time to get SHARPER! How to Run Your Business

Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Real Estate Disruptors. So we have my friends Gary and Susan Harper with Sharper Solutions, and they flew in from Crown Point, Indiana to talk about how they went from consulting Fortune 500 companies to consulting the top investors in the country while building an empire along the way. If this is your first time tuning in, I'm Steve Trang, sales trainer for some of the top wholesalers in the country, and I wanna mention to create 100 millionaires. Question I get all the time is how to become one of the 100 millionaires.

The information on this podcast alone is enough to help you become a millionaire in the next five to seven years. Just take consistent action, and you will become one. When you hear a nugget, please type in the comment section after the show, and then if I use identify your single biggest takeaway and focus on just that for the next seven days. If you get value today, please tag your friend below, share this episode right now. That way, we can all grow together.

And this is a live show, so please ask your questions for Gary and Susan to answer. You guys ready? Yep. Alright. So first question is, what got you into real estate?

Gary Harper: What got us into real estate? So the job of being in the world, right, like, every day and, chasing after that that elusive freedom. Right? And wanting to get away from a JOB. My brother-in-law actually in '97, '95, '97, got me started in real estate.

And, he was reading I don't know if people are gonna know this name, but, Carlton Sheets. So

Steve: Some people on the

Gary: show. Yeah. So we had Carlton Sheets cassette tapes. That's what we had. Right?

That's when we first started in real estate. So that's where it kind of started for me is just working with my brother-in-law. He actually helped me. I was a laborer for him for a long time. And then probably by 2004, I really wanted to take a deeper dive into it.

And so that's what got me going is just wanting to get out of that job, wanting to to create some freedom for Susan and I. Mhmm. And, and honestly, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Carlton Sheets, like, the OG years of this and the the nineties inspired me.

Steve: So you started reading at 97. Yeah. But you were still working job until 2004?

Gary: No. I worked a job till 2010, 2011 in that time frame, but I got into real estate really full time or tried to be an active investor by 2004.

Steve: Okay.

Gary: I was passively working with my brother-in-law, you know, on the side. Wayne? Yeah. Wayne. Yeah.

And he was rehabbing houses and getting rentals and, you know, chasing that rich dad, poor dad mindset of getting a bunch of rentals. And, so we did that and I just helped them clean them out and get them ready and things like that to make some, like, some supplemental income. And by 2004, I'm like, man, I ain't doing this. I need to start building my own. Right?

Right. And it didn't do it quite right in 2004, but learned a lot of life lessons along the

Steve: journey for sure. And then you guys were married all prior to this.

Speaker 2: Yeah. We So you were seven. So

Steve: involved with whether you liked it or not, you were

Speaker: Pretty much. Yeah.

Gary: So I

Speaker: was a school teacher for seventeen years.

Steve: Okay.

Speaker: And so my day ended at 03:00 every day. So I was the fun school teacher. I didn't have homework or, you know, tests or anything like that. So I didn't have really an after school job, so that became my job. We got into property management right away.

I did all the collections for property management.

Steve: Property management. Yeah. The funnest part in real estate.

Speaker: You know? Real estate. It's kind of fun for me. I didn't mind it. And then, yeah.

Steve: Oh, man. That sounds like a nightmare.

Gary: Yeah. She would do our collection. She

Speaker: would collections.

Gary: Yeah. I wouldn't knocked on the doors at the time, and and, and we then we opened it up and expanded with me and my brother-in-law. We had a company called Calumet North Properties, and, we were managing a couple 100 doors at the time. And then I just started burning out, trying to do that and do my job full time in Chicago. And being honest with you, I started to take a step back from real estate because I had one executive of the year, like eight out of ten years.

And so my career was really taken off in corporate America. And so I was putting less effort in real estate and more effort in growing that career.

Steve: Was it the accolades or was the money?

Gary: You know, I just, probably both. I mean, by the 2010, I was pretty ego driven. Like I was, I was very egotistical. I actually, just being transparent. I mean, I was, you know, I was, I became a, you know, a leader in a fortune 500 company by the time I was 22 years old.

Oh. So like, by that time I was like, you know, I, I, I needed to be humbled. Let me tell you. I hadn't been humbled yet. Yeah.

And life started to humbling me. I got a lot of humble buy from 2006, about 2011. So

Steve: Okay. What was that?

Gary: So, I mean, I I bought wrong. I bought too deep in real estate, in regards to the, the, you know, loan to value. And so when the market crashed, a lot of these properties, we, you know, we we started struggling with them. We started struggling collecting rents. We started struggling.

We also had reassessed on taxes and where we lived in Northwest Indiana. And so they were two years in a rear on collecting taxes. When they reassessed, it dropped our escrows. Like, plummeted or we didn't have enough money to cover.

Steve: Oh, because, you guys bought it too deep. The escrow was lower?

Gary: Well, no. We cut well, two right things. We bought too deep. And then on top of that, the city or the county didn't accrue enough money for escrow. Mhmm.

They were so far in the rear. So when they reassessed, they were like, we've been under accruing.

Steve: So they went ahead and went back. Right. And they're, like, kind of a clawback.

Gary: So now we got to charge you more. Right? And you got to escrow more to make up the shortage and for future. Yeah. So it was ridiculous.

It's like tripled my mortgage payments on all my stuff, on all the stuff I had loans on.

Steve: Can you elaborate on buying too deep?

Gary: Yeah. So when when the market dropped, you know, and the the property values dropped, I mean, they dropped so low in my area that I dropped we dropped in some cases 50% of ARV. Mhmm. And so I'm at sitting at sitting at 65, just 85%. And the ones I was higher on, like, I couldn't get out of the house.

Yeah. I was stuck. And so we bought too deep, and now this that's probably my problem.

Steve: So many properties you bought too deep.

Gary: Yeah. Well, I mean, any one of them would have been a problem. Right? Because I bought them too deep. I couldn't get rid of them.

And then when you compound that with how many we had, now we're in trouble.

Steve: I guess I just wanna clarify because I think, like, you bought them too high?

Speaker: We paid too much.

Steve: Paid too much.

Gary: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I paid too much.

Speaker: So buy them deep enough.

Steve: Got it.

Gary: Oh, yeah. So I I think I think it a little different. Like, I'm I'm getting too close to ARV. Right? Yeah.

When I'm paying too much. So that was my mindset. So yeah. So I was just I I've gotten, you know, paid way too much for the properties. Bought wrong basically.

And when they dropped in value, I was stuck. Yeah.

Steve: A lot of people got stuck in that situation. So that was 2007, 2008.

Gary: So it was about that time too. I carried it. So we had a lot of money in savings. I wouldn't met with the bank. A lot of people were just like keeping the rents and not paying their banks or lenders.

I wouldn't do that. I refused to do it. So I the lady's name was Monique. I met with her every week. I gave her every dime I had.

Like, and we even gave her all our savings up to that point because of my name meant a lot to

Steve: me. Right.

Gary: And so and then I still had a job in corporate America, so it wasn't my only stream of income either. Right? Right. So I had that luxury of being able to fall back on my job.

Steve: So you're doing all this and you're still working your other job, which you're doing really well at. Yeah. So you're working hard. You're paying a lot of money. You're making a lot of money.

Yeah. And you're Spend

Speaker: a lot on money.

Steve: And then you're and you put it right back in those mortgages.

Gary: Yeah. I was like, what am I doing? Like, this was supposed to be my freedom plan. It's taking every extra dollar I have now to keep it going. And then when the taxes reassessed and it put us even farther, the mortgages were higher.

It was just, it was like the perfect storm. It was insane what happened. So So

Steve: when was that exactly?

Gary: So we kept it going for about three years. So about twenty ten. 2010. Yeah. And by that time, even the lady though at the bank, she was just like, you, you need to file bankruptcy.

So she's like, I'm like, well, I don't really want to do that, but let's, let's figure out another way around this. So we figured out a way. She ended up being very kind to us, and we we we worked really hard with her to try to try to keep it going. But, unfortunately, by 2010, I ended up filing bankruptcy. I ended up losing it all that year.

It wasn't just that year I lost financially. I I lost health that year. I got Lyme disease, almost passed away and, and went back to, like, a five year old mental state for six months.

Steve: Do you think the stress you received or, you know, endured from between working a crazy cause you weren't working twenty, thirty hours a week. You were working crazy hours on the road. Yeah.

Speaker: Plus another job.

Steve: Yeah. Do you think that contributed to the health situation?

Gary: Yeah. I'm sure it did. I mean, I think I think obviously it lowers your immune system when you have that much stress, right, on your body. And, so being an executive, I had over, 50 mid level management that reported to me. I had two of our largest accounts going out to RFP that year, request for pricing.

So they were looking at competitors of coaching. And so, you know, there was all that, the stress of corporate America, the stress of, like, I gotta be able to get out of this hole. All that just kinda came together and then it was kinda the perfect storm. I remember that year I turned to Susan, I said two things. I was I was a lot heavier.

I said, I want to lose weight. My goal is this year new year's resolutions, lose weight and increase my faith with God. That's the two things I wanted to do. And it was an opportunity to increase your faith. In both, in both areas.

I dropped to like one hundred and thirty pounds with the disease and you know, my faith really got increased that year in a really big way. But humble pie is, is something I ate a lot of that year and realized just talking to a guy yesterday and I said, you know, the more success I've had, the more I find myself on my knees. Yeah. Because I know how quickly it can be gone tomorrow.

Steve: Oh, yeah. And that's the thing that's always kinda, in the back of your mind, something kinda scary to think about. So let's talk about what kind of consulting you did because I'm interested to hear how much of your consulting in the past is in line with the consulting you do today.

Gary: So what were you consulting on? Business processes. Business process outsourcing. It's called BPO. Yeah.

And, I work for, Canon. Canon business process outsourcing is a division of them. Part of that

Steve: Canon the printer company? Or

Gary: Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. I guess camera. Camera, printers.

Gary: They had a little bit of everything. Had multiple divisions, and one of them was, Canon Business Process Outsourcing.

Steve: Which had nothing to do with what they're known for.

Speaker: The cameras are

Gary: Not really.

Steve: Okay. Interesting. I had no idea. Okay. So as a consultant Yeah.

You would travel to other corporations.

Gary: Fortune 500 companies.

Steve: And you would consult them on businesses, which like, I mean, are you meeting like C level executives? Are you meeting like management? Like who are you talking to?

Gary: Yeah, no, like, I mean, Rotary International was Ed Fuda at the time. He was the general secretary and, you know, he was usually executive level people, fortune 500 companies that we met with. And, and we would go in and it would be particular to a certain niche or a certain part of the business. It wasn't as a whole operating system, like similar to what we do now, but we did the Kaizen events and Six Sigma process mapping, leaning out their their process, trying to streamline processes for the organization. Yeah.

We focus directly on, like, their, media and and mail and and distribution of materials and things like that, records management, all that kind of stuff.

Steve: Gotcha.

Gary: We did that. We did it for law firms. We did it for all kinds of niches.

Steve: Okay. So you you're having this success. You're traveling, and then you end up upside down, a lot of properties.

Gary: Yeah.

Steve: And then you get Lyme disease.

Gary: Yeah.

Steve: So for people that don't know what it is, you might elaborate on Lyme diseases.

Gary: So Lyme disease is spirochete, and it's one of the It's what? Spirochete. It's a it's a parasite. Okay. And it invades the body through mainly tics.

There I believe there's other ways that it invades the body, but ticks is what it's most known for. And it it creates a disruption in the body just like any pie parasite does. Gone unnoticed or uncontrolled, it can create long life effects on the body. And, for me, it bit me in a really weird spot. It built me right on my back of my neck, my c five, my c sixes, and it went straight into my spine.

