Building Predictable Profits With Strategy + Resiliency with Charles Gaudet (Part 1)

Burnout doesn’t just drain energy; it blurs judgment. We sit down with Charles Cadet, founder and CEO of Predictable Profits, to unpack how he rebuilt success by swapping hustle for strategy and turning adversity into a durable operating system for growth. From a childhood lesson about never selling “scribbles” to paying off massive debt after a health scare, Charles shares the pivotal moments that shaped a framework leaders can actually use.

We dig into the difference between fast growth and predictable growth, and why the latter requires a stronger setup: creating, capturing, and nurturing demand with evidence and clarity. Charles explains how today’s buyers research across dozens of sources and why credibility, specificity, and a clear magic sauce beat broad claims every time. He also talks through building leverage so revenue doesn’t depend on a founder’s calendar, and how high performers measure value in time saved and sharper decisions, not just fees.

The conversation is grounded in mindset without fluff. Charles reveals how he reframes resistance as a sign of an approaching breakthrough, treats learning differences as a superpower supported by a strong team, and uses gratitude to navigate grief and uncertainty. We touch on AI-driven disruption, positioning, and the practical steps to avoid feast-or-famine cycles. If you’re ready to stop shipping “scribbles,” strengthen your demand engine, and create consistent, month-over-month growth, this one brings perspective and playbooks you can apply this week.

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Transcript

Opening And Host Banter

SPEAKER_00 0:06

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, Natalie Davis and Pamela Cast.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Welcome back to another episode of Reignite Resilience. I am your co-host Natalie Davis, and I'm so excited to be back with all of you today. And joining me, of course, is your co-host, Pam Cast. Hello, Pam. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 0:53

I am fantastic. Um, now that I've figured out that it's Tuesday, I think I'm good.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

I'm good for the week. Which you may have just learned moments ago. Just moments ago. It's been a nail biter all day. What day am I showing up for? Exactly. I feel that we like came into 2026, we the collective, like into 2026, just at a hundred miles an hour, and it has been nonstop. And now we've looked up and here we are in February. Like I can't believe it.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Yeah. Yeah. I kind of have felt the same way. I don't know what happened. I blinked and here we are.

Introducing Guest Charles Cadet

SPEAKER_03 1:25

And here we are. That's okay. We'll be doing some check-ins with our folks on resolutions and goals and things like that. Because, you know, when you're 45 days past setting those goals and resolutions, we like to hear how they're going. So absolutely. Absolutely. Well, we have a special guest that's joining us today. And I'm going to turn it over to you, Pam. Why don't you tell our listeners who's joining us?

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Absolutely. Super excited about today's guest. So we have Charles Cadet. He is an architect of the Predictable Profits Operating System, a proprietary methodology that has helped hundreds of seven and eight figure businesses escape the feast or famine cycle and create predictable revenue streams. As founder and CEO of Predictable Profits, he specializes in helping established companies achieve consistent month-over-month growth. Perfect topic for this time of year. Welcome, Charles. It's such a great honor to have you with us today. And gosh, I'm going to throw it to you to kind of share a little bit about your story because you've got a story before you started all of this amazing stuff that you're doing today.

Early Entrepreneur Story And First Lessons

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Sure. Awesome. Well, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. So I started my first business at the age of four and never had a traditional quote unquote real job. After graduating college, I started a business then nominated by Ernst ⁇ Young as being one of the nation's best seed stage companies and created my first multi-million dollar business at the age of 24. After that, I continued to build and grow a number of different companies until 2010. That's when somebody offered to pay me to help them grow their business. And I started Predictable Profits. Through the years of working with clients, we've done some pretty remarkable things. And it got the attention of the media. And as such, the International Business Times did a featured story on me, calling me the go-to business coach for seven and eight figure companies. MSN just a few weeks ago named me the leading business coach for eight and nine-figure CEOs. DM News named me the number one thought leader for marketing and sales in 2025. And then I can go on and on and on. But the reality is it actually has nothing to do with me. I'm just benefiting from being the CEO of the company. It really has everything to do with what you mentioned, the predictable profits operating system. And I'd be remiss if I didn't give a hat tip to my team, who really is credited with so much of the results that we've been able to generate. But people are coming to us and they're asking usually one of three questions or saying, look, what's it going to take to grow my company faster? Or maybe they say, look, someone's are fees, someone's a famine. How do we bring more predictability into the revenue? Or the third one is a company is far too dependent on me. How do we scale? And that brings me to where I am today.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

