295 Max Lewis

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast where you learn how to extract your business and personal Deep Wealth. 

I'm your host Jeffrey Feldberg. 

This podcast is brought to you by Deep Wealth and the 90-day Deep Wealth Experience. 

When it comes to your business deep wealth, your exit or liquidity event is the most important financial decision of your life. 

But unfortunately, up to 90% of liquidity events fail. Think about all that time and your hard earned money wasted. 

Of the quote unquote "successful" liquidity events, most business owners leave 50% to over 100% of the deal value in the buyer's pocket and don't even know it. 

I should know. I said "no" to a seven-figure offer. And "yes" to mastering the art and the science of a liquidity event. [00:01:00] Two years later, I said "yes" to a different buyer with a nine figure deal. 

Are you thinking about an exit or liquidity event? 

Don't become a statistic and make the fatal mistake of believing the skills that built your business are the same ones to sell it. 

After all, how can you master something you've never done before? 

Let the 90-day Deep Wealth Experience and the 9-step roadmap of preparation help you capture the best deal instead of any deal. 

At the end of this episode, take a moment and hear from business owners like you, who went through the Deep Wealth Experience. 

Max Lewis is an American entrepreneur and investor with over 20 years of business experience and in excess of 100 million in cumulative sales. After starting his propane exchange business in 2002, Max grew the company into the largest independent propane cylinder exchange business in the state of Florida.

He sold it for an impressive 37 million in 2017, [00:02:00] One of the largest transactions of its kind in the state.

Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. Well, you heard it in the official introduction. We have an entrepreneur, not just any entrepreneur, a post exit entrepreneur. He has crossed that finish line brilliantly and successfully. And today we're going to talk all about that and more. So I promise you this, all of you out there in deep wealth land, come in with your questions.

You're going to be coming out of this episode a whole lot richer than you think with strategies from the trenches. So I'm going to put a pause on it there. Max, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. An absolute pleasure to have you with us. And Max, I'm curious. There's always a story behind the story.

What's your story? What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Max Lewis: Hey Jeffrey, thanks for having me. So what got me from where I was to where I am today? I would say being insanely curious, persistent, tenacious, and willing and open to learning from people who knew more than I did. a lot of things that I utilized in order to get to where I am today and I continue to utilize those in my [00:03:00] daily life and my daily business life.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Max, I hear you say that. I hear a lot of people say that you truly followed that. And I'm just wondering, talk is cheap as the saying goes. So what did that mean for you in terms of your day in, day out business interactions, personal interactions? How did that transpire for you?

Max Lewis: All right, so to give you a little color, so never went to college. I barely graduated high school. I wanted to be a chef. I ended up washing cars and working part time filling propane tanks on the weekend. And, so I didn't know much. I had a little business background selling candy as a child and selling mangoes.

And when I saw an opportunity, first of all took the moment to recognize it as an opportunity. I studied the opportunity. I journaled, wrote down to the best of my ability, what I thought I could do with that opportunity. In my case, it was, delivering propane tanks, which is, not very exciting for someone who's 20 years old thinking they have a bright future [00:04:00] ahead.

But, you know, I just saw that there was a potential opportunity and I kind of just went down the road, and I didn't always have the answers. I don't think. Anyone does, but I stuck with it and, you know, just one foot in front of the other learning from people, learning from the experience and applying that and adjusting.

And when things got tough, you know, I just did my absolute best to hang in there because I attached a strong emotion to wanting to succeed in that industry. And I think what I see with a lot of entrepreneurs, they make it more about the money. It's about the money and not necessarily about what they're doing.

So if you're not really, emotionally charged, it's easy to just say, Hey, I didn't make anything. I give up and you move on. I think that a strong will, a strong emotion, a passion towards whatever it is that you're trying to do is going to take you all the way. I mean, in my case, it did.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So, Max, I'm curious, your curiosity, that emotion, that passion to succeed [00:05:00] and own your book. And for the listeners, in the show notes, we'll have a link to the book, Who is Max Lewis? 37 chapters, 37 lessons, 37 million. And you do a brilliant job, Max, in the book of taking snippets of your life and the lessons that come from that.

But where did that come from originally? Were you born like that? Was your family like that? Give us a story behind the story on that one. 

Max Lewis: I think, you know, there's a saying, life is like a piece of paper, and everyone leaves their mark. I don't know if you've heard that saying. My life was like that. My grandfather, early on, taught me kind of how to use my brain a little bit, by getting curious and asking me questions that I had to answer.

There were like little brain teasers, and my father showed me how to make a sale by picking up mangoes from the backyard and selling them. And then when I started selling candy in school, I I had a lot of social interactions and I learned a lot of lessons. I learned about charge and COD and your friends sometimes don't pay you back.

It's just a journey, I think, [00:06:00] that, God put me on and I just kept growing and I'm still growing, also wanting the opportunity to learn, I think, is is one of the biggest factors for me. A lot of people throw their hands up When they hit a dead end and they say, Oh, it's just too hard, or I don't know.

And then they carry on with their day. Well, in my particular case, I think that is inborn in me where I'm like, okay, I don't know. I need to know. I want to find out now, like Google call someone and not just someone call the person who I think would have the most knowledge on the subject. That's been my approach as a young man and still today.

And I think that more than anything has. Made me successful.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Max, as you're talking about that, it reminds me of what I often tell myself, Hey, Jeffrey, dreamers dream, but doers do. And so in your case, you were curious and a lot of people, sure, they're curious, but like you say, they just leave it at that. So what I'm hearing you say is, yeah, Jeffrey, I was curious. But it didn't [00:07:00] stop there.

