Robert Barber, Author of CEO for Life | Life Changing Skills That Transcend Any Job, Career or Business

Thanks again for joining me on another episode of the success story podcast. We have an amazing show for you today. I got Robert Barber. He is the author of CEO for Life. A little bit a coals knows of his career. He was an HR exec at one of the largest organizations, largest companies in the world. He left that, thought he could make a killing in real estate, almost went bankrupt and then found an opportunity, a real estate opportunity. I'm not going to spoil a few that they really worked out for him after a lot of hardships living the entrepreneurial life. He retired as a millionaire when he finally doubled down on what was working. He retired very young and now he's writing a book. He runs a podcast. He's doing things that he enjoys. He's living, he's living the dream. We're going to break down his career. We're going to talk about why he left a comfortable job. What went wrong when he first started to try and build his own real estate empire and then what went right. Then we're going to talk about what he's doing now, which is he does some coaching. He does some consulting. A lot of people call themselves coaches. A lot of people call themselves consultants. What should you look for when you're looking to hire a coach or a consultant because he recognizes a lot of bullshit in the industry, a lot of red flags, a lot of people you should stay away from. We're going to walk through that and you'll probably come away with quite a few great career lessons, entrepreneur lessons, but also lessons that you should think about when you're trying to find somebody who you want to learn from because it's important to align with people. But there's a lot like I said, a lot of bullshit out there. You have to be careful who you work with and who you trust and who you learn from. Also, thank you for the sponsor of today's show, Gusto. Gusto is an incredible solution. They help entrepreneurs, business owners, CFOs, payroll HR. Basically, they get rid of all the admin stuff, the stuff that anybody who's trying to build the business doesn't want to have to deal with. They make it much easier for you. So like all sponsors, they always give us a special offer. Round halfway in the podcast, you're going to hear the special offer from Gusto. So definitely stay tuned and look out for that because it is a great software and it really does help anybody who's trying to build the business or scale the operations side of a business. All right, let's get right into it. Super excited. Another episode of SuccessStory podcast with Robert. All right, thanks again for joining me today. I'm sitting down with Robert, Barbara. He is a certified coach. He is an Amazon best selling author. He is a multi-million dollar real estate sales individual past Fortune 150 C level executive podcast host, keynote speaker, entrepreneur, as well as according to his LinkedIn bio, avid hiker, and overlander. Thanks Rob for coming on. You know, if we did a show a while back and I'm glad to bring you on and unpack your story because you have a lot of accolades. So I want to understand your journey in life and how you got to doing what what is your doing now. Yeah, man, I appreciate you have on it's, you know, when we got a chance to jam on on the other podcast and stuff, it was great just to get your perspective on life. And I've got a lot of good feedback about your take on and your journey. So I'm glad to be here and maybe share a little bit with your audience too. So and thanks for having me. No, it's my pleasure. And I'm excited to chat with you because you have a very colored background in a good way, very similar to, you know, sort of my background. You came from big business, working for large organization, then entrepreneurship in real estate and then now other types of forms of entrepreneurship. So just walk me through your career path and how you came to what you're doing now and all the way back to running companies, electrical engineering, I think through to HR and there's a whole story there as well. So let's go into that. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I think the one takeaway for everyone listening is there is no straight path and you got to be willing to take a lot of changes and chances. So, you know, I got a degree as an electrical engineer. You know, I was the first one of my family to go to college. Never really, I plan to go to college and ended up doing that. I picked engineering because they made good money and I liked math. But it wasn't my passion, which is really interesting and I had to learn that the hard way. So I spent three years as an engineer man and I was awful. There's no way they should agree. I mean, it's just I was not a good engineer. So I decided after three years, my self-awareness kicked in, you know, it's still young at that point. And so I said, am I soon to be wife? I said, maybe I should try human resources. I like people and recruiting is probably pretty fun. I'll go back to colleges. That sounds like fun. And so I went and interviewed for recruiting position and the director of human resources told me engineers make awful people. And so I didn't get the job. I mean, they actually told me that, right? And it was funny because about three weeks later, the company had started up. I had a startup division. That was a roll out. And they offered me a position to come on as an HR. But they said if the company folded, then I would be out of a job. And I was like, all right, well, cool. I'm awful what I do. So let me at least try that. And that was the rocket of my career. So I guess the takeaway with that is, you know, don't be afraid to bet on yourself. So I jumped into human resources, fell in love with it, did it for 13 years. It was great. It was a great experience. Got to travel. We grew the company from two states to 26 states by the time that I left. We had thousands of employees across the United States and internationally. And I was responsible for the human resources function. So it was a lot of fun. But at the same