377 : Aaron Walker – He wants to help you change your View from the Top
Have you been looking for the right atmosphere to be honest? Really honest? Can you tell others when things are NOT going right? See Aaron will tell you we are not wired this way. We wear a mask, a front. Everything is great. Everything is right on target. I don’t need any help. Yet inside, some are crying out for help. Some need a shoulder to cry on and a block to help build them up. That’s what Iron Sharpens Iron is all about. Men have some special issues and getting them together without their mask, fully vulnerable and open to obvious criticism can help advance you further than any of the top business schools. So sit back, open your mind and open your ego and grow your business.
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Transcript: (note- this is a new tool I am trying out so it is not perfect- it does seem to be getting better)
Aaron: [00:00:00] I’ll have this alpha male kind of persona that we want everybody that were around to think we’ve got it together. And when you’re out in public, it’s like this facade comes up, you have this veil is between you and that person and you’re afraid to let the veil down. Because if you do and they can see your errors are your flaws, they won’t like you as much. That’s what you think. Or they’re going to think you don’t have it together as well, which is absolutely 180 degrees from the truth. The truth is, when you let that veil down, and we have had a measure of success, but when I share whether a Facebook lives podcast interview,
Cool voice guy: [00:00:36] welcome to the ecommerce momentum podcast where we focus on the people, the products, and the process of ecommerce selling today, here’s your host, Steven Peterson.
Stephen: [00:00:49] Hey, it’s time to get the listings, right? So what should you do? You should get your images, right, right. So amazing freedom has a program to help you do that. And we’ve used them. It’s phenomenal what they can do. You got to go look at this. So you got two amazing freedom.com forward slash photos and take a look at this. Examples of what you can do with an image you take and you give them some sample images, some simple images, and then what they do is they take and insert them with lifestyle photos. And so all of a sudden you’re going to see an example of what a plain image looks like and then what it can be enhanced to. Why is this of value to you while you were in the wholesale business? And guess what? You want to add value to the brand and this is just a simple way to do it.
Stephen: [00:01:32] Therefore, all those kinds of services, scroll down to the bottom. If you really want somebody to help really improve this service and you want to bring value to that brand because you want it exclusivity, the services that they offer for listing enhancement will blow your mind. So again, it’s amazing. freedom.com forward slash photos take a look at what you can do for your brands that you’re trying to get. If you’re ready to learn about wholesale, then I suggest best from the nest and Robin Johnson, her unstoppable Amazon Academy will help you learn from basically even opening account. If you’re brand new to Amazon, but then all the way to brand building, how do you, how do you enhance the brain? How do you have that conversation? There’s 300 plus videos, probably more than that by now, so very simple, little as $49 a month. Best from the nest.com forward slash e m that’s it.
Stephen: [00:02:25] Best from the nest.com forward slash m checkout the services that they offer, checkout some of the events that she hosts. Do you want to go walk around ASD? Check it out best from the nest.com forward slash IA add an important member to your Amazon teams. Solutions. Four ecommerce. Yep. Solutions Four ecommerce Karen lockers team helps manage our Amazon account. We pay full price just like everybody else. We’ve been using it for a couple of years and the reason is is because of the results. We modify a lot of listings, especially in wholesale because we’re trying to enhance that listing. We’re trying to help the brand. And so guess what? That’s the type of service that we get from solutions for ecommerce. So it’s solutions, the number four e-commerce dot com forward slash, wholesale and you can get $50 off her service. Go try it, give it a shot and say, hey, could you help me get this listing in line?
Stephen: [00:03:17] And guess what? That allows you to go out and develop relationships with wholesalers and then the work gets done by Karen and her team. I can’t recommend it enough. We use it again, we pay full price solutions, the number four e-commerce dot com forward slash wholesale save 50 bucks. Get that important part of your team working for you. So you’re looking for an advantage to help you with at brand. Well, one of the tools that you can use his scope, you could check out their product and then check out their competitors and find the keywords that are competitors are using and check out theirs and see that they’re not. And then say, okay, I’ve got an idea. Let me do this. Let me enhance your brand. That’s the thing you can bring to the marketplace. When you can enhance the brand, you’re going to win that account. So try it. You get a free trial, but seller labs.com forward slash, scope, use the code omentum and save 50 bucks. It’s a free trial. Try it and see if you can enhance the brand. Yeah.
Stephen: [00:04:16] Welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. This is episode 377 Aaron Walker. Okay. This is definitely a different type of interview. We take the whole interview for me to give him the last five minutes to talk about ecommerce, and it’s all my fault. I mean, it’s 100% my fault because he’s so engaging and you know, yeah, I’m a little bit of a fanboy, but it’s because here’s a guy who is so real and he’s so authentic and you’re gonna hear that phrase quite a bit, but it’s real. I met him, I met him several times, and every single times he’s this guy that you’re going to hear. And every single time I, I stand a little taller because it’s like, man, I met a guy who is sowing into me and I didn’t ask him for it thing. He’s just warm and genuine and real every single time.
Stephen: [00:05:02] And we talked about that. He talks about how he locks eyes with you 100%. And a guy has huge tall and yet he’s genuine. He’s real. So this is definitely a little bit different of a style because it’s really working on yourself, you know, or ecommerce sellers. Um, but we’re also humans and we can be better at every bit of our life. And, and you know, for me, I’m a better man just for listening to this conversation. So I really deeply encourage you to listen to it. And if you’re a lady, let your husband listened to it. Um, and if you’re interested in joining a mastermind, it real mastermind, not just a coffee club is he says, um, considerate, um, view from the top.com. Aaron Walker. Let’s get into the podcast. Alright, welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast for excited about today’s guest. He is full of enthusiasm. He is someone I met at Dan Miller’s house and I remember my wife and I sitting there like, oh goodness, who is this guy? His story is so compelling, he will captivate you. And yet one of the kindest people that I’ve ever met Aaron Walker. Welcome Erin.
Aaron: [00:06:09] Hey Steven. Thank you buddy. I wasn’t sure what you were going to say on that introduction. You said this guy is full of, and I wasn’t sure what was going to come out, but I was encouraged to hear what you say. So Hey, thank you for having me as your guest.
Stephen: [00:06:22] You’re full of love and there’s nothing wrong with that. And it’s, it’s weird how guys can’t say that. I can say it cause I, I don’t care what anybody else thinks. I love everyone and I think the world needs more love. So you’ve got a crazy story. You’ve got a, well, you’ve got a whole bunch of crazy stories. But one of the, one of the, a couple of things I want to talk about, so you know, you are also an e commerce, so I want people to understand that. Okay. So he’s a bestselling author, a huge group called the view from the top. Iron sharpens iron. You got a ton of stuff. He also sell ecommerce so we can talk about that. But you have a life, had a life prior to all of this, you were wildly successful. And so I want to talk about how you got to there and then how all that stops and your world kind of stomps. Can you, uh, you know, hopefully I don’t bring up too many emotions here, but, but it, it’s, it was so real for me. I can still hear you telling that story years ago.
Aaron: [00:07:23] Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. It’s been an adventure. I mean, God’s really blessed us with a lot of amazing opportunities. This year we celebrate our 40th year being an entrepreneur. Uh, we’ve owned a dozen businesses now we’re working on number 13 and 14, and it’s been absolutely a blast. And so just for context, I’ll go back real quick. I’ll give you a 30,000 foot overview. We came from a very poor family, didn’t have anything, started working in a local pawn shop when I was 13 years old. I met a couple of guys when I was 18 years old and I said, hey, why don’t we take my experience in your money, open our own? After about three months of negotiating, we did exactly that. We grew that store immensely. It was just incredible. Uh, how God blessed our efforts. And when I was 27 years old, we sold out to a fortune 500 in fort worth, Texas. And I’m like, this is the American dream, Steven. I go from broker to con there though, to a retiring his pawn shops. Yeah. You know, 27 years. Yeah. I was in the pawn shop business. Yeah.