I would search out the person who, at least in my circles, was the most knowledgeable on that. Maybe they're already doing that, or maybe they knew someone who was doing that. And so it sounds like you reached out to them and you began to ask the questions. How am I doing with that so far?

Max Lewis: Yeah, so it's funny. I was just in Cancun with Joe Dispenza, and there was a young lady there that was Giving me her story. Basically, she wanted some advice. I gave her some time and She tells me she sounded just like me as a young child at one point. She's like I got this plan I have this all mapped out and Everything's ready to go and you know what every time I mention it to my mother She says it's a dumb idea and I shouldn't do it

I said, hold on, hit the brakes right there.

First of all, energy is real. So, if you have this idea and you've been thinking about it for weeks and months or however long it's been, it's special. It's something that means something to you and I think you should pursue it. But more importantly, if someone's gonna discourage you, now whether that is your mother, your father, your cousin, your girlfriend, whoever, You need to [00:08:00] shelter, you need to protect yourself from that energy and that opinion.

And you can do this in two different ways. You can A, sit that person down, even if it's your mom, and say, Hey mom, listen, I really want to do this idea. I'm very excited about it. Please, if I'm going to share it with you, I need you to be my biggest cheerleader and empower me and help me achieve my goal rather than put me down. You can do that, or you could just say, I'm not going to discuss this with my mother anymore, right? Because you know that that's not going to help you achieve your goal. But second part of the advice gave her was, listen, apart from all that stuff, you gave me this long 10 minute story about everything you want to do, but you haven't done anything.

You need to do something. Don't just think about it. Don't talk about it to your mom. Don't do any more of that. Take some action. Get off your butt and make some moves. Maybe they're not the best moves, maybe they're right moves, but just do something and you're going to see the story start to unfold.

The opportunity starts to unfold. You're going to learn something. You're going to do something. You're going to meet [00:09:00] someone and it will start to happen. But if you do not take a step in faith, nothing happens. One of the quotes in my book, if you make a move, God will make a way.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, so much there to unpack. And Max, I want to share something with you as reading about this recently. You're absolutely right. When we share our dreams, our moonshots, our beehives, whatever you want to call it with those around us, well, number one, they're probably going to shoot us down because we may be making them feel uncomfortable consciously or unconsciously, and they don't want us leaving the pack.

They don't want to feel bad that, hey, look at Max or look at Jeffrey, look how successful they are, but look at me. And so they'll try and bring us back down. But what's really interesting was a report came out and they did the study in psychology and they found that people who spoke about their visions or goals or dreams to those around them, the mind is something pretty amazing.

After they finished talking about that to the people, even though they took no action, the only action was talking about it, they gave themselves permission to really take the foot off the gas pedal. Well, I spoke [00:10:00] about it, I'll get to it at one point versus those that kept it to themselves, didn't share it with anyone.

They had something to prove. They wanted to, as the saying goes, let my actions speak louder than words. And the people that kept it to themselves, more times than not, were more successful in business and in life. So really fascinating with what you're sharing. Any thoughts on that before I go into my next question?

Max Lewis: Well, yeah. And just wanted to add to that. So in this particular case, this young lady, whose mother was taking the opportunity to disempower her and kind of put her down. I said, listen, there's something else you have to consider here. I'm not saying be upset with her. She just hasn't had that level of experience,

If your mom is a dishwasher and she's been a dishwasher for 40 years, she's not going to understand. First of all, she has not had the experience of growing a business and being a salesperson. Very successful. So, and she's not going to understand how to give you advice for that or encourage you. And I'm not saying this is true in every case, but rang true in this case.

So I said, you're just sharing your vision with someone who doesn't know how to get you [00:11:00] there. And she doesn't want you to get hurt and maybe she's attempted something in the past and it didn't work out for her. So she's emotionally scarred. So I just want to like, shed some light on that.

It's not that maybe you're talking to someone and they don't want you to succeed. Maybe that's just Not in their toolbox, and they don't know how to advise you, or based on their experience, they haven't succeeded, so they think you're not going to succeed. So when sharing this or trying to accomplish something large, one of my best pieces of advice is going to be, share that with someone who's already done it and someone who's going to push you forward.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. And oftentimes, friends, family are so well meaning, but like you said, they don't have that experience and because of that, they're not necessarily in a position to give the right insights or the encouragement or hey. Try and do this. This is what's going to help you. So some great advice there.

Let me ask you this. And again, you can tell me if I'm on base or off base. Right At the very start of the book, in your dedication, two things jumped off the page. So firstly, you're dedicating this book to [00:12:00] mentors that many of us have. Some of those mentors, they're authors who are no longer with us today.

And so that first clue was, Oh, it sounds like Max has done a lot of reading along the way. And that some of these authors, some of these books. Became your mentors. Any thoughts, any insights that you can share with us on that? Absolutely.

Max Lewis: something that's pretty interesting actually is, I have not read a lot of books.

Jeffrey Feldberg: many

Max Lewis: am not a big

Jeffrey Feldberg: know

Max Lewis: I have read books that I have felt. X Factors will help me. Accomplish or get to the next step in understanding whatever it is that I'm trying to achieve at that moment in my life. So I'm just not a big reader.

It's funny because I wrote a book, but I listen very well. So I can listen to an audio book and if it's an eight hour audio book, I can do that in a day, no problem. But sitting down and reading, I've only read maybe, I don't know, or nine books in my life. But yeah, each and every one of those books at different times in my life, they were something that I was like, okay, this is very [00:13:00] learning this or evolving in this area of my life is extremely important to me.