time, what's good and bad is that being in human resources, I got to see what everybody made in terms of money. So the people in operations were making three times what, you know, I was making, but you know, I had just as much an impact in the bottom line, right? I mean, I was negotiating labor contracts for a billion dollar power plants. And, you know, it just, that's just the way that it is. You know, back office functions are just not seen as value as valuable, right? And I'm, I don't know, has that been your experience? I mean, you know, and dude, it's been always my experiences, which is why I always defaulted to sales because I always knew that that's where you can make as much as you make the most money. And to be honest, I don't know that the good driver for a career, but I've always, I've always loved the thought of working in marketing, but every time I look at the potential paycheck, you default to sale. And I've worked in both roles. Like, I've done both over my career, but you always just think like, wow, you know, that's shaving, you know, 100,000, 150,000 off your potential paycheck. In some, in some roles, that's, that's serious. And I actually don't agree with it. I think it's a very outdated mindset, but people that make the money for the company, you know, the revenue generating business, you know, you make a lot of money. But anyways, yeah, so electrical engineering, moving to HR, I'm assuming that was already a, that was probably a pay cut in and of itself, no? It, it took, well, my career path, I went in high, but then it plateaued, right? Yeah, yeah. So my growth from that standpoint, but that was another reason, you know, going into the unregulated side of the business that I was in, I was being benchmarked against other, other hire and sales and trading organizations. So my pay big grow. But, you know, if I would have stayed where I was at, it would have been stagnant. But, you know, it was, it was a good gamble. And it was a good, you know, one of the things that was told early on, because, you know, I worked with a lot of the sales guys and girls was, I was told that the closer you are to the dollar, the more money you make. And so, I mean, that's just a function of how it works. That's a step. So, so you, you, you grew, obviously, it was successful. You didn't lose the job. You grow the, you grew this opportunity. You grew, you grew this business. So it was very successful. Now, you're, now your HR executive, I'm assuming in a, in a relatively, a relatively successful business, what made you, what's the next move that you, you took after that answer? So, you know, I have this, you know, and, you know, you have real upfront. It's like, you know, I've had anxiety throughout my life. And so I have this, I guess, disease for comfort, right? When I really get comfortable, I start worrying about like, okay, when are the wheels going to come off, right? So I, I tend to then make drastic changes and really shake things up to see what's going to happen. It's kind of a control thing for me, right? And, uh, and so like I'd rather shake things up instead of being shook up. Okay. Interesting. You want to get ahead of it? Yeah, it's, you know, and again, it's not, and it's not necessarily a good personal trait, but it's just my trait, right? And I talked, got it in the book. I talked specifically about, um, you know, how, how comfort is a disease for me at the way I look at it. And, um, you know, it can just be that way. But so 2006, I'm, I'm flying back, um, back home, I'm, you know, I'm gone basically three weeks a month at this point, traveling all over the place. I have a young kid, um, another one on the way, and you know, well, actually, so, and I'm sitting there calculating how much of my marriage I'm missing, right? And I'm like, okay, this is not going to be good long term, at least not for what I wanted. And so I decided that, um, at that point in time, I could take a chance to jump into entrepreneurship. And so I started looking at the quickest ways to become an entrepreneur. And what I found was real estate was a really lucrative way to jump right into entrepreneurship. And there's so many things you can do with real estate, right? You can do sales, you can do investing, you can do construction. I mean, there's just so many things that you can do. And so I decided to get into commercial real estate. I had a family friend who just who offered to be a mentor to me. And so in 2006, July, I jumped out of my job. I went in turn in my resignation. Um, you know, they tried to talk me out of it, but I really wanted to do this. I really wanted to test myself. It's that comfort thing, right? So I jumped into real estate and literally what was that eight months later, nine months later, the market crashes. Absolutely crashes, right? So this is 2007, now eight. And I'm going broke, I'm burning through all my savings. You know, there's no money coming in, there's no, there's no outlook of this end of, you know, changing very quickly. Um, you know, but luckily enough, I did find a partner. And I think the key takeaway from this is that if you're, it's, it's always good to have a partner in any business that you're in, it's better to be two, three or a band of people. And even if you just want to have someone, not an equity person, at least have a band of advisors or mentors that can help you. That's so super critical. So I found my business partner, we went in equity together and we started an auction company from scratch because that seemed to be the biggest opportunity is the market had come to a grinding halt. No one knew what value was in real estate. And so what we said is, well, auction is the truest way to find a market. Let's put a bunch of people together in a room, let them honestly decide what something is worth, not the realtor, not, you know, not a, a, a, a, a, a, but let the market decide. And that's what we did. We did 850 real estate auctions over the next couple years. And we were the largest auction company in the West Central Florida. We only did real estate. We worked for every major bank and servicer