Stephen: [00:08:33] Let me, let me ask you a couple of questions about that because I think that’s interesting. How do you have a pawn shop with a conscience? I mean, especially in the days they’re used to it, but there’s, there’s a negative stigma about it.
Aaron: [00:08:44] Sure. Surely going, it’s just a, you know, it was typically they’re located around prisons. Courthouses, right? Nothing like that at all though. That’s just for the movies. I’m not, there’s not some out there like that. Uh, first and foremost, we had probably the best run shops. Well, we did a, that’s why the fortune 500 company bought us. It’s not your CD little shop with the visor in the cigar and in the back room. You know, like we had 10,000 square foot stores. We had many, many employees in the stores. Uh, we had the best diamond selection in the city. Uh, we had huge sponsors of our stores like Dave Ramsey, you know, he sponsored our store 21 straight years. I was a consecutive sponsor of his show endorsing us. We had the best clientele you can possibly imagine. I mean, beautiful stores. We built state of the art stores.
Aaron: [00:09:40] We would buy a location, tear it down, build a new facility there. Uh, everything was state of the art. It was beautiful. I mean these stores were absolutely amazing and we could sit here the rest of the day and debate whether, you know, a person should borrow money or shouldn’t bar, uh, it did provide a service for people that have other financial opportunities. So making a lasting to me though is that you were able to succeed in that environment in a positive way and oh, absolutely. Are you able to carry that stuff forward? I mean, when you look forward, you know, I guess if he looked backwards in your life, those things that you did back then to help make that business successful is 100%. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it all boils down to just a few things and we’ve owned 12 businesses and so everything kind of carries forward.
Aaron: [00:10:28] You know, the way, the way you treat people, you know, there’s certain characteristics and traits that you have to have yourself that I do. I have a lot of grit, determination, perseverance, a high character. My Dad taught me that when I was a young man. So your word is absolutely your bond and we’ve carried that forward. I’m a Christ follower by faith. And so everything that we do is from a Christian perspective with a Christian values, uh, so you can operate any kind of business with great integrity and a huge amounts of integrity and character. So, sorry, I interrupted you. That’s good. Thank [inaudible] person that would, that would, you know, really take that approach. That would really, uh, you know, explain it. And it’s funny, I’m thinking back to Dave Ramsey days. I remember your commercials. I remember them. Yeah, that was cool. It was fun.
Aaron: [00:11:16] I met Dave Ramsey when he first started at a chamber of commerce event. There were 25 people there. We introduced ourselves to one another and he came up and offered me to advertise on his show. And I said, I don’t even know who you are. I never even heard of you. And he started laughing and he said, you know, I’ve got a radio show. I just started here in Nashville. We’re on one station. It was him and two other employees. That was it. And he was the salesperson. And so he gave me advertising to try him for a week. And I tried it. Our business went crazy. It blew up and started sponsoring this show. And we did. We went 21 consecutive years. David and I are best friends now. I was in his mastermind group for 12 years. We met in his office, and that’s where my life was really transformed.
Aaron: [00:11:59] Meeting with Dan Miller, uh, Dave Ramsey, uh, Ken Abraham, Jeff Mosley, some of those names may or may not mean anything to your listeners, but these are amazing guys that we did live together with each and every day. It was my own trusted advisers. They’re like my board of directors. And those guys really helped me understand how to do life in a very successful way, uh, with high character and integrity. So we were called the eagles. A lot of people have heard us reference from Dan Miller and Ken Abraham can, Abraham’s got 95 books in print. These, the most noted ghost author on the planet. Uh, he’s written some of the most amazing books and I got to do life with these guys for a couple of decades. And so it’s just really been fun. We all live here in Nashville, Tennessee. And, uh, we just get to do life together. But back to the story.
Aaron: [00:12:50] So I sold out at 27 and I was through, I’d retired. Robin woke me up and on a Monday morning she said, what are you going to do today? And I said, I’m going to play golf and I’m going to fish. And I did all those things for about 18 months. And Stephen, just to be totally honest with you, I was bored out of my mind. 18 months later, I was getting in the bed in the middle of the day in Robin woke me up one day and she said, listen, this is not what I signed up for. And so she said, you gotta go back to work, started another company, go to work for somebody. I don’t care what you do, just get out of the house, quit eating and quit taking naps and bill the bay. So I go back by the company I started with when I was 13 years old, spent the next 10 years, quadrupling that business.
Aaron: [00:13:33] I mean, we lit it up and it was unbelievable. And tail. August 1st, 2001 I was working three days a week. My partner was working the other three days. Life was good. We had a vacation home. We had a home in Nashville, uh, two beautiful daughters, great wife. My life was like utopia. Like when you look up in the dictionary where it says Utopia had had my picture by it, it was like you couldn’t live a better life than I was living. It was incredible until the guy named Enrique walked out in front of me and I ran over and killed a pedestrian. Steven, I can’t even begin to tell you what happened that day. To me it was unbelievable and I’m like, God, why is this happening to me? I mean like everything couldn’t be any better. And then boom, man, out of nowhere in my book, I call it blindsided because that’s exactly what happened.
Aaron: [00:14:25] And I want your listeners to know you can be blindsided at any moment. You never see it common. Can you guess what happened? Yeah. When you tell that story, I mean, when you think back about that story, is there anything in your life that, you know, I don’t want to get offensive in any way? I mean, is it because you had so much success? I mean, could, could ego could, you know, uh, or, or, um, eagerness, um, could that be part of anything that would help try to understand? I mean, I know it’s, it’s just, it’s just happened. Did you get where I’m going with that? I’m just trying to understand. Is there, when you think about it? Yeah, let’s unpack that for a little bit because I did think those things and I came to a stark realization that the creator of the universe is not sitting up there with a baseball bat waiting for me to mess up and he’s gone to decapitate me.
Aaron: [00:15:24] You know, that’s not the way it works. But however, let me do say this. It was an accident, right? I mean, it was just a freak accident. He didn’t see me coming. Obviously I didn’t see him. He just ran out in front of me to catch this bus that was waiting to pick him up. And I literally ran over him. And so what I did come to real laws out of that. And quite honestly, now that you’ve brought this up, I’ll go ahead and share with you this. I was very arrogant. I was cocky. Uh, I was the golden child. Like everything I touched turned to gold in my own mind. I was reading my own press clippings. And quite honestly, 20 years ago, you wouldn’t have had me as your guest because I was very overconfident, uh, cocky. I knew exactly where I was going, knew who I was.
Aaron: [00:16:16] I’d grown these stores, multiple stores, sold out to a fortune 500, grew another store four times the size it was. I’d had all this measure of success. And then all of a sudden I have this accident and I couldn’t handle the stress. And so I go to my partner and I said, listen, I’m 40 years old at this time. And I said, ah, I’m done. I’ve been chasing money since I was eight years old. I’m 40. I’m going to retire on through. So I did. I sold the business and Robin and I took five years off. We didn’t do anything. We traveled all over the world. We built a new house. I got my feet back under me. And what happened was is people say, well, you got over it. No, you don’t get over killing somebody. God gives you the grace to learn to deal with it.
