The Power of Mentorship and Creativity in Business

Morning, everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Empowering Entrepreneurs podcast. I'm Glenn Harper.

Julie Smith.

What's going on, Julie?

Water and coffee. Is it hot out?

It's hot. It's more hot in our office, I think. Right?

You know, mother nature, she has her ways. Well, we have, got a great show for you today, and, I'm gonna do my introduction here. I'd like to introduce Aaron Marcum, the owner of Golden Harmony, a premier home care agency and Entrethrive, short for entrepreneurial thriving, an accountability coaching company that focuses on helping home care entrepreneurs how to build and run their businesses like a business, not just doing business. His best selling book shares the same title and lays out the 8 laws to accelerate financial freedom while at the same time, god forbid, creating a good life. A former EOS implementer and founder of multiple companies, his passion and excitement is contagious. He loves to travel around the world as a keynote speaker while at the same time coaching other entrepreneurs. Enjoys testing his applied positive psychology on all who will succumb to his infectious why and why not q and a's. When one has walked the walk, learned from all the challenges sacrificed on the quest for knowledge, and sees the chances presented, he's a walking wonder what one is capable of accomplishing.

Aaron, thank you for being on our show.

It's an honor. I appreciate you having me. Thank you.

That's another a plus introduction you got there.

Yeah. I'm I'm impressed. I I get off most all the marks there. So

I use my own AI. It's the gmoney AI. That's what I use. No. I'm kidding. I well, well, I appreciate you taking your time. I know you're a busy guy. I got lots of stuff going on, which is great.

And, as we stalk our guests and, you know, there's a lots of controversial content out there. And so we are gonna attach and hit all that stuff because it makes a fun fun, show here. I'm just kidding on that. But rumor has it that you grew up in Las Vegas and then maybe moved to Idaho Falls. Is that true?

Yeah. Idaho Falls area, about 30 minutes outside of Idaho Falls. So I grew up my teenage years in Las Vegas, graduated there. My my

I wonder there's so much stuff. Lucrative stuff out there on the Internet.

Yeah. I was impressed. Not too not too many people, know that's where I grew up. But, yeah, I my senior year of high school, my parents my dad got a job at a university in Idaho, and we moved there. So I attended the high school here for about a half a year, and then I missed Vegas and went back and graduated there. So

How about that?

Yeah.

Rumor has it that, you went to Preston Junior High School where Napoleon Dynamite went. Is that true? And I don't No.

That's the false rumor.

That's awesome.

That's only about 2 hours away from where I'm at right now.

Alright. Awesome. So how did you and when Vegas, what'd your parents do for a living? How was your upbringing?

So, yeah, my dad was a religion, teacher. So he taught religion at, just kind of next to the high school. There's, little seminaries that, they're in Vegas, and he taught at the at the one of those. And, so my dad was a religion teacher. My mom was an English teacher. And when we moved to Idaho, she became full time English teacher and was my English teacher when I was here. And, and so my my parents are both both, teachers, you know, instructors. And then my dad got a job here at the university teaching world religion here at the, yeah.

Did you while you were, in Vegas and you had the religious side, were you able to parents keep you away from the dark side of Vegas, or were you able to just live a normal life? I mean, I've been there

a little. Mischievous. Yes. I was never into, into the the the real bad scene or anything like that, but, we had our fun. We we were somewhat mischievous. I I tease my wife that she would have never considered dating me in high school.

Wow. But I don't know if that's good or bad, but

Oh, well, she was she was good. I was a little mischievous. I guess that's the best way to put it and and a little bit of a goof off, I guess, you could say in high school. And, I had you know, but also a good kid at the same time. I wasn't into drugs or alcohol or anything like that. But yeah.

You're probably better off. You know, if you live in, if you live in the Idaho Falls now, I mean, in your backyard, you get to see the Grand Tetons. Right?

Yes. I do. From my from my back backyard. You're right.

You take 31 or 33 to visit Jackson Hole?

I'm impressed. Wow, Glenn. That's, that's impressive. Yeah. 33 is just right down the road. Yeah.

