Discovering Purpose Beyond Wealth: Darren Mass Shares His Entrepreneurial Journey

Speaker: 00:00:00

That is a very scary situation, especially at a young age to retire. I

Speaker: 00:00:03

retired at 38 years old.

Speaker: 00:00:07

Yeah. That's a scary situation. Is that my final hurrah

Speaker: 00:00:11

at such a young age? It's also the realization that, sure, I could buy a

Speaker: 00:00:14

lot of things, but those things, those materials Didn't make me happy. They

Speaker: 00:00:18

didn't fill that void.

Speaker: 00:00:31

Can a simple hike open the door to profound insights and life

Speaker: 00:00:34

changing conversations? Welcome to Seek Go create where we explore

Speaker: 00:00:38

this intriguing idea with Darren Mast, a former

Speaker: 00:00:42

CEO turned business therapist who finds clarity and

Speaker: 00:00:45

connection on the trails with the world's leading business

Speaker: 00:00:49

achievers. Darren's story is a roller coaster of ambition,

Speaker: 00:00:52

Success and introspection. After selling his company, Mass

Speaker: 00:00:56

Communications, for 40,000,000, Darren found himself grappling with a

Speaker: 00:01:00

sense of loss and confusion. It was a hike that

Speaker: 00:01:04

transformed his perspective and led to the creation of his

Speaker: 00:01:07

podcast. I took a hike of empower listening, great

Speaker: 00:01:11

podcast, where he shares in-depth conversations with top

Speaker: 00:01:14

entrepreneurs Amidst nature's backdrop.

Speaker: 00:01:18

Darren, welcome to Seek, go create. Thank you. And I definitely did not

Speaker: 00:01:22

script that, and I could not have said it better. So Well done.

Speaker: 00:01:26

Welcome. It's good to have you, Dan. I'm excited about this conversation. I stumbled

Speaker: 00:01:30

upon you on LinkedIn, and I said, This is a guy we're either

Speaker: 00:01:33

related or cousins or need to be or whatever, and so we're

Speaker: 00:01:37

gonna have a fun conversation all about redefining here. But

Speaker: 00:01:41

before I dive into things, let's

Speaker: 00:01:44

pretend or not really that we just bumped into each other. I ask you what

Speaker: 00:01:48

you do. What do you tell people when they ask What do you do?

Speaker: 00:01:52

I help business owners crawl out from the rock that they fell

Speaker: 00:01:55

on. Do you like that question? Do you hate the

Speaker: 00:01:59

question sometimes as much as I do? So I was

Speaker: 00:02:02

part of a networking group a while back during COVID when we all

Speaker: 00:02:06

needed some help. And the purpose of the networking group is to never ask,

Speaker: 00:02:10

what do you do? Why? Because not to crap all over lawyers, but if you

Speaker: 00:02:13

tell me you're a lawyer, I'm thinking probably one of a few things,

Speaker: 00:02:17

Right. But that means I'm not thinking about your, you as a

Speaker: 00:02:21

person. And that's when all of this clicked with me,

Speaker: 00:02:25

that It doesn't matter what you do. You as a person is more important. So

Speaker: 00:02:28

yes, I do not like that question, as the opener.

Speaker: 00:02:32

It naturally comes out because that's our default bias. We always want to

Speaker: 00:02:36

categorize and lump people into things. So, yeah, if you're a lawyer, here's

Speaker: 00:02:40

your bucket. You're a doctor. Here's your bucket. If you hike

Speaker: 00:02:43

for a living and share inspiration with all the listeners

Speaker: 00:02:47

on a podcast, You don't have a bucket. You're

Speaker: 00:02:51

somewhere in the cookie category. So there I am in the cookie category.

Speaker: 00:02:55

I think some of us are getting to a place where we Tried to be

Speaker: 00:02:59

in the bucket for many years, and now we've spent a period

Speaker: 00:03:03

of time, years, whatever, trying to be outside the

Speaker: 00:03:07

bucket. It Sounds like that's a good bit of what your journey's been.

Speaker: 00:03:10

Correct? Yeah. I think this stems from

Speaker: 00:03:14

yep. I'm the tail end of generation x, The ex gen

Speaker: 00:03:18

maybe arguably some millennials born in May of 1980.

Speaker: 00:03:23

My people Didn't want to be like their parents.

Speaker: 00:03:27

We didn't want to live in that house, go to work in the morning,

Speaker: 00:03:30

come home, eat dinner, wake up, Go to work and repeat,

Speaker: 00:03:34

repeat, repeat. So we've all had this really strong sense

Speaker: 00:03:38

of work ethic. Right? We do. We went to work. We worked hard. We

Speaker: 00:03:42

climbed that corporate ladder. We sought after the jobs we wanted.

Speaker: 00:03:45

Right. We earned it. But then when we became parents, we started

Speaker: 00:03:49

realizing that Wait, I'm my dad

Speaker: 00:03:52

or I'm my mom. And we started seeking something different.

Speaker: 00:03:56

Right? We seek, we go and we Create it. There you go. Here you go.

Speaker: 00:04:00

But that is, is very, very much my mission as well

Speaker: 00:04:04

as many others. And I think we are all collectively finding unique

Speaker: 00:04:07

ways to earn a living, earn a keep, but more important, find

Speaker: 00:04:11

balance to enjoying our lives. Because I'm not going to say

Speaker: 00:04:15

that my parents Don't enjoy their life? They do now in retirement in

Speaker: 00:04:19

Florida, but they didn't enjoy their life.

Speaker: 00:04:23

Granted, if I asked Tim the question, do you enjoy your life at

Speaker: 00:04:27

45? They would have said, sure. But I didn't witness

Speaker: 00:04:30

that. I didn't witness the social nights out or

Speaker: 00:04:34

the friend hangouts or the parties or the

Speaker: 00:04:37

work celebrations. I witnessed my dad just

Speaker: 00:04:41

getting through life. And that is something that I didn't want to

Speaker: 00:04:45

be. And many people like you and I have

Speaker: 00:04:48

found a good trajectory to not be like that.

Speaker: 00:04:53

So what's interesting is that you say you're on the tail end of that, I

Speaker: 00:04:56

guess, that generation X I'm on the tail end of the baby boomer. So it's

Speaker: 00:05:00

almost like we're this odd tail end of 2

Speaker: 00:05:04

generations That I I

Speaker: 00:05:08

ended up going down the path, even though I didn't want to. Sounds like you

Speaker: 00:05:11

did a little bit too. We'll talk about that in just a moment, But yet

Speaker: 00:05:14

I didn't want to. And I don't know if I didn't know how to get

Speaker: 00:05:18

out or if I just didn't know what I didn't know, but I do

Speaker: 00:05:21

think it's part of a journey and it seems like all of

Speaker: 00:05:25

our stories, this is what we talk about here is almost every situation

Speaker: 00:05:29

Is a journey, but I wanna go into that, but real quick, a bigger question,

Speaker: 00:05:33

because now you're working with people. You call yourself a business therapist, which we'll, we're

Speaker: 00:05:37

gonna talk about that in just a Seek. But But

Speaker: 00:05:42

can people get outside of the

Speaker: 00:05:45

bucket On their own, or

Speaker: 00:05:50

does there have to be some kind of event Or

Speaker: 00:05:54

external thing happen or some kind of

Speaker: 00:05:58

come to Jesus or whatever you wanna call it That forces that.

Speaker: 00:06:01

Because I know yours will talk about it some as it was a transition

Speaker: 00:06:05

from being a CEO going through an exit. Mine was

Speaker: 00:06:09

2008, the downturn. Those were

Speaker: 00:06:12

external things that we may have known about, may not,

Speaker: 00:06:16

but Can we lead people down that path as an executive

Speaker: 00:06:20

coach and a business therapist without having to go through a bunch of

Speaker: 00:06:24

crap? So

Speaker: 00:06:27

broad generalization with everything we're saying, right? Of course, there are

Speaker: 00:06:31

individuals that were born into entrepreneurship. I feel like I was

Speaker: 00:06:34

born into entrepreneurship. My grandfather was an entrepreneur. My father had a

Speaker: 00:06:38

moment. My uncles have moments. Go I think you're born

Speaker: 00:06:42

into it. That spark Does happen naturally. But

Speaker: 00:06:46

for many, right, at the risk of generalizing, for

Speaker: 00:06:50

many, You do need that existential

Speaker: 00:06:54

wake up call that life changing wake up call, whether or not, you

Speaker: 00:06:58

know, it was a health scare That made you realize, oh my God,

Speaker: 00:07:02

what am I doing here? Or a nudge from a care, a

Speaker: 00:07:05

caring party or a loved one. I think

Speaker: 00:07:09

we are programmed to go to school at an

Speaker: 00:07:13

early age. We are programmed to obey Party and listen

Speaker: 00:07:16

to our Winders, all well and good. Alright.

Speaker: 00:07:20

But that programming for many does create this robotic

Speaker: 00:07:24

life, Does create the going to work and coming home. And

Speaker: 00:07:28

that's the purpose of life until you have children and

Speaker: 00:07:32

a wake up call. As a father, What was I doing? I was

Speaker: 00:07:35

working really hard, but then I became a father and now I'm working really hard

Speaker: 00:07:39

for this purpose, taking care and supporting my family.

Speaker: 00:07:44

Mothers taking care and supporting family, going to work to support a

Speaker: 00:07:47

family. Right? We have this meaning. I think there is that

Speaker: 00:07:51

click though, and it's usually a life changing event for me.