Injection of the spirochete and the disease went straight in. And so it got in my nervous system, got in my brain. Like, I was in pretty bad shape within weeks of months.

Steve: Was it because, like, your brain was swelling that

Gary: Yeah. So I had a form I mean, it was like meningitis. My brain had an infection, and we couldn't figure out what it was. Right? They didn't even know I had it for a long time.

Matter of fact, I was losing weight, and everybody's like, you're in great shape. You know? Like, I don't feel good. I was having about 26 panic attacks a day because of the nervous system infection I got. And, anyway was

Steve: not really good with the job you had.

Gary: Yeah. Couldn't drive anymore, which was really hard. I I would leave every Monday and fly and come back on Thursdays and kinda stop doing that. Like, it was really affecting my job to the point one day I was meeting with three executives. I had to pick up pick up the senior vice president of the company at the airport, and Susan had to drive.

Steve: Yeah.

Gary: He was like, what is going on? Like, why is your wife in the car? Right. Like, you need to take FMLA and figure

Steve: this out.

Gary: Right? So I had to. I didn't have a choice.

Steve: Right.

Gary: And it just went downhill after that from a health perspective, but I was able to pull out, you know, take full to God that he allowed us to regain our strength and mental capacity.

Steve: So I just wanna put this in perspective because a lot of people run into adversity, but, you know, I think it's all relative.

Gary: Yeah.

Steve: Right? So, I mean, when you were at the bottom, I mean, what was your situation? What were what were the circumstances?

Gary: Well, I I'm I'm making it as simple as this. I couldn't afford a 50¢ cup of coffee. Yeah. Right? Like, that's where it got to.

I remember driving her to Dunkin'. She has gets massive headaches and driving her there. And as we go up to the Dunkin', I'm like, we're looking for change. Our I mean, I was making 200,000 plus a year, and now I can't afford a cup of coffee. So if that puts it in perspective where we fell to.

Steve: Yeah.

Gary: And and it wasn't because I didn't have I had investments in different things, four zero one k, things like that. But my job didn't wanna let me go. They actually held on to my job for over six months or more. Right? They wanted me back.

And I had been very successful for them, made them a lot of money. So that's why they wanted me back, but I couldn't tap into any of that because it was all locked up. You know? So we were at a point that, you know, we just had to figure it out. I mean, we were cleaning out houses on the side.

We were he was doing three jobs, answering telemarketing calls at night at 02:00 in the morning. Like, we were doing everything we had to do to survive. And you go from highly successful. I was in a you know, I was an executive by the time I was 22 years old to now 35 years old and, you know, and not being able to walk in down up and down an aisle in a store without her holding my hand. Yeah.

A little humbly. Right?

Steve: For sure. So, I mean, what was your experience in in all of this?

Speaker: Yeah. Just watching him go through that was was painful, but it's like we're not giving up. We don't we don't believe in that word. So, we'll figure it out.

Gary: So Yeah.

Speaker: You know, like you said, we I did three jobs.

Steve: So a school teacher?

Speaker: Still a school teacher. Then I would you know, we knew so many people in real estate. It was like, hey. What work can we do? I've got two teenage kids.

We can clean out properties. We can paint. I I seriously believe I can do anything. So it's like, hey. Well, let's do drywall today.

I can do that. Let's go for it.

Steve: Yeah.

Speaker: So, yeah. We we do some fix and flip properties. We do the labor part of it for for people. We clean them. We paint for them.

Our son did a lawn mowing business, started that a couple years ago. So every summer, I was the driver for the lawn mowing business.

Steve: And Oh, awesome.

Speaker: Like, hey. We're just all gonna pitch in and, you know, we did a cleaning job so the kids' kids' schooling could get paid for because they were in a private Christian school. And, the things that we held important is, you know, we got to keep and

Gary: got to

Speaker: do. Our daughter was in eighth grade, and our son was in six. They were about So

Steve: they were watching this.

Speaker: And 12.

Steve: Okay. So then what turned things around?

Gary: So, I mean, I I was relentless in trying to figure out what was how to get better. And to the point, people was like, just let it go. Like, I was spending a ton of money every extra dime we had at that point savings. Went to

Speaker: a new doctor.

Gary: Went to a new doctor, and everybody kept saying there's nothing wrong with me. Kept getting this old blue pill telling me I had anxiety, and that was all was wrong with me. But I knew I left home at 16 years old. Right? I dropped out of school in tenth grade.

I got my GED, went to college. You know, like, I didn't I've never had it in me not to push hard. And when I knew that was broke, something was broke. And I was like, this isn't me. And so, like, I knew that, and I I believed in myself enough to know that I had to figure it out, and I owed my family that.

So we finally found a doctor that that was willing to sit there and listen for four hours. He just listened and went and ran all these tests and all this different stuff. And he's like and we've talked about I won a trip to Jamaica that year, and I cut my toe up, put it on the coral reef, and he was like, we got a parasite this. And then they started going down that path of parasites. He's like, were you ever bit by anything?

I was like, well, I was bit by tick in May. Like, where? Back of my neck. He was like, have you ever been tested for Lyme disease? I don't even know what Lyme disease is.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, I think we actually get tested. It was weird because it came back, like, with a false positive, And then I had did a Western blot test because the infection was out of my blood at that point. It hadn't made its way into my organs and with the parasite.

So we did this Western blot and that came back positive and it was like, okay, now we have an answer.

Steve: Yeah.

Gary: And so and at that point, it may have been we thought it was too late. He actually told Susan I had about six months left, and he told her to start planning for me not to be here anymore. The infectious in my heart, my brain, it was a little everywhere. And so we actually found another doctor out of Washington, Seattle, which is where we're going tomorrow. And he, and he took a call from me, which I'm surprised till today he did.

And he was able to give me some treatments and tell me some different antibiotics that we needed to try and different professionals we needed to go see. And took about two weeks from that call that I woke up and finally had, like, the aura was gone. This feeling of euphoria around my head, like I couldn't see peripherally anymore. It was back. And it was like, I still get goosebumps thinking about it.

Like, I just woke up and I knew I was back. Yeah. I knew I was healing. And it took me a good year from that point on to heal. And I remember, you know, my job was open and I called them.

I'm like, I don't think I'm coming back, you know? And they're like, wow. How cool. Let's do this. And then my brother-in-law, Wayne, I called him, who's kind of was a mentor for me most of my life.

And, and he goes, hey, my mom and dad, like, loved me, supported me through this whole time. And they paid our bills. They did certain things for us that people, you know, parents do. I mean, you don't expect it, but they do it when they have to. But Wayne, he's like, hey, Gary.

Do you think God took you out of that? Just put you right back in it? And I'm like, man, don't say that. Like, that's a that's horrible. Like, I need money right now.

Like, he's like, why don't why don't you come and join me, man? I mean, this time you go full time with me in real estate. And what a blessing it was. I think he did about 40 some deals that year before me, and then I was able to join the team and we built over 30 along with anyone. So it wasn't just me, but our team was able to grow.

And and now I look around the country and see the people came off that team. Like Dave Richter was on that team and Josh Koller was on our team. And, like, it's crazy because they're out doing so many great things now, but we built it to do 300 deals a year out of Northwest Indiana.

Steve: So did you along this time, I know that your your, Canon was holding out hope for you to come back. Yeah. So will they they were there for you the whole time?

Gary: Yeah.

Steve: They were there for me. Cut you? No. Okay. So it's

Speaker: the the position. They was actually getting a

Gary: Executive Yeah. Raise and a growth plan to move to Houston.

Steve: And, And you told them, like, hey. This isn't good.

Gary: Yeah. I I've been cut I got cussed out pretty good on that call. No.

Speaker: A great call.

Gary: Like, what do you mean you're not coming back? I'm like, you know? You know, I'm gonna do this. And they're like

Speaker: It says your health wasn't a 100%. Yeah. So putting that more stress on it, we didn't really think that'd be a great idea either.

Steve: So So just for, again, for perspective for everyone else, like, what was the pay that you're walking away from to go chase your dreams in real estate?

Gary: So at the time, I mean, base was close to $1.20, and then, you know, and then on corporate America, you have potential with with more to that to to gross out $1.50 to 200 depending on what year I look like and how many clients I had and thinking that.

Steve: A 120 to 150 to 200 goes pretty far in Indiana.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Gary: Oh, yeah. So

Speaker: Very far.

Gary: So when we Cost of

Speaker: living there is really cheap.

Gary: We set our free we set three marks for ourselves when when we started real estate. One was our freedom mark, one was our healthy mark, one was our abundant mark. And so freedom for us has always been 5,312 a month. That's what we needed in cash flow to be free. And that means

Speaker: our bills.

Gary: Yeah. Pay our bills. And, honestly, we haven't changed much of that. Like, we still live in the same house. Most people would be surprised.

I still live in, like, a 2,000 square foot by level. I mean, it's nice to put a lot of money in fixing it up, but I don't wanna change that that freedom mark for myself. As soon as I change it, like and if I lost it all, something happened, you know, some of these things we don't control. Like, I don't you don't control getting bit by tick. Yeah.

You know? And it's not a fear thing. It's just a respect thing. It's a reality. Yeah.

And so I I don't need it. I don't live abundantly. I don't have a lot of fun fancy stuff. And I just I I enjoy what we have. I enjoy my time.

I think at some point, you stop valuing money. You start valuing time. Mhmm. I can tell you this, Steve. One of the things when I teach customers, I talk about purpose.

And I know your purpose and I love your purpose. We were talking about it out there today. And I love it because it's it's about investing in other people. So purpose is a big driver for me. Right?

And so when we know our purpose and we drive after our purpose, here's the thing. When I came to the end of my life or perceived in my life, the doctor says you have six months left. When somebody says that to you, you give an you have to give an account of what you've done with your time. Right? I always say that you better be a good steward of the time God's given you.

Because at some point, you're gonna answer to it. Right? And when you get an opportunity to answer to it and actually come out of it again, like I have, you value time.

Steve: Yeah.

Gary: You value it in a really big way because there's, you know, there's not too many people get looked at 35. And I I know there's a lot of people, maybe a lot of people on here that were facing, types types of situation that may be taking their life. But when you get that question, you don't know, and you can't honestly answer you were a good steward of the time you were given.

Steve: Mhmm.

Gary: You start really valuing what you do with it. On.

Steve: Yeah. So there's no amount of cussing on their end that was gonna bring you back?

Gary: No. No. Not at that point.

Speaker: It took him away from everything. It took him away from us. It took him away from being able to help people. He was just a corporate rat stuck in a wheel.

Steve: Yeah. So freedom, 5312. Yeah. What's that? What's the next number?

What's the

Gary: 12 was my healthy mark.

Steve: Healthy. Yeah.

Gary: That'd be nice dinners. That would be, like, vacations, getting away, doing some stuff together as a family throughout the year, things like that. And then also, you know, still giving, but just not abundantly.

Steve: Mhmm.

Gary: Right? Like, we're still gonna be givers. We're gonna be givers at 5,000 a year, 5,000 a month. We're only givers at 12 as well. But 22,000 was the abundant mark for us, and, that was us being able to abundantly give back.

Right?

Steve: What does abundantly give back mean?

Gary: So I have a goal of giving $2,600,000 in one year to the Lord's work. That's what my goal. I mean, this year we're trying to build a, a a church in The Philippines. You know, we we just talked last night on the way here. There's a lady that's going to work in an orphanage and she reached out to us and she's, like, right around $5,000.