Well, don't they close that down a lot and you have to, like, just shut

in the winter. Yeah. Yeah. It can get so bad to where you can't get to Jackson Jackson from where I'm at. Not not easily, at least.

So you gotta do the whole the south route? Or how I mean, that's gotta be Go

to the south route, and there's the couple years ago, it closed down a couple times, both the south route and and the Teton Pass, where if you wanted to get there, you have to go through West Yellowstone. And even that's probably typically would be shut down. So there's there are times where getting to Jackson is just not possible. You'd have to fly from Idaho Falls to Jackson.

Or or do the Jeremiah Johnson, whichever way it works to get Yeah.

That's right. It's fantastic. Yeah. I have beautiful views from my from because our our home faces the east towards the Tetons. Great area. We live right on the banks of the Snake River, which is pretty amazing. So Well,

if you tell if you describe it anymore, Glenn's gonna leave here and go get on the plane and we'll see you in a few few minutes.

So Yes. You're always welcome.

Growing up, did you do anything, like, you know, paint on rocks and sell them or, you know, do lemonade, cut yards? Did you do anything like that, you know, growing up that kinda ish that entrepreneurial spirit?

Rocks, I don't know if you've done, if if you found that in my background or not, but my dad, that's how he earned it, part of his as a as a religion teacher. You know, the salary is not necessarily, you know, super, super great. So he would, my dad would paint rocks. My dad's very, artistic, and, he would paint rocks and sell them.

How about did you do it?

And he was exceptional at it. Like, really, really good. He not only painted them, but he would put tails on the, like, animal rocks and yeah. He was a that's how he did that. And my dad wrote books, fictional books, as well, and he sold those. And he was all

dad had a little bit of that

Side hustle.

That side hustle that kind of never called

himself an entrepreneur, but he was you know, as you think about it and and what he did just to to make ends meet and to really take care of his family, 8 kids, he would he would do that. So

Isn't it funny?

Split on the 8 kids, boys and girls. I feel like that affects affects you.

Yeah. Yeah. My sister, my one and only sister is the oldest, and then there's 7 boys.

I suspect she ruled with iron fist on Thursday. Yeah.

Yeah. I could say that. She's she's amazing. I love my sister. She's we're we're best friends. So yeah.

Older sisters set the tone. So when you're sitting there and you're watching your dad do what he does, your mom's teaching, and you're trying to you know, as a kid, you know, you probably didn't have an upbringing where you just had whatever money you needed to go do whatever you wanted, so you probably had hustle a little bit to get some cash. Did you start the entrepreneurial bug there, or did you work for somebody? Or what how did that go through?

I I have an a a kind of a funny story. So my first entrepreneurial journey, in Vegas was newspaper route. Right? That's fairly common. But when I got the entrepreneurial bug, when I my first route, I would go around, and it was in the, the, kind of a a nice neighborhood, and I was getting some really great tips. And there was a neighboring route that someone else had with that that newspaper company. So I contacted the competitor, and I had 2 paper routes competing companies. They didn't know. I hadn't told the other newspaper company.

And I did that for a couple years where I had 2, newspaper routes. And then one morning, they delivered what the other guy was late. They took the one delivered before the other, and they delivered at the same time. Because typically, when one would deliver, I'd pull it into the end of the house, and then 30 minutes later, the other one would come. And one was late. And he so I got caught in a sense and couldn't hold both paper out. So he told me either he'd, you know, take this one or or continue with us. And so, anyway, that was my first kind of, like, you know, hey.

I'm I'm generating this money. I'm getting good tips, and I was really good with getting tips back then. Always asking for it. Like, it was not super common as a paperboy to to ask for for tips or to to sell them on the job I was doing. You know? And so I I think back then, I started realizing that I had a knack, you know, for for that.

How did you ask for the tip? I mean, normally, you just do what you do. And

Yeah. Why don't you go around back then, you go around, you collect the actual, money. They wouldn't send it in. So the paper boys would go around and collect. And in that collection, I would ask them to you know, can I change the way I'm delivering? Is it or am I getting it on your doorstep? And they would say yes. And they said, you know, most of my money is made on tips. And then after once

out there.

