358 Robert Indries Unschackled

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Robert Indrias is a true testament to the power of determination and hard work. Born into a modest family in a small town in Transvania, Romania, Robert spent his early years on farms, learning the value of perseverance and dedication. His family's belief that if you want to learn, you can learn in any school, fueled his drive to succeed no matter the circumstances.

Robert's travels around the globe have given him unique insights into the world of business. With these experiences, he's built an impressive empire of eight businesses, generating seven figure revenues each year. He's traveled over a hundred thousand miles, visited 17 countries, and spoken to thousands in three different languages.

Despite his professional success, Robert cherishes his loving relationship with his wife, Diana, and their close knit family and friends. Robert's achievements include generating half a billion dollars in business value for his clients, completing over 200 projects across 19 sectors, and consulting with over 1, 000 professionalsto help them achieve 2X to 10x higher levels of effectiveness. [00:01:00] He's also managed to maintain athlete level health and an amazing marriage along the way. 

And before we start this episode, a quick word from our sponsor, Deep Wealth and the 90 Day Deep Wealth Mastery Program. Here's Jane, a graduate who says, and I quote, the Deep Wealth Mastery Program prevented me from making what would have been one of the biggest mistakes of my career. I almost signed on the dotted line with an unsolicited offer that I now realized would have shortchanged my hard work and my future had I accepted that offer. Deep Wealth Mastery has tilted the playing field to my advantage.

Or how about Lyn? Wow, he gets right to the point, and I quote, Deep Wealth Mastery is one of the best investments ever made because you'll get an ROI of a hundred times that. Anyone who doesn't go through this will lose millions. 

And as you're listening to these testimonials, are you wondering if you have the time? Are you even thinking that you've got this covered, you have the advisors or people in your network? Well, I got to tell you, these myths, they're often behind the 90 percent failure rate for liquidity events. Think about [00:02:00] it. You have one chance to get it right for your financial freedom. You really want to make it count.

And when it comes to time, let's hear what William has to say. We just got in this testimonial, William says, and I quote, I didn't have the time for Deep Wealth Mastery. But I made the time and I'm glad I did. What I learned goes far beyond any other executive program or coach I've experienced. 

So what do you think?

As I hear that, that's exactly what gets me out of bed every day. That's my mission. That's the team's mission here at Deep Wealth to literally change the social fabric of society. One business owner at a time, one liquidity event at a time, and my Deep Wealth Nation, what I want you to know, the Deep Wealth Mastery Program, it isn't theory.

It's from the trenches. It's the only one based on a nine figure deal. And that deal, that was my deal. You know my story. I said no to a seven figure offer. I created the system that later on, myself and my business partners, we said yes to a different buyer, a different offer, a nine figure deal. That's what we now call the Deep Wealth Mastery Program or the Scale [00:03:00] For Ultimate Sales system.

It's built by business owners, for business owners, so if you're interested in growing your profits for preparing for a future liquidity event, and that may be two years away, it could be 22 years away, whatever the time may be, you want to do this now, and you want to optimize your post exit life, Deep Wealth Mastery is for you.

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Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. Well, our friend Robert is back. You may have heard Robert a few episodes ago where he's coming on and sharing his tried and true strategies from the trenches. And at that time, he was just about to release his latest book, Unshackled. We extended an invitation to him and he was gracious enough to come back today.

And walk us through that. So Robert, welcome back to the Deep Wealth Podcast. An absolute pleasure to have you with us. By the way, congratulations with Unshackled. We're going to do a deep dive on that. And what I love about that, this isn't a textbook. It's not theory. It's from your own experiences. You threw out what didn't work.

You only talk about what works. Can't wait [00:05:00] to dive in. But before we do that, for the benefit of Deep Wealth Nation, which is growing by leaps and bounds, even from three, four episodes ago, when you were last on, can you share the story behind the story, both about your journey? As well as Unshackled. What's going on with that?

What got you from where you were to where you are today?

Robert Indries: I really appreciate the opportunity for being here again. In terms of the story we delved into the story on our last podcast of, like the background and so on. So I'm going to it specifically for this book. So as I was growing in my career, every year I would get mentors, right?

Coaches and so on and so forth. And I would pay for courses. And for, access to BTs, to masterminds, to seminars and so on and so forth, you have some amazing materials yourself that, you know, you showed me that basically I would sign up for stuff like that all the time and get, you know, mentors and coaches that would help me on my journey.

So something interesting would happen is that in my Relentless, let's say, drive to constantly [00:06:00] implement everything that these mentors would teach me, I would almost always, or, I mean, as far as I could tell, I would always surpass them in terms of, business size, speed of growth, wealth, profits or things of that nature.

Like I almost always do better than them. almost is because. really know what's in their bank account. The only thing I know is what they would share. And if they wouldn't share everything, you know, then I have no way of knowing, right? So, what they would say hey, I have a business doing this, whatever, let's say, I was in a small business doing five or six figures, and I would meet a millionaire, right?

And then I would learn from them, implement, everything I can. And then I would be a millionaire, but they would still be a millionaire by the time I was there, right? And so I'm like, okay, well, I, I, now I need to find someone that's a Deca millionaire, right? And then see what happens there. That's made tens of millions.

And then I would add, et cetera, et cetera. on this journey, I was in a place where at one point, I couldn't find mentors and coaches that I rated with that are both very [00:07:00] wealthy. And have a very holistic view of their life. So above 10 million, or, like I was closing into 10 million and I couldn't find people like that.