And she's like, let's do it. Like, you know, let's help her.

Steve: So is it, like, anything over 22,000 is just going to charity?

Gary: So no. I mean, anything up to 22,000, we're still going to charity. It's just now, like, now it's gonna be a 100% abundant at that point. What I mean by abundance is it's it's at least 50% of what we bring in. Right?

Is what's gonna go in to to the Lord's work or other things that we we determined. But, but, yeah, the goal of 2,600,000.0 in one year is is what we wanna achieve by 2026. Hopefully we achieve it well before 2026.

Steve: So you partnered up or you, you worked with Wayne? Yeah. What were you doing for Wayne?

Gary: So when I started off, I was, I bought and sold houses in Michigan. So what I did, I did.

Steve: I mean, I don't know if they had they call them acquisition guys back then.

Gary: Yeah. We sells. We did acquisitions and dispositions that are Yeah. But no. I mean, it's not like I walked in and hand the keys to me or anything.

Right? Like, he's like, you got you know, he's my older brother, basically. You gotta earn it, you know? And so I came in and started building systems and processes for him like I did corporate America and and started structuring the company. And the only way to me so I was doing that, but I was doing it more free.

And if I got paid is I had to buy and sell house. Everybody there had to buy and sell a house if you wanted to be there, basically. It's a mindset.

Steve: So you're an integrator and a salesperson?

Gary: Yeah. Pretty much. And so So you're only gonna

Steve: pay for the sales? Right.

Gary: That's good. That's what it was. If you

Steve: wanna work for me, let

Gary: me know. Yeah. But, you know, and then I had to figure it out because he's like, hey. You know, this area down here where we are, I I already got people here. You know, if you're going to buy and sell, make extra money, you got to do it up in Michigan, which is like two

Steve: hours

Gary: from my house. Yeah. I'm like, well, I can't drive yet. I still was still recovering. So I had to figure out this is back for nobody was talking about virtual wholesaling.

And I had to figure it out since I was on 11/2012. I had to figure out how to so we've I've virtually wholesale over 150 houses in Michigan. Yeah. You know, just just trying to figure it out, you know? And so I and through that, me and Wayne were able to to grow the business.

And then, I had a couple of people that worked there with us, Tom Olson and some other gentlemen, Dave Richter, Josh Kohler, and those guys started joining and more. There were so many more. But, got to a point where Wayne and I partnered in another company called Good Success together, and we were part owners of that together. And the whole idea behind that was helping other companies as well. But I had this passion of helping people and not just So

Steve: the basis are sharper?

Gary: It's similar. I mean, it was more around teaching real estate.

Speaker: It's really more of a mastermind too.

Gary: Yeah. Then actually teaching people how to run a business.

Steve: Got it. And then at this point, you were still teaching? Or did you Me?

Speaker: Yeah. I didn't stop teaching till, like, 2016. So

Steve: Okay.

Speaker: I I stayed a teacher even while we started Sharper. Actually, no. I it was 2018 before I quit.

Gary: Yeah. She was

Speaker: I did it. I did two jobs because, you know, why not? Alright.

Gary: So we would actually leave on the weekends, go work with a client, and come back so she could be back in time to For school and let me know. Crazy to me because I she loved her job.

Speaker: I did love my job.

Gary: It was crazy to me though because she didn't make a ton. No. Yeah. It was under 30,000 a year.

Steve: It was not the money. It wasn't

Speaker: the money. It wasn't the money. Yeah. It was the school our kids went to. It was, you know, mom went to school with the kids every single day.

So it was it was nice.

Steve: So you initially partnered or worked with Wayne. It was not a partnership. You worked

Gary: for Yeah. I worked for Wayne. Yeah. And then moved into a partnership with him through throughout the time there.

Steve: Okay. So what was his business like when he start when you started with him? What was his business like when you left?

Gary: I think he was doing about 43, I think, 47 deals that first year Mhmm. Before I started, and then when I left, he were doing 300 a year.

Steve: Okay. So you helped scale that business.

Gary: Oh, yeah.

Steve: And then you left.

Gary: Yeah. 2016, and then I transitioned over, me and him transitioned it to a good success for about a year. And then 2017, I started to move into, into Sharper.

Steve: Why leave that business? Because it's it was a good business. It was profitable. Yeah. Why why part ways?

Gary: You know, I I never, I never loved real estate. I I still can't tell you I love real estate. It's not my thing. And, and to a degree, you know, it feels a little selfish just to pour into making money, right, all the time. And you can make a lot of money real estate, but then I wanna make an impact.

It's not just about money for me. Right? Like, when you almost lose it all, money just just doesn't bring you value anymore. Right? Yeah.

So, like, what brought me value? And then there more importantly, there was a promise I had to fulfill. And the promise I had to fulfill is I promised God that if he gave my life back in 2011, I would give it back to helping other people. And so that's where I went. I went I went to try to help, and and it actually fell upon me.

It wasn't really, something that I really stressed out. I had a gentleman, Max Keller, actually reach out to me, and he's like, hey. Would you help me like you're doing there? And I said, sure. Are you

Steve: doing over Wayne? Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Gary: And so I started, you know, doing it. He started paying me a little bit. And then at some point, I had a former name because I had a company. You know, and actually making a company. Mhmm.

And so I named after Susan. So Sharper is s Harper, and it's named after her, and it was kind of my way of thanking her for never leaving my side and never giving up on me and never stop believing. It would

Steve: have been easy enough. Yeah. When you were when you were a five year old.

Gary: Yeah. No. It was. She, like, get me up every day, help me get dressed, like, get me ready for you know, that kind of thing. She just never quit on me.

She she kept believing. Even when everybody's like, there's nothing wrong with him. Right? She just she believed. And that's my number one core value is belief.

Steve: So You started 2017, 2018. What was it? 2017. 2017. So you started Sharper in 2017.

You got Max Keller as your first Alright. Client. And then, like, that was just word-of-mouth you were growing? Like, what was A 100% that?

Speaker: Absolutely how it started.

Gary: Yeah. So it was just word-of-mouth and trying to help people and go from one client to the next and just trying to bring them value. And and then not really a plan to, like, grow it into anything bigger than just trying to help as many people that wanted to be helped. And, I was I was charging, like, really nominal fees at

Steve: the time. And, like, every new budding business owner Yeah. Charged went undercharged.

Gary: Yeah. I kept getting ridiculed and, like, you're not charging enough. Even my customers were telling me I wasn't charging enough. And and so one day I was like, alright, I've helped enough people now. What's the average profit per deal?

Mhmm. Right. So then I based it off the average profit per deal. And I'm like, man, if I can't get one help, one person get another deal based on one phone album, I don't really deserve to be paid. Right.

Steve: Right.

Gary: And then on top of that, I really want to protect it. So now and it's still this way today. Like when people hire us, they put a deposit down, but they don't pay us in full until we're done with the implementation. And that's to protect the integrity of the product and make sure that we don't ever get labeled as a guru. Like, I don't I don't wanna take your money if I'm not your value.

Yeah. That's just what it is, right, at the end of the day. And so if I don't deliver value, then don't pay me. That's okay. I'm okay with that.

Right? Right. But that's a that was a concept behind it.

Steve: So you're you're growing word-of-mouth. And at this point, Sharper is your only business.

Speaker: No. So what's kinda funny is he started good success. Mhmm. More of mastermind type field group type setting, and that's when Sharper began because they wanted more one on one attention.

Gary: Yeah.

Speaker: And so Good Success basically said, we can't do that. We don't have time and, you know, not able to do that. Gary's like, well, I'll do it. We'll, you know, we'll do clients, you know, do the one on ones with them, which started the whole thing. Yeah.

And then I don't think we made Sharper its own company, but that's the only thing we did. I I don't even know the timeline on that.

Gary: Was it

Speaker: Just how do you manage to work?

Gary: Over by me. About a year later, maybe. But everybody just naturally migrated, and then now Sharper's nine businesses.

Steve: Yeah. So when did you guys go from helping these businesses to constantly traveling? So because I don't think everyone knows how much you guys travel. I was surprised when you I found out how much you guys travel.

Gary: Probably at the end of probably February 2000.

Speaker: Probably not till I quit working school.

Gary: Yeah. That was probably it. Because here's the thing. I made a decision. I I wasn't gonna go on the road and travel without her.

Yeah. Right? Not because I couldn't do it. It was because I did it in corporate America for years. It's because I wanted to protect our relationship.

There's a lot of temptations out there. There's a lot of things you fall prey to. And I if I was gonna do this, I was gonna put myself on the road, and I was gonna spend time with other people. I wasn't gonna sacrifice this again. Mhmm.

I wasn't gonna sacrifice my kids. I wasn't gonna sacrifice my family. They are more important to me than any amount of money you could ever put in front of me. So if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it with my family Mhmm. And I'm not gonna sacrifice it.

And so that was I and that was an that was an there's there was a line in the sand on there for me. Like, I am not crossing that land that line. And so I took as much as I could take with her being able to go when we could do it together. And then finally, I looked at her one time. I'm like, hey.

You really need to stop working. She was like, why? I'm like, because you're costing me over a million dollars a year. She's like, no. I'm not.

I'm like, yes. You are. And so she decided to stop, and and then that's about time we took off. And I think right now, I think last year, we flew over a 160 times. Mhmm.

Steve: And, you know 160. Well, I guess you don't have round trips because you're you're you're making everything's a circuit. Right.

Gary: We don't

Speaker: ever do a round trip. Yeah.

Gary: So, I mean, it's, you know, in the last two weeks, we've worked from Florida to I don't even know where we've gone from. It was Florida back.

Speaker: In Florida, we were with three different people.

Gary: Yeah. And then last week, we were yeah. We were in Tampa last week, last Thursday and Friday, and then came home for a couple of days, and then here, and then Seattle, Washington. And then I don't even know where we go after that.

Steve: But So how many days on the road in a year?

Gary: Well, I think we average about seven to eight days at home a month.

Steve: Okay. Because I was gonna ask you, like, what's the point of you having a home? Yeah.

Gary: We're

Speaker: We're considering it

Gary: right now.

Steve: We're actually

Gary: gonna sell because we got about we're sent over on over $250,000 in equity right now.

Speaker: We just made it, like, perfect the way we wanted it, and then I was like, we should sell it.

Gary: Yeah. So I think yeah. Good question. I like that you asked like, how do we persuade her a little bit?

Steve: Alright. So, you start Sharper, and then you're in multiple masterminds. Yeah. Mhmm. So talk about that.

Yeah. Like, why why are you masterminds? What what's what are you doing in them?

Gary: So, you know, joining a mastermind was that ability to to help. Right? You're in the mastermind. You're helping people. The other thing is is just industry knowledge, you know, industry benchmarking, things like that.

One of the things I think we've done a really good job of is being able to understand the benchmarks of the industry. Industry. Mhmm. You know, I know really quickly what the industry averages are and every one of the metrics and KPIs. I mean, because we get to see it.

And then and then the other thing is each mastermind has a different flavor, has a different feel, has a different culture. Right. And so those are the other things that that I like to be part of is being part of those different cultures. And then the really crazy thing about with real estate is you can have pockets in real estate like yours, for example, like you've got this culture that, you know, following over here that these people in the East Coast never heard of. Right?

Like and then the same thing with each one of them. So, like, each pocket, like, it has its own, you know, its own culture and its own people, its own following. And I just think it's awesome to build those relationships and be a part of that with people.

Steve: And I'm really lucky. Like, you know, when there was an opening in Collective Genius Yeah. Leon reached out to you, and you're like, oh, just call Steve. Yeah. And so, I mean, that was big, pivot, you know, for for my career.