So I'm going to take the time to make sure that I You know, read these books and change, and apply, sometimes, like I was saying, I kind of have like ADD when it comes to reading, so, and maybe a lot of your listeners do too, that's why they're listening to this podcast. So in some of those times, I might read the same page two or three times, but it's really important to get in what I'm trying to get in.

And for example, in Napoleon Hill's case, that book was so, so important. It sold so many copies and so many people recommended it to me and I was at a point in my life, I said, I really want to learn this. I really want to grow. So I dedicated the time to reading that book and it helped a lot.

Jeffrey Feldberg: In my entrepreneurial journey, and so that was a takeaway and you know what, Max, whether it's an audio book, whether it's a book, the point is we're going outside of ourselves. And as you say, really in less than a day, we can learn a lifetime of experience from a very successful [00:14:00] person. I don't know where else you can do that other than an audio book or a written book.

It's wonderful that way. And the other question I had for you in the dedication, you start with this quote and you could have chosen any quote out there. But you picked a biblical one, Matthew 12, 34, the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. And so I'm wondering, what was it with that particular quote that you put it right up front in the dedication?

Max Lewis: That quote is important to me for several reasons and I'll give you a few of them. So, one of the reasons is just. attention to how people speak to me and about me in my life, I think this is something that a lot of people, similar to this young lady's story it's her mother, right?

It's her mother that's disempowering her.

Like it's not that she didn't want her to succeed, but you are trying to achieve something monumental, your words have power. What you say has power. You can bring things to [00:15:00] fruition with your words. It's literally in the Bible, right?

That's the quote. So firstly, I like to monitor. People around me and protect my energy. So when people say certain things, I actually had a little argument with my, one of my best friends, two days ago about the same subject. He made a comment. And it was like something like, hey, don't do this again I won't trust you.

And I said, hold on a second, bro. We've been friends for 25 years. you ever had a reason not to trust me? No, never. I said, I've given you, so much time of my life, money, help, friendship, all these things. I said, why would you say that? Well, I didn't mean it. I was just saying I said, no, but if you said it, there's something there. So what is it? Let's unpack it. And he's well, I didn't think about that. I was just saying a joke. And I said, no, it's not a joke. It's not a joke. I'm listening to you. And you're saying something that you feel. So let's talk about it. And long story short, we talked about it and he had an issue with someone else.

And he kind of got like, Like, recently, and he was just projecting that [00:16:00] onto me now, right? He's he got hurt somewhere else, and now he's bringing it to me. And I was glad that we had the conversation because, you know, I was like, man, you know, I would never do anything to hurt you, so just be more aware of like, what you say to me and how you're feeling.

there's another saying that people driving around with a bunch of garbage and they're looking to dump it on someone. I heard it, I don't know if you know that saying, but, if you're out in traffic and people are beeping and honking and cursing and things like that.

So, it was just a beautiful conversation because he had more awareness of his situation and I was able to help him, but also, could have gone another route. I could have ended up maybe. Eliminating that person out of my life, because I need to protect my environment, man. I gotta protect my environment.

So anyway, sorry to go so long on that, I just think that's a huge one, man. I'm always listening to what people are saying, how they're saying it, \ and then trying to understand why they're saying it and just protecting myself in that way. Because if you have the wrong people around you or in your life, it can be a parachute. yOu're going to be dragging a parachute and it could be relational, it could be business in any [00:17:00] aspect. I'm honored to that. And I want people to pay attention to that as well. I don't think many people really lean into what people are saying and understand, hey, if this person is saying that, that is within them.

It's inside of them, and I've had a lot of ex girlfriends and they'd say things and I'm like, Jesus, you know, like, where's this coming from? And there was a time where I didn't really, study that. And now I do, and it's really helped me a lot. So I just and I pray that people will just pay attention to how people talk about them.

And. And how they talk to them, 

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so Max, I have two big takeaways and you can tell me once again, Jeffrey, yes, you're really spot on with that, or hey, let's talk about that. And so the first thing that I'm hearing you say, and this also goes back to Napoleon Hill, I'll just say it in a different way. Our thoughts, our inner thoughts, that's really what manifests.

Power yapıyorsun, Muscle footage, employee, Income Security, spirit RP. We goitout dude and we created this book. And in this book, [00:18:00] I talk about things that, have cost Gravity, what To Buy, two book about You're super careful to surround yourselves with people who are called positive energy or positive thoughts as opposed to people who have toxic thoughts Are going to bring you down or energy vampires.

How am I doing with that so far?

Max Lewis: You're spot on. but adding to that, it's also what you say about yourself, one of those moments, you forget something. Oh man, I'm so stupid.

And that's just like a saying that you say, but it's okay, hold on. If you say I'm so stupid a thousand times a year. You're pretty much hypnotizing yourself and you're becoming you're believing that you're stupid and you should stop and analyze that. Why am I saying that? I mean, this is not helping me.

Like, how about I'm a genius? That's going to be a lot better than calling yourself stupid. So it works both ways. It works for monitoring other people and bringing things to fruition, but also you should monitor what you're saying and really analyze it.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So true, Max. You know, It was Jim Rohn, if I'm not mistaken, who said, we are [00:19:00] the average of the five people that we spend the most amount of time with. And so think about that for a second, look around, ask yourself, okay, who are the five people I'm spending the most amount of time with? And then take a step back and ask yourself, okay, are they positive?