And so what I find is, the decamillionaires, the hundreds of millionaires, and the billionaires, they would all have. Torn apart line, right? Like I would to billionaires, that had divorces or full divorces that will barely see their children. I would talk to decamillionaires that were very significantly overweight, and you like, I don't want to go into that, but this is just like, it's not perfect, you know, it's not like one for the other, like why you're making yourself millions so that you can be on machines for the rest of your life, right?

It doesn't make any sense, right? For me, It wasn't worth let's say the trade one another, right? So I said, I can't find it or I wasn't finding it as I kept searching and searching and searching. I was just doing my own thing, growing my companies as best as I could. And then at one point I met this guy at the conference of places, it was just a cool conference in London and we were living in the UK and goes [00:08:00] on stage, right?

And it was very interesting because like he was a main stage speaker and everyone was, like selling their products and, doing whatever they were doing and so on and so forth. This guy hops on, very humble. Like I just like to talk to you guys today. And then we just talked, we asked him questions.

It was very nice. At one point he asked us, Do you guys mind if I swear? And we're like, no, okay, go ahead. And the guy says, what the hell? that was the swear. I kid you not, like that's the, he asked permission to say what the hell. And so, in my mind like, That seems too cute, what is this guy talking about?

And then, we just went in and he started, you know, speaking about the importance of protecting your business, your family, and, like how can, what systems you can put in place, so on. I really liked it. And then basically I started talking with him and asking all of the questions I needed answers for.

So I started bombarding him with questions, and he had an answer for every single question, which was surprising for me, because my questions had now, at this point, less to do with how to make more money, right? I was already a [00:09:00] millionaire, almost becoming a decamillionaire, I figured this stuff out like, I didn't need that.

What I need to know is okay, but how do I now go to maybe ten figures? But then spend as much time as possible with my wife, and stay healthy and children and so on and so forth. So doing everything properly. Interestingly enough, the guy admired me just as much as I admired him. Because even though he was way ahead of me in terms of, network and business success and so on and so forth.

He accomplished all of that with predominantly one to two businesses. At that point in time, I already had seven. And he was like, how could you manage seven businesses? You know, like, And so we had this mutual respect going on. We really love how we would vibe. He asked me, dozens of questions around, how do you do this remotely?

How do you do this technically? And so on and so forth. And we just vibe very well. I bought his course as well. It's like buying people's courses. I know it just, just opens up the veil of like, you know, I'm not here for freebie. You know, like, Let's just literally work together. Let's see what we can do because you have a great network.

I have a great network. Like [00:10:00] we know things that the other one doesn't, like how can we make things work together? So I took his course and I started implementing the stuff he teaches. And I already had, a ton of things I was implementing. And I took his things as well. And I combined them with mine.

And I literally just crocketed and, my free time, my businesses, like everyone was just going in an amazing direction. his name is Aaron, by the way, I told Aaron, I'm like, Aaron, we really should write the book on this because like, why isn't there a book on this? Like you have, this course, like for example, what he sells is a four to five figure course, depends on your level.

And what I sell is six figure I manage your company for you type of services, right? So, but they're saying at the, Hey, just give me 30 and then get at least the insights that we have so that you can get to a stage where you can be at, a million or 5 million or 10 million, then want to grow from there.

Cause not everyone can afford five to six figures, services. Or courses. And so he agreed. He said, many people have asked him. I said, let's do this together. And then we wrote the book and we [00:11:00] started writing, well over a year ago. And I think it has 300 something pages.

It answers probably at least a thousand business questions that people have on their minds. And both him and I have been fortunate in hundreds of other businesses and helped them grow over the years. All of that is fed into the book. So that's basically the story of it.

That's how it came, to life. That was the decision behind it. And so we said, okay, let's get everything in our brains or as the foundation, how you call it in your program. Let's get the foundation into a book that people can just pick our brains basically, right as a monologue in there.

And then from there, use that as a workbook, day and day out to grow, whatever it is, whatever assets they have. And then they can work with us if they choose to, or they can work with someone like yourself if they want to sell their company, or prepare for a liquidity event and so on. This just basically sets them up for future success and wealth.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Robert, I love your story behind the story, both with yourself and with the book, Unshackled. Hey, Deep Wealth Nation, go to the show notes. It's a point and click. It doesn't get any easier. Click on the link for the book, [00:12:00] Unshackled, The Seven Levels of Business Excellence. And Robert, what's interesting, With what you did, you and your co author, you start at level zero and then we get up to level five and boom, you go right ahead to level 10.

And I got to tell you, when I was first going through this, I had to go back and say, did I miss level six through nine that I got to level 10? But it was deliberate. And as you went through that, I was reflecting on my own business journey and absolutely, I remember when I was at level zero, I had no idea what I was doing.

I was literally failing forward. Eventually got out of level zero to level one, two, three, and wow, in the blink of an eye, I was also right there at level 10. So I love how you took that, you put that into action.

And so, Robert, let me ask you this, because the question I'm going to ask, you could say it's unfair, it's almost like asking you to pick your favorite child, and speaking of children, by the way, congratulations, I know also since the last episode, you had the birth of your child, you're now a papa bear, for you, your family, congratulations, we have you in our thoughts, we have you in our [00:13:00] prayers, and so that said is actually a good segue for my next question.

When you look at all the chapters, when you look at the strategies in the book, Unshackled, is there one strategy that stands head and shoulders above the rest for you? Is there one that you prefer over the others?