You know, I made a big change in my in my business and my family's outcome. So, you know, still thank you very much for that.

Gary: Absolutely.

Steve: So you got nine that businesses now? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So before we go into those nine, I just wanna share, because you came and consulted, here Yeah.

Back in December. So, I mean, six months ago. Yeah. And, hey, people do Should we review rocks

Gary: right now in front of everybody?

Steve: I think we should. So, people were kinda surprised because, you know, how well, you know, we've connected and so on that I actually never got consulted by you. So when I said, like, that's the first time you came out, they're like, really? Yeah. But on top of that, when you came out, what I said to other people on other podcast, like, Gary didn't teach me anything I didn't know.

Right? Like, I'm well read. I've I've gone through all this stuff. Yeah. But what Gary and Susan were really good at was like a surgeon excising and identifying all the problems in the business.

Right? Like, you didn't know about this. Like, I had no idea this is a problem. That was a problem. And it was that you guys put up the, the accountability

Gary: chart. Yeah.

Steve: And, like, wow, Steve's in. So you It's made

Speaker: it very painfully obvious, I think. Very painfully obvious.

Steve: But, I mean, I think that was the value is, like, you can know this stuff. You can know this business. Mhmm. But you still need a professional third party consultant to come out and just kinda, like, poke where it hurts.

Gary: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Like, find out, like, a doctor, like, okay. This is hurting. Okay. This part's fine. But that part is that's robbing.

Yeah. But the other thing that was a big takeaway for me, which which I don't think anyone else in the office enjoyed, was that Steve's allowed to start as many businesses as he wants Mhmm. So long as he has the right integrator in place. Yeah.

Gary: As long as you're not a resource to the business.

Steve: Right. And so that's I'm I'm asking that or I'm bringing that up because you've got nine

Speaker: Mhmm.

Steve: Businesses. So talk about starting at one and maybe kind of break down, like, the ones you started and what they do and, like, how this makes sense, this ecosphere.

Gary: So so it's an ecosystem, right? So we we have a curriculum we've been using the last couple of years and when we're we're actually trademarking, putting out right now with Eddie Wilson. Eddie Wilson's a partner of mine. Brandon, Austin McCurdy, these partners are Stephanie Betters, who we talked about. And, she was on your show just not too long ago.

Right? Mhmm. And so these are different people that are our partners actually in Sharper. Actually, have some equity stake in the business. And I love that.

I love bringing people on and being part of things. But there it's an ecosystem. And as a company grows, it grows in from what's organizational structure to what we call the matrix, right, into an ecosystem, if you will. And the program that we have, we teach and help customers with is what we call Empire. And Empire helps you through all five stages of business from startup all the way through succession.

If you wanna sell it, like, you wanna exit. How many people know how to exit their business? Right?

Steve: A lot of people think about

Gary: it. Right. They do. They think about it.

Steve: About it.

Gary: Yeah. But but, like, what is the steps actually get there? Right? So knowing what each one of those stages are, then identifying what stage you're in. Right?

And then knowing how to properly navigate to the next stage without crushing the business. Mhmm. Really important. It's a big part of this. All that to say is we had to form an ecosystem around it in order to support each one of those businesses in each one of those stages.

Mhmm. So we have things like Sharper Consulting, which is what we and you work together on. We have Sharper personnel. It actually helps people hire employees.

Steve: Mhmm.

Gary: I think we're hiring over 80, I would guess, right now. I don't know.

Speaker: I'm not I'm not the innovator.

Gary: She's not the integrator. I'm not even the visionary of that business. Yeah. So but I get a nice check every quarter, which is really nice. So but we're hiring

Steve: a lot

Gary: of people around the country. My daughter works for that company, and, so she's there. But we have, you're an ophthalmic too. So we have Sharper Marketing, which is a company that helps with things. We have Sharper Education, Sharper Marketing StoryBrand.

Sharper Education is a company that we have, like training videos online for, like, dollars 49 a month. You get COO training, CEO training. You can get Brian Business business training. Business acumen training. Right?

We got different different speakers and leadership and things like that on there. We have sharper events, probably my one of my favorite companies. Brandon McCurdy is the visionary of that company. Rachel is our our integrator and we have a workshop that actually we have one coming up here in in big I'm sorry.

Speaker: July.

Gary: Yeah. In July in Salt Lake City. Mhmm. And, and so that one focuses on leadership and how to lead your business and how to implement systems and and how to leverage the knowledge you have. It's a three day workshop.

It's really great workshop. And, we've had three or four of them this year. We have the couple's retreat. And, you talk hear me talk a lot about Susan and I and how much I love her, and she's a love of my life. And, you know, we take time every year to do an annual planning session for our business.

Mhmm. We don't do it for marriage. Right? We don't do it for our family. And so I told Susan, I am not like, this isn't my area of expertise.

Right? But I bring in people that are experts in this area Yeah. So I can learn. Right? And so, like, it's it's it's like the old saying, if you ever wanna go out some star podcast and interview, like, experts.

That's what I did.

Steve: Right. Well, that's

Gary: what I'm doing with the couple's retreat. Right? Like, I wanna bring in people that I can learn with you, Steve. Like, let's do this together. Yeah.

Right? And And I get an opportunity to stand up and speak and things like that. Well, we speak more on like how to have a system within your family, but like the actual coaching of how to keep that healthy. We bring in other people for that. Right.

And so we do that in the sharper event. So these are different companies we have. They're they're out there to support each other. We have sharper cons sharper speakers, which is a a platform that helps people book speaking engagements and and build their clout online. Right?

Yeah. We have that. We have,

Speaker: Publishing.

Gary: Publishing. We have Sharper Publishing that helps you publish your books. I have a book that came out this past year, Sharper Publishing. It'll help you create actually write the book. We have a ghostwriter that actually will help you write the book and get it published online.

Steve: Yeah.

Gary: We have Sharper Ministries, which is one of my favorite companies. And that is being doing the business consulting, but for churches. Yeah. And so that's one of the ones that I get really excited about.

Speaker: And then Sharper Ventures.

Gary: Yep. Sharper Ventures is our newest company. I'm a fifty fifty owner in that. Or I'm sorry. We just added another owner.

But it's me, Eddie Wilson, and Brandon McCurdy. And that's that's the, that's a LLC that owns Empire.

Steve: Gotcha. Right?

Gary: That owns that curriculum. We have a a toolbox coming out, a software coming out for operating systems. That's gonna be part of that as well. And so So

Steve: can you elaborate on the five phases Yeah. Again? Because I think, there are a lot of people that are trying to get their first deal or two. Mhmm. But then, you know, there's people that start growing, and then they get frustrated.

You wanna talk about the evolution? Yeah. So startup is

Gary: the first stage. Right? Startup is predetermined amount of time, money, and resources. Every single time we start a company, we have to answer those three questions. What time frame am I putting on this?

What's money am I gonna put out? How much do I need to make? And what are the resources I need in order to make this successful? Mhmm. Every business I ever start and learn this lesson the hard way, I don't start a new business without hiring the integrator first.

That position for you, those of you entrepreneurs are out there right now, that's quicksand. You get into that seat, you're gonna stay there a little while. Yeah. Right. It's really hard to pull back out.

Steve: Mhmm.

Gary: K. Because you're the one that's building it. You get emotionally invested. You start, you know, time, money, all that. You start pouring into it.

And I in a business design, need you to pour into it if you're gonna set an SC. I prefer to hire somebody else that can pour into it. Now I also don't live on fear in business. If it doesn't work, shut down. That's where that time comes in.

I'm going to six months. What's the money? I better make a break even in that six months, right? Or at least get some of my money back. But I need those things to protect me because if I don't do it, I'm not going to let a business bleed my other businesses or bleed me.

So for then the thing is now resources. I need an integrator. Integrators gotta hire. They gotta hire the people that need to run this company. K?

And be able to get us to profit in that time frame Yeah. Or we gotta shut it down. That's startup. Stage two is perseverance. That's where a lot of our audience lives.

Right? They live in that grind stage. Mhmm. That's that persevering. You're working forty, eighty hours a week or more.

Right? You're maybe sitting in multiple seats in your own business. Right? A lot

Steve: of seats.

Gary: Yeah. You might be sitting in thirty. Right? Yeah. In your own business.

But knowing that about yourself, know you know that you're in that grinding stage or at perseverance, and you can have success in that stage. You can do a couple 100 deals a year in that stage. Until what? You lose your family. Yeah.

You lose your health. Right? You start to destroy relationships around you. You're riding so much all the time that you just don't come up for air. And so we gotta be careful of that stage.

That stage will people stay in that stage way too long, and they tend to live there, and they think that's business. That's not. It's not business. Getting your systems processes documented, getting the right people in the right seats, helping those people grow, building a succession cap plan. Right?

Helping invest in not just in the real estate, but in people to help you let go without losing control. Say that stage two. Say three is where we get in that viability stage. Business is sustainable, right? It's got it's making money.

It's a it's a healthy business now. You are not in every seat in their company anymore. And if you are, you're being paid for the seats you're setting in.

Steve: Yeah. Right?

Gary: That's the biggest mistake I see guys make. Yeah. That's a

Steve: big one.

Gary: They're in profit. But I'm like, wait a minute. Are you paying yourself for each seat you're setting in? Look what all business can't afford that. Looking at the profit.

Right? So you can't say you're here. If you're not, you're still in perseverance. So at least accruing and budgeting for that seed if you're sitting in it. Right?

I'll do an implementation tomorrow. Chose to do it. Chose to work with this client. I don't do them all. We have seven coaches.

I don't have to stop tomorrow. I do it because I want to. You know, there's a big difference doing it because you have to and doing it because you want to. A big difference. So So that's what I do.

I said, these are the ones I wanna work with. Right? And so sitting in that, I'll pay myself as an implementer tomorrow. I get a salary, a CEO salary of all the ecosystem. I get, you know, profit share of each one of the companies, but I'm paying myself if I'm sitting in that seat.

Yeah. Right. And I'm legitimately gonna take the money. Right? There's no problem with me on that.

Right. Because I'd pay somebody else if they did it. Mhmm. Right. So that is viability.

Viability is you've gotten your initial investment back. You're making money. You're not sitting in every seat. And if you are, the business is accruing for the cost or paying you for it. Right?

And you're you're healthy. Your business is is profitable. Now once you get there, where most people get there and they're like, hey, listen. I'm good. I don't I don't need more than this.

Right. I've got balance. I'm time with my kids. I'm enjoying life. We're making money.

Got a healthy team. Business is viable. And a lot of people get there. I tell them, 90% of people get there and go stay in here. Right.

And that's okay. There's something wrong with that. It's absolutely nothing wrong. You don't have to have a big team to be in that stage. You have three to five, maybe 10 employees if you want.

I don't care.

Steve: Right.

Gary: Right? It's just about meeting those criteria and being a healthy business. Mhmm. Now some people, however, choose to go from stage three viability to expansion.

Steve: And I think the confusion there for a lot of people Yeah. Is they feel like you have to go to stage four. No. And that's something that, like, like, when people tell me they wanna do this, it's just, like, why?

Speaker: Why? Yeah.

Steve: Alright. And you know why, then go for it. Yeah. If you don't know why, like, this is not a natural progression. I mean, I know, like, for me on the on the realtor side, like, everyone's like, oh, you just become a broker.

You just started a broker. Like, no. Don't do that.

Speaker: Sounds like a headache. Yeah.

Steve: Right. So people have these ideas, like, this is the next logical step. So let's talk about the question someone should be asking themselves before they go from stage three to stage four.

