569 2500 Year Old Warning Every Founder Should Hear

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A 2500 Year Warning

Jeffrey Feldberg: Deep Wealth Nation, welcome to another solo episode of the Deep Wealth Podcast. And today, I want to do something different. What if I told you there's a 2,500-year-old warning that every founder should hear in the form of a fable? And I'm going to share that fable with you. Now, on the surface, the fable has absolutely nothing to do with business, or profits, or growing enterprise value, or even your financial independence.

And yet, it has everything to do with all of them. In fact, whether you're a startup, perhaps you've been in business for three decades, maybe you're doing a million dollars in revenue or a billion dollars in revenue, this story may expose something happening inside of your business right now that you haven't been able to put into words.

So you're saying, "Jeffrey, okay, you've got my attention. What is it? What's this fable? What's this story?"

It's Aesop's fable [00:01:00] of the Wiind and Sun.

So what do you say?

Shall we get right to it?

Let's do it.

Fable Wind And Sun

Jeffrey Feldberg: The Wiind and the Sun were having an argument about who was more powerful, and as they were arguing, they see a traveler walking down the road wearing a coat.

So the Wiind and the Sun, they agree to a contest. Whoever can get the traveler to remove his coat is the more powerful one. And the Wiind goes first.

And wow, does the Wiind go for it. It blows. It blows harder, and then harder still. But something interesting happens. The harder the Wiind blows, the tighter the traveler pulls the coat around himself. More force, more resistance, and finally, the Wiind gives up.

Now it's the Sun's turn.

The Sun simply begins to shine.

The traveler starts to feel warm. The Sun keeps shining, and before long, without being forced, without being pushed, the traveler takes off the coat himself.

[00:02:00] Game over.

Where You Are The Wind

Jeffrey Feldberg: Now, Deep Wealth Nation, you may be thinking, "Jeffrey, okay, yeah, nice story. Whatever.

What in the world does it have to do with my business?"

And the short answer is everything.

Because here's the question I want you to think about throughout today's episode: Where in the business are you being the Wiind?

Where are you working harder, pushing harder, selling harder, discounting more, getting more involved, doing more yourself, yet somehow you're getting less back?

And here's where this gets uncomfortable. I know this because I've done it. There was a time in my e-learning company, Embanet, when I was convinced we were better, and truthfully, we were better. Our service was better. Our technology was better. Our results were better. And that belief almost got me and the company into serious trouble because I confused being better with the market [00:03:00] continuing to care that we were better.

Two incredibly different things, and I didn't see that distinction right away. Actually, I'm being generous. There were warning signs staring me in the face, and I refused to see them. I rationalized them. I would, as an example, dismiss competitors. I told myself that our customers knew how good we were.

Does this sound familiar, Deep Wealth Nation?

And what happened next ultimately changed Embanet. It changed how I thought about business, and years later, it became part of the Deep Wealth Mastery program. But here's the part I want you to know before we go there. I'm not sharing this story with you because I got everything right.

Far from it. As I've said before on the podcast, and I'll say again, if I had a dollar for every mistake that I've made, I would not have needed my 9-figure exit. I would've been far beyond that. I'm sharing this with you because I almost got it wrong long enough [00:04:00] to lose what we had worked so hard to build and almost lose the company.

That's right. You heard me. I almost lost Embanet. And so with what I'm about to share next, I'm going to take you back to when Embanet was winning, growing, and doing many of the right things because that's exactly when one of the most dangerous problems begins to hide in plain sight.

So Deep Wealth Nation, what do you say?

Shall we jump in?

Let's do it. 

When Better Stops Winning

Jeffrey Feldberg: Let's talk about when being better stops being enough.

Deep Wealth Nation, let me bring you back to the Wiind and the Sun in your business. One of the easiest traps for a successful founder is believing if we're better, we'll win. I certainly believed that. At Embanet, we solved a painful problem very early on when e-learning just came onto the scene.

Universities were losing students because the technology failed. The support vis-a-vis [00:05:00] technical support or faculty support or their servers being down was incredibly weak. Faculty struggled with online education. At Embanet, the bottom line was the bottom line. We kept students in their seats. Whoever worked with us was more profitable, and we found the right starting market with the executive MBA programs, where every student represented a significant amount of revenue to the program In fact, one of our first programs was the Colorado State University MBA program.