Robert Indries: That is an unfair question because all of them I love uh, well, like I love my children equally if I am to use that analogy. However, if I can say one thing that has helped me most is literally within a, in a level zero. So if you attain level zero, like as it's described in the book, do all of that including the stuff on mindset, and the foundation and protecting yourself legally and so on.

If you do all of that it's crazy how many headaches you save for, so, and how much faster you're going to get doing things. Like, say this and I told this. So many times, the first three years in business, in my own business, I didn't make any money. We didn't make anything in the first three years.

I was working my little butt off, every single day, trying to make it work. We weren't working. And we [00:14:00] barely started making money in year four. hearing that's like, why would I listen to this guy? Right? Like he started making money, in year four. Well, because during that time I've learned lessons, which then propelled me to over 10 million, right?

In my early thirties. So I must have figured something out and everything figured out is obviously in the book. And so level zero, I would say is my favorite, just because it has had the most positive impact on my life. My business has skyrocketed. It's exactly like in the book, level zero, and one, two, three, four, five, and then 10.

if you get to level five, you're literally to level 10. That's it. From there, at level 10, if you manage to stay at level 10 it's like being the complete opposite Owner of everything in your life. It's so beautiful to see because if next week you want to spend the entire week, going a week off, you know, with your children and so on and so forth, you can.

You have the time to do it. You have the finances to do it. You [00:15:00] have the systems in place. Make sure that by the time you're back, everything just go perfectly, right? That even works better without you that you, and so all these things, are such a blessing. And I kid you not, multiple times, at least once a week, my wife and I cry in humility, humbleness, and gratefulness at the life we have.

At least once a week, we cry. There's sometimes two, three times a week, we just shed in tears because we were born poor. You're like, we know what it means to struggle, right? And we've seen our entire family struggle and everyone in our lives struggle. So, to live in a house that we paid with cash, we don't have a mortgage to have an amazing car, We bought our parents cars, it's like anything you want to do, like you could just do and have the time for example I became a father not so long ago, and this, we intentionally pushed off this decision to make children because we said, let's first enjoy life together let's fall in love with one another like and let's become the best team possible, and after that have children.

Or not, because we have not having children is an option. If after three, four years of living [00:16:00] life together, we feel we'd rather not have, then that's a perfect decision. And we both accepted that we might not have children. But then we decided that no, let's have it because we did want to have that experience.

We did want to go through parenthood. We did want to give our parents, grandchildren, et cetera, right? So we didn't have all of those cool things, but we did it more for us than for the children.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Robert's so right. And when you look at what we're talking about in Level Zero, you're setting the foundation. At Deep Wealth, we also look at the foundation and we go to many business owners. Some of them have been perhaps in startup mode. Others have been in the seat for decades. But we ask them the same question and we usually get the same answer.

How do you win at a game you've never played before? And whether you're raising capital, having a liquidity event for your business exit, whatever the case may be, the rules of the game are different. In fact, it's a different game because to create a business, those skills are different than running and growing a business, and those skills are also different than raising capital or exiting a business.

So I really appreciate what you're doing. And when I look back again to the early days, for better, for [00:17:00] worse, perhaps we're going in the right direction, perhaps we're not going in the right direction, With Level Zero, the insights, the strategies that you're sharing from your experiences from the trenches for the Deep Wealth Nation, it saves them countless hours of the heavy lifting, the frustration, perhaps we're working hard, we're not working smart.

So with level zero, you set the stage, you put us in the right direction. And now it's a perfect segue for level one. And this is again, where we're creating the blueprint. And as you talk about the blueprint, I'm going back to my own business journey now. And while I could have used some of those strategies back in the day, it would have saved me a lot of time and effort and heartache.

So from level one, what would you want the Deep Wealth Nation to know from a high level?

Robert Indries: Well, level one, I want the Wealth Nation to know that You, your ultimate responsibility as an owner is clarity, and level one helps you get clarity. Level zero, you set the foundation, but then with level one, where's the direction in which we're going, right? What's the vision? Like where do we see this to five [00:18:00] years from now?

You then state the mission very clearly. Why do we wake up every day? Why do we come to work? What's the impact that we're leaving, on a community, its clients and the world at large if, you're going global. All of these things align people. Whenever you look at the movie, the reason why people rally to someone is because that guy has it figured out, right?

Or that person, whatever, right? They have it figured people see clarity because almost everyone lacks clarity. If you look at the vast majority of people, they don't know why they work, like they're just at work. and this is a very good show of. Someone, if they have level one, because it's the seven levels of excellence, right?

So level zero of excellence, level one of excellence, right? So it's very easy to tell if I go into your business or any other business and I ask a random employee, why are you here today? Just because I have this tasks to do. Why are you doing those tasks? And literally just ask why, why, why?

And they have no idea why they're doing what I kid you not, this happens. [00:19:00] So often it's scary. You go to, especially companies that have employees, 90 percent of them just know that they have to file paperwork for whatever it is that they need to do. And the other guy just know that they need to content, but they have no idea of the overarching, goals that they're trying to achieve together.

And that I feel is the biggest failing point. That's why it's level one.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Robert, I couldn't agree more with everything that you're saying. And again, for the listeners, at the risk of repetition, go to the show notes, click on the link for Unshackled, get the book, begin to benefit from the strategies that are in there. Because again, Robert didn't hold anything back. This is from the trenches.