Are they negative? Are they always putting themselves down? Are they always gossiping about other people? Or are they finding good in others? Are they finding good in themselves? Because Max, you're so right. Our mind, it is so incredible, it doesn't differentiate between reality and what we're telling ourselves.

So negative thoughts, it believes it, positive thoughts, it believes it, and then the mind will find a way to really prove that what we're saying is true. So Max, your point, I'm a genius, I'm really successful, I am talented in these areas. It'll go out of its way, our mind, to put ourselves in those kinds of situations.

And I know for some listeners are saying, okay, Jeffrey Max, I had you right up to here. And yeah, I was with you, but now you've lost me. Well, science, and again, the studies are showing it's called the reticular activation system. [00:20:00] Case in point, I want to buy a red sweater. I'm thinking about it when I'm walking on the street or I'm driving, everyone's wearing red sweaters.

Did the red sweaters magically appear or no? Well, they were always there, but now my mind is paying more attention to that. And so, Max, the method to my madness of all these questions is really setting up a foundation of who is Max Lewis. Let me ask you this, when you went into the propane business, for people looking from the outside in, we could say, okay, the propane business, What's going on with the propane business?

It's nothing new. You didn't invent it. You went into it. You can even argue it was a commodity, yet you had a massive success coming out of that. So what was going on with that? What brought you into it and what were you seeing that simply put others didn't that brought you that success?

Max Lewis: I did an interview with Authority Magazine yesterday, and they asked me a very similar question, and the simple answer is, I saw an opportunity, wasn't about propane, never really liked propane, it's not sexy, it's a pretty boring business, but I saw an [00:21:00] opportunity, and I saw I was able to provide something for customers that they were not getting anywhere else, which was service.

Focusing on the customer experience and doing anything and everything for the customers, regardless of the day, the time, how I felt. Nothing else mattered. I just wanted to provide the absolute best customer experience possible. And I had a personal goal of getting as many clients as possible. Those two things combined were like having a jet engine on my back, I just did and did and grew.

And obviously when you're providing an exceptional service it becomes very easy to grow. So simply put, I just focused on customer's need, customer experience, and making them happy. It was not about money. It was. About getting as many customers as I could and keeping them happy doing that made me happy and that's it.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so really it goes back to the very heart of [00:22:00] being a business owner, an entrepreneur. We're finding out other people's problems or painful problems, and we are so good at solving it. They're only too happy to pay us to take their pain away, to tell their friends or family about it. And so I'm curious with your curiosity, Max.

How did you go about finding these pain points for the customers? What was it that you were able to identify and how were you able to identify? Okay, no one's really doing this for people that are buying propane. I'm going to be the one to do this. What was that like? Sure.

Max Lewis: propane deliveries after 5 p. m. And if they had to do that, they'd charge a 175 delivery fee, which is obviously absurd in today's prices. Imagine 20 years ago, that's 1, 000 or something.

So, firstly When I heard that I just said, I'll do it. charge 15 bucks instead of 175, even if I have to come out here at 10 p. m. And just making that move, I [00:23:00] made so much money, like, a stupid amount of money, just by making myself available. And putting myself in the customer's shoes and thinking, okay, like what's reasonable, obviously 175 is not reasonable.

And no, one's going to like that. You're going to feel like you're being taken advantage of, but I think one of my skills in business, my best skills is really just putting myself. In the customer's shoes and identifying all the things that they're going to like creating value that they're not expecting. And those two things will get you just. I mean, they'll get you as far as you want to go. Think about Amazon, for example. I can order a pack of big pens, ten of them, for 1. 89 by swiping my finger. They'll be here in the morning, and if I don't like them, I can return them for free. I would probably spend that 1.

89 in gas driving to the store, and half an hour of my time, which is priceless, And I'll never get that back.[00:24:00] How amazing of a business is Amazon? It's incredible. And they're just thinking about customer experience. So if you can accomplish something similar to that in your business, which all of us can, you're going to win a lot of business, a lot of hearts, and ultimately make a lot of money.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So Max, you have this instinct, you're really tuning in to the world's favorite radio station, what we at Deep Wealth call WII. FM, what's in it for me, but from the eyes of your customers. And so that's one skill set and yes, entrepreneurs, we can do that, but you also combined the other skill sets. So you found the pain point, you address it in a way that just made a lot of sense and it began to grow the business, but you kept on growing the business.

And that always isn't the case. A lot of entrepreneurs, they have a terrific idea. The business begins to grow, and then it implodes because they can't handle that growth. So number one, what were you doing to grow the business? And then how were you sustaining the business as it began to grow quickly?

What was going on with that?

Max Lewis: So for many years, [00:25:00] I did not know any better. And I micromanaged a lot of people. I hired a lot of friends. I really burned myself out. When I met Keith Cunningham, Which is the real rich dad. He's, Robert Kiyosaki talks about rich dad, poor dad. His rich dad is modeled after Keith Cunningham.

That's, I don't, not a lot of people know that. I studied with him and he taught me about culture. And it was a very foreign term to me at the time, and I didn't really understand what he was trying to explain to me, but once I got it and understood the other part of it, which is treating your employees better than anyone else, putting your employees first, when my company really took off.

I mean When I put my faith and energy and took time to train people and cared about their needs, the business growth was explosive because now it's not me. I can't multiply myself, but if I can hire the right people, [00:26:00] treat them right, train them right, possibilities for growth are endless. And that was one of the biggest difference makers for me. It's working on culture and that's how I grew the business, training people, caring about my people and their positive energy, their positive thoughts. Once all that, all those good vibes that transferred into the business, into the core of the business and that continued to get us more business.