Yeah. And then after once, twice when they would start on the paper route, I didn't even need to ask anymore. It was pretty natural for them to to give it.

I didn't know if it was, like, better off dead when you're, like, I want my $2. I don't know if you saw that movie. Yeah. Like, hey.

I never did it that way. Yes. But yeah. No.

It's funny, you know, when you start recognizing at a what your people want the paper, but that's not really what you're selling. You're selling the experience, the regularity, the timeliness of it, and they can't rely on it. And and it's really never really what you're truly selling when you're an entrepreneur. It's something else, and Yeah. You're able to capitalize on that. Yeah.

Did you play sports growing up? Or did you just wrestle all your brothers and sisters?

Well, I did that for sure. A lot of lot of wrestling in the in the family room, but, I did for a little bit. Speaking of wrestling, my I think it was my freshman year I wrestled, you know, and in Vegas, it was so competitive that I just it just wasn't my thing. I'd enjoyed I enjoyed basketball, and I played with my older brother. We played church ball for our our church, which is as aggressive and dangerous as any anything. You know? So it, that was that was my extent, but not really getting into high school athletics at the time.

Yeah. The whole thing about, having to cut weight while you're trying to eat everything in the world and and build muscle, and they're telling you gotta stay small. That that just wouldn't work for me. That was a tough one.

Yeah. Yeah. I I did it for a season, but

So I

for me either.

So you started doing an entrepreneurial thing, and then it looks like you, graduated from Brigham Young in Idaho with an associate degree in communications, then went to Utah State to get a BS in American studies and a minor in business management. Well, I feel like you should've got an accounting degree in there. Is there a reason you didn't you excluded that? I mean, I feel like that would've been an appropriate thing.

You know, it's interesting you bring that up. Back then, my confidence in math and accounting was pretty low. And, you know, in hindsight, yeah, I wish I would have. You know? The times that I wish I had that as an entrepreneur, and I had that kind of background. Yeah. On and I'm being told and I've I've I've said this to my kids who wanna be entrepreneurs. I have 6 kids. And many want to wanna go down that path in financial accounting background.

I have a one of my closest friends, received a master's degree from from BYU Provo, in accounting. And he's very he's an entrepreneur, and it has served him well, like, really well. So yeah.

It's it's funny. Sometimes as an entrepreneur, you you gotta be able to visualize and see the numbers and kinda just know that it works. Other times, just your checkbooking is a gut thing, but someone's gotta tell you what to do Yeah. And what it means because you just you just most people choose not to accept the accounting thing because of, like, it's like the devil or something. Like, you can't learn that because that's too hard. But once you do see it, you don't need to know much, but it does it is quite helpful. But trying to figure out, you know, here you are in American studies, business management, communications, and then you're like, you know what? Let's go to University of Pennsylvania 23 years later and get a master's of applied positive psychology. How in the heck do you get from a to b?

Yeah. You know, an Ivy League school. Right? And Mhmm. That, that was a big jump. And and, honestly, I would have been able to make that jump right after Utah State. But, you know, through my journey, and realizing, like, even at Utah State, when I decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur, at the time, I was selling treadmills, for Icon, they the Performa treadmills and so forth. And and I was the top, sales rep for the for the company the whole time I was there and realized I just had a on the especially on the sales side, I had a knack for that. And, and it just translated really well with entrepreneurship.

And 5 years after my my graduation from Utah State, they started my first business, which was a home care agency. It's really my second business, my first successful business. I had a marketing company with my brother for a little while, right after we graduated. But but, 5 years after after that, started that, had no background in home care, but just saw the opportunity. And, also, I had a knack with working with seniors and the elderly. I've always kind of connected with people older than me. So so started that and grew that to be the largest in the state of Utah in about, you know, a 7 year period. And through that experience, my passion for for personal development and, developing my my team members, my employees, creating a positive culture when I had my home care business.