That's amazing. So you've been an entrepreneur since you were four.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Since I was four. So some people think that you're either born an entrepreneur, or a lot of people think maybe you're born an entrepreneur. That actually wasn't the case. Maybe it's a case for a lot of people. It just wasn't the case for me. So I really didn't get to know my dad until the third grade because my dad was a business owner and he worked every waking hour of every day, seven days a week. So I'd get up in the morning and dad already went to work. I would go to bed and then dad would come home if he came home, because sometimes he actually just slept at work. And so I really didn't get to know him. But when I did see him, he would say, kid, if you ever want to make something of yourself, you got to be a business owner. And so all I wanted to do is get my dad's approval and get my dad's love and so forth. So I wanted to show him that I could do it. And so I just started creating artwork and selling it to my neighbors. And then I showed my dad what I did, and he was proud. And so I'm like, okay, I got what I was hoping for. Yes. And then I just continued down that journey. And it was a blessing because it's ultimately what I feel I was made for. But if it wasn't for that event, I don't know that I actually would have done it at least that early. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

That's amazing. And so then you step into your own journey as an entrepreneur and building your business. I mean, like if you're not born, then what? What is your secret sauce then, Charles? What prompted you to go down that path?

Turning Hard Feedback Into Value

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Well, there's always been lessons across the way. And I know you and I spoke a little bit about adversity and so forth. And there's multiple points of adversity and multiple paths that I've gone down that have been dark were I feel like hit rock bottom. And I'm happy to explore that if you want to, you know, later. But the first part of the adversity was actually when you're four and you're selling artwork to the neighbors, most neighbors are like, you're looking for 50 cents, no problem. Here's 50 cents. They grab the artwork, and as soon as the door closes, they're throwing it away. Right. It's just, they're trying to be nice. Except for Mrs. Hersey. Uh, wonderful woman. I've, you know, she's a great person. But Mrs. Hersey actually taught me a lesson that later added millions of dollars to my bottom line. And I gave Mrs. Hersey my artwork, and she looked at this and she goes, Charlie, is that really the best you could do? And I could feel still as I think about it, I could feel the blood rushing into my face. I could remember the heart, I could feel my heartbeat in my face. Like, you know, I was so mortified and embarrassed. And I was honest with her. And I was like, no. And she said, Why would you sell me something that wasn't the best that you could do? It looks like scribbles. And oh, I was like, like, that hurt, but she was right, which is why it hurt. Usually it doesn't hurt if it's not right. Right. You know, but because I knew it was right, it hurt. And she said, I will give you three cents, two or three cents, something like that, for that, because that's all I think it's worth. And so I took the money. She was the last sale I made that day because I couldn't sell anybody else scribbles. And I learned from that moment I never wanted to feel like that again. So I would never from that point on sell anybody's scribbles. And so after that, I always made sure that what I did would deliver value in some way so that nobody could ever ask me, is that really the best you could do? And so it was a really important lesson early on that felt hard and tough, but little did she know it was one of the most valuable lessons she could have given me.

SPEAKER_03 7:35

Wow. Awesome. Shout out to Mrs. Hersey. That's great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Great. I don't know if she ever, I don't know if she's ever known that, but uh it's it's a great thing.

SPEAKER_03 7:45

But a powerful lesson that that you carried with you throughout life, right? When you're looking at it. If you can deliver better quality, better, higher level of service, what have you, you know that there's something else you're going to strive to deliver that versus the scribbles.