Everyone was happy, customers happy, employees were happy and we just continue to provide tons of value for customers and tons of value for the employees of the business.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so, Max, let me ask you this, because at Deep Wealth, business owners, they'll come to us really asking us one of three questions, sometimes all three questions. They either want to grow the business. Or they want to grow the business because they plan to sell it in the near future. Or they both want to grow the business, sell it, and they also want to optimize the post exit life.

And the one question that we ask back, regardless of any of those three areas, we ask them, does the business run without you? And for most business owners, the answer is, well, [00:27:00] no, it doesn't. If I'm really honest about it, yeah, I have a president or I have a CEO, I have a senior management team, but they still run everything through me.

And no, the business doesn't run without me. So, the golden handcuffs and with a 90 day Deep Wealth Mastery system, that's step two, X Factors, how does a business run without you? And we go through that, but how did you do that? Because to your own admission, Hey, Jeffrey, I was micromanaging the business, and then one day I realized I've got to stop that.

And so he stopped it easier said than done. How'd you do that?

Max Lewis: I'll tell you, that was a very difficult transition. it's a completely different role and you need to dis identify yourself as the guy who's running the business and re identify yourself as the guy who owns the business and they're completely different roles. And it was not easy.

It was very difficult to be able to say okay, I'm going to walk away now and you're going to run it. But the way I was able to accomplish that was, first of all, hiring better people. There was a time that I was underpaying everyone. I just wanted to save as much money on payroll as I could.[00:28:00]

And you know what? It's almost common sense. Hey, you know what? The guy who's going to be able to run your business is not going to do it for 20 bucks an hour. Okay, you want a guy who's gonna run this corporation he ain't gonna do it for 20 bucks. And, I mean, and that's to be said about all employees, right?

You're gonna have to pay them at the level that they're at. Another thing is most of these top quality people are either already working somewhere else, they're very seldomly looking for jobs on monster. com and stuff like that because the quality employees are out working because they're quality.

Or you need to train them from within, grow them, give them the education, the time, and the trust to run the business. So, I did most of my growth from within the company. I grew people up. I gave them the opportunities. When I saw that people wanted opportunities, I invested them, I gave them the education.

And then I created a bunch of systems. Not to control them, but just to monitor them. So, for example, I had forms that they had to fill out every single day. Tell me how this is going, tell me how that's going. Email them to me, or [00:29:00] text them to me, right? And I would spot check them. I would, out in the beginning, I'd check them every single day, and they knew that I was watching, and then after a little while, I'd stop checking.

I'd be in Jamaica, or Paris, or something, and then just spot check one, and then maybe email them. Hey, I was looking at line number 26, and I saw that the math That was a little funny, and then, that kind of just made them, oh man Max is looking at everything though I wasn't right, you know, I put cameras everywhere, but more importantly, I let them make decisions, I let them fail.

And then I corrected them, and I trained them, and I explained to them, hey, this is how we're doing this. This is why we're doing it. This is why it's important. And this is how it's going to ultimately benefit the company and you. And when the employees understood that, and they felt well taken care of, they did their absolute best to succeed in their job.

So, I mean, that's pretty much how I did it. I also created a bunch of incentives for just about every position in the business where [00:30:00] they could make money by making sure the company was growing and getting more accounts. So, everybody pretty much had an opportunity to get commissioned, whether it's a driver or the person answering the phone or whoever.

Like, I just made it fun. I made it competition. that's really how I did it. That's how it worked for me.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so let's talk about the two aspects of that, because Max, what you're sharing, I absolutely love and I don't say it all that often, but this is absolute, not gold, but platinum that you're sharing with us. What I find though, with a lot of business owners, and there's a difference between abdication where, okay, Jeffrey, go ahead and do this.

And then the person who hands it to me never to be seen again, they're not checking in. They're just leaving it up to me and we all know how that goes. Versus delegation where, okay, Jeffrey, go ahead and do this. Let's meet next week or next month. We'll talk all about this. Or if you have a question, let me know.

But inevitably, when you begin to delegate, something is going to go wrong. Someone forgets to do something or they just drop the ball completely. as a business owner, it's painful. You may lose [00:31:00] business. You may lose a customer. You may lose a new bid, whatever the case may be. And that's where a lot of business owners.

They never recover from that. Geoffrey, look what happened. I delegated to this person. It went so terribly. I'm never going to do it again. How did you overcome that? That you kept on coming back to the table and the person kept on coming back to the table, even though a mistake, perhaps even a terrible mistake was made.

What's going on with that?

Max Lewis: So there's a few things about that. So firstly, one of my favorite ways to train people, like I'll train them on whatever it is, and then I'll just shadow them, like literally shadow, and I won't say a word. So let's say we're at a burger shop and I'm teaching you how to put together a cheeseburger with bacon, lettuce, tomato, ketchup, all that stuff.

I'll show you how to do it, then I'll ask you to do it. And then I'll just stand there and watch you make 10 of them. And I won't say a word. Now, if you make one backwards or mess something up, I'll let you finish. I'll let you finish. And then come in and say, hey, Jeffrey, I think you forgot the tomatoes and the lettuce on that one.

Oh yeah, I did. know why that [00:32:00] happened? Well, I'll tell you why, because you did it out of order. Here, make sure you keep it in this order. And that, the reason we're doing that order is so that you don't forget the lettuce and the tomato. Okay, cool. Try it again. Boom. Let Jeffrey go. Now, let's say all that goes great.