So I was able to attend. It was hard to get into, very, very, competitive, but life changing. I'm a better father, husband, employer, entrepreneur because of it. And it's also what inspired my book Entre Thrive, entrepreneurial thriving. It's positive psychology meets entrepreneurship and really where what's led me to where I am today. Yes. I'm I'm a partner in Golden Harmony, but my main my main, so I'm still in the home care industry, have been since I exited Home Care PULSE, but I love to help entrepreneurs find their thriving in their business as well as in their life, taking all the things that I've done over the last 22 years into this kind of framework that I've created that the book goes into, but also we've even elevated it since then, you know, in the home care space. So, anyway, there you go.

Ain't that funny? Like, you hear people say, oh, I I'm too busy. I can't I can't do anymore. Let's you know, 6 kids doing this advanced degree, running a couple companies. Like, I don't wanna hear excuses from anybody that they're too busy. If you wanna do it, you can get it done. Right?

You you can, and you can also I think there's also a myth out there that you have to work harder to do things like that. I I'm really big on working less, to be honest with you, as much as I can. And, getting the right people around you and and just how you go about it, is really, really important. In fact, I talk about that in the book, quite a bit.

So, you know, a question that entrepreneurs always have is, like, as you're trying to build your team and you're trying to teach them do what they need to do, you know, you're the entrepreneur and you have a vision that you wanna do. How do you get people that don't wanna be entrepreneurs that to work with you, bring that culture and where they're part of the company and they wanna be part of, but they never really wanna leave and do their own thing. They wanna be part of your company and be part of that team. How do you identify and recognize those people? Because, you know, it's a hard thing. Once people lean learn your secrets, they might wanna go on their own or whatever. A lot of entrepreneurs face that challenge every day. Right? Yeah. How do you how did you able to keep your team intact to do what you need to do as you kept building your companies?

Yeah. You know, we have in the EOS world entrepreneurial operating system. This is a term they've come up with is right people, right seats, and it's all about a good core value fit right and making sure that they espouse what you are trying to do. And you share that shared why. I think that it really starts there. But as the entrepreneur in the book, I talked about guiding truths. And these guiding truths are more personal. Beyond your core values, what your company might have, what's important to you.

And when you can define that, if they go out and they you know, if you have a team member who says, I'm gonna I'm gonna do what Aaron does, and I'm gonna start my own company. I never felt threatened by that. In fact, I, and you could you could interview my team members at Home Care Pulse and even the ones that are involved with EntreThrive now is that I encourage entrepreneurship. If they wanna be entrepreneurs, I had a, a very accomplished, director of finance back at Homecare PULSE. And I even sent we we even invested in some of his schooling. And one day, he came to me, and he wanted to go and help his parents grow their business, become an entrepreneur. And though it was hard to hear that from him, I was so grateful that and, you know, that we were able to mentor him, and he was prepared for that opportunity. And I think you have to embrace that as an entrepreneur to grow your people.

And most won't leave if you do that. They'll be the very few who have the guts and they're wired for that. And if they're wired for that, man, let them go. Let them pursue their their dreams. But there's entrepreneurship, right, where they can be entrepreneurs inside your company, by the way you build that culture. And, and that's what I always strive to do is that give them autonomy. In in positive psychology, there's a there's a theory called the self determination theory. And it has 3 pillars in that theory.

And the first one is autonomy. If you're gonna create a culture of self determination, motivation, intrinsic motivation, then the you have to build a culture of autonomy where people have the freedom. They're like their own entrepreneurs inside your company to make decisions. And under under the parameters that you set, but I really I'm by like, here's micromanagement over here. I'm on the opposite end. Right? I really I stay away from that. I I build autonomy in every company that I'm involved in. I am not in their business every day.

They know the outcome that we're looking for. They know the vision. They know where we're trying to go, and I give them the autonomy to make those decisions. The second pillar is relatedness. Is that in a culture to you know, I call it a keeping culture, keeping your top talent, is that, building a culture where people can relate with each other and you're you're creating those connections. We also have a term in positive psychology called high quality connections where every day we're we're focused on creating these high quality positive connections. I had a COO, at Home Care Poults who was really, really good at with that. He would we had a call center back then as well as our research center.

