Success Coach And Entrepreneur Richard Walsh Reveals How To Escape the Owner Prison That's Robbing You Of Massive Success (#421)

421 Richard Walsh
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Jeffrey Feldberg: Richard Walsh is a 30 year seasoned entrepreneur, best selling author, business coach, and the founder of Sharpen the Spear Coaching. As the author of Escape the Owner Prison, the contractor's new way to scale, regain control, and fast track growth while loving life, Richard has become a trusted resource for business owners Seeking to scale their companies, regain control, and achieve sustainable growth.

A dynamic speaker and podcast host, Richard's expertise lies in combining both strategic vision and tactical execution. He specializes in delivering immediate problem solving results while implementing long term strategies for systematization and scalability. 

His hands on experience as a successful entrepreneur allows him to provide actionable insights and proven methods that drive rapid and lasting transformations for his clients. Richard's impressive career extends beyond business. A proud U. S. Marine, champion boxer and black belt, Richard embodies discipline and resilience in every [00:01:00] facet of his life.

He's also an internationally recognized steel sculptor, balancing his creative pursuits with his professional achievements, as a husband and father of six, he understands the importance of aligning personal values with professional goals, a cornerstone of his coaching philosophy.

Through Sharpen the Spear coaching, Richard empowers entrepreneurs to break free from the constraints of ownership, develop leadership skills, and create scalable businesses that thrive without constant owner involvement. His no nonsense approach, coupled with his ability to foster emotional intelligence and a growth mindset, inspires business leaders to think bigger, act smarter, and achieve more than they ever thought possible.

And before we start the episode, a quick word from our sponsor, Deep Wealth and the Deep Wealth Mastery Program. Here's Sanjay, a graduate of Deep Wealth Mastery, and he says, the investment I made in the Deep Wealth Mastery Program, it's a rounding error compared to the value created today and the future value I'll receive.

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Now speaking of growth and adding value, check out what Leon says. He says that the Deep Wealth Mastery Program changed how and who we hire. We've now begun to hire talent today that we never would have hired if it weren't for the program. The talent we're hiring today is helping both increase our growth and profits and our future enterprise value. 

Man, I love that kind of feedback because it's that kind of feedback that's what gets me out of bed every day.

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So if you're interested in growing your profits, preparing for a future liquidity event, whether that's two years away or 22 years away, and if you want to optimize your post exit life, Deep Wealth Mastery is for you. Please email [00:03:00] success at deepwealth. com. Again, that's success, S U C C E S S at deepwealth. com. We'll send you all the information about Deep Wealth Mastery, otherwise known as the Scale for Ultimate Sales System. 

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Deep Wealth Nation, welcome to another episode of the Deep Wealth Podcast. I am so excited today. We have a fellow entrepreneur, author, a fellow podcast host in the house of Deep Wealth. So Richard, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast, an absolute [00:04:00] pleasure to have you with us. And I am so curious because there's always a story behind the story.

So Richard, what's your story? What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Richard Walsh: Well, yeah, that's a good one, Jeffrey. And by the way, thanks for having me on. I love this. This is going to be great. it's going to be fast, but I'm going to jump back a number of decades. Okay. I'm not doing the slow. So coming out of the Marine Corps in like 87. Okay. So we're going back a little bit.

Started working, swinging a pickaxe, digging trench to lay cable, five bucks an hour, just all day swinging a pick. You know, Like an unusual job, but I'm strong. I'm young. I could do it, right? Doing that, and it's, again, five bucks an hour, and someone asked me to do a side job for them, and they had 35 tons of granite, like a crushed granite, on the street.

They wanted a wheelbarrow to the backyard and spread. I'm like, well, I can do that. So, I spent my last 85 bucks before payday for a wheelbarrow and a shovel. Showed up on a Saturday, took about 10 hours, this is down in Tucson, Arizona, knocked that out, got done. And here's the beautiful part, Jeffrey, that man put a thousand bucks in my hand.

And I'm looking at that thousand going, [00:05:00] I did this yesterday for 50 bucks. Okay.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Richard, this is back in the day when 1, 000 was really 1, 000. That's a lot of money back in

Richard Walsh: it was, and that's why you could still work for 5 and not die an hour, you know what I mean? So, you run out in the street but the point was, I'm like, Well, this is my future. I want all the money. I'm going to do the work.

I'm going to start a business. I'm going to be a landscaper or whatever. So I began that whole process, it took time to evolve that turned into custom water features. So I really niched it, became the best in the country building that, added steel sculptures to that, started doing really unique sculptures.

I became an internationally recognized steel sculptor. So this went on for 20 years, going great, 0809 comes, I'm married, six little kids, four years and younger. Things start to get restrictive, right? We had the economy kind of collapse and everything else. Now I'm number one, I'm out front, I'm published, I'm on TV, I'm doing all this great stuff on my committees for the city of Chicago and building world class exhibits and spend a little too much time out front, not really paying attention to the business.

So when this [00:06:00] restriction came, and I remember the day, Jeffrey, November 5th, 2008, my phone started ringing. It was the day after the election. People just started bailing. We're not doing it. We're pulling the plug. I lost a half a million dollars in a day. And that was the beginning of the cliff. So I'm like, ooh, I think this is over. I think I'm done. So we lived through part of 09 and it really came to a point where like, wow, I tried a few things, didn't work, kind of made things worse. As how that kind of goes. And then one morning I woke up and I had this epiphany, started thinking about my six little kids and I'm like, when I think about they don't, certainly now they're four and under.