This is not theory. It's not a textbook. It's not the classroom. This is from Robert's experience. And so, Robert, let me ask you this. We get it. You're talking about the vision. You're talking about the mission. We need those things in place, particularly when we start going to level two. This is where we're laying the ground rules down.

We're looking to expand the team, bring new people in. And this is so critical. And in my experience, most entrepreneurs, and I put myself in this group when I first got going, I didn't get this [00:20:00] right. So when it comes to level two, we're putting in the ground rules. I love how you talk about you don't have to be alone and how you can set up that organizational chart and figure out what the whole team is going to look like so you can leverage all of that.

But that said, from a big picture, what do you want the Deep Wealth Nation to know about level two? What would be some of the key takeaways?

Robert Indries: About level two, I believe that too many people assume, they assume. You and I have the same habits, or they assume you and I talk the same way, even though we speak the same language that whatever you say, I will perceive exactly how you meant it, and vice versa, right? And people just assume, they have this assumption, and that assumption kills.

So many relationships, so many businesses, so many sales. I say this when we talk about sales, a some skilled sales, because you have the client, when would you be ready to move forward with this? And the client says, ASAP. And you're like, Oh, amazing. So let me send you a proposal. Let me send you a contract.

Let me send everything ASAP [00:21:00] for me means tomorrow. If that's an assumption you need to understand. So what we teach people, we say, okay, ASAP, could you please define what ASAP means in this specific context? And oh, this is definitely a Q thing, right? And you're in Q4 of last year, right? And that's ASAP for them, because why?

Next quarter, they're not even talking about, right? Like next quarter is already planned in the books, budget set, and so on and so forth. So you're not touching that. You're not getting into the fold next quarter. ASAP for them means one quarter after the next one. And so now all of a sudden, oh, I'll close this deal in four months.

Which for me is not the SAP, right? So those type of assumptions we call in the business, we say So number one, we have a document that says common sense reminders. So, for example, we have offices, and we have a category of common sense reminders for the office.

For example, if you are the last person, in the office to leave please make sure that you close all of the [00:22:00] lights and all of the windows, and then you close the door when you leave, right? It's a common sense reminder, right? But if you don't write it down, you come to the office the next day, and it's cold, like crazy, because someone left the window open and it's winter, and now the first people come to there are freezing and they need to wait 15 minutes until they get any sense of productivity, because all of a sudden, two minus below zero or whatever, and so things like that are common reminders or for example organizational standards.

Yes, that's how we call them. So we have organizational standards in our businesses. For example, we say, we do not swear. Doesn't matter the context. It doesn't matter the situation. We do not tolerate swearing. So basically, you have no excuse. And that's why we made it so firm. Because, otherwise people come up with excuses.

If a rule isn't firm, they can say, oh, I was very pissed at the client because they insulted me. Them, what they do with their life and how they act in their life. Should not have some impact on you that you change who you are. If you're a person that stays professional in a context, it doesn't [00:23:00] matter if the client starts yelling and insulting, you close the call and you send a text and you can say, I see you're very heated at the moment.

I refuse to have a conversation under these circumstances. Ping me when you're ready to have a calm adult conversation, and that's it. It's not being rude, that's not insulting, that's you maintaining your power over the situation. And we teach this in our book and in our companies, so that's basically laying the ground rules, right?

who are going to be the people on our team, right? For our quarterbacks, who are, you know, defense, for who's on attack and so on. So for you define every role, you define every rule of the game, this is how we're going to win, this is how we're going to measure success, et cetera, et cetera. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Actually, as you're talking about that, it reminds me of a Quote that goes something along the lines of, it takes years to build trust and to build a friendship. It takes seconds to destroy it, and it takes even longer, it could be decades, to restore it, if at all. And again, it goes back to the old saying, whoever said that business isn't personal, they never had a business. They never were in business. They never [00:24:00] ran a business. And sometimes our emotions can get the better of us. No one's perfect. Life happens. And so it's a really good note to make to ourselves and to really cement that in our mindset that we've got to put in the foundation right now.

For the business, how we're going to do this together, and who you hire, what that looks like, the people that you're bringing on board is absolutely key. Now, in our earlier episode, where you and I spoke for the first time, and again, Deep Wealth Nation, go to the show notes, it's point and click, you can listen to that episode.

We spoke a lot about the whole system that you put for hiring people, that's the engineering side of you, where you put on a point system, what to do, what to not do, what you're looking for, is this person a good fit, is not a good fit, you took the guesswork out of it, you took the art, but you also combined it with the science, and then combining that with offline, you and I were talking about how you as an investor are When you're looking at bringing on a portfolio company, you're asking yourself lots of questions, but one of the biggest questions you're asking, will the business run ultimately without [00:25:00] you and without the founder?

And I got to share, that is a page right of our playbook in the 90 day Deep Wealth Mastery Program. That's one of the questions that we ask. Whether you have an experienced management team in place, a leadership team in place or not, you're does the business run without you? And unfortunately, for most business owners, the answer is no.

This is pun intended. They are not unshackled. They are shackled because the business owner, every decision, big or small, has to go through them. So empowering the team. There's so much that you have in there. Again, for the Deep Wealth Nation, what do you want them to know?

Robert Indries: Oh, high level, I think it's about setting the right systems to measure competence, number one. So you don't want to relieve responsibility. You're still responsible for the business going well, right? You're just give the accountability of who needs to do this to someone else, right? And so you give that accountability, let's say your chief of sales on the sales front.