on the planet. And, and we really had a good run at it. And so that was a lot of fun from there. We jumped into being hired by some hedge funds to do some investing for them. And then, and then right after that, a friend that we made through that process was starting a retail company and asked us if we wanted to come in as partners and we did. And when I decided to exit in 2019, we just closed the year with 917 million in sales that year. So it was a ride, man. It wasn't, but it wasn't easy. But you know, but a lot, a lot of really good lessons that I hope people take out of this, like a line with mentors, a line with advisors, you don't have to do it all on your own. It's better to own a part of something than all nothing. And then plus you were pretty damn good at pivoting when shit hit the fan. And that, that's probably, you know, in terms of going into real estate, the time you went into real estate, you could not pick a worst time to go into an entrepreneurial venture. So like, if you can survive that, then everything else that people struggle with, yeah, it's tough sometimes, but you can do it. That's, that's, that's really it. You know, I look back at that time of, you know, looking at my family, looking at a decision that I made, because I did think about going back and trying to get my job back. I mean, there were those, those nights, you know, usually at the end of the month, right? And when I look back at that time, though, it really did a lot of things for me, because when I left corporate, and I went into real estate, man, my ego was huge. I had a big ego. You know, I felt like I could really take anything on. And that time of, of valleyness, I call it, it really helped me check my ego, really understand what I wanted to do. And, and I never looked back after that. I just went forward. So, you know, that was, that was an interesting moment in time. And so anyone who's listening to this, if you're in your valley moment, you know, it's a grow time. I think, I think that, you know, you, you luckily came out of it. I'm, I'm not, I don't know the time frame exactly, but it may be like six months a year, whatever till things started to pick up. But I think that's something that all entrepreneurs, when they try and do something for the first time, they're going to hit it at some point. And it could drag on for two, three, four years. Like, it's not always so nice when you go from, you, you leave your job, you start something, it doesn't work. And then a year later, it does work. Like, that's even as shitty as your situation was, your, your valley time. I love that. It's, it can drag on for a bit. But if you're moving in the right direction, then that's, that's really where you win. You never see somebody do something for 10 years. And at, at the 10th year, they're unsuccessful. It's the people that quit after a year, two year, three. Yeah, that's a beautiful, yeah, you make a beautiful point there because, you know, and, and I never believe, I didn't believe it to begin with, but I, you know, I read all the business books and stuff. And they said, oh, it takes 10 years. It takes 10 years, right? That was the common scene. Takes 10 years, take 10 years. And I'm like, okay. And then it really did, it takes that five to 10 years for you to really hit a stride with a business. And it's just going to take you that long. And you just got to make it through just real quick story. I just, I was just thinking about, so this, I just, I wanted to communicate to people at the start, right? So when we decided to do an auction business, we'd never done an auction in our lives, right? I mean, a live auction with people, right? Paperwork, I mean, documents, selling real estate, everything else. And so we get this client to go ahead and, um, and let us sell this house. And, and so we actually showed up to the house. We had no idea, you know, we thought what we knew we're going to do. We went into the house. And, uh, and so we took his, his portable bar from the house. We put it in the backyard. We set up chairs from the dining room in the backyard. And we had this auction and we sold the house for more than he wanted. And it was like this, this like, it was this crazy moment that, you know, what if we wouldn't have done that? What if we just wouldn't have tried, you know, what that, what would that have looked like? Um, you know, I know you have a lot of those start moments where, you know, I mean, you're obviously a guy who runs a lot of businesses. And so starting it probably, right? That's key. Starting is key, um, realizing that it's never going to work. The first, the first iterations, never going to work dealing with all the shit that comes with starting something new and the stress and the, and the figuring it out, like the constant figuring it out. That's a beautiful story though. I really like the story because if you hadn't done that, there's a good chance of wouldn't, and if you hadn't sold that one house, then you may have just, most people would have like, oh, it's not for me. I don't know what I'm doing here. This is like, you know, it's never going to work out. But you, you, you looked out, you came with a good idea, you actioned on it and it, and it worked. And that was the start of, well, I'm assuming that was the most lucrative portion of your career. Like that was the, the, the entry level into successful entrepreneurship, doing your own thing. And then eventually when you're selling, you know, $900 million of real estate, like that's, that's pretty, that's pretty damn good, right? So. Yeah, no, it was, you know, it was, uh, you know, selling real estate can be very lucrative. Um, but it is a 100% commission business and you have to hustle. If you're not hustling today, you're not getting paid six months from today. And, um, and it's no, it's, and it's, and it's, and it's a doggy dog. I mean, it's tough. It's a tough slug, slug it out and, you know, venture, but at the same time, it's incredibly lucrative, not only from investment, but also, you know, but it's also great because it's deal making. That's what I, that's what