And I remember speaking to the Associate Dean, Jon. This is before they became a client, and John took a chance when Embanet had virtually no track record. In fact, Jon joked with me.

He said, "Jeffrey, you look like you just graduated from high school."

But then Jon told me something that I'll never forget.

He loved the fact that Embanet was the underdog because he believed that myself and the [00:06:00] team, which was really myself and Waleuska, would work harder than anyone else to make him and his program more successful. What looked like a weakness to some became a reason for Jon and Colorado State University, the MBA program, to say yes.

Rembrandt Turns Skeleton

Jeffrey Feldberg: Now today, inside Deep Wealth Mastery, we would call that a Rembrandt. And if you're new to the Deep Wealth community, Deep Wealth Nation, welcome. You may be wondering, Jeffrey, what's a Rembrandt?

A Rembrandt, it's something that's hidden. It's hidden in the attic, but it is so incredibly powerful for you and your company that when you take it out to the outside world and people know about it, it can help you grow your profits, increase your enterprise value when you recognize it, when you know what to do and how to get that out to- to the marketplace.

But here's where the story changes. Embanet became known for being better. Yes, better service, better support, better [00:07:00] results, and I became attached to that story. I loved that story.

Who wouldn't?

And then something happened.

Began to get easier, as it always does. University IT departments, they got better.

Competitors began to appear on the scene, and I kept telling myself, "We are still better." And yes, that was true, but, and I wasn't seeing this, I wasn't willing to see this, it was also becoming less important. I remember speaking with a prospective client at a trade show, and he looked at me and he said, "Jeffrey, I don't need the best. I need good enough."

And he went on to tell me that his IT department was free, and even if Embanet produced better results, better was no longer visible enough for him to pay for it. And that was my "Wiind" moment. I was pushing harder at what made us successful while the market was quietly telling me that the rules had changed.

And this is [00:08:00] where in Deep Wealth, within the Deep Wealth Mastery program, this is where something comes in that's incredibly important, and we focus a lot on it. We call it a hidden weakness that can hurt profits or growth or hold back your enterprise value. We call it a skeleton. And sometimes the most dangerous skeleton is something that used to be a Rembrandt.

So with that said, Deep Wealth Nation, let me bring this into your business.

What are you so proud of?

Because at one point, it made you successful. Maybe it's still making you successful, but the marketplace is changing, and the marketplace, is it still willing to pay for it?

This is not the same question.

What are you so proud of that made you successful?

And is the marketplace still willing to pay for it?

Two very different questions, and I almost missed that distinction completely. But what happened next made the problem impossible for me to ignore. A competitor I had dismissed, [00:09:00] I wrote them off as reckless, as temporary, and they started to do something I never expected.

And when it happened, I realized that this was no longer about protecting market share. It was about whether Embanet would have a future at all.

So Deep Wealth Nation, do you want to hear the truth that I did not want to hear?

Because I want you to remember the Wiind. Let's go back to that again. 

Industry Matures Ego Trap

Jeffrey Feldberg: The harder the Wiind blew, the tighter the traveler held onto the coat, and that was me.

Yes, Embanet was so successful. We were in a young industry. I walked into a conference, and sometimes as I'd walk by people, I would hear them whisper to one another, "Hey, there's Jeffrey from Embanet."

And Deep Wealth Nation, if I'm honest with you, and I always am, I'll admit it, I loved that. It felt good. It fed my ego.

But without realizing it, I was that emperor with no clothes because while I was enjoying what we had built at Embanet, the industry was growing [00:10:00] up, and I refused to see it. But big money saw that opportunity. New competitors appeared, and our competitor, this one particular competitor, was private equity backed.

They hired experienced people. They bought full-page ads. They showed up at the trade shows where Embanet was showing up, and we were usually the only ones there for e-learning, but no longer. And slowly, they started to get new business.

My response?

I would explain them away. "Yeah, they're spending recklessly.

I don't understand what this has to do with the industry that we're in. We're educators. We're not like that. They're not as good as us." And all of that may have been true, but at the same time, it did not matter. I was still thinking like a purist in a brand-new industry, but the industry wasn't brand new anymore.

And here's something that I wish I understood sooner. When an industry matures, what made you special in the beginning [00:11:00] may become expected, copied, or even cheaper or something good enough somewhere else. And I kept blowing harder like the Wiind in the story. The market kept changing, and then the competitor went public.