And he would sit down with these college aged kids, research associates, and spend 30 minutes with 1 of them just just really having this high quality connection. And he just built such a rapport with that with those those college kids where they trusted him, and our retention was off the charts for for a call center like that. And so that relatedness is really important relationships. And then the third one is competence. But I also use the word confidence with that is that building a culture of confidence where they're you know, you're training obviously on their work. They get what they're supposed to do. They want it. They have the capacity to do it, another EOS kinda term, GWC, but it's it's helping them feel that competence.

And if those pillars exist, that the ability to keep them for the long term is exponential. Right? It's it doesn't have to be complicated. Right? It's just those three things.

Right. And it's funny, you know, as entrepreneurs out there, they just don't you know, they're they're too scared to trust somebody else, too scared to let go, because I think it's gonna it's gonna burn. And sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't, but I feel like what you're saying and, again, the EOS system is a great system out there is you just gotta make that decision to just go with it. Right? And you you're never gonna build a business if you don't give up some control of those things. Correct?

And believing in people and faith. I hired, my executive assistant that's with me now, about just over a year ago. She had my passwords in the 1st week. I trusted my my hiring process that this was the right person that I could trust her with my financial passwords. You guys might think that's crazy. But

No. That's fine.

Yeah.

They're way way different on that.

Yeah. But she had last pass my last pass passwords, and it's because of that. I knew I trusted my hiring process, which is really important. Like, retention starts at higher is a term I often use is that you've got to have nail down your hiring processes. So you're getting the right people out of the gate to avoid, you know, common mistakes that we end up with. Now, do I hire sometimes the wrong people? Yes. Recently, frankly. And so that happens and you have to pivot.

You have to be willing to pivot fairly quickly. But

Can we do a rewind? Yeah. Because I feel like you mentioned it and then you you glazed right over it. So right out of college, you said you had a marketing business with your brother, I think, is what you said?

Yeah.

I feel like in your journey, there was maybe a little valley in that, but also it brought you to the peak afterwards. And I feel like there's something for our listeners to really learn about in there.

I've had a few valleys, and that one that one was somewhat out of being naive, not knowing what we were doing. You know? And, and trying to start business with family, especially at a young age, you have to go in with your eyes wide open. And we are at both different times in our lives. I was married. We already had a couple kids. He was still single. And we just had we just didn't see eye to eye or or we're on the same page. Ironically, that same brother, is my director of business development at Entrathrive.

So

No way. You

know, we're still working together. But There's

the peak.

Both what's that?

There's the peak.

I was £25 overweight. I was what we call obsessively passionate about my business to the point where I was burning out. I was, working very, very long days. And I was so committed to it. My family was suffering, and I was gonna lose all that, to be honest, if I was gonna continue down that path. And so I had to make some changes. And you see the the the canvas behind me, I I got into cycling back then and did my I the day I ordered my my first road bike was also the same day I signed up for a 200 mile bike race 500 or 5 months later. That's kinda my personality.

I'm kinda like, if I'm gonna do something, let's go all in. Right? All in. So so and I finished it, which is crazy. And people thought I was so nuts at the time that why would I do such a thing. And, anyway, I finished that same race four times from Logan, Utah to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Wow. That's that's a hard

Four million pigs.

Well, it's funny too. Like, and on that note, you know, entrepreneurs that, again, they just get so into their business. They can't do anything else, and you can get out of shape, not only mentally, but physically. Yeah. Well, at least you chose something. You couldn't pick up jogging because your knees were shot would have been shot with the weights. So you had to do cycling. So Yeah.

That you made a choice that's something that you could be successful at that had the best odds of success versus just I'm gonna start rock climbing or whatever that is.

Like Yeah. Yeah.