I go, they don't care what I drive. They don't care how big of a house we live in. They don't even care really what I do. You know what they cared about? Am I around? How much do they get to see me? They run to me when I come in the door, they crawl to me whenever there's time. I even had my, oldest run, he's chasing my truck as I'm leaving the driveway crying and watching this in the rearview mirror thinking, what am I doing?

I can't be around this is up at four, out the door, the whole thing. [00:07:00] So I'm like, This was the epiphany I had. I walked in the office, and I said, we're done today. I said, we're shutting this down. This is gonna collapse anyways. Maybe it's three months. Maybe it's six months, whatever.

But it's not gonna make it. I'm not gonna do this anymore. Okay, went to my construction area with my guys. We're wrapping up this week. Let's wrap it up. I'm done. I don't know what I'm gonna do. But I'm not doing this anymore because this has controlled me, it's become my identity, it's everything wrapped in this one thing.

I even, did a little bonfire in the backyard and burned all my uniforms, my clothes, did that video. I'm like never, I'm like never doing this again. And I'll tell you, Jeffrey, to this day, I haven't built a water feature or done a sculpture in 15 years. Okay. So that was now I'm at the bottom, lost our house, lost our home, lost a business, have to relocate.

We do all that. Don't know what I'm going to do. And I had to decide, well, I know I don't want to do what I did and I don't want to have a business. I'm really kind of an entrepreneur. I am an entrepreneur, so I'm kind of unemployable, you know, for the most part, I'm your [00:08:00] best employee for like 12 months, but then I got to run the company. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: months, that's a long time, Richard, give me a day or two and I'm done as an 

employee. I'm toast. 

Uh 

Richard Walsh: I have incredible level of patience for people 

Jeffrey Feldberg: huh. Uh 

Richard Walsh: But I really started thinking, well, okay, so what am I going to do? So I started, I love fitness training.

I've been a trainer. I've trained people. I do all this stuff. So I started just becoming a trainer at Anytime Fitness and I built a whole program there. And next thing you know, I'm trainer of the year. so you know what that means to an entrepreneur, right? Well, better open a gym. I went and opened my own gym, did bootcamp style training, started to scale that.

Now, the key to the whole thing wasn't that. I'm like, okay, don't let this become who you are and let's get other trainers doing the training. I love to train, I'm a great trainer, but let's get them. So, I kind of developed my own model, my own style, how we did things. That went really well.

I'm selling that, get into a contracting business from there. So I started doing roofing, siding, windows. That was good for a while, about five years doing all that. And then people started to ask me, well, how'd you go from all that to nothing back to [00:09:00] this? how do you recover from that with all the kids and everything else?

I started helping people, mentoring them, right? You get in the mentor position, hey, dude, I did this, do this, what are you doing? Well, I wouldn't do that, I'd do this. Because failure's the great teacher, right? I had a lot of that. Made me a great teacher. Because I had a lot of things to draw on, right?

I learned more from the failures and successes. Of course, you use both. Then I said, well, mentoring's cool, but that's kind of free. And I'm an entrepreneur in coaching, you get paid, so let's write a book. So I wrote a best selling book called Escape the Owner Prison, and I did that, and then built an academy around that, began coaching, that was about seven, seven years ago, 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Uh huh. 

Richard Walsh: years ago.

And and it kind of blossomed into this coaching, a few iterations of that, and we're at Sharpen the Spirit coaching now, and I'm kind of here, and it's just amazing, and yeah, it's amazing.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. So much to unpack there, but let me, Richard, first start with this. And offline, we were talking about this. Let me get this online with us talking now. Thank you so much for your service. that dedication and that sacrifice, [00:10:00] doing what you did, so all of us can do what we do. A huge thank you for that.

And by the way, Deep Wealth Nation, as we go through this, as we talk today, please head over to the show notes. I want you to click on the links. It doesn't get any easier. It's point and click. Pick up Richard's book, Escape the Owner Prison, The Contractor's New Way to Scale, Repair, Control, and Fast Track Growth while Living Life.

And I don't care if you're in a SaaS business, if you're a contractor, something in between, it doesn't matter. Best practices are best practices, and we're going to be talking all about that. And Richard, let's take a step back, because as you're describing your journey, I was right there with you, and in my mind, I'm seeing Jeffrey doing all the same kinds of things and starting something for the right reasons, but getting sidetracked.

So as entrepreneurs, whether we're a contractor, whether we're blue collar, white collar, SaaS manufacturing doesn't really make a difference. As entrepreneurs, Where are we getting it wrong? What is happening that we're just starting with the best of intentions but getting these unintended consequences as a result of that?

Richard Walsh: Yeah. So this is what happens. And this is why I wrote the book, because I saw these [00:11:00] patterns, right? There's these repeated patterns in all these businesses. So in a nutshell, this is what it looks like, Jeffrey. We all start a business. We're all excited. We're all ready to work hard and we do it right.

We're wearing all the hats. We're putting all this stuff together. We're getting everything in place. The next, two years in, you're like, you've been going really hard and that's what we have to do. I haven't found a secret sauce not to do that. Worked really hard. I call it ignorance on fire.