I have Jeffrey sending a report at the end of the day. Amazing. Now, let's say Jeffrey starts messing up a little bit. Nothing that should be getting him fired, but he messes up a 

little bit. 

I'll make my best efforts To encourage him and, try to get to mastery or set up some type of system that's going to be foolproof for him so we don't have any mistakes, checks, hey, I need you to check this list or put this checklist next to your laptop.

The most basic systems sometimes have the best results.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay.

Max Lewis: Another part to that is If you are not there, if you don't want to be there, if you don't want to run your business anymore and you want to be the owner, you have to accept some of that, failure. Maybe with Jeffrey Present, it's a hundred percent, but maybe you're in the Bahamas and it's 90%.

Well, [00:33:00] are you happy with 90 percent and you get to be in the Bahamas or do you want to be here? yOu, you kind of have to, accept sometimes that everything's not going to be absolutely perfect, but if it's most of the way perfect, that's pretty good too. Especially if you are one of these people that are working 80 hours a week and you want to just scale it back and, have some type of life, go on vacation, spend time with your kids.

You need to accept that you cannot be in control of every single thing. that's pretty much how I handled it. Now, the last part of that is, as I train people and monitor them and make sure they're getting trained correctly, you know when you hired the right person for the job because you stop hearing about anything.

Okay, I hear crickets, I don't hear anything. It got done and I don't even know it got done, or they'll, or I'll hear that it got done, and then another example of, a quality employee is, Hey, Max, all this stuff happened, but we solved it like this, and that, it's all done, you don't have anything to worry about.

Oh my god, thanks, I didn't even know that was a problem. Now, if a person keeps coming [00:34:00] to me over and over, and I'm repeating myself, you know what? This job is too big for you,

Okay? I got the wrong person for the job, I'm gonna need to make a change. that's what I use, that's my gauge.

If you're coming to me over and over, and you're blowing up my phone, and email, and texting me, I'm like, okay, I hired the wrong person,

Jeffrey Feldberg: Got it. And so let me ask you this, because often as we're going through the Deep Wealth Mastery program with business owners, we'll say, look, again, done is better than perfect. No such thing as perfection anyways, and if someone can do it 80 percent as good as you, run with it because now you can scale that max for you.

And I know it's all subjective. What would be that bottom threshold? So, okay. If the person's doing it. 50 percent as good as me, nope, not good enough. 60%, no, still not good enough. Where does it become that minimum threshold? Okay. If it's this, you know, X percent as good or better than me, I'm good with that.

What's that minimum number for you?

Max Lewis: when it affects the customer, it can't affect the customer. That's it. could be anything behind the scenes. When it affects the customer, it's unacceptable.

Jeffrey Feldberg: okay. So that's a [00:35:00] very, not going to say easy gauge, but it's a very visible gauge. Okay. If you're hearing complaints, if we're losing customers, if it's negative feedback, something's wrong, stop the presses, let's look into that because now it's taking up more of my time and that's exactly against.

That's the purpose of what was there,

Max Lewis: Yeah, it's gonna stunt our growth. If you're doing something that's affecting the customer experience, we have a problem. If \ you turned your report in at 6 p. m. instead of 5 p. m. and nobody got hurt, well, you know what, I want it at 5 and let's work on that, it's not an all hands on deck type of situation, but if I have to mobilize and start giving away product and apologizing and emailing and potentially losing accounts, this is a problem, and with the amount of money and resources and effort it takes to gain business.

Losing business you already have is absolutely unacceptable. If you had every customer you've ever gained, if you never lost a customer, how many customers would you have?

Keith taught me that. He's so many people spend so much time new, new, new. Dude, take care of the ones you have.

Protect them, [00:36:00] make sure you don't lose any. If you just didn't lose any, you wouldn't have to grow that aggressively in many cases. But a lot of businesses, they get the opportunity to earn someone's business, and then they quickly lose it. And, for me, and I absolutely know for a fact, the reason I was able to grow so Quickly and successfully is because of that.

I did not allow my customers to get disappointed. I did everything I could possibly do to protect their experience. Was I a hundred percent? No, you can't be a hundred percent, but I went above and beyond then every single case to try to get as close to that a hundred percent as I could.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so let me ask you this, we're talking about growth, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about chapter 33 in your book. And again, for our listeners in the show notes, you can click on the link, Who is Max Lewis, 37 chapters, 37 lessons, 37 million. In chapter 33, you talk about manifesting, and when you mention that word, it's a very interesting reaction.

It's black or white. For some people, it's, oh yeah, manifesting, tell me more about that. Other people are, yeah, manifesting, that's [00:37:00] really woo stuff, don't want to hear about it, it's not scientific, you've lost me. Next topic, but when you're talking about manifesting and earlier in our conversation, you mentioned Joe Dispenza, who really is synonymous with, Hey, the old school way is we're going to do things the hard way.

We're going to work really hard, a lot of time, effort. You're working at it. Whereas manifesting, that could be easy. That could be effortless. What's going on with manifesting? When did that show up for you and how did that make a difference in your business?

Max Lewis: So, it showed up for me very early on. Although I didn't know, I didn't understand what I was doing. I just knew I wanted some things and I wrote them down with no one really telling me to do that. And I noticed over time, you know, man, I want these things. I wrote them down. my first goals were I wanted 3 million in paid off properties.