It's impossible to do that. Right? You gotta start on something that you can build on and have a goal, little successes that you know you could every day you're gonna see progress versus jumping to something that you're gonna probably not make it in Yeah. 3, 4 days. Right?

But I think there's more to what he did than and I'm gonna go, like

Yeah.

Deep, like, I think there's something way deeper to what you did, and I don't I don't have a psychology degree. Heck, I I know nothing about it. But I think what you did was you had to turn that energy and passion and turn it into something else so that there was some sort of balance. And then I think in the middle was your family, whatever else that was. But I think for a lot of entrepreneurs and, like, I sometimes find I gotta go find something where I can put my energy passion towards that isn't necessarily work because just our mindset is, like, we we get obsessed about either one of those. Right? And so we have to sometimes have more than one so that we can have that balance and there's something in the middle. I don't know that I'm explaining it correctly, but if you were describing it, I'm like You're spot on. I can see I could see it because sometimes I have the same thing with myself is, like, you've gotta put some energy someplace else because we feel like we have to give so much.

And if we only have our job, our career, whatever it is we're doing at the moment, we put it all into that, and we kinda get hyper focused where sometimes if we kinda spread it out, it's the bridge between the 2. I don't know.

Yeah. Well and what happened in with when I started letting go and focusing on cycling. Because when, like, cycling, you have to like, if you're training for something, it's 2 to 3 hour rides, right, in

the most Minimum.

This is gonna be a really odd question. But do you believe on those rides, those 2, 3 hour maybe it's just a 1 hour on those days that they provided a lot of clarity to your business, and you were able to visualize some of the things that you just described and or have the ideas who do those things.

You're just hitting right on the mark here. So, yes, it's a meditation for me. Cycling because of the way you have to focus, like, on this on the on the bike in front of you and so forth, that focus caused me to actually a lot of times even after the ride, I would come up with these ideas is that it allowed me to train my brain, because I can be all over the place, and focus on one idea, one concept that I wanted to implement. Many ideas came from my rights, as a result. And when you when you get off of a 30 mile or 50 mile ride, that alone is an accomplishment. Right? And you feel really good. And so I just would come to work with my best self as well.

It's like you're sitting there doing the cycling, and it's hard by nature. The only thing you really have to think about on cycling is are you gonna hit a moose or not if you're going through the mountains. Other than that

Feel like there's more things.

No. That's it. You just take the bike in front or your route and you just go and you probably could turn off a lot of the subconscious things or actually turn those on and just have those it's it literally was a meditation thing. And again Yeah. Most doctors don't take time to work on their business. You know, they're only they're always in it. Yeah. You by default, you're not gonna not think about work, but you're thinking of it in a different way than if you're in there just moving numbers around and and dealing with people.

So I think that this is a good one. So all your entrepreneurs listen and take note. I don't think you have to be like a 200 mile cycler, but maybe maybe a 180 mile

Whatever it is.

Maybe a 180 mile guy, Gail. You know? Whatever.

Even anything, there's a book out there, dry. I think it's drive or driven. Well, he talks about long range, shooting. Right? Either you know, I know some people aren't into guns, but but anything that that causes you to focus as an entrepreneur, is great meditation. And, it really helps you kind of get centered. Cycling gets me centered. I did have a bike accident, about 5 weeks ago. I actually shattered my clavicle.

So there are some dangers. You know? It happens. Yeah. Yeah. I I've been out of commission.

But it probably also forced you to slow down a little bit.

It did. I actually posted about that. Yeah.

The posit I mean, I hate to say the positivity of shattering your clavicle, but the positive of that was, hey. You've got the last few weeks of summer before the kids go back to it forced you to slow down and refocus on whatever those things are.

Was it a moose? Did you hit a moose?

No. I hit the the the, back of my wife's tire.

Oh, so just a little touch bang. It's over.

So your wife does cycling too?

She got into it a couple years after I did, and

she's

phenomenal. Like like, I tell her to wait for me at the top of the hills. So so you're

something you guys have been able to kind of bond over as well.

Yeah. It's something we really enjoy doing together.