Speaker: 00:07:55

I've had multiple clicks in my life. I've had bouts of depression,

Speaker: 00:07:59

like many I've had lots of those

Speaker: 00:08:02

existential conversations in my brain saying, what am I

Speaker: 00:08:06

doing? What is this purpose? Why am I doing this? Many can

Speaker: 00:08:09

relate to that. And I think it's that style

Speaker: 00:08:13

thinking and those types of events that build

Speaker: 00:08:16

greatness, great character, and these purposeful

Speaker: 00:08:20

events. You mentioned that you Winders of

Speaker: 00:08:23

have genetically wired entrepreneur

Speaker: 00:08:27

In in your blood. I think that I do too. It's interesting. You Winders skipped

Speaker: 00:08:31

a generation, but I was wanting

Speaker: 00:08:35

to hustle, do business, Make me some money,

Speaker: 00:08:39

you know, right early on, but

Speaker: 00:08:42

then something Wanted me to go

Speaker: 00:08:46

to college, get that education, and then I had a company

Speaker: 00:08:50

in college, and then I went to work corporate for 9 years before I was

Speaker: 00:08:53

able to Bussed away from that. Safety. Talk about You went

Speaker: 00:08:57

to the safety aspect of things. Safety, just got married,

Speaker: 00:09:01

stuff like that. You think you need to do money, but it's interesting. I think

Speaker: 00:09:03

you posted something, and I I don't even know if I still have it pulled

Speaker: 00:09:07

up here. You do post a lot. I post at least 6 days a week.

Speaker: 00:09:10

Yeah. You do a LinkedIn. You're Seek people need to check you out on LinkedIn.

Speaker: 00:09:13

I enjoy it. That's what, what part drew me to it. I think you put

Speaker: 00:09:16

a picture of you back when you were a kid, the earring,

Speaker: 00:09:20

the buzz head, all that kind of stuff. You wanted to be a rock and

Speaker: 00:09:23

roll number for the state. Yeah. Yeah. I am not going to be putting up

Speaker: 00:09:26

my yearbook photo because there was a lot of hair there, and there was a

Speaker: 00:09:29

lot of hairspray with it. A lot more hair than you had. Shows shows the

Speaker: 00:09:32

difference in the generation. You were Go, so yes.

Speaker: 00:09:37

Sometime, here's what you said here. Sometimes we spend chasing

Speaker: 00:09:41

something we want. You put that in quotes only to find

Speaker: 00:09:44

out it isn't The thing we

Speaker: 00:09:47

need is it, doesn't that appear that's what most people are

Speaker: 00:09:51

doing or not even want They think it's what

Speaker: 00:09:55

they want, or they think it's what they should want

Speaker: 00:09:59

might be, something there. So talk about that. Yeah.

Speaker: 00:10:03

That's marketing at its finest, self marketing and ex external

Speaker: 00:10:06

marketing. We want these things, and we set

Speaker: 00:10:10

goals to achieve them. We wanna drive a Ferrari, So we work really hard to

Speaker: 00:10:13

earn the money for a Ferrari. Then we get a Ferrari and we spend our

Speaker: 00:10:17

lives obsessing over the dent where the scratch we just got on a

Speaker: 00:10:20

Ferrari. Right? What I mean by that is when we

Speaker: 00:10:24

achieve the thing we wanted, we find out it didn't solve or fill the

Speaker: 00:10:28

void that was missing all along. We're not happy with ourselves.

Speaker: 00:10:32

It's the reason why the most prescribed drugs on the

Speaker: 00:10:35

planet are anti depression drugs, because we're

Speaker: 00:10:39

depressed on our wanting journey.

Speaker: 00:10:43

My message is all about and granted, it did take me a lot of

Speaker: 00:10:47

wanting, Achieving and Reflections Discover

Speaker: 00:10:50

This, but my message is really about when you achieve

Speaker: 00:10:54

the want, It didn't fix the void.

Speaker: 00:10:58

So stop wanting and wishing our lives away and start celebrating and living

Speaker: 00:11:02

in the moments. Now, granted, I don't always practice what I preach.

Speaker: 00:11:06

Right? I talk about being present and in the moment.

Speaker: 00:11:10

Be there for your children because that is the only generational wealth

Speaker: 00:11:13

that matters. I'm not talking about money. I posted something on this the

Speaker: 00:11:17

other day. Generational wealth is misunderstood. If I leave my kids

Speaker: 00:11:21

$100,000,000 without rules and guidance or trust

Speaker: 00:11:24

and a map, I just screwed them up for generations to come. They become lazy,

Speaker: 00:11:28

complacent. They're pieces of garbage. No offense to anyone who's a piece of

Speaker: 00:11:32

garbage. But, if I set them up

Speaker: 00:11:36

with education, knowledge, We helped work

Speaker: 00:11:40

on their personality to become likable, charismatic people

Speaker: 00:11:43

that like to help others. Good, strong work

Speaker: 00:11:47

ethic, a drive. I've set them up with as much wealth

Speaker: 00:11:51

as they want to achieve in their life, not a handout.

Speaker: 00:11:55

And I tell this to my kids, and all the time. I might

Speaker: 00:11:59

not leave you money, but I will leave you with a future.

Speaker: 00:12:03

That's more important. Now when I say I'm a little bit of a hypocrite, I

Speaker: 00:12:06

talk about being present. I catch myself all the time

Speaker: 00:12:11

like this. My kids are around and I'm like, hold on, I'm

Speaker: 00:12:14

posting. I catch myself though. That's the

Speaker: 00:12:18

important part, the realization when you're violating the thing that you

Speaker: 00:12:22

shouldn't be violating. So I do have to tell myself because I'm

Speaker: 00:12:25

human, put the phone down, the comment can wait, be

Speaker: 00:12:29

present, be there for your child, but it's the catch

Speaker: 00:12:33

that we need. Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah. There's gosh. Two thoughts popped

Speaker: 00:12:37

in my mind as you were talking there. 1 Was,

Speaker: 00:12:41

you know, that, that want that you mentioned versus what we Seek.

Speaker: 00:12:45

And I went back to a conversation. We were, my wife and I were with

Speaker: 00:12:49

our grown son in Vegas not too long Go, and we were sitting

Speaker: 00:12:53

there having lunch and it was they were actually Prepping. They were about to have

Speaker: 00:12:57

the formula one race there. So I thought that was cool, but I made a

Speaker: 00:13:00

comment to them that I think I love the

Speaker: 00:13:04

thought Of Vegas more than the actual

Speaker: 00:13:08

application of Vegas. I don't know if you know what I mean by that. It's

Speaker: 00:13:11

like Vegas Seems like it should be so cool,

Speaker: 00:13:15

but yet I'm there, and I'm kinda Go. And I think there's a lot of

Speaker: 00:13:18

things like that in life. I think we love the thought of Some

Speaker: 00:13:22

things, but then when we actually apply them or try and we

Speaker: 00:13:26

realize maybe that was somebody else's dream or somebody else's goal or something that

Speaker: 00:13:29

we thought You mentioned marketing. I think we are so

Speaker: 00:13:33

susceptible to being swayed and influenced

Speaker: 00:13:37

and listen, I do marketing. You're a business guy. You've done

Speaker: 00:13:40

marketing, so we may be part of the problem, but maybe at

Speaker: 00:13:44

least talking about it will Help people overcome it. But then the second thing you

Speaker: 00:13:48

mentioned, which is related, are these devices that were

Speaker: 00:13:52

on. And you are You're of the age to remember

Speaker: 00:13:56

before barely before internet. I'm

Speaker: 00:14:00

definitely of the age to remember, but How challenging

Speaker: 00:14:04

is this conversation we're having with all of

Speaker: 00:14:07

the access we have to information and the notifications and the comments and

Speaker: 00:14:11

the, you're very active on LinkedIn. We're active on a few channels and

Speaker: 00:14:15

things like that. How challenging is it and how tough is it when we're

Speaker: 00:14:18

Trying to convey that to our children. You've got 3 girls and I've got grown

Speaker: 00:14:22

children. It is seemingly

Speaker: 00:14:25

impossible. So I was alive. I was born in 1980. I didn't have

Speaker: 00:14:29

a computer until 1998. My 1st year in college, I worked hard to buy

Speaker: 00:14:33

it. I remember it well. He

Speaker: 00:14:38

Life seemed simpler back then, but I think in

Speaker: 00:14:41

retrospect, when you do reflect and nostalgia,

Speaker: 00:14:45

It always seems simpler, right? I love being

Speaker: 00:14:49

so connected. I genuinely love

Speaker: 00:14:53

LinkedIn. I I'm I'm a staunch

Speaker: 00:14:57

believer in the power of networking for business

Speaker: 00:15:01

Always. I'm not a fan of other social media. Yes. I do it.

Speaker: 00:15:04

But I delegate those tasks away because I don't love that, so I let other

Speaker: 00:15:08

people handle that side. But when it comes to LinkedIn,

Speaker: 00:15:12

that is the new style of networking. That is your storefront. That is your

Speaker: 00:15:15

banner. That is your Awning. That is how you attract your

Speaker: 00:15:19

brand. I do it because for me, it's therapeutic. I don't have a call to

Speaker: 00:15:22

action. If you like me, sure. Follow me. Cool. If you like the message,

Speaker: 00:15:26

Comment, share. Cool. If you don't, leave a comment.

Speaker: 00:15:30

Cool. Ignore me. Awesome. I'm doing it for me.

Speaker: 00:15:34

But by doing it for me, I'm aligning with other people that can relate

Speaker: 00:15:37

to me. I will say that life is more complex

Speaker: 00:15:41

because of it. It does require me to be glued to a

Speaker: 00:15:44

device. I spend no less than 2 hours a day, collectively,

Speaker: 00:15:49

on LinkedIn. It is a lot. But it's because

Speaker: 00:15:53

I enjoy it. And, really, you shouldn't

Speaker: 00:15:56

do anything you don't enjoy doing with

Speaker: 00:16:00

exceptions. Growing a business, Somebody's gotta work all

Speaker: 00:16:04

those jobs you don't wanna do at 1st. Do Tim. Learn your experience,

Speaker: 00:16:08

but eventually hire and delegate that away. For me, if

Speaker: 00:16:11

I love LinkedIn, that's my medicine. That's what I will do. If

Speaker: 00:16:15

you don't love LinkedIn, hire somebody to do it if you're

Speaker: 00:16:19

growing a business. Let someone else manage it, but don't

Speaker: 00:16:22

neglect it. But, yeah, that device,

Speaker: 00:16:27

It's tough to deal with. And now I see the problem with my kids having

Speaker: 00:16:31

these devices. The one thing they don't have though is they won't have

Speaker: 00:16:34

phones for a while. Good parent, bad parent. One thing I've

Speaker: 00:16:38

learned also don't tell people how to parent. There's no right answer. You're going to

Speaker: 00:16:42

screw your kids up regardless, but I will

Speaker: 00:16:46

not be getting them the iPhone. I'll be getting them when

Speaker: 00:16:49

they turn 10, some device that will allow them to communicate

Speaker: 00:16:53

with me, They're friends, right? A safer

Speaker: 00:16:57

device. I don't want them on social media the

Speaker: 00:17:00

way that The world has been on social media. There's lots of negative. Now

Speaker: 00:17:04

can I block them from everything? No. They're kids. They'll sneak out of the house.