Okay? You're just running and gunning. You're doing things to make it happen and making sales and putting stuff together. And that's great. That has to happen. But the problem is, Jeffrey, next thing you know, 10 years goes by and you've repeated the first two, five times.

That's the hamster wheel. the prison.

If you don't open the door things don't get done. If you're not, making the sales, if you're not, telling people what to do every day that's the prison. You go on vacation for a week or two, but you're calling in every day to make sure the place didn't burn down,

And you're getting calls from them and you're worried about who's showing up and whether you're at work or at home.

Work is first. It's on your [00:12:00] mind. You go to sleep with it. You wake with it. It's in conversation with the family. You miss the kids games. You miss the recitals. You miss all the stuff because you're building a business for your family. That's the irony. We're doing so much for our family, yet we can't be with our family. So that's really the cycle that we see, and it's about how do we break that? How do we get people to get out of that, to literally put the tools down, whether we're a great carpenter or a great technician whether it's a keyboard or a shovel, how do we put that down and let other people do that work?

That's really the, essence of the whole thing,

Jeffrey Feldberg: Sure. So, As you talk about that, one of the common challenges when we have people come into our Deep Wealth Mastery program, Richard, to your point, one of the first questions that we ask is, Do you run your business? And it's either yes or no, we don't want any stories, we don't want any hemming or hawing. When we ask, okay, well, why is it running with you, instead of without you, we hear, well, no one is as good as me, and I've tried delegating before, but Richard, they really weren't delegating, it [00:13:00] was abdicating. Okay, here you go, tell me all about it at the end of the year, let me check in then, and nothing's really going on.

How as entrepreneurs do we ensure we're not really abdicating, but we're actually delegating to the right person at the right time to do the right thing?

Richard Walsh: right? So here's how it looks. So there's a three words, there's automate, delegate, and eliminate. Okay. If we want to think about those, a lot of people get automation, right? We want to automate whatever we can and do all that kind of stuff, and that's great. It's the delegate part that they have the most trouble with, like you said, they abdicate.

So to delegate properly, I'll give you a real quick. View of what this looks like. So the problem is people tell people they delegate something for them to do, but there's no process or system for them to do it in. They just expect them to magically figure it out. Okay. And I got news for everybody.

No one wants to figure it out. Okay, because if they do, you know what they're going to be? An owner of a business, okay? So if you want them to figure it out, you're going to just hold your breath, you'll pass out before they figure it out, I [00:14:00] guarantee it, because that's not why they came there to work.

They came to be dropped into a lane run and they want success. So think about it this way. If I've got a sales manager. And I tell him, hey, I want to increase in this. I want to do this. Run the sales team. He's like, okay, well, who's on the sales team?

What do we do? What's the objectives? What are my metrics? Where am I at? Where do I start? Where do I check in? Where's the CRM? If you don't have all that built, And the training for that. So there's three things. There's the what you do called job functions, right? Here's all the things you do in your position, right?

Now it could be you do this every third Wednesday for 10 minutes. It's still a job function, right? You send a report, you build all that out. Then you have the how you do it in the next column. Here's how you actually execute that. Then there's a third column. And that's called the training of the how,

Jeffrey Feldberg: Mm-Hmm. 

Richard Walsh: Say how, but how do you actually have to train someone on the how? Because everyone's going to interpret something different. So we need a specific training for the how. Now, if I can bring someone in, say I have this great [00:15:00] sales manager, he's operating, and he quits tomorrow, because in business, Everybody leaves, We need to grab onto that reality too. But now I get the next sales manager and I drop him into the slot. He's got the what, he's got the how, and the trade now. So guess what? Five to seven days, he's at 100%. He knows what to do, where to go, he can run for that goal post. Because what does he really want to do?

Close sales, make money for him, his family, and your company. That's all he wants to do. What does success look like today? The end of the week, end of the month, end of the quarter, end of the year. And when they know all that, when you've built that out, they don't need you.

Okay. They don't have to check in with you, right?

You should be doing what we call focused on your 5%. That's 5 percent of the business only you can do. Growth. Vision. Maybe read them in the big clients that kind of stuff, you're part of that. That's what we want to do, that's how the delegation works, okay, and then we get elimination. And we get, you want to eliminate costs overruns, things [00:16:00] like that, redundancies, but you know what people leave out?

From the Elimination Quotient is themselves.

to eliminate you. What can everybody else do in the right way because they don't need you to do everything. Now, a lot of people get caught in they're the best at what they do, like you said. So if I have someone who's 95 percent as good as me, I've hired, I'm going to promise you this, your clients don't know the difference. That's what you first have to grab. And if you're still hung up. Well, you only got 5 percent training to do with them, and they're as good as you, then will you let go? So you really, you got to be able to let go of that. We as entrepreneurs are always in our own way. We're our biggest roadblock.

Spot

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. And Richard, to take what you just shared right now, and you can say, Jeffrey, on base or off base, you're saying 95%. In my experience, if I can find someone who's even 80 percent as good as I am, maybe even 75%, you know what? Done. Because they're going to be on it 24 7. I don't have to be on it all the time.

They're going to be consistently day over day. And that [00:17:00] consistency, that focus will beat out me being 100 percent the best in the world, But, oh, I can only get to it maybe once a week or perhaps every few weeks, but they're doing it every day. Thoughts about that?