Stephen: [00:17:04] And I want to encourage your listeners out there today, regardless of what you’ve been through, regardless of what you’ve done, regardless of past transgressions, God offers the same measure of grace to you as he did to me. So he allowed me to learn how to deal with, and Robin one day looked at me, she said, you’ve got to pull yourself together. I mean, I wanted to get under my desk in the fetal position and not come out of the house. And then I discovered isolation is the enemy to excellence. And if you want to do well, you’ve got to get out. You’ve got to get in community. That’s the way God designed us, not to be alone. He designed us to be in community. And so that’s what I did. I chose to pick myself up and move on. But is a guy, this is so relevant to your
Stephen: [00:17:50] whole continual story, but as a guy, Aaron, you know, we don’t talk about this stuff. You know, guys don’t talk about their failures. You know, everything’s said, hey, how are you doing here? Oh, life’s great, everything’s great. And the guys, you know, has no money in his hand, you know, or pocket or his wife’s leaving or whatever. Right? That’s hard, isn’t it? Do you find it now as, as, as somebody who’s older and there are probably the same age? So I can say it about me, um, that it’s a heck of a lot easier now. I don’t care anymore. You know what people think. I’ll say, Hey, I love, I have some friends that I tell him I love him all the time and, or I’m struggling. Hey, can you help me with this? Or what have you. Is it have to come with age or can it be, do you wish it was taught earlier?
Aaron: [00:18:35] Well, here’s the thing. Uh, we all have this alpha male kind of persona that we want everybody that were around to think we’ve got it together. And when you’re out in public, it’s like this facade comes up, you have this veil is between you and that person and you’re afraid to let the veil down. Because if you do and they can see your errors are your flaws, they won’t like you as much. That’s what you think. Or they’re gonna think you don’t have it together as well, which is absolutely a 180 degrees from the truth. The truth is when you let that veil down, and we have had a measure of success, but when I share whether Facebook lives, podcast interviews, TV interviews, whatever, I’m sure on the radio, whatever I’m doing, if I let that veil down, immediately you identify with me immediately. It attracts you to me.
Aaron: [00:19:23] Immediately you go, I can identify with that guy. See, I hate the Facebook persona. I hate, ah, I’m on Hawaii today and I got up and you know, worked my four hour workweek and everything is amazing. That’s just not the reality of it. We have family relational problems, we have financial problems. Uh, we have failures, we have successes. Is this like some people got more Zeros on their bank balance and others, but it doesn’t change the fact that we all struggle with things when you let that veil down. Now we’re working from a level playing field. Now we’re saying, Hey, I’m down to the solid footing and now I can build back with great confidence and I know that the things that I’m going to add now or going to add strength. And so we’ve got to get that fluff out of the way. Cause there’s people right now that are listening to me that say that to people, hi, everything’s fine. And they’re laying at home at night in the bed with their wife and they’re going, I don’t know how we’re gonna pay the mortgage tomorrow.
Stephen: [00:20:18] This time of year. They’re doing their taxes. I got my taxes done by got to take him. Right, right. What are we going to do? I sold $1 million on Amazon last year. I have no money. Right, right.
Aaron: [00:20:30] Yeah, they’re having these conversations, but they’re doing it privately and see inside your home. Nobody there. It can help you, but when you go to like a mastermind group, which I’ve been involved in for 20 years now, every week, then you go, hey guys, here it is. I sold $1 million on Amazon. I don’t know how in the world I’m going to pay taxes. And then they go, okay idiot. You should have been prepared for this. You knew better. This year we’re going to start preparing. We’re going to make you set up this account. We’re going to hold you accountable for putting the money aside. We’re going to hold you accountable for doing your taxes quarterly. We’re going to look at your profit and loss. We’re gonna look at your balance sheet. We’re gonna make sure this doesn’t happen again next year. See, I need people in my life. They go, are you doing this? You taking care of robbing. You Watch it after your kid. You looking after your business. Are you reading? Are you going through personal development, et cetera. If you don’t have that around you, the WHO’s going to ask you in. Most people are not disciplined enough, Stephen, to do these things on their own. They’re just not. And we need people around us to help us do that. When you measure
Aaron: [00:21:34] success, all those things you just described, I mean, what’s more important to your, your bank balance or those things, those relationships. The love of your family, the love of if your personal faith, your faith, right. All those different things. Again, I come back to, you know, especially in this world because it’s such a, it is an Alpha male business. Even even the ladies sometimes it’s, it’s just so competitive, you know? And again, it’s a measurement tool, right? It’s, hey, how much did you sell it? Right, right, right. How do you, how do you, uh, find people like that? So I understand you have a mastermind group when we’re going to talk about that, but yeah, but, but even within, you know, just personally before you had an official mastermind, how do you attract those type of people? Maybe that’s a better way of saying it.
Aaron: [00:22:21] Well, let’s, let’s go back to the question you asked before I answer that question. So you just ask a question like what’s most important to you? And I think it’s important for us to discuss this. I can’t stand it, Stephen. When people have money, tell the world money’s not important to me. I’ll go, you liar. Take it away from you and see how important it is. We make money and evil thing. Money’s a great thing. I love money. I want to make more money, but I don’t want money to own mate. I don’t want to make it. My God, I don’t want to make it. The only reason I’m doing what I’m doing. Money is a certificate of appreciation. As my friend, rabbi Daniel Lapin says, it’s people offering you money that says thank you for this service. Now here’s the other side. I love to have a nice house.
Aaron: [00:23:11] I love to take nice trips. I love to have a nice car. I love to be able to decide today I don’t think I’m going to work. I think I’m going to take my grandkids and we’re going to go to the lake. I love being able to do that in money gives you the ability to do that. Now when it’s the only thing I’m after, that’s when it gets dangerous. Like I lo, I love to make money cause don’t help my kids. I want to be able to help my grandkids. I want to give money away. I like to go and help people that are unsuspecting. I like to do it anonymously. And we do that all the time with our grandkids. We teach them to people in need anonymously so they don’t get the recognition for it. You can’t do that financially without money.
Aaron: [00:23:52] So all of you stop trying to say the honorable thing to do is to be broke. Now it’s not, we don’t need to be broke. We need to make money, we need to make plenty of money for our services. We need to charge fairly, give great products and we need to be rewarded handsomely so that we can do the things that we’re discussing now. So what’s important to me, significance is important to me. Success. What do you, what significance means to you? What does that mean? You know, I think it means different things to different people, but for me, significance, first of all is meeting the needs of other people. It’s not about yourself, it’s others. One thing that I think is hugely significant is learning to fully engage. Listen intently and stop waiting your turn to talk. You’ve ever been to a restaurant with somebody and they’re talking to you and you tell him something and all they’re doing is thinking about what they want to say.
Stephen: [00:24:46] They’re not listening to him. That guy’s right. Also, they’re sitting there looking at you and there every time the door opens, every time somebody walks by, they look, they want to see not who they’re with. I want to say who they’re not with it. That is very, very disrespectful to people. Significance means I care about you. So I’ve really worked hard it locking eyes with you. That’s significant because what Steven has to say is important and I want to listen to. The other thing is helping others when they can’t repay you, that’s significant. And we help people all the time. There are no way they can do anything for us. And we teach our grandchildren this regularly. I think also being available for others when it’s not convenient. People say all the time, oh, I’m busy. Well, I’m busy too, who’s not busy. It’s like taking the time and saying, you know what?