I learned about myself during that time is, and I necessarily wasn't in love with real estate as much as I was in love with doing the deal. Doing the deal was like a drug, right? And, and you know, that, because you're in sales. Yeah. Anyone in singles, when you do the deal, man, there's nothing better. Yeah. And you have, I'm just curious what tips going into, let's call it sales, um, because it is sales. What did you, how did you learn how to do that with an HR and an electrical engineering background? You had, you had no, you had no sales experience. Well, you did, I guess, an HR a little bit because you're brokering deals there, but how do you, how do you manage that? How do you learn? So what I learned in quite honestly, so, so my mom was 17 when she had me, right? So my mom was a tremendously successful businesswoman, um, and an incredible parent and everything else, but also a great teacher. So I learned from my mom, and, and this is really where it came from, but what the people around me is that it is, it's the incremental part that comes with discipline, that is the win, right? It's doing those little things over and over and over again that are going to make it work for you. And so what I learned quite honestly was, like I'm a time block king. I mean, like I am a time block guy. So I think a key to anybody in sales, if you want to go into sales, you have to just consume everything you can about the mindset around time blocking. The philosophies will work for you, get really good at it. Time blocking is an incredible, incredible concept in a mindset that you have to have if you're going to do sales period. Is that the concept is, in my opinion, very important, but I've never heard somebody speak to it as the precursor to the success in sales. Is it just so there's so much stuff happening? Is, and you just have to block it out so that you are just more efficient? And without that, you wouldn't get stuff done. I'm curious. Yeah, no, the way I look at it is so it goes back to the only thing you have as a salesperson to sell is your time. Yeah, forget the product, forget the service, forget anything else, right? Really what you're doing is you're selling your time. And so if you're not sacred about your time, you've already lost. And so that's the way I looked at it was like if someone was willing to steal my time or to try and take my time away, they're taking food off the table for my family. And I got seriously sacred about my time. And you know, and that's the way I looked at it. And that just caused me to to line up everything else, right? Who was I going to spend my time with? What deals was I going to go after? What was I going to say no to? You know, at the end of the day, could I honestly measure how I did absolutely because I could look at that time? So everything fell around the time. And if you are in sales, don't look at it like you're trying to sell the product because that's not really what you're selling. Really what you're selling is where are you putting your time in order to make that thing happen? Yeah, that's a big difference. It makes a ton of sense because said differently if you're in sales and you're not qualifying out, if you're not saying no to people that aren't a good fit, if you don't have a process for that or you don't even know a good looks like you're chasing everything because there's no shortage of deals out there. But like you said, there's a shortage of time. And actually, the most effective sales reps say no more than they say yes to demos, to meetings, to calls. And like it's honestly even worse in a post COVID world where everything is like an hour long Zoom call for no reason, right? And that can set like you can you can do a deal over maybe an hour an hour and a half Zoom call or that or a smaller deal could take you five, 10 hours if you get the wrong customer for whatever reason. And they're just back and forth and having a hauling and negotiating and that happens sometimes and you just lose like days of your life chasing the wrong customer. Oh yeah, you know, in real estate especially, you know, and I know it's another environment too, but you know, people will come with you and they'll shake money at you, right? And they'll say, hey, listen, go find me a deal. I need to play some million bucks, right? And so you're like, and three to six percent of a million bucks, man, I need to go do that, right? But really what they're doing is they're just bird dogging you. They've got six or seven other people going out and looking for deals. And if you don't, if you don't take care of your time, you could have only bird dog clients. And guess what? You're gonna, you're gonna go more than broke. You're gonna go bankrupt. So how do you deal with that? What's the lesson that you learned in real estate on how to find where to spend your time? And is it something that we could easily take into other environments so that people can figure out where to not waste time? Hey, Scott here. We're just gonna take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode Gusto. This is a one-stop shop. One place you can go to take care of all the payroll issues, all the payroll stresses that you have to deal with as a business owner. Look, 2020's been a rough year. We can all agree on that and 2021 is pretty rough too. But if there's one thing that small business owners don't need is more headache. 