Episode 18| Aaron Murray: How To Be "The Person To Know" Advice From A COO and Successful Entrepreneur

Today we interview Aaron Murray, COO of a successful restaurant chain, founder of his own marketing company, Murray Media Solutions and a transportation business called Chattanooga Go Cart. In this episode, me and Aaron dive into how his entrepreneurial journey started. We also discuss how he built the reputation he has as someone who can solve any issue through connections and asking the right questions.

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And so for instance, I have very well known family in town that own one of the large businesses in this particular category and in the world. And this individual has had lunch with me almost every month for the past. You know, not, not this year, but the past several years before that. And he's a great friend of mine. I can call him right now and say, Hey, like, I know you guys just sold this property and building to a fortune 50 company for hundreds of millions of dollars. But Hey, I have this question about how, like the$240 tax piece I was working on wasn't working. Right? Like what would you do? You know, and, and why the heck would he ever answer that phone call? And that's because there's some value in helping me because he has determined. He has knowledge that I don't have, and that I'm not a waste of his time. Did that knowledge actually help somebody? Because people want to serve others, especially those high-level successful people. They live to serve others. That's why they have become successful. Welcome back to the art of connecting podcasts. We have another guest with us today. Today we have Aaron Murray This is a much anticipated and long awaited episode. And me and Aaron got introduced really early on into my adventure with the food tour company. The owner of chat tastes Rihanna Garza who was episode number two or three. Pretty much immediately when I started my position of being the director of the company, she was like, I have someone you need to meet. You need to meet Aaron. He's the person to know in Chattanooga. You need to meet him. And when someone says, I need to meet the person who I need to know, that is a no question, no brainer. I need to meet that person. So me and Aaron got lunch and was blown away with the way his brain works, the way he runs his businesses and everything. So we'll dive into that a little bit, but how are you doing Aaron? And excellent. Thank you so much for having me and you know, you're exactly right. Brianna Crocs is a great friend of mine and she is the person that everybody needs to know in China. I just want to say all the time. And you know, from what I've heard from so many people you were up and coming, and I know the biggest thing lately was that you were honored as an elite 30, under 30. In Chattanooga for the epilepsy foundation. So hopefully. That whole process went great. And I'm glad you were able to be a part of that. Yeah, that was a super cool experience for me that came out of kind of, I had no expectation of it, got a few phone calls and was like, all right, let's do it. Let's go raise some money and let's be a part of the charity. So that was a super good honor for me to be a part of. So. I want to go ahead and dive right in and kind of talk about. A little bit about what all you do. I feel like we could probably do a whole episode. Just talking about the different things that you do. Okay. We won't do that. We'll burn like for five minutes talking about what you do. So tell me a little bit about right now, what you've got going on. Absolutely. So you're exactly right. No three months are the same. And if you can throw a business at me or a new job or whatever, I'll take it. There's about a hundred weeks in my year, so I pack it all in pretty tight. So starting kind of from the very beginning you know, my family my, my dad's side of the family has started printing companies in Chattanooga. So I kind of grew up doing that small printing companies. You know, my dad always kind of had like maybe one employee and me and my brother would help him growing up. And my grandfather had a Murray printing, which was over here, still on north Hawthorne to read 70 years, 80 years now. Wow. And my uncle still has it. And you know, that's of course a. A dying industry. You know, having all the machinery that prints, you know, physical paper and just learning that grown up kind of started. All these processes in business that I learned that apply to any, any sort of business service or product oriented. And that kind of snowballed into long story short me going to UTC. Started my marketing business about sophomore year of college. And then that rolled into a last mile transportation business where I have advertising as the revenue. And then again, spurred off into tourism businesses with some creative maps showing off the Chattanooga area. And then ultimately leading me up to. You know, some of my work in nonprofit world serving on a couple boards and leading and managing a local restaurant chain that's here, that's growing really fast. And so. Say it I've done it. I know a little bit about it. You know, I'm still learning, but a little, little bit of every industry so far, and it's still growing in. You know, I still feel 22, but you know, I finally turned 27 last month and I'm like, boy, where's the time when the last five years has been crazy. Yeah, absolutely. And. And a lot of people when they hear you're 27, I know they're like, no, you're not. They're like you're, you're 45 with how accomplished you are like there. I know you get that all the time. Yes, it's getting older. So originally it was like, oh, you're, you know, when I was 22, they're like, oh, so you're like 35. And I'm like, No. I can drink now. And and then now that I'm 27, I'm like, okay, people will stop saying that, but you know, they don't like everyone I'm hanging out with this, you know, 50 plus and, you know, had business for 10, 20 years and three or 400 employees. And. And, you know, the role I'm currently in as a COO. You know, we've got about 350 and we're growing to four 50. In the next few months. So yeah, that's, that's, it's been pretty crazy. So in your journey and I kind of, I think I mentioned this a little bit, but as I've mentioned, pretty much every person that I meet with, it happens almost weekly. They ask if I know you because they, they see what I'm doing and where I'm at when I'm 22. And every single, like, It almost without fail. Most people I meet they're like, do you know. I'm married. And I'm like, you are not the first person to ask that. Yes, I do actually. How, so tell me a little bit, let's start with a groundwork to build your network out when you were first coming out of college and starting a marketing business. What are some things that you did in the beginning to build out your network? Well where I would start is that. I did not