Mindset, Adversity, And Opportunity

SPEAKER_01 7:59

You're right. And you know, I think this is where there's opportunities that many people miss. And you're gonna get people get two different reactions when they're faced with that type of feedback. You're gonna get some people that almost like push the blame, deflect the blame over to that person. You know, the typical person, if you think about it, when getting that feedback, they'd be like, what does she know? You know, B-I-T-C-H, this and that. And they just instead of taking a moment and say, why is that the best thing that could happen for me right now? And I was very fortunate in that that was the direction that I went is understanding like, why did this happen for me? No, I didn't consciously connect it that way, I just reacted that way. Now, with my team and whatnot, I'm constantly asking them when something happens, regardless of what happens, why is this the best thing that could happen for us right now? When 2020 happened and the world was shut down with our clients, there's a reason why 87% of our clients had the best year they'd ever had. And it doesn't matter the industry, restaurant, travel, it doesn't matter. I had asked them, why is this the best thing that could happen for you right now? Most of them looked at me like I had two heads and smoking the wacky tobacky, but it didn't matter because once they finally got to the answer, we could begin to formulate solutions. And science is there that shows that everything, all the way down to the smallest observable molecule, there's a positive and energy, the positive and negative energy. It's always that way. And it doesn't even matter. Everything that exists, economies go up and down. Uh, yesterday's rainforests or today's deserts, and you name it, like all the way across the board, there's always positive and negatives, and they always happen. And so when we look at a negative, we ask, well, why is could this be the best thing to happen for us? And then it opens your eyes to possibilities instead of the other way, which is you close the door and you just feed into more problems.

SPEAKER_03 9:50

Yeah. You settle into being a victim.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Well, we see this so much with a lot of our guests that have had incredible adversity happen in their lives. And every single one of them has taken that and found some sort of purpose in it, which is moving forward, which is perfect.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Most people, when you look at their success and you trail it back, they can oftentimes trail it back to a moment of despair or challenge, or several moments, not just one, of despair or challenge that force them either to make a decision or brought them on a journey that got them to meet somebody else, or whatever happened, that if none of that happened, they never would have got to the place they're at right now. So if you think about like the stock market, right? The stock market, and I used to own a company and we traded millions of dollars in the market. So, you know, and I designed all these algorithms. And so there's what's called support and resistance, right? So support is when the stock starts to come down and it hits this level of support, meaning like, you know, it's kind of holding you stable, but eventually you might fall below support and you don't really want to do that. And resistance means you start breaking a new high, but something kind of is stopping you. Like it's feeling it's feeling very difficult. The way that I look at things now is when I feel like things are getting harder or I'm getting hit with different challenges in some wack-a-doodle way that at least keeps me sane. I start to celebrate and be thankful because I'm like, this is great. I'm getting closer to a new high. This resistance exists because I'm getting closer to that next breakthrough. And so I'd love that. Mindset is a funny thing, but without the right mindset, you're gonna miss the opportunities that are in front of you right now.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Well, and I think a lot of people will stop or quit when they start to feel that resistance instead of pushing through it and seeing that, oh my gosh, this is I'm something's gonna happen. There's this momentum that's been created. I got to keep moving.

Building Resilience Through Bigger Problems

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Well, if you look at the problems that you're both faced with today, you're both successful in your own right today. If you look at the problems that you're dealing with today, even the biggest problems, like they probably feel really, really tough. And that's okay. Because if you think about the problems that you were faced with even five years ago, five years ago, those problems felt really, really hard. But today, when you look at the problems five years ago, you'd be like, I can't even believe I worried about that. I can't believe that I lost sleep over that. Because what it's done is it's it built that muscle to allow you to handle the problems that you're faced with today. Similarly, five years from now, you're gonna look at the problems that you're dealing with right now, and you're gonna be like, gosh, that's so funny. I was so worried about it. But now it's like, I'm there. But if you were given the problems for five years from now, if you were given that problem today, you wouldn't be equipped to handle it. You haven't built an, you know, you have so the more problems you have, it actually builds that muscle and that resilience to train you to handle bigger problems. Between my wife and I, and we invested a quarter million with Tony Robbins just to be able to kind of travel the world and learn from him and so forth. And I'm up in Whistler, Canada, and and I'm with Tony, and he says to me, What's the biggest problem you're faced with right now? So I kind of shared some different things. And he goes, Now, who's your professional role model again? I go, Richard Branson. He goes, Do you think Richard Branson would lose like 0.1 seconds of sleep over the problems you're dealing with right now? And I'm like, Yeah, probably not. And I'm like, why do you ask? And he says, I'm sizing you up. I said, what does that mean? And he says, You see, over the years I learned that big people have big problems. Little people have little problems. Little people run away from their problems, but big people will create big problems for themselves. And that's a big distinction. They create big problems. So, you know, that's often, you know, when we look at the different problems, like, are you creating a big problem? Like, look, uh, love him or hate him, it doesn't matter. It's just the first example that comes to mind. You think of like Elon Musk, he says, I'm gonna colonize Mars. That's a big problem that he created. And most people think that he's out of his freaking mind.