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That's gusto.com slash Scott. And that will give you three months free to try it out for yourself. Play around with it. See if it works for your business. I'm almost positive. It will. All right. Let's get back to it. Yeah. That's that's super good because I do, you know, because now I'm in coaching, right? So I'm doing the same same thing. I'm selling my time, but it is, but with that being said, is I got to like you said, qualify what those opportunities are like. So anyone that is in a sales role or growing a business and trying to figure out how to pick up clients and customers those kind of things. The first thing you have to you have to ask or you have to do is you have to be a really good listener. You have to listen for the cues of what people are telling you. If it first thing you need to know, if it sounds too good to be true and you don't have to really work hard to make it happen, guess what? It's too good to be true. There's no. Yeah. There isn't. Yeah. And, you know, that's that's the first thing. That's the first thing you qualify. If it really, if it sounds too good and it's too easy, it's not, it never had those things don't happen. You're going to hit singles a lot more than you're going to hit those home runs. So, you know, look for the singles always, you know, what are the deals that I can get done that I know that are real that can make happen and get rid of that swinging for the fences mentality. Yeah. No, it's this very good advice. What now I'm curious, I'm curious what you're working with now. So, let's let's keep going down the career path because that will dovetail and some great questions as to what you're helping people with out right now after your career. So, what's next after after you exit real estate and you're done that? What are you doing now? What's what's the book? What's coaching? What's your academy? All that stuff and why are you doing that? Yeah. So, so I was I was in my last two years as a partner and I found myself coaching more than I was really doing the sales anymore and I was finding my joy in there. I found a new joy, right? The deal making was fun but I was really enjoying was watching other people be successful and working through them and I was finding my joy through that process and and so I decided that I wanted to get coaching. I talked to my partner partners, they talked me out of it twice but I finally actually made that happen and so so I did so I jumped in and I created a coaching company called the Return on You Investment Academy because I wanted to tie back to money because everything does come back to money in terms of you know a basis of successful measure but really there's another piece to it which is how are you investing in you right? If you investing in you then the money will come so it's a return on you investment academy. So I started a coaching academy I went and got certified I'm a certified high performance coach so I carry some credentials with me and and I started this company and along those lines I started to reflect a little bit especially when COVID happened is is this mindset that came to me about a CEO right? I'm coaching executives I'm coaching you know CEOs and entrepreneurs for their own company and I'm really thinking about what it is that makes them successful and what I began to realize is that this concept of work life balance and all this other stuff is really flawed because what I see in the most successful people and I also see it in my own life is that I'm no different at home than I am in my job I'm I'm the same person right and so why do we break apart the workplace and the life place really let's bring those two things together and if you can bring those two things together you will be successfully rounded and so I started thinking about the CEO job description and if you go through a CEO's job description you'll see it's a lot like how you should leave your life you should have a vision you should have mission you should have goals you should know who the people are that are around you as your shareholders you should be able to say no you should have values you should set boundaries you should know how to deal with you know a lot of shit every day because it's gonna come and so you know all of those things and so I wrote this book CEO for life for that purpose is to try and bring the concept together for people that you really should be the same person in the workplace and life place so a lot of fun and I've really enjoyed it no I appreciate the the the transitioning I think that she's you probably your love for coaching probably comes from your your love for helping people and that's probably why you transition from electrical engineering to HR in the first place I'm just reading a long year career it makes like it makes a lot of sense we keep defaulting to and what these sort of excel at but I guess I guess my question you know you the CEO for life I love the I love the analogy that you have to run your life like a CEO so how do we solve how do we solve for that how do we remove the work life and the and the personal life because there's things that I'm sure like this is ingrained in people like they have to act one way at work and they and they act differently at home so what are like the the actionable steps that you can start doing or suggest a matter of finding the right organization that also recognizes that they want a certain authenticity in who they hire how do you fix that great great that's a great conversation it's a super conversation so the first thing is you have to work your roadmap to make sure that your your life and your work who you are maps to what a CEO is right do you have a okay first thing you gotta know is do you have some level of self awareness listen if you're a dick and it ain't gonna work no matter what you do right I mean you know or if you're a bad person or you know whatever whatever label you want to call it in terms of being a jerk or working difficult with people you have to some have some level of self awareness once you have some self awareness from there you can decide okay well what is the vision for my life and what I tell people is their vision is never big enough when I sit down with clients and I talk to them tell me about your vision for your life it's never big enough it's never big enough it's it's always well this year I want to do this or you know we're looking to buy this house or you know we're you know I want my kids kids to college well what I talk about in the book is dream generationally you know a CEO doesn't a CEO measures in a year or a quarter but when they look at casting vision for the company they're thinking five years ten years thirty years where where we gonna turn the ship and take it to you know Elon Musk is looking at Mars he's