come out of the gate like this. I did not learn this growing up. I didn't learn it. Hardly in college, maybe a little bit from a few mentors and advisors of mine. But it was business owners. Who've taught me this. And You know, growing up in the family business printing. I would take orders and do deliveries. And so I knew a couple of people and I had no idea what networking was and it didn't. Come to fruition until sophomore year of college. When I started doing this marketing. And I was like, oh yeah, I know Greg at so-and-so like, we've done their printing for 10 or 20 years, you know? And My first big break was a friend of mine had bought a drone back when they were first getting started. And there's a whole backstory to that. And my dad actually flew national competitions in the eighties for RC helicopters and stuff. That's all weather D also. I kind of jumped into this drone thing with my buddy and I said, Hey, like, we can take pictures for these people and they'll pay us. And a UTC ended up paying my tuition that year to do all their drone work and become a UT system employee with that. And then that kind of snowballed into doing drum work for river band. And then there's a couple customers river band picked up Lee Smith and he's one of the largest family owned commercial truck dealerships in the Southeast, we did a lot of work for them. And then again, it snowballed into all these other people that Les knew, and these people at Riverbend and people at UTC new and. And it was really like, A conversation just like we're having. Hey, you have this new cool idea. And I can execute with a deliverable product, right? Whether it's. Sophisticated or not. I can at least say I'm going to do something and do it. And people just. Tell other people. I mean, it is so cut and dry. And if you just say what you're going to do and do that. Everybody will say. That, that person right there. Column. It's that simple. I was just a. At breakfast this morning with Bruce. I've actually had him on an episode too. It's like my network. I'm interviewing all of them one at a time. But I was telling him like, yeah, I'm looking at another house today. And then while I was sitting there, another one popped across my screen and was like, well, I'm looking at two houses today. And he's like, man. So many people just say, and not as many people do you're you're doing well, because like he is like saying this the easy part, but it's the action that. I mean so many people. They go, they start going down the direction. They, they set everything up and then they just don't do it. Well, everyone always asks me too, like, how do you know how to do that? Right. Is how do you get started? And what I tell them is that I don't know how to do it. Somebody asked me if I could help them. And. They didn't know how to do it here. So we figured it out. And we come back and we were able to complete whatever we didn't know or solve the problem. We, we did know how to solve. And that's what people are looking for. And they always talk about all these professionals that are growing up and getting degrees or coming out of high school. And. Skillsets are way more important. And being focused in one area. It's not really. You know the reality of the future for everybody, because you're going to bounce around and you're going to be expected to solve all these problems, whether they're personal life problems, relationship problems, business, whatever. If you just go out in the world and you. Can identify things you don't know and how to solve problems. That is way more important than anything. You can. Concentrate on. You know, that's what it comes down to is I don't know what industry I'm going to be in tomorrow. I'm in. A billion industries today. And I'm not scared of any one of them because they all operate ultimately the same it's about who, you know, and if you don't know how to solve a problem, Surely, you can find somebody that can help you. My I think some of the most powerful words I use is I'm not really sure, but let me find out. Because that accelerated me in the fortune 500 world. When I was working at the large insurance company in town that we will not name. But and when I was working there, I was like, whenever someone would ask me to do something on Excel or whatever. I had a manager that would come up to me and ask me about complicated Excel formulas. And I'm like, I learned this in college, but I honestly completely forgot it. My coworker is really good at it, but he doesn't love to talk to people. Let me go talk to him and have him see if he can help. And my coworker would spend like a whole day and build this complex, incredible spreadsheet tool for them to use. And like they would try and give me the credit for it. And I'm like, absolutely not. No, I just connected you to him. He did all that work, but that's kind of how that's, how it happens is if you can be the person who can identify others, who can help solve your problems. Oftentimes, I feel like that's more valuable than being able to solve the problem yourself. You're totally on it. And I don't want people to miss that. There is so much value in connectors, people that connect. You know everyone through network. Because they see huge opportunities when other people that are focused in specific areas are really good at those areas, but it takes somebody that has a single puzzle piece here that they put together. And a person looking at the entire picture to put it all together. And it's a combination of, of all of those. And. What's interesting is everyone gets Elon Musk or someone like that. All the credit bill gates. You know Steve jobs. And. Steve jobs was not sit there. Like. Actually milling out the aluminum on the iPhone or the R the Mac book that people love the ergonomic piece. He, he had a vision and he passed that vision along to experts in each area that he wanted to see accomplished. Hmm. But he gets the credit because he brought it all together in, in one. Item. And I think. Specifically in Chattanooga. That's what we're seeing now. Across the board, there are so many talented people. There are across the country, across the world. It's so connected. I can get somebody in Japan tomorrow, too. You know, create me a product and I can sell it. I can get somebody to help me fix some graphic design. You know, any, anywhere in the world, send it back to me and I'll send it to somebody in Milan. I just did that the other day. I mean, It takes two seconds to connect people around the world to, you know, solve a problem. But everyone keeps saying that, that they, they don't have the resources where they're at. And not only do you have the people in all over the world that you can reach in about two finger clicks. But there are people right here in Chattanooga that have moved here that are from here that are experts. And if you can just walk down the road and meet, meet these people, and so-and-so knows so-and-so. You