Speaker: 00:17:08

Great. I'll celebrate that. But The best I can do

Speaker: 00:17:12

to keep them out of the challenges of today, I'm gonna try

Speaker: 00:17:16

to do that. Don't practice what I preach, or do

Speaker: 00:17:20

something like that. Well, I think that

Speaker: 00:17:24

part of it and I, you went down a path. I was about to ask

Speaker: 00:17:27

question I'm glad you let us know. I'm assuming Sorry. My ADHD takes me on

Speaker: 00:17:30

multiple paths sometimes. I I think we're tracking

Speaker: 00:17:34

because you answered the question I was about To ask. So we're

Speaker: 00:17:37

either something's going on here, which is nice. But

Speaker: 00:17:41

one of the things, I was gonna ask the ages Of your

Speaker: 00:17:44

children and I've already met Coraline. Cause I listened in

Speaker: 00:17:48

on a podcast episode where you took a hike with her.

Speaker: 00:17:51

So, she was she was 4 at the time. I don't know if she's still

Speaker: 00:17:54

that age, and then it sounds like you've got almost 10 year olds. And and

Speaker: 00:17:58

I guess the question I was Go to ask what you sort of asked, I'll

Speaker: 00:18:02

answer it. I'll, I'll kind of address it here is, is

Speaker: 00:18:06

how do we, How do we convey

Speaker: 00:18:10

that there needs to be a certain degree of maturity to deal with

Speaker: 00:18:14

these things? And I do want to say this At Tim, I'm not sure that

Speaker: 00:18:18

I have the maturity or a lot of what we would call adults

Speaker: 00:18:22

have the maturity with these tools that we have. So I do want to say

Speaker: 00:18:25

it's not necessarily an age Tim. How do you convey that? This is not a

Speaker: 00:18:29

how to parent. This is almost how to communicate what type of

Speaker: 00:18:32

information you need to have access to. Yeah. So

Speaker: 00:18:36

it is an age thing actually, because adults are far worse

Speaker: 00:18:40

than children because we always hide behind the I'm the

Speaker: 00:18:43

adult. I as a business therapist, I

Speaker: 00:18:47

coach a lot of partnerships, and I see a lot of fighting like

Speaker: 00:18:51

children, and it is Comical to me because,

Speaker: 00:18:54

granted, kids don't always listen to their parents,

Speaker: 00:18:58

but eventually, you can connect with them. Take that for what

Speaker: 00:19:01

it's worth, but, hey, we don't, we're not the best representation

Speaker: 00:19:05

sometimes, but what success should be.

Speaker: 00:19:09

When it comes to parenting, I get it wrong all the Tim. And

Speaker: 00:19:13

I celebrate that because I try to do things differently than my parents

Speaker: 00:19:16

did. My parents were strict at the time growing

Speaker: 00:19:20

up. My dad's favorite sport was yelling. You know, I'd walk

Speaker: 00:19:24

into a room. He would tell me to shut up before I even said anything.

Speaker: 00:19:27

Now he's the happiest, greatest person on earth. I don't even recognize him. It's

Speaker: 00:19:31

fantastic. But I turned out all right. I

Speaker: 00:19:35

like the person. I love the person I am. I love that I turned out

Speaker: 00:19:37

that way. So I try to learn from those lessons. I yell at my kids

Speaker: 00:19:41

too much. We all do, but I catch myself now.

Speaker: 00:19:45

And now when I think I'm about to yell, I don't, I take my deep

Speaker: 00:19:49

breath because that's what I tell people. Take your box breathing in for

Speaker: 00:19:53

4, hold it for 4 out for 4 Tim your heartbeat lines up with your

Speaker: 00:19:56

breathing. I do that all the time. I walk away now. It's

Speaker: 00:20:00

really just trying to be a better parent, but I'm going to screw it

Speaker: 00:20:04

up to some level. So if I do yell at my kids,

Speaker: 00:20:07

which Over the past few months has been infrequent since I've been very, I've

Speaker: 00:20:11

been in a happy place and enjoying life far more than ever before.

Speaker: 00:20:15

I will actually sit down with them and say, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled

Speaker: 00:20:18

at you. And I tried to talk to them like they're adults,

Speaker: 00:20:22

because Tim, if you and I were having a conversation, I yelled at you. You'd

Speaker: 00:20:25

probably try to put me in my place. Right. Or get me to

Speaker: 00:20:29

stop yelling at you as an adult or in reality, I wouldn't yell

Speaker: 00:20:33

at you. So why is it okay for me to yell at my children? It's,

Speaker: 00:20:36

again, it's a self reflection that I'm screwing this up. And, as

Speaker: 00:20:40

parents, we're the hardest on ourselves because We don't always practice what we

Speaker: 00:20:43

preach, and we do revert back to that parental

Speaker: 00:20:48

unit that we had at the teachings. It it's all

Speaker: 00:20:52

just about being human. And I think today, kids are more advanced than ever

Speaker: 00:20:55

before. My kids do have Ipads. They're far

Speaker: 00:20:59

smarter than I was at their age. I was watching Sesame Street at

Speaker: 00:21:03

6, and they're watching YouTube. And they're telling me

Speaker: 00:21:06

about science experiments and NaCl is Sodium Chloride.

Speaker: 00:21:10

6 years old. I'm like, A, B, C?

Speaker: 00:21:14

Right? So I don't punish

Speaker: 00:21:18

technology, I don't prevent them from having technology, but I

Speaker: 00:21:22

try my best to police with technology, and that goes back to the phone

Speaker: 00:21:26

situation. They have the iPad and they'll eventually have a

Speaker: 00:21:29

communication device. Do I want them to be like me always on the

Speaker: 00:21:33

phone like this? Absolutely not. That's what I'm policing and

Speaker: 00:21:37

parenting against. They're going to see all the negative. They're gonna see that

Speaker: 00:21:41

life can be an ugly, sad place, or I

Speaker: 00:21:44

can coach them into turning that ugliness off. I'll allow myself to

Speaker: 00:21:48

wander in an ADHD moment for a second. A 120

Speaker: 00:21:52

days ago, and I'm posting about this, I think, next Seek. A Under 20 days

Speaker: 00:21:55

ago, I turned off the news completely. I don't watch the news. No

Speaker: 00:21:59

one ever wins with the news. I did that. I did that 9 I did

Speaker: 00:22:03

that 90 days ago. I did it October 1st. Go

Speaker: 00:22:06

October 1st, I turned up the news and it was very, it's fascinating.

Speaker: 00:22:11

What's going on with me mental? But go ahead. You tell me what's going on

Speaker: 00:22:14

with you, but I think this could be extremely valuable to

Speaker: 00:22:18

someone listening in. So I am Happier.

Speaker: 00:22:22

I don't engage in negative thoughts as

Speaker: 00:22:26

much or as frequently anymore. The world is

Speaker: 00:22:30

seemingly totally within my control. I am

Speaker: 00:22:33

not peppered with constant negative feedback and

Speaker: 00:22:37

marketing because the realization is the news is there to heighten your one

Speaker: 00:22:41

emotion that will get you glued, fear. Fear is

Speaker: 00:22:45

our oldest emotion, and it is what Keeps us glued and

Speaker: 00:22:48

focused. Running away from the bear, hearing

Speaker: 00:22:52

the bear, hearing the lion, smelling the lion, That's

Speaker: 00:22:56

what keeps our attention, and that is what the news is there for, to sell

Speaker: 00:23:00

advertising. So I turned it off. I'm not an idiot. I know what's going

Speaker: 00:23:03

on in the world. I know the world's affairs, but I am not constantly

Speaker: 00:23:07

seeing the negative. Because I came to this realization a 120 years

Speaker: 00:23:11

ago that we actually live in the best

Speaker: 00:23:15

time ever in humanity. You don't think

Speaker: 00:23:18

so? Okay. I'm gonna prove it to you. In the

Speaker: 00:23:23

1600, if I cursed somebody in the royal

Speaker: 00:23:26

family, I would lose my tongue. If I stole a loaf of bread from my

Speaker: 00:23:30

starving family, I would lose my hand. If I cheated on my wife, I

Speaker: 00:23:34

would lose my If I told the

Speaker: 00:23:37

king that he should die, I would lose my life. I would be threatened by

Speaker: 00:23:41

the rack, the wheel, the pair, the gauntlet, anything that would torture

Speaker: 00:23:44

me a brazen bull. I'd be set on fire or hung at a noose.

Speaker: 00:23:48

I don't have to worry about that, especially as an American. I I can tell

Speaker: 00:23:52

you I like you, I don't like you. I can say our president is great,

Speaker: 00:23:54

I can say our president sucks. There's a limit to the amount of

Speaker: 00:23:58

freedom, of course, But I don't have to fear

Speaker: 00:24:01

losing my life, and I have freedoms. This is

Speaker: 00:24:05

the best time ever. It is not the best time for everyone in their

Speaker: 00:24:09

personal situation. But when you collectively look at the fact that we

Speaker: 00:24:13

are alive and we can do whatever we want, It's a

Speaker: 00:24:17

pretty damn great time. So why would I allow some

Speaker: 00:24:20

squawk box to tell me that it's not the

Speaker: 00:24:24

best time to harm my personality

Speaker: 00:24:27

and my future and my needs, wants, and desires. I just turned it

Speaker: 00:24:31

off. That's the power I have, and I've been really happy since.