And I got to tell you, Deep Wealth Nation, that scared me because suddenly I couldn't call them a fad anymore. The marketplace validated them, and I faced an uncomfortable possibility. If I kept protecting Embanet, let's call it Embanet 1 in this part of Embanet's history, if I kept protecting Embanet 1 instead of questioning it, eventually there may be nothing to protect.

Whats Keeping You Up

Jeffrey Feldberg: So I forced myself to start listening differently. I spoke with clients. I spoke with people on the front lines inside of Embanet, my team members. And instead of asking questions that made me feel good, I started asking questions that I, well, may not want to hear the answer. And one of the questions that I asked, "What's keeping you up at night?"[00:12:00]

And in fact, this is a question that today is built into the Deep Wealth Mastery program because it can expose an X-factor or a blind spot or a painful problem that the market is quietly asking someone to solve. In fact, when I was speaking with the Associate Dean at Colorado State University, Jon, he surprised me with his answers.

He said, "Jeffrey, enrollments are down. I need more students."

Now, Embanet, we weren't a marketing company. The easy response would've been, "That's not what we do." But his answer stayed with me. The pain was real. It was expensive, and I didn't have a good solution.

So I stopped asking, "How do I sell more of what Embanet already does?"

And I started asking, "What other bigger opportunity is hidden inside the problem that Jon shared with me?"

Deep Wealth Nation, maybe that's happening inside of your business right now. [00:13:00] Maybe the market is already telling you what it wants next, but you're too busy defending what made you successful that you don't want to hear it.

I almost made that mistake. And in the next section, I'll share why the obvious solution to Jon's problem looked easy, sensible, and efficient, and why taking the easy path could have cost me the opportunity that changed the future of Embanet.

So what do you say, Deep Wealth Nation, do you want to hear why the easy answer was the wrong answer?

And of course, you're saying, "Yeah, Jeffrey, why would the easy answer be the wrong answer?"

Easy Outsource Wrong

Jeffrey Feldberg: So Deep Wealth Nation, let's do it because this is where the Wiind showed up in a different way. Sometimes the Wiind is pushing harder. Sometimes it's staying so busy doing what you're comfortable doing that you avoid the uncomfortable problem sitting right in front of you.

And yes, Deep Wealth Nation, that was me I asked Jon, "What's keeping you up at night?" [00:14:00] And he told me enrollments were down. And if I'm being candid with you, and I am, I hated that answer.

Why?

Because we didn't do the marketing at Embanet. I wasn't a marketer. I had no idea where to begin, and I was too busy inside the business.

I had the golden handcuffs. So now I had a choice.

Do I ignore the problem from one of my star clients?

Do I hand it off?

Or do I admit that I made myself too important inside of Embanet and needed to start finding myself someone else where I can fire myself, bring that person in to do what I was doing?

That was not a comfortable realization. Again, I hated that. The easy answer would've been, well, Jeffrey, just find a marketing company. Introduce them to Jon. So I looked. I spent time with one of the better firms in education. Very smart people, professional people. Then one night over dinner, I listened to their team, and I imagined them sitting across from [00:15:00] the president of a Tier 1 university, and my stomach turned, my stomach dropped.

Yes, they understood marketing. They did not understand the world that I was from, the world that my clients were from. We were working with a different type of university where it was a different reputation, one of the best reputations in the university world, and the faculty and the culture. 

And there was a difference between marketing a prestigious graduate program and making the university feel like a diploma mill. And I realized something. If this marketing company that I could hand off to Jon, if they failed, I lost all credibility. After all, I was the guy that introduced them. If they succeeded, I might have handed away the opportunity that Embanet should have owned in the first place.

So the question changed, not who can I give this problem to?

And it now became, well, what if the problem is showing me what Embanet needs to become next?[00:16:00]

And I got to tell you, that thought kept me up at nights. No longer was John up at nights, I was up at nights because we had become profitable at Embanet.

We had turned the corner. We continued to bootstrap, but now I had some profits to show for it. And now this meant taking all of those profits and putting them back at risk into a new service, a new solution that I'd never done before around a capability that I simply didn't have. And I got to tell you, that did not feel like Sunshine.

You can feel the explicitives in terms of how that made me feel, but it felt like I was walking straight into the Wiind. And inside the Deep Wealth Mastery Program, this is one of the directions that we work through.