not he's not just thinking about trying to get this thing to go up and then come back down right I mean he's so dreaming generationally is super important so self awareness and making sure you have a big dream and then from there you can to begin to put your roadmap together okay so what are the goals that are gonna get you there what values are gonna keep you in line right you're not gonna cross any ethical barriers those kind of things then what are the people that you're surrounding yourself with who are your shareholders listen it's it's cliche but it's truth I guarantee if you look at the people you spend the most time with the five people you spend the most time with you eat where they eat you listen to the same music they do you dress like them you talk like them you drink the same beers or wine I mean that's just what we do right it's funny because I have a six-year-old daughter and it's so apparent in in her boyfriend all the boys in high school they dress the same they have the same beaver haircut they all listen to the same music they all drive the same trucks they all you know it's it's all the same things right and it's so apparent in in in high schoolers that but it never leaves us we're always there so who are you leveling up in your sphere and then from there you can then begin to say okay now that I have all these pieces in place how am I how am I learning to to work with in that and that comes with having this firefighter mindset is I was told a long time ago you live your life in three states you're either in a storm coming out of a storm or going into a storm that is life period and so you better be preparing today for that storm that you're either in going into or coming out of and every day be a good firefighter so those are the things that are that are wrapped up in the book and they'll have practical exercises around it and that's that's what I'm trying to help people find is that direction for their CEO and do you find those are good lessons and so the context of the books book makes sense excuse me do you find that that's similar to what people reach out to you for when they look for business business advice or coaching advice are those is that the core problem that they're trying to solve or what other types of coaching do you actually work with people on outside of this CEO work life balance sure and so it's you know coaching is so interesting to me is because it um I guess the easiest way to say it is everybody that I coach already knows what they need to do we all do we all know we need to lose weight or we need to exercise or we need to do this or I need to pick up the phone and make those phone calls or you know I need to get my accounting and what everybody knows what they need to do but what they need is someone to speak that truth into them so they can they can then release themselves to go do it and that's really what coaching does it allows a person to release themselves into what they know they need to do because what happens often is um we get caught up in this mental chatter right we talk to ourselves in our head four times more than we talk to a person verbally so you're having a conversation your head four times more than you're having a conversation with someone else and so we get lost in that but sometimes you need that person to have that verbal conversation with make some accountability go to that so that's what I spent a lot of time with people is we first start at what is it that you're not doing that you know you should do and from there everything else unravels we put a plan in place we execute it on that plan and my normal coaching time is 12 weeks at the end of 12 weeks I mean they've they've gone way beyond they ever thought they would have been from the beginning and and do you find I'm going to I think I know the answer to this because of accountability and because of what you just said but do you find that people have improved results when they pay an individual pay somebody to actually do the coaching versus they find mentors they find advisors they go learn on their own you know it's funny it so here's here's my analysis of that it's not it's not even the amount of money what it is is the fact that they're having to tell somebody else that's close to them in their sphere that they're spending money to do this so it's not in my accountability as a coach it's the accountability that comes from the people that's surrounding those people that they've invested in this and so that is the actual push that makes them stay in place it's not even me is the accountability it's the fact that the people around them you know they they talk about you know you can read stuff about addictions and those kind of things admitting to someone that you're going to change and that you're going to do that that's in your sphere is the most powerful way to make something happen and so it's funny you know you would think it's just that fact that hey listen I paid Rob X and so now you know want to make these happen but it's more that I had to have a conversation with my wife or my spouse or my partner or whoever it is that I'm doing this that's really would hold somebody accountable it's really an interesting thing that I never thought but it is it's a real makes it makes sense and I've seen it so I've never I've never paid for professional coaching I have mentors and whatnot and I've aligned with people but then again I think about it and I've like bought I've bought education before but I see it because I paid for a personal trainer and I paid for somebody that I needed to be accountable to and it's just this level of of clarity and where you have to end up when there's yes your own circle you're putting money into it and then that person also the trainer is holding you accountable it's just it's a different level it's like a fast-tracked education and I'm saying this just because I find the concept of coaching interesting because there's always those people that push back and they're like you can just figure it out yourself and you can just go learn it yourself and I think that also to be quite honest