can accomplish so much stuff because everyone is smart in their own area. And you just don't know until you ask and present a problem. And they're sitting there like. Yeah. My buddy does this for a living for 30 years. And that's a cakewalk. And it could be the hardest problem you thought of all year, you know? Absolutely. It could be so big to you. But it could also be tiny to somebody else. Yeah, specifically, there's a guy that comes into the restaurant and he works on coding and developing and stuff like that. And something that I've been working on is, is analytics on my transportation business and how those influence ridership and, and advertising and. Really the local area in the local market. And he says, No problem. Like I do that every day. Like complicated Excel, formulas and Tablo and, and in, you know, heat maps and all this stuff that's live and in creates insights on its own. No problem. I do that every day. Like that's fun project. And for me, I'm like, I've spent six years on this and, you know, Manually. All these items and Excel, and I'm like, am I getting the right data? And, and then instantly he says, oh yeah, you do, you need to fix one thing. It's like, This all starts from the duration of the ride, the hours and minutes. He says your format's wrong. Like, if you can fix that for me, everything else is cakewalk and it just plugs in and goes all together seamlessly. And I'm like, Okay, thanks. I could have used that three years ago. I feel like that's why. So I I've always, like, I struggled as a strong word, but I've never done like overly well in school. I have. Resource my way out of a lot of assignments full, say it that way. I've used all the resources available to me. But I just, I struggled so much with. The Excel pro programming and everything. And I feel like a lot of it was that is it's very specialized. It's something that you really have to put your full focus on and learn the whole language to be able to use it. And personally, I struggle with that because I'm not passionate about that. Like it's not something that gets me excited. And if I'm not working on something that gets me excited, my motivation is just in the toilet. And that's why I've left several jobs where I was doing well. I made tons of money. But I ended up leaving because I wasn't feeling fulfilled at all. And I feel like that's kind of. The connector in me wanting to figure out like, okay, I have this problem. I just need to find someone else who can solve it better than I can. So that's what I try to do. And that's a real paradigm shift is you're always taught as young age, go to college and come out and get a job and more so than ever. All the friends I went to college with that are coming out. Absolutely zero idea what they want to do. Zero relevance as to what. Their degree applies to what job. And they have zero preparedness for the reality of what a job is. And the hours and everybody gets tired at two 30 at lunch. And Susie doesn't do as much work as everybody else. And. You know, You're going to be there until seven o'clock every Thursday night for the first six months. And you don't get any vacation time the first year, because you're the newbie. You know, and it's just like all these little details that everybody forgets. Until they get into the workforce and you start realizing, Hey, Like. I was told I could be anything I want to be. And these jobs suck. Mm, and society needs these jobs, insurance, salespeople. You know, Like government jobs, all these people that handle paperwork and handle really important things that guide society every day, they. They have to be done. But people realized they're like, Especially, you know, during the last couple of years, is this really what I want to do every day? Do I. Is there anything I could be doing? And, and YouTube, I think is the hugest, like. Mindblowing. Creator of opportunity in the past couple of years, because you could instantly turn. Your imagination into a business. And if other people. Thought that was interesting. Boom. You got a business, but did 20 years ago, did people know you could become a millionaire by crashing dirt bikes? Like for a living and, and wrecking trucks and, you know, ripping the axles off. You know, running through barns, like no. Did people think that they could travel around the world and get paid millions of dollars and people would watch you for fun. I mean. To the extent that it has evolved. The most important thing I will probably say today is that. Everyone I've talked to and including myself. We take for granted all the opportunities that we have today. We are inundated with opportunities. And it's a, you know, it's a paralysis because we can't select the best opportunity at the best time. And follow through. The whole way to the end on it. Because 20 seconds later, there's a cooler opportunity that gets our imagination or attention. But again, the most important thing I'm going to say is that. Don't forget. Electricity. That's accessible to everybody running water. Air conditioning. The laundry machine TV. The phone, internet cars. They all become regular items within the last hundred years. My grandmother did not have a laundry machine. She didn't have TV. If you're surely didn't have color TV. Until my dad was growing up. And like, Turning on the AC. Half of my grandmother's life that didn't exist. The phone didn't exist. And you look at these people that map their way to work every day, because they can't remember how to get there. Do you want to, you know, 10 miles down the road? What would they do? If roadsigns weren't around and it was all dirt. Less than a hundred years ago. You know, I just. The more and more I walk around and I talk to people and I connect with people. I think we forget so easily that none of this existed a hundred years ago. And wow, what an opportunity we have. But let's not forget that because. They're just, there's so much to it. So. Tell me a little bit about how you filter out opportunities. If you, cause I know you get new opportunities all the time I do as well. I have three people that wanted me to come do the same thing for them at the same time. It all just kind of hit. And I was like, hold on a second. I got to figure out like, I got to figure out what stuff, how do you filter out? New opportunities and make sure that you're focusing on. What keeps you excited? If it sounds too good to be true, it is. At the truth. I love when somebody tells me the negatives of the opportunity. They say, Hey, I know this is going to be hard and stressful, and you're going to have to work seven days a week. And you're not going to get to go on vacation or spend the money you're making or There's an opportunity for this project to fail. Or, Hey, this, this opportunity only exists for a year. Like after that you probably won't be needed. That's been a relatively new thing I've learned. And I'm so grateful for that, because