Aaron: [00:25:33] I could go do this other thing, but I’m going to invest in you. I’m going to take the time to help Steven right now and I’m going to go over here. Yes, I could be making more money. I could be coaching another client, but you know what, man? You need my support by edification. You need me to empower you. You need me to do a video endorsement or a Linkedin recommendation or a handwritten note. See, I think that’s very important. Providing above and beyond minimal requirements. Everybody out there today is doing just enough to get paid and I’m like, what about the extra? Why don’t you take the extra time to do a little? I had a guy the other day that would just went nuts over an interview I did and he loved what I was doing. He wanted a book. What’s, so I autographed a book and I sent it to him, but you know what I did add?
Aaron: [00:26:18] Videoed me autograph in the book and I sent it to him with a private message. It lit him up like a Christmas tree. The guy, it’s extra. I didn’t have to do that. So I think that is really important. I think giving because you want to and not because you should. I tell people all the time, quit shooting, owned me like I want to give from my heart. I want to do it because I want to. Couple more things that are significant to me is placing personal wants and desires aside for the benefit of others. Like I gotta go, you know what? I could go do this, but it would really mean a lot to that person. If I set my personal desires aside and really did this for their benefit,
Stephen: [00:26:58] without them knowing
Stephen: [00:26:59] hundred percent it’s not about them knowing that you did it. And then I think if you prioritize your personal goals with others in mind, in this goes from your family down. I mean everybody, you know, we, we teach servant leadership. Most people don’t know what that is. I think also we’ve got a delay or personal gratification for the greater advancement of others. I think that we’ve got to say, I could do this or I could get this or I could get this recognition, but what about let’s turn the light on them. What about let’s sit in the back of the room and say, this guy needs the spotlight. This guy needs to be edified. And also for me, just long term, I want to have the foresight to invest long term so that potentially I could impact generations to come. So those are things for me that I believe that we need to pay attention to when it comes to measuring significance.
Stephen: [00:27:52] Is it a lot of that? You know, as I’m sitting here and listening to this, I am drifting off thinking about a lot of it. It sounds like a discipline. You know, as I, as I read, the iron sharpens iron. Some of this stuff. I mean it’s really, it’s a discipline, right? It’s, if you’re not that guy, right? If you’re not paying attention, the others you have to start and you start. I always say, you make the next right decision and to keep making the next right decision. Eventually you build a pattern and then you know that gives it some success. This discipline, I mean in every one of those phrases you just said, it really is a discipline. It’s intention, right?
Aaron: [00:28:26] Well, it’s very being proactive and that’s the way we live our life. We don’t live our life reactive. Robyn and I sit in our sun room and we plan and we know exactly what we want to do with her life. Listen guys, we don’t get a do over. This is it. This is the ball game. You’re playing ball right now. You don’t get another chance. And why would I not want to live my life proactively with huge amounts of discipline?
Aaron: [00:28:51] Jesus. This is why I have people like Erin on show. It’s so Steve can get better. It’s definitely, okay. So let’s continue the story because in my mind is racing with so many things that I want to ask you, but I want to get through how you come into the ecommerce world. So you, you, you, your life, uh, pauses. You get up, you don’t suck your thumb, you get up and you come forward. What was your, what was your plan? What were you going to do?
Aaron: [00:29:21] Nothing. Just the whole thing. I mean, still, that was it. I said, I’m done. And so I go to my mastermind group and, uh, when I’ll retired this last time we owned a construction company. There was a seven year period there that we didn’t talk about after this guy built me a house that was unbelievable. I went to him and I said, why don’t we take my resources in your skills and we’ll really take this construction company to the next level. And he said, I don’t know anything about growing businesses. I said, praise the Lord. I said, you just go build them and I’ll take it from there. And I did. So we, uh, I bought a building, an office building. We put our offices, they’re a really had a nice place. We built high end residents in small commercial and he was a master craftsman.
Aaron: [00:30:07] He was amazing. This guy you were to see this house he built for me. It was incredible and I just fell in love with that. I said, man, this is so amazing. So I took my abilities as you asked me earlier, how do you carry these things forward? I know how to do marketing, I know how to treat people and do customer service. So we carried that forward in this business and we were number one builder three consecutive years in middle Tennessee after a seven year period. So fast forward, I turned 50 years old. I go to my mastermind group meeting, Dave Ramsey sitting on my right, Dan Miller sitting across the table from me and they said, are you going to do now? And I said, nothing. He said, what do you mean nothing? You’re 50 and I said, I’m done. I’ve been working since I’m eight.
Aaron: [00:30:48] I’m 50 now and I’m done. I said, what are you going to do? I said, I’m going to go to the Caribbean, I’m going to sit on the front porch of a little Tiki hut and I’m on drink ice tea until the sun sets every day. And Dan Miller never grand. He leaned over the table and he said, that’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard you say. I wanted a Pokemon. The eye with my fingers, Steve, I want to reach across the table. I said, what do you mean? He said, oh, what you’re saying is is you’ve been married over 30 years, got a successful marriage, you’ve had all these businesses. I’ve got enough for myself now. Good luck. God bless the rest of you. You know that’s not what I mean. He said, I don’t know what you mean. What do you mean? And I said, how does that hurt for you to hear that when you add style with a Pokemon?
Aaron: [00:31:33] Nah. Really? You thought you were doing everything right? Yeah. I’m like, I don’t really understand what you’re saying. He said, you’re 50 you’ve had all these businesses, you can teach other people to do this. I said, I’m not coaching anybody. And he said, why? I said, I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it. So they range. He goes, hey, come do on trade leadership mastery, you know, be my guest. I went, Dang Day, that’s a $10,000 present. Thank you. So I went and did it and loved it and I went home and I said, Robin, this was amazing. So Dan called me and he said, hey, come out to the sanctuary and do innovate. And it’s where they teach coaches. And I said, okay. So I go out there. Second day I was out there, I said, oh my gosh, I’m loving this. And so Dan texted me on the way home.
Aaron: [00:32:21] He said, hey, big guy. He said, did you see the people at your table? I said, what do you mean? He said, they were on the edge of their seat. They were all leaning forward. You had captivated the table. I said, well, I’m just a good storyteller. He said, that’s not yet. He said, you have experience, you’ve owned all these businesses, successful, successful companies. They want to know what you’ve got to say. And he said, you need to coach. So I’ll go home and talk to Robin about it again. And I said, Robin, I don’t know. You know, I’m tired. Maybe I need a little break. And I took a few months off, I said, maybe I’ll do this. So a couple of guys called me and I’d made it Dave Ramsey’s event, and they said, hey, we want you to coach us. I said, well, Dang, they’re calling me.
Aaron: [00:33:02] I said, maybe I should. So I started coaching him. I couldn’t get enough of it, so I’ll read. You couldn’t get enough of it. Not the mining. Oh, you’re not good enough. Did you see lights go on? Is that these young guys may lights were coming on left and right. And they were going like, I didn’t know that. And I started thinking, well, everybody knows this. Robin goes, no, they doubt you voted in businesses. Where else did that fit into your life? I mean, who sewed that stuff into your life when you think backwards? Oh, when I think back, I think of David Landreth and Bob Warren and Greg Smith and Alan Lindsey and Charlie. Hey, good. And all these guys that were around me because I’m very relational man. I’ve got tons and tons of friends. I’m like a sponge. I’m always learning and I’m reading constantly. I’ve read hundreds if not thousands of books.