Gary: Yeah. So here here let me say this. So it's peer pressure too, by the way. We get in masterminds. It's, you know, am I keeping up with the Joneses?

Am I keeping up with the

Steve: 100%?

Gary: Yeah. Am I trying to and am I trying to be like so and so? Can I be like this guy? This one? Right.

I was actually asked this question. I was in Board of Advisors, which are the great masterminds, a bit more of a business mastermind. And this person on the crowd is like, why would I ever go to stage four from stage three if I'm making good money there? And I said, the only reason you go from stage three to stage four's purpose. Mhmm.

Right. That's it. That's the question you should ask. What's my purpose? Does my business support and not every business should be 10 x, by the way.

So it shouldn't. It's not healthy enough to do it or it's not built properly or it's just not the type of business that should go to. That's the right industry. Right. Yeah.

The product's not available, right? Or something. Something that's locking it down from going to next. Now, if you have product availability and you have the ability to scale the systems, the process of support scale and you make that jump, you better make the jump with purpose in mind. You make the jump without purpose in mind because you're taking profits to reinvest r and d, research and development to scale.

Mhmm. And so you're gonna make less money originally in stage four than you would in stage three.

Steve: Yeah.

Gary: And we see people masterminds all the time and get them like, man, I I I tried scaling. I'm making less money now, and I was you know, when I had five employees, I'm just gonna go back to five employees. Well, it's because you didn't scale for purpose. Mhmm. The other thing reason why we find that people go backwards is because they go from stage two straight to stage four.

They don't ever stress test the business. They don't ever like they paid themselves or not paying themselves for all these seats are sitting in. So I think we could 10 access and they never really stress us to make sure it was a viable business. Right. And so they get into stage four.

They're not making as much money as they thought. I'm moving as fast, whatever. And then they go backwards. But stage four is all about purpose. You want a 10 x for purpose right now when you make it through it.

And listen, there's no guarantee that you're in 10 x. There's no guarantee because you had a viable business, it's going to scale. Right? I think I saw the other day on SBA, like, 4% of the businesses make it ten years. That's a shocking statistic.

Right? That's crazy if you think about it. Well, that's what happens. Right? Not everybody's going 10 x.

So just know that you take that risk when you make that jump. Right? And so then the next stage, stage five, is succession. Mhmm. Right?

Steve: What is succession?

Gary: Succession is whatever you want it to be, whether it's retirement. Maybe it's when your head hits your pillow for the final time. Right? It could be selling your company off. It could be appointing a new, you know, Brian Snyder and and and Brett Snodgrass.

You know, Brett moved in the owner's box. He brought up a visionary. He he lives in owners. That's a succession plan. It's whatever you want it to be.

It's like that next stage for you and your business. And so that's what we're looking for is like how to build to that. Right? How to position to sell. How many people are thinking about selling their business.

Right? How many people are positioning their business to be sold if they wanted to? So we can't sell wholesale business. Yeah. You can.

Right? There's things about it you can sell. Yeah. What makes a business sellable product? Right?

What else makes a business sellable process? Right. You can sell your process. I mean, Rafael Varus actually sold all his processes after we came in to work for them, right?

Steve: Yeah.

Gary: One of the things he did, he made me sign an NDA. So after I helped him build his process, he could go out and sell a process. Right. And he made a lot of money that way. Yeah.

So there's there's people that do it. Right?

Steve: Certainly did. Yeah. Alright. So, let's see. We got here, a lot of love.

Yeah. A lot of people think you're amazing people.

Gary: So that's awesome.

Steve: That's great. Warner says you helped him discover his purpose. Alright. Let's

Speaker: He has a pretty incredible one. So

Steve: I love to hear it. I know when I when I first met with him, it had to do with his mom retiring her. Is that still the same one, or is it more? Alright. So It's a

Speaker: little bigger now.

Steve: Alright. So Roger Ackis wants to know who are the people that inspire

Speaker: you? Where are

Gary: the people inspire me? Well, I got a I got a that's a long list. I think there's there's the people right around you. Right? And and that's your friends.

You. Right? I I talk about you a lot. And and I think, you know, Jason Medley, Mike Hambright, there are people out there, Wayne Schafer, my brother-in-law, inspire me. I don't think there's any more people, though, that inspire me more than my dad, my mom and my wife and my father-in-law and and immediate family members.

I you know, it's not a success thing or money thing that inspires me. Mhmm. It's the quality of people that they are. It's it's the heart for others that they have that inspire me. We we connected pretty quickly.

Yeah. And we what we connected on was helping people.

Steve: Right.

Gary: Right. It wasn't about money. I don't even think we talked about money. Right? It was like, how do we help each other?

How do we help others? Her mom was someone that inspired me in an amazing way. I met her mom prior to ever meeting my wife, and I was I was a janitor, made $600 a month. I didn't have a lot of clothes. She brought me clothes.

She believed in me. And then and I met her daughter. I'm like, wow. This is that lady's daughter. Like like, I love this.

I mean, I'm gonna marry her. Right? Like, it was pretty clear. But, my father-in-law, just being consistent, driving a truck thirty five years, consistency. My dad, twenty one years in military, fought in Vietnam.

He had a, like, a lot of a lot of time he just gave to Vietnam and and his life and things. And and and it was for me, it was amazing to me because my dad my dad, like, cared about the people. You know, it wasn't it wasn't it was treated almost as a ministry to help people. And it was it it's so and even now, it's just those are the people who inspire me is is my relatives or a lot of them. You know?

Steve: So you dropped out of high school.

Gary: Yeah. I did.

Steve: And a lot of people that listen to this or some of my followers, they're trying to figure out, like, should I go to college? And I go to college. And, like, there's, like, questions about, like, you know, parental support. Mhmm. So you dropped out of high school.

Like, how did that affect things at home?

Gary: It didn't really affect much at home. I mean, I was a pretty bad kid. So, like, most people don't realize I was I I didn't, you know, I got kicked out of a couple of different schools and lied to my parents and just did a couple of things I shouldn't have done at a high schooler. And so, like, leaving home at 16, I so my dad always say, it's like, one day I woke up and you were gone. Right?

Steve: Oh, so you made a decision to just leave.

Gary: Yeah. So I I actually moved up to Northwest Indiana with Wayne, and, you know, I I needed to get away from friends. Right? I had a lot of real bad influences. And, honestly, I was known as a troublemaker, so it was like they expected me to keep up this hype.

Right? So I needed to, like, reinvent myself somewhere else. So going to Northwest Indiana from Virginia is what I did. And, and, honestly, it it took me down the right path. I was smoking, drinking.

I I I didn't live pure in any way, shape, or form. And so moving up to Northwest Indiana kinda gave me a first start.

Steve: So maybe a maverick in not a great environment. Yeah. And Yeah. Some things can happen.

Gary: Yeah. Not for me. Yeah. For sure.

Steve: What about you?

Gary: Real as

Steve: far as you?

Speaker: Oh, yeah. It's definitely relative. So just have a very close family knit, you know. So I always say it's my mom, my dad, and my grandpa, and I can pinpoint the attributes that they helped shape and mold who I am. So, my dad and mom, they're just people who don't quit.

They literally taught me the belief that I can do anything I want to. And I have a grandpa who is the most jovial, happiest person I've ever met. He was a childlike, you know, saint, I guess, is the better word. So his positive perspective is is something that absolutely I totally attribute to what I learned from him. So Yeah.

Steve: When you when you guys were out here, we also talked about the predictive index

Gary: Yeah.

Steve: And how we're both individualists

Gary: Yeah.

Steve: And how, we can get in trouble in masterminds

Speaker: Yes.

Steve: Because we'll speak exactly what's on our mind.

Speaker: And tell the truth.

Steve: And tell the truth. But ask the question where we're genuinely curious, but it comes across as how are you this stupid?

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. I I get that a lot, especially so I I do enjoy process mapping. I I like helping people clearly lay out what it is they do, what, you know, and the steps that they take. But they'll get to a point in the process and I'm like, wait a minute.

Why? Why would you do that? I know. And he goes, she what she really means is I'm like, no, I really mean why would you do that? It makes no sense to me.

What was

Steve: the thought process?

Gary: I did come

Steve: to this conclusion. Right.

Gary: Yeah. I took a picture the other day when she asked this question of this guy who does one of these. So I took a picture of him like, this is a perfect wise moment. Like, which is, it goes, why would you do that? And he goes, I don't know.

Yeah.

Speaker: But the look that comes across my face is kinda like, why are you stupid? And I don't mean to be that way.

Steve: Well, and that's the thing. Like, I was actually I had a couple of people, like, pull me aside. I was like, you need to, like, lighten up on these people in the mask Smile

Speaker: when you do it.

Steve: And I was like, I'm genuinely curious, like, how they came to that conclusion. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Gary: But the

Steve: way you asked the question

Gary: is all body language. Yeah.

Steve: So Benjamin wants to know if you can have coffee with someone dead or alive, dead or alive, who would it be in while starting with you? That's a tough question.

Speaker: Yeah. That is a tough question. Yeah. Well, that would be good. Yeah.

I have a couple of relatives in heaven, and, I lost my brother when he was 28. So to sit anytime amount of time with him would be amazing and stay with my mom.

Gary: Yeah. Yeah. It's a really tough question for her. Jeff passed away on a motorcycle at 28 years old, and then her mom, we lost her to a drunk driver last year. So Yeah.

Four days before Christmas. So it's those are really, really hard questions. And, honestly, I think they'd, they'd be very similar answers for me. Just amazing people. Amazing people.

You know, you know, there's a lot of names out there, but it it's the people that just get up every day and show up Mhmm. For me, that I wanna I wanna talk to. Yeah. You know, those are the people that I wanna invest my time with. And, her mom and dad are definitely those people.

And Jeff was a great man as well.

Steve: Well, I think that kinda leads to the next question. You're saying the people that, you know, wake up every day and do what they do. Yeah. Roger wants to know what drives you every day.

Gary: Drives me every day. Roger is my nephew, my my my cousin's son. He he's my personal assistant, so it's funny he's asking me this question. I love you, Roger. What drives me every day?

So what drives me every day is the joy of of helping people. And I know we've talked a lot about that, but seeing people grow up. One of my favorite statements is we rise by lifting others. Right? And so I wanna win.

There's no doubt. I'm wild probably one of the most competitive people you'll ever meet. Mhmm. And I I drive hard. Susan said to me just today, not everybody can work as hard as you.

Right? Like and they're like, you wanna work that hard? Yeah. I actually do. Like, when I hire people, I go, you I want a half a day's worth of work out of you.

That's it. Just a half a day. They're like, oh, really? I thought there was full time. I'm like, yeah.

Twelve hours.

Steve: You do whatever you want with the other twelve. Right? Whatever twelve hours you want.

Gary: Yeah. You can do whatever. Alright. But I want a half a day. Yeah.

So, like, just that that caution chase of winning, as long as it's not doesn't come at the expense of other people. Right? If if I can win with others, that that really does inspire me. But I'll be honest with you. The biggest thing that drives me is, probably more than anything is is seeing my loved ones' faces when we I'll be able to give back and help them.

And And then probably more importantly than that is, you know, we've been able to give a lot of money to our church and schools and things like that and give to people that would otherwise not be able to have. Right? And, and that that probably brings me the biggest goosebumps. We had a friend this week that's a couple months ago that needed a van, and and they need a car, and we were able to help them buy a car and and things like that. That that's what pushes me.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah.