SPEAKER_03 14:47

On no one else's radar, like, not on anyone's radar.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Nobody, but he but he created that big problem. And a lot of, if you look at those, the most successful people in the world, they're constantly putting them out there and constantly creating big problems. Mother Teresa had a big problem. She's like, I'm gonna, you know, and hunger and do all this stuff. She created that big problem. Dalai Lama, I want to bring peace to the world. And he created big problems.

SPEAKER_03 15:14

Charles, like thinking about your own journey, because I have to go back to you being a 20-something running and operating this multi-million dollar company and business. And so in your own journey, you obviously, I'm assuming, wouldn't arrive to where you are today then, when you were in your 20s. Talk to us a little bit about that time because that season of life, uh, we we've talked about mindset, we've talked about like the habits that we have to have and and how you're showing up. Where are you in your early 20s to find yourself in this space of success?

Learning Differences As A Superpower

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Well, it even started before that, actually. When I was in grammar school, I believe it was grammar school when this happened, my mom got me tested for learning disabilities. Now, she got me tested for learning disabilities because she was like, you know, with all this fear of the draft and everything else, she's like, if he has learning disabilities, then maybe he won't get drafted. And, you know, my mom, so little she didn't really know what was going on, but this is kind of like, you know, so you know, because back then when I was a kid, they were talking about Russia and the Cold War and everything else, and you know, mom was afraid. Well, she gets me tested, and I happened to like, I don't know what was going through the doctor's mind. Honestly, this is complete like it just idiocy on the from the doctor's standpoint. But I'm standing on the other side of the room, my mother's sitting on the couch, and the doctor is talking to her, and she says, Your son has one of the worst cases of learning disabilities that I've ever seen. And she said, and furthermore, I'm not even sure how we can function in a regular school. Now, when you're a kid and you hear that, that instantly just, you know, the stories that are in your head just run rampant. And so I get in the car on the way home and I'm totally quiet, and I don't say anything. And in my mind, I'm thinking, great, doctor just told me I'm dumb. Doctor told me I'm stupid, and I was really upset by that. I knew in school that I couldn't do things the way that other kids didn't. I could never really learn in a traditional classroom. I always felt like I was a little bit slower than everybody else when it came to like learning different things. And so I I knew things were different, but that was more confirming. And now I'm assuming, you know, I'm dumb. I'm not even supposed to be in a traditional school. And then my mom said something to me, and I will never ask her if this is the truth. Ever. Because I don't want to know the truth because it's the story that I've continued to rely on the whole way. Um, but she said, uh, hey, um, I you you seem a little upset. I don't think you heard everything the doctor said. She said, Well, what are you talking about? She said, You notice how you actually do well in school? And I'm like, Yeah. I mean, I did do well in school. I'm like, yeah. She goes, The doctor said you had one of the highest IQs that she's ever seen. You're extremely gifted and talented, which is why you've been able to teach yourself how to go through school. And she said, uh, so your brain just works differently, but you've got a gift. And my energy changed immediately. And I was like, wow. And, you know, so that's a story that I've carried myself with, right? And so when I think about the different things that go on and how hard certain things are, like I, even to this day, I'm 48 years old, and every day I'm managing my own learning disabilities. But in the back of my mind, I'm going, my brain works different than everybody else. And it's been a gift, which is why I'm as success as successful as I am today, because of that. And I've got almost every form of dyslexia except for seeing things backwards. I didn't know there were multiple forms, but apparently there are, you know, aside from seeing things backwards. And I mean, uh, very literally, like I've left my luggage behind at the airport six times because the moment my brain just starts thinking about something, everything else, you know, shuts off.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