Is that person competent enough to take a decision on the systems that [00:26:00] we are going to use? Okay. And we're going to talk about that. Like we're going to see, are they competent? And we're going to test the competency, right? Let's implement the system. Let's do it as a demo. Let's do this. Let's do that.

Whatever, right? And then you can keep getting more and more confident. No one's asking people, owners and entrepreneurs, you just give your business to someone, right? And say, Hey, okay, you can handle customer support. You just do whatever you think is best. No, you should still have systems in place, right?

Like the ground rules we were talking about. Okay. And then build upon those and give people a freedom to say, this client is being a complete a hole and we should not work with them under these terms. So we should put our foot down and say, no, I will not allow you to speak to me that I do not need my manager for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

This is what we do. If you need anything else, these are a few options. Let's talk about it. But if you swear at me again, I will personally cancel your agreement, blah, blah, blah. You need to give them that power. You need to empower them. That's what we talk about in level three, right? Because they need to feel that [00:27:00] they're part of a game, right?

They have rules and everything needs to be played as per the game, because if make a follow if they, you know, yell at someone or if they, don't hit their KPIs, they're going to be penalized, right? two yellow cards, red card, like you can have just a certain amount of failures until we go and say, look, it's clear we're not a good culture fit.

Maybe you should find employment elsewhere and we will try to get these needs met by someone else. It's very, very simple. Normal thing to do. It's not like you married that person and, now you're wedlocked in religious can't, you know, leave or whatever. No, it's a business.

It's a team. So you empower them to take off decisions so that in critical moments, they have the competence to take the right decision.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Robert, as you're talking about making the right decision, I couldn't agree more. Once again, I'm going down memory lane. I'm going to the early days of Embanet. I didn't really know what I was doing, so I'm going to put myself under the microscope, again, I made more mistakes in the early days. If I had a dollar for every mistake, I would not have needed my exit. And I was [00:28:00] literally thinking, failing forward. At some points in time, particularly when relating to the staff, I didn't really have the boundaries. Perhaps I was too eager, maybe I was even too friendly.

Other times I wasn't friendly enough and I wasn't able to figure out the right mix, paid a price for that, had a lot of setbacks along the way. So when you're talking about this consistency, how we need that across the board is actually a perfect segue because when we now talk about the next step in your book, it's all about the business culture.

And for us here at Deep Wealth, that is huge because Step Two X Factors, one of the foundational X Factors is culture. So when it comes to level four, culture is also a big thing for you. And when you talk about a lasting culture, a culture that is rich and vibrant, again, we are on the same page.

From our observations, your competition with all their money, they can copy most of what we're doing, but all the money in the world Cannot copy a culture, especially when it's a rich and thriving culture. So all the money that your competition has, it's not going to get them your [00:29:00] business culture, which is like a unique fingerprint.

Our fingerprints are unique. Same thing with a business culture. You can't replicate that. So again, zooming out for Deep Wealth Nation, when it comes to level four, what do you want them to know?

Robert Indries: Well, something that I would say on, specifically on culture is that typically people have it wrong, right? And it's so much information that at this point I really need to tell them, get the book and read that chapter. Because literally even, I can't even get the high level sentence in because there are so many things that have to do with culture.

And this is where subjectivity kicks in because culture is the only layer where you can be subjective. Anything else should have a system and should be some culture is like in this company, we take Friday afternoon off because that's what we decide or in this company, every Tuesday is a pizza Tuesday, right?

Because everyone loves pizza or, or, you know, let's say, Oh you know, who did this amazingly well, a [00:30:00] company that's now called Blizzard Entertainment, right? They have issues with culture now, but at the beginning, they used to be a group of gamer. that was culture. They would build games. In their spare time together, they would play, they would literally sleep at the office.

There are six folks in an office, they would work for all day and whenever they would take breaks, they would still be in the same office with the same people playing video games together. That was the culture, right? And so that's strong you can't take that employee from there, because they love their life, right?

So that's what we're talking about. And I'm, for example, I used to be a gamer. I don't play as much as I used to, I just play maybe twice a year or something like that when I'm on vacation. However, I still can vibe like, for example, when someone like we do a 360 surveys and we talk about that in the book extensively, how to conduct surveys so that you get the feedback firsthand from your staff and then you can make improvements to your business based on that.

So people like, I found out a lot of people were actually gamers and they would have loved to have a game. So [00:31:00] guess what? We literally organized the game night in which we did, Hey, here are some games that people play and we can just go on in together and play those games. And then just build, unity, build the strength of our relationships, culture through that.

So there's too much in the chapter, too much wealth, like what terms of value, that you should have implemented if you don't already in your business.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Robert, so true. Once again, as you're going through that, it actually reminds me of a terrific analogy in business. Let's imagine for a moment we're leaving the world of business and we're now going to become a farmer or a gardener. I know it sounds crazy, but Robert, you can tell me if I'm on base or off base with this.

If I'm starting a garden, I can go out there, plant the seeds for the first day, give a little bit of water. I can then walk away, not do a heck of a lot. If I come back a few weeks or even a few months later, probably nothing's going to be there but weeds. The weeds took over the garden, whatever vegetation may have been there, perhaps some insects or other animals got to it, and there's nothing there.

The flip side, same analogy, I planted the seeds, I watered [00:32:00] them, but this time, instead of stepping away and ignoring it, I'm now coming back every day. I'm taking the weeds out. I'm putting all the water in, making sure that there's no infestation, and wouldn't you know it, when all is said and done, I have a beautiful garden. The produce is terrific. There's lots of food that's coming from there. 