Speaker: 00:24:36

Yeah. It's amazing to me. Were you, would you consider yourself

Speaker: 00:24:40

addicted to information and news prior to that?

Speaker: 00:24:44

I'm a huge nurse. I love information. I love news.

Speaker: 00:24:48

I love the world events. I let me put a D there. I loved all

Speaker: 00:24:52

that. I got Sucked into it. I wanted to see how the world was gelling

Speaker: 00:24:55

together or not. I'd wanted to feel like I could solve the problems, but I

Speaker: 00:24:59

couldn't. I love information. When I was viewing

Speaker: 00:25:02

TikTok all too frequently, which I also got rid of when I was viewing

Speaker: 00:25:06

it, I would, My feed was all this nerdy science stuff or

Speaker: 00:25:10

chemistry stuff or hiking things. I just absorbed knowledge

Speaker: 00:25:13

and I loved that. I love learning. But now since I've turned off the negative,

Speaker: 00:25:17

I've only focused on positive. I've been able to learn more about our

Speaker: 00:25:21

positive brain, our positive mentality. I've been able to do more. I've

Speaker: 00:25:24

been able to hike more. I've been able to write more. My vision has

Speaker: 00:25:28

become clearer, and I know this all sounds kooky, because guess what? It

Speaker: 00:25:32

is. But I'm choosing the way that I want to

Speaker: 00:25:36

feel every day. And whenever asked,

Speaker: 00:25:40

I don't mean to rub it in, but it sometimes sounds like that. My friends

Speaker: 00:25:43

ask me all the time, how am I doing? And I say, I'm living the

Speaker: 00:25:46

best day of my life every single day. And

Speaker: 00:25:50

then I hear some other people say, oh, today, I'm miserable. K. Misery is a

Speaker: 00:25:53

choice, so is positivity. Sounds kooky,

Speaker: 00:25:57

but it's a choice. People don't realize they choose to

Speaker: 00:26:01

be miserable. Yeah. There's real circumstances and situations that

Speaker: 00:26:04

cause us to be miserable. Yeah. Life Experience has caused us

Speaker: 00:26:08

to be miserable, but you could turn certain things off. I'm not telling

Speaker: 00:26:12

you to turn off the fact that, you know, cousin Jimmy just passed away suddenly.

Speaker: 00:26:15

Yeah. Be sad about that. Be human. Of course. But in a few

Speaker: 00:26:19

weeks, you should mourn and move on and not dwell and celebrate the fact

Speaker: 00:26:23

that Cousin Jimmy's not here, and maybe he should be here, but he's not. So

Speaker: 00:26:26

let's move on. He would want us to move forward. Sorry, cousin Jimmy. I didn't

Speaker: 00:26:30

mean to be insensitive. Yeah. The neat thing about that

Speaker: 00:26:33

is that I'm recognizing it's very similar. I feel like I'm

Speaker: 00:26:37

looking in a mirror, hearing my voice because I Was

Speaker: 00:26:41

trying to convince myself that I needed all this information for

Speaker: 00:26:44

what I did for my business or for financial decisions or

Speaker: 00:26:48

for Business decisions for the executive coaching that I do

Speaker: 00:26:51

probably just to be able to communicate and converse with people.

Speaker: 00:26:55

Sounds like you found the same thing. No, I don't. I don't need that. In

Speaker: 00:26:59

fact, I think it was jading my mind a

Speaker: 00:27:03

little bit, and I'm older than you are. I we would have hoped we would

Speaker: 00:27:06

have figured this out sooner, but I was looking at the world through a

Speaker: 00:27:09

lens that was clouded by what other people wanted me to think about it. Media,

Speaker: 00:27:13

we can call it news. You actually alluded to this. It's really more media

Speaker: 00:27:18

In that they're selling something, and they have to keep us attached to it and

Speaker: 00:27:22

things like that. We don't really have pure

Speaker: 00:27:25

news much anymore. I, I think it's been phenomenal.

Speaker: 00:27:29

And I, I actually am on a

Speaker: 00:27:32

similar path, more creativity, writing

Speaker: 00:27:36

more. I enjoy my conversations more. I have

Speaker: 00:27:40

less cynicism, Darren. I was finding

Speaker: 00:27:43

myself being more cynical. You look at the political structure, and you just

Speaker: 00:27:47

I don't care what side you're on. You're just like, oh, man. This is a

Speaker: 00:27:49

mess. We got troubles. So, anyway, that that's cool. So that was a sidebar. Didn't

Speaker: 00:27:53

really plan that, but I think that could be some of the

Speaker: 00:27:57

most valuable things that we mentioned to folks is cut some

Speaker: 00:28:00

stuff out, get rid of it. I I wanna shift a little bit

Speaker: 00:28:04

here, and I want to go back a

Speaker: 00:28:08

little bit to talk about your, what we'll call your journey, your success story,

Speaker: 00:28:12

And a few highlights here, and I think you listed this out on a post.

Speaker: 00:28:15

You you had achieved so much, started a company, scaled it over

Speaker: 00:28:19

50 employees, got acquired by a Fortune 500 Company,

Speaker: 00:28:23

but you had this Seek, dark feeling of irrelevance.

Speaker: 00:28:28

And, I guess, talk more about

Speaker: 00:28:32

Kind of what led up to that, because, obviously, you had a pretty good

Speaker: 00:28:35

run, I'm guessing, if you scaled a company, sold it.

Speaker: 00:28:39

And were you feeling good about yourself during that Tim, or did you have any

Speaker: 00:28:43

clues that you didn't have it all together Before then?

Speaker: 00:28:48

Yeah. So, I started the business because I

Speaker: 00:28:51

always knew I wanted to start a business. That was always my thing. I learned

Speaker: 00:28:55

from my grandfather. I went to university. I

Speaker: 00:28:59

had a job, an internship. I stayed at that company for multiple

Speaker: 00:29:03

years. I learned as much as I could. I used that job

Speaker: 00:29:06

as the best education I have ever had.

Speaker: 00:29:10

Right. I learned how to be an adult, a professional, how

Speaker: 00:29:14

corporate structure works. I learned the ins and outs of

Speaker: 00:29:17

being a business person in that sense. And then one day I had my

Speaker: 00:29:21

insane entrepreneurial cliched spark in the middle of the night and

Speaker: 00:29:25

said, And I had my business name and I had my,

Speaker: 00:29:29

my motto and I just ran with it, created a really quick business

Speaker: 00:29:32

plan, went into the office the next day, I told my

Speaker: 00:29:36

boss, Hey, I'll give you 6 months and I'm out. And his exact

Speaker: 00:29:40

words, if I may par I'll say his exact

Speaker: 00:29:43

words. Sorry for the profanity. He said, it's about fucking time,

Speaker: 00:29:47

kid. Because they always heard me say that one day I'm gonna

Speaker: 00:29:50

own my business. And that to me is was a great example of

Speaker: 00:29:54

what a great leader and a mentor should do. He could have

Speaker: 00:29:58

convinced me to stay or tried, but he knew there was no use. He even

Speaker: 00:30:01

said, I'm not even gonna convince you. I know it's not gonna work. Right? He

Speaker: 00:30:04

was telling me I'm supportive. Here you go. Then a whole bunch

Speaker: 00:30:08

of can'ts came because it was turning into 2008,

Speaker: 00:30:12

horrible time to start a business, so people thought. And I heard

Speaker: 00:30:15

the, you can't start a business in this economy.

Speaker: 00:30:20

You can't, can't, can't, can't, can't. And I'm always a person that said,

Speaker: 00:30:23

I'm gonna prove you wrong, so I sought out to prove everyone

Speaker: 00:30:27

wrong. Starting a business in tough economic is

Speaker: 00:30:31

a phenomenal idea. While you're at 0, your would

Speaker: 00:30:35

be or should be competition is too worried about protecting their own

Speaker: 00:30:38

assets. They're not paying attention to you. That allows you to

Speaker: 00:30:42

creep up unnoticed. That also allows

Speaker: 00:30:46

you to get the benefit of a bad economy. What do I mean? I was

Speaker: 00:30:50

in telecom. I needed to work with the world of Verizon and AT

Speaker: 00:30:54

and T, these big monster companies. They would have never spoken

Speaker: 00:30:57

to me in a great economy, but they did in a

Speaker: 00:31:01

shitty economy. Anyway, Fast forward. I loved

Speaker: 00:31:05

that business. I loved working with people. I loved inspiring people. I

Speaker: 00:31:08

loved being a leader. I loved doing all

Speaker: 00:31:12

of the jobs and all the tasks that most people wouldn't love doing.

Speaker: 00:31:17

It was never about making money. It was always about the

Speaker: 00:31:20

freedom of doing what I loved and wanted to do

Speaker: 00:31:24

predominantly. And then one day, it started becoming about

Speaker: 00:31:28

money, and that's when I was a little bit less

Speaker: 00:31:31

excited. I was more excited about the want

Speaker: 00:31:35

Then the reality of what I was doing. And when I finally started

Speaker: 00:31:39

realizing that the market is changing, the economy's changing, my

Speaker: 00:31:43

risk Tolerance is decreasing. My need, my insatiable

Speaker: 00:31:46

need for more money was ever growing. That's when we

Speaker: 00:31:50

decided to sell the business because I knew we were becoming detrimental

Speaker: 00:31:54

to the growth. Sold the business in 2018.

Speaker: 00:31:57

I stayed on because I wasn't ready to call myself Tired. I was an

Speaker: 00:32:01

employee of the company. I was the president of, the company for about a

Speaker: 00:32:05

year. Unfortunately, the company went into bankruptcy due to a

Speaker: 00:32:08

lawsuit that they lost. Not because of my company that

Speaker: 00:32:12

they acquired and Create us, but working in a bankrupt company was

Speaker: 00:32:16

not fun, not exciting. And I looked at it as I don't have to do

Speaker: 00:32:20

this and I'm not gonna do anything that's not exciting to

Speaker: 00:32:23

me. Took my exit. And now it all sounds like poor rich

Speaker: 00:32:27

guy. That's when I realized the thing that I always wanted

Speaker: 00:32:30

that, that money, that, that dream of everyone

Speaker: 00:32:35

was not really that exciting. I started worrying about

Speaker: 00:32:39

money and losing it more than ever before because I wasn't

Speaker: 00:32:42

making the same income anymore. I wasn't replacing what I'm spending.