Aaron: [00:33:50] At his point. Dan Miller got me to reading when we were in the group 20 years ago when we were starting doing this. He said, you need to read. And I said, I don’t like to read. And they raved. He goes, I don’t care if you like to read or not. You don’t wake up smarter. I mean, you don’t go to bed. The Las Posas and Lauren, you got to start reading it. So I started reading and uh, fell in love with it. Now I read, I keep four or five books going on at all times. I read, it’s a couple hours a day, every day. And it’s just the way that you have to do personal development. And yet these young guys that, that are attracted to you, they were missing those relationships, correct? I mean, is that, is that fair to say? Oh, no question about it.
Aaron: [00:34:29] They didn’t have anybody in their life. See, we only have, I just want to, because they have this facade, they don’t want to let people in. Oh, okay. So when you start letting people in, it gets nasty. You’re like, oh, they know my breath stinks. Or they know that I don’t know how to read a profit and loss. Or they know that you fill in the blank, whatever it is, and you’re like, ah, I don’t want to go there. Well that is crazy. It’s like, how are you going to get better if you don’t show some sense of transparency and vulnerability? None of us know everything. I’m not listening and have never listened to a single person on any interview or radio book that knows everything. It’s like just man up and say, I don’t know. And then when you do that, they go, Oh man, I can show you that.
Aaron: [00:35:17] I can teach you that. And then this light comes on. And then when that light comes on, another door opens and you go, man, look at this opportunity and did it just keeps going and then you just start offering yourself to help and to encourage and to lift up. See what you want to be is a giver, not a taker. The takers don’t last long. What you want to say is, hey man, I’ll help you in any way I can and when you’re the guy that brings the light to the room, everybody else wants to be around you and then they start introducing you to this guy and that guy. You start getting on this podcast and that podcast and then I say, Steven, what can I do to help you? You’re like, what? Like how can I help you? Who can I introduce you to?
Aaron: [00:35:53] What do you need? What is it that I can help you with? I think the very first thing I ask you when we got on this interview is how can I make this a win your audience? Absolutely. It was the first thing he said, okay, well the point is is that’s what I want to do. But as a result of that, these opportunities come. The guys that hold the cards close to their vest and don’t show and don’t teach, they’re making a huge mistake. We started a master custom builder council and years like, what is that? When we were construction industry, we say, why don’t we get all the competitors together and forming a lots? They’re like, what are you say it? And these guys got together and we said, no, seriously, this get together and start sharing best practices. So we got together and you’re like with your competition.
Aaron: [00:36:35] Well, let me tell you what happened. As a result of that, everybody’s business went up because we were buying in bulk. Now as a group, 10 builders, we’re buying in bulk, so we get it cheaper. Well, when you get it cheaper, it makes you more competitive and when you’re more competitive, you get more business. Now we start building parade homes and we start donating the money to charity. Tens of thousands of dollars. We’re donating to charity. Now we’re saying, hey, I don’t need my trim guy this week. Do you need one? You had to, well now you’re filling a need where your, your vendors want to come in now and pitch to you because you’re buying in bulk, which makes everybody more attractive. The last year that I was in construction, 10 builders did $115 million in business, far more than they did standing alone, and they’re more profitable. They’ve got more resources, they’ve got people that can call. So instead of working against each other, we had a guy recently joined our mastermind in the marketing business and first thing out of his mouth, I’m going to crush my opponent. Well, he hired me to start coaching him one on one and I did nine months later, his whole disposition, his attitude changed. Now he helps him, he calls me and says, Hey, in his business is exploding as a result of it. See, it’s a giving mindset, not a taking mindset.
Aaron: [00:37:48] Wow. Okay, so I’m going to continue this story because I do want you to get to it of how you get into ecommerce. So coaching is coming along and I keep interrupting. I apologize, but it’s every one of these stories, you’re pulling something out of me. Um, and it’s, you know, some of it hurts. I must’ve been Aaron, some of it hurts because I see myself in some of that, but I do see some of those other things too, so I’m thankful for that. Um, so let’s go forward because you’re coaching, you’re seeing these lights go on, you’re seeing and you want to do more of it. What did, what did do more of it? What were you thinking it was going to be? I mean, you could have never seen, you couldn’t have foreseen what it’s become, right?
Aaron: [00:38:26] Oh No, no, I didn’t even want to do it. I could offer saying it. I didn’t even want to do it without the urging of Dan Miller and Dave Ramsey. I’d be sitting down on Saint John in the Caribbean. But here’s the thing, here’s what happened. As a result of that, once I started coaching guys and started seeing the level of success personally and professionally with these guys, it really stoked to fire in me. I said, you know, maybe I do have something to offer. A couple of guys said, hey, you need to start marketing your cell phone podcast. And I said, okay, that’s good. What is a podcast? And they started laughing. They said, you don’t know what a podcast is. I said, I’ve been in bricks and mortar my whole career. I have no clue, but I’ll go get on it if you’ll tell me what it is.
Aaron: [00:39:10] They started to encourage me and coaching me and training me five years ago and said, this is what a podcast is. And I said, well, I don’t really know where to even start. And they said, there’s this young guy up in calming, uh, called John Lee Dumas, entrepreneur on fire. And they said, you need to get on his show. And I said, okay, just get him on the phone. They said, it’s not that easy. They said he has a guest every day, but it’s a really difficult show to get on. Like there’s a waiting list, you can’t even get on there. And so I wrote my story out on my iPad, sitting out on the patio and I emailed it to him. It wasn’t an hour. I get a response back and it said, hey, book a time on my calendar. I want to talk to you.
Aaron: [00:39:47] And I told my wife, I said, this is what they call an auto responder. And she started laughing. Next morning I get up and I’ve got another email from human says, hey, now really I want to talk to you. Uh, please give me a call. Here’s my calendar. So I said, well, happy dad gum. So I reached out to him and he said, your story is amazing. He said, I want you on the show. And I was a nervous wreck. I mean, I didn’t know my butt from third base. I had no clue what I was going to talk about or do. And I’m just telling you just for context. So I’ve been on there four times now. He put me in the top 10, uh, was third in his top 10, now fifth. This new guy named Tony Robbins or something like that and keep sneaking up.
Aaron: [00:40:28] Did. He pushed me right down to the fifth and he said, big date. He said, anyway, you’re tall, but he’s a little taller is he’s a big old guy. But anyway, it was fun. And I just shared my story. Well, once I got on there a couple of times, my schedule filled up, I mean literally filled up and I said, man, I can’t coach all of these people. There’s no way. I have people all over the world that I was coaching. And I said, I’m going to start a mastermind and idea to start a mastermind. Kept doing the interviews and uh, we filled up one mastermind and filled up the other one on the other one now and now we have 14 mastermind groups. Uh, as a result of that, we’ve got the greatest community on earth. Well, it’s cold. Iron sharpens iron. Correct. Or sharpens iron sharpens iron.
Aaron: [00:41:09] And there is one thing to be a member of iron sharpens iron. And he said, not sure. Yeah, we deal with me. And the reason we do there, there’s plenty of groups for women, but I’m a hardcore Kinda guy. And there’s things that I need to say that I can’t say in the presence of women because I’m a southern gentleman and my mom taught me properly how to talk. But there’s things that men deal with and I know there’s things that women deal with, but there’s some things that men deal with that you can’t talk about in the presence of a lady. Okay? We want to make your man a great man. Women now, our biggest advocate, they say the guy got nail is not the God delivered to you. It’s like he is amazing and he’s a great dad. He’s built boundaries around his business.