Again, same analogy, two different approaches. We now take the same thing with the company culture, and this is where I'd love your insights on base, off base. With the company culture, if I become the example that I want to be, that I want to see in other people, that I'm putting the time and effort into changing myself, that other people will say that, hey, look what Jeffrey's doing, or look what he's not doing.

Let me step up to the plate. Let me do that for myself. I'm going to live it. Jeffrey's living it. Off we go with that. I'd love your take on that, Robert, in terms of What we should be doing to get the right kind of culture.

Robert Indries: Well, I think people tend to beat themselves up too much for being the example. You should be the example, yes, but being the example, like, when you talk about that, people tend to think in extremes, let's say adherence [00:33:00] to deadlines and milestones and, everything in between, right?

Like extreme ethics, right? Like an extreme professionalism and so on. Well, guess what, pal? You had a date. And so, and sometimes you really feel like working. Sometimes you're like, you're not even sick. You're like, I've worked hard for three weeks. I feel I need a day off. There's nothing wrong with you.

You're just, they're not feeling it. So many people beat themselves up for not being the ultimate, semblance of a culture. This is who you need to be, and so I highly recommend against that. We set to high there sometimes of perfection to ourselves when we wanna build culture and we need to understand that culture or a perfect culture is something to strive to work.

And your analogy is amazing because even if you have an entire grove that's perfect, exactly how you want it or, like a garden or, some land that you have in front of your house. That's perfect right now, give it a week, two weeks and so on, and the weeds will come in, right?

Those are the bad days, those are the, someone left, those are the client, was upset. Those are all of those things, [00:34:00] that basically make it more difficult to stick to your pre culture. But just like you said, this person in the company who used to be amazing, now has become, someone that can't work with.

So let's tell them, and something that we call PDPs in the book, let's tell them very clearly in the PDPs, let's see if they will change, and if they do not change, we need to remove it. And it's just as simple as that. And literally, they have been a pristine, beautiful flower before that, it just transformed into a weed.

And that might sound harsh, I'm just trying to use your analogy, they just change as a person, right? Now they're someone else, and they don't fit into our society anymore. For example, let's say we have Gaming community that we talked about, Blizzard, and let's say one of them, I'm gonna make a pun, I hope no one is offended, but let's say one of them finds Jesus, and so all of the games they used to play were like first person shooter games where you would like, kill others or whatever, and so on, and they're like, I'm not playing any of these games anymore, and guess what, the games they're working on are also first person shooters like Call of Duty or whatever, and so all of them, they're [00:35:00] not a good fit anymore, and it has nothing to do with them as a person they're not broken, they just said, hey, you know what, I don't resonate with this anymore.

I want to, build, Farm Frenzy or whatever. I want to build other games. I'm still a gamer. I just want to play different games from now on, right? I want to play gardening games or building games, like SimCity or whatever. I want to do other games. And so that's a perfectly reasonable change of events.

Now you need to, put that person into another garden. We will look exactly like everything else in the garden.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Robert, thanks so much for sharing some terrific insights in there. Now, for level five, you bring up some terrific strategies, and it reminds me of that old story, you're speaking to a business owner, and they're saying, hey, Jeffrey, my business is doing great, we are growing at 5 percent a year, and you pause, and you look at the business owner, and you say, well, hey, wait a minute, Jeffrey, that's okay, I guess, but the economy's growing at 25 percent a year.

So that business, it's growing at one fifth of what it should be. And so when it comes to level five, you're talking about KPIs, the key performance indicators, the data, what we should be measuring, that [00:36:00] old saying, what gets measured is what gets done. So for Deep Wealth Nation, what do you want them to know from a big picture wise of level five?

What's going on there?

Robert Indries: I want them to know that. Number one, for me personally, measuring is very difficult because I'm the type of guy that gets to work, Let's have a plan. Let's get to work. Measuring for me takes time and effort and energy. Typically, the way you know that you're in the zone is that you're working on things that don't take energy.

You're, you could do it all day, every day, like you love it. That's how you know you're doing something that you really enjoy and you should probably do more of that because you're just in the zone, you're captivated by it. So measuring is something I really don't like. And so I come from that perspective, right?

I really don't like measuring. However, I love the report. So what I do is I find amazing people that are OCD, like crazy, measure every dollar, every cent, everything. And it's not easy for me to basically be with them because we're so different, but I appreciate them so much [00:37:00] because If the mission isn't important enough, they will be annoying for you, because these are not people like you these are people like someone else and then those People have a different way of being, and we talk about that in the book they're completely different to you, and so it's like this person wants to measure measure, and here you, you want to do leave the measuring I don't want to measure, and they don't care about the doing, they just want to measure.

because the mission is very important we talked about mission, gen, rules, and so, we, a culture, everyone loves one another, everyone loves what we're doing, now, I don't mind that you're very different. Now, we thrive together. Those differences empower the team as a whole because your skill set of being completely OCD with every single thing that's going on is helpful for us to now say, Hey, we actually lost dollars on that deal.

And we couldn't have known if you wouldn't have been here. So we need to change how we work on this. We didn't even break even. We lost 20. And so if we keep selling this in this manner, we're going to take ourselves to bankruptcy, even if it looks pretty like we're getting [00:38:00] more clients, we have more revenue and so on.