Richard Walsh: on, Jeffrey. And here's the thing, you can always increase competency. That's like the easiest thing you can do because you can hire that out too. You can send them to a conference, you can send them to a total immersion for three days on a software system or whatever they, that's the easiest thing to do.

we can get into another thing too, it's about who you're putting in that place.

Again, competency is easy. What are they called for? it, We call it calling character and competency,

Are they like called it? Are they really good at what they do? They like what they do.

Okay. Do they have the character? That's what you want in your company, you can't teach that. that's above our pay grade. I mean, unless they're eight, okay.

Jeffrey Feldberg: It's exactly. It's that old thing. Hire on personality, train on skills. Now, let me ask you something, what I loved about in your book, again, Deep Wealth Nation, please go to the show notes, click on the link, pick up the book, escape the owner prison, boy, is it ever [00:18:00] the owner prison. I loved Richard, how you did.

Okay. If you're in startup mode for up to a million dollars in revenue, go ahead. Right here, level one, start here, and then level two, okay, this is up to five million, level three, ten million, and beyond. But what was interesting to me, so often times, is entrepreneurs, and you can kick me under the table here, you can throw the eggs and tomatoes at me, we can be so smart, but we can be so stupid at the same time, and more times than not, it's a ready fire aim, and I loved how you said, okay, Don't lose before you begin.

Right off the bat, it's chapter one, because right away, we're saying, okay, how am I gonna scale up? How am I gonna build that profit? Chapter three and four, but hey, I'm gonna lose before I begin. Can you share with Deep Wealth Nation from a very high level what you want them to know about not losing before they even begin?

Richard Walsh: you need to start with the end in mind, as Stephen Covey said, it's called exit strategy. In business, what we want to do, if you haven't started your business, which most people here, maybe they're already in business, doesn't matter. There's two times to do your exit strategy. The best time is before you launch your business.

And the second best time [00:19:00] is right now.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely.

Richard Walsh: Okay? So exit strategy is this, and I'll keep it really simple, we'll go kind of high view. How long do you want to do this? And how much do you want to exit?

So It's going to be 10 years and I want 10 million, is it five years and I want 200, 000, whatever it is, you decide how much is enough.

Really important. And what's that timeframe? Now, when you have two things, now we reverse engineer. So you reverse engineer, what do I have to do to get to that point? What does that look like? let's say I'm going to, I understand where I'm going. I'm going to have really successful. Hey, I'm going to be pulling in the seven figure salary. All right. Well, great. That's good. You can do that. Okay. We're going to build that. So we start to understand what that looks like. But now looking at the end, what's What else does that mean? Let's say we get to 10 years. I get someone who offers me my, precious 10 million to exit. We do the exchange. I walk out there in, what did I just lose?

A million dollars a year. Okay. So great. I made 10, but I lost a million a year. How am I going to make that up? Oh, if I know that's the goal at [00:20:00] the end, I'll know I'll start investing into assets that produce income. They're going to create 83, 000 a month for me. Passively. So when I do get my 10 million, I walk out, I never lose the million a year because I created that in my plan, use my active business income to create that.

Now I get my bonus, move on to my next thing, but I don't have to worry about that. If I never worked again, I got the million, right? But I planned that so I can allocate that money, right? Parkinson's law, we got to have a place for that money to go. We start putting that stuff in place. Same thing for when we hire our first person, our second person, our third person, we know where that is in the journey.

Cause we've laid this out. We've done the reverse engineer. We know where we want to go. It also becomes an incredible business filter, Jeffrey. So, you know, When you start making a little success, the little opportunity fairy is going to show up, right? And start telling you, you should do this and you should do that and make money with this.

We'll say, okay, opportunities are great. Will it get me closer or further from my [00:21:00] exit strategy? That's the question. So if I can run it through that, if it gets me closer, faster, I'm all in. Let's do it. If it doesn't, it's a hard no,

you avoid the distraction syndrome, right? You say, focus on the main thing.

Jeffrey Feldberg: You know, Richard, there's that saying, great minds think alike, and I'm going to give both of us a proverbial pat on the back, because really what you're saying is also what we do in our Mastery Program, the 90 Day Deep Wealth Mastery Program. Exactly what you said, exactly where you start. We're saying something very similar.

Hey, let's go all the way to the very end. Let's talk about your exit, your post exit life. What's that going to look like? Where do you need to be? And to your point, not only what do you want to be doing, but how much do you need to live off of? What does that look like? I'm going to share a very quick story here with speaking to an investment banker who shared Jeffrey, you're not going to believe what happened.

I was in, I'm not going to name the names here, but I was in one of those big box stores for home renovations, home supplies. And I saw one of my former clients and I was shocked. He was wearing the apron. And I went up and I said, Hey, what's going on? [00:22:00] Why are you here? He said, well, I had a terrific exit with you, thank you, but I never really did the numbers.

So after the exit, I lived the life, I had my vacation home, I was traveling, but next thing I knew, after taxes, after paying fees, everything else, I was gone. There wasn't going to be enough and I didn't have the wherewithal to start another business. So here I am working to keep our lifestyle going and try and figure out next steps, which we never want to have anyone have to go through when we've built such a successful business.

So I really salute you for putting that right up front. Let me ask you this big picture wise, when you're doing your coaching, when you're helping other entrepreneurs really take where they are and catapult it to the next level, what are some of the more common mistakes that you're seeing that maybe it's clear as day to you, but as entrepreneurs, we're just not seeing it because we're just too close to it?

