Scaling Success: Entrepreneurial Insights With Jeremy Shapiro (Episode 23)

Frank Hereda (00:02.558) What's up everybody. It's your favorite coach, coach Frank, and we're on another episode of focused free fit, but we have an amazing guest today. Mr. Jeremy Shapiro. Welcome my friend. Jeremy (00:15.626) Thank you so much for having me. Stoked to be here. Frank Hereda (00:18.428) Awesome. You know, I'm really excited for this conversation because we have a lot of things in common and I know that the audience is going to benefit from a lot of what we're going to talk about. And I'm interested to get your opinion on a lot of this stuff and see where it takes us. So let's get started. I love to let everybody else tell us, I want to hear about your early years. This is a common thing we do on the, on the show. So I want to hear about early years. Where'd you grow up? What was it like family life? Just to give us an idea of, of Jeremy (00:34.958) Let's do it. Frank Hereda (00:48.478) of early years. So tell us a little bit about yourself and how you grew up. Jeremy (00:52.886) Yeah, well, I'm originally from the East Coast outside of the Boston area. Growing up there, we talk fast, we move fast. And that's something I always love, kicking off any courses I'm teaching or presentations with, look, I'm from the East Coast. I talk fast. If I'm going too fast, keep up, take faster notes. growing up, entrepreneurism has always been sort of in my blood, I guess. Frank Hereda (01:09.822) There you go. That's right, exactly. Jeremy (01:18.83) My first real businesses, I started in high school. Certainly as an elementary school kid, I dabbled in things and had businesses there too, but the first real businesses in earnest kicked off during high school. And as I got towards my college years, I faced this really difficult decision. I was in the middle of my second year of university and one of my businesses was scaling, right? Which is a good thing. But there I was working 40 plus hours a week in my business. and yet also trying to handle a full course load. So growing up, both my parents were educators, Very much valued education, multiple higher degrees, all that. And here I was at a crossroads debating, do I continue with traditional university or do I maybe hit that pause button? And so I decided, I was looking at this, what I thought was a temporary bump in business. And I thought, I'll go ahead and hit pause. I'll come back to this next semester. I just got to deal with this little bump and then I'll be back to school in no time. And as my wife will tell you, we met shortly after that time period and I shared with her, I'm just taking a pause from school. She'll tell you to this day, she knew right then like, this guy's not going back to school. right? You sort of have that self delusion of, no, no, no, I'm really going to go back. And I don't know, here we are 20 plus years later. I still sometimes think, maybe I would go back. I don't know. So we'll see. As of right now, the jury is still out, but it looks, if history is telling, I'm probably not going. Frank Hereda (02:30.29) She knew she knew you better than you yourself Jeremy (02:49.134) And that was a difficult decision to make, right? We sometimes face these challenges as we scale our business. And when we look at even the word decide or decision, or like the Latin root, if we go back to the history of the word, right? Is not about choosing, right? We think when you decide you're choosing to do something, but the root actually goes back to desir, to cut, to remove. And so when you decide on a course of action, Really what you're doing is saying no to all the other options. And so, you know, looking back, what I was saying no to was continuing school at the time, right? And I was choosing to deal with the scaling business, which was a good problem to have. you know, every single one of my businesses since then has been a spinoff or, you know, a branch of one of my existing businesses. And this is at this point, you know, 25 -ish years later. Frank Hereda (03:28.339) Interesting. Frank Hereda (03:43.156) That's really interesting. So obviously, you know, I talked to a lot of my clients and I talk about automation, elimination and delegation. So we're on elimination right now. And I thought this is really interesting. So you were much more responsible in college than I was because I started off as an entrepreneur with a law and business before college. But once I got into college, yeah, was not quite as responsible. So, but I think it's interesting because we both did something similar. I didn't do it for a business. mean, I did, but it wasn't when I started. So, but you decided to make, to leave college for a little while, which I did as well. And I really think that's an interesting, experience to go through. mean, that's a, that's really as a young individual, a big decision to make, and you really have to learn to weigh out like, wow, this is a big, especially when you're grown up, you had two, you're both of your parents were a college degree. mine, one of mine was, and so they were relying on me to, get that degree. They expected it. So what did you, what was the business and tell me more around that decision? And was it, were they supporting you when you did it? Jeremy (04:52.015) So the business at that time was an IT consulting company. So we were working with small businesses and helping them out with their computer systems and development and those kinds of things. So this was back in, this was like 99. Frank Hereda (04:55.475) Okay. Frank Hereda (05:01.961) And what years were this? Frank Hereda (05:07.134) I mean, wow, you were in the computer game here pretty early. This is is yeah. OK. Jeremy (05:10.765) Yeah. And to be fair, mean, those businesses started like, I want to say 96 ish somewhere in there. But in terms of growth and having a wider client base, I was at the point where I was starting, I was actually hiring. So I was bringing on management as well as additional team members. And it was beyond just me and that needed my attention. Because as you talked about delegation, it was a big piece of that too. So yeah, in terms of how that went. Frank Hereda (05:17.64) Okay. Yeah. All right. Jeremy (05:42.466) It was a difficult decision, right? But I felt at the time was the right one. there was, both my parents not just being well -educated, but being educators, it was a difficult conversation. So yeah, I I think there were concerns, but also support around what I wanted to do, which I appreciated. And either way, it's sort of the path that I was forging. I wasn't really asking so much as saying, here's the direction I'm going. Frank Hereda (05:54.18) Exactly. Jeremy (06:12.194) committed to that decision. In terms of where that went next, mean, all of my businesses, going back to the first ones, even until today, are all historically and even to now in support of entrepreneurs and helping