Aaron: [00:41:53] And then we talk about things like pornography. Uh, we talk about substance abuse. Uh, I get all off in your business. I know everything about you because I want to hold you to a high level of accountability. And so my wife said that I make women cry. Like I used to do financial counseling. She said, why do you have to be so mean? And I’m like, well, they didn’t hear me the first time. She said, you can’t talk to women like that. I said, well then I could never coach him because this is just who I am. I’m an intense guy because I’m about getting it done. I’m not a about gathering for coffee and hanging out and talking about the biggest deer you killed. I’m about getting in the weeds. Let’s figure it out and let’s get down and get it over with and go move on to the next thing.
Aaron: [00:42:34] And that’s just my personality. Well, so we just decided, hey, we’re going to cater to me in and we’re going to return to women. Great husbands and great dads and great business people. Where did view from the top start? Where did it, what did it, I mean when you, I mean it’s, it’s a bestselling book, but where did it start? Well, so my son in law was sitting at the kitchen table when, uh, I was thinking about different names that I was going to, the, one of the names I thought about was an eagle’s view. That was the name because we were the eagles when I was with day in and day eve. And that was the name of our group. And I thought, oh, I don’t know if I like that. And we were talking about different things in regards to what people really wanted in life.
Aaron:: [00:43:17] And, uh, my son in law was sitting there and he said, you know, everybody wants a view from the top. And when he said it, like even then I got chills on my arms. I’m like, that’s it. That’s it. That’s the name view from the top because we all want that. And everybody says, what is that? Well you have to identify for yourself what that is. We can’t put a blanket over and say this is the view from the top. But now I tease everybody. I said, why do you call it view from the top? I say, cause nobody wants a view from the bottom. I mean, we all want a view from the top and I help people achieve that.
Stephen: [00:43:51] It’s amazing. You know, when you think about where it’s come obviously, and you said you had no clue that it would get there and he quite, we’re unwilling to go. Um, now the lives that you’re changing, what’s that done for you? Um, you know, how, how, how does that keep you invested in the
Aaron: [00:44:10] process? Yeah. Well, here’s the thing. We talked about money earlier in the motivator. Not to detract from that because it’s fun. It is fun to make a little bit of money to be able to do some of the things that you want to do in life. But we’ve got a wall in our break room, the people that send us letters and notes and thank you cards and all that. We pin up because when I have a bad day and somebody might leave our group or Ali Lose a coaching client, I’ll go in there and go, nobody’s gonna ever call me again. You know? And I’ll start reading that. Yeah. Everybody has that. And so I read those and I think about it and I think, you know what, uh, the only thing that’ll keep you somewhere long term is purpose. No amount of passion will keep you there because passion is an exhaustible resource.
Aaron: [00:45:00] It’s like an igniter. It will get you started, but he won’t keep you there. Money is another thing a lot of people say. If I could just make another $50,000 a year, then I’d be happy. Well, you want, because happiness is a choice, not a trait. We choose to be happy regardless of the circumstances that we’re presently in. Money is just a magnifier and oftentimes it will magnify bad things and not good things. The only thing that will keep you, there’s purpose, and let me use this example. If there were two buildings side beside a hundred feet tall and I put a board across them and I said, Steven, I’ll give you $10 to walk across that board. You’re like, dude, we’re thousand feet in the air. There’s no way I’m going to do that and take a risk of killing myself. But if I took your son and I put him on top of that building and I set the building on fire, no amount of money would keep you from going across that board to rescue your son.
Aaron: [00:45:57] That’s your purpose. See, that’s what we’ve got to establish in our life. What is my purpose? What is the reason that I get up each and every day when I get these letters that people say, hey, I don’t do this anymore and I do do this now I’m a better husband, I’m a better dad. My business has doubled as a result of this accountability. I got a email from a guy and I’ll stray you. And I started reading it and this guy had been in real trouble and he heard my interview and he said his entire life changed. And when he said that, as I’m embarrassed to admit this on the air, but I’m going to tell you, cause I told you I’m transparent. I’m 58 years old. I started balling. I mean I started crying and I called my wife over, said, come here.
Aaron: [00:46:45] She said, well, I said, I can’t read this. You don’t have to read it to me. And she finished reading it. I just couldn’t. And I think you know what if, if nothing else happens as a result of what I do today, there’s a guy in Australia that I’ll probably never meet that told me because of my grit and determination and perseverance. And talking about getting over struggles and trials, his life has changed. It’s all been worth it. And that’s the reason that we’ve got to find out what our purpose is. When I, when I hear you again, come back to it, cause one of my questions is your biggest strengths. What are they? And you know, it’s this authentic transparency. I mean that, that sounds to me almost, you know, the, the basic block that you have in your, in you. Is that fair?
Aaron: [00:47:37] Yeah. Ideas. And it wasn’t, and I wished I had learned earlier. I wished I’d had meant to me too late earlier. I’m an old dude, Aaron, that mold now we can start today. It’s never too late. How does somebody start today? Let’s give a real value here. First of all, they have to make a concerted effort and a decision to start. And that’s the hardest part is kind of like anything. It’s like everybody says, I need to lose weight and need to lose weight. The hardest part is starting right after that you pick up momentum. So you’ve got to, you can’t want it more than others. Like, I can’t want my children to lose weight more than they won’t lose weight. They’ll never stay with it. I can’t want my children to do x more than I want them to do. Oh, they’ll never do it.
Aaron: [00:48:20] You have to have ownership so you have to choose. You have to say, I want to get better in personal development, professional development. I want to lose weight, I want to be a better husband. I can’t impose that on you. There was a couple Robyn and our counseling together and I was upset. I was saying, you need to do this, you need to do this and need to help you with this, and it had some relationship issues and we were more upset over it. Then they were and I fired him. He came to my office in the conference room. Robyn and I was sitting there and I said, today’s our last day and they looked at me like, why? I said, cause we care more about your problem then you do. We’re going home at night talking about it, strategizing about it. We’re trying to help you figure this out and you come in here flippantly and you don’t even have the answers.
Aaron: [00:49:01] You have it done. The homework you haven’t had, you’re fired like I’m through with you. See, when they come to you and they go, hey man, I need help. I need you to help me. Now they’re ready and so you’ve got to determine the listener. The people listened to me right now and you’ve got to put a stake in the ground. You got to go. I don’t like the way I’m living. I don’t like not having money. I don’t like being broke. I don’t like having broken relationships. I don’t like not being genuine and authentic and real. I hate living a dual life where I’m this way in front of this person and that way in front of this person. See, authenticity means one guy shows a one. Steven, you tell the same jokes in front of your grandkids is you do at the office.
Aaron: [00:49:41] You watched the same thing on TV in a motel alone as you do sitting on the couch with your wife, you smoke and drink and do the same things around everybody, not a select group of people. You don’t tell this story to that guy in this story to that guy. There needs to be one guy and you’d have to make a conscious decision to be that way. The other way, and this is going to sting the other way. You’re a liar. Look in the mirror and say, I’m a liar. This is who I am. See, I don’t like that. I want the same guy to show up. Or you say, Hey, I talk all the time about I need to do this. I said, well, when are you gonna get off your hind end and when are you going to do it? Because people are tired of hearing you talk about it, like do it and when you make that kind of decision, I don’t care if you’re 16 or 76 you can change your life.
Stephen: [00:50:30] You don’t have to hit bottom. I think that’s, that’s definitely something that, you know, when they hit bottom they’ll change. You don’t have to hit bottom.