Richard Walsh: Yeah. I think one of them is you're not seeing the profit in your business. You're not seeing it. You're kind of looking at your gross revenue. That's a big thing, right? People get focused on that. And you know the [00:23:00] old saying, gross, revenue feeds the ego, profit feeds the family. They seldom focus on profit. They think they are. They think, because you ask, well, I'm at a 50 percent profit margin. No, you're not. You're not. I mean, gross margin, you might be at 50%, okay, but real net profit, you aren't there. I'll be surprised if you're at 10%, right? Most people they just don't get it, right?

They don't understand. So they, without focusing on profit, literally your P& L, Profit and Loss Statement, and it's very simple, but most business owners, whether they're doing 1 million or 5 million a year or 10, they really don't look at that. And I mean weekly. Like they're not tracking the numbers and that's where the profit's lost.

And there's a lot of places they can make small compounding gains with profit that can exponentially change their life, their business, and their profit. And that's where the money comes from, right? Where are you going to get this money to invest in these assets? If you're just focused on the next sale, the next revenue, increasing your revenue, I've had [00:24:00] 10 million a year in gross revenue and they can't, they're not taking home 100, 000 a year.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah.

Richard Walsh: That's broken. Hey, that's broken. No,

Jeffrey Feldberg: Considering all the time and the effort that they're putting in. So let me ask you this, Richard, your secret sauce. So with what you're doing in Sharpen the Spear, with the system that you've now created, walk me through it. So I show up today. Okay, Richard, read the book, heard you on the Deep Wealth Podcast.

Yes, I'm in. Let's go. Timing wise, what are we looking at? And what am I going to be coming out with? And Richard, by the way, if you said, Jeffrey, Come on, that is way too general. It depends on the business, on the entrepreneur, where they're at. I get all that. But generally speaking, what do you

Richard Walsh: And I will tell you that it's not too general because remember, it's 4 percent of all small businesses have broken the seven figure level. That's it. That means 96 percent are not even doing a million a year gross.

So let's think about that. So that is not a general statement. It is a very, it's a very true statement, right?

So what we want to do, what I do, the first thing is I take them through, I have a simple simulator [00:25:00] and we go, let me show you small increases and how to, I can double your profit. I can show you 100, 000 in profit. If you're doing 100, 000 or more a year, talking gross, I can show you 100, 000. In profit that you can obtain in the next six months.

I start there. Let's start looking at that. Let's build a roadmap. What's this going to look like? How can the little small increments, but use the compounding effect of those. That's where we begin because they have to see that they can't see massive numbers and understand and then give them a path. The problem is a lot of people we can coach, and I did this in the beginning too, I'm throwing this stuff off.

I'm helping them. I'm putting out fires, right? I'm strictly tactical. And I'm really good at that. And it kind of gives me a little ego boost when I fix all that stuff. I've had to kind of reign that in.

I'm not going to play this game because it's a lot of fun for me, 

but I'm really not helping in the long term way.

We know that we build systems to prevent it from happening. That's the strategic part, but let's focus on building profit because when you focus on building [00:26:00] profit, you actually fix your business.

Because there's things that are required to make that happen. So that's the beginning. We create that roadmap and now let's follow that roadmap.

Let's have the accountability to get things done. And guess who gets to do it? You and your team. The other thing I learned, Jeffrey, is if it's just the owner, they all want their business systemized. They all want to be, but are they going to do it? Heck no. Okay. They've got huge, you know, they don't have the bandwidth.

They're still wearing the hats, right? So we're going to incorporate the work with the team. Yeah. If they have a few people, I'm going to show them how to make this happen.

So we can work with others. It's not going to be just a one on one. Because you just don't have the capacity for it. So work with the team as well to make this stuff happen, and that's why it happens so rapidly.

Even if I only got one or two people on their team, it still works.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay. So what I'm hearing you say is really doesn't matter where you're starting. Best practices are best practices for a reason. Whether it's a hundred thousand in revenue, a million, 10 million beyond, you're going to be coming in. You're finding different strategies that have worked over time [00:27:00] that as a business owner are going to help me really begin to get to the profits that I deserve, recognize what perhaps I've been missing all the way through.

So now I'm doing that, what's next in my evolution as I'm working with you, Richard, what would you say?

Richard Walsh: So what we're going to start looking at is that elimination part. How do we begin to free you

From the day to day? We have to step away from the day to day. You've got to be able to get away from that. And there's all different levels of day to day. From total immersion to I still doing four things that I probably don't need to do three of them.

Remember that 5 percent we talked about? How do we get to the 5%? What can you truly only you can do in this business? There's always that because you started it, you built it. There's a thing that you're so good and only you understand. And we want to enhance that. We want you, we want the business to to be serving you instead of you serving it. So that means that we want it running itself. Where you focus on these things, which means you literally can leave for 90 days, come back and everything's good, right? That's kind of the goal. So we have that.

We want to start working on that and that, [00:28:00] parallels the other finding that profit, putting new systems into place, enhancing that stuff. So now we're able to have kind of a parallel journey with the business. We'll call it, becoming self sustaining and you get to that 5%.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Okay. Now, what you're saying makes perfect sense. That said, though, who we select, who we bring onto the team, effectively, we're firing ourselves and bringing somebody in who is hopefully 75, 80 percent as good, maybe even better. How does or does emotional intelligence, does that play a role in this and how do we really spot that from the crowd?