if somebody tells you. This will solve your problems for the next 60 years. And this'll be your lifelong career, and this will be, you know, the business that actually succeeds and become so successful in any. You can go on vacation every day and don't have to work. And your company will continue to grow. You know, that's all. It sounds fun and it sounds great, but the reality of this situations never pans out. And if so, it would be boring. I mean, you get so bored going on vacation every day. If you really loved your business and loved serving people. And that's, that's how I enter everything. If, you know, my goal is to serve others and, you know, Life will give back to you what, you know. You, you read what you so. And it's such a valid principle. It's very common, right? Very clear. Self-explanatory and. Again, you have to reap. What you said. And you don't, you don't reap by not planning anything. And in is planning something fun all the time. No it's hard work, but when it first sprouts up, you're like, Hey, this is fun. And then when it gets taller and taller, You know, and then when it dies off, you're like, I get to do that again next year. But I love when somebody presents an opportunity and they gave me obviously the positives, but I'm more interested in the cons and the negatives and the reality of the situation. Because whoever's presenting that opportunity that wants to partner with me or work alongside me, or want me to come work for them. It shows me that they're realistic. And when there are struggles, You can have a conversation with them and say, Hey, this is or is not working out. Or, Hey, I know this is hard. Let's go home for the day. You hit this tomorrow. Th, you know, that's immeasurable. You know, this is something that's important to me. I don't know if it's important, YouTube, but any new opportunity that I'm looking at. I evaluate the people that I'm working with. Way more than I do the job. I think about. Every thing that I do, I'm 10 99 only in everything. I probably, you know, fingers crossed. We'll never have another W2 in my life. That's my goal. And my own commitment to myself is to always. Have that freedom and flexibility of being contract. But when I meet someone new, a new partner to contract in with and help them grow their business, I think about, is this somebody that if I have a problem, I could just come to them and tell them, Hey, this is not right. And you can get that feeling for people really quickly, like working with burrata. We bounce off of each other all the time. Like whenever something's going wrong. And I do it. It's like, Hey, this is going wrong. We need to do this this way. And it goes both ways. And I love that aspect about pretty much every business relationship I'm in. With my business partner with the house. I am free. Give my input, you know, it's like we ask for each other's input all the time. Like, Hey, should we replace this door? It looks old. And, you know, some do we bicker a little bit sometimes they're like, no, we need to say the money and blah, blah, blah. sure, that happens sometimes. But I look for that in any opportunity. Is, am I comfortable telling whoever I'm talking to, like, this is not right. We need to do it this way. Well, in, in the next layer to that is when you get to such a scale. Not only can you have that conversation, but can you make a change? And is there reasonable? Way to make that change, right? Because it's going to affect other people's lives. Right. You may be doing something on a house where it may be inconsequential, like the color of the floor or something. But is this going to cost? 30 people, their job. If we make this change. And those are really important questions. And concerns to have when you're meeting and networking with these people. Is whether you're in business with them or you're partnering with them or you're just networking with them. If you can get a really good sense of, of. Personality traits and who you work well with and who you don't that will pay way more dividends than, you know, A blank check from an investor. And I know I've done it. I have been a part of some bad, bad partnerships and some good partnerships and partnerships that I've failed at. And I'm still learning every day, but I would say that's one of my biggest areas that I focus on is, is, you know, how, how strong is this relationship and how. Truthful and honest and, and, and really ultimately do our values align. And do our dreams and vision of this particular opportunity. Align. And that really drives the whole whole point of, of getting into something with somebody or walking away. Let's get into the fun part now. Let's talk about failures. This is actually some of the Erin kind of talk to me about before we get started and I love this idea. Because I feel like both of us, when people hear about us, that I don't know for sure. Some people may be like, Hey, it's a dirt bag. Don't talk to him. But like the vast majority of people I hear, they're like, they have this expectation of meeting me, me being like this person to meet. And it's the same way with you. I know it is because I hear it all the time. But at the end of the day, I'm a human, you're a human and we have failures. And honestly, like, I feel like one of my biggest advantages is being able to say, like, that absolutely sucked. I completely failed at that like 100% bombed it. I lost it. Cool. Like a load of money on that. And I feel like those. Failures to find you much more than your successes, especially like internally. So let's kind of talk about maybe a time that something didn't go. So right. In some of the things that you did to try and maybe salvage that and continue to push forward. Throughout. A bad situation. You're you're onto something big and, and there's so many different avenues. I could take this. And I wish I could think of a really good one that had a great outcome, but all I can think of is the big mess up I did today on the job site and a. There was a piece of equipment that needed to be installed and I'm not the installer and we just purchased it. And it was supposed to be installed a certain way and I wasn't really paying attention and I guess installers weren't. Instructed on how to install it properly. And so I don't have a solution for it yet, but boy, I said that today, I said, Wow. To some of my friends said, wow, I really screwed up today on this. Like, I should have been paying attention and, and fix that. From the beginning. And there's just so many different items gone. Like, boy, I just really. Screwed that up. And you're totally right. How many times do you hear that from people? When you first meet somebody and they can be open about a failure or, you know, some kind of especially anything that has shame involved in it. It's, it's definitely cathartic to. You know, Speak that to certain people, because you know, We all make mistakes and that's just how it