Aaron: [00:50:39] I make conscious decisions. Yeah, yeah. No, sometimes it takes it, but why can’t we be an intelligent human being and go, this is not good for me. This bag of Cheetos and Doritos and never drinking water. Never exercise is not going to serve me well long term. Or if I keep spending money like this and I don’t have an increase, I’m going to run out of money. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. And you gotta go, you know what? Today is the day, and I hope the listeners are hearing me today saying Your Dad Gum, rob big a, I’m putting a stake in the ground and this thing is going to change in my life. And when you make that proclamation is Dave Ramsey says, you’ll become gazelle intense in your life will change. Listen guys, life is fun. I love my life. Do I have bad days?
Aaron: [00:51:29] Absolutely. I went home last night and I was upset about something. And I’ll like, Ma, I gotta go take a shower. I gotta put my pajamas on and sit down, turn off everything. Just let me see here. You know what? But today I got up. I said, you know what? Thank you God for another day. I get to go to day and make it whatever I wanted it to be. You can do that to everybody. Listening to me right now can do the same thing. Quit being a victim. We’re not victims, we’re conquerors. And you can go out there today and create whatever kind of life you won’t leave.
Aaron: [00:52:01] And it’s a choice. And you can start from where you are. Ooh, powerful. Okay, so let’s talk about iron sharpens iron. So this is a group and Steve doesn’t benefit in any other way other than men becoming stronger. And I’m sorry ladies, this is about guys here. Um, I’m looking at the picture. You got to go to view from the top.com and check out the group. They’re noticeably young. A noticeably young.
Aaron: [00:52:27] Yeah, those are our Avatar is from 27 to 55 years old. There’s a few guys a little older.
Stephen: [00:52:35] I make the cut. All right, so I’m in that group. But is that, is there a reason that particular age group, I mean, cause I know, you know, I’ve heard these statistics guys in their 50s or one of the highest suicide rates because they lose their significance, you know, used to be where they were. The provider and the wife stayed home and raised kids right now both for working and he lost his identity. He loses his job because companies, you know that that’s the way it is. Um, is there something significant about that age group that you’re seeing that are longing for?
Aaron: [00:53:07] Yeah, they’re hungry. They’re hungry for it. Here’s the thing. A friend of mine wrote a book recently called the millennial whisper and Chris tough has his name, outstanding guy and the millennials get a bad rap today and he really negates some of the bad that they get today. The truth of the matter is there’s some of the most authentic, genuine, transparent, vulnerable people that I’ve ever known. It’s just that they’re hungry for authenticity. And when I start Sharon and like we’ve done well, but when I say, Hey, I cry, I have bad days. I have businesses that fail. Sometimes I want to do something and I don’t know what I’m doing. They identify with that and they go, well, we got a leader here that will tell us the truth. I hate it is I’ve already said when everybody only shows you the good. Here’s the truth of matters.
Aaron: [00:53:59] I know those guys personally and there’s a lot of garbage in their lives. I’m just telling you, I know firsthand because I’ve walked with him through it in more guys that are successful need to come forward. You know why? Because when they don’t, the millennials go, Dang, what’s wrong with me? Why do I have these thoughts? Why is my marriage not great? Why am I having all these trials and tribulations? They’re having it too. They’re just not telling you and what I want to do is go, I’ve been there, done that, and here’s how you can overcome it and that’s the reason I’m vulnerable and transparent. I get in trouble all the time. My family, man, you shouldn’t say all those like it’s the truth. And I want to share the truth with people so that they don’t think something’s wrong with me.
Stephen: [00:54:43] So now let’s just clarify. These are paid groups, but there is an expectation to me some of this expectation stuff. You know, it’s funny when I go to a new church and they have on here, here are the rules. These are rules to be a member of the church. You’re, if they always say you can come anytime you want, there’s no obligation and you do not have to join. However, if you do join, this is the commitment that you’re going to make. Right? And that’s, you know, there’s no gray area there, you know, love it or not. They’re clear. You have some, you have a pretty clear expectation. Uh, it’s called rx expectations. I mean, it can’t be much clearer at the nat of when somebody joins your group. Um, how important is that the, to really give it all?
Aaron: [00:55:27] Well, I think it’s everything. It. Matter of fact, I’ll weed out people all the time that want to join. I won’t allow them to, and they’re like, I’m willing to pay the money. And I’m like, it ain’t about the money. You’re gonna pay the money because you’re going to honor it more and you’re going to show up. You’ve got skin in the game. And that’s how I make a living. But that is not the only requirement. Matter of fact, we’re making it more difficult to join the group, to be honest with you, because I want people to know what they’re getting into. I want him to be fully vested. I’m going to vet every person that comes in because we’re looking for givers, not takers. I had a guy yesterday wanting to join. He said, I’ll try it for a month and if I like it and I get a great Roi, then I’ll stay.
Aaron: [00:56:01] And I said, no you won’t because you’re not even join it. I’m not going to allow you to join with that attitude. We don’t take people like that. Had a guy recently coming in and he was telling me how big he was and how much money he had and all this, wanting to know the average income of every person and we get through and I went, you wouldn’t be a good fit for our group. And he was forward. He said, what do you mean? You mean? I said, you wouldn’t. You never ask how you can add value. You never said the resources you’re going to bring, the relationships that you’re going to bring. You never told me one time how you’re going to edify and encourage other people. All you talked about was how much money you’ve got, the groups that you could lead, how smart you are, what are you going to get out of the group?
Aaron: [00:56:36] And I said, you just wouldn’t be a good fit. And he goes, seriously? He goes, well, tell me more. And I said, now you don’t know me well. And he goes, no, really I want to know. And I said the truth. He goes, yeah, I can take it. I said, you’re the most condescending applicant I’ve ever had cheese. And he sit there, you know what he said? Here’s what he said, Steven, I’ve had that trouble my whole career. The whole conversation stopped because he wasn’t going to impress me to get in the group. That’s what he was trying to do and I was going, you’re not the kind of guy we’re looking for. And we had an hour conversation after that, add some things that he could change to make his life better. So he’s living this facade. He wants everybody to thank, he’s this way.
Aaron: [00:57:19] Listen, we’ve got guys that just started in our group that make a very minimal income. We had a guy join not long ago that it took 25% of his income to be in the group. Listen to this. It’s all just tell you it’s $425 a month and that was 25% of his income. And I said, man, you really think you need to be, and he goes, I don’t have another choice. I gotta get the hell. 36 months later he did $400,000 in revenue. He said, it’s only because I was in the group because I had high level of accountability. I had resources, I had relationships. Y’All held me accountable to everything I said I was going to do and now so he goes from, you know, 25 $30,000 a year to 400,000 not everybody doesn’t do that, but we’ve had other guys that have dwarfed that.
Aaron: [00:58:08] But we’ve had other guys that limp along 20 30% a year growing their business, which has nothing to sneer at. But what I’m saying is it’s not just that, but he’s a better man. He’s living a better life, he’s better to his family. There’s just so many benefits. He significant these groups, he significant, he wanted to be successful, but what he found out was is that really what he needed was a measure of significance. That’s what we try to do in the group. And so we’re going through saying, yeah, if you’re going to be here, these are the things you’re going to do cause we don’t need people just lollygagging around. We’re not a coffee club and I want people to come to the group that go, I’m all in. I’m going to read the books, do the accountability group, I’m going to come to the live events, I’m going to pour into these other guys.