What do you outsource and what should you own?

And what capability looks like a cost today but could become one of your most valuable X-Factors tomorrow?

I knew I didn't want this capability sitting with an outside vendor. I also didn't want to have it dependent on one employee [00:17:00] who could walk right out that door.

And so I realized another uncomfortable situation where I would need to find the right kind of business partner. 

Finding The Right Partner

Jeffrey Feldberg: Now, here's where the story gets interesting.

Through a last-minute decision, myself and Waleuska decided to go to this one particular trade show, and this is where my future business partner, also in a last-minute decision, he wasn't supposed to be there, also went to the same trade show. And I got to tell you, this is where the story gets really interesting because finding the right business partner doesn't guarantee success.

It doesn't mean that the problem is solved. Because even though I found the right business partner, we're going to talk more about that, for nearly two years after that, the solution, what I'll call Embanet 2, it kept failing. Wrong markets, wrong programs, wrong assumptions, my precious profits going out the door and nothing coming back.

And that's when I came too close, far too close, to [00:18:00] learning the wrong lesson from failure because it wasn't that the idea itself was necessarily broken. It was what we were doing that wasn't working.

And it's, "Well, Jeffrey, what were you doing that wasn't working?"

That's exactly what I'm going to share with you in the next section.

I'll share the distinction of what finally had to change, and it changed everything because there's a very real chance that you're making the exact same mistake inside your business right now.

And you might be saying, "Jeffrey, well, what's this mistake? I want to know about it."

Because that's exactly what I'm going to talk about, why the easy path isn't necessarily the right path.

Deep Wealth Nation, as I reflect back on what happened, this next part to this day still amazes me. And as one of my early mentors always said, "Jeffrey, I'd rather be lucky than smart." Now again, as I shared earlier, Waleuska and I were not supposed to be at this conference where our future business partner, Steve Wells, that's where we met him.

It was a last-minute decision, and Steve [00:19:00] was also not supposed to be there either. It was also a last-minute decision, but somehow we met. Now, we were looking for someone who understood marketing. Steve was looking for a company that understood e-learning. Neither of us knew that each other existed. That meeting eventually brought Steve into Embanet as a business partner.

Steve knew marketing, we knew e-learning, and for the first time it felt like we might actually have the pieces for Embanet 2. But then I made another nearly fatal mistake. I kept on doing what was easy instead of doing what was right. 

Wrong Buyer Wrong Evidence

Jeffrey Feldberg: Embanet owned the Executive MBA marketplace, so it was natural, it was easy for me to pick up the phone and speak to Executive MBA Directors, both the ones that were my clients and the ones that weren't.

I not only knew the Executive MBA Directors, but I knew the dean, and if I didn't know the dean of the MBA program, the Executive MBA director certainly did, [00:20:00] and those were very comfortable conversations for me to have. But Embanet 2 was far bigger than any one program or business school. Deep down, I knew that I needed to start higher than the Dean of the business program or the director of the Executive MBA Program.

I knew I needed to go to the president's office, someone who saw the bigger picture from the numbers side of things, from what was going on at the university, and someone who can actually move the university. But I was busy. I was still running Embanet 1. I still had those golden handcuffs. I was still trying to build Embanet 2, and when you're overwhelmed, that's when easy starts to masquerade as smart.

I stayed too low in the chain of leadership. Nothing wrong with the Deans, all respect to them, and the Executive MBA Directors, but I continued to receive rejection after rejection. It was very easy for them to say no. They could [00:21:00] shut me down, but they could not say yes.

And so what I did next, looking back I'm almost embarrassed to share with you, but I'll share it with you in the spirit of being honest, as I always am. Instead of questioning who I was speaking with, I started to question the idea itself.

Instead of saying, "Jeffrey, well, why don't you go to the president's office, just see what's going on from the top of the top?"

I began to say, "Well, you know, maybe the business schools aren't the right ones. Maybe they're great for Embanet 1, but not for Embanet 2. Why don't we look at certificate programs or maybe K through 12, maybe even another market?"

And we did.

More meetings, more rejections, more time, more money out the Wiindow.

That was being the Wiind again. Yes, myself and Steve, we were pushing harder. Thankfully, we had Waleuska holding down the fort because Steve and I were flying all over the country. But we were doing this without asking whether we were pushing in the right place.

Deep Wealth Nation, [00:22:00] let me now bring this into your business.