Gary: I

Steve: know, like, for people that knew me before, not

Gary: to say

Steve: I was ever, you know, a bad person, but I mean, I was motivated by money. I think a lot of us when we first started in entrepreneurship.

Gary: Yeah. I was

Steve: And and so for me, it wasn't until I opened my brokerage in 2013, it kinda changed because I opened the brokerage just to keep more of my commission. Right. And as I'm training agents and coaching people, which not for profit, because running a brokerage is not for profit.

Speaker: Right.

Steve: I, that was when I learned the fulfillment of helping other people, lifting other people, and that is way more rewarding than any amount of money. So I I I love they're talking about the the helping people.

Gary: Yeah. Yeah. I always tell people giving is so selfish. I mean, it really is. So one of the statements I heard a long time ago is you can give of your life.

Life is labor, influence, finances, or experience. Right? Mhmm. So I wanna give over my life. My labor, influence, finance, or experience.

And I find that so rewarding. It feels selfish. Mhmm. Right? I mean, it really does.

I I Yeah. The most selfish thing I do is help people. Because it it makes me feel good. You know? It makes me feel good about what I'm able to do.

And so, yeah, I mean, I I think it's so to agree, there's an ego behind it all because it makes me feel so good that I'm able to do it. Yeah.

Steve: So Yeah.

Gary: People think it's a sacrifice, and it is, but it's still still still very self rewarding to help other people.

Steve: Incredibly fulfilling. Yeah. So what's what what drives you?

Speaker: So it it just doesn't occur to me to do nothing less than what we already do. Yeah. Like, I want to get up every day and spend it with him, and this is what he's doing, so we do it together. Yeah. I do to fill get and see fulfillment in other people succeeding.

And when I know what we can do to help their business, it then alters the way that they have their families' lives. It alters the employees that work there. It alters more than just making that other person some more money.

Steve: It's a huge impact. And it it it trickles down.

Speaker: Yeah. Being able to see that and see it fulfilled. It's pretty awesome.

Steve: So let's see what else. So Jason g was how did you mentally power through a setback of that scale? This is the early part of the, podcast. So I imagine he's talking about, you know, Lyme disease and losing everything. So was there anything that you did to mentally power through a setback of that scale?

Gary: So in my book is your business. Like, I talk about chapter one. I talk about that whole time and how we can't overcame it. But, first of all, I don't think one person alone could just come through that by themselves. So, you know, the fact that my family was there for me, my wife was there, she never left my side.

You know, it it I don't think I could have personally just pulled through it by myself. So from a mental perspective, when you have people around you that love you, believe in you, and they're helping you pull out of it, and they're they're literally reaching out in the sand to pull you out, then it can you know, it gives you hope. I saw a thing the other day where the the scientists took a mouse and dropped it in a glass of water, and it did you hear this? So it's like, how long did he stay afloat before he gave up? Well, he stayed afloat.

I think it was like, you know, fifteen minutes or something Mhmm.

Steve: Or something

Gary: or something like that. And then the next one was just like they pulled him out as he was drowning, and then they let him set their rest and they dropped him right back in. So he inhumane. They dropped him right back in. It was like, well, how long do you, like, make it the second time?

And most people say one minute. Like, you just gave up right away. And I think the answer was, like, sixty hours. Like, it was three, four days. Yeah.

Yeah. It's ridiculous. Like, how long he didn't give up. Yeah. It's hope.

Yeah. Right? It's it's the potential. And when you have people around you that are giving you hope, hope is something very important to me. I so a couple of things is I prayed every day for hope.

I didn't pray to god. I didn't say, god, get me out of the storm. I said, god, get me through the storm. Right? It was a different mindset.

I I I would I stopped praying for healing and start praying for, like, what I could do with it. Right? Her mom looked at me one time and said, Gary, maybe this is just a new normal. Right? And so you come through accepting that.

But then, like, how can I take and capitalize on it? How can I make myself better through this? Right? And so I didn't want to come out of the storm. I wanted to get through it so I can learn the lessons of what it was teaching me.

Yeah. And so when you switch that mindset, because now you got hope, you know, potential. I can do something with this. Hope is a dangerous thing when we lose it.

Steve: Yeah.

Gary: Right? And so sometimes we gotta quit asking to come out of a situation and ask them for hope through the situation. You know, 2020 was one of those years that people had a lot of good results in real estate. Why did we have so many results? I've taught vision planning for twenty years.

Right. And so in 2020, year of clear vision, right? I had a book coming out on that, which I threw away because it wasn't a clear vision here at all, was we had all these results because we focused on zero to ninety days.

Speaker: The immediate.

Gary: The immediate And ninety days or less gives you what does it give you? It gives you results.

Steve: Hope, clarity.

Gary: Ninety days into one year, five years gives us potential. This is hope. Right? Long term vision plan is not about getting results. It's about hope.

Yeah.

Speaker: What it could be like.

Gary: At the end of the year, last year, I was like, man, what? Why in the world do we even teach us anymore? Like, I was rocked a little at my core. I'm like, why should I teach a long term vision plan anymore? People had their best years zero to ninety days focus.

And then I see people even now or before a thirteen week year, things like that going, I'm just focused zero to ninety days and they burn out and they get frustrated and they give up, but they have the results. Why? Zero to ninety days short term vision gives us results. Because it's grind. Yeah.

Yeah. But ninety to days and beyond gives us hope. Yeah. And here's the thing I tell people, leaders, you know, visionaries get inspired by the potential. They've already saw the results.

It's already been there. They've already even if they haven't achieved it, they already saw it.

Steve: Right.

Gary: Employees get inspired by the result or by the then zero to ninety days, which is the result. Yeah.

Steve: And I think, one thing that, I one of the big losses I've seen from Darren Hardy was, you know, as a leader, our our responsibility within an organization is to be a hope dealer. Mhmm. Right? I don't play on words, but, you know, you're you're out there dealing hope.

Gary: Yeah.

Steve: If you inspire and people will work, you're not inspiring. Yep. And there's nothing Yeah. Nothing to work for. Right.

Speaker: Right.

Steve: There's just money. And so, Chandler and Gino want to know when is the right time how when do you know it is the right time to start another business?

Gary: So when you're no longer if you're in a business, when you're no longer the resources to that business, Right? When you have stepped out of being a resource, what is resources? Time, money, people, energy. Right?

Steve: Mhmm.

Gary: When we're not a resource to that company anymore, we have the right and ability to go start another. Right? Which is one of the reasons why I don't like starting a business and setting an integrator seat.

Steve: Yeah.

Gary: I wanna be able to eliminate myself as a resource almost right away. Yeah. Right? That gives me the freedom to go start more and do more things. But as soon as I get called in and get stepped down from integrator below, then I forfeit my right to be in charge of any other company.

Steve: You know, it's interesting. Someone's asking me about, you know, my partnership with Max. Yeah. And, when I hired him, I hired him initially as a caller. I just followed up with leads.

And my vision for him was to eventually just run the investment arm in my business. And then he left, quit. Right? And I said, okay. Well, then, clearly, he was not that guy.

But as we talked, you know, we stayed in touch, and two years later, I was like, okay. I think I can bring him back in, and he can run this organization. So I can start a whole business where I'll fund it, but someone else is running

Gary: it. Mhmm.

Steve: Because I didn't want to step in and run that. I have too many other things going on. So, like, I knew wholesaling was profitable. I knew I wanted to grow and scale that business, but I was not gonna be the one that's gonna grow and see all that business. Right?

That was a disaster waiting to happen.

Gary: Well, the other thing I think that people have to give themselves the permission for us to not be the visionary. Right? Like, you don't have to be the visionary of a company. I don't know why so many people seem aspire to be in the visionary seat. It makes no sense to me.

Steve: I think it's because the people that we attract in this industry or any business really are drivers. And drivers tend to be visionaries.

Gary: Well, true. And I want so and by the way, I think there's a difference between an innovator and a visionary. Mhmm. There are innovators in this business, and there are visionaries in this business. Yeah.

Where an innovator creates it, a visionary can see where it's gonna go. Mhmm. But need somebody to create it sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes we have both, whether there's innovators and visionaries.

Yes. I can

Steve: do it in case you're right. Right.

Gary: Exactly. Yeah. But I don't aspire to be the visionary. See, it's a CEO in the business. Mhmm.

Right? Still

Speaker: has a job role.

Gary: Job. Yeah. I wanna sit in the owner's box. And that's where I like to be. Right?

Like, that's that's where I aspire to be. I have no ego about sending the visionary to your business. Right? And so I'm the CEO of the whole ecosystem, but each one of my businesses have their own visionary.

Steve: So I had I was talking to somebody, because you you see these guys, you you mentioned guru earlier, and gurus have taken a very negative connotation. There's no one really looking up the gurus anymore. Right. Right. And I make the argument that gurus are just visionaries without the right integrator.

They haven't been able to execute.

Gary: That could be nurture.

Steve: What are your thoughts on that?

Gary: No. I think it'd be very true. I think they, you know, they see it. They aspire to it. They wanna get there, and they can't execute on it.

Steve: They're they're a great coach. Yep. They just can't do.

Gary: Right. They get labeled. And and so I don't think they set out with the mindset of, like, trying to not deliver value to people. I think they truly think they can. Mhmm.

And then they get there and they're in the mix of it and the kid doesn't work.

Steve: Well, they don't have answers because they're not doing it. It.

Gary: Yeah. And so then they get to a point where yeah. So I can totally see that. It's a good perspective.

Steve: Yeah. For sure. Let's see what else here. Dan Bro says, you know, working with you guys and your team, one of the best business decisions you ever made. Uh-huh.

Steven Collins says do not start a new venture without Integrator. So Dan Bros, follow-up question is, what is your ultimate vision that's for you?

Gary: Ambrose asked my ultimate vision. My ultimate vision is to, build this ecosystem up enough to, ultimately hand it off to succession to my kids, possibly maybe sell it one day. I don't know. It depends on what my family wants with it. Right?

If my kids decide this my my whole family works for me. Right? My whole family. Like, literally, my whole family works for us. And so we got her family working in there, my family working in there.

So, like, it it it comes down to, like, what they wanna do with it at some point. But, I mean, if if the opportunity present itself, we could sell it. I don't know. We maybe consider something like that. But, but the goal right now, my vision for it right now is to continue to build the ecosystem up to where it's it's, it's be able to sustain itself at every category and then ultimately let somebody else take it over.

I don't wanna be a visionary or the CEO of Sharper Business Solutions.

Steve: But there's gonna be I don't know if you can help yourself here. We're at nine and counting. Yeah. I don't think it stops at nine. No.

Gary: I have I already have five in the back of my room. I just don't wanna tell you because she's gonna go through that one. I just have to tell you. And, honestly, if I find an integrator, I'll start a business just because I found an integrator.

Steve: And I I've got that same

Gary: I don't have any problems with that. Like, I'll literally go start a business tomorrow if I find the right integrator.

Steve: So I remember I had a I can't remember what year this was. I remember I was driving home. We're on the freeway, and we're going home. And I I was mentioning an idea to my wife, and she said and I think it was October. Like, I want you to look at me.

I'm driving around. I was like, I need you to promise me. And now in the rest of the year, you will not start another business. She said those exact words to me.

Gary: Nice. Long term, though, I think there's a bigger play here. There's the empire program that we're bringing in with Eddie and, and and was partnering on that with Brandon. And I see us in the next year, so short term to long term vision, that we're gonna train trainers. So we have a phenomenal opportunity right now, to launch this curriculum and start teaching other people how to help other people.

Mhmm. Right? And that's ultimately my goal is I I feel limited about how many people we can help. There's only so many people in this calendar. Right.