entrepreneurs move towards what I call entrepreneurial freedom. So even back then, having an IT business that was supporting entrepreneurs to automate their business, systematize their business, de -risk aspects of their business and so on, all of that helps to provide that freedom. And everything until now is around that. Frank Hereda (06:45.364) That's interesting. That's really interesting actually. Okay. so walk me through the process. there, your parents were supportive. I think that's huge. Mine were too. and I think that matters. So you start this business, obviously you never went back. Things went great. but talk to us about the journey on that first business. mean, obviously it led you to some other businesses and success, but there had to be challenges. So tell me about, what mistakes you made and maybe what mistakes you wouldn't have made with a little more time. Maybe not, maybe nothing, but just be interested to know. Jeremy (07:22.616) Yeah. Yeah, it's a really good question because looking back, even as I was saying to you, you know, about how bringing on management, I was immediately brought back to some of the mistakes earlier on, right? Until I brought on team members, I was the face of the business. All the clients knew me. The handoff, I could have done a lot better. We basically brought in management and reached out to clients and said, hey, this is your new point to contact. And that probably could have gone much smoother. We also, to cover this new overhead and cover growth, raised prices. And we probably could have done that smoother for existing customers. So a lot of that sort of centers around messaging and communication. We definitely could have handled that much better. And I've learned since then for sure. What I've, you know, I heard this from a friend of mine years ago and I found it sticks true sort of if you look at the arc life -wise, Success is defined differently for everyone. But a lot of the options that are available for you and your success can be measured sort of on these three different points of a triangle, right? There's, you know, the what you have, which is how most folks I think outwardly define success, right? They're thinking money in the bank account, know, assets, houses, cars, whatever, right? They're thinking about that stuff you have. And maybe that's one way to define success or sort of a rudimentary way, but there's really two other pieces that connect that one point. And that's the who you know and what you know. The stuff you have, right, that can go away overnight, right? You can lose everything overnight. We all know those stories, right? So then what are you left with? Well, there's the who you know and the what you know. The what you know you can be paid for, right? That there's a lot of value in that. We think about IP, your intellectual property. That's all this stuff of what you know. That's not sitting in a bank account. That's the what you know. And you can build businesses with that, right? You can bring on consulting clients with that. books on that, can get speaking gigs on that, you can build anything, so many things on the what you know. But that other piece that sort of supports that pyramid is also the who you know. And so when we talk about, you know, how my businesses have branched out over the years, or, you know, there's been a side product that became the bigger business. And by the way, like I see this all the time in our mastermind groups, our members come in with one business and over time, Jeremy (09:47.328) and new businesses launch or something branches out or they have one little idea or one kernel or one seed, and that launches the next bigger business that eclipses the thing they came in with. That is so often based around the things you learn on that journey. So you're building up that bank account, as it were, of the what you know and the relationships you develop along the way. Whether that's from mastermind groups that you're part of, whether it's from conferences you go to or other groups that you're part of, The who you know in those relationships, you can build entire new businesses off of. Those are your partners, your launch partners, your affiliates, right? Those are the people who can put you in front of their audiences and so, so, so much more. So when you think about those three different things of where are you investing your time? Are you investing your time on building up the what you have, right? On the what you know or on the who you know. And circling back to that conversation we had earlier about like university, you know, and where that fits in, had I not left the university early on, the thing I see from all my friends who have gone through and graduated school and all that they have is that network, right? Those people that they were in the trenches with for those four plus years, right? Those relationships you forge in school, that alumni network you have for the rest of your life is so valuable. And that's certainly one thing that I did not get to really enjoy. So for those people sort of thinking about that, do I stay in school? Do I leave? You what do I do? There's a lot more value in that university experience than just the classes and the courses and the degree you put on a wall. Frank Hereda (11:24.864) It's a good point. think, you know, I look back at my four years in school, best days for sure, right? I mean, you know, amazing time. But I also think about, wow, a lot of the relationships, mean, there's a lot of people I keep in touch with, because of the, they're not into, you grow and you change and you evolve in your life. You know what I mean? And so I just look at how much different of a person I am. in that, mean, now it's been a while, so I'm dating myself, but, you 27 years. So what a lot of time there. I'm like a totally different person. And so, you know, my interests and whether those would still align and that kind of thing, but it's interesting. It's interesting to hear your process here and how you went through it. The who you know, what you know, and what you have. Would you agree that what you have is really probably, I look at that and I don't even. Like I'm like, that's the least important. That's what shots out. That's what shoots out for me. I'm like, that's the least important. The who you know and the what you know for sure. But I heard Tom Billy, you know who Tom Billy is? He has like a, okay, he has a podcast and he's got, he's got one's impact theory and the other one is health theory. But anyway, I heard him to say something once that I was interesting. And he was talking about how, I agree with this, you can only go so high on the what you know, because then you start to make it. It's just too high. Jeremy (12:32.322) I know the name, Frank Hereda (12:50.578) and you're intellectually inept from, you can't have relationships. You're just not able, like, right? You're a social skill. So there's like a mix. Would you