what's unfortunate is that there's so many people that proclaim themselves coaches that the industry is inundated with people just trying to teach things they think they are good at teaching and you have to filter through a lot of garbage to find people that are actually effective at teaching you stuff but like I you know it's just it's just like once you do find that person it's like you'll move like five years you'll advance five years in a business or in a career or in your mindset that would have taken you much longer to to figure out yourself even if you were motivated right yeah yeah it's fine you say that too because you know probably probably a realtor is probably one step above a coach right because everybody's got a real estate license just about yeah honestly it's a low barrier entry I mean yeah I mean you know you just go you take your class you sit for your test and you know and then you walk out and you're supposedly supposed to know how to do a deal and you know that's not the case and so you know so realtors at least in Florida and in the market that I was in you know there were 7,000 realtors in my market the average number of deals they did a year was 2.5 so the average realtor did two transactions of year two in 12 months and the reason why is because it was somebody's mother father cousin brother friend coworker boyfriend whatever right but that person may have never done a deal before and and and I saw it time and time again and being the second realtor and someone would hire just you know I mean our market was a huge luxury market so we were selling multi-million dollar properties and they would have hired someone who's never even sold you know a hundred thousand dollar property to sell their property and it's like there was no interview there was no thought process they just they did it so a lot of that's coaches too as you get wrapped up in the in the seven funnel and next thing you know you spent a thousand bucks in a masterclass ebook and you're like what am I doing right you know but hey that's that's what it is so I guess the thing to say to that if I can is just researcher you want to work with and how do you what are you okay so you're in and so what do you look for are you interviewing you interview yeah so here's what I look for is the first is the first thing you got to do is you got to feel a connection with somebody so you know if there's not a connection meaning that you have to have a feeling that that person cares about you it has a real interest in you being well not just trying to sell you something if you don't have that that gut feeling that this person cares about this process for me then you need to walk then the second thing is look at a person's you know background and credentials and and see if it matches up to what you're trying to accomplish you know so like for me a lot of people that I deal with are pivots so people that are making lots of changes in their careers because I've gone through it and I've done it a lot of people I deal with are realtors or in sales and marketing positions and then and then also you know I deal with I have some really high level executives because that's what I did and you know it's a Fortune 150 company I mean you know so I was dealing with you know really highly successful executives and you know I was dependent they were dependent upon me to make help them make good decisions so yeah no there's something to be said for it because it's just it's just so there's so many there's so many people out there and I appreciate I appreciate that insight because I am a believer like you know I am a believer if you find the right person they can really really help you excel in your personal professional life but like it's just hard to find those people so that's why you know getting getting that feedback is important so you know that that vibe that that the feeling that you trust the person the feeling that you have a good feeling about them that goes a long way and then of course credentials are important as well but you're right that's seven funnel you know you're getting all this you're getting indated with their emails like that's it's it's they turn it into a commodity a lot of coaches which I think is unfortunate because I think that when I didn't even mean to to go here but you know you see a lot of people that do coaching they're targeting people that are not executives or are not pivots these are not people that are hurting financially but it's more the people that are targeting people that have their last you know 1500 bucks in the bank that's those are the people that I have an issue with not people that are getting somebody from five hundred thousand dollars a year on their on their you know net income for the year to like 750 or paving into a different industry those are people that are very very useful and those are the people that you should be paying for you know it's interesting I think you know both of us share a fan base you know in the fact that you know we you know I happen to think a lot of Gary Vanderchuck and what he does and you know in some of his models and stuff and and something that he would always say early on in his speaking engagements he's like he knew it from the beginning in those in those large conferences or those workshops and those kind of things like only one percent of people are actually going to do something with it and in my mind I just can't accept that right I just you know I'd much rather work with someone one-on-one or a small team or a group of people we're actually getting some results instead of you know proclaiming here's the gospel and then hopefully somebody's going to go do something with it right you know so yeah you know but that's what we're at right now is you know a lot of people are seeking they're trying to find they're trying to do discovery and you know I'm not saying that anyone's trying to take advantage of anybody but what I'm saying is at some point you got to get granule you got to get surgical you have to go and really do the work right yeah yeah yeah that's important too and that's why I think