Yeah. Unless you want your luggage. But then that's not my luggage.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

I'm the only guy that you probably know that is actually when I get home and I realize I have all my luggage, I'm like, you know, I'm expecting a big round standing ovation with a walk in the door and I'm like, look at, I still got the bags. You know, but I think I'm nuts.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

Oh my gosh. Charles, that does answer something for me because I've always wondered who are the people that forget their luggage on the conveyor belt? I'm like, how do you go home without remembering to get your luggage? And now that this solved for me. So thank you for for giving me.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

I left it at TSA. I've literally put it right on the TSA belt and I walked through security and just kept going. And you know, I boarded the plane, and then I'm like, oh bang. What happened? Uh yeah, I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

Charles, we had a guest once that literally had his entire face on the side of his suitcase. Maybe if you had that, people would be like, hey, I think you forgot your bag.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

My wife put an air tag in my bag now so that when I do lose it, I actually can locate where I lost it at.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Oh my gosh, that is hilarious. So it's amazing me the power of just those words completely shifted your trajectory, really. If she hadn't said that to you, you would have run that story through your head that you were dumb and that you couldn't even get through school. And yet here you were, you had gotten through school, you had taught yourself how to do it.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yeah. And I turned that story into, you know, why is this the best thing for me? Right. And now when I look at it, the reason why people pay me to do the things that I do is because my brain doesn't work the same way everybody else's does. So I I see opportunities that other people can't see because it's just I it works differently. So it's become my superpower. Now, every superhero has a kryptonite. So, you know, I do have my kryptonite that comes with it, but I've managed to to work with it. And you've built a team that supports it, which is exactly right.

SPEAKER_03 20:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

Incredible. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Yeah. Now you asked about my 20-year-old self.

SPEAKER_03 21:02

Yes, yes.

From Hustle To Strategy After Burnout

SPEAKER_01 21:04

So my dad told me the secret to success was hard work. And then he would also say the early bird gets a worm. So I take things very literally sometimes. And I'm like, all right, got it. Uh nobody's gonna outwork me. And if the early bird gets a worm, then I'm gonna make sure that I'm the earliest bird there. I would set my alarm for 3:30 in the morning so I wouldn't quote unquote oversleep. Uh, work seven days a week. And if I happened to get up around midnight to go to the bathroom, I would force myself to stay awake and I would start working at midnight and I would work until I could no longer keep my eyes open, which oftentimes would be, you know, maybe seven, eight o'clock at night, where my brain would just shut down and then I'd have a couple hours before I went back to bed again. But I did this nonstop. And and at the time, and this is in my 20s, I was in over a million dollars in debt. So, and way back when, that's the equivalent of several million dollars, right? And I'm paying double digit interest rates on this money. And so, you know, I'm like, I don't know how I'm gonna ever be able to pay this back, but I'll find a way. And hard work, I thought, was my answer. Then I'm driving home uh one day from work, and uh, I see my house over across the hood of my vehicle on the left-hand side of the road, and I see the house, and in that moment I realized I'm not going home today. I felt the shooting pain from the base of my spine all the way up into my into my brain. I didn't understand what was going on, but it wasn't long before I was on my back in the emergency room. And the doctor says my organs are shutting down and I'm dying. And I'm like, but what's happening? I was so exhausted and under so much stress, and I wasn't eating right, and the whole deal that everything just your body can only take so much. And fortunately, obviously, I survived, but it was on that drive home. My wife is driving, and I'm thinking to myself, man, I don't understand. I mean, I'm doing everything I was supposed to do. And at the same time, I feel like everybody around me is making more money. What is happening right now? And that's when I changed my approach. I changed the way that I had to work to grow a business and created more leverage and actually was more used strategy instead of hard work. And it was within a year of that time that I paid back all of my debt and created my first multi-million dollar business. So much so that I hired an accounting firm, a big accounting firm out of Austin, the principal of the accounting firm showed up my house completely unannounced, knocked on the door, I opened it, uh, he said hi and let himself in, and then walked right into my breakfast table and sat there and was like, we need to talk. And I'm going, Oh God, what's happening? He says, I don't understand what happened. All the numbers line up. It's all, you know, fair market value and the whole deal. But you have one of the highest profit margins in the entire industry. What are you doing and is it legal? And I'm like, Oh, yeah. So I just, you know, realized that what we did actually worked. And again, it was one of those things because the way that I I do things is a little bit differently. I just thought everybody did it this way. And it was, he's the one who told me, God, that's amazing. Nobody, nobody does that. It's different. Yeah. Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Okay. So how hard was it to go from working seven days a week, pretty much no sleep, not eating well, and making that shift because that had become your identity.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Ooh, that's a really good question. We do things as Tony Robbins likes to say, we either do things out of inspiration or desperation. At that point, I didn't have a choice. Right? It was more desperation. So it was less more of an identity shift. It was more of like, well, how else am I supposed to do this? Right. So it's more of like a way of thinking, a shift in my approach. And so, you know, that's what happened and brought me to again. It's like every hardened moment I can go back and say, well, if that didn't happen, then this wouldn't happen. Right. And we talked earlier about, I said, you know, hitting rock bottom. And when people tell me, um, hit rock bottom, I know if they've hit rock bottom and if they haven't, from one particular only one thing, in my view, determines if you're at rock bottom or not.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