agree with that or would you agree with that or? Jeremy (12:59.298) Yeah. Yeah. You know, when I look at business growth and you can look at this in any of those areas, the growth typically happens in these S curves, right? We've all felt that if you're just thinking about where your business is, you're sort of pushing along, trying to make something happen in slow steady. And then you hit that inflection point. We talk about that hockey stick, right? Everyone wants to look for that hockey stick, but no one ever talks about the top of that curve, right? The top curves back off on plateaus. That happens at every stage, whether you're growing from 100 ,000 to 300 ,000 or 10 million to 30 million, whatever it is, you're going to hit that growth hockey stick and that plateau. That's not game over. Your goal is to stack those S's. So as you're starting to plateau in one area, you have another curve just starting to kick off. So it's not that it's over. You have that next step already in process. You've already started that runway for that airplane taking off of that next stage. Yes, you're exactly right. In those areas, in those other areas of life and business, things do plateau. Your social circle changes professionally and personally in terms of who you can talk to about what's really going on. And that's one of the big things we look for in mastermind groups is getting to be with like -minded folks who've been there, who've done that, and who get you. And they want nothing but the best for you. Where else do get to share, not just the real challenges? but the real wins as well. You talk to your social buddies about big win in business and if they've got a nine to five, do they get it? Do they appreciate it? Or do they look at it and think, hey, man, you're just living on easy street. And then flip side, when you're facing challenges, you bring those to someone with a nine to five, do they get it? Can they share in that? Can they offer valuable advice or insight? It's tough. Frank Hereda (14:38.068) Yeah, or. Frank Hereda (14:47.056) Or, or not just that, what I find a lot of times that I hear, why are you, why are doing all that? Why, why are you, why are you doing the podcast? Why are you doing the speaking? Why are you doing this? Why are you working so hard? Why don't you go do this? What? And so I think it's a relatability issue too. Right. That's, think a big part of it as well. Jeremy (15:04.728) Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I mean, on the relatability, if you've got a challenge and you go to your employees, your family, your suppliers, you think anyone sort of in that network of your life, there's always some upper downside for the people connected to you in your life in some way. You talk to your employees about how tough things are going, they polish up the resumes. You talk about how great things are, they're looking for raises. You talk to your... you your, your lenders about how great things are or how tough things are credit terms change, right? Like there's everyone's always got some angle or some connection into it, right? But when you're in the right environment with folks who have nothing but your best interests at heart, right? And your success or challenges don't impact them beyond them. One of the best for you. can really truly and openly share in that closed door environment and really get the insights you need to pivot and grow and get on block. Frank Hereda (16:00.65) Mm Frank Hereda (16:04.81) Totally agree. You mentioned something when you had your first business, you went and got, I I'm sure you did other things, but you went and got management and then you were handing people off to another person that was going to take over. So I heard communication. would say communication causes most problems in many businesses. Talk to me about the decision to go with management and how big were you, you know, This kind of leads into scaling a little bit, which I know you talk about a lot. I find that the automate, eliminate and delegate are very difficult for people to do. and, one of the three usually is a biggie. It's the toughest. So it depends on the personality type. Delegation seems to be a biggie. and then, and then what do I do to grow? So like, how do I know at the right time? What steps do I take? Tell me about that process you went through and, and how did you evolve from Okay, I need to delegate or I need to grow and then what's the best way to do it and what did you learn over time that said, you know, so didn't make the same mistakes. Jeremy (17:08.482) Yeah, there's a big differentiation. And like for our listeners, this is a really good thing to write down. There's a huge difference between delegating and abdicating. A lot of us don't think about that difference. And we think as business owners that we're delegating something. But in reality, we've abdicated it. And the big difference is delegating is you've tasked the right person with the right system. And you and could spend this whole time talking about right systems. Frank Hereda (17:36.562) Yeah, I know. Jeremy (17:38.142) But when there's a clearly defined output or a clear definition of success, and that is managed, then you start to be in the world of delegation. When you just ask someone to take care of the dumpster fire that you shove over to their side and say, deal with this, it might get dealt with, but that might not get you the outcome you're looking for. So what we find, and this comes up in our mastermind groups all the time, is when a business owner is sharing that, something didn't go right with a team member handling a situation. We can look at it and say, well, was this a person issue or a system issue? And so we can figure out what's going on. Was it a matter of the team member followed your system correctly and didn't get the outcome you wanted? So maybe the system needs some revision. Did the person simply not follow this system? Then we've got a person issue. And the reality is it's usually a different category as was there even a system or definition of success at all? Frank Hereda (18:49.742) I would bet this I feel like almost all the time there isn't there's never a sit there's usually not a system Jeremy (18:54.306) Yeah, yeah. A fun exercise, and this is something any of you can do, that we learn to do from time to time with folks when we're talking about systems, is to write down your system for creating your morning cup of coffee, or your cup of tea, or whatever it is that you do, right? Coffee is a good one. And so many of us have an idea, and we immediately picture in our mind what that perfect cup of morning coffee looks like. And so you write down what are your steps for that. Then we get to play the person who falls through on that system and find all the holes in the system. And we quickly realize all the ways things can go wrong. And the system starts to get revised and revised and revised. And you think about