I wanted a house, and I don't remember what the other one was, oh, I wanted girlfriend. So when I was moving out of my house, I remember packing up my bags, and I had this paper on my wall, and I'm like, [00:38:00] oh, man, this is cool. I accomplished all these things, right? So that was like a pretty cool like, feeling like, oh, this is so funny.

I wrote this on a notepad with literally a pencil and a paper and taped it with some Scotch tape on the back of my door. And as time went on, I kind of, messed with it a little bit more. And then I think it really took shape when I read Napoleon Hill's book, because he clearly gives you instructions on put your intention, write a check, tape it to your bed, think about it day and night, say what you're going to do exactly, and I think more than anything, At least at that level, Joe Dispenza's a whole nother level, it was about having a goal, something that you could aim at, and having that goal and stating, writing out exactly what I thought I needed to do to achieve that goal kept me You know, going north, right?

It kept me on my path. It kept me going in a straight line. I knew what I was aiming at. I didn't really waste any time because I knew I had a goal to aim at. Now with Joe Dispenza, he is so far [00:39:00] evolved and his training is just miraculous. Honestly, I was just with him for seven days in Mexico and I was absolutely, top three experiences of my life, I'll tell you that much.

He talks, he teaches on how to draw these things to you by, tapping into the unified field, which is this all knowing energy, which could be also be, God, right? It's knows everything, it's omnipresent, and kind of bringing those experiences to you instead of Matter, trying to move matter.

For example, you going out and trying to grow your company physically, you're consciously trying to draw those experiences towards you and have these opportunities brought to you. I can tell you as much as it sounds like, oh, crazy. Okay. It's kind of nuts. It works. I've messed with it. I'm still a baby.

I got my training wheels on. I've explored it and some of the things that I've put out there and, just kind of thought [00:40:00] about and tapped into during a meditation, dude, they have come up, the opportunities are coming up. haven't woken up and won the lottery, but the opportunities they reveal themselves.

And it's for example you want an opportunity to take a vacation and a couple days later or a week, month, whatever, you'll have a friend. Hey man, I was thinking about going to Hawaii and you're like, Oh my God, I think I manifested this. I thought about Hawaii in a meditation last month.

You know, It's kind of funny, man. , I'm exploring that right now. I actually have been meditating every day since I went to that event. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: That's terrific. Terrific to hear. And let me ask you this before we jump into the wrap up here, because we're starting to bump into some timelines and you know, what manifesting and what you just shared, that could be an entire episode in and of

itself, but when it comes to growth, because for the Deep Wealth community, every episode coming out of here, before they go on to the next phone call or activity, if a listener could do one action, one strategy to help them grow the business, what would that be for you?

What would you recommend, Max? 

Max Lewis: I think knowing what [00:41:00] you want to achieve Let's keep it really simple. Let's make it as simple as absolutely possible. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve, okay? So let's say I want to start a mobile home park in Texas. That's my dream getting a piece of paper and brainstorming.

What do you think are all the things you should do or you could do to make that dream a reality? What could get you one step closer? Who could make this, potentially with one phone call a reality? Ask yourself some very thought provoking questions. Once you have those questions, and you've thought about it and jotted down and brainstormed for 30 minutes, circle the top three, pick up the phone, take some action.

This is going to get you somewhere. Will it take you to the end of the line? Maybe not, but you will get started. And that's, as we spoke about earlier, a lot of people have this struggle, they just don't get started. We could start right now by taking the next 30 minutes. And thinking about, what do I want to achieve?[00:42:00]

How can I go about achieving it? Brainstorm, circle your top three, and make some moves.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. It really checks all the boxes. What we spoke about. Hey, get curious, do whatever you need to do, but then take action is never going to be perfect. Done's better than perfect. Don't wait for tomorrow or next month or next year. Just do it and keep on following up and keep at it. Some terrific advice there.

Well, Max, let me ask you this. We're about to go into the wrap up mode. One other quick question. Is there a question, speaking of questions that I haven't asked or a topic we haven't covered or a message? That you'd like to get out to the community before we go into the wrap up mode.

Max Lewis: The only message I have is, please leave a review on Amazon. You know, Man, we have sold thousands and thousands of books, and people reach out to me on Instagram, LinkedIn, email, they get my phone number from people. They send me snapshots of stuff. I love the book, this and that. I'm like, dude, thank you so much.

Leave a review on Amazon so that it can help the book. So funny. That's [00:43:00] the only thing that I'm like, it blows my mind. I have an album in my phone. 300 different people that have contacted me directly. About the book. And I'm like, dude, thank you, but don't tell me, tell the world.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Love that. Absolutely. Hey, Mac, you're paying it forward as a community. Let's help Max pay it forward. Get the book, leave a review this way. Other owners, entrepreneurs, founders, they know about the book and together we can really make that difference. So we'll certainly again, we'll have all that in the show notes.

It'll be a point and click to get the book. And then for our community. Leave Max a review, take it the extra mile, help him out. He's helping us out. Well, Max, with that said, let's go into wrap up mode. It's a fun question and it's a ritual here at the Deep Wealth Podcast where I have the privilege, I have the honor to ask every guest this question.

So let me set this up for you. It's a fun one. When you think of the movie Back to the Future, you have that magical DeLorean car that can take you to any point in time. So imagine now it's tomorrow morning, you look outside your window, not only is the DeLorean car there curbside, but the door is [00:44:00] open and it's waiting for you.

So you hop on in and you're going to go to any point in your life, Max, as a young child or a teenager, whatever point in time it would be. What would you tell your younger self in terms of life lessons or life wisdom, or hey, Max, do this, but don't do that?