Richard Walsh: Yeah. I think it's really important. And it's, EQ is, I want to call it new. Because if you've been around long enough, you didn't hear about emotional intelligence 30 years ago.

You had IQ. And that never really played a factor either, you know, because those kind of weird things.

So it's relatively new in most people's thought process. But there's great stuff, right? There's disk assessments, there's all kinds of different personality assessments, things like that, that you can use to help put people in the right place [00:29:00] to make sure they're gonna be able to function.

But what it really is, I call it strategic vision. Okay, you have to build a strategic vision for your company, right? What that means, I want a vision driven company, not a mission driven company. We all know the traditional mission statement on the wall. We want to be the best, blah, blah, blah, and all this kind of it only serves the ego of the 

Jeffrey Feldberg: huh. Uh huh. 

Richard Walsh: The mission statement serves no one 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Uh 

Richard Walsh: on the team. It becomes wallpaper, right? They walk by every day, doesn't mean anything. We want vision, Because people, they want three things basically, there could be four, from their job, right? From a job, they're going to come on a team. They want purpose.

Number one, they want to work for purpose. Number two, they want recognition and quality feedback. And number three is quality pay. In that order, okay, there's not money. People aren't driven by money isn't the number one thing. Because if that was the case, they'd sell you out for 50 cents or a dollar an hour and move down the street. But that's not the case. Purpose is what they want. And a strategic vision does that. That's an internal thing. When you look at your entire customer journey, [00:30:00] Whatever, whether it's widgets or service or whatever you do, what does that look like? How does everyone in your business, who works in your business, how do they know how they're the hero in that journey?

How do they understand that? Now, strategic vision is a future cast. It's what you're going to accomplish in the next 18 to 24 months. In the business, right? It's not what you're doing now, it's what you're going to be doing, right? Everyone knows that, everyone reads that, it's covered every month.

Every two, three weeks, every month, we go back to it. How are we fulfilling the strategic vision, now people know like, they have a purpose. We're doing this to do this, right? And this, I'm giving high view here, but they understand before they even get hired, it's the first thing they have to do is read this vision.

And it's six to 10, 12 pages long.

Mine for my coaching business is 12 pages huh. 

But everybody's in it and you see the story, where they fit, what this looks like, right? So people really know like, wow. And you would, be astonished, Jeffrey, when you roll this out to your company, I do it all the time with companies.

People are moved. [00:31:00] I mean, people will cry. People will like, they just, they embrace it because they have purpose. Because no one's giving anybody purpose. It's just a job and they get a paycheck and they put A into B and that kind of, no one's going, you know, who we serve, how we serve them and why we serve them. They understand that in detail, so it's an awesome thing to help.

Jeffrey Feldberg: It's really the same blank, different day. You can fill in what the blank is without that purpose. And we talk a lot about this in our Mastery Program because really, Richard, you can say, Jeffrey, you're on base or off base. What we're really getting at here is not just the people, it's not just a leadership team, it's the culture at the company.

And people will stay at a company for a terrific culture, even though they, to your point, may have higher paying opportunities elsewhere, or they will leave. Your company, if it's a toxic culture, if it's really not a great place, if it's not supportive and they'll go somewhere else because it is a better culture.

And so many surveys have come out to your point again, and they've shown that money is not top on the list [00:32:00] for either staying in your job or going to a new job. It's the culture, it's the leadership, it's the vision. So let's go back to what you said a little earlier, and it completely resonates with me, and this is what we're all about at The Deep Wealth Nation.

When we're escaping the owner prison, your words love that, one of the things that we're doing is the 5 percent that we're really good at, that we excel in, and that's perhaps getting the bigger clients, or really enhancing the vision, taking the company to the next level. So you shared with us, well, for that to happen, Fire yourself, get the right people on the team, doing what you really shouldn't have been doing in the first place, or it's time to move on with that.

So how do we get back into that creation mode, that visionary mode? What kind of strategies or tips would you have for us?

Richard Walsh: So one of the things is you need to, I mean, physically remove yourself from the business. Take a day or two days off, whether that's once a month, once a quarter,

Be a visionary.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Huh,

Richard Walsh: Get the whiteboard out. Get a notebook, sit in a park, I don't care, whatever you're doing, you need to [00:33:00] really become creative.

What else could we do as a company? Again, because you don't have to put it in place right now, but because you're going to have to update that strategic vision, right? You're going to hit 18 and 24 months. You're going to achieve it. I have clients who have had to write, they're on their second and third one. Because they achieved it all. They have people who actually took pay cuts to come work for them because of the culture they developed. It's a beautiful thing. But now we've got to keep it going. We can make it better. So that's one step. Really give yourself the time and the permission to just go dream. Think about this stuff like, because you have a team that's self working, right? They're self sustaining. Guess what? When you bring the new proposal and you start to talk to them, you know how excited they're going to be to give their input? This is that feedback they want, right? They want to be a part of like, hey, you know what else we could do?

Yeah, doing this, we could do this, right? You start to whiteboard with everybody on the company, they're all moving, they're all working towards the same thing. So that's the first step you do. The second thing is to, that same strategic vision build one for your [00:34:00] personal life.