At the end of the day, the cause, the hidden cause that we weren't looking at, but you have looked at, you know, like. slack and, admin and legal work and contracts and whatever, all of that has an intrinsic cost that adds up. And now, all of a sudden you're not as profitable as you thought you were, right?

And so that's one example. Obviously, there are so many other examples. Clearly, people, they think they're measuring everything in their business. I can tell you, With almost 100 percent certainty that no listener to this podcast and no disrespect to anyone is not measuring everything that is to be measured in their business, because I know I'm not, and I really try, like I really set systems up, and I know some are missing this KPI or we're missing that one or whatever.

Because if you look at the quantity of KPIs that can be measured in the business, it's literally in the hundreds. And I'm so sure that, you're not measuring all of them. It's just so difficult.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Now, Robert, you know what you're absolutely right. I'm thinking back to Embanet now. This is during our high growth stage. We were out there creating a market disruption. [00:39:00] Hindsight, the benefit of hindsight, looking back now, I can tell you with certainty, there are some areas we simply weren't measuring, but we should have been measuring.

As successful as you were, this would have made us even more successful. So you're absolutely right. We can't get all of it, but we can certainly do our best, not beat ourselves up for that, and it's actually a great segue as we now go to level 10. And I got to tell you that level 10, this was one of my favorites.

And what I love about level 10, what you're bringing to us, Robert, the insights that you're sharing. It reminds me of the situation where the success that we're having today, as great as it is, it contains the seeds of tomorrow's failure. And at first blush, it sounds off, but let me say that again, the success that we have today, it contains the seeds of tomorrow's failure.

So in other words, if we don't do anything, if we keep the status quo, ultimately, we're going to fail. The marketplace changes, our competition is going to catch up, put us out of business instead of the other way around. And all we have to do is look to the history books in business, there are so [00:40:00] many stories where the titans of business had this spectacular fall, not in a good way though, because they took their eye off the ball.

They got too comfortable with what they were doing. And so with that in mind, I'm wondering for the Deep Wealth Nation, when we're talking about level 10, from a high level, what would you want them to know?

Robert Indries: I believe that. If you set up a business correctly, it should run 100 percent so in terms of the business asset, if you get to level five, you have a self sustaining business.

Everyone loves their work there. The business is growing as fast as you want it to grow so on and so forth. It doesn't need your involvement, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Everything is there up until level five. Level 10 is the owner's level. It's the founders level or the CEO or the director, because they're big companies in which even three levels down, like you have C level VPs and directors, even directors can have like 5, 000 people under them sometimes, right?

So you're basically the owner of that, like you're the CEO of those 5, 000 or 500 people within your org. So even for you, [00:41:00] Unshackled makes sense. So if you're in any way and you can be in a leadership position, again, Three, four, five goes down in the org, depends on how big the company is.

You are responsible for staying ahead of the curve, because whilst your team is working on everything, doing everything, you need to have a Zen mind and say, okay, this is reality today, but what's going to happen next quarter, the quarter after that, year after that, and so on and so forth. Because you can't expect people that are giving their all in the day to also have with left to think about the future.

So that's your role as a leader. Now you step in and say, what do I actually need to do to future proof this business? Or what does the business need to do to future proof itself? Basically, the question that you ask. And so in that, it's very important that you take all of the steps we talk about seriously, and at level 10, and we have self assessment.

We have checklists. We [00:42:00] have FAQs in the book. It's literally within based on over a thousand sessions of coaching. Everything's there in the book. So people take level 10 for granted. The ones that do stay with a glorified job. I kid you not, it's. It's very dangerous. It's fine if that's what you want to do.

Or, if your ego is too big to let go, you're like no, I am running the show. There are people like that. And if you're like that's fine. Whatever. As long as you're doing good in the world, I'm fine. That's fine. Keep your role. Level 10 means 100%. It can take a six month sabbatical.

And in six months, come back with a three year game plan that's going to completely shift the business and be like, everyone will be freaking like, wow, how did you come up with this, these cool ideas and these perspectives? Well, guess what? I'm at level 10. I am 10 steps ahead of anything that's going.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, I love that, Robert, 10 steps ahead. And you know, when I started Embanet at the very beginning, yes, I was 10 steps ahead. I was doing the visionary kinds of things. I was having the mission. It was exciting. But guess what? The company started [00:43:00] to grow. It became successful. Instead of working on the business, I began to work in the business.

I got pulled into all these different issues, and I wasn't doing what I was best at doing. And for a while, we weren't 10 steps ahead. We were ten steps behind, maybe a hundred steps behind. And it took me a while to figure out. And for all the business owners out there, it's a great question for you.

Deep Wealth Nation, does your business run without you? It's a simple yes or no question. And you know, for me, for a large part of the years at Embanet, the answer was no. But when I finally got it right. I became really a board of director in the company. I hired people that were smarter than me, they were better than me, I fired myself, and I got back to doing what I love the best.

I wasn't keeping the status quo, it was how do I disrupt the status quo? What's the next problem that I can solve? How do I get creative? I lost the golden handcuffs. After all, when we start a business, for most of us, we're starting the business for a lifestyle, that we have our own schedule, we answer to ourselves.

I finally got back to that point. For many years, I couldn't do that. And so from [00:44:00] that perspective, pun intended, most entrepreneurs, they are shackled to the business. They are not unshackled. And it's only when you unshackle yourself, that's when the magic begins to happen.