is. And. More often than not. When you're vulnerable in front of one to two people, five people, a hundred people doesn't matter. I would say 99% of the time they respond favorably and they say, oh yeah, me too. And, and, and they, that grows your relationship because we all struggle with vulnerability and admitting our mistakes. And when you can do that, the sooner, the better. And that is the hardest part about the whole thing, because you go through these phases in your mind of, oh, I can fix it and no one will know. And dah, dah, dah, dah. And you know, that's just not true. How many times you've been in a situation and everybody knows instantly like, Hey, somebody messed that up. And, and the situations you've been in and somebody says, Hey, I messed this up. Come help me fix it. What an opportunity for success there. And to grow in partnership like, Hey, come help me fix this. And that's where a lot of, a lot of great things have occurred. For me Someone has a problem. And they said, I don't know how to solve this. Hey, call Aaron. And he can come help us. And he meant not know either, but he can at least throw some ideas out and we can brainstorm. And I've ran into some really cool opportunities and met some great people through that. But How have a lot of those, I just keep thinking about this one where I really messed up today and I need to go fix it tomorrow morning. Well, and I also have to mention like your basically. You are doing general contractor things. Essentially, and yeah, basically we. We're building this new, this new building and you're learning on the fly. Like, so just prompts you for that because I'm doing that at a very much smaller scale. And I'm just trying to send a scope of work out to one contractor on a small house. And I'm like, Did I get everything right? I'm. I know, I forgot something it's like that. I have that feeling like when you leave your water ball at home, like. I know. I tell him about that corner of the house, where the tile needs to be certain way because the trim goes over. It. That's exactly what happened today. So you totally get it. Is. Again, this piece is really, really critical and we've been talking about it for months and I just had 12 other contractors they're working on something and two or three of them were messing this up over here. And one of them was doing a great job and had to go interrupt him to go fix this. And I just didn't get to it before these installers installed something wrong way. And so. It's a. You look at. Let's talk about the, oh wait, nevermind. Let's not talk about the steel thing. Yeah. And that wasn't your fault. Yeah, but things like that happen. How When you build a building completely wrong. Yeah, that happens. Yeah, it does happen. I think more often than people really realize. And so like, whoever's listening to this right now. If you just majorly screwed something up, like. A lot of there are people out there and baking multi-million dollar mistakes, and the world keeps turning. Everything keeps moving and just take it as a learning experience. And that's how you get into opportunity too, is like, All these people that you look up to and admire, you know, all these famous people that I mentioned earlier, but also people in your local area, like you may know a family's last name. And they own, you know, a little restaurant down the street or they own a tire shop. And. Honestly, they're making the exact same mistakes every day and it's not necessarily. They're doing it on purpose, but I mean, they're making HR mistakes. They're making, building mistakes. They're making financial mistakes in their business. And they're also succeeding in some areas and that's just what it takes. You know whether you work for somebody, you work for yourself. You're networking. You're going to school. Like you're making mistakes all day long in different areas, and that's really how you learn. And so if you can really write those down and say, Hey today, What are three areas that I messed up on that I can improve for tomorrow or this next week. And you work on that and, and you just work towards your weaknesses and eventually. You have so much education and skill around you by learning that you develop into these new areas. And that's exactly what I've done. That's what you've done. Did I know how to. You know, our contractors and everything six months ago. No, but was I able to say sure, I'll figure it out. Like my phone works, I can call anybody and yeah. They'll tell me how to do it. And. Then we'll tear that wall down three times and rebuild it. And it might work this time, but let me know. I feel like you definitely should have done some sort of like video, some sort of log. On your journey. Through. General contractor school. I I I have now considered, I have a friend that has their family owns a pretty big construction business in town. And he, he got his GC license. And I'm like, man, if he can do it. Now, even after having this experience. Oh my goodness. I can just go take the test. Like I learned the hard way. And I don't know if that's how that works. But that's that's the mentality is like, Hey, someone else can do it. Surely I can do it. I was just at lunch with one of our mutual friends today. And we got into a conversation. Sometimes I just get on my soap box, which is why this podcast can be a little dangerous. I was talking about like, I can do anything that I want, like anything on the planet. I could be a fighter pilot. I could be I can go and work out every single day and be David Goggins and run ultra marathons or whatever. I'm no lesser, no more capable than any other person out there. There is no excuse on why you can't do whatever you want. You know, a mutual friend, I'm sure, you know, Glenn Hodges, he always talks about this person who had climbed Mount Everest. And it was, you know, physically disabled and he did it just fine. And you're totally right. Like everybody that we know, everybody listen to this podcast right now we can go climb Mount Everest in a year. If you trained and worked on it and you know, all the stuff. Some of us are destined to not do that. We're destined for other things. And that's really where the sweet spot is, is realizing where your life is leading. You. And get, you know, leaning into that and going that direction and taking those opportunities. Because we all have a different path. And when you go with the flow. You see a lot more success when you are willfully resistant. Boy, don't you just run into a lot of problems, like when you hate being somewhere. Does that not just make everyone else's life worse and makes the problems worse. And, and that's a huge thing is like, just, you know, when, when you feel like you're in the groove, Yeah, sticking that as long as you can and ride the wave. I think something you just mentioned makes me think about this and kind of looping it back to like being someone that people want to know