So we have seven implementers today or or trainers right now, coaches. And my goal, we're in the process of looking at buying a 72,000 square foot, church that's actually in Mokena, Illinois, has 42 acres of undeveloped land. We're gonna develop about 243 townhomes on it. And then with the developer and then refinance out, use some money, it'll pay the building off. We'll own that building free and clear.

And it has two big auditoriums. One's a 2,000 square foot auditorium. That one's about 500 square foot auditorium. And the 500 square foot auditorium, we're gonna train the trainer.

Steve: We're gonna

Gary: have a weekly session in there on training coaches. The other, we're gonna hold events and stuff at, not just for Sharper, but we're gonna rent it out for that co op space. It's It's gonna have a gym. It's got a coffee shop. It's got a GNC Daycare.

Daycare. Remembering Eddie Wilson's Because Coffee in there. We have a daycare for the coop people that wanna rent out the space. And so we're in the we're we're probably about, you know, 75% of the way through that right now. And, and that's where you're gonna see me and Susan start to live in the next twelve months.

Speaker: Yeah. I don't see us ever slowing down or stopping, just shifting how and what we do.

Gary: Yeah.

Steve: So ZS wants to know, how can he or she learn more from you guys if they're at a startup phase?

Gary: Well, I mean, startup phase is a very short lived phase. It's usually six months or less. And so learning from us would be very, very typical type session. I would say that the best people that are in start up should one of the best resources for that would be come to our workshop. Our workshop is every quarter, and it's, excellent, like you said, in Salt Lake.

The fee is is is about $1,500 to be in the room, but you get three days. And it's not just for me. It's Susan, Brandon, Austin, and Eddie, and and Brian Snyder, and Stephanie Batters. And, you know, we have all these people in different rooms teaching. And so no better way to learn how to build a business than from people that have done it really successfully.

Steve: They're actually really doing. Yeah. Yeah. Casey, Smith wants to know, what's the best advice you you give to a new entrepreneur who's just starting out building their systems and process?

Gary: I love Casey. So love you, Casey. So great question. Best advice is you have to make sure that before you start hiring people that you start to document the process and the procedure. The process is not the procedure, by the way.

So many people intertwine them and they're not. The process is what you do, the steps and what you do, procedures, how you do it. Mhmm. And so far so often, we bring in people and even the right people, and we put them in the wrong seat or bring the right people and put them in the right seat and don't give them a process to follow, and they fail. I don't know how many times I've got a call, Steven.

Somebody's like, I hired the right people. I thought core values. I put them in the right seat. I thought p high, and they didn't work out at all. Mhmm.

I go, well, what process did you put them into? Let's look at the process. I go, I haven't dropped him in the process yet. Okay. Well, how did you expect them to be consistent and succeed if they didn't have a process for them to follow?

At least very minimum of the process and the procedure of how to do it. Mhmm.

Speaker: But I

Gary: just thought I thought they'd figure it out. Okay. Well, the problem is that the people the problem is you as a leader. Right? I don't know how many times I look at somebody who said, you don't have bad people.

You just have bad leaders, and you're one of the leaders. So, you know, remember, everything rises and falls on leadership. The other thing too is I would say this. Before you start hiring people, investing people, building out your process, building your business, you better check yourself. You know, Steve, I can get people pays $15,000 coming with them one on one for business.

I tell them that they're the problem, crickets. I can't even pay a $100 to come learn how to be a better leader. Yeah. Right? Nobody wants to hear how to work on themselves or the answer is them working on themselves.

But we have a lot of businesses I've seen out there that would have a lot more success if the leader learned that they need to be about a leader.

Steve: Yeah. And it's tough because, I've seen this over and over again that if you're not a great leader, you can have great people, right? And those people will just leave you.

Speaker: Yeah. Or you diminish them and their greatness of what they can become.

Steve: Yeah. So like there's there's no point in having good people or a lousy leader.

Gary: Yeah. Yeah. One of the best books right now that I mean, one of my favorite books right now is called multipliers.

Steve: Mhmm.

Gary: And that book talks about diminishing others and not being a good leader and not empowering people and multiplying yourself through others. And, ultimately, what it says is don't be a genius, be a genius maker. Yeah. And so we don't learn that art. And a lot of entrepreneurs don't go through school and don't go to corporate America and get the training, like, you know, that I had the luxury of getting.

So they don't learn how to be a good leader. And sometimes we get entrepreneurs that learn how to be a leader and not a good manager, and they're two different things. Managers love process, leaders love people. Yep. Right?

And so we need management and leadership together in order to grow a business. So, hopefully, that answers Casey's question. It's a great question, by the way.

Steve: Yeah. And I I I focus on leadership, man. Managing people, that will always suck. Yeah. AB is who was your original mentor or someone you learned from, for real estate investing?

Gary: Dwayne. That was it. Dwayne was my guy. I mean, he he taught me everything I know and still tell today. I mean, I was calling the other day learning some stuff from, you know, he but he cryptocurrency is what he's into now.

So that's kinda I'm actually starting to pick that up from him as well.

Steve: You know, it's interesting. So we're going Hawaii next month. And, this company, they, you know, they're they have a certain fee that you pay in Bitcoin is half off.

Speaker: What?

Steve: So I was like, okay. Let's do that. Because I have I'll I dabble a little bit. So, like, if I can save a few $100 Yeah. Let's do that.

It's been

Gary: a tough week for people invested in crypto, though. Yeah.

Steve: I don't know. I'll be

Gary: here for a long play. I'm sure.

Steve: Actually bought when it went down. So I was like because there's so many times where, man, I wish I bought it. I wish I bought it. And now, like, it crashed again. I was like, okay.

Now I'll I'll just buy

Speaker: it. Yeah. Wish we'll make it go back up. So good to know.

Steve: Now we yeah. Now we gotta wait for the other part. Warner wants to know, what's your biggest struggle right now?

Gary: Biggest struggle right now, wanting to do more. You know, being literally not having enough people around me that I wanna run for harder and faster. And I I I I just need more leaders. I need more people that wanna run as hard as me. Mhmm.

I don't think, there's a limit to where we could go. I think there's a limit to desire of people that wanna go there.

Steve: Yeah.

Gary: Right? Like, that's the biggest thing I see right now is there's not enough people that wanna desire enough to get there. Yeah. And, and and I don't know. I mean, this is not a bragging moment or anything, but Susan will tell you, I don't think there's too many people that wanna work as hard as I do Mhmm.

To

Steve: get there. Right? Well, that's one

Speaker: of your

Steve: core values.

Gary: Right? Yeah. Yeah. Hard work. Everybody's like, really?

You wanna work hard, not smart? Like, I gotta be honest with you. I like working hard. Like, I don't have a problem

Steve: with it. You know, there was, was someone I looked up to a lot when I was a kid. You know? Like, I I was, like, six, seven, eight years old. And there's a guy, that my parents, you know, looked up to.

And, you know, we went out to get dim sum. And I remember I said to him as a kid, I was like, oh, I don't wanna work hard. I just wanna work smart. And he sat down. He's like and he looked he got down, like, on his knee.

He looked at me, and I was like, no. Like, you wanna work hard and work smart.

Gary: Yeah. And

Steve: he actually built up the the largest, hard money lender in town.

Gary: Oh, wow. Right?

Steve: So, I mean, he did some big things along the way. Is that someone that I got to look up to when I was a kid?

Gary: Yeah. See, I have a mindset of working hard and then leaning and getting more productive Mhmm. Be able to work more harder again.

Steve: Yeah.

Gary: Well, see, I don't wanna do it at the expense of my wife, my family, everything. So I I bring them all in. Right? Like, my son right now, he left. He's 20 years old.

He left and went to Indianapolis yesterday and worked with a client. And then today, he's in North Carolina. Tonight, he flies in Philadelphia tomorrow, and then he's in Saint Louis on Friday. He's 20. He wants to work as hard as I do.

Right? My daughter is already out in the lobby. She's, you know, she's a hard worker. My son-in-law is a hard worker. My wife matches and rivals me in hard work, But we like it.

I mean, Susan's core value is definitely hard work.

Steve: Yeah.

Gary: So that and the other reason is I don't wanna lose her because if I ever get lazy, I think she'd get rid of me. So probably be the other reason.

Steve: What is your biggest struggle right now besides Gary?

Speaker: Slowing down. No. I'm kidding. Keeping up with him. Yeah.

That's because it it it you know, Monday was a holiday, and he's like, so? I'm like, so? I need the day off. Yeah. I did.

I did get the day off. But it biggest struggle. Yeah. I think I think for Gary, it is some patience. Mhmm.

Gary: You

Speaker: know, we know things are coming, things are happening. I am definitely more patient than Gary. So it's like, hey. I'm gonna put things in place so that when we are able to, you know, the gun goes off and we can charge the, you know, the race, we're ready to go, and and we're not gonna trip and fall on the stones in the middle of the path.

Gary: Mhmm.

Speaker: So it's, you know, just maybe a little patience on letting us figure things out and put things down perfectly for him and

Gary: because it will run better.

Steve: Me moving her feet here. I can see that.

Gary: And her slowing me down. That's what I'm trying to do.

Steve: Absolutely. Absolutely. And it makes total sense. And I think a lot of great partnerships are actually built that way.

Speaker: Yeah.

Steve: So let's see. Gino Paloma wants to know, what do you think about a specialist being ATC? So I guess a specialist and the predictive index profile.

Gary: Totally loaded question. Specialist a could be low or high. Right? So the higher it is, the better. They're gonna help you overcome problems.

And it really all depends on your process, how you're what you're doing in TC.

Steve: I mean, TC I think Gino is really good at processes.

Gary: Is he?

Steve: Yeah. I'm really surprised some of his processes.

Gary: So, again, every she's done almost 10,000 real estate processes, so she can probably speak to us more. But a TC process can change from company to company depending on a couple of things. So we talk about the side pocket of a business, supply, input, process, output, customer. Right? Supplies a house.

The input of that is how we bring it in. Lead acquisitions. Process is what we're doing with it once we get it. The output is dispositions, customers, your buyer, consumer. And so looking at that process in full and what you're doing with it, whether it's fix and flip, buy and hold, you know, turnkey, wholesale, hotel, like, whatever it is, your TC process, because it's a metal of it Changes.

Changes. Mhmm. And so depending on how it changes, the profile changes. Yeah. So rule of thumb, if I'm gonna answer that question, Here's what I'm looking for.

I'm looking for a somewhat higher a, someone that can oversee problems and over overcome them without needing a a lot of guidance. I typically don't want a really high b in that situation. B is somewhat indifferent for me, but somewhere around middle or maybe left of center line. I do like to see lower. I like somebody that's gonna push hard.

They're gonna they're gonna push to get it closed. Mhmm. Right? There's have a sense of urgency there. And then I want the deed to hook back.

I wanna do it right. I want to come across the line, come back across. So a specialist, that's more of a strategist profile. I would

Steve: say that sounds like a strategist.

Gary: Yeah. It's more of a strategist. But that's more or less what I'm looking for. Also, a scholar would be a profile I'm looking forward. If I'm painting in a corner, like, and try to figure out, like, everybody's process, what would be best for everybody, that would be it.

Now depending on how it changes, it change. Right?

Steve: Yeah.

Gary: Casey deals with Maverick.

Steve: Is she?

Gary: She's great at TC. So, again, she's but she's leading a big growing TC company. Right? A visionary.

Steve: Let's see. What else is there? Casey Smith. Casey Deli Smith. Yeah.