And so, Robert, it's a terrific reminder of why we need to be at level 10, 10 steps ahead of where we should be, as we're always looking to the future, how we're going to create the next market disruption, how we're going to solve that next big painful problem. And I know there's all kinds of resources in the book.

Also on the website. Again, Deep Wealth Nation, go to the show notes. Click on the links. It's all there for you. Before we go into Rapid Mode, Robert, I'm wondering, is there a question that I haven't asked? Is there a topic that we haven't covered? Or is there even a message that you'd like to share with Deep Wealth Nation?

Robert Indries: I believe I'm at leadership at all levels and especially anything that's managerial or directorial levels and so on and so forth. So in my companies, I have. People read on Shackled below owner level. And I recommend people do that. I recommend businesses do that because if, imagine if each [00:45:00] one of your CEOs or VPs or directors and high level managers think in that way they empower their team, they build an amazing culture.

They have a vision for their team to succeed. And so imagine if everyone in your org. that has a managerial and leadership position thinks in the same way, all of them will be unshackled. If you have 10 people in your leadership, imagine having 10 amazing CEOs of whatever it is that they control. Whether they control a team of 10 or a team of 500, right?

These people can now Help the entirety of the business grow so much more, right? And the people that really nail this, those are the companies that become multi billion dollar entities. And I cannot stress enough, the reason why we have General Electric, It's because they had this different CEO for GE Aviation and a different CEO for General Electric Energy.

And the reason we have Microsoft where it is because they have a CEO for Xbox and they have a CEO for Surface laptops and they have a CEO for [00:46:00] Office, the Office suite of Microsoft and so on and so forth. They have leadership teams within leadership teams. The, all of these are unshackled.

They're given the authority to be unshackled and that is how billion dollar entities, there's no other way 

Jeffrey Feldberg: So true, Robert couldn't agree more with everything that you're saying. So much wisdom in there. Deep Wealth Nation, did you pick up on that? Robert is putting it all out there. Again, these are strategies from the trenches, not the classroom, not theory, not a textbook. This is what works for Robert. It's what's working for his portfolio companies.

You've done this, it's tried and true. And so, Robert, you're no stranger to the Deep Wealth Podcast. As we go into wrap up mode, as you know, I have the privilege, the honor for every guest to ask them the same question. Now, I've shared this question with you before. Who knows where you're going to take us today?

I can't wait to hear your answer, but let me remind you what that question is.

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, Robert, now's the fun part. It's tomorrow morning, you look outside your window, not only is the DeLorean car there, the [00:47:00] door is waiting for you to hop on in, which you do, and you're now going to go to any point in your life.

Robert as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time it would be, what are you asking your younger self in terms of life lessons or life wisdom? Hey, Robert, do this, but don't do that. What would that sound like?

Robert Indries: It would be very interesting to look at a version of my life when I took measuring seriously sooner. Measuring everything in my life, right? Like I would recommend, Hey, measure your health, measure how much time and the quality of time, with your loved ones, with your spouse or with your family.

Measure sales is going, measure how marketing is going, measure how to measure your profitability, measure everything sooner, right? And that's important in your life, whether that's. You know how you sing at the piano, right? Maybe you know one song. Okay, a measurement is, how many songs do I know?

How many songs can I play? And so on and so forth. Or how many different not courses, you know what I mean? Like how many different levels of music I can touch with the same song. And so, you should measure [00:48:00] everything that's important in your life. And someone can say, well, you can't measure love.

I don't agree. just measure how many acts of service, there are five love languages, right? That's it. There's, all of it is written down for you. There's no guesswork in love, right? These are five things that you could do to love someone and to be loved by someone, right? And so measure yourself in all of these five.

Have I rendered acts of service? Have I, been intimate with them? Have I, given words of affirmation instead of, being a pain or being mean, have I been loving in my words, et cetera, et cetera. So you can measure everything and that's what I would recommend my younger self, start measuring everything now.

Jeffrey Feldberg: What a terrific takeaway, Deep Wealth Nation. Did you pick up on that? Start measuring everything now. And Robert, you know what? You're right. Because whether we measure or don't measure, the time is going to pass anyway. So why not ensure that we're heading in the right direction? Just like that proverbial airplane, when it's flying to its destination, most of the time, It's off course, but the pilot is always making small little corrections and eventually it gets a destination the same way in life.

[00:49:00] Time goes by in the blink of an eye. Let's make sure that we're making those small corrections every step of the way so that we can hit our personal goals and our business goals out of the park. 

So Robert, speaking of questions, if a member of the Deep Wealth Nation, they have a question, they want to reach out, they want to speak with you, who knows, maybe they even want to become one of your portfolio companies. What would be the best place online for someone to reach you?

Robert Indries: Google my full name, they should find myfullname. com, robertindej. com. And if they email mail at robertindej. com, I have a team of four assistants. One of them will pick the email. The only thing that they need to say is that they've heard about us on your podcast or mentioned Jeffrey and then I promise to reply to them personally if they do. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Deep Wealth Nation, did you pick up on that? Reach out to Robert, mention the Deep Wealth Podcast. That's like the magic key. It's gonna unlock access to Robert. You can ask him anything at that point. And again, Deep Wealth Nation, go to the show notes, click on the link for the book, Unshackled: The Seven Levels of Business Excellence. These strategies are from the trenches. [00:50:00] They will help you move the dial on your business so you can get there quicker. And Robert, once again, congratulations. It's official.

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

Robert Indries: Thank you as well. 

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.

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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.