that when you have a model that perhaps perhaps is more like a high performance coach you're you're more one-on-one like you're more interacting daily versus just you learning or like one teacher to like you know five thousand students which obviously is never going to have the same impact right so yeah exactly no very good yeah so I guess I always like to I like to have some like rapid fire stuff at the end just like life lessons is there anything else that you want it to go into because we went into your career you know you're learning as a throught entrepreneurship some of your strategies you're being successful like what you're working on now was there any we didn't touch on no I think you know if if anything I just want to impress upon people that um you know again it's just about starting you are the CEO for your life it's a job that you're given the day you were born own it you can't delegate it you can't give it to anybody else you can't hire somebody else to do it it is you um and so own it because it's the greatest job you all ever have is being the CEO for your life I love it complete ownership extreme ownership what that that's a book by uh by uh Yaka Willink I think extreme ownership that's a good question yeah yeah yeah okay um some rapid fire questions biggest challenge in your career myself that mental chatter you know I mean so like I expressed before I've gone through anxiety a few times in my life you know who I reclinically saw somebody for because there was so much into my head I'm controlling I'm a control person and so being out of control whether it's good or bad is it still has a stress on me so take care of yourself you're well-being first you know don't be in your head too much good advice um what inspires you to do your best work serving others for sure there's no doubt about that I get my greatest joy in life by there's a book called half time and it gives us the concept of you can this can happen when you're 18 15 35 55 65 there's a point there's points in your life where you move from success to significance and when you move from success to significance your life takes on a whole new meaning and so you know pouring into others and investing in others serving others that's the greatest thing you can do and you can make a lot of money doing it yeah no good good good good um a lesson you to tell your younger self lesson to tell the younger self um it goes quick yeah it does yeah it does now that that being said I've heard yes life does go quick but still what what is the saying like the the days are long with the years are short so yeah and and but also realize that if you are trying to build something of yourself I'll contest you in that point only by saying this if even though life does go quick um five years or 10 years committed to something is not a long time so put it put it in that time you know yeah you know you got to put it again again you know going back to that sacredness time really needs to be sacred yeah I mean I have time behind me in a picture format and in front of the other one I keep it in front of me and behind me because I am fanatical about time you know like you know it's just you know I mean we have a saying in our family um it's uh if you're earlier on time if you're on time you're late and if you're late it's unacceptable right and you know that's just you know that's you got to have time is very sacred it's respectful it's sacred it's important so yeah very good um and you sort of answer this already but uh favorite resource podcast book mentor something to somebody should go check out yeah I think um you know this is awful but like right now for some reason I'm on barstool sports like all the time yeah that's good you can learn some creating advice from Dave right yeah I'm gonna tell you why it's because it's it's great to watch the story of barstool what it started to what it started as what it's become in the loyalty that group has for each other you know yeah I don't I don't think it's unauthentic what they put out into the world I think they truly are a family they have their issues you know it's like this dysfunctional family but they all got each other's back and and I just I thrive off of that it gives me energy I love it I just love yeah it's good it is good they're they're funny I don't think it's too much else like them yeah yeah you thought he's sorry would you say anywhere you said oh and I like pizza you know Dave's pizza right yeah that's good that is good um okay uh and last last question before I get some uh some socials on website from you um what does success mean to you oh by uh that's that's super easy I mean success is literally um my family I mean you know it's it's very cliche to say that right um because that's what everybody says but you know that that's where things are at and I mean that's why I originally left the job that I had you know I had a great job but I was traveling three weeks a month and I knew that was a recipe for a disaster and so you know I had to make a choice to do that so I think investing in my family I mean that's just it's been the best good good you can do it you can do it and by the way that's that is a good answer it's a great answer but not everybody gives that answer if people the it's funny question because everybody thinks of it in terms of differently based on where their minds are and what's what's a priority in their life usually usually freedom family some people say money uh you know like more more um monetary drivers or or or or or what's the what's the order look for like just like indications of success but a lot of it is like freedom family things that are not so tied to the personal will um and then most importantly uh your socials where can people email you connect with your website yeah so the best place to find me and connect which means on LinkedIn so Robert Lee Barber on LinkedIn so you'll find me there um that's the easiest way to connect and I would love just to talk to anybody and help them out in any way that again I do believe that connection is the greatest way to find um opportunity so let's connect