You thought you'd get off the hook. Not so quick.

Let's bring this into your business for just a moment. You're already smart enough. Maybe you're already saying, "Yeah, Jeffrey, , I know. I'm going to the president or the CEO, to the C-level suite." Amazing. Congratulations. Good for you.

But where are you doing your version of what I was doing?

Because I guarantee you, you are. I may not know what it is. You may not even know what it is, but where are you choosing the comfortable conversation instead of the more important one?

Where are you changing the offer, changing the market, adding features, cutting price, or blaming execution when the real problem may be something much simpler?

Maybe you already have the right solution. Maybe there's one inflection point or blind spot that you're not seeing. It's the wrong person, the wrong incentive, the wrong timing, the wrong economic buyer, and because you're getting rejected, you're starting to question the entire idea. That's [00:23:00] exactly where I was, and then some luck showed up.

Remember, I'd rather be lucky than smart

One day, I received a phone call from a another John. This John also happened to work at Colorado State University. I know all these Johns. But this was another John, and he was now the Vice Provost at Boston University. And John had called me and said, "Hey, Jeffrey, we haven't spoken in a while. Wanted to let you know that I moved on from Colorado State University.

I'm now at Boston University. I wanted to catch up with you." And I said, "John, it's funny that you should call, because at Embanet, we're trying something new." And I explained all about Embanet 2, and immediately John saw the opportunity. That phone call began to put the wheels in motion. And I got to tell you, Deep Wealth Nation, what if John hadn't called?

I still think about that.

Would I have figured this out on my own?

Maybe.

Or would I have given up too early and told myself, "Okay, yeah, [00:24:00] I tried. The market isn't ready. It's just not a good idea"?

I honestly don't know, and that's what makes this an uncomfortable lesson. Because sometimes you're closer to the breakthrough than you realize, but you're collecting the wrong evidence. You're looking in the wrong place.

Inside Deep Wealth Mastery, we work exactly through this kind of blind spot and inflection point.

Who has the pain?

Who's got the incentive?

What is the incentive?

Who's got the authority?

Who can actually say yes? Because the right idea in front of the wrong person can look exactly like a bad idea.

John opened the door at Boston University, but the harder part was still ahead. Because even with the right person at the top, there were people inside the university who wanted nothing to do with what we were talking about. And if we handled that resistance like the Wiind, Embanet 2 could still die before it even had a chance to prove itself.

So Deep Wealth Nation, should we talk about when resistance [00:25:00] actually becomes the blueprint?

Are you curious how to do this?

Because I bet it's happening right inside of your business right now. You may not even know it.

Would you like to learn what you can do and how to do it?

And you're saying, "Yes, Jeffrey, of course I am."

Terrific.

Resistance Becomes Blueprint

Jeffrey Feldberg: So Deep Wealth Nation, let's talk about when resistance becomes a blueprint itself.

So Deep Wealth Nation, Boston University was the opportunity that I'd been looking for. It's a prestigious university. John was the Vice Chancellor. He was at the top. He had a program in mind that it was an upside for him, and still, it wasn't guaranteed success because John wanted to ensure that the faculty and the Dean of this one particular program, that they were on board.

And the faculty wanted almost nothing to do with what Embanet 2 was all about, and I understood why. Online learning was new. Some of the faculty had been teaching for decades. From their perspective, we were showing up saying, "Change the way you teach. Trust this new technology. Put your reputation on the line."

And if [00:26:00] Steve and I had responded like the Wiind and pushed harder, the deal would have died. So we did something different. We started listening to every reason they gave us for saying no. It was time, it was workload, it was academic quality, it was intellectual property, it was prestige, it was control. The list went on.

And instead of treating those objections as obstacles, we began treating them as instructions. And I got to tell you, it was hard to do, that defeat, that rejection. But if the faculty were worried about additional work, we showed them how we would support them, and when additional effort was required, how they'd be compensated.

If they worried about Intellectual Property, we made it crystal clear the IP would always remain theirs. If they worried about becoming a diploma mill, we showed them very clearly how Boston University was in control of admissions and the standards and the program size and who became a student. We weren't asking them to give up [00:27:00] control.

In fact, it was the opposite. They were always in the driver's seat. We designed the solution. They didn't have to worry about any of these things. And John played an important role because there were times where the resistance was strong enough that John had to step in and keep things moving. This wasn't Sunshine where everyone smiled, we held hands, it was a kumbaya moment, everyone said yes. Far from it.