Okay.

Paying Off Debt And Profit Breakthroughs

SPEAKER_01 25:11

When you no longer want to be on this earth, you're at rock bottom. If you're not at that point, you're not rock bottom. And there was that point where I wasn't going to do anything myself, I wasn't going to hurt myself, but I do remember sitting in the car on the road, saying a prayer that somebody would take me out, that somebody would just hit me head on and then take me out. But that was around, that was almost like the last day of hitting rock bottom, is that moment. And it was almost like I hit it and then I started to bounce. And then things started to turn around. And then the weird thing is, is nobody told me this. It just started happening, and I would randomly catch myself saying thank you to who or what, I don't know, but saying thank you for the position that I was in. And it was like it was happening, but I didn't know what was happening until I consciously was like, Why am I saying thank you for this? You know, this is like, what are you nuts? But then it just things started to line up. And now it I'm more conscious about it. Now when I get in those periods of difficulty, I'll say thank you. And I don't know what I'm thanking, or you know, who I'm thanking, or I don't know what I'm being thankful for, but all I've learned is through a lot of adversity throughout my life that it's going to serve as a higher purpose. And so then I just am grateful. Gratitude has become my superpower, one of my superpowers.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:29

That's something that comes up quite a bit with a lot of our guests and just even discussion on the podcast is being able to find gratitude in all things. And I think it's more challenging to do so when you're approaching rock bottom or you're it have hit rock bottom, still being able to recognize that you have so much to be grateful for, and then figuring out what's, you know, for me, what's the blessing in all of this? Why is this taking place? And how can it be of value and help me improve? That's huge.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

We talked about the learning disabilities and whatnot. You know, even something as simple as like you probably see me every once in a while taking little swigs of this stuff here, founders fuel.

SPEAKER_03 27:07

Yeah. Tell us about it.

Defining Rock Bottom And Gratitude

SPEAKER_01 27:09

One of the guys that I hired, his name is Reagan Archibald out of Utah. He got his grad degree in purple medicine. Uh, he's a functional medicine expert and whatnot. And I hired him and I said, I need you to make me superhuman. I want to manage my brain. And I get paid for my ability to think. And it's, you know, something that so Reagan, we tried a whole bunch of different supplements and everything. I felt like it was nothing was good enough. Like, what could we do? And then Reagan formulated this stuff called Fonders Fuel. And Founders Fuel by itself, it's the most powerful focus supplement I've ever used in my life. The founder of Planet Fitness even said it's the best thing that he's ever tried. But it's like, I wouldn't have had this, which now, you know, this is just an accidental company that we created. Uh, because once he gave it to me and I gave it to a few friends, they're like, this is crazy. Like, you know, but this would never have come if it wasn't for the learning disabilities, right? Predictable profits would have never happened if it wasn't for somebody saying, you know, hey, can you help me from my company? Right. Like so much of what we've done. And so I own a portfolio of commercial properties. I never would have done that if my father hadn't passed and I was forced to acquire these properties because my mother couldn't, nobody was buying them. She couldn't sell it and she couldn't manage them. And and then it just got to a point where I somebody had to step in. And so I bought them. So all everything came after a period of challenge and adversity.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