Speaker: 00:32:46

So that really weighs on you. I started realizing that I'm this

Speaker: 00:32:50

retired dude. That's picking up his kids and dropping them off at school

Speaker: 00:32:54

and then hanging out with his wife all the time. Don't get

Speaker: 00:32:58

me wrong. That's could be fun Tim your wife tells

Speaker: 00:33:01

you to go out and get a job because you're annoying as hell. So then

Speaker: 00:33:05

I started getting depressed about it, and that's when I realized

Speaker: 00:33:08

chasing money is not the answer.

Speaker: 00:33:13

The reality of where you wanna find your happiness, it's

Speaker: 00:33:16

the intersection of chasing a lifestyle

Speaker: 00:33:20

achievement. I correct people all the Tim. When you tell me you want to

Speaker: 00:33:24

make $1,000,000. Okay. You are saying that you

Speaker: 00:33:27

want to make $1,000,000 right now in this moment, When you think $1,000,000

Speaker: 00:33:31

is a lot of money, but when you make $1,000,000, you

Speaker: 00:33:35

realize your lifestyle changed, and it's no longer a lot of money.

Speaker: 00:33:39

So some people will inspire you to reset the goal. Great. But

Speaker: 00:33:43

you're resetting the goal to a inflection where you're upset

Speaker: 00:33:47

and depressed about the fact you achieved your goal and it didn't bring you the

Speaker: 00:33:50

joy or happiness or want and need that you needed or wanted.

Speaker: 00:33:55

So what I'd tell you is set a goal. You wanna have a van life

Speaker: 00:33:58

or live in an RV or afford an RV? Boom. That's a real

Speaker: 00:34:01

lifestyle goal. Work really hard, put in the effort,

Speaker: 00:34:05

put in the, the, the, the time to earn the

Speaker: 00:34:09

ability to buy that RV, Then reset

Speaker: 00:34:13

and reset and reset. Keep driving forward, set up lifestyle

Speaker: 00:34:17

goals. You want to own a company, boom, own a company.

Speaker: 00:34:21

You want to, you want to have 50 employees work really

Speaker: 00:34:25

hard to be able to afford 50 employees, do it right.

Speaker: 00:34:29

Make sure that you're growing a business properly. But set up

Speaker: 00:34:32

goals. You wanna surf every Friday afternoon and not go to the

Speaker: 00:34:36

office? That's an easy one. Go out and surf. Do

Speaker: 00:34:40

it. Seek up a lifestyle, because that will bring you more happiness,

Speaker: 00:34:44

than just wanting and setting goals for money and money alone.

Speaker: 00:34:48

Go, yeah, I hit a really bad depression. COVID hit.

Speaker: 00:34:52

It exacerbated that per that depression. I, like everyone else, was thought

Speaker: 00:34:56

the world was going to end, although I did not wash my groceries.

Speaker: 00:35:00

That wasn't that crazy. No offense to crazy people.

Speaker: 00:35:03

But it did exacerbate the

Speaker: 00:35:07

issue. That's when I went on a hike, My brother took me

Speaker: 00:35:10

out, it clicked, I loved hiking. I took another hike with a

Speaker: 00:35:14

friend where I told Tim, I feel purposeless.

Speaker: 00:35:18

I don't feel relevant anymore. I'm 40 years

Speaker: 00:35:22

old. I'm fully retired. I don't need to work

Speaker: 00:35:26

ever again. And the thing that I needed the most was feeling

Speaker: 00:35:30

relevant purpose. And my friend turned to me and he

Speaker: 00:35:33

said, Darren, man, you are extremely relevant and

Speaker: 00:35:37

stop tying relevancy to work. You're a

Speaker: 00:35:40

great father. You're a good husband. Assuming I was a good

Speaker: 00:35:44

husband. I think I am. You have all of this

Speaker: 00:35:48

energy tied into something that brings you passion, where you can inspire

Speaker: 00:35:51

others. And once I got back to my Jeep, that's where I took I came

Speaker: 00:35:55

from. That's my relevancy. I'm no longer depressed about

Speaker: 00:35:58

it. You don't make money from podcasting unless you're Joe Rogan.

Speaker: 00:36:02

You make purpose. You make relevancy from podcasting.

Speaker: 00:36:07

You align with people. You network with people. You know how rewarding it

Speaker: 00:36:10

is to hear someone. If I'm in the center of town, Hey, I heard your

Speaker: 00:36:13

podcast. I really liked it. That to me is all the money I need.

Speaker: 00:36:17

That's the currency Purpose.

Speaker: 00:36:20

Yeah. Right? Yeah. That's nice. I wanna talk about, I wanna talk about the podcast

Speaker: 00:36:24

shortly, but I wanna back up a little bit because I'm trying to, I'm thinking

Speaker: 00:36:28

of parallel paths here when we were going through your

Speaker: 00:36:31

company journey. It seems like it was about a 10 year 10 year journey.

Speaker: 00:36:35

And if I'm doing my math correctly, help out here.

Speaker: 00:36:39

About halfway into the company journey is

Speaker: 00:36:42

when you had children. I don't know when you got married along

Speaker: 00:36:46

the way there, but probably Somewhere around there. There was about halfway

Speaker: 00:36:50

in, and I guess I want to to kinda ask,

Speaker: 00:36:54

was there any tension When all of

Speaker: 00:36:58

a sudden it wasn't just about Darren and your wife, and all of a

Speaker: 00:37:02

sudden there were children involved. And I know you're, I think

Speaker: 00:37:05

you're in New York, so you're in the city, so there's probably commutes involved,

Speaker: 00:37:09

and there's a lot of time involved with startup and things like

Speaker: 00:37:13

that. Talk about The parallels between what was going on in your

Speaker: 00:37:16

life at some point there, I may have the math right. You could correct me

Speaker: 00:37:19

if you need to. Yeah. It's pretty close. So we had the business exactly

Speaker: 00:37:23

10 years to the day. You put good out there, your luck circles. I

Speaker: 00:37:26

started the business December 19, 2007. We sold it or signed a

Speaker: 00:37:30

stock purchase agreement on December 19, 2017.

Speaker: 00:37:34

Closed the deal in March. We didn't pick the last Create. The

Speaker: 00:37:38

company buying us did. So it's just put good out there and

Speaker: 00:37:41

good comes back. Yeah. It was about the midway point. I got

Speaker: 00:37:45

married in 2011. We started the business in

Speaker: 00:37:48

2007, 1st day in 2008. Go, yeah, midway point

Speaker: 00:37:52

for kids. It was actually great. No tension. I did live

Speaker: 00:37:56

in the city, so that commute was really a subway Way ride from

Speaker: 00:38:00

downtown Manhattan to the upper west side, so about 40 minute. My

Speaker: 00:38:03

wife, Christie, she's amazing. She would take the kids out in

Speaker: 00:38:07

their double stroller and Pushed them to the train station, the subway station, and

Speaker: 00:38:11

we would meet. There was no real tension there. The tension

Speaker: 00:38:15

that I would have felt was more when we moved out of the city and

Speaker: 00:38:19

became a suburbanite family. We moved to New Jersey.

Speaker: 00:38:24

Yeah, my attention really came from the fact that my wife was no longer

Speaker: 00:38:28

In this big city, couldn't take the stroller out and just

Speaker: 00:38:31

walk around and feel that energy from New York. She was now

Speaker: 00:38:35

stuck inside of a home with these twin kids. There was some tension

Speaker: 00:38:39

there, of course, but I never had pressure from her. There

Speaker: 00:38:43

was no pressure of of we need more, or you should do

Speaker: 00:38:46

more until after I sold the business where she told me to

Speaker: 00:38:50

get the hell out of the house and get a job. But no, I

Speaker: 00:38:54

do. We've always had this understanding from the day I met her. I met her

Speaker: 00:38:58

when I started the business. We were 3 months in, we had no clients.

Speaker: 00:39:01

I told her I was a CEO it sound cool? And it worked.

Speaker: 00:39:06

Yeah. It's a good story that she tells. She thought that I was this

Speaker: 00:39:10

big time CEO and I was in debt.

Speaker: 00:39:14

But, but no, there was no tension, but we started off

Speaker: 00:39:18

saying that, oh, I don't need a girlfriend. I don't want

Speaker: 00:39:21

a girlfriend. It was a little nicer than that, but it was understood that the

Speaker: 00:39:25

business has to come first. If we're gonna make a relationship work, then

Speaker: 00:39:29

the business has to be in check. That balance that I've always been looking for,

Speaker: 00:39:32

I was heavily balanced towards the business, which would have set my

Speaker: 00:39:36

future up. But by having a very understanding

Speaker: 00:39:40

person, I met the right person. She allowed me to not

Speaker: 00:39:44

have to be so present for the relationship. So it worked

Speaker: 00:39:47

out right person. I wouldn't say I had that much pressure from her

Speaker: 00:39:50

ever, except to get out of the house. What's

Speaker: 00:39:54

tougher running a company that's got 50 employees

Speaker: 00:39:58

or being the quote unquote head or

Speaker: 00:40:02

father In a household with 3 young girls

Speaker: 00:40:05

and your wife compare and contrast.

Speaker: 00:40:09

It does depend. Everyone's situation is unique.

Speaker: 00:40:13

Me personally, I'm an engineer by trade. I believe

Speaker: 00:40:17

in people process and product to Steal that from Marcus Lemonis, but I believe in

Speaker: 00:40:20

the process aspect mostly. So running a 50 person company is

Speaker: 00:40:24

no different than a 100 person company, Very different than a 5 or 10

Speaker: 00:40:28

person company, but you grow your processes and you have management and structure and

Speaker: 00:40:32

an org chart and then good leadership. You can take a day out of the

Speaker: 00:40:36

office and you have lots of coverage, and things won't break. Being a

Speaker: 00:40:39

father is the hardest job on the planet. Being a mother It's

Speaker: 00:40:43

probably harder. The expectations we put on ourselves to

Speaker: 00:40:47

just not screw it up is constant and daunting. These little

Speaker: 00:40:51

Mutant children running around will not listen to you at all.