Build a personal strategic vision. You've got three children. You've got a wife. You've got this home. They're doing this school. They're going. What do you really want from them in the next two years, three years? Where do you want to go with your family? Because now you know you've, now you're on 5%. You went from 50, 60 hours a week down to 15. 20 hours a week and you're like, I have a lot of time and I have a young family. Wow. This is pretty cool. So it's like, what can I do with them? What experiences can I give them? What things can we do that someone who has a job and a family can't do? I have created freedom for myself and the ability to impact my family in a whole new way.

What does that look like? So create that strategic vision because the important thing, Jeffrey, is that even in business, your family has to understand what you're doing in your business. They don't have to run the business, don't have to be a part of the business, but how can they be your cheerleader? If you tell them, ah, it's business, you wouldn't understand. It's here's the stage I'm in, right? Hey, we're getting ready to scale. [00:35:00] Okay. So buckle up. This is what it's going to look like over the next couple of months because there's work involved, right? So I get it. Wherever you're at, you need to, if you can share that vision, that strategic vision into a personal vision, share them both with your family, they will be your biggest cheerleaders because there's no mystery anymore.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So true. And Richard, let me ask you about that because I couldn't agree more with you. As entrepreneurs, oftentimes, best of intentions were terrible communicators, particularly with our family and loved ones. And so here you're saying, hey, whatever your vision is, share it with the family, let them know where you are.

If you're going through a particular stressful time, but you know there's light at the end of the tunnel, tell your family about that. Hey, I may be grumpy, I may be tired. It's a short term thing. Here's what's going on. So they're part of the journey. Perhaps you can share the before and after, even in your own journey or with your clients when they're not doing that versus when they are doing that.

What's going on there? 

Richard Walsh: So I'll give you an example, one of my clients, so he's in the construction remodeling business eight years [00:36:00] in, just too many jobs going at one time, no systems, no, but nothing, five small children, okay, the wife, everything else. So we came in, did everything we just talked about, got it, and I got this message from his wife.

She goes, Richard, never thought in eight years this could ever happen, but we just spent two weeks at the beach. He was never on his phone, totally present with all five kids, had the most unbelievable time. I never thought that was going to happen. I it's amazing. That's what happens. Okay, I just saved a family I'm not blowing smoke here.

I'm just saying like how many businesses ruin families, end in divorce, right? Estrange kids, dad's all, like I thought about, right? I said my epiphany, God gave me a window to see the future. If I stayed on that path, Be in number, business is number one. This is everything. I got to make it work. My children would grow up, have broken relationships, failed marriages, maybe they'd be good in business, but everything else would be trash. So I had an opportunity, that epiphany gave me the ability to change that and alter that and my kids now are [00:37:00] 18. They're unbelievable.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, so important. After all, all the zeros in the bank, all the accolades, what's the point if your loved ones aren't next to you to share that? Now, Richard, for my next question, I know there's some people in the Deep Wealth Nation, it's going to have them feel uncomfortable. Some of them may even stop listening with what I'm going to ask, and that shouldn't be the case.

I know you are a man of faith, as am I, and that has played a huge role in my successes, and I'll share with you personally. Everything that's been terrific has come from, some people call it the Universe, I tend to call it God, or you want to call it the creator. My failures were me and me alone, and that's beginning, middle, and end of the story.

So for someone who's kind of been on the sidelines, well, yeah, I've kind of been there before, but not really faith was there or really it's not there and there's a big difference between faith and organized religion. How has faith played a pivotal role in not just your professional and business life but in your life really as a whole as a person?

Richard Walsh: Yeah, it's [00:38:00] primary, number one,

So we've got the five F's, right? Faith, family, finances, fitness, and friendships. Well, faith is number one for a very specific reason.

I don't have anything without that.

Okay. My connection with my Lord and Savior, Jesus, that's my thing. That's a personal relationship.

You talked about religion. I'm not a religious guy.

I'm a relationship guy.

I had that with my creator, with my Lord, right? And that for me, I didn't have that prior to 08, 09, even a little bit after, a couple years after that, losing everything. So it was kind of a rock bottom thing, but then it wasn't, right?

So there's a whole, journey we could do a whole show on that. But

That thing, when I talked about my identity, not being in my business, my identity now is in Christ. So for me, the one who will never leave me or forsake me. That's where I put everything. Business is going to come and go. I can build it.

Yeah, I can create a legacy. I can create a financial, all that. My legacy is in that, and that's how I was able to raise my children with that [00:39:00] biblical worldview for me, to bring them, and that's why they turned out how they are, because I did that. Not because of me,

Because of who they know, who they truly serve.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, so interesting. And as you're sharing that, I gave you a congratulations for being in the services. Also, congratulations for six children. My goodness. I mean, that, in and of itself, wow. That is a tremendous responsibility, but also a gift along the way. And Deep Wealth Nation, as you're hearing this, maybe it resonates with you, maybe it doesn't resonate with you, but Be curious, go within, see where it takes you.

It can open up a new chapter. And Richard, I'm curious, just as we round out this part, once you got your faith back within you, in terms of your mindset, how you looked at the world, how you really, when you woke up, how you felt, what was the difference of the before and the after for you, if you can put those emotions into words?