There was lots of Wiind. But the difference was instead of fighting the resistance, we learned from it.

So Deep Wealth Nation, where is this happening in your business?

What objection are you tired of hearing?

What customer complaint frustrates you and your team?

What resistance have you labeled as they just don't get it because what if they actually get it?

What if the objection you're trying to overcome is actually telling you exactly what's missing from your solution?

Inside Deep Wealth Mastery, this is one of the many reasons that we look so closely at skeletons and [00:28:00] X-Factors. A skeleton is not always something dramatic. It's not something that is necessarily with bells and whistles, but it's there.

I promise you, it is there hiding in the closet. Sometimes it's friction that you've lived with. You've lived to put up with it. And an X-Factor, it can emerge when you remove that friction in a way that your competitors haven't, and that's what began with Embanet 2. 

Embanet 2 Breakthrough

Jeffrey Feldberg: So John had shared with us that within Boston University, it was the Master's in Criminal Justice program.

It was a relatively small program. Boston University was well known, but the Master's in Criminal Justice program within Boston University wasn't that well known. And so for Boston University, this was a great place to start, because if it failed, the downside was limited.

But if it worked, wow, John and Boston University had a huge upside. Thankfully, it worked. The program grew and became the number one program across the country. Now, I want to be [00:29:00] careful here. This isn't the part of the story where everything suddenly became easy. It didn't. We still heard no. We still dealt with skeptical faculty.

We still found universities outside of Boston University that they weren't ready. But Boston University gave us something we hadn't had before, the social proof. Now, we were walking into a new prospective university, and we weren't saying, "Trust us. We can make this work." We could show them and say, "Hey, here's how it worked. Here's why it worked."

And that was a game changer. What started as Embanet 1, the business that I thought I needed to protect at all costs, eventually, as hard as this was for me to share back then and even now, Embanet 1 became a single line item within Embanet 2. Think about that. The company that I had been afraid to disrupt became a single line item in a much bigger and more profitable business.

Had I kept on [00:30:00] defending Embanet 1, because it was profitable, it was comfortable, it was familiar, it was the easy thing to do, I know that someone else eventually would have put Embanet 1 out of business, and they would have done it on their terms, not mine. And that's the part of Aesop's fable that stays with me.

Being the Sun doesn't mean you avoid difficulty. Far from it. It means being thoughtful, that you're recognizing where the resistance is, what is telling you to stop, and where the resistance is telling you to change or to start, or showing you exactly how to build something better. So let me ask you one final question before I bring this home.

What part of your company are you protecting today because it made you successful yesterday?

Let me ask that again.

What part of your company are you protecting today because this was yesterday's success?

And maybe it should be protected, or maybe it's the very thing keeping you [00:31:00] from seeing what comes next.

And if you're not sure which one it is, that's the exact inflection point, the blind spot I want you thinking about as I begin to wrap this up, because I'm going to share with you the one thing that most founders never see either until it's too late and they're out of business, or they simply never see it at all.

Misreading Resistance Lesson

Jeffrey Feldberg: Deep Wealth Nation, you've stayed with me till the end. And so let me give you the one thing that I promised, something that took me years, a lot of mistakes, and more money than I can count or even want to think about. Here it is.

Resistance is not the problem.

Misreading resistance is the problem.

That's a distinction.

Sometimes, and here's where it gets confusing, sometimes resistance is the Wiind. You're pushing the wrong solution, talking to the wrong person, protecting yesterday's business model, or asking the marketplace to value something it no longer values.

Other times, resistance is showing you how to be the Sun. It's showing you the [00:32:00] objection, the complaint, the customer who says no, the competitor taking market share away from you, and it's showing you the painful problem, that missing X-Factor, the different business model, or the market disruption that you don't just yet see.

You've heard both in my story, my Embanet journey.

Good enough is good enough was not an objection that I needed to overcome. It was a warning I needed to understand. The Boston University faculty, the objections were different. They weren't telling us to stop. They were showing us what Embanet 2 needed to become.

Same resistance, completely different message.

Proximity Problem And Offer

Jeffrey Feldberg: And here's the only in Deep Wealth distinction that I want you to remember. Most founders, including you, you don't have a resistance problem. You have a proximity problem. You're so close to the business that the Wiind, the warning, and the opportunity all look exactly the same.