Speaker: 00:40:55

It doesn't matter that you know what you're talking about, or you have inspirational,

Speaker: 00:40:59

wisdom or Experiential wisdom. They don't

Speaker: 00:41:02

listen. That's frustrating to a rational adult. Those times where I

Speaker: 00:41:06

am yelling at my kids, it Feels like I'm the only way I can get

Speaker: 00:41:09

them to stop running with scissors is to yell at them. So now being a

Speaker: 00:41:13

father is there are moments where it just sucks. Absolutely

Speaker: 00:41:17

sucks. And that's where you have to bring yourself back to what's the

Speaker: 00:41:20

purpose here. Tiny brain less than the conversation. You

Speaker: 00:41:24

have to bring yourself to their level. And I've learned that too many times, and

Speaker: 00:41:27

I keep learning that. Yeah. Being a parent is

Speaker: 00:41:31

every Create. I'm also, I'm a Georgia tech process. I'm a systems

Speaker: 00:41:35

engineer, industrial and systems engineer from Georgia tech. I think you're our it.

Speaker: 00:41:39

And what's interesting is There are many things in

Speaker: 00:41:42

life that you can systematize. I am

Speaker: 00:41:46

not sure that marriage and Running

Speaker: 00:41:50

children is something that is systemizable. I don't

Speaker: 00:41:54

know if that's a word. I may have just made a word up there. Sure.

Speaker: 00:41:56

One of the word. I understand. You know what I mean? One of the reasons

Speaker: 00:41:58

I was that up is that our daughter, our grown daughter, has 2

Speaker: 00:42:02

daughters, and I was thinking that actually might be some, you know, good wisdom

Speaker: 00:42:06

for our son-in-law, Hunter, Who, they are, about to

Speaker: 00:42:10

work on having their next child. And they're looking like they're

Speaker: 00:42:13

just cranking out the girls. It looks like they're just having

Speaker: 00:42:17

it. Oh. Having girls, which is awesome. If there's actual statistics

Speaker: 00:42:21

on that. But, yeah, 3 girls for me. I'm done. I'm outnumbered. They're not

Speaker: 00:42:25

not there yet, but pretty soon there'll be teenagers. And, you will see me

Speaker: 00:42:28

hiking a lot more. I know there's a lot of women

Speaker: 00:42:32

out there that hate me for that comment, but it's true. Gonna be rough in

Speaker: 00:42:35

my house. Right. Well, if if you wanna say on in

Speaker: 00:42:39

another time, I'll give you my advice for when all of a sudden the dating

Speaker: 00:42:42

begins that I had a daughter that we had a couple rules that

Speaker: 00:42:45

worked out real well. We'll share that in another time. But but now the,

Speaker: 00:42:50

the wisdom from that. You're gonna need some help there. Alright,

Speaker: 00:42:53

Darren. So a lot of people get confused

Speaker: 00:42:57

when they hear That someone didn't exit.

Speaker: 00:43:02

Their bank account obviously is doing very

Speaker: 00:43:05

well, but yet They feel

Speaker: 00:43:09

irrelevant. They feel depressed. They're they don't feel good about themselves.

Speaker: 00:43:13

They can't equate that because there's a massive amount of people out there

Speaker: 00:43:17

that think If they had a boost, if they just added

Speaker: 00:43:20

1 0 in their bank account, much less 2, 3,

Speaker: 00:43:24

4, or 5 zeros in the bank account, That their

Speaker: 00:43:28

life would be awesome. Before we dive into

Speaker: 00:43:32

the I took a hike, and I wanna get some wisdom from the conversations

Speaker: 00:43:35

you've been having there, I'd like to talk about

Speaker: 00:43:39

money because there are a lot of people that would

Speaker: 00:43:43

say, why is this guy struggling? If he

Speaker: 00:43:46

just went through what most people in the world would

Speaker: 00:43:50

love to go through. So talk more about that. I'm

Speaker: 00:43:54

human. That's the answer. We're human.

Speaker: 00:43:58

We always Seek. We want. Right. It's

Speaker: 00:44:01

the topic of a lot of this conversation. The reality is I

Speaker: 00:44:05

grew up in a time where my dad would always say, you don't talk about

Speaker: 00:44:08

money. And that is, That always perplexed me. Why? What's wrong

Speaker: 00:44:12

with talking about money? Now it seems like every influencer on the planet talks about

Speaker: 00:44:15

money and how much they make and how much they wanna make. They're all miserable.

Speaker: 00:44:19

K? Because when you do have an exit

Speaker: 00:44:23

event, a successful event, or you win the lottery,

Speaker: 00:44:27

Negative things start to happen. 1, if you're not reapplying

Speaker: 00:44:31

yourself and working hard again, to make more, Generate

Speaker: 00:44:35

more money, wealth, or profit, you start going backwards.

Speaker: 00:44:39

That is a very scary situation, especially at a young age to retire.

Speaker: 00:44:43

I Hired at 38 years old.

Speaker: 00:44:47

Yeah. That's a scary situation. Is that my final hurrah

Speaker: 00:44:50

at such a young age. It's also the realization that, sure, I could buy a

Speaker: 00:44:54

lot of things, but those things, those materials didn't make me happy. They

Speaker: 00:44:57

didn't fill that void. The reality

Speaker: 00:45:01

of money is it's a control mechanism to get

Speaker: 00:45:04

you to want to do more for

Speaker: 00:45:08

whatever you're doing, whether it's working for somebody or working

Speaker: 00:45:12

with somebody. It's the government's way of controlling you,

Speaker: 00:45:15

not conspiracy. That's How it is, you control the population by giving a

Speaker: 00:45:19

drug. The money is the drug. You realize you get

Speaker: 00:45:23

the drug. It doesn't fill the void. That's what it is.

Speaker: 00:45:27

That's when you have to pivot and make purpose. That's when you have to

Speaker: 00:45:30

do more with your life than just the drug.

Speaker: 00:45:35

So for me, that was my experience. And it's a real

Speaker: 00:45:38

experience and I'm very honest with it. Now, if you're gonna ask me, would I

Speaker: 00:45:42

trade it in? Hell no. I liked having a whole bunch of things I don't

Speaker: 00:45:46

have to do. I don't have to worry about this or that because I had

Speaker: 00:45:48

an exit event, but I earned the exited event by

Speaker: 00:45:52

taking risks, working hard and applying

Speaker: 00:45:56

myself, doing things that many people would be afraid to do

Speaker: 00:46:00

with their career or their success. Taking those risks.

Speaker: 00:46:03

You have absolutely heard this. We've all heard this. The

Speaker: 00:46:07

lottery Winders, it's a curse. There is a

Speaker: 00:46:10

there was a show on Netflix about what happens when you win the

Speaker: 00:46:14

lottery. Well, cousin Jimmy wants a handout.

Speaker: 00:46:18

Right? It's a curse when all of a sudden

Speaker: 00:46:21

your lifestyle changes overnight because

Speaker: 00:46:25

now all the things you couldn't afford, you can Didn't

Speaker: 00:46:28

fix the problem. There was a Yale School of Management study

Speaker: 00:46:32

on what exiting entrepreneurs should do. And

Speaker: 00:46:36

the net result is the majority of exited

Speaker: 00:46:39

Seek, business owners, entrepreneurs should not spend a

Speaker: 00:46:43

dime in their money, Should not change their life, should not buy the

Speaker: 00:46:47

boat, plane, train, automobile, or house for

Speaker: 00:46:51

at least a year, To allow yourself to stay normal, to keep

Speaker: 00:46:55

your baseline of spending and lifestyle normalized.

Speaker: 00:46:59

Because once you start spending, you start emptying that void

Speaker: 00:47:03

or emptying that pool. And that's when the depression sets in. This

Speaker: 00:47:06

is not abnormal. Unfortunately, That study was

Speaker: 00:47:10

sent to me way too late. But I experienced it, so now I get to

Speaker: 00:47:14

teach it to everyone else. Work hard, make

Speaker: 00:47:17

money if that's what You want, but realize that's not going to

Speaker: 00:47:21

solve your problems. It'll check off a whole bunch of don'ts.

Speaker: 00:47:25

But anyone can make money. That's part of the other realization.

Speaker: 00:47:29

I thought I would never be hired again. Well, I was right. No one was

Speaker: 00:47:32

ever gonna hire me again. I have too much experience For certain levels,

Speaker: 00:47:35

I'm too expensive to hire, but for the bigger companies, I'm

Speaker: 00:47:39

too inexperienced, so I'm right in the gap of not hireable. Right?

Speaker: 00:47:43

I'm not afraid to speak my mind, and I don't need this job. That's what

Speaker: 00:47:47

an employer thinks. That's scary for an employer. So I had

Speaker: 00:47:50

to start a business therapy practice to help other business owners climb

Speaker: 00:47:54

out from under that rock that they created. How do I

Speaker: 00:47:58

do that? With experiential wisdom, knowledge, and teaching.

Speaker: 00:48:02

Right? Going through all the life cycles of a business, or going through the same

Speaker: 00:48:05

emotions that a business owner is going through to help them out.

Speaker: 00:48:09

Purpose, yet again. I realized I could start another business

Speaker: 00:48:13

and make more money. Everybody has the

Speaker: 00:48:17

choice to make more money. Now, if you're sitting behind

Speaker: 00:48:21

a Seek, scratching your head and saying, I haven't gotten a raise in 2

Speaker: 00:48:24

years, k. You're probably not going to get that raise if you

Speaker: 00:48:28

don't ask for it or demonstrate the value of why you

Speaker: 00:48:32

should get it. And if you don't like the answer because you were told, no,

Speaker: 00:48:35

you can't have a raise, it is a 100% within your control to

Speaker: 00:48:39

apply for another job, or start a business, Or

Speaker: 00:48:43

even a side hustle. You can make more money.