Aaron: [00:58:53] And that’s why we formed this brotherhood. We call them brothers, Isi brothers. That’s why we’ve got this camaraderie now, this culture that we’ve built to where we’re about getting it done. You know, we’ve got 122 guys in the group as of this recording, uh, launching our 14th group right now and here’s what’s amazing to me. Of those hundred and 22 guys were in nine different countries and we have a hundred people signed up to come to our live event in April from nine different countries. So 90% of our guys are coming from nine different countries to participate in a two day live meetup in April. And then we’ll do it again in October. That’s a high percentage in the reason is because we vet them very carefully to be sure they’re going to be a good fit and they follow the rules and they follow the expectations and they know clearly what our expectations are also.
Stephen: [00:59:48] Okay guys, so you just heard the reason I had Aaron on the show and the reason that, it’s funny, we’ve been talking for a couple of years. I’m like, I got to have you on it. Just get busy and life happens and then I’ve run into you and then you know you are a person of faith. It’s meant to be, um, your name keeps coming up in just about every person I’m talking to, they’re like Aaron Walker. I’m like, does everybody know this guy? Is this crazy that I know this guy had been and I feel bad? But maybe it’s time for whoever’s listening that one guy who’s listening is saying, Hey, I need, I need this in my life. I’m missing this. I’ve been searching for this and I can’t find others who I can connect with. Or they’re in this world, the ecommerce world and it’s so competitive.
Stephen: [01:00:28] And they can’t find genuineness. Can I get that question all the time? How do you, how do you have a good crowd? You Hey you with? How do you, how do you get that? I want that in my life. I’m like, well you got to love everyone. You got to love and then love met, finds you and so if this is something you’re interested in, you’re going to go to view from the top.com and you’re going to try to make it past Aaron. You heard him, he’s tough. He’s going to judge you. He’s going to push, not judge. He’s going to push you to make sure you’re genuine. Right? That’s the better way to say it.
Aaron: [01:00:58] Yeah. We just want authentic, real guys that are coming. There’s no financial requirements. It’s none of that. It’s about your mindset and wanting to get better. Hey, you asked, I know we’re nearing our time and you had asked an ecommerce question, how did I get into that? We never finished up with them. We would call many good stories like that. Cause where I want to tell this quick story and I’ll tell you how we got into this. So three years ago I was talking to my daughters and I said, hey, I want to teach y’all how to do a business from start to finish. And so they came together and I said, we’re going to do something brand new. I’ve never done before. So I said, we’re going to do this ecommerce business. And they’re like, man, what do you got in mind? So we went out, we found a product that was underperforming and we started manufacturing that product in China.
Aaron: [01:01:43] We found a manufacturer. So we did it the hardest way you could do it, Steven. And we went straight from not knowing anything about it to manufacturing. So literally we manufacture this product and Shin Zahn in China, then we import it, and then it’s Fba on Amazon. And recently we’ve got a Shopify. We’re trying to get in the European market. We’re talking to some of the big box stores now. We’ve got some relationships going there. Looks pretty good. Canada, we’re working on that. Uh, but it’s been fun. And for my girls to see a business from the ground up, not that they hadn’t been around business their whole life, but I wanted all hands in on this. It’s done very good. A seven figure business now. And starting from scratch to that, uh, has been pretty fun ride
Aaron: [01:02:29] and, and now you get to sow into them, right? And now they sow into others. I mean, it’s just a continuous loop, right? Is that got each year to cheat? I mean at your whole life has been teaching. Um, and now you get to teach, uh, Ooh, give me the chills. He gave me the chills.
Stephen: [01:02:46] If we don’t pour into our kids and our grandkids, who is,
Stephen: [01:02:49] I’ve trust me, my, I’m a part time. I tell this all the time and I have friends that get mad at me when I say it’s the God’s honest truth. I’m a part time seller. We only sell part time because our grandkids, I retired from my job because our grandkids take a lot of our time intentionally and we’re so thankful. I get, I’ll get choked up thinking about it. I’m so thankful that I get that opportunity. Oh, I’m with, okay. So view from the top.com the view from the top is Aaron’s book, Amazing Book. Um, any other way that people can find out more information about you?
Stephen: [01:03:21] Yeah, that’s the easiest way. You know, you can go on Google and put in a ruin Walker podcast interviews and you can listen to a number of interviews. I’ve done quite a few and a youtube. We have a channel there you can go to. The easiest thing to do though is to go to view from the top.com and you can contact me pretty easy. I’m very easy to find my phone numbers, their email address, a, I make it very easy for you to
Stephen: [01:03:44] farming and you do a lot of events. You do a lot of speaking and a, I’ll be seeing you in a couple of weeks. Yeah,
Stephen: [01:03:49] yeah. I can forward to it. Good. I’ll have to buy you lunch.
Stephen: [01:03:53] Oh No, you don’t have to buy me a thing. You know, I mean you just gave, you just filled my soul more than you know. Okay. So the goal of the podcast is to help people get stuck. Right? That’s always been my goal. And it’s [inaudible] e commerce related. Um, but you know, people get stuck in a lot of different ways. So what should we, one final piece of advice that you would give somebody who’s who stuck, who just can’t get past it today.
Aaron: [01:04:17] The thing is, I said earlier in the interview, it’s a choice. So first of all, you’ve got to make the choice. When I was a child, Steven, my mom had a saying, she would say can’t, couldn’t do it and could did it all. She would not allow us to say the word can’t. She’d say, you might not be able to do this, but you’re going to try. Like I get it if you can’t do it, but you’re going to try. Well, as a result of her pushing me through these upper limit challenges, it caused me to build self esteem and I was able to be successful at some things early on. Well, as an adult, even today, if you continue to tell yourself you can’t do something, you won’t. And so whatever it is today, people say, Hey, big eight, can you do this? Yeah, I can do it.
Aaron: [01:04:57] What is it you have to say, I can do that. You can find a way. Carol Dweck talks about it in her book mindset. We’ve got to have that growth mindset. The second part of the equation is, is fear. Everybody’s a fright. And I asked Robin what dads and what is it the whole world of fright for? Like what is it like we’re afraid to fail? And I said, well first of all, you got to get the word failure out of your vocabulary. Like you either succeed or you learn and when it doesn’t work out, right to say, I learned how not to do it and change your mindset there. So I say fear of missing an opportunity more than you. Fear of failure and develop a mindset of can’t, couldn’t do it and could did it all and success will come your way pretty quick,
Stephen: [01:05:40] man. Oh Man, I wish you nothing but success. Thank you so much
Aaron: [01:05:46] Steve and I enjoyed it buddy. Thanks for having me on. And I look forward to seeing you in a few weeks.
Stephen: [01:05:52] Okay? How amazing. Every single time he’s this guy and I looked for people over time. He’s this guy. So if there’s any chance you’re interested, any chance, I know spending money’s hard and you could buy inventory and all that stuff, but all that really, does it matter if you’re not significant? That phrase is going to haunt me for awhile. Or are you looking for significance? Is your top line sales number? How are you measuring your life while your relationship with your spouse or your friends goes to pot? Uh, that’s not significant. Are you helping others without expectation? Um, knowing that you’re never going to get found out that you helped them, but you get a little taller because that person, you know, just did better. Isn’t that awesome? Wouldn’t that be an awesome life significance? Are you significant time not saying I am. I don’t think I am. ECOMMERCE, momentum.com ecommerce momentum.com take care.
Cool voice guy: [01:06:52] Thanks for listening to the e commerce momentum podcast. All the links mentioned today can be found that eight commerce, momentum.com under [inaudible] episode number, please remember to subscribe and the lake us on iTunes.