You are really good at marketing if you get your wife to go cycle 3 hours with you. That is that's

She's pushing She's beating

me. She's pushing me now.

Yeah. Yeah. A plus plus ability.

Yeah. Yeah. She's she's a former collegiate runner. She's always been into into health and well

Well, she thought you were good at something and she had to go be better. I totally get it.

That's right. And there might be some truth about Yeah. With that. Yeah.

So you talked about some other valleys. And although we love to hear about your peaks, I think there's so many lessons to be learned in your valleys. So what other valleys have you gone through through this journey that have, you know, obviously led you to where you are today?

Wow.

And yeah. Yeah. However, if you remember what happened, valuations over the next couple years, private equity firms were holding on to their money, and they were just going through the roof. And so my partners who had bought me out, and it give me multiples upon, upon our our profits at the time. And so I, again, I was happy with my exit. But a year and a half later, they were purchased by a private equity firm and had a significant exit, like, far greater, like Mhmm. That I had missed out on, to be honest. That's okay.

Yeah. Pretty discouraged. Like, why did I sell when I did? Why didn't I just hold on and keep some shares in the business? All of those thing thoughts and feels. But I have really good mentors in my life that help me work through that, and I think it's really important to have those kinds of entrepreneurial mentors who said, you know, one approached me, and he's a spiritual kind of mentor. And he's like, Aaron, were you happy with your exit? I'm like, yeah. I was totally. It was I I was frankly ecstatic. It was great.

And he's like, so why should you care about what anyone else got? And when he said that and then he he cited a scripture at the time, and it just or parable rather, about the the the labors in the vineyard. You know? I don't know if you're familiar with that in that parable in the bible, but but it it was a reminder of, like, who cares? Right? I'm just gonna go and do my next 10 x, and it's what got me. So I went into the positive psychology program. And as I look back on that exit, I doubt if I was still running that company or if I was still involved that way, I wouldn't have written a best selling book. I wouldn't have probably gotten into my positive psychology program, which actually spurred the best selling book. I wouldn't have started this program for home care entrepreneurs, and I'm starting right now. And that it's called the breakaway. It's a bike.

It's cycling term. And all of these things and the people I've met, becoming an EOS implementer for 5 years during that period, all of those things and all the the experiences are way more they're priceless. Right? And they're they're extremely valuable to me. And so, though, that was definitely a valley for a while, though.

You know, it's it's funny. You know, sometimes you just sit back and watch everything goes through as everybody navigates their journey. And when you're a specialty cyclist or a cross country runner or whatever that is, you know, there's always gonna be a hill. There's always a bigger hill, and there's always gonna be the coast down, and there's always gonna get a climb another one. And it just becomes to a routine that you really don't even care that you're in the valley. Like, ah, here we go again. I just gotta climb up that one again. Oh, false false horizon.

Yeah. I gotta go up that one again. Like, that's just a normal thing. And in in your journey with the business, it's the same thing. You know, you're you're going along like, jeez. Here we go again. But you don't you don't get fired up over it. You just like, well, we have to we gotta just ride it out.

You know, if you fight it, it's over. So all you entrepreneurs out there, don't don't fear the valley. I mean, that's where you get the most benefit out of things. Right?

Oh, the peak comes from.

Yep. You can't get to the peak unless you go through the valley. That's a rule. I think I read that somewhere. I don't know where

There are so many tie ins to the cycling I have found, like drafting. Right? It's that and you get it. You save about 33% of your energy when you draft. And so, you know, finding mentors you can draft from. You know? Entrepreneurs, other entrepreneurs, other people. I I wouldn't be I wouldn't been able to have the peaks in my life without the mentors and going to them at times where I really needed them. And also sharing the load. Right? Is getting in front and allowing other people to draft from me and being a mentor to others has been extremely valuable for on my end as well as that's very meaningful for me.

So Yeah. You it's not if if you don't work hard at it, it means nothing. So if you did the 200 mile race and you just drafted the whole time, you didn't get anything out of it.

No. Exactly. For it. You're just drafting, but

you gotta grind it out a bit. Right? And that's in life as well.