Speaker: 00:48:47

It's a resource. Anyone can make more. Could you make 1,000,000

Speaker: 00:48:50

overnight? I wouldn't. I wouldn't try,

Speaker: 00:48:54

because it's a nightmare. Can you make a lot of money over a

Speaker: 00:48:58

period of time, putting in hard work and effort. Yeah. Yeah, you

Speaker: 00:49:01

can. But hopefully you're hearing the message And you're

Speaker: 00:49:05

starting a business or doing a side hustle or starting a new job because you

Speaker: 00:49:09

love what you do, you have a clear vision, it brings you purpose and passion,

Speaker: 00:49:13

Money will follow them. Guaranteed.

Speaker: 00:49:17

Guaranteed that you will make a lot of money in your life If you're

Speaker: 00:49:20

following purpose and passion, and have a clear vision, and

Speaker: 00:49:24

follow a process, and are a great person, Other people

Speaker: 00:49:28

will wanna work with you alongside you. Forget about 4. They

Speaker: 00:49:31

work with you, and then they will help you hit your Go.

Speaker: 00:49:36

And you'll make money. Simple formula. Hey, Darren,

Speaker: 00:49:39

you, you just have answered this, but I wanna ask this specific question.

Speaker: 00:49:44

How would you define success today

Speaker: 00:49:49

versus how did Darren define success in 2008

Speaker: 00:49:53

or 2002, 3 when you came out of school

Speaker: 00:49:56

or something like that. Just contrast, 20 years or 15,

Speaker: 00:50:00

20 years ago versus Today, I think you've answered it, but I'd like to

Speaker: 00:50:04

I'd like it to be concise more concise here. So I asked

Speaker: 00:50:08

this question on every episode of I Took A Hike. Are you successful and how

Speaker: 00:50:11

do you define success? So somebody's been listening. So if you asked me in

Speaker: 00:50:15

2008, I would have given you the answer that I thought you wanted to hear.

Speaker: 00:50:18

Success is tied to money. I'd be very wealthy.

Speaker: 00:50:22

Today, my answer is 1 and only 1 answer. Success

Speaker: 00:50:26

is balance. That's it. Balance

Speaker: 00:50:29

between health, happiness, in my case,

Speaker: 00:50:32

family, then wealth. Right.

Speaker: 00:50:36

Education. It's all about being that fulcrum

Speaker: 00:50:40

balance, because I can tell you if I'm working every single day and I'm never

Speaker: 00:50:44

seeing my kids and I die the next day. I will be filled with regret

Speaker: 00:50:48

right before that dying moment, just like the old man on his deathbed.

Speaker: 00:50:52

Right? But I can tell you if I Go the work and

Speaker: 00:50:55

I'm not making any money and I'm not generating enough to feed my

Speaker: 00:50:59

family, I'm not balanced. I'm miserable. I'm

Speaker: 00:51:03

not healthy. Right? Yes. I'm there for my family, but

Speaker: 00:51:07

am I really, if I don't take care of my health and I'm

Speaker: 00:51:10

constantly Seek, and it's within my control to get

Speaker: 00:51:14

healthy again. Then I'm not in balance, and I'm not

Speaker: 00:51:18

successful. Success is not money. Success

Speaker: 00:51:22

is the balance between everything in your life.

Speaker: 00:51:26

Success is walking away every day saying that

Speaker: 00:51:29

was a good day. Maybe not every day, but the majority of the

Speaker: 00:51:33

days in the year, You should feel like it was worth it.

Speaker: 00:51:37

And if you don't, you're just wasting that life. You're wishing

Speaker: 00:51:41

it away. I used I'm a I used to fall prey

Speaker: 00:51:44

to this all the time. I'll be happy when I get the job out of

Speaker: 00:51:48

college. I'll be happy when I go to college. I'll be happy when I get

Speaker: 00:51:50

the promotion. I'll be happy when I, when I, when I I was never

Speaker: 00:51:54

happy. Now, I'm happy. And, yes, there's a lot of

Speaker: 00:51:58

people that can say I'm happy because I don't have to worry about money anymore,

Speaker: 00:52:01

but you're wrong. Worry about money more than I ever did before

Speaker: 00:52:05

until I realized that it's within my control to make that

Speaker: 00:52:08

money. It's a resource. It's not about the money,

Speaker: 00:52:12

about the effort, purpose, and the balance. Long answer.

Speaker: 00:52:16

One word. Yeah. I didn't, but great answer. I think the curse of

Speaker: 00:52:20

we'll call it entrepreneurs, maybe the hustle, The hustle

Speaker: 00:52:24

and grind culture, whatever we could throw it in. I think one of the curses

Speaker: 00:52:27

that we have today is that we have this

Speaker: 00:52:31

Addiction to I'll I'll say 2 things, addiction addiction to more.

Speaker: 00:52:35

And tomorrow we interviewed someone not too long ago, Chris Morof. They said I was

Speaker: 00:52:38

addicted to Tomorrow, and then a few years

Speaker: 00:52:42

ago, we interviewed, Mark Whitaker, who was the basis for that

Speaker: 00:52:46

movie, The Informant that Matt Damon, And he said he was addicted to more.

Speaker: 00:52:50

And and you know what? I recognized myself the same thing and a lot

Speaker: 00:52:53

of the people. That's why they need the business therapists. That's why they need the

Speaker: 00:52:57

coach Is because sometimes we don't recognize it. I

Speaker: 00:53:01

think we think life is there's this destination, this place that we're going to get

Speaker: 00:53:04

to, But really it's this journey. How do

Speaker: 00:53:08

we measure balance? Because I think,

Speaker: 00:53:12

the way we're wired, Darren, the way you and I are wired and a lot

Speaker: 00:53:15

of people listening in is that we will get to this place and we will

Speaker: 00:53:18

look around and we'll get a balanced trophy Or a balance,

Speaker: 00:53:23

a a balance certificate or something, but it it's it

Speaker: 00:53:27

really is something that is not I I don't wanna say it's

Speaker: 00:53:30

not tangible, but how do you know when you're close to it

Speaker: 00:53:34

or getting there or in a place? Is it just

Speaker: 00:53:38

happy days? Days are good?

Speaker: 00:53:41

I mean, we can make a glass trophy for everything. Right? And anything

Speaker: 00:53:45

you'll hear me or you'll see it on my posts. I often mock that because

Speaker: 00:53:49

I was the recipient of media glass trophy. I you will hear me

Speaker: 00:53:53

say a line like, if you're sitting at your Seek, staring at your glass trophy,

Speaker: 00:53:56

wondering where your life went wrong, This message is few,

Speaker: 00:54:01

right? The reality is it is intangible.

Speaker: 00:54:05

My balance is completely than yours, just like my list of success will be

Speaker: 00:54:08

different than yours. For me, it's health first because it's

Speaker: 00:54:12

hard to be happy if you're unhealthy. And sometimes you just get some bad

Speaker: 00:54:15

luck and it sucks. Steve jobs was not a happy person

Speaker: 00:54:19

when he was unhealthy, especially right.

Speaker: 00:54:23

It's if you're not happy, it's hard to be healthy because we do know that

Speaker: 00:54:26

stress raises cortisol levels and that starts eroding

Speaker: 00:54:30

yourselves. Right? So

Speaker: 00:54:34

it's really personal to you. If I ask you, are you having more happy

Speaker: 00:54:38

days than not? If I say, are you healthy? Are you doing things to be

Speaker: 00:54:41

healthy? Are you you don't have to diet. Just eat smaller portions. We're Americans.

Speaker: 00:54:45

We eat too much. Right? I don't eat healthy in any way, shape or form.

Speaker: 00:54:49

Last night I had Wendy's kids, Wendy's. Did I

Speaker: 00:54:52

eat all the Wendy's? No, But I ate Wendy's,

Speaker: 00:54:56

but then maybe tomorrow, a salad for lunch or, something

Speaker: 00:55:00

smaller. So I'm mindful of what I'm eating, but then I go to the gym

Speaker: 00:55:03

every day or I hike, or I go to a boxing class. Why? Because

Speaker: 00:55:07

I love doing it. I'm not going to do something I don't love doing, but

Speaker: 00:55:10

it's balanced. I don't know. There's no number. Just like I said,

Speaker: 00:55:14

how much money is enough? I have a billionaire friend. I ask him, at what

Speaker: 00:55:17

point? When's it enough? And he always says to me, it's never enough, because

Speaker: 00:55:21

it's ego. Sorry to my friend if he's listening to this, but it's

Speaker: 00:55:25

pure ego and greed. Maybe.

Speaker: 00:55:29

Maybe he runs in a pool, a circle of billionaires. They're always taking out their

Speaker: 00:55:33

rulers and measuring. Right? But it might be more.

Speaker: 00:55:37

He just loves winning. He knows he's never going to run out of

Speaker: 00:55:41

money, but he loves winning. Is he happy? Yes,

Speaker: 00:55:44

with that. Is he always present for his family? No. If

Speaker: 00:55:48

I asked him if he's successful, he'll absolutely say yes based on a monetary

Speaker: 00:55:52

definition. But if I was evaluating his life at the pearly

Speaker: 00:55:55

gates, I'd probably say his kids need a little more time with him.

Speaker: 00:55:59

Maybe I won't tell him to tune into this one, but Actually, you know what?

Speaker: 00:56:03

I'm gonna tell Tim this all. Yeah. I was and it's fine. We in invited

Speaker: 00:56:06

me because, I mean, it's measurable. I get it. You can measure That

Speaker: 00:56:10

money piece very easily. It's hard to measure. That's why I asked the question.

Speaker: 00:56:14

It's hard to measure, joy, happiness, Tim with kids. Yeah. You

Speaker: 00:56:18

can measure the hours you're there, but if you got a phone in your hand,

Speaker: 00:56:21

even if you're at the park with them, you know, that's a bit of a

Speaker: 00:56:24

challenge. I wanna transition. Go ahead. I wanna just add this.

Speaker: 00:56:29

Everyone is very different. I am very well aware. There are some

Speaker: 00:56:33

people that hate their kids. I get it. There are moments where

Speaker: 00:56:37

I think it, and sometimes I mutter it. Okay.