It's all the ripple effects of our lives that we can focus on the negative stuff. But if we look at the web of the beautiful things that come out of all of those negative things, it's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

You know, the hardest, I hope I can get through this without crying, but the hardest, the hardest period for me, the biggest test of everything that I'm telling you to see that if it actually was the truth, if I am living my truth, if everything that I said was honest, was when my dad died about three years ago. Hardest in my life and put myself in my office and I said, I'm not leaving until I can be grateful for what happened. How can you be grateful for that? So hard. And I didn't know I kept repeating uh gratitude, and I kept saying to myself, there's a reason this happened. And then I made up a story that just worked for me. Sometimes you have to do that. And I said, you know what? Maybe he passed for us, me and my siblings and my mom. Maybe through that something greater will happen. A door will open because of what happened. He was in my office for a long time, as you can imagine. But then as time passed, it was on the phone with my siblings. And my siblings, they said, I feel like he did this for us. And I was like, damn, there's the answer. You know, again, it's like, I don't know any of this to be true, but it's my truth. You know, sometimes you just have to go with what is your truth. The results work and it helps you get get further, and it only adds value, and you know, there's only good things that come of it. Okay, cool. So people are gonna tell me that I'm smoking the wacky tobacky and that it's you know, it's that I'm crazy, but it works for me. So I don't care.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Gratitude works for everyone when they're going through adversity, and you allowed yourself the space to feel what you were feeling until you came to the gratitude from it.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

It was tough.

SPEAKER_03 30:26

I was just gonna say that's a tough one.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Yeah. That was the uh biggest test, and hopefully the biggest one I'll ever have to face. But the biggest test to see am I really living my truth?

SPEAKER_03 30:37

Well, I think that's where you get to use that as the testament because that only comes through when you are going through these adversities, right? Like we're able to see it. I know it was challenging as you were going through it, but we're able to see it on the other side of it's not just from practical practice, like it's actual application that you have in your life and it's what you're following so that you can be the example for other people. That's huge in itself. And you know, kudos to you for being able to come full circle and find the things to be grateful for in it.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Every once in a while a squirrel gets a nut, right?

SPEAKER_03 31:13

Yes. Um my gosh. Well, Charles, predictable profits. Like, I feel like that's such a bold. I mean, you talk about coming out of the gate, like, hey, predictable profits, like, here we go. Let's make it happen. And being able to help people, other people in their businesses. Talk to us a little bit about that, the formation and growth of the company over the years.