it, you take that first draft and you hand it to someone and say, hey, can you follow this and make my cup of coffee? I would bet you nine out 10 times someone's gonna come back with not exactly what you want. Frank Hereda (19:44.628) That's really interesting. I never thought that's a, that's a pretty interesting exercise to do, I bet. Jeremy (19:49.164) Yeah. And you think what's simpler than like making my morning cup of coffee. And there's so much that can go wrong in that. And I'll share with you sort of one of the areas can be, someone goes to press the button on the machine if you got some automated nonsense, right? And there's not coffee in there. Do they know where the backstock is? Do they know what happens if the backstock is empty? Do they know how much to put in? Right? Frank Hereda (19:51.744) Yeah. Yeah, well. Jeremy (20:14.018) When you're putting the water in, do we know what temperature is supposed to be? Where to get the water? Is it filtered? Is it non? You know, all these little pieces that go into making a simple cup of coffee. Do they preheat the mug versus not? We've had the experience going to a cafe, right? A professionally run business that all they do all day long is crank out coffee and having an inconsistent experience between visits. What is it that McDonald's dials in better than anybody else out there? Frank Hereda (20:22.634) Just making the coffee here. Jeremy (20:42.314) Systems that lead to a predefined output. In fact, if you look at like even Starbucks for example There's a reason Starbucks doesn't do latte art. You know how if you go to most nice cafes You order a latte or something. There's like a nice design on the top of the foam Right kind of a signature thing that shows a good barista skill and many cafes are known for Starbucks does not do that Frank Hereda (20:42.954) systems and processes. Frank Hereda (20:55.23) Yeah. Frank Hereda (21:02.368) time. Jeremy (21:04.032) not just time but consistency. Having all their baristas across all their stores everywhere know how to do latte art and doing a consistent and good job, they couldn't get a consistent output. So if you're an experienced barista coming from somewhere else in Starbucks and you dare try doing some latte art for a customer, that gets shut down because now you're setting, you're creating a different output than a customer is used to that they won't get next time and that's not good. Better to be consistently mediocre than to be occasionally great Frank Hereda (21:07.39) Okay, gotcha. Frank Hereda (21:30.463) Yeah. Jeremy (21:33.526) and occasionally not. So when we create a good system, we have a clearly defined output, and the system is repeatable and trainable. Frank Hereda (21:35.742) Yeah, it's interesting. Frank Hereda (21:44.106) Gotcha. applying to your business, what did you learn when you were trying to grow and scale? How did you, did you. Jeremy (21:52.866) Yeah, so I tried out abdication thinking it was delegation, right? So you bring someone on, you're like, awesome, great. You can just take care of coms. You'll talk to customers. expecting, they were bringing, I they were older than I was. They were wiser, more experienced. They'd been a professional manager. So they brought that to the table. But without a clearly defined outcome or that appropriate communication, there was no system. It was just what we say, we threw over the fence, right? You throw something over the fence and, Frank Hereda (21:57.17) Okay, yeah. Frank Hereda (22:09.001) Okay. Frank Hereda (22:18.142) Yeah. Jeremy (22:22.678) It's no longer your problem. You don't think about what's on the other side of the fence or what's going to happen. You just think, I got rid of it. So that was definitely one of those lessons learned early on really well. Frank Hereda (22:24.415) Yeah. Frank Hereda (22:29.578) Sure. Okay. Gotcha. So, so delegating. and then how did you decide for you? Like, okay, how am going to decide on the cadence of the, let's check and make sure things are being done right. What, did you figure out KPIs? Like, here's what we're going to track. Here's what we're not going to track. You know, that kind of thing. Jeremy (22:51.714) Ha! Well, I'm a huge believer in KPIs now. I've run workshops on mapping your funnels and looking at your numbers and figuring out your KPIs and what numbers matter and how to do something with that. And I'll say this regarding KPIs. So your key performance indicators are really valuable in your business. And they typically fall into one of three buckets. One bucket, which is our most common KPI that most of us have in our business, is Frank Hereda (22:57.982) Yeah, I was gonna say, then you probably weren't, Jeremy (23:24.958) a number that we're looking back, right? We're looking at an output. We're looking at what was the result of something. This can be, hey, how many clicks do we get on our website or how many sales, you know, came in? These are like our trailing indicators. What were our sales last quarter? We get to look in the rear view at a snapshot and see what happened. You can't do anything with that except say, let's drive a different outcome. Let's try for a better number, right? Let's increase our sales this quarter and so Right? Another good category of KPIs are your leading indicators. These help you to forecast what's going to happen. Right? So in your business, if you know, you know, and we'll talk to our coaches out there that when you get someone who opts into your newsletter, you know, one out of a hundred of those is going to get onto a phone call with you. And, you know, one out of three who gets on a phone call with you is going to enroll in your program and so on. Right? You've got some idea of numbers. So you can now look at a leading indicator and say, hey, how are my newsletter opt -ins looking? And that'll give you an idea that two months from now, I should expect X number of new customers. So if your newsletter opt -ins are going down, well, you know what's gonna happen in a few months. You're not looking in their rear view, right? So that's the second category, which your leading indicators. The important thing about both of these categories of KPIs is this. You're tracking it for a reason. If you don't use those to guide a decision, it's merely a vanity metric. Right? And that's our third category of KPIs. Vanity metrics. Things you're tracking because you feel you should, because someone told you, got to watch this number, because it is an important number, but you look at it and don't do anything about it and so on. A lot of businesses end up in this, you know, a friend of mine used the term, people who are KPI warriors, right? They're going out there getting KPIs, slaying them and so on. To what end? If it doesn't inform or drive a decision, you're just tracking a number for the sake of tracking numbers. And I've certainly been guilty of that in the past as well. Frank Hereda (25:33.642) Sure. So