesome. Thanks so much for your time, Dave. This was fantastic.

Jason Hull - DoorGrow (44:43)
Thanks for having me, Sean.