Grief, Meaning, And Daily Thankfulness

Founders Fuel And Performance Stacking

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Yeah. So originally it was all about like, how do I help people grow faster? Right. And so it was all about like bringing uh speed in the equation. But fast growth and predictable growth are two different strategies, right? So if you look at the actual data, you'll see that 66% of the fastest growing companies that are listed on the Inc. 5000 within five to eight years of getting listed will shrink in size, go to business, or be disadvantagedly sold. And that was a study performed by the Kaufman Foundation. So again, for growth strategies and predictable strategies are totally different. And I learned that for the companies that we are growing, the ones who are able to withstand any economic condition and storm that they were faced with, or nowadays it's not even economic, it's technology, it's everything, right? Because AI is a massive disruptor. Everybody's been disrupted, everyone already. They just don't know. And that's an interesting topic in and of itself. But is that they followed a very specific formula. And that's where the predictable profits operating system came into play. Because we started looking at, well, how are some of these, what do we do? Like, what is the consistency? What is the consistent pattern among the most successful clients that we've grown and the ones that continue to stay on the growth path? And so we started, you know, documenting this framework and putting people through this. But at the very base of everything, at the very start of everything, is what we call setup. You know, people think I do marketing, right? But you can't do marketing. Nobody does marketing. It's impossible to do marketing. It's like me saying I can be doctor. I had this conversation with the CEO of a$500 million company, and I'm like, yeah, you can't do marketing. And he was like, what? And I go, it's it's a function. It's a function of how you create, capture, and nurture demand. So let me ask you, how effectively are you at creating demand? And I don't know. I go, what about capturing that demand? Oh, yeah, the x amount of thousands of leads per day. Got it. What about nurturing that demand? How effective are you at that? He's like, I don't know. So two-thirds of your entire marketing function are operating in the dark. So let's shine some light on that. And then when you have that setup and the setup is strong, you're creating buyer-ready leads into sales, right? So for most of these organizations, the biggest challenge that they're faced with is that the bedrock of the company, that setup, is not strong enough. And where today's buyer are researchers. So they went from in 2019 looking at 17 different sources of information before making a buying decision to in 2021 that went up to 27. Last year it's estimated around 36, you know, grabbing their attention and showing them what makes you uniquely different than your competitors. If you're not clearly articulating your credibility and your magic sauce for how you're able to deliver results that the other people can't do, and so forth, if you're not doing any of that, then you're gonna get passed up and somebody else. So, you know, that's sort of like uh, and we can go much deeper into that, but that's sort of like the very basis is understanding that there are two different strategies, predictable and then, you know, those fast growth. And so, you know, that's what we've been focusing in on. And uh we've helped both six, seven, and eight-figure companies just get on that path and continue. And it's been fun. And people ask me all the time, Mike, what keeps me up at night? Right. And I'm like, the part that actually keeps me up at night is the same thing that I love. There's no differentiation. And they're like, I don't get it. What is it? And I'm like, I just so happen to work with some of the greatest entrepreneurs on the planet. And things are moving so fast that I feel I need to be able to have those answers to make sure that when they're engaging with us, that the time that they're investing with us is the best use of their time all day, all week, all year. Only way that I can do that is be able to continue to provide an edge. But things are moving so fast. Sometimes what's happening in the morning has been changed by evening, right? So that part right there is the most exciting, but also what keeps me up at night.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

I can't imagine that either. Exactly. Staying ahead of that. And and Pam and I actually had this conversation yesterday, just in terms of really keeping the engagement for high-performing, high-producing individuals, right? Like they need to make sure that the investment that they're making in themselves, they know that that's important. But is there going to be value as they continue to work with you? So that's the piece that you talk about. Like, how can I stay ahead of that to ensure that I'm constantly delivering value for them to trust me, keep coming back?

SPEAKER_01 36:05

And well, if you think about the both of you, right? Like let's say we work together. The investment in what you would pay me is chump change, is peanuts to you considered to the value of your time. And so for you, it's if I'm gonna spend an hour engage with predictable profits, this hour better be a higher, better use of my time than if I was gonna spend it in any other activity that you might be spending at to grow the business, right? So, you know, it's understanding that dynamic and what needs to happen that is everybody puts value on something else. In the expert business, that's what we have to put value on. But if you are in, you know, in other business, it would be, you know, what do your clients value more than the money that they're spending with you? And when you can understand that it's way more than the value, you know, it's let's say you were selling TVs, like it's not the money in the TV. If you're selling it to say, a guy, it's it might be like, I want my friends to come over in the football game and look at this TV and be like, you know, this is that, this guy is awesome, and you know, blah, blah, blah. It says a lot about like Starbucks. Like the value in the Starbucks is what it says about me walking around in uh airport or whatever, that I have a Starbucks. Because if somebody says, oh, that doesn't matter, then it's like, well, let me actually put that same content of coffee and I'm gonna put it into like a Kmart cup, branded Kmart. And you know, why don't you walk around and you know, and see if you still feel the same way?

SPEAKER_03 37:36

It does not feel the same.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

No, it doesn't feel the same. Right. But it is that you know, that exchange.

SPEAKER_03 37:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Thank you for joining us today on the Reignite Resilience podcast. We hope you've had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas to fuel the flames of passion. Please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes, and of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.