So I have some a couple tough questions to kinda wrap up the podcast. But what is your superpower?

So I had this term, that or creativity is simply imagination in action. Right? Is that I am a creator, and that's my superpower is I love to create, like, take various concepts and ideas, bring them into one powerful concept, and it help other people apply it. I did that throughout my book, is that I, I love to to learn and read, and so I use my imagination to create. A lot of entrepreneurs are creators. I think I my superpower takes that to a new level. And there's there's branches from that is that I love to empower people, help make connections. I love the 1 on 1 connections. I'm not much of a, like, put me in a crowd, you're not gonna hear much from me.

You know? I'm not the the the center of attention in a crowd, but I love meaningful one on one connections. But often in those connections, I'm asking them questions, and I'm using my imagination to help create maybe something, you know, from that. And, and so if I don't know if that makes sense, but my superpower is in creativity and applying that creativity in a real a a real way. So

And my last question is the toughest question.

This is a hard one. You might should have studied for this. I'm telling you.

What is your end game?

My end game? My my end game I love to travel. My end game is is the is the freedom to do whatever it is, like, with my wife, especially as our we have 2 kids at home still. We have a 15 and a 17 year old. The other 4 are adulting right now. And so they're having great time doing that. But, but really having the the freedom Dan Sullivan, a strategic coach. He's my coach. I don't know if you know Dan wrote he wrote 10 x is easier than 2 x.

Great book. And Benjamin Hardy. And, he talks about how, the 4 freedoms and his freedom of time, relationships, money, and purpose. And so my end game is living those 4 freedoms. And, the, and to have the recurring financial means to be able to do that. And so within the next 5 to 10 years, I I'll never retire. Like, that's never my end game.

My So that's exactly what I was going after so we can, you know, Bradley dropped the bomb, whatever those things are. But Yeah. There is no end game for you. Whatever it is, you're gonna reinvent yourself. You're gonna make sure Yeah.

That's a hard question to answer. Like, I don't really have a

You were going in a circle a week.

Fool myself.

But I think you know what you want out of whatever it is you do, and you're gonna remain, you know, focused in on that. But, again, you can't put your energy to stop. It won't stop.

No. You you know too much. You can't stop now. I mean, this is when it's fun. You know the you know all the shortcuts.

Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right. And I wanna live past a 100. You know? I'm I I think the, regenerative health and all the breakthroughs right now, we're gonna be living well past a 100, a lot of us. And and so, yeah, there is no endgame.

No. You got There's no endgame. That is that's the trick question. Is there It is

a trick question.

It is. Yeah. Yeah. If you wanna live forever, lots of red dye, sugar, carbs, all the good stuff, you'll be fine.

No psych then.

It's your fault. Out there. Yes. It's so good. It tastes awesome. Well, I tell you what, Aaron, we really appreciate you being on the show. I think our listeners are gonna get a lot of value from that. If you don't mind throwing a little plug out there for your company, we'll make sure that gets in the notes so people can hear who you are, where you come from.

Yeah. So, I mean, they can go to entrustrive.com. They can also I've mentioned the guiding truths. They can download they go to the resources page, and they can download the entreclarity guide, which is, which is kind of a cool guide where they can create their own guiding truths. We actually are creating a really cool AI feature to that over the next, I don't know, 2 to 3 weeks. We'll have that up on the website where people can create their guiding truths from that. And so I'm pretty excited about that. But, but, yeah, that's where they can find more information about us really is just go to our website.

Awesome. And and they can order the book. There's a link to go to the book or they can go to Amazon. On to Thrive is the name of the book. Yeah. And, so that's the best way to find us.

We'll make sure all those all those links get in there.

Well, great. Well, like I said, even though you fear the moose, it's the tire that got you. So they keep your eyes open on the road. All you entrepreneurs listening to this podcast, I hope you found some good nuggets out of here. It's, it's always bigger than what you are, so enjoy the ride. I'm Glenn Harper.

Julie Smith.

Take care.

Thank you.