and having their network. I feel like a positive attitude is so huge on this as well. Like looking at things with a positive light, The other day, it started down pouring rain. And I was like, well, at least it's going to cool down a little bit. And the first time I was like, man, you're just always positive Archie. I'm like, I mean, not always, but I try to look at things with a positive lens. And I feel like for people to want to be around you, which is pretty important in this world. Like if you want to Excel and do things well, Having that positive attitude is so important. What are some ways that you kind of force yourself to have a positive attitude, even when things aren't going. Yeah. I met my HR manager jokes all the time. I'm asking her about an interview she had, and I said, are they positive? And are they coachable? Yeah, like great. They're hard. You know at that, that says a lot when we have so many people competing for the same position. You know, we're getting 30 or 40 applications a day and that's the number one thing I look for across all items is is this person going to add to my life or take away? Are they going to help me solve those problems or not? And if you have a positive attitude, you can walk into a situation. And. You're you're elevating it. And we're not necessarily teaching that as much anymore. We're not engaging in that. We're not celebrating that as much as we should be and There's there's just. Don't you feel so much better when you're hanging out with people who are positive. Who think they can take on the world? And it rubs off on you. And Easier. Way to juxtapose. This is. When you're hanging out with somebody that brings you down and has a bad attitude. You know, you got to get away from those people. And you know, instantly. And I think that's probably easier to identify then than somebody that elevates your life and makes it better. Maybe that's harder. But somebody who brings you down, boy, that's easy to identify. Oh yeah. And we're all stuck in those rhythms and we're all stuck in those places and all this stuff all the time. But. Even more than saying yes to everything. Yes. To great opportunities and learning along the way. Is saying no to people in places and things that do not serve you. Or that you cannot serve others. Boy, that'll get you out of some trouble quick. That one was really hard for me. I used to have these friends that I hang around and it's smoke and drink all day. And I wasn't about that. I didn't. You know, And go upstairs and go smoke in the bathroom and I'd be like, I'm staying down here. And hanging out and I would end up leaving every night. I'm like, man, I just feel like down, you know, I feel like I just wasted. Three hours of my life. And you really have to have that self-reflection whether it's a professional or a personal kind of thing, because they are connected more than people really think about, like, if you're trying to be a professional all day at work and then you're going and hanging out with your friends that. Are not at all professional. It it, they clash. You spent three hours at work, trying to get ahead. And you spent three hours at home that night. Taking you back to the same place. Very tactical. And, and I think a lot of people kind of gloss over that too. It's like, So many times in my life. Have I not been totally prepared for an opportunity, but. When I spent a consistent amount of time every day, even if it was two minutes. How much better prepared was I after one week. You know, that would have been 20 minutes. And then after a month, you know, it all snowballs and adds up and the same is true for networking and entrepreneurship and education. The more you spend doing those things, the better it comes together overall. And you look back in a year and you're like, Look at the progress I made. Right. Just like anything else, you know, I know a lot of people will apply that to fitness. But I mean it's it's that that cannot be understated. So what are some, I think about. Putting this together to thinking about how important it is to be around the right people. What are some ways that you put yourself in the environment that serves you best? I think about. Being here at common house a lot. This is at some place today. It's like, man, you're here more than I am and I'm here all the time and I'm like, yeah. Yeah. I want to put myself at atmospheres where people are doing cool things. I just, yesterday had a conversation about the flip house and running numbers and thinking about it. And that's like, What, what strategies do you use to make sure you're surrounding yourself, putting yourself in the right environment that serves you? Yeah, just, just off the baseline, take the five people that you're around, write their names down right now. And write down the things that they're the most negative about. And then write down the things that they're most positive about. And I guarantee that. The average of those five people are the things that you are most positive and most negative about. And I don't know if that's necessarily your fault. But we're all the sum of those people we hang around with. And it's just amazing how that actually comes to fruition. And so if you want to see drastic improvement in something, like if you've never run and you want to run marathons, go hang out with one person who runs marathons every year. Boom. You'll be running marathons. if you want to be a business owner, go hang out with business owner for a year. I'm sure you also candy on the side of the road or something. It. People underestimate the value of the proximity principle, which is a book and it's pretty famous well-known and again, back to our friend Glenn, he, he always calls it the law of attraction. And I know that was by Mr. Maxwell and things like that. A lot of, a lot of research, a lot of books on this topic, but the law of attraction is really important and people, places and things like if you're in that direction and you're that type of person you're going to attract those people and vice versa, and it's going to rub off on you and. Specifically. Networking wise to get yourself in front of those people in those places is identify where you want to be in a five years. And. Pick the top three places where those people hang out. Like if you want to be an alcoholic, I guarantee go hang out at a bar every day and you'll figure it out. Yeah. It's that simple and see, we can apply it to negative things like that. But what if we apply it to something positive? If you want a doctorate. In research and education. You know where I'm hanging out. The college. I guarantee you will get one after a couple of years. Maybe 10, maybe 20, but yeah. The same is true for, for a place like this. If you want to network and meet people who are entrepreneurs and contractors and podcasters and all these items, real estate agents in, in whatever. Come hang out at a place like this. This is