Yep. So biggest we already talked about that biggest challenge. So, obviously, you led a lot of big investors, right? You've done the the the two day, three day sessions. What is someone who is doing business right now?

They're doing two, three more deals a month. You know, if someone wanted to, learn, but without going through two or or three day intensive. What is one or two things you wanna share with them? So

Gary: Thank you for asking that.

Steve: To prepare.

Gary: Well, I mean, I think read. Right? There's a lot of books out there that you can read in order to prepare. You know, Geno Wigmans got had a book, a book traction. Mhmm.

We implemented that for years and, and helped a lot of entrepreneurs with it. They're scaling up, make big happen. There's the Advantage by Patrick Colencioni, which was one of my favorite books. My book, Is Your Business Sick, is a book that talks to some degree about having a healthy business, not just a smart business. Mhmm.

But, you know, if I was an entrepreneur out there today and I was looking at like, what could I do? I don't have the initial money to bring you in, things like that. Then you got to look at the different categories. And number one is document your vision. Right?

Bible says there was no vision of the people perish. Right. And so does a business. A business will not make it without vision. And And we have to have both.

We have to have long term vision. We have to have short term vision, long term vision to give hope, give us purpose. They drive us, get us going every day. That short term vision is about driving results. Okay.

Next thing is, I would tell you, know your numbers. I had a call a small other guy. I said, do you know your numbers? And he was trying to give me his numbers. And I said, listen, I don't know you yet.

You're gonna hate me because I'm gonna be really and I'm, guys, listen, I am brutally honest.

Steve: Yes. You are. And so

Gary: so I looked at him. I said, well, do you know your numbers? Well, I think it's this and this. I said, let me ask a question. Like sports?

He says, yeah. I said, who's your what's your favorite sport? So Football. Are you so Baseball? And I said, who's your favorite player?

He told me the player's name. And I said, how much is he batting? Like, what's his batting average? He told me. I said, do you know his slogan percentage?

He was like, well, I think it's this. And he started getting a little unclear with some of the numbers after that. Right? So I said, do you think he knows his numbers? He's like, yeah.

I'm sure he does. You think he knows his on base percentage? Yeah. Do you think he knows his error, his fielding percentage? Yeah.

Do you think he knows his slugging percentage? Yeah. I said, do you think people become great, not know their numbers? Like, listen, you guys are never going to get dialed in without knowing your metrics. And there are two metrics that I wanna know.

Everybody talks about that scorecard and that weekly metrics. And and honestly, man, people try to track way too much. A scorecard is lag results. It's called a key performance indicator. Alright.

Let's take away all these fancy terms that everybody puts in the books. It's a key performance indicator. There's not very many of them, by the way. There is how many leads did you get? How many qualified leads you get?

How many contracts did you get? How many disposition contracts you get? And how many closings? That's about it. Those are like Mhmm.

The key process indicators, and we measure the key performance indicators on a weekly basis. The key process indicators are the daily numbers. They tell us whether or not the process is working. How many offers did you make? How many appointments did you want?

I don't wanna know that weekly. I wanna know that daily. Yeah. Right? So if I'm telling somebody who's getting going and starting this business up, know your numbers and know them daily.

It's not a weekly thing. It's a daily thing. Because if your process breaks, I don't wanna fix it. Steve, what is the level of motivation a seller has to have in order to sell a house? How many levels do we look for?

I mean, it's three. Right?

Steve: I was gonna say at least two or three.

Gary: Yeah. Two or three. So when we look and we list stack right now, right, we're looking for two or three levels of motivation. Right? That's important to know.

Why? Because motivation creates change, and they're gonna wanna change their situation. Yeah. Same thing with numbers. If you track your process numbers weekly, it'll be three weeks of pain before you ever create change.

Mhmm. You won't look at them till every week, so you won't feel the pain of three levels till week three. But if you look at your process measurements every day, it's Wednesday, and we're gonna create change.

Steve: Yeah.

Gary: Because every day you brought to my attention, we haven't had enough appointments. Mhmm. We haven't made enough offers. But I don't look at that about every week. I'm not gonna feel the pain of it till three week three.

Yeah. And processes, we have to change all the time. Just stay up. I always tell people that somebody misses their number first time, day one, it's an anomaly. Could be.

Day two could be an exception. Day three now is a trend. Mhmm. We either have to change the behavior or change the metric. Yeah.

Right? So maybe put the wrong metric down. But either way, we're changing this process or behavior or we're changing the metric by day three. Yeah. I want them tracking their numbers daily, process indicators.

How How many how many what, you know, how much money they spend on marketing? What were the marketing channels? How the how many leads came in? That kind of stuff. The end of the week, though, I wanna know how many leads we got, how many qualified leads we got, how many contracts we got, how many sell sell contracts we had, how many collisions we had.

But in between that, every day, I wanna know what my process indicators are. Okay? And the only way you're gonna get process indicators is to process map. How many times you've seen somebody even in the real estate disruptors group or someone says, hey. Can you give me your KPIs?

What do you track? Mhmm. And it drives me insane because here's the problem. Nobody's processes are the same. And if you're tracking somebody else's process indicators, they're not gonna tell you if yours is broke.

Right. So documenting your process, anytime we have one of those little square those little, what, diamond shapes, that's a key process indicator because that means the process is going one way or the other. Every time we're making a decision in a process, we have to track that daily. Right? And then assign somebody one of those numbers every single day and ask them about it.

Every day, I wanna know how many offers you make. I wanna know how many closings we have with issues. I wanna know how many people we show the house to. Like, I wanna know those numbers every single day. Yeah.

Because as an integrator of a company, if I'm in set in that seat, then I'm gonna come talk to you if we don't hit our numbers. Right? Because if you you know real estate as well as anybody, if you hit your daily numbers, you're gonna hit your weekly numbers.

Steve: Everything else takes care of itself.

Gary: Yeah. So that's number two. Number three is you gotta communicate. Build a communication tool. When we go from one employee to four employees, we grow in 500% complexity.

500% communication complexity. Have a system like Asana or something that helps you have a a category of communication.

Speaker: Centralized.

Gary: Right. I think we got a vision. We gotta have process. We gotta have communication. We gotta have the right people.

Right? One of the exercise we did here was that core values exercise. Mhmm. Making sure we know who we are first so that we align with the right people and then create the right culture. Culture comes from core values.

It comes from purpose, and it comes from your behead goal, your five to thirty year goal. Those three triangle things, those three to thrive is what drives culture. Yeah. If you don't know it, you're gonna struggle building up right culture. And then the opposite side of that is put them on the right seat.

Like like, seriously, you know, why would you put somebody in a seat they're gonna fail in? It's not healthy for you. It's not healthy for them. So know what that seat looks like. Make sure they have the experience.

They have the desire. They have the emotional capacity. How many people we put in leadership seats that had experience before doing that job? They had the desire to do acquisitions, and then we make them acquisitions manager or leader, and they don't have no they don't have the emotional capacity to lead people.

Steve: Right.

Gary: What we call emotional intelligence. It was

Steve: a whole different skill.

Gary: It is. Whole different skill. Right? And so right people, right seats, communicating properly. And then last is making sure you're solving your issues.

Right? Making sure that you're identifying those issues on a daily, weekly basis and working the plan to overcome them. You know, if you just start with that as a new business and you're starting to scale, go through that that perseverance stage. Those are the things I would tell every single person on your podcast work on. But there's nothing more important.

Everybody would think I'd say pick people or vision. There's nothing more important than numbers.

Steve: Yeah. And I think that's one thing that I I love that you brought it to sports analogy. Yeah. Because we're also obsessed with, you know, someone's field goal percentage, how many threes they made, and, you know, how many touchdowns they score. But we don't know our own metrics.

And, something that I've heard before is that if you're not obsessed with your numbers, then you're never gonna achieve anything great. Right. Right. So what book have you gifted more than any other? Go giver.

Go

Speaker: giver. Five Love Languages.

Steve: Love it. Awesome. I want you guys to think about something you wanna leave the listeners with while I make a couple of quick announcements. Guys, we're nine days away from our next all day sales training. I would do it here locally in our office, in our classroom where you can see our operation.

We also offer a remote, option as well on on, on Zoom. If you guys are interested, send me a DM. And next week, we got Logan Fulmer. He's gonna be coming in talking about how to fix dirty deeds for big spreads. So, last thoughts.

Gary: My last thoughts is, like, take take life, with purpose. Right? Go at it with a purpose. Don't wake up every day and take everything for granted. I can tell you this.

We read a book called Broken Windows, Broken Business, and Susan and I read between three and five books a week. We get a chance to Wow. We we travel. So you're on a plane, you turn on Audible, you can get through a whole book. I listened to a whole book last night coming here for three and a half hours.

So all I have to say is this. The broken window spoken theory, business, or book theory talks about the little things. Focus on those little things. Mhmm. Keep those little things important.

But the number one thing I see that people fail at in business that creates a compound effect of problems in their company, the number one thing is gratitude. You wanna know why I see more businesses fail than any other reason? It's gratitude. They stop being grateful. They stop being grateful for the success they've been given.

They start coming entitled. They're they're not grateful for their spouse who sacrifices for them. They're not grateful for their kids they sacrifice for them. They're not grateful for the people that invested in them. They're not grateful for the employees to go above and beyond.

They're not grateful for the the Lord that gave them the success and the ability to do what they do. They stop being grateful. And what happens when we stop being grateful is we start ingratitude shows up. And when we get ingratiful or ingratitude shows up, bitterness comes in. Bitterness creates silos, creates communication problems, and then the compound effect happens from there.

And everybody writes books about communication and silos and stuff. But the real first broken window that you need to protect every day in your business in your mind is be grateful. Wake up every day being grateful for what you were gaining the day before. And plan like you're succeeding, but never ever ever give up on gratitude. I mean, that's that's my thought.

I mean, I could give you guys a lot of different wisdom and a lot of different things, but I'm telling you, if there's one thing I'll never stop is being grateful for what I was given yesterday.

Steve: That's incredible. And, actually, I just started doing a gratitude journal every single morning on Instagram. Nice. I'm glad you said that. I

Speaker: would just challenge your listener listeners to to treat it like a business.

Steve: Mhmm.

Speaker: Stop acting like this is a hobby. Businesses we show up every day for, we are consistent in what we do. We like you said, make an importance about the numbers and the metrics and and how we lead people. And, you know, it's just again, hobbies are you know, we'll do it when we feel like doing it. Or, you know, I finished one great project, so now I don't have to do work right now.

Gary: Mhmm.

Speaker: You know, if it if it's a business we wanted to grow, we've gotta be consistent. And if and if we're not, then it's not gonna become something that we can leave in succession at some point. So Alright. Treat it like a business.

Steve: Yeah. And that's, like, one of the my biggest pet peeves when people say side hustle. Yeah. Kills me with side hustles. So if someone wants to get ahold of you, how would they do that?

Speaker: Me? My email is sharper@sharperprocess.com.

Steve: Simple enough.

Speaker: Yeah. Our website is sharperprocess.

Gary: Yep. Sharperprocess.com. That's probably the best way. They can find us on Instagram. They can find us on Facebook.

It's probably one of our biggest platforms. Sharper Process or Sharper Business Solutions. Sharper Process is our website. And, if they are thinking about if you're a startup, you're an entrepreneur wanting to get started, you can check out sharperevent.com, and that's where we'll have our next event. But, that's probably the best way.

Sharper Sharper Process or gharper@SharperProcess. That's our two emails. Awesome.

Steve: Alright. Thank you.

Gary: Appreciate it.

Steve: Appreciate it.

Gary: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you

Steve: guys for watching. Awesome.