Richard Walsh: and you'll hear this often, you'll hear it if you've ever been around any kind of, well, especially Christian circles. There's a piece that surpasses understanding. So my day, so I'm a [00:40:00] 4 a. m. wake up guy, okay, not for everybody, I get it, I always have been. I'm a 4 a.

m. wake up guy, I drink mushroom coffee, I meditate, I do my Bible study in the morning, my first hour is spent with the Lord, okay, then I go to the gym. I go to the gym for an hour, I do an intense workout, do that, come back, prep my day, my food, and get going on the day, right? So what it's done for me is given me that, that consistent, anchored start of every day.

That's seven days a week, Jeffrey. I don't sleep in on Sunday or Saturday, it's 4 a. m. every day, because that's what works for me, right? And that time is amazing, and that is what's changed the trajectory of how I get things accomplished, because I understand, again, who I serve. Why I'm serving them, just like our business does with our customers, I understand who I'm, all things unto the Lord, right?

So I do that. So that has changed how I conduct every day and my approach and my thankfulness at the end of that day. I got through today and he goes, and you know what? I tell people, this is my week, Jeffrey, [00:41:00] Monday, Friday, like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, it's gone. It's go so fast because I'm, so focused and so grateful and I'm just moving along in the weeks.

It's amazing to me. So that's really helped me keep the, if you want to call it the true north, that

compass, because no

One can do the straight line. We're always going to bounce right, we're going to bounce left, but I'm able always to come back to the course and stay on course.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, I hear you on that. Richard, let me ask you this, because my goodness, I know there are so many questions that I wanted to ask and haven't had the chance to ask. We are bumping up against some time. So that said, before we go into wrap up mode, is there a question I didn't ask that you'd like to put out there, or a particular theme, or a message or topic to the Deep Wealth Nation?

Richard Walsh: Yeah, I would only say this. Especially for if you're in business, you know, and really anything you do in life, you have to understand the old, anything worth having is going to take work, right? I want to encourage people to do hard things.

Like you have to push yourself. You have to challenge yourself and not just physically, like I love the physical stuff, I was told the other day, like [00:42:00] about challenge, they go, well, The physical challenge isn't for you.

You already do that. You actually like that. They go, you have to do something you don't like. That's hard. And I'm like, man, and that's why you have a coach. Cause coach are going to make you do things you don't want to do. So like I can go push myself every day in the gym and I do, but to do this part of the business or this marketing, that is hard things for me.



Richard Walsh: So I need to be pushed in. So you need to do hard things,

those three words do hard things and like real hard things. Like things that you don't even want to do, do that. That's what changes things. That's what moves your business needle. That's what moves your family needle.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah.

Richard Walsh: Put those challenges out there and get them done.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah. So true. It's that saying, if we're not growing, we're dying. So we might as well be growing, taking on those so called challenges. But as we look back, I know for myself, some of the biggest so called obstacles at the time, they were really setups for my future success. My success was waiting for me. I just wasn't ready for it.

But only [00:43:00] after those challenges, after that pressure, after that experience, is when I It gave me the wherewithal to do that. So that said, Richard, some terrific words, some wise words. It's a wonderful segue as we go into wrap up mode. And it's tradition here on the Deep Wealth Podcast where I have the privilege and honor for every guest to ask the same question.

It's a really fun one. Let me set this up for you. When you think of the movie Back to the Future, you have that magical DeLorean car that will take you to any point in time. So the fun part, Richard, is tomorrow morning you look outside your window and not only is the DeLorean car there curbside, the door is open, it's waiting for you to hop on in, which you do.

You're now gonna go to any point in your life, Richard, as a young child, 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, Richard, do this but don't do that. What would it sound like?

Richard Walsh: I think it'd be two words, get help.


Jeffrey Feldberg: Get help. Okay. Love

Richard Walsh: the first 20 years of my business, I refuse to take help from anybody.

I'm a Marine. I'm going to get it done myself. it's going to take twice as long. It was [00:44:00] twice as hard, but I got it done. Just. Ask for help. There's people who have been where you want to go.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah.

Richard Walsh: I had billionaire clients giving me advice that I would not take because what do they know, right?

So, like, I was really high on the idiot scale, okay, for the first 20 years. Now, I'm free to admit it, but get help. Look for those who can take you where you want to go.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And what's so interesting about that, so often it's viewed as being weak if you're asking for help, but it actually takes a very strong person to say, you know what? I just don't know this. Can you help me with this? That's a strong person. That's really moral character right there. Can you help me? And that's such terrific advice.

And so, Richard, before we wrap this up, a listener in the Deep Wealth Nation, they have a question for you. They want to become a client. They want to go through your programs, your strategies. They want to go through your profit simulator. Where's the best place online for someone to reach you?

Richard Walsh: SharpenTheSpearCoaching. com.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wonderful. And again, Deep Wealth Nation, it's a point and click. It's all in the show notes. It doesn't get [00:45:00] any easier. So that's it, Richard. It's official. This is a wrap. Congratulations. 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.

Richard Walsh: Thank you, Jeffrey. It's been awesome. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. What did you think? 

So with all that said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.

Actually, it's more of a personal favor. 

Did you find this episode helpful? 

Have you found other episodes of the Deep Wealth Podcast empowering and a game changer for your journey? 

And if you said yes, and I really hope you did, I have a small but really meaningful way that you can actually help us out and keep these episodes coming to you.

Are you ready for it? 

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So all that said. Thank you so much for [00:47:00] listening. And remember your wealth isn't just about the money in the bank. It's about the depth of your journey and the impact that you're creating. So let's continue this journey together. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for listening to this episode.

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God bless.