why these places are invented. And it's not by happened since. You know, and, and. You just have to look around at your community because they're so diamond. At dynamic and vibrant. That you're missing it and it's right under your nose. And it's not about whether you're in a big city or a small town. That little bit of community is there. Right. And if it's not there, it's obviously on YouTube, on the internet, on podcasts, on zoom. You know, like joining a book club, heck you can be on a zoom book club. Tomorrow. Yeah. And you could be, it could be. You know a religious book club to grow in your faith. It could be something about business. It could be something about you know, growing emotional intelligence. I mean, just surround yourself with those people. And if it's even, you know, 30 minutes to an hour a day, It adds up. Oh, absolutely so quickly. So kind of wrapping up here. We're already. What's the time, which is crazy. It feels like we just started. I think about just getting started. We have three, we have three episodes. I feel like just the knowledge that I have in front of me. But I, something that popped into my mind to thinking about that proximity principle. A lot of the people, you know, Oh, there are several people that would just be like, It's mind blowing that you know them much less, that you could make a phone call to them. And have helped. So thinking about the way I look at connecting with CEOs and higher level people. I think about them as yet another person. There's a little bit more of a gate there most of the time, because they have an assistant or something like that. So I feel like at least to me, being able to be connected to those people at higher levels. It really helps me operate on a higher level because I, I forced myself to come up with the knowledge, to be able to have a conversation with people running at that level of business owners and things like that. What are some, sorry. That was a really long winded, but I'll get to the question. So what are some methods you would say to reach up and to, you may be an employee at a company with 10,000 workers. Say you work at an insurance company and you want to talk to the CEO. What would you do? Yeah. So the, the question is W what are you doing? Like are you getting things done or are you the person that is actively. Accomplishing items is the number one thing. And if you're not okay, you're not a part of this discussion. I'm sorry. Like, you're just. No one wants to talk to you. If you're not getting things done. What do they have to talk to you about? And so I would say there's several instances where this has come up lately. And in the biggest thing I've learned is that as you get into this higher level of, of. Operators and successful individuals. The reason they're successful is not because they were picked that way socially it's because that person gets 10 things done in a day. When you get one. And how do you move to that? Level. You do 10 things today. And, and you solve that problem. And it's really stressful to do one. So imagine adding 10. I learned that growing up early on when I first started my marketing business. You know, I had some people that they were able to do one thing a day. That was their mentality. And then they went home and they did things that were on their mind and, and activities they enjoyed. But I outwork those people 20 years into. One of their years, because. I did 10 things that day. Right or are a hundred things that day. And that's not to get into all the. Tik TOK, Instagram stuff that people talk about, you know, these days, but on a very tactical level. If you're going to reach out to the CEO or someone who's making decisions and needing to be successful in a short period of time. You need to have some value and you, you need to have something to offer them. Not necessarily that they need something from you, but you don't want to waste their time. No, because time is the ultimate resource. And so for instance, I have very well known family in town that own one of the large businesses in this particular category and in the world. And this individual has had lunch with me almost every month for the past. You know, not, not this year, but the past several years before that. And he's a great friend of mine. I can call him right now and say, Hey, like, I know you guys just sold this property and building to a fortune 50 company for hundreds of millions of dollars. But Hey, I have this question about how, like the$240 tax piece I was working on wasn't working. Right? Like what would you do? You know, and, and why the heck would he ever answer that phone call? And that's because there's some value in helping me because he has determined. He has knowledge that I don't have, and that I'm not a waste of his time. Did that knowledge actually help somebody? Because people want to serve others, especially those high-level successful people. They live to serve others. That's why they have become successful. And the advice I would give to somebody who's trying to reach those people is be creative. I mean, you got to do everything. You hear the story about the time they mail their shoe and it's one foot in the door. Genius. Like I wish I did that first. Absolutely geniuses. So how do you come up with creative areas like that? And in ways to get people's attention. It really also comes through referral. So meeting those high level people it's because I've done a small project and my friend Brianna says, Hey, go, you need to talk to Hayden. You know, like we've been successful here. Hayden's killing it over here. Like you guys just need to hang out. And, and for her, she knows that we're all. Great people, high functioning and can accomplish anything we set our mind to. And so she says, man, I just see an opportunity because we want to surround herself with each other. Who are accomplishing task. Hey, let's, let's add to it. Let's bring somebody into the fold that is accomplishing these. I mean, that's, that's me and Brian have been friends forever and she says, Hey, Hayden's up and coming. Let's let's bring him in the loop. Fantastic. Let's meet this kid, you know, did I have time to go eat lunch with Hayden that day? Heck, no. You didn't get like three things on your calendar. And I probably was answering phone calls and wasn't paying attention or, you know, people think I'm not paying attention, but and look, here we are. And you know what? I'll call Hayden, Hey, come help me with this project. Or I think you called me, Hey, come help me with this. And one of my businesses picked you guys up and took you around and. And solve the problem you guys had that day. And, and You know, ultimately I would just say, get creative if you want to reach those people and meet those people and do things today that provide value and get in proximity to these people. And it will work out and if not, you meet some cool people along the way and you'll figure