Speaker: 00:56:41

Not everyone must be the greatest parent in the world.

Speaker: 00:56:45

This advice isn't for them. Right? So what I'm saying, everything has an

Speaker: 00:56:48

opposite to what I'm saying. These are not fixed

Speaker: 00:56:52

targets for everyone. If you don't like your family and you

Speaker: 00:56:56

consider them the worst thing in the world and you don't wanna fix that, then

Speaker: 00:56:59

that's not your success measure. That's not your balance. I just wanna make sure that

Speaker: 00:57:03

it's understood that I'm not telling you to do something to find purpose

Speaker: 00:57:07

and balance. Do what works for you to find purpose and I think that's the

Speaker: 00:57:11

most powerful thing that, definitely people in our shoes can say

Speaker: 00:57:15

Darren is everyone's success has to be

Speaker: 00:57:18

their own. In other words, you and I could probably sit here

Speaker: 00:57:22

and rattle off 3, 5, 7 steps to do this, blah blah blah, this,

Speaker: 00:57:26

do this, but yet, Those, I'm getting

Speaker: 00:57:29

less dogmatic as I age and mature, and I'm

Speaker: 00:57:33

kinda saying the bottom line is you need to find what works

Speaker: 00:57:37

for you and your balance and your success,

Speaker: 00:57:41

and I'm watching my time here, but I wanna finish up with a few things

Speaker: 00:57:44

here. At some point, Create, who our wives or

Speaker: 00:57:48

our spouses will say our partners are often the ones that

Speaker: 00:57:52

know us best and can give us the guidance the best. At some

Speaker: 00:57:56

point, Create looked at you and either gave you a swift kick or a

Speaker: 00:57:59

gentle hug or a kiss and said, Darren,

Speaker: 00:58:03

You're gonna have to get out and go do something, and you went out and

Speaker: 00:58:07

took a hike. And did you already have what you call now the

Speaker: 00:58:10

business Therapy, brand, I guess I'll call

Speaker: 00:58:14

it that, because it seemed to me like those mesh together that you

Speaker: 00:58:18

know, I took a hike And business therapy sort of go together.

Speaker: 00:58:22

Talk briefly in our last few minutes here about those 2

Speaker: 00:58:25

things, and then we'll wrap up and let people know how they can connect with

Speaker: 00:58:28

you. So Business therapy and I took a hike. Sure. So

Speaker: 00:58:32

after I exited a company that acquired us, I started a consulting

Speaker: 00:58:36

practice, and it was Christie when When I was telling her what I was

Speaker: 00:58:39

doing, she's like, oh, you're like a therapist for business, a business therapist.

Speaker: 00:58:43

So that no looking back, when you get the spark, you run with it. She's

Speaker: 00:58:46

a genius. Far better than I will ever be. And I'm not just saying that

Speaker: 00:58:49

she's very smart. Right? So I had that going,

Speaker: 00:58:53

but that paused completely during COVID so I could focus on

Speaker: 00:58:57

living and life and and not, you know, being eaten by this invisible bug.

Speaker: 00:59:00

The hiking came after that, and I've just applied the things that I've always

Speaker: 00:59:05

Been been doing my whole life. I've always been observant of other people. I

Speaker: 00:59:09

can read people very well, and I pay attention to situations

Speaker: 00:59:12

of emotions and how people engage and interact, and I apply

Speaker: 00:59:16

that to business to help partnerships and business

Speaker: 00:59:19

owners, Like I said, get out from under the rock that they created.

Speaker: 00:59:23

Most challenges in business were created by the inexperience of the

Speaker: 00:59:27

business owner, not an insult. But, if you're a CEO in a

Speaker: 00:59:31

start up company calling yourself CEO, you have no idea what a CEO

Speaker: 00:59:34

does, because a CEO doesn't belong in a start up small

Speaker: 00:59:38

business, A business owner does. The CEO protects

Speaker: 00:59:41

shareholder value for shareholders. Delegates,

Speaker: 00:59:45

elevates. You're a start up business. You don't have that.

Speaker: 00:59:49

You're a business owner. Own a business, grow a business, turn into a

Speaker: 00:59:53

CEO as the business grows. I didn't know that either. I called myself a

Speaker: 00:59:56

CEO. I bought the plaque. It was really cool. High five moment to myself.

Speaker: 01:00:00

I didn't know what a CEO was until I went School to learn

Speaker: 01:00:04

business, to learn how to read a P and L, to learn how to protect

Speaker: 01:00:08

shareholder value. Right? The business therapy that I do

Speaker: 01:00:11

combines all of that experiential wisdom, training, knowledge,

Speaker: 01:00:15

and the emotions of being a business owner, especially the

Speaker: 01:00:19

heightened frustration, anxiety, depression, and pain. Do you enjoy

Speaker: 01:00:23

the I'll call it inspiring and interacting

Speaker: 01:00:27

therapy that you're doing now

Speaker: 01:00:30

more than you did when you were actually applying and head down inside

Speaker: 01:00:34

of a business? Because I do. I really enjoy Being that

Speaker: 01:00:38

outside looking in instead of the businesses and all that I

Speaker: 01:00:42

ran, what how do you look at those? So it's different

Speaker: 01:00:45

timelines. When I was in my twenties thirties, I

Speaker: 01:00:49

loved being finally a CEO. I loved going to the trade shows and

Speaker: 01:00:53

having the meetings and being the person that people would turn to.

Speaker: 01:00:56

Not an ego thing. I just liked being that person at that

Speaker: 01:01:00

time. Now, yes, I love helping other people

Speaker: 01:01:04

win and Seek. I love the inspiration. In fact, I'll say, I effing

Speaker: 01:01:07

love it. I love what I do. I genuinely do it. It's this is not

Speaker: 01:01:11

a huge payday. I don't make Anywhere near what I made as

Speaker: 01:01:15

a business owner and a CEO or as the executive of a of Fortune

Speaker: 01:01:19

500, that were even close. Again, it's not about money. It's

Speaker: 01:01:22

about the purpose and the balance for me. So I genuinely love what I

Speaker: 01:01:26

do. I select my client, not in an elite or arrogant way,

Speaker: 01:01:30

but I work with clients that I know are willing

Speaker: 01:01:33

to grow, are willing to take knowledge and run with

Speaker: 01:01:37

it, are willing to make changes. I love their businesses. I see

Speaker: 01:01:41

opportunity in their businesses. That's advice I give to

Speaker: 01:01:44

all my clients is You always wanna select a consultant, a

Speaker: 01:01:48

coach, business therapist, a mentor that doesn't need

Speaker: 01:01:52

you as a client. If they need you as a client, they're

Speaker: 01:01:55

already giving you the wrong advice, because they're gonna bill you per hour and try

Speaker: 01:01:59

to get as much out of you. That relationship will last the average of

Speaker: 01:02:03

5 months. You wanna find someone that doesn't need you as

Speaker: 01:02:07

a client. They want to work with you. They want to help

Speaker: 01:02:10

you and vice versa. And that is a recipe for

Speaker: 01:02:14

success. I've always had business mentors, coaches in my life.

Speaker: 01:02:18

That's when I share some of their knowledge and I pass it. I pay it

Speaker: 01:02:21

forward to my clients. Yeah. That's very common

Speaker: 01:02:25

in the coaching world is that people are coding, Coaching for the

Speaker: 01:02:28

dollar. And I think it compromises quite a bit. So

Speaker: 01:02:32

that's I really love you sharing that. Darren, Where can

Speaker: 01:02:36

people connect with you? And then I've got 1 more question before we wrap up.

Speaker: 01:02:40

So give all your coordinates so that people can listen in. We'll include it down

Speaker: 01:02:43

below, but Where can people connect with you? Go I love

Speaker: 01:02:47

the coordinated approach. I took a hike .com, or you can listen

Speaker: 01:02:51

to it on Spotify podcasts Or Apple Podcasts or

Speaker: 01:02:54

wherever you get your podcasts. LinkedIn,

Speaker: 01:02:58

it's Darren Mas. You can find me there. I post Seek

Speaker: 01:03:02

days, sometimes 7 days a week. I love it. If you like it, follow,

Speaker: 01:03:05

share, comment. I always engage. I always reply. Sometimes

Speaker: 01:03:09

Tim takes longer due to the volume, but I will always reply.

Speaker: 01:03:13

Businesstherapygroup.com, all of the above and some.

Speaker: 01:03:19

Very good. Yeah. I love what you're doing over LinkedIn. I think that's what drew

Speaker: 01:03:22

me to you. That's where I was saying, okay. He's talking some of our

Speaker: 01:03:25

language over there. We need to connect. Darren, we are seek, go Create.

Speaker: 01:03:29

Those 3 words, and we'll let you choose 1, Seek, go or Create, which do

Speaker: 01:03:33

you choose that resonates the most with you right now and

Speaker: 01:03:36

why Seek? Because when

Speaker: 01:03:40

you stop learning is the moment you are dying, and I have

Speaker: 01:03:44

experienced that part, and I am ready to continue to

Speaker: 01:03:47

seek. Awesome. Darren

Speaker: 01:03:51

Mast, thank you for joining us here at Go Create. I highly recommend

Speaker: 01:03:55

That you go as soon as you finish up here and follow,

Speaker: 01:03:59

subscribe, whatever you do on your podcast player too. I took a hike. I've listened

Speaker: 01:04:03

to some of them. It's phenomenal. It's great. It's, It's, it's

Speaker: 01:04:07

similar messages. If you're listening in here, you need to go

Speaker: 01:04:10

over there because we're talking The same language you want me to

Speaker: 01:04:14

translate. We are Create here releasing new episodes every Monday.

Speaker: 01:04:18

Your support means the world to us. Now you can tip us, Buy me a

Speaker: 01:04:22

coffee or offer financial support at seekgocreate.comforward/support.

Speaker: 01:04:28

Start at just a dollar, and if you leave a comment, We'll feature you on

Speaker: 01:04:31

a future episode. Visit Create,

Speaker: 01:04:36

and give us a tip. Until next time.