let's play this out. I'm going to make sure I understand. So in my opinion, or not my opinion, well, yeah, and also experience, it's like, OK, you have the lagging indicator, which is the thing. And I think that's what you're talking about. So on a football field, the touchdown is the lagging indicator. The first downs are the leading indicator, which in this case, let's say it's sales. So I get a sale on a product that's a lagging indicator. Jeremy (25:46.818) Yep. Frank Hereda (26:03.669) leading indicator would be an appointment or a contract or whatever. And you might. That's right. Jeremy (26:07.948) Yep, you look at your funnel and you work your way up. Before you get to your trailing indicator, what are the steps that lead to that? Frank Hereda (26:13.374) Yeah. And so you're saying decide, you have to make sure that those lagging indicators make sense. So in this case, contracts do obviously, right, or sales. I mean, it depends on what your business is, but I can't imagine it wouldn't be. But what would be an example of one that people track that they shouldn't? What would be an example of that? Jeremy (26:31.662) So, great question. So people will sometimes look at like, they'll look at, you know, the number of social likes, or, you know, social media interaction, right? Now, if you look at that, and you're like, cool, we have this many fans, but you're not actually doing anything to grow your audience, then you know you have a higher or lower number, but you're not doing anything about it. Now, if you're on top of your social media game, Frank Hereda (26:43.565) gotcha. Okay. Okay, gotcha. Okay. Frank Hereda (26:52.288) Hmm. Frank Hereda (26:58.25) Gotcha. Jeremy (27:00.844) and you're saying, hey, we're starting to trend better in this demographic. Let's lean into that and do more with that audience. Well, then that's helpful. But if you just look at it don't do anything with it, then it doesn't matter. Yeah. There's a really interesting example with the British cycling team. So I'm a cyclist. You're talking sports analogies. Let me pivot to cycling, right? The British cycling team was terrible. Frank Hereda (27:12.168) Yeah, doesn't matter. Or if it doesn't lead to where you need to go. Frank Hereda (27:26.505) Yeah. Jeremy (27:30.506) winning anything and they weren't doing great. So they brought on a new head coach who looked at things and said, well, what is it that goes into making a winning team? What are all those ingredients that get us ready to win races? And so they started changing little things. They test little things and say, well, let's look at nutrition. Let's look at sleep. Let's look at the actual cycling kit we use. Let's look at aerobars. Let's look at bike fit, all these little things. And they weren't going for like game -changing overnight, right? There's no silver bullet to this, but they dialed in nutrition a little bit and they got a 1 % increase. They dialed in body positioning a little bit and got like a 1 % increase. All these little leading things that go into making a cyclist faster and better and the team faster and better were valuable. And you stack all those little leading indicators up and what do you know? Your trailing indicators. or lagging indicators of winning competitions and going on to be world champs is the output of those leading indicators. Frank Hereda (28:36.34) Gotcha. Yeah, I think that's great. Okay. So that's, that's, that's, that's an interesting take. And I agree. You have to make sure your KPIs are right, because you could be tracking something or focusing on something that isn't going to bring your business where you want it to go. So that's essentially the gist of that whole conversation. Jeremy (28:51.938) Well, either it's one of two things. Either it doesn't inform you in any meaningful way, right? And that's one category. Or it informs you, but you don't do anything about it. If you're not gonna action it, well, then why are you bothering tracking it? It's just distracting you from what does matter. Frank Hereda (29:04.948) Gotcha. Sure. So tracking the wrong things that can't serve you or tracking the right things and then taking no action once you find the results. Okay, makes sense. Okay. And so while we're on the topic of nutrition, we'll do a sidebar here for a second. You know, we talk a lot about nutrition on this channel. Jeremy (29:16.906) Exactly. Yep. Frank Hereda (29:33.488) Talk to me about your history and how you feel being fit, getting sleep. I mean, we could go down the rabbit hole on nutrition all day long. We won't do that. what things do you find give you the help you through your tie together with your entrepreneurship and make sure that you're able to perform at your highest level? Jeremy (29:53.55) Yeah. So I've been vegan for about 15 years now. And that was a rather overnight thing. My wife had read a book that sounded interesting and the output was like, go with a plant -based diet. like I tried eat to live or as we jokingly and affectionately refer to it as live to eat. Cause I'm a foodie. love food. Right. So Frank Hereda (29:56.639) Really. Frank Hereda (30:07.188) What was the buck? Okay, I've read it. Frank Hereda (30:15.072) huh. Yeah, right. Yeah. Jeremy (30:20.27) I was like, okay, got it. You bought a lawn for me. I don't need to read the book. I understand. So the next day, like we tried being vegetarian for a day and I'm like, like that's not so hard. And like the next day I'm like, well, let's just try being plant -based. And I did that. I'm like, like one day is not so hard. And here we are like 15 years later. You know, and it's been great. So that's sort of a foundational piece for me. We can dig into more of that if you like, but you know, Frank Hereda (30:40.469) Yeah. Jeremy (30:50.646) active every day. One of my favorite socials where you'll find me is Strava. That's kind of where I hang out. And I'm a cyclist. I'm also a casual runner. I also enjoy swimming. Love having our leg day with the guys at the gym as well. So there's a good mix in there, but being active is really important to me. And as a from time to time competitive endurance athlete, Frank Hereda (30:55.977) Okay. Jeremy (31:18.318) Dialing that stuff in isn't about sprinting. I'm not a sprinter at all. But getting out there and going out for a long ride, you've got to dial in your systems because you move past that window of just push through it. I'm sure we've all felt, if you've gotten out there and try to sprint pace for something, that wall you hit of realizing this isn't sustainable. Frank Hereda (31:24.927) Yeah. Frank Hereda (31:37.745) Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Jeremy (31:47.778) Like you can overcome that for a short window and like push through that, but that's not something you can push through for hours upon hours upon hours. It's something you can push through for a little bit. So when you're looking at that, that longer term endurance