it out. You may meet the secretary. I met the chief of staff of the CEO and that led me into a conversation. Like I was just, I didn't know who she was. I met her in the elevator and I was like, I really think that we should start doing this. And she was like, you know what? You've asked some great ideas kid. I'm going to take this as CEO. And it's just stuff like that. It's just like, I'm the chief of staff to the CEO. You should really talk with him. Yeah. Yeah. I had no clue at all. And those are the best conversations when you have no clue at all. One thing I will add in that too, is you kind of touched on it a little bit. It's just bringing value. It doesn't have to be a monetary value. It can be an intellectual thing. A lot of CEOs, business leaders, the people who you think are in assessable. They don't get challenged at all. My friend, Jeff Holst, he went up to one of the most successful authors in the world. I think it was Harry didn't Jr. And he was like, I call bullshit. Like this thing that you did was absolute BS and you went up there and they had like 20 reporters around trying to ask him questions and he turned around and was like, what. And then he got a cell phone number and they met in Puerto Rico and had a drink. Wow. How, how important that is. I go through that now I'm in one of these businesses I'm operating and you're right. No one is challenged and they're happy when you challenge them. All these successful people love because they're competitive by nature. Because they love starting from scratch and building it and becoming successful. That's what they love. That's why they're successful. They don't love being at the top. They love the growth to get there and solving problems and overcoming challenges. And so when you do that, when you challenge somebody. They can respond negatively to you. That's okay. But they can really set on fire some creative opportunities and you don't want to miss those. They can be uncomfortable sometimes. Oh, sure. And you can look like an idiot, but you know what, at the end of it say, Hey, like, you know, you can say, Hey, I look like an idiot, but why, why are you doing this this way? I always have a preface when I asked that question. I don't know what I'm talking about, but I have this question. Or something along the lines of that, like I just want to learn, or I'll always preface whenever I ask someone, why do you do that? That way? That doesn't make any sense to me. I'll say I don't have any experience in this area, but I'm curious. Why does your company operate this way? And the CEO's like, sometimes I've had this happen before and they're like, You know, I don't really know why we operate that way. Someone else down the line made that decision. That's probably not a great idea. And 10, like 10 days later. The process has changed and somebody got a phone call. And the issue that I had is a little, we worker. Is resolved. Because I went and asked the question and so many people, like, I guarantee you the VP and the VP's, whatever, like there's four or five levels in between me and that person. None of them. Ask the question. And because I asked that question, you know, you, it gets you recognized if you're willing to just ask, not being an asshole and not being challenging of authority. But being curious and inquisitive. Your leaders will love you for it. In any job, any position or any business? I mean, isn't that how you solve problems, right. Yes. Sometimes you got to invent the problems and then solve them. You know, you're sitting there and you're like, why is everybody last 20 people? Why did, why did 20 people want to do it this way? You're like, that's not going to work. And they're all looking at you. Like you're crazy. That's okay. Because hopefully you're crazy because. Then the problem doesn't exist, but if the problem does exist, then all 20 of you are going to sit there. What do we do? You know, you got more time to work on it and solve it. And one thing I've learned about these people that are really successful is that. They have direct lines of communication. There's so many layers. Where we all tipped around each other and oh, you have to go ask the secretary and you have to go ask your coworker first and you have to do whatever. I can't talk to the CEO. I can't talk to the head of this department or whatever. And it's like, Man, the people who are really successful. They call the most successful people. On their cell phone, which is in your pocket all day, every day. And say, Hey, go send your people to fix this. Tell me how much it's going to be. And I need you to do it in three hours. Okay. Bye. Not let me send him an email. Yeah. And I'll see if we can get a quote on it. And three days I'm guilty of that. A lot of times lately is like, Hey, I need a quote on Anita. I need it fast and I can give you an answer. Why do I even do that? Hey. Do you want to come fix this right now? Yes or no. Do you want to fix this next Tuesday? Okay, great. I'll see you then. If I was good at fixing it. I would be worried about. But I'm hiring somebody else because they know how to solve the problem. Not me. And that's really, really important. What a waste of time for me to worry about it. It's a waste and you could be working on other things that you are, that are in your zone of genius, that you can be knocked out. Well, we could go on forever. I'm going to put the cap on it here for now. I think that I talk, I told this to another guy a guest that I'm going to be having soon, but I think it would be really cool to do like a followup episode in a year. Something like that. And just see where each other at cause. I have a friend Mason, he's killing it like one, one month in our mastermind. He has gone from zero real estate knowledge to now JV on a 20 unit. And I think that we operate kind of on that same wavelength. And I want to see, I want to have an update to this episode and maybe have you on again and talk more into strategy and everything. But. Yeah, I'll have to get some baseline, some statistics to do that. Like. Maybe, maybe in this mastermind group, everybody write down some notes and be like, yeah, These increases over this year. Oh yeah. I think we'll be able to tell, we'll be able to tell you your, your top three biggest bloggers of the year. I'm like if I have 40 units by next year, then I did well, we'll say that. Yeah. Wow. So we'll cap it off there, guys. Thank you so much for listening to the art connecting. I can't do this without the listeners. And I'm so thankful to be able to get to do this. Fun. Project with you guys. If you go and leave a five-star review at the top. I will give you a high five. Just send me a message and come to Chattanooga and I'll give you a high five and a go follow the Instagram and the Facebook and everything. I'm about to get more active on there and we'll catch you on the next episode. Thanks for coming, Aaron. Thank you for having me.