I know it because I lived it.

And [00:33:00] that brings me to the question I really want you to answer.

Do you actually have enough time and distance from your business to see what's happening inside of it?

Or are you pulling a Jeffrey?

Are you at the center of everything, solving the problems, taking the calls, making the decisions, getting that adrenaline rush because everyone needs you, just like I was doing, and telling yourself that you'll step back when things finally slow down, even though deep down you know they never will.

Deep Wealth Nation, when does that ever happen?

That's one of the reasons why founders make time for the 90-Day Deep Wealth Mastery program, not because they need another program, not because they have the time. They don't.

They make time for the 90-Day Deep Wealth Mastery program because it's the only system built from a 9-figure deal, my deal, which includes the successes and the failures that I reversed engineered after the fact into the system.

It's designed to help you see what can almost be [00:34:00] impossible to see when you're standing in the middle of your own company. Because whether you want to own your business forever or sell it tomorrow, the objective is the same.

More profits today, more freedom from the business, more enterprise value tomorrow.

So I'm curious, where are you feeling the resistance right now? And are you certain that you know the kind of resistance that you're looking at?

And maybe you're saying, "Jeffrey, well, I'm not quite sure."

Well, here's a loaded question for you. Do you want to find out with certainty?

And I know you do. I know you say, "Yeah, Jeffrey, show me."

Email And Final Thanks

Jeffrey Feldberg: Email me. success [at] deepwealth [dot] com, and in the subject, put Sun or Wiind, and that's going to tell me what's going on. Again, email success [at] deepwealth [dot] com, S-U-C-C-E-S-S at Deep Wealth, D-E-E-P-W-E-A-L-T-H.com.

Email success [at] deepwealth [dot] com. I will personally read your email. I'll share whatever insights I can, and if it makes sense, tell you what, we'll hop on a complimentary strategy call, and together we'll go through [00:35:00] it because I want you to think about this.

What you're missing right now, what if it's simply because you're too close or too busy to see it?

Again, email me, success [at] deepwealth [dot] com, and in the subject, put and we'll take a look at that together.

Deep Wealth Nation, I want to thank you. I want to thank you for your time.

You've stayed with me all the way through because we can always earn more money. Time is something that you can't get, and I value your time. I value you listening. And by the way, as we begin to wrap things up, do you know another founder who could benefit from this? That this one episode that you forward to them, you tell them to listen to it, it can be a game changer in their business.

And I'm sure you do. Pay it forward. Share it with them. Share it with your team of how this episode can help you transform your business from where you are to where you want to be.

So once again, as I wrap this up, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate this.

You've [00:36:00] now heard the 2,500-year-old warning that every founder should hear and you now know the Wiind, the warning, and the opportunity can feel exactly the same when you're inside the business, but now that you've heard this entire episode, you have that advantage of knowing how to tell the difference, what to do, what not to do.

So Deep Wealth Nation, it's official. This is a wrap. 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, and God bless.

Subscribe And Share

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? 

The dramatic pause. I'll just wait a moment. Drumroll, please. Subscribe. Please subscribe to the Deep Wealth podcast [00:37:00] on your favorite podcast channel. When you subscribe to the Deep Wealth Podcast, you're saving yourself time. Every episode automatically comes to you, and I want you to know that we meticulously craft Every one of our episodes to have impactful strategies, stories, expert insights that are designed to help you grow your profits, increase the value of your business, and yes, even optimize your post exit life and your life right now, whatever you want that to look like.

And every time you subscribe and a fellow entrepreneur subscribe, it's a testament to how together, Yes, we are. We are changing the social fabric of society. One business owner at a time, one liquidity event at a time. So don't let the momentum stop here. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast channel.

You'll never miss an episode. You'll be the first to hear from the top industry leaders, the innovators, the disruptors that are really changing and shaping the business world, and maybe you're commuting, maybe you're at the gym, maybe you're taking a well deserved break that we spoke all about on this episode.

The Deep Wealth Podcast, it's your reliable source for the next big [00:38:00] idea that could literally revolutionize your business. So once again, please hit that subscribe button, stay connected, inspired, and ahead of the curve. And again, your next big breakthrough moment, it might just be one episode away. Maybe it was even this episode.

So all that said. Thank you so much for 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.

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. 

God bless.