side of things, you've got to dial in your nutrition, your hydration, your, you know, self metering really well. And like one thing I'm guilty of, especially with running in this, I still do this every time. Frank Hereda (31:57.054) Mm -hmm. Jeremy (32:13.226) is you get out the door and like for me, I just hit it too hard. I immediately get out there and I'm going way beyond the pace I should be. Pacing has always been a challenge, but if you're going out there for a longer endurance event, you've got to bring that pacing in or it's not going to last. And I look at that parallel business and I see that like so parallel. Right? That sometimes for newer business owners, get out there, they're excited. You know, they want to push through some, you know, some block, some wall and you get some resistance and they throw in the towel and they give up, right? Or they burn out. Business is rarely a super short -term sprint. It's usually a longer endurance event with ups and downs and obstacles and unexpected things all along the way. Frank Hereda (32:35.232) So many, so many. Frank Hereda (32:57.898) Yeah, I tell people all the time, if you don't want to suffer even a little bit, if you can't handle pain, don't get into business. Because there's a lot of comparisons there between working out and doing events and workout events and stuff like that. And I think it's really interesting. Jeremy (33:05.356) Right? Jeremy (33:14.83) When my daughter was first learning to ride a bike, we went with the approach of not having training wheels. We're like, it's a bike. What we did do is the approach of like we took the pedals off. So you get to use the bike sort of more like a balance bike, but it's still just you and the two wheels. And then once they get to the point where they're sort of just scooting along, no problem and coasting, then you can put the pedals on and add that element. But they learned the balance first versus having the crutch. You'll see some little kids on a bike, they're just leaning hard into the training wheels and like, you know, the other training wheels up in the air and they're just, you know, leaning onto it. Then to take that crutch away is really, really difficult, right? But it's easier to get started. And so I view that as like the easy path. It's easy to just hop on with the training wheels. So I'll never forget, was just past five years old, was getting on the bike with no pedals, no training wheels, and she's out there on the sidewalk. Frank Hereda (33:49.685) Yep. Jeremy (34:10.502) And it's like falling over side to side and trying again and again. And so she looks up at me and she asks like, am I not using training wheels because you want this to be difficult for me? And my answer was like, no, like the intention isn't to make it artificially difficult, right? It being difficult is like a side effect of it. But what we're doing is we're putting in the harder work now because it makes it easier longer term. Frank Hereda (34:22.41) How funny. Frank Hereda (34:26.184) Yeah. right? Jeremy (34:38.382) And to me, those parallels in life about putting in the hard work now, choosing the harder path, you're not choosing to do hard things arbitrarily because it's hard. We're making conscious decisions every day that might be the harder thing to do. But sitting on a couch and been watching Netflix is certainly an easier choice. It might feel good in the moment, but looking back on a week, a month, 10 years from now, is that the right choice of how to spend the day? Frank Hereda (34:59.328) Sure. Yeah. Jeremy (35:07.64) Probably not. So easy isn't always the answer. Frank Hereda (35:11.934) Yeah, that's just actually a hundred percent true. and I think that's, that's where a lot of people go wrong, right? They're too short -sighted. They don't think long -term, they don't play it out, which is what you just did. Right. Hey, if I do this every day for X number of times, it's the compound effect. So that's not, it's not that you're doing it. It's that you're doing it all the time consistently and that may not serve you the best. Yeah. Jeremy (35:32.94) Yeah. I mean, like even this morning I went out for a run and like felt bleh. Didn't feel great. Wasn't ready for it. But you know, I did not get any personal best on any segments or my fastest pace ever, but I still got out there. I still put in the work. I still got it done. And I know that's going to serve me tomorrow and the next day and so on. Not every day has to be, you know, a segment crushing, you know, PR taking kind of workout. Frank Hereda (35:37.887) Yeah. Jeremy (36:00.61) Sometimes it's putting in some of the work for the benefit it has later on. And there's value in rest days also. So much like for you and your team, it's good to push it, good to have the goals, good to do all that, but also be mindful of, know, sometimes we put in the work today and you get on those client calls, for example, and maybe your ratio is off, right? But that's okay. Or you try out a new channel and it doesn't outperform your other sales channels. And that's okay, right? You're still putting in the work. Frank Hereda (36:06.535) Absolutely. Jeremy (36:27.618) you're still ideally learning something or getting some benefit from the action. Frank Hereda (36:31.38) Yeah, you're showing up and I think that that counts for it. Talk to me a little bit about, so you made the comment that you know, multiple businesses and so I'm curious. Most people that are listening to this, they're they're doing it because they they're on a journey somewhere. Most of them to some sort of freedom, I would imagine. You know, all of us are after that right to be able to spend time how we want to spend it That's really what it I think it usually boils down to it's not so much the money It's the time you get with the money and that kind of thing so Talk to me about freedom being an entrepreneur and and is that is it real for everybody or is it you know? Because we all know that being an entrepreneur you got to be you got to be around so talk to me about that a little bit Jeremy (37:17.494) Yeah. So it's funny. If you ask most folks why they got into business, for many, they're actually getting away from something versus towards something, right? Like our lizard brain responds to carrots and sticks, right? So we're trying to get away from pain and towards pleasure. Unfortunately, the getting away from pain part is usually the predominant signal. And so many folks go out there and start their own thing because they don't want the nine to five, right? They don't want that crap boss they had before and so So they're sometimes moving away. Other times folks are out there starting a business because they're moving towards an ideal, right? And if you ask some, they're looking at those outward signals of success we talked about earlier in the show, right? They want that money. They want that, you know, that house. They want that car or whatever it is. But like that's all the superficial BS, right? What is it you really get from all of that? You get that entrepreneurial freedom, right? The freedom of choosing. Frank Hereda (38:00.661) Yeah. Jeremy (38:17.72) how to spend your time. What you're doing is you're building optionality into your life. So when you got a regular nine to five job, you're often being told what to do and how to do it. When you go out and start your own business and hang a shingle, many times people think they're a business owner, but really they're just self -employed. The litmus test that I like to use, if you're familiar with Robert Kiyosaki's Cashflow Quadrant, he talks about that being an employee to self -employed, to business owner and investor. Frank Hereda (38:45.31) Yep. Yep. Love that book. Jeremy (38:47.214) The chasm between self -employed and business owner is huge. So if you ask folks if they're a business owner, they'll usually say yes. And then you get to ask that litmus test question of like, if you stepped away from your business for a week or a month, or three months, like would you come back to the same business? Would it be a dumpster fire or would like the business have grown in your absence? For most folks, the idea of stepping away for a day or even a few days as terrifying, right? Or it's just simply not possible and they feel like they've got to show up every single day and be there to run the business. That's okay. That just means you're self -employed, right? You don't truly have a business yet. And the only way you cross that chasm goes back to our conversation earlier on the show, the right people running the right systems. And so that's what we help folks to do is move towards that entrepreneurial freedom so you can choose how to spend your time. whether that's with family, whether that's in a different business, whether that's pursuing your hobbies and interests, whether it's in your community, your church, your whatever it is, right? It means you have the choice for how you want to spend that time. Because at the end of the day, our journey for all of us here ends in the same place, right? So what we do between now and that end of our life, we get to make some choices around. why not be more intentional in choosing to find optionality? Frank Hereda (40:04.575) Mm Frank Hereda (40:15.572) Someone I work with always talks about this poem called The Dash. Have you ever heard about it? Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm, yeah. And I think about that all the time and how fragile our time is, right? And once the day is gone, you can't get it back. You just lost that day forever. And so I think it's so important to know what you're doing this for. And I think what you said is dead on. So. Jeremy (40:19.81) The dash, yeah, that space in between, yeah. Jeremy (40:42.754) Yeah, we all know people in our life who put off life until retirement. My grandfather worked for a big name company his entire career. I never knew him, but he retired and within a week of retiring, he got up from the dinner table, sat down on the couch, had a heart attack and died. The whole life that the whole retirement life he'd been looking forward to, he got like six days of that. Right. My mother, my mother -in -law and my father -in -law all passed away within nine months of each other for all vastly unrelated things and all within their first one to two years of retirement. And so this idea of let me work a nine to five, right, or an eight to six or whatever it is, you know, five plus days a week, right? Let me put that in for decades upon decades and then have some delayed future retirement, right? Is a rather broken model. Why wouldn't we want to spend the time the way we would like to now, right? As much as we can. When our kids were younger, we had met a couple and they were both attorneys. They were both working some insane like 80 plus hour work weeks each and they hated their jobs. But what they said is we each got to do like five years of this and then we're done. Then we can punch out and we don't have to work anymore. And then we can spend time with our kid and all of that. And I'm looking at this, you looking at their baby in a car seat and I'm thinking, so the first five and a half years of their kid's life, they're just not going to be around. They're not going be there for those formative years and then think they'll just circle back and pick up and everything will just be like totally fine. Right? Like how can we do that? Or we all know folks, you know, who are parents that are just never there for their, for their kids and figure, Hey, like, you know, once my kid's 18, I'll, I'll be there. I'll be free. We can connect. We can grow. like, good luck picking up the pieces of a relationship so much further down. Like, wouldn't it be nice if we could put in those time, that time now. Jeremy (43:03.916) be there for the people who are most important to us in our life now, so we can enjoy that later on, assuming we're all around them. Frank Hereda (43:11.336) I agree. It's tough. It's about, I almost said the word balance, but it's, it's not, it's not really, it is, it is, and it isn't because there is no balance, but, you've got to make the time for the important things. And, you know, that's a, it's a very good point to drive home. So let's, let's, kind of pivot to finishing up on masterminds. Talk to me about masterminds. I'm in a mastermind. see value in masterminds. I, know, how many times is, I would hope that everyone on this podcast has heard of the, you're the sum total of the five closest people around you. You know, tell me about the value of masterminds that you see. And I know we talked a little bit about it earlier in the, in the episode, but tell me about it and tell me what you you do. Jeremy (44:01.774) Yeah. So this whole concept of the mastermind, you know, using that terminology and the definition we use today, dates back to the 30s. Napoleon Hill put out his famous book, Think and Grow Rich, and chapter 10 in there is called Power of the Mastermind, the Driving Force, the Ninth Step Towards Riches. And the way Napoleon Hill defines a mastermind is the coordination of knowledge and effort in a spirit of harmony between two or more people for the attainment of a definite purpose. So if you think about when you're brainstorming or trying to think of something on your own versus like when you're rapping with some other people and the ideas are flowing around and you hear from someone else and develop it and you really create this third mind that is everyone who's there. And that's a lot of what happens in a mastermind, right? So when you have this third mastermind, this third mind that gets created, you get ideas, you get unblocked and you discover pivots you didn't think existed. So in the mastermind groups that I run, these are for founders and entrepreneurs where we get together and spend the full day deep diving into each individual's business during individualized hot tea during the day, right? And when you have the full day, you can really get into each business and get past sort of those topical layers and really get into what's going on. And when we have folks who are curious about our mastermind or apply to test drive and join us for one day to see if it's a fit, they usually come in with like a big burning question. There's something keeping them up at night. And the feeling is, if only I got an answer to this one thing, I'd be unblocked. So they have an idea of what they don't know. They also, everyone always has these superpowers, these areas of expertise that are the things you're really good at, the things you know that you know. And these are different for everyone. So we've got these two categories of the things you know you know and the things you know you don't know. The biggest light bulb aha moments that I see around our table time and time again, consistently come from this third category, which is the biggest. It's the things you didn't know, you didn't know. So when you know what you don't know, you can like go Google that stuff, or you can ask intelligent questions around it, or you can seek out experts, right? There are things we can do to get answers to the questions we have. When we know what we don't know, Frank Hereda (46:13.78) Mm -hmm. Jeremy (46:23.212) we can intentionally try and fill that knowledge gap. But how do you find out what you don't know you don't know? That's where mastermind groups are so powerful. So people come into the room for their test drive, they have their big burning question, they're ready to get answers to that. But where I see the pen moving the most, where I see the biggest aha moments, where I see the eyes go wide, that smile creep across the face and the pen starts scribbling, consistently is during everybody else's hot seats. Frank Hereda (46:52.02) Mm -hmm. Jeremy (46:52.334) See, that's where you're hearing what other people are doing in their business, what's working, what's not working, where they need help. And that's where you get that inspiration and the ideas. That's where you get unblocked or you learn about challenges in your business that you didn't even know were there. And it's not like a presentation format, it's an interactive conversation. So when someone's sharing, for example, about a new sales channel that they're working with in their business that you didn't even know existed, you get to like ask questions about that. And people are happy to share their resources, their vendors, their best practices, their gotchas, the things not to do and so on. And so what we see is this cross pollination of ideas between businesses. So for example, you have a physical brick and mortar store, right? Customers walk in the door, they talk to a sales associate, they go to the counter, buy something and walk out. Then you have an e -commerce company. People... Frank Hereda (47:34.452) Hmm. Jeremy (47:48.63) see their ads online, go to the site, add stuff to the cart, check out, buy, and they're done. Both businesses are selling physical goods. However, their approaches to marketing, their sales channels, everything are vastly different. So the brick and mortar business is talking about the direct mail campaigns they do, sending out mailers and postcards and buying lists and all this stuff. And wouldn't you know what the e -commerce business owner who is looking to get more sales online starts asking questions. The next thing you know over the course of the next month, that e -commerce business owner works with the same contacts as that retail store owner and purchases lists, uses the best practices for what kind of mailers and promos to put together, sends out direct mail and gets new customers who'd never heard of them from a direct mail campaign, basically copying and pasting what a retail store operator was doing. And on the flip side, that retail store owner who had not been building an email list who had no online marketing, who had no email follow -up, no nurture campaigns, no VIP programs, any of that stuff, got to ask questions of the e -commerce business owner and implement all of their best practices, copy and paste into their business and see growth and success. And these are two non -competing businesses who are just leveraging the shared knowledge of what came up in a conversation. Not because they had a question around how they do that thing, but because they didn't even know it existed. saw someone be seeing success and were able to replicate that in their own business and add entirely a new sales channel. And these kinds of stories across pollination and getting unblocked and pivoting and launching new businesses, we could go on for hours about, but these are the kinds of mastermind breakthroughs we see at the Bay Area Mastermind all the time and I love it. Frank Hereda (49:26.548) Yeah. Frank Hereda (49:31.838) That's the magic. I love it. That is the magic right there. I think that's huge. And, I recommend everybody get into a mastermind of some sort. I think that's great. I think that's great. You guys are doing that. Where, where can people find you? What's the best place for them to go to find you? Jeremy (49:47.628) Yeah, so you can find us online at bayareamastermind .com, B -A -Y -A -R -E -A, mastermind .com. I'm also pretty active on LinkedIn is where I share a lot of content and link to, I like to do freedom interviews. I talk to folks who have found entrepreneurial freedom and write up their stories. So we publish those there, people who have that true optionality now. We also put up other interviews and content that are helpful for our founders and entrepreneurs. You can find me, Jeremy Shapiro on LinkedIn or Bay Area Mastermind on LinkedIn as well. Frank Hereda (50:22.032) Awesome. I appreciate your time today. Thank you. And, hopefully it will put all your, all the information in the show notes as well. So people can find you and, yeah, absolutely. Jeremy (50:32.492) Love it. We've got some great resources for your listeners too. We'll have in the show notes. If you want the direct link to those freedom interviews, we were talking about a write -up of how to figure out your freedom number and what that even means and how to calculate it for yourself. All those kinds of resources and more we'll have available for you guys. So thanks for posting those up and for having me on the show. Frank Hereda (50:48.448) Love that. Absolutely. We'll have to do it again. Finish our rest of our conversation because there's so much more we could talk about. yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Part one of 10. But okay, I appreciate it. And alright, everybody. Till next time, take care and we'll get you on the next one. Bye bye. Jeremy (50:55.212) Right? This is just part one. Love it. Information: Frank Hereda (Business Coach): www.frankhereda.com Jeremy Shapiro: www.jeremyshapiro.com