Max Lewis: All right. So I'd go back to when I saved my first 22, 000 and I'd tell myself to buy Apple stock. That's what I'd do.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. Always keeping your eye on the money there. So buy Apple stock and big picture wise, any general kind of advice that you'd give yourself?

Max Lewis: So yeah, I think apart from that funny one I was asked a similar question about two months ago, and what I would tell myself, what I would advise myself, and what I would have done differently, you can't change your life, you shouldn't change your life, that's what makes you who you are, and that's why you've learned the lessons that you've learned, you're not supposed to go back and change things, but I would give myself one piece of advice, which is to enjoy the journey.

Thank you Don't take things so seriously, don't beat yourself up so much, [00:45:00] and you know what? Celebrate the wins. Celebrate the small wins. You have a goal of making a million dollars, you went out and you made your first dollar, man, you know what? Clap it up for yourself. You made your first 500, go get a freaking ice cream.

You made 10, 000, I don't know, watch a movie, do something that signifies that, you know what, you're doing it, you're making forward progress, and you deserve to be happy about that. And the biggest thing that I did, the thing that I, don't regret, but I just wish I would have done a little differently is I didn't celebrate wins.

Whether I made a dollar or a million dollars, I just, okay, perfect, we made the money, put it in the bank, keep going. I didn't acknowledge those victories. And It's something that I should have done. So my advice would be celebrate wins, whether they're small or big, just celebrate it and enjoy the journey and don't take it so seriously.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Max, so much so to unpack, also true, hey, enjoy the journey, whether we put a label on it, hey, this is good, or you know what, oh, it's not so good, I'm going to call it bad. Whatever it is, we're [00:46:00] exactly where we're supposed to be, where we need to be at that point in time. And then you go on to say, celebrate the wins.

How true is that? I mean, as often as it is with entrepreneurs, we get to the top of one mountain instead of celebrating, we're now looking at getting to the top of the next mountain and it's just continuous. So enjoy the journey. Don't take yourself too seriously. Celebrate the wins, all terrific advice.

And what a terrific way to cap off this episode. 

And Max, just before we wrap up this episode, if a listener, they have a question, they want to reach out to you, they want to share a story with you, or hear some more stories from you, where would be the best place online that someone can find you?

Max Lewis: I'm pretty active on Instagram out of all the platforms. There's a whoismaxlewis, TikTok, email, website, all that stuff. But Instagram seems to be the one that I gravitate towards the most. So if you send me a message there, I should be getting back to you within 24 hours.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And again, for our listeners, it doesn't get any easier. It's point and click. In the show notes, we'll have all that. We'll also have a link to the book, Who is Max Lewis, 37 [00:47:00] chapters, 37 lessons, 37 million. Love that 37 there, how you just integrated that with everything, Max. And that said, Max, congratulations.

It's official. This is a wrap. And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. Thank you so much.

Max Lewis: Thank you, Jeffrey. It was a pleasure being with you today and I had a phenomenal time. Great time. Thank you. 

Sharon S.: The Deep Wealth Experience was definitely a game-changer for me. 

Lyn M.: This course is one of the best investments you will ever make because you will get an ROI of a hundred times that. Anybody who doesn't go through it will lose millions. 

Kam H.: If you don't have time for this program, you'll never have time for a successful liquidity 

Sharon S.: It was the best value of any business course I've ever taken. The money was very well spent.

Lyn M.: Compared to when we first began, today I feel better prepared, but in some respects, may be less prepared, not because of the course, but because the course brought to light so many things that I thought we were on top [00:48:00] of that we need to fix. 

Kam H.: I 100% believe there's never a great time for a business owner to allocate extra hours into his or her week or day. So it's an investment that will yield results today. I thought I will reap the benefit of this program in three to five years down the road. But as soon as I stepped forward into the program, my mind changed immediately. 

Sharon S.: There was so much value in the experience that the time I invested paid back so much for the energy that was expended. 

Lyn M.: The Deep Wealth Experience compared to other programs is the top. What we learned is very practical. Sometimes you learn stuff that it's great to learn, but you never use it. The stuff we learned from Deep Wealth Experience, I believe it's going to benefit us a boatload.

Kam H.: I've done an executive MBA. I've worked for billion-dollar companies before. I've worked for smaller companies before I started my business. I've been running my business successfully now for getting close to a decade. We're on a growth trajectory. Reflecting back [00:49:00] on the Deep Wealth, I knew less than 10% what I know now, maybe close to 1% even. 

Sharon S.: Hands down the best program in which I've ever participated. And we've done a lot of different things over the years. We've been in other mastermind groups, gone to many seminars, workshops, conferences, retreats, read books. This was so different. I haven't had an experience that's anything close to this in all the years that we've been at this.

It's five-star, A-plus.

Kam H.: I would highly recommend it to any super busy business owner out there.

Deep Wealth is an accurate name for it. This program leads to deeper wealth and happier wealth, not just deeper wealth. I don't think there's a dollar value that could be associated with such an experience and knowledge that could be applied today and forever. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Are you leaving millions on the table? 

Please visit www.deepwealth.com/success to learn more.[00:50:00]

If you're not on my email list, you'll want to be. Sign up at www.deepwealth.com/podcast. And if you enjoyed this episode, if it added value, if you walked away with some new insights and strategies, please leave a review on your favorite podcast channel. Reviews help us reach new listeners, grow the show. And continue to create content that you'